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Battlelyon

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I played the FF7 remake the second part just flat out stopped playing it. Because of the constant requirements for playing an endless amount of stupid minjngames. I enjoyed the original.
 

Hotel Security

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>Im not sure I agree at all with this. Maybe if you're talking about FF16 or FF15 but 7 Remake is f'ing amazing. Gameplay and pacing.

Meh, I say leave the action to the actual action games. I'm not saying these action hybrids are terrible but it's feel it's all we get now and many are mediocre. The AAA pure RPGs seem few and far between.

>Clair Obscur looks like it takes the Paper Mario thing and dials it to 11. Not sure thats something I'd find interesting.
>Yeah, the Pictos system is very much like badges, surprised I didn’t recognize that correlation before.


Maybe it's me but I liked the Paper Mario badges system. Left room for some nice mixing and matching and could even lead to some builds...I always liked going for a "jump only" build in Thousand Year Door.

>I still have Sekiro, Metal Gear Rising, and Sifu in my backlog. Ive never really been a huge parry guy outside of fighting games.

Never been a big parry guy since it seems like too much of a risk for too little reward, especially in a Souls-like game like Sekiro. I never did parrying in the Dark Souls games since it would just get me wrecked. I only liked it in Bloodborne since you could parry with a gun so, even if you botched the parry, you still had time to dodge the attack.
 

Clayton

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>Im not sure I agree at all with this. Maybe if you're talking about FF16 or FF15 but 7 Remake is f'ing amazing. Gameplay and pacing.

Meh, I say leave the action to the actual action games. I'm not saying these action hybrids are terrible but it's feel it's all we get now and many are mediocre. The AAA pure RPGs seem few and far between.

>Clair Obscur looks like it takes the Paper Mario thing and dials it to 11. Not sure thats something I'd find interesting.
>Yeah, the Pictos system is very much like badges, surprised I didn’t recognize that correlation before.


Maybe it's me but I liked the Paper Mario badges system. Left room for some nice mixing and matching and could even lead to some builds...I always liked going for a "jump only" build in Thousand Year Door.

>I still have Sekiro, Metal Gear Rising, and Sifu in my backlog. Ive never really been a huge parry guy outside of fighting games.

Never been a big parry guy since it seems like too much of a risk for too little reward, especially in a Souls-like game like Sekiro. I never did parrying in the Dark Souls games since it would just get me wrecked. I only liked it in Bloodborne since you could parry with a gun so, even if you botched the parry, you still had time to dodge the attack.
I mentioned parry because I was under the assumption that E33's combat was timing based.

I don't believe AAA 'pure RPGs' exist. The idea of a pure RPG was generally eroded with JRPGs being more narrative focused and limiting choices but even by the FF10 model...I can't think of any recent ones. FF13-2 maybe the last one. Stick of Truth I guess is Ubisoft and does the timing based turn based so maybe that counts. E33 probably AA and it won like every single award last year probably because nobody else has been doing this.

Octopath Traveler 2 is really good but about half of the stories are maybe a bit too safe. But its not really looking like a AAA game.

I'm just saying that I don't think FF7 Remake's combat is mediocre. I think FF15s combat is mediocre.
 

Think McFly Think

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Got a bit further in 007 First Light. I’m really enjoying it.

It’s presented very well, the graphics are great and the audio is as well. Really great dialogue also. Some of the earlier montage sequences feel like playing a movie in a good way.

The melee combat kinda reminds me of Sleeping Dogs but maybe a bit less dynamic.

The gun and gadget play is fun also but I’ve been trying to stealth run a fair amount of it when applicable, but because it’s Bond…sometimes you need to blow everything up. Haha

Apart from the story there’s a TacSim section which is basically extra MI6 training but it’s very beneficial to learning combat and how to tackle various scenarios in the story you may come across.

I’m on Chapter 5 so about halfway through the game but IO definitely nailed Bond in my opinion, there’s some similarities to Hitman but it’s way less clunky.
 

Think McFly Think

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I mentioned parry because I was under the assumption that E33's combat was timing based.
Yeah, parrying is very important. You can get by for awhile before mastering it but it’s absolutely necessary for mid-late game.
 

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>I don't believe AAA 'pure RPGs' exist. The idea of a pure RPG was generally eroded with JRPGs being more narrative focused and limiting choices but even by the FF10 model...I can't think of any recent ones. FF13-2 maybe the last one. Stick of Truth I guess is Ubisoft and does the timing based turn based so maybe that counts.

You're likely right there and most pure RPGs are being done by indie developers...but there's plenty of genres like side-scrollers that are only done by indie devs.

And while I feel the "timing-based" ones are still close enough to pure RPGs to count as one (Paper Mario, etc), I don't consider the action games with leveling to be RPGs at all...those are action/adventure like the Zelda series. The definition of the genre has been somewhat butchered over time, mostly because devs started using it as a marketing tool to attract the RPG crowd that was much bigger in the SNES days.

---

Just started a Dark Souls clone in Asterigos. Pretty damn good for a first game from an indie studio. Not nearly as tough as a Souls game but it captures the environments and exploration pretty well.
 

Clayton

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You're likely right there and most pure RPGs are being done by indie developers...but there's plenty of genres like side-scrollers that are only done by indie devs.
Yeah, there are 7 or 8 genres pretty much dominated by indies at the moment. Metroidvania, roguelites, turn based 'J'RPGs, classic Zelda-likes, etc.
 

calsnowskier

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Does AAA do anything atm? They own sports, but I can’t really think of anything that hasn’t been completely taken over by I dependent studios.
 

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Does AAA do anything atm? They own sports, but I can’t really think of anything that hasn’t been completely taken over by I dependent studios.
I think they still own Open World games for the most part. Especially if we count FROM and Nintendo in that. GTAVI seems like a really obvious 'only AAA can do this' type of thing.

Narrative-based 3D action games with RPG progressions. Aka the modern Sony game.

Fighting Games although that might collapse shortly. Saudis buying everything.

Online FPS games. Although CoD might collapse.

Racing games is Forza, Mario Kart, and Gran Turismo still I believe.

3D platformer still seems to be a big company thing. A Hat in Time is cool but Im not too familiar with any challenging Astrobot or Donkey Kong.

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A lot of gamers are old. A lot of the genres we grew up with are best on indie right now.
 

calsnowskier

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I think they still own Open World games for the most part. Especially if we count FROM and Nintendo in that. GTAVI seems like a really obvious 'only AAA can do this' type of thing.

Narrative-based 3D action games with RPG progressions. Aka the modern Sony game.

Fighting Games although that might collapse shortly. Saudis buying everything.

Online FPS games. Although CoD might collapse.

Racing games is Forza, Mario Kart, and Gran Turismo still I believe.

3D platformer still seems to be a big company thing. A Hat in Time is cool but Im not too familiar with any challenging Astrobot or Donkey Kong.

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A lot of gamers are old. A lot of the genres we grew up with are best on indie right now.
Have you looked at Steam? There are a lot of really good independent open world games there. At least as concepts, if not fully sloshed out.

And will GTAVI be out before AI flips the entire industry on its head? I can’t imagine Rockstar will be able to make their money back on GTAVI. It won’t have a long enough lifespan.
 

calsnowskier

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And older games are soooo much better than modern games. I have picked up Masters of Orion II again and am really enjoying it. It was originally released in 1996!!
 

Think McFly Think

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And will GTAVI be out before AI flips the entire industry on its head? I can’t imagine Rockstar will be able to make their money back on GTAVI. It won’t have a long enough lifespan.
What was GTA 6’s budget. 1 billion or something like that?

I think they’ll make their money back almost immediately, maybe the first week.
 

Think McFly Think

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And older games are soooo much better than modern games. I have picked up Masters of Orion II again and am really enjoying it. It was originally released in 1996!!
The advancement of gaming has been pretty cool in my lifetime but it does seem to be dwindling a bit.

Micro transactions and battle passes etc. kinda started maybe not the downfall, but took games down a wrong path for sure.

For the most part you’re right in that they don’t make games like they used to but there’s still a lot of quality out there.

There’s always some 80s, 90s and 00s games in my rotation though, some nostalgia sure, but to your point, that era was a huge surge towards what we see today, the good and bad.
 

calsnowskier

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The advancement of gaming has been pretty cool in my lifetime but it does seem to be dwindling a bit.

Micro transactions and battle passes etc. kinda started maybe not the downfall, but took games down a wrong path for sure.

For the most part you’re right in that they don’t make games like they used to but there’s still a lot of quality out there.

There’s always some 80s, 90s and 00s games in my rotation though, some nostalgia sure, but to your point, that era was a huge surge towards what we see today, the good and bad.
My favorite game of all time was Sierra Front Page Sports Baseball ‘98. It was the first game that came out that was able to create new players on the fly for drafting purposes, and the players would mature and age. I ran one league about 25 years and had a full set of records, awards, HOF, everything. It was awesome! It doesn’t run on modern boxes, unfortunately. I set up a virtual box to run it about 15 years back, and it actually ran pretty well. The problem with the video ui was rough on modern monitors.
 

Clayton

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Have you looked at Steam? There are a lot of really good independent open world games there. At least as concepts, if not fully sloshed out.
Not really. I do think inevitably large game companies will collapse. It costs too much to pay Californians to program for six years. That model will die.
 

Clayton

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The advancement of gaming has been pretty cool in my lifetime but it does seem to be dwindling a bit.

Micro transactions and battle passes etc. kinda started maybe not the downfall, but took games down a wrong path for sure.

For the most part you’re right in that they don’t make games like they used to but there’s still a lot of quality out there.

There’s always some 80s, 90s and 00s games in my rotation though, some nostalgia sure, but to your point, that era was a huge surge towards what we see today, the good and bad.
Most gaming trends today started around 2009. Uncharted 2, Assassin Creed 2, Arkham Asylum, Modern Warfare 2, Street Fighter 4, Left 4 Dead 2, and Demons Souls.

Most games today can pretty directly trace inspirations to those games. So at some point I think indies look more attractive when all of those wells dry up.

Maybe they all dried up years ago and I didn't notice
 
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Think McFly Think

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Most gaming trends today started around 2009. Uncharted 2, Assassin Creed 2, Arkham Asylum, Modern Warfare 2, Street Fighter 4, Left 4 Dead 2, and Demons Souls.

Most games today can pretty directly trace inspirations to those games. So at some point I think indies look more attractive when all of those wells dry up.

Maybe they all dried up years ago and I didn't notice
Kinda outta left field question here but I respect your opinions on games usually.

Did you play Dragon’s Dogma 2 and if so what did you think of it? (Thinking about picking it up for cheap and I love the first one)

Curious about your thoughts on Black Flag Resynced as well if you’ve read anything on it.
 

Clayton

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Kinda outta left field question here but I respect your opinions on games usually.

Did you play Dragon’s Dogma 2 and if so what did you think of it? (Thinking about picking it up for cheap and I love the first one)

Curious about your thoughts on Black Flag Resynced as well if you’ve read anything on it.
I have not played DD2. I beat DD1 and its fun when you're a bit underleveled and playing a class where you jump on enemies.

I do think Black Flag resync could end up being a top 3 ubisoft game. The original i feel is a bit basic on the combat and has too many tailing missions. The story, setting, pirate stuff all works.

Although if you want tailing missions, have I mentioned Judgment today yet?
 

Think McFly Think

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I do think Black Flag resync could end up being a top 3 ubisoft game. The original i feel is a bit basic on the combat and has too many tailing missions. The story, setting, pirate stuff all works.
Yeah, it’s been a long time since I played Black Flag but it was a great game and yeah the tailing missions were horrible, I might be confusing it with another AC game but some of them you had a small detection circle that you needed to keep in range so you could analyze their conversation but I might be mistaken.

I definitely recall spending a ton of time with Naval battles and the legendary ships late game, definitely my favorite part of the game.

I’ll get it at some point most likely, some things I’ve read look like solid improvements.

Yeah I remember when you talked about Judgment, the Japanese Bruce Wayne kinda game lol.
 
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