toxicitizen

Hell yes! You're in for quite a ride. And FYI, NISA just announced that they're localizing the third-person shooter spin-off Danganronpa: Another Episode. It's coming this fall.

As much as I love me some cinematic games and I don't mind lesser gameplay when it's in service of a creative vision (e.g. Heavy Rain), it is infuriating how devs have been using "cinematic" as a bullshit excuse lately. It's getting kind of insulting, really. Ubisoft in particular have been quite bad in that regard. A lower framerate isn't cinematic, you fucking idiots. You chose to prioritize visuals over performance and now your game runs like fucking ass. Own up to it or shut the fuck up. In the case of The Order, I vaguely remember the devs saying something along the lines of "We experimented with 24 fps" which, if true, holy shit. That's just plain retarded. It's stupid to the point where I'm not sure what's worse: 1) the possibility that they might have actually been retarded enough to at one point think it might be a good idea or 2) that they were lying for PR reasons or whatever, and somehow didn't realize how fucking stupid it would make them look. That seems completely reasonable to me. At the very least, it's not vague at all. When you pick a number, it means something very specific. And worthwhile games aren't limited to the top 30% of the scale, either.

Final Fantasy XIII. Oh well, I was in the last dungeon earlier and gave the final boss a shot, not really expecting to beat him on my first try. But I did. Rather easily, too. I remember him being much more difficult back in 2010. Or maybe I just sucked back then. I probably did. Anyway, this was a pretty weird one to revisit. I never really understood how strong the hate for FFXIII is. Much like RE5, it's disappointing as all fucking hell. But I couldn't bring myself to hate either of them, I found them both to be enjoyable for what they are. This time, though, the first half was kinda weird. It kept going back and forth between being a blast and feeling like a chore. That part of the story could've lost a chapter or two. Specifically, the Sazh-centric chapters. I dunno, nothing against Sazh himself but those chapters were so fucking dull. But that stopped being an issue once I got to the part where the game opens up a bit, and the second half was fairly enjoyable. Overall, it was fun to revisit it. It was supposed to be my back-up game, what I played when I had nothing better, but it kinda sucked me in and ended up being my main game for the past couple months. I took a two weeks break from it to play RE HD and Grim Fandango, but afterwards I went right back to it. I'm really tempted to go for 100% achievement completion now. It's a lot of grinding but I always regretted never getting the platinum on PS3. Then again, I should probably move on to XIII-2 for now. Would be nice to be done with that one as well by the time Lightning Returns comes out.

Which you pay for.

Yeah, I think it was in the Remember Me thread. Perfect example of a game with low scores that turned out to be totally worthwhile!

Persona follows the Japanese school year, which is like April-December. It felt all kinds of weird to have only a month or so of summer break and come back and be in the same grade/class.

See my edit. I accidentally hit the post button early so I had to scramble to get my thoughts in there quickly. Sorry. I feel like "utterly terrible", "really awful" and "terribad" are kinda redundant, don't you think? There comes a point where a shitty game is a shitty game. I mean, if a game has any redeeming factor(s) strong enough to make it worth playing, I kinda feel like it's going to skip over all of those points, anyway. I find it more sensible to have something that goes like: Unredeemable Garbage - Fundamentally broken - Terrible - Mediocre - Average - Good - Some Standout Elements - Overall Solid - Excellent - The Very Best where games scoring as "Unredeemable Garbage" and "The Very Best" are extremely rare occurrences. edit: I just realized that it's kinda funny how I'm procrastinating by discussing this when what I really should be doing is studying for tomorrow's midterm. For class that is specifically about the theory behind coming up with metrics of measures...

Right but what's the point of having a 10 point scale if you're only going to be using the upper half, then? I get what you're saying but you're basically describing a rating scale that goes: BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD MEDIOCRE OKAY AMAZING GOTY which seems kinda pointless to me. I mean, we don't need so much room to quantify degrees of shit. Why not have a broader spectrum for the positive aspects instead? Were you even replying to me then? Because that's another thing I never said (that a 65 is worth 60 bucks). I even said the complete opposite in that same post. I wouldn't have pre-ordered The Order nor would I buy it at full price right now.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the point I was making... I'm not saying a 65 is amazing, I'm saying it's not terrible. i.e. a 65 game can still be worth playing.

I'm still not sold on the Tales series but I'm really tempted to grab this one before physical copies become too rare and prices skyrocket. :/ Then again, I haven't touched my Vita in months and still haven't finished Shinovi Versus...

You mean to say using basic common sense is working for you? Who would've thought?! As for the scores, they seem kinda mixed to me. Nothing terribly low but very few high ones. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a 6-7 game isn't bad by any means. I still think The Order looks interesting but yeah, I wouldn't have pre-ordered it even if I did own a PS4. ...why should it be analogous to school grades? That makes no sense whatsoever. Scoring games is highly subjective, grading students isn't. The 6-10 scale is a problem in the sense that morons attribute entirely too much value to a numerical score without giving any thought to that score's context. Two reviewers could give the same game a 6/10 and it wouldn't necessarily be the same 6. I love Jim Sterling's approach to it. He gave the order a 6.5 but his review is still rather positive. He criticizes the game for its failing but still shows a lot of enthusiasm for a potential sequel. And to go back to your flawed analogy, if 65 is a passing grade then why is 6.5/10 bad? Wouldn't a bad score/grade be a failing one?

Hate to break it to you but it basically goes on sale (almost) literally every other week. At least, it did last year. Atlus put their games on sale very often on PSN, especially the Persona series. It's become a bit of a running joke in the Vita/Persona community.

Shut up! If Souls was a series of board games you'd be all over them, you nerd!

Oh, yeah, I'm aware of that. I only brought up Fallen London because you mentioned that Dragon Age web game.

They also have their own web game called Fallen London. Sunless Sea is based on that same universe. I checked it out because I was intrigued by Sunless Sea and the lore behind it is pretty interesting. You create your character and it mostly plays like a choose-your-adventure book kinda deal. It's very text-heavy but the writing is pretty good. It's a shame that it's one of those time-based action points kinda game, though. I just can't be bothered to keep checking it constantly throughout the day.

Completely forgot but I grabbed these a few days ago. They were both dirt cheap on Steam. And with that, I now have all the Rain-Slick games. I should probably get around to playing them now... As for Outland, I loved what I played of it on PS3 but I never finished it. It's probably the only PSN game that I considered to be on my backlog but I could never be bothered to actually turn on my PS3 for it. I had been hoping to see it on Steam for years so I was really happy when it randomly showed up a few months ago.

Lol. In your dreams, buddy. You're looking at a 2DS for that price. And it would have to be on sale.

Oh goddamnit. I didn't even know they were making a new one. Or I forgot. Either way, this looks like absolute shit. Was the Timothy Olyphant one also full of needlessly over-the-top Matrix bullshit? I barely remember anything about it other than T-Bag was in it. Yeah, okay. I just looked up the trailer and it at least looks like a Hitman movie. It actually kinda made me want to rewatch it.

Not really. There's no fatigue in P4G but running out of SP is something that will artificially increase the length and difficulty of early dungeons. There's a way to spend money to replenish it at some point but it's overpriced and not worth it. Before long you'll be able to clear most dungeons in a single sitting, anyway.

Worst that can happen is a party member will bail on you if they get too tired. I'm not sure if it can actually happen on the floors or just when you return to the lobby, though. It's been kind of a while.

Nah, just fired it up to make sure and when you start a new game it warns you that you can't change it once you start. You can only change it once you get to NG+, at which point you can customize it and (I assume) change it at will. Maybe that's what you're thinking of, Jack? Also, it's actually five difficulty settings: Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard. Personally, I'd recommend normal. Like I said, it wasn't very challenging. The game has this weird difficulty curve where it's actually more difficult early on because you have fewer party members and you can't replenish your MP. It gets easier later on to the point where most people recommend clearing the later dungeons in a single day, so that you have the rest of the month to focus on everything else.

Super Metroid is so good. I'm criminally overdue for another playthrough.

Couldn't agree more. P4 is the better game overall but I thought P3 had a much more interesting story. P4 was basically Scooby-Doo, which is fine but nowhere near as exciting as that whole end of the world thing P3 had going on. I'm really curious what P5 will be about. There's already been comparisons saying that if P4 was Scooby-Doo then P5 is Lupin III. I'm only vaguely familiar with Lupin but it already sounds like a much more interesting dynamic, imho.