toxicitizen

Persona 4 Arena. Just finished the story mode. It's a great fighting game but I was in it primarily for the story and... it was a tad disappointing. It was great at first but it's very similar to BlazBlue's story mode where it's essentially a visual novel with the occasional fight. And having to run through it with every single character to get the whole picture means you experience the same events repeatedly, watch the same cutscenes, go through slight variations of the same dialogues, etc. And what's kind of annoying is that they don't really align very well. Depending on who you're playing as, some events have different outcomes so in the end it's hard to have a clear picture of exactly what's supposed to have happened. This worked for BlazBlue because the lore allows for every single branching path to be canon, even the joke endings or the bad ones where the characters die. But here, it just feels kinda weird because it's considered a canonical sequel to P4. At least it was mostly straightforward, no convoluted branching paths like in BB. Also, it was pretty cool to find out what happened with the P3 cast after P3's ending. That alone made it all worthwhile. Apparently, Ultimax (the sequel) will have a completely different structure. Instead of going through the same story with every single character, it'll be split in two parts big parts. One from the P3 side and one for P4. That sounds like a massive improvement because the current format just wasn't a good fit for the kind of story they're telling.

Transistor. So, I went into this one with high expectations even though I never quite understood why everyone creamed themselves so hard over Bastion. It was good but it seemed like everyone else was seeing something in it that I didn't. Transistor also felt a lot like that until something finally clicked in the last hour and a half. Everything about it screamed at me that I should be loving it. The visual style and aesthetics were great, the music was amazing and the semi turn-based combat should've been right up my alley. I think a big part of it was that the game doesn't really explain much to you, which I'm pretty sure is deliberate. So, for the first few hours, I was using the Turn() ability wrong and that made for some frustrating moments where it felt like I was constantly being punished but wasn't really sure what I was doing wrong. Once I finally realized how I was being an idiot, though, everything fell into place. This game is fucking great and now I'm kinda kicking myself for ruining my first playthrough like that. Oh well, there's still recursion mode I guess.

The first two Muramasa Rebirth DLC are 50% off right now so I finally grabbed 'em. I've been meaning to go back to the game for a while, mostly cause I want to platinum it, so this gives me a good excuse to do it soonish.

Is Demon's Souls cult? I see people talking about it almost as much as Dark, usually calling it superior (which I disagree with). But really, it probably boils down to Demon's still being a Playstation exclusive while Dark is multiplat. More people have played Dark, plain and simple. And to echo what FDS said, if you actually finished the game then why would I assume that you hated it? If you hated it so much, why did you bother finishing it? I mean, it's a pretty long game. I would expect anyone to either be won over or toss it aside before the middle. I could probably come up with 5 reasons why I think Dark is a better game but really, if you hated Demon's Souls so much then I don't see how you'd feel any different towards Dark Souls. They're different but they're not THAT different. Most people view them as part of the same series for a reason.

Pretty much all I did was drop the quality part of it, so the messages couldn't possibly be all that mixed. As for these specifics I've supposedly yet to give, it's all in my initial post but I'll just spell it out for you again: it's big-budget games. That's been stated numerous times and not just by me. I personally never said anything about heavily marketed but yeah, when these companies sink huge budgets into a product they're going to market the shit out of it. What a shocker. Still not sure how it's a bullshit marketing term when there's a widely accepted definition of what it refers to.

Lol. Because earlier I was saying that "blockbuster" is a bit too vague? I just figured that the distinction wasn't particularly necessary after all, since the gist of it remains largely the same. It's the big games. But hey, feel free to use my "lack of consistency" to convince yourself you're right.

Arguing specifics beyond what was already said would be a massive waste of time. Ethan's blockbuster analogy is good enough for me.

I'm not sure what's stupider, Dean. Your post or this actually getting its own thread...

Hooooly shit! I was kinda meh on this after Arkham Origins, it just kinda burned me out on the series and I wasn't all that eager to get another "more of the same" sequel. But goddamn, that was a fucking great trailer. Can't wait to see some proper gameplay footage. I'm assuming we'll get some at E3 considering it's ~6 months away.

Thing is, it's not some BS marketing term. At least, not comparable to nonsense like "blast processing". Your interpretation of what it means is irrelevant because it actually means something specific already. Murasaki Baby does look great, it's just not AAA. And I'm not sure why this even needs to be pointed out. I mean, it's not like not being AAA is inherently bad or anything...

Move on to Dark Souls, that is.

I'd argue that even just "blockbusters" is a bit vague. They're not just your big games, they're the ones that are good and expected to sell well. So something small like Murasaki Baby doesn't really qualify and neither would something that is objectively shit like A:CM. Although I guess A:CM is an odd one, especially since the marketing was grossly misleading about the game's quality. But a game can aim for AAA status and miss the mark. AAA games are your Last of Us, Metal Gear Solids, Assassin's Creeds, Halos, etc... I wouldn't even include handheld titles, tbh.

Lol. Really? I must've missed that part. 3D Realms must have been worth jack shit to be bought by such a seemingly small company. I had never even heard of Interceptor prior to the Rise of the Triad remake and, as far as I can tell, it's not like that was massively successful or anything.

3D Realms are only publishing it, I think. The developer is Interceptor Entertainment, the guys who made the recent Rise of the Triad remake.

Well, yeah, but only after I made that post.

Popular theory is that this is that Duke Nukem game they teased, but turned into something else for legal reasons. All I know for sure is that the devs strongly hinted at Duke Nukem while teasing their project's reveal a little while ago, even had a url along the lines of allouttagum.com or whatever. Then Gearbox made some legal threats. At first, 3D Realms insisted they still had some rights to use Duke but then all of a sudden they kinda backtracked, claimed they never actually said it was Duke Nukem. The url was also changed to nogumneeded.com, which now appears to redirect to the Bombshell website. And now they reveal this. I dunno, I can kinda see how that might've initially been conceived as a Duke Nukem title. Lol.

I mostly got it for the story mode since I've finally finished P4G and it's actually considered a canonical sequel to it. But I'm also really looking forward to playing an Arc System Works fighter again. I played a shit ton of the original BlazBlue a few years ago and loved the hell out of it but I never got around to grabbing any of the sequels. So that should be fun. Tracking says it should be getting here tomorrow, so I'll be able to play through it over the week-end while I wait for Transistor!

Persona 4 Golden. Jesus, these games are so fucking long! For some reason, I thought this one was shorter. I was 40 hours in when I put it aside after the holidays and when I picked it up again about a week ago I expected there was maybe 20-30 hours left, at most. Turns out it was more like 50. My clear save is close to 90 hours. Oh well, at least I didn't take 3 years to finish it this time... As far as the story goes, I think I liked P3 more. P4 is a better game overall but, while the murder-mystery plot was entertaining enough and did a good job of keeping things interesting, the resolution just wasn't as satisfying as P3's. And keep in mind, I left P3 unfinished for so long that by the time I actually beat that damn game I had no idea what the fuck was even going on anymore. Also, I did the true ending path and apparently that final dungeon wasn't in the original PS2 release. So, technically, I beat the original final boss a few days ago and that one kinda came outta nowhere. The bonus final dungeon gave it a bit more context but man, now I'm kinda glad I never got around to playing my PS2 copy. That ending would've been a massive letdown. As for the gameplay, it's mostly identical to P3 but with some key improvements here and there. Having direct control over party members makes a world of difference, I don't think I could go back to P3 now (although man, I'd be all over a native Vita port/remake of P3 similar to Golden). Also, at first I was disappointed that there wasn't a uber-dungeon like Tartarus but the dungeons felt a lot more varied and unique than the Tartarus blocks as a result, so I think the game was better off for it. Honestly, even if there wasn't still a bunch of games I want to play on Vita, I think this game alone would be enough for me to be happy with my purchase. It's just that good. Now bring on Persona 5 already! Also that dancing game. I'm totally getting that.

Because of the moon thing? Can't you just change your iPad's clock to get around that? There's also a room in the game where you can cheat your way through that part. Allows you to change the moon's position or something. I don't remember how to open it but it wasn't exactly obvious, I had to look it up online.

Thief. Well that only took me two and a half months... I finally took the time to fire it up and play through the last mission just now. At some point, I was going to write a long post defending it against the shitty reviews it got. But somewhere around the third time I got completely side-tracked from it by another game, I kinda realized it was missing something at its core. I still think it's a good game, though. Probably the worst of the series (definitely worse than 1 and 2 but I never got around to playing Deadly Shadows). But it's still a Thief game and a competent one at that. And, despite its flaws (and holy shit it has some major ones), that alone makes it better than most of what's out there for me. Its main problem is the story. It's complete nonsensical dogshit. Compared to the first two games, that's a major disappointment right there. I mean, fuck, they had their work cut out for them. The Trickster, the Hammerites, The Pagans, the fucking Keepers! All the factions and major players of the old games were infinitely more interesting than whatever this nonsense was supposed to be. I get that they probably wanted to do their own thing but come on, if you're gonna call it Thief then at least keep something. But the gameplay is still great. There's some seriously questionable design decisions that were made (context-sensitive jumping and rope arrows, I'm looking at you) but it still works. Then again, most of the story missions go for a more scripted action-y vibe. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing in small doses but, to put it into perspective, the most fun I had with the game was exploring the city and doing side-missions. And most of the side-missions consist of little more than 1) find room then 2) steal all the things, so that's not to say they're incredible. That being said, the client jobs were definitely the highlight of the experience. There's unfortunately only half a dozen of them (7 if you get the Bank Heist DLC). They're a bit on the short side but they're not bogged down by the shitty story and focus solely on actual thievery. The Bank Heist DLC was probably my favorite by far, even ignoring nostalgia. It's significantly better designed than pretty much every other level in the entire game and breaking into that vault was incredibly fun and satisfying. Overall, it's massively disappointing for an hardcore Thief fan like me but there's still a solid game to be enjoyed there. Just don't play it for the story.

I don't think there's a standard format but most of those I own are mp3s only, including Bastion's. The only one I can think of that also included FLACs was Frozen Synapse.

Paid for entirely through the sale of Steam cards. Took about 2 and half weeks of idling for drops, most of it done while I was studying for finals. I expected I would have to pay the difference out of pocket but I actually ended up making a little over 30 bucks. It's a bit of a bummer that there's no pre-order discount or any kind of saving from getting the Soundtrack bundle but, after Bastion, I'm confident both will be excellent so whatever. Speaking of Bastion, now I kinda want to give it another playthrough before this comes out.

Both from the current Humble Store sale. Pixeljunk Eden was an impulse purchase but it was only 2,50$ and the last one I was still missing on PC. I really hope they bring the rest of the series to Steam at some point. Some of them I never got around to grabbing on PS3. As for Metro, I've been on the lookout for a deal for over a month now. I'm pretty sure I already own it through PS+ but it's not really something I wanna play on console. Really glad I held off considering the Complete Edition they just released. Now I don't need to grab the Season Pass or Ranger Mode separately.

Well, what's your sin level? Unless it's sinner or wretch, then I don't think you need to worry about paying it off yet. It should still be "-" while you only have 0-9 points of sin, and it seems there's no clear penalties at that point. According to the wiki, killing NPCs = 1 sin point and so does invading and killing a player with the cracked red eye orb. Can't remember where I read about Navlaan not counting, though. Nothing else is mentioned. And it seems having the option to pay the guy isn't a reliable way to check your sin level, so maybe he's been scamming you? lol I'm reading some conflicting info online so I guess it hasn't been completely figured out yet...