toxicitizen

You're better off that way. This metagame was such a convoluted mess that I don't think they could've made it any more confusing if they had tried. It took them like a week to finally update it to a state where it was comprehensible by normal human beings...

Ended up getting these two a few days ago: And today, with the 6$ coupon I earned from the grand prix thing + selling a few more cards, I ended up finally taking the plunge on this: I'm mildly hopeful the "fixed" translation won't bug me too much, since I never really had any problems with NISA's work in Disgaea or Danganronpa. Either way I'm gonna have to make my peace with this shit because it doesn't look like the situation is gonna change anytime soon... Anyway, that should probably be it for me. I'm still tempted to get Battletech but that expensive season pass really makes me want to wait and get the complete edition for much cheaper in a year or two.

Yeah, I like Alestorm and I've been digging deeper into their stuff recently. It always seemed like this fun but silly pirate thing with a few fun drinking songs but turns out they actually have some serious bangers. GloryHammer, though, is just the right kind of stupid that speaks directly to my idiot brain. I can't help but love everything about it. I'm heavily invested in the tale of Angus McFife at this point lol. Those videos you posted are something else, though...

I've been listening to entirely too much GloryHammer for the past month (which might become its own lengthy post if I get around to it because whew!), so in an effort to not get completely burnt out on it I've been looking for other similarly non-shit power metal bands. And I think I found the next best thing? So there's this band called Beast in Black that makes synth-infused heavy metal inspired by bands like Judas Priest and whatnot. Good shit, but it gets better. See, they have another non-musical but very obvious inspiration. A little known Japanese manga that- well just look at the fucking art in these videos and it should be pretty damn obvious.

Yeah, I'd probably do the same if it was an option. I'm still hoping they'll announce a port before the console launch but I'm not holding my breath.

Between everything that's gone down and the uncertainty of PC releases going forward, I can't say I'm really concerned about spoilers right now. Kinda feels like I won't be playing CSIII-IV for a good long while (if ever). Also, did they actually say it's the next arc? I've seen people theorizing that it's going to be more of an expansion to CS kinda deal. And the Gematsu article on it had this bit: Plus, one of the screenshots shows a very familiar location.

The Sexy Brutale It's alright. By the end of it, the story gets pretty interesting and there's some neat ideas here. It also has a pretty strong aesthetic and a killer soundtrack. But the gameplay didn't really do anything for me. There's almost never anything to actually figure out for yourself, you usually just gotta follow people around and eavesdrop until they give you the solution. Sometimes you'll be missing a key piece of information and get stuck because what you think you need to do isn't working but that usually just means you stopped following someone too early and missed out on some info. I probably would've loved it if it had been more of a puzzle game. That soundtrack is pretty damn good, though!

FTFY. Speaking of torture, really tempted to finally get Ys VIII in the sale...

First round of purchases in the Steam sale. This ended up only costing me like 20 bucks because of that Sekiro refund I was able to keep + selling a bunch of trading cards over the last couple weeks. Also got an expansion for FFXIV as well as these in anticipation for Halo MCC! Might end up getting more but the other things on the list are a bit pricier so I might hold off.

Finally gave Final Fantasy XIV a serious shot after buying it like 3 years ago. I'm still on a free trial account but I'm like 2 levels away from hitting the trial's level cap, so I'll be activating my key and free month soon to keep going. I'll also get the Stormblood expansion next week during the Steam sale, I think. Anyway, yeah the game is actually pretty fun. I was curious because I kept hearing that the story puts recent single-player FFs to shame and that it was feasible to play solo for the most part. There's some forced dungeons that you have to run as part of the main story and I was actually expecting them be what killed the game for me. But they turned out to be the most fun aspect of the game by far, which really came as a surprise. Also I have my own chocobo now, so that's pretty cool. This is the first traditional MMO I manage to really get into and it actually helped me understand why I could never get into WoW. Main story quests are clearly marked as such in FFXIV and at this point there's exp boosts to help you get through the first 60 levels faster. So you end up overleveled just by doing the main story, which means you're better off ignoring side-quests (unless they unlock something you want). IIRC WoW doesn't really have a main questline driving you forward, so I'd just end up doing side-quests aimlessly due to my completionist nature. It was boring as fuck and I could never stick with it for more than a few hours before dropping it. At the time I just kinda figured that MMOs weren't for me because CLEARLY everyone else was seeing something in WoW that I wasn't but I guess it's just WoW that wasn't for me because I'm enjoying the hell out of FFXIV.

Yeah, the best way I've seen it described is that it feels like someone was following a plot outline and never added any of the connective tissue to make the story flow properly. The last third of the game is basically just going through a checklist of plot points one after the other. There could have been a truly great game here, like you said the main party is pretty fun to hang with and the world is gorgeous. I had the most fun when I was just doing road trip stuff with my bros, like camping and doing hunts. The fact that those basic as fuck side-quests were the best part of the game says a lot about how awful the story is lol.

Okami Well, it only took me like 10 years (pretty sure I bought it when they ported it to PS3) but I can finally scratch this one off the backlog! I'm really glad I finally got around to it because it's far from perfect but there's a lot to love here. The music and story are both pretty good but that art style was a stroke of genius (no pun intended) because for a PS2 game it still looks absolutely gorgeous. Even the blatantly 2D vegetation that rotates with the camera doesn't look bad or out of place. It's crazy to me that they had to go with this simpler look due to technical limitations because I can't imagine the game would still look anywhere near this great if they had kept the originally intended more realistic look. It's tempting to say that the game is too long but ultimately I can't really point to a single part that felt like padding. It's definitely way too easy, though. The only two challenging things in the entire game were some optional combat arenas and the fucking fishing mini-game, and the arenas were mostly just annoying to deal with. The trials weren't interesting or challenging in a fun way, they just threw way too many enemies at you at once, to the point where it often became a visual clusterfuck where I couldn't even tell wtf was going on. Also, for a game that's clearly going for a Zelda thing, it sure could've used more actual dungeons. A lot of them are really small and have basically no puzzles in them. Even the final one is basically just "Uh... fight these 5 bosses again, I guess?". That's probably the one aspect I'd say was genuinely weak. Even the combat, despite being way too easy, was fun due to the way it incorporates the brush mechanic. Oh and I love it when a game doesn't waste your time by needlessly requiring multiple playthroughs! And with that my Japan-themed gaming streak comes to an end because I don't think I have a fifth game to keep it going. No idea what the hell I'll play next, though. After the last few, probably something short...

Oh right, that's vaguely familiar. Guess I'm due for a replay before Eternal comes out!

Was that hinted at in the original or something? If so, I guess I was paying attention to the story about as much as the Doom Slayer himself because it never occurred to me that he could be anyone other than the Doom guy lol. Also, just ended up on the Doom wiki and apparently the Doom guy (or at least someone in the Doom universe?) is called B.J. Blazkowicz III??? Yes, that B.J. Blazkowicz. So Doom is a canonical sequel to Wolfenstein?!? ?

Dear God, Okami just won't fucking end. I mean, it's not overstaying its welcome or anything (at least not yet) but today it pulled the whole "Shit's getting real! Gotta be close to the end-PSYCH! Here's a whole new area you gotta go explore!" thing again. I had heard there was a moment where the game looks like it's ending but ends up opening up even more but that was like 15 hours in, I didn't expect it to happen a second time lol. I have to say, though, I'm really glad I played this at a time when I was actively looking for something nice and relaxing (to follow up Nioh), because I feel like at any other time I would've bounced off of it a while ago. It's a beautiful game and kinda scratches that Zelda itch but it's ultimately way too easy. Especially when you remember it's a Kamiya game. I knew to be careful not to die more than 5 times for a missable achievement but no joke, 35 hours in I haven't died a single fucking time. There's a food pouch that, IIRC, when you fill it up you get a free revive upon death. Can't say for sure though because even after upgrading it 3 times it still hasn't activated even once lol.

Oh my god, yes! This and VA-11 Hall-A both getting sequels is just the best thing. Now to do a replay of the first one to finish getting all the achievements.

Also I think this is the first one since the departure of Hideo Baba? Hopefully fresh blood does the series good because I enjoyed Zestiria but it wasn't anything special. Still need to get around to Berseria, which I heard is better.

I can't help but notice that those aren't Dishonored 3 and The Evil Within 3... Although apparently Deathloop isn't multiplayer like the trailer seemed to imply, so I'm cautiously optimistic given that it's Arkane. It kinda reminds me of Mooncrash, so maybe it's another roguelike kinda deal. Still haven't gotten around to playing it but I've heard very good things, so Deathloop might be interesting if it's them fleshing out that idea some more.

Oh, absolutely. I'm not trying to defend them or anything, I just don't think it's as malicious as it initially seemed to be. It's still a fucking garbage policy lol.

Nah, unless there's something I missed, her name is only gone from the credits of the recently released PS4 ports. I don't think they patched her out of the credits of the PC or last-gen versions. And if their workflow with Falcom is the same as it was before, they probably just sent them their current staff list for the new credits roll to be created. I don't think they would re-use the old ones or actually remove names to "update" them. At least, that's the only way this whole thing makes sense to me.

Low-key the biggest bombshell of the conference lol. If there isn't a Johnny Mnemonic reference in there I'm gonna be mad.

My guess would be that it's just laziness, since it does sound like less work to treat credits as a "current staff list" than to actually keep track of everything everyone did and credit them all properly. Still a garbage policy but now that I know it's fairly common I'm not going to attribute malice without any further evidence.

Yeah, even if it's true it's still really fucking shitty in that "your contributions don't matter" kinda way. Not the first time they're being weird about crediting, though, now that I think about it. There was one game where Tom asked to not be credited and as a result he was removed from the credits of all their upcoming games due to an "all or nothing" policy. Although in that particular instance, Tom was being super fucking stupid about it (IIRC it was some unintentional KKK reference that the devs themselves decided to remove once made aware of it) so it didn't seem fucked up at the time.