toxicitizen

Season 2, let's fucking go!

That would be the Collector Box. It includes only the physical stuff without the game or any of the digital rewards I'm getting with the Digital Collector's Edition. It basically exists for Steam players that can't buy the regular physical Collector's Edition. I tried getting one for Endwalker but that one sold out insanely fast. I'm really surprised this one is still available only 2 months from launch. I guess there might be less hype for this expansion than there was for Endwalker, since that was the big climax of an almost decade long story arc. Either that or there's more stock available this time. Anyway, yeah, I've been continuing the main story where I had left off two years ago and I very quickly remembered that this game is really fucking good. I don't know if I'll be able to catch up in time for Dawntrail but I'm almost at the start of Shadowbringers, so it's definitely doable as long as I don't get burned out and stop. That would probably require playing almost nothing else for the next two months, though. And in that two months there's Ghost of Tsushima, Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance and Akuma coming out... Shadow of the Erdtree as well but I've already given up on playing that at launch. Ideally, I'd like to at least catch up in time to play SMTV before Dawntrail. So many games, so little time.

Got the Digital Collector's Edition. I'm still like two full expansions behind in the main story but there isn't much else to spend my money on right now, so why the hell not. I'm gonna want those CE bonuses at some point, anyway, so might as well get that pre-order bonus while I'm at it. There's probably no hope of me catching up in time for the early access period but I might use this as an excuse to jump back in and finally make some progress in the MSQ. Thank fuck they implemented a system to clear dungeons with NPCs, though. It's been so long that I have no idea how to play anymore. And I kinda want to switch my job to Dark Knight for Shadowbringers, which means learning how to tank properly. Definitely don't wanna jump in with randoms before I know what I'm doing lol.

Persona 5 Strikers I actually finished it over a week ago but I decided to go for 100% achievements, so I spent some time grinding to be ready to take on the post-game optional bosses and then grinding for the last few achievements. Also, two of the unmissable story achievements didn't unlock for some reason, so I had to speedrun new game plus to get those as well. They were achievements for the penultimate dungeon, too, so I basically had to replay the entire game. So that was fun. At least it contributed to the overall grind... I think I just happened to reach the triggers for those achievements during Steam's Tuesday night maintenance. So I was likely offline at the time and something didn't work when the API call was made, I guess. Anyway, overall I really enjoyed the game. I haven't played a lot of Omega Force games but this is by far the one that felt the least like an Omega Force game. It's basically P5-2 but with real-time combat. Although it falls in this awkward position of being a sequel to the original P5 and not Royal. I didn't miss Kasumi, though. Kasumi sucks. Don't @ me. It's also a pretty garbage port. I mean, it ran mostly okay... after I figured out that I needed to go into my PC's BIOS to turn off all the E-Cores on my CPU. It was basically unplayable before that. Like, the worst stuttering I've ever experienced. I don't understand how this happens. It's like the second game ever that I have to do this for. And the first one was close to the CPU's launch, so it was a it more understandable. I don't remember what game it was, though... I guess in this case it's just that they had probably already stopped supporting the game by then. Anyway, glad to finally be done with it! It was fun but I the endgame grind ended up being a bit longer than I would've liked. I'm tempted to do P5 Tactica next or even the HD Remaster of SMTIII but I'm worried about getting burned out on Atlus games in general at this point. I mean, I just played P3 Reload and this back to back. Then SMTV Vengeance comes out in about two months, and there's The Answer and Metaphor in the fall. It's a good year to be an Atlus fan, don't get me wrong, but I don't wanna overdo it.

the what now

It felt like a tech demo for a game that didn't exist yet?! Kidding aside, I really enjoyed FFVII Remake but I did find it funny that it was praised to the high heavens because it reminded me of FFXIII a lot and that game was fucking reviled. I guess people are more willing to run along linear corridors when heavy doses of nostalgia are involved.

I could probably get a bit more mileage out of them tbh, so that's good to know. But I've been wanting wireless ones for too long not to use this as an excuse to upgrade. Ended up ordering some PIxel Buds Pro. Did some reading and it sounds like they're pretty good if a tad overpriced. They were on sale so I went for it. Even ordered directly from the Google store because Amazon didn't have the ones that match the color of my phone and I'm the kind of idiot that cares about these things. Can't be listening to music on Fog-colored ear buds with a Bay-colored phone.

First impression is very good, yeah. Really happy with the purchase. Especially the bigger screen. I always hated browsing the web on my phone because of how claustrophobic it feels. But on this one, not only is there more room, the text is also smaller. It almost feels like when I got my first 1080p monitor lol. On the other hand, yesterday I realized it doesn't have an audio jack. I mean, more like i remembered. I knew that phones don't really have them anymore and I'd been wanting to get some wireless buds for a while now. I just didn't really think about it when I ordered the phone. So my Shure earbuds are kinda useless now. It's not that big of a deal since the wire's been kinda finicky for a while (main reason I'd been wanting to upgrade to wireless ones) but yeah, another thing to buy... Any of you guys try the Pixel Buds Pro? I'm tempted by them since they'll probably work best with the phone in general but wondering if I should just go for more of an audiophile model like I'd usually do.

Pixel 8 Pro, yeah.

I've been considering upgrading for months now but today I realized I couldn't put it off any longer. My phone's been acting kinda weird lately. It would randomly decide to repush all my email notifications of the past week all at once. Sometimes I get them super late (got all my ubereats order updates hours after I'd already gotten my food tonight) and yesterday it completely died on me for the first time in a while. And today I'm realizing it can't hold a charge for shit anymore. So yeah, I'm getting the sense that it's starting to die very suddenly so I better get a new one while I'm still able to transfer my stuff. Also got a clear case cause I'm not gonna buy a blue phone and then cover it up in black plastic. Oh and true story: I was wondering why I couldn't find this thread even going back four or five pages. Then I realized that you need to tick the boxes for which subforums you want to show up in fluid mode.... Turns out I only had General Gaming Chat selected all these years. Maybe the forum will feel a little more active now...

I mostly played the Genesis versions as well but I do remember struggling with the magic carpet level in the SNES version. My memories of Lion King aren't as clear, though, but I'm sure it'll come back to me once I play it. I just remembered there's also a Jurassic Park Collection that came out. I wonder if it includes that one Genesis game where you played as a raptor in some levels. I remember enjoying that one.

Don't know if I'll get into them immediately at launch (FW comes out in 4 days and I just got started on Persona 5 Strikers) but I've been anticipating them too much not to just get them immediately. Also grabbed some retro/nostalgic games while they're on sale : Really curious to see if these will be as good as I remember them being.

Persona 3 Reload This was pretty much exactly what I wanted for Persona 3, especially now that we're getting The Answer as DLC. It's Persona 3 with all the content from FES but without the compromises of Portable. One of the things that bugged me about Portable was the lack of animated cutscenes but Reload actually has less of those than FES. A lot of what were originally animated scenes have been replaced by in-engine cutscenes like in Persona 5, and tbh I think that those just work way better. Keep the anime scenes for special moments that can't easily be done in-engine. So yeah, beyond just being the definitive release of P3 content-wise, I also actually found it to be an improvement overall in terms of presentation. It sucks for those that wanted FeMC but I can't say I personally give a shit about that. And at least P3P is now available on modern platforms if I ever feel like giving that a shot. Back when the port seemed like it was all we were gonna get, I was disappointed that we got P3P over FES. But now that P3R is a thing, porting P3P was the right call. But yeah, this is definitely still Persona 3. For better and for worse. While they've added a few things to make it more interesting, Tartarus is still Tartarus. And some of the social links felt kinda weird because the best answers (as in actually trying to help these people) weren't always the ones that gave the most points. It kinda makes the MC seem like an asshole yes man that just tells people what they want to hear, even if it's terrible advice. The game's flaws stand out way more after having recently replayed P4G and finally played P5R. I'll give it this, though. It doesn't overstay its welcome. This has to be the fastest I've gone through a mainline Persona game. I actually made it to the end of the calendar like two weeks ago and only had a few days to get through before going to fight the final boss. I spent some time finishing quests and fusing better personas, but once I realized that the Reaper is way harder in this than he was in Persona 5 I couldn't decide if I wanted to grind or just save him for NG+. And then SF6 decided this was a perfect time to finally release a new character that I thought looked cool, so I went an entire week without touching P3. Anyway, I'm gonna have to do another run regardless because I couldn't max out all the social links in my playthrough. I came super close and only had one missing (Aigis) but I ended up being a few days short. Back in the day, I remember thinking the story in Persona 3 was better than the one in Persona 4 and I'm not sure i feel that way anymore. Replaying P3 after all these years was kinda weird. I still really dig the gloomy end of the world vibes it has going but the plot itself isn't particularly well paced or told. I think I still like some elements of Persona 3 more but the overall storytelling is unarguably improved in P4 and P5. And speaking of P4, I imagine a remake of that is a sure thing now that P3R is Atlus' fastest-selling game ever. Which is good because it would be awkward to have P4 being the only one still stuck with blocky PS2 graphics. So yeah, this was a fun one to revisit and I'm really happy to finally have a definitive version of the game.

Oh, that's where that came from? I've seen it referred to by that name but I had no idea wtf it meant lol.

I knew it would come to PC eventually. Even if it wasn't for all the subsequent leaks, the initial nvidia leak from like 2 years ago that was supposed to be some made up list an intern came up with has proven to be incredibly accurate so far lol. But goddamn it feels like I've been waiting for it for a long time. It's gonna be tough choosing between this and Shadow of the Erdtree on June 21st, though. And at this point I'm honestly kinda dreading S-E shadowdropping FFVII: Rebirth on Steam the very same day because that's the level of stupidity I've come to expect from them.

I see I'm not the only one who felt the urge to buy more Persona from playing P3R.

Don't think I'll be anywhere near done with P3R in two weeks but it's launching at a lower price point so why the hell not. Besides, I've been wanting to play it for years and never got around to buying the second game due to it never being discounted quite enough (and my mild annoyance at the first game not getting a PC release). So I feel like I kinda have to get this one.

Stupid real-time cutscenes and their stupid inability to handle just a little bit more rendering off to the sides of the frame!

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - Master Collection Version I decided to play this over the week-end kind of on a whim because I needed something to distract me from impulse buying Tekken 8. I don't need another fighting game in my rotation right now, especially not with Persona 3 Reload coming out in less than a week. Anyway, I actually played the Tanker chapter a couple months back, right after I played MGS1, so I only had the Plant chapter left to play. I may have mentioned it back then but MGS2 is so much easier to slip back into. I never had any issues with the fixed camera angles and it just controls incredibly well overall, so I didn't struggle like I did with MGS1. Almost couldn't tell it was my first playthrough in over a decade. I'm sure some would find it dated by modern standards but for me this was one of those rare cases where the game was actually every bit as great as I remembered it to be. The story, in particular, has aged so well because of how prescient it was. Back then it was speculating about the future but now it's just describing the present lol. I'm kinda glad I held off on playing the meat of the game since that meant there's now a mod out that fixes the internal resolution. I was able to run it at 1440p without any issues. There's even some experimental support for ultrawide, which is a really cool option to have, but I ultimately decided to play the game on my 16:9 monitor because the ulrawide mod broke too much stuff during cutscenes. Seemed to work pretty well during gameplay, though. I'm so glad to finally have a version of these games on Steam. I've wanted to replay MGS2 and 3 in particular for quite a few years at this point, so it's great to finally have a version I can play whenever I want without having to dust off an old system. And thanks to modding, they're already the definitive versions and will only improve with time. I'll probably jump straight into MGS3 tonight. I went through MGS2 fairly quickly, so I should have plenty of time to finish it by friday.

Horizon: Zero Dawn - Complete Edition Since they announced that Forbidden West is coming out for PC this year, I figured it was time I got around to playing this one. I had tried it back when the port first came out and bounced off of it after a few hours, partially because it didn't run great on my old PC. I almost bounced off of it again this time but I pushed through hoping I was just still feeling the Cyberpunk withdrawal. Turns out this game just takes a little while to get interesting. The gameplay is fairly standard/generic open-world stuff and I think that's what turned me off initially. But once I started exploring ruins and uncovering the mystery of Aloy's origin and why the world is the way it is I started really getting into it. The combat being more of a hunting kinda deal rather than just generic shooting/melee combat was also pretty good but, again, it took me a little while to really get into it. My favorite aspect of the game has to be the art direction, though. I've gotten into collecting art books the last few years but this is the first game where I was so impressed with the art direction that it actually made me look up whether there was an art book available. Other than that, my only real complaint is that the climbing/platforming was shockingly janky. I stopped counting the amount of times Aloy fell to her death because she wouldn't snap onto the next foothoold properly. The lack of polish in that area was surprising coming from a first-party PlayStation game. So yeah, it took a little while to click but once it did I really enjoyed it. Definitely going to get Forbidden West once it comes out on PC. I also need to do a new game plus run on ultra hard at some point for the last few achievements. I probably have enough time to rush through it before P3R comes out but I was kind of hoping to squeeze something else in-between. Or maybe I'll just go back to playing nothing but Street Fighter 6 for the next couple weeks. That sounds pretty good, actually...

Let's fucking go! Still feels weird to have an Atlus game (especially Persona) day one on PC.

For once I made it through the Steam sale without buying too much but then I saw some deals on GMG that I couldn't say no to... I've been curious about Powerwash Simulator for a while because it looks super relaxing and I figured since I completed the Divinity set I might as well get the second PoE game as well (especially since the complete edition was super cheap). I should have all the CRPGs I need for the foreseeable future now lol.

I really enjoyed that game. I still need to go back and finish it although now that I was able to grab the season pass on sale I'm thinking I should just start a new playthrough. Don't go in expecting it to be anything like XCOM. It felt more like a puzzle game to me. Like "Okay I've got these cards, what's the best sequence to use them in to take out as many of these chuds as possible so I don't get curb-stomped next turn". As for me, I'm still in Cyberpunk withdrawal and looking for the next big RPG to lose myself into, so I foresee a lot of CRPGs in my future.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty/2.0 Update I think the highest compliment I can pay to this expansion is that it got me to sink another 100+ hours into this game that, as it turned out, I mostly remembered pretty well. Which was kinda surprising because if you were to ask me about plot specifics for any given game 6 months after I played it, I feel like I wouldn't really remember it all that well. I guess Cyberpunk was just really memorable for me. Like, I don't just mean the main quest line. Even random small gigs, I'd go to the map marker, enter whatever area it led me to and go "Oh right, this one!". I can seriously count on one hand the amount of quests I didn't remember and I'm pretty sure those were ones that I just didn't encounter in my first playthrough for some reason. Early on in this playthrough I realized that Cyberpunk might be my new favorite game of all time and over 100 hours later at the end of this run I think I still feel that way. I'm actually looking forward to doing another playthrough at some point in the future to try a melee/Sandevistan build. Anyway, people keep saying that Cyberpunk is good now but as far as I'm concerned it was always good. At least on PC. It's just way more polished now. I'm really glad that the big rework I had been expecting for the past 3 years finally came and ended up solving most of the game's big issues. And that it was accompanied by an incredible expansion was just the cherry on top. I do have some complaints about Phantom Liberty but most of them amount to minor nitpicks. Mostly about how isolated it feels from the rest of the game. The main quest in Phantom Liberty is really good. Arguably even better than the base game's. They did a pretty good job of justifying V going on this long, spy-themed tangent but it still felt detached from the rest of the game in a way that kinda bugged me a little. I guess I was hoping for something that would expand the base game's main quest and correct some of its flaws rather than just attach an extra limb to it. That being said, I never would've thought that an expansion to Cyberpunk would be able to top "Oh also Keanu Reeves is in the game!" but having Idris Elba play Solomon Reed was basically as close as you can get to doing exactly that. He was pretty damn great as Solomon Reed. I did the new ending and man, what a bummer lol. I mean, none of the endings for the base game were particularly happy or satisfying but this one just hit differently. Especially since there's no mission or anything, you just make the call and then it's just a bunch of dialogue until the credits roll. So thanks, Cyberpunk, for starting my 2024 on a downer lol. I'm also definitely bummed out that we'll only be getting a single expansion for the game but I imagine it ended up being bigger than either of the two would've been. I'm really curious to know what the original plan was, though... I'm also really looking forward to finding out more about the sequel. Will it still be set in Night City? Is it going to be a completely new thing or will it still involve V and Johnny somehow? I just need to know! I don't expect we'll hear anything for a long while, though, since I think there's like two Witcher games that have to come out first... Oh yeah and I finally got those damn two achievements I missed out on in my first playthrough! The one for maxing out a skill is kind of annoying since they go up to 60 now but I was already most of the way there with Headhunter. So I just had to grind a little bit. So V turned into a complete psychopath in her last few days in Night City and starting murdering every street gang she ran into and leaving nothing but corpses whenever she took a job to retrieve a laptop or some shit because she needed the experience points.

What Jack said, plus on this you can do something that's physically impossible on a stick: input opposing directions at the same time. This can be very useful with charge characters or when you start using input shortcuts. It'll be months before I can see any of the advantages that come from using this, though. I need to rebuild my entire muscle memory first. I can barely land my bread and butter combos right now or like... jump on reaction lol. I'm shocked that I was actually able to win online matches day one, though. Casual matches against lower ranked players but still! I think some of them may have been super confused, though. I must've seemed shockingly bad for a diamond player.