toxicitizen

Factorio has absolutely consumed my entire existence. I can't stop playing it and when I'm not playing I'm either watching youtube videos about it or thinking about what I'll do next in my own base. The game exists at the center of this very specific Venn diagram where Civ research trees, base-building/crafting survival games and Zachtronics-style logic puzzles all intersect and I'm starting to suspect it was designed specifically to kill me. I'm only half joking. I think I have a better understanding now of how people manage to die in those internet cafes horror stories. The game is so engrossing that at one point on my first day of playing a real game I noticed my ass had gone completely numb, looked at the time and went "Holy shit, how is it that late already?!... And for how long have I been starving???" I'm more careful about taking breaks and getting up once in a while now... I don't think I've been that enthralled with a game since XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It's absolutely mind-boggling to me that it's still in Early Access because it's fairly polished and packs an absolute shit load of content. There's a short-ish tutorial "campaign" but the real meat of the game is the freeplay mode and that's a fairly lengthy affair. Even though I bought it during the sale, it wasn't discounted at all and it still feels like a complete steal.

I'm kinda confused by Total War these days. Total Warhammer has been the main focus the last few years but I thought they had already announced the next historical game. If this is the next mainline game, then what's up with that Saga stuff? Small-scale spin-off or something? I was under the impression that it was just a rebrand for the historical games. Quit making so many of these and gimme an Alien: Isolation sequel already!

Really hope I'll be selected for beta testing this time. Getting the game for free would go a long way towards making up for all the bullshit lol.

I think it's around the time they usually announce their slate of games for the year, so it probably won't just be Ys VIII news. But yeah, if they don't at least announce a release date for the reloc/PC port then holy lol. I'd be surprised if anyone but XSEED ever tries to tackle Crossbell in an official capacity, though. They look just like the Sky trilogy and those graphics are apparently a though sell for a lot of people. At least Cold Steel's more "modern" graphics give it a little more appeal, especially CSIII. But man, to be perfectly honest, if this actually happens I'll mostly be disappointed that Falcom could be this fucking stupid after the Ys VIII debacle.

NISA have announced a press event happening on February 9. That's what that unexplained feeling of dread you might have felt was likely about. If they once again stole XSEED's lunch (i.e. Cold Steel III), that's probably when they'll announce it.

Yes, we are in 2018. You've made that abundantly clear!

Yeah, it's kinda crazy. It got overshadowed not just by all the great games that came out this year but also by Cold Steel. Speaking of which, it seems Cold Steel is selling somewhat steadily (even if a little slowly). It's up to ~35K owners now, which pretty much makes it the best selling Trails game since FC. SC took fucking forever to reach that level and Cold Steel looks to be on track to climb past it fairly soon. It's good to see a Trails game not bomb completely for once.

Goddamn, Civ VI is the early unlock for next month's Humble Monthly. Instabuy but man, I'm really fucking glad I didn't get it for 40 bucks during the sale.

I should look into writing a twitter bot that sends him a link to this thread whenever you guys bump it. I probably would if I wasn't worried about causing him to come back...

Holy shit, I just noticed that Dean actually gave me a warning for posting in the 2017 thread! I will not stand for such tyranny! Ethan, if you're still planning that coup you have my full support! BAN HIM! BAAAAN HIM!!!

Do you mean the and the "special bond" character trophies? If so, I didn't have to fight him more than once when I played on PC. Because of the way the requirements for it work, I was able to have a few people available on my first playthrough and I was able to get everyone else on my second playthrough with just a little bit of planning. IIRC, the only bit I had to replay multiple times was the section from the bike trip to get the costumes up to the actual scene for the trophies. And even then turbo mode made that a breeze, took me like 20mins lol. This method is much less tedious if you're planning on doing a second playthrough anyway.

Last round of purchases. Spent all I had left in my Steam wallet so that should be it for me. Really eager to finally try Obduction as I've been itching for a Witness-like game all year.

I drunkenly added a hundred bucks to my Steam wallet a few nights ago, so I kinda had to buy something. I tried the Factorio demo last night and I am genuinely worried about it taking over my entire life. Also, I knew Dead Cells was supposed to be good but man, it's like really fucking good. Best blind purchase I've made in a while.

That's a pretty good discount but not quite good enough to buy it for a console I don't own. It's kinda frustrating because there's been exactly zero sales for it on Steam. Koei Tecmo are kind of awful at the whole Steam sale thing. Even Atelier Firis, which came out almost a year ago, is only 30% off.

If Blue Reflection had any discount whatsoever, I'd probably pull the trigger as well. I've been super tempted to get it since launch. I'm really digging the music and aesthetics and it just looks like something I'd enjoy. Let me know how it is. @Mal Nothing is as in your face as Senran Kagura. That's fan service pushed to such an extreme that it becomes self-parody.

I don't know about the PS1 version but the PSP version definitely has slowdown in some attack animations. There's actually a fan patch to fix it. Also, this game needs to be on Steam already. Ffs, S-E, what's taking so long?!

Lmao man, you guys just can't let this one go. I kinda hope that he somehow gets an email notification every single time this gets bumped.

Not a spoiler so I'm not gonna bother keeping it tagged. But I think it's more like Bracer > Police > Military. Apparently, early in planning stages the Cold Steel MC was intended to just be part of the military. I don't remember the exact reason why they ultimately didn't go with that but student from a military academy definitely keeps that idea in there. And the plot certainly has a strong military theme to it.

Do you mean And yeah, Calvard seems to be the guess of most people but I can't say I picked up on any in-game hints. It does seem very likely since it's the only major power remaining on the continent, as far as I'm aware. Yeah, I learned the hard way to stay out of Kiseki threads about newly announced stuff on GAF/Era. The annoying thing about suggested spoilers is that you get annoyed and gtfo but sometimes you don't know if you've actually been spoiled or if you're just connecting dots that you shouldn't be. And you sure as shit don't want to go back in for confirmation lol. For a while I thought I had a major death in CSII spoiled but then I saw some art from CSIII with that character and realized the "spoiler" was probably just a joke. That's when I took more of a "fuck it" mentality. I'd rather remain unspoiled but in a year's time we're likely to be two full games behind, so accidental spoilers seem sort of unavoidable. If it happens, whatever. No point freaking out about it. At the very least this is one reason to be thankful that the Trails series is still fairly niche. Assholes can't go around spoiling it if they don't know it even exists. edit: Oh! Forgot to mention it the other day but Durante said on Era that he's aiming for a February release on CSII PC. Although it needs to be stressed that it was 1) said drunkenly and 2) he was only speaking for himself, i.e. XSEED could have other plans or whatever.

You're a more patient man than I am. I feel like even the first Cold Steel spoiled the hell out of Zero despite keeping things vague. I could be wrong here but I'm assuming that At this point I think I just kind of accepted it. I'm not gonna seek out spoilers for CSII+ but I'm not gonna worry about Crossbell too much. I'll just play the games as they come out (officially) in english. I'd rather just bite the bullet than hold off for fear of spoiling games we might never actually get. Also, Dengeki had interviews with game creators about what's coming in 2018 and Kondo had this to say: We now know there was foreshadowing for Cold Steel as far back as the 3rd, so it sounds like some of their long-term plans are finally going to be wrapping up and CSIV will have some huge reveals for the series overarching plot. If it wasn't for the fact that they've actually said there will be another arc after, this as well as the "End of Saga" subtitle would make me think this is the final Kiseki game. Kinda makes me really curious about what's coming after the Erebonia arc.

At this point my attention is just all over the place and I think the only game I have a realistic chance of finishing before the end of the year is Tokyo Xanadu, so I'm just gonna make my picks now. GOTY - Nier:Automata I hesitated between this and Resident Evil 7 but ultimately this was a much stronger experience for me. RE7 lost way too much steam near the end and had nowhere near as strong of an impact on me. The last few routes of Automata were just pure fucking madness. It's the closest any game I've played has come to matching MGS2 in that regard. Runner-ups - Resident Evil 7 Obviously, since I actually considered picking it for GOTY. It wasn't perfect but it was a solid return to form for the series, which I think is more than anyone could've realistically expected. The things it did right, it did really right. It's gonna be really interesting to see if they learned the right lessons and how they handle the next one. Falcom 2017 was the year of Falcom and gave us not one but two Trails releases. None of these games stand out individually as GOTY candidates but the series as a whole is definitely one of my all-time favorites. If it wasn't for Nier being so freaking good, I might have actually given my GOTY as a tie to 3rd and Cold Steel like I joked about earlier this year. And that's not even counting Ys Seven, Tokyo Xanadu and Zwei. Ys VIII would be included as well if it wasn't for NISA royally fucking everything up about its release. I don't think it'll be possible for any other year to top this one in terms of Falcom goodness. Hollow Knight One of the best (maybe even the best) metroidvanias I've ever played, no exaggeration. This would've likely been my GOTY if it had come out any other year. Honorable mention - Nioh I'm counting this one separately because I haven't actually finished it yet. I got distracted from it and haven't gone back to it yet. It's a pretty damn solid Souls-like and I feel like it would've been a GOTY candidate if I had gotten into it more than I have. I'm not even sure why I didn't because I really enjoyed the time I put into it. It just hasn't sucked me in as much as the Souls series has, I guess.

I saw the key art and I'm honestly not sure I get what the spoiler is supposed to be. I'm sure I'll come to regret it in time, assuming I'm still alive by the time these games come out over here on PC. But man, constantly feeling like you have to dodge spoilers is kind of exhausting when you know it's not coming for a good long while. Kinda wish I didn't give a shit... Or that these games didn't take so freaking long to come over. That would work, too. And it doesn't help that Zero and Ao will most likely not get before CS3. So those two will get the shit spoiled out of them regardless. Hell, CS1 kept things relatively vague but from what I heard even CS2 stops giving a shit about that.

There was a voucher for it on GMG last night that you could stack with a base discount, so I went for it. I don't think any game has ever grown on me this exponentially and quickly. After my first half hour with it last night, I was pretty much thinking "Ugh why did I buy this? I knew I wouldn't like it..." I've never been intro Contra-type games all that much and I let the hype sucker me into buying it. I put a few more hours into it today and yeah, no, this is fucking quality. You know a game is doing something right when you haven't even cleared the first world yet but you're already replaying all the levels and bosses you've already beaten just to get that perfect score.

Hmm, I know which games I want to mention as runner up or honorable mention but I'm honestly not sure about my top pick. There's two titles I'm hesitating between and I feel like I should at least play Prey before making a final decision. But I'm already in the middle of like 3 games and there's less than 2 weeks left to the year...

Yeah, Atelier mostly shows how big of a difference shading makes. It just looks flat and shitty. Digimon almost looks like they're remaking a PS1 game and comparing it with the original lol.