toxicitizen

Well, they simply localized the PC version from 2005, so I imagine it's about as good as the version you likely played (unless that was the N-Gage one ). Although, I imagine they put in some extra work to ensure it runs smoothly on current machines. There were some small issues at launch, mostly related to achievements (which is understandable since they're hacking them in a 10 year old game) but their programmer was pretty good at fixing things quickly during the first week. The biggest issue I personally encountered was this weird bug where some in-game text wouldn't display properly if your character's name was a certain length. Not sure if that was ever completely fixed but it's easily avoided by using a name 6 characters long. The only major remaining "issue" that can't really be fixed is the controller support. Basically, Falcom originally designed the game with only m/kb in mind and only patched in controller support post-launch because people complained. It mostly works really well but you still need to use the mouse for menus and inventory management. It's annoying but it's also one of those rare use cases where the Steam controller truly shines. You just need to set the right trackpad as a mouse and you never need to take your hands off the controller. Once I thought to do that, it played flawlessly.

Xanadu Next. I played through most of it at launch and stopped like 30% of the way into the final dungeon. Not even sure why, the game is fucking fantastic. I think I got distracted after buying DOOM, Hitman and RotTR and feeling like I should play them ASAP. Anyway, after putting it off for a few weeks, I finally jumped back in tonight and finished it. Like I said, it's a fantastic game. This is Falcom at their old-school finest. Trails is by far my favorite Falcom series but even I can't deny just how good their more gameplay-focused RPGs like this and Ys feel to play. You can easily lose an entire evening just running around a dungeon and killing enemies. Xanadu Next is kind of its own thing, though. Try to imagine a cross between an isometric, Diablo-like RPG (minus the focus on loot drops) and metroidvania world-design and you'll have a pretty good idea what the game is like. I can't really think of anything else like it that I've played and now that it's over I kinda hope there's similar stuff out there for me to find. Even if you've never played Trails or Ys, it's definitely worth a look because it's so freaking good! It hasn't aged very well visually but it's easily one of the best games I've played last year. What really sucks is that a quick look on SteamSpy shows it sold abysmally. Didn't even break 5K, which is fucking criminal. A game this good deserves better and so does XSEED for finally releasing it in english.

Last round before it's over. All three have been on my wishlist for a while and look like games I'd really enjoy. Dex is the game+soundtrack bundle because that was cheaper than buying the game only, for some reason. Slain was kinda fucked up at launch but it sounds like the devs did a great job of fixing it since. Also grabbed a few really cheap ones a few days ago and neglected to post them but we're in 2017 now, I ain't going back to the 2016 thread! Sethian is by far the most interesting one of the bunch. It's this weird puzzle game where you're interacting with an alien computer and trying to understand the language so you can ask it questions. I had never heard of Reveal the Deep or See No Evil but both looked cool enough for me to risk the 54 cents they each cost. Anyway, considering I'm going to bed soonish and the sale will be over when I wake up, that should be it for me. Ended up buying way more games than I intended to but, outside of my unexpected Christmas present budget, at least the games I bought were mostly dirt cheap. So, that's something...

58 games beat for me. 50 on PC, 7 on 3DS and a single Vita game with an average completion time of roughly 17.5h per game. Also, almost 40% of my completed games were actually 2016 releases. I'd have to check to be sure but I feel like that % has been way lower in previous years. As usual, italics are for games that were released this year and asterisks indicate games that I was replaying. I'm noticing now that my average time per game is the same as Ethan's. That's spooky... Spookier still, I also have a Shadowrun game still on my backlog from last year's secret santa. O_O Although in my case it's Hong Kong. I keep forgetting I have it and feel bad whenever I remember. I have way too many unplayed games to keep a strict and comprehensive backlog, so I treat it accordingly. But 27 out of 58 were games that I considered to be on it. That's almost half of them, so that's pretty good. Most of them were games I had owned for a while but there were also games I dropped and went back to much later. So for example, I counted Disgaea PC as backlogged despite playing it at launch because I only finished it a couple weeks ago but I didn't count Rise of the Tomb Raider because, even though I didn't play it until about a month after buying it, I bought it with the intention of playing it ASAP. So, I never officially considered it backlogged. It's all completely arbitrary but it works for me. 2017 is off to a rough start, though. I have a small list of games that I started in 2016 but never actually finished, two of them being long JRPGs. And that number is even higher if I include all the games I bought during the Steam sale, tried for a couple hours and haven't touched since. Some of them are probably gonna end up going straight to the backlog and started over later on.

Couldn't help myself and bought a couple more things. Because I suck at being an adult and have absolutely no sense of financial responsibility... Beglitched looks really cool and like something I'd enjoy, so whatever, it's pretty cheap. No idea where the hell I first heard of Read Only Memories, though. It just kinda showed up on my wishlist. Probably came across it while going through the discovery queue for a previous sale. Anyway, playing the first hour of VA-11 Hall-A reminded me of it and kinda made me want more cyberpunk goodness. I tried the demo for the remaster coming out next month and I liked it, so what the hell. I'll get a free upgrade by buying it now. The voice acting being added for the remaster seems to be pretty good. It was weird recognizing Jim Sterling's voice in the demo, though. edit: Ha, turns out VA-11 Hall-A and Read Only Memories are actually set in the same world. I thought it couldn't be a coincidence that the newspaper in the ROM demo had the same name as the one from VA-11. That's pretty cool and now I'm really glad I bought it.

Oh lol, I didn't even know there was another version of the game. That does kinda suck, yeah. Good to know that it's its own thing, though. I was a little worried you would say I need to read the VN or something. Thanks for the detailed answer. Also, more importantly Fucking. Sold. Definitely gonna have to grab Extra at some point.

Oh, maybe you can answer a question I have then. Given recent comments made by XSEED, I think this has a strong chance of seeing a late PC release. In which case, I'll probably want to give it a shot. I'm just not sure what the prerequisites are going into it. I just finished watching Fate/Zero and I'll be watching Fate/Stay Night in the near future. Is that enough or is Fate/Extra also necessary? I know it's sort of a sequel to it but it sounds like it was a completely different kind of game. Also, is Fate/Extra not available on PSN in your region? I can get it for 10 bucks over here.

Game of the Year: Doom's gameplay is perfection. It's what every shooter should aspire to be. Even its mechanics are telling you to get in there and fuck some demons up. It's just pure, ultra-violent fun. And it's probably the most genuine fun I've had with a game this year. I was very tempted to cheat and give it to Trails of Cold Steel II but I haven't actually gotten around to finishing it yet. I played the first 10 hours when it came out and decided I wasn't in the mood for a long-ass JRPG. I'll just retroactively make it my GOTY when I get back to it, I guess. Disappointment of the Year: Oh my God, whaaaaaat?! Yeah, DX:MD was a great game. Most of 2016 was actually pretty damn good for me, as far as games go. Never really had much interest in No Man's Sky, so I dodged that particular bullet. Ultimately, I simply couldn't come up with anything that disappointed me more than Mankind Divided's lacking story. As soon as I finished the game, I was convinced the rumor was true and that what was initially intended to be one game had been chopped up into multiple parts. I've since managed to pretty much get confirmation on that, too. Although, I suppose I technically could give it to MGSV. The definitive edition did come out this year... Surprise of the Year: I almost gave this one to Attack on Titan because it was surprisingly decent but these two were much bigger deals for me. Not because of their actual quality but simply due to their existence. For a couple years there it really looked like we would never get the conclusion to the Zero Escape trilogy, so the fact that Zero Time Dilemma was made at all is kind of a small miracle. As for Disgaea, it was its sudden appearance on Steam that was the surprise. It simultaneously ended the series' history of console exclusivity and signaled Nippon Ichi entering the PC market and being serious about it. They actually put some love in that port and they're slowly but surely porting over more of their back catalogue. And I'll be there day 1 for pretty much all of it. Favorite Moment in a Game: Not a single moment but an entire side-mission that takes place over the second half of the game. That would be The Harvester side-quest. It starts out with a simple murder on a rainy night in a back alley of Prague and ends up being far more interesting than the game's actual main plot. It was by far the most memorable moment of the entire game for me. You even had to do some extra detective work and go on an optional detour that fleshed it out even more if you wanted the optimal resolution. Most Anticipated in 2017: Yeah, it's no contest. I love me some Persona too damn much. This is probably the game that'll end up making me buy a PS4. Resident Evil VII is a close second, though. And Styx: Shards of Darkness is a distant third.

Ah ok, yeah you can upgrade to the full game as you see fit. I bought the intro pack at launch and upgraded to the full thing just a few weeks ago. Anyway, sent you a PM. Not looking to trade or anything, just enjoy the game. Merry Christmas! Also got codes for Lightning Returns, Hitman GO, Tomb Raider Underworld and the Soul Reaver games if anyone's interested.

Are you playing it on PC or XO? Given that it was originally designed and balanced to be played with a controller exclusively, I'm really curious about whether it becomes laughably easier once you add in m/kb controls.

So, this is the appropriate thread to post OPs we're obsessing over, right? Because it's been 2 days since I finished Fate/Zero and I still can't stop rewatching this one. I didn't instantly love it like the first OP but it grew on me so much as I watched the second half of the show. The hook at 0:55 is just so strong that it ended up really sticking with me. To the point where I'm starting to wish I still had more episodes to watch. I mean, technically I still have Fate/Stay Night but it sounds like that's good but not as great. Plus, the cast being high school kids makes me kinda doubtful that there'll be anyone as interesting as Kiritsugu. I just loved how he was the closest to being the actual protagonist yet was probably the most ruthless out of everyone.

Just tried Salt & Sanctuary. Alternate title: 2D Dark Souls Rip-Off. Like, you know how Rogue Legacy is kinda like 2D Dark Souls? Yeah, Salt & Sanctuary is exactly like Dark Souls, but in 2D. I knew that going in but I honestly didn't expect it to be so 100% identical. Virtually everything so far is lifted straight from the Souls series, right down to the font they use to display area names on screen as you enter them. Even the combat is the same kind of weighty sword and shield kinda deal complete with a dodge roll. My first hour of play basically went: tutorial level -> (presumably) unbeatable tutorial boss -> wake up at first bonfire sanctuary -> first real area -> die at first boss like 20 fucking times -> victory at last -> new area -> die to regular enemy mob -> come back but die again and lose my souls salt -> rage quit. I think I'm going to love this game but right now I kinda hate it. So yeah, they pretty much got the Souls experience down perfectly! So far the only major difference is the leveling up. Works mostly the same way (spend salt to level up at sanctuaries) but instead of distributing attribute points there's an FFX-like tree you progress through. So I couldn't just dump my points directly in strength, I had to find a branch with nodes I actually wanted and start making my way towards them. So my first few levels went in wisdom despite me playing a melee character. Not sure how that'll work out yet.

I unexpectedly got some Steam funds as a present last night, so I suddenly have a sale budget! Well, had. And I totally went over it but just a little bit... I was originally going to get SteamWorld Heist and some others as well but I ended up going with God Eater, which is the most expensive by far (it does come with God Eater 1 for "free", though!). So, I had to remove some stuff. I was hesitant about Va-11 Hall-A because it's been slightly cheaper on Steam before but it's the one I actually want to play the most out of the bunch, so fuck it.

Not sure what you're asking here but I have a spare code for the intro pack if you want it. I'm an idiot and bought S-E's holiday mystery bundle despite there being a 99% chance I would already own everything in it. Spoiler: I did.

Pony Island. a.k.a. What the shit did I just play? Pony Island is runner game in which you play a pony jumping over fences. To say anything beyond that would be doing the game a disservice but that's also seriously underselling it. It's one of those "rabbit hole" kinda game in the vein of Frog Fractions where there's more going on than you see on the surface and the appeal comes from discovering just how far it goes. It lasted me a little over two hours and currently costs less than 2 dollars on Steam. Just go buy it. Trust me on this.

Oh and forgot to mention it earlier but I'm a little surprised that

Grabbed this last night along with a few other cheap games. Finally went back and finished the story mode of Disgaea this week, so it's finally time to play this. From what I understand, it's quite different from Disgaea. So, that should be interesting. Just gotta make sure I don't take another full year to finish this one because Disgaea 2 is coming at the end of January! I really shouldn't be buying anything else, though. Stuff that's still expensive like God Eater and Dishonored 2 is easier to resist but there's a handful in the 10-15$ range that are so fucking tempting.

I've never actually been there so I can't really say but it sounds like it is.

Akiba's Trip is a weird and flawed game but also really cool. Their recreation of Akihabara feels super authentic, so if you're even just a little bit into otaku culture it's pretty great to just walk around and take it all in. It's probably going to feel dated now but there are actually billboards that play trailers for Disgaea 4 and Trails of Cold Steel 1. For the longest time, I was wondering where the hell I had heard the Cold Steel main theme before lol. If you don't mind janky combat and think running around Akihabara and hitting people over the head with a laptop sounds like a good time, you should have fun with it. I've been meaning to double dip but I'm having a hard time pulling the trigger at 15 bucks since I've played the Vita version. At this point I'm really starting to wonder if it'll ever go below a 50% discount.

I don't know if I want to watch the finale of JoJo, guys. I don't think I'm ready for it to be over... edit: We had a fucking blackout in the middle of the episode! Was only able to watch the last 5mins just now. Anyway, that was a pretty satisfying finale. You were right, Jack. Now that it's over, I can agree that the second half of Diamond elevates it above even Stardust. Hell, I think the last few episodes were even better than the showdown against DIO. Oh and I just fucking love how appropriate it was that I knew what was going to happen the second I realized where he was, but that particular detail didn't hit me until it actually happened. Anyway, so, does Vento Aureo start next week?! ... please tell me it starts next week.

I thought about using the Steam Controller's gyro but that's the one feature I never really messed around with, so I usually just don't bother. I can't imagine using it for the spin attack would be better than the shoulder button I'm currently using, though. Could be fun for the surf mini game but I have no idea if it'll come up again.

Yeah, that's Hitman in a nutshell. You can totally play it as a stealth/action game (and I kinda do during the experimentation phase), but once you've got your plan figured out it's so much more satisfying to start over and play it all out flawlessly like clockwork. Some of the escalation missions have time limit objectives added on in the final levels and they're usually ridiculously short (like clear the entire mission in 1m30s) but by then you've had so much practice that you pretty much have it down to a science. It sounds like the kind of arbitrary objectives that would be annoying but clearing it with a few seconds to spare is just so insanely satisfying. Well, looks like I need to replay that one!

Demo's finally live on Steam. Well, maybe not "live" since nobody seems to be able to download it just yet. Gonna give it a whirl as soon as they fix that.

Rise of the Tomb Raider. Well, that certainly scratched that Uncharted itch I've had from being unable to play U4. Pretty great game overall. It's been too long since I played the first one to really compare the two but I do have a couple of nitpicks. First, the story. I remember really enjoying the whole "group stranded on weird island trying to survive" thing but in this one it took a while for me to get into it. I played the first 6 hours or so in short bursts and then went a few days without touching the game at all. I was enjoying it while I was playing but once I was outside the game there was basically no urge to play whatsoever. I only really got into it once I started ignoring the story and just went exploring for collectibles and clearing optional tombs. The gameplay is really where this game shines the most. The story eventually picked up but it almost felt like a shittier retelling of Uncharted 2's plot. It wasn't bad but I was a little disappointed by it. The other issue I have is about the level design. I could be wrong here. Like I said, it's been a while since I played the first one. But I feel like this one cut back on the metroidvania aspect a bit. There were a handful of open areas that almost felt like mini open-worlds with little nooks and crannies that were locked behind traversal items but the map felt more linear and less interconnected overall. This makes me slightly worried that the next one will go full open-world. I'm so fucking sick of series going open-world for no goddamn reason. Open-worlds aren't inherently better, damn it! Anyway, glad to have finally played it. Looking forward to an eventual sequel regardless but hopefully I'm wrong about the direction it'll take. -------------------- Lara Croft Go. Finished this one like a week ago but I figured I might as well hold off and post it along with RotTR. There isn't a lot to say about it, if you liked Hitman Go, you'll like this one as well. I liked how they went for a more "cinematic" presentation and made it feel like more of an adventure game. That definitely felt like a better fit for Tomb Raider. The puzzle design wasn't as good as in Hitman, though. I can count on one hand the number of puzzles that weren't painfully obvious. The levels themselves also had less replay value since there weren't any optional challenges like in Hitman Go that encouraged different playstyles. The only reason to replay any level was if you missed some of the collectibles. That was a little disappointing but it's hard to complain too much at that price. Definitely down for Deus Ex Go now. Hopefully it won't take forever to release on Steam. I was initially planning to make this a triple entry along with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light but I played the first level and... yeah, I don't think that one's for me. It wasn't terrible or anything, so I might give it another shot at some point. But right now I just had no desire whatsoever to continue playing it. Not exactly a great impression for a first level to make.

I got curious about this because Ethan made an interesting point about the pixel ratio. So, I fired up Senran Kagura SV and tried downsampling it from different resolutions. I'm assuming Gedosato uses a solid algorithm (it was made by Durante after all, that guy knows his stuff) because 1440p looked a little better than 1080p but still showed some noticeable aliasing. Downsampling from 4K looks unarguably better, even at 1080p. I took screenshots but imgur's being a butt again. I'll edit them in later if I can manage to host them. I also tried downsampling from 8K for shits and giggles and it actually ran mostly fine. I think something weird happened because the overlay message that indicates successful downsampling showed an extra step. Like, instead of showing 8K -> 1080p it said 8K -> 4K -> 1080p. Not sure what that was about. I did start noticing some frame drops, though. It was still playable, so definitely above 30. But I can't know the exact number because at that resolution my FPS display was so ridiculously small it was unreadable by human eyes lol.