toxicitizen

Couldn't resist. I love ASW's fighting games and the price was pretty reasonable, especially after the launch week discount. Also won this from a giveaway on NeoGAF Oh and the guy that made Hexcells has a new puzzle game out It's pretty good. Like a cross between Hexcells and Picross (or so I heard, I have no idea what Picross is). edit: Alright, now I need to stop buying shit until the christmas sale...

According to the big Steam package names leak of 2015, Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster might be coming to Steam in the near future. https://steamdb.info/app/359870/subs/ I figured it eventually would but it's nice to have something concrete to suggest that it will. All the doubt and confusion surrounding possible Sony involvement/exclusivity was kind of annoying.

Sales were down on all platforms, though, weren't they? I'd like to think that Unity's horrendous state at launch also had something to do with it. Gamers tend to be stupid and quick to forget, but that was one monumental fuck up on Ubisoft's part.

I was kinda tempted but even at 40% off it's still almost 50 bucks over here. Fuck off with that shit, Ubi. I just bought Rogue and Unity, anyway, and still haven't played Black Flag. Being a few years behind on this series is actually kind of awesome. Also, it's kind of hilarious to see them giving it such a deep discount on Steam like 2 weeks after the PC launch. Looking at SteamSpy, it looks like it only sold about 40K units on Steam. That franchise fatigue...

Holy shit, the end of that gameplay video! O_O Please, please be awesome! I want this game to make up for Dark Souls II so bad.

Steam ID: FLD, wishlist, Canada General criteria: Nothing too specific, I have pretty varied tastes genre-wise and enjoy games both easy and challenging. My wishlist is fairly massive (and kind of a mess) but it's mostly in order of preference, so you can just go down the list ignoring anything that's too expensive and just pick something you think I'll like. I'll make sure to clean it up a bit and push some cheaper stuff to the top before the gifting starts, though. What are your favorite genres? Main ones would be stealth, turn-based strategy (specifically smaller unit/squad-based stuff like XCOM and Frozen Synapse) and survival-horror (think Resident Evil/The Evil Within rather than something like The Forest. Not really a fan of the "open-world with crafting" kinda survival games that have been flooding the PC market in recent years). I've also been in a bit of an RPG mood this year, mostly Japanese ones but Western ones are cool, too. What are your favorite games? Deus Ex, Thief, Splinter Cell, XCOM, Dark Souls, Trails series, Persona, Disgaea, Final Fantasy, etc. Are you looking for any non-Steam gifts? Not really. I pretty much ditched my PS3 at this point and I built a new PC earlier this year, so that's where basically all of my gaming is currently happening. Will you take games not on your wishlist? Yeah, of course, you shouldn't feel limited to what's on it. But keep in mind, I add pretty much anything that catches my eye to it, whether it's games I really want or just stuff that looks kinda cool. So, if something isn't on it, there might be a reason why.

Wait wait wait, what the fuck is this shit? Last year we gave crap to FMW for not changing back his spooky Halloween name. It's completely unfair to him if we don't do the same thing to madbassman! Get him, you guys!

Cold Steel I's script is about on par with FC and Cold Steel II is a bit smaller. XSEED have learned a lot from working on SC, so their workflow for the series has improved quite a bit and they pretty much have a series bible at this point. As a result, work on Cold Steel has been progressing much more smoothly (Cold Steel I took something like a year and a half from start to finish). Last I heard, the translators already started working on Cold Steel II a little while back. Not sure about the others, though. IIRC, 3rd is somewhere between FC and SC and either Zero or Ao (possibly both?) is even bigger than SC. edit: Alright, looks like Tom from XSEED revealed some more reliable figures at some point. Seems 3rd is the smallest out of the entire series at around 1m characters (FC is 1.5m and SC is a whopping 3-3.5m), so it wouldn't be too much work. The Crossbell games (Zero and Ao) are around 2m each. I was correct about Cold Steel, though. CS I is about the same as FC and CS II is a bit smaller. Turns out nothing really comes close to SC. Not sure where things stand exactly between XSEED and Carpe Fulgur but they seem to be on good terms, at least. Both XSEED folks and the CF guys were active in the OT for SC on GAF. As for Falcom themselves, from what I understand their involvement is limited to implementing the translated scripts XSEED send them and sending back a new build with fixes or whatever. I imagine they're fairly busy working on their new games and have little time to dedicate to their old ones. Apparently, the fact that XSEED were actually given the source code for the PC versions is kind of a big deal.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC. Well, it basically took me an entire month but I finally managed beat this monster of a JRPG late last night. Or, I guess technically this morning, a little after 5AM. Goddamn, this was good! It felt straight out of the SNES/PS1 golden era of JRPGs. I loved FC but, now that I've finally played SC, the whole thing definitely ranks among my all-time favorite JRPGs. It's definitely up there with Dragon Quest VIII, Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, as far as I'm concerned. This felt like playing a lost classic, one of those games that made me love JRPGs in the first place. I can honestly say I hadn't played one like this in years. Unlike my replay of FC over the summer, I didn't really trouble myself with missable quests and achievements. My time was limited because of school and I knew this was a hell of a long game, so I prioritized getting through the story. I still made sure to do every side-quests I could find but ultimately it's impossible not to miss anything without a guide in these games. It ended up taking me about 70 hours (according to my save file) and I have no doubt a more thorough playthrough would easily take over 100. I'll definitely have to do a full replay at some point to clear everything but right now I simply didn't have the time. So, SC picks up right where FC left off. Literally the next morning, right after that evil cliffhanger ending. Much like FC, the first half of the game is undeniably slower. But unlike FC, this time it doesn't feel slow at all. The game still sends you on seemingly asinine jobs as part of the main quest early on but it almost always ends up tying back into the main plot in some direct and obvious way. The chapters are all shorter than in FC but there's twice as many of them and they all begin and end with cutscenes about the overall plot that keep you on the edge of your seat. If the experience of playing FC can be summed up as "Jesus Christ, is anything going to happen soon? Is this going anywhere?!" then SC is more like "Holy shit, that was awesome! Can't wait to see what happens next!" And that's just the first half of the game, which is admittedly a little formulaic. The second half just goes off the deep end in the best possible way. So, overall, it's an incredibly more engaging and satisfying experience than FC was. Mechanically speaking, there's honestly not a whole lot to discuss. It's essentially the same game as FC, other than a couple of small additions there's little to no gameplay changes or improvements. This isn't a sequel in the traditional sense, it's very much the last two thirds of the game. Now that they're both out, I really envy those that will be able to just grab both and marathon the shit out of them. It's gonna be one hell of an experience. So, there's a Trails in the Sky 3rd Chapter but SC very much concludes the story of Estelle and Joshua. On the one hand, it's great that we finally got the conclusion to the story that started in FC, and we've got Trails of Cold Steel coming soon(ish?), so there's that! But, on the other hand, considering the few plot threads that are left dangling, holy shit I want 3rd so bad. It's clear that a lot of the pieces here are being set up not just for the immediate sequels but for the Kiseki series as a whole. Especially considering that Zero/Ao and Cold Steel take place roughly simultaneously. This series was playing the long game right out of the gate. From what I understand, 3rd is less the third part of the Trails in the Sky trilogy and more of a spin-off that acts as a bridge towards the next two games, Zero and Ao. So, according to XSEED, committing to localizing 3rd means also committing to Zero and Ao. And they're understandably not quite ready to do that just yet. I really hope they can eventually justify doing them, though. So far, it looks like SC isn't doing too hot on Steam but this is the kind of game that is likely to have very long legs sales-wise. It's great that we're getting Cold Steel at all but it would really suck if we never get the missing 3 games.

Nah, the balance isn't fucked. This isn't like Ys where normal is on the easy side. According to folks on NeoGAF, normal is actually normal in SC and you're meant to play on that difficulty for your first time. Unlike FC, it's actually decently challenging. The first few pages of the OT actually have a bunch of folks mentioning picking hard and ending up starting over on normal. Oh and I've had bosses one shot my entire party even on normal.

Yeah, I probably shouldn't have skipped over the combat system. I didn't mention it because it's serviceable but hardly noteworthy or exceptional. It's pretty standard JRPG stuff with Disgaea-like grid-based movement. But since you can't move and attack on the same turn, there's not an incredible amount of strategy involved beyond positioning and spell aiming. One thing I forgot to mention, though, is that the game kind of discourages grinding. Experience after battle is calculated on a per character basis, so characters lagging behind tend to catch up fairly quickly while overleveled characters will get next to nothing. So, the challenge is more about preparation rather than just brute forcing the numbers. For example, a boss in SC literally wiped out my entire party on the first turn. I had to reload and change my gear to protect my party against that specific type of attack.

Yes, you should! It definitely isn't generic anime garbage, although I can certainly see how it might look like it superficially. That being said, not everyone loves the game. It's a very slow burn of a game. It's so slow that the first act of the story gets its own game. Trails FC and SC were originally intended to be one gigantic game but at some point they had to cut it in two parts for technical reasons and the most logical point to do so story-wise was about a third of the way through. For the first three and a half (out of five) chapters of the first game, it feels like very little of consequence actually happens. That's not entirely true but things don't fall into place until later. It can be off-putting going in without knowing how slow-paced the game is. I know it was for me on my first playthrough. But when it gets good, it gets good. Also, the game more than makes up for its slow pace with outstanding character development and world building. This is an insanely detailed world with dense lore and tons of optional dialogue that foreshadows upcoming events and even plot points of future games! NPCs have their own individual lives and pretty much every single one of them will have something new to say whenever the story moves forward even a little bit. I mean, just look at the script books Needless to say, if you hate reading then this isn't the game for you. But if you value character development and world building then it's absolutely worth a look. Also, SC is much better in terms of pacing and feeling like stuff is actually happening, but you really can't just skip ahead to it. It's not a sequel, it's the last two thirds of the game. If FC is The Fellowship of the Ring, then SC is The Two Towers and The Return of the King rolled into one. If any of this sounds like something you might enjoy, well the first game is currently on sale for 10 bucks on Steam!

Lawyers aren't logical people, Cowboy. You're better off not trying to understand them. I mean, have you ever taken a look at bird law? That shit makes no sense!

So how does this work? You order the game and play it now and then just wrap it up for Christmas?

Yeah, I saw those. That sprite of Locke and Figaro Castle are particularly painful to look at but I don't give a shit. It's the best FF and I want it on Steam, damnit! I'd rather they just put up the original SNES version, obviously, but that's not happening. Modern Square-Enix is like an old relative with early onset dementia. Most of what they do makes no sense at all, so whenever they do something that's somehow halfway good, you gotta just appreciate it. edit: Apparently, other than the ugly sprite work, it's quite a good port. Seems it includes the enhancements from the GBA version (which was completely relocalized and has a much better translation) along with some other stuff. Sounds like the definitive edition of the game, all things considered. It's just a shame S-E felt the need to puke all over the visuals. :/

I might have to download some extra RAM...

Looks like the best FF is about to hit Steam!

I hate it when I come in this thread to post something and no one has posted since my last post... Anyway! New Steam sale and since dailies are dead I just grabbed a couple things right away. I was planning on getting those during the holidays sale anyway. Now that I own the Season Pass, the Scholar upgrade was like 5 bucks so it was kind of a no-brainer. Snakebird was kind of an impulse purchase but I was already interested in it, I just had no idea it was on Steam. Thought it was a mobile game, for some reason. As for AC, I'm kind of annoyed that they weren't discounted separately but meh, I probably would've gotten both anyway if they had been 15 bucks each. Now I just need to play Black Flag already. So, this is the part where I normally say I shouldn't buy anything else but I always end up doing it. There's not much else that's really tempting me, though. I had a few more things in my cart but ended up removing them. Except for the occasional random 1-2$ game I don't expect I'll be buying anything else major. It kind of helps that the stuff I really want like Wasteland 2 isn't discounted at all. edit: Oh, yeah, this was actually ordered a few days ago but I kinda forgot about it until I got my shipping notice just now. I've been on the fence about it for a long time because, well, it's fucking weird but also because the lack of a built-in USB rechargeable battery is kind of annoying. I mean, it's 2015 for fuck's sake, I shouldn't have to buy AA batteries for a damn game controller. Anyway, I was already thinking about maybe getting one last week but what tipped me over was the left stick on my dualshock 3 being increasingly shit. It no longer stays properly centered (sometimes causing involuntary movement if a game is particularly sensitive) and sometimes even gets stuck on the sides when I flick it too hard. That's been going on for a while but it started bugging out on me while I was playing Trails in the Sky the other day and suddenly it was the most annoying thing ever. I decided it was time to replace it and kind of defaulted to looking at dualshock 4 prices at first but I said fuck it and got this instead. Figured it was now or never.

As usual, I'm in.

I wasn't sure whether I should wait until closer to launch or even pre-order at all but then I realized that, for some reason, S-E didn't inflate the price to 70-80$ CAD due to exchange rate bullshit. Factor in the pre-order discount and the lack of taxes and it ends up being way cheaper than if I had bought a physical console copy. So whatever, I got what I wanted and I'm not getting screwed over on the price so I'm supporting it. Of course, Koei Tecmo's PC ports are notorious for being absolutely abysmal. So, this could potentially be the first time I make use of Steam refunds. Unlike some PC folks, I'm not too difficult to please, though. As long as this at least matches the PS4 version's visuals and 1080p60fps, I'll be happy.

Honestly, IW was godawful in every possible way compared to the original but as its own thing it was kind of alright. I enjoyed what I played of it, I would've finished it if only it wasn't so fucking buggy. I got about halfway through it and then out of nowhere some retarded kid NPCs decided I was a big bad man and started running around like a bunch of assholes instead of letting me talk to them. So I got locked out of completing that quest how I wanted to, which pissed me off and made me quit the game for good. I tried going back to it but these days it seems the game likes to completely minimize itself and return you to the desktop for a solid few seconds every single time it needs to load the next area, which is some of the most insanely immersion-breaking shit I've ever experienced. Actually, you know what, I take it back. IW isn't alright at all! It's a piece of fucking garbage!

If you were the regular member and I was the shit mod, you would be so banned right now!