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Aielman15

@Aielman15@lemmy.world

Profil ze zdalnego serwera może być niekompletny. Zobacz więcej na oryginalnej instancji.

Aielman15,
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This hurts to read.

Their games were rough around the edges but sure as hell showed a lot of passion. The lore and attention to detail that went into their worlds were unparalleled, especially in the open world genre where lots of content is just generic copy-pasted fetch quests or mindlessly following the Ubisoft formula.

Aielman15, (edited )
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I have a few.

PGR3, a Xbox360 racing game, contains Geometry Wars 1 and 2 as mini games. YT Link

Celeste contains the entirety of Celeste Classic (PICO-8) as an easter egg in one of its levels. YT Link

Xenogears, a PS1 JRPG game, contains a battle arena minigame, and I spent a few hours on that as a kid. YT Link

Machinarium’s Gomoku/5 in a row minigame is so much fun, I played it with my friends at school when we didn’t want to listen to our teacher :) By the way, I really recommend Machinarium to every fan of old school point-and-click games.

Aielman15, (edited )
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First of all, I don’t see how a series where each and every entry is unique and has nothing to do with the previous ones (apart from a few recurring names) could be “well past done”. They don’t even share the same gameplay or combat system.

And also, Square has “tried something new” pretty much all the time. Triangle Strategy, Live a Live, Nier, Kingdom Hearts, Star Ocean, SaGa, Mana series (with an upcoming title next year), Dragon Quest, Octopath Traveler… I’m just listing a few, but I could go on. It’s not even a thing they suddenly decided to do. Even a few gens back, I remember playing Star Ocean, Last Remnant, Resonance of Fate and other lesser known titles. If you want to go back to the PS1 days, Vagrant Story and Threads of Fate come to mind, but there are surely a lot more I’m currently forgetting. EDIT: Xenogears too! I don’t know how I could forget that one.

Aielman15, (edited )
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I played Lost Odyssey and very much liked it, but it’s not Square.

It was made by Mistwalker with MS backing, after Sakaguchi left Square.

Actually, re-reading my list, I noticed that I mentioned Resonance of Fate, which wasn’t Square, either! It was published by Sega. The other titles should be correct.

Aielman15,
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Mistwalker is the company founded by Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy. It should come to no surprise that the game is really evocative of many early FF titles.

Aielman15,
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The obvious answer is Pathologic. You play as one of three possible characters in a black plague-infested town in the russian steppe, trying to help people and survive.

As days go by, the situation worsens and, in order to survive, you are forced to make very hard decisions. Can you spare the food for the others? Will you rob someone of their medicines? Will you risk going to the most dangerous parts of the city, where the stench of infection permeates the air?

I’ll quote The Nocturnal Rambler’s review of the game, which is one of my favourite video game reviewers:

Making it to the end of a day is a genuine accomplishment in this game, considering all the work you have to do to stay alive, and that the game really doesn’t care if you live or die. It won’t hold your hand to make sure you get through to the end; it’s entirely possible to make it through 10 days and then back yourself into a corner where you have absolutely no hope of survival, short of loading a save from a few (in-game) days ago. Or perhaps to save yourself the agony of replaying several hours of the game, you end up in terrifying, desperate scenarios where you have to sell your only weapon for a few scraps of bread, or murder a child for the medicine he’s carrying while you’re about to die from infection. That’s true horror right there.

It’s not an easy game and it’s not a good game, even. It’s old and dated and janky, but it’s also full of charm and personality. I wouldn’t say it’s a game meant to be played, as much as it is an experience worth going through. You won’t have fun playing the game. Even if you can overlook its pain points, it’s an objectively oppressive game that will make you feel miserable from beginning to end, and increasingly so. I wouldn’t say it’s for everyone, and I don’t mean that in an elitist way. Some people simply won’t stand this much bleakness during the time they are supposedly spending to find entertainment.

Aielman15, (edited )
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I have heard very good things about it, but I can’t talk for myself, as I haven’t played it. My only recommendation is to stay away from the console versions of the game, as I tried it on Xbox One and it was unplayable (heard the same about the PS4 port, too). Maybe it’s better on next gen, but I wouldn’t risk it.

Two things worth mentioning:

  • The remake only has one character, the Haruspex. If you want to play as the Bachelor or the Changeling, you’ll need to grab the original game.
  • There are difficulty settings in the remake. I would leave them as default, as I think the difficulty of the game, and the conflicting decisions you’ll need to undertake because of it, is an integral part of the experience. That being said, if you really like the game and want to see it through, you can tweak the difficulty a bit, and accessibility is always a plus in my book.
  • Again, this is just hearsay as I haven’t played it, but from what I’ve gathered, Pathologic 2 is more a retelling than a faithful remake. Same setting and same ending, but a different road, so to speak. You could play either one and then move on to the other if you like it.
Aielman15,
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Will this be the year they finally release something good?

Aielman15,
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I feel bad for forgetting about that game, mostly because it’s not my cup of tea, but I totally agree with you, it was great.

Aielman15,
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Journey to the savage planet is a very recent game that ties those two genres together. There is a lot of platforming to do and you eventually unlock more equipment, such as the grappling hook and a limited booster jet, that further improve how you traverse the environment. Unfortunately the shooter part is kinda basic from beginning to end, but if you liked Ratchet & Clank, you’ll be okay with it.

Aside from that one, I don’t remember other games that try to blend platforming with shooter. In Psychonauts you shoot psychic beams, but maybe that’s a bit of a stretch.

Aielman15,
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Never heard of it, but the YT comments seem very positive about this game.

Aielman15,
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Also, the platforming elements seen in one of the previous trailers are kinda reminiscent of Ori, which is nice.

Aielman15,
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I found the game very rough around the edges, and had to look at an internet guide to tell me where to go in the last level, but it’s a game really worth playing for the atmosphere and story alone.

There’s a great video essay on YT that takes a deep dive into the story and symbolism of the game, which I really recommend watching after finishing the game, if you’re into that form of content. A complete story breakdown of Signalis.

Aielman15,
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I can relate to that. These days I find myself gravitating more towards calm/introspective games that let me sit back, explore at my own pace and relax.

Wish you a good day, and I hope you are enjoying the holidays :)

Aielman15, (edited )
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Sad to see another dev forced to close.

I admit I had never heard of them nor their games.

EDIT: Apparently the game sucked and nobody bought it? Looking at some random gameplay video, it really looks like a mess.

Aielman15,
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Oh, I see. As I said, I had never heard of them or their games before today, so I was missing the context.

Aielman15,
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Oh, another Dontnod game? Pretty excited for this too!

Aielman15,
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It reminds me a LOT of Zone of the enders, and I loved that game.

Too bad it’s an online-only game.

Aielman15,
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I’m a big Dontnod fan. They really know how to craft an emotional story with some great character interaction and drama. None of their games is perfect, but they are always an enjoyable (and very emotional) ride.

This seems yet another LiS-game-but-different-title-for-legal-reasons (kind of like Tell me why), so I’m really looking forward to it.

Aielman15,
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At first I thought it was another entry in the Tales of franchise and I was confused lol

Seems really fun, the movement looks very fluid and reminds me of Ori.

Aielman15,
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Kojima and incomprehensible trailers, name a more iconic duo.

Aielman15,
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I’m sorry for them, but I promised myself not to buy anything from LoG after the shitshow that was Armello.

They promised an update to bring cross-play to the game, went silent for years, and when it finally arrived, it broke the game to the point that it was more frustrating than fun to play. I waited for a fix for months, and it never arrived. I’m not sure they ever fixed it (to my knowledge, they haven’t), but even if they did, the fact that they took a game I rightfully bought (the premium edition no less, because I really liked it), broke it to the point of becoming unplayable, and left it in that state for months, is inexcusable.

Aielman15,
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The latest entry (Reverie under the moonlight) was a pretty sweet metroidvania, a bit on the short side, but with engaging gameplay and full of charm. I’m happy to see the developer giving the IP another go.

I still have to play their latest game, Minoria. But I like Momodora’s pixel art a lot more.

Aielman15,
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The way it moves seamlessly from isometric to 3rd person shooter is cool. The pixel art is very good-looking. I hope the game turns out to be fun.

It’s worth mentioning that there is a demo available on Steam: Holstin Steam Page

Aielman15,
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Rewards is being moved from its own app to the Xbox app. Everything will keep working as usual.

Aielman15,
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It wouldn’t have changed much. It’s great that they are polishing the game and fixing its performance issues, but the main problem with the game is that it’s just not fun, and no amount of polishing can change that.

A few people can find enjoyment in this game and it’s good for them, but the majority will simply keep ignoring it and play one among the dozens of better received games that released just this year alone.

Aielman15,
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Is the entire gaming industry collapsing?

It seems like I’m reading headlines similar to this one almost daily, as of late.

Aielman15, (edited )
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I’ve been playing Dead Space Remake, since it’s been released on GamePass. Had to jump through some hoops to get my Xbox account linked to EA, but eventually managed to do it and I’ve been playing it for the past two weeks.

Just reached chapter 8 (comms array). So far, it’s good. I’ll preface saying that the last time I played the original Dead Space was five or six years ago, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I feel like the game’s a lot more balanced than the OG, although not overly difficult. I remember blasting my way through hard mode with nothing but the starting gun back in the days, but I am playing more conservative here because I feel like ammo drops are scarcer, and stasis stations are a lot rarer than they were originally.

Finding all the guns in the wild instead of having to build them first lets you playtest them against real opponents, and having half the tech tree locked until you progress enough means that you are more incentivized in using them. In the original, I’d main the starting gun and install all my power nodes on it, while in the remake I’m acquiring nodes faster than I’m able to unlock upgrades for the guns, so I’m spending them on my side weapons. The ripper is still as gloriously broken as I remember it!

I like that they didn’t rely exclusively on the procedurally generated enemy spawns, nor on the hand-made encounters, but have a mix of both. Procedurally generated content tends to fall flat because a computer doesn’t know how to set the mood and jump scare you appropriately; while hand-made content tends to grow stale after you play the game once or twice (or reload the same section to complete it with more ammo/health). A mix of both is the best of both worlds, and I’m positively surprised by how well it works in practice.

As for the most discussed improvement in the game, the interconnected world, I honestly find it… okay, but I’m not blown away by it. It works in games like the OG Resident Evil because you have a bit more control over where to go, how to tackle specific threats, and what enemies to expect in each room. I remember myself planning ahead the best route to reach my destination inside Spencer’s mansion or the police station. But Dead Space remake is still a fundamentally linear experience from start to end, so the ability to backtrack to previously explored areas is never fully utilized.

This is further exacerbated by a map system that I find too clunky to use (it’s very slow and sometimes confusing when there are too many levels), the lack of precise notation (security doors are fully visible, but master override chests are one of many small icons that I’d never find if I didn’t know where they are to begin with, and lockers do not appear on the map at all), and the frequent lack of proper rewards for backtracking.

I tested the system as soon as I was given a chance. After I completed the second level and got my first security clearance, I backtracked to the security door situated on the tramway halfway through the first level. I got ambushed by six (!) procedurally-spawned enemies on my way there, just to find common loot inside the room.

At first I was confused by this, but now that I’m halfway through the game, I understand how the system was designed: The developers didn’t expect you to backtrack at your leisure. Instead, they carefully placed locked rooms and lockers at just the right clearance level, that you’re supposed to have when the linear story gets you near those locked rooms. The level 1 clearance door on the first level? You can get it quite easily on chapter 6, when you pass by that room. The same applies to side missions as well. They are designed so you can complete them on your way to the main objective with very little extra effort.

I don’t hate the game for this. I loved the original and I’m totally fine with the remake being another linear experience. I’m just confused by the design principle: they talked extensively about making the world more interconnected and adding side content and optional exploration on the side, but it ended up being just more content that you do while you progress through the linear story, rather than making it work properly as an open-ended experience, and I feel like the attempt at making the remake feel more open ended than it was originally largely failed for me, as I never felt truly in control of where to go or when to complete certain side quests or get some loot that was previously inaccessible.

As for the changes in the story, I’m only halfway through the game, and I don’t want to tackle the argument until I have the full picture of the story. I’ll only say that I liked some changes, I was okay with others, and I’m a bit dubious about a handful. One of them is Hammond, who is a lot less present in this first half of the game compared to the original; the other is Temple and Cross, who I like so far, but I feel like they are two completely different characters whose role could have been given to new characters instead of replacing their original storyline. But as I said, I’m only halfway through the game, so I may change my opinion on this.

TL;DR: I’ll write my full opinion on the game when I finish it, but I’m liking it so far and I think it’s a valid replacement for the original if you never played it and don’t want to buy both. Some changes are appreciated, others less but don’t detract from the overall experience, and the game for the most part feels like “the original, but improved”, which is a perfectly valid spot to land on when you are developing a faithful remake. The game feels and plays like the original, but still manages to bring something new for who, like me, played the hell out of the first game back in the days.

Aielman15,
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TL;DR: The game only has two developers, who are also married. Unfortunately, one of them has been diagnosed with cancer, and coupled with the usual 2020 struggles, they don’t have enough money left to pay for active developers.

From the story and their words, they seem really passionate about the project - they are former developers from another MMORPG game. It seems like they are putting the game on “life support”, hoping to see some improvements in the sales. If things don’t change, the project will ultimately be halted.

It makes me sad. I don’t have any interest in MMO games, but they seem genuinely good people who tried their best. And cancer sucks, and seems like it’s late stage too.

Aielman15, (edited )
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When I was a kid, my brother and I would play a lot of single player games together by swapping controller every time a level was completed or a life was lost. Mainly Crash Bandicoot, which was a favourite of both (his favourite was Warped and mine was Cortex Strikes Back), although we also played Spyro, Ape Escape, Abe’s Odyssey, Metal Gear Solid and the Resident Evil series this way, too (with slight variations to take into account for the longer levels).

We’d also play Crash Team Racing in competitive mode too. We didn’t have the 4-players thingy, so when friends came home, we’d swap controllers regularly. Fun was guaranteed for hours. I miss those times.

What did you think of Sea of Stars? angielski

I thought that it was overall good fun. The battle system is excellent and the music is great. The characters are cool and generally quite enjoyable. However, the standard ending of the game really annoyed me. It’s totally anti-climactic. I really don’t want to go back and do a bunch of side quests (collectathon in...

Aielman15,
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The gameplay is fantastic and offers a lot of variety (especially as you grow your team and unlock more skills and combo attacks), and the art style and art direction, locations, and the soundtrack are beautiful. I had a lot of fun exploring, looking for treasure, talking to everyone, finding tons of secrets and side quests. The story is very much cliché and mostly an afterthought, but it’s fine (not bad, not good, just fine) and the cast is cute.

Unfortunately, 2/3 into the game, the developers either depleted their budget, or they stopped giving a shit. The story feels super rushed in the last act, and the ending is downright insulting. Half the cast enters a portal at the end of the second act, and you never see or hear from them again. One of the main party members goes like “Oh my, this thing I just discovered changes everything, I need to study this more” but you never see them again until the very end, and they don’t do anything, nor do they say why the thing they found was important or what did they study. A lot of things that were foreshadowed or hinted at, like the legendary sea slug or the Queen that was, are just random optional bosses scattered in the game’s world with no purpose or backstory whatsoever. Most don’t even have a dungeon attached to them. The true ending is a slap in the face.

I loved the game, but the last act and the ending really soured my experience with it.

Aielman15, (edited )
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I’d have to spoiler tag the entire message to be able to reply to that.

spoilerFor a multitude of reasons. First of all, the true ending is achieved by collecting random Shells around the world. Sure, you have a magical parrot telling you where the missing chests are, but in my case it would tell me that a chest was missing in the Flooded Graveyard, and I’d spend four hours straight going up and down the same map over, and over and over again, until I finally gave up and looked for an internet guide to tell me where the missing chest was. I’m a completionist, but I don’t care about achievements: I like exploring maps and collecting stuff and finding secrets, but I hate random, pointless collectibles and I never care about them in the games I play. Having them tied to the true ending was a huge mistake IMO and ruined my experience. Secondly, as I said in another comment of mine: I despise time travel. Always. It just doesn’t work, unless you put a lot of thought into it, and the Sea of Stars developers clearly didn’t even try. Garl’s chapter was probably the most emotional moment of the game, but the true ending comes and says “Yeah, no, he’s alive and well, and actually it never happened. B’st did those things, not Garl”, which doesn’t make any sense as B’st did not know Garl and would not be able to imitate him, nor do the same things he did. The purpose of reviving Garl was for him to throw an apple at the bad guy to taunt him and have him choose to fight in place of his minion? Seriously, you go through the hassle of collecting all conches, and that’s the only thing that differs from the normal ending. The rest plays out exactly the same. You defeat the Fleshmancer, and… Resha’an shows up, takes his bf into a portal with him, doesn’t say a word to the party, and goes away. And everyone’s happy. To say that I was underwhelmed is an euphemism. I was expecting some new revelations, some closure, but all I got is a slightly different turn of events with a different boss fight and an equally disappointing ending. Meanwhile, dozens of questions remain unanswered. What was Resha’an researching? What the heck was the “night” inside of Zale, and why had he to confront it? Valere is able to fly just as well as he does, and has no night inside her at all. Why was Serai hiding her true identity from her crew? What happened to Brugaves, the Acolytes and the Dweller? (Yes, I know that they end up being boss fights in the Messenger, but I should NOT be required to play an entirely different game to have some closure to this storyline. That would be like Capcom asking their players to play Monster Hunter to know what happens to Ada in Resident Evil)

Aielman15,
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I played Plague Tale 2 this summer. It’s a wonderful game and very much worth experiencing, but it would crash every time I opened the skill tree and the crafting tree. I tried contacting the devs about it, offered every info I had (system info, steps to replicate the bug, things I already tried to solve the issue, etc).

At first, customer support gave some generic advice (check files, uninstall/reinstall, update drivers, etc). Then they directed me to the Discord server of Focus Entertainment. Like, what? Why the heck is everything a Discord server nowadays? Why do I need to join a Discord server to get customer support?

But anyway, I did. They told me that, in the Discord server, I’d be able to talk to some developers. Instead, there were only a bunch of people from the marketing team, and they didn’t even bother with answering me. When I tried contacting customer support again, they didn’t reply to my email.

I’m 100% positive that I was not the only one who had found said bug, because I found a bunch of people on Reddit and Steam discussions reporting the same problem. As far as I know, it still hasn’t been patched.

So, not only do you have to deal with dozens of people before you’re actually able to reach the department that can actually deal with your problem. Sometimes, you are not able to reach the department at all. But hey, you can chat with someone from the marketing team on Discord! (If they actually bother with answering you at all, that is)

Aielman15,
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It crashed on me whether I’d scroll slowly or fast. Oftentimes just hovering on one of the perks was enough to make the game stop working.

I’d have to reset the pc and replay the same section over a dozen times just to get one upgrade. It was infuriating.

Aielman15,
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I’ve never found sex scenes in games appealing. First of all, there’s rarely any build up to them. If there is, it’s just sitting there, listening to an NPC talking about themseves for 10 minutes and selecting the “good” answer to gain “affinity points” and proceed with the dialogue.

Then you get to the sex scene, and it’s either fade to black immediately (hopefully), or two uncanny valley dolls touching each other for a few seconds.

After the sex scene, the partner becomes another NPC, sitting there doing nothing, having completed their purpose. So inspiring.

Aielman15,
@Aielman15@lemmy.world avatar

Just finished Sea of Stars. I never 180’d from a game so much.

I started it a week and a half ago, and I was in love with the game. The story was cliché, sure, but everything else was perfect, and the characters were kind of cute.

But the third act feels too rushed and the ending… Oh boy, the ending. It just doesn’t feel like an ending at all. I was extremely disappointed with it, and too many setpieces just led to nowhere.

And the true ending was even worse, in that it not only has very arbitrary requirements to unlock (including finding all 60+ collectibles scattered across the map in random locations), but ruins one of the best and arguably the most emotional moments of the game as well.

spoilerI despise time travel. Always. It just doesn’t work, unless you put a lot of thought into it, and the Sea of Stars developers clearly didn’t even try.

Aielman15,
@Aielman15@lemmy.world avatar

Let’s add this to the list of shitty anti-consumer choices that big tech corporations have implemented this year.

IIRC Microsoft still hasn’t reverted on their asinine choice of locking their console players into their overpriced branded SSDs.

Aielman15,
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All this error code seems to be doing is requiring third party hardware to go through proper checks to verify hardware.

Translated: They want third parties to pay for the “Xbox seal of approval”.

Aielman15,
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I enjoyed DS3 for what it was. The lore went surprisingly deep and the story was fun, although the love triangle was too distracting and the co-op partner was pretty much absent from the story if you weren’t playing with another player.

It was yet another game that tried to stray from its roots to chase the CoD golden goose. That generation was full of them (I remember being extremely disappointed by Resident Evil 6 and Ace Combat Assault Horizon). Dead Space 3 was, IMO, the game that managed to strike some semblance of balance between its two souls, at least compared to all those other COD copycats. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it was a great game, or even a good game, but I appreciated it for what it was.

Aielman15,
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This is the GOTY of internet comments.

Aielman15,
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I’ve been eyeing this one for a while. Kind of reminds me of Stronghold in its heydays.

Aielman15,
@Aielman15@lemmy.world avatar

Sea of Stars.

Story is a bit too cliché at the moment, but graphics, soundtrack, gameplay and exploration are top notch. It really captures the feeling of being a kid, coming back home from school and playing those old school JRPG, but the QoL features make it much more enjoyable, and it doesn’t waste your time like those games.

I’m really satisfied for now. I also like the cast, it’s a nice change of pace from the edgy/moody characters that lots of JRPG seem to have. Sitting down at the firepit and listening to the two protagonists joking and having fun among themselves really makes me like them.

My only gripe is the story. As I said, it’s a bit too much on the “generic” side. Like, it’s not bad, I’m having fun, but it feels like, you know, been there, done that. Hopefully it gets better later on.

Aielman15, (edited )
@Aielman15@lemmy.world avatar

I totally agree, Garl is awesome.

At first I thought he was the comic relief guy, and I’d spend the following 20-40 hours listening to cringe-inducing Marvel-like humor. Instead they crafted a character that was funny but never over-the-top, and actually proved useful a few times (especially on a chapter that I won’t discuss because I’m not sure how spoilers work on Lemmy and its various applications yet).

I have not finished the game yet, and although the story is a bit cliché, it also has a few good moments, and I’m loving the cast so far.

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