[Aptorian]

I've never actually played a Pokemon game. I hope Nintendo eventually brings it to the Switch.

[Silencer]

Seduce Goose, on 16 August 2017 - 07:53 AM, said:

I've never actually played a Pokemon game. I hope Nintendo eventually brings it to the Switch.

I'd be super down for that. It doesn't seem like they're planning to, but I can see so much potential.
Obviously you could do more graphically, and I'd be happy with just a new, traditional Pokemon game that looks shiny on the Switch. But you could also change things up to be more 3d,and more tactical - though I doubt they're ever going to change the formula up too much. But I'm hoping they at least bring the next gen to Switch.

[Traveller]

My boy has discovered Pokemon - he's been working through the first series (that theme song!) and we've been collecting them on Pokemon Go. The gym system is a bit crappy imo, but there are a few local ones we've been beating and leaving Pokemon to defend, but there isn't much of a reward for doing so.

Playing No Man's Sky, post update.

I now have a base under construction, a resident Overseer, Scientist and Armouror, with each one sending me on various missions for specific materials to upgrade the base.

I still don't have a goddamn Atlas Pass, or anywhere near enough units to upgrade my ship, but I've just created my first storage container and I've found a local moon with some rare and expensive deposits to sell. (Post update you can teleport to the last Space Station you travelled from)
so hoping to make some decent cash soon.

At the moment I'm just wishing I'd set my base on a planet that doesn't have sub zero lethal storms every 5 minutes; but at least when you do set up a new home base on a new planet you can import your improvements. I believe, anyway.

[Morgoth]

So, it's worth it now?

[Tiste Simeon]

Recently finished Dishonoured 2. Good game though not really enough in the way of new and exciting things to really make it stand apart from the first IMO.

I finished every level with highest chaos because honestly I'm not good enough to stealth it. So the ending was brutal. But not as harrowing or upsetting as the first games high chaos ending.

[Traveller]

Morgoth, on 17 August 2017 - 06:38 AM, said:

So, it's worth it now?

I'm still undecided. I would say that because you can likely get this for way cheaper than on release, you're getting a good deal. But you have to like this type of game.

My current problem with it is, although I have a base and objectives, everything takes so damn long to accomplish. For example, I want to add glass corridors/domes to base. So I need frost crystals to make glass. Frost crystals are on another planet in the system (which you have to search for) and when you get there you can't harvest frost crystals without Hazmat gauntlets. Which I don't have. To make them... I need a scientist and workstation. Then I need to search the system for the components to make the gauntlets, which I have no idea where to find.

All this requires fuel, and a lot of jumps between planets and moons. Ok, I've been distracted by distress calls and selling and blowing up pirates, but I feel I spend an awful lot of game time with little or no actual progress. I still don't have any glass!

That said, it's still good to land on an unexplored planet; and the differences in biomes are really obvious. It's graphically improved too, so flying over seas and islands at dawn can look very impressive. I'm actually being drawn back to it, but I'm finding the pace incredibly slow. Might just be me though, not necessarily a game problem.

[Aptorian]

I've played a ton of Agents of Mayhem the past few days. It's actually pretty okay. Not a great game by any measure but it's a solid open world. Once you unlock more, much better Agents the game becomes much more fun.

I think the game is very hit and miss in the writing and the storytelling but I have a soft spot for it. This is probably the best try at making an offbrand 80's action figure cartoon into a video game I have played. The game has heart. The cartoon cutscenes are pretty good and the characters evoke the memories of GI Joe characters.

Unfortunately nothing about the game is really particularly successful. It's a weak 3/5 game. Far too much repetitive content and cut and paste mission structures.

Still I hope they get a chance to make a better sequel.

[Silencer]

Silencer, on 06 May 2017 - 05:14 AM, said:

So, I've just recently purchased Pokemon X because I felt like doing a run with a Froakie instead of Fennekin. After playing it for a couple of hours, I am happy that my initial back-of-the-brain thought that X/Y are better Pokemon games than Sun/Moon has been confirmed.

Now, don't get me wrong. X/Y are waaaaay too easy. And they're missing some of the nice, 'quality of life' features that Sun/Moon brought - notably the quick access to Pokeballs, and the game remembering what moves will be effective if you've already fought a certain type of Pokemon, and giving you the option to enter Pokemon Refresh immediately after battle (which, honestly, I thought was silly at first but it makes sense to take care of your Pokemon after a fight and it also means you get to remove status effects for free, so...). The scenery is a nice change, and having some traditional Pokemon with different looks and types is a nice change. Honestly, it feels like a great vacation from the regular Pokemon experience and, given its modeled on Hawaii, I'd say that's what they were going for.
Overall, though, X/Y are better. Gyms are better than Trials, and the rollerskates are better than Ride Pokemon, and the experience of being on a journey for the sake of completing the Pokedex/figuring out Mega Evolution/beating the Elite Four is somehow more compelling than going on a trip round some islands to take on the Trials and learn about Z-moves. (Though, incidentally, while they are vastly more annoying with their little poses than Mega Evolution, Z-moves are a much better system because they can be busted out randomly without any warning - it's more dynamic.)

The long and the short of it is that they really nailed the feel of Alola being a side trip, a holiday, a change of pace - but in doing so they also highlighted what makes a Pokemon game. I'm not saying I'd be disappointed if they did something similar for the next run, but a return to the tradition would be better. Even if the one after that does another holiday-feeling game.

So, to continue a thought from a few months ago and put even more Pokemon-related posts in this thread:

I've now 'finished' Pokemon Sun. As I suspected, I was really close to completing it when I got sidetracked with Pokemon X, and most of my comments stand.
X/Y were too easy. Sun/Moon have some amazing quality of life UI improvements that all Pokemon game should have. Ride Pokemon suck, bring back the bicycle (though I'd also like an option in X/Y to turn off the rollerskates because I find them annoying now), even if it's nice not to have to use up a move slot on the utility moves. Z-Moves are conceptually better than Mega Evolutions but look corny as hell. Gyms beat Trials. Sun/Moon is a great side trip.

But I'm gonna expand on a few thoughts, mostly just to stop them knocking around inside my head. XD

The difficulty thing: I honestly think the biggest problem with X/Y being easy, comes from the length of the routes, the level of the wild Pokemon, and the bonus XP from the EXP Share. Most of that is alleviated by turning the EXP Share off, yes, but there are a couple of problems that persist - namely, with Delphox, most of the game is 'easy mode' anyway, back it up with a Blastoise and you're night unbeatable. So EXP Share isn't that important there. Secondly, it's natural to have EXP Share on. I know most hardcore players dislike it because it doesn't give EV growth for the Pokemon not in battle so it makes them weaker on the competitive scene...but that's a tiny, almost insignificant fragment of the player base: most filthy casuals don't give a damn and it barely makes a difference to solo play. Sun/Moon seemed, at least to me, to reduce the amount of EXP Share but I can't back that up - it's apparently still 50%. However...
Where the rest of the problem lies is straight up with the amount of XP to be had. A Route in X/Y is probably twice as long as the routes in Sun/Moon - and often has more unavoidable grass, and even usually has more unavoidable trainer battles (or, at least, your choices are trainer battle OR grass, not neither). This leads naturally to more encounters. Which means more XP. Case in point: finishing the gyms in X/Y and my Pokemon were almost universally pushing lvl 60, or in the case of X I had my leads up at 80. Sun saw me topping out at 60 after the League, and most were below that point. (There's a secondary reason for this I will come to shortly.) Now, this made the League harder - though frankly it was still most not a "challenge", just battles took longer and actually required mid-battle heals - and indeed all the battles in the game were closer together level-wise than in X/Y. But it's not just the lack of encounters at work.
The next factor is that wild Pokemon levels are consistently lower than in X/Y - because of the shorter routes and less trainers, the 'mons don't get as powerful as quickly. Case in point: Route 14 in X/Y is home to level 30-32 wild Pokemon, and 34-38 with trainers. In Sun/Moon, Route 14 is home to 28-31 wild, and 30-31 with trainers. That's a huge difference, in Pokemon terms, because you essentially need to be pushing level 40 to deal wit those trainers easily, and 35ish for the wild ones - in Sun/Moon, 33 should be fine, which is about 7 levels below X/Y. In fact, in Sun/Moon 'mon and trainers don't get near those levels until Route 17 (the last Route)! They've breached 40 by the time you get to Route 17 in X/Y. Plus, there are more trainers here, as stated earlier. So they expected the growth to be faster in X/Y (though not, I think, by as much as it ended up being).
So, this accounts for the vast majority of difficulty differences between the two games. But there's a third factor - less Pokemon per route, yes, but also less Pokemon *variety* per route. This means that you end up changing your party out more frequently, contributing to a more limited growth. Where in Y I basically had the same team start to finish barring a few small changes, in Sun I added in Pokemon that I liked much more frequently, because the pickings were so bare (never mind that Pokemon with a "10%" chance of appearing on a Route seemed harder to find in Sun than Pokemon with a "4%" chance in X/Y >.>). I don't think this hugely limited the growth but it definitely contributed. Might have added up to another five or so levels over the course of the game.
Overall? The challenge is better in Sun/Moon, as I originally thought. But the *reasons* for that difference are bad. It almost amounts to less content, less opportunities to catch cool Pokemon, to artificially increase the difficulty. In my opinion, as a filthy casual, is that it's just not worth it. I borderline complained about X/Y being too easy - but I doubt I'd have enjoyed them half as much if they'd taken the approach Sun/Moon have, regardless of added tension in the battles.

Now, what's weird about Sun/Moon - and bearing in mind, my Pokemon were not horrifically over-leveled like they were for the vast majority of X/Y, which accounts for some of this - is that the damage numbers seem way down. Like, WAY down. This is especially noticeable in regards to moves of the same type, but different Power values. So, in X/Y a "Super Effective" move would almost constantly do massive damage: we're talking a third or more of the target's health bar, at least. In Sun/Moon, a "Super Effective" hit might only do a fifth of a bar - and these are moves with a Power of 90, in some cases. Flip-side, of course, sometimes they OHK the target (especially if it happens to be 4x weak to the type) - barring the goddamn 'Sturdy' ability that has definitely become far too prevalent XD. But the really weird thing is that sometimes my "Super Effective" Power 90 move will do, say, a bit over a half of a bar. But a Power 80 move will do substantially less - like a quarter of a bar. Now, part of this could be chalked up to interplay of stats - maybe the first move relied on Attack, the second on Special Attack, maybe the opponent had a much higher Spec. Def. than their Defense stat, whatever. The point is, that huge of a delta on the damage dealt was not apparent in X/Y, ever. But now it happens often enough for me to start wondering what on earth is causing it. Again, being 10-15 levels up in X/Y might account for the lack of comparison, but if so it's pretty jarring to experience. I mean, it's not like I'm unfamiliar with the game declaring "Super Effective" due to type weakness but a health bar only moving a small amount due to my Pokemon being far too strong - but that's not quite the same thing. Anyway, seemed weird to me.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Greninja, the X/Y final form with Water/Dark typing, was not, as I had feared, as completely OP as Delphox. Fire/Psychic always seemed like an insane combo to me, but it's definitely well suited to the gyms of X/Y. Greninja actually ended up playing second to my Jolteon in my X run because it was far less easy to get away with running it first out the gate (also why my Y run was so much wealthier - I gave Delphox an Amulet Coin to double money and it basically entered all battles, duh!) and I had to think a bit about what I was going up against. Grass types are still woefully underpowered on the type chart - so many Pokemon resist Grass, or do a lot of damage to Grass, that I completed X/Y without a single Grass-type in party. Sun was different but only because my starter was Grass (and apparently Rowlet is the most advantageous choice in early and late game - though it does become Grass/Ghost on final evolution). Definitely has a better chance to shine than in other games - I do wonder if making Grass types more useful swayed the decisions on what Pokemon to include or make common, as they've had a hard run of it traditionally.

But! There is one thing that Sun/Moon did really well: post-game. X/Y gave it a fair crack, with a small plot-line to follow and the Legendary birds to catch, and Kiloude Town opening up for some training and such, but ultimately it was, again, not challenging and over relatively quickly (with the exception to repeat battles in Kiloude Town) - still wish the game gave you the option to reset gyms, especially as you get given a new starter straight after the first load post-credits. Sun/Moon...they do a bit better. Multiple 'Tapu' Pokemon to chase after. A bunch of Ultra Beasts to catch, with an actual quest to prompt you on your way. A solid half-dozen high-level (and genuinely high-level, like 60+) trainers open up to battle and get various rewards from Pokemon to special items - and that's not count all the people to fight just to get to the Battle Tree, which does the repeat battle thing for this game. Two otherwise unobtainable Pokemon you've met earlier in the game can be retrieved (no battle) from a couple of special locations. And, of course, the obligatory ability to challenge the Pokemon League again if you want. Still not exactly New Game+ or anything, but a pretty solid effort nonetheless.


Oh, and as a side note, I think some of the dual-typing is starting to get out of hand with the latest Pokemon. It's been going that way for a while, and it's not strictly speaking a bad thing, but you really do just about need a phone or computer handy to Google what types some of the new 'mon are if you don't want to blindly switch between your roster to find a move that works (or, worse, if you actually want to catch the target Pokemon, a move that doesn't work TOO well)! Some of the dual-types are so vulnerable to common types it is hardly believable anyone would want them, too. Of course, there are veritable tanks who resist more than half of the chart, but they're the exception to the rule.


.........and if you read all of that, well done and/or sorry! XD

[Tiste Simeon]

Down South, on 18 August 2017 - 09:16 PM, said:

What a nerd

A succinct and accurate Tl:Dr

[Morgoth]

We should beat him up

[Maark Abbott]

Completed MegaNeps and got the normal ending. Going through NG+ to get the good ending and clear up any trophies I need (most of which seem relatively easy to get to be fair).

I've now got Atelier Sophie on order.

[Silencer]

Down South, on 18 August 2017 - 09:16 PM, said:

What a nerd

Tiste Simeon, on 20 August 2017 - 06:40 PM, said:

Down South, on 18 August 2017 - 09:16 PM, said:

What a nerd

A succinct and accurate Tl:Dr

Morgoth, on 21 August 2017 - 09:47 AM, said:

We should beat him up

Y'all can laugh all you want, but I'll be sitting over here, having fun with my PEGI 8+ games which I'm over-analyzing!

[Traveller]

Still playing No Man's Sky.

In fact, just had a few unintentionally late nights as I hadn't noticed the time, and there's aways just more thing to do.

Just had a great bit of luck; I happened to fly over an unmarked crash site; a ship with 46 inventory slots (which is kind of a game changer in NMS). The drives were all shot and needed repairing, and about half of the slots need units to unlock them, but similar ships I was looking at to exchange at the space station cost about 6 million units. It even looks cool, kind of like the dropship in Aliens!

I'm actually really enjoying this now. I need one of those rover things next.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 22 August 2017 - 10:54 AM

[Silencer]

Mental note to self: no, you cannot just pick Persona 4 back up after who knows how long and start playing. Almost everything in this game is gibberish to me right now. XD
Might start a new game and see what happens.


In other news: I am immediately reminded of how much nicer the Vita is than a 3DS. The dual screens was interesting and works really well for some things, but this thing looks amazing, is easy to hold, and feels much better in terms of build quality and responsiveness. Such a shame it never took off.

[Serenity]

Played a bit of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy yesterday. Good stuff, as usual, from Naughty Dog - although it may have to take a back seat to Elite Dangerous for the time being. I've currently made my home base at Leonard Nimoy Station, and am bounty hunting in Vulcan's rings.

[Tiste Simeon]

Flipping Crash Bandicoot is hard! Forgot how awkward the controls can be! Having a lot of fun though.

[Silencer]

So, uh, Slime Rancher is amazing. Like, it's a pretty laid back, straightforward game, but it's got that "just a bit more" addictive quality like the stupid Facebook games and such. Without all the bs timers and shit, mind.

It was free this month on Xbox Live, and I'd recently seen some let's play stuff on it, so I grabbed it. Silly, cute fun. It's done really well and is probably worth paying for tbh.

Of course, the downside is that I can see this being a time sink, just running around and ranching some slimes. It might wear thin in a week, but I know there are a bunch of areas I can't get to that have different slimes and stuff in them, so I expect it will last a decent amount of time. Certainly longer than any modern triple A shooter's campaign. XD

[Serenity]

I downloaded the XCOM 2 expansion 'War of the Chosen' last night. That's me sorted for the next few weeks

[acesn8s]

I started The Shadows of Mordor yesterday. It's a bit overwhelming as I have shiny item syndrome when playing sandbox games. I'm all over the map.

I'm glad I played a couple of the Batman Arkham games, otherwise I would be very frustrated with combat.

It's a good thing this has all the Middle Earth lore to fall back on, it really flushes out the game; otherwise, the story is a bit flat right now.

I like the nemesis system. Having bosses come back, get promoted, kill other bosses, level up, etc adds something to the game. I look to digging into it a bit more through the weekend, but I have a couple other heavy hitters in my queue and may switch to something else.

[Tiste Simeon]

Started playing Mass Effect Andromeda and am already hassling Loki with a bunch of questions!