What games are you playing now?

[JDR13]

Didn't have a lot of gaming time this past week. I'm still playing The Surge and really enjoying it. Ironically, I almost quit at the first boss fight before deciding to give it one more try. Now I think this might actually be my second-favorite soulslike.

 

[Jimmay]

Didn't have a lot of gaming time this past week. I'm still playing The Surge and really enjoying it. Ironically, I almost quit at the first boss fight before deciding to give it one more try. Now I think this might actually be my second-favorite soulslike.

Out of interest, what's your favourite?

 

[Carnifex]

I'm still romping around with Deadly Sin two, there's a challenge arena that I've progressed fairly far on yet stymied for now as the next bout features opponents more than twenty levels higher than me so...maybe I'll give them another shot in another five levels or so. Now we're in what feels like the final phase of the game, though I've been wrong about that before in the past so maybe not. If it ends soon it's been a blast and, if not, I'll continue the ride.

 

[JDR13]

Out of interest, what's your favourite?

Elden Ring by far. I also liked Jedi: Fallen Order quite a bit.

 

[Shagnak]

Didn't have a lot of gaming time this past week. I'm still playing The Surge and really enjoying it. Ironically, I almost quit at the first boss fight before deciding to give it one more try. Now I think this might actually be my second-favorite soulslike.

I'll be interested to know how hard you find the last area in the game. I found it very hard, certainly harder than then last part of The Surge 2. Possibly I should have tried a few more build combinations.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I started a playthrough of Dragon's Dogma 1, in preparation for DD2, and I have to restate what I said initially about the UI. To say it's a bit of a mess is an understatement. Very crowded and large.
I also have to look into if you can disable the pawn chatter from being logged to the chat log. They're constantly talking, especially during fights, and the log has a constant of 2-3 lines always on screen.

Also, I've installed an ultrawide mod to make it run at 21:9 resolutions, and I'm getting some weird artefacting with the transparent elements of the game. Also the lighting looks a bit weird in very dark places.

But even with all of these I want to push through and get to the core of the game. But the fights really are a bit chaotic, especially when there's a lot of enemies.
And I hate that the camera pulls away from me to my pawns grabbing hold of enemies, signaling that I should strike at them while they're holding them. It's surprisingly often happening.
During the prologue section I didn't even get to the dragon fight. Got killed by the manticore creature. I guess I'll try it again.

 

[Redglyph]

I also have to look into if you can disable the pawn chatter from being logged to the chat log. They're constantly talking, especially during fights, and the log has a constant of 2-3 lines always on screen.

I saw a few videos of both games and wondered how it was possible to hear or read anything they had to say during combat. Reading so much is out of the question, but if what they were saying was at least audible, it would be better (maybe it's possible to adjust the settings). I like the idea of team mates discovering weaknesses and giving hints, but the execution wasn't convincing. It did look very chaotic.

 

[Vaelith]

Indeed, the DD1 UI/menus are atrocious at a Dark Souls 1 level. It was clearly made for console, and ported just so. Opening the map is inconvenient and clunky, accessing the equipment/skill menus is annoying and so on.

I really hope they do a better job with DD2, because that's the biggest flaw I see the game could have.

Personally, it won't stop me from binging the game every hour I don't have allocated into work or socializing, but it is an area that could use improvement.

On that note, I just finished my own DD1 replay last night, including Bitterblack Island - I had almost forgotten how extremely great that DLC is, basically an optional endgame challenging deep dungeon segmented in floors, with increasing difficulty levels, amazing loot and fun, challenging fights from beginning to end - I hope DD2 will have similar, if not at launch, on a later DLC. I'm all primed and ready to go!

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Indeed, the DD1 UI/menus are atrocious at a Dark Souls 1 level. It was clearly made for console, and ported just so. Opening the map is inconvenient and clunky, accessing the equipment/skill menus is annoying and so on.

Not sure if the DS1 UI grew on me or I just learned to live with it, but compared to DD1 it's considerably better. At least I find it so.
At least I remember my first reaction to seeing the DS1 UI, and getting the impression it was clearly developed for console by a japanese studio, but it was still not as bad as what other japanese studios managed to do for other jrpgs and such games.
But I also remember I did watch a few UI explanations for DS1 to understand what they were trying to convey. Though I did that because I was really motivated to learn since the games were impressive in spite of the UI.

I hope have a similar path with DD1, and find out what everyone's raving about it, and then again work backwards at learning to live with the UI. In DD2 the UI seems, at least, seems to be more clean and occupy less real estate.

 

[Redglyph]

The UI of DS1 and DS2 were very off-putting. I tried to play DS2 again recently and lost interest once more, mostly because of it. But I never tried to understand why it was so bad. I just assumed they weren't very good at designing UI and the port to PC made it even worse (the original port, not DS1's remake).

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I'm kind of losing interest with Dragon's Dogma 1. Or at least I'm starting to consider what else I could be playing. As I said, I'm starting to be very paranoid about what I spend my time on since I have so little.
Could someone who's played it a lot and is a big fan give me a short rundown of what it does best?
Is it basically the fact that you can fight all sorts of giant creatures and scale them, while leading a party of heroes? Is that the main draw?
I would assume story is not the main draw. And probably exploration isn't either? Or would I be mistaken?

 

[Carnifex]

The main story was the draw for me with Dragon's Dogma. It certainly wasn't the repetitive fighting, I was simply curious as to where the overall saga would lead.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

The main story was the draw for me with Dragon's Dogma. It certainly wasn't the repetitive fighting, I was simply curious as to where the overall saga would lead.

Really? Then I guess I'm not seeing something, because to me that seems the least interesting thing about it. Or at least the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.
Is it a case like with Dark Souls felt, that also felt uninspired and generic, at least before I did a bit more of deep dive into it. Is it similar to that, in that it'll take some time to get interesting?
At least currently, aside from the main quest to retrieve my heart, I'm not even sure what I'm doing, aside from getting random fetch quests. Feels very mmo-like in all of that.

 

[Vaelith]

To me DD's story is serviceable, just there to provide a background for the gameplay to shine - fighting huge monstrous creatures, exploring and finding unique weapons and armors just to mention a few was what kept me in it, a bit of a similar feeling that I get when playing Monster Hunter, only with a huge seamless world rather than a few staged separate biomes.

As you advance through the game, newer, more powerful abilities become available, some of them you can't even afford the first time you unlock them due to the skill point cost, so when you finally unlock them it feels good to go out and try them out. Different skills are useful for different situations, which also incentives to keep trying things against different enemies.

And then the fact that you can switch Vocation almost seamlessly (and in fact, some unlock as you get more levels in "basic" Vocations) kept the combat always fresh and fun. Sometimes I got an amazing unique bow, I switched to archer to try it, if I found an incredible Two-handed sword, I switched to Warrior and so on. Spells also got more fun and powerful as you progressed through the game, some skills and abilities could only be found in dungeons or hard boss fights, etc.

I definitely wouldn't have played it for the story, in any case.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

To me DD's story is serviceable, just there to provide a background for the gameplay to shine - fighting huge monstrous creatures, exploring and finding unique weapons and armors just to mention a few was what kept me in it, a bit of a similar feeling that I get when playing Monster Hunter, only with a huge seamless world rather than a few staged separate biomes.

Monster Hunter is another series I just can't get into. I tried a couple of times with Monster Hunter World, but I can never get into the idea of just fighting huge monster and building character sets for that.
Which is why I was worried about DD, since from the outside that seemed like a significant part of the appeal.

 

[Shagnak]

Monster Hunter is another series I just can't get into. I tried a couple of times with Monster Hunter World, but I can never get into the idea of just fighting huge monster and building character sets for that.
Which is why I was worried about DD, since from the outside that seemed like a significant part of the appeal.

Yes, it is a significant part of the appeal.
But there is decent exploration, and more of a plot than Monster Hunter et al.

I think you should just give up if you find that much to dislike already.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I think you should just give up if you find that much to dislike already.

I think I'm also overly critical of some issues because, as I said, the fact that I could play other games is constantly in the back of my mind.
I think I haven't committed to it and am looking for an out on it, in order to try something else. So yeah, I think I'll put it on hold for a different time, when I'll start not having so many options.

I am considering trying DD2, since it looks really pretty and polished, so many that alone will keep me to it.

 

[Shagnak]

Citizen Sleeper
Lovely writing, science fiction story-line that can hit you in the feels; I like it.
Feels a bit like a digital rendering of a gamebook combined with a solo board game, with a story written by, say, Becky Chambers. I imagine some people might bounce off it due to that, but I'm captivated.

 

[sakichop]

And I hate that the camera pulls away from me to my pawns grabbing hold of enemies, signaling that I should strike at them while they're holding them. It's surprisingly often happening.

Not sure if you’re still playing but disabling cinematic camera should stop that from happening.

 

[Carnifex]

I had a slobberknocker of a fight in Deadly Sin two earlier today. I felt like I was approaching perhaps the final battle so I went back to the arena to try a battle where I didn't fare so well earlier, when my stable was eight levels lower. Well, it turned into a forty-five minute jaw-clenching epic fight, yet my team won it, eventually. At least the reward made it very worth while! Now I'm heading back to what I think might be the finale of the game.