Your year in RPGs so far

lackblogger

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I meant to post this on Jul 1st, but forgot.

So we're half way through 2019, a year which hasn't provided much in the way of big name cRPGs, so has everyone been taking the opportunity to clear their backlog? Has anyone found a new hidden indy gem they haven't told anyone else about yet? Or are you still playing last years releases?

This is a list thread, let's see what RPGs you've tackled or retackled so far this year!

I stated the year half way through Divinity: Original Sin & finished that off. A good start to my year all things considered.

I finished off winter by completing Eschalon Book 1.

In spring I tried my first jRPG and completed Legends of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.

This summer I have so far completed The Banner Saga 2.

And I've been quite impressed with how much I've enjoyed these games and all four have sequels that I can now look forward to, meaning I shan't be in a cRPG drought for a very long time.

The games I had to either abandon out of boredom or simply didn't enjoy but were short enough that I completed them anyway have been:

Expeditions: Conquistador - which I found tedious beyond words. Abt 10 hours played.
Battle Brothers - which I found to be fun until the grind and gotchas proved beyond bareable. Abt 15 hours played.
Theseus: Journey to Athens - a 2 hour indy choose your own adventure with all the production values of a junior school project.
Warlock of Firetop Mountain - a short choose your own adventure with many, many paths. A nice nostalgia fix but just not motivated to have another run after the first few, the main problem with the genre being having to keep repeating the start to get to a slightly different end. Abt 5 hours played.
Tyranny - which kept sending me to sleep, both in game and when trying to psych myself up to play it. Abt 5 hours played.

Which has been very useful for me as it's helped me filter the current deluge of new types of RPGs and developers in the market.

No replays for me this year, which is unusual for me.
 
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I've mostly been spending my spare time modding and module building. I have played Blackguards 1 & 2, Warhammer Quest, Underrail, PoE2, and Pathfinder: Kingmaker. But I haven't finished any of them yet. I'm sure many others here have done a whole lot more.
 
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I've been spending most of my time playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker which I now sunk in well over 500 hours :)

I finished Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire not long ago - it was ok enough to finish it once but I doubt I will ever play this again. I had to force myself to finish the game at towards the end, the whole politics isn't my thing and also combat was too drawn out with TB mode.

I gave a go at D:OS2 as well which I got bored and abandoned at 8 hours mark, shortly after I left Fort Joy. None of the companions really clicked with me, the earlier story seem too similar to Dragon Age, and the whole exaggerated combat animations and too much explosions caused me to lose interest.

I'm currently playing Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen and Spellforce 3: Soul Harvest but I'm not enjoying either much.
 
This year I've been spending my time on opening lootboxes in a phonegame.
Not a joke. There is a reason I'm doing it, but that's something for another day and another specific thread if it ever happens. I'm not one of those BBC stories where people spent their life savings on gambling in case anyone asks. I have no lootboxes addiction problems, probably it doesn't get me "high" after being trained with tobacco addiction. ;)

It doesn't mean I've neglected real life socializing (sat with an police officer yesterday for whatever reason and paid him a coffee, today stumbled upon him at the same bar and he paid mine, haha), watching movies (Clergy was the last one, never seen anything like it before), watching series (the last one was Sharp Objects, very good but dragged too much), playing proper games (completed South Park 2 the other day, preparing to complete Odyssey now all DLC got released) and of course enjoying comics (the last one I received a few days ago, a short masterpiece Sobek available only from UK publisher's store, can't praise it enough), etc, etc

In short I'm kinda trying to enjoy everything I possibly can. Noone was ever able to put me in a hamster wheel for life, I mean, that's grinding. :)
No, even with impulses to widen my experiences, I didn't buy mushrooms. Indeed my motto is "try everything". But the small letters say everything, except obvious junk. ;)
Past half year I'm roleplaying - me.
 
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Right now I'm playing Dying Light, the zombie game (has a few rpg elements but mostly action and exploration story driven game) It is well done and pretty entertaining.

Earlier this year was playing Deus Ex Human Revolution, very fun game. I think I got a little bored after around 36 hours or so, and maybe got stuck at one part but am planning on returning to it and completing it.

Also played a little of Pillars of eternity (8hours)and am planning on continuing that eventually.

Been doing a lot of summer reading too of thriller type books and such.
 
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I've mostly been spending my spare time modding and module building. I have played Blackguards 1 & 2, Warhammer Quest, Underrail, PoE2, and Pathfinder: Kingmaker. But I haven't finished any of them yet. I'm sure many others here have done a whole lot more.

Off-topic but can I ask what games you are modding and module building on? I'm guessing maybe NWN1/2?

I'd like to get into the modding myself but I have no clue where to even start (I have no coding/graphics designs skill etc what-so-ever!)
 
Off-topic but can I ask what games you are modding and module building on? I'm guessing maybe NWN1/2?

I'd like to get into the modding myself but I have no clue where to even start (I have no coding/graphics designs skill etc what-so-ever!)

Mostly NWN2. I do model and tileset building, and I'm working on a module port from NWN. There's a lot of different aspects to game modding, so I'm sure you can find something that will interest you.
 
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Mostly Pathfinder, I guess, but also Druidstone, Dragon Quest 11, Star Control Origins and others.
 
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Earlier in the year I played some ATOM RPG and enjoyed it. Very reminescent of Fallout and I liked the exploration and quirky characters I have met so far. Then I decided to wait for some patches and have not come back to it yet.

I decided to finally play through some more of The Witcher 3. I completed the Bloody Baron questline and liked the amount of reactivity that was present there. It really is quite a cinematic game but open world too. I've put in 26 hours so far and will get back to it later.

Then I played about 25 hours of Grim Dawn and enjoyed it. I got distracted and then...

I squeezed in an hour or two of sunless sea and enjoyed the weird lore and how previous playthroughs can effect your current run through. You have to be careful to manage your resources least you run out of fuel and open yourselve up to other dangers.

I then played through and finished Bard's Tale I from The Bard's Tale trilogy and found it an interesting experience. The map design was labyrinth in nature so I was glad for automap and not having to type out spells. It did get repetitive after awhile but I managed to finish it after 40 hours. There was plenty of personality there and the spell upgrades gave me something to aim for after all the monster hordes. I played under the rule that I had only one save and would have to bring my party back to life if I wiped. This happened more than a few times so I wanted that teleport spell right quickly. It also encouraged me to experiment with other classes.

I imported my party to Bard's Tale II and liked the distance modifier improvement they introduced to combat. The map design has improved as well. I've enjoyed it so far and will get back to it later.

After that I wanted to play more blobbers and gave Legend of Grimrock 2 another go. I've enjoyed it for 10 hours so far and plan to go back shortly. I particularly liked finding secret doors and treasure, and upskilling my party.

I have dabbled in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and found it interesting although I think I may have run into a grind wall of some kind. I will get back to it once I psyche myself up for it.
 
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Only true rpg this year was Risen 3. Other than that, finished Lego LOTR, finished the last few factions of Endless Space 2, played quite a bit of Shadow of Mordor and The Division. Just started Endless Legend.
 
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Let's see… going by my screenshot dates, the year changed over with me playing Valkyria Chronicles 4. I finished the game and some of the DLC but not all of it. I would certainly recommend it to tactical RPG fans.

Tower of Time came next. I found it to be fairly fun but the battles got a bit tedious and there were a lot of them. Still, it's easily the most innovative game I've seen in some time with it's slow-on-space combat option and incredibly 3D levels.

Next in the RPG world was Yakuza 0. The whole "damsel in distress" thing made me roll my eyes but the game was really fun: the combat was fun, the main quest was excellent, the silly sidequests were fun, even some of the minigames were fun.

Then, after messing around with some 4X to "clear my pallet," came the hybrid RPG Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. It was fairly good but nothing special.

Then came the latest Tomb Raider, though that has only a few RPG elements in it. It's a little more akin to the old style of Tomb Raider in that there's more puzzles and less shooting (maybe a 50/50 split?). The story had some really dumb holes in it that distracted me pretty badly but the graphics, especially with 3D Vision, were absolutely superb! Just the thing I needed with 3D Vision losing support from NVIDIA.

Then came Pillars of Eternity 2. Great base mechanics but, after 100 hours of hoping it would get better, I finally gave up on it. The main story seemed good and there were a few nice side stories but most were just average and, with all of them scattered all over the game world, they never came together much. On top of that, enemies simply have too many hit points, making battles take forever. (Tower of Time had that problem, too.)

Now I'm playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, 90 hours in. It's big. Really big. It's been really fun, too. There are some bothers here and there like suicidal pets and times when you'll just stop climbing a wall for no obvious reason. It's got the grunts-with-too-many-hp problem, too, which seems to be a theme this year. Overall, though, I've found it to be really fun. The graphics are stunning but, for whatever reason, their engine won't play nice with 3D Vision.
 
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Cool replies so far. Hmm, how can I motivate the other 95% of the site to actually post something?

Aw, whom I kidding…

most-boring-website.jpg



:D

(no malice intended, just humour!)
 
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Assassin Creed Odyssey is the only single player RPG I have played this year and tbh its only RPG Lite.

Most of my gaming time has been spent mostly on Everquest 2 this year. Its an MMORPG and I have been playing it for pretty much 15 years with same set of friends. Its no longer has story as such, I don't even remember the story of the main quest this expansion! What keeps it so interesting and fun is the community aspect and good friends I have. We all met in EQ2 in 2004 and pretty much remained friends since then both online and in real world so playing this game is like going to the pub and having laugh since that what we do!

Its also very "niche" game now so not many people play it so has small population but this is blessing in disguise in that pretty much everyone on the server knows everyone else. We all run into each so regularly its almost like small village!

For me at least, EQ2 is all about the combat and grinding for gear and optimising your character. Since its very old game, it has so many systems and layers built into this. Sometimes even the dev don't know how they all work together but that what makes it great as players come up with cleaver ways to break and do things by mixing up the different parts. So in that regards its system heavy and makes it great RPG as I like to min/max and all that stuff.

The "downside" of my EQ2 addiction is that, I don't have much time for other games but I am not complaining :)
 
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Tower of Time and a whole bunch of jrpg's is how I'd sum up the games I've enjoyed to date this year. Oddly enough, most of the jrpg's that I've played this year are new to me, not just replays.

I used to share that EQ two addiction, but it's three years behind me, now. I miss the people that I knew, but honestly, I don't really miss the game. Maybe that's the point, tis all about the folks you know and romp with.
 
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Let's see…started the year off by playing the Technomancer, but got sidetracked by ATOM if I remember correctly. I finished ATOM in about 50 hours, and dabbled a bit with different games after that but had very little time for gaming and as such didn't really get into any of them. My available time increased when summer arrived, and I purchased and finished first Mutant Year Zero and then Star Control Origins in about 20 hours each, certainly enjoyed both.

Currently getting back into GCIII after having bought all the expansions in a summer sale, guess that'll keep me busy until Phoenix Point arrives which is my most anticipated title. If I get bored of GCIII before then I'll see if Rebel Galaxy is any fun (I just bought that after reading about its sequel on this site).
 
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I have been playing three games all summer. Battle Brothers with the latest DLC. Have done two campaigns. The Lone Wolf and Peasant Militia campaigns.

NWN2. Mostly Tales of the Sword Coast PW online. Some user made mods and campaigns. Just played a Keep on the Borderlands campaign. Also, the official campaign I'm playing again. Didn't finish it the first time.

I'm also doing a new run through of Kingmaker with all the DLC's. I guess the thing that these three games have in common is that you can sink 100's of hours into all of them.

I couldn't be happier playing these three games. I have a hard time choosing which one I'm going to play when I wake up in the morning.

I'm thinking of buying the new Underrail expansion. Another game that can take 100 hours. I think there's a theme here :)
 
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Sounds like it's time to get you into Egosoft's X series, @Hastar;!
 
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I've rather concentrated on classic adventures this year, because my old computer hasn't been into modern games with 3D graphics for a couple of years. Also, I've been a bit tires of combat since I've played Mass Effect 2 the other year. Therefore, I've just played a bit of Pathfinder: Kingmaker and started a new game in Pillars of Eternity. That's all.

But now I have a new computer, so ask me again in a month or two, I believe that I'm going to have a lot more to tell then. So far I've downloaded The Witcher 3 (wouldn't run on my old computer) and Divinity: Original Sin (Elven Kingdom was lagging too much to play on). Also, I'm currently installing Pathfinder: Kingmaker again. I'm far from done with that one, too. I just hope that loading the areas will take less time now.
There are a lot more games waiting for me at Steam and GoG that I haven't played yet, and I'm looking forward to all of them. I've just bought Fallout 4 GotY, no matter if it's still an RPG or not, and I also have Dragon's Dogma, Divinity 2, and Tales of Symphonia. I'm back to having fun with RPGs of all types again. Finally.

So let's just say that I've got some catching up to do. See you next year or so. ;)
 
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I've been playing Fallout 4, Fallout 4 VR, Elder Scrolls Online and a few others I've forgotten. ESO has been my highlight, it's really good. F4 is also very good.
 
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