What games have you played over the past year, and maybe even finished?

i think a first time playthrough of persona 5 is like 70 to 80 hrs. you could probably finish way faster if you rushed through the dungeons and did the reaper cheese to max out xp.. if that still works?

on the topic of turn based rpgs

its pretty wild to think the last real turn base final fantasy was x. i liked the ff7 remake but really wished that square hadn't totally given up on turn base when it comes to final fantasy.

 

Turn based JRPGs have more or less died out in modern gaming, unfortunately. I think Octopath Traveler was the most recent turn-based AAA game and it was purposely styled in retro 8-bit graphics. There are still indie turn-based RPGs. JRPGs are dying out, too, which I much prefer to western RPGs.

 

I usually sided with Square-Enix on their decisions to change up their battle systems and ditch turn-based mechanics. Not because I disliked turn-based systems, but I figured it might be fun to let them experiment. I don't think that was a bad idea per se, but I have to admit, I think I'd like them to revisit turn-based mechanics again. As mentioned, many of their high profile games are not turn-based, and they are starting to seem kinda samey IMO.

That doesn't mean we have to go back to the 90s in terms of game design. Persona 5 is an example of how you can make turn-based combat quick, fun, and not a victim of those design flaws we hated from back then. And that's on a pretty low budget, relatively speaking. Octopath and I think WoFF also showed they have some ideas for turn-based combat in modern games (also not crazy budgets). I'd be curious to see what a big budget FF game could do if they had much more time and resources to innovate on this design.

I wonder if standard SSDs might also help with turn-based mechanics. Just speculating, but perhaps they've gone more with action RPGs since it was too difficult to transition from "exploration" mode to "battle" mode (even though other games did it OK). If that was an issue, then the next-generation of consoles should remove those restrictions.

Either way, I think they should go back to the drawing board when it comes to the battle system of the next FF game.

 

Anyone here playing Genshin Impact?

It's mechanically a lot like Breath of the Wild, in a JRPG/Anime setting similar to the Tales franchise and also includes online.

I've played all day and it's honestly one of the best rpgs I've played in years, so much love going into the characters, story and world.
The best is that it has crossplay between PC, PS4, Switch and Mobile, so you can play with everyone.

It's free to play and has gacha mechanics, but it isn't f2p unfriendly at all and all units are viable to progress through the story. I usually despise gacha games, but this one really puts em on the backseat, unlike other games where you need the rare characters to progress.

Again, I went in with meh expectations because of it being f2p and involving gacha, but I'm shocked at how good it is, it's AAA quality easily.
With them releasing it for free but with such depth and care that makes it seem like a large scale JRPG from a top studio, it's obvious they really believe in it and I can see it spawning spin-offs and anime adaptions.

 

I'm way too busy to jump in right now, but I might try to give it a shot in the near future. I usually prefer turn-based gacha games (I usually only play them to pass the time when I'm waiting), but like you said, this could probably be good enough to play as a traditional game (ala Warframe or something like that).

 

Yea it definitely doesn't feel like a gacha, more like a full-fledged jrpg or Anime Zelda.

I think it's around 80hrs story and quests now, and we are only at 2 out of a final 7 regions, so this game will be huge.
All fully voiced and with good story, so it doesn't feel bland like many gachas and MMOs do.

I've played it a ton these past three days and would currently put it as the favourite jrpg of the PS4 era for me, better than the last Tales games.

 

I don't typically have the time to play video games, but I made time to play Ghost of Tsushima a few months back and I'd highly recommend it.

 

You had me at JRPG. I'll give it a try. I'm getting a little bored of Mordhau anyway.

 

I just finished Pathfinder : Kingmaker on the PC... good ol' fashioned RPG. It was alright, definitely not a must have. It was released with lots of issues and amazingly still has issues, though none were gamebreaking in my play.

Baldur's Gate 3 is about to enter Early Access tomorrow, I think. It's not isometric anymore which is kind of sad to me, but I'll be waiting to see how that one goes before I jump in. I've got a list of other games from the last Steam sale to get through, so I'll be trying to figure out what to hit up next.

In the meantime, I picked up Ancestors : The Humankind Odyssey. This is an interesting concept but can get pretty boring for most players after a couple of hours if you're just into shooting things or group play. Even for my likes, it's kind of redundant, tbh, so I only play it casually. I may (finally) play some Stellaris which I bought forever ago or choose among Tyranny, Thronebreaker, Kingdom Come : Deliverance, or Greedfall which are waiting on my hard drive. Maybe I'll eventually get to Europa Universalis or be an idiot and buy Crusader Kings 3, instead.

 

After just 3 days, you're willing to say that? Wow.

For all the GoT fans: FREE CONTENT!

 

That's a mix of me playing a ton, the game being really good and the current gen of jrpgs not being this good.

 

I’m playing Galaga. This game infuriates me to no end. I keep trying to break my controller when I lose my ship(s). My controller literally only partially works because I’ve twisted and bent it out of anger. I’ve thrown it across the house in fits of rage. My high score is like 304,000. I’ve never had a game infuriate me more than this one.

 

Im confused .. the demo of BG3 still looks isometric to me?

 

Holy cow. You may be right... at least partially. From what I just read, it can be isometric, but you can scroll into a 3rd person mode. I didn't know that. I watched this gameplay demo below a while back and skipped around so I didn't notice what he says around 6:17 mark (that you can do both). I like the more old school "top-down" view where you run around with your party.

 

I haven't progressed a lot, but it's a great game so far and really immersive. The environments are lovely.

 

So I've played maybe 4 hours. Got the 4 story characters so far. I can see the appeal as the gameplay gets more fleshed out.

Did you use your wishes to get new characters? What's the best use of them? I don't intend to spend on micro transactions.

 

Good to hear.
Regarding wishes, do the beginner summon (8 pieces) twice.
After playing for a bit, you should also have enough to do the Venti summon (that green bard where you need 10 of the rainbow-colored stones), which is the best summon to go for next, as it has a rate-up and Venti being the currently best character in the game.
You'll also have a lot of primogems (at least 1 or 2k) which you can use to trade for the summon stones, 160 primogems equal one summon stone.

If you go to the shop tab in the menu, you can exchange three other currencies for the summon stones as well, so try to get as many of the rainbow colored summon stones as possible and use it all on the Venti summon.
If you have the normal blue-colored summon stones left, use em on the character summon, not the weapon one.

Regarding characters and tiers, in general ppl are saying the story is easy enough to beat with any character combination, so don't stress too much about acquiring the best 5 star ones.

But if you care for tiers and want to optimize a bit, here's a good tier list with explanations:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O69ko3no3mIWJpguuBsHErrxqySGMehUAOgEpUlld9I/edit?usp=drivesdk

You want to work with the elemental combinations in general, a more easy to acquire duo which is highly rated would be Fischl (electro) plus Barbara (water), which combine pretty well with the wet and electric status to hit foes hard, both are 4* and have okay rates for the summon.

Also try to get a healer (Barbara or Jean for example).

 

Cool, I'll go ahead and use my wishes on those. If I understand, I can do a 1-stone wish for a random chance or do the 10-stone wish for a guaranteed 4* or better?

I did the character trial challenges and Venti did seem pretty OP. His burst tornado thingy is pretty broken.

 

You'll receive at least one 4*+ character every 10 wishes you do, yes.
I think it counts every wish you do, so you can either do the 10er wish at once or do 10 consecutive single wishes.

There's also a pity system where every 90 wishes without a 5* character nets you a 5* character as compensation iirc.

 

Cool. I tried for Venti 3 times and got the other 4 star characters so my gacha luck sucks. I just got Lisa so I'm not far into the story any way.