A Game Journal Reborn

[Arvis]

Acquired my 6th party member in Ni No Kuni II!  However, part of my self-imposed "challenge" rules is if someone gets KOed they get cycled to the back of the line.  After getting this new character all decked out and ready to go, I got to use her for all of 5 minutes before she ate dirt.  The weird thing is, Tani was also close to death in that same fight.  And it was just random mobs.  After that fight I have been in no danger at all for the rest of the dungeon.  I have no idea what happened.

[Der Jermeister]

Etrian Odyssey V - Starting to explore the Fifth Stratum.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Wow, this game has already jumped the shark for me, since I'm not far and already I've had to look at guides, which haven't helped much, and there's absolutely no memorable music. I always get suspicious when review sites give near-perfect scores to games, and I was right to suspect them of bullshit. The combat is okay, but this game is on track to becoming one of the most overrated piles of shit I've ever played, and makes me lose even further trust in the mainstream game media.

Resonance of Fate - I've got scopes for all my guns and have had an easier time.

[Aeolus]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Wow, this game has already jumped the shark for me, since I'm not far and already I've had to look at guides, which haven't helped much, and there's absolutely no memorable music. I always get suspicious when review sites give near-perfect scores to games, and I was right to suspect them of bullshit. The combat is okay, but this game is on track to becoming one of the most overrated piles of shit I've ever played, and makes me lose even further trust in the mainstream game media.

To be fair, not everybody was big on Zelda II, and this is basically Zelda II in 3D.

You also don't need a ton of guides to get through the game since almost nothing is permanently missable. If you're still worried about being lost, then my suggestions are to follow the plot up until you obtain the Camera, stick to the roads rather than climbing everywhere, go for the Camel dungeon last unless you want to put up with goddamn ninjas, and to not bother collecting 100% completion or every Korok Seed (your reward for collecting every Korok Seed is a golden pile of shit; no joke).

Combat also gets more interesting when you're fighting it out with Lynels and Guardians with good weapons compared to Bokobins with your fancy collection of sticks.

What music there is is rather good, but honestly, I don't think anyone could really come up with a soundtrack to cover all of Hyrule, so I for one am glad they didn't bother.

[Jimmy]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Wow, this game has already jumped the shark for me, since I'm not far and already I've had to look at guides, which haven't helped much, and there's absolutely no memorable music. I always get suspicious when review sites give near-perfect scores to games, and I was right to suspect them of bullshit. The combat is okay, but this game is on track to becoming one of the most overrated piles of shit I've ever played, and makes me lose even further trust in the mainstream game media.

It's not just the mainstream game media that love it, plenty of fans do too. It's not a perfect game by any means, but plenty of people think it's great. Just because you're not liking it doesn't make it "an overrated pile of shit."

[Rook]

Finished 2064: read only memories. It was very good and its worth whatever they are charging for it on the PS4 golden week sale this week.

[Der Jermeister]

Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth - Working my way through the Fifth Stratum, completing bar missions as they come.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - I've somewhat gotten past the early-game hell, and have completed all four shrines on the Great Plateau, and I think I have a good idea of where to go next.

Resonance of Fate - Working on getting coins and my rank up at the battle arena. Those scopes for my guns definitely make a world of difference.

[Draak]

I borrowed a PS4 Pro for two weeks in order to play Bloodborne. After hearing so much praise, turns out it was nothing special. Been there, done that -- I know the drill by now. It would still be alright if it wasn't for the horrid input lag. I tried hooking the controller to the console, tried hooking the console itself to my monitor instead of the TV, same results. Unacceptable in an action game.

About the PS4 itself, I have no idea why it sold (sells?) so much. Poor hardware, sluggish system interface... Console gaming is truly dead to me.

[Frostillicus]

^ Maybe you borrowed a bad unit? I just bought a PS4 Pro a week or so ago, and haven't noticed any "sluggishness" in any area. Games boot up quickly, they look great, and controls respond just fine. I was initially alarmed at how hot the system gets, but there have been zero performance issues over hours of play, so I don't consider that a con.

Anyway, I just passed "The Proving" part of HZD. Crazy plot bombs dropped. I'm enjoying the shit out of the game, honestly. It's refreshing to see a non-supermodel heroine in the spotlight.

I watched my son finish the first 3 or so missions of Lego City: Undercover. Good ol' Lego goodness.

I'm almost done with Ratchet and Clank: Crack in Time. First R&C I've ever played. Fun game. Too short, though. Also, fuck the second tier of the arena battles.
After I finish this, I'm going to play Uncharted 2 and BoF IV, and then I believe it will be time to retire the ol' PS3.

[Mickeymac92]

<-- Never encountered input lag in Bloodborne, nor did I feel that the interface was sluggish. Clunky and unorganized, but not slow or laggy. Maybe the PS Store is, but...that's been a constant problem with Playstation products, and even their websites are slow as fuck. They need to get their shit together there...otherwise, can't help ya, sorry. Did you try different HDMI cables? That's the only other thing I got. Had to swap the ones on my PS3 once because I was having issues.

Anywho:

Warframe - Still faffing about in this here and there. Only big thing left to do is hunt an Eidolon. This game needs more Post-Game, IMO. Seems like it used to have Raids and Dark Sectors before they took them out at some point, and PC has a new hardcore mode that might be fun, but right now there's such a huge difficulty gap between everything else and these behemoths that it's tough to get prepared...

Ratchet & Clank (PS4) - Blew through this, and I'm now on the final level. Only thing I gotta do before that is do the Hoverboard races up through Gold. I've kind of been procrastinating on that, however, because the hoverboard races have made me ragequit in the past, and I only barely passed the races I had to do in order to progress...

Monster Hunter: World - Only played long enough to confirm that it is still, indeed, Monster Hunter, and the lack of loading screens between zones did not fundamentally change how the game is played. I'm not exactly in the mood for another major time commitment, though.

After R&C is done, I'll move onto some Wii U games. I already messed around with Smash Bros the other day with my Brother, and I can safely cross that off the list - it's exactly my favorite in the series, there's not enough singleplayer content here to keep us coming back compared to Melee and Brawl...or even the N64 game. It's really just achievements and "I Can't Believe It's Not Mario Party! Wait, Yes I Can, Even Mario Party is Better Than This" Smash Tour. I only have 18 Wii U games left to beat, along with a handful of Wii games I neglected, so I'd like to get those out of the way. I intend to save up for a Nintendo Switch throughout the year, and hopefully be able to get one on sale around Cyber Monday or Xmas. If not, I can definitely save up to get it by my Birthday (so...11 months. Set aside $35 a month and I can still get some games with it).

[Draak]

^ Maybe you borrowed a bad unit? I just bought a PS4 Pro a week or so ago, and haven't noticed any "sluggishness" in any area. Games boot up quickly, they look great, and controls respond just fine. I was initially alarmed at how hot the system gets, but there have been zero performance issues over hours of play, so I don't consider that a con.

<-- Never encountered input lag in Bloodborne, nor did I feel that the interface was sluggish. Clunky and unorganized, but not slow or laggy. Maybe the PS Store is, but...that's been a constant problem with Playstation products, and even their websites are slow as fuck. They need to get their shit together there...otherwise, can't help ya, sorry. Did you try different HDMI cables? That's the only other thing I got. Had to swap the ones on my PS3 once because I was having issues.

I have no clue about the PS4, it's from a friend of mine who had to travel for around 2 weeks and lent it to me, since I had occasionally mentioned BB. According to wikipedia the "Pro" is a beefed up PS4, so in theory it should... run games better? Felt disappointed for sure. I then tried Nioh in "performance mode" or w/e it was called and the controller response was much better. By the powers of Google, I found BB has bad frame pacing, which I believe is what bothered me so much.

Could also be a case of being stuck with PC and portables for so long that console gaming now feels completely alien. My last console was the venerable PS2, which was basically put disc in -> play. With the PS4, I felt no joy like I did when I first turned my PS2 back in the day. Quite the contrary, was annoyed as hell I had to install the game, then wait for it to download updates, which took its sweet time since my connection is on the crappier side. I hate the "pc master race" meme but it unfortunately does have a point.

This is probably super old news to most of you but I had no idea things had changed so much and I'm not exactly sure if for the better. Oh, well. I feel like that image of the old man yelling at clouds, lol.

It's interesting how we change over time.

[Frostillicus]

Could also be a case of being stuck with PC and portables for so long that console gaming now feels completely alien. My last console was the venerable PS2, which was basically put disc in -> play. With the PS4, I felt no joy like I did when I first turned my PS2 back in the day. Quite the contrary, was annoyed as hell I had to install the game, then wait for it to download updates, which took its sweet time since my connection is on the crappier side. I hate the "pc master race" meme but it unfortunately does have a point.

This is probably super old news to most of you but I had no idea things had changed so much and I'm not exactly sure if for the better. Oh, well. I feel like that image of the old man yelling at clouds, lol.

It's interesting how we change over time.

I feel you on missing the simple plug n' play operation of consoles past... It's just a sign of the times, what with this whole online/digital/whatever phase humanity is in. Consoles have to be jacks of all trades. So then of course, there are extensive setups; game installs; system and game updates; social crap for social people; so on, and so forth. I'm actually OK with the game installs. Especially in regards to larger, sandbox/open world games. I'd rather wait for an initial install, and have the game load less during play. Still, it sucks to have to wait any amount of time when you are excited to play.
Minor gripes overall, as far as I am concerned. The system plays games beautifully (once it's installed and set up), and that's what matters to me the most, personally.

[Klyde Chroma]

Ni No Kuni -- Finished. What a nice neat and complete package this proved to be. By complete I mean this title literally had EVERYTHING you'd hope/expect to see sprinkled somewhere amidst the sea of content.

A wee bit TOO MUCH content for my taste. I had to finish it knowing full well there was plenty more to do because "it was time".

I would never argue this was a perfect game but one of those cases of being highly entertaining in spite of it's problems. Poor/terrible dungeon design and getting rather button mashy-easy can be overlooked for the pacing, story telling and overall fiction presented with something to discover everywhere you look.

[Aeolus]

Dicked around in RS2 some more. Finally unlocked Martial Artists, but now I'm at a new impasse where I accidentally ended a scenario early and missed 70000 Crowns (which is helpful for funding the Magic Academy), but the second time I tried and cleared the scenario, I triggered a timeskip. So now I get to decide whether the 70k is worth the effort or if I should try to stay as Gerard for one more scenario (chances are that the latter is the better choice, also I sparked a 5 SP Greatsword Art that I didn't on the second run, so there's that too).

Edit: Continued to dick around with RS2. Lol, if I want to get the Vigilante class unlocked, I need to do the Canal quest with Gerard. Additionally, a guide I've found on the internet suggests that there's a missable quest in Cumberland if I don't make it there within Gerard's generation, but I've had no trouble starting it properly with my third Empress. And then another trial run had Gerard clear everything down to Mu Country before the Generation Skip kicked in. Basically, doing the mines before the Canal was a mistake since I barely have time to do anything before I incur the first timeskip.

[Der Jermeister]

Beat Etrian Odyssey V a few days back. Definitely had a good time, and the final boss was manageable with skills such as that increasing HP and items such as that which cancels enemy buffs.

Dicking around in Breath of the Wild, searching for shrines before I go to Karikiro Village or whatever it's called, and I've activated a few towers along the way.

The arena's still kicking my ass in Resonance of Fate, so I'm working on other sidequests, think I'm in Chapter 9.

[Aeolus]

RS2. Dealt with Cucumberland and got the good end. Trying to find the Mole Village without setting off the Queen Ant or Amazon quests though (since I thought it was a good idea at the time to run the Mermaid quest with my third Emperor, whoops). Looking it up, I'm pretty much going to have to bite the bullet on the Ant quest.

Edit: And the Ant Queen is beaten, but now I can't finish the Mermaid quest without triggering a time skip. Kinda don't want to give up my progress since I sparked a boatload of skills in the Ant Farm (I had to keep dumping skills on my Vagabond and Mercenary because they sparked like mad), so I'm probably going to have to just unlock the Nerid and move on (now if I can run a Male Vagabond Emperor, then I should be okay provided that the timeskip doesn't trigger an autofail state).