The NEW Game Journal

[GrimReality]

Finished Journey last night. I already left my thoughts in the dedicated thread, but to summarize: I loved the hell out of it. Beautiful game in all aspects. I want to play it again, but ME3 has waited long enough. I wish you could play Journey with local multi-player. I would love to play through it with my son.

[John]

Unfortunately Umaro's the worst character in the game due to limited equipment options (only Relics) and complete inability to equip Magicite (no permanent stat boosts whatsoever).

Fuck that.  Umaro is the best character in the game.

BECAUSE HE IS A FUCKING YETI THAT ATTACKS THINGS ON HIS OWN.

QED.

[Maxximum]

Playing Xenoblade,
I'm still trying to get used to the battle system. Getting Reyn to do a Wild Down when I want him to isn't quite as easy as Id like. Wish there was some way to force the AI controlled characters to use skills of my choosing (other than the combo system).

[Aeolus]

Unfortunately Umaro's the worst character in the game due to limited equipment options (only Relics) and complete inability to equip Magicite (no permanent stat boosts whatsoever).

Fuck that.  Umaro is the best character in the game.

BECAUSE HE IS A FUCKING YETI THAT ATTACKS THINGS ON HIS OWN.

QED.

Fine. I'll give you that one since nothing beats watching him punt your teammates into enemies for large numbers. But if we're judging via awesomeness then that Gambit wannabe is bottom of the barrel. NORUMA!!!!! As much as I dislike myself for this I have to say that Stratego is the worst due to general lack of availability and his redundant Blue Magic.

[John]

also this:

[Esper_Crusader]

Playing some DMC4 lately simply out of boredom and the fact that it has a game name Agnus. Also Lufia II.  Interest in both will likely fizzle out within a week.:/

[Darklight]

In true nerd sense i've focussed on upgrading my hacking abilities, I think this is my favourite game for a while.

[Yggdrasil]

Reading some impressions about the DMC HD Collection, seems fine. But for much I enjoyed those games years ago I really don't care that much about them anymore outside of the first one (kinda the same story with MGS).

Also, still struggling with Vanquish.

[Fyle]

I started DA: origins today. Made a dwarven noble.

I'm enjoying the game and really like how you can switch party members and the general feel of the game is good.

I can't get over the fact enemies don't respawn tho. Whenever I start a new RPG I like to go out and grind at first, build up some money and stock up on stuff. If enemies don't respawn it feels like I am restricted in a few ways. I couldn't get into ME games, but again, I'm going to give Bioware a fair chance, their games get such high praise they are hard to overlook. If this no-respawn hurts the Dragon Age experience I'm gonna be very very catious before ever buying another Bioware game. So far the Elder Scrolls and Blizzard games have surpassed Bioware in my opinion by far ( not to get into other companies). Enemies respawning seems like a pretty basic feature for an RPG to have...

(~_~;)

[DPB]

Most Bioware games either have little or no respawning at all, so if this is that important you probably won't like the rest of them. Personally, I've always despised respawning enemies - if I missed something in an area I don't want to go back and fight everything again, and I don't like ending up overleveled. It's one of the reasons I like their games, along with Piranha Bytes, which also have no respawning.

[Kevadu]

I can't get over the fact enemies don't respawn tho. Whenever I start a new RPG I like to go out and grind at first, build up some money and stock up on stuff. If enemies don't respawn it feels like I am restricted in a few ways. I couldn't get into ME games, but again, I'm going to give Bioware a fair chance, their games get such high praise they are hard to overlook. If this no-respawn hurts the Dragon Age experience I'm gonna be very very catious before ever buying another Bioware game. So far the Elder Scrolls and Blizzard games have surpassed Bioware in my opinion by far ( not to get into other companies). Enemies respawning seems like a pretty basic feature for an RPG to have...

(~_~;)

You've got to be the first person I've ever heard claim that grinding is a feature...

DA:O is designed so that you don't have to grind.  If you just want to build up your party there are always interesting sidequests and stuff, which is far more enjoyable (for me, anyway...) than just walking back and forth fighting the same enemies over and over...but if you really want to grind you can always try walking between locations on the world map.  There's always the chance of a random encounter there (yes, some are scripted but there are random ones too).

[Fyle]

You've got to be the first person I've ever heard claim that grinding is a feature...

DA:O is designed so that you don't have to grind.  If you just want to build up your party there are always interesting sidequests and stuff, which is far more enjoyable (for me, anyway...) than just walking back and forth fighting the same enemies over and over...but if you really want to grind you can always try walking between locations on the world map.  There's always the chance of a random encounter there (yes, some are scripted but there are random ones too).

Well, not sure exactly what to categorize grinding as technically I just know I like to stock up on stuff in the beginning by killing stuff over and over and then advancing. I'm just a noob player kinda and I just look for grind ---> level up ---> advance patterns at first.

The thing you say about the encounters on the world map I just realized before I logged in here, can you travel and have those encounters loop infinitely?

[MeshGearFox]

Fyle. You're brute forcing your way through the game instead of playing it reasonable. Preventing brute force gameplay methods is considered a mark of GOOD design.

[Darklight]

With DAO, the random encounter's stop after a while. I can't see a problem with people who like to grind, I know I did in Nocturne and other not so Linear rpg's. I find dragon age to be one of the most scripted single direction rpg's i've played, As already said, the side quests make up the levelling aspect.

[Annubis]

For some reason, whenever I play an RPG, if it's possible, I grind five level the soonest possible (usually when I hit the first world map near a town).
No idea why and no idea why five... I just end up doing it every time. (Tales of Graces F was no exception)
Might be some leftovers from playing really old and unforgiving RPGs like the first FFs or DQs.