Any gamers around here?

[Blackleaf]

I never played the old ff7. And the whisper dudes really had me confused, as such.

Oh dear. Playing "Remake" without the context of the original. lol. This is one of the things I was worried about when I realized where the game was going. I expected "Remake" to be...a remake? It starts off that way, recreating the original game, only fleshing it out a bit, making certain sections of the story longer. But over the course of the game, there are slight deviations from the original story, and these Whisper things appear to correct the timeline. Even weirder, Cloud appears to have memories of things that haven't happened yet, and Aerith seems to know more than she's letting on.

Eventually, I'm just sitting there like, "Do people new to this series even know what the fuck is happening?"

So, if you are curious, and you want to know how the original game's story goes, but you don't want to actually play through the original game, I do have a suggestion. On YouTube, there's a fan-dubbed parody of the original game, made by the same people who did Dragon Ball Z Abridged. While it obviously takes some liberties, it is still very accurate and thorough. There are some things you might think they made up, but are actually part of the original game. It's funny, but also emotional at times, and it may help you understand the context of the Remake series better.

Or you can wait until the next games come out, if you have the patience. Up to you. lol

Still, the story, when it progressed, was interesting. But i get you, the whispers halt it and if you haven't played the ff7 original, they are confusing to boot. I didn't get what they were for until the very end of the game. And i agree, sephiroth was just a weird pressence. As someone new to the game i felt like i was assumed to know more about him, because i didn't get much during the game itself. Wich made the end fight seem empty.

In the original game, Sephiroth shows up for the first time while Cloud and the others are imprisoned in Shinra HQ. He slaughters everyone inside, and Cloud follows a trail of blood (not purple goo) to the dead body of President Shinra. Sephiroth isn't seen, but Cloud recognizes his sword, which is still in the president's chest. After the gang escapes Shinra, leaves Midgar, and arrives in the next town, Cloud explains his history with Sephiroth. So "Remake" ends right before the point in the original game where Sephiroth gets his introduction. The next game, Rebirth, will likely explain Sephiroth for the new fans, but it would have been nice if they'd found a way to do that in the first game.

In Remake, he seems to know the future as well. That has interesting implications, but it also feels like Square Enix was like, "Well, we can't have a FFVII game without a Sephiroth boss battle in it!"

I also for the life of me couldn't finish one of the nerd-kid sidequests, and thus missed a lot of aeons.

Those can be pretty tough, but many of them have elemental weaknesses that can be exploited. Shiva is weak to fire, so if you use materia to give your weapon fire damage, that would help. Alternatively, you can attach materia to your armor to grant yourself resistance to ice damage. Having a party member who can cast Manaward or Manawall can help as well, which will half magic damage. They pair well with Magnify, which allows you to cast spells on your whole party at once. Also, you can challenge them at any point, as long as you can find Chadley. So if you're having trouble, level up and try again later.

Still. Visually pleasing. One of the few times a love triangle was handled in a way i found amusing.
I laughed at times. I am glad i didn't need to grind anywhere.

There are a lot of good things.

The original game had a love triangle. Remake throws yet another contender into the mix, with Jessie. Everybody is thirsty for Cloud.

But... ... it is not a game i am going to 100%. Or play again anytime soon. It is good, but... it has a lot of buts.

I don't think I will either. I like a challenge, but goddamn. Hard mode does not sound fun to me. They lock some things behind it, including a couple summons (one in the main campaign, and one in Yuffie's DLC), as well as a story reveal for Chadley. But I'll pass, and I looked up Chadley's scene on YouTube. lol

I just finished jedi, fallen order. Judt today.
Also a good game, but with a lot of buts.

The combat was challenging at first. But i grew accustomed to it, even on the hard difficulty. In essence it is not unfair. But it does have some problems.
Camera angles trip you up. Your bot doesn't heal you evey time you ask.  Glitches do occur. Sometimes stormtroopers loaded into the map too late. Sliding and jumping doesn't control well, though.
And one of the characters has weirdly rendered eyes.
And the characters,  while i like them, hardly get enough screen time to see their relationships evolve. We just see them getting into q new fase in their relationship, pretty much, skipping the actual growth...

But, what bothers me the absolute most... i am two trophees, a bronze and a silver or gold, away from 100% the game and getting a platinum.
And for the silver or gold one, i need one more collectible... and i know i picked it up already... but it didn' f-ing register.
So now i would have to replay the entire game in hopes that now it would. I could fo it on easy and go through relatively fast ... probably i won't, because the game is a bit of maze and it would be too much of q hassle... but i am soooo fucking close.
This game in effect blue balled me.

Oof. Fallen Order is one of my favorite games of all time, but I don't really care about trophies or achievements.

[Mr.Obvious]

In clarification, i got shiva.
But to get to fight the aeons themselves, you need to do his research requests. That is what i meant. I failed to do one, couldn't get the aeons.

Fighting shiva was actually not that hard. Got her on the first time.

[Hydra009]

Endless Day!  I love this little event.

All it does is add a new encounter to a few games, but it really gives it an intriguing mystique.  For just a few days (mods can make it permanent), when you start a new game, some weird stuff happens and you have to go investigate and maybe unlock a mysterious new character with unknown motivations...

Unfortunately, you ultimately don't learn very much, but if you're like me, you won't let that stop you:

[Mr.Obvious]

I hereby set the record straight, and concede my biggest gripe with jedi: fallen order.

I got the missing collectible. It was a different collectible than the one i thought.

I will praise it for this: in effect it is not q hard game to100%. The trophees are all manegeable and you are able to get them all, during all your time in the game. There is nothing time bound that forces you to replay. Nor does it make you start a new game+ or make you finish it on the hardest difficulty. I liked playing it on hard, but i don't think i would have fun going through the hardest mode.

So...

I got the 100%

I got the platinum.

And i am a giant idiot.

[Blackleaf]

So since the PS5 drought is finally over, I decided to get one, along with a couple of its games. Enjoying it so far, although I get a little crackling noise in my left ear with my USB headphones. Same thing happens when I use them on my Switch, but it doesn't happen on my PC. Don't know what's up with that.

1. Spider-Man
This is one game I've had my eye on for a while. It is available on PC now, but I got it on PlayStation. First thing, you cannot buy the PS5 version on its own. You can't buy the PS4 version and upgrade to the improved version. You can only get the PS5 version with the Miles Morales bundle, which was stupid and needlessly confusing. But I ended up doing that, using up a gift card I got with the system to pay part of the price.

As for the game itself, I'm loving it so far. Looks great, fun to play. Lots of stuff to do. There are a LOT of combos, which can make combat a bit confusing, but I'm getting the hang of it. There are these random crimes that happen in the city. For the most part, they're pretty simple. Swing over, beat up bad guys. But there are these police chases that happen sometimes, and I really don't know what the game expects me to do with those.

There are backpacks scattered throughout the city, because Peter apparently has a habit of hiding them and forgetting about them. Collecting them helps you unlock more suits and abilities.

I know there was a controversy around changing Peter Parker's face, but since I never played with that original face, I don't really know the difference.

2. Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core - Reunion
A remaster (or remake?) of the prequel to the original Final Fantasy VII, originally released for the PSP. I played a LITTLE bit of the original on my brother's PSP back in the day, but that was a long time ago, and it didn't really hook me in back then. So I can't really say what is new to this version, other than the improved graphics.

This game is cross platform on every modern system, including the Switch. So...that should give you an idea of how it looks. It isn't as visually impressive as FFVII Remake, but it looks fine. Character animations are also kind of stiff and archaic, probably the same as the original game. But this is a spinoff, so it makes sense it wouldn't get the same level of polish as the main games.

The controls are pretty intuitive. If you've played Remake, these controls are similar. However, since this is a solo adventure, with no party members to switch between or give orders to, the controls are tweaked to make combat more fluid, with no menus. The player character, Zach, has four materia slots, and you hold L1 to access their spells. You have spells you'd expect, like Fire, which cost MP, but there are some skills like an ice-elemental sword strike attack. Those cost AP.

Like the original game, during combat, there are these slots constantly going off on the upper left corner of the screen. When they line up, they can give you status effects, limit breaks, or summons. I have mixed feelings about that mechanic. I don't like having a ton of things going on with my UI when I'm trying to concentrate on battle, but it's not too intrusive, and it keeps things interesting with random events.

As for the story, given that this game is following the release of Remake, you might expect some changes to the story. As far as I can tell, there are no Whispers or weird stuff with the space-time continuum going on. It appears to follow the same story as the original, unless there's something extra at the end.

Basically, it's the PSP game with a modern glow up. It's an old game with some extra polish. Which is fine. I never finished the original game, and I'm interested to see how it goes. If you're a new fan of the FFVII series, just go in with the right expectations.

[Shiranu]

Trying God of War again, but every time I boot it up and play for about 30 minutes, it's just like... I could be having more fun playing Ghost of Tsushima.

I really want to play through it, but despite loving Norse mythology it just doesn't do anything for me.

[Blackleaf]

I've heard a lot of praise for the first one. Well, the first of the soft reboot. But for some reason, I hear people complaining about the sequel, even though it won like...half of all the awards last year.

[Hydra009]

My brother just sent me a text about something he claims is just like Factorio but in real life.

My response: Soo...a factory?

(Factorio is a factory-building game)

[Blackleaf]

I've made it a good way through Spider-Man. It's a really good game, but I have one slight peeve with it. The fucking crimes constantly popping up and interrupting what I'm doing. At a certain point, I started to ignore them, particularly the ones I've already completed the optional tasks for, but eventually, I start running out of crime tokens, and these things are required to 100% complete an area.

I mean, seriously, they pop up so often. I'm not exaggerating when I say I've been trying to do this one challenge for over an hour, because every time I get close, a new crime pops up.

Also, goddamn are the requirements for the challenges tight. I haven't gotten any but the bare minimum ranking on any of the stealth missions, and I feel like I'm moving pretty quick. Don't think I'll ever unlock all the suits, if I need every Challenge token in the game.

[Hydra009]

It's a really good game, but I have one slight peeve with it. The fucking crimes constantly popping up and interrupting what I'm doing. At a certain point, I started to ignore them

[Shiranu]

[Blackleaf]

Hey, hey. I said I was ignoring them, not forming a perimeter around the area and keeping people from going in to help.

[Hydra009]

Hey, hey. I said I was ignoring them, not forming a perimeter around the area and keeping people from going in to help.

[Blackleaf]

Where are all the other heroes, anyway? Avengers tower is here, so the Avengers do exist in this universe. I could really use the Hulk's help right now. Hell, I'd even take Hawkeye. The whole city is in chaos, but Spider-Man is the only defense? lol

[Mr.Obvious]

I've made it a good way through Spider-Man. It's a really good game, but I have one slight peeve with it. The fucking crimes constantly popping up and interrupting what I'm doing. At a certain point, I started to ignore them, particularly the ones I've already completed the optional tasks for, but eventually, I start running out of crime tokens, and these things are required to 100% complete an area.

I mean, seriously, they pop up so often. I'm not exaggerating when I say I've been trying to do this one challenge for over an hour, because every time I get close, a new crime pops up.

Also, goddamn are the requirements for the challenges tight. I haven't gotten any but the bare minimum ranking on any of the stealth missions, and I feel like I'm moving pretty quick. Don't think I'll ever unlock all the suits, if I need every Challenge token in the game.

I 100%ed that game on ps4.
It As fun, but yeah, bit hectic.

And i easily managed some of the challenges, but had a hard time with some of the challenges requiring you to reach bombs in time. Those were my biggest problem. You gotta do some really hard parcour and hope the game decides to stick your web to the right surface at the right time.

I couldn't even ignore the side quests. I think i completed like over 95% of them before facing the final boss.
But i also had a similar gripe with rdr2. Which is a fantastic game. But sometimes i'm like; just lzt me get this legendary pelt to the trapper, i don't have time to get mugged or having to give a damsel a ride home. I just want to do this one last thing before going to sleep. Just let me, please.