Messages

331

Gaming / Re: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

« on: April 23, 2018, 06:09:38 PM »

It's not an insignificant hump either, and it's not an insignificant amount of difficulty. I probably reset my game over 50 times in the first few hours because of bad luck.

That said, I did just beat it...so...some thoughts.

OVERALL, a good game...but...the start is just too damn bad. The first "tutorial" area is garbage, damn near impossible, and the world doesn't feel at all like a megaten game.

Then you get past the "tutorial" area, and it does pick up, but it's still a bit of a slog even though the world is more into that everything is horrible sense of dread feeling megaten has to offer.

Then you enter the last 20-30% of the game, and it gets damn interesting, it gets really interesting. I don't think anyone here is going to even play this so I'll just spoil it below.

You have the sky japan place that's tranquil and pristine that you start in, then below that is tokyo which is a post apocalyptic city covered in demons...then you go to "blasted tokyo" which is fuckin 6 craters in the ground with damn near no life anywhere, after that you enter "infernal tokyo" which is more or less like the regular post apocalyptic tokyo except everything is on fire, demons run the show, and humans are kept alive as cattle to feed the demons. It progressively got better in my opinion.

It does have a WAYYYYYYYYYYY better fusing system than nocturne, at the expense of each demon not really feeling unique. A tradeoff in its favor, but a tradeoff nonetheless.

If you have say demon A, and you run into an encounter with a demon A, and you talk to one to recruit it. Well you can only have one of any given demon at a time, so, it's a cool way to end an encounter since they'll think "ohh you're chilling with a demon A, you're cool with me, see ya" and just leave. It's a cool touch, and the demon negotiation system is a lot more fleshed out.

Then the ending, there's multiple endings, law, chaos, neutral, all that jazz. I don't know what my ending counted as, but I ended all of existance, and nothing exists anymore...THE END

BITCH!...which thinking about it, is the same deal as deus ex human revolution...4 endings, 3 for each "faction" and 1 everybody is shit, everybody dies ending, which I also chose in that game.

I am going to hold off on playing smt4 apocalypse (think of it as a different game, in the same universe, a la final fantasy 10-2 or something) for quite a while. I do hear apocalypse is actually somewhat balanced in the beginning, and overall a more polished game, but I just came off from beating two long ass difficult jrpgs...I need a break. Strange journey redux is mid may, I might snag that, in the meantime...I'm...finally freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Will update thread when either Redux comes out, or If I decide to do some extra things in nocturne. Nocturne has a ng+, but also, it has a few extra challenges to make a ng+ more interesting. Collect all of the demons to make summoning them from the compendium cost 50% less (if you play the games, it's a hugeeeee bonus). And optional graveyard areas which have bosses that you must kill in a set number of turns, do all of those, and you'll get an extra pressturn (5 turns instead of 4, a massive massive MASSIVE advantage) on your ng+ playthrough.

...and persona 5 started all of this, and I have yet to put more than 20 minutes into that game...it's snowballed into something else

332

Gaming / Re: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

« on: April 21, 2018, 05:42:45 PM »

So...I impulse bought shin megami tensei 4...probably shouldn't have done that.

The first 8 hours, or the "tutorial" part of that game. Well, I was splurging about nocturnes difficulty in this thread, and I maybe over exaggerated, but it's still a hard game. Shin Megami Tensei 4, the "tutorial" part, it's the hardest jrpg I've played personally.

I'm talking third random battle killed my main character in one hit from full health on a non crit hard, it's not even really hard as much as it's un fucking fair. Community said the difficulty in the beginning was bullshit hard, but after coming from nocturne, I didn't expect it to be that bad.

The "balance" in that game comes from the "save anywhere" feature. It's flat out mandatory to save before every single encounter, because even if you're 30 levels over leveled, they can still wipe the floor with you. Nocturne killed you, and sometimes it was un fair, but most of the time it was preventable. Being hard designed around save anywhere, I don't like it. Also enemies don't drop money...not a fan of that either.

However, after the beginning part and when you enter the "real game" it's easier than nocturne.

HORRIBLE first impressions thus far however. Nocturne I'd recommend, smt4, not so much. It is getting better the farther I get however, about half way through the game as of this post. I hated the setting for being too soft and pretty, but after the tutorial area, it dirtied up quick, so it does get better.

333

Song of the Day / [Jazz Fusion] Indigo Jam Unit (feat Common)- Come Close

« on: April 15, 2018, 08:25:07 PM »

Oooo new content...so...what do I have to share?

Y'all know I'm a big hip hop head, and psytrance is tight...so...breakin the mold, not going to be predictable.

...Then I started looking at stuff and I couldn't not post this. It's one of my favorites. Anyway, getting accurate genres might be difficult since not every piece of music can cleanly fit into a box.

So when I talk music with randos on various parts of the internet, and I'm being a suave asshole claming to have good taste, I usually post this track, and they usually agree with me.

I hope you fellows feel the same.

'lil bit of jazz, some r&b feels, some sick piano, always gets me in a good mood

334

Gaming / Re: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

« on: April 10, 2018, 11:15:07 PM »

Looking at my posts, I kinda wacked off a lot over how hard the game is.

It is hard...but...then you reach a point where it's...not...hard

I'm so paranoid about shit killing me, I overprepared to the extreme. I beat the game, and I beat the optional dungeon which unlocks the final FINAL boss whom you fight after the normal "final" boss, whom is laughly powerful...

...but I knew this beforehand, so...I didn't touch him till I got brokenly stupidly he man moving the moon powerful. That said, while trivial, the last bosses are fun to just let loose on with the demons you worked the entire game to create. Like my team had vishnu and shiva on it, hindu dieties, fighting with me against THE devil. It was a cool scene and it was fun to experience.

The more I played it, the more I come to think it's not so much pokemon, as it is dragon warrior monsters. Pokemon you can take your starter all the way to the end game(there is one exception in nocturne, DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR STARTER PIXIE AT ALL, fuse it into other stuff if you want but do not throw away the demon you have that the pixie helped create, you will thank me if you ever play this game at all), dragon warrior monsters and nocturne, you take those guys, fuse em into better guys, until you're fusing bosses you fought and gods and dieties and shit.

The battle system is great. It's a jrpg, but where buffs are important and useful, and you actually want to use buffs/debuffs and moves to take away buffs/debuffs because they matter. Like the most powerful move in the game only does like 800 or so damage, the final boss has like 65,000 health. If you buff and debuff properly, and use focus (never throw away focus, if you do, restart the game, it's that good) that 900 damage move can be a 6-8000 damage move. It's a lot of preparation and setting up for powerful attacks rather than just spamming weak stuff over and over.

Not to mention, in persona 4, it was extremely important to have turns where you defend, you take significantly reduced damage in this state, but you take no action obviously. In nocturne, this mechanic doesn't exist, instead you can "pass" your turn. 4 characters = 4 turns(main character + 3 demons, if a demon dies...you do lose a turn). My endgame setup, I have the main character who is the damage man, a character for healing/debuffing, a character for damage and debuffing, and a guy who literally only buffs/debuffs. When the buffer has finished his job (ie max stacks), he's garbage right? Well, no. He can pass, or say the healer doesnt need to heal and you'd rather use an attack with a stronger character...you can pass to the next character in line. It takes half a turn, meaning the next character can act, but if that second character passes, you wasted a turn. So there's legit strategy in certain characters passing at certain times to give other characters opportunities.

It's a cool system, and it's not braindead at all. It kept me engaged for some 68 hours to grind my ass to level...98...and get high tier demons and beat the cool optional sekret end boss.

It's a great game, and I see why the internet raves about it when it's mentioned. It's ranking up there in one of the better jrpgs I've personally played.

The thing is like 20 bucks on amazon for the physical ps2 copy (which I played), and probably around there on the ps3 (ps4 gets screwed) playstation network, not a hard game to get your hands on.

I give this game a Lucifer out of 10, great change of pace from the typical save the world from evil crap we're all used to.



I'm highly considering playing another mainline smt game in the future. There ain't many to choose from, but we're getting a strange journey remake next month, and smt 5 is coming out on the switch...eventually, also we got two other 3ds games smt 4, and 4a (4a being an actually different game, just in the smt 4 universe/takes place around the same time afiak)

So Iunno, time to mope around for a few days till the next thing grabs me by the balls. This wasn't on my backlog at all, but it was a fun diversion.

335

Gaming / Re: Far Cry 5

« on: April 10, 2018, 10:53:11 PM »

Wasn't the ending of farcry 3 also shitty?

I really enjoyed farcry 3, and I played blood dragon and actually think blood dragon is a superior product as the mechanics of farcry fit a smaller package better methinks.

But at the same time, from what I've seen of 4, and the caveman game, they're ubisoft syndrome in, if you've played one you've played em all? Is that the case with 5?

It's like dynasty warriors, I put a shitload of time into dynasty 4, loved that game, never want to play it ever again or any of it's derivatives.

Besides the stuff around 5, I don't really actually know anything about the game besides the setting, which im down for.

336

Gaming / Re: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

« on: April 03, 2018, 06:03:37 PM »

Probably just going to blog this stuff as I progress. It's a hard game to put down despite its quirks.

I'd like to think im 60-70% through the main game? But I intend on doing the bullshit optional dungeon (which is indeed horseshit, good fucking luck doing it without a guide, seriously) and getting the dope "true" ending.

The majority of the game is fine, it has bullshit moments that just kill you, but it's fine. Save points aren't "liberal" but they ain't scarce either, for the most part. Fuse up a Daisoujou with some good skills (which takes a lot of time and trial and error to get what you want) and in essence you have a walking heal factory and mana battery. Mana management is like THE thing in this game (and p4, and I assume all smt? if that pattern is correct) and so having a demon who can drain mana from enemies to fill his mana pool...and the kicker is you do your homework beforehand and fuse him properly to get a little skill called Makatora. This gem doesn't even really seem that good. Cost 10mp, use, gives 10mp to target...so you got a demon who can get free mana from any enemy, and you got a skill to give mana to your allies...OHH BABY

So having access to that, I got a few things done, getting closer and closer to some of the bullshit OP skills in the game, but not quite yet.

That optional dungeon doe, it's a doozey. There's 5 parts, each part is goddamn massive, and there's no saves anywhere...and there's no real shortcut out. I just finished the second part, and got to the start of the third part...and wanted to leave...there's a shortcut pit to get to level 2, no idea how to unlock the pit to 3, so you have to trudge through 2 to get to 3, and then back again...it's yeah...

But doing level 2, it's large and in charge, and until you get to the end, I don't think there's a way out...so it took me roughly 90-100 minutes to complete WITH A GUIDE (way longer without), and any death would..cost me my afternoon slogging through that. Not to mention there's an optional but EXTREMELY rewarding area...high random encounter area with hard monsters, every 2 steps you lose like 40% of your life, and within 6 or so steps you have 1hp, you need to make many many many steps to get through it. You have a skill that 100% escape rate, it's mandatory, but the catch, you spent like 45-50 minutes in the dungeon already, and then you're doing this, ONTOP OF THAT IF THE ENEMY GOES FIRST YOU BASICALLY GAME OVER BECAUSE YOU GOT 1HP......

Stressful as all fuck, but at the end you get 250,000 moneys, which is an absolute fuckload considering I only had around 40,000 total. (ohh and when you get your reward, you have to trudge back...albiet with a few shortcuts, but still...trudge back...to getting lost in the dungeon to finish it because lol you cant leave to save)

I DID IT, now to level 3? Level 1 let you leave whenever to save, I just hope 2 was a gimmick.

Also like, idk, I like the flow of this game. Story minimal, but atmosphere heavy, good rewarding gameplay, good gameplay systems, none of the cringey stuff you see in later FF games (looking at you 10, or 13-2).

337

Gaming / Re: Monster Hunter

« on: April 03, 2018, 05:42:03 PM »

I believe mh4u has more content than world (beleive it or not in the 200 or so hours I dumped into world), but I just can't deal with the horrible 3ds controls. I literally prefer it on psp, and it aint much better...

Either way community still hails it as a great game, it just suffers because of platform imo. In the 20 or so hours I played mh4u, I didn't use the analog laptop mouse nub, it's horrible, atrocious, I'd almost rather it not even be there if they aren't going to make it function half way decent. The touch pad d pad ended up being more reliable for me than the nub personally. Either way, a good holdover till you get access to world.

338

Random Chat / Re: Which one are you?

« on: April 03, 2018, 05:37:42 PM »

I don't mind these things every now and then.

I ended up with Logician

Not sure how accurate it is, but I like to think unconventionally. I'd like to think of myself as a pretty passive chill person IRL.

339

Gaming / Re: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

« on: April 01, 2018, 06:16:25 PM »

This game's starting to drive me crazy. Part of the reason I have yet to play P5 is, it has a lot of quality of life changes...that would probably make nocturne unplayable. So you're fusing demons, and you can pass over skills, you select 1, then 2, see what skills you got, it's wrong, so you deselect them, do it again, it's wrong again. I've literally tried over a thousand times(that's actually an understatement, probably closer to 2000 resets of the rng), no exaggeration, and still haven't gotten what I wanted, the same applies for vanilla persona 4 (golden fixes it somewhat), and it's annoying. So did I get what I want? No, you find a skill you can probably live without, deal with 2 of the 3 skills you wanted and go forward. It just aint worth resetting over and over and over and over....and over and over andoverandoverandover

And even in p4, except for like Rise's dungeon, and the near end of the game, you fight a boss, and...you're safe. This game...you still have to go to a save point...which is a problem when say, any random battle can kill you from 100 to 0, before you can even act or do a damn thing about it. It's raising my blood pressure for sure. I have not yet had a game over after a boss, but that stress is on you after fighting a hard as fuck boss (of which there are many) to know that you might die before you can save.

I'm decently far right now. Hard to have context, but I'm level 38 right now, so I think I'm at least half way? maybe more?

Either way, I ran into another dumb scenario. There's an attack that does low damage, but has a chance to lower your hp to 1, ff games have this it's no big deal...except in a game where your main characters death leads to a game over...so back attack, enemies go first, do that attack on my mc, it works, he has one hp, next enemy attacks, he's dead, game over, I didn't even have an option to push a button.

I literally think it's impossible to beat this game without a few game overs unless you are extremely lucky. There are skills to REDUCE back attacks but not ELIMINATE. It kind of reminds me of the final boss of ff13. ff13 is an awful game and I don't recommend it, but the final boss spams death a lot...and 13 to my knowledge is the only ff where the main character dies, GAME OVER BITCH. So same scenario as nocturne and p4. You can spend time to craft things to boost resistance to death...and that's cool, but it doesn't reduce it to 0...so that means at any time in the boss fight, you can just automatically lose and get a game over, and there's not a damn thing you do can about it other than getting lucky, which is the only option I am aware of.

I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE HARD, I WAS IN FOR A CHALLENGE, but it's one thing to know of something, and another entirely to experience it.

Regardless, the fun is outweighing the frustration, so I MUST CHUG FORWARD! If I can somehow beat this monster, I may need an easier game as a break...



Halo 2 on normal? lol

340

Random Chat / Re: BEER

« on: March 28, 2018, 08:08:59 PM »

Give me some recommendations! I like stouts a lot!

Honestly, if you are in a place with a big variety and you aren't afraid to spend a little money, buy a variety of different styles and try to make sure each individual drink isn't too much so you can get some volume in there.

The best way to find something you like is to discover it, and you never know what you'll end up liking. I started out hating IPA, now I am ALMOST to the point where if I don't have a hop bomb, I'd rather drink water and save my liver another day.

German stuff is pretty accessable, not going to blow your mind, fairly safe, but there's some solid picks. I'd recommend Köstritzer, if the place has good variety, it should have these. It's not a stout, but I would more than recommend it to a stout drinker, black lager is somewhat similar in flavor to a stout.

How was the big 3-0? Mine was super lame and boring. Hope you had a good bday.

I wanted a fairly quiet chill birthday and I got one. Drove down to Lansing, got breakfast, before we left I took a leak which my girlfriend used to hurry up and try to pay my bill behind my back...then apparently without either of us knowing, my meal was free since it was my birthday. So great food, AND IT WAS FREE, bonus.

Then hit up Horrocks, which is a fantastic store I've jizzed about a few times here. Spent way too much money...as pictured, then we went home to chillax have a few beers and play some smt nocturne. Ate way too much, but it was a nice day. Not the most exciting day, but I don't really do exciting, I just like taking it easy, and it was all good.

Another bonus, my girlfriend got her drivers license (she's young...shh...), and we got this minivan in my name now so we have that...it's just been a damn good week. ONTOP OF I GET EASTER SUNDAY OFF (my work week is wed-sun) SO WE'RE DOING BRUNCH THAT MORNING.

It's good times, really. I've been in a damn good mood the past few weeks realizing how nice I have things right now. My job could be better, and that van we got is on it's last legs, but things is just nice. I like to try and keep a positive attitude, but when things are going well, it's kinda hard not to.

also IM AN ADULT NOW, GOOD BYE 20's I HARDLY KNEW YE

341

Gaming / Re: Monster Hunter

« on: March 27, 2018, 05:21:03 PM »

I wouldn't mind being able to play older stuff on the thing, like elder scrolls and some blizzard stuff here and there, but that's not my primary want for the machine.

Not entirely sure I want to go away from windows since it's what I'm used to, and Linux seems like I would have a lot of random issues trying to get stuff to work that would just work with no fuss on windows, but I have no personal experience myself.

I think mostly I'd want something comfortable on my lap while I'm in the living room in my recliner. If I have access to it in that environment, i'd be more likely to casually code and whatnot. At least that's the theory, "if it's there I aughta use it".

Then that price point, in what I can afford, which I'm not entirely sure what I'd be willing to drop at this moment. Need to get some home budgeting down before I can nail that number.

342

Random Chat / Re: BEER

« on: March 27, 2018, 05:12:08 PM »

I uhh...it's my birthday, I'm 30 so...wanted to splurge...

https://i.imgur.com/2vqOobI.jpg

I won't be buying alcohol for a little bit...

343

Gaming / Re: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

« on: March 27, 2018, 05:11:06 PM »

So far...it's ok. I did have a situation recently where im out and about, went back to the healer, heal to full, take 4 steps to the save point, enter a standard random battle...

"blablabla uses focus (boosts attack immensely next turn, but no big deal), next turn, BLABLABLA CRITS, BLABLABLA ATTACKS, dead main character GAME OVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

Literally looking at the save door too. Fortunately I didn't do anything important, but still, this game will get you.

From what I hear about smt4, the early game is just savage(nocturne early game isn't bad at all), but I haven't played it myself yet.

But yeah, it's a game all about being prepared. Unlike other jrpgs, you want to use items liberally in this game, and there's a meme for these games "use buffs retard" Which having just beaten Thor...buffs can turn an impossible fight into a trivial one, assuming you live long enough to get set up. I enjoy using mechanics usually not worthwhile in other games. Buffs even moreso in nocturne, unlike persona 4, buffs last the entire battle unless an enemy has a spell to take them away, and most of them seem to affect your whole party or all enemies in one go.

344

Gaming / Shin Megami Tensei

« on: March 26, 2018, 08:52:35 PM »

Ever since Persona 5 hit last year, and I bought it and "cough" never played it "cough" I got back into Persona 4 and actually beat it. That game(p4) ended up being one of my favorite jrpgs, and the more I think about it, favorite games in general, from that one playthrough.

So Persona 5 still sitting on the shelf...it still has me thinking, I aughta play it...after...maybe I beat a real megaten game.

I'm not a guy who goes out of my way to play games because they are HARD FOR TRUE GAMERS, but yknow contra is one of my favorite all time games and that has a reputation, I beat dark souls which was amazing...not because it was hard but because it was amazing, and persona 4 is probably the hardest jrpg I've personally beaten...and all I hear is it's amongst the easiest games under the megaten umbrella.

Pretense out of the way, I hear this game (Nocturne) is nasty brutal and unfair, yet at the same time really really good. I'm not seeking it out because it's hard (im playing on normal, im not a nutter who'd play on hard), but for western releases it's the first smt game, it's cheap on ps2 when I bought it, and the setting is cool. It's a really refreshing setting, and I kinda want more...which I guess we're getting with the strange journey remake, and smt5 will be on the switch in the future.

Having a game where the start is everybody on earth dies, and they actually play through with that, that's cool. It's not like fallout where there's pockets of people barely eeking out a living, everybody is dead, and it's just demons and ghosts and shit.

So I've played roughly 8 or so hours in the past week, going slow in-between doing boring adult obligatory stuff, but it's fun so far. I just beat matador, who is like the first fuck you road block part of the game, knowing this, I prepared a lot beforehand and managed to get him first try. The kicker is, matador has a reputation for being hard, but the game after matador? IT DONT GET EASIER! Any fucking random battle can kill you, the tables can turn and the planets can align in such a way where you just die from a normal low leveled encounter. Not to mention they don't hold your hand, beat matador with a sliver of life left...uhhh you're still where you encountered him, in a place with moderate/hard random battles, far enough away from the save point to kill you before you're off to safety. It's a cool while at the same time kinda frustrating tension you don't get in the standard final fantasy fare I'm used to. Ohh and healing that usually comes to you free in a lot of games now? yeah that costs money, demon dies? even more money, you die? GAME OVERRERERRRRrrrr....and the healing place is usually a random battle or two by the save place...so...bad luck can happen if you choose to take one over the other...enemy ambush + crit...yeah...

I've been interested in exploring more non square jrpgs, and atlus is doing me well so far. Anyone hear of/play nocturne? Or other smt games I've yet to play? Looking into smt4/4a at a later date if I can manage to beat this one. Playing on ps2, legit with a real copy of the game of course, no emulation, no ps3 digital version (don't own a ps3 so no access to the superior ps3 store)




*edit*

Thread renamed since I'll be playing a good few of these games. I'm hooked.

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Gaming / Re: Monster Hunter

« on: March 26, 2018, 07:39:12 PM »

I may be, but I'll have to raincheck. Birthday + expenses = not much free money to go around for a bit.

Might want to look around, not entirely sure what I'm looking for in a portable machine.