So What Are YOU Playing?

[Insanecyclone]

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 and RE5, just got I'm late I know.

[Klain]

EDIT: But then again, I guess these are the same people who think games with 2-hour sequences where you do nothing but go through dialogue are good games too.

Metal Gear Solid 4 was a good movie.

[Yuri-G]

People talk about these having good gameplay... then always mention grinding, what gives?

EDIT: But then again, I guess these are the same people who think games with 2-hour sequences where you do nothing but go through dialogue are good games too.

The thing with Persona 4 is that you have to balance grinding with social link progression, which deeply affects gameplay. Every day you spend grinding is a day you can't progress a social link. Every day you progress a social link you can't grind. On top of that, you have very few options to heal your SP in the early parts of the game, so once it runs out, you're pretty much done grinding for the day. It's not like Final Fantasy where you can slaughter monsters to your heart's content and every other person on the planet seems to halt their plans until you decide to move on.

The end result is that you spend a ton of time grinding in the early stages of the game, instead of advancing social links, which are a huge part of the battle system themselves. It feels somewhat unbalanced, like I always feel I'm screwed no matter which choice I make. Fortunately it's getting better as I've realized that it's quite often to your advantage to run away from enemies unless they have weaknesses that are easily exploited. There's no point in taking on those cop guys from the second dungeon, for example, when they take forever to kill on top of doing a ton of damage to your party, and the exp and money you get isn't really that much anyway. On the other hand, I can slaughter a group of cupid-looking things with one spell that costs 10 SP, and a single follow-up attack. It makes you think about economical grinding, a concept I've never had to face before, at least not like this.

Hell, maybe that was the intent of the developers. To make the "run away!" function actually useful, and force people to think about which battles to spend their energy on and which to avoid.

So yeah. I'm not really complaining about the grinding, I'm just annoyed that I have to pick between that and social links (unlike Persona 3, where you could do both in a given day). In the end I love the game, it's just a bit frustrating at times. But what else would I expect from Expert mode?

[Charismatic]

Glad you enjoy your movie there Yuri-G, but... I'm still not understanding how any of that makes for good gameplay.
I hate Persona 4 simply because I got bored before I got the chance to do anything.

Almost 2 hours and not one damn fight? Ridiculous.

[Atreides]

Hooked on Rogue Galaxy for a while. I'm pissed that I've had it so long and playing it just now. There's so much to do that I almost feel overwhelmed, but in a good way. Jaster isn't as annoying as other rpg heroes and the supporting characters are kind of cool once they grow on you. (Rule34 on Lilika please) I know I mentioned it before, but there's so much shit to do. There's a frog that can eat/fuse your weapons into more powerful ones, a factory that you can use to make items so they're available to shops, and the Insectron Tournament where you can battle insects with other insects for prizes. There's probably more, but I'm only 12 hours into the game.

weapon fusion gets pretty addictive. Yea there's a shitload to do in the game, I clocked somewhere around 170+ hours before I moved onto something else having never even touched insectron. Really nice amount of endgame/postgame content too, with bonus dungeons and extra costumes for completing various tasks. It's def. one of my favorite games for ps2.

edit: I'm about 60 hours into FFTactics, I spent a lot of time grinding JP for my chars and I'm getting kinda bored with the game. The story is good (although a little dry, FF12 functions better as a tale of political intrigue because of voiced cutscenes, imo...) but having such a tremendous backlog is making me a little impatient. I suppose I could try to stick with it, but part of me wants to move on to a next-gen RPG like tales/star ocean or a ps2 rpg like dark cloud2/valk profile2/etc.

[Yuri-G]

Glad you enjoy your movie there Yuri-G, but... I'm still not understanding how any of that makes for good gameplay.
I hate Persona 4 simply because I got bored before I got the chance to do anything.

Almost 2 hours and not one damn fight? Ridiculous.

Eh, that's the only point in the game you'll go that long without a fight unless you want to. And a lot of people (myself included) would consider a lot of the in-between-dungeons stuff to be gameplay. The social links require a lot of thought and understanding of the different characters to choose the right answers (sometimes... sometimes they're blatantly obvious). And the whole scheduling concept I'd also consider gameplay - it takes a lot of thought and strategy to mazimize your progress by doing social links on the right days, part-time jobs on others, etc. You could make things really hard on yourself if you don't do it right, especially on Expert Mode. It's all about balancing the different ways your characters progress.

If it's just not your type of game though, I understand. The Persona series is far more story-heavy than gameplay-heavy. Sounds like you'd enjoy Nocturne a lot more.

[Vandole]

l4d
tf2
brawl
and i'm watching my girlfriend play through the phoenix wright series

[Klain]

I'll admit that P4's gameplay is pretty bleh, but the story is pretty good imo.

I pretty much consider Persona 4 a visual novel. One my of favorite PS2 RPGs though.

[Yuri-G]

I'd play the game for Kanji alone. Best portrayal of a gay character in any videogame, ever. First one I've ever seen that wasn't a borderline offensive complete stereotype. Well, aside from

Spoiler: show

his shadow form.

[Sol-Blackguy]

weapon fusion gets pretty addictive. Yea there's a shitload to do in the game, I clocked somewhere around 170+ hours before I moved onto something else having never even touched insectron. Really nice amount of endgame/postgame content too, with bonus dungeons and extra costumes for completing various tasks. It's def. one of my favorite games for ps2.

edit: I'm about 60 hours into FFTactics, I spent a lot of time grinding JP for my chars and I'm getting kinda bored with the game. The story is good (although a little dry, FF12 functions better as a tale of political intrigue because of voiced cutscenes, imo...) but having such a tremendous backlog is making me a little impatient. I suppose I could try to stick with it, but part of me wants to move on to a next-gen RPG like tales/star ocean or a ps2 rpg like dark cloud2/valk profile2/etc.

The factory is pretty badass too. I've gotten to the point where I don't have to buy anything except weapons and non-processed revelation items. My guys are a little under-leveled so I'm stuck on that duel against Deego and Gale. It wouldn't be such a pain if I wasn't so drained after the initial fight. I like how they didn't dumb down the difficulty when it got released in the states.

I don't understand why people think they have to grind out JP in FFT. You can pretty much get enough JP just from the plot battles and sending your troops on errands. The only thing that possibly pissed me off about the game was that it's too easy with all the special characters. After a while, half the jobs become useless and Cloud can literally one-shot both the final and zodiac bosses. I've done all the challenges too: AI character only, basic character only, set job only, and monsters only. I was in the middle of the Ramza only challenge but I got hooked on Rogue Galaxy lol.

[Kaisha]

Playing a bit too much TF2/L4D lately, mixed in with nearly being done with FEAR1 (bloody short game, already 3 stages from the final after two sittings).

I also came back to my usual routine of 'finish a game to the end point where is requires you to either grind an assload, or collect shit to progress, and leave it at that for a year or two, and then come back to finish it', this time being Metroid Prime 3. I swear I did the same thing for the previous two Primes and their god damn keys.

[Beckwin]

if you're 60 hours in to FFT, you should be of sufficient level/abilities to blow through whatever you have left in no more than a few hours. it's worth it to see the ending of the story, and the last series of battles are fairly cool.

[Kiarax]

I'd play the game for Kanji alone. Best portrayal of a gay character in any videogame, ever. First one I've ever seen that wasn't a borderline offensive complete stereotype. Well, aside from

Spoiler: show

his shadow form.

Psh, this is a much more accurate portrayal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0AVGVNptX8

[Colenzo]

GW
L4D
TF2 sometimes
trying to find a new psp game to play or old ps1 game to play

[Sol-Blackguy]

if you're 60 hours in to FFT, you should be of sufficient level/abilities to blow through whatever you have left in no more than a few hours. it's worth it to see the ending of the story, and the last series of battles are fairly cool.

^This

Aside from the incredible gameplay, the story is really where it's at. All the sidequests, poaching, (hope you got a Uribo in Ch 2) hidden characters, and the deep dungeon really kick ass. If the replay value was even near as superior as Tactics Ogre, I'd never put it down. Just make sure you have a calculator or a dancer because the deep dungeon can be a serious pain on your first try.

[Null]

I've finally got around to playing Dead Space. I must say I am fairly let down. Now don't get me wrong the game is great and I will continue to play through it and beat it (only on Chapter 9 atm)...but it isn't scary what so ever imo. I've heard so many people speak about how creepy it is and I honestly don't see it. In my eyes it is just a poor mans Bioshock.

[Hitoshura]

FFIV DS, just defeated the Dark Elf and holy shit that was quick. Already on the Tower of Zot.

Also played The Dark Spire last night, this game is pretty fucking insane and hard.

YouTube - Impressions - The Dark Spire (DS)

[Rydir]

Sacred 2, L4D, LOTR: Conquest, and Killzone 2 is what I seem to be stuck on playing right now. I am kinda stoked for Sacred 2 to come to console as Diablo 1 on PS1 was one of my favorite pass times back in the day and I need another rpg loot game I can couch potato to.

[Eticket]

been playing Contact on the DS. It's a fun little game.

I rented Mercenaries 2 from Gamefly but have yet to even play it. I'm debating just sending it back til I feel like giving it a shot.

[Exoduso]

Nothing to play really.. I'm trying to play through SO4 but I don't have time for it, so it's moving rather slow.. and when I do have some free time I'm usually playing GH:M.