So What Are YOU Playing?

**Gokulo** · 2016-06-24 00:19

Oh you wound me sir. I'm currently in the middle of finishing Trails of Cold Steel. Love the series

**TheDirtyHobo** · 2016-06-24 02:40

Originally Posted by Hitoshura

Lol my bad, just all the feels were overwhelming. Also apparently Corrderio is the only other person on this forum that even touched, let alone finish the game, so probably not gonna happen on the title change.

It's fine, it was a joke. And I usually ignore them so it could well all have been you two, but I feel like there's probably been at least one reference to a Trails game per page for the last 15 or so pages, and definitely the single most referenced series of the thread (at least in the last 6 months or so). Hence the joke.

**Lyall** · 2016-06-24 08:05

I had my eye on The Swindle for a while and finally bought it last night. I also recently picked Gunpoint back up. I guess I'm in a stealthy mood lately.

**Hitoshura** · 2016-06-24 21:09

Originally Posted by TheDirtyHobo

It's fine, it was a joke. And I usually ignore them so it could well all have been you two, but I feel like there's probably been at least one reference to a Trails game per page for the last 15 or so pages, and definitely the single most referenced series of the thread (at least in the last 6 months or so). Hence the joke.

Honestly it's likely because the game takes a while to complete. I did it in about 45 hours but in a span of 2 months because the game itself at some points feels like a chore. It isn't perfect, it actually takes a good while until the story really starts picking up, it involves a lot of reading, doing missions, characters development, and fighting monsters like a boss to really allow yourself to get immersed into this world, and I had my doubts.

The friend that had the nerve to make me feel bad about not giving the game a chance has not even beat FC himself. I was like.. really man? So when I saw the story wasn't picking up and it was the same Team Rocket like antics going on with the bad guys, it really made me play a lot less of it. I didn't like one of the leads, Estelle. I found her kind of annoying and dense at first.. but this all changed when I got to the Final Chapter and saw the ending. I was completely overwhelmed, and my opinion of her has changed over the course of this entire game. I normally don't go from disliking a character to what I feel now. Once they are on my shit list, it's usually permanent but Estelle is a very special case.

MAJOR NUCLEAR SPOILERS DO NOT OPEN IF YOU HAVE NO CLEARED FC

Spoiler: show

TIME TO PLAY SOME SC! No break for me! How can you after such a soul crushing cliff hanger?

**Greatguardian** · 2016-06-24 21:22

This thread is 100% the reason I have picked FC back up a half dozen times over the past couple years (despite my saves corrupting twice and having to restart each time). I have a tendency to burn myself out on doing as many bracer guild quests as possible then not touch it for months. Steam says I've put 59 hours into it and I've only recently started the Final Chapter.

**Souj** · 2016-06-25 16:01

Bought 999 off Amazon to play on my 3ds. Trying to play it. I'm having fun with the puzzles and I like how the story plays out like a visual novel. I don't like how every thirty seconds- and after every time I click an item during an escape, I have to listen (read) to characters talk about conspiracy theory crazy stuff. Keep the long winded dialog out of my puzzle game play, damnit! Hope it changes because otherwise I'm really liking the game.

**Seravi Edalborez** · 2016-06-25 16:20

Originally Posted by Souj

Bought 999 off Amazon to play on my 3ds. Trying to play it. I'm having fun with the puzzles and I like how the story plays out like a visual novel. I don't like how every thirty seconds- and after every time I click an item during an escape, I have to listen (read) to characters talk about conspiracy theory crazy stuff. Keep the long winded dialog out of my puzzle game play, damnit! Hope it changes because otherwise I'm really liking the game.

From what little I remember, I don't think it does change. You're playing a conspiracy theory with puzzles, not the other way around

**TheDirtyHobo** · 2016-06-25 17:36

Yeah, the 999 series is about the fuckcrazy plots, the puzzles are just incidental.

**Souj** · 2016-06-25 18:40

Oh well. I'll see how long I can keep going with it. Also just picked up Binding of Isaac Afterbirth from Steam sale so 999's already kinda got pushed to the backburner.

**Lyall** · 2016-06-27 09:36

Afterbirth is what put me off of the game, actually. Greed Mode's end boss has HP scaled to your damage output and so does the blue womb enemy. In short, a bunch of unlocks are barred behind unfun challenges and they're not even worthwhile in and of themselves for the most part.

Issac was about suffering through randomness to get obscenely-powerful combos. Making it so you have to hit a boss a thousand times regardless of your damage eliminates the whole point. Making you have to do it repeatedly with every character just... Yeah. No. Also, fuck meat cubes and bandages.

I really like The Swindle, on an unrelated note, but I'm learning I'm fucking terrible at it.

**Lyall** · 2016-06-27 09:37

double

**Seravi Edalborez** · 2016-06-29 12:39

Originally Posted by Seravi Edalborez

Downloaded demo for Grand Kingdom. I don't remember the last time I instantly fell in love with a game within the first 5 minutes. The design aesthetic is S+ tier and the combat is fresh and interesting. Instant buy, and I am a hardass for waiting for games to go on sale saying that. I'm surprised that this actually WASN'T developed by NIS or Vanillaware (though NIS America published it) because the resemblance is pretty striking (in that it looks gorgeous like Vanillaware but seems to have stat porn like Disgaea-lite).

Only thing is that you really need to see it in motion. I thought the screenshots made it look awful.

Put a little more time into this, I think I can organize thoughts on it a little better. Little sample of quest board map + combat:

I would say the combat has some extreme similarities to Valkyrie Profile (but with lanes and movement) and the gameplay in general has some similarities to Darkest Dungeon, Xcom, Disgaea, and probably some others.

You recruit generics (with some nice customization option for their little 2d models), forming up to a 4-man party. There's a good chunk of "story" but it's one of those games where you're probably going to be in it more for the thrill of RNG and the gameplay on its own merits than anything else. You can have up to 50 recruits max and form up to 6 parties. Why more than 1? Some semi-pvp online territory control war. You can fight other player's teams (controlled by AI though) online with yours (and on offense you can also hire up to 2 otherplayer party members as extra manpower, and that player gets a small commission fee for it). Your excess parties can be deployed on away missions which I guess puts them into the pool of teams that other players can fight. They earn exp and gold for you this way, so it's a nice way to keep bench-warmers busy.

It's straddling the line between deep and not deep enough but I think it's definitely worth the look, and the demo lets you play a decent amount I believe. English voice acting is also pretty ok.

**Zealot** · 2016-06-29 12:56

My copy arrived today, stoked about playing when I get home. Loved the demo.

**Seravi Edalborez** · 2016-06-30 11:33

More Grand Kingdom. Wanted to try some of my B-listers (and no heals) that I haven't used at all on a free roam map. Got a random encounter while not quite at full health. I should have lost outright, thank fuck the AI is just a little dumb.

**Zealot** · 2016-06-30 11:44

What do you reckon the best way to level up new characters is? I'm hesitant to place one in my A-Team for points because you never know when you'll hit that one random encounter where one soldier out of place means the whole squad goes down.

**Seravi Edalborez** · 2016-06-30 13:37

Honestly I've been playing more Overwatch than this so I've only done like 2 missions and that free-roam outside of the tutorial. In the meantime I've been hiring enough for 4 and 2/4th troops now and I just send them on dispatch when I wake up and go to sleep. Not particularly fast but it helps. They can save up to 10 away battles of exp/gold before you have to check in. I don't have an exact timeframe for how long that takes but feels like at least 4-6 hours.

I will say though it sucks that it feels like only my backliners get Friendly Fire (take no damage from friendly attacks) when my frontliners are the ones I'm always accidentally almost killing (as in above clip). The throw arcs aren't great for precision.

Dragon Mage seems pretty ok when AI is controlling. The troop I have it on always seems to win at least 1 of the 10 away games. Lancer and Challenger are meh. Fighter, Hunter/Archer, Medic, Noble, and Rogue have all been solid in my opinion. From what little I've read Valkyrie/DarkKnight can get insane and Gunners eventually get better than bow-guys. So far I have at least one of everything recruited except a Paladin, which I hear is garbage.

If it's a solid unit I think you can get away with putting 1 in with 3 better guys. But if you want to manually use the more difficult/worse classes I'd just put them in a squad their own level.

e: Checked after what I feel like was 4-5 hours and reports had 5 battles turned in. So I would say 1 battle an hour when on dispatch at worst though the ratio might be a little better than that. 5 losses for low level squads (levels 2-4) was giving me 17 exp, 80G, 8R. Before adjustments from TEC or Policy. My main team (all level 7) got 33 for the same. So it seems to scale a little.

e2: I'm not sure if I should be amazed or pissed off. Accessories go on specific slots like head or mouth or wrist (invisible) etc. If you pick a sprite that is wearing some kind of headwear like a bandana or hat... THEY CAN'T WEAR A HEAD ACCESSORY.

**Lyall** · 2016-07-01 05:53

I "beat" the Swindle but did not do so very graciously. I ended up with something like 35 deaths and took 127 days to finish. I really liked the game and it has a lot of charm, but I'm trying to run through it again and some of the less-than-stellar controls are now causing me no end of frustration. There's an achievement for finishing it without losing your original thief and the best I've made it is the third zone in about 15 days before getting killed by being reckless. Since then I've had the controls fuck me a handful of times, but I'm not made up on whether it was me being hasty or the controls actually being clunky.

It's on sale on Steam for a couple of bucks and I enjoyed it a lot so far. Any gameplay video will probably give you an idea of what you're in for: Iconoclast87 has a full playthrough on Youtube and, given the nature of the game, watching it won't really spoil it for you at all since it's primarily challenge-based and procedurally generated. It's definitely one of those "one more level" kinds of games and has occupied a lot of my thinking when not busy at work.

**Gokulo** · 2016-07-02 02:53

Finally finished Trails of Cold Steel. Damn them for doing an even bigger cliffhanger than Trails in the Sky lol.

Also...

Spoiler: show

**Hitoshura** · 2016-07-02 14:30

Originally Posted by Gokulo

Finally finished Trails of Cold Steel. Damn them for doing an even bigger cliffhanger than Trails in the Sky lol.

Also...

Spoiler: show

That's impossible! I just finished FC, and in the middle of SC. Now I definitely want to play Cold Steel, it looks like a current version of the battle system. Falcom can make some of the best JRPG's... who knew?

Please tell me it's playable on the Vita TV?

**Corrderio** · 2016-07-02 14:31

@ Gokulo:

Spoiler: show

@Hitoshura:
I'm pretty sure it can be played on the Vita TV or if you have a PS3 you can pick it up on that.

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