clueless1 wrote on 2025-09-04, 10:28:

wife and I both going through health issues

I'm sorry to hear this, all the best to you both.

badmojo wrote on 2025-09-05, 20:41:

clueless1 wrote on 2025-09-04, 10:28:

wife and I both going through health issues

I'm sorry to hear this, all the best to you both.

I second that sir. Sorry to hear this.

liqmat wrote on 2025-09-05, 20:52:

badmojo wrote on 2025-09-05, 20:41:

clueless1 wrote on 2025-09-04, 10:28:

wife and I both going through health issues

I'm sorry to hear this, all the best to you both.

I second that sir. Sorry to hear this.

Thanks, guys. Much appreciated!

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

I've finished the first chapter and overall I'm enjoying it very much... when it's not annoying the hell out me. It's a massive time sink and I'm not sure how I feel about that - on one hand it can be very cathartic to level-up and manage my party, but there's just so many abilities / spells / useable items / types of weapons / armor that I can spend most of a play session on middle management.

Exploration is fun and there are some great locations. Fighting is also pretty satisfying, particularly when I see the results of my fine tuning of the party, but again there's just too much of it in places and it can get tedious. I have enjoyed the characters and story progression to this point though.

Chapter 2 finds you being granted a barony and this opens up a whole other side of the game, which includes town building, assigning people to manage various aspects of the lands, etc. I'm not sure I'm interested in this stuff but it can be set to autopilot thankfully.

I've been playing on normal difficulty and that's been just about right, although I randomly wandered into an underground crypt early in chapter 2 that was nearly a deal breaker. After working my way through what felt like a crypt's worth of undead I triggered something and the exit was sealed - I'd used up most of my spells and all of my rations by that point and getting out required some even harder fights, so I was essentially trapped. I had to turn the difficulty down to 'story mode' and save scum my way out of it, which was frustrating. Lesson learned, keep an extensive list of save games.

Anyway I'll adventure onwards and see where the road takes me, it's been great fun for the most part.

badmojo wrote on 2025-09-07, 22:34:

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

I've finished the first chapter and overall I'm enjoying it very much... when it's not annoying the hell out me.

It does some things very well, but I eventually got too annoyed by some things about it and noped out. It's been quite a while so I don't really remember the specifics but as a non-tabletop player I found the game too rigid in some ways, like how your aligment governs way too much what you can say or do. Not a neutral character? Can't choose the neutral option to have two warring factions to make peace. Not lawful? One character cannot be saved and dies. And so on. I found this very annoying.

The companion characters also seem pretty good at first but then you realize you can pretty much exhaust their entire dialog tree immediately and then they don't have much left to them once you've done that. The kingdom management was also a pain in the butt, as if the game wasn't a massive time sink already like you said. I had too many issues with the game, hopefully you fair better.

--

Been playing RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.

Completely hooked, it's great. I gave the original RCT a go some months back, but while I found it very charming some things started to bug me too much. Mainly how difficult it was to lay pathways sometimes thanks to the fixed camera angles, amongst other things. No such issues in RTC3, I'm having a ball. Eats up a lot of time though!

Getting close to the finish line in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I'm currently in Chapter 12, on my second visit to the Gold Saucer. Based on my memories of the OG FF7, I think the devs will probably conclude Rebirth after a certain upcoming event.

Be that as it may, this game sure has its ups and downs. For example, the flashback scenes with Jessie, Biggs and Wedge during the Cosmo Canyon artifact search were great. I wish there was more content like that, which adds extra details to existing characters, and expands the lore in a meaningful and non-contradictory manner. For similar reasons, I liked some of Tifa's side quests which reveal a few tidbits from her and Cloud's past. I would also praise the expanded Gold Saucer date sequence, if the devs hadn't turned the theater play into some QTE infested virtual reality nonsense.

On that note, some parts of the game hit rock bottom due to forced mini games, like the box throwing segments with Cait Sith inside the Shinra Mansion. That entire area feels like it was made by an unpaid intern with zero previous experience in game design, which is pretty bad since it's on the critical path. I also found the mushroom hopping traversal mechanics in Gongaga very tedious, and using chocobos to glide over Cosmo Canyon wasn't that great either.

Regarding the story changes, those just keep getting worse. In particular, I was very surprised that the devs completely removed Rocket Town from this game. Due to that, they had to give Cid a slightly different introduction, which doesn't work so well. Overall, I think these changes make the story less impactful than it was in the original game, but that's just me.

newtmonkey wrote on 2025-09-05, 17:00:

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords I completed the first game back in 2023 and liked it even though all of […]
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Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
I completed the first game back in 2023 and liked it even though all of the companions were whiny and annoying, so I was looking forward to playing the sequel -- especially since it was developed by Obsidian, who somehow were able to make a good Fallout game even though they were forced to use the Fallout 3 engine.

First impressions were good indeed. I like how the game makes much more use of stats and skills during conversations, and it feels like quests have multiple solutions. There is just a greater focus on skills in general in the game, so after a few false starts I decided to run with a sentinel character, as sentinels are basically "jack of all trades" type characters with lots of skill points. I was also pleased to find that the companions are all quite interesting and not nearly as whiny as those in the first game. Even combat felt somehow better, though it basically plays exactly the same.

Things were going great, and I finally got my ship and was ready to explore the solar system. I was presented with several planets to choose from, and picked Nar Shaddaa. This started out fine; it's basically a small urban hub where you go around doing a bunch of quests that are seemingly unrelated to the story, but whatever. But then at some point the game locks you into a loooooooong chain of quests where your party is constantly being split up... including an infuriating part where the blaster-packing smuggler companion has to fight two very strong enemies equipped with shields that reduce blaster damage to 0, on his own and in a tiny room. Once you beat that (hopefully you've been keeping that character equipped with decent stuff...), the game sticks you with another single character, this time a completely new companion you've never used before, and drops you into a pit with several tough monsters. Once you beat them, you then have to run through a base full of tough mercenaries, trying to find the exit.

There are three problems with this. First, the game locks you in to this section, which lasts several hours; I think it's definitely possible that you could find yourself out of items and forced to reload a previous save from hours ago. Second, the game gives you no warning. Once you've solved enough quests, you get a cinema scene and then you're forced into this (the game hilariously gives you two dialogue choices, which are basically "I'll go there now" and "I guess I'll go there now"). Third, being stuck with a single character against hordes of enemies in what is basically a very simple realtime-with-pause RPG is boring. Something like this would probably work fine in an action game, where your success would be determined by your reflexes, but in what is supposed to be an RPG, it's bogus.

I think (hope) I'm pretty close to finishing this section, so hopefully the game won't pull any more of this garbage once I'm done with it.

Did you finish Wizardry VII, or are you taking a break?

clueless1 wrote on 2025-09-08, 10:27:

Did you finish Wizardry VII, or are you taking a break?

I'm just taking a break! I love what I've played of it, but it was probably a mistake to jump into it immediately after completing Wiz6 haha.

Since upgrading my P4 to it's current setup (4.6GHZ, DDR2 RAM, FX3450) I've started playing throught GTA 3 for the first time since it was new and it's a great game!

I'm planning on doing Vice City and San Andreas next.

pete8475 wrote on 2025-09-09, 02:49:

Since upgrading my P4 to it's current setup (4.6GHZ, DDR2 RAM, FX3450) I've started playing throught GTA 3 for the first time since it was new and it's a great game!

I'm planning on doing Vice City and San Andreas next.

I occasionally end up playing through those three too, they are all such great games - but GTA3 has neither the best nor the worst when it comes to missions. VC and SA have a few missions i hate, GTA3 has none - after years i can employ mission specific tactics for each and i know the maps so well that time limited missions are ok too. I like the driving in GTA3 too, a bit more than the other too, oddly.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
I finished this last night!

I played as a Jedi in the first game, so I decided to embrace the dark side for this game. I feared at first that the dark side options would be cartoonishly evil like in many games (including the first game), but dark side path in this game is mostly about sticking true to a philosophy of the strong controlling the weak and embracing your hunger for power and revenge. This is reflected spectacularly in the game, with your companions becoming increasingly obedient to you, and you yourself becoming unbelievably powerful throughout the game. It becomes a dark side feedback loop; when everyone defers to you as the ultimate authority, and you can clear entire rooms by calling force lightning down on the heads of your enemies, you begin to have little patience for solving issues through diplomacy and discussion. Finally, the main character has a pretty good reason for seeking revenge, so making "evil" choices doesn't seem as ridiculous as it might in other games.

It generally plays exactly like the first game, which means it's a PC style RPG hampered by an awful interface designed originally for the Xbox and then poorly adapted to keyboard and mouse. You can get used to it though, and the game is not difficult enough that the interface or controls ever get in the way. Obsidian made some minor changes here and there, and the game plays better and is more interesting as a result. It adds a mechanic where you can influence your companions, and can even unlock the ability to train some of them as Jedis. You can now craft your own parts, which gives you a lot more flexibility in upgrading your equipment. The game also has different fighting styles you learn that provide advantage in certain situations, such as fighting multiple enemies or fighting a single Jedi. The biggest change, though, is that there is a much greater focus on skill usage, making skill-heavy characters much more interesting to play. For example, many conversation options and quest solutions are locked behind skills, and even crafting is based on skills..

The game does have some issues. There is an annoyingly long section on one of the planets where your party is constantly being split up, and you are completely locked in until you complete the whole thing (if you have trouble getting through this, you might even have to go back to a previous save). The endgame is basically a series of space dungeon crawls; I didn't mind this at all, since the game otherwise doesn't have a ton of combat, but if you are playing for the story only, it might get pretty boring.

---

Overall, though, it's quite an improvement over the first game, which I also liked. The game has a reputation as being buggy and unstable, but I played through the original release on Windows 10 and it ran fine with just a couple crashes to desktop over the 40 hours it took to complete the game.

Finished Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. The Temple of the Ancients dragged on a bit too much, but it did have some interesting flashbacks for your party members. In particular, Barret's scenes with his wife, and Aerith's memories of her mom were really touching. This stuff hits harder now, due to the modern visuals and excellent voice acting. Sad moments, but really well written and directed.

Unfortunately, we then get more changes to the main story, and it quickly devolves into a convoluted mess. With regards to the plot, Rebirth almost feels like a Kingdom Hearts game, or something. This must be even more confusing for new players who have never experienced the original FF7, Crisis Core and Advent Children.

And finally, here's a quick recap of my experiences with Rebirth. It has excellent graphics, particularly regarding the character models and cutscenes. The music is great too, as are the voice overs (I played it with Japanese audio). And while the core gameplay is alright, the mandatory mini games drag it down a bit. There's also a lot of content here, especially if you do all the side quests and visit the optional map locations. Overall, I mostly liked Rebirth, except for the story changes and the forced mini games. I hope we won't have to wait another four years for "Disc 3". 😁

badmojo wrote on 2025-08-17, 03:55:

I've finished SKALD : Against the Black Priory. I haven't finished a game in years but this one really struck a chord. I wasn't super keen on the ending but ending's are hard to do - I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this developer.

One of the many things I appreciated was the small world and focussed story. There were sidequests but only a handful and they didn't branch on and on, they were generally just a little diversion that filled out the world a bit. I'll be playing more of these small scale RPGs going forwards, starting with Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown, which was recommended in this very thread.

OK, I need to go back to this game then. I remember getting out of the initial caves, dealing with the freaky merchant with a strange house and mysterious well, and leaving it there..