Persona 3 Reload - Episode Aigis DLC

Finished! For some context, this is a remake of "The Answer" expansion, which originally shipped with Persona 3 FES back on the PS2. It remains largely unchanged, meaning it's still a sluggish 20+ hour grind fest. Yes, even more so than the base game. And that's why I can't really recommend this, unless you're a hardcore Persona/SMT fan. For most other people, I would simply suggest watching the DLC cutscenes on YouTube after completing the game's main story. Seriously, you won't miss anything.

To clarify, literally 90% of this expansion consists of dungeon crawling, with no social links to break up the monotony. Once again, the levels are completely randomized, and just not that fun. Also, the combat difficulty is a bit higher, and the health pools of certain enemies get more bloated. The story is generally fine, and some of the voice acting during the emotionally charged moments is really good. But it's not worth enduring hours of tedious grinding just for that. This remake also introduces some minor changes to the plot, which slightly tone down the conflict between the characters. Personally, I wasn't too bothered by that, but many other people seem to dislike it.

On the plus side, "Episode Aigis" does improve a few things compared to the original PS2 version. First, you control the entire party, which makes the grind slightly more tolerable. Second, the Persona Compendium is now available, so you don't need to spend quite as much time farming XP. Third, you can import personas from the base game if you want, using the save file of your choosing. That costs significantly more than simply summoning them from the local compendium, so there's a tradeoff, but I do like having the option. Lastly, the Theurgies are available here as well, and they do help against some of the bullet spongy enemies and bosses that the game keeps throwing at you.

These small changes may not sound like much, but add them all together, and the whole experience becomes a bit more bearable. Despite all that, I still can't recommend this DLC in good faith, though I will acknowledge the effort that the devs put into polishing it up. But since the original version wasn't that great either, there was only so much they could do.

Dark Souls 3

Entering Irithyll of the Boreal Valley was incredible. The presentation here left me awestruck, and it reminded me of seeing Anor Londo in DS1 for the first time. Kudos to the art team! I then got attacked by some big lizard thing, which was a surprisingly challenging fight. On that note, the knight enemies in this area have a fast moveset and can perform lengthy combos, which caught me off guard a few times. I dealt with them by two-handing my Claymore and staggering them before they could land the first hit. Also, those fire casters were a pain in the butt, and some of their attacks seemed to go through walls, which was weird. I'm definitively sensing a difficulty spike here.

The boss of this area was really cool. He reminded me of Fume Knight from DS2, only this guy was even faster and much more aggressive. I summoned just one NPC, because I didn't want to boost his health too much. The first phase wasn't that bad, but he did catch me with a few big swings, which almost depleted my entire health bar. Fortunately, the NPC ally distracted him enough for me to heal. With my strength now at 40, the heavy Claymore deals pretty good damage, and I was able to whittle him down to half health with some effort. Things got slightly confusing in the second phase, when he started creating those clones/illusions. But with a bit of luck, a few well timed dodges, and some help from the summoned NPC, I managed to win. If I hadn't played DS2, this would have probably been even tougher. Excellent boss fight.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-01-28, 17:35:

Did a DS3 playthrough last year and used the Claymore for the entirety of the run. Even farmed a bunch of extra ones for all the different infusions. It's a great sword and has a good moveset.

Cheers! I really like the Claymore's moveset as it's very versatile. Good to know that it holds up throughout the entire game.

Didn't even realize you can get more than one copy. I'll definitively be on the lookout for spares.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker
I thought it would be pretty simple to get into this one, having completed Baldur's Gate , Neverwinter Nights and its first expansion, and several of the Gold Box AD&D games, but I found this game to be completely inscrutable. You only have to make a single character (like Baldur's Gate), but it throws more than a dozen classes at you, each of which has at least two or three subclasses. Then you get to pick several class-specific abilities and feats, for which you get yet another list of a dozen or so things to choose from. The game does provide you with detailed explanations of every single ability and feat, but there are so many mechanics and systems involved that I found it nearly impossible to figure out what would be some decent choices just at level 1!

For example, you can create a Sorcerer, which is a Wizard whose spells are powered by charisma instead of intelligence... but you can also choose a certain Sorcerer subclass that uses intelligence instead of charisma. What is the point of this? Maybe it makes sense in the pen-and-paper game, but it just seems like complexity for the sake of complexity in a computer game. Another example is that creating a Wizard forces you to select a specialty school of magic (which is fine), but then also makes you select two schools you are deficient in to make up for it. This seems like a major decision to make at level 1! No one who is not intimately familiar with the pen-and-paper game would be able to make an informed decision like this.

Well, I thought, if I am just playing on Normal difficulty, the game is probably pretty forgiving of subpar characters, at least early on. Surely, it wouldn't set a time limit on the main quest and push you in the direction of a ridiculously overpowered encounter in a straight line between your current position and the next area for the main quest?

Of course it does. So, if you believe what the game is telling you and head off in the direction of the second step of the main quest, you run into an encounter with a powerful group of level 3 slavers who will destroy your party of level 2 characters. Note that I created a full party of six by hiring mercenaries at the first inn; this would be even worse if you were playing the game "as intended" as you'd have only 3-4 characters at this point. The battle began with the enemy mage immediately casting fear on my entire party, causing my frontline fighters to flee and leaving my bard and mages sitting ducks for the three enemy fighters to run in and slay within seconds. I didn't even have time for my mages or bard to cast a single spell. You also cannot avoid the fight; you just stumble upon it on the map and there are you standing right next to the enemy who, after a couple lines of dialog, immediately attack you. I've read that if you are playing with the story characters, you have the option of allowing the enemy to abduct one of your characters as a slave, so that you can escape. I wonder if anyone actually chooses to do this?

So, the solution is to reload and just head to the next quest location in a direction that goes around this encounter. Or, ignore the fact that the game is warning you about the time limit, and go run around in the woods to gain a level or two. Either way, it's dumb.

newtmonkey wrote on 2026-01-30, 12:52:

Pathfinder: Kingmaker
I thought it would be pretty simple to get into this one, having completed Baldur's Gate , Neverwinter Nights and its first expansion, and several of the Gold Box AD&D games, but I found this game to be completely inscrutable.

Heh, just this morning I posted this here:

Sombrero wrote on 2026-01-30, 05:51:

I don't think I ever particularly enjoyed anything dice roll related even at my heyday, but when I tried Pathfinder: Kingmaker some years ago I realized table top rules and mechanics just aren't my cup of tea. That game fully embraces its pen and paper roots and it made me feel like I was drowning in rulebooks and dices. Hats off to people who enjoy that stuff but I've had to bow out.

It's VERY heavy on mechanics, rules and dice rolls. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure the time limit to get to that bandit lord was very forgiving so you can pretty much explore everything you find on your way. But the game is... bit much in many ways.

Sombrero wrote on 2026-01-30, 13:46:

Heh, just this morning I posted this here...

I had actually read your post earlier and was thinking of it as I was playing this!

I absolutely love RPGs and have played through a ton of old ones, including "archaic" stuff like the first Might & Magic game (loved it)... but I was simply not prepared for Pathfinder. Older RPGs seem complicated at first, since they don't play like modern games, but I've found them to be very approachable after 15-30 minutes of playing around with them. It helps that they typically have very simple systems, so you don't have much to worry about when starting out. Pathfinder is just something else. It has a very modern and friendly UI, but the combination of all the fiddly rules with the time limit (even if it is generous) and real-time combat makes the game feel extremely daunting to someone not familiar with the system.

I feel sometimes that "game design" is going not even backwards but in a completely different direction. The focus on MMORPG-esque "builds" really makes modern RPGs far more complicated to play than older games. You can easily get through a game like Wizardry VI or Might & Magic Book 1 with an unoptimized party, but can really get screwed in Might & Magic X if you don't develop the right kind of party. Some games give you the option to respec your characters, but this feels like a band-aid to me. You shouldn't be required to min-max your characters just to get through an RPG on the default difficulty level; there should be some options available for even a subpar bunch of characters to get through the game (in fact, bringing such a party to the end, warts and all, is one of the things that makes RPGs so interesting!).

Of course, right now I am annoyed at Pathfinder and am ranting a bit. Maybe the game actually doesn't severely punish you for not optimizing your characters. But based on the first couple of hours, it's quite frustrating and I can't imagine someone new to RPGs getting into it.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-01-29, 09:03:

Cheers! I really like the Claymore's moveset as it's very versatile. Good to know that it holds up throughout the entire game.

Didn't even realize you can get more than one copy. I'll definitively be on the lookout for spares.

You can farm them in Irithyll of the Boreal Valley from the Irithyllian Slave enemies (specifically the ones wielding the claymore).

They have a pretty low drop rate though, so it can take awhile to get one that way.

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness
This is a game heavily inspired by Baldur's Gate, but with an awful title that is basically nonsensical and seems (so far) to have nothing to do with the actual story. Bizarre. It clearly had a low budget, but there's something endearing about it. The writing isn't great, but it's also not bad, so it feels like a step up from the poorly-written games I've playing through lately (Divinity Original Sin, Dragon Quest XI). I will always prefer dialogue that's earnest but not great, over dialogue that's technically better but tedious or cringeworthy.

One nice thing about this game is that you can choose to create just one character or a whole party right from the start, though you start just as as your single main character regardless. If you choose to create a party, you find the rest of your characters as the story goes along. That's fun, and I've never played a game that handles full party creation like this.

It's got a somewhat interesting character development system where leveling up just gives you a bunch of skill points in various areas. So far, you spend one point in a "general" category, another point in what is basically a "class" category, and then five points in weapon skills. I don't know if it gets any more complicated than that, but getting even a single level feels like it makes a difference.

There's apparently a "greed" mechanic where your roleplaying decisions shift the world toward good or evil, but I'm far too early in the game to know whether this really has any effect. So far, a guy offered me an antidote potion for killing a bunch of spiders for him, and accepting it shifted my party alignment more toward "greed." Seems pretty extreme; based on this criteria, I'm greedy in real life for accepting a paycheck for my work.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-01-29, 09:03:

Dark Souls 3

Entering Irithyll of the Boreal Valley was incredible...

I love this area! Truly beautiful, and a highlight in the game imo (along with the cathedral, and I like the swamp too). Makes me want to replay it...

I never finished the DLC for this one, so I'm interested in reading your thoughts on that if you decide to play through it!

newtmonkey wrote on 2026-01-30, 15:42:

I never finished the DLC for this one, so I'm interested in reading your thoughts on that if you decide to play through it!

I'll give it a shot, but probably not before I reach the final boss of the original campaign. If From Software is following their established rules, I imagine the DLC bosses will be harder than anything in the main game.

Granted, I'm still in the early areas of DS3, but nothing so far gave me as much trouble as Sir Alonne from the DS2 DLC. Though I have heard scary stories of a certain nameless guy, who will likely try to take over the top spot.

I'm still chugging away at KCD2 on the Legacy of the Forge DLC. Wow, I was not expecting to get so into this one. One thing that really helped make it more enjoyable was I started it after the main quest, so I had tons of currency (groschen). Like almost 60k. Basically, the more money you have, the more quickly and easily you can build up your forge. It starts off looking like it's about to be condemned and by the time you build it up it's the nicest shop on the block. There are neat little ways to generate income like owning a beehive and chicken coop so you can sell eggs and honey. And there is a sales chest that you can put extra gear you want to sell in and your assistant will sell the items over time and give you the money rather than you having to run from shop to shop to sell them yourself. As you gain prestige, more and more people hire you to build weapons like decorative swords, work axes and actual high-end combat swords. There are fun little activities such as archery competitions and side quests that the other guild masters send you on which can involve combat, investigation and stealth, as well as an activity that involves finishing a project your late father started when he was apprenticing there before you were born. When the forge is fully built up, it basically has every amenity in one location:
a comfy bed, kitchen, assistants, basement for making beer and wine, forge, alchemy bench, workshop, smokehouse, laundry, chicken coop, beehives, cow, roofed food/water trough area for your horse, nice outhouse, guest quarters, a prayer corner, heater, etc. There's more I'm probably forgetting. Every time I walk through the forge, I notice something else. It's actually quite satisfying. From what I understand, you could start this DLC mid-game and build it up slowly as you progress toward the endgame, giving yourself a nice home/headquarters that you could base yourself out of while working on the main quest.

I feel like I'm nearly done with this DLC: the forge itself is almost as built up as it can be and the only thing I have left to do is complete that project I mentioned in the previous paragraph. It's a testament to this game and this series that it has held my interest for so many hours and months! I know it's not for everyone, but those who find themselves immersed in the world and lore of this series like I am can look forward to several hundred hours of playtime.

Dark Souls 3

After exploring the outskirts of Irithyll, I was greeted by a familiar sight: Anor Londo. The years certainly took their toll on this place, and it was no longer the pristine, sun bathed citadel that I remembered. But it felt good to be back, even for just a little while. I have fond memories of this area, as it was my favorite soul farming spot in DS1. I spent quite a bit of time there, repeatedly fighting Royal Sentinels and Silver Knights. And yeah, turns out the latter are still very farmable in DS3, but they hit even harder now, so it's not exactly easy.

On the flip side, the boss fight here wasn't really to my taste. Those homing magic attacks were problematic, especially when paired together (e.g. arrow hail + purple fireball swarm). Despite that, I beat this guy twice. First, by helping that lady knight who had summoned me, which wasn't too bad since she was there to assist and take some heat off me. And then solo for the proper fight, which was much harder. But after a few more attempts, and being careful to dodge the deadly arrows, I won once again. Can't really say I enjoyed this though. Afterwards, I searched for princess Gwynevere, but sadly she wasn't in her chamber. All that I found was her ring, which I dutifully picked up.

I then doubled back, and entered the Irithyll dungeon. It dragged on for way too long, and reminded me of that crappy prison from Demon's Souls. More annoyingly, some of the enemies in this place screamed extremely loudly, which really bothered me. Had I been wearing headphones, this could have actually hurt my eardrums. I'm genuinely baffled how such a loud sound even passed QA. Anyway, other enemies here would randomly slow me down and reduce my health bar to a quarter of its original size, using magic smoke or something. And that ambush by a dozen frogs spewing insta-kill dust was just mean. Yeah, this is now my least favorite section of the game, surpassing even those stupid cathedral outskirts. Eventually, I reached the Profaned Capital bonfire, and I really hope the next area is better than this.

Man, life has been... a lot lately. But I'm coming out the other side, and finished pecking at StarCraft II's Terran Campaign.

Some missions stood out. The one where the "zombies" keep coming out at night is a fun one. Aside from that, it all felt too easy on the whole. I guess Normal was really Easy, and I suppose Easy was Story Mode. Maybe I'll try the next one on hard, I don't know. The story was as disappointing as I remembered, and I really disliked how Zeratul just felt like a dumb exposition machine than a character. And the final mission was another tedious "Survive for X many minutes" survival level. I dislike those on the face of it, but about 10 minutes tops, maybe in the first half of a campaign is allowable. 30 minutes as the last mission is boring lame bullshit.

Anyways, funny story. Back when I bought StarCraft II in 2010, I tried to get a copy at Best Buy. I'd had a series of frustrating experiences at Best Buy, but this was the one where I swore I'd never go back. That promise lasted some years until the Switch came out and it was place I wound up with a preorder. I walk in, looking for a copy of StarCraft II, and I see the shelf is empty. I ask a clerk if they have any more, and he says they have some in the back, and walks away. I wait around, and then I wait around a little longer. And then I see a guy in line with a copy of StarCraft II. I walk up, ask him where he got it, and he goes "That guy gave it to me" and points to the clerk I'd asked to look for a copy. I walk over to him, and ask him about finding me a copy. He replies that they only had one copy left. I said great, I'll take it, and he responds "I gave it to that guy" pointing back to the guy in line.

I have never in my life been more angry at a retail employee. But I had to rush to lunch with my girlfriend at the time. Ranting and raving about this, she decided to twist the knife a bit further, and question why I was even upset about it. I'm thoroughly over the meal by now, eat quickly, and head over to Walmart across the street.

Walmart had roughly 100 copies.

Anyways, that whole experience was probably more interesting and memorable than the game itself. What a shame.

I've been dipping my toes into the FM Towns library , there's an interesting mix of games , recently i beat Zak McKracken which is the famed 256 color version , its a fun title and well written as you'd expect from a lucasfilm game however the maze bits were hella annoying , and shamefully there were a fair few bits i needed a guide for but i was a bit lazy so...

While not technically a game i came across an odd music program on the OS's CD that had music "from around the word" i picked the Australian section and it sounded nothing like traditional Australian music , in fact everything just sounded like FM synth tunes , some of them were a bop , but uh yeah its a bit of a head scratcher , i guess its down to limits of the FM chip , and the fact they couldn't devote extra CD ROM space to actual recordings of stuff because they needed it for TownsOS.

It also has a dancing dog for some reason.

Japan had some indie games known as doujin , i found one that was not too bad called ARC frontier , its sorta a gauntlet maze type of game , where you have different characters with different skills , and you can pick one of the three for each mission as you unlock them , it even has boss fights , its surprisingly decent.

I might give loom a go next , I've been meaning to finish it for a while and I've heard the towns version is quite good for its music but it lacks voice acting.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Yesterday, 07:05:

Dark Souls 3

Profaned Capital is small but very intense level. Used to hate it but enjoyed it in last playthrough.

Btw, did you fight Aldritch beasts duo just after Pontiff?

Dark Souls 3

Despite my hopes, Profaned Capital wasn't particularly enjoyable for me either, mostly because the area boss was so gimmicky. This was the towering giant from the intro cinematic, and he had a really cool character design. Too bad the actual fight was so lackluster. At first, I tried attacking him normally, but he took almost no damage. After looking this up, it turns out you have to use a special sword against him, and do it in a very specific way (charged attack). With that approach, he pretty much becomes a pushover. This wasn't quite as bad as DS1's Bed of Chaos, but it wasn't too far off either. And on top of all that, right after beating the giant, I got forcibly teleported to another boss fight. Yeah... no thanks. I used a Homeward Bone to nope out of there, then leveled up and replenished my supplies, before returning to the fight at a later point.

Unlike that giant from earlier, the Dancer was actually a fun and challenging boss. She moved in unpredictable ways, and had some nasty wide area attacks. But there were no gimmicks involved, just my Claymore against her swords. And no NPCs for me to summon either, it was a fair one on one fight. The arena was slightly unusual, with broken furniture littering the floor, but at least I could take cover behind the pillars to heal up when needed. After getting to know her attack patterns, things got a bit easier. I was fine as long as I managed to avoid her grab/slam attack, which was quite strong. Dodging everything else wasn't that bad. In the end, my swordplay trumped hers, and the path to Lothric Castle was finally open.

Wolfus wrote on Today, 07:23:

Profaned Capital is small but very intense level. Used to hate it but enjoyed it in last playthrough.

I just beat it, see above. Not really one of my favorites.

Wolfus wrote on Today, 07:23:

Btw, did you fight Aldritch beasts duo just after Pontiff?

The lizard like things behind the illusory wall? Yeah, I beat them too and got the shiny golden ring. Had to carefully lure them out one by one though. Both at the same time would have been a no go for me.

AppleSauce wrote on Today, 06:47:

It also has a dancing dog for some reason.

Does there need to be a reason for a dancing dog? I think not.

--

Played around with RPCS3 yesterday to see how PS3 emulation is going and checked out Dark Souls to get an idea is that something I'd like. I'll be honest, I wasn't too terribly hopeful going in but my first impressions turned out to be very positive! Combat is right up my alley and felt pretty fun. I absolutely suck at parrying though 😁

Played for an hour and killed the first boss, it was clearly all tutorial but as long it doesn't start skimping out with bonfires and/or get otherwise too bullshitty going forward I should be good to go. I don't think I'm in the correct mood for it right now, but it definitely goes in to the pile™ to wait its turn.

As for RPCS3 itself PS3 emulation seems pretty good, according to their compatibility list over two thirds of the game catalog is categorized as playable and many of those that aren't seem to only have performance issues. I did have two issues with Dark Souls, some textures were flicking on and off and the game had some serious black crushing going on, it was really dark. RPCS3 wiki told to set "Write color buffers" on to fix the game appearing too dark, well it didn't fix that but it did fix the texture issue. Turned out I had to set RBG dynamic range to limited for the entire TV! That's less than great, I guess RPCS3 is set to expect limited range and has no function to convert to full range. Therefore you need to constantly switch between full range and limited unless you like black crush in RPCS3 or have everything else look washed out, which is less than ideal.

Otherwise needing a third party program to decrypt and extract PS3 games and another one for downloading updates for the games is a little clumsy, I'd like to see these features built in. Maybe they are afraid that would be a step too far and could prod Sony to go full Nintendo and unleash the lawyers. Fuck Nintendo by the way.

The emulator could also really use game specific settings too, preferably sooner than later. Not too big of an issue if you only play one game at a time, but becomes a major pain in the ass if you don't as different games might need different settings. The UI as a whole could use some work honestly.

But I'm sure things will improve with time and I'm glad PS3 emulation has gotten this far in general.

Sombrero wrote on 54 minutes ago:

Played around with RPCS3 yesterday to see how PS3 emulation is going and checked out Dark Souls to get an idea is that something I'd like. I'll be honest, I wasn't too terribly hopeful going in but my first impressions turned out to be very positive!

Heh, I originally tried it on my Xbox 360 out of sheer curiosity, and was instantly hooked. 😁 That said, I highly recommend switching to Dark Souls: Remastered on Steam. It runs at a locked 60 FPS, while the PS3/X360 original is 30 FPS with very noticeable drops in some areas like Blighttown. And trust me, you want the frame rate to be as smooth as possible in this game. Also, Dark Souls needs to be fully patched to provide the best experience. I don't think RPCS3 does that by default, though you might be able to apply the patches manually.

Sombrero wrote on 54 minutes ago:

Played for an hour and killed the first boss, it was clearly all tutorial but as long it doesn't start skimping out with bonfires and/or get otherwise too bullshitty going forward I should be good to go.

In DS1, bonfires are few and far in between. However, the entire world is interconnected, so you'll find plenty of shortcuts that lead to the same bonfire. It's really awesome how the developers put so much thought and care into that. Later Souls games generally have fewer of those shortcuts, and just give you more bonfires instead.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 38 minutes ago:

Also, Dark Souls needs to be fully patched to provide the best experience. I don't think RPCS3 does that by default, though you might be able to apply the patches manually.

Yeah you need to download the patches with a third party software and then install them in RPCS3. They also are incremental so you need to get them all and install in order.

In DS1, bonfires are few and far in between. However, the entire world is interconnected, so you'll find plenty of shortcuts that lead to the same bonfire. It's really awesome how the developers put so much thought and care into that. Later Souls games generally have fewer of those shortcuts, and just give you more bonfires instead.

Well, as long having to run your ass through the same areas over and over stays in tolerable amounts I'm good. Better practice that combat a bit to help that along, no need for reruns if you can hulkhogan your way through everything!