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Post by RadicalRex on Sept 2, 2022 6:18:00 GMT
I can't take any gmanlives review seriously, because every one of his videos is "THE FAKKIN LIBERAL MEDIA WANTS TO TAKE OUR TITS AWAY SONNY JIM" Yeah, I clicked on some of his videos on YT, and sometimes he says some fairly interesting things about a game, before then dropping some dumb anti-SJW/gamergate comments again. I told YT to stop recommending him.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Sept 2, 2022 12:54:23 GMT
Watched the review by gman some time ago and it seemed that the Terminators are quite hard to deal with first before becoming trivial. That didn't make the best impression on me. But I guess it's still the best option for franchise fans. I can't take any gmanlives review seriously, because every one of his videos is "THE FAKKIN LIBERAL MEDIA WANTS TO TAKE OUR TITS AWAY SONNY JIM" Can't say that I noticed that much, but anyway, as long as he keeps to his old niche of more straightforward FPS' he seems to know what he's talking about. And he did get a bit more insightful and a bit more tolerant when it comes to stuff outside his comfort zone.
Edit: In terms of review style he has never been much good and at least that hasn't really changed. Those kinds of interjections are a bit annoying, but also short enough that I usually just ignore them.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Sept 2, 2022 21:54:04 GMT
Splinter Cell Blacklist Jack Bauer Jason Bourne Sam Fisher has to stop some terrorists blowing up America without being seen. It's more about staying behind cover than sneaking around in the dark. I didn't find shadow particularly helpful for hiding and quite a few missions take place in broad daylight anyway, with you jumping from cover to cover. You can play 'ghost' style (although the game's rather loose definition of ghosting is just non-lethal) but it doesn't match the tone of the story and just felt weird so I ended up going sneaky lethal. It also likes to throw you into unavoidable combat situations sometimes. When you've got half a dozen enemies bearing down on you with assault rifles, carefully knocking them out or using sleeping gas feels a bit silly. I'm just going go back and try the ghosting stuff now I've finished the campaign The game still looks good, plays well and the takedown animations are cool. The climbing could have done with having a bit more weight to it so that he doesn't feel quite so much like Spider-sam. A lot of actions are context sensitive button presses which works well for the most part but can be frustrating if you're not looking in the right direction or a takedown prompt does't appear for some reason at a crucial moment. Found the co-op stuff a bit annoying - there's routes you just can't access in single player and the game likes to stamp a big message on the screen telling you so. I don't see the point in blocking them off. The assault missions also seem to be pitched for co-op so they're a bit frustrating after the first few waves, which is a shame as they're pretty fun. I can imagine it was originally released when every game had to have co-op in it. You can still do almost everything in single player well enough Story is OK - terrorist stuff - basically 24. All your team members hate each other because terrorists attacking the United States isn't enough drama. There's a point where you and your teammate literally won't talk to each other. By the end they're all friends, which is nice. The little twist in the final mission was great. Sam's a proper grandad now - if they make a sequel, Briggs should take over The dogs in this are especially horrible little bastards. If you're within sniffing distance, they just start barking, alert guards and then zero in on you. I couldn't find a good way to deal with them. Tried using the shock attack from the drone to knock them out but on hard difficulty it just pisses them off. A lot of dogs were killed as a result
Got Choas Theory to play as well so I'll see how it compares
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uiruki
New Member
Posts: 799
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Post by uiruki on Sept 2, 2022 22:39:24 GMT
26. Ys IX: Monstrum Nox - PC - 4/5
Another run through on PC. Still not as good as 8 was, but with a lot of the technical flaws of the PS4 version alleviated the game works a lot better. I still think it's overall a bit muddled and the pacing's weird but uncovering the map remains fun and the combat's satisfying. The ending hits a little different after a couple of years not being able to travel anywhere, too.
Steam Deck report: I played almost entirely on Deck. A brilliant port by PH3 - obviously it was never going to drop a frame on my 3080-equipped desktop but being able to run at full resolution with equivalent settings and significantly better frame rate than on PS4 on a handheld helps the combat outside of dungeons and the loading's nice and quick even on SD card. Not a constant 60 in the overworld but there's plenty of room to reduce the load and I really liked how sharp it looked.
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Post by simple on Sept 3, 2022 10:34:34 GMT
Yeah, I thought 2 was great. As a Mexican American, I really related to the story too, for what that's worth. I didn't think Before the Storm was all that great, so my expectations for True Colors aren't THAT high seeing as it's the same studio, but I do plan on checking it out eventually. But yeah, 1 and 2 are my faves in the series. Interesting, I actually think that Before The Storm had some of the best moments of the series so far. I might even put it as my favourite of the three I’ve played. But maybe I related to the mopey teen emos/punks more than I do the Mexican-American experience of the LiS2 boys.
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Post by Rubicon on Sept 4, 2022 21:19:39 GMT
Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (Game Pass)
A fetch quest game disguised as an ARPG. I didn't hate it but could only recommend it to people that want a simple button masher that doesn't require much thought.
5/10
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dogbot
Full Member
Posts: 8,738
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Post by dogbot on Sept 4, 2022 21:24:44 GMT
Far Cry 6 - PS5
Decent enough story based shooter. Way better ending than 5, although it was pretty well telegraphed this time. By the end, it was a bit of a slog to do the last few bases and checkpoints and I was pretty tired of la revolucion, but overall I enjoyed it in a sort of mindless, 7/10 kinda way.
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lukasz
New Member
Meat popsicle
Posts: 641
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Post by lukasz on Sept 5, 2022 2:04:39 GMT
Gta5 story
Done. 94 percent of the game done based on the save info.
Was fun. Worth every cent Epic paid to give the game to me for free.
Definitely massive improvement over gta4.
81h according to the epic time tracking. Was not very efficient tough.
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Post by harrypalmer on Sept 5, 2022 7:06:26 GMT
Cyberpunk 2077 (PS5) - 9/10
My heart wants to give it a 10, but there is just too much wrong with it still to do so, but I fucking loved it. I got a fairly shit ending because I made the wrong choices, so will probably go back and change that.
The problems are well documented, but the main issues for me were the numerous glitches, crashes, weird variation in traffic and population density, and cars popping in and out on highways, insanely bad inventory management. The biggest of all is that I dont think they shipped the game they intended: there is hardly any meaningful choice, it feels like dialogue leads to the same point, and honestly it feels like a lot was cut. I did every gig, side mission etc and completed in 50 hours, that feels short for an RPG.
But the quality of the missions and side content is insane, much like Witcher 3. They all feel compelling, the dialogue is always interesting, the acting is brilliant, so while its short, its very high quality.
Then there's the world. This is on another level to pretty much any other game. It might be the best looking game I've ever played. Night City is an almost unbelievable creation, it looks and sounds phenomenal. It's fully realised, and unlike any open world game I've ever played.
By the end I was fully invested in all the characters and the story, and didn't want it to end.
It was a wild ride.
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Post by LockeTribal on Sept 7, 2022 1:30:33 GMT
Toem (PS5) - 8/10
Played through and completed this today. Quite short, just under 5 hours to platinum it, but very enjoyable. You just walk around, talk to characters and take photos but it's done so well. I really liked the visuals too, although the music wasn't really my cup of tea. Would recommend.
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Post by simple on Sept 7, 2022 12:06:43 GMT
That seems like the perfect sort of game for PS+/Gamepass
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Post by Phattso on Sept 7, 2022 12:52:08 GMT
Horizon: Forbidden Beige - 6/10
Pleased that I was able to blast through the second half of the campaign without needing to grind. Probably enjoyed the earlier, calmer, more funnelled parts of the game more than when the open world unfurled. Absolutely better in every way than the original, finally enjoyed the combat, but any game with that much FUCKING POINTLESS LOOT that lets me get to the end of the game using MY STARTING WEAPON probably needs to have a fucking word with itself. What a crock of shit. There was no way I was searching around for a Rabbit Thigh and one very specific Machine Cog found on one specific bad guy to upgrade my Flurgellslinger or whatever the fuck they were called.
It also committed the cardinal sin of giving out some of the best stuff right at the end of the game. WTF? Are you that certain I want a NG+ play through that you're just going to be shitting out new systems even in the final campaign mission? Bold. Stupid.
Anyways, as before the story is still the best part of this. I forced myself to play the game to get more of that. Platforming was inconsistent and unsatisfying, combat could be reduced to a fairly one-note approach if you just wanted to get through it, stealth was primitive at best, and the RPG elements were superfluous.
Looked OK, occasionally it even looked great, but very much tied to the old generation. Hopefully third time's the charm with a PS5-only closer for the trilogy that finally gets it right. On balance I probably enjoyed AC Valhalla more than this, even if that overstayed its welcome by 20+ hours. Which is saying something.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Sept 7, 2022 12:59:33 GMT
Horizon: Forbidden Beige - 6/10 Sounds right up my street
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MolarAm🔵
Full Member
Bad at games
Posts: 6,665
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Sept 7, 2022 13:35:10 GMT
Yeah, I'm glad I didn't bother. It feels like "the first one, but more", and I didn't particularly care for the first one.
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Post by Phattso on Sept 7, 2022 13:56:56 GMT
I imagine for those that enjoyed the first one, lapped up the DLC, and were chomping at the bit for the sequel this would've been their GOAT. But yeah, for those of us that bounced hard off the original there's not much reason to come back to it. If I hadn't had to buy a bundle to get the PS5 I wouldn't have bothered.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2022 14:42:58 GMT
I loved the first but was slightly disappointed with the sequel. Mainly they need to evolve the combat and make it more fluid. It's firmly stuck in last gen.
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Post by Nanocrystal on Sept 7, 2022 14:45:18 GMT
I also loved the first, and I found the sequel to be pretty average gameplay wise and fucking atrocious story wise.
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Post by theguy on Sept 7, 2022 15:12:23 GMT
I loved the first and loved the second. Story was guff though
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Sept 8, 2022 17:03:18 GMT
I'm finished with Metro: Exodus after 26 hours. I tried to avoid unnecessary killing sprees as far as possible and got the good ending.
I wouldn't say that I'm blown away by it, but it's definitely good that I didn't just rage-uninstall it after the first three hours. The beginning is by far the worst part of the game in my opinion. I might have simply gotten more used to how the game uses cutscenes and some other idiosyncracies of the game, but I also feel that the pacing just massively improves after the opening section. It's just so frontloaded with cutscenes, cutsceny movement, too much "hold interact" to pick up stuff, at best mediocre storytelling and FPS-mechanics that took a long time to click. But I take back what I said about having lost a lot of respect for the developer. If the rest of the game had been like the introduction, then ok, but after having finished it, I feel fairly positive about it.
The storytelling is frequently rather action movie-esque, melodramatic and sometimes outright cheesy and I just don't appreciate that. The plot starts in a pretty extreme manner and then it just doesn't matter anymore. The style remains similar with the occasional cutscene that's very much like that, but it's more varied with much dialogue that takes its time and relatively long scenes that build the atmosphere and so on. There are also occasionally some problems with how dialogue is triggered, so that more than one person starts talking at the same time.
I also found it interesting that some people were annoyed with how the game sometimes takes the reins away for action set-pieces, but during those moments I usually felt that it was fine. As long as it avoids Trial-and-Error in a story moment an doesn't force me to do some s***ty QTE I'm fine with some cutscenes.
Storytelling remained a bit uneven throughout, but I'd say I kind of liked the it. The plot was a bit random, but surprisingly it even worked somewhat on an emotional level at times. Nice last level as well.
Pacingwise I mostly like how Exodus is structured. It's basically a few open world-levels, mixed with linear sections and interludes that take place in what is essentially the "hub" of the game. The latter is especially important as a connective thread since the overall plot is just about going from place to place. It was interesting how coherent the game mostly felt in spite of being made up of these different sections. The open world maps are more hands-off of course, but the bits that are relevant to the plot or the tasks that are relevant to other parts of the story, are embedded in the world in a way that mostly works. In some ways it feels like they simply moved parts of the story into open worlds and then just gave you the option to spend some time outside of the plot if you want. And it feels quite natural.
Map design is pretty good, the atmosphere strong and the weather system and day-night-cycle are slow enough to feel convincing. The soundscape worked well to create a tense atmosphere for much of the time.
There was music at times, but it's not a lot and I wasn't particularly taken with their choices.
Crafting was light-weight and I had no reason to complain. There were always enough ressources to craft the things I needed, but not always enough to craft everything. All in all not much to say on it. I mean the customization made choice of weapons loadout quite interesting, but which guns and components you get is determined by story progression for the most part and there are no ressources involved.
I didn't always get along with the FPS-mechanics, especially when fighting at close to medium range. People and mutants have a tendency to move their heads around a lot, so that created a lot of unintentionally comical moments when I was missing several times or hitting body-shots that feel as if they have no impact. Combat at close range only really feels right with shotguns. At medium and long range it usually worked well enough and it was fairly satisfying at times.
Boat sequences, especially out in the open world, were weird. They often suffer from the same problem that the rest of the combat has. Complex animations can make it hard to understand what is happening. Especially since some enemies are fairly spongy and while you are on a boat alone, you can't actually defend yourself without first standing up. Part of this strange disconnect is probably just due to the fact that there are a lot of cutscenes, but also that the AI with its complex animations and sometimes unpredictable behaviour, makes it hard to react appropriately. There was a type of human enemy in a linear section that was pretty slow to start shooting for instance. And if you add in creatures that occasionally pop out of the water and aren't always visible to be shot, well, that muddles things further.
Stealth was difficult in some places, but mostly worked pretty well. It seems sneaking in daylight is not recommended. Otherwise it still has the cramped sections where easy success while sneaking around right behind their backs, feels silly at times, just like in the earlier games. There is no way to hide bodies. Oh, and enemy chatter to give feedback on your position and so on, was well done. Same for how you'll quickly be beset by the whole pack if you shoot one mutant with something loud.
I didn't feel that the AI had obvious issues, as some reviewers and players have mentioned. It's just rather passive and slow to move and it has a tendency to lose the player quite easily. But the latter seems more like a sensible design decision rather than "bad AI". People will surrender after you have taken out most of them and mutants sometimes run away after you have shot a few. It's really nice how after you have taken down a few of them, one of them will visibly start to hesitate and then turn away.
Tl;dr: Interesting hybrid with strong atmosphere; story/writing uneven; too much cutscening; good weapons customization; functional stealth; detailed AI behaviour; nice Hub.
7,5/10
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Post by simple on Sept 8, 2022 23:39:49 GMT
Stray
Great visual style, excellent cat animation, terrific concept.
But awkward pacing and unfocussed gameplay.
I feel like it needed to pick a side and concentrate on that - does it want to be a linear stealth game or would it prefer to be a slightly more open area puzzle-platformer? Personally, I think its better when its leaning more toward the latter.
That said its a short game and the novelty of the cat and the robot society is charming enough to keep things interesting and enjoyable. There’s a lot of personality in this for such a small game.
7.5/10
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Post by Triarii on Sept 9, 2022 9:53:41 GMT
I'm finished with Metro: Exodus after 26 hours. I tried to avoid unnecessary killing sprees as far as possible and got the good ending.
Tl;dr: Interesting hybrid with strong atmosphere; story/writing uneven; too much cutscening; good weapons customization; functional stealth; detailed AI behaviour; nice Hub.
7,5/10
Good summary. I finished Exodus a few weeks ago, Two Colonels last night & I'd agree with pretty much all you said. I think one of the criticisms of Exodus was that it lost a lot of the atmosphere by moving out of the Metro which I wouldn't agree with, I was pretty happy with the variety of the scenery in Exodus. Wouldn't rate Two Colonels though, decent storytelling but pretty short. I've started Sam's Story which looks more interesting but it's weird hearing the Russian voice actors trying to pull off American accents.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Sept 9, 2022 13:10:13 GMT
Firewatch (finally got around to it!) Hmm. Looks lovely, and the banter between the 2 leads is great, with great voice acting. But I'm not so sure about the overarching story. There were a few nice individual moments, like the skinny dippers, but I don't think the plot really hung together. It was kinda predictable and I wasn't that invested in it. The world is lovely to explore, and there are some nice metroidvania-esque unlocks for new paths back to old places. But traipsing back and forward through it for the plot started to get old. It is only about 5 hours though. I can't help but think it'd have been better just as an open world to explore/unlock, while having radio bants and discovering little vignettes.
Not quite as good as Gone Home or Edith Finch.
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Post by Samildanach on Sept 10, 2022 18:32:45 GMT
Super R-Type (Released Jul '91) A very early title for the Super Famicom/SNES and consists of 7 levels, the first and sixth being entirely unique to this game, the second, fourth and seventh being pretty accurate copies of R-Type II levels and the second and third being altered levels of its R-Type's II counterparts. On the whole, the new stuff is weaker than II's levels (with the exception of II's Stage 5 which is a relief to see the back of), though it is nice to have the variation. The music is the game's strongest point with some sublime tracks that get you right into the flow of things. Biggest two problems are the massive slowdown and lack of any checkpoints...die on a boss and you are back to the start of the level. Luckily the game is far easier than the nightmarish R-Type II with enemies only firing the odd bullet your way. Most of my deaths in the stages would come from unpredictable gotcha moments like the water spouts in stage 3 or a big snake up my arse in the final stage. Yeah, this game bombed hard when it released; I gather Irem had manufactured a stupid number of copies to sell, they needed to have every SNES owner at the time to buy it, which obviously was a massive over-expectation. Fortunately they came back swinging with the far better R-Type III, but that is a story for another time. 2.5/5
Aldynes via PC Engine Mini (releases Feb '91) Horizontally scrolling shooter which I gather was made by a couple of devs that had worked on the early R-Type games and one can certainly see the similarities. Instead of a force pod you can have up to four little satellites that change between two formations at press of the button. I had a very frustrating time with this game as the mid and later levels have so many bullshit gotcha moments e.g level 5 little turrets dropping from holes in the ceiling with no warning and if they don't hit you in their fall they stop in mid air and shot a fast shot up your arse. The final boss seemed utterly impossible even when fully powered up so onto YouTube I go only to find there was a THIRD satellite formation that one can achieve by holding down the formation button. The satellites then become electrified killing machines and spin very fast around your ship, blocking bullets also. The final boss still has to be beaten in a very bullshitty way (and is impossible to recover from if you die) but the rest of the game became much more manageable. Yeah, this is when having the original manual at the start would have really helped! The game is still a bit average in all, though there are a few nice set pieces including some cool boss transformations. Was going to be 2/5 but is 3/5 once I actually worked out how to play it!
Same! Same! Same! (aka Fire Shark), played on Astro Mini V Wow, this traditional vertical shmup by Toaplan is an absolute ball buster. So, so hard but also so well designed. Every part CAN be beaten by the correct routing and skilled enough reactions, and each tough part will require a different approach. This is a very good game slightly spoiled by the fact that the arcade operators (at the time) insisted Toaplan made their game as hard as possible to suck up those credits. As such you effectively are playing the game's second loop when you start. On top of that the Astro Mini has a bit of lag, so it was monstrously difficult to clear even with save state scumming. Never dull, and it shows how the devs of Ghost Pilot (whose game was trying to mimic Toaplan's greatness) had no idea how to make their game engaging. This is a 4/5 game brought down to a 3/5 experience by the lag...and my lack of skills to fully appreciate it.
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Post by RadicalRex on Sept 10, 2022 23:06:41 GMT
Super R-Type's soundtrack is great, so funky. And the first stage song is 5 minutes long or so. Back then, I was so amazed because I didn't know a video game could have a soundtrack like that, and I recorded it on a cassette by moving a cheap cassette recorder up to the crappy old CRT's speaker. And it's still got my favourite version of the R-Type boss theme.
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Post by Trowel 🏴 on Sept 11, 2022 18:20:30 GMT
Escape Academy
Short but sweet, and great value for money (less than £13 on PSN at the moment). Blitzed through it this afternoon and it's a good example of the genre, with plenty of variety in the puzzles. Helps that it's so specifically room based, which avoids the backtracking that's the norm in many physical puzzlers - you're always close to the answer. The countdown timer element is a nice twist, gives a genuine feeling of tension and some close-calls. And I liked the way that, after finishing each escape room, you get a breakdown of how the room was solved and the time you took to get through each step. Recommended for fans of The Room, Myst, The Witness, etc.
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Post by Dave_McCoy on Sept 11, 2022 18:28:13 GMT
A Plague Tale:Innocence (XSX)
Now finished after posting in the playing thread. Really good stuff. Story was nice, lovely graphics. Stealth continued to not be too annoying with options opening up as it progressed. The aiming on the sling was a bit hit and miss (literally) which made me replay a couple of sections more than I would have liked but overall a good time with a snappy runtime.
Looking forward to the sequel now.
8/10 or Recommended
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Rich
Junior Member
Posts: 1,961
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Post by Rich on Sept 12, 2022 17:58:24 GMT
Tales of AriseHad a lot of fun with this (and am still having fun as I've decided to actually clear up all the side content after beating the final boss, as opposed to saying I'll do it and then moving on to something else as soon as the end credits roll.) The best Tales game since Symphonia. It looks beautiful, has fun combat, and most importantly has a great cast that I didn't hate (even if it seems like you can't walk down a path without them chattering away in 10 skits every couple of minutes.) Only real let down is the story, which is merely good as opposed to great and really lacks an antagonist. I like that it was trying to do something different but felt like the writers either got bored halfway through, got told to cut a lot to keep the length down, or just weren't sure how to actually realize it. 9/10 And now have the platinum (my first) having cleared absolutely everything. Taking it up to a 10/10. That's been a lot of fun!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2022 18:00:13 GMT
It's so good. People looking for a good recent RPG should really look into it.
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Post by dangerousdave on Sept 12, 2022 20:54:46 GMT
Is Tales closer to a traditional JRPG or a modern one. I nearly dipped into the series on 3DS(?) After playing a demo, but RPGs are obviously huge time sinks.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2022 21:08:43 GMT
Bit of both. Good action combat, pretty anime characters, but the story, exploration and sidequests are more traditional. If you've played any of the recent Dragon Quests, it's probably a similar level of modernity aside from the combat.
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