MercilessWaffle

Persona Q2 - Have currently only completed the first dungeon. It's good so far, it's more Persona Q which I enjoyed, love me some Persona fanservice games. Also like how this one has the original Japanese audio, when there was no option for that in the first game (sucks for anyone that likes the English dubs though). Shadow Hearts: From the New World - I'm actually enjoying this more than I thought I would. It still retains the core Shadow Hearts gameplay which is fun in and of itself. The story and characters aren't terrible so far either, but it's also not amazing. It's a lot more goofy than the previous entries, to the point it seems to have forgotten what made the series so enjoyable, and it wasn't just the fact it knew when to poke fun at itself. That being said, I think Mao might actually be one of my favourite obligatory JRPG animal mascot characters now. She's such a loveable giant, fat drunkard cat. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon - Tons of improvements over the first game, the combat is a lot more enjoyable and less stiff feeling. That being said, it still has some issues, I don't like how you can't really control the camera in battles, and I find myself barely ever using the gun any more in this game, it feels a lot less useful. Still really enjoying this, I like how the detective work aspect has more of a presence as well. Disgaea 2 - Standard Disgaea, nothing really to say about it that I haven't said about others in the series. Enjoyable, addictive, and kind of a good "turn off your brain" game for the most part, while still requiring some thought put into strategy now and then. The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion - I've heard tales of this title, tales of its infamous Engrish translation, and tales of it being a not great game. I can confirm the rumours were true, sadly. It's still enjoyable enough but I feel like I would have been better off playing it in Japanese, despite my horrible Japanese language comprehension. I know it's unlikely, but I hope this and the rest of the Gagharv trilogy get proper remasters and translations.

Personally, I don't think it can be defined as a sport. But I don't think it's possible for me to care any less if someone does want to define competitive gaming that way, it kind of already is with "E-sports". I just see sports as being more of an activity involving your entire body, rather than just your arms/hands (in most cases), which is why I don't view gaming as a sport. I've witnessed some absolutely asinine slapfights over people being insanely anal over genres and definitions before. I still remember watching someone trying incredibly hard to convince people that Super Smash Bros is a "beat 'em party game", not a fighting game, and getting so offended by anyone that said it was a fighting game, they'd fling some pretty choice insults their way. I really don't understand getting that invested in drawing such distant lines in the sand about what genre X game is or whatever, or if games are art or a sport or a "waste of time that only rich privileged kids in mansions get to enjoy" (yes, I've heard someone in real life tell me this once). A lot of genres are just general descriptors for games, not a strict 1-to-1 guide on how that game MUST play. I still don't really even know what the RPG genre really means after all these years, since it's such a loosely defined genre, especially nowadays. Action and adventure are both pretty vague genres as well. So I think whether or not competitive gaming is a sport really all comes down to perspective, like many things in life, and that's okay.

Thanks for the detailed response. Strange they'd pick English voice overs solely for a trailer. I'm not sure who the English voice actors are, so maybe there's some relevance to it that I'm not picking up on or something. Good to hear that the game does have a Japanese voice acting option though.

Seems interesting, I generally like business management sims like this. I'll definitely keep my eye on it, will likely import from PlayAsia since I like hoarding my physical games. Considering the Japanese trailer also has English audio, I assume there's no Japanese audio option? Not a dealbreaker, though I can't say I'm a massive fan of the voice acting.

I've always hated discussing positive things about myself because I don't really know how accurate they are, dunno how to be certain if what I think are positive traits I possess actually exist or not, but here goes... I enjoy learning about things. I often feel I'm a bit of a "jack of all trades, master of none" in this sense, since I'll get interested in a topic, do some digging for a bit, then move onto the next thing, but at least I have surface level knowledge about a somewhat sizeable range of topics, I guess...? I don't have much patience for other people's nonsense. But that being said, I still struggle with this a bit, I was kind of a doormat throughout my childhood and early adult years, and contrary to believing it might make people like me more, or at least not be as hostile towards me, it just gave them an inch, and they took a mile 9 times out of 10. It made me miserable. I've lost a lot of patience for people being assholes or otherwise trying to manipulate me, and will often just try to remove myself from those situations when they arise, if at all possible. If not, I tend to be just as bitchy right back. Not sure if if I'd say it's a "positive" trait, as it's both a blessing and a curse, but I can be insanely stubborn and refuse to give up on things that I'm extremely determined about. Oftentimes, these things are just games or something otherwise kind of trivial which definitely nullifies a lot of the "positive" attribute of this trait in my eyes. I'm told I'm funny, apparently. Don't have strong feelings on this either way, as I'm rarely actively trying to be humorous, I just say dumb shit. This is one that's been confirmed by others a few times, so I assume it has some validity - I'm a fairly honest person, and generally don't have reservations about admitting my own faults or times I've wronged someone. I may not be great at owning up to my BS in the moment, but once things have cooled, I do try to make an effort to apologise and rectify things. Those sometimes I don't always know when I've upset someone or otherwise fucked up, and sometimes I think I've screwed up when I haven't, which has led to many misunderstandings and needless conflict, but that's prolly thanks to my autistic brain if anything.

Just Far Cry Primal, because I received it a few days early, actually really enjoyed it, and since it was a fairly straightforward plat, I thought a guide wouldn't be too difficult to write for it. It wasn't, but it was definitely still a time sink, and I honestly didn't even put tons of effort into it, but hopefully it's helped some people throughout the years. I've always been tempted to write guides in general (not necessarily trophy guides), but there's so many factors make me very apprehensive about even attempting: There's usually always someone else writing a guide for a game before me, even if the game is brand new or not even out yet. Or there's already guides out, and they're almost always comprehensive enough that I don't think there's any point for another guide. And sometimes, there's games that don't really need guides, and there's already enough info and/or videos out there for the few times you may need a little extra guidance with something specific. They're massive time sinks, and you have to often really scrutinise the games you're playing, and/or play them multiple times, in order to make sure your guide is 100% complete as possible for all the game has to offer. Which can sometimes ruin your own enjoyment (at least in my case, it often does). Even once the guide is done, your work isn't, as you'll likely still be receiving questions, corrections or other addendums to your guide. Not to mention when the game gets updates and/or DLC, you may feel the need to revisit and rework on your guide. At the end of the day, you write a guide for yourself more than anything, because you enjoy your time producing it. It's not like you get paid to do it (most of the time anyway), and while the knowledge it'll benefit others will likely be reward enough for many, the payoff for the effort and time spent may feel like they could be spent elsewhere, which is what it often boils down to for me - if I feel like doing something "productive" with my free time that isn't just general chores, I'm probably going to spend it studying Japanese language or learning about something. I have massive respect to everyone who does dedicate their time to writing game walkthroughs and guides. Even if they write mostly for their own passion for the games, they've proven invaluable to me throughout the years. And the insanely detailed ones that cover 100% of everything the game has to offer? I can only imagine how much time and effort must go into writing those, especially for large games.

Ah, fair enough, we're definitely in agreement there then.

Uh, I dunno dude, I just finished Return of the Obra Dinn a few days ago which has insanely easy trophies given you can basically cheat and get the answers online. It's stuck in my mind since I finished it though and it's one of the best mystery/puzzle games I've played in a long while. And even when I did admittedly have to look up all the answers in the end, it still felt very rewarding and satisfying. Heck, a lot of the games I've platinumed have been piss easy, probably doesn't help that one of my favourite genres is visual novels. But they're games I thoroughly enjoy, which comes before all else for me. I don't think trophies being easy to obtain in a game = crap game. Unless we're talking about games created solely for obtaining trophies, like My Name is Mayo and those "The Sheep P" games or whatever.

Only part of the blog that stood out to me (since I'm not really interested in the new PS+ tiers otherwise). I'm hoping this does mean that previously purchased PS1/PSP games will be made available on PS4/PS5, that's something I've been hoping for since literally the launch of the PS4. Nice to see Ape Escape 1 on that list, will definitely rebuy that if it's made available. Find it a little strange they only announced one PSP game that'll be available.

Nope, couldn't care less. What does bother me though is leaving a game unfinished. If a game is truly atrocious or insanely boring in some way, I'll drop it, but I've trudged through some games that I have minimal enjoyment with simply because I have this weird part of my lizard brain screaming at me "you must complete every game you start!". And by "complete" in my book, it's pretty much just getting to the credits or equivalent, no need for extra fluff or 100% completion. And if it's one of those "endless" games like Minecraft, I simply stop playing when I've had my fill (and maybe return to it once in a while, it's one thing I can appreciate about games like that). I've definitely become less patient with games as I've gotten older though, I've already dropped 8 games since the start of this year, which is kind of a record number for me in less than 6 months. According to my HLTB, my "retired" tab is at 9%, though I do have a few "endless" games in there such as MMOs. I'd say dropping roughly 1 in every 10 games isn't too bad, I do thankfully enjoy most of the games I play.

To have PayPal linked to your PSN account, you need to set up an agreement with them to allow pre-authorised payments, which bypasses the need to log in/enter your password.

Yeah I think I guessed about half of the identities at most, and didn't bother entering them until I confirmed they were correct with a guide either. Figuring out the deaths for each character was generally easy enough, since it shows them to you, but the still image flashbacks weren't often enough to figure out the identities of many characters. Also as much as I love the art and graphical style of the game, it did sometimes make it a bit difficult to make things out. Fantastic soundtrack that I can't fault though. Very much enjoyed my time with it, even if I did basically cheat at the end. I still think I prefer Papers Please, as I preferred the gameplay, setting and narrative that game told. Obra Dinn was disjointed which I don't mind, but my dumb brain sometimes finds it hard piecing together the full story whenever a game/movie/book/etc. tends to do that.

Was kinda weirded out when I saw the star icon on this thread, don't remember ever posting in here, but my memory is notoriously bad, especially when it comes to stuff I posted literally years ago. I'm happy to say I'm still with the person mentioned in this post though, and he still remains the most important to me in my life. If anyone has ever been cheated on or otherwise severely wronged by a partner, just remember you deserve more. I used to believe there wasn't much point getting my hopes up on being able to expect even common decency in a partner, but that's just because my self esteem was in the gutter, which many serial cheaters will prey upon. Anyone can do better than a cheater, no matter how unlovable you may feel, which I may know sound meaningless or perhaps condescending to those that may hate themselves, but it's really all a matter of perspective, and how you view yourself and the world can unconsciously attract the wrong kind of people. But always remember that even then, you can do everything right in life, and still fail. Don't beat yourself up over it, life is notoriously unfair and chaotic, but that doesn't mean you're in the wrong or unlikeable - those who choose to wilfully cheat says a lot more about them than it does those who are cheated on.

Heavily depends on the game. If it's purely aesthetic, it depends on my mood, or which character model I prefer. I don't usually find it any easier or harder to identify with a character based on their gender, so it's kind of a non-factor for me the majority of the time. If there's some small differences, like how other characters respond to you based on your gender, or if there's different items/armour, endings, etc. I may look up to see the extent of it and base it on that, but for the most part, it depends on my mood again. If there's actual gameplay differences like different stats and classes, I pick based on which gameplay style I prefer.