Jens
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Finished Danganronpa 2 on Wednesday, which lets us pick characters from this game and the first Danganronpa for this event. And there's a lot of options, because both games are pretty much filled to the brim with all sorts of mental instabilities (I wouldn't necessarily call all of them mental illnesses, but a few of them for sure). For this event I'll focus on the character Mikan Tsumiki, which the game's Wiki describes as "an extremely meek, paranoid and fragile individual who suffers from hazardously low self-esteem as a result of severe abuse and bullying". It continues explaining that "She constantly worries about annoying, boring or offending others", which reminded me to some extent of... myself. For very different and way sillier reasons, thankfully!, but let me take way too much time to elaborate. I'll try keeping it short, I promise! Definitely won't look that way though. I've been friends with two girls from my class for years, we were actually very, very close. They were closer to being my sisters #4 and #5 than "just" being friends. But after a few years I noticed that I felt like our friendship is slowly dwindling and I felt like there's nothing I could do about it. Conversations didn't stick around, they focused more and more on other people, things like that. At some point I just couldn't take it anymore and did something... very silly, to end it in one fell swoop instead of watching my friendships slowly die. I was young (15 or so, I think), and therefore I was stupid. Instead of talking about things and trying to fix them, which would've helped for sure, I chose the nuclear option and never really stopped regretting it. Little did I know that this would lead to me carrying actual fear of loss around, and that for more than a decade. Whenever a similar situation happened - me finding a new friendship I enjoy greatly and start putting a lot of faith and hope into - those worries always came back. When the growth of the friendship slowed down or just "stagnated" at the same spot for a while, I always started getting... nervous, in a way. I saw - or rather imagined those patterns from the past and started worrying about things yet again. I never understood where those negative feelings came from and why they made me stop enjoying friendships, so much so that some of them died in a similar fashion. But then I found a certain person on this very site, a person that turned out to be the help I didn't know I actually needed. We started talking a lot! to each other and things were just very fun and awesome. But then it came back to me again, those weird and confusing worries (which is slightly embarrassing to talk about and explain with me having been 30!!! at that point, but... that's kind of the point of this thread, isn't it? ). We talked less to each other after a few months and my ape brain did it again. "Did I become too boring over time? Are other things just more important now? Is it time to say farewell to a friend yet again?". I started having so many negative thoughts, it made me think of bailing on yet another friendship yet again. I was worried about getting my feelings hurt, if I put too much hope into fixing things and potentially fail. It made me feel helpless and powerless, which was... taxing, to say the least. When something that's just meant and supposed to be positive and fun, a friendship, turns into a burden - even if it's an imaginary one - it really feels like it's dragging one down twice as hard. It was very confusing, too. I have the best fiance in the world, I will get married next year, so there clearly weren't any romantic feelings involved with my friend. I'm doing totally fine in my life, but I still felt this bad about "just" a friendship. I wasn't able to connect the dots and felt like I start digging myself such a deep hole again that I can't get out of it. But this time something else happened. Instead of drowning in these thoughts, becoming bitter and walking away from a friend yet again, I... kind of spat all of these negative thoughts right in her face. And let me tell you, that definitely was one of my best decisions ever! Talking to her about it immediately made me realize how silly my worries were in this case. It started feeling like "alien thoughts", which was very effective. She also turned out to be an infinite source of understanding and support, so much so that I actually figured out what my problem was. I always thought it's plain jealousy, which would've been super embarrassing and that made it difficult openly talking about it. But finally spitting those thoughts out, noticing that they actually are kind of silly and slowly working them down over time just... worked. Without talking about it I still wouldn't understand what's been wrong in my head. I still would've called it "jealousy", friends finding other friend and me just being jealous about it. I would've been ashamed of it, but still would've set myself back right back to square one by running away from my problem. But by talking about it (to the best person ever!), I had the surroundings I needed to think about this in a more critical fashion and figure out that "fear of loss" is a thing. Just reading what it is, how it affects you and so on made a giant bell ring in my head, that almost did 80% of the work by itself It actually made me chuckle seeing how much I recognized myself in the descriptions of this issue. It helped a lot and now I'm pretty sure that I can keep it under control. I'm not 100% immune to it today, sadly, I probably pushed it away for too long. But I always catch myself being close to becoming a weirdo again and stop myself. Therefore I only have one piece of advice for you: If you're worrying about something similar to this, just spit it out dude! That's the most effective way of dealing with it, believe me. There are only two things that could happen: - You might alienate the person you chose to talk to, but shit happens! To be honest with you... if someone doesn't accept you at your "worst", when you feel like you're down, that's what would happen at some point eventually. It still makes you learn things about yourself, which helps you with getting rid of your worries. Don't see it as misguided trust or anything and especially never let it stop you from trying again! There are people out there who will be ready to help you, so just buckle up and try again. - Or you're lucky like me and stumble upon a lighthouse of a friend first try, one that actively relates to your situation and gives you the time and "comfort zone" you need to sort your thoughts. The potential reward greatly outweighs the "risk", trust me! I won't @ you, you know exactly who you are. So I can grant you a bit of privacy, "Not Really Mystery Person" But yeah, this right here needs to happen or this text will be very incomplete: Thank you for everything in these last few years, my friend! I'll continue doing my best, turning your faith in me and the benefit of a doubt you provided into one of your best decisions ever! You rule!
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Voici un ami des grands arts ! Je vous rappellerai de mettre DOOM en français. Cela rendra votre expérience beaucoup plus cultivée !
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Boosting the other Sonic Racing game when? You're the "I Need To Play The Whole Series Guy", so you clearly can't let the other one pass, right?
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Sooo... we will try! This year there isn't such a thing as a guarantee for getting a game done in the time frame, but we'll give it a shot. We're currently playing Danganronpa 2 and it would be a decent fit, just like the whole series kind of fits.
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Platinum #220: Tokyo Dark: Remembrance
Not really that much to say about this one to be honest. It's a pretty short and simple VN-style game with some veeery loose point&click aspects thrown into it. The story is completely alright, at least if you keep in mind how small-scope this game is, pretty close to a little crime detective story with a pinch of supernatural shenanigans. The trophies aren't too bad overall either, not a whole lot to clean up after a casual playthrough for us due to the guides on this site.
That's actually pretty much it to be honest. If you're in the mood for a short-ish VN, I don't think there's really much to dislike in this one. It won't blow your mind, but I think it exactly delivers what one would expect from it with a reasonable approach.
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@Jens Nice nice, I see. And I agree to some of the points you mentioned. The story was toooo long (by far the longest VN I played). And the branching pathways certainyl don't make any sense unless you follow a guide. Anyway, thanks for sharing!
agree about*
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@SP71Q I think this one wouldn't be the worst choice ever, especially because of how short and sometimes cheap it is. Probably a good way sticking your toe into the VN-waters and checking your mood for those. If you notice that you're not feeling VNs at the moment, it's over before you know it (in comparison to some others at least)
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Well well well... Guess it's that day again, huh?
Happy Birthday!
Love you buddy, hope you'll have a wonderful day!
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Happy Birthday PooPooMan!
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Yo, Mr. @PooPooBlast. Happy Birthday over there, man. May this day bring plenty of joy, and gifts of course, to you.
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So I share my birthday with the Vita? You learn something weird every day!
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Platinum #219: Void Terrarium
Got this game from my #1 bestie @eigen-space and played it alongside her, so thanks for both once more my friend!
A pretty interesting roguelike dungeon-crawler kind of game. It has some other gimmicks as well, but it's probably better to not spoil them.
It can get rough a few times, the difficulty has some spikes. But with an aggressive approach, thorough exploration of dungeons and crafting for permanent stat upgrades, it was always a neat experience for us. The RNG effects can be worked down by taking time and leveling up.
Recommending it is difficult, because everything about it is so niche. Look it up, that gives you way more information than I could provide. All I'll say is: We liked it!
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Platinum #218: Lost Judgment
Well, well, well... where do I begin with this one... Probably announcing it as my 10th Yakuza-ish platinum, that's a fun start!
I think if we look at all Yakuza games in a vacuum, without thinking about the influences of games on each other, Lost Judgment is most likely the best Yakuza game to date. It's super fluid, the combat finally feels as visceral and responsive as in Yakuza 0 and Kiwami. Don't get me wrong, the Dragon Engine in newer games was mind-blowing, but the combat felt so... delayed, ever so slightly. At worst it felt like programming a combo and watching the character do it. But this one takes it back to the roots, and it's great. Supported by insane visuals yet again, this level of detail just never gets old.
The story pretty much can't get any better. There's two things I disliked about Yakuza stories (in a funny way though): mustache-twirling "I've been the bad guy all along!" plot twist villains, and characters getting killed by offscreen gunshots. Neither of these things happened
It constructs a story that starts folding into each other from three separate angles and it's pretty entertaining. One moment you think the mustache-twirling villain arrives, later he turns into one of the most sympathetic monsters in gaming history. I think people could watch a complete cut of all cutscenes on Youtube and have a great time!
And the whole completion package is good as well. There are tons of minigames, so of course some miss the mark for players (for me it's Baseball, it can finally go home). But every game was at the very minimum a good amount of fun, most were more than that. Nothing took a craaazy long time or was annoyingly difficult, the worst ones were very manageable for sure. A nice return yet again, after Yakuza 6's super simplistic completion. This one feels like you've conquered a Yakuza game again.
It's difficult to remove the Kiryu and Majima saga from the older games. Seems unfair adding it to the rating, seems unfair leaving it out. So in my overall "Yakuza Tier List"..... I think this one shares the #1 spot with Yakuza 0. If you want to play a Yakuza game in your life, and your 100% sure that you'll only play one, pick Lost Judgment.
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Congrats dude! I totally agree that the story and overall package knocked it out of the park. Seems like the studio is always taking in feedback and fine-tuning their games. I recently replayed the first judgment on the ps5 and while the story was good as I remember it, man there was so much filler in there and the pacing wasn't that great relatively speaking now that I experienced LJ.
Anyway, the only thing I disliked about LJ was the paradise VR. Why? Because in almost every roll, I'm landing on a parkour challenge which is to climb that stupid wall!
Now I'm curious to see what RGG does with Yakuza 8 and now that Nagoshi is gone.
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Platinum #217: Cris Tales
Well, this one will be a bit of a 50:50 thing for me. I'll start with the positive half of it.
It's a cute, small-scope turn-based RPG, we don't get a lot of those these days, so that's a big plus. The art style is neat, the story is completely fine and the pace was pleasant. It doesn't overstay its welcome and isn't over in a flash either, it has the perfect length in my opinion. Overall the game was pretty alright, we definitely enjoyed it for what it is. As a medium-sized RPG it did its job.
But then there are the bugs... Some skills of some characters caused frequent soft-locks in combat, that was beyond frustrating. In addition to that some new content that came with a patch messed with some of the trophies, making it a bit of an obstacle course around eggshells avoiding trophies becoming unachievable. These bugs really decreased our fun at some points of our playthrough, that was a bummer.
Shout-out to @eigen-space for caring a great deal about her guide for this game and updating it to the newest content. If you are interested in it, don't be scared by those bugs. Her guide covers all problems now and will maneuver you around them, there is a solution to avoid every single one of them. Because of that I think I can still recommend it if you like turn-based RPGs, for sure. If we still enjoyed it well enough with some annoying bugs, any other RPG fan has an even bigger chance enjoying it without those
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It would most likely get rid of this very issue, because the coliseum stuff was added via patch. But instead of that it would at least add one similar issue, most likely even more. So my suggestion would be reading and following @eigen-space's guide on it. It easily maneuvers you around this armory issue and some other ones as well. As long as you follow those 5 short steps in her description of this trophy, you'll be fine
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Guide of the Year The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV Trophy Guide Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland Final Fantasy XIV Gameplay Guide Tokyo Dark: Remembrance - Trophy Walkthrough Mail Mole - Radish Collectable Guide DLC Guide Dishonored - Dunwall City Trials Graveyard Keeper - Game of Crone Retro Enthusiast Disgaea D2 Dirt 2 New-Age Enthusiast Cris Tales Resident Evil Village Original Content Super Meat Boy Forever Returnal Formatting Monster Sanctuary Friday the 13th
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My initial plan was listing nothing but platinums, a little counter if you will. But I'll definitely make an exception for this one, because this one will be quite memorable for me I think.
I just completed King's Quest and will now break it down into single chapters, because they are very different, more so than one might think.
Chapter 1 was probably my favorite. It reminded me of an Artifex Mundi game, just without the hidden object puzzles. Basically an "Adventure Lite" that won't get you stuck too often, if at all. That was pretty good stuff. And it is the first introduction to some surprisingly amusing humor and seriously great voice acting. The timing and delivery of the jokes kind of reminded me of Shrek, and I can not tell you why
Probably because of almost every character being fun, while not being annoying (unless they are supposed to be annoying). Fun time!
Chapter 2 on the other hand... was pure garbage. They removed the small puzzles, the world you can walk around in (kind of) and the light-hearted, quirky humor and replaced it with a
Spoilermiserable, dark and boring survival mode in a goblin dungeon.
I don't know what they were smoking, to me they literally removed everything fun and replaced it with misery. That made me anxious about the rest to be honest. I bailed out of this chapter 20 minutes in, just to play it over with a guide. I wanted it out of my life as quickly as possible.
Chapter 3 and 4 picked it back up though. I'm listing both together, because I really can't decide which one I liked more. Chapter 3 brought the tone of the story back, especially the fun interactions between characters. The fact that it was more of a dating sim than an Adventure was something I had to get used to, but I did
Chapter 4 boils the character stuff down to one character, pretty much. But it adds a LOT of puzzles, it's basically a puzzle-gauntlet. I liked both things the same after the awful second chapter, kind of like a breath of fresh air. So I can't really place one above the other.
Chapter 5 gets a little weird, it throws in some meta-elements. Breaking the fourth wall on occasion, purposely messing with the previous story, odd stuff. But considering how it justifies doing so, and therefore wraps up the background story of the overall series... I liked this one too. I appreciate the attempt of doing something wild (even if I would've preferred something more "down to earth") and it was a good way acting as the closing chapter.
So overall I liked it, actually more than I anticipated to be honest. If you find the season pass for all episodes in a sale - and it is quite often, even right now - I would recommend this one to pretty much everyone to be honest. They try so much different stuff over all these chapters, one has to land
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To be real with you, I had no idea that this was the revival of a suuuuper old series. They do pay a bit of an homage to the very old ones, otherwise I would still be clueless. I always sucked at full-on Adventure games, so I barely tried them back then. I was more of a Diablo kind of guy.
Give it a thought, the season pass is as cheap as dirt on sales
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I grew up playing these on my Dads home PC. I still remember the games coming as a stack of 5.25" floppy disks which had to be changed every so many screens you moved. I would spend an hour and a half after school (Mom set a time limit on computer back then) just about every day playing these games and trying to figure out what was needed to be done to progress the game. There were no walkthroughs or youtube guides. haha
I thought the Odd Gentlemen did a pretty good job of taking the series on a wrap up tour so happy to hear you liked it Jens! Id definitely give it a recommend as well.
