Baker’s Final March

[Inuty]

11 minutes ago, Baker said:

 #295 
 

 

AI: The Somnium Files

 

Enjoyment: 8/10

Difficulty: -

Playtime: 25 hours

 

Let’s go back 2.5 years. Casually watching some Youtube video’s I came across a random top 10 best stories in videogames video. The games picked out where games with amazing stories but there was one game I’d never heard of before: 999. A quick google search later I came to learn it was part of the Zero Escape trilogy, which are Visual Novels. So I checked the Ps Store and all three games were on sale, which was a fortunate coincidence. I asked for some opinions here on the forums and everyone basically said the same thing: The games are great, get them! And so I did.

 

I did not expect to like it much, because at that point I looked at VNs as games that were only played by stackers that want to climb the leaderboards, but I was wrong. The games were amazing, and the best part was it actually had quite a lot of gameplay in it. So I went looking for more of these types of games and not before long I was playing Danganronpa, Phoenix Wright and recently 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Amazing games!

 

I also tried a VN that was just reading by pressing X: Chaos;Child. That was definitely too boring for me, I skipped through the entire game.

 

On to AI: The Somnium Files. Without spoiling anything you’re playing as Date, a police detective that has an AI left eye called Aiba and because of a Psync machine is able to go into people’s minds/dreams trying to solve the murders he is investigating. The gameplay is in the dreams where you need to break ‘mental locks’ to continue by solving puzzles, which is heavily inspired by Zero Escape & Phoenix Wright.
 

The story is dark with loads of murders, many cliffhangers, and was done very well. But one thing stood out for me: The humor. There also is a lot of humor in this game, they’re all basically sexy jokes, but it had me laugh out loud multiple times. 
 

Pornoooo Mag!!!

 

 

Glad you enjoyed it! I think a lot more people would enjoy VN if they give them a Real try.

 

The case which upset me emotional the most was the "dream" with the otaku and his mother without spoiling anything. I think this dream Was so well done and the whole Story was much more clean for me how the two interact with each other

 

 

 

[Baker]

5 minutes ago, Inuty said:

Glad you enjoyed it! I think a lot more people would enjoy VN if they give them a Real try.

 

The case which upset me emotional the most was the "dream" with the otaku and his mother without spoiling anything. I think this dream Was so well done and the whole Story was much more clean for me how the two interact with each other

 

 

 

At a few points in the game I felt like I was cutting onions. It also has some tear jerking moments for sure.

[ShadyWARcotix]

On 17.6.2021 at 11:28 AM, Wild-Arms-R said:

True that, the both games start hard but by if your hell bent on getting the plats you won’t even need to worry about being good enough to earn them.

 

I mean you gotta beat each game what like 5times. 
Who can’t get good in 5 playtrus is beyond me.

Tho it would suck so bad if you ended up hating the games cus their very heavy on playtime.

 

Oh and Shadow Warrior looks hard n fun so maybe you should go play that one and try doing a mission par day on DMC5 to make the grind less grindy?

 I'm playing and almost done with Shadow Warrior right now and don't let the difficulty fool you. It isn't a 9/10 imo. It's maybe a 7 or 7.5. If you have any questions you can ask me of course.

[Baker]

Now that I’m here let’s do a little progression update too.
 

I decided to take a break from Devil May Cry 5 for the time being as I didn’t have any fun anymore. I need 80 more S ranks on the missions, and with an expected average of around three attempts to get those I need to play the same missions 240 more times. And by now I’ve played those missions too many times already. Did I already mention I think this is the worst trophy list ever? ?

 

I bought Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. The Easter Egg hunting in Zombies will continue with @Mori und @Koro249 which I’m looking forward too. Although I need to wait a while before starting because Mori will be away for a few months. Once again @HusKy is not joining because he is still struggling with My Name Is Mayo 2. Hang in there, you can do it!

 

I also bought Dark Rose Valkyrie. What? Exactly. A not too well known JRPG that has quite a few UR trophies. Now this can only mean two things. It’s either incredibly long or there isn’t much info on it. In this case it’s the latter, although it could be both because, well, there isn’t much info on it ?. This will be the next game I’m playing.

 

But I want to play something on the side too. And as the above post is mentioning Shadow Warrior I’m thinking of finally starting that. The main reason I haven’t started it yet isn’t about the difficulty (ofcourse), it’s those damn collectibles! I hate them. In a FPS game the last thing I want to do is look at a collectible guide every minute. 
 

And I’m going to trade in my physical games tomorrow. After grabbing Ys: Montrum Nox from the money I get from that I’ll probably have around €50 more to spend. So any recommendations I should pick up from my wishlist?

 

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by Baker

[Deluziion90]

Congrats again!

 

wishlist would be Crash Bandicoot 4 no doubt haha.

 

I can’t give any advice on jrpgs because well you know?

[Grotz99]

7 hours ago, Baker said:

 #295 
 

 

AI: The Somnium Files

 

Enjoyment: 8/10

Difficulty: -

Playtime: 25 hours

This has been on my list forever since it was released as it is made by the same team that made the Zero Escape Trilogy and I loved those games. If only it's price would go down to what those are usually on sale, but I might pick it up from this current one.

 

Also is it a coincidence that you're playing as a detective name Date? There's a detective named Date in the Yakuza series...

[Baker]

30 minutes ago, Grotz99 said:

This has been on my list forever since it was released as it is made by the same team that made the Zero Escape Trilogy and I loved those games. If only it's price would go down to what those are usually on sale, but I might pick it up from this current one.

 

Also is it a coincidence that you're playing as a detective name Date? There's a detective named Date in the Yakuza series...

Well it’s save to say that if you like Zero Escape you will like this. I was actually looking for bit of a lower price too but decided to just buy it now. A big price drop to the €10-€15 range could take quite a while.

 

I didn’t make the link between Yakuza and this game but there are many references to other games like Danganronpa, so it could be true they chose the name Date deliberately.

[Joe Dubz]

7 hours ago, Baker said:

But I want to play something on the side too. And as the above post is mentioning Shadow Warrior I’m thinking of finally starting that. The main reason I haven’t started it yet isn’t about the difficulty (ofcourse), it’s those damn collectibles! I hate them. In a FPS game the last thing I want to do is look at a collectible guide every minute. 

I feel the same exact way here man! The only thing I despise more than collectibles are missable trophies requiring playing through shit again... Both cases involve needing to have a guide at your side every second, and to me that is just not that enjoyable. 

 

I've been enjoying reading your adventures so far and think I will follow along ?

[Baker]

[Dark Rose Valkyrie]
 

Let’s write a little update.

 

I’ve now done 2 full playthroughs of the game. One of them required getting the true ending on Very Hard. True endings are very common in JRPGs but this one was quite annoying as there is just very little info about it. If you don’t get it, tough luck, you just waisted 40 hours. Luckily I got it though, and I’ve just finished all the post game missions. Although I think I’ve just scratched the surface of post game, there is still at least one dungeon I haven’t visited yet.

 

Also, I didn’t expect too much from this game but I really enjoyed it. 

 

I’m missing only one trophy now. Kill 10.000 Chimera. So after 70 hours, 2 playthroughs, my kill counter is at… 3893 ?. I expect this to take at least 20+ hours of grinding… There was a time when I enjoyed grinding in games. Put on some music, mind at zero and gooo! Not so much anymore. 
 

Onto the next game for now…

Edited July 8, 2021 by Baker121

[Deluziion90]

6 hours ago, Baker121 said:

[Dark Rose Valkyrie]
 

Let’s write a little update.

 

I’ve now done 2 full playthroughs of the game. One of them required getting the true ending on Very Hard. True endings are very common in JRPGs but this one was quite annoying as there is just very little info about it. If you don’t get it, tough luck, you just waisted 40 hours. Luckily I got it though, and I’ve just finished all the post game missions. Although I think I’ve just scratched the surface of post game, there is still at least one dungeon I haven’t visited yet.

 

Also, I didn’t expect too much from this game but I really enjoyed it. 

 

I’m missing only one trophy now. Kill 10.000 Chimera. So after 70 hours, 2 playthroughs, my kill counter is at… 3893 ?. I expect this to take at least 20+ hours of grinding… There was a time when I enjoyed grinding in games. Put on some music, mind at zero and gooo! Not so much anymore. 
 

Onto the next game for now…

 

I feel you.. the older I get the more I stay away from hardcore grinds.

[Baker]

33 minutes ago, Deluziion90 said:

 

I feel you.. the older I get the more I stay away from hardcore grinds.

It actually isn’t as bad as expected. Put on my headphones, Youtube playlist, and go! I did around 1200 kills in I think 2 hours? Haven’t really kept track of time, as I was too busy singing along ?.
 

The game doesn’t require any attention anymore anyway, just run into enemies and press options to auto battle, rinse and repeat. I should be done in 10 hours. Not too bad…

Edited July 8, 2021 by Baker121

[Baker]

Well it was that time of the year again. I traded in all my games. This time around I actually got a bit more than anticipated: €105 of store credit.

I had a few games that still had a lot of value: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III & IV. I also traded in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Dragonball Z: Kakarot and Kingdom Hearts III.

 

At these times I realize that getting physical copies sometimes saves a lot of money. Especially when it comes to franchises as Call of Duty. I bought it at release and basically it has now cost me only €25.

 

Now what did I get in return you might ask.

As mentioned a few times before I got Ys IX: Monstrum Nox. This game sits at the top of my wishlist and although it was still full price, it is worth it. 

 

Yesterday I quickly searched for some other games to pick up and noticed Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne got a price reduction. So I couldn’t resist grabbing this too. This game actually is in my top 3 games of all time, so I was a bit hesitant to buy it because sometimes it’s better to keep that nostalgic feeling about games. I don’t want it to disappoint after 18 years.

 

And I grabbed a €20 PSN card for future use.

 

Well, that’s more than enough to keep me busy this summer. Before starting these games I’ll be working a little bit on my backlog first. Have a good weekend ✌?.

Edited July 10, 2021 by Baker121

[Arcesius]

I guess you will write a review once the last Chimera has been slain... But how did you like the game overall? What is the gameplay like?

 

And how 'easy' would it be to list the requirements needed for the true ending?

 

I'm not big on anime but I checked the artstyle a bit and it looks pretty good...

Edited July 9, 2021 by Arcesius

[Baker]

7 hours ago, Arcesius said:

I guess you will write a review once the last Chimera has been slain... But how did you like the game overall? What is the gameplay like?

 

And how 'easy' would it be to list the requirements needed for the true ending?

 

I'm not big on anime but I checked the artstyle a bit and it looks pretty good...

 

My expectations were low coming into this game but I really enjoyed it in the end. But a fair warning, if you just play JRPGs casually this might not be for you. There is a lot of repetitiveness. You really need to enjoy doing fetch quests, kill quests, over and over again.
 

The story is pretty good and it ‘changes’ every playthrough based on your answers in the game. Can’t really say more without major spoilers.

 

Gameplay is turn based combat. Remember Squall from FF VIII with his gunsword? Well, everyone has a gunsword here that’s about three times the size of the person ?. It’s pretty simple to learn, but has some deep mechanics.

 

Now for the true ending: You need to fulfill two requirements. You need to get affection with any of your female party members to 5 stars by giving correct answers during skits. Problem is these skits are randomised, so it’s not possible to give a timeline with correct answers. They are chapter related though.

 

I’ve found a youtube video that showed all correct answers, but you will need to rewind and rewatch many times until your skit comes up. Sounds like a chore but the video is only 5 min. long, so if you follow that you will be fine as I got every female character to 5 stars.

 

And you need to get three out of five interviews correct. It’s basically a ‘who dunnit?’ where you interview your female characters. These are once again randomised. Although you can reload your save before starting to change the interview subject, I only got the exact same answers as in the video I followed two times. And the game doesn’t tell you that you’ve done it correctly until many hours later in the game.  
 

So I was a bit nervous if I got the true ending, but I got it first try.

 

I don’t think this game is something for you to be honest. I enjoyed it because I love these types of games but there are far better JRPGs out there.

 

Edited July 10, 2021 by Baker121

[Arcesius]

Fair enough! I'll forget about this one then. I'm trying to find a JRPG to play at some point, I thought about Star Ocean, but I dunno. I'll probably end up playing FF VIII, even though I'm not a huge fan of that game.

 

Which games in your backlog are next?

[Baker]

19 hours ago, Arcesius said:

Fair enough! I'll forget about this one then. I'm trying to find a JRPG to play at some point, I thought about Star Ocean, but I dunno. I'll probably end up playing FF VIII, even though I'm not a huge fan of that game.

 

Which games in your backlog are next?

I am a big fan of Star Ocean. But these games are a trophy nightmare and take a long time to complete doing meaningless tasks. Not to mention multiple playthroughs… I know you don’t have much time to game and I think you don’t want to be spending it all grinding ?
 

You can check out Exist Archive. A turn based JRPG. A bit of a hidden gem. Takes around 80 hours. And has quite a few UR trophies. For a long time I was the fastest 100% achiever, which says something about how much I liked it, as I played it non stop. 

 

But I would like to see you pick up Yakuza 0. It’s not a JRPG, but man, that game is so awesome!

 

As for my backlog…

 

I’m actually going for Ys Origin in the next two weeks. Give it another real attempt. First I need to put in a lot of practice again. Also I’ll be S ranking some DMC 5 missions and killing some Chimera in DRV.

But yeah, Ys is my main goal for one reason. Husky & Koro are playing Wolfenstein II and we have a little Mein Leben support group going on. Now I was planning to give it a try this year anyway so now is as good a time as any. But, I don’t want to do it before I finished Ys.

 

 

Edited July 10, 2021 by Baker121

[Baker]

@Arcesius You know I’ve been thinking some more about JRPGs I could recommend. Looking at the style I think Exist Archive also isn’t something for you.
 

But there is one really obvious game that you should play: Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. This game is in my top 3 games of all time for a good reason. It is amazing. It’s not your typical feel good anime style JRPG, it’s a really dark game.

 

The game is kind of infamous for its difficulty, and I know you like a challenge. Now forget trophies exist, and just play this game on hard. I really think you will enjoy that.

[Arcesius]

Yeah I checked out Exist Archive, and it looks... unique? I can't say that I didn't like it, but you are right, it doesn't seem to be a game made for me, either. I will keep it in mind together with Shin Megami Tensei III though and see which one goes on sale first. I probably wouldn't get to play either before I get my 100th plat, and both games are pretty expensive for being quite old ?

 

As for Yakuza... I dunno man, can't really say it's a series that interests me... Is it wrong to say it's "Japanese GTA"? Cause while I enjoyed playing through some GTAs in the past, those games have never been the ones to truly appeal to me... 

[Baker]

7 minutes ago, Arcesius said:

Yeah I checked out Exist Archive, and it looks... unique? I can't say that I didn't like it, but you are right, it doesn't seem to be a game made for me, either. I will keep it in mind together with Shin Megami Tensei III though and see which one goes on sale first. I probably wouldn't get to play either before I get my 100th plat, and both games are pretty expensive for being quite old 

 

As for Yakuza... I dunno man, can't really say it's a series that interests me... Is it wrong to say it's "Japanese GTA"? Cause while I enjoyed playing through some GTAs in the past, those games have never been the ones to truly appeal to me... 

 

Over the past few years I’ve recommended many games to you. And as far as I know you’ve never been disappointed by my choices. Trust me, Yakuza & SMT are amazing games. Try them ?

 

I mean, ask @Copanele and especially @PooPooBlast how awesome Yakuza 0 is…

[Copanele]

Well Yakuza IS one of the best series that I've played so far indeed (and I barely played 3 of the entries  ) but...I really am not sure if it would appeal to @Arcesius. There's a certain madness in those games that might not be to his liking.

 

That and you really have to grind the mahjong  

[PooPooBlast]

1 hour ago, Arcesius said:

As for Yakuza... I dunno man, can't really say it's a series that interests me... Is it wrong to say it's "Japanese GTA"? Cause while I enjoyed playing through some GTAs in the past, those games have never been the ones to truly appeal to me... 

You sir have uttered unspeakable sins . It's absolutely nothing like Japanese GTA and unfortunately this misnomer has stuck around ever since the first Yakuza on the PS2 debuted. Admittedly, they dubbed that game to be like GTA but the series have since deviated from that and there's hardly a resemblance. You can ask @Copanele as well about that.

 

Unfortunately I'm not very knowledgeable of the genre of games that you like but what you can expect from the series is the following:

• A memorable crime drama story
• TONS of quality content in the form of minigames. (Some can be misses of course, won't sugar coat it). 
• Lots of engaging side quests.
• Incredible OST. One of my favs are in the spoilers tag btw

Spoiler

 

 

• There's no cars or vehicles to get to your locations (although fast travel taxis do exist). @Copanele was actually surprised about this at first too! Everything is within a walking distance which could give you an idea in terms of how much they managed to squeeze in every corner of the playable cities.

Obviously, you know better than anybody else in terms of what games interest you and what do not but I just wanted to share my thoughts given that I was summoned here by @Baker121

Edited July 11, 2021 by PooPooBlast

[Baker]

 #296

 

 

Dark Rose Valkyrie

 

Enjoyment: 7/10

Difficulty: -

Playtime: 80 hours

 

I don’t really know what to write about this game. It’s a JRPG with an Ultra Rare platinum only due to the fact there aren’t any guides for this game. The game itself is easy.

 

Sometime in the near future there has been a virus outbreak, which is starting to turn humans and animals into Chimera, basically monsters. You play as a soldier with a couple of waifu’s as your party members to go after, and defend the city against these Chimera, and trying to find out what it exactly is. The story is very straightforward with a couple of twists that can change in every playthrough of the game. Can’t say more because that will be major spoilers.

 

The battle system was alright. Everyone has a massive gunsword, and your bullet attacks breaks through defences, and your melee attacks do more damage. But you can easily break this battle system by spamming arts, which do massive damage, and bringing a lot of potions to restore AP that’s needed to cast those arts. 

 

There is also a huge amount of DLC that can also break the game by making you very OP from the start. I did a blind playthrough without DLC first, and a second playthrough where I grabbed all free DLC and actually paid €5 for one of these OP packs. In the end that wasn’t really necessary but it did shave off a big amount of gaming time.

 

Quick thanks to @acasser for answering all my questions in the forums. Much appreciated!

 

Now my plan was to go after Ys Origin and Devil May Cry 5 next but I’ve just borrowed The Last of Us Part II. I always intend to bring borrowed games back asap so that will be my next game.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Baker121

[Deluziion90]

Congrats on the platinum! Last of us 2.. Great gameplay, great graphics pretty much great all the way.. But some things they did in the story it's really not my greatest game. Having it borrowed is a big win though. Shouldn't take more then a week to platinum.

[Joe Dubz]

Congrats buddy! Sounds a bit intriguing, at least the Gunsword part makes me think of my very dear FFVIII from back in the day! Gonna have to look more into this one, I've been itching for a good JRPG since Pier Solar anyway. 

[Baker]

2 hours ago, Deluziion90 said:

Congrats on the platinum! Last of us 2.. Great gameplay, great graphics pretty much great all the way.. But some things they did in the story it's really not my greatest game. Having it borrowed is a big win though. Shouldn't take more then a week to platinum.

 

Well, I might not play this game after all. For now that is. I’m trying to play but the game keeps shutting down because it can’t read the disc. The disc actually has a big scratch on it. I will likely get frustrated if this keeps happening. I mean it already happened three times and I’m still in the prologue.
 

4 minutes ago, Joe Dubz said:

Congrats buddy! Sounds a bit intriguing, at least the Gunsword part makes me think of my very dear FFVIII from back in the day! Gonna have to look more into this one, I've been itching for a good JRPG since Pier Solar anyway. 

 

Well there are a lot of better JRPGs out there than this one. I highly recommend Tales of, especially Berseria and Vesperia, or the Ys series. Or you can join me with Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne ?.