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General Video Game Thread
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So I bought Harvestella, and I have to say, it has a damn fine story. It’s not going to win awards for engaging combat (it’s literally just a system where you exploit weapon type and/or elemental weaknesses) but I do not regret my purchase. I’ve spent over 60 hours on it; I’ve got my money’s worth and the story was very engaging and not full of plot holes once I got through the introductory stuff.
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@dvoraen said in General Video Game Thread:
So I bought Harvestella, and I have to say, it has a damn fine story. It’s not going to win awards for engaging combat (it’s literally just a system where you exploit weapon type and/or elemental weaknesses) but I do not regret my purchase. I’ve spent over 60 hours on it; I’ve got my money’s worth and the story was very engaging and not full of plot holes once I got through the introductory stuff.
Def my favorite game so far this year. The farming loop is excellent. Working my way through the post-game content now. Combat wise, I’m going to disagree with it not being engaging – there’s a party, jobs, and a variety of skills to be used. Compared even to Rune Factory, it’s miles and miles and miles better. So for folks approaching it from the genre side (and not the jrpg side), in my opinion it’s hands down the most engaging combat system we’ve gotten from a villager game so far (My Time at Portia is my second favorite; it’s not anywhere near this complex, but hits land and it feels really good).
It’s not great combat for an ARPG, but it’s a farming/life sim, not an ARPG.
I definitely do not recommend it if villager games aren’t your thing – the RPG parts are good, the story is good, but it’s not good enough to make up for genre conventions that folks don’t typically like (passing out at midnight, limited dodge mechanics to require healing, not being able to get rid of big rocks from your plot until tool upgrades, that sort of thing).
It also dialed down the social grind; there’s no gifting, and key NPC relationships are built with their story/sidequests (which also unlocks advances for your jobs). Choosing a life partner and them moving in is post-game, there are no kids, and the partner being at your house the only thing they do is greetings, there’s no further story or anything thus far. Basically identical to post-marriage SDV minus kids.
Modding community is established and they’re working on the tools that will allow folks to do the magic.
the entity previously known as Sunny
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While waiting for Diablo 4 to come out, are there any addictive, grindy and mindless games in roughly the same vein out there?
What I like about D3 is just the time-sink aspect of it. All those self-feeding loops trying to hit that perfect gearing curve make for a nice distraction without needing to focus too much on anything but playing what’s on the screen in front of me.
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The Torchlight games are the closest I’ve found.
the entity previously known as Sunny
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@Arkandel I had a lot of fun with Path of Exile, even with the complexities of it. It felt to me like what D3 would have been if Blizzard had doubled down on the everything of D2.
I also had a lot of fun with Lost Ark too but fell off after like 160 hours or so. I think I only had half of the continents discovered by that point. A lot of content, for sure.
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@IoleRae Because all the best Diablo developers work on Torchlight! It’s so so so fun.
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@Arkandel It’s a platformer rather than a top-down RPG but Dead Cells sounds like it has a lot of what you’re looking for.
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I’ve honestly had so much fun playing Rimworld. I’m grateful for @tsar and @Snackness who not only introduced me to this game but listen to me ramble endlessly about my vampires needing bloodboys or complain about how my dumb idiots keep naming themselves LADY and BABY.
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@bear_necessities said in General Video Game Thread:
I’ve honestly had so much fun playing Rimworld. I’m grateful for @tsar and @Snackness who not only introduced me to this game but listen to me ramble endlessly about my vampires needing bloodboys or complain about how my dumb idiots keep naming themselves LADY and BABY.
I’ve enjoyed all our mutual lamenting about the dramatic lives of our colonists -
@bear_necessities said in General Video Game Thread:
I’ve honestly had so much fun playing Rimworld. I’m grateful for @tsar and @Snackness who not only introduced me to this game but listen to me ramble endlessly about my vampires needing bloodboys or complain about how my dumb idiots keep naming themselves LADY and BABY.
RimWorld is SO FUN.
For a high fantasy variation, Amazing Cultivation Simulator is basically RimWorld except you’re training immortal magic martial artists and sometimes someone brings home a magical treasure that sets your whole storeroom on fire.
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@tsar said in General Video Game Thread:
@Pyrephox said in General Video Game Thread:
treasure that sets your whole storeroom on fire
…go on
Just remember this: You asked for this.
Okay, so ACS is set in the ‘cultivation’ subgenre of Chinese high fantasy, where your main characters are martial artists trying to speed run into enlightenment and immortality, usually by ingesting a variety of weird substances and punching dragons in the face. Which means that in the world of ACS, Feng Shui is a real, measurable thing and the ‘elemental energy’ of items can absolutely have effects on the world around them. This means a room with good Feng Shui will help people be happier and heal faster.
A room with bad Feng Shui can cause people’s hearts to explode. It’s a thing.
But, moving on! Out in the world you can find various treasures that can help in your cultivation - either by gathering qi that your cultivators can absorb to grow more powerful, or by being useful to make into medicines that they can eat (which can also make their heads explode). Fire qi and Water qi in particularly have effects on the surrounding temperatures. A fruit infused with large amounts of Fire qi can reach upwards of 500 degrees F. When your cultivators go out adventuring, they will bring the things they find back to the sect and dump them in your storage room (if that’s where you direct them to do so). If you dump something that is 500F next to your, say, wood and fur supplies?
Fire. Fire everywhere. And when I first started playing the game, I had no idea why my storeroom kept spontaneously combusting, because I did not realize that this fruit this guy found out in the wilderness was actually a self-fueling, ever-burning furnace of death.
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@Pyrephox said in General Video Game Thread:
Fire. Fire everywhere. And when I first started playing the game, I had no idea why my storeroom kept spontaneously combusting, because I did not realize that this fruit this guy found out in the wilderness was actually a self-fueling, ever-burning furnace of death.
… writing that down for future shenanigans.
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Been on the fence about this one for aaaaaaaaaaaaaages. Thank you, I am so gonna grab it now.
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@Pyrephox said in General Video Game Thread:
Fire. Fire everywhere. And when I first started playing the game, I had no idea why my storeroom kept spontaneously combusting, because I did not realize that this fruit this guy found out in the wilderness was actually a self-fueling, ever-burning furnace of death.
Glorious. I know what my next game is going to be. Thank you.
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Ended up in the space of like 10 days sinking 54 hours on Mount & Blade II: Bannerlords.
Has a decent RPG vibe to it, although can get a bit grindy at points and the campaign is a bit meh. But with the 3rd-person battles, and a very healthy modding community, good fun.
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Inspired by the Cyberpunk anime, I decided to finally sit down and give Cyberpunk 2077 a shot now that I’d heard it’s stable and bugs are squashed. And… it was good! I had a great time, even if I had quibbles, which I’ll touch on below.
For the PC version, modifying the major movement and ‘action’ keybinds is still a bit of a chore, but there are mods out there that help with it. If you use a controller, it’s likely absolutely painless.
Sidequests: I felt slightly betrayed that my obsessive completion of smaller sidequests never really amounted to a tangible reward.
(So, protip: Almost every ‘Gig’ in the game which is denoted by a green icon? Absolutely no part of the story gives a crap about it, and they’re generally unrewarding. Only the yellow sidequests are worth doing unless you just feel inspired to get more immersed, because the green ‘gigs’ felt pretty copy/pasta and I rarely left a gig feeling like it had enriched the world in any particular way.)
Story: I felt an extreme attachment to Judy Alvarez, and her questline was just beautiful. She’s only interested in female-presenting characters romantically, but goodness gracious.
Also, without spoiling anything, several of the choices of endings require sidequests completed to select, and every ending that doesn’t? Kinda sit between ‘unsatisfying’ and ‘WELP’. So, again. Yellow sidequests are your friend. Go in to the home stretch with options.
That’s all! I’m looking forward to more time in Night City when the DLC drops.
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I quit the game after finishing the Judy romance because it was beautiful and I knew the ending would not be as good.
Do wish I’d been able to romance Pan-Am, tho. Judy was lovely, but not really my type.
bird's still the word
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@IoleRae said in General Video Game Thread:
Been on the fence about this one for aaaaaaaaaaaaaages. Thank you, I am so gonna grab it now.
Fair warning for you and @tsar : The translation is dodgy, and this game is DENSE.
Like, super dense. There are three ‘broad’ categories of cultivation and they each have their own ruleset. And then there are Formations, which I have not figured out and I’ve had the game for years. And a social system that is hilariously wonky. It’s a weird game. But you can have a lot of fun with it.
And if you’re lucky, a pile of poop which has turned sentient might wander into your sect, and you can eventually turn it into a magical human.
Edit: All that said? I love talking about this game, and if you do get it and want to chat about it HIT ME UP. Because I adore it and am happy to give tips or just talk about the crazy things that happen.
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@Rinel Pan-Am was a good runner-up! Just too much of a temper for me.
That and she had no interest in me (Because she has her own preferences, and she be straight). I didn’t know that, and it really brought up some painful oofs when I tried and failed to get something going. Props to them for letting me still try to flirt, because the oofs actually felt better than just no dialogue options. Staring at you, here, Bioware.
