What Video Games Are You Playing Right Now?

[Jade]

9 hours ago, Jun Inoue said:

I sold my PS3 to get the PS4, and they immediatelly announced Tales of Xillia 2... and then the continuation of The Guided Fate Paradox... WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Living my life knowing I might never play them.

Don't worry, Guided Fate Awakening is shit trust me

Tales of Xillia 2 meanwhile.....  

[Funyarinpa]

Finished Ghost Trick, I enjoyed it quite a bit. GOTY for me is still Persona 3 Portable, though. (So far challenged only by Soul Sacrifice Delta)

Now focusing on Soul Sacrifice Delta, because it's G R E A T. I love the mood, the lore, the characters, everything. I'm kinda overwhelmed by how much there is to do, but I'll only be doing Avalon stuff (save for trying to do all character side stories (such as Carnatux's) because those are great). 

Also bought Little Big Planet Vita and Killzone Mercenary from the flash sale, a move I kind of regret, because I'm trying to limit my gaming to story-heavy games and one of these is a community-based platformer and the other a multiplayer-heavy FPS. I won't be getting any more games or books until August probably at this point (save for Zero Escape 3 obviously). 

After SSD, I'll probably get started on Final Fantasy 7. So many games, so little time!

[Shikomizue]

Just finished Persona 4 Golden. Now I just have to play and fully complete Persona 3 before P5 comes out...

[Riku]

Finished Bravely Second, was quite good! Greatly enjoyed it.

About the Tales of franchise, played all of them aside from Phantasia, Eternia, Innocence and Tempest, and I enjoyed all of them! I think I'll do Phantasia and Eternia soon, but I'll wait to have a Vita to play to Innocence R. Don't think I'll ever try to play Tempest again, though...

[Jun Inoue]

3 hours ago, Shikomizue said:

Just finished Persona 4 Golden. Now I just have to play and fully complete Persona 3 before P5 comes out...

Well, you do have a lot of time... 

[Funyarinpa]

6 hours ago, Shikomizue said:

Just finished Persona 4 Golden. Now I just have to play and fully complete Persona 3 before P5 comes out...

Congrats. Don't play Portable before FES, the 3D environments and models (which aren't present in Portable) are critical to your first time through

[TexasDice]

I've been trying to rush out a Witcher 3 savegame for the release of Blood and Wine, but keep getting stuck in Fallout 4 Far Harbor. 

[Funyarinpa]

Killzone Mercenary is great fun, though my favorite right now is Soul Sacrifice Delta, what an incredibly designed game. I love it. 

[Fred the Barber]

17 hours ago, Jade said:

Don't worry, Guided Fate Awakening is shit trust me

Tales of Xillia 2 meanwhile.....  

Gotta admit, Xillia 2 was pretty great. Way better than the original Xillia, IMO.

[sub-zer0]

Been playing Subnautica, Loving it so far, its my first survival/collect and craft type game that i'v played, so its very interesting to play,ton of fun, but there are some bugs that are rather annoying, but not game breaking, its still in development, but its been under dev for a while now, Really nice gorgeous graphics, probably not the best out of survival games,but when night comes and the lights go out, the fishes and coral starts to glow, it looks amazing.Its a really nice game since its mostly underwater, there is only like a small portion where you can actually walk on land, but its a shame there are no lethal weapons in this game, guess its part of the survival atmosphere, the tension of lurking predators that will stalk you from the seaweeds or sands, great game,and its making me even more hyped for No man's sky, it probably won't have as much underwater detail as subnautica, but it has more details on land and space to compensate for that.

[Jade]

1 hour ago, Fred the Barber said:

Gotta admit, Xillia 2 was pretty great. Way better than the original Xillia, IMO.

Probably help that Ludger is wayy better protagonist than Jude

[Fred the Barber]

25 minutes ago, Jade said:

Probably help that Ludger is wayy better protagonist than Jude

Not exactly a high bar, but true. Milla was the protagonist of my Xillia playthrough, though, which I'm pretty sure was a much better choice.

[Jun Inoue]

Boy, am I glad I picked Jude, then. He was perfect as the MC in Xillia, telling a story of personal growth apart from the game's ongoing narrative. How fitting Jude was to the story and world is one of the reasons Xillia was so good. He gets sucked into a horrible mess he didn't want anything to do with, and ends up rising to the occasion due to necessity and will, not bs destiny or duty.

[Riku]

Most of the Tales of games aren't destiny BS. The MCs are just living their life.

Take Vesperia for exemple: Yuri just wanted to take back the Blastia, and in the end he saved the world. It all began with a stolen item.

From my memories, Zestiria, Innoncence, and arguably Hearts, Symphonia and Abyss have "destined" heroes. The others are just "normal guys". (Well, in Destiny 2's case, Kyle want to be a hero so bad that he becomes one, but he isn't really destined to be one)

EDIT: And Milla's side of Xillia too, I guess.

 

[Jun Inoue]

38 minutes ago, Riku said:

Most of the Tales of games aren't destiny BS. The MCs are just living their life.

Take Vesperia for exemple: Yuri just wanted to take back the Blastia, and in the end he saved the world. It all began with a stolen item.

From my memories, Zestiria, Innoncence, and arguably Hearts, Symphonia and Abyss have "destined" heroes. The others are just "normal guys". (Well, in Destiny 2's case, Kyle want to be a hero so bad that he becomes one, but he isn't really destined to be one)

EDIT: And Milla's side of Xillia too, I guess.

 

What you described on Vesperia is exactly the Destiny approach. Most Tales of games take a somewhat different path, but it's always lots of coincidences and "I'm just a normal guy" who never really is a normal guy. Which is the irony here, cuz Jude is indeed pretty much just a normal guy for about 90% of the game, and it's what made lots of people dislike him. Complains are generally at him not being cool or decisive enough, or "stepping up" to the occasion quickly enough, which again is ironic since Jude is probably one of the most realistic MCs the franchise has made. I really liked how the story put a smart student into super deep shit and how he's forced to leave his home in a sort of "exile", which makes him really confused and conflicted. Jude truly feels like he's actually growing and changing throughout the game. Even towards the end, Jude is still just a normal guy, but quite strong due to what life has thrown at him in his journey. He's not fulfilling a destiny.

Jude is the kind of character everyone says they want, but how unpopular he was proves that most people don't really mean it when they say they want a normal MC.

Jude is the MC we need, but not the one we want.

[Justin579]

crap well i think i might go give doom a try now since i finally got perm banned from league. not like i didn't see it coming or anything...

[Riku]

34 minutes ago, Jun Inoue said:

What you described on Vesperia is exactly the Destiny approach. Most Tales of games take a somewhat different path, but it's always lots of coincidences and "I'm just a normal guy" who never really is a normal guy. Which is the irony here, cuz Jude is indeed pretty much just a normal guy for about 90% of the game, and it's what made lots of people dislike him. Complains are generally at him not being cool or decisive enough, or "stepping up" to the occasion quickly enough, which again is ironic since Jude is probably one of the most realistic MCs the franchise has made. I really liked how the story put a smart student into super deep shit and how he's forced to leave his home in a sort of "exile", which makes him really confused and conflicted. Jude truly feels like he's actually growing and changing throughout the game. Even towards the end, Jude is still just a normal guy, but quite strong due to what life has thrown at him in his journey. He's not fulfilling a destiny.

Jude is the kind of character everyone says they want, but how unpopular he was proves that most people don't really mean it when they say they want a normal MC.

Jude is the MC we need, but not the one we want.

I agree with you for Jude (He is my favorite after Yuri), but I don't agree with "coincidence = destiny". In that case Xillia would be the same.

Destiny is like Sorey being the Shepherd or

Characters from Innoncence having memories of past lives, Shing and Kohaku being the "reincarnations" of past guys, Lloyd being the son of Kratos, Luke being one of the super rare Seventh Fonist and a clone.

The others are, even if not really "normals", not destined to be heroes.

[Jun Inoue]

39 minutes ago, Riku said:

I agree with you for Jude (He is my favorite after Yuri), but I don't agree with "coincidence = destiny". In that case Xillia would be the same.

Destiny is like Sorey being the Shepherd or

 

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Characters from Innoncence having memories of past lives, Shing and Kohaku being the "reincarnations" of past guys, Lloyd being the son of Kratos, Luke being one of the super rare Seventh Fonist and a clone.

 

The others are, even if not really "normals", not destined to be heroes.

Well, I'm certainly simplifying or "forcing" it for the comparison. But I meant that, in the end, most stories happen to a certain degree due to destiny. So the game needs to decide if it's going balls-deep into destiny stuff, or stays away from it. And most Tales of usually get closer to the destiny approach.

[Riku]

I see your point. It's true that Jude is more "normal" that some other Tales of protagonists, so you forced the comparison a little. But, hey, he isn't that normal either.

Scene you can only see in Milla's side :

 

[Funyarinpa]

Less than 10 hours in and not even reached much before unseen content yet, but what I have seen lets me say that Soul Sacrifice Delta is easily one of the best games I have ever played. Like, top 10 with a shot for top 5 amazing. Godlike (GODLIKE) story and presentation, gameplay is really great too. 

[Jun Inoue]

Welp, wanted to play some Overwatch before going to sleep, but Blizzard is obviously messing up and the servers are not up yet...

[Decay]

The servers went up like half an hour late only, that's pretty good for such a popular MP game launch! 

I changed my battletag, btw. So anyone who wants to add me, it's Decay#11491

[Fred the Barber]

12 hours ago, Jun Inoue said:

What you described on Vesperia is exactly the Destiny approach. Most Tales of games take a somewhat different path, but it's always lots of coincidences and "I'm just a normal guy" who never really is a normal guy. Which is the irony here, cuz Jude is indeed pretty much just a normal guy for about 90% of the game, and it's what made lots of people dislike him. Complains are generally at him not being cool or decisive enough, or "stepping up" to the occasion quickly enough, which again is ironic since Jude is probably one of the most realistic MCs the franchise has made. I really liked how the story put a smart student into super deep shit and how he's forced to leave his home in a sort of "exile", which makes him really confused and conflicted. Jude truly feels like he's actually growing and changing throughout the game. Even towards the end, Jude is still just a normal guy, but quite strong due to what life has thrown at him in his journey. He's not fulfilling a destiny.

Jude is the kind of character everyone says they want, but how unpopular he was proves that most people don't really mean it when they say they want a normal MC.

Jude is the MC we need, but not the one we want.

This is a really convincing post, and I can totally see where you're coming from and appreciate that view. But for me, I actually like all that destiny crap. I enjoy seeing extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. Character growth is certainly something I value as well, but you can still get that even with a destiny backdrop.

[Jun Inoue]

11 hours ago, Decay said:

The servers went up like half an hour late only, that's pretty good for such a popular MP game launch! 

I changed my battletag, btw. So anyone who wants to add me, it's Decay#11491

Yeah, but since it was already 1am at the supposed launch, any delay felt horrible.

Maybe I'll add you 

I wonder if they have already implemented the pre-season ranked mode for everyone lvl 25+, or if they are gonna wait a bit.

10 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

This is a really convincing post, and I can totally see where you're coming from and appreciate that view. But for me, I actually like all that destiny crap. I enjoy seeing extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. Character growth is certainly something I value as well, but you can still get that even with a destiny backdrop.

Oh yes, I didn't mean to say that the destiny approach is bad. I simply argued around the fact that Jude is incredibly unpopular despite being one of the most realistic and interesting MCs in the Tales of franchise.

Any approach is good if it's done well. Good vs Evil is old as fuck, but it's nothing more than the skeleton of the idea. It can be done right or wrong.

[Leaf]

I've indulged in Xblaze Code Embryo, the game is actually pretty short as far as VN games go. Quick and to the point is how it goes! Completed some endings already. First was The Dark Ending, then Hinata, Mei, and Kuon. I like the story, I just wish Mei got a better ending.