What games are you playing 2: The revenge

seitora

Well-Known Member
CHAOS;Child

I got a lot deeper into the game. Finally at the point where Yui gets killed.

So, yeah. I feel like this story just is rather lacking in 'direction'. There doesn't seem to be any real overarching theme or goal, or even any actual character development, which is the worst. Takeru is either holed up in his trailer or the newspaper club, or making flagrantly dumb decisions that he only survives from pure luck. In this aspect, he's similar to Takumi. Takumi, however, at least was paranoid from the start, and he started to show some proper character development, especially with Rimi's help...and that was just in what looked like it was a heavily butched anime adaptation! In the actual VN, it's probably a lot more profound! I haven't seen any of that from Takeru (yet), which is unfortunate. Really, I haven't seen any character development from anybody. Mio is a bitch, Hinae is a horny bipolar hanger-on, Nono is a rulers-stickler, etc. Some movement, please!

Speaking of the first game, there is an interesting parallel I noticed with CHAOS;Head. Takumi thought the murders were getting closer and closer to him and believed whoever was committing them was out for him, and he was right. The mastermind hasn't been revealed in CC, but similarly, the murders are getting closer and closer to Takeru as well.

The whole idea of Rorschach blots and the 10th Rorschach is kind of interesting. A shame it seems to get frittered away.

My opinion on the mastermind behind the murders, or at least a close accomplice, is Gen, the old man in the park. For the murder in the love hotel, he was apparently the one who tipped off Serika about a disturbance there, and then he was the last person to interact with Takeru right before Takeru stumbled into all the sumo stickers that led him into the encounter with the pyromaniac.

I will say, however. Yui's murder? Goddamn, the way her body is laid out is just so ticklishly, delightfully cruel. That takes some imagination.

As for Takeru, though his talent is telekinesis, I suspect that's not all there is to it. I have an inkling there's another parallel to Takumi Nishijou
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
CHAOS;Child

Finished the common route and the first character route.

I guess I really don't like Takeru's character development. He gets it, but it's compressed too much at the end of the story, after the death of his adoptive little sister and adoptive big sister, his best (male) friend being mind-controlled to commit one of the murders and having a psychotic breakdown, his best (female) friend turning out to be a psychopath who helped set up the murders, and his adoptive father also turning out to be a psychopath and trying to kill him (also, Jesus! At this point, he only has Hinae or Hina to hook up with left). Most protagonists naturally have character development. Takeru is taken out of his shell, and forced into it. He's made to remember what his initial awakening as a gigalomaniac was.

The ending at least is suitably epic for a showdown between Takeru and his dad. It's kind of a little neat battle against both the other and the self, and at the end, he manages to rely on his imaginary friend Serika again and then force the materialised Serika into presumably becoming a 'normal girl', which will probably be explained in a character route later. I kind of thought that his powers would awaken from a series of mental breaks re:the trauma congo he goes above. The more a period of insanity he can break into, the more powerful his delusion was what I was expecting.

I really don't think CHAOS;Head would have been required reading/watching prior to this. There are some more interesting parallels, such as Takeru being the one who real-booted a human while Takumi was the one who was real-booted, or how pink-haired sort-of girlfriend Serika ends up being much different from pink-haired sort-of girlfriend Rimi. And CH really gives a lot of background to the mysterious earthquake at the start of CC, as well as the experiments. But so far, I could deduce a lot of this just from CC alone. Maybe there's something pivotal for it in later routes?

Playing through again now that I can do the character routes, it amuses me to realise Serika is a mind-reader. She can literally read Takeru's mind every time he has a delusion.

Anyways. I looked up a guide and it gave a recommended route order, so I played Hinae's route earlier. This is...definitely seriously nice downtime to have after all the grimness of the common route. The ending is fucked up in a funny sort of way, but Hinae really is a nice, more normal girl. This route doesn't really do much for the story at all, but it's definitely a good breath of fresh air.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
CHAOS;Child

Completed the Hana route and the Uki route.

Hmm. I see in the Hana route that she plays ESO2 with Nishijou Takumi, who talks a little bit about CH and what I assume was that side romance game. Again, nothing that I really needed to play CH for, though. Hana's ability really is suck with how hit-and-miss it is, and it really must suck to be literally unable to talk. I like that the route gleefully escapes the genre conventions the story has been set in so far, with the sci-fi portals and giant monsters.

Hana definitely needed this character route, because otherwise her entire character in the game has been a complete waste. At least Uki sort of filled in a peripheral role after she got kidnapped away from the hospital. Her and Takumi being holed up together for a few days is kind of interesting. This route actually was also useful for introducing Wakui as an antagonist too, and his terrifying abilities as a rep of the Committee of 300. Even if this route is probably non-canon, boy was it satisfying to see his death.

Also, did they...did they really not translate the points on the map? Holy shit that's lazy.

And, poor Shinji. Now that Hana has been outed as a gigalomaniac, this means that he is the only normal person in the newspaper club. No Gigalomaniac powers for you, m'man.

When going into the Uki route, I had a little bit of a bad feeling about this. After all, her ability is the unconscious power to activate the fantasy/delusion of other characters. And to even get to her route first, I have to choose the 'negative' delusion every time Takuru has a fantasy play in this hand. So far the delusion mechanic has been completely played for laughs, but I fully expected it to actually be story-related now. In the actual route, though? It didn't really get used as much as I expected. Negative delusions inside the route lead you to the bad endings and positive delusions to the good ending, but that's about it. I was truly expecting all of Takuru's negative delusions to really come to a head.

As for this route...I'm not even sure why it was necessary. Maybe there were one or two bits that added some context, and it was nice for Takuru to have a brief hope spot with Yui supposedly living again, but that was it.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
CHAOS;Child

All finished.

Finished the game with the last character route and the true ending.

The last character route is probably the best part of this story, actually. I'm surprised to say that it actually took me too long to figure out Nono was Senri Minamisawa, considering there were a few hints available with the wording of her statements. The futility Takuru feels at the re-orphaned life really hits hard, as does the climactic build-up with Takuru's confrontation with Kawahara, Takuru basically giving up, then Senri snapping out of it and fighting Serika off. Then the scene at the true Nono's grave. Damn, that's heavy.

As for the true route, it does Serika Onoe good, and Wakui gets to show off his bad guy chops some more. But god, I hate that 'twist' ending with regard to the delusions. I don't care if there was foreshadowing to the tits about it. It was still a shitty twist.

I dunno. I'm burned out. The plot in this game had lots of good parts poke out, but then there's just so much filler and lacklustre parts that really bring it down. It's certainly no STEINS;Gate.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 5 Royal

Played for about 5 hours. Saved in my room before the first crafting session. I find the character contrast of P5's protagonist to P4 and P3 rather interesting. They're all do-good types, but P5's guy has a criminal record and moved from the town to the city, while P4 moved from the city to the town and P3...was never really stated, but he moved to an elite academy.

No real spoilers yet.

Though I certainly hope Morgana ends up being a hot chick, especially with that name.
 
Though I certainly hope Morgana ends up being a hot chick, especially with that name.
Prepare to be disappointed.

P5 isn't exactly lacking in the "Hot Chicks" department. Kawakami, Tae, Chihaya, Yoshizawa, Hifume...
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 5 Royal


Cleared the first palace, and made it past 5/2. They're throwing a lot more elements at me than I remember P4 had. Trying to make it slightly more action-y.

I assume the next Palace antagonist will be somebody whose thirsty for the red-haired first-year gymnast chick.
 
Persona 5 Royal
I assume the next Palace antagonist will be somebody whose thirsty for the red-haired first-year gymnast chick.
Yoshizawa is a new character created for Royal, so she's similar to Marie from Golden in that she shows up, but doesn't really affect the plot outside of the newly added content.
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
Playing Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds. Fun game, loving the upgraded graphics - like a mix of Link to the Past and Wind Waker - and the way the overworld is so familiar with new, different dungeons mixed with the new game play mechanics makes for a very fun game. One of my favorite LoZ games.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Umineko no Naku Kori Ni

Getting through probably the biggest VN left in my Steam library. Finished the first episode...if this is how long the first episode is, then yes, it's definitely the biggest VN I've still got to clear. No real plot discussion right now.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 5 Royal

I finished the 2nd palace.

The boss was...significantly easier than the boss of the 1st palace. Probably cuz I was at level 20 already after grinding out fights against the local 'tough enemies' with Nuke spells lol.
 
Persona 5 Royal

I finished the 2nd palace.

The boss was...significantly easier than the boss of the 1st palace. Probably cuz I was at level 20 already after grinding out fights against the local 'tough enemies' with Nuke spells lol.
Yeah, he was one of the bosses that got overhauled in the re-release. It's been a while since I played the original, but I think they made him easier since they changed his gimmick.
 

sith2886

Well-Known Member
Still playing BotW, but mostly just farming items for armor upgrades, then shrine hunting and korok hunting, and the dlc and then eventually maybe I'll kill Ganon.
 
I've been playing the Mass Effect Trilogy while waiting impatiently for the Legendary Edition. Though I've played through the Trilogy before and even done New Game Plus for the first Mass Effect, I've never before done New Game Plus playthroughs for 2 or 3 until now. It's weird already having certain things and not having to worry about expirience. I still hit every datapad and medkit I pass though.

One thing that gets me is that the ME3 servers are still operational and people still play the multiplayer. The day they shut those down, I wonder what they'll do about the EMS meter in singleplayer that relies on the multiplayer mode.

Really, really hoping they put out another trailer or gameplay footage for the Legendary Edition, so we can see what they've changed. While I would be happy with a graphics overhaul and bug fixes, I can't help but wonder if they'll standardize the combat system.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Umineko When They Cry

Finished episode 2. The ending to both the general episode and to the special sequence, damn.

Some of the game's themes are slowly coming together for me, at least, though I assume it'll click together some more with episode 3. The big one I'm understanding right now is basically 'These murders are all closed-rooms. If you can't prove a way they could have been committed by a human, then a witch using magic is the only way it could've been done'.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 5 Royal

Finished the 3rd palace and got up to the confession day, and a little bit after.

Holy shit, the Phantom Thieves' next opponent is literally figuratively 4chan. Pretty much the last scene I had before finishing up for today was the scene with a hacker girl at her computer. I was just thinking that I was expecting the next Palace owner, assuming that's her, to be female, because there were three male Palace owners in a row...

Speaking of the story, I'm guessing the Phantom Thieves are going to have a harder and harder time of it. Definitely a case of story and gameplay deviance, because now I'm at the point where the abilities I'm getting from my Confidantes are making the runs through Palaces significantly easier. Sun rank is pretty broken with the extra money and items. I randomly stumbled upon the SP Adhesive accessories in the Clinic shop after getting the Death rank up enough stars. It's a good thing, because I think Palace 3 would have been a lot more difficult without it. I was able to decently level grind with SP Adhesive 3 with Joker.

Random thing: When going through the 3rd palace and opening the locked chests (doesn't happen with the unlocked chests), Makoto leans against Joker's back to see what's in the chest he's opening up. Not sure if that's something she specifically does or if it's something any character might do depending on party set-up. I found it a bit cute.

So I guess there's a conspiracy going on with the higher-ups of the authorities since the SIU chief knows about the Metaverse. Guessing the guy who pushed Ryuji aside at the buffet during the elevator scene is the bad guy, or maybe the bad guy's dragon.

Kasumi Yoshizawa is absolutely adorable and I wish she had 10 Ranks for 10 scenes instead of 5. Trying out glasses with her is such a cute scene. Kawakami really grew on me, hah. She's the only person I've 10-ranked yet, and she figured out the protagonist is part of the Phantom Thieves. I'm wondering if that'll be the same for the other people who I get to 10-rank (well, besides the obvious party members). Akechi is...kind of neat? Really, he seems to be such a blatant Death Note-expy to me, I keep expecting him to be good at tennis or eating potato chips. He's got strong aspects of both Light Yagami and L (Light's appearance and general good looks, affability and charm, age and being a high schooler, and L's unrepentant sense of justice with a hint at eating sweets, and the intelligence that belongs to both of them).

If they ever make a Persona 6, I would seriously hope they build it from the ground up with a female protagonist. I know Persona 3 Portable had the female option, but I mean in the sense of making it explicitly with a female main character from the get-go (admittedly, I haven't played P1/P2 at all, and I know the second half of P2 has a female protagonist). It would make for a pretty interesting change-up imo.
 

Karnath

Well-Known Member
I saw Dragon Quest XI Definitive Edition for PS4 on sale for cheap today, so I picked it up and started playing. I hated the english voice and accent for Gemma in the original version, the Japanese voice is way less annoying, I'm looking forward to hearing Jade's Japanese voice over.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 5 Royal

Finished the 4th palace and got up to the deadline day. Currently on August 23rd.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 5 Royal

Finished the 5th palace and went past the deadline day, currently in mid October. That the Phantom Thieves were being set up hard was easy to see.

Anyways, what follows are my PREDICTIONS for the game. Not necessarily what'll actually come to pass, just what I think.

There's a conspiracy among a select group of people who entered the Metaverse approximately 2 years ago exploiting Wakaba's research. People who entered it or are at least in the know are that brown-skinned politician guy who's popped up a couple of times and the SIU director, with the politician guy potentially being the black-masked person mentioned a few times.

However, that's too easy at a glance. Since P3 and P4 both had relatively close confidantes turn out to be bad guys, P5 will likely be the same. No idea who, though. Somebody like Sojiro himself, perhaps, or for all I know, Mishima of all people. Maybe Akechi, just to set up the Death Note expy even more. Way, way back earlier in the game, there was a scene when they visited the TV studios, where Morgana mentioned getting pancakes. Akechi intruded on the party then, and after talking to them, mentioned overhearing about pancakes...which he could only have done if he actually understood Morgana, which would mean he has to be connected to the Metaverse. Of course, whoever the Big Bad is, they'll still be a proxy for some eldritch abomination who is the real final boss.

Also, Dr. Maruki has a Palace. The characters in-game aren't going to bother investigating due to Kasumi's phone being on the fritz, but I did catch that Maruki's name was the only one mentioned before Kasumi navigated to the new Palace. That, and the boards with cognitive psience research papers on them. I just don't know if he'll be part of the Big Bad consortium, or if he's completely unrelated and it's something to do with his studies on cognitive psience.

Also, I'll make the prediction Morgana is somebody's Shadow who somehow hived off from the person and became sentient. Potentially he's the Shadow of somebody who died in real life and he survived. Maybe even Wakaba
 
brown-skinned politician guy


Doesn't look brown-skinned to me... To be fair, I don't think Japan even allows non-Japanese people to be a part of their government.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
He's definitely a skin tone darker than the rest of the cast, which is probably why it stood out in my head as 'brown'.

Anyways, cleared the 6th palace.

I was pretty much spot-on with my deduction of Akechi being up to fishy business, and the Phantom Thieves realised the same thing going off the exact same clue I had noticed (that Akechi somehow overheard Morgana talking all the way back in June about pancakes). I half-expected Akechi to say 'Just as planned' at least once. He didn't, but I certainly got a maniacal expression worthy of Light Yagami. Perhaps the Phantom Thieves' final showdown with him needs to be in a warehouse somewhere ;). They really managed to screw him over, but now that they've narrowly escaped that trap, still need to make it blow up in his face. Of course, given that he was somehow in the Metaverse two-and-a-half years ago at least, Akechi probably has an eldritch abomination that's a personification of evil/death/destruction that's backing him. After all, he's more fit to have a Palace than a Persona. As for said eldritch abomination, I would assume it's an Egyptian god, since the Egyptian pantheon is the only one that's really been mentioned in-game at all thus far.

I'm glad I actually didn't go back to replay the very beginning of the game. Since there was a break between me starting the first little bit and the bulk of the gameplay, I forgot much of what happened in the beginning. Replaying the beginning would have actually spoilered me to Kasumi's big damn hero moment ;). The game did at least answer one lingering question I was having since about the second Palace, namely, how did the real-world police arrest Joker in his Phantom Thieves' clothes when he should only have them on in the Metaverse? (the game says the police were transported into the Metaverse)

Still nothing on Morgana's true identity so far. Sticking to my original prediction he's somebody's Shadow who may have become detached from the real person.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 5 Royal

Cleared the 7th palace and the final boss.

Shido's palace was pretty interesting. Always nice to get some real big change-ups for dungeons, and it certainly was interesting. Shido's boss fight itself was rather disappointing and 'anti-climatic', with basically just 'buff guy hits hard' and then 'buff guy hits harder'. I mean, I was pretty certain I was going to get some eldritch abomination anyways as the final boss, but that lack of 'epicness' made it obvious he wasn't the final boss (at least in the base P5 content).

The final dungeons could have used some trimming. The Depths of Mementos + the temple ran on a couple of floors too long. They just kept going on and on. I do love the Depths of Mementos aesthetics, though. Very haunting and with that sort of H.R. Giger bent.

I mentioned before I did expect an Egyptian god, which I was incorrect about. I had to look up this Yaldabaoth thing to figure out what it was even supposed to be. Cool story bro. I was wrong about Morgana being hived off from a Shadow. Instead, I guess he was made from scratch by Igor. I was expecting him to get a human form at the end, which he does, though I think that's exclusively to P5R and not P5. For some reason I was expecting him to be a femboy lol, but he's still definitely got that bishonen look to him. Assuming he keeps it, anyways.

Speaking of Igor, that's one plot twist I definitely didn't see coming at all. I noticed his voice changed between evil Igor and real Igor, but I thought that guttural tone was the same Igor had in P3 and P4.

Since I had a lot of downtime in December, I went to the jazz club with my teammates a lot, as well as a lot of temple meditation and gym for stat boosts for my party members and HP/SP for Joker. Since these carry over into a NG+, my team will just stomp over everything if I ever do a NG+.

While I'm suffering from plot fatigue now, I do kind of like how this game really shifts gears from P3 and P4. Those games had the bad guys in a more passive position that took advantage of opportunities as they came up. P5's bad guys actively start pro-actively plotting against the Phantom Thieves basically as soon as they become aware of their existence and attempt to set them up and use them for their own ends, while the big big bad was actively manipulating Joker since the start of the game, and continuing throughout the entire school year.

Anyways, I'm getting into the Royal-exclusive stuff. But I'll leave this game for a few days until my next set of days off. I don't want to burn out on this game, since I've played something like 113 hours, almost off that in the last two weeks.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Umineko When They Cry


Finished episode 3.


It's kind of interesting just how long it takes for a lot of the narrative to really tie together. There are a lot of questions that probably won't be answered for many episodes to come, but the whole plot at least makes a lot more 'sense', now. The basic gist is that the series is largely a murder mystery, but the main character isn't focused explicitly on finding the culprit. In fact, he doesn't even really want to find the culprit, because he doesn't want to have to think of any of his family or friends as being murderers. Each episode uses the same setting of the same two days and same island and same cast, but changes up the events and order and location of murders. The murders are basically always 'closed room' murders. The main protagonist and antagonist are playing these scenarios out on a higher 'dimension', with the antagonist being a so-called witch who treats these as a gameboard. The protagonist is trying to prove that each murder could have been done by human hands. In other words, he has to break the closed room seal on each murder, where if he can't, then it must be impossible by human hands, aka has to have been done by a witch.

Also, I will make the note that there is exactly zero interaction in this game (thus far?). It's straightforward read, read, read. I guess you can stop and think over the details before the characters do, anyways.

I like how episode 3 is already breaking the mold quickly, bringing Eva to the forefront and making her the main villain of this episode. Considering this series is going to be stonkin' 80 hours of reading long, I would hope it'd flesh out each character to a degree.

Some other notes:

Beatrice has this amazing laugh that gets used over and over and over again, and at this point I would put it up there with Kefka's 'whoopwhoopwhoop' for iconic status

Bernkastel...goes...'nipah' at the end of episode 3. Even though it's been over a decade, I still recognise that nipah sound.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 5 Royal

Finished the final final final boss and got to the game's credits. Got my Platinum trophy, too.

133 hours in total. There's some New Game+ content I could start over and try to get to, but eh. I've played enough I'm burned out on the game for the near future. Maybe in 5 years!
 
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