What games are you playing 2: The revenge

I've been playing Snowrunner, GTA V, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Forza 7, GTA San Andreas, Mafia III, and Watch Dogs 2.
 
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!
I only did two playthroughs myself, but I spent the first one bringing up all my social stats and didn't play the new content until my second run-through. Being able to just complete the Twin's fusion thing all at once was great.

If you do replay it, be aware that on top of being able to fight the twins at any point before the reveal, you can also fight Lavenza, and she cheats because you have to do very specific things to beat her, and you get only the absolute vaguest of hints.

I have that, but I haven't actually played it. Marcus is a Hipster douche from what I've heard, and Dedsec got downgraded from "Cyberterrorist" group in the first game, into some Hipster vandal group in the second.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
I've been playing Divinity Origial Sin: Enhanced Edition over the past few weeks. This is a fun game! I've actually finished the second game (D:OS 2) and, this game does feel a bit less polished.

One thing I miss is inventory management - in DOS1, there is no single screen to see what the rest of your party has. The spells/abilities have been shuffled around, so what I remember as good strategies in DOS2, do not work with DOS1. But, after reading an online wiki, I've got the gist of how things work.

The beginning of both games are hard. Especially for a newcomer - there is very little hand-holding. Both a good and bad thing. But once you get over that initial hump, both games open up.

I'm at the 4th main "map" in DOS1. The game opens up with a murder mystery - I found the villian, the bigger truths behind it and now am on a larger quest to save the world!

Have 2 playthroughs going on simultanesouly - one on my own and another with my brother. The fact that this game is turn based, makes it easy to play in multiplayer - we don't have to worry about lag issues! (The two of us are on different continents, so playing multiplayer games ... is not the greatest of experiences).

The guys who made this (Larian Studios) are the folks behind the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3. It's currently in early access - I'm hearing nice things about it, but well, I'll wait a bit more before pulling the purchase trigger.

-chronodekar
 

LORD_ARM

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!
If you want to read a really good Persona 5 Royal fanfic he should check out The True Duet. I don't want to say too much because the summary spoilers a big plot twist of P5R so I try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible. The main characters Kasumi , Joker, and [redacted] there seems to be a love triangle happening between them but it's a bit of a slow burn, I'm liking it. It follows the main storyline at the beginning but things diverse quite quickly. I highly recommend this story.
 

HotelKatz

Well-Known Member
Been playing Train Station Renovation and Tank Mechanic Simulator.

Both are single player sandbox-ish type games. You restore and build in both. They're quite relaxing.

The Tank one is educational if you want to see how the innards are like. The latest update put in battledamage that you have to fix with the welder tool. A future update will allow you to put in ammo. You can control the tanks in an testing field. In the excavation fields, you can find stuff for your museum, like helmets, pistols and rifles. But the rifles have another use. You can put them onto the tanks, but only certain ones for certain tanks.

There is a bug with the museum at the moment. You can enter it, but leaving will crash the program. So just save and exit the program to leave.

The train one is where you go to abandoned/trashed train stations and clean/restore them to your liking. While every station has a checklist and so does each room, you can add whatever you want anywhere. Feel like adding toilets and phone booths to every room? You can!
You have a homebase and that's where you upgrade your tools. When you pick up trash, look at the bottom of the screen. Right by the item bar will be a colored symbol. It lets you know what kind of trash it is. Green, blue, and yellow go into the segregated recycling bin and you get cash for it. Grey goes into the mixed trash bin, but you get no money for it. You have to buy and place the bins at green-lined spots.
 
So my daughter just downloaded Dead by Daylight onto my Xbox. Is it worth a look? I'm getting somewhat burnt out on Mass Effect and Fallout 76. I've been looking for something else to play, but can't seem to really get into anything.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Umineko When They Cry

Finished episode 4. This finishes the 'Questions' part of the game.

Episode 4 is a lot longer than the previous 3 episodes, and starts to flesh out sort of the real 'metaknowledge' of this game. Each of the episodes is a reiteration on the same cast of 18 people on the isolated island of Rokkenjima during a typhoon over the course of 2 days, with a murder spree and a 'howdunnit' (as opposed to 'whodunnit'). These scenarios are considered to be basically different games on a metaphorical chessboard, but using the same pieces (aka the human cast) in different ways. In turn, this chessboard is played by a higher-dimension cast of characters, with the protagonist being one of the chessboard pieces who basically was able to force himself onto the higher dimension because he finds it insulting what the other players are doing with his family and friends, and wants to put a stop to it. To do so, he's got to solve the case of Rokkenjima in its entirety. Not just 'howdunnit' with the closed room murders, but 'whodunnit' and 'whydunnit'. There's only the slightest inkling of a motive, still.

The plot's already a lot more complicated than that, but that generally helps to explain the plot of the first 3 episodes so far.

The very end of episode 3 introduces a new human relative of the Ushiromiya family that makes up most of the main cast, who didn't attend the family reunion where the mass murder mystery goes, and 12 years later attempts to find out the truth of what happened that day. So this is where it gets interesting. At the very end of episode 1, it was mentioned that a message in a bottle was found on a neighboring island, written by one of the victims of the mass murder, detailing the events of what happened there. However, it's now mentioned there were multiple more message bottles, and people in the 12 years after the murders are even starting to 'forge' message bottles, or basically just make fanfiction. So at this point, the question becomes, 'Are the episodes up-to-date actually happening, or are they just different interpretations of could-have-happened by people in the future?'

From my player perspective at least, while it's a question worth thinking about, I mostly ignore that question because it's just fun to follow along and think about the in-game mystery.

Anyways, as far as episode 4 goes, the new human character introduced is Ange, the younger sister of the main protagonist. She was 6 years old and feeling sick on the day of the family reunion, so she stayed at home and gets raised by her aunt, the only Ushiromiya family to survive the massacre (who kept mum about what happened and took her secrets with her to the grave 12 years later). Ange is actually fairly adorable in parts, but she also has a really pitiful life. However, filling her backstory out really makes the episode longer, and she also has to go through some character development over the in-game's nature of magic and how you really need to believe in magic to make it happen. She basically makes a deal with the devil to interfere with the higher-dimension meta-game and give her big brother protagonist help. < Highlight for spoiler

As for the actual murder mystery and chessboard games, Battler and Beatrice, the main protagonist and antagonist, finally square off. Yet another thing I haven't mentioned is that in the higher-dimension, the two can use 'truths' that are represented as coloured text. Red text can be used by witches, and anything they can put in red is the truth, incapable of being a lie (though of course red text still has a case of 'exact words'). If Beatrice says 'X is dead', then X is dead. In turn, humans and witches both have blue text (but mostly Battler as a human uses it), and it's basically the equivalent of anti-magic that harms witches. Blue text doesn't really prove anything, but it's rather conjecture and theories that can harm a witch unless it's shot down by red text.

Witch: "X is dead"
Witch: "Therefore he can't have committed the murder."
Human: "You didn't state when X died, therefore he could have committed the murder unless you state in red text he was dead before the murder was committed"

In the higher-dimension narrative, they actually duel with red text and blue text. And episode 4 really brings a conclusion to a whole character arc. And yet there's still half the game to go.

Things I've seen and deducing for the future

The main protagonist's mother and stepmother apparently both had a child at the same time, but his stepmother had a stillborn. Later on, the main protagonist is unable to state in red that he is the son of his mother, so I'm guessing a switcheroo at birth and his stepmother is his real mother.

It's first mentioned in episode 1 and repeated several times since that Beatrice, the supposed murderer, is reclaiming a loan she made to the Ushiromiya family patriach, and reclaiming the interest 'in full', which is taken to mean all of the Ushiromiya family's descendants. However, if Ange is not present at the family reunion, this is flagrantly impossible, and I haven't seen anything that narrows with this contradiction yet.

Ange and one of her cousins has a spat over magic and the cousin's magical grimoire...however, this fight takes place in the future, after the events of the murder mystery. Yet somehow, this fight influences the cousin's behavior during the murder mystery. This I guess can get explained away by the whole idea above of 'all this stuff isn't really happening but is just one really, really, really long meta-narrative of people's interpretations and imaginary friends'.

Some random thoughts:

This episode has an amazingly hilarious moment where one of the characters fights a demon humanoid goat thingie. Said goat figure is normally hundreds of times stronger than the human, but he starts tripping 'loser flags' which brings his actual fighting strength down so the human kills him with one strike. Amazing scene.

Also, lots of Ange's magical supposedly-imaginary friends are teenage girls who wear frilly maid costumes that basically have tight thongs (or I guess basically leotard-type bottoms). Ange mentions in narration like three or four times in the episode how she hopes she doesn't have to wear the same thing they do. At which point I think she really wants to wear it, just not out in public lol <3.
 

Karnath

Well-Known Member
So I'm working towards 100% in Persona 5 Royal, that includes everything in the Thieves' Den as well. All I have yet to get is the award and pictures for beating Lavenza, and the movies and music for getting the original ending. In one of the playthroughs I'm romancing Tae, and the other it's Makoto, because despite what I thought you can't just make a single choice in December and lock out the new content. Man was I swearing when I learned that, luckily I had a save in July. It kinda sucks I have to redo so much of the game but whatever, I can cut down a lot of the playtime by just skipping cutscenes and fast-forwarding the text.

I see a lot of people bitching on the internet about how Makoto is overrated and is actually a terrible character, honestly if you don't like her it doesn't really matter, just like it doesn't matter that she's my favourite character. Though I have to say despite not being too fond of Haru I always feel bad when I see her reaction when the protag friend zones her, she comes across as being absolutely heartbroken.
 
All I have yet to get is the award and pictures for beating Lavenza
You're going to want to look up a guide for that since it's a blatant Gimmick fight, that requires you dong specific things during each phase, otherwise, you get nailed by an OHKO. Although, her All-Out Attack does have her turning back into the Twins temporarily, so that's nice.

I see a lot of people bitching on the internet about how Makoto is overrated and is actually a terrible character, honestly if you don't like her it doesn't really matter, just like it doesn't matter that she's my favourite character.
Yeah, I'm honestly not a fan of her myself, to the point I just don't use her unless the game forces it. I do ship her with Ryuji though, since they kind of balance each other out.
 

Karnath

Well-Known Member
You're going to want to look up a guide for that since it's a blatant Gimmick fight, that requires you dong specific things during each phase, otherwise, you get nailed by an OHKO. Although, her All-Out Attack does have her turning back into the Twins temporarily, so that's nice.
I actually know about this, I kept getting stuck on the third phase since the build on my characters wasn't set up to properly fight her.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 4 Golden

Because I'm an absolute moron and can't stop playing these kinds of time-sucking games, I'm playing Persona 4 now. I got P4G recently on Steam. I played the original P4 waaaay back in the day in 2008 or 2009, and I stopped (unfortunately) just shy of the ending, but I still do know who the big bad is. I remember a decent amount of the plot beats, too.

Unlike P5R where I used a day-by-day guide to get max stats and Social Links by the end of the game, with P4G I'm going completely blind. I think I have to do a NG+ to get all Steam Achievements anyways. I'll for sure work towards maxing out all my Social stats here, and in a NG+ I'd try to max out all my Social Links.

There's quite a sore contrast to P5R. P5R just oozes style in its dungeon sections, while P4...doesn't. Now I just run around and try to ambush Shadows. At least when I do ambush shadows, it's an actual proper ambush, not just 'oh you might very occasionally get a lucky preemptive attack off', but I get annoyed because Shadows often just don't turn around for you to ambush them. No more sneaking around, either. And the dungeons are of course randomly generated.

It's nice P5R went back to the negotiation system, so with P4G's Shuffle system, it's a fresh experience for me. I'm not quite a fan of it overall, more because it can be tough to get a Shuffle set up. The only two things that guarantee a Shuffle after a battle is either killing the foes in an All-Out Attack, or after you pulled off a Shuffle Sweep in the previous fight. However, if I kill the last foe with its weakness, or if there's a Shadow with no weaknesses that I have to try to Critical, it can be difficult to get it started.

Early dungeon SP management is a pain, just like in P5R. The dungeons are a lot more generous with giving out SP-healing items in chests, though. Still, I hope there's an equivalent of the SP Adhesives 3 coming my way. Inaba is a small town, too, but damn it hurts going from several gorgeous Tokyo suburbs to a lot smaller handful of maps.

Still, it makes the game go a lot quicker. The Investigation Team scenes are just plain less bogged down. I just cleared the first dungeon, saving Yukiko, and I'm at about 9 hours now with a little bit past that segment.

The protagonist and Yosuke's best buds relationship is a little weird. It's definitely better than P3 MC and Junpei's, because Junpei was just a moron and prone to jealousy. Joker and Ryuji actually had a nice best buds relationship, but Ryuji himself suffered characterisation since he was constantly being made the buttmonkey (and the one who kept blabbing out loud in public that they were the Phantom Thieves), instead of giving the other characters even the odd humiliating moment. P4 MC and Yosuke have a stranger dynamic, where although the MC is theoretically the leader, Yosuke seems to be the one more taking the actual lead.

Also, I just encountered the fox for the Hermit Social Link. Let me pet the damn fox!
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
CrossCode

Yet another game I'm throwing onto the pile, which @Watashiwa recommended to me. Fortunately, it's easy for me to pick up and play in the few hours of downtime I have between 12 hour shifts, because it's basically save anywhere, load anywhere.

So the game is a top-down perspective action RPG with large puzzling aspects, and of the first hour and a half I've played, I'm really happy with it. The controls are actually very fluid with a controller, and Lea, the main character, is definitely nice to move around. Combat motion is pretty tight, too. Just...the sheer ease and responsiveness of the button inputs is a joy. Environments so far are really pretty in that bright pixel art with some breathtaking environments. Music tends towards a sort of 'futuristic techno' style. Still, considering HowLongToBeat has this over 30 hours, I'm sure it'll take a lot of nights after shifts to complete!
 

Karnath

Well-Known Member
The equivalent to SP Adhesive 3 is a long way off to put it lightly, Wizard's Mark which restores 7 SP at the start of the wearer's turn doesn't appear until Magatsu Inaba and Yomitsu Hirasaka. Plus their in randomized locked chests too boot, though Mage's Mark which give 3 SP a turn and Sorcerer's Mark which gives 5 SP can both be bought from Daidara once he has the materials.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
The equivalent to SP Adhesive 3 is a long way off to put it lightly, Wizard's Mark which restores 7 SP at the start of the wearer's turn doesn't appear until Magatsu Inaba and Yomitsu Hirasaka. Plus their in randomized locked chests too boot, though Mage's Mark which give 3 SP a turn and Sorcerer's Mark which gives 5 SP can both be bought from Daidara once he has the materials.
Huh. Damn. Oh well. Fortunately, P4G is a lot more generous with SP-healing items than P5R is, with a lot of Snuff Souls being dropped in random chests. And now I can actually go back to the start of the TV world and get the fox to heal me. I'm definitely pressing hard on getting the ema requests completed to level up the Hermit Social Link for the healing discount because gadzooks, I'm spending almost 10k yen each time I go back.

Persona 4 Golden

I finished through up to the end of Kanji's sauna house area and cleared the boss, and then a little bit past that in the story. Somehow, I never really caught on that much to the undertones of Kanji being in the closet when I first played through this (though tbf I was also in my teens). It's much more obvious now, though he appears more bisexual than anything given some of the character moments going on shortly after the rescue. It's definitely nice having a party of 4 again.

Another retrograde thing that's taking time getting used to is there's really only 5 attack types in the game: physical and Ice, Fire, Wind, and Elec. Dark and Light spells exist, but only as instakill attacks, no damaging type attacks. Quite a difference from P5(R), with 10 different types of damage (Dark and Light damaging spells, Nuke, Psi, and Gun).

But damn, this game moves along at a lot quicker pace than P5R does. Probably half the length, I think? I don't know if I'm raising my Social Stats quicker in-game, or if it just feels that way because I'm moving through the calendar twice as fast. Also, the Golden Hand enemies sure make power-levelling quick. Oh yeah. One other thing I'm picky about. I lose a lot of nights in-game because the protagonist has to watch the Midnight Channel. It...airs at midnight. In other words, he has the entire night ahead of him before he can watch the Midnight Channel, but I still lose an entire night where I could read a book or study or do something. I'm aware this happened in P5 too, but at least P5R let you do stuff instead of going straight to sleep most of the time. At least I can get the Read All Books achievement on NG+.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 4 Golden

Cleared up past Rise's level, and pushed through the slice of life days up until the start of Mitsuo's Void Quest level overnight, so I'll try that out. I was able to finally purchase a Mage's Mark from Daidara to give one of my characters a +3SP per turn, and I'm up to level 6 with the Fox so SP restoration is getting cheaper and cheaper.

If I'm going to be honest, I had completely forgotten Rise was even a character in this game. The other party members I remembered, but Rise was just a blank spot in my mind. And with that, I forgot just how much of a flirt she is lol. As Chie says, she is indeed a 'dangerous girl'. What's weird is since I'm pretty sure Naoto is a 1st-year student, all the party members in this game are either 1st-years or 2nd-years in the high school system. That kind of sticks out a little bit, compared to P3 and P5 that had 3rd-years on the verge of graduation in the party.

With the Shuffle system, since I'm usually get multiple Sweep Shuffles in a row, my lead Persona keeps getting overpowered with the +1 Stat cards. First it was King Frost, and now it's Black Frost.

I'm thinking I definitely won't be getting all my Social Links S-Ranked since a lot of my responses are suboptimal, but I'll definitely be getting all my Social Stats to rank 5 for a NG+.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
I forgot to mention before. I am able to pet the fox in the TV world. All is good.

Anyways, I doubled up on dungeons, clearing both Void Quest and the Secret Base. The Secret Base music is just so awesome. I love it. The story progresses, though of course I remembered much of the story beats from my previous playthrough (Mitsuo is a copycat killer, Naoto is a girl).

Trying to start getting Social Links maxed out. I adore how well they wrote Nanako as a character. I got to say though, it's rather hard for me to see her as a 6-year-old. 10-year-old is more like it. It's mentioned on multiple occasions she watches the house herself for long stretches of time, and goes and picks up groceries. I can't help but feel rural Japan is one of the very few cultures where you could have a latchkey child that young.

I was able to finally get a Persona fused that has the Megalo spell (Seiryuu). During the Shuffles, there's a card that occasionally pops up that will increase the rank of a spell, so Bufu becomes Mabufu, for example. I will try the next dungeon around to get this Megalo spell increased twice to Megalodo and then Megalodaon, because they are Almighty spells, which cannot be resisted or blocked. I can register Seiryuu in my Persona compendium so if I fuse it, I can resummon it with Megalodaon. And by fusing it, I can pass Megalodaon on to a higher-level Persona, preferably one with a high Magic stat. Against regular enemies, it's not going to be a game-changer, but against the Golden Hand enemies that give off lots of EXP and money but block all elemental spells and run away after a few turns, Megalodaon should help me sweep through them quickly.

Once I get Rise leveled up to level 61, my party will start to restore 5% of SP after battles, and she's already restoring 8% of HP after battles. Along with my fox Hermit discount, SP management is finally becoming a cinch.

I'm currently 5-5-4-4-4 with my Social Stats. Still have Diligence, Understanding, and Courage to all finish up. I for sure won't be getting all the Social Links 10-Ranked in this playthrough, but again, since I'm decently certain I need to do a NG+ anyways to grab all Achievements and get some extra content, I will next go-around. It's nowhere near as long as P5R was by a long margin (I'm at level 50 after only 38 hours), so NG+ here should be a lot quicker. Still, besides my party members who get battle bonuses, I'm also for sure getting the drama club and basketball Social Links maxed out so I can go to the opposite clubs the next playthrough.

Rise is my girlfriend, after having to hunt her down lots because she likes to disappear for half the week. The game doesn't hide very hard the implications when you're taking your girlfriend to your bedroom and it fades to black, ha.
 

Karnath

Well-Known Member
I remember having a level 99 Beelzebub with maxed stats and Victory Cry, plus Megidolian, a high level physical skill, a high level ice spell, and I think I had Mamudoon as well, the only element that could actually hurt me was wind.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
I remember having a level 99 Beelzebub with maxed stats and Victory Cry, plus Megidolian, a high level physical skill, a high level ice spell, and I think I had Mamudoon as well, the only element that could actually hurt me was wind.
I can't even remember if there are any accessories that totally nullify elements in this game. I haven't seen any yet, at least.

Persona 4 Golden

Cleared the Heaven dungeon and got a little bit past that to the decision point where you can throw yourself into a bad ending. I gotta say, I like having only one real spot where you can accidentally get into a bad ending. That's one of the things that annoys me in retrospect in P5R, where it feels like every time I turned a corner I had to dodge a bad ending decision.

Social Stats are all maxed out. I'm not sure how much time I actually get to do stuff in between December and March, or if the game will auto-skip me through a lot of that, so who knows how many of my Social Links I can still build up then. On that note...I adore how even Naoto calls the protagonist senpai, even if it's only during the Social Link events that I've seen.

Something I've seen before but only really just now stopped to notice is that the Dojima residence has 3 cats just hanging around all the time haha.



2meta4me
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
I finished the game with the True Ending.

Something I was thinking about...in contrast to P5(R), the Social Link events feel kind of a step back here. They're just so short in general and don't really flesh out the characters as well. Marie's events, being designed for the Golden re-release, stick out in contrast since they're a lot longer than the others are on average.

But in contrast, what I kind of love is that talking to the various NPCs, so many of them have a traceable storyline throughout the year. ie. young first-year at the high school works her courage up into asking out her crush, old lady at the flood plains slowly makes up with her estranged daughter, young housewife improves her cooking and gets her mother-in-law's approval. These are NPCs who don't even have portraits!

Also...the Investigation Team doesn't really have it all 'together'. They're basically just a bunch of loveable dorks fumbling their way through the murder mystery, which is a really nice contrast to P3 and P5.

Never did S-Rank Marie, so no bonus dungeon for me this playthrough. But I can do all the bonus NG+ content in my next playthrough. Zooming through, just cleared up Kanji's dungeon with about 5 hours of playtime (it'd be more like 4 if I weren't trying to do all the quests too and grinding encounters for a damn Angel Statue).

I have High Money, Low EXP, Low damage taken, high damage given to quickly zip through. Dodging a lot of shadows. I want to get to the end of the Rise dungeon at a low level so that I can prepare for getting...sigh...the Hardcore Risette Fan achievement. I finished at 78% completion in my Compendium, and most of the higher level Persona were obtained, so it's more the lower ranks I need to obtain. Money was surprisingly hard to get in P4G compared to P5R, but with the ability to toggle difficulty settings and money gains, I'll be able to wipe out the Golden Hands more effortlessly.

While lots of stuff doesn't carry over, it's nice that the equipment Deidara sells does. So I got the best weapons and armour for everyone right away and just stomping bosses and what Shadows I can't ditch.

Costumes carry over too, which is nice. Speaking of...



I had Naoto wearing this catgirl costume from the instant I got it and I'm not afraid to admit it (the screencap misses it, but there is a tail part to it).
 
I think the only costume I ever used during my playthroughs was the Doujima costume for Narukami...
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Umineko When They Cry

So, I played through episode 5.

Episode 5 really breaks up the mould from the first four episodes by throwing in a few new characters (Erika and Featherine being the big ones), and completely spinning the way to interpret the scenarios by casting it as a mystery compared to a fantasy. The characters even trot out Knox's 10 Commandments as blue truths for solving the case (well, 9, since the whole 'Chinaman' rule is never once mentioned). The 10 Commandments even become pivotal to the gameboard scenario in episode 5. With developments in Episode 4 and in this episode, there comes the implication that everything that happened in the first four episodes...didn't happen. As in, the whole 'a witch exists who kills everyone' never happened, and these 4 episodes are instead either stories told by message bottles that drifted to shore, or forgeries created by living humans trying to copy the message bottles. All these episodes are really just a story being told, with Ange providing narrative in her head.

I'm really starting to feel the greater, broader narrative of the VN as a whole. How strange that even halfway through a very text-dense game that it's still showing such huge shake-ups in the paradigm, not through the story itself, but the greater structure of the story.

Character development continues. It's a testament to just how nicely attached I am to Battler that his two awesome moments in this episode really stuck out (jumping out the window...if you haven't read this game already, it makes sense in context!, and understanding the truth of Beatrice's gameboard, even if of course the narration doesn't tell us directly, and using it to turn the tables against the other witches with the Golden Truth).

So at least on the Steam release, episode 5 gets sorted into the 'Answer' arcs. This episode doesn't really answer a whole lot outside of small bits and pieces, but it also doesn't really bring up new questions either (outside of who the man from 19 years ago was). It also very nicely pushes the narrative along.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Umineko When They Cry

Finished episode 6

Episode 6 introduces one of the most interesting ideas I've seen in fiction: the 'logic error'. In-story, when a witch crafts a story, events have to fit together logically. The storyteller can come up with solutions to explain discrepancies in logic, but if he or she is unable to do so, s/he gets trapped in her own story until able to find a solution that lets him or her exit their trapped storyworld. It's implied there are multiple witches trapped in logic errors out in the multiverse, and the handful that have escaped their logic errors are driven mostly mad by the experience. I kind of want to steal this idea and adapt it for my own in a story.

Of course, Battler gets trapped in his own logic error, and it's up to Beatrice to rescue him. The subtext is really muddled here. I think Battler could have saved himself, but he was hoping for yet another miracle, that Beatrice would revive as, well, Beatrice, and save him from the logic error. Which happened. Cool story bro.

Also, I find it hilarious how the witches like to constantly suggest Erika was better at the game than Battler was while playing the human side, because it's an outright unfair comparison. Erika gets absurd advantages like being cognizant of the entire game while as a piece so she knows the murders are coming in-game and can prepare, she's able to use red truths as a human, and she has multiple subordinates she gets to use as sentries to keep watch on everything, and is even able to refuse a red truth once at the ending of episode 5 (when Battler uses the Gold Truth instead).

On the whole, I'm still really digging this game, even if I'm beginning to peter out after 60 hours of reading. There's lots of stuff from previous episodes that keep end up being relevant and decisive pieces of evidence to solving the cases of each new episode, and there's a ton of symbolism and metaphor not only to art and mythology, but it's beginning to feel very much like a love letter to the murder mystery genre.

Honestly, episode 6 could even feel like a conclusion to the game and story as a whole. The fact there's two more episodes suggests some turnabout and another darkest hour. Plus, a lot of things still need to be answered, hence the 'Answer' Arcs.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition (PC)

This is a *long* game. I think I'm in the 4th zone - there was a fallen tree (with a hollowed out trunk) near the beginning which would kill anyone if you walked through it. My party did a lot of questing to get to the other side - basically we had one of our members have the special amulet which let him walk across safely and then via the teleport pyramids, got the whole party across.

Once across there were a few battles against some weird green plant-like creatures, some skeletons on one side and one more fight I can't remember. Walking a bit north, we came to some ruins guarded by sentinels. These are "galvanized" which is this game's way of saying that they are invincible. There is a way to by-pass the deadly zone to the left, so that's where we walked. Got to a point where we met some ghosts. That fight ... I lost.

The fight started out good - I managed to kill some of the enemies, but then a few turns in, things weren't looking too good for my party. It was a hit-or-miss kind of situation. Either we would win or lose. I was tempted to withdraw and flee the battle, but decided to stick it through. Which, as mentioned was a mistake. Planning to give the fight another go next time.

-chronodekar
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Persona 4 Golden

I'm back up just past the Heaven dungeon.

Knocked off a few Achievements I didn't get on my first playthrough. Compulsive Reader, and Big Brother is Worried.

I'm at 93 Spell Cards right now. I should have more than enough free days to get enough visits Chagall's Cafe, even if I don't get another Spell Card in a Shuffle Draw again.

I have 178 of Rise's lines. This is actually good pacing, because...I haven't used Naoto, Kanji, or Teddie once in battle. I'm just counting now, and I already have 78 lines that are specific for Chie, Yosuke, and Yukiko. I don't even have all the status effect ones yet for them, so if I repeat merely 78 for the other three, that would get me at 256. There's another 21 boss lines I can get, for 277. There's still 5 enemy immunity/weakness lines I haven't gotten, which could then be 282.

I actually wrote down the lines I got thus far, and put it in a pastebin below. You can see how I organised it, so it's intuitively easy to keep track of what I do and don't have yet. So for example, I don't have a line with Yu downing 4 enemies at once, nor do I have a line for either Yukiko or Yosuke killing 4 enemies at once. I don't have a line for Yosuke or Yu with their offense down, either. Though I never separated out the low health or killed lines.

It's definitely a grind though, which has considerably slowed down my second playthrough.

https://pastebin.com/FcbZV9P1
 

Karnath

Well-Known Member
That stupid Rise trophy is the only thing standing between me and the Platinum for P4G, I can't say I honestly care to work for it anymore. I tried to get it years ago when the game first came out for Vita, but there weren't any good lists of the lines available at the time and I eventually gave up on it.
 
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