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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 3, 2019 10:11:39 GMT
It's been an enjoyable experience, returning to FFVII once again. The graphics on the PS4 version look a lot cleaner and more polished. I was expecting my eyes to hurt once I saw the dated, fuzzy visuals , but the polished and brighter visuals are actually nice to look at, they provide nice textures and make Midgar's atmosphere even more surreal. The story's presentation is timeless IMO, right from the beginning , the story feels epic , with the party blowing up reactors, travelling across a city by train, and traversing the slums of a polluted city whilst trying to avoid Shinra authorities , and this is before Sephiroth shows up and turns the story on it's head, and being able to explore the charming towns, seaside resorts and other nice locations makes it an unforgettable experience. The game has been modified, so it has a God Mode, which gives your party members unlimited limit breaks and restores their health every turn, but you can turn this on or off whenever you want, same goes for being able to turn off random encounters, and speeding up the gameplay X3 , so if you want to reexperience the story and don't have much free time to level grind, you can just race through the game and experience the story once again.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 8, 2019 4:46:23 GMT
I'm trying to earn the FF7 plat, and I've earned 3 of the 4 missable trophies , which are making Don choose Cloud over Aerith and Tifa , Aerith's final limit break, and making Cloud and Barret go on a date. It was nice to see Aerith's higher level limit breaks, some nice and peaceful music and effects , as well as giving the character some big buffs. Most people have never earned her level 3 and 4 limit breaks because she dies so early in the game. The date between Cloud and Barret is like a joke, it's not the Japanese trying to be SJWs or anything (heck, the game was released in 1997 before political correctness became so strong),during the 'date' , Barret tells Cloud he needs to choose either Aerith or Tifa, but Cloud talks about Marlene (Barret's adopted daughter) and Barret says he won't let a sicko like Cloud near his daughter.
The final missable trophy left is obtaining the Bahamut Materia in the Temple Of The Ancients. There is another trophy which technically isn't missable, but if you fail any 4 huge materia side quests, you have only a 5% chance of digging it up in Bone Village.
Either way, I'm loving replaying through this game once again, the characters and world design are as likable as ever.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 11, 2019 14:26:05 GMT
Platinumed FFVII. It feels good to have platted one of the best games ever made. Even more than 20 years later, it's story and world design makes the game worth going back to.
It's the 5th Final Fantasy game I've platinumed, along with Final Fantasy X, 13, 13-2 and 15.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 12, 2019 5:12:14 GMT
I've started playing ME Andromeda. The technology looks nice, but the characters look like they have skin made from plastic. I can see the devs tried to force lots of black characters into the story, and whilst I don't mind if a character is black, the character should at least have personality and an interesting story, but so far the black characters don't have much personality, it's like they're in the game because they're black. So far, Cora and the Asian lady are the only 2 characters I find likable.
The gameplay feels sloppy, but the weapon sound effects sound good. The game does feel like it's been rushed, but it's story is interesting enough if you like Sci Fi and space.
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Post by endorbr on Jan 12, 2019 5:19:38 GMT
I've started playing ME Andromeda. The technology looks nice, but the characters look like they have skin made from plastic. I can see the devs tried to force lots of black characters into the story, and whilst I don't mind if a character is black, the character should at least have personality and an interesting story, but so far the black characters don't have much personality, it's like they're in the game because they're black. So far, Cora and the Asian lady are the only 2 characters I find likable. The gameplay feels sloppy, but the weapon sound effects sound good. The game does feel like it's been rushed, but it's story is interesting enough if you like Sci Fi and space. I really liked PeeBee, Cora, and Drack. The rest of the characters were kind of meh.
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Post by TonberryKing on Jan 13, 2019 21:30:20 GMT
I've started playing ME Andromeda. The technology looks nice, but the characters look like they have skin made from plastic. I can see the devs tried to force lots of black characters into the story, and whilst I don't mind if a character is black, the character should at least have personality and an interesting story, but so far the black characters don't have much personality, it's like they're in the game because they're black. So far, Cora and the Asian lady are the only 2 characters I find likable. The gameplay feels sloppy, but the weapon sound effects sound good. The game does feel like it's been rushed, but it's story is interesting enough if you like Sci Fi and space. I had no love for this game it jist seem rushed imo even in its writing story amd characters.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 15, 2019 3:12:31 GMT
I will say you need a fair amount of patience to be able to enjoy ME Andromeda. It does have some beautiful worlds and entertaining cinematics, but there's a lot of dullness in-between the moments that stand out.
Some of the worlds look beautiful, such as a tropical planet with cities built within the lush environment, but so far it hasn't allowed me to explore much of that planet, despite me being playing the game for around 10 hours.
I remember when I played ME1 and 2, one of the things that drew me into those games early on was I could explore detailed cities on alien worlds, some of them even had red light districts or interesting things to see.
Another thing, despite being in another galaxy, the worlds I'm exploring have human settlers, or races from the milky way galaxy, rather than new and interesting races/cultures. I think this is because of laziness on Bioware's behalf, it reminds me of cheap Sci Fi TV series where humans travel to ''unknown planets'' in other star systems, only to discover humans are already living there, and give BS reasons as to why, because the writers don't have the creativity to create any interesting new races.
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Post by endorbr on Jan 15, 2019 4:00:14 GMT
I will say you need a fair amount of patience to be able to enjoy ME Andromeda. It does have some beautiful worlds and entertaining cinematics, but there's a lot of dullness in-between the moments that stand out. Some of the worlds look beautiful, such as a tropical planet with cities built within the lush environment, but so far it hasn't allowed me to explore much of that planet, despite me being playing the game for around 10 hours. I remember when I played ME1 and 2, one of the things that drew me into those games early on was I could explore detailed cities on alien worlds, some of them even had red light districts or interesting things to see. Another thing, despite being in another galaxy, the worlds I'm exploring have human settlers, or races from the milky way galaxy, rather than new and interesting races/cultures. I think this is because of laziness on Bioware's behalf, it reminds me of cheap Sci Fi TV series where humans travel to ''unknown planets'' in other star systems, only to discover humans are already living there, and give BS reasons as to why, because the writers don't have the creativity to create any interesting new races. Yeah there are only two new unique races in ME Andromeda. The rest are all races from the Milky Way come to colonize. And yes a lot of them got there about a year ahead of you and have set up some civilization but the game gives you some legit story reasons for it if you stick with it. Is it as interesting as being the first to see all new races? Probably not but I still found it enjoyable in the end, though not nearly as good as the original trilogy.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 15, 2019 4:49:45 GMT
I will say you need a fair amount of patience to be able to enjoy ME Andromeda. It does have some beautiful worlds and entertaining cinematics, but there's a lot of dullness in-between the moments that stand out. Some of the worlds look beautiful, such as a tropical planet with cities built within the lush environment, but so far it hasn't allowed me to explore much of that planet, despite me being playing the game for around 10 hours. I remember when I played ME1 and 2, one of the things that drew me into those games early on was I could explore detailed cities on alien worlds, some of them even had red light districts or interesting things to see. Another thing, despite being in another galaxy, the worlds I'm exploring have human settlers, or races from the milky way galaxy, rather than new and interesting races/cultures. I think this is because of laziness on Bioware's behalf, it reminds me of cheap Sci Fi TV series where humans travel to ''unknown planets'' in other star systems, only to discover humans are already living there, and give BS reasons as to why, because the writers don't have the creativity to create any interesting new races. Yeah there are only two new unique races in ME Andromeda. The rest are all races from the Milky Way come to colonize. And yes a lot of them got there about a year ahead of you and have set up some civilization but the game gives you some legit story reasons for it if you stick with it. Is it as interesting as being the first to see all new races? Probably not but I still found it enjoyable in the end, though not nearly as good as the original trilogy. I do think it's wasted potential, with the Andromeda galaxy having double the stars of the Milky Way. Oh well, the Angara culture has beautiful architecture, it blends in beautifully with the tropical climate of Aya.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 21, 2019 6:45:29 GMT
I've finished Mass Effect Andromeda. It's a decent Sci Fi shooter, although it's not a great one.
There's been discussions as to why ME Andromeda doesn't feel anywhere near as good as the original Trilogy. I can give some of my thoughts and opinions.
The original ME introduced a lot of interesting races, it's story has an intriguing villain in the Reapers, and it allows the player to explore planets/environments that have culture or surreal atmospheres early on.
Whilst ME2 doesn't introduce many new races, it continued on with a great story,and the races introduced in the first ME game still felt fresh.
I haven't played ME3 so I can't comment.
ME Andromeda reuses many races from the first 3 ME games, and personally I found the cultural characteristics of the Krogan, Asari, Salarians etc to feel a bit old at that point. There's only 2 new races, although I love the culture of the Angara because the way their architecture combines with the tropical surroundings on Aya looks beautiful. The Kett kinda remind me of the Borg in that they steal technology from other races, but they also steal genetics from other races to improve themselves.
The story isn't memorable, although it's midly entertaining.
I found most of the worlds in ME Andromeda to be not as appealing as the ones ME1 and 2, part of the reason is because many of the worlds are inhabited by humans and Milky Way races , and they don't bring any new cultural elements, just some weird sub cultures like a planet inhabited by exiles from numerous Milk Way races whom act brutish and boarish.
I found the game to be enjoyable, although I'm glad I bought it for dirt cheap and didn't pay full price for it.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 22, 2019 4:07:26 GMT
I've returned to Valkyria Chronicles, which IMO is one of the best RPGs ever made, and also one of the most innovative. I played through it twice on PS3 when it had no trophy set, but now I can finally earn trophies for it, and experience the many qualities it has to offer. For people who haven't played it, basically it's like a mixture of turn-based and real-time strategy, with the dice roll elements you'd expect to see in an RPG. You can use cover mechanics, and vehicles such as tanks as well. It's story is quite enjoyable, it's inspired by World War 2, but it's still set in a fantasy world. It's story is emotional, and has a good blend of serious and charming moments, and romance and inspiring characters. The game has a beautiful watercolor artstyle, that would still look beautiful even without the remaster. VC2 is awesome, has has more depth to it's gameplay than the original, but it's story is a bit too goofy . It was released on PSP, so it's visuals don't have the same level of beauty as the original. VC3 wasn't localized. VC4 was released last year, and I want to play it, but I've been working through a backlog.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 25, 2019 6:52:56 GMT
Playing Valkyria Chronicles and FF7 lately reminds me of how some games set such high standards, the gap between them and the rest is daylight. Another such game is FFX, which I played for 280 hours when it got remastered a few hours ago.
As far as JRPGs go, FF7, 9, 10, Lost Odyssey, The Last Story are the ones I can keep coming back to. The Tales games are still fun, but I think of them as 'middle of the road' JRPGs, which are enjoyable although I wouldn't list any Tales games in my top 20 favorite games. Star Ocean 3 was creative for it's time, but Star Ocean 4 wasn't memorable for me (although it was still my favorite game in 2009). I haven't played Star Ocean 5, but from trusted sources I've heard it's quite dull.
The Suikoden series provided some very well presented plots and I found Suikoden 3 especially memorable because it's world is rich in diverse cultures/races (not to sound like a SJW, because Suikoden 3 goes about it the right way). But we all know what happened to Konami. The Breath of Fire series provided me with some of the most enjoyable RPG experiences during the PSone days, but Capcom didn't continue with the series. I enjoyed Dragon Quest 8 because of it's detailed open world, but didn't have the time to do so much level grinding, although I might give DQ11 a try. Ni No Kuni is a great blend of old school JRPG with modern technology, but I haven't played the sequel because it's expensive on PS Store.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Jan 28, 2019 12:46:44 GMT
I'm still working on platinuming Valkyria Chronicles. I'm not far off platinuming it, despite my trophy progress for it showing 26% completion, this is because the game gives out a lot of gold trophies, and every gold trophy will add something like 10% completion.
I've purchased Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice because it was cheap, and I'm interested in the content. I sometimes experience psychotic episodes that are very powerful, imagine having a TV/radio next to your head playing very loudly all the time, and your can hear people talking to you which makes it hard to sleep.
I see people come into my house, and then they disappear, I see shadow figures which I believe are demons. Many Buddhists and some Christians believe schizophrenia is caused by demons who infest people's body like a virus, and many people whom are infested enjoy doing bad things, being sociopaths, but Buddhism says people with a high level of Boon(goodness), have more resistance to the demons, thus the demons try to use people they've infested to bully me.
In buddhism, it says angels will protect people from demons, as long as the land they are on has a high level on boon, which is why I think I've never been bullied in Buddhist Asian countries, only in non-Buddhist countries.
When I'm in Thailand, I hear the demons choking , and I believe it's because Thailand is protected from demons, but one demon did follow me, it was an Australian woman and hear voice kept following me, she said she was going to harm my girlfriend and her child.
Anyways,, my theory is most people are infested by demons too, I do feel they tried to sabotage me and bully me, to the extent I have felt suicidal at times.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to seeing how Senua is, I hope people who see it don't think they are automatically experts on mental illness afterwards. @bunny I hope you read this, I want to say I know what depression, and feeling suicidal is like, and thinking and knowing entities are trying to harm me, and it creates anxiety.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Feb 2, 2019 14:40:37 GMT
Finally platinumed Valkyria Chronicles. It took me 2 and a half playthroughs, because a certain trophy that 2 guides said is not missable turned out to be missable , and it first becomes available in new game + , but I didn't earn it in the first new game +. Anyways, I'm happy to have platinumed what I regard as one of the best RPGs ever in Valkyria Chronicles. I'm on a bit of a roll with JRPGs, because I platinumed Final Fantasy 7 a couple of weeks ago, and I was happy to do so, since it's also one of the best RPGs ever made. Speaking of JRPGs, Valkyria Chronicles is the 9th JRPG I've platinumed, along with Final Fantasy 7, FF 10, FF 13, FF 13-2, FF 15 , Tales of Xillia, Ar Nosurge, and the terrible Last Rebellion. Next, I will play Senua's Sacrifice or Full Throttle. Finally, I will tell Valkyria Chronicles and Alicia Melchiott thank you for the memories in the 4 and a half total playthroughs I've invested in it on both PS3/4, as well as the 80 hours of playtime I put into it recently, and I will give Alicia one final salute.
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Post by TidusandYuna1983 on Feb 19, 2019 10:04:38 GMT
Finished a playthrough of Virginia. I found it to be not that good. It's story is vague and some of the plot twists are silly.
What annoys me is some people who've spoken negatively about the game have been accused of being ''people who don't like story-driven games'' , but as you guys probably know, I love story-driven games (hence JRPGs and visual novels are my 2 favorite genres), but I can recognise a lackluster story when I see it.
Being an art game, it will make people want to romanticize with Virginia even more, because some of it's environments have a nice use of colors, and it's music is beautiful at times, but weak story presentation is just that.
The game requires at least 2 playthroughs to platinum, and even though it can be platinumed in a little over 1 hour, playing through it just 1 time felt like 10 hours and like a chore.
Even worse, if you use chapter select, it makes trophies void, thus if i make one mistake near the end, I need to restart the game from the beginning.
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