I use another gaming forum but not as much as I used to.

I actually like the format and have found it unfortunate that Social Media & Discord now dominate the market.

Discord is a great product and I enjoy using it but I prefer the more long-form, nuanced discussion that happens on forums. Discord communities are hard to keep up with, especially when you are a member of multiple. I'm not on social media at all so its nice to have Discord and Forums as a way to talk about topics you love with a known community, something you don't get on something like Reddit.

I'm also almost 40, so some of it is nostalgia.

I'm about a decade younger, but I agree with pretty much everything you said here.

Another big part of it for me is that I don't love the spontaneity of chatroom-style platforms like Discord. I enjoy having the time the walk away from a thread, genuinely reflect on what someone has said and come back to them with something (hopefully!) interesting and constructive. I'm also very introverted, which for me means I'd much rather focus on a small number of long messages (after which, I can shift my brain onto something else) than lots of little moment-to-moment texts that I don't have the same ability to switch off from.

It's actually an OC of mine from the furry fandom. The background is that the person who designed Australian furry mascots for the Tokyo Olympics was a guest speaker at a local convention, and they stuck around afterwards to do table sketches of peoples' OCs.

I normally use memes or pics from games I like as my avatar, but I really like this art so thought I may as well show it somewhere.

A few from me:

Most crafting and building systems: These mechanics just aren't really for me. I find the loop of 'perform monotonous tasks in exchange for stuff' to be too similar to IRL work, and if I wanted to build something I'd prefer to have an unrestricted sandbox along the lines of Tiny Glade.

The Ubisoft open world formula: Basically any open world game which is broken up into checklists of samey activities to complete. It turns worlds which should be fun and exciting to explore into big, bland containers for busywork.

Pointless Padding: I don't have a huge amount of time to play games these days, so I find it annoying when games add a bunch of slow, fetch-quest style objectives inbetween the main missions that don't serve a clear gameplay or story purpose, and exist primarily to extend the runtime. See also: you're given a straightforward main mission to do X, but oh no, due to a series of weird contrivances you now need to do A, B, C and D before you can do X.

Unnecessary Saving Restrictions: I'm not automatically against the idea of restricting when players can save, because an argument can be made that a game is testing your ability to get from point A to point B in one go. What I do find annoying though is when games restrict saving for no mechanical benefit (e.g in Final Fantasy XIII, I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to save anywhere on the field because party health resets after every battle).

Request sent, looking forward to comparing stats and reviews.

I hope this thread gains traction too as I've also been wanting to find friends on here. Anyone else reading who wants to add me is welcome to, btw.

A few recent ones...

Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster (PC)
People tend to sleep on this entry in the series, but I had a pretty good time with this. While I felt the XP curve changes made FFI and II in the Pixel Remaster way too easy, they make a lot more sense here. Instead of being punished for using the central mechanic of changing jobs, the quick XP gains make it much easier to switch roles and experiment with different strategies.

The Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening (Switch)
I've been gradually making my way through the Legend of Zelda series, and I really enjoyed this one. The setting is quite different to other Zelda games and I felt there was a greater sense of mechanical progression between dungeons than in other Zelda games, where dungeons typically revolve around finding and using a single dungeon items (I mean, these dungeons still do that, but they felt less reliant on the dungeon item to me).

Also - on a technical note I think it's pretty impressive that they managed to get what was basically a full Zelda game on the Gameboy Colour back in the day.

i believe Half-Life is best game of 1998

i believe in cats.

I also believe in cats. They give me very little choice.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
Not much to say other than I really enjoyed this. A solid 40+ adventure that never feels like it's dragging out it's runtime.

I believe I will finish my backlog!

*immediately buys 20 more games in a Steam sale*

Sooo... my first exposure to the soundtrack from DOOM 2016 was this video:

Now that I'm actually playing it, I can't help but laugh whenever that music comes on. I just imagine a small kitten emerging from the shadows and laying waste to the armies of hell.

Been a while since I've posted in here!

Completed Dragon Quest on the Switch. Thinking of starting a blog so I'll probably post some expanded thoughts in there, but it was a good, short little RPG.

It doesn't really affect me since I don't keep a huge number of games on my hard drive at any one time and most of what I play is older.

That said, I agree forcing everyone to download massive amounts of data for features they won't use isn't great. I'm sure there have been a couple of big games which have released optional 4K texture patches and that seems like a good way to do it.

As an aside, I also wonder how much of this is 'our game legitimately needs to be 150GB' vs 'storage space isn't nearly as much of a constraint as it once was, so we won't bother investing time into reducing the game's size'.

Depends on your definition of old, but I'm 27 and still going.

Technically my first console was the Sega Mega Drive when I was like 5, but I mainly grew up with the 5th and 6th generations of consoles - so lots of mascot platformers and Halo LAN parties at friends' houses. Had a PS1 and later PS2 and loved those.

Good luck! What are you most-looking forward to playing/beating?

Sure, I'll bite!

1. What Difficulty do you usually play games on now?

Normal, about 90% of the time.

I'll sometimes try harder difficulties if I really enjoy the gameplay (e.g Bayonetta). On the other hand, if I'm stuck on something and feel my time is worth more than overcoming the challenge, I don't mind dropping it down to easy to get through something. A good example is where you have a very hard boss at the end of a very long, monotonous level with no checkpoints (and the length doesn't really contribute to the challenge of the boss).

2. Do you like to take your time or go fast when playing something?

I think my perspective on this has changed with age. When I was young I had few games and lots of time. As an adult, I have lots of games but much less time.

I'll spend a lot of time with something if I really enjoy it, but otherwise I usually get through the main game and do a couple of side missions I like the look of. If going slow and completing everything for one game takes 50+ hours, I might be missing out on a bunch of other compelling experiences I could've used that time for. It all comes down to opportunity cost.

3. Are you more critical of how you rate/review/critique games than you were before?

Maybe? I'm not sure if 'critical' is the right word, but I'd definitely say I'm more 'aware' of how I critique and review stuff. For example:
-I'm better at articulating what my preferences and foundational assumptions are
-I'm more aware of where my preferences come from, that they're not objective and don't exist in a vacuum.
-In terms of scores specifically, I have a much better idea of what the numbers mean to me personally.
-I'm more interested in hearing and understanding perspectives which are totally different from mine.

Aside from what others have mentioned, something that really stands out for me is the sheer variety in what games can be... in terms of gameplay, art style, pace, tone, etc, etc.

While other mediums can experiment too, I feel like games have less of a 'standard format' compared to movies and books and that makes them interesting.

My goal for the year is just to get back into tackling my backlog again. I used to be pretty active on these forums a few years ago, and even though I'm not an obsessive backlog completionist, having the goal helped me get through games a lot faster and try out different genres which I wouldn't have otherwise.

Is anyone else just using the starting familiar and spamming his regular melee attacks for most battles? It seems to be the most efficient method as mana potions are so expensive I really have to ration my mana usage.

The starter is definitely my main attacker, though I do sometimes use the monkey if I think I'm going to get a solid charge and attack window in. Like others, I mainly use Oliver for healing.

Anyway, some more random thoughts since my last post (I'm up to just after you get Esther and I'm still enjoying the game quite a bit):

-I'm still liking the combat, though starting to see where peoples' frustrations are coming from. If I could make one single change, I would scrap the command menu and map all commands to face buttons and triggers... or at the very least add a dedicated guard/evade button. I've had several occassions where an enemy has done their windup and I've had enough time to react, but not enough time to switch character and fiddle about in the menus to find the guard command. Worse still are the bosses with super long windups where you guard too early and it cancels just before they unleash their Ten Tonne Nuclear Fart of Certain Death (TM).

I'm starting to really like Oliver's character. I don't usually like child protagonsists, especially ones in JRPGs but I'm enjoying seeing him develop and become more confident.

After seeing more important story stuff, I'm becoming more convinced that the game has well-constructed, hard hitting moments that aren't given enough breathing space to be fully realised. Spoiler discussion: Take a character like Myrtle for example... she's terrified of leaving her room and Oliver tries to get her to leave, but she refuses. Later on, after she reconciles with her Father, she turns to Oliver and says "I want to go outside, will you join me?" If there had been more character development between those two scenes, her saying "I want to go outside" could have been incredibly powerful... but in context, it ends up feeling underwhelming to me

Also, if you want to play cheap, use character switching to dodge normal attacks. If you switch from a familiar to Oliver before an enemy hits you, Oliver will be further back than the familiar and they will miss. I avoided pretty much all of Rusty's Nightmare's normal attacks this way, making it a slow but pretty easy fight.

Thought I was gonna sit this out because of how expensive this is on PC ($AU74 usually) but got lucky and found the PS4 version for cheap in a store.

Overall I'm enjoying it but have some small gripes. Some disorganised thoughts from the first 2.5 hours below:

(some minor spoilers below)

-I'm loving the overall vibe. The music is fantastic and while the graphics aren't super detailed, it's all very colourful and expressive.

-Battle system is interesting, having everyone with different stats share one health bar creates some cool risk and reward.

-Drippy is awesome.

-I really like the idea behind the story but I think the death of Oliver's mother could have been a lot more effective if we A.) Spent more time getting to know the Mother in the first place and B.) Spent more time exploring Oliver's grief... what we got was hard-hitting but it's explored for all of five seconds before the scene abruptly switches tone.

-Small point, but did anyone else think it was a bit messed up how Drippy told Oliver to just get over himself? The kid is like ten and he's just lost his only parent, but Drippy acts like he just scraped his knee and he's being a whiny baby. Let the poor kid grieve.

I'm a big fan of Super Giant's games so no surprise that I'm enjoying it so far...

... even though my playthroughs so far has consisted of about 20% game and 80% petting Cerberus.

Inside (PC)
First completion post in quite some time!

In any case, this was really bloody good. It's creepy, and (for me) the puzzles hit a really good sweet spot between being challenging enough to feel rewarding but also straightforward enough that you don't really get stuck and everything moves at a good pace.

Finally got back into gaming, thanks global pandemic. I beat a bunch of games, Mega Man Legacy Collection, Resident Evil HD, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Ori and the Blind Forest (second time, great game), Ori and the Will of the Wisps (still prefer the first one though, dunno if people would agree with me on this one), Walking Dead Season 1, MGSV

Right now I'm playing through Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (though I must say i kinda stopped when the DLC content hit, can't put it in words but it doesn't feel as nice, didn't get far in it)

FF VII - the original, my machine can't run the remake. Though from what I've heard the remake is good but streached out? or maybe that's just dunkey's opinion. I'll probably play it sooner or later. Probably later.

Walking Dead Season 2 - it's kinda nice but the amount of shit I have to do for being a little girl is weird. It was fine when I was badass Lee dude from the first season, but now? I'm just a little kid with a bunch of adults and they make me turn off the giant windmill? Seriously? Still will finish though, I need some point and click from time to time to improve my patience and attention span.

Also started RE: Revelations 1, but didn't get far cause all those discounts are getting in the way! It's annoying in a way, hope some of you can relate.
Also started Penumbra series, almost finished Overture but see the sentence above.
Also started playing Adventure Pals but damn, I only remembered that I did when I checked my steam account. I'll finish it one day!

Yeah, I'm enjoying Ori and the Will of the Wisps too but I agree that it's not as good as the first one. Whereas Blind Forest stood up on its own two feet, Will of the Wisps sometimes feels like an inferior version of Hollow Knight when it could have been its own thing.

Aside from that I've also been playing the FF7 Remake and enjoying it quite a bit.

Completed it pretty recently and gave it an 8/10. From what I remember I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt it had a great atmosphere. Only thing I would have said is that it's not as scary as it could have been because of the giant, obvious slow-mo animation whenever an enemy pops out. Might play the extra episodes to refresh my memory.

Nice to see some love for Eternal Sonata, a little surprised people still remember that one.

I'll add Ori and the Blind Forest, which is probably one of my favourite soundtracks of all time. It's a little embarrassing how often I find myself relistening to the whole thing.

It seems like there's two basic opinions here:

1. Games are a test, so if you finish it using save states/cheats/guides you didn't really complete it
2. Games are an experience, however you finish it is valid

Nothing wrong with either.

^ Yep, basically this.

For what it's worth, I'm in the second camp. Unlike some people, I don't really get a kick out of overcoming difficulty for the sake of it. I'm more likely to appreciate difficulty if it's being used in an aesthetic way (e.g making the difficulty harsh and unforgiving to emphasise that the game's setting is also harsh and unforgiving).

I saw Detective Pikachu today, it was great. Not only is it the only game adaptation I can think of (besides Bayonetta: Bloody Fate) that's actually good, it actually surpassed its game source material. At least, that's what I think now; maybe in a year I'll rewatch it and/or Lindsay Ellis will do a video on how it's terrible and I'll change my mind. But for now, *chef's kiss*.

Yep, saw it today and I really enjoyed it too. Given that it seems to have been a financial success as well, let's hope it paves the way for more decent video game movies.