Feel free to rant and rave in here, but please no slander or offensive remarks !

Moderators: lazyben, static14, texasvinyl

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By inksb
#142972
I made it to Floor 10 in Guilty Gear Strive this past week. That was my goal and I'm super happy I managed to do it. I don't think I'll be able to get to Celestial floor as those guys are way better than me but I'll still try.

I have been continuing my progress through Binding of Isaac Repentance. I think it's going to take me another year to finally finish all of the completion marks on the characters. There are just so many, I haven't even really attempted the "challenge" characters yet either, just trying to get as much of the "easy" stuff out of the way first lol. I love the game, this DLC alone I already have 100 hours into.

Trying to get back into Yakuza 7, I gained some momentum last night and will continue to play this week. I was stuck on a really tedious section and it made me not want to play, finally got through it and enjoying the game a lot again.
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By inksb
#143381
I beat Yakuza 7 yesterday, what an incredible game. Aside from two really wild difficulty spikes that required insane amount of grinding, it's really just a pleasure to play. I think they transitioned the series to something much more engaging and I really loved the new characters. Some really fun call backs for fans of the series and even some one like me who is a very casual fan of the series prior knew the references and was excited about them. The two difficulty spikes revolve around two boss fights, the first one showing up in ch 12, he is a level 50 boss, which I was only 34 when I first attempted him. He basically one shot all my characters, the crazy thing is I did everything in the game from side quests and optional stuff except a battle arena that opened in the section right before the boss. Well the game actually wants you to go through that 30 floor area a few times before you beat the boss. It just doesn't tell you to do that. I leveled up to 52 and took him out but it was still quite a challenge. Then the next boss in ch 13, is only weak to cold, I tried to fight him but attacks that normally did 600-800 damage hit for 90-100. He annihilated me, so I had to go back switch classes around, go to the battle arena to level up some different classes then hit the boss again, the cold attack hit for over 1.3k, that made the fight more manageable. The funny thing about both of these fights is how absolutely incredible the story is around them that doing that grind is completely washed away once you see the events unfold. You just immediately say "that was worth the hassle". Great game and I look forward to the next one.

I also beat Blasphemous over the weekend. It's basically Castlevania Symphony of the Night mixed with Dark Souls and weird fake religious stuff. Combat is tough but really fun to master. Bosses were incredible, pixel art was outstanding and the level design was pretty impressive. My only minor complaint is that I wish there was a better fast travel system because there's a decent amount of running around in the last few hours to get your final upgrades. I highly recommend this game if you like Symphony of the Night, it captures the feel of that game really well.

Now I'm going to start Doom Eternal and possibly start a new playthrough of Symphony of the Night since it's on my brain
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By inksb
#143391
I found an artist on Twitter that does really nice fighting game art. Baiken is my favorite character in Guilty Gear, I decided to make some new art for one of my fighting sticks on lunch a few weeks ago. That turned into me designing a new stick, building a new case and ordering lots of new parts. I may have a problem, haha. Here's my newest stick, I think it may be my best build yet.
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#143392
Yakuza, I played one so long ago. PS3, maybe it was PS2. I remember it as sort of a beat em up. That grind sounds like an ordeal to get through! I would have given up haha

Doom Eternal is great fun, nonstop ear to ear grins

Sick arcade stick! Dig the wood grain.

I got a couple of repro SNES carts. Trials of Mana and FFV. So far Trials is excellent, the best looking snes game I've seen. It looks okay on the super NT but phenomenal on original hardware on the CRT. They pulled off god tier shading and softness in the pixel art to take advantage of nuances in the old tv.
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By inksb
#143393
I played the first level of Doom Eternal, holy hell is it fun. It feels way more self aware than Doom 2016. Looks spectacular and runs fantastic. I'm running it at 120fps w/ ray tracing on and it's not skipping a frame. Interesting mechanic with using various melee attacks to get shields, health and ammo.

Trials does look incredible (great soundtrack too!). I'll never get used to calling Trials of Mana though, for too many years it's been Secret of Mana 2 or Seiken Densetsu 3 in my brain. I need to get back to it, I never finished it. Where did you pick up the repro carts? I've been considering grabbing a Chrono Trigger, with the absurd prices videogames have jumped up to over the last year or so I don't think I'll ever be able to afford an original.

Speaking of pixel art on a CRT, there is a cool account on Twitter that posts CRT captures versus sharp pixels taken direct from roms on a PC. I believe it's @CRTpixels
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By inksb
#143398
Thanks, I'll check them out, their website says they are currently taking a break and I can't navigate past the message.

I still have an old 12" CRT that all my analog systems are hooked up to. I do play a lot on my Super NT but I have the scan line settings pretty good, it's not a perfect reproduction but it feels close enough and I get to play it in my living room on a big screen with a wireless controller. Minor trade offs.
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By inksb
#143446
texasvinyl wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 2:12 am I got a couple of repro SNES carts. Trials of Mana and FFV. So far Trials is excellent, the best looking snes game I've seen. It looks okay on the super NT but phenomenal on original hardware on the CRT. They pulled off god tier shading and softness in the pixel art to take advantage of nuances in the old tv.
So I set my Super NT back up last night with better settings and tweaked the scan lines. It looks really good if you're intesterested trying out the same settings I'll post them below.
Video: (first check the box for "Advanced Mode" to bring up the complete menu)


========================================

1080p Output:


NOTE: You want to start with height first in order to enable quick-cycling of the correct res mode labels for width!

NOTE 2: Due to how interpolation changes behavior of pixel stretching, sometimes my recommended settings will be one pixel less than actual DAR.

-- FirebrandX 5x (1200 cropped to 1080) DAR:
* set horizontal pos=65, vertical pos=28
1462x1200 enable H, disable V (enable means UNCHECKED box)

Scanlines:
1080p 5x, hybrid, depth 80, width 24, sub bright 100.


I know Blizzard is a giant pile of shit but are you grabbing Diablo II Resurrected? Looks pretty good and coming from some one who has never played the original I really want to try it. I believe I remember you saying you were a big fan of the original.
#143472
I am going to skip it until I read some reviews.

Not sure about all the scan line options. Mine doesn't say anything about Firebrand.

On the width option i set it to 1462 x 1200 with 65/28 horizontal/vertical.

Scanlines I set to Hybrid/ 80 depth/ 24 width/ sub bright 100.
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By inksb
#143473
Firebrand x is the guy who did the settings testing. I was copying and pasting from his file, I don't know why he puts his name before it. I didn't notice til you pointed it out. Just ignore it.
#143595
damn. they really did it properly. I finished up Normal difficulty tonight. Everything seems right. It looks right and feels exactly right. way to go Blizzard, this is the best thing they've done in a long time and well worth the $40.
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By inksb
#143848
I will probably pick up Diablo II in a month or so.

I finished Doom Eternal this past week and it's easily one of the best FPS I've ever played. Simply blown away with how good it was.

I started playing Metroid Fusion this week, I plan on picking up Dread this week but wanted to play Fusion before hand. I had never played it before, I bought it years ago for the GBA but the battery was dead so I couldn't save my game. At the time I never thought about replacing it so it just sat on the shelf. It's a fantastic game and I'm glad I'm finally playing it.

Back 4 Blood launches on Tuesday and I'm very excited to dive into the full game. My brother and a few friends bought the Deluxe Edition which gave them access 4 days early and they have been loving it.
#143879
I wish they would take notes from early game design.

They put a cut scene where a robot tells you "be careful of the cold areas, without your power suit you will take damage!" They should just let you figure that out. Like super Metroid didn't have a tutorial at the beginning warning you "Norfair is hot! You need the Varia suit!"
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By inksb
#143880
texasvinyl wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 1:13 pm I wish they would take notes from early game design.

They put a cut scene where a robot tells you "be careful of the cold areas, without your power suit you will take damage!" They should just let you figure that out. Like super Metroid didn't have a tutorial at the beginning warning you "Norfair is hot! You need the Varia suit!"
Yeah it was a bit much but they also did this in Fusion which is from 2002, so maybe it was a criticism for Super Metroid? I actually would prefer that you find that area on your own, take damage and the next time you talk to ADAM he tells you not to go in there yet.
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By inksb
#144114
I finished Metroid Dread. 100% item collection with a clear time of 10:48. Love the game. The final boss was the best fight in the game. You really had to use counters otherwise you couldn't damage him in certain phases. I'm gonna give Hard mode a go I think.

I finished Back 4 Blood on Recruit difficulty last night as well. I'm loving that game. My brother has an insane melee build with one of his decks, it's crazy to see him just shred through the mutations. I need to play a lot more to get supply points to unlock better cards.

Now I need to figure out what my next game will be.
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By inksb
#144447
Still playing the hell out of Back 4 Blood. We beat it on Veteran the other day on my brothers game, now we need to do that on mine. Veteran is such a big jump up in difficulty, your run can end at the slightly mistake.

I picked up a few games last week with the Steam sale. I grabbed Outer Wilds, Divinity Original Sin II and Inscryption.

Outer Wilds is a strange but fun and relaxing space exploration and puzzle game. I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm enjoying what ever it is.

Divinity Original Sin II is a type of game I've never really played before, it's basically a top down Dungeons & Dragon's inspired game, only just beat the intro area so not really sure about it yet.

Inscryption is a rogue lite card game that I've been told completely changes as you play it, I can't make it past the second map though so I haven't been able to see what the "change", I'm ignoring everything about it because I want it to be a surprise.

And next week Shin Megami Tensai V comes out on the Switch. Which I will definitely be buying. So add another crazy long JRPG to my list of games I'm playing. We'll see how many of these I actually finish. lol

@tex what have you been playing? Still Diablo 2?
#144448
Dude I envy your time. I have been playing "two little kids and my house is falling apart and my job is crazy and I am coming apart at the seams"

I have diablo 2 still going. I found a few things so far and got my dude up to lvl 86, so it is slow progress.

Forza 5 horizon came out today. the last one was so good, I might buy it. But I think I would spend the $100 and then not have any actual time to play it. I've looked at Outer Wilds a number of times and almost went for it. Seems like a good game.
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By inksb
#144450
Don't envy my time that much. I have sleep issues and I only really play videogames late at night when I can't sleep. But yeah I don't have kids and I work 6 days a week. I do most of my gaming from 10-12 or 11-1 at night lol. Then get up at 530-6. And that's if I actually fall asleep for more than a few hours in there.

I'm not much of a racing game fan but my brother love's Forza 4 Horizon and is very excited about 5. Reviews have been really good too.
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By inksb
#144732
I picked up SMT V on the Switch. Holy skill check batman, this game kicks your ass hard and fast. First boss wiped my entire party with his first attack. I spent the next 2 hours doing side quests to level up and recruit more powerful demons, then it took 3 attempts topple that boss. There's no check points, you load your last save, so make sure you save often. I was exploring last night and stumbled on a powerful demon, lost 40 minutes of gameplay just like in the good ol' days.
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By inksb
#145058
NathanLurker wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 10:52 pm Yo inksb, so, in Back4Blood, the only to level up your character is by finding gun attachments and building deck of cards, is that it ?
So each section you complete gives you supply points which you use to unlock cards for your decks. You then will build decks based on builds you want to run (eventually, at first you need just a decent all around deck). Make sure you are playing on Recruit, it's actually normal, Veteran is hard and Nightmare is well a nightmare. I have all of the cards unlocked now and I have a melee deck, smg/healing deck, Sniper/Assault rifle deck, speed deck and shotgun tank deck. The weapon attachments are upgrades for the weapons you are using on your current run. It's important to make sure you grab better grades of your weapons throughout the run. A blue shotgun is better than a white shotgun with a few attachments. I think grading goes white, green, blue, purple, orange (although there are not orange weapons, just attachments)
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By inksb
#145160
Since Halo Infinite multiplayer is free I downloaded and have been playing that a decent amount recently. It's a lot of fun. I was never a Halo person, the last one I actually played was Halo 2. I'm not very good at it but the game modes are really fun. Oddball is 4v4 and your goal is to have one person on your team hold the ball, the longer you hold it the more points you have. Meanwhile the other team is trying to kill all of you and steal the ball.
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