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Cross-Section posted:Devs had this to say:
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Jun 23, 2023 01:44
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| # ? May 28, 2024 00:36 |
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It's a totally fair thing to say IMO. There's absolutely a tier of games that I won't ever try.... unless they're on Game Pass Sometimes that's good, sometimes not
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Jun 23, 2023 01:45
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Trapped in the land of demos, unable to escape... Rogue Command asks the question, "What if a RTS had modern roguelike based runs and progression." You play a round of an RTS, then you go to a board to unlock new buildings and ability upgrades, repeat until you beat the run or lose. Joker Rating: Holographic - Eh, I can see why this would be fun, but I don't think the whole is really greater than the sum of its parts here. I think most RTS players prefer games built around ostensibly balanced factions, and instead you're getting into an arms race between you and the AI as to who overwhelms the other with overpowered nonsense first. Also the production values are kind of low, although not unforgivably so.  Let's! Revolution bills itself as a roguelite puzzle game, but let's be honest here, the "puzzle game" is Minesweeper. Slowly grow more powerful over the course of the run with a variety of upgrades that can be found off the beaten path. Then return to the road to beat up the corrupt King's guards, and chase him down over a series of levels until you can finally corner and topple him for good. Joker Rating: [secret] - There's so much character here, it's absolutely fantastic. And it's clever too: the first couple of levels you can just brute force your way through, but by the time you make it to the second zone, you need to think about what you're doing or you'll get your rear kicked in.  Last roguelike/lite for this bunch. Asterogues is a bullet hell/shoot 'em up roguelike where you play as a series of motley rebels that got tossed out of the Solar System for being useless and want revenge on the planets and the Sun. The unique gimmick for this is that you can hold down left-click to activate a character's special ability which tends to be of maximum usefulness when the game starts getting increasingly bullet hell-y. For instance, Pluto's ability lets you turn reduce your hitbox to a small core and you can capture bullets in your orbit to throw back at people. Joker Rating: [secret] - This is going to be a difficult game, but like Let's! Revolution, the presentation is perfectly on point. They let you get another character fairly early on too, so if you want something a little bit different than Pluto's playstyle, you can try out the guy whose power lets you absorb bullets with his hand instead.  Word Factori is SpaceChem for people who like Scrabble instead of the Periodic Table of the Elements. That's it, that's the tweet. Joker Rating: Polychrome - This would have been top tier, except I think the people who specifically want another SpaceChem are going to find themselves slightly underwhelmed, and I'm not sure who else the audience is. I do like that the process of creating words involves you taking "I"s and physically smushing them to make other letters though, that's pretty amusing.  Dragonheir: Silent Gods is, uh... A mobile game that's trying to sneak onto Steam for crossplatform release? The dev's western fantasy rework of Atlantica Online? It's an autobattler except you occasionally activate ultimates. All of the real work seems to be done in preparing for the fight before hand and positioning. Joker Rating: Common - On the one hand, I don't feel like it's so awful a game to play that it should really be in dumpster tier, but I spared you the other screenshots with 15 different systems and the cash shop being previewed in the demo, so on the other hand that first thought was probably my lingering sympathy for terrible KMMO grinds and gacha games. Screw this game. Jossar fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 01:47
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Fuligin posted:torchlight 3's on sale for 8 bucks... anyone played it enough to say whether it's as decent as the 2nd? I have a soft spot for the series but I'm not interested in being *completely* fleeced if it's a total trainwreck I haven't played it since launch, but I remember it being pretty bad. Really stuttery controls, lots of annoying gimmicks.
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Jun 23, 2023 01:54
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torchlight 3 on steam is a port of a p2w live service mobile game iirc complete with all the great mobile game features like realtime crafting timers that you originally had to pay realmoney to skip
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Jun 23, 2023 01:58
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Fuligin posted:torchlight 3's on sale for 8 bucks... anyone played it enough to say whether it's as decent as the 2nd? I have a soft spot for the series but I'm not interested in being *completely* fleeced if it's a total trainwreck I can't speak to it firsthand, but IIRC TL3 is a refit of a mobile game version and you can tell. I vaguely recall 1-2 interesting class ideas (Engineer placing down tracks for a train to move around the battlefield) but otherwise I've neither heard nor seen anything positive about it. e: beaten 
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Jun 23, 2023 01:58
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I enjoyed the Fortune's Run demo pretty well, crazy movement and weird melee is something I'm 100% for.
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Jun 23, 2023 02:05
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Cross-Section posted:Dunno if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon where a game that drops on PC Game Pass is actually an inferior version to the one released the same day on Steam because the day-one patch is still going through Microsoft cert lol
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Jun 23, 2023 02:13
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Demo Round Up Cross Blitz  Decent card battler game with a lot of potential. Smooth as silk, loading, clicking and button pushing which is unfortunately rarer than you'd expect. The writing is inoffensive but not compelling. The art work appealing. Contrary to previous posters this game does have a rogue-like mode but it isn't in the demo. Verdict: Wishlist upon further information Chronique des Silencieux  Oof. Immediately starts you staring at some of the worst English localisation I've ever seen. The game feels horrible to play, floaty even with a point and click interface. The character dialogue isn't a translation abomination but is in teeny tiny text boxes. The pacing is beyond slow taking forever to get to any action beyond moving and talking to people. There's UI screenshots on Steam page that make this look like it has potential, but I would only play this one if I were French and able to ignore how annoying the moment to moment game feel is. Verdict: Not wishlisted. (Maybe I'll check it out if someone says it's completely changed for the better) DAEMON MASQUERADE  I liked that the demo dumped a big pile of documents to sort through from the very start. I'm a little worried that quality of the mysteries won't be up to scratch but it's heart is in the right place. Certainly one of the more impressive Renpy implementations I've seen in a long time. Just pointing to documents to solve crimes feels more Ace Attorney than Obra Dinn to me and I'd prefer more Obra Dinn style games frankly. Verdict: Wishlisted This Bed We Made  A Frogwares Sherlock Holmes game except you're a maid in a hotel. I thought there'd be more deduction because I saw a cork-board in the trailer/screenshots. It isn't yours, unfortunately. Has room tidying mechanics which the steam page says has story consequences. Competently made, although weird that everyone speaks perfect unaccented English in a Montreal hotel. Verdict: I'll wishlist if I hear it's good fez_machine fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 03:34
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Rusty posted:Sometimes I feel like Game Pass devalues games. Like I just bough this game for more money than a month of GP costs, but at the same time I have no interest in GP. Not a big deal, but my brain has a hard time buying games that they offer as part of the service. At this point I just assume gamepass plays a role in Microsoft's overall developer acquisition strategy by devaluing games and IP so they can be snapped up.
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Jun 23, 2023 03:35
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fez_machine posted:Chronique des Silencieux Mmmm. I was on the fence about backing the Kickstarter for it, but now I'm going to cancel my pledge. I can always come back later and see if it's good.
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Jun 23, 2023 03:53
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Fuligin posted:torchlight 3's on sale for 8 bucks... anyone played it enough to say whether it's as decent as the 2nd? I have a soft spot for the series but I'm not interested in being *completely* fleeced if it's a total trainwreck The series went out so badly it's now owned by a Chinese company that farted out a mobile Torchlight gacha MMO.
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Jun 23, 2023 04:17
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Oh, yes, I do like the plasma rifle in the SS remake. It's too bad you only get to use it in the last two meatspace levels. I never did figure out how to open the door to leave Security. I just beat the game and it beggars belief that somebody looked at the boss level and said, yes, that's exactly what I wanted. Take away all the player's weapons and replace it with a slow firing single shot digital harpoon gun. Then we'll make them fight dodgy flying enemies. Perfect! Oh, wait, one more thing, we'll hide the player's health, but give them infinite lives. Yes, we have designed the perfect high tension boss battle. Ship it. Edit: It was really cool getting to see all the design elements that reached maturity in SS2 in their earlier forms. I'm really impressed by how many elements in SS2 were carried forward from SS1 but improved. Cameras, creepy npc dialogue, AI interactions, energy and inventory management. Audio logs. All already interesting mechanics were iterated and improved on. The SS2 twist must have been even more mindblowing for people who played the first one. Polito seems to just be Rebecca Lansing but on the VonBraun. When you finally discover who she really is... just wow. LLSix fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 04:21
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LLSix posted:Oh, yes, I do like the plasma rifle in the SS remake. It's too bad you only get to use it in the last two meatspace levels. I never did figure out how to open the door to leave Security. It's slightly higher effort than the original boss battle. Where you just flew around in cyberspace and shot a polygon that represented shodan.
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Jun 23, 2023 04:23
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Jarvisi posted:It's slightly higher effort than the original boss battle. Where you just flew around in cyberspace and shot a polygon that represented shodan. I honestly don't know if I'd prefer that or not. At least it'd be shorter. I completely understand what the developers were aiming for with they cyberspace levels. I too lived through the 80s. It's the best implemented version of the concept I've ever seen. And it's still my least favorite part of the game.
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Jun 23, 2023 04:27
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pentyne posted:The series went out so badly it's now owned by a Chinese company that farted out a mobile Torchlight gacha MMO. Torchlight: Infinite would almost be good if it didn't have the mobile bullshit. It rips off a lot of Path of Exile mechanics in a way that makes them a little more sane and palatable -- the skill modifier system is really cool
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Jun 23, 2023 04:37
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welp. rip torchlight i guess
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Jun 23, 2023 06:48
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Torchfart 3
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Jun 23, 2023 06:52
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This is just Torchlight coming full circle seeing as the first Torchlight was essentially a remake FATE, which was a data harvesting adware game way back in 2005 before mobile games were a thing 
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Jun 23, 2023 07:46
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deep dish peat moss posted:This is just Torchlight coming full circle seeing as the first Torchlight was essentially a remake FATE, which was a data harvesting adware game way back in 2005 before mobile games were a thing drat, now I wanna play FATE. I think its on steam for like 6 bucks. Who needs Diablo 4
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Jun 23, 2023 07:50
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LLSix posted:I just beat the game and it beggars belief that somebody looked at the boss level and said, yes, that's exactly what I wanted. Take away all the player's weapons and replace it with a slow firing single shot digital harpoon gun. Then we'll make them fight dodgy flying enemies. Perfect! Oh, wait, one more thing, we'll hide the player's health, but give them infinite lives. Yes, we have designed the perfect high tension boss battle. Ship it. I had such a miserable time with some of the cyberspace levels that by the time I got to the end sequence I was just glad it wasn't a harder one of those, which is what I was fully expecting. It still sucks but at least it sucks in a different way to some of the harder cyberspace sections. I know it's just the way that videogames have been designed for several decades, but I wish more games were brave enough to end with something other than a boss fight. They're so often bad. Has an end game boss fight ever added anything to an immersive sim?
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Jun 23, 2023 08:54
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Torchlight was never that good.
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Jun 23, 2023 09:47
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Bumhead posted:Has an end game boss fight ever added anything to an immersive sim? edit: removed a pissy post, sorry. Serephina fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 09:50
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Serephina posted:There's only like, less than a dozen games in that (loving awful of a name) genre, so ok sure let's list them. Hmmmm
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Jun 23, 2023 09:52
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Immersive Sims are almost always over-ambitious and it's understandable why more time would be spent on core mechanics rather than a final boss of some sort. EDIT: Actually. Streets of Rogue has a very well implemented final boss that actually utilizes the strengths of the immsim genre.
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Jun 23, 2023 09:54
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Cross-Section posted:Dunno if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon where a game that drops on PC Game Pass is actually an inferior version to the one released the same day on Steam because the day-one patch is still going through Microsoft cert lol This happened with Immortality, game launched both on Game Pass and Steam but Xbox/MS Store players had to wait a few days for the first patch that fixed progress-halting bugs, while it could get released very quickly on Steam.
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Jun 23, 2023 10:14
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Yeah, I specifically named the immersive sim genre just piggybacking off the System Shock example and because it's a genre where bad boss fights usually stand out more aggressively compared to the previous hours of gameplay. To be honest I think most end game boss fights are bad irrespective of genre.
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Jun 23, 2023 10:36
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Bumhead posted:Yeah, I specifically named the immersive sim genre just piggybacking off the System Shock example and because it's a genre where bad boss fights usually stand out more aggressively compared to the previous hours of gameplay. JRPG last bosses tend to be pretty good. They can go on forever but usually there's no puzzle gimmick and they ramp up the aesthetics to ridiculous levels. Half Life 2 remains the GOAT on how to end a game. Just give you a huge upgrade for one of your primary mechanics and let you go to town. Fighting games probably have the worst last bosses. Usually fighting game AI is dogshit to begin with so when they try to make the last fight hard the best they can get to is "annoying as hell".
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Jun 23, 2023 10:46
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Bumhead posted:Yeah, I specifically named the immersive sim genre just piggybacking off the System Shock example and because it's a genre where bad boss fights usually stand out more aggressively compared to the previous hours of gameplay. Sorry, that was a poo poo post. I still like and appreciate the SS1 Shodan fight as it's what's the game has all been leading up to, and bypasses the whole "How good/powerful is the player, how much ammo have they been hoarding?" by making you do thematically appropriate minigame instead.
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Jun 23, 2023 10:54
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Bumhead posted:Yeah, I specifically named the immersive sim genre just piggybacking off the System Shock example and because it's a genre where bad boss fights usually stand out more aggressively compared to the previous hours of gameplay. Having an awkward attempt at a final boss in an Immersive sim, is still better than an action game having a final boss that is a just quicktime event.
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Jun 23, 2023 12:06
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goferchan posted:Torchlight: Infinite would almost be good if it didn't have the mobile bullshit. It rips off a lot of Path of Exile mechanics in a way that makes them a little more sane and palatable -- the skill modifier system is really cool Alas, if only all games did even that well...  Continuing on the theme of "all new Survivors games cannot have the slightest drop of originality, but must be Vampire Survivors + X", we have Path of Survivors, which is just Vampire Survivors + the Path of Exile passive skill tree. The game gives you a million passive bonuses to upgrade mid-run for both your current character and all characters globally, in addition to the actual passive tree, equipment, skills, etc. and most importantly... does not auto-pause the game for you when you go to these screens. Also, most of the pop up messages informing you of what you selected stay on the screen for way too long. Joker Rating: Foil - About as generic, but bad, as this could be without being truly trash. If you're willing to deal with its idiosyncrasies you could have an okay-ish game, but even among PoE ripoffs there are better things to choose from. Jossar fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 12:46
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I appreciate the effort gone into writing those posts, but maybe we don't need reviews of lovely shovelware ripoffs, doubly so if they're bad. edit: Like, Steam's discovery queue and all that jazz is already pretty overwhelming, I'd love it if we talked about stuff we liked and where excited about instead of just moving steam's endless spam of crap into this thread. Serephina fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 12:53
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Shrug, there is value in saying "Hey X sucks don't waste your time" because a decent number of people seem to be trying a lot of demos. But yea don't need to go full on effort post if the game is just pure garbage
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Jun 23, 2023 13:01
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Jossar posted:Alas, if only all games did even that well... Oh my god it's using the Duelyst assets  
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Jun 23, 2023 13:07
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For those of you still on the fence, I am here to report that Anime Hitler Harem fails to match even my lowest expectations..
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Jun 23, 2023 13:12
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My goal is to review everything I play for NextFest, but this time I am trying to only play things that at least look vaguely interesting to me. Meaning that anything that made it this far had to at least appear convincing enough to overcome my crap filter and might sucker in people of a similar temperament to myself if left unnoted. In that sense, as Sab says, it is at least a partially useful service. My taste in games can be pretty bad sometimes, though. I also worry that the alternative of recommending only the games I thought were really good stops people from finding things that just didn't resonate well with me but they might like if they tried themselves. But I suppose I could be a little more selective on the stuff at the truly bottom of the pile, which I am confident that no one will like.
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Jun 23, 2023 13:25
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I enjoyed Torchlight 1 and 2 so bought 3 on sale thinking maybe everyone hated it because they hated the earlier ones too. But no, 3 really felt half-baked, like it needed a few more months to make a fun game. Very disappointing and best avoided.
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Jun 23, 2023 14:36
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I actually put 24 hours into Torchlight 3 which is not much less than I put into both 1 and 2 each; I'm not going to say it's good but it had some interesting ideas. I liked the concept of your class coming with two trees and then you pick from a common pool of Relics, which act as a generic third tree. In theory it lends itself to a unique style of customization (in practice I suspect X class is best off with Y relic). But, IIRC, the number of skill options in any given tree was extremely limited so yea, half-baked is probably the most apt description I can think of as well. Too bad, because the Train Conductor engineer guy was a really unique take on the Pet Class archetype.
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Jun 23, 2023 14:47
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Celeste code for anyone who wants to suffer since I got the humble pixel pride bundle and I already have celeste: Edit: already claimed mystes fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 15:05
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| # ? May 28, 2024 00:36 |
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Why is the Sonic Origins Plus expansion $10.99 and not the $9.99 as advertised?
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Jun 23, 2023 15:52
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