Steam Megathread: Stop being boomers! *adds 10 boomer shooters to cart*

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Steam Megathread: Stop being boomers! *adds 10 boomer shooters to cart*

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

StrixNebulosa posted:

Anyone in here played the Atelier series? What's the best one to start with?

e: From my research it seems to be Sophie due to being cheap + no time limit, but heck, what's the goon-sensus?

From cheetah7071 in the RPG Thread:

cheetah7071 posted:

What the heck's an Atelier? A megapost for copying/pasting whenever someone asks that, as requested a few pages back before the current discussion started

Atelier is a series of JRPGs released roughly yearly with (as of this post) 21 mainline entries and a dozen spinoffs. The best words to describe the mood of (most of) the games are "cute" and "chill". They almost exclusively have low stakes like "stop the government from eminent domain-ing my small business" or "don't get fired from my job". You (almost always) play as a young woman starting her career as an alchemist. What this means in game terms is crafting. Lots and lots of crafting. You craft your own weapons and armor, you craft bombs to throw at the enemies, you craft healing items, you craft everything. The trend in modern games is to have the crafting be a fully-realized puzzle minigame where the outcome is shaped by the exact details of the items you put in. Besides the crafting, the gameplay is fairly standard turn-based JRPG fare, often with a subfocus on exploration. Some of the older games also have a time management component, of varying levels of difficulty. The games are also known for having kickass soundtracks and heavy lesbian undertones.

Most of the games are linked to each other in trilogies (or the occasional duology or quadrilogy). Generally speaking, you don't need to play a trilogy in order--they're designed to be playable individually (with varying levels of success). The series started on the original Playstation but it wasn't until the PS2 that the games started getting localized. The PS2 games are also huge outliers; in the PS3 era the series returned to its roots and the PS3 games are much more similar to the PS1 games than they are to the PS2 games. This means that the PS3 era is the start of the "modern" Atelier series. Thus, rather than talk about the series in chronological order, I'm going to talk about the modern games first and then go back to the older games.

Arland Quadrilogy (PS3/Vita/PC/PS4/Switch for the first three; PC/PS4/Switch for Lulua)

Atelier Rorona: A wholesome, charming game about an apprentice alchemist saving her master's failing business from being bought out. This game is a very laid-back, relaxed experience if you just want to get to the end and make some anime friends, but a very frantic experience if you want to make all the anime friends because there's a time limit. That time limit is extremely generous to just complete the game, but extremely tight if you want to 100% it. Also, content warning, there are a few scenes that are uncomfortably horny about underage characters. Also apparently the PS3 version is terrible and you should never play it. This is one of my recommended entry points to the series.

Atelier Totori: This game dials back the charm compared to Rorona, but in exchange has a heartfelt story about family. This game has in my opinion the second-best writing in the series. It's a bit janky though--when Rorona got ported, it got a bunch of quality of life updates, whereas Totori is a straight port, so it's the oldest-feeling of the modern games. It also has the tightest time limit of any of the modern games, and is the only one where a careful player faces a realistic chance of failure. Consulting a guide or asking for help is recommended.

Atelier Meruru: This game has a sort of frantic energy to it. You play as a princess using alchemy to provide infrastructure to her kingdom. The new characters besides Meruru herself are all pretty boring but it brings back all the favorites from Rorona and Totori. This game has a similar time limit to Totori but is a bit easier so there's less risk of failure. Also Rorona is inexplicably turned into an eight year old in this game, a move which nobody liked.

Atelier Lulua: This game came out a decade after Meruru and is a long form apology for what they did to Rorona in it. Rorona is now in her 30s and is a mom, and you play as her daughter. The game is written as a slapstick comedy and the first half has some great cinematograpy contributing to the comedic timing (before they realized that doing that for the entire game would run them way over budget). This game does not have a time limit.

Dusk Trilogy (PS3/Vita, soon to be PC/PS4/Switch)

Atelier Ayesha: This game wins my award for best-written Atelier. The game is in turns cute, heartwarming, funny, and deeply moving. You play as a young woman going on an adventure to learn alchemy in order to save her sister. This game can be a bit confusing at times on how to proceed and has a time limit, so I recommend using a guide if you ever find yourself stuck on what to do next. This is one of my recommended entry points to the series

Atelier Escha and Logy: This is another fan-favorite for its lovable cast. You play as two alchemists starting their career in government work. This game has a time limit but failure isn't very realistic.

Atelier Shallie: I don't even know how to summarize the story of this one. Tbh I don't like it all that much, it felt too much like it was trying to rely on the appeal of the previous Dusk games while not having anything worthwhile of its own, or a very good understanding of what made them great in the first place.

Mysterious Trilogy (PS4/Vita/PC; L&S is on the Switch as well)

Atelier Sophie: A young woman begins to learn alchemy under the instruction of a talking book who is her future wife. Unfortunately for her, her village is filled with only boring people for her to be friends with. Fortunately for her, new, less boring people move in eventually

Atelier Firis: An open world Atelier. You can really tell that all the development effort in this game went into doing their best to make an open world game, and the rest suffers for it. I personally think they pulled it off, but everybody else on the planet thinks this is the worst Atelier by a mile.

Atelier Lydie and Suelle: A return to form, this game feels like it could have been in the Arland trilogy, writing-wise. It has a lovable, colorful cast of characters and probably the best gameplay in the series to-date. This is one of my recommended entry points to the series.

Secret (?) Trilogy (?) (PS4/PC/Switch)

Atelier Ryza: This game is a story about a young woman in a rural town coming of age and finding her place in the world. The story leans a bit more traditional JRPG, with linear story beats and a more typical save-the-world framing (though there's still plenty of Atelier-style low-stakes stuff to go along with it). The combat system is also decidedly unchill, and demands quick thinking to succeed. This is one of my recommended entry points to the series

Iris Trilogy (PS2)

Atelier Iris: I haven't played this game since I was a teen but it's probably boring and bad

Atelier Iris 2: I have replayed this game so I know it's boring and bad

Atelier Iris 3: This game has charming-but-boring writing, but an unusually engaging battle system.

Mana Khemia Duology (PS2)

Mana Khemia: I'm the only Atelier fan who doesn't like this game so it must be doing something good. Play it maybe, and then tell me why I'm wrong for not liking it

Mana Khemia 2: I have not played this game.

Other stuff

Atelier Marie: The very first Atelier, available to play via a fan patch for the PS2 version. The entire game is time management.

Atelier Elie: The second Atelier, available to play also via fan patch. It seems to be Marie but better.

Atelier Annie: A DS game and officially considered a spinoff, though gameplaywise it seems to be basically mainline. Unfortunately, that gameplay is trash. It's a shame too because the writing is legitimately funny.

Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists: This is a crossover game. It is not a mainline Atelier, it is a spinoff. The genre is townbuilder, not JRPG. Don't play it unless you've played so many Ateliers that you'll recognize a good number of the crossover characters

# ¿ Jan 2, 2020 14:52

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 09:53

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

The Joe Man posted:

Someone should make a music thread.

there's a music thread in pyf

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3864325

# ¿ Jan 9, 2020 14:55

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

anilEhilated posted:

Any idea when they reveal the Humble Choice for the next month? I thought it would be today.

First Friday of the month is what I found when I went looking earlier.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2020 20:53

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

Prokhor posted:

I think game preview is how game pass marks out early access games?

Correct

# ¿ Feb 20, 2020 21:37

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

Hwurmp posted:

allow me to re-re-re-re-recommend AI: The Somnium Files and 428 Shibuya Scramble

AI: Somnium Files is on sale for half off right now.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2020 23:02

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

Kennel posted:

https://www.siliconera.com/japans-favorite-final-fantasy-game-according-to-nhks-grand-poll-is-final-fantasy-x/

Rinoa has a dog launcher and isn't on this list? Seems bad.

# ¿ May 4, 2020 15:13

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

Please stop quoting the bad post. Thank you. I've pinged the mods and did what I could (6-hour probation) for the moment.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2020 15:40

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

The last time I preloaded a game I think it was Portal 2 and they ended up unlocking it about 10 hours early with the ARG, which was super fun.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2020 16:31

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

I'm very dumb about this kind of stuff but are the NVidia issues the kind of thing that could be fixed with driver updates too?

# ¿ Aug 7, 2020 17:52

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

Relax Or DIE posted:

remnant barely has loot or interesting character progression. It's not a bad game but I would not go to it looking for a loot fix.

I'm probably only going to play it with friends

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 03:10

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

Huh thinkin' about Mechanicus now.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2020 02:39

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

explosivo posted:

I watched a few hours of someone playing it on stream and it looks pretty good. I played the hell out of those old EA games and i see a lot of similarities here. Definitely interested but dunno about $60 interested.

I picked it up because I love golf games. It's very much The Golf Club from previous years in terms of actual golfing mechanics -- it's very solid (gamepad stick or mouse back then forward style swinging) so far, but fairly difficult. I think that it's a function of being a brand new character. All of the course creation tools and stuff are here and user-created courses and some pretty good filtering tools.

It seems like the 2k stuff is fairly standard 2k stuff -- all sorts of customization options and progression. There's a decent bit of the old Tiger Woods game style gear upgrading going on, it seems. How far and fast that treadmill is really difficult to say, but I've gained my first few levels by playing a single 9-hole round, so it seems fairly generous early on at least.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2020 04:24

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

Cowcaster posted:

is that just that most people are playing on consoles though? and do fighting games these days typically include crossplay? it just doesn't seem to square up that a dead genre would be generating gigantic sponsored esports tournaments and twitch streams every two weeks

And when there isn't a giant event those games never have any notable viewerships, I think esports (especially fighting games for a number of reasons) are just really popular.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2022 17:19

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

PlushCow posted:

I do a Now Playing (installed) / To Play / Uninstalled easy!

I do this and strictly limit my now playing because I'd just sample the first hour of everything and never finish a game otherwise.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2022 15:47

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 09:53

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

Stux posted:

really every fps should only need me to use rocket, lg and rail and i can then bind those to q, e and r respectively

rly says a lot that you're a wasd fake gamer and not a esdf true gamer

# ¿ Nov 7, 2022 21:54

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Steam Megathread: Stop being boomers! *adds 10 boomer shooters to cart*