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Dec 16, 2022 23:47
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who adored the Haligtree generally and the city at the base especially. Even now the run from the first grace to the one behind the Princess Bride castle courtyard scene is something I'll do just for fun to try out new weapons or builds or to top off my runes without getting bored shooting the bird.
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Dec 19, 2022 04:37
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Tosk posted:Is there any way that links to past editions of the thread could be included in the OP? After everyone posts their lists I like to come through and grab a whole bunch of games I would never hear about otherwise, and I'm sure there's plenty of material from the last few years that I either forgot about or never knew existed to begin with They are! The images at the bottom of the 2nd post with the past winners also link to those threads.
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Dec 20, 2022 22:56
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If I can beat Elden Ring, anybody can. The whole difficulty thing is marketing, I mean the games aren't EASY but even the difficult fights are manageable and more critically the difficulty doesn't come from making the fights 15 minutes long and "full combo does 1% of boss' first healthbar" that are massively demoralizing if you make a single mistake in the back half. Margit picked up me up and wrung me out for a solid hour but I certainly learned the lesson ("This ain't DS1 motherfucker") about what is to come that he's there to teach lol. Worldbuilding, level design, and character customization has always been what makes people insane Souls sickos as I think a lot of these lists are proving.
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Dec 22, 2022 21:00
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Subjunctive posted:This is encouraging, since I’m early on in Elden Ring as reading this thread practically forced it on me. It’s my first Souls or Soulslike game, and I’m getting my poo poo wrecked in a wide variety of ways as I learn things like “break lock-on to run away” and “you can chain attacks”. I’m really enjoying it, but fearing a bit that I’ll hit a wall and never experience the game fully. Congrats! Finally besting a particularly hard boss is the best feeling. It's both the hardest and easiest depending on what you do, just invest in vigor until it's 30 or so and you'll be fine as it's the "how many mistakes can I make" stat. A lot of the trouble people have with the genre to start out with is they're either rolling too soon, too late, or too much. Figure out which one is you, then stop doing that. Elden Ring thankfully doesn't really have those walls. If you're getting annihilated you can just gently caress off and do some dungeons for a bit, get stronger, and come back with more vigor+upgraded weapon+better feel for the weapon. One thing you can do is go into a boss and just try to survive as long as you can without attacking to learn its patterns in whatever phase is giving you grief. Other hacks include beating your head against a boss, going to bed, then beating it first try the next day (usually hitless), or complaining about the boss on the internet then beating it next try. The latter also works for rare drops. Keeping lock on when running away is a taste thing. I prefer to see the thing I'm running from even if it does mean I run head first into a distressing amount of fatal drops or trees. Keep posting in the Elden Ring thread! Nothing a grizzled Souls vet loves more than following along with someone's first playthrough, I definitely wish I could Men in Black mind wipe myself and play it fresh again. I don't think anybody is going to be surprised by my own GOTY
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Dec 22, 2022 21:34
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a kitten posted:14) Getting frustratingly stuck on a boss. But, due to the dual power of complaining on the internet combined with just taking a break, coming home from work and winning in a complete state of gamer zen People think this bit is an exaggeration from From cultists but its incredible how often it works. You get your rear end kicked for hours but next day you wake up with Malekith Brain or whatever unlocked now that the knowledge has had time to move from your brain to your muscles and you're an anime protagonist next time up.
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Dec 23, 2022 21:08
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Don't for one minute worry that people have run out of things to say about Elden Ring. The last post in this thread is probably going to be a whole paragraph about the Siofra Well descent.
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Dec 25, 2022 17:11
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Wittgen posted:Holy poo poo there's a new game from the West of Loathing people? Does it have spittoons? Yeah it basically dropped out of nowhere lol, the spittoon bit has been upgraded. If you liked the first you'll like this one.
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Dec 27, 2022 00:09
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Regy Rusty posted:Since Citizen Sleeper is getting a decent amount of attention in this thread, may I suggest to anyone who enjoyed it that they check out the developer's previous game In Other Waters. I was literally the only person who put it on my top 10 list in 2020 so I'm glad to see his latest game getting more attention. Oh that was their other one? I'll second In Other Waters as well then, been slowly working through it on my Switch and it's very novel and interesting, I'd especially recommend it to anybody who would've liked Subnautica if it was just exploration and a relatively straightforward plot with none of the perilous depths and monsters. Leans really heavy on the theater of the mind (which you'd guess from the screenshots) which I adore. It's very likely going to end up on my own list, if only because Elden Ring consumed me such that it appears I hardly played anything this year lol
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Dec 28, 2022 17:49
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I have enjoyed how some games like Terraria, Dead Cells, and Stardew have become just incredible value for the money because the devs for whatever reason are just addicted to updating them constantly, like dad rock bands on their 11th farewell tour but in video game form.
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Dec 29, 2022 20:46
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I've accepted that I'm not going to finish the last two games in time to see if they make my list so next year they go. Not to spoil anything about my list but I keep reading this thread and seeing Elden Ring and my brain goes, "gosh, wouldn't it be fun to play some more Elden Ring?"
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Dec 31, 2022 01:08
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Right, okay here it is HONORABLE MENTIONS Vampire Survivors - I get it, it's fun as hell, it's the 2nd most perfect podcast game ever made after Snowrunner. I didn't like it as much as others but I feel it deserves recognition because at long drat last the game design psychologists used their training for good rather than evil, and the best part is that the "low price, no mtx" is mandatory for any of the numerous clones to copy because it's become a staple of the genre gamers expect. I continue to play, and enjoy it, but it doesn't have any hooks in me. Maybe soon. Shadows over Loathing - Sequel out of nowhere with no warning to a game I also played and loved this year. It's everything you loved about the first and more, it'd probably be on the list but I'm probably not going to actually beat it until I can do so on my Switch because it's a great lunch break game. In Other Waters - About halfway through this one but it's very good and unique, and when I learned this was the first game from the studio that gave us Citizen Sleeper I wasn't too surprised, but it gave me a bit of extra happiness to see people putting that on their lists. The game is a UI and exists largely in the theater of the mind, but if you like that sort of thing or just would've liked Subnautica if only it didn't have such perilous depths and scary monsters, check it out. Wildermyth - Played this with some friends in co-op and very much enjoyed the too-easy tutorial campaign. We decided to put it down and wait for 1.0 when we got out of that and the difficulty ramped up to like 11, and we decided to move over to a new game than do the less fun but probably intended thing of having more party members than players. Real potential here. Pentiment - Haven't finished it yet because this thread keeps making me want to play Elden Ring, but it's very clearly going to be a high ranking one for next year. I remember after Disco Elysium came out Sawyer, noted goon, said that it figured out a lot of stuff that had been issues in the quest to make an excellent narrative game, so I was really excited to see what his next project would be. I'm glad to not be disappointed and I'm glad we're entering an era where big studios and big names will be allowed to experiment with just not having unfun combat at all just because they think the audience expects it. Snowrunner - The GOAT audiobook game keeps getting updates baby, this consumed my January as I 100%'d the Don region but I'm already behind like 2 expacs. I'll get to it, truckin' and fuckin' is eternal. 10) The Xbox Series S + Game Pass I'm not gonna lie and say I spent hours tormenting myself on the listing ranks here, but this unusual pick which you are free to disregard Rarity is one I just felt deserved to be on here. The only console I've owned since the PS2 was my Switch, but earlier this year I was wanting to spend more time gaming from my living room couch because it's so much easier for my elderly dog to hang out with me there, but to be frank I don't console game enough to justify dropping serious bank. So I was looking into this, saw it was not only in stock down the street but also had a special running where they'd just give me Elden Ring for free. I had enough in my "laptop's dyin' Cloud" fund to buy it outright because hell, what's a 2nd platinum for Elden Ring? About 6 months later and it's probably among the purchases I made this year that I'm happiest with. Half the games I played this year were on this through Game Pass, and it revitalized co-op nights with my buds because it's just one cheap monthly payment to have loads of co-op games to pick from and people can play from their PC or console and it doesn't matter. Everything looks amazing unless it falls into one of the two downsides - no 4k, no disk drive. I don't have a 4k TV tho, and while it sucks not being able to rent games from the library, well Game Pass is just as good. Also the controller is the best one for PC gaming and comes included! If you're wanting a console but aren't a Console Gamer this is the best deal in town until the Switch Pro comes out in 2028. 9) Tinykin A fun romp that really nails what it's going for. Enjoyed it immensely from start to finish, zipping around on a soap bar and solving puzzles just challenging enough for my caveman brain in what is one of the best implementations of an incredibly vertical level design I've played. 8) Frog Detective 3/Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery Wholesome, sweet, and fun game series that saw its final chapter release this year. Relatively bite-sized affairs that will leave you smiling. Whole collection is on Game Pass (PC) 7) West of Loathing No clue how it took me so long to try this but I really, really enjoyed this and believe it's a master class is how to make a funny game that is actually funny AND keeps you wanting to see what's around the next corner. Magic is unapologetically busted as is often the case in, well, most games but the other ones are probably pretty busted to. It's fun and not a combat game so it works, it's about the world you're exploring and the people in it and it doesn't disappoint. 6) Raft The only non-GamePass co-op game our group played this year but it's very good. One I've been following since early alpha so I came into 1.0 with like 150 hours but still enjoying every minute of it. You start out with yourself (and friends if you like), a hook to catch scrap that floats by, 4 foundation squares, and a dream. You float and build your raft and keep yourselves alive and equipped until you find and navigate to a plot setpiece, all of which are great so far, spend a couple hours exploring every nook and cranny, then repeat. 5) Graveyard Keeper Didn't expect to like this one as much as I did, but it's irreverent and proudly unserious with a whole lot of really satisfying crafting loops and a shitload of stuff to do with absolutely zero timers. I probably would've hated this game without zombies to automate things, and I was late in getting them set up because I figured it'd be a lot more work than it turned out to be. My church and graveyard were bare minimums and I ignored the traditional combat dungeon levels and still got a solid 50 hours out of this. Switch performance is what I'd describe as "okay", not great at parts and frame drop-prone, but not so egriously or uniquely Switch bad that I ever though it might not just be the game itself struggling under the load of the monstrosities I have built which is a genre feature ala Forager. 4) Dysmantle I was looking for some background noise videos and one of my go-tos had a full playthrough of this, so I figured why not? I have no idea what the hell this game is but it looks interesting enough. I then watched two videos, decided I'm in, and played it instead. About 60 hours later I put it down, having done everything, to wait for the DLC, which came out recently for the Switch and was also very fun. In many ways it's a very simple game - destroy everything around you for materials and experience, use those to make yourself more powerful and give yourself more stuff you can do. In other ways, it's deeply strange - it's got more Souls mechanics than you'd expect (enemy respawn, bonfires, lock on and dodge rolling, items get charges that refresh at bonfire) that amazingly all make you wonder why nobody else thought of this before because they work so well. The tone varies between tongue in cheek and genuinely odd like the cinematic train rides complete with musical accompaniment out of nowhere, and there's always something to do even if you aren't sure what to do. 3) Grounded Another game our co-op group played and loved loved loved, and naturally we started and finished before the traditional "here's all the QoL and balancing stuff this game obviously needed but we couldn't get in before launch" 1.1 patch so it's doubtless even more fun and less grindy now. The aesthetic is good and perfectly executed, it's fun throughout, you really feel in real danger even when you're essentially an NFL linebacker in heavy armor and shield+spear like I turned Willow into, the base building is very fun and building itself is something that extends into combat and exploration itself (more than once we looked at a big platforming challenge and instead decided to build a huge and dangerous shambling tower of half walls), it's got charm through the roof, and perfectly encapsulates the sort of vibe of Honey I Shrunk the Kids and 90's kids movies. The map is big and there's stuff everywhere, and the sense of satisfaction once you get a big zipline network up and running is enormous. It's very much unlike my mom's brussels sprouts! 2) Dark Souls Remastered So I am among many here, I suspect, in that this year was the first year I actually sat down and tried a Souls game after years of making fun of it for no other reason than it'd bother people. Not even trying before and bouncing, just sort of assuming that as a huge moron who is bad at games that it wasn't for me. Then I saw hasanabi beat it, and I said to myself, "if he can beat it then so can I" and so I loaded up on str/vit/end and grabbed the biggest sword I found and started out on my voyage to discover that my default playstyle for all games is actually one of the most fun ways to play this series. The peripheral systems like estus flasks and stuff like being able to just suicide run to pick something up as the flip side of losing consumables you spend in a failed attempt, and countless other things made me stop and say "good lord, they solved this 10 years ago, why aren't more devs doing this?" The greatest tragedy is that I discovered my love of Souls co-op (sunbro life!) about 3 hours before all the online got shut down, right before I was entering Sen's Fortress. I put it down for a bit to hopefully wait it out, but as ER approached I decided to complete it. Thanks to a lucky Black Knight Sword drop I captain caveman'd my way through everything and was loving loving loving every minute of it. The slow, deliberate pace of combat and rewards for going absolutely apeshit when it's Apeshit Time combined with the tremendous build variety were exactly what I didn't realize I needed this whole time, and let me tell you the difficulty is marketing. It ain't EASY but it is fair, you can figure it out and you can solve it and eventually a boss will click and you'll just pick them up and wring them out while laughing as they helplessly flail and let me tell you it is the greatest feeling when it happens. Magic is kind of okay until it becomes stupidly broken, it's the best game in the series for heavy armor sword and board freaks like me, there's no party members or hangers on constantly chattering and telling you what to do, every NPC feels like they're on their own quest that doesn't involve you unless you go out of your way to become a part of it, the level and world design are unmatched even to this day. It's been a long time since a game has felt like it really opened my eyes but by the time I had finished I finally GOT IT when people talk about Souls games. 1) Elden Ring  DA KING BABY! A game that had as much hype and expectation as could've been possible and it not only met those expectations, but blew through them to hard and fast that every other open world game that was probably coming out that year got delayed to 2023, hopefully so they can copy huge chunks of what they've done here. A lot of words have been spent on this but what stands out to me most about my first playthrough is the incredible spectacle of Radahn (and mind breaking difficulty of the fight at release) and Mr Snake Man, the feeling of spending 20 hours exploring this whole rear end landmass only to find a trapped chest that teleports you to a part of the map so far away you realize you're still in the backwaters of nowhere and have a long way to go, the Siofra Well elevator of course blew my mind, the incredible build variety all of which are perfectly viable, the 10,000 QoL stuff they implemented like the stakes and torrent and a jump button and powerstancing and weapon arts and Margit telling me "this ain't DS1 anymore" before zipping around like a ninja maniac before humiliating me and and and This game completely consumed me for the first month and since then I've been playing it nonstop in addition to whatever else because there's still whole new ways to work through it that I haven't even touched after 500+ hours between my Series S and PC. 10 years from now I'll probably still be booting this game up to have a go, or playing the seamless co-op with friends, or maybe a randomizer, or whatever mods the very active community has come up with. I mentioned that DSR made me fall in love with the sunbro life of doing a lot of my leveling by putting down my sign to help a fellow player out when they need it, and this has been so expanded and streamlined in ER as to be unbelievable. No going human, no having to camp a boss door with your sign, all of that's gone. Touch the effigy, and when you activate your own that place is now somewhere your sign will be dropped automatically. Go on about your day until you see the message pop up that you're being summoned, then get the "You're Beautiful!" prattling pate ready. On one character I was being summoned to Castle Morne essentially nonstop from level 20 to 50, each time I helped someone who was struggling to finally find victory and teach them some tips and tricks in the process. It's enormously satisfying, and something you cannot really experience like you can when one of these games is brand spankin' new. It's surging right now as you'd expect, and will again when DLC is released. If you're on the fence, jump in! Easy list: 10) The XBox Series S + Game Pass 9) Tinykin 8) Frog Detective 3 7) West of Loathing 6) Raft 5) Graveyard Keeper 4) Dysmantle 3) Grounded 2) Dark Souls Remastered 1) Elden Ring
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Dec 31, 2022 22:08
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Skjorte posted:2. Disco Elysium (Steam) Buddy I'm so thirsty for Disco-likes of any type that I'm even waiting on Clam Man 2 to release. It essentially created a whole new genre that its fans are ravenous for more of, just look at how Pentiment and Citizen Sleeper have been hoovered up, it's gonna blow out God of War Ragnarok here lol. Mash dat buttan Epic High Five fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Dec 31, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2022 22:49
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fridge corn posted:I think elden ring might have a shot at winning this year  it's gonna hit the buffer overflow and end up as the worst game in history
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Jan 1, 2023 01:34
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I played the demo of Triangle Strategy and I'll admit my response to seeing it so often here was "oh, a game eventually started happening after all? Nice." Being on Game Pass or PS+ seems to be a huge boon for smaller or indie stuff
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Jan 1, 2023 18:50
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Feels Villeneuve posted:i think that a good test for Tristrat is if you hear the opening narration about the fictional political ramifications of the salt trade and are the type of person who goes "oh hell yeah" As a mega commie I was pumping my fist but the start is very, very slow and as someone coming with a "maybe now one of these games will stick" it was a poor demo because until now I was absolutely confident that question was answered
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Jan 1, 2023 19:06
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Souls clones mostly just dont get it. They'll try to ape the mechanics and combat but even if they nail that, they stick you in a long corridor with an annoying narrator. Level design and art direction is probably the biggest part of what makes the games work
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Jan 1, 2023 19:08
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Feels Villeneuve posted:i'm with the person up thread who likes their combat fast and twitchy so I have never gotten into Souls and its very deliberate combat I bought Sekiro on sale just a couple weeks ago. It's on sale right now!
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Jan 1, 2023 20:08
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like 75% of my list washed at the start, gonna be a bad year for ol' EHF seeing some yellow quotes before any big reveals
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Jan 7, 2023 19:36
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I turned my monitor back on, sorry about that
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Jan 7, 2023 20:26
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Jerusalem posted:I love how some of the quotes are just bizarre divorced of context. I like to think every game nomination had somebody grumbling about centrists It is the year we got Victoria 3
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Jan 7, 2023 20:53
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They fixed Cyberpunk by moving the timeline forward 5000 years
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Jan 7, 2023 21:40
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Please don't praise shame, Rarity
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Jan 7, 2023 21:52
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I'd be amazed, then disappointed, if there wasn't actually a Kirby-themed Doom WAD by now
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Jan 7, 2023 21:57
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I'm doing another replay this year now that enough time has passed so very good chance it still gets #1 nods 11 months from now 
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Jan 7, 2023 22:04
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I bounced hard off it but my buddy said it's actually fun if you make yourself invincible so you don't have to engage with the combat so I'm going to try that when I give it another shot
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Jan 7, 2023 22:34
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I've had 1 left on my list since Tinykin lol edit - it's Elden Ring
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Jan 7, 2023 22:35
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All remaining points have been distributed to Disco Elysium, congrats on yet another record smashed by this out of nowhere narrative game!
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Jan 7, 2023 22:43
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Rarity posted:Never bet on wrestling and GOTY I've got 50 bucks riding on Wrestling Empire making the top 5, you saying I was dumb???
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Jan 7, 2023 23:00
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:If Jerma had done his Hatsune Miku Wrestling Empire episode last month the game woulda had a chance Many people are saying this
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Jan 7, 2023 23:02
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Jerusalem posted:Pokemon beat up Kratos Dadnarock thought defeating gods by trying to become their friends was its purpose. It merely adopted it. Pokemon was born in it, molded by it. It didn't see a 3rd dimension until it was already an industry standard.
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Jan 7, 2023 23:09
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6 is divisible by 3, it makes a lot more sense for Triangle Strategy than 5
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Jan 7, 2023 23:15
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TRPG sickos have been thirsting for a 2D HD game style that is actually fun to play since Octopath. Triangle Strategy is like a drug to them, a sick fix for degenerates
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Jan 7, 2023 23:16
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I'll get to Triangle eventually, but I've gotta play FFT first and that's a ways off. It being about mundane stuff instead of boring high fantasy is very appealing to me as a huge commie, but the demo didn't grab me as someone who just plays X-COM: UFO Defense again if I get the TRPG itch
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Jan 7, 2023 23:21
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The DQ11 demo is something ridiculous like 12 hours long, anyway it really picks up when you get to the desert city whose name I forget and how long it is until it appears I've also forgotten, but it's not too long. The thing I like best about it is that it feels almost designed to beat in bursts over the course of 2 years
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Jan 7, 2023 23:22
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susan b buffering posted:the written summary of what's currently going on in the story when you load the game is ftw I swear it gets more detailed the longer its been since you loaded it up
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Jan 7, 2023 23:25
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Pentiment is doing insanely well for being what it is on top of releasing like 2 weeks before voting started
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Jan 7, 2023 23:35
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Jay Rust posted:Recency bias…. Quite a few entries wishing recency bias was a lot more powerful that it's proving to be this year
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Jan 7, 2023 23:37
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Games making you cry is cool now. Don't be some kind of nerd who tries to play stoic during and after the Working Class Woman quest
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Jan 7, 2023 23:56
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 17:05 |
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Time for the yearly tradition of enough people finally picking up DQ11 for this year on the strength of the recommendations here to ensure it places in 2023 as well!
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Jan 7, 2023 23:59
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