What Video Games Have You Been Playing, Part 10: Or; A Shameful Display!

[hobbsyoyo]

Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

I'm a fan of the Paper Mario games and Super Mario RPG so I was excited to try this new spinoff series. This is my first time playing a Mario and Luigi game and unfortunately I'm not super thrilled with it. I only marginally liked the optional time-based gameplay mechanics of the Paper Mario/RPG games, whereas Mario and Luigi games are apparently built around those mechanics entirely.

In Super Mario RPG, you could press a single button at the correct moment to add a bit of extra oomph to an attack or block a bad guy. Paper Mario built on that with more elaborate button combinations and then Mario and Luigi made that the central thesis of the game. In those older games, most of the time-based gameplay is optional, whereas in Mario and Luigi games, you can't win any battles without it.

There is an easy mode that widens the time window for actions and I think I'll use it.

The story also sucks, but in fairness to Nintendo it's never been spectacular in any of their Mario role-playing franchises. Where those games do shine is in their dialogue, which is always clever and very funny. Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is a big letdown in this aspect which is kind of shocking and overall I'm disastisfied with this game. I'm chugging along now, hoping it will get more fun to play. I don't want to give up on it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Has anyone played the new Kingdom Hearts? There was a burst of hype around it on Reddit but then it seems to have fallen off the radar. I'm not sure if I'm not looking hard enough or if this is a sign it's kind of an overpriced stinker.

 

[Lexicus]

Since nobody answered this question...even though you've presumably already figured it out...the answer is yes.

Actually I didn't, I was unwilling to experiment so I rolled through Europe again.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@Dachs
I have no idea why I said I had not run into too many bugs in ME:A. It's a bloody mess.

I killed a Krogan rebel in combat recently and instead of falling, he took off running across the field of battle and walked over water while doing so. I've dropped through the floor of both levels and the overworld and dialogue and door-opening mechanics frequently crash. I just spent a full 2 minutes pacing in front of a door on my spaceship waiting for it to register me and open. It's a hot mess and it's weird I overlooked it to such an extent that I forgot it was even a serious issue.

 

[Dachs]

@Dachs
I have no idea why I said I had not run into too many bugs in ME:A. It's a bloody mess.

I killed a Krogan rebel in combat recently and instead of falling, he took off running across the field of battle and walked over water while doing so. I've dropped through the floor of both levels and the overworld and dialogue and door-opening mechanics frequently crash. I just spent a full 2 minutes pacing in front of a door on my spaceship waiting for it to register me and open. It's a hot mess and it's weird I overlooked it to such an extent that I forgot it was even a serious issue.

I have to admit that I never saw either of those things happen. Many of the bugs that gave me fits were fixed within the first few months from launch. Many were...not.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I've started to play Mass Effect again, even after being told it's the most boring game ever made.

Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

I'm a fan of the Paper Mario games and Super Mario RPG so I was excited to try this new spinoff series. This is my first time playing a Mario and Luigi game and unfortunately I'm not super thrilled with it. I only marginally liked the optional time-based gameplay mechanics of the Paper Mario/RPG games, whereas Mario and Luigi games are apparently built around those mechanics entirely.

In Super Mario RPG, you could press a single button at the correct moment to add a bit of extra oomph to an attack or block a bad guy. Paper Mario built on that with more elaborate button combinations and then Mario and Luigi made that the central thesis of the game. In those older games, most of the time-based gameplay is optional, whereas in Mario and Luigi games, you can't win any battles without it.

There is an easy mode that widens the time window for actions and I think I'll use it.

The story also sucks, but in fairness to Nintendo it's never been spectacular in any of their Mario role-playing franchises. Where those games do shine is in their dialogue, which is always clever and very funny. Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is a big letdown in this aspect which is kind of shocking and overall I'm disastisfied with this game. I'm chugging along now, hoping it will get more fun to play. I don't want to give up on it.

I found Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story easier than Super Mario RPG. I couldn't finish Super Mario RPG, finding it too difficult. I finished Bowser's Inside Story, along with Superstar Saga and have just recently started Dream Team Bros. I have tried to play Paper Mario: Sticker Star but I'm finding it too hard.

 

[Ajidica]

I've started to play Mass Effect again, even after being told it's the most boring game ever made.

Let me guess, your "friends" told you Mass Effect was the most boring game ever?

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Let me guess, your "friends" told you Mass Effect was the most boring game ever?

Yes. They said it's like if someone made a game out of the boring political scenes from The Phantom Menace.

 

[Ajidica]

Yes. They said it's like if someone made a game out of the boring political scenes from The Phantom Menace.

I take it you disagree with them on it being the most boring game ever made, so clearly you have your reasons for disagreement.

 

[Takhisis]

Chukchi, move over here and I'll teach you Spanish for free, I'm willing to do that if it means you're not saddled with having to interact with people like them any longer.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I have to admit that I never saw either of those things happen. Many of the bugs that gave me fits were fixed within the first few months from launch. Many were...not.

I don't know how stable it was on PC but on my PS4 it chugs like Thomas the tank engine getting over the flipping mountain. Bonus: you don't even have to be in battle to trigger a slideshow.

I've started to play Mass Effect again, even after being told it's the most boring game ever made.



I found Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story easier than Super Mario RPG. I couldn't finish Super Mario RPG, finding it too difficult. I finished Bowser's Inside Story, along with Superstar Saga and have just recently started Dream Team Bros. I have tried to play Paper Mario: Sticker Star but I'm finding it too hard.

Super Mario RPG required a lot of grinding to clear the later dungeons and bosses. So far Bowser's Inside Story is different in that to advance enough levels to continue, all you have to do is take the battles that come to you. With Super Mario RPG, you have to take all those battles and go out of your way to find more battles in order to gain enough levels to continue.

So in that respect the game is easier and objectively maybe even better. But I am still not finding it that much fun to play. :-(

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I take it you disagree with them on it being the most boring game ever made, so clearly you have your reasons for disagreement.

I don't think I'm capable of knowing if something is good or bad. It seems like anything I like is rubbish unless I'm told otherwise.

 

[Takhisis]

I don't think I'm capable of knowing if something is good or bad.

Well, not if you keep hanging out with those people.

 

[Ajidica]

I've been playing Enderal, the Skyrim total conversion mod that just came out on Steam and I've been blown away by it. The quests are well written, the mechanics aren't quite as "git gud scrub" as I've come to expect with Skyrim combat mods. Plus, the voice acting is outstanding. Like, I'd rank it up there with Witcher3 quality voice acting.
The only real downsides I've noticed with it is the lack of fast travel (except between major points) gets real old real fast when you are running back and forth from city to dungeon to sell your loot. It also crashes relatively often (about once every two hours or so) but thankfully the crashes tend to be when scenes are being loaded and the game both permits quicksave and autosaves heavily.
Note that approximately the first hour of the game is unintuitive and, to be honest, pretty dull. That, combined with the early game hell almost lead me to quit it, but once you get to Riverville the game really opens up.

Seriously, if you have Skyrim (not Special Edition apparently) on Steam, give Enderal a try.

 

[cardgame]

Shogun 2 is being friggin' weird. Naval battles work in FOTS... but in vanilla they are permanently broken and must be autoresolved. The last time I installed it, FOTS naval was broken.

 

[Phrossack]

Shogun 2 is being friggin' weird. Naval battles work in FOTS... but in vanilla they are permanently broken and must be autoresolved. The last time I installed it, FOTS naval was broken.

They're working for me. Weird

 

[warpus]

Actually having a good time with Civ6 finally

Although the late game seems super slow and I only started enjoying the game (almost) fully after switching to Marathon speed. Without marathon speed (even if you go with epic) some of the later ages just zoom by too fast. The problem with marathon speed of course is that everything takes forever...

Another problem I have is that if you don't have iron, you will have.. club wielding warriors defending your empire up until the 1800s. which is not really very realistic. There need to be more units for you to use if you happen to not get iron. Some sort of a progression from warrior to musketman that doesn't only have 2 iron units in between and that's it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I also started a new game of Civ VI over the weekend, with the new expansion. I'm only in the Renaissance, but so far I've struggled to interact with many of the new systems.

I like the new system for Strategic Resources.

I've gone out of my way to accumulate the new diplomatic currency, but the World Congress has been kind of mystifying. I keep getting these options to vote on things that I couldn't care less about. I'm not sure who gets to propose things. Maybe it's related to overall score? I always have a poor overall score in the early stages of the game.

One nice bit of the new diplomatic system is that there's no longer an early "grace period" for declaring surprise wars. Your actions can generate ill will from neutral parties, right from the beginning of the game. I don't know yet whether or how much that matters, though, because...

The AI is still abysmal at fighting wars. What I'm hoping is that perhaps the benefits of winning a war have been toned down, and that the new, late-game elements render those early-to-mid-game military conquests less potent.

Natural disasters so far are kind of... underwhelming? Given the scale of Civ, I'm not sure what the impact of something like the 2004 tsunami should be, but still, it ought to be an event, y'know? A "Megacolossal Volcano Eruption" shouldn't alter your game forevermore, but I'd like to have seen an animated scene, even if it was the length of a .gif, of a pyroclastic flow blasting people and buildings, setting a whole town on fire. Or something. I dunno. Maybe they could hire Michael Bay as a consultant.

Global warming doesn't happen until late in the game, so I'm just not there yet.

Another problem I have is that if you don't have iron, you will have.. club wielding warriors defending your empire up until the 1800s. which is not really very realistic. There need to be more units for you to use if you happen to not get iron. Some sort of a progression from warrior to musketman that doesn't only have 2 iron units in between and that's it.

Aztecs vs. Spanish, 16th c? The Native Americans of North America only got horses and muskets/rifles because the Europeans saw a profit in giving or selling them some. I think being completely screwed by a maldistribution of key resources is realistic; whether it makes for a good game is a different question. I had plenty of horses and iron in my game, and I traded it for money and diplomatic points almost as fast as I could. I guess that doesn't mean the AI will trade it away so easily, though. Sometimes making a trade with the AI is like getting blood from a stone.

 

[warpus]

Aztecs vs. Spanish, 16th c? The Native Americans of North America only got horses and muskets/rifles because the Europeans saw a profit in giving or selling them some. I think being completely screwed by a maldistribution of key resources is realistic; whether it makes for a good game is a different question.

That is just one example though. Look at say.. I don't know.. Poland. We didn't always just have club wielding units defending our borders. It was a gradual upgrade of weapons, armour, etc. Even without any iron whatsoever the technology jump wouldn't have meant that you have club wielding warriors covered in cloth on one day and then suddenly musketmen the next.

I get the "you need these resources to produce these units" dynamic.. I like it.. but there need to be more varieties of units for you to produce over the ages. I suspect there isn't because when you play a game on regular speed, there is almost no time to engage in wars in certain time periods, so it would be useless to have all those units for those time periods..

And yeah, the computer was always really bad at war in Civ, doesn't matter what version. It's like playing against a toddler. At least in previous versions the computer knew how to use the SOD (IIRC)

 

[Lexicus]

In my current Civ 4 game I encountered something I've never seen before in all my years of playing: an aggressive Mansa Musa! He was the score leader for most of the game, and actually capitulated two other AIs before he made the mistake of betraying me. He declared war on me at Pleased, which I didn't think he was capable of doing! And he did it, coincidentally, on the exact turn I discovered Rifling.
He managed to capture two of my border cities due to his numerical advantage and my unpreparedness (I had a long land border with him and one of his vassals, Pacal). I had just finished a limited war against Lincoln for control of some border cities with Gems and Banana, and my stack of Janissaries and Cannons was way out of position for a war against Mansa and his vassals. Anyway, I raced up there and upgraded as many units to Riflemen as I could, and quickly captured back the two cities I had lost and destroyed Mansa's offensive stacks.

After securing the northern border I went total war economy mode and whipped all my cities down to build another giant stack of rifles and cannons. I used that to invade Pacal while also launching a more limited invasion of Mansa's territory with my original stack. Eventually got artillery and then infantry before the war finally ended with Mansa a rump vassal, and his vassals all capitulated to me.

Now I've been building up forces to bring my glory to the other continent, as I'm just a bit short of the Domination goals. I'm the UN secretary-general and banned nuclear weapons so nothing can stop me from winning this game. Hammurabi peacevassaled to me after breaking away from Julius Caesar (they're both on the other continent) and I had been building up a navy and air force when Caesar declared war on Hammurabi which also brought me in. I've been picking off Caesar's ships when they get too close to my continent, while building up a fleet large enough to take an expeditionary force over to the other continent. Hammy's got a lot of island cities between here and there and Caesar and his vassals actually landed troops on some of them so in all a cool intercontinental war, and looking forward to a fun campaign of liberation on the other continent's mainland when I get home from work this afternoon.