What Video Games Have You Been Playing VII: The Real Ending is Locked Behind a Paywall

[PhroX]

It's 20 years old and I haven't played it in at least 15 so my memory is foggy. You may be right, I just remember getting stuck sometimes on the first one and having pretty much infinite money in the second due to the salvage feature where you could salvage almost any mech destroyed and sell it off for a profit without repairing anything on it.

It's definitely possible to get stuck on the first one if you get really unlucky, especially early on, and you get caught in a spiral of never being able to get properly back to full strength. But from my experience, that's the exception not the rule, and barring that kind of fluke, it's not that challenging a game.

Steam is running a final fantasy series sale this weekend. They have every one except 1 and 2. Any recommendations? I played 1, 3 and 5 on emulators and 1 on blackberry (lol). I really like them though they are super grindy. I'm looking at 7, 6 and 9 probably though 8 gets a lot of praise as well. I could just get em all but my backlog... ugh.

10 and 12 are the best all round games IMO. 6&9 have good stories and characters, but I'm not that keen on the old ATB combat system the FF games prior to 10 used. 7 is reasonably good, but at the same time rather overrated. 8 wasn't bad, but nothing particularly interesting. 13 was so utterly abysmal that I couldn't finish it. And I've not tried 15 or any of the ones prior to 6 yet.

 

[cardgame]

Dawnguard can be done at low level, Solstheim is recommended 30+

 

[metatron]

I currently play Elite Dangerous and The Iconoclasts.

Which is a totally obvious combination for evul, outlandish, hateful MRAs.
Duh.

And, yes, i actually happen to have a fully roided FDL.
Of course i do.

 

[civvver]

10 and 12 are the best all round games IMO. 6&9 have good stories and characters, but I'm not that keen on the old ATB combat system the FF games prior to 10 used. 7 is reasonably good, but at the same time rather overrated. 8 wasn't bad, but nothing particularly interesting. 13 was so utterly abysmal that I couldn't finish it. And I've not tried 15 or any of the ones prior to 6 yet.

Those old systems are a bit grindy. Unfortunately though the overall responses on steam are mostly positive, on pretty much all those games there's a review talking about how bad the port is and how there are a lot of bugs. I'm not sure it's worth the $7 or whatever for the graphic updates if it crashes or messes up saves all the time. So not sure if I'll get any.

If anyone wants a fun game for cheap Tomb Raider (2013) is on steam for only $3. It's a good game, not tons of fighting, a lot of exploring on a smaller scale, pretty good story until it kind of jumps the shark at the end. Not super crazy pc requirements, just turn off the stupid hair tressfx.

 

[PhroX]

Of the FF games I have on Steam, X has been perfectly stable, no problems with bugs and overall the port seems to have been done reasonably well - even adding in a few nice QOL things like the ability to accelerate time that weren't in the original. IX doesn't like my Razer Nostromo - if I load the game with it plugged in, it won't recognise it at all, but oddly enough if I plug it in with the game running it's fine - but have had no other problems. XII seems to crash a fair bit, but I've not run into any gameplay bugs.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Don't head out in a thunderstorm to kiss in the rain.

Spoiler :

Later on. the rain stopped before it put out one of the all-too-frequent tree fires caused by lightning strikes. It took me a little while to actually notice.

Spoiler :

Perfect time to do laundry, apparently...

Spoiler :

(This is actually a mod, as laundry isn't in TS2 iself. Modders are awesome.)

I'm playing the Emerald Heights neighbourhood, by the way. Made by a cool group of people who call themselves the Hood Building Group. Take a look if you're into the Sims 2.

EDIT: The img tags are going crazy! Moderator Action: Fixed --NobleZarkon

 

[Ajidica]

Messing around with a Rome Total War mod, With Fire and Sword makes me really wish CA turned 17th century Eastern Europe into a Total War game. Pike and Shot warfare, Winged Hussars, Cossack rebellions, Jannissaries, and so on.

Also, with the Square Enix sale on Steam, any Final Fantasy games I should pick up? Never really played any JRPGs before but I should probably play at least one to get a better idea of what they are like. I've looked at some gameplay footage of FF7, which I've heard is the best one, but the graphics are just too crude and muddy.

 

[Synobun]

I only played FF8 so that's my pick.

Going through my FPS games. Started off with Operation Flashpoint: Red River but it keeps crashing. Had a really weird intro... seemed quite fetishistic over the Marines. The actual gameplay seemed solid from what I could tell but it's not doable with the constant crashes.

Moved onto Homefront, equally weird intro. North Korea #1! Performance is complete trash. I'm pretty sure Crysis would run better. I did some tweaks though and need to give it another go to see if it made it run any better.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Mafia 3, purely for the music and New Orleans; GTA 5, Sims 2, and EuroTruck Simulator 2.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I currently play Elite Dangerous

Hoorah! Another one

Must admit I shelved it the last 6 months or so, but Beyond brought me back to it. The planets are no longer boring beige.

And, yes, i actually happen to have a fully roided FDL.
Of course i do.

After the buff to FSD I took the T-7 exploring. And whaddaya know? It's an excellent explorer. I even like the bloke-ish looks.

It's called Mongo.Of course it is.

 

[metatron]

Hoorah! Another one

Must admit I shelved it the last 6 months or so, but Beyond brought me back to it. The planets are no longer boring beige.

After the buff to FSD I took the T-7 exploring. And whaddaya know? It's an excellent explorer. I even like the bloke-ish looks.

It's called Mongo.Of course it is.

Ew... i don't like exploring at all. I did the 5k for Palin and that was it.
I don't know, i don't like the commitment to be out there. I have this need to be able to switch tasks at a whim.
I'm, like, too restless right now.
I have higher rank in exploration than the others though, because i really like short range tourist missions (the things where you have to go to 3 or 4 places in the bubble) - arguably my favorite part of the game.

And yes, there is a shocking decrease of beige!
Things be brown and gray all of a sudden.

 

[civvver]

Also, with the Square Enix sale on Steam, any Final Fantasy games I should pick up? Never really played any JRPGs before but I should probably play at least one to get a better idea of what they are like. I've looked at some gameplay footage of FF7, which I've heard is the best one, but the graphics are just too crude and muddy.

I did end up getting a couple and am playing the 3 remake. It's fine but it really suffers what I would call generational issues that all old games seem to suffer ala super mario bros and zelda. The original legend of zelda at the time was a truly epic game in scope and the gameplay was unlike anything we'd really seen. But now? It has basically no story and the game play is seen as trivial. It's akin to like driving a classic car vs a modern one. It's really hard to go back sometimes. Or maybe a more apt comparison would be like an old action movie with a great story but horrible special effects and some campy acting compared to a modern movie that has it all.

So basically what I'm saying is the original nes final fantasy 1 is awful to play. It's super grindy just for the sake of making it appear longer and deeper but it's really not. And it's not well balanced. Final fantasy 3 is kind of a bridge between the nes games and the snes ones, 4/5/6. It plays a lot like 5 but with a super dumbed down job system. Really, there's no reason to play it over 5, even the remake with the newer graphics vs 5 which still looks like the 16 bit version.

I can't comment on the more modern ones since I've only played 1-6, but of those I think only 5 and 6 would I go out of my way for. 5 has a ton of customization with a really cool job system but it is a grind to get the best things. For example each job has abilities and when you level up with enough points you learn those permanently to equip on other jobs so you can learn like a knight's protect ability and go play a dragoon and use it, or learn white magic level 3 and go use that as a black mage while accessing all black magic. The trick is all passive abilities are learned when you master the class so if you get say a ninja you can dual wield weapons but in order to do this on say a knight and dual wield the strongest swords you'd need to master the ninja class. And that takes like 1400 job points. Most battles net you like 2-3. There's one particular place to grind job points that nets 4 per battle. But it will literally take hours to make this build. Can you beat the game without doing this? Sure, to an extent. You don't have to master everything but if you don't level up somewhat outside of dungeons you'll be too weak.

6 is much more story based without all the job switching.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

FF7 involved way too much grinding. The english translation was also garbage so the story didn't make a ton of sense at times. FF8 tried to take out the grindiness by having enemies level with you but apparently it was pretty easily abused. I loved the story of FF8 but I was never able to finish it because I wound up not sinking enough time into grinding. If you didn't exploit the system properly, you could wind up pretty screwed.

I also hate games that set you up with bosses that can only really be tackled after you have spent 20 hours grinding and even then can only be defeated if you use very specific tactics that don't apply to 99% of the other enemies. Basically, the games are too hard for me and I am not going to sink a ton of time into grinding through them. That was kind of fun when I was 12 but not fun anymore.

 

[Lexicus]

That Stellaris 2.0

Way easier early game which is cool because lategame is just as difficult as before

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I'm using the 2.02 beta version of Stellaris and it's wonderful. I'm really liking the new changes, but they did bork the UI a little bit. IT's a little harder to get your construction ships and science ships to do their stuff. More clicking involved, but once you figure it ou, it's really not much of a hassle.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm using the 2.02 beta version of Stellaris and it's wonderful. I'm really liking the new changes, but they did bork the UI a little bit. IT's a little harder to get your construction ships and science ships to do their stuff. More clicking involved, but once you figure it ou, it's really not much of a hassle.

I haven't found that to be the case. The one UI problem I'm having is that the addition of Starbases has made the Outliner a pain to scroll through once you accumulate a significant number of planets and bases.

 

[Synobun]

Moved onto Homefront, equally weird intro. North Korea #1! Performance is complete trash. I'm pretty sure Crysis would run better. I did some tweaks though and need to give it another go to see if it made it run any better.

Really short game. Kind of lackluster ending. Sort of feels like there was more planned and they just didn't do it.

 

[Arakhor]

I haven't found that to be the case. The one UI problem I'm having is that the addition of Starbases has made the Outliner a pain to scroll through once you accumulate a significant number of planets and bases.

I end up closing a lot of the categories when I don't need them, e.g. I almost never have the armies, terraforming or faction tabs open.

 

[Lexicus]

I end up closing a lot of the categories when I don't need them, e.g. I almost never have the armies, terraforming or faction tabs open.

Yeah, I did that too, but it was possible before Starbases to have a basically stable menu. Now I find myself collapsing and expanding categories all the time to constantly change the menu depending on what I want to look at.
This isn't the worst situation ever but it is somewhat annoying.

 

[Akka]

FF7 involved way too much grinding.

What ? FF7 involves next to no grinding. In fact, it's so comically easy to outlevel the game that you can literally kill the most powerful incarnation of the final boss in two attacks (and I'm not talking about the last cinematic fight, but the real one) rather easily.

The english translation was also garbage so the story didn't make a ton of sense at times.

You should have seen the french version... It was somehow google-translated (or something like that) from the english version. It was so mangled, I didn't understood many dialogues until I started to read the sentence as if they were written in english but with french words.
I only managed to get the story once I replayed it in the english version.