Ashtear
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Ashtear

@Ashtear@kbin.social
Ashtear,
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Yes, the bangs are a game changer! They even work well on niche sites like Jisho and Scryfall.

Why is Freelancer still the best? (slrpnk.net)

I was playing some Everspace 2 and while it sure is pretty and feels pretty good there was something lacking that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I’m only 20 hours or so into it but I just felt like it wasn’t quite living up to my memories of Freelancer....

Ashtear,
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Freelancer and Freespace 2 were also peak space sim for me.

Getting about 10 hours in before dropping it, I had two big issues with Everspace 2: experience level progression and immersion.

Once I got to a new system, everything was high level, and in ES2, the level scaling means it's more of a wall than a slaughter. There's also no experience point rubber banding to make it worth your while.

I really enjoyed the story so far, more than Freelancer (not exactly a high bar), but I'm at a point now where I have to grind levels to continue. The above already makes me not want to, and then there are immersion problems on top of that.

In Freelancer, the whole system was loading screen free as long as I wasn't docking. I don't think I realized how big a deal that was until now. The transitions in and out of "jump drive space" in ES2 are a stark reminder that you're flying from node to node, and not cruising through a star system. Other little things when off the main questline like lack of radio chatter, no consequences for looting stations, and low traffic add to the immersion problem.

I'll probably come back to it eventually as it's good enough, but that's only because virtually no one is making this kind of game anymore. It feels like it wouldn't much to surpass this game.

Ashtear,
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I think the one I have the most nostalgia for is Destiny of an Emperor. The main boss theme is instantly transporting for me. That 8-bit Capcom sound is so iconic.

Final Fantasy IV is what truly got me to fall in love with the genre, though. It was one of my first 16-bit games, so I was blown away by the graphics and especially the music.

Ashtear,
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Would be nice, but antitrust has been feckless in the US for so long that I'll take it where I can get it.

Ashtear, to gaming
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Looking like a great year for old gaming franchises, holding five of the top six metascores so far for 2023.

Ashtear,
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Here, it just depends on what's on the front page. A week was too long for most anywhere on reddit, but here there are still some places where I think a week would be fine.

Ashtear,
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Good choice to go with the 1:1 remake style for this one. I think this will appeal to both the original fans and newcomers.

The soundtrack sounds great. I'm in just to hear the forest theme.

Ashtear,
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Looks like it'll shake out to the best scores for the mainline series since FF12. Curious about
how sales are going to be, was a lot of hype around this and it got in early before a very crowded upcoming release schedule.

Sounds like the sidequests are bad, again. JRPGs are way behind on this front.

Ashtear,
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FF4 was also from an era where keeping scripts concise was part of saving on costs.

Playing third or fourth gen RPGs is certainly going to make virtually any RPG made today seem slow.

Ashtear,
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CP2077 has the best character creator music I've heard by a mile. Great for someone like me that spends over an hour in that sort of thing.

Dune was outstanding. If you haven't heard "Arrakis (Wormsign Remix)" from OCRemix, check it out.

Ashtear,
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Hard to pick just a few tracks, but some of my favorite original soundtracks are:

Nier Gestalt
Persona 5
The Witcher 3
Stellaris

For licensed ones, I particularly like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Life is Strange: Before the Storm.

One thing that's surprised me about the Reddit shitshow

Is how easily mods have caved in once the admins threatened to remove them. I had thought we'd see quite a few cases where Reddit would have to step in an replace entire mod teams (effectively killing the community). But it seems like that hasn't happened at all - the closest we've got is mods being reordered....

Ashtear,
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They had better be. The mods at the larger subreddits clearly aren't safe as long as Reddit is this profit-driven. If it helps their bottom line, they will step in and reorganize mod teams one at a time.

Ashtear,
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I've been using Grouvee for a while and I'm still happy with it.

Taking a quick look at Questlog, the term "backlog" doesn't seem to appear anywhere, which I appreciate. It's a work term and isn't great for mental health when used with a hobby that should be relaxing.

Looks like their "similar games" algorithm needs work, though.

Ashtear,
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This pace is down quite a bit from the original. With this and Live A Live having a relatively poor showing in Japan, I have to wonder if the future of the HD-2D experiment hinges on the performance of Dragon Quest III.

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