Video Game Discussion (536 views)

Content wise SF5 has gotten a lot better. The game is more balanced than many previous iterations of SF, but things are still funky. The gap between the top tier characters (Akuma, Cammy, Ibuki, Guile and Menat) and the rest of the cast is kind of massive. There's also still a few issues in the meta: the crush counter system doesn't work well with the button priority system (feels like the game is punishing you for trying to play footsies) and there is a general lack of defensive options. But overall I find the game enjoyable. We're nearing the end of season 3. The remaining issues will probably be sorted out soon.

I'll pick Tekken back up to try to get my Lili out of Vanguard LOL. I haven't played in forever, so I'll probably be rusty as hell. Oh well...

Whoever decided to make the vase payback amount in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise 100,000,000 IDL is an asshole and can fuck off with that time waster.

To make this a little clearer, it took a single full playthrough of the game's story mode with several side missions just to make 10,000,000 IDL. I'm on 56 hours now, but since I kept the game on in the background several times when I did stuff on computer or slept, I'll say it took 45 hours to get this amount.

I just started on Assassin's Creed Odyssey. We'll see how it goes.

Soul Calibur VI was alright. I went with chronologically playing the stories instead of by character, and you get some interesting things out of it. Like they messed up the timeline a bit by having Yoshimitsu find out a Soul Edge was a fake, then turn around and attack someone because he thought they had the real deal when it was actually the fake. I didn't get the last couple story points for Raphael and Zasalamel, but apparently getting those requires beating Libra of Souls (the custom character story mode) that takes like 10-15 hours, and fuck that. I don't care about either of them enough to waste that much time.

Apparently 2B from the Nier game is going to be DLC. Since I refuse to buy Squeenix products after what they did to Aya in 3rd Birthday, I know I'm never getting the season pass. Decent chance I wouldn't have bought SC6 at all if I knew about 2B's inclusion in advance.

Smash Bros. Ultimate is quite good.

So, one day of playing TW:3K done and I feel I got a bit of a better grip on the game. I own most of southern China with Sun Jian and am in a coalition with Cao Cao, Kong Rong, Liu Biao and Yuan Shao, with Liu Bei being the big opponent. I actually just got peace with him and a non-aggression pact, which I am rather keen to keep, so that I can build up my economic power to be able to actually field elite units. So far I am still running around with mostly militia and normal units after 100 turns.

Diplomacy really is a step above other Total War games, although I've mostly used it to get money from other powers through my massive food production, though I just noticed how much food big cities consume and that I've barely scratched the city upgrades.

Money really is a limiting factor this time, since building up specialized provinces ("commanderies" in this game) both costs a lot of money and, if you are not careful at planning, can put you into the negatives of either your treasury or food, both of which are bad.

The worst thing is corruption, a game factor which eats up currently 60% of all the income in my provinces. Even the ones with governors have still 42% corruption and I am unsure if that is because I got a really big realm or just the way things are supposed to be. I am currently researching and building towards anti-corruption buildings, but that takes a lot of time and money and not being at war, so that I can focus on the economics and disband some armies.

I will say, I think I prefer the whole economy model a bit more simple, but then again I really expanded very quickly compared to all other factions. Maybe if I had taken it more slowly, it would be easier to manage. I think the level of complexity for the economic model of Total War: Attila or Empire: Total War was more to my liking.

The problem also could be that some information is really hidden or not available at all. I seriously would like to know why corruption is so high, but contrary to other Total War games, the game doesn't tell you at all about that factor. It probably is because I expanded very quickly compared to all other factions, so keep that in mind for your playthroughs.

Turn times are really fast, if you compare them to TW: Warhammer (especially the Mortal Empires campaign).

Oh, and a particularly nice moment was when I had the biggest battle of my game yet... basically three full army stacks against three of theirs. Although not all of the armies were allowed on the battlefield, which was probably for the better, since the game began to stutter somewhat, since I play it with extreme unit sizes and and ultra details. Still, I got about 10k soldiers on my side on the field, as did the other side. Pretty impressive numbers.

Anyway, during the battle my faction leader Sun Jian went down (but he was okay, since you get a "second life" as a legendary character and respawn after the battle). However, since the other generals were his entire family (Lady Wu, Sun Ce, Sun Quan, Sun Ren), they all went "berserk with grief" and beat the living shit out of the rest of the army of the other side, winning me the battle by the skin of my teeth. That was a cool moment.

Oh, and one thing: The English voice they chose for Sun Ren is hilariously bad. She sounds like an angry drill instructor. ^^

And... I won. Somewhat anticlimactically, actually. I got my long rest period, although the Bravery meter was decaying ever onward. I built up my commanderies and dealt with corruption in the most profitable ones (get administrators who have the anti-corruption trait you can get through experience and build anti-corruption buildings (one industry, one administration) and also get the technologies for it).

Cao Cao vassalized Liu Bei, who was the other guy who had declared himself Emperor. Didn't see that coming, to be honest. But then I vassalized all the smaller states around me, waited until I had the tech to fastly muster armies and went to town. I captured about three provinces and actually lost an important battle, but I was recovering from that when Cao Cao suddenly offered me the emperorship. I don't know why, maybe his economy collapsed or something.

Anyway, I think I'll be doing something else for a bit, then go back to TW: WH2. Or maybe do a Cao Cao or Liu Bei campaign. Still gotta do Star Control: Origins.

I finished the final Assassin's Creed: Odyssey DLC last night. It was good. Elpis is pretty cool for a minor NPC.

One thing I really liked about this particular DLC was the height difference for the Isu vs humans, and that women were included in this. Whether you're Kassandra or Alexios, the Isu women are always taller than you. Other franchises would probably go for making the women smaller because "men don't like tall women." There's even one point where a human woman who is originally shorter than you, becomes taller than you when she becomes Isu. It was a cool touch.

I'm actually hoping this is the last Odyssey DLC though. I'm sick of extending the game's longevity. Plus the First Blade DLC sucked, and I think more DLC would increase the odds of sinking to that level.

I WAS going to play Far Cry 5: New Dawn and Detroit: Become Human, but Wolfenstein: Youngblood is coming out this Friday and I'm eager to play that. Starting anything else right now would mean me either holding off on Youngblood, or interrupting the game I started to start Youngblood.

Oh, and since I haven't updated since last time: I played and beat Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It's an excellent game, and I encourage getting and playing it. The trophies turned out to be much easier to get than I thought they would be, too.