newtmonkey

Dragon Quest IV As a huge fan of DQII and DQIII, I had high hopes for this one. First impressions were good; it looks and plays like those classics, and the way that the story is split into chapters with different characters is fun. However, midway into the second chapter, I'm not 100% pleased with this one. The chapter system is good in theory. Each chapter is like a mini RPG, and while they all use the standard DQ engine, they vary quite a bit. However, think back on playing DQII or DQIII for the first time, and how frustrating the first couple of hours can be with your weak level 1 characters. DQIV is that, over and over. What makes it even worse is that the worlds in each chapter are absolutely tiny and completely linear, with boss battles gating your progress. The greatest thing about DQII and DQIII was how the game started you out in a small, linear area but after only a few hours the world was yours to explore, and there were very few bosses at all serving as level checks. In DQIV, because the chapters are so small and linear, you are just following the story from place to place... and soon after you start feeling comfortable with your party, the chapter is over and you're back to level 1 with some other character. Brief thoughts on each chapter so far: Chapter 1 You play this tiny chapter as Ryan, a kind of medieval cop sent out to find some missing children. This took me maybe two hours to complete, and it was fine. It sets up the story, and it's balanced fine with no need to grind at all. Chapter 2 You play as Alina, a badass princess, accompanied by a couple of retainers. I'm only a few hours in, but it's extremely linear; what's worse is that that second step of the quest is just a few minutes away from the starting castle, and yet you are forced to fight a pretty difficult boss battle to continue. You are lucky to get to level 2 naturally just walking to the fight, and level 2 is far, far too low to stand a chance. Even the standard enemies outside of the starting castle are quite difficult for your level 1 weaklings, so there's no choice but to grind some levels. This is quite disappointing, since DQIII requires no grinding at all (and DQII requires only a tiny bit at the very end of the game). Anyway, it didn't take too long to get to level 4 for my party, and at that point the boss battle was a bit frustrating but beatable. There was another massive difficulty spike right after that, but no bosses so it wasn't too bad. It's not a bad game, but it just doesn't feel like Dragon Quest so far due to the tiny linear worlds and focus on story over exploration. Hopefully future chapters will be a bit better.

Shin Megami Tensei Argh, another massive increase in difficulty! I'm currently exploring a dungeon absolutely full of random encounters against 6+ enemies at at time, all of whom can freeze/shock/sleep/bind you. Of course, every single enemy uses that attack every round, and even though I've been pumping the SPEED stat, they ALWAYS go first. So now, every single combat is my entire party immediately being disabled, and all I can do is sit there and hope that the status effect wears out and I can get an attack or two in now and then. And of course, getting to the dungeon is a major PITA, requiring you to go through two other dungeons first with no save points, so it takes a good 5-10 minutes just to get to the place. I checked around to see what the deal is with this section, and it's apparently a notoriously annoying part of the game, and the game gets easier once you get through it. I think what I'll try next is to stick around the beginning of the dungeon and try to get the most annoying demons to join, so that way I can 100% talk my way out of fighting.

Someone quoted your post and replied to you. Did you read it? Here, I'll help you:

The Dark Alliance games are basically Diablo clones. I completed the first game, and it was alright but extremely basic compared to Diablo II or modern clones like Grim Dawn. Icewind Dale is definitely worth a play. It's a pure dungeon crawl and somewhat linear, though there's still plenty of exploration and questing. I found the combat to be much enjoyable than in BG, though it uses the same engine, because the encounter design is much better. The pre-rendered backgrounds are gorgeous, as is the soundtrack, and it's a very atmospheric game. I think that the NES ports of Ultima III and Ultima IV are decent, though a far cry from the PC games. Ultima: Exodus (NES) is actually borderline broken due to how they screwed up the level scaling for encounters; the game can actually become literally impossible if you are unaware of this, and just level up without thinking. Ultima: Quest of the Avatar (NES) is missing a lot of stuff from the PC version, but keeps the important stuff and is indeed a fine port. However, Ultima: Warriors of Destiny (NES) is a travesty. It cuts out 90% of the content of the PC game, and forces the game into a bastardized version of the Ultima VI engine, so it of course looks like shit and runs like garbage. It feels like it's constantly on the verge of crashing the console.

@82-T/A I agree pretty much 100% with @fdr4prez, including preferring BG1 over BG2. The former feels a lot more like an adventure, with a massive interconnected open world to explore, a plot that is somewhat down to earth and mostly in the background for much of the game, and no cringeworthy romances. I played and completed BG1 completely unmodded for the first time only a year or so ago, and I had a blast! I thought it played perfectly fine, it's just a matter of learning the interface (which is pretty modern actually). It's a huge game that can be fairly difficult unless you are willing to pay attention and experiment a bit. It doesn't really hold your hand at all, so you can definitely stumble into areas that are high above your level, but there's much stuff to do that you can always go do something else if things get too difficult. By default, you just create a single character and pick up companions as the game goes on. I found most of the companions to pretty annoying, but you can create your own party by setting up a fake multi-player game, and that's how I played through the game. Combat is indeed in real-time, but there are a lot of options to auto pause on certain events. I started with all the options turned ON, and then gradually turned most of them OFF once I got used to playing the game. Standard AD&D tactics apply: have two or three strong characters in front to protect your squishy spell casters in the rear. I definitely recommend having a thief in the party, to send out as a scout to detect traps and encounters. You can actually use your thief to draw single enemies back to your party, and this is a key strategy for whittling down some of the more difficult encounters. There's the Enhanced Edition, but it uses the BG2 engine and is not 100% accurate to the original experience of playing the game. However, if you buy the EE on GOG, you get the original releases as bonus content, so it's worth buying it anyway.

Even if you ignore someone, you still see every single topic they make.

Please consider making a single "0078265317 posts clickbait without comment" topic for all this worthless stuff. It would be so much easier to ignore.

Shin Megami Tensei I managed to catch up to where I was on the PSX version, and actually made a lot of progress after that point. However, I hit a tough spot late last week, and wasn't in the mood to struggle through it until last night. The game opens up somewhat after a point, and it really begins to feel like a classic western CRPG, where you must explore and gather information to figure out where to go and what to do. The game doesn't really stop you from entering places you're not supposed to go until later, and the "tough spot" I mentioned above was actually just that I had been playing the game like a typical console JRPG. I changed my approach, did some exploring, gathered some information, and (crucially) upgraded my equipment. It turns out that I had missed a shop selling much better stuff; this made all the difference, and I went from getting totally wrecked to having a great time again. This series is well-known for having branching paths that depend on choices you've made throughout the game, and this is also the case in SMT1. The main character starts out Neutral, but can shift toward either Law or Chaos as the game goes on, and your alignment actually has a pretty major effect of the game. For example, you can skip some boss encounters if you are of the same alignment as the boss. So far this is really great, but I have a couple of complaints. First, demon fusion is a complete pain in the ass. There's no quick way to figure out if any two demons can be fused into something good, so you have to tediously test every combination whenever you get a new demon to join. Each time you do this, you have to skip through several menus and text boxes. Second, there isn't much at all to combat because of the fixed party of characters and how powerful guns are. Guns do fixed damage regardless of stats, hit multiple enemies each round, ammo never runs out, and you can even get enchanted bullets that apply status effects (sleep, charm, etc.) in addition to damage. There's no reason not to have all characters attack with their guns, every single round of every single combat (except bosses of course).

If you'd list some games or genres you like, then people could make some intelligent suggestions. As is, this is a list of consoles and then asking for more, and everyone's gonna just list their favorite consoles.

@jhd >>Previous comment about review deleted<< Woah, I didn't realize that was your review. Sorry for the harsh words. --- --- Most of the criticisms mentioned by jhd on his site apply to 99% of JRPGs, so I would caution anyone who likes JRPGs to take that into mind. I don't love Beyond the Beyond, and don't mean to defend it really, but instead of being awful it's just mediocre imo. I'd rate it slightly below Lunar on the Mega CD, but slightly above Cosmic Fantasy 2 on the PC Engine.

@TampaBay It's also certainly possible that the 8bitdo stick actually is an improvement, and like you mentioned, getting it from a place like Amazon that allow for easy returns is a good option.

@TampaBay I get what you're saying 100%! However, even though he's just casually playing arcade games, I think he's run into the limit of sub-$100 sticks. I was in the same exact boat, myself. It's certainly possible that the 8bitdo stick you use is better than his DC stick; I can't say for sure myself as I've only used the DC stick, and I have no reason to doubt your experience of course. He could also just try some sticks and return them to Amazon, but I just don't think he's going to get anything better than what he has without spending a decent chunk of change. It does feel "right" to play arcade games with a real joystick, of course... but I'd argue that, especially at the casual level, he's better off just going with a good gamepad. I think you'd have to spend a LOT to get a stick more accurate than, for example, the 8bitdo M30.

I finished all the 1994 issues of the magazines I'm reading. Instead of giving my thoughts on each mag, I'll list the winners and losers of '94 (all in my opinion of course): Winners: EGM 1994 was probably peak EGM. Massive issues, a wonderful layout, and combined with EGM2 you were sometimes getting nearly 800 pages a month of content (with a lot of ads, but still...). I still love flicking through this mag, even if there's actually not much worth reading besides the reviews, gossip, and the "good/bad/ugly" sidebars. GameFan This is the year the mag catapulted from what was basically a self-published fanzine of unbelievably high quality, to a legit competitor to EGM with national distribution. It's a great looking mag that looked better with each issue, and the passion for games was infectious. Their reviews, however, were pretty ridiculous, with some real garbage getting 80-90%+ reviews across the board. PC Gamer A new mag launched late in '94, this was actually my beloved PC Entertainment under a different name. It's still got the much of the same staff, the same focus on well-written previews and reviews, but a major upgrade in the layout! I recall this magazine getting very ridiculous later on (Coconut Monkey???), but in '94 it was a serious mag written for adults by editors who really knew their stuff. It blows the overrated Computer Gaming World out of the water. This magazine is really fascinating to me. You can trace its development straight from the multiformat Game Player's magazine, to their PC offshoot Game Player's PC Strategy Guide and their dedicated PC mag Game Players PC Entertainment, and finally to PC Gamer. Interestingly, they use a lot of same writers from mag to mag, so it's a pretty consistent read from 1989 to 1994 and onward! Losers: Electronic Games This was the follow-up to VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, and it suffers from the same faults as that mag. Most if not all of the editors are completely incapable of telling a good game apart from a bad one, regardless of having years of experience writing about games. Reviews of platformers, for example, seem to come down to how cute or funny they found the animations to be. A disaster like Ultima VIII (even in its original, frustrating incarnation) gets a sterling review. The wretched Way of the Warrior gets a higher review than the miracle port of Mortal Kombat II (SNES). It just goes on and on. You get the feeling reading these reviews that the writers have not even really played the games in any depth, because it's all stuff you'd see in the first few minutes of playing the game, supplemented by instruction manual summaries. The editors are also completely in love with "interactive" Hollywood games, and spend page after page going on and on about how cool it will be when all games become choose your own adventures movies. In fact, once the magazine folded in 1995, the follow-up was Fusion, a magazine devoted to this kind of garbage. Computer Gaming World This mag is highly praised, but I've been very disappointed with it. The reviews are two or three pages long, but only because 1/4th to 1/3rd of each review is just a plot summary... and then everything but that last paragraph is often a summary of the screen or the instruction manual. You get the actual review in the final paragraph. It often feels like the PC equivalent of GamePro! The exception is Charles Ardai, who instead spends all two or three pages complaining about how the plot and characters are not as good as in movies, or going into spoiler-level detail nitpicking puzzles. This guy completely savaged the beloved Under a Killing Moon because he reviewed it as some kind of serious Hollywood movie, seemed offended at the charming jokes, and cruelly criticized lead designer Chris Jones' lovable and fun portrayal of Tex Murphy. This guy doesn't review games as games, but as Hollywood scripts, so every single one of his reviews is completely worthless.

This is sadly a case of you get what you pay for. Cheaper sticks use cheaper parts, which mean sticky buttons and sticks with too much travel. In my experience, a good d-pad is far more accurate than any stick you can find for <$100. I wouldn't know how much you need to spend to get quality, as I got annoyed with throwing money away and didn't want to start spending more than that just to find out. If you are serious about getting a good quality stick and are willing to spend some money on it, you should read up at specialist forums (shmups forum is an example) for recommendations. You'll find that it's basically split between people happy to pay $$$ for a good stick, people who have made their own sticks from arcade quality parts, and (somewhat surprisingly) people playing on (quality) gamepads. I would definitely NOT trust Amazon reviews or even "professional" reviewers (IGN, whatever) for any specialized product whatsoever, because people tend to be happy with stuff as long as it's not completely broken. I mean, look at all the praise, amateur and professional, for the various 8bitdo controllers with completely worthless dpads to see what I mean. [EDIT] I found this chart rating commercially available arcade sticks when I was searching for a decent joystick a while back. It's from 2014, but was posted on a reddit for serious fighting game players... so it might still be of reference. You can see that anything <$70 or so is not even worth considering, and you only start to get flawed but good sticks around $100 or so: (Click on the image to get the full-sized legible version) As for me, I just use an 8bitdo M30 to play arcade games on RetroArch, mostly shmups. I whined about 8bitdo above, but this gamepad is EXCELLENT with probably the best, most accurate dpad I've ever used, for action games and shmups (it's not great for fighting games, especially for those with charge moves). I reckon you'd have to get an A-Tier or S-Tier joystick in the chart above to match the quality and accuracy of the M30.

One quite nice thing about this game, actually, is that it's very generous with letting you run from battles. Also, if you talk to a demon you already have on your team, it will just walk away (sometimes even giving you stuff first), so if you want to 100% avoid certain annoying enemies, just add them to your team and you'll never have to fight them again. It's a pretty interesting system.