General Gaming Discussion!

I don't like grinding, but I'm okay with it as long as a) the story is intriguing enough to make me want more, and most importantly b) that the gameplay is actually enjoyable to hold up under hours of monotony.

Out of all the games I mentioned, Golden Sun would be the closest to having fun and intuitive gameplay mechanics. A nice story and maybe, maybe become a little grinding for the main boss battles. I don't fully remember if it even had a leveling system lol, it has been ages since I played that series. I do remember that I died a few times at the final boss (it had one of those survival battles where after defeating it once, it becomes stronger and you have to continue to battle it <__<)

If you got ample time, you could give the series a shot  
Roms and emulators for the GBA and DS are available on the Emuparadise

Eh. I don't like to bother with emulators.

well, I'm not sure you could easily find a Nintendo DS nowadays with all the New-Nintento-3DS / 2DS Hype still going about.

... then again that would be the case for local purchase, they should still be available to buy over the net D:

 Though could be expensive than original/initial prices (especially for the first two games as they were from the Game Boy Advance era.)



Plus all 3 games combined (Golden Sun 1&2 + Dark Dawn) comes to 187MB (20 + 167)MB

The Emulators would be barely 3MB.

The price of downloading and spending your internet data would be way cheaper than purchasing physical copies.

Even if I wanted to, downloading on Windows 8 is a major pain.

:O
http://eu.square-enix.com/en/blog/final-fantasy-vii-remake-psx-2015-message-yoshinori-kitase

I think I may finally be able to get myself to fully play this game :/
it somewhat reminds me of Crisis Core so I hope it would be good and fun to play... I really was hoping to see atleast one or two summons But still it looks much much better than the original and as I've barely progressed from the first mission, I may be able to enjoy and or play this version for much longer (or atleast that's how I feel for now XD)

Yeah, I heard about the remake a while back. Personally, I don't think super-realistic suits Final Fantasy designs. Just makes things like the crazy pointed hair even more ridiculous.

I haven't compared it side by side, but isn't FF15 and FF7-Re, similar in design
Or is FF7 even more advanced graphical art :o ?

*shrug* I haven't really been paying much attention to the FF series.

... but you said you liked JRPGs :0 lol. 
You must be talking about liking the less popular ones : D

I do like JRPGs. But the FF series isn't one of them. Well, I always did want to play Final Fantasy Tactics, but I never got to. :/

The SMT and Persona series are my favorites. Eternal Poison was another great one. Oh, and Dragon Quest VIII is fantastic. Stella Deus: Gate of Eternity was good too.

ooh Tactics series are great (Originals, remakes, same world, etc). I liked all of them on all consoles/handhelds  

I've only played one of DQ games. If I remember correctly and am not mixing it with some other game. There was a scene where we had to fight scorpions and also a desert was uncrossible due to a large sand pit and the same stage had like a massive heat wave going on so it made the map go all hazy like and there was something about getting spare parts for a sand bike.

I could be mixing it with more than one games though :/ But I do remember I picked up a DQ game a long while back maybe DQ7   but only progressed very little in it.

Yeah, they looked good. I picked up Eternal Poison cause it has very similar gameplay, and I definitely enjoyed it.

Hmm, doesn't sound familiar. But I've only played DQVIII anyway.

Ooh Just found out about this,  

Spoiler:

A match from the game  

Spoiler:

http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokken-tournament/

It's coming out on the 18th of March 2016
Better get back in seeing what's the latest in Wii U hacking/emulator scene

~~~
For Pokemon Fans:
http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokemon-sun-and-pokemon-moon/
New main game revealed, but it's for December 2016
People think that this one's world will be based off Hawaii. (after analyzing frame by frame, the few concept shots shown in the trailer.)

~~~~
On other news... Hyped for this game  

Spoiler:

Ugh, Pokemon. The franchise that just won't die.

Yes, I'm very excited for P5. It seems - and I hope it's the case - that they're going to have a smaller, more focused party.

On the launch of the December games (Pokemon Sun + Pokemon Moon)
They'll be celebrating their 20th Anniversary :|

It's been soo long.. I can still remember playing the originals on a bulky black&white screen GameBoy it used to take 4AA batteries. Energizers would be the best for long trips to our grandparents house.


For SMT lore Fans: Pokemon Sun/Moon is speculated to have their legendaries somehow linked to Amaterasu (Pokemon Sun Legendary Beast) and Tsukiyomi no Mikoto (Pokemon Moon Legendary Beast)

As all previous titles have their legendaries linked to gods or mythical beings on various relegions or Fantasies
(Phoenix,
Norse demi Gods Eikyrnir, Hrsvelgr, Nhggr,
Shinto religion Fujin, Raijin, and Inari


... eh found someone's already (incomplete) list will copy paste :/

Spoiler:

The games stories are based on /around their correponding legends/myths. Like 2 gods fighting and in doing so leading to ragnarok so the player has to stop them...somehow

If you really get into the whole meta game, then theirs more than just battling and catching 'em all

I still have my Gameboy Advance. :0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_line
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS_line
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_3DS_line

The ones collecting dust for me are:

GameBoy Line

GameBoy (original)

GameBoy Color Brother sold it to get money to buy his university books

GameBoy Advance SP (something is wrong with it, don't remember what) or maybe its just fine, but outdated



Nintendo DS family

Nintendo DS Lite (NDSL) (The hinges are loose, so the screen keeps falling down or is not steady for too long. The edges are chipped and something may be wrong with the shoulder buttons)



Nintendo 3DS line

Nintendo 3DS (N3DS) Currently always carrying it in my laptop bag, though haven't used it for couple of months. Last usage was when the one before the last Pokemon game came out. I played it for some time and then left it unfinished (because you know, I'm not a gamer gamer XD lol )



And now I'm planning to buy some limited editions of the N3DS and New Nintendo 3DSXL (NN3DSXL)
Though Jap Region Locked versions as the Japs mostly get the better, artistic limited editions
Though with some neat hacks, I may be able to play USA or Europe Legal Cartridges (not the downloaded Rom backups)


The few that, I'm currently still drooling on, are:

The Latest Handheld-console (XL size)
http://www.play-asia.com/new-nintendo-3ds-ll-monster-hunter-cross-special-pack/13/7090fh

The Latest Handheld (Normal size but still bigger than the N3DS)
http://www.play-asia.com/new-nintendo-3ds-cover-plates-pack-monster-hunter-x/13/7096fz


And if I can get the English one of the below on a really good sale price, I wouldn't mind adding it to my collection. (Its the older N3DSXL so I'm not too pumpped for it as it may be an upgrade to my current N3DS but there isn't that much of an upgrade from an N3DSXL to the NN3DSXL

http://www.play-asia.com/persona-q-shadow-of-the-labyrinth-3ds-ll-set/13/707jon
http://www.play-asia.com/nintendo-3ds-xl-persona-q-edition/13/7086yp

Mine still works fine. :0

Handhelds kind of faded out, which is a shame. I guess between the simplicity of phone games and the game market insisting on pimping out all graphics and making things more expensive, there isn't much market. GB worked because everything was cheap, fun, and simplistic. That's why SMT's insistence on putting sprawling rpgs on handhelds is stupid. No one wants to stare at a little screen for that long.

lol, back in the days, the siblings used to play a lot of Pokemon, Mega-Man and ... some random games that I can't remember


...yeah but apparently they are going for larger and larger screens :-D (But I believe a lighter feel to it)

The Next-in-line Console release for Nintendo would be the Nintendo NX
www.techradar.com/news/gaming/nintendo-nx-release-date-news-and-rumors-1289401

Said to be quite powerful and may be a contendor for the PS4/5 and XBox1/2.
Also it may have some kind of cross platform, connecting with Smartphones, PC, and in something with the Sony and Microsoft consoles.

The Wii U was a Hybrid, It had a controller with a screen, capable to play full games on-the-go (though needed to be in some proximity to the Wii U console). The NX, if it goes Hybrid as well, then that could mean, the power of a PS4, in the palm of your hands XD

Some concrete details are thought to be revealed in June when the big gaming convention occurs. Though i think it's already confirmed for a Holiday Release, that means December (along with the new Pokemon Game(s). And a new Zelda and Super Mario, exclusively for the NX architecture, could also be a reveal)


All in all, some connection with Smartphones has been said about it a lot, but it's also said that it won't be an Android system but something entirely new and innovative.

It all sounds like something great and mysterious, might be cooking in Nentendo's kitchen XD
They trying to keep it all hush hush, but some leaks have appeared (like spec wise) but as usual, Nintendo Denies or Confirms all that allegedly some Nintendo Employee may have leaked (and some info that the same person leaked, about something else, and that came true :P

Hmmm... this reminds me of Ragnarok Online or your Handheld Games (3DS, PSP) of the Classic RPG titles.

Tree of Savior (Free2Play MMO)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/372000?snr=1_41_4__42

It looks fun with good graphics/art for its type of genre (Game style/type)



  it's 7.3 GB download/install   ... good thing I got enough download bandwidth at the moment but would probably take up the internet speed of others sharing the same netwrok XD

Looks interesting. The artwork is beautiful.

lol got suckered by the artwork

The download was done in some time and I booted it up.
Only to find out that this was a pre-load kind of thing.

For all the free players, they will be able to log into the servers starting April 28 or 29 onwards.
All those who want to play now, they can purchase a founder pack that will let them play till 28 and after that, their accounts will become Free2Play. They can retain everything (level, gear, progress) and so will have an advantage in PvP matches against weaker people who would dare challenge them :/

Anyhow its already installed in my system. I can wait till the end of April. All bugs should be fixed by then. The new F2P players will have a better experience than the current paying for access people XD.


I watched some gameplay vids. One thing I noticed right out was that mana depletes quickly during attacking a group and it takes some time to reload to max. 

So the Girl I saw playing, she would attack a group (they would die) and then she'll just hang around the map, not going forward till a decent amount of mana was recovered. Once she was content with the amount recovered, she'll go forward and attack another group... rinse repeat.

With a max Mana gauge, I think she was able to kill, at most 3 groups, before it went zero and then waited for some time to recharge. (if you got some loot drops, then its fine. Because in the time you are comparing and or organizing your inventory, (if you take your time) then by the time you're done, you have enough mana to move forward.

Also I'm not sure if you have an attack that does weak damage but not consume mana. If that is available then I wouldn't have any issue with the low Mana regen. 

Things could be simpler at higher levels where you are powerful enough to kill enemies much faster and in few hits, thus conserving mana for a longer stretch.


But early game, like every other RPG types, Slow Grinding may be unavoidable :/ 

At least she was being careful and so wasn't dieng XD