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4.25 update

#1 in the world at PogoStickMiooooooon

added detail I like is it taking 21.4 hours to occur on 4.21

#reblog #Jeffu watches Hololive yo

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bro

#Jeffu plays Baldur's Gate 3

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#1 in the world at PogoStickMiooooooon

added detail I like is it taking 21.4 hours to occur on 4.21

#Jeffu watches Hololive yo

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#Jeffu makes videos

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misadventure 4/17/24

#Jeffu tells a story #the best skype group #Jeffu photos

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#Jeffu plays Fortnite

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Ozark is good

#Jeffu talk

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Marchcember 2024 SPRING do - Part 2

I suppose it's fortunate this isn't a proper December To-Do, because next game off the list isn't even really backlog, although it is a similar enough scenario to Mega Serval which also got a post... We'll just say this one's more of a "March Playing a Video Game." I bought Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen earlier this month on sale and even finished it in time for this name scheme to still make sense! With my track record, it's practically a miracle this was done with such fast turnaround.

I had my feelings on the game already figured out during my playthrough at about exactly "half-fun." If I didnt like anything about it I wouldn't have bothered finishing, as should be pretty obvious. But there was no shortage of griping along the way. I'm already reminded of a couple other games, saying that...

I absolutely hated traveling. Dunno exactly why but the stamina running out on me all the time made it not fun in the least to explore. It was doubly cruel for the game to give infinite stamina inside Gran Soren, suggesting they did realize that idea had merit. Why not only have limited stamina during combat? The thought had me desperate for Elden Ring's design. At the same time, blaming this whole issue on stamina alone would feel wrong when I know I enjoyed similar games like Skyrim in their day.

I guess to hit on all my scattered thoughts on the subject - movement reminded me of Legends Arceus; the control didn't feel properly snappy and responsive and "fun." Clunky is the descriptor here. Also, the swarms of enemies in the wilderness are entirely pointless. This is maybe the only action game I remember playing that had random encounters. There wasn't much in the way of exp or loot to be gained from fighting my five-hundredth wolf or bandit, and it certainly wasn't fun to do for its own sake, so I employed the age-old technique from RPGs: I ran the fuck away constantly. And finally, the lack of any kind of quick travel was initially a huge turn-off for me, but as I progressed and discovered the portcrystals, I can give them, again, about half credit for this one. I think giving the player a limited number of warp points is a fairly unique compromise... but I would really prefer the warps themself be infinite. I can say with confidence that without the Dark Arisen infinite ferrystone, I wouldn't have played this one for very long.

As for the other side of our basic foundation mechanics, combat gets a "fine" from me. The third-person action approach is cool, but I feel it may have ended up a little too simple. This part reminded me, strangely, of Tactics Ogre (not a good sign); I never once felt like I had to change or reevaluate anything I was doing for the entire game. I learned three Thief skills right at the beginning and mashing the same buttons over and over always worked, so I had no reason to broaden my horizons. Trip enemy with rope, hit enemy with flurry attack. Dunno if that's typical because I haven't played many games like this. And I can imagine what you're thinking: you're supposed to branch out because you want to experience the other possibilities! ...Well, I think it's important to say I didn't really find combat so fun that I wanted to do it any more than necessary, or as said earlier, for its own sake.

Which establishes the main idea here: if the core gameplay loops the game spends most of its time asking you do to are not particularly fun for you, playing it can feel more like a chore. The proportion is so important, too. How much do you like and how much do you wish you could skip? It feels so stupid to talk about it like it's not obvious, but I think it's a huge underlying element of the games that lose me somewhere or other. I just want it to be all good.

So I'll take that as the turning point to talk about stuff that was good! I really love the Arisen/Pawn system of the game, both mechanically and narratively. It made for a fascinating world setting. I initially wanted to know the story because of this, though I don't know for sure I got all of it because I was averse to doing anything other than what was strictly necessary (sorry). The Pawn AI was also fairly reliable. They didn't always do what I'd hope, but they never did anything I actively preferred they wouldn't, either. As I've mentioned, I haven't played other games like Dragon Age or whatever, but this feels like it might be the ideal version of your pseudo-D&D RPG experience in a game. You get all the fun of a full party while only needing to fuss over two of the members' finer details. Actually, to that point, I think I would have enjoyed more details to fuss over. Getting to decide more out-of-combat things my Pawn and I should be good and bad at would make outfitting the party even more fun.

Another plus - one of my own making - is that my characters never stopped making me laugh when they were on screen. This game let me create any character I wanted and I was so unsure of what to do I ended up a hulking, dykey Bart Simpson in a Princess Zelda cosplay. But the true star of the show was Tom Scott, who served as my rock and guide throughout Gransys. I don't know what I'd have done without him.

Quest and dungeon design seemed pretty good overall. While perhaps not many, all of the quests I remember felt unique and had me tracking down more interesting objectives than your usual slay monsters X times bullshit (while also cleverly including that through the bulletins). But it warrants repeating that I avoided even considering certain quests because I knew they'd require I carve halfway across the map through mobs of dull enemies feeling no sense of reward or satisfaction, only to do one cool dungeon and then immediately turn around and drudge my way back. Where I did journey, that ferrystone was always pulling a lot of weight.

And to make an important distinction here about the combat: boss fights were great. I enjoyed every boss that I recall - even when these encounters occasionally slowed down to a bit of a slog, I still preferred their far grander-scale slog to trash mobs at their best. Bespoke monster fights should've been like, the only fights in the game... or maybe that would've crossed too far into Capcom's Monster Hunter (though it's still nice for it all to be building towards a conclusion). But yeah, climbing on guys was fun, learning their moves and options, having your Pawns caught in the crossfire and calling out advice and stuff. Loved all that. This is where the game's systems actually engage the player on a proper level. I was chuggin' through items, reading about the myriad status effects I was suffering, smacking my forehead as That Same Pawn went down for the umpteenth time at the least opportune moment. To return to my point about proportions from before, boss fights felt like the only reward the rest of the drudgery in the game kept me wanting after, and they're easily the best memories from it. I specifically chose to fight the dragon at the end because I wanted to beat ass one last time! Polish up the combat a little and give me further ways to customize my characters around unique challenges and threats posed by these monsters, and I'd be begging for more.

Damn this got longer than I intended. To conclude, I'm glad that I got this game done and relatively quickly, but I am definitely not begging for more. I didn't even buy it because I wanted to play DD2... I just thought the Monster Factory episode was funny.

#Jeffu talk #December To Do

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Anime Boston 2024 Friday 3/29

#Jeffu tells a story #Jeffu photos

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December March 2024 To-SPRING CLEANING-Do - Part 1

I didn't get anything from my to-do list done in December 2023, but I was suddenly feeling the urge to polish some of it off anyway, so first up was Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga on Steam. Have to strike whenever this iron is hot. Got this game done from the start in about 3 days.

I'll start by saying something once to avoid repeating myself later - by this point, most games I still haven't gotten around to are games I feel pretty average about. They're good in some ways, bad in others, and usually ones just long enough that I lose interest regularly and never got even close to finishing. Symphony of War is the perfect example to lead with.

There's plenty to like about this game. It's got appealing pixel art, and for a strategy game there are fun takes on concepts like unit formations and attack stratagems. It's ambitiously made for something coming from a small team, and like some of my favorite games (Phantom Brave, anyone?), I can confidently say its ideas are sound. Most of what the game tries to do, it achieves with a passing grade.

But the execution is rough enough around the edges to be apparent after one play. The game was made in RPG Maker (somehow... still don't know that I'd believe it if the cutscenes weren't a dead giveaway), and basic things like UI layout and information accessibility are headaches at every turn. It's packed with little nitpicks that make really tucking into a game of this scope feel more trouble than it's worth, which is a shame because I'd love for this one to be a solid recommendation. As it stands, it's on the fence for me.

I really respect games where you can tell the people making them were excited by their own ideas. And on the whole I can forgive when those same people aren't the most accomplished designers, and the final product ends up with some flaws. Those games are simply hard to call "favorites." And though Symphony of War isn't one of my favorites, like Nexomon: Extinction, I'll gladly keep my eyes peeled for future projects from this studio.

#Jeffu talk #December To Do

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I can't believe I never posted about Multiversus, I played this game for like two months straight at the end of 2022. I always wanted to make top 100 WW in 1v1 but couldn't do it

anyway it's coming back in May so I need to have a tag ready. I figured I'd post all my Trout Population tracking from beta so I can compare what the game used to look like lol

#Jeffu plays Multiversus

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me staring at the fat squirrels in my backyard

#Jeffu talk

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#Jeffu plays Elden Ring

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permanent residents of the afterlife waiting room @sianea and I don our magenta shirts and enter the rat maze once again - AGDQ 2024's Awful Block awaits!

The King gave us free chicken fries, so we saved our bobllars for a trip to Tibet where we couldn't kill anyone. our investigation led us next to Manhattan, but there were no ninjas left to stop Adolescent Kong's rampage… only the return of shirtless hero Zadette could save Zadette.

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#Jeffu tells a story #the best skype group

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My minor miner minds my mine's mines under my undermined minor mine mine

#Jeffu talk

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random list of things I got to do in 2023 that were fun

dang another one of these huh

watching GDQ as always. it's funny having this on these lists every time knowing the next one is maybe a couple weeks away tops. exciting...!

Hololive

played ranked Pokemon in every season/month of the year. trying my best to keep sharp and stay on top of the scene, for no real reason other than that it's a favorite hobby of mine and one of the only games I still try even remotely competitively in

played Breath of the Wild and more importantly Tears of the Kingdom, definitely the most memorable game of the year and a real surprise. also another of those situations where I'd played it because of people I'd watched, only to in turn get others to play it from watching me lol

watched a shitload of movies. finally remembered I could just go to the theater if there was something I wanted to see, something I'd kind of fallen out of

Lake visit again, with beautiful weather this year

finally started the fourth season of the long-running D&D campaign I've been able to play in for years. fantastic group

2023′s Thanksgiving Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 was pretty good. the people, not the movie. also funnily enough my D&D DM told me he started listening to DeathBlart, though he has not seen the movie

weirdly I feel like there's amount of stuff I'm looking forward to in 2024. so that's good.

#Jeffu tells a story #Happy New Year's 2024 Love Jeffu

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didn't get any December To-Do done this month, which I guess means I really didn't wanna do any of the things I had on my list lol. in a way I suppose that means I should clear them all off - I can always come back to them if I genuinely feel like it, but a clean slate might be what I really need.

#December To Do #Jeffu talk