drahkon

Finished Battle Chasers: Nightwar just now. Man, that final boss almost ruined everything. I was at max-level, had legendary weapons for my team, was decked out with awesome gear, put on every buff I could find and I still got wrecked a few times. And not because I made mistakes or chose my moves poorly, nooooo...just because the boss switched from "cut receiving physical damage in half" to "cut receiving magical damage in half" every few turns. It can also put a non-removable curse on one of the party members that kills in 5 turns. Couple that with the fact that the boss couldn't be stunned at all, that it can dish out a ridiculous amount of instant damage and damage over time and its stupidly high HP and there you have it: A dumb boss fight. I like difficult games, I live for them. But this wasn't difficult, this was borderline unfair. I did some reading around the web and it seems that only with one specific party setup (stats, perks, gear, etc.) the boss is pretty easy to beat, but that's not good game design. You shouldn't be forced to follow one particular route to have a chance while the others rely on a lot of luck. Oh well, this took off at least one point on my "How much does drahkon love this game?"-scale. I still love the battle-system because for 99% of the game it works. Lots of things about the game are a little archaic, for example exploration and story, but overall I enjoyed Battle Chasers: Nightwar quite a bit. I won't go for the Platinum, though, 'cause of NG+, the final boss and some other stuff.

Klopp as Germany's Head Coach? Sign me up.

I don't know if it's been posted already but I stumbled upon this wonderful itch.io user. Most of the pdfs work on a "Name your own price" basis. The PS2 Encyclopedia is free to get right now, but it's usually priced at $1 (with the option to give more, if you want). I don't know how accurate these collections are but the PS2 one seems to be put together with a lot of care. Worth a look (you need an itch.io account, as far as I know)

Battle Chasers: Nightwar progress: I broke the game. The cardinal sin of (J)RPGs: scale down exp you get from lower level enemies. I hate it, it's dumb and fuck you for implementing that system. I came across an enemy: King Slime. He had the wonderful ability to spawn a random Slime as a companion once you kill the first two. And I knew that those enemies give exp. Which got me thinking...can I farm those enemies? I tested it: My party consisted of two level 18 characters and one who was level 11. The latter got a huge amount of exp for the level 15 slimes, the former not so much. So I spent a few hours farming. And here's the result: Max level for those three. Garrison and Red Monika are incredible at dishing out damage so I should be set. I don't like Knolan, or rather I prefer to have a different character (healer) which I sadly didn't level up via this method. Since King Slime was a boss, I can't repeat the process. My dedicated healer is still level 18 but who cares. I will wreck everything for the foreseeable future, so I'll put him on my team This game is truly something else. The battle system is amazing. Very well thought out with the right amount of challenge (which I just destroyed ). The overworld/exploration is pretty bland. Quite repetitive and samey, The story and characters are so-so. It's refreshing to have badass characters right from the start who are just thrown in to stop an evil creature. But there's less (and probably no) room for heartfelt side-stories or twists and turns. It's pretty in-your-face. I enjoy it, but basically only because of how good the turn-based battles are. And it's hart to overstate how much I enjoy them

Different strokes, I guess

Sadly no, or not enough for everyone. And since there's a practical course coming up (starting tomorrow - don't ask me why it's allowed in these times...) and because I still have 4 months left for my thesis I decided to just wait.

Finally, after a few weeks of dealing with a software and theory it was time to go back to the lab and do some experiments. Today I went in 'cause I wanted to prepare some solutions/buffers/etc. I managed to prepare one (out of 9) before the water was turned off without any warning. Turns out that the thingy that produces distilled water is fucked so the entire building was without water (that could be used for work). This also made it impossible for us to get more Milli-Q H2O (which I tend to use) as the machine is connected to our distilled water line. We have no idea how long it'll take to fix. Hopefully just a few days...

Watched the finale and loved it. Apparently it wasn't very well received. I thought it was great. A little bit "out there" but executed quite well.

I see. Regarding your last sentence in the "Endgame" spoiler: A lot is lost to you, because it plays off of the original game.

I take it you never played the original?

Watched the first two episodes today. I enjoy it a lot. Made me feel uneasy right from the start. And Eve Hewson is beautiful. That's a big plus.

Can't contain your excitement, I see

@Hero-of-Time you seeing this?

Remove the phone lines to be safe.

Well, after Chapter 6 it was over very quickly. Nabbed all the trophies and it didn't change my opinion of the game. It's a lovely idea that never comes close to fulfilling its potential. The game could've done without the narrative and should've focused more on the puzzles themselves. More levels, less talk

Chapter 6 of Maquette done. It's been way too easy to softlock the game in the earlier chapters... The puzzles are great, but it feels like they don't fully fulfill the main mechanic's potential... And the writing is soooooo bland...

Oh, I've played a myriad of difficult levels in Super Mario Maker 2. It's kinda funny how I enjoy those hard level created by users more than most levels by Nintendo

It wasn't that bad on the WiiU. I actually found it pretty easy. Now, the increased speed might make it a little more difficult, I can't comment on that. You should give it a go, though. It's pretty much the only level I enjoyed in the game. It's just a platforming delight. If you enjoy that, it's a must play I really wish Nintendo would release something similar to that on a larger scale...slap together some relatively difficult platforming sections, have 100 levels like that and I'd eat it up

Made a little bit of progress with Battle Chasers: Nightwar. I can now confirm that there are dungeons: And they are procedurally generated Each square is a room you can explore. There's fights to be had, lore to be found, chests to be opened, materials to be gathered, fish to be caught and more. Here's the thing, though: Before you enter you can choose one of three difficulties: Normal, Hard, harder (can't remember the exact terms for those). Rewards for finishing the dungeon get better the more difficult it is. This is a pretty cool mechanic. I completed the first dungeon on normal and then on the highest difficulty. Got a sweet weapon out of that Fights got even more interesting now that I've acquired the Burst Meter. When full you can unleash a strong ability. Depending on the character it's either an attack or supports your team. Awesome right? Yeah...but enemies started doing that, too, and sadly, you can't see their Burst Meter. It's a little annoying but eventually you get a feeling for when a big attack might be coming your way. Found and entered the second dungeon yesterday. Highest difficulty, of course So far it's not too bad, I just need to be careful with my resources, aka health and mana potions. Also: I'm spending a lot of time fishing when I find a spot: No idea what to do with the "fish parts" that I get, though. Played more of For the King, as well. Our three player run ended after about 3 hours...we immediately started a new one and put the things we've learned from before into practice So far, so good. Yesterday one of my mates and I started a two player/character run 'cause the other one was busy. We decided to give it a go on the lowest difficulty because we figured that it would be way too hard with one less character in our team. The first two hours we breezed through the run...it was actually ridiculous. Eventually, though, we got to a point where enemies hit harder and cause various dangerous status effects. Seems like things will ramp up a bit.

Indeed. It's why I've decided to skip the narrative completely after I've found out that you can do so via the circle-button. I enjoy the puzzles a lot, but the surrounding narrative is so boring and unimaginative that I'm not going to bother with the "cutscenes".

Had an online exam just now and got 85%. Needs to be verified by the professor, but the official result shouldn't be any different. So now I'll take a break from studying for upcoming exams for today and just chill.

A PSVita game...

Started playing Maquette and completed the first two chapters. Enjoying it quite a bit. The puzzles are great, the game looks beautiful and the voice actors are really good. Framerate is a little iffy, but eh...it's a puzzle game. But man...the story so far...during every narrated part my reaction was pretty much this: or this: or this: It's so "lovey-dovey, hug me, you're so amazing, everything's perfect and romantic"... Maybe it's the jaded cynic in me but it's annoying as all hell Anyways, I really hope Michael's and Kenzie's relationship crashes, burns to the ground and then explodes.

Yeah, I'm just trying to keep my expectations in check. I actually want a free upgrade with all the PS5-goodness. And a pear.

Realistic take: We'll never see a patch