Games General

[Nichi]

It's not too long if all you're doing is just playing through the main story on Normal difficulty; the longest part by far is, if you're playing as a new character, trying to level up enough to survive, if you're going solo (Keeping in mind Gardenia is level 57 as of writing this). Episodes I and II have 4 levels each, with an average of 2-3 acts and 1 boss fight per level, while Episode IV has 2 levels; only the last of which has a boss fight. There are a bunch of optional quests you can do, though; my personal favorite being the Episode I quest, "Addicting Food" (AKA that one where you're trying to find cake). There's also some multiplayer quests, too; easily the most popular is "Towards The Future" (Episode I boss rush).

It definitely doesn't have the same amount of content as similar games, like .hack, but as mentioned before, the big draw is multiplayer; it can be enjoyable by yourself, but it's more enjoyable when you get some like-minded players to goof off with (I remember fondly of one quest I played years ago, where my party and I had to navigate through the forest area, which was flooded with invincible Rappies. As I told my party, "nothing says we're a group of brave heroes quite like running from an army of space chickens" xD)

Also, nice on Don't Starve, even if your most recent run got off to a rough start. BTW, you should be able to take screenshots of the game by pressing F12 (This being a nice feature of Steam; even working for non-Steam games if you set them up through it, like I did with PSO)

[Chocofreak13]

good to know, but i'll never remember. it's windowed anyway. ^^;

and i figured that was the cause. found a fan server yet?

[Nichi]

Already did; same server I played on years ago, which still had my characters saved. Although, I admit the server has given me some frustrations; Episode IV seems to be unplayable (I lose connection seemingly at random when exploring), the game's anti-cheating system is infinitely more strict than the original Sega servers...and basically every other MMO under the sun (Last I checked, World of Warcraft won't kick you from the server just because you tried to pull up GameFAQs in a web browser, among other odd quirks), and registration is closed for unknown reasons and has been like this for months (I still have my old account, sure, but if I wanted to rope in people that don't already have an account to play with me, there's no chance of that until the registration is fixed).

Admittedly, I heard hacking was very, very bad back on the official Sega servers; they did little to nothing to prevent it, as most of their attempts to stop it were the equivalent of putting a band-aid over a bullet wound, so I guess maybe fan-run private servers are generally going to be more strict in order to keep it safe and fair. Given the bad reputation, maybe that's playing some role in them going silent on matters involving the US release of Phantasy Star Online 2 (Which has been out in Japan since late 2012, while nothing has been said about a US release since being told "it's delayed" back in April 2013).

[Chocofreak13]

the fan servers are the issue, or the hacking?

[Nichi]

The hacking; which gave Sega's servers a bad reputation, and is likely why fan servers are as overly strict as they are, and why Sega's gone silent on bringing PSO2 over here :\

EDIT: So, I actually got Ep4 to work. My thoughts on it, with 2 screenshots, inside the spoiler tag:

Desert Simulator: Episode IV: The Search for Spock: ShowHide

Firstly, to quickly summarize how I felt in 2 screenshots:



With the release of Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst in 2005 came a new expansion, exclusive to it, in the form of Episode IV. With it, came 2 new areas: the Crater and the Subterranean Desert, which is half as many areas as the previous 2 episodes individually, but they make up for it by being the biggest areas in the game.

The Crater honestly feels half-finished, though; the idea of being able to tackle the 5 acts of it in any order is neat, but the lack of a boss at the end makes it feel underwhelming. Also, I found the area to be visually uninteresting; it's just a desert.

Then you have the Subterranean Desert, which is the only new area in Ep4 to have a boss. This area looks pretty cool TBH, and is huge; it took seemingly forever to get through the first act, as it felt like as soon as I thought I was finished, it kept going. However my progress came to a screeching halt in the second act; there's some doors and fences I can't open, so I go around and kill all the monsters, which didn't work. I then begin combing the area in search of switches, to no avail. Ultimately, I found myself looping through the same few areas I could actually access over and over, leading to the 2 pics you see above. Part of me wants to look up a guide to figure out what I was doing wrong, but at the same time, the first act was tedious to sit through; I don't really want to do that again :\

I think I now understand why Ep4 is generally avoided, as it's honestly not that good

[Chocofreak13]

perhaps it's bugged? from what it sounds like, a lot of these weren't exactly polished as much as they should have been. :\

[Nichi]

True that; granted, Sonic Team's productions from last decade were often not as well polished as a Nintendo production -w-;
(Also factor in running on a fan-made server, which brings in new bugs).

[Chocofreak13]

very true. :\

[Nichi]

So, was reading up on how to setup PSO2, as part of me was considering maybe trying it. To be honest, given how terrible my home connection is, it's probably best I don't; it's a headache to setup an account, and even if it did receive a US release (Which seems unlikely with how long it's been), there's the issue of the game's size. It's a 23GB download, and given how often online games patch and how large many updates tend to be, it's really not worth the effort to try and do it here :\

On a note unrelated to PSO, I'm trying to access Club Nintendo; which has some really cool stuff for their farewell tour; as they're shutting it down at the end of June. I really want that Majora's Mask messenger bag...but the site is completely broken, and has been that way since they updated yesterday (The furthest I got in was last night; when I was able to login...but none of my info was displaying properly, and I was ultimately kicked out. Now, I was able to login, only to get a blank page; not even given the courtesy of the same annoying "down for maintenance" screen I saw for most of yesterday). There are some downloadable games I'd like from there, at the very least :\

[Chocofreak13]

i'd give it time and keep trying every day. :\

[Nichi]

Seems the bag was sold out, but I was able to snag a 3DS game case (With interchangeable artwork - seems like it'll be useful), and downloadable copies of NES Remix and Golden Sun, for Wii U :3

[Chocofreak13]

sounds pretty cool! got pics of the 3ds case? :0

[Nichi]

Here's a pic showing the interchangeable artwork included with them. It otherwise looks like a normal game case, but has slots for 18 games

[Chocofreak13]

cool story bro. *0*

[Nichi]

So, tried out NES Remix...and so far, glad I obtained it as a free game; it's not what Nintendo made it out to be in the promo.

The promo made it out to be that I'd be doing all sorts of strange challenges based around classic NES games (Like beating the first level of the Donkey Kong arcade game while only being able to see a small portion of the stage around Mario, for instance)...but in order to get to those challenges, you have to sit through more mundane "challenges" like "stomp the Goomba" or "collect the 4 coins that are on-screen within the time limit". Like, these aren't even really challenges; it's all stuff you'll normally do as you play one of these games. I go in expecting over-the-top stuff like "beat Ridley as Link", and instead get "Grab the Morph Ball! OMG so hard! [it's next to you]" instead :\