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What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?
- Legomancer
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- Dave Lartigue
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- SuperflyPete
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- Salty AF
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- hotseatgames
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I like the game, and I hope that its F2P model doesn't hurt it. So far it seems like it will be okay. Saying that, it will definitely not be as good as if none of that was present, and you just bought the game and were done.
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- Legomancer
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- Dave Lartigue
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SuperflyTNT wrote: After hearing your initial vibe about NMS and reading the reviews, it seems like you've warmed to this. I'm glad they finally added the base building stuff, despite that being one of my least favorite things in gaming.
Oh, I was stumping for NMS from the get go, when everyone else was all "BUT BUT I CAN'T PWN N00BS AND THE GAME DOESN'T GIVE ME PRESENTS FOR WATCHING"
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- SuperflyPete
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- Colorcrayons
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- Wiz-Warrior
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Where to begin? I mean, really? How can such a flawed game be so truly great?
The paper RPG came out during my formative young adult years, and my friends and I played this obsessively for nearly a decade.
This video game is a distillation and metaphor for my time spent playing that analog RPG.
This is my fourth play through of this game. I have never actually finished it since it is so buggy, despite patches that are still released, to this day, for this game. I always try to play a different character so I can explore new bits of the game. I keep coming back for the music, the writing, the familiar setting and the memories of a youth wasted.
I'm glad I never got rid of this game. It may be nearly broken and the graphics are naff compared to contemporary fare (but still somehow better than mass effect andromeda) but it's still leagues better than nearly every game ever made.
The bittersweet is real. Fuck I love this game.
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*Grand Prix Legends is the other.
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It's kind of funny that the classes all have a clear analog to the first game. "No, it's totally new and different." This is how I rate them in ascending order. There are some minor spoilers here if allusions to abilities will make you sad.
The Sniper becomes the Sharpshooter. They start with Squadsight, which is great, because it eliminates that awkward phase where you have to baby them. And you can focus on becoming a really good sniper, like you probably did in the first game, or you can get all of these neat pistol-centered abilities, like the one that allows you to fire your pistol at everyone within range. Which is pretty fun, especially if you spring for fancy ammo that ignores armor or lights dudes on fire. Overall, the sniper which ended up being so powerful and dominant in the first game is probably the worst class in this game, especially since you often need to move forward faster to keep up with the mission timers and objectives.
Assault becomes the Ranger. Instead of Run & Gun* and the old pistol that they carried, they have a sword now! Yep, it's 2035 and it's time to use swords. It's rather satisfying, especially early on when your guys have crap aim, to just get to run up and slash guys. The damage on the sword definitely tails off later on in the game, and I actually like focusing on the sneakiness of the left tree- which gives you more concealment and insane crit damage with your shotgun.
*Run and Gun is still available around Sergeant rank.
The Heavy becomes the Grenadier. Gone is the clunky rocket launcher that requires you to not move before firing, and instead you can fire off a variety of grenades with a greater explosion radius and farther range than all the guys left throwing them. In fact, it's typically slightly farther than the distance you can fire your gun, and still doesn't ever miss. With the correct upgrades, Grenadiers also become very deadly at focused damage to one target and softening them up for further attacks from your allies. They're a necessity.
The Support becomes the Specialist. Sometimes I feel like games are trying SO HARD to make playing the Cleric fun,** to the point that they break them. Early on, these guys aren't too exciting- they replace the old smoke grenade of the support with a little drone that can be flown to give just one guy +20 defense. Unlike the old smoke grenade, the drone can be used many times in a mission. They've got two sides to their tree, one is about healing allies and removing status effects, and the other is more aggressive and lets you do direct damage and even take control or stun robotic enemies. All specialists can also use their drone to hack nearby security cameras to give themselves or their allies various combat bonuses, or achieve critical mission objectives from afar without endangering themselves or their squad mates. Most of the non-offense drone abilities also don't end their turn, so they can heal a guy from afar, and then do something else that's useful. I almost always want to bring around 1 "healy" one, and the more 'tech,' guy.
**I've not played much Gloomhaven, but after I played my one scenario of it with the Scoundrel and then looked at the Tinker post-game, I just said, "WOW!"
The Psionic troopers are insane. Insane! You get the ability to build the psi building pretty early in this one, but you probably want to upgrade some of your weapons first for your whole team. Unlike the previous game, you send a rookie into the psi building, and then they just train new abilities over time- they don't need to go on missions at all until you want to bring them out to start wrecking people. Very broadly, they're good at taking opponents out of the fight temporarily, or doing lots of direct damage that avoids armor. All of their special abilities are on cooldowns, but as they get enough special abilities, they can pretty much do something great all the time.
It might just be because we haven't cranked it up to hard yet, but the game seems really easy now. The threat meter gets much less threatening about 80% of the way through the game, to the point that it becomes a joke, while in the first game you hit that point where you can't send satellites out to reduce panic levels because you've already done it, and the world is on the brink of collapse. There's a bit more variety in the missions, but a lot of it is: do the same thing, but faster. The new ambush/concealment mechanic just ends up making the first encounter or two per mission quite easy to game. By the end of the game your crew gets so many tools at their disposal that most enemies just don't give you that same sense of dread. In addition to some of the classes getting very good abilities, there's also more customization for your equipment, which get very powerful when you get to the 3rd tier of gear.
One big difference combat-wise is that there are a bunch of status effects. And while it's annoying to have a guy temporarily unusable, later on in the game you're typically outnumbering your foes 6 to 3 or 4, so if you both use an ability to take someone out of the fight for a turn, you come out way ahead. Some of the stuff the enemy does is also slow-developing. They'll do some powerful charge move that will blow your guys away... next turn, so you have time to avoid it. Or they'll set a flare on the ground telling you that reinforcements are inbound, so that you can put your whole squad on overwatch and kill them off as they appear, and then even when they DO land, they'll spend that first appearance time on getting behind cover or at most going on overwatch. All of this can slow you down on those timed missions, but as you wean yourself off of snipers and use some dashes early on in the missions, they're just minor speed bumps.
I've seen that there are expansions that have been out. Which, if any, are good?
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- san il defanso
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- ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
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