What are you playing right now?

Manhunt now. I think I should get a Tenchu game.

Now I am at FOTNS: Lost Paradise. I'm now getting endless Flint and Bland Jerky.

Today, I suddenly had the most horrifyingly strong urge to play Dynasty Warriors 3. WHY???

@nadster that's a really great game! The story is a touch 'meh' for me, but it had some really cool scenes. The combat is excellent though, one of their best so far! You enjoying it?

Birdman
If you have the urge to play something then you should play it. After that, you can move on to the next game.

Raeng
For the time I was playing it, yeah I enjoyed it. Going to play it again one day. I do wish that there were more fights. Currently doing Ninja Gaiden 2 though. About the story, is it a reimagining to the anime?

>After that, you can move on to the next game.
That's the worst thing I can do if I want to cut down on or avoid creating more of a backlog. Not keen on getting out the PS2 just for this.

Played a little more of Atelier Sophie this morning due to a client cancellation. Just trying to advance past the 'tutorial' stage. I've just been informed in-game that you can get a better alchemy pot so I'm working on that quest.

This should reveal more mechanics I'd say, since the game didn't tell me at first that upon reaching level 20, you can carry over two traits to an item.

It's fun finding various items in new areas then going back to your house to mix them.

Nothing. When next I see Oni, I will likely be spanking him in T7 before he gives up again (then we'll probably play Elden Ring and Nioh 2).

Giving the Ni no Kuni remaster a try. I really just want to test some things regarding familiar stats.

I've been told that they end up with slightly random stats, but I'm sure there's more to it. Once capturing becomes available, I plan to capture a few of the same type and compare them.

>Ni No Kuni
Reminds me of a wayward student (Waffles).  Was never much into RPGs.  Dabbled here and there.  Definitely not into turn-based (Diablo removing that helped give it greater appeal to me and others taking the chance out of block/hit helped bring themselves further into Daddy GMG's favor).  Don't recall much about NNK other than being reminded of artsy anime (if I'm remembering right).

As for myself, I'm playing a wonderful game.  Figure out the blacklisted words/phrases on YT (feel free to join me in testing as it usually just takes 30 seconds *though some words are gone instantly upon submission*).  I lost my cheatsheet (as an edit added in a term that had bypass protections that were not in the previous edition for that term in particular, so the whole list got wiped), but can remember a few examples from before.  Some classics make the cut along with a few unexpected instances (even some you would think would be on it not making it as of yet).  Pretty sure it retroactively will delete messages, too.  Not all entries have the same level of work put into them, of course.

I'll start with the two most recent findings.  "Low class scum" and "inferior" (came across both while REMINDING Gokeks about AT's will regarding Bejita-sama always defeating his vassal).  Yeah, both of these are not allowed in YT comments.  Believe it.  Now to move on to some harder language (mind you, it varies between examples *and I'm fairly sure I brought up how I noticed one during GoW:A evaluations*):

No Rules Against This Here:

But enough of this (for the time being).  I was just so terribly amused with the most recent additions...I had to share the wealth.  I'm sure even Royboy can get use out of knowing his entire post will be deleted if he dares to say "inferior" (like the tactics used by Bick, Faraaz, etc.).  Good to know what fuckery is going on behind the scenes, I'd say.

More new words added:

Trigga Warning:

Doesn't seem to like using the words "black", "white" or "muslim" anywhere before "extermination" or "genocide".  Found that one out while talking about (Goku) Black and how Zamasu wanted to genocide all mortals.  Took a while to figure out what was going on exactly in this case.  The words didn't even have to be next to each other this time.  The order did seem to count.  The more you know.  If you ever use hard terms for killing and have either of those colors noted somewhere before it, don't expect the message to stay up no matter what is being discussed.

Certain words before other words is a recurring thing (lots of those cases *even when not right before it* I'm finding). Calling to hit (and variants of it) many things won't be allowed (as with "Gokeks"). "Spooks" and "undesirables" seem homefree for the moment (even with the modifiers above). Variants of calling the Holocaust a hoax does the trick, too. "Scum of the Earth" (sucks for Rob Zombie) is disallowed. This could really drag out with all the specific cases that currently do or do not hold. I'll delay further reports until more interesting and specific findings come up (like the "inferior" case *that one tickles me*).

Splatoon.

The first or second game?

The first one. There are still players there!

I did a lot of testing, but wasn't fully able to pin down the issue with this post YT had:

Being Naturally Superior:

I had a few slightly twists that got through, but it didn't really make sense. I'm guessing some interplay of their censorship bugged up (as was an eventuality).

Ninja Gaiden 2. On Chapter 12.

Currently playing: Astral Chain, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Altered Space.

How you liking Astral Chain?

-NG2, currently on chapter 6(progress has slowed down considerably thanks to work and the holidays)
-Evil Within Akumu NUR
-KH2 Lv1 Crit run, still pretty early

Royta/Raeng wrote:How you liking Astral Chain?

I think it has the most satisfying combat since Ninja Gaiden 2 [360]. Wielding the Legion feels like a sci-fi kusarigama weapon (Guess what my weapon of choice is for NG2?). How about that HP regain finishing move!? There's so much going on in this game to have an opinion on. I'll be in the official discussion at the end of the month with a full review.

Yeah I have the same feeling, just absolute golden game. Really took a spot in my favourites of the genre, looking forward to your more detailed opinion later-on!

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice for the first time.

I've been playing a lot of Quake recently, I'm almost done with the second expansion pack and then I will either move on to Quake 2 or get back to Yakuza Kiwami. I'm hoping to have Kiwami and Kiwami 2 beaten by the time the 3/4/5 remastered collection comes out.

I have Quake installed and modded and ready to go as we speak, but still balls deep in DOOM3 right now (god this game is good). Which Quake do you like the most?

Never beat Kiwami2 for some reason, just got extremely tired of its combat after Yakuza 6. I'd already beaten the original Yakuza2 so I didn't beat this one. I do have it in my closet though. Golden franchise!

I absolutely loved Yakuza 0 (which was my first game in the series) so I was super excited to start Kiwami when I got it, but I just didn't grip me in the same way so I ended up dropping it part way through. I fully intend to give it another go at some point and play through the series. Although it looks very different, I think Yakuza 7 is looking good too (albeit completely batshit insane).

The downside with Yakuza, is that Zero is the best in every way, so afterwards you're bound to be disappointed in some respects. Zero had a gripping story (for a game at least), two fun playable characters with a ton of moves, two cities, decent difficulty, style-switching, fun items, the best sidequests and mini-games.

Kiwami on the other hand is a literal texture pack of the original PS2 game with the combat of Zero slapped on with some extras. Yakuza Kiwami 2 is basically Yakuza 6 as a texture pack for the original Y2. Yakuza 3 is where it gets wonky.
Though Y3 is my favourite, what you'll start to notice is that Zero's moveset and heat-actions are all ripped from Y3, 4 and 5. So a lot of moves will make you go "oh, that was a special unlock here".

I do recommend the series for the story at the very least and fun gameplay, Yakuza 3 is my absolute favourite and it is also the hardest of the bunch. Y4 is piss easy but has the best finale, and Y5 is just plain cool and dares to have a grappler. But yeah, Y-zero is really by and large the best.

Since I still have a few days left on my Mad Max rental, I decided to give it another shot. After a bit more time and a few upgrades, I'm liking it way more than I thought I would.

*Quick notes*

>Counters are like Batman, but you have a normal parry and perfect parry. I'm not sure what perfect does yet.

>Counter timing is more strict than Batman. It doesn't cancel out of moves as easily as Batman's. If you're already throwing out an attack, enemies will be able to hit you.

>There is a dizzy state and if you have a shiv, you can instant kill an enemy.

>Shotgun is an instant kill on every enemy I've come across so far. You can just blast them or if you've bought the upgrade, can do an execution move that scares enemies.

>Shiv and shotgun function sort of like gadgets, but with limited ammo. I actually like this as I really have to think before using it.

>The dodge roll briefly stuns enemies when you roll into them. Very useful.

>Got a shoulder ram move that can only be done after sprinting about 3 steps. Sends an enemy stumbling back. Need to find out if it leads to a wall hit or collision with other enemies.

>The basic melee string is continuous, and with an upgrade you can use a finisher by holding the attack button. It seems you can do this after ANY amount of hits; there is no special requirement as far as I know. Only issue is I've been hit out of these. The finishers are seemingly random. Could be a knee to the face or some kind of wrestling move. They also might be dependent upon enemy state buy I haven't been paying attention.

>I really like the car combat. Lots to say about this and I've had some great chases and battles so far.

>Never beat Kiwami2 for some reason

I have so much to say on this, but I'm tired so I'll keep it brief. Kiwami 2 is the only Yakuza game I had to force myself to finish(was going to call it quits but got drunk and just healing itemed my way through the end), and this is easily my favorite series of all time.

Kiwami 2 isn't just just more Yakuza 6.
6 is mindless sure, but it functions because of things like the button mashing heat move.
6 and K2 made it so you no longer can dodge around enemies and do a full combo. In Dragon Engine games(haven't played judge eyes) they will literally snap around and block while being comboed.
In 6 you had the button mashing move and a few others that they removed in K2 or at least made them late unlocks, so they took away the few tools you had to be successful.
They replaced it with the charge in K2 which was the only way to open up enemies.
Cutting and replacing isn't Yakuza. Yakuza has always been more options every game, let the player go nuts.
It seemed like the devs intent was to bring the fighting head on, to nerf circle strafing, and focus on blocking. Something that doesn't get a lot of use in the old games.
There are issues with this that they must not have foresaw. Like if you are fighting a weapon wielder and don't have the ability to block it you are shit out of luck.

There are things I love about the dragon engine, like the physics making the street fights so much more chaotic and anime instead of rigid and static like the old games,  but it all was just a mismanaged mess and totally makes sense why we are getting a god damn JRPG now.


Yakuza 2 actually has incredible combat for it's time, it laid the ground work for 3 forward.
K2 left such a bad taste in my mouth I haven't played judge eyes, even though it looks like it would be a good time.

Now I am going to play Demon Attack on the Activision Anthology before I go to sleep. I think that I will be playing the Knack games tomorrow. Oh yeah, I also played the Ninja Gaiden 2 Mission List earlier today and went through at least 8 missions. I wish the first few of those were longer.

Right now, I'm going to see if my PS2 can run KH2FM in its current state (haven't fixed it yet, but here's hoping it can at least run this new disc). If it can, I'm going to try Lv 1 Critical for the first time ever.

I can buy a second game besides that one, but only one more at the moment. I was going to buy God Hand, but couldn't find it. I found DMC3 instead, but I kinda want to try DMC1 first (which, oddly enough, I couldn't find either). Then again, curiosity is almost killing me, I want to see just how good DMC3 is for myself and why everyone loves it, so I'm going to keep looking elsewhere for God Hand, and if I can't find it, I'll go with DMC3.

If you have a even decent PC, God Hand runs extremely well on PCSX2. I can't recommend God Hand enough if you are getting in to the genre. It was the game that opened up my eyes truly, I wouldn't be on this forum if I didn't ebay some weird game I saw on youtube called God Hand. It is an absolutely exceptional title, I would give anything to experience it again for the first time.

I tried running KH1 and KH2 on this PC, and they both ran at half speed in most cases, not sure if God Hand is less demanding than those. Believe it or not, playing games like this doesn't bother me in the slightest (had literally no way of playing some games I wanted to try so badly when I was younger, so I got used to the slow framerate), but for a skill-heavy game, I wouldn't want to play like that, since that would take away most of the challenge, and thus, the fun.

Let's just hope that my PS2 can be able to run that game.

I had troubles with KH as well, but God Hand runs flawless for me. Some games just don't emulate well, flat out. Download the iso and give it a shot. I would love to get some GH talk going on this forum.

I'd love to join in as well. God Hand is fantastic! I have an original copy which cost me quite the limb to purchase considering how rare it is these days. DMC1 and 3 are also great purchases, fantastic games.

Ugh, 15 FPS... that's not good. Seems I had way too much faith with this ancient computer.

>God Hand being rare

...aw, now I regret not getting this game 10-12 years ago. It was the rage back then in my hometown. But I'm still going to see if I can find it.

If you still have a PS2, get your hands on a Swap Magic boot disc. Then you can just burn ISOs. I used this for years.

I could do that, but... I'd have to rely on this crap PC in order to do that. You see, for some reason its CD/DVD drive cannot read any disc, no matter if they're in perfect conditions. And if it can't read discs, I doubt I could be able to burn ISOs.

And I dunno what's the problem with it, let alone how to fix it.

Sounds broken.

My laptop has a similar issue but I got a Japanese PS2 ages ago so I haven't needed to burn anything.

You can get external DVD writers powered by USB though. Maybe look in that?

Oh, that's a nice idea. I'll consider looking into that, but first, I want to share some things I found based on a small research.

Apparently, you can put ISOs in an USB flash drive, and play the games directly from there (but it requires a setup first). The only downside to this is that it has slower reading speeds compared to normal DVD reading speeds (but I assume it would still be faster than my PS2 in its current state). If it is indeed faster than what my PS2 is capable of right now, then that wouldn't mean much to me, if at all, but there are other issues like stuttering for some games, along with graphical issues in some cutscenes. But I guess this would also mean that I wouldn't have to replace my PS2's lens (?).

But... that's not all.

You can also use an actual HDD and put it into a FAT PS2 (I own that specific model), and play games directly from it (but you need a Network Adapter for it to work... which I don't own). The thing that got my attention is that the reading speeds seem higher than normal DVD reading speeds (at least with most games, apparently some people got different results depending on the game, but HDD seemed like the overall best option).

Here are some videos I found addressing this point:





^ Now, for the first video my PS2 would be, at the very least, a whole minute behind USB (at best), lol.

And just in case, I also looked for a compatibility list, and it seems it supports DMC1-3, ZoE 2, God Hand, GoW1 and 2, KH1FM and 2FM, RE4 and Okami. Basically every PS2 Action game I want to play is supported (except Viewtiful Joe, but it is not listed, people probably didn't test that one) as well as other non-Action games I want to play.

What are you guys' thoughts on this?

I know of these methods but always found them too complicated.

There's also FreeMCBoot which is a memory card application.

Note that that's in Europe as far as I know. I haven't checked in other parts of the world. If you have a Japanese PS2 I can check if they have a cheap copy for you in Taiwan and take it home and send it to you if you want.

Well, it looks like I can do the setup for these methods myself, unlike actually replacing my PS2's lens, I'd have to give it to someone who knows about that sort of stuff.

>FreeMCBoot

Yep, I learnt about this sometime after posting that info. From what I understand, this is kinda similar to Swap Magic in a sense, but I'd need an additional program to make it work (and would also need to fix or buy an external DVD drive).

>Europe

What's in Europe? Swap Magic? The game? Also, no, I don't own a Japanese PS2.

Nawh the game, as in how rare it is. It was nearly 90 euros used here.

Wow. That's quite a high price, at least for me.

And I think you're right, looked in 10 different places and none of them has a copy of God Hand.

Zombie Defense. I think I have found an exploitation. I was right.

Now I am doing the Doom games on the PS4. Although I am not a big fan of company accounts, I think I should since I really want to try those map packs.

Bethesda's account is worth it imo soley for The Evil Within II's bonus modes.

I'm not planning a mobile game career but I came across this action game and gave it a try and it was free. It controls way better than I thought; pretty much DS/3DS controls.

It's all in Japanese so I haven't figured out what every menu option is but I know how to buy and equip moves. So far I have a launcher, a dodge attack and a Witch Time dodge. Basic attacks are super cancellable.


I don't have the character in the video. I just posted the first one I could find that didn't have tons of cutscenes.

That brings me to the reason why I don't have her. She costs 1000 gems and the game doesn't give you shit. That's where MICROTRANSACTIONS come in. No thanks.

Yeah, all the costumes and this character cost a ton of gems that would take untold hours to get normally. There's also some kind of gambling thing where you use gems to get a random weapon or these cards. The cards are these unplayable girls and when you activate them in battle it triggers an effect. On my first try I got an ultra rare one that freezes the whole screen. Sometimes I get the same one so that's more microtransaction bait.

No jumping. You have to use the launcher to use air attacks. Seems enemies with guns can't shoot upwards so you're safe.

Card characters are on cooldown. In the setup menu you have the main slot and two on sub. No idea how the sub ones work. They level up with use I think. There's a meter with a heart at the top so it might be some sort of familiarity/relationship mechanic.

Regular special moves like the dodge attack also cooldown though one I used again I think. In the menu you can watch a clip of the move in action before you buy.

3 characters to choose from the start. Looks like they play somewhat similarly. I know one of them has guns but I didn't know at first now I can't swap mains.

There's a super move like a cutscene that hits everything on screen. I think it's the purple meter at the bottom. You just tap the icon for free damage.

The direction movement is pretty decent. You hold your phone horizontally and there's a circle on the bottom left. You just move your thumb around in that to move. Way easier than I thought.

In the bottom right you have the attack and dodge icon. I feel they are a little too far apart. You really start to feel the limit of the controls without extra buttons or shoulder buttons.

Like the launcher is done by holding attack after a strike in the basic attack string. I guess because there's no R1 lock to keep yourself facing forward.

Doesn't seem to be any way to lock on or get your camera facing towards enemies. I often dodge and it follows the character, putting enemies offscreen. There is soft lock though. You can move the camera around but you'd have to stop everything to do it and get hit.

I'll keep playing on and off and get some more moves. Pretty basic so far though.

Found English translations and decided to drop it. Way too many RPG elements that require insane grinding purposely limited to push you into MTs.

The good thing is it showed me that control-wise they aren't THAT bad. Will definitely look into Platinum's one now. What's going on with that anyway?

I'm currently playing you guessed it, NGS2 although I will be jumping onto Nioh 2 once it's released. Thoroughly enjoyed the original Nioh, played around 500 hours of it which is rare for me to play a game for that length of time.

How you liking Nioh2's latest changes? Talked with some users and the latest 'feedback' they took in appealed mostly to the casual audiences, which I feel is kind of a waste. Things like nerfing Dark Realm etc. I am curious about Ninja Gaiden's future.

I really miss the bosses from NGS2, NGII's fights are a lot less consistent I feel. Especially Zedonius just does whatever he wants in the original. He can stay in the sky for minutes on end, really tiring.

Myself, mostly playing Bayonetta and Vanquish due to the 10 year anniversary package. I will admit that there's always something about Bayonetta that just does not click with me.

Anyone pick up the mega man zero collection? Really want it but can’t find a physical copy near me.

>something about Bayonetta does not click with me

Dude, I’ve always kind of felt that, and it is definitely the case right now. I’m struggling to finish a first play through on this version because I’m just not feeling it at all.