all-knight-party

I got into Balatro finally, and holy fuck, it really is great. I wanted a turn based roguelike since I realized I didn’t have many of those, and I knew it’d be good, but it’s hard to find something I don’t like about the game.

It looks good, the interface is good, the music is an awesome ever changing single chill song, it’s turn based so you can think about your decisions, but if your build is strong you can play pretty quick too. There are tons of build options and unlocks.

There is a nice balance between playing hands and altering your build between rounds, I like that the money economy is low in number, similar to darkest dungeon and its low number damage stats even single digits matter. Learning the game and starting runs you begin to establish a build that you can add synergy to incredibly quickly. I just struggle to find anything bad to say about it.

That’s a good comparison. I suppose both games use permadeath, but don’t end your run with them, and they both do feature the cyclical nature and variety of possibilities that you might expect from a roguelike.

That’s a pretty excellent list. I don’t think I’d call Xcom roguelike since its campaigns are incredibly long endeavours, but they are good games.

You got some big ones. Just know what sorts of games you like to play and look for well reviewed roguelikes in those genres.

I think the problem you may have had before is that you mistook roguelike for its own pure genre, when in the modern sense it’s actually a game format and platform for gameplay, and the gameplay can be anything, from turn based to action, 2d to 3d. Traditional roguelikes like nethack are a genre, but roguelites/roguelikes nowadays can play like anything.

Personally in the FPS roguelike department I’ve been really enjoying Roboquest.

I hope you thoroughly enjoy it like I did!

I started with Freedom Unite on a PSP as an early teen, but had no idea what the fuck was happening, just that it all looked awesome.

Then in my early 20s I resolved to learn Generations Ultimate. I slightly gripe about how almost all non hunting quests have disappeared in World & Rise, because it takes away your ability to change the pacing of the game without putting it down for a more relaxing game.

However, what World did to MH’s weapon movesets in its expansion and… sleekening is incredible, and the move to open levels with no load zones along with the interactions of multiple monsters does an incredible amount to the atmosphere and experience.

So I love GU and I love World. And I love Rise. It’s a series I pre-order because I know that even if it might be different, I know the developers gave a huge fat shit about the game as they made it and it shows.

Yes! I love the system of using the triggers for different weapons. You can weave them through your combos effortlessly. The level design is really cool and just continually gets cooler as you go.

You should play Slay the Princess if you haven’t. It’ll be up your alley and it’s fucking good

Persona 4 as it was my first. the concept of having to choose how to spend your time, split between training in the dungeons, fostering relationships with friends, or studying and working part time was affecting for me, and its characters and stories are very good.

By extension Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney for showing childhood me that I liked visual novels, before I even knew what that was.

Monster Hunter. I learned to play MH purely because of its reputation as an obtuse game, I thought if I can learn to play and maybe even enjoy MH, that the other parts of my life I wasn’t happy with couldn’t be that much harder to figure out. Years later and I still adore this series, and don’t think it’s actually that complex, it’s just hard to teach.

Dark Souls. Really taught me that games are more than just games. They’re worlds, concepts, feelings. I’m sure I have more games than this that were formative to me, but these are what came to mind.

Funnily enough, the game is basically stuck at 60 FPS for me, even though I have a 144hz monitor. Everything I look up says the game engine wasn’t configured to go past that and anything higher requires mods and such for it to be supported. I’m a relatively modest gamer who plays a lot of Switch, so as long as it’s consistent I don’t mind, I just keep it at 60.

Glad to know Starfield can go higher, but my computer isn’t amazing so newer games just don’t stay consistent above 60, I just cap Starfield at 60 as well.

If by modern you mean Fallout 3 and beyond, then absolutely New Vegas and its DLCs. You will not get anything of a deep story from any of the other offerings except maybe Fallout 4’s Far Harbor, but that comes too little too late if you might not tolerate Fallout 4’s flaws to get there.

New Vegas doesn’t play very well in terms of combat, hello Gamebryo engine, but it has a complex story with many possible directions and endings, and many factions that are much more than black and white. Your character’s own dialogue is also far better written compared to Bethesda’s offerings and has a lot more agency in the world. I think you will find enough to enjoy there as long as you can get past the hump of some middling (even for its time) shooting.

A lot of that can be owed to the staff similarities between the original Fallouts and New Vegas, Obsidian’s strong point, particularly Josh Sawyer as director.

I think that’s a lot of what happened back when it released. The most recent Fallout game before then was Fallout New Vegas, and when it comes to a narratively deep RPG that’s almost an unfair fight compared to anything Bethesda has put out, so of course Fallout 4 fell very short of that mark.

But it does have successes in other areas. For the first time in, shit, any Bethesda game ever I found the animations and feedback of moment to moment combat actually enjoyable, the junk gathering and upgrading is an extremely addictive loop, and the game does look genuinely pretty and immersive, though the character animations still let it down.

I liked it to the tune of multiple hundreds of hours, myself.

It just depends what you go into it looking for. If you want a deep RPG you won’t get it, and I found the story enjoyable, but just all right, but not horrible or anything. I do also really enjoy the gameplay.

The shooting won’t change the world, but it is enjoyable, and I really like the scavenging and modification of weapons and armor, and as a motivation for exploration it’s great.

I don’t play the genre much, I didn’t even get that far in FTL itself, but Convoy is one I know of off the top of my head, if I think of any others I’ll come back and edit.

I feel like these are missing the very exact puzzle feeling that Into the Breach has, where all of the information of what every skill does is there, the range of everything, and you can even see exactly what the enemies are going to do next turn. That ideology in the design is missing from a lot of other games like that and makes it feel very different to play.

Well, there have been many games that have been influenced by the whole point to point event based rogue like map ideas, but most games don’t handle the combat the same way exactly, or have that same extremely punishing balance.

I’d love to see a full on FTL 2.

Seconding Soul Sacrifice Delta. Great Monster Hunter-ish game, but much more accessible and interesting world and lore.

Some I haven’t seen yet in this thread: Shinobido 2. Great ninja stealth game in the vein of Tenchu (same developer), really love this one. You sort of play an evolving mission based campaign with three major factions. You can choose which faction you want to do missions for, and the outcome of the overall story is impacted by who you choose to work with.

Gundam Breaker 3 (though it runs a little poorly if you don’t have the overclock patch). Amazing they got this to run on a Vita at all, really. Hopefully Breaker 4 dethrones it, but this is still the best Breaker game to date.

Gundam Extreme Vs Battle. Really tight competitive Gundam game. No customization here, more about fighting with the famous Gundam of the series, plays really well and satisfyingly.

Grand Kingdom: real fun and unique action RPG. Combat happens turn based, but you execute your combos in real time and can juggle enemies and such, hard to explain this one, but I really like it and it’s a shame it never got a port or sequel somewhere.

Killzone Mercenary with Botzone DLC: the best shooter that got made for the Vita. Still looks impressive, plays pretty well!

Dragon’s Crown: it’s Diablo as a beat em up, what more can I say? At the same time every other Vanillaware game on Vita, but Dragon’s Crown is my personal favorite for on the go.

Funnily enough I’ve played KoTOR so much that I can still go back and play those, and aside from the camera control it’s totally comfy for me.

I dunno man, Conway’s Game of Life has a quite boring endgame, I must say.

I’m curious how your wife might enjoy the Xbox 360 version of Dragon Age Origins. It’s a shame they didn’t patch the PC version so that you could use that interface.