Aside from the world as we know it taking a giant dump on itself, I’ve just been slammed with an absurdly expensive truck repair. Mind you, this comes less than two months after the last repair, which was $1,600.00. I’m… not happy. At all.
I need to unwind this weekend, and what better way to accomplish that than chugging bleach until I black out escaping in to the wild world of video games!
Since last weekend’s recap, I’ve finished and reviewed the PS4 release of Resident Evil VII: Biohazard, and just cleaned up my Megadimension Neptunia VII playthrough. I didn’t get the “true” ending in Neptunia, as the method for doing so is incredibly vague, but I’m good with what I got and I’ll be just as happy watching it on YouTube instead.
As is typical of a Nep-Nep game, I enjoyed the light-hearted story fare that poked fun at console wars, developer tropes, and various fandoms. I have a soft spot for the cast, no matter how annoyingly verbose they get at times. They’re all adorable and creepy in a fan-service anime kind of way, similar to the cast in Senran Kagura OR Gal*Gun: Double Peace. You just want to pinch their cheeks and scream in their face “IT’S OKAY THAT YOU’RE ANNOYING BECAUSE THAT’S JUST WHO YOU ARE!”
Neptunia VII’s turn-based combat was fine, unlocking new attacks and arranging them in to a string of devastating combos to build and spend the girls’ special meter on over-the-top abilities. It’s definitely the most polished Neptunia game I’ve played, so that’s a plus. Though I do wish there was an in-game map to make navigating the more labyrinthine dungeons less of a pain. There’s a mini-map, but it didn’t help out much.
Megadimension Neptunia VII is the first game on my Four in February list, and with that one knocked out, I was set to move on to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D.
So of course that’s not what happened.
In a strange turn of events, I started my 2nd playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition instead. You know, that 150+ hour open-world RPG? Why I’d want to replay this a month before Breath of the Wild is beyond me, but I’ve been eyeballing it in my PS4 library for a while now. I absolutely loved the core game, but never got around to playing any of the DLC.
Whether or not I stick with it remains to be seen, but I’m roughly 14 hours in to my female elf Rogue run and Sera is getting romanced this time, dammit! The last time I played, I made a male human character and ended up romancing Cassandra since Sera is a lesbian. She’s such a quirky and fun character, so I made it a point to go female this time to ensure Sera-mania is an option.
Outside of Dragon Age: Inquisition, I just received the new Double Dragon from Aksys to review. It’s downloaded and installed and I’m sure I’ll dive in at some point this weekend. I have an exam on Saturday and punching pixely bad guys in the face sounds like the perfect way to unwind.
What about you folks? What are you getting in to this weekend?
Cheap Boss Attack 
I’m thinking I’ll be plowing through Xenoblade Chronicles X again. Made some decent progress last weekend after facing a very epic boss.
Dragon Age has interested me for a bit, I got the original one on a steam sale, but never got around to playing it as I like to do PC gaming from my couch, and this game is difficult with the small text and lack of controller support. I eventually want to get to inquisition though, but was listening to a podcast referencing this game and saying they felt as an open world game, they felt at lacked some meaningful side quests. Want to know what your thoughts are on this. Are these side quests meaningful or just filler quests like fetch/kill quests?
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That’s odd that Dragon Age: Origins doesn’t have controller support, considering it also released on PS3 and Xbox 360. Bummer. I *do* remember the game having tiny subtitles though, haha. It’s one of my favorite games, for sure (both Origins and the Awakening expansion).
In terms of meaningful side-quests, I think it’s a struggle that any open-world RPG goes through. There’s a lot to do in Inquisition, like closing rifts, recruiting NPCs to join the Inquisition, farming crafting and alchemy materials, and while some of the quests are fetch, kill, or missing persons, they usually have a reason behind them. For example, once the Inquisition is formed you have to visit a town caught in the middle of the Templar/Mage war (since you’ve never played a DA game, Templars are soldiers put in place to regulate the use of magic). The quests you undertake have you fetching things, but the idea is to make good with the townsfolk caught in the middle (bringing them food, blankets) to spread the word of the newly formed Inquisition.
I wouldn’t say it breaks any new ground with side-quest content, but it does it better than most games. Even if you avoid some of the optional stuff, Inquisition has one of the best casts of characters ever.
Give it a shot =). But I’d recommend playing through the first game, and THEN Inquisition.
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Yea it’s weird I thought the same, it’s on consoles so why no controller support. At least now steam controller can help fill that void
Indefinitely plan to take on the original, I tried it a few times restarting as different characters. I love the characters and story etc but I found the game ultra hard. I liked playing as a mage but my party just gets destory even on the easiest difficulty
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My first playthrough was as a Mage and I remember getting crushed at first. They’re very squishy and Alistair, even specced as a tank, can’t hold aggro very well. I had a MUCH easier time as a dagger Rogue.
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Damn that sucks, I found the mage had the coolest intro part compared to the others
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I’ve heard terrible things about Double Dragon. Let me know how you like it :).
I just want to sleep for the next two days and wake up on Monday. I’m homeschooling my daughter and it’s harder then I thought it would be. Some times we’re in front of the computer for 8 hours. I don’t remember the last time I was this drained lol.
If I do some gaming it’ll most likely be some Fallout 4. I really want to see what the Far Harbor expansion is like and I’ve been ignoring it for the last few weeks. I also want to make a dent in Dragon Quest VIII, but every time I sit down to play it I end up falling asleep :). I also started playing ESO again to prepare for that Morrowind expansion.
That Fire Emblem game on the phone is pretty good too. I’ll most likely put a few hours into it over the next few days.
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I watched a buddy stream it and it looked like classic NES Double Dragon. It’s only $7, so I’m not expecting much. We’ll see though!
I hear home schooling is considerably more difficult for the parent than anyone anticipates. You’re doing an awesome thing though. Best of luck to you and your daughter.
I want to check out the Morrowind expansion since it was my favorite Elder Scrolls game, but I just can’t get in to ESO at all. Maybe once the new bundle plummets in price I’ll check it out again.
I haven’t gotten far in the FE Heroes. I basically created an account, linked it with MyNintendo, and pulled my characters. My tablet was about to die, so hopefully I’ll get in to it more over the weekend.
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I share your pain. Went to the shop for new tires and an oil change. $1100 later, all new tie rods. So much for getting a tiny bit ahead.
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Unexpected car expenses are the worst, because they’re never cheap. I was having a issue where my rear passenger tire kept deflating and I’d take it in to the shop, only for them to tell me there’s nothing wrong. They’d test the tire, submerge it in water to search for leaks, and found nothing. Turns out the suspension was going on, so that ran me $1600. Two months later my check engine light pops on and I was told during an oil change that there’s an oil leak somewhere in the truck. Of course the oil system is under the engine block, so to get that and the check engine maintenance, it’s $2400. $4000 in two months!
Hopefully yours stays out of the shop for a while.
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I hope so. It’s 11 years old and it needs to run for 2 more years.
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Ouch dude – tough luck with the truck. My 2009 Ram is at 110K miles so every time I take it into an oil change I have a series of mini heart-attacks. $35 turns to $400 far too quickly when stupid crap like sensors start to go.
This weekend I’m mostly playing this game called “look at a hundred open houses so I can live with my fiancee before we’re actually married” lol, but aside from that, I’m trying to make some good progress on Final Fantasy X so I’ll be set for Breath of the Wild a month from today (holy cow).
As for handhelds, I really want to start Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD on the Vita, as I just bought The Swapper on Vita earlier this morning via LimitedRunGames, but refuse to start another handheld game until I beat Kirby: Planet Robobot. I make everything complicated.
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Well good luck finding a place you and your fiance like! That’s awesome! And I hear ya, my 2007 Chevy Avalanche seems to be the same way lately. Check engine light started popping up, had to get my suspension fixed, my front driver-side rim fixed, and an oil leak repaired. $4000 in two months is fucking absurd.
I played Stranger’s Wrath HD when it released on Ouya and it’s a smooth transition. I’m sure it runs better on Vita though, haha. The Swapper was a lot of fun. I saw LRG put out physical copies yesterday I think? Glad you snagged one of those, since their games tend to sell out fast.
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Best of luck with the exam. I am in a strategy mood so I will spend the weekend playing Fire Emblem Heroes and Dynasty Warriors God Seeker.
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I’ve been hearing a surprising amount of positivity surrounding DW God Seekers and it looks right up my alley. I love me some SRPGs. Hopefully you enjoy it!
I started FE Heroes last night as well. Did you hop in to the quest fountain back in the central hub to claim your 10 free orbs? I had no idea that was a thing until someone posted about it on Twitter. My hero pulls thus far have been pretty rubbish and I don’t want to spend any real money to pull new ones. Hopefully they make it reasonably easy to earn more in-game, or have some sort of trade system between friends.
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You can spend the orbs you get from completing story levels to buy new characters or upgrade your castle (which gives an XP bonus.) If you decide to summon characters with the orbs wait until you have twenty because that makes you get five heroes at a discounted price.
My friend code is 6805841032
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Yeah, I’m just after Tharja and the stones you get to pick from when summoning are randomized T__T. Need the red ones.
I posted my FC on Twitter and don’t have it readily available, but I’ll add you next time I’m on.
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I’m jumping in one this action! My friend code is: 2181214569
My first summon was Young Tiki. Which I was very, very pleased with.
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Nice! I’m still unclear on the two different summon pools since the list link on both is basically the same. I have 3 4-stars on my team now. No 5’s yet.
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My 3rd summon was Corrin, everyone else has been 4-stars. No 3-stars in sight! I guess I’ve just been lucky. It’s still early days though, I’ve only done the prologue and chapter 1.
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Bar the starter/story characters, of course!
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Well, I decided to try to take on your “Four in February” challenge for like the first time in EVER, so I have to decide what to play for that. At some point this week I’ll figure out what my backlog decision is. Until then, it’ll probably be a spamming of Overwatch and FFXIV. OW has it’s Year of the Cock I mean Rooster event, which ends on the 13th. FFXV has it’s Moogle Carnival til the 19th, and then FFXIV just always has my soul. I think it has the Garo event going on until June and the Valentine’s event should be starting, or will be starting soon.
Just finished Resident Evil 7, which I started late since it, you know, the whole Capcom-delaying-the-Collector’s-Edition thing, and I’m kind of reeling from that. That was.. absolutely incredible. Between that and FFXV, I may have a lengthy blog post coming up. Some of my friends were a bit let down by the fact that it was so Silent Hill that it was hard to remember it was Resident Evil but I fucking loved it. I think the one thing I was missing the most was a true New Game+. That was half the fun of some of the previous RE games, was going balls-in with your best weapons, or unlocking a rocket launcher to kill everything…. and yourself.
Still though, I’ll definitely be replaying it to discover everything. I’ll have to be careful because it jerked up my blood pressure in a bad way in a few spots, to the point it got hard to breathe, but otherwise, absolutely brilliant. Capcom did good.
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RE7 was really, really good. I honestly didn’t get a Silent Hill vibe from it at all, since those are usually more occult and less mad science, but it was clearly inspired by P.T. — and that’s in no way a bad thing!
I’ve been wanting to play FFXIV for a while now, since I bought the deluxe edition of Heavensward and stopped playing the moment I finished the core game’s main story chain. It’s that damn sub fee, though. Blagh.
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Hopefully soon they’ll do another free weekend or whatnot, I think it’s been a bit since the last one. Course I could be wrong. Still with Stormblood right around the corner, we’ll probably see more free weekends to entice people to try it out. I’ve been working on catching up on the MSQ, I’m just at a Gear roadblock so I’m farming Palace of the Dead to get currency and/or better gear.
I feel like Resident Evil 7 is trying to expand the universe for the RE series. We knew there were other BoW companies but only Umbrella and TriCell were ever really important. And TriCell was basically Umbrella. I’m hoping that now we’ll see others who have decided the price of blood that a BoW costs is worth its weight in coin. There was mention of a facility in Central America in one of the files. I need to go through and do a completionist route to find all the files I missed.
I definitely want to know more about Ethan though. We saw Mia’s occupation and such come to light (won’t spoil for those browsing the comments) but we didn’t really see much of Ethan’s. Some of his lines, like how resigned he sounded when he picked up his first handgun- versus how anxious or shocked he could have been about using a firearm- make me wonder if there’s more to him than a snappy looking business man. At the very least I wonder if he had at least a basic Army history or something.
Also, Mold reminded me of Uroboros.
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Yeah, we didn’t really find out much about Ethan other than the fact that he knew how to use and reload each and every weapon like a trained professional. Developer oversight, or military trained? We’ll probably never know, since the story DLC is about the… uh… (how to say this without spoiling things) last bit.
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I haven’t looked up all of the planned DLC yet but I know one involves plains of crimson and a denial of self-righteousness.
I’m hoping that we’ll get to see the fate of a certain sneaky sneak of epic sneakiness, who’s sneakiness was only surprised by their ultimate dickishness.
(Good god I hope that was vague enough to avoid spoilers)
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Good luck man! I don’t know how much game time I’ll get in with relatives wanting to watch the super bowl. But I do hope to get in some time with the Super Famicom imports I recently found. Often times the SFC versions go for well below a domestic SNES Game Pak’s price. Fatal Fury Special is a $15 game, but mine was $5. Not too shabby!
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Car repairs especially when you JUST got your car fixed are the worst, and they just hit you out of the blue. You never know if a simple oil change is going to turn into a $1400 exhaust replacement. Maddening.
I kind of the did the same thing with Limbo that you did with Nep-Nep. I finished watching it on YouTube, but my husband just finished it today. I was going to cheat and count it as one of my Four for February, but I want to be honest. I’ll probably download Inside, since I’ve heard it’s similar to Limbo, but a little bit easier.
I just finished playing more WOFF and whoohoo I’m almost done my weeks long leveling mission. Well…the first part. I want to try to get a Mirage for each transfiguration (as much as I can), before I finish off the final dungeon.
For my own sanity, I’m going to take a break from the world imploding and play video games where I can stop that from happening. Ah (Nintendo) power.
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God I hate unexpected car expenses… Such a kick in the teeth! Nothing is ever a cheap fix on a vehicle either. Hope your truck behaves itself soon.
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Thanks! I pick it up from the shop tomorrow, so we’ll see how things go. *shakes fist*
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