Akun

I played Two Point Hospital and felt the same way. Eventually it just became too tedious to play so I stopped. And at one point I felt like what I was doing wasn't enough, yet I was doing everything right. 

I agree, I consider a game to be worth buying when it's worth the price regardless of who developed/published it. Dont get wrong, there are good reasons to not support certain companies, but game to game, they should be considered on their own merits. Besides, it's not like the indie scene doesn't have its fair share of scum working in it. 

The wolves circling around below them waiting to feast on their corpses.

I am more one for keeping games rather than selling them on, even with physical games, so not being able to sell digital ganes on doesn't really bother me, but I couldn't agree more that is a major downside to digital distribution. Nor do I feel that digital games are priced family given that problem. There was a time that PC gaming justified that problem with games being cheap, but I just don't feel like that's the case anymore. EGS offers a lot of games for free and sales can birth great offers, but it just isn't what used to be.

Finally finished Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition again with the Audemus' Happy Ending Mod installed. It was refreshing to see the game with a different ending this time, albeit a modded, fan-made happy ending. This was the first time I played the game with one of these happy ending mods, so it was pretty cool. I might install other similar mods in my next replay to spice things up and make the experience feel even more different.
But now that I finally finished the trilogy once again, it feels kinda tedious to go back to my usual routine of SMT games, especially when Devil Survivor: Overclocked reminds me how much I suck at the game. I think I'm probably gonna give up on the game soon, if not already. I'm stuck at the battle against the Shomonkai Founder and Belberith, and it really sucks how I can't just grind my level up to get better at beating it because the first playthrough has an xp-lock to keep you from being overpowered. I'm literally forced to fight a challenging boss battle with one hand tied behind my back. And sure, maybe that just means I need to "git gud," but I suck at strategy games, so there's nothing I could do about my lack of talent.
I'm using vinheim's walkthrough on GameFAQ, and it still didn't help. These are the stats of my team. Maybe someone else could help me figure out what I'm doing wrong:
Team 1:
Protagonist: Level 64
Laksmi: Level 55
Astaroth: Level 57
Team 2:
Atsuro: Level 60
Laksmi: Level 52
Orochi: Level 61
Team 3:
Yuzu: Level 62
Norn: Level 58
Hecate: Level 52
Team 4:
Mari: Level 61
Laksmi: Level 54
Cerberus: Level 55
I've leveled up my protagonist to 64 already and I gave my team almost the same demons the walkthrough instructed (except Behemoth, which the walkthrough miswritten as level 63 when it's actually level 70 or something, meaning I have to grind my protag to even get it, which is impossible very hard to do during the first playthrough). Maybe I should just get different demons from the ones stated in the walkthrough. Now that my protagonist is level 64, there are actually demons that are higher leveled than the ones suggested in the walkthrough, but I'm not sure if "higher level" equates to "better demons" in the context of SMT, because they might not have skills that are as efficient. But I guess I have nothing to lose by trying that out.
I guess I could also try using the "Ban Element" auto-skills instead of the auto-skills suggested in the walkthrough. One thing that frustrates me is how my teams kept dying because they got one-shot by the enemies before I even got the chance to fight back (and forced to use Samarecarm/Recarm over and over again until my teams ran out of MP), so protecting my demons from attacks they're weak against might help. Another thing that frustrates me is how my MP ran out by the time I finally managed to beat the lackeys and lifted the required platform that I need to use to reach Belberith. It sucks how there's no MP-restoration items in this game.
And of course, the worst part of all this is the skill-cracking part. Things would probably be a lot easier if I just gang up on a single demon at the same time, but that would mean missing out on cracking useful auto-skills because you need to have specific team members delivering the killing blow to get those skills. So I might just give up on cracking those stupid skills altogether if I ever feel like giving this battle another shot.
The more I'm writing about the game though, the more I hate it and how annoying it is. Makes me feel like giving up on all the other SMT games I haven't played too, including SMT IV:A, Soul Hackers 2, and Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker, because this experience just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Leaving the game and coming back to play it after I've finished the whole Mass Effect trilogy clearly didn't help. I kinda wish there are cheats available for the game so I could get this game over with, because it's either forcing myself to lose over and over again or just abandoning the game altogether and wasting all the money I spent buying these 3DS cartridges on Amazon. I'm just so tired. Suddenly abandoning SMT games after I've been playing them for so long feels kinda weird though, especially when I haven't been able to finish them. I haven't even started New Game+ yet for the ones I did finish.
I don't know. Maybe it's a good thing. I placed a lot of good TV shows I was binging on pause just to play SMT games, so this might be a good opportunity to get back to them. Maybe it's a sign from a higher power. lol Maybe I'm just not meant to finish this game, or those other SMT games I haven't touched (which might be a good thing, considering SMT IV:A's reputation).

Beek taking advantage of the free Ubisoft+ offer recently and the game I've found myself giving the most time to, to my surprise, has been Far Cry 6. I'm really liking it so far. I love it's looks, it's setting, it's soundtrack and it's got some very cool gameplay mechanics going on. Hopefully I'll get it done before the Ubisoft+ trial expires.

Finally reached the pinnacle of the Mass Effect trilogy, Mass Effect 3. Got me thinking about how 'safe' art is nowadays. The appealing thing about art is that it's provocative and encourages conversations on hard topics. Everyone wants an easy answer nowadays to social issues that our 'art' and entertainment in movies and TV shows become bland and uninspiring, just pandering to the most popular and ideals on Twitter and TikTok instead of bothering to improve and expand our perspective on life and society with controversial questions.
Mass Effect 2 had a few great examples of what I'm talking about, specifically Mordin's loyalty mission. It has aged like fine wine, and it goes to show why everyone considered Mordin's character arc the best-written storyline in the entire trilogy. His dilemma and denial over the genophage, along with his subsequently remorseful realization in Mass Effect 3, brought tears to my eyes. I remember choking up when I was questioning Mordin during his loyalty mission about the ethics of the genophage, and I wasn't just tearing up because of how heavy the topic was, but more so because I could feel Mordin's guilt and sorrow over the dead female Krogans that met their fate as an indirect result of his actions. It was so beautifully tragic, Mordin's dilemma and perspective.
But more relevant to my point is that, Mass Effect gamers also had many heated debates regarding the ethics of the genophage. You would rarely get that kind of interesting exchange over a controversial subject in media today because the big companies want to keep the narrative safe. And it's not just the genophage either, but also the Quarians' enslavement of Geths, which are essentially a machine race in the simplest definition. However, the ethics of the Quarians' actions were anything but simple, so the heated exchange about whom were in the right - the Quarians or the Geths - was just as intriguing as well. I love how a video game of all things would get people discussing about such interesting moral dilemmas, even if they aren't important issues in the context of real life. That's what art should be, provocative.
There were times while I was playing the Mass Effect games that it felt like I was watching an episode of Star Trek, specifically The Next Generation. The older Star Trek shows had always tackled intriguing moral and ethical issues with such subtlety and intelligence that the Mass Effect games' handling of their issues bore great resemblance. And it's not just the big issues like genocide and slavery either, but also the smaller inter-relationship conversations, how the crew members talk to each other like adults instead of using simple, dumbed down dialogue a teenager would use.
The Critical Drinker pointed out a great scene that exemplified such a conversation when calling out how modern movies and TV shows use dumbed down dialogue only children and immature man-children would use:
I just love this exchange so much, and I remember a similar level of depth among my conversations with the Normandy crew as well, albeit not as subtle as the conversation above. For example, it's easy to just dismiss Ashley as only a racist without understanding the nuance of her motivation. I might not have supported Ashley's views on aliens, but even I could see there's nuance between her humanist biasness and Terra Firma's "We hate all aliens" point of view. Complex issues like racism never have an easy answer, especially in our modern times when everything's grey. People tend to miss that.

Finally finished Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition again with the Audemus' Happy Ending Mod installed. It was refreshing to see the game with a different ending this time, albeit a modded, fan-made happy ending. This was the first time I played the game with one of these happy ending mods, so it was pretty cool. I might install other similar mods in my next replay to spice things up and make the experience feel even more different.
But now that I finally finished the trilogy once again, it feels kinda tedious to go back to my usual routine of SMT games, especially when Devil Survivor: Overclocked reminds me how much I suck at the game. I think I'm probably gonna give up on the game soon, if not already. I'm stuck at the battle against the Shomonkai Founder and Belberith, and it really sucks how I can't just grind my level up to get better at beating it because the first playthrough has an xp-lock to keep you from being overpowered. I'm literally forced to fight a challenging boss battle with one hand tied behind my back. And sure, maybe that just means I need to "git gud," but I suck at strategy games, so there's nothing I could do about my lack of talent.
I'm using vinheim's walkthrough on GameFAQ, and it still didn't help. These are the stats of my team. Maybe someone else could help me figure out what I'm doing wrong:
Team 1:
Protagonist: Level 64
Laksmi: Level 55
Astaroth: Level 57
Team 2:
Atsuro: Level 60
Laksmi: Level 52
Orochi: Level 61
Team 3:
Yuzu: Level 62
Norn: Level 58
Hecate: Level 52
Team 4:
Mari: Level 61
Laksmi: Level 54
Cerberus: Level 55
I've leveled up my protagonist to 64 already and I gave my team almost the same demons the walkthrough instructed (except Behemoth, which the walkthrough miswritten as level 63 when it's actually level 70 or something, meaning I have to grind my protag to even get it, which is impossible very hard to do during the first playthrough). Maybe I should just get different demons from the ones stated in the walkthrough. Now that my protagonist is level 64, there are actually demons that are higher leveled than the ones suggested in the walkthrough, but I'm not sure if "higher level" equates to "better demons" in the context of SMT, because they might not have skills that are as efficient. But I guess I have nothing to lose by trying that out.
I guess I could also try using the "Ban Element" auto-skills instead of the auto-skills suggested in the walkthrough. One thing that frustrates me is how my teams kept dying because they got one-shot by the enemies before I even got the chance to fight back (and forced to use Samarecarm/Recarm over and over again until my teams ran out of MP), so protecting my demons from attacks they're weak against might help. Another thing that frustrates me is how my MP ran out by the time I finally managed to beat the lackeys and lifted the required platform that I need to use to reach Belberith. It sucks how there's no MP-restoration items in this game.
And of course, the worst part of all this is the skill-cracking part. Things would probably be a lot easier if I just gang up on a single demon at the same time, but that would mean missing out on cracking useful auto-skills because you need to have specific team members delivering the killing blow to get those skills. So I might just give up on cracking those stupid skills altogether if I ever feel like giving this battle another shot.
The more I'm writing about the game though, the more I hate it and how annoying it is. Makes me feel like giving up on all the other SMT games I haven't played too, including SMT IV:A, Soul Hackers 2, and Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker, because this experience just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Leaving the game and coming back to play it after I've finished the whole Mass Effect trilogy clearly didn't help. I kinda wish there are cheats available for the game so I could get this game over with, because it's either forcing myself to lose over and over again or just abandoning the game altogether and wasting all the money I spent buying these 3DS cartridges on Amazon. I'm just so tired. Suddenly abandoning SMT games after I've been playing them for so long feels kinda weird though, especially when I haven't been able to finish them. I haven't even started New Game+ yet for the ones I did finish.
I don't know. Maybe it's a good thing. I placed a lot of good TV shows I was binging on pause just to play SMT games, so this might be a good opportunity to get back to them. Maybe it's a sign from a higher power. lol Maybe I'm just not meant to finish this game, or those other SMT games I haven't touched (which might be a good thing, considering SMT IV:A's reputation).

Since most popular video games are American-made, and since I don't live in America, no environment would ever feel real to me. lol New York City would always be a fantasy world to me since I don't plan to fly to America any time soon.
Besides, no locations in a game could ever be real enough for me anyway unless I could touch the grass and smell the polluted gas, something video games still couldn't achieve in 2022, unfortunately.

I don't watch TV anymore, and it doesn't help that Singapore's local channels suck. I might click on a YouTube video showing footage from a film I've greatly enjoyed though, but even that is rare and dependent on my mood.

I may have to do that for some games, especially something like Dark Souls, as I can never get good at it haha. I've played a fair deal of the beginning, but once I got to one of the first "real" bosses, I kinda gave up.
But, if I knew how to build the best character for the job, I may give the game and series another go. 😄 

I've only seen one movie and one TV show I liked so far in 2022:
Movie: The Batman
TV Show: Moon Knight
Didn't bother with Top Gun: Maverick or any of the latest MCU renditions, because clearly, I'm not the target audience for the latter.

Finally reached the pinnacle of the Mass Effect trilogy, Mass Effect 3. Got me thinking about how 'safe' art is nowadays. The appealing thing about art is that it's provocative and encourages conversations on hard topics. Everyone wants an easy answer nowadays to social issues that our 'art' and entertainment in movies and TV shows become bland and uninspiring, just pandering to the most popular and ideals on Twitter and TikTok instead of bothering to improve and expand our perspective on life and society with controversial questions.
Mass Effect 2 had a few great examples of what I'm talking about, specifically Mordin's loyalty mission. It has aged like fine wine, and it goes to show why everyone considered Mordin's character arc the best-written storyline in the entire trilogy. His dilemma and denial over the genophage, along with his subsequently remorseful realization in Mass Effect 3, brought tears to my eyes. I remember choking up when I was questioning Mordin during his loyalty mission about the ethics of the genophage, and I wasn't just tearing up because of how heavy the topic was, but more so because I could feel Mordin's guilt and sorrow over the dead female Krogans that met their fate as an indirect result of his actions. It was so beautifully tragic, Mordin's dilemma and perspective.
But more relevant to my point is that, Mass Effect gamers also had many heated debates regarding the ethics of the genophage. You would rarely get that kind of interesting exchange over a controversial subject in media today because the big companies want to keep the narrative safe. And it's not just the genophage either, but also the Quarians' enslavement of Geths, which are essentially a machine race in the simplest definition. However, the ethics of the Quarians' actions were anything but simple, so the heated exchange about whom were in the right - the Quarians or the Geths - was just as intriguing as well. I love how a video game of all things would get people discussing about such interesting moral dilemmas, even if they aren't important issues in the context of real life. That's what art should be, provocative.
There were times while I was playing the Mass Effect games that it felt like I was watching an episode of Star Trek, specifically The Next Generation. The older Star Trek shows had always tackled intriguing moral and ethical issues with such subtlety and intelligence that the Mass Effect games' handling of their issues bore great resemblance. And it's not just the big issues like genocide and slavery either, but also the smaller inter-relationship conversations, how the crew members talk to each other like adults instead of using simple, dumbed down dialogue a teenager would use.
The Critical Drinker pointed out a great scene that exemplified such a conversation when calling out how modern movies and TV shows use dumbed down dialogue only children and immature man-children would use:
I just love this exchange so much, and I remember a similar level of depth among my conversations with the Normandy crew as well, albeit not as subtle as the conversation above. For example, it's easy to just dismiss Ashley as only a racist without understanding the nuance of her motivation. I might not have supported Ashley's views on aliens, but even I could see there's nuance between her humanist biasness and Terra Firma's "We hate all aliens" point of view. Complex issues like racism never have an easy answer, especially in our modern times when everything's grey. People tend to miss that.

@Akunwould be getting my nomination this time around. I love reading his comments on every topic he decides to have his say. 

Somewhat guilty as charged lol - luckily, I didn't rush out the door and buy Cyberpunk 2077. Luckily, I got a free key but I'm glad I didn't pre-order the game because it'd have left me with a bitter taste in my mouth again.
The Witcher series has suffered from the lack of optimization on PCs - When I had my previous gaming desktop, Witcher 3 used to make my 1080 TI start to overheat and at the time, 1080 Ti was the most powerful consumer GPU next to the Titan.

The Witcher games, perhaps. Its consistency in quality is why people propped CD Project Rekt as their god... much to their later dismay.

True lol. At least the 2022 patch made it serviceable(according to reviews). I'm even considering getting it myself.

Alcoholism tends to run in my family, so I'm predisposed to it. My parents were both heavy chain smokers. The instant they put one out, they lit up another one. Even when pregnant with me, my mother didn't quit or even slow down. The damage it did to me while I was in utero is pretty obvious to those that know me in person.
I understand your compulsion. Many men I have known had addiction to pornography. I don't really get it myself, but that doesn't negate the fact that it's a real addiction. That's why there's sex addict support groups, the same as there is AA and NA.

Yeah, microtransactions and loothboxes are always constant in such kind of games. It's always been the pattern in such game's development and I'm sure if they would be changing from that anytime soon. 

It's basically the one the main reason why I had to upgrade to playing with Nintendo Switch. Even though it's got its own downside, it's a handheld console that's far more better than playing on smartphone. 

Seriously, that's so true because when you get to see some reviews and you actually played the because of it, there will be no connection at all with what's said and what's obtainable in the game. Why the lie now would always be my question.. 

I agree. Pop music is pretty good as long as it's more from the old days like you said, Brit and MJ.. and Jessica Simpson sings a great one called "Where you Are" .. I remember it so well.
Today's pop is blah, never listen to it.

Mostly songs I have little interest in, like rap or reggae. I don't mind bubblegum pop songs because I grew up with them, but many of the so-called "pop songs" today feel so generic and stale. Where's the energy in them? Where's the adrenaline that makes me want to dance? They're certainly no MJ or Britney.

I'm always advocating for multiple paths in a game's storyline. I know it's hard to do, so I don't really have high hopes for such a feature to be more prevalent. But on the other hand, you get a JRPG like Shin Megami Tensei where some of their endgame content does contain multiple paths depending on whom you side with (SMT IV comes to mind). I believe Fire Emblem games also contain different paths based on whom you side with. I feel like this is mostly a JRPG thing though, because whenever a western RPG does it, they'd often resort to the lazy "slideshow" method like Fallout: New Vegas or Mass Effect 3, instead of creating three distinctly different gameplay levels based on player choices.
Now, obviously, games like Detroit: Become Human and The Dark Picture anthology could do it easily because they lack gameplay features outside of QTE, so it's easy to make them. But I would propose for game developers to be more daring and innovative, creating full game levels with multiple paths. You see this in older RPGs too like Dragon Age: Origins, so I don't know more AAA games these days don't have such features anymore. I heard The Witcher 3 had multiple paths, but I'm not really a fan of medieval fantasy settings, which is why when CD Projekt Red announced Cyberpunk: 2077, I thought we were going to get Witcher 3 with a sci-fi cyberpunk setting, with all the multiple paths Witcher 3 had to offer. Alas, that was not so, with the way the life paths were described by people who've played them.
Another cool concept I've really liked in the past is Undertale with the players' act of pacifism being a core important part of the story, and even though I had my problems with the message, Spec Ops: The Line had a nice concept like that as well, so I wouldn't mind seeing more games in the future turn the game genre on itself, like the Goombas in a Mario game calling out Mario for stomping on them all the time or something, or a Pokémon game where the questionable ethics of dog-fighting comes into question. Just spice things up a little and do a little subversion to make the familiar formula fresher, more interesting.
BioShock had a good idea in terms of farming the Little Sisters for ADAM, but they made it too easy morally to choose not to farm them. And I'm not talking about how challenging the gameplay is, but rather, making the decision more morally grey. I'm not exactly sure how to do it, especially in the obviously morally questionable objectivism of BioShock context, but a game where the innocence of a malicious ghost child comes into question would be interesting as well in horror games. Imagine having to play through Silent Hill 2 without killing any monsters, for example. 
Speaking of horror games, here's a concept for you: a protagonist whose appearance becomes more grotesque depending on your moral actions, but the other characters actually call out on this. In most games that have such a feature, I feel like the NPCs don't usually call out on the protagonist's appearance, such as Mass Effect or even Fable.
How about a horror protagonist with some kind of disease that gradually makes them become as deformed as the monsters they fight? Maybe the deformed lump of flesh becomes a burden even that movement becomes harder by the end of the game, and maybe depending on your choices, you could either become one of the monsters or fight against the disease with all your might.
I don't know. I'm just spitballing here. 😛 Hope it helps. lol

You're right about him being a complete show off. He prides himself on being different from the rest which I don't see any essence of it. He could have used the money in better ways but that's not in his plans. Anyways, it's his money and no one is gonna dictate to him how to spend it. I call him iPhone freak whenever we hang out.