Ashgar – Page 60 – AggroChat

On Re-Releases

August 26, 2015 by Ashgar

Blaugust Post #21

Grandia 2 came out on PC this week. The publisher is GungHo, better known for Puzzle & Dragons (I have no idea how they got the license). From all reports the quality of the port is passable, but I’m really kind of excited by what this represents. It’s the most recent example of a Japanese publisher digging out of their back catalog and putting games on the PC. I’m not sure which company started this (although I suspect Square’s desire to get all versions of Final Fantasy on everything helped), but it’s becoming a lot more common, and it’s a chance for people like myself to check out classics that were missed.

I was always told that PC games aren’t big in japan, except for Visual Novels. Consoles have traditionally been the place for JRPGs especially, except for the brief experiment Square tried with FF7 and FF8. The next example I can find is Square again, as they released The Last Remnant on Steam in 2009. This was the first game I encountered that fought very hard against being controlled with a mouse and keyboard, and so I didn’t play much of it (I still haven’t finished it). With a controller, I know people who prefer that version over the original (which was released for the XBox 360, a console I did not own until years later). Capcom noticed the PC Market a year later; Namco got in on the game in 2012. The Carpe Fulgur games (Recettear, Chantelise) opened up the doors for Japanese indies to see western release.

The funny part about that is that visual novels are starting to come over too. Our Game of the Month for Aggrochat is Hatoful Boyfriend, and there are lots of others on Steam at the moment. The world is flat indeed.

AggroChat #71 – Heavensward Mega Episode

May 21, 2019August 23, 2015 by AggroChat

For awhile now the AggroChat crew has deliberately put off talking about the events of Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward in an attempt to allow folks to catch up on the content. However this week the gloves are coming off and we are dipping into a full spoiler episode where we hash out the events that have occured since the 2.55 patch show. We trace the steps of our characters from setting foot into Ishgard to the final conflict of the expansion, with as much details as we can think about in between. This is a roughly two hour long show because of the truly large amount of content to go over. We considered chopping this into two halves, but figured we would release it uncut. We talk about our favorite characters, our most emotional moments and what we are looking forward to with future content patches.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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On Origin

August 22, 2015 by Ashgar

Blaugust Post #20

The Multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 is very good. That almost makes up for the fact that Origin is intensely frustrating to deal with. We spent a larger amount of time on Thursday trying to get into the game than actually playing it, because a bug that’s been around for months is apparently not fixed, and hit me.

I understand it…

The oft-quoted number is that Steam takes a 30% cut of everything sold on their store. I’ve heard rumors that that number is no longer accurate, but even if it is, it’s understandable that companies might want a part of that slice of the pie back. EA was the first company I can think of the entirely break ties with Valve (which is kind of ironic after they published Portal 2 on consoles). Ubisoft followed with UPlay, but that seems to be less relevant as time goes on. EA actually has releases big enough that they can maintain Origin independently. They’ve actually done some things on Origin that I would say work better than Steam, as they had an actual functional return policy first, and their customer service is very good. I haven’t had to deal with Steam’s customer service, but from what I hear it’s generally pretty awful.

…But I don’t have to like it

The actual origin client itself is pretty terrible. The in-game overlay had a nice UI, but it’s been broken for (apparently) several months. It’s allegedly fixed in the beta release, but not for me. (In addition, despite not working, having it enabled makes my game crash.) As mentioned, there’s also that issue with the friends list. Unfortunately, the only thing I can really do here is vote with my wallet, and while EA continues to make excellent games like this, I’m afraid I’m stuck voting for something I don’t like.

Kind of like a real election.

On Running, Continued

August 21, 2015 by Ashgar

Blaugust Post #19

Shadowrun: Hong Kong came out yesterday. It’s the third Shadowrun game to come out of Harebrained Schemes since the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter. For those who are not familiar, Shadowrun Returns was one of the first games to actually release from the big Kickstarter blitz in 2012. The Kickstarter promised 2 campaigns, and the game released in 2013 with the first one, Dead Man’s Switch. The second, Dragonfall, released as an expansion in early 2014. It got a standalone Director’s Cut release later in the year, with an updated engine. We played Dragonfall for Aggrochat Game Club.

Dragonfall seemed to be a product of having about the same amount of time to make a story+art as they had to make a story+art+engine for Dead Man’s Switch. More effort is devoted to characterization, you have a standard team, and it’s quite a bit longer. Generally speaking we seemed to like it, although if you’re going to play it for yourself, listen to the podcast afterwards, it’s full of spoilers.

Once More, With Feeling

Shadowrun: Hong Kong had its own Kickstarter, and I guess experience pays off. It released exactly when planned, which is nearly unheard of for Kickstarter games so far. I haven’t yet played it, but even starting it reveals that production values are quite a bit higher this time around. The character models are much higher resolution, the UI is cleaner, and it even starts with a voice acted cutscene. (Although I didn’t find any options for subtitles. Baby steps…) I’m currently in the middle of another RPG so I probably won’t get to this immediately, but I’m really looking forward to giving this a shot. Maybe I won’t play a troll adept who cuts things in half with a sword this time?