Good Morning Folks. I am bad at realizing what time of the year it is… and that my blog and podcast anniversaries are approaching. As a result, last Friday, aka April 17th, was the 17th anniversary of Tales of the Aggronaut. The left side of the above image is one of the earliest revisions of the site as saved by the Wayback Machine. Then, of course, on the right side, you have what the site looks like now. I’ve not made any really significant revisions to the look and feel of the site in a very long time, other than to shim in more artwork from Ammo as I commission something else. There was a point where I cared about readership, but honestly, at this point, I view this blog as a sort of outsider art project. You either care about me and what I have to say, or you don’t, and I can’t be much bothered to tailor my writing to follow whatever trends might be happening. Many of you have been with me through the death of animals, the loss of my spouse of thirty years, and now, as I am dealing with cancer. I’ve tried to be as honest as I can be with my thoughts and feelings as I went through all of it. Without really intending to, I somehow built a community of folks who care about me, and I appreciate that so much when things get low.
I also completely forgot to talk about the Anniversary of AggroCha,t the podcast that I started in 2014. This past weekend, we recorded episode 656, and started this nonsense back on April 13th of 2014. Listening to the early episodes makes me cringe super hard, but I think it is more about how different human beings many of us were back then. A lot of stuff had not happened that shook the core of both our gaming roots and, honestly, American civilization, and it shows. Folks have come and gone from the roster, but the original core of Me, Ash, and Kodra has remained pretty rock solid through all of it. It’s only gotten better as we added everyone that represents our current core of Ace, Ammo, Ashgar, Kodra, Tam, and Thalen. At this point, it is way more about hanging out together at a fixed time and talking about discussions that we don’t necessarily make time for at other moments than anything else. For both the blog and the podcast, they are not money-making ventures, nor have I ever wanted them to be. However, I am still pretty proud of us sticking with this for as long as we have.
In gaming terms this weekend, I wrapped up my 36th challenge out of 40 and think that I am going to wind down Path of Exile for the moment. Mirage League was a lot of fun, but I have more or less accomplished everything that I care to accomplish. At this point, I would only be moving forward with the acquisition of currency for the sake of acquiring currency. We should be getting news on the Path of Exile II league pretty soon, and next Tuesday is the drop for the Diablo IV Lord of Hatred expansion. While I have not fallen in love with Diablo IV in the same way as I did Diablo III, it should still be fun to poke around and play with the new Warlock class a bit. I think I have also reached a point where I have wound down my interest in Last Epoch as well. Those seasons are great for a week or two, but I quickly run out of things that I actually care to do, at least much faster than I do in a Path of Exile league. All of the ARPGs are in a pretty great state, and they all become somewhat interchangible for my joy at any given moment.
On a complete whim, over the weekend, I picked up Crimson Desert and started playing that. I am honestly not sure what I think of this game yet. Combat is mostly pretty fun, but movement and the pace of the game in general are a bit on the slow end. The world is gorgeous, and there is a lot of interesting stuff going on. I was not sure what sort of game to really consider this, but after playing, I think it is more akin to something like Dragon’s Dogma. If I had my druthers, it would perform exactly like The Witcher 3, but I do not get what I want most of the time. I am not entirely certain how much I am going to play it, because I have already had moments where the slow pace was a bit too plodding for me. I was also immediately annoyed when Steam popped up the “you should play this with a controller” message, but the game itself performs perfectly fine with a mouse and keyboard. There is a rumor that we are just about to get another expansion for The Witcher 3, and if that happens, it means I am going to drop whatever I am doing and play that.
I have a backlog of a lot of recent titles that I really need to get around to playing. Greedfall: The Dying World moved out of early access to its final release version in March, and as a result, I am now interested in playing that. Greedfall was a deeply imperfect game, but it was doing a lot of things that I really liked. I am also somewhat interested in diving into Star Wars Outlaws and the next part of the Final Fantasy VII reimaginging trilogy. There is also Death Stranding 2, which might honestly be the right sort of game for the weird time that I am going through. I played the first one at the height of COVID isolation, and as a result, it felt deeply poignant. Since I am similarly greatly limiting my exposure to other human beings due to the chemotherapy wrecking my immune system, it might produce similar results. I have more games than I can ever play. If I am being perfectly honest, I just have to figure out something that lands right and brings me joy since I have wound down my old reliable partner in Path of Exile.
Anyways… I have been writing this post for several hours now. I need getting distracted by either work or chemo brain, and figure I should wrap things up. What are you playing right now that is bringing you joy? Drop me a line and let me know.
The post Bad At Anniversaries appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Hey Folks we’re back! Sorry for the week off but we return with a full docket of topics. We start off with some more discussion of Last Epoch and how everyone is still enjoying the game. Bel dinged 100 for the first time and we talked a bit about buildcraft and approachability. From there Bel talks about Dwarven Realms an ARPG of a sort that has gained traction this week amongst some of the streamers that is just “big dumb fun”. From there Ash goes down a list of Roguelikes that he has been enjoying lately namely Astral Ascent, Spiritfall, and Balatro. Tam revisits his topic surrounding the ambitious process of remaking Final Fantasy VII and his thoughts after having played a good deal of the second part. Finally, Bel uses volatile reversal and brings us back to the topic of Last Epoch and namely the impact it seems to be having on the ARPG genre as a whole.
Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Tonight we are back with the whole crew. We start off the show talking about how Secrets of Grindea, a game that we did an early gameclub show about… has FINALLY launched out of Early Access. From there we talk about Last Epoch some more as Kodra was out last week and has much to say about explosions. We also discussed building different characters and how the game rewards them. Bel attempts a Tier list but gets shut down as he is the only one who still prefers Path of Exile. Finally, Tam and Ammo share their early thoughts about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Good Morning Friends! Yesterday was the beginning of the Geoff Keighley replacement for E3 called the Summer Games Fest. Quite honestly I think I like this construct better as it is something that sort of meanders its way through the summer connecting a number of disparate events and looping in Gamescom as part of it. I am going to talk about a few games that piqued my interest, but really… you are going to have to listen to me gush about the new Path of Exile II Teaser that we got as part of it. All in all, I think the show was well worth your time, so if you are interested you can check out the official video here.
Path of Exile II
It would not be Path of Exile if we did not start on a beach somewhere. The challenge with this teaser is that it is very much the definition of a “sizzle reel”. In the gameplay trailer from two years ago, the game did not feel that fundamentally different from POE1. This however feels way more story driven as combat unfolds as you are clearly investigating a location. I also find it deeply interesting that just a very short way into the fight the character seems to do a dodge roll, which makes me wonder if this means that like D4 and D3 on the console… POE2 is adding some sort of an evade button. This does worry me a bit because the way movement abilities work in Path of Exile generally negates the need for an evasion button. However Ruthless mode lacks movement abilities of the same caliber as the base game, so it does make me a bit concerned that they are leaning into that more sluggish gameplay style that bugs me with Diablo IV.
The other thing that is interesting in the trailer is that the character seems to be using a lot of abilities. Like in Path of Exile, you tend to build around one main ability and I guess in part this is due to the lack of access to multiple six links. However with Gems working completely differently in Path of Exile and them socketing support gems into ability gems… does that mean we will have access to a six link for every ability? Again this sort of concerns me in a different way because it makes me wonder if we are going to be forced to use a ton of different abilities due to cooldowns on each individual one. Again the cooldowns and the sluggish pace of combat in Diablo IV drive me up a wall, so it does concern me a bit that what I am scrying from this teaser might be heralding a slower-paced Path of Exile experience. Slower-paced does not equate to a more enjoyable experience for me at least. I guess we will have to wait until ExileCon at the end of July to see more details.
Alan Wake 2
I was happy to see more discussion about Alan Wake 2. The more I see of this the more I am interested. It seems like you will be shifting between Alan and a new character called Saga. It sounds like essentially Saga will be playing through the story that Alan is telling, with the ability to shift back and forth between the characters at various points. My biggest hope is that we also get a crossover with either Director Faden herself or at least some Federal Bureau of Control agents. I am here for Alan Wake, but what I am even more here for is the expansion of this nonsense shared “Remedyverse”.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Another game that we are getting to see a bit more of is Banishers, which feels like a gaslight-era game where you play a medium of a sort that can banish restless spirits. What is interesting about this specific trailer is it adds a bit of the hook of the game. It seems like you have lost your partner and have to make a Bioshock-like decision do you spare the inflicted humans, or do you steal their life essence in a vague attempt to resurrect your love? The combat looks interesting and the visuals are most excellent. I want to play through this whenever it lands but given my affinity for “forever games”, it will likely have to wait until a holiday break when I seem to grind through a bunch of single-player stories at once.
John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando
I feel like this game is calling me out directly. I still love Zombie movies and games. I am not tired of them. I was a fan of the Zombie genre long before it blew up with Walking Dead, and I am still a fan all these years later after that same series more or less ruined it for the masses. This seems like a Bulletstorm-style nonsense shooter with lots of zombies and an 80s soundtrack. Putting “John Carpenter” in front of it is also a siren song for those of us who grew up idolizing Snake Pliskin. Will I actually play it? Who the fuck knows. It is going to have to compete with all the other games that seem to look just interesting enough to buy, but never critical enough for me to actually devote the time to finishing them.
Space Marine 2
There are a lot of Warhammer games out there. At some point Games Workshop went from carefully curating their licenses to the maximalist approach of letting anyone use their licenses… which resulted in a ton of shovelware. Space Marine is maybe the single best game that ties into the Warhammer franchise and it is good enough to stand alone as an amazing experience even if you do not care one iota about Adeptus Astartes. I’ve been playing Boltgun lately which apparently sits in between the story of the first and second game, and I am highly looking forward to ripping into things with my chain sword again in non-retro glory. Well worth checking out the first game if you have never played it as well.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
The Prince of Persia reboot… got rebooted again. Do I have any faith that this one will actually make it to market? Absolutely not. However, I do have to say that this looks much better than the previous attempt at rebooting this franchise. I like the focus on a more 2.5D feeling harkening back to the original games a bit at times. The Sands of Time remake may at some point make its way out of development hell, but this definitely looks way more interesting.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
They closed out the show with a powerhouse and gave us footage of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I am here for this game and unlike many single-player outings, this really probably will be a day-one play for me. I loved the Remake and the Yuffie expansion, and quite honestly dig the action reboot of this series way more than a turn-based option. I get that this is a divisive thing, but it works for me personally. I honestly even liked the tweaks and changes to the setting that this alternate version of the world has presented. The open world looks gorgeous and apparently, on consoles this is going to be a two-disc game, which seems like nonsense. I feel like you are either into this with all of your heart, or you have long since checked out of everything Final Fantasy VII related and just do not care in the least. FFVII is not my favorite of the series by any means, but I greatly enjoyed the first bits of this reboot universe so I am here for the continuation.
I think the next show that I am looking forward to as part of Summer Games Fest would be the Xbox/Bethesda showcase at 10 AM PDT on the 11th. It apparently also has a follow-up “Starfield Direct” with a further deep dive into that game since we are getting closer to its launch. I often watch the PC Gaming Show as well since it occasionally has some weird PC-only gems in it. That takes place on the 11th but a bit later in the day at 1 PM PDT. The Capcom and Ubisoft show on the 12th are definitely going to be “look at any relative trailers later” shows because I am not that deeply connected to either publisher. Quite honestly I think I am bored with the Ubisoft formula at this point, and I am not into a return to stealth gameplay with the Assassin’s Creed franchise either. It may not be E3… but it certainly feels like the same sort of experience that I used to have watching the streams leading up to the official trade show that none of us had access to anyways. As much as Geoff Keighley claims that he didn’t kill E3… he certainly helped prove that the companies no longer actually needed a costly in-person show.
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