What's your favorite video game?

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A place to talk through and discuss our thoughts
My friend let me play untitled goose game the other night and it. Was. Amazing.

At some point imma get it.

I played Kingdoms of Amalur a VERY long time ago, so long that I can't remember the plot but i can remember it's a big reason my spouse and i are together now.

They let me curl up in their dorm during college and play for hours and hours on end. It gave us time to settle in together and get cozy with one another. It was v nice.

Also - I absolutely ADORE Super Mario Sunshine. So. Much.

My dad and I played it together and we'd go to Best Buy to look at the game guide (instead of looking online because either that wasn't a thought yet, or because it gave us something to do). And learn what was going on and we'd go back home and progress. It was so much fun to do together.

Also Animal Crossing. Literally any of them.

This has turned into just me vomiting game titles at u all. LMAO.
 
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Fire Emblem games are NOT connected with one another. There's occasional cameos between titles, and some sequels, but they are clearly marked. But if you wanted a good, fun, traditional experience, pick up Fire Emblem Awakening for the 3DS. Harder, yet still excellent games, include any titles released on the Gameboy Advance. But really, start anywhere, you'll be fine. Well. Except Three Houses? Maybe it's weird to say, but Three Houses isn't where I'd start with the franchise, mostly because it'd ruin the other games for you.

Did you know? Fire Emblem has been a popular franchise in Japan for a good long time. It only gained traction in America when they put Marth and Roy in the original Super Smash Bros. These two characters look very similar, but they aren't even from the same game. Marth is the OG hero of the first and third games, while Roy is from the sixth game.

In the years since they've sort of become the unofficial faces of the franchise, since they appear most frequently in the SSB titles. Alongside them are Ike, a mercenary from the Gamecube Fire Emblem; Chrom and Robin, both from FE Awakening, and Korrin, from FE Fates (which is one of the most unfortunate titles in the recent franchise history, but I won't get into that unless asked). If Byleth doesn't end up in SSBU then I'll be amazed, especially considering how insanely successful 3H has been.
 
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Mass Effect Trilogy. An opera of relationships, high stakes, battles, sci-fi and development. Now and again I'll do the sad-man thing and play all three in order just to experience the joy once more.

For a less story leaning game I tend to go for Hunt: Showdown. Cowboys hunting monsters for sweet, sweet moola.

Fallen Order and Cyberpunk 2077 will probably take my top spots.
 
Mass Effect Trilogy. An opera of relationships, high stakes, battles, sci-fi and development. Now and again I'll do the sad-man thing and play all three in order just to experience the joy once more.

For a less story leaning game I tend to go for Hunt: Showdown. Cowboys hunting monsters for sweet, sweet moola.

Fallen Order and Cyberpunk 2077 will probably take my top spots.
Paragon or Renegade, friend? I say friend because anyone who puts Mass Effect at the top of their list is a good egg.
 
Being a hack I'll probably recycle my two Mandalorians for Cyberpunk fun times.
 
Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, with the Restored Content mod. Best RPG I've ever played, hands down.
 
To kill time between ow and Fallen Order I've taken to playing the Dragon Age trilogy.
 
They're actually really good. Mostly because they treat elves very badly. Like Witcher does.

It treats magic with a sort of wary eye and the Chantry (the church) keeps them locked up and under control. It's got all sorts of themes; political, racial and theological that makes it an interesting universe.

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I dislike elves.
 
Well. I guess that explains some things. So like, does this dislike for elves come from the traditional "Team Human vs Team Everything Else Not Human" mentality? Or is it the typical depiction of Elven superiority in most mass media about them? Or a misplaced sense of human superiority to every other race in fictional media as a whole? Or was that meant to be a really badly worded joke?

Genuinely curious.
 
Mostly from Tokien-inspired creations which tend to eschew a bad side for them or tone it down. Less so from the man himself because that's an original viewpoint when historic myth about elves were that they were in some senses utter bastards.

So perhaps the issue I have is with them is more how people make them to be than the race itself. I dislike races without deep running flaws and I don't take a sort of laissez faire approach to the rest of the world as a flaw per say.

Dwarves are taken to be expert craftsmen but known for their greed and in some media their highly stratified culture makes the lives of their citizens on the lower end easier to spend for whatever ventures they have. Yet despite this they can be noble.

In the Witcher universe humans can be noble as well but in truth they, as a race, is shown as a complicated thing. In the Northern Realms they're often seen as racist bigots who, when troubles arise, put their non-human neighbours to the torch and pitchfork. Pogroms are common. Yet Northerners do have some more noble examples.

In the South the Empire is more like, in a sense, the Persian Empire. You can believe what you believe and have a culture as you see fit. They grant the elves their own land yet their punishments are draconian and they tend to have a somewhat superiority complex when they compare their culture to the vassal realms. There's even a clear line between natural born citizens and those from vassal states.

Elves in the Witcher have a less polished look. They're of their own distinct culture but human migrations and Northern Pogroms (As well as historic issues) have forced them to adapt; rebellion, banditry, criminal acts and even war crimes.. They don't have the same Northern/Western European gleam (Though Dragon Age also gives them a less than stellar time).
 
So, lately I've been huge into Destiny 2 again. Working my way through that power grind. Hopefully I'll hit 950 with my gear this week on my Titan, then I can work on getting some people together to go raiding. If not this weekend, then next. Still wish they had matchmaking for raids, but I get why they don't. At least now Nightfalls got it. That's something.

Aside from that I've been playing my way through Super Mario Oddysey. Good game, though a bit simple. Simple works for Mario, though. It'd be weird to play a Mario title with a real story... like Super Mario RPG...

For story I've got two other games on the back burner. Astral Chain and Dragon Quest II. I've played DQ2 but revisiting it is fun, the game is a super well-made classic JRPG. And Astral Chain is... eh. Honestly, the story is not great, the characters are pretty standard and the plot seems predictable so far. What makes it playable is the gameplay. Platinum Studios knows how to handle combat, and the elements of exploring the world and solving little side-mission things makes the world feel a little more lived-in despite the lackluster roster of characters.

Let's see, what else... finished the main Witcher 3 storyline. Taking a break before I delve into the DLC. I should be finishing the Assassin's Creed Oddysey DLC too, but eh. Eventually. Oh, I've also been dabbling in Warface. For some reason I never have a good connection, but I've been craving a new shooter that isn't completely monetized/made extremely poorly/has some other outstanding problems. I want to look forward to Modern Warfare, but Activision is so disgusting as a company. I wanted to enjoy Battlefield V, but EA is worse than Activision. Bethesda is garbage now, too, and I won't even get into crap like Overwatch or other team-based shooters. Can't wait for Cyberpunk.

Oh, right. Borderlands 3. Almost completely gave up on it thanks to all the nerfs... but Gearbox came out and said that they aren't going to nerf anymore, and instead will buff, so. Time will tell if that one stays fun. We shall see.
 
I never got into Destiny but not out of any spite or loathing for the series. I just don't think it tickled my pickle. Witcher 3 was a gold mine of fun. The DLCs, actual games unto themselves, were delicious. Despite Ubisoft's utter fucking lazy attitude to the Breakpoint title for Ghost Recon, I found Oddysey oodles of fun too. About as historically accurate as one might expect but I was hooked on the gameplay more than the history.

To explain I'm very aware that women had no real power in Greece. The idea of one becoming a powerful enough mercenary to fingergun the leader of Athens like he's your main bro is somewhat comical but if I wanted to know about the life and times of Greece I'd read a book on it or crack open Wikipedia for some (somewhat) accurate information. Kassandra's presence in my playthrough didn't really make me angry. I found her barely hidden tones of contempt worth a chuckle when speaking to some moron who got himself into trouble he could have avoided. Ubisoft does have a spark of creativity within their husk of a form after all.

I didn't even have to buy the microtransaction weapons since the game tosses so many gold weapons at you like it's your fussy grandmother. I found it a genuinely great game but I just wished there was more of the Assassins in my Assassin's Creed. I enjoyed Syndicate to a degree and the twin swapping mechanic was a nice touch. Not to mention lining up four stunned bad guys to have your dude/dudette to this.

 
To be fair you can also get a real dose of history from ACO since they added the same exploration/education mode as they had in Origins. Ubisoft isn't all that bad, really. Yeah, they monetize it up the wazoo, but I feel like with them it's genuinely for people who just want to skip ahead in terms of power/gear/whatever. I mean, there's an obvious throughline of greed in there, but whatever. It's inevitable at the moment that companies are gonna include macrotransactions out the ass (with, of course, some very notable and decent exceptions).

Syndicate was ok, though. Victorian London is such an excellent setting. I do miss more assassin's brotherhood-esque stuff from the two latest games, but I can understand wanting to go back to the root of things to tell a better story on Ubisoft's part. Maybe the viking one they're allegedly doing next will have some more brotherhood-y elements. Imagine a whole viking clan of assassins warring against Templar-held Britain. I'd play the hell out of that.
 
Stealth games just aren't really my thing, which is why I like how Elder Scrolls handles stealth.

Master level sneak = Pilfering the armor off guards while they are running around the not-even-totally-concealing-bush you're hiding in. While also planting cursed and/or poisonous items on them, and watching the bodies pile up.

As far as other genres, Skyrim is probably my favorite action-RPG, though Kingdoms of Amalur is a close second. I don't play these much anymore though, as I've been sucked in again by Destiny 2 and Warframe.

King of Fighters is by far my favorite fighting game series, because their characters are more interesting and have actual connections between them, whereas Street Fighter really doesn't have that. Street Fighter's main cast has some connections between them, that are mostly coherent enough, but King of Fighters' entire cast, from the first game to the most recent one, have connections between them. Even the EX/Secret characters make sense, more often than not. And while yeah, there are obvious fan favorites or faces of the series, there is literally a character for every style of fighting game player in King of Fighters. You like to hang back and poke? Play Duo Lon. You like to rush people and beat faces like they owe you money? Play Ralph or Clark. Projectile game? Geese Howard or Athena. Counter/punish game? Katsumi, Yuri, or Ash is for you. And these are just the ones I can think of while writing this.

If you like fighting games with depth, King of Fighters is just what it says. KING. As much as I like other fightings at times, I always end up coming back to KoF. I even have the newest dumb mobile game on my phone now. XD