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[Loyal]

I can't even watch videos of Stardew Valley without wanting to take a nap.

[Arcanum]

Originally Posted by greed

So anyone heard of Momodora Reverie Under Moonlight?

The game is a really hard Castlevania/Metroid style game. Very open ended, once you beat the first boss you can basically tackle the rest in any order until the end.

It also looks gorgeous. Easily worth the $8-10 they're asking for it.

Saw it because I saw someone on my friend list added it to their wishlist. I have no idea where this game came from but I plan on buying it when I get some free time. Also apparently you can get the first 2 for free on their website and the third is like $5 on steam, if anyone is inclined to play all of them.

Originally Posted by Grandmaster_Skweeb

Screw all that fighting and political hulubaloo. Dig up some crops in the valley of Stardew.

And this is why I don't have spare time. Stardew is actually the first Harvest Moon type game I have ever played, and I can't stop. Abigail is the best and any other romance option is actually also a pretty solid romance option because all the characters are pretty great.

Originally Posted by Loyal

I can't even watch videos of Stardew Valley without wanting to take a nap.

Before Stardew I couldn't comprehend the Harvest Moon games. You spend your time planting, watering, and picking crops? How could that be fun? But the months leading up to Stardew's release date I had a friend who would constantly hype up the game to me. He was a Harvest Moon fanatic, and his excitement for the game bled into me and despite myself I was excited for it too even though I didn't know how it could possibly be fun.

So I bought it and went in with an open mind, and it sunk its teeth in deep. There are a couple of reasons for that. First it has the same addictive power of Civ (or other 4X games), just instead of "one more turn" it's "one more day." You also get a nice dopamine rush when it's harvest day and you're rolling in gold when you sell your crops. But other than farming there's also a pretty fun fishing mini-game, delving into mines and fighting monsters (and mining), and interacting with the townsfolk and building your relationships with them (and ultimately romancing one of the bachelors/bachelorettes and potentially having kids). That last one is a pretty big deal since the writing is pretty good (if repetitive after an in-game month or two of talking to them every day), and every character has their own little arc that you can discover as you build your relationship with them

It's also extremely satisfying seeing the steady growth of your farm. You start with an overrun field of trees and weeds and you turn that into a single field, which evolves into two fields, and now you've got a coop, and now three large fields, one of which is watered entirely by sprinklers, and before you know it you're growing ~500 crops at once, a bunch of farm animals on the side, and the beginnings of a slime ranch, all while simultaneously planning the aesthetic layout of your farm.

If that doesn't appeal to you then hey I guess the game's not for you, but those are just my ramblings as someone who never understood those types of games and finally gave one a chance.

[Solid Snake]

I can't really start my Stardew playthrough in earnest until Emily is a genuine love interest.

[Krylo]

I've been sick as shit the last week and a half (started with just a cough, then cellulitis on my shoulder--which, btw, is painful as fuck--then full on cold just as that was going down), so I decided to give this Stardew Valley game everyone on my steam list has been playing all the time a shot figuring it'd be a nice low stress way to pass time when I'm not feeling well enough for any games that require intense or fast reflexes.

Suffice to say I was correct in that assumption.

It's a surprisingly robust and enjoyable game with more to do every day than you really have time for (at least during 3/4th of the seasons), which means you're never bored, but, at the same time, there's no real stress involved. It's just a very calm game.

I started out doing some farming because obviously, and quickly decided that I liked Robin during the intro only to find out she's already married. But that was okay because Abigail spoke to that part of me that's had a huge thing for goths and punks since the earliest beginnings of my puberty, and then I found out that she sneaks away to practice swordplay at night so she can explore dangerous caves, and basically ended up married to her pretty quickly. Whiiiich I sort of regret? As that I've had a few festivals now and it seems like your wife/husband just say the same thing every time about hoping you're enjoying the time off instead of having lines specific to their character. Which is kinda shitty. Same thing on married life in general, really. A lot of the lines don't really seem to have her personality to them (some definitely do, though). Plus there's the fact she no longer leaves the farm ever to go play flute in the rain or whatever, and, basically, I kind of feel like you decide you like x character so that's the one you'll marry and then that character essentially stops existing.

As for the farm, it became a thing where I just built a bunch of sprinklers and ignored it outside of harvest and planting time. I spent most of the first year exploring the mines and getting all the way down to the bottom, while also taking breaks from that for fishing and finishing up the non-bulletin board quests (and some bulletin quests as well). It wasn't until winter when I finally cleared away all the trees and rocks and logs in my yard and built some proper fences and a proper farming area.

Currently I'm level 8/9 in everything and about half-way through the first winter with five apple saplings, five pomegranate saplings, and five maple saplings growing in an area I set off for trees. I'm looking to buy five of all the other tree types as well, which will probably happen about halfway through spring, followed shortly by finishing the vault, and then upgrading my house.

[greed]

Originally Posted by Krylo

I started out doing some farming because obviously, and quickly decided that I liked Robin during the intro only to find out she's already married. But that was okay because Abigail spoke to that part of me that's had a huge thing for goths and punks since the earliest beginnings of my puberty, and then I found out that she sneaks away to practice swordplay at night so she can explore dangerous caves, and basically ended up married to her pretty quickly. Whiiiich I sort of regret? As that I've had a few festivals now and it seems like your wife/husband just say the same thing every time about hoping you're enjoying the time off instead of having lines specific to their character. Which is kinda shitty. Same thing on married life in general, really.

This is huge problem for the genre really the only games I've seen avert this to a reasonable degree were Rune Factory 3 and 4. But those games both had absolutely absurd amounts of dialogue (as in talking every day I didn't hit repeats for three seasons and they still had new dialog for story and season progression beyond that). So that wasn't unexpected.

Also if anyone here enjoyed Stardew Valley and haven't played Rune Factory 4 you should definitely get that. It's the the best game in the genre. Though fair warning it's at the far other end of Stardew in how down to earth it is. It is anime as fuck.

[Loyal]

Plus there's the fact she no longer leaves the farm ever to go play flute in the rain or whatever, and, basically, I kind of feel like you decide you like x character so that's the one you'll marry and then that character essentially stops existing.

If you love them, you must let them go.

[Arcanum]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

I can't really start my Stardew playthrough in earnest until Emily is a genuine love interest.

Probably won't happen since there are some cute moments between her and Clint. I haven't maxed out their relationships yet so I don't know how it might end, but I'm really hoping they hook up.

Originally Posted by Krylo

As for Emily, I only ever see her at the bar so I don't know anything about her.

I popped into her house once and she blasted some techno music and danced. I'm not sure if she made the music herself, or just made the dance, or both, but that's the extent of my knowledge on her character.

As that I've had a few festivals now and it seems like your wife/husband just say the same thing every time about hoping you're enjoying the time off instead of having lines specific to their character. Which is kinda shitty. Same thing on married life in general, really. A lot of the lines don't really seem to have her personality to them (some definitely do, though). Plus there's the fact she no longer leaves the farm ever to go play flute in the rain or whatever, and, basically, I kind of feel like you decide you like x character so that's the one you'll marry and then that character essentially stops existing.

The lack of dialogue is a bit of an issue, especially as you get into your second year and do the festivals again. Everyone just says the same thing as they did last year.

To be fair, everything in the game was done by one person, so writing pages and pages and pages of dialogue was probably not as high on his priority list.

As for the farm, it became a thing where I just built a bunch of sprinklers and ignored it outside of harvest and planting time. I spent most of the first year exploring the mines and getting all the way down to the bottom, while also taking breaks from that for fishing and finishing up the non-bulletin board quests (and some bulletin quests as well). It wasn't until winter when I finally cleared away all the trees and rocks and logs in my yard and built some proper fences and a proper farming area.

Currently I'm level 8/9 in everything and about half-way through the first winter with five apple saplings, five pomegranate saplings, and five maple saplings growing in an area I set off for trees. I'm looking to buy five of all the other tree types as well, which will probably happen about halfway through spring, followed shortly by finishing the vault, and then upgrading my house.

Yeah I have most of my crops all on sprinklers too, which gives me more time to tend to my animals (have a fully upgraded barn and coop), harvest more slimes to turn into slime eggs to expand my slime ranch, go fishing, and get upset at RNG for not giving me the artifacts I want to complete the collection.

Actually, decided to take a bunch of screenshots and stitch them together. So here is what my farm looks like in summer of year 2.

In hind sight I should've gone top-to-bottom on the left side as well, but oh well, the toolbars don't obscure too much. Also sorry for the awful quality, my upload speed is garbage (and currently acting up and being even worse right now), so I had to resize the original patchwork image from a 16MB .png to a 1MB .jpg.

The left side going to be my "wild tree" orchard (maple, oaks, and pines) where I'll have taps on a bunch of them and have a nice organized source of wood if I need it. I also plan on putting in more beehives above the small pond. Oh and the mess of tilled ground above the cabbages is just because I had some off-set crops that were harvested 2-3 days before, and I decided to wait until the cabbages were ready to plant more stuff there so I could harvest them all at once.

And finally the only reason my house isn't fully upgraded is because I don't need the extra rooms until I get married to Abigail, and the only reason I haven't done that yet is because I hit 10 hearts with her in winter of year 1, and I want to marry her in fall because that's her favorite season. No it doesn't make any difference, but I'm enjoying the roleplay aspect.

[Solid Snake]

The worst part of Fire Emblem Fates is, by far, the relationship grinding.

Oh, I don't mean level grinding. There's actually more or less an artificial cap on level grinding in Fates, unlike in Awakening, that stifles you a bit there in terms of overall customization. (Similarly, it's harder to play at eugenics and engineer crazy-skilled kiddos in Fates, but at least that feels like a natural byproduct of the differences in the kids' backstories between Fates and Awakening.)

I mean relationship grinding. As in, if you want characters (aside from Corrin) to have any hope of getting anywhere near a viable S-rank, let alone having A-ranks with several other friends, you're gonna be stuck replaying the same bullshit over and over until you get there.

It took me forever and a day to get my first S-rank for a guy who wasn't Corrin. (Meanwhile, my Corrin has S-ranks with about a half-dozen ladies, but I refuse to pair him until I've met all the viable love interests, because I'm silly like that.) This was Silas and Camilla, and it took me an absurd amount of grinding to get them there.

Then I watched their S-rank scene...and I was underwhelmed. As for why I was underwhelmed: I suddenly felt Silas honestly deserved better than settling for the girl he crushed on as a kid...a girl who still clearly has feelings for her adopted brother, and who settles on Silas only after Corrin basically tells her he'll never see her that way. Silas is my best bro! He deserves someone better!

...Then I saw Sophie with purple hair and I was like, meh, yeah, probably need to pair Silas up with someone else.
Problem is, Silas has an A-rank with Corrin and...a couple B-ranks with suitable partners, including Elise. No, I am not going to partner Silas up with my younger sister who is waaaay too young for him. (No, I do not care that the game repeatedly tries to make the case that Elise is somehow an 'adult.' An 'adult' by outrageous medieval standards, maybe.)

So now I have to grind a relationship for Silas again, but it takes much longer than it should to advance ranks, and you can only utilize a fraction of your cast on each map, and with most maps on Conquest you can't even level-grind as you're relationship-grinding, and the one exception to that rule is the most boring map of the bunch.

So yeah, the combination of the absurd repetition in advancing relationships, as well as the sheer repetitive of the available replayable missions, and your inability to know how well a couple matches together until you've invested a shitload of time into the process...those are my big criticisms of Fates so far.
(For some reason, Awakening didn't feel like nearly as much of a grind.
...Also, Awakening's soundtrack was so much better than Fates'. I'll stick my neck out on that one.)

Still, always choose Nohr over Hoshido.

Nohr has:

1: The far better sassy dance cutscene. I feel bad for whoever forced themselves to witness the boring Hoshido version instead.
2: Actual interesting and challenging mission objectives.
3: Yuri Lowenthal as Niles.
4: INIGO. SEVERA. OWAIN. (Look at how fuckin' sexy Owain is now, why the fuck can't my guy romance him.)
5: Odin can meet Lissa!
6: There is no Caeldori and no Rhajat in Conquest. You are spared.
7: More importantly, you get to beat the crap out of this asshole.
8: You should never romance Elise. BUT LOOK HOW ADORABLE SHE IS. She is the best little sister. If you fight against her you have no soul. You are soulless like Greed, who is a meanie.
9: ARTHUR. Oh my God, Arthur is the best character. I utterly adore him. His voice acting, his personality, the way he stands up against Nohrian oppression and for the common man, the incredible secret sacrifice he made for Azura that you only learn if you advance their relationship. If you let Arthur die in your playthrough, or if you kill him while playing as Hoshido because you're an awful human being, I will not forgive you.
10: Hoshido's royalty are actually misogynists, as women can only inherit the throne if there are no eligible male candidates. By contrast, in Nohr, the eldest inherits regardless of gender. SOCIAL JUSTICE.
11: The vast majority of the Hoshido cast comes from the uppermost echelons of their nobility. By contrast, your Nohr crew comes from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. SOCIAL JUSTICE.
12: There are frequent food shortages in Nohr because their land is crappy tundra where the sun rarely shines; by contrast, the first-world Hoshidans live in posh luxury with all their pretty fields and an excess of wealth. Your conquest of Hoshido is actually an elaborate social engineering scheme to ensure true equality across the continent. SHARE THE WEALTH, HOSHIDAN SCUM.
13: Meet Beruka, a woman who is essentially this game's Solid Snake, complete with the bandana!
14: Xander was inspired by Alexander the effin' Great. Alexander the Great. Do you seriously want to go up against Alexander the Great? No you do not. Do not be silly.
15: You don't have to witness the single worst scene in all of Fates, which is near the end of Birthright. I will not spoil it. I will not even link to it, because even watching it should be banned. If you are an awful human being, by all means, scour Youtube for it and then burn your eyes in acid.


What about Revelation, you say? Fuck that goody-two-shoe Marty Stu shit, choose a goddamn side.
(Choose the right side. Nohr.)

EDIT: BONUS REASON 16: My favorite song in Awakening? The best song, by far, in Awakening?
"What's it called?" You might ask.
But you already know the answer, for it irrefutably proves the superiority of Nohr.

[BB]

W-wait wait wait!

Why is Lissa in this game at all? Is she in Birthright? Because, like, that's a decision MADE right there if she's only in one of them.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by BB

W-wait wait wait!

Why is Lissa in this game at all? Is she in Birthright? Because, like, that's a decision MADE right there if she's only in one of them.

She's in a DLC, but the DLC is much better if you're playing Conquest and have Odin along with you as you play through the mission.