Valorian Endymion

Ok, I did just watched a stream done by Koei of America of Nobunaga´s Ambition - ( http://www.twitch.tv/koeitecmoamerica might still by in archive somewhere) and turned out they are playing the Steam version, which looks great in performance, I guess they learned to make ports (Toukiden got a really lousy port*), because even the One Piece Musou game actually is begin praised in on steam right now and got positive notes (92%). Anyway, the release date is 1 of setember, it will at discount on the first week. Oh, Might and Magic Heroes VII will be released around setember too, but I am very cautious optimistic about it. * DW 8 had ok port, DW Empires ok (played a lot of both games, which are among my favorites), however Toukiden and Bladestorm had bad ones, in fact Toukiden was the first game I had to ask refund, no idea about Bladestorm, since I don´t have it.

Hokuto no Ken 2 - Yeah, I decided for some reason to watch this and still good in a way only Hokuto no Ken can be and that I mean really goofy and old and awesome at the same time, after all what you can say about a anime that part of the lyrics of the opening is - "we are livin´ in the nineties, we still fightin´ in the nineties", I often don´t like post apocaliptic worlds, but I can get around in HNK, given how crazy and colorful it is. One of my frustrations while playing Fallout 3 is that I couldn´t, even with mods, play a Kenshiro like character... Idolmaster Cinderella Girls - I am enjoying this a lot, it is nothing that special, but it is good. While my favorite characters are Ranko, Rin, Mio, Uzuki and Anastasia, the later chapters did helped flash out bit more the rest of the cast. It allways crack me up how the Producer look like a out of place Fate Stay Night character, I mean he looks like a cross over between Kiritsugu Emiya, Caster master (Souichirou) and Kirei Kotomine. Since you are talking about Clannad, I have to confess, the first time I heard the ending song, it bring tears to my eyes. The VN and the anime are really good.

Now I really wish for a episode about Talisman, almost every steam sale I feel temped about it, but end not buying it. Maybe how about a episode with you guys talking about other games that you disliked like along with Talisman?

Finished Final Fantasy XIII,I did enjoyed almost everything from this game much more that I would imagine, despite what people often say about it.

I think that you guys maybe already seen this but GoG have just, somehow, added a couple of classic AD&D game from SSi to their catalogue: http://www.gog.com/news/release_forgotten_realms_the_archives So far everything they have added is the Forgotten Realm titles, which are spread in 3 packages - one with the Eye of the Beholder trilogy, another with Menzoberranzan and Dungeon Hack and a third with several more older games. Rumor says that the Dragonlance games are coming too and I wonder if the Ravenloft and Dark Sun games too. But to be fair, what I really want is they got hand on the Birthright Gorgon´s Alliance from Sierra, Birthright was my favorite campaign background (even I almost never could convince anyone to play it).. Anyway - I have picked up the second package. Dungeon Hack still a fun game, good to have around while listening to a podcast. But what did surprise me was Menzoberranzan, despite age, still high playable, even if it use this very early 3D graphics and the adaptation of AD&D rules is really complete, the game feel like very ahead of its time.

Well, just finished Dragon Age Inquisition, there is still a lot of things I need to think about it, but the overall is really positive, below are some quick thought on the game (might expand this later in the DAI thread later): The Good The Bugs The Not so good

While I never could play Shadow of the Horned Rat, much because, back when it was released both I didn´t know about it and no one distribuited this game here in Brazil. But, for unknown reasons, Dark Omen was not only distribuited in Brazil. but had localized text and even voices (this was quite rare back there, specially a well done voiced localization like this). It was a good game, but not without some problems.... To begin, now listening to the podcast I came to realise that Dark Omen was very linear and missed many stuff from Shadow of the Horned Rat: There is no way to replace units (you only got some fixed units along the story with a few other that could be gained doing sidequest), no contracts (the game had a rather linear history with a few sidequest simple branching points), no interface like the one said in the podcast. The fact that you can´t replace units meant that simple losing a unit was almost allways reason to restart the game, to be fair, you could not even afford to suffer heavy loses as you never have money to do anything. I was never able to ended it, because I found it almost impossimble to finish it, since I could not end the mission right before the last one without losing almost all my units. Finding magic items was a pain, because two reasons - one you had absolute no idea which map might have on hidden or not, second some magic items only appear when something was triggered, but again you had not a single idea about that. Much like in Shadow of the Horned Rat, units while had roles, they still didn´t appear to mean much in Dark Omen, except maybe cannons and wizards everything else could do well against everything else there. Also the "press button to do heroic stuff" is there too, but there is a "heroic bar" that fill up as you press the button, but I can´t remember if that actually does anything since the game keep much stuff hidden. Another small touch is a system to represent the winds of magic. However, one nice thing was that units would have a pop up showing animated portrait of their commander, shouting orders and if they got wonded the portrait would reflect that, it was impressive seeing your units wonded asking for help in almost desesperate fashion.

I did finish watching Aquarion Evol this days. Like I said, before, it kind start a bit weird in different very different tone and theme that the original Genesis of Aquarion, but overtime the pieces came together and the series ended in a very high note for me. Now I started to watch Aquarion Logos, again if felt very different, but let´s see how things develop. Spoilers about Aquarion Evol and the Ova

Amazing episode - the sonic stuff, robot news where all great, and Nick Breckon´s GTA story was almost too real creepypasta. Also, the whole thing with that guy pigback riding remind me of something I heard about a Japanese horror movie, where a ghost would do that (but don´t ask how or why, I just remember what I heard about) but the person could only notice if he looked in the mirror (I guess?)

I understand. For me, I too enjoy history (I got degree in history, but I am moving toward graphical design), but don´t mind much any start or situation, I enjoy this games for all the emergent gameplay and stories that could happen, I like when I zoom out and have too wonder "what just is going on?", I confess that I never liked when game try to hard to put thing in rails (my problem with some older eu 2 mods). Anyway... they talked about Mount & Blade: Warband, which I found curious, because in one hand I would love the team talk about more about it - I love the game, but while M&B have amazing combat, the politics/goverment is rather bland. Sure is easy to get to know everybody, since is smaller cast of characters, but its almost impossible to track which castle/fief belong to who except by going to a old interface (faction - > find the lord -> see his holdings, but no map mode or anything) . Also, all factions have the same exact kind of goverment, even the nomad ones. Build things in your village or castle is even more vague - cost too much do too little (and your village will get sacked anyway).

I did enjoy Horse Lords a lot, but yeah, I do felt the interface limitation, but mostly when I did my first plays, where I was really confused of how exactly I raise a army when playing with nomads, but that clan window is very good. I do agree also with the confusion with the nomads and how much each clan hold lands (by that window I could figure the total, but where are this provinces is quite trick). Small note: to divide a clan you got have some requisites and I think (not 100% they can resist, same with begin absorved). Anyway, despite that, I did really like it. Now in one hand nomads could be "easy mode" (much like old gods some viking starts where), but things can get messy - in my game as a clan vassal to the khan of the Khazars, we did really start rolling around, taking everything going far as Croatia. Then, between the sucession crisis and the other horde we often fight (and lose) against, we start to crumble very fast, losing ground, while the world raised against us. Even when we managed to get thing back in place, when where never able to recover what we lost and in each crisis we just lost more and more and everytime more faster, right now the Khazars are reduce to my clan, which became the leader simple because there is only one more clan. It was really fun to play this. Ah, I do also agree that maybe there should me more incentive or ways to avoid became the "supreme ruler", I did found out that playing as someone vassal to be really great. Now, on having the relationship values (and traits) obscured....it´s a good idea, but I am not sure it work except in a game build really around that and with a lot of transparency (so much that might not even make it worth hid it on the first place), otherwise if just might feel random (specially if the player can´t figure the context). Medieval 1 kind had that, I mean, character had, where character had certain traits that remained hidden, unless a spy (or maybe something else) bring them to light causing trouble to them. But, it simple wasn´t worth, and even if this character might became a target to the inquisition, it was simple easier to kill them by other means. King of Dragon Pass does that too (I mean have obscured things) and it is major source of frustration, since thing happen and often you have simple no idea of the why - specially in Heroquests, where you could fail even if you did the right choices , because your character failed in a skill test but the game never tell you that. I feel that the game is at the right size now, with the Horse Lords filling maybe last more external gap that might need to be done, now the way I think the way would be looking inwards, because there they still have a lot of thing that they could do, specially now, with the every external expansion in place. Crusader Kings 3? I would love, but I think is still a bit to early for that. I don´t feel tired of CK2 at all and still one of my favorite games, but I could understand other people, specially after playing one campaign or several of them. That why I often do breaks between campaigns (I do this even with other games, once I finish one, I do take a large break before I back) or given that the we know so much about the game that it lead to optimal strategies..

Yeah, I too wonder what Gormongous would think too XD. Anyway, given it is a pre-alpha, it already look way better Rome 2 did in its early videos (or even empire) and overall it fits on the theme/setting* (now I just trying to remember how monster/giant units worked on King Arthur, but I think none of them had anything and overall they just blob and breaked formations much more that rome 2 would ever dream**). * Dawn of War 1 had this kind of stuff too and in even larger scale and time for animations (did anyone remember the animation for the force commander killing a deamon?), it worked there, but I could see people that played in a more profissional/competitive mindset begin annoyed by it. * This was kind made worst by the fact that many units had very large shields, so even seeing your knight of the round table in middle of the unit was near impossible (also because weird camera controls). Now, I am really curious is for Endless Space 2, if they use again the great ability for faction design, like they did on Endless Legend, it would be great. Oh, by the way - there is a new hint for Project Augustus: Elections and Technological Development are important parts of the game.

When a first read the history about the players asking for refund on Star Citizen on Polygon and I saw the mention about "Derek Smart" my first I thought was "it can´t be the same person, what are the chances?", but turned out the changes where pretty high. I wasn´t around the whole 3000 Battlecruiser thing, but I did read more then once a site which was devoted to explain and archive the whole flamewar, shame that it no longer exist, because it was a worth reading. One thing that I am really enjoy always watching on GDQ is the Tetris runs - they are just amazing.

Two big news today: Total War: WARHAMMER - Battle of Black Fire Pass Walkthrough - First video showing a battle, still in pre-alpha, but does look really good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=627&v=C6LpcRKS13c Also, there will be Endless Space 2 http://www.yourvision-theirfuture.com/AMPLIFIED-REALITY

I would have to play a bit more of EL to tell more about the endgame, but I feel that AOW did overcame the drawback (but to be fair I never felt that AOW suffered from that too much to begin with) of lack of diversity (new races, changes to the older ones, the specializaitons) and lots of stuff add to the endgame/mid, however EL latest additions also improved the early and mid game too, combat is pretty much the same I guess save from eventual changes/fixes

@Arathain - Yeah, I heard that the game is very fun. @Gatazhk - Very good points There is also the fact, that things often have to be "left out" simple because during the production it wasn´t possible to implement them (or they simple didn´t worked or it was need more time to make them work) and to keep the whole production (and costs) at realistic levels to avoid a developmente cycle of hell or a feature creep. The problem I felt is that people did jump in in dlcs without figuring out what business model would work for them* (and instead used something that worked in really different game) without much trasparency/communication, think how early on they where much smaller (which I guess have lot to do with early limitations on internet to avoid huge downloads) and now each company is moving toward more content packs. * Early dlcs for Dawn of War II where just skins, that made and had little sense or use or improved anything (specially in Retribution, where things get very repetitive and an actual new faction could helped), now keep in mind that skins (or customes) kind work fine in Dynasty Warriors (at least for me, I confess have bought a couple dlcs for it).

I have only watched Suite Precure, which I enjoyed it a lot. Keep in mind that Precure is overall much more light, positive and happy that other mahou shoujo animes, which is not a bad think at all, I really liked this more positive tone. Each season is a different cast, often start with two and three or more or less might join in.

Small correction to what Rob said: Sega does likely have two more major source of income from games - they have both license to Hatsuno Miko games and they got Atlus (Persona and more important Persona 5 which likely give them rivers of money) outside from all other income from their other bussiness. You guys joked about Sonic in a Total War game, but...there is a precedent for that...ever heard about of Sonic & All Star Racing Transformed? (http://store.steampowered.com/app/212480/) it feature several character from different games from Sega... and Total War is there!! Look the screenshot below in the spoilers But there is more! I think that even Futebol Manager is there! not sure if Company of Heroes is also there or not. To make things even get even "spooky" or just plain weird, know Persona: Dancing All Night? Sega had just add Hatsuno Miko to it, which make me joke to a friend that this maybe mean that we might be step away from Total War joining as dlc character or even see a Space Marine dancing XD. But let´s get back on the topic: One thing I remember see Philip Kollar say on twitter (but I am not 100% of context) was the strange event where a game, which had a positive view, suddenly start begin hated for not very clear reason, he was talking in Dragon Age Inquisition. But I wonder how this kind of effect suddenly cause negative reaction to overblow without actually something real to fill it, I suspect that this have a lot to do with grief over a past title (people still upset with Dragon Age 2 in this case, might look down on Inquisition). This might be also lead to a even more strange cycle where you have games: A, B, C and D - A is considered good, B is launched but get hated, but by time C is released, B might suddenly got popular again, while C became hated. Finnaly when D cames around, now C might became considered good, while D is rejected, and so on. What I think happend in Rome 2 is that CA felt, despite learning the leason after Empire, that they need to outdone Rome 1 in everything, because otherwise people woundn´t accept, because of their own expectations after years of the Rome 1 and all mods and expansions after it. I am still on team Rob and Troy that Attila was very good (not without flaws) and I think that now with Warhammer they are quite free from that and even showed the first positive sign: they are trying to keep it more focused (with now only 4 armies instead of everyone, like other Warhammer games, like Mark of Chaos), which make sense since it will be based in the End of the Times event and each part of the trilogy will be focused in other factions (from what I understand). Know other strange advantage they might have? you guys know that Game Workshop is closing the Fantasy Battle and moving it to the Age of Sigmar version, right? this might be one of the last games based in the original setting...fans mights really enjoy it simple because they migth hate the new setting....there is no turning back, End of Times event result in the destruction of the original setting... CA still fine or better saying, their still in a much better place that Heroes of Might and Magic (more of this later), they also got the advantage that they are pretty much only ones doing that kind of game. King Arthur got very close, but they never fixed the bad camera controls (which killed the game for me) along with other annoying stuff, King´s Crusade simple wasn´t interessing for me. Unicorn games where meh, I think they tried have a more realistic battle system, but their games aren´t simple engaging, XIII Century is just a bunch of bad puzzle type of battles. Their other titles had confusing names - Real Warfare 1242 (which sound like a bad call of duty game subtitle) and Real Warfare 2, both got very bad reviews on steam (much more that Rome 2 or Attila) and are pretty much the same game with the same engine and same plot. Now a franchise that might be very close to begin lost or death is Heroes of Might and Magic, mostly due fan still cling in Heroes III, which made worst by all those years without a new title... Heroes IIII sucess somehow provoked a schism in the fanbase - you got lot of player which still cling to it, but never got in the rest of the series (either the Heroes games or strategy) and some which refuse to accept what happened (how New World Computing got screwed by 3DO and the whole lore/plot was a mess and by time Heroes IV they simple destroyed their original world) or what was (how Might & Magic mixed sci-fi and fantasy, since many people maybe never knew about this since Heroes games often don´t touch that part). Ubisoft is trying hard to put thing back in track (but funny that now while Ubisoft kept the franchise as fantasy only the fanbased suddenly loves the sci-fi part..), Heroes V got better with a lot of hard work, by time of Tribes of East it became a good game. Heroes VI...is ok...but the campaign design is just terrible, also unlikely Heroes V it never got the same level of support or expansions. I really hope they strike right with this new Heroes VII... Master Of Orion situation is made even more strange, because to be fair, the original setting was destroyed by MMO3, several classic races got killed (if I remember right, because one of the designer hated them) in the manual to be replaced with others which would be more "realistic" (or that was that designer thinked, but what he delivered was a mess that made zero sense and had zero of realism)...so this new game is a reboot too? a reboot of something which lot of people don´t even remember or ideas and concept that might not even work today...or aren´t simple different enough from all other space 4x games.

Since Oblivion I now play Elder Scroll titles also using mods to create custom extra companions to my main character and all I often do is just taking photos of them with different outfits and poses. Most of my Skyrim mod list, which is very huge, is just poses, cosmetic stuff, outfits and a few places that I might use for a photoshoot. No extra gameplay (I don´t want the game to crash during anything). In fact, my old Oblivion game and my new Skyrim game might resemble a crazy jrpg instead of what they used to be. On the meantime I play mostly to get more material to forge new weapons and armor for new photoshoots of my characters. Also I remember once downloaded a mod for Oblivion to reduce the number of Oblivion gates because they outside begin annoying the often ruined my outdoor photoshoots. Right now, while I haven´t used yet, my Skyrim mod list does have one which add japanese school* (it is place to explore only, also this mod add a nightclub and a cyberpunk place (I mean a couple of streets and buildings)). Back there on Daggerfall I too ignored the main quest and just did random quests for guilds and exploring the random dungeons, so much that I really never finish it (mostly because, back there, I want to make the game last forever).

I too really recommend The Heroic Legend of Arslan, it is very good. From what I know it is based in novel (or a series of), so that why the anime might have gone behind the manga. There is even a old snes game about (I remember reading about on Hardcore Gamer 101) and there is a musou planned. One of my favorite animes is Sousei no Aquarion (Genesis of Aquarion), now I am midway on the Aquarion Evol, for a while in the first chapter I was worried that it misses some of the "gravitas" of original series, but it have been slowly back in the tracks (despite some weird stuff around) and I am enjoying it. I Wonder how Aquarion Logos will be. The OP for Jojo Stardust Crusaders 2 (end of the world) is amazing, also I found I am enjoying this season more that the other ones. Now on the new animes this season - Watched Rokku, I liked it and surely I will watched the second ep. I don´t know why, but I did found the protagonist very like the main character on Star Driver, not that this is a problem. Akagami no Shirayuki-hime is great, loved everything on the first episode.

Yeah, I kind felt the same about Elemental, specially with Age of Wonder III and Endless Legend which fill my need for fantasy 4x, off course there still Sovereignty: Crown of Kings (http://store.steampowered.com/app/312430/) which I am looking forward.

Yesterday CA released the first in-game engine trailer of Total War: Warhammer

I have been playing Star Ruler 2. It is a really good game that tries a couple of different things: - First, is one real-time. - You build a capital ship (from which you can give orders) and them can build a support around it. - Each planet have a type of resource, which you can import to another one by simple click and dragging it, once a planet got enough resources it will grow a tier. Exemple, a Tier 0 planet need at least one food and one water resource to grow a tier, from there it will need a level 1 resource plus more food and water. - Diplomacy is done via cards, which you bought using influence and the avaliable card change from time to time and you have to dispute them with other players. - Budget work in a curious way, you have a budget for limited time, if that money isn´t spend them what is left is used in something else (you can set what would be, like using the rest of the money to buy more influence or research points). - Mod support. However I still haven´t exactly figured out how design ships work (or if ships have any notable difference) and combat, while amazing to watch, since it can have lots and lot of ships (think in LOGH level of ships), but rather plain, you only give order to the capital ship, also the tech tree is rather confusing.

Koei have been show more stuff about the new Nobunaga´s Ambition - even a new website: http://www.nobunagasambition.eu/introduction.html is worth checking out. The release date is 4 of Setember. This video show a bit of the battle system: And this one about the strategy mode: Also on their twitter profiles they have been showing a lot of stuff, like images of the characters and the pc requirements : Their twitter: https://twitter.com/koeitecmoeurope (I guess the American on will soon show this same stuff too). PC Requirements: https://twitter.com/koeitecmoeurope/status/621304155370582016

About command modes, while in a very simple form, Mount & Blade kind feature one - in the game you did control a single character but you could issue a few set of order to your party, while still instantaneous, because of the game immersion if did was a lot of fun, since you had to ride around, see where the enemy is coming, finding a good ground to maybe attack or defend. Also I did felt the same as Rob about Empire, because it was also one of the Total War game that I most played (121 hours, against 250 hour for Shogun 2). Talking about the Chick Parabola, I could not avoid to remember about Daggerfall (Elder Scrolls Chapter 2). Because, back there when the game was released, it was quite impressive in terms of scale and depth, however as you might start to master it, you could see its cracks (what did or did not work, how bizarre some systems where), but it would ruin it? I think, there, and this works for other games too, depend of much on each person expectations, the actual "revelation", for some might still not mean much (I did kept played Daggerfall for a very long time, even after I figured that a lot of things didn´t work, same with Empire), but maybe if became a turning point for other (when I started to figure out MOO3, It did ruin for me very fast).