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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2371 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 17, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Vidya thread.

I finally finished Clair Obscur this week. Well, I didn't beat every optional boss, but I'm too old for this shit. I must say, my earlier criticism about the game's incongruent mood has been invalidated when the game provided an in-universe explanation for it.

Now I'm looking for another game to use my shiny new GPU with. Something I can beat before EU5 comes out in November. Any recommendations?

Most people I know who liked Clair Obscur also were big fans of Metaphor: ReFantazio (AKA fantasy-Persona-with-adults-and-HieronymousBosch). I've played the latter but not the former, so I can only recommend it on its own merits.

I'm currently trying out the Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era demo via Steam's NextFest. My initial impressions are that it feels like someone made a modern version of Heroes III, which is of course the best game in the series and one of the greatest of all time. The biggest flaw so far: it seems like it isn't designed for hot seat (at least in the battles), which... I get it. It's the Year of Our Lord 2025. Hot seat isn't a thing anymore. But it's the principle of the thing, dammit!

I've tried the demo of ReFantazio, and I hate-hate-hate how sluggish the camera is, it's practically unplayable for me. I've pulled every sensitivity slider to the max, and it still feels like I'm stuck in glue. The list of games I've bounced off grows longer and longer:

  • The Ghost of Tsushima (don't like this style of combat)
  • Spehss Marine 2 (ditto)
  • ReFantazio (terrible controls)
  • CP2077 (no real reason, might have to try again)

I would suggest Devil May Cry V but I doubt you'd like to play it on KB/M.

How is Metaphor? I'm a Persona fan (3/4/5), but when I tried SMT5 I didn't like it at all. The battle system was mechanically better and had more depth, but everything else was worse. Much worse. In particular, the constant echo-y audio drove me mad. I stopped playing after the first chapter and haven't returned.

Metaphor has the press turn battle system from SMT, with a job system for party building a la FF, and the social link/calendar systems from Persona. It's pretty good, though I don't personally think the story was as strong as P4 or P5, nor were the characters. I think it's worth giving a shot based on what you said.

How is the story/characters? One of the most off-putting things about SMT5 is it didn't feel like it had any characters at all. I don't even mean they felt cliché: they felt inert, like mannequins. I'd happily take a stereotypical JRPG hero over the Nahobino/whatever-his-real-name-is any day.

Significantly better. Unlike SMT5 which is basically pure gameplay with only the bare minimum of story to support it (I bounced off myself for that very reason), Metaphor has an actually pretty interesting story that it tells, and the characters are generally pretty interesting to spend time with. It's very much like Persona in that sense, not at all like SMT. Like I said I don't think it pulls those aspects off as well as the best of the Persona games do, but I think it gets a solid 7/10 on story and characters whereas I'd give SMT5 a 0/10.

I also quite enjoy that the protagonist in Metaphor isn't silent like in Persona. He's a real character who has his own thoughts and will speak up on things, even if you do have some player control over his opinions.

Thanks! Sounds worth a shot, will pick it up sometime.

I found Olden Era to simply be way too hard, hah. Partly because I'm a noob at the genre, not having played it since Heroes 2 or 3 or something, but I saw a lot of complaints about unfair AI strength when I took a look at the steam discussions.

From what I've seen, the AI is still too weak to pose any challenge to competitive players, but it can no longer be baited with single-unit stacks in combat. They are still useful if you need them to block off your shooters or to eat a counterstrike, but you no longer can lead enemy stacks away from your shooters by offering them a kill this turn.

I recall they promised to add hot seat in the release version.

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