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Thought I finished Inscryption last night, which unlocked the "New Game" option (when you first start the game you can only choose "Continue"). Then I started a new game and...well, let's just say everything took a very hard left turn and significantly expanded the scope of the game. Now I have no idea how much of it is actually left, and I'm very curious to find out where the hell this is all going.
Upon completing the main game (beating Leshy and taking his picture with his own camera and film to turn him into a card) and starting a new game, all the corruption in the game data is removed and you're dropped into a top-down NES-style game with four world areas, one for each "Scrybe", who each has their own set of cards with completely different game mechanics. You arrive as a challenger, and you have to choose which Scrybe you want to take over for. If you can defeat all four Scrybes beginning with the starter deck of the Scrybe you want to succeed, then in theory you should take that Scrybe's place.

Leshy's cabin is one of the four areas in the NES-style game, and you have to confront his three alternate personas there (the Prospector, the Angler, and the Trader) before confronting him -- but each of these play out as a single card battle rather than the Slay-The-Spire-style randomized map from the initial part of the game. And you can accumulate cards from all 4 of the Scrybes' decks and mix and match them as you see fit with all of the different game mechanics overlapping, which is a little overwhelming at first.

The three other Scrybes were turned into the three talking cards you encountered in the initial part of the game, but in a new game they're back into their normal roles -- except they seem to remember pieces of what happened during the initial part of the game. The robot Scrybe who was turned into a Stoat card is still mad at Leshy, and Leshy claims he was just trying to show all of them how wonderful it would be to all live as beasts, even in card form. Weird.

I chose to try to succeed the robot Scrybe at the start of New Game, so I got a starter deck with all these robot cards with energy points and connectible circuits and stuff which I'd never used before, but over the course of beating Leshy's domain I collected a bunch of familiar beast cards, and you can sacrifice the robot cards the same as anything else, so all kinds of weird synergistic plays become possible. I then played through most of the robot Scrybe's domain, but lost the card battle against him (which included a conveyor belt so the played cards kept rotating around, sometimes being my cards and sometimes being his!). But in New Game, losing doesn't mean death -- I just get dropped back out into adventure mode with no penalty, and I can try again right away or go other places and try to beef up my deck.

I did see some corruption start to creep back into the game in a couple of spots, so now I have to wonder if the game will truly end in this NES mode, or if it will return to the 3D style if I manage to become the new robot Scrybe, or if I have to do New Game run-throughs where I succeed all 4 Scrybes to actually beat the game. I'm also wondering if I'll wind up running into all of the special keepsakes from Leshy's 3D cabin over the course of the NES game. Really weird and unexpected, but very interesting.
 
Inscryption, you have exceeded my expectations yet again.
After playing through the entire NES-style section of New Game and confirming that I wanted to challenge the robot Scrybe, the game re-corrupted as the Scrybe extended into three dimensions, and suddenly I found myself at a table in a darkened room like at the beginning of the game, only now I was facing the robot Scrybe instead, and the playing board was 5 columns wide, and I had an energy meter and cards only from the robot deck, and the graphics were all fancy again. Instead of a Slay-The-Spire-style game setup, the robot presents you with a Zelda-like adventuring approach where you can move in the 4 cardinal directions through a map encountering cards, vendors, enemies, etc. In theory I will still need to defeat 3 of the Scrybe's underlings and then the Scrybe himself, and then who knows what will happen next.

So far I can't get up from the table like I could at the very start of the game with Leshy (I'm actually handcuffed to the table and the robot Scrybe says I need to focus on the task at hand), but I've already encountered some new cards here like the Sniper Bot that lets you choose which column to attack each turn (I've already added the lethal sigil to this one for one-shot kills), and a 6-energy card with bifurcated attack.

I'm just shocked by what this implies about the true scope of the game. I'm assuming you can get this full 3D treatment for the other two Scrybes as well (the undead queen and the "Master" mage), and that also begs the question of what happens if you pick Leshy again from the NES portion of the game -- would it be exactly the same as the initial playthrough, or would it be fundamentally different since you reset the game, and theoretically the Leshy in your new game would actually be whomever defeated Leshy in the previous one? And what might happen after defeating all four of the Scrybes in the full 3D portion of the game?

It's amazing to me that the game is structured in such a way that many people would just bounce off after beating the initial portion for the first time, never even trying the New Game option, which is what actually opens up the full scope of the game. A ballsy design choice for sure. And yet if you only played through the initial part, you'd still get a solid 10-12 hours of gameplay and not feel cheated.

I thought this would be a nice little indie palate cleanser between larger titles, but it looks like I'm going to be playing this one for quite a while yet.
 
I'm replaying Children of Morta, which I didn't finish last Autumn and also I started replaying (and finally finishing) all Assassin's Creeds.

So far I finished the first one and now I'm playing the second one. Man, the general lore is ridiculously stupid, but the games are more addictive than fentanyl.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
So far I finished the first one and now I'm playing the second one. Man, the general lore is ridiculously stupid, but the games are more addictive than fentanyl.
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Have you ever tried playing the original game with the HUD completely disabled and without ever looking at the overview map? That was apparently how the game was originally designed to be played, but they chickened out at the last minute and added a bunch of "quality of life" features so people wouldn't get lost, and that's ultimately what made the side gigs leading up to each assassination feel so repetitive.

All of the roads have signage telling you where they go. All of the vantage points have eagles circling them. All of the assassin HQs have the assassin logo on the roof, which can only really be seen from vantage points. All of the assassination targets have an in-game paper map with a sketch of the area of interest, so you can figure out generally where to go. All of the side mission stuff shows up in your Eagle Vision if you're close enough, and these can often be spotted from vantage points. And you have to be at full health to use Eagle Vision, which encourages you even more to stay out of combat. The game lets you attempt assassinations without completing all the side missions first, because in the original design there was no guarantee you'd run into all of the available side missions, so you can decide whether you have enough info to proceed or whether you want to keep scrambling around looking for more leads.

I've never gotten around to attempting a no-HUD playthrough, but it sounds fascinating, and I'm disappointed that they lost their nerve and compromised their original creative vision. (From Assassin's Creed II onward the games were designed with the overview map and mission markers in mind, so it's no longer possible to do everything effectively with the HUD disabled.) Maybe if I ever dig myself out of my gaming backlog I'll give it a shot.
 
Fascinating. No, I haven't, to be honest, the game is a tad too dated to enjoy completely - there's a lot of jank and at times it feels like this prototype - still addictive, still showing great potential, but not fully realised and I wouldn't be inclined to spend there more time than strictly necessary. I'm personally a fan of the no-HUD/no leads approach (or at least its partial implementation) - I remember Morrowind was pretty great about not holding your hand throughout, and I'm glad games are returning to that a bit - RDR2, Elden Ring - and honestly what you say sounds pretty interesting. Maybe if they did a remaster...

Also, searching for the flags was fun at first, but then it just became annoying. I refused to go through all the maps again with a phone in my hand and I decided to leave it at about 40 % completion in that regard.

(also, one thing that was incredibly annoying was the lack of subtitles - the audio quality isn't all that great, the voices are muffled and hard to hear, even if you put the voice volume relatively high against the other sounds and I couldn't blast it all too loud because of kids, so listening for every bit of dialogue, whether substantial or insubstantial, was rather annoying).
 
Jer said:
Have you ever tried playing the original game with the HUD completely disabled and without ever looking at the overview map? That was apparently how the game was originally designed to be played, but they chickened out at the last minute and added a bunch of "quality of life" features so people wouldn't get lost, and that's ultimately what made the side gigs leading up to each assassination feel so repetitive.

All of the roads have signage telling you where they go. All of the vantage points have eagles circling them. All of the assassin HQs have the assassin logo on the roof, which can only really be seen from vantage points. All of the assassination targets have an in-game paper map with a sketch of the area of interest, so you can figure out generally where to go. All of the side mission stuff shows up in your Eagle Vision if you're close enough, and these can often be spotted from vantage points. And you have to be at full health to use Eagle Vision, which encourages you even more to stay out of combat. The game lets you attempt assassinations without completing all the side missions first, because in the original design there was no guarantee you'd run into all of the available side missions, so you can decide whether you have enough info to proceed or whether you want to keep scrambling around looking for more leads.

I've never gotten around to attempting a no-HUD playthrough, but it sounds fascinating, and I'm disappointed that they lost their nerve and compromised their original creative vision. (From Assassin's Creed II onward the games were designed with the overview map and mission markers in mind, so it's no longer possible to do everything effectively with the HUD disabled.) Maybe if I ever dig myself out of my gaming backlog I'll give it a shot.
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That sounds like a slog. The first game was... Fine. I played all the way up to Rogue. I have to say, of the ones I've played, I've enjoyed III the least. Of the new ACs I'm curious of Valhalla the most, but it's gotten mostly negative reviews so don't even know if it's worth picking up on sale.

As for me, still trudging along RE4. What an amazingly fun game. Honestly didn't know what to expect. The old controls got some getting used to, but once you get used to them it's not bad. I love the Spanish used, my favorite having to be, "Detras de ti imbecil!" LOL. The, "Ahi esta!" is fun for two reasons. The first, because it reminds me of The Simpsons episode where Lisa asks Grampa Simpson about death and he's all like, "It's everywhere! There it is!" "Grampa that's Maggie," "Oh... There it is!" "Grampa that's Snowball" "Oh, there it is!" "That's Maggie again." LOL, and the gesture they make is a clear reference to Invasion of the Body Snatchers... Great stuff.
 
Onhell said:
That sounds like a slog. The first game was... Fine. I played all the way up to Rogue. I have to say, of the ones I've played, I've enjoyed III the least. Of the new ACs I'm curious of Valhalla the most, but it's gotten mostly negative reviews so don't even know if it's worth picking up on sale.
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I've played all three (in fact, I've played all the main AC games at least a bit, apart from Syndicate and Mirage), about 90 hours in Origins, 50 in Odyssey and 60 in Valhalla. I'd say:

- Origins is the best overall game - story (the historical one, not the overal one), the characters, the tangibility and atmosphere of the setting and so on. It definitely held my interest the longest of those three, even if the gameplay is the least advanced and possibly the most repetitive. Especially combat is kinda boring, especially if compared to Odyssey or Valhalla.

- Odyssey is in a way upgraded Origins - the gameplay is closer to that one than to Valhalla, it has my favourite protagonist in Kassandra (if you pick her), she's absolutely endearing and I say that the voice actress lost the awards that year only because she went against the bloke who voiced Arthur Morgan in RDR2.
There's more to do, although it gets a bit more repetitive and the naval battles and the wars for provinces start to grind upon you after a while, it feels like randomly generated content (which it in a way is). Also, the sprawl is a real problem, at least it is more noticeable here than in either Origins or Valhalla. A good game, I'm looking forward to replaying it, but flawed.

- Valhalla is different from the previous ones, especially gameplay-wise. The gameplay loop itself might be the most addictive and the side content - although even more bloated - feels more natural, however it has the blandest characters, the story (at least where I ended up) was possibly the weakest of the three, it is the least historically accurate one (and I'm definitely not the woke type myself, but I agree with Devereux that the game is a bit "problematic" - https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea-my-thoughts-on-assassins-creed-valhalla/ , especially with its whitewashing of the Vikings and their darker sides like human sacrifice or slavery and on the contrary portraying Christianity in a demeaning, vilifying and ridiculising way nobody would dare to depict any other religion ever) and although the "tedious" factor starts much later, it is still present. The games are way too big, it's just Valhalla is better balanced/done in that regard than Odyssey.

For pure gameplay, I spent a lot of fun hours in Valhalla, but if I were to recommend any of the three to anyone, it would be Origins.

In fact, I said recently to a friend when we were discussing video games that out of the entire franchise, I think the most indispensable games games, even for a non-fan would be 2 (and possibly the 2,5 and 2,75, meaning the Ezio trilogy), Black Flag and Origins.
 
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JudasMyGuide said:
In fact, I said recently to a friend when we were discussing video games that out of the entire franchise, I think the most indispensable games games, even for a non-fan would be 2 (and possibly the 2,5 and 2,75, meaning the Ezio trilogy), Black Flag and Origins.
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Definitely agree with this. I'll look into Origins, thanks for the feedback, pretty much confirms I can skip Valhalla, so sad, but oh well.
 
Jer said:
Inscryption, you have exceeded my expectations yet again.
After playing through the entire NES-style section of New Game and confirming that I wanted to challenge the robot Scrybe, the game re-corrupted as the Scrybe extended into three dimensions, and suddenly I found myself at a table in a darkened room like at the beginning of the game, only now I was facing the robot Scrybe instead, and the playing board was 5 columns wide, and I had an energy meter and cards only from the robot deck, and the graphics were all fancy again. Instead of a Slay-The-Spire-style game setup, the robot presents you with a Zelda-like adventuring approach where you can move in the 4 cardinal directions through a map encountering cards, vendors, enemies, etc. In theory I will still need to defeat 3 of the Scrybe's underlings and then the Scrybe himself, and then who knows what will happen next.

So far I can't get up from the table like I could at the very start of the game with Leshy (I'm actually handcuffed to the table and the robot Scrybe says I need to focus on the task at hand), but I've already encountered some new cards here like the Sniper Bot that lets you choose which column to attack each turn (I've already added the lethal sigil to this one for one-shot kills), and a 6-energy card with bifurcated attack.

I'm just shocked by what this implies about the true scope of the game. I'm assuming you can get this full 3D treatment for the other two Scrybes as well (the undead queen and the "Master" mage), and that also begs the question of what happens if you pick Leshy again from the NES portion of the game -- would it be exactly the same as the initial playthrough, or would it be fundamentally different since you reset the game, and theoretically the Leshy in your new game would actually be whomever defeated Leshy in the previous one? And what might happen after defeating all four of the Scrybes in the full 3D portion of the game?

It's amazing to me that the game is structured in such a way that many people would just bounce off after beating the initial portion for the first time, never even trying the New Game option, which is what actually opens up the full scope of the game. A ballsy design choice for sure. And yet if you only played through the initial part, you'd still get a solid 10-12 hours of gameplay and not feel cheated.

I thought this would be a nice little indie palate cleanser between larger titles, but it looks like I'm going to be playing this one for quite a while yet.
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Pretty much decided to pick the game up based on your reviews. Looking forward to it!
 
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Finished RE4, man was that a fun ride. Didn't live up to the hype, but I had a blast. I mean, I'm done, I liked it, but I don't feel a need to go through the extra content. Maybe next year.

As for now I'm between starting a Castlevania, FEAR2 or American McGee's Alice.

Kinda bummed I can't play AW2, because of the ridiculous PC specs and not having a series X just yet. So I'll wait on my AW collectathon and Control rerun until I get AW2.
 
Finished up my New Game run on Inscryption, and that was enough to get me an actual finale and a roll of the credits. Not sure if my choice to succeed the robot Scrybe was a factor in that happening or not, because some of the events that occurred seemed dependent on that choice, but I guess I can't know without going back and making a different choice.
Some very interesting gameplay bits come up while attempting to succeed the robot Scrybe, and after that all plays out you wind up in a situation where the game's floppy disk is being erased and each of the other Scrybes wants to spend their final moments playing cards with you. This gives you a callback to the beginning of the game with Leshy, as well as getting a small taste of what it would have been like to play against the other two Scrybes, the Queen Of The Dead and the Master Mage, in the full 3D second act.

After the final credit roll and stinger you're placed at the camera footage screen, and you have the option to jump back into the game at one of 5 preset points or watch any of the previous "found footage" segments. I chose to hop back into the NES section of the game to try challenging a different Scrybe to see if anything plays out differently. After you're back into the game, you also have access to "Kaycee's Mod" from the pause menu, which tracks various gameplay stats and lets you handicap yourself in exchange for "Challenge Points". There are a bunch of locked challenges, and I'm not sure what those points might gain you, but it looks like there's a lot of replay potential there for hardcore fans.

I'm about halfway through the NES part of the game and I've already run into some new strange key by offering up enough pairs of cards to the Mycologists. It doesn't unlock the weird locked spot in the Archivist's Lair, so it must be used somewhere else. I'm planning to challenge the Queen Of The Dead this time, so I'm adjusting to using her base card set, which is a very different play style than I'm used to, focused on destroying your own cards to create bones, which are required to play higher-strength cards. I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet, but there are some interesting synergies between the beast deck and the death deck, trashing your cards via sacrifice to play beast cards, which also builds up bones to play higher-strength death cards.
I'll probably be spending a little less time on the game now that I'm in "see what else I might have missed" mode, but I'll at least finish up a second pass on New Game to see if it's worth pursuing a third and final pass or not.
 
Jer said:
Finished up my New Game run on Inscryption...
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I've had this on my wish list for some time, now I REALLY want to get it lol. Christmas can't come soon enough lol

I decided to play through Kid Dracula on the Castlevania collection, it was a fun romp. Basically Mega Man in Dracula version. I think I'll spend the weekend working my way through Simon's Quest with a walkthrough.
 
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So I got to the final act of my next new game run on Inscryption and perhaps the scope of the game isn’t quite as broad as it first seemed…
After beating the NES portion of the game again and choosing to succeed the Queen Of The Dead, it was still the robot Scrybe that took over for the move back into 3D, so it looks like the final act is likely the same no matter who you pick. I just didn’t realize this because I picked the robot Scrybe first.

I now see that the seeds of this were planted in the NES part of the game, with the robot Scrybe expressing anger toward Leshy early on, corruption being introduced in the robot’s part of the world, and one of his underlings being excited to find the corrupted pieces. Also, the Master Mage was writing a note about the robot Scrybe’s ill intentions and how they were worse than Leshy’s.

So, no fleshed out final acts for the other two Scrybes, just a brief glimpse of what might have been at the very end of the game. Oh well.

I did pick up a couple of keys during the NES part that I hadn’t encountered the first time through, so I’ll see what those wind up being used for in the robot’s virtual world, and then that’ll probably be it for me with this game.
 
Finished up my second new game run on Inscryption, and there wasn’t too much new stuff there, but a few things of note:
The Bone Lord key from Act 2 opened a locked door in Act 3 that I previously couldn’t open, but it only had a brief lore interlude and nothing gameplay-wise.

The Mycologist key opened a locked door in a hidden area (go to the right at the junction where the Mycologists were in Act 2), and this sparked a secret boss fight against the Mycologists where they play cards that gradually merge together into stronger cards if you don’t stop them in time, and phase 2 of the boss fight suddenly merges all the cards you have on the board at the time, and if you win the fight you get to keep your merged card without losing its original constituent cards. I ended up with a 6/6 bifurcated, aimed, explosive card as a result, which was interesting.

I also realized that the lock in the final robot castle in Botopia actually unlocks a door in the 3D area when you step away from the table, and this lets you trade any holo-pelts from the game for tarot cards that provide some lore on the “old data”.

That’s about it.
So, I think that wraps up my time with the game. Great value, really enjoyed it.
 
I've been playing an NHL18 playoff with my brother and it's been amazing. I feel like we're kids again playing NHL93, 94 and 95. It's been a blast. We've also been playing the co-op mode in Vampire Survivors. What a great little game for about 2 bucks of value. Great replayability, extremely addictive and they keep adding stuff to it. Haven't gotten the DLCs yet, but I will this December and I also got this to look forward to: https://www.ign.com/articles/vampire-survivors-to-get-self-contained-miniature-story-mode-adventures

I also wanted him to start getting into FPSs because whenever I have him try a stealth game he just wants to murder everyone. So we started with Borderlands. I bought a bundle with 6 games, BL1, 2, 3, pre-sequel, Tales from the borderlands and NEW tales from the borderlands. I had played 1, 2 and pre-sequel on 360, but didn't get around to 3 due to the mostly mixed to negative reviews. I got into FPS through Halo, a good friend of mine essentially babysat me the first game, I was competent by the second and we were supposed to play the third on release (yup loooong time ago) together. That never happened. Life happened. We didn't due that until like a year or so ago on PC.... in two different countries, god bless the internet.

So I figured I'd do something similar with my brother, start with BL1, then 2, maybe do pre-sequel, then 3. While BL1 is a bit of a slow burn he is having fun shooting whatever shows up in front of us lol. I've also been working through Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep. I'm having a blast. It's not really an RPG, it's very much a scripted FPS in a D&D skin, but still very fun. The banter between the players is great and honestly, it's a tad heartbreaking,
Tiny Tina is DM and she doesn't want to start the game until Roland shows up, except... he's dead from the events of BL2, she writes him in as an NPC that gives you quests and helps you out occassionally. I just got to a mission where you have to find a "prisoner" who ends up backstabbing you. It's a stand in for Angel, Handsome Jack's daughter. Lilith says something like, "Damn, we don't have to be so harsh on the wizzard's daughter she wasn't... that bad," obviously referring to the real Angel, to which Tina says, "Yeah well, had she not tricked anybody no one would be dead, so, yeah." It's clear this campaign is her way of dealing with Roland's death and it just broke my heart.
 
Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep is a personal favorite!

NHL playoffs with your brother, that nostalgic trip to NHL93-95, and Vampire Survivors for a steal—awesome choices! Borderlands is a solid call to ease into FPS; that bundle sounds like a treasure trove. Life's twists and turns, right? I had a similar journey with Halo.

p.s. Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep is a personal favorite!

And speaking of treasures, have you checked out the CS2 market? It's a game-changer for enhancing your gaming gear. Can't wait for your brother to dive into FPS—Borderlands is the perfect initiation!
 
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TesliJew said:
Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep is a personal favorite!
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Finally finished the main campaign and doing the side quests. Currently doing the Badass wave and babysitting missions in Murderlin's arena. I find it oddly relaxing even if I keep dying. They weren't kidding when they said "bring a friend," so I'll see if I can convince my brother to join in lol
 
Took advantage of some sales prices and got the Castlevania Advance Collection and Prey (2017). Started playing Circle of the Moon, but it's... rough, the controls aren't the best and haven't made it very far. Decided to move on to Harmony of Dissonance and holy crap, this ones really fun. Thought I'd test it out for a little bit... spent the day playing it LOL.

Still have a few I need to go back to, COD 3, Prey (2006), Casltevania Collection, etc. thought I'd muck about with Simon's Quest to get a feel for it... yeah, no way I'm getting through it without a guide.

Also debating whether or not to do Achievement clean-ups of Bioshock 2, Infinite, Alan Wake and Control.
 
Onhell said:
Took advantage of some sales prices and got the Castlevania Advance Collection and Prey (2017). Started playing Circle of the Moon, but it's... rough, the controls aren't the best and haven't made it very far. Decided to move on to Harmony of Dissonance and holy crap, this ones really fun. Thought I'd test it out for a little bit... spent the day playing it LOL.

Still have a few I need to go back to, COD 3, Prey (2006), Casltevania Collection, etc. thought I'd muck about with Simon's Quest to get a feel for it... yeah, no way I'm getting through it without a guide.
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I cocked up my first run through of Simon's Quest by accidentally (or rather, being forced to) trade a crystal with a villager in the first village. Turns out it was needed to make it to the next stage. I was verrry cautious of talking to anyone in that game after that. :lol:

Aria of Sorrow was my favourite of the Advance Collection games, played really well considering it was originally on the GBA.
 
Edington said:
I cocked up my first run through of Simon's Quest by accidentally (or rather, being forced to) trade a crystal with a villager in the first village. Turns out it was needed to make it to the next stage. I was verrry cautious of talking to anyone in that game after that. :lol:
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There's that, the annoying day/night cycle and the having no clue where to go next. One of the things I'm liking about Harmony of Dissonance is I just look at the map, see where I haven't been and go there. Can't reach it? Look for the item that gets you there.
Edington said:
Aria of Sorrow was my favourite of the Advance Collection games, played really well considering it was originally on the GBA.
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According to the several reviews I've read and watched it's ranked amongst the best. Period. Regardless of system.
 
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