Tonight we start the show missing several people and then Kodra sneaks in while recording and claims to have been there all along. We start out with a discussion of the Windows 11 announcement and the odd requirements it seems are going to be required to upgrade into it. From there we talk about Grace’s adventures with Subnautica: Below Zero which I legitimately thought was an expansion pack and not a whole new game. Bel talks about the trend of WoW personalities switching to Final Fantasy XIV and the videos associated with them. We talk a bit about MMORPG Tycoon 2 and Lum’s delightful tweet thread making us want to play it. Bel talks about his nonsense setup and how Sony Remote Play is so much better with a PS5… and how TMACDev REPL4Y is even better than that. Finally we close out the show with some talk about Ratchet and Clank and Kodra’s observations given this is his first game in that series.
I exist in a very odd space when it comes to gaming, or at least my gaming habits are less than average. Much of what comes with console gaming takes for granted that you would be playing said games in a comfortable couch based set up. That is not the case for me however because the screens that are “mine” and not considered communal space are up in my office. I’ve always felt like I couldn’t exactly commandeer the Livingroom television for the hours that gaming would require, when my wife might want to be watching some program downstairs or just basking in the silence and reading. When I am hanging out downstairs it generally means I am on a laptop with headphones.
This has generally meant that in practice I end up playing a lot fewer console games because it is just easier to remote control my gaming desktop upstairs and play PC games through either Parsec or Moonlight. In the past I have tried using the PlayStation Remote Play app and even an unofficial Remote Play app to varying degrees of success. Though as I sit down and write this article it looks like the second option has changed drastically and probably deserves a revisit. Basically the problem that I ran into is that the baseline PlayStation 4 that I had ultimately has fairly slow wireless and was limited to 720p game streaming… which looked and felt awful.
Since getting the PlayStation 5, I have to admit there have just not been a ton of games that I felt like I could play through remote control. Ratchet and Clank for example… has just enough input lag to make it exceptionally difficult to time some things. Playing Final Fantasy VII Remake however seems to be just fine given that most of the inputs are not exactly twitch oriented. I did struggle a bit with a puzzle that required me to pressurize a valve and then do another action extremely quickly to seal in the pressure. However for the most part I spent last night chilling on the sofa happily playing PS5 through my laptop with a Dualshock 4 connected.
I’ve now made it through the entire Don Corneo/Wall Market story arc and I am not back in Sector 7. I have no clue how much more there is to go in “Remake” but I feel like I have to be circling in on the end of the game at this point. It is going to be really weird to reach the end… knowing that the story is so far from over. I’ve been pretty pleased with how the story has gone and Cloud is finally starting to grow a heart. There are events that I know are coming… but I am curious to see how they play out. This mornings post however is mostly me re-exploring Remote Play with the PlayStation 5. I do need to investigate what became of TMACDEV and the new REPL4Y product. Previously it had way less input lag than the official offering so I want to give it a test and see how that goes.
Morning Friends, there is more than a bit of irony in that I got this sweet sweet gaming rig for my birthday, and for the last several nights all it has been doing is operating my second monitor while I play PS5 on the main screen. Confession time… I never actually got around to finishing Final Fantasy VII Remake, which I guess shouldn’t be much of a surprise given how many other titles lay unfinished around me. There has been a recent perfect storm of events that has gotten me interested in wrapping things up. Firstly the PlayStation 5 version with slightly prettier graphics was released and then more recently the Yuffie DLC pack dropped. While I get that you can play it completely independent of the main story, I still want to finish the first game before diving into anything further.
However before we get there it is time for a brief intermission. If you have read my blog for awhile, you will know one of the hallmarks of said blog is that I use screenshots to break up the blocks of text. This means I need a pretty steady supply of screenshots to fill that role. It is a colossal pain in the ass to pull screenshots from a console and this really needs to be remedied. Essentially you have two options… both of which require a certain measure of pre-planning. The easiest option is to post them on a social media account and I have @BelghastShots that exists exclusively for this purpose. The option that preserves image quality is to drag out a thumb drive and copy the images there and then “sneakernet” them to your PC.
What we need instead is for the console vendors to implement a DLNA server that would allow access to screenshots, recorded video and frankly any purchased media that you have on that console across a network that could be consumed by any other DLNA devices. DLNA stands for “Digital Living Networking Alliance” and is a set of standards that are designed to ensure interoperability between devices in sharing media and streams. I use this constantly with my chosen server platform called Plex to allow any devices on my network to consume media from my server. In theory until the PlayStation 5… Sony was implementing part of this set of protocols because on PS3 and PS4 I could view things from my Plex Server.
The problem is no one seems to do this natively. Windows has had DLNA built in since at least Windows 7 yet Microsoft has never built this same support into Xbox Consoles. Many console revisions can consume a media server, but to the best of my knowledge none of them are capable of serving up their own feed. While leaves me at least annoyed and having to jump through hoops to dump files from the console. I mean I get that console platforms are scared to death that any protocol access will give someone a way to pirate games, because this has absolutely happened in the past. However it sucks that this thirteen year old solution that is pretty ubiquitously implemented by media having devices… is a non starter for consoles.
Back to the PS5 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I am having a blast and the game is freaking gorgeous. I have to say this might claim the “favorite final fantasy” game title for me. I really enjoy the combat system and how it feels like gear matters a bit… but also it is mostly just excellent smashy combat time. I think this more than anything is why I am at least passingly interested in “Not-Final-Fantasy-1”. The other nice thing about this play through is FF7 was never really one of my favorites in the series. It was good, but I played it on the PC originally and was going through a renaissance of PC gaming which it struggled to stand out from. I’ve also never replayed the original so the story feels fresh to me and I can’t honestly tell you all of the subtle tweaks that the game is making so far.
I’ve hit the Wall Market section of the game… which seems to be keyed for a different kind of humor than is drift compatible with my own. I think the area looks really cool but I am ready to be done with it. I finished fighting my way through the Coliseum and am now running around town doing various errands for folks. If I have any complaint about the game… the errand boy sections that perforate each of the sections of focused action maybe drag on a bit. I get that this is the time when you would normally level up before the next battle, but I seem to be flying through levels so fast that it isn’t really a problem so far. I seem to always have plenty of money and plenty of experience for whatever the next thing I am supposed to tackle.
The only thing I would change if I could… is to make Cloud be less of a general stick in the mud. Cloud is the Carth Onasi of Final Fantasy characters and I get this is designed to make us feel his character growth, but I do wish I could make him be a little nicer to poor Aerith. She is trying so hard and he is pure butts. Like all of the stuff with with the children was pretty adorable… even though the NPCs in this game have weird faces. I especially like the “Moogle” and I am so down with interacting with this character some more. FF7R has been a pretty delightful way to unwind in the evenings because I am still averaging 10 hour days right now.
Hey Friends! There are times when it is actually a good thing that I have way too many games fighting for my attention. So last winter I happened upon a game that looked interesting called Rune II, that was an epic games store exclusive. I had never played the first game, or at least I don’t remember playing the first game but what I was seeing about the sequel looked pretty cool. I picked it up… and then promptly forgot about it and never actually played during the launch cycle last November. Based on what I am reading it was really not well received because the core loop of the gameplay was a bit flawed. Since I am going through the “install all the games to play on the new rig” phase of new hardware, I stumbled upon this game in my library and thought to give it a shot.
The game that launched in November was apparently considerably different to what I am now playing. When you started the game you were thrust back into the land of the living with a timer ticking down in the upper corner of the screen. When that timer hit zero, Ragnarok happened and you were sent to fight Loki. If you died… and you were very likely to die… the loop would start over again with progression in your character saved as you continued to get stronger until eventually at some point you could defeat the final encounter of the game. From what I am reading there were no real quests or NPCs to guide you along your journey… just the death loop mechanic until you got strong enough to finish the game.
The game I am playing however feels very much like a single player MMORPG, where you are dropped on an island and do a number of quests for the NPCs where you help build the village back up to its former glory. You chop down trees, break rocks for ore, and eventually complete a number of buildings while you other quests to learn how the basics of the game work. Then before you move to the next village you are attacked by the forces of Loki who is trying to bring about Ragnarok. The end result is somewhat of a base defense game where defensive towers aid you as you take down several waves of encounters and a boss encounter ultimately saving the village.
Your adventure sends you forth after some arcane relics that Heimdall needs, to the next village… one that worships him. Again you do a number of traditionally MMO quests and also build this village up until the cycle repeats itself with waves of NPCs attacking it. Each new building you add however increases your access to crafting resources like the ability to craft healing items that come in extremely handy. Out in the world there are a number of runestones which will also teach you new patterns expanding the relative power of the type of items that you can craft.
What is interesting about this first town however is it also has a very MMO style dungeon in it. You venture forth into it in an attempt to reach some divine summit. However to get there you need to pass through this huge sprawling cave filled with various encounters. Clearing through it reminded me very much of Tamtara Deepcroft or something similar to that. There were several rooms with boss encounters and a ton of chests along the way that provided copious amounts of loot. The thing is… the dungeon respawns it seems and you can keep going back into it at will as you continue to level.
Upon reaching the summit you are given the opportunity to devote yourself to one of three gods of the realm. Thor serves as the DPS path with lots of AOE abilities and things that increase your time in berserking mode. Odin seems to be the more group support tree with things that aid your party members… which only really comes into play if you are playing through the game co-op with friends… that is apparently a viable option. Hel serves as the third option and her tree I think is supposed to feel like the more stealthy path… but mostly it is sneak attacks and life drain abilities. I had to go down the Thor path which apparently gives me a buff to using Hammers and then all of his side quests that are Thor specific involve me killing Draugr with Hammers. So it seems like I inadvertently locked myself into a specific weapon choice going forward.
Like an MMORPG there is plenty of loot and the loot is arranged into quality brackets following the traditional White, Green, Blue, Purple, Gold format. What is interesting is in a lot of games that focus heavily on crafting, the gear that is crafted is just the same stuff that is dropping. This is true to some extent but there are a number of things that I have seen drop that I have never seen a pattern for making it seem like both are worthwhile ways to gear yourself. One thing I particularly like is that you can dismantle items in the field keeping you from having to jet back to a smithy constantly. There is fast travel in the game, but each time you do it a rune of travel is consumed. These are easy enough to make at the Sage’s hut but they are still a depleting resource.
I’ve played the game far enough to reach the second age of Midgard, aka the Age of Fire as the cycle of Ragnarok begins. Now the sky is on fire and Loki randomly bombards you with fireballs from the sky. Additionally the spawn of Surtr the fire giant roam the land along with a new variant of the Dragr that are all burned and ashen. Loki has somehow locked away the gods so that they can no longer interact with the mortal plane and I’ve moved from helping Heimdall to helping Thor as he tries to collect some artifacts that he needs. Be warned… this isn’t loveable Thor but instead the self absorbed talks about himself in third person Thor. I am guessing each phase of the game is going to be another “Age” of Midgard. You can in theory travel to the entire map in any of the phases but you are specifically focusing specific areas if you are following the quests.
All in all it is a pretty solid game experience and if you are looking for something that feels like a mix of Skyrim, Valheim and a quest driven MMORPG you might check it out. I have no clue what the co-op gameplay looks like, but it appears that you could spec a character exclusively for group play if you decided to do so. I am largely going down the DPS path because it seems to make killing things much easier. There is an AOE leap attack in the Thor tree that is brutal and is pretty much my opener for fighting multiple things at the same time. Similarly I can throw Thor’s hammer which does AOE damage and stuns the target, so while I love my tanking… there didn’t seem to be much of a point in Odin’s tree if you are largely playing solo.
This is at least one of those times when I am really glad that I didn’t give the game any attention at release, because it seems like they have mostly righted the ship after a bad core loop at launch.
