WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THIS GAME?/GAMES YOU RECOMMEND

About the Sims 4, I defer you to Zero Punctuation:



Yeah, I know it's outdated, but this video's release is the point where I stopped bothering to even keep an eye on Sims.

Anyway, I just finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. It's a strategy RPG about fending off an alien invasion. I never thought I'd associate horror with SRPGs, but XCOM does it just right with tough difficulty, permadeath, and the fact that losing a mission does not mean game over. That does a lot to ramp up the tension, making even the most minor missions tense encounters. There is never a dull moment with XCOM, and it has insanely high replayability due to the randomness of the missions, your base's development, and gameplay settings you can tweak after clearing the game.

Console. PS3 to be specific.

I'll admit that I've seen the game run smoother on PC since as far as I can tell, the PS3 version is pretty clunky. Nothing game breaking, mind you, but it's a bit rough. Turns, actions, and menu navigation takes a liiiiiittle longer than it should. I got used to it, but perhaps do a side-by-side comparison of the different version before you buy one.

Don't let it stop you if you have no other choice. Regardless of the glitches, the game is fantastic.

I recommend these games to those who likes rpgs:

Half-Minute Hero. It's on the PSP (not sure if it was released on other platforms). This game is just great. It's practically a 6-in-1 game, that revolves around an interesting core concept: a 30-second timer. The first thought I had when I played this game was: 'Holy Sheeet, dis is good game design'. No kidding. It sports snes-ish graphics and music and rather witty dialogue. Save (or Destroy) the world in 30 seconds!

Gods Eater Burst It's on the PSP, vita, and PS4. GEB is a hack-n-slash(-n-blast) rpg set in a post-apocalyptic world. It sports a mission-based system, so no 4+ hours of travelling from TownA to TownB. There is also no 'levelling up'. Character strength relies solely on their equipment (and the skill of the player). Customization is among the game's main strong points, allowing the player to craft a character that suits him/her.

Fallout (1/2). It's on the PC (try GOG or steam), and more recently, on mobile phones. Fallout was surprisingly fun for me, considering that I'm not a big fan of D&D-like rpgs. It's a turn-based open-world retro-futuristic post-apocalyptic rpg that will nuke your minds to kingdom come. Literally. This game's that awesome. You don't even need to play the first instalment to get the hang of the game (though I recommend you read the manual *at least* once before playing). I can't say anything about Fallout 3 or 4 (the ones made after bethesda strangled interplay) since I haven't played them.

Terraria is a mixed bag for me - building up things is fun, there's countless ways to tackle boss fights, you have much more diversity in environments than you have in Minecraft and there's tons of crazy weapons to play around with.

However, the game can be extremely hard to get into, with numerous ways to die and lose progress, several only lightly explained mechanics that are crucial to know and the possibility of invasions. But the real kicker is this:



Rather decent, but brutally unforgiving for beginners.

Card Hunter is a more clear suggestion - it's a tactical RPG with a deckbuilding mechanic, that involves equipping items to gain your cards this way. Those items have several skills and drawbacks, which can bring a lot of depth with planning your units. The story is basically you being the player of the Tabletop Game, which is an affectionate parody of various D&D jokes and plots (without any made-up clichés).

As for me, I'd like to have some recommendations based on games I hated but still have a decent framework or good ideas I wanna see:

Lords of Xulima, despite all the faults and the completely automatic gameplay, has a decent base for a party building RPG with emphasis on using status effects with your weapons. I need a game like that that maintains the row-based combat but doesn't undermine the gameplay with level adjustments or RNG overdosage.

Darkest Dungeon has the nice ideas of rotating your party to cure out the mental and physical fatigue of your adventurers and a nice way of implementing this. However, the game is way too easy and the punishment for complete darkness is too light compared to the benefits it brings (in my opinion, there shouldn't be an incentive to being in the dark at all).

Fire Emblem used to be quite fun - you had various classes, nice equipment choices and a solid turn-based engine. However, some of the core mechanics are a huge problem to me - the finite amount of troops and the permadeath makes any strategy that requires any amount of risks incredibly unviable. This is especially bad in later titles that makes it impossible to even field certain units as they'll be swarmed by flying units in a moment's notice. Knight of Lodis is probably closest, but it's a little oversaturated with mechanics, FF Tactics and Shining Force progress too slowly and Disgaea is too stat-reliant.

author=Rine
@LightningLord2: If you're looking for a good tactical RPG, just mixed with more JRPG in combat, I would recommend Devil Survivor 1 and 2 for the DS. Tactical combat and some spacing, mixed with SMT's press-turns and demon fusions. Probably some of the best tactical RPG fun you can have on a handheld, in addition to having story choices with real consequences (as in, if you don't meet the character when they ask you to, they will die, gone for good, and the game will point out that you failed them).

In general, I highly recommend the Shin Megami Tensei series. The snes RPGs are a bit grindy, but the ps2 ones are some of the finest RPGs on that system, and that goes for the spinoffs as well. Except for devil children, that can dissapear.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey was massively fun, same for Persona 4. Gotta poke around a bit more.

Telepath Tactics is another one I'd recommend: It's the only RPG I've seen that nearly abolishes the hit rate system. In fact, there's only two classes that can dodge at all (which can be negated by some status effects and using mental attacks). All attacks never miss otherwise and deal a fixed amount of damage (which is influenced by elemental resists, range falloff and hitting in the back). A great example of what combat looks like if there is no luck factor involved.

Misread the topic and added game suggestions. Ignore unless you want to hear me go on and on about Suikoden and Okami. XD



About Sims4 - I bought it day it came out. It's not as good as 3, no, but it isn't as bad as some people complain about. Yes, they took out certain parts (frankly, I don't care about toddlers and landscaping so unless you wanted the pain of dealing with fucking little brats and making your plot look 'just so' it's not a big deal) but they added new things as well. The emotion overhaul is actually a damn lot better, imo, than the previous versions and it does make extreneous bullshit a lot less annoying. That said, unless you can get it cheap, I wouldn't recommend spending much on it. Wait til it drops in price if you want it.