Community MetaSteam | December 2021 - All I want for Christmas is a SteamDeck.

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ExistentialThought

Coffee Lover ♥☕
Feb 29, 2020
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Pokemon came out at peak childhood for me. I was about Ash’s age and I remember following the JP game news through magazines and watching the cartoon and was hyped at the game release.

My friends and I at school even made a Pokemon magazine to sell to other kids. I wrote articles about type weaknesses and some basics about TMs. Made about one dollar in sales, does not help when everyone who liked Pokemon in the school worked on it haha. Heck, I even made a Geocities page and had plans of supporting a website.

Nowadays my enjoyment of Pokemon is way more subtle and I have not even played the last few titles.

My favorite was probably Gold and Silver, still is, though Heart Gold and Soul Silver are good.
 

Vantr

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2021
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I was a kid when Pokemon came out and I played all the games until Sword/Shield. I had fond memories of Ruby/Sapphire since it was the first one where I managed to complete the Pokedex.

My favourite would have to be X/Y with mega evolutions and character customisation. It also came out the middle of college for me, so a lot of people had a 3DS and it was easy to StreetPass or find people to play with. Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire was a great remake as well and I enjoyed my time with that.

The latest games haven't interested me a lot but it's mainly because I'm salty that mega evolutions is basically a discarded mechanic now.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Speaking of Pokemon, I wonder if the TCG is good. After all, I spent the majority of my play time today on MtG and Runeterra, what’s one more ?
Still have to try Gwent, Yugioh and Teppen, totally healthy list.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
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Pokémon Gen 2 will always have a place in my heart, but I'd say gen 5 (Black&White and follow ups) are probably the best if you don't know much. Decent story for once, fast and snappy games, B&W main story is only gen 5 Pokémon so it's more unique, and then B&W2 have colossal amount of post game content and side activities.

You can't go wrong with remakes though. They might no be perfect, but they work. I wouldn't really recommended anything before gen 4 (Diamond&Pearl - and Platinum is better than them), the games evolved a lot mechanically with the physical/special split, it makes the older games pretty stupid at times and require more knowledge that isn't explained anywhere. Not that it matter considering the difficulty, but having Pokémon hitting like wet noodles because their stats and types are not in line is not easy to understand for beginners.


In other news, I'm playing Tales of Eternia PSP emulated (it's actually better).
And for a PS1 RPG, it's surprisingly holds up. Action combat that is pretty fun (if messy when skills fly everywhere), decently deep, much faster than a lot of later games like Symphonia and Abyss, balance is... okay, but I'm surprised at how fast the game goes. Story beats come fast, dungeons are interesting and not too long... it doesn't drag.
But at the same time, that means a lot less time for characters which are definitely pretty weak.

While it's a weaker game than Star Ocean 2, it's nice to see an old JRPG that is focused and fun.

And now, get ready for the remaster to come to Steam in a year or so, that's always how it goes when I emulate games.
 

MegaApple

Just another Video Game Enthusiast
Sep 20, 2018
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You can't go wrong with remakes though. They might no be perfect, but they work. I wouldn't really recommended anything before gen 4 (Diamond&Pearl - and Platinum is better than them), the games evolved a lot mechanically with the physical/special split, it makes the older games pretty stupid at times and require more knowledge that isn't explained anywhere. Not that it matter considering the difficulty, but having Pokémon hitting like wet noodles because their stats and types are not in line is not easy to understand for beginners.
Black and White good place to start for newcomers?
 
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Prodigy

Sleeper must awaken
Dec 9, 2018
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Not sure how many military sim people there are here, but I see Bohemia Interactive have shown their new Engine (which will most likely power Arma 4).
I always love these details.




More pics on site

 

PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
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California
By the way I hope that this is not a double post from me. I wrote all of this, this morning but I don't think I ever shared it.



Pokemon came out at peak childhood for me. I was about Ash’s age and I remember following the JP game news through magazines and watching the cartoon and was hyped at the game release.

My friends and I at school even made a Pokemon magazine to sell to other kids. I wrote articles about type weaknesses and some basics about TMs. Made about one dollar in sales, does not help when everyone who liked Pokemon in the school worked on it haha. Heck, I even made a Geocities page and had plans of supporting a website.

Nowadays my enjoyment of Pokemon is way more subtle and I have not even played the last few titles.

My favorite was probably Gold and Silver, still is, though Heart Gold and Soul Silver are good.
That's pretty cool seeing how that's how Gamefreak was started from what I remember.




For those that are wondering about the appeal of Pokemon it's pretty simple actually.




The main reason that people like the game is that you are able to go on an adventure with little buddies that you collect and try to make stronger (over the years they have even added stuff for you to bond with your Pokemon more. Since a lot of you guys seem to have like Gen 2 (Gold/Silver/Crystal) in the remake that they did for the game (it was a gen 4 game) that came out in 2010 they even decided to go further with the bonding, with the game came an item called a Pokewalker (they had one previously it seems but this was came bundled with the game by default) and with that you would be able to walk around with your Pokemon in real life (it was a pedometer that just tracks your steps, and it was insanely accurate more so than even other health tracking stuff at the time despite it basically being a toy) and you would be able to pick up items to return to the game itself and also level up your Pokemon in addition increasing your friendship (this in a way turned your Pokemon into a digivice like in Digimon kind of) and in the actual game of HeartGold and SoulSilver you were able to walk around with your Pokemon in the game so the feature made a lot of sense.



So yeah growing with your Pokemon friends and becoming closer with them, the games also have feature were you can transfer games from previous gens to newer ones. With that I was able to transfer Gen 3 Pokemon up to Gen 7.


The base formula from the OG game is still there and has not been modified in any major way, there have been plenty of QOL changes over the years but at it's heart it's still the same game over and over again.




The main reason why it's so successful, and why the graphics don't look that impressive is because their main audience that they make these games for are children, that is their audience. And kids don't care about graphics as much as you would think. And as for the adults that buy these games? Well those people come and go and all Pokemon cares about is bringing in new people that's why when they got rid of a lot of Pokemon and other stuff that older fans didn't like, that didn't really mater and the game still ended up selling millions seeing how most people don't know all the Pokemon.


With my favorite gen, gen 5 that came out in 2011. People criticized it because of how the Pokemon didn't look that cool and stuff (and sure fair enough) but the other thing that people didn't like was how you could not capture gen 1-gen 4 Pokemon in game until after you beat the story. And as it turned out that didn't mater seeing how most kids don't know all the Pokemon. So you had to start like with Gen 1 were you didn't know any of the Pokemon and learning were they are.

Part of the reason why it's like that is because Gen 5 was like Pokemon 1.5 and was starting to do somethings different that some of the other newer Pokemon games have since adopted. Gen 1-4 were all set in Japan and starting with Gen 5 which is based off the US, the other games now take place in places like Europe and Hawaii (Gen 7 takes place in Hawaii pretty much)



Also don't forget this (this video shows you the low HP sound from gen 1-gen 5. After gen 5 they only play the sound for 6-8 beeps and then it just stops so not much to show for those other ones.


Also this is how people feel about the sound

Black and White good place to start for newcomers?
They are (although an issue might be price point since these ones along with the HeartGold and Soul Silver are among the more expensive DS Pokemon games, so just be aware of that when trying to find a copy).


But yeah I'd say it's a good point seeing how the BW are pretty much a soft reboot for the series. What will suck though is the online stuff since this game did have online stuff. One of the cool things was being able to download a skin to use in the lower DS screen (although it sucked how you could only keep one and if you wanted to use a different one you would have to delete it and download another one.

One of the reasons why it is good especially to those that have only played previous games is that it will make you choose Pokemon that you otherwise never would have chosen since gen 1-4 have a lot of the same Pokemon and more often then not people will just use their favorites like they have got multiple years. And pretty much do the same thing that they always do.

Otherwise any of them would be a good starting point other than gen 1 and 2 unless you are playing the remakes because those are a lot easier to play but are also quite expensive.







By the way maybe some of you guys know a lot more about this than me but does Valve normally give Steam partners gifts during the holiday season? Or do they do this more so for their "preferred" partners? So for devs/pubs who's games sell very well?




And is that a good brand of chocolate?
 
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Mor

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
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By the way maybe some of you guys know a lot more about this than me but does Valve normally give Steam partners gifts during the holiday season? Or do they do this more so for their "preferred" partners? So for devs/pubs who's games sell very well?




And is that a good brand of chocolate?
They do indeed gift something like this to some partners, what's the criteria behind such gift? I don't know, but it has been happening for quite a few years already with some developers, not a lot of them post it on Twitter tho :p
 
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Cacher

MetaMember
Jun 3, 2020
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I re-read my old thread.

The thread was created in July, and only one game among all those mentioned was confirmed to release on PC (ie. God of War). Damn, to all publishers, step up your game! (It's not like they are reading this place, but duh!)

Also there are people in that thread who haven't showed up for a long time. Hopefully they are ok.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
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Black and White good place to start for newcomers?
Ultimately, any of the games is fine to start with.
But Black&White being a reboot is perfect if you have no knowledge of the franchise AND also if you played the ones before. It's a great contained experience, with the only true follow up of a Pokémon game in Black&White 2 (which is more akin to a full blown expansion of today than the other extra games being more akin to DLC and fixes) being arguably the best and most complete game in the franchise.

I think it's also a good starting point since if you like it, you can play the games in chronological order after that with the DS gen 2 remakes in Soul Silver and Heart Gold; then go to 3DS games, that's gen 6 and 7, and its great remake of gen 3 in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
And then on Switch you get gen 8, and remakes of gen 1 and 4 (though Pokémon Let's go is a gen 1 remake with a completely different set of rules, interesting but probably the only one I wouldn't start with - it's very different than the others in many ways), for the complete franchise.

On the other hand, gen 5 will probably get remakes in a few years too, so the most recent remake of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl might be a decent starting point, but they have their issues and are really buggy for now.
 

Arulan

Lizardman
Dec 7, 2018
563
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What's everyone favorite Pokemon game?
Pokemon Blue.

I didn't continue playing the series after Ruby/Sapphire, so I can't comment on the rest. I really enjoyed the Kanto region, and perhaps the simplicity of the original game. I have a fondness for Pokemon Snap as well.

Ultimately I don't think Game Freak took the series where I hoped it would go when I first played Blue.

It's been roughly two decades since I last played, but with the Pocket here, now is a great time to revisit it.





 

「Echo」

Reaper on Station。
Nov 1, 2018
2,754
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Mt. Whatever
I re-read my old thread.

The thread was created in July, and only one game among all those mentioned was confirmed to release on PC (ie. God of War). Damn, to all publishers, step up your game! (It's not like they are reading this place, but duh!)

Also there are people in that thread who haven't showed up for a long time. Hopefully they are ok.
Omg, a VC2 and 3 remake would be so fly. Hell, even just a straight port to preserve the franchise as a whole on PC.

What's everyone favorite Pokemon game?
Pokemon Yellow is where I started. The first one i finished.
But Pokemon Crystal is my first game where I woke up early to catch the morning sun through my window to play GB without a backlight lol. And that moment when you beat Johto and go on to Kanto is just... chef kiss!!! It was like getting two games for one. And as a kid whose parents weren't so thrilled at the notion of buying many games... that was just special. And of course at the end when you fight Red... :love:
 
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Mor

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
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toxicitizen

MetaMember
Oct 24, 2018
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Not too surprising considering 2021 is almost done, but yeah. FF6 Remaster is delayed until Feb. 2022.
Nice, gives me plenty of time to get around to FFV. Still haven't touched it and I'm currently hooked on FFXIV.

Hope they release a trailer soon, though. Those Famitsu screenshots had me salivating. Really curious to see how much they're actually changing it up.
 

thekeats1999

MetaMember
Dec 10, 2018
1,452
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Not too surprising considering 2021 is almost done, but yeah. FF6 Remaster is delayed until Feb. 2022.
A little bit disappointed. This was my first Final Fantasy game and was the reason I bought a chipped American SNES (using a bypass cartridge caused some issues with using tents on the overworld). It was between this, Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger that I started to love Square games (something that they are doing their best to try and destroy at the moment).

It is still my Favourite Final Fantasy game, although Shadowbringers and Endwalker (so far) are giving it a run for its money..

For Game of the Year, I have nothing. My main game of the year is Final Fantasy XIV as a whole. Loved my time with it, as can be seen by the fact I started playing at the beginning of March and I am getting close to 900 hrs in it. Dorfromantik and Valheim have been great, although Valheim crapped the bed with the most recent set of updates.

Having looked at my purchase history, yeah it's mainly been FFXIV, with a few escapees from EGS.

I will send what little I have on in a little while anyway.
 

Cacher

MetaMember
Jun 3, 2020
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Shipbreaker latest update is live. They add an option to adjust the dynamic lighting. After turning it to low, I can confirm that the game is no longer killing the GPU! And honestly it doesn't look half bad to me.

 

tetel

MetaMember
Jan 7, 2020
340
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I re-read my old thread.

The thread was created in July, and only one game among all those mentioned was confirmed to release on PC (ie. God of War). Damn, to all publishers, step up your game! (It's not like they are reading this place, but duh!)
For what it's worth, Panzer Dragoon Zwei was announced even before that thread (not sure if it was confirmed for PC but it's rather obvious anyway) and we got some decent FFT/Lollipop Chainsaw rumors since then.

Also, Square Enix really wants that Steam Award:
 

thekeats1999

MetaMember
Dec 10, 2018
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its quite great well of IP to use in games
From a gaming perspective it is great. They have some great characters in their that havent seen any attention in the gaming space..

However I really don't like the idea of these super companies that seem to own vast swathes of the industry. It's bad enough something like Disney (and I love the work they have done with Marvel and the TV side of Star Wars).
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
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Pokemon Blue.

I didn't continue playing the series after Ruby/Sapphire, so I can't comment on the rest. I really enjoyed the Kanto region, and perhaps the simplicity of the original game. I have a fondness for Pokemon Snap as well.

Ultimately I don't think Game Freak took the series where I hoped it would go when I first played Blue.

It's been roughly two decades since I last played, but with the Pocket here, now is a great time to revisit it.

That looks phenomenal. Have a huge soft spot for handheld gaming, so between the Deck and this it'll be a fun couple of years ahead.
 
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beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
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What's everyone favorite Pokemon game?
Crystal for me, largely due to the Unown Ruins side quest. It was the most interesting content in Pokemon games to me. Haven't played it in a while though. The side quest for the legendaries in Ruby/Sapphire that involved deciphering those murals and reading braille is close though. That was good stuff.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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From a gaming perspective it is great. They have some great characters in their that havent seen any attention in the gaming space..

However I really don't like the idea of these super companies that seem to own vast swathes of the industry. It's bad enough something like Disney (and I love the work they have done with Marvel and the TV side of Star Wars).
It's part of their own "Metaverse" strategy isn't it?
They now own Video game studios, board game publishers and comic publishers. They are well placed to MTX the bejeesus out of all their properties in multiple media with FOMO crossovers. Sure it might not be that mercenary but call me skeptical about their motivations and future direction.
 
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