The Big Gaming in the 2010s Discussion Thread (the 2010s-Defining Game currently being discussed)

VATS is great, I love the combat in Fallout. It's at its best in FO4 when they made non-VATS shooting a viable option, but I still think it's great in New Vegas. What don't you like about it?

Pausing to shoot, if I want to play a turn based RPG I'll play Final Fantasy IX.

See, as much as I enjoyed Persona 5 I don’t have particularly special memories of it. It was a nice distillation, but also kind of lacked any real edge that made me fall in love, a lot of style, not sure it had the substance.

If we’re talking JRPGs Xenoblade will always remain a very special game to me, plus the entire Kingdom Hearts series will always have a special place to me after being there at exactly the right time last Christmas/early this year.

I couldn't finish P4G so I've never played P5 as I figure it won't be too different.

@mas you can just play NV without using vats

May I ask why as I've not finished P4G due to getting lost in a procedurally generated dungeons, where in P5 they're handcrafted.

Of course everything else is great in P4G and P5, I might prefer the characters in P4. Even gone back to play some P3FES, just as it's not something I will be selling on, I'm in no rush to play.

It was the huge dungeons yeah, being procedurally generated is part of the problem but mainly it was the slog of doing them all at once and having stupid drop chances on side quest items. Maybe I would suit P5 better

More than likely and it's cheap now on PS4 as I think it's in the essential or classic range, you know I mean.

As personally do think it's my favourite PS4 game.

Can't say I agree that Persona 5 lacked edge.  Plenty of scathing showcases of society to be had, and unlike Persona 4 it didn't try to act like defeating the final boss (which I love because its mere existence is such a scathing assessment of humanity) solved anything.  It's not grimdark like Persona 3, but it also avoids the stupid anime cliche P4 falls into of "everything's amazing now that this one thing got sorted!"  

I'd say the big problem is that beyond Morgana and Futaba the cast has a distinct lack of presence outside their main "arcs".  The game would've been so much better if characters like Ann and Ryuji were "retired" after their main arcs and brought back in near the end to back up Joker.  But even then there really wasn't much competition this decade for turn-based rpg's.  I've heard great things about Trails of Cold Steel but can't attest to that since I still haven't finished Trails in the Sky (maybe I should just bite the bullet and play them.  

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As for how it stacks up compared to 4, yeah like Mas said it's a very different animal.  I'd honestly go so far as to say it's one of the best-feeling JRPG's I've ever played.  Proper dungeons go a long way, but it's also the little things like how the battle menu is super-responsive and various options (items, magic, switching Persona's, ect) are all mapped to the face buttons rather than a list to be scrolled through.   It's one of those games that feels good simply to play.  And unlike Persona 4 it doesn't spend forever setting things up, nor does it spend large swathes of its story on pointless nothings that go nowhere.  

And yeah, I was referring to Golden.  Forgot to add that in when I was proofreading, my bad.   For what it's worth Oath in Felghana is also technically cheating, it was released in 05 but wasn't localised for the West until 2012.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

JRPGs I'm going with The Last Story, Ever Oasis, Monster Hunter Stories and Solatorobo: Red the Hunter. Fight me

I feel like it's about time for a new topic, but maybe that's just because I haven't played a Persona game... and also because Atlus (it is Atlus right?) bait-and-switched for ages on P5 coming to Switch so I'm bitter about that.

Why not give into fate and get a PS4 Balla? It's nice and comfy and we have the better jrpg's on the Sony side of the fence!

I'm not going that far, as he has a PS3 with loads he's missed. Knowing he's a RPG fan especially the whole RPGs going from SNES to PS1, he hasn't picked up or played more PlayStation systems.

Then I guess Nintendo handhelds have always been good for the genre.

Pretty much! Trouble is ('trouble' in the heaviest quotations marks existing), the Switch came out shortly after I got my PS3, and even during the comparatively fallow period in 2018 I was living in a room without a telly for most of the week. Nowadays, I don't have time for the games/JRPGs I have! I'm about five/ten hours into DQXI, which feels like a potential belter but I wouldn't know at this stage.

Alright, that's enough JRPG chat.

How about sports and racing games? I must admit, it's not a genre I've spent a lot of time with, but I'd love to hear about the best picks from the rest of you.

MK8D immediately comes to mind for me. The best Mario Kart, no?

You've answered that one, next genre!

Seriously though, there's absolutely no competition. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the best racing game I've ever played, let alone this decade. As for sport, Mario's sports games suffered a collapse ever since Toadstool Tour, and nothing else really stood out for me. Bit of a mediocre genre for me.

I still prefer Double Dash

Anyway this decade I've only got Forza Horizon 4 down as a great game.

For me and racing games this decade it's a bit of a toss-up between Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Crash Team Racing Nitro Fuelled.

I think I'd just about give it to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe because of 200cc mode which I think is one of the best things to happen to the series in a long time. On 150cc you can pretty much auto-pilot through courses on the first go, but on 200 you have think more about what lines you take and actually having to brake to help you turn on some occasions.

Did enjoy Nitro Fuelled a lot for the technical gameplay. It's fun trying to chain boosts from drifts and drops for as long as you can, and since MKWii I've wanted a kart racer as technical as MKDS (never played the original CTR so this was all fresh to me). But my position on that has softened a lot since. Now I'm satisfied with a more standard karting experience, and have items actually play an adequate role.

Have to say though that the singleplayer offering in MK8 is pretty poor, like it has been in most of the games aside from MKDS with its mission mode, whereas in pretty much every major kart racer I can think of it has been pretty decent, Nitro Fuelled included. Some additional challenges aside from time trials would be nice. I can get why some people don't care at all about this part of the game though since they get so much from the multiplayer. And of course MK8 Deluxe has a much bigger set of courses and they're generally pretty good.

As for sports games I have barely played any this decade and wouldn't rate any of them - including the Mario Tennis games released on 3DS, Wii U and Switch, though admittedly I didn't play the Switch one for very long. I did enjoy a few in the previous decade but the genre seems to have really contracted now with a focus now on just a few mainstays like Fifa and Madden.

But when I search for sports games Rocket League comes up so I guess I'll go with that? I suppose it's essentially a football game but I found it really fun. Have a lot of fun with friends at least.

Definitely would have been Punch Out Wii had it come out a year later.

Rocket League is a good shout, and probably the best sports game I played this decade.

In retrospect, Jay should have gone for best MANLY GAMES.

Not sure what else would be in that, but guessing FPS which had plenty of chat and fighting games will I would guess.

Bang on, Mas. It is a niche AF callback.

Mario Kart 8, far and away.

Between Wii U and Switch, I've put easily 200 hours into this game and I don't feel close to done.

The controls and the feel of the car in the hands is as tight and satisfying as controlling Mario himself in one of his platformers. Multiplayer shenanigans are as fun as ever, with much less frustrating item usage than in something lkke Mario Kart Wii.

For me, though, this game shines brightest in an area I never thought would interest me: time trials. The tracks are so exquisitely designed, the gameplay so tightly tuned that I had the time of my life first beating all the 150cc staffghosts, then getting into a Moo Moo Meadows battle with Muss, and now plugging away at the 200cc time trials.

A perfect game.

Remember to change your own title Jay, jeeeeeeez.

Yeah, Mario Kart 8 is the pinnacle of it. Other serious racing games have got better at doing what they do, but less fun as a result. I've had a lot of FIFA fun this decade though (if the decade before was the ISS/PES decade). And Mario Tennis... has let the side down a bit.

I thought it was racing and sports, or am I now talking Gears and Splatoon as well?

Remember to get the changed title right Balla, jeeeeeeeeeez.

Forgot to mention Redout as well. Pretty cool racer that I think is inspired by Wipeout, a series which I've never played but it seems a bit like F-Zero. Not hankering after a new F-Zero that much but I did really like F-Zero X and the little I played of F-Zero GX. It's got a pretty slick aesthetic and is pretty fun in multiplayer. Pretty much pure racing without much interaction between players.

Also Ballistic NG which I think is even more inspired by Wipeout and is a similar sort of game but with items/weapons. Pretty cool but not played that much of it.