The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Random Hajile posted:

In the first level after the intro, you might see a knight with glowing red eyes on top of the castle walls. He will destroy you. If you see him, you're going the wrong way.

I beat him on my first encounter. :colbert:

That said I have black phantom edition so I have a little guide. Thieves ring + cheesing to death ftw.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2010 00:48

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 17:26

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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How about silent hunter 3? As well as gameplay tips is there any way to change the resolution at all? I run widescreen and for some reason the default resolution is cutting off part of the screen.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2011 19:35

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Also on top of that each class gets a skill (or ability or something, long time since I've played it) which makes that classes main stat be used for your other classes.

And I guess this is the place to post this, I'm considering picking up a version of Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman/What did I do to deserve this my lord?(2)/No heroes allowed (Record for most name changes for the same series?) but I don't know which one to get, would I be missing much by skipping to the 3rd or should I try to play them in order? I know the 2nd game's UMD version included the first game in the US but the EU version doesn't have it.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2011 22:15

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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mystery at hog island posted:

Only if s/he has a backwards compatible PS3 that can play PS2 games. And MGS1 is on PSN for 10 bucks. Actually 1-3 had a pretty nice boxed set a few years back that might be around in some stores.

Beyond that there's a rumor going around of it getting a HD trilogy re-release like a lot of other series have been getting.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2011 20:38

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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I'm just starting on Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, I've only played 1 (and not completed it, just got close to the end) and I've started on normal and have just gotten to the bit where you choose your character, which is recommended for your first playthrough? Anything else I should know about the game?

# ¿ Mar 16, 2011 19:44

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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treat posted:

Just picked up Singularity. I absolutely hated Bioshock, yet the plot and dialog so far is hilariously bad, the death animations remind me of Turok, and the promise of super-science abilities and time traveling sequences have got me excited.

Just a few things:

Is it necessary to collect all that E99 technology bullshit scattered around virtually every single loving room? Am I going to miss out for not collecting all of it? Most of it? Any of it?

Is there ever a single reason to read any of the ungodly number of notes/recordings/videos throughout the game? I hate the way that sort of garbage breaks the pace so I'd be glad to ignore it.

Most importantly, I'd like to fix the FOV, anti-aliasing, ect. Basically I'd like it to look and play like a PC game, if anybody knows of a down-and-dirty list of .ini changes to do so. I'm not interested in a comprehensive tweak guide, just the (what should be considered) necessary stuff.

Anything else I should know?

E99 stuff is for purchasing non-weapon upgrades, it's definitely worth grabbing for a few of the upgrades but there's no punishment for not collecting them other than not having as much to spend on upgrades.

All the notes/recordings/videos are basically just flavour text and to give you an idea of what happened there before. I don't know about PC settings since I played it on console.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2011 14:27

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Bluetooth human being posted:

Cool, now I just need to get about 8 million gold. Lots of pie to be made I guess.

Real estate, especially the shops are quite profitable.

# ¿ May 8, 2011 22:39

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Any tips on Castlevania Lords of Shadow? Especially routes, I just got to the swamp and there are so many branching routes I have no idea where I'm supposed to go (which is where I don't want to go, exploring for secrets

). Also Marvel vs Capcom 3 should be arriving via post soon so any tips on that would be appreciated as well.

# ¿ May 11, 2011 17:46

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Luminaflare posted:

Any tips on Castlevania Lords of Shadow? Especially routes, I just got to the swamp and there are so many branching routes I have no idea where I'm supposed to go (which is where I don't want to go, exploring for secrets ). Also Marvel vs Capcom 3 should be arriving via post soon so any tips on that would be appreciated as well.

Actually as an addendum does someone know of a secrets list or something similar?

# ¿ May 11, 2011 18:47

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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So I've searched through the thread and looked on the wiki, anyone got any tips on Ys 7? Specifically anything missable.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2011 20:25

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Anything not in the wiki I should know about Gods Eater Burst?

# ¿ May 15, 2012 12:56

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Sentient Toaster posted:

-The tutorial missions are really informative. Check them out.

-It may not be initially clear, but the (B)urst mode bonuses and penalties from your control unit get more powerful during higher level link bursts.

-New-type NPCs will pass aragami bullets to you. They'll often make a conscious effort to feed you bullets and prolong your link burst.

-Custom bullets are a ton of fun, but you won't have access to some key modules until later in the game. Progress through story missions to unlock more stuff to play with. Useful mods include XS deco-shots (very cheap), M control (auto-aim) and sticky orb (multiple critical hits).

-When making your own bullets, remember that deco-shots are the best way to change the angle or behavior of a bullet. They cost almost nothing and can go through obstacles.

-If you create a bullet featuring multiple simultaneous impacts, there's harsh damage reduction after the first two hits. The trick is to delay the next two for a fraction of a second.

-Recovery bullets are normally expensive, but here's an easy and relatively effective one. Make a homing recovery shot which fires a cheap non-homing recovery shot when it hits an ally. 32 HP for an OP cost you can work with.

-Low cost bullets will deal more damage per OP, but they aren't time efficient or useful. 2-4 shots with a full OP bar is the sweet spot before you get into those fancy OP reducing abilities later on. Unload, melee as usual, then make room to aim and unload again.

-If you aren't sure what type your awesome custom bullet happens to be, choose to edit the icon and press triangle. This will set the suggested icon, which will always be the bullet's primary type. Then you can identify which type of gun gets the type matching OP discount.

-The wiki says assault guns don't get an OP discount, but it's actually shot types they're paired with. The real advantage of assaults is the ability to rapid fire. They also tend to have roughly even stats.

-You can combo devour at any point after the first hit in a combo, but you'll only get half a burst meter this way.

-The defense values on shields apply even when you aren't blocking. Blocking just gives you vastly higher damage reduction.

-While you can't block in gun mode, you can tap the button to switch modes and then hold the block button before your god arc finishes transforming. You'll go directly into blocking without any additional deploy time. If you have the Dextrous skill, you may as well be able to block in gun mode.

-My favorite shield for solo play is Common Shield. It gets very competitive defense values and some frankly amazing abilities. Stamina Recovery Up is like having burst mode stamina recovery all the time. It also eventually gets Guard Speed Up, which makes it deploy as fast as a small shield with none of the drawbacks! The very last upgrade will add Oracle Intake Up, which improves the amount of OP you recover just from landing blade hits.

Thanks, that helps a bunch.

# ¿ May 15, 2012 13:51

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Any advice for Overlord? I've had the entire series on steam for a while now and I figure it's time to play them. Also do I want to run Overlord or Overlord: Raising Hell?

# ¿ Apr 22, 2013 14:12

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Pyromancer posted:

Run Raising Hell, it includes all of regular Overlord.
Your minions pick up equipment and get stronger/tougher and this is persisted the next time you call them out from the pit. It is sort of like a stack where collected souls are added to bottom as naked minions with clubs and top is your most used minions with whatever they equipped themselves. Try to keep these alive and don't use all the souls for forging, the difference in performance becomes huge in late game.
Farming souls is best done in arena and bugs are best for that, pack regeneration enchanted items and kite few bugs at a time, taking breaks to regain health, it can be done without any minions. You could put some red minions on guard to accelerate killing but take care not to lose them.
Sweeping your minions is needed for pretty much every boss and puzzle and guard mode is needed for the rest, forget that move from tutorial that just sends them running forward, always sweep them with mouse holding both buttons.
Being good/evil affects mostly your and your tower appearance, but the top level spells will be different if you're more than 50% evil. This counts for the moment you collect those and stays, so you could have good/neutral version of one spell and evil of other if you changed a lot.

Thanks

# ¿ Apr 22, 2013 15:54

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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sebmojo posted:

Kotor doesn't have a dismemberment tweak. AFAIK, maybe there's a mod?

Actually I just started playing Jedi Knight II, any advice for that?

# ¿ May 8, 2013 12:33

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Mayor McCheese posted:

Oh wow, I didn't know about it increasing the number of spell casts (not slots). This is good to know!

Not by many though, I'm at 30 attunement and have 32 casts of soul arrow instead of 30. That said I have 3 soul spears instead of 2 so...

# ¿ Apr 1, 2014 19:15

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Disgaea 4, the PS3 version.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2014 20:08

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Any tips for Steins Gate or Pokemon Sun/Moon?

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 20:38

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Thanks for the tips on Steins Gate and Pokemon.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2017 14:42

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Wargame: AirLand Battle?

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 16:22

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Ciaphas posted:

Anyone have anything for Sniper Elite 4, especially given this is my first Sniper Elite game? I really have no idea what I'm doing, and like a bellend I've turned off Aim Assist because damnit if NerdCubed can do it then so can I right (but even with it turned back on I don't really get what I'm doing, so)

Not played 4 yet but not much changed between 2 and 3 so this general advice should be valid.

- You can set custom difficulty, personally I like to have very realistic bullet physics, competent enemies and minor aim assist.

- You'll have a much easier time and kill Nazis just as effectively aiming for center mass rather than the head.

- Vehicles are generally killed by shooting the red fuel caps. Yes, even tanks.

- Keep sniping from the same spot and the enemy will work out roughly where you are.

- You can shoot grenades hanging off of people's belts.

Feel free to correct me on any of this though. I might be misremembering or things could have changed.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 10:33

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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PJOmega posted:

Anything for Horizon: Zero Dawn?

- There's a couple of conversations that get referenced during the last bits of the game that are easy to miss. Make sure to return to starting area and talk to the nice old lady about the guy. Also talk to the Meridian Leader after helping out a friend but before you have the last quest available because you start the last quest by talking to him and can't have the conversation then.
- In more detail: Ask Teersa about Rost. Talk to the Sun King after helping Elend out.
- Gear progression is a bit odd, I ended up jumping straight from green tier to purple tier. There's only two sets of merchant inventory for the normal merchants.
- Shadow gear is as good as you'll get apart from 3 exceptions. You can get better versions by completing a quest chain.
- In more detail, the weapons are the Ropecaster, Warbow and Blast Sling which you get by completing all the hunting trials.
- On the note of equipment, while you always want the highest tier equipment you can get your hands on, the game does expect you to have a large variety of types of equipment and change out as the situation demands.
- Always kill and harvest normal wildlife you come across, a few of the higher tier weapons and all the mid to high tier carry capacity upgrades require animal bones and skins. Their drop rate isn't too great.
- Also you can craft meat into health potions.
- Harvest arrows are incredibly useful for ammo crafting resources; for example if you were to shoot off a blaze canister with a harvest arrow you'd get 6 blaze from it instead of 1.
- All the collectibles have more details if you look at them in the notebook after you've picked them up.
- There's no real optimal set up for equipment modification outside of the ropecaster. Just set them for how you want to play.
- The ropecaster can only have tear mods and handling mods. Tear mods don't seem to give much (if any) benefit but handling mods increase the speed at which you aim, reload etc. It turns the ropecaster from a slow situational device into a rapid fire capture weapon of doom.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, feel free to ask for anything specific.

Luminaflare fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Mar 9, 2017

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 10:38

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Ainsley McTree posted:

You've got a broken spoiler tag in there. It's not spoiling anything terrible, but I figured you'd want to know since it was probably an accident

Whoops. Fixed it now. Like you said, it's not much of a spoiler but people might prefer to find out themselves.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 17:31

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Anything on Legend of Heroes: Trails in Cold Steel?

# ¿ May 13, 2017 21:34

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Monster Hunter Stories?

# ¿ Oct 14, 2017 20:14

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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food court bailiff posted:

Not really a "before I play", but kinda close:

Of the Armored Core games available on the Vita, which are worth playing? The same goes for the * Warriors series - what's a good jumping off point if I've never played one before and am not really tied to the settings?

Any Warriors game or just those on the Vita?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2017 17:56

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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If I recall correctly the only Vita releases are Next which is Vita only and not regarded very well, 8 xtreme legends and 8 empires which I believe both were decent ports.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2017 19:00

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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food court bailiff posted:

I think there's also a few Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi games? It's hard to tell, the search function on the Vita just absolutely sucks.

Ah yes, there does indeed to be. And yes the PS Vita store browser is poo poo.

Actually here's a before I pay tip:

PS Vita - PlayStation Store

- Just use the web store on a computer, tablet or phone.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2017 23:29

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Luminaflare posted:

Monster Hunter Stories?

Asking again since I didn't get a response.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2017 13:25

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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That sounds like you're talking about pirate warriors 3

# ¿ Oct 25, 2017 01:48

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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The White Dragon posted:

yeah one piece warriors is kaizoku musou is pirate warriors right?

Yeah but each game plays a bit differently in regards to things like kizuna attacks etc.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2017 10:44

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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I've beaten Titanfall 2. What two levels are you referring to?

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 23:22

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Anything for Dead Rising 4?

From what little I've played it seems like it's a lot less harsh with timers and survivor escorts.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 00:03

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Any advice for Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate? I've gotten to the middle of high rank in 4U and completed World.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2019 13:59

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Mierenneuker posted:

I played Dead Space 3 last week and while the wiki page was useful I thought it could be better:

- You get a bonus weapon for a Dead Space 2 save and a bonus suit for a Mass Effect 3 save. If you are on PC there are online guides on how you can fool the game that you have those files.
- The game only has auto-saving, unlike the previous games. There are "progress saves" and "inventory saves". It's easiest to just keep playing until you see a progress save notification before quitting.
- When you assemble a weapon you typically choose a Compact Frame or a Heavy Frame. Both of them have different tool combinations, but the Heavy Frame has a lot more options.
- The difference between Standard quality Frames and Elite quality has to do with upgrade circuits. Standard has 4 additional circuit slots that need to be unlocked for 20 Tungsten each. Elite already has all circuit slots unlocked and costs 80 Tungsten to craft. That's it, there are no other differences.
- It costs nothing to dismantle a weapon and ammo is universal. Just experiment with creating weapons! Under the Solo Campaign menu there even is a Weapon Crafting Arena to test combinations with unlimited ammo.
- Special weapons that you might NOT want to dismantle are the Planet Cracker Plasma Cutter and the Probe Gun. The Planet Cracker is the DS2 bonus weapon and you can't put the parts back together... unless you made a blueprint first. The Probe Gun is something you create for a mission and you get nothing for dismantling it afterwards.
- Upgrade circuits are not permanently attached and can be easily removed. Keep in mind that not every kind of circuit will show a noticeable improvement depending on the tool. For example, the Line Gun will always have a low Rate Of Fire.
- Upgrade circuits will only affect the tool they are inserted into, with the exception of Reload circuits. Those affect both tools since a weapon reloads them at the same time. This is useful for tools you mainly use for their utility, like the Rotator Cuff or the Force Gun.
- You can sell most items at a Crafting Bench. It will typically give you half the resources for an item that you would need to craft one. Since your Benches have a safe with unlimited(?) storage space you shouldn't sell things unless you can really use the resources.
- Tungsten Torque Bars can be crafted and used to open up special item rooms, just like Upgrade Nodes in the previous games. It's worthwhile to keep one on you at all times.
- Scavenger Bots can be deployed at any time to collect resources, but you get a lot more if you deploy them in special zones. You will hear a constant "wubwubwub" noise as you are approaching one, although the sound goes through walls and ceilings.
- Scavenger Bots will also collect something called Ration Seals. If you have 30 of them you can buy a "Weapon and Resource Pack" if bring up the DLC menu via a Bench or a Suit Kiosk. The extra resources it gives are nice but not necessary to survive the game.
- The Plasma Cutter might not be as good as in previous games, but it can still be fantastic. Combine a Compact Plasma Core with a Rip Core (you'll probably need to craft it) and give it a Stasis Coating attachment. Max the Damage and Reload stats with upgrade circuits. Have fun blasting and ripping at the same time!
- If you are struggling to come up with ideas for an early Heavy Frame weapon, try Telemetry Spike + Tesla Core. The Spike's default Tip is okay, but modifying it with any of the other three Tips makes it great. The Tesla's default Tip is the Line Gun, a staple slow-firing hard-hitting weapon.

ahobday posted:

Thanks - replaced.

Unless they patched it, when upgrading a weapon the stat bars maxing out is purely visual and you can keep increasing that stat. Mostly useful for increasing clip size as taking the fire rate too high on pretty much anything means you'll just shoot the ceiling due to recoil.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2021 15:10

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Mierenneuker posted:

I've already removed the game from my HD so I can't test that in the Weapons Arena I'm afraid. The old page mentioned some things that were clearly patched/changed, but there are no patch notes so I can't review if that got fixed. Did you play the game close to launch or much later?

And yeah, some of the weapon stats can get ridiculous even if you just stick to the visual max. I had a Plasma Cutter that was chewing through ammo at the end. It was not because the damage was lacking, but because the lightning fast rate of fire + reload made it easy to empty an entire clip in a necromorph when a couple shots would have sufficed.

Yeah it was near launch.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2021 20:19

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Anything on Total War: Warhammer III? Specifically Immortal Empires, but general advice too.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2022 23:56

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Considering it looks like Microsoft are getting the go-ahead with the ActivisionBlizzard buyout, D4 will probably be on gamepass relatively soon any ways.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2023 17:18

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Anything for Sea of Stars?

# ¿ Oct 27, 2023 21:04

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 17:26

Luminaflare: Sep 23, 2010; No one man
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Anything for Metal Gear Acid 1 or Metal Gear Acid 2?

# ¿ Jan 30, 2024 14:47

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!