@ben_h: Agreed! It's kinda nice having everyone focused on one thing - especially when everyone is actively engaged with each other. I don't like the format as much of "One person plays a game, while everyone else has an unrelated conversations (or often 2, simultaneously)". Glad that most GB content has moved away from that lately.
@permanentsigh: pretty sure I was just making a joke about it, relax lol. But also, apologies for my tone over the internet. I am ashamed of my words and deeds. I will definitely repent and do better next time.
Didn't notice what Grubb was wearing until a few minutes in lolll. By the way, when Grubb says he's bringing in experts to "make him look smart", surely that's an insult to his guests.
The tortilla hat would be acceptable and entertaining. This was funny, entertaining, worthwhile, and 100% not satisfactory. haha. Great episode as always.
@bladeofcreation: I didn't use the drifting until the 2nd half of the game at all. It's not really necessary in fights. But.. when I did randomly pop the achievement for killing 3 enemies in one drift, that did feel good haha. I came to quite appreciate it in concert with all the other powers, where before I had just been boosting everywhere constantly. When the combat system comes together, it's pretty satisfying.
That said, I never got the hang of drifting indoors or for puzzles. Constantly bumping into walls. CONSTANTLY.
I have finished Chorus (it's one of the games in this month's Game Pass club over on ResetEra) and I will say that I think the flight combat is weird, but ends up being really satisfying. I enjoyed my time with it throughout the whole.. 20-25 hour runtime of the game. They add powers and stuff, but I also just grinded mastery on fodder enemies for an hour at a time sometimes. And mastering some of those techniques actually really does feel great.
One thing I think could have been better is the variety in the weapons and mods. There's a pretty cool system where you can upgrade the systems on your ship in ways that do change how it fights pretty significantly (at least until you get into the later game, when your powers are more than strong enough that you don't even need to shoot, if you don't want - and mods can help with that too). But, at the later stages, you want to work towards set bonuses to maximize whatever play style you choose. But because those bonuses seem tied to specific gear, it often felt like there were only a few viable combinations of choices, rather than having the full gamut of being able to mix and match whatever. Plus, some of the end game weapons are the same as earlier game weapons, just more powerful (that's not surprising per se, just it would have been cool if they had kept up with the variety in weapons - what IS there is pretty cool in fundamentally changing how you use your missiles or your shotgun).
The story is bad. Like middling and disappointing, not trainwreck. It's not just that the way the story is told is bad (personally, I threw on subtitles and I didn't mind the whispering overmuch. The voice acting isn't.. terrible). But man, WHY IS EVERYTHING SO MELODRAMATIC. You know where the story is going by the first couple hours (that's not totally true, but still) and boy does it just go there. There are certain plot points that really just don't make sense IMO. And the game doesn't do a great job of explaining out its factions in an interesting or not confusing way. And there aren't even that many of them!
But yea, it's the way every decision and choice is IMBUED WITH SO MUCH WEIGHT AND DRAMA, but they're really just saying the most basic ass sci fi tropes imaginable. The twists at the end are.. twists, but they're also not that meaningful either? They're just.. there. And the actual story ending could have been more satisfying. Meh.
All that said, I actually think Chorus is a good game overall. 7.5/10? I enjoyed playing it, and I thought even the side missions, repetitive though they may be in some senses to some people, were fun. I wanted to like the characters and the story but couldn't quite do that fully. I liked it enough to basically get all the achievements (I may have missed one or two) and to basically do every quest that I could find in the game. Many others in the thread agreed that it wasn't their favorite game, but there were aspects that they enjoyed. Take that for what you will.
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