Steam can be so disappointing sometimes.

[kane_magus]

I'll see that a certain game[1] that I may have been vaguely interested in is on sale for less than $10 or some such on Steam, and my interest will be momentarily raised... up until I go to the Steam page for the game and see that the price for the actual full game (i.e. the base game plus all the shit that was chopped out to be sold extra as DLC) is still something like $40-60+ (and that's with the DLC itself on a markedly severe sale, too, because otherwise all that shit would be costing up in the triple digits).

No fucking thanks.

[1] - No examples or links to any specific game here, because this happens far too often with far too many games.

Comments

[owsf2000]

Pretty sure I predicted that's what a lot of publishers would do with the DLC. To let them "fake" sales. "Oh yes the game is only a dollar, buy it now quick! Oh, the actual content of the game is still going to run you another 80 bucks."

[kane_magus]

Meanwhile, I've been over here playing Ni no Kuni for the past week, with the sequel waiting for when I'm done with the first one, both of which I got for around $25 USD total (including all the DLC for the second one). So... at least some pubs/devs know how to do it right.

[owsf2000]

I really enjoyed the first Ni No Kuni. Haven't played the second one very much yet however.

[kane_magus]

I'm only 13 or so hours in, just up to the desert area and quit last night just before the volcano boss (it all essentially still feels like extended tutorial at this point, as there's still parts of the main menu I haven't even unlocked yet), but it's pretty great, so far.

[owsf2000]

You'll notice some repetition in some aspects of the game - mainly the sidequests (you'll usually have a set of side quests that do the same thing, but with different specific targets) - but storywise it plays out very well as you'd expect when people from Studio Ghibli are involved.

(I believe the same ghibli people are involved in the second one despite it not being officially attributed to Ghibli.)

The only DLC I have from the first ni no kuni is a couple of familiars that were either packaged free with the game itself and a familiar that was included with the hardcover strategy guide. You aren't missing a thing without those if they aren't included with what you bought. I ended up never using them myself.

The only downside I found was all familiars start at level 1, and revert to level 1 when they evolve. This can make them useless for a while so try to keep at least 2 main familiars to use and only evolve one of them at a time. There's one valley area that has high xp mobs (That run away of course) later in the game, but that's not going to help you for a while.

One of the "stamp rewards" you'll see is the ability to have the non-fighting familiars gain xp iirc. Get that as soon as you can when you see it to make leveling up extra familiars easier.

[kane_magus]

Yeah, so far all of the subquests have been either "go fetch items and bring them to person," "go fight target enemy/certain number of target enemies," or "take heart attribute from one person and give it to another person." It's basic video game fare, but not especially egregious or anything. The actual main story is good so far, though.

If there was DLC for Ni no Kuni, it has been rolled into the version that's available on Steam without being considered a separate thing. I did notice that I have several tickets for golden versions of some familiars, though I haven't used them yet.

As far as evolving familiars or whatever, I've been seeing advice to wait until they're at level cap before evolving them, but I haven't been bothering with that yet. At most, I've just been waiting until they learn all the skills at a given stage. I figure if I want to min/max them at some point, I'll just catch a new copy and start from there at a good grinding spot, though I probably won't bother unless I start having real problems progressing or something.

The spot where I stopped yesterday was trying to fight the djinn that comes out of the alchemy cauldron in the seaside village, because I fought him once and he kicked my ass, so I just quit for the day. Haven't had time yet to get back into it today.

[owsf2000]

Yeah, the tickets are likely the DLC that I had. I don't think they had anything for DLC on the first game otherwise. A little later in the game you'll get to an event where you can trade in the tickets. Should be in the desert area at that palace/temple/pyramid/whateveritwas in the northern section. You may have to talk to the guy outside of any scripted story event to find this out. Basically just go back to talk to him after you've met him officially in-story.

I assume these golden familiars are better than normal - also during the epilogue portion at the end of the game you'll find an area that's loaded with golden familiars to catch. (if memory serves...)

[kane_magus]

Yeah, it's the Trials of the Sages guy, Solomon or whatever. I didn't bother cashing in any of them, though, at least not yet.