Octopus Overlords

Finished. In game it shows 46 hours played. Steam says 56 hours played. I guess in game isn't counting menu/map time maybe.

98% combat and 100% in the other 4 categories of challenges. Trolls didn't respawn fast enough to make me want to hang around to finish the combat challenges (needed like 10 trolls, 21 mongrels and 29 combat whatever they were called, special combat bonuses).

I don't have any interest in getting all the achievements. There are too many grind-y ones.

I enjoyed the game start to finish. The combat was still fun at the end. There was one NPC I indulged way too much, the game really made me feel bad about it. Anyway,. now I need to figure out what to do with the rest of my life... or at least the long weekend.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 9:23 pm Finished. In game it shows 46 hours played. Steam says 56 hours played. I guess in game isn't counting menu/map time maybe.

Yeah, it's not at all... I left the PC on overnight in the menu screen a couple of nights and I've added up a lot of 'non playing' time on Steam.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 9:23 pm I enjoyed the game start to finish. The combat was still fun at the end. There was one NPC I indulged way too much, the game really made me feel bad about it. Anyway,. now I need to figure out what to do with the rest of my life... or at least the long weekend.

Did you think there would be any real value in a replay?
I can't tell if my choices in dialogue really will matter, and I've never "kept the item" in a quest - I always turn it in. Did you see evidence or get the impression that things may have changed if you played differently?


I'm 30 hours in and just 33% done with challenges, 1 trial is complete and I'm level 25.

From what I've seen in like 30 hours I can't imagine it being worth replaying. 99.9999% of it will be the same. Which is fine...

Unagi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 9:38 pm

coopasonic wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 9:23 pm I enjoyed the game start to finish. The combat was still fun at the end. There was one NPC I indulged way too much, the game really made me feel bad about it. Anyway,. now I need to figure out what to do with the rest of my life... or at least the long weekend.

Did you think there would be any real value in a replay?
I can't tell if my choices in dialogue really will matter, and I've never "kept the item" in a quest - I always turn it in. Did you see evidence or get the impression that things may have changed if you played differently?

Nah I wasn't really thinking this would be a big replay game and what I saw in the game confirms that. as far as I can tell there is ONE choice that made difference. Same NPC I mentioned indulging too much. There is a choice that you get that apparently determines if you get one specific spell or not.

I finished the game about a half level away from max with over 40k gold in the bank, with maxed out gear and maxed out on all potions and combat plants with tons of crafting materials.

Yeah, I've been getting that impression as I played. I'm fine with that too and I would not hold it against the game, but I will say that it seems like a slightly missed opportunity.

They have all of this work put into the foundation to do that, and it seems like they could have made each House have its own questline on top of the main quest (or something to that effect).

I'm up to 35 hours but feel like I'm only about halfway through story-wise. I spend a lot of time just fooling around though. Last night I spent 3 hours just running around looking for demiguise statues.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 10:27 am I'm up to 35 hours but feel like I'm only about halfway through story-wise. I spend a lot of time just fooling around though. Last night I spent 3 hours just running around looking for demiguise statues.

Im in the same boat. It's so easy to get distracted in this game.

I can’t figure out the snake locks. I line up the symbols on the top and bottom dials and nothing happens. Then I randomly spin them around, and sometimes the door will open.

Can’t figure them out for the life of me.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 12:01 pm I can’t figure out the snake locks. I line up the symbols on the top and bottom dials and nothing happens. Then I randomly spin them around, and sometimes the door will open.

Can’t figure them out for the life of me.

I'm not sure I know what a snake lock is.

I don't think you are , but are you talking about the Green dial and Red dial locks that are Level I, II, III ?

Unagi wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 2:37 pm

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 12:01 pm I can’t figure out the snake locks. I line up the symbols on the top and bottom dials and nothing happens. Then I randomly spin them around, and sometimes the door will open.

Can’t figure them out for the life of me.

I'm not sure I know what a snake lock is.

Are you talking about the Green dial and Red dial locks that are Level I, II, III ?

No. There's one section where you have to do "Slytherin Locks" as part of a sidequest. You turn dials with symbols on them and have to match up...something by the time the snake uncoils or it damages you and resets.

I'll google it if I can't figure it out tonight.

Unagi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 9:38 pm Did you think there would be any real value in a replay?

It's a legacy game. It can't be replayed.

Speaking of which, how do I get the stickers off of my monitor?

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 3:41 pm

Unagi wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 2:37 pm

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 12:01 pm I can’t figure out the snake locks. I line up the symbols on the top and bottom dials and nothing happens. Then I randomly spin them around, and sometimes the door will open.

Can’t figure them out for the life of me.

I'm not sure I know what a snake lock is.

Are you talking about the Green dial and Red dial locks that are Level I, II, III ?

No. There's one section where you have to do "Slytherin Locks" as part of a sidequest. You turn dials with symbols on them and have to match up...something by the time the snake uncoils or it damages you and resets.

I'll google it if I can't figure it out tonight.

Yep, you have to look around as the gates each have specific symbols that you have to line up and clues to them are hidden in the area. Look around the area, the symbols are always somewhat close to the snake lock.

I did the Playstation exclusive quest last night. It's actually a pretty good quest. It's a haunted house themed quest that has nothing to do with the main story but it was a nice diversion that takes about 20 to 30 minutes to complete. It's one of the better side quests that I've played in the game.

I was a bit surprised at Gamespot's 6/10 review. It's funny because I found the reviewer's criticisms entirely valid. But while those criticisms translated into a "meh" game at best for them, they didn't impact my enjoyment at all. I do have a GREAT deal of patience for grindy open world games, however. Give me 1000 collectibles splattered across a map and I'm a happy camper. Others absolutely hate that stuff.

To be fair, that gameplay model has been done extensively for a decade now. Some people are starting to get burned out on it.

stimpy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 16, 2023 9:31 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Wed Feb 15, 2023 2:28 pm $53 Xbox, $44 PC on Eneba for those looking for deals.

Is that a reputable site?

Sorry, just saw this. It has been for me for the few titles I’ve bought from them. They’ve been around a while, if that helps.

I looked up the source of the keys when I first bought from them and was satisfied that it’s not a scam, or stolen keys, etc. Don’t remember all the details, but IIRC it had to do with international/‘worldwide’ keys.

Bought the game for my son's 13th. It was supposed to arrive on his birthday. 3pm and it's still not here. So Ethan and I drove every street until we found the mailman. He confirmed our address and gave it to us. I knew he wasn't going to make it to our house that day it was past 3pm. Sure enough, no mail... Glad we stalked him

Ethan stood up to midnight to play it. (his actual birthday was 11:59pm so he wanted to stay up to see it.

I played some this afternoon. So far it's seems pretty simplistic. I'm not a very big potter fan so it's not grabbing me like it does others. It is well produced. Not sure if it will keep my son's interest as it's so much talking.

You can skip the dialogue by pressing Triangle/Y depending on your console. It only took me 30 hours to figure that out because I don't think I've ever seen a game map "skip dialogue" to that button.

naednek wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:58 pmI played some this afternoon. So far it's seems pretty simplistic. I'm not a very big potter fan so it's not grabbing me like it does others. It is well produced. Not sure if it will keep my son's interest as it's so much talking.

You definitely lose a lot if you're not a fan of the universe, but keeping that aside the combat does get progressively more complex. You end up having a bank of 16 spells to choose from at a given time, and they all have different purposes. Some combo well with each other, and different enemies are vulnerable to different classes of spells. Some enemies need to be weakened by one type of spell before they can be damaged by others. Stuff like that.

If your son is tiring of the amount of dialogue, you might want to encourage him to just stick to the primary conversation responses. This doesn't seem like traditional RPGs where you miss out on rewards or side quests if you don't dive into every branch of the dialogue options -- if you just give the "got it, I'll go do the thing" response right away you should be just fine.

naednek wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:58 pm I played some this afternoon. So far it's seems pretty simplistic. I'm not a very big potter fan so it's not grabbing me like it does others. It is well produced. Not sure if it will keep my son's interest as it's so much talking.

I've never read/watched anything Potter, so it took a couple hours to click with me as well. Once it did though, it's been one of the best gaming experiences I've had in a long time. YMMV

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 9:23 pm

naednek wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:58 pm I played some this afternoon. So far it's seems pretty simplistic. I'm not a very big potter fan so it's not grabbing me like it does others. It is well produced. Not sure if it will keep my son's interest as it's so much talking.

I've never read/watched anything Potter, so it took a couple hours to click with me as well. Once it did though, it's been one of the best gaming experiences I've had in a long time. YMMV

Easily one of my favorite games in a long while, and I just finished GOW Ragnarock, which I loved, too, so it’s not like I’ve been a gaming drought or anything.

It’s just really well designed and executed. My only gripe so far is that inventory management is an unnecessary annoyance. Other than that, it’s coming up aces for me.

Heard an internet rumor that the game is now being prepped for an HBOMax show. If they do as good a job on this as they did with the Last of Us property, I'm pretty dang pumped.

I finished up the main storyline this morning. I was level 33 and I had no problem with the final boss. I will say the last area and boss fight was a good change of pace for the game.

After the game "ends" it's not over. You get your relationship side quests updated with new things to do and you get new "main" quests to complete. In short the end is not the end. I didn't look at my play time for the main quest but I would guess it's somewhere near 35 to 40 hours.

Anyone who ranks this game lower than an 80 either has a bone to pick with JK Rowling or they don't like open world action games.

Man, I'm lagging. I'm level 33 and still grinding through the main storyline. No clue how close I am.

The game is starting to lose its shine though, due to the massive amounts of time I've been spending on meaningless side stuff. I'm going to refocus and try to finish up the main quest this weekend, then decide where to go from there.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:37 am The game is starting to lose its shine though, due to the massive amounts of time I've been spending on meaningless side stuff. I'm going to refocus and try to finish up the main quest this weekend, then decide where to go from there.

Same, and I'm only at level 25. I need to buckle down and get through the story, I think.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 10:04 am

YellowKing wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:37 am The game is starting to lose its shine though, due to the massive amounts of time I've been spending on meaningless side stuff. I'm going to refocus and try to finish up the main quest this weekend, then decide where to go from there.

Same, and I'm only at level 25. I need to buckle down and get through the story, I think.

I would guess that 75% of the content in this game is purely optional. So you could definitely focus just on the main questline and complete the game fairly quickly.

My daughter totally burnt out doing the side stuff. There's just so much. I'm going to do the same and try and wrap it up next week.

That's the one thing I hate about the current style of open world games: too much of the side content is meaningless time sinks. I don't know if HL does it (I haven't played it), but it's often used to pad gameplay - create a 5-hour campaign, then add 30 hours of 'look for the tchotchke behind the box/bush/traversal puzzle/locked door/'.

It's why I have a tough time getting into so many games lately - it's almost a guaranteed design element in any action or RPG title, and I burned out on it years ago.

The "challenges" for the most part can be ignored, but they are also a big part of the xp you get in the game. I think I was at 96-97% on the challenges and was still 1-2 levels short of the cap. For the most part I found the side stuff fun, but I did get tired of the incredibly repetitive merlin trials and finding the pages. Clearing the ballons was fun and most of the side quests were fun. The room of requirement stuff was kind of fun.

I think the level requirement for the final mission was around 25 and the level cap is 40 so they are allowing a pretty big range there for how much you engage with the optional content. The final encounter wasn't particularly difficult either (on Normal).

naednek wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:58 pm I played some this afternoon. So far it's seems pretty simplistic. I'm not a very big potter fan so it's not grabbing me like it does others. It is well produced. Not sure if it will keep my son's interest as it's so much talking.

If Coop says the combat is fun, it's probably fun. Keep going is my opinion, just to see what he's talking about.

However, I have heard the complaint that it is too simplistic as well. *shrug*

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 1:39 pm However, I have heard the complaint that it is too simplistic as well. *shrug*

It's not the most evolved thing on earth and for a while you can just use the basic attack over and over and do fine, but quickly you will find yourself in trouble with that approach and you will need to use a lot of different spells to succeed in combat later in the game. You can get away with a few spells and a lot of dodging if you lower the difficulty, but it's definitely not the best way to go.

I believe you when you say the combat is fun and kept your interest, was my point.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 2:01 pm

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 1:39 pm However, I have heard the complaint that it is too simplistic as well. *shrug*

It's not the most evolved thing on earth and for a while you can just use the basic attack over and over and do fine, but quickly you will find yourself in trouble with that approach and you will need to use a lot of different spells to succeed in combat later in the game. You can get away with a few spells and a lot of dodging if you lower the difficulty, but it's definitely not the best way to go.

This exactly, and for the final boss you will need several different spell types as well as the ability to use the shield somewhat proficiently. The timing is pretty forgivable though.

I'd say the combat is fun until you get powerful enough (and have enough health potions) that you never feel in any real danger (playing on Normal, that occurred around Level 25 for me). The thing that kept combat fun for me after that was the combat challenge mechanic where it tasks you with pulling off specific things during the battle (like slam a levitating enemy, counter someone with a specific spell, etc.).

I certainly wouldn't call the game simple. I mean it's not a crazy min/max RPG, but you have tons of different things to do and manage. Spells, skills, beasts and decorating your sweet sweet hideout.

Octavious wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 3:28 pm I certainly wouldn't call the game simple. I mean it's not a crazy min/max RPG, but you have tons of different things to do and manage. Spells, skills, beasts and decorating your sweet sweet hideout.

But it sounds like there are a ton of "busy work" content. Collectibles, uncovering terrain from the fog of war, etc. Stuff like that. Cosmetic stuff doesn't count, in my personal opinion. I mean, that's a "nice to have" feature, but not a game mechanic (imo).

I'm not disagreeing, but this opinion (complexity) seems in the minority. As I'm reading a fair bit about the game, without owning it myself, so I fully admit I'm going by aggregating other peoples' opinions.

I "beat" this one tonight, taking down the big bad and wrapping up the main story. Apparently I could work to gain another 5 levels to get the "true ending", but running around doing side quests for that long doesn't interest me much.

Overall, I thought it was a truly excellent game. Despite my complete lack of interest in anything HP, this really captured my attention. I started to lose interest a bit towards the end, but that's not really the game's fault. That happens to me in every open-world game when there is a new sidequest or map marker every three steps. I thought it was absolutely masterful from a design perspective, doing nearly everything right. I would really love to see this same system ported over to another IP (i.e. Star Wars, Dragon Age, LotR, etc.)

I really enjoyed playing it, and am glad I gave it a look. 7/8 tentacles.

All that said, I'm pretty sure I can safely go back to not caring about the Potter-verse. I read the first book and a half, and came away mostly meh. I just can't really bring myself to care about trials and travails of 12-year-olds...no matter how magical.

Well, just started this up last night. Looking forward to the adventures of Sir Percival Wizardberg.

Though after I started the game I realized that I made him look & sound too much like Harry Potter, and it's already starting to bug me.

El Guapo wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 5:05 pm Though after I started the game I realized that I made him look & sound too much like Harry Potter, and it's already starting to bug me.

Mrs Skinypupy, who is a huge HP fan, has been watching me play this off and on over the past month. After the final boss battle last night, she quipped “And so ends the tale of Not-Quite-Harry-Potter”.

I lol’d