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bewilderment posted:The only downside to Tyranny's conversations is that you got like 80% of someone's total dialogue in your first meeting with them and you were incentivised to pick every choice. Yeah there was a free weekend for Tyranny a while back and I thought this was pretty weird.
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Aug 18, 2018 04:03
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Playing Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate after recently bitching in this thread that a guy wearing an obvious Assassin (or Templar, in the case of AC Rogue) uniform that’s absolutely bristling with swords and knives and pistols and a rifle and... can blend in to the point of invisibility by standing near a couple of gossiping old ladies made me realize that in Syndicate, Jacob and Evie are actually dressed pretty much the same as everyone else in London, to the point that they don’t even raise their hoods unless they’re actually crouched down and creeping around (actual stealth mechanics!), and all their weapons are concealed or disguised, so the social stealth actually makes sense again.
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Aug 18, 2018 16:12
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Although it doesn't really come into play, I did like how the Assassins became less effective over time because global surveillance and capitalism pushed the Templars so far ahead in terms of influence. Sticking to the shadows is all well and good until your enemies make billions each day, ploughing it back into technology that makes your hiding space a very limited one.
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Aug 18, 2018 16:16
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Chuck Buried Treasure posted:Playing Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate after recently bitching in this thread that a guy wearing an obvious Assassin (or Templar, in the case of AC Rogue) uniform that’s absolutely bristling with swords and knives and pistols and a rifle and... can blend in to the point of invisibility by standing near a couple of gossiping old ladies made me realize that in Syndicate, Jacob and Evie are actually dressed pretty much the same as everyone else in London, to the point that they don’t even raise their hoods unless they’re actually crouched down and creeping around (actual stealth mechanics!), and all their weapons are concealed or disguised, so the social stealth actually makes sense again. Also with every subsequent game they add an extra set of collars/lapels to your outfit. Altair looked distinctive, Ezio looked stylish, everyone since then just looks cluttered and messy.
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Aug 18, 2018 16:19
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Imagine how many the collars the future-cyberpunk assassins will have.
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Aug 18, 2018 16:24
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Didn't Heller from Prototype wear a popped hood over a second hoody, underneath a hooded jacket.
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Aug 18, 2018 16:25
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Safeword posted:Although it doesn't really come into play, I did like how the Assassins became less effective over time because global surveillance and capitalism pushed the Templars so far ahead in terms of influence. Sticking to the shadows is all well and good until your enemies make billions each day, ploughing it back into technology that makes your hiding space a very limited one. One thing I actually liked with AC3 was when you do the modern-day missions you had no HUD. You had to rely on what you'd actually learned playing the game, because you had almost no visual indicators of breaking stealth or your health/Sync.
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Aug 18, 2018 16:38
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Safeword posted:Although it doesn't really come into play, I did like how the Assassins became less effective over time because global surveillance and capitalism pushed the Templars so far ahead in terms of influence. Sticking to the shadows is all well and good until your enemies make billions each day, ploughing it back into technology that makes your hiding space a very limited one. It's kinda fun to see how the Assassins went from being a powerful organisation backed by the Medicis to an old man with a limp living in a house in North-America. Alhazred has a new favorite as of 16:56 on Aug 18, 2018 |
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Aug 18, 2018 16:49
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Chuck Buried Treasure posted:Playing Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate after recently bitching in this thread that a guy wearing an obvious Assassin (or Templar, in the case of AC Rogue) uniform that’s absolutely bristling with swords and knives and pistols and a rifle and... can blend in to the point of invisibility by standing near a couple of gossiping old ladies made me realize that in Syndicate, Jacob and Evie are actually dressed pretty much the same as everyone else in London, to the point that they don’t even raise their hoods unless they’re actually crouched down and creeping around (actual stealth mechanics!), and all their weapons are concealed or disguised, so the social stealth actually makes sense again. You're talking about the game where both characters wear terrifying metal gauntlets covered in syringes and firing mechanisms and also with clawed fingers
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Aug 18, 2018 17:14
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Safeword posted:Although it doesn't really come into play, I did like how the Assassins became less effective over time because global surveillance and capitalism pushed the Templars so far ahead in terms of influence. Sticking to the shadows is all well and good until your enemies make billions each day, ploughing it back into technology that makes your hiding space a very limited one. Now picturing Hitman being a stealth sequel. Hell, the way the plot of the latest one is going...
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Aug 18, 2018 17:17
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The difference is of course the stealth in AC being utter poo poo, not even having a crouch button for years.
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Aug 18, 2018 17:20
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Alhazred posted:It's kinda fun to see how the Assassins went from being a powerful organisation backed by the Medicis to an old man with a limp living in a house in North-America. Funny how greed and narcissism lead to amassing a great deal of wealth and power. Speaking of AC games, I liked how the later ones didn't rely as much on collecting trinkets as the first games. I think it was also mentioned here how Evie is stealthy, focused, and brutal, whereas Jacob is a Victorian James Bond.
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Aug 18, 2018 18:53
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I've been playing through Soul Blazer, an interesting action RPG on the SNES. I really like it's sense of odd humour and depressing, yet uplifting, sensibilities. Like on the cuter end of the spectrum is a dog who gives you a tour of the second town, and the first thing he shows you is the town's graveyard. Then if you talk to him after the tour he says "I enjoy walking people as much as they enjoy walking me!  "Another cool example of the kind of optimistic fatalism the game has is the mushrooms in the fourth town. It describes them thusly: They grow to maturity in an hour. They reproduce, grow old, and die within a day. However, they aren't saddened by their short lives, but love each second of it with all their hearts. Also the way the game flows is satisfying, with dungeon progress being interspersed with town progress. It reminds me strongly of Dark Cloud.
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Aug 18, 2018 20:52
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Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma also fall into that same vein, but Terranigma is fairly marred by a dodgy translation. I would really love to see someone go through that script and try to clean it up.
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Aug 18, 2018 21:14
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I'll probably get around to those, but I like to play every game in a trilogy in release order. I did it with Mother, Earthbound and Mother 3. Also I love the little inventory boxes in old games. Watching them fill up is so satisfying to me:  
BioEnchanted has a new favorite as of 21:51 on Aug 18, 2018 |
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Aug 18, 2018 21:44
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Inco posted:Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma also fall into that same vein, but Terranigma is fairly marred by a dodgy translation. I would really love to see someone go through that script and try to clean it up. Aren't Soul Blazer/Terranigma/Illusion of Gaia/Granstream Saga all somewhat attached?
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Aug 18, 2018 21:48
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Len posted:Aren't Soul Blazer/Terranigma/Illusion of Gaia/Granstream Saga all somewhat attached? Loosely, I think. If memory serves they were all made by the same people and later games referenced older ones in various ways.
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Aug 18, 2018 21:58
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Loosely, I think. If memory serves they were all made by the same people and later games referenced older ones in various ways. They are considered a "spiritual" trilogy. They aren't directly related except in optional, out of the way, bits. But they are intended to be, at least Soul Blazer/Terranigma/ Gaia, are loosely connected and presented as a trilogy.
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Aug 18, 2018 22:11
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Actraiser is related to them too. The Master only saves your game and heals you in Soul Blazer, but back in his day he used to jump down and beat some rear end personally 
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Aug 18, 2018 22:56
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It's amazing that Actraiser got a sequel that removed all the Sim elements. That'd be like taking a sandbox set on Mars with destructo-physics and making the sequel a linear-shooter. VVVV: How can a game be depressing with music like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAyNuQDNSAU Inspector Gesicht has a new favorite as of 23:09 on Aug 18, 2018 |
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Aug 18, 2018 23:01
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Terraenigma has such a depressing ending I never dared to finish Soul Blazer or Illusion of Gaia
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Aug 18, 2018 23:08
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SB and IoG have happier endings, that's for sure.
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Aug 18, 2018 23:11
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They're definitely more 'sequels' in a thematic sense rather than a literal narrative sense.
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Aug 18, 2018 23:14
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Yeah, the games have a lot of themes in common, especially coping with death and despair, rebirth and resurrection, rebuilding society, and gods that want to destroy everything Because Evil. I wouldn't call Terranigma's ending depressing. It's sad, but it's also hopeful. Besides, do you really think that a game that features the explicit death of the protagonist three times (once in the mountains, once on the airship, and once at the end) is only going to have him come back twice? Hell, they have a cutscene at the end where Lightside Elle answers the door, and you can be drat sure it's not to talk to Perel or Meilin or whatever.
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Aug 18, 2018 23:45
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Started that new God of War and I really like the animation when Atreus’ piggybacks on Kratos when climbing chains. I also love that all the bestiary entries aren’t the typical faux biologist style entries. Instead they’re written by the kid so it’s his personal thoughts on each creature. Also I just boxed the head off some tattooed Mormon lad and the whole boss fight was amazing to watch.
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Aug 19, 2018 03:00
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EmmyOk posted:Started that new God of War and I really like the animation when Atreus’ piggybacks on Kratos when climbing chains. Lakynn, no! Was he at least wearing his magic underpants?
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Aug 19, 2018 03:06
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i'm playing the earlier god of war entries and the second game is way funnier with the PSP interlude to give it context the end of the first game: "And so all who went to battle did so under the watchful eye of the newly anointed God of War, for the rest of recorded time." Ghost of Sparta + God of War 2: *Kratos, after like six months of sitting in a chair* "I HAD A BAD DREAM." *destroys the entire greek pantheon*
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Aug 19, 2018 03:08
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Screaming Idiot posted:Lakynn, no! Was he at least wearing his magic underpants? that's some red text
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Aug 19, 2018 03:13
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Illusion of Gaia had a more upbeat ending but it was weird and sorta bittersweet because even though you won and saved the world, it was forever changed and Will + company end up becoming different people in a modern world. It all works out but it's still a bit sad to see everything they knew destroyed and remade, even if they get to live on in the new world. Illusion of Gaia was just tonally dark in a weird way. Like, slavery is a major plot thing, a dude burns alive on screen, many characters die or are lost forever. It's kinda bleak.
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Aug 19, 2018 03:52
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Illusion of Gaia had a scene where a pig jumps into a fire and the game treats it as seriously as if Jesus were being put on the cross
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Aug 19, 2018 04:20
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Danaru posted:Illusion of Gaia had a scene where a pig jumps into a fire and the game treats it as seriously as if Jesus were being put on the cross in that same scene you're gently taken by the hand by hollow-eyed native children so they can show you the skeletonized remains of the friends they had to eat to survive famine it was a roller coaster
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Aug 19, 2018 04:28
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I love how the story of Illusion of Gaia is structured. You gradually accumulate a large group of friends who travel with you, and in the second half of the game, one by one, they leave you for one reason or another, until at the end it's just you on your own again. Even without the context of the specific events, it's rather melancholy. I'm still amazed by the "dude burns alive on screen" bit. He's a background villain throughout the whole game that you never actually see until this scene, and then this happens completely out of nowhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wwT_kfo_rs It's particularly impactful, well, if you're a kid playing this in 1994, but also because the rest of the game is not particularly violent. Kind of like sticking a Mortal Kombat fatality in A Link to the Past. Glagha posted:slavery is a major plot thing You can't get one of the 50 collectibles needed to access the secret bonus dungeon unless you help capture a runaway slave. Rollersnake has a new favorite as of 04:47 on Aug 19, 2018 |
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Aug 19, 2018 04:41
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If I remember right, don't all of your friends, save some princess, die in that game? There's a point when you're on a raft with her, and are adrift at sea. Any other game, this'd be just some plot beat. IoG has you question the necessity of taking a life in order to survive in the absolute most melancholic way while the days tick up and your characters slowly approach starvation. For a child playing that game, it's real hosed up in a genre where the most complex plot points are typically about a generically evil empire and magic poo poo.
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Aug 19, 2018 05:45
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Morpheus posted:If I remember right, don't all of your friends, save some princess, die in that game? one of them gets eaten by a sea monster (and then reincarnates as another sea monster, he is very unlucky) but the rest live to see the world be reborn
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Aug 19, 2018 05:52
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Doesn't he come back in the epilogue because he was technically still alive?
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Aug 19, 2018 06:16
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he does the sea monster thing still sucks for him tho
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Aug 19, 2018 06:18
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That sounds almost even worse than Solitary Island from Final Fantasy VI, where you can speed up your sole companion's imminent death by feeding him rotting fish. You can also help him recover by just giving him healthy, fast-moving fish but let's imagine you don't realize that as a kid. So your companion eventually dies and, oh yeah, your character tries to commit suicide. Note that it doesn't matter after this point on if you were a good fisherman. You find a sign of hope, you get a raft and leave the island to find others. But one of the paths to that moment got rather dark there.
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Aug 19, 2018 09:35
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No fall damage in the new doom is really nice
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Aug 19, 2018 09:43
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Most people let Cid die because that path leads to a hugely dramatic scene with Celes, while the other path is just Cid going "I'm all better now. Here, take this raft." I'm guessing the latter path was a late addition because Cid doesn't have any new dialogue after that.
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Aug 19, 2018 09:47
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EmmyOk posted:Started that new God of War and I really like the animation when Atreus’ piggybacks on Kratos when climbing chains. That fistfight is their big "Look at this loving technology" moment that just grips you.
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Aug 19, 2018 10:15
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