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Yo goons. I’m looking for a new game to play that I don’t have to overthink and metroidvanias are probably my best bet while still being deep enough to play around with. So in the interest of that what would you guys recommend say from the last five-seven years? I do have some on hand that I haven’t gotten around to and I have played a good number of the foundation games. Super Metroid is a stone cold classic. SoTN likewise, Bloodstained hasn’t really grabbed me but I like all the options it gives you, and I’m not in the mood to have my head bashed in by something extremely execution heavy like Hollow Knight. I haven’t really messed around with Steamworld Dig 2, but it seems pretty cool. the second Ori I started and like, but don’t know if I’ll stick with it right now. It’s good but just fiddly enough that I keep losing my patience. So what I would actually want is something more focused on exploration and problem solving rather than combat. I’m game for a good combat system but the feel has to be right, and that’s really subjective. I’m struggling to articulate exactly what I’m after here. Heavy exploration emphasis, smooth/fluid controls are probably my most important wants. Xbox series/Switch/PS4, though I’m sure anything you guys would recommend would be on any of them. I’m also open to a more combat oriented game, I just want to make sure I like the feel of the controls. When I say smooth and fluid, something like Hades or Celeste are two huge touchpoints for me in terms of their controls being incredible and responsive. Stylistically I like fantasy more than sci-fi, but if there’s a good creepy abandoned ship or space station I’m into it. Games with top knotch sound design will get extra consideration from me. Too bad I hated how Ghost Song felt, fwiw, because the sound design in that was incredible. Two execution-heavy games I am looking at are Hyperlight Drifter and Unsighted, just because of how they look. So thoughts on those would be nice too.
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Apr 15, 2023 15:37
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You're basically describing the Ori games but said you're not clicking with the second one, so let me think of a couple of others. Have you played Cave Story? That's a modern-ish classic that basically kicked off the indie game metroidvania era. Certainly a bit janky though. Supraland also sounds right up your alley since you want exploration and problem solving, it's 3D though. I personally think Supraland is more of a 7/10 for a couple of reasons, but I'm in the minority with that opinion for sure because everyone seems to love it.
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Apr 15, 2023 16:03
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BurningBeard posted:Yo goons. I’m looking for a new game to play that I don’t have to overthink and metroidvanias are probably my best bet while still being deep enough to play around with. So in the interest of that what would you guys recommend say from the last five-seven years? Unsighted is top-down, it's good but may not scratch the itch if you want 2D platforming. I thought I didn't like Hyper Light Drifter, but it turns out I have played eleven minutes of it, so either I really hated it or I need to give it another shot. I think I was thinking this was Immortal Planet, which was much too punishing for me. Here are some MVs I liked from the last several years:
guppy fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Apr 15, 2023 |
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Apr 15, 2023 16:06
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Hyper Light Drifter is excellent. Astonishingly good. A must-play.
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Apr 15, 2023 16:16
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Tortolia posted:If you youtube search for Messenger "24 bit" remixes, someone took every song in the game and layered both the 8 and 16-bit tracks together. They're awesome. I listen to this all the time. It rules so mucb
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Apr 15, 2023 16:52
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All great, difficult games have moments in them where the player just feels a sense of exhilaration at having used their new skills, developed over many hard hours, to accomplish a task that would have seemed impossible at the start. Dark Souls, when you finally take down Ornstein & Smough and the game opens up in acquiescence. Viewtiful Joe, when you finally beat down Fire Leo. Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, when you manage to seize the powerful "Boost" movement ability. And of course, Hyper Light Drifter, when you consult the map and successfully use it to navigate the world.
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Apr 15, 2023 16:59
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BurningBeard posted:Yo goons. I’m looking for a new game to play that I don’t have to overthink and metroidvanias are probably my best bet while still being deep enough to play around with. So in the interest of that what would you guys recommend say from the last five-seven years? Steamworld Dig 2 is really loving good. Probably one of my favorite metroidvanias? Hard to say, just wanna emphasize that the game is excellent.
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Apr 15, 2023 17:15
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Steamworld Dig 2 is on sale for Switch at the moment: https://www.dekudeals.com/items/steamworld-dig-2
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Apr 15, 2023 17:40
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nrook posted:All great, difficult games have moments in them where the player just feels a sense of exhilaration at having used their new skills, developed over many hard hours, to accomplish a task that would have seemed impossible at the start. Dark Souls, when you finally take down Ornstein & Smough and the game opens up in acquiescence. Viewtiful Joe, when you finally beat down Fire Leo. Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, when you manage to seize the powerful "Boost" movement ability. And of course, Hyper Light Drifter, when you consult the map and successfully use it to navigate the world.
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Apr 15, 2023 18:19
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BurningBeard posted:Yo goons. I’m looking for a new game to play that I don’t have to overthink and metroidvanias are probably my best bet while still being deep enough to play around with. So in the interest of that what would you guys recommend say from the last five-seven years? There's not really that many specifically combat-light metroidvanias. I guess Wuppo or Yoku's Island Express, but those don't exactly have tight controls (and considering how Yoku's Island Express). VVVVVV might be your jam, but it has a very specific kind of platforming and a world without that much detail. La Mulana is more exploration-focused than combat, but it's very hard, and the final boss is also very hard. I've also heard things about Toki Tori 2, but I don't really know anything about that. If you split up what you were looking for between exploration and platforming, I'd say on the exploration side, there's A Short Hike and Subnautica. On the platforming side, Shovel Knight. I also often feel the want to recommend some old online free games I played like Clarence's Big Chance and Redder (which you could also pay money for if you wanted).
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Apr 15, 2023 18:30
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SHEEPO is entirely combat-free. Even the boss fights are just platforming segments.
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Apr 15, 2023 18:33
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So I was googling to dig up an old preview video for a metroidvania with a cool hydra fight. I didn't find it, but I DID find a ton of trailers for other neat upcoming or recent games. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1701520/Afterimage/ This one in particular looks super cool from a minute of preview footage, and apparently it is a kickstarter success coming out in 9 days? Wild. Anybody know anything about Afterimage? Here's a youtube video that seems to pack in more quick previews of upcoming metroidvanias than the others I watched. I didn't have sound on, no idea whether it has obnoxious voiceover or not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOh3A7-FWXw
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Apr 15, 2023 19:33
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BurningBeard posted:Yo goons. I’m looking for a new game to play that I don’t have to overthink and metroidvanias are probably my best bet while still being deep enough to play around with. So in the interest of that what would you guys recommend say from the last five-seven years? Check out forma.8 It's 99% exploration, super chill
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Apr 15, 2023 19:55
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avoraciopoctules posted:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1701520/Afterimage/
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Apr 15, 2023 19:59
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The 7th Guest posted:it's by the dev of Guijan 3 and i'm hoping it doesn't have the always-online DRM of that game drat. That's a compelling sales pitch all on its own. I guess I'm gonna see if I can fit it before the new zelda. Thanks!
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Apr 15, 2023 20:42
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SlothfulCobra posted:There's not really that many specifically combat-light metroidvanias. I guess Wuppo or Yoku's Island Express, but those don't exactly have tight controls (and considering how Yoku's Island Express). VVVVVV might be your jam, but it has a very specific kind of platforming and a world without that much detail. La Mulana is more exploration-focused than combat, but it's very hard, and the final boss is also very hard. I've also heard things about Toki Tori 2, but I don't really know anything about that. I enjoyed Toki Tori 2, but it should be noted that it's a very slow puzzle-based game. Considerin the original request was "I’m looking for a new game to play that I don’t have to overthink", it might be a poor choice. Puzzles aside, it is possibly the most open-ended Metroidvania I've played. You start with two abilites and never unlock more, while the game gently introduces new environmental features you can use those abilites to interact with. On a first playthrough you'll probably proceed on what feels like the only possible path to the village, after which you'll fast-travel back to the starting point and realize that it's perfectly possible to go left - and it also was when you started the game. There's even an achievement for finishing the game without ever going to the village.
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Apr 15, 2023 21:02
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Grime is so fun yo. Tough but fair
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Apr 15, 2023 21:10
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just finished 100%ing lone fungus. the exploration was fun, especially given how early you can reach most areas with the first few upgrades and spells. the combat was alright, many bosses had annoying untelegraphed movement that's almost impossible to dodge if you're actually trying to hurt the boss, but the attack patterns themselves are intuitive and fun to learn. i've got beef with the precision platforming, though. I did all the portal challenges, and it was difficult but not particularly satisfying. biggest issue is the game just has way too many buttons- there's three different jump boost buttons, as well as two different kinds of sword attack that have different properties. later portals can require all four shoulder buttons on my gamepad as well as the attack button, and the difficulty ends up being more in remembering which buttons interact correctly with which mechanics than it was anything related to execution, and that didn't sit well with me.
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Apr 15, 2023 21:38
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BurningBeard posted:Yo goons. I’m looking for a new game to play that I don’t have to overthink and metroidvanias are probably my best bet while still being deep enough to play around with. So in the interest of that what would you guys recommend say from the last five-seven years? Guacamelee or The Messenger.
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Apr 15, 2023 22:01
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DoctorWhat posted:Hyper Light Drifter is excellent. Astonishingly good. A must-play. I must be the only person who doesn't like this game. I actually played through the whole thing (which I kind of regret) because it's not that long but I never caught the magic everyone else did. It is very pretty and the art is imaginative but I kept running into gameplay bugs that combined with the difficulty made it a slog. Also didn't like how when I cleared out an area the enemies still stayed there doing atrocities to sheep people so it was like nothing my character did had any impact on the world.
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Apr 15, 2023 22:54
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Fuzz posted:Guacamelee or The Messenger. Also has my favorite "souls-style" death mechanic. Rather than lose some of your loot after death, you lose the ability to pick up new loot for a period of time after death. The little tweak takes a lot of the pressure off.
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Apr 15, 2023 22:57
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RC Cola posted:Grime is so fun yo. Tough but fair Yeah it's really really good. I had very few criticisms about it when I played it a couple of months ago, it gets almost everything right. And I like how it handles the corpse run, where you only really lose your multiplier and claiming it heals you so you can use it strategically if you're fighting a boss for example (and you can even try to die in the right place if you know you're doomed).
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Apr 16, 2023 06:34
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sudonim posted:I must be the only person who doesn't like this game. I actually played through the whole thing (which I kind of regret) because it's not that long but I never caught the magic everyone else did. Eh, I didn't love Hyper Light Drifter either, mostly because of the difficulty. Plus, something about the gameplay structure just didn't interest me, it's hard to say exactly what though.
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Apr 16, 2023 10:34
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Hyper Light Drifter was like an entire game about the feel of finding a secret area inside a secret area in Death Mountain in ALttP, I'll never 100% that game and I'm happy not to but it did give me some of the best exploration vibes I've ever had in a game. It's like a mystery you'll never fully uncover but knowing there's bits you missed and secrets still lying underneath the surface just adds to the mystique of the world
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Apr 16, 2023 11:02
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Played a couple of hours of Iconoclasts and it's... weird. The tone of the game is just extremely bizarre to me, and there's something of an uncanny valley effect to the writing where I'm just constantly scratching my head at the dialogue even if it sorta makes sense. I don't know that I can put my finger on it exactly. It's just weird. It's still fun if a bit too puzzle-y for my taste, but definitely doesn't seem like a classic metroidvania at all so far.
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Apr 16, 2023 21:05
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Yeah iconoclasts plays like a pretty linear game where you always know where you're going next, there's not a ton of metroidvania-ey exploring and backtracking going on. Kinda like order of ecclesia in that sense.
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Apr 16, 2023 21:08
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Sway Grunt posted:Played a couple of hours of Iconoclasts and it's... weird. The tone of the game is just extremely bizarre to me, and there's something of an uncanny valley effect to the writing where I'm just constantly scratching my head at the dialogue even if it sorta makes sense. I don't know that I can put my finger on it exactly. It's just weird. Yeah I didn't gel with it either, a very story-heavy game by a guy who isn't very good at writing but really shoots for the moon
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Apr 16, 2023 21:19
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Venuz Patrol posted:lone fungus. The biggest issue for me, in regards to the precision platforming segments, is how zoomed in the screen is. Not only do you have to press buttons super fast in sequence. You also have to memorize what's coming up, because your screen size is so small that you won't have more than a couple of milliseconds to react to the next bounce object or whatever.
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Apr 16, 2023 21:30
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I think Iconoclasts does very well in portraying a very weird society with very weird beliefs as it very rapidly starts to collapses in on itself apocalyptically. But the actual plot is a mess, and while (most) characters are strong, the story leans on them a whole hell of a let to support its narrative.
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Apr 16, 2023 21:58
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Weirdly enough one of the endgame bosses in iconoclasts bugs my game. I beat the boss and it cuts to another character, but the screen is black. I can hear the movement and run around but there's no way to tell what's going on and any (presumed) screen transitions don't work
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Apr 16, 2023 22:22
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It's one of those projects that somebody was working on for a long, long time, and presumably lost the thread of what they were doing a couple times along the way. It took like 8 years to make.
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Apr 16, 2023 22:30
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Cucumbers posted:The biggest issue for me, in regards to the precision platforming segments, is how zoomed in the screen is. Not only do you have to press buttons super fast in sequence. You also have to memorize what's coming up, because your screen size is so small that you won't have more than a couple of milliseconds to react to the next bounce object or whatever. This is so true. I'm not that far yet, but am far enough that the challenges are starting to get harder and I have multiple different dash buttons. I like that the game is so considerate of your time to warp you right back to the beginning, but I think the inelegant controls and small field of view are going to pretty much guarantee that I end up skipping a lot of them. I just finished the factory area, and thought it was weirdly designed. There are a bunch of challenges setup to use the balls you trigger by pressure plate, but the most straightforward path takes you right to the boss that gives you the thing you need make all of those challenges irrelevant. Then, later in the same region you fight the easiest boss I've yet encountered (there's an obvious spot that you can pogo them indefinitely without taking damage) to get another ability that makes it so you can just open the blue doors without having to faff around at all. All in all, it's a good effort, but it does make me appreciate just how unbelievably good Hollow Knight is all the more.
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Apr 16, 2023 23:02
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Schwarzwald posted:I think Iconoclasts does very well in portraying a very weird society with very weird beliefs as it very rapidly starts to collapses in on itself apocalyptically. But the actual plot is a mess, and while (most) characters are strong, the story leans on them a whole hell of a let to support its narrative. Honestly, to me, the best thing about Iconoclasts' story is how, as it goes on, it continually goes out of its way to build up a big mythology, and then the ending straight up undercuts everything by rendering it absolutely meaningless. Every single thing that happens and every single belief system in the game is destroyed because your planet was literally just a gas station for an alien race. In another game or story that explored that, that could be interesting. Iconoclasts isn't interested in that, though. You beat up the dude who showed up to fuel up his Space Worm, and then all the Space Fuel he brought with him rejuvenates the planet. End of story. No moral! It feels like it's trying to say something, but it's hollow and empty.
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Apr 16, 2023 23:54
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I didn't think it was much fun to play either. Gave up after killing the boss of that annoying underwater level.
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Apr 17, 2023 02:17
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I think I'm wrapping up Lone Fungus soon. It never really occurred to me that I could go have the Hyperbolic Host unlock the door even though I've had all the spells for a while, because there was so much unexplored map, because they never really call your attention to it when you do get them all, and because there were tons of blockers I couldn't get past. I'll write something more detailed when I beat the game and have some more time, but this lack of signposting is a significant weakness in the game, which I otherwise quite like. How do you break the barrier above the Hyperbolic Host? Great Spin Slash doesn't seem to do it.
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Apr 17, 2023 19:00
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HH does it when you present all the spells.
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Apr 17, 2023 20:47
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That explains it. Sucks I have to walk all the way around. Thanks!
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Apr 17, 2023 22:34
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yea Lone Fungus is pretty fun because of all the movement abilities but everything else is so so. there are also too many long corridors to run through looking for which new doors I can open now
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Apr 17, 2023 23:07
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I am now on the last boss of Lone Fungus and am considering just quitting. I am pretty sure I can learn it, I've only given it a couple tries, but I really dislike having to redo phase 1 to get to phase 2. Phase 1 is not very hard, but it takes too long to get through to get more practice on phase 2, and phase 2 is really obnoxious. It has a ton of different attacks, some of which are trivial but some of which you have to react to very fast to avoid damage, and it has enough health that you gotta do it for a while. I dunno if I like the game enough to commit that much time to this fight. Overall my opinions are, and you should bear in mind that I am only around 57% completion: 1. There's a lot to like here. The graphics are cute, I love my little mushroom sprite and I super love when he goes "wheee!" occasionally while flying through the air. 2. Big world, lots of different biomes, always a plus. 3. Enemies and bosses are both pretty forgettable. 4. The challenge rooms (both ladybugs and astral gates) are insane. Early on they're easy but they get hard fast, and eventually I just stopped even trying them. Like, I wouldn't even make one attempt because it just isn't worth it to deal with these finicky Rube Goldberg machines. 5. There are a ton of movement abilities. Too many movement abilities. You get confused about which button to press for what you need, and it adds nothing to the experience. 6. Lots of different spells, emblems, and relics. I mostly ignored all of them. 7. You frequently get new traversal abilities that unlock new areas. Many of these get used, like, twice, and only in the immediate area where you got them. 8. My biggest complaint is the map. It's quite good for knowing where you are, and I don't care at all about the Hollow Knight style map updates at save points, that is fine. But it is horrible for telling you where you might want to go next. So very often you are wandering back to the many places where you couldn't get before to see if you can get there yet. Usually you can't. And sometimes, because the map only shows you whether rooms are visited or not, there are places that don't look on the map like there's any reason to return to, but actually there's stuff there that you can get to now. But there's no breadcrumb to lead you there so you don't know to return. 9. My absolute favorite thing, and this is going to sound like a backhanded compliment but isn't, is the forward dash. I genuinely love it. The speed it moves you at is great. It's incredibly versatile, because it doesn't just move you horizontally, you get a lil vertical lift too. So it's good for getting over obstacles, and it's good for zooming through the world even in areas with uneven terrain. It is by far the best feeling movement in the game, and movement generally feels good in LF. EDIT: I beat it the next try. I changed up my relic loadout completely and that helped, but it also became clearer after a few tries when it was safe to heal and how to avoid some of the attacks consistently. This fight is a good example of the kind of polish the game lacks, though, in a lot of small ways. For example, several times even on that last attempt, I would successfully avoid damage... and then he would appear again on top of me. That shouldn't happen, there's no way to respond. Eventually I got better about just not jumping as high and that helped. EDIT AGAIN: I will say, I never actually ran into any bugs at all, so well done there. I can't even say that about Hollow Knight, I got myself stuck in a wall in that the other day. guppy fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Apr 18, 2023 |
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Apr 18, 2023 00:28
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Kurui Reiten posted:Honestly, to me, the best thing about Iconoclasts' story is how, as it goes on, it continually goes out of its way to build up a big mythology, and then the ending straight up undercuts everything by rendering it absolutely meaningless. Every single thing that happens and every single belief system in the game is destroyed because your planet was literally just a gas station for an alien race.  So that's what that was about at the end? That's actually kind of funny. I just finished the game and by the end I was so tired of it I honestly could not be bothered to try and make sense of anything. The gap between how much the game wanted me to care about the story and characters and how little I actually did was one of the biggest I've experienced in any game, I think. I was barely reading any dialogue in the second half.I don't want to say it's a bad game because it's so clear how much effort went into it, and there are enough elements in it that are genuinely good (not least the boss fights) which push it into... overall mediocrity, I guess. But it's sadly not that far from one.
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Apr 18, 2023 19:18
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