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Sakurazuka posted:I was just like 'no point trying to warp if I haven't found another warp point'. If you try that in SotN or CotM it'll just warp you to the same room again.
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May 19, 2023 20:16
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This popped on my wishlist. Was it any good?
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May 20, 2023 13:13
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Yes, it's pretty good. The story is borderline incomprehensible, but the mechanics are solid.
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May 20, 2023 13:15
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Wonder Labyrinth seemed like a very basic play by the numbers game to me. Nothing really special and the environments got really samey. It has a couple interesting mechanics, but pretty short too.
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May 20, 2023 14:05
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Deedlit is fine in terms of gameplay but unless you know the source material you're not going to be able to follow the plot at all. The developer's previous game Touhou Luna Nights is much better on both fronts.
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May 20, 2023 14:53
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I don't know, I didn't know anything about it at all and I figured it out pretty easily An immortal elf outlived her mortal friends (and foes) from fun adventurin' days and a demon is preying on her depression about it, trapping her in a nightmare. She eventually figures this out and uses the experience to try and get some closure. I thought it was pretty good, if short and easy, which is fine - the game's magic system lends itself to snapping encounters in half. You'll beat it in four hours tops. I enjoyed it for what it was on Game Pass RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 16:01 on May 20, 2023 |
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May 20, 2023 15:59
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I enjoyed it on game pass but it ran really poorly on there. I think the Steam version is better right?
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May 20, 2023 19:49
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Deedlit is great, but it's incredibly short. Even completely blind and fumbling you'll likely clear it in under 5 hours.
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May 20, 2023 19:52
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Circle of the Moon becomes like, 10 times more fun imo if just use the Card Glitch that lets you equip any combo, regardless of whether you have the cards or not. One of my fav games as a kid, still fun now if you skirt around the Grind
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May 20, 2023 20:01
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i'm enjoying 9 Years of Shadows, it seems like the worst bugs from the demo on the Deck got fixed, and it's really beautiful. the combat's a little too simple and I wish the different elements had more different combos (there's very minor differences but not major). it's what I'd call a B-tier for sure
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May 20, 2023 20:14
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9 Years of Shadows seemed "fine" to me but there is absolutely nothing about it that makes me want to go play it. It works, it's fine, but it's just not interesting to me.
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May 20, 2023 20:19
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i also got depths of sanity for more submarine metroidvania antics (well, besides the aquatic adventure of the last human. i suppose those are, the two, and i don't count Song of the Deep) patch quest claims to be a 'roguevania' but i've played it for an hour and i haven't yet seen the metroidvania aspects other than unlocking shortcuts back to base camp, which is not only not a metroidvania-exclusive thing but is something that has been in roguelites since Spelunky 1!!!
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May 20, 2023 20:21
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RBA Starblade posted:I don't know, I didn't know anything about it at all and I figured it out pretty easily
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May 20, 2023 20:25
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I'm just finishing up 9 Years of Shadows and I agree with the previous posters. It's a very well-done take on the basic metroidvania formula, but there's absolutely nothing exceptional about it. I'll be curious to see what the dev does next, though.
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May 20, 2023 20:43
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Kinda impressive how bad Benedict Fox is on pretty much every gameplay level. I like the resident evil item inspection and puzzle solving stuff but it feels like they decided it had to be a metroidvania without having any experience or interest in platforming or combat... the controls are just so insanely bad, and the performance is garbage (on Xbox series S) making the controls even worse to deal with. E: oh and they do that "hold the button to confirm" thing for almost every single prompt or item interaction, even when there's absolutely no reason you'd hesitate to confirm your choice so you sit around like an idiot holding B to confirm three times in a row on completely routine UI navigation. And then they DON'T use it on certain nonrefundable skill choices. It's hard to go into effort about the fail choices in this game without it turning into a crazed screed. Martman fucked around with this message at 06:47 on May 21, 2023 |
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May 21, 2023 02:13
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I'm playing Afterimage and there's something about it that feels, I don't know, cheap? Unrealized? You've got all these beautiful backgrounds but there's no sense of where the hell I am, where I am going, or why anything is there. I don't mean the vague story (it's fine, whatever, the VA is bad), but the gameworld. It's gigantic but bland. I just read that fast travel wasn't in before the first patch and that is insane to me because the current fast travel is extremely limited. Also, contact damage and a dodge with no iframes is strange in 2023. I don't hate it exactly but it makes most fights: attack->dodge out (or jump)>attack>repeat. There's a slow hollow knight heal but also potions so I find I can just damage race bosses. Personal preference, but I don't like grid level up systems. Especially ones with tiny numbers. Whether it be a talent or gear, choosing between +2% crit and +5 def is lame. All in all, I'm disappointed. But MVs are basically comfort food anyway so I'll keep playing with my brain half turned off.
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May 22, 2023 23:20
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ultrachrist posted:I'm playing Afterimage and there's something about it that feels, I don't know, cheap? Unrealized? I'm somewhere in the middle of Afterimage and I mostly agree. Not that great for the genre, but if MVs are your thing it's probably good enough. Pros: - Art is genuinely really beautiful for the most part. Sometimes it's almost a little too much and the character/enemies don't stand out as much as they should. - It's a big-rear end game. I don't know how long yet but I keep running into new areas with no concept of how many total areas there are. So if you want content it's there. - Combat is pretty good - the different weapon types do feel fairly different. Not nearly as good as HK combat but a bit more variety I guess. - Large enemy variety - Decently functional map that lets you put markers down everywhere. Not enough is marked by the game, so get used to adding your own. Middling - Bosses are fine. Not memorable generally. But for the most part they are just sort of there? Like going through a level and you are just in a boss fight with no expectation or understanding of the thing you are fighting. - A lot of enemies don't need much of a strategy - many can be stunlocked by basic attacks or taken out in one combo. So it gets repetitive but it's good for when you are backtracking. - Story is just vague pieces - too many nouns and names get thrown at you and the game doesn't seem to explain much about them. I would put this in the con section but I admit to skipping past a lot of the dialogue so it could just be me. Cons - Inventory system is a mess, way too many things and loot and no way of sorting. No way to sell old weapons/armor or put them into storage or whatever. I don't need to hang on to a sword that does 10 damage when I'm wielding one that does 100. Even when you sell an item that you can sell, it will stay in your inventory as a stack with 0 stock. - The leveling system pretends it has choice but it doesn't really. You will likely get more talent points than you can spend as you are gated by level requirements. I guess you can prioritize certain weapons first but there seems to be more than enough. - Like said above, the talent tree is mostly just about getting small incremental improvements with the exception of unlocking a few new moves. Mostly seems pointless outside of those moves. - Big-rear end game is too big for my tastes. I keep unlocking/getting to new areas and have no idea if I should be doing them now or waiting, and no real concept of where to go outside of like one main quest. - Lots of obscurely locked doors. Sometimes you will find the key in the area, but many times I don't know what the game is looking for so it just gets marked as locked and I guess I will go back later? - Obscure quest items with not enough signposting about where they need to go. - Not enough warp points. There are rest point/bench/bonfire equivalents called Confluences, but only a subset also serve as warp points. All of them should be. I can't imagine how this game was before any fast travel was put in (awful). Gully Foyle fucked around with this message at 21:34 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 21:32
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I've spent some more time with it (Afterimage) and I've warmed to it a bit. Mostly from getting the wall jump, which is really more of a Mega Man X wall grab, the existence of which makes any game at least 50% better. Getting around is much more fun. But yeah, for such a huge game with beautiful landscapes, it's so bizarre that I never know why the next zone is there or why I am there. Or why the bosses are there. They just kind of show up randomly, like who's this guy? Go back to an area because I have double jump and surprise! giant context-less fire bird. I don't think I've ever played a game quite like this that completely lacks all signposting or context, whether it be from narrative or environment. The game's cue for "you shouldn't go here yet" is putting an enemy somewhat close to the start of the zone that can one shot you. Which will likely send you pretty far back with the checkpoints being so few and far between.
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May 25, 2023 17:06
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I've finished my playthrough of Afterimage. Note that I didn't finish all the endings or unlock the NG+ which apparently is played with a different character and has new bosses and areas (I didn't feel like trying again and again on the Malenia-style final boss that you need to beat to unlock it. But I played enough to feel satisfied. To amend my previous review: The combat near the endgame really picks up in difficulty and the game got a lot more satisfying than it felt partway through. The bosses in particular got more challenging and required actual evaluation of their move-set, especially before I picked up the boost that lets you heal faster and uninterrupted. This was largely a nice change from the way they felt in the early levels. So in general I think the late game really starts to get interesting. Weapons too get a lot more specialized - even within each type, you get multiple late-game weapons that are all approximately equally strong but have different element types and different special abilities/properties/movesets. I still felt pretty overwhelmed by a lot of the numbers in the equipment, and basically didn't play around with the different ring-slot items that much, just picked ones that were generally useful and left them in. One of the biggest downfalls I think in the way the game is built is that finding secrets is less satisfying than in many games of this genre. Depending on the order you are doing the levels in, the rewards are often way underleveled for your character, or are a weapon type you don't like the moveset for, or just more things that go into your expanding inventory. There are permanent rewards that are always useful, but those are only a minority of the things you find. The game was even larger than I had anticipated. There's something like 20 areas in the main game and each is like 2-3 times the size of an area in Hollow Knight. The movement upgrades really do help with managing the size of the game. If I ever do play the game again, knowing where the movement/exploration upgrades are located would make the game better paced for the first half. Even then, the game really needs more warp points especially if you are trying to find everything. Relating to that, a minor complaint I do have is that the completion percentage shown for each level is based on how much of the map you have explored - and with the way the levels are designed, it's basically impossible or would be just insanely time consuming to actually clear all the fog off the map. It really should be based on having found the chests, secrets, and killing the bosses so that you can realistically reach 100% completion in an area. That said, boy the game is incomprehensible in terms of story and NPC questlines. Especially the latter. It sort of takes after Dark Souls where if you do not know where the NPC is going to show up for the next phase of the quest, you will never find them naturally. I can't imagine completing most of the side-quests without looking up a guide. A lot of them have fairly good rewards too (more food recipes for permanent bonuses, top-tier weapons, etc.). So, strongly recommend to find a guide to follow for those once you are in the late game and can reach all the areas. Overall I'd give the game something like a B-. A few quality of life upgrades would help bump it up (more teleport spots, better inventory management, better signposting for the NPC quests). A decent metroidvania entry but not going to compete with the best of the genre. Gully Foyle fucked around with this message at 05:48 on May 28, 2023 |
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May 28, 2023 05:45
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There's a new Humble Metroidvania Bundle out: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/must-play-metroidvania I've played Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, and Bloodstained and they are great of course. Heard good things about Rain World. Not sure about the others. $15 for seven games and two coupons.
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May 31, 2023 19:10
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Anyone played pronty? Underwater setting is good, but free swimming movement (ie no jumping/platforming) makes me leery
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May 31, 2023 21:42
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owl_pellet posted:There's a new Humble Metroidvania Bundle out: Rain World is extremely love it or hate it Also not a metroidvania in the slightest
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May 31, 2023 21:42
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In case you don't know. The resting potions in after image let you teleport to any confluence you've seen at any point. Honestly, that is so much better that I don't even get what you'd want to use the major conferences for teleporting. Sure those potions cost 150 dew, but that's well worth the price.
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May 31, 2023 21:55
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owl_pellet posted:There's a new Humble Metroidvania Bundle out: I tried out Lost Ruins but it just didn't feel great to play. Lone Fungus is supposed to be pretty good though.
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May 31, 2023 21:57
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Fuligin posted:Anyone played pronty? Underwater setting is good, but free swimming movement (ie no jumping/platforming) makes me leery I fell off of it before finishing, but I was enjoying it. It’s kind of like Knight Witch if you’ve played that, where the focus is using free movement to avoid enemy attacks/patterns, but I liked Pronty much more.
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May 31, 2023 22:02
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owl_pellet posted:There's a new Humble Metroidvania Bundle out: I have all the games as well as the ones there are coupons for and heartily endorse them all, what a crazy good deal.
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May 31, 2023 22:18
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owl_pellet posted:There's a new Humble Metroidvania Bundle out: Haiku is really solid, just, in general. It takes a decent amount of inspiration from Hollow Knight, and it's not as good as Hollow Knight but a B+ Hollow Knight clone is easily an A- game, you know? Lost Ruins is a bit more iffy. The combat is slow, weighty, and kind of awkward, which is a plus for me and a minus for a lot of other people. The difficulty isn't absurd, but it IS pretty high, and a fair bit higher if you're going for the good ending which requires not opening treasure chests until the endgame. And there's not a lot of movement abilities. But I liked the weighty combat and the big spells later, there's a good bit of build customization just with equipment and some cool areas, and for postgame it has Fighter/Mage/Thief modes like Circle Of The Moon AND a Trio Of NPCs (bosses, in this case) mode like Dawn Of Sorrow's Julius mode. So, it's not for everyone, but if that sounds good to you you'll probably like it. I haven't played Rain World or Lone Fungus, so kind of considering that. Or Phoenotopia Awakening (currently $8 on GOG or in a bundle on Fanatical that also has Grime for $15.) Or finally getting around to Timespinners. ($10 on Steam or GOG.) Or replaying Bloodstained for the first since it came out. Or none of the above because I'm already playing other things. Captain France fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Jun 1, 2023 |
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Jun 1, 2023 10:48
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Phoentopia is one the worst, but most well crafted games I've ever played. Every inch of it is a labour of love but it plays like it was made by someone who had never played a platformer before but had the genre described to them by a guy down the pub. The movement, the exploration, the combat, absolutely none of it works, but it does looks exceptionally charming and lushous and seems to have a sweet story so if you can game off pure vibes you might get something out of it?
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Jun 1, 2023 10:56
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Okay, I got the final endings in Afterimage now. Beautiful game, the controls felt well, but combat felt uninspired and many of the boss battles are way easier to damage race then doing actual attacks and evading. Especially since some of that stuff is barely avoidable depending on random chance. Also, as mentioned earlier, the NPC quests are often just randomly searching the whole giant map until you see a person again and the main quest doesn't really give a lot of indication in which order you're supposed to do stuff. Quasi-essential movement abilities are sometimes in random side nooks where you can miss them, until you hit a roadblock later on. Also the menu management and sheer amount of equipment clutter is a bit annoying. That being said, I did enjoy the game. In many ways, it felt like a somewhat worse Aeterna Noctis, which is among my favorite metroidvanias.
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Jun 1, 2023 23:11
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I ended up getting the true ending today (Afterimage) and damage raced every boss except the one with a mechanic that prevents it. The game has some good things going for it and it definitely takes off mid game when you have several movement abilities and understand the map a bit, but it also stumbles in some very avoidable areas.
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Jun 2, 2023 00:10
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I didn't like Lone Fungus. It's not bad but the inputs get way too finicky and it needs more polish and, frankly, less Stuff. There's so much jammed into it but a lot of it is forgettable. I heard good things about Phoenotopia, but it did not work for me at all and I quit very shortly in.
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Jun 2, 2023 03:01
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I played through Exorcist Fairy recently. It's more than a little rough around the edges, but the movement and combat are fine, and the basic idea is sound and the English translation is adequate. The big problem is that the endgame was clearly rushed and that leads to a big difficulty spike and some items whose descriptions aren't translated. I got 93% completion in about 9 hours and I do not feel motivated to track down everything I missed.
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Jun 2, 2023 03:57
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I've been playing Lone Fungus for a few hours now and so far I feel like it's been fun. It feels closest to Hollow Knight in terms of movement of all the 'vanias I've played in recent years. Bosses have been mostly "get close and spam your attack" so not much room for tactics as of yet. I've made it to Acid Dungeon via small sequence break, I guess, since the statue said I'm not supposed to cross this gap yet (how did he know?) but I'm guessing the way I did it gets you there maybe one movement ability earlier than intended? The last boss I killed was The big butterfly in lower Grottos which was the hardest boss yet, IMO. The collectible hunting challenges feel really difficult, though, I probably won't be bothering with most of them. Although I am definitely starting to feel what someone said earlier there being just too much of stuff. From what I understand you don't even need half of these advanced movement techniques to actually beat the game. e: Also if anyone is looking for a slightly more obscure 'vania, check out Vigil: The longest night. It almost seems like I'm the only person I know who has played it and I liked it a lot. Reminds me quite a bit from Salt & Sanctuary. TeaJay fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Jun 8, 2023 |
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Jun 8, 2023 19:06
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ7V4RLC4Nw August 24th.
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Jun 8, 2023 19:29
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I just finished both Lone Fungus and Haiku the Robot recently. Lone Fungus was harder of the two, bigger, larger. The different areas felt adequately diverse from each other. It has a great ambient atmosphere and can evoke that familiar "I wonder where I can get with THIS ability" feel. I already wrote a bit about it so I won't go on for too long, but someone wrote that it simply has too much of everything and that was kinda my sentiment too - I barely used many relics, had the auto-parry on the whole game and barely even scratched the surface with the movement options and different challenges. By the time you get the wall jump you barely even get to use it for anything. The various challenges feel like a thing that was added later on because they very rarely have any bearing on the "actual" gameplay. But one thing that Lone Fungus has is one of the most satisfying final boss battles I've had in these kinds of games. It kinda reminds me of the True Ending bossfight in Hollow Knight where I was constantly at the edge of my seat, palms sweating, learning patterns. Nothing the boss does feels cheap, it's all down to you reacting to its moves properly. Haiku, on the other hand, was very condensed, even short. The game constantly guides you forward and shows you where to progress. In this sense it's almost pretty linear. But it's also a very atmospheric experience and has some of the best movement options in 'vanias. It's also very easy, I don't think I've died once in any boss battle before the final boss encounters and I'm by no means a master player. Now I'm wondering what to tackle next. Rain World sounds like it's a painful experience. I remember I played Dark Devotion a lot (have 13 hours on the steam clock) and then just quit in some later game area. Perhaps it was too hard or something. (although now that I'm playing it I kinda remember it's more like a roguelike than a metroidvania, I guess) TeaJay fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jun 14, 2023 |
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Jun 14, 2023 20:54
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TeaJay posted:But one thing that Lone Fungus has is one of the most satisfying final boss battles I've had in these kinds of games. It kinda reminds me of the True Ending bossfight in Hollow Knight where I was constantly at the edge of my seat, palms sweating, learning patterns. Nothing the boss does feels cheap, it's all down to you reacting to its moves properly. drat, wish I could relate. There's a combination of relics that trivializes end game bosses (fast heal, cheaper heal and invincibility while healing.) Now it feels like I missed out.
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Jun 15, 2023 07:15
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I think I used two of those... but like I said, I may or may not be a super gamer, lol (I still tend to finish these games, though!) A lot of guides and videos I watched recommend/use spin attack for bosses but I never really got the hang of using it, all it did was make me bump into the boss and take damage myself. So I mostly used normal attacks.
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Jun 15, 2023 08:01
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The best part of the Deedlit game is The epilogue where you wake up from the dream and finally play in the “real world”. And if you try to swing your Aria of Sorrow style giant claymore, instead of effortlessly swinging it one handed like you were throughout the game, your dainty elf muscles can’t even lift it off the floor.
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Jun 17, 2023 20:11
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galagazombie posted:The best part of the Deedlit game is The epilogue where you wake up from the dream and finally play in the “real world”. And if you try to swing your Aria of Sorrow style giant claymore, instead of effortlessly swinging it one handed like you were throughout the game, your dainty elf muscles can’t even lift it off the floor. Woah, really? That's cool! Man, I really ought to finish Wonder Labyrinth.
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Jun 17, 2023 21:31
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More Afterimage opinions I know it's been mentioned already but I really can't stress enough how incomprehensible the story was. This wasn't even the insular ramblings of a lone dev, a team of developers must have seen this confusing mess and shipped it. I wonder what the voice actors thought when they were reading their lines: "this is absolute nonsense but maybe it makes sense with more context?" (it doesn't) Forget about Mile High Club on Veteran or Halo with all skulls activated, the real ultimate gaming challenge is explaining the story in Afterimage. It feels like there was a crafting system at one point which was cut before release. Enemies drop either cooking items or miscellaneous items that have no purpose other to be sold. Like they already had all the items designed and in game, realised they didn't have time to finish it and just added "this item can be sold to merchants for a high price" to all the descriptions. Not that I needed to sell anything, the game is very generous with currency and there isn't nearly enough to buy. It's unclear what many of the magic subweapons found actually do. The ingame description just says "press attack to perform attackname" and unless its a fireball or similar direct attack, there's no way of knowing what it does. There's no wiki or external list either, so unless the devs add more information these items serve no function. Also, I equipped a scythe once that continuously drained my health. It didn't mention this in the description. Some of the weapon arts are absolute trash. The dive attack for the greatsword doesn't disable contact damage, meaning I had to position it to attack just in front of enemy which felt very awkward. The ultimate skill for the greatsword is embarrassingly bad, it has to be performed while sliding and it's just a weak overhead semi-circle slash. Afterimage could have been one of the greats, but it's death by a thousand cuts. There are too many minor problems and they all add up to significantly diminish the experience.
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Jun 19, 2023 07:39
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