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nearly forgot to post my March beatens, i'll keep this relatively short. it was a very metroidvania march #39: Eagle Island (5.5hr) - combo of metroidvania overworld and randomly generated dungeons. it was alright, nothing game changing although i liked the bird aiming mechanic #40: Sundered (13hr) - another metroidvania with semi-procgen maps, some rooms are set in stone though so it's half hand crafted. it's by the jotun people so it has great animation. a little too much grinding though #41: AER (3hr) - not a metroidvania but a chill narrative game where you can turn into a bird to fly around #42: GNOG (2hr) - fun set of 3D puzzle toys that you rotate around and mess with, like the Room games but simpler #43: Dandara (7hr) - metroidvania #3, this is the one where you stick to walls/ceilings and dash between them.. some people hate this game but I thought it was pretty fun, just a bit agonizing when you die because the save points are so few and far between #44: Grow Up (3hr) - the sequel to grow home, mostly more of the same but with a couple different biomes. #45: Recursed (12.5hr) - a break your brain kind of puzzle game where rooms exist inside of rooms and you can take objects in and out of them, create room loops, etc. should appeal to Baba is You fans #46: Catmaze (12hr) - metroidvania #4, this is probably the jankiest one on the list because it's a little sluggish and has cheaper presentation but a nicely sized world to explore #47: Monster Boy And the Cursed Kingdom (16hr) - metroidvania #5, the highest quality one I played in the month, a fantastic tribute to the monster world games but with better world design, great music (led by Yuzo Koshiro), and fun animal mechanics (the lion is basically Wario) #48: Record of Lodoss War: Wonder Labyrinth (4.5hr) (2021) - metroidvania #6, this one was fine. has the presentation of a SOTN with more of an indie game level of ambition (ie, not a AAA SOTN game with tons of deep systems, it's much simpler). I had fun with this one, maybe their next game should have more distinct areas though i also got a couple more metroidvanias to play which i might do in april: ghostly matter and outbuddies DX
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Apr 4, 2021 09:03
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I'm pleased that I finally got Resident Evil Zero out of the way after wanting to play it for months and months. Also spent quite a lot time fiddling with my new Vita, which is a lovely machine that I can see myself using for PSOne games for years going forwards. I'm also pleased that I managed to try one of Kojima's Japanese-only games via AI translation. Sure I did terribly in it but at least I saw the credits. Not much else going on this month and now that lockdown is easing and the sun is out I might spend a little less time gaming. Full reviews on the links. Resident Evil Zero (GameCube, 2002 / PC 2016) - Last of the traditional Resident Evil games and enjoyable, though you can absolutely sense the developers running out of ideas for puzzles, locations and enemies.  Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse (NES, 1990) - Loved it. Tough but fun to get good at, completed it twice back to back on different routes. One of the best 8-bit games I've ever played.  Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 1: Nijiiro no Seishun (PlayStation, 1997) - Always been curious about these Hideo Kojima produced visual novels so figured out a way to AI auto-translate it from Japanese into English with... mixed results. I didn't get the girl.  Queen: Rock Tour (Android, 2021) - Surprisingly fun mobile rhythm action with no ads or mtx for a very cheap price. Kind of like a budget Beatles Rock Band, but for Queen.  Tearaway (PlayStation Vita, 2013) - Extremely fun little game that uses the Vita really well. Loved how trippy it got by the end.  Maquette (PlayStation 5, 2021) - Fun concept but the execution isn't great. Also the romantic story is complete dogshit, gets in the way constantly and has no relevance to the gameplay.  Dreams (PlayStation 4, 2020) - It's a huge technical achievement but, being brutally honest, the only people who've made an actually good game on this are Media Molecule themselves with Art's Dream. The rest are effectively half-finished demos.  The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition (Game Boy Advance/3DS 2003/2011) - Interesting to check out, but I wished I could have tried this multiplayer. The retro levels were fun.  TxK (PlayStation Vita, 2014) - Loved loved loved it. Been playing Jeff Minter's shooters for years and this is one of his best - if not THE best.  Fortnite Chapter 2, Season 5: Zero Point (PC, 2020/2021) - Some fun guest characters, but not much to write home about this season. Oh well.  Farpoint (PSVR, 2017) - A very simple shooter that relies on being in VR to impress. Maybe if this was the first VR game you tried it'd be amazing, but I had to force my way through it. Perhaps it turns into a great game with an Aim controller rather than the DS4 but I doubt it.  I Am Your President: Prologue (PC, 2021) - Godawful US President simulator created by devs that clearly don't understand how US politics works.  Right now I'm finally playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which is so gargantuan I have no idea when I'm going to finish it. I've also been commissioned to review 'erotic horror' Lust From Beyond which is actually no kidding pretty good so far. Once that's out of the way I'm going into Disco Elysium and maybe try to get Metal Gear Online 2 working to give that a whirl. Got a week off work anyway so should make some headway. I also managed not to buy any games this month, so the backlog is shrinking. Necrothatcher fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Apr 5, 2021 |
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Apr 5, 2021 11:43
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I haven't posted in this thread for a while, so here's what I've finished on Steam since last posting in August 2020. Beaten - Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Many goons like this game due to the wide customization offered, but I found that combat real janky. I can't remember a lot of the middle part of the story. Beaten - Total War: Warhammer I beat the Dwarf world campaign. That's good enough for me. I've discovered I'm not really into 4X games. Beaten - Dragon Age: Origins This one sat unplayed for a long time after a lot of false starts where I'd stop playing after the second big story piece. I finally got into the groove with the right character and had a fun time (apart from some crashes I had to search online for fixes for that wiped out hours of progress). It's an interesting world Bioware builds here and while a lot of their formula is recognizable now I think they executed it pretty flawlessly. Beaten - Resident Evil 3 Remake The criticisms of short play time and lack of good puzzles compared to RE2make hold true, but I had a fun sprint through Raccoon City. Beaten - Resident Evil Zero It's a very pretty game. Maybe the prettiest fixed angle camera game made, but man that inventory system is real bad. The story is a real low of the series too. Beaten - Resident Evil 4 I know this is hailed as a revolutionary game that pioneered the third-person shooter, but man there some things that really dragged it down for me. Those things being all the quick time events. I really hate these kind of quick time events, because I die to them a lot and they killed me a lot here. The controls are kinda wonky and the mood really changes once you make it to the castle. Still a great game. Beaten - Resident Evil Revelations This was originally a 3DS game. It's fine. Beaten - Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell I loved SR4 and 3. This really didn't do it for me. At least it was short. Beaten - Hades Fantastic. Beautiful game. I got all the achievements. I got it on Switch and PC. I've tried rogue-likes before and I just really hate losing my progress. Here though the story is interwoven with your failure and there's meta-progression systems that make each run easier. The characters have so much dialogue and really great arcs and the length of the runs kept making me mutter, "one more time". 120hrs+ well spent. Beaten - Persona 4 Golden Excellent. A classic JRPG. I also got all the achievements in this game (do not this). The cast of characters and supporting characters are (with a few expectations) believable fully realized people struggling with themselves and really make you care about them and helping them overcome their various insecurities and hangups. The rather low stakes of a murder mystery had me engrossed in solving it and following the story in a way that more abstract plots do not. Beaten - Resident Evil 5 RE fulling embraces action-horror and throws in an Ai partner to boot. The game sure is a product of the late-2000s. Beaten - Age of Empires 3 The Home City system here was interesting. Although I found it easily titled missions heavily in my favor when I could just summon soldiers, resources, and cannons out of nowhere. The story and missions aren't much to write home about. Beaten - Torchlight I just turned cheat codes on and pushed down through the last few floors. It's a boring game compared to the other ARPGs on the market now. Beaten - Resident Evil Revelations 2 Here we go. RE returns to survival-horror and shockingly enough a good execution of the AI partner system. You can switch between the characters and they have different skill sets that complement each other. The lower stakes of the plot (escape this island) and greater focus on the characters' relationships to each other is nice after the mostly action-driven focus of the other games. Loved that final boss kill cutscene too. Beaten - Resident Evil 6 Hoy boy. So the premise had promise. There''s selectable campaigns that follow different past RE characters as they each (and they're AI partners) go through the same events from different paths. Some of these paths cross over with other characters paths, but man the story escalates way to high and way to fast. The villain is a real idiot with nothing interesting about them. The game goes full on action. No true horror or survival elements here. I feel this could have been good with some more some more time, but I think storywise this is the low of the RE series that I have played. Beaten - Dishonored: Death of the Outsider I had a funtime slicing and shooting through this world again. I'll be sad if this is the end of the Dishonored series. Beaten - Enslaved: Journey to the West This is a very pretty game for a PS3/360 era game. The characters have a realism in looks, voice, expression that I wasn't expecting from a game this old. The platforming is super easy. The game doesn't allow you to jump to your death. The combat, if a little simple, holds up today. A real gem. Beaten - Return to Castle Wolfenstein Needs no write up. A classic old school shooter. Beaten - Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War A RTS that's a real departure from the style of Starcraft and Warcraft 3. While it has base building and hero units. The marco of the game is finding and holding resource points instead of mining with workers. The mirco focuses on building and equipping unit squads with different weapons or abilities. It was a fun ride. Beaten - Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War: Winter Assault Nothing different gameplaywise. Single-player has two campaigns with two factions each that further split depending on with of the four you chose to finished the penultimate mission with. Which is an interesting decision I haven't seen before. I finished things with the Imperial Guard. Beaten - Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade Again not anything different in the gameplay of the units, but in an interesting move instead of a campaign with set story missions you have Risk-like board. The faction you choose starts at a different place on the board and you need to capture territory and the enemy factions home territory to win. You gather hero units and equipment for your main hero as you fullfill objectives. I conquered as the Chaos Marines. Beaten - Company of Heroes I wasn't really feeling this. A straight WW2 tactical RTS. Beaten - South Park: The Stick of Truth It's a serviceable RPG. If you're a fan of South Park I'm sure you'll enjoy it, but a lot of the humor fell flat for me. Beaten - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! A real step down from Borderlands 2. The villain is boring, the environments are boring, the space slam gimmick is boring, the boss fights were boring and easy. There's to much backtracking. Beaten - Devil May Cry 4 It took me about halfway through the game for things to start feeling good. Since so many abilities and moves need to be unlocked.
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Apr 5, 2021 22:31
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I've really started to work on my "Play Soon" category of games - the ones I really want to play very soon. And of course a few HOGs as well. Finished: 1912 Titanic Mystery An OK HOG with plenty of HO scenes. I have come to the realization that I don't give a crap about the mini puzzles, so I've decided to simply just skip them unless they seem fun - most often, the don't. Finished: Alex Hunter: Lord of the Mind Another HOG, but this time I was pretty sure I could remember the "plot". So I checked and apparently I already played this back in 2017, but as another release. So it seems like some of these HOGs, that had cards and even integrated achievements, were pulled from Steam. Then later released again by another publisher, but without all the Steam integrations. Anyway, it was again an OK HOG as long as you skip the boring/annoying mini puzzles. Finished: Bioshock Infinite + DLCs Pretty fun FPS and I really enjoyed the "In The Clouds" setting. Some awesome action set pieces when you are using the rails to fight the enemy troops using all your weapons and special powers. As for the story, I've never been a fan of those libertarian utopia stories, and this one was pretty grim with the racism on to of the Ayn Rand poo poo. The ending just didn't make sense to me. The DLCs were a mixed bag: While the "Clash in the Clouds" was arena matches with different kind goals, were you really could enjoy the rail system, it also go boring quickly. Burial at Sea part 1+2 were OK. While one was a straight up shooter, the other one was a more stealth approach, that reminded me of Dishonored. Trying to tie up some knots on the overall story arc but it's hard to do that with such a bonkers story. Finished: The House of Da Vinci A "The Room" clone which was OK. I got stuck on a couple of puzzles and had to find help online but otherwise it was a decent game. A few of the areas were annoying in that you had to move around quite a lot and those "slide shows" wasted time. Finished: Majestic Nights It's an episodic adventure game set in an alternative-world 80s with a focus on conspiracy theories. I liked the look and feel of it, even though it was a bit janky and could use some extra polish. The music was synthwave style and graphics were pretty OK. An isometric look and with some comic book style black outline. Where it soured me, was that apparently the game was supposed to have 6 episodes, but only a prologue (Chapter 0) and two episodes were ever released. I played the prologue and first chapter, but didn't bother buying chapter 2. It's dead so don't bother getting it, but perhaps check it out if you already have it in your library. Finished: My Friend Pedro 2.5D platformer/trick-shooter. The first many levels were really fun, as you got a grasp of the shooting and how you could make awesome tricks, but the last couple of levels were too focused on lovely platforming stuff that I don't really care for. Nulled: Of Orcs And Men Yeah, definitely not what I expected. Probably the worst fighting in an ARPG I've ever encountered. You have to line up moves? Why didn't they just make it a card game or something like that. Also being interrupted every 2 minutes by a cutscene is extremely annoying.
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Apr 12, 2021 01:41
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BEATEN: Alwa's Legacy. I found Alwa's Awakening (the game this is a sequel to) mediocre but inoffensive, and I'd heard this was better than the original. I had a lot of fun with it; it's a Metroidvania that puts much, much more emphasis on tricky movement and combination of powers than it does on combat or on metaphorical locks and keys. COMPLETED: Unmechanical. A minimal adventure starring robots and really good graphics that doesn't add up to much. Machinarium pissed me off; this was merely unremarkable. More about physics nonsense than obtuse graphic-adventure nonsense, but it manages to do both at once at a few points through the run. Looking over my posts this past year, it looks kinda like I've been playing an alphabet. Time to stop doing that. BEATEN: Anodyne. Pixely Zeldoid that doesn't add up to much, and I can't tell whether it was trying to cover that up by being faux-profound, or if it was making fun of games that tried to be faux-profound while not adding up to much. Apparently 100% item collection intentionally requires map-glitch abuse. BEATEN: A Good Snowman is Hard to Build. Super cute Sokoban variant—what Stephen's Sausage Roll would be if it didn't hate you and indeed all life on Earth. There's apparently a postgame, plus you can hug all the snowmen you build. IN PROGRESS: Hades. This is what's been eating most of my gaming time lately. I've cleared it a few times but I've definitely got a bunch of things that need to be accomplished before I can walk away from it. IN PROGRESS: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. It's kind of tense and stressful to play so I haven't been playing it much but I really like it when I'm not being stressed out by it. IN PROGRESS: Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. Both super-cute and very stressful and it's far better a game so far than I ever hoped it could be. It is doing an excellent job of being a ridiculous Mario game and of being a ridiculous Rabbids game, and Past Me would not have remotely believed that they'd be able to pull off both that well simultaneously.
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Apr 16, 2021 02:34
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OhFunny posted:Beaten - Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Ya this game is kinda like a cult classic, has gotten lots of love since it's rereleases. I also thought I would love it since I love action games and rpgs. This looked like a great mix and Capcom are the god of action games. But I agree this game had a few flaws. I think just few fixes it could have been so much fun. So the main thing is that this game is more rpg stats based than action despite the combat making it feel like doing cool combos/skills would do more dmg. Often being just 1 lvl below enemies and you can get wiped. It was really frustrating. I really wished they pulled back a bit on the rpg/roll dice aspect of the dmg and focused more on the action. It's a lot more fast paced than even something like Dark Souls but in Dark Souls you can finish the game lvl1 because items scale more than levels. I think there was a big leak about Capcom's upcoming games and there was apparently a sequel in the works. That could definitely fix a lot of the issues. Imo if they also need to give a bit more personality/character and the artstyle/color palette is horrible.
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Apr 16, 2021 02:49
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april's slower, but brings may... grower?? i don't know what words mean. here's april #49: Taiko no Tatsujin Tap Pop Beat (2hr) - Of all the Apple Arcade announcements, this was the oddest one. Up until a couple of years ago, Taiko no Tatsujin wasn't even being localized in America, and now all of a sudden there are three Switch games, and now an iOS port of the Switch game-- now bear in mind, it has a truncated song list because it's the Apple Arcade version.. apparently they will add songs in the future. Presumably from the Switch playlist, and songs will probably rotate in and out. That's my gut feeling. #50: Touhou Luna Nights (4hr) - Team Ladybug's prior game to Deedlit.. I'm not sure which one I enjoyed more. This one was a little bit shorter but I liked the time mechanics a lot. The last couple of bosses were hella annoying though. #51: Axis Mundi (Dread X) (.5hr) - I played the Dread X: The Hunt collection (just finished it today) which is a game anthology similar to the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc but instead of being promotional, it is a premium game jam. Axis Mundi is a take on Fatal Frame where you dive into the memories of ghosts and snap pictures of enemies to scare them off while finding the important thing about that person to free them. It's not the best Fatal Frame-alike I've played (but there has yet to be a good "alike" of Fatal Frame so far, and I include the awful DreadOut series), but it was fine as part of a collection. #52: Shatter (Dread 1) (1.5hr) - NOT the arkanoid style game. A game in a biopunk wasteland where you collect alien larva with your bio-AR module. Not really a shooter so much as an avoider, with a funky aesthetic. #53: Pony Factory (Dread 1) (1hr) - Monochromal shooter where your character wants to turn humans into ponies, and the newly-made hybrids are not happy about it. This is a resource management shooter, where you have a low ceiling of max ammo, and enemies take several bullets to take down, and do decent damage on you as well. So you have to be careful as you go through (and keep some ammo/health packs where they are, as you'll be going back out the way you came at the end). Should mention this is by the DUSK creator. #54: Uktena 64 (Dread X) (1hr) - Cursed hunting game with N64 expansion pak style visuals. I liked this one quite a bit, even though the maps were maybe a bit too large for how little there was to do in each of them. #55: Seraphixal (Dread X) (.5hr) - Monochromal shooter where you go to rescue your daughter from a cult, and you use lo-poly weapons to deal with them, also there's jumpscares. Probably the weakest in the collection. #56: Black Relic (Dread X) (.5hr) - This one features a crossbow, and I'll always play games with arrow firing... it's a bit clunky though. They go with an RE4 camera, which is fine, but the aiming and firing is a bit too slow, and the enemies just go down in one hit every time, so there's not much tension. #57: Borderlands 3 (22.5hr) - It's more of the same, which I guess is an accomplishment given the long hiatus, but that means every good part and every bad part of Borderlands is here. All the unfunny humor, the massive areas with lots of sidequests to do, the gun boxes that only have common or green items most of the time, the pretty rad sci-fi weapons. You get it all, the ups and the downs. #58: Pixel Puzzles Traditional Jigsaws (62hr) - I did all the free ones. I don't know what to tell you. TV: EX-ARM (12ep) - Pure unmitigated trash of the highest caliber. Worst animation in an anime since Gun Musashi, and obviously worst CG animation in anime forever. TV: Ducktales S1 - Finally sat down and finished the rest of the first season. I gotta be honest, I don't like Nu-Ducktales as much as other people. It's the nephews. I can't stand them. It's not that they have normal sounding voices, it's that the characters are just annoying and their plots are constantly the same. TV: Prank Encounters S2 - About as entertaining as the previous season but still not on the level of Scare Tactics, simply because it lacks the pre-determined knowledge that an ally in the know can feed to the producers to get people extra spooked. So a couple of episodes had people just kind of frozen and expressionless.
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May 1, 2021 18:05
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April started pretty OK with a lot of fun games I wanted to finish. The last half, not so much... Nulled: Ace Combat Assault Horizon Enhanced Edition I've never cared for flight sims, but thought this was more of an arcade shooter. Well, it might be an arcade shooter, but it's still way too much sim for me. Finished: Alice's Adventure A real old-school HOG with no puzzles at all, only hidden object scenes. Finished: Carrion A pretty drat fun metroidvania(?) action platformer. I really liked the theme and atmosphere, and the size was about right (~7 hours not trying to find everything or backtrack too much). Nulled: The Crew An arcade open world racer, that initially looked fun, but then I realized how incompetent I am at racing games, as I couldn't even finish the third tutorial mission within the time limit, and I actually tried several times. Nulled: Desolate Wastes: Vendor Chronicles I think it's some kind of idle game. Anyway, I got it in a bundle and it's bad Finished: Die Young: Prologue A free prologue/demo mission for the game Die Young. Not sure it's available anymore. It was an OK fun demo, and I'm actually looking forward to playing the real game. First person stealth/parkour action game with limited resources. Nulled: GooCubelets A bad sokoban-style puzzle game Nulled: L.A. Noire I never got it to run. Seems like the Rockstar Launcher is to blame. Then again, from everything I've read about the game, I don't think I would enjoy it anyway, so I didn't really try that hard to get it to work. Nulled: Paradigm I helped kickstart this, back when adventure games had a big comeback. I've since realized that I don't really care for adventure games anymore. It does look pretty good, but this type of game is just so slow, i know I'll fall asleep if I have to listen to all the dialogue or when I have to apply yet another cat hair moustache, built from items found in 7 different locations. Nulled: The Signal From Tölva It's a below-par shooter with slow movement, bad weapons and a gimmick where you can recruit other robots to help you. The world and story is pretty interesting though.
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May 2, 2021 21:43
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Fart of Presto posted:Nulled: L.A. Noire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN-Hv3pnVz0 Here's an interesting video about the debacle that was L.A. Noire
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May 2, 2021 21:52
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I knew some of it, but wow. Just wow.
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May 2, 2021 23:56
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Fart of Presto posted:I knew some of it, but wow. Just wow. It makes talk about Australian games development REALLY awkward. For years it was the big, recent example of 'Australia can do big-deal game development too', and to this day is still a big thing to refer to because it's the only noteworthy Australian game that looks from the outside like a Serious Adult Game. Like, the lineup is basically Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, L.A. Noire, Untitled Goose Game, Hollow Knight, and a couple neat indie games that haven't made big splashes. And Hollow Knight is carrying the weight of being the current headliner admirably right now, but it's always going to be hard to put in front of your average non-video-game-knower compared to 'detective story published by the Grand Theft Auto guys', so L.A. Noire still butts its way in.
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May 3, 2021 01:20
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Hey there was also...The Bureau and Borderlands The Pre-Sequel! 
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May 3, 2021 02:49
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I desperately wish The Bureau had been any better than 'eh, alright I guess', because it would've been perfect for knocking L.A. Noire off the Only Big Australian Game throne if it had made any waves at all. And while I could actually see a version of the Pre-Sequel that would've been well-regarded by Australia, but it's not one 2K would've made. Fill the cast with Australian comedians to the point where it's not just performatively Australian but genuinely has a recognizable modern Australian voice, and it could've stood. It might not have been any better as a game, but if you tossed Shaun Micallef, Hamish Blake and Dave O'Neill in there, it'd still be getting weekly plugs on Australian TV.
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May 3, 2021 03:20
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Had two weeks off work at the start of the month so decided to finally approach the bloated monster that is Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Spent a solid couple of days playing through that, as well as knocking off a few Castlevania games. Also with the retracted news that the PS3 store was dying I dug it out of storage and played through some games I'd bought long ago and forgotten about like SF2 HD Remix and the Watchmen tie-in game. Also, got into the fan servers for Metal Gear Online 2, which is an extremely kickass multiplayer game. I also reviewed a weird sex horror game that was actually pretty drat fun. Full reviews behind the links if you want: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (PS4, 2018) - Kept me on a treadmill of content for 60 hours, though by the end everything felt very repetitive. Kassandra is a good enough character to keep me engaged though.  Metal Gear Online 2 (PlayStation 3, 2008) - Had heard rumors that the fan servers were extremely unfriendly, but it turns out not acting like a dipshit on there will mean you're tolerated. By the end of the month I managed to consistently get positive k/d ratios in matches which was nice.  Lust From Beyond (PC, 2021) - Figured it'd be some cheap and gross porno game, but it's actually a decent first person horror title with some cool environments. There is lots of gratuitous loving though, but some of it is with hideous pulsating flesh blobs which seemed kinda unique.  Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge (Game Boy, 1991) - Didn't have many expectations after the last Game Boy Castlevania but really enjoyed this. Killer soundtrack too.  Castlevania: Resurrection Beta (Dreamcast, 1999) - Newly leaked cancelled Castlevania Dreamcast game from 1999. It's a short series of maps and a boss - and it's very quickly obvious why it never came out. It suuuuucks. Interesting to finally see it though.  https://pixelhunted.wordpress.com/2021/04/21/kid-dracula-famicom-1990/ - Cute satire of Castlevania included in the Anniversary Collection. Was alright, not much to write home about really.  Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (PlayStation 3, 2008) - I still love the SF2 gameplay but the 'HD' redrawn sprites are absolutely hideous. Rightly forgotten.  Frequency (PlayStation 2, 2001) - Can't emulate this properly so booted it up on the BC PS3. Was pleased to see that 20 years on I still have the skills to beat Expert.  Watchmen: The End Is Nigh (PlayStation 3, 2009) - Crappy and insanely repetitive movie tie-in beat-em-up. Fortunately it's also very easy and short, but glad to finally cross it off the list.  Monument Valley 2 (Android, 2017) - Had this on my phone unplayed for about two years. Got round to it and it's pretty but a bit shallow. Can now finally delete it.  Right now I'm playing the Tony Hawks remaster on PS5, the extremely rad Disco Elysium, Zelda Four Swords Adventures and Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand (because the weather is a little nicer). My girlfriend's hand is a bit better, so we might finally beat Resident Evil 6 in co-op sometime soon.
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May 5, 2021 11:53
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Necrothatcher posted:Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (PS4, 2018) - Kept me on a treadmill of content for 60 hours, though by the end everything felt very repetitive. Kassandra is a good enough character to keep me engaged though. Funny how you mention you are able to only play one AC game a year, I am pretty much the same and running my way through the series. I am further behind than you though, only up to Syndicate. I am really eager to see the post Origins type of AC games but the more I play Ubisoft games the less I like open world but their games like Far Cry/AC just have gorgeous worlds so I still get baited into buying them on sales.
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May 5, 2021 18:02
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Ulio posted:Funny how you mention you are able to only play one AC game a year, I am pretty much the same and running my way through the series. I am further behind than you though, only up to Syndicate. I am really eager to see the post Origins type of AC games but the more I play Ubisoft games the less I like open world but their games like Far Cry/AC just have gorgeous worlds so I still get baited into buying them on sales. I'll probably get round to Valhalla some day just from inertia, but whereas AC games certainly provide a lot of stuff, they've never made me feel any kind of intense emotion. Perhaps comparing them to Soulsborne games isn't fair because they're doing different things, but where those cause me anger, joy and fear, AC just puts me on a kind of gaming autopilot and *bam* I've lost two days of my life.
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May 5, 2021 23:07
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COMPLETED: Hades. Unlocked every weapon, got every keepsake, unlocked every weapon aspect, got every Cthonic Companion, and advanced the plot through to the Epilogue. I haven't maxed out everything the game has to offer, but I have basically Done All The Things. COMPLETED: Genesis Noir. Cool and chill graphic adventure that is mostly about fiddling with stuff in the environment and enjoying the music and the art design. IN PROGRESS: A Monster's Expedition. A sequel of sorts to A Good Snowman is Hard to Build, this is at least as cute and much meatier. It's also Even More Stephen's Sausage Roll But Nice than Snowman. IN PROGRESS: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Took a long break from this to focus on Hades. That long break was right before the Boost Guardian.  An unpleasant welcoming gift.Meanwhile, I've also been poking at the Sega Genesis Classics Collection on Steam. BEATEN: Streets of Rage. It's a classic for a reason, but it's pretty hilarious how they hadn't quite worked out the mechanics yet so you can just tee up infinite combos on everyone whenever you want. Cleared on Normal with Axel. BEATEN: Streets of Rage 2. Definitely the best one of the three on Genesis for me. Switched over to Blaze because I couldn't tolerate Axel's walking speed. They seem to have noticed the "infinite combos everywhere for free" thing and addressed it by letting bosses just wreck your poo poo for no reason whenever they feel like. Perhaps I was missing something. BEATEN: Streets of Rage 3. This was misery and I only ultimately cleared it (with good ending!) via intensive savestating and bloody-minded determination. NULLED: Columns. I'm not very good at it and also it doesn't appeal to me much compared to the other Tetris-oids I've played. I dunno. NULLED?: Flicky. Gosh, this is cute! I'm not completely clear why an arcade game from 1984 would be released on Genesis in 1991, well after its launch, as a first-party title, but it seems fine. The 1984 original was an attempt to compete with and outshine Mappy, which is does very handily. Rot in Hell, Mappy. ON DECK: Phantasy Star II and Space Harrier II, neither of which I have ever played and both of which I've been curious about for a long time. Shining Force isn't on the list until I'm done with Mario X Rabbids, and SoR3 has soured me on brawlers for a bit.
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May 10, 2021 04:32
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Don't be afraid to use help/a map with Phantasy Star II, the dungeons are labyrinthine in the worst way.
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May 11, 2021 00:39
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Completed - The Witness: What a great puzzle game that I took too long to get to. I probably got 80% of the game on my own and then used a guide to 100% it. Definitely not ashamed of that. I would have never found some of the environmental puzzles, and there were color/audio puzzles that I simply couldn't see/hear. From my daughter's corner. She watched me play Untitled Goose Game back when it came out, but she and my wife co-oped through the game together recently. She freaks out at the villagers chasing her (especially when stealing the model church bell), but they did the full game and all the extra lists together. I'm proud of my future backlog-haver.
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May 11, 2021 03:38
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Necrothatcher posted:I'll probably get round to Valhalla some day just from inertia, but whereas AC games certainly provide a lot of stuff, they've never made me feel any kind of intense emotion. Perhaps comparing them to Soulsborne games isn't fair because they're doing different things, but where those cause me anger, joy and fear, AC just puts me on a kind of gaming autopilot and *bam* I've lost two days of my life. Couldn't have put it better. I rarely remember any story from AC games, I just have a vague memory of having played most of them. Black Flag so far is the most memorable just because it's so different. Beat: Tales of Vesperia This is a cookie cutter JRPG except for the combat. It has a deep combat if you can understand it but I felt like the tutorial was poor and the wording of translation in this game was poor. So it was hard to understand how to do certain things. What were the directional arrows above enemies heads? The combat has potential but they should have had 1-2 mechanics that they go deep in instead of having 5 all be generic. I will definitely play the sequels at some point. The story was generic save the world but the cast of characters were really colorful and fun, just wish there was more content about the characters backstories. Beat: Nioh PC Just finished this game, I am currently on Way of The Strong which is the NG+. I have almost 100hours in it and plan to keep playing to try out the other weapons. This is probably the best Soulslike game. It has better combat than the Souls game and some amazing bosses(but weaker than souls). I would say level design in this game is really wake until the last few levels. One of my favorite games of all time now, I would recommend to anyone who loves great gameplay and is a fan of action combat. Going through DLC as I go along ng+. Beat: Until Dawn This game was pretty popular among Let's players when it came out. I got the ps+ collection on PS5 and it had this so gave this a go. Probably one of my favorite horror pieces of media even including movies. This is the perfect mix of psychological thriller and supernatural horror. The gameplay is just qte's and walking sim but all the different impactful choices create a story that is unique to only you. Highly recommended game I don't see enough people talk about. Beat: Astro's Play Room Funny little demo of the powers of the new playstation, mainly the controller. I think some of the control mechanics ideas were cool but others were way too gimmicky and frankly made it unplayable at points(motion sensor one especially). I was thinking this would be some platforming masterpiece with how some people were talking about it but it's just a ok free technical showpiece of the dualsense. I haven't really played any of the actual ps5 games yet. I am probably gonna finish my PS4 backlog as some of the games are enhanced like God of War and Spiderman. On PC I still have a massive backlog and I got pc gamepass to play some Gears of War with friends but I also decided to try out few games like Dark Pictures and Octopath Traveller.
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May 20, 2021 03:19
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My May was a busy month, between playing the jam games of the Dread X collections and playing actual games. So the number is quite large but just take note of how many games were 2 hours in length or less. Last year I had a couple of months like this just from playing retro games, so I guess I'll always have a couple of months like this, and with the itch.io Palestine bundle around the corner, I might have another couple of busy months of playing really short indie games from that collection (although as I understand it, a huge percentage of it is repeats from the BLM bundle). #59: The Fruit (Dread X: The Hunt) (1hr) (2021) - This game was a little bit tricker than the other games in the Hunt, as the game has a realistic reloading mechanic for your rifle. You have to open up the chamber, grab the bullet, put it in the chamber, close the chamber, and then you can aim and fire. Which makes for very tense gameplay when enemies are throwing axes at you! #60: House of Unrest (Dread X: The Hunt) (.5hr) (2021) - This one reminded me a bit of Realms of the Haunting, in that it was a first person shooter but also a bit of an adventure game, and of course you're roaming around a mansion. #61: Rose of Meat (Dread X: The Hunt) (1hr) (2021) - The requisite "weird" game of the collection, you explore an island with an eyeball that represents your health, a revolver, and a talking leg that can spawn creatures with exploding barrels that you shoot to do harm to the nightmare creatures that are prowling around. Very strange. #62: Dread X: The Hunt (lobby) (1.5hr) (2021) - The Dread X collections (aside from the first) all have a lobby/launcher that functions as a game itself. Dread X's lobby takes place in an arctic base, where you're trying to unlock the prototype device you need to fight off a big evil. You get the genetic keys to open the door to the device by playing the various anthology games... but the lobby itself also has you finding keys to unlock doors, reading diary entries, and solving a couple of mild puzzles. It's very much a walking simulator, complete with player narration that is nostalgic and sardonic, as is the walking simulator tradition. #63: Raging Loop (20hr) - A time loop visual novel based on the framework of Werewolf... the protagonist winds up in a village that conducts a bizarre ritual to attempt to purge itself of nightly killers according to esoteric rules. If you like Uchikoshi games (999, VLR) this is in that vein but is purely a VN. It doesn't have a thousand routes like the Zero Escape games either, it's basically three timeline variations that you hop between. It's a pretty good VN, but don't read the epilogue because it turns into some dumb magical light novel nonsense. #64: Charlotte's Exile (DreadX 2) (.5hr) - An incantation cypher game. You figure out the instructions to save your partner by deciphering instructions in an eldritch language. Simple enough but I do like a cypher puzzle. #65: Root Letter (6hr) - Relatively simple and stiffly-translated VN where you are investigating a mystery about your long lost pen pal. I played a version with live-action visuals which I thought was fun (as a 428 fan). It helped to add a little personality to a game that was very lacking in it. The mystery at the core of the game is actually interesting but it gets hampered by the simplified storytelling and wooden dialogue, which is disappointing. #66: Arcadletra (DreadX 2) (.5hr) - Probably the worst of the Dread X anthology games.. you just walk through a "haunted" arcade... it honestly feels like an XBLIG game. #67: Touched by an Outer God (DreadX 2) (1hr) - Immediately going from worst to almost best?? A first person shooter where you become more and more monstrous as you gain new powers. Each arm has its own ability, one being ranged combat and the other focusing on melee. This is a pretty solid prototype for what could be a really fun game if they decided to build something larger around this nucleus. #68: Eliza (3.5hr) - VN by Zachtronics (Spacechem) about a dystopian future in which humans go to AI therapists instead of humans, as companies try to figure out the perfect formula for a one-size-fits-all approach to therapy, which obviously isn't working. The choices you make in the game don't really matter until the end when you basically can decide who to partner off with and what path your career will take. So even though it's a VN, it's only barely more interactive than a kinetic novel. But it does have solitaire, like most Zachtronics games, and some light "fake OS" phone surfing. #69: Monster Prom (.5hr) - Board game style dating sim suited for short play sessions where you beef up your stats with a bunch of random scenarios and then try to ask out a monster to the prom. Really not meant for solo play but you CAN do it. I think the real mileage would come out of whether you can play in a shared setting instead of just over the internet. #70: Squirrel Stapler (DreadX 2) (1hr) - The second riff on hunting I've played in Dread X, this one is a bit darker, as it involves hunting squirrels and then stapling them to... well... anyway, I think the other hunting game (Uktena 64) is a bit more solid and with better presentation but this was okay. #71: Solipsis (DreadX 2) (.5hr) - A couple of notable developers contributed to the second anthology, including the developer of Pony Island and World of Horror, but I actually found their entries to be a bit underwhelming. Pony Island dev's game involves walking around on the moon hunting down coordinates, and it feels more like a teaser than a thought out horror experience. It ends just when things start to get going. #72: The Thing in the Lake (DreadX 2) (1.5hr) - The World of Horror dev's game shares a similar aesthetic to their full title, but with more active-control, as you switch from protagonist to protagonist in a slasher/cult ritual story. My main issue with this one is that the enemies were just too annoying and spawned way too often. #73: AI: The Somnium File (17hr) - I love the Zero Escape games but I think AI might be better than all of them just based on one central fact: the characters loving rule. The Zero Escape games tend to have some archetypes that are there just because they were there in previous Zero Escape games, and each one has at least a couple of characters that are not as fleshed out or just feel like they exist to be killed off. In AI, every character is given care and attention, even down to the most minor characters like the inspector whose name is constantly forgotten by Date (kazani?? kozumi??). There's not a single character I dislike in this game except of course for the villain who I'm supposed to dislike. Date is a snarky himbo, Aiba is a gremlin, Mizuki is the perfect head-kicking foil to Date's dipshittery, Iris nails the essence of well-meaning teen and conceited youtuber who is used to getting what she wants, Ota is just trying to make the best of an unfortunate situation. The central mysteries are good too, and Uchikoshi waits until the climactic storyline before things start getting weird and jargony. Basically his worst impulses are restrained and his best talents are on full display. Highly recommended. #74: To the End of Days (DreadX 2) (1hr) - Another first person shooter in the Dread X collections.. the thing about these collections is that none of the shooting actually feels all that great, but at least in this one, enemies pretty much go down in one hit (except for a specific enemy type) so it's very much a run 'n' gunner. The story is simple; the world's ending so you're trying to get to the top of a tower to send out a communication. Rampage through ruined city streets and hosed up buildings to get to the end. Not my favorite game in the anthology but decent. #75: Another Late Night (DreadX 2) (.5hr) - Here's a fake OS game which is another staple in the horror genre at this point. It's very basic and feels a little "my first attempt at this". #76: Diving Bell (DreadX 2) (1hr) - Explore an undersea installation as everything is going wrong around you. There's a little bit of a sanity mechanic to the game but for the most part you're just putting out fires (metaphorically and literally) while trying to send reports back to HQ. #77: Sucker for Love (DreadX 2) (.5hr) - The silly gimmick game of the collection, a dating sim about an eldritch being. You're basically setting up the right arrangement for the room and casting spells to end the world and win the being's affection. #78: Toy Shop (DreadX 2) (1hr) - Okay this was a weird as gently caress one but I was kind of into it. A first person shooter and platformer where aliens have infected people into believing in a different reality where they're all toys in a giant toy maker's shop. #79: Undiscovered (DreadX2) (.5hr) - A 'found footage' game where you explore an ancient temple with your partner and things go badly. The forced low-framerate is.. I get what they're going for as it's "old" black and white footage, but it results in clunky gameplay, especially when some of it involves escaping/avoiding enemies. #80: DreadX 2 Launcher (1hr) - The launcher for Dread X Collection 2 is far more puzzle-oriented. In order to play the games in the collection you need to get keys to unlock the boxes containing them. And each key is hidden behind a puzzle. I was into this, I like this approach to a lobby... although if you just want to play the games, there's a Free Play option in the main menu. But I like the launchers and do consider them to be games in their own right. #81: Buppo: Adventure on Geralds Island (DreadX 3) (.5hr) - Onto the third collection! This collection is more inspired by the PS1 (my guess is they saw how well the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc did) and 'cute' games. Buppo is a 3D platformer where you do some errands and take part in a ritual, yay! #82: Blossom Tales (7hr) - Zelda-like by the developer of Rex Rocket. Being honest, I prefer Rex Rocket because I thought its take on run'n'gun Metroidvania is still really good, and this is just an OK Zelda game. The structure is very linear and the world map is actually smaller than it first appears. The dungeons are also a bit too long. I'd prefer more, smaller dungeons to fewer, larger dungeons. #83: Jake Hunter: Daedalus (5.5hr) - This VN is about on the same level as Root Letter, although instead of FMV, it uses panoramic 3D photographs with Live2D anime characters on top. The Live2D implementation is not great, far worse than even the amateur VTubers out there. But I kind of dug the 360 degree photos, even if I wish they didnt run a filter over them. The Jake Hunter series is a bunch of mixed-bag-to-mediocre detective games, although I appreciated their take in this one, of a detective that is not evidence-focused so much as personality-focused. You investigate a person to learn what they were like rather than being a forensic CSI objective investigator. I'd play another game like this if they refine things and also improve upon the presentation and translation. #84: Umineko Question Arcs (35hr) - I've spoken my thoughts at length in the all-ages VN thread but I can sum them up like this... there's definitely a lot to like about Umineko, especially if you like the chaotic back and forth arguments of Phoenix Wright and Edgeworth, as there's a lot of that in the Witches' Game. And there's a lot of dark subject material, and a lot of satisfying murder mysteries for the reader to solve on their own time. BUT, the game wants to soften the blow of the dark subject matter by using a lot of magical/imagination allegory and these witch characters, and it all feels very.... not my thing. Very "I have an infinity force field" "well my weapon does infinity + 1 damage" "WHAAAAT!!!! haha actually you fell for my trap!" "Oh no! well I anticipated your trap" kind of stuff. If you can endure that, there's a lot of intriguing stuff at play on Rokkenjima. I just couldn't, personally. Also if you do play, get the PS3 graphics patch. The pachinko character art is awful, and the original character art, while charming in its simplicity, lacks some of the really fun acting of the PS3 character art. #85: Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage (8hr) - A major step down from the first Spyro. It's just not as fun doing orb quests rather than finding dragons in the world. And some of them are excruciating (like the 'collect the gears on this mine cart' one..). Also the bosses have way too many hit points for how simple they are. Just makes them a chore. #86: Near Death (2.5hr) - Grabbed this and the next game for $2 each. Near Death is actually pretty good, I'd say it's worth the cheap full price. A linear survival-lite game in a hand-crafted world where you crash land by an abandoned arctic base and have to go from building to building getting the resources you need to survive and make it out of there alive. One of those 'nothing wasted' games where everything has a purpose, the crafting recipes are limited to just what's necessary, and the experience ends before it gets tiring. #87: The Almost Gone (2hr) - Escape room-y isometric game where you can rotate the room to reveal items around walls and things of that nature. Has darker subject matter than you might expect from the aesthetic. I would say that I was glad I got this for $2 though, as the game is a bit too short for what's offered. The game only has 5 chapters and the 5th chapter is just a cutscene and credits. I am playing Spyro 3 right now but that obviously won't make it into this list. It'll go into June's, along with these games (most likely): Death Mark, more Dread X Collection 1 & 3 games, possibly House of Fata Morgana, and maybe a little bundle key catch-up (Pesterquest, Wildfire, Ageless, The Wild Eight, Valfaris)
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May 31, 2021 06:23
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itch.io is doing a Palestine bundle? loving awesome. When does it start?
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May 31, 2021 06:38
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Skwirl posted:itch.io is doing a Palestine bundle? loving awesome. When does it start?
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May 31, 2021 19:06
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The 7th Guest posted:Early this week. It's a gargantuan undertaking and an indie dev is spearheading it so it's going to take a little longer to get it rolling. If it's anything like the BLM one last year it'll probably get 10X bigger after it launches.
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May 31, 2021 20:45
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Skwirl posted:If it's anything like the BLM one last year it'll probably get 10X bigger after it launches.
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May 31, 2021 21:03
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Had a relatively chilled out month from games as I was training for a big athletic event as spent most of the time I wasn't working out sleeping. So a little bit of a bleh month, with the obvious exception of Disco Elysium which managed to exceed all the hype I'd read about it on here. Also my fat 2008-era Xbox 360 finally died, which is a shame. I guess it was kinda inevitable that it'd pack in sooner or later. Here's what I played this month: Disco Elysium: The Final Cut (PC, 2021) - Loved every second of it, definitely going to go down in history as a classic of the genre. Am already planning a second playthrough and have been loudly recommending it to my friends.  Boktai: The Sun Is In Your Hand (Game Boy Advance, 2003) - Decided to play this on the rainiest and most miserable May on record, which is annoying because it's powered by sunlight. Then again, I was using a patch to simulate the solar sensor so I could have cheated.  Ghost Squad (Wii, 2007) - Was in the mood for a light gun game after so long away from arcades and this scratched the itch. Good fun but very short, though I only paid Ł1 for it so whatever.  Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 (PlayStation 5, 2021) - One of the best remasters I've ever seen and got through it fairly quickly. It's aged fairly well and the soundtrack is a nice nostalgia bomb.  Left Alive (PS4, 2019) - Saw that they'd patched in a 'Casual' difficulty so decided to give it a whirl. Big mistake. Everyone's right, it's total dogshit.  The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GameCube, 2004) - Got this set up with Dolphin and 4 instances of Visual Boy Advance for a four-player action. The idea is fun, but the amount of hoops this game makes you jump through is crazy. Glad I can check it off the list though.  Don't Forget Me (PC, 2021) - Low effort one hour cyberpunk 'puzzle' game. Not very good.  Ploid (NES, 2021) - A new release that runs on original NES hardware. Problem is it sucks, even taking that into consideration.  Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood (PC, 2021) - I was put off by the awful electro-swing intro, but the puzzles are actually kinda clever and the art is real nice.  My girlfriend has given up on Resident Evil 6 ("it's boring") so I'll try to finish that solo, but in return she's trying to get me into Monster Hunter World so I'm trying that out. I'm reviewing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, The Magnificent Trufflepigs, and the new Cloudpunk DLC. Also want to get around to Twin Snakes this month as I'm in the mood for sneaking around Shadow Moses.
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Jun 4, 2021 15:48
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A couple of months since my last post here, so I guess it's time t list all my nulled (and a few finished) games. Finished: 12 Labours of Hercules IX: A Hero's Moonwalk Not a lot has changed in this Time Management casual game. Playing it on the easiest difficulty level even skips the time element completely, which I do believe is a new thing, so it just ends up being a nice casual puzzle game, perfect for a few levels after work to wind down. Nulled: Dungeonmans I had a lot of fun on my first run which lasted a few hours, until I died and remembered it was a roguelike, and you had to start all over again. I don't really enjoy games where you have to repeat the same things over and over to "git gud" or game types like roguelikes, which are specifically designed like this, so unfortunately I had to null it. As I said, I had a lot fun with the first run, and there seems to be absolutely nothing wrong with the game. "It's not you, it's me"... Nulled: Hunted: The Demon's Forge Good lord what a PS2 turd. Never mind the ridiculous outfits and bad dialogue, but the gameplay itself really lovely. Finished: Path of Sin: Greed Finally a HOG not set in a fantasy setting, having to find a kidnapped daughter, or dealing with ridiculous magic items. Lots of good hidden object scenes, no annoying puzzles and the story is actually decent as a pure detective murder mystery. The characters are so bland though, that it's extremely easy to lose track of who is who, but it doesn't affect the puzzles at all. Nulled: Return to Castle Wolfenstein Time has not been kind to this game. I just can't play these FPS games that are blocky and empty anymore, when there are so many beautiful and action packed FPS games out there, both indie and AAA. If you have a nostalgia-trip, you might find it amusing, but having never played it before, and having enjoyed the new Wolfenstein games a lot, this was a huge disappointment. Nulled: Savant - Ascent Fun and apparently short shooter, but I just don't have the reflexes to play these types of games anymore. Nulled: A Story About My Uncle I don't remember why I quit this, as I remember it was quite fun in the beginning to swing around with the grappling hook. I guess it just got too bullshitty at some point. Nulled: XCOM: Enemy Unknown Sadly I just didn't enjoy this fan favourite game. Gave it a good shot at 6 hours or so, but something just didn't click compared to eg. the Shadowrun tactical stuff. Perhaps because this is a full fledged tactical game, and I prefer the "lite" variant aka casual style.
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Jun 27, 2021 16:27
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Most of my actual backlog progress has been old Genesis games, still. COMPLETED: Space Harrier II. It's cute what they managed to get out of the Genesis here given that it has nothing like Mode 7 in hardware. The main problem is that it's just not much fun to play compared to other chasecam games, and I grew up playing the excellent RoadBlasters and S.T.U.N. Runner. COMPLETED: Comix Zone. Hoo boy. I'm really curious how the basic design for this got through any kind of greenlighting. "Let's have a brawler, and let's also give you only one life, and also no continues. But to make things interesting let's also have a ton of instant death pits, including places where entering a normal input will have you drop through the floor to instant death. Hmmm. Still seems too balanced. Let's have you lose health every time you land an attack." It was also more or less impossible to sneak up on enemies or meaningfully evade their attacks, even when you could see them coming, because the brawling action was strictly 2D instead of being a sort of isometric battle strip like in the Streets of Rage games. But is that last flaw completely unavoidable? I remember being really annoyed by it in the Shank games, too. Hmm. Only one way to find out. COMPLETED: Shadow Dancer. This is a Shinobi game, but you also have a dog, and a chargeable Dog Gauge that lets you unleash a fully-charged dog upon your foes, which distracts them. I'm pretty sure that I'm supposed to interpret the animation as him lightly mauling them, but it sure looked to me like he was just aggressively demanding pets and cuddles. Also, if you fire a dog at an armored enemy, the dog bounces off and transforms into a puppy for a few seconds, because this is how dogs work. This was also strictly 2D, like Comix Zone, but it worked better for me, mostly. Here you have lives and get many more over your playthrough, but everything is either a one-hit kill or inflicts only knockback. That part becomes a problem (and also meant that I had zero compunction about savestating at level transitions and only at level transitions). I think part of it may be that it uses height more effectively; you can evade enemies by leaping up to a higher story, or flipping behind a fence Super Mario World style. Even that extra degree of freedom was enough to make things feel like I could make real decisions. I can't really call it a great game, but I'm not going to object to a couple evenings of Ninja Dog Walking. IN PROGRESS: Phantasy Star 2. I didn't play a ton of RPGs growing up, and this plays quite a bit differently from the RPGs I did play growing up. I've made it to the planet Dezoris so I'm guessing that's about the halfway point. FanaticalMilk posted:Don't be afraid to use help/a map with Phantasy Star II, the dungeons are labyrinthine in the worst way. I'd been warned going in that the dungeons were all giant teleporter mazes, but after actually consulting some maps, it's clear that these "teleporters" are actually usually stairs; they're one-to-one and don't change your X/Y on the map itself. It's just that there's no visual difference between up- and down- stairs. Good work, folks, you did it. (That said, the dungeon where you collect the Muera leaves is a genuine teleporter maze and it was not appreciated. At least Might and Magic gave you a Location spell.) Off of the Genesis, Metroid Prime 2 and A Monster's Expedition have been kind of on hold since I never seem to be in the mood to play them, but I expect I'll get back to them sooner or later. Also off of the Genesis: COMPLETED: What The Golf? This is either a dumb joke that manages, barely, to not outlive its welcome, or an insight into what miniature golf could be if you didn't have to care about budgets, the laws of physics, or universes with causality. I 100%ed it and all its bonus campaigns and I don't regret it. NON-BACKLOG: Contraption Maker. It's The Incredible Machine with the serial numbers filed off, and I've marked it as non-backlog because I remember that the endgames of the TIM games got really pointlessly finicky and were less about building cool devices and more about finding magic pixels. Still, I'm 150 puzzles in and I'm still having fun, so, again, no regrets.
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Jul 3, 2021 07:23
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Comix zone is like 4 levels long, it put Konami to shame when it came to “hard to discourage rentals” but it is a game where you just do a little better each time.
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Jul 3, 2021 15:12
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My June started off pretty slow and then picked up at the end, especially when I went on vacation. #88: Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon (9hr) - A lot better than Spyro 2, in my opinion. Feels like they got their focus back in the right place by going back to finding dragons instead of just a bunch of tedious minigames. I mean yeah there are some minigames here too but nowhere near as many and the primary thing is finding the eggs. A solid, good time. #89: Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir (8hr) and #90: Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (8hr) - Yeah, sometimes the trigger to move the story along is a bit hard to find or downright stupid, but I really devoured these games. I love ICOM style games but I've never been a fan of the actual ICOM games because of the brutal difficulty, so having games that are just story-focused and so well-produced (great job by MAGES) is a godsend. I feel like the latter game's ending was a bit too abrupt in its villain reveal while the first game had personal stakes and was more interesting throughout. #91: Deiland (9hr) - The predecessor to Summer in Mara... this is an odd one to review. The gameplay loop is very addictive, but it's just so low-budget and janky that it's hard to recommend. #92: A Hole New World (2hr) - Decent NES-style platformer where the world has an upside down version when you fall through pits. I think the gimmick is neat but not fully explored enough. #93: Planet Alpha (5hr) - Cinematic platformer akin to Inside or Another World where you are navigating an alien planet. Has some pretty sights, but the story is kind of.. eh. #94: Costume Quest (5.5hr) - I actually had played most of this game a long time ago, picked my save back up and found out I was 10 minutes away from the final boss, lol #95: Hyper Light Drifter (6hr) - Solid top-down action game, most people know this one, it lives up to its reputation, although having played Unsighted recently, I definitely am up for a more up-tempo version of this. These games I wrote write-ups for in the Steam thread, as I've been playing games on vacation: #96: Valfaris (5hr) #97: The Wild Eight (9hr) #98: Family Man (5hr) #99: Ageless (8hr) #100: Hotshot Racing (1hr) #101: Adventures of Chris (3.5hr)
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Jul 4, 2021 03:19
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Work was incredibly slow this month and I spent much of it sat in an office on my own with gently caress all to do, so got through quite a lot of games. Glad to finally finish RE6. despite my co-op partner noping out due to boredom. A good month for writing though: one of the sites I write for got bought out by a company with a bunch of big gaming sites in their portfolio and I'm going to get a bunch more gaming work. That should include some big reviews, a couple of features and hopefully some interviews. Hope it shakes out well, could be rad. I also agreed to move in with my girlfriend, though dark clouds are possibly on the horizon as she wants me to get rid of some consoles first. Right now I have an Xbox, an X360, 2x PS3s (one with PS2 BC), a PS4 Pro, a PS5, a Wii U, a Switch, a 3DS, and a Vita. I figure I can ditch the 360, the Wii U and one of the PS3s no problem, but the rest would be a toughie. How can I get rid of my PS4 when it's got P.T. on it?! Anyhow, here's what I played this month: Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (Gamecube, 2004) - Much worse than I remembered it being and has aged much worse than the '98 original. Kinda hope we don't see another remake tbh.  Resident Evil 6 (PC, 2013) - Tedious, ugly and terribly written bullshit. 20 hours of game and I still don't really understand what's going on. I don't blame my gf for leaving me to grind through this alone.  WET (Xbox 360, 2009) - Short, goofy and mostly forgotten action game with a bunch of similarities to Stranglehold. Had a surprisingly good time with it and appreciated that it didn't outstay its welcome.  Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 1991) - I appreciate all the SNES-based upgrades, but it's still a step down from Castlevania III. A big of an anticlimax after hearing so much about how great it was. I didn't even like the soundtrack that much.  Cloudpunk (PC, 2020) - Got commissioned for a review of the City of Ghosts DLC so had to play the main game first. Fun and chilled-out cyberpunk delivery driver-em-up, though a little repetitive by the end.  Cloudpunk: City of Ghosts (PC, 2021) - Was wary about going straight into this as it's the same length as the main game and mechanically identical. But it's a much better story than the core game and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Basically the second chapter in the story. Brilliant indie game.  Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 6: Primal (PC, 2021) - Not a huge fan of adding crafting to Fortnite, but eventually figured it out and hit lv. 100 in the Battle Pass. Have been giving it a break for a few weeks though.  Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (Xbox, 2004) - Has aged very poorly and am really not a fan of the brutal difficulty and trial-and-error stealth.  The Magnificent Trufflepigs (PC, 2021) - Disappointing metal detector game that turns out to fake the whole metal detecting thing (you just find stuff at pre-determined times). Has a stupid twist at the end of the story that doesn't make any sense.  Bubbles the Cat (PC, 2019) - Single button platformer (a bit like Mario Run) that gets wickedly hard. Fortunately comes with 'Boost' options if you get really frustrated.  Bad Government (PC, 2018) - Crappy Reigns-style government sim that quickly gets repetitive and boring.  A Mortician’s Tale (PC, 2017) - Was really looking forward to this, but it turned out to be 30 mins long and barely a game at all as you don't make any decisions. Also was put off by the fact you can't see the corpses' tits.  Got a bunch of cool stuff for my birthday inc RE: Village and Nier Replicant, so playing them. If I need to ditch some consoles I need to get through my unplayed retro games, so will try to beat The Darkness, NiGHTS: Journey into Dream, and will probably make a stab at Twilight Princess. I'm also still hooked on VF5 and finally got the hang of Moose Life. Good times ahead.
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Jul 6, 2021 17:07
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Steam Life is Puzzle Life. BEATEN: A Monster's Expedition. Very cute, and now that I'm through with it, "Stephen's Sausage Roll, but better" sums it up even better than it did in my first impression. The puzzles get progressively more complex, and my toolkit gets progressively more sophisticated, as the game goes on, but there are no sharp boundaries where I am obviously given something I previously didn't have. In fact, sometimes, it is the fact that I am revisiting an area that, in its own right, improves my toolkit, even in cases where player knowledge was not holding me back. It's beautifully understated and didn't wear out its welcome, though I also found exactly one secret out of the dozens that apparently exist. STARTED: Cosmic Express. Same publisher as A Monster's Expedition. This is a set of puzzles where you're drawing one non-intersecting line to connect a bunch of points of interest in the correct order (which is to say, you're delivering cute little aliens to their homes and restaurants and such). This gets out of hand pretty fast. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to mark this as un-BACKLOG since it seems implausible I'll actually be able to complete it. IN PROGRESS: Contraption Maker. I've now reached the first few puzzles where I had to have pixel-perfect placement to solve them, which is discouraging—I've still got three difficulty levels to go! So far, at least, this has only happened when I've been "cheating" and making solutions that treated parts as red herrings that weren't supposed to be red herrings. All the rest of my progress is more Genesis grinding. COMPLETED: Phantasy Star II. This did wear out its welcome by the end, as almost the entire back half of the game felt like a tremendous slog, and there is essentially no narrative payoff for any of it. Still, I had some fun with the battle system and I enjoyed exploring dungeons for awhile until I got sick of exploring and checked a map, and then I enjoyed plotting routes through the dungeons with access to the maps. I understand the game originally shipped with a map pack and strategy guide, and the map pack improves the game quite a lot. COMPLETED: The Revenge of Shinobi. This game is tremendously rude, packed with extremely tight jumps, ruthless enemy knockback, widespread instant death, and a teleporter maze that was far worse than any of the teleporter mazes in Phantasy Star II, since all trips are one-way, there's exactly one correct path, and enemies can knock you into teleporters and activate them. At least it's got a Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack. COMPLETED: Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master. Of the three Genesis Shinobi games (Revenge, Shadow Dancer, and this), this is the best one. It has the most variation in stuff you do, the best moveset by far, and various QoL improvements surrounding your ninja magic and parry/block moves. It's got a "teleporter maze" of its own too but that maze's ultimate complexity is no worse than the Boo Mansions in Super Mario World. The last couple levels are still a pretty horrific gauntlet, though; I get the distinct impression that this game was not intended to be beaten. Moving forward, I could continue my sequence of mediocre Genesis brawlers and grind through the Golden Axe trilogy, or I could play an actually good Genesis game like Shining Force, or I could go back to my other consoles and start making progress on Metroid Prime 2 or Mario + Rabbids or DKC Tropical Freeze. Sometimes a backlog is less of a burden and more of a case of having options.
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Jul 23, 2021 08:35
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"COMPLETED": Columns I. This match-3 puzzle game doesn't actually have an ending, but I'm calling it done based on earning the achievement and challenge medal in the game. Worth playing, but not as good as Tetris. COMPLETED: Golden Axe I. The classic side-scrolling beat-em-up. It has aged like fine wine. COMPLETED: Gunstar Heroes. A side-scrolling shooter / platforming thing, and it has aged far less well than Golden Axe I. It's the bosses that ruin it for me; they're the standard "figure out the pattern and attack at the right time" sort of thing, but your character moves slowly, and there's a noticeable quarter-second or so of delay between pressing a key and the game noticing it, so you have to anticipate the bosses' moves well in advance of them happening. I didn't hate enough to give up on it, but that's the most positive thing I can say about it. COMPLETED: Sonic CD. Apparently, after Sonic I, the dev team was split in two, so Sega could work on this and Sonic II simultaneously. The divergent designs really show, as Sonic CD is far more like Sonic I than the numbered sequels. The time travel mechanic is a bit fiddly and hard to use, but on the whole it's another Mega Drive Sonic game. It's better than Sonic I, but not as good as the numbered sequels to I. Worth playing if you liked the other Mega Drive Sonics. MASTERED: Yakuza 0. What an amazing game. I remember someone describing this game as a giant toybox, and it really is. This game goes out of its way to encourage 100% completion, simply by having so many things to do. If you're not interested in the main plot, you can go manage your business empire. Don't want to do that either? Do some sidequests, go bowling, play mahjong, race toy cars... Whenever you get bored of one part of the game, there's a long list of other things to do. The main plot is a bit meh, and a few of the bonus Climax battles are extremely annoying, but this game is highly recommended for anyone who even vaguely likes computer games. MASTERED: Dark Arcana: The Carnival. Artifex Mundi Hidden Object Game. Very much a standard AM game. The only interesting part is a character named "The Collector", and he only gets about two minutes max of screen time. COMPLETED (again): 12 Labours of Hercules I. Felt an urge to replay it. Still good. COMPLETED: Plebby Quest: The Crusades. This is basically Total War with the battles replaced by a late 2000s Flash strategy game. You ever play a game that you're not actually enjoying, but it's too strangely compelling to stop? That's how I felt about Plebby Quest. Despite putting 24 hours of my life into this thing, I wouldn't actually recommend it. PLAYED: Nova Drift. A top down shooter inspired by Asteroids, I played it for an hour and a half. It was good, but somewhat lacking in content. I'll come back to this one once it's out of Early Access. COMPLETED: Final Doom. The reason I gave up on it years ago was because I wasn't having fun. After deciding to grit my teeth and just push through to the end, I found the problem. Final Doom has two 32-level campaigns; TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment. The thing is, TNT is by far the worse half of Final Doom. Plutonia is so much better it isn't even funny. It's much harder that TNT despite having significantly fewer monsters; Plutonia is a masterful demonstration of how placing the enemies in exactly the right spot is just as important as raw numbers (if not more so) for creating both challenge and fun. I enjoyed Final Doom way more once I finished slogging through TNT. If you play this yourself, just skip TNT: Evilution. You'll have a much better time. MASTERED: Demon Hunter V: Ascendance. Why are the Demon Hunter HOG series so subpar? Despite this game's advantage of being almost entirely unconnected to the ongoing plot of the first 4 games in the series, it's still one of the lesser AM HOGs. A particularly noticeable weak spot is the bad voice acting. Bleh. MASTERED: 12 Labours of Hercules II: The Cretan Bull. The first game had Hercules rescuing his kidnapped wife from Hades. This one has Hercules stealing cattle from Hera. Kind of a step down in heroism there. Anyway, the game has minor tweaks to smooth out it's predecessors rough edges, but on the whole it's basically more of the same. Still fun, though.  Next up: I bought Dark Souls I during the recent Steam sale. I've never played a Soulslike game; time to see what all the fuss is about.
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Jul 23, 2021 18:46
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EightDeer posted:COMPLETED: Gunstar Heroes. A side-scrolling shooter / platforming thing, and it has aged far less well than Golden Axe I. It's the bosses that ruin it for me; they're the standard "figure out the pattern and attack at the right time" sort of thing, but your character moves slowly, and there's a noticeable quarter-second or so of delay between pressing a key and the game noticing it, so you have to anticipate the bosses' moves well in advance of them happening. I didn't hate enough to give up on it, but that's the most positive thing I can say about it. Thank Christ. I thought I was the only person on Earth who felt this way about Gunstar Heroes. (That one didn't make it onto my Genesis grind, because I most recently cleared it ten years or so ago and I'm still in no hurry to revisit.) Have fun with Dark Souls! It's the game that made me like Zelda 2.
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Jul 23, 2021 19:46
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Boo Gunstar Heroes haters! It's definitely a game about figuring out the right gun combination for each boss and just sliding and throwing everything that gets in your face.
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Jul 23, 2021 19:57
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Gunstar Heroes is a game about combining the blue lazer with the green homing shots to create a square of death that locks on to enemies and annihilates them with a button press.
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Jul 23, 2021 23:21
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I think my bad opinion here ends up being similar to my bad opinions about Link's Awakening: each of these games included elements that I broadly disliked in their genre, and then those parts I didn't like became part of the formula for the entire genre going forward. For Gunstar Heroes, that was the run&gun genre making runs be more like a track meet than a platformer, and bosses with way too much health and way too many phases, and then a handful of specific offenses like the dice-roll level. "But Bromide, doesn't that also condemn basically every Contra from III on?" Yeah, kinda, though I have a soft spot for Hard Corps that the North American version doesn't deserve. I do find myself occasionally rerunning NES Contra just to remind myself that I haven't soured completely on the genre. Speaking of revisiting stuff just to remind myself I loved it, the Genesis grind got me to replay Ristar, the finest Sonic game that is not remotely a Sonic game, and quite possibly the Sega game with the best OST on the Genesis that isn't by Yuzo Koshiro.
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Jul 24, 2021 10:40
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ManxomeBromide posted:I think my bad opinion here ends up being similar to my bad opinions about Link's Awakening: each of these games included elements that I broadly disliked in their genre, and then those parts I didn't like became part of the formula for the entire genre going forward. The problem with Gunstar Heroes in my opinion is not poor design, but poor implementation of that design. I've played other run-and-gun games that had the same style of multi-stage bosses, but they did it far better than Gunstar Heroes did.
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Jul 24, 2021 20:16
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I hate platforming in my run n gunners which is why Treasure clicks so much for me and I hate every Contra except Hardcorp and the ps2 games. Because they’re never good platformers and the boss fights are the best parts.
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Jul 24, 2021 22:27
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My July went pretty well for beating games. Helped that I was in the middle of a vacation to start the month. I have work so I'll just give letter grades this time around. #102: Spitkiss (1hr): B #103: OlliOlli 2 (1.5hr): C+ #104: Sinking Island (10hr): C #105: Grapple Force Rena (3.5hr): B- #106: Still There (4hr): B- #107: Unbeatable (White Label) (2hr): A+ #108: Anna's Quest (7hr): B- #109: Wildfire (6hr): B #110: Alwa's Legacy (6hr): A #111: Binky's Trash Service (1.5hr): A #112: Annalynn (.5hr): B #113: Pear Potion (1.5hr): B #114: Sizeable (2hr): B #115: Cozy Grove (115 real-time days + 21 time-travel days): C- (My thoughts are far too complex to talk about this game in this post, but this is not better than AC:NH, I'll leave it at that for now) #116: Tiny Room Stories (10.5hr) [2021]: B #117: Draugen (2.5hr): C+ #118: Tiny Lands (5hr): B #119: Even the Ocean (5hr): B- #120: Sensorium (4.5hr): B #121: Rumu (2.5hr): B #122: Voxelgram (20hr): A- #123: Willy Jetman (6hr): B- #124: Death off the Cuff (1hr) [2021]: B- #125: The Touryst (5hr): B+ #126: Genesis Noir (3.5hr) [2021]: C- #127: Rabi-Ribi (10.5hr): B-
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Aug 2, 2021 16:43
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