Fresh Releases - a thread for discovering interesting new games

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CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

pray for my aunt posted:

I've been really enjoying Phantom Brigade. It's very narrative light, partially in a build-your-own-narrative way, but also in a way that may make it seen a bit empty.

Looting enemy mechs to build your own is pretty well implemented, and the range of weapons, mech parts, random perks and equippable modules makes for a pretty wide pool. If you spend a lot of time in one area, you will hit a wall of not upgrading your mechs until you go to a higher level area, meaning you'll be doing back-to-back battles with the same setup.

It does feel like it's missing a layer or two of customisation or progression - the pilots themselves are pretty perfunctory, which gets in the way of build-your-own narrative when you are more attached to your guns than your people.

Moment-to-moment gameplay is real fun - setting up and executing turns feels good, watching your sniper shots obliterate enemy machines is satisfying. The few caveats are that it's easy to fall into a rhythm and just do the same thing every fight and have it work - enemy ai and variety can have a hard tie giving you a challenge (this might change one i start stepping into stronger enemies - just hopefully not in the 'damage sponge' kind of way. Also, the turn replays don't show damage numbers (useful info) and it can only replay the previous turn - basically everyone wants full combat replays.

Learning and using the hand systems is fun - once you start getting better gear and more customisation options, you can start doing some unfair stuff. Heavy machine guns are brutal but hard to set up a good turn with, and learning how to bulldoze smaller enemies with a heavy mech is a lightbulb moment that changes the way you play. Unfortunately, melee weapons are super finicky and the combat preview is bad at telling you the outcome of using them - the game need a training dummy mode for testing weapons.

Very fun, can be frustrating before you get the hang of it (and get better equipment, like the thruster jets), could potentially get samey if you let it.

Some additional thoughts: The looting system can be a bit too safe - you can carefully take out a pilot with concussion damage and leave the mech intact, letting you salvage it for cheap. Or, you can melt it into slag with an Ultraheavy Machine Gun and still loot every part of, it will just take more of your salvage budget. Parts being destroyed might be bad gamefeel though, especially since you have to salvage your own damaged parts.
Early game can be extra tough because you have a hard time dealing with enemies, allowing reinforcements to arrive, which becomes insurmountable. Coupled with missiles being hard to deal with early (before you have jumpjets, are good at using them, and are good at managing heat while using them) you can feel a bit stuck.
"Not getting samey' doesn't necessarily mean changing your loadout constantly, you just need to go out of your comfort zone a bit. I got a special mission that sent me into a zone stronger than I was currently, and while I was there I raided some enemy convoys and got some real sweet equipment, then hightailed it back into safer waters - tense and rewarding.
The building destruction physics look real nice, and play well with the gameplay too. You can duck behind a house to dodge an AR or shotgun, but heavier weapons which mulch right through it - a bigger building will last longer, though. Towers fall down real nice when the lower part is destroyed, too.
I have hit some bugs - I'm not sure if any of them are caused my continuing my save from the demo. There are battles where you're supposed to join in with the Home Guard vs enemies, but every one I've joined I've had a single NPC ally tank as the only Home Guard unit. The Supercharge weapon module increases weapon damage and reduces its firing time - very strong. Supercharge II increases damage by ~15%, but Supercharge I increased damage by 70% - I think there's an extra 0 in there.
I have had some crashes but I think that is due to me being greedy and running Chrome at the same time and it runs out of memory on my midrange PC.

Once you start hitting "experimental" enemies things start getting weirder in terms of enemy tactics. I've had one patrol just keep trying to stand off and pummel me with plasma balls outside of half of my squad's range, then hit a patrol that was 1 mech and 7 tanks that all rushed me with shotguns and auto railguns. Which made my sniper a bit harder to use.

But yes I absolutely could recommend it. Being able to slide actions around on a timeline to see when something is most useful is pretty rad.

Also the game doesn't do very well to mention friendly fire, which is a thing you will absolutely do a few times before you start really paying attention. I've shot my own machine gun off before crossing in front of my assault mech.

I really wish they let you pick which mech starts were on each mission. Seems like 7/10 times my sniper and ML platform start in front.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2023 16:05

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 02:10

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

Another light bulb moment is recognizing which weapons can be blocked by buildings and which weapons laugh at buildings

# ¿ Mar 6, 2023 19:48

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

There is no pause and there's no rewind in this game. You are blocking out the actions for the next 5 seconds in advance. You basically have two tracks, one is movement or not movement, the other one is gun and shield. Some actions use both tracks. You can slide elements along the track to find the most efficient spot to use.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2023 19:56

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

I'd say it's 1.0 ready given the scale these days. Melee being broken is probably the biggest systemic issue I've seen.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2023 21:37

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

BurningBeard posted:

My point is that describing an aesthetic by creating a bespoke portmanteau is both funny and kinda useless. It�s not that serious lol.

All words are created to describe things.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2023 16:41

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

Chadzok posted:

Boltgun feels like an alternate reality doom 2016, an equally valid 'modern reimagining' of the original games. I really hope the modding scene finds a home there.

Pretty sure that's on purpose.

# ¿ May 26, 2023 14:52

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

Huh, I don't think i've ever seen people say it was a slog before.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2023 22:14

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

Maybe the DLC added something because while a lot of the npcs are a bit of an rear end in a top hat to start, the plot is all about you helping them come to terms with various traumas and curses and stuff and reconnect with each other.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2023 16:23

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

lobsterminator posted:

You're thinking about Old Trek. New Trek is all about visceral space wars with hundreds of ships shooting lasers everywhere and everything is miserable.

No see if you just don't watch Discovery or Picard, then that's not true and you don't have to worry about it.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2023 15:45

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

Play posted:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179850/Cobalt_Core/
https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256974436/movie480_vp9.webm?t=1696870410

100% positive out of 12. I know some goons played the demo and liked it.

Just doing a quick trip report. Finished all the content in 27 hours. But there is something very engaging with the story, which in a deck builder roguelike I was not expecting at all. And the ending is phenomenal.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2023 17:27

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

King of Solomon posted:

I could have sworn they also tell you that you can hit them to save, but maybe it's not as clear as it should be

They do not. I also refunded it. Not because of the save thing but just because it's not my jam.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2024 07:42

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

They prompt you to interact with it and interacting with it *doesn't* actually do the key function the thing has? They went through the trouble of giving it an 'interact' button but it doesn't actually make you interact with it? That sucks.

It does the thing apparently, it just didn't actually tell you they were doing the thing. They fixed that now.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2024 00:08

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

Deakul posted:

I just can't imagine anyone would seriously want to put up with the OG Tomb Raiders in TYOOL 2024, I remember absolutely hating the controls back when it came out on the PS1 too.

I played a little bit of the first tomb raider, and then never played any tomb raider ever again, because of how loving god awful the controls for the first one were.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2024 18:46

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775490/Slice__Dice/

Not exactly a new release, but it's gotten an iOS and Steam release with the 3.0 update.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5UBfPwqp7s

# ¿ Mar 20, 2024 19:54

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

It's so fantastic I bought it on steam and another copy to give to a friend on steam, even though I still have it on my phone and mostly play it there.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2024 02:28

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 02:10

CainFortea: Oct 15, 2004

HopperUK posted:

I asked about Chrono Ark in the Steam thread and have been assured it is horny, but not *creepy*.

It's got an upskirt shot of a little anime girl in the trailer. Pretty sure it's creepy.

# ¿ May 3, 2024 23:27

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Fresh Releases - a thread for discovering interesting new games