TheHoosier posted:Alright so Ultima is kinda fuckin hard in the later dungeons. I like the game but the last 4 dungeons are some bullshit I had the GameBoy players guide and while it made me want to play Final Fantasy Legend and Sword of Hope, looking at their coverage of Ultima: Runes of Virtue 1 was a 'draw the rest of the owl' moment. Those final levels look like a "Here's a free ticket to the 'All You Can Eat Dungeon' " https://archive.org/details/Nintendo_Players_Guide_Game_Boy/page/n121/mode/2up Coffee Jones fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Feb 8, 2024 |
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Feb 8, 2024 16:10
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| # ? May 9, 2024 11:56 |
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I'm pleasantly surprised by Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart thus far. I like the simple approach to everything even though I imagine the mechanics are going to get a bit deeper. Especially when I'll be able to actually use those monster hearts to improve my slime pal. It can be a very pocketable game, something you can pick and play for a couple minutes to save time, although you'd need to remember where you are going. I was surprised Square-Enix never re-released it for smartphones, I think it would have been a great prelude before releasing the ports of the main series. I do think the game would be better if the battles could go faster and you could bind the L button to function like the A one (for a one-handed control scheme). Issues that can be resolved depending on your hardware. Having a retro handheld configured for L1 to function as A and fast-forward functionality on L2 is great. The start of the game can be a bit daunting with the idea that every move across the overworld is costing you rations, but you can recruit a merchant in the city West of the desert. Putting them in front of your caravan will net you an extra  in every fight, enough to keep up with the upkeep! Together with the cleric in your wagon the fights take a while (since they don't attack), but your troupe will be steady.
Mierenneuker fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Feb 9, 2024 |
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Feb 9, 2024 12:12
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 doifhsdoiufyhdusfsdiufsdf No i'm not having a stroke. Ultima Runes of Virtue II in the bag, and living rent-free in my head for the rest of my days. I'll start by handing it to them: RoV2 is, at least from what I can recall of 1, much better than the first game is. There's a ton of secrets, some of which are even clever, and the game has a lot more of that Ultima whimsy that OS was known for. The game has a quirky sense of humor, and the devs cared enough to make the game 'feel' like an Ultima game rather than just a game with the Ultima branding. There's some cons to that, but i'll get to that next. They don't leave you completely in the dark; there are NPCs that will give pretty decent hints about where to go next. The optional content is... fine? It's there, and i'll give them credit for putting in extra stuff to reward exploration. There is a decent fast travel system, whose absence would absolutely tank the game otherwise. The combat is a facsimile of Zelda, for better or worse. You do get a fair amount of options for tackling encounters, and some enemies require use of certain weapons. You don't get spells like in the PC games, but you do get consumable items that produce effects similar to the spells in those games. Now let's get to the good part: The puzzle and dungeon design is much more intricate than the first, but intricate doesn't always mean good. The first half of the game has a nice escalating curve of difficulty: between death resulting in full health/magic and the ankh being able to reset puzzles, it never gets too out of hand. Then the second half of the game happens, and this is where I start screaming for the devs to be tried at The Hague. The Cavern of Deceit and the Great Stygian Abyss in particular are absolutely brutal. I want to study quantum physics in order to build a time machine to go back and smack the loving devs every time someone mentions a conveyor puzzle, or a puzzle based on the frantic random movements of a tiny creature that can block your path or softlock the puzzle solution, requiring the reset of a puzzle that already takes way too long. The puzzles eventually stop being about the player's ability to solve them and start being about the player desperately praying that the AI routines will result in a puzzle solution. By the time I had reached the end of the game I was exhausted and fed up with it all, so it was wholly appropriate that the end was a complete wet fart just to top it off. Seriously, you return to British, he says "Thanks!" and that's it. The game doesn't actually end; there's no end screen. Completing the other dungeons will reward you with the corresponding Rune of Virtue (Deceit -> Rune of Honesty, etc), except the final dungeon where you get the Rune of Humility which has no stat up. The game is over so it doesn't actually matter, it's just compounding stench on the poo poo cake. gently caress you Richard. Making the player steal a pirate ship at least three times is such a rancid decision it's almost comical. I get it: You have to steal a pirate ship in some of the other Ultima games to progress. At least in 6 you can buy a loving ship and not just hope and pray that the pirates decide to make landfall near you. You shouldn't be able to drop plot-required items. C'mon guys. SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THIS PUZZLE DESIGN. I vacillated wildly between thinking the puzzle design was impressive and a crime against humanity. For better or worse, Ultima wears its old school design philosophy on its sleeve; platform be damned, you WILL do these extremely obtuse and lovely puzzles because that's how these old RPG brands did things. You WILL break out a journal and take notes about what the gently caress you're supposed to be doing. In short: First half of the game is actually decent and a marked improvement on the first; a decent Zelda-like that does a commendable job of being Ultima-esque. The second half of the game is burning hot trash. The endboss has been a talky Saturday Morning Villain for the entire game, but when you actually reach him for the final fight he doesn't say a goddamn thing. He just throws molotovs at you and dies in like 5 hits. gently caress You Richard. Mierenneuker posted:I'm pleasantly surprised by Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart thus far. I like the simple approach to everything even though I imagine the mechanics are going to get a bit deeper. Especially when I'll be able to actually use those monster hearts to improve my slime pal. It can be a very pocketable game, something you can pick and play for a couple minutes to save time, although you'd need to remember where you are going. I was surprised Square-Enix never re-released it for smartphones, I think it would have been a great prelude before releasing the ports of the main series. I'm glad to hear that. I need something to wash out the taste after the final hours of RoV2.
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Feb 9, 2024 14:40
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Mierenneuker posted:The start of the game can be a bit daunting with the idea that every move across the overworld is costing you rations, but you can recruit a merchant in the city West of the desert. Putting them in front of your caravan will net you an extra Yup, this is huge. Put them up front and you get 10g per fight, since they'll act first and "steal" some money from the enemy. The amount probably goes up if you have more merchants in the battle formation. You will also get a Hunter in that town as well after you do The Last Steak, and a Fisher from the port in the northeast. They can use their skills on the overworld map to generate rations. Extremely useful. Edit: Yeah seriously don't let the rations system bug you. It stops being a thing worth worrying about a couple hours in, especially after you get a third caravan and start reforming your monsters. Keep your merchant upfront, fight in forests, and you'll be netting so much money/rations that it ceases to be a concern. Your caravan level goes up as you travel around, which raises your max rations. This game is pretty good so far! TheHoosier fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Feb 9, 2024 |
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Feb 9, 2024 18:26
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TheHoosier posted:Yup, this is huge. Put them up front and you get 10g per fight, since they'll act first and "steal" some money from the enemy. The amount probably goes up if you have more merchants in the battle formation. It does! You can go back to the town that is South-East of Kakaron's castle and the merchant in there will ask to join you as well (probably not until you've delivered the meal). It doubles the funds you get from that wagon. I went back and circled the act 2 area for a bit and that discovery made it even more worthwhile. I now have some money, big apples, wyvern wings and status items in the bank. I also collected some additional monster hearts, which means I've got more possible reform combinations. The game can also be generous when needed. Since early enemies died before acting to a levelled party I just walked around with no rations and 1 HP for a bit. I got two events where a mage offered me to teleport back to the caravan's location. Mierenneuker fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 13:16
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Oh uh there's an entire second act after the 'final boss' that's like an additional 20-25 hours and includes randomized dungeons. maybe later, lmao
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Feb 14, 2024 01:04
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  Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart and Grimace's Birthday in the bag! Caravan Heart is a very good, but still-Dragon-Quest-rear end game. The dual dimension of building your main guard monsters through meticulous monster heart selection and then building your caravan crews out of meticulous unit selection was a satisfying wrinkle in an otherwise bog-standard JRPG battle system. I really enjoyed building up my Building caravans ended up being less tedious than I was afraid it was going to be. With the exception of a couple of roles, everyone felt like they had a place in the party. Need to grind? Stick your Metal Hunter in front. Need money? Stick merchants in the front. Tough fight? Put in your Cleric for heals, Chef for MP restore, and Mappers for speed. Looking for crits? Stack Fighters. I ended up really, really liking this system overall. Being a DQ game, it's of course pretty old-school, which means your decision-making ends up being far more ironclad in commitment than in later entries. There's no item that allows you swap out dudes in the middle of a dungeon; you need to Escape, then haul your rear end back to camp. However, being able to take the camp along with you on the overworld was a tremendous decision that they deserve credit for; that's a lot of foresight in player QoL. The ration system ended up being a non-factor less than halfway through the game; besides the Merchant/Hunter/Fisher tips already mentioned, you'll end up with plenty of food consumables during your journey. I went on extended grinding sessions not even paying attention to the ration meter and I think I went on E maybe once? It's an early game obstacle. When you boil it down, though, it's still Dragon Quest. It's a grind-heavy turn-based battle system that's a little too slow even when you set the AI to play for you. Speaking of, the AI is dogshit at choosing actions so don't rely on it. I play these on an emulator, so I cranked up the speed during grind sessions and turned it back down for story/boss stuff. There are very few problems that buff/debuff/attack/heal can't handle in DQ games, and the same goes for this game. I can't speak for the postgame content and any surprises it may hold, though. The story was pretty basic. You don't play these games for mechanical complexity in the combat system, and probably don't play them for the story (unless it's DQ5). They're very much a comfort food: You can zone out to your favorite video essays, smack Slimes until your thumb is worn to the born, and largely have an enjoyable experience. This added enough layers to the character-building system to provide motivation to finish, and for that i'll give this game props. Good game! Grimace's Birthday is hilariously short and also a very funny thing to exist in TYOL 2024. It's a very competent Game Jam game, right down to very cringe-y 'Hello, fellow kids!' dialogue between the goddamn McD's gang of freaks. I didn't even know this was a thing, so I appreciate it being nominated for this month. Not much else to say other than, "Good job, devs!"
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Feb 17, 2024 01:25
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Catch-up time!  Grimace's Birthday This was surprisingly fun! Laughably short (which was expected, honestly), but it actually controlled pretty well and the devs even had the idea to give each stage (all two of 'em!) different gimmicks. Not going to mention how many times I sent the fat purple oaf into the abyss (he is a bit floaty/drifty with momentum which always causes me problems in 2D platformers) as he scurried around atop the city, but the whole thing was wrapped up in fewer than 10 minutes. So of course I did it again. To top it off, I am now curious as to what a Chicken McNugget birthday cake would really be like. That """dialogue""" though made me loving wince. Jesus. Bomberman Quest I went through this one a few years back for RetroAchievements, so excuse me for not actually playing it again so soon. It is what it is, a fun enough Zelda-esque adventure, but god drat movement is so loving slow, and doddering around the map like some geriatric old duffer, slowly acquiring the appropriate gear to deal with whatever puzzle needs solving/monster needs I know I almost gave up reasonably early myself when I first played it on my GB some 20 years ago. Double Dragon Advance Ah man, this... aaagghhh. I'm (not) sorry but I just cannot do Double Dragon in general, and this, despite the (supposed) QoL improvements over that archaic pioneer of scrolling beat-em-ups, is no exception to that. It, like the rest, just feels so clunky and awkward, and adding mechanics such as a parry to what is fundamentally such a frustratingly stiff combat system just feels meaningless. The wind-up on every single god drat one of your own attacks -- even a basic lovely punch -- is pretty loving unforgivable, too. No sir, I don't like it. Kirby's Pinball Land A classic, a childhood favourite of mine and something I still pick up to relax* with. The story is weird, even by Kirby standards, and explained in seconds after you start the game; King Dedede jumps Kirby while he's out walking around, and decides to escape by way of creating pinball bumpers. Kirby, being Kirby, turns into a pinball and chases him.  The object of the game is almost as simple; three tables with three levels a piece. Get to the top level of each table, do the thing to make the Warp Star appear, slap the bollocks off the boss (which is definitely easier said than done in Poppy Bros. case), repeat for the other two tables then go and give King Dedede himself a good shoeing for cluttering Dream Land with so much needless pinball stuff. Then the bastard gets away and Kirby finds himself in pinball limbo, repeating the task again, endlessly chasing Dedede until Game Over happens. The three tables have that undeniable Kirby charm to them with characters featuring and functioning as board mechanics which can potentially alter the level they appear on (at least temporarily). As a kid I was initially in absolute hysterics at the centred Kabu face on Wispy's stage having his eyes pop out whenever he was hit, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't still allow myself a slight smirk at it today. Each table also has a unique bonus room, accessed from the middle level of each, and these rooms can seriously inflate your score to ludicrous levels. Ultimately, that's what the game is -- chasing a high score until you're out of pinballs. I mean it's not that much of a surprise to discover the game loops endlessly, considering pinball is all about getting the high score anyway. I also adore the music, and the High Score theme is just so loving good and catchy for what's only a looping 15-second bop. *Until the physics decide to inexplicably bullshit me out of a life by dropping the ball dead-centre from the top for all three levels, then it's just an immensely frustrating experience which I hate with the power of a thousand burning suns, causing me to start hurling obscenities around and curse the day the game was created. Elevator Action EX This one is something I'd been meaning to get around to for a while now, since the Game Boy version of the original Elevator Action is another childhood game of mine (and it was hard as loving nails). Happy to see that this is essentially that game again, but with some QoL additions and entirely new features thrown into the mix. The single greatest improvement is the elevator speed itself being cranked up to 11! No more dawdling around between floors waiting for some behatted mook to turn around and look at the opposite wall -- just zoom on past and shoot him in the face along the way! Of course, the objective is "go into ! marked doors and kill everyone in your way", through 16 somewhat labyrinthine buildings, each built with what is an impossibly convoluted network of elevators, escalators and laundry chutes as the only way to get around. Doors marked ? contain random goodies, usually a weapon of sorts but may also hold extra health. Three characters to choose from, the usual trope of 'fast fragile girl' (Sarah), 'Mr Average' ( Playing as Sarah is essential if you don't want to end up as dog food (god I loving hate the dogs) or get loving obliterated by the final boss' speed. Shotgun is still best gun and now it's even better. Crushing mooks under elevators is still far more enjoyable than it should be. Miscalculating a jump and falling down a 40ft elevator shaft still has me cringing at my own impatience and stupidity. Fantastic. 
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Feb 17, 2024 15:32
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ZogrimAteMyHamster posted:
I have put more time into Kirby's Pinball Land than any other game in history with the possible exception of Crazy Taxi. I don't even think I knew you could beat the game for months because I never wanted to beat the bosses and would just play the soccer mini game a bunch to cheese my score and bonuses.
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Feb 20, 2024 22:05
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