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Played through Oracle of Seasons and Ages for the first time. Seems like I follow the normal trajectory of enjoying Seasons more, but I did appreciate Ages for having more difficult puzzles. Glad I went back to give these a shot because they're really good Zelda games!
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Mar 9, 2024 06:20
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Finished Yakuza 4 Remastered. From the start it felt like a technical improvement over 3, graphically pretty modern. I thought the story was interesting but the forced running around (as Saejima) dragged a bit. The addition of roofs and underground was cool, something I didn't hear much about prior to playing it, but it made navigating Kamurocho confusing. Akiyama's and Hana's VA was a major standout (of course it was when Hana was voiced by Aya Hirano), and in general I liked Akiyama as a character a lot. I think they did Hana dirty, making her one of the only characters in the franchise that is not slim as a stick (not counting the random thugs on the streets), and tied it to some dumb character arc where she loses weight in the end. Like what. I'm writing this as I'm about ~10 hours into Yakuza 5 Remastered, and I hope that 3'll get a Kiwami treatment, but 4 and 5 seem alright to me without it.
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Mar 9, 2024 08:40
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Hana ruled and the out-of-nowhere weight loss at the end was powerfully stupid, yeah. When she beats the utter poo poo out of those idiots who try to break into Sky Finance is so loving cool. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Mar 9, 2024 |
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Mar 9, 2024 08:55
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wrong thread!
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Mar 9, 2024 08:57
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This link takes me to a EHCP (whoever they are) site asking admins to login? I found a NOLF with Widescreen Patch from 2018 searching around, if it's abandonware I can upload it for archival and preservation reasons.
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Mar 9, 2024 11:43
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Desdinova posted:This link takes me to a EHCP (whoever they are) site asking admins to login? Yeah it is
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Mar 9, 2024 11:56
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Yeah the main reason why it "cant" be remastered is because apparently nobody can figure out who actually owns the rights for it. So before legal action could be taken against you, they would first need to figure out who is going to take legal action.
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Mar 9, 2024 13:11
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Needed a palette cleanser after a couple long back to back JRPGs, so blew through Turnip Boy Robs a Bank in a couple sittings. Cute game, if you liked the first one you should definitely play this. I'm not a big run-based guy but this is so short and quick to progress through I didn't mind the repetition. Am kind of annoyed a couple side quests are oddly grindy so I probably won't go for 100%, but I don't mind stopping just short.
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Mar 9, 2024 20:10
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H13 posted:Yeah the main reason why it "cant" be remastered is because apparently nobody can figure out who actually owns the rights for it. Sounds ripe for an OpenNOLF project tbh
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Mar 9, 2024 21:33
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Just beat Baldur's gate. First stop in my bg thru bg 3 run. Love this old as game. I know in my head it isn't perfect but in my heart its a 10 out of 10. Out of all the games I've ever loved its def the oldest that I've replayed to completion the most. Now onto siege of dragon whatever. Don't care as much about that one but its more Baldur's gate so I'll have fun
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Mar 10, 2024 00:39
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Shard posted:Just beat Baldur's gate. First stop in my bg thru bg 3 run. Love this old as game. I know in my head it isn't perfect but in my heart its a 10 out of 10. Out of all the games I've ever loved its def the oldest that I've replayed to completion the most. BG1 and BG2 are still probably my favourite games of all time. BG3 disappointed me. It's an excellent Divinity game, but not a great BG game.
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Mar 10, 2024 03:23
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I couldn't disagree more. Everything I love about bg 1 and 2 the feeling they have me back in 98 and 2000 bg 3 gives me again. I understand why some don't see it that way but I will take more larian games like bg 3 over the games that bioware makes now
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Mar 10, 2024 03:59
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I agree that it feels a bit different, but I chalk it up to being a jump from 2e to 5e.
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Mar 10, 2024 04:11
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Punished Ape posted:I agree that it feels a bit different, but I chalk it up to being a jump from 2e to 5e. It's the fact that it's turn-based that kills it for me. I LIKE turn based, but it's why it feels like Divinity, not BG. Turn based meant that you didn't dungeon crawl fighting progressively harder trash mobs until the BBEG. It meant that exploring was kinda...harmless because due to balancing, they had to telegraph every fight so that you didn't stumble into something unprepared. It also meant that every fight had to be a 30 minute time sink to make stopping the game worthwhile. The switch to turn based completely changed the design of the exploration and combat encounters. It's not fair to say that its BAD or that it doesn't work, but it doesn't feel like BG.
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Mar 10, 2024 05:34
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I wish BG and BG2 were designed from the ground up to be Turn Based. Then I could see all the cool wizard stuff.
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Mar 10, 2024 05:44
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Just played Obra Dinn not knowing anything about it and blitzed through it in around 5 play sessions Holy poo poo that is a good game, if you play try to avoid spoilers if you can, some of the reveals were a real wtf moment It was nice to use some of the useless knowledge I got from the master and commander series re: professions
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Mar 10, 2024 06:35
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Alctel posted:Just played Obra Dinn not knowing anything about it and blitzed through it in around 5 play sessions There's regrettably nothing else quite like Obra Dinn (and no sign of a sequel, augh), but you definitely should give Case of the Golden Idol a spin.
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Mar 10, 2024 06:53
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I just beat Rayman Legends! Not for the first time, but I installed it on my Steam Deck recently and I guess it didn't have cloud saves so I had to start from scratch, which was actually a load of fun. This game is a delight and the Steam Deck runs it beautifully, even in 4k. The platforming is tight and the art is a riot of colour and exaggerated animations. It's a bit too challenging for my five year old but he absolutely loves watching me play, especially the chase levels and the music stages, which are a victory lap after each boss where you run, jump and smash through a level in time to a song like Black Betty or Eye of the Tiger. I first started playing games in the 16 bit era so 2D platformers are synonymous with gaming for me, and Legends is one of my absolute favourites. It's a huge shame that Rayman got sidelined in favour of the Rabbids, but I could honestly pick this game up and play it fresh every few years and it'd still make me smile.
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Mar 10, 2024 10:36
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Jerusalem posted:Hana ruled and the out-of-nowhere weight loss at the end was powerfully stupid, yeah. She ruled for sure, wish Yakuza had more/better female characters.
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Mar 10, 2024 12:57
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Alctel posted:Just played Obra Dinn not knowing anything about it and blitzed through it in around 5 play sessions Discendo Vox posted:There's regrettably nothing else quite like Obra Dinn (and no sign of a sequel, augh), but you definitely should give Case of the Golden Idol a spin. I'll throw in Chants of Sennaar as another sorta, kinda, almost-but-not-quite Obra Dinn-like. It's the one where you climb a tower and have to figure out the different languages to progress. There are a couple of stealth sections in one part of the game that basically nobody likes, but they're short and not that punishing when you fail. Otherwise it's a mostly chill game about figuring out "up" and "down" in symbol languages, then translating that to a different language based on a mural painted on the wall, etc. And it only takes 10-15 hours to 100%.
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Mar 10, 2024 13:13
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i just beat pony island and i'm kinda amazed that people were really impressed by this 8 years ago? some of the little meta tricks were well-executed but that's about all it had going for it and those few clever moments aren't enough to carry the rest of it which doesn't have much to it. it isn't just that mullins did most of the ideas here better with inscryption, but that pulling similar tricks while having a much much better game attached to it does make pony island pale in comparison.
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Mar 10, 2024 13:45
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Party Boat posted:I just beat Rayman Legends! Not for the first time, but I installed it on my Steam Deck recently and I guess it didn't have cloud saves so I had to start from scratch, which was actually a load of fun. I put this on my wishlist after loving Prince of Persia, same team right?
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Mar 10, 2024 13:59
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lih posted:i just beat pony island and i'm kinda amazed that people were really impressed by this 8 years ago? some of the little meta tricks were well-executed but that's about all it had going for it and those few clever moments aren't enough to carry the rest of it which doesn't have much to it. it isn't just that mullins did most of the ideas here better with inscryption, but that pulling similar tricks while having a much much better game attached to it does make pony island pale in comparison. 2016 was a simpler time.....
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Mar 10, 2024 13:59
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Discendo Vox posted:There's regrettably nothing else quite like Obra Dinn Look up The Roottrees Are Dead if you haven't already
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Mar 10, 2024 15:36
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Will look up all three of these, thanks guys!
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Mar 10, 2024 15:56
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External Organs posted:I put this on my wishlist after loving Prince of Persia, same team right? Now that I look it up: yes, which means I've also wishlisted Prince of Persia! Er, or I will once it actually comes to steam... Party Boat fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 16:42
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Party Boat posted:Now that I look it up: yes, which means I've also wishlisted Prince of Persia! Yeah... I played it on the Switch.
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Mar 10, 2024 17:18
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NOLF Widescreen version: https://mega.nz/file/8SdCUS7T#H2dHXuOahJ0vDT6Erc9o7L8f9qi7Iazge3IoEaQjnz4
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Mar 10, 2024 20:07
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I beat Pacific Drive the other day. Really loved the game. The sort of attention paid to protecting, maintaining, and upgrading your car, the journeys out into the zone, the characters, log entries, I enjoyed all of it (except for the mid zone, which had some of the most annoying poo poo and I tried to avoid as much as possible). Would love to play any DLC that comes out, just to spend more time in the world. That said, the ending kind of disappointed me. I know that they set up what the goal of the whole endeavour is going to be at the outset (freeing you from the grip of the remnant), but since you never really feel the effects of it while playing, it doesn't really feel like you did anything. I was hoping for more to happen, or for a more...I dunno, something bigger to occur in the climax. Ah well.
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Mar 11, 2024 03:33
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I just beat Hoverbat's Zelda 2 remake and it was pretty fantastic. Full of lots of little quirks and secrets and additions that allowed me to actually enjoy my time with Zelda 2 which I didn't think was possible. it even turns out after you beat it that there's a second quest, not sure if I've got the energy for that. Overall a fantastic experience, if you can't find it (Nintendo can be pretty litigious) let me know, I might know a guy.
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Mar 11, 2024 03:46
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Just finished a blind 100% run of The Talos Principle 2 I never managed to 100% the first game though I got pretty close. Completed all the mainline puzzles and got the standard ending, but the final set of puzzles were locked behind the secret stars which I never managed to fully track down. Apparently one of them requires you to scan a QR code for the solution, that one alone would have blocked me even if I'd found the other ones. The rest were just really well hidden and tended to require sneaking an object outside one of the main puzzles in some obscure way, I think I was missing 4 or 5 when I eventually gave it up. There was nothing that obtuse in this one and I was able to complete everything without ever resorting to using the autocomplete consoles or looking anything up online. Some of the stars are well hidden and require close observation of the environment but they don't need anything external to the game. Puzzle design is on par with the original, lots of elegant and satisfying solutions with a difficulty curve that starts easy in each biome and ramps up from 1-8 as the new mechanics are explored. Talos 1 had a few annoying elements like the patrolling mines and the recorder, I didn't really feel that way with any of the items introduced this time. They're more about the core logic of redirecting lasers than avoiding hazards, the only way you're going to die this time around is if you're not looking where you're going and fall in deep water. Makes for a more relaxed experience when you never have to worry about running into a mine or being gunned down by a sentry turret. Each zone contains two "lost" puzzles which tend to be some of the harder ones and a golden door puzzle which you unlock at the end of the game, those were a step above the rest and some of the game's standouts. Still never took longer than 20 minutes to solve one if that says anything about the difficulty cap, I was never stonewalled like I am in a game like Baba is You where I have access to 20 different puzzles and can't solve any of them. Finding some of the stars took over an hour but that was more a matter of running past something important over and over while scouring the relatively large hub areas. The story of Talos 1 was about creation of human consciousness through interaction with the simulation, Talos 2 deals with what sort of civilization can be created once they leave the simulation and have to live in the physical world. Characterization is done well, for a bunch of robots who look identical outside of which color they use to accent their frames your companions all have distinct personalities and ideas about how you should interpret what's happening on the island. It ultimately comes down to a 1-2-3 choice of (Megastructure is good/neutral/bad) in the end but none of the arguments made are inherently wrong and there's no obvious bad ending. Won't spoil anything here but the dialogue branches do a good job of allowing for meaningful decisions and everything is wrapped up nicely, especially with the bonus cutscenes if you get 100%. Visuals are a major step up, just about anything made in Unreal 5 is going to look amazing. Lots of sweeping, impossible architecture and varied climates expressed in each of the 12 zones, with each containing their own unique monolithic laser tower as an ultimate goal. Only took a few screenshots myself but there's a full photo mode included, I'm sure those inclined could spend a lot of time taking glamor shots in the downtime between solves.     Not many downsides to speak of really. Was kind of bummed when I reached the final zone and found out it's the only one without a new mechanic, but it ended up containing some of the best puzzles in the game so I left feeling like it was a good way to close the game out and incorporate everything that came before. The "follow the spark" stars are kind of pointless and feel out of place, they probably could have just cut most of them or put more effort into making the paths interesting. One or two will venture into the main puzzles and require you to find an inventive way to reach them but most are just a matter of finding it floating in the wild and then following it from A to B with nothing of interest happening between. Not enough of a downside for me to really care, this was an incredible game and something I would recommend to any puzzle game enthusiast as long as they have the hardware to run it. 10/10
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Mar 11, 2024 04:49
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Rolled credits on Dragon's Dogma. While the game isn't over and has a fairly intriguing post-game I feel like I need to write about it. Dragon's Dogma to RPG games is what Deadly Premonition was to survival horror. It's flawed, it's janky, it's often annoying, yet it's an unforgettable experience. It's pretty clear that developers weren't given budget or time to fully realize their vision: the game (PC version at least) is glitchy, lacks a lot of QoL features, barely has any story or characters, and just sorta ends. Yet despite this, developers had ideas, and in the world where every game feels like same it counts for far more. Dragon's Dogma feels very inspired by Dark Souls with some obtuse mechanics and strange online play, but instead of just copying ghosts and bloodstains like many did, it instead creates new weird things to toy with: having a party where you can hire other people's "pawns" into your entourage is the biggest change to a real-time RPG formula I've seen in a while, for example. The battle system is usually cited as the game's biggest thing, and unfortunately it seems I basically missed out on it by playing as a mage. While towards the endgame it was fun, comparing my experience to others now that the credits have rolled it seems that the magic system is a little less interesting than any other fighting style, requiring you to usually stand in one place for a few seconds to cast a spell; few dozen seconds for an advanced spell. However, even with that, the sheer chaos surrounding me when having four characters on the battlefield was really fun to witness and engage in. If I were to just list off features of this game as though this were a back of the box it'd sound like a pretty poo poo game. It doesn't have that many unique quests, and those that it has can just end upon stumbling onto an invisible trigger. It's characters are barely there and I can remember like 3. The inventory system could be way simpler. The enemy roster is fairly small. The story has you complete a few quests before it just decides to end. Everything about this game is just a little annoying. And yet it's the little touches that absolutely elevate it. The myriad of secrets, choices, discoveries and strange things is incredible. It's a fairly short game, around 30 hours if you do the story and a few quests here and there, and this fact absolutely saves the game that otherwise would be repetitive and slow. I almost want to start a new playthough just to see the quests I missed because I was too busy going forward which led to the deaths of some important NPCs, for example. I can SAY bad things about this game and they are objectively pretty meh, but what this game does well it does so well that you'll walk away from it with nothing but feeling of accomplisment or even curiosity for your future playthroughs. Sure, playing it I was annoyed with the inventory system, but thinking on it I remember enjoying the exploration, bosses, or just the ten-bucks cutscene direction which sometimes makes the game absolutely hilarious. It might not be the best game, but right now it did one thing it needed: it sold me on Dragon's Dogma 2.
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Mar 11, 2024 08:50
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DD reminds me of the latter half (and many other aspects) of FF15 You can clearly see it wasn't done, but you can also see the edges and the shape of the thing they wanted to make, and it was a pretty cool thing DD2 is hopefully going to be all the bits colored in fully
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Mar 11, 2024 09:33
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I really wanted to get into Dragon's Dogma, but I totally did not get the pawn system. Once you get them, you recruit super high level pawns and they do all the work for you? I just didn't get it. It felt like cheating? But I didn't really play that far into it.
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Mar 11, 2024 10:57
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Hiring pawns that are higher than your level costs rift crystals (which can be gained by having your own pawn hired out) which means you can't just grab a level 100 pawn at the start of the game and have them solo everything for you. Hired pawns also don't level up from adventuring with you, so you're incentivised to regularly swap them out at the rift. Leaning heavily on the pawn system can make the game easier than it otherwise would be but I see it as being a bit like the spirit ashes and other summons in Elden Ring - you don't need to use them, but they're there to allow you to make the game a bit less punishing.
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Mar 11, 2024 12:06
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Like others, I really, really, really wanted to like Dragon's Dogma because on paper it sounds like EXACTLY my kind of game, but I just bounced off of my attempts to play it. Really hoping DD2 clicks with me because the game SHOULD be something I just want to devour.
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Mar 11, 2024 12:29
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I beat(?) MyHouse.wad, the weird horror-y Doom mod that gained some traction last year. That was a trip. Just calling it a Doom mod sells the experience short, as it's really a fascinating cross-media horror thing that happens to have a Doom mod at the center of it. I'm assuming a lot of people here are familiar with it, but if you're not, the basic version is: last year, someone posted an unassuming thread on the DoomWorld forums stating that their friend had passed away, leading to the OP inheriting a simple old work-in-progress map recreating the friend's house in Doom. OP cleans up the map and releases it in the friend's honor, the forum users start posting the expected condolences before slowly realizing that there's a lot more going on in the map than initially let on, and it all turns into a community-driven egg hunt to unravel secrets and find the true ending. A lot of this is achieved by trawling through supplemental materials contained in the Google Drive folder where the mod is hosted, including a handful of odd photos and, primarily, a long cryptic journal referencing dreams, nightmares and memories that provide direction on where to go in the map. The map itself is very well done, using a lot of clever triggers and little tricks to create shifting, impossible geometry that loops, grows, and changes in neat and unsettling ways. There are YouTube videos and articles going into excruciating depth on the mechanics and the ~lore~ so I won't retread any of that, but one angle I haven't seen discussed is how it's such a perfect time capsule of horror gaming in the year 2023. Practically everything about the game (I can just call it a game, right?) is distilled from popular horror trends, not in a derogatory way but in a way that feels very of-the-time. The file-of-supernatural-origins backstory is creepypasta 101, the format of a mod for a 30 year old game fits right in with the retro aesthetic that's big now (even though I know Doom modding is its own thing that never went away), the atmosphere & level design leans heavily into liminal spaces which are a big current buzzord, the vague lore snippets feel tailor-made for YouTube It's just a very cool project all around, a hyperspecific niche creation built on years of terminally-online context that somehow loops back around to being borderline-approachable. Good luck explaining it to someone who isn't already suffering from late-stage internet brainworms, though.
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Mar 12, 2024 18:28
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I appreciated MyHouse a lot! I seem to recall the grouchy Doom WAD forum/nursing home locked the thread and started wiping posts once it attracted tourists, which is pretty amusing and true to form
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Mar 12, 2024 18:37
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i'd argue that MyHouse.wad is actually quite approachable as a piece of horror media. it is, at its core, a story about a haunted house that doesn't fully make spatial sense, which is one of the oldest horror settings there is; it's obviously doing riffs on the backrooms/poolrooms here and there, but the map author is clever enough to both avoid straight up copies and to make them cohere around central themes and motifs that don't require foreknowledge of other properties to understand i think a big part of its success is that it builds a bridge between generations in a way that makes it highly approachable: older folks who played doom growing up in the era where custom WADs were all the rage can marvel at the technical complexity that's built on top of a familiar framework (which includes the whole "making your house/school/etc. in doom" trend), while zoomers who're intimately familiar with kane pixels and who otherwise know nothing about classic doom get to see a genuinely great digital representation of liminal spaces that puts its own unique spin on the whole thing instead of just copying mr. pixel's homework. i don't think power pak's video on it getting 10m views is a coincidence, but rather a confluence of two very different communities - ancient doom diehards and a new generation of horror hounds primarily raised on FNaF LPs - coming together
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Mar 12, 2024 18:45
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I just want to know what it was like for the first person who ventured into an unplayed wad thinking "Oh, okay yeah recreation of a house, I'll do the guy a solid and play it to pay tribute to his friend, got half an hour to spare." and just fell down the rabbit hole, returning to the thread ragged and with a 5-o'clock shadow to post "Hey guys it's, uh"
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Mar 12, 2024 18:54
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