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I didn't get as much gaming done this year as I did in 2022, and unlike 2022, while I enjoyed a lot of games, none of them absolutely blew me away the way Vision Soft Reset did last year. So picking favourites was harder. That said, this was clearly the year of the 3d challenge platformer for me, with two of them making it into my top list. I was hoping to be able to consider Blue Reflection Tie, since I got that recommendation from last year's GOTY thread, but I'm only a few chapters into it thus far. Honourable Mentions These are games that I liked, but not enough to make it onto the top list. Strange Horticulture (2022) A...puzzle game, I guess? About running an herbology shop and gradually unraveling the mystery of a sinister cult. I particularly appreciate the herbal reference book with common names and descriptions that are often useless or actively misleading, but in entirely believable, realistic ways. Kandria (2023) This is here partly because it's a fun game in its own right, and partly because the developer wrote the whole thing in Common Lisp and released the whole engine under the ZLib license, a power move that I deeply respect. Shadow Tactics: Aiko's Choice (2021) It's more Shadow Tactics! This is an itty bitty expandalone set halfway through the original game, and it's just as fun as the main game. Definitely don't play it before playing the main game, though. My Games of the Year 7. The Void Rains Upon Her Heart (TBD) This is on my list every year until it releases and probably for at least a year or two after that, because I am still playing it. It's a really solid roguelite, it's a shmup with a gentle onramp for newbies and a really high skill ceiling for experts, it's cute and heartwarming and the developer is completely incapable of not succumbing to constant feature creep so it's not going to be finished until like 2025. It's one of my favourite games of all time and when version 9 lands and adds all the story it's probably going right to the #1 spot, but even with nearly all of the storyline missing it's an incredible game. It's only so low down this list because I haven't actually played as much as of it this year as I have in previous years while I waited for Tower modes, which still means comfortably double-digit numbers of hours. 6. Waves of Steel (2023) This goon-made game is a love letter to the underappreciated PS2 classic Warship Gunner 2, complete with improbably gigantic superweapons and a ship designer that starts you off building itty bitty destroyers and ends up with you asking questions like "how many railway guns can I fit on a twin-hulled battleship?". It's not as huge and perennially replayable as WG2, but it's also a one-person passion project rather than a major release by a well-established gamedev studio. And it's fun on a bun! Highly recommended if you want to zoom around in a ridiculous seagoing contraption of your own design blowing things up. 5. Fae Tactics (2020) I do like me an occasional TRPG, but they tend to be kind of hit and miss, and lately have been more miss. Fae Tactics was a welcome hit, though. It's a "menu-less TRPG", where each character has three active abilities and will automatically pick one depending on whether you target an ally, an enemy, or the unit itself. It still has plenty of mechanical depth, but this results in a very streamlined process of play and puts more weight on choosing the right units and upgrades going into the fight rather than making a small number of "god units" you can deploy everywhere. 4. Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights (2021) I see this described as "dark souls like" sometimes, and I feel like that gives the wrong impression. Aesthetically and thematically it's soulsy as gently caress, but unlike something like Salt & Sanctuary, the gameplay has nothing in common. It's basically a straightforward metroidvania in a world with strong Dark Souls vibes. There's no corpse runs, no stamina management -- indeed, it's quite forgiving of failure, which is good because most of the bosses smashed my face in several times before I got the hang of them. The level design starts off extremely boring but once you get out of the starting area it gets a lot more interesting. One thing I appreciate is how generous it is with interesting upgrades. Every miniboss you defeat gets you a new attack (some of which can also be used as ersatz movement abilities). Every boss gets you a new attack and a new movement ability, and (with one late-game exception, where the movement ability is just "you can open these locked doors now" with no other uses) they're all useful. I especially want to call out how getting the grapple beam reveals grapple points all over the place which let you not just reach new areas, but also enable high-speed shortcuts through rooms you've already visited. It has a few missteps (the map could be a lot more useful than it is, the final zone kind of sucks), but overall I liked it enough to 100% it, so it definitely deserves a spot on this list. 3. System Shock Remake (2023, original 1994) Night Dive kickstarted this project way back in 2015, and given the eight year development cycle, multiple redesigns, at least one engine change, and the fact that SS1 is one of my all-time favourites, I honestly wasn't feeling optimistic about this. But I ended up being very pleasantly surprised! There's a few things I wish they'd done differently, but overall this is a fantastic remake that stays very true to the source material, while looking and handling the way nostalgia says it did rather than the way it actually did. I'd comfortably recommend this both to fans of the original and people who want to see what all the fuss is about (and if you want to kick it old-school, with the release of the source code and editing tools there has also never been a better time to get into OG 1994 Shock). 2. Ghostrunner (2020) This is basically a high-speed first-person challenge platformer where you play as a cyborg ninja, which means that in addition to the (often quite spicy) platforming, you also need to kill everyone in the room. Usually, you need to do both at once, which means you need to string together the sequence of jumps, grabs, wall-runs, air-dashes, grapple-beams, and slides necessary to get from point A to point B without plummeting to your death, while also dodging or parrying enemy fire and figuring out to work a bunch of decapitations into your route. It's hard as balls (there are assist options, which I didn't end up using, but it was a near thing in some places) but also loads of fun, and incredibly satisfying when you finally nail that perfect sequence of moves. It also has a fair amount of replayability, between various secrets to find, new game +, a hard mode that adds more difficult enemy placements, and even a roguelite arena-survival mode. And while the bosses were a bit of a mixed bag, I didn't hate any of them, and both Hel and Mara were absolutely incredible fights that basically turned it into a challenge platformer rhythm game. 1. Cloudbuilt (2014) This is an early entry in the genre of "challenge platformer as metaphor for trauma processing", before that concept had been popularized by Celeste and subsequently run into the ground. You play as Demi, a wounded soldier lying unconscious in a hospital while her new prosthetics spin dreams of fragmented aerial ruins into her mind. Each level sees you speeding through one of these ruins using your jetpack, rocket boots, and gun, against a background of Jacob Lincke's incredible soundtrack. The level select has a branching structure, with each branch having its own aesthetic and challenge style, and your initial goal is just to reach the end of one of the four main branches. These all bring you to the same conclusion -- Demi awakening -- but her attitude towards what's happened to her, and her plans for what's next, vary dramatically based on what branch you followed, as each one represents a different approach to coping (or not, as the case might be) with her situation. The branches aren't mutually exclusive; you're free to explore and complete all of them, along with the optional, enemy-free "Fog" branch, and see all four endings. That's not the end of the game, though. There's also the Defiance levels, five super-hard challenges that I suspect unlock an additional ending -- but I'm not sure, because I'm still working on the last one. Or the Remix levels and Battle Challenges, which take pieces of familiar levels and put new twists on them. The level editor has engendered a rich ecosystem of user-created levels, with curated lists of the devteam's favourites sorted by theme and difficulty. And even after all of that, you've only scratched the surface, because the game is waiting for you to turn on competitive mode, enabling faster gameplay, more difficult hazard placement, and half a dozen timed challenges for each level, ranging from simple time trials to one-hit-one-kill, pacifist, and item collection modes -- which you must complete with limited lives, finally explaining what those "life bonus" pickups you may have found in some levels do. Cloudbuilt's original release was, I think, a bit too rough around the edges and a bit too unforgiving to ever make my top ten. The 2017 remake, Super Cloudbuilt, was a more accessible, but the item system that made it so could also be annoyingly grindy. But in the decade since 1.0, Cloudbuilt has received constant developer support, including new levels, polishing and balance fixes for the existing levels, a kinder on-ramp for new players (competitive mode used to be the default and only mode!), improved graphics, massive performance optimizations, and a backport of the better controls originally introduced in Super, while Super itself has been pulled from sale due to publisher fuckery. I think they're both good, and I've logged dozens of hours in both of them this year, but if I had to recommend one I think it has to be the original. Which, depending on when you're reading this, may currently be on sale, so go check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeJTVTWwTxA ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Dec 16, 2023 |
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Dec 7, 2023 03:19
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Lid posted:Six pages and not one mention for last year's winner Elden Ring oof I assume the people who were really pumped about it played it last year when it came out and everyone else is, like me, waiting for the inevitable steeply discounted "Elden Ring Complete Edition" or w/e that includes all the DLC and a bunch of bugfixes that should have been released for the original game, but weren't, while we play through our massive backlogs. haveblue posted:I have posted two lists. One of them is entirely truth, the other one is entirely lies. You may ask me one question Is the list with Forspoken and Cocoon on it the true one? I ask because I remember thinking that the Forspoken trailer looked sick as hell, but then actually reading about it and deciding I wasn't interested, and I can't remember why, and your description makes it sound like something I might actually like. Similarly, I disregarded Cocoon because "by the developer of LIMBO" isn't actually a selling point for me, but it sounds like it might actually be pretty cozy? Argh, these threads always give me more game recommendations than I have time to play
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Dec 8, 2023 01:39
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Aipsh posted:Elden Eing literally too good to be in this year. If you could nominate a game you’ve been playing for more than a year then you’d have ten lunatics with TLOU (PS4) in the top ten I mean, this is is why Void Rains is on my list every year. Songbearer posted:I died a lot in this game and I am very bad at it because I build my robots badly and spend more time picking things that look cool rather than things that actually work. I haven't played AC6, but I have played a lot of Dark Souls and this is the true path. Yes, my stats suck and I die a lot, but I look mad stylish in the process. I am glad to hear that AC6 continues this tradition.
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Dec 8, 2023 03:42
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ultrachrist posted:Putting my list together and enjoying reading everyone's list like always. 2022 has come and gone, and yet, it is not on Steam. It looks like the original is, but Super (a) includes all the DLCs, (b) includes some additional Super-exclusive content, and most importantly, (c) makes a lot of improvements to the physics and controls so that there are no longer keyboard-snappingly frustrating bits where your character just fails to activate her jetpack and plummets into the void for no reason. So I really recommend Super as the definitive way to play it if it's an option. I'll ask the dev what's up with that and report back.
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Dec 8, 2023 05:49
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^^ Same. The gaming year runs from December 1st to November 30th.ultrachrist posted:What the hell's the story on this game's availability?? Looks cool as hell. I searched it and it's "no longer available" on steam and google says Windows only, but then on metacritic it appears to be on PS4 but if I search the PS store I don't see it? So, asked the dev about this, tl;dr: publisher fuckery In more detail, the people who actually made the game do not have the rights to distribute Super Cloudbuilt as it currently exists following the expiration of their publisher agreement. It is possible to rework the game so that they can resume selling the reworked version, but this is a non-trivial process. They hope -- but cannot promise -- to have it relisted on Steam sometime in the first half of 2024. Basically, they have to rip out all the parts of the game that the publisher contributed code to and replace them with something equivalent but developed in-house. On the plus side, it looks like they've also been able to do a whole bunch of updates to the original Cloudbuilt this year, which is still listed on Steam. I do think SCB is the better version -- it looks better, handles a bit smoother, has the superior version of the soundtrack (although both versions slap), and the consumable items can give you an escape hatch if you're stuck on a level -- but a lot of the control and physics improvements from SCB have been backported to it now. And it's an excellent game in its own right. Epic High Five posted:Fashion souls is the true endgame. You can dodge attacks to make up for having negative damage mitigation but you can never escape a hideous outfit  One of the things I really appreciated about Dark Souls 3 was that its weird armour mechanics meant that the practical difference between wearing the worst armour in the game and the best wasn't actually that significant, freeing you to do battle with the true final boss, your wardrobe. haveblue posted:See if you can find it on sale. If you don't like its aesthetics and core game loop, it's pretty thin as an RPG. But it's got cool magic effects and a huge number of cats to pet Based on your writeup, I'm going to keep an eye on it in case it goes on sale, but definitely not get it for the $100-$120 they're asking for it right now. Aipsh posted:Will somebody please port Pizza Tower so it runs specifically on the off network Mac work gave me to run a single file and forgot to ask me to return
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Dec 8, 2023 16:48
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Silver Falcon posted:I realized I really should have included a very important Twitch clip in my GOTY list. Based on everything I've seen about it, TOTK is Cargo: The Quest for Gravity does Breath of the Wild and I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that
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Dec 8, 2023 19:45
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I've updated my list, not to change the rankings, but to add a note about the (un)availability of Super Cloudbuilt and my thoughts on the original in comparison after the 2020 and 2023 updates (tl;dr: original loving rocks and has gotten a lot of improvements to bring it up to par with Super; just play that). If anyone else puts (Super) Cloudbuilt on their list, we should probably try to arrive at some kind of consensus on which version of the game to list, because they're basically the same game.
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Dec 9, 2023 04:11
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Captain Invictus posted:I really want to encourage you to switch from Realms to modded online minecraft. like I play using very outdated mods and even then it's incredibly robust, far more than vanilla. Strongly seconded. I run a modded server for me and my daughter to play on (I use gdlauncher, not prismlauncher, but it looks like they have a similar feature set) and it's fantastic. There's just so much stuff out there and pretty much any time my daughter goes "hey I wish we had/could do X" there is already a mod for that.
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Dec 10, 2023 03:48
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Ok, after earlier Cloudbuilt discussion I decided to fire up OG Cloudbuilt to see if I could still recommend it when Super Cloudbuilt exists, and not only can I, this has somehow turned into replaying the entire game, including all four Defiance levels and the Remix levels. Compared to SCB, it has worse music and graphics, and more glitches, but a better UI, more optional levels, and you can, you know, actually buy it. It also -- and I didn't initially realize this -- has a "Default Mode" (distinct from "Challenge Mode") that slows down the game slightly and dials back the more vicious enemy placements, making the game a bit more accessible for newbies; it doesn't have SCB's consumables, but I like this approach more, I think. I've now finished all five of the main branches, and three of the four Defiance levels (leaving Expectations, the only one I didn't finish in Super), along with a bunch of the Remixes. At this rate I'm going to end up finishing all of them and then getting into the huge pile of community levels over the holidays. This game definitely deserves the #1 spot I gave it. SlothBear posted:I like this system. I made up one that is sort of similar that rates games on Spectacle, Craftsmanship, Artistry, Gameplay, and Value but I think I might replace Value with Time as I agree that's something I put a higher priority on these days, and just address cost separately. I'd rather play a 2 hour indie game with a satisfying ending than deal with all the padded stretching of content that weak games seem to think is necessary to cram into everything and making Time a rated part of the game reflects that. Nice. I just rank mine based entirely on vibes, but I also usually only manage, like, 30 games a year tops. Less this year! ultrachrist posted:2. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: I love Mimimi’s games. At the end of the day, they’re just rule-based puzzles with a bunch of moving parts, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling like a tactical genius every time I finish a complicated set piece. The premise here is you control a crew of undead pirates doing essentially the same thing the cowboys did in Desperados 3 and the ninjas did in Shadow Tactics: sneaking between vision cones, causing distractions, setting traps, silently killing, and hiding many, many bodies in the bushes. The big change in this one is that you can tackle the missions in any order and bring whichever crew members you want. Also, they all have super powers on par or exceeding the voodoo lady in desperados. These are the best stealth games ever made and only MGS5 or Hitman can make an argument. There’s a quick save/reload functionality (built into the narrative this time) that makes experimentation easy and being spotted no problem at all. Honestly if Hitman had this instead of the slow-rear end load and reload I’d probably like it a lot more than I already do. I was so sad to hear that Mimimi was shutting down; Blades of the Shogun single-handedly redeemed the genre for me and was on my top list for 2022 (up against some very strong competition). I picked up Desperados 3 recently and I'm expecting that to make it onto my 2024 list.
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Dec 11, 2023 04:50
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Lisztless posted:Oh heck no. I played it back in the day on PSX. But it got ported to PS4/5 super late in 2022, and I replayed it in January 2023, cementing its inclusion here. Valkyrie Profile is great; I played it on the PSX and then bought the PSP remaster and played it again there. Haven't played it since but I still have a lot of fond memories of it. First game I ever recorded video clips from, too. Then I tried so hard to like VP2 and Resonance of Fate and just...couldn't.  Plebian Parasite posted:5. Doom TheHoosier posted:Ayyy! I started doing that this year as well, and I have played some absolutely incredible stuff. I knew the Doom modding community was great, but I didn't know until I actually dove in and experienced it for myself. You're in for a very wild ride. The Doom community has its own annual WADs-of-the-year event called The Cacowards, which runs at about the same time as this thread; it's mostly focused on maps (both individual maps and megaWADs), but mods and music also get a smaller mention. And there is some choice content in there every year. Whenever you're looking for some new Doom maps to play, check out the Cacos, and unless you have way more time for gaming than I do, it will take you a very long time to catch up. Alternately, just load up one of the gigaWADs like Sentinel's Lexicon or Compendium and go nuts with thousands of curated maps from past decades.
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Dec 12, 2023 04:45
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moosferatu posted:I haven't spent the time yet to get a list together, but I'm saddened by the lack of A Highland Song love so far. Ya'll need to play it and update your lists. It's a beautiful, atmospheric adventure, and my favorite inkle. Kind of like Heaven's Vault, things you learn in one play through carry over to the next. Unlike Heaven's Vault, A Highland Song respects your time and only takes a few hours to complete a run. It only just came out! And if it's half as good as Heaven's Vault it's going to be on my GOTY list for 2024, but this thread is about 2023.  ImpAtom posted:I like VP more than VP2 but I still like VP2 a whole lot. The absolutely batshit loving insane twist the story takes in the second half is worth the trouble and it just has a lot of great things. I also like Covenant of the Plume which is loving fantastic as a SRPG. I don't think I ever made it to the second half of VP2. I played through the first half, like, four times and always lost interest somewhere between the lake temple and the dragon palace. I think it was a mix of: - the combat isn't nearly as satisfying as VP1 - the graphics aren't nearly as good as VP1 - the equipment/crafting system encourages grinding - the equipment/crafting system also encourages endless fiddling with character loadouts in a way that VP1 didn't, while also being much more boring than any of the gear you get in VP1 where there's ancient mystical artifacts of immense power just lying around - the Einherjar are all randomly selected Generic Mage/Fighter/Archer with a single paragraph of backstory buried in a menu somewhere rather than actual characters ...so, basically, playing it just makes me think "wow, what a huge step back from VP1 in every respect this is", which is a shame, because I want to like it, and based on playing VP1 and what I have seen of VP2, there's probably some ridiculous time travel bullshit later in the game and that is 100% my jam. But it feels like mechanically, they changed a lot of stuff that didn't need to be changed for the worse, and narratively, they hugely overcorrected from VP1's half-hour-long unskippable cutscenes and instead ended up with a bunch of characters I don't know and have zero emotional investment in. And despite that, typing this up is still making me want to go exhume my disc, boot it up in PCSX2, and go back for round five. As for Covenant of the Plume, I never had a DS and wasn't really vibing with the idea of playing as some rando who wants to kill all the valkyries because he missed remedial norse mythology 101 rather than playing as a valkyrie, but I also didn't really look into it any further than that, so I can easily believe it's better than it sounds. ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Dec 13, 2023 |
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Dec 13, 2023 00:29
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Paradise Killer looks kinda cool, maybe I should check it out. Meanwhile, I've been getting sucked further and further into Cloudbuilt. I'm on the last (I think) level of the super-hard Defiance DLC, further than I ever got in the original back in 2014 or in the remake. I'm going to have to go back and update my list to swap out Super Cloudbuilt for Original Cloudbuilt at this rate, I think.
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Dec 14, 2023 04:49
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VideoGames posted:6. If you want to go back and edit your list after the fact then go for it, just shoot one of us a PM or post in the thread to let us know you have I edited my list to replace Super Cloudbuilt with Cloudbuilt, and completely redid the writeup for it (and added a video). The ranking is still the same at #1. ToxicFrog posted:1. Cloudbuilt (2014)
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Dec 16, 2023 03:30
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Venuz Patrol posted:4. Going Down (2014 Doom wad) Going Down slaps; it's the megaWAD that got me into Doom after not really vibing with the original game or its sequel, to the extent that I ended up playing a lot of other wads and then learning to write doom mods. Given that you liked that, you might also want to check out Overboard, a small six-level WAD, and The Eye, a single level (but what a level!), by the same author.
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Dec 16, 2023 17:00
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Venuz Patrol posted:i played this one a few days ago and loved it. midsize, single-level exploration wads are the best What are some of your faves? It's not a style I've played a lot of but I like it.
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Dec 16, 2023 22:11
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I liked DMC, loved Revengeance, and I am a huge fangirl for when games do clever things to integrate the music and the gameplay. Unfortunately, I don't actually like Hi-Fi Rush's soundtrack, which is kind of a problem since it's such a central part of the experience.  I'm glad other people are enjoying it, though, that game deserves success.
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Dec 18, 2023 04:10
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MMF Freeway posted:5. System Shock (2023) It's pretty faithful to the original, overall. Presentation and UX got a complete overhaul, of course, with new graphics/sounds/controls (but still based on the original art direction, concept art, etc). Gameplay-wise, some redundant guns/tools got cut/merged, and some things were made harder, like adding an SS2-style inventory system (which means inventory limits, which the original mostly lacked) and use animations for grenades and patches (which add polish, but also means you can no longer pop them instantly with a hotkey while firing a two-handed weapon). Bossfights got kicked up a notch too, they were much less spicy in the original. Puzzles got a complete overhaul to be both more difficult and more fun, a welcome change. And, notably, the level layouts were almost completely unaltered; a few items got moved around but in general you can take maps generated from the original game and use them to navigate around and find important items and level features in the remake just fine. LGS was absolutely killing it with their level design even with their early games.
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Dec 19, 2023 00:59
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Looper posted:16. GrimGrimoire OnceMore I had the original, but I didn't actually make it that far, mostly due to the frustration of trying to control a cursor-based RTS using a PS2 controller. I wonder if it's possible to connect a mouse to a Switch? VW's games are unreasonably pretty but the only one I've actually finished is Odin Sphere.
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Dec 21, 2023 05:34
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iTrust posted:It rules seeing Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children appear on a bunch of lists, the game is great and I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks so! I started playing it this year (based on recs here on SA) and am enjoying it so far, so it has a decent chance at my 2024 list! Arist posted:1) Hitman: World of Assassination[/b] I bounced off Agent 47 and Silent Assassin pretty hard, but I really enjoyed Blood Money and this writeup has me thinking that next time I want some Hitman I should perhaps pick up this rather than replaying my favourite BM missions. Metis of the Chat Thread posted:Hello I am Metis of the Chat Thread, as I have always been known, and this is my GOTY list. quote:NUMBER SIX - THE BEST SUMMER VIBES GAME - BLUE REFLECTION SECOND LIGHT
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Dec 22, 2023 15:50
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fridge corn posted:10. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising – 2022, Rabbit & Bear Studios/Natsume Atari. Composer: Hiroyuki Iwatsuki ♫https://youtu.be/mwkyAESuCyQ?si=E_utk4aHbvxAC1x- ♫ Suikoden itself is a game I liked more in concept than execution; the party collection, base building, and army warfare parts were great, and I really appreciated that the obligatory Epic Wizard Battle for the Fate of the Universe happens entirely off-screen and is really only relevant to like two side characters, while the other 99% of the game is concerned with the corruption, revolution, and war that actually matters to the people you meet. The dungeon crawling parts were a miserable slog, though; I didn't actually get through the game until I played it on the PSP with fast-forward and a "toggle random encounters" hotkey. Also, Gremio sucks on toast and I'm glad he's dead. I've heard that Suikoden 2 is overall an improvement on the original, but have never gotten around to playing it. I am pretty pumped for the idea of a team addressing the same concept with the benefit of an additional 30 years of JRPG design to learn from.
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Dec 23, 2023 17:44
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oddium posted:
I got it while I was in high school at the tiny video games store in the local farmer's market. That store will always have a special place in my heart because it's where I got Total Annihilation on a whim, a game which became my favourite RTS for the next decade. But on that day I was there to buy Wing Commander Privateer + Expansion second-hand. After paying for it, I found out that the expansion disc wasn't in the jewelbox, and rather than try to figure out how to process a refund he asked if I had a PSX and then offered to throw in a copy of Omega Boost as a replacement. Privateer was a mistake, but I had a lot of fun with Omega Boost, albeit not for long; it's a pretty short game.
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Dec 23, 2023 22:02
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:God, what a showdown. It shall be engraved upon your soul! So many of the voice lines from Valkyrie Profile are just burned into my memory. Come to me, dark warriors! Battle awaits us! I need more copies of myself so that one of me can replay old favourites like VP while the rest of me are doing other things.
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Dec 24, 2023 02:47
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TIL about Lunacid, that game looks like the kind of thing I'd really enjoy as a UUW/Arx/King's Field enjoyer.Setec_Astronomy posted:6) Hexcells Infinite I think this was meant to say Minesweeper but please don't fix it.
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Dec 26, 2023 14:43
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Shinji2015 posted:5. NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... (2020) - having missed out on the original NieR and Automata, I decided to give this a go when it became available on PS Plus, and after several dozen hours of game time... I get why Automata is so beloved now, if this is any indication of its quality. Fantastic writing, great gameplay, and some of the best music in a game that I've heard all year all intertwine for an unforgettable experience. I will be playing NieR: Automata in the near future. The Replicant/Gestalt soundtrack is great but the Automata OST, in my opinion, takes it to an entirely new level. Absolutely fantastic work, with multiple variations of most tracks and some great callbacks to and rearrangements of standout tracks from Gestalt. Oh yeah, and on NG+ every single track gets an additional chiptune version used while hacking. I died embarassingly to one boss because, when I realized its theme was based on "The Dark Colossus Destroys All" from the original, I got so wrapped up in the music that I forgot to do things like dodge, which is basically the highest praise I can give. Grand Fromage posted:6. System Shock remake As much as I love System Shock, naming my computers after the AIs from it just seems a bit too much like tempting fate. I've got durandal, thoth, and traxus, and have had leela and tycho in the past, but not naming any of them SHODAN is a deliberate choice. Seems to have worked out for you though! So far.
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Dec 29, 2023 01:18
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Sway Grunt posted:I'm only putting this at number 6 because the story's pretty thin and the ending's a bit of a shrug, though it all gets the job done. In my memory the first game had a more substantial and involved plot though, whereas this one felt like an excuse to showcase the GOAT-tier level design. Fair enough tbh! Definitely don't sleep on Death of the Outsider, either, it's shorter than the first two games, has some nice levels (although not, IMO, anything Dh2-good), and provides some closure to the underlying mystery of "what the gently caress is going on with the Outside anyways?"
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Dec 30, 2023 01:54
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Epic High Five posted:6: Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights (Switch) I think EL really doesn't put its best foot forward. The first area of the game is just a completely linear sequence of flat rooms, the first boss is Ok I Guess, combat doesn't really start to pop until you have a few more souls, etc. I had a blast with it and it ended up on my top ten for this year, but I almost dropped it less than an hour in because of that. quote:[2] Kings Field 4: The Ancient City (Late Last Year / Early January) (not on Steam because ???) ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 17:41
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Foul Fowl posted:it's the most polarising one by far. some people (like me) think it's the best one for various Reasons. some other people think it's the worst one because of Other Reasons. discussion about whether or not it's a butt-sucking lovely rear end game, or a wonderfully eclectic and imaginative piece of game design that presaged elden ring, is as cyclical as the ages of fire and dark. That said, the weird way armour works in DS3 does make it the best Fashion Souls. DC Murderverse posted:Dishonorable mention: Arkane got acquired (twice) and gutted after Prey. Like two-thirds of the studio was gone by the time they managed to toss Redfall over the wall.  Ms Adequate posted:10: Front Mission 3 After not playing this since around release in the late 90s, I decided to see if it was as good as I remembered. In terms of writing and plot, no, not even close, the game's primary value in that regard is some old-school Blind Idiot Translation. But in terms of gameplay? Actually, yeah, if anything it's even better than I remembered, with more depth in developing your characters and some seriously impactful choices in how you assemble your mechs. And the aesthetics are top-notch too, interesting levels that range from heavy industrial facilities to urban cores to forested highways, with good music. Plus, the gamefeel can be phenomenal when things line up right, proccing multiple skills and tearing an enemy the gently caress apart will never not rule. Yay, another FM3 enjoyer! I'll probably never go back and play it again, but I liked it enough to play through both storylines back in the day. The combat does indeed feel satisfyingly chunky and I never enjoyed the sequels nearly as much. I am also constantly impressed with just how much stuff they managed to cram onto a single disc. And with their chutzpah at having two complete plotlines with their own characters, missions, etc divided by whether you say "yeah sure" or "nah not today" to your friend when he asks if you want to hang out at the mall right at the start of the game. Tulip posted:7. Armored Core 3 So, I tried AC1 years ago and bounced off it pretty hard, and while I'm pretty hype for AC6 based on this thread I probably won't get around to it until a few years from now when the inevitable Prepare to Explode Edition or whatever comes out and has had a few patches. But this post reminded me that, somewhere in a box in the basement, I actually have a second hand copy of AC3. (I might also have one of the AC4 games for PS3, less sure about that.) So maybe 2024 is the year I finally try one of those out and see how it holds up to someone new to the series. Runa posted:This is the music that plays when you're beating up slimes in the starting forest: Oh no I'm going to have to play the poo poo out of this aren't I? I like platformers, I love time travel shenanigans (it's no coincidence that Vision Soft Reset, which combines both in one exquisite package, blew my tits clean off and took the #1 spot last year), and this soundtrack slaps.
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Jan 1, 2024 18:58
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Picking a top ten games that are now on my wishlist because of this thread is actually pretty hard, there's way too much cool stuff! So I'm going to split it into two. Top five games that everyone has already played Armoured Core 6: looks sick, might try AC3 or 4 first since I'm pretty sure I have those already Forspoken: this actually crossed my scan when it first came out but I ignored it for some reason Lies of P: I'm probably going to want to play Sekiro and Elden Ring before this (and Bloodborne if it ever comes out on PC) but I do like me some soulsbornes Astral Chain: pretty sure I'm getting this mixed up with another game because I keep thinking it's a JRPG and not a PlatinumGames brawler Dead Space Remake: I liked the original, didn't like 2 as much and don't think I ever played 3, but it sounds like DSR changes things up a bit more than just "DS1 with better graphics" and I liked it enough to give it another look Top five games everyone hasn't already played Chants of Sennaar: Heaven's Vault is one of my all-time faves so this is a no-brainer. Case of the Golden Idol: Same except Obra Dinn Lunacid: always tried and failed to get into the KF games despite really liking them in concept, maybe this game will deliver the same vibes with more modern controls Astilibra Revision: I'm not expecting this to be a transcendent and revolutionary experience like VSR, but even if it's just a solid action platformer with time travel nonsense a la Timespinner I am 100% down. Also, corvids Slay the Princess: all of my friends have been raving about this and now this entire thread has been too
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Jan 2, 2024 00:24
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:I noticed that, too, and apparently a lot of other people did. But this one I found back in April is still hiding in plain sight I'm likely never going to play Live a Live, but this song fucks and I may need to pick up the OST. HopperUK posted:I loved this song, from Bramble. And this is just beautiful! Bugblatter posted:Best Fan Sequel of the Year: Thief: The Black Parade. I think that's T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age (which was great), so this is the lost 4th game! And I am incredibly pumped to play it, it might be what I play next after Eiyuden Rising.
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Jan 2, 2024 06:05
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FireWorksWell posted:I've been playing Burnout 3 here and there on my Deck and it really does bum me out there that this kind of game is mostly gone. Burnout 3 is so, so good and I'm perma-bummed that it doesn't really have a good successor, yeah. Burnout Paradise was ok-ish but a step backwards in a lot of ways. Wreckfest and FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage are kind of in the same space but don't have the same vibes, and I especially miss the lack of crash junctions. On the plus side, BO3 runs great in emulation, so even though my PS2 is long dead I can still dust it off and play it some now and then.
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Jan 2, 2024 20:06
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Are we posting music? Hell yes. Cloudbuilt's OST was Jacob Lincke's first professional work, and he loving nailed it. For Super Cloudbuilt he stuck with a winning formula and just redid the same compositions with minor tweaks and better instrumentation, and the result is one of my all-time favourite soundtracks. Here's the track for the Day levels, "Aerial Walkways": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGtUfa2fe6g And the credits theme, "Cloudscapes and Speed": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytmukdIbH5E But honestly I could post most of the OST here. The Ghostrunner soundtrack isn't likely to become a perennial listen for me, but it still has some pretty sick tracks, and they work excellently with the gameplay. Here's the title theme, "Air": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR9LWCpVnzs I don't think they work as well as Cloudbuilt's does outside the game, but listening to "Air" and "Infiltrator" always makes me want to pick it back up for a bit. Meanwhile, I played through Ace Combat 4, 5, and Zero, and while I enjoyed them a bunch, I didn't enjoy them quite enough for them to make it onto the top ten; but the soundtracks are excellent. ACZ's final boss isn't really fun to fight but check out this track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80XAJKqRU9k Or this somewhat more mellow briefing theme from AC5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP0S3xL2S8U Am I ever going to replay them? Doubtful. But those soundtracks will stick with me for a while.
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Jan 3, 2024 02:24
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Shard posted:did the final list get compiled yet? Nope, not until next week IIRC
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Jan 3, 2024 04:10
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fez_machine posted:
I'd been passing on posting a "what I'm looking forward to" list simply because my backlog is so huge that I don't plan to play any games released in 2024 in 2024, but if the Vision Soft Reset devs are making another game? That may be a day-one purchase for me. I will never stop screaming about how incredibly good VSR was.
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Jan 3, 2024 05:17
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sirtommygunn posted:Top 10 games I'm going to play/finish in 2024: Ok, yeah, let's actually do this rather than stuff I'm excited to see release. These are all games I already have and haven't gotten around to playing, in no particular order. Armored Core 3. I've had this on my list for ages and everyone raving about AC6 has me jonesing to try it now. Ghost Song. I played the demo and it was great. Lords of the Fallen. I loved all three Dark Souls games and I've also enjoyed a lot of Legally Distinct From Dark Souls knockoffs, and this looks like one of the latter. Desperados 3. Shadow Tactics single-handedly redeemed its entire genre for me and I am excited for more Mimimi tactical stealth puzzling. Freespace 2: Blue Planet. Freespace 2 is my second-favourite space combat sim and Blue Planet is a fan-made sequel with writing by local goon and excellent SFF author General Battuta. Thief: The Black Parade. TDP and TMA are great, unofficial expansion T2X was also great, and it sounds like TBP continues this trend. As a long time Thief enjoyer, I am looking forward to this. Atelier Escha + Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky. The Atelier games are basically the only JRPGs I play anymore, in large part because they are good about not wasting your loving time with random encounters, but also because showing up to every boss fight with your party ripped to the gills on custom-made combat drugs and hauling a backpack full of pocket nukes is not merely permitted but encouraged. Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children. TRPGs are hit and miss with me but when they hit they hit hard, and I really enjoyed what I've played of this so far. Perfect Dark. Did you know that there's an unofficial PC port of Perfect Dark, with support for mouselook and multiplayer? Well there is! My favourite N64 game is back in a form that no longer requires Nintendo's mutant three-handed controller! STASIS. Sci-fi horror puzzle game aboard a derelict starship? You have my attention. There's also a few games in Early Access that will immediately preempt whatever I'm doing if they actually reach completion this year: The Void Rains Upon Her Heart, Mashinky, Dyson Sphere Program, and Satisfactory. StrixNebulosa posted:yo Mike Duncan might be one of the best history podcast guys out there, great stuff! For sure, although I find Revolutions really hard listening because so many of them either start or end with "and then a CIA-backed fascist group loving killed everyone and took over the country".
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Jan 5, 2024 01:34
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theblackw0lf posted:Lords of the Fallen has astonishingly good level design. There’s one area I would rank in the top 10 of all souls games, From included. Sadly I think the quality drops a bit in the midpoint. But Lords gave me that non-linear level design I’ve been sorely missing. I'm looking forward to it, but unfortunately I'm having some technical difficulties (or possibly gameplay difficulties; in particular neither sprinting nor dual-wielding seem to be working), and it is impossible to google anything about this because it looks like the same studio released another game which is also called "Lords of the Fallen" just last year. ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Jan 5, 2024 |
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Jan 5, 2024 04:58
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Yes I am. Some friends had talked about LotF favourably and recommended I get it when I mentioned it was on sale and at no point in the conversation did any of us realize that I was talking about the 2014 version that GOG has and they were talking about the 2023 release. E: I am now playing Perfect Dark PC instead, game still rules and I'd forgotten how good the soundtrack was ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Jan 5, 2024 |
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Jan 5, 2024 05:08
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Bugblatter posted:The 2023 release is divisive. Some love it, some hate it. It has a lot of rough edges both technically and design wise, but it does a few things extremely well. I personally wouldn’t go so far as to call it good, but I thought the strengths made it worth trying. I’d be very selective about who I recommended it to though. Oh, I didn't realize that was the same team -- The Surge was alright, although I felt it overstayed its welcome, and Surge 2 was loads of fun and I actually played a ways into NG+, which I usually don't do. BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Makes me want to go out and but a working N64 right now. I love that game so much. You can play it on PC now! At 60fps and with proper mouselook and everything, not super janky "we convinced this emulator to translate mouse inputs into stick inputs in a way that mostly works" mouselook. Also, wow, I am out of practice. Datadyne Central - Escape is kicking my rear end on Perfect Agent even with mouselook, mostly because Dr. Carroll really wants to snuggle the attack helicopter.
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Jan 5, 2024 19:01
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:It's easier for me to go to one of the many used shops around here and buy an N64 than it is to get anything running on PC. The last game I played on PC was Disco, vanilla. PC just ain't my wheelhouse. Fair enough! I'm a PC girl first and foremost, so that's pretty much always going to be my preference; I tend to buy consoles rarely (and second-hand) and retire them as soon as emulation is advanced enough to play all the games I care about. For the N64 and Perfect Dark in particular, I'm extra excited about this because: - I never liked the N64's mutant three-handed controller or how it worked with PD (not that that stopped me from 100%ing the game in high school) - N64 emulation in general, and PD emulation specifically, is perplexingly difficult even today So this is a chance for me to revisit my favourite N64 game without making either of those above compromises.
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Jan 6, 2024 00:38
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Tulip posted:7. Armored Core 3 I poked this with a stick last night and between the violently loud beeping noise every time your LOS crosses an enemy and the frankly perplexing controls, I'm finding it pretty hard to get into. I think the controls would be less of an issue if it were slower-paced like something like MechWarrior, but it seems like it wants you to be zooming around the battlefield and dodging incoming fire. I was not expecting to find a complete lack of analog stick support in a PS2 game! Now I'm wondering if I want to keep trying 3, or jump ahead to Nexus or AC4. Ineffiable posted:There's always 2024 list! I do the same, basically following the same schedule as the Cacowards.
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Jan 12, 2024 22:01
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haveblue posted:AC was mostly famous for galaxy brained controls before From got famous for a lot of other things Yeah I'm getting that impression I remember thinking Demon's Souls had weirdass controls but once I got used to them they made a lot of sense, we'll see if things work the same way in AC3
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Jan 13, 2024 02:55
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