File: 1562480322954.gif (242.05 KB, 500x254, 250:127, 593048509438095.gif) ImgOps iqdb
Other one's basically full, so might as well create a new one.
File: 1562480532082.jpg (32.61 KB, 300x348, 25:29, 5355355.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished this a couple weeks ago on PC, after torrenting it on a whim. Poor man's MGS5 in some respects, but, even outside of that, playing on "Extreme/Tier 1" difficulty with enemy marking turned off, I managed to find it surprisingly enjoyable & atmospheric. Another comparison I've heard is GTA mixed with splashes of ARMA and, for the most part, that fits as well.
Unlike similar others one could name, Wildlands doesn't suffer too much from the dreaded "Ubisoft Syndrome". There's certainly lots of dull side activities, only a portion of which are worth doing, & random collectibles to acquire, but, on the plus side, there's no outposts or territories to capture, so exploring/navigating the world always carries a sense of risk. Reminded me a lot of FC2 in that sense. Unlike FC2 however, getting harassed by random patrols isn't much of an issue, unless you're overtly aggressive. Dealing with Unidad (GTA police equivalent) can be a huge pain though, since they'll keep infinitely spawning & teleporting in until you manage to run far enough away from them. If they happen to intrude as you're doing a mission, you're pretty much done for, which, in various cases for me, was quite annoying. Exploring the open world was mostly enjoyable though and hitting roaming convoys for resources or stealing random supply helicopters were neat diversions from the main missions, despite most of the upgrades in the skill tree being useless/boring. All of the regions are fairly distinct from each other, but, before too long, the process of having to pick up intel in random locations, so as to unlock the missions for whatever region you're in, became quite tedious & boring. One particular thing that irritated me a lot were the many SAM sites present in high difficulty regions. Destroying them is pointless since they'll just immediately respawn once you get about 200m away. Flying low prevents them from firing at you, but it's still dumb that you can't permanently destroy them.
I also played it solo and, as a result, had to make do with AI team mates. They mostly just do their own thing, since the commands you can issue them are very few & badly implemented. Be that as it may, no matter the difficulty, they're essentially unkillable unless swarmed with enemies, can't be spotted in stealth, & the drone/sync shot combo can be pretty cheesey & overpowered in some cases, given that it's an instant & immediate kill for any 3 enemies standing out in the open. Aside from the nerve grating "Ooh rah, AMERIGA" bullshit they spew, along with failing to revive my ass on a few occasions, despite them standing right next to me, the AI could've been worse. Regardless, calling in an army of rebels was very often superior to dealing with their ineptness, assuming the mission didn't call for stealth. By & large, stealth really is the way to go though, given how bullshit accurate enemies are, despite, in the case of the cartel, being doped up, untrained gangbangers, and how, very often, they'll all just make a bee line right towards your position, in a collective kamikaze bum rush. Really feels like they teleport around a lot too, since I had many occasions where an enemy ambushed me from behind where that simply wouldn't have been possible. All in all, it felt like an artificial way to enforce stealth, but, in some ways, that just made getting through high difficulty regions with no deaths, or ghosting certain tough missions, all that much more satisfying.
I won't say much of the story, other than it's about as nauseatingly awful as one might expect. I know it's a Tom Clancy game, but jeez louise, does it suck that "AMERIGA ENSURES WORLD FREEDOM!!!" dick hard. Your female handler in particular, is just dreadful when it comes to this sort of stuff. A neoliberal/neoconservative, national security state wet dream that, outside of the ending I suppose, shamelessly cheer leads US imperialism, in the same way some crude propaganda film would. That's about the best way I could sum up the "plot" in this game. Not much to say about the villain other than he's literally just the Mexican version of Kingpin and mostly forgettable. All the other under bosses were fairly forgettable as well.
As an aside, didn't the US back some death squads in Bolivia, and install a pliant dictator, like they did in almost every other Latin America country? It certainly seems to gleefully spit in the face of such things, which I found to be rather distasteful.
Anyway, it isn't GRAW 1, or 2, but, in my opinion, it's not bad for an open world game. The whole tiered, gang system and working your way up to the leader was an interesting gimmick and the game world, while a bit bloated, was semi-fun to explore & complete missions in. In the end, I'd prefer for Ghost Recon to return to what it used to be, pre-Future Soldier, but, in that same sense, at least Wildlands ain't Future Soldier. Somewhat interested to see how the sequel turns out. Wildland's crossover missions were rancid & the DLC was abysmal, so support for it was rather disappointing, but that's Ubisoft for you.
Unlike similar others one could name, Wildlands doesn't suffer too much from the dreaded "Ubisoft Syndrome". There's certainly lots of dull side activities, only a portion of which are worth doing, & random collectibles to acquire, but, on the plus side, there's no outposts or territories to capture, so exploring/navigating the world always carries a sense of risk. Reminded me a lot of FC2 in that sense. Unlike FC2 however, getting harassed by random patrols isn't much of an issue, unless you're overtly aggressive. Dealing with Unidad (GTA police equivalent) can be a huge pain though, since they'll keep infinitely spawning & teleporting in until you manage to run far enough away from them. If they happen to intrude as you're doing a mission, you're pretty much done for, which, in various cases for me, was quite annoying. Exploring the open world was mostly enjoyable though and hitting roaming convoys for resources or stealing random supply helicopters were neat diversions from the main missions, despite most of the upgrades in the skill tree being useless/boring. All of the regions are fairly distinct from each other, but, before too long, the process of having to pick up intel in random locations, so as to unlock the missions for whatever region you're in, became quite tedious & boring. One particular thing that irritated me a lot were the many SAM sites present in high difficulty regions. Destroying them is pointless since they'll just immediately respawn once you get about 200m away. Flying low prevents them from firing at you, but it's still dumb that you can't permanently destroy them.
I also played it solo and, as a result, had to make do with AI team mates. They mostly just do their own thing, since the commands you can issue them are very few & badly implemented. Be that as it may, no matter the difficulty, they're essentially unkillable unless swarmed with enemies, can't be spotted in stealth, & the drone/sync shot combo can be pretty cheesey & overpowered in some cases, given that it's an instant & immediate kill for any 3 enemies standing out in the open. Aside from the nerve grating "Ooh rah, AMERIGA" bullshit they spew, along with failing to revive my ass on a few occasions, despite them standing right next to me, the AI could've been worse. Regardless, calling in an army of rebels was very often superior to dealing with their ineptness, assuming the mission didn't call for stealth. By & large, stealth really is the way to go though, given how bullshit accurate enemies are, despite, in the case of the cartel, being doped up, untrained gangbangers, and how, very often, they'll all just make a bee line right towards your position, in a collective kamikaze bum rush. Really feels like they teleport around a lot too, since I had many occasions where an enemy ambushed me from behind where that simply wouldn't have been possible. All in all, it felt like an artificial way to enforce stealth, but, in some ways, that just made getting through high difficulty regions with no deaths, or ghosting certain tough missions, all that much more satisfying.
I won't say much of the story, other than it's about as nauseatingly awful as one might expect. I know it's a Tom Clancy game, but jeez louise, does it suck that "AMERIGA ENSURES WORLD FREEDOM!!!" dick hard. Your female handler in particular, is just dreadful when it comes to this sort of stuff. A neoliberal/neoconservative, national security state wet dream that, outside of the ending I suppose, shamelessly cheer leads US imperialism, in the same way some crude propaganda film would. That's about the best way I could sum up the "plot" in this game. Not much to say about the villain other than he's literally just the Mexican version of Kingpin and mostly forgettable. All the other under bosses were fairly forgettable as well.
As an aside, didn't the US back some death squads in Bolivia, and install a pliant dictator, like they did in almost every other Latin America country? It certainly seems to gleefully spit in the face of such things, which I found to be rather distasteful.
Anyway, it isn't GRAW 1, or 2, but, in my opinion, it's not bad for an open world game. The whole tiered, gang system and working your way up to the leader was an interesting gimmick and the game world, while a bit bloated, was semi-fun to explore & complete missions in. In the end, I'd prefer for Ghost Recon to return to what it used to be, pre-Future Soldier, but, in that same sense, at least Wildlands ain't Future Soldier. Somewhat interested to see how the sequel turns out. Wildland's crossover missions were rancid & the DLC was abysmal, so support for it was rather disappointing, but that's Ubisoft for you.
File: 1562482774605.png (58.11 KB, 220x275, 4:5, 220px-Second_Sight_cover.png) ImgOps iqdb
Played this through to completion just the other day. Never played any of the Timesplitters games, not that this has much in common with them, other than the development studio/engine they both share. Anyway, this reminded me a lot of Psi-Ops, which I rented & finished once as a kid, but with more of a focus on stealth, instead of action. It also gave me vibes of Geist, The Thing & Freedom Fighters as well, funnily enough, being that it was from that era. There aren't that many powers though, and the ones you do have are kinda weak & situational. Things like telekinesis just seemed very piddly & finicky. I seem to recall Psi-Ops having way more powers, along with them just having more impact in general. Especially in the aforementioned case of telekinesis, as an example. Either way, the stealth is pretty piss poor (no stealth feedback system, bodies just disappear, and no sense of alert status) & the lock on targeting mixed with the terrible pre-Gears of War cover system that's present when in direct combat is just downright atrocious to deal with. All in all, the controls are wonky & the gameplay is kinda bad, but, somehow, I still sorta liked this game. The story wasn't anything amazing, but the neat twist at the end managed to catch me off guard, which was a pleasant surprise. The level design is pretty cramped & restrictive, further hampering the stealth, but there's at least some variety in the locations. The possession ability was also fun to fool around with at times, but, again, even that I seem to recall being better in Psi-Ops. In the end, I think I just enjoyed this for being a short, not very frustrating (outside of those damn Psi soldiers), middle of the road game, with an OK story. Something like Plague Tale (another game I didn't mind for somewhat similar reasons) would be a good modern equivalent to it, in a small sense. The appeal of middle market titles and all that.
Police Quest by Sierra
Old-school; had some humor in an otherwise dry police procedure game.
Old-school; had some humor in an otherwise dry police procedure game.
File: 1563312382095.jpg (191.99 KB, 1600x800, 2:1, Yume Nikki - Dream Diary.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
I finally played and finished Yume Nikki - Dream Journal. It came out last year but I didn't have a working pc around that time and then forgot about it until 3 days ago. I'm one of the biggest fans of the original you will ever find and I was stunned to see the negative feedback this version has on Steam. A lot of people complaining how it's lacking compared to the original, that it's a bad puzzle game and far too linear to be considered a decent iteration of Yume Nikki. I've heard the game got review bombed too by supposedly fans of the original. Well, I have to disagree with all those people. This is a pretty fun game with excellent music, good amounts of exploration, scary moments, interesting monsters and it nailed the mood of the original, imo.
First, it's not a puzzle game, you can safely ignore that claim from the negative reviews at least. There's one or two puzzles in there. The majority of the game is you running around weird places, meeting weirder creatures and listening to some soothing music. The first area is rather intense compared to the rest of the game (you'll be jumping rolling eyeballs and avoiding the red gaze of monsters) but after that it slows down. It is an exploration game for the majority of it and you'll be revisiting places to unlock more content through the use of effects and hunting down collectables in order to make progress. Pretty much like the old game. People complaining about this new one forget how the exploration on the original some times became a rather dull task of methodically covering a huge amount of tiles to find an item or door. This game doesn't have that, though some items are pretty well hidden.
At least one aspect of this is better than the original. You can pinch yourself at any given moment and walk out of a dream after finding an item or effect without having to go all the way to an exit without losing your stuff. I can't praise this mechanic enough, it made my life a lot easier while completing the dream diary. To counter balance that, you can't walk. There's just no button to walk instead of running. Say you just want to walk through an area, taking a stroll. You can't. Well, technically you can with an effect but it changes the whole background. Let's just leave it at that.
There's one game breaking bug that caused me to spoil 2 collectables I would rather had found by myself. I only rarely play games and having those 2 items spoiled annoyed me a good bit. If you're getting the 2.0 version from PB, be warned, inside the school there's a ghost that will freeze the inventory. That's the only bug I've come across but while looking for a solution I spoiled myself by accident. The trick is to jump and at the highest point of the jump hit E and the inventory will pop up just fine. Be aware. If you're going to play this I just saved you a good deal of annoyance.
Apart from the mentioned bug, my only other complaint is that it should be 3 or 4x longer. I 100% everything without guides (apart those 2 items I mentioned) in 3 days. Granted I played for 7 or so hours straight each day, so a little over 20 hours worth of content. I've also read people complaining about broken controls but I had no problem with it at all. I don't know, each person is different but I had a great time playing this, I wish there was more areas and more effects. I got stuck 3 or 4 times in there and it was very satisfying figuring things out by myself. It never felt counter-intuitive or unfair. You just have to keep exploring. Don't try to rush through or use guides, otherwise the game lose a lot of its value. I know it would for me at least.
Anyway I can't recommend this enough. If you liked the original but couldn't stomach perusing 4k rpgmaker tiles to find that key or entrance, this is for you. A lot of characters and areas make a come back and there are new ones too. This game got made under the supervision of the original Yume Nikki creator and I think it shows. The mood is just like I remember, all those years ago. I've tried to play other games like this before but honestly YN is the only one that gets me invested like this. The premise really hits me for some reason.
If you're going to play this, I recommend not taking as a chalenge to finish as quickly as possible. Don't look stuff up online, just take your time to explore every single inch of the game, it's not nearly as big as the original and you can find pretty much everything by looking around carefuly. Just remember the bug I mentioned and you'll do fine. Have fun.
First, it's not a puzzle game, you can safely ignore that claim from the negative reviews at least. There's one or two puzzles in there. The majority of the game is you running around weird places, meeting weirder creatures and listening to some soothing music. The first area is rather intense compared to the rest of the game (you'll be jumping rolling eyeballs and avoiding the red gaze of monsters) but after that it slows down. It is an exploration game for the majority of it and you'll be revisiting places to unlock more content through the use of effects and hunting down collectables in order to make progress. Pretty much like the old game. People complaining about this new one forget how the exploration on the original some times became a rather dull task of methodically covering a huge amount of tiles to find an item or door. This game doesn't have that, though some items are pretty well hidden.
At least one aspect of this is better than the original. You can pinch yourself at any given moment and walk out of a dream after finding an item or effect without having to go all the way to an exit without losing your stuff. I can't praise this mechanic enough, it made my life a lot easier while completing the dream diary. To counter balance that, you can't walk. There's just no button to walk instead of running. Say you just want to walk through an area, taking a stroll. You can't. Well, technically you can with an effect but it changes the whole background. Let's just leave it at that.
There's one game breaking bug that caused me to spoil 2 collectables I would rather had found by myself. I only rarely play games and having those 2 items spoiled annoyed me a good bit. If you're getting the 2.0 version from PB, be warned, inside the school there's a ghost that will freeze the inventory. That's the only bug I've come across but while looking for a solution I spoiled myself by accident. The trick is to jump and at the highest point of the jump hit E and the inventory will pop up just fine. Be aware. If you're going to play this I just saved you a good deal of annoyance.
Apart from the mentioned bug, my only other complaint is that it should be 3 or 4x longer. I 100% everything without guides (apart those 2 items I mentioned) in 3 days. Granted I played for 7 or so hours straight each day, so a little over 20 hours worth of content. I've also read people complaining about broken controls but I had no problem with it at all. I don't know, each person is different but I had a great time playing this, I wish there was more areas and more effects. I got stuck 3 or 4 times in there and it was very satisfying figuring things out by myself. It never felt counter-intuitive or unfair. You just have to keep exploring. Don't try to rush through or use guides, otherwise the game lose a lot of its value. I know it would for me at least.
Anyway I can't recommend this enough. If you liked the original but couldn't stomach perusing 4k rpgmaker tiles to find that key or entrance, this is for you. A lot of characters and areas make a come back and there are new ones too. This game got made under the supervision of the original Yume Nikki creator and I think it shows. The mood is just like I remember, all those years ago. I've tried to play other games like this before but honestly YN is the only one that gets me invested like this. The premise really hits me for some reason.
If you're going to play this, I recommend not taking as a chalenge to finish as quickly as possible. Don't look stuff up online, just take your time to explore every single inch of the game, it's not nearly as big as the original and you can find pretty much everything by looking around carefuly. Just remember the bug I mentioned and you'll do fine. Have fun.
>>46240
I liked it as well. Played/finished it around this time last year, after only having finished the original a few months before that, and I enjoyed my time with both. In regards to Dream Diary, I seem to recall the character model for Madotsuki looking a bit cheap & "cheruby", for lack of a better term, but other than that, it looked quite good & seeing familiar areas in 3D (like the Pink Sea, for instance) was neat. For me, finding some of the collectibles turned out to be quite annoying. Not sure if I looked some of them up, but I might have, which, in a sense, is regrettable, but, again, it's hard to remember either way. One thing I can remember however, is spending upwards of 40 minutes in the snowy forest area looking for that damn scarf succubus. I just could not find her for the life of me, despite wandering around for ages. Super frustrating, let me tell you. Irregardless, I also wish it had been longer & the areas more expansive/fully realized, but it's still quite fine for what it is. Still listen to the soundtrack to this day.
I liked it as well. Played/finished it around this time last year, after only having finished the original a few months before that, and I enjoyed my time with both. In regards to Dream Diary, I seem to recall the character model for Madotsuki looking a bit cheap & "cheruby", for lack of a better term, but other than that, it looked quite good & seeing familiar areas in 3D (like the Pink Sea, for instance) was neat. For me, finding some of the collectibles turned out to be quite annoying. Not sure if I looked some of them up, but I might have, which, in a sense, is regrettable, but, again, it's hard to remember either way. One thing I can remember however, is spending upwards of 40 minutes in the snowy forest area looking for that damn scarf succubus. I just could not find her for the life of me, despite wandering around for ages. Super frustrating, let me tell you. Irregardless, I also wish it had been longer & the areas more expansive/fully realized, but it's still quite fine for what it is. Still listen to the soundtrack to this day.
File: 1563549913192.jpg (218.84 KB, 1600x800, 2:1, H2x1_NSwitchDS_TheMessenge….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished the Messenger, it was good, for the most part. Game starts as a linear 8-bit style platformer that feels like a really easy Ninja Gaiden, then it turns into a "metroidvania" with more detailed or "16-bit" graphics.
It was good for the most part, althought it kinda felt too much like a fetch quest at near the ending. It also has the problem of trying to be super meat boy, like many modern platformers. I still had a good time, music and graphics were kinda gimmicky with the whole "retro" thing but I didn't mind that, gameplay was tight and bosses/puzzles were fun, and that's what matters imo.
It was good for the most part, althought it kinda felt too much like a fetch quest at near the ending. It also has the problem of trying to be super meat boy, like many modern platformers. I still had a good time, music and graphics were kinda gimmicky with the whole "retro" thing but I didn't mind that, gameplay was tight and bosses/puzzles were fun, and that's what matters imo.
File: 1563608183896.jpg (82.33 KB, 616x353, 616:353, capsule_616x353.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished this game, this game at first for me didn't stick at first with the first few chapters with the slow build up to everything. I'm pretty glad I got through it all and didn't drop this, the beat 'em up style combat from it actually makes me want to check out what other games that are out there.
File: 1563731602144-0.jpg (433.77 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, hitman2 2019-07-21 19-39-0….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1563731602144-1.jpg (211.9 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, hitman2 2019-07-21 19-40-5….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1563731602144-2.jpg (234.19 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, hitman2 2019-07-21 19-37-5….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished main storyline of Hitman 2. Took me 11 hours with the mission stories clues activated. I did not always follow through with them though. The locations are well crafted, and the environments just look great. There sure is great deal of replayability, because it's just not possible to try out everything on the first try. I definitely want to try to fight my way through some of the levels instead of just sneaking or wearing disguises, combat is surprisingly challenging and fun. All in all, I do not regret getting this on Steam sale, together with Hitman 1 legacy pack, I pirated it few years ago and liked it very much, but the pirated version was much limited compared to the online one. I would definitely recommend the series reboot to anyone who enjoys well made game where the player can just take it easy, walk around the maps discovering things and trying out various approaches, to find out what works and what does not.
>>46247
>I seem to recall the character model for Madotsuki looking a bit cheap & "cheruby", for lack of a better term
Yeah you're right, I forgot to mention that, she does look odd, like a default face for a doll or something. Good to know you liked it too.
>>46244
Thanks wiz, let us know what your opinion on the the game is if you ever play it.
>I seem to recall the character model for Madotsuki looking a bit cheap & "cheruby", for lack of a better term
Yeah you're right, I forgot to mention that, she does look odd, like a default face for a doll or something. Good to know you liked it too.
>>46244
Thanks wiz, let us know what your opinion on the the game is if you ever play it.
Finished Kiwami 2. Had few nice improvements with engine but >>46258 reigns supreme as best entry in series.
File: 1564146971734.jpg (233.62 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, ss_031f40434b4e2c68c87ad0b….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished The Mummy Demastered
It's a pretty nice, althought short and really easy metroid clone. The pixel work is beautiful and gameplay feels weird at first but I liked it.
Funny how usually licenced games are worse than their main product. Now, I haven't watched this last mummy movie but everyone keeps saying that it's not even close to the first two with Brendan Fraser and I didn't even like those, so I guess it's hot garbage. But the game is good, definitely recommended.
It's a pretty nice, althought short and really easy metroid clone. The pixel work is beautiful and gameplay feels weird at first but I liked it.
Funny how usually licenced games are worse than their main product. Now, I haven't watched this last mummy movie but everyone keeps saying that it's not even close to the first two with Brendan Fraser and I didn't even like those, so I guess it's hot garbage. But the game is good, definitely recommended.
>>46290
I missed the toy cars racing game from 0 and K1. K2 minigames were pretty average imo, the majima construction company had potential but it failed to deliver…
I missed the toy cars racing game from 0 and K1. K2 minigames were pretty average imo, the majima construction company had potential but it failed to deliver…
File: 1564537106862.jpg (45.13 KB, 570x400, 57:40, image_original.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
It was okay. A little unsatisfyingly short, but still okay. The story is completely out to lunch at this point, but the actual gameplay/level design is as strong as it's ever been. Which, in some sense, is really all that matters, I suppose. Some of the side quests were also somewhat memorable & involved, which was neat. Stuff like the serial killer quest, that one Dvali quest, and the cult leader quest, just to name a few. Main quest areas like Golem City & Apex were also quite fun to explore and move around in, even if the story motivation for being in said locations sucked.
Also, holy hell, are the graphics in this game amazing. Like ridiculously good. Stuff like how the rain would splash against Jensen's augments were especially nice & impressive looking touches. Only downside to that being the bad optimization and texture glitches/flickering that would sometimes occur in certain areas, probably because I persisted in playing on DX12 due to the minor performance gains that gave me.
Anyway, I would've much rather had Black Light be the sequel to HR, instead of being relegated to some worthless in-between book, with key plot elements being gleefully tossed away in the process, but past a certain point of playing MD, I just stopped caring about how silly the story is and how much was missing and just enjoyed the gameplay and various side quests as they came. Haven't checked out the DLC yet, but, just like the main game, I'm sure the level design will be solid and the story will be lame and there just won't be enough of either. Being that it's been almost 3 years since it came out I can't help, but wonder when the next installment of Deus Ex will be announced. It'll also be interesting to see how 2077 matches up to Deus Ex, in regards to its world design, story & gameplay. Also, developers making their credits unskippable should be worthy grounds for a serious flogging.
Also, holy hell, are the graphics in this game amazing. Like ridiculously good. Stuff like how the rain would splash against Jensen's augments were especially nice & impressive looking touches. Only downside to that being the bad optimization and texture glitches/flickering that would sometimes occur in certain areas, probably because I persisted in playing on DX12 due to the minor performance gains that gave me.
Anyway, I would've much rather had Black Light be the sequel to HR, instead of being relegated to some worthless in-between book, with key plot elements being gleefully tossed away in the process, but past a certain point of playing MD, I just stopped caring about how silly the story is and how much was missing and just enjoyed the gameplay and various side quests as they came. Haven't checked out the DLC yet, but, just like the main game, I'm sure the level design will be solid and the story will be lame and there just won't be enough of either. Being that it's been almost 3 years since it came out I can't help, but wonder when the next installment of Deus Ex will be announced. It'll also be interesting to see how 2077 matches up to Deus Ex, in regards to its world design, story & gameplay. Also, developers making their credits unskippable should be worthy grounds for a serious flogging.
>>46327
wasnt this by the same team that made shantae? if so that would explain the good game
wasnt this by the same team that made shantae? if so that would explain the good game
>>46416
It was made by WayForward, yes. I downloaded the second Shantae game since I've only played the first one, but haven't played it yet.
It was made by WayForward, yes. I downloaded the second Shantae game since I've only played the first one, but haven't played it yet.
>>46327
Decided to check this out after reading your post and, having just finished it, I enjoyed my time with it as well. Very laid back & comfy, although, like you said, perhaps a bit too easy. All of the bosses in particular were very slow and just had way too few attacks at their disposal and the ones they did have were highly telegraphed, very low damage & ridiculously easy to avoid. I actually got through the game without ever dying, nor really ever coming close to dying, mostly as a result of how much leeway for error the game will give you in combat encounters, in addition to the fact that you simply facetank everything once your health bar gets high enough. Having said that, the lack of challenge, for me at least, just helped add to the relaxed atmosphere. Got through it all in one sitting, while maxing everything out to 100%, and had a very chill time doing so. A very short & sweet experience all around. Soundtrack was quite good as well. My only gripe with it would be how many castlevania medusa head style enemies it has and how frustrating they can be to deal with in certain areas before getting power-ups like the Super Metroid-equivalent shoulder dash charge & that one knockback immunity item. Even still, it's certainly way better than the last modern metroidvania I played/finished, that being Timespinner.
Anyway, I'd never heard of this until you mentioned it, so thanks for letting me know about it. I should really check out the Shantae series someday. This game also reminded me a bit of that one Aliens game Way Forward made a while back, which I never got around to finishing after emulating it for a bit a couple years ago.
Decided to check this out after reading your post and, having just finished it, I enjoyed my time with it as well. Very laid back & comfy, although, like you said, perhaps a bit too easy. All of the bosses in particular were very slow and just had way too few attacks at their disposal and the ones they did have were highly telegraphed, very low damage & ridiculously easy to avoid. I actually got through the game without ever dying, nor really ever coming close to dying, mostly as a result of how much leeway for error the game will give you in combat encounters, in addition to the fact that you simply facetank everything once your health bar gets high enough. Having said that, the lack of challenge, for me at least, just helped add to the relaxed atmosphere. Got through it all in one sitting, while maxing everything out to 100%, and had a very chill time doing so. A very short & sweet experience all around. Soundtrack was quite good as well. My only gripe with it would be how many castlevania medusa head style enemies it has and how frustrating they can be to deal with in certain areas before getting power-ups like the Super Metroid-equivalent shoulder dash charge & that one knockback immunity item. Even still, it's certainly way better than the last modern metroidvania I played/finished, that being Timespinner.
Anyway, I'd never heard of this until you mentioned it, so thanks for letting me know about it. I should really check out the Shantae series someday. This game also reminded me a bit of that one Aliens game Way Forward made a while back, which I never got around to finishing after emulating it for a bit a couple years ago.
>>46432
Well I'm really glad you liked it, wiz.
>I should really check out the Shantae series someday
I played two Shantae games and they have the same problem with the difficulty, maybe they're not as easy but still, I'd be surprised if you died more than a couple of times. Still great gameplay and graphics, they pander to waifufags a lot but I didn't mind.
>This game also reminded me a bit of that one Aliens game Way Forward made a while back
I played that game back when I had my ds and had no idea it was made by WayForward. It was pretty good but I never finished it because the buttons and d-pad of my ds were working like shit, may try it out on an emulator some day.
Well I'm really glad you liked it, wiz.
>I should really check out the Shantae series someday
I played two Shantae games and they have the same problem with the difficulty, maybe they're not as easy but still, I'd be surprised if you died more than a couple of times. Still great gameplay and graphics, they pander to waifufags a lot but I didn't mind.
>This game also reminded me a bit of that one Aliens game Way Forward made a while back
I played that game back when I had my ds and had no idea it was made by WayForward. It was pretty good but I never finished it because the buttons and d-pad of my ds were working like shit, may try it out on an emulator some day.
File: 1565033738654.jpeg (20.61 KB, 474x266, 237:133, download (15).jpeg) ImgOps iqdb
Finally ended this long ass playthrough after recreating Barad-Dúr. Its got a lot of negative reviews but I loved it. The building system is amazing, imo better than medieval engineers.
I just wish there was more detail, especially in thralls.
I just wish there was more detail, especially in thralls.
I have completed Morrowind. It would take a few hours to make a review, so just know I've beaten this behemoth before 200 hours were spend on it. All quests that I found on the wiki, all factions (all of them), the DLC, all of it. Not the propolyn indexes though, since I never got the plugin. I could, but it's a waste of time. I declare myself done with this game.
>>46451
Good for you.
Though you know in the future when you start feeling a hankering for some more there is fuck tons of fan made content to keep playing if you want.
But given the time and effort you put into this one title, it would be best to leave it alone and play something else for a few years.
Good for you.
Though you know in the future when you start feeling a hankering for some more there is fuck tons of fan made content to keep playing if you want.
But given the time and effort you put into this one title, it would be best to leave it alone and play something else for a few years.
>>46449
Did you liked Conan's universe beforehand or went into the game with no prior interest to it?
Did you liked Conan's universe beforehand or went into the game with no prior interest to it?
>>46178
I beat Fran Bow just the other day. Had to look up two of the puzzles (feels bad, man) but I had a ton of fun with it. I legit did not trust Itward until the game was pretty much over and he saves you from the evil doctor
I beat Fran Bow just the other day. Had to look up two of the puzzles (feels bad, man) but I had a ton of fun with it. I legit did not trust Itward until the game was pretty much over and he saves you from the evil doctor
File: 1565138323120.jpg (65.04 KB, 460x215, 92:43, header.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Not a terrible sequel, I suppose. The combat is just as acceptable as it was in the first one and the new bosses are mostly serviceable. The map also feels kind of linear & bloated compared to the first. The developers really went overboard with some of the platforming sections in this one, though. Not sure why they felt like they needed to turn their game into Super fucking Meat Boy all the sudden, but whatever. It was at least somewhat satisfying to overcome I suppose, despite all the bullshit & the near pixel perfect precision in movement that's required in certain instances, especially when going for 100%. I mean, honestly, that final platforming gauntlet the game has you go through for the good ending was just way over the top. I'm amazed I even still had the reflexes for it, frankly. Either way, I'm getting too old for that kind of shit and other similar sorts of heavily demanding, or otherwise "hardcore" experiences. At this point, just put me out to pasture with the walking simulators & casual AAA blockbusters.
>>46449
Looks like that wily succubus is creeping up to cave him (Conan?) in the head with that ax. Is that the intention of that image, or is she just simply standing behind him?
>>46449
Looks like that wily succubus is creeping up to cave him (Conan?) in the head with that ax. Is that the intention of that image, or is she just simply standing behind him?
File: 1565484090301.jpg (36.79 KB, 480x360, 4:3, Phantasy Star.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
About a year ago I tried to play Phantasy Star for the Master System completely by myself without looking anything up. I had a pack of graph paper and did detailed maps of several dungeons and towns but at about half way through I lost heart and gave up. I showed those maps to my brother who at the time showed no interest at all in it. Then 2 weeks ago he came home to spend some time with us and asked me to play Phantasy Star with him, pretty much out of the blue. I readily agreed, but since he was only staying for another couple of days we decided to use a FAQ and play the entire game in 24 hours. I had a blast playing this with him. Now he is off again for another year. Before he left I asked if he would play Phantasy Star 2 next year with me but apparently he didn't like the grind that much to repeat the dose. I thought maybe we could do this a tradition thing, we'll see. I'm glad I even got to play the first one with him.
The grinding was very intense, you kill thousands of monsters and some of things you have to do are pretty close to be completely random. Good thing we had a FAQ for it, otherwise finishing it in a single sitting would be impossible. Back when I tried going without help it took me 3 days to map a single dungeon. Even playing with another person (one actually controlling everything and another one with the faq in hand doing all the navigation part for the dungeons) we got lost a few times. It's a very old school game but it has such charm with its music and graphics you end up continuing to push forward to see what's going to happen next. The story is pretty straight forward (an evil guy named Lassic killed your brother and now you're out for revenge) and the gameplay is pretty much you pushing attack every single time and healing once in a while. Magic is limited and only really useful to heal and in a couple of bosses. It's hard to pinpoint why this game is so engaging and fun for me. It just throws you in this world and you have to figure everything out for yourself. The first half is very difficult because you're about the weakest thing alive in that particular planetary system and even if you grind for a few hours the monsters never really cease to be highly dangerous. It takes so many points to level up you'll be looking to purchase or find any decent gear and equipment the game has to offer and going into all sorts of dangerous places to get it. The music is repetitive but very, very good, the enemies look interesting and there's a strong sense of exploration.
Even though we used a FAQ that didn't cheapen the experience for me, although I would have preferred to draw all the maps by hand and carefully explore everything, but I don't think my brother would have agreed to play it that way even if we had the time to do it. It would probably take several weeks playing every day for a good amount of hours. The way we did was pretty much over grinding levels and gear for a smooth sailing for the second half of the game, though the bosses still managed to kill us a couple of times. Good thing you can save at any moment apart from inside battles.
I'm really glad I managed to see the ending and to have played this with my brother. Good thing I gave up before otherwise we would probably not have played it had I finished before. I will always have fond memories of this, that's for sure. After we finished I told him I would print one of the enemies on a shirt and he said if I ever do that he would like one for himself too. I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the experience as well. I hope we can eventually play the second one, it's been many years since I felt so happy in front of a video-game. Lots of jokes and funny moments.
The grinding was very intense, you kill thousands of monsters and some of things you have to do are pretty close to be completely random. Good thing we had a FAQ for it, otherwise finishing it in a single sitting would be impossible. Back when I tried going without help it took me 3 days to map a single dungeon. Even playing with another person (one actually controlling everything and another one with the faq in hand doing all the navigation part for the dungeons) we got lost a few times. It's a very old school game but it has such charm with its music and graphics you end up continuing to push forward to see what's going to happen next. The story is pretty straight forward (an evil guy named Lassic killed your brother and now you're out for revenge) and the gameplay is pretty much you pushing attack every single time and healing once in a while. Magic is limited and only really useful to heal and in a couple of bosses. It's hard to pinpoint why this game is so engaging and fun for me. It just throws you in this world and you have to figure everything out for yourself. The first half is very difficult because you're about the weakest thing alive in that particular planetary system and even if you grind for a few hours the monsters never really cease to be highly dangerous. It takes so many points to level up you'll be looking to purchase or find any decent gear and equipment the game has to offer and going into all sorts of dangerous places to get it. The music is repetitive but very, very good, the enemies look interesting and there's a strong sense of exploration.
Even though we used a FAQ that didn't cheapen the experience for me, although I would have preferred to draw all the maps by hand and carefully explore everything, but I don't think my brother would have agreed to play it that way even if we had the time to do it. It would probably take several weeks playing every day for a good amount of hours. The way we did was pretty much over grinding levels and gear for a smooth sailing for the second half of the game, though the bosses still managed to kill us a couple of times. Good thing you can save at any moment apart from inside battles.
I'm really glad I managed to see the ending and to have played this with my brother. Good thing I gave up before otherwise we would probably not have played it had I finished before. I will always have fond memories of this, that's for sure. After we finished I told him I would print one of the enemies on a shirt and he said if I ever do that he would like one for himself too. I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the experience as well. I hope we can eventually play the second one, it's been many years since I felt so happy in front of a video-game. Lots of jokes and funny moments.
File: 1565565595132.png (217.49 KB, 545x303, 545:303, yn.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>46240
By the way, someone ripped the audio files from the game and post and released for download if anyone is interested.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m0_KsuO5GgEuQHRzFBcrFTcx2YpobRz2/view
By the way, someone ripped the audio files from the game and post and released for download if anyone is interested.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m0_KsuO5GgEuQHRzFBcrFTcx2YpobRz2/view
>>46240
Your post convinced me to give it a shot if it goes on sale this Halloween. It's always sad when a game gets mixed reviews for stupid reasons.
Your post convinced me to give it a shot if it goes on sale this Halloween. It's always sad when a game gets mixed reviews for stupid reasons.
>>46452
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did everything. I literally looked through the miscellaneous quests, one by one, and just did them. I went through every single town to do their quests and saved the Morag Tong for the last quests.
Holy crap, I forgot I didn't do the grandmaster writs. However, I did do it before posting this, so I will officially end my Morrowind career here, on a high note.
I'm actually going to finish Oblivion next, and after coming back to Oblivion from Morrowind, I REALLY miss teleportation and levitation. Mountains are such a pain now. However, I've explored Oblivion a lot more thoroughly than Morrowind and feel way more at home in Cyrodil. I do appreciate the game a lot more, even though I seriously hate most of it. It's what Morrowind would have been if not for the stagnant leveling system, the alchemy exploit, and unlimited training. If those three things were out of Morrowind, I would have hated Morrowind a lot more.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did everything. I literally looked through the miscellaneous quests, one by one, and just did them. I went through every single town to do their quests and saved the Morag Tong for the last quests.
Holy crap, I forgot I didn't do the grandmaster writs. However, I did do it before posting this, so I will officially end my Morrowind career here, on a high note.
I'm actually going to finish Oblivion next, and after coming back to Oblivion from Morrowind, I REALLY miss teleportation and levitation. Mountains are such a pain now. However, I've explored Oblivion a lot more thoroughly than Morrowind and feel way more at home in Cyrodil. I do appreciate the game a lot more, even though I seriously hate most of it. It's what Morrowind would have been if not for the stagnant leveling system, the alchemy exploit, and unlimited training. If those three things were out of Morrowind, I would have hated Morrowind a lot more.
>>46522
Never really had a problem getting lost in dungeons, it was the not knowing what tje fuck to do next to progress that killed the game for me and the #1 reason I hate playing jrpg.
Just awful game design where there are parts where unless you have a detailed guide there is nothing in game to even hint at what the hell you are supposed to do. A problem that even appears in modern jrpg.
One that I never run into in western crpg.
I made pretty good progress in that game too, but after hours of just wondering around I got bored and quit.
Never really had a problem getting lost in dungeons, it was the not knowing what tje fuck to do next to progress that killed the game for me and the #1 reason I hate playing jrpg.
Just awful game design where there are parts where unless you have a detailed guide there is nothing in game to even hint at what the hell you are supposed to do. A problem that even appears in modern jrpg.
One that I never run into in western crpg.
I made pretty good progress in that game too, but after hours of just wondering around I got bored and quit.
File: 1566612020656.jpg (348.42 KB, 1600x800, 2:1, H2x1_NSwitchDS_MyLovelyDau….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Decided to give this one a try after I saw some other wizzie mention it in another thread. All in all, I thought it was pretty OK. It's fairly short and it doesn't overstay its welcome which, for me, was nice. Quirky, morbid games like this always work best when they exercise a bit of brevity. Beyond that however, it's basically just a very casual management sim, with only a handful of things to keep track of. Personally, I found the whole thing to be rather comfy. The process of trial & error in regards to reviving your original daughter can get to be a little annoying & tedious near the end, but, fortunately, there's no real consequence for failure other than lost resources, which, admittedly, can be a bit of a pain in & of itself. The story surrounding everything was serviceable for the most part, right up until you finally succeed in reviving your original, human daughter, where it then proceeds to go full retard. I don't really care enough to get into it, but the actual ending to this game (that being the true ending) is just so unbelievably dumb, unexplained & out of left field, that I couldn't help, but let out an audible "Huh? Are you serious?". I then reloaded and went for one of the more permanent DLC added endings, the one where all your homunculi turn on you and bury you alive, and was much more satisfied. Anyway, like I said, I really appreciated how the management aspects in this game were fairly relaxed & non-punishing. Something like "The Shrouded Isle", another indie management game that's a little similar to this, was basically a ruinous slog thanks to how punishing & RNG heavy its limited management aspects were. In this case, you can just take it at your own pace and experiment with different combinations of ingredients as you see fit, so long as you keep your original, dead daughter lubed up with readily available and easy to acquire preservative ointment. All in all, filling out the book and discovering all the different homunculi daughters you can make was a nice, somewhat satisfying waste of time.
As an aside, that other wizzie I mentioned who clued me into this game, seemed to be particularly bent out of shape over the core mechanic of this game, (that being farming/slaughtering cutesy, monster succubus homunculi for their juicy soul essence), but, honestly, even from the very beginning of the game, it's actually a pretty mundane affair. The homunculi themselves are fairly static & two dimensional, so it's kinda hard to feel that "moved" when harvesting them. Especially so after the 40th or 50th time of needing to carry out the same old routine where, if you're like me, you're only wishing you could simply throw their proverbial asses on a pre-built assembly line of death, so as to simply save yourself the hassle of having to summon/slaughter each one yourself. Aside from a couple notes they sometimes leave you underneath their respective doors (with recycled bits of text, by the way) and their various sound bytes of mewling/crying/giggling, the daughters themselves are essentially inert. Beyond sending them out to work or sacrificing them, the only thing you can actually "do" with them is give them some random gifts that appeal to their inherent affinity, which is rewarded with, like I said before, various notes with recycled text. In the end, killing them was, to me anyway, no different than gibbing some random enemy or NPC in an old-school FPS, aside from it being, in this case, way more slow & boring. It's certainly a shame the developers couldn't have made the core gameplay loop more impactful, but maybe that speaks more to how just how jaded/indifferent I am towards these sorts of things. Short of a game about brutally torturing small, realistically rendered animals, you'd be hard pressed to get me to care about anything I do in a video game. I mean, yeah, sometimes I reload a save, so I can be the good guy in an RPG or whatever, but that's more just my OCD at work than anything else, at least in regards to not wanting to screw anything up too badly, and be as close to Mr. Perfect as I can get, as it were.
On the other hand, I'd hardly call myself a statue. For instance, you couldn't pay me to watch even a quarter of the stuff most people have seen on liveleak, or elsewhere. Even modestly gorey stuff, like beheadings & the like, still make me wince like a total wuss. Something about the fact that it's happening to real person is enough to simply make me ill & sick to my core. Conversely, I could see the same thing, or worse, in a movie, TV show or video game and not be bothered one bit. Strange how all that works, I guess.
In the case of this game however, I feel like the fact that it was made in Indonesia sorta made it especially hard to connect with in a sense. Even outside of the somewhat shoddy & stiff translation, you can just sort of feel how rough & anachronistically foreign it is which, once again, at least for me, was a major hurdle for any sort of immersion or investment.
As an aside, that other wizzie I mentioned who clued me into this game, seemed to be particularly bent out of shape over the core mechanic of this game, (that being farming/slaughtering cutesy, monster succubus homunculi for their juicy soul essence), but, honestly, even from the very beginning of the game, it's actually a pretty mundane affair. The homunculi themselves are fairly static & two dimensional, so it's kinda hard to feel that "moved" when harvesting them. Especially so after the 40th or 50th time of needing to carry out the same old routine where, if you're like me, you're only wishing you could simply throw their proverbial asses on a pre-built assembly line of death, so as to simply save yourself the hassle of having to summon/slaughter each one yourself. Aside from a couple notes they sometimes leave you underneath their respective doors (with recycled bits of text, by the way) and their various sound bytes of mewling/crying/giggling, the daughters themselves are essentially inert. Beyond sending them out to work or sacrificing them, the only thing you can actually "do" with them is give them some random gifts that appeal to their inherent affinity, which is rewarded with, like I said before, various notes with recycled text. In the end, killing them was, to me anyway, no different than gibbing some random enemy or NPC in an old-school FPS, aside from it being, in this case, way more slow & boring. It's certainly a shame the developers couldn't have made the core gameplay loop more impactful, but maybe that speaks more to how just how jaded/indifferent I am towards these sorts of things. Short of a game about brutally torturing small, realistically rendered animals, you'd be hard pressed to get me to care about anything I do in a video game. I mean, yeah, sometimes I reload a save, so I can be the good guy in an RPG or whatever, but that's more just my OCD at work than anything else, at least in regards to not wanting to screw anything up too badly, and be as close to Mr. Perfect as I can get, as it were.
On the other hand, I'd hardly call myself a statue. For instance, you couldn't pay me to watch even a quarter of the stuff most people have seen on liveleak, or elsewhere. Even modestly gorey stuff, like beheadings & the like, still make me wince like a total wuss. Something about the fact that it's happening to real person is enough to simply make me ill & sick to my core. Conversely, I could see the same thing, or worse, in a movie, TV show or video game and not be bothered one bit. Strange how all that works, I guess.
In the case of this game however, I feel like the fact that it was made in Indonesia sorta made it especially hard to connect with in a sense. Even outside of the somewhat shoddy & stiff translation, you can just sort of feel how rough & anachronistically foreign it is which, once again, at least for me, was a major hurdle for any sort of immersion or investment.
Finished Shadow Warrior Classic Redux today. It was average. Enemy and weapon variety was kinda low and the levels were rather monotone as well. I didn't bother playing the expansions, because I figured it would be the same shit over and over and frankly I've had enough of that game for a lifetime.
File: 1566661281895.jpg (20.1 KB, 220x198, 10:9, The_World_Ends_With_You.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
I don't know whether this counts, but I got to the end of "The World Ends with You," and then when I was asked, "NOw dO yOu undeRSTaNd thE IMPortAnCe oF fRiENDShiP?!" I said, "No." The final boss becomes impossible to defeat. I decided that would be my ending.
File: 1566676099034-0.png (187.57 KB, 486x263, 486:263, umihara box.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1566676099034-1.png (23.36 KB, 512x448, 8:7, UmiharaKawaseJ011.png) ImgOps iqdb
I've finished two games in a single day, pretty sure this is the first time I do it. Not only that but it turns out both games are now my among my favorite games of all times. First one is Umihara Kawase for the Snes. I've heard about this game a long time ago. It looked interesting but for one reason or another I never sat down to play it seriously until a couple of days ago. It's one of those 'pure gameplay' games with virtually no plot. You just go through each stage until you get to the next door and… the credits roll. I loved it. I suck at it pretty bad and could only finish it by abusing save states, still, what an adoring piece of software. I played it before but could never go beyond the first half dozen or so fields and ending up getting stuck on some difficult jump I wasn't able to pull it off. Even with save states finishing it is quite hard. Some of the jumps I managed to do were pretty much luck more than anything. The graphics are endearing, grew quite fond of those pixelated pictures they use for the background and the music is one of the best things about it. It's weird because the music, graphics and general mood of this is the perfect comfy but the gameplay itself is tense and you're on a timer. I can see good players seeing this as the ultimate comfy game though. I'll definitely be playing the other ones from the franchise. If you like hard games and also getting enraged by video-games but at the same time finding everything charming and interesting, this one is for you. I rage quit a few times before giving up and using saves. I don't regret it though, as I still plan to get good at this. Not to mention I've not seen all the stages and bosses the game has to offer, there's a lot of content left for it. Now, the other one..
File: 1566677448262-0.jpg (365.84 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, 631320-katamari-damacy-rer….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1566677448262-1.png (1.23 MB, 1366x768, 683:384, moon.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>46667
is Katamari Damacy, the ps2 game they recently remastered for the PC, which is the version I played. This is another case of a game I've heard about it, it looked interesting but for some reason I never sat down to try it. This one I finished in a single sitting. I don't have a gamepad right now so I had to do it using the keyboard. Everyone will tell you to get a controller for this and I agree, BUT you can get pretty used to using the keyboard instead. It's not so much a game of skill as a memorizing where things are on the stages. Know where things are and that knowledge alone will carry you all the way to the end, including rolling the huge katamaris for unlocking endless mode. I did it all with just the keyboard. Like Umihara, this game is endearing as hell and also it scratches my tism quite a bit. Rolling a ball grabbing everything that comes close to it gives me great pleasure for some reason. In fact my favorite stages by far are the first ones where you roll your katamari inside the house, grabbing coins, pencils, staples, stationary and candy. It's so damn satisfying to clean the room using that ball. I played the fist stage at least 40 times by now and managed to amass a 20cm ball on the first one, which I'm quite proud of, even though I'm sure if I go on yt, someone manages to roll one double that size. Characters are interesting to look at, music is great and that's from someone who doesn't like music with human voice in it. I'm listening a Katamari tune right now it's so good. I'm currently trying to find all the presents since by the time I finished I had found only two of them. I don't know exactly why people like this game but for me is the "sweeping everything" aspect of it. It is a repetitive game but the idea behind it is so nice I don't even care. I keep coming back to the first stages and also I got semi-good on the moon stage as well. That's the biggest moon I managed to pull it off. Even my dad is smiling. 867m, that's close to everything you can grab at that particular stage. This one too could be a perfect comfy game if wasn't for the timer. I just can't ignore the timer, if only you could hide it.
is Katamari Damacy, the ps2 game they recently remastered for the PC, which is the version I played. This is another case of a game I've heard about it, it looked interesting but for some reason I never sat down to try it. This one I finished in a single sitting. I don't have a gamepad right now so I had to do it using the keyboard. Everyone will tell you to get a controller for this and I agree, BUT you can get pretty used to using the keyboard instead. It's not so much a game of skill as a memorizing where things are on the stages. Know where things are and that knowledge alone will carry you all the way to the end, including rolling the huge katamaris for unlocking endless mode. I did it all with just the keyboard. Like Umihara, this game is endearing as hell and also it scratches my tism quite a bit. Rolling a ball grabbing everything that comes close to it gives me great pleasure for some reason. In fact my favorite stages by far are the first ones where you roll your katamari inside the house, grabbing coins, pencils, staples, stationary and candy. It's so damn satisfying to clean the room using that ball. I played the fist stage at least 40 times by now and managed to amass a 20cm ball on the first one, which I'm quite proud of, even though I'm sure if I go on yt, someone manages to roll one double that size. Characters are interesting to look at, music is great and that's from someone who doesn't like music with human voice in it. I'm listening a Katamari tune right now it's so good. I'm currently trying to find all the presents since by the time I finished I had found only two of them. I don't know exactly why people like this game but for me is the "sweeping everything" aspect of it. It is a repetitive game but the idea behind it is so nice I don't even care. I keep coming back to the first stages and also I got semi-good on the moon stage as well. That's the biggest moon I managed to pull it off. Even my dad is smiling. 867m, that's close to everything you can grab at that particular stage. This one too could be a perfect comfy game if wasn't for the timer. I just can't ignore the timer, if only you could hide it.
File: 1566899167875.gif (2.06 MB, 1000x1000, 1:1, 5fd16469942349.5b925640e0b….gif) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished this a couple hours ago. Quite a pleasant journey actually, with surprisingly decent production values to boot. Right off the bat, it's pretty clear to see how heavily inspired the developers were by the likes of Hayao Miyazaki, especially so in regards to the way the story & characters are handled. Even the, admittedly impressive, animation & overall look of the game is very Studio Ghibli-ish, while at the same also time managing to maintain its own look which, to its credit, it does pretty well. Gameplay-wise it's fairly bare bones and all of the puzzles are about as hard to solve as putting on a hat, but, even still, it's a nice little adventure in a whimsical world with a cast of endearing characters that, in its own way, reminded me a lot of Spirited Away. It's probably the closest anyone's come, at least that I know of, towards nailing that signature Miyazaki feel & charm in regards to the mood & setting. There's also "Ni No Kuni" of course, but this, for me anyway, just felt a lot more earnest & warm in certain aspects, while also maintaining a pace & length which felt more resemblant of a Miyazaki-like experience. The ending as well (the one where you sacrifice yourself), I found to be very bittersweet & touching.
Anyway, I don't know. I don't mean to oversell it, since I'm sure most others would probably come away with more lukewarm feelings about it. In my case, I just checked it out on a whim, knowing nothing about it beforehand, and, in the end, at least for me, it turned out to be a real hidden gem.
Anyway, I don't know. I don't mean to oversell it, since I'm sure most others would probably come away with more lukewarm feelings about it. In my case, I just checked it out on a whim, knowing nothing about it beforehand, and, in the end, at least for me, it turned out to be a real hidden gem.
File: 1566962270520-0.jpg (64.65 KB, 640x449, 640:449, snes_evo_search_for_eden.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1566962270520-1.jpg (36.36 KB, 638x478, 319:239, proxy.duckduckgo.com.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished E.V.O Search for Eden for the Snes. Not sure where to start, it's a weird sort of game. Weird premise with platformer and RPG elements stitched all together to deliver an interesting experience. I liked it a lot. I've just finished reading the wiki for it and people complained about bad graphics and annoying music, which is not untrue but it doesn't really interfere with one's enjoyment of this game, at least it didn't for me one bit. Besides, the backgrounds are for the most part really good and some are even beautiful (jungle, desert comes to mind). Actually the graphics are not bad, they just seem a bit old for a 1992 Snes game. And while it's true there is one piece of music in there that is kind of annoying, it's mostly because it's playing in many stages where you're grinding for EVO points. It's not bad, it's just too short and there's some grinding to be made here. It did feel like both graphics and music goes a bit downhill after the first chapter which you spend playing on the ocean billions of years ago. After that, it does get a bit uninspired but it's still serviceable.
Basically you'll be playing as several life forms throughout several millions of years, following evolution on Earth with a twist. The twist being weird orbs that keep appearing here and there and messing up with a bunch of creatures and their evolutionary passe. This is not a spoiler btw, you find the first orb 2 minutes into the game. This game did a great job at keeping me interested on the story it wanted to tell and the few characters out there you meet are memorable even though many only have a couple of lines. A couple of scenes are even moving believe it or not. The story is basically you evolving until proven worthy to join Gaia on Eden. Shenanigans keep happening. It's all a bit awkward but very charming and fun. Gameplay is quite basic. Straight forward platforming. The RPG element is the evolution part. You kill animals to harvest EVO points and then choose a body part you want to 'purchase'. The best parts are of course super expensive and that's the second half of the gameplay. Harvesting EVO. You'll be doing that a lot here. If you're into jrpgs, no worries, this is familiar ground for you. If you dislike grinding you might still enjoy it for the weird way this game decides to tell you about life on Earth but there will be boring parts for sure. Hang in there.
Now that I think about it, I didn't even mind the grind itself. It's how the system for body parts work. Say, you want to test a rhino body. It costs 2k EVO points, about 10 to 15 minutes of grinding, depending how good you are. Then, as soon as you get those points and spend them to get the rhino body you realize not only it looks damn awful on your current build but you're now super slow and the bonus on defense is not really worth it. What you do? Go back to the body you had before, of course. Except you can't. You have to purchase that part again. If you had a horse body, now you'll have to grind 1500 EVOs again to get it back. You never own any of the parts you purchase. If you have a beak and want to test a jaw for 10 seconds? If you don't like the jaw be prepared to grind points to get your beak back. That made me experiment A LOT LESS with all the possible combinations you can have in this game. I don't want to grind 10 minutes for a lizard tail to find out in 5 seconds it doesn't suit the way I want to play it and then regrind again to get the tail I had before. Basically what happened was I would go for the top, most expensive parts pretty much every time and never played around with the possible combinations. Actually I did play around a little bit but only because I was using savestates for that. Can't imagine I would be doing this if playing without it. Even with savestates, grinding EVO points still is a big part of this.
Still, a beautiful game. I think I never played anything quite like it before. I know there are games like Spore but they're not similar beyond the building a creature part. I find the presentation here and the flavor way more interesting that in Spore or similar games. Oh, and the bosses are hard as balls here, doesn't matter how well prepared you built yourself for it. You better get good on that platforming elements. You might have the Dino Jaw with a lot of damage and every creature on the island flee as soon as they spot you but once you meet the boss you'll find yourself humbled a lot of times, specially during the second half of the game.
All in all the EVO Quest for Eden actually delivered what it promised. It did felt like a journey and in the end I did feel worthy of finally going to Eden, or at least getting that cosmic ending and all the credits. Would play again or at least revisit my save states.
Basically you'll be playing as several life forms throughout several millions of years, following evolution on Earth with a twist. The twist being weird orbs that keep appearing here and there and messing up with a bunch of creatures and their evolutionary passe. This is not a spoiler btw, you find the first orb 2 minutes into the game. This game did a great job at keeping me interested on the story it wanted to tell and the few characters out there you meet are memorable even though many only have a couple of lines. A couple of scenes are even moving believe it or not. The story is basically you evolving until proven worthy to join Gaia on Eden. Shenanigans keep happening. It's all a bit awkward but very charming and fun. Gameplay is quite basic. Straight forward platforming. The RPG element is the evolution part. You kill animals to harvest EVO points and then choose a body part you want to 'purchase'. The best parts are of course super expensive and that's the second half of the gameplay. Harvesting EVO. You'll be doing that a lot here. If you're into jrpgs, no worries, this is familiar ground for you. If you dislike grinding you might still enjoy it for the weird way this game decides to tell you about life on Earth but there will be boring parts for sure. Hang in there.
Now that I think about it, I didn't even mind the grind itself. It's how the system for body parts work. Say, you want to test a rhino body. It costs 2k EVO points, about 10 to 15 minutes of grinding, depending how good you are. Then, as soon as you get those points and spend them to get the rhino body you realize not only it looks damn awful on your current build but you're now super slow and the bonus on defense is not really worth it. What you do? Go back to the body you had before, of course. Except you can't. You have to purchase that part again. If you had a horse body, now you'll have to grind 1500 EVOs again to get it back. You never own any of the parts you purchase. If you have a beak and want to test a jaw for 10 seconds? If you don't like the jaw be prepared to grind points to get your beak back. That made me experiment A LOT LESS with all the possible combinations you can have in this game. I don't want to grind 10 minutes for a lizard tail to find out in 5 seconds it doesn't suit the way I want to play it and then regrind again to get the tail I had before. Basically what happened was I would go for the top, most expensive parts pretty much every time and never played around with the possible combinations. Actually I did play around a little bit but only because I was using savestates for that. Can't imagine I would be doing this if playing without it. Even with savestates, grinding EVO points still is a big part of this.
Still, a beautiful game. I think I never played anything quite like it before. I know there are games like Spore but they're not similar beyond the building a creature part. I find the presentation here and the flavor way more interesting that in Spore or similar games. Oh, and the bosses are hard as balls here, doesn't matter how well prepared you built yourself for it. You better get good on that platforming elements. You might have the Dino Jaw with a lot of damage and every creature on the island flee as soon as they spot you but once you meet the boss you'll find yourself humbled a lot of times, specially during the second half of the game.
All in all the EVO Quest for Eden actually delivered what it promised. It did felt like a journey and in the end I did feel worthy of finally going to Eden, or at least getting that cosmic ending and all the credits. Would play again or at least revisit my save states.
File: 1567055715867.jpg (499.24 KB, 2560x1458, 1280:729, Kingdom Come.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
And some people think Rockstar has an unhealthy hard-on for immersion. Just spent the last month chipping away at this and after having just now finally finished it, along with all the side quests & available DLC content as well, the whole thing, when taken overall, I have mostly mixed feelings about.
The combat system, to begin with, is certainly novel for what it is, but, as one will find out rather early on, your ability to excel in it has far more to do with your character's stats, than your skill as a player. Even if you've already mastered the combat system, it won't mean shit unless your strength, defense, agility, and swordsmanship skills are properly high enough to your opponent. On the flip side, do enough practice bouts in a training area to raise your stats high enough and, even if you suck ass, you'll still be able to hack most enemies to pieces without much trouble whatsoever, often times instantly killing them after a perfect riposte. So, in other words, what I'm trying to say is that Dark Souls this is not. No running around naked at level 1, riposting & backstabbing everything to death, to be found here. That's not a bad thing mind you, but the fact that the combat is more about your skills, than your actual skill, if you know what I mean, is a little lame, especially since your skills will inevitably raise no matter what it is you do. Hell, for the most part, by the end of the game, you can pretty much just spam moves willy nilly and overpower your opponent in a flurry of uncoordinated blows. To stymie this, the developers have it so pretty much any old bandit can riposte your every second blow, which also effectively makes preforming combos mot only unnecessary, but also totally useless, since your opponent will almost always interrupt you before you can complete the moves necessary to chain the combo to completion. In the end, this just makes combat mostly tedious, since you're just forced to trade ripostes back and forth, which are ridiculously easy to preform by the way, until you can either instantly kill them, or weaken them enough that you simply spam them the rest of the way to their death. Pretty much the only way to make the game "harder", is not to wear any armor or take on multiple adversaries at once. Which, speaking of, group combat in this game is a complete fucking mess. This is mostly thanks to the cumbersome lock-on system and how you can only attack at the enemy you're currently locked on to. Otherwise your sword swings will completely miss their target, even if you're whacking an enemy you're not locked on to right in the face.
Leading on from that, large scale battles basically just descend into a woefully small assortment of glitchy NPCs whacking & interrupting each other to death. I often found that enemies would just turn their backs to face whichever foe was closest to them. This itself led to large battles being over disappointingly quickly, since enemies would constantly show their backside, leading to free and often fatal hits. Once a couple enemies go down, you'd then always 3, or more, friendly NPCs hitting one enemy at once, pretty much killing them instantly, which made large battles piss easy & largely anticlimactic. It's also kinda lame how your involvement in the battles themselves is rather inconsequential and, because some NPCs can't be killed, it's pretty much impossible to lose, even if you stand back and do nothing.
Archery is also awful, but, to its credit, it actually takes some skill to line up a proper shot. Only trouble is that, outside of large battles, enemies will Sonic The Hedgehog towards you after the first shot, making ranged attacks mostly useless.
Horse riding is also really frustrating to deal with most times, even with a high stat horse & high horsemanship skill, given how often the horse itself will get stuck on every tiny bit of terrain there is while riding along anything that's isn't a flat grassy plain or road. Trying to ride your horse over anything at an incline is also pretty much impossible. It's like the developers saw how horses were pretty much mountain goats in Skyrim and exclaimed, in fevered over reaction to themselves, "Not in our game damn it! We'll make it so your horse won't even know how to navigate a small hill, slight incline to a stream, or marginally dense bush!". Score yet another victory for immersion at the expense of the gameplay. Hooray and well done, you silly jackassess.
On the topic of immersion, while however impressive & detailed it is, I find the developers, much like with Rockstar, went a bit too overboard with it, to the point where it merely becomes tedious & kills the pacing & fun factor of the game itself. I can't tell you how many fucking quests in this game involve having to ride across, very nearly, the entire map & talk to some random NPC, only to then turn around, haul your ass back the way you came and, in some instances, be forced to, once again, ride across another long section of the map, to talk to yet another brain dead NPC. On top of that, needing to fetch random, useless shit is honestly the order of the day in this damn game. Go here and steal this random crap, go here and hunt/gather X amount of resources, go here and do a set of tedious little objectives in general, all for the sake of maintaining, what we the developers see, as our precious sense of "immersion". Again, the attention to detail they've put into this is commendable, but at what cost? Things like needing to carry a torch at night to see what you're doing and avoid being hassled by guards, or only being able to save using rare, in the beginning anyway, consumable items known as "Savior Schnapps", I thought were kinda neat little additions to help ground the player to the world. Before too long however, most of the attempts made at immersion simply devolve into utter obnoxious & tiresome wastes of time. I also question how "immersive" this really is in the end when, thanks to the Elder Scrolls-esque skills system, your character can become pretty much an unearthly savant in everything available. Frankly, I'd of preferred it if there was either no skills system at all, or one where you needed to specialize & make hard choices towards what it is you wanted to be. As it is, long before the end of the game comes, you can essentially become completely invisible with a high stealth skill, become nearly unstoppable in battle with high combat skills, and become suddenly blessed with the Voice of fucking Saruman with a high enough speech skill.
I mean, hell, the lack of fast travel on hardcore mode, is itself rather immersion breaking. In my case, having played on hardcore mode, I'd say a good half of the 77 or so hours I spent playing this game was due to needing to manually ride my annoying ass horse back & forth across the map, over the same old dull terrain. Are you telling me there's no wagons or carriages I can make use of to ferry myself between villages & townships? Fuck off, why don't you. An extra slap in the face is that certain quests will have you suddenly fast travel across the map, which makes not including it in hardcore mode a cheap move towards lazily padding a player's run time. On that note, I really wouldn't advise playing on hardcore. It's neat in some respects, what with having to pick negative perks at the beginning and all, but overall, it just makes the game that much more unbelievably tedious. Although, on the plus side, because of the lack of being able to see where you are on the map, it thereby forces you to take stock of your surroundings and pay close attention to the direction NPCs give you when needing to get somewhere. On the other hand, it also disables things like the overhead compass, which just feels stupid and, once again, immersion breaking.
I think a good example of how tedious the immersion turns out to be, is with alchemy. Cool at first, with lots of neat, tactile touches involved in the process itself, but sours, sooner rather than later, as it swiftly becomes boring, dull and slow, mostly due to overtly long animations in the service of, you guessed it, an obnoxious sense of immersion.
The combat system, to begin with, is certainly novel for what it is, but, as one will find out rather early on, your ability to excel in it has far more to do with your character's stats, than your skill as a player. Even if you've already mastered the combat system, it won't mean shit unless your strength, defense, agility, and swordsmanship skills are properly high enough to your opponent. On the flip side, do enough practice bouts in a training area to raise your stats high enough and, even if you suck ass, you'll still be able to hack most enemies to pieces without much trouble whatsoever, often times instantly killing them after a perfect riposte. So, in other words, what I'm trying to say is that Dark Souls this is not. No running around naked at level 1, riposting & backstabbing everything to death, to be found here. That's not a bad thing mind you, but the fact that the combat is more about your skills, than your actual skill, if you know what I mean, is a little lame, especially since your skills will inevitably raise no matter what it is you do. Hell, for the most part, by the end of the game, you can pretty much just spam moves willy nilly and overpower your opponent in a flurry of uncoordinated blows. To stymie this, the developers have it so pretty much any old bandit can riposte your every second blow, which also effectively makes preforming combos mot only unnecessary, but also totally useless, since your opponent will almost always interrupt you before you can complete the moves necessary to chain the combo to completion. In the end, this just makes combat mostly tedious, since you're just forced to trade ripostes back and forth, which are ridiculously easy to preform by the way, until you can either instantly kill them, or weaken them enough that you simply spam them the rest of the way to their death. Pretty much the only way to make the game "harder", is not to wear any armor or take on multiple adversaries at once. Which, speaking of, group combat in this game is a complete fucking mess. This is mostly thanks to the cumbersome lock-on system and how you can only attack at the enemy you're currently locked on to. Otherwise your sword swings will completely miss their target, even if you're whacking an enemy you're not locked on to right in the face.
Leading on from that, large scale battles basically just descend into a woefully small assortment of glitchy NPCs whacking & interrupting each other to death. I often found that enemies would just turn their backs to face whichever foe was closest to them. This itself led to large battles being over disappointingly quickly, since enemies would constantly show their backside, leading to free and often fatal hits. Once a couple enemies go down, you'd then always 3, or more, friendly NPCs hitting one enemy at once, pretty much killing them instantly, which made large battles piss easy & largely anticlimactic. It's also kinda lame how your involvement in the battles themselves is rather inconsequential and, because some NPCs can't be killed, it's pretty much impossible to lose, even if you stand back and do nothing.
Archery is also awful, but, to its credit, it actually takes some skill to line up a proper shot. Only trouble is that, outside of large battles, enemies will Sonic The Hedgehog towards you after the first shot, making ranged attacks mostly useless.
Horse riding is also really frustrating to deal with most times, even with a high stat horse & high horsemanship skill, given how often the horse itself will get stuck on every tiny bit of terrain there is while riding along anything that's isn't a flat grassy plain or road. Trying to ride your horse over anything at an incline is also pretty much impossible. It's like the developers saw how horses were pretty much mountain goats in Skyrim and exclaimed, in fevered over reaction to themselves, "Not in our game damn it! We'll make it so your horse won't even know how to navigate a small hill, slight incline to a stream, or marginally dense bush!". Score yet another victory for immersion at the expense of the gameplay. Hooray and well done, you silly jackassess.
On the topic of immersion, while however impressive & detailed it is, I find the developers, much like with Rockstar, went a bit too overboard with it, to the point where it merely becomes tedious & kills the pacing & fun factor of the game itself. I can't tell you how many fucking quests in this game involve having to ride across, very nearly, the entire map & talk to some random NPC, only to then turn around, haul your ass back the way you came and, in some instances, be forced to, once again, ride across another long section of the map, to talk to yet another brain dead NPC. On top of that, needing to fetch random, useless shit is honestly the order of the day in this damn game. Go here and steal this random crap, go here and hunt/gather X amount of resources, go here and do a set of tedious little objectives in general, all for the sake of maintaining, what we the developers see, as our precious sense of "immersion". Again, the attention to detail they've put into this is commendable, but at what cost? Things like needing to carry a torch at night to see what you're doing and avoid being hassled by guards, or only being able to save using rare, in the beginning anyway, consumable items known as "Savior Schnapps", I thought were kinda neat little additions to help ground the player to the world. Before too long however, most of the attempts made at immersion simply devolve into utter obnoxious & tiresome wastes of time. I also question how "immersive" this really is in the end when, thanks to the Elder Scrolls-esque skills system, your character can become pretty much an unearthly savant in everything available. Frankly, I'd of preferred it if there was either no skills system at all, or one where you needed to specialize & make hard choices towards what it is you wanted to be. As it is, long before the end of the game comes, you can essentially become completely invisible with a high stealth skill, become nearly unstoppable in battle with high combat skills, and become suddenly blessed with the Voice of fucking Saruman with a high enough speech skill.
I mean, hell, the lack of fast travel on hardcore mode, is itself rather immersion breaking. In my case, having played on hardcore mode, I'd say a good half of the 77 or so hours I spent playing this game was due to needing to manually ride my annoying ass horse back & forth across the map, over the same old dull terrain. Are you telling me there's no wagons or carriages I can make use of to ferry myself between villages & townships? Fuck off, why don't you. An extra slap in the face is that certain quests will have you suddenly fast travel across the map, which makes not including it in hardcore mode a cheap move towards lazily padding a player's run time. On that note, I really wouldn't advise playing on hardcore. It's neat in some respects, what with having to pick negative perks at the beginning and all, but overall, it just makes the game that much more unbelievably tedious. Although, on the plus side, because of the lack of being able to see where you are on the map, it thereby forces you to take stock of your surroundings and pay close attention to the direction NPCs give you when needing to get somewhere. On the other hand, it also disables things like the overhead compass, which just feels stupid and, once again, immersion breaking.
I think a good example of how tedious the immersion turns out to be, is with alchemy. Cool at first, with lots of neat, tactile touches involved in the process itself, but sours, sooner rather than later, as it swiftly becomes boring, dull and slow, mostly due to overtly long animations in the service of, you guessed it, an obnoxious sense of immersion.
File: 1567055829816.jpg (44.28 KB, 450x392, 225:196, And another thing.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>46745
(Continued….)
Quest-wise the base game, and most of the available DLC, is mostly a slog. The main quest itself is fucking glacially slow and is filled to the brim with tons of unnecessarily long to-do work. A lot of the game is spent with you being a pseudo-detective of sorts "investigating" certain goings on across the map for the nobles. Which itself is basically code for, go here, talk to these NPCs, exhaust their dialogue, do some random bitch work for them, talk to more NPCs, do even more bitch work, maybe get in a skirmish or two along the way, then eventually come back and report to Sir Radish & Robert Baratheon. The large scale battles are really the only major action you get during the main quest, but, like I said before, they're completely lack-luster for what they are and in the end there's only like 3-5 of them anyway, in the three separate locations where they could only realistically take place, which, itself, makes certain plot developments rather easy to see coming. Even when the main quest tries to do something different, like when you need to infiltrate the large monastery and become a monk, it backfires and becomes yet another dull and tedious slog. As far as the finale is concerned, the siege at Talmberg could have been exciting, before swiftly turning out to be anything, but that. The fact that, when what should be the most bombastic section of the game, devolves into yet another fucking fetch quest for X, Y & Z, needing to literally up & leave from where the action is going on and collect a bunch of random shit, only to then be forced to stand around and wait for 2 days of in-game time to watch a cutscene play out, only to then wait yet another 2 days of in-game time to actually have the battle begin, is ridiculously frustrating. I'm sure the developers were thinking themselves rather clever in the sense that, 'A siege takes time and supplies! Therefore fetching random crap & waiting around is to be perfectly expected! Are you immersed yet? Please tell me your immersed!" Oh, am I immersed? Sure, I'm immersed. Immersed in how fucking boring, poorly paced & anti-climatic this all is. What's worse is that, right after that lame final battle, the game literally ends out of nowhere, without so much as any of the major narrative obstacles having been solved. All of it bulldozed & relegated to the eventual sequel which, needless to say, just feels beyond cheap, as sequel-baiting always is.
The side quests, aside from a scant few, like the one where you hallucinate with a bunch of would-be witches, or the one where you help the executioner sabotage an execution, or the one where you need to investigate a Robin Hood like figure in the woods, also suffer from much of the poor pacing and painful mundaneness of the main quest. Even still, the amount of ways one can approach or solve a quest in certain instances is, admittedly, impressive. Sometimes the best outcome to a quest is left up to you the player being able to find it. Whether that's by paying attention and trusting the right NPC, or finding an otherwise alternate course of action through your own means. Lots of opportunities to screw or backstab other characters as well, which is also neat, assuming you're into that sort of thing.
The DLC is a little bit better. The latest one, that being "A succubus's Lot", was interesting for what it was, introducing stuff like having a dog companion and all the different actions that opens up to the player. But shit like "Band of Bastards", or the one surrounding Sir Capon, were just weak as hell. The one that allows you to rebuild and manage your own town is kinda nice, but the fact that it's so out of the way at the northern tip of the map, makes anything you build there essentially worthless. Aside from needing to decide between constructing a stable or a guardhouse on whichever of the pre-established plots there are available, there's also no decisions to make there whatsoever. You can't even demolish buildings for christ sake's and it's completely fucking static after everything's built. Really lame, I must say. Also, the fact that you need to wait for the foreman to jog his slow fucking ass over to each building plot before you can start building, even if it's just a backyard garden, made me rage like nothing else. I mean, honestly, were the developers that fucking drunk on their own farts, that they couldn't just allow you to build shit, without needless time-wasting interference like that? God, it just pisses me off, that sort of willful, or ignorant, cluelessness that pervades so much of this game.
I won't get much into the story, other than to say that it's mostly forgettable & cliche. Many of the characters themselves, outside of maybe Sir Radzig, are loud, crass, annoying and just all around painfully barbaric cretins. The villains, if you can even call them that given how little build-up they have, aside from Runt, more or less show up out of nowhere and are equally grating on the nerves. Henry, despite being quite an uncouth barbarian himself, isn't too bad as far as protagonists go, but is still, largely speaking, just a one-dimensional simpleton out for revenge, "becuz, muh parents". Plot specific NPCs you interact with will also often share the same voice actor, or character model, which is jarring and, wouldn't you know, also pretty immersion breaking. One of the plot twists at the end where Henry is suddenly revealed to be the son of Sir Radzig and a bastard nobleman, just felt predictable & weak. It also seems weird how no one seems to care that he's a bastard, which I though was a big deal & all back then, but whatever. There's also an epilogue of sorts after the credits, where there's a huge exposition dump & thinly veiled history lesson given by a character you've even never met before, shamelessly setting up what I assume to be the sequel. You then need to get on a horse and ride painfully slowly alongside an NPC towards the edge of the map, becuase immersion, of course, until you finally reach the boundaries of the map and the words "The end" finally appear and you're booted back to the menu. I honestly can't think of a more suitable way this game could've finished, then that right there. Slow and boring, bending over backwards in regards to immersion for its own sake.
I suppose the last thing I'll mention are bugs, which, fortunately for me, I didn't run into very much and the ones that I did grapple with were fairly minor. Really the most frustrating thing was when the game would occasionally crash or get stuck in a loading screen and I was forced to reload to an earlier save, thereby costing me, in certain instances, like 20 minutes to an hour of progress.
Anyway, there's probably about 10, or so other things I could go on about, but since I've already hit the word limit, (never thought there was, was one here, frankly) I guess I'll stop. I yo-yoed about how I felt towards this game a lot while playing, yo-yoing further & further towards the negative side of things the longer it went on for, but, despite all the flaws and insanely stubborn adherence to immersion by the developers, it's still a rather uniquely interesting game, with a lot of moments where the various mechanics & moment to moment gameplay can manage to shine through all the needless bullshit. What's more, there ain't many historical games like this, and in first-person no less, but, be that as it may, I feel like this game would've been a thousand times with a more even hand in how it was all designed with that in mind.
As an aside, a game like this, with a bit of a fantasy element to it, would be really cool, I think. It's already half-way to being Oblivion already, which is both a good thing & a bad thing, I suppose, and I don't mean to take away from one of its few, unique characteristics that set it apart, but I don't know. Fighting a bunch of dumb humans with swords gets old eventually. Let me fight a werewolf or a cave troll, or whatever. Better than crossing swords with random bandit #562, or needing to pick up charcoal & meat for the local tavern, or some equally mundane & tedious task. In some sense that's part of the charm however, as tiresome as it gets to be in the end. It'd also be cool to see a game like this, with this level of attention to detail, set in during the Sengoku period in Japan. First person "Way of the Samurai", basically.
(Continued….)
Quest-wise the base game, and most of the available DLC, is mostly a slog. The main quest itself is fucking glacially slow and is filled to the brim with tons of unnecessarily long to-do work. A lot of the game is spent with you being a pseudo-detective of sorts "investigating" certain goings on across the map for the nobles. Which itself is basically code for, go here, talk to these NPCs, exhaust their dialogue, do some random bitch work for them, talk to more NPCs, do even more bitch work, maybe get in a skirmish or two along the way, then eventually come back and report to Sir Radish & Robert Baratheon. The large scale battles are really the only major action you get during the main quest, but, like I said before, they're completely lack-luster for what they are and in the end there's only like 3-5 of them anyway, in the three separate locations where they could only realistically take place, which, itself, makes certain plot developments rather easy to see coming. Even when the main quest tries to do something different, like when you need to infiltrate the large monastery and become a monk, it backfires and becomes yet another dull and tedious slog. As far as the finale is concerned, the siege at Talmberg could have been exciting, before swiftly turning out to be anything, but that. The fact that, when what should be the most bombastic section of the game, devolves into yet another fucking fetch quest for X, Y & Z, needing to literally up & leave from where the action is going on and collect a bunch of random shit, only to then be forced to stand around and wait for 2 days of in-game time to watch a cutscene play out, only to then wait yet another 2 days of in-game time to actually have the battle begin, is ridiculously frustrating. I'm sure the developers were thinking themselves rather clever in the sense that, 'A siege takes time and supplies! Therefore fetching random crap & waiting around is to be perfectly expected! Are you immersed yet? Please tell me your immersed!" Oh, am I immersed? Sure, I'm immersed. Immersed in how fucking boring, poorly paced & anti-climatic this all is. What's worse is that, right after that lame final battle, the game literally ends out of nowhere, without so much as any of the major narrative obstacles having been solved. All of it bulldozed & relegated to the eventual sequel which, needless to say, just feels beyond cheap, as sequel-baiting always is.
The side quests, aside from a scant few, like the one where you hallucinate with a bunch of would-be witches, or the one where you help the executioner sabotage an execution, or the one where you need to investigate a Robin Hood like figure in the woods, also suffer from much of the poor pacing and painful mundaneness of the main quest. Even still, the amount of ways one can approach or solve a quest in certain instances is, admittedly, impressive. Sometimes the best outcome to a quest is left up to you the player being able to find it. Whether that's by paying attention and trusting the right NPC, or finding an otherwise alternate course of action through your own means. Lots of opportunities to screw or backstab other characters as well, which is also neat, assuming you're into that sort of thing.
The DLC is a little bit better. The latest one, that being "A succubus's Lot", was interesting for what it was, introducing stuff like having a dog companion and all the different actions that opens up to the player. But shit like "Band of Bastards", or the one surrounding Sir Capon, were just weak as hell. The one that allows you to rebuild and manage your own town is kinda nice, but the fact that it's so out of the way at the northern tip of the map, makes anything you build there essentially worthless. Aside from needing to decide between constructing a stable or a guardhouse on whichever of the pre-established plots there are available, there's also no decisions to make there whatsoever. You can't even demolish buildings for christ sake's and it's completely fucking static after everything's built. Really lame, I must say. Also, the fact that you need to wait for the foreman to jog his slow fucking ass over to each building plot before you can start building, even if it's just a backyard garden, made me rage like nothing else. I mean, honestly, were the developers that fucking drunk on their own farts, that they couldn't just allow you to build shit, without needless time-wasting interference like that? God, it just pisses me off, that sort of willful, or ignorant, cluelessness that pervades so much of this game.
I won't get much into the story, other than to say that it's mostly forgettable & cliche. Many of the characters themselves, outside of maybe Sir Radzig, are loud, crass, annoying and just all around painfully barbaric cretins. The villains, if you can even call them that given how little build-up they have, aside from Runt, more or less show up out of nowhere and are equally grating on the nerves. Henry, despite being quite an uncouth barbarian himself, isn't too bad as far as protagonists go, but is still, largely speaking, just a one-dimensional simpleton out for revenge, "becuz, muh parents". Plot specific NPCs you interact with will also often share the same voice actor, or character model, which is jarring and, wouldn't you know, also pretty immersion breaking. One of the plot twists at the end where Henry is suddenly revealed to be the son of Sir Radzig and a bastard nobleman, just felt predictable & weak. It also seems weird how no one seems to care that he's a bastard, which I though was a big deal & all back then, but whatever. There's also an epilogue of sorts after the credits, where there's a huge exposition dump & thinly veiled history lesson given by a character you've even never met before, shamelessly setting up what I assume to be the sequel. You then need to get on a horse and ride painfully slowly alongside an NPC towards the edge of the map, becuase immersion, of course, until you finally reach the boundaries of the map and the words "The end" finally appear and you're booted back to the menu. I honestly can't think of a more suitable way this game could've finished, then that right there. Slow and boring, bending over backwards in regards to immersion for its own sake.
I suppose the last thing I'll mention are bugs, which, fortunately for me, I didn't run into very much and the ones that I did grapple with were fairly minor. Really the most frustrating thing was when the game would occasionally crash or get stuck in a loading screen and I was forced to reload to an earlier save, thereby costing me, in certain instances, like 20 minutes to an hour of progress.
Anyway, there's probably about 10, or so other things I could go on about, but since I've already hit the word limit, (never thought there was, was one here, frankly) I guess I'll stop. I yo-yoed about how I felt towards this game a lot while playing, yo-yoing further & further towards the negative side of things the longer it went on for, but, despite all the flaws and insanely stubborn adherence to immersion by the developers, it's still a rather uniquely interesting game, with a lot of moments where the various mechanics & moment to moment gameplay can manage to shine through all the needless bullshit. What's more, there ain't many historical games like this, and in first-person no less, but, be that as it may, I feel like this game would've been a thousand times with a more even hand in how it was all designed with that in mind.
As an aside, a game like this, with a bit of a fantasy element to it, would be really cool, I think. It's already half-way to being Oblivion already, which is both a good thing & a bad thing, I suppose, and I don't mean to take away from one of its few, unique characteristics that set it apart, but I don't know. Fighting a bunch of dumb humans with swords gets old eventually. Let me fight a werewolf or a cave troll, or whatever. Better than crossing swords with random bandit #562, or needing to pick up charcoal & meat for the local tavern, or some equally mundane & tedious task. In some sense that's part of the charm however, as tiresome as it gets to be in the end. It'd also be cool to see a game like this, with this level of attention to detail, set in during the Sengoku period in Japan. First person "Way of the Samurai", basically.
I'm not sure if finishing a game vicariously (watching a game walkthrough video on YouTube, basically) counts as finishing a game.
>>46753
Agreed, but I don't see any wizzies who are guilty of doing that, in this particular thread, anon. Speaking generally however, I've never much seen the appeal of watching those sorts of things, but I can, in some sense, understand why some might prefer it over playing a game themselves. Especially if it's a game that's hard to get a hold of, or otherwise obscure, or they're just too anhedonic to play it themselves.
Agreed, but I don't see any wizzies who are guilty of doing that, in this particular thread, anon. Speaking generally however, I've never much seen the appeal of watching those sorts of things, but I can, in some sense, understand why some might prefer it over playing a game themselves. Especially if it's a game that's hard to get a hold of, or otherwise obscure, or they're just too anhedonic to play it themselves.
>>46732
I remember playing that a decade ago.
Went in completely blind and really enjoyed it. A hidden gem to be sure.
I remember playing that a decade ago.
Went in completely blind and really enjoyed it. A hidden gem to be sure.
>>46668
Just played/finished this for the first time as well. Quite a short game since I also managed to get through it all in a single sitting, constellation stages included. For me, that was kind of a good thing however, since, as you mentioned yourself, the whole thing started to get a little repetitive near the end there, made worse with how often the same stages are recycled, but fortunately the inherent novelty of the gameplay & the zaniness of the story, in conjunction with the short length, helped to keep things remaining mostly fresh. To be honest, the constellation stages were the only things I considered to be kind of a chore to complete. The controls were also, to me anyway, even with a PS3 controller, pretty bad and, although I eventually kind of got used to them, it still didn't change how awkward turning & rolling often was. I also feel like a lot of the game, in some sense, was just filler for the big payoff of the final level (seeing the angelic princes floating around my katamari while rolling up tornadoes & giant mushrooms and seeing King Cosmos smiling at nearly everything available I'd collected the end was just a hoot). The very first stage in the house being the only thing I thought was equally entertaining, especially when you're rolling around it for the first time, picking up all manner of loose objects & other tiny things. Although, in the end, despite only collecting a handful of the hidden presents (6 or 7, I believe), I don't have much desire to replay it. I agree with you strongly, that if there had been some option included to disable the timer, or end a level whenever you wanted and have your progress saved (kinda like that bonus level where you need approximate the size of your katamari), it would've gone a long way towards making replaying the experience much less of a tedious hassle and, instead, far more comfy. Even still, I'm glad that Namco, or whomever, took the time to remaster this and port it over to PC, so I could finally get a chance to check it out for myself. I have no idea why I didn't rent it as a kid/pre-teen back in 2004, since it would've been right up my alley. Makes me sad, and also cringe, at having missed out on it for so long, but that can be said of many games for me. Far more than I'd like to admit, actually. Hopefully Namco will decide to port over the other katamari games like we heart katamari & forever.
Finally, I honestly gotta say that the soundtrack here is truly out of this world and managed to fit the visuals/gameplay like a glove. Really enhanced the whole experience, I must say. It's hard to pick which one is my favorite (although Moon and Prince, would definitely be a tie for my number one), but the song that plays in the credits was a really fantastic tune to send out the game on, even if it's a bit schmaltzy. The ambient music when star gazing, finishing a level, or wandering your home planet, is also super relaxing to listen to as well. If nothing else, I'll certainly be revisiting this soundtrack a lot.
Just played/finished this for the first time as well. Quite a short game since I also managed to get through it all in a single sitting, constellation stages included. For me, that was kind of a good thing however, since, as you mentioned yourself, the whole thing started to get a little repetitive near the end there, made worse with how often the same stages are recycled, but fortunately the inherent novelty of the gameplay & the zaniness of the story, in conjunction with the short length, helped to keep things remaining mostly fresh. To be honest, the constellation stages were the only things I considered to be kind of a chore to complete. The controls were also, to me anyway, even with a PS3 controller, pretty bad and, although I eventually kind of got used to them, it still didn't change how awkward turning & rolling often was. I also feel like a lot of the game, in some sense, was just filler for the big payoff of the final level (seeing the angelic princes floating around my katamari while rolling up tornadoes & giant mushrooms and seeing King Cosmos smiling at nearly everything available I'd collected the end was just a hoot). The very first stage in the house being the only thing I thought was equally entertaining, especially when you're rolling around it for the first time, picking up all manner of loose objects & other tiny things. Although, in the end, despite only collecting a handful of the hidden presents (6 or 7, I believe), I don't have much desire to replay it. I agree with you strongly, that if there had been some option included to disable the timer, or end a level whenever you wanted and have your progress saved (kinda like that bonus level where you need approximate the size of your katamari), it would've gone a long way towards making replaying the experience much less of a tedious hassle and, instead, far more comfy. Even still, I'm glad that Namco, or whomever, took the time to remaster this and port it over to PC, so I could finally get a chance to check it out for myself. I have no idea why I didn't rent it as a kid/pre-teen back in 2004, since it would've been right up my alley. Makes me sad, and also cringe, at having missed out on it for so long, but that can be said of many games for me. Far more than I'd like to admit, actually. Hopefully Namco will decide to port over the other katamari games like we heart katamari & forever.
Finally, I honestly gotta say that the soundtrack here is truly out of this world and managed to fit the visuals/gameplay like a glove. Really enhanced the whole experience, I must say. It's hard to pick which one is my favorite (although Moon and Prince, would definitely be a tie for my number one), but the song that plays in the credits was a really fantastic tune to send out the game on, even if it's a bit schmaltzy. The ambient music when star gazing, finishing a level, or wandering your home planet, is also super relaxing to listen to as well. If nothing else, I'll certainly be revisiting this soundtrack a lot.
>>46732
I thought that game was so deep when it was new. Playing it on emulator ages later it turned it to be really lame.
I thought that game was so deep when it was new. Playing it on emulator ages later it turned it to be really lame.
File: 1567357588213.jpg (64.88 KB, 825x464, 825:464, policenauts.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>46785
Policenauts, a vn made by Kojima.
Policenauts, a vn made by Kojima.
>>46795
Glad you could see where I'm coming from, especially in the face of all of my walls of rambling text. In retrospect however, I kinda feel like I was a little unnecessarily harsh on it. If I'm being honest, a lot of the frustration I had with it stemmed from the fact that I had simply burned myself on what was on offer. I actually quite appreciate a certain level of immersion in these types of games, but, unless you're really into that sort of thing, it's likely it'll all become insanely tiresome at some point, like it eventually did for me.
As you say, it's quite an interesting game, with, even despite its flaws, a fairly engaging combat system & a highly immersive world, in the same vein as an Arx Fatalis, but, altogether, it just somehow feels like it's less than the sum of its parts. Again, I'm highly mixed about it. On one hand, I loved it, and on the other, I hated it. Irregardless, it's quite impressive in scope & production values for, at least what I'd consider to be, a middle market indie game. The developers are also to be commended for releasing a proper, uncompromising RPG like this, even if it's a bit obtuse & unfun. Although, even that, (how fun, or unfun it is), boils down to how high you place immersion in regards to what you enjoy. For me, I rate immersion as only a moderate concern of mine, which probably explains why, in the end, the highly authentic medieval world the developers crafted here, didn't wow me as much as it might have others. Be that as it may, one thing I forgot to mention, is that the actual map itself kinda sucks. Really few towns & villages, no hostile wildlife like wolves or bears, only a handful of castles or monuments that, more or less, just come off as miniatures, imitating the real thing. I feel like Mount & Blade, with its in-depth character building system and large world, would've really done wonders for this game.
Glad you could see where I'm coming from, especially in the face of all of my walls of rambling text. In retrospect however, I kinda feel like I was a little unnecessarily harsh on it. If I'm being honest, a lot of the frustration I had with it stemmed from the fact that I had simply burned myself on what was on offer. I actually quite appreciate a certain level of immersion in these types of games, but, unless you're really into that sort of thing, it's likely it'll all become insanely tiresome at some point, like it eventually did for me.
As you say, it's quite an interesting game, with, even despite its flaws, a fairly engaging combat system & a highly immersive world, in the same vein as an Arx Fatalis, but, altogether, it just somehow feels like it's less than the sum of its parts. Again, I'm highly mixed about it. On one hand, I loved it, and on the other, I hated it. Irregardless, it's quite impressive in scope & production values for, at least what I'd consider to be, a middle market indie game. The developers are also to be commended for releasing a proper, uncompromising RPG like this, even if it's a bit obtuse & unfun. Although, even that, (how fun, or unfun it is), boils down to how high you place immersion in regards to what you enjoy. For me, I rate immersion as only a moderate concern of mine, which probably explains why, in the end, the highly authentic medieval world the developers crafted here, didn't wow me as much as it might have others. Be that as it may, one thing I forgot to mention, is that the actual map itself kinda sucks. Really few towns & villages, no hostile wildlife like wolves or bears, only a handful of castles or monuments that, more or less, just come off as miniatures, imitating the real thing. I feel like Mount & Blade, with its in-depth character building system and large world, would've really done wonders for this game.
File: 1567600300551-0.jpg (151.34 KB, 860x1200, 43:60, 20190915.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1567600300551-1.gif (30.87 KB, 131x171, 131:171, 20199999.gif) ImgOps iqdb
Finished SEKIRO storymode and got all the KOF14 character's ending.
>>46806
Currently playin Shakira on youtube. Man, DS3 and Bloodborne looked good, but this thing is fucking art.
Currently playin Shakira on youtube. Man, DS3 and Bloodborne looked good, but this thing is fucking art.
I just finished Dino Crisis 2 weeks ago. It's crazy how i don't remember much of it. I used to play it on my psp. eventually i got a chance to play it again in the ps3. Despite being a short game i don't really remember much of it beside the the part where you go to underwater facility that somehow i remember it i surprisingly enjoyed it now more than back then
File: 1567607068966.png (1.46 MB, 1200x675, 16:9, ClipboardImage.png) ImgOps iqdb
Finished ATOM RPG. Pretty good game for the most part. It's pretty easy if you don't fuck up the character creation.
I liked the gameplay for the first half of the game, but because I picked lone wolf and child prodigy every fight in late mid-game and late-game was practically impossible. And the fact that I decided to specialize in pistols contributed to that as well. So about halfway through the game I turned cheats on and, honestly, it was more fun to play with cheats than without them. The tactical combat and strategy is not ATOM's strong point. The quests, lore and dialogue are far more compelling, although that might be my personal bias, as I enjoyed the quests, lore and dialogue more than the combat in fallout 1,2 as well.
The main story is pretty good. Without spoiling too much, it gives a rather interesting choice, unlike fallout 1 and 2 that gave no meaningful choices at the end at all. The side quests might be even better. There is an overarching side story that is present in the bigger side quests, you'll have to read between the lines to find it.
The dialogue is okay. It is evident that the game was translated from russian. About 30% of the jokes are references. 90% of them are references to russian culture. Oh well.
There is an option to go chaotic evil as well. You'll get a special companion(just 1 though, all the other companions are lawful, good or a combination of those two) and you can kill every single npc in the game and it will still be possible to finish the game.
I can recommend it if you like crpgs or rpgs in general. Don't expect too much from it. Also, the devs are still making more content for the game, like more evil companions, a whole new city etc. You can wait until they finish or start playing now.
General tips for character creation:
1. Melee builds are not viable. At all. You can get on by in the very early game, when you're just fighting rats and wasps, but even just one big rat can and will fuck up your melee run. Hand-to-hand combat is very weak and the melee weapons cost too much AP. Unless you're playing with cheats or playing for the second/third time, stick to charismatic sniper or jack-of-all-trades builds.
2. There are some good perks. There are some garbage perks. And then there are perks that will actually make your game harder and less fun. A rule of thumb is if it decreases stat points and increases skills - it's garbage. You can raise skills every level but it's very hard to increase a stat.
3. Stats by order of importance: DEX(no less than 9 or 10, that's your action points. every enemy has 10 fyi)>INT(8 is ok, anything lower and you'll have trouble)>ATT(that's your accuracy with guns. the higher the better)>END(that's hp. 7 or more is a must. anything lower and you'll die from a simple push)>PER(6 will open up most dialogue options. if you want to sex females you'll need 7 or 8)>STR(hand-to-hand dmg. as i said, melee build are not viable. also carrying capacity. with companions it's not a problem at all)>LCK(dump stat. the only good use I found is 3-4 options in the whole game that gives a fun event)
I liked the gameplay for the first half of the game, but because I picked lone wolf and child prodigy every fight in late mid-game and late-game was practically impossible. And the fact that I decided to specialize in pistols contributed to that as well. So about halfway through the game I turned cheats on and, honestly, it was more fun to play with cheats than without them. The tactical combat and strategy is not ATOM's strong point. The quests, lore and dialogue are far more compelling, although that might be my personal bias, as I enjoyed the quests, lore and dialogue more than the combat in fallout 1,2 as well.
The main story is pretty good. Without spoiling too much, it gives a rather interesting choice, unlike fallout 1 and 2 that gave no meaningful choices at the end at all. The side quests might be even better. There is an overarching side story that is present in the bigger side quests, you'll have to read between the lines to find it.
The dialogue is okay. It is evident that the game was translated from russian. About 30% of the jokes are references. 90% of them are references to russian culture. Oh well.
There is an option to go chaotic evil as well. You'll get a special companion(just 1 though, all the other companions are lawful, good or a combination of those two) and you can kill every single npc in the game and it will still be possible to finish the game.
I can recommend it if you like crpgs or rpgs in general. Don't expect too much from it. Also, the devs are still making more content for the game, like more evil companions, a whole new city etc. You can wait until they finish or start playing now.
General tips for character creation:
1. Melee builds are not viable. At all. You can get on by in the very early game, when you're just fighting rats and wasps, but even just one big rat can and will fuck up your melee run. Hand-to-hand combat is very weak and the melee weapons cost too much AP. Unless you're playing with cheats or playing for the second/third time, stick to charismatic sniper or jack-of-all-trades builds.
2. There are some good perks. There are some garbage perks. And then there are perks that will actually make your game harder and less fun. A rule of thumb is if it decreases stat points and increases skills - it's garbage. You can raise skills every level but it's very hard to increase a stat.
3. Stats by order of importance: DEX(no less than 9 or 10, that's your action points. every enemy has 10 fyi)>INT(8 is ok, anything lower and you'll have trouble)>ATT(that's your accuracy with guns. the higher the better)>END(that's hp. 7 or more is a must. anything lower and you'll die from a simple push)>PER(6 will open up most dialogue options. if you want to sex females you'll need 7 or 8)>STR(hand-to-hand dmg. as i said, melee build are not viable. also carrying capacity. with companions it's not a problem at all)>LCK(dump stat. the only good use I found is 3-4 options in the whole game that gives a fun event)
File: 1567650925218.jpg (176.3 KB, 1200x835, 240:167, Kirby64.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Kirby64 The Crystal Shards. First let me address the issue of emulating Nintendo64 games as of 2019. I don't know why but it's far behind other consoles' emulation, including Nintendo consoles that came after the N64 like GameCube and the Wii, both of which run pretty decently. For some reason this console, like the Sega Saturn, still runs like crap for many, many games. You're mostly safe if all you want to play is Mario, Zelda and the best known titles but once you're out of that circle, it's time to start collecting patches. Patches for the graphics, for the sound, for the controls. Doesn't matter if it's a very old patch, grab it anyway, it might work on the game you want despite the fact it got released in 2012 and there's a new version of it. It's all a bit of a mystery with N64 emulation, Jesus Christ. Not that I don't appreciate the effort of all people involved but I just have to wonder why this particular console from 1996 still run this clunky while others consoles are doing fine, emulationwise. Years ago I tried to emulate Sega Saturn games and perhaps it's in even worse condition. But enough of that. I managed to get it running well enough to play Kirby64 and finishing it.
The only other Kirby game I played was the very first one for the Gameboy (GB one particular system that runs flawlessly btw) and I quite enjoyed that for the cuteness, mood and relaxing platforming. I'm very fond of Kirby but I'm not particularly interested in Kirby games that much. Still, by the power of cute design and good music alone I wanted to play more Kirby stuff and decided on a 3D game for a change. Gameplay still the same, classic platforming. You run, you jump, there are enemies in front of you, you vacuum them, grab their powers if any and move on to the boss. It's all very easy and relaxing, there's no timer, no urgency of any kind. It's just you and Kirby walking around magic caves, green fields, around mountains and other such beautiful places. Music is very good. In fact I think it's one of the best I've ever heard. There's not a single bad track in this game. So I guess I have to thank Mr. Jun Ishikawa for that one. I'm downloading the OST as I type this out.
The story is about Kirby and friends (including King Dedede who apparently is an ally now. It must have happened in between the dozen games I skipped between Kirby's Dreamland and this one.) helping a planet of fairies to get rid of an evil entity who is trying to engulf the whole planet for some reason. There's no dialogue and I'm putting this plot together by a couple of minutes worth of clips that plays in between the stages. You start on your own planet (cute green fields, open sky, etc), into Rock Star (caves, vulcanoes and more caves), through Aqua Star (water levels, but these are pretty good and the music is amazing), Neo Star (jungles and fire), Shiver Star (snow and machinery themed levels) to finally arrive at Ripple, the planet where the fairies live. The levels are fairly short and I wasn't in a hurry. You do have to redo them if you want to collect all the crystal shards and you might want to collect all of it to unlock the last stage and the good ending. I wasn't aware of that when I first started, I just really wanted to spend some time in each stage, explore it and collect all there was to collect. Good thing the game rewarded me for my efforts.
…
The only other Kirby game I played was the very first one for the Gameboy (GB one particular system that runs flawlessly btw) and I quite enjoyed that for the cuteness, mood and relaxing platforming. I'm very fond of Kirby but I'm not particularly interested in Kirby games that much. Still, by the power of cute design and good music alone I wanted to play more Kirby stuff and decided on a 3D game for a change. Gameplay still the same, classic platforming. You run, you jump, there are enemies in front of you, you vacuum them, grab their powers if any and move on to the boss. It's all very easy and relaxing, there's no timer, no urgency of any kind. It's just you and Kirby walking around magic caves, green fields, around mountains and other such beautiful places. Music is very good. In fact I think it's one of the best I've ever heard. There's not a single bad track in this game. So I guess I have to thank Mr. Jun Ishikawa for that one. I'm downloading the OST as I type this out.
The story is about Kirby and friends (including King Dedede who apparently is an ally now. It must have happened in between the dozen games I skipped between Kirby's Dreamland and this one.) helping a planet of fairies to get rid of an evil entity who is trying to engulf the whole planet for some reason. There's no dialogue and I'm putting this plot together by a couple of minutes worth of clips that plays in between the stages. You start on your own planet (cute green fields, open sky, etc), into Rock Star (caves, vulcanoes and more caves), through Aqua Star (water levels, but these are pretty good and the music is amazing), Neo Star (jungles and fire), Shiver Star (snow and machinery themed levels) to finally arrive at Ripple, the planet where the fairies live. The levels are fairly short and I wasn't in a hurry. You do have to redo them if you want to collect all the crystal shards and you might want to collect all of it to unlock the last stage and the good ending. I wasn't aware of that when I first started, I just really wanted to spend some time in each stage, explore it and collect all there was to collect. Good thing the game rewarded me for my efforts.
…
File: 1567650981106-0.jpg (100.61 KB, 640x480, 4:3, 39824-Hoshi_no_Kirby_64_(J….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1567650981106-1.jpg (154.89 KB, 500x375, 4:3, Kirby-64.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1567650981106-2.jpg (113.09 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, maxresdefault.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>46823
Most of the game you play as Kirby doing the usual platforming stuff but there are also stages Waddle Dee comes to aid you. His stages are always one of those jumping carts on rails like in Donkey Kong. Some times it's a boat. Then you have a few stages where you can play as King Dedede, which is cool. He uses his massive mallet to destroy walls and enemies alike. There's also this kid with a brush, you don't play as him but he's always around the stage painting or just staring at the background. Occasionally he helps you by painting a tomato to refill your health. And since I'm on the subject, there's a recurring character in the background, maybe someone might tell me who it is. It's a witch flying around on her broom. She keeps appearing here and there and you never see her face. I thought it was a nice addition to the game. A little bit of lore here and there I'm assuming.
Now there's only one thing about this that I disliked it and that is how many of the crystal shards are behind walls you have to destroy with specific power combinations. For the first half of the game the wall you have to destroy has the colors of the powers you need to destroy it with. Many times you won't have that particular combination, and some times that particular combination is not attainable in that particular level, so you have to get out, grab the stuff you need and come back. I'm OK with this. The problem begins later on in the game when there's absolutely no indication on what type of combination you have to use to destroy the wall in order to reach the crystal shard. It became quite annoying and frustrating to have to test several dozen combinations to break those walls. Imagine having to come back 20 times to the same level just to destroy a single wall. At least you can just grab the shard and exit through the menu. The developers are not without compassion, thankfully. And since I'm complaining, I have to say most of those combinations are just there, many you'll use just to destroy walls. Honestly just playing as regular Kirby is more satisfying than all those powers. I did have fun with rock Kirby though, It was nice rolling downhill.
I said the game is easy but it's not without a challenge. Because it's easy, I found myself getting annoyed with my shitty skills every time I got hit. You still need to pay attention to what you're doing of course. Flying enemies are particularly dangerous and you may even die if you're trying to go through in a hurry. I was never in a hurry in this game but I can see it happening. Some of the enemies can shoot projectiles and boy those bullet/blades/stones take forever to go away. Guy toss a stone at you 2 whole screens behind and you still find yourself running away from it. But yeah, it's not a hard game, even if you suck at games, but in this case I actually agree with the decision. I guess that's just how things are when you play as the most powerful creature in the universe. I remember reading some Kirby manga and there's a chapter in there he eats an entire black hole. Those things billions of times bigger than the biggest star and able to distort space and time itself. So yeah, what I'm saying here is that easiness here is canon and part of the whole deal.
There's also 3 mini-games, one of which is pretty good. All in all this just made me want play more Kirby games. They appeal to me in an interesting way. There's something endearing and sweet about it without being childish or silly. I'm guessing it's the excellent music and the designs for the characters and backgrounds. It's relaxing, engaging, nice to look at, nice to listen to, a pretty comfy game overall. There's another thing that helps creating this feeling, at least for myself. There are no humans around. I guess Mario games could be as comfy for me but in there you have a damn human being running around. The fact you play as a pink, very powerful but very adorable little happy blob makes all the difference. I was in the middle of a very long Dragon Quest 5 run when I picked this one to play and it was very refreshing indeed. If you want a game to relax Kirby64 is probably the game you're looking for.
Most of the game you play as Kirby doing the usual platforming stuff but there are also stages Waddle Dee comes to aid you. His stages are always one of those jumping carts on rails like in Donkey Kong. Some times it's a boat. Then you have a few stages where you can play as King Dedede, which is cool. He uses his massive mallet to destroy walls and enemies alike. There's also this kid with a brush, you don't play as him but he's always around the stage painting or just staring at the background. Occasionally he helps you by painting a tomato to refill your health. And since I'm on the subject, there's a recurring character in the background, maybe someone might tell me who it is. It's a witch flying around on her broom. She keeps appearing here and there and you never see her face. I thought it was a nice addition to the game. A little bit of lore here and there I'm assuming.
Now there's only one thing about this that I disliked it and that is how many of the crystal shards are behind walls you have to destroy with specific power combinations. For the first half of the game the wall you have to destroy has the colors of the powers you need to destroy it with. Many times you won't have that particular combination, and some times that particular combination is not attainable in that particular level, so you have to get out, grab the stuff you need and come back. I'm OK with this. The problem begins later on in the game when there's absolutely no indication on what type of combination you have to use to destroy the wall in order to reach the crystal shard. It became quite annoying and frustrating to have to test several dozen combinations to break those walls. Imagine having to come back 20 times to the same level just to destroy a single wall. At least you can just grab the shard and exit through the menu. The developers are not without compassion, thankfully. And since I'm complaining, I have to say most of those combinations are just there, many you'll use just to destroy walls. Honestly just playing as regular Kirby is more satisfying than all those powers. I did have fun with rock Kirby though, It was nice rolling downhill.
I said the game is easy but it's not without a challenge. Because it's easy, I found myself getting annoyed with my shitty skills every time I got hit. You still need to pay attention to what you're doing of course. Flying enemies are particularly dangerous and you may even die if you're trying to go through in a hurry. I was never in a hurry in this game but I can see it happening. Some of the enemies can shoot projectiles and boy those bullet/blades/stones take forever to go away. Guy toss a stone at you 2 whole screens behind and you still find yourself running away from it. But yeah, it's not a hard game, even if you suck at games, but in this case I actually agree with the decision. I guess that's just how things are when you play as the most powerful creature in the universe. I remember reading some Kirby manga and there's a chapter in there he eats an entire black hole. Those things billions of times bigger than the biggest star and able to distort space and time itself. So yeah, what I'm saying here is that easiness here is canon and part of the whole deal.
There's also 3 mini-games, one of which is pretty good. All in all this just made me want play more Kirby games. They appeal to me in an interesting way. There's something endearing and sweet about it without being childish or silly. I'm guessing it's the excellent music and the designs for the characters and backgrounds. It's relaxing, engaging, nice to look at, nice to listen to, a pretty comfy game overall. There's another thing that helps creating this feeling, at least for myself. There are no humans around. I guess Mario games could be as comfy for me but in there you have a damn human being running around. The fact you play as a pink, very powerful but very adorable little happy blob makes all the difference. I was in the middle of a very long Dragon Quest 5 run when I picked this one to play and it was very refreshing indeed. If you want a game to relax Kirby64 is probably the game you're looking for.
File: 1567760324428.png (188.77 KB, 440x450, 44:45, 8f8f1e2cd6a6c6207d66502822….png) ImgOps iqdb
RE4, which happened to be my first time playing any game in the franchise, and all I can say is, I can't at all understand the near-perfect review scores. The story was boring, Leon's probably the worst character I've seen in a long time, the combat and movement was unintuitive, and overall, not an enjoyable experience, I've definitely played worse, but I'd describe it as mediocre at best
>>46839
>The story was boring
I mean it's alright to me
>combat and movement was unintuitive
Take into account the four previous games had tank controls, which was the standard at the time. Also it was one of the first (if not the very first) third person shooters with "over the shoulder" camera, so for its time it was something new, it was rendered obsolete a few years later by stuff like gears of war, but it's still an improvement over the previous REs.
>Leon's probably the worst character I've seen in a long time
Yeah it's probably the most boring RE main character.
Maybe you'd like the previous games? I like all of them but REmake is probably the best place to start.
>The story was boring
I mean it's alright to me
>combat and movement was unintuitive
Take into account the four previous games had tank controls, which was the standard at the time. Also it was one of the first (if not the very first) third person shooters with "over the shoulder" camera, so for its time it was something new, it was rendered obsolete a few years later by stuff like gears of war, but it's still an improvement over the previous REs.
>Leon's probably the worst character I've seen in a long time
Yeah it's probably the most boring RE main character.
Maybe you'd like the previous games? I like all of them but REmake is probably the best place to start.
File: 1568036922513.jpg (23.93 KB, 220x310, 22:31, 220px-Penumbra-win-cover.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
I finished this. It's the first horror game made by frictional, guys who made amnesia.
It was alright. I really love the setting (abbandoned mine in the middle of the arctic). The atmosphere felt good, really feels desolated as you go deeper into the caves. It has two kinds of enemies (zombie dogs and spiders) and, unlike amnesia, it has a combat system, which is god awful, you have to "swing" the weapon using the mouse and it feels really unintuitive, luckily there's not much combat. The puzzles are really easy but solving them was entertaining.
Overall a good game, it's like a primitive version of Amnesia, play it if you like this kind of stuff.
It was alright. I really love the setting (abbandoned mine in the middle of the arctic). The atmosphere felt good, really feels desolated as you go deeper into the caves. It has two kinds of enemies (zombie dogs and spiders) and, unlike amnesia, it has a combat system, which is god awful, you have to "swing" the weapon using the mouse and it feels really unintuitive, luckily there's not much combat. The puzzles are really easy but solving them was entertaining.
Overall a good game, it's like a primitive version of Amnesia, play it if you like this kind of stuff.
File: 1568324647370.jpeg (26.16 KB, 176x286, 8:13, images.jpeg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished shovel Knight on the 3ds
It's a solid cute and quirky platformer that feels like it would've been regarded as a classic snes game had it come out in that era.
I feel like it's a good mobile game you can play in short bursts and still enjoy but it's quite short and it taps into nostalgia receptors without being obnoxious about it.
It's a solid cute and quirky platformer that feels like it would've been regarded as a classic snes game had it come out in that era.
I feel like it's a good mobile game you can play in short bursts and still enjoy but it's quite short and it taps into nostalgia receptors without being obnoxious about it.
File: 1568343584260.jpg (33.01 KB, 300x300, 1:1, Deltarune.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Played this the other day. It just made me feel happy. Having a nice, feel-good plot like that. Being able to be nice to people in a game is kinda nice.
File: 1568392707338.jpg (63.99 KB, 460x215, 92:43, header.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished this the other day and am in the middle of getting through the last of the additional campaigns. It literally staggers me trying to understand the near universal acclaim this game has. Putting it lightly, almost everything about it rubbed me the wrong way. The pixel graphics, the gameplay, hell, even the music sounded shitty & uninspired. The levels were totally bland & uninteresting, the bosses were utterly lackluster & forgettable, & the platforming was overwhelmingly tedious &, often times, needlessly punishing. Not only that, but, for whatever reason, it goes further than just what I've already mentioned. I hate everything else that's in it as well, even the inconsequential stuff. The story, the characters, the towns, even Shovel Knight himself. I hate the way he moves, I hate the way he attacks, I hate the way he looks. Everything about the aesthetic of this game is absolutely vile & nauseating to me. Quite a statement for me to make honestly, since I'm actually quite fond of pixel graphics, even the 8-bit variety, but Shovel Knight is the first game like this that just makes me want to vomit looking at it.
Truth be told though, I'm not much of a Megaman fan either, so perhaps that's primarily why this crap didn't click with me. Two things I can't fucking stand in platformers is a copious use of instant death pits & obnoxious knockback whenever you get hit by enemies, often times sending you careening to your death into those very same pits of doom. Two things that both Shovel Knight & Megaman are loaded with to the fucking gills. Can't imagine how much more insufferable it would've been had it included a "lives" system of some sort. On the other hand, the fact that it gives you a lot of leeway for failure in regards to combat is a bit jarringly schizophrenic. Having 2 full refills for health & magic allows it so you can basically sloppily face tank most bosses to death without any trouble whatsoever. New game+ remedies this a little, but, outside of the boss rush, it's still pretty easy to just tank in front of a boss & spam the right item or attack until they're dead.
Anyway, it's hard to say what I liked about it other than the utility of the Castlevania-like item system, giving you the tools to, at least sometimes, get past tricky sections & enemies (War horn on green propeller knights, throwing anchor on out of reach bosses or enemies, fishing rod for health, etc.). The final boss was also fairly satisfying, as opposed to every other boss which just got progressively worse from Specter Knight onwards.
I also completed the additional Plague Knight-centric campaign, which I hated at first, then came to really like it, only to go right back to hating it again. The fact that it's, more or less, the exact same fucking campaign as Shovel Knight with the exact same fucking bosses & enemies, just with some slightly remixed levels & a different story/character, didn't sit well with me at first at all. It's also especially rough in the beginning considering how different Plague Knight attacks & moves compared to Shovel Knight, but once you unlock more modifiers for your bomb attacks, along with various charge boosts for your primary jump (like a very useful slow aerial glide), it starts to become a bit more interesting. I appreciate that the developers at least managed to give Plague Knight a shit ton of tools to play around with, some of which significantly ease the hassle of platforming, like being able to create a platform out of thin air or having a tonic which gives you brief knockback invulnerability, but the fact that Plague Knight is so ill suited to fight certain bosses (especially the very last one, that being the only boss created uniquely for this campaign, laughably awful as it is), even with all his items unlocked, makes him a chore to play as near the end. Not only that, but the way some of the later levels are remixed to suit Plague Knight, are just fucked to high heaven, becoming even more of a chore than they were with Shovel Knight, even with the benefits of what I've already mentioned item-wise. That alone soured me ridiculously on Plague Knight to the point where I have a hard time deciding which campaign is worse, Plague Knight's or Shovel Knight's. Although, the fact that Plague Knight has an even more egregiously awful story line than Shovel Knight, which I didn't think could even be possible, certainly doesn't do it any favors either.
Anyway, I'm about halfway through Specter Knight's campaign now, which is, once again, just another lazy remix/retread of the original Shovel Knight campaign. To its credit however, the levels are remixed with a lot more care & effort than they were in Plague Knight. I also find Specter Knight to be hands down the most fluid & satisfying to control character out of the three. Another point in the favor of this particular character being his ability to, with the right armor, survive at least one fall into an instant death pit, assuming you have enough health. The fact that it took them until Specter Knight to do this, I have not a fucking clue, since it's such a blatantly obvious & necessary improvement to the gameplay. His additional abilities of wall jumping, height boosting dash attacks, & grinding on rails are also better than anything than what I found playing with Shovel Knight or Plague Knight. I hope it doesn't end on a sour note, like with Plague Knight, but, as it stands right now, its the best of the three campaigns by a gigantic margin. Can't say I'm exactly looking forward to King Knight's story being released later this year, but if it's anything like Specter Knight, than it just might be worth playing. The fact that it'll probably be yet another retread of Shovel Knight's base campaign isn't exactly thrilling me.
Anyway, it's been a while since I've played a game that's left me in such a sense of astonishing bewilderment as to what everyone else is apparently seeing here that's so amazing & well executed. I'm not trying to say it's a shoddy or abjectly broken pile of crap, but nothing about it seems remarkable or astonishingly well designed either. Certainly nothing to merit the level of attention & hype it's garnered over the years. Anyway, I don't know. At the end of the day, I just didn't like it. Believe me that I tried to, but with so many things about it that I found questionable or downright frustrating, I just flat out couldn't. Like this >>46912 wizzie said, I guess you can't like everything.
>>46253
Far better example of a game that captured what Shovel Knight at least attempts to be, but does it a 100x better. Even with "The Messenger's" lame ass second half as a half-baked metroidvania, I'd still much rather replay it, wrinkles & all, than be forced to touch Shovel Knight ever again.
>>47028
>I feel like it's a good mobile game you can play in short bursts
Naturally, I disagree with most of what you said (both our opinions are valid, of course), but this I feel sticks out for me. In my case, I played the GoG version on PC and pretty much completed each campaign in one sitting, (Shovel Knight once, then again in new game+, then Plague Knight) so three sittings total. Maybe that's part of why I came to dislike it so much. Perhaps playing it in short spurts as a mobile game, like what you described it, would've made it slightly more palatable to me. I mean, probably not, but I just thought it was worth mentioning anyway.
Truth be told though, I'm not much of a Megaman fan either, so perhaps that's primarily why this crap didn't click with me. Two things I can't fucking stand in platformers is a copious use of instant death pits & obnoxious knockback whenever you get hit by enemies, often times sending you careening to your death into those very same pits of doom. Two things that both Shovel Knight & Megaman are loaded with to the fucking gills. Can't imagine how much more insufferable it would've been had it included a "lives" system of some sort. On the other hand, the fact that it gives you a lot of leeway for failure in regards to combat is a bit jarringly schizophrenic. Having 2 full refills for health & magic allows it so you can basically sloppily face tank most bosses to death without any trouble whatsoever. New game+ remedies this a little, but, outside of the boss rush, it's still pretty easy to just tank in front of a boss & spam the right item or attack until they're dead.
Anyway, it's hard to say what I liked about it other than the utility of the Castlevania-like item system, giving you the tools to, at least sometimes, get past tricky sections & enemies (War horn on green propeller knights, throwing anchor on out of reach bosses or enemies, fishing rod for health, etc.). The final boss was also fairly satisfying, as opposed to every other boss which just got progressively worse from Specter Knight onwards.
I also completed the additional Plague Knight-centric campaign, which I hated at first, then came to really like it, only to go right back to hating it again. The fact that it's, more or less, the exact same fucking campaign as Shovel Knight with the exact same fucking bosses & enemies, just with some slightly remixed levels & a different story/character, didn't sit well with me at first at all. It's also especially rough in the beginning considering how different Plague Knight attacks & moves compared to Shovel Knight, but once you unlock more modifiers for your bomb attacks, along with various charge boosts for your primary jump (like a very useful slow aerial glide), it starts to become a bit more interesting. I appreciate that the developers at least managed to give Plague Knight a shit ton of tools to play around with, some of which significantly ease the hassle of platforming, like being able to create a platform out of thin air or having a tonic which gives you brief knockback invulnerability, but the fact that Plague Knight is so ill suited to fight certain bosses (especially the very last one, that being the only boss created uniquely for this campaign, laughably awful as it is), even with all his items unlocked, makes him a chore to play as near the end. Not only that, but the way some of the later levels are remixed to suit Plague Knight, are just fucked to high heaven, becoming even more of a chore than they were with Shovel Knight, even with the benefits of what I've already mentioned item-wise. That alone soured me ridiculously on Plague Knight to the point where I have a hard time deciding which campaign is worse, Plague Knight's or Shovel Knight's. Although, the fact that Plague Knight has an even more egregiously awful story line than Shovel Knight, which I didn't think could even be possible, certainly doesn't do it any favors either.
Anyway, I'm about halfway through Specter Knight's campaign now, which is, once again, just another lazy remix/retread of the original Shovel Knight campaign. To its credit however, the levels are remixed with a lot more care & effort than they were in Plague Knight. I also find Specter Knight to be hands down the most fluid & satisfying to control character out of the three. Another point in the favor of this particular character being his ability to, with the right armor, survive at least one fall into an instant death pit, assuming you have enough health. The fact that it took them until Specter Knight to do this, I have not a fucking clue, since it's such a blatantly obvious & necessary improvement to the gameplay. His additional abilities of wall jumping, height boosting dash attacks, & grinding on rails are also better than anything than what I found playing with Shovel Knight or Plague Knight. I hope it doesn't end on a sour note, like with Plague Knight, but, as it stands right now, its the best of the three campaigns by a gigantic margin. Can't say I'm exactly looking forward to King Knight's story being released later this year, but if it's anything like Specter Knight, than it just might be worth playing. The fact that it'll probably be yet another retread of Shovel Knight's base campaign isn't exactly thrilling me.
Anyway, it's been a while since I've played a game that's left me in such a sense of astonishing bewilderment as to what everyone else is apparently seeing here that's so amazing & well executed. I'm not trying to say it's a shoddy or abjectly broken pile of crap, but nothing about it seems remarkable or astonishingly well designed either. Certainly nothing to merit the level of attention & hype it's garnered over the years. Anyway, I don't know. At the end of the day, I just didn't like it. Believe me that I tried to, but with so many things about it that I found questionable or downright frustrating, I just flat out couldn't. Like this >>46912 wizzie said, I guess you can't like everything.
>>46253
Far better example of a game that captured what Shovel Knight at least attempts to be, but does it a 100x better. Even with "The Messenger's" lame ass second half as a half-baked metroidvania, I'd still much rather replay it, wrinkles & all, than be forced to touch Shovel Knight ever again.
>>47028
>I feel like it's a good mobile game you can play in short bursts
Naturally, I disagree with most of what you said (both our opinions are valid, of course), but this I feel sticks out for me. In my case, I played the GoG version on PC and pretty much completed each campaign in one sitting, (Shovel Knight once, then again in new game+, then Plague Knight) so three sittings total. Maybe that's part of why I came to dislike it so much. Perhaps playing it in short spurts as a mobile game, like what you described it, would've made it slightly more palatable to me. I mean, probably not, but I just thought it was worth mentioning anyway.
File: 1568766791947.png (1.11 MB, 523x886, 523:886, Dragon Quest V.png) ImgOps iqdb
This is a spoiler free post.
Just finished Dragon Quest V for the Snes. Right now I feel this is the best JRPG I've ever played and is right up there with my favorite games of all times. Few times I've felt this intrigued, surprised, happy and frustrated by a game all in equal measures. Also I've never gave so many chances to a franchise as I have given to Dragon Quest. I guess it paid off in the end. The first time I tried to play a DQ was DQXI for the 3DS. I always wanted to try one because of the monster designs I really like. Figured since I have a 3DS might as well use it to get into the series. But nope, I found everything not to my liking, apart from the aforementioned monsters. The monsters looked cool but the heroes and everything else didn't click with me. And so 13 hours later I dropped it. About a year later I tried again but this time did some research first. I looked which game in the series are best regarded by fans both in the West and in Japan. Turned out it's DQVII for the Playstation. And so I got everything working and this one was a lot better but ultimately I guess I just wasn't in the mood for it. I lost track of a couple of map fragments and couldn't find it anywhere despite looking for hours and ended giving up to never pick up again. That was on my part I admit it, but the end result was the same. I gave up playing a DQ title yet again.
Finally, weeks ago we had an internet problem and I got marooned in reality. Luckily I had a Snes emulator and a bunch of roms, one of which was Dragon Quest V. And so it began a love and hate story with this game. This damn game, this lovely game. Right off the bat I liked how you don't play the main guy, you just happen to be his son. first part of the story is just you trying to figure it out what exactly your dad is up to, why everybody respects him so highly, where does he go in the middle of the night and so forth. I got seriously hooked from that point on. You do go on your own little adventures and eventually even make a name for yourself even as a kid, but your dad still is the main focus of the story for a really long time. I never played a JRPG with such good passing in the story. When you're finally becoming comfortable with the world around you, dramatic events happen and you're tossed against the wind again, lost again, like you just started. I never predicted once what was going to happen next. I can't say much more about the story without giving spoilers but let's just say I cried and I laughed and I became attached to a lot of the characters in this game, to the point I would go to sleep thinking about them. All of this with those shitty graphics, you can't even see these guys' faces and it didn't even matter. So, the story for me is one of the best parts in this game.
Second best part are the monsters. There are tons of them and you can actually recruit a lot of those you find in the field and inside dungeons. You can equip them, train them and so forth, like a regular character. I had no idea I could do this before actually playing the game. It's a thing that came out of nowhere for me and it was really cool to build my own team of monsters, given the fact pretty much all of them look pretty nice. The very first thing that attracted me towards these games in the first place were the monsters so you can imagine I was happy to find that out I could actually use many of them on my team. Another thing I quite liked is the music, specially the sad and moody ones.
Now, about the frustration part, I've seen people complaining they easily get lost in old JRPGs, they just don't know what to do and exploration can become a pain the ass because of the ridiculous high encounter rate you have in every single map and dungeon. Well, it's very true for this case as well. Encounter rate is insane, which makes exploration a chalenge. Running away from battle is a pretty bad idea because even when you're stronger than the monster you encountered you will likely fail to escape and then they get to attack you first. The only solution? You guessed it. Grinding. A. LOT. OF. GRINDING. It actuall didn't bothered me that much, except all the way to the end when I think they over did it a little bit. Every time I thought I had over grinded and could breeze through an area, the game brought me down on my knees again by making my equipment garbage or throwing monsters with all sorts of special attacks to fuck me up. And they will fuck you up, gotta be prepared. I was never so zealous in a game in my life. Every time I had to go somewhere it was one huge checklist for all the items I would buy and upgrading my weapons and yada yada, etc. I can see a lot of people not being able to enjoy this because of that, but for me it was actually kinda neat, to have to concern myself so much just to not die in some random encounter.
All that said, exploration really pays off here. That barrel at the edge of the last room in a shabby inn, in a minor town? If you're the type of guy who just HAVE to go there and check, be asured, this game is for you. You can collect hidden medals and later on trade for very fancy equipment. But don't think that equipment alone will help you that much. Grinding is still necessary even if you manage to amass all the fancy stuff. This also happens in dungeons where you really, really don't want to take extra steps to explore that room or that corridor, but if you do more often than not you'll be well rewarded. And if you want to explore every inch of the game you'll need to prepare yourself and to prepare yourself you need a lot of money. One thing leads to another and you need to be immersed in this world to be willing to do all that. Good thing, like I said, the story is pretty good with a lot of development many games that come out even today don't have it. I guess you have to be the patient type. Don't expect to beat a dungeon on the very first time you enter it. Many of them will need a couple of trips, some many more than a couple.
One aspect that really bored me though is figuring what the items do. You collect so many items for so many types of characters. You can easily get lost and end up selling what you shouldn't. It happened to me a few times and I wasn't happy about it. Nothing that makes the game unbeatable of course and the items you REALLY need can't be sold, still, the fact you can't sell or buy anything in bulk and many descriptions are not that descriptive can become a pain in the ass if you don't take your time to figure everything out. I guess that was my least favorite part of the game. You can always go to GameFaq and check a guide but I really didn't want to do that. I managed.
I could go on forever about the story and the characters which was by far my favorite part of this along with the monsters but I really can't do that without giving major spoilers. I believe you will benefit greatly going into this completely blind like I did. And if you're not going to use any guides be prepared to be playing this for a couple of weeks, several hours a day. You'll be walking around a lot and into very, very dangerous places. Those monsters hit hard as hell, be prepared and good luck.
Just finished Dragon Quest V for the Snes. Right now I feel this is the best JRPG I've ever played and is right up there with my favorite games of all times. Few times I've felt this intrigued, surprised, happy and frustrated by a game all in equal measures. Also I've never gave so many chances to a franchise as I have given to Dragon Quest. I guess it paid off in the end. The first time I tried to play a DQ was DQXI for the 3DS. I always wanted to try one because of the monster designs I really like. Figured since I have a 3DS might as well use it to get into the series. But nope, I found everything not to my liking, apart from the aforementioned monsters. The monsters looked cool but the heroes and everything else didn't click with me. And so 13 hours later I dropped it. About a year later I tried again but this time did some research first. I looked which game in the series are best regarded by fans both in the West and in Japan. Turned out it's DQVII for the Playstation. And so I got everything working and this one was a lot better but ultimately I guess I just wasn't in the mood for it. I lost track of a couple of map fragments and couldn't find it anywhere despite looking for hours and ended giving up to never pick up again. That was on my part I admit it, but the end result was the same. I gave up playing a DQ title yet again.
Finally, weeks ago we had an internet problem and I got marooned in reality. Luckily I had a Snes emulator and a bunch of roms, one of which was Dragon Quest V. And so it began a love and hate story with this game. This damn game, this lovely game. Right off the bat I liked how you don't play the main guy, you just happen to be his son. first part of the story is just you trying to figure it out what exactly your dad is up to, why everybody respects him so highly, where does he go in the middle of the night and so forth. I got seriously hooked from that point on. You do go on your own little adventures and eventually even make a name for yourself even as a kid, but your dad still is the main focus of the story for a really long time. I never played a JRPG with such good passing in the story. When you're finally becoming comfortable with the world around you, dramatic events happen and you're tossed against the wind again, lost again, like you just started. I never predicted once what was going to happen next. I can't say much more about the story without giving spoilers but let's just say I cried and I laughed and I became attached to a lot of the characters in this game, to the point I would go to sleep thinking about them. All of this with those shitty graphics, you can't even see these guys' faces and it didn't even matter. So, the story for me is one of the best parts in this game.
Second best part are the monsters. There are tons of them and you can actually recruit a lot of those you find in the field and inside dungeons. You can equip them, train them and so forth, like a regular character. I had no idea I could do this before actually playing the game. It's a thing that came out of nowhere for me and it was really cool to build my own team of monsters, given the fact pretty much all of them look pretty nice. The very first thing that attracted me towards these games in the first place were the monsters so you can imagine I was happy to find that out I could actually use many of them on my team. Another thing I quite liked is the music, specially the sad and moody ones.
Now, about the frustration part, I've seen people complaining they easily get lost in old JRPGs, they just don't know what to do and exploration can become a pain the ass because of the ridiculous high encounter rate you have in every single map and dungeon. Well, it's very true for this case as well. Encounter rate is insane, which makes exploration a chalenge. Running away from battle is a pretty bad idea because even when you're stronger than the monster you encountered you will likely fail to escape and then they get to attack you first. The only solution? You guessed it. Grinding. A. LOT. OF. GRINDING. It actuall didn't bothered me that much, except all the way to the end when I think they over did it a little bit. Every time I thought I had over grinded and could breeze through an area, the game brought me down on my knees again by making my equipment garbage or throwing monsters with all sorts of special attacks to fuck me up. And they will fuck you up, gotta be prepared. I was never so zealous in a game in my life. Every time I had to go somewhere it was one huge checklist for all the items I would buy and upgrading my weapons and yada yada, etc. I can see a lot of people not being able to enjoy this because of that, but for me it was actually kinda neat, to have to concern myself so much just to not die in some random encounter.
All that said, exploration really pays off here. That barrel at the edge of the last room in a shabby inn, in a minor town? If you're the type of guy who just HAVE to go there and check, be asured, this game is for you. You can collect hidden medals and later on trade for very fancy equipment. But don't think that equipment alone will help you that much. Grinding is still necessary even if you manage to amass all the fancy stuff. This also happens in dungeons where you really, really don't want to take extra steps to explore that room or that corridor, but if you do more often than not you'll be well rewarded. And if you want to explore every inch of the game you'll need to prepare yourself and to prepare yourself you need a lot of money. One thing leads to another and you need to be immersed in this world to be willing to do all that. Good thing, like I said, the story is pretty good with a lot of development many games that come out even today don't have it. I guess you have to be the patient type. Don't expect to beat a dungeon on the very first time you enter it. Many of them will need a couple of trips, some many more than a couple.
One aspect that really bored me though is figuring what the items do. You collect so many items for so many types of characters. You can easily get lost and end up selling what you shouldn't. It happened to me a few times and I wasn't happy about it. Nothing that makes the game unbeatable of course and the items you REALLY need can't be sold, still, the fact you can't sell or buy anything in bulk and many descriptions are not that descriptive can become a pain in the ass if you don't take your time to figure everything out. I guess that was my least favorite part of the game. You can always go to GameFaq and check a guide but I really didn't want to do that. I managed.
I could go on forever about the story and the characters which was by far my favorite part of this along with the monsters but I really can't do that without giving major spoilers. I believe you will benefit greatly going into this completely blind like I did. And if you're not going to use any guides be prepared to be playing this for a couple of weeks, several hours a day. You'll be walking around a lot and into very, very dangerous places. Those monsters hit hard as hell, be prepared and good luck.
File: 1568768862418.png (55.06 KB, 873x720, 97:80, Capture.PNG) ImgOps iqdb
>>47122
Just to wrap this up I accidentally and perpetually ruined my save state by over writting it in the ending screen. I wouldn't care so much if wasn't for the fact there's more content after you finally manage to beat it. The only other save I have is over 20 hours behind it.
There you go guys, you see how I managed to fuck me over right at the finishing line. Maybe I'll redo all that again, I don't know. Jesus Christ the DQ curse is real.
Just to wrap this up I accidentally and perpetually ruined my save state by over writting it in the ending screen. I wouldn't care so much if wasn't for the fact there's more content after you finally manage to beat it. The only other save I have is over 20 hours behind it.
There you go guys, you see how I managed to fuck me over right at the finishing line. Maybe I'll redo all that again, I don't know. Jesus Christ the DQ curse is real.
File: 1569119888219.jpg (341.18 KB, 1280x890, 128:89, Dragon_Quest_1_box.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Well since I finished DQV and liked it quite a bit, I decided to play a second DQ, this time back to where it all began with the very first one. This is going to be a much shorter post. It is a much shorter game. Monsters continue to be one of the most interesting parts of these games for me. I find several of them, including the well known slime. But also the Golems and the skeletons and the drackies. This game feels a lot like a pocket version of the Dragon Quest games. The map is a decent size but past a certain level it feels like lounging in a miniature garden. I don't know if it's suppose to be that way but I couldn't find a couple of items and so spent a lot of time going back and forth one particular area with powerful monsters. A couple of hours later I was by far the most menacing thing in that world. Nothing could survive a single hit.
The story is pretty straight forward. You're the hero's descendant. Go around, grab his armor and medal and a couple of items to make a brigde to the Dragon Lord castle and kick his ass. Seriously, that's it. Not bad for a console game from 1986. I was very aware of the item madness DQ can become and so I never sold any item I ever found. To my surprise this is not necessary in DQ1. You never have any companions and there are really a limited number of items and they're all very obvious in what they do. Very different from DQV.
And so I fetch all the stuff, save the princess from the dragon "yup, princess and a dragon, can't get more stock than that" and went to the Dragon Lord castle. He was the only thing that could stand a chance against my over powering previous 120 minutes of grinding but to no avail. By the time he died I had enough MP and HP left to fight another 2 or 3 Dragon Lords. I usually don't use faqs but there was an item I was having trouble finding it and just didn't feel like trying to find myself. It was my fault really, one wise guy close by one of the shops gives you the clues. I just wanted to be done with honestly. I had seen everything there was to see on the map by them.
So all in all, I quite liked it. I won't be playing more DQ for a while now. There's a couple of N64 games I want to finish it first.
The story is pretty straight forward. You're the hero's descendant. Go around, grab his armor and medal and a couple of items to make a brigde to the Dragon Lord castle and kick his ass. Seriously, that's it. Not bad for a console game from 1986. I was very aware of the item madness DQ can become and so I never sold any item I ever found. To my surprise this is not necessary in DQ1. You never have any companions and there are really a limited number of items and they're all very obvious in what they do. Very different from DQV.
And so I fetch all the stuff, save the princess from the dragon "yup, princess and a dragon, can't get more stock than that" and went to the Dragon Lord castle. He was the only thing that could stand a chance against my over powering previous 120 minutes of grinding but to no avail. By the time he died I had enough MP and HP left to fight another 2 or 3 Dragon Lords. I usually don't use faqs but there was an item I was having trouble finding it and just didn't feel like trying to find myself. It was my fault really, one wise guy close by one of the shops gives you the clues. I just wanted to be done with honestly. I had seen everything there was to see on the map by them.
So all in all, I quite liked it. I won't be playing more DQ for a while now. There's a couple of N64 games I want to finish it first.
File: 1569348365859.png (1.25 MB, 767x1079, 59:83, latest.png) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Silent Hill 3(ps2 edition emulated on ps3):
Overall I think its a mixed bag, I enjoyed the mood but a lot of the surrounding elements were not very good.
The story felt kinda generic you know the whole you are chosen to give birth god! type of thing.
Maybe I would enjoy it more if I played silent hill 1 first because I didn't really care to follow anything very closely.
The thing I really liked is the atmosphere, which is wonderfully moody.
The game still holds up visually in my opinion, there is a very grungy look to everything.
Heather looks like a normal succubus who hasn't slept in a while, the environments shift between drab and uncomfortable.
It's been a while since i've played a silent hill game but I would say the first thing I noticed is the soundtrack is a lot harsher than the other games.
There was a fair amount of drudgery in particular the subway which was just bland looking and felt like filler.
There were some highlights that I enjoyed though the blood room and the abortion and then eating the baby demon will probably stick in my mind for a while.
Overall I think its a mixed bag, I enjoyed the mood but a lot of the surrounding elements were not very good.
The story felt kinda generic you know the whole you are chosen to give birth god! type of thing.
Maybe I would enjoy it more if I played silent hill 1 first because I didn't really care to follow anything very closely.
The thing I really liked is the atmosphere, which is wonderfully moody.
The game still holds up visually in my opinion, there is a very grungy look to everything.
Heather looks like a normal succubus who hasn't slept in a while, the environments shift between drab and uncomfortable.
It's been a while since i've played a silent hill game but I would say the first thing I noticed is the soundtrack is a lot harsher than the other games.
There was a fair amount of drudgery in particular the subway which was just bland looking and felt like filler.
There were some highlights that I enjoyed though the blood room and the abortion and then eating the baby demon will probably stick in my mind for a while.
File: 1569639344265-0.jpg (185.15 KB, 1000x709, 1000:709, If-group.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1569639344265-1.jpg (75.35 KB, 768x672, 8:7, asda.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished Shin Megami Tensei: If…
It's an ok game, although pretty short. If you finished I and II and want more of the same, this is your game. It actually reuses assets and music.
The game takes place in a school and you play as a student, so in a way it could be considered proto-persona. It's not hard, but it can be pretty annoying. Since there are few dungeons, the devs decided to make you spend hours lost in places filled with one way doors, teleporters, holes that drop you to the floor below and rooms that are completely dark, navigating the dungeons can be a huge pain in the ass. The worst offender is the third dungeon, which is called world of sloth (they are all called like a deadly sin), the dungeon itself is pretty short, but to finish it you have to wander around for HOURS until the path to the boss is opened. Luckily you can spend some time in the casino to get the best weapon in the game and forget (for the most part) of fighting, since it kills most enemies with one hit.
Of course I only got one of multiple endings, but I'm not planning on getting the other two anytime soon. I think I've had enough SMT for a while.
It's an ok game, although pretty short. If you finished I and II and want more of the same, this is your game. It actually reuses assets and music.
The game takes place in a school and you play as a student, so in a way it could be considered proto-persona. It's not hard, but it can be pretty annoying. Since there are few dungeons, the devs decided to make you spend hours lost in places filled with one way doors, teleporters, holes that drop you to the floor below and rooms that are completely dark, navigating the dungeons can be a huge pain in the ass. The worst offender is the third dungeon, which is called world of sloth (they are all called like a deadly sin), the dungeon itself is pretty short, but to finish it you have to wander around for HOURS until the path to the boss is opened. Luckily you can spend some time in the casino to get the best weapon in the game and forget (for the most part) of fighting, since it kills most enemies with one hit.
Of course I only got one of multiple endings, but I'm not planning on getting the other two anytime soon. I think I've had enough SMT for a while.
File: 1569962073015-0.png (104.61 KB, 1920x1001, 1920:1001, Thanks a million.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1569962073015-1.png (116.09 KB, 1918x997, 1918:997, You're a real hero.png) ImgOps iqdb
I have completed the ultra hard Zelda 2. It was absolutely brutal.
At first, you're a weakling with barely any moves, but as you level up, you hit harder, take more damage, and can use more spells. You also get better at the game and with a new arsenal, are able to defeat old foes a lot quicker. For example, on the first dungeon, I found it hard to deal with kobolds, but later, I was able to time my sword swings better and they just didn't appear as often.
Speaking of dungeons, they're absolutely brutal. They're not like any of Zelda dungeon. They're a bit more maze like and have extremely tough enemies with no real puzzles of any kind. You'll need to get the lastest upgrades to have less trouble as well as know the tricks to fully explore. Even after all that though, you're going to need to save-state. You only get three lives, and link dolls, the 1ups of this game, are far and few inbetween and limited to only eight in the entire world. The game, actually is really unforgiving, and it's the worst quality of this game. It makes me actually believe the ending is non-canonical. It's impossible to win in this game without savestates since if you die three times, Ganon arises. Palaces offer no checkpoints, and very few places to heal. I believe I saw only two fairies in the six palaces. However, at the beginning of the palace the statues can drop potions to heal magic, so you can get the potion, exit the palace, and repeat. However, you'll get really deep into the palace and get to very low health with no way to get back. I've also had points where I needed to grind enemies to get magic for a jump ability. It was seldom, but that brought fear into me. In the fifth palace, the rock eyes one, I believe, you needed to jump down, and when you were falling, on a second screen, quickly turn into a fairy. Imagine if you ran out of magic. Luckily though, the floor had a hidden place where you can get a red potion, restoring all of your magic bar.
It's not all bad. Towns offer free healing if there's nothing wrong with them. A few towns don't have healers, like the one that you, conveniently, learn the healing spell in. Also, the abandoned town has no healing either with the new town hidden with no actual clues to get there.
By the end of the game, I had been avoiding enemies since I had my exp maxxed out. Still, you should be avoiding most enemies. A lot of enemies are simply not worth the trouble. Blue iron knuckles come to mind. Even at max attack, life, and magic, I still avoided them since they took multiple hits and were tricky to kill. Most enemies don't even give enough exp, so I avoided most overworld enemies, making them useless. I did some grinding on the island palace (IIRC) to max level. That or the fourth palace. An enemy spawns infinitely at the left at a specific tile, and you're able to reach that place using the falling blocks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFUxhwtGjCE
Overall, this game was actually bad. I had avoided enemies since they were too difficult to deal with, every encounter with those strong enemies felt like a death match, and the dungeons were overall, unforgiving. This isn't a hard but fair game. This is a literal impossible game to do without savestates. You cannot beat this game without them or a game over. I'm glad I'm done with this game, but man, it was the worst in the franchise.
At first, you're a weakling with barely any moves, but as you level up, you hit harder, take more damage, and can use more spells. You also get better at the game and with a new arsenal, are able to defeat old foes a lot quicker. For example, on the first dungeon, I found it hard to deal with kobolds, but later, I was able to time my sword swings better and they just didn't appear as often.
Speaking of dungeons, they're absolutely brutal. They're not like any of Zelda dungeon. They're a bit more maze like and have extremely tough enemies with no real puzzles of any kind. You'll need to get the lastest upgrades to have less trouble as well as know the tricks to fully explore. Even after all that though, you're going to need to save-state. You only get three lives, and link dolls, the 1ups of this game, are far and few inbetween and limited to only eight in the entire world. The game, actually is really unforgiving, and it's the worst quality of this game. It makes me actually believe the ending is non-canonical. It's impossible to win in this game without savestates since if you die three times, Ganon arises. Palaces offer no checkpoints, and very few places to heal. I believe I saw only two fairies in the six palaces. However, at the beginning of the palace the statues can drop potions to heal magic, so you can get the potion, exit the palace, and repeat. However, you'll get really deep into the palace and get to very low health with no way to get back. I've also had points where I needed to grind enemies to get magic for a jump ability. It was seldom, but that brought fear into me. In the fifth palace, the rock eyes one, I believe, you needed to jump down, and when you were falling, on a second screen, quickly turn into a fairy. Imagine if you ran out of magic. Luckily though, the floor had a hidden place where you can get a red potion, restoring all of your magic bar.
It's not all bad. Towns offer free healing if there's nothing wrong with them. A few towns don't have healers, like the one that you, conveniently, learn the healing spell in. Also, the abandoned town has no healing either with the new town hidden with no actual clues to get there.
By the end of the game, I had been avoiding enemies since I had my exp maxxed out. Still, you should be avoiding most enemies. A lot of enemies are simply not worth the trouble. Blue iron knuckles come to mind. Even at max attack, life, and magic, I still avoided them since they took multiple hits and were tricky to kill. Most enemies don't even give enough exp, so I avoided most overworld enemies, making them useless. I did some grinding on the island palace (IIRC) to max level. That or the fourth palace. An enemy spawns infinitely at the left at a specific tile, and you're able to reach that place using the falling blocks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFUxhwtGjCE
Overall, this game was actually bad. I had avoided enemies since they were too difficult to deal with, every encounter with those strong enemies felt like a death match, and the dungeons were overall, unforgiving. This isn't a hard but fair game. This is a literal impossible game to do without savestates. You cannot beat this game without them or a game over. I'm glad I'm done with this game, but man, it was the worst in the franchise.
>>47300
btw, I feel absolutely no pleasure from beating this game, only relief. If your game makes the player feel that, you've failed at creating a good game.
btw, I feel absolutely no pleasure from beating this game, only relief. If your game makes the player feel that, you've failed at creating a good game.
>>47300
>This is a literal impossible game to do without savestates.
i think thats just you. i beat this game on original hardware and the biggest problem i had was not being able to find the last magic container between some trees or some shit. the combat was not that bad especially once you get the upgrades like down-stab. i have played much harder nes games. the difficulty of this game is overblown in my opinion.
>This is a literal impossible game to do without savestates.
i think thats just you. i beat this game on original hardware and the biggest problem i had was not being able to find the last magic container between some trees or some shit. the combat was not that bad especially once you get the upgrades like down-stab. i have played much harder nes games. the difficulty of this game is overblown in my opinion.
>>47300
>This is a literal impossible game to do without savestates.
I understand being so bad at a game that you have to use savestates to "beat" it, but that's just slanderous. The game is perfectly beatable.
>This is a literal impossible game to do without savestates.
I understand being so bad at a game that you have to use savestates to "beat" it, but that's just slanderous. The game is perfectly beatable.
>>47304
interesting, it stacks up pretty well for me, but i havent played anywhere near the amount of nes games that id like to. what are some of your favorites?
interesting, it stacks up pretty well for me, but i havent played anywhere near the amount of nes games that id like to. what are some of your favorites?
>>47303
If I'm not having fun with one particular game but I got very far in it for some reason, I have no qualms about using saves to finish the thing. It's not a game you want to get good at and many games demand way more time than one may find worth it.
By reading that review it seems to be the case.
If I'm not having fun with one particular game but I got very far in it for some reason, I have no qualms about using saves to finish the thing. It's not a game you want to get good at and many games demand way more time than one may find worth it.
By reading that review it seems to be the case.
>>47307
thats fair, but he said its literally impossible to beat without saves, thats far for true
thats fair, but he said its literally impossible to beat without saves, thats far for true
>>47302
Did you game over? I find it hard to believe that anyone could beat this with the original three lives one their first try. The grand temple itself cost me two lives because it was in such a remote spot, there were no red potions at the beginning of the temple, and it had the hardest enemies. By the time I was at the temple, I was almost dead. That's not even counting me dying just to get there. Death pits, annoying flying enemies, the lizardmen, who were harder than the iron knuckles.
I just can't believe that. Sorry. Even if you got all 8 extra link dolls, you would still have needed to learn the game before playing it.
Did you game over? I find it hard to believe that anyone could beat this with the original three lives one their first try. The grand temple itself cost me two lives because it was in such a remote spot, there were no red potions at the beginning of the temple, and it had the hardest enemies. By the time I was at the temple, I was almost dead. That's not even counting me dying just to get there. Death pits, annoying flying enemies, the lizardmen, who were harder than the iron knuckles.
I just can't believe that. Sorry. Even if you got all 8 extra link dolls, you would still have needed to learn the game before playing it.
>>47309
yes, it was years ago but i'm sure i got multiple game-overs. if you're saying you need save-states to beat it without a game-over on your first try- ok, i guess
yes, it was years ago but i'm sure i got multiple game-overs. if you're saying you need save-states to beat it without a game-over on your first try- ok, i guess
>>47310
Yeah, that's what I've been saying. A game-overless run is impossible, thus, to me, makes it impossible for the ending of Zelda 2, where you wake up Zelda, non-canonical. Because of the brutal nature of the game, it screwed up the entire story (or what's little of it) for me.
So yeah, the game has a lot of problems that overlay with each other and overall, is just a bad game.
Yeah, that's what I've been saying. A game-overless run is impossible, thus, to me, makes it impossible for the ending of Zelda 2, where you wake up Zelda, non-canonical. Because of the brutal nature of the game, it screwed up the entire story (or what's little of it) for me.
So yeah, the game has a lot of problems that overlay with each other and overall, is just a bad game.
>>47312
interesting take, i view things like lives and game-overs as a game mechanic rather than a story mechanic, so i've never seen it as affecting canon. that being said, i don't think the feasibility of beating a game without a game-over on your first attempt is a very helpful way to assess difficulty, especially for nes games. a lot of these games were designed in such a way that dying was a part of learning the game, rather than a failure of the game to teach you- different from modern game design philosophy. thus, you would be essentially throwing out a huge percentage of the platform's titles as trash, including classics like super mario bros. and zelda 1 (which i would argue the average player would probably game-over at least once when playing those game for the first time, but i also don't see them as excessively unfair in their difficulty)
interesting take, i view things like lives and game-overs as a game mechanic rather than a story mechanic, so i've never seen it as affecting canon. that being said, i don't think the feasibility of beating a game without a game-over on your first attempt is a very helpful way to assess difficulty, especially for nes games. a lot of these games were designed in such a way that dying was a part of learning the game, rather than a failure of the game to teach you- different from modern game design philosophy. thus, you would be essentially throwing out a huge percentage of the platform's titles as trash, including classics like super mario bros. and zelda 1 (which i would argue the average player would probably game-over at least once when playing those game for the first time, but i also don't see them as excessively unfair in their difficulty)
>>47312
by the way i think it's important to say that a game-overless run is NOT impossible. maybe if it's your first time playing, it would be an unreasonable requirement. but it's not a forced part of the game, that you HAVE to game-over at some point. just watch a speedrun for proof of that
by the way i think it's important to say that a game-overless run is NOT impossible. maybe if it's your first time playing, it would be an unreasonable requirement. but it's not a forced part of the game, that you HAVE to game-over at some point. just watch a speedrun for proof of that
File: 1570036181572.jpg (342.24 KB, 1600x800, 2:1, 1-E1-OgbD002Ka1wMNQj5UIQ.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished the first arc of rune factory 4.
This is the first one in the series i've played.
My first impression was that I wouldn't enjoy it, it starts with a lot of kind of boring dialogue.
But then you just get sucked into crafting/farming/dungeon exploring and spend 30 hours in a daze.
I usually don't like games like this but it was nice to lay in bed with my 3ds and play it. There is a lot of variety in dialogue and ways to spend time.
Would recommend to people looking for a comfy game.
This is the first one in the series i've played.
My first impression was that I wouldn't enjoy it, it starts with a lot of kind of boring dialogue.
But then you just get sucked into crafting/farming/dungeon exploring and spend 30 hours in a daze.
I usually don't like games like this but it was nice to lay in bed with my 3ds and play it. There is a lot of variety in dialogue and ways to spend time.
Would recommend to people looking for a comfy game.
File: 1570194640372-0.jpg (283.02 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 01.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194640372-1.jpg (273.4 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 02.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194640372-2.jpg (236.08 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 03.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
01- Here's the album of my trip around Japan to country his personal stage. The plot for this one is a little weirder than my other titles, still not too out of ordinary for the series. My door is the one written "go" on the panel.
02- I stand right beside the hotel I spent my first night away from home. It was actually about 8 seconds away from my house. Still, you get a view from the shopping distric.
03- Right in front of Zazen town, which is the town with the best background music.
02- I stand right beside the hotel I spent my first night away from home. It was actually about 8 seconds away from my house. Still, you get a view from the shopping distric.
03- Right in front of Zazen town, which is the town with the best background music.
File: 1570194687783-0.jpg (225.05 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 04.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194687783-1.jpg (278.73 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 05.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194687783-2.jpg (246.12 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 06.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
04- Inside Zazen shopping district you can find this tucked away little bamboo area. Very relaxing.
05- And it comes with a pond too.
06- Here's Zazen shopping distric by the way.
05- And it comes with a pond too.
06- Here's Zazen shopping distric by the way.
File: 1570194716099-0.jpg (284.39 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 07.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194716099-1.jpg (227.33 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 08.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194716099-2.jpg (262.33 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 09.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
07- The Golden Temple. The priest has a son who makes the most expensive cucumber you'll ever purchase. He also has a problem with dwarves eating his food (don't ask.)
08- The great fire at Nyoigatake.
09- One of Zazen's bridges.
08- The great fire at Nyoigatake.
09- One of Zazen's bridges.
File: 1570194744263-0.jpg (267.02 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 10.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194744263-1.jpg (256.64 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 11.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194744263-2.jpg (187.66 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 12.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
10- Here you can see the tip of Yamato's temple. Everything inside there is in gigantic proportions. A lot of jumping.
11- Right beside the temple there's this stone path leading to… nowhere.
12- Behind me the Turtle Stone area. A very strange rock with magical powers.
11- Right beside the temple there's this stone path leading to… nowhere.
12- Behind me the Turtle Stone area. A very strange rock with magical powers.
File: 1570194779893-0.jpg (172.53 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 13.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194779893-1.jpg (248.33 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 14.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194779893-2.jpg (243.46 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 15.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
13- Someone built a tea house right on top of a clif. You would think they don't get many visitors, with all the dragon's heads flying around and all. You would be surprised.
14- Here's a tiny part of the very long set of stairs to Mt. Kompira.
15- Folkypoke Village. The children here had been kidnapped by a dragon. (I solved that problem.)
14- Here's a tiny part of the very long set of stairs to Mt. Kompira.
15- Folkypoke Village. The children here had been kidnapped by a dragon. (I solved that problem.)
File: 1570194839021-0.jpg (251.47 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 16.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194839021-1.jpg (216.55 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 17.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194839021-2.jpg (187.5 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 18.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
16- Folkypoke is a village of farmers. Here I stand on a freshly cut farming patch.
17- Here's one bridge at Tosa that really needs to get fixed.
18- Dogo Hot Springs. They were actually closed but me being the hero managed to get in anyway.
17- Here's one bridge at Tosa that really needs to get fixed.
18- Dogo Hot Springs. They were actually closed but me being the hero managed to get in anyway.
File: 1570194866962-0.jpg (265.73 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 19.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194866962-1.jpg (118.43 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 20.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194866962-2.jpg (302.15 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 21.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
19- Here's one huge crane game. You can play it for gree at Toy Castle.
20- Ebisumaru taking a nap. I wasn't traveling solo btw.
21- Sunset at Bizen. Or I think it's Bizen, I really should have made notes to go along with the
20- Ebisumaru taking a nap. I wasn't traveling solo btw.
21- Sunset at Bizen. Or I think it's Bizen, I really should have made notes to go along with the
File: 1570194901213-0.jpg (233.95 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 22.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194901213-1.jpg (247.58 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 23.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194901213-2.jpg (296.22 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 24.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
22- The most expensive room you can rent in the whole Japan.
23- Here's a cool looking bridge. I think it's close to the vanished (now returned) Chugoku region but I don't quite remember anymore.
24- The giant tree of Izumo!
23- Here's a cool looking bridge. I think it's close to the vanished (now returned) Chugoku region but I don't quite remember anymore.
24- The giant tree of Izumo!
File: 1570194922180-0.jpg (271.64 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 25.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194922180-1.jpg (195.44 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 26.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194922180-2.jpg (100.22 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 27.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
25- Here's a view from the top of it.
26- Japan has deserts too. And they make very annoying areas!
27- Hot hot hot!
26- Japan has deserts too. And they make very annoying areas!
27- Hot hot hot!
File: 1570194963251-0.jpg (269.6 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 28.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194963251-1.jpg (162.17 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 29.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570194963251-2.jpg (221.55 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 30.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
28- Here's one super sized flying carp.
29- A fine view of the ocean close to the Chugoku region.
30- A fine night to do some moon gazing. This is at festival village. They have festivals almost every single day.
29- A fine view of the ocean close to the Chugoku region.
30- A fine night to do some moon gazing. This is at festival village. They have festivals almost every single day.
File: 1570197279710-0.jpg (227.53 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 31.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570197279710-1.jpg (235.81 KB, 920x524, 230:131, 32.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
31- It doesn't look like it but this thing can move pretty fast.
32- And back home! Here's a picture of my favorite tree from Edo shopping district.
>01- Here's the album of my trip around Japan to country his personal stage.
I meant "Here's the album of my trip around Japan to save the country from an dancing alien who wanted to transform the world into his personal theater stage.
==
Here's something different I decided to do for one of my childhood games. 32 pictures I took while replaying Ninja Mystical Goemon for the Nintendo 64. The game I'm playing now is rather obscure. For a console game anyway. Will post about it when I'm done.
32- And back home! Here's a picture of my favorite tree from Edo shopping district.
>01- Here's the album of my trip around Japan to country his personal stage.
I meant "Here's the album of my trip around Japan to save the country from an dancing alien who wanted to transform the world into his personal theater stage.
==
Here's something different I decided to do for one of my childhood games. 32 pictures I took while replaying Ninja Mystical Goemon for the Nintendo 64. The game I'm playing now is rather obscure. For a console game anyway. Will post about it when I'm done.
>>47360
never heard of that game, i like the style though. billboard sprites, low polygon count, low resolutions, chunky textures and characters, all pretty comforting
never heard of that game, i like the style though. billboard sprites, low polygon count, low resolutions, chunky textures and characters, all pretty comforting
>>47379
>all pretty comforting
Wait until you hear how the game sounds.
I would have played even longer after finishing it but, again, like with Dragon Quest, I fucked my savestate by saving inside the last dungeon so I can't go back to the overworld. Pretty damn stupid move on my part. Maybe I'll finish all over again some time later.
>all pretty comforting
Wait until you hear how the game sounds.
I would have played even longer after finishing it but, again, like with Dragon Quest, I fucked my savestate by saving inside the last dungeon so I can't go back to the overworld. Pretty damn stupid move on my part. Maybe I'll finish all over again some time later.
File: 1570373267321.jpg (70.76 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, maxresdefault.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Beat the second TouHou, took me a while and still got the worst ending. And this is supposedly the easiest game in the series (after the first one which is just a breakout clone).
Been a while since a game made me feel a useless piece of trash.
Been a while since a game made me feel a useless piece of trash.
File: 1570542564817-0.jpg (1.72 MB, 4167x4113, 463:457, EGG1.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1570542564817-1.jpg (2.73 MB, 4167x4113, 463:457, EGG2.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished EGG - Elemental Gimmick Gear for the Dreamcast. This is a fairly well known game among Dreamcast owners but since there's not many of those people, I would say it's kind of an obscure game, at least for a console title that is. I have been planning to play this for years now. I never had a Dreamcast but it's one of those consoles I have a fascination with, being the Sega console I skipped over and got a Nintendo 64 instead.
This game is a such a weird case for me. I think very few games I played are designed to purposely frustrate the player at the level this game does it. The funny thing is, the good things about it actually helps with the frustration. One example is dead ends. EGG incorporates dead ends to its dungeon design like it's something fun to have. But it's never a true dead end, just a temporary one until you have the correct item to proceed. The game keeps showing you "You'll go through here at some point… but not yet" over and over again. It opens one door just to reveal a corridor you'll only need to visit hours later with some other item you find somewhere else. There's never really a sense of satisfaction in opening a new area because very often it turns out to be just a room with another door you can't open yet. This design choice means you'll be walking back and forth A LOT. You can tell this is on purpose because the game really has only 3 dungeon areas where most of the gameplay happens. Actually it's not as bad as I make it sound, and I was having enough fun I played through the entire thing but I can see many people giving up because of it, specially when navigating through those places is not that easy. One of the reasons is the art.
The art for this game is great and is one of the main reasons I stuck with it to the end. I absolutely love a well made 2D sprite and this game has plenty. Ironically, the art was also the cause for a small frustration. You begin the game in a lab area and the art inside is amazing. Check the pics. It has that mood and it's so well drawn. I was walking around the lab thinking this was going to be one of the best looking 2D games I've ever played… then you step outside and there's a sudden shift of art direction. It's all colorful and more cartoony. Still pretty good but the lab was going in a completely different direction in mood and style even, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Now, I said one of the reasons it's hard to navigate through this game is the art. EGG is completely hand drawn. There's isn't any areas made of repeated tiles. Each part of the game is completely unique, that's great and I really did appreciate all the effort they have put into it. The only problem is there's no patterns to it. Each wall you have to break is different, each passage looks unique. It happened more than once that I got stuck simply because I thought an overhanging arch was actually an impassable wall. You get use to it after a while but you still need to be extra careful about not missing anything.
Another reason I played this through the end is the plot. A simple plot but it enticed me enough I stuck around to see where it was going and it was worth it at the end. The story begins with a bunch of scavengers going in some ruins and finding a mechanical suit shapped like an egg, with a guy sleeping inside. Meanwhile this very same ruin seems to become alive and spread itself. It was interesting to see the whole thing unfold, though looking back there's very little actual story telling. Maybe a half dozen scenes and a few pieces of text and pics here and there.
Let's talk about the worst part of this game imo and that is combat. It's not bad exactly, it's just, again, frustrating. Your EGG fucking sucks. You can punch, and that is your only normal attack, but that punch has the tiniest, TINIEST reach of all things living in this world. And I mean tiny, you have to basically glue yourself to the enemy's face in order to land these punches. It takes a lot of maneuvering to kill anything, specially when your foes have a better reach, has a faster attack and they do so much damage you'll find yourself avoiding conflict many times. Yes, you can win if you do a lot of maneuvering around the guy but there's no point to it, you level up by finding items, not through experience points. And leveling up is another thing. You go all around exploring, picking up these pills that enhance your attack and you finally manage to find enough of them to double your punch power? Well, the game just swap all the weak enemies on the map for strong ones, so it's like you never did anything at all. You do get stronger than most things eventually but only if you endured 2/3 of the game getting your ass kicked and dozens upon dozens of game over screens. Be prepared to die a lot. Good thing there's pretty much no penalty to it, all it happens is you go back to the entrance of the room you were in with half of your life.
One interesting thing is the boss fights. Everything is 2D, except the boss fights, which happens in a 3D area. They are fun, if you can figure it out what you're suppose to do. That's how they make these fights last longer. You have to figure it out how to do damage first. Some is just about waiting for the right window, going in and punching the guy 50 times, others are not so obvious.
With all said and done I can say I did enjoy playing this. It's not a favorite or anything, but it does more things right than wrong and the art and plot give you enough satisfaction to feel good about having playing it.
This game is a such a weird case for me. I think very few games I played are designed to purposely frustrate the player at the level this game does it. The funny thing is, the good things about it actually helps with the frustration. One example is dead ends. EGG incorporates dead ends to its dungeon design like it's something fun to have. But it's never a true dead end, just a temporary one until you have the correct item to proceed. The game keeps showing you "You'll go through here at some point… but not yet" over and over again. It opens one door just to reveal a corridor you'll only need to visit hours later with some other item you find somewhere else. There's never really a sense of satisfaction in opening a new area because very often it turns out to be just a room with another door you can't open yet. This design choice means you'll be walking back and forth A LOT. You can tell this is on purpose because the game really has only 3 dungeon areas where most of the gameplay happens. Actually it's not as bad as I make it sound, and I was having enough fun I played through the entire thing but I can see many people giving up because of it, specially when navigating through those places is not that easy. One of the reasons is the art.
The art for this game is great and is one of the main reasons I stuck with it to the end. I absolutely love a well made 2D sprite and this game has plenty. Ironically, the art was also the cause for a small frustration. You begin the game in a lab area and the art inside is amazing. Check the pics. It has that mood and it's so well drawn. I was walking around the lab thinking this was going to be one of the best looking 2D games I've ever played… then you step outside and there's a sudden shift of art direction. It's all colorful and more cartoony. Still pretty good but the lab was going in a completely different direction in mood and style even, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Now, I said one of the reasons it's hard to navigate through this game is the art. EGG is completely hand drawn. There's isn't any areas made of repeated tiles. Each part of the game is completely unique, that's great and I really did appreciate all the effort they have put into it. The only problem is there's no patterns to it. Each wall you have to break is different, each passage looks unique. It happened more than once that I got stuck simply because I thought an overhanging arch was actually an impassable wall. You get use to it after a while but you still need to be extra careful about not missing anything.
Another reason I played this through the end is the plot. A simple plot but it enticed me enough I stuck around to see where it was going and it was worth it at the end. The story begins with a bunch of scavengers going in some ruins and finding a mechanical suit shapped like an egg, with a guy sleeping inside. Meanwhile this very same ruin seems to become alive and spread itself. It was interesting to see the whole thing unfold, though looking back there's very little actual story telling. Maybe a half dozen scenes and a few pieces of text and pics here and there.
Let's talk about the worst part of this game imo and that is combat. It's not bad exactly, it's just, again, frustrating. Your EGG fucking sucks. You can punch, and that is your only normal attack, but that punch has the tiniest, TINIEST reach of all things living in this world. And I mean tiny, you have to basically glue yourself to the enemy's face in order to land these punches. It takes a lot of maneuvering to kill anything, specially when your foes have a better reach, has a faster attack and they do so much damage you'll find yourself avoiding conflict many times. Yes, you can win if you do a lot of maneuvering around the guy but there's no point to it, you level up by finding items, not through experience points. And leveling up is another thing. You go all around exploring, picking up these pills that enhance your attack and you finally manage to find enough of them to double your punch power? Well, the game just swap all the weak enemies on the map for strong ones, so it's like you never did anything at all. You do get stronger than most things eventually but only if you endured 2/3 of the game getting your ass kicked and dozens upon dozens of game over screens. Be prepared to die a lot. Good thing there's pretty much no penalty to it, all it happens is you go back to the entrance of the room you were in with half of your life.
One interesting thing is the boss fights. Everything is 2D, except the boss fights, which happens in a 3D area. They are fun, if you can figure it out what you're suppose to do. That's how they make these fights last longer. You have to figure it out how to do damage first. Some is just about waiting for the right window, going in and punching the guy 50 times, others are not so obvious.
With all said and done I can say I did enjoy playing this. It's not a favorite or anything, but it does more things right than wrong and the art and plot give you enough satisfaction to feel good about having playing it.
>>47387
I understand that feeling, mate. I've never played a Touhou game, but from what I've seen and heard of the series, I doubt even its easiest iteration(second easiest?) is supposed to be a cake walk.
I can get frustrated when I screw up playing games as well. This happens often, as I am generally very bad at video games. However, most of the games I remember screwing up in I feel were a good experience in retrospect.
It would be unfair to project my feelings unto you, but I hope you overall enjoyed Touhou 2. You should focus on that instead of your skill at the game - a game is intended to be more for fun rather than a test of how good you are as a person, after all.
I understand that feeling, mate. I've never played a Touhou game, but from what I've seen and heard of the series, I doubt even its easiest iteration(second easiest?) is supposed to be a cake walk.
I can get frustrated when I screw up playing games as well. This happens often, as I am generally very bad at video games. However, most of the games I remember screwing up in I feel were a good experience in retrospect.
It would be unfair to project my feelings unto you, but I hope you overall enjoyed Touhou 2. You should focus on that instead of your skill at the game - a game is intended to be more for fun rather than a test of how good you are as a person, after all.
>>47419
>I am generally very bad at video games
Me too, wiz, resilience is the key.
>most of the games I remember screwing up in I feel were a good experience in retrospect
You got that right. Easy games are as easily forgotten.
>I hope you overall enjoyed Touhou 2
Oh I loved the game, and I'm still playing. I will get the good ending even if it takes me months, which some guy in other imageboard told me it might. Don't get me wrong, I am having fun, each day I feel like I am getting a little better and that keeps me going back to the game. But as soon as it starts feeling like a chore I'll just stop.
>I am generally very bad at video games
Me too, wiz, resilience is the key.
>most of the games I remember screwing up in I feel were a good experience in retrospect
You got that right. Easy games are as easily forgotten.
>I hope you overall enjoyed Touhou 2
Oh I loved the game, and I'm still playing. I will get the good ending even if it takes me months, which some guy in other imageboard told me it might. Don't get me wrong, I am having fun, each day I feel like I am getting a little better and that keeps me going back to the game. But as soon as it starts feeling like a chore I'll just stop.
>>47387
Personally I thought 4 was the easiest, or at least it's the only one I managed to 1cc. 2 doesn't have focus which is a pain the ass because some patterns still need fairly precise movement and I often just end up walking into bullets because even tapping the arrow key sends you too far.
I haven't played all of the 2hu games though.
Personally I thought 4 was the easiest, or at least it's the only one I managed to 1cc. 2 doesn't have focus which is a pain the ass because some patterns still need fairly precise movement and I often just end up walking into bullets because even tapping the arrow key sends you too far.
I haven't played all of the 2hu games though.
File: 1571098206740.png (2.51 MB, 1920x1080, 16:9, Abzu.png) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished Abzu. Very exploration-based. No challenge. The controls were a little weird, but moving around was pretty fun. Great attention to detail, especially with small bottom-dwelling creatures, like crabs and octopi, which respond in different ways when the player approaches. Another nice touch is if you can get large creatures like dolphins to school with you, they will breach at the same time.
It is a short, very beautiful game. Very relaxing. Definitely scratches the marine itch, like Subnautica, but has no gameplay elements in common.
It is a short, very beautiful game. Very relaxing. Definitely scratches the marine itch, like Subnautica, but has no gameplay elements in common.
finished Prey (2017) I had a lot of fun with it but it dragged on for too long in the end. Partly my fault as I tried to complete every single side quest available to me and obsessively searched every nook and cranny over and over again to pick up useless crap. Overall it was a decent "SystemShock2-like" and a way more engaging game than most AAA crap that get made these days.
The final twist is totally unnecessary and the game would have worked a lot better without it though. What were the writer(s) of this bad joke thinking?
The final twist is totally unnecessary and the game would have worked a lot better without it though. What were the writer(s) of this bad joke thinking?
>>47473
Maybe it's just me, but, just like with Dishonored, I found myself enjoying the DLC for that game way more than I did the base content. The main campaign just felt, I don't know, kinda boring, frankly. A lot of the areas you visit, competent as they are from a level design standpoint, just didn't leave that much of an impression on me. The fact that you need to end up backtracking so much later on really doesn't help matters either. Like you, I did all the side-quests & searched every last inch of space available, which, although partly my own fault I guess, just made everything that much more lame & tedious. I also, like you, didn't care much for the story. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly great either. Just kinda meh & mostly in the background, at least up until the end. The brother character, voiced by Benedict Wong, was pretty much the only worthwhile/interesting character, and to a lesser extent the black doctor guy & the cook.
Also, yeah. That ending was lame as hell. Personally, I couldn't help, but do a double take after I saw how many people claimed it was this amazing, groundbreaking twist when the "it was just a simulation" thing is such a well worn sci-fi trope. The tallying of deeds was cool, but that was about it. The Earth being overrun & destroyed was very DOOM 2-ish and somewhat sequel-baity as well. The lack of a final boss also sucked and was very anticlimactic. The real final boss was dealing with those damn loading screens, amirite? On that note, the last objectives, no matter which ones you choose to complete, are obnoxious as hell, given the backtracking they require with almost no enemy resistance.
What was that you didn't like about the ending, by the way?
Gameplay-wise it had some cool stuff (GLOO gun, various psi powers, the recycling mechanic, etc.), but enh. I don't know. It just felt like there was something missing to help bring it all together. Mimics, while a cool concept, were kinda underwhelming. To my mind, they just didn't feel threatening enough, in a bit of the same sense as nothing felt all that threatening in Dishonored either. You just have so many means at your disposal to blast, shred, & otherwise eviscerate them, that they essentially become nothing more than mere target dummies. You kinda have to force yourself to use different tactics for their own sake to help keep things fresh, since Q-Beam + Stun Gun, as an example, is literally an unbeatable combination. As an aside, I also wish there were more weapons in this game. Either way, it's extremely easy to become overpowered, especially if, like me, you try to scavenge everything and are thorough. The fact that you can craft neuromod upgrades whenever you want really knocks this home, I feel. I actually did a 2nd playthrough with a community made difficulty mod, traumas, and no neuromod upgrades, and I still found the game to be pretty manageable, only dying like 2-3 times. Contrast this with SS2 where your character can very easily be killed if you're not careful and you can see where Prey lacks substantially when it comes to maintaining tension & atmosphere in the gameplay. Again though, a lack of punishment/tension, and instead going the other way with it, seems to be Arkane's thing, especially when you consider their past work with Dishonored.
Like Dishonored though, I loved the freedom of movement you're given as a player, being able to go, for the most part, wherever the hell it is you want. Lots of verticality to the levels & tons of hidden, albeit mostly useless, stuff to find. The space station itself having a completely open exterior design, with you being able to exit from one airlock, fly around & explore outside, then enter back in from another was, again, really neat. Also, although most of the side-quests were forgettable the one involving the cook , was pretty cool. On my first playthrough, I totally fell for his bullshit & got betrayed by his lard ass when he lets you into the freezer. It's cool because it felt really organic with real consequences for not paying better attention, since he then goes on to terrorize you by leaving random traps everywhere, at least until you can manage to find him, which itself felt equally organic, since his location isn't pointed to & can only be deduced by what you know about him (I just came across him by accident though, heh). On my 2nd playthrough I immediately shot him in the face, and thus, eliminated him as a threat, which was cool. I just wish there had been way more stuff like that and it's a real shame there wasn't.
Anyway, I don't know. Ultimately, I found it kinda mediocre. Is it better than the Ass Creeds & CODs of the world? By absolute light years, of course. Taken on its own though, I don't know. It's just kinda underwhelming, even when compared to something like the first Bioshock. It's the sort of game where I really wanted to love it & go on to sing its praises to others, but I just couldn't. I tried damn hard to, but as much as I may like certain aspects of it, it simply amounts to less than the sum of its part.
I'd recommend checking out the DLC, at least. It has some minimal rogue-like elements, so you might hate it on that basis, but, as someone who doesn't care much for the rogue genre, I actually really enjoyed it. Very Pulp Fiction inspired when it comes to the story, which I found made trying each new character to be a really cool treat, to see how they ended up fitting in to the overall picture.
Maybe it's just me, but, just like with Dishonored, I found myself enjoying the DLC for that game way more than I did the base content. The main campaign just felt, I don't know, kinda boring, frankly. A lot of the areas you visit, competent as they are from a level design standpoint, just didn't leave that much of an impression on me. The fact that you need to end up backtracking so much later on really doesn't help matters either. Like you, I did all the side-quests & searched every last inch of space available, which, although partly my own fault I guess, just made everything that much more lame & tedious. I also, like you, didn't care much for the story. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly great either. Just kinda meh & mostly in the background, at least up until the end. The brother character, voiced by Benedict Wong, was pretty much the only worthwhile/interesting character, and to a lesser extent the black doctor guy & the cook.
Also, yeah. That ending was lame as hell. Personally, I couldn't help, but do a double take after I saw how many people claimed it was this amazing, groundbreaking twist when the "it was just a simulation" thing is such a well worn sci-fi trope. The tallying of deeds was cool, but that was about it. The Earth being overrun & destroyed was very DOOM 2-ish and somewhat sequel-baity as well. The lack of a final boss also sucked and was very anticlimactic. The real final boss was dealing with those damn loading screens, amirite? On that note, the last objectives, no matter which ones you choose to complete, are obnoxious as hell, given the backtracking they require with almost no enemy resistance.
What was that you didn't like about the ending, by the way?
Gameplay-wise it had some cool stuff (GLOO gun, various psi powers, the recycling mechanic, etc.), but enh. I don't know. It just felt like there was something missing to help bring it all together. Mimics, while a cool concept, were kinda underwhelming. To my mind, they just didn't feel threatening enough, in a bit of the same sense as nothing felt all that threatening in Dishonored either. You just have so many means at your disposal to blast, shred, & otherwise eviscerate them, that they essentially become nothing more than mere target dummies. You kinda have to force yourself to use different tactics for their own sake to help keep things fresh, since Q-Beam + Stun Gun, as an example, is literally an unbeatable combination. As an aside, I also wish there were more weapons in this game. Either way, it's extremely easy to become overpowered, especially if, like me, you try to scavenge everything and are thorough. The fact that you can craft neuromod upgrades whenever you want really knocks this home, I feel. I actually did a 2nd playthrough with a community made difficulty mod, traumas, and no neuromod upgrades, and I still found the game to be pretty manageable, only dying like 2-3 times. Contrast this with SS2 where your character can very easily be killed if you're not careful and you can see where Prey lacks substantially when it comes to maintaining tension & atmosphere in the gameplay. Again though, a lack of punishment/tension, and instead going the other way with it, seems to be Arkane's thing, especially when you consider their past work with Dishonored.
Like Dishonored though, I loved the freedom of movement you're given as a player, being able to go, for the most part, wherever the hell it is you want. Lots of verticality to the levels & tons of hidden, albeit mostly useless, stuff to find. The space station itself having a completely open exterior design, with you being able to exit from one airlock, fly around & explore outside, then enter back in from another was, again, really neat. Also, although most of the side-quests were forgettable the one involving the cook , was pretty cool. On my first playthrough, I totally fell for his bullshit & got betrayed by his lard ass when he lets you into the freezer. It's cool because it felt really organic with real consequences for not paying better attention, since he then goes on to terrorize you by leaving random traps everywhere, at least until you can manage to find him, which itself felt equally organic, since his location isn't pointed to & can only be deduced by what you know about him (I just came across him by accident though, heh). On my 2nd playthrough I immediately shot him in the face, and thus, eliminated him as a threat, which was cool. I just wish there had been way more stuff like that and it's a real shame there wasn't.
Anyway, I don't know. Ultimately, I found it kinda mediocre. Is it better than the Ass Creeds & CODs of the world? By absolute light years, of course. Taken on its own though, I don't know. It's just kinda underwhelming, even when compared to something like the first Bioshock. It's the sort of game where I really wanted to love it & go on to sing its praises to others, but I just couldn't. I tried damn hard to, but as much as I may like certain aspects of it, it simply amounts to less than the sum of its part.
I'd recommend checking out the DLC, at least. It has some minimal rogue-like elements, so you might hate it on that basis, but, as someone who doesn't care much for the rogue genre, I actually really enjoyed it. Very Pulp Fiction inspired when it comes to the story, which I found made trying each new character to be a really cool treat, to see how they ended up fitting in to the overall picture.
>>47476
Agreed on the game being too easy in general, I played on hard with traumas and with all the food, healing items laying around, the ones you can craft and the many operators all over the station you're never really in danger. It's the same with ammo, you can craft as much as you want but even without that there's quite a lot you can pick up anyhow.
yeah the simulation trope is just lazy and uninspired imo, it's like the devs were trying too hard to imply the player (you) is the one being tested, or that's how I interpret it. It just comes off as hamfisted… I mean, January and the human npcs already comment all the time on your decisions as you play the damn game anyway, so why go over it again? unlike you I didn't find the tallying of deeds to be cool at all, just redundant and painfully moralistic, and I say that as someone who played as a goody two shoes and opted to destroy the station and myself with it, even though I haven't touched any of the typhon upgrades! it's like nothing you have done mattered anyway, and while I wasn't really keen on doing another playthrough this dumb twist completely killed the thought and is already making me look back much less favorably on a game I did genuinely enjoy
Agreed on the game being too easy in general, I played on hard with traumas and with all the food, healing items laying around, the ones you can craft and the many operators all over the station you're never really in danger. It's the same with ammo, you can craft as much as you want but even without that there's quite a lot you can pick up anyhow.
yeah the simulation trope is just lazy and uninspired imo, it's like the devs were trying too hard to imply the player (you) is the one being tested, or that's how I interpret it. It just comes off as hamfisted… I mean, January and the human npcs already comment all the time on your decisions as you play the damn game anyway, so why go over it again? unlike you I didn't find the tallying of deeds to be cool at all, just redundant and painfully moralistic, and I say that as someone who played as a goody two shoes and opted to destroy the station and myself with it, even though I haven't touched any of the typhon upgrades! it's like nothing you have done mattered anyway, and while I wasn't really keen on doing another playthrough this dumb twist completely killed the thought and is already making me look back much less favorably on a game I did genuinely enjoy
>>47489
>and the many operators all over the station you're never really in danger. It's the same with ammo, you can craft as much as you want but even without that there's quite a lot you can pick up anyhow.
Yeah, exactly. Operators being able to refill your health, suit integrity, or psi points an unlimited amount of times just felt ridiculously forgiving. I personally played on nightmare and, like yourself, never found myself strained for supplies of any kind and, in fact, had a veritable mountain of health & psi hypos that I either just recycled or never used. That community made difficulty mod I mentioned before (a nightmare+, essentially), managed to make resources more scarce to an extent (like, for instance, removing the fucking laughably large amount of loot you'd get off mimic corpses), but, even in that, friendly operators were still around just like they were before which, in effect, made the thing not that much different from my first nightmare playthrough, difficulty-wise. Would disabling operators really have solved anything, though? Well, maybe a little, but, again, the very core of the game is designed in such a way that many things, like with Dishonored, are meant to make you feel strong & powerful, not the opposite. Even in SS2, & SS1, you had unlimited health refill stations in the form of the medbeds, with the addition of unlimited energy refill stations in SS1 as well. As an aside, in SS2 the fact that you need a special medical computer thingy, which themselves are quite rare, to attach to a medbed before you can use them, which are also quite sparse, made them feel more earned & special. Even with those similar forgiving elements however, those games felt way more tense &, in spite of things like refill stations, maintained a good balance between the player & everything else. Prey just doesn't have that, which is essentially a large part of the reason why I didn't really care for it so much in the end.
Same thing with cybermodules in SS2. That shit actually meant something, as opposed to neruomods which just felt as common & unexciting as cheap candy. In SS2 you couldn't become a master at everything, since there simply weren't enough cybermodules to allow for that. As a result, you were forced to specialize which, itself, made one's journey & character progression feel more meaningful. By contrast, Prey, like Dishonored when compared to Thief, is more concerned with making the player feel like an unstoppable badass, than instilling a sense of caution or vulnerability. That's probably why I liked the DLC for Prey the most since, while not perfect, certain characters can feel exceedingly vulnerable, but also hyper-specialized (some are pure psi-users, or mechanics, or soldiers, or medical/science focused, etc.). It felt very SS2, at least on a base level, in a way in which the base game, sadly, did not.
Anyway, I share your thoughts with the ending. I as well sensed a bit of proverbial & somewhat condescending finger wagging from the developers in a very morally binary sense of, 'here's what you did good! :-), and here's what you did bad! >:(.' I still liked it though, merely from an egoistic angle of acknowledging the player's, or my, actions. I'm the sort of guy who's always eaten that shit up in RPGs like with Fallout or Dragon Age, being two quick examples. On the other hand though, it's not really the same since, in Prey's case, like you said, it's just going over the shit you've already done, not expounding on the ramifications of those actions in an epilogue, as is true with the other two examples. In my case, the chosen ending of my first playthrough was roughly the same as yours, sacrificing myself & the station, but also letting the others get away. Second playthrough, I escaped with all of them in the spare shuttle. Both endings had that same brief millisecond long cutscene of the ship flying to the Earth and that's it, which felt very, very lazy. Funny how my tallying felt the exact same in both, with me not even being berated for escaping. I think this was because I didn't use any neuromods though and, thus, was free of any Typhon related material. In both playthroughs, I played as a complete paragon of goodness, since I'd assume being evil would just mean you get executed by Alex. Funny how the option to "kill everyone" is there, even if you played a mr. nice guy.
On a random note, I forgot to mention that moment where you're in the captain's office and you have a choice to either blow up that escape shuttle, or let it be. Again, just like with the cook, it felt very organic. If the moment had been left with silence & no comments from January, or the others at the end, I feel like it would've been extra chilling in a lot of ways.
At the same time, I wouldn't say that nothing you did mattered though, since it was all about deciding whether that Typhon you were actually playing as could be rehabilitated and used as a weapon, or not. The fact that it's revealed that what you were experiencing/playing were memories from the actual Morgan Yu kinda shoots a big hole in that, though. After all, how can the Typhon decide for itself what it wants to be, if it's just experiencing the immutable memories of someone else? Maybe they make a comment somewhere that some of his memories are in fact alterable, but I can't remember for sure. Either way, it didn't bother me as much as it did yourself, which is kinda funny because, up till this point, I literally thought I was the only one who didn't like it, only to now have someone who hates it more than I do. Personally, I had to force myself for a second playthrough not because of having to endure the ending again, but because of having to endure everything else, lol.
>and the many operators all over the station you're never really in danger. It's the same with ammo, you can craft as much as you want but even without that there's quite a lot you can pick up anyhow.
Yeah, exactly. Operators being able to refill your health, suit integrity, or psi points an unlimited amount of times just felt ridiculously forgiving. I personally played on nightmare and, like yourself, never found myself strained for supplies of any kind and, in fact, had a veritable mountain of health & psi hypos that I either just recycled or never used. That community made difficulty mod I mentioned before (a nightmare+, essentially), managed to make resources more scarce to an extent (like, for instance, removing the fucking laughably large amount of loot you'd get off mimic corpses), but, even in that, friendly operators were still around just like they were before which, in effect, made the thing not that much different from my first nightmare playthrough, difficulty-wise. Would disabling operators really have solved anything, though? Well, maybe a little, but, again, the very core of the game is designed in such a way that many things, like with Dishonored, are meant to make you feel strong & powerful, not the opposite. Even in SS2, & SS1, you had unlimited health refill stations in the form of the medbeds, with the addition of unlimited energy refill stations in SS1 as well. As an aside, in SS2 the fact that you need a special medical computer thingy, which themselves are quite rare, to attach to a medbed before you can use them, which are also quite sparse, made them feel more earned & special. Even with those similar forgiving elements however, those games felt way more tense &, in spite of things like refill stations, maintained a good balance between the player & everything else. Prey just doesn't have that, which is essentially a large part of the reason why I didn't really care for it so much in the end.
Same thing with cybermodules in SS2. That shit actually meant something, as opposed to neruomods which just felt as common & unexciting as cheap candy. In SS2 you couldn't become a master at everything, since there simply weren't enough cybermodules to allow for that. As a result, you were forced to specialize which, itself, made one's journey & character progression feel more meaningful. By contrast, Prey, like Dishonored when compared to Thief, is more concerned with making the player feel like an unstoppable badass, than instilling a sense of caution or vulnerability. That's probably why I liked the DLC for Prey the most since, while not perfect, certain characters can feel exceedingly vulnerable, but also hyper-specialized (some are pure psi-users, or mechanics, or soldiers, or medical/science focused, etc.). It felt very SS2, at least on a base level, in a way in which the base game, sadly, did not.
Anyway, I share your thoughts with the ending. I as well sensed a bit of proverbial & somewhat condescending finger wagging from the developers in a very morally binary sense of, 'here's what you did good! :-), and here's what you did bad! >:(.' I still liked it though, merely from an egoistic angle of acknowledging the player's, or my, actions. I'm the sort of guy who's always eaten that shit up in RPGs like with Fallout or Dragon Age, being two quick examples. On the other hand though, it's not really the same since, in Prey's case, like you said, it's just going over the shit you've already done, not expounding on the ramifications of those actions in an epilogue, as is true with the other two examples. In my case, the chosen ending of my first playthrough was roughly the same as yours, sacrificing myself & the station, but also letting the others get away. Second playthrough, I escaped with all of them in the spare shuttle. Both endings had that same brief millisecond long cutscene of the ship flying to the Earth and that's it, which felt very, very lazy. Funny how my tallying felt the exact same in both, with me not even being berated for escaping. I think this was because I didn't use any neuromods though and, thus, was free of any Typhon related material. In both playthroughs, I played as a complete paragon of goodness, since I'd assume being evil would just mean you get executed by Alex. Funny how the option to "kill everyone" is there, even if you played a mr. nice guy.
On a random note, I forgot to mention that moment where you're in the captain's office and you have a choice to either blow up that escape shuttle, or let it be. Again, just like with the cook, it felt very organic. If the moment had been left with silence & no comments from January, or the others at the end, I feel like it would've been extra chilling in a lot of ways.
At the same time, I wouldn't say that nothing you did mattered though, since it was all about deciding whether that Typhon you were actually playing as could be rehabilitated and used as a weapon, or not. The fact that it's revealed that what you were experiencing/playing were memories from the actual Morgan Yu kinda shoots a big hole in that, though. After all, how can the Typhon decide for itself what it wants to be, if it's just experiencing the immutable memories of someone else? Maybe they make a comment somewhere that some of his memories are in fact alterable, but I can't remember for sure. Either way, it didn't bother me as much as it did yourself, which is kinda funny because, up till this point, I literally thought I was the only one who didn't like it, only to now have someone who hates it more than I do. Personally, I had to force myself for a second playthrough not because of having to endure the ending again, but because of having to endure everything else, lol.
File: 1571233208888-0.jpg (257.21 KB, 850x850, 1:1, 816406249_Azel-PanzerDrago….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1571233208888-1.png (939.36 KB, 1285x964, 1285:964, Panzer Dragoon Saga-191010….png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1571233208888-2.png (719.26 KB, 1285x964, 1285:964, Panzer Dragoon Saga-191010….png) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Panzer Dragoon Saga yesterday. Had lots of fun with this one. It took me about 17 hours to beat it going fairly slow, taking the time to explore as much as possible of all the areas from the game, though I rushed a little bit towards the ending I wanted to know how the whole thing wraps up. The story takes place in a post apoc world filled with roaming monsters. What's left of humanity is trying to figure it out where these monsters are and where they're coming from. They seem to be related to technology left by the ancients, as they roam around ancient ruins and other such places. You have an empire trying to seize and control this ancient tech for military purposes, though they don't seem to know exactly what they're medling with. That's where you come in, playing as Edge, a guy able to ride a dragon. It's an RPG so the story is a huge part why you want to play it. If that premisse appealed to you, you'll probably enjoy the game. I sure did. To go along with the plot, the monsters and everything else have very interesting designs to them, specially if you like 90s manga and anime.
Gameplay is divided mostly in 3 parts. Combat and two methods of exploration. Exploring large areas riding your dragon or exploring towns and villages on foot. The game is fairly easy and even if you don't explore the maps to find all the items you can purchase all the essential ones in towns anyway. I did explore as much as I could because the world you find yourself in is interesting and has a mood that resonated well with me. The way the makers of PDS managed to achieve the looks for this within the limitations of the Saturn with the low poly and smart rendering make it really comfy to fly around and interact with. Music also helps a lot, though it's a little too energetic for my taste sometimes, but that's a personal pet peeve of mine. The towns usually has two or three small stories going on that you can keep checking on and sometimes interfere personally with. Each town or place you visit has people with different ideas about what's going on. Empirials mostly treat ancient technology as nothing but a means to an end, while others have a religious view of it. It's worth mentioning that this ancient tech is so advanced it might as well be magic. It's nice to see what each group has to say about what's actually going on in that world. You'll be talking with a lot of people while exploring towns on foot and the majority of objects you find have descriptions to them. Often you're able to know what a chair or table if made of, or what type of liquid is inside that jar and so on. If you're interested in that type of lore you'll have a blast.
Second type of exploration is within large areas where you fly around with your dragon. You'll be looking for items and doing your battles here. There are a lot of hidden stuff to be found that either open up interesting thing in towns, upgrade your dragon or simply gives you more exposition. You have a map on the screen at all times and you would think that makes it easier to find everything but you would be surprised how easy it is to miss things if you're not careful enough. Lastly you have combat. The combat system here is half turn based, half real time. It's partially turn based because you have to fill a gauge to use your powers, effectively making most battles happen in turns (the monster fills its gauge and attacks, you fill yours and attack). The real time is because you can move around the monster to give you strategic advantage. Most monsters can't attack from all sides at all times and they have one side where they can do a lot of damage (usually right in front of them where the canons/teeth/claws are) So you're constantly dancing around the enemy trying to stay safe while you wait your gauge to fill enough for an attack. You can either use the dragon to do the damage, with special attacks that uses Berserk Points or BP for short or your wing cannons. The types of special attacks available to you depends on what type of dragon you go for, you can change that through the menu. You distribute the points in between 4 categories; Attack, Defense, Agility and Spiritual. Since the name of the game is PANZER Dragoon Saga I went all the way in Defense, making my dragon an unstoppable tank. The other way of attacking is with Edge's gun, you can upgrade that by purchasing or finding parts for it as the game progresses. After the battle is over you get points to level up and money, the standard.
As far as what you're going to be exploring with your dragon, there's a desert, a forest, tunnels, waterfalls and ruins. Everyone of those places are filled with different types of monsters and they're all intersting to look at and the battle plays a little differently from all of them. Some comes in groups, some alone. There big ones, huge ones and gigantic ones, some are larger than several buildings put together, which makes it a mistery how they're able to float so nicely in the air.
From here on I'll be talking about my impressions from several events that happens in the game, so if you want a spoiler free read STOP READING HERE. SPOILERS AHEAD.
A feel removing the name Azel from the title for the US release was a big mistake. She's pretty much the focus point of the whole story, being the only "monster" able to interact with the tower. She's also the major cliff hanger of the whole thing by the end and there could be a whole new game just based on her search for Edge. I didn't like her dragon dies, though it might be he just deactivated and is buried whenever he fell after that battle. But the fact she didn't look for it or showed interest in doing so was the only thing I didn't like about the character. Also if you're going to play the US version, she never says I love you like in the subtitles. That word is never actually used anywhere which suits her development in discovering human emotions. Nothing to her is so that well defined. Her whole story was cool to follow along and the twist with Craymen was pretty cool as well.
One thing I'm not sure if I like is how they obliterate Zoah and you can never go back there ever again after the game is finished. I usually don't like when a game makes a whole portion of itself permanently unaccessible. It did have an intersting impact in the story though and I get why they did it. I was impressed how they kept killing kids in this. It's never fully expressed but it's always there. That tiny coffin after the monster attack against the Seeker forttress being the most obvious case. It made the whole thing a lot more tragic, nice touch.
My only real complaint though is how they make you play the worst part of the game twice. That fucking underground maze with several floors and no distinguishable characteristics, basically built to get you fucking lost. That pissed me off to no end jesuschrist. I can't fanthom why they would make you do that other than adding another hour to the game. I wouldn't have minded playing any other area all over again during the same run (other than the tower, that would kinda suck too) but they had to go with that horrible damned maze again.
Gameplay is divided mostly in 3 parts. Combat and two methods of exploration. Exploring large areas riding your dragon or exploring towns and villages on foot. The game is fairly easy and even if you don't explore the maps to find all the items you can purchase all the essential ones in towns anyway. I did explore as much as I could because the world you find yourself in is interesting and has a mood that resonated well with me. The way the makers of PDS managed to achieve the looks for this within the limitations of the Saturn with the low poly and smart rendering make it really comfy to fly around and interact with. Music also helps a lot, though it's a little too energetic for my taste sometimes, but that's a personal pet peeve of mine. The towns usually has two or three small stories going on that you can keep checking on and sometimes interfere personally with. Each town or place you visit has people with different ideas about what's going on. Empirials mostly treat ancient technology as nothing but a means to an end, while others have a religious view of it. It's worth mentioning that this ancient tech is so advanced it might as well be magic. It's nice to see what each group has to say about what's actually going on in that world. You'll be talking with a lot of people while exploring towns on foot and the majority of objects you find have descriptions to them. Often you're able to know what a chair or table if made of, or what type of liquid is inside that jar and so on. If you're interested in that type of lore you'll have a blast.
Second type of exploration is within large areas where you fly around with your dragon. You'll be looking for items and doing your battles here. There are a lot of hidden stuff to be found that either open up interesting thing in towns, upgrade your dragon or simply gives you more exposition. You have a map on the screen at all times and you would think that makes it easier to find everything but you would be surprised how easy it is to miss things if you're not careful enough. Lastly you have combat. The combat system here is half turn based, half real time. It's partially turn based because you have to fill a gauge to use your powers, effectively making most battles happen in turns (the monster fills its gauge and attacks, you fill yours and attack). The real time is because you can move around the monster to give you strategic advantage. Most monsters can't attack from all sides at all times and they have one side where they can do a lot of damage (usually right in front of them where the canons/teeth/claws are) So you're constantly dancing around the enemy trying to stay safe while you wait your gauge to fill enough for an attack. You can either use the dragon to do the damage, with special attacks that uses Berserk Points or BP for short or your wing cannons. The types of special attacks available to you depends on what type of dragon you go for, you can change that through the menu. You distribute the points in between 4 categories; Attack, Defense, Agility and Spiritual. Since the name of the game is PANZER Dragoon Saga I went all the way in Defense, making my dragon an unstoppable tank. The other way of attacking is with Edge's gun, you can upgrade that by purchasing or finding parts for it as the game progresses. After the battle is over you get points to level up and money, the standard.
As far as what you're going to be exploring with your dragon, there's a desert, a forest, tunnels, waterfalls and ruins. Everyone of those places are filled with different types of monsters and they're all intersting to look at and the battle plays a little differently from all of them. Some comes in groups, some alone. There big ones, huge ones and gigantic ones, some are larger than several buildings put together, which makes it a mistery how they're able to float so nicely in the air.
From here on I'll be talking about my impressions from several events that happens in the game, so if you want a spoiler free read STOP READING HERE. SPOILERS AHEAD.
A feel removing the name Azel from the title for the US release was a big mistake. She's pretty much the focus point of the whole story, being the only "monster" able to interact with the tower. She's also the major cliff hanger of the whole thing by the end and there could be a whole new game just based on her search for Edge. I didn't like her dragon dies, though it might be he just deactivated and is buried whenever he fell after that battle. But the fact she didn't look for it or showed interest in doing so was the only thing I didn't like about the character. Also if you're going to play the US version, she never says I love you like in the subtitles. That word is never actually used anywhere which suits her development in discovering human emotions. Nothing to her is so that well defined. Her whole story was cool to follow along and the twist with Craymen was pretty cool as well.
One thing I'm not sure if I like is how they obliterate Zoah and you can never go back there ever again after the game is finished. I usually don't like when a game makes a whole portion of itself permanently unaccessible. It did have an intersting impact in the story though and I get why they did it. I was impressed how they kept killing kids in this. It's never fully expressed but it's always there. That tiny coffin after the monster attack against the Seeker forttress being the most obvious case. It made the whole thing a lot more tragic, nice touch.
My only real complaint though is how they make you play the worst part of the game twice. That fucking underground maze with several floors and no distinguishable characteristics, basically built to get you fucking lost. That pissed me off to no end jesuschrist. I can't fanthom why they would make you do that other than adding another hour to the game. I wouldn't have minded playing any other area all over again during the same run (other than the tower, that would kinda suck too) but they had to go with that horrible damned maze again.
File: 1571275106584-0.gif (43.81 KB, 300x300, 1:1, tumblr_inline_p8y7iqnppj1s….gif) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1571275106584-1.gif (273.47 KB, 240x272, 15:17, doom-revenant-gif-7.gif) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Doom 2, it was great, probably better than 1. I'm trying to play through all the classic fps I missed because I was too young. So now I'll continue with Quake or maybe Blood, also wanna play Duke Nukem.
File: 1571292116949.png (17.66 KB, 999x1011, 333:337, Plutonia_MAP28_map.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>47525
Good taste, check out final doom if you want more stuff that continues the difficulty curve from the end of doom 2. The skill ceiling is quite high and the content is there to support it.
Good taste, check out final doom if you want more stuff that continues the difficulty curve from the end of doom 2. The skill ceiling is quite high and the content is there to support it.
File: 1571292599547.jpg (69.05 KB, 800x600, 4:3, hexen-ii_8.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>47525
Don't forget Wolfenstein, Heretic, Hexen 1 & 2 :D
Don't forget Wolfenstein, Heretic, Hexen 1 & 2 :D
File: 1571320799628.jpg (646.39 KB, 1729x1080, 1729:1080, ss_d6c2e812f72dd9eae818a97….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Child of Light on the wiiu
Personally I didn't find the game all that compelling but I was drawn to the fairy-tale aesthetic and the music was nice.
It wasn't by any means great but I played through it and it was just kind of eh.
Personally I didn't find the game all that compelling but I was drawn to the fairy-tale aesthetic and the music was nice.
It wasn't by any means great but I played through it and it was just kind of eh.
>>47510
isn't that the game where your stats morph the mesh of the dragon model itself? i remember seeing that in the past and that always seemed cool
isn't that the game where your stats morph the mesh of the dragon model itself? i remember seeing that in the past and that always seemed cool
File: 1571322719087.jpg (448.26 KB, 749x1133, 749:1133, azel-03.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>47536
Hey wiz, thanks for responding.
Yes that's the one. There are 4 stats that alters how your dragon looks like (attack, defense, agility and spiritual). Your dragon also changes appearance every time you fight and win against a boss and there's yet another shape you get from collecting a certain items scattered around the world.
Hey wiz, thanks for responding.
Yes that's the one. There are 4 stats that alters how your dragon looks like (attack, defense, agility and spiritual). Your dragon also changes appearance every time you fight and win against a boss and there's yet another shape you get from collecting a certain items scattered around the world.
File: 1571344579122.jpg (484.65 KB, 1897x914, 1897:914, d2.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Diablo2 for the 100th time. This character was a journey and found a lot of great items with her. It's really a timeless classic for me and hope someone else also might start playing again.
File: 1571538902546.png (685.36 KB, 805x960, 161:192, 1746695-quakeshub_niggurat….png) ImgOps iqdb
>>47525
Just finished Quake. I've got kinda mixed feeling about it.
It's really short and kinda feels unfinished. One of the main devs left right after the game was done so it was probably rushed. There are only two bosses and they were extremely easy once you figure it out how to beat them. Probably due to hardware limitations they don't throw dozens of enemies at you all at once, just a few of them, but they compensated by making enemies generally tougher and more annoying (I particularly hated those exploding legs).
I didn't really care for most weapons, shotguns in the game are really underpowered, which I hate since it's my favorite weapon in any fps, but shooting stuff (and myself) with the grenade launcher was pretty fun, and that lightning weapon was ridiculously strong.
I really liked the lovecraftian themes and dark fantasy stuff, but everything looks brown and it gets tiresome after a while.
>>47529
It's in my backlog, was going to play after 2, but I decided to play something different first.
>>47531
Already played Wolfenstein, Heretic and Hexen are also in my backlog.
Just finished Quake. I've got kinda mixed feeling about it.
It's really short and kinda feels unfinished. One of the main devs left right after the game was done so it was probably rushed. There are only two bosses and they were extremely easy once you figure it out how to beat them. Probably due to hardware limitations they don't throw dozens of enemies at you all at once, just a few of them, but they compensated by making enemies generally tougher and more annoying (I particularly hated those exploding legs).
I didn't really care for most weapons, shotguns in the game are really underpowered, which I hate since it's my favorite weapon in any fps, but shooting stuff (and myself) with the grenade launcher was pretty fun, and that lightning weapon was ridiculously strong.
I really liked the lovecraftian themes and dark fantasy stuff, but everything looks brown and it gets tiresome after a while.
>>47529
It's in my backlog, was going to play after 2, but I decided to play something different first.
>>47531
Already played Wolfenstein, Heretic and Hexen are also in my backlog.
>>47564
i never actually played those games as a kid but since you're basically doing it all, i was wondering which doom-like game seems to have the most fun official maps for the story
i never actually played those games as a kid but since you're basically doing it all, i was wondering which doom-like game seems to have the most fun official maps for the story
File: 1571770837241.png (237.84 KB, 1920x973, 1920:973, Golden Spatula.PNG) ImgOps iqdb
I have finished Spongebob: Legend of the lost spatula. I didn't get the glasses because it would seem the two guides either didn't mention it, or literally said they had no idea where they were. Same for the jelly for Squidward, but he's a jerk, so whatever.
crappygames.miraheze.org explains the problems with the game justly.
(https://crappygames.miraheze.org/wiki/Spongebob_Squarepants:_Legend_of_the_Lost_Spatula)
Poor controls. SpongeBob has poor mobility in the air and has a slight delay when jumping. Likewise, switching items is a time-consuming process that involves going through several menus.
Ignoring the artificial difficulty, the game is quite short.
The levels aren't built for the GBC's small screen size. This makes navigating them confusing, especially with the aforementioned control issues.
The enemies also have an extremely small re-spawn radius and can reappear right after SpongeBob defeats them.
Odd object behavior, such as enemies walking in midair.
The passwords are ridiculously long.
The game might experience a slowdown in some places.
Lack of variety.
The way to obtain one of the items (Spongebob's glasses) is rather outlandish and cruel. Squidward tells Spongebob he's out of jelly and the player is tasked with finding some in Jellyfish Fields. Instead of doing something like catching a certain number of jellyfish or defeating the big jellyfish at the end of the level, you're supposed to find a live jellyfish hive in the area and bring that to Squidward. Not only does the game not specify this is what players need to look for, but players also wouldn't be looking for it anyway because why would players needlessly torture a character the game specifically asked them to help?
It certainly doesn't help that needlessly torturing Squidward is something later seasons of the actual show were notorious for.
Sub-par graphics.
(btw, I looked for the jelly, couldn't find it, so no glasses)
It's on the website.
Overall, this game is not worth it, even though it's the FIRST Spongebob game made (IIRC). It was actually a game I grew up playing, and now I'm done with it. I'm glad to have beaten it though. It's another game I'm done with.
crappygames.miraheze.org explains the problems with the game justly.
(https://crappygames.miraheze.org/wiki/Spongebob_Squarepants:_Legend_of_the_Lost_Spatula)
Poor controls. SpongeBob has poor mobility in the air and has a slight delay when jumping. Likewise, switching items is a time-consuming process that involves going through several menus.
Ignoring the artificial difficulty, the game is quite short.
The levels aren't built for the GBC's small screen size. This makes navigating them confusing, especially with the aforementioned control issues.
The enemies also have an extremely small re-spawn radius and can reappear right after SpongeBob defeats them.
Odd object behavior, such as enemies walking in midair.
The passwords are ridiculously long.
The game might experience a slowdown in some places.
Lack of variety.
The way to obtain one of the items (Spongebob's glasses) is rather outlandish and cruel. Squidward tells Spongebob he's out of jelly and the player is tasked with finding some in Jellyfish Fields. Instead of doing something like catching a certain number of jellyfish or defeating the big jellyfish at the end of the level, you're supposed to find a live jellyfish hive in the area and bring that to Squidward. Not only does the game not specify this is what players need to look for, but players also wouldn't be looking for it anyway because why would players needlessly torture a character the game specifically asked them to help?
It certainly doesn't help that needlessly torturing Squidward is something later seasons of the actual show were notorious for.
Sub-par graphics.
(btw, I looked for the jelly, couldn't find it, so no glasses)
It's on the website.
Overall, this game is not worth it, even though it's the FIRST Spongebob game made (IIRC). It was actually a game I grew up playing, and now I'm done with it. I'm glad to have beaten it though. It's another game I'm done with.
File: 1571782906225.jpg (186.25 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, maxresdefault.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Just wrapped up my nearly 100 hour playthrough of this game. I essentially played it non-stop for the past few weeks and, overall, I don't have many bad things to say about it. Although, as many others before me & elsewhere have pointed out, the final area is complete dog shit. With abject garbage like annoying scavenger hunts for plot essential items, powerful enemies that will never stop respawning in many areas, one really badly designed & tedious puzzle that's more trouble than it's worth to solve, and a very boring & dreary map that prevents you from leaving until the final boss is killed. However, outside of that rather large wrinkle it has in regards to that highly disappointing late-game area, the rest of the game has a ton of great stuff & compelling content that, in my case, provided me boat loads of entertaining distraction from myself.
For starters, I found the combat system, while quite limited in certain aspects (dumb AI that just always charges at you, no actual cover system, very few destructibles or random wildcards in the environment to make use out of, etc.) to still be largely satisfying. I built my character to be a pure psi-user, specializing in the "Thought Control" & "Psychokinesis" branches of the 4 available disciplines and found the abilities therein to be both tactically useful & fun. Stuff like plopping down an impenetrable barrier to create makeshift cover or to simply bottleneck approaching enemies, or using the "Locus of Control" skill to nuke a pack of enemies, made playing as an overpowered & high damaging, yet equally squishy psi-user quite an interesting challenge that paid off. All in all, there's definitely a lot of replayability here as far as how one chooses to build their character. Even I'm still a little curious to see how the other 2 psi disciplines function, at least in regards to their respective abilities & viability.
It also has huge enemy variety, which I very much appreciated. Certain enemies like crawlers can be pretty annoying to deal with, but, even so, the large amount of different enemies really helped to keep things fresh & interesting.
Another thing that's absolutely huge is the map itself. With the addition of the expansion areas, it's sheer scale is commendable, but, at the same time, a lot of the map can often lead you to empty spaces, or otherwise uninteresting places, which I found to be somewhat annoying. The needlessly long screen transitions can also be a pain when exploring or when needing to get somewhere faraway.
The game also has a huge & fairly robust crafting system which, if you're looking to get the best gear, you'll have to use at some point. Getting decent materials to craft with isn't too tough and, as far as I could tell, the quality of the materials themselves will tend to scale with your progress, especially as you enter high level specific areas. Making sure your various crafting skills are high enough to craft what you want is something you'll want to be diligent about. I actually didn't bother raising my "Electronics" or "Mechanics" crafting skills past 130 and, as a result, found myself unable to craft some of the really tip top gear you can put together once you're really late-game and likely already past the imposed level cap. I went in blind and never bothered looking at anything like a build guide, or whatever, so, outside of neglecting the stealth skill, (which,as I came to discover, is very important for squishy builds like mine), and to a lesser extent other skills, I was pretty fortunate to not screw up my character too bad, since that can be a pretty common thing to have happen to some players.
Story-wise, it was decent & gets the job done. Serviceable with a very workmen like sense of progression to it. In regards to the atmosphere, it actually feels more cyberpunk than anything, especially once you reach Core City. As a result, it kinda reminded me more of the most recent Shadowrun games, than Fallout. At least to me, looking & feeling a lot closer to the former in most areas, than the latter. I'd say the game feels closest to Fallout right at the beginning, what with SGS (your main starting hub) being highly reminiscent in design & appearance to your home vault from the first Fallout. Then there's Junkyard, which is very Fallout inspired, with music that very much sets the mood for a location that would be right at home in the nuclear wastelands of Fallout. The characters, dialogue & dark sense of humor can also feel somewhat Fallout at times. Even the final area, what with all the roaming mutants & master-like entity controlling them, feels a bit like Fallout in a very small way as well. On that note, like with other things, the late-game area ruins & slows down much of the pacing & mood when it comes to both the story & atmosphere, but the epilogue & proceeding choice of ending afterwards was decent & well done. The ending where you follow after Six, felt a bit like sequel-bait, but, personally, I felt a decent sense of closure in regards to the events of the game & main plot.
Another thing which adds to the atmosphere, is the excellent soundtrack. Seriously, it's awesome. Some of the tracks from the expansion are exceedingly good as well & are a real treat to listen to, even outside of the game itself.
I also liked a good amount of the side-quests, some of which can be approached in a variety of different ways. Again, like with the crafting skills, lockpicking, persuasion & hacking are sometimes quite crucial to solving some of them in the best way possible. That wasn't an issue for me, since I specced quite highly into them, but it still serve as almost a "skill tax" of sorts, or an otherwise gaping drain swallowing up points, assuming you want a well rounded character.
There's a few optional factions you can join as well, but aside from the unique, and rather short, quest-lines they offer, there's not much else to do in them. The choice between the big two, that being Protectorate or Free Drones, (authoritarians or anarchists), which you can completely ignore if you want, is really the most meaningful, since all three of the Oligarchs, no matter which one you end up working with, all lead to the same main plot-specific outcome. As an aside, it kinda bothered me how easy it is to miss joining the Free Drones. There's a certain side-quest where, unless you solve it in a very particular manner, the Free Drones will either invite you to join them, or never contact you at all. As a result, I had no idea I'd already pissed them off, so I was pretty much forced to go Protectorate. I probably would've done that anyway, but it's still totally obtuse & annoying.
For starters, I found the combat system, while quite limited in certain aspects (dumb AI that just always charges at you, no actual cover system, very few destructibles or random wildcards in the environment to make use out of, etc.) to still be largely satisfying. I built my character to be a pure psi-user, specializing in the "Thought Control" & "Psychokinesis" branches of the 4 available disciplines and found the abilities therein to be both tactically useful & fun. Stuff like plopping down an impenetrable barrier to create makeshift cover or to simply bottleneck approaching enemies, or using the "Locus of Control" skill to nuke a pack of enemies, made playing as an overpowered & high damaging, yet equally squishy psi-user quite an interesting challenge that paid off. All in all, there's definitely a lot of replayability here as far as how one chooses to build their character. Even I'm still a little curious to see how the other 2 psi disciplines function, at least in regards to their respective abilities & viability.
It also has huge enemy variety, which I very much appreciated. Certain enemies like crawlers can be pretty annoying to deal with, but, even so, the large amount of different enemies really helped to keep things fresh & interesting.
Another thing that's absolutely huge is the map itself. With the addition of the expansion areas, it's sheer scale is commendable, but, at the same time, a lot of the map can often lead you to empty spaces, or otherwise uninteresting places, which I found to be somewhat annoying. The needlessly long screen transitions can also be a pain when exploring or when needing to get somewhere faraway.
The game also has a huge & fairly robust crafting system which, if you're looking to get the best gear, you'll have to use at some point. Getting decent materials to craft with isn't too tough and, as far as I could tell, the quality of the materials themselves will tend to scale with your progress, especially as you enter high level specific areas. Making sure your various crafting skills are high enough to craft what you want is something you'll want to be diligent about. I actually didn't bother raising my "Electronics" or "Mechanics" crafting skills past 130 and, as a result, found myself unable to craft some of the really tip top gear you can put together once you're really late-game and likely already past the imposed level cap. I went in blind and never bothered looking at anything like a build guide, or whatever, so, outside of neglecting the stealth skill, (which,as I came to discover, is very important for squishy builds like mine), and to a lesser extent other skills, I was pretty fortunate to not screw up my character too bad, since that can be a pretty common thing to have happen to some players.
Story-wise, it was decent & gets the job done. Serviceable with a very workmen like sense of progression to it. In regards to the atmosphere, it actually feels more cyberpunk than anything, especially once you reach Core City. As a result, it kinda reminded me more of the most recent Shadowrun games, than Fallout. At least to me, looking & feeling a lot closer to the former in most areas, than the latter. I'd say the game feels closest to Fallout right at the beginning, what with SGS (your main starting hub) being highly reminiscent in design & appearance to your home vault from the first Fallout. Then there's Junkyard, which is very Fallout inspired, with music that very much sets the mood for a location that would be right at home in the nuclear wastelands of Fallout. The characters, dialogue & dark sense of humor can also feel somewhat Fallout at times. Even the final area, what with all the roaming mutants & master-like entity controlling them, feels a bit like Fallout in a very small way as well. On that note, like with other things, the late-game area ruins & slows down much of the pacing & mood when it comes to both the story & atmosphere, but the epilogue & proceeding choice of ending afterwards was decent & well done. The ending where you follow after Six, felt a bit like sequel-bait, but, personally, I felt a decent sense of closure in regards to the events of the game & main plot.
Another thing which adds to the atmosphere, is the excellent soundtrack. Seriously, it's awesome. Some of the tracks from the expansion are exceedingly good as well & are a real treat to listen to, even outside of the game itself.
I also liked a good amount of the side-quests, some of which can be approached in a variety of different ways. Again, like with the crafting skills, lockpicking, persuasion & hacking are sometimes quite crucial to solving some of them in the best way possible. That wasn't an issue for me, since I specced quite highly into them, but it still serve as almost a "skill tax" of sorts, or an otherwise gaping drain swallowing up points, assuming you want a well rounded character.
There's a few optional factions you can join as well, but aside from the unique, and rather short, quest-lines they offer, there's not much else to do in them. The choice between the big two, that being Protectorate or Free Drones, (authoritarians or anarchists), which you can completely ignore if you want, is really the most meaningful, since all three of the Oligarchs, no matter which one you end up working with, all lead to the same main plot-specific outcome. As an aside, it kinda bothered me how easy it is to miss joining the Free Drones. There's a certain side-quest where, unless you solve it in a very particular manner, the Free Drones will either invite you to join them, or never contact you at all. As a result, I had no idea I'd already pissed them off, so I was pretty much forced to go Protectorate. I probably would've done that anyway, but it's still totally obtuse & annoying.
>>47594
(Thoughts continued…)
In addition, the newly released expansion, which I also completed during my playthrough, was pretty neat. It adds, among other things, an entirely new dimension of movement, in regards to the introduction of jet-skis and being able to navigate & traverse the various old, and newly included, water ways of the UnderRail. I was actually kinda impressed that you can use your jet-ski to pretty much re-explore the entire main map and can use it to go to each main settlement & city should you wish to. The expansion also introduces an original quest line in a totally new area known as the "Black Sea". To call it a "sea" is a bit of stretch though, since, after exploring all of it from top to bottom, it's actually somewhat disappointingly small and more like a small lake than anything. It's a pretty cool change of pace though, with lots of neat areas to dive into, (my favorite being that "haunted" facility you eventually find yourself in). I kinda wish the dynamics of the base camp had been better fleshed out, since, contrary to what the game hints at, there's actually no way possible to bring supplies back or otherwise upgrade it, outside of some rather tucked away sea mines. Also, if you genocide the local homicidal & crazed natives and, assuming you can strike a deal with the pirates, the camp literally becomes immune to any harm, making its existence a complete afterthought, which sucks. It also sucks that, unlike the pirates, the natives can't be reasoned with or joined, so they're only there for you to kill them and that's it.
Story-wise, I thought the expansion had a much more interesting sequence of events and premise compared to the main quest. The characters also felt more well realized and interesting, especially the Ferryman and those two vendors you can regularly eavesdrop on in the camp. As a random example, I thought it was kinda cool how you can have a pretty in-depth philosophical discussion with the rather enigmatic Ferryman, assuming your character has a high enough intelligence stat. I'd actually recommend wizzies to check out the conversation on YouTube and let me know what you think, since it's a fairly intriguing discussion that even I still find myself mulling over. The final area in the expansion was also a lot more compelling & well thought out than the main game's final area. Instead focusing on one particularly tragic character you meet, with some pretty good writing & conversation based dilemmas to solve. The final "chase" sequence where all those invulnerable smoke monsters start coming after you was kinda shit, though. I also thought it was a bit weak that, once you manage to find what you're ultimately looking for in regards to acquiring the macguffin known as the "Acorn" (again another Fallout like similarity akin to the Geck) and turning it in at the camp, the story of the expansion just up & ends, with everybody just saying "k, thanks for your help, we're leaving now. bye. I couldn't help, but laugh when I came back to the camp and all the tents and shit were gone, with their faded plots still visible on the ground. It was like, "Welp, guess it's just me & the Ferryman now." Just a little anti-climatic is all. Good thing is that the black sea is connected to the main map, so you can explore it as much as you want, even after the quest line there is finished.
Another thing the expansion adds is a unique quest, unrelated to the main expedition content, with a rather obscure character known as "Dude", who's also part of the main game. It's actually a pretty cool & interesting quest and actually leads to acquiring one of the most quality of life bonuses in the entire game, instant fast travel. It's not perfect since the fast travel points are hidden and you thus need to find and activate them first, which can be a bit of a pain. You can also only fast travel from the points themselves and only to other points you've discovered, but they're spaced out well so it's no big deal. In the end, it saves a lot of time with loot selling runs, which is nice.
A couple final random asides I'd like to mention, would be how annoying it is that game doesn't provide any sort of transparency for your character when behind solid objects. In combat this can be a huge pain in the ass, especially when trying to use abilities that interact with the ground and not being able to aim them properly as a result. In addition, targeting an enemy in general can be pretty damn finicky & frustrating, especially if there's a lot of corpses on the ground. I also really wish there had been a way to pause the game outside of combat and it felt quite cheap & lazy that there wasn't.
Anyway, like I said, outside of the final area present in the main quest-line, I had a pretty good time with this. I'll even say that, although it's terrible, there are ways to deal with the final area where it's less of a hassle to navigate. Such as restricting your movement inside "watched" zones, avoiding the max stack of detection debuffs from the boss which, if kept from being maxed out by taking cover or leaving, will lead to enemies being prevented from spawning. I also ranted about it in another thread, but the optional puzzle for weakening the boss honestly isn't even worth bothering with. It requires a lot of extra legwork and, in the end, even after managing to solve it, its beneficial effects were mostly inconsequential. Maybe it was thanks to my build & the various crit boosting stims I had with me, but I actually managed to nearly one-shot the boss after landing a crit of over 1200 damage, which essentially led to me beating him in less than a few turns, which I more than likely could've done even without me solving the puzzle. And this was on hard, mind you. I find it extra funny because beforehand, I was worried how the boss might be able to one-shot me before I could get to it given how my character was an ultra sensitive glass cannon, when, in the end, I basically one-shotted it instead. In that sense, I found it kind of hilarious as well that the minions of the boss were actually far more dangerous & threatening than the boss itself, whose main attacks couldn't even breach my equipped shield, let alone kill my squishy character.
Either way, it's been years since I've spent this much time on one game and, as a result, I feel pretty burned out. In retrospect, that burnout I just mentioned & the feelings of tediousness it somewhat instilled in me while playing could've been avoided if I'd just been more moderate & less single-mindedly focused on playing it, and only it exclusively, to such an excessive fault. At the same time, I think from here I might finally turn my eyes to the past and pick a CRPG of old to cross off of my backlog next. After getting through something like UnderRail, an old game like Planescape being essentially a third of the length, if that (as far as I know, anyway), feels, oddly enough, way easier to consider doing now.
(Thoughts continued…)
In addition, the newly released expansion, which I also completed during my playthrough, was pretty neat. It adds, among other things, an entirely new dimension of movement, in regards to the introduction of jet-skis and being able to navigate & traverse the various old, and newly included, water ways of the UnderRail. I was actually kinda impressed that you can use your jet-ski to pretty much re-explore the entire main map and can use it to go to each main settlement & city should you wish to. The expansion also introduces an original quest line in a totally new area known as the "Black Sea". To call it a "sea" is a bit of stretch though, since, after exploring all of it from top to bottom, it's actually somewhat disappointingly small and more like a small lake than anything. It's a pretty cool change of pace though, with lots of neat areas to dive into, (my favorite being that "haunted" facility you eventually find yourself in). I kinda wish the dynamics of the base camp had been better fleshed out, since, contrary to what the game hints at, there's actually no way possible to bring supplies back or otherwise upgrade it, outside of some rather tucked away sea mines. Also, if you genocide the local homicidal & crazed natives and, assuming you can strike a deal with the pirates, the camp literally becomes immune to any harm, making its existence a complete afterthought, which sucks. It also sucks that, unlike the pirates, the natives can't be reasoned with or joined, so they're only there for you to kill them and that's it.
Story-wise, I thought the expansion had a much more interesting sequence of events and premise compared to the main quest. The characters also felt more well realized and interesting, especially the Ferryman and those two vendors you can regularly eavesdrop on in the camp. As a random example, I thought it was kinda cool how you can have a pretty in-depth philosophical discussion with the rather enigmatic Ferryman, assuming your character has a high enough intelligence stat. I'd actually recommend wizzies to check out the conversation on YouTube and let me know what you think, since it's a fairly intriguing discussion that even I still find myself mulling over. The final area in the expansion was also a lot more compelling & well thought out than the main game's final area. Instead focusing on one particularly tragic character you meet, with some pretty good writing & conversation based dilemmas to solve. The final "chase" sequence where all those invulnerable smoke monsters start coming after you was kinda shit, though. I also thought it was a bit weak that, once you manage to find what you're ultimately looking for in regards to acquiring the macguffin known as the "Acorn" (again another Fallout like similarity akin to the Geck) and turning it in at the camp, the story of the expansion just up & ends, with everybody just saying "k, thanks for your help, we're leaving now. bye. I couldn't help, but laugh when I came back to the camp and all the tents and shit were gone, with their faded plots still visible on the ground. It was like, "Welp, guess it's just me & the Ferryman now." Just a little anti-climatic is all. Good thing is that the black sea is connected to the main map, so you can explore it as much as you want, even after the quest line there is finished.
Another thing the expansion adds is a unique quest, unrelated to the main expedition content, with a rather obscure character known as "Dude", who's also part of the main game. It's actually a pretty cool & interesting quest and actually leads to acquiring one of the most quality of life bonuses in the entire game, instant fast travel. It's not perfect since the fast travel points are hidden and you thus need to find and activate them first, which can be a bit of a pain. You can also only fast travel from the points themselves and only to other points you've discovered, but they're spaced out well so it's no big deal. In the end, it saves a lot of time with loot selling runs, which is nice.
A couple final random asides I'd like to mention, would be how annoying it is that game doesn't provide any sort of transparency for your character when behind solid objects. In combat this can be a huge pain in the ass, especially when trying to use abilities that interact with the ground and not being able to aim them properly as a result. In addition, targeting an enemy in general can be pretty damn finicky & frustrating, especially if there's a lot of corpses on the ground. I also really wish there had been a way to pause the game outside of combat and it felt quite cheap & lazy that there wasn't.
Anyway, like I said, outside of the final area present in the main quest-line, I had a pretty good time with this. I'll even say that, although it's terrible, there are ways to deal with the final area where it's less of a hassle to navigate. Such as restricting your movement inside "watched" zones, avoiding the max stack of detection debuffs from the boss which, if kept from being maxed out by taking cover or leaving, will lead to enemies being prevented from spawning. I also ranted about it in another thread, but the optional puzzle for weakening the boss honestly isn't even worth bothering with. It requires a lot of extra legwork and, in the end, even after managing to solve it, its beneficial effects were mostly inconsequential. Maybe it was thanks to my build & the various crit boosting stims I had with me, but I actually managed to nearly one-shot the boss after landing a crit of over 1200 damage, which essentially led to me beating him in less than a few turns, which I more than likely could've done even without me solving the puzzle. And this was on hard, mind you. I find it extra funny because beforehand, I was worried how the boss might be able to one-shot me before I could get to it given how my character was an ultra sensitive glass cannon, when, in the end, I basically one-shotted it instead. In that sense, I found it kind of hilarious as well that the minions of the boss were actually far more dangerous & threatening than the boss itself, whose main attacks couldn't even breach my equipped shield, let alone kill my squishy character.
Either way, it's been years since I've spent this much time on one game and, as a result, I feel pretty burned out. In retrospect, that burnout I just mentioned & the feelings of tediousness it somewhat instilled in me while playing could've been avoided if I'd just been more moderate & less single-mindedly focused on playing it, and only it exclusively, to such an excessive fault. At the same time, I think from here I might finally turn my eyes to the past and pick a CRPG of old to cross off of my backlog next. After getting through something like UnderRail, an old game like Planescape being essentially a third of the length, if that (as far as I know, anyway), feels, oddly enough, way easier to consider doing now.
>>47566
Of the few games I played I'd probably say the first Doom or Quake. Wolf3d is a fucking maze and it's really easy to get lost. Doom 2 has some great level but some of them are uninspired or gimmicky. Quake has nice level design and adds stuff like rooms on top on another (remember doom looks 3d but it's logically a 2d game) and also they implemented switches and more creative ways to find secrets, instead of constantly hitting the interact button against walls, but like I said earlier, everything looks brown and kind of the same.
Of the few games I played I'd probably say the first Doom or Quake. Wolf3d is a fucking maze and it's really easy to get lost. Doom 2 has some great level but some of them are uninspired or gimmicky. Quake has nice level design and adds stuff like rooms on top on another (remember doom looks 3d but it's logically a 2d game) and also they implemented switches and more creative ways to find secrets, instead of constantly hitting the interact button against walls, but like I said earlier, everything looks brown and kind of the same.
File: 1572143743995-0.png (332.98 KB, 840x601, 840:601, Fatal_Frame_PS2_viewfinder.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1572143743995-1.gif (425.9 KB, 353x282, 353:282, Blinded.gif) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished Fatal Frame on a ps2 emulator. I decided that since halloween is near I had to play at least one scary game.
The game consists in exploring this old mansion where horrid rituals took place long ago, while exorcizing ghosts with a magic camera (I think I just described every game in the series).
It plays pretty much like a regular survival horror fron the early 00s, without tank controls, thankfully. The mansion is not really big, but different chapters have you going back and forth between the same places, changing enemies, where they spawm, where items are located, and the puzzles you have to go through. This is my first problem with this game, it gets tiresome after a while, also I can't stress enough how SLOW you move, dodging some ghosts is virtually impossible, especially near the end where teleporting ghosts start appearing and going from point a to point b takes a lot of time, luckily you have a map.
The way the game manages to keep you on your nerves is the combat, to use the camera you go into first person view to aim at the ghost, but instead of just shooting it you have to keep it in you sights to build up power and wait until the last second to deal as much damage as posible, dealing the eponymous "fatal frame". There's health and ammo everywhere so it's not a hard game, although some ghosts can be pretty annoying. There are also a lot of harmless ghosts, that you only get to see for a few seconds and taking their photos just give you points, which you use to upgrade the camera and rank higher at the end of the game. Since you only have one weapon, the game gives you four different types of roll, each one more powerful than the last, I barely used the two strongest types (just three of the strongest in the last boss), most ghosts go down in three or four shots if you get the fatal frame. Surprisingly enough the game isn't filled with jumpscares, I'm thankful for that.
The voice acting is laughably bad, and it feels really weird having american accents in something so Japanese, I wish they'd just added subtitles.
There is a hard mode but you have to beat the normal mode and some sort of arena, so I don't think I'll be playing the anytime soon.
Anyway, it's a decent game, far from perfect but enjoyable, and it doesn't overstay its welcome, beat it in less than 7 hours. The way it plays and looks gave me a bit of nostalgia for the old Silent Hill and Resident Evil games, and made me feel depressed that 2000 was almost 20 years ago.
The game consists in exploring this old mansion where horrid rituals took place long ago, while exorcizing ghosts with a magic camera (I think I just described every game in the series).
It plays pretty much like a regular survival horror fron the early 00s, without tank controls, thankfully. The mansion is not really big, but different chapters have you going back and forth between the same places, changing enemies, where they spawm, where items are located, and the puzzles you have to go through. This is my first problem with this game, it gets tiresome after a while, also I can't stress enough how SLOW you move, dodging some ghosts is virtually impossible, especially near the end where teleporting ghosts start appearing and going from point a to point b takes a lot of time, luckily you have a map.
The way the game manages to keep you on your nerves is the combat, to use the camera you go into first person view to aim at the ghost, but instead of just shooting it you have to keep it in you sights to build up power and wait until the last second to deal as much damage as posible, dealing the eponymous "fatal frame". There's health and ammo everywhere so it's not a hard game, although some ghosts can be pretty annoying. There are also a lot of harmless ghosts, that you only get to see for a few seconds and taking their photos just give you points, which you use to upgrade the camera and rank higher at the end of the game. Since you only have one weapon, the game gives you four different types of roll, each one more powerful than the last, I barely used the two strongest types (just three of the strongest in the last boss), most ghosts go down in three or four shots if you get the fatal frame. Surprisingly enough the game isn't filled with jumpscares, I'm thankful for that.
The voice acting is laughably bad, and it feels really weird having american accents in something so Japanese, I wish they'd just added subtitles.
There is a hard mode but you have to beat the normal mode and some sort of arena, so I don't think I'll be playing the anytime soon.
Anyway, it's a decent game, far from perfect but enjoyable, and it doesn't overstay its welcome, beat it in less than 7 hours. The way it plays and looks gave me a bit of nostalgia for the old Silent Hill and Resident Evil games, and made me feel depressed that 2000 was almost 20 years ago.
File: 1572398906256.jpg (75.45 KB, 640x618, 320:309, 1876_front.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
this looked pretty cool when I rented it in 1996 but now that I finally played it through….meh
stupid game, absolutely barebones story, primitive graphics, it belonged on NES not the playstation
stupid game, absolutely barebones story, primitive graphics, it belonged on NES not the playstation
I pressed control R.
CASTLE CRASHERS
TL;DR
ranged is great for DPS, but you can't back up and shoot. It's simple, like melee, which you just use two combos for. Magic is the only thing that matters in tier lists. Melee is only good for the final boss. You can't hit the final boss's final form with ranged or magic. It's poorly designed. All characters play THE SAME. The music is from newgrounds and is unoriginal. The game is just a beat em up that was priced for like, TWENTY DOLLARS. Not worth the price. Not even worth 10 bucks! I got it for 3, and have beaten it 2 times, almost 3, with only 13 hours in it. There's an insane mode, but no real reason to continue after playing each of the styles. All weapons are the same, animal orbs, which are companions, are tiered from absolutely useless to hawk and giraffe. Those are the only two you need. Hawk gives you food from dead enemies (OP), giraffe gives 1.5x the exp. Each hit gives you 1 exp, and it's a grindfest to level to 99. I refuse. No need. I'm not playing the insane mode since it'd be a grindfest.
Alright, crap game. I got it for 3 bucks. Don't bother getting it. 3 dollars / 13 hours = .23 cents an hour. Not bad compared to other mediums, but there are other, longer games that are more detailed that'll give you more bang for your buck.
CASTLE CRASHERS
TL;DR
ranged is great for DPS, but you can't back up and shoot. It's simple, like melee, which you just use two combos for. Magic is the only thing that matters in tier lists. Melee is only good for the final boss. You can't hit the final boss's final form with ranged or magic. It's poorly designed. All characters play THE SAME. The music is from newgrounds and is unoriginal. The game is just a beat em up that was priced for like, TWENTY DOLLARS. Not worth the price. Not even worth 10 bucks! I got it for 3, and have beaten it 2 times, almost 3, with only 13 hours in it. There's an insane mode, but no real reason to continue after playing each of the styles. All weapons are the same, animal orbs, which are companions, are tiered from absolutely useless to hawk and giraffe. Those are the only two you need. Hawk gives you food from dead enemies (OP), giraffe gives 1.5x the exp. Each hit gives you 1 exp, and it's a grindfest to level to 99. I refuse. No need. I'm not playing the insane mode since it'd be a grindfest.
Alright, crap game. I got it for 3 bucks. Don't bother getting it. 3 dollars / 13 hours = .23 cents an hour. Not bad compared to other mediums, but there are other, longer games that are more detailed that'll give you more bang for your buck.
>>47566
Blood is my personal favorite. I hated it until I realized that crouching reduces the accuracy of hitscan enemies, then it became absurdly fun. The only area it's lacking in is the inventory items, Duke Nukem was much better in that regard. I find it odd because the weapon selection was pretty unique with stuff like the flare gun, aerosol can, life leech and voodoo doll, not to mention all the different kinds of dynamite. Also I can't think of any FPS that had alt fire modes before Blood. Having 3 types of armor (for regular, fire and spirit damage) was also pretty interesting.
It's inspired by Horror movies in general instead of just Alien like DOOM, so the themes of the levels are way more varied. The level design has the classic complex yet easy to navigate feel of older FPS and is very fun to explore. Enemy placement is great and enemy type variety is large enough that it never gets tedious or boring (I think there's at least 15 different enemies). Highly recommend it if especially if you're looking for another FPS with Horror elements like DOOM.
Blood is my personal favorite. I hated it until I realized that crouching reduces the accuracy of hitscan enemies, then it became absurdly fun. The only area it's lacking in is the inventory items, Duke Nukem was much better in that regard. I find it odd because the weapon selection was pretty unique with stuff like the flare gun, aerosol can, life leech and voodoo doll, not to mention all the different kinds of dynamite. Also I can't think of any FPS that had alt fire modes before Blood. Having 3 types of armor (for regular, fire and spirit damage) was also pretty interesting.
It's inspired by Horror movies in general instead of just Alien like DOOM, so the themes of the levels are way more varied. The level design has the classic complex yet easy to navigate feel of older FPS and is very fun to explore. Enemy placement is great and enemy type variety is large enough that it never gets tedious or boring (I think there's at least 15 different enemies). Highly recommend it if especially if you're looking for another FPS with Horror elements like DOOM.
>>47676
I'm playing Blood right now and it's an absolute joy, wiz.
>I realized that crouching reduces the accuracy of hitscan enemies
You don't say, I only crouch to shoot at spiders and stuff. Maybe now I won't get crudux cruo'd so often.
I'm playing Blood right now and it's an absolute joy, wiz.
>I realized that crouching reduces the accuracy of hitscan enemies
You don't say, I only crouch to shoot at spiders and stuff. Maybe now I won't get crudux cruo'd so often.
File: 1572597094910.jpg (72.15 KB, 1024x576, 16:9, 6482764876247.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Pretty cool game. Has a wonderful sense of discovery highly reminiscent of late 90s to early 00s gaming, with each new clue, quirky mechanic & area you uncover leading to even further neat things to discover upon each new reset of the day. On that note, the "time loop" mechanic present here (ala Majora's Mask) is done well enough, I suppose, but the lack of any shortcuts to key locations, no method to hold items, or ways to speed up or slow down time makes the whole thing quite tiresome to deal with, especially near the end. Each day lasts 22 real life minutes and, as a result, you're essentially always on the clock and have to prioritize what, or where it is you're going to investigate before you get knocked back to the beginning of the loop. Fortunately, your ship's computer stores all the relevant data & clues you uncover and is immune to the effects of the loop so, over time, you'll fill out various interconnected webs of information which all help to point you towards wherever it is you need to go next. Essentially everything in the game operates off this 22 minute interval, even the unique operation of each planet's biosphere.
Speaking of, the planets especially are really something else and each one can leave with you quite the first impression. Personally speaking, I found each of them to be really impressive from a gameplay standpoint and I've honestly gotta hand it to the developers for their sheer creativity in designing them. That's not to say that they still can't be damn frustrating & gimmicky at times, doubly so when you're forced to just stand around and wait until certain planets (like the hourglass twins) have reached their correct position in the cycle so as to facilitate the means to pick-up where you left off and continue exploring them.
The story is also pretty novel for what it is and, beyond the initial set-up, is delivered in a very "show don't tell" sort of way, being firmly a part of what you'll discover along your journey. The concept of grappling with & trying to survive the inevitable heat death of the universe isn't something I've often seen tackled in a game before, so I appreciated its novelty on that front. The actual ending was very 2001: A Space Odyssey at points and had nice sense of you being truly beyond the looking glass & tumbling down some interdimensional alien rabbit hole.
Anyway, all in all, I was really enjoying this, with it proving to be one of the most original games I've experienced in a while, at least right up until almost the very end due to one particularly awful and unwittingly self-inflicted late game ordeal, which is further detailed in the spoiler below.
Pretty much the last thing you need to do to complete the story is partly reliant on having to stealth past what are essentially the only enemies present in the game, with a group of them camped around the entrance to an important area you need to get to. The prelude to doing this however is at least 10 minutes of waiting upon each new reset in order to retrieve a plot crucial item on an entirely different planet. If you happen to die while trying to sneak past these enemies then that simply means another 10 fucking minutes of standing around doing nothing until you're able to re-grab that item you need on this separate planet, before then zooming back over to the other planet to reattempt sneaking past these things. The fact that, until the loop resets, these enemies will never leash back to being passive if they spot you, even if you leave the area/planet, is also complete bullshit. In my case, I misinterpreted a clue you can find earlier on in the game which mentions that these enemies are "blind". The way I dealt with this when needing to investigate the area before this point was by simply exiting my ship in order to try and move very slowly past them, squeaking by with small thrusts in my spacesuit. I'd essentially let my ship drift past them and then link back up with it after I myself got past. Again, little did I realize that the only reason I even managed to get past in this fashion the first time was because I myself was also drifting, not because I was just moving slowly. When I was ready for the end of the game, I kept trying to move past them normally, moving along the opposite wall while slowly engaging my jetpack and swiftly dying each time. After about 8-12 times of trying to stealth past these fucking things and getting extremely frustrated to boot, I finally looked online to see what the fucking deal was before then realizing what a god damn retard I was to not see the obvious. Even with my ship drifting past me each time, I just didn't put two and two together. That being that as long as you don't "move" they won't aggro to you, even if the ship itself is drifting right past their face. At the same time, just because the enemies are "blind" isn't really enough to then assume that they must therefore sense through vibrations and or sound instead, especially when the game never offers any hints to this being the case beyond indicating that they're blind. And again, I feel like I had actually managed to sneak past them before while moving slightly, but somehow I never noticed what it was I doing to not get me noticed by them. My own stupidity notwithstanding, that whole final ordeal pretty much soured the entire climax of what was otherwise an amazing game. It really pisses me off that something so interesting & novel had to get so fucking ruined like this, especially when I was so close to the end. Damn it, I really hate how fucking utterly thick & inept I can be. I just hate that, that happened. Fucking hell, I hate that it had to retroactively ruin what was a somewhat satisfying game, all thanks to the fact that I'm so god damn retarded. I would've enjoyed the ending & overall package so much more if none of this had happened. Damn it.
Speaking of, the planets especially are really something else and each one can leave with you quite the first impression. Personally speaking, I found each of them to be really impressive from a gameplay standpoint and I've honestly gotta hand it to the developers for their sheer creativity in designing them. That's not to say that they still can't be damn frustrating & gimmicky at times, doubly so when you're forced to just stand around and wait until certain planets (like the hourglass twins) have reached their correct position in the cycle so as to facilitate the means to pick-up where you left off and continue exploring them.
The story is also pretty novel for what it is and, beyond the initial set-up, is delivered in a very "show don't tell" sort of way, being firmly a part of what you'll discover along your journey. The concept of grappling with & trying to survive the inevitable heat death of the universe isn't something I've often seen tackled in a game before, so I appreciated its novelty on that front. The actual ending was very 2001: A Space Odyssey at points and had nice sense of you being truly beyond the looking glass & tumbling down some interdimensional alien rabbit hole.
Anyway, all in all, I was really enjoying this, with it proving to be one of the most original games I've experienced in a while, at least right up until almost the very end due to one particularly awful and unwittingly self-inflicted late game ordeal, which is further detailed in the spoiler below.
Pretty much the last thing you need to do to complete the story is partly reliant on having to stealth past what are essentially the only enemies present in the game, with a group of them camped around the entrance to an important area you need to get to. The prelude to doing this however is at least 10 minutes of waiting upon each new reset in order to retrieve a plot crucial item on an entirely different planet. If you happen to die while trying to sneak past these enemies then that simply means another 10 fucking minutes of standing around doing nothing until you're able to re-grab that item you need on this separate planet, before then zooming back over to the other planet to reattempt sneaking past these things. The fact that, until the loop resets, these enemies will never leash back to being passive if they spot you, even if you leave the area/planet, is also complete bullshit. In my case, I misinterpreted a clue you can find earlier on in the game which mentions that these enemies are "blind". The way I dealt with this when needing to investigate the area before this point was by simply exiting my ship in order to try and move very slowly past them, squeaking by with small thrusts in my spacesuit. I'd essentially let my ship drift past them and then link back up with it after I myself got past. Again, little did I realize that the only reason I even managed to get past in this fashion the first time was because I myself was also drifting, not because I was just moving slowly. When I was ready for the end of the game, I kept trying to move past them normally, moving along the opposite wall while slowly engaging my jetpack and swiftly dying each time. After about 8-12 times of trying to stealth past these fucking things and getting extremely frustrated to boot, I finally looked online to see what the fucking deal was before then realizing what a god damn retard I was to not see the obvious. Even with my ship drifting past me each time, I just didn't put two and two together. That being that as long as you don't "move" they won't aggro to you, even if the ship itself is drifting right past their face. At the same time, just because the enemies are "blind" isn't really enough to then assume that they must therefore sense through vibrations and or sound instead, especially when the game never offers any hints to this being the case beyond indicating that they're blind. And again, I feel like I had actually managed to sneak past them before while moving slightly, but somehow I never noticed what it was I doing to not get me noticed by them. My own stupidity notwithstanding, that whole final ordeal pretty much soured the entire climax of what was otherwise an amazing game. It really pisses me off that something so interesting & novel had to get so fucking ruined like this, especially when I was so close to the end. Damn it, I really hate how fucking utterly thick & inept I can be. I just hate that, that happened. Fucking hell, I hate that it had to retroactively ruin what was a somewhat satisfying game, all thanks to the fact that I'm so god damn retarded. I would've enjoyed the ending & overall package so much more if none of this had happened. Damn it.
>>47672
that's $20? i remember getting castle crashers on xbox 360 marketplace like a decade ago. i don't think it was even $20 back then.
that's $20? i remember getting castle crashers on xbox 360 marketplace like a decade ago. i don't think it was even $20 back then.
File: 1572625265750.jpg (213.11 KB, 1251x1775, 1251:1775, Terminator_3_Rise_of_the_M….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
I wish I could articulate that weird feeling that irrelevant, 4/10 PS2 games give me. It's like going back to 2004 and forcing yourself through a bad rental, because damn it I'm going to enjoy it.
The actual game itself, well, it's got that oppressive dark palette that finds itself coating a lot of PS2 games from the era. The controls are clunky, but they had to know that, as you barely have to aim to kill the T900s, or any enemy in this dog shit of a game. Arnold is as phoned in as ever, it barely feels like a movie game. Despite all that though, I liked it. Such a forgotten, shitty, souless game, that I saw myself in it in a way.
The actual game itself, well, it's got that oppressive dark palette that finds itself coating a lot of PS2 games from the era. The controls are clunky, but they had to know that, as you barely have to aim to kill the T900s, or any enemy in this dog shit of a game. Arnold is as phoned in as ever, it barely feels like a movie game. Despite all that though, I liked it. Such a forgotten, shitty, souless game, that I saw myself in it in a way.
File: 1572819375244.png (170.28 KB, 642x675, 214:225, castle crashers.PNG) ImgOps iqdb
>>47684
$15, I guess. The blacksmith and pink knight DLC is just another character with some new spells. Same spell types, just a different skin.
Pit and the batteblock theater are different, but I doubt they're worth it.
So overall, the only DLC is the latter two, but battleblock theater itself is $14 and the pit is not stated. Together, it's $24, and I wouldn't pay that much for a game that I've only played for 10 hours. I'm not taking the chance on the other DLC either.
$15, I guess. The blacksmith and pink knight DLC is just another character with some new spells. Same spell types, just a different skin.
Pit and the batteblock theater are different, but I doubt they're worth it.
So overall, the only DLC is the latter two, but battleblock theater itself is $14 and the pit is not stated. Together, it's $24, and I wouldn't pay that much for a game that I've only played for 10 hours. I'm not taking the chance on the other DLC either.
I played through the Witch's House MV for the first time and the "true ending" is something I probably won't forget.
File: 1572929161605-0.gif (112.5 KB, 800x600, 4:3, 54376-blood-dos-screenshot….gif) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1572929161605-1.png (656.15 KB, 1024x768, 4:3, blood-life-leech-turret.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1572929161605-2.png (156.73 KB, 962x720, 481:360, toyshop.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>47677
Ok I finished it. Took me a while. This game doesn't fuck around, you guns blazing into a mob of enemies and you're going to get your ass handed to you. I loved the weapons, pretty original, my favorites were the voodoo doll and the life leech (although it doesn't leech life, for some reason, but it's really good to cheese enemies, bosses especially). I love voodoo aesthetic on games, looks cool and for some reason in the 90s most games had some voodoo stuff.
It's an amazing game, probably my favorite of the old school shooters (haven't played Duke3d but I don't think it'll beat this). My only problem with it is that the game kinda does whatever the fuck it wants when you try to aim vertically, but that's understandable for a game like this one.
Ok I finished it. Took me a while. This game doesn't fuck around, you guns blazing into a mob of enemies and you're going to get your ass handed to you. I loved the weapons, pretty original, my favorites were the voodoo doll and the life leech (although it doesn't leech life, for some reason, but it's really good to cheese enemies, bosses especially). I love voodoo aesthetic on games, looks cool and for some reason in the 90s most games had some voodoo stuff.
It's an amazing game, probably my favorite of the old school shooters (haven't played Duke3d but I don't think it'll beat this). My only problem with it is that the game kinda does whatever the fuck it wants when you try to aim vertically, but that's understandable for a game like this one.
Finished the single player of the latest COD.
The sound design is probably the best of any game I have played. It sounds fantastic. The story was meh, the gameplay was tight with everything feeling alright. Not exceptional or anything but pretty good. The game looks good even with most of the settings turned down and the acting during the cutscenes is actually pretty good.
The multiplayer is both fun and frustrating. It has been a long time since I played a COD game and it is going to take a while for me to stop playing it like counter strike.
Overall it is a good game and I don't regret getting it. While the single player campaign is short, fuckton of time I will probably sink into the multiplayer with more then make up for it.
The sound design is probably the best of any game I have played. It sounds fantastic. The story was meh, the gameplay was tight with everything feeling alright. Not exceptional or anything but pretty good. The game looks good even with most of the settings turned down and the acting during the cutscenes is actually pretty good.
The multiplayer is both fun and frustrating. It has been a long time since I played a COD game and it is going to take a while for me to stop playing it like counter strike.
Overall it is a good game and I don't regret getting it. While the single player campaign is short, fuckton of time I will probably sink into the multiplayer with more then make up for it.
File: 1573072390948.jpg (223.44 KB, 1024x1536, 2:3, star_fox_64_smartphone_wal….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
I've 100%'ed Star Fox 64 the other way. Regular and expert mode all medals. What's everyone's high scores? Mine is 1523 but I'm going to try and beat that later. What's your favorite planets? For me it's Zoness and the meteor field. Area 6 is pretty cool too
>>47735
>>47676
Enh, I have pretty mixed feelings on Blood myself. I could explain why, but it mostly just comes down to personal preference. Personally speaking, I wasn't the biggest fan of its arsenal, with weapons like the aerosol can or flare gun being especially piddly & underwhelming. The tommy gun & double barrel shotgun were also kinda meh, to be honest. Once you get weapons like the napalm launcher, tesla gun, voodoo doll, or life leech it helps to balance things out better, but the start of each new episode is always a pain given that you're forced to use the crappier weapons until you can manage to pick up everything else again. Funnily enough, I'd probably consider dynamite to be my favorite weapon in that game. Nothing more satisfying than chucking a fat stick of dynamite right into a crowd of zombies and watching them all blow to pieces, with Caleb's occasional cackling just being the cheery on top.
The level design & enemy variety is pretty good, I'll admit, but, at the same time, I don't know. It still didn't leave that much of an impression on me. Those fucking cultists are such a pain to deal with in certain areas. Crouching mitigates their hitscan bullshit to a certain degree, yes, but I still wish the damage they're able to inflict was half than what it is. Also, if they happen to fall into the water and there's something you need there you're pretty much fucked, since you can't crouch underwater, yet they can inflict pretty much instant death levels of damage. There's a particular spot in one of the expansions (I think anyway, since it's been a while) where it's just hell for this sort of thing. Other enemies like giant spiders, sharkmen or rats were also just plain fucking annoying to deal with a lot of the time.
Still, I found myself really liking the spooky atmosphere and that each of the levels were kinda their own little homages to horror in general. All the little references & easter eggs therein being just as enjoyable to discover. It would've been nice however if the soundtrack had been more varied. That one ambient track with the midi piano is pretty much the only song used in the entire game. It might be a bit nitpicky I guess, but it still kinda bothered me while playing.
Gameplay-wise I didn't have that many issues with it other than that some of the alt-fires are useless and the needless splitting up of armor into three different categories which, for me, was just unnecessary. I liked the bonus power-ups for the most part, but being able to dual wield, in my opinion, should've been an option given to the player to use at all times. Inventory items were forgettable, but they usually always are in older shooters like this.
Anyway, I still kinda like Blood for what it is, but for me I'd consider stuff like the original Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem, or Dark Forces to be superior. I've never played DOOM, Quake, Heretic, or Hexen, so I can't comment on those. Monolith, as it once was, was honestly one of my favorite developers. NOLF 1 & 2, F.E.A.R., Condemned, TRON, AVP 2, SHOGO. They had so many great hits. Funny how if I were to rank all their games, prior to F.E.A.R. 2 of course (since everything starting from that was either mediocre, or shit), I'd actually consider Blood to be near the bottom for me. Playing something like SHOGO, which itself is just a send-up of 90s & 80s mecha anime instead of horror, turned out to be way more enjoyable for me versus playing Blood. Again, it's a well put together experience, but, I don't know. I guess I just wish I had enjoyed more than I actually did.
Which version did you guys play, by the way? BloodGDX or DOS? Just curious, since I'd recommend checking out GDX for its additional features & options, assuming you haven't already.
Also, despite my mixed stance on Blood, I'd highly recommend checking out the user made campaign known as 'Death Wish'. If you thought Blood had great level design, just wait till you check out this. Hands down the most fun I had with Blood was thanks to 'Death Wish'. Even since I last played it a couple years ago, the same guy is still updating it with new content & levels, which is quite commendable and makes me one to revisit it at some point in the future.
>>47676
Enh, I have pretty mixed feelings on Blood myself. I could explain why, but it mostly just comes down to personal preference. Personally speaking, I wasn't the biggest fan of its arsenal, with weapons like the aerosol can or flare gun being especially piddly & underwhelming. The tommy gun & double barrel shotgun were also kinda meh, to be honest. Once you get weapons like the napalm launcher, tesla gun, voodoo doll, or life leech it helps to balance things out better, but the start of each new episode is always a pain given that you're forced to use the crappier weapons until you can manage to pick up everything else again. Funnily enough, I'd probably consider dynamite to be my favorite weapon in that game. Nothing more satisfying than chucking a fat stick of dynamite right into a crowd of zombies and watching them all blow to pieces, with Caleb's occasional cackling just being the cheery on top.
The level design & enemy variety is pretty good, I'll admit, but, at the same time, I don't know. It still didn't leave that much of an impression on me. Those fucking cultists are such a pain to deal with in certain areas. Crouching mitigates their hitscan bullshit to a certain degree, yes, but I still wish the damage they're able to inflict was half than what it is. Also, if they happen to fall into the water and there's something you need there you're pretty much fucked, since you can't crouch underwater, yet they can inflict pretty much instant death levels of damage. There's a particular spot in one of the expansions (I think anyway, since it's been a while) where it's just hell for this sort of thing. Other enemies like giant spiders, sharkmen or rats were also just plain fucking annoying to deal with a lot of the time.
Still, I found myself really liking the spooky atmosphere and that each of the levels were kinda their own little homages to horror in general. All the little references & easter eggs therein being just as enjoyable to discover. It would've been nice however if the soundtrack had been more varied. That one ambient track with the midi piano is pretty much the only song used in the entire game. It might be a bit nitpicky I guess, but it still kinda bothered me while playing.
Gameplay-wise I didn't have that many issues with it other than that some of the alt-fires are useless and the needless splitting up of armor into three different categories which, for me, was just unnecessary. I liked the bonus power-ups for the most part, but being able to dual wield, in my opinion, should've been an option given to the player to use at all times. Inventory items were forgettable, but they usually always are in older shooters like this.
Anyway, I still kinda like Blood for what it is, but for me I'd consider stuff like the original Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem, or Dark Forces to be superior. I've never played DOOM, Quake, Heretic, or Hexen, so I can't comment on those. Monolith, as it once was, was honestly one of my favorite developers. NOLF 1 & 2, F.E.A.R., Condemned, TRON, AVP 2, SHOGO. They had so many great hits. Funny how if I were to rank all their games, prior to F.E.A.R. 2 of course (since everything starting from that was either mediocre, or shit), I'd actually consider Blood to be near the bottom for me. Playing something like SHOGO, which itself is just a send-up of 90s & 80s mecha anime instead of horror, turned out to be way more enjoyable for me versus playing Blood. Again, it's a well put together experience, but, I don't know. I guess I just wish I had enjoyed more than I actually did.
Which version did you guys play, by the way? BloodGDX or DOS? Just curious, since I'd recommend checking out GDX for its additional features & options, assuming you haven't already.
Also, despite my mixed stance on Blood, I'd highly recommend checking out the user made campaign known as 'Death Wish'. If you thought Blood had great level design, just wait till you check out this. Hands down the most fun I had with Blood was thanks to 'Death Wish'. Even since I last played it a couple years ago, the same guy is still updating it with new content & levels, which is quite commendable and makes me one to revisit it at some point in the future.
>>47758
>The tommy gun & double barrel shotgun were also kinda meh
I liked the shotgun, way better than the piece of shit quake has as a shotgun, but yeah I guess it was pretty normal.
>There's a particular spot in one of the expansions (I think anyway, since it's been a while) where it's just hell for this sort of thing
I think I know exactly which level you mean, it's on the expansion and there's a key in a big area underwater. That shit had me screaming at the computer in anger, it's the only part of the game I thought was poorly designed.
>Which version did you guys play, by the way?
I played the DOS version (the one in gog installer), might try the one you said in the future.
Thanks for the recs, wiz.
>The tommy gun & double barrel shotgun were also kinda meh
I liked the shotgun, way better than the piece of shit quake has as a shotgun, but yeah I guess it was pretty normal.
>There's a particular spot in one of the expansions (I think anyway, since it's been a while) where it's just hell for this sort of thing
I think I know exactly which level you mean, it's on the expansion and there's a key in a big area underwater. That shit had me screaming at the computer in anger, it's the only part of the game I thought was poorly designed.
>Which version did you guys play, by the way?
I played the DOS version (the one in gog installer), might try the one you said in the future.
Thanks for the recs, wiz.
>>47758
You know, not long after writing this post I decided to replay a bit of Blood just for the heck of it and it's really a damn great game. Played & finished a short fan campaign I had installed a while back and immediately afterwards found myself hungry for more, so I went along and decided to finish most of the original game again too. The combat & level design really is far more satisfying & addictive than I gave it credit for. Also, it's weird, but I found the damage reduction from crouching to be way more prominent than I remember it being. So much so, that a lot of the time I was basically dancing around those cultist bastards without so much as a scratch. On occasion however, they can still inflict questionable amounts of damage, but, overall, it makes a significant difference to the fun factor. In addition, I don't know why I poo pooed weapons like the tommy gun, sawn-off, or flare gun, since all those weapons are awesome and certainly have their uses. Aerosol can still sucks, but works well enough when dealing with zombies or rats. Those giant spiders that shit out tons of tiny spiders are also still the worst though.
As it stands, I think playing the expansions years ago must've somehow soured my memory of this game since, while fine in their own right, don't come anywhere near the great design of the main campaign, or even certain fan missions. In contrast to what I said before, I'd actually rate Blood as being in my top 3 of build engine games, or just old-school shooters in general, tied only with Shadow Warrior as to what I'd consider my favorite. I'd also consider it my fourth favorite Monolith game, behind F.E.A.R, Condemned, and NOLF 1, in that order.
>>47762
>I liked the shotgun, way better than the piece of shit quake has as a shotgun, but yeah I guess it was pretty normal.
Never played Quake funnily enough, although I really should one of these days, but Blood's shotgun is indeed very serviceable. One shotting cultists with it's alt-fire, or stun locking gargoyles with blast after blast, makes it everything using a shotgun in a video game should be. Satisfying, powerful and essentially instant death for your enemies once you get in close.
>That shit had me screaming at the computer in anger, it's the only part of the game I thought was poorly designed.
Yep, that's probably the one I'm thinking of. Glad to hear I'm not the only person who found themselves raging at that horseshit. Even outside of that however, cultists falling in water can still be a bit of a pain to deal with. It's fine if it's only one or two, but more than that and you're almost certainly gonna have a bad time, assuming you can't just ignore them. Power-ups like reflective shot, or invisibility are a godsend in such situations, let me tell you.
>Thanks for the recs, wiz.
You're welcome. GDX brings a ton of QoL improvements to Blood, not least of which is the ability to customize the difficulty to your own preferences. For instance, you can have the large enemy numbers that come with 'Extra Crispy' (highest difficulty), but the damage values & health that come with 'Lightly Broiled' (third highest difficulty). Makes for a fantastic combination, being able to chew through hordes of enemies, while still keeping everything fairly balanced & challenging while doing so.
Anyway, hope you enjoy 'Death Wish'. Like I said before, I might even decide to replay it myself, if only to check out some of the new levels & content that have been added since the last time.
You know, not long after writing this post I decided to replay a bit of Blood just for the heck of it and it's really a damn great game. Played & finished a short fan campaign I had installed a while back and immediately afterwards found myself hungry for more, so I went along and decided to finish most of the original game again too. The combat & level design really is far more satisfying & addictive than I gave it credit for. Also, it's weird, but I found the damage reduction from crouching to be way more prominent than I remember it being. So much so, that a lot of the time I was basically dancing around those cultist bastards without so much as a scratch. On occasion however, they can still inflict questionable amounts of damage, but, overall, it makes a significant difference to the fun factor. In addition, I don't know why I poo pooed weapons like the tommy gun, sawn-off, or flare gun, since all those weapons are awesome and certainly have their uses. Aerosol can still sucks, but works well enough when dealing with zombies or rats. Those giant spiders that shit out tons of tiny spiders are also still the worst though.
As it stands, I think playing the expansions years ago must've somehow soured my memory of this game since, while fine in their own right, don't come anywhere near the great design of the main campaign, or even certain fan missions. In contrast to what I said before, I'd actually rate Blood as being in my top 3 of build engine games, or just old-school shooters in general, tied only with Shadow Warrior as to what I'd consider my favorite. I'd also consider it my fourth favorite Monolith game, behind F.E.A.R, Condemned, and NOLF 1, in that order.
>>47762
>I liked the shotgun, way better than the piece of shit quake has as a shotgun, but yeah I guess it was pretty normal.
Never played Quake funnily enough, although I really should one of these days, but Blood's shotgun is indeed very serviceable. One shotting cultists with it's alt-fire, or stun locking gargoyles with blast after blast, makes it everything using a shotgun in a video game should be. Satisfying, powerful and essentially instant death for your enemies once you get in close.
>That shit had me screaming at the computer in anger, it's the only part of the game I thought was poorly designed.
Yep, that's probably the one I'm thinking of. Glad to hear I'm not the only person who found themselves raging at that horseshit. Even outside of that however, cultists falling in water can still be a bit of a pain to deal with. It's fine if it's only one or two, but more than that and you're almost certainly gonna have a bad time, assuming you can't just ignore them. Power-ups like reflective shot, or invisibility are a godsend in such situations, let me tell you.
>Thanks for the recs, wiz.
You're welcome. GDX brings a ton of QoL improvements to Blood, not least of which is the ability to customize the difficulty to your own preferences. For instance, you can have the large enemy numbers that come with 'Extra Crispy' (highest difficulty), but the damage values & health that come with 'Lightly Broiled' (third highest difficulty). Makes for a fantastic combination, being able to chew through hordes of enemies, while still keeping everything fairly balanced & challenging while doing so.
Anyway, hope you enjoy 'Death Wish'. Like I said before, I might even decide to replay it myself, if only to check out some of the new levels & content that have been added since the last time.
File: 1573524818600-0.jpg (23.58 KB, 576x360, 8:5, 18269679dd94ff58856b292b1d….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1573524818600-1.gif (1.56 MB, 692x388, 173:97, 489237489723498.gif) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1573524818600-2.jpg (80.71 KB, 960x544, 30:17, NPUH10117_00000.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Well, here's a grim fucking game if ever there was one. I wouldn't exactly consider it "scary" in the traditional sense, but what it lacks there, it certainly makes up for in its downright suffocating & oppressive atmosphere. Outside of all the blood, guts and murder, I'd say the ghastly nature of the predicament these characters find themselves in is what I'd consider to be the most frightening thing of all, frankly. Being lost in a hell dimension where you relive the agonizing nature of your death over & over for all time, for no other reason than you were just unlucky, like a fly who randomly gets caught in a spider's web. Regardless, the more straightforward "blood & guts" aspect of this game can still get damn wearying after a while. A good deal of the violence tends to get drawn out quite lengthily, to point where it almost feels like watching the most unpleasant of torture porn. On that note, I found the game really does delight in its sadism a bit too much at times (tell me that scene of Ms. Yui getting crushed under that bookcase and having to limp around in bloody, agonizing pain for the rest of the game only to inevitably get devoured by the hell dimension in the end wasn't the height of fucking abject sadism). Overall it wasn't enough to ruin the flow/intrigue of the story for me, although I still wish it had been toned down to less, what I would consider to be, "edgy" levels.
Although I suppose it doesn't come as much of a surprise to say so, it's the story & the characters which make this game, more than anything else, worth playing/experiencing. Everybody in the main cast is quite likeable for the most part and you root for them every step of the way. You feel for their hardships and, in some sense, it feels like the developers made them this earnest & kind, just so that their eventual torture, or even excruciating deaths in some cases, would feel that much more awful & sadistic. I also have to say that, while I still have some unanswered questions, the story is actually pretty good and it gives you just enough motivation to want to keep going forward to see what happens next and to ultimately uncover the truth of what's actually going on here.
Gameplay-wise, it honestly could've been a lot better and it's actually so tedious at times that I really wish it had just been a visual novel instead. The amount of walking around you're forced to do in the exact same god damn areas over & over, going in & out of the same old rooms, looking for the next trigger to the story, can all get to be really obnoxious & annoying past a certain point. I also found it a little frustrating how obtuse the conditions are to get the actual, story advancing ending to a chapter. Do something a bit too early, or a bit too late, don't pick up all these randoms notes that are scattered around, select the wrong thing to say or do in some arbitrarily designed choice, and it's a "wrong end" for you, I'm afraid. In my case, I only needed to look at a guide twice to see just what the hell I had missed, and in both cases it was due to something utterly insignificant or out of the way which, again, was quite annoying. As I said already, in my opinion, CP would've been far improved as a visual novel similar to that of 'Saya No Uta', with a couple choices to make here & there that would pretty clearly indicate which branch of the story you wanted to go down, with no extraneous & half-baked gameplay elements getting in the way of slowing down or ruining the pacing of said narrative.
Anyway, all in all, this was a pretty grueling game in most respects, but I still somewhat enjoyed it, if only for, again, the story/characters. Perhaps I'll even check out some of the other CP games someday, but, then again, perhaps I'd be just as better off not to, given their rather extraneous nature. CP2 looks kinda interesting at least.
Although I suppose it doesn't come as much of a surprise to say so, it's the story & the characters which make this game, more than anything else, worth playing/experiencing. Everybody in the main cast is quite likeable for the most part and you root for them every step of the way. You feel for their hardships and, in some sense, it feels like the developers made them this earnest & kind, just so that their eventual torture, or even excruciating deaths in some cases, would feel that much more awful & sadistic. I also have to say that, while I still have some unanswered questions, the story is actually pretty good and it gives you just enough motivation to want to keep going forward to see what happens next and to ultimately uncover the truth of what's actually going on here.
Gameplay-wise, it honestly could've been a lot better and it's actually so tedious at times that I really wish it had just been a visual novel instead. The amount of walking around you're forced to do in the exact same god damn areas over & over, going in & out of the same old rooms, looking for the next trigger to the story, can all get to be really obnoxious & annoying past a certain point. I also found it a little frustrating how obtuse the conditions are to get the actual, story advancing ending to a chapter. Do something a bit too early, or a bit too late, don't pick up all these randoms notes that are scattered around, select the wrong thing to say or do in some arbitrarily designed choice, and it's a "wrong end" for you, I'm afraid. In my case, I only needed to look at a guide twice to see just what the hell I had missed, and in both cases it was due to something utterly insignificant or out of the way which, again, was quite annoying. As I said already, in my opinion, CP would've been far improved as a visual novel similar to that of 'Saya No Uta', with a couple choices to make here & there that would pretty clearly indicate which branch of the story you wanted to go down, with no extraneous & half-baked gameplay elements getting in the way of slowing down or ruining the pacing of said narrative.
Anyway, all in all, this was a pretty grueling game in most respects, but I still somewhat enjoyed it, if only for, again, the story/characters. Perhaps I'll even check out some of the other CP games someday, but, then again, perhaps I'd be just as better off not to, given their rather extraneous nature. CP2 looks kinda interesting at least.
File: 1573573958506.png (12.09 KB, 220x66, 10:3, ClipboardImage.png) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished Enter The Gungeon. In order to do that I had to unlock every single gun and every single item in the game. I did just that. I unlocked like 99% of it fairly and had to use modding tools to get the remaining bs 1%. Felt really satisfying to finally 100% this game, even if I had to cheat at the end.
Enter the Gungeon is a roguelite and a really good time-waster(like all roguelikes). I don't have steam so I have no idea how many hours I've spent playing this game, but I think it's about 300~ hours total. I enjoyed every hour of it(well, except the last 2, where I had to cheat).
I mainly played the marine because he had the best starting equipment. I dunno what else to add to this "review".
Well, I guess I'm waiting for the upcoming Binding of Isaac: Repentance update to come out. I'm not touching another roguelike game until then.
Enter the Gungeon is a roguelite and a really good time-waster(like all roguelikes). I don't have steam so I have no idea how many hours I've spent playing this game, but I think it's about 300~ hours total. I enjoyed every hour of it(well, except the last 2, where I had to cheat).
I mainly played the marine because he had the best starting equipment. I dunno what else to add to this "review".
Well, I guess I'm waiting for the upcoming Binding of Isaac: Repentance update to come out. I'm not touching another roguelike game until then.
File: 1573652097086-0.jpg (502.6 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, 2560_3000.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1573652097086-1.jpg (425.26 KB, 830x535, 166:107, brutalduke3d.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1573652097086-2.png (20.26 KB, 800x600, 4:3, sequel.png) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Duke Nukem 3D. I really should've played this game before Blood since they used the same engine but I liked Blood a lot better. It's still a great game, with some unique weapons and enemies. Hit-scanners are toughest than any other game I played, and the game has a tendency to spawn them right behind you, killing you in seconds. The levels are dynamic and they often change, a lot of walls are breakable and often entire rooms colapse (sometimes on top of you, which can make for some really unfair deaths). Of course the thing that everyone remembers this game for is the main character and humor, but I kinda knew what to expect before playing it so it didn't do much for me. Ironically the only part that made me laugh was when they anounced the sequel at the end, and told the player to expect it "Soon", well 15 years isn't that long.
finished yu-gi-oh game Tag duel for PSP
it was so barebones and barren that I played only the first ingame days and then every single day would start and skip it directly to bad unless I got an e-mail or evfent
I ended up not being able to find a partner tp the last gameending duel because u lose relationship points when u skip the day so that absolutely smeared the fact I played so much on the first days. Kinda of shit tbh but was the first of a series of 5 so could be come better at latter inslaments, I know I am skipping to 5 straight away now
it was so barebones and barren that I played only the first ingame days and then every single day would start and skip it directly to bad unless I got an e-mail or evfent
I ended up not being able to find a partner tp the last gameending duel because u lose relationship points when u skip the day so that absolutely smeared the fact I played so much on the first days. Kinda of shit tbh but was the first of a series of 5 so could be come better at latter inslaments, I know I am skipping to 5 straight away now
File: 1574545339774.png (230.82 KB, 596x461, 596:461, 11111.png) ImgOps iqdb
I wish Inmendham reacted to every line in this pile of shit.
>>47932
>>47934
I gave up on expecting anything from Kojima after MGSV. Such a waste of fucking potential.
I had no interest in this game but I laughed my ass off when I saw news headlines posted of him saying that people didn't like his game because it was "too deep" or some shit. What a pretentious fucking cunt.
There's a theory that Fukushima, the co-writer, was responsible for the stories in the early games being good, because he wasn't a cowriter for the games after 3, when things started going to shit, and he also was the main writer for several spin-off games that were pretty good.
>>47934
I gave up on expecting anything from Kojima after MGSV. Such a waste of fucking potential.
I had no interest in this game but I laughed my ass off when I saw news headlines posted of him saying that people didn't like his game because it was "too deep" or some shit. What a pretentious fucking cunt.
There's a theory that Fukushima, the co-writer, was responsible for the stories in the early games being good, because he wasn't a cowriter for the games after 3, when things started going to shit, and he also was the main writer for several spin-off games that were pretty good.
>>47932
I really hate this character's face, and what the fuck is that unsettling baby doll he's carrying? is this a horror game?
I really hate this character's face, and what the fuck is that unsettling baby doll he's carrying? is this a horror game?
>>47938
I have watched about 20 minutes of people playing this game here and there and everytime it's a guy walking around a meadow. It felt like Fallout 4 with better graphics. Never bothered actually looking what's about.
I have watched about 20 minutes of people playing this game here and there and everytime it's a guy walking around a meadow. It felt like Fallout 4 with better graphics. Never bothered actually looking what's about.
>>47941
I've watched a complete 40+ hours walkthrough and the irony is that walking around is actually pretty cool and comfy experience, while the plot is garbage.
I've watched a complete 40+ hours walkthrough and the irony is that walking around is actually pretty cool and comfy experience, while the plot is garbage.
File: 1574641603589.png (4.07 KB, 256x224, 8:7, Dragon Quest III - Soshite….png) ImgOps iqdb
I finished Dragon Quest III on the SNES today.
It was my second DQ game (after VII) and overall I liked it more. The story was more barebones but I liked the party system, freedom of exploration, and dungeon designs more than what was in VII.
It was my second DQ game (after VII) and overall I liked it more. The story was more barebones but I liked the party system, freedom of exploration, and dungeon designs more than what was in VII.
File: 1574878724061.jpg (258.73 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, 220502.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
finished darkest dungeon
was great game all along, though the ending suffers from what all other cosmic horror games suffer from but it cant be helped
its on autumn sale, if you havent played it before id recommend it if you have any interest in dungeon crawling or eldritch lore etc.
was great game all along, though the ending suffers from what all other cosmic horror games suffer from but it cant be helped
its on autumn sale, if you havent played it before id recommend it if you have any interest in dungeon crawling or eldritch lore etc.
>>47943
Man I wish I could jump straight into III or VIII, but I'm playing V right now and I don't want to get sick of the series so it'll have to wait. It's formulaic, simple, but it just works.
Man I wish I could jump straight into III or VIII, but I'm playing V right now and I don't want to get sick of the series so it'll have to wait. It's formulaic, simple, but it just works.
Dreaming Sarah.
I've beaten it with… 85%!? I have all the achievements, have looked into the reviews for secrets, and have everything in the game. It took me but 2 hours to do this all with only one clue that was in plain sight (literally). Get it now for 60 cents and you'll have a good ratio of entertainment to cash value.
The music is alright except for this one piece which is phenomenal. It also goes great with the area it's in. The achievements aren't too hard, but I find most of my time was backtracking / exploring areas constantly. I feel like some player interactions weren't bothered with. I can talk with NPCs as a fish with no response, my friend gets a job, but nothing comes from it when a dangerous person goes in and kills everyone. There's a toilet in that same place that you go out of as a fish, but you can't re-enter is through the other end as a fish.
There are unsolved mysteries like this weird fishing pole in the first area. You can't do anything with it and turning into a fish does nothing to it. There was an area underwater you needed the watch to get through, but on the other side, nothing's there afterwords.
The world is also quite small, actually, but thankfully, it's good that way. You can complete it like a real game, compared to other exploration games, and you know when you've found everything. I'm glad to have completed this game. I find it better to just complete it than to leave it.
I've beaten it with… 85%!? I have all the achievements, have looked into the reviews for secrets, and have everything in the game. It took me but 2 hours to do this all with only one clue that was in plain sight (literally). Get it now for 60 cents and you'll have a good ratio of entertainment to cash value.
The music is alright except for this one piece which is phenomenal. It also goes great with the area it's in. The achievements aren't too hard, but I find most of my time was backtracking / exploring areas constantly. I feel like some player interactions weren't bothered with. I can talk with NPCs as a fish with no response, my friend gets a job, but nothing comes from it when a dangerous person goes in and kills everyone. There's a toilet in that same place that you go out of as a fish, but you can't re-enter is through the other end as a fish.
There are unsolved mysteries like this weird fishing pole in the first area. You can't do anything with it and turning into a fish does nothing to it. There was an area underwater you needed the watch to get through, but on the other side, nothing's there afterwords.
The world is also quite small, actually, but thankfully, it's good that way. You can complete it like a real game, compared to other exploration games, and you know when you've found everything. I'm glad to have completed this game. I find it better to just complete it than to leave it.
File: 1575133527151-0.jpg (37.43 KB, 730x490, 73:49, 20191129191757_1.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1575133527151-1.jpg (26.55 KB, 730x490, 73:49, 20191129185728_1.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1575133527151-2.jpg (59.11 KB, 730x490, 73:49, 20191129191824_1.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>47965
I felt like I saw this game what feels like ages ago now when I was randomly browsing Steam on a whim one night a while back, had my interest piqued by it and was intending to check it out later, but then just totally forgot about it. Anyway, I'm glad you mentioned it because it turned out to be a really comfy game that was an absolute pleasure to experience. Puzzles aren't too difficult, there's nothing all that esoteric or obscure that's required to get any of the effects or items, and there aren't that many areas to keep track of either, nor is it all that difficult to find them (although I did wander around aimlessly a little near the end after forgetting about the tooth area, which I'd actually already been to earlier before getting that rotten juice).
Having said that, I also agree with a lot of the points you made, insofar as the backtracking is concerned & other niggling little annoyances. Like you said, it'd of been nice if that toilet in the bathroom could've been used both ways, but, even so, there are still plenty of other shortcuts elsewhere (along with the pill effect) which help make navigating around less of a headache than it otherwise would be.
>I've beaten it with… 85%!?
Weird. My stats indicated I had 105% completion after beating it and acquiring all the achievements along with seemingly all of the secrets as well. Like yourself, it took me a couple hours to get through the first time. In my case, and as silly as it sounds, I actually ended up playing through it a second time just so I could re-experience the comfy factor of it, while also taking some random screenshots and stuff. Funny how you can essentially beat the game in less than 20 minutes once you know where to go, but that's to be expected for an already super small indie game like this. Either way, I'd say it was a good use of the remaining two, or so, dollars that have been sitting in my Steam wallet for ages now.
>The music is alright except for this one piece which is phenomenal.
I thought the whole soundtrack was phenomenal, to be honest. I was actually quite pleased to see that the entire soundtrack is provided as a free download with the game itself, since it's exactly the sort of thing I'd love to listen to later when I'm feeling in the mood for something calm & easygoing to tune out on. In addition to the song you already mentioned, the music that plays in eye world, orange world, books world, bus ticket world, and pink planet world, were all quite excellent in my opinion. This & the somewhat recent Yume Nikki: Dream Diary are both real treasures, if for nothing else than due to their wonderfully dreamlike soundtracks.
>my friend gets a job, but nothing comes from it when
Yeah, that seemed a little weird. Especially since his dialogue changes afterwards, but only to indicate that he's eager to not lose his job, which is now certain to happen after everyone just got killed due to you distracting him. In that sense, I guess it's simply to make the player feel "bad" for what they did, despite there being no option to do so otherwise. There's also that random disembodied head guy nearby who mentions that he notices what you did, but it's mostly irrelevant, I suppose.
>There are unsolved mysteries like this weird fishing pole in the first area.
There's an NPC there who mentions he forgot his umbrella somewhere and once you pick it up he disappears from the game world. If you picked up the umbrella first, then you'll never know he was even there, which I'd imagine is quite common. Still, it feels weird that you can't interact with the pole once you turn into a fish.
>There was an area underwater you needed the watch to get through, but on the other side, nothing's there afterwords.
There is, but it's just a rock guy who tells you that life is hard (get it?, because he's a rock, har har), but other than that, yeah there's nothing.
The only thing I'm somewhat curious about is what the doll item was for? It's the only item you never use from what I recall, which I found a little strange. A minor mystery, I suppose.
Anyway, all in all, Yume Nikki-lite is probably the best way I could describe this game. Unlike Yume Nikki to some extent, this game feels a lot more straightforward & conclusive in a lot of ways, even achievement-wise, which, like yourself, I didn't mind all that much, since it allows one a small sense of satisfying closure about the whole thing once you see it through. The fact that you see her wake up from her coma at the end felt a little too forward in some ways, but I guess they also still leave up the sort of unknown possibility that it may have even been a suicide attempt, in regards to throwing herself onto the freeway.
It'll be interesting to see how the sequel, 'Awakening Sarah', turns out. By the title alone, I can assume there will be less of an emphasis on the Yume Nikki inspired dreamscapes which feels a little disappointing.
I felt like I saw this game what feels like ages ago now when I was randomly browsing Steam on a whim one night a while back, had my interest piqued by it and was intending to check it out later, but then just totally forgot about it. Anyway, I'm glad you mentioned it because it turned out to be a really comfy game that was an absolute pleasure to experience. Puzzles aren't too difficult, there's nothing all that esoteric or obscure that's required to get any of the effects or items, and there aren't that many areas to keep track of either, nor is it all that difficult to find them (although I did wander around aimlessly a little near the end after forgetting about the tooth area, which I'd actually already been to earlier before getting that rotten juice).
Having said that, I also agree with a lot of the points you made, insofar as the backtracking is concerned & other niggling little annoyances. Like you said, it'd of been nice if that toilet in the bathroom could've been used both ways, but, even so, there are still plenty of other shortcuts elsewhere (along with the pill effect) which help make navigating around less of a headache than it otherwise would be.
>I've beaten it with… 85%!?
Weird. My stats indicated I had 105% completion after beating it and acquiring all the achievements along with seemingly all of the secrets as well. Like yourself, it took me a couple hours to get through the first time. In my case, and as silly as it sounds, I actually ended up playing through it a second time just so I could re-experience the comfy factor of it, while also taking some random screenshots and stuff. Funny how you can essentially beat the game in less than 20 minutes once you know where to go, but that's to be expected for an already super small indie game like this. Either way, I'd say it was a good use of the remaining two, or so, dollars that have been sitting in my Steam wallet for ages now.
>The music is alright except for this one piece which is phenomenal.
I thought the whole soundtrack was phenomenal, to be honest. I was actually quite pleased to see that the entire soundtrack is provided as a free download with the game itself, since it's exactly the sort of thing I'd love to listen to later when I'm feeling in the mood for something calm & easygoing to tune out on. In addition to the song you already mentioned, the music that plays in eye world, orange world, books world, bus ticket world, and pink planet world, were all quite excellent in my opinion. This & the somewhat recent Yume Nikki: Dream Diary are both real treasures, if for nothing else than due to their wonderfully dreamlike soundtracks.
>my friend gets a job, but nothing comes from it when
Yeah, that seemed a little weird. Especially since his dialogue changes afterwards, but only to indicate that he's eager to not lose his job, which is now certain to happen after everyone just got killed due to you distracting him. In that sense, I guess it's simply to make the player feel "bad" for what they did, despite there being no option to do so otherwise. There's also that random disembodied head guy nearby who mentions that he notices what you did, but it's mostly irrelevant, I suppose.
>There are unsolved mysteries like this weird fishing pole in the first area.
There's an NPC there who mentions he forgot his umbrella somewhere and once you pick it up he disappears from the game world. If you picked up the umbrella first, then you'll never know he was even there, which I'd imagine is quite common. Still, it feels weird that you can't interact with the pole once you turn into a fish.
>There was an area underwater you needed the watch to get through, but on the other side, nothing's there afterwords.
There is, but it's just a rock guy who tells you that life is hard (get it?, because he's a rock, har har), but other than that, yeah there's nothing.
The only thing I'm somewhat curious about is what the doll item was for? It's the only item you never use from what I recall, which I found a little strange. A minor mystery, I suppose.
Anyway, all in all, Yume Nikki-lite is probably the best way I could describe this game. Unlike Yume Nikki to some extent, this game feels a lot more straightforward & conclusive in a lot of ways, even achievement-wise, which, like yourself, I didn't mind all that much, since it allows one a small sense of satisfying closure about the whole thing once you see it through. The fact that you see her wake up from her coma at the end felt a little too forward in some ways, but I guess they also still leave up the sort of unknown possibility that it may have even been a suicide attempt, in regards to throwing herself onto the freeway.
It'll be interesting to see how the sequel, 'Awakening Sarah', turns out. By the title alone, I can assume there will be less of an emphasis on the Yume Nikki inspired dreamscapes which feels a little disappointing.
File: 1575133791546.gif (28.56 KB, 290x248, 145:124, 4678236487326.gif) ImgOps iqdb
>>47981
Just a random aside, but playing this also inspired me to boot up Yume Nikki for the first time in a little while. I set myself the goal of getting to the mall rooftop so I could finally check out the special witch event there, which I never managed to get around to doing in the past. I found it quite cute how Madotsuki will wake up falling out of bed if you happen to turn off the effect mid-flight, like I did. I also wandered around a bit elsewhere and stumbled across a random warp zone that took me to the Famicom world. I then pinched myself awake and sat on the balcony for a while, in addition to playing around on the chair for a bit and timing its movements to the music that plays there.
Just a random aside, but playing this also inspired me to boot up Yume Nikki for the first time in a little while. I set myself the goal of getting to the mall rooftop so I could finally check out the special witch event there, which I never managed to get around to doing in the past. I found it quite cute how Madotsuki will wake up falling out of bed if you happen to turn off the effect mid-flight, like I did. I also wandered around a bit elsewhere and stumbled across a random warp zone that took me to the Famicom world. I then pinched myself awake and sat on the balcony for a while, in addition to playing around on the chair for a bit and timing its movements to the music that plays there.
File: 1575139910069-0.jpg (81.77 KB, 940x450, 94:45, 642837468723648726.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1575139910069-1.jpg (658.13 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, ss_44061d936f85125094fd628….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Surprisingly decent. Literally had no idea this game was even being made or existed until I saw it pop up on Steam. Wouldn't exactly be high praise to say so, but I'd certainly consider this to be the best terminator game ever made. Had some extra mechanics to it that I wasn't expecting, since going into it I thought it was just going to be a dumb, linear COD-like shooter and nothing more than that. Even so, the inclusion of a leveling system, crafting system, and story based decisions to make, also felt kinda gimmicky in some sense. To its credit however the choices you make in the story do in fact matter to a large extent and, all in all, I found the story to be actually pretty engaging and I'd in fact consider it to be one of the best things this game has to offer, frankly. In terms of the setting, the game pays no attention any other terminator films besides the first two, which I very much appreciated. John Connor himself even looks as he does in T2, face scar and all. The characters were also fairly well written and each of them had their own little backstories you can dig into, which is nice for what it is. I also found the way it fleshes out certain concepts from the films like in the case of the "annihilation line" to be kinda cool for describing the unstoppable march of Skynet in regards to what we catch glimpses of in the first two films. The atmosphere at night time, or in the Terminator 1 stylized resistance shelter you come across later, was also top notch I found.
In addition, the fact that each of the mission areas you go to are kind of their own little Far Cry-like zones was kinda cool as well, since it allows you to explore a little and you can go around scavenging stuff & completing the odd 1 or 2 side quests that you're assigned with beforehand.
I'd say the biggest thing that bothered me about this game is just how fucking ridiculously easy it is to the point where it just drains any kind of meaningful satisfaction out of the gameplay. Even on the highest difficulty setting, terminators, along with all the other robots you fight, pose zero threat. It's kinda neat in the beginning since you need to avoid terminators due to the fact that they are totally immune to ballistic weaponry, but once you get your hands on a plasma rifle they essentially become utterly toothless. The AI for the terminators is also so abysmal it's laughable. There's no sense of alertness to them and you can literally snipe one in the head, walk away for like ten seconds, and they won't even bother chasing you or going on alert. Even when they do "chase" you, you can literally just hide around a car in a circle and they'll just suddenly forget you were there. There's also a bit of a Diablo-like gem socket stylized upgrade system to the plasma rifles where you can loot new chips, or stat bonuses, from destroyed robots or terminators and slot them into your weapon, to a maximum of three. If you stack the damage boosting ones, you can literally one shot terminators, or take down HK's or those giant mech terminators in what is essentially a clip's worth of shots. I can't stress enough how the terminators themselves are just so pathetically harmless that they're essentially nothing more than roombas. They're slow as shit, have the accuracy of storm troopers, and they'll literally just fall the fuck down if you happen to shoot them too much like a 90 year old geezer who's walker got suddenly kicked away from them. There's also just way too few them. I think the largest amount of terminators I ever saw in one area was like 9-10, which is just woeful. Even the "super" infiltrator Arnie style terminators you occasionally fight are ridiculously easy to destroy. There's even the odd Far Cry-like outpost you can take on when wandering some of the maps, but, once again, they're just way too easy to deal with.
I'll be honest that I'm not entirely sure how one could make terminators more threatening in the context of a video game. Maybe make them a rare enemy with huge damage resistance and who'll bust through walls and be absolutely relentless in chasing you down and that you need to use cunning and all of your resources to defeat. Making them equivalent to battle droids from the Star Wars prequel films like this game has done though just doesn't feel like the way to go with it. Maybe if there absolute hordes of them to deal with, but there isn't. Not even close.
I'd be interested to hear how other wizzies might design a game with terminators in mind, but sadly I doubt anyone will bother answering me.
Anyway, like I said, it's not amazing or anything, but it's mostly ok. I never crafted anything beyond lockpicks, some of the skills in the skill tree are kinda pointless and make the game too easy, and the AI is quite bad, despite the enemy design itself in certain ways being good. Despite that however, the story is pretty cool, and exploring/scavenging the maps can be neat for the first few times you do it. The actual shooting itself is solid and there's a fairly decent arsenal you have by the end. The last two levels of this game are really a nice payoff for everything that happens before it, I'd say. You get a lot of action & major story events happening which all helped lead to a fairly satisfying conclusion. The final assault on Skynet with the terminator theme swelling in the background as you're taking on giant mechs, terminators & HKs was pretty damn epic feeling I must say. The ending doesn't leave much room for a sequel, which is a shame since I'd like to see how the developers might improve what they did here even further if given the chance.
I also found it quite odd how the terminator whom is clearly meant to represent Arnold looks nothing like Arnold at all. Why is that? Clearly the developers had access to the license so why wouldn't it look like Arnold?
In addition, the fact that each of the mission areas you go to are kind of their own little Far Cry-like zones was kinda cool as well, since it allows you to explore a little and you can go around scavenging stuff & completing the odd 1 or 2 side quests that you're assigned with beforehand.
I'd say the biggest thing that bothered me about this game is just how fucking ridiculously easy it is to the point where it just drains any kind of meaningful satisfaction out of the gameplay. Even on the highest difficulty setting, terminators, along with all the other robots you fight, pose zero threat. It's kinda neat in the beginning since you need to avoid terminators due to the fact that they are totally immune to ballistic weaponry, but once you get your hands on a plasma rifle they essentially become utterly toothless. The AI for the terminators is also so abysmal it's laughable. There's no sense of alertness to them and you can literally snipe one in the head, walk away for like ten seconds, and they won't even bother chasing you or going on alert. Even when they do "chase" you, you can literally just hide around a car in a circle and they'll just suddenly forget you were there. There's also a bit of a Diablo-like gem socket stylized upgrade system to the plasma rifles where you can loot new chips, or stat bonuses, from destroyed robots or terminators and slot them into your weapon, to a maximum of three. If you stack the damage boosting ones, you can literally one shot terminators, or take down HK's or those giant mech terminators in what is essentially a clip's worth of shots. I can't stress enough how the terminators themselves are just so pathetically harmless that they're essentially nothing more than roombas. They're slow as shit, have the accuracy of storm troopers, and they'll literally just fall the fuck down if you happen to shoot them too much like a 90 year old geezer who's walker got suddenly kicked away from them. There's also just way too few them. I think the largest amount of terminators I ever saw in one area was like 9-10, which is just woeful. Even the "super" infiltrator Arnie style terminators you occasionally fight are ridiculously easy to destroy. There's even the odd Far Cry-like outpost you can take on when wandering some of the maps, but, once again, they're just way too easy to deal with.
I'll be honest that I'm not entirely sure how one could make terminators more threatening in the context of a video game. Maybe make them a rare enemy with huge damage resistance and who'll bust through walls and be absolutely relentless in chasing you down and that you need to use cunning and all of your resources to defeat. Making them equivalent to battle droids from the Star Wars prequel films like this game has done though just doesn't feel like the way to go with it. Maybe if there absolute hordes of them to deal with, but there isn't. Not even close.
I'd be interested to hear how other wizzies might design a game with terminators in mind, but sadly I doubt anyone will bother answering me.
Anyway, like I said, it's not amazing or anything, but it's mostly ok. I never crafted anything beyond lockpicks, some of the skills in the skill tree are kinda pointless and make the game too easy, and the AI is quite bad, despite the enemy design itself in certain ways being good. Despite that however, the story is pretty cool, and exploring/scavenging the maps can be neat for the first few times you do it. The actual shooting itself is solid and there's a fairly decent arsenal you have by the end. The last two levels of this game are really a nice payoff for everything that happens before it, I'd say. You get a lot of action & major story events happening which all helped lead to a fairly satisfying conclusion. The final assault on Skynet with the terminator theme swelling in the background as you're taking on giant mechs, terminators & HKs was pretty damn epic feeling I must say. The ending doesn't leave much room for a sequel, which is a shame since I'd like to see how the developers might improve what they did here even further if given the chance.
I also found it quite odd how the terminator whom is clearly meant to represent Arnold looks nothing like Arnold at all. Why is that? Clearly the developers had access to the license so why wouldn't it look like Arnold?
File: 1575313974934.jpg (364.77 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, 467834627864872.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Really hated this at first due to how awful the gameplay felt right off the bat (enemies getting lots of free bullshit hits especially after getting up, having the X, or square, button be universal for interacting with anything while also being your primary attack button leading to sometimes picking up enemies or doing screen transitions right in the middle of a combo, wonky hitboxes, stiff controls, etc.), in addition to the rather in your face inclusion of various YouTuber cunts which just got on my nerves as well. Speaking briefly on the latter point, the fact that almost all of the shopkeepers, and some side characters, are voiced by these pricks was just obnoxious as hell and, as the most egregious example for me, I really fucking hated having to hear those two morons from the Game Grumps whenever I wanted to go to the dojo. That aside however, after buying a few new moves, leveling up a bit and acclimating myself to the way the controls are, I really began to start coming around on this game. Chaining combos and juggling groups of enemies is damn satisfying & past a certain point I was pretty much chewing through enemies left, right & center. I'll also say that each of the characters are pretty fun to play as and their move sets feel nicely distinct from one another. In my case, I mostly played as Kyoko and found her to be especially adept at being able to herd & combo groups of enemies together with her moves. I also appreciated that even the bosses can be combed to the point where you can pretty much take off a third of their health in just one opening.
The last phase of the true final boss was just tedious as hell however, since you can only attack by stomping once at a time, so, as a result, it takes fucking ages. Playing as Kunio in new game+ was a damn blast though. He's basically everything that Kyoko is, but better. You really feel like an untouchable dealer of death when playing as him, assuming you've mastered the combo system.
I won't say much of the story or the two main characters other than that it, and they, weren't as annoying as I thought they'd be, but it still would've been better had they not been voiced, or really anything here had been voiced at all. The game's pixel art is certainly very impressive it's needless to say, but, at the same time, the soundtrack sucks total ass, which itself hampers the presentation a bit (WayForward really should've got Jake Kaufman back, given how good DDN's soundtrack was). Going through new game+, I just muted the game itself and listened to the Streets of Rage soundtrack and found it to be an extremely comfy and much improved alternative.
Anyway, it's rare to have a game make such a turnaround for me like this. Even so, Double Dragon Neon, Dragon's Crown, or even Scott Pilgrim & Mother Russia Bleeds, are still, in my opinion, far superior examples of modern beat'em-ups, but that's not to say this game isn't still quite fun in its own way which, once you can get used to the wrinkles inherent in the controls, those positive factors that remain can really manage to shine quite brightly. I'm just glad I decided to stick with it, since playing this ultimately turned out to be one of the very few genuinely joyful experiences I've had while gaming lately.
The last phase of the true final boss was just tedious as hell however, since you can only attack by stomping once at a time, so, as a result, it takes fucking ages. Playing as Kunio in new game+ was a damn blast though. He's basically everything that Kyoko is, but better. You really feel like an untouchable dealer of death when playing as him, assuming you've mastered the combo system.
I won't say much of the story or the two main characters other than that it, and they, weren't as annoying as I thought they'd be, but it still would've been better had they not been voiced, or really anything here had been voiced at all. The game's pixel art is certainly very impressive it's needless to say, but, at the same time, the soundtrack sucks total ass, which itself hampers the presentation a bit (WayForward really should've got Jake Kaufman back, given how good DDN's soundtrack was). Going through new game+, I just muted the game itself and listened to the Streets of Rage soundtrack and found it to be an extremely comfy and much improved alternative.
Anyway, it's rare to have a game make such a turnaround for me like this. Even so, Double Dragon Neon, Dragon's Crown, or even Scott Pilgrim & Mother Russia Bleeds, are still, in my opinion, far superior examples of modern beat'em-ups, but that's not to say this game isn't still quite fun in its own way which, once you can get used to the wrinkles inherent in the controls, those positive factors that remain can really manage to shine quite brightly. I'm just glad I decided to stick with it, since playing this ultimately turned out to be one of the very few genuinely joyful experiences I've had while gaming lately.
File: 1575489024964.jpg (49.61 KB, 500x427, 500:427, actraiser_retrospective_01.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
I have finished the north american version of ActRaiser thinking it would be harder than the original japanese one but after checking wikipedia it turns out I was wrong. No bragging rights for me for playing the hardest version, oh well who gives a damn anyway.
>>48030
How do you feel about the pseudo anime style of the last Guilty Gear entries? I think old style was much better
How do you feel about the pseudo anime style of the last Guilty Gear entries? I think old style was much better
>>48031
Well it doesn't disgust me.
I do think the 3d looks uglier but the animation has benefited from it, the new ones look more fluid.
Well it doesn't disgust me.
I do think the 3d looks uglier but the animation has benefited from it, the new ones look more fluid.
File: 1575763476084.jpg (723.51 KB, 2048x1602, 1024:801, 1575242041726.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
I beat the main story in Pokemon Sword, and I 100%-ed the dex.
I thought it was alright. I just wanted "a new pokemon in Britain", and that's more or less what I got. There are a few gripes I had with the game, though. It's piss easy (even for a pokemon game), the game stuttered a bit (especially in the wild area), the internet options suck (why change from the gts?) are my main gripes. I don't care about the dex cut.
It's a light 7 for me.
I thought it was alright. I just wanted "a new pokemon in Britain", and that's more or less what I got. There are a few gripes I had with the game, though. It's piss easy (even for a pokemon game), the game stuttered a bit (especially in the wild area), the internet options suck (why change from the gts?) are my main gripes. I don't care about the dex cut.
It's a light 7 for me.
File: 1575768347733.jpg (30.71 KB, 500x500, 1:1, EE_LNtRWsAIkkPt.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>48063
It took me 70 hours to 100% the game. I stopped to grind out the pokedex as much as I could in between getting the eighth gym badge and finishing the tournament, so that inflated my time a bit. It took me about 25 hours to beat the main story, taking my time.
It took me 70 hours to 100% the game. I stopped to grind out the pokedex as much as I could in between getting the eighth gym badge and finishing the tournament, so that inflated my time a bit. It took me about 25 hours to beat the main story, taking my time.
File: 1575838474689-0.png (193.44 KB, 310x365, 62:73, InfoboxImage.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1575838474689-1.png (575.79 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, 784687648726.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1575838474689-2.png (889.66 KB, 2560x1440, 16:9, 4782638472637846.png) ImgOps iqdb
Could've used more action, but, overall, it wasn't too bad.
I will say that the developer was trying way too hard with trying to jam in his stupid story to what should've otherwise just been a straight, carnage laden FPS. Literally an entire chapter of this game is devoted to you just standing around and being delivered bits of the story, interspersed with a brief stealth section, and an alright boss fight at the end. I just found it quite obnoxious that there's no way to skip the text based dialogue in this game and you pretty much have to stand around, sometimes upwards of a few minutes, until it's run its course. I replayed the game once after I beat it to try out the recently added "Bearzerker" mode, which removes all the ranged weapons and gives you access to unique melee weapons instead, and being able to not skip all the stupid story shit kinda got on my nerves a bit. Based on the description on Steam, the developer wanted to combine the likes of Arx Fatalis & Ultima Underworld, with old-school shooters like DOOM, Quake & Blood. So in other words, a pretty terrible combination that completely conflicts on just about every level with the other. As I said, you can certainly feel the influence of Arx Fatalis in a lot of areas, especially in the first few maps, and all the slow, more atmospheric moments here & there, but at the cost of the action suffering heavily as a result. It's like the developer wanted to have his cake & eat it too and it just comes out as kind of a schizophrenic mess in the end, at least in my opinion, anyway.
Besides that, I didn't mind it all that much. The gameplay is comparable to Brutal DOOM, in the sense that your weapons have a lot of 'oomph' when you use them and enemies pretty much explode in piles of gore whenever they get killed. I'd of liked if there were more weapons available, since the usual 10 is essentially split between the normal mode & the "Bearzerker" mode, leaving you with only 5 weapons to use in each mode, with the weapons in the latter not being available in the former and vice versa, at least as far as I know. Even so, I found the melee weapons to be especially satisfying, although certain enemies can be quite a pain to deal with, which becomes kind of a problem in the "Bearzerker" mode.
Level design was a mixed bag. A few are good, but a lot of them were just tedious or boring. The last two in particular were honestly what I feel the whole game should've been like, since they're basically non-stop action all the way.
Enemy variety was kind of forgettable, which was also a shame. I appreciated the absence of hitscanners, but the enemies just felt kind of generic in a lot of ways, or ripped right off from DOOM itself, like in case of "Forge Elementals" being Cacodemons from DOOM, except here they can shoot exploding fireballs at you.
Another thing which feels somewhat generic, among other things, is the protagonist herself, in the sense of it being indistinguishable from the sort of stuff that would pop up on rule 34 if you searched for "big tittied orcs" there. People out there have apparently produced a good deal of lewd material of her up till now, which you can even find plastered all over the secret rooms in this game. Take that for what you will. Personally it just made the game seem pretty juvenile to me and its attempts at trying to tell a serious story just seemed laughable when juxtaposed against all this shit.
Anyway, it's still alright, but others might be more annoyed by its less savory aspects. It's a pretty short game, but the story crap makes it feel longer than it is. The little written monologues you get at the beginning of each map should've been the only presence of a story in this game, since at least you have the freedom to skip those here. I mean, honestly, imagine if in Blood, Caleb stopped to have a 10 minute conversation with some random NPC, that was also unskippable. Utterly ridiculous.
One last thing I'll mention is the soundtrack which is largely shitty and not all that great, save for the inclusion of Alexander Brandon, of Deus Ex & Unreal Tournament fame. All I'm wondering is how the hell did this guy get Alexander Brandon involved in this? I didn't realize that Alexander Brandon even still wrote music for video games. Well, either way, all the tracks he provided for this game are downright fantastic, although they'd admittedly feel far more at home in the original Deus Ex than they do here.
I will say that the developer was trying way too hard with trying to jam in his stupid story to what should've otherwise just been a straight, carnage laden FPS. Literally an entire chapter of this game is devoted to you just standing around and being delivered bits of the story, interspersed with a brief stealth section, and an alright boss fight at the end. I just found it quite obnoxious that there's no way to skip the text based dialogue in this game and you pretty much have to stand around, sometimes upwards of a few minutes, until it's run its course. I replayed the game once after I beat it to try out the recently added "Bearzerker" mode, which removes all the ranged weapons and gives you access to unique melee weapons instead, and being able to not skip all the stupid story shit kinda got on my nerves a bit. Based on the description on Steam, the developer wanted to combine the likes of Arx Fatalis & Ultima Underworld, with old-school shooters like DOOM, Quake & Blood. So in other words, a pretty terrible combination that completely conflicts on just about every level with the other. As I said, you can certainly feel the influence of Arx Fatalis in a lot of areas, especially in the first few maps, and all the slow, more atmospheric moments here & there, but at the cost of the action suffering heavily as a result. It's like the developer wanted to have his cake & eat it too and it just comes out as kind of a schizophrenic mess in the end, at least in my opinion, anyway.
Besides that, I didn't mind it all that much. The gameplay is comparable to Brutal DOOM, in the sense that your weapons have a lot of 'oomph' when you use them and enemies pretty much explode in piles of gore whenever they get killed. I'd of liked if there were more weapons available, since the usual 10 is essentially split between the normal mode & the "Bearzerker" mode, leaving you with only 5 weapons to use in each mode, with the weapons in the latter not being available in the former and vice versa, at least as far as I know. Even so, I found the melee weapons to be especially satisfying, although certain enemies can be quite a pain to deal with, which becomes kind of a problem in the "Bearzerker" mode.
Level design was a mixed bag. A few are good, but a lot of them were just tedious or boring. The last two in particular were honestly what I feel the whole game should've been like, since they're basically non-stop action all the way.
Enemy variety was kind of forgettable, which was also a shame. I appreciated the absence of hitscanners, but the enemies just felt kind of generic in a lot of ways, or ripped right off from DOOM itself, like in case of "Forge Elementals" being Cacodemons from DOOM, except here they can shoot exploding fireballs at you.
Another thing which feels somewhat generic, among other things, is the protagonist herself, in the sense of it being indistinguishable from the sort of stuff that would pop up on rule 34 if you searched for "big tittied orcs" there. People out there have apparently produced a good deal of lewd material of her up till now, which you can even find plastered all over the secret rooms in this game. Take that for what you will. Personally it just made the game seem pretty juvenile to me and its attempts at trying to tell a serious story just seemed laughable when juxtaposed against all this shit.
Anyway, it's still alright, but others might be more annoyed by its less savory aspects. It's a pretty short game, but the story crap makes it feel longer than it is. The little written monologues you get at the beginning of each map should've been the only presence of a story in this game, since at least you have the freedom to skip those here. I mean, honestly, imagine if in Blood, Caleb stopped to have a 10 minute conversation with some random NPC, that was also unskippable. Utterly ridiculous.
One last thing I'll mention is the soundtrack which is largely shitty and not all that great, save for the inclusion of Alexander Brandon, of Deus Ex & Unreal Tournament fame. All I'm wondering is how the hell did this guy get Alexander Brandon involved in this? I didn't realize that Alexander Brandon even still wrote music for video games. Well, either way, all the tracks he provided for this game are downright fantastic, although they'd admittedly feel far more at home in the original Deus Ex than they do here.
File: 1575839086511.jpg (258.14 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, 15456e529fc042c5bb8d00fce5….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>48071
One thing I forgot to mention that also kind of annoyed me about this game, were the inventory items. There's far too many of them I found and the lack of explanation as to what some of them do was kind of annoying (I still have no idea what the shadow crystal or dog choker items ever did, for instance). At the same time, they can also be a little overpowered. Stone skin potions, as an example, pretty much makes you near invulnerable for about 40-60 seconds and you can carry 5 of them at once, which can make certain sections a breeze if you have enough of them, like the final boss. Going hog wild with the two handed ax, while under the effects of stone skin, was pretty damn satisfying though, I must say. It's almost like if you took the one use power-ups from Blood and made them into inventory items instead.
One thing I forgot to mention that also kind of annoyed me about this game, were the inventory items. There's far too many of them I found and the lack of explanation as to what some of them do was kind of annoying (I still have no idea what the shadow crystal or dog choker items ever did, for instance). At the same time, they can also be a little overpowered. Stone skin potions, as an example, pretty much makes you near invulnerable for about 40-60 seconds and you can carry 5 of them at once, which can make certain sections a breeze if you have enough of them, like the final boss. Going hog wild with the two handed ax, while under the effects of stone skin, was pretty damn satisfying though, I must say. It's almost like if you took the one use power-ups from Blood and made them into inventory items instead.
File: 1575857610557.jpg (Spoiler Image, 114.24 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, nihilanth-old-and-new.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished up the last of Black Mesa: Xen (still in beta).
Breaking it down:
>Interloper factory levels: somewhat tedious, and clusterfucky at times, ESPECIALLY the last elevator ride to Nihilanth where the psychic flyers keeping raping your ears with shrill white noise.
>Nihilanth: They couldn't have done much better to make the end boss cooler and more fun. I don't miss the teleporters he would launch at you, but I bet some people will. Aside from that, devs succeeded at making this battle feel different yet similar, hitting the sweet spot between the two.
>Endgame: Weak-ass Gman impersonation, I'm pretty sure even I could do better. Other than that, shit's pretty neat, eye-candy galore.
I feel so weird, and so stoked at the same time that I'm seeing the end of this project after so many years. 13 or 14 years total in fact, and I'm proud of these fuckers for seeing it through all the way.
Breaking it down:
>Interloper factory levels: somewhat tedious, and clusterfucky at times, ESPECIALLY the last elevator ride to Nihilanth where the psychic flyers keeping raping your ears with shrill white noise.
>Nihilanth: They couldn't have done much better to make the end boss cooler and more fun. I don't miss the teleporters he would launch at you, but I bet some people will. Aside from that, devs succeeded at making this battle feel different yet similar, hitting the sweet spot between the two.
>Endgame: Weak-ass Gman impersonation, I'm pretty sure even I could do better. Other than that, shit's pretty neat, eye-candy galore.
I feel so weird, and so stoked at the same time that I'm seeing the end of this project after so many years. 13 or 14 years total in fact, and I'm proud of these fuckers for seeing it through all the way.
>>48071
i got that, didn't even beat the second level i think it was. something about finding colored keys to open colored doors in the right order and me being too dumb to figure out what i needed to do next. i got it free so no loss. i don't really like doom games but i liked the sprites and simple 3d visual style. actually liked the setting for the game too
there's a lot of music on bandcamp that you can buy and use for your games. i think it was done in this case considering the guy has tons of stuff up there https://alexanderbrandon.bandcamp.com/
i got that, didn't even beat the second level i think it was. something about finding colored keys to open colored doors in the right order and me being too dumb to figure out what i needed to do next. i got it free so no loss. i don't really like doom games but i liked the sprites and simple 3d visual style. actually liked the setting for the game too
there's a lot of music on bandcamp that you can buy and use for your games. i think it was done in this case considering the guy has tons of stuff up there https://alexanderbrandon.bandcamp.com/
>>48078
>finding colored keys to open colored doors in the right order and me being too dumb to figure out what i needed to do next.
Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the usual key hunts in these games, so that aspect wasn't all that troublesome for me. Also, if you check your map it'll actually indicate which keys correspond to a particular door. It doesn't make finding the keys themselves any easier, but it's still a modern convenience that I very much appreciated since, in my case, I'd often forget where those doors even were, like in the case of older games like Blood & such.
I also thought it was kind of novel how you sometimes need to do some additional tasks, like finding the ingredients to concoct a dispel potion to break the seal on a door, or forging a special gear to open a nearby gate, to be sort of a neat little evolution on the same old key hunt formula.
>actually liked the setting for the game too
I'd say I liked it as well, insofar as the atmosphere in certain areas was concerned. I still think it clashed with the real meat of the gameplay, but it was still nice for what it was. The hamfisted story itself and the visual style of the large breasted amazonian orcs being the other two major things getting in the way of said atmosphere, at least for me.
>there's a lot of music on bandcamp that you can buy and use for your games.
Yeah, I just came to notice that myself. Apparently this guy licensed/paid for a few used/unused tracks from Alexander himself, which itself explains why they sound so much like Deus Ex & Unreal, since that's essentially what he originally wrote them for in the first place, now being close to two decades ago and then some. As an example, one of the tracks used near the end actually goes as far back as Unreal's pre-release alpha, circa 1995. Christ, how time flies. It's truly frightening, I must say. To be honest, I really wish I could just get cancer & die. At least then, I wouldn't have to feel the sting of such things ever again, among many other horrible aspects of my existence that just get worse & worse as time goes on.
>finding colored keys to open colored doors in the right order and me being too dumb to figure out what i needed to do next.
Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the usual key hunts in these games, so that aspect wasn't all that troublesome for me. Also, if you check your map it'll actually indicate which keys correspond to a particular door. It doesn't make finding the keys themselves any easier, but it's still a modern convenience that I very much appreciated since, in my case, I'd often forget where those doors even were, like in the case of older games like Blood & such.
I also thought it was kind of novel how you sometimes need to do some additional tasks, like finding the ingredients to concoct a dispel potion to break the seal on a door, or forging a special gear to open a nearby gate, to be sort of a neat little evolution on the same old key hunt formula.
>actually liked the setting for the game too
I'd say I liked it as well, insofar as the atmosphere in certain areas was concerned. I still think it clashed with the real meat of the gameplay, but it was still nice for what it was. The hamfisted story itself and the visual style of the large breasted amazonian orcs being the other two major things getting in the way of said atmosphere, at least for me.
>there's a lot of music on bandcamp that you can buy and use for your games.
Yeah, I just came to notice that myself. Apparently this guy licensed/paid for a few used/unused tracks from Alexander himself, which itself explains why they sound so much like Deus Ex & Unreal, since that's essentially what he originally wrote them for in the first place, now being close to two decades ago and then some. As an example, one of the tracks used near the end actually goes as far back as Unreal's pre-release alpha, circa 1995. Christ, how time flies. It's truly frightening, I must say. To be honest, I really wish I could just get cancer & die. At least then, I wouldn't have to feel the sting of such things ever again, among many other horrible aspects of my existence that just get worse & worse as time goes on.
File: 1576211925303.jpg (30.15 KB, 300x300, 1:1, s-l300.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished AoE II and The Conquerors, the campaign, that is.
It's the first pc game I've ever played, like 20 years ago, and just now I got around to finishing it. I loved it, although I can't really say how good it is compared to other RTS games since I've played just a few.
I'm still playing standard games vs the computer and thinking about trying some of the custom campaigns. Watched a few matches online a realized I'm light years away from playing decently, granted those were pros playing, but still. There's so much to learn about the metagame and each civilization. I'll keep practicing, maybe one day I'll be able to hold my own online.
It's the first pc game I've ever played, like 20 years ago, and just now I got around to finishing it. I loved it, although I can't really say how good it is compared to other RTS games since I've played just a few.
I'm still playing standard games vs the computer and thinking about trying some of the custom campaigns. Watched a few matches online a realized I'm light years away from playing decently, granted those were pros playing, but still. There's so much to learn about the metagame and each civilization. I'll keep practicing, maybe one day I'll be able to hold my own online.
>>48097
I played this game a lot since childhood but never got into multiplayer. Playing it efficiently would just ruin the fun for me, at least that's what happened with AOE III
I played this game a lot since childhood but never got into multiplayer. Playing it efficiently would just ruin the fun for me, at least that's what happened with AOE III
>>48100
>Playing it efficiently would just ruin the fun for me
For me too. I just want to build farms and a bunch of stone walls.
>Playing it efficiently would just ruin the fun for me
For me too. I just want to build farms and a bunch of stone walls.
File: 1576402889892.jpg (22.81 KB, 283x351, 283:351, Dxcover.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Deus Ex. Great game. Don't know what to say about it. I liked everything except maybe the low default brightness and unintuitive default controls (the former of which I don't know can be changed until nearing the end and the latter I don't bother changing since I already got used to it by the time I realize it's giving me carpal tunnels). I expected the story to be just a repeat of old political talking points like freedom vs dictatorship but surprisingly it gives a very thoughtful take. The nuances are lost on me thought. I don't pay attention to dialogues or read emails/books. I am just running around until I progress the story while killing everyone. What else? Great level designs. Whenever I entered a new area and thought I burned out of the game, it manage to suck me in right after. Not repetitive at all and the high amount puzzles are fun and doesn't feel hamfisted like in other rpg games. Maybe I can consider it my second favourite game after New Vegas. Deus Ex has deeper story and gameplay than NV but NV has a very colorful world and faction while Deus Ex is more dry and thematic.
File: 1576429002196.jpg (49.79 KB, 600x337, 600:337, fallout_the_story_new_vega….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>48138
>Deus Ex has deeper story and gameplay than NV but NV has a very colorful world
>NV has a very colorful world
I'm not too sure about that one, chief.
>Deus Ex has deeper story and gameplay than NV but NV has a very colorful world
>NV has a very colorful world
I'm not too sure about that one, chief.
File: 1576431049029.jpg (235.1 KB, 1600x900, 16:9, Vault_21.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>48139
Still more color in your picture than most Deus Ex levels. Anyway, since you made the mistake of replying to my post here's another needlessly long incoherent rant that you probably shouldn't read.
Very is probably an overstatement and I wasn't referring to literal colors anyway. NV has a lot of variety in the atmosphere, locations and characters it presented. You have the New Vegas luxuries, the poor but lively freeside, and the number of settlements in the Mojave that each has their own unique features. The factions are also entertaining. I mean what other games can have an army of Roman larpers and still make them look fearsome? The Boomers is a bunch of sheltered explosion maniacs and the great khans is a post-apocalyptic mongol gangs. There is also the DLCs, each of which feels like they could belong to an entirely different installments. Deus Ex also has amusing characters and interaction but not to the extent of New Vegas. It shows the different life and situation at different countries but still sees everything from its grimdark cyberpunk dystopian lens. If you get rid of the funny accent and Triad stuff, the New York, Hong Kong and Paris missions might as well happen in the same city. It's like those platformer games that have different stages like jungle or underwater stages. Deus Ex is basically the same first and second stages all throughout the game with little modifications. Might be a good thing for some people but I do prefer variations even if it hurts worldbuilding or immersion.
Still more color in your picture than most Deus Ex levels. Anyway, since you made the mistake of replying to my post here's another needlessly long incoherent rant that you probably shouldn't read.
Very is probably an overstatement and I wasn't referring to literal colors anyway. NV has a lot of variety in the atmosphere, locations and characters it presented. You have the New Vegas luxuries, the poor but lively freeside, and the number of settlements in the Mojave that each has their own unique features. The factions are also entertaining. I mean what other games can have an army of Roman larpers and still make them look fearsome? The Boomers is a bunch of sheltered explosion maniacs and the great khans is a post-apocalyptic mongol gangs. There is also the DLCs, each of which feels like they could belong to an entirely different installments. Deus Ex also has amusing characters and interaction but not to the extent of New Vegas. It shows the different life and situation at different countries but still sees everything from its grimdark cyberpunk dystopian lens. If you get rid of the funny accent and Triad stuff, the New York, Hong Kong and Paris missions might as well happen in the same city. It's like those platformer games that have different stages like jungle or underwater stages. Deus Ex is basically the same first and second stages all throughout the game with little modifications. Might be a good thing for some people but I do prefer variations even if it hurts worldbuilding or immersion.
>Whenever I entered a new area and thought I burned out of the game, it manage to suck me in right after. Not repetitive at all and the high amount puzzles are fun and doesn't feel hamfisted like in other rpg games.
>Deus Ex is basically the same first and second stages all throughout the game with little modifications.
?
>Deus Ex is basically the same first and second stages all throughout the game with little modifications.
?
>>48141
New areas are interesting in level design, not in new atmosphere/quests/characters/etc
New areas are interesting in level design, not in new atmosphere/quests/characters/etc
>>48138
I suggest you replay it sometime in the future
It's one of the few games i honestly enjoy to play again from the start every once in a while
I suggest you replay it sometime in the future
It's one of the few games i honestly enjoy to play again from the start every once in a while
>>48140
Variety and diversity(of ideas, primarily) executed well does not hurt immersion and worldbuilding. Look at any game praised for those things, like elder scrolls, stalker(yes, the factions and characters), witcher, kingdom come and etc.
Variety and diversity(of ideas, primarily) executed well does not hurt immersion and worldbuilding. Look at any game praised for those things, like elder scrolls, stalker(yes, the factions and characters), witcher, kingdom come and etc.
File: 1577199671102.png (99.49 KB, 220x279, 220:279, 220px-Arx_Fatalis_cover.png) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Arx Fatalis. It's a so-so game. It's enjoyable but not mind-blowing. It's frustrating but not enough to last.
Gameplay is simple first person hack and slash. The magic system is unique in that you have to draw out runes with your mouse and spells can only be cast when you draw the correct combinations. So that you don't need to draw during combat, you can precast it by saving it into a slot so you can cast it instantly later. The spells combination is not told to you, so you can try out every combinations or use a guide if you are sane like me. It's a change from other games I guess but I don't really like it. It feels more satisfying when you manage to cast a spell I guess. The runes are hard to draw and requires multiple tries.
It's best feature is the dungeon crawling. It has good atmosphere that combines with the first person perspective to makes you feel part of the world. The dungeon design is kind of good too. It is thoughtful and not formulaic.
Then, there is what I considered the biggest part of the game, the puzzles. I personally hate puzzles in rpg, they are frustrating and takes you away from normal gameplay. In arx, only the former is true. Arx's puzzles are rather good, they actually plays with the environment, such as figuring out how dwarven machinery works, instead of some forced puzzles like arranging stones to open a gate (arx has that too though). Puzzles are also part of the core gameplay so it doesn't feels awkward to encounter one. The frustrating part is the real deal though. It's harder than other game's puzzles, require out of the box thinking and godly attention to details. No scratch that, it's just the creators sadism to make the solution as obscure as possible. I obviously use a guide to help me, but they're still fun to figure out.
One problem is that you don't always knows what to do whether with the puzzles or quests, sometimes you find books and npc that says something useful and sometimes you're left in the dark. Maybe I missed something and is just a casual, but a lot of main quests area are almost impossible to figure out without guides.
Game run like shit on my pc. Laggy and buggy as hell. Loading times takes forever. As with other 3d game of its era, it's also really fucking janky. You can't pass a corridor if someone is walking from the other side. You can get stuck in innocuous objects like pillars. You have to jump over stairs so you don't get stuck on one of the step. One part of the game also require you to do some hellish platformer with this engine.
Story is boring. You are a hero sent to stop an evil god from being summoned. I skipped through one the main subplot because I killed an important npc, regretted nothing. Setting is fine. It's about how the sun died and the surface world enter a harsh ice age so every races have to go underground. I am a sucker for underground civilization and arx's worldbuilding is interesting enough. You won't get to see too much of it though.
Overall mediocre but still enjoyable.
Gameplay is simple first person hack and slash. The magic system is unique in that you have to draw out runes with your mouse and spells can only be cast when you draw the correct combinations. So that you don't need to draw during combat, you can precast it by saving it into a slot so you can cast it instantly later. The spells combination is not told to you, so you can try out every combinations or use a guide if you are sane like me. It's a change from other games I guess but I don't really like it. It feels more satisfying when you manage to cast a spell I guess. The runes are hard to draw and requires multiple tries.
It's best feature is the dungeon crawling. It has good atmosphere that combines with the first person perspective to makes you feel part of the world. The dungeon design is kind of good too. It is thoughtful and not formulaic.
Then, there is what I considered the biggest part of the game, the puzzles. I personally hate puzzles in rpg, they are frustrating and takes you away from normal gameplay. In arx, only the former is true. Arx's puzzles are rather good, they actually plays with the environment, such as figuring out how dwarven machinery works, instead of some forced puzzles like arranging stones to open a gate (arx has that too though). Puzzles are also part of the core gameplay so it doesn't feels awkward to encounter one. The frustrating part is the real deal though. It's harder than other game's puzzles, require out of the box thinking and godly attention to details. No scratch that, it's just the creators sadism to make the solution as obscure as possible. I obviously use a guide to help me, but they're still fun to figure out.
One problem is that you don't always knows what to do whether with the puzzles or quests, sometimes you find books and npc that says something useful and sometimes you're left in the dark. Maybe I missed something and is just a casual, but a lot of main quests area are almost impossible to figure out without guides.
Game run like shit on my pc. Laggy and buggy as hell. Loading times takes forever. As with other 3d game of its era, it's also really fucking janky. You can't pass a corridor if someone is walking from the other side. You can get stuck in innocuous objects like pillars. You have to jump over stairs so you don't get stuck on one of the step. One part of the game also require you to do some hellish platformer with this engine.
Story is boring. You are a hero sent to stop an evil god from being summoned. I skipped through one the main subplot because I killed an important npc, regretted nothing. Setting is fine. It's about how the sun died and the surface world enter a harsh ice age so every races have to go underground. I am a sucker for underground civilization and arx's worldbuilding is interesting enough. You won't get to see too much of it though.
Overall mediocre but still enjoyable.
File: 1577799342832.jpg (550.48 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, RE_nextgen_Nov18_19_bmp_jp….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished both the Jill and Chris routes on Resident Evil HD. It's my first RE and I was surprised at how it was closer to a puzzle game than a survival horror. I had to look up a guide because I got stuck a couple of times.
Good game, Jill's route is better. I will be playing 0 next.
Good game, Jill's route is better. I will be playing 0 next.
File: 1578200479817-0.png (169.55 KB, 1924x1034, 962:517, Congratulations.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1578200479817-1.png (1.12 MB, 1919x1036, 1919:1036, Wizzie.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1578200479817-2.png (312.7 KB, 1918x1036, 137:74, Jurassic Park End.png) ImgOps iqdb
I have escaped Jurassic Park (SNES)!
It's a mediocre game, or downright bad to some, from my childhood. No save system, most of the game in a first person view that's LAGGY and has tank controls, and little story. Go find the eggs, get the cards, do some errands, and you're done. If you know what to do, it's done in one hour and 30 minutes to two hours. If not, you'll be like me and spend over six hours wandering around… with a map! I had a map from a gamefaqs post, but the game doesn't come with a map at all. In fact, even when doing the objectives, you have to remember certain parts of the game or wander around to find the right place. To get rid of the raptors in the visitor's building, you need to go to the raptor den, go down a few levels, and then push a crate to block off a door's entrance. You've never done that until that errand though. Also, these buildings are labyrinthine. All of the doors look the same, the hallways look the same, everything looks the same. I spent most of my time wandering the halls inside in the somewhat laggy, bad controling first person mode. Most of my time was wasted on this game.
The outside controls, if you're asking, were really good though. Other than going between buildings and getting eggs, you'll be inside for most of the game.
If you're looking for a good game with story, good controls, and doesn't waste your time, avoid this game.
The guides I used to beat this:
map
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588410-jurassic-park/map/3470-park-area-map
FAQ/Walkthrough:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588410-jurassic-park/faqs/40304
It's a mediocre game, or downright bad to some, from my childhood. No save system, most of the game in a first person view that's LAGGY and has tank controls, and little story. Go find the eggs, get the cards, do some errands, and you're done. If you know what to do, it's done in one hour and 30 minutes to two hours. If not, you'll be like me and spend over six hours wandering around… with a map! I had a map from a gamefaqs post, but the game doesn't come with a map at all. In fact, even when doing the objectives, you have to remember certain parts of the game or wander around to find the right place. To get rid of the raptors in the visitor's building, you need to go to the raptor den, go down a few levels, and then push a crate to block off a door's entrance. You've never done that until that errand though. Also, these buildings are labyrinthine. All of the doors look the same, the hallways look the same, everything looks the same. I spent most of my time wandering the halls inside in the somewhat laggy, bad controling first person mode. Most of my time was wasted on this game.
The outside controls, if you're asking, were really good though. Other than going between buildings and getting eggs, you'll be inside for most of the game.
If you're looking for a good game with story, good controls, and doesn't waste your time, avoid this game.
The guides I used to beat this:
map
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588410-jurassic-park/map/3470-park-area-map
FAQ/Walkthrough:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588410-jurassic-park/faqs/40304
File: 1578790460143-0.jpg (115.24 KB, 724x710, 362:355, HereticCaseFront.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1578790460143-1.jpg (12.38 KB, 220x256, 55:64, 220px-Hexenbox.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Pretty forgettable games, to be honest.
Heretic, in particular, was extremely bland and all the levels were very generic & boring. Overall, it just felt very dated & dull for a shooter. Perhaps installing Heretic's version of the "Brutal DOOM" mod might've made it more stimulating as far as upping the action was concerned, but enh. When it comes right down to it, the boilerplate level design & lack of meaningful variety in the maps was what really killed Heretic's fun factor for me. A lot of the enemies also felt very spam happy with their attacks and just generally weren't very fun to fight at all.
Hexen was a much better improvement, but still kinda forgettable all the same. Having three different characters to choose from was novel, but the lack of an actual arsenal for each of them was pretty lame. You only get four weapons total for each for crying out loud, which is just woeful. Having a large arsenal of destruction at your disposal is essentially what I like most about old style shooters, so only being able to switch between such a small amount of weapons, often just having to use the same weapon over & over, really made the gameplay dull. What's even more lame is how useless some of these weapons are, making the number even pathetically lower. As a wizard, the only decent weapons are your starting staff and lightning hands, with the ultimate weapon really only being useful for bosses & huge groups of enemies. As a cleric, your only decent weapon is the serpent staff, that is until you get your ultimate weapon, which fires homing missiles of death that can clip through walls and that you can just spam on everything in sight, assuming there's enough mana around. I never played as the barbarian, but I'd assume the same is true for that class as well. Having said all this, Heretic might've had a larger & more proper arsenal of weapons for a shooter of this type, but since a lot of them just felt super piddly, useless & weak (iron mace, for instance), it's mostly irrelevant. In that sense, I'll at least give Hexen the benefit of having better feeling weapons, even if there are much fewer of them, relative to what you have available for each class.
I'll also say that the level design for Hexen was way, WAY better than Heretic, which certainly made it feel like a lot less of a slog to play. The fact that you have hub areas and can travel between maps at will was pretty neat and not something I can recall other similar older shooters ever doing, aside from Turok 1/2 & Powerslave. Enemy variety & design was also way better than Heretic, even though there were still some annoying/tedious enemies to deal with (ice golems, ranged centaur knights, etc.)
One other thing that annoyed me about Hexen was the sheer amount of items available, most of which are just useless anyway and only serve to clutter up your inventory.
Anyway, I played through Hexen's main campaign as a wizard, and the Deathkings expansion as a cleric. All in all, I'd say I preferred playing as a wizard, even though the cleric's ultimate weapon is way better & more useful than what you get as a wizard. Like I said before, although I didn't mind my time with Hexen, I'd consider other shooters to be far more fun to play. Aside from its unique setting, and its few odd gimmicks, it really doesn't have a lot going for it. It's not as painfully dated as Heretic, because damn is Heretic fucking painfully dated, but enh. Aside from checking out the barbarian class at some point, I don't have much desire to ever play it again or to check out whatever wads are available for it out there. I'd say I'm actually somewhat more interested in checking out Hexen 2 just to see how good/bad of a sequel it is. Will probably play through both Quakes before that, though.
Heretic, in particular, was extremely bland and all the levels were very generic & boring. Overall, it just felt very dated & dull for a shooter. Perhaps installing Heretic's version of the "Brutal DOOM" mod might've made it more stimulating as far as upping the action was concerned, but enh. When it comes right down to it, the boilerplate level design & lack of meaningful variety in the maps was what really killed Heretic's fun factor for me. A lot of the enemies also felt very spam happy with their attacks and just generally weren't very fun to fight at all.
Hexen was a much better improvement, but still kinda forgettable all the same. Having three different characters to choose from was novel, but the lack of an actual arsenal for each of them was pretty lame. You only get four weapons total for each for crying out loud, which is just woeful. Having a large arsenal of destruction at your disposal is essentially what I like most about old style shooters, so only being able to switch between such a small amount of weapons, often just having to use the same weapon over & over, really made the gameplay dull. What's even more lame is how useless some of these weapons are, making the number even pathetically lower. As a wizard, the only decent weapons are your starting staff and lightning hands, with the ultimate weapon really only being useful for bosses & huge groups of enemies. As a cleric, your only decent weapon is the serpent staff, that is until you get your ultimate weapon, which fires homing missiles of death that can clip through walls and that you can just spam on everything in sight, assuming there's enough mana around. I never played as the barbarian, but I'd assume the same is true for that class as well. Having said all this, Heretic might've had a larger & more proper arsenal of weapons for a shooter of this type, but since a lot of them just felt super piddly, useless & weak (iron mace, for instance), it's mostly irrelevant. In that sense, I'll at least give Hexen the benefit of having better feeling weapons, even if there are much fewer of them, relative to what you have available for each class.
I'll also say that the level design for Hexen was way, WAY better than Heretic, which certainly made it feel like a lot less of a slog to play. The fact that you have hub areas and can travel between maps at will was pretty neat and not something I can recall other similar older shooters ever doing, aside from Turok 1/2 & Powerslave. Enemy variety & design was also way better than Heretic, even though there were still some annoying/tedious enemies to deal with (ice golems, ranged centaur knights, etc.)
One other thing that annoyed me about Hexen was the sheer amount of items available, most of which are just useless anyway and only serve to clutter up your inventory.
Anyway, I played through Hexen's main campaign as a wizard, and the Deathkings expansion as a cleric. All in all, I'd say I preferred playing as a wizard, even though the cleric's ultimate weapon is way better & more useful than what you get as a wizard. Like I said before, although I didn't mind my time with Hexen, I'd consider other shooters to be far more fun to play. Aside from its unique setting, and its few odd gimmicks, it really doesn't have a lot going for it. It's not as painfully dated as Heretic, because damn is Heretic fucking painfully dated, but enh. Aside from checking out the barbarian class at some point, I don't have much desire to ever play it again or to check out whatever wads are available for it out there. I'd say I'm actually somewhat more interested in checking out Hexen 2 just to see how good/bad of a sequel it is. Will probably play through both Quakes before that, though.
File: 1578791091813.jpg (168.07 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, 87348927948.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
A surprisingly relaxing & comfy game. I really enjoyed it. My only major gripe would be how few unique abilities each character has. Your party also moves too slowly when exploring, which is kind of an issue on the larger maps, and it'd of been nice if there had been a option available to sprint, or something. The recent expansion was quite enjoyable as well even though, again, the fact that the new character only has two unique abilities, neither of which are very good, was kinda disappointing. Either way, I hope to see a sequel to this someday.
File: 1579142517009.jpg (246.94 KB, 1600x1067, 1600:1067, dims.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
A little dull, but still not too bad. I expected a lot worse, but, just like with Titanfall 2 before it, Respawn actually did a fairly solid job at once again constructing a good old singleplayer campaign, tragically rare as they are these days. Yeah, it's essentially Sekiro in a Star Wars skin, what with the emphasis on parrying & prosthetic/force powers, but it still does that thing well enough to be mostly enjoyable, at least for me. Funny though because I actually dropped Sekiro, post flaming bull, but, even having just said that, I still intend on returning to it someday and playing through this has actually somewhat inspired me to do so, perhaps sooner than I otherwise would have.
I'd say one of the biggest issues I had with this game was the lack of customization options. There's a typical skill tree that you can fill out, just like in any other character action game out there, but as far as your lightsaber is concerned, aside from cosmetics, there's absolutely nothing you can do with it. Not increase its passive stats, like reach or speed. Nothing. The only things you can find when exploring the world are cosmetics which is just laughable. Why wasn't there an inventory system, ala Sekiro & the Souls series, so at least you could find random items and such, instead of worthless cosmetics like a new poncho or skin for your droid? I literally felt like I was just opening solo oriented loot crates. Essentially the only things to find in the world that are worth a damn are force echoes that increase your health/force after you collect 3 of them and estus-like health stims.
I also didn't like how linear the level design was in spots. There's openable shortcuts and such, but equally as many points of no return as well, especially whenever moving into an area that's extremely set piece heavy.
The game could also have used more dismemberment, but what is there is quite impressive, since certain enemies can be sliced in half or have their arms/heads cut off, leaving behind a satisfying cauterized slice of still burning flesh.
I was pleasantly surprised at the enemy variety and although a lot of the enemies can be cheesed through with force powers, especially once you get the skill tree upgrade that completely refills your force gauge with the use of a health stim, they're still pretty fun to fight. Boss variety could've been a bit better though since, aside from one giant monster encounter, it's just random dudes with lightsabers.
Difficulty-wise the game was actually pretty relaxed for the most part. I played on "Jedi Grandmaster" and was able to beat every encounter on my first, or second try. Once you beat the game however there's no option for new game+ and if you reload your completed save you just end up dumped before the final mission in a dead & completely empty world. Not even the final mission itself is replayable, which just felt weird and somewhat lame considering it's hands down the best area in the game. The last section of the game really is a great payoff to the rest of it and I'll give Respawn the fact that they know how to get things going and allow you to cut loose when it's needed, plowing through hordes of enemies & such.
One other random thing, but I also appreciated the introduction of bounty hunters halfway through the game, which almost act like little mini-bosses similar to "The Pursuer" from Dark Souls 2. They don't really ambush you in the same way the Pursuer does though, which was a little disappointing.
Another random aside, but the story/characters aren't too bad either, relative to what I was expecting. The writing can even feel somewhat earnest at times, at least when it's not being overtly melodramatic. The voice acting & motion capture is also quite impressive.
Anyway, I'm sure some would still consider this game to be nothing more than another example of a bland AAA snooze fest, but, in my case, I found it to be fairly engaging & damn near great in some spots. It'll be interesting to see if it ever gets a sequel, or if this was essentially EA's one off "apology" game, after their self-inflected fiascos with both Nu-Battlefront 1 & 2.
I'd say one of the biggest issues I had with this game was the lack of customization options. There's a typical skill tree that you can fill out, just like in any other character action game out there, but as far as your lightsaber is concerned, aside from cosmetics, there's absolutely nothing you can do with it. Not increase its passive stats, like reach or speed. Nothing. The only things you can find when exploring the world are cosmetics which is just laughable. Why wasn't there an inventory system, ala Sekiro & the Souls series, so at least you could find random items and such, instead of worthless cosmetics like a new poncho or skin for your droid? I literally felt like I was just opening solo oriented loot crates. Essentially the only things to find in the world that are worth a damn are force echoes that increase your health/force after you collect 3 of them and estus-like health stims.
I also didn't like how linear the level design was in spots. There's openable shortcuts and such, but equally as many points of no return as well, especially whenever moving into an area that's extremely set piece heavy.
The game could also have used more dismemberment, but what is there is quite impressive, since certain enemies can be sliced in half or have their arms/heads cut off, leaving behind a satisfying cauterized slice of still burning flesh.
I was pleasantly surprised at the enemy variety and although a lot of the enemies can be cheesed through with force powers, especially once you get the skill tree upgrade that completely refills your force gauge with the use of a health stim, they're still pretty fun to fight. Boss variety could've been a bit better though since, aside from one giant monster encounter, it's just random dudes with lightsabers.
Difficulty-wise the game was actually pretty relaxed for the most part. I played on "Jedi Grandmaster" and was able to beat every encounter on my first, or second try. Once you beat the game however there's no option for new game+ and if you reload your completed save you just end up dumped before the final mission in a dead & completely empty world. Not even the final mission itself is replayable, which just felt weird and somewhat lame considering it's hands down the best area in the game. The last section of the game really is a great payoff to the rest of it and I'll give Respawn the fact that they know how to get things going and allow you to cut loose when it's needed, plowing through hordes of enemies & such.
One other random thing, but I also appreciated the introduction of bounty hunters halfway through the game, which almost act like little mini-bosses similar to "The Pursuer" from Dark Souls 2. They don't really ambush you in the same way the Pursuer does though, which was a little disappointing.
Another random aside, but the story/characters aren't too bad either, relative to what I was expecting. The writing can even feel somewhat earnest at times, at least when it's not being overtly melodramatic. The voice acting & motion capture is also quite impressive.
Anyway, I'm sure some would still consider this game to be nothing more than another example of a bland AAA snooze fest, but, in my case, I found it to be fairly engaging & damn near great in some spots. It'll be interesting to see if it ever gets a sequel, or if this was essentially EA's one off "apology" game, after their self-inflected fiascos with both Nu-Battlefront 1 & 2.
File: 1579144180498.jpg (36.68 KB, 696x320, 87:40, Wii-U-Pro-controller-on-Ni….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>48391
Its a badass game, but I definitely agree with what I read or heard some reviewer write or say which essentially boiled down to it simply being an excellent new platformer game disguised as a Star Wars game.
Anyway rather than an apology I'm thinking this is more like a fluke out of EA and unfortunately if there's ever any sequel to it, it will likely have loads of bullshit microtransactions like practically every other EA game in history already does.
I hope I'm wrong about that though as this game has the potential to become an epic series if EA could just keep themselves in check and act like they are a good gaming company that cares about their customers for a change or at least while working on this particular game series.
{{Sigh}}
Probably too much to hope for but we'll see I guess.
Its a badass game, but I definitely agree with what I read or heard some reviewer write or say which essentially boiled down to it simply being an excellent new platformer game disguised as a Star Wars game.
Anyway rather than an apology I'm thinking this is more like a fluke out of EA and unfortunately if there's ever any sequel to it, it will likely have loads of bullshit microtransactions like practically every other EA game in history already does.
I hope I'm wrong about that though as this game has the potential to become an epic series if EA could just keep themselves in check and act like they are a good gaming company that cares about their customers for a change or at least while working on this particular game series.
{{Sigh}}
Probably too much to hope for but we'll see I guess.
>>48286
>I was surprised at how it was closer to a puzzle game than a survival horror
Well there's really few "survival horror" games that could really count as what we call survival today, they're mostly puzzle/adventure games with some action, as long as you don't go around shooting everything in sight you will be fine. I'm talking about late 90s/early 00s survival horror of course, like Silent Hill, Fatal Frame and RE of course
>I will be playing 0 next
While I do like zero it's really not that good, you should play RE2 if you can handle Playstation graphics
>I was surprised at how it was closer to a puzzle game than a survival horror
Well there's really few "survival horror" games that could really count as what we call survival today, they're mostly puzzle/adventure games with some action, as long as you don't go around shooting everything in sight you will be fine. I'm talking about late 90s/early 00s survival horror of course, like Silent Hill, Fatal Frame and RE of course
>I will be playing 0 next
While I do like zero it's really not that good, you should play RE2 if you can handle Playstation graphics
File: 1579439995310.jpg (94.45 KB, 992x558, 16:9, img_agarcial_20170327-1211….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished StarCraft, it was good but boy does this game show its age, and I'm not talking graphics, I think it looks great, old blizzard had a way of making the games feel timeless in that regard, what I'm talking about is that it's missing a lot of QoL stuff that today would be considered pretty basic, for example: there is no way to group units in any kind of formation, so when you send a group into an enemy's base the ones who arrive first will inevitably die; max group size is just 12, so if you command a big attack you'll have to use like half of the numeric keyboard; you can set "villagers" to automatically colect a resource, and on top of that there's no "iddle villager" button; the pathfinding is terrible (pathfinding was a big issue back then, a lot of games screwed it up). I don't know, maybe I'm just a really bad player, there's just a lot of things that you'll miss if you played a more recent rts.
Like I said the game is still great, the plot and characters are engaging and they were my main motivation to keep going, looks great, voice acting is great, music is great. The three civs are really different but they managed to keep it pretty well balanced for what I could tell (I only played single player so I wouldn't really know). I don't know if I prefer this or Warcraft 3, what I do know is that I really miss old Blizzard.
Like I said the game is still great, the plot and characters are engaging and they were my main motivation to keep going, looks great, voice acting is great, music is great. The three civs are really different but they managed to keep it pretty well balanced for what I could tell (I only played single player so I wouldn't really know). I don't know if I prefer this or Warcraft 3, what I do know is that I really miss old Blizzard.
>>48413
Glad you liked it. SC1 is one of my favorite games.
>it's missing a lot of QoL stuff that today would be considered pretty basic
Yep. Because of the lack of QoL features, the skill ceiling was so high that you had to make the game into your full-time job if you wanted to be competitive in multiplayer. The Koreans took this to such an extreme that they invented e-sports as we know it and, as far as I'm aware, remain dominant in the multiplayer scene to this day. Many of the "legends" of e-sports, like Boxer, Jaedong, Bisu, Flash, Whitera, and others, came out of the SC1 scene. 2000-2010 was the golden age of the SC1. When SC2 was released it briefly killed the SC1 scene, but when people realized that SC2 was shit, SC1 saw a revival.
The embedded video is from a 2010 tournament, if you want to see a high-level SC1 match between pros.
>the plot and characters are engaging and they were my main motivation to keep going, looks great, voice acting is great, music is great
Yep, they nailed the dark sci-fi atmosphere in SC1. The art direction was truly inspired, and even the late 90's cinematics hold up well today. The decline of Blizzard couldn't be more obvious than in the clusterfuck that was SC2.
Glad you liked it. SC1 is one of my favorite games.
>it's missing a lot of QoL stuff that today would be considered pretty basic
Yep. Because of the lack of QoL features, the skill ceiling was so high that you had to make the game into your full-time job if you wanted to be competitive in multiplayer. The Koreans took this to such an extreme that they invented e-sports as we know it and, as far as I'm aware, remain dominant in the multiplayer scene to this day. Many of the "legends" of e-sports, like Boxer, Jaedong, Bisu, Flash, Whitera, and others, came out of the SC1 scene. 2000-2010 was the golden age of the SC1. When SC2 was released it briefly killed the SC1 scene, but when people realized that SC2 was shit, SC1 saw a revival.
The embedded video is from a 2010 tournament, if you want to see a high-level SC1 match between pros.
>the plot and characters are engaging and they were my main motivation to keep going, looks great, voice acting is great, music is great
Yep, they nailed the dark sci-fi atmosphere in SC1. The art direction was truly inspired, and even the late 90's cinematics hold up well today. The decline of Blizzard couldn't be more obvious than in the clusterfuck that was SC2.
>>48414
SC2 has an alright competitive scene, I think WCS might have died recently though. It was interesting to see the google AI AlphaStar beat the pros by abusing APM with like 12K actions a minute during fights.
Reading your post, it seems that starcraft was always about making less mistakes than your opponent.
SC2 has an alright competitive scene, I think WCS might have died recently though. It was interesting to see the google AI AlphaStar beat the pros by abusing APM with like 12K actions a minute during fights.
Reading your post, it seems that starcraft was always about making less mistakes than your opponent.
File: 1579948022793-0.jpg (43.92 KB, 448x252, 16:9, 84273984792874.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1579948022793-1.jpg (294.15 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, 3e7f3depuye31.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
What a delightfully goofy game. A little on the short side, but I'd say even that worked in its favor. It ends before anything can really get too tiresome, which I appreciated. As a primarily PC only gamer for many, many years now, it was actually kinda comfy/refreshing to experience a pre-2005 sixth gen console game like this again. At the same time, it also kinda reminded me of something you might see come from Platinum nowadays and while playing this I couldn't help, but think of stuff like Vanquish or MGS: Revengeance, at least in terms of how similar it is to those two in regards to style, bombastity and just sheer Japanese wackiness.
It's a bit of a shame From Software doesn't make more random games like this anymore and are pretty much just sticking to milking the whole Souls/Bloodborne/Sekiro thing until complete exhaustion. Elden Ring might be a bit different, but honestly it looks to me to be about the same sort of thing as the rest, continuing From's sole fixation on Souls-like gameplay/atmosphere.
Anyway, it'd just be cool of From to make random games again, like Kuon or Metal Wolf. The bait & switch job they did with Sekiro, which should've been, and I was believe was even intended as, a spiritual successor to Tenchu, only to then turn out to be another Souls clone, is still something I'm disappointed with them over.
As an aside, we all have boat loads of random games we haven't gotten around to yet, but I feel I'd especially like to cross more off from around this time period. I really should try to emulate and finally play/finish some of the ones I've missed or am interested in, but, odds are, I know I probably won't, which depresses me.
It's a bit of a shame From Software doesn't make more random games like this anymore and are pretty much just sticking to milking the whole Souls/Bloodborne/Sekiro thing until complete exhaustion. Elden Ring might be a bit different, but honestly it looks to me to be about the same sort of thing as the rest, continuing From's sole fixation on Souls-like gameplay/atmosphere.
Anyway, it'd just be cool of From to make random games again, like Kuon or Metal Wolf. The bait & switch job they did with Sekiro, which should've been, and I was believe was even intended as, a spiritual successor to Tenchu, only to then turn out to be another Souls clone, is still something I'm disappointed with them over.
As an aside, we all have boat loads of random games we haven't gotten around to yet, but I feel I'd especially like to cross more off from around this time period. I really should try to emulate and finally play/finish some of the ones I've missed or am interested in, but, odds are, I know I probably won't, which depresses me.
>>48413
you sound like an aoe player. yeah it's really old now. pathfinding was also really bad for the larger units when it first came out. they built sc using the wc2 engine and it took fucking forever to come out
you sound like an aoe player. yeah it's really old now. pathfinding was also really bad for the larger units when it first came out. they built sc using the wc2 engine and it took fucking forever to come out
Finally done with Nocturne. Had to grind a lot to get decent skills for the MC and (re)make a good team of demons with Pierce to have a chance against Lucifer… Well I might have overdone it because my OP companions tore him a new one.
I don't think I'll replay this, and I don't really know how much replay value there is besides a few different endings. Too burnt out now anyway.
By the way, how in the world does one unlock every skill/magatama in the game? with all the grinding I've done I'm still short of like a dozen levels to get to 100%.
I don't think I'll replay this, and I don't really know how much replay value there is besides a few different endings. Too burnt out now anyway.
By the way, how in the world does one unlock every skill/magatama in the game? with all the grinding I've done I'm still short of like a dozen levels to get to 100%.
>>48502
>you sound like an aoe player
I love AoE 2, it's the only game of the series I played, and yeah I really like it.
>you sound like an aoe player
I love AoE 2, it's the only game of the series I played, and yeah I really like it.
File: 1580175562427.jpg (127.29 KB, 1050x510, 35:17, commando-2-mens-of-courage….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Commandos 2, what a beautiful game, even now the 2d scenarios look great and the music is amazing. It's a bit easier than the first game and its expansion, but still great, fewer missions but they're way longer so they can take up to two or three hours. I loved every second of it and I'll probably replay them because I didn't get the bonus levels. To me this is how a sequel should be made, took everything that made the firt games great and added more stuff. Planning on playing 3 but I've heard it's not as good, sadly.
>>48501
>It's a bit of a shame From Software doesn't make more random games like this anymore and are pretty much just sticking to milking the whole Souls/Bloodborne/Sekiro thing until complete exhaustion
"exhaustion" can't come too soon
I hate those stupid meme games and their stupid goddamn fans so much, From hasn't even done anything new in 10 years because of them
>It's a bit of a shame From Software doesn't make more random games like this anymore and are pretty much just sticking to milking the whole Souls/Bloodborne/Sekiro thing until complete exhaustion
"exhaustion" can't come too soon
I hate those stupid meme games and their stupid goddamn fans so much, From hasn't even done anything new in 10 years because of them
File: 1580254385252.png (60.08 KB, 1536x864, 16:9, Superhot-Title.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>46178
I beat Superhot. Quite fun, but difficult near the end. Criminally short, and needs a level editor
I beat Superhot. Quite fun, but difficult near the end. Criminally short, and needs a level editor
>>48537
>and needs a level editor
God that would be so great.
If they ever make a squeal they need to include that.
>and needs a level editor
God that would be so great.
If they ever make a squeal they need to include that.
File: 1580690525230.png (161.22 KB, 422x357, 422:357, 1498248885987.png) ImgOps iqdb
Beat Dead Space 1
I don't think I'd call it the worst game I played, but it's not far off that title. I'll just list off the problems
>Sensitivity is fucking dysfunctional. I played with maximum, and I still regularly had to drag the mouse across my desk multiple times to aim where I wanted to, doesn't help Isaac's about as nimble as a slug either
>Terrible storyline. I don't mind a B-movie style thing, just an excuse for everything to go totally wrong so I've got aliens to kill, but that's not what I got, the most cliche story imaginable, complete with some boring as fuck social darwinist evil scientist who claims that the aliens are "the next evolved lifeform" and shit, because, why not, a wife who I could not care less about, perhaps because Isaac portrays quite literally zero emotion, ever, and they tried to go End of Evangelion near the end, and I think they were insulting my intelligence, as if I wouldn't notice why she said "make us whole again" once every god damn sentence. What is subtlety?
>You have to save at certain stations. Don't like this in any game, let me save where I want, when I want. Now, you might be inclined to say that this was for balance purposes, but it wasn't, because every time I died, no matter how far away the save stations were, I always was right in the room where I was, so if they can implement respawning me right where I was, why not save the game there as well?
-Abysmal soundtrack. The musical equivalent of someone screaming in your ear, it was genuinely painful, and to make matters worse, it played the same 3 tracks every time an enemy was present, which isn't very good for gameplay purposes, for a horror game that's meant to be about being nervous about when the enemy's next going to show up, that's kind of nullified by them basically announcing their presence with musical cues, because all I'm doing is searching for them.
-Braindead enemy placement. Maybe if I never played a game before I'd have been surprised, but I never was. Am I meant to be shocked that I enter a room with a missing tile in the ceiling, and an enemy comes out of there? Or that this one unilluminated corner has an enemy? Getting rid of that predictability would be nice
-There was no need for the zero gravity sections, or for the Gravity Gun style mechanic, just isn't needed, I'm not interested in jumping across platforms, if I was I'd play a puzzle platformer, and the gravity gun arm was 100% useless, never to solve a puzzle, it was there for no reason, everything could've been picked up normally, but they just had to throw that in there.
So, basically, if you want a first person Doom 3 that steals its entire story and enemy design from ALIENS, and also controls and plays like shit, then I guess Dead Space is for you. But it's not for me.
I don't think I'd call it the worst game I played, but it's not far off that title. I'll just list off the problems
>Sensitivity is fucking dysfunctional. I played with maximum, and I still regularly had to drag the mouse across my desk multiple times to aim where I wanted to, doesn't help Isaac's about as nimble as a slug either
>Terrible storyline. I don't mind a B-movie style thing, just an excuse for everything to go totally wrong so I've got aliens to kill, but that's not what I got, the most cliche story imaginable, complete with some boring as fuck social darwinist evil scientist who claims that the aliens are "the next evolved lifeform" and shit, because, why not, a wife who I could not care less about, perhaps because Isaac portrays quite literally zero emotion, ever, and they tried to go End of Evangelion near the end, and I think they were insulting my intelligence, as if I wouldn't notice why she said "make us whole again" once every god damn sentence. What is subtlety?
>You have to save at certain stations. Don't like this in any game, let me save where I want, when I want. Now, you might be inclined to say that this was for balance purposes, but it wasn't, because every time I died, no matter how far away the save stations were, I always was right in the room where I was, so if they can implement respawning me right where I was, why not save the game there as well?
-Abysmal soundtrack. The musical equivalent of someone screaming in your ear, it was genuinely painful, and to make matters worse, it played the same 3 tracks every time an enemy was present, which isn't very good for gameplay purposes, for a horror game that's meant to be about being nervous about when the enemy's next going to show up, that's kind of nullified by them basically announcing their presence with musical cues, because all I'm doing is searching for them.
-Braindead enemy placement. Maybe if I never played a game before I'd have been surprised, but I never was. Am I meant to be shocked that I enter a room with a missing tile in the ceiling, and an enemy comes out of there? Or that this one unilluminated corner has an enemy? Getting rid of that predictability would be nice
-There was no need for the zero gravity sections, or for the Gravity Gun style mechanic, just isn't needed, I'm not interested in jumping across platforms, if I was I'd play a puzzle platformer, and the gravity gun arm was 100% useless, never to solve a puzzle, it was there for no reason, everything could've been picked up normally, but they just had to throw that in there.
So, basically, if you want a first person Doom 3 that steals its entire story and enemy design from ALIENS, and also controls and plays like shit, then I guess Dead Space is for you. But it's not for me.
File: 1581125216165.jpg (31.93 KB, 600x426, 100:71, sys.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>48523
Good choice, my man.
Good choice, my man.
I ran through tales of xillia (PS3) this week using codes and someone's new game+ file
the story is dumb, the world is non-interactive, the real gameplay amounts to crossing boring fields of monsters in an A to B fashion to reach your next 10 minute long cutscene, now I understand all those complaints I've heard about modern games being nothing but movies, the game was almost entirely cutscenes
I only kept playing it because the main character is pretty, and the costumes that came with the save file let me dress him like a catboy
the story is dumb, the world is non-interactive, the real gameplay amounts to crossing boring fields of monsters in an A to B fashion to reach your next 10 minute long cutscene, now I understand all those complaints I've heard about modern games being nothing but movies, the game was almost entirely cutscenes
I only kept playing it because the main character is pretty, and the costumes that came with the save file let me dress him like a catboy
Lufia II. Good game overall although it was way too easy. I haven't done the ancient cave and dragon eggs quests so maybe there were optional bosses and stuff there I missed.
Is the first one worth playing?
Is the first one worth playing?
File: 1582788275402.jpg (63.13 KB, 768x400, 48:25, Tales-of-Xillia-2-768x400.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
I wasted all february on tales of xillia 2. It's a typical JRPG suffering from sequelitis and spits in your face at the end by killing your main character to save some whiny ass little succubus sidekick who doesn't even really exist, who's just an NPC from a fake parallel universe, because muh bleeding heart or something. Even though the whole game is about unscrupulously destroying those same fake parallel universes (and everyone in them) to save your own. You can, alternately, choose to live and let the annoying little shit blink out back into the void where she came from, but that gives you the bad ending. It's a fucking joke.
You can honestly sum up this whole load of crap as Suicidal Altruism: the game.
Fuck you japan. Give me february back.
You can honestly sum up this whole load of crap as Suicidal Altruism: the game.
Fuck you japan. Give me february back.
File: 1583171975226.png (48.17 KB, 1024x768, 4:3, 1583171550910.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>46522
So my brother came back early this year and we finished Phantasy Star 2 this time. What an amazingly frustrating game. It's so frustrating that we were laughing our asses off at several points. The dungeons are designed to make you lose your mind. All of them are huge mazes with dozens of empty corridors that leads nowhere. Exploration is rewarded with huge amounts of backtracking. You either draw a map or you risk getting lost virtually forever in several of the later dungeons in this game. Items are extremely expensive so you'll be grinding A LOT to be able to afford anything.
After my brother went to sleep I would stay for another couple of hours just grinding outside the dungeon we had to go next in order to make progress possible next day. You never get strong in Phantasy Star 2. The monsters are always not far behind or ahead of you in terms of strength. You have specialized characters that can kill a particular type of enemy but they all come mid game or so at lvl 1! It's so frustrating you start to imagine the developers had a sadistic intent to torment their players.
I'm not going to give any spoilers but the story is what you expect more or less. It's basically a big bad again trying to screw everything up and this time there's a interesting plot twist to it in the end. It's just a rather silly, jrpg scifi plot, I liked it to be honest, my brother thought it's dumb as hell (which I agree but still I enjoyed it).
I liked the characters a lot and I think my main problem with this game, apart from the insane dungeons, is how poor the battles look visually. It's always the same background "even in the first game you have different background that reflect your place on the map". The monsters look OK for the most part but not as charming as the monsters in the first game imo.
Music is good and the graphics look pretty much like a generation previous to the Genesis. It still feels like a Master System game, pretty much. The way the menu work and everything else. Anyway we didn't have time to finish the game properly so we had to cheat on the last boss but I didn't mind, it would be too much to NOT see the ending of this game after all the suffering we went through. Yet it was a lot of fun in a way. You know the sort of game that manages to fuck you up in unexpected ways. Just to give you an example, don't read the spoilers if you intend to play this as it contains major spoilers. You have to learn a tech named Music that costs a bunch of money. So we had a character, Nei, to learn it. You only use this tech once 15 hours later in the game so we completely forgot about it. You use this tech in a piano deep inside a huge dungeon. Nei dies before this so we realize we'll have to go back all the way to another planet to have another character to learn this tech in order to proceed and redo the entire dungeon again. Now imagine this game is filled with such moments.
Despite all of this, I actually enjoyed the game for what it is. Too bad I'll have to wait a whole year to play the third one.
So my brother came back early this year and we finished Phantasy Star 2 this time. What an amazingly frustrating game. It's so frustrating that we were laughing our asses off at several points. The dungeons are designed to make you lose your mind. All of them are huge mazes with dozens of empty corridors that leads nowhere. Exploration is rewarded with huge amounts of backtracking. You either draw a map or you risk getting lost virtually forever in several of the later dungeons in this game. Items are extremely expensive so you'll be grinding A LOT to be able to afford anything.
After my brother went to sleep I would stay for another couple of hours just grinding outside the dungeon we had to go next in order to make progress possible next day. You never get strong in Phantasy Star 2. The monsters are always not far behind or ahead of you in terms of strength. You have specialized characters that can kill a particular type of enemy but they all come mid game or so at lvl 1! It's so frustrating you start to imagine the developers had a sadistic intent to torment their players.
I'm not going to give any spoilers but the story is what you expect more or less. It's basically a big bad again trying to screw everything up and this time there's a interesting plot twist to it in the end. It's just a rather silly, jrpg scifi plot, I liked it to be honest, my brother thought it's dumb as hell (which I agree but still I enjoyed it).
I liked the characters a lot and I think my main problem with this game, apart from the insane dungeons, is how poor the battles look visually. It's always the same background "even in the first game you have different background that reflect your place on the map". The monsters look OK for the most part but not as charming as the monsters in the first game imo.
Music is good and the graphics look pretty much like a generation previous to the Genesis. It still feels like a Master System game, pretty much. The way the menu work and everything else. Anyway we didn't have time to finish the game properly so we had to cheat on the last boss but I didn't mind, it would be too much to NOT see the ending of this game after all the suffering we went through. Yet it was a lot of fun in a way. You know the sort of game that manages to fuck you up in unexpected ways. Just to give you an example, don't read the spoilers if you intend to play this as it contains major spoilers. You have to learn a tech named Music that costs a bunch of money. So we had a character, Nei, to learn it. You only use this tech once 15 hours later in the game so we completely forgot about it. You use this tech in a piano deep inside a huge dungeon. Nei dies before this so we realize we'll have to go back all the way to another planet to have another character to learn this tech in order to proceed and redo the entire dungeon again. Now imagine this game is filled with such moments.
Despite all of this, I actually enjoyed the game for what it is. Too bad I'll have to wait a whole year to play the third one.
File: 1583184755385.png (1.59 MB, 900x742, 450:371, sigil-litho_900x.png) ImgOps iqdb
Don't know if you'd count it as a game, but beat John Romero's SIGIL
>Good architecture and satanic imagery
>Well constructed levels, for the most part
>Too fucking dark, it reaches Doom 3 levels at points
>Levels 5, 8 and 9 are utterly fucking abysmal from beginning to end, 9 especially, could there be a lazier way of ending your WAD than by giving the player a ton of plasma ammo, then putting them in a room with a spider mastermind, then a cyberdemon, and that being the end of the level, which barely had any enemies in it?
>Too many lost souls
>Good soundtrack
Overall I'd say it's acceptable, 6/10, mostly enjoyable and I'd rank the episodes 1 > 2 > 5 > 3 >>> 4
>Good architecture and satanic imagery
>Well constructed levels, for the most part
>Too fucking dark, it reaches Doom 3 levels at points
>Levels 5, 8 and 9 are utterly fucking abysmal from beginning to end, 9 especially, could there be a lazier way of ending your WAD than by giving the player a ton of plasma ammo, then putting them in a room with a spider mastermind, then a cyberdemon, and that being the end of the level, which barely had any enemies in it?
>Too many lost souls
>Good soundtrack
Overall I'd say it's acceptable, 6/10, mostly enjoyable and I'd rank the episodes 1 > 2 > 5 > 3 >>> 4
File: 1583342040863.png (785.32 KB, 1021x794, 1021:794, Untitled.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>46745
>>46746
I just finished it, having got it for free on the Epic store. This was the first game I'd played more than ten minutes, let alone finished, in three years. So, it must be good. I'm glad they didn't cuck on the immersion of the game. The night vision potion is the only immersion breaking thing. Unless such a potion actually exists, they should force you to do everything by natural light or torch. The other potions like the healing potions are so weak, they seem realistic.
On combat, you described it well. I mainly just aimed for bow headshots from the horse. Which is most likely what the developer intended you to do. I don't see any other way to win a fight against a team of five bandits. The questline major battles were unchallenging as you described. The developer should have just followed every other developer and made it so the NPCs only care about killing the player, rather than actually trying to win the battle.
I didn't expect what you wrote in the spoilers. I expected him to be a traitor and collaborating with the invader at the start, as he looks like a Cuman rather than a Bohemian.
Isn't Witcher 3 the same as this game with a fantasy element? Anyway, I hope there's a sequel. I really liked Mafia II by the same guy, as well.
>>46746
I just finished it, having got it for free on the Epic store. This was the first game I'd played more than ten minutes, let alone finished, in three years. So, it must be good. I'm glad they didn't cuck on the immersion of the game. The night vision potion is the only immersion breaking thing. Unless such a potion actually exists, they should force you to do everything by natural light or torch. The other potions like the healing potions are so weak, they seem realistic.
On combat, you described it well. I mainly just aimed for bow headshots from the horse. Which is most likely what the developer intended you to do. I don't see any other way to win a fight against a team of five bandits. The questline major battles were unchallenging as you described. The developer should have just followed every other developer and made it so the NPCs only care about killing the player, rather than actually trying to win the battle.
I didn't expect what you wrote in the spoilers. I expected him to be a traitor and collaborating with the invader at the start, as he looks like a Cuman rather than a Bohemian.
Isn't Witcher 3 the same as this game with a fantasy element? Anyway, I hope there's a sequel. I really liked Mafia II by the same guy, as well.
>>48878
>The night vision potion is the only immersion breaking thing. Unless such a potion actually exists,
i suppose it could. People have known for centuries of drugs that could forcibly dilate the eyes, which could help with night vision. Dunno if anyone ever actually used it that way though.
>The night vision potion is the only immersion breaking thing. Unless such a potion actually exists,
i suppose it could. People have known for centuries of drugs that could forcibly dilate the eyes, which could help with night vision. Dunno if anyone ever actually used it that way though.
File: 1583360561620.jpg (194.67 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, 84729847982.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>48878
I'm the guy who wrote those posts, along with this >>46797 one, and it's good to hear from others who also played it, since, overall, it's actually a great game & definitely one of the most unique open world games/RPGs out there. In retrospect, I gotta say that I was far too harsh on it and that it was more or less my sense of ornery burnout talking. In my case, I basically played it everyday for 3 weeks straight, so it certainly kept my attention and, like yourself, was something that ended up really gripped me, even if certain aspects of it did get on my nerves at times.
>Unless such a potion actually exists, they should force you to do everything by natural light or torch.
Yeah, I liked that as well. Later on however, I started knocking back tons of night vision potions merely for the convenience. I never really used any of the other potions from what I recall though, aside from healing potions, stamina/coffee potions to stay awake & of course save potions. I remember when I was riding my way to Sasau for the first time in the middle of the dark with only a torch lighting my way before I got yanked off my horse & ambushed by bandits and I basically just sprinted like mad into the blackness with my torch while having no idea where the hell I was going. Moments like that were really neat. Like I said, it's a shame there weren't natural predators in the world like wolves or bears to worry about, which would make wandering in the forests after dark especially perilous.
>the only immersion breaking thing.
Enh, I'd say the voice acting could be pretty immersion breaking at times, to be honest. Henry and most of the main characters are fine, but hearing some random NPC with horrible voice acting with a North American accent would often just really take me out of it.
>The developer should have just followed every other developer and made it so the NPCs only care about killing the player, rather than actually trying to win the battle.
Yeah. I think they should've also removed the invulnerability of plot-specific NPCs and had them get temporarily knocked out, or something (ala Elder Scrolls), so that they aren't just unstoppable terminators. The battles just never had any risk insofar as you might lose them, outside of the player actually dying, which kinda sucked. It also would've been cool if there were more pre-planning that went into major battles. Like what formation to take, or how well equipped your soldiers are, which would help to decide their outcome. It's weird because during the lead-up to the battle of Pribyslavitz you're asked to scout it out first and sabotage some enemy supplies before reporting back, but it didn't really seem to affect the proceeding battle all that much. Stuff like that was the right idea though and I wish it actually meant something and was applied across all the major battles in the game.
>I expected him to be a traitor and collaborating with the invader at the start, as he looks like a Cuman rather than a Bohemian.
Yes, I also thought he was going to be revealed as a traitor, since he seemed quite shifty & suspicious. Not to mention the convenience of his story what with being able to flee from Skalitz while it was surrounded by enemy forces had me convinced he was bullshitting and was actually in cahoots with Sigismund.
As far as Henry being revealed to be a nobleman, I guess it just seemed like the sort of thing to eventually have happen in a game like this. Also the fact that Sir Radzig would take you on as his squire for no real reason seemed a bit odd to me and that it'd essentially be impossible for someone who's a low borne peasant to receive such a title, so I had a suspicion that Radzig knew there was something special about Henry. The fact that he was actually his father was still a bit of a surprise for me, though. Another thing which surprised me was how friendly Sir Capon becomes to you after a little while. I assumed he was just going to be some piss ant, stuck-up Joffery-tier nobleman for the whole game, but he actually is more or less just a rowdy fratboy who doesn't really care or hold grudges against anyone. Still annoying in some sense, but not as annoying or predictable as I expected. That drunken priest dude was also kinda like that as well and that whole, "Dude, I totally forgot my sermon cuz I was so shitfaced last night, you gotta cover for me bro!", felt like some medieval version of a 70s fratboy movie like Animal House. To be honest, he was one of the characters I wanted to kill the most, funnily enough.
To be honest, I was way too trusting in this game towards NPCs. Like that one guy who tries to kill the dude who builds the trebuchet you need to go & find near the end of the game. I caught the guy sneaking up to the dude's house and he was all like, "Don't mind me, nothing to see here.", and I was like, "Alright, he seems to be telling the truth, lol.". Then later on, the guy just shows up out of nowhere right in the middle of the siege for Talmberg as all the main NPCs are gathered around the main camp area, before they just all dogpiled on & annihilated him. I basically just had a 'surprised pikachu.jpg' face the whole time and was like, "But he seemed so honest!". Well, it was pretty funny either way, especially since the trebuchet guy refused to talk to me after that and just told me to piss off becuase I was a gullible dumbass. I also got fooled during the side-quest which involved investigating the foreman at the church and I walked right into his attempt to murder me without even realizing it.
It's not often that I play a game that forces you to pay attention and to doubt what other NPCs are telling you. In most RPGs I'm just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me what I need to do and shut up already.", so the fact the NPCs will often lie to you or try to misdirect you was a bit hard to get used to. Also the fact that NPCs will often sound sincere & genuine, even when they're lying to you made something like L.A. Noire & its semi-obvious NPC cues/tells seem like nothing by comparison. Personally, I wished I'd backstabbed more characters during my playthrough. Especially those two idiot "friends" Henry has in particular. I actually wanted to sell their asses out during the quarry heist, but was worried that doing so would screw me out of future quests/story content.
It's also cool how quests can take divergent paths in that game. For instance, I remember how that German guy you need to chase from one of the charcoal camps, can be caught if you mange to stay on his tail & catch up to him. I hit a tree branch and went flying off my horse, so he got away, which then forced me to track him down to the inn he was staying at and confront him there instead. Just the fact that quests are that malleable in an organic way is something more games should replicate.
>Isn't Witcher 3 the same as this game with a fantasy element?
I've never played it, but yeah. I suppose it is. I guess just wish for something like that, but first-person and with combat/atmosphere similar to Kingdom Come.
>Anyway, I hope there's a sequel.
So do I. The game ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, (such as the fact that Henry still hasn't found his father's sword or that you haven't confronted the general who burned down your home yet), so it'd really suck if it never got another installment.
I'm the guy who wrote those posts, along with this >>46797 one, and it's good to hear from others who also played it, since, overall, it's actually a great game & definitely one of the most unique open world games/RPGs out there. In retrospect, I gotta say that I was far too harsh on it and that it was more or less my sense of ornery burnout talking. In my case, I basically played it everyday for 3 weeks straight, so it certainly kept my attention and, like yourself, was something that ended up really gripped me, even if certain aspects of it did get on my nerves at times.
>Unless such a potion actually exists, they should force you to do everything by natural light or torch.
Yeah, I liked that as well. Later on however, I started knocking back tons of night vision potions merely for the convenience. I never really used any of the other potions from what I recall though, aside from healing potions, stamina/coffee potions to stay awake & of course save potions. I remember when I was riding my way to Sasau for the first time in the middle of the dark with only a torch lighting my way before I got yanked off my horse & ambushed by bandits and I basically just sprinted like mad into the blackness with my torch while having no idea where the hell I was going. Moments like that were really neat. Like I said, it's a shame there weren't natural predators in the world like wolves or bears to worry about, which would make wandering in the forests after dark especially perilous.
>the only immersion breaking thing.
Enh, I'd say the voice acting could be pretty immersion breaking at times, to be honest. Henry and most of the main characters are fine, but hearing some random NPC with horrible voice acting with a North American accent would often just really take me out of it.
>The developer should have just followed every other developer and made it so the NPCs only care about killing the player, rather than actually trying to win the battle.
Yeah. I think they should've also removed the invulnerability of plot-specific NPCs and had them get temporarily knocked out, or something (ala Elder Scrolls), so that they aren't just unstoppable terminators. The battles just never had any risk insofar as you might lose them, outside of the player actually dying, which kinda sucked. It also would've been cool if there were more pre-planning that went into major battles. Like what formation to take, or how well equipped your soldiers are, which would help to decide their outcome. It's weird because during the lead-up to the battle of Pribyslavitz you're asked to scout it out first and sabotage some enemy supplies before reporting back, but it didn't really seem to affect the proceeding battle all that much. Stuff like that was the right idea though and I wish it actually meant something and was applied across all the major battles in the game.
>I expected him to be a traitor and collaborating with the invader at the start, as he looks like a Cuman rather than a Bohemian.
Yes, I also thought he was going to be revealed as a traitor, since he seemed quite shifty & suspicious. Not to mention the convenience of his story what with being able to flee from Skalitz while it was surrounded by enemy forces had me convinced he was bullshitting and was actually in cahoots with Sigismund.
As far as Henry being revealed to be a nobleman, I guess it just seemed like the sort of thing to eventually have happen in a game like this. Also the fact that Sir Radzig would take you on as his squire for no real reason seemed a bit odd to me and that it'd essentially be impossible for someone who's a low borne peasant to receive such a title, so I had a suspicion that Radzig knew there was something special about Henry. The fact that he was actually his father was still a bit of a surprise for me, though. Another thing which surprised me was how friendly Sir Capon becomes to you after a little while. I assumed he was just going to be some piss ant, stuck-up Joffery-tier nobleman for the whole game, but he actually is more or less just a rowdy fratboy who doesn't really care or hold grudges against anyone. Still annoying in some sense, but not as annoying or predictable as I expected. That drunken priest dude was also kinda like that as well and that whole, "Dude, I totally forgot my sermon cuz I was so shitfaced last night, you gotta cover for me bro!", felt like some medieval version of a 70s fratboy movie like Animal House. To be honest, he was one of the characters I wanted to kill the most, funnily enough.
To be honest, I was way too trusting in this game towards NPCs. Like that one guy who tries to kill the dude who builds the trebuchet you need to go & find near the end of the game. I caught the guy sneaking up to the dude's house and he was all like, "Don't mind me, nothing to see here.", and I was like, "Alright, he seems to be telling the truth, lol.". Then later on, the guy just shows up out of nowhere right in the middle of the siege for Talmberg as all the main NPCs are gathered around the main camp area, before they just all dogpiled on & annihilated him. I basically just had a 'surprised pikachu.jpg' face the whole time and was like, "But he seemed so honest!". Well, it was pretty funny either way, especially since the trebuchet guy refused to talk to me after that and just told me to piss off becuase I was a gullible dumbass. I also got fooled during the side-quest which involved investigating the foreman at the church and I walked right into his attempt to murder me without even realizing it.
It's not often that I play a game that forces you to pay attention and to doubt what other NPCs are telling you. In most RPGs I'm just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me what I need to do and shut up already.", so the fact the NPCs will often lie to you or try to misdirect you was a bit hard to get used to. Also the fact that NPCs will often sound sincere & genuine, even when they're lying to you made something like L.A. Noire & its semi-obvious NPC cues/tells seem like nothing by comparison. Personally, I wished I'd backstabbed more characters during my playthrough. Especially those two idiot "friends" Henry has in particular. I actually wanted to sell their asses out during the quarry heist, but was worried that doing so would screw me out of future quests/story content.
It's also cool how quests can take divergent paths in that game. For instance, I remember how that German guy you need to chase from one of the charcoal camps, can be caught if you mange to stay on his tail & catch up to him. I hit a tree branch and went flying off my horse, so he got away, which then forced me to track him down to the inn he was staying at and confront him there instead. Just the fact that quests are that malleable in an organic way is something more games should replicate.
>Isn't Witcher 3 the same as this game with a fantasy element?
I've never played it, but yeah. I suppose it is. I guess just wish for something like that, but first-person and with combat/atmosphere similar to Kingdom Come.
>Anyway, I hope there's a sequel.
So do I. The game ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, (such as the fact that Henry still hasn't found his father's sword or that you haven't confronted the general who burned down your home yet), so it'd really suck if it never got another installment.
Is it playable vanilla or is it one of these games that's so broken you have to download and micro-manage a billion mods to get a decent experience?
File: 1583369020300.jpg (412.17 KB, 2568x1449, 856:483, 3671637162381.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>48858
>>46522
That sounds really nice, wiz. I wish me & my brother could do something like that, but he doesn't have the time, or really the interest, to play any video games with me. Certainly not a whole one with the two of us playing it together from start to finish, like you and your brother did. The last occasion I can recall where he and I played a video game together was like 7-8 years ago. I needed his help in this really crappy PSN game called 'Flock', or something like that, since I was trying to get all the trophies for it, but there was a really tough co-op campaign, but it lacked any sort of online mode and was local only. To his credit, my brother stuck with me for the 2-3 hours it took for us to get through it. Afterwards I offered to load up 'Renegade Ops', a much better co-op game, as a sort of palette cleanser, which he'd never played before or heard of. We finished the first stage together and, while he seemed to enjoy it a lot, he was quite tired & just wanted to pack it in for the night. Well, like I said, that was the last time we ever played a game together. It's a shame because it'd of been nice to finish the rest of 'Renegade Ops' with him, or really any other co-op/singleplayer game. My brother, to my knowledge, doesn't play video games anymore and, outside of that one time years ago I just described, he hasn't since we were kids. Even back then he mostly just played MP games though, like CoD 2 or the original Halo. One genre we shared an affinity for was RTS games & city management games. Age of Mythology & the Caesar series are games I can remember us playing together, along with other random stuff like Tony Hawk's Underground. He still watches anime though, so at least we talk about that from time to time. Anytime he visits us he's always busy with his university stuff, or some such other thing he's working on and he never has the time to do anything like you & your brother did. It's kinda depressing, but that's just how it is. It'd just be nice to share the hobby with someone every once in a while and play something together. I have no internet friends/acquaintances, so I basically have no one else.
>>46522
That sounds really nice, wiz. I wish me & my brother could do something like that, but he doesn't have the time, or really the interest, to play any video games with me. Certainly not a whole one with the two of us playing it together from start to finish, like you and your brother did. The last occasion I can recall where he and I played a video game together was like 7-8 years ago. I needed his help in this really crappy PSN game called 'Flock', or something like that, since I was trying to get all the trophies for it, but there was a really tough co-op campaign, but it lacked any sort of online mode and was local only. To his credit, my brother stuck with me for the 2-3 hours it took for us to get through it. Afterwards I offered to load up 'Renegade Ops', a much better co-op game, as a sort of palette cleanser, which he'd never played before or heard of. We finished the first stage together and, while he seemed to enjoy it a lot, he was quite tired & just wanted to pack it in for the night. Well, like I said, that was the last time we ever played a game together. It's a shame because it'd of been nice to finish the rest of 'Renegade Ops' with him, or really any other co-op/singleplayer game. My brother, to my knowledge, doesn't play video games anymore and, outside of that one time years ago I just described, he hasn't since we were kids. Even back then he mostly just played MP games though, like CoD 2 or the original Halo. One genre we shared an affinity for was RTS games & city management games. Age of Mythology & the Caesar series are games I can remember us playing together, along with other random stuff like Tony Hawk's Underground. He still watches anime though, so at least we talk about that from time to time. Anytime he visits us he's always busy with his university stuff, or some such other thing he's working on and he never has the time to do anything like you & your brother did. It's kinda depressing, but that's just how it is. It'd just be nice to share the hobby with someone every once in a while and play something together. I have no internet friends/acquaintances, so I basically have no one else.
>>48887
Kingdom Come? Yes, it's quite playable without any mods. I don't recall playing with any, other than one which optimized the engine & graphical options a bit. I had thought about downloading one which added a crosshair to the bow, but I never got around to it. I'd say that's the extent to which mods are necessary for that game. Simply for tightening or streamlining a few minor things, but that are, again, entirely optional & up to the player's taste depending on what's bothering them.
Kingdom Come? Yes, it's quite playable without any mods. I don't recall playing with any, other than one which optimized the engine & graphical options a bit. I had thought about downloading one which added a crosshair to the bow, but I never got around to it. I'd say that's the extent to which mods are necessary for that game. Simply for tightening or streamlining a few minor things, but that are, again, entirely optional & up to the player's taste depending on what's bothering them.
File: 1583508934791.jpg (14.56 KB, 184x273, 184:273, rodea.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Rodea for Wii was great, it has all the spirit of a sonic adventure game. So fun
File: 1583514530163.jpg (304.11 KB, 764x850, 382:425, Dragons_Dogma_box_art.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen around a month ago, including all DLC and Bitterblack Isle. It's a strange experience with such a vast disparity between the more quality aspects of the game design and the more awful aspects of the game. My main qualm is that there are some elusive mechanics coded into the experience that you basically need the wiki to even hope to maintain any sort of grasp of and even then you may as well keep a tab open regarding said mechanics because you'd need some superhuman memorisation to keep track of them, lest you unintentionally cripple yourself. The beloved mechanic is poorly implemented, with the beloved's affinity decreasing over time for no apparent reason and making them the beloved in the first place is tedious enough with you having to balance the affinity of every other character in tandem with them and ensuring that you max their affinity at the exact right point in the main quest (which you wouldn't be able to deduce without a wiki, again). The inclination system would've been neat had it not been fluid, leading you to have to constantly check your pawn's stats menu to ensure their inclination hasn't once again changed to something undesirable (which it will). Vocations are also a major pain since for you to have the optimal strength for late-game, you almost always need to play up to level 200 in literally every other vocation except the build of preference and by that point you've basically completed the game anyway.
The lore, story and narrative isn't particularly developed and mostly just serves as context to whatever event is currently taking place but it's not a resounding issue because I never really prioritised lore in my playthrough experience anyway. There's also enough of it to provide some general flavour to whatever NPC or locations it's attached to. That said, there are a few instances where I really would appreciate some more context (Frontier Caverns, sky turning a dull green post-game, most of the caves and dungeons you have access to). Exploration is still very engaging though. One of my preferred areas to revisit was the south-west of Gransys, encompassing the Vestad Hills, Verda Woodlands and leading up to the cliffs and bluffs near Bloodwater Beach. Perfect balance of different biomes and aesthetics, variability in enemies, crevices and secrets to discover and it's also sufficiently rewarding for the point you have access to it. Other areas like the Witchwood also had a particularly immersive aesthetic, as it really accentuated that whimsical, magical vibe of a classical interpretation of a fantasy Witch's grove, though without many darker themes (the short melody playing when you enter the location also helps). Most NPCs don't have a plethora of interactions or backstory to flesh them out to the extent of most games in the genre, but they're still sufficiently engaging in the interactions you do have with them and every interaction with them defines their character in different ways.
The only resounding flaw is that the post-game is so infuriatingly repetitive and obnoxious that I dread it every time. Most of the mechanical issues aren't particularly noticeable before defeating Grigori, but they are accentuated tenfold by the time you reach the Everfall and Bitterblack Isle. Grinding galore, relentless spam of reskinned pre-Grigori enemies with buffed stats, constant need to revisit the same locations and run through the entirety of them each time (with the loot being devoid of anything rewarding most of the time due to frustratingly low drop-rates or reliance on luck based "features" like purification) and punishment of certain playstyles and classes because these post-game areas were clearly built around certain classes. It just becomes too linear a game after a certain point. I'd still rate it around 7.5/10 because the world of Gransys and core gameplay is so entertaining.
The lore, story and narrative isn't particularly developed and mostly just serves as context to whatever event is currently taking place but it's not a resounding issue because I never really prioritised lore in my playthrough experience anyway. There's also enough of it to provide some general flavour to whatever NPC or locations it's attached to. That said, there are a few instances where I really would appreciate some more context (Frontier Caverns, sky turning a dull green post-game, most of the caves and dungeons you have access to). Exploration is still very engaging though. One of my preferred areas to revisit was the south-west of Gransys, encompassing the Vestad Hills, Verda Woodlands and leading up to the cliffs and bluffs near Bloodwater Beach. Perfect balance of different biomes and aesthetics, variability in enemies, crevices and secrets to discover and it's also sufficiently rewarding for the point you have access to it. Other areas like the Witchwood also had a particularly immersive aesthetic, as it really accentuated that whimsical, magical vibe of a classical interpretation of a fantasy Witch's grove, though without many darker themes (the short melody playing when you enter the location also helps). Most NPCs don't have a plethora of interactions or backstory to flesh them out to the extent of most games in the genre, but they're still sufficiently engaging in the interactions you do have with them and every interaction with them defines their character in different ways.
The only resounding flaw is that the post-game is so infuriatingly repetitive and obnoxious that I dread it every time. Most of the mechanical issues aren't particularly noticeable before defeating Grigori, but they are accentuated tenfold by the time you reach the Everfall and Bitterblack Isle. Grinding galore, relentless spam of reskinned pre-Grigori enemies with buffed stats, constant need to revisit the same locations and run through the entirety of them each time (with the loot being devoid of anything rewarding most of the time due to frustratingly low drop-rates or reliance on luck based "features" like purification) and punishment of certain playstyles and classes because these post-game areas were clearly built around certain classes. It just becomes too linear a game after a certain point. I'd still rate it around 7.5/10 because the world of Gransys and core gameplay is so entertaining.
>>48899
I can recall really enjoying Dark Arisen the first time I played it on PS3, but a little while ago I tried to replay it again on PC, but I just couldn't really enjoy it as much, or really at all. Traveling was fucking tedious as hell and having to run everywhere just got on my nerves a lot. I also hated the dumb as shit vocation system and, like you said, having to play other classes to optimize the class you actually want to play as (like playing as an assassin being the best option for maxing strength so you can eventually play as a warrior, as an example) just really pissed me off and made me despise the whole thing, since by the time you get that far you're already done with the game anyway. The quests/story/characters were also all laughably terrible and appeared as if they had been all slapped together in a single afternoon. I also hated all the junk loot & the lame crafting system. I disliked the pawn system immensely & I hated how useless they are and that they're so suicidally retarded all the time. Even when I got to BBI, all the mechanics there just pissed me off too, like cursed items that need to be purified & shit like that. I just wanted the game to be fun like I remembered it, but it just got on my nerves & was either supremely boring at best, or downright annoying at worst.
I also strongly disagree with you that the world was fun to explore, or that it really had anything unique or interesting in it. Maybe it's because I played it before, but so much of the world is dull, lifeless, or uninteresting. It's so damn small, but at the same time also annoyingly large enough to be a chore to navigate. There's also nothing in the world that isn't really generic or otherwise forgettable, aside from the enchanted Berserk-esque woods where the witch's apprentice is. Funny how a lot of Dark Arisen just apes Berserk in terms of its tone & visual style. It's no surprise it had promotional ties to the Golden Age arc movies that came out around that time. Even that brown skinned knight lady sorta looks like Casca & Garnsys/Gran Soren may as well be Midland/Wyndham castle, the princess is basically just Charlotte, the little loli who's an apprentice of a witch gives Schierke vibes (etc.). All the other characters can barely even be described as characters, since they're essentially just empty NPCs with names and that's it. There's the ditzy merchant lady & the evil captain with Griffith hair, that's about all that stands out for their characterization and really stood as a testament to how little effort went into to the story/lore/characters.
Setting up port crystals helps to alleviate the tedium of navigation, but unless you set up a bunch of them in the right places, you still need to deal with how much of a pain in the ass it is to get somewhere. I really wish they'd just given the player a fucking horse, or something. There just aren't enough enemies/meaningful secrets in the game world to make navigating worthwhile or interesting. Fucking every chest just has a RNG junk loot in it anyway, which makes them about as exciting as smashing a pot to get a small pouch of gold. So, in other words, not at all, basically.
Again, the way the main quest is structured is so painfully, excruciatingly dull & boring. Being given list after list of a bunch of boring bitch tasks to go and complete was just aggravating to the extreme. It really, really comes off like an MMO that's been contorted & dislocated to appear as a normal game when it's just a crappy MMO badly masquerading as & badly wearing the skin of a solo RPG. It's just that how could they have thought that any of it was good enough, when it's so blazingly awful? Generic fetch quests to pad out your main campaign and for that to literally be the main focus? Seriously? What the fuck, did they run out of money/time or something? Funny that an MMO is exactly what its "sequel" was. And, again, it's basically what they wanted even the original game to be anyway, it seems.
You know what would've made this game cool? Just make it a modern 3D version of an old retro game. Think the side scrolling Dungeons & Dragons games or Magic Sword, except 3D. Again, BBI was a semi-good realization of this. Just make it all about the combat & the loot and cut out all the other bullshit completely. In my eyes, that would've been great and would've made this game way more fun & enjoyable had it focused on its sole strength, which is its combat system. Remove the vocation shit, the lame open world, and just have a really tight & well designed hub areas to explore, or even just a series of handcrafted levels. Not saying they're perfect, but Platinum Games could've done Dragon's Dogmas a lot more justice, since they would've had the sense to follow this particular approach I feel.
I can recall really enjoying Dark Arisen the first time I played it on PS3, but a little while ago I tried to replay it again on PC, but I just couldn't really enjoy it as much, or really at all. Traveling was fucking tedious as hell and having to run everywhere just got on my nerves a lot. I also hated the dumb as shit vocation system and, like you said, having to play other classes to optimize the class you actually want to play as (like playing as an assassin being the best option for maxing strength so you can eventually play as a warrior, as an example) just really pissed me off and made me despise the whole thing, since by the time you get that far you're already done with the game anyway. The quests/story/characters were also all laughably terrible and appeared as if they had been all slapped together in a single afternoon. I also hated all the junk loot & the lame crafting system. I disliked the pawn system immensely & I hated how useless they are and that they're so suicidally retarded all the time. Even when I got to BBI, all the mechanics there just pissed me off too, like cursed items that need to be purified & shit like that. I just wanted the game to be fun like I remembered it, but it just got on my nerves & was either supremely boring at best, or downright annoying at worst.
I also strongly disagree with you that the world was fun to explore, or that it really had anything unique or interesting in it. Maybe it's because I played it before, but so much of the world is dull, lifeless, or uninteresting. It's so damn small, but at the same time also annoyingly large enough to be a chore to navigate. There's also nothing in the world that isn't really generic or otherwise forgettable, aside from the enchanted Berserk-esque woods where the witch's apprentice is. Funny how a lot of Dark Arisen just apes Berserk in terms of its tone & visual style. It's no surprise it had promotional ties to the Golden Age arc movies that came out around that time. Even that brown skinned knight lady sorta looks like Casca & Garnsys/Gran Soren may as well be Midland/Wyndham castle, the princess is basically just Charlotte, the little loli who's an apprentice of a witch gives Schierke vibes (etc.). All the other characters can barely even be described as characters, since they're essentially just empty NPCs with names and that's it. There's the ditzy merchant lady & the evil captain with Griffith hair, that's about all that stands out for their characterization and really stood as a testament to how little effort went into to the story/lore/characters.
Setting up port crystals helps to alleviate the tedium of navigation, but unless you set up a bunch of them in the right places, you still need to deal with how much of a pain in the ass it is to get somewhere. I really wish they'd just given the player a fucking horse, or something. There just aren't enough enemies/meaningful secrets in the game world to make navigating worthwhile or interesting. Fucking every chest just has a RNG junk loot in it anyway, which makes them about as exciting as smashing a pot to get a small pouch of gold. So, in other words, not at all, basically.
Again, the way the main quest is structured is so painfully, excruciatingly dull & boring. Being given list after list of a bunch of boring bitch tasks to go and complete was just aggravating to the extreme. It really, really comes off like an MMO that's been contorted & dislocated to appear as a normal game when it's just a crappy MMO badly masquerading as & badly wearing the skin of a solo RPG. It's just that how could they have thought that any of it was good enough, when it's so blazingly awful? Generic fetch quests to pad out your main campaign and for that to literally be the main focus? Seriously? What the fuck, did they run out of money/time or something? Funny that an MMO is exactly what its "sequel" was. And, again, it's basically what they wanted even the original game to be anyway, it seems.
You know what would've made this game cool? Just make it a modern 3D version of an old retro game. Think the side scrolling Dungeons & Dragons games or Magic Sword, except 3D. Again, BBI was a semi-good realization of this. Just make it all about the combat & the loot and cut out all the other bullshit completely. In my eyes, that would've been great and would've made this game way more fun & enjoyable had it focused on its sole strength, which is its combat system. Remove the vocation shit, the lame open world, and just have a really tight & well designed hub areas to explore, or even just a series of handcrafted levels. Not saying they're perfect, but Platinum Games could've done Dragon's Dogmas a lot more justice, since they would've had the sense to follow this particular approach I feel.
>>48823
Have you played Graces F? story and characters are trash (even by tales standards) but the gameplay was pretty good.
Have you played Graces F? story and characters are trash (even by tales standards) but the gameplay was pretty good.
File: 1583734524703-0.jpg (76.72 KB, 800x788, 200:197, Hexen2JewelFront.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1583734524703-1.png (82.27 KB, 254x396, 127:198, 472987498274.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1583734524703-2.jpg (179.83 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, 74837489372.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Enjoyed this one. Turned out to be a pretty great sequel to the original HeXen. Between the two I'd say I actually preferred HeXen II overall, but the original is still good too. The expansion was good as well and the introduction of a new character was a pleasant addition. Even if it's a literal demonic succubus. Surprisingly fun to play as, though. Having a purely ranged character is quite nice, just like the mage/wizard was in the original HeXen, and it kinda bothered me that the necromancer wasn't pure ranged since his starting weapon is just a melee weapon, like the other 3 default classes.
It makes me sad there's no modding community for this game, since it'd be nice to check out some user maps/campaigns, or something, but there are none. Weird. I had thought that HeXen II would've at least had something after all these years mod-wise, but apparently not. Like I said, it's just quite disappointing & sad, since it'd make for a good game to mod, assuming the interest was there and it seems quite bizarre to me that it never garnered that sort of attention when the original HeXen, or even Quakes, did.
As a random aside I had a bit of a depressed chuckle reading the biography for the necromancer class. An ostracized wizard taken to the path of the bitter warlock. Poor wizzy.
>The Necromancer spent his early years in a small village of Thysis, huddled in the shadow of a monolithic pyramid. His people were lean and wiry, but the Necromancer was thinner and weaker than most. He lived in a great, cavernous house with only his aunt to mind him, his parents having died in a plague not long after his birth.
>An unattractive appearance and the lack of a family conspired against the Necromancer, robbing him of confidence and making him morbidly self-conscious. His days and nights were spent inside his aunt’s decaying mansion, and very rarely did he emerge. He longed for a power — any power — that would increase his stature in village society. He wished to be handsome, or strong, or wealthy, or clever in conversation. But as time wore on, and he grew from a lad to a young man, it became clear that he possessed none of these skills.
>Bitter and alone, the Necromancer’s desire for acceptance slowly withered into hatred. He no longer wished to impress the villagers, but rather, to frighten and punish them. His thoughts turned to the ancient pyramid that overshadowed the village. For the villagers, this monument was an object of superstitious dread. Seeking to partake of that power and dread, the young Necromancer entered the pyramid.
>Within, he found what he sought: a set of ten crumbling papyrus scrolls, each inked with runes of great power. Through study and diligence he learned the magic scribed therein, and soon began to terrorize the village with legions of undead servitors.
>But the coming of Eidolon quickly ended his reign of terror. No longer was the Necromancer dreaded by the villagers; Eidolon and his minions were now the focus of their dread. The Necromancer, it seemed, was no longer all-powerful.
>Bitter and enraged by the helplessness welling up from within, the Necromancer came to a desperate conclusion. Eidolon must not be allowed to steal his precious power. Eidolon must be destroyed!
It makes me sad there's no modding community for this game, since it'd be nice to check out some user maps/campaigns, or something, but there are none. Weird. I had thought that HeXen II would've at least had something after all these years mod-wise, but apparently not. Like I said, it's just quite disappointing & sad, since it'd make for a good game to mod, assuming the interest was there and it seems quite bizarre to me that it never garnered that sort of attention when the original HeXen, or even Quakes, did.
As a random aside I had a bit of a depressed chuckle reading the biography for the necromancer class. An ostracized wizard taken to the path of the bitter warlock. Poor wizzy.
>The Necromancer spent his early years in a small village of Thysis, huddled in the shadow of a monolithic pyramid. His people were lean and wiry, but the Necromancer was thinner and weaker than most. He lived in a great, cavernous house with only his aunt to mind him, his parents having died in a plague not long after his birth.
>An unattractive appearance and the lack of a family conspired against the Necromancer, robbing him of confidence and making him morbidly self-conscious. His days and nights were spent inside his aunt’s decaying mansion, and very rarely did he emerge. He longed for a power — any power — that would increase his stature in village society. He wished to be handsome, or strong, or wealthy, or clever in conversation. But as time wore on, and he grew from a lad to a young man, it became clear that he possessed none of these skills.
>Bitter and alone, the Necromancer’s desire for acceptance slowly withered into hatred. He no longer wished to impress the villagers, but rather, to frighten and punish them. His thoughts turned to the ancient pyramid that overshadowed the village. For the villagers, this monument was an object of superstitious dread. Seeking to partake of that power and dread, the young Necromancer entered the pyramid.
>Within, he found what he sought: a set of ten crumbling papyrus scrolls, each inked with runes of great power. Through study and diligence he learned the magic scribed therein, and soon began to terrorize the village with legions of undead servitors.
>But the coming of Eidolon quickly ended his reign of terror. No longer was the Necromancer dreaded by the villagers; Eidolon and his minions were now the focus of their dread. The Necromancer, it seemed, was no longer all-powerful.
>Bitter and enraged by the helplessness welling up from within, the Necromancer came to a desperate conclusion. Eidolon must not be allowed to steal his precious power. Eidolon must be destroyed!
File: 1584166034729-0.jpg (59.27 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, 20200313.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1584166034729-1.jpg (117.67 KB, 850x727, 850:727, 20200314.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>48913
Embrace your inner demon
Embrace your inner demon
Finally beat GTA5.
Overall it is a great game, but man are there a lot of boring bullshit time wasting missions you have to go through just to get to the super fun parts.
Really that is the only thing holding it back from perfection in my eyes. Boring filler missions that keep you from the good stuff and have no business being in the game.
Everything else is great.
4/5, would highly recommend to anyone who has a lot of free time on their hands.
Overall it is a great game, but man are there a lot of boring bullshit time wasting missions you have to go through just to get to the super fun parts.
Really that is the only thing holding it back from perfection in my eyes. Boring filler missions that keep you from the good stuff and have no business being in the game.
Everything else is great.
4/5, would highly recommend to anyone who has a lot of free time on their hands.
>>48986
>2nd one is pure shit.
So I heard. A shame, I guess, but to be expected. Although I didn't mind the first one, it was indeed quite tedious after a while. Kinda glad the 2nd one turned out so bad, since maybe that will force Ubisoft to re-evaluate the series and try something else. Wildlands was OK, but was still mostly an anomaly for me, always teetering on the edge of becoming a horrendously dull slog, but remaining just engaging enough to keep me going to the end. In the end, it was very unlikely that they would manage to improve, or even pull off the same thing, for a sequel. I haven't played an Ass Creed game in years, since I got quite tired of those games as well & Ubisoft's open-world games in general.
>2nd one is pure shit.
So I heard. A shame, I guess, but to be expected. Although I didn't mind the first one, it was indeed quite tedious after a while. Kinda glad the 2nd one turned out so bad, since maybe that will force Ubisoft to re-evaluate the series and try something else. Wildlands was OK, but was still mostly an anomaly for me, always teetering on the edge of becoming a horrendously dull slog, but remaining just engaging enough to keep me going to the end. In the end, it was very unlikely that they would manage to improve, or even pull off the same thing, for a sequel. I haven't played an Ass Creed game in years, since I got quite tired of those games as well & Ubisoft's open-world games in general.
Finally good ending in Touhou EoSD, feels great. touhou music is even better when you are playing it
File: 1584822896633.jpg (178.97 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, dsIII.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
That's it, I finished it. 102 hours in, I reached the ending of Dark Souls 3. I feel so conflicted about it. It's been years since I've put so many hours into a game and for the past two I barely touched any games at all. Dark Souls 3 feels like a huge event in my life right now. For the past 16 days I played it every free moment I had. I would wake up thinking about it, I would imagine myself talking with the characters while I was having my meals, I was making assumptions about the plot before going to sleep and while I was in the shower. I probably walked every single inch of the game, I'm finally checking the wikis for the locations and NPCs and I've seen everyone and everywhere. It's odd. I feel guilty as fuck for having put so much time into this. It feels like I shouldn't have done it and the feeling is very intense now that the game is over. Now that DK world is done there's nothing. It's strange to be coming back to reality, the mind really takes some time to adjust.
Anyway about the game. It's Dark Souls again. I really wasn't enjoying it the first 20 hours of it, I seriously consider giving up because everything felt like the exact same thing I had done in the previous games. By the time I got to the catacombs though, everything changed and I began to get immersed big time. I really like how DK's universe look. The tombs, the buildings, the long stairs, the mountains at a distance, the sound gates make when you open them, the sound of steps on wood, the rusty levers, the ruins and statues and paintings and everything else. I like how everyone has little idea of what the hell is going on and yet everyone seems bound by these weird grand events we can't escape from. Everyone has this sense of an impending doom coming soon but at the same time it's so vague and even people that should know what the hell is going on the lords of Cinder, the Fire Keeper seem to be relying on shaky legends to understand what is going on with the world, rather than actually understanding what's going on. The characters have goals but at the same time they feel a bit lost. Everyone is looking for something and many times what they're looking for is long gone or is not what they think it is.
I loved the items and the descriptions. You can piece a lot of the background of these characters by reading items descriptions. This is not new I know but it's done so well here. I like the obsession this game has with rings. When I played the previous games I didn't quite noticed this because I was playing as deprived with clubs and swords, but playing as a pure mage with absent vitality really made me an expert on DS rings.
Exploration is very, very rewarding. There's always a passage somewhere, a view, an item or generally something interesting to see for those who look around. You can finish this game and lose more than half of its content, it's pretty cool.
Another thing, you find many characters in prisons and they all seem so calm and accepting of their cloistered fate. This is very personal but it felt really inspiring to me every time that happened. You're in a dark dungeon somewhere, a place completely forgotten by everything and everyone, long abandoned and you take a turn and through a long tunnel there's some guy sitting inside a cell dozing off or lost in thought. It really hits me for some reason. Every time I felt tempted not to bother (but of course, wanting to do everything the game had to offer, I always found the key and freed them anyway). Or instead you find a guy who found for himself a nice tucked away corner inside a ruin and cloistered himself in there with a bunch of books. Downstairs there are roaming undead and the guy doesn't even give a shit. This game is filled with little moments like this.
Anyway, I had a really hard time with the bosses. A couple of them took me 10 hours to finally beat them. Good thing I'm a pacient individual. I really don't care about getting good but when your build has low HP and DEX, you WILL memorize those movesets, believe me. The bosses were my least favorite part but some of them are pretty fun and the character designs are usually interesting enough.
Oh well. So many good moments I spent playing this and now it's over. The thought I should have done something "productive" instead with this 100 hours is really making me depressed though, fuck.
>>48995
I just wanted to let you know I read your post, wiz. But yeah, it did leave a strong impression on me. BIf you want a TLDR version of why I liked DSIII, the thing I will always remember about this game is how all characters feel so damn solitary. Not lonely, but really, they feel so isolated in their concerns and literally isolated as well. And yet they all have this amor fati and even some inspiring sort of humor about it. It's really hard to describe and it's possible I'm projecting a good deal and seeing more than it's there, but that's the best thing about the game for me. The mood of it. It spoke to me. I had really vivid dreams after playing through the catacombs and Irithyll dungeon. I guess the imagery of it all hits my unconscious or whatever. But again, this is the first time I actually sat down to carefully play a video game in years. I really doubt any game would give this impression back in 2014 when I was binge playing shit 24/7 to forget my shitty life at the time. I guess moderation really ads to the experience after all.
Anyway about the game. It's Dark Souls again. I really wasn't enjoying it the first 20 hours of it, I seriously consider giving up because everything felt like the exact same thing I had done in the previous games. By the time I got to the catacombs though, everything changed and I began to get immersed big time. I really like how DK's universe look. The tombs, the buildings, the long stairs, the mountains at a distance, the sound gates make when you open them, the sound of steps on wood, the rusty levers, the ruins and statues and paintings and everything else. I like how everyone has little idea of what the hell is going on and yet everyone seems bound by these weird grand events we can't escape from. Everyone has this sense of an impending doom coming soon but at the same time it's so vague and even people that should know what the hell is going on the lords of Cinder, the Fire Keeper seem to be relying on shaky legends to understand what is going on with the world, rather than actually understanding what's going on. The characters have goals but at the same time they feel a bit lost. Everyone is looking for something and many times what they're looking for is long gone or is not what they think it is.
I loved the items and the descriptions. You can piece a lot of the background of these characters by reading items descriptions. This is not new I know but it's done so well here. I like the obsession this game has with rings. When I played the previous games I didn't quite noticed this because I was playing as deprived with clubs and swords, but playing as a pure mage with absent vitality really made me an expert on DS rings.
Exploration is very, very rewarding. There's always a passage somewhere, a view, an item or generally something interesting to see for those who look around. You can finish this game and lose more than half of its content, it's pretty cool.
Another thing, you find many characters in prisons and they all seem so calm and accepting of their cloistered fate. This is very personal but it felt really inspiring to me every time that happened. You're in a dark dungeon somewhere, a place completely forgotten by everything and everyone, long abandoned and you take a turn and through a long tunnel there's some guy sitting inside a cell dozing off or lost in thought. It really hits me for some reason. Every time I felt tempted not to bother (but of course, wanting to do everything the game had to offer, I always found the key and freed them anyway). Or instead you find a guy who found for himself a nice tucked away corner inside a ruin and cloistered himself in there with a bunch of books. Downstairs there are roaming undead and the guy doesn't even give a shit. This game is filled with little moments like this.
Anyway, I had a really hard time with the bosses. A couple of them took me 10 hours to finally beat them. Good thing I'm a pacient individual. I really don't care about getting good but when your build has low HP and DEX, you WILL memorize those movesets, believe me. The bosses were my least favorite part but some of them are pretty fun and the character designs are usually interesting enough.
Oh well. So many good moments I spent playing this and now it's over. The thought I should have done something "productive" instead with this 100 hours is really making me depressed though, fuck.
>>48995
I just wanted to let you know I read your post, wiz. But yeah, it did leave a strong impression on me. BIf you want a TLDR version of why I liked DSIII, the thing I will always remember about this game is how all characters feel so damn solitary. Not lonely, but really, they feel so isolated in their concerns and literally isolated as well. And yet they all have this amor fati and even some inspiring sort of humor about it. It's really hard to describe and it's possible I'm projecting a good deal and seeing more than it's there, but that's the best thing about the game for me. The mood of it. It spoke to me. I had really vivid dreams after playing through the catacombs and Irithyll dungeon. I guess the imagery of it all hits my unconscious or whatever. But again, this is the first time I actually sat down to carefully play a video game in years. I really doubt any game would give this impression back in 2014 when I was binge playing shit 24/7 to forget my shitty life at the time. I guess moderation really ads to the experience after all.
File: 1584857056233.jpg (56.24 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, maxresdefault.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Surprisingly decent, actually.
Gameplay is snappy & on point, although the way enemies will constantly respawn can make combat feel somewhat tedious after a while. Telekinesis can feel a bit too overpowered at times as well, since often you can simply hang back & lob projectile after projectile which, when fully upgraded, usually leads to a one hit kill on most enemies. Telekinesis also works as such that you can always throw something at an enemy, since your character will literally just pull chunks out of the floor or walls to use as something to throw if nothing else is nearby. The other abilities were mostly more situational, or more navigation oriented. Levitation is cool and is what I'd consider to be the next most useful when compared to telekinesis, or your generic dash/air dash ability. I almost never used the telekinetic shield or mind control abilities since, being that they're more defensive abilities, I just never needed to use them.
I'll also say that I'm not a huge fan of the whole, "one weapon only, but it can modulate into others", type thing you sometimes see in shooters. Republic Commando is pretty much the only game that pulled that sort of thing off well, but, even then, you still had a couple other weapons you could switch to. Doesn't help that only 2 of the configurations of your main weapon are actually useful. That being the default pistol configuration & the high damaging sniper/magnum configuration. The fact that you can't switch between all the configurations on the fly just seemed like a bad design decision to me. Only two configurations are accessible at any given time. To swap one with another you have to access the menu and manually swap them there which, as you might imagine, is extremely tedious, so instead I just stuck with the two that were the most useful. Never even bothered trying out the grenade launcher configuration, since I could annihilate everything with either telekinesis, or just the two weapon configurations I mentioned previously.
One last thing in regards to the gameplay is that it's a joy to see a game with an actual physics system again. The environments could've been more destructible, but, even so, Remedy really did a great job with this sort of thing here, I must say. Overall the graphics are actually quite good, although the facial animations could've been a bit better.
Another thing I liked in this game is the exploration & the freedom of movement. Yes, the environments can be quite stale & clinical for the most part, but it's fun to backtrack & find random secrets & such once you have the appropriator ability to do so. This game is a bit "metroidvania" in that sense and, I don't know, personally I always tend to like that sort of thing in games. I'll say that the initial gameplay loop of, "fight a bunch of enemies, then seize the fast travel point", can be quite tiresome. Once it opens up a bit more later on however and you have more places to go & things to do, that sort of thing becomes less of an issue.
I'd say another thing which surprised me about this game was the quality of the side content & the optional bosses you can fight. The boss fights, to their credit, are actually quite well done & varied for a shooter like this. Next to the boss fights I'd actually say the favorite part of this game for me were the, side quests related to containing & defeating the various SCP-like objects scattered throughout the facility. Each one has a bit of their own small gimmick when it comes to cleansing/containing them, which was neat & allowed a nice sense of variety. I kinda wish the whole game had just been that, to be honest.
As far as the story/characters are covered, they could've been better, but it's not abysmal or anything. Jesse, (the main character), can somewhat grate on the nerves after a while, but it's still not too bad. I actually had no idea going in that this game, was going to be so heavily inspired by the SCP foundation. Literally the entire thing is based around you wandering around an SCP-like facility that's suffering a catastrophic containment breach. If anything, I actually quite enjoyed Remedy's take on this sort of thing and would even go so far as to say it's quite a but superior to SCP in a lot of ways. The fact that the facility itself is an anomalous object and is modeled off of the space that's described in "House of Leaves", was also pretty cool.
As far as the story, it has a weird sentimentality to it which feels very similar to something you'd see in a Stephen King novel. The whole driving backstory of the main character & the brother she's looking to find, felt extremely "It"-like, to be honest. Overall the story was kinda predictable & tedious, not to mention a bit confusing. Hedron or Polaris, or whatever the fuck its name is, is something I'm still somewhat confused over, as an example. The lack of a final boss fight was also kinda disappointing, to be honest. I assumed there'd be a final confrontation with the brother character, but nope. Just kill a bunch of random enemies and that's it. Pretty lame, to be honest.
One other small thing I liked was how the events of Alan Wake are incorporated & touched on, although only in random hidden documents & areas. I actually thought the gameplay of Alan Wake was quite dull & slow and very un-Remedy like for the most part, but it'd still be interesting to see a sequel to it someday. It was also nice hearing the guy who voiced Max Payne lend his voice to this game, as the enigmatic former director of the facility. I found it funny that pretty much everything he says is exactly the sort thing you'd expect to hear in a Max Payne game, in regards to how Max always talks in noir metaphors all the time and stuff like that.
Well, like I said, I was pleasantly surprised by this game. I'd imagine it got some pretty bad flak for being an Epic Games store exclusive and all that, which is a shame since it's actually a pretty decent game and it's certainly some of the best stuff Remedy has done since Max Payne. Apparently Remedy is currently working on some major DLC for it and I'm looking forward to see how that turns out.
One other aside, but the little show Remedy are known for putting in their games are always something I've enjoyed. The little show they did for this game was was just great & fantastically creepy. Definitely something I felt like was missing from their past game, Quantum Break. Speaking of, another thing they did much better this time was the live action stuff. The live action video recordings you sometimes find playing in the environment here are done quite well and the guy who plays the main scientist (Darling, I think his name was) does a really great job selling the world & adding to the atmosphere.
Gameplay is snappy & on point, although the way enemies will constantly respawn can make combat feel somewhat tedious after a while. Telekinesis can feel a bit too overpowered at times as well, since often you can simply hang back & lob projectile after projectile which, when fully upgraded, usually leads to a one hit kill on most enemies. Telekinesis also works as such that you can always throw something at an enemy, since your character will literally just pull chunks out of the floor or walls to use as something to throw if nothing else is nearby. The other abilities were mostly more situational, or more navigation oriented. Levitation is cool and is what I'd consider to be the next most useful when compared to telekinesis, or your generic dash/air dash ability. I almost never used the telekinetic shield or mind control abilities since, being that they're more defensive abilities, I just never needed to use them.
I'll also say that I'm not a huge fan of the whole, "one weapon only, but it can modulate into others", type thing you sometimes see in shooters. Republic Commando is pretty much the only game that pulled that sort of thing off well, but, even then, you still had a couple other weapons you could switch to. Doesn't help that only 2 of the configurations of your main weapon are actually useful. That being the default pistol configuration & the high damaging sniper/magnum configuration. The fact that you can't switch between all the configurations on the fly just seemed like a bad design decision to me. Only two configurations are accessible at any given time. To swap one with another you have to access the menu and manually swap them there which, as you might imagine, is extremely tedious, so instead I just stuck with the two that were the most useful. Never even bothered trying out the grenade launcher configuration, since I could annihilate everything with either telekinesis, or just the two weapon configurations I mentioned previously.
One last thing in regards to the gameplay is that it's a joy to see a game with an actual physics system again. The environments could've been more destructible, but, even so, Remedy really did a great job with this sort of thing here, I must say. Overall the graphics are actually quite good, although the facial animations could've been a bit better.
Another thing I liked in this game is the exploration & the freedom of movement. Yes, the environments can be quite stale & clinical for the most part, but it's fun to backtrack & find random secrets & such once you have the appropriator ability to do so. This game is a bit "metroidvania" in that sense and, I don't know, personally I always tend to like that sort of thing in games. I'll say that the initial gameplay loop of, "fight a bunch of enemies, then seize the fast travel point", can be quite tiresome. Once it opens up a bit more later on however and you have more places to go & things to do, that sort of thing becomes less of an issue.
I'd say another thing which surprised me about this game was the quality of the side content & the optional bosses you can fight. The boss fights, to their credit, are actually quite well done & varied for a shooter like this. Next to the boss fights I'd actually say the favorite part of this game for me were the, side quests related to containing & defeating the various SCP-like objects scattered throughout the facility. Each one has a bit of their own small gimmick when it comes to cleansing/containing them, which was neat & allowed a nice sense of variety. I kinda wish the whole game had just been that, to be honest.
As far as the story/characters are covered, they could've been better, but it's not abysmal or anything. Jesse, (the main character), can somewhat grate on the nerves after a while, but it's still not too bad. I actually had no idea going in that this game, was going to be so heavily inspired by the SCP foundation. Literally the entire thing is based around you wandering around an SCP-like facility that's suffering a catastrophic containment breach. If anything, I actually quite enjoyed Remedy's take on this sort of thing and would even go so far as to say it's quite a but superior to SCP in a lot of ways. The fact that the facility itself is an anomalous object and is modeled off of the space that's described in "House of Leaves", was also pretty cool.
As far as the story, it has a weird sentimentality to it which feels very similar to something you'd see in a Stephen King novel. The whole driving backstory of the main character & the brother she's looking to find, felt extremely "It"-like, to be honest. Overall the story was kinda predictable & tedious, not to mention a bit confusing. Hedron or Polaris, or whatever the fuck its name is, is something I'm still somewhat confused over, as an example. The lack of a final boss fight was also kinda disappointing, to be honest. I assumed there'd be a final confrontation with the brother character, but nope. Just kill a bunch of random enemies and that's it. Pretty lame, to be honest.
One other small thing I liked was how the events of Alan Wake are incorporated & touched on, although only in random hidden documents & areas. I actually thought the gameplay of Alan Wake was quite dull & slow and very un-Remedy like for the most part, but it'd still be interesting to see a sequel to it someday. It was also nice hearing the guy who voiced Max Payne lend his voice to this game, as the enigmatic former director of the facility. I found it funny that pretty much everything he says is exactly the sort thing you'd expect to hear in a Max Payne game, in regards to how Max always talks in noir metaphors all the time and stuff like that.
Well, like I said, I was pleasantly surprised by this game. I'd imagine it got some pretty bad flak for being an Epic Games store exclusive and all that, which is a shame since it's actually a pretty decent game and it's certainly some of the best stuff Remedy has done since Max Payne. Apparently Remedy is currently working on some major DLC for it and I'm looking forward to see how that turns out.
One other aside, but the little show Remedy are known for putting in their games are always something I've enjoyed. The little show they did for this game was was just great & fantastically creepy. Definitely something I felt like was missing from their past game, Quantum Break. Speaking of, another thing they did much better this time was the live action stuff. The live action video recordings you sometimes find playing in the environment here are done quite well and the guy who plays the main scientist (Darling, I think his name was) does a really great job selling the world & adding to the atmosphere.
Decided to emulate & play through the entire Syphon Filter trilogy for PS1 just recently. I'd say it's actually one of the few games that stands out for me from my childhood, at least from what I can still recollect from that time. For instance, I remember playing the opening level from Syphon Filter 1 as a little kid and being too stupid to know what the hell I was supposed to do. Pretty much all I did was just run around & used the rather wacky taser this game has to just set guys on fire. I think the furthest I ever got as a kid was the park area, just before the first boss with that flamethrower guy which, itself, was actually a pretty neat stealth based boss fight, especially for a game of that time.
Well, it was certainly weird going through the entire thing now, after all these years. Certain things gave me some nostalgic tingles, like the sound of the text & how characters will kneel on the ground as the camera pans around them when receiving additional information. Overall though, I'd say the entire series was kinda dull & tedious. Pretty much all three of the games are the exact same gameplay-wise, with only slight differences between them, and those are mostly in regards to the graphics/presentation.
The story in particular was just super convoluted & dumb. The third game especially mostly just felt like excessive padding, since it seemed like the developers didn't know what else to do at that point. Literally the entirety of the third game is just spent playing unrelated flashback missions that have little to nothing to do with the main plot. The fact that the main characters are supposed to be wanted fugitives/terrorists, but are called in for a formal senate hearing where they recount random past missions in this almost weird attempt at courtroom drama just felt super frigging weird. Again, the fact that the actual relevance of these missions amounts to something like, "So, there I was eating my grand slam at Denny's when all of the sudden I was ambushed by a squad of heavily armed soldiers. Well, I'd need to react fast if I was going to survive.", (proceed to mission), just made the whole thing kinda ridiculous. Only at the very end does the game suddenly remember the plot from the past 2 games and it just culminates in a rather unsatisfying & rushed last couple levels. I mean, the fact that your characters are screwing around and running ops against disrupting Syphon Filter, in-between being grilled in this senate hearing crap, just felt as if they were taking turns skipping detention, or something.
The stealth mechanics in this series are also quite primitive and a lot of what takes place in these games is very trial & error and can be quite frustrating to deal with. Movement is stiff and the first person aiming is extremely clunky, but being able to lean around corners while doing so was at least kinda nice. Even compared to other games of the time, (like Tecnhu or MGS), Syphon Filter feels pretty half-baked when it comes to its stealth mechanics. You get a radar of sorts, but it's mostly pretty useless. The stealth sections, like the rest of the game, are highly linear & rigid. As in, you proceed until a guard turns a corner & notices you, the alarm instantly goes off, you retry, you now have foreknowledge of that guard being there so you take him out, you proceed further only for the same thing to happen until you can map out & perfect the entire stealth section. Most of the stealth sections are highly punishing in the sense that if you're seen you immediately fail the mission and are sent back to the nearest checkpoint, which just sucks. It's pretty much the sort of thing everybody hates about forced stealth sections in games.
Outside of that however, most of the game is pretty much just pure action & shooting. Again, with often highly rigid enemy placement & set pieces which can be pretty annoying to deal with. One thing I actually thought was cool about this series was how the boss fights are designed, in the sense that they're all almost like puzzles. Instead of them being health sponges, or whatever, you need to find the correct way to dispatch them for an instant kill, (like using a gas grenade to take out the final boss fight in the first game, or knocking that one guy into the helicopter blades in the second game, or taking out that one lady from the roof of the train car in the third game with the X-Ray gun).
I'd say one thing the sequels somewhat improved on, especially the third game, was having an open area to move around in as you see fit, versus a traditionally linear level. It doesn't really amount to very much, considering it's just an old PS1 game, but it's just something I noticed & appreciated. Beats the sort of shit from the first game where you'd reach the end of a long level, only to have to backtrack to the very beginning because you happened to miss one of the random things you needed to pick or interact with for your objectives. That easter egg hunt crap was really bad in some of the missions of the first game, I gotta say. Especially in the cathedral mission.
Anyway, I'll probably continue on to finish the rest of the franchise, but man does Omega Strain seem fucking awful. I actually emulated a bit of it the other day and holy shit was it just tedious & dull. It seems like it was mainly designed to be a MP/Co-op game and the open, almost score attack, like nature of the missions really rubbed me wrong. The look of the game is also just really dark & depressing and just makes me feel like shit. I'd rather just skip it and play the proceeding two PSP Syphon Filters instead, but damn it. OCD is a bitch, I tell you. One shitty game preventing me from moving on to other games in a franchise before I finish it. It's fucking Clear Sky all over again.
Well, it was certainly weird going through the entire thing now, after all these years. Certain things gave me some nostalgic tingles, like the sound of the text & how characters will kneel on the ground as the camera pans around them when receiving additional information. Overall though, I'd say the entire series was kinda dull & tedious. Pretty much all three of the games are the exact same gameplay-wise, with only slight differences between them, and those are mostly in regards to the graphics/presentation.
The story in particular was just super convoluted & dumb. The third game especially mostly just felt like excessive padding, since it seemed like the developers didn't know what else to do at that point. Literally the entirety of the third game is just spent playing unrelated flashback missions that have little to nothing to do with the main plot. The fact that the main characters are supposed to be wanted fugitives/terrorists, but are called in for a formal senate hearing where they recount random past missions in this almost weird attempt at courtroom drama just felt super frigging weird. Again, the fact that the actual relevance of these missions amounts to something like, "So, there I was eating my grand slam at Denny's when all of the sudden I was ambushed by a squad of heavily armed soldiers. Well, I'd need to react fast if I was going to survive.", (proceed to mission), just made the whole thing kinda ridiculous. Only at the very end does the game suddenly remember the plot from the past 2 games and it just culminates in a rather unsatisfying & rushed last couple levels. I mean, the fact that your characters are screwing around and running ops against disrupting Syphon Filter, in-between being grilled in this senate hearing crap, just felt as if they were taking turns skipping detention, or something.
The stealth mechanics in this series are also quite primitive and a lot of what takes place in these games is very trial & error and can be quite frustrating to deal with. Movement is stiff and the first person aiming is extremely clunky, but being able to lean around corners while doing so was at least kinda nice. Even compared to other games of the time, (like Tecnhu or MGS), Syphon Filter feels pretty half-baked when it comes to its stealth mechanics. You get a radar of sorts, but it's mostly pretty useless. The stealth sections, like the rest of the game, are highly linear & rigid. As in, you proceed until a guard turns a corner & notices you, the alarm instantly goes off, you retry, you now have foreknowledge of that guard being there so you take him out, you proceed further only for the same thing to happen until you can map out & perfect the entire stealth section. Most of the stealth sections are highly punishing in the sense that if you're seen you immediately fail the mission and are sent back to the nearest checkpoint, which just sucks. It's pretty much the sort of thing everybody hates about forced stealth sections in games.
Outside of that however, most of the game is pretty much just pure action & shooting. Again, with often highly rigid enemy placement & set pieces which can be pretty annoying to deal with. One thing I actually thought was cool about this series was how the boss fights are designed, in the sense that they're all almost like puzzles. Instead of them being health sponges, or whatever, you need to find the correct way to dispatch them for an instant kill, (like using a gas grenade to take out the final boss fight in the first game, or knocking that one guy into the helicopter blades in the second game, or taking out that one lady from the roof of the train car in the third game with the X-Ray gun).
I'd say one thing the sequels somewhat improved on, especially the third game, was having an open area to move around in as you see fit, versus a traditionally linear level. It doesn't really amount to very much, considering it's just an old PS1 game, but it's just something I noticed & appreciated. Beats the sort of shit from the first game where you'd reach the end of a long level, only to have to backtrack to the very beginning because you happened to miss one of the random things you needed to pick or interact with for your objectives. That easter egg hunt crap was really bad in some of the missions of the first game, I gotta say. Especially in the cathedral mission.
Anyway, I'll probably continue on to finish the rest of the franchise, but man does Omega Strain seem fucking awful. I actually emulated a bit of it the other day and holy shit was it just tedious & dull. It seems like it was mainly designed to be a MP/Co-op game and the open, almost score attack, like nature of the missions really rubbed me wrong. The look of the game is also just really dark & depressing and just makes me feel like shit. I'd rather just skip it and play the proceeding two PSP Syphon Filters instead, but damn it. OCD is a bitch, I tell you. One shitty game preventing me from moving on to other games in a franchise before I finish it. It's fucking Clear Sky all over again.
Finally finished Silent Hill 1 after I dropped it a while back when I got stumped on one of the late game puzzles. Overall, I really enjoyed it, but trying to run past certain enemies could be kinda frustrating at times. Especially those little bastards with knives that will lunge & latch on to you. I kinda wish I'd just resorted to combat more often, since I was pretty overstocked with resources by the end of the game and could've afforded more of a combat approach earlier. At the same time, I'm glad I had so many med-kits on hand since, when fighting Alessa's demon at end of the game, I had to pretty much chew through like 6-7 medkits since I couldn't see how else to avoid its lightning attacks so I just had to stand there & tank the damage instead while I kept blasting it with the hunting rifle. This was me playing on hard mind you, so his attacks pretty much took me to the red after nearly every strike.
I also managed to get the Good+ ending and I liked the mournful, but also hopeful, music that plays, which helps to evoke the bittersweet nature of Alessa's fate & her sacrifice. Although, I'm still not clear on why Alessa looked like an adult. I guess that's what Alessa would otherwise look like if she weren't charred & deformed? On that note, what exactly happened to Alessa? How did she get to be that way? Did her Dhalia deliberately set her on fire, or something? What was her goal before Harry uses the Flauros on her? How is she able to split her soul into other living, thinking entities? What was that stuff in the safe? Was there actually some unrelated drug smuggling going on, or something? Why didn't Lisa have one of those demon parasite things growing on her back if she was also part of Alessa's nightmare? Could Harry have used some of that red stuff to heal her, the same way he used it to heal Cybil? Also, somewhat unrelated thing, but I couldn't help shake my head at what's required to get a 10 star rank in this game. Talk about obnoxious. To be honest, I never understood why Silent Hill even has a results screen in the first place. To me it just seems really out of place, putting in such a gamey, arcade-like addition, such as a final score screen. It sorta makes sense for RE, but for Silent Hill, something that really is more about the story/atmosphere than the gameplay, it just seems odd to score players at the end for something that should otherwise be irrelevant. Well all I'm saying is that, personally speaking, I just find it a bit distracting and ideally it's the sort of thing I wish wasn't there.
Well, like Silent Hill 2, I really like the earnest, down to earth quality of the characters in these games. Harry & James are, to me anyway, very likable & determined for video game protagonists. It really helps add to the atmosphere, I feel. Well, I'm glad I finally came back to finish Silent Hill and I'll probably move on to finally checking out Silent Hill 3 pretty soon as well.
I also managed to get the Good+ ending and I liked the mournful, but also hopeful, music that plays, which helps to evoke the bittersweet nature of Alessa's fate & her sacrifice. Although, I'm still not clear on why Alessa looked like an adult. I guess that's what Alessa would otherwise look like if she weren't charred & deformed? On that note, what exactly happened to Alessa? How did she get to be that way? Did her Dhalia deliberately set her on fire, or something? What was her goal before Harry uses the Flauros on her? How is she able to split her soul into other living, thinking entities? What was that stuff in the safe? Was there actually some unrelated drug smuggling going on, or something? Why didn't Lisa have one of those demon parasite things growing on her back if she was also part of Alessa's nightmare? Could Harry have used some of that red stuff to heal her, the same way he used it to heal Cybil? Also, somewhat unrelated thing, but I couldn't help shake my head at what's required to get a 10 star rank in this game. Talk about obnoxious. To be honest, I never understood why Silent Hill even has a results screen in the first place. To me it just seems really out of place, putting in such a gamey, arcade-like addition, such as a final score screen. It sorta makes sense for RE, but for Silent Hill, something that really is more about the story/atmosphere than the gameplay, it just seems odd to score players at the end for something that should otherwise be irrelevant. Well all I'm saying is that, personally speaking, I just find it a bit distracting and ideally it's the sort of thing I wish wasn't there.
Well, like Silent Hill 2, I really like the earnest, down to earth quality of the characters in these games. Harry & James are, to me anyway, very likable & determined for video game protagonists. It really helps add to the atmosphere, I feel. Well, I'm glad I finally came back to finish Silent Hill and I'll probably move on to finally checking out Silent Hill 3 pretty soon as well.
>>49033
>I kinda wish I'd just resorted to combat more often, since I was pretty overstocked with resources by the end of the game
A tip for subsequent walkthroughs: You don't need a single bullet to kill the final boss so don't worry.
>How did she get to be that way?
Ritual went wrong, she burned the house to the ground, probably to stop the "god" from being born.
>What was her goal before Harry uses the Flauros on her?
Basically she was trying to stop the cult from bringing the demon to this world, that's what the seal of metatron (those symbols you find all over town) are for, Harry is unknowingly doing Dhalia's bidding by using the flauros to make Alessa lose her powers and control of the otherworld.
>How is she able to split her soul into other living, thinking entities?
She's just that fucking powerful I guess.
>Was there actually some unrelated drug smuggling going on, or something?
Yes, someone (the cult probably) was smuggling a drug called PVT aka White Claudia. They probably thought you could communicate with the dead or something using it.
>Why didn't Lisa have one of those demon parasite things growing on her back if she was also part of Alessa's nightmare?
A theory is that she was immune due to her being a junkie, no one knows really.
>Could Harry have used some of that red stuff to heal her, the same way he used it to heal Cybil?
Probably since that stuff is apparently really powerful.
Check our Silent Hill Origins as well for more stuff about Alessa. Most people don't like it but I thought it was decent
>I kinda wish I'd just resorted to combat more often, since I was pretty overstocked with resources by the end of the game
A tip for subsequent walkthroughs: You don't need a single bullet to kill the final boss so don't worry.
>How did she get to be that way?
Ritual went wrong, she burned the house to the ground, probably to stop the "god" from being born.
>What was her goal before Harry uses the Flauros on her?
Basically she was trying to stop the cult from bringing the demon to this world, that's what the seal of metatron (those symbols you find all over town) are for, Harry is unknowingly doing Dhalia's bidding by using the flauros to make Alessa lose her powers and control of the otherworld.
>How is she able to split her soul into other living, thinking entities?
She's just that fucking powerful I guess.
>Was there actually some unrelated drug smuggling going on, or something?
Yes, someone (the cult probably) was smuggling a drug called PVT aka White Claudia. They probably thought you could communicate with the dead or something using it.
>Why didn't Lisa have one of those demon parasite things growing on her back if she was also part of Alessa's nightmare?
A theory is that she was immune due to her being a junkie, no one knows really.
>Could Harry have used some of that red stuff to heal her, the same way he used it to heal Cybil?
Probably since that stuff is apparently really powerful.
Check our Silent Hill Origins as well for more stuff about Alessa. Most people don't like it but I thought it was decent
File: 1584936073134-0.jpg (40.66 KB, 660x400, 33:20, Resident-Evil-4-Switch-660….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1584936073134-1.jpg (574.35 KB, 600x800, 3:4, Half-Life.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Haven't posted in a while so I have to post two games.
First one is Resident Evil 4. I had already beaten it before but now I also cleared all the extra missions. Game's really good, kinda adicting, really, upgrading weapons is really fun that there's lot of variety. The plot is alright for what it is, pretty cheesy but that's a given with these kind of game. The one thing I absolutely HATED about the game are the quick time events, especially playing with keyboard and mouse, since you get prompts like "5+6", how the fuck am I supposed to know which buttons are those? So I kept dying at QTEs, but I guess playing with a controller would solve that issue.
The other one is Half Life, I started it like a hundred times but had never finished it. The game is a fucking classic so I won't deny its greatness but, man, it's really buggy. I kept getting stuck in elevators or random objects constantly, don't know how many times I had to load the game because of some stupid shit like that. Also towards the end it has some platforming sections, I never liked platforming in FPSs and I really disliked platforming in this one.
First one is Resident Evil 4. I had already beaten it before but now I also cleared all the extra missions. Game's really good, kinda adicting, really, upgrading weapons is really fun that there's lot of variety. The plot is alright for what it is, pretty cheesy but that's a given with these kind of game. The one thing I absolutely HATED about the game are the quick time events, especially playing with keyboard and mouse, since you get prompts like "5+6", how the fuck am I supposed to know which buttons are those? So I kept dying at QTEs, but I guess playing with a controller would solve that issue.
The other one is Half Life, I started it like a hundred times but had never finished it. The game is a fucking classic so I won't deny its greatness but, man, it's really buggy. I kept getting stuck in elevators or random objects constantly, don't know how many times I had to load the game because of some stupid shit like that. Also towards the end it has some platforming sections, I never liked platforming in FPSs and I really disliked platforming in this one.
>>49051
>You don't need a single bullet to kill the final boss.
Really? How? Do you need to save the red stuff for when fighting the demon instead of using it on Cybil, or something?
>Ritual went wrong, she burned the house to the ground
I don't recall that being mentioned anywhere in the game, but I guess that makes sense. So Dhalia was the one who started the fire then, as a result of failing to complete the ritual and just left Alessa to burn inside, or something like that? Seems weird she'd just abandon her like that, given how important she is to her and her plans for summoning Satan. (I know they refer to it as "god", but to me it just looked like some generic Satan type thing).
I also have some more questions, assuming you wouldn't mind answering them wizzie.
Firstly, what was that flashback between Alessa & Dhalia all about before Harry fights the final boss? Dhalia says something to the effect that she realizes she never even needed Alessa since a succubus's womb is all that's required to summon Satan and that she could've just done it herself. If this is the case, then why commence the ritual with Alessa as the vessel and not herself? I guess because she was just already there, or something? Shouldn't Dhalia also have some special power as well, being that she's Alessa's mother? Is Dhalia actually Alessa's mother? If not, where did she come from exactly?
Why do Alessa's wounds never heal? Is it a consequence of her psychic energy gestating the demon inside her, or something? Where exactly is Alessa's real body? Where do the demon parasites come from? Are they fed to people, or do they just appear spontaneously? Dhalia must've fed Cybil a demon parasite after knocking her out, right? Is there a "special seed" of Satan, or something? Some monsters appear to be a projection of Alessa's power/nightmare, while some are just people, or are they just the ghosts of people whom are trapped in the otherworld? Is Lisa real, or is she just a ghost? Why were Kaufman & all the other doctors in on this? Were they seriously all cult members looking to summon Satan for power? Kaufman & Dhalia used Alessa to summon Cheryl back to Silent Hill, correct? Why did they wait 7 years to do this? What had they been doing in the meantime? Was the otherworld and the nightmare already happening before Harry & Cheryl showed up? I don't think so, since Kaufman says he just took a nap & ended up there after waking up.
Does Alessa hate Lisa? If so, why? Lisa was her nurse and did everything she could to try and help her. It seems sadistic of Alessa to trap someone like Lisa in her nightmare, assuming she has any control over that sort of thing. Why was Alessa referred to as a "thief" by her classmates? I assumed people bullied her because of her crazy mother?
Did Alessa actually have any sort of psychic, or spiritual power before any of this happened, or was that all a result of the subsequent fire somehow awakening them in her? As in the trauma & agony was so great that it somehow led to Alessa's thoughts & nightmares invading the real world. Is Alessa even alive anymore? Is she just a ghost? Like say you managed to kill what's left of her real body, would that be the end of her? Is all that's left of her now found in the new baby she created, otherwise known as Heather?
>Basically she was trying to stop the cult from bringing the demon to this world
Ah, I see. So she was the one creating those symbols then and with that purpose in mind. To be honest, I thought she was just kinda fucking around randomly and had no real goal whatsoever, aside from remaining in control of her nightmare only as a means to maintain her own power for its own sake and to continue to get revenge on those she felt had wronged her and also anyone foolish enough to wander into Silent Hill. In that sense, I had assumed that Alessa had become a bit of an unrepentant demon herself, similar to Sachiko from the Corpse Party games. Reuniting with her other half in Cheryl seemed to be the trigger point for the otherworld's invasion, however. Before that she was just rotting away in the hospital and her powers were very weak, correct?
>flauros to make Alessa lose her powers and control of the otherworld.
I wonder why it has such power. If Alessa lost control of the otherworld shouldn't it cease to exist, since it's a dimension built on her nightmares, or does the dimension she created simply have a life of its own now? On that note, how is Harry able to teleport around the way he does? Is this a result of Alessa guiding him, perhaps?
>was smuggling a drug called PVT aka White Claudia
Oh weird, huh. That must be something they expand upon in the other games, I'd imagine. It seemed odd to me to think that it might very well just be cocaine or heroin, or something. Heh, there'd be a funny joke ending, alright. Everybody was just high on drugs the whole time & before a bunch of cops come on in & bust everybody.
>A theory is that she was immune due to her being a junkie
Interesting. She's the only one who remains somewhat conscious of herself in Alessa's nightmare, so it's odd all the same. She also seemed much more bloody than any of the other possessed nurses/doctors. What's with that exactly? A special punishment from Alessa, or something?
>Probably since that stuff is apparently really powerful.
That's sad then. If only Harry had managed to fill two bottles, instead of just one.
>Check our Silent Hill Origins as well for more stuff about Alessa.
Yeah, I might. That's the prequel one that takes place 7 years before the events of Silent Hill 1, correct? I'd imagine that'd probably answer a few questions I have, although I wonder how much of it is retconned, or whatever. I'd imagine there's an "otherworld" in that game, but if there was an otherworld 7 years ago, that seems to raise a lot of questions as well. I guess it sorta makes sense, in the way that Alessa split herself into two, thus losing too much power and therefore being unable to maintain or project her nightmares via the otherworld. Partly the reason why I liked Silent Hill 2 so much is that it really doesn't have anything to do with Alessa, or the cult stuff. It's basically just its own entity and the town is merely a mirror into the darkness of our hearts. I've always thought Silent Hill as an anthology series would be pretty good in theory, but without Team Silent, or an equally creative team, it largely wouldn't matter. I know there's an ending where James intends to resurrect his wife, with a bit of a reference to devil worship and all the cult stuff from the past game, but it's still mostly inconsequential as a tie to the other games.
Sorry for asking so many questions, by the way. Like you said, playing some of the other games would probably answer some of them, but any additional clarification on your part is appreciated.
>You don't need a single bullet to kill the final boss.
Really? How? Do you need to save the red stuff for when fighting the demon instead of using it on Cybil, or something?
>Ritual went wrong, she burned the house to the ground
I don't recall that being mentioned anywhere in the game, but I guess that makes sense. So Dhalia was the one who started the fire then, as a result of failing to complete the ritual and just left Alessa to burn inside, or something like that? Seems weird she'd just abandon her like that, given how important she is to her and her plans for summoning Satan. (I know they refer to it as "god", but to me it just looked like some generic Satan type thing).
I also have some more questions, assuming you wouldn't mind answering them wizzie.
Firstly, what was that flashback between Alessa & Dhalia all about before Harry fights the final boss? Dhalia says something to the effect that she realizes she never even needed Alessa since a succubus's womb is all that's required to summon Satan and that she could've just done it herself. If this is the case, then why commence the ritual with Alessa as the vessel and not herself? I guess because she was just already there, or something? Shouldn't Dhalia also have some special power as well, being that she's Alessa's mother? Is Dhalia actually Alessa's mother? If not, where did she come from exactly?
Why do Alessa's wounds never heal? Is it a consequence of her psychic energy gestating the demon inside her, or something? Where exactly is Alessa's real body? Where do the demon parasites come from? Are they fed to people, or do they just appear spontaneously? Dhalia must've fed Cybil a demon parasite after knocking her out, right? Is there a "special seed" of Satan, or something? Some monsters appear to be a projection of Alessa's power/nightmare, while some are just people, or are they just the ghosts of people whom are trapped in the otherworld? Is Lisa real, or is she just a ghost? Why were Kaufman & all the other doctors in on this? Were they seriously all cult members looking to summon Satan for power? Kaufman & Dhalia used Alessa to summon Cheryl back to Silent Hill, correct? Why did they wait 7 years to do this? What had they been doing in the meantime? Was the otherworld and the nightmare already happening before Harry & Cheryl showed up? I don't think so, since Kaufman says he just took a nap & ended up there after waking up.
Does Alessa hate Lisa? If so, why? Lisa was her nurse and did everything she could to try and help her. It seems sadistic of Alessa to trap someone like Lisa in her nightmare, assuming she has any control over that sort of thing. Why was Alessa referred to as a "thief" by her classmates? I assumed people bullied her because of her crazy mother?
Did Alessa actually have any sort of psychic, or spiritual power before any of this happened, or was that all a result of the subsequent fire somehow awakening them in her? As in the trauma & agony was so great that it somehow led to Alessa's thoughts & nightmares invading the real world. Is Alessa even alive anymore? Is she just a ghost? Like say you managed to kill what's left of her real body, would that be the end of her? Is all that's left of her now found in the new baby she created, otherwise known as Heather?
>Basically she was trying to stop the cult from bringing the demon to this world
Ah, I see. So she was the one creating those symbols then and with that purpose in mind. To be honest, I thought she was just kinda fucking around randomly and had no real goal whatsoever, aside from remaining in control of her nightmare only as a means to maintain her own power for its own sake and to continue to get revenge on those she felt had wronged her and also anyone foolish enough to wander into Silent Hill. In that sense, I had assumed that Alessa had become a bit of an unrepentant demon herself, similar to Sachiko from the Corpse Party games. Reuniting with her other half in Cheryl seemed to be the trigger point for the otherworld's invasion, however. Before that she was just rotting away in the hospital and her powers were very weak, correct?
>flauros to make Alessa lose her powers and control of the otherworld.
I wonder why it has such power. If Alessa lost control of the otherworld shouldn't it cease to exist, since it's a dimension built on her nightmares, or does the dimension she created simply have a life of its own now? On that note, how is Harry able to teleport around the way he does? Is this a result of Alessa guiding him, perhaps?
>was smuggling a drug called PVT aka White Claudia
Oh weird, huh. That must be something they expand upon in the other games, I'd imagine. It seemed odd to me to think that it might very well just be cocaine or heroin, or something. Heh, there'd be a funny joke ending, alright. Everybody was just high on drugs the whole time & before a bunch of cops come on in & bust everybody.
>A theory is that she was immune due to her being a junkie
Interesting. She's the only one who remains somewhat conscious of herself in Alessa's nightmare, so it's odd all the same. She also seemed much more bloody than any of the other possessed nurses/doctors. What's with that exactly? A special punishment from Alessa, or something?
>Probably since that stuff is apparently really powerful.
That's sad then. If only Harry had managed to fill two bottles, instead of just one.
>Check our Silent Hill Origins as well for more stuff about Alessa.
Yeah, I might. That's the prequel one that takes place 7 years before the events of Silent Hill 1, correct? I'd imagine that'd probably answer a few questions I have, although I wonder how much of it is retconned, or whatever. I'd imagine there's an "otherworld" in that game, but if there was an otherworld 7 years ago, that seems to raise a lot of questions as well. I guess it sorta makes sense, in the way that Alessa split herself into two, thus losing too much power and therefore being unable to maintain or project her nightmares via the otherworld. Partly the reason why I liked Silent Hill 2 so much is that it really doesn't have anything to do with Alessa, or the cult stuff. It's basically just its own entity and the town is merely a mirror into the darkness of our hearts. I've always thought Silent Hill as an anthology series would be pretty good in theory, but without Team Silent, or an equally creative team, it largely wouldn't matter. I know there's an ending where James intends to resurrect his wife, with a bit of a reference to devil worship and all the cult stuff from the past game, but it's still mostly inconsequential as a tie to the other games.
Sorry for asking so many questions, by the way. Like you said, playing some of the other games would probably answer some of them, but any additional clarification on your part is appreciated.
File: 1584973206945.png (645.34 KB, 1196x715, 92:55, alessa and cheryl.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>49058
>Really? How? Do you need to save the red stuff for when fighting the demon instead of using it on Cybil, or something?
It's really dumb, if you get to the boss without bullets just aim at him and try to shoot, he just dies, try it out. I guess it's a way to prevent people from getting stuck at the last boss. I tried it with the baphomet looking boss, not with the "incubator" but I guess it works with both.
>I also have some more questions
Alright I'll try to answer what I can.
>So Dhalia was the one who started the fire then
There are a couple of theories, one is that Alessa's psychical powers got out of control when the ritual was being performed and she caused a boiler in the basement to blow up, causing the fire. That's the one I was referring to. In the PAL and japanese version of the game you find a newspaper that reads:
>Investigations show source as basement of Gillespie home. Blaze now believed caused by malfunction of antiquated boiler.
Other theories say that it was actually Dhalia that started the fire since the ritual uses a lot of fire and it got out of control.
>what was that flashback between Alessa & Dhalia all about before Harry fights the final boss
The other world is created by Alessa's psyche, she's just traumatized because of how abusive her mother was.
>If this is the case, then why commence the ritual with Alessa as the vessel and not herself?
I believe because Alessa was more powerful and thus a better vessel. Or maybe she just didn't want to die.
>Is Dhalia actually Alessa's mother?
As far as I know, yes.
>Why do Alessa's wounds never heal?
She was burn to a crisp and is being keps alive by a spell (or the god inside her I'm not sure). The question should be why is she alive.
>Where exactly is Alessa's real body?
It's right there where you fight the final boss (see pic)
>Where do the demon parasites come from?
That I don't know and, from what I've seen, not even the game devs know. Some people believe they're the manifestation of Alessa's hatred for nurses and doctors. Which could also explain why Lisa doesn't have a parasite, since she's the only person who actually cared about her. But that doesn't explain Cybil.
>Is there a "special seed" of Satan, or something?
Apparently it manifests in the womb of the succubus via the ritual
>Some monsters appear to be a projection of Alessa's power/nightmare, while some are just people, or are they just the ghosts of people whom are trapped in the otherworld?
Probably just people who got caught in the entire mess, just like Lisa, Cybil and Harry.
>Is Lisa real, or is she just a ghost?
She's real afaik.
>Why were Kaufman & all the other doctors in on this?
Kaufman is part of the cult, and he runs the hospital. I think only he and Lisa knew about Alessa since she was locked in the basement. But that would contradict what I said earlier about Alessa hating nurses and doctors, so I'm not sure.
>Kaufman & Dhalia used Alessa to summon Cheryl back to Silent Hill, correct?
No, Alessa called Sheryl to SH so she could finally fuse her soul and kill herself so she could stop the god from being born.
>Why did they wait 7 years to do this?
I don't know, maybe that's just how long it took.
>Was the otherworld and the nightmare already happening before Harry & Cheryl showed up? I don't think so, since Kaufman says he just took a nap & ended up there after waking up.
I have no idea but that's an interesting thought, if you don't consider Origins to be canon (a lot of people do not)
>Does Alessa hate Lisa?
I don't think she does
>It seems sadistic of Alessa to trap someone like Lisa in her nightmare, assuming she has any control over that sort of thing
Maybe she doesn't have that much control, maybe all she could do for her was allowing her to keep her human form.
>Why was Alessa referred to as a "thief" by her classmates?
I have no idea about that.
>Is all that's left of her now found in the new baby she created, otherwise known as Heather?
When finally fused back her soul together she was reborn in Heather. She is Alessa's reincarnation, if you will.
>Partly the reason why I liked Silent Hill 2 so much is that it really doesn't have anything to do with Alessa
Yeah a lot of people think like that. I actually like the cult stuff, but I'm in the minority.
>I know there's an ending where James intends to resurrect his wife, with a bit of a reference to devil worship and all the cult stuff from the past game
Yeah that was my favorite ending in SH2
>Really? How? Do you need to save the red stuff for when fighting the demon instead of using it on Cybil, or something?
It's really dumb, if you get to the boss without bullets just aim at him and try to shoot, he just dies, try it out. I guess it's a way to prevent people from getting stuck at the last boss. I tried it with the baphomet looking boss, not with the "incubator" but I guess it works with both.
>I also have some more questions
Alright I'll try to answer what I can.
>So Dhalia was the one who started the fire then
There are a couple of theories, one is that Alessa's psychical powers got out of control when the ritual was being performed and she caused a boiler in the basement to blow up, causing the fire. That's the one I was referring to. In the PAL and japanese version of the game you find a newspaper that reads:
>Investigations show source as basement of Gillespie home. Blaze now believed caused by malfunction of antiquated boiler.
Other theories say that it was actually Dhalia that started the fire since the ritual uses a lot of fire and it got out of control.
>what was that flashback between Alessa & Dhalia all about before Harry fights the final boss
The other world is created by Alessa's psyche, she's just traumatized because of how abusive her mother was.
>If this is the case, then why commence the ritual with Alessa as the vessel and not herself?
I believe because Alessa was more powerful and thus a better vessel. Or maybe she just didn't want to die.
>Is Dhalia actually Alessa's mother?
As far as I know, yes.
>Why do Alessa's wounds never heal?
She was burn to a crisp and is being keps alive by a spell (or the god inside her I'm not sure). The question should be why is she alive.
>Where exactly is Alessa's real body?
It's right there where you fight the final boss (see pic)
>Where do the demon parasites come from?
That I don't know and, from what I've seen, not even the game devs know. Some people believe they're the manifestation of Alessa's hatred for nurses and doctors. Which could also explain why Lisa doesn't have a parasite, since she's the only person who actually cared about her. But that doesn't explain Cybil.
>Is there a "special seed" of Satan, or something?
Apparently it manifests in the womb of the succubus via the ritual
>Some monsters appear to be a projection of Alessa's power/nightmare, while some are just people, or are they just the ghosts of people whom are trapped in the otherworld?
Probably just people who got caught in the entire mess, just like Lisa, Cybil and Harry.
>Is Lisa real, or is she just a ghost?
She's real afaik.
>Why were Kaufman & all the other doctors in on this?
Kaufman is part of the cult, and he runs the hospital. I think only he and Lisa knew about Alessa since she was locked in the basement. But that would contradict what I said earlier about Alessa hating nurses and doctors, so I'm not sure.
>Kaufman & Dhalia used Alessa to summon Cheryl back to Silent Hill, correct?
No, Alessa called Sheryl to SH so she could finally fuse her soul and kill herself so she could stop the god from being born.
>Why did they wait 7 years to do this?
I don't know, maybe that's just how long it took.
>Was the otherworld and the nightmare already happening before Harry & Cheryl showed up? I don't think so, since Kaufman says he just took a nap & ended up there after waking up.
I have no idea but that's an interesting thought, if you don't consider Origins to be canon (a lot of people do not)
>Does Alessa hate Lisa?
I don't think she does
>It seems sadistic of Alessa to trap someone like Lisa in her nightmare, assuming she has any control over that sort of thing
Maybe she doesn't have that much control, maybe all she could do for her was allowing her to keep her human form.
>Why was Alessa referred to as a "thief" by her classmates?
I have no idea about that.
>Is all that's left of her now found in the new baby she created, otherwise known as Heather?
When finally fused back her soul together she was reborn in Heather. She is Alessa's reincarnation, if you will.
>Partly the reason why I liked Silent Hill 2 so much is that it really doesn't have anything to do with Alessa
Yeah a lot of people think like that. I actually like the cult stuff, but I'm in the minority.
>I know there's an ending where James intends to resurrect his wife, with a bit of a reference to devil worship and all the cult stuff from the past game
Yeah that was my favorite ending in SH2
File: 1584995039369.jpg (80.63 KB, 1000x625, 8:5, SH1.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>49065
>It's really dumb, if you get to the boss without bullets just aim at him and try to shoot, he just dies, try it out.
You know, that's funny because I was actually wondering what somebody would do assuming they didn't have enough resources for the final boss, aside from needing to load an earlier save. Crazy that it works that way, but also quite merciful to allow an instant kill like that. I'm curious though, does that you mean can't have any bullets in your inventory at all? If so, then I'd imagine most people must just blast what's left of their ammunition before the final fight, I guess. Would the game still do this if you had one of the "hyper blaster" variants, though? Isn't that a weapon with unlimited ammunition, so would that same thing still apply?
>In the PAL and japanese version of the game you find a newspaper
Oh, is that so? I played the NA version, so I guess that explains why I didn't find anything like that. Kind of an odd thing to leave out, frankly. Then again, apparently you need to read every other document in the game to have it show up, so I probably would've missed it anyway, heh.
>Other theories say that it was actually Dhalia that started the fire since the ritual uses a lot of fire and it got out of control.
Hmm, I guess, but, either way, it's mostly inconsequential in the end. For me, I'm just still curious about whether Alessa's powers were present before, or after, the fire. Like, before this fire, was Alessa able to project her fantasies into reality? Was it the ritual which bestowed this power onto her, or awakened it in her? I mean, I don't think she has telekinetic powers, or anything, so I don't know how she would've caused the boiler to explode. Again, maybe that was the result of Dhalia lighting too many candles, or fire spewing out from hell, or something.
>The other world is created by Alessa's psyche, she's just traumatized because of how abusive her mother was.
Yes, but it seems the otherworld only exists in the first place as a result of that abuse & trauma. Then again, the fact that there are demons & other such entities at play would suggest that it's not all just a product of Alessa's power. I think part of the otherworld is her psyche and the rest is some separate dimensional offshoot of hell, or something. Whatever they were trying to summon clearly seemed to exist outside of everything that was going on in the sense that it came from somewhere outside traditional reality, or even Alessa's psyche. That, to me, seems kinda weird, in the sense that, among everything else that's going on which is more down to earth and is about Alessa's trauma & suffering, there are also literal hell demons trying to breach reality and conquer the planet and shit.
>The question should be why is she alive.
Well, like you said, it's either her psychic powers, or the demon/Satan thing that's keeping her going. I can recall Dhalia saying something to the effect that Alessa's nightmare and suffering for the past 7 years has helped nurture the demon/Satan thing that she ends up releasing at the end of the game, so maybe, to Dhalia, her getting burnt to a crisp may have just helped the process along. Then again, maybe not, since we see that Dhalia & the doctors are frustrated that Alessa has so little power and are eager to summon her other self, that being Cheryl, back to Silent Hill, so Alessa can be properly harvested for her power. Again, I don't know why they waited so long to do this, but it clearly didn't pan out for them, since Alessa/Cheryl was too much for Dhalia to handle without Harry doing most of the legwork for her.
>It's right there where you fight the final boss
Oh shit, that's her? I had no idea. Huh, weird. I didn't even notice that thing behind her, to be honest. So that's the "real" Alessa then, and the kneeling Alessa is the image of herself that's she projecting as an avatar for her spirit before being burned, correct? I guess that's why that flash of light happens, which coalesces into the adult/teenage Alessa in the white gown & everything. Alessa in the wheelchair reminds me a lot of those things one sees strung up randomly around the town, like in pic related. Maybe those hanging things are actually reflections of Alessa, or at least images of her, given their strong similarity to what she really looks like.
>Or maybe she just didn't want to die.
Yeah, that could've been it maybe. To me though, based on the way she says this, she seems to insinuate that any succubus could serve as a vessel. If so, I wonder why they didn't just abduct some random person and then just use them as a sacrifice against their will, instead of going through all this additional trouble with Alessa. I know Alessa has spiritual power, but, again, was this in effect before or after the ritual? All the flashbacks we see of Alessa doesn't seem to suggest she has any power whatsoever before the fire, or the ritual. Alessa feels very similar to something like Stephen King's Carrie however, so maybe she did have a bunch of powers that we just never see.
>Some people believe they're the manifestation of Alessa's hatred for nurses and doctors.
I thought they were basically just hellspawn, separate from Alessa's nightmare/otherworld. In my eyes there are three factions in the otherworld. Alessa & her projections, lost or possessed humans, and then literal hellspawn trying to breach into the real world via the otherworld by incubating in humans & taking shape from there.
>Apparently it manifests in the womb of the succubus via the ritual
I assume only to succubi who can handle the strain. Again, it's just weird that Dhalia says that she could've done it herself, since then the whole need for Alessa doesn't make sense in the first place, since if Dhalia could do it, then couldn't any other succubi have sufficed in her place? Maybe it was just easier, or something. As in, abducting could risk the cops getting involved, so let's just use my daughter instead.
>I think only he and Lisa knew about Alessa since she was locked in the basement.
Dhalia knew and a couple other random doctors did as well. One of the cutscenes shows this, as they're all crowded around Alessa's body and are upset/frustrated that Alessa is too weak to harvest and that they need Alessa's other half to return so they can receive the power of Satan, as dumb & self-defeating a goal as that is, to be honest.
>When finally fused back her soul together she was reborn in Heather.
But Alessa's original form still exists even after she creates the baby, since she opens a portal for Harry & Cybil and allows them to escape. Does old Alessa just disappear after that and is she fully gone completely, aside from what's left of her in Heather? What about Cheryl? Did Cheryl basically cease to exist the moment she returns to Silent Hill after being reabsorbed by Alessa? Why did Alessa create Cheryl in the first place? Another chance at life? To stop the cult from using her, by diminishing her own power? If the second one is true, then why would she reabsorb Cheryl and thus completely undo what she had wanted in the first place, while also putting everything at risk again? Literally all Alessa needed to do was not reabsorb Cheryl to stop the cult's plans. She goes around making those symbols, but I don't know. Maybe that was her trying to have her cake and eat it too, I guess, in the sense of remaining whole, while also stopping the cult.
>Yeah that was my favorite ending in SH2
I'm like most people in that I prefer the "In Water" ending the most, since it feels the most thematically consistent for James' story. Next best ending for me would be the one where he simply manages to leave Silent Hill & continue his life without Mary and, in that sense, you could say that it's actually the one which is the most wizardly out of all of them. The others, like the joke endings or the ones where he succumbs to Maria's influence, are the ones I just don't really care for.
>It's really dumb, if you get to the boss without bullets just aim at him and try to shoot, he just dies, try it out.
You know, that's funny because I was actually wondering what somebody would do assuming they didn't have enough resources for the final boss, aside from needing to load an earlier save. Crazy that it works that way, but also quite merciful to allow an instant kill like that. I'm curious though, does that you mean can't have any bullets in your inventory at all? If so, then I'd imagine most people must just blast what's left of their ammunition before the final fight, I guess. Would the game still do this if you had one of the "hyper blaster" variants, though? Isn't that a weapon with unlimited ammunition, so would that same thing still apply?
>In the PAL and japanese version of the game you find a newspaper
Oh, is that so? I played the NA version, so I guess that explains why I didn't find anything like that. Kind of an odd thing to leave out, frankly. Then again, apparently you need to read every other document in the game to have it show up, so I probably would've missed it anyway, heh.
>Other theories say that it was actually Dhalia that started the fire since the ritual uses a lot of fire and it got out of control.
Hmm, I guess, but, either way, it's mostly inconsequential in the end. For me, I'm just still curious about whether Alessa's powers were present before, or after, the fire. Like, before this fire, was Alessa able to project her fantasies into reality? Was it the ritual which bestowed this power onto her, or awakened it in her? I mean, I don't think she has telekinetic powers, or anything, so I don't know how she would've caused the boiler to explode. Again, maybe that was the result of Dhalia lighting too many candles, or fire spewing out from hell, or something.
>The other world is created by Alessa's psyche, she's just traumatized because of how abusive her mother was.
Yes, but it seems the otherworld only exists in the first place as a result of that abuse & trauma. Then again, the fact that there are demons & other such entities at play would suggest that it's not all just a product of Alessa's power. I think part of the otherworld is her psyche and the rest is some separate dimensional offshoot of hell, or something. Whatever they were trying to summon clearly seemed to exist outside of everything that was going on in the sense that it came from somewhere outside traditional reality, or even Alessa's psyche. That, to me, seems kinda weird, in the sense that, among everything else that's going on which is more down to earth and is about Alessa's trauma & suffering, there are also literal hell demons trying to breach reality and conquer the planet and shit.
>The question should be why is she alive.
Well, like you said, it's either her psychic powers, or the demon/Satan thing that's keeping her going. I can recall Dhalia saying something to the effect that Alessa's nightmare and suffering for the past 7 years has helped nurture the demon/Satan thing that she ends up releasing at the end of the game, so maybe, to Dhalia, her getting burnt to a crisp may have just helped the process along. Then again, maybe not, since we see that Dhalia & the doctors are frustrated that Alessa has so little power and are eager to summon her other self, that being Cheryl, back to Silent Hill, so Alessa can be properly harvested for her power. Again, I don't know why they waited so long to do this, but it clearly didn't pan out for them, since Alessa/Cheryl was too much for Dhalia to handle without Harry doing most of the legwork for her.
>It's right there where you fight the final boss
Oh shit, that's her? I had no idea. Huh, weird. I didn't even notice that thing behind her, to be honest. So that's the "real" Alessa then, and the kneeling Alessa is the image of herself that's she projecting as an avatar for her spirit before being burned, correct? I guess that's why that flash of light happens, which coalesces into the adult/teenage Alessa in the white gown & everything. Alessa in the wheelchair reminds me a lot of those things one sees strung up randomly around the town, like in pic related. Maybe those hanging things are actually reflections of Alessa, or at least images of her, given their strong similarity to what she really looks like.
>Or maybe she just didn't want to die.
Yeah, that could've been it maybe. To me though, based on the way she says this, she seems to insinuate that any succubus could serve as a vessel. If so, I wonder why they didn't just abduct some random person and then just use them as a sacrifice against their will, instead of going through all this additional trouble with Alessa. I know Alessa has spiritual power, but, again, was this in effect before or after the ritual? All the flashbacks we see of Alessa doesn't seem to suggest she has any power whatsoever before the fire, or the ritual. Alessa feels very similar to something like Stephen King's Carrie however, so maybe she did have a bunch of powers that we just never see.
>Some people believe they're the manifestation of Alessa's hatred for nurses and doctors.
I thought they were basically just hellspawn, separate from Alessa's nightmare/otherworld. In my eyes there are three factions in the otherworld. Alessa & her projections, lost or possessed humans, and then literal hellspawn trying to breach into the real world via the otherworld by incubating in humans & taking shape from there.
>Apparently it manifests in the womb of the succubus via the ritual
I assume only to succubi who can handle the strain. Again, it's just weird that Dhalia says that she could've done it herself, since then the whole need for Alessa doesn't make sense in the first place, since if Dhalia could do it, then couldn't any other succubi have sufficed in her place? Maybe it was just easier, or something. As in, abducting could risk the cops getting involved, so let's just use my daughter instead.
>I think only he and Lisa knew about Alessa since she was locked in the basement.
Dhalia knew and a couple other random doctors did as well. One of the cutscenes shows this, as they're all crowded around Alessa's body and are upset/frustrated that Alessa is too weak to harvest and that they need Alessa's other half to return so they can receive the power of Satan, as dumb & self-defeating a goal as that is, to be honest.
>When finally fused back her soul together she was reborn in Heather.
But Alessa's original form still exists even after she creates the baby, since she opens a portal for Harry & Cybil and allows them to escape. Does old Alessa just disappear after that and is she fully gone completely, aside from what's left of her in Heather? What about Cheryl? Did Cheryl basically cease to exist the moment she returns to Silent Hill after being reabsorbed by Alessa? Why did Alessa create Cheryl in the first place? Another chance at life? To stop the cult from using her, by diminishing her own power? If the second one is true, then why would she reabsorb Cheryl and thus completely undo what she had wanted in the first place, while also putting everything at risk again? Literally all Alessa needed to do was not reabsorb Cheryl to stop the cult's plans. She goes around making those symbols, but I don't know. Maybe that was her trying to have her cake and eat it too, I guess, in the sense of remaining whole, while also stopping the cult.
>Yeah that was my favorite ending in SH2
I'm like most people in that I prefer the "In Water" ending the most, since it feels the most thematically consistent for James' story. Next best ending for me would be the one where he simply manages to leave Silent Hill & continue his life without Mary and, in that sense, you could say that it's actually the one which is the most wizardly out of all of them. The others, like the joke endings or the ones where he succumbs to Maria's influence, are the ones I just don't really care for.
>>49072
>I'm just still curious about whether Alessa's powers were present before
I think they were, the wiki says she was born with metal powers but I don't know where they get it from, also the kids at school bullied her for that reason too, apparently. She was heavily inspired by Carrie so there's that.
>there are demons & other such entities at play would suggest that it's not all just a product of Alessa's power
Yeah it's kind of weird, but there seem to be two powers at play. That or Alessa is serving as some sort of catalyst for the city's power
>I assume only to succubi who can handle the strain. Again, it's just weird that Dhalia says that she could've done it herself, since then the whole need for Alessa doesn't make sense in the first place
They retcon this in Origins. Basically Alessa is the one with the highest chance of success at summoning the god.
>One of the cutscenes shows this, as they're all crowded around Alessa
You're right I had completely forgotten about that.
>But Alessa's original form still exists even after she creates the baby
Yeah it doesn't make much sense, but it is what it is.
>Why did Alessa create Cheryl in the first place?
To stop the ritual, apparently you can't summon god with half a soul. But later she called her back because that's also the only way to die and put an end to Dhalia's plans. What's funny to me is that she would've succeded if it wasn't for Harry using the flauros.
>I'm just still curious about whether Alessa's powers were present before
I think they were, the wiki says she was born with metal powers but I don't know where they get it from, also the kids at school bullied her for that reason too, apparently. She was heavily inspired by Carrie so there's that.
>there are demons & other such entities at play would suggest that it's not all just a product of Alessa's power
Yeah it's kind of weird, but there seem to be two powers at play. That or Alessa is serving as some sort of catalyst for the city's power
>I assume only to succubi who can handle the strain. Again, it's just weird that Dhalia says that she could've done it herself, since then the whole need for Alessa doesn't make sense in the first place
They retcon this in Origins. Basically Alessa is the one with the highest chance of success at summoning the god.
>One of the cutscenes shows this, as they're all crowded around Alessa
You're right I had completely forgotten about that.
>But Alessa's original form still exists even after she creates the baby
Yeah it doesn't make much sense, but it is what it is.
>Why did Alessa create Cheryl in the first place?
To stop the ritual, apparently you can't summon god with half a soul. But later she called her back because that's also the only way to die and put an end to Dhalia's plans. What's funny to me is that she would've succeded if it wasn't for Harry using the flauros.
File: 1585156324449-0.jpg (88.55 KB, 616x353, 616:353, capsule_616x353.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1585156324449-1.jpg (794.4 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, Warsaw-05.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Pretty bad and shallow DD ripoff, but it was mostly OK for one playthrough, although it is highly repetitive. As it happens, my great-grandfather fled with my grandfather and the rest of his family from Poland just before the war broke out there. They weren't Jews, very devoutly Christian actually, but were still part of the segment of people who saw which way the wind was blowing and left before it was too late, instead of being trapped living under a harsh military occupation by a foreign power. I guess you could say that me checking this out was just partly an act of curiosity on my part for playing something from this time and from the perspective of Polish resistance fighters. I'll admit that I felt like a bit of an idiot for not realizing until playing this that the Warsaw Uprising was altogether a different affair versus the Ghetto Uprising that happened a year prior, since I used to think they were the same thing. In that sense, the game doesn't have much of a Jewish focus to it and is more just about the doomed and forsaken uprising of the Polish Home Army against the Germans. Playing this actually got me reading into the whole thing further and the game really didn't even come close to conveying how downright brutal, genocidal and merciless the response by the Germans was and how they pretty much massacred and destroyed the entire city in retaliation, while letting their rabid, scum ridden dogs in the form of the Dirlewanger run amok and commit atrocities and mass executions left, right and center.
>>49053
Alright continuing from Half Life I just beat its two expansions.
Opposing force was pretty good, a lot of new enemies and weapons, almost feels like a different game.
Blue shift, wasn't bad, but no new stuff and pretty short. It's not a bad expansion but compared to Opposing Force it feels kinda meh.
Alright continuing from Half Life I just beat its two expansions.
Opposing force was pretty good, a lot of new enemies and weapons, almost feels like a different game.
Blue shift, wasn't bad, but no new stuff and pretty short. It's not a bad expansion but compared to Opposing Force it feels kinda meh.
File: 1585194666221-0.png (373.87 KB, 360x450, 4:5, Sin títul2o.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1585194666221-1.png (328.56 KB, 360x450, 4:5, Sin título.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>49108
Forgot pics
Forgot pics
File: 1585205429739-0.jpg (98.64 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, maxresdefault.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
I just finished Dead Space.
Overall it was a bad game and doesn't deserve to be called one of the "greatest games of all time".
Apart from lacking originality the game is laughably bad in many aspects. I expected a survival horror game like Silent Hill or RE but I got an action-comedy instead.
>Positives
The atmosphere, sound design, the main character design and the main character being a silent protagonist
>Negatives
>Weapons
Aesthetically the weapons are great but they're worthless when their practicality is considered.
Only the first weapon, plasma cutter, that you get is any good the rest are gimmicky and worthless because of the flaws in enemy design.
>Enemy Design
The enemies are clearly designed to irritate and frustrate you. They're not even scary, maybe a 12 year old would become scared looking at it.
The game designer must have felt really smart when he came up with the idea to make the torso and head immune to any attacks and make the limbs as the weak points. To ALL the enemies. He must have thought he has invented the next greatest thing to ever happen in videogame industry. Downright frustrating because Shotguns, Machine guns, Grenade Launchers, Flame Throwers sound good but when the enemies need to be killed in a special way by targeting their limbs they become useless.
Some enemies are really fast. Maybe the designer thought, "Hey let's just make the player character slower and the enemies faster, like really fast, they sometimes just zap in front of you. We need to irritate the player more!".
The bosses are really pathetic. I think there are only 3 fights that's even worth considering as a boss and that too they ended up reusing a guy who's invincible because they need to keep you irritated. The rest of the boss fights have a clear indication of "SHOOT HERE THIS IS THE WEAK POINT!" so that even a 12 year old can point out his mouse and shoot it. Really pathetic design. The final boss was really horrible and offered no challenge.
>Level Design
Really lazy. The game consists of fetch quests and push the button quests for the majority of the time with monsters added in between the backtracking to irritate you and keep you occupied. Half the game makes you revisit already cleared up places because the developers probably ended up their budget so they just threw their hands up and reused existing assets.
There's nothing else to do except for killing irritating enemies that are used to keep you occupied while doing fetch quests and push the button quests, occasionally you get the "dump this garbage out of space", "shoot the garbage in the area" and block puzzles quest but they aren't that much, open containers to get ammo and upgrade your weapons and suit. Nothing else left to do.
>Story
The worst aspect of this game. The NPCs are laughably bad, devoid of any character or personality, they have no backstory, nothing and exist only to order you to do fetch quests. They just ripped off the usual shock clones like using a TWEEST to make the players feel confused.
The twist came out to be hilarious. Really bad writing but excusable because it's clear the developers never intended to tell a story but to use the story as an excuse to hit you with irritating enemies and make you push buttons.
The hilarious thing is a brown arab and a strong independent succubus are main antagonists. This wouldn't happen right now thanks to the PC culture.
Dead space, more like dead slow. 2/5.
Overall it was a bad game and doesn't deserve to be called one of the "greatest games of all time".
Apart from lacking originality the game is laughably bad in many aspects. I expected a survival horror game like Silent Hill or RE but I got an action-comedy instead.
>Positives
The atmosphere, sound design, the main character design and the main character being a silent protagonist
>Negatives
>Weapons
Aesthetically the weapons are great but they're worthless when their practicality is considered.
Only the first weapon, plasma cutter, that you get is any good the rest are gimmicky and worthless because of the flaws in enemy design.
>Enemy Design
The enemies are clearly designed to irritate and frustrate you. They're not even scary, maybe a 12 year old would become scared looking at it.
The game designer must have felt really smart when he came up with the idea to make the torso and head immune to any attacks and make the limbs as the weak points. To ALL the enemies. He must have thought he has invented the next greatest thing to ever happen in videogame industry. Downright frustrating because Shotguns, Machine guns, Grenade Launchers, Flame Throwers sound good but when the enemies need to be killed in a special way by targeting their limbs they become useless.
Some enemies are really fast. Maybe the designer thought, "Hey let's just make the player character slower and the enemies faster, like really fast, they sometimes just zap in front of you. We need to irritate the player more!".
The bosses are really pathetic. I think there are only 3 fights that's even worth considering as a boss and that too they ended up reusing a guy who's invincible because they need to keep you irritated. The rest of the boss fights have a clear indication of "SHOOT HERE THIS IS THE WEAK POINT!" so that even a 12 year old can point out his mouse and shoot it. Really pathetic design. The final boss was really horrible and offered no challenge.
>Level Design
Really lazy. The game consists of fetch quests and push the button quests for the majority of the time with monsters added in between the backtracking to irritate you and keep you occupied. Half the game makes you revisit already cleared up places because the developers probably ended up their budget so they just threw their hands up and reused existing assets.
There's nothing else to do except for killing irritating enemies that are used to keep you occupied while doing fetch quests and push the button quests, occasionally you get the "dump this garbage out of space", "shoot the garbage in the area" and block puzzles quest but they aren't that much, open containers to get ammo and upgrade your weapons and suit. Nothing else left to do.
>Story
The worst aspect of this game. The NPCs are laughably bad, devoid of any character or personality, they have no backstory, nothing and exist only to order you to do fetch quests. They just ripped off the usual shock clones like using a TWEEST to make the players feel confused.
The twist came out to be hilarious. Really bad writing but excusable because it's clear the developers never intended to tell a story but to use the story as an excuse to hit you with irritating enemies and make you push buttons.
The hilarious thing is a brown arab and a strong independent succubus are main antagonists. This wouldn't happen right now thanks to the PC culture.
Dead space, more like dead slow. 2/5.
finished danganronpa trigger happy havoc (the first one) yesterday and god, i was surprised on how good the scenario was, i didn't except that, the ending is a masterpiece, it was so epic. being a fan of the ace attorney series i've often seen those two games compared (that's how i learened about danganronpa) this game is much more easy than AA and focuses more on the story than "gameplay", you're litteraly just pushing buttons and (sometimes) drive your character but yeah that's what is expected from a visual novel but actually i think it's my favourite form of media, i've much more pleasure "playing" visual novels than reading books/watching anime, for me vn's and especially DG are animes with sometimes a little gameplay and i'm totally fine with that, because unless watching anime here i do something even if it's just pushing buttons in dialogues and i like sprites and the use of music in vn's.
Anyway i really liked that game my only regret is having played it so late
Anyway i really liked that game my only regret is having played it so late
Just finished SH3 and overall I'd say I enjoyed it.
It's pretty linear when compared to the first two games, which kinda sucks, but I at least liked the variety in locations. I'd say the first couple areas, like the mall and the Hilltop center, along with the chapel at the very end were my favorites. The subway and the sewers were both pretty tedious and boring to go through and it was definitely one of the dullest sections of the game for me. In regards to when you get to SH itself, the recycling of areas from SH2 just felt really cheap. The fact that you go to Brookhaven hospital from SH2 instead of Alchemia hospital from SH1 just felt really lame, since going to Alcehmia would've been far more appropriate and fitting considering this is a direct sequel to SH1. Brookhaven showing up in SH3, not to mention Heavan's Night, literally makes no sense at all and I can imagine the only reason it's there is because the development team must've not had the time/money to create an entirely new area, so they just decided to recycle the one they already had from SH2 instead. The otherworld version of the hospital was quite good though, so at least that partially redeemed it.
Story-wise I thought it was mostly alright and I felt like it answered most of the questions I had from the first game. The whole supernatural nature of the otherworld and the entities that exist within it, is something that is expanded on a bit more, which I appreciated. I also thought all the characters were pretty likeable/interesting and, at least when speaking of the first three games, that itself seems to be a regular strong suit of the series. I would've liked a bit more backstory on Vincent. Aside from some notes saying how he regularly embezzled money from the church and had bore witness to Claudia's abuse as a child, there's really not much else known about him. What did he truly want, exactly? Just to get money and go on enjoying earthly pleasures? Was he just a scam artist? He says he believes in god and adores her, but his behavior/general personality seems to contradict this. His mannerisms always seem to suggest ulterior motives, but it appears all he really wanted was just to keep making money. At the same time, he seems quite fascinated by the otherworld, but ultimately just wants to banish it. He claims to believe in and adore god, but also appears to be just a scam artist using the church for his own ends. He seems to also care for Claudia, perhaps maybe even love her, but then urges Heather to kill her after coldly dismissing her as a crazy bitch. He's a very bizarre character in a lot of ways. Someone who sounds and acts very nefarious and shifty, but is ultimately just looking out for himself and wants nothing to do with the otherworld. Then again, keeping that sort of stuff a mystery is fine too. I also really liked Douglas as well, as sort of the gruff, fish out of water outsider to all this, and partly because of how great his voice is to listen to. From the original release that is, not the HD one. I also couldn't help, but sympathize with Claudia at the end, considering her sincere wish to simply see the overwhelming misery and injustice that plagues this world to be finally made a thing of the past. Kinda reminded me of King Allant from Demon's Souls in that sense, at least as far as a tragic figure that meant well is concerned. Her arguing that a god born from suffering might be more merciful than a god born from happiness was also a pretty fair point on her part since, as she says herself, people who claim to be happy can often be quite cruel/ignorant in their own way.
Another thing I liked was the various callbacks to SH1. Ranging from stuff like, fighting Dark Alessa on the same carousel where you confront/save Cybil in SH1, or being able to read the notes which acted as save points for Harry from SH1. The final chapel area especially was chock full of various things from SH1, like Alessa's classroom, hospital room, and her actual room itself, all of which were present in SH1. It felt like coming full circle and I appreciated the extra narrative details which further helped to flesh things out, at least in regards to how Heather comments on and reacts to seeing all these things after she realizes she's Alessa's reincarnation and is essentially speaking from her perspective on how she herself felt about them. One thing which somewhat surprised me and is something that happens when you finally get back to Harry's/Heather's apartment is reading the notebook that Harry left for her to read. The fact that Harry had thought of abandoning Heather or even outright killing her was a bit unexpected to see, but in some ways it just makes him more human and shows that he had his doubts and greater flaws to grapple with, which he eventually overcame after realizing how much he really did love Heather. Odd though how he refers to Cheryl as, "that other succubus". Why? Too emtionally painful to write her name, perhaps? The way Heather cries for Harry/dad after killing god at the end of the game was especially raw and touching, I thought. On that note, I thought the ending was decent. Heather/Cheryl is finally free from Silent Hill/The Order and move on with her life in peace. The sight of her at Harry's grave was also somewhat bittersweet/sad.
I was quite surprised to see that there's actually only one other ending to this game. discounting the joke UFO ending, and it's the bad ending to boot. Weird how they'd make the bad ending have more involved requirements, since who's gonna put in extra effort just to get the bad ending? If anything though, I kinda prefer that, since it makes the intended and more satisfying ending far more likely for most people to enjoy, since, by comparison, in SH1 it was pretty easy to miss what you needed for the best, or even just the normal good, ending there. It's still super weird to have a SH game with only 3 endings, especially when compared to SH2's 7 endings, along with the absence of its rather convoluted, but also uniquely diagetic way of obtaining them.**
Gameplay-wise, the linearity made a lot of sections in this game kinda frustrating to deal with. Narrow hallways and cramped level design has always been a thing in SH, but found it to be especially bad/prevalent in SH3. Much more so in my case since I happened to play on hard, which packed tons of enemies, sometimes an absurd amount, into areas that were otherwise quite difficult to maneuver around in. I also couldn't just shoot my way past since, given that I was playing on hard, running away was essentially all I could do a lot of the time, lest I run completely out of resources by choosing to fight. The worst area for this sort of the thing was the otherworld version of the hospital, what all the god damned nurses and those things which skitter on the ground and can constantly knock you to the ground, or grapple you. As it was, if I had to explore an area I'd just save my game, then run though it killing everything with all my saved resources until I found what I needed to advance, then reloaded and tried to dodge past everything, only killing what was necessary.
The weapons, especially the guns, were also just really lame and had barely any stopping power, although this was probably a result of me playing on hard. I actually ran into a really nasty glitch when I reached the church area where all of the ammo I picked up wouldn't register in my inventory. As a result, I had to pretty much no recourse, but to run past everything and tank the hits. Although it's not as if the ammo I had picked up, assuming I'd actually gotten it, would've been enough to clear out most of the monsters that got in my way. The worst was a hallway with two of those obese tumor monsters, since they'd literally block the hallway, preventing me from running past them. I basically had to bait an attack and hope I could squeeze past them, which fortunately enough I was lucky enough to do without suffering too much damage.
In the end, due to this glitch I suffered, I had to face the final boss with only 35 handgun bullets and one shotgun shell. It took me a few tries, but combined with the use of the katana and not being too greedy with my attacks, I was able to beat her despite being robbed earlier of ammo I could've otherwise used here. Fortunately, I still had 3 ampoules and 3 medkits on hand, which allowed me somewhat of a margin for error, although, even then, I still was only one hit away from dying when I finally landed the killing blow, after already exhausting all of my healing items. It's the sorta thing I wished I had recorded funnily enough, since that final winning attempt turned out to be pretty harrowing. It also just made the ending and everything that followed that much more satisfying in its own way. Another bonus is that this led to me unlocking the unlimited submachine gun without even knowing it, since killing god with a melee weapon turned out to be its prerequisite. I played around with it a bit on New Game+, but even with unlimited ammo it's still a pretty lame and unsatisfying weapon. The beam sabre was kinda cool, though.
It's pretty linear when compared to the first two games, which kinda sucks, but I at least liked the variety in locations. I'd say the first couple areas, like the mall and the Hilltop center, along with the chapel at the very end were my favorites. The subway and the sewers were both pretty tedious and boring to go through and it was definitely one of the dullest sections of the game for me. In regards to when you get to SH itself, the recycling of areas from SH2 just felt really cheap. The fact that you go to Brookhaven hospital from SH2 instead of Alchemia hospital from SH1 just felt really lame, since going to Alcehmia would've been far more appropriate and fitting considering this is a direct sequel to SH1. Brookhaven showing up in SH3, not to mention Heavan's Night, literally makes no sense at all and I can imagine the only reason it's there is because the development team must've not had the time/money to create an entirely new area, so they just decided to recycle the one they already had from SH2 instead. The otherworld version of the hospital was quite good though, so at least that partially redeemed it.
Story-wise I thought it was mostly alright and I felt like it answered most of the questions I had from the first game. The whole supernatural nature of the otherworld and the entities that exist within it, is something that is expanded on a bit more, which I appreciated. I also thought all the characters were pretty likeable/interesting and, at least when speaking of the first three games, that itself seems to be a regular strong suit of the series. I would've liked a bit more backstory on Vincent. Aside from some notes saying how he regularly embezzled money from the church and had bore witness to Claudia's abuse as a child, there's really not much else known about him. What did he truly want, exactly? Just to get money and go on enjoying earthly pleasures? Was he just a scam artist? He says he believes in god and adores her, but his behavior/general personality seems to contradict this. His mannerisms always seem to suggest ulterior motives, but it appears all he really wanted was just to keep making money. At the same time, he seems quite fascinated by the otherworld, but ultimately just wants to banish it. He claims to believe in and adore god, but also appears to be just a scam artist using the church for his own ends. He seems to also care for Claudia, perhaps maybe even love her, but then urges Heather to kill her after coldly dismissing her as a crazy bitch. He's a very bizarre character in a lot of ways. Someone who sounds and acts very nefarious and shifty, but is ultimately just looking out for himself and wants nothing to do with the otherworld. Then again, keeping that sort of stuff a mystery is fine too. I also really liked Douglas as well, as sort of the gruff, fish out of water outsider to all this, and partly because of how great his voice is to listen to. From the original release that is, not the HD one. I also couldn't help, but sympathize with Claudia at the end, considering her sincere wish to simply see the overwhelming misery and injustice that plagues this world to be finally made a thing of the past. Kinda reminded me of King Allant from Demon's Souls in that sense, at least as far as a tragic figure that meant well is concerned. Her arguing that a god born from suffering might be more merciful than a god born from happiness was also a pretty fair point on her part since, as she says herself, people who claim to be happy can often be quite cruel/ignorant in their own way.
Another thing I liked was the various callbacks to SH1. Ranging from stuff like, fighting Dark Alessa on the same carousel where you confront/save Cybil in SH1, or being able to read the notes which acted as save points for Harry from SH1. The final chapel area especially was chock full of various things from SH1, like Alessa's classroom, hospital room, and her actual room itself, all of which were present in SH1. It felt like coming full circle and I appreciated the extra narrative details which further helped to flesh things out, at least in regards to how Heather comments on and reacts to seeing all these things after she realizes she's Alessa's reincarnation and is essentially speaking from her perspective on how she herself felt about them. One thing which somewhat surprised me and is something that happens when you finally get back to Harry's/Heather's apartment is reading the notebook that Harry left for her to read. The fact that Harry had thought of abandoning Heather or even outright killing her was a bit unexpected to see, but in some ways it just makes him more human and shows that he had his doubts and greater flaws to grapple with, which he eventually overcame after realizing how much he really did love Heather. Odd though how he refers to Cheryl as, "that other succubus". Why? Too emtionally painful to write her name, perhaps? The way Heather cries for Harry/dad after killing god at the end of the game was especially raw and touching, I thought. On that note, I thought the ending was decent. Heather/Cheryl is finally free from Silent Hill/The Order and move on with her life in peace. The sight of her at Harry's grave was also somewhat bittersweet/sad.
I was quite surprised to see that there's actually only one other ending to this game. discounting the joke UFO ending, and it's the bad ending to boot. Weird how they'd make the bad ending have more involved requirements, since who's gonna put in extra effort just to get the bad ending? If anything though, I kinda prefer that, since it makes the intended and more satisfying ending far more likely for most people to enjoy, since, by comparison, in SH1 it was pretty easy to miss what you needed for the best, or even just the normal good, ending there. It's still super weird to have a SH game with only 3 endings, especially when compared to SH2's 7 endings, along with the absence of its rather convoluted, but also uniquely diagetic way of obtaining them.**
Gameplay-wise, the linearity made a lot of sections in this game kinda frustrating to deal with. Narrow hallways and cramped level design has always been a thing in SH, but found it to be especially bad/prevalent in SH3. Much more so in my case since I happened to play on hard, which packed tons of enemies, sometimes an absurd amount, into areas that were otherwise quite difficult to maneuver around in. I also couldn't just shoot my way past since, given that I was playing on hard, running away was essentially all I could do a lot of the time, lest I run completely out of resources by choosing to fight. The worst area for this sort of the thing was the otherworld version of the hospital, what all the god damned nurses and those things which skitter on the ground and can constantly knock you to the ground, or grapple you. As it was, if I had to explore an area I'd just save my game, then run though it killing everything with all my saved resources until I found what I needed to advance, then reloaded and tried to dodge past everything, only killing what was necessary.
The weapons, especially the guns, were also just really lame and had barely any stopping power, although this was probably a result of me playing on hard. I actually ran into a really nasty glitch when I reached the church area where all of the ammo I picked up wouldn't register in my inventory. As a result, I had to pretty much no recourse, but to run past everything and tank the hits. Although it's not as if the ammo I had picked up, assuming I'd actually gotten it, would've been enough to clear out most of the monsters that got in my way. The worst was a hallway with two of those obese tumor monsters, since they'd literally block the hallway, preventing me from running past them. I basically had to bait an attack and hope I could squeeze past them, which fortunately enough I was lucky enough to do without suffering too much damage.
In the end, due to this glitch I suffered, I had to face the final boss with only 35 handgun bullets and one shotgun shell. It took me a few tries, but combined with the use of the katana and not being too greedy with my attacks, I was able to beat her despite being robbed earlier of ammo I could've otherwise used here. Fortunately, I still had 3 ampoules and 3 medkits on hand, which allowed me somewhat of a margin for error, although, even then, I still was only one hit away from dying when I finally landed the killing blow, after already exhausting all of my healing items. It's the sorta thing I wished I had recorded funnily enough, since that final winning attempt turned out to be pretty harrowing. It also just made the ending and everything that followed that much more satisfying in its own way. Another bonus is that this led to me unlocking the unlimited submachine gun without even knowing it, since killing god with a melee weapon turned out to be its prerequisite. I played around with it a bit on New Game+, but even with unlimited ammo it's still a pretty lame and unsatisfying weapon. The beam sabre was kinda cool, though.
>>49173
(Continued from above)
I'd say. hands down, the most egregious thing that ended up grating on my nerves in this game were its puzzles. Again, I selected hard when it came to puzzle difficulty and I really wish I hadn't. The puzzles on hard are often the most irrational and harebrained nonsense you could possibly imagine. If anything ruined my enjoyment of this game, it was having to grapple with the constant bullshit endemic to these shit-tier puzzles. The only two which were actually decent and somewhat clever, in my opinion, were the crematorium puzzle and the tarot card puzzle. Both are very solvable on hard and they were, for me anyway, satisfying to puzzle out. Although even the crematorium puzzle had some arbitrary bullshit attached to it. Like how it defines which bird, applies to which description. For instance, which bird out of these three represents purity and love and is adored by all and will also never know death. A dove, a wren, or a lark? Did you guess it? That's right, the answer is a wren, :^). Like fucking come on why don't you. Also, don't even get me started on the haunted house. Holy shit was that frustrating getting insta-killed by either those damn spikes or that ball of red light and having to go through that unskippable preamble bullshit over and over. Like how the fuck are you supposed to guess that walking through the spikes while in your caution stance will allow you to pass through safely? You see, it's beacuse Heather's head is like one inch lower than it otherwise would be when she's in her caution stance that this is why the spikes can't kill you, :^). Like, jesus fucking christ, what the fuck, man? Kiss my fucking rust covered, otherworld ass. I even tried tilting Heather's head down before I looked that up and guess what? Yep, you still fucking die. And this, despite her head being far lower that way versus the caution stance. Just more poorly thought out and arbitrary bullshit. Running from that red light was also needlessly brutal. Pretty much one slip up and you're dead. I don't know if it moves faster on hard, or what, but man was the timing unforgiving on that shit. Took me like 3 or 4 tries to get through that stupid crap.
Anyway, despite it all, I still came out the other side largely liking this game, mostly thanks to the story, characters and atmosphere. Like I said, I thought it did a pretty good job of closing out Alessa's/Heather's journey and concluding what had started in SH1. I'll also say that playing SH1 certainly enhances the experience here a bit, so in my case that helped carry the game forward for me in a lot of ways. Stuff like fighting Alessa's memory, or finding what's left of Harry, just means a lot more if you've already played SH1.
I might go on to play SH4 next, but I've heard that one's pretty bad. I also wouldn't mind checking out Shattered Memories, even though it's just a SH2-esque reboot/reimagining of the original game. If anything that's part of the reason why I want to play it, since SH1's story without any of the cult stuff kinda intrigues me. There's also Origins, but enh. A prequel to the main series just doesn't sound all the interesting to me, especially after most of the closure from SH3, but I still might check it out at some point, I guess.
(Continued from above)
I'd say. hands down, the most egregious thing that ended up grating on my nerves in this game were its puzzles. Again, I selected hard when it came to puzzle difficulty and I really wish I hadn't. The puzzles on hard are often the most irrational and harebrained nonsense you could possibly imagine. If anything ruined my enjoyment of this game, it was having to grapple with the constant bullshit endemic to these shit-tier puzzles. The only two which were actually decent and somewhat clever, in my opinion, were the crematorium puzzle and the tarot card puzzle. Both are very solvable on hard and they were, for me anyway, satisfying to puzzle out. Although even the crematorium puzzle had some arbitrary bullshit attached to it. Like how it defines which bird, applies to which description. For instance, which bird out of these three represents purity and love and is adored by all and will also never know death. A dove, a wren, or a lark? Did you guess it? That's right, the answer is a wren, :^). Like fucking come on why don't you. Also, don't even get me started on the haunted house. Holy shit was that frustrating getting insta-killed by either those damn spikes or that ball of red light and having to go through that unskippable preamble bullshit over and over. Like how the fuck are you supposed to guess that walking through the spikes while in your caution stance will allow you to pass through safely? You see, it's beacuse Heather's head is like one inch lower than it otherwise would be when she's in her caution stance that this is why the spikes can't kill you, :^). Like, jesus fucking christ, what the fuck, man? Kiss my fucking rust covered, otherworld ass. I even tried tilting Heather's head down before I looked that up and guess what? Yep, you still fucking die. And this, despite her head being far lower that way versus the caution stance. Just more poorly thought out and arbitrary bullshit. Running from that red light was also needlessly brutal. Pretty much one slip up and you're dead. I don't know if it moves faster on hard, or what, but man was the timing unforgiving on that shit. Took me like 3 or 4 tries to get through that stupid crap.
Anyway, despite it all, I still came out the other side largely liking this game, mostly thanks to the story, characters and atmosphere. Like I said, I thought it did a pretty good job of closing out Alessa's/Heather's journey and concluding what had started in SH1. I'll also say that playing SH1 certainly enhances the experience here a bit, so in my case that helped carry the game forward for me in a lot of ways. Stuff like fighting Alessa's memory, or finding what's left of Harry, just means a lot more if you've already played SH1.
I might go on to play SH4 next, but I've heard that one's pretty bad. I also wouldn't mind checking out Shattered Memories, even though it's just a SH2-esque reboot/reimagining of the original game. If anything that's part of the reason why I want to play it, since SH1's story without any of the cult stuff kinda intrigues me. There's also Origins, but enh. A prequel to the main series just doesn't sound all the interesting to me, especially after most of the closure from SH3, but I still might check it out at some point, I guess.
>>49175
Nah, it actually has a more vaginal connotation. Since within this hole is where god has been born/is being born. It's basically the hole from which god will burst out, similar to a baby coming out of a vagina. I'd say it's representative of the themes of unwanted pregnancy and the nasty bloodiness of birth.
Also, the image is a screenshot taken from the game itself and is an unofficial fan cover for the complete soundtrack ripped from the game's files.
Nah, it actually has a more vaginal connotation. Since within this hole is where god has been born/is being born. It's basically the hole from which god will burst out, similar to a baby coming out of a vagina. I'd say it's representative of the themes of unwanted pregnancy and the nasty bloodiness of birth.
Also, the image is a screenshot taken from the game itself and is an unofficial fan cover for the complete soundtrack ripped from the game's files.
>>49173
*Alchemilla
Really screwed up the spelling on that, my bad. For whatever reason, I always just read it as "Alchemia".
*Alchemilla
Really screwed up the spelling on that, my bad. For whatever reason, I always just read it as "Alchemia".
File: 1585709410143.jpg (117.77 KB, 1024x708, 256:177, Silent-Hill-4-The-Room.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>49174
>I might go on to play SH4 next, but I've heard that one's pretty bad
It's not bad, but it's far from perfect. The stuff people usually complain about is a) The game makes you backtrack quite a bit in the second half and b) A lot of the game is an escort mission, although you don't really need to take care of the succubus you're escorting, neglecting her does affect the ending.
If you can get over those two flaws, it's a great game, with a great story, amazing atmosphere, top notch soundtrack and some of the best (and worst) enemy designs in the series. In some ways it's pretty different from 1,2 and 3, and some people go as far as to call it not a Silent Hill game (there even was this dumb theory that it wasn't originally a Silent Hill and they changed the title for name recognition, but that's not true), but I still love it.
>I also wouldn't mind checking out Shattered Memories
Eh it's good, and really short, you can probably get all the endings in a couple of days.
>There's also Origins
It's not that bad, in my opinion. Play it if you're really craving more Silent Hill and have already played everything else.
What you should definitely do is stay away from Homecoming and Downpour, and the one for Vita, don't even remember its name.
>I might go on to play SH4 next, but I've heard that one's pretty bad
It's not bad, but it's far from perfect. The stuff people usually complain about is a) The game makes you backtrack quite a bit in the second half and b) A lot of the game is an escort mission, although you don't really need to take care of the succubus you're escorting, neglecting her does affect the ending.
If you can get over those two flaws, it's a great game, with a great story, amazing atmosphere, top notch soundtrack and some of the best (and worst) enemy designs in the series. In some ways it's pretty different from 1,2 and 3, and some people go as far as to call it not a Silent Hill game (there even was this dumb theory that it wasn't originally a Silent Hill and they changed the title for name recognition, but that's not true), but I still love it.
>I also wouldn't mind checking out Shattered Memories
Eh it's good, and really short, you can probably get all the endings in a couple of days.
>There's also Origins
It's not that bad, in my opinion. Play it if you're really craving more Silent Hill and have already played everything else.
What you should definitely do is stay away from Homecoming and Downpour, and the one for Vita, don't even remember its name.
File: 1585709628670.png (440.55 KB, 500x349, 500:349, Sin título.png) ImgOps iqdb
I guess I could say I finished it? I won all tournaments and unlocked all characters. It's way more fun than a golf game has any right to be, althought the physics can be kinda weird at times. It's funny because I started it as a "comfy" game but when I got to the latter tournaments (especially the last one) it gets pretty tough and at times infuriating. I still had fun.
>>49181
So I hear, but my toaster can't emulate gamecube. There's a couple of game boy games but they look kinda bad.
So I hear, but my toaster can't emulate gamecube. There's a couple of game boy games but they look kinda bad.
>>49179
Is there a time limit in SH4 to worry about? I happen to know that your room will occasionally suffer "hauntings", which require limited prayer candles to stave off. My question is, how likely is it for you to run out of them? Also, hearing you mention all the backtracking doesn't exactly have me too enthused about playing it. I might have knocked SH3 for being a bit too linear when it came to its level design, but at least it always kept you moving along towards where you needed to go. Not to mention that having to escort an NPC around sounds pretty awful, since it can be difficult enough as it is simply having to maneuver around monsters solo, at least when speaking of the first three games. Throwing an NPC into the mix just sounds like a recipe for major frustration. I'd imagine that if they take too much damage, or you neglect them too much, (like those brief sections with Maria in SH2), that leads to you getting the bad ending, right? In SH2's case it didn't really matter, since taking care of Maria was actually what led to what one could arguably call the worst ending.
I've always set the puzzle/combat difficulty to hard when it's come to my first playthrough of these games, mostly so as to elevate the more survival aspect, within survival horror, in the gameplay. Would that be a dumb thing to do in SH4 and would it only come back to bite me in the ass, sorta like how setting the puzzle difficulty to hard in SH3 came to really bite me in the ass later? I'd imagine that playing on hard would probably make those hauntings I mentioned more of a pain to deal with.
>there even was this dumb theory that it wasn't originally a Silent Hill and they changed the title for name recognition, but that's not true
Yeah, I'd heard of that. So it's not true then? I thought it was due to Konami basically forcing the development team to make it SH related at some point, so it could be more easily marketable to the public. I had heard that, at the very least, the original intention was for SH4 to be its own game, unrelated to the SH universe.
>What you should definitely do is stay away from Homecoming and Downpour
Yeah, that's exactly why I didn't bother mentioning them. I'm loathe to admit it, but Downpour was actually my first SH game. Would you believe I even got the platinum trophy for it as well? I requested it on a whim from this Gamefly-like service I was subscribed to at the time, about a year or so after it had come out. Half of the reason being because I had never played a SH game before, and the other half thinking it would be an easy platinum to acquire, which it mostly was. Anyway, I ended up getting all the trophies for it merely because that's just what I did back then, since I had, to put it lightly, a pretty strong compulsion towards trophy/achievement completionism back then. Anyway, it was indeed a pretty crappy game that did very little justice to the series itself, especially after now playing SH1, SH2 and SH3. SH2 being what I first played, at least when speaking of the Team Silent era of the series. Like with SH3 just recently, I played the fan enhanced PC version of SH2, which I proceeded to do during Halloween night of 2016 and I actually completed pretty much the whole game in just one sitting, since the atmosphere and story managed to compel me and suck me right into it just that much.
Homecoming and Book of Memories, (which I think is the Vita one you mentioned), basically might as well not even be SH games to me, so I have zero interest in them. The same would've applied to Downpour as well, had I not already had the misfortune of playing it already.
As a random aside, too bad those PT remakes got shut down by Konami. I don't have a PS4, so I never got to download it. It was just a gimmicky demo, yes, but it still would've been interesting to check out. It had a lot of potential to be something potentially really great, and the influence of Junji Ito and Del Toro would've perhaps really enhanced what they could've done. Like many others, I'm of the opinion that the head honchos at Konami were absolute madmen for cancelling it, given all the hype and attention it received. It would appear that they just really fucking hated Kojima that damn much that they'd willingly shoot themselves in the foot like that. It's quite sad that the SH series will continue to remain in the realm of cheap pachinko machines and lame arcade games for what will probably still be a good long while yet. It'd be great if Konami could just sell the rights to the series to someone who actually wants to do something with it that's not godawful or laughably terrible, but I doubt they'll ever do that.
Is there a time limit in SH4 to worry about? I happen to know that your room will occasionally suffer "hauntings", which require limited prayer candles to stave off. My question is, how likely is it for you to run out of them? Also, hearing you mention all the backtracking doesn't exactly have me too enthused about playing it. I might have knocked SH3 for being a bit too linear when it came to its level design, but at least it always kept you moving along towards where you needed to go. Not to mention that having to escort an NPC around sounds pretty awful, since it can be difficult enough as it is simply having to maneuver around monsters solo, at least when speaking of the first three games. Throwing an NPC into the mix just sounds like a recipe for major frustration. I'd imagine that if they take too much damage, or you neglect them too much, (like those brief sections with Maria in SH2), that leads to you getting the bad ending, right? In SH2's case it didn't really matter, since taking care of Maria was actually what led to what one could arguably call the worst ending.
I've always set the puzzle/combat difficulty to hard when it's come to my first playthrough of these games, mostly so as to elevate the more survival aspect, within survival horror, in the gameplay. Would that be a dumb thing to do in SH4 and would it only come back to bite me in the ass, sorta like how setting the puzzle difficulty to hard in SH3 came to really bite me in the ass later? I'd imagine that playing on hard would probably make those hauntings I mentioned more of a pain to deal with.
>there even was this dumb theory that it wasn't originally a Silent Hill and they changed the title for name recognition, but that's not true
Yeah, I'd heard of that. So it's not true then? I thought it was due to Konami basically forcing the development team to make it SH related at some point, so it could be more easily marketable to the public. I had heard that, at the very least, the original intention was for SH4 to be its own game, unrelated to the SH universe.
>What you should definitely do is stay away from Homecoming and Downpour
Yeah, that's exactly why I didn't bother mentioning them. I'm loathe to admit it, but Downpour was actually my first SH game. Would you believe I even got the platinum trophy for it as well? I requested it on a whim from this Gamefly-like service I was subscribed to at the time, about a year or so after it had come out. Half of the reason being because I had never played a SH game before, and the other half thinking it would be an easy platinum to acquire, which it mostly was. Anyway, I ended up getting all the trophies for it merely because that's just what I did back then, since I had, to put it lightly, a pretty strong compulsion towards trophy/achievement completionism back then. Anyway, it was indeed a pretty crappy game that did very little justice to the series itself, especially after now playing SH1, SH2 and SH3. SH2 being what I first played, at least when speaking of the Team Silent era of the series. Like with SH3 just recently, I played the fan enhanced PC version of SH2, which I proceeded to do during Halloween night of 2016 and I actually completed pretty much the whole game in just one sitting, since the atmosphere and story managed to compel me and suck me right into it just that much.
Homecoming and Book of Memories, (which I think is the Vita one you mentioned), basically might as well not even be SH games to me, so I have zero interest in them. The same would've applied to Downpour as well, had I not already had the misfortune of playing it already.
As a random aside, too bad those PT remakes got shut down by Konami. I don't have a PS4, so I never got to download it. It was just a gimmicky demo, yes, but it still would've been interesting to check out. It had a lot of potential to be something potentially really great, and the influence of Junji Ito and Del Toro would've perhaps really enhanced what they could've done. Like many others, I'm of the opinion that the head honchos at Konami were absolute madmen for cancelling it, given all the hype and attention it received. It would appear that they just really fucking hated Kojima that damn much that they'd willingly shoot themselves in the foot like that. It's quite sad that the SH series will continue to remain in the realm of cheap pachinko machines and lame arcade games for what will probably still be a good long while yet. It'd be great if Konami could just sell the rights to the series to someone who actually wants to do something with it that's not godawful or laughably terrible, but I doubt they'll ever do that.
File: 1585752885533.jpg (23 KB, 265x375, 53:75, Siren_art_box.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>49184
>Is there a time limit
There is one and the time is directly affected by the health of the succubbus, I don't want to spoil anything but like I said, if you want a "good" ending, take care of her.
>I happen to know that your room will occasionally suffer "hauntings", which require limited prayer candles to stave off
Yes, the appartment will get hauntings, some of which are pretty nice to see. They don't have much effect on you expect they'd stop you from automatically healing whenever you're in your room, after a while they'll go away but you do need to clear most of them to get good ending. Other than candles, there are a few medallions that can also get rid of hauntings, but they're not as effective. Candles are also useful for healing the succubus, so you might want to save a few. A little advice: you might want to check a guide before burning a candle in your appartment since some hauntings need the candle to be placed in a very specific place and you could waste some of them. Oh and if you can, emulate a console version, they have a few hauntings not present in the PC one.
>how likely is it for you to run out of them?
Very, at least I always run out.
>having to escort an NPC around sounds pretty awful
It's not THAT bad, you can give her weapons so she can defend herself, but still I'd rather not do it. The good thing is that most enemies you can take care of using melee pretty easily, with a couple of exceptions.
>I've always set the puzzle/combat difficulty to hard when it's come to my first playthrough of these games
Well this game doesn't have a puzzle difficulty setting, just one setting and I think it only affects combat (I'm not sure about hauntings). So you won't have a problem with that. There aren't any retarded puzzles like that Shakespeare one in 3, so don't worry about that.
>I had heard that, at the very least, the original intention was for SH4 to be its own game, unrelated to the SH universe
It's definitely its own thing, there are a few tie-ins, but those are just retcons, I think. The devs probably figured the games were getting pretty formulaic after 3 and decided to do something different.
>It's quite sad that the SH series will continue to remain in the realm of cheap pachinko machines and lame arcade games for what will probably still be a good long while yet
Yeah, it actually hurts since this is my favorite video game series. If you run out of Silent Hill, check out the Siren games, thet're made by some of the guys from team Silent, the director, particularly. They feel kinda similar, although they're built more around stealth rather than action.
>Is there a time limit
There is one and the time is directly affected by the health of the succubbus, I don't want to spoil anything but like I said, if you want a "good" ending, take care of her.
>I happen to know that your room will occasionally suffer "hauntings", which require limited prayer candles to stave off
Yes, the appartment will get hauntings, some of which are pretty nice to see. They don't have much effect on you expect they'd stop you from automatically healing whenever you're in your room, after a while they'll go away but you do need to clear most of them to get good ending. Other than candles, there are a few medallions that can also get rid of hauntings, but they're not as effective. Candles are also useful for healing the succubus, so you might want to save a few. A little advice: you might want to check a guide before burning a candle in your appartment since some hauntings need the candle to be placed in a very specific place and you could waste some of them. Oh and if you can, emulate a console version, they have a few hauntings not present in the PC one.
>how likely is it for you to run out of them?
Very, at least I always run out.
>having to escort an NPC around sounds pretty awful
It's not THAT bad, you can give her weapons so she can defend herself, but still I'd rather not do it. The good thing is that most enemies you can take care of using melee pretty easily, with a couple of exceptions.
>I've always set the puzzle/combat difficulty to hard when it's come to my first playthrough of these games
Well this game doesn't have a puzzle difficulty setting, just one setting and I think it only affects combat (I'm not sure about hauntings). So you won't have a problem with that. There aren't any retarded puzzles like that Shakespeare one in 3, so don't worry about that.
>I had heard that, at the very least, the original intention was for SH4 to be its own game, unrelated to the SH universe
It's definitely its own thing, there are a few tie-ins, but those are just retcons, I think. The devs probably figured the games were getting pretty formulaic after 3 and decided to do something different.
>It's quite sad that the SH series will continue to remain in the realm of cheap pachinko machines and lame arcade games for what will probably still be a good long while yet
Yeah, it actually hurts since this is my favorite video game series. If you run out of Silent Hill, check out the Siren games, thet're made by some of the guys from team Silent, the director, particularly. They feel kinda similar, although they're built more around stealth rather than action.
>>49186
Alright, thanks for the info. I'll be certain to make the best use of the prayer candles whenever I come across some and I'll definitely be looking up where I'm supposed to place them, since getting screwed by putting them in the wrong spot would kind of suck.
Also, thanks for warning me about the missing content in the PC version. Aside from a few throwaway outfits, there's no difference between the PS2 and PC versions of SH3 so, for me, I simply preferred to play the PC version instead. When it comes to SH4, although I'm not sure how meaningful the haunting events are, I'd rather go the emulation route this time so I'm not missing out on anything. Is someone likely to see all the haunting events in just a single playthrough, or are they random, or can they be missed if you don't return back to your apartment enough?
As it stands, I took your emulation advice and am about 2 hours into the game at this point and haven't run across anything too frustrating yet. Probably the most annoying thing was trying to get up that escalator and getting constantly smacked around by those monsters that come out of the walls. Taking the left escalator as opposed to the right definitely made it a lot simpler. I'm currently in the concrete apartment complex area, just after the rotating tower. Enemies are pretty forgiving for the most part and it's pretty easy to maneuver around them. Much more so than the previous games thanks to the full 3D movement you have now, instead of tank controls. Puzzles are also super simple so far, so that's certainly a relief. Henry himself is a pleasingly subdued character and the story seems alright so far.
One thing that's kinda bothering me though, in regards to the emulation not the game, is how the widescreen patch I'm using seems as if it's stretching the game a bit too much vertically. It's a tad distracting, but maybe that's just how it's supposed to look like. It's hard to compare against videos on YouTube, but, from what I can tell, it doesn't look like others have that weird stretching going on. Well, I might just be imagining things, since all the settings are just as they should be and in their recommended place, so I don't know. That would seem to suggest it's working as intended. Maybe widescreen patches just work differently when it comes to emulation, as opposed to PC ports.
>but those are just retcons, I think.
Yeah, I think it was mentioned in an article of SH3 how "The Order" was using a nearby orphanage to brainwash and recruit children into their cult, which pops up in SH4 both in the forest area and the connection it has with the proceeding rotating tower world for imprisoning said children. Dhalia and the order are both mentioned in regards to them, so it's somewhat related to the events of SH1 and SH3 in a rather passing canonical way. I believe there was also some articles in SH2 talking about a serial killer which matches Walter's description, but I'm not entirely sure, which also ties it to SH2, along with Frank Sunderland being the superintendent of the apartment.
>If you run out of Silent Hill, check out the Siren games, thet're made by some of the guys from team Silent, the director, particularly.
Is that so? I had heard of Siren before, but I had no idea it was made by some of the same guys from Team Silent. I can recall playing the demo of its sequel Siren: Blood Curse way back when, but I never got around to playing the full game. There's a lot of survival horror games I'd like to eventually play after Silent Hill. Rule of Rose, Haunting Ground, the Fatal Frame games, Clocktower games, Echo Night games, Kuon, and a few others as well. I played Dino Crisis and RE 1 & 2 a long time ago, but I also wouldn't mind replaying them as well, since I never did Chris's route in RE1, or Clarie's route in RE2. I also never got around to playing RE3 or Code Veronica, so there's that too.
Alright, thanks for the info. I'll be certain to make the best use of the prayer candles whenever I come across some and I'll definitely be looking up where I'm supposed to place them, since getting screwed by putting them in the wrong spot would kind of suck.
Also, thanks for warning me about the missing content in the PC version. Aside from a few throwaway outfits, there's no difference between the PS2 and PC versions of SH3 so, for me, I simply preferred to play the PC version instead. When it comes to SH4, although I'm not sure how meaningful the haunting events are, I'd rather go the emulation route this time so I'm not missing out on anything. Is someone likely to see all the haunting events in just a single playthrough, or are they random, or can they be missed if you don't return back to your apartment enough?
As it stands, I took your emulation advice and am about 2 hours into the game at this point and haven't run across anything too frustrating yet. Probably the most annoying thing was trying to get up that escalator and getting constantly smacked around by those monsters that come out of the walls. Taking the left escalator as opposed to the right definitely made it a lot simpler. I'm currently in the concrete apartment complex area, just after the rotating tower. Enemies are pretty forgiving for the most part and it's pretty easy to maneuver around them. Much more so than the previous games thanks to the full 3D movement you have now, instead of tank controls. Puzzles are also super simple so far, so that's certainly a relief. Henry himself is a pleasingly subdued character and the story seems alright so far.
One thing that's kinda bothering me though, in regards to the emulation not the game, is how the widescreen patch I'm using seems as if it's stretching the game a bit too much vertically. It's a tad distracting, but maybe that's just how it's supposed to look like. It's hard to compare against videos on YouTube, but, from what I can tell, it doesn't look like others have that weird stretching going on. Well, I might just be imagining things, since all the settings are just as they should be and in their recommended place, so I don't know. That would seem to suggest it's working as intended. Maybe widescreen patches just work differently when it comes to emulation, as opposed to PC ports.
>but those are just retcons, I think.
Yeah, I think it was mentioned in an article of SH3 how "The Order" was using a nearby orphanage to brainwash and recruit children into their cult, which pops up in SH4 both in the forest area and the connection it has with the proceeding rotating tower world for imprisoning said children. Dhalia and the order are both mentioned in regards to them, so it's somewhat related to the events of SH1 and SH3 in a rather passing canonical way. I believe there was also some articles in SH2 talking about a serial killer which matches Walter's description, but I'm not entirely sure, which also ties it to SH2, along with Frank Sunderland being the superintendent of the apartment.
>If you run out of Silent Hill, check out the Siren games, thet're made by some of the guys from team Silent, the director, particularly.
Is that so? I had heard of Siren before, but I had no idea it was made by some of the same guys from Team Silent. I can recall playing the demo of its sequel Siren: Blood Curse way back when, but I never got around to playing the full game. There's a lot of survival horror games I'd like to eventually play after Silent Hill. Rule of Rose, Haunting Ground, the Fatal Frame games, Clocktower games, Echo Night games, Kuon, and a few others as well. I played Dino Crisis and RE 1 & 2 a long time ago, but I also wouldn't mind replaying them as well, since I never did Chris's route in RE1, or Clarie's route in RE2. I also never got around to playing RE3 or Code Veronica, so there's that too.
File: 1585792658115.png (109.32 KB, 340x244, 85:61, Sin título.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>49192
>Is someone likely to see all the haunting events in just a single playthrough, or are they random, or can they be missed if you don't return back to your apartment enough?
Apparently not, it's random and I don't think you get to see them all, no matter how much you return.
>I believe there was also some articles in SH2 talking about a serial killer which matches Walter's description
Yeah, I didn't want to spoil it for you but they name him. There's also a grave with his name after you fight the fat guy.
>I also never got around to playing RE3 or Code Veronica, so there's that too
Code Veronica is my favorite Resident Evil, you should definitely play it. Man you made me feel nostalgic, I they still made games like these.
>Is someone likely to see all the haunting events in just a single playthrough, or are they random, or can they be missed if you don't return back to your apartment enough?
Apparently not, it's random and I don't think you get to see them all, no matter how much you return.
>I believe there was also some articles in SH2 talking about a serial killer which matches Walter's description
Yeah, I didn't want to spoil it for you but they name him. There's also a grave with his name after you fight the fat guy.
>I also never got around to playing RE3 or Code Veronica, so there's that too
Code Veronica is my favorite Resident Evil, you should definitely play it. Man you made me feel nostalgic, I they still made games like these.
File: 1586139050811.png (554.46 KB, 536x1168, 67:146, walter.png) ImgOps iqdb
Ok so this wiz >>49192 made me want to play Silent Hill 4 again, so I reinstalled it. I played on normal because I can't be bothered to go through that last part of the game on hard, I still had to reload a couple of times because the succubus took some damage and I didn't want to be running against time in the last part. I won't spoil anything because that other wiz probably hasn't finished yet, but I will say this game would probably be one of my favorite Silent Hills if it wasn't for those annoying ghosts.
This is definitely the hardest game of the series in terms of item management, you can't carry much, and going back to the appartment to deposit items can cause hauntings to appear, so it has that strategic aspect going on for it, I still had ammo and items to spare towards the end, probably in hard I would've had a bit less, but I doubt I would've run out of anything, even candles, I don't know why I thought they were really scarce, maybe I wasn't thorough enough on previous walkthroughs.
I love the plot of this game, I actually felt sorry for Walter towards the end, something very few makes could make me feel. The music is great, just like any other Yamaoka soundtrack, and the main song if my favorite Silent Hill track ever.
Walter kinda resembles Kurt Cobain, and he also has a weird obsession with his mother's womb, just after completing the game I googled Cobain and turns out today is his death anniversary, talk about coincidences.
This is definitely the hardest game of the series in terms of item management, you can't carry much, and going back to the appartment to deposit items can cause hauntings to appear, so it has that strategic aspect going on for it, I still had ammo and items to spare towards the end, probably in hard I would've had a bit less, but I doubt I would've run out of anything, even candles, I don't know why I thought they were really scarce, maybe I wasn't thorough enough on previous walkthroughs.
I love the plot of this game, I actually felt sorry for Walter towards the end, something very few makes could make me feel. The music is great, just like any other Yamaoka soundtrack, and the main song if my favorite Silent Hill track ever.
Walter kinda resembles Kurt Cobain, and he also has a weird obsession with his mother's womb, just after completing the game I googled Cobain and turns out today is his death anniversary, talk about coincidences.
Finished SH4 just the other night. I can certainly see why some people would dislike it a lot, but, personally speaking, I found it to be mostly alright. It has an oddly enjoyable charm to it which feels in its own way unique from the rest of the games. The atmosphere and the general, almost quiet/reserved, kind of tone to everything was great. The drab/muted color palette and overall artistic design of most of the otherworld locations made it feel somewhat distinct from the rest of the series, which might be a negative for some, but I found myself enjoying it. In some ways, it also feels like the sort of the thing you'd get if you took SH2 and SH3 and mashed them together a bit, while adding in a few new twists to the usual SH formula. I don't mean to knock by describing it in that fashion, since it does manage to be, for the most part, its own unique thing.
Gameplay wise, it had some wrinkles, but I largely didn't mind it. Combat wasn't too frustrating, puzzles were extremely forgiving, and the absence of tank controls was quite nice as well. Juggling items in your RE-like storage box was an interesting gimmick, but enh. It was a nice change from the usual thing I suppose, but I still kinda prefer just being able to pick up as much as I can like in the past games. It can also be quite tiresome having to constantly return to your apartment and having to deal with the various loading screens involved with doing so, so as to drop off or pick up various items, depending on what you need. I was also surprised to find that there's literally only 2 guns for Henry to use in this game. A standard pistol and a more powerful revolver later on. I mean, I realize that's essentially only one less from what you usually get, but still. Fortunately, the movement controls are the most fluid they've ever been in SH game, so getting around monsters is often pretty easy. Melee combat is also substantially improved even though, near as I could tell, it seemed to lack any sort of block feature, which both SH3 had and I think even SH2 as well. You have a bit of a "dodge" now which somewhat replaces blocking, but personally I would've preferred the ability to block. Dispatching enemies via melee was fairly painless either way, although groups of enemies could still be a bit of a pain to deal with. Like in SH1, I also rationed way too much ammunition which I could've otherwise afforded to use more of at times. A major downside to guns however is how much space they take up in your inventory. Both the gun itself and each stack of 10 bullets take up their own inventory slot and because you have so relatively few slots it almost never seemed worth it to carry a gun. I guess that may have been done intentionally to discourage the use of guns, but it was still a little restrictive and annoying.
The otherworld location were also not too bad, but I just wish they had designed more of them. Having to re-visit each one in the second half, while I didn't mind it too much, was still kind of tedious/dull and also a pretty brazen display of level recycling/padding. Did the developers just run out of money, or something? Reminds me of the situation with Brookhaven being recycled in place of Alchemilla from SH3, frankly. I mean, each one is pretty small for the most part, so creating an additional 3 or 4 otherworld locations for the second half before then maybe returning to the apartment world at the very end as what happens would've been way better if you ask me.
I was also a little disappointed by the "hauntings" that occur in the latter half of the game. I guess I was just expecting something more than "spooky scary" haunted house-tier stuff like rattling windows, bloody footprints or a running faucet of blood. After looking them up, I managed to see all of the hauntings except 3 during my playthrough. Those being, the possessed chair, the possessed portrait, and the door visitor. That last one would've been pretty creepy by the looks of it and it's a shame it never popped up. I'd say out of all the ones I witnessed the dead cat(?) in the refrigerator was my favorite, since it somewhat caught me off guard and was the most originally twisted out of all of them. Candles, and even medallions too, were actually pretty plentiful and I was able to clear every single haunting without much trouble, even having a few candles left over for Eileen by the end of the game.
On that note, escorting Eileen wasn't as much of a hassle as I was expecting it would be, but it was still sort of a chore. The fact that she can't use ladders was a little annoying, but that was really only an issue in the prison world. Things became a lot more easy to deal with once I discovered you could temporarily "ditch" her in certain areas, so I started doing that a lot as well to make getting around faster/simpler. Doing this combined with equipping Eileen with a weapon sorta came back to bite me in the ass later on, which I'll get into later.
Story-wise, I liked it. It's neat how it expands on some random nuggets of info that were sprinkled in both SH2 and SH3 and that they managed to make that earlier stuff its own story here, while doing enough to keep it as its own thing as well. The characters were all pretty likable in the sort of average person that grapples with their own internal demons kind of way which this series is known for and is one of the things I enjoy the most about it. I would've liked if Henry had more of a stake/history in what was going on, sorta like how Eileen is revealed to have had a past encounter with WS when she was a child. He's basically just some random guy caught up in the craziness of it all without much else going on with him. I was also a bit disappointed that he wasn't in any way agoraphobic, or anything. Whenever I looked at the box cover art for SH4, I always assumed it was about a guy too afraid to go outside and that somehow his fears had created a nightmare all their own that he then had to navigate to be free of. The fact that Henry is just kind of a normal person, without really much of anything inside him that's dark or unseemly, kinda makes him separate from pretty much all of the other characters in the SH series up till this point, which is sort of refreshing I guess, but also kinda jarring. By contrast, WS was a pretty interesting antagonist, but I don't know. I feel like the most development he ever gets is when you meet him on the steps of the apartment world, along with right at the end when you're finding those strung up versions of him in straight jackets, which serve as echoes of his life and the memories he still has of his real parents, specifically his father. Compared to Claudia in SH3 though, WS just doesn't really say or do a whole a lot, except stand around looking crazy. To be honest, I would've liked if he could've appeared to the player more often and you could've gotten more of a clear take on what his life was like, or what his thoughts were. For instance, I had no idea that he was homeless and barely getting by, which is what led to Eileen giving him the shabby doll, until I looked it up on the wiki. Info like that, although it's relatively minor, would've helped flesh out WS a lot more during the course of the game.
Outside of how it compares to the past SH games, SH4 kinda reminded me a lot of Nightmare on Elm Street mixed with Se7en. What with people who get murdered in their dreams and a serial killer who is also on a mission to accomplish some personal goal, sorta like a paranormal version of John Doe from Se7en.
Gameplay wise, it had some wrinkles, but I largely didn't mind it. Combat wasn't too frustrating, puzzles were extremely forgiving, and the absence of tank controls was quite nice as well. Juggling items in your RE-like storage box was an interesting gimmick, but enh. It was a nice change from the usual thing I suppose, but I still kinda prefer just being able to pick up as much as I can like in the past games. It can also be quite tiresome having to constantly return to your apartment and having to deal with the various loading screens involved with doing so, so as to drop off or pick up various items, depending on what you need. I was also surprised to find that there's literally only 2 guns for Henry to use in this game. A standard pistol and a more powerful revolver later on. I mean, I realize that's essentially only one less from what you usually get, but still. Fortunately, the movement controls are the most fluid they've ever been in SH game, so getting around monsters is often pretty easy. Melee combat is also substantially improved even though, near as I could tell, it seemed to lack any sort of block feature, which both SH3 had and I think even SH2 as well. You have a bit of a "dodge" now which somewhat replaces blocking, but personally I would've preferred the ability to block. Dispatching enemies via melee was fairly painless either way, although groups of enemies could still be a bit of a pain to deal with. Like in SH1, I also rationed way too much ammunition which I could've otherwise afforded to use more of at times. A major downside to guns however is how much space they take up in your inventory. Both the gun itself and each stack of 10 bullets take up their own inventory slot and because you have so relatively few slots it almost never seemed worth it to carry a gun. I guess that may have been done intentionally to discourage the use of guns, but it was still a little restrictive and annoying.
The otherworld location were also not too bad, but I just wish they had designed more of them. Having to re-visit each one in the second half, while I didn't mind it too much, was still kind of tedious/dull and also a pretty brazen display of level recycling/padding. Did the developers just run out of money, or something? Reminds me of the situation with Brookhaven being recycled in place of Alchemilla from SH3, frankly. I mean, each one is pretty small for the most part, so creating an additional 3 or 4 otherworld locations for the second half before then maybe returning to the apartment world at the very end as what happens would've been way better if you ask me.
I was also a little disappointed by the "hauntings" that occur in the latter half of the game. I guess I was just expecting something more than "spooky scary" haunted house-tier stuff like rattling windows, bloody footprints or a running faucet of blood. After looking them up, I managed to see all of the hauntings except 3 during my playthrough. Those being, the possessed chair, the possessed portrait, and the door visitor. That last one would've been pretty creepy by the looks of it and it's a shame it never popped up. I'd say out of all the ones I witnessed the dead cat(?) in the refrigerator was my favorite, since it somewhat caught me off guard and was the most originally twisted out of all of them. Candles, and even medallions too, were actually pretty plentiful and I was able to clear every single haunting without much trouble, even having a few candles left over for Eileen by the end of the game.
On that note, escorting Eileen wasn't as much of a hassle as I was expecting it would be, but it was still sort of a chore. The fact that she can't use ladders was a little annoying, but that was really only an issue in the prison world. Things became a lot more easy to deal with once I discovered you could temporarily "ditch" her in certain areas, so I started doing that a lot as well to make getting around faster/simpler. Doing this combined with equipping Eileen with a weapon sorta came back to bite me in the ass later on, which I'll get into later.
Story-wise, I liked it. It's neat how it expands on some random nuggets of info that were sprinkled in both SH2 and SH3 and that they managed to make that earlier stuff its own story here, while doing enough to keep it as its own thing as well. The characters were all pretty likable in the sort of average person that grapples with their own internal demons kind of way which this series is known for and is one of the things I enjoy the most about it. I would've liked if Henry had more of a stake/history in what was going on, sorta like how Eileen is revealed to have had a past encounter with WS when she was a child. He's basically just some random guy caught up in the craziness of it all without much else going on with him. I was also a bit disappointed that he wasn't in any way agoraphobic, or anything. Whenever I looked at the box cover art for SH4, I always assumed it was about a guy too afraid to go outside and that somehow his fears had created a nightmare all their own that he then had to navigate to be free of. The fact that Henry is just kind of a normal person, without really much of anything inside him that's dark or unseemly, kinda makes him separate from pretty much all of the other characters in the SH series up till this point, which is sort of refreshing I guess, but also kinda jarring. By contrast, WS was a pretty interesting antagonist, but I don't know. I feel like the most development he ever gets is when you meet him on the steps of the apartment world, along with right at the end when you're finding those strung up versions of him in straight jackets, which serve as echoes of his life and the memories he still has of his real parents, specifically his father. Compared to Claudia in SH3 though, WS just doesn't really say or do a whole a lot, except stand around looking crazy. To be honest, I would've liked if he could've appeared to the player more often and you could've gotten more of a clear take on what his life was like, or what his thoughts were. For instance, I had no idea that he was homeless and barely getting by, which is what led to Eileen giving him the shabby doll, until I looked it up on the wiki. Info like that, although it's relatively minor, would've helped flesh out WS a lot more during the course of the game.
Outside of how it compares to the past SH games, SH4 kinda reminded me a lot of Nightmare on Elm Street mixed with Se7en. What with people who get murdered in their dreams and a serial killer who is also on a mission to accomplish some personal goal, sorta like a paranormal version of John Doe from Se7en.
>>49236
(Continued from above)
There are still some things I don't really get though. Like, I don't get it. How did WS kill himself, yet manage to come back as as a Freddy Krueger-like spirit? Did he have special spiritual power like Alessa, or was that simply a product of the ritual? Spirits weren't necessarily a thing before this, so it kinda feels random/confusing to suddenly have ghosts/spirits be a real factor and everything. One could argue that Mary wasn't a ghost in SH2, but more just a projection borne from James' subconscious and his guilt. Not to mention, who exactly killed themselves in place of WS and was then buried in SH? How did WS escape from prison and why did he go on to kill himself anyway in that hidden room of the apartment? How long had he been there exactly? Shouldn't he have been a skeleton? Also, what was with young WS? Why was he there? He's shown repeatedly throughout the game and also banging against the door of 302 at the very end, but I don't get it. What was he trying to achieve? Resurrecting his mother, but what mother? His mother and father abandoned him. Was he literally trying to give "life" to room 302 itself, since he was convinced that it itself was his mother? Or was he trying to summon "god" from the past games, so "god" could give him a mother? Why did Dhalia tell WS that room 302 was his mother? What were the 21 sacraments exactly? A way to summon "god"? If so, that feels like a major retcon, since if there were another way to summon god like this then it just makes Heather's/Alessa's significance sort of pointless in a way. I guess, ultimately, he just wanted Eileen to be the vessel for his mother, correct? But he's not even alive anymore, so it doesn't make sense. He wants Eileen to be his ghost mom, or something? Also, whatever happened to Frank? I have to admit, it would've been nice to have him make some comment about James, but I guess that would've been too on the nose of a reference.
As far as the actual ending, I goofed a bit when it came to Eileen. You see, I assumed that as long as I had some spare candles and managed to heal Eileen at the very end that'd she be okay for whatever comes after. Well, turns out I was hugely mistaken on that. Even with me healing her to full just before inspecting the umbilical cord in Frank's apartment, it made no difference to her condition during the final fight with WS and she pretty much speed walked every time into what I can only see as the random spinning thing from Event Horizon. It was kinda frustrating, since I thought maybe burning 2, or even 3 candles, might make a difference and I reloaded to try that out, but nope. No difference. Turns out that if Eileen suffers too many hits throughout the game, or if you leave her alone for too long, then no matter how many candles you use beforehand, she'll still be fucked during the final fight. Well, I gotta say, I see that as complete bullshit. If I can heal her, then she should stay healed. The game going, "lol, nope", just felt like a cheap shot to the nuts. I mean, yeah, I'll admit that I probably shouldn't have equipped Eileen with any weapons, especially since that turned out to mostly just be a hassle actually since she'd randomly aggro to enemies instead of following me, but, like I said, I was under the impression that healing candles could patch that stuff over. I'll admit that was my mistake, but it still feels dumb that candles are basically fucking useless in the end for helping Eileen, as I came to discover. Anyway, I tried a couple times to kill WS while trying to save Eileen despite her condition, but even with 24 revolver bullets I just couldn't kill WS fast enough. As a result, I got the "Eileen's Death" ending, which basically just has it that you stop WS, but lose Eileen. It was a pretty shitty ending, what with Henry jut shaking his head and lamenting the loss of Eileen after hearing how she died over the radio after he wakes up and then the credits roll. I mean, it's technically still a good ending, since WS has been stopped and everything is back to normal, but the way its delivered is just really unsatisfying and lame. Like the developers needlessly brow beating/punishing you for failing to save Eileen, so they deliver it like its a bad ending, even though it's still a good ending. Well, afterwards I decided to reload my save and use a cheat code which allowed me to kill everything in 1 hit, so with that I managed to get the best possible ending, since I was able to kill WS right away. I had no desire to replay the entire game mostly due to the tediousness that would be involved in doing so, but especially since I still felt like I by and large did what was necessary for a good ending during my main playthrough (what with clearing every haunting and healing Eileen), so I just went ahead with the other approach instead. Overall, it was a much better ending and actually provided some closure to the events of the game, at least in a sentimental sort of way.
Anyway, SH4 is definitely an oddball of a game. As I said before, I can certainly see why it's such a polarizing entry in the series for many. The fact that it's somewhat of a departure from the general layout of the previous 3 games, along with its relatively novel premise, just gave it a unique sort of charm for me. Like listening to some harsh, yet equally soothing ambient album, for lack of a better comparison.
From here, I think after Shattered Memories I'll be moving on from the SH series. I might still play Origins, but enh. It just kinda feels redundant at this point, at least from a narrative standpoint.
Shattered Memories is proving to be a bitch to emulate though. The PS2 version is completely fucked and the PSP version works fine, but has these barcode-like shadows on everything whenever the flashlight is turned on. I'll try emulating the Wii version today and hopefully that one will turn out to be fine.
(Continued from above)
There are still some things I don't really get though. Like, I don't get it. How did WS kill himself, yet manage to come back as as a Freddy Krueger-like spirit? Did he have special spiritual power like Alessa, or was that simply a product of the ritual? Spirits weren't necessarily a thing before this, so it kinda feels random/confusing to suddenly have ghosts/spirits be a real factor and everything. One could argue that Mary wasn't a ghost in SH2, but more just a projection borne from James' subconscious and his guilt. Not to mention, who exactly killed themselves in place of WS and was then buried in SH? How did WS escape from prison and why did he go on to kill himself anyway in that hidden room of the apartment? How long had he been there exactly? Shouldn't he have been a skeleton? Also, what was with young WS? Why was he there? He's shown repeatedly throughout the game and also banging against the door of 302 at the very end, but I don't get it. What was he trying to achieve? Resurrecting his mother, but what mother? His mother and father abandoned him. Was he literally trying to give "life" to room 302 itself, since he was convinced that it itself was his mother? Or was he trying to summon "god" from the past games, so "god" could give him a mother? Why did Dhalia tell WS that room 302 was his mother? What were the 21 sacraments exactly? A way to summon "god"? If so, that feels like a major retcon, since if there were another way to summon god like this then it just makes Heather's/Alessa's significance sort of pointless in a way. I guess, ultimately, he just wanted Eileen to be the vessel for his mother, correct? But he's not even alive anymore, so it doesn't make sense. He wants Eileen to be his ghost mom, or something? Also, whatever happened to Frank? I have to admit, it would've been nice to have him make some comment about James, but I guess that would've been too on the nose of a reference.
As far as the actual ending, I goofed a bit when it came to Eileen. You see, I assumed that as long as I had some spare candles and managed to heal Eileen at the very end that'd she be okay for whatever comes after. Well, turns out I was hugely mistaken on that. Even with me healing her to full just before inspecting the umbilical cord in Frank's apartment, it made no difference to her condition during the final fight with WS and she pretty much speed walked every time into what I can only see as the random spinning thing from Event Horizon. It was kinda frustrating, since I thought maybe burning 2, or even 3 candles, might make a difference and I reloaded to try that out, but nope. No difference. Turns out that if Eileen suffers too many hits throughout the game, or if you leave her alone for too long, then no matter how many candles you use beforehand, she'll still be fucked during the final fight. Well, I gotta say, I see that as complete bullshit. If I can heal her, then she should stay healed. The game going, "lol, nope", just felt like a cheap shot to the nuts. I mean, yeah, I'll admit that I probably shouldn't have equipped Eileen with any weapons, especially since that turned out to mostly just be a hassle actually since she'd randomly aggro to enemies instead of following me, but, like I said, I was under the impression that healing candles could patch that stuff over. I'll admit that was my mistake, but it still feels dumb that candles are basically fucking useless in the end for helping Eileen, as I came to discover. Anyway, I tried a couple times to kill WS while trying to save Eileen despite her condition, but even with 24 revolver bullets I just couldn't kill WS fast enough. As a result, I got the "Eileen's Death" ending, which basically just has it that you stop WS, but lose Eileen. It was a pretty shitty ending, what with Henry jut shaking his head and lamenting the loss of Eileen after hearing how she died over the radio after he wakes up and then the credits roll. I mean, it's technically still a good ending, since WS has been stopped and everything is back to normal, but the way its delivered is just really unsatisfying and lame. Like the developers needlessly brow beating/punishing you for failing to save Eileen, so they deliver it like its a bad ending, even though it's still a good ending. Well, afterwards I decided to reload my save and use a cheat code which allowed me to kill everything in 1 hit, so with that I managed to get the best possible ending, since I was able to kill WS right away. I had no desire to replay the entire game mostly due to the tediousness that would be involved in doing so, but especially since I still felt like I by and large did what was necessary for a good ending during my main playthrough (what with clearing every haunting and healing Eileen), so I just went ahead with the other approach instead. Overall, it was a much better ending and actually provided some closure to the events of the game, at least in a sentimental sort of way.
Anyway, SH4 is definitely an oddball of a game. As I said before, I can certainly see why it's such a polarizing entry in the series for many. The fact that it's somewhat of a departure from the general layout of the previous 3 games, along with its relatively novel premise, just gave it a unique sort of charm for me. Like listening to some harsh, yet equally soothing ambient album, for lack of a better comparison.
From here, I think after Shattered Memories I'll be moving on from the SH series. I might still play Origins, but enh. It just kinda feels redundant at this point, at least from a narrative standpoint.
Shattered Memories is proving to be a bitch to emulate though. The PS2 version is completely fucked and the PSP version works fine, but has these barcode-like shadows on everything whenever the flashlight is turned on. I'll try emulating the Wii version today and hopefully that one will turn out to be fine.
>>49237
>Did he have special spiritual power like Alessa, or was that simply a product of the ritual?
The latter, apparently. He killed himself in the apartment, not in jail. Nobody knows if it was even him they thrown in jail. He obviously didn't kill himself in the panopticon.
>why did he go on to kill himself anyway in that hidden room of the apartment?
To become the 11th victim.
>Why did Dhalia tell WS that room 302 was his mother?
She told him his mother was asleep in the appartment and he needed to do the 21 Sacraments, if he believed the apartment itself was his mother, who knows. Obviously Dhalia tricked him into doing the ritual to revive god, or told him god was his mother, which kinda makes sense since the god is female.
>what was with young WS?
I always asumed it was the "good side" of Walter, like when he tried to save Eileen, maybe he was subconsciously trying to stop himself.
>A way to summon "god"? If so, that feels like a major retcon, since if there were another way to summon god like this then it just makes Heather's/Alessa's significance sort of pointless in a way.
You could say that, but it's way easier sacrificing a succubus than killing 21 people, including yourself. But yeah it's a huge retcon.
>whatever happened to Frank?
I believe he is alive in all endings except the worse one, of course, since it would the apocalypse.
>I assumed that as long as I had some spare candles and managed to heal Eileen at the very end that'd she be okay for whatever comes after
Nah, I did the same thing, ditched her somewhere, did the entire dungeon and then come back, turns out she takes damage even if you leave her in an empty room. The candles supposedly work, although I didn't notice any effects when I used them before the final fight.
>I see that as complete bullshit. If I can heal her, then she should stay healed
Well to me it kinda makes sense if you think about it, they're penalizing carelessness during the game, just imagine not giving a shit during the entire game as long as you save a couple of candles for the finale, it would be pointless to have her health affect the fight. Then again the idea of having to take care of her is stupid so I don't know.
>Did he have special spiritual power like Alessa, or was that simply a product of the ritual?
The latter, apparently. He killed himself in the apartment, not in jail. Nobody knows if it was even him they thrown in jail. He obviously didn't kill himself in the panopticon.
>why did he go on to kill himself anyway in that hidden room of the apartment?
To become the 11th victim.
>Why did Dhalia tell WS that room 302 was his mother?
She told him his mother was asleep in the appartment and he needed to do the 21 Sacraments, if he believed the apartment itself was his mother, who knows. Obviously Dhalia tricked him into doing the ritual to revive god, or told him god was his mother, which kinda makes sense since the god is female.
>what was with young WS?
I always asumed it was the "good side" of Walter, like when he tried to save Eileen, maybe he was subconsciously trying to stop himself.
>A way to summon "god"? If so, that feels like a major retcon, since if there were another way to summon god like this then it just makes Heather's/Alessa's significance sort of pointless in a way.
You could say that, but it's way easier sacrificing a succubus than killing 21 people, including yourself. But yeah it's a huge retcon.
>whatever happened to Frank?
I believe he is alive in all endings except the worse one, of course, since it would the apocalypse.
>I assumed that as long as I had some spare candles and managed to heal Eileen at the very end that'd she be okay for whatever comes after
Nah, I did the same thing, ditched her somewhere, did the entire dungeon and then come back, turns out she takes damage even if you leave her in an empty room. The candles supposedly work, although I didn't notice any effects when I used them before the final fight.
>I see that as complete bullshit. If I can heal her, then she should stay healed
Well to me it kinda makes sense if you think about it, they're penalizing carelessness during the game, just imagine not giving a shit during the entire game as long as you save a couple of candles for the finale, it would be pointless to have her health affect the fight. Then again the idea of having to take care of her is stupid so I don't know.
>>49238
>Nobody knows if it was even him they thrown in jail.
Why would the guy in jail have killed himself if he wasn't WS? Did WS break into the prison and murder him somehow? This was before WS had killed himself in the apartment after all, or could he enter into the dreams of others beforehand? Even that doesn't make sense since the guy in the prison stabbed himself in the neck while he was awake, so it all just seems really weird. Maybe he was like that crazy dude who set himself on fire and like him willingly sacrificed himself for the ritual.
>To become the 11th victim.
I suppose because he was the best candidate for that sacrament? WS being the main conjurer of the ritual must've somehow given him the ability to maintain his form and consciousness even in death. Crazier things have happened in SH games, I suppose.
>if he believed the apartment itself was his mother, who knows.
He does. Eileen herself actually makes a point of saying so right before you enter Frank's apartment and she leaves for the end of the game and how WS, "literally believes the room is his mother", since she's able to feel the emotions/thoughts of his spirit.
>maybe he was subconsciously trying to stop himself.
Hmm, yeah. I guess it was just a representation of WS before he became obsessed with the 21 sacraments. Young WS is still obsessed about seeing his mother again, but isn't willing to kill others to have it happen, or at least is aloof about stopping it outside of stepping in for Eileen.
>you could say that, but it's way easier sacrificing a succubus than killing 21 people
Yeah, that's true. Then again, considering the apparent sway of the order, you'd think it would've been a cinch for them to do it that way, but I guess, like you said, Alessa just seemed like the quicker/easier option for them. It's just kinda odd how they apparently always had a back-up option for summoning their god, but it's a retcon so whatever.
>I believe he is alive in all endings except the worse one
I actually haven't watched the 21 sacraments ending yet. So the world just ends in that one then? I guess that would mean that WS really was trying to summon god and that he was hoping to be granted a mother, or that he sees god/the room as the same thing and otherwise as his mother, or whatever.
>The candles supposedly work, although I didn't notice any effects when I used them before the final fight.
Well then what good are they exactly? I mean if they don't actually heal Eileen then why even bother using them? Again, I believe it works in such a way that if Eileen takes a total amount of damage beyond a certain threshold, then candles become useless. Before that point, even if she's looking all red and corrupted, candles can save her at the end. If the unknown damage value is exceeded, then they won't. What I think is bullshit about this mostly comes down to how hidden all this is. If candles don't have any affect on Eileen past a certain point, then the developers should have reflected that in her level of corruption/possession, instead of it seeming as if she's healed when she really isn't.
>they're penalizing carelessness during the game, just imagine not giving a shit during the entire game as long as you save a couple of candles for the finale, it would be pointless to have her health affect the fight.
I can understand that, but I was operating off of the assumption that the candles actually did work that way, which unfortunately led to me thinking I could patch over Eileen right at the end. I'll agree however that if such an approach actually worked, then it would essentially make looking after Eileen an afterthought, since all you'd have to do is make sure to heal her right before the end and you'd be good to go. In my defense though, I did heal Eileen at multiple points throughout the game and I feel like the candles should've mitigated the overall damage value to a certain extent. Come to think of it though, I can recall how near the end I'd use a candle on Eileen and she'd heal, but then 30 seconds later she'd start to look corrupted again, even without any enemies around. Maybe this was a sign it was already too late for her, but whatever. I still think that, say if her damage value was at 70, then each candle should remove 10 from that value. If 50 were the value needed for her to be okay at the end, then burning a few candles to lower that value, assuming you were thorough enough in collecting them and then saving them, feels like it would've been a lot more fair/acceptable and also would've given the candles more of an actual point besides becoming useless paper weights past a certain point. Having the candles become useless once that value exceeds 50 just feels kind of cheap, but a lot of things in a general sense about the Eileen related stuff are pretty half-baked and needlessly punishing. Such as not being able to tell her to wait, or to hide, or the fact that she takes passive damage even in safe areas.
>Then again the idea of having to take care of her is stupid so I don't know.
A hand holding mechanic similar to ICO would've been quite convenient, where one would perhaps need to sacrifice their weapon hand so she could keep up with the player, but overall, yeah. It's still a pretty stupid mechanic and isn't something I particularly enjoyed about this game and, next to the level recycling, was definitely my least favorite thing about it.
>Nobody knows if it was even him they thrown in jail.
Why would the guy in jail have killed himself if he wasn't WS? Did WS break into the prison and murder him somehow? This was before WS had killed himself in the apartment after all, or could he enter into the dreams of others beforehand? Even that doesn't make sense since the guy in the prison stabbed himself in the neck while he was awake, so it all just seems really weird. Maybe he was like that crazy dude who set himself on fire and like him willingly sacrificed himself for the ritual.
>To become the 11th victim.
I suppose because he was the best candidate for that sacrament? WS being the main conjurer of the ritual must've somehow given him the ability to maintain his form and consciousness even in death. Crazier things have happened in SH games, I suppose.
>if he believed the apartment itself was his mother, who knows.
He does. Eileen herself actually makes a point of saying so right before you enter Frank's apartment and she leaves for the end of the game and how WS, "literally believes the room is his mother", since she's able to feel the emotions/thoughts of his spirit.
>maybe he was subconsciously trying to stop himself.
Hmm, yeah. I guess it was just a representation of WS before he became obsessed with the 21 sacraments. Young WS is still obsessed about seeing his mother again, but isn't willing to kill others to have it happen, or at least is aloof about stopping it outside of stepping in for Eileen.
>you could say that, but it's way easier sacrificing a succubus than killing 21 people
Yeah, that's true. Then again, considering the apparent sway of the order, you'd think it would've been a cinch for them to do it that way, but I guess, like you said, Alessa just seemed like the quicker/easier option for them. It's just kinda odd how they apparently always had a back-up option for summoning their god, but it's a retcon so whatever.
>I believe he is alive in all endings except the worse one
I actually haven't watched the 21 sacraments ending yet. So the world just ends in that one then? I guess that would mean that WS really was trying to summon god and that he was hoping to be granted a mother, or that he sees god/the room as the same thing and otherwise as his mother, or whatever.
>The candles supposedly work, although I didn't notice any effects when I used them before the final fight.
Well then what good are they exactly? I mean if they don't actually heal Eileen then why even bother using them? Again, I believe it works in such a way that if Eileen takes a total amount of damage beyond a certain threshold, then candles become useless. Before that point, even if she's looking all red and corrupted, candles can save her at the end. If the unknown damage value is exceeded, then they won't. What I think is bullshit about this mostly comes down to how hidden all this is. If candles don't have any affect on Eileen past a certain point, then the developers should have reflected that in her level of corruption/possession, instead of it seeming as if she's healed when she really isn't.
>they're penalizing carelessness during the game, just imagine not giving a shit during the entire game as long as you save a couple of candles for the finale, it would be pointless to have her health affect the fight.
I can understand that, but I was operating off of the assumption that the candles actually did work that way, which unfortunately led to me thinking I could patch over Eileen right at the end. I'll agree however that if such an approach actually worked, then it would essentially make looking after Eileen an afterthought, since all you'd have to do is make sure to heal her right before the end and you'd be good to go. In my defense though, I did heal Eileen at multiple points throughout the game and I feel like the candles should've mitigated the overall damage value to a certain extent. Come to think of it though, I can recall how near the end I'd use a candle on Eileen and she'd heal, but then 30 seconds later she'd start to look corrupted again, even without any enemies around. Maybe this was a sign it was already too late for her, but whatever. I still think that, say if her damage value was at 70, then each candle should remove 10 from that value. If 50 were the value needed for her to be okay at the end, then burning a few candles to lower that value, assuming you were thorough enough in collecting them and then saving them, feels like it would've been a lot more fair/acceptable and also would've given the candles more of an actual point besides becoming useless paper weights past a certain point. Having the candles become useless once that value exceeds 50 just feels kind of cheap, but a lot of things in a general sense about the Eileen related stuff are pretty half-baked and needlessly punishing. Such as not being able to tell her to wait, or to hide, or the fact that she takes passive damage even in safe areas.
>Then again the idea of having to take care of her is stupid so I don't know.
A hand holding mechanic similar to ICO would've been quite convenient, where one would perhaps need to sacrifice their weapon hand so she could keep up with the player, but overall, yeah. It's still a pretty stupid mechanic and isn't something I particularly enjoyed about this game and, next to the level recycling, was definitely my least favorite thing about it.
File: 1586264961028.jpg (203.57 KB, 1024x1024, 1:1, resident-evil-2-remake.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Finished Resident Evil 2 Remake. It was a nice, smooth experience for me. I had to play on the lowest settings but it made me so happy my computer managed to miraculously run the game without any issues I don't even care. I had a great time exploring the raccoon museum/police station again, I love the mood the game has to offer and this time even the lab which is usually a place I don't really care about managed to be pretty interesting to walk around and explore. I liked what they did with chief Irons here, really added to the character. I find they really make you save on bullets but not on heals, though. I would prefer to be the opposite, we should have more bullets and less heals, as it is more fun to shoot zombies than to get jumped by them and having to heal. I played this just a couple of days after finishing >>49018 which for me is a mistake. I really can't fully enjoy a game unless I haven't played anything for a little while.
>>48888
Shit wiz I'm sorry. I missed your post somehow.
>I wish me & my brother could do something like that, but he doesn't have the time, or really the interest, to play any video games with me.
Have you tried to be open about it? Say it would be cool to do something together like playing games and then you can find something that works out for both of you. You might be surprised with the result.
>>48888
Shit wiz I'm sorry. I missed your post somehow.
>I wish me & my brother could do something like that, but he doesn't have the time, or really the interest, to play any video games with me.
Have you tried to be open about it? Say it would be cool to do something together like playing games and then you can find something that works out for both of you. You might be surprised with the result.
File: 1586272964254.png (457.12 KB, 831x472, 831:472, Sin título.png) ImgOps iqdb
>>49239
>Eileen herself actually makes a point of saying so right before you enter Frank's apartment
Oh must've missed that.
>So the world just ends in that one then?
I just rewatched it and I was full of crap, sorry. Turns out Frank along with several other people from the building and some cops turn out dead. Maybe it's just the begining of the end? Who knows.
>I believe it works in such a way that if Eileen takes a total amount of damage beyond a certain threshold, then candles become useless
I don't know about that, when I got to Frank's apartment she was kinda hurt (you can tell by the dialogue) but the candles (I used 2) didn't do much, or at least I didn't notice. I actually haven't tried to kill the final boss without using the candles before, maybe I should and see if it changes.
>a lot of things in a general sense about the Eileen related stuff are pretty half-baked and needlessly punishing
Yeah I completely agree with you on that. Just the Ico hand holding mechanic you mentioned would've been a huge step up from what we got.
It's a shame because you can tell the game was rushed, maybe with a bit more time they could've made some things work better and more levels, I have no idea what went under development but a lot of people say this game is the reason why Konami pulled the plug on team silent and send each to do completely different stuff. Pic related is talking about the SH2 writer, who they put to writer mobile games for succubbi, how depressing is that? And then they just gave the IP to a bunch of retards that completely ruined it.
>Eileen herself actually makes a point of saying so right before you enter Frank's apartment
Oh must've missed that.
>So the world just ends in that one then?
I just rewatched it and I was full of crap, sorry. Turns out Frank along with several other people from the building and some cops turn out dead. Maybe it's just the begining of the end? Who knows.
>I believe it works in such a way that if Eileen takes a total amount of damage beyond a certain threshold, then candles become useless
I don't know about that, when I got to Frank's apartment she was kinda hurt (you can tell by the dialogue) but the candles (I used 2) didn't do much, or at least I didn't notice. I actually haven't tried to kill the final boss without using the candles before, maybe I should and see if it changes.
>a lot of things in a general sense about the Eileen related stuff are pretty half-baked and needlessly punishing
Yeah I completely agree with you on that. Just the Ico hand holding mechanic you mentioned would've been a huge step up from what we got.
It's a shame because you can tell the game was rushed, maybe with a bit more time they could've made some things work better and more levels, I have no idea what went under development but a lot of people say this game is the reason why Konami pulled the plug on team silent and send each to do completely different stuff. Pic related is talking about the SH2 writer, who they put to writer mobile games for succubbi, how depressing is that? And then they just gave the IP to a bunch of retards that completely ruined it.
>>49244
>when I got to Frank's apartment she was kinda hurt (you can tell by the dialogue) but the candles (I used 2) didn't do much, or at least I didn't notice.
That was the thing for me. Even with me just using 1 candle on her near the end it managed to heal her fully and completely. As in there was no spots or anything on her whatsoever. I actually had 3 spare candles and burned each one just to be safe, even though all it took was just 1 to remove her visible corruption spots. Her dialogue during the cutscenes was also directly indicative of her being in a completely healed state. Yet, despite it all, she showed up with 100% corruption during the final battle. Maybe my game glitched, but it seemed as if the candles weren't affecting her "true" level of corruption, despite her being completely visibly healed, cogent and corruption free.
>I actually haven't tried to kill the final boss without using the candles before, maybe I should and see if it changes.
Well, as I said, I think it all depends on how much damage she takes. If it's too much then the candles can't do anything for her. They can still physically heal her, but they won't be able to heal her true corruption level. At the very least, that seemed to be my experience for whatever reason. The fact that I left her alone for too long and equipped her with weapons must nullify the effects of the candles past a certain extent. Like I said, if that's the case, then I don't really understand what the point of the candles are. I think their only real purpose is to prevent Eileen from falling down or from limping too slowly, which is the case when she's at high levels of corruption. As far as affecting the ending, I think they're only a third of the equation. Eileen must be visibly healed, but she also must not have been left alone too much or suffered too much damage to ensure her resistance to WS at the end of the game. Using no candles at all would probably just have her power walking into the spinny thing I'd imagine, since I think at least 1 candle would need to be used on her at the end to remove her visible spots, assuming she was free from any sort of major damage prior.
Well, either way, it's a really dumb and esoteric fucking system and it'd of been nice if, perhaps given extra time and funding, Team Silent could've better implemented this sort of feature, instead of being forced to leave it as the frustratingly opaque and awkward mechanic that it actually is and ended up being.
>Just the Ico hand holding mechanic you mentioned would've been a huge step up from what we got.
Yeah. Perhaps they could've even switched it up a bit and had Henry be able to carry Eileen when necessary, or something like that. I would've also appreciated the inclusion of definitive safe zones where Eileen doesn't suffer any sort of passive damage, which wouldn't necessarily mean she wouldn't still be in danger, since the developers could've had it where she needs to be exposed to zones with enemies in them, so as to either reach the exit, or even just solve a puzzle, or something like that.
>I have no idea what went under development but a lot of people say this game is the reason why Konami pulled the plug on team silent and send each to do completely different stuff.
Is that so? Well, that's quite a shame then. I'd wager the demands and expectations that Konami was placing on Team Silent during development were probably very unforgiving and unfair. I'm sure they were shafted with low funding and a short development time, yet I bet Konami still expected Team Silent to pull a rabbit out of their hat and get high sales, despite the crushing lack of resources and time being allotted to them. It sucks when publishers, through their own blind greed, soullessness and stupidity, pretty much overwork development studios to their deaths like that, or just shutter them outright for not being "profitable", but that's simply the disgusting avarice of the industry. An avarice that's claimed many, many beloved development studios simply because they couldn't meet a publisher's harsh demands of selling a bajillion copies, or punishing developers for not being able to make a decent product despite not giving them the time/money they needed to do so. The stupid factor comes in when, like you said, they hand off beloved properties like SH to unskilled development teams who barely have any experience making games, or are subservient to the publisher's idiocy and make the game based on market trends and research, or whatever new monetary gimmick they can sink their talons into, like microtransactions. That itself pretty much explains the train wrecks of the later SH games and also the MGS and Castlevania series (I actually kinda liked the Castlevania LoS games, though). It's like they deliberately want these games to fail from the get go. Well, like I said, Konami should just sell off all these properties to people who could actually do some good with them. Everyone would be much better off if Konami just stuck to making pachinko machines and mobile games, instead of sitting on the copyright to this stuff either letting it rot or bastardizing it as they see fit and probably only losing money in the process by doing so.
>when I got to Frank's apartment she was kinda hurt (you can tell by the dialogue) but the candles (I used 2) didn't do much, or at least I didn't notice.
That was the thing for me. Even with me just using 1 candle on her near the end it managed to heal her fully and completely. As in there was no spots or anything on her whatsoever. I actually had 3 spare candles and burned each one just to be safe, even though all it took was just 1 to remove her visible corruption spots. Her dialogue during the cutscenes was also directly indicative of her being in a completely healed state. Yet, despite it all, she showed up with 100% corruption during the final battle. Maybe my game glitched, but it seemed as if the candles weren't affecting her "true" level of corruption, despite her being completely visibly healed, cogent and corruption free.
>I actually haven't tried to kill the final boss without using the candles before, maybe I should and see if it changes.
Well, as I said, I think it all depends on how much damage she takes. If it's too much then the candles can't do anything for her. They can still physically heal her, but they won't be able to heal her true corruption level. At the very least, that seemed to be my experience for whatever reason. The fact that I left her alone for too long and equipped her with weapons must nullify the effects of the candles past a certain extent. Like I said, if that's the case, then I don't really understand what the point of the candles are. I think their only real purpose is to prevent Eileen from falling down or from limping too slowly, which is the case when she's at high levels of corruption. As far as affecting the ending, I think they're only a third of the equation. Eileen must be visibly healed, but she also must not have been left alone too much or suffered too much damage to ensure her resistance to WS at the end of the game. Using no candles at all would probably just have her power walking into the spinny thing I'd imagine, since I think at least 1 candle would need to be used on her at the end to remove her visible spots, assuming she was free from any sort of major damage prior.
Well, either way, it's a really dumb and esoteric fucking system and it'd of been nice if, perhaps given extra time and funding, Team Silent could've better implemented this sort of feature, instead of being forced to leave it as the frustratingly opaque and awkward mechanic that it actually is and ended up being.
>Just the Ico hand holding mechanic you mentioned would've been a huge step up from what we got.
Yeah. Perhaps they could've even switched it up a bit and had Henry be able to carry Eileen when necessary, or something like that. I would've also appreciated the inclusion of definitive safe zones where Eileen doesn't suffer any sort of passive damage, which wouldn't necessarily mean she wouldn't still be in danger, since the developers could've had it where she needs to be exposed to zones with enemies in them, so as to either reach the exit, or even just solve a puzzle, or something like that.
>I have no idea what went under development but a lot of people say this game is the reason why Konami pulled the plug on team silent and send each to do completely different stuff.
Is that so? Well, that's quite a shame then. I'd wager the demands and expectations that Konami was placing on Team Silent during development were probably very unforgiving and unfair. I'm sure they were shafted with low funding and a short development time, yet I bet Konami still expected Team Silent to pull a rabbit out of their hat and get high sales, despite the crushing lack of resources and time being allotted to them. It sucks when publishers, through their own blind greed, soullessness and stupidity, pretty much overwork development studios to their deaths like that, or just shutter them outright for not being "profitable", but that's simply the disgusting avarice of the industry. An avarice that's claimed many, many beloved development studios simply because they couldn't meet a publisher's harsh demands of selling a bajillion copies, or punishing developers for not being able to make a decent product despite not giving them the time/money they needed to do so. The stupid factor comes in when, like you said, they hand off beloved properties like SH to unskilled development teams who barely have any experience making games, or are subservient to the publisher's idiocy and make the game based on market trends and research, or whatever new monetary gimmick they can sink their talons into, like microtransactions. That itself pretty much explains the train wrecks of the later SH games and also the MGS and Castlevania series (I actually kinda liked the Castlevania LoS games, though). It's like they deliberately want these games to fail from the get go. Well, like I said, Konami should just sell off all these properties to people who could actually do some good with them. Everyone would be much better off if Konami just stuck to making pachinko machines and mobile games, instead of sitting on the copyright to this stuff either letting it rot or bastardizing it as they see fit and probably only losing money in the process by doing so.
Pretty interesting take on the original SH. Aside from the rough trajectory of the story being somewhat the same (as in Harry visiting the same places and meeting the same characters in more or less the same order as he did in SH1, albeit in a vastly different context than when compared to the original), it has pretty much nothing in common with the first game whatsoever. A "reimagining" is certainly the best way one could describe it. So much of a reimagining in fact that, in some ways, it's hard to even see it as a SH game, let alone a pseudo-remake of the original. Personally though, I kinda liked that it was its own thing and tried to do something different, even if not everything was great as it could've been. I actually thought it did a pretty good job taking the premise of SH1 and restructuring it into something almost totally different, creating an experience more similar to SH2 than anything else. The removal of all of the occult stuff allowed a vastly alternative take on the story, which I for one at least, happened to think was OK.
The whole psych profiling thing was, while a bit gimmicky, still pretty cool and I enjoyed the little therapy segments that interspersed the main story. That stuff alone certainly gives the game a lot of replayability, but, at the same time, a lot of the changes appear to be fairly minimal for the most part. Aside from choosing which puzzle room you're going to solve (another neat little aspect to the game actually), everything else is mostly just skin deep, or otherwise cosmetically different. Maybe I'm being greedy, but I was actually a bit disappointed at how few endings there are. Your choices more or less eventually converge into 3 possible endings, and 4 possible brief addendums to said ending. Still a lot I suppose, but I guess I just expected a bit more.
Despite it's fairly minimal similarities to the original story, I still enjoyed all the little references and callbacks to the first SH that the developers put in along the way. There's too many to name, but stuff like how Harry meets Dhalia for the first time at the Balkan, except this time it's a nightclub instead a church, was kinda neat and then right after that you have to solve a puzzle to lower a drawbridge to get to the second part of town which is, again, just like what happened in SH1. I also noticed some little references to SH3, like how there's a "Cafe Noir" in the SH mall, just like the one that's in the mall in SH3. Minimal, brownie points stuff, sure, but it was nice to see all the same.
I also thought the story had some clever twists to it. Like how Dhalia is actually Harry's wife this time around and that Harry died in the car accident. An accident revealed to have happened many, many years ago, leaving Cheryl traumatized and unable to let go of her father's death as she grew into adulthood. Personally, I got the "Broken" ending and "Wicked and Weak" addendum. Like SH2, there's really no "best" ending here, which is another thing I like about it. All of the endings never change the fact that Harry was a deeply flawed human being and how his eventual absence/death wreaked havoc on Cheryl's psyche and that, even at the end, no matter which ending you get, it remains uncertain whether Cheryl has truly moved past her father's death. Looking over the rest of the endings however, I guess you could say the most "ideal" combination would be the "Hero Forever" ending, since Harry doesn't freeze in that one, along with the "Love Lost" addendum, since Harry and Dhalia are able to separate without causing each other any more misery, even though it still affects Cheryl in a pretty bad way. I'll still say that "Wicked and Weak", although it pretty much showed Harry as being nothing more than a spineless wimp getting bitch slapped repeatedly by Dhalia, remained to paint him in a somewhat good and redeemable light. He may have been too meek for his own good, but at least he wasn't abusive or hurtful like how he is in the other two addendums, besides "Love Lost". "Wicked and Weak" also appears to be the only addendum which has Harry never hurt Cheryl, nor does he ever abandon her, outside of when he eventually dies. You could say Cheryl may have been ashamed of Harry for being so wimpy, but I don't know. That'd be pretty unfair of her to hold Harry in that kind of light. Why is being weak seen as such a horrible thing? Hell, if anything, Harry was the true casualty in all this, in more ways than one, when considering the WW addendum. Trying to shit on him for being too meek just feels like blatant victim-blaming, to be honest.
Overall though, regardless of ending, there's a couple things I'm still a little confused about. Like, was all this in Cheryl's head? Even Michelle and Cybil and everyone else? If not, was she somehow projecting Harry into the real world? Based on the way Cybil reacts to Harry at the end, it's as if she believes she's been talking to a ghost this whole time, before walking off claiming she intends to turn in her badge. Then again, Harry walks right into the therapy session with Kaufman and Kaufman doesn't even notice him, so I guess that would conclusively indicate that it really was all just a giant delusion being played out in Cheryl's mind.
Gameplay-wise it's pretty bare bones, but I didn't really mind that. Some of the chases were kinda frustrating at times though, especially given how easy it is to get turned around during them and not know where the heck it is you're going. The fact that I was playing the Wii version didn't really do me any favors in this regard, since I had to essentially rebind the motion functionality of a Wiimote to the buttons on my PS3 dualshock controller, which led to a bit of awkwardness whenever I was grabbed by monsters, since I had the forward and backward motions of the Wiimote bound to the R3 and L3 buttons on my dualshock. Overall though, it actually wasn't too bad, since there wasn't a super ton of complex Wii motions in this game, but it did get me thinking on how annoying some other Wii games with more involved motions might be, assuming I ever emulate them.
Funnily enough, I'd actually consider this to be the most laid back and comfy entry in the SH series. Brief chase sequences notwithstanding, most of the game is just spent wandering around calm snow swept streets, quiet buildings and one peacefully spooky forest. I suppose in that sense it's a lot closer to a walking simulator versus a survival horror, but, for me anyway, I kinda appreciated the more carefree approach when it came to everything. Again, for lack of a better comparison, if SH4 was a somewhat harsh, yet soothing ambient album, Shattered Memories is more like a chill lo-fi album. There's no monsters or resource management to worry about, just simply soaking up the atmosphere and the story. Hands down I still prefer the survival horror aspect of the previous games, but as a random one-off, I can say I enjoyed the more laid back nature of Shattered Memories.
I also started to play a bit of Origins and it seems alright so far. I'd like to keep playing more survival horror games for the time being, so I'll probably move on to either replaying the RE series up till Code Veronica after this, or trying more random stuff like Haunting Ground, or whatever.
The whole psych profiling thing was, while a bit gimmicky, still pretty cool and I enjoyed the little therapy segments that interspersed the main story. That stuff alone certainly gives the game a lot of replayability, but, at the same time, a lot of the changes appear to be fairly minimal for the most part. Aside from choosing which puzzle room you're going to solve (another neat little aspect to the game actually), everything else is mostly just skin deep, or otherwise cosmetically different. Maybe I'm being greedy, but I was actually a bit disappointed at how few endings there are. Your choices more or less eventually converge into 3 possible endings, and 4 possible brief addendums to said ending. Still a lot I suppose, but I guess I just expected a bit more.
Despite it's fairly minimal similarities to the original story, I still enjoyed all the little references and callbacks to the first SH that the developers put in along the way. There's too many to name, but stuff like how Harry meets Dhalia for the first time at the Balkan, except this time it's a nightclub instead a church, was kinda neat and then right after that you have to solve a puzzle to lower a drawbridge to get to the second part of town which is, again, just like what happened in SH1. I also noticed some little references to SH3, like how there's a "Cafe Noir" in the SH mall, just like the one that's in the mall in SH3. Minimal, brownie points stuff, sure, but it was nice to see all the same.
I also thought the story had some clever twists to it. Like how Dhalia is actually Harry's wife this time around and that Harry died in the car accident. An accident revealed to have happened many, many years ago, leaving Cheryl traumatized and unable to let go of her father's death as she grew into adulthood. Personally, I got the "Broken" ending and "Wicked and Weak" addendum. Like SH2, there's really no "best" ending here, which is another thing I like about it. All of the endings never change the fact that Harry was a deeply flawed human being and how his eventual absence/death wreaked havoc on Cheryl's psyche and that, even at the end, no matter which ending you get, it remains uncertain whether Cheryl has truly moved past her father's death. Looking over the rest of the endings however, I guess you could say the most "ideal" combination would be the "Hero Forever" ending, since Harry doesn't freeze in that one, along with the "Love Lost" addendum, since Harry and Dhalia are able to separate without causing each other any more misery, even though it still affects Cheryl in a pretty bad way. I'll still say that "Wicked and Weak", although it pretty much showed Harry as being nothing more than a spineless wimp getting bitch slapped repeatedly by Dhalia, remained to paint him in a somewhat good and redeemable light. He may have been too meek for his own good, but at least he wasn't abusive or hurtful like how he is in the other two addendums, besides "Love Lost". "Wicked and Weak" also appears to be the only addendum which has Harry never hurt Cheryl, nor does he ever abandon her, outside of when he eventually dies. You could say Cheryl may have been ashamed of Harry for being so wimpy, but I don't know. That'd be pretty unfair of her to hold Harry in that kind of light. Why is being weak seen as such a horrible thing? Hell, if anything, Harry was the true casualty in all this, in more ways than one, when considering the WW addendum. Trying to shit on him for being too meek just feels like blatant victim-blaming, to be honest.
Overall though, regardless of ending, there's a couple things I'm still a little confused about. Like, was all this in Cheryl's head? Even Michelle and Cybil and everyone else? If not, was she somehow projecting Harry into the real world? Based on the way Cybil reacts to Harry at the end, it's as if she believes she's been talking to a ghost this whole time, before walking off claiming she intends to turn in her badge. Then again, Harry walks right into the therapy session with Kaufman and Kaufman doesn't even notice him, so I guess that would conclusively indicate that it really was all just a giant delusion being played out in Cheryl's mind.
Gameplay-wise it's pretty bare bones, but I didn't really mind that. Some of the chases were kinda frustrating at times though, especially given how easy it is to get turned around during them and not know where the heck it is you're going. The fact that I was playing the Wii version didn't really do me any favors in this regard, since I had to essentially rebind the motion functionality of a Wiimote to the buttons on my PS3 dualshock controller, which led to a bit of awkwardness whenever I was grabbed by monsters, since I had the forward and backward motions of the Wiimote bound to the R3 and L3 buttons on my dualshock. Overall though, it actually wasn't too bad, since there wasn't a super ton of complex Wii motions in this game, but it did get me thinking on how annoying some other Wii games with more involved motions might be, assuming I ever emulate them.
Funnily enough, I'd actually consider this to be the most laid back and comfy entry in the SH series. Brief chase sequences notwithstanding, most of the game is just spent wandering around calm snow swept streets, quiet buildings and one peacefully spooky forest. I suppose in that sense it's a lot closer to a walking simulator versus a survival horror, but, for me anyway, I kinda appreciated the more carefree approach when it came to everything. Again, for lack of a better comparison, if SH4 was a somewhat harsh, yet soothing ambient album, Shattered Memories is more like a chill lo-fi album. There's no monsters or resource management to worry about, just simply soaking up the atmosphere and the story. Hands down I still prefer the survival horror aspect of the previous games, but as a random one-off, I can say I enjoyed the more laid back nature of Shattered Memories.
I also started to play a bit of Origins and it seems alright so far. I'd like to keep playing more survival horror games for the time being, so I'll probably move on to either replaying the RE series up till Code Veronica after this, or trying more random stuff like Haunting Ground, or whatever.
Not especially great, but I still didn't mind it. The areas you visit are somewhat decent, but are padded out a lot in terms of their level design. As in, you find a key you need and then have to run across basically the entire map/area to unlock the corresponding door, only to get another key/item which leads to you needing to run across the entire map/area again to unlock yet another door, or pick up yet another item. I'd say the worst offender of this was the sanitarium area and to a lesser extent the other 2 areas in the game, discounting Alchemilla. The sheer size of these areas was kinda nice and serve as some of the biggest levels in a SH game, but also, on the flipside, only serve to intensify the constant running around back and forth you're forced to do.
Gameplay-wise it's pretty solid, but the sheer abundance of firearms, melee weapons, and ammunition everywhere, felt pretty ridiculous. There are also a whopping six guns in this game, double that of the usual amount, the game throws tons of ammo at you for each of them. Even with me wasting a lot of ammo shooting/killing random monsters, I think I still had over 55 shotgun shells, 40 rifle shots, 18 magnum rounds, and like 120 assault rifle bullets by the end of the game. I'd hesitate to call it a shooter, but it's certainly the most gun heavy and forgiving on resources out of all of the previous SH games. Due to all the guns/ammo, I also never bothered using any of the many melee weapons in this game, ridiculously varied as they are.
Story-wise it was pretty weak, but it mostly got the job done. Travis is an alright protagonist, but his presence in the town and involvement in the events that follow felt pretty contrived and his personal backstory clashes a lot with what is otherwise just a half-baked SH1 prequel. It really seemed like two separate stories that were forcefully jammed together and competing for the spotlight, which made the whole thing a bit awkward. There was also some other weird stuff like, how in the very beginning of the game after Alessa leads Travis to rescue her from the burning house, the first thing she says to him is to let her burn. If she just wanted to die, then why lead him there in the first place? According to the wiki, apparently Dhalia cast a spell on Alessa's burnt body which prevented her from succumbing to her wounds and dying, so maybe that's the reason why, but it's still kind of dumb. Another thing which seemed dumb was the game long fetch quest for the Flauros. From what I could gather, Dhalia used the Flauros to subdue Alessa's power then broke apart the Flauros to prevent the spell from being undone. At the end of the game, they show Alessa as being "free", but, aside from an amplified nightmare world, it doesn't even mean much since she literally doesn't even do anything aside from look menacing. It's especially weird when Travis gets to the hidden cult ceremony and the demon which powers the Flauros turns out to have suddenly escaped for some unknown reason and which isn't bothered to be explained at all, other than that the developers couldn't figure out what else to have the player fight for a final boss. On that note, the fact that the final boss looks exactly like something you'd see from some fantasy RPG, or something, felt pretty silly/jarring to the point it may as well have been as if you were fighting Diablo from Diablo 2. The fact that Travis just leaves after this and finally returns to his truck also seemed pretty contrived in a very, "my work here is done", sort of way. I didn't mind Travis' story for the most part, even with his underwhelming Pyramid Head knock-off and all, but it just felt pretty out of place with what was going on. Again, the fact that all the Flauros pieces just so happen to be in places that house Travis' most traumatic memories from his past felt really contrived. And he faces all that trauma for what exactly? Just to leave at the end and be like, "well that weird. lol, whatever.". It seemed pretty clear that he was 'the butcher', but even after looking up the bad ending, it still really doesn't give much of a point to Travis' journey of self-discovery other than that being random padding for the main prequel plot. Also, how many damn hospitals are there in SH now? You got Alchemilla, Brookhaven, and now Cedar Grove Sanitarium. Pretty excessive for such a small town, but it's a video game, so whatever.
Well, it was OK for a prequel, I suppose. The combat/puzzles felt pretty reminiscent of SH1 in certain ways, just a lot more forgiving and also a bit more dull. Even the look/graphics of the game felt pretty reminiscent of SH1, since I emulated the more stable PSP version, as opposed to the later and buggier PS2 port. Alessa, Dhalia, Lisa and Kaufman look nothing like they should though, which was kinda distracting. Alessa herself looks nothing like the cutscenes from SH1 and I didn't much care for her "Alma-fication" in this game, as being just another generically sinister ghost succubus and nothing more. Dhalia also looked way too young compared to how she looks 7 years later and her hippy beatnik look was also really weird as well. Kaufman also wasn't as gravely as he should've been and is nothing like how he is in SH1 and Lisa also seemed pretty dissimilar to how she is in SH1.
Anyway, having played pretty much the entire SH series now, it's a real shame to see the state of the series as it exists today, or perhaps it would be better to say it's non-existence. I'd say the last thing I wouldn't mind checking out would be PT, but aside from those now defunct Unity remakes, there really isn't any other way to play it, outside of getting a PS4 with it already installed on it. Why on earth would Konami bother to shut down those Unity remakes anyway? Why do they care? Well, I've played tons of PT rip-offs at this point, like Layers of Fear and such, so while not the same thing it's more or less close. At the moment, I'm currently playing Haunting Ground and will probably check out Clocktower 3 after that.
Gameplay-wise it's pretty solid, but the sheer abundance of firearms, melee weapons, and ammunition everywhere, felt pretty ridiculous. There are also a whopping six guns in this game, double that of the usual amount, the game throws tons of ammo at you for each of them. Even with me wasting a lot of ammo shooting/killing random monsters, I think I still had over 55 shotgun shells, 40 rifle shots, 18 magnum rounds, and like 120 assault rifle bullets by the end of the game. I'd hesitate to call it a shooter, but it's certainly the most gun heavy and forgiving on resources out of all of the previous SH games. Due to all the guns/ammo, I also never bothered using any of the many melee weapons in this game, ridiculously varied as they are.
Story-wise it was pretty weak, but it mostly got the job done. Travis is an alright protagonist, but his presence in the town and involvement in the events that follow felt pretty contrived and his personal backstory clashes a lot with what is otherwise just a half-baked SH1 prequel. It really seemed like two separate stories that were forcefully jammed together and competing for the spotlight, which made the whole thing a bit awkward. There was also some other weird stuff like, how in the very beginning of the game after Alessa leads Travis to rescue her from the burning house, the first thing she says to him is to let her burn. If she just wanted to die, then why lead him there in the first place? According to the wiki, apparently Dhalia cast a spell on Alessa's burnt body which prevented her from succumbing to her wounds and dying, so maybe that's the reason why, but it's still kind of dumb. Another thing which seemed dumb was the game long fetch quest for the Flauros. From what I could gather, Dhalia used the Flauros to subdue Alessa's power then broke apart the Flauros to prevent the spell from being undone. At the end of the game, they show Alessa as being "free", but, aside from an amplified nightmare world, it doesn't even mean much since she literally doesn't even do anything aside from look menacing. It's especially weird when Travis gets to the hidden cult ceremony and the demon which powers the Flauros turns out to have suddenly escaped for some unknown reason and which isn't bothered to be explained at all, other than that the developers couldn't figure out what else to have the player fight for a final boss. On that note, the fact that the final boss looks exactly like something you'd see from some fantasy RPG, or something, felt pretty silly/jarring to the point it may as well have been as if you were fighting Diablo from Diablo 2. The fact that Travis just leaves after this and finally returns to his truck also seemed pretty contrived in a very, "my work here is done", sort of way. I didn't mind Travis' story for the most part, even with his underwhelming Pyramid Head knock-off and all, but it just felt pretty out of place with what was going on. Again, the fact that all the Flauros pieces just so happen to be in places that house Travis' most traumatic memories from his past felt really contrived. And he faces all that trauma for what exactly? Just to leave at the end and be like, "well that weird. lol, whatever.". It seemed pretty clear that he was 'the butcher', but even after looking up the bad ending, it still really doesn't give much of a point to Travis' journey of self-discovery other than that being random padding for the main prequel plot. Also, how many damn hospitals are there in SH now? You got Alchemilla, Brookhaven, and now Cedar Grove Sanitarium. Pretty excessive for such a small town, but it's a video game, so whatever.
Well, it was OK for a prequel, I suppose. The combat/puzzles felt pretty reminiscent of SH1 in certain ways, just a lot more forgiving and also a bit more dull. Even the look/graphics of the game felt pretty reminiscent of SH1, since I emulated the more stable PSP version, as opposed to the later and buggier PS2 port. Alessa, Dhalia, Lisa and Kaufman look nothing like they should though, which was kinda distracting. Alessa herself looks nothing like the cutscenes from SH1 and I didn't much care for her "Alma-fication" in this game, as being just another generically sinister ghost succubus and nothing more. Dhalia also looked way too young compared to how she looks 7 years later and her hippy beatnik look was also really weird as well. Kaufman also wasn't as gravely as he should've been and is nothing like how he is in SH1 and Lisa also seemed pretty dissimilar to how she is in SH1.
Anyway, having played pretty much the entire SH series now, it's a real shame to see the state of the series as it exists today, or perhaps it would be better to say it's non-existence. I'd say the last thing I wouldn't mind checking out would be PT, but aside from those now defunct Unity remakes, there really isn't any other way to play it, outside of getting a PS4 with it already installed on it. Why on earth would Konami bother to shut down those Unity remakes anyway? Why do they care? Well, I've played tons of PT rip-offs at this point, like Layers of Fear and such, so while not the same thing it's more or less close. At the moment, I'm currently playing Haunting Ground and will probably check out Clocktower 3 after that.
havent finished game in foreva. dont even like them anymore, suspension of disbelief is no longer there its like looks at flashing lights on a screen.
>>49318
>disbelief is no longer there
I can understand this being a problem for films, but video games?
>disbelief is no longer there
I can understand this being a problem for films, but video games?
>>49319
i posted in another thread about 0% sex drive, the same thing happened to anime and video games..
it is a really shitty existence when you cant even enjoy the simple pleasures befitting adult male virgins
life sux
i posted in another thread about 0% sex drive, the same thing happened to anime and video games..
it is a really shitty existence when you cant even enjoy the simple pleasures befitting adult male virgins
life sux
File: 1587006076878-0.jpg (123.01 KB, 500x638, 250:319, 64278364872.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1587006076878-1.jpg (25.96 KB, 360x450, 4:5, Quake_II_boxart.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Not as great as I thought they'd be, but both were still mostly alright.
Q1, although I enjoyed it, was pretty underwhelming, to be honest. The weapons in the base game are really piddly/unsatisfying to use and the enemy variety was pretty lacking as well, which fortunately the mission packs both solved somewhat. By contrast, the main campaign was pretty dull and the final boss fight (if you can even call it that) was just pitifully anticlimactic. The mission packs/expansions for Q1 were a lot better in pretty much every way. More enemies, more weapons, better level design, and they both had actual final boss fights to boot. Even then, Q1 still felt pretty outdated in a lot of ways.
Q2 was, for me anyway, a big step up from Q1. More weapons and more to satisfying to use, better soundtrack, better level design, much better enemy variety (etc.). Although, similar to Q1, the main campaign was still somewhat lackluster, while the mission packs/expansions were far more engaging. Can't say I cared for the change in setting since if there's one thing I preferred from Q1 it was its more Lovecraftian aesthetic, as opposed to Q2's generic evil alien cyborgs/bio-robots. To its credit though, the enemy variety in Q2 far surpasses that of Q1 and the developers do a lot with the whole cyborg motif when it comes to the enemy designs.
I was also a little disappointed at how easy both Q1 and Q2 are, even on nightmare/hard+. The lack of difficulty just led to a kind of tediousness/boredom setting in, plowing through level after level without really having to pay any attention to the point it all just started to blur together from one area to the next. I'd say one of the only challenging things, at least in Q1, were dealing with those damn hopping slime monsters. Having kamikaze enemies like that don't die in one hit felt pretty damn cheap though. Q1's mission packs replaced them with those floating mine creatures which were also pretty cheap, frankly. Q2's "Ground Zero" expansion really upped the ante as far as the action/difficulty was concerned and it's definitely what I had the most engagement with out of everything between Q1 and Q2. Like with Q1 though, there always seems to be at least one bullshit enemy. In Q2's case, it would definitely be those damn cyborgs that can resurrect and teleport in additional enemies, which are enemies exclusive to the expansion pack.
Overall, in sequence of what I preferred the most, Q2 mission packs > Q2 > Q1 mission packs > Q1. It'd be nice if Id, or whoever else, could make another Quake and do for it what they've done for DOOM. Quake Champions doesn't count since I'm referring to getting another action packed campaign in Quake, not some dreary MP-only affair like Q3 was. Also wouldn't mind hearing if there's any really good fan content to check out, whether for Q1 or Q2, but I doubt I'll get any answers, which is fine because if I really want to know I can always google it, I guess.
Q1, although I enjoyed it, was pretty underwhelming, to be honest. The weapons in the base game are really piddly/unsatisfying to use and the enemy variety was pretty lacking as well, which fortunately the mission packs both solved somewhat. By contrast, the main campaign was pretty dull and the final boss fight (if you can even call it that) was just pitifully anticlimactic. The mission packs/expansions for Q1 were a lot better in pretty much every way. More enemies, more weapons, better level design, and they both had actual final boss fights to boot. Even then, Q1 still felt pretty outdated in a lot of ways.
Q2 was, for me anyway, a big step up from Q1. More weapons and more to satisfying to use, better soundtrack, better level design, much better enemy variety (etc.). Although, similar to Q1, the main campaign was still somewhat lackluster, while the mission packs/expansions were far more engaging. Can't say I cared for the change in setting since if there's one thing I preferred from Q1 it was its more Lovecraftian aesthetic, as opposed to Q2's generic evil alien cyborgs/bio-robots. To its credit though, the enemy variety in Q2 far surpasses that of Q1 and the developers do a lot with the whole cyborg motif when it comes to the enemy designs.
I was also a little disappointed at how easy both Q1 and Q2 are, even on nightmare/hard+. The lack of difficulty just led to a kind of tediousness/boredom setting in, plowing through level after level without really having to pay any attention to the point it all just started to blur together from one area to the next. I'd say one of the only challenging things, at least in Q1, were dealing with those damn hopping slime monsters. Having kamikaze enemies like that don't die in one hit felt pretty damn cheap though. Q1's mission packs replaced them with those floating mine creatures which were also pretty cheap, frankly. Q2's "Ground Zero" expansion really upped the ante as far as the action/difficulty was concerned and it's definitely what I had the most engagement with out of everything between Q1 and Q2. Like with Q1 though, there always seems to be at least one bullshit enemy. In Q2's case, it would definitely be those damn cyborgs that can resurrect and teleport in additional enemies, which are enemies exclusive to the expansion pack.
Overall, in sequence of what I preferred the most, Q2 mission packs > Q2 > Q1 mission packs > Q1. It'd be nice if Id, or whoever else, could make another Quake and do for it what they've done for DOOM. Quake Champions doesn't count since I'm referring to getting another action packed campaign in Quake, not some dreary MP-only affair like Q3 was. Also wouldn't mind hearing if there's any really good fan content to check out, whether for Q1 or Q2, but I doubt I'll get any answers, which is fine because if I really want to know I can always google it, I guess.
File: 1587008084854.jpg (108.9 KB, 1024x768, 4:3, quake_1-1.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
>>49358
How did you like the mood and the whole demonic/underworld mixed with hightech stuff? I remember when I first played Quake 20 or so years ago the idea of mixing those things were absolutely brilliant. I remember sitting there thinking that stuff was just perfect. I guess nowadays it's a pretty overdone thing but man, I loved the whole idea behind it.
How did you like the mood and the whole demonic/underworld mixed with hightech stuff? I remember when I first played Quake 20 or so years ago the idea of mixing those things were absolutely brilliant. I remember sitting there thinking that stuff was just perfect. I guess nowadays it's a pretty overdone thing but man, I loved the whole idea behind it.
File: 1587010897192.png (76.28 KB, 778x960, 389:480, 1867806-box_hground.png) ImgOps iqdb
Maybe not the best survival horror out there, but, at least for me, it turned out to still be a really comfy entry in the genre. The dog companion (Hewie) can take a little bit getting used to, but getting him to do what you want didn't turn out to be nearly as frustrating as I thought it'd be. It can still be somewhat finicky at times, but as long as you use the optional training area and reinforce his behavior whenever he does what you command, and scold him when he doesn't, his disobedience is usually the exception and not the rule. That's not to say there weren't still rather annoying moments when I was being grappled while Hewie just stood by and watched cluelessly until I just eventually died. A couple other things which are kinda messed up is how playing fetch is a good way to boost the dog's obedience/friendship level, yet you can't play fetch until said friendship level is already quite high, preventing you from using it when it'd be actually helpful and I'm not sure why they designed it to work that way. You can also "level up" the dog in certain special encounters when being pursued, which I happened to be lucky enough to encounter, but are still somewhat hidden away and can, I'd imagine, lead to a rougher time for those who never find them.
There's also a nice variety to the various areas you go to and it's fun to explore them, although having pursuers pop up randomly can be somewhat tiring after a while. The dog's rear neck bite attack is downright invaluable here since it can't be countered and can make short work out of all of the various pursuers that come after you during the course of the game.
I really didn't care for the "crafting system" in this game however. Having what you can craft be left up to some dumb slot machine like mini-game really just ruined what could've otherwise been a neat mechanic. As it was, I just button mashed and, funnily enough, that led to me getting better stuff than trying to time my button presses to whatever colors would flash frustratingly briefly in each segment of the crafting tree.
The story also wasn't too bad, but I still don't really get what Fiona's deal was, or what the scar on her back meant. Her father was a clone of Lorenzo, but did he actually know he was a clone? He passed his "Azoth" to Fiona, but was he eventually looking to harvest it for himself and how did he pass it to her in the first place? What exactly was with the emphasis on her womb? Like, did Lorenzo/Ricardo want it ripped out, or impregnated, or what? Ricardo wanted to be reborn, but he was already an adult. What was he going to do? Push himself up her vagina, or put a clone of himself in her womb, creating a clone of a clone? It really seemed unclear, honestly. Not to mention, how was Lorenzo able to come back after being crushed into a literal red paste? And if he could resurrect himself like that just from taking Ricardo's Azoth, why would he need Fiona's? I guess because it was more powerful and good for more than one resurrection? There was a lot of unanswered questions which is kind of annoying, but, even so, it ends in a mostly satisfying way despite it all. First playthrough I got the "B" ending, since I didn't realize you could spare the life of the first pursuer and keeping him alive leads to getting the best "A" ending. Not really sure why dropping a chandelier on him suddenly makes him not want to kill you anymore, but whatever. I'd say I enjoyed my second playthrough just as much, since it adds enough random things to keep it interesting. I especially appreciated how the developers give you the option to bypass the slot machine crafting on a second playthrough, by putting random codes into a nearby device which will give you gear which you otherwise couldn't get unless you were lucky enough to manage to craft them. There's also some bonus cutscenes the second time around, but they don't really shed that much extra light on the story, which was a shame. The "A" ending was still quite good though and it was nice to see your first pursuer turn over a new leaf and bid you farewell in peace.
Funny how this game also reminded me a bit of the Ashley segment from RE4, (Fiona even looks a like Ashley as well), although it'd be unfair to compare this game to that particular segment, since you're not nearly as helpless as Ashley is. Apparently there's a rumor that this game actually has a number of unused RE4 assess in it. I don't know if it's true, but it wouldn't surprise if it was. Even the dog kinda reminds me of that wolf/dog that you can help at the beginning of RE4 and that will then show up to help you during the fight against that giant Ganados later on. Although, in the end, it's a game that manages to stand on its own two feet and I personally found it be pretty fun/comfy to playthrough both the first time, and then again for the extras and the best ending. In regards to AI companions in survival horror, I'd take Hewie over Eileen from SH4 or Ashley from RE4 any day. At least Hewie doesn't need you babysitting him constantly and can actually be of use to you most of the time. Super random aside, but this game has one of the best puzzle solving jingles ever. Such a great and satisfying sound.
There's also a nice variety to the various areas you go to and it's fun to explore them, although having pursuers pop up randomly can be somewhat tiring after a while. The dog's rear neck bite attack is downright invaluable here since it can't be countered and can make short work out of all of the various pursuers that come after you during the course of the game.
I really didn't care for the "crafting system" in this game however. Having what you can craft be left up to some dumb slot machine like mini-game really just ruined what could've otherwise been a neat mechanic. As it was, I just button mashed and, funnily enough, that led to me getting better stuff than trying to time my button presses to whatever colors would flash frustratingly briefly in each segment of the crafting tree.
The story also wasn't too bad, but I still don't really get what Fiona's deal was, or what the scar on her back meant. Her father was a clone of Lorenzo, but did he actually know he was a clone? He passed his "Azoth" to Fiona, but was he eventually looking to harvest it for himself and how did he pass it to her in the first place? What exactly was with the emphasis on her womb? Like, did Lorenzo/Ricardo want it ripped out, or impregnated, or what? Ricardo wanted to be reborn, but he was already an adult. What was he going to do? Push himself up her vagina, or put a clone of himself in her womb, creating a clone of a clone? It really seemed unclear, honestly. Not to mention, how was Lorenzo able to come back after being crushed into a literal red paste? And if he could resurrect himself like that just from taking Ricardo's Azoth, why would he need Fiona's? I guess because it was more powerful and good for more than one resurrection? There was a lot of unanswered questions which is kind of annoying, but, even so, it ends in a mostly satisfying way despite it all. First playthrough I got the "B" ending, since I didn't realize you could spare the life of the first pursuer and keeping him alive leads to getting the best "A" ending. Not really sure why dropping a chandelier on him suddenly makes him not want to kill you anymore, but whatever. I'd say I enjoyed my second playthrough just as much, since it adds enough random things to keep it interesting. I especially appreciated how the developers give you the option to bypass the slot machine crafting on a second playthrough, by putting random codes into a nearby device which will give you gear which you otherwise couldn't get unless you were lucky enough to manage to craft them. There's also some bonus cutscenes the second time around, but they don't really shed that much extra light on the story, which was a shame. The "A" ending was still quite good though and it was nice to see your first pursuer turn over a new leaf and bid you farewell in peace.
Funny how this game also reminded me a bit of the Ashley segment from RE4, (Fiona even looks a like Ashley as well), although it'd be unfair to compare this game to that particular segment, since you're not nearly as helpless as Ashley is. Apparently there's a rumor that this game actually has a number of unused RE4 assess in it. I don't know if it's true, but it wouldn't surprise if it was. Even the dog kinda reminds me of that wolf/dog that you can help at the beginning of RE4 and that will then show up to help you during the fight against that giant Ganados later on. Although, in the end, it's a game that manages to stand on its own two feet and I personally found it be pretty fun/comfy to playthrough both the first time, and then again for the extras and the best ending. In regards to AI companions in survival horror, I'd take Hewie over Eileen from SH4 or Ashley from RE4 any day. At least Hewie doesn't need you babysitting him constantly and can actually be of use to you most of the time. Super random aside, but this game has one of the best puzzle solving jingles ever. Such a great and satisfying sound.
>>49360
I'd say that's actually what I enjoyed the most about it. It's pretty paper thin and aesthetically skin deep for the most part, but I vastly prefer the style of Q1 versus the more generic evil alien Strogg from Q2. One thing I liked about Q1's expansions is how they melded the more high-tech levels with the more medieval looking and cultish areas, since in Q1's base campaign they always tended to be pretty heavily delineated and separate. As in you'd have the first level or two in a episode be in a hi-tech military/DOOM-esque area and then you'd transition into the more arcane and Hexen-ish levels. One thing I thought was a bit of a shame in Q1's expansions is how they don't really expand on the Lovecraftain aspect very much. If anything, it goes full on Hexen for the most part and you even have direct references/easter eggs to that series. I mean, you literally fight a fire breathing dragon as the final boss to Q1's second expansion, which is cool and all, but big a step away from the more foreboding atmosphere of Q1's main campaign.
On the points of style/atmosphere, I prefer Q1, but as an actual shooter I feel it's quite inferior to Q2. It's a shame they couldn't have kept the style the same to get the best of both worlds, but apparently everyone at Id hated Q1's style and John Romero was pretty much the only one who defended it, so after he left the remaining team at Id immediately scrapped it for what we see in Q2 and beyond. Can't say I agree with the decision, but there's a certain Starship Troopers charm to Q2's choice of style which is fine in its own right I suppose, even if I still prefer Q1's look. The aesthetic of Q1 and DOOM are sort of similar in a way. As I was playing I couldn't help, but think how it's almost like Quake is just a reboot of DOOM, just with Lovercraftian/medieval cult imagery this time instead of more traditional demonic imagery, since both have a fusion with future technology. Then again, the cyber demons in DOOM are also reminiscent of the Strogg in Q2 and beyond, so there's that too, but that's a different kind of similarity.
I'd say that's actually what I enjoyed the most about it. It's pretty paper thin and aesthetically skin deep for the most part, but I vastly prefer the style of Q1 versus the more generic evil alien Strogg from Q2. One thing I liked about Q1's expansions is how they melded the more high-tech levels with the more medieval looking and cultish areas, since in Q1's base campaign they always tended to be pretty heavily delineated and separate. As in you'd have the first level or two in a episode be in a hi-tech military/DOOM-esque area and then you'd transition into the more arcane and Hexen-ish levels. One thing I thought was a bit of a shame in Q1's expansions is how they don't really expand on the Lovecraftain aspect very much. If anything, it goes full on Hexen for the most part and you even have direct references/easter eggs to that series. I mean, you literally fight a fire breathing dragon as the final boss to Q1's second expansion, which is cool and all, but big a step away from the more foreboding atmosphere of Q1's main campaign.
On the points of style/atmosphere, I prefer Q1, but as an actual shooter I feel it's quite inferior to Q2. It's a shame they couldn't have kept the style the same to get the best of both worlds, but apparently everyone at Id hated Q1's style and John Romero was pretty much the only one who defended it, so after he left the remaining team at Id immediately scrapped it for what we see in Q2 and beyond. Can't say I agree with the decision, but there's a certain Starship Troopers charm to Q2's choice of style which is fine in its own right I suppose, even if I still prefer Q1's look. The aesthetic of Q1 and DOOM are sort of similar in a way. As I was playing I couldn't help, but think how it's almost like Quake is just a reboot of DOOM, just with Lovercraftian/medieval cult imagery this time instead of more traditional demonic imagery, since both have a fusion with future technology. Then again, the cyber demons in DOOM are also reminiscent of the Strogg in Q2 and beyond, so there's that too, but that's a different kind of similarity.
File: 1587017810029.jpg (522.89 KB, 1920x1080, 16:9, tropico6_entete.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished Tropico 6 campaign on hard difficulty, didn't rush it and enjoyed building the cities, took me 130 hours. I didn't play vidya in a long time partially because i was bored/playing the same old crap for years so i bought a new game for a change and it was worth it, it was even more refreshing as i was not familiar with the series. It's definitely an ok game in most aspects and i really appreciated how intuitive and flexible it feels i.e when we get in the cold war era it's fun to destroy the old bunkhouses in order to do some massive sweet urbanization plans by placing tenements for a cheaper cost thanks to the urban developpement edict, then some new distraction/decoration/public services building thanks to the liberated space. There's room for very beautiful and practical cities and if played right these two things mix well together. The citizen's AI regarding transports is pretty decent too. Some level of synergy is present everywhere if one look hard enough and i really enjoyed it, whether it be for individual buildings or whole neighhorhoods (radius effect). Same goes for edicts, politics/factions, industries or tourism. Too bad it's kinda spoiled by some features, the Broker or the "intimidate neighbors" raid option can severly break the game and make it too easy, also the game rarely forces the player to take the dictator route. There is lots of features for it but it's rare to see it materialize in the game. Only happened to me once after i had a very bad econonical start which forced me to activate the nuclear test edict then everyone hated me but it was the funniest game by far. Putting dissidents into asylums, converting the population to a specific faction by relentless propaganda then pleasing it by appropriate but costly edicts or building workmodes (i.e Child Museum), buying an campaign image with Swiss bank account money, all this effort to painfully win the elections by a very small margin, i mean for once the game felt really whole and exciting.
I planned to experiment deeper game mechanics in sandbox mod or to build the caribbean paradise of my dreams after finishing the missions but i'm really bored of the game after all these hours, i hope i still find the will to play it in the future sometimes.
I planned to experiment deeper game mechanics in sandbox mod or to build the caribbean paradise of my dreams after finishing the missions but i'm really bored of the game after all these hours, i hope i still find the will to play it in the future sometimes.
Finished GTA IV
I love the late 2000s feel. Right before the socialmedia/smartphone revolution. world post 2007/2008 was never the same. I also love the dark bleak and more realistic attitude of gta 4 over 5.
If you played it when you were young I highly reccomend you to go back and try it again.
I love the late 2000s feel. Right before the socialmedia/smartphone revolution. world post 2007/2008 was never the same. I also love the dark bleak and more realistic attitude of gta 4 over 5.
If you played it when you were young I highly reccomend you to go back and try it again.
>>49365
Finished it a few years ago with it's DLCs and i tought it was really good, this game have a soul. Looks so much more rugged and less polished than V at first but if you look close enough and manage to immerse yourself you can only notice how great that game was for it's time and that V mostly is a regression in the series, especially because of all the focus on online bullshit.
>>49367
I completely disagree. Well i do agree if you judge the shooting mechanics by the first pistol in the game but that wouldn't be fair. Bullets have a very enjoyable effect on hostiles npcs because the body physics are good, heavier than in V so the impact feels consequent. Then concerning the aim, it is harder than in V and it's very easy to miss your shots if you're moving at the same time or not doing burst fire/crouching so i always had this feeling of having to rely on a sort of cool momentum when progressing through a level full of ennemies. Of course it's easy so i try to do it in a cool way. It gets more fun with manual aim or when using some special weapons like the sawed-off shotgun in the biker DLC.
Finished it a few years ago with it's DLCs and i tought it was really good, this game have a soul. Looks so much more rugged and less polished than V at first but if you look close enough and manage to immerse yourself you can only notice how great that game was for it's time and that V mostly is a regression in the series, especially because of all the focus on online bullshit.
>>49367
I completely disagree. Well i do agree if you judge the shooting mechanics by the first pistol in the game but that wouldn't be fair. Bullets have a very enjoyable effect on hostiles npcs because the body physics are good, heavier than in V so the impact feels consequent. Then concerning the aim, it is harder than in V and it's very easy to miss your shots if you're moving at the same time or not doing burst fire/crouching so i always had this feeling of having to rely on a sort of cool momentum when progressing through a level full of ennemies. Of course it's easy so i try to do it in a cool way. It gets more fun with manual aim or when using some special weapons like the sawed-off shotgun in the biker DLC.
>>49365
That's by far my favorite GTA, NYC feels very real (to me at least I've never been there) and Niko is the most human main character in any of those games. I also love how you can just let the love interest die at the end.
That's by far my favorite GTA, NYC feels very real (to me at least I've never been there) and Niko is the most human main character in any of those games. I also love how you can just let the love interest die at the end.
>>49365
I played a ton of GTA IV near or around the time it came out and, as yourself, really liked it. That goes for the expansions as well, but they both felt a little diminished without Niko as the main character. Crazy to think that it was over a decade ago now. I'm hesitant to replay it since I'm concerned I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I did all those years ago. I sorta wish the mainline GTA franchise had just died at IV, since GTA V was a fucking travesty and it was so mindnumbingly awful that I couldn't even stomach finishing it. Gameplay was a huge step back and the characters/story/humor were all enormously unlikable and grating on the nerves. Soulless garbage from top to bottom. Most of the reason why I haven't checked out RDR2 yet is due to fearing it'll be as bad as GTA V ended up being for me.
I played a ton of GTA IV near or around the time it came out and, as yourself, really liked it. That goes for the expansions as well, but they both felt a little diminished without Niko as the main character. Crazy to think that it was over a decade ago now. I'm hesitant to replay it since I'm concerned I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I did all those years ago. I sorta wish the mainline GTA franchise had just died at IV, since GTA V was a fucking travesty and it was so mindnumbingly awful that I couldn't even stomach finishing it. Gameplay was a huge step back and the characters/story/humor were all enormously unlikable and grating on the nerves. Soulless garbage from top to bottom. Most of the reason why I haven't checked out RDR2 yet is due to fearing it'll be as bad as GTA V ended up being for me.
File: 1587114156235.jpg (50.33 KB, 1024x492, 256:123, CrRnOlEW8AAHU_P.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Wow, didn't expect to create this much response. I posted a lot here but I guess GTA hit a nerve. Thanks for all the contributions anons. If I may I like to add some random stuff.
-I loved how the game had "weight" I really can't describe it but you really feel the weight of objects and humans in game, when you bump into someone, when you drive, when you go into melee, the cars the bodies etc all have weight. I love the melee and driving especially. Very nicely done.
-I visited NY in 2012 and they really did a great job in portraying the feel of NYC. The only thing missing was the crowds due to well processing power of the era. Ironically enough I'm currently in socal so I can also see how accurate gta5 portrayed the area too. They are really good at the enviromental design, even in gta5.
-What I hated about gta 5 was the the characters. They had so much potential I feel like rockstar didn't took any risks and played it safe. I mean not all missions/stories in gta4 were good but just look at this picture, in a decade old game I still get the feels, the game really convinced me to think that Bellic counins were really screwed. I don't know I cant put into words but the characters in gta5 never convinced me, while many characters in gta4 did. Which is a shame, I wish they took a more grimdark approach to trevor and that black fella that is so forgoteable that i cant recall his name.
-Again the grimdarkness of the world was awesome, it still had goofyness and crazyness. But even they were imho done good. Brucie etc. But man some quotes:
>After you walk into a village and you see 50 children, all sitting neatly in a row, against a church wall, each with their throats cut and their hands chopped off, you realize that the creature that could do this doesn't have a soul."
With Nico you could feel the weight of his pass. But the beauty of gta 4 is that it didnt remained as such. Roman's failiure, how immigrants weren that "better off" from when they disembarked etc. That bleak or dare I say realistic attitude was imho a good commentary. Even little titbits were nice. Roman, in a rare moment, being very angry at you and describing how he slept under office and the struggle he had to get apartment that you shit on in early game really hit me. Yes they all make it in the end (which gta character doesn't) but to have theese commentaries were valuable, moreover even the ending is bittersweet.
-Again the late 2000s nostalgia is something to behold. I still can't believe its 12 years. (GTA was planned for a 2007 autumn release but was postponed, I always think gta4 took place right before financial crisis of 2008, and expansions followed a bit later maybe lingering to early 2009). GTA 5 was also interesting as social media etc back in 2013 was/is not the same as today. I would still call that the transiionary phase, but I diverge. There was no "transion" in gta4, it was pure solid 2000s, no crapphone, no facecrap. I don't know why I miss those times. Maybe because I'm an old fart who still refuses to phonepost and still sits on his ass to browse internet.
-I loved how the game had "weight" I really can't describe it but you really feel the weight of objects and humans in game, when you bump into someone, when you drive, when you go into melee, the cars the bodies etc all have weight. I love the melee and driving especially. Very nicely done.
-I visited NY in 2012 and they really did a great job in portraying the feel of NYC. The only thing missing was the crowds due to well processing power of the era. Ironically enough I'm currently in socal so I can also see how accurate gta5 portrayed the area too. They are really good at the enviromental design, even in gta5.
-What I hated about gta 5 was the the characters. They had so much potential I feel like rockstar didn't took any risks and played it safe. I mean not all missions/stories in gta4 were good but just look at this picture, in a decade old game I still get the feels, the game really convinced me to think that Bellic counins were really screwed. I don't know I cant put into words but the characters in gta5 never convinced me, while many characters in gta4 did. Which is a shame, I wish they took a more grimdark approach to trevor and that black fella that is so forgoteable that i cant recall his name.
-Again the grimdarkness of the world was awesome, it still had goofyness and crazyness. But even they were imho done good. Brucie etc. But man some quotes:
>After you walk into a village and you see 50 children, all sitting neatly in a row, against a church wall, each with their throats cut and their hands chopped off, you realize that the creature that could do this doesn't have a soul."
With Nico you could feel the weight of his pass. But the beauty of gta 4 is that it didnt remained as such. Roman's failiure, how immigrants weren that "better off" from when they disembarked etc. That bleak or dare I say realistic attitude was imho a good commentary. Even little titbits were nice. Roman, in a rare moment, being very angry at you and describing how he slept under office and the struggle he had to get apartment that you shit on in early game really hit me. Yes they all make it in the end (which gta character doesn't) but to have theese commentaries were valuable, moreover even the ending is bittersweet.
-Again the late 2000s nostalgia is something to behold. I still can't believe its 12 years. (GTA was planned for a 2007 autumn release but was postponed, I always think gta4 took place right before financial crisis of 2008, and expansions followed a bit later maybe lingering to early 2009). GTA 5 was also interesting as social media etc back in 2013 was/is not the same as today. I would still call that the transiionary phase, but I diverge. There was no "transion" in gta4, it was pure solid 2000s, no crapphone, no facecrap. I don't know why I miss those times. Maybe because I'm an old fart who still refuses to phonepost and still sits on his ass to browse internet.
>>49401
>Wow, didn't expect to create this much response. I posted a lot here
Me too, for years I have been dumping text walls itts. Sometimes I get responses, most of the time I don't. The secret to get replies is to play shit games.
>Wow, didn't expect to create this much response. I posted a lot here
Me too, for years I have been dumping text walls itts. Sometimes I get responses, most of the time I don't. The secret to get replies is to play shit games.
>>49407
>Me too, for years I have been dumping text walls itts. Sometimes I get responses, most of the time I don't.
Me three. It actually feels like I've pretty much singlehandedly filled most of these threads out over the years and I've only occasionally gotten any replies. /games/ is already one of the slowest boards on the site so replies are pretty unlikely to happen based on that, but maybe it's also the walls of text which put people off. I try to remind myself that, to almost anyone else, what I have to say is often too much of a bother to read, especially if they have no interest or knowledge in whatever it is I've just played/finished and am now deciding to post about. And that's fine, since I post mostly to let my thoughts out of my head and to somewhat cathartically express what I liked/disliked about any particular game (although sometimes it can actually feel like work to do this and I'd ultimately just rather say nothing, but I do it anyway in the hopes that someone might enjoy reading what I've said). It's always nice to get a reply from someone who has something to add to what I've said and who might have also played the same game, but it's not necessary. I'm guilty of the same thing after all, since most posts tend to be their own self-contained things without much to add. I read this >>47417 wizzie's post for instance, but I just have nothing to add to it, the same way no one has anything to add to my own posts most of the time. That's just how it goes, but it's still kind of depressing. Sometimes I post about games that either really shine for me, or really got on my nerves, and I often wish in those instances that just one other wizzie would say, "Yeah wizzie, that game's great.", or in the other example, "Damn wizzie, that sounds like that really sucked. Fuck that game". It's self-absorbed to feel that way, but I can't help it.
More popular, and in most cases, shitty games do tend to get the most replies, I agree. It makes sense I guess, since games like that are more common and likely to have been heard of from others, or that they've already had prior experience in playing, which leads to a higher chance of someone else replying with their own thoughts, versus a more obscure game they've never heard of or played and thus have nothing to say about. In this sense, I've often wondered if a place like reddit would be better to post in, but it seems like even there you'd have the same problem to some extent. It'd either get buried in the gaming related subs with high user counts, or equally ignored, if not moreso due to the karma system, on the lower user count subs.
>Me too, for years I have been dumping text walls itts. Sometimes I get responses, most of the time I don't.
Me three. It actually feels like I've pretty much singlehandedly filled most of these threads out over the years and I've only occasionally gotten any replies. /games/ is already one of the slowest boards on the site so replies are pretty unlikely to happen based on that, but maybe it's also the walls of text which put people off. I try to remind myself that, to almost anyone else, what I have to say is often too much of a bother to read, especially if they have no interest or knowledge in whatever it is I've just played/finished and am now deciding to post about. And that's fine, since I post mostly to let my thoughts out of my head and to somewhat cathartically express what I liked/disliked about any particular game (although sometimes it can actually feel like work to do this and I'd ultimately just rather say nothing, but I do it anyway in the hopes that someone might enjoy reading what I've said). It's always nice to get a reply from someone who has something to add to what I've said and who might have also played the same game, but it's not necessary. I'm guilty of the same thing after all, since most posts tend to be their own self-contained things without much to add. I read this >>47417 wizzie's post for instance, but I just have nothing to add to it, the same way no one has anything to add to my own posts most of the time. That's just how it goes, but it's still kind of depressing. Sometimes I post about games that either really shine for me, or really got on my nerves, and I often wish in those instances that just one other wizzie would say, "Yeah wizzie, that game's great.", or in the other example, "Damn wizzie, that sounds like that really sucked. Fuck that game". It's self-absorbed to feel that way, but I can't help it.
More popular, and in most cases, shitty games do tend to get the most replies, I agree. It makes sense I guess, since games like that are more common and likely to have been heard of from others, or that they've already had prior experience in playing, which leads to a higher chance of someone else replying with their own thoughts, versus a more obscure game they've never heard of or played and thus have nothing to say about. In this sense, I've often wondered if a place like reddit would be better to post in, but it seems like even there you'd have the same problem to some extent. It'd either get buried in the gaming related subs with high user counts, or equally ignored, if not moreso due to the karma system, on the lower user count subs.
>>49365
>>49401
I love the writing and 00s atmosphere of IV too but I dislike the sandbox gameplay of GTA.
>Drive to one end of the map for a character to give you a mission
>Drive to other end of the map to do the mission
>Drive back to the the other end of the map to complete the mission
>Afterwards get a phone call from Roman asking to go bowling
Really tedious padding. I know this would upset most people but I think Rockstar would be better focusing on linear games because their strength is writing not sandbox gameplay.
>>49416
Even if we don't respond, people read and enjoy your posts so don't feel bad.
>>49401
I love the writing and 00s atmosphere of IV too but I dislike the sandbox gameplay of GTA.
>Drive to one end of the map for a character to give you a mission
>Drive to other end of the map to do the mission
>Drive back to the the other end of the map to complete the mission
>Afterwards get a phone call from Roman asking to go bowling
Really tedious padding. I know this would upset most people but I think Rockstar would be better focusing on linear games because their strength is writing not sandbox gameplay.
>>49416
Even if we don't respond, people read and enjoy your posts so don't feel bad.
I recently finished a MS DOS game called "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?".
The basic premise is this: you're a detective and someone from the Carmen Sandiego (a succubus)'s clique has pulled of a national heist and it's up to you to find the suspect by tracking his motions all over the world. You investigate three landmarks in each cities around the world to look for clues while the time keeps ticking. You also need to look for clues about the person so that you prepare a warrant before arresting them.
The game is interesting but gameplay wise, nothing else changes. The above mentioned steps keep repeating for 15 missions till you capture the succubus ringleader except the clues keep getting incredibly vague.
This would have been an amazing game to play during the time it was released back in the 90s. Internet has made the game obsolete but I managed to play as much as I can without using it. Still, interesting game. 2/5.
The basic premise is this: you're a detective and someone from the Carmen Sandiego (a succubus)'s clique has pulled of a national heist and it's up to you to find the suspect by tracking his motions all over the world. You investigate three landmarks in each cities around the world to look for clues while the time keeps ticking. You also need to look for clues about the person so that you prepare a warrant before arresting them.
The game is interesting but gameplay wise, nothing else changes. The above mentioned steps keep repeating for 15 missions till you capture the succubus ringleader except the clues keep getting incredibly vague.
This would have been an amazing game to play during the time it was released back in the 90s. Internet has made the game obsolete but I managed to play as much as I can without using it. Still, interesting game. 2/5.
Finished Clock Tower 3 a few days ago. It was a little wacky and over the top, the voice acting was RE1 levels of bad/corny and the story was pretty dumb, but I don't know. I still thought it was okay. I honestly didn't expect it to have such a heavy shojo flair to it, which itself seemed a little out of place and jarring for a survival horror. I liked it for being something different though and having a more aloof type approach to everything when it came to the mood.
The game's pretty short and can be gotten through fairly quickly, but, even so, I liked the flow and variety of the setting, although much of the areas can feel cramped and fairly limited as far as exploration or interaction is concerned. The cramped level design can also get quite frustrating to deal with when it comes to evading the major "subordinate" ghosts which are present on each stage/area. The 2nd stage was definitely the most annoying when it came to this sort of thing, since it's comprised of mostly tight hallways and corridors and it becomes pretty difficult to evade the major ghost on that stage, since it's pretty easy for them to end up cornering you and chain attacking/comboing you to death. You can utilize certain one use only environmental items to instantly end a chase, but sometimes they just would just fade out and leave me unable to interact with them, even with the ghost far behind me, which was annoying. One thing I didn't realize until basically the end of the game was how holy water can stun even the major ghosts, which would've eased a little bit of the annoyance factor since, for whatever reason, I just assumed holy water wouldn't work on them and was only meant to ward off the more generic ghosts. I also didn't have much trouble with the boss fights that concluded each stage. They were actually a bit disappointingly easy, if anything. Atypical as they are for a survival horror, they essentially take place in a semi-large arena where you use your magical bow to subdue the major ghost of the stage by either whittling their health down or ensnaring them in enough charge shots (usually about 5 or so) until you can let off your ultimate attack. Your main character even has a "magical succubus-esque" intro sequence to these battles which felt very reminiscent of something like Sailor Moon, or whatever.
Like I said, this game's pretty goofy and the story is no exception. The basic premise being how only certain teenage succubi can help troubled spirits cross over and to fight the forces of evil, which take the form of malevolent ghosts/entities which posses and cause chaos amongst the living. As silly as it is though, there's still some pretty messed up stuff in this game. The stuff that happens in the second stage especially, what with a mother and son getting their eyes burned out with chemicals and then melted in a can of acid, only for their spirits to wander blind in agony afterwards was pretty fucking brutal. What makes it even more disturbing is how goofy and zany the game is even in stuff like that and the juxtaposition there just has it be all that much more unnerving. The story is pretty straightforward and one dimensional for the most part though, which is fine since it fits the tone and pace of the game as a sort of silly/schlocky survival horror romp.
One random aside, but this game has probably the most over the top motion capture I've ever seen. Just skip to 12m:45s in the video to get an idea of what I mean. Something about how wild and spastic the gestures are feels uniquely Japanese to me, since I only ever seem to recall seeing such things from Japan that put such bizarre over emphasis on random movements like this.
Currently playing Rule of Rose at the moment and damn is that a weird game. Interesting how it has a dog companion just like Haunting Ground. I had no idea there was another game to share such a mechanic as that, since going in I thought RoR was just going to be a more traditional and straightforward sort of survival horror. Gameplay-wise it mostly seems to be, but the story is anything but normal, that's for sure. Will probably play either Clock Tower 1 after this, or start playing the Parasite Eve series.
The game's pretty short and can be gotten through fairly quickly, but, even so, I liked the flow and variety of the setting, although much of the areas can feel cramped and fairly limited as far as exploration or interaction is concerned. The cramped level design can also get quite frustrating to deal with when it comes to evading the major "subordinate" ghosts which are present on each stage/area. The 2nd stage was definitely the most annoying when it came to this sort of thing, since it's comprised of mostly tight hallways and corridors and it becomes pretty difficult to evade the major ghost on that stage, since it's pretty easy for them to end up cornering you and chain attacking/comboing you to death. You can utilize certain one use only environmental items to instantly end a chase, but sometimes they just would just fade out and leave me unable to interact with them, even with the ghost far behind me, which was annoying. One thing I didn't realize until basically the end of the game was how holy water can stun even the major ghosts, which would've eased a little bit of the annoyance factor since, for whatever reason, I just assumed holy water wouldn't work on them and was only meant to ward off the more generic ghosts. I also didn't have much trouble with the boss fights that concluded each stage. They were actually a bit disappointingly easy, if anything. Atypical as they are for a survival horror, they essentially take place in a semi-large arena where you use your magical bow to subdue the major ghost of the stage by either whittling their health down or ensnaring them in enough charge shots (usually about 5 or so) until you can let off your ultimate attack. Your main character even has a "magical succubus-esque" intro sequence to these battles which felt very reminiscent of something like Sailor Moon, or whatever.
Like I said, this game's pretty goofy and the story is no exception. The basic premise being how only certain teenage succubi can help troubled spirits cross over and to fight the forces of evil, which take the form of malevolent ghosts/entities which posses and cause chaos amongst the living. As silly as it is though, there's still some pretty messed up stuff in this game. The stuff that happens in the second stage especially, what with a mother and son getting their eyes burned out with chemicals and then melted in a can of acid, only for their spirits to wander blind in agony afterwards was pretty fucking brutal. What makes it even more disturbing is how goofy and zany the game is even in stuff like that and the juxtaposition there just has it be all that much more unnerving. The story is pretty straightforward and one dimensional for the most part though, which is fine since it fits the tone and pace of the game as a sort of silly/schlocky survival horror romp.
One random aside, but this game has probably the most over the top motion capture I've ever seen. Just skip to 12m:45s in the video to get an idea of what I mean. Something about how wild and spastic the gestures are feels uniquely Japanese to me, since I only ever seem to recall seeing such things from Japan that put such bizarre over emphasis on random movements like this.
Currently playing Rule of Rose at the moment and damn is that a weird game. Interesting how it has a dog companion just like Haunting Ground. I had no idea there was another game to share such a mechanic as that, since going in I thought RoR was just going to be a more traditional and straightforward sort of survival horror. Gameplay-wise it mostly seems to be, but the story is anything but normal, that's for sure. Will probably play either Clock Tower 1 after this, or start playing the Parasite Eve series.
File: 1587369636775.jpg (216.6 KB, 640x910, 64:91, scfcp20f.jpg) ImgOps iqdb
This game is pretty good unlike most vidya based on movies. Being a caricature of the movie it's gross and douchebagey but it's not like i care. Combat is simple but nervous and it's difficulty is decent, it can be unpredictable at times i.e you can't just move in the open and get shot at from different angles and while it may be true for most games in this one it's very punishing, but it's balanced by the "rage mode" mechanics which is a good feature. It has a rewarding roleplay aspect as you can play as your henchmens or spend the money you make on real game stuff like boats, cars or enhancements for your palace. These things can cost a lot which makes the game a grind sometimes but an enjoyable one if you get to the big drug deals. I liked it it felt like a good and fun drug lord simulator that don't take itself too seriously.
>>49452
>Will probably play either Clock Tower 1
Don't know if you're aware but there are 2 Clock Tower 1, the first one, which the retroactively named "First Fear" for Snes (there's also a windows version but it's a pain to make it work, but you could try if you want to play with mouse) and Clock Tower for psx. I played First Fear and it's pretty easy, you can easily get all endings within a day, so you might want to beat that before moving on to Parasite Eve.
>Will probably play either Clock Tower 1
Don't know if you're aware but there are 2 Clock Tower 1, the first one, which the retroactively named "First Fear" for Snes (there's also a windows version but it's a pain to make it work, but you could try if you want to play with mouse) and Clock Tower for psx. I played First Fear and it's pretty easy, you can easily get all endings within a day, so you might want to beat that before moving on to Parasite Eve.
>>49453
I think there's a Godfather game on PS2 that was pretty well received. Have you played it?
I think there's a Godfather game on PS2 that was pretty well received. Have you played it?
>>49455
I was aware of that, but thanks for letting me know anyway. I'm intending to play First Fear, which is an enhanced port of the SNES version for PS1 released only in Japan (I've got an english patched version) and then maybe the following sequel for PS1, which is simply titled as Clock Tower. Clock Tower 2 seems to be universally considered to be complete garbage and I have absolutely no interest in ever checking that out.
I was aware of that, but thanks for letting me know anyway. I'm intending to play First Fear, which is an enhanced port of the SNES version for PS1 released only in Japan (I've got an english patched version) and then maybe the following sequel for PS1, which is simply titled as Clock Tower. Clock Tower 2 seems to be universally considered to be complete garbage and I have absolutely no interest in ever checking that out.
>>49456
Yes but it was 13 or 14 years ago. I was looking forward to play it again cause this game always pop up when i search for good ps2 games on the net but i kept forgetting it so thanks for reminding me. According to my memories it was a bit like Scarface with properties/territories features altough a bit more generic on this aspect but it probably has other strengths cause i remember it as a pretty good game. Don't know what happened to the disc and it's case, probably one of the things that got stolen a long time ago when my house was broken into.
Yes but it was 13 or 14 years ago. I was looking forward to play it again cause this game always pop up when i search for good ps2 games on the net but i kept forgetting it so thanks for reminding me. According to my memories it was a bit like Scarface with properties/territories features altough a bit more generic on this aspect but it probably has other strengths cause i remember it as a pretty good game. Don't know what happened to the disc and it's case, probably one of the things that got stolen a long time ago when my house was broken into.
File: 1587502401940-0.png (856.81 KB, 1360x768, 85:48, Sin título.png) ImgOps iqdb
File: 1587502401940-1.png (150.38 KB, 860x658, 430:329, 86-860532_fierce-deity-lin….png) ImgOps iqdb
Just finished Majora's Mask for N64. It's really good once you get used to the timer, and honestly once you slow it down you shouldn't run out of time unless you're pretty bad (I am, so I did once in the last dungeon). There is a lot of repetition though, so I see why this game is so dividing among zelda fans, I didn't mind it for the most part, but I usually don't mind grinding and stuff like that.
What did bother me is that after I busted my ass getting all masks to get the Fierce Deity, turns out I can only use it on bosses, I hoped to go around turned into the big guy fucking shit up after I finished the game but I can't, so what's the point? I mean yeah, it makes the final boss trivial but still, it's not like it was very hard to begin with.
What did bother me is that after I busted my ass getting all masks to get the Fierce Deity, turns out I can only use it on bosses, I hoped to go around turned into the big guy fucking shit up after I finished the game but I can't, so what's the point? I mean yeah, it makes the final boss trivial but still, it's not like it was very hard to begin with.
Finished Witcher 2, I think I liked it less than the first game. Graphics and voice acting were very nice but the switch to real time combat was awkward and the maps are so confusing to navigate
File: 1587541622726.jpg (28.48 KB, 639x361, 639:361, 9086e259a293bed11ecd5dd3c9….jpg) ImgOps iqdb
Seemed interesting at first, but was pretty much utterly ruined for me right off the bat due to the lack of a tutorial or even just basic tooltips on what all the various parts actually do. The whole, "experiment and figure it out yourself", angle the developers opted for was a pretty nonsensical and bullshit approach to take for this sort of thing. at least in my opinion anyway. Since when did depriving players of proper tutorials/explanations on how everything works make for a more engaging experience? Maybe some people get off on aimlessly feeling around the in the dark, but I'm definitely not one of them. For someone like me, I'm just left clueless/frustrated and can find no desire to go through the forced trial and error due to a lack of what should be otherwise necessary, bedrock information.
Well, I was gonna drop this right away, but instead I just downloaded a bunch of random creations that others had put together from the Steam Workshop and managed to complete all the missions in the campaign just from doing that. Funnily enough, I actually derived far more enjoyment from going that route versus grappling with the exceedingly poor UI and fucking around aimlessly trying to make something myself without any clue as to how I could actually use the various parts the game provides you with. Which, as I said, it doesn't bother to explain what 95% of these parts even do, not even at a bare minimum level. Despite me never really diving into the creation tools, something about said tools leaves something to be desired. Even fucking around with some of the most popular creations usually resulted in them not even working as they should half the time. I tried one particular creation based off that giant robot from Pacific Rim and it looked pretty cool, but ended up being rather anticlimactic after I tried to take just one step before it simply fell over and exploded. It's one thing to build these contraptions, but actually trying to bind halfway fluid movement/controls to them is pretty much impossible, thereby making most of what you can build unwieldy and essentially useless.
Largely speaking, despite it now being fully released at this point, it still feels like a game that's in early access. I was hoping for it to be a neat little puzzle game with a creation gimmick, but the lack of a tutorial, even just a basic tutorial, really killed the experience for me, beyond just what I could salvage checking out what others had made and muddling my way through the game's exceedingly short and rather bare bones campaign based on what I could find. A shame because it looks quite good and the framework was there for it be a really great puzzle game, but it appears the devs just went their own confused way with it until eventually just slapping a full release on it and then abandoning it.
Well, I was gonna drop this right away, but instead I just downloaded a bunch of random creations that others had put together from the Steam Workshop and managed to complete all the missions in the campaign just from doing that. Funnily enough, I actually derived far more enjoyment from going that route versus grappling with the exceedingly poor UI and fucking around aimlessly trying to make something myself without any clue as to how I could actually use the various parts the game provides you with. Which, as I said, it doesn't bother to explain what 95% of these parts even do, not even at a bare minimum level. Despite me never really diving into the creation tools, something about said tools leaves something to be desired. Even fucking around with some of the most popular creations usually resulted in them not even working as they should half the time. I tried one particular creation based off that giant robot from Pacific Rim and it looked pretty cool, but ended up being rather anticlimactic after I tried to take just one step before it simply fell over and exploded. It's one thing to build these contraptions, but actually trying to bind halfway fluid movement/controls to them is pretty much impossible, thereby making most of what you can build unwieldy and essentially useless.
Largely speaking, despite it now being fully released at this point, it still feels like a game that's in early access. I was hoping for it to be a neat little puzzle game with a creation gimmick, but the lack of a tutorial, even just a basic tutorial, really killed the experience for me, beyond just what I could salvage checking out what others had made and muddling my way through the game's exceedingly short and rather bare bones campaign based on what I could find. A shame because it looks quite good and the framework was there for it be a really great puzzle game, but it appears the devs just went their own confused way with it until eventually just slapping a full release on it and then abandoning it.
[Last 50 Posts]