Soooooo what'cha playing?

[vanguard333]

I 100% completed Mario vs Donkey Kong. It was fun; I will say that it was more fun when the emphasis was on the "puzzle" part of puzzle-platformer, and less fun when the emphasis was on the "platformer" part.

 

When I got the Mario vs Donkey Kong remake, I also got a used copy of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. I'm not very far in it because I haven't had much time, unfortunately.

What I can say is this: I like the gameplay in theory. I like the grid map, I like the variety of units, and I like that long-range units can either fire or move but not both. However, so far, while it hasn't been too difficult, it has felt very easy to mess up in ways that are not fun to roll with. The Valkyria Chronicles games could sometimes feel like that, but those games had many save files and let the player save at any time. This game, by contrast, only has one save file, and it auto-saves after every move the player makes, so your options are to either resume from exactly where you left off or restart from the very beginning of the battle.

I also don't like how little information is given to the player before a fight; the player is told how much damage their unit will do to a selected enemy unit, but it doesn't say how much damage the unit will receive, and that information is very important as units with less health deal less damage.

Does anyone have any advice?

Edited March 25 by vanguard333

[Zapp Branniglenn]

A lot of stuff has been appearing on my radar in the last couple weeks, so it'll be a challenge picking out which ones to focus on. For now, here's what I got done with in March.

007 Goldfinger 64 (2017)

Spoiler

Here’s a Rom hack that was in development as early as 2009. According to this history of development, the author was the developer of goldeneye’s rom hacking toolset before he took over the most promising project he saw other people making when development was halted. They would watch the film a hundred times when mapping out the level structure and it shows. Goldfinger’s Kentucky stud ranch feels 1:1 to the movie version. Entirely new weapons and gadgets were built to match the 1960s, low tech setting. And I was rewarded for having watched the movie, as the showdown with Oddjob is scripted to end the same way as you bait him toward the electric fence. It would be a waste of effort to try and match Goldeneye 64’s soundtrack blow for blow, and there are only so many ways you can revise Goldfinger’s theme tune as a motif. I can think of one track that’s a definite winner

Of course a lot of Goldeneye’s old issues rear their head once again. Corridor shooting can be obnoxious because defeated enemies take forever to fall down and remain as meat shields for the enemies behind them. And the enemies’ bullets pass clean through the bodies of their comrades so we don’t benefit from the same effect. They did flag civilians as unkillable to enemy bullets, so that's a benefit of the hit detection. Item hunt objectives can lead to a failed mission if you come across the levels’ end too soon. For instance in the Shipyard level, I was looking for gold samples. So I walked up to a boat – didn’t press any button, and the level ended pre-maturely because of my curiosity. A functional game over that forced me to start again from the beginning.

Overall I found at least half of the missions to be smooth experiences. Even on the 00 Agent difficulty which I absolutely could not say about the N64 original (goddamn Bunker II, what were they thinking). You’ll be spending a lot of time walking into the void, looking for a door you missed, but the objectives necessary to finish the level are often very straightforward. You’ll know what you’re doing, even if you don’t know where it is yet. I was annoyed at a lot of the unused space, rooms with nothing in them. Until I realized a lot of the most egregious cases are because they made multiplayer maps out of those areas. I wasn’t expecting a totally unique multiplayer suite, but they even went to the trouble of totally original maps unrelated to the campaign. Also, just like Goldeneye, there are two bonus missions you can unlock that take place in the first and second Bond films respectively. I can definitely recommend this one to fans of Goldeneye. It’s console compatible, and will work with any controller configuration mods you have for mouse/keyboard support. Though I got by just fine with a simple Xbox controller.

Penny’s Big Breakaway (2024)

Spoiler

It can be hard for an indie game to get its big break like the title implies. Even with a famous name attached. Many people are familiar with this one because of one heavily marketed detail: Christian Whitehead – the lead developer of Sonic Mania. I wasn’t crazy on Sonic Mania, but I do think it’s the best Sonic Anything from the twenty first century that was published officially by Sega. Some fan games can certainly match Mania, but it’s just as well because Whitehead was himself a Sonic fan game maker until they gave him a job. Only a little of that Sonic design sensibility shines through in this new game. The way the yoyo builds and diverts your momentum. And how the level design includes half pipes and ramps for big air time, and ziplines for dramatic on-rails traversal. But the player has a lot more agency and options than Sonic does with a bunch of movement tech that I had not mastered by the end of the game. I had fun with it, but I don't think it ever hits you with a grand scope of ideas unless you're a big fan of speedrunning and/or score attacking games.

Overall I didn’t come away with too much to say on the game. I suppose I wish it was more of a 3D collectathon style game rather than Mario 3D World-esque linear levels with a goal post at the end. Each stage has exactly three of each thing to look out for. It’s rare to play a platformer where the basic movement is this engaging, so I would love to zip around open environments rather than stopping myself from careening over every edge. Or alternatively, a 2D version of the game that places more emphasis on the precision. The version we did get has this sort of isometric camera that adds to the general inaccurate feeling of inputs. Left, Right, Forward, I don't always seem to move or attack in exactly the angle I was envisioning. If the camera were positioned to be usually at Penny’s back, these wouldn’t be a problem. Finally the end of level Busker Bonus minigame has an issue where rotation inputs will fail you on the next control stick input unless you’re inputting them extremely slowly. As far as I can tell, this still hasn’t been patched at time of writing.

Contra Operation Galuga (2024)

Spoiler

Witnessed a funny interaction on a discord where the abbreviated ‘Contra OG’ was misconstrued as Contra for the NES. That’s funny, but also lampshades Galuga’s vague status as a reboot/remake. And I don’t expect Konami to do anything with it when you look at the series’ always-confused chronology. To be honest, I’m surprised they didn’t order someone to make a Vampire Survivors clone out of Contra. You can levy a lot of adjectives at Konami, but Trend-Chasing aint one of them.

Whatever it is, Operation Galuga is Konami’s latest attempt at making the franchise relevant, and WayForward’s second success at doing a killer job of it. It’s a fine blend of decades of game mechanics and level gimmicks. And the best new idea is the Overloads. Essentially Item Crash from Castlevania Rondo of Blood. You can destroy your currently equipped weapon for a once-only super move. Even just fooling around with these casually got me some cheeky quick kills on bosses. And the later unlocked characters have a few weapon and overload variations and ability differences that allow for entirely different approaches to certain screens. I did find a pretty busted oversight with the auto level 2 perk. Every time I pick up a weapon, it’s the upgraded version immediately. That alone is a good perk, but if I pick up a new weapon, then grab my old one off the ground, it re-upgrades as if I got a new one. I don’t think that’s intentional.

In terms of Contra, I’ll still say that Hard Corps: Uprising is the best in the series, but Operation Galuga definitely looked to that one as its chief inspiration in blending all these difficulty and co op options, health bars, and a perk shop that grants a bit of progression and incentive for repeat playthroughs. The biggest downgrade is unfortunately just the presentation. Wayforward’s 3D Models aren’t particularly inspired next to Arc System’s works now-famous art style. Seriously, if they can work out how to release that game on Steam, it would do extremely well. Like if Fromsoft did remasters of Kings Field now that there’s a dedicated Dark Souls audience. Some things we just don’t realize are ahead of their time.

Another difference with the new game is the 1-2 hour runtime. That’s a strength or weakness depending on who you ask. I hopped in for another playthrough almost immediately after the credits, and the greatest weakness of Hard Corps Uprising in my imo is how the game is just a couple stages too long to comfortably do a run of in one night. Also I hate to even bring up any game’s price tag, but it is a hard sell to spend forty dollars on such a short game. Especially when it has so much potential for co operative multiplayer, it’s hard convincing someone else to take the dive. 

I also met a big milestone this month. I 100% completed Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition. I wrote on this game about five years ago and have chipped away at it casually for a month at a time whenever the mood struck. That’s how I approach these mega grindy completionist projects, It’s not good to be hyper fixated on one thing for too long, or else it'll deteriorate your initial interest in the game. And I do really like Hyrule Warriors. 2014 was sure a different era of Zelda as we were inundated with remasters, remakes, and entirely new releases in the outrageous waiting period for “Zelda U”. There’s so much reverence for the most inane of details across every era of the series that makes it feel comparable to a Smash Bros. It being over is kind of bittersweet. There's no more to discover, I have witnessed each of Tingle's animations. In the end I got all the in-game achievements. And for some extra credit, I finished the Badges for each character and A Ranked all the challenge mode maps and Ganon’s Fury which are conspicuously absent from the achievement list.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (2012)

Spoiler

This has settled in as my next “project” following the wrapup of Hyrule Warriors. I’m not a big rhythm game player, but I have fond memories of tapping away at my 3DS waiting for class to start as a college freshman. I came back to wrap up the in-game achievements which require nothing other than simply playing the game more and more. Of the 51 total songs in this first entry, I think even a theoretical TAS of this game would need to run them each 9 times minimum. Plus another two hundred songs of randomly generated Dark Notes, and your performance in those doesn’t contribute to other modes either. I’m not TAS level good, so some of these ultimate difficulties took me several dozen attempts for the filled out Critical Chart and Perfect Chain clear. I still have a few Perfect Chains to go at time of writing. My wrist is real upset every time it hears Battle at the Big Bridge.

As part of the Final Fantasy theming, you form a party that levels up, earns skills, and uses items. Items and skills that help you survive too many missed notes, or defeat the onscreen monster for more exp and potential rewards. Unfortunately if you want the highest score possible, you have to unequip them all for the ‘Stoic Bonus’. When going for completion, the rpg elements are simply something you will not engage with at all. Making the experience more dull and not permitting you to take advantage of the awesome characters you’ve built up with all this effort. The Stoic Bonus is also responsible for yet another chunk of the critical chart that’s only accessible on that playstyle – meaning yet another perfect playthrough on each difficulty. In my 60 ish hours of casual play many years ago, I was clearly not playing with knowledge of this mechanic, and so the majority of that effort did not count towards the most intense achievements. I understand the immediate sequel, Curtain Call, ditched the Stoic Bonus as a concept and Thank God on so many levels

I can’t say that I recommend going for completion on this one. Then again maybe that’s true of all rhythm games. I’m not well versed in the genre and it feels icky to sit here dinging the game for "design issues” when it’s meant to be enjoyed casually. Furthermore, just because the in-game achievements invite you to be a completionist doesn’t mean someone held a gun to my head and told me to do it. If a game was built by amateurs, then maybe it's on me to experience it like an amateur. I was a big Final Fantasy Dork ten years ago and hearing these tunes again definitely stirred some great memories. The only FF games I’ve played in that time since were FF13-3, and 15. And they turned Cloud Strife into an NFT. Ugh. I'm happy to hear people say good things about FF7: Enter the Nomura-verse, but I'm in no hurry to check it out for myself.

 

[Fabulously Olivier]

47 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

A lot of stuff has been appearing on my radar in the last couple weeks, so it'll be a challenge picking out which ones to focus on. For now, here's what I got done with in March.

007 Goldfinger 64 (2017)

  Reveal hidden contents

Here’s a Rom hack that was in development as early as 2009. According to this history of development, the author was the developer of goldeneye’s rom hacking toolset before he took over the most promising project he saw other people making when development was halted. They would watch the film a hundred times when mapping out the level structure and it shows. Goldfinger’s Kentucky stud ranch feels 1:1 to the movie version. Entirely new weapons and gadgets were built to match the 1960s, low tech setting. And I was rewarded for having watched the movie, as the showdown with Oddjob is scripted to end the same way as you bait him toward the electric fence. It would be a waste of effort to try and match Goldeneye 64’s soundtrack blow for blow, and there are only so many ways you can revise Goldfinger’s theme tune as a motif. I can think of one track that’s a definite winner

Of course a lot of Goldeneye’s old issues rear their head once again. Corridor shooting can be obnoxious because defeated enemies take forever to fall down and remain as meat shields for the enemies behind them. And the enemies’ bullets pass clean through the bodies of their comrades so we don’t benefit from the same effect. They did flag civilians as unkillable to enemy bullets, so that's a benefit of the hit detection. Item hunt objectives can lead to a failed mission if you come across the levels’ end too soon. For instance in the Shipyard level, I was looking for gold samples. So I walked up to a boat – didn’t press any button, and the level ended pre-maturely because of my curiosity. A functional game over that forced me to start again from the beginning.

Overall I found at least half of the missions to be smooth experiences. Even on the 00 Agent difficulty which I absolutely could not say about the N64 original (goddamn Bunker II, what were they thinking). You’ll be spending a lot of time walking into the void, looking for a door you missed, but the objectives necessary to finish the level are often very straightforward. You’ll know what you’re doing, even if you don’t know where it is yet. I was annoyed at a lot of the unused space, rooms with nothing in them. Until I realized a lot of the most egregious cases are because they made multiplayer maps out of those areas. I wasn’t expecting a totally unique multiplayer suite, but they even went to the trouble of totally original maps unrelated to the campaign. Also, just like Goldeneye, there are two bonus missions you can unlock that take place in the first and second Bond films respectively. I can definitely recommend this one to fans of Goldeneye. It’s console compatible, and will work with any controller configuration mods you have for mouse/keyboard support. Though I got by just fine with a simple Xbox controller.

Penny’s Big Breakaway (2024)

  Reveal hidden contents

It can be hard for an indie game to get its big break like the title implies. Even with a famous name attached. Many people are familiar with this one because of one heavily marketed detail: Christian Whitehead – the lead developer of Sonic Mania. I wasn’t crazy on Sonic Mania, but I do think it’s the best Sonic Anything from the twenty first century that was published officially by Sega. Some fan games can certainly match Mania, but it’s just as well because Whitehead was himself a Sonic fan game maker until they gave him a job. Only a little of that Sonic design sensibility shines through in this new game. The way the yoyo builds and diverts your momentum. And how the level design includes half pipes and ramps for big air time, and ziplines for dramatic on-rails traversal. But the player has a lot more agency and options than Sonic does with a bunch of movement tech that I had not mastered by the end of the game. I had fun with it, but I don't think it ever hits you with a grand scope of ideas unless you're a big fan of speedrunning and/or score attacking games.

Overall I didn’t come away with too much to say on the game. I suppose I wish it was more of a 3D collectathon style game rather than Mario 3D World-esque linear levels with a goal post at the end. Each stage has exactly three of each thing to look out for. It’s rare to play a platformer where the basic movement is this engaging, so I would love to zip around open environments rather than stopping myself from careening over every edge. Or alternatively, a 2D version of the game that places more emphasis on the precision. The version we did get has this sort of isometric camera that adds to the general inaccurate feeling of inputs. Left, Right, Forward, I don't always seem to move or attack in exactly the angle I was envisioning. If the camera were positioned to be usually at Penny’s back, these wouldn’t be a problem. Finally the end of level Busker Bonus minigame has an issue where rotation inputs will fail you on the next control stick input unless you’re inputting them extremely slowly. As far as I can tell, this still hasn’t been patched at time of writing.

Contra Operation Galuga (2024)

  Reveal hidden contents

Witnessed a funny interaction on a discord where the abbreviated ‘Contra OG’ was misconstrued as Contra for the NES. That’s funny, but also lampshades Galuga’s vague status as a reboot/remake. And I don’t expect Konami to do anything with it when you look at the series’ always-confused chronology. To be honest, I’m surprised they didn’t order someone to make a Vampire Survivors clone out of Contra. You can levy a lot of adjectives at Konami, but Trend-Chasing aint one of them.

Whatever it is, Operation Galuga is Konami’s latest attempt at making the franchise relevant, and WayForward’s second success at doing a killer job of it. It’s a fine blend of decades of game mechanics and level gimmicks. And the best new idea is the Overloads. Essentially Item Crash from Castlevania Rondo of Blood. You can destroy your currently equipped weapon for a once-only super move. Even just fooling around with these casually got me some cheeky quick kills on bosses. And the later unlocked characters have a few weapon and overload variations and ability differences that allow for entirely different approaches to certain screens. I did find a pretty busted oversight with the auto level 2 perk. Every time I pick up a weapon, it’s the upgraded version immediately. That alone is a good perk, but if I pick up a new weapon, then grab my old one off the ground, it re-upgrades as if I got a new one. I don’t think that’s intentional.

In terms of Contra, I’ll still say that Hard Corps: Uprising is the best in the series, but Operation Galuga definitely looked to that one as its chief inspiration in blending all these difficulty and co op options, health bars, and a perk shop that grants a bit of progression and incentive for repeat playthroughs. The biggest downgrade is unfortunately just the presentation. Wayforward’s 3D Models aren’t particularly inspired next to Arc System’s works now-famous art style. Seriously, if they can work out how to release that game on Steam, it would do extremely well. Like if Fromsoft did remasters of Kings Field now that there’s a dedicated Dark Souls audience. Some things we just don’t realize are ahead of their time.

Another difference with the new game is the 1-2 hour runtime. That’s a strength or weakness depending on who you ask. I hopped in for another playthrough almost immediately after the credits, and the greatest weakness of Hard Corps Uprising in my imo is how the game is just a couple stages too long to comfortably do a run of in one night. Also I hate to even bring up any game’s price tag, but it is a hard sell to spend forty dollars on such a short game. Especially when it has so much potential for co operative multiplayer, it’s hard convincing someone else to take the dive. 

I also met a big milestone this month. I 100% completed Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition. I wrote on this game about five years ago and have chipped away at it casually for a month at a time whenever the mood struck. That’s how I approach these mega grindy completionist projects, It’s not good to be hyper fixated on one thing for too long, or else it'll deteriorate your initial interest in the game. And I do really like Hyrule Warriors. 2014 was sure a different era of Zelda as we were inundated with remasters, remakes, and entirely new releases in the outrageous waiting period for “Zelda U”. There’s so much reverence for the most inane of details across every era of the series that makes it feel comparable to a Smash Bros. It being over is kind of bittersweet. There's no more to discover, I have witnessed each of Tingle's animations. In the end I got all the in-game achievements. And for some extra credit, I finished the Badges for each character and A Ranked all the challenge mode maps and Ganon’s Fury which are conspicuously absent from the achievement list.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (2012)

  Hide contents

This has settled in as my next “project” following the wrapup of Hyrule Warriors. I’m not a big rhythm game player, but I have fond memories of tapping away at my 3DS waiting for class to start as a college freshman. I came back to wrap up the in-game achievements which require nothing other than simply playing the game more and more. Of the 51 total songs in this first entry, I think even a theoretical TAS of this game would need to run them each 9 times minimum. Plus another two hundred songs of randomly generated Dark Notes, and your performance in those doesn’t contribute to other modes either. I’m not TAS level good, so some of these ultimate difficulties took me several dozen attempts for the filled out Critical Chart and Perfect Chain clear. I still have a few Perfect Chains to go at time of writing. My wrist is real upset every time it hears Battle at the Big Bridge.

As part of the Final Fantasy theming, you form a party that levels up, earns skills, and uses items. Items and skills that help you survive too many missed notes, or defeat the onscreen monster for more exp and potential rewards. Unfortunately if you want the highest score possible, you have to unequip them all for the ‘Stoic Bonus’. When going for completion, the rpg elements are simply something you will not engage with at all. Making the experience more dull and not permitting you to take advantage of the awesome characters you’ve built up with all this effort. The Stoic Bonus is also responsible for yet another chunk of the critical chart that’s only accessible on that playstyle – meaning yet another perfect playthrough on each difficulty. In my 60 ish hours of casual play many years ago, I was clearly not playing with knowledge of this mechanic, and so the majority of that effort did not count towards the most intense achievements. I understand the immediate sequel, Curtain Call, ditched the Stoic Bonus as a concept and Thank God on so many levels

I can’t say that I recommend going for completion on this one. Then again maybe that’s true of all rhythm games. I’m not well versed in the genre and it feels icky to sit here dinging the game for "design issues” when it’s meant to be enjoyed casually. Furthermore, just because the in-game achievements invite you to be a completionist doesn’t mean someone held a gun to my head and told me to do it. If a game was built by amateurs, then maybe it's on me to experience it like an amateur. I was a big Final Fantasy Dork ten years ago and hearing these tunes again definitely stirred some great memories. The only FF games I’ve played in that time since were FF13-3, and 15. And they turned Cloud Strife into an NFT. Ugh. I'm happy to hear people say good things about FF7: Enter the Nomura-verse, but I'm in no hurry to check it out for myself.

 

As someone who's 100% completed FEW, congrats on HW. That sounds like a daunting achievement even for me.

 

Anyway, two last minute clears for March.

 

29. Terror of Hemasaurus

Spoiler

Cleared 3/29

7/10

Little known fact - Rampage was a huge part of my childhood and I miss it dearly. So, I had a great few hours clearing this one. The gameplay is nostalgic and addictive, the soundtrack is high energy, and the political satire had me rolling in laughter all night. 

 

Only flaws here are 1) low number of kaiju and low variety of kaiju and 2) some serious lag spikes. It's forgivable since it was made by one guy.

 

30. Fire Emblem Fates Conquest

Spoiler

Cleared 3/31

4/10

Frankly, I hate Fates so much that I enjoyed it more after switching to normal phoenix mode and turning off animations. The game has zero redeeming qualities in my eyes, and I'm just glad to be done with it. It wouldn't do to not have all Fire Emblems eventually completed.

The story is bad, the characters are mostly bad, the map design is gimmicky, the enemies are grossly overpowered, player units range from mediocre to worthless (yes, even the "top tier" characters are mid at best). It's just a mess.

 

Edited April 1 by Fabulously Olivier

[Integrity]

13 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I also met a big milestone this month. I 100% completed Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition.

holy moly

i kneel to you

[Florete]

Damn. I got close to 100% in Hyrule Warriors DE, but never quite finished the grind. Maybe I'll go back to it now that I'm thinking of it.

[vanguard333]

I've been making progress on Advance Wars 1+2: Reboot Camp. I'm currently still on the first game, but I think I'm starting to get used to the combat.

One thing I find a little funny: normally, when a game introduces a new playable character, the next mission is generally designed to be one that is tailored to show off what the new playable character can do. And yet, with this game, I just unlocked the third commander: Sami the infantry specialist, and the first mission for which the player can use Sami is one where Sami is the last commander the player would want to use to the large amount of flying vehicles, which infantry can't target, and the nerfs that vehicles get with Sami as the commander.

 

I recently got another game that was on sale, but I haven't started it yet. The game in question is called Ys Origins; I got it while it was on sale for 70% off, and I had enough points to bring the price further down to less than 20 cents.

My only experience with the Ys games is Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. I loved everything about that game except its ending. This game is a prequel to the entire rest of the Ys series, so I'm hopeful that it will at least end strongly. Anything I should know in advance, such as how this game differs from games like Ys VIII? I saw that it uses a top-down perspective rather than over-the-shoulder 3D, and, since it's a prequel, Adol is not the protagonist but are there any other important differences I should know?