Zapp Branniglenn
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Posts posted by Zapp Branniglenn
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Welcome back and have fun with Three Houses. There's a lot that could be said about that game, but I did find a lot of its gameplay systems to be pretty compelling. Class masteries are a brilliant addition to Class Changing.
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Capcom held an online survey back in February about a range of topics regarding their games and whose questions asked straight out what legacy franchises you'd like to see return in a new game, what games are deserving of a remake, etc. Apparently 250,000 people submitted across 220 countries. Wow! Didn't know about it? Whoops!
I actually wasn't expecting them to publish the results, but here they are. Some questions have an extended PDF, like seeing the Top 468th Favorite Capcom games. This is juicy data. A lot of this is what we were expecting. Capcom's Big Three (Street fighter, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter) generally reign supreme among favorite games. The survival horror stuff and cries for more Dino Crisis can be heard around the world except in Japan. Lot of love for Devil May Cry, which is interesting because that always felt especially niche, even when 5 came out. Dante is the #1 favorite capcom character in Japan and the World? Holy moly. Okami is another surprise, especially when the world is agreeing with Japan here.
Did any of you take this survey? I sure did. I definitely remember I picked Tron Bonne as my favorite Capcom character. I'm pretty sure my favorite Capcom game was Resident Evil, the original for PS1. And my paragraph-length comment was telling Capcom they don't need a partner like Marvel to do a great 'Vs' style tag team fighting game. Just do Capcom vs Capcom, and you won't have nearly as much creative restriction. People would love it. Although with the Street fighter news of late, it sounds like they're teeing up Capcom vs SNK 3, I wouldn't complain about that either! I'm happy reading the Capcom Community's results here. Such a range of tastes. One japanese comment is asking for Breath of Fire ports on Steam "they don't even have to be remakes" dude I could have written that. 100% agreed on Capcom ports.
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3 hours ago, Integrity said:
FINAL FANTASY IX (SQUARE, 2000)
I'm not going to make an element-by-element takedown post like I did with Ishin! or the as-yet unposted Monster Hunter Rise, but I am going to be a little more comprehensive than I've been. It's a lot easier for me to write about something I hated than something I loved, for whatever reason.This is normal in my experience. It takes more effort and engagement with the material to build something up than to tear it down with hot takes and nitpicks.
I do generally rate FF9 as high as Third Place in my personal FF tier list. I love having party members that are fantasy weirdos instead of anime humans. And then placing them into defined gameplay roles like they used to be all the way back in, geez, FF4. Which allows encounter design to factor in what the player has access to and curate a better challenge rather than hoping you didn't card mod 60 Thundagas onto your attack stat in the first hour. Or betting whether the player A) has been building up the correct Materia/Magicite/job classes and B) equipped them pre-emptively for this fight. I do agree that the ATB system is at its lowest point here. Zidane's Thievery skill is burned into my brain from having watched that animation so much.
For me, character subplots like Vivi's not tying into the grander story of FF9 didn't bother me because I (like to) see it more as a FF6 experience where there's no singular protagonist. Which explains the ATE scenes. It's just sitcom Plot A/Plot B stuff. And we've already established FF8 to be the Seinfeld of video games. FF9 is How I Met Your Mother. Fun characters, a promise of a great mystery, then failing to deliver because the answer was never set in stone until it was time to hang it up. FF9 is also benefitting from the first Good localization in FF history. I think a lot of the writing works, the problem is that it keeps going beyond Disc 2's finale. Everyone is at the end of their character arc but has to stick around for more world-ending drama. We're given new context like Zidane was physically abused as a kid, which goes nowhere. False starts like the party splitting up to tackle four bosses, but we only get to play out the Zidane/Quina battle, the others are resolved offscreen. I'm betting there was a lot of crunch. A toxic belief that a Two Disc RPG would be deemed less valuable, less "complete" than its four disc predecessor. And un-ending faith in Triple Triad.
People still do the Four Job Fiesta? That takes me back. Anxious to see your take on FF10 when it happens. It's on my short list of candidates for the Best JRPG of the Twenty First Century. In lieu of the Perfect JRPG having never existed, I'm continually impressed when I re-experience it through streamers' blind playthroughs. Every plot beat, every joke seems to land. The battle system is old fashioned yet extremely responsive. And I have platinumed it back on PS3, so I'll have that shared experience regarding achievements. Well, back then the two games were separated in two platinums unlike on Steam. FF10's checklist is a grindy mess but honestly? I'd do it all over again.
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yup, that went on my wishlist so that I'll know when it comes out. Especially with learning that David Wise is doing all the music according to the steam page. For people interested in this genre, it's essential information they should have demonstrated in the trailer. Rather than putting whatever that song is.
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1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:
In terms of new announcement, I consider Expedition 33 to be the game of the show, and it's even coming to Gamepass.
This was a surprise reveal because when the action started, I wasn't expecting turn based combat with action commands. That's the sort of one two punch that knocks me off my chair. What's a good french expression that means "I'm in"
Between this and Alzara: Radiant Echoes, it's been a good week for French RPGs (FRPGs?)
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Perfect Dark is not vaporware, it's an immersive sim
Although I guess it's too early to tell how much choice will matter in its mission structure based on a heavily edited trailer. But we're in a good place if adding a Guns Blazing alternative to missions is all we need to meet the definition. Non lethal takedowns, environmental interaction, this is good stuff. This plus Stalker really smooths over the void left by Deus Ex getting cancelled and the Dishonored studio getting shut down.
There's a lot to digest from the xbox show. Gears of War E-Day is hitting that same "Wanted this so bad ten years ago". They even have 'Madworld' in the trailer. If you know you know.
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No pants? No wiki page. Them's the rules
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I wasn't able to tune in today but yesterday Keighley opens up the show talking about the resilience of the industry in the wake of all these layoffs. And you know it's like whatever Keighley. No one asked for your hollow takes. But then later we find out it's teeing up these two devs that get on stage to say "hey we made a lot of money making Among Us, we want to give back and fund other peoples' games. and it's got me thinking maybe there's hope for us.
So far, Most charming Indie game: Building Relationships
As for most charming Indy game? I guess we'll see tomorrow with Harrison Ford looking for that Great Circle.
Oh and of course happy birthday to everyone's favorite mascot
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My inner child is shouting. And my inner adult is shouting even louder
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Pokemon Grand Colosseum (2021)
SpoilerI have a ton of nostalgia for Pokemon Colosseum and its sequel. It was never an especially polished RPG but then again neither were handheld pokemon games until Gen 5. It’s a challenging entry whose Double Battle Only format tests new skills and strategies you wouldn’t get to experiment with in mainline games outside of one-off trainer battles. So I was excited to see the state of Pokemon Colosseum modding. Unsurprisingly they incorporated the Physical/Special split and Fairy Type. And even took the liberty of making further balance adjustments to pokemon you can’t even acquire just to have a consistent challenge from every battle. There's also a gimmick in which you can choose Kanto or Hoenn patches to swap out the starter shadow pokemon and obtainable legendaries. I went with the Hoenn patch,
I picked a good point to jump in at the 3.1 release, as they add the ability to access the PC anywhere. Limited access to saving was a major drag on the original game, but it also gives you an Out of Battle means of healing your pokemon for free. It’s especially appreciated now that every trainer battle has been enhanced to be a huge threat. I was getting two or three of my guys KOed every match which would have prompted a lot of backtracking or digging into my stash of items. There’s also the Shadow Pokemon Lab dungeon from the original game that never had a healing station, and only one PC at the entrance, now much less annoying in this hack.
The main draw of Grand Colosseum is the revamped shadow Pokemon. About two thirds of them have been swapped out for a different mon, sporting new moves, abilities, rebalanced stats and sometimes a different type. Every obtainable pokemon can be a huge asset to your team. But a handful have a few changes I take issue with. For instance Sunflora and Tropius which are clearly geared toward running Sunny Day. In the main series games they have Sun-related Abilities, but in this hack they were given abilities that have nothing to do with the sun. It feels random. Tropius with Thick Fat isn’t too bad, but Sunflora with Own Tempo is a truly terrible trade, I can't help but wonder if it was an accident.
I’m also a little disappointed that they weren’t able to add a greater quantity of shadow pokemon. There were no surprises, every trainer with a shadow pokemon has one in this hack. So every new one came in at the direct cost of an older one’s slot. I would have enjoyed trying out the new Bug/Fighting Ledian or a Not Terrible take on Slugma, but they were replaced. Every new move also comes at the cost of an existing one’s slot, but since Pokemon has tons of irrelevant moves (like bubble, tackle, etc), nothing of value is lost there.
Grand Colosseum adds infinite-use TMs as well. No Move Reminder but since a lot of the best attacking moves are TMs you won’t screw yourself out of too many meta options. There are 58 TMs (50, plus the unused eight HM slots which they could change into regular TMs), and half of them have been swapped. I disagree intensely with the decision to remove Rain Dance and Sunny Day, because there’s just no other way to deal with Drought and Drizzle battles. Ninetales with its Drought ability was the shared element of every boss battle that gave me the most trouble. Another major tweak is Mt Battle. The first 60 battles face you off against pokemon that know one move, the Self-KO attack Memento. It’s Free EXP and Evs of all six stats, one for each of the six Areas. This is obviously a very effortless way of powering up your team and optimizing new team members that may seem cheap to purists. But it is an optional area in a game with no shortage of challenging optional battles so I’m okay with it being here. Past Area 6, Mt Battle is seriously difficult, ending in a fight against 6 lv 100s, four of whom are legendaries
Dream Tactics (2024)
SpoilerWhen Marvel’s Midnight Sons was announced as a tactical rpg, I was hyped. When Marvel’s Midnight Sons was announced to be a deckbuilder tactical rpg, I was immediately skeptical. The actions I can take are entirely random from a pool, “isn’t that the absence of strategy?" I said. I’ve grown to see that that reaction was rash, wrong, and cringe. Having to cook up strategies with random ingredients each turn is its own flavor of strategy game. In Dream Tactics, each character’s deck size is just 15, and you have the ability to redraw a card as many as a dozen times in a turn if you’ve built up enough redraw points. So in practice the moves you get to make are extremely consistent and rig-able.
Besides collecting new cards for your deck, you’re also collecting equipment pieces. You spend an expanding pool of ‘ability points’ to equip them and most of them are not raw stat boosts. A lot of equipment pieces are character-specific, altering the function or utility of specific cards you may be using. But others have devious synergy. Early on I got one item that boosts Resistance, but at a steep cost to Dex which seemed like a bizarre trade. Moments later I got an item that causes an explosion on every missed attack that can outpace the damage of actually hitting them. I put these on Neru, whose sleep debuff can reduce her own Dex, creating a lot of explosion opportunities. And I also moved her first since this kit gave her the widest range of rng possibilities on damage dealt and to whichever targets. This is part of why I like Player Phase/Enemy Phase tactics games, you can move your riskiest or most random units first and then your consistent units to play off of their result.
My biggest issue comes down to unit death. There’s no permadeath, but also no revival ability, so if one of your units die, you’re taking a serious hit to your firepower every turn for the rest of the battle. It did allow for hype moments like being down to my last girl 1v1-ing the final boss, but when someone dies early in a very long battle, I have to seriously consider resetting. Because I don’t have the fore-knowledge of upcoming reinforcements. Every map in the game is a route map, and the only thing that pushes you to play faster are the treasure chests. The Chests have a number indicating which turn they lock out, which leaves their contents permanently unobtainable if they do. Another annoyance is the enemy aggro system. Most stand around until you enter their range of attack, but some will be programmed to aggro to your position on Turn X or in response to another unit getting aggroed. In maps that allow you to split up, you’ll be working your way through Path A when suddenly all of Path B’s enemies aggro toward you at once, creating a sudden flood of units from behind you have to deal with in just a couple of turns. Someone’s probably dying.
I enjoyed my time with Dream Tactics. Should really have been called Pillow Fight Tactics, considering the enemies you’re fighting are all sentient pillows. The aesthetic is a real miss for me. The Steam store says it’s a GBA-style aesthetic, but I disagree. Game Boy games had much larger sprites just to be visible on those tiny screens. Dream Tactics’ sprites are tiny and have no expressiveness in battle. It's an open world RPG where you can tackle all four of the game’s chapters in any order (the enemies scale to your current level), there’s no Lord character so you can deploy any party of 4, and you can take cards from any other character’s deck and put them in yours with extremely lax restrictions. See if you can double down on one character’s buffs and debuffs by passing their cards to someone else. This game is a real playground for experimentation. I just wish I could save loadouts. Allowing me to swap back to my non-gimmicky stuff at any time after testing weird builds.
Animal Well (2024)
Spoiler2024 is off to a rocky start for Games, so I had to check out the world's first Well-Type game. Which if I know my proper grammar means "good" game. Yes this is the one published by super popular youtuber whose a former Newgrounds alumni like me VideoGameDunkey. Of course, nothing about who Dunkey is as a person informs Animal Well as a project other than an attached celebrity name enhancing the game's notoriety much higher than it would be as a self-published project dropped on Steam one day. There's no shortage of pixel art style metroidvanias out there made by One Guy. I couldn't help but think of 2015's Environmental Station Alpha. Though I'd be remiss to mention Animal Well's visuals are meticulously detailed with excellent lighting and environmental interactions that betray it's "retro" aesthetic.
A more tangible difference between the two games is that the level design is far less concerned about how it will wall off the player's exploration until the right item is acquired. Animal Well's world is largely accessible from the get go. And when you do get an item, its applications typically extend far beyond serving as a "key" to a specific type of "door". An early acquired item, the Bubble Blower, permits you infinite jumps by simply pressing the button soon after a jump and landing on the new bubble. The sequence breaking possibilities are only occasionally thwarted by hanging vines. Another technique, riding your frisbee by jumping onto it after a wall bounce, gets its own achievement when you first do it, implying to me that it’s a secret technique that's not necessary to discover to beat the game. It can get you across infinite horizontal gaps that the bubble blower wouldn’t.
This is yet another dialogue-free 2024 indie game, and I’m running out of things to say about it. I can't really claim that this one is ever trying to tell a story, communicate a theme, or present to you a Character. It has sight gags, but it's narrative depth is about as complicated as our indescribable blob of a protagonist. Kinda wish there was some Super Metroid inspiration with background animals demonstrating how to use a newly acquired item or one of the secret movement techniques. Missed opportunity. What is unique is the lack of combat for a game in this genre. The typical metroid-like game has its puzzles lightly interspersed through a world of jumping and attacking enemies. In this game, it’s mostly puzzle rooms flanked by more puzzle rooms. Animals that are antagonistic toward the player are extremely rare. Such as a “boss battle” against a hungry lizard whose tongue you must lure toward the ouch-y porcupines.
I can't say I recommend Animal Well too highly. Most of the fun to be had is getting immersed in the visuals and the "ah ha!" moment of each puzzle, and that minimalism really opened my eyes to how much metroidvanias rely on combat to keep you engaged and unwind your brain at the same time. I wouldn't suggest Animal Well would be strictly enhanced with a generic combat system and added hallways with enemies. It being such a small, parsible world with one-time puzzles is its own strength in terms of pacing and traversal. But the exploration elements aren't exactly polished. There are rooms that are designated too 'dark' to see on the map, so they just don't appear on your map screen at all. The entrance to the dark room never gets filled in, potentially leading you to backtrack there later thinking it's a room you neglected to walk into. Nope, you've been there. There's a fast travel nexus room, and several one-way pipes, but the places that they lead to are not marked on the map. You have to do a lot of the marking yourself before your map is at all helpful.
Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door (2024)
SpoilerTTYD is characteristic of the Sinking Ship era of Nintendo where Iwata just took over and they’re pumping out Mario games of every flavor they can think of to stay dry. They would do it again in 2012-2016, but I think the Gamecube era's frantic production environment let some really weird and creative decisions slip past Nintendo's Brand Lawyers like Miyamoto. The setting, characters, and dialogue are so consistently like nothing Nintendo has put out before or since, and certainly not with Mario. It is indeed one of my favorite games of all time, but of course like any cult classic it’s not the perfect version of itself. There were so many ways to improve for the sequel that we never got. That’s the main tragedy of Paper Mario as a franchise, TTYD was never meant to be the last of its kind. The question of what Paper Mario 3 would have been like is a question posed within TTYD itself with its Gamer Toad npc. TTYD was meant to be the subversive middle entry. Imagine if Majora’s Mask was the last Zelda, or Mother 3 as the last... I need a minute.
The best area for improvement for this remake is the music. I know I’m relatively alone in thinking so, but the game’s original soundtrack was its greatest issue (yes more than the backtracking). It compares especially poorly against Yoko Shimamura’s work on the other Mario RPGs. And the Remake is working harder here than anywhere else. My opinion of 90% of changes in the remake is “Happy it’s improved, wish they went further”, but they certainly did their due diligence here. The soundtrack list is about doubled with a lot of new character themes, dynamically changing music when walking into certain areas, and a different rendition of the generic battle music for every single Chapter. A simple swap in instrumentation can go so far. My jaw dropped when the Rogueport Sewers music added an additional layer on its lowest sublevels incorporating the motif of the game’s intro cinematic. Inviting the player to think “yeah...what did happen to the old city?”. Music isn’t exclusively about sounding good, it can tell a story even.
And yes of course they addressed the backtracking by having a room with the fast travel pipes all in a circle. A Pipe Nexus. A concept we’ve already seen in Bug Fables’ Ant Mines. Though I wish they also added that game’s Ant compass item that warps you to the room with all those tunnels, making backtracks even faster. Naturally you’d want to disable such an item during certain story sequences (chapters 4-7 all restrict Mario’s ability to leave before he’s finished with the chapter). They also added a spring on the most annoying room of Chapter 5, and a new pipe to Creepy Steeple. The General White sequence is the same (and I’m glad, it’s hilarious), but the pipe nexus obviously makes it more tolerable. In a completionist playthrough, these additions would shave at least a cumulative hour of time and that’s great. What isn’t great is slower, unmodifiable text speed in an RPG. TTYD already lacked the text skipping of its N64 predecessor so not seeing it in the remake is double obnoxious. Especially when I notice you can skip cutscenes you’ve seen before (due to a Game Over). Did they add the ability to skip every cutscene and just...disable it? I dare not even think.
The best way to describe the experience of playing a remake is that it’s a conversation between players of the original and the developer. If you haven’t played the original, then I suppose it’s a one-sided lecture. Thousand Year Door has a lot of fans with a lot of notions of what they’d do to improve the game specifically. But some small changes will be uncontroversial. For instance, Save Blocks giving you a Yes/No prompt after you’ve jumped into them. Removing it and simply saving your game when you hit the block is good. No notes. Having a Retry option rather than booting players out to the Main Menu on Game Over sounds like an excellent change for challenging Boss Battles. But it’s there in every battle, including even the Pit of 100 Trials. That feels like an overstep to me, since this gauntlet of battles is supposed to push players to make a choice on whether they think they can keep going or not in their current state. I wouldn’t say I Hate this change, but I will say it’s conflicting with some of the original game’s intended design. Again, remakes are a Dialogue, and this is noticing the person you’re speaking to made a contradictory statement.
Let’s have ourselves a Gush Lightning Round. I like the sounds added to character dialogue. The new back sprites on party members make them look more natural. Nearly every NPC is sporting at least one new facial or body expression rather than giving the same vacant stare of the original. Even two npcs with literally the same sprite, like Goomther and Goomfrey, will have expressions unique to just them for one scene. The new super boss, brilliant. Definitely designed by someone that understands the battle system, I just wish a Superguard wasn’t the only answer to him. The other, secret-er superboss, hilarious. Although Paper Mario 64 ROM Hacks beat them to the punch on this joke half a decade ago. Another change that’s obviously from ROM hacks is making First Strike a 0BP badge. Pressing ZL as a dedicated “What am I doing” button is something I want in every game. And in TTYD’s case it’s great that it didn’t come at the cost of Goombella’s out-of-battle Tattles. Because while those were famously unhelpful regarding puzzles, they at least add flavor text and I wouldn’t want them replaced. I like the new Clear Bonus coins from boss fights. TTYD’s has a lot of great stuff to buy early, but not a lot of great ways to earn money, and this is a real shot in the arm to the in-game economy. Finally, the new art and sound galleries. Seeing the original 2002-2003 concept arts made my jaw drop, and it's a cool unlockable for finding all the star pieces.
I know I said I'd play Eiyuden Chronicle, but I couldn't fit it in between the RPG I started the previous month, the rpg rom hack, and Paper Mario holding me hostage the rest of the month. This is why I don't call my shots on games.
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16 minutes ago, Randoman said:
I also heard that Sony in general (not just its gaming division) is in the red, and has around 30 billion dollars in debt.
This was always the Quiet Part regarding Sony as a corporation. Sony Interactive Entertainment (Playstation) has been their most consistent electronics brand since its inception and it probably has kept them afloat all these years. There's no other field of electronics (TVs, audio, phones) where they're a major competitor, if they even still make them as of 2024. They also lost a very expensive bid to usurp the DVD with their Blu-Ray disc format - which ties into the failures of the PS3 incidentally. Sony Pictures is the only thing I can think of that's somewhat successful. They've got a karate death grip on their exclusivity deal regarding Spider-man and critical flops like Madame Web and Morbius seem to still be turning in big enough numbers because Superhero Fatigue is still a fake buzzword I guess.
I think Playstation is fine, at least in the short term. They got a big bump during the pandemic like every other game company. And now they're laying off a thousand employees which is certainly the Headline that's been going around. Their publishing first party games on PC might come off as an act of desperation, but that's sooooo many more sales that they can get out of games like Helldivers 2 and Destiny. And game development is taking longer with much higher budgets. We've seen leaked numbers, that last Spiderman game cost more than a MCU movie to make. It's not sustainable like it used to be, especially as more and more of their first party game development happens outside Japan and American game companies are getting closer and closer to unionizing. So bringing the big budget single player games to Steam a year or two after Playstation can really help recoup those costs without damaging the value of owning a system.
Not that I think anyone ought to especially care about the state of Sony, but they've been through bleaker days. They bought EVO for some reason, it looks like they've got the money to throw around and stay cemented in the industry
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I don't recall ever reading one except in a context where, say, a youtube video was presenting passages from an outrageous one to me. There's also the Lindsay Ellis video series about the Omegaverse lawsuit. Hilarious, though I really wish I wasn't exposed to the definition of "knotting". That's not even kinky, it's just degenerate.
I'm a member of the generation that built the negative stigma of fan fics, so I try not to go for low blows on the concept ever since it was pointed out to me that most are created by fans that struggle to find a space for themselves within online fandoms. And besides, the things I create could easily fit some definition of Fan Fiction even if it's not in text. Smooshing two of my favorite games together into a crossover literally no one asked for. If someone made a comment on my favorite video saying "this is my favorite fan fiction" I would Heart that comment so fast, because it's mine too. The next one I'm making is a crossover of Donkey Kong and Fatal Fury. Kong of Fighters, Get it? I'm excited to present the Terry Bogard and Diddy Kong relationship by drawing parallels to his surrogate-fatherhood with Rock Howard. But the Kongs don't speak, so it's a fun challenge 'writing stories' without dialogue.
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Thinking back on that Concord reveal, that's gotta really hurt. You can really see they're trying to make Overwatch lightning strike a second time by getting you invested with its characters before its gameplay. But with these live service genre games, you're always taking a risk. Gamers engage with one, maybe two of these at a time because of the battle pass structure demanding so many regular play hours, and you and your friend group all have to decide together whether you'll like something. And yet dozens of these come out a year. To be the one that they pick, you gotta be the best. 7 out of 10 or 8 out of 10 won't cut it for the live service model. Unless you're a sequel to the last 10 out of 10, I suppose.
Meanwhile, if you're doing a contemporary, non live service game, say, a souls-like, you generally benefit from bigger fish doing the same thing. As long as you don't launch the same week, you'll get people buying in just because they want more Elden Ring. Sony put together a whole studio for THIS game, and it gets announced so close to Marvel's version of it. Marvel doesn't even have to do the heavy lifting of Overwatch's Step 1 of getting you to like its characters, since we all know what Marvel is.
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There's an extremely vocal minority of people shouting their heads off at the new Astrobot game and I'm happy for them. The most Nintendo-like thing Sony has ever published. I'm excited for God of War Ragnarok on PC. I could have played that game years ago on my PS4, but the news had just come out back then about Sony's porting big games like that off their systems, and I was willing to wait for an uncompromised version.
Here's the schedule for Summer Games Fest. Not really sure what to expect other than a lot of plucky indie games getting added to my Steam Wishlist
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Billiards Roguelike? Please accept the Yoku's Island Express Award for indie games with good Mashup design sensibilities
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1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:
37. Pokemon Diamond
- 7.8/10 too much water? Try too many caves. That's way worse.
I dunk on this game a lot and I'm sure every Pokemon game is someone's first pokemon game, but I remember this being a difficult revisit. The slow speed of everything, the glacial pace at which they introduce new Mons, the HM spam (you need four to climb to the top of Mt Coronet, two more if you want all the items), really obnoxious encounter methods for specific pokemon like Munchlax and Vespiquen, and the bizarre lack of Fire Types (juuuuust Ponyta). All issues straight out of Gold/Silver, but no awesome, sassy soundtrack and brisk pacing to go with it.
The real tone setter is when you step into your first cave in the first hour and face, what else, Geodude and Zubat. Pokemon was a ten year old franchise by this point. Then in later caves you're up against Bronzor which has the bulk of Geodude and the Confuse Ray of Zubat, wonderful.
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Soliciting game ideas aside, I have tried out several rpgs (and kickstarted one) on the mere existence of Action Commands. I'm a big fan of timed button presses for offensive commands and defending against attacks. That level of player participation keeps you engaged in the battle without going so far as simply building an action game with numbers in it like modern rpgs do.
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Kurthnaga feels like a huuuge reach as a "crossover element". Like Saying there are two Fire Emblem Characters named Claude, so Three Houses is clearly a crossover with FE4. Or similarly, saying Lynhardt is a "crossover" of Lyn and Reinhardt even if he has no shared details with either character. They're just names, not references.
If you want more pre-Awakening references though, there's that Toad that says he's playing this hot new game Fire Emblem in The Thousand Year Door (yes it's still there in the remake). And also Kirby Super Star's Great Cave Offensive treasure the Falchion. Technically it was just called "Sword" in the English SNES release, but they renamed it Falchion in the DS remake because that's what it always was in Japanese and Americans knew what Fire Emblem was in 2008
As to the topic question, this was the big one on my mind in 2017-2019. Four Fire Emblem games get announced in early 2017, and only one is a standalone game (though it would be about 18 more months before we got any concrete details on 'Fire Emblem Switch'). I definitely think that lineup of games did its 'damage' for lack of a better word. A lot of Fire Emblem players came into the series at Awakening, and Heroes is the newest nexus point. If Thracia ever gets remade and we're allowed to save and recruit Reinhardt like FE12 lets us do with Michalis, then I'm blaming that on Heroes specifically. When Three Houses released one of my top positive bullet points was that it was cool to be playing a new story, with new characters, and a new setting not tied to anything. And I can't even say that anymore with that Warriors Remake. I've literally had people say I didn't understand the plot of Three Houses, because I failed to Play Three Hopes and experience its rewrites. It's asinine. The crossovers have broken our brain
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If it takes place in Sarasaland, then there's got to be vehicles. To me that's the standout feature of Super Mario Land 1 and its world. They would probably be totally separate from the rpg gameplay/mechanics of standard battles. You could go the final fantasy route and have them serve as the "airship" style of vehicle that crosses overworld terrain obstacles. Or make vehicle battle setpieces, similar to the Giant Luigi/Giant Bowser sections in Mario & Luigi. If I was in charge I'd lean in to the autoscroller inspiration of the original levels and do Star Fox on-rails sections in Biplane or Submarine. Luigi and Co can't simply walk into heavily fortified dungeons, they need to blast their way in first.
As for leveraging the fact that it's SMRPG's universe, I suppose it would be prudent to have another star spirit character that inhabits the body of an object. Like a Sphinx, that's a cool concept for a party member. Or if it's a doll again, definitely one with a goofy Maui Head.
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Just finished Chapter 2. And I'm liking the new Clear Bonus that awards coins for boss fights. TTYD was an rpg with a lot of important stuff to spend money on but no fast way to grind up cash, and this really alleviates that economy. They also added a Clear Bonus to each individual fight of the Pit of 100 Trials, separate from what you earn as the enemy poofs out of battle. That can definitely finance using the Mover to skip ahead several floors
There's also a new email from Frankly about the First Attack badge, which seemed odd. I go to buy it and discover it's 0BP in the remake. Some of these developers must have been playing Paper Mario rom hacks.
On 5/24/2024 at 6:12 PM, Zanarkin said:Edit: Also pressing ZL only gives dialogue from goombella (An icon of hers show up on the dialogue box when other partners are active).
It gave me Koops telling me to try his ability when you have to hit the two switches to reveal the pipe that leads to hooktail castle.
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Some of these are conflicting. My favorite Fire Starter is Torchic. Such an awesome design. Basically Wooper but as a much funnier animal that chirps fire. And then it evolves. Combusken is awful and Blaziken...I guess I just don't like the 80s hair band aesthetic with long hair and parachute pants. Doesn't look like an animal anymore. Got a similar situation with Piplup. The Initial design is perfect, but I don't care for the evolutions. Ultimately most of my favorites are Grass starters. Some of them downgrade a bit as they evolve, like Bayleef -> Meganium, but I'd still say Meganium is at least average among the other types' final evolutions.
As for my answers, Litten, Squirtle, Chikorita, Gen 1 as sort of the No Notes Overall pick.
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When it comes to Joy Con Drift, I've been of several minds about the situation ever since I encountered the problem first in 2018. So much to say, but you can only shout into an uncaring void for so long before you realize you're all alone. Captive Audience is too diplomatic. Nintendo fans are Easy Marks because they're literal children. And even when they grow up it's basic human psychology to revert back to that previous mindspace when you encounter things from your childhood - like Mario. Nintendo are a contender for the least consumer friendly company in the industry because they make High Demand games that are never discounted, can only be played on proprietary hardware with proprietary controllers, and they're the only company out there going after ROM sites and emulators because of the perceived competition and their legal team's failure to get Emulation recognized as Illegal. What they've carved out is the closest thing you could call a 'Monopoly'. They own the software, the hardware, and the distribution of both, and that's how we get problems like the Joy con situation.
But we weren't going to "win the war" against the corporation anyway. These lawsuits were always a longshot. What case would they have: Nintendo is pushing out products with a low shelf-life to push people to buy replacements. Shoddy hardware is a not a crime, and Forced Obsolescence is common enough that many of us know what that term means, because it describes the phone in our pocket. Plus, Nintendo is already offering a free repair service in the US - where the lawsuits are based. They didn't start doing that out of the kindness of their heart or following Microsoft's example with the RROD, they did it because they knew this makes a good legal safety net that won't cut into their bottom line too much so long as they don't advertise the service.
In 2019 I sent in my joy con and got some other dude's joy con in the mail weeks later, but how many other people reading this have done the same? Not many I'd bet. Because it's faster to go out and buy replacements and you only think to send it in when you have a new game you're itching to play - it's urgent that you get a functioning controller. My other drifting joy con I dropped off at my local retro game store, and they repaired it in a day for fifteen dollars. Sure it wasn't free, but my money went to a small business so I felt better emotionally about it. It'll also probably last longer than whatever Nintendo sent me the first time. For the last five years I would only ever use Joycons if the situation 100% demanded it over my many third party controllers.
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Alright, got halfway through hooktail's castle for a good impression of the game. First off, the new expressions they drew for characters are great. In the original everyone generally spoke with the same blank stare, but now the characters get to be more expressive, not just the party members. Second thing I want to shout out is the dedicated What am I Doing? button with ZL. Because Goombella's out-of-battle Tattles often did not give you much of a hint to a room's puzzle or gimmick. Now you can get some more direct help while Goombella's Tattle can be her usual flavor text on the environment. And the dialogue can come from any party member, not just Goombella. The third change I like is being able to Retry when you die. Because I already died! On the Gold Fuzzy miniboss fight, my restricting myself to only Superguards got me killed in two turns. Not sure at this point if it's just Boss-like encounters that have the Retry function. If it was every encounter, that would take a lot of the fear out of running the Pit of 100 Trials.
Finally, the Soundtrack is certainly the biggest improvement. As much of a TTYD superfan as I've been the last twenty years, I've always conceded that the soundtrack is fairly bland. Sometimes Great, but just as often unremarkable (Which I would further characterize as 'Bad'. Songs should never get you to feel Nothing). But now in the remake, a simple swap in instrumentation, a few new verses in the old songs, the Rogueport Sewers music having a leitmotif callback to the game's opening music "gee what happened to that old City anyway?". It's excellent work. Can't wait to hear the rest.
35 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:If I recall, Pink was my first one, while Red was my most recent one. I think I'd like to go for Black next time, even though it has one of the narrowest windows (at least, in the originals). Wonder if they'll be obtained by the same formula in the remakes?
I think mine was Green back then. I definitely remember being very shocked to go to a friend's house and see his playthrough with a different colored Yoshi. For this run I'll just leave it up to fate.
QuoteMy latest run, I went with "mostly BP level-ups". Like, probably averaged 60% BP, 25% HP, and 15% FP. Who needs more FP when you've got the BP for Flower Saver and Happy Flower? Honestly, once you get the badges for it, BP is definitely the most versatile stat to level-up. Regretting your choice? Slap on an HP Plus or FP Plus badge, for an essentially equivalent transfer.
This is true. I do think, in both Paper Mario games, FP is the optimal choice for that first level up. As it is the difference between Two Power Hits and Five Power Hits. But you can get a lot done with 10-20 maximum FP thanks to Refresh/Sweet Treat. And the abundance of items that restore both HP and FP. I also like how FP Drain's drawback may sound pretty awful, but It does mean you can use a Power Hit every turn, resulting in slightly more damage overall, so long as you're okay with spending that 1FP on each attack.
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Hey this remake of a twenty year old classic is out today. I'm picking up my copy in a couple hours. Haven't been watching any trailers because A)this game already lives rent-free in my head so I can cut my own Mental Trailer, and B) if there are surprises then I want to be surprised. I figure we ought to have a thread because a Fire Emblem forum probably has a lot of fans for Intelligent Systems' other most popular series of games.
Playing this game as a kid, I was unaware of the Superguard mechanic. So I always had this plan that if I played again, I'd try to get through the game using only Superguards to see just how powerful that tool is. And also get the satisfaction of mastering those defense timings. I'll also probably avoid HP upgrades to keep the fear of death alive. Does anyone else have any plans for their run? Preferred Yoshi color you'll be aiming for?
The Capcom super elections
in General Gaming
Posted · Edited by Zapp Branniglenn
just remembered that I posted a screenie the day of
She's great
Not just this. Capcom has been updating their 1+million sales 'Platinum' game list since at least 2009. Granted, it's just a company flaunting how successful they are to potential investors, but hard data like that is super uncommon.