vanguard333 Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 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? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted April 28 Share Posted April 28 (edited) April was a good month. I finished 3 of the best games I've ever played (this may be the only time you see me give 3 10s in a month), and made serious progress on my resolution games. I also got back into Pokemon. 31. Unicorn Overlord Spoiler Cleared 4/5/24 Platinum trophy 10/10 Fire Emblem wishes it was as good as Unicorn Overlord. So much so that it is neck and neck with Path of Radiance in my 2nd/3rd top games of all time. So my point for point will also be a comparison to show why it's difficult to decide which is better. + Gorgeous art style + Godlike soundtrack + Excellent map design. Beyond excellent actually, as each stage doubles as both a fun strategy map and an immersive part of the game's world to explore. The maps are better than even most good FE maps, though perhaps not as good as the very best of the series. + Plenty of content + High replay value. + Gameplay and mechanics far greater than Fire Emblem's + Teambuilding so deep it really makes a buildcraft-oriented player tick. + Great characters, albeit perhaps less so than PoR's. + Game is just difficult enough to be engaging, while never being frustrating or tedious. = The story isn't bad enough to detract but it also isn't adding anything. The lore helps lift it up a bit though. Story is the main advantage PoR has over UO. - UO suffers from the same issue as PoR - slow battle animations. In UO's case, it's less that the animations are stiff, and more that there is just so much going on. You can skip animations and the game actually becomes really quick, but then you're missing out on some of the game's top tier presentation. 32. Diablo IV Spoiler Cleared 4/10 7/10 This game got a lot of immense praise while people did the story, while also getting shat on as the worst game ever when people got to the endgame. Frankly, it deserves neither. Right now, it's just mid. + Great feeling combat and animations + Character creation is such an improvement in a genre that usually still thinks genderlocked classes are acceptable game design. + Above average story for its genre + Content rich + The replay value is definitely there with more classes and builds (but eh... I don't want to) - Buildcraft is significantly more shallow than Diablo 3 - Open world events and world bosses suck. They've learned nothing from games like Guild Wars 2 and Marvel Heroes that are so fun in this regard. - Combat mostly just feels involves alternating between 2 skills. - Traversing the world is too slow. 33. Mass Effect 2 Spoiler Cleared 4/16 10/10 Platinum trophy Mass Effect 2 is one of the most improved sequels in gaming history. The combat was refined, the gear and skill trees made more elegant, the characters deepened, the presentation improved, and the Mako sent to Hell where it belongs. + Satisfying and snappy third person cover shooter combat + Top tier story + Incredible characters + Awesome soundtrack + Compelling main and side missions + Solid replay value. - Planet scanning is dull, and the game includes far more of it than you actually need to do. It's easy to do far more of this than you need, and it's so tedious. 34. Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Cleared 4/27 Platinum trophy (meaning I got plats in the whole trilogy) 10/10* * Reduce score to 9/10 if playing Vanguard, as Biotic Charge frequently becomes totally unresponsive and gets you killed. * Reduce score to 8/10 on initial release of game with day 1 Prothean dlc, and war assets locked behind multiplayer. + Satisfying, snappy cover shooter combat + Top tier story + Incredible cinematics and setpieces + Wonderful characters + Awesome soundtrack + Good replay value + Lots of content + Turns scanning into an actual sorta engaging part of the game - Most of the side missions are pretty dull item hunts - Some of the trophies are frustrating to get - Controversial ending (personally, I think the hate is way overblown) 35. Hyrule Warriors DE Spoiler Story cleared 4/28. 9/10 While calling a musou game a landmark title will raise eyebrows, if any of them qualify it would be this one. This was the game that proved musou games could be passion projects. It was the first game to solidify the spinoffs as incomparably better than mainline DW and SW games. And it's still considered by most to be the best musou game of all time. + Perfectly represents its series in a way that I wish Fire Emblem Warriors had. + Excellent roster + Lovingly recreates Zelda locations and tropes in a Warriors game. + The most badass versions of Link, Zelda, and Impa. Also had the best version of Ganondorf pre-TotK. + Movesets are all unique spectacles to watch + Extreme amounts of content. Has the best postgame of any musou alongside FE Warriors 1. + Introduces meaningful boss fights into a musou format. + Does an excellent job of maintaining split objective pressure. It's rivaled only by FE Warriors 1 in this regard. + Highest enemy variety of any musou other than maybbbbbeee the Dragon Quest Heroes games. + Absolute banger soundtrack, second only to Three Hopes - Treasure hunting in the middle of a musou stage is not fun. - Using gadgets to hit weakpoints is janky as hell, because they need to be selected via a scroll bar that does not pause the game. - Adventure mode is a mixed bag in a way History Mode rarely is. A lot of it is really fun and a lot of it is realllllly not. - Because movesets prioritize spectacle over practicality (the opposite of FE Warriors), the game has extreme balance disparities. Many characters are both viable and unique, while many others are grossly underpowered. 36. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All Spoiler Cleared 4/30 7/10 Honestly I just don't have much opinion on this. I'm playing this one on Gamepass because my brother gave me his old copies of the others on DS. (His eyes are too bad for handheld games now, and he has the trilogy on PC). + Fun quirky characters + Elaborate case stories + Fun puzzles - Solutions can be pretty "how was I supposed to know to do that" and penalties are really high for getting it wrong. - Pacing is really slow, though that's probably inherent to the genre. I've been playing a lot of Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Sword. I made great progress in Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. I've played a small amount of Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen and Path of Exile. Edited April 30 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lenticular Posted April 28 Share Posted April 28 1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said: * Reduce score to 8/10 on initial release of game with day 1 Prothean dlc, and war assets locked behind multiplayer. I have some seriously mixed feelings about Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. On the one hand, it was actually a lot of fun and I have some really fond memories of playing it and the people I played it with. On the other hand, it also had pay-to-win lootboxes, and is one of the big reasons why I don't let myself touch anything with microtransactions these days. Which is probably why the war assets were locked behind it, to funnel as many people into this exact scenario. 1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said: - Controversial ending (personally, I think the hate is way overblown) I agree with this, though. I really didn't have a problem with even the original version of the ending. And while there were some completely valid criticisms of it, so much of the hate was just Whiny Gamer Tears (TM). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted April 28 Share Posted April 28 2 minutes ago, lenticular said: I have some seriously mixed feelings about Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. On the one hand, it was actually a lot of fun and I have some really fond memories of playing it and the people I played it with. On the other hand, it also had pay-to-win lootboxes, and is one of the big reasons why I don't let myself touch anything with microtransactions these days. Which is probably why the war assets were locked behind it, to funnel as many people into this exact scenario. I agree with this, though. I really didn't have a problem with even the original version of the ending. And while there were some completely valid criticisms of it, so much of the hate was just Whiny Gamer Tears (TM). Oh absolutely. If anything, EA benefitted from the ending outrage, because it overshadowed the issues the game actually had (particularly egregious dlc for the time, and being one of the very first non-sports, non-MMO games to have p2w lootboxes). The war assets were definitely designed to get people into the multiplayer skinner box, and it did very well for itself because the multiplayer was very fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FRZNHeir Posted April 29 Share Posted April 29 Outside of my standard weekly Yugioh shenanigans, I'm currently (read:finally) attempting to S-rank every mission in Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. So far, I have all of Chapter 1 S-ranked, as well as a few stray missions and Attack the Watchpoint. Spoiler I had some trouble with Attack the Dam Complex [Alt] that led to me having to run a really scuffed Plasma/Laser speed build. The [Alt] Mission for Attack the Strider and Attack the Watchpoint have me a little worried, but I'm not too scared. I'm pretty nervous about the Defense missions later in the game, but I might run a long-range build for that. Or I could just keep running Zimmerman+Stun Needle go brrr. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegaprism Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 I am currently about 20 hours into Stellar Blade, and while the characters are nothing to write home about the combat is sublime and the overall aesthetic is pretty strong. There is a pretty impressive enemy variety, and every boss battle feels like an epic struggle so far. I am also at the part right before the end of the story in Unicorn Overlord. The game is fantastic, but I have a problem where I don't want it to end and so I'm dragging my feet on just getting the final mission done. Somewhere in all the miasma of spring quarter doldrums at school I found the time to play Scarlet Nexus. I am still trying to decide if I really liked it or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted May 5 Author Share Posted May 5 (edited) I had already previously decided April would be where I catch up on some 2024 games before a recent tragedy got me looking ahead to the future. We continue to game for those who cannot. I dedicate this post to them SM64: Decades Later (2024) Spoiler I definitely intended to take a break from Mario 64 hacks, but this pairs so well with the February writeup since it’s the same author. I was aware of Decades Later, but did not realize its release was so imminent back then. It’s sort of a Same-System Remake of Super Mario 64. The in-game story implies that the events of Mario 64 have already happened but also we’ve never been to this castle before so it’s a real mystery that I don’t believe was intended to be a mystery in-universe. The author has given a couple explanations of just what this is. That’s he’s “recreating levels from memory” which I can’t really comprehend in a way that I would in watching someone draw something from memory. It’s also described as “What if Mario 64 has another year of polish”. Whatever it was meant to be, it definitely follows the latter description much closer. Every level from the original game is expanded on and reworked. Some recontextualized like Hazy Maze Cave as the Hazy Maze Sewers. While others are entirely new like Ludwig Harbor replacing Dire Dire Docks. And in general a lot of the old tasks have been expanded in scope. For instance, freeing the chain chomp in Bob-Omb Battlefield now has the chain chomp open up a new area that houses that star at the top of it. In terms of the current state of Mario Romhacking, we’ve got all the modern amenities. No extra lives to worry about. Lakitu Cam for setting up perfect angled jumps. Mechanics like Note Blocks and Spring boards to bounce off of. There's a handful of other features I hadn't seen before in any hack. If you fall into a death pit, Mario takes 4 damage instead of dying entirely. There's also an enhanced swimming mechanic where instead of just making Mario faster in the water, he gradually reaches 2x speed, and then you can hold the A button to maintain that speed rather than tire yourself out tapping. I was really hoping that collecting a star wouldn’t kick you out of the level, but we still find time to leverage SM64’s Biggest Design Flaw by having levels change based on star selection. The first star of a level might task you with climbing to the top, then later stars will have shortcuts and powerups in the level making the same climb faster and more convenient. This culminates in Tick Tock Core, a stage where each star is essentially a "checkpoint" on the climb to a top of a massive elevator that's under construction. If there’s one area I think Decades falls short on its ambition is the music. There are a lot of amateur musicians having fun remixing existing songs in SM64’s ‘sound font’. And a small subsection of these fellows do their own improvement mix of the original songs from the game. Decades Later would have been THE Rom Hack to incorporate stuff like this. And I know BroDute has heard of this one because it was IN one of his hacks I wrote about in February Upon collection of all 150 stars, the game treats you to 170-ish Blue Stars spread throughout each of the stages. These have their own onscreen radar to help you locate them. They’re in some tricky spots to reach, so it’s a fun way to extend the life of the game while getting us to think about all the intricate details sprinkled into this hack’s excellent level design. Unfortunately I did not have the time to delve into this extensive post game content. In fact I didn’t even collect a hundred power stars. I’d love to return and finish the job someday. Princess Peach: Showtime! (2024) Spoiler As of the 21st Century, Mario is the most recognizable fictional character – more than Mickey Mouse. And that means the extended cast of Mario is also very recognizable – like knowing that there is also a Minnie Mouse even if I genuinely can’t name a single thing Minnie has ever said or done. Love her or hate her, Princess Peach is an icon of gaming. And she was first playable all the way back in her very second game appearance. There was never a question that Peach could play the role of Hero, but it’s also worth pointing out that having her run and jump just like Mario isn’t the most creative choice. Even Nabbit or a lowly Toad could beat a Super Mario Bros. But Yoshis Island, Wario Land, those are games tailored around their protagonist. Princess Peach Showtime, fills the void in expressing just the sort of hero Peach can be. Anything from a Cowgirl to a singing Mermaid to a Tokusatsu-esque super hero. She is Large, she contains Multitudes. And I think her Debut will paint how I perceive her going forward in the future of Mario games. Showtime! engenders completionism at every step with detailed checklists for each level. It’s not a long game, and since I had a lot of fun playing it I figured this is a good way to get my moneys worth out of a Triple A release. After the game’s finale, it tells you that there are hidden ninjas in each stage. So even a thorough 100% clear of the game demands yet another playthrough of every level after the credits. Some of us that replayed levels before the finale sure feel like chumps now. You can’t just find the three ninjas and exit either. The game has a Saving icon in the lower right when you pause and exit a stage, but will not update your progress at all which is plenty misleading and would have sped up these post game replays. You Must actually finish the level. Unskippable cutscenes and dialogue throughout. Stages are also laden with constant points of no return that will cheese you out of this or that sparkle gem just because you decided to interact with one thing before another on the same screen. My biggest issue however is the lack of D-Pad support. Showtime! is no more 3D than a Streets of Rage and could be played entirely on an NES controller. I don’t know why Nintendo develops Switch games under the presumption that the player has a fully functional, non drifting control stick. And even then, people like me prefer the precision that a D-Pad provides. The Nintendo Switch’s hardware has shown an outrageous dereliction for quality, so I think a lot about kids getting a cool Switch game for Christmas. Only to slog through it on non-functioning controllers. Whose replacements costs more than the game itself. I didn’t have to deal with that growing up. Even wearing out the N64 control sticks on Mario Party still left the games adequately playable decades later. Even after doing two playthroughs of every stage for 100%, Showtime! never got old. I found the action-y stages to have insufficiently polished controls and the umarked QTEs to be a little awkward, but these are minor issues in service of constant spectacle. The Switch era of Nintendo has been extremely safe, especially right now in its twilight years of constant remakes, so this feels like a big break for a classic Nintendo character. It may not be as meaty as Pikmin 4 or have the satisfying level of action and exploration of a Metroid Dread, but those are games with decades of game design triumphs and misfires to learn from. Showtime! is entirely new and thus has nothing to compare to. As a fun bonus, I’ll rank the gameplay styles. Dashing Thief > Cowgirl > Patisserie > SPOILER > Mermaid > Figure Skater > Ninja > Kung Fu > Detective > Mighty > Swordfighter Pepper Grinder (2024) Spoiler They say if you’re in a hole, stop digging. But industrial power tools can be a match for the most time-tested idioms. Pepper can run and jump, but not nearly as effectively as when you have diggable ground beneath your feet. The drill cuts through the earth like butter at two speeds: Fast and too-freaking-fast by pressing A. The latter is useful if you want to emerge with more momentum. This is a platformer at the end of the day and the inability to stop moving underground is going to launch you foolishly over many cliffs. I’m torn on whether the game ought to have included a Stop button underground with left trigger. Perhaps it would make the game too easy to give you that level of control and time to orient yourself. But what we end up doing is spinning in a circle awkwardly to achieve the same effect. Whatever the case may be, I sure would have appreciated more life refills. Seems like they forgot in the second half of the game. There’s no penalty for death beyond respawning at the last checkpoint, but a lot of exploration and environment interaction awards near-meaningless coins. Even in zelda you get hearts from stopping to cut grass. I also found some levels were not optimized for their checkpoint placements. Like how in 4-3, they don’t spawn you another gun, so you have to play the level without one which was very hard and clearly not intended. 4-2 gave me a much more explicit soft lock when falling out of bounds underwater respawned me way back in the level. And past the one ledge I could not climb because the robot I needed to climb it was stuck past the ledge itself The game remains charming in spite of its frustrations. There isn’t a single word of dialogue in the game, and yet we’re treated to some fun sight gags and even a couple of character arcs. I found it fun that the friendly NPCs are mole men while the enemies have Narwhal-like horns. And all the big tools are operated via drill. Implying that every living creature of this universe has an affinity for digging and drilling. Minishoot’ Adventures (2024) Spoiler Minishoot’ Adventures is a classic top down Zelda-esque adventure in a world inhabited by characters reminiscent of a shoot em up. Nobody in the world talks or has any sort of gesture beyond elated spinning and beep boops. The NPCs you rescue build up a village around the starting zone. And when you level up you can invest points in several parameters. Even minor-sounding upgrades like your shot’s range and travel speed make a tangible difference when a boss is forcing you into awkward dodge motions at very specific distances. What stood out immediately is the game’s soundscape. It’s basic sound effects for shooting, enemies dying, environments crumbling are all pleasing to the ear. The intense action communicates to your senses a scene of toy-figures or bugs battling it out with the soft sounds of pebbles getting scattered by each explosion. It pairs especially well with the subdued music. I don’t know if I entirely like calming music when I’m schmupping my way through frantic overworld fights, but it’s a unique vibe for sure. And they at least provide some energetic music for the big boss fights at the end of dungeons. If I have one complaint It’s the lack of dungeon maps. I definitely wasn’t lost or confused by the dungeon layouts but it’s a surprising choice given the detailed overworld map. The map that we do get allows us to reveal the locations of collectibles, optionally, by interacting with a specific NPC. This being left up to the player is great for those that insist they don’t need help and want to find everything on their own. A Dungeon Map would fit right in as one of these optional upgrades that you purchase from the shop. I may not have much to say on this game and it’s frankly uninspired title, but it’s currently the best indie game I’ve played this year. If you’re a fan of Zelda or schmups, don’t miss it. Also yes I did get my backer copy of Eiyuden Chronicle. This is my most anticipated game of the year, so I'm looking forward to it. Was also looking forward to the massive Fallout: London mod release, but that was unfortunately postponed to accommodate for Bethesda's random next-gen update. Edited May 9 by Zapp Branniglenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted May 8 Share Posted May 8 (edited) I've been continuing to play the Advance Wars 1+2 remake. I finished the final mission of Advance Wars 1, and I'm not eager to play any of the additional missions in that game because of how much the game could sometimes become very tedious. So, I moved on to Advance Wars 2, hoping that that game has enough refinements that I will feel a lot better playing it than Advance Wars 1. One thing that's obvious from the start is that there's a greater narrative focus in Advance Wars 2, which isn't saying much as the plot of Advance Wars 1 can be summed up as "everyone is tricked into fighting each other until the end", but it's nice to see. I also found the missions went a lot smoother this time; perhaps it's a difference in AI from me selecting classic difficulty rather than casual as I did for Advance Wars 1, or it could just be me getting used to the game. The only thing that I'm not a fan of is that the initial enemy's CO power introduces an element of chance: when he uses it, his units can do anywhere between very little damage and a lot of damage. I don't like chance in a game where you're not only graded on whether or not you complete the mission, but how efficiently and thoroughly you complete the mission with as many units left as possible; it really doesn't fit and it can be the difference between a perfect score and a lower rank. EDIT: Just yesterday (May 27th), I started playing Ys Origin. My only previous experience playing a Ys game was Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, which I was interested in because of its creative premise: an adventuring hero stranded on a deserted island full of dinosaurs while dreaming of a long-dead civilization. Since a lot of what drew me into Ys VIII was the things unique about it, I wasn't sure if I would enjoy the series or just the one game. I heard a lot of good things about Ys Origins, it was on sale, and I do generally enjoy prequels, particularly when they actually are prequels and aren't alternate-timeline games falsely marketed as prequels, so I got Ys Origin. I knew this would be a different experience from Ys VIII: I knew going in that it would be top-down rather than full 3D, and a linear tower climb with backtracking rather than an explorable world, but it still initially took a little bit of getting used to. One thing that caught me completely off-guard was the character selection: I was not prepared to have to choose at the start between playing as an axe fighter and a mage; both of which are archetypes I consider underused as game protagonists. I particularly wanted to try playing as the mage first, but I ultimately went with the axe fighter, as I wasn't sure which, if either, the game wanted me to play as first, and the axe fighter was first on the list. A bit more information upfront about the differences in story between the two characters would've been appreciated. Another thing that through me off was the amount of cutscenes I had to sit through before I could play. I get that this game needs to set up a lot more than Ys VIII did, but I always find it weird when a game starts with enough cutscenes that the screen will go dark during the cutscenes if I don't press a button every now and then. With that out of the way, the combat is a lot of fun. It is very offence-focused without being about button-mashing as there is need to consider careful positioning, and I like the whirlwind skill that the axe fighter gets near the start. I feel like it would've been nice to have a way to block enemy attacks, but it works. I chose to play on normal difficulty, and I'm a little ashamed to admit that the first boss defeated me three times, with me finally winning on the fourth try with 1 HP left. Navigating the tower so far is a bit like playing one big dungeon. I'm probably going to miss overworld exploration, but there is some charm to the idea of exploring one big dungeon. Overall, I'm really liking it, but part of me does keep wondering if I should've chosen to play as the mage. Edited May 28 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 The only thing better than clearing a fresh game is going back and finishing one from way back. It feels like you're vindicating your past commitment to the game. And this month, I finished two big ones - an Assassin's Creed Syndicate playthrough with roughly 40 hours in it and a Witcher 3 playthrough with a whopping 120 hours in it. 37. Pokemon Diamond Spoiler Cleared 5/6 7/10 Bottom tier Pokemon but still decent. + The core Pokemon game loop is still fun, with all that entails. + A minority of the new mons are very good and iconic, such as Empoleon, Lucario, and a few others. - The core Pokemon flaws - EVs, IVs, lack of story, lack of difficulty settings, lack of save slots, random encounters, random retreat failures, etc. are still flaws. - Text speed, animation speed, and health bar speed are slower in this game and it is glacial even if you disable animations and speed up text. - Mon variety in each region is pathetic throughout most of the game. - Most of the new mon designs are lame, IMO, and this game marks the start of the trend with a majority of new mons being uncool. Gen 4 also includes stupid looking evolutions to some of my favorite classic mons, like Electabuzz and Magmar. - 7.8/10 too much water? Try too many caves. That's way worse. 38. Quantum Break Spoiler Cleared 5/16 7/10 A solid shooter marred by the very concept that makes it novel. + Satisfying third person gunplay + Interesting story + Well-paced, episodes aside - Who wants to watch a 20 minute tv series after each mission to understand the whole plot? Not me. - The characters are mostly pretty lame - Platforming sections suck 39. Final Fantasy XVI Spoiler Cleared 5/19 9/10 This game took up most of this month's time and it was time well spent. I put in over 50 hours, clearing the campaign, all side quests, and all hunts. It's hard to rate, too, as the game is a strong 10 at its best (often) and a 7 at its worst (also pretty often). + Incredible story and characters + Gorgeous visuals + Spectacle and bosses that would make God of War blush + Awesome DMC-esque combat + Plenty of agency over Clive's playstyle + Most of the side quests actually do help flesh out the world and characters = Soundtrack is top quality, but lacks in quantity/variety - There's a fair amount of busy-work sidequests too. - The open world is pretty devoid of meaningful content. 40. Assassin's Creed: Syndicate Spoiler Cleared 5/24 7/10 While this remains one of my favorite entries, it also isn't as good as I remember it being. + Decent story + Jacob and Evie are great characters + Immersive city visuals + Strong soundtrack - Carriages ruin so many missions. - Kidnap missions are not fun, at all. - Long animation locks - Ubisoft bloat 41. Hellblade 2 Spoiler Cleared 5/25 4/10 A slow, boring 6 hour walking simulator/movie. The combat is scripted, the puzzles are brain dead, and the game is multiple steps beneath its predecessor in every way. Except for visuals - those are superb. 42. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Spoiler Cleared base game main story 5/27 10/10 + Top tier story + Wonderful characters + Impressive worldbuilding + Gorgeous visuals + Tons of content + Side quest quality tends to be really high + Meaningful choices in story and playstyle + Sublime music + Extremely immersive attention to detail + Gwent is arguably the best minigame ever made. (Personally, I prefer Vantage Masters). - Combat has a nice weight to it, but it's pretty shallow - Geralt's movement is pretty much tank controls - Excessive numbers of candles and interactables can make doing what you want difficult - Horse races in Skellige are much too difficult - Fast travel implementation is inconvenient. - Durability system sucks. - Excessive fall damage. I know Geralt is old, but does he also have osteoporosis? 43. Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth Spoiler Almost done 10/10 Mechanically, it's a significant improvement on its already glorious predecessor. It improves on the already top tier combat, improves progression, adds even more content, and fixes skill inheritance from jobs. Story-wise, it's a lot weaker. It's still good, but not up with the best of the series. I'm currently playing Pokemon X, Immortals of Aveum, and Path of Exile. With FF XVI and the Witcher 3 down, I'm now in the home stretch of my New Year's resolutions. Only Dragon's Dogma, Path of Exile, Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes, and Tears of the Kingdom remain. And I've already decided to quit Dragon's Dogshit. So that's 11 down, 1 abandoned, 3 to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted May 29 Author Share Posted May 29 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 7 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said: 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. I have a powerful hate for Bronzor/Bronzong. And an even stronger hate for the Medicham spam in Victory Road. I just love going against a bulky mon with an excellent type combo that outspeeds most of my team so I can't run away from it, and it one shots most of my team with Hi Jump Kick. Also, I forgot to mention that Diamond has the worst Safari Zone in the series by far. Marsh tiles are so comically unfun to traverse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 9 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said: 37. Pokémon Diamond Reveal hidden contents Cleared 5/6 7/10 Bottom tier Pokemon but still decent. + The core Pokemon game loop is still fun, with all that entails. + A minority of the new mons are very good and iconic, such as Empoleon, Lucario, and a few others. - The core Pokemon flaws - EVs, IVs, lack of story, lack of difficulty settings, lack of save slots, random encounters, random retreat failures, etc. are still flaws. - Text speed, animation speed, and health bar speed are slower in this game and it is glacial even if you disable animations and speed up text. - Mon variety in each region is pathetic throughout most of the game. - Most of the new mon designs are lame, IMO, and this game marks the start of the trend with a majority of new mons being uncool. Gen 4 also includes stupid looking evolutions to some of my favorite classic mons, like Electabuzz and Magmar. - 7.8/10 too much water? Try too many caves. That's way worse. Yeah, there's a reason that, whenever I return to the Sinnoh games, I return to Platinum, not Diamond. Gen 4 is my favourite Pokémon gen and I have plenty of nostalgia for it, but I am not blind to its flaws. Environmental design, Pokémon variety, and the story are all greatly improved in Platinum, as is the level balance between areas, and I think the animation speeds may have been improved but I can't remember as it has been a long time. 8 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said: Also, I forgot to mention that Diamond has the worst Safari Zone in the series by far. Marsh tiles are so comically unfun to traverse. Oh, yeah; I remember that Safari Zone. Yeah; that really was not fun at all; I almost never used the Safari Zone as a result. I have made more progress on Ys Origin; I now have the lightning skill in addition to the whirlwind skill and I just found the giant centipede monster that's the final boss of the flooded part of the tower, which is a bit weird; I was expecting a water-themed boss since it was a water-themed area and one of the NPCs outright said that the dungeon themes are influenced by the monsters within them. Overall, it's been a lot of fun, though one thing I did notice that's a bit annoying is that, during a boss fight, the ability to pause the game is taken from the player. Why? This isn't a multiplayer game, and there aren't any healing items for the player to use during a difficult boss fight (admittedly, there are items that raise the player character's maximum health, but those are infrequent and I don't know if they actually heal since I always use them as soon as possible and have full health when I do so), so why take away the ability to pause? If I need to have a different skill for a boss fight, I'd have to quit the game so I can swap the skills, and without the ability to pause, I can't actually quit the game without leaving the game entirely. It's a really weird choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 (edited) 18 minutes ago, vanguard333 said: Yeah, there's a reason that, whenever I return to the Sinnoh games, I return to Platinum, not Diamond. Gen 4 is my favourite Pokémon gen and I have plenty of nostalgia for it, but I am not blind to its flaws. Environmental design, Pokémon variety, and the story are all greatly improved in Platinum, as is the level balance between areas, and I think the animation speeds may have been improved but I can't remember as it has been a long time. Oh, yeah; I remember that Safari Zone. Yeah; that really was not fun at all; I almost never used the Safari Zone as a result. Yeah, I get that 99% of all gen 4 nostalgia is explicitly because of Platinum. But Platinum unfortunately isn't the version I own, and Diamond was singlehandedly responsible for knocking me off of the series for many years. I was so jaded at that point that I didn't enjoy White as much as I probably should have, and didn't even resonate with X, which is actually an extremely fun generation as I'm playing now. It's kind of a weird milestone to go back and complete now, as I genuinely don't remember if I ever finished gen 4 back in the day, and it was important in revisiting the series. Will probably never touch it again because there just aren't enough appealing mons to make more than one full team. Every other gen was fun enough in its initial version, or at least not massively reliant on its third version. Edited May 29 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 13 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said: Yeah, I get that 99% of all gen 4 nostalgia is explicitly because of Platinum. But Platinum unfortunately isn't the version I own, and Diamond was singlehandedly responsible for knocking me off of the series for many years. I was so jaded at that point that I didn't enjoy White as much as I probably should have, and didn't even resonate with X, which is actually an extremely fun generation as I'm playing now. It's kind of a weird milestone to go back and complete now, as I genuinely don't remember if I ever finished gen 4 back in the day, and it was important in revisiting the series. Will probably never touch it again because there just aren't enough appealing mons to make more than one full team. Every other gen was fun enough in its initial version, or at least not massively reliant on its third version. I understand. Incidentally, my thoughts on X/Y are similar to my thoughts on Awakening: both felt to me like games that were originally going to be a lot more weird, but something happened and they instead chose to play it safe and make a "Greatest Hits" game. A lot of Pokémon Y reminded me of Awakening; particularly in the similar ways in which both try to be "greatest hits" games for their respective series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 (edited) 6 minutes ago, vanguard333 said: I understand. Incidentally, my thoughts on X/Y are similar to my thoughts on Awakening: both felt to me like games that were originally going to be a lot more weird, but something happened and they instead chose to play it safe and make a "Greatest Hits" game. A lot of Pokémon Y reminded me of Awakening; particularly in the similar ways in which both try to be "greatest hits" games for their respective series. I reckon "greatest hits" works way better for Pokemon than it does for Fire Emblem. Because ultimately, all people want is lots of mons, lots of content, and cool mechanics. And Mega Evolutions are such a cool idea that everything else short of monster fusion just feels like a step down. Edited May 29 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 17 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said: I reckon "greatest hits" works way better for Pokemon than it does for Fire Emblem. Because ultimately, all people want is lots of mons, lots of content, and cool mechanics. And Mega Evolutions are such a cool idea that everything else short of monster fusion just feels like a step down. Yeah, it probably does work better for Pokémon than for Fire Emblem. It has been a while since I played either game, so I can't really say which game I prefer. And yes, Mega Evolutions were a great mechanic; I really enjoyed it in both Y and Omega Ruby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Just now, vanguard333 said: Yeah, it probably does work better for Pokémon than for Fire Emblem. It has been a while since I played either game, so I can't really say which game I prefer. And yes, Mega Evolutions were a great mechanic; I really enjoyed it in both Y and Omega Ruby. I look forward to playing Alpha Sapphire. I am a gen 3 guy. Always have been. Everything about it just clicks with me. I reckon I should get Moon out of the way first, and I also have a copy of Soul Silver to play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 I have to retract a criticism I made earlier of Ys Origin; specifically, the criticism that being unable to pause during boss fights meant that I couldn't swap the character's skills. During another boss fight, I accidentally figured out that I can swap the character's skills without pausing the game by pressing the L or R buttons. Anyway, I'm far enough in the game that I got the knight character's fire greatsword and I'm now at the desert part of the tower. I can tell I'm probably going to look forward to playing this game again as the mage, given how much joy I felt when I learned that the greatsword's fire skill is a ranged attack. I'm enjoying the combat, but the lack of any form of defense outside of jumping and positioning (and a couple of invincibility frames when using the lightning skill) does take a little bit of fun out of the melee combat. On 5/29/2024 at 9:56 AM, Fabulously Olivier said: I look forward to playing Alpha Sapphire. I am a gen 3 guy. Always have been. Everything about it just clicks with me. I reckon I should get Moon out of the way first Neat. I chose Omega Ruby because my brother had the original Sapphire, so I figured I would get the other version. Wow; you and I practically chose opposite versions every time except Diamond. You chose X, I chose Y. You chose Alpha Sapphire, I chose Omega Ruby. You chose Moon, I chose Sun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 (edited) 56 minutes ago, vanguard333 said: Anyway, I'm far enough in the game that I got the knight character's fire greatsword and I'm now at the desert part of the tower. I can tell I'm probably going to look forward to playing this game again as the mage, given how much joy I felt when I learned that the greatsword's fire skill is a ranged attack. to wit, hugo's difficulty curve is about what you'd expect from a mage - he has a rough time with the second boss as i recall and then he just gets into gear and cruises. i had a pretty great time with him (i've been enjoying your little ys origin blog keep it up) e: i have not played ys origin in over ten years so if you do not find this to be the case it is entirely possible that you are either an ys god compared to me or that i misremembered Edited May 31 by Integrity Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 (edited) On 5/30/2024 at 10:45 PM, Integrity said: to wit, hugo's difficulty curve is about what you'd expect from a mage - he has a rough time with the second boss as i recall and then he just gets into gear and cruises. i had a pretty great time with him (i've been enjoying your little ys origin blog keep it up) e: i have not played ys origin in over ten years so if you do not find this to be the case it is entirely possible that you are either an ys god compared to me or that i misremembered I see. Thanks for the information. Thanks. I will. Incidentally, I realized that I haven't really talked about the story (apart from criticizing the length of the cutscenes at the start of the game). I can't really say anything about how it works as a prequel, as I haven't played any version of Ys 1 or 2. As a standalone story, it's pretty good so far. Part of me wonders if it might've been better to see a little bit of the part of Ys that's in the sky before going into the tower, but what we do learn about Ys from the characters does paint a pretty good picture of a kingdom dependent on the magic of the black pearl and the twin goddesses. I don't think I'm enjoying the story as much as I enjoyed Ys VIII's story, but I'm guessing that this is going to have a better ending than Ys VIII simply because, as a prequel, it has to end in a way that ties into Ys 1 and 2. EDIT: I have completed the sand area of the tower, and I'm now partway through the plant-and-spike-themed area of the tower. One thing I will say is that I knew going in that this would be a top-down game, but I have now encountered more than one area of the game that suddenly becomes isometric for no discernable reason. The plot of this playthrough has now brought in Hugo Fact: the mage who is another playable character. People mentioned him exploring the tower on his own, so I figured that how the story works is that both characters' stories are happening at the same time. But then he stays behind to break the barrier sealing one of the goddesses, so I have to wonder if the different playthroughs actually contradict one another and only one is canon. Also, the sealed goddess revealed that the black pearl: the source of Ys' magic, is also the source of the monsters attacking Ys. It's a good reveal only slightly undercut by the goddess opening her explanation of Ys' magic with "As you know", though I will attribute that to translation. I feel like the reveal might've had more impact if we had gotten to see more of Ys and its dependence on the magic of the black pearl, but what we do see from the characters' dependence on the magic is enough to make it work. To compare to Ys VIII (if only because it's the only other Ys game I've played), one thing Ys VIII excelled at was showing the golden age of the Eternian Civilization from Dana's perspective before then seeing the Eternians be brought to an unnatural extinction by the main antagonist. Seeing Dana's past the fall of the Eternians would not have been nearly as impactful if the first thing we saw of their civilization was during its collapse. This makes me wonder how much of Ys' past was revealed in Ys 1 and 2. Since those were NES games, I guess I assumed not much was revealed. But now I'm wondering if stuff like the Black Pearl being the source of the monsters was first revealed in those two games. EDIT: I have now made it to what I assume is the final boss of the knight's route: Dalles. I'm going to put my thoughts in a spoiler tag, both to keep this post from getting too long and because some of what I'm going to say is story spoilers: Spoiler The mantis boss was fairly straightforward; basically spam fully-charged fire attacks while avoiding the boss' attacks and make sure it hits the minions in addition to the boss, otherwise the boss will sacrifice the minions to heal. It was a straightforward fight with a decent back-and-forth. The fight against the pitchfork-wielder with the same name as Link's horse was also pretty good. I don't have much to say about it. The fight against Zava the sorceress was a pretty good boss fight. It was a bit on the easy side, but this character is established as a coward whose best magic is summoning monsters to hide behind, so it makes sense. As for Roy's death, it's handled fairly well. It is a bit strange that none of the healers can make it in time when they can teleport to goddess statues and there's a goddess statue near where Roy is, but he dies quickly enough that my suspension of disbelief isn't broken by that. I don't really feel like I knew his character enough to be saddened by him being killed off; all we really know about him is that he grew up alongside Yunica and had a crush on her. The fight against the axe-wielding antagonist: Kishgal, was pretty fun. That said, like the mantis fight, using fully-charged fire attacks really is Yunica's best friend in this fight; it destroys all his ice attacks, can disrupt most of his other attacks, and can damage him multiple times. Anyway, Kishgal's dynamic with Yunica almost feels like a speedrun of Ike and the Black Knight: from enemy who-killed-the-protagonist's-father-while-seeking-to-grow-stronger to enemy that the protagonist dies on good terms with and almost feels like they learned from. I say "speedrun" because, well, they've had two interactions total: the hopeless boss fight where Kishgal reveals that he killed Yunica's father, and this boss fight where Yunica surpasses him. It's alright; it pales in comparison to Ike and the Black Knight, but Ike and the Black Knight got two home-console games of time for building up their rivalry, so that makes sense. Anyway, as for Dalles, his first phase is very easy and straightforward. His second phase I initially lost to because I didn't realize that the barriers are broken by specific skills, and I was able to beat the second phase on my second attempt. The third phase, however, is just a massive pain. Throwing more stuff on screen is not the same thing as making the fight more challenging. One or two of the added attacks would've been fine and made for a good challenge, but Dalles gets multiple attacks that slow Yunica, a giant laser beam that's difficult to avoid and impossible to escape, and an aoe spell that, if Yunica even so much as sets one toe in, results in her being subjected to a cutscene where Dalles takes away most of her remaining health. I have lost to this phase several times, and not in ways that ever felt fair or that they were caused by me messing up. It's ridiculous. It's clear that they wanted the final phase of the fight to be a challenge, but throwing a dozen things at the player at once is not the same thing as a challenge. EDIT: I have now completed my first playthrough of Ys Origin. Once again, I will put what I have to say about the game in a spoiler tag mainly so this post doesn't become extremely long. I would really appreciate someone replying so that this post doesn't become extremely long from all these edits. Spoiler After levelling up from level 45 to level 46, and after several attempts, I finally beat Dalles and completed this playthrough. One thing that also helped a little was learning that getting close to Dalles makes the laser easier to dodge (though it makes everything else harder to avoid). It was a massive pain, and this was with all equipment being fully upgraded. The ending was alright, with the goddesses sealing their power away to contain the demonic essence and going to a deep slumber, and Yunica and Hugo staying on the ground to make sure the land is ready when the seal inevitably breaks. The story did leave a few important questions unanswered; questions that I presume will be answered in the secret third route that the new game menu hinted at when I started up a new playthrough to play as the mage. One of those obvious questions concerns the villains: the demonic essence is an unintended byproduct of the black pearl's magic being used by humans, and the humans that are trying to harness that essence for their own ends all call themselves Darklings and are stated to not be from Ys, so how do they know about the black pearl at all, let alone that demons and the demonic essence are byproducts of its power? Moreover, when did they start getting involved in the fall of Ys? Was it after the demons started appearing, or did they know about all this before the demons appeared? I'm not asking for the answer; I just want to know if the third route does answer these questions. Anyway, I started a new playthrough as the mage: Hugo Fact. I haven't really done anything other than start the new playthrough. EDIT: I completed the first section of Ys Origin in my playthrough as the mage. I don't know if it's me having gotten used to the game, or the differences in gameplay between the mage and the knight, or possibly both, but I am finding the combat a lot easier as Hugo. The first boss fight was really easy, but instead of being the monster that Yunica fights, the first boss is the trident-wielder: Epona. The second boss, which is the same monster that Yunica fights as the second boss in her route, was also easier to beat. I do think part of it is Hugo's gameplay: Hugo's first skill, for instance, is a shield, something I kept wanting Yunica to have throughout my first playthrough (why does the melee fighter not get a defensive ability?), and the default attack being a ranged attack does help a lot. I remember the knight enemies with large shields being the first regular enemies in my Yunica playthrough to provide a challenge, but against Hugo, they remain locked in place behind their shields when hit by his attack, and they still take damage from his attack, making fighting them a joke. EDIT: @Integrity Which boss do you mean by the second boss? Do you mean the last boss of the first area (the giant creature with the long arms and the green bubble attack)? If so, I found it really easy to beat as Hugo Fact, but this is my second playthrough of the game. EDIT: I am now at the fire section of the tower in my playthrough as the mage Hugo. Both routes present a boss fight in this area that the player is expected to lose but technically can win. For my first playthrough as Yunica, I decided to just try my best and ultimately lost. For this playthrough, I decided to see if I could beat the boss without much level-grinding. I came so close on my first attempt that I decided to keep trying, and, on my fourth attempt, I beat the boss. As far as the cutscene afterward having to lead to the same outcomes, it honestly is one of the best examples: the cutscene acknowledges the victory, has the boss remark on Hugo's power before criticizing his inexperience, then has the boss transform into a monstrous form and easily beat Hugo in the cutscene. I suspect that that monstrous form is the form the boss will be in during the second fight against him much later in the game. Edited June 4 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samz707 Posted June 6 Share Posted June 6 Been returning to finally finish Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land. A pretty cool 2012 IOS strategy game that got ported to Android and PC, sadly it was delisted (with some of the developers going on to make Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics. Not played Achtung! yet (as it honestly looks like they downgraded the game, such as only 4 party members instead of 8 but I'm really enjoying Wasted Land. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted June 6 Share Posted June 6 (edited) I'm now in the plant-themed area of Ys Origin in my playthrough as the mage Hugo. I have to say that I have now discovered one thing about Hugo's gameplay that I don't like: his lightning skill. In both the sand area and the plant-themed area, there are specific enemies that are only vulnerable to the lightning skill; the regular attack and any other skill just does scratch damage to them. Fighting these enemies was fine as Yunica, as her lightning skill was a melee axe attack that creates a vertical pillar of lightning; a bit lackluster compared to her other two skills, but it worked fine, and Yunica was a very mobile character that could dodge attacks fairly easily. Hugo, by contrast, is less mobile, and he is somewhat dependent on his wind shield; a different skill, for protecting himself, and his lightning skill is a mine; he places a lightning bomb in his location that then explodes after a few seconds. His lightning skill can damage the opponent multiple times, dealing a lot of damage, but only if the enemy remains within the blast radius, and enemies are pushed away from the blast when they take damage from it, necessitating that the opponent be cornered. It also doesn't help that these enemies that are weak to lightning in these areas are fairly fast and aggressive; able to keep up with Hugo even when he's dashing. Oh, and enemies that glow red because they are required to unlock a treasure or progress in the story take even less damage, and in these two areas, these specific enemies are picked at least once to be the required enemies. In short: using Hugo's lightning skill requires careful near-melee-range positioning and being quite mobile; things that Hugo lacks, and it needs to be used to defeat very mobile and aggressive enemies in at least two areas of the game. The result: of the few times I have had a game over as Hugo, several of them have been against groups of these enemies that I've been required to defeat. But that really is the one area where Hugo's gameplay suffers. Outside of that, combat as Hugo is really easy and his skills are very useful. EDIT: I have now completed the plant-themed area of the tower. I will say (spoilers for the two default routes in a game from 2006): Spoiler I think Epona's death in Hugo's route is much better handled than Roy's death in Yunica's route. Both have a small element of contrivance that mitigate their impact, but Epona's death has an element of tragedy with it being an indirect result of Hugo's folly, where Roy's death occurs as a result of Yunica stepping on an invisible magic trap. Moreover, Epona's interactions with Hugo are more narratively significant than Roy's interactions with Yunica, and I think Epona and Hugo have more chemistry: Roy being a nearly-grown man who hasn't outgrown his 'pulling her pigtails because he secretly likes her' phase (something that honestly is immature at any age) isn't endearing, whereas Hugo and Epona being two people who have no idea what romantic love feels like due to their upbringings falling for each other is endearing. Anyway, I have also fought Kishgal as Hugo. Their interactions are good overall, but I don't understand why Hugo doesn't tell Kishgal that Dalles is the one who killed Epona. It could not have made things worse, and it could've convinced Kishgal to turn against Dalles. Edited June 6 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted June 7 Author Share Posted June 7 (edited) Pokemon Grand Colosseum (2021) Spoiler I 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) Spoiler When 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) Spoiler 2024 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) Spoiler TTYD 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. Edited June 8 by Zapp Branniglenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 (edited) Ys Origin definitely works as a standalone game, but it is still a prequel to the first two Ys games, which I haven't played. I have incidentally already been meaning to play them as part of my own research of top-down adventure games from the NES era, so yesterday, I looked around and I found that there are Switch ports of the first two Ys games. There is just one problem with these two ports: as stated in their description, the game manuals are translated to English, but all the in-game dialogues and scripts are still in Japanese. So, I was wondering if anyone here knows the best way to play the original versions of the first two Ys games? EDIT: I have complete my second playthrough of Ys Origin. The last three bosses were all quite easy to defeat as Hugo Fact, with me winning on the first try with every single one of them, including Dalles: the final boss of the default routes for whom it took me several tries to beat when playing as Yunica. I still don't think Dalles is a very good boss fight as he fills the arena with too many obstacles, so him being easy to beat when playing as Hugo just shows how useful Hugo's abilities (except the lightning mine) are. For the second fight against Toal Fact, I both like and dislike the reveal that, all this time, Toal knew that Hugo was the superior spellcaster and that was the true reason Toal left the family and became a knight. I like it because it completes Hugo's character arc, it adds a bit of dramatic irony in that both brothers thought they were living in each other's shadow, and it creates a nice moment between the two brothers. It does mean Toal has what I'm going to call Itachi Uchiha Syndrome: namely that, if he had bothered to talk to his little brother, a lot of tragedy could've been avoided. The problem is, where Itachi had good reason for not telling Sasuke any of the important things he really should've told Sasuke, Toal doesn't really have any reason for why he never told Hugo that he left because Hugo was better at magic. I've said that Ys Origin definitely can stand on its own as its own game despite being a prequel, and I still think that, but I have found one area of the game where the meaning is lost without the context Ys 1 and 2: after beating Dalles as Hugo, Dalles taunts Hugo by saying that the Fact bloodline is more cursed than he realizes and that someone within the bloodline will succumb to that corruption sooner or later. If I hadn't already learned online that Hugo's descendant: Dark Fact, is the villain of Ys 1, the meaning of the last part of that taunt would've been lost on me; it's a bit like hearing Demise's Curse in Skyward Sword if the only Zelda games you played beforehand were games ones that don't have Ganondorf. EDIT: I have begun my third playthrough of Ys Origin; this time as the secret playable character unlocked after completing the two default characters' playthroughs. It's a little funny; my original plan was to do one playthrough of Ys Origin, finish my playthrough of Advance Wars 2, then do two more playthroughs of Ys Origin. I guess I've been enjoying Ys Origin a lot more than I was enjoying Advance Wars. Right away, I like that the cutscenes for this character's route are very distinct from the default routes' opening cutscenes. However, right now at least, I'm not a fan of the secret character's gameplay. I like how quickly they move and how their wind skill is basically an anime flash-step, but I dislike that they are a fragile character with very short-range offence. I disliked how Yunica, despite being a melee fighter, had no real defensive options, and this character has the same problem but with even less reach. I imagine their gameplay will probably improve as the other two skills get acquired. One thing that was clear as I was playing Hugo's route was that the three different routes could not possibly all happen, and that the secret route is undoubtedly the canon route. That's even more clear now as I'm playing the secret route. I do think it would've been more interesting if all three routes were canon, but I can see how difficult that would've been to implement while giving all three routes a satisfying beginning, middle and end. Spoilers for this secret route: Spoiler I do like the idea of the supporting cast from the first two routes being bosses in this route; a lot of them didn't do much in the default routes, so this really helps give them a bit more premise. In addition to them, both Yunica and Hugo each encounter Toal, but Hugo gets a boss fight while Toal easily defeats Yunica in a cutscene. I get that Hugo has personal conflict with Toal, but it does feel a bit disappointing that only one of the two default protagonists is a boss fight. I'm also not a fan of Toal lying to Yunica that he killed Saul Tovah, when he knows that Kishgal killed her father. I dislike it mainly because it's pointless for him to do so and means that he's giving one of the heroes reasons to oppose him, which should be the last thing that he wants given his true goal. EDIT: I have now reached the desert area of the tower in my playthrough as the secret third playable character. For all their differences in gameplay, one thing that all three characters have in common is that their lightning skills are consistently the most underwhelming of their elemental skills. Story spoilers: Spoiler In the first cutscene of this route, Reah and Feena talk about how they rescued a bunch of humans from a flood when they founded Ys. Then, when Feena is captured and she and Dalles meet face-to-face, Feena realizes who the Darklings are and refers to them as having, "opened the Ark", and Dalles in turn refers to her as, "a descendent of those who turned their backs on the gods and sank the land into the ocean's depths." I'm guessing that these bits of dialogue are references to lore that's revealed in Ys VI, simply because that's the only Ys game with the word "Ark" in its subtitle. Am I correct? I do like that Yunica figures out that Kishgal killed her father before she and Toal interact again, mainly because I disliked Toal leading her to wrongly believe he killed her father when they first met. That was pointless, so I'm glad it's resolved quickly. EDIT: I'm now at the final area of the game in my playthrough as the secret third character. I still don't like the gameplay for this character; too much emphasis on dashing and dodging while fighting at extremely close range. I will probably find myself eventually replaying the game at some point in the future, but I have no idea which route I'd pick, as, in hindsight, they all feel a bit... compromised, for lack of a better word. The default routes are compromised by the fact that I know the secret route is the only canon route, but the secret route has my least favourite character in terms of gameplay. Moreover, Hugo is by far my favourite of the three in terms of gameplay while Yunica is by far my favourite of the three as a character. Now, for more story-related thoughts on the route so far: Spoiler The way that the story has progressed has all the more reinforced in my mind that all three routes should have been written to be canon and not conflict with one another. For one really good example: the story in Toal's route has somewhat built up a fight between Toal and a brainwashed Hugo. There's just one major problem: I do not buy for a second that the version of Hugo in this route would accept a piece of the demonic essence. In Hugo's route, It was believable because it was built up properly, Dalles approached him at a moment when he was least certain of himself, and Hugo was still convinced that Toal saw him as inferior. In this route however, his anxiety never reaches the level it did in the Hugo route (at least not on-screen), and Toal tells Hugo that he always saw Hugo as the superior spellcaster and gave up his position as heir because of it, and he encourages Hugo to abandon their father's ideals of blindly pursuing power and instead find his own path, which does get through to Hugo, and this all happens immediately before Dalles offers Hugo a piece of the demonic essence. The buildup is all wrong in this version, yet we're supposed to buy it because we saw it happen in the Hugo route. The difference is that it made sense in the Hugo route. Incidentally, Hugo and Epona falling for each other is also entirely off-screen in Toal's route, and again, it's less believable because the events of Hugo's route can't have happened in this route, but it's still at least believable because nothing on-screen contradicts it happening. And then there's also places where there was a real missed opportunity to have the events of Toal's route line up with the other two routes. After the Kishgal boss fight in Toal's route, Kishgal reveals that his endurance has increased exponentially and demands a rematch, and then Yunica and the rest of the knights appear to fight Kishgal, giving Toal an opportunity to proceed further up the tower. All it would've taken for this to line up with Yunica's route would've been to have Yunica show up alone in Toal's route and have Toal be in the room before Yunica's fight with Kishgal in Yunica's route. With the amount of boss reuse, I get why they chose to have only one route be canon, but I can't help but look at these moments and think that the story would've been a lot better if they chose not to have the three routes contradict one another. Final Edit: I finally completed my playthrough of Ys Origin as the secret third playable character, so I can finally give my overall thoughts on it. Before I do, I will quickly give my thoughts on the ending: Spoiler The second Hugo boss fight is fairly fun despite playing as Toal. However, I had no real investment in the story part of the fight for the reasons I gave earlier, namely that I do not buy Hugo accepting a piece of the demonic essence in this route. The reveal that Cain Fact: the father of Hugo and Toal and the leader of the six high priests, is the true villain, is well-executed. I think it might've been more impactful if he had more presence; outside of a couple of flashbacks, his main role beforehand is characters speaking of him in passing. But the reveal still works as a good answer to how the Darklings learned of the demonic essence and how to wield Ys magic. His boss fight is also fairly fun, though I was over-levelled for it, making it a bit easy. Reah utilizing Toal's exhaustion to keep him from being able to destroy the black pearl and instead seal it away with herself and Feena was a saddening moment with more impact than it had in the default routes. After that, most of what's mentioned in the ending is stuff I presume is references to important things in Ys 1 and 2: Toal mentioning that he and the other six high priests will each write a book about what happened, Toal leaving behind his Cleria Sword as a precaution, and I'm guessing Toal vowing that he will destroy the Black Pearl one day and he hopes to hear Reah's harmonica again are nods to Adol fulfilling those things instead on account of Toal being long dead by the time of Ys 1 and 2. I say "I presume" because I have not played Ys 1 or 2. So I guess the meaning of these things are lost if someone hasn't played Ys 1 or 2, but I guess that they still work as people leaving behind what they need to for the moment that the demonic essence and Cain/Darm breaks free of the seal. Now, my overall thoughts on the game: Overall, it is a very fun game that packs a lot of fun in its brief playtime, playing a lot like one long linear 2D Zelda dungeon. The gameplay is a ton of fun; hindered only by the fact that not all three protagonists are fun to play as, with Hugo easily being the most fun in terms of gameplay and Toal being the least fun. The story overall, while by no means a masterpiece, is a good narrative about the fall of a magical kingdom, with its main problem being that, rather than have each route only tell one part of the overarching plot, only the secret route is canon, despite some of its emotional moments relying on the player's knowledge of the events of the other two routes. With the amount of boss reuse, I understand the decision to have the default routes be non-canon, but I can't help but feel that the three routes all being part of one story would've been the better story. If someone ever makes an adaptation of Ys Origin, it could easily justify its existence by being exactly this: one story that combines most of the events of all three routes. Edited June 9 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samz707 Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 Fallout 2 Very close to just dropping the game. The combat is made worse than the first game in pretty much every way and there's more of it, my entire playthrough has felt crippled since I didn't build a character with small guns tagged (Still got the skill to 100) and I don't want to put another 50 hours into another character. The random encounters are frequently borderline if not literally unwinnable due to clearly not being play-tested and I've died/nearly died several times when my AI companions would just skip turns in combat and not actually help me or do dumb stuff like unequipping their weapon to just punch enemies. Sure it's got lots of cool stuff you can do outside of combat but I've died well over 40 times at this point and I'm just sick of it, I honestly would consider this the worst game in the series at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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