Soooooo what'cha playing?

[vanguard333]

After playing some more of Ys 9 and gaining access to the wall running as well as more of the city, I am starting to see more of this game's appeal. It is a lot of fun to run up walls and hookshot across the city. The traversal mechanics really add another layer to the exploration.

I'm now also far enough that the game has its own version of castaway village in the form of the Dandelion Bar. It does carry over a lot from Ys 8: Dogi handles retrying tower defense missions, there's someone with whom you can trade materials, a blacksmith, and even someone who rewards the player for every 10% of the city that they explore. This stuff is all still good gameplay-wise, but it also shows the difference that context makes: in Ys 8, this stuff came across as everyone pitching in to help everyone survive the island. In this game, the map rewards are more of an aside; the justification essentially being, "Since you'll be exploring the city while searching for secret entrances to Balduq Prison, show me your map every now and then and I'll reward you" from a character whose main concern is that a friend of theirs is in Balduq Prison. It is of course a very small aspect of the game, and, as I said, this stuff is still good gameplay-wise.

EDIT: I would like to retract my earlier criticism about the shops being spread out in Ys 9. If the player completes a specific side quest in chapter 3, which I did, then they unlock an NPC that functions as every store the player has visited. That's really convenient and helps a lot, and it's an open that should appear in more games that have multiple shops.

EDIT: I am now on the final chapter of the game. I am overall enjoying it, and though there are two things with the plot that have annoyed me, they're not big problems. Incidentally, one small thing I'm surprised I didn't realize sooner: one of the major characters: Marius, was voiced by Billy Kametz.

Edited August 13 by vanguard333

[Revier]

Soooo I've played enough Tactics Ogre: Reborn to give my final thoughts on it. I was initially turned off by some of its annoying choices, most notably the bloated stats on late game bosses, but after adjusting to the game's quirks, I've become far more amenable to it. It's a good SRPG by its own merits, and pretty good for a remake, but I would say it is rather overcosted at its base price. At 50% off, it's well worth picking, especially if you are a fan of the Ogre series of games.

[Lightcosmo]

On 8/13/2024 at 11:59 AM, Revier said:

Soooo I've played enough Tactics Ogre: Reborn to give my final thoughts on it. I was initially turned off by some of its annoying choices, most notably the bloated stats on late game bosses, but after adjusting to the game's quirks, I've become far more amenable to it. It's a good SRPG by its own merits, and pretty good for a remake, but I would say it is rather overcosted at its base price. At 50% off, it's well worth picking, especially if you are a fan of the Ogre series of games.

I much prefer LUCT myself overall, but this is honestly a good assesment of Reborn.

[vanguard333]

I'm in the final dungeon of Ys IX: Monstrum Nox. I must say, this game is a lot shorter than I expected. I don't recall Ys VIII being a 100-hour-long JRPG, but I do remember it being longer than this game has turned out to be. Am I misremembering the length of Ys VIII, or is this game actually shorter than its predecessor? I should point out that I really don't mind that it's surprisingly short; games can definitely be too long.

Another thing that surprised me was how much of the optional content I decided to complete. I knew going in that I would complete all the side quests, explore the whole map, and get max affinity with the NPCs; all things that I did in Ys VIII because of how well those things were integrated to the point where I never felt like I was going out of my way to complete them. To my surprise, in addition to completing these, I also went out of my way to get s-rank on all the tower defense missions (something I didn't do in Ys VIII, though I did complete all of them despite most of them being optional) and found all the azure petals and graffiti.

Speaking of the azure petals and graffiti, I think it was very smart to have them be within the city, rather than across the whole map, and have it that Doll's second sight ability makes them more visible. Both of these go a long way towards mitigating the problem collectible hunts normally have of the player searching the entire map for that last remaining collectible they passed by.

As for the tower defense segments, I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to get s-rank for all of them if that hadn't been easy to do and if the game's superboss wasn't locked behind it. The superboss was a fun fight, but nothing remarkable; it's an upgraded version of the giant floating bull head enemy encountered previously.

[Fabulously Olivier]

25 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

I'm in the final dungeon of Ys IX: Monstrum Nox. I must say, this game is a lot shorter than I expected. I don't recall Ys VIII being a 100-hour-long JRPG, but I do remember it being longer than this game has turned out to be. Am I misremembering the length of Ys VIII, or is this game actually shorter than its predecessor? I should point out that I really don't mind that it's surprisingly short; games can definitely be too long.

Another thing that surprised me was how much of the optional content I decided to complete. I knew going in that I would complete all the side quests, explore the whole map, and get max affinity with the NPCs; all things that I did in Ys VIII because of how well those things were integrated to the point where I never felt like I was going out of my way to complete them. To my surprise, in addition to completing these, I also went out of my way to get s-rank on all the tower defense missions (something I didn't do in Ys VIII, though I did complete all of them despite most of them being optional) and found all the azure petals and graffiti.

Speaking of the azure petals and graffiti, I think it was very smart to have them be within the city, rather than across the whole map, and have it that Doll's second sight ability makes them more visible. Both of these go a long way towards mitigating the problem collectible hunts normally have of the player searching the entire map for that last remaining collectible they passed by.

As for the tower defense segments, I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to get s-rank for all of them if that hadn't been easy to do and if the game's superboss wasn't locked behind it. The superboss was a fun fight, but nothing remarkable; it's an upgraded version of the giant floating bull head enemy encountered previously.

When focusing main objectives only, 8 is 38 hours, 9 is 28 hours. That said, Ys 8 is far better paced despite its longer length, IMO. It gripped me from start to finish in a way that most games don't, and 9 certainly didn't.

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

When focusing main objectives only, 8 is 38 hours, 9 is 28 hours. That said, Ys 8 is far better paced despite its longer length, IMO. It gripped me from start to finish in a way that most games don't, and 9 certainly didn't.

Thanks for the information. Yep; I completely agree (though I did dislike the ending of Ys VIII). I think one reason, though definitely not the only reason, for why Ys VIII is better-paced and more gripping is that it's a lot better at buildup. You start off stranded on a deserted island, and though the creature that attacked the ship does create a mystery as to what it was, that mystery isn't revealed under chapter 2, and all the while, the game is building up to far more with Adol's dreams of Dana among other things. With Monstrum Nox, there isn't nearly as much gradual buildup, if that makes sense.

 

Well, I just finished Ys 9. The final boss fight was fun, Zola was an interesting antagonist in that he is a well-intentioned mad scientist who went to the efforts he did because he couldn't see any other option, and (spoilers)

Spoiler

I did like spirits of powerful beings Adol helped in the past providing the egg that's the source of the Grimwald Nox and helping Adol destroy it.

Incidentally, of the six of them, four of them were definitely Feena, Reah, Dark Fact and Dana; and I'm going to guess that the other two are from games I haven't played yet.

I do, however, have just two problems with the Egg of Draupnir and the Grimwald Nox:

1. The Egg comes almost out-of-nowhere as a solution. It is hinted at with an ancient text in a side quest in the forest, but that is the only hint, and it's optional. A lot of the tension in the climax comes from the characters not knowing about a way to end to the Grimwald Nox, so I get withholding the existence of it from the characters and player until the end, but I still think it hinders things by the game not building up to the existence of the source of the Grimwald Nox.

2. So, it was revealed earlier that the Grimwald Nox was created to turn the enmity of the people of Gllia into monsters that Grimnir and his demigods could then slay, and it was Grminir's death in the Hundred Years' War that's caused the current problem. What I don't get is this: what was supposed to have been the benefit of the Grimwald Nox's existence? I presume that slaying the Lemures must get rid of the enmity that spawned them, but we never really see how people benefit from the cycle of Lemures being created and slain; the people of Balduq seem to have plenty of enmity even after hordes of Lemures are slain. The game tries to paint this as a dilemma, much like destroying the Black Pearl in the original games, but that was clear and simple: the benefit of the Black Pearl was the magic, and the cost was the demons being created as a byproduct whenever humans used it as a source of magic.

 

Overall, the game was a lot of fun. It definitely ranks below Ys Origin and Ys VIII for me, which does make it my least-favourite Ys game that I've played, but that's mainly because those two games are outright excellent; Ys 9 was still a good game and enjoyable from beginning to end. I'm looking forward to Ys X when it releases later this year.

[Fabulously Olivier]

6 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Overall, the game was a lot of fun. It definitely ranks below Ys Origin and Ys VIII for me, which does make it my least-favourite Ys game that I've played, but that's mainly because those two games are outright excellent; Ys 9 was still a good game and enjoyable from beginning to end. I'm looking forward to Ys X when it releases later this year.

I agree with that. I also preferred Celceta, the only other one I've played.

 

I really need to lay off the Warframe. It's really slowed down my clears.

[vanguard333]

On 8/16/2024 at 6:29 PM, Fabulously Olivier said:

I agree with that. I also preferred Celceta, the only other one I've played.

Celceta... that's the remake/canon version of the fourth game, correct? If I understand what I read online correctly, there were two games named "Ys 4", neither of which were directly made by Falcom, and then Memories of Celceta is the remake/definitive version actually made by Falcom.

Incidentally, the remake of the third game is apparently getting a re-release.

 

EDIT: I set up my PS4 so I could revisit Ys VIII, and I decided to get Ys: Memories of Celceta since it's on the PS4. I just started playing it, and I realize one more small thing that Ys 9 lacked: a proper opening theme. I usually skip most games' opening themes, but there are exceptions that I almost never skip because they're really good and really put me in the mood to play the game. My favourite is probably Path of Radiance's opening, but Ys VIII's opening came really close to surpassing it for me, and Ys Origin's opening was pretty good as well. I was surprised that Ys 9 didn't seem to have an opening theme, and, now that I see that Celceta also has a good opening theme, I'm even more surprised.

Unfortunately, I very quickly had to stop playing, as it turns out that the L1 button isn't working on my PS4 controller anymore. EDIT: It wasn't just the L1 button; the control pad also wasn't working, so this controller is very likely broken beyond cleaning. Fortunately, I do have a spare controller, but it is a somewhat sad reminder that Memories of Celceta will undoubtedly be the last game I purchase for the PS4, and that it's time I saved for either a PS5 or a gaming PC; probably the latter.

UPDATE: I've gotten a lot further in Memories of Celceta. I can't really give too many details about my progress without giving away some spoilers, so I will say that I have reached the town that's across the river and I have explored 52% of the total map. Those who have played the game know how far that is. Overall, the game has been a lot of fun, and I've been enjoying it more than Ys 9.

Exploring the forest has been a lot of fun. I like the playable characters so far, and it is interesting to see Adol have to journey through the whole game with a character that isn't Dogi. Amnesia is a very common plot device, but I like how it is used here as both further incentive/context for exploration and a way to add insight into Adol's backstory. Adol is the type of character whose backstory is unnecessary; he actively chooses to be an adventurer and seeks out adventures because he loves exploring and witnessing interesting things, and thankfully his backstory as revealed here doesn't undermine that agency; it just reveals what inspired him.

I like the weapon/armour customization system; being able to use different materials obtained through exploration to apply different upgrades, such as increased damage, or chance of inflicting status conditions, is a good way to reward exploring and gathering materials, and it's very simple in its execution. However, the game, like every other Ys game I've played so far, has weapons and armour be very disposable, and this clashes hard with the upgrade system. What's the point of putting upgrades towards weapons and armour that I know I will be replacing in an hour with equipment with higher numbers?

It's not just the upgrade system that's impaired by weapon disposability. I've been completing all the sidequests as they become available, and the reward for one sidequest was a unique red sword that by default had a 30% chance of inflicting burn on enemies, and my immediate thought was, "How long will this last before I end up having to replace it with a store-bought sword with higher numbers?" The answer: literally about an hour. The sword last all of one mini-dungeon in an underground tunnel, then I arrived at the next town with with the shop there having a numerically far better sword. It really is disappointing when I see this in games.

 

EDIT: I am now a lot further in the game. I have been enjoying the world and the story and characters. However, I now realize that there's one QoL feature Ys 8 and 9 had that I'm now missing while playing this game: the ability to zoom in on the world map to get a detailed view of individual sections. I'm not one who tries to 100% a game, but Ys games, with the exception of Ys Origin, are about exploration, so I'm inclined to explore as thoroughly as I can, and I did incidentally explore 100% of the map in Ys 8 and 9. So far, I've explored 89.4% of the map, and I'm certain I didn't miss anything when exploring, but I recently glanced at a walkthrough, and it said that, at the same point I am at, it explored 90.9% of the map. It's a small difference, but it's enough that my brain is repeatedly thinking, "What did I miss?", and I don't want to comb through everywhere I've already been to find the one thing I somehow passed by; I'd rather look at each part of the map, which was easy to do in Ys 8 and 9, but not in this game.

Edited August 26 by vanguard333

[Zapp Branniglenn]

There’s a lot of Big games coming out in the last third of the year that I may be interested in, and I’ve got some stuff sitting finished on the bench here.

Super Koopa RPG: Here Come the Koopa Bros! (2024, SNES)

Spoiler

Super Mario RPG hacks have garnered relatively little attention over the years. Which is surprising given that the Lazy Shell Editor is turning 10 this year with extensive documentation on how to make your own. I’ve been planning on playing SMRPG: Armageddon for a few years now – it’s basically a much harder version of the vanilla game loaded with side content and superbosses. Then Square went and remade the base game, and I was satiated on the vanilla experience for the foreseeable future. I wanted a more original project and I think I’ve got it with Super Koopa RPG.

It didn’t blow me away on an artistic level. There isn’t a single bit of custom music, and only a handful of unique, not-recolored sprites. But nearly every location is fully unique from the original. The battles feature a meticulous level of challenge that’s tough but fair, always permitting several solutions. Side Quests are constantly opening up and can be tackled immediately for a tough challenge or later if you'd rather curb stomp it at a higher level. Secrets rarely include hidden blocks and are often sign posted by an NPC dialogue. There are exactly enough Frog Coins to get all the stuff at the frog coin shop and exactly enough Flowers to hit 99FP. Plus a trophy room dedicated to tracking the various completion milestones for the game’s side content such as its Final Fantasy 12 inspired Hunts.

An unexpectedly positive change is the removal of Perfect Guard. Perfect Guards are polarizing because being able to reduce the damage to 0 can prompt the author to make attacks hit even harder to compensate – leading to battles feeling too punishing and random in their difficulty. By making it so that you only have the 50% reduction guard, HP and defenses are more valuable to invest in. I got through the hardest fights in the game thanks to Yellow, who’s the designated tank of the team with the revival and group heal spells.

There isn’t much to say on the game’s story and characters other than commenting on the cameos from the Paper Mario series that I won’t spoil. The Koopa Bros were always palette swaps of each other and remain so in this hack. None of them have a personality that stood out besides Green as the slapstick comedy guy. They share a lot of animations and primarily express themselves through their unique spells and weapons in battle. It’s just a shame that they went with a story centered on a quartet of characters in a game with a Three person Party. We don’t get their signature move as a result.

I have more nitpicks, but they’re related to SMRPG itself. The level visuals are not great with plenty of SMRPG’s iconic empty voids bordering each map. No disrespect to Akira Ueda’s unique pre-rendered 3D tilesets, it just never did anything for me back in the original game. SMRPG’s battle system has very poor conveyance regarding status afflictions. No way to know if your attempt failed because of RNG or if they’re immune. And no indication on if they’re weak to this or that element. Some equipment pieces increase your speed, but the UI neglects to tell you that until you check your party stats sub menu. There’s also that legacy bug where you can’t earn an item from battle if your inventory is full. I only got to 99FP because of a bugged encounter that awards an extra Flower Box.

Judgment (2019, PC)

Spoiler

Judgment felt like it was going to be a big departure for the Yakuza series. A fresh celebrity actor. No more baggage of a long running franchise. Time to start again with this...mid thirties sort-of-yakuza dude who was orphaned at a young age and taken in by a benevolent gang patriarch in the streets of Kamurocho. They just did Kiryu again. Back then, I felt unsatisfied with the protagonist. But this time around I flipped on the official dub and it was night and day. Yagami works way better in English when he’s not smoldering every line. Rewriting him to be sarcastic (which is a distinctly un-Japanese humor styling) rather than unflinchingly judgmental of others makes him a lot less tiresome. The celebrity actor they hired clearly misplaced a lot of faith in the facial animation and that’s why he comes off so consistently flat. Greg Chun meanwhile ends up doing much more with far less. My only issue is Kaito calling us ‘Tak’. Not even attempting to match the nicknameタ坊. They really should have went with 'Kid' in English.

My MO with these games hasn’t changed. 100% completion on a fresh Legend difficulty save. The side content is packed with a lot of winners this time around, if I can ever reach them un-accosted. I dunno why people leave their bikes unattended in Tokyo, because I smashed every one in the game’s endless random encounters. If you’re facing in the vague direction of enemies when they spot you from a city block away, the fight starts immediately – not when they get anywhere near you. And near the end of the game, there’s about a 3 percent chance one of them spawns with a gun and murders you. That sure taught me not to run around the city at half health. Thank god for the new Autosave feature. And thanks also to Puyo Puyo getting patched out of the Steam/PS5 release, because I had already given up on it in Y6. Completion tasks were consistently challenging but never grindy, except for the usual culprit.

Mahjong now asks the player for a minimum of 50 wins across three locations, up from Y6’s record 30. Which would be outrageous except the Auto-win cheat item is infinitely grindable this time around. In Paradise VR you can grind up the necessary Money → EXP at a rate of about 4-5 cheat items per hour of the mario party side game. Which is slightly faster than the 15 ish hours I’d anticipate it would take to get 50 legit wins in Mahjong (and allowed me to grind out the requisite 2000 KOs at the same time). There’s still two tasks that require actual play, the three color straight which is unlikely but at least something you could actually target. And Riichi Ippatsu, which is pure luck and might take you 50 winning hands on its own. Especially frustrating since the cheat item gives you a hand that should meet the definition of Ippatsu but the game fails to notice unless you mess it up sufficiently - going from Nine Gates down to a Full Flush which is brilliant cheese that I came up with all on my own and confirms I do have a grasp on Mahjong after all this time.

The fighting kicked my ass most in Judgment. Boss characters were one shotting me until I maxed out my HP. The new hotkey for items permitted me to jam bento boxes down my throat during certain combo attacks and grab animations. Life saving. Having a personal fridge worth of healing items is the only safety net you have since, like the previous two games, the weaker Mook enemies are extremely threatening and attack all at once. A lot of the intended playstyle seems to be tanking hits with Tiger Stance’s super armor, or doing the same with the invincible EX Boost mode which ends in 3-5 seconds. The best option, especially if you’re lacking in upgrades, seems to be brute force backed by a full inventory. And I don’t think that’s the design intention with this character. Yagami’s Square Square Triangle attack strings are slightly more effective than Kiryu’s in Y6 and Kiwami 2, but the more unique stuff he can do is wildly unpredictable. Wall Kicks miss 50% of the time, because they demand you let go of lock on and let the game decide who to target. It’s totally unpredictable when the game will understand you’re trying to run up a wall or vault over an enemy for the same reason. I don’t think Lock On even works in Crane Style. Flux Fissure routinely misses a guard broken opponent too. This fighting system is theoretically satisfying, just severely in need of patches that it never got.

Judgment is probably my new favorite Yakuza game. 0 is its immediate competition due to it’s combat system being much more responsive, predictable, and just overall More with eight styles in total and enough encounter variety to really put them through their paces. Judgment is winning in every non-combat category. Although I’ll never stop dunking on them for choosing the circa 2007 Assassins’s Creed tailing missions. In Chapter 12 there’s a long Tail where the target does a full lap around his eventual destination for no in-universe reason. And they thought I would fail to notice. The story is starkly competent for this franchise’s standards. At least most of the time. There is this outrageous scene in Chapter 9 where the Guys are sitting around the office spouting conspiracy theories, and Kaito gets annoyed and shouts the wildest one he can think of – and ends up being right on the money. It’s not even played up as a joke, that’s how they stumble on the connection between this case and the one from three years ago – a name drop Kaito probably hadn’t heard in three years if he ever did. Writers just gave up.

I was pretty surprised by the Women of Judgment. Who are still completely sidelined by the men, but overall the game is way less horny. Judgment is The First Yakuza game to nix Cabaret Clubs as a side activity, and there’s no softcore porn activity either. There’s a rare moment of Enlightenment when you take the first person role of Saori-kun as men on the street make lecherous comments to her as she walks by. Which is then repeatedly undermined with lewd camera work on her body in later scenes, but the fact that somebody thought to put that sequence in the game shows real character growth for this studio. I was equally impressed with the maturity regarding the Girlfriend Quests, particularly with Nanami. Way easier to write convincing romance when it’s not a Cabaret Girl. It is definitely dumb that you can pursue romance with all these women concurrently with no repercussion, but baby steps and et cetera

If there’s one thing I wish we could do is put on our Disguises whenever we want. And perhaps allow us to use a disguise to avoid random battles like Yagami does during the story? Just a crazy thought I know. The Keihin Gang threat never ends and there’s no reason to engage with it unless you hate being sent demoralizing texts for letting your nerd friends down. None of the CP checklist involves these encounters, and the crafting material you earn from knocking down those mini bosses isn’t even uniquely obtained here. There’s a climactic penultimate side quest where you seemingly defeat them once and for all but it’s a fake out. They’ll continue to harass you forever.

The PC remaster of Judgment also adds what I’m guessing was cheater DLC items for the original release. I’m pleased to report that I refrained from using those bonuses. What’s next for my Yakuza adventure? Well 7 is next chronologically. But I’ve been considering emulating the original two games on PS2. Or the still unreleased Kenzan. Or perhaps even play Dead Souls? Ishin? Or the Fist of the North Star game? Lots of options. It may be quite a few years before I pick up the story of Yagami and his Judging Eyes

Fallen Leaf (2024, PC)

Spoiler

Fallen Leaf is a pixel aesthetic action platformer. No shortage of those as of 2024. A game designed by two people, brothers, for whom this is their first project. You travel across a SMB3 style world map. After every 2 or 3 levels of jumping and shooting you’ll come across a hub of NPCs with minor quests and funny dialogue. Delving into side content will load you with up to 10 playable characters and 12 special weapons that you can switch in real time or in the pause menu. It’s a lot to toggle through, but they issued an update while I was playing that allows you to turn off non-preferred choices if you just want to swap between your favorites. Wow, take notes Mega Man because that is brilliant.

I don’t really have a lot to say on the game, in the same manner that I don’t have a lot to say on the original Shovel Knight. It’s pretty good, the pacing between proper levels and just hanging out with NPCs dispensing jokes is perfect. The pixel art is consistently excellent. The gameplay mechanics and level design speak in a retro game language I’ve been speaking for as long as I remember. It's a comfy adventure.

The main area where it falls short of Shovel Knight, and I know it’s subjective, it’s the music. Fresh after beating the game I can recall exactly one tune, and it’s the three second level clear fanfare. Perhaps it’s because there are over 70 levels about 3-5 minutes in length, they didn’t want to deliberate where great songs ought to go if they’d only be heard once or twice. But there’s no ‘main theme’ that’s getting riffed on constantly, no unifying motifs they could have used to expand one song into five or six songs by swapping out the instrumentation or tempo. The final boss music employs the same notes as the Title Screen music, and that’s the only creative direction I can point to. The music was handled by the lead programmer, and while he certainly has more talent than I do, I hope they can afford some musical artists for their next project. This was not a kickstarter game, so I imagine the tight budget demanded a ‘If you want something done, figure how you’ll do it yourself’ grindset.

Metal Slug Attack Reloaded (2024, PC)

Spoiler

I’ve been interested in these un-gachad gacha games. When some mobile trash is inevitably taken offline, all that art and music just disappears forever. Further compounding the industry's Preservation Crisis. So second chances like this are rare indeed. Metal Slug Attack is definitely not as fun as a proper Metal Slug game, but it will get you nostalgic for those old sprites and sounds. Deploy units, get AP from each defeated enemy to deploy more units, and progressively snowball squads to the enemy base and destroy it before they do the same to you. There is still gacha acquisition of units, just not monetized with real money. You’ll have every unit at Max Merges long before you finish the game. The real grind is earning items from the battles themselves. You need specific drops to unlock a unit’s full set of passive abilities, which invariably means replaying maps where those specific drops might spawn. Of course you can just let the game play itself on Auto and do the grinding for you.

I had an extremely embarrassing humbling moment when I was struggling on a map, flipped on Auto Battle on a whim and watched the AI S rank that map on the first try. Thankfully I salvaged my ego three minutes later when I watched the AI fail only for me to try it for myself and succeed. Clearly the AI is better at some things than others – like being able to make manual commands at a speed the human player can’t scroll through. But they really struggle with playing on the back foot. Always fielding the same cheapest units you brought with you. You need something tankier to avoid a checkmate situation where your guys die at spawn. The AI and I switched off on failure. Sort of like two Brothers sharing a file. I also maintained strategic control of the units we used which makes a big impact no matter who’s playing.

To simply progress in this game takes a lot of homework. You can’t level up anything past your Player Level, and that Player Experience is exclusively obtained from repeating levels. So I had the game re-running stages on my steam deck while I played a different video game elsewhere. Sure is a power trip to be knocking two games off the old backlog at a time. To reach the end of the story mode, you’ll eventually have to beat every chapter of Another Story. And that’s a slog because there’s just hours of inconsequential dialogue that I eventually began skipping. That’s something I almost never do on a blind playthrough of any game but it was so bad here. I think the dialogue was machine translated. One of the Another Story chapters is titled ‘Death of Minorities’. It’s very incomprehensible and not in a funny way.

It’s a shame because Another Story does something I really would have liked to see in Fire Emblem Heroes: restricting your units to one of its five army affiliations. You know, field units that are actually on the same team rather than the usual Anything Goes format. This forces the player to build up and experiment with dozens of units. Which inevitably leads to a better understanding of what works in this chaotic game. There’s about 300 units total, and I understand the gacha game had around one thousand. The missing characters appear to almost universally be alternates. You know, holiday themed banners and such. This release of the game doesn’t have a single swimsuit in sight, but the portraits are no less horny. At the very least I’ll say that the spritework for these endless OCs are kind of incredible, and prove that the talent is out there to make an actual Metal Slug if they aspired to. But an actual Metal Slug doesn't make as much money as a gacha game you've never heard of.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (2024, PC)

Spoiler

Capcom put out a survey early this year on a lot of frank questions about their games. Much of the results are what you’d expect. The mega popular games are indeed mega popular, and fans of cult classics like Dino Crisis certainly showed up. I was a little surprised to see such support for Okami and Onimusha. Both games that spawned from what was a pretty bleak time in the company, but that never deterred the raw creativity of things that were thrown at the wall. Kunitsu-Gami's new attempt at ancient Japanese action is a little nostalgic. It’s exact genre is indeterminate. ‘Tower Defense’ largely misses the point. It's similar to the indie game Gotta Protectors, but that’s all I can really point to. During the daytime phase you purify the land, rescue villagers, and guide the Princess slowly to the end of the path. At night the monsters come out and you battle them with a flashy dancing sword style while directing the Villagers to best protect the princess

Soh's hacking and slashing is not mechanically deep, not like a Devil May Cry. Our character is powerful, but the only way to defeat all the enemies in time is keeping an eye on all the spawn points and making certain your villagers are positioned to stand in the way of them. And if you take too many hits before healing, Soh will be in a helpless spirit state with only the ability to direct villagers until you respawn. I prioritized ranged attacking classes with only the sumo wrestler and ascetic classes working to slow down enemies since their the best at that job. Soh also has Tsuba Guard skills that are basically super moves with a cooldown. You can equip up to three, but only the currently equipped one will recharge, so think carefully about which one needs to come back the most.

Some aspects of the gameplay do feel unpolished. I really don’t see why the bonus objective achievements have to be hidden on your first play of a level. Granted they are extremely hard and seemingly meant for New Game+. The game allows you to undo a class’ upgrades in order to respec and master specific stages. But you can’t just take off the Shaman’s sixth and final upgrade for instance, you have to refund all of them, and spend 15 seconds reacquiring those five upgrades you still want before leaving that screen to spend elsewhere. Another area where the playtime is really adding up is returning to old Bases to fill up on Crystals. I really wish you could do that from the stage select screen. Building up the bases by personally walking over to each construction site is fine with me, since it lets me hear the calming, contemplative piano music and destress from each battle. But if all I’m doing is walking three seconds over to the tent and quitting to the stage select, it’s just busy work.

So much more of the game is dedicated to its artwork than its gameplay. In true Capcom fashion, one of the main unlockables is just 3D models of the characters and enemies. Kunitsu-Gami has no dialogue, the villagers are all wearing masks and dance with you at the end of a stage in a manner that evokes a Bunraku show. The environments complete that illusion given the nature of their creation. They’re real life dioramas carefully scanned into the game. Why do I get the feeling the developers came up with this elaborate project as an excuse to build a bunch of Miniatures? Also, can I buy them? The music is great too, from its soft, contemplative piano tracks when you’re helping villagers rebuild their homes in between battles, to the blaring rock saxophone during the Batsu boss battle. This isn’t the best game I’ve played this year, but it was certainly the most artistically resonant I’ve played this year. You don't find stuff like this outside the Indie space, but here it is, being funded by Monster Hunter Money.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023, Switch)

Spoiler

Hoo Boy. This is definitely the finale to my marathon of Zelda-likes that I wrote up last month. I’ll say up front that I’ve got little appreciation for Breath of the Wild. I think it’s a game that’s punching at the same weight class as the ubisoft open world titles that inspired it but adding a lot of unnecessary survival elements to an annual mid 2010s Assassins Creed or Far Cry release. Crafting systems, Stamina meters and cooldowns, a skyrim questlog, checklist-y map markers, side quests as compelling as Bring me 55 Rushrooms. There are occasionally neat puzzles facilitated by a complex physics engine, but they don’t make up even half as much cumulative playtime as holding forward on the control stick so that Link can climb that Ubisoft Tower, cross that empty landscape, or glide to a distant neon-lit structure or waypoint. It’s exactly the same experience as crossing the Great Sea of Windwaker, and mark my words, when they re-release these two games on newer hardware some day, there’s gonna be a Swift Sail upgrade to the paraglider and a general increase in movement speed.

I’ve scratched out sooo many snarky comments and comparisons when putting together this write up, because I don’t want to come across like I hate these games. It’s a high 6 or low 7 out of 10 game that’s not quite for me. It’s well polished compared to its contemporaries. And there’s so much damned content. My Ubisoft comparisons are positive as they are Negative. It’s like a Family Size bag of chips. Not meant for one person alone to eat, but the fact that you could, given enough time and enough craving, is a tantalizing possibility at great value. If anything I think Junk Food Games need more recognition so long as they don’t load it with microtransactions. And for what it’s worth, you don’t have to do even a fraction of that content if your skill and knowledge of the game is high enough. Play as much or as little as you like, you won’t be walled off by level scaling or gear checking.

But I’m also reluctant to herald the game for that fact due to it’s outrageous, Great Plateau-inspired difficulty curve. Final Fantasy 15, an Equally Not Great open world game, lets you blitz the main story and ignore 90% of the game world too. But the main quest heavily scales the damage you’re taking and dealing for a somewhat consistent challenge at any level. For TotK, I’ll just say it, game’s too hard. Satisfying challenge is an art form that no one can appraise objectively, but I think TotK is legit broken. If it has the same Hidden EXP system as Botw, then they need to tweak those values. I was up against the third tier of enemies at just Seven Hearts, no Stamina. Not because I walked into a high level area, but because I killed too many enemies. Getting one shot at full health during Main Quest content is more oppressive level scaling than any RPG I've played. I remember Botw had a Last Chance mechanic where you’d be knocked to a quarter heart instead of dying, it’s clearly not here in the sequel. I was cooking Food that I never had a chance to Eat. They also seem to have heavily nerfed Temporary Heart recipes, and the availability of those ingredients. Then later in the game when I’m packing even more Hearts and upgraded armor, nothing can touch me. The final Boss did 1 Heart or less damage to me with my not fully upgraded armor. This is clearly designed for fans who grew into adults, but my heart goes out to all the kids putting away the ipad to try out Zelda and getting frustrated around Hour 5-10 which is peak difficulty. My first Zelda was a life changing experience, but mechanically intensive first person shooters and PC games were something I bounced off of at that age. I never minded that Zelda games were easy, especially if they were willing to throw in a harder difficulty – another idea that TotK casually casts aside.

I disagree with the majority of what’s new in the sequel, so let’s talk about the Good. I liked Fuse a lot. It actually got me looking around my environment to experiment. Fuse was probably meant to be an unnecesary extra step in upping my numbers to the standard of the last game. But it also creates the Dead Rising experience of picking up crap and trying it out. Like slapping a Sled to my shield to make a snowboard. Next is the enemy variety. Not everything is a humanoid holding a weapon. Finally, caves and wells. I was explicitly missing this from BotW, a game whose only dungeon experience was in its divine beasts and Shrines. The survival-focused overworld never had any natural interiors like this. And if a cave goes into a tall mountain, you can Ascend from inside of it to avoid a ton of dull climbing or at least the un-eventful walk out of that cave.

It’s unfortunate then that the Depths are a huge misfire for me. It’s just another empty open world whose emptiness cannot be accurately appraised until you’ve turned the lights on. There’s no NPCs, and nearly no quests that send you down there. No Shrines or collectibles. There’s crafting materials that can only be found in these zones, but that’s it as far as in-game justification for their existence. Not being able to see too far ahead of you makes even vehicle traversal a pain. Because large structures exist, but you can’t see the top of them to know if it’s scale-able. Every attempt at building a vehicle ended in me crashing and failing to go around structures I could not see. Should have just walked.

Even the theoretically good ideas are marred by bad execution. The replacement for Champion Abilities have a lot more utility than simply being combat skills, but to activate them you have to walk up to that specific buddy. This is hard in and out of battle because they’ll often clump up together or walk the same direction you are at the same speed. Couldn’t they have mapped it to another sub menu, like Down on the D-Pad? Whistle can just be one of those choices. The A button is the Interact key, so there were a lot of misinputs trying to make use of these skills. I wasn’t a fan of Ultrahand either. Why add twenty angles to a grabbed object that you’ll never use? Everything you build is discarded faster than the building process. The Zonai devices seemed like they could fill in the void left by classic Zelda items, but they too are consumable, and are mostly geared toward vehicles and combat. Each Korok Delivery quest is a mental math proposition of “Would it be faster to just walk them there…?” The optional Autobuild skill alleviates the time investment, but at a cost to your upgrade resources. That flying machine you built to reach a shrine will disappear when you come back out of the Shrine. It would have been awesome if a quest asked you to Ultrahand a bridge, and that bridge is a permanent structure of your game world like in Death Stranding or Fallout 4. But instead TotK says “20 Wood Please” and it gets built offscreen by an NPC.

The big disappointments are where I felt like they could have really improved on BOTW. This IS the game that hears all the complaints about Weapon Durability and says “let’s make weapons break even faster lol”, even if it creates a plot hole in which the Gloom missed all the bows and arrows, shields, and armor. What I wanted most was better Dungeons and better Story and they just turned in the same work as before. The Story is, once again, something that already happened before you hit New Game. And playing catch up on those events involves seeking out secret cutscenes and hearing the same story four times by four different narrators. In BotW this was contextualized by Link having amnesia and people from his past not being able to provide the Answers on account of being dead. This game provides no such scenario, and its Past Heroes lack a face, a name, and the vague notion of a personality the Champions had. The dungeons were a let down. Often providing greater spectacle in the entry sequence and Boss Fights, but providing less gameplay concepts than before. The simple act of needing to control something externally about a Divine Beast in order to better traverse and solve its puzzles was something unique to that dungeon, but TotK dungeons are just a culmination of Shrine Puzzles you may or may not have experienced prior. Never presenting a moment of gameplay that’s unique to them. Even the boss fights aren't unique to them.

The new overworld Gleeok boss was the most fun I've had with the combat system, and all I got was more fuse material for those spent weapons. The game is just one big skinnerbox of consumable junk. Is it any wonder that the biggest successor to BotW isn’t this game, or the superior Immortals Fenyx Rising, but Genshin Impact? Gacha games are very deliberate about slow acquisition of resources to prompt player spending. What does Zelda gain from this design? When I’m sitting down to play, the addictive compulsions of my mind force me to chase things I definitely don’t need and very likely won’t put to good use. By expanding the potential uses for all this junk via Fuse and Ultrahand, my brain can never say "don't need those". Especially for a blind player that doesn’t have the answers to everything. Really wish I didn’t sell those Ambers for instance. I thought maybe those were the most likely Trash Loot in the game that's best for selling, and I was super wrong. 

So, I can once again claim to have played every (non-CDI) Zelda game for at least the next month. This one left me hungry for a classic zelda for sure. I don’t know if Nintendo will ever make one again. Eiji Aonuma is in the Executive Producer seat now, and he says traditional zeldas are bad. He doesn’t grasp that limitations breed creativity or perhaps players enjoy getting new abilities and items as they progress which get them excited about all the new things they can do now. To him, Progression is only in RPG terms of leveling up and acquiring stronger gear. If you asked me what made Breath of the Wild better than this is because it’s just a little more tighter in its focus. Sure I can do slightly more of ‘everything' now, but that’s the Bethesda Simulation over Video Game way of thinking. And if we Must deliberate, I liked Starfield more than Tears of the Kingdom. As Direction-less, Too-Big, make-your-own-fun games, Starfield edges out the competition by just having good stories to tell. And its Companions do what I tell them to. And its weapons won't break.

One final time, the game is Fine. Rarely frustrating for more than a few seconds, but also rarely fun for more than a few seconds. I did every Main Quest and the game was acting real impressed I found the master sword early (I wanted to know why This One didn't attack me). Final play time was 70 hours. That's 10 more than my run of Starfield, but I feel like I Did a lot more things in Starfield if that makes sense. The Zelda B-Plot, on paper, is kind of a bold choice until you realize it's a recreation of her story in Skyward Sword - the only other game that tries to create origin mythos for the series. Watch this one get cast aside too. I buy the tragedy of that game better because that Link and Zelda cared for each other before Destiny uproots their lives. This new Link and Zelda are just co-workers. One last hot take for the road? Hummm, Age of Calamity is better.

 

Edited September 6 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Fabulously Olivier]

4 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Hot Take: Age of Calamity was Better

 

Hey, if I'm allowed to say Hopes > Houses and Warriors > all 3 games it's based on, you're allowed to say Age of Calamity is better than BotW and TotK.

 

Anyway, Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem and Diablo 3 discussed last month became clears 50 and 53 respectively on 7/25 and 8/10. Err, well, I decided to retroactively count Wolcen as beaten based on Act 3, since Act 4 is an endlessly cycling endgame act that isn't meant to be beaten for several cycles.

 

51. Crisis Core Final Fantasy Reunion

Spoiler

Cleared 8/1

7/10

It's pretty obvious that this was a handheld game, so I can't be too harsh to it. It's got fun enough combat, and a pretty good story. Very much not essential to appreciate Final Fantasy 7 though. The main story missions are pretty fun, while the side missions are universally too simple to be fun.

52. Tales of Zestiria

Spoiler

Cleared 8/8

7/10

While I still think this is the worst mainline game since Legendia, and may be worse than that, I was also somewhat too harsh to it. It's not quite a Dawn of the New World level disaster, and the worst mainline Tales game is still a good time. It's bold, if extremely overcomplicated in its combat mechanics. Has way too many tutorials. The party of characters are actually pretty well written. The story is nothing special, though the villain actually gets a pretty good backstory.

54. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Spoiler

Cleared 8/17

Playthrough: Hunter

7/10

It feels like an evolved Torchlight 1, but not as evolved as Torchlight 2. Having a constant battle companion who can sell your gear is always nice. The story and setting are fun. There's a fair bit of depth and replay value here. There's even a unique tower defense segment of the game, that the story only makes you do once.

 

I have 2 main issues with this game. The first is that there was not a single interesting gear affix in my entire playthrough. Just stats. The second is that ranged enemies are wildly overpowered, even on Casual difficulty. I was getting mowed down in a second by ranged basic enemies with fast projectiles. That felt unearned.

 

Ultimately I got the whole collection for $5, and had a pretty good time. I got my money's worth already on just the first game.

55. Astro's Playroom

Spoiler

Cleared 8/17

7/10

The core gameplay is a really fun, brisk, adorable 3D Collect-a-thon with impressive use of the 3D rumble feature.

I will say, however, that none of the various motion control segments were fun at all. If they're in Astrobot, I may have to pass.

56. Warhammer Chaosbane

Spoiler

8/26

Playthrough: Eltinor, the Elven Mage

7/10

I've heard this described as a dishwater Diablo 3. And yeah, that's pretty accurate. But a less good Diablo 3 is still a dumb fun time. It's visually good, the story's alright, there's some actual interesting gear effects, and it's somewhat better overall than Van Helsing.

Also, as a $5 purchase, I got my money's worth several times over just on the one playthrough and could definitely see myself doing more.

57 and 58. Final Fight and Captain Commando

Spoiler

8/28

Playthrough: Haggar

Playthrough: Captain Commando

Yes, I did buy the Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle on sale in order to fluff up my clear numbers with quick, mindless games.

 

I feel like any score I could give an arcade game would come with a huge asterisk. They aren't good games. They aren't meant to be good games. They aren't balanced around being fair or even possible, but rather around draining quarters. Not unlike modern gacha games, really.

But in their modern console version where you can just respawn infinitely, they're at least enjoyable in a crap sort of way.

I'm not sure if $10 for 7 short arcade games is good value in terms of dollars per hour. Certainly if I replay them later on other characters. But is it a good value in terms of quarters saved? Absolutely, lol.

 

I'm still playing a metric ton of Warframe. I have a problem... I mean I can quit anytime I want.

 

I'm getting close to the end of my Pokemon Moon playthrough.

 

I've also gone through a good chunk of Halo Infinite this month.

Edited August 29 by Fabulously Olivier

[Samz707]

STALKER Clear Sky.

I have an unfinished run so I've been resuming it as I'm hyped for the Switch ports.

[vanguard333]

I'm currently completing the last few optional parts of Ys: Memories of Celceta before I tackle the final dungeon of the game. I just completed the game's superboss (incidentally, semi-crystalline deer are a pretty much a staple "powerful ancient creature" in fantasy media, but it's a staple for a reason, it fits the forest theme of the game, and I think I enjoyed its fight more than the superboss of Ys 9), I've already completed all the sidequests, and, as far as I can tell, I have thoroughly combed over every part of the map. So, guess how much of the map the game says I have uncovered?

99.8%

I do enjoy the exploration in this game, but, compared to Ys 8 and 9, the game does suffer from the fixed camera and the inability to zoom in on the world map making it very easy to think you've combed over every part of the map, but there are actually tiny crumbs that you missed. Quite a few times now, I've walked through paths I've already taken and had the uncovered map percentage increased, with me having no idea why it increased. This is a game where your stated goal at the start is to explore the forest in its entirety.

I've tried looking at images of the completed world map to get an idea of what I've missed, and it doesn't help much. I'll try combing through the game world one last time; one area where this game has the advantage over Ys 8 and 9 is that only the overworld counts towards world map completion; dungeons and indoor areas don't. In Ys 8, it made sense for indoor areas to count, as they were often natural pathways across the island, but it didn't really make sense in Ys 9 for the insides of buildings to count towards overworld map completion.

Overall, right now, I like Memories of Celceta more than Ys 9, but less than Ys 8 and Ys Origin.

 

EDIT: I finally 100% completed the map. I looked online, and people suggested running along every wall. I found one slightly faded wall of the world map and ran along it, and that got me to 100%.

With that done, all that's left is for me to complete the final dungeon, and then I can give my final thoughts on the game. After that, I'll probably end up taking a small break from games until Echoes of Wisdom releases.

 

EDIT: I finally completed Ys: Memories of Celceta. The final boss fight was fun, as was the post-final-boss sequence where you run up a volcano while pursued by enemies to destroy the ancient artifact the villain was planning to use.

The ending was rather interesting; it was rather abrupt, and it even lampshades that it deliberately left certain things unresolved, and yet, despite that, it's probably the most solid ending I've seen to a Ys game so far. It didn't draw out its ending for far too long (Ys 9), it didn't force in an unnecessary twist at the end that undermined the game's core themes (Ys 8), and it didn't hide the canon events behind a secret additional story route (Ys Origin).

Overall, I enjoyed Memories of Celceta a lot; I enjoyed it more than Ys 9, but less than 8 and Origin. So, I've completed 4, 8, 9 and Origin; now just 1 & 2, 3, 6 and 7 remain (5, from what I've learned, was never localized or given a remake).

One thing I would like to see the Ys series do in the future: change things up from the usual "the magic goes away" resolution. I understand that it's become something of a staple in the series, but I think it would be really interesting to see them try something else; perhaps a "the magic returns" plot where the location Adol visits used to have magic, lost it, and begins rediscovering it at the end? I think that would be a great way to play with the usual formula.

Edited September 5 by vanguard333

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I was just doing my "Combined Tellius Ironman", and it was going great. Made it through Path of Radiance on Hard Mode, with just one death - an unrecruited Astrid (and more importantly, the Knight Ward she was holding). I even tempted fate by pitting Ike against the Black Knight, and bringing him down to 9 HP, before Nasir rudely interrupted our skirmish. All told, I beat Ashnard, with a full seven units making it to level 20 for transfers.

Then came Radiant Dawn, Normal Mode. Part I had some close calls, but the Dawn Brigade scraped by. Missing I-4's Beastfoe and Seraph Robe stung, but it's not the end of the world. Micaiah even got Speed-blessed, so I didn't need to turn to the Resolve strat for I-9. With the toughest part of the game out of the way (until maybe III-6), I was in the clear.

...Until I went to Ohma. And Heather got away. And then I found out, Yeardley moves. And he comes right up to Nephenee. And stabs her. GAME OVER.

So now, I'm in a tricky spot. Do I abandon any pretense of an Ironman, and keep playing the same file? Do I go back to PoR, and start it all ocer again? Or do I close the book on Tellius, and switch to a different game entirely? I'm leaning to the last option, as there are a lot of unbeaten games on my docket otherwise. But we'll just see...

On 8/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Super Mario RPG hacks have garnered relatively little attention over the years.

I didn't even know there was such a thing! My disrespect to the Super Mario RPG fandom shall never be forgotten, nor forgiven.

[vanguard333]

I'm not currently playing anything right now, but I can say this:

Dawn of the First Day

72 hours remain until I'll be able to play Echoes of Wisdom. Once Echoes of Wisdom releases, I'll be playing it.

EDIT: Night of the First Day. 60 hours remain.

Edited September 24 by vanguard333

[Fabulously Olivier]

Pretty good month despite being without power for days. Got a lot of Pokemon done.

 

59. Pokemon Moon

Spoiler

Cleared 9/1

6.5/10

Party: Decidueye, Alolan Raichu, Alolan Sandslash, Salazzle, Poliwrath, Komo-o

 

So, let's start with the good. Mon variety is really high in every new generation since X. This is good. It's important for replay value. The core gameplay loop is still fundamentally enjoyable and the modern QoL features are appreciated. Getting rid of HM slaves is particularly appreciated.

 

And uh, that's basically it. This is easily my least favorite Pokemon generation. It's really annoying that every wild mon can call for help for free in addition to their turn, and with no limit on the number of times per battle. Totem Pokemon are easily stronger and faster than one of your mons 10 levels higher and with type advantage. The story constantly locks you into boring, unskippable dialogues. There is also no semblance of real map/world design in the newer games.

 

60. Pokemon Sword (aka Bully Hop Simulator)

Spoiler

Cleared 9/4

7/10

Party: Intellion, Toxtricity, Corviknight, Abamasnow, Pangoro, Coalossal

 

As someone whose favorites were absolutely savaged by Dexit, I have every reason to hate this one. After playing it, I did not hate it. It was actually fun, and it's unfortunate that it didn't quite live up to its full potential. 

 

On the plus side, mon variety is sky high even early on thanks to the wild area. The soundtrack is particularly good, with the best gym leader theme in the franchise. 

 

On the negatives, I found the sports theme to be extremely lame, and Team Yell are the worst villains yet (though Team Star in the next game are even more pathetic). 

 

61. Warriors of Fate

Spoiler

Cleared 9/4

Playthrough - Sabotai

Another quick beat em up clear from the Capcom bundle. Still not great, but I did enjoy it more than the prior two. And it's Three Kingdoms

 

62. Trials of Mana

Spoiler

Cleared 9/6

7/10

Playthrough - Kevin/Charlotte route

This is my 2nd playthrough of the game. Will tackle Duran/Angela next year.

A fun, vibrant action JRPG/platformer with a cute aesthetic, terrible voice acting, decent combat, and a cheesy story.

 

63. Halo Infinite

Spoiler

Cleared 9/10

7/10

I reckon I enjoyed this more than 1 and ODST, but less than the rest of the series. The gunplay is good, weapon balance feels improved, and the game doesn't wear out its welcome. I think, however, that the story is weak, 343's continued avoidance of the Flood holds their games back, and the open world structure isn't doing it any favors.

 

64. Pokemon Alpha Sapphire

Spoiler

Cleared 9/15

10/10

Party: Sceptile, Sandslash, Sharpedo, Gardevoir, Aggron, Crobat

Generations 2 and 3 were already peak, and their remakes made them even moreso.

Gen 3 has the best mon designs, IMO. And the best enemy teams. Great map design. Great characters. The best friend (May), and the best overall rival (Wally). The addition of mega evolutions, party XP share, xp on catch, and national dex really elevate this game.

On the negative side, I really only have a couple nitpicks. Mon variety isn't terrible, lack of fire types aside, but it's not great either. National dex helps, but it really comes in too late in the game to benefit replay value. Also, the HM burden on your water type Pokemon is very high, with 3 water-based HMs.

 

65. Streets of Rage 4

Spoiler

Cleared 9/15

8/10

Playthrough - Shiva

Along with Shredder's Revenge, this stands out as a beat em up that is actually balanced as a legitimate game. It's fast, it's fun, and it's addictive. The only complaint I have is that I want more of it - more characters, more content.

 

66. Visions of Mana

Spoiler

Cleared 9/22

8/10

A game that tragically flopped before it even released, resulting in its studio being downsized and set up for closure on release day. Made more tragic by it being a good game. It's visually gorgeous, has great combat, tackles some heavy themes, and has a decent story. The class system is stellar, and Morley's Ascetic (cards, cane, and water) class quickly solidified itself as a personal favorite. 

On the downside, the open world is pretty bland, and the side quests aren't great.

Edited September 24 by Fabulously Olivier

[Lightcosmo]

Looking forward to Kai no Kiseki! It’s of course high-priority once it comes out!

[vanguard333]

Dawn of the Second Day.

48 hours remain until I'll be playing Echoes of Wisdom.

EDIT: Night of the Second Day.

36 hours remain.

 

EDIT: Dawn of the Final Day.

24 hours remain.

EDIT: Night of the Final Day.

12 hours remain.

Edited September 26 by vanguard333

[Samz707]

Unicorn Overlord Demo:

 

On the boat with Scarlett and so far the game is just outright terrible, I'm bored out of my mind and the writing/gameplay aren't very good. 

[vanguard333]

I got The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom this morning, and I have so far completed the starting area and first dungeon.

I've been looking forward to this for a while: ever since Zelda adventured alongside Link in Spirit Tracks, I've wanted to see either that happen again or a game where Zelda is the protagonist. I've also really wanted a new 2D Zelda, with the last one we got being Tri Force Heroes back in 2015, so this is a game I've been looking forward to in two ways. Does it live up to that hype?

Yes; it definitely lives up to it.

The echo mechanic is a ton of fun. Cycling through all the different echoes can get annoying (though thankfully the pause menu has a proper grid, somewhat alleviating that), but I really enjoy deciding the best echoes to create for a situation. One concern I saw people have before release was that the combat would get boring if it amounts to summoning enemies to do the fighting for you, and it's a concern I understand, but I think the decision-making aspect more than makes up for the indirect nature of the combat. It is very cathartic to enter a room full of enemies and pick an echo that makes the battle a near-instant victory.

The game so far has been rather linear, mainly because everything I've played so far has been an introduction, but the game does do a good job of hiding how linear it is at the start for the most part thanks to everything that would normally be impassible in other top-down Zelda games being regular objects in this game. There are some invisible walls, but you really have to go out of your way to find them; there was one cliff I really wanted to get up to near the start of the game despite knowing where the game was clearly leading me, and, through a combination of echoes and all the boxes in the area, I was able to reach the same elevation as the wall... only to be unable to get over the cliff due to an invisible wall. After completing the first dungeon, the player is given two places to go to for the next objective, so I suspect that the game does open up, and that invisible wall will be gone if I go back to that area.

The story so far is intriguing. It is neat to learn about this game's Link from an outside perspective. I otherwise don't have much to say about it.

Overall, I'm really enjoying the game, I'm looking forward to the rest of it, and I'm dreading the possibility of being accidentally spoiled on something now that the game's released.

[Tryhard]

Satisfactory, very good mostly-chill automation and builder game that recently came out of early access into version 1.0.

Not a game I would normally play. But I've been having a lot of fun with it. I would have tried other similar games like Factorio but I enjoyed the first person style here, especially leads itself well to vertical building in a way other automation games don't. There is no overarching goal except to complete milestones, and automate things in order to build more things. There are enemies out in the world (and they can kill you) but there's no time limits and no great threat that will come to your base to pressure you. So you're pretty much left to your own devices in order to build what you want. The world map is rather big (but predetermined) so there is also a decent amount of exploration when you're not at home base.

It can quickly become overwhelming, especially when you get to the stage I am now where you have to deal with oil productions and fluids. But that's part of the fun is figuring out exactly how you are going to deal with any the resources and items you have, and the moments when it all comes together are enjoyable.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Pokemon Brown - 20^th Anniversary Version (GB, 2004-2024)

Spoiler

Here’s a blast from the past. Pokemon Brown was my very first ROM hack back in the mid 2000s. I don’t know how far I got, but I vividly recall that lone patch of grass in Merson City with the level 17 pokemon you could encounter before the first gym. Pokemon Brown is a coveted adventure, often cited as the first fully original and finished pokemon fan game. Koolboyman no longer works in this scene (thanks to a court order from Nintendo), but that doesn’t stop an anonymous gang of hackers from continuing his work on Pokemon Prism. This Anniversary Release seems to leave most of the adventure alone, only adding a bunch of QOL updates. And that must have been at least a fair undertaking considering most pokemon modders don’t work on the original game boy titles and so a lot of new code had to be written.

I gripe a lot about Pokemon rom hacks all adding modern mechanics and pokemon to old generations. The older games have a lot of under-explored situations and gameplay possibilities that are not possible in Modern pokemon if people would just give it a shot. The simplicity of Gen 1 and 2 makes it easier to enjoy from a casual perspective because I know I can't "mess up" my pokemon by not aiming for the right Ability or feeding them the wrong EVs. As for the battles, they definitely got creative in how they did and did not update the rules. Waking up from Sleep does not take up your turn anymore, but Wrap attacks still behave how they used to. They’ve got the Physical/Special split on attacks, but not the original special split. Never throw out Growth and Amnesia from your move list. There’s plenty of QOL updates like simultaneously having everything from the bike to HM moves mapped to a button combination involving Select. You can even change your Pokemon Box from anywhere so that you’re never full when it’s time to make a catch. There's an experience bar, a symbol telling you if you have that pokemon's dex entry, actual UI showing you your moves' stats. Keeping the unique character of Gen 1 intact without the clunkiness. I like this approach better than just adding junk for the sake of fidelity to the main series.

Don’t quote me on this, but I believe the new pokemon types from Pokemon Prism are new to this release. In Brown they’re implemented about as well as you could hope. The only thing that had me scratching my head is not making Zubat a Sound type. It’s a bat. Any creature that sees via echolocation should certainly qualify, yes? As far as pokemon games go, Brown is pretty good! Routes have great diversity of catchable pokemon so you can begin building exotic teams fairly early. Difficulty gets pretty light if you unlock and decide to use Exp Share (it's the modern kind that triples exp gain overall) but there’s extensive post game content, and an optional Jaunt into Johto if you want some tough fights in the mid game.

My only issue with the game is the text informing you if a move is super effective or not. It seems to be very bugged against dual type pokemon, saying something is super effective or not very when it does neutral damage. Like Razor Leaf against a Tentacool for example. That wasn’t a bug back in Gen 1, so I dunno how this got through playtesting. It makes it particularly difficult to wrap your head around these new type matchups. Also the very first cave has a rest spot room that cuts out the backtrack for healing. But we would only see that concept one other time in the whole game - in the Graveyard dungeon that reuses the rest point from Lavendar Town's Graveyard. Would have liked to see more healing points elsewhere

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn (Steam Deck, 2024)

Spoiler

As venerated as the NES tends to be by retro gamers, it sure did have a lot of shovel ware. Genuinely good games often remain un-discovered if they’re not blessed with the same title as a still-running franchise or licensed IP like Batman. Shadow of the Ninja is perfectly fine, just losing a lot of direct comparisons to Ninja Gaiden. If you do remember Shadow of the Ninja at all, it was probably for its cool sword beams, its ledge hang mechanics, or its two player co-op. Alas, it’s not as well preserved as Sega’s Shinobi or Capcom’s Stryder games. And Ninja Gaiden, well, they just kept making those. If yet another Ninja Gaiden reboot was announced tomorrow, a lot of us would shrug and say that makes sense.

Officially, Reborn is billed as a Remake, but that feels like such a disservice. This is a whole ass new game. Enemies and bosses from the original do make cameo appearances, and levels may have some vague similarities. But that’s like saying Super Mario World is a remake of Super Mario Bros. Reborn is packing enough new stuff to fill two or three sequels. Especially new moves. You absolutely cannot beat this game without consulting the Manual hidden away in the Options menu and learning how to wall run and hover. No tutorial stage. And one glance at the Steam Discussions page will show you a lot of frustrated gamers that needed one.

But it is a challenging game even when you do know how to play. The original Shadow of the Ninja was not difficult – at least not for the standards of games at the time. You had an extremely generous health bar, and enemies just sort of stand around waiting for you to hack them out of your way. Reborn’s throwing 2-3 times more enemies at you at a time and cuts your health bar in half. Your awesome sword beams don’t travel through walls anymore, and you’ll be relying on the kusarigama’s multidirectional attacks to kill them without putting yourself at risk. There’s a huge array of consumable special weapons, but they struggle to perform as well as your basic attacks in most scenarios. You have to stop, look at the towering gunner planted at the end of a tight hallway and say to yourself Ah, the plasma gun can reach.

Moments like that reveal the game’s deliberate level design. Your character is slow and must make tactical use of all your options. More like a classic castlevania game than a ninja gaiden that stresses forward movement via respawning enemies. And on that note your jump has a jumpsquat animation of about a tenth of a second too which wasn’t in the original. Meeting enemies in mutual Jumping and Slashing will just get you hurt.

Unfortunately the game does not come with my recommendation due to some core issues. The Gear swapping is pretty bad. Even if you’re used to the inverted controls of cycling between all the items you’re carrying, it’s still a slow enough process that making a weapon swap in the middle of a boss fight is just not feasible. Even deciding on the ideal Gear beforehand is clunky because swapping from your sword to that item has its own vulnerable animation. I’d rather the game restrict you to three items and map them to some of the unused buttons. Like Castlevania’s classic Up+Attack for instance.

Persona 3 Reload (Steam Deck, 2024)

Spoiler

I was a huge dork for Persona 3 on the PS2. This fusion of dungeon crawler with Japanese virtual tourism life sim elements was extremely novel. The visual novel stuff impacts the dungeon crawl, and vice versa in tangible gameplay terms. Nowadays it seems like half of JRPGs are doing some riff on Persona 3’s example. Up to and including our very own Fire Emblem Three Houses. Of course JRPGs have always been creatively insular like that. Always waiting for the latest Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest to set the next trend until Square and Enix became creatively bankrupt and literally bankrupt respectively. What I’m trying to say is I felt at odds with Persona in recent years. Continuing to have nostalgia for it, but also feeling like I’ve outgrown that sort of game. When several scenes left me tearing up the way they did when I was a teenager, I assure you that I haven’t outgrown THIS game.

As a remake, Reload sticks to the old recipe closer than I was expecting. Most of the additions came in areas that make a whole lot of sense. In the original game, all but two of your Social Links were in the afternoon, leaving the Evening to almost exclusively pad out your Social Stats and inevitably have nothing to do but grind in Tartarus. Reload adds a ton of Evening events bonding with our party members, so that you can do the same work on your social stats in a way that’s less monotonous. Special care was paid toward the party members that do not have their own social link, which fills a noticeable void from the original. Furthermore, you may encounter the Great Clock in Tartarus that allows you to instantly raise the level of neglected party members up to par, cutting out hours of grinding.

Some weaknesses of the original script still poke through. Shinjiro being at once portrayed as a high school senior and a fatalistic homeless dude will always be weird. It’s not surprising that so many new scenes are dedicated to him. Akihiko’s injury at the start of the game is annoying too. It’s hard to believe in the drama of him not being able to join the fight while still recovering. All they needed to do was put his arm in a cast. So much more was done with the 3D models in the remake that I’m shocked they didn’t think of it before I did. Overall though, when the game is writing new scenes with party members, there’s an obvious respect for the tone of the source material. The ending was always controversial among fans, but I'm glad they stuck with it. I heard that Persona 5 Royal retcons a character's death, so I was worried about that going in. Reload is clean. Well, except for the character that was written back to life in FES, but I'll excuse them keeping that since it's so engrained by now.

Ultimately the decision to only add to the original’s script and make no subtractions is my only problem with this project. I know that Persona is a capital F Fandom twenty years later, but you gotta be willing to make some cuts. Let events breathe and speak for themselves rather than have party members sit in a circle and repeat how they’re feeling about the situation. These are good actors they hired, and they’re giving 100% on a bloated script. And they've got such great visuals and sound yet insist on narrative purely through words. When you add to a game, there’s a diminishing returns to how much it improves the experience. And when you keep adding, eventually those returns start to run in the negative. Steam says I took 94 hours to beat the game across two months. Those hours were not mispent, but there’s an obvious opportunity cost of how many also-great games I could have knocked out in that amount of free time. To say nothing of all the real life opportunities or non-gaming interests I could have engrossed myself in alternatively. If there’s one thing Persona is adept at, it’s reminding the player how to make efficient use of your time and always chase self improvement. Many people are stressed out from Persona's time limit in a FOMO-context, but for me it's the constant reminder that I could be doing anything more productive right now.

There might also be something to be said about the removal of stressful dungeon dives. Tartarus has lost a bit of its edge since the PS2. Mini boss encounters permit you infinite retries. There’s no Tired mechanic. You’re bathing in group heal and SP restore items by the end (and now any party member can use Items instead of just the main guy). Discovering a Teleporter permits you to continue from that same floor with no progress lost. And yeah it's weird having full control over my party members rather than giving them orders. They're too competent. Quality of Life considerations are one thing. It’s excellent that you can return to your dorm without passing time, so you’re never caught without your Hermit Persona for that social link. But there are no big franchises anymore that permit old school, stressful dungeon experiences where you’re constantly weighing whether to press on or retreat for the guarantee that you don’t game over. The last ones I can think of were Etrian Odyssey, and the addition of a Classic Mode could have done it here as well.

I’ve already talked about how I think these games are too long, so I wouldn’t play on that mode, but it is an avenue of game design that’s been weighing on me. I hope they consider it for the eventual Persona 6. And while we’re at it, please add a way to remind yourself which days Social Links are available so I can better plan ahead. Or being able to see if you’re ready to Rank them Up without talking to them on a day they’re available. Say, you could put that information in the Social Link sub menu. A menu that currently serves no purpose other than to tell you the current rank of all your social links.

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown (Steam Deck, 2024)

Spoiler

Here we go. Heading back to the franchise routes. No not those ones, I’m talking Your Dad’s Prince of Persia back on the Apple II or MS DOS. By returning to 2D, Ubisoft takes a shot at Metroid-style level design and turns in a near perfect performance. I was thoroughly impressed with their adaptation of genre. It’s combat ranges from fast paced reflexive rhythms like Hollow Knight to the Play With Your Food launchers and juggles of Guacamelee. Immediately understanding how to interact with your environment with color-coded abilities like a Metroid game, but the world space is even larger with a lot more content than you’d see in a Metroid. There’s also a Guided Mode that can point you where to go with waypoints on your map if you’re not in the mood to figure it out yourself. Having those sorts of accessibility options without compromising raw difficulty.

Trailers emphasized combat, so I was hoping that platforming would remain the main focus. In the end I found the game to be evenly split between both both. Enemies will give chase, but you can swiftly move over or slide under them when you’re not in a mood to fight. The Lost Crown’s most challenging, white-knuckled platforming challenges are found in its Divine Trials. Optional challenges that are extremely hard and restrict you to very specific abilities and a set amount of health. Fairly trial and error to learn, but these gauntlets will permit several dozen failures. My patience tends to run out before I’ve run out of life, but I really appreciate that they’re here to show off the full potential of the game’s systems. I found Sargon a little too reluctant to let go of the wall at times when timing precise air dashes and jumps, but I feel like I make this criticism in every game like this.

The Lost Crown has little in the way of new ideas for the genre. It’s really just a hyper-competent amalgamation of stuff that works in other games. It has Hollow Knight’s amulets. The sash ability reminded me of Bash from Ori and the Blind Forest. It has a sequence reminiscent of Metroid Dread’s EMMI encounters, complete with the satisfaction in returning later to kill it. One innovation I can point to are the Memory Shards, which allow you to take a screenshot and it gets planted right where it was took on your map. Which is of course helpful for reminding you what that place looked like and whether you have the ability necessary to interact with it. I like this a lot better than planting my own markers in Metroid games, since as a blind player I don’t know what abilities I’ll be getting and what they’ll allow me to do. Not to mention me forgetting what my own markers mean. But if you prefer to mark up your map anyway, those are in the game too. The issue for me is that two thirds of the way through my playthrough, the memory shards stopped working. Only displaying a question mark on their preview window. I couldn’t find a fix for this.

I think the story of The Lost Crown is Pretty Good for Prince of Persia standards and Pretty Great by Metroidvania standards. We’re talking about a genre that gets by on low word counts and lets its world space do more of the talking than cutscenes. Even with a Ubisoft budget, this game aspires to be no different. Dialogue scenes are terse, and ultimately I was left wanting more. Facing off against your fellow Immortals carried about as little weight as Samus fighting her fellow prime hunters in Prime 3. Sargon makes little effort to explain the situation to his comrades, so hearing him say “I didn’t want this” over their corpse feels unearned. The ending too leaves a lot of plot threads left hanging if you’re reading lore items. A lot ends up being explained in The Prophecy, premonitions surrounding the game’s events you reveal one line at a time in collectible fashion. The universe is absolutely fascinating, but you’d never know just based on the cutscenes and forced dialogues. So while I wouldn’t say the plot is bad, it feels remarkably undercooked compared to everything else that had been so carefully considered.

I've played several dozen 2024 games so far, and this feels like the cream of the crop. It is my tentative GOTY for sure

Warhammer 40K Space Marine II (PC, 2024)

Spoiler

Not a whole lot to say here. I enjoyed the return of the Dude Bro Cover Shooter with buddies from high school. I really wish they'd make a Halo Master Chief Collection but for Gears of War, because that'd keep us busy for a good while. For now though we had our fun with this in between Helldivers and Darktide. And since it's the Warhammer universe, the moment to moment drama is Ultramarines questioning each others' loyalties constantly. In a single player context it's a very nothing narrative, but with friends over discord the hostile banter is highly comical and got us leaning into these useless pissing matches. I consulted the Codex Astartes and it says detonating the Melta Bomb from a safe distance is a sign of heresy. A true ultramarine tanks the hit and downs himself for maximum slapstick.

All the gun shooting feels great, melee not as much. Especially against Tyranids who are far too fast at chipping down your health and shields compared to the Orcs of the first game. Even when I create an opportunity for the Gun Strike, there are no I-Frames so that armor I gain is lost before I regain control of my character. Furthermore the Operations side missions seem even less geared toward Co-op than the main campaign. No protecting your buddy as he turns a crank for instance. It's just battle arena after battle arena. Only the second to last mission presents you with a puzzle that goes considerably smoother with teamwork. 

I wish the level and weapon progression in Operations wasn't at such a glacial pace. Especially when the weapon upgrade paths are extremely minor choices. And why is progress separated between the PvE and PvP modes? Feels like an obnoxious choice to me. The game really isn't loaded with enough content to warrant the amount of play hours they're expecting from us. I'm sure they're planning to add more over the next year or two, but I'd rather stick to Darktide. That game is still getting major overhauls as recently as this week and the melee combat is way better.

Excited to dedicate the October update to spooky/spooky-adjacent games

[samthedigital]

On 9/29/2024 at 5:07 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

That wasn’t a bug back in Gen 1, so I dunno how this got through playtesting.

That is a bug in  gen 1.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

On 9/29/2024 at 2:07 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Excited to dedicate the October update to spooky/spooky-adjacent games

Geez I'm off to a rocky start, trying to get these twenty year old games to run correct.

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

That is a bug in  gen 1.

huh. perhaps over the years I closed my mind and my heart to it. Like when status moves are reported as having "missed" when it should give the 'But it Failed!' message

[samthedigital]

25 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

huh. perhaps over the years I closed my mind and my heart to it. Like when status moves are reported as having "missed" when it should give the 'But it Failed!' message

That's one that I forgot about. Gen 1 is definitely a lovable mess.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Just beat Super Paper Mario, after letting it sit half a decade on my shelf, untouched. So, what did I think?

The Good: Yeah, the story is pretty good. I could probably pick a nit or two if I wanted to, but I don't care to. I respect the effort. The characters are the strong part, both among the allies and the nuanced villains. Strong dialogue characterizes everyone in a really compelling way. Yeah, see, Nastasia was probably my favorite.

What else... I appreciate the core gameplay gimmick. The ability to switch from 2D to 3D is really cool, and expands level design options. Thrre are some issues here - it's hard to line up properly with enemies or boxes, the time limit imposes panic and waiting (despite having little ultimate effect), and it's a shame that only Mario can exploit the mechanic.

That was kinda mixed, so let's do a good one - the aesthetic. Seeing Count Bleck's Castle, in stark black and white, was truly imposing. I definitely enjoyed the parallel of "Flipside" and "Flopside", too. And I like that chapters weren't necessarily limited to one aesthetic - like, chapter 1 switching from "Green Hills" to "Sand Ocean".

The bad: There were quite a few... frustrating... aspects while playing. Foremost among them was the constant "beeping" at low health. But what am I supposed to do, when I have no healing items? Oh, I finished thechapter, so I'll get auto-healed before the next one... or not. Ugh,guess I'll die. I'll be set back a ways, but at least I'll be playing with full health. ...Except they sent me back to the last save block, with 3 HP and still no healing items. I can return pipe out to heal... and then have to start the world over again. What the flip-flop, game.

There are "bad gameplay" moments tbat I can respect, albeit not enjoy. The "long walk" in 6-1 (take 2) felt like it was wasting my time, but I can appreciate it conveying the vastness of the setting. As for "Mimi's Sweatshop", it was definitely a time waste, to the point that I watched TV over the game while holding the D-pad down. In doing so, it made for a satirical critique of capitalism. Who saw that coming? Maybe the same person who predicted a dating sim boss battle against Francis. Glorious in its goofiness.

One more thing: the character designs. They're not bad, but... they don't feel particularly "Mario". Both the hyper-angular ones, and the 3D-ish aspects. Sure, that was probably the point - make them come across as "alien" to Mario and pals. But... I'm not really sold. Why do Merlon and Merlee, two returning characters, look different? What species are "Flipsideans" or "Flopsiders" supposed to be? The characters don't look bad, but they look like they could slot into any other franchise.

There's a lot of talk about Nintendo reining IS in, when it came to unique character designs, starting with Paper Mario: Sticker Star. I can't help but imagine that such a dreadful and ill-conceived change was borne out of an understandable overreaction to this game's own inherent "weirdness". And it's a shame, because I feel like the first two games managed to strike an excellent balance - distinct character designed in recognized species types, with everything feeling "Mario-like".

The verdict: I appreciate that this game tried to alter the Paper Mario formula somewhat. As much as I love the first two games, I can't stand the drumbeat of "Paper Mario should've retained that core gameplay, and evolved gradually at most!" This game did some really interesting stuff, some of which could warrant re-exploration.

That said, the game wasn't always enjoyable to play. At times, it got frustrating or tedious. Regardless, I chigged on through for the promise of story and characters - and in that regard, it largely delivered. I ignored countless "your wiimote battery is low!" reminders, and moved my pointer ever closer to the bar to get recognized. It's just the Paper Mario title that Wii deserved.

Uh... 6/10 I guess. Worth experiencing, but I'm probably never gonna touch it again.