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Post by TG Barighm on Jun 26, 2019 20:01:26 GMT -5
Starting to make some significant progress:
Steamworld Dig 2: It's basically Terraria except with actual characters and a real plot, but it doesn't handle very well. It's not bad, I just wish I was allowed to jump dig or dig diagonally without unlocking them. Common gameplay mechanics shouldn't be unlockable features.
Moonlighter: Essentially old school Zelda with a shop running mechanic. Handling is awfully stiff. Never played a shop sim before, but I imagine the better ones don't require you to sit around waiting, and hoping, NPCs will buy your loot.
Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitely top notch production values, no question about that. There's a weird hitch in how Ori jumps, though, and combat is button mashy. Throws me off in a lot of situations. Game's cutesy art also belies a tough game. Expected more, but still very good. *Still working on this.
Outland: Another game with a cool aesthetic. I find it handles the best out of this list, although the bullet-hell mechanics get tiresome after awhile. Boss battles are pretty cool though.
Next up:
A Plague Tale, Sunset Overdrive, AC Origins
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Post by TG Barighm on Jun 29, 2019 13:26:29 GMT -5
A Plague Tale: A basic stealth adventure game with pretty good production values for an unknown game. The story presents the Black Death as a literal physical force, rats in this case, giving it a strong horror feel. Pretty cool, it's just a shame the gameplay is so rudimentary.
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Post by acathala on Jun 30, 2019 19:20:12 GMT -5
Is that the sister and brother game?
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Post by TG Barighm on Jun 30, 2019 19:43:51 GMT -5
There is a sister frequently escorting her brother in the game, yes. It's not that annoying, though. Well, the brother IS annoying, but there is really no penalty for just dragging him around everywhere you go, so it doesn't end up being a problem.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 2, 2019 15:57:10 GMT -5
Left Alive, Trails of Cold Steel, Rage 2, and Shadow of Mordor added to the list. I suspect Mordor will be the best of the bunch.
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Post by acathala on Jul 2, 2019 17:04:59 GMT -5
If you enjoyed the Batman Arkham games, Mordor basically uses that combat except they map counter to a different fucking button. Sorry that's still a sore point. The nemesis system is interesting, and I spent a fair bit of time maneuvering my orc slaves into higher positions of power.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 2, 2019 17:17:16 GMT -5
Oh, I know how the game plays. I remember it being fairly cool but "not quite there", but everyone says the second game improves a lot on everything. So long as they don't force stealth on you too much, it looks like it will be fun.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 3, 2019 3:08:26 GMT -5
LEFT ALIVE: It sucks. Shitty stealth mechanics with a clunky as hell UI and enemies that can magically spot you through solid objects, abruptly jump onto the roof of buildings and spot you without any warning...or just not spot you at all even when they're staring directly at you. I gave it a chance because I love the Front Mission franchise, but this...I can barely stomach good stealth games let alone shitty ones.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 4, 2019 16:17:15 GMT -5
RAGE 2: Reminds me of Red Faction: Guerilla, but in first person and without all of the awesome deconstruction mechanics. Many of the light RPG mechanics are similar, as is the traveling and corny dialogue. Loot is fairly valuable and worth searching for, and there are a few cool power-ups that make me smile, although most of the mods are basic statistical buffs. That said, it seems possible to make meaningful builds and there does seem to be a way to make the game play like DOOM which would be wicked cool. Controls are okay. Wish the game handled better, and I'll never understand peoples' fascination with driving around big, empty, boring worlds looking for loot, but I do see myself playing through this one day and the loot is actually worth while.
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Post by acathala on Jul 4, 2019 20:13:28 GMT -5
I wish we would get a proper FM game over here.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 4, 2019 20:17:13 GMT -5
Wait, you're a Front Mission fan?
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Post by acathala on Jul 4, 2019 20:27:08 GMT -5
From the very few we got over here, yes.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 4, 2019 20:35:02 GMT -5
Dude! You've been holding out! Which ones did you get?
Please say FM3...
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Post by acathala on Jul 4, 2019 20:59:50 GMT -5
All the ones that got released over here. So yes FM3. Enjoyed the vilain's breakdown in one of the endings. Still the best console mech game.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 4, 2019 22:38:09 GMT -5
Woohoo! One of my all-time favourite games. Not so much the rest of the series, but definitely FM3.
Actually, now that I think of it, I think you mentioned something before.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 8, 2019 4:45:30 GMT -5
My copy of Shadow of War was defective, so there goes that.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 8, 2019 16:56:51 GMT -5
Did I ever mention my Sekiro boss videos? Well, anyway, part of the backlog that recently got hammered out:
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 9, 2019 23:08:23 GMT -5
TRAILS OF COLD STEEL 2: Since I've never played any of these games before, I ignored the story and focused on the gameplay. Felt like a traditional JRPG, although I'm sure it gets more interesting later. More traditional, lower budget JRPGs have grabbed me in the past, though (like the Atelier series, or World of FF) so I'm not letting this game off the hook so easily. I don't hate it, but I'm definitely won't get back to this until I play the previous games in the series.
*Add Darkest Dungeon to the backlog.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 10, 2019 5:46:04 GMT -5
ASSASSIN'S CREED ORIGINS: I didn't intend to keep this one, but I gotta say, the world of Egypt seems so much prettier and more interesting than Odyssey. Or maybe Discovery mode just has nicer graphics. I dunno. Origins just seems like the more polished game.
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Post by acathala on Jul 10, 2019 13:05:41 GMT -5
Ancient Egypt as a videogame setting seems to be criminally underused. Greece has been done to death but Odyssey still is my favourite AC game. I don't think I've ever seen a game based around Balkan mythology either. It would be very hard to do one on Scottish mythology as a lot of it has been lost.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 10, 2019 13:49:52 GMT -5
From what I understand, a lot of that lost Scottish culture can be found in Nova Scotia. Or so my uncle told me.
An Addendum to AC Origins' Discovery Tour mode: I was expecting more. The tours are actually barebones, using the most common information, and the development team takes more creative license with various things than I would like in an educational setting.
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Post by acathala on Jul 10, 2019 15:15:00 GMT -5
That is unlikely. Little remains if the Picts and very little remains of the Scottish Celts compared to other Celts of other countries. Even some of that is unreliable because it comes from third party sources with a bias to making them look bad. We did make a big contribution to D&D though. The word Drow comes from Scotland.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 10, 2019 17:31:30 GMT -5
From what I was told, a lot of Scots fled to Nova Scotia where they were free to practice their customs thus, and again, this is what I was told, they were able to preserve more culture.
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Post by acathala on Jul 10, 2019 18:59:31 GMT -5
That's loads more modern than the stuff I'm talking about.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 10, 2019 20:29:29 GMT -5
Shadow of War just became available on Game Pass. Also added A Bard's Tale and Wasteland 2 to the list.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 11, 2019 11:04:22 GMT -5
SUNSET OVERDRIVE: Plays mostly like Ratchet & Clank...which is no surprise given who made it. Anyway, plays like that except the game encourages you to constantly be on the move by skating on wires and railings and bouncing off of bouncy things. And, yeah, crazy weapons and super powers. All very cool, but I'm the kind of person that likes to plan my move and execute it at a deliberate place. Or I'm just getting old. I guess it just bugs me when I have to play with Auto Aim on. The game moves so fast you just have to.
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Post by acathala on Jul 11, 2019 15:43:29 GMT -5
Sounds like a game I'll avoid hard.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 11, 2019 20:32:59 GMT -5
Well, given it's Game Pass and Xbox only, it's a pretty easy game to avoid.
Unexpectedly added Bloodstained to the list.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 12, 2019 4:50:39 GMT -5
DARKEST DUNGEON: Fine example of a game that is very good, but is not fun. Managing party members' sanity, quarks, relationships, and flaws is just as much work as getting through the dungeon...which is hard, but a good bit of that difficulty comes from sheer bad luck. A game should be enjoyable, not stressful. And I'm just not a fan of that whole "life is fleeting, suffering is eternal, woe is me" tone used in HP Lovecraftian settings.
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Post by acathala on Jul 12, 2019 19:56:19 GMT -5
Bloodstained is probably the closest we'll get to a new Castlevania game, since Konami massively downsized their console game interest.
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