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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 9, 2021 5:17:10 GMT -5
CROWN TRICK: I hate rogue-likes, but this one is a little different in that it's a turn based RPG in the vein of Chocobo's Dungeon. Where it stands out is how willing the game is to let the player absolutely CRUSH an entire room full of monsters. It sure is empowering being able to light up an entire room with fire, explode every creature currently on fire, and then send them flying into a far wall with a fist of earth...where they fall into the fiery inferno I created the first turn. It's really more puzzle like. It also takes a page from Hades' book and doesn't seem intent on murdering the player ASAP. I cleared quite a few floors and stages on my first attempt stopping only because it was late. Still don't like how I have to repeat all of those floors...
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Post by TG Barighm on Jan 5, 2022 16:28:31 GMT -5
Since I spent all of my Christmas with my sisters and my mom, that meant all we ever watched on TV was generic holiday themed romance movies. So, naturally, I spent a lot of time with my laptop which meant I played a ton of old games.
SUPER METROID: Still holds up. Now looking to play all the other Metroid games I never got to play like Fusion, Zero, and the fan remake of 2. My laptop can't handle GameCube emulation.
SUPER ADVENTURE ISLAND 2: I remember enjoying this a lot more, but now it feels like baby's first ARPG. It feels less like exploring for power ups and naturally stumbling upon the means to advance (like in Metroid) in the game and more like I'm being deliberately forced to cross the entire map to find that one spell I need. And it's not like the combat is particularly memorable.
STAR OCEAN: Aggravatingly tedious. Many battles can be won just by mashing the attack button, so I was able to play through a ton of the game just pressing buttons randomly while staring at the TV...until you run into monsters that are seemingly unbeatable and then suddenly you're dying, not because the fight is too hard, but simply because the enemies are rapidly flying around the map attacking your characters while you're busy fighting against the slow, turn-based control scheme. Then there are the dungeons which are frustratingly maze-like. Even I got lost, and I never get lost. So many rooms looks so similar, and it's annoying discovering my progress is being held up because I didn't realize that tiny little thing in the corner was actually a switch I was supposed to pull. I really wanted to like this game because it's Star Ocean, but this game's design is bad by any standard, even much older games. Thankfully, there is a remake of the game that plays like Star Ocean 2. Here's hoping.
SOME GAME ABOUT THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR: A strategy game for the Genesis. Beat it on my first try, in about 15 minutes, without knowing what I was doing. So...yeah.
ANY NES GAME: Unless it's a famous game well known for its quality, just assume it sucks. I encountered a lot of NES games that were difficult simply because the controls were way too tight or imprecise, or because the menus were so slow to load and required so many extra steps to navigate they turned into a huge slog. It was actually pretty rare to find an NES game that actually felt snappy and fluid (like Kirby, Mario, or, surprisingly, Chip and Dale), and, of course, any game with any amount of menus was damn near impossible to play because they still expected you to read through every bit of dialogue and confirm every single step possible. Now, I've always made it a point to single out the NES generation from the golden age of gaming, so no real surprise here. I always intended to just play those NES games I fondly remember rather than having a huge collection, but it's pretty easy to build a huge collection when you can download dozens of NES games in just a few seconds, heh.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jan 10, 2022 23:12:44 GMT -5
METROID ZERO MISSION: It's got its pluses and minuses. The music sucks, but the controls are more precise and the environments have more charm. Well worth playing.
STAR OCEAN INTEGRITY AND FAITHLESSNESS: This one is growing on me. The combat is still way too chaotic and the Role system, while cool in theory, actually causes your AI teammates to be even dumber since you can't give them complex commands because the game limits you to ONE command per character (which is bizarre), but the combat is still pretty cool and that's the main reason to play these games. The games are feeling a little too much like just another Tales game at this point, though. They actually play better as 2D games.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jan 14, 2022 22:35:46 GMT -5
ANOTHER METROID 2 REMAKE: That fan remake Nintendo tried to ban. It's actually very good, with snappy controls, clever boss design, and a lot of fun details in general that just makes the whole product feel elite. I had to suffer through a lot of graphical errors though, but I was also playing it on a very old laptop so maybe that was an issue.
METROID FUSION: Not nearly as good as AM2R. The boss design sucks. Whoever thought it was a good idea to follow-up a nasty boss fight with yet another enemy that can tear through your minuscule HP should be fired. Nothing is more disheartening than beating a tough boss only to have a baddy appear at the end to beat you and force you do it all over again. Basically they went with a lot of bad ideas for the game.
CASTLEVANIA ARIA OF SORROW: With the Metroids finished, moved on to the GBA Castlevanias that played like Symphony of the Night. So far the game feels very much like more of the same with the main differentiating factor being Soma plays a bit differently than Alucard. It's a good formula, though, so it's fun.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jan 26, 2022 1:53:39 GMT -5
CASTLEVANIA CIRCLE OF THE MOON AND HARMONY OF DISSONANCE: Circle of the Moon feels like the Dark Souls 2 of the GBA series: annoying just for the sake of annoying. Dissonance doesn't play quite the same as Aria, but the castle design is more creative and has more interesting monster encounters.
ZELDA NES: Played surprisingly well. Finally beat the game after 30 years.
ZELDA 2: Played like a generic adventure ARPG except it was no fun.
ZELDA LINK TO THE PAST: Dark Souls spoiled this one. After 10 years of hard core RPGs with deep and rewarding combat, playing through Zelda just feels like a chore in comparison. You see, Link is where they started ramping up the puzzles and puzzles bore me. In the vast majority of cases, a puzzle in Zelda amounts to "spot that thing" or "remember there is that thing you have to get elsewhere" or something that the 360 controller makes way more difficult. I got through most of the game fine, but the final dungeon is just an endless series of puzzles. They bugged me in Darksiders, too, which aped much of the same formula, but the combat was way funner. Hit boxes in Link were a little off, too.
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Post by TG Barighm on Feb 3, 2022 21:14:29 GMT -5
SECRET OF EVERMORE: A little disappointed to discover the dungeon design in this game is pretty terrible. There are multiple spots where you can get soft locked, such as lowering bridges with no way to go back across thus forcing a reset, and a sudden lack of save points in the final area...which is full of creatures that can one shot you. I suppose I've gotten used to only optional super hard dungeons doing something like that rather than final dungeons, but it just got really annoying being thrown back like an hour on every death. Even in Dark Souls you can quickly run back to every boss.
BREATH OF FIRE: I've never actually beaten ANY of these games. Let's do that now!
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Post by acathala on Feb 5, 2022 11:11:06 GMT -5
I recommend doing a lot of grinding around the first area so you can get the best equipment for BoF.
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Post by TG Barighm on Feb 5, 2022 12:24:11 GMT -5
It is really that good? Because I just continued on and I found the Rang which is pretty cool with ATK-UP.
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Post by TG Barighm on Feb 7, 2022 3:50:12 GMT -5
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: Clearly not meant to be played on a base PS4. The game crashed so many times on me in the first hour, the last time crashing so hard my PS4 made a rather loud crunching noise of some sort. Definitely not going to continue playing this as is. As for how the game plays...think Mass Effect, but with more epic setpiece battles and no cover. Basically it's a run and gun shooter, but you still have to manage the battle a la RPG mechanics such as using a tank to keep bigger groups of enemies busy and your DPS to take out dangerous targets more quickly while you focus on shooting key mission targets. And, yes, lots of quick time events-thankfully, you can turn these off-and cinematic scenes with the Guardians. It's not quite as good as the movie, but Rocket is almost as good here as he was there, and Groot is, well, Groot, so there's enough to keep you invested if you're a fan.
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Post by TG Barighm on Feb 18, 2022 4:07:50 GMT -5
Breath of Fire got REALLY boring, so moved on to the second.
Did I mention how impressive the Sonic Advance games were?
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Post by TG Barighm on Feb 21, 2022 1:48:26 GMT -5
Turns out the GBA versions of Breath of Fire are vastly better than the SNES versions. Not only do they fix a lot of bugs and improve the UI, but they also have a lot more dialogue including much better gameplay directions.
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Post by acathala on Feb 21, 2022 6:11:30 GMT -5
Are you playing those versions now?
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Post by TG Barighm on Feb 21, 2022 13:20:55 GMT -5
No, I didn't realize there were GBA versions of the games.
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Post by TG Barighm on Feb 23, 2022 21:02:33 GMT -5
Got bored of playing old games, so I decided to whip out Fallout New Vegas. Never properly finished playing this game. I didn't even do the DLCs.
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Post by TG Barighm on Feb 28, 2022 1:35:31 GMT -5
FINALLY beat a Breath of Fire 2 by knocking the second one down. Yeesh, I really had to push myself at the end.
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 1, 2022 18:55:52 GMT -5
One of the New Vegas' DLCs in Dead Money down. I wasn't really too fond of this one. Sure, it's impressive how well they managed to capture the survival horror aspect without resorting to too many horror tropes, but they take away your gear and you're forced to play the game a specific way regardless of your build. Stealth is a big part of it and I'm just not fond of stealth. The gear you get from this DLC kind of sucks too, but I imagine I missed a bunch of it.
*Actually, turns out I missed very little. By far and away the best thing worth getting from this DLC is a special perk that can radically increase Veronica's melee damage, which is pointless because her melee skill is low and never increases, or increase the players melee critical hit damage by 50% which is terrific. Shame it's so specific to just one type of damage.
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Post by acathala on Mar 1, 2022 23:33:16 GMT -5
I never really cared for Veronica. One time I left her in the bunker to die with the rest of the brotherhood. I agree with you that they definitely wanted you to play dead money stealthily though.
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 2, 2022 14:47:38 GMT -5
I found many glitches in New Vegas revolve around Veronica for some reason. Oh, well. That perk makes up for it. I don't know why anyone would ever give it to her...well, okay, if you're not doing melee and you have her around it's okay, and I doubt most people would realize her melee damage is broken. The steps to activate the perk is way too complicated though. You should be able to just talk to her and be done with it.
Now doing Honest Hearts. So far this DLC is more along the lines of what I want from a Fallout game. Flavour is nice and all, but not at the expense of all the mechanics that define these games. It's a little dry, and I think it was designed to be more of a lower level DLC so it has been way too easy, but it's been good enough fun. This DLC also adds tons of new loot and content that applies to the base game as well, so it's worth having even if you don't actually play it. Most of the loot is gun or Cowboy specific, so it's great for those characters (I have a Cowboy build lined up). My original character I'm playing these DLCs with is all explosive and energy based, so none of this stuff really works for him.
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 3, 2022 20:32:31 GMT -5
SUPER DOUBLE DRAGON AND TURTLES IN TIME: These games serve as a fitting reminder that Souls games are not that hard, heh. At least in those games you can just level up. No such crutch in these games.
On to Old World Blues, the DLC many people claim is the best one. It certainly starts off in an interesting way. A way too long conversation with a bunch of kooky robots and a sudden increase in colour and particle effects. I'm pretty sure they got the writer from The Tick and Deathspank, or at least the voice actor, to do this DLC because there is no denying the influence. Nice to see the heavy focus on Science and INT builds which is right where I'm at. Only spent an hour playing it, but looks promising so far: there's a map to explore and I'm free to go about it as a choose, robots be damned, and this time I've got all of my stuff.
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 10, 2022 1:57:52 GMT -5
Figured out how to beat Double Dragon, but the way to do it is boring since it's essentially just exploiting terrain mechanics. Needed save states to beat Ninja Turtles, heh. There's one level in the center of the game that's just nasty at how it kills you so quickly. It's way harder than any of the final levels including the final boss.
So, now I'm playing...POKEMON!
Yep. NEVER played a Pokemon game before. So far I'm just running through the first few towns battling whenever to grind up Pokemon. I suppose that's all these games ever need to be, but I hope it gets more dynamic. Grinding isn't very interesting without some depth to back it up (like in this game on PC where you also have gear and talent trees to work with).
When I saw a playthrough of this area on YouTube someone got a Pikachu to appear in the first grass area.
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 11, 2022 0:02:46 GMT -5
Man, Pokemon is dull. Just grind and grind and grind...at least you can capture higher level Pokemon later. Actually leveling every low level Pokemon is such a chore. That's why later games spread exp. to all the characters in your party. Not a huge deal for a handfull of characters, but this is HUNDREDS of Pokemon we're talking about...
Also, rock-paper-scissors mechanics just bug me. Spend a lot of time leveling up and gearing a great character? Nope, you lose because this low level punk is the "right" type, nevermind how weak and pathetic that creature is.
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Post by acathala on Mar 13, 2022 5:54:44 GMT -5
I didn't think you were going to like it to be honest. There's a pen and paper rpg made by fans that is pretty good though.
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 14, 2022 14:35:52 GMT -5
Okay, so Pokemon has more depth than I thought. Putting in the full 10 hours revealed there is more to the game than I expected, but I still feel like the game is nothing more than grinding levels. Maybe if there were more high level Pokemon around that I could catch or some easier way to level them up it wouldn't be so bad.
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 24, 2022 19:47:29 GMT -5
While backing up games on my 360, I found some games I grabbed but never got back to, so I went through them last night:
CRIMSON ALLIANCE: I've always regretted not being able to play this game, but I forgot why, so I figured it would be worth playing through the trial version again. Not sure what it was about it I missed so much. It plays all right, but seems to run in slow motion for some reason.
BREAKTHROUGH: An Xbox title with surprisingly high production values. Too bad they're all wasted on incredibly clunky and needlessly complicated and unresponsive controls. Basically imagine a first person shooter and brawler with all the clunkiness of a VR game...except it's not a VR game.
DEATHSPANK: The fun of this game was always more in the writing than the actual gameplay, so no problems here. Still enjoyable.
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Post by acathala on Mar 24, 2022 20:01:45 GMT -5
I kinda,stopped playing first person shooters myself. They're mostly all focused on online multiplayer, whereas I'm a solitary gamer who prefers single player campaigns. I play videogames to get away from people.
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 29, 2022 2:01:18 GMT -5
CONKER RELOADED:So...why is this game considered to be good? Between all the tedious busiwork, crass and unfunny humour, unresponsive and imprecise controls, bog standard combat and constant freezes, I'm having trouble seeing the "good". Well, no, I understand why it was popular, but I just realized I never heard anyone say it was actually "good".
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Post by TG Barighm on Apr 1, 2022 18:23:38 GMT -5
DUNGEON SIEGE 3: I played WAY too much New Vegas in too short a time frame. Need to take a break from it before I burn myself out.
Dungeon Siege is an all right Diablo clone. Nice art style. Good production values. Not well optimized for the 360. My only real problem with this game so far is how little control you have over certain mechanisms such as being unable to choose what abilities your allies use, no option to enchant from the equip menu (manually picking items from the general inventory is a chore), and managing multiple resource meters (mana and something else; often serves no other purpose other than to disrupt the player's timing and the flow of combat). It's no Champions of Norrath or Diablo 3, but it is a nice little bite sized ARPG.
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Post by TG Barighm on May 11, 2022 14:16:00 GMT -5
MASS EFFECT: My swing through my 360 catalogue has taken me through Gears of War, Halo, and Transformers. Now I've hit Mass Effect, notably 2. Couldn't care less about the first one. Gotta say, this time through I'm noticing tons of issues such as teammates constantly attacking walls or getting stuck on the geometry, useless abilities such as Jack's Shockwave constantly firing in the wrong direction or Kasumi running head first into enemies and getting killed trying to use her assassination attack, and a LOT of glitches. Basically the only characters I find useful are the gunner characters with high weapon damage buffs and instant abilities. Any ability that needs to travel is pretty much useless because they always hit something before reaching the enemy. The trick I use in ME3 to fire abilities around walls doesn't work very well in ME2. Still good for story and character, but I remember the combat in 2 being...well, still janky, but good enough to be enjoyable. This time I just find it frustrating and dull.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jun 8, 2022 9:42:29 GMT -5
ENTIRE DEAD SPACE SERIES: Never actually finished Dead Space 2. Just did it. Surprisingly little to do in that game aside from beating it and grabbing achievements. Had very few special unlocks aside from multiplayer stuff and the Foam Finger. Dead Space 3, on the other hand, has TONS of stuff to unlock. Shame the game isn't very good. Then again, it's like RE6 to the RE series except it doesn't suck nearly so much.
ELDEN RING: Oh, you knew this was going to happen sooner then later. All the people whining about accessibility are crazy. This is easily the easiest Souls game yet. Probably the hardest part is dealing with the menu. There's too many menu items now.
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Post by acathala on Jun 9, 2022 22:09:40 GMT -5
The only people who whine about accessibility are entitled game journalists. If I had the free time, I'd be playing it.
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