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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 2, 2020 5:24:09 GMT -5
DREAMS: Media Molecule's game and media utility software. Shockingly powerful and capable of some pretty rad stuff. There is just one problem: you don't own anything you make with it. Kind of defeats the purpose of using it.
MEGA MAN Z COLLECTION: So Zero got his own little franchise, but it's not quite like the Mega Man franchises. Instead of picking bosses to go after, you're given missions to tackle. The missions are pretty barebones compared to previous games, so it's mostly about the bosses. And you don't pick up new abilities when you defeat bosses. Rather you level weapons given to you. I find the game pretty poorly designed so far. Instead of just finding new power ups, you instead find these little fairies or something that give you buffs. Some of them are permanent, like HP, but a lot of these need to be leveled before you can use them. So even if you do find them, you can't use them. And the currency to level them is pretty steep. Here I am getting buffs that require 1000 units each, but I've yet to get 500 and I'm half way through the game! Worse, boss HP keeps going up, and yet they can all kill me in about 4 shots, so every fight quickly becomes these Souls-esque battles where you need to learn a boss carefully before you can hope to beat it...except unlike souls, you can't adjust your gear or level up.
And that's just the first game in the collection. I dunno if I can go through all six.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 6, 2020 3:01:22 GMT -5
Well, Mega Man Zero 2 is a huge improvement over the first game so far, but I really don't like this whole idea of locking special attacks behind a skill gate. Basically, when you beat bosses when sporting a high ranking, you unlock the special moves the game is known for. Of course, kind of difficult to get high ranks your first time through and it's just annoying seeing a big, ugly "C" or "D" right next to your name as you run around the stage. Even Dark Souls doesn't block you from acquiring cool new abilities and gear.
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Post by acathala on Jul 6, 2020 4:34:11 GMT -5
It's really just an artificial way of boosting replaybility.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 6, 2020 5:53:22 GMT -5
It's one of the worst systems I've ever seen. It's one thing to reward you for defeating a tough challenge or doing something a special way, but it's another thing entirely to play keep away with the player by with holding entire game mechanics. To add insult to injury, your ranking is determined by your results in the PREVIOUS mission, so if you do great in the mission with the item you want...well, too fucking bad. Worse, you can only get the item during a mission. Once the mission is over...that's it.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 7, 2020 0:42:24 GMT -5
I give up. Game is just too aggravating. Ceiling hook that sometimes hook and sometimes doesn't, which always seems to be over a pit of instant death spikes, was the last straw.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 17, 2020 3:01:31 GMT -5
YOKU'S ISLAND EXPRESS: It's a Metroidvania that combines pinball mechanics. Cute, well polished, and great presentation...but it's just pinball.
MOMODORA: A cutesy Metroidvania with obvious Bloodborne influences. It's short but competently done, although it's odd how the cartoony character designs and downright goofy sound effects clash with the dark, dreary tone. The real highlight is the game's phenomenal soundtrack. It sets the mood and evokes all the emotions you're meant to feel incredibly well. Frankly, the OST for this game is many orders of magnitude beyond what this game offers and feels out of place just for how good it is. The game doesn't hold a candle to games like Dead Cells or Death's Gambit, but I enjoyed this enough to finish it.
VAMBRACE: COLD SOUL- Another Darkest Dungeon rip, although this one lightens up a good deal and instead focuses on more traditional fantasy. It still presents a somber world, but instead of a morbid fascination with death, it's a group of survivors trapped in a secret quarter of a dwarven city during an uprising by an evil sorceror. Still dark, but you still get that "brave heroes and adventurers setting out" vibe rather than a constant reminder of how life is fleeting and some shit. The art style is also much better with an interesting dwarven city setting, a more colourful cast of characters (ACTUAL characters, not just mercs you hire all the time), and, uh, some very cute girls. The game still depends on Darkest Dungeon's extremely heavy focus on managing resources and luck driven gameplay though. It even includes a faux sanity meter, in this case, a "ghost" meter which represent haunted forces looking to chomp your ass or something. The game also lacks a lot of common design elements like damage numbers over enemy's heads or a simple quick shuffle button for switching between party members (which happens a ton; certain members are just more suited to different tasks like picking locks, spotting traps, and ambushing monsters). It's a shame. I'm okay with a more traditional RPG done in Darkest Dungeon's style, but the way it handles party management just feels too much like work.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 18, 2020 0:58:01 GMT -5
Well, I was going to download and install Fallout 76, but then I realized I still haven't finished New Vegas, 4, and Outer Worlds and I thought...nah.
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Post by acathala on Jul 18, 2020 16:11:37 GMT -5
Even if I had the money and time for it, I wouldn't buy it. Otherwise Bethesda might try something similar with the Elder Scrolls. Fallout 76 is a prime example of why you should never pre-order games.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 18, 2020 21:02:52 GMT -5
Amazingly, you're one of the few other people I know of who has learned that lesson.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 19, 2020 4:16:29 GMT -5
CASTLEVANIA: MIRROR OF FATE-This game is not what I expected. I thought it was just some cheap 2D rehash of Lords of Shadows. It's actually a full fledged Castlevania title with old school maps, treasure, and the like, but mixed with combat from Lords of Shadows restricted to a 2D plane which is not half bad. The game is still plagued by a lack of polish, content, and a weird design decision that requires you to replay most of the game's maps again to get all the secrets rather than slowly getting new abilities to explore the whole map. Fast travel exists but it's very limited, so you're forced to hoof it to every stage to find everything, and traversal is kinda funky. It felt like a cheap way to pad out the game.
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Post by acathala on Jul 19, 2020 5:58:16 GMT -5
I've never pre-ordered. Partly because I think launch prices are a ginornous ripoff, but mainly because once a company has your money, they don't care.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 19, 2020 16:52:27 GMT -5
Well, I underestimated Mirror of Fate's content. Instead of giving you a ton of items and goodies to find, what they instead do is start a new section of gameplay with an entirely different character. Said character has his own items to find, and there are three characters total, so it adds up to a fairly hefty sum of stuff to find. Still a bit of a pain to play, though.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 25, 2020 6:16:04 GMT -5
CARRION: Sure is fun to play the alien monster for once. The Metroidvania aspects are cheapened because the game shepherds you to the next place you need to go, and there were a number of puzzles that messed me up simply because I couldn't see a lever or sleeping guard in the environment. Could be cool if they expand on the concept in their next game; otherwise, it's just a neat little curiousity.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 27, 2020 6:22:02 GMT -5
Mirror of Fate has QTE challenges you can fail even if you press the right button.
You can press the right button. And still fail the challenge...
Hold "Right Trigger" to succeed. You holding that button? Yes? Psyche! You fail because fuck you!
Yeah, well, fuck you too, MoF. *deletes*
Maybe I was just pressing the wrong button? Well, how the hell should I know? The text is so damn tiny I can't read anything. Seriously, I went the whole game without reading a single piece of text. It's just too damn small to read.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jul 31, 2020 17:47:08 GMT -5
MONSTER WORLD (original): The original Monster World games, via the 360 collection, were appealing at the time because I enjoyed Super Adventure Island which was a spiritual successor; however, since then, I've played a fair number of indie Metroidvanias and platformers on PC which have implemented numerous mechanical and quality of life improvements despite their retro nature. Although the first game had some decent platforming, and the third game some nice sprites, in the end, I found these games too simple to keep me invested. At least, I remember Super Adventure Island feeling way more mechanically appealing.
Also finished The Bureau last night. Once you figure out the right classes and guns to use, the game stops feeling so smart and fights execute no differently than your standard Mass Effect fight, except Mass Effect has real choices and builds that flavour the gameplay nicely whereas The Bureau is saddled with numerous design foibles. Probably would have been a whole lot better with mods, but it looks like there aren't any. Real shame. It definitely felt more tactical than Mass Effect.
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Post by TG Barighm on Aug 1, 2020 19:29:47 GMT -5
DRAGON AGE 2: Never really played the second game because it was such a drop in quality from the previous game that it just felt icky to play this one, but it's really not that bad. By itself, it would actually be a good game that has quite a bit of replay value due to all of the build possibilities. That said, the balance is poor and there are very few builds actually worth using, and it is quite a drop in choices from the previous game. Still only playing it because I want to keep on top of the story, but it's not really all that different from, say, Andromeda in terms of overall quality. And, hey, Balthier is one of the voice actors. That was pretty cool.
**The game does seem to have a very large assortment of cause and effect decisions, so it's really not that bad. It only really struggles in the sense of its lack of polish, reuse of assets, and poor enemy variety. I do like that the game was trying to be medieval Mass Effect since it actually has more depth than ME. Just a shame the game had such poor quality control and direction than Origins.
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Post by TG Barighm on Aug 7, 2020 11:47:42 GMT -5
FALL GUYS: It's...cute, I guess? I mean, it's funny looking and all, but it's the most basic of platformer/obstacle course type games and I've played party games with way more depth and variety. I got bored of it after an hour.
Ran into a nasty glitch in Dragon Age 2 last time. Had to replay the same section for about an hour because it kept crapping out in some form, like enemies getting stuck in walls and blocking progress or the next area failing to load. Was about ready to give up on the game at that point.
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Post by TG Barighm on Aug 15, 2020 5:06:59 GMT -5
DUST, AN ELYSIAN TALE: Told you my backlog is long. Anyway, this is a Metroidvania developed almost entirely by a single man, a former Disney animator. Everything is hand drawn and charming, but the story itself is hardly Disney. It's a Metroidvania with more of a focus on stylish action. A little easy, but is definitely well done and enjoyable. My only issue with the game is a hitch in the combat where you have to mash the buttons otherwise Dust will go into this long, withdraw animation that leaves you open. Throws me off a bit. Really like the crafting system. You can find the materials, sure, but if you sell them to merchants they become "catalogued" and merchants will begin stocking them. You can also craft items directly out of the menu and, if you don't have enough, can buy the items you need from the SAME menu. Terrific system that makes crafting a very simple and worthwhile process.
Finished off Dragon Age 2. I could have played it again with other classes, but I was surprised by how much I didn't enjoy playing a mage over the course of the game, normally a class that's a lot of fun in Bioware games. The other classes just felt button mashy. I dunno. It wasn't bad, but the game was so buggy and I just felt like I had much better games more deserving of my time.
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Post by TG Barighm on Aug 18, 2020 5:43:24 GMT -5
GENERATION ZERO: Survival RPG focused on scavenging resources so you can make your way deeper into a Swedish island. Robots have invaded or something and you have to survive against them. The game is ass. The robots explode very nicely, but there are only a hand full of varieties, and the core mechanics lack basic features like being able to simply swap new weapons, a control scheme, and weapons automatically reloading the next best ammo in your inventory (you literally have to go into your menu every time you empty a magazine to "re attach" a stack of ammo to a gun). You can also glitch your entire save within 5 minutes of starting the game simply by doing quest objectives out of order: grab the ammo BEFORE picking up the gun? Yep, that's right. That one simple step will see the game get stuck on that objective, waiting for you to pick up the ammo you already grabbed, forever unable to advance that mission and get on with the game. This game is the very definition of eurojank.
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Post by TG Barighm on Aug 20, 2020 1:29:10 GMT -5
RISEN 2: Like I said, my backlog is looooong...
So, basically take everything I said about Generation Zero and apply it here, but I am curious to see what happened after the original Risen. I'll just watch a Let's Play.
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Post by TG Barighm on Aug 20, 2020 15:49:11 GMT -5
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 2017: This is said to be cheesiest title in the franchise. I was expecting much worse, although it is definitely cheesy. Unlike the third game, vehicle controls are downright unplayable with no way to direct vehicle movement or aim aside from "forward" and "reverse". Vehicles are powerful, but because of this lack of control, vehicles are essentially worthless because they're destroyed so darn quickly. Other than that, character animations are wonky and the game loves to throw tons of missions at you that aren't really all that different from each other, and way too many weapons are unusable due to balance or just broken controls (when aiming grenades, the aim arc will rapidly circle around you at the slightest nudge of the stick making it very easy to blow yourself up) but overall the game features WAY more mission variety than the third game and the graphics aren't as bad as I thought they would be. It's actually pretty fun in a frantic, brain-dead shooter sort of way. Just be sure to avoid using vehicles and certain weapons.
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Post by TG Barighm on Aug 23, 2020 5:28:44 GMT -5
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 2025: Main difference here is the classes. They added them in the previous game, but there was more effort to differentiate them, although I find them more finicky to use rather than just different. The missions in this one also tend to feel more frustrating than frantic.
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Post by TG Barighm on Sept 4, 2020 4:16:59 GMT -5
GHOST OF TSUSHIMA: Plays pretty much how I expected: a combination of Assassin's Creed and Arkham Asylum. Combat is mostly about mashing attack buttons and deflecting counters, although I hear the game is pretty simplistic at first but becomes much deeper later on as you learn more stealth abilities. Honestly there is nothing particularly exceptional about the gameplay. But THOSE GRAPHICS! Holy cow. By far and away the best looking game on the PS4, bar none. And it does so without making my PS4 sound like a jet engine. Jaw-dropping impressive, I gotta tell you.
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Post by TG Barighm on Sept 9, 2020 4:00:01 GMT -5
After playing more of Ghost of Tsushima, I'd say it has most in common with Shadow of Mordor in the sense that clearing forts and towns and hunting down leaders is a huge part of the game, and finding new techniques and employing them in ingenious ways reminds me more of how Morder handled combat. Morder is also the most apt for the stealth sequences in that stealth is often used, but it's not essentially suicide to always choose combat over stealth like in Arkham. Harder, but the techniques you get do make it very possible to cleave through numerous foes in rapid succession (I suppose AC did something like that in later games). Maybe all three?
Great game, solid progression mechanics, but not exactly my cup of tea. Probably will grab it as a cheap download.
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Post by TG Barighm on Sept 13, 2020 4:27:19 GMT -5
KINGDOMS OF AMALUR: BIIIIIIIIIIG backlog...
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Post by acathala on Sept 14, 2020 17:50:42 GMT -5
I played that one. I thought it was okay.
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Post by TG Barighm on Sept 14, 2020 20:27:29 GMT -5
It's good. Fun combat. Decent questing. Where it suffers is in its obvious change of direction from MMO world to something more personable. It comes off a bit like Fable, although that's not a bad thing. As far as new franchises go, it made a good impression and it was pretty obvious how the game should improve. It was definitely primed for an excellent sequel and could have easily been solid addition to the Elder Scrolls style of RPG but with more stylish combat.
Hopefully THQ will give the franchise that great follow-up it deserves.
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Post by TG Barighm on Oct 5, 2020 18:48:36 GMT -5
Getting harder to progress through my backlog. I've cleared all the games I would consider "quick" affairs, but now I'm getting into games that could easily consume hundreds of hours per game, a good bunch of them have PC equivalents but I'd rather use my controller for a lot of them. I haven't even started on my PS2 backlog, which is actually quite small, but still...
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Post by TG Barighm on Oct 15, 2020 0:48:48 GMT -5
Still playing Amalur. While many of the quests feel MMO'ish, the faction quests are much more focused, a lot like the faction quests in Elder Scrolls, and are easily the best part of the game. While the game obviously has some problems, its core mechanics are sound, and the breadth of the world, if not so much the depth, is vast. The reality is the game was pretty successful and popular at the time, but due to mismanagement and politics the game never got the sequel it deserved.
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Post by TG Barighm on Oct 26, 2020 4:58:08 GMT -5
50 hours into Amalur, and I've only just started working on the Rathir quests. That's two regions.
Two.
There are still THREE more to do, plus the DLC.
Holy crap this game is LONG.
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