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Quote (Galsic @ 18th January 2015 23:08)

After some years, I decided to pop in an old-ish favorite: Wild Arms 2. Maybe this time I'll consider going after some of the optional bosses I passed up last time. Also, Marivel . She's such a cute lil bloodsucker, especially when dashing!

Love it. I actually beat Ragu on my last WA2 playthrough, first time ever!

I am playing mostly SpeedRunners and Trails in the Sky. Enjoying both, especially SpeedRunners so far.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

WA3 was always my fave, but WA2 is fun, too. Might have the worst game font I've ever seen, though.

As for me, I was writing for Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 for a few months, and finally finished, so hopefully there'll be time to square away a few games that fell by the wayside (AC4 Black Flag, Dragon Age Inq) before I'm knee-deep in Dishonored. Wouldn't even mind screwing around in Skyrim a bit, either...but that tendency never goes away. =|

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

As many as there are easily available plus my own. Lack of difficulty is any of them is at an all time low.


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https://www.youtube.com/user/Greatermaxim

Terra - LV 99 - HP 9999 - MP 999

Equipment - - - Abilities

Illumina - - - - - Fight
Genji Shield - - Morph
Oath Veil - - - - Magic
Minerva - - - - - Item
Ribbon
Economizer

GTA IV w/ a 1st person mod. Maybe I gotta a better version of this mod or something, because it's not nearly as unwieldy as I remember.

But holy christ, getting this damn game to run was practically it's own damn game! First, the game locked the graphic settings to their lowest and wouldn't allow me to change 'em because it was too old to recognize my hardware. That's right, my new rig turned out to be literally too powerful for it to handle, so I had to mickey mouse the executable in order to unlock the settings.

Then...Games for WIndows Live. Took about three hours of failure before I just grabbed a hack from the web that bypassed the whole thing. Ridiculous...

Anyway, the game itself is interesting when you're not playing and just living in that world, but unfortunately you still have to play it in order to unlock the city, which is a real bummer. I'd rather just grab a 100% save from the web, but I can't remember how, only that it was a hassle last time.

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

I'm on a spree of messing with Steam games that have trading cards, that I have but haven't touched.

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Played QP Shooting - Dangerous yesterday. It's a shmup that's quite difficult, despite the cutesy graphics and the relatively irrelevant storyline. It's (ostensibly) about a dog-girl, QP, who is desperate for pudding. The first stage has her fighting chickens, trains, stoplights, and finally an old friend who is obsessed with videogames, in her quest for pudding. The second stage features crows, apple-tossing pine trees, butterflies, and potted plants, and the boss is from an April fool's joke yaoi game who believes the main character is a boy.

Some of its features:
* Defeating an enemy or some projectiles generates stars from them and their bullets. you can chain picking up stars (not defeating enemies).
* QP uses "rbits" (tiny rabbit-looking things) as little pods that generate additional bullets for her, and she has various rbit formations she can use. For example, the default three formations are one that shoots an arc in front, one that shoots an arc backwards, and one that shoots concentrated fire forward. Other formations are unlockables. You have three formations on hand when you play, and you can switch between them anytime.
* Game comes with "Arcade" and "Conquest" modes; the latter lets you play single stages. (You get upgrades to start the latter stages.)

Also, if you own the game on Steam, the extra character "QP - Dangerous" is unlocked in the game 100% Orange Juice. Just like in QPSD, this version of QP is obsessed with pudding, and gets stat boosts from holding pudding-themed cards in her hand.

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Another game that I decided to try is Snuggle Truck. It a pretty simple game with an amusing premise -- you're driving a truckload of stuffed animals to a zoo. Navigate a linear 2D environment, and try not to lose too many of them from the bumpiness of the ride -- and there will, of course, be lots of bumps. You can choose to speed up, slow down, tilt forward, or tilt back your truck, while the 9 or so stuffed animals in the truck's cargo hold are individually simulated and each of them could fall out if you go over a bump or ascend a ramp a little too roughly. And sometimes you get to pick up extra stuffed animals that just suddenly fly out of nowhere.

The stages are pretty short, but there are a number of them, so it's good for pick-up-and-put-down gaming. Each stage gives you medals for different accomplishments -- bronze, silver, and gold medals for increasing difficulty, an "ark" medal for finishing with all the animals you start with regardless of time, and a "speedrun" medal for finishing with the minimum of one animal but in a very short time. Getting enough medals in one set of stages unlocks the next set.

Not exactly the most glorious game of all time, but kinda amusing and fun.

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Yet another game I played is 99 Levels to Hell. It's a platformer with some degree of randomness. Basically a roguelike -- collect treasure, kill enemies, go deeper. Every ten levels, there is a boss fight; complete the boss fight to unlock the next set of levels.

Each level randomly picks from one of a set of predefined level layouts for that ten-level group, and also randomly distributes powerups, special doors (which can be elevators that randomly take you up or down, shops, slot machines, or secret book rooms that reveal more of a story (which doesn't seem to have much to do with the game but I'm only like 20 levels into what is alleged to be a 100-level dungeon).

The level layouts can get a little tedious, though after a while you'll have learned the layouts and know which way to go. It's not quite as much variety as if they had used fully procedural generation of levels (a la Spelunky for example), but it's still decent.

You start off with the Magician unlocked; he starts with 5 health and 4 bombs and a short-range spread shot. Pick up upgrades to gain extra attacks, more range, or do other things. I'm not sure what some of the items do, but I haven't checked to see whether there's a manual yet...that said, it's not like roguelikes tell you what items do anyway. (I think there's one item that takes you straight to the boss of the area!)

Overall, a decently fun game. Note that it uses mouse to aim so you have to use left-hand controls (WASD+space) for platforming -- I know it took me a while to learn this for Terraria the first time I had to do it. On the other hand, you can jump off of ladders, and can even jump out from beneath one-high passages where the ceiling and floor end at the same point. I also think that the red-colored crosshairs icon (for where you're aiming) and the blood effects and the red bats all blend together a little too much (they should just change the crosshair color and get rid of the blood effects), but that's about it for specific issues I've found. Pretty fun game, overall.

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Finally, I also played Bad Rats. It's a physics-simulator puzzle game involving rats bringing violent/gory ends to cats. It's also got a couple key problems:
1. The physics engine operates in 3D, despite the gameplay being in 2D. This would be okay, except...
2. The simulation has a randomness component, and so the same setup will not always produce the same result. (In fact, at least one of the original solutions of, like, the second stage, can easily fail half the time.)

It is sort of an infamous troll-gifting game, and a poster-child of bad Steam games, though interestingly it predates the Greenlight and Early Access features which are frequently criticized for decreasing Steam's catalogue quality. And for what it's worth, it's actually playable, just poorly designed -- I've played 9 levels and I haven't run into bugs yet, at least. That said, the only reason I approached this game is because someone troll-gifted it to me and I'm also on a Steam-trading-card-obtaining spree.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 30th January 2015 20:43

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

I'm currently playing Lost Odyssey. You play a 1000-year old immortal with amnesia who slowly gets his memory back over the course of the game. Memories return in the form of dreams, which are told (very effectively) as simple text on screen. Play is turn-based. Immortals can link with humans and learn skills from them (I'm currently grinding to learn ALL THE SKILLS!). The music, by Nobuo Uematsu, is fantastic. The game was recommended to me by a friend, and I'm enjoying it so far.

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Watch me play games on Twitch!
Schedule:
Mondays & Thursdays: Final Fantasy VII -Rebirth-
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Side Quests (or maybe more Rebirth, we'll see!)
7:30pm - 10:30pm Central or thereabouts

I'm sure I've said in this thread before that I usually make these comments in the CoNcast, because that's our warm-up segment every show. But for me, I've been pouring the most hours recently into Lightning Returns, with a few left over for an old NCAA Football I got used, and the Burial at Sea expansion to Bioshock Infinite.

That's all after finally getting Platinum on Final Fantasy XIII-2.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Square Enix publisher sale on at Steam at the moment. Up to 85% off some games.

Quote (Cefca @ 5th February 2015 18:39)

Square Enix publisher sale on at Steam at the moment. Up to 85% off some games.

Came here to post that I'm currently playing Deus Ex...... but now it looks like I'm going to finally pick up FFXIII-2. We'll see which gets priority

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen!

Quote (Shotgunnova @ 22nd January 2015 15:36)

WA3 was always my fave, but WA2 is fun, too. Might have the worst game font I've ever seen, though.

I agree with all of this. I finished WA5 finally though, and I really ended up enjoying it a lot. Fantastic soundtrack!

Now to finish FFX...but I want to kill all the Dark Aeons. Ugh.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

Continuing from the other list, here's a few other Steam games that, again, I had in my library and could get cards from but hadn't played yet.

Bleed is a fast-paced action platformer with mouse aiming and WASD/space movement controls. Which basically means I'll be crap at it, but thankfully it does offer unlimited lives and a reasonbly generous checkpoint system.

You start off with dual pistols and a rocket launcher, and you can buy more weapons as the game goes on. Can also upgrade your health bar and your time bar. The time bar is used to give this very useful slowdown feature that lets you dodge enemy attacks much more easily -- of course, it can only be used in short bursts and has to recharge if you run out of it, but it auto-recharges. This allows the game to be really fast-paced by default.

Seems like there are about 6 levels, each of which is pretty different and each of which ends with a boss. The story is nothing to write home about, but seems to involve someone who is pissed off at old heroes getting lots of respect despite being no longer heroic, or something.

I've only unlocked the starting character (the purple-shirted girl) so I don't know what the other characters play like. That said, apparently co-op multiplayer is a thing, which I haven't tried. But it seems it might be a cool idea.

Sniper Elite V2 is a third-person shooter set in the closing days of World War II. You play a sniper, obviously. Sniping on easy difficulty just involves aiming, but on higher difficulties bullet physics gets accounted for. And you're not just sniping, but you're also sneaking around and doing stealthy stuff. (Assuming you're not just going in guns blazing and somehow don't get yourself killed in the process.)

In normal third-person view you get a number of options for positioning and movement, such as the ability to use objects for cover, crouch-walk, crawl, walk standing up or even sprint. You can also fire your gun this way, but you don't get a targeting reticle. Going into targeting mode gives you scope view for your sniper rifle but just zooms in a little bit and adds a reticle for your two backup weapons (an SMG and a pistol).

This game is basically the first time I've played a military shooter game and also turned out to be pretty decent -- such that I'm a little surprised it got a "claim it for free" day which is the only reason I got this. There are a few oddities such as how enemy units seem to spawn out of nowhere sometimes, and how they're willing to let me know when they let their guard down (giving rise to a somewhat less exciting play-it-safe strategy of doing a little sniping, then waiting indefinitely until the enemies calm down). That said, at least I've enjoyed it enough to want to play more of it. The music is also decent, though sometimes it does get in the way of hearing my surroundings (since this is a stealth game after all).

Oozi: Earth Adventure is a 2D platformer that I might have written about a while back. I got it a while back in a bundle of games that were all seeking to get on Steam via Greenlight, and I finished the entire game back then. It's still basically the same -- you go through levels, try not to take damage from obstacles, collect stars (which are basically equivalent to coins in a Mario game), and get to the end. There are checkpoints along the way.

The Steam version seems to have improved the game slightly, and one such improvement is that stars that you've already collected and enemies that you've already defeated will no longer respawn if you die and yourself respawn at a checkpoint.

There are still some minor bugs in the game. But fortunately it autosaves at every level, and when you're playing a level, at each checkpoint, so the most you'll have to do is to just replay a single level. Levels are designed to be about several minutes long, each having five "hidden" (not particularly hidden, usually) special stars.

You get extra abilities as the game progresses, but they are just given to you at the beginning of levels; you don't find them in the gameplay game world. The levels just involve getting around obstacles, optionally defeating enemies, getting stars, and getting to the end, with a boss level after every few levels, so it's not the most innovative platformer around, though it's sorta decent.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 6th February 2015 03:31

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Another World. The atmosphere, the difficulty, the puzzles... what a great game.

Replaying FFV gba, Haven't played in a while, and really enjoying it. I'm just past the bit where you have to escape castle karnak exploding. After three tries I finally got all the treasure + death claw xD My team is only level 13 so don't hate.

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Excuse me? Would you mind not talking while I'm interupting?

Finally got around to Dark Souls. After the necessary DSFix and controller 360 hack o course. Yikes, what a port...

Anyway.

The souls games remind a lot of Minecraft in that you have to go to wiki to actually know what to do. Yeah yeah, the messages. I've never seen these things implemented as they were intended and they make little sense in an action game like this. The rpg stats don't really make a lot of sense either since there's a pile of numbers to look at but absolutely nothing that indicates what changing these numbers actually does. I get that ambiguity is suppose to be part of the design, but it is and always will be a flaw in my eyes.

All that said, it's a Souls game, so the actual mechanics are about the most satisfying you'll ever hope to experience in a modern action game, thought admittedly not for the 'twitch' crowd. There's still nothing more satisfying than successfully parrying/riposting/backstabbing a guy twice yer size...and nothing more terrifying than seeing an enemy do the same to you...

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

Gone out of my way to make the games more difficult. Can I find a new game as good as the stuff I grew up with? I don't need to keep rehashing this.

My top five tabletop non-digital converted games of all time. 2-14-15.

1.) Chess
2.) Avalon
3.) The Settlers of Catan
4.) ??????????
5.) Magic the Gathering

Top five digital games.

1.) Final Fantasy VI
2.) Goldeneye
3.) SuperSmash Brothers Melee
4.) Perfect Dark
5.) Final Fantasy Tactics

I continue to play these enjoyable games. My overall wins are above average with all of them or better. Most of them are recently created with chess being older.


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https://www.youtube.com/user/Greatermaxim

Terra - LV 99 - HP 9999 - MP 999

Equipment - - - Abilities

Illumina - - - - - Fight
Genji Shield - - Morph
Oath Veil - - - - Magic
Minerva - - - - - Item
Ribbon
Economizer

So after Bad Rats, I hadn't had enough of my fix of playing infamous games just to find out first-hand what they're like and also get Steam trading cards out of them, so since I last posted, I went ahead and played some Go Go Nippon! ~My First Trip To Japan~. To be fair, this might not exactly be "played", since this is a visual novel, which I know some people prefer so use the term "read" for.

Anyway, GGN is a VN about a guy who, well, visits Japan. During his time there, he gets to stay at a house with two cute girls (he doesn't shut up about how lucky he is). I've only seen the beginning of it, though that was quite enough for a stack of screenshots with commentary -- he seems quite easy to impress, being amazed at how many trains meet at a certain station, at how many shops there are, and even at how there are 24-hour convenience stores and vending machines (from which he inexplicably infers that the neighborhood is very safe). And despite canonically being an otaku, he somehow didn't realize that Makoto and Akira can be girls' names.

The actual purpose of the VN, which is an OEL (original English language) VN made by some Japanese folks, is to serve as a tourism guide, likely aimed at the quickly-growing western weeaboo anime/VN fan market. In that regard, it seems to do pretty well including a bunch of very useful tips about getting around -- though I haven't yet actually gone on any virtual sightseeing yet, I'd just barely "arrived" in time for dinner and bedtime. Though that perspective-character seems to be more like a country bumpkin who only watches shounen anime...

This VN also has a secondary usage of helping people learn Japanese. However, this is accomplished only by having a concurrent display of English and Japanese text -- but no Romaji, so if (like me) you don't already know some Japanese, it'll end up just being pretty useless.

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I also tried out a game by western devs about stylized fantasy Japan, or something vaguely along those lines...okay, truth be told, it's because it's a platformer I've been curious about ever since I bought it a while back. Wooden Sen'SeY is a level-based action platformer by a French devteam called Upper Byte. You play a village chief named Goro who sets out to recover a lot of something called "SeY" (and is probably sake) that got stolen by what seems to be a gang of creatures with yellow eyes and -- like you too! -- squat ellipsoid bodies. You make your way around by using a pair of chain-axes, which allow you to attack things, boost off the ground (in place of the ever-popular double-jump), and hang onto surfaces. Gameplay consists mainly of platforming, with occasional arena battling. Early game there's also an unxpected submarine level, which actually isn't too bad.

As with Oozi: Earth Adventure, I think Wooden Sen'SeY is a decent, albeit somewhat generic, platformer. It does have a few more controls than Oozi, allowing to be a little more interesting, and it's harder to achieve the conditions of getting all the SeY or defeating all the enemies on some levels, requiring puzzles like defeating enemies who are not above solid ground, or using your grapple swinging. Heck, the final boss's first segment might be a little frustrating if you're not good at grapple swinging (like me). Though fortunately the game stars you back off at the beginning of the stage even if you run out of lives -- and you'll accumulate a ton of extra lives during the rest of the game if you're even halfway competent at platforming. Also of note is a mid-/late-game segment where you'll need to make do without your axes for a little while. So yeah, a decently interesting platformer with several levels of action.

Strangely, Oozi has better reviews while I find Wooden Sen'SeY to be the better game.

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So I finally got around to doing it. I started playing La-Mulana, the remake version. I already got the Steam cards, so that not the point here. The point here is because it's a really good game, and I can't help but think that it's practically an MIT Mystery Hunt in videogame form (minus the pop culture references of course, but plus a gorgeous soundtrack), and also because I had a few friends who were interested in seeing the game -- and I'd really love to have more people to talk to about the game.

In case you didn't already know, La-Mulana is an immense metroidvania platformer made in a style reminiscent of the MSX game Maze of Galious. It was first released in 2005 for Windows, as a freeware game by the Japanese indie circle GR3 Project (now named NIGORO, a name that's basically "256" spelled out). Like Cave Story, it met with huge success and (with the help of a fan-translation) gained a dedicated following, despite (or perhaps because of) its commitment to appropriately high difficulty level -- considering that you play as an adventure archaeologist trying to figure out the puzzles in a set of ancient ruins rife with them, and aiming to recover the fabled Treasure of La-Mulana -- as well as its excellent music and atmospheric theming. The game got a remake in 2011/2012 on WiiWare and PC, and that's the version I'm playing now.

In one sitting I beat the first boss and got to but didn't beat the second and third bosses. Also obtained some of the most important items in the game -- the Hermes Boots (faster movement), the Knife (faster attacking), the Holy Grail (teleporting to save points), and a couple of the subweapons. It's only gonna get harder from here on out though -- as my own memory of having played the original game just becomes fuzzier. I hear they changed a lot of details of how stuff works, and that's exactly how I would have liked them to have done it.

Probably gonna continue this only when I'm with that specific friend, since he's interested in seeing more of this game, and probably not gonna play it himself.

In any case, I'm also looking forward to La-Mulana 2 -- I backed the kickstarter, and I'm hoping it'll be as awesome as the first one.

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Just finished playing Aztaka.

It's a game made by French-Canadian developer Citérémis, and apparently inspired by Aztec legend. You play as the son of the gods, and your mission is to recover a set of ancient phonograms that will restore the ability of humankind to reach the gods.

It's a very interesting game. A main gameplay element is the ability to collect these wisps of "energy", using the mouse, which can be saved in appropriate containers and also used to interact with the game world (albeit in specified ways, but there are a lot of them). You play as a spear-wielding warrior, and you gain the aid of a hummingbird companion who can cast magic spells. The game's controls use left hand for all movement, while the right-hand mouse is used to cast spells and move energy around on-screen.

In addition to being used to interact with environmental elements, green energy serves as portable healing, white energy serves as portable MP recovery, blue energy allows the casting of a certain spell, and yellow energy late in the game can give the player-character a rotating barrier of damaging orbs.

The game's areas are laid out in a "split-level metroidvania" fashion, similar to Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. The main paths are mostly straightforward, but you'll want to take note of various features to revisit, and there are a lot of them, just to get powerups or to complete various sidequests.

The game's ability advancement systems seem to be done in (what I think is) a WRPG style. Curiously, there's one "skill" that can be enhanced by both spending skill points and drinking a potion, though this is more of an alternate leveling stat that determines equipment eligibility. And potions that increase that skill as well as stat-increasing potions are actually available in unlimited quantities, albeit at pretty decent prices -- though you should be able to afford a bunch in late-game if you pick up the extra-large money pouch. Also, another one of these skills is reviving in place rather than at the beginning of the area -- though that's a pretty decent convenience considering the strength of late-game enemies.

The game really puts an emphasis on exploration. Important items don't just show up in the right places. You gotta go find them -- and the game rewards going into nooks and crannies just to find stuff. For example, the last energy container is in an arbitrary pile of destroyable features on a side path in a dungeon. And a good amount of the time, you're just left to remember, "hey wait, there was that one odd thing that I haven't touched yet, in that one other area, let me go check that out". (I enjoyed this, though I can see some people objecting to it, and I think that having more hints might be useful for an easy difficulty setting.) The game also rewards thinking about how to use one's abilities -- most notably, late in the game, there's one time you actually need to "pogo" on an enemy to get across a gap.

The music, a soundtrack by Marc O'Reilly, is very atmospheric. What makes it cooler is that it was actually performed by real people. While it uses classical instruments, it does have (what at least sounds stereotypically like) some Mesoamerican folk influences. The result is a very interesting mix of guitar sounds, gong sounds, simple flute melodies, some vocal pieces, and even a few organ pieces.

The visuals -- especially the environments -- are hand-drawn and are gorgeous. The story is certainly intriguing, but feels a little too less-than-epic and mainly just mystical exploration stuff, compared to what it seems to be aiming to do.

The game is certainly good and has lots of interesting design features. But it also feels like it could use a bunch of minor improvements. For example:
* loop music in all areas, rather than having some tracks just play to completion then silence.
* improve wall-jumping. For example, give a frame or two where Huitzilo clearly pushes off the wall. Also do more to inform players that they shouldn't press a direction after hitting a walljumpable wall (unless they want to stay on that wall).
* a certain important sidequest affects whether your hummingbird friend will be present at the ending. Right now, the ending barely changes at all -- in fact, the same Epilogue text presuming that you finished that sidequest will be shown.
* Having manual or multiple saves would also help -- the game doesn't really let you intuit very easily when you're about to reach the point of no return on that sidequest, and if you proceed after that point is reached, you've locked yourself into failing a pretty important thing, even if it is optional, thanks to autosaves.
* the last thing to do in the game is a little unintuitive. In general the story felt a little weakly done. If the game could be remade with a better story-oriented presentation, with things like preparing climaxes and such, that might help.
* I'm not sure if it was intended, but after I got the screw attack ability that allows me to damage enemies when jumping, I pretty much stopped using the basic spear attack, and just kept jumping into things, and never made use of the spear-dancing or multi-hit abilities.
* Eliminate double-tap to dash. Just make dashing permanent (unless there's a great reason why -- it seems it was justified based on flavor, which might be a mythological reference).
* the game is occasionally a little buggy. It doesn't play well with Alt+Tab if you're full-screened, so I suggest playing it windowed. Also occasionally got crashes, but restarting let me get past those just fine. Also other minor issues such as an enemy making its way into a cutscene and constantly trying to attack you, or a cutscene quote being displayed half off-screen if the speaker is near the edge of the screen.
* provide a mini-map for areas. Some areas can get a little confusing. (Though I only ended up drawing out a map for one.)
* the soundtrack should include all the music -- for some reason the (strangely major-key) theme of ominous antagonist dialogue seems to be missing from the soundtrack release.

Overall, I'd recommend this game. Though really aren't that many choices if you're looking for something inspired by Mesoamerican mythology...

--------------------

current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - possibly the darkest, bleakest game I've played. Though there is a good ending unlike in the novel.

Metal Slug 3 - my antidepressant after playing the above game.

Final Fantasy VIII - didn't expect to like it because of peer pressure, but it's become something of a guilty pleasure. Not liking the Draw system though.

OK, here's my gaming menu from the past few months:

Games I played in February and March

Fire Emblem: Awakening - really remarkable Fire Emblem game. Good main quest, staggering amount of content, and adjustable difficulties and extras to suit different play-styles. Maybe the best game in the entire series, of which I've played about half.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies - BY FAR the best-looking game in the series, with smooth animations and great-looking portraits. The mystery is... pretty good. Some really impressive plot points, but not my favorite story in the series. The verdict: a very good Ace Attorney game with particularly nice visuals.

Ys: The Ark of Napishtim - not a *bad* game, but definitely one of the weaker Ys titles I've played. Felghana, Origin, Seven, and Celceta are all better. I liked collecting, upgrading, and switching the different swords, and the boss battles were pretty great (but so are most Ys boss battles), but the huge amount of backtracking was annoying, and the story was maybe the weakest in the whole series. The upcoming Steam version will fix one major problem by letting you teleport between save points, but I would recommend the four most recent Ys games before trying Napishtim.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth - excellent SMT-style combat and Etrian Odyssey-style dungeon crawling, but a little reductive in its Persona fanservice. Only play this game if you want a giant dungeon crawl, don't do it solely for the story or Persona characters. Yup.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - beat this game back in 2011, and this run was a max-BP playthrough using a guide. Just making a "perfect" save file to import to Trails in the Sky Second Chapter when it comes out later this year! (hopefully)

Games I'm playing right now

Paper Mario - still playing this. It's still pretty good, but I got distracted by...

Persona 4 Golden - I bought a Vita from a friend for cheap ($100 for the handheld and a 16 GB card) and Persona 4 Golden went on sale a few days later. I beat it a few hours ago. The expanded version of my favorite game made in the past decade (really). I played the **** out of Persona 4 Golden and really enjoyed it. Some of the new content is awesome (costumes! gardening! persona upgrades! two new S.Links!) but the extra scenes for New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, and the ski trip are... probably not necessary. The February dungeon is weird and different, but also doesn't fit very well into the story and messes up the difficulty curve a little. Overall, it's definitely the same Persona 4, and the new content is definitely more good that bad. Must-play for Persona fans, and worth a hard look for all Vita owners.

Ys: Memories of Celceta - it's a remake / reinterpretation of Ys IV (which is confusingly more than one game, but I won't get into that here), and I'm having a lot of fun with it. It's another game in the Ys Seven mode, which is more like Secret of Mana than Zelda. You control a party of three characters, and the gameplay revolves around building an SP meter with regular attacks and spending SP for big moves, while managing damage types, guarding and dodging quickly, and switching between your three party members. It's really good. I think I still prefer Ys Seven, but I'm not regretting my time or money investment so far. Unlocked 52% of the map, so I'm probably around halfway done?

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time - good platforming, comedic writing, and voice work, but sorta lacking comparing it to the open-area thievery in Sly 2 and Sly 3. I'm very early on (in the first world out of at least five) and I like the settings and designs that they're using, but it seems less challenging and less dense than the PS2 Sly games that I loved. Whatever. It won't be a terribly long game, so I'm pretty sure I'll see it through to the end.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Replaying Fire Emblem: Awakening, started again and preparing for apotheosis as on my first playthrough I didn't understand how the game worked and skills and stuff like that. Now i do and after reading a zillion online guides and youtube videos I'm finally ready.

I'm also on that Fire Emblem hype and I'm playing Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for the first time. FE: A was my first FE game so I decided to go back a bit and play it after I got it put down after chapter 1. Am now playing it again.










MEWTWO FOR SMASH 4 (PLUS LUCAS BUT NO ONE ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT HIM SCREW EARTHBOUND)

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Excuse me? Would you mind not talking while I'm interupting?

Recently played Waking Mars.

It's an exploration platformer where your primary direct game mechanics are picking up and throwing seeds. Really. And it is quite good.

Basically, life has been discovered on Mars. You are one of the astronauts who has been sent to explore said life on Mars. You make first contact with them and discover that they are these plant-like lifeforms, that produce seeds, which you can use to plant more of them. There are also, conveniently, barriers that open when you have enough of them growing.

That last bit might seem like a convenient gameplay mechanic, but it actually ties into the story. Yes, a surprisingly intriguing story follows from all this. The whole game took me about 11 hours to complete, and I can vouch that the story is quite interesting.

The game is an exploration-heavy metroidvania, consisting of interconnected areas to explore and grow things in. There is a certain depth of strategy to how to grow things, since different things have different biomass values, and you need to exceed a certain biomass value to proceed, or to unlock other features. Also, you can pick up some seeds, but not others, and not all terrain is suited for planting all things. And then there are more complex mysteries that lie deeper within...

Your exploration is punctuated by your contact with your fellow crew members -- one person back at base, and one AI who is a little annoying (and the other characters lampshade this). These characters are okay -- if anything, their voice acting is better than their actual scripts, which are a little redundant. You could actually make this game more like a silent-protagonist Metroid-like game with a strong element of the player learning game mechanics without being told -- I mean, heck, that's basically what happens anyway, except for the "I wonder how you might be able to do such-and-such" that the characters sometimes say. That said, the characters are (needless to say) part of the plot. And there are even multiple endings.

Aside from the somewhat chatty NPCs and the occasionally irritating physics (the player-character insists on taking a moment to get his footing very often), this is an excellent game, so I definitely recommend it.

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In more of the metroidvania realm, I recently restarted playing La-Mulana. Basically, playing it in front of a couple friends. I've kinda gotten tired of not having anyone to talk to about this game, and I've also wanted to play the remake for a while now.

That said...

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Even while not with my friends, I love playing La-Mulana so much that I still felt like playing a metroidvania game with an emphasis on exploration and discovery, so I've finally (re)started playing Aquaria. (I previously played through the first dungeon a while back, the stopped.)

Now here's a game that is absolutely beautiful. Gorgeous in its art and music. It is just a joy to be in the game itself. There might be a lot of backtracking to do, especially if you're exploring the game on your own for the first time, and it is occasionally tedious, but the sights to see and the music that accompany them are just so atmospherically enjoyable.

The game stars a humanoid sea-creature named Naija, whose journey of discovery begins as she explores who she is, and why she is alone in the sea. She has the ability to sing these tones that put together can have magic-like effects, whch she picks up as the game progresses.

Now this game does really well that "no hand-holding"/"discover things on your own" bit. You control Naija with the mouse or keyboard, swimming in all directions and being able to generate bursts of speed every couple seconds or so to go faster. Right-click or hold Ctrl and move the mouse to open up the singing tones around oneself, and sing the magical codes of your abilities once you discover them. That's basically it. Some abilities may have different controls.

You're in an underwater world. A vast variety of creatures dot almost every corner of every area. Now if you're a longtime gamer, one of the first things that you might notice is that most of them are harmless to you, and you to them as well. Yet they also interact with each other. Sometimes they may even be hazardous to you but only under conditions unrelated to yourself -- for example, pulling up some food may attract a big fish, who will want to eat the food. That said, you may find more hostile creatures elsewhere...and there may be reasons for this...

There's also lots of things to collect. First, there are ingredients, and then there are food items, which you can find and also create using ingredients. But you'll need to find one item first, to get the recipe of it. There are also a number of collectibles in out-of-the-way places around the map, which you can use to decorate Naija's home cave, or give her costumes to wear.

The plot is has got a lot of depth (no pun intended) in its mythos, and delivers very well on that journey of self-discovery. I won't spoil it, and I'll only add that, having played (I think) about half the game, I think you can make it through just by being observant and learning to use your abilities, but there are a number of "optional" secrets and features that you are left to discover on your own. This includes features that aren't part of the game mechanics, but are visual features that you can explore with just a pencil and paper -- and they can reveal quite a lot about the game's setting.

I think the variety of areas -- visually and musically -- is a little less than in games like La-Mulana or CvSotN. That said, there's actually a musical reason for this -- most of the game has music in D minor / F major, and the tones that Naija sings are C, D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C. If you pay attention, an early-game dungeon has music in E minor (or actually E phrygian, technically), and Naija instead sings C, D, E, F, G, A, B (natural), C. Despite this limitation, Alec Holowka created a stunningly lush soundtrack for the game, one that really is a core part of the game and defines its atmosphere. So you can't really use too many different keys and keep nearly the same set of notes and make it not sound out-of-place -- though then again, I have only played half the game. If later parts of the game do even more with this potential element of contrast, I will be very, very impressed.

TL;DR Aquaria is an excellent game, and I definitely recommend it.

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Just finished Divinity: Original Sin. A very satisfying experience, I'll tell ya what. With that, I've moved on to an even bigger Kickstarter success (and one I actually pledged to): Pillars of Eternity. So far, I'm not regretting that pledge one bit.

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Console RPG Cliches

Been trying to play some Legend of Legaia, but I keep getting sidetracked with Banished (PC), a town-creation sim. Honestly, if I could be bothered to hook up my 360, I'd probably go play some New Vegas. Been feeling like patrollin' the Mojave in preparation for the Bethesda E3 stuff, which will TOTALLY (in an unconfirmed capacity) give rise to (probably) Fallout 4 (maybe).

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

So I finished Aquaria.

At first I thought the ending was a little weak, but on further thinking, it does contain a pretty epic multi-stage final boss with some very unique gameplay elements.

In fact, most bosses in Aquaria really are puzzle bosses -- few of them are actually all that straightforward. One of the really, really nice things about Aquaria is that its control scheme really makes lots of gameplay options very quickly accessible -- sing to access an alternate form, rather than going into a menu and switching items or abilities. This makes the gameplay much, much smoother.

And for a person like me, who actually never really likes quickly switching between different weapons in a game, switching between forms turned out to be really, really intuitive and enjoyable.

And then there's the best ending, which leads to a tantalizing sequel hook...

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I also started, then completed, Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure.

It's an action-adventure game made by Falcom -- the same people behind the Ys games as well as the Legend of Heroes series. Gurumin was first released on PC in 2004, then an English translation was published by Mastiff in 2007 for PSP. Mastiff has now translated and published the game in English on PC, and it was released less than a month ago, at such distributors as GOG and Steam.

Gurumin stars a little girl who moves into a small mining town, where there are no other children. But she soon discovers that there's a population of friendly monsters, whom only children can see, who live in a monster village through a portal right behind a wall with a convenient hole she can crawl through. She ends up picking up a legendary drill in the monster world, and embarks on a quest to save it from the phantoms, fighting against the forces of the Phantom Prince who seems bent on destroying the monster -- and human worlds! The story and characters have the charm and style of a nice children's story or TV show, and is certainly family-friendly and even child-friendly -- and I mean that in a good way.

The game is sort of a cross between an action RPG and a Zelda game. The world of monsters is organized into distinct levels, and helping your monster friends consists of going through those levels and bringing back things important to them. Doing so unlocks other levels. Every few levels there's a boss battle in a separate level. There are also a few levels where there are minigames. (Sadly, the mine cart level isn't one...) Every region in the game consists of five levels: two levels that you need to beat to get to the boss, a boss level, and then two more "shadow" levels that are reversed and mirror-imaged versions of the other two levels (ehh...), but with a different set of enemies, obstacles, and treasure placement.

There's a fair bit of exploring to do in each level. You get rated based on how many enemies you defeat and how many chests and jars you've opened. Doing all of that gets you a gold medal and rank S or higher, and these medals can be exchanged for equipment. A few levels are somewhat devious about where they put their things...but most are pretty straightforward. There's a lot more than just chests to open, jars to break, and enemies to defeat, though -- a large number of objects in each stage can be destroyed by the drill (some requiring a charged drill swing), dropping coins and occasionally opening up secrets. (Do note that a fully-charged attack is actually a distinct attack from a partly-charged attack -- a partial-charge allows you to break harder objects and change direction but you stay put, while a full charge makes you (literally) charge forward.)

What isn't as straightforward is the camera sometimes. The camera can be rotated in most places, but it tries to not place itself "inside" a wall, and as a result sometimes the camera can be a little disorienting when you try to move it to your liking. It also auto-changes the perspective as you move, rather than necessarily staying static relative to your character, which occasionally (but thankfully not often) makes some platforming a little challenging. It also usually doesn't bounce back to another perspective if you're not moving, making it thankfully better than Mario 64's camera.

Equipment comes in the form of hats that have gameplay properties, such as reducing/nullifying damage from water, poison gas, or traps, or increasing attack power or damage reduction. A few hats can be bought in town, a few can be gotten by acquiring medals (from completing stages and doing well enough at minigames), but the rest come from "mystery bags" that are treasure items you can find. To get all of them you'll need to play the game more than once, but they're certainly not all needed to get the best ending. I actually kinda liked how this game was relatively light on the equipment side of things, rather than making a large number of equipment items that players would generally not care much about.

Hats can be upgraded by spending scrap, improving their attributes or adding new attributes. You get scrap by defeating enemies who are carrying items or drilling the items off of them and then picking up the scrap. While the first upgrade costs only 10 scrap, further upgrades cost more -- the last upgrade, from level 4 to level 5, costs 999 scrap -- and scrap isn't that easy to come by. Fortunately, you probably won't need to get any hat to level 5 to get the best ending.

What you will need to do to get that best ending, though, is to defeat the bonus boss. As this is a Falcom game after all, said bonus boss is not at all easy. It's definitely possible to beat said bonus boss with a full set of recovery items and two or three upgraded hats -- this is exactly what I did, and I'm darn proud of it! -- but it's probably more sensible to get a certain bonus upgrade before you tackle this boss. You'll be able to find platinum medals hidden throughout the game, and if you can get all 11 of them, you can trade them to a certain other NPC for a very useful upgrade to you drill. A good thing is that none of these platinum medals require you to perfect your performance in any of the minigames or defeat particularly tough enemies -- they're just a matter of standing in particular spots, and then presents will appear. (They also don't count toward completion ranking.) Do keep in mind that you don't actually get to make a game clear save unless you get the best ending, though -- you can certainly defeat the final boss and get an ending, and it's a nice ending, but if you want to do New Game + and unlock the harder difficulties, you'll need to tackle this bonus boss.

The art -- both in town and in the monster world -- is pretty, and the characters are cute and memorable. The music is also pretty nice -- and happens to touch on a number of styles that you might not have ever guessed that Falcom jdk Sound Team ever knew how to do if all you've heard of them is their epic symphonic/metal Ys offerings, such as a jazzy opening theme, eurobeat, and...noise techno? Regardless of the style, most of the tracks feature a pretty nice lively beat to them, and this is important because there's actually a beat display at the top of the screen -- if you hit the attack button with the beat, you do a critical hit. In addition to dealing more damage, every time you do 100 crits, you get to level up your drill. A leveled-up drill (up to level 3) deals more damage and can even do a few extra attacks (level 3 drill has a ranged attack, for example, though you'll pretty much mostly be using the melee attacks anyway).

The game comes with English voicing in the cutscenes, which I think is done pretty well. It doesn't really match the lip flaps, but I hear that the Japanese voices didn't either. Supposedly, if the game sells well, the publisher (Mastiff) will make Japanese voices available. In any case, you can also disable voices altogether if you prefer.

All in all, a good game, even if it's not as epic as an Ys game. And probably a good choice if you want your child if you don't mind them having a taste of the difficulty of a good solid Falcom game. A little repetitive at times, and a handful of treasures in two late-game areas are very, very difficult to get to, and the camera is wonky at times, but still an enjoyable game game with a fun story and a nice soundtrack.

And, as is proper for a Falcom game, if the music gets awesome, prepare for an ass-kicking. To you, the player, of course.

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Smash Bros, smash bros, smash bros, Fire emblem: shadow dragon, smash bros, smash bros....


MEWTWO TOO OP!

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Excuse me? Would you mind not talking while I'm interupting?

Quote (HolyCeles @ 28th April 2015 14:01)

Smash Bros, smash bros, smash bros, Fire emblem: shadow dragon, smash bros, smash bros....


MEWTWO TOO OP!

I haven't been able to play it yet, schoolz 'n stuff, I'm jealous!

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Praise Be To Helix!

Currently I'm trying to beat FFVI. Anyone who says that Kefka is an easy boss is someone who clearly over-prepared for fighting him. I've been having a hard time with him, but repeating the battle is just going to add nostalgia for me, like fighting Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time .

On that note, I'm replaying The Wind Waker for the umpteenth time, it's a very good game. People complain about being "too cartoony" but it's actually a fairly depressing game (for a Zelda title.).

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"I'll be judge, I'll be jury," said cunning old Fury:
"I'll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.

Quote (Ker @ 29th April 2015 18:12)

Currently I'm trying to beat FFVI. Anyone who says that Kefka is an easy boss is someone who clearly over-prepared for fighting him. I've been having a hard time with him, but repeating the battle is just going to add nostalgia for me, like fighting Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time .

On that note, I'm replaying The Wind Waker for the umpteenth time, it's a very good game. People complain about being "too cartoony" but it's actually a fairly depressing game (for a Zelda title.).

Is this your first time?

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Praise Be To Helix!

Crypt of the Necrodancer! A rythme game roguelike. I cannot stand randomly generated dungeon crawlers...but this game proves I'm willing dance to one!



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Arts

Farts

Twarts

Quote (BlitzSage @ 29th April 2015 19:01)

Quote (Ker @ 29th April 2015 18:12)

Currently I'm trying to beat FFVI. Anyone who says that Kefka is an easy boss is someone who clearly over-prepared for fighting him.  I've been having a hard time with him, but repeating the battle is just going to add nostalgia for me, like fighting Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time .

On that note, I'm replaying The Wind Waker for the umpteenth time,  it's a very good game. People complain about being "too cartoony" but it's actually a fairly depressing game (for a Zelda title.).

Is this your first time?

It would be my first time beating the game completely. Granted, the ending was spoiled for me a long time ago, but I still fell in love with VI. I've played before a few times, but never managed to beat it. (I think that the reason I never beat it was a combined factor of Kefka scaring me as a child and then having the controller handed to me halfway through the game- I wasn't fond if the way the CG cutscenes looked, either. I have the Wii Virtual Console version of it now.)
Kind of like Wild ARMS (the original). I picked it up again two years ago, and then I beat it after ten years. I'd never gotten past the beginning in that one, honestly.

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"I'll be judge, I'll be jury," said cunning old Fury:
"I'll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.

Quote (Ker @ 30th April 2015 20:32)

Quote (BlitzSage @ 29th April 2015 19:01)

Quote (Ker @ 29th April 2015 18:12)

Currently I'm trying to beat FFVI. Anyone who says that Kefka is an easy boss is someone who clearly over-prepared for fighting him.  I've been having a hard time with him, but repeating the battle is just going to add nostalgia for me, like fighting Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time .

On that note, I'm replaying The Wind Waker for the umpteenth time,  it's a very good game. People complain about being "too cartoony" but it's actually a fairly depressing game (for a Zelda title.).

Is this your first time?

It would be my first time beating the game completely. Granted, the ending was spoiled for me a long time ago, but I still fell in love with VI. I've played before a few times, but never managed to beat it. (I think that the reason I never beat it was a combined factor of Kefka scaring me as a child and then having the controller handed to me halfway through the game- I wasn't fond if the way the CG cutscenes looked, either. I have the Wii Virtual Console version of it now.)
Kind of like Wild ARMS (the original). I picked it up again two years ago, and then I beat it after ten years. I'd never gotten past the beginning in that one, honestly.

Sometimes that happens with games. I had a similar experience with FFVIII, Chrono Trigger also. Sometimes, having a difficult time completing a game can make the memories of that game fonder.

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Praise Be To Helix!