Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 9, 2018 9:30:29 GMT -8
Speaking of roguelikes, I've been playing Crypt of the Necrodancer on Switch, and it is an absolute blast. It's a fairly basic turn-based, tile-based roguelike with the twist that instead of the turns only moving when you perform an action, the turns always move forward on a steady beat synced to the music. Thus, unlike most roguelikes where you have as much time to be analytical as you want, you have to think very quickly and recognize patterns of enemy movement as you go along. It's on every current platform, so you can probably get it no matter what you own, and I highly recommend it. If you can play Crypt of the Necrodancer with a DDR pad, do it. SO FUN.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 10, 2018 13:13:18 GMT -8
Sounds fun, but I'd have to go purchase a DDR pad and and rebuy the game on PC... I'm tempted to buy it on Steam next time there's a big sale just for the ability to import your own music, though.
Anyway, I've been playing Skyrim a ton and am absolutely loving it, so I thought I'd go over some of the pros and cons from my experience, especially compared to the sorts of games I normally play that are smaller and more focused in their scope.
+The lore is very deep, with all kinds of different cultures and conflicts present, and there are a lot of large cities and settlements. More than other game, Skyrim's world really feels like a place that people live in, and not just a video game overworld full of monsters to fight and chests to loot.
+Combat and play style options are quite varied, you can choose between melee combat, archery, magic, or any combination of the three that you want. The game rarely restricts you to making you choose just one thing to be, or giving you only one path forward in a combat encounter. Combat requires you to be pretty tactful too, there have been times that I've played the same encounter over several times before finally finding the ideal approach that didn't get me killed.
+Soooooo much content. I can certainly believe that this game is 300+ hours if you do everything.
-Movement does feel rather clunky and takes some getting used to. Compared to the freedom afforded in Breath of the Wild, moving around in Skyrim feels like driving a tank.
-The clothing items on your character often clip through each other and look glitchy. Unless you're wearing a matched set of clothes, chances are your outfit will have pieces of clothing awkwardly sticking into each other.
-The graphics have not aged all that well, and this is part of the reason why I prefer cartoony graphics over realistic ones; "real"-looking models will look impressive when they are first released, but always have at least a hint of uncanniness to them, and will be quickly outclassed by games that come just a couple years later. On the other hand, games with a well-defined art style tend to look good forever. Compare Skyrim to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which came out the same year. Skyward Sword still looks great, Skyrim has been one-upped by any similar game that's come out recently.
-This is the only particularly substantial complain I have; I'm not sure what to call it, exactly, but there's very little... "moral consistency," I guess you could say. By that, what I mean is that the game may present you with a quest that portrays you as a selfless hero one minute, only to later present you with one where the only way to finish it turns out to be to mercilessly sacrifice an innocent old man to an evil spirit. A lot of quests require you to be "evil" to complete them, which awkwardly conflicts with the ones where you have to be "good" in ways that break narrative immersion. But it doesn't seem to matter, because the game doesn't really keep track of your moral compass, and you can basically do whatever terrible things you want and the people who view you as a hero will still think you're a hero. The moral choices you make only affect how people in your current quest will view you, and usually has zero effect on what anyone else thinks. The game also doesn't give you much leeway to form your own consistent idea of who your character is, since the only way for your character to make morally consistent choices is to simply not do the 50% of quests that require you to break your character's moral code, whatever that code may be.
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Post by Zarnium on Jul 3, 2018 4:50:51 GMT -8
Oh my God, why didn't anyone tell me about Rocket League sooner?? This game is awesome!
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Post by Zarnium on Nov 16, 2018 20:52:35 GMT -8
Grim Fandango has been ported to the Switch! I gotta check it out, finally.
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Post by ThirdMan on Nov 16, 2018 22:53:24 GMT -8
I still haven't bought a single cartridge for the Switch. I have Super Mario Odyssey, Sonic Mania, Hollow Knight, Limbo and Fortnite (which I never play) on the hard drive, and my copy of Zelda: BotW is for the Wii-U, but no full-priced, bought hard copies of anything.
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Post by Jay on Nov 17, 2018 8:58:53 GMT -8
One shining light in these dark (dork?) times is how much easier it's become to get what games you want on the system that you want. For example, just the other day Killer7 came out on Steam, a game that I had wanted but missed in its original Gamecube incarnation. And hardly the only one, as I was poking around and discovered that I could download something like Ninja Gaiden Sigma through the PS store for $20 rather than go through a third-party to get a possibly damaged used copy for $60-70. A number of companies appear to be reviving old IPs through ports to more modern systems, like Sega has done (and frankly needed to do) with Shenmue 1 & 2, previously only available if you had a Dreamcast. For the record, I have known exactly one person who had a Dreamcast.
It's not perfect and many companies are lagging behind there, to say nothing of localizing to begin with, but it's exciting to see finally happen. Now if only we could get Steam to organize titles under one publisher instead of six thousand variations on that core name. "IS IT CAPCOM OR CAPCOM, CO, LTD LOL I DON'T KNOW"
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Post by ThirdMan on Nov 17, 2018 13:40:33 GMT -8
The thing that drives me nuts, at least with the Nintendo systems, is that downloaded games are tied to your Nintendo Network account. Which means if you decide to sell a Wii-U or Switch down the road, and want to clear your account off the console, said games go with it (at the very least, they're unplayable by the new owner). Which remains the best argument for continuing to buy cartridges/discs: so you can get more of a return on your financial investment.
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Post by Jay on Nov 17, 2018 18:01:23 GMT -8
That seems backwards... incompatible? Oh god, I'm sorry. But more to the point, I think that the better route would be to do something in the vein of what Steam does and permit a certain number of machines per log-in and a saved library of what you have bought. Anything else seems like extortion.
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Post by Zarnium on Nov 17, 2018 21:50:48 GMT -8
It used to be that digital downloads were linked to one system, and weren't even linked to an account; not only could you not play the games on a different system without doing an entire system transfer, but if your system was lost or destroyed, there wouldn't be any way to recover your eshop purchases. I think they did finally link your purchases to your Nintendo account, so you don't lose everything if you lose your system, but you still can't play them on a different system without doing a system transfer, nor can you send the games to a different account. A lot of people are not happy with this, and still buy physical whenever possible because physical games can be loaned to others or resold. Things are a bit better in the PC landscape, where physical releases have all but disappeared, but digital downloads for consoles still kind of suck.
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Post by ThirdMan on Nov 29, 2018 0:11:33 GMT -8
With all the Black Friday sales this past week (even in Canada), I finally grabbed a PS4. Here's what I bought:
ITB PS4 with Spider-Man disc - $260
Discs:
Batman: Arkham Knight - $13 used God of War - $30 Horizon: Zero Dawn $30 Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain - $16 used NHL 18 - $10 used NieR Automata - $20 Red Dead Redemption 2 - full price Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor - $16 used Uncharted 4 - $13 used The Witcher III: Wild Hunt (Complete w/ DLC) - $25
Online PSN Downloads:
Return to Arkham: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City (Updated Graphics) - $6.50 The Last of Us (Remastered) - $5.25 Persona 5 - $20
After installing and updating all of these games on the hard drive, I've only got 180G of storage left. But they'll keep me busy for a good long while (heh).
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Post by Jay on Jan 8, 2019 12:27:43 GMT -8
I'm playing through Persona 5 now and five dungeons in and I can claim conclusively without a shadow of doubt that Morgana is a cat.
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Post by Zarnium on Jan 10, 2019 20:31:08 GMT -8
I'll play Persona 5 if it comes to the Switch, which it might considering that Joker is the first DLC Super Smash Bros. Ultimate character that's been revealed. Strangely, there's been no official announcement that the game is being ported, but it would be very strange for a character who's never appeared on a Nintendo console to be a Smash Bros. fighter.
Speaking of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it's fantastic! What more is there to say? It's Smash Bros, you know what it is.
I finished Grim Fandango some time ago. It's pretty good, especially in the story department, but gameplay-wise, it's almost unbearably clunky at times. Because the camera angles are fixed due to the pre-rendered backgrounds, it's easy to load the next area and then immediately walk out of it by mistake because the camera angle changed and you didn't change your walking direction fast enough. There were also several times where I figured out the solution to a puzzle, but thought I got it wrong because when I tried to complete it, I was just a few pixels off from where the game wanted me to be to interact with the environment, so nothing happened. Other times, the items that you can interact with are so small or blend in to the background so well that they're practically invisible, and some of the puzzles are just so bizarrely convoluted I never would have figured them out in a million years without hints. I mean, who would have guessed that in order to gain enough money to buy a gun, you have to sell pantyhose gained from another character who takes them off when she burns them from her cigar ashes because you moved her ashtray out of the way at the exact right time?
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 10, 2019 20:51:31 GMT -8
Yeah, puzzles, or just basic means of progressing, can be way too vague in some games. I don't have enough spare time to wander around aimlessly in a game for hours, so I'll always consult YouTube after I'm stuck for a while.
I wish I were more into the Smash franchise. I bought the Wii U version for $25 a number of months ago, and have barely played it. Maybe a couple of hours in total. So my Switch will lay dormant for another couple of months, 'cuz I'm not buying the new Smash, as it appears to be just more of the same.
I DO own the digital version of Persona 5 for the PS4, which I'll probably not get to for a couple of months. Working on Red Dead Redemption 2 right now, after having played through Arkham Knight and Spider-Man in recent weeks.
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Post by Jay on Jan 12, 2019 12:54:16 GMT -8
I'm so out of the Smash loop that I don't know if I ever even heard. That's definitely cool for the franchise. Under its prior existence as an independent studio, I don't know that I would have seen that coming since they tend to give first dibs to Sony and then use Nintendo for their handhelds, but Sega bought them out a while ago and from the looks of it a new Shin Megami Tensei game is announced for the Switch, so it could be that they're going to use the Switch for the second release of Persona 5, since it's a tradition of getting a main game and then another version with more content later.
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Post by Jay on Jan 28, 2019 15:32:08 GMT -8
I should have more thoughts about P5 once I finally clear it; I've been blissfully sidetracked by the RE2 Remake and in that spirit, here is a mod I wish were real:
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