dunno if looking forward to or being scared of
Wildermyth really is lovely so far? The childrenās pop-up book-adjacent artstyle is not exactly a draw for me, but if itās in service of a narration this good and personalized, I can live with it. Canāt remember the last time a Western fantasy videogame managed to strike this particular tone: fairytale-like but not twee, skillfully juggling standard tropes only to keep keying on some deeply human sentiments as a punchline. The tabletop storytelling is shockingly engaging and coherent and feels like something SaGa Scarlet Grace was only able to gesture towards from time to time, the comicbook-like presentation of story events is ingenious in the ways it balances repetitive assetwork with unique touches, SRPG combat is as breezy as it should be while making environment-based actions delightful, and every level up upgrade is substantial in a way that makes me really attached to my characters. Looks like 2021ās Top 3 so far for me, hope it can keep up.
9 Likes
I bought a new television a couple weeks ago, and it has a Steam Link remote-play app on it, that works much better than the actual Steam Link hardware ever did for me, so I used it to play through recently-released noir-adventure Backbone. It has exceedingly beautiful outdoor environments and talking animal people solving mysteries: you canāt ask for much more than that, really, imo, thatās two big red checkmarks from me.
I didnāt read up on it at all, beforehand, and probably better not to if one intends to play themselves.
There are only five or six of those exceedingly beautiful outdoor environments, and about two-thirds of the way through it reveals itself as actually not really a loveable private investigation corrupt-elite sleuth-em-up but a v. serious visual novel rumination onā¦post-apocalyptic walled-city burnout rebellion? and body+mind parasite horror? and the often widely divergent dialog trees have no effect on events at all? and has a hold-walk-for-30secs-to-die-in-the-wasteland ending? and I dunno, Iām not sure about all this, asking a lot there friendos.
Rough around the edges, and gets dumb there at the end; but thereās some fun+pretty stuff to see, I donāt regret it.
5 Likes
Itās also set in Vancouver, or at least thatās what the local press ran with recently. Thatās excuse enough for me to never play it, imao.
1 Like
Backbone didnāt work for me; more than anything, the lack of consistency in character voices killed it. Street punks and spurned wives and bouncers all spoke in the same voice and just failed to continue the work that the excellent art put forward. Another one of those games representing a world outside the circle of āgame & tech workersā but utterly unconvincing at it.
2 Likes
played EDF4.1 with @aislesgrises for seven hours, possibly one of the best co-op experiences Iāve ever had
16 Likes
Control is a really good game but also it has enough times where itās a fucking terrible game that itās hard to stomach
like, you make your way through a cool as fuck set piece and then go āalright, thatās enough for tonightā and quit it because itās a modern game which popped up a little saving indicator, of course your progress is saved, and quit the game, forgetting that itāll spawn you before the set piece you just finished next time you start it 
9 Likes
Iāve been playing yakuza games for 5 years straight, Iām no longer an idol and am now an ex-baseball player. I canāt remember what the plot of this game originally was. they should set one of these games in branson where you play a past his prime show performer who is indebt to the mob and ultimately have to take on the king of branson himself, shoji tabuchi, on top of the zipline tower. he just doesnāt get it, and you have to punch him until he does, and then he is needlessly shot by a henchman who never will get it.
13 Likes
That baseball player has maybe the most egregious part of the whole series
I woman going into debt so being forced to work at a blowjob club and then complaining about her sore jaw.
2 Likes
Weirdest part of that sidestory is the woman is a real person, I wonder how much they told her about it when they got permission to use her name and likeness
2 Likes
Sounds to me like they should make a porn Yakuza game so they can get that stuff out of their system. Like, put sleazy stuff in sleazy games and keep it out of the mainline games. Itās all about context. If itās a porn game that doesnāt take itself seriously and serves up a certain fantasy Iām cool with that stuff but if you put it in a game with a different theme and tone it just comes off as you making fun of the exploitation of women. Thatās not cool at all
(Have to mention I havenāt played the game and am just going off of what Rude said)
4 Likes
In other news the best thing about FF7R is not the music anymore but the fact that a shopkeeper legit and verbatim calls Cloud a āpunk-ass bitchā
This game is great.
And now Iām glad I play in English. Although I wonder what he says in German and French.
5 Likes
Ohh! So were naughty words the real reason the IC podcast did that whole episode about how the French dub was superior? How do those guys listen to Ice T, or do anything else cool?
5 Likes
i gotta take the time to actually figure out which EDF game is which and dig into these sometime
1 Like
Just play whatever the latest numbered main entry is. So currently, that is 5. The side games are a little more varying in quality, but the main ones are always good.
3 Likes
my insights, stolen
3 Likes
after 6 games from kiryuās perspective I canāt believe blowjobs even exist in the yakuza universe
18 Likes
I canāt speak to that but if it is it sounds a bit like a joyless existence. I mean I get Timās anti-cursing stance but he is, as always, a special case.
I had to laugh because Claudo Kuradobery McWild Strife is the opposite of punky in this game and Iām not convinced heās much of a bitch either but Iād be more willing to be convinced of the latter than the former. There is cursing in this but I didnāt feel like it was out of place so far. But sure is different from the FF7 I know/knew/thought I knew
Kind of thinking about changing my title to punk-ass bitch but donāt do it mods, Iāll fucking get you. I canāt believe that one line made not just my day but two days in a row now. Iāll for sure start a new game at some point, play up to there, record it and change it to all the different languages, if someone hasnāt already done that
2 Likes
torneko no daibouken, the first mystery dungeon game, is kind of odd. obviously, thereās a lot of missing quality of life stuff that iām used to from the later games, but also iām not even sure that you even have to finish the dungeon?
your whole motivation seems to be to fetch back increasing amounts of gold from the dungeon to keep upgrading your shop/house. (which is an interesting parallel to olden days ttrpgs, isnāt it? also iirc, fatal labyrinth on the mega drive gave you a better grave on the game over screen based on how much gold you had when you died lol)
8 Likes