vomiting orb is one of those moods i hear the young talking about all the time
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Count the powercells, suckaduck
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@Mikey after a long night on the town
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@stavekoff is once again on my wavelength but 2 years early, just like Fairune. Iām about 3/4 of the way through this and itās a bite sized delight. Like Wonder Boy butā¦ nicer, I guess? Great spritework too. Iāll post a bunch of screenshots later, but I think itās still 3 bucks on switch so I highly recommend it.
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Good news
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I have come away extremely impressed with 32xās Metal Head. It is by far the best 32x game (itās a B- game). It has best of the decade camera options that always just work. You can change the speed of the soundtrack. There are secret Anime portraits. Itās a playable 3D Mech action console game.
Put it in 2021 a curiosity, place it back in 1995 and it is best in class. It got terrible/middling reviews which makes sense for the time.
Iām just sorry I had @boojiboy7 play this because I guess weāre devoted to the other 25 games on the 32x and it is not going to get better.
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Gotta get to the top of the hill to appreciate how far down this roller coaster iām gonna go.
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Disco Elysium is embarrassingly better at critically engaging with its own themes than most games. I really wish timeās passage was not tied to conversation. It makes some sense and prevents their being a time pressure on the player but too many days I found myself unable to go to bed because it was too early and I had no one really left talk to which meant I to explore dialogue options and read books that my roleplay wouldnāt really. Frustrating that there is no option to just wait for time to pass a la Deadly Premonition.
The voices/skills in your head work as an effective way to unreliably GM. It was very interesting to learn quite late in the game that the voices can lie to you even outside of failing a check.
They managed to do quite a lot with a very small space. Everything is extremely densely written and I was wondering if you could do a similar thing with other forms of RPG. Where other RPG usually provides some combat/loot loop to take up the bulk of the game play this game basically just has very well written conversations that are just as fun to grind through. The lesson Iām taking from this is that itās just genuinely hard to write good fiction or that developers do not care to trust the player to enjoy good fiction alone.
If I have one criticism about the games approach to ideologies, itās that for as much as it mocks certain ideologies it seemed to me that its attempt was to point out the cons of everything. I assume this is intentional since the game references its own dialogue structure as basically being:
A: fascism
B: communism
C: capitalism
D: none of the above/moralism
It may be just the way my playthrough went but the overriding message seemed to be that ideology is both fascinating but also something a reasonable person should be fed up with, even if they have legitimately committed beliefs that are circumstantially justified. It walks an interesting line between satirising everything but also specifically targeting what the player goes for. In a way this approach is good because it engages the player with critical reflection on why they pick a particular ideology if any and draws the focus of criticism to what the player opts in too.
On second thought this is in so much criticism as it is a reflection on my own time with the game. I think it is very elegantly touches upon almost every concept and issue relating to human existence and belief systems and it can feel like the themes are getting away with themselves when there is so much critical discourse. Itās kind of like the way that you canāt really immerse yourself into something if you are also actively reflecting on it, you must split the energy.
I was also disappointed to learn that the phasmid appearing at the end is not in response to player choices but something that can happen to anyone. It felt like a really special moment as I was all in on cryptozoology and it felt like a great reward. Just another reason why you shouldnāt ask the GM too many questions after the session.
Excellent game that makes other game writing laughable.
Still ploughing along with SMT: Nocturne. At been streaming it with a friend which is fun to get that single player co-op experience going again. Itās the perfect game for this kind of thing. Iām in the late game and weāre slowly starting to look up certain things like abilities and which Demons learn what. The dungeon design is both infuriating but also what I really love about the game. Discovering the dungeonās gimmick and basically forming a navigation plan is just everything I want out of this. Yoyogi Park is my favourite so far.
Played Ballistic NG. Did not vibe. Basically got this on the promise of it being like Wipeout but basically every Wipeout/F-Zero-like has felt extremely hollow and floaty. I do what it is with the ship models just feel like they are hollow shells and handling always sucks. I thick I just have to accept that I want to play Wipeout and F-Zero and should just go back and play those.
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There is, you can make time pass by sitting on a bench when kim isnāt with you
if he is with you, I believe the fastest way to pass time might be to play board games with him
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!! I didnāt know this.
I found this out too late but I appreciate there were at least some options. I think I felt it was a bit at odds with the other freedoms that the game gives you to recklessly disregard your job, physical/mental health, others etc. Why canāt I sleep at 8pm, Kim?
I havenāt played them all, but my favorite 32x exclusive is Zaxxonās Motherbase 2000.
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the joy of v-ism dan
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3rd strike feels like slow motion after 200 games of vampire savior
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I remember being disappointed with this while also going down the cryptozoology storyline and being all-in on Dale Cooper style detective work because it ended up feeling a little too āgame pats you on the back and tells you you were rightā, especially contrasting against the self-critical tone of the ideology-related writing.
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Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PS4)
apparently this is supposed to be better than MGSV proper somehow? i really wouldnāt know- i canāt even reach the first objective without getting rumbled
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A friend I havenāt seen in a while came over to hang out. We played through SoR4 together. It was my first time playing. Game fucken slaps! God, I forgot how fun couch co-op is!
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Thanks to whoever said the Panzer Dragoon remake was good.
I had got it on the Switch at launch but that was all just patches and insert credit threads.
Having bought it for cheap on the ps4 it made me think of the Panzer Dragoon saga.
From memory 1 is the one where you take on the Empire, sack the capital, leave the world to ruin because some dying guy gives you his dragoon and thereās a tower
Zwei is the prequel with the seminal moment of pupae dragoon jumping off a cliff and growing wings and that forest level is still the ultimate representation of an environment. It was also on the same demo disk as Baku Baku Animal. Then there is a tower and you die.
I canāt remember where Saga fits in the saga. Is it after 1, is it a new Empire? Or does it save that for Orta?
I have not played Saga since 2004. I was in that dungeon that Edge and Azel fall into with no dragoon, I still am.
Did they ever fix the PAL bug on 360 Orta where the game crashes on level 5(?). What a cliffhanger!
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it may have been me though as I recall my verdict was more like āit seems artless at first blush but itās much more likable in the end than youād thinkā
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Sorry I think it was a Loki post from a few days ago ;_;
The remake caused me to think about PAnzer Dragoon in general so it may be the most successful remake I have played. Although they really should have chucked in the Windows version of the original.
A Zwei remake is a far trickier proposition. Starting with the desperate flight(!) that is the first third. I was never able to get to the final third of the original but itās one of the few longplays Iāve ever bothered with. The hellish soundscape of the last boss - constant lock on chimes - really conveys the idea of 2 evenly matched opponents going hammer and tongs.
And then the Saga battle system. I think itās the only game that has ever made executing the same rote boss strategy for a half hour feel satisfying and cathartic. And then just pissing about morphing the dragon to change stats.
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