I think they balanced it expecting people to know about the first few warp zones at least, it even sort of invites you to take the underground warp zone in 4-2.
But this is also why VS is my favorite version, it changes some of the original levels and replaces a few others with ones from 2j
The games Iāve been playing lately are too flashy, too triple-A and pretty. Makes me want to play something rougher, kind of strange. Somethingā¦ CLAY. Iām trolling through my steam list and I may have found it:
May report back with my findings.
Continuing to play too much Football Manager, I should update that thread sometime. Iām currently trying to win the league in each of the top 5 European leagues, Iāve done Italy with Torino, Spain with Real Madrid, and Germany with Dortmund. Iāve managed to win the Championās League while at Torino and the Europa League with Dortmund. Just France and England to go.
Also grabbed the Tony Hawk remake. Itās uh, real damn good, even though I suck at it.
My wife is replaying Oxenfree, which she must like, although the Katamari remake remains her favorite recent game release. After chatting about games this week, sheās also downloaded Baba is You; she hasnāt loaded it up yet.
I have just found out about, played, and am delighted by the existence of Space Fantasy Zone for Arduboy.
Okay all your jokes got to me I played Snood. Whatās wrong with you people this isnāt even a joke this is disgusting.
is no joke, it is Selectbuttonās favorite game
Iām in a desperate sprint to finish the āHorrific Visionsā content in retail WoW before the Shadowlands prepatch hits next month, but the timing of the vision rotations is such that I canāt make any progress on new masks until Tuesday, so. I used that as an excuse to try Paradise Killer on Steam, mostly because I read a comment from some impassioned player exhorting people to play it as a completely undirected detective game, sort of an āOuter Wildsā for murder mysteries.
Almost immediately upon starting up, the game presents its vaporwave/cosmic horror/virtual class war cosmology in text whose composition inspires no confidence. The protagonist (āLady Love Diesā) could not finish her opening statements before I turned the game off in dismay at the dialog.
I decided to just try to power through my distaste, and Iām glad Iām doing so, because the game IS exciting me with its possibilities after only a few additional minutes of play. It really feels like theyāre trying to invoke a similar feeling to Transistor mixed with Hypnospace Outlaw, but thereās just a little too much cliche, just not quite enough imagination to pull it off. Still, the investigational options here are promising.
Iām actually enjoying Paradise killer a lot! The worst parts of the writing are at least better than the worst parts of Danganronpa and Zero escape (Danganronpa 2 being the closest equivalent to this game)
The gameās structure is peculiar as itās like one giant Phoenix Wright/ Danganronpa case with 95% of the game being exploration / talking and the end being the trial.
Itās a tad difficulty as you have to remember the murder mystery elements AND learn how the deeply weird setting works, and the game never challenges you to make sure youāre keeping track until the very end which only comes afterā¦ 10 hours? Probably?
The megajank first person 3D exploration / collectible searching with no conflict is super fun IMO and where the vaporware aesthetic shines the most. I love jankily jumping on roofs in an empty world to find items that make the world slightly more understandable and additional music tracks for the in-game playlist
One part of the world that unsettles me a lot is that all the characters are likeā¦ semi-immortal demi-gods who are regularly abducting, enslaving and slaughtering humans from the real world (as in Earth) to resurrect dead gods and when confronted on that point they basically go Ā« eeeh you know. We do what we gotta do. Gotta resurrect them dead gods Ā»
Itās tempting to fight against it in-game but could that make me a hypocrite? Thatās a better justification than the one we have for justifying the meat and diary industries I still support, and that we similarly impose on lower intelligence lifeforms. dang I hate being confronted about this
This casual dismissal of human life is a small part of the game but it sort of permeates everything for me, I love/hate it
Also in this game you unlock a double-jump by getting a nice footbath
Hoping to dive into this over the weekend. I love the character art and general aesthetic Iāve seen from it so far.
Finally beat SMB! I recommend the save-states at beginning of levels only.
8-1 was an endurance run, hundreds of enemies lining a marathon of pits and climaxing in a horrible gappy staircase to the flagpole (this becomes a running theme in world 8).
8-2 is a madcap combination of bullets and Lakitu. The only level I could find a prominently placed 1-up presumably to reward players who had come this far with theoretically infinite retries. Has an absolutely gnarly jump midway.
8-3 an educational course on Hammer Bros. theory and practice. You will learn that Hammer Bros. arenāt really that scary but require patience and slow spacing. Again the course ends in a nervegrater.
8-4 the real SMB starts here. Every conceivable skill and setpiece (minus Lakitu and bullets) is tested here. I love how abruptly the Bowser fight shows up to trigger you to rush in and die. Every facet of this level is designed to punish the impatient. Most cruel of all, the world starts you on a descending staircase in front of a wide lava pit which will kill the frustrated player holding sprint fresh from a death. I specifically worked on getting through the level without a scratch to maintain a power-up I acquired in 8-3. I shamelessly take 9 hammers to the face and win.
Congratulations!
I used to be able to run through all of SMB, non-warp, in about 20 minutes or under on original hardware. Doubt I could do that now. Itās a sublime game though. I really like how at a full speed run you can just barely clear the piranha plants in world 4-1. Like the Mario sprite just slightly overlaps a little with the piranha plantās but it doesnāt count as a hit. Exhilarating to do that.
Iāve been trying to get into SMB2j lately since it is basically a continuation from 8-4. Itās really tough and I donāt make it very far when I play but if Iām willing to stick to it I know eventually I can see the end of it. Maybe.
so you are saying this game is best played with a physical notepad at hand, taking notes and putting together connections? that sounds amazing! 
World 8 was my waterloo as a kid and itās one of my favorite sets of levels ever now. 8-1 is i think the longest level in the game set against one of the shortest timers, it expects you to fuckin beat feet start to finish and is really fun when played that way. The second half of SMB2J is built on the back of 8-1, you are practically demanded to speedrun in order to finish that game
I like this too, but I also really like how 4-1 in the VS version is different enough to mess with your muscle memory the first time you play it. Up to that point youād probably only notice a few differences if you took the most efficient path
Played Gorf last night. What a weird, lovable game. I was a little buzzed, but it struck me as surprisingly cinematic lol. I love the laser and how you can hold the shoot to continue committing to it
Going to reinstall Ikaruga. I was reading the game resources page for Umihara Kawase on TASVideos and it likened it to Ikaruga as a game thatās difficult to play but easy to finish, and that reminded me of the discussion about it recently in one of the top 64 threads.
Took a break from my Twitch Prime backlog to play a vidyagame on my dang Playstation 4
Bound is a really beautiful game. I absolutely adore its aesthetic. (Iām just a sucker for minimalist polygon shit okay).
Itās not challenging in the slightest, which is a shame. The player avatar moves like a ballerina and I think the ballet āmove setā so to speak could really make for a compelling action game if it were developed that way. Alas itās just motif. Each level is a memory from the protagonistās childhood presented as sort of an interpretive dance through a platforming level. That probably makes it sound cooler than it is, although really itās such a treat to look at that I kept playing even past the point of the mechanics getting kinda boring. (And the devs clearly knew this because they put in a photo mode thatāll even let you hide the player avatar).
The gameās whole soundscape grated on me though, woof. I played with the sound turned pretty far down so I wouldnāt have to listen to it.
If youāve got access to this game somehow, play it for an hour or two thereās some really cool visual flair that I think is pleasing enough to warrant some of your time. Or watch a Letās Play I guess, that works too.
Bound is a neat little slice and resonated with me as someone who, as a child, witnessed many prolonged home arguments resulting in my parentsā divorce. I found a lot of the fun was just exploring the moveset but it is a shame that it doesnāt really ādoā anything. Iād love to see more games experiment with incorporating dance into movement.
One of the coolest things this game does is provide you with a computer that constantly tracks all the leads you need to investigate, collates your notes about individual suspects and victims, gives you a timeline and a map, and summarize each person you meet in an introductory spiel that they often seem dryly amused by, considering your character already knows most of the characters youāll interact with. (Donāt be dismayed about the ācomputer AR vision modeā like I wasāitās literally only for determining the location of characters, save points, and computers in the world. You donāt need it, and itās not something you want to rely on. You need to focus on the environment itself.) Folks were right to compare it to the Outer Wilds computer; it summarizes your discoveries, but it makes no deductions about what it all means or how you can best confirm the stories youāre getting from the people you interview.
Speaking of which, I groaned in delight and despair when I realized that characters become more trusting as you hang out and shoot the breeze about stuff outside the scope of your investigation. Youāve gotta talk to 'em all multiple times anyway, since they all either validate or contradict the stories the others are telling you.
I was a little too harsh on the game initially, I think. I have a very negative reaction to the affected dialogue that omits a lot more commas than it really ought to, but the world itself is grisly and conceptually ambitious. The prime suspect really won me over despite his one-dimensionality.
Like @captainlove, I also finished Super Mario Bros. for the first time last night. I was only allowing myself saves at the start of each world until I finally arrived at 8-4 after much struggle with 8-3. At the start of 8-4, I had fire power but only 1 life. I recalled that 8-4 is a maze level that frequently sends you back to previous points, and I doubted Iād ever make it back here from 8-1 with fire power again. So I abused save states at two points in the level to reset lost maze progress, and then I incinerated Bowser with fire balls.
