why does warriors orochi 4 feel so much worse than the nintendo ones? is it the jump instead of the dodge? is it really that simple?
yes
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Cosmology of Kyoto is another game Iād place in the same wheelhouse as Beyond Blue and AC Discovery Tour. The goal is not education (it doesnāt assess learning of a syllabus) but it takes a specific topic (10th century Kyoto and its surrounding literature and history) and aims to inform the player of it in a direct way.
Unlike the virtual museum of Discovery Tour it embeds the player in specific stories and events rather than being a catch-all summary of an entire culture(s). It gets a bit repetitive but having to enact and encounter these stories makes it more engaging than just reading Cosmologyās copious notes. Some of the stories are simple and curious, others are surreal and grotesque.
Thereās a spirit of Gilliam-esque animation but it is not appropriative of existing art. The similarity is mainly in caricature of human form and limited animation giving birth to horror and preposterousness, often together. It manages to feel very distinct even now and I canāt easily think of any other similar styles.
It was not until I had finished the game that I suddenly recalled that I have actually visited the modern palace grounds and that trudging lengthways alongside its lengthy walls was almost the same experience of navigation in Cosmology where you pace an endless grid of similar walls. It is not a game I would absolutely recommend someone play but it gets a lot of things right aesthetically.
I love that the sky is perpetually in twilight never really feeling like day will break and, by extension, that the misery so many citizens endure will ever end. My favourite sections involve the priest Kuya, a historical figure who was an early proponent of āpure land buddhismā. The game uses him as a sort of thematic stake and is the character most prominently āawareā of the gameās themes. Or at least thatās how I read it. His kindly face still sticks with me long after I finished the game.
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I agree. I do like that you can get some verticality if you need to, but you never really do need to. I still stand by the magic attacks feeling good and by and large making me like the game solely because you get a targeting reticule painted on mooks and shoot out homing lasers as if youāre playing a rail shooter.
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I played a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn now that itās on PC and they finally patched out all the crashes (it didnāt crash on me yet). Thanks @daphaknee for the recommendation
The game is slightly less than the sum of its parts but basically robot hunting in a really pretty version of a postapocalypse is the formula I needed to actually get into the whole Monster Hunter/Witcher type of game (I tried both of those and bounced off quickly). Itās transparently an amalgam of other highly popular games from the last 5-10 years but it feels to me more like a new synthesis than a derivative.
The robot beast premise is fundamentally clever and solves a lot of game design problems all at once. Above all, it justifies and makes natural the objectifying relationship that the player has with the beasts. There are horse-like āmountā robots and you can either slaughter them for parts or make them your ally and ride them around. It doesnāt force you to name them like in BotW and itās not weird to leave them alone in the middle of the desert while you fast travel elsewhere.
And of course, there are gigantic beasts minding their own business and you challenge them and whittle them down with a hail of arrows and traps, but thereās not that undertone of malaise that SotC leaned into and Monster Hunter tries to sweep under the rug. Yes, this is the āeasyā solution and SotCās contradiction-maintaining one was more profound. But itās perfect for comfort food in the middle of a year where I want comfort food and have my fill of ethical ambiguity.
The writing is overall workaday but there are occasional real highlights. I was impressed by the intro script which initially felt to me like it was doing something very subtle and clever: sounding like a translation of untranslatable future-nomad language into English, and therefore necessarily stilted. I still think this is a little bit of whatās going on, but it quickly became obvious that I was also giving it too much credit. Itās mostly that the writing has no concept of prose style and no real idea how to engage with the cultural chasm it sets up. Especially as the game advances it increasingly conflates Aloyās perspective and culture with the playerās ā Aloy seems to basically understand the recordings from thousands of years in the past, and the script is mostly a giant missed opportunity for sparks or play with the theme of time.
The one place that does have such sparks is in the inventory item names and descriptions of ancient artifacts, with their wild misinterpretations of everyday objects. The use of metal shards as currency is also the smartest currency concept Iāve seen: particularly the fact that all arrow crafting eats up shards because of course it does: itās the arrowhead!
Mostly though the game stands on its art direction. Itās peak Western conventional high-detail/slightly-cartoony style, and though thatās not the sort of thing we generally praise around here, itās the result of both mastery and love on the devās part, and I really enjoy it just as I liked TLOUās style. It manages to be so pretty in so many different lighting conditions, and there are lots of little touches to appreciate everywhere like the recurring visual motif of mountain streams, Aloyās armors inspired from different indigenous traditional dress, and the climbing sequences which are there as showcases of kinematic animation as well as character-building moments for Aloy (her vigor, pride and recklessness).
I said it was a bit less than the sum of its parts and the main reason is that it sometimes feels like just a lot of pretexts for engaging in the same 5 or so activities. Little ever feels like a unique setpiece or particularly richer challenge, and the game feels the same in the late game at it did in the beginning. My one tactic of slamming 3 of my strongest pure physical damage arrows at the enemyās weak point works on pretty much every enemy, and although Iāve started to use elementals and traps a lot more as I understand the enemy types, that still doesnāt feel actually necessary (on Hard). Still, the 5 same activities are good enough I keep playing. Also Iām now at the point where I can start hunting the optional endgame megabeasts (I took down my first Stormbird yesterday), and that might feel meaningfully different.
I occasionally took screenshots in the gameās āphoto modeā when what I was looking at struck me as especially pretty, and just now I realized photo mode leaves in the UI unless you explicitly press X to hide it?? Wat
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itās funny, i know what youāre saying, but other than the fact that youāre controlling a character in third person in both of these you couldnāt name two games that are more different in every possible direction
Yeah it probably only makes sense in light of this game feeling about equally derived from each of them
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turning around feels the same in all three i get it i get it!
i felt corny for thinking the misrepresentation of earth objects was funny BUT I DID, it reminded me of straight title robot anime in a really cute way
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I think this is intentional, but itās used mostly to push a modern perspective against the fantasy tropes. Aloy is the only character who shares the audienceās to call things out. In the plot construction, I think the idea was that, having found the future tech as a kid, she had a different perspective forced on her. She can see her world with a modern perspective, literally, with her bluetooth earpiece, and sheās been doing it for a decade.
It conveniently lets them use her more as an audience surrogate, to, rather than distancing the player character from the player, a harder trick and usually something that wavers back and forth.
I think Horizon explicitly tries to pull Monster Hunter lessons into a successful western mode: beasts have habitats, very specific weaknesses, and theyāre willing to build 5 or 10-minute long fights. They get over some of Monster Hunterās obtuseness by breaking health pools into modular bits, so players arenāt in a vague progress space.
Ironically, Capcom finally made Monster Hunter work shortly after this came out and it doesnāt look like such an important task anymore.
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Continuing down the racing game path Iāve gotten into Gran Turismo 6. I played a little 4 before that and while I dig the Vibe of 4 more I must admit Iām a sucker for the improved graphics and way this one dishes out the content. I think it might be a little easier? Maybe Iām getting better. With any luck this will be the first time I finish a Gran Turismo game since I bought the first one 20+ years ago, couldnāt even get a license properly, and swore off the series. Not sure what brought me back 20 years later.
This one apparently sold poorly due in no small part to it coming out one week before the PS4 launch. It isnāt looked at very fondly either, though the main complaints are confusing to me. āBloatedā, as in too much contentā¦crazy! The game is generous as hell, giving you a nice choice of races to get a certain amount of Stars in to unlock tests for the next license. A bunch of unique side content, including:
āa new 27km course that has Arcade-y type rules, i.e. timed checkpoints you have to make it to and a score multiplier you get for passing cars cleanly. Fun!
āan Ayrton Senna tribute mode, where you play through famous races from his life (complete with narrated slideshows describing what happened). Beat his times (yeah right) and unlock his cars! If you finish this mode, you unlock a 20 minute documentary about kids in Brazil learning how to read. Neat!
ārace the lunar rover on the moon. seriously! watch out for rocks and avoid big floaty jumps, try to reach the end in time! ridiculous!
Itās just damn cool. And while the 4 setup is unrivaled, 6 isnāt a slouch. Youāve still got slick relaxing menu music, fun presentation, the ability to watch people wash and change the oil in your car. I was able to buy the car Iām driving now and put 100,000 dollars of racing parts in it to make it viable. This is a lot of fun and I couldnāt be more excited for Gran Turismo 7!
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Iāve always turned up my nose at ābeing a car personā as purely rich person shit, and while I still think that, I can at least understand a lot of the appeal all of a sudden. I must be going full boomer.
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i agree the artifacts are great, especially the whip one. the combos feel kinda bad for the most part. Iāve found two characters who feel good
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Freedom Planet (Switch): it feels like a beta that passed through a membrane from another reality and i mean that in the best way possible
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On a big Brigador kick again, this time really trying to consistently pull off high difficulty freelance power suit runs. Though consistent is a tricky bit when having a level chosen at random because any map with wide open spaces just ramps shit up even worse, since Mog runs rely on not being seen and the stealth camo which is basically essential only lasts a few seconds, and at 10+ difficulty even catching the attention of a small group can be a fairly high intensity fight that a Mog canāt handle well.
Theyāve really made me appreciate the value of the Black Hand weapon though, it does a lot of damage but only over time and is almost worthless against shields, but is also silent and with high cover penetration with basically no cover damage. Itās lousy in an actual fight because itās an assassination weapon, sneak up on the other side of a building, or preferably a nice long wall, zap something thatās not on alert with its shields down and let it die before it can reach you. Otherwise Iām generally sticking with mortars to take out target structures at range and without needing LOS, but Brigadorās arcs can be cruel, Iāve had multiple instances where I just ended up killing myself because I was too close to a wall I meant to shoot over, power suits just donāt have the clearance that a mech does.
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playing puggsy for mega drive with kat for the first time. this game is fucking great, what the fuck. great music, great physics, great graphics, smooth framerate, weird designs, how is this game not a classic?
this game has one of the more future-proofed antipiracy checks and it will actually not work if sram is turned on - it checks for the existence of sram (which it didnāt have), and cuts you off with an amusing message to go buy the cartridge after the first boss. i made a patched rom with the antipiracy stripped out (there was a patch floating out there on the internet, i only applied it) ā¦ maybe iāll post it in the 
24 hours thread if anyone needs it
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Iāve been playing a little bit of Monster Rancher Advance 2, to break away from the monotony of dealing with MR2 information. Itās a lot harder ā you canāt game the system as much as you could in 2. In MR2, you could get around having to rest entirely (depending on the race of monster, since certain monsters receive a higher fatigue reduction from Nut Oil) by giving your monster Nut Oil on odd weeks and Mint on even weeks. You donāt seem to be able to do that in this game and you can only give your monster one item per week as opposed to two, but they make up for that by having a lot more items that passively restore fatigue or stress every week, and having more stress-reducing items, though, monsters donāt seem to stress out in this as much as in MR2, so Iām not sure why there are so many stress-reducing consumables and only two fatigue-reducing consumable items (one only reduces something like 20% and is primarily for reducing stress, and the other reduces 50%).
Also, battles are way more of a battle of attrition. Unless your stats already tower over your enemy, the battle will probably end with the timer running out. Monsters also seem to miss a lot more, too, which is infuriating.
Monsters fail training with a lot higher frequency. I got so angry because a monster kept failing, so I froze it, got another one, and it also failed a lot, so I froze that one, and then fused the two, and that thing was a failing asshole, too, so I started the game over and got something that fails a bit less.
I donāt mind the palette swaps, but it kind of blows that so many of the cool monsters from 2 were replaced with a lot of the lamer monsters from 3. Stat-wise, even, their growths tend to favor non-offensive stats (meaning, neither Int or Pow are easy to gain stats for), and techs are (this may have changed in MRA2, Iām not sure) either Pow-based or Int-based. So, if your Int is shit, and your Pow is shit, then youāre not going to do any fucking damage, and monsters aready do very little damage in this game. I suppose you can rely on withering (reducing your opponents āGutsā, which are like MP that are constantly regenerating at set speed thatās inherent to the monster, some monsters have faster Guts regen rates so theyāre considered better monsters simply because they can pop off attacks quicker (If I recall correctly, MR2 has it so the monsterās sub race would determine its guts speed, so a monster with a sub-race of Pixie, Plant, or Jell might have really high guts regens)), but if you get hit for more damage than you can do to your opponent, then withering makes no difference.
In MRA2, Iām not even sure which monsters have good guts regen, thereās not a lot of information out there about this game like there is for 2 (even in Japanese, as far as I can tell). Jells and Plants donāt exist in this game (which is strange), several pixie subs are missing, several tiger subs are missing (including Blue Hare, which was a popular monster because it was all-around pretty good), and Katos are also not in this game (Blue Katos were another all-around good monster and used in speedruns).
A lot of changes feel like reactions to things people exploited in MR2. Iām sure Iāll get used to it. In this game, your monster doesnāt die, it retires and you can then either use it as fusion fodder or use it as a ācoachā for training, which will (I think?) increase the stats you gain and possibly pass on traits (traits range from things like traits that up their lightning techs to traits that make them overeat).
I donāt wanāt a different one, you stupid cad. I want the purple speedo rockman in sunglasses. This is bullshit.
I feel like they made this in reaction to MR3 not selling well, and people obviously wanting more MR2 (vs the more overtly cartoony direction they were trying to go in (and did wind up going in)). Itās too bad that instead of staying somewhere in this direction, they made 4 and EVO (5 in Japan), which are pretty awful. 3 is OK, but not as many cool monsters.
Thereās a Switch port of 2 out in Japan, but itās probably not heading West.
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watch this video over and over and internalize it to understand the wonders of doom
Then go and play quake after you play a bunch of doom and realize the reason quake is so good is that it is an entire game of pro doom monster strats
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played a ton of xak today, and i think the game is gonna be too long for its own good
Even on a pirate handheld running at 80% Sonic Adventure fucking rules. What a great game.
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playing receiver 2, bit by bit.
this is probably the first time i see a gun porn type game morph into a gun-safety porn game, based on stubbornness alone. if metal gear solid 3 is one of the greatest because youāre tasked to take care of snake like some fucked up, jacked tamagochi, receiver 2 is about caring for a sig sauer pistol. you need to be mindful of every mechanism as you shoot, reload, holster and re-holster. it rules so much.
i find it hard describing the gameās actual challenge. the encounters you have with enemy turretts and drones are such that each one of them implicitly requires a āplanning stageā. you need to scour around door edges, corners and stairways, constantly gathering information about the next roomās geography and layout. but the turrets patterns are slow enough that even though the gameās all real time, you can usually duck behind cover or run back to the initial position if mess up of your planās execution (in the early stages at least; later they throw multiple turrets in the same room w complimenting search patterns).
another thing that adds to this is just how good of a first person platformer it is? even small drops gets into critical damage condition, anything more than that is instant death. however, the map is laid out in such a way that draws you to find answers to the gameās challenges in the weirdest spots in geometry. roofs, walls, tubulations are good ways to move from room to room as long as youāre mindful of drop distances. if thereās a turret far in a hallway on a neighboring apartment complex, instead of taking the bridge you can climb the wall, walk on top of it until you find a ledge, shoot the windows of an apartment, jump inside and find yourself behind the turretās vision cone. lovely!
iām sad i didnāt play this in time for our top64 list. it really deserves it
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