imo the only ones that are even kind of good after 9 are 12 (which is honestly not worth playing, its innovations went nowhere and its storytelling is otherwise not memorable), 15 (which is hugely underrated in terms of final fantasy vibes even though it’s all over the place and not really worth finishing), and the 7 remakes (which are pretty fun and adequately done)
7 Likes
Do they have Jobs though? Jobs…
3 Likes
Nah, it doesn’t have anything resembling a job system like you’re thinking. The “jobs” are just mmo classes. You can freely switch between them though, so you can try everything with a single character instead of having to make alts.
1 Like
Ah I see. I just feel like they were so close to something great with 5 but didn’t quite nail it, it is still pretty interesting though. The possibilities are endless… But like five - ten of them are actually good and a couple of those just break the game in half, but only at the very end
2 Likes
I don’t think the job system is so much about synergies, as it is to create an experience with different puzzles and difficulty spikes depending on your choices. In FF5 most possible party compositions provide tools to deal with most of the bosses (without much grinding needed), but sometimes that requires creative thinking.
In the yearly Four Job Fiesta event, people ask a bot to randomly select 4 jobs for them to force them out of their comfort zone. But since it’s only your second playthrough, I recommend just picking 4 jobs you like that you didn’t use the first playthrough and stick with them the entire game. The rule is that if a job is not available yet, you can have more than one character with one of your existing jobs, otherwise it’s one fixed character per job.
1 Like
Felix how is it possible that you didn’t even think to mention Final Fantasy Tactics also has a job system
9 Likes
Yeah I think part of my problem is I am trying to use a blue mage which I didn’t really mess with before but it feels sort of minimal so far. Like there aren’t actually more than a handful of spells that are learnable early on
I’m also so enamored of the idea of creating unique ability combos but there aren’t a ton of appealing options till you get to the middle. It’s a great idea though.
I also just really like jrpgs where debuffs are functional and especially if they are useful for bosses which is why I still find ffv compelling despite some irritation
4 Likes
I think cuz u_u said they didn’t play any after ten, otherwise yeah I woulda hollered about that too
anyroad like Cuba said 14 doesnt have job combo stuff but ELEVEN DOES
3 Likes
My memory of the original Alan Wake is that its environments and lighting effects looked really impressive for the time but its plot felt mostly inconsequential and its gameplay/level design becomes very repetitive after a while… That’s why when the sequel got announced I was mostly bemused!
The thing that got me initially excited for the original was this early trailer from 2005 that gave the impression of a huge open world, back when that wasn’t such a given. How times have changed…
The impression I got is that it was mostly a tech demo for Remedy to experiment with what they could do on the 360 but then they eventually had to release an actual game and development got so long in the tooth that what ended up being pushed out the door seemed heavily compromised (that’s if there was ever any clear vision for the game beyond “check out this neat tech!”). It definitely feels like a game that got quickly assembled from a bunch of disparate, unfinished parts…
7 Likes
I may have mentioned this in the past but reflecting more upon what I liked about the weapon selection in the first game, I recall that I quit American Nightmare almost immediately because the first gun they give you is a semiautomatic pistol with a fairly generous magazine size and I was like "oh they’ve just turned this into *RE4 Mercenaries *
3 Likes
I have not played enough Super Mario Party Jamboree yet to form an opinion, but there is this minigame where you have to pull bread out of the oven at just the right time. It’s making me hungry.
Uploading: super-mario-party-jamboree-japanese-minigame-66.jpg…
10 Likes
short and boring Steam Next Fest demo appetizer:
TMNT Splitered Fate: okay this was under the “fighting/beat 'em up” banner of the action section but it’s actually a roguelike so I guess words don’t mean anything anymore.
so I’m out of the zeitgeist and didn’t play Hades. is this what Hades is like? I don’t think I like Hades then. when I play my idiot dumb action RPG things, my brain rejects runs and demands esoteric loot
it’s fine I guess
Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds Ultimate: as one of the few people anywhere stupid enough to own every version of PBBG made thus far (even the Switch version, hobbled by no online support and a godawful sprite filter) and Ogre Tale, I don’t know why they’re making this game but more power to them. I guess they wanted to keep making balance adjustments (hey a few moves got some work done to them) and clean up the input reader a little. but, uh, it mostly plays the same? like, 99% the same? it seems like most of the attraction is “new version of game for sale on new platforms” (every platform it’s coming to has a version of the original or Overdrive, either natively or through backwards compatibility) and a chance to do a third arrangement of the soundtrack, which, going along with the escalation of PSG to FM, sounds like someone did a CD audio arrangement for the PC Engine. which is a pretty good joke.
sadly they nuked the boss AI in the demo so now the bosses aren’t masters of blocking and mixups and blockstrings and you can just mindlessly fight them instead of having to open them up
anyway, of course I’ll buy it, I’m stupid
not a Steam demo fest demo game: so I bought Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream
as anytime I poke at an SAO game, I will preface that I do not like mainline SAO and its brand of bizarre power fantasy and female bondage (not the horny kind of bondage), but SAO Alternative Gun Gale Online is good and cool (although SAO prominently features a black guy in the extended cast so it’s doing better than 99% of dumb cartoons for nerds). so I’m very much “whatever” about the plot of the game and the characters and them doing the same 5 SAO jokes (yes, I get it, Kirito and Asuna are committed life partners, does she need to lose her shit every time another woman starts orbiting him) (all women do is orbit around him, he’s John Swordart after all)
anyway, the video game. the video game is like if you gave Monhun or Granblue Fantasy Relink brain damage and then added 16 other people. Dimps looked at real, functional MMOs and worked them down until all that is left is the raw id of MMOs as a genre. you run around, do MOBA-esque leveling every quest and violently murder everything in your path with 3-19 other people and then do it again and again and again for gear and levels and all the gear is stupid, tiny incremental upgrades that roll random shit and eventually you will meticulously create The Stupidest Gear and be the MVP
it has touched the bad part of my brain that likes loot and jank character action. even accepting that it’s kind of a jank action game that sometimes doesn’t work and also they set everyone to default to the Asian server so playing the online-only game with good ping outside of Asia just don’t, it’s a pretty well made distillation of 10 years of SAO games spanning 3-4 developers and multiple genres. the fact that they threw everything together and it works is pretty impressive, objectively
I guess my main complaint is that this is a retail video game package and everything about the not-game part of the game has a “they’re transitioning this to a F2P format in 6 months” vibe
in which case I’ll see the bad game-curious among you in 6 months
11 Likes
Sorta but not really. I played some of the TMNT game on my iPad and Hades generally feels tighter and better made. It’s a decent Hades-alike, but if this didn’t grab ya, I don’t know that Hades would.
1 Like
why can I not find joy in good game
1 Like
I suspect ur derby game is a more chemically pure version of what hades is for a lot of ppl.
6 Likes
Steam demo roundup:
Hail to the Rainbow: hyper polished and successfully cinematic, just fiddling with controls in your car feels good, using your little drone feels good, etc. fell through the map a little after the first enemy encounter so I didn’t see much more than the linear sequence that led up to that. another post-soviet sci-fi horror game with androids. seems like it might play like an Amnesia game ultimately, couldn’t tell. what’s with that title though?
Silly Polly Beast: good drawings in the visual novel sprites, when they appear. takes a long time to get to the combat and the combat is not great. disjointed and awkward. reminds me a lot of Swery’s The Missing, and not in a good way.
Glitch Dungeon Crystal: Babushka Quest: manna from heaven. beautiful morphing CRT pixel look that’s actually atmospheric. pixel tile based graphics used like mark making, gesturing towards forms but noncommittal about what anything you’re climbing or standing on actually ‘is’. fun to figure out traversal and find secrets, movement is slow but feels right, levels have a great sense of flow. really high on this one, it’s got so much going for it.
Metal Bringer: the sequel to samurai bringer. run-based action against hordes of enemies. kinda feel the spirit of technos kunio games in how these little guys are made to the same templates, get names and little quips they can say at certain moments. we’ve gone from samurai’s recruitable characters to a new system where you can build and customize fighting androids AND huge mechs they can pilot. suffice it to say there’s a lot of shit going on from the jump, both in the menus and in the massive wave of guys swarming you. never lasted long but I’m game to try it again. combat feels the same speed as samurai but somehow that ends up slower and floatier here. also it must be said that this series has a distinctive look that’s gonna work best on a smaller screen. for a larger TV this could use some smoothing or a fake CRT filter to soften the pixel sandpaper that occasionally abrades your eyes.
Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders: sequel to a game that was this, but mountain bikes. I gotta say, that one was prettier. Snow levels in games sometimes struggle to get at the real world beauty of snow, which probably requires a shitload of lighting and particle effects that aren’t really present in this low poly experience. In Spring and Autumn you can just toss some leaves into the air and you’re golden. It’s alright. If you have an affinity for winter sports it might land better.
Garden of Witches: it’s a Hades Cult of the Lamb something. Slid off this one fast.
Wilmot Works It Out: It’s a toy you mess with while drinking your sleepytime tea and that’s about it. Made from the juice extracted from Warehouse so it feels and looks good, but there’s zero time pressure here and I’m pretty sure it’s just about slowly assembling puzzles. That’s kinda nice, though.
The Good Old Days: Surprisingly this is a throwback to Konami’s Goonies games, which promises a side scrolling open world, a time limit that’s constantly ticking down, and multiple endings depending on how much treasure you find (and probably other factors.) I grew up with The Goonies!
I hate The Goonies! And while I don’t blame this team for taking Stranger’s Things as a sign that this kind of ‘american kids on a retro adventure’ thing is still hanging in the gestalt, the suffering is real when the game informs me that my gang of friends is called ‘The Noogies.’ This might not matter as much if I was enjoying exploring, fighting, etc but I’m not.
Citizen Sleeper 2: that’s more Citizen Sleeper, baby. I like the extra complexity suggested by the ship and crew systems. I went out into space on two missions, epically botched both of them, had fun doing it. It’s the dismal industrial sci-fi setting where everyone kinda talks like they’ve had a lot of therapy, but there is plenty of room in my heart for such a story.
Meat-Grinder: comes up with a distinctive look for a visual novel but I’m otherwise really not feeling the vibe
AngelGaze: immediately felt punished for daring to download a game that looks like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. first ‘puzzle’ is finding a single pixel in a desert. if you make one of these games you are seemingly required to self-flagellate by leaning into everything that sucks about them.
Lovish: I wanna like it, it’s cute and funny, but I’ve already played Celeste and it’s hard to get into one of these challenging, level-based platformers when it’s making no modern concessions to, like, fluid movement, interesting traversal, combat crunchier than just hitting one button repeatedly.
18 Likes
max is the only character in double exposure that still talks like a diablo cody movie. her friends and students find her embarrassing. it’s perfect
12 Likes
This seems like it’s getting more common in games but maybe it’s just getting more common everywhere. Is this wholesome gaming??
7 Likes
this is such a good bit for a protagonist
it’s like Tidus’ “but this is my story!” except actually borne out
5 Likes
finished castlevania order of ecclesia today… that game has some tough bosses! satisfying gaming experience imo
i’ve always thought the castlevania and souls games were a little similar… lots of breakable walls and that sort of thing. tho ultimately i think the souls series is probably much better overall. they also both have similar nerd appeal i think in that theyre both heavy in some similar horror-fantasy iconography. also demon’s souls came out as the 2D castlevania series ended at feels much better at capturing that vibe than like “lords of shadow” tho i dont really know anyone who played those games much or who is a big fan of them or what have you.
something in general i enjoy about gaming is the way that fantasy roleplaying game monsters are interpreted and reinterpreted across games and series… someone should make a thread about mimic chest enemies in gaming…
dark souls has some great horror game moments imo as does the entire series… the crawling bone things in the tomb of the giants are terrible… i really loved the catacombs → tomb of the giants and new londo ruins… theyre both excellently designed dungeons and theyre both effective as horror game moments i think personally.
6 Likes