Tomato: Tides of Marinara is a lot more like a mini Baldur’s Gate 2 than it is like a successor to Planescape Torment
keep going
(while IMO P:T’s middle act is by far its strongest, Marinara builds over the whole thing into a really strong arc)
Latest in a long line of Evil Dad progeny
1 Like
If Tidus looked like the Nameless One it’d be a lot easier to take FFX seriously
3 Likes
some of them are moms and this is one of the better parts of the game
several NPC relationships are concretely and substantively improved by choosing to play as a woman with no narrative downsides
but they’re still the progeny
of an Evil Dad 
1 Like
Mooncrash is great!!
Also the cutest implementation of “the floor is lava” I’ve seen in a while
it’s funny how despite having a lot more UI and engine scaffolding than indie roguelites, the unlocks and the pacing are still about as oblique and restrained as you could want
it is biased toward enabling you to complete your first couple runs before it starts ramping up and making you go after the stuff you were able to avoid previously but that seems like a fair concession to the budget
anyhow @Felix I got to what is at least for now a Rhin endpoint involving memory resolution and a portal and the writing was some remarkably clunky garbage I thought you should know that you might be a Space Alien (from Space)
3 Likes
Broadcasting To You Live From The Planet of Shrugs, though D:
1 Like
Heartbeat is very sweet and screenshottable, and seems to have a transforming moth so I can also play Pokemon in this seemingly complex JRPG with perfect GBA aesthetic??
I’ve heard 2 bossa nova songs out of the 5 songs I have heard.
Perfect combination of chill and maybe-actually-a-real-RPG
1 Like
Oh also Dead Cells contains the worst elements of roguelites and I sort of hate it but it also has really snappy controls and combat and I also sort of want to keep playing it but i have better things to do with my life
1 Like
I take it all back, I hate that each of the five characters has a semi fixed route
as soon as you fail to unlock one of them in a given run and have to replay one of the routes you already have the game just turns into grinding
bad progression system, bad
What would you define these as?
Like I said, tough to smash a roguelike into the constraints of AAA
This is every game I play in my life except for the part where I have something better to do
4 Likes
The “wait and upgrade” factor, the repetition without meaningful variations, the lack of mystery, and the randomness not really affecting my playstyle meaningfully
3 Likes
this was soooo fixable
they were 90% of the way there and they ruined it
I’m going to restate these to see if I understand them:
By “wait and upgrade”, do you mean the presentations of long-term goals that feel like grinding after a while?
By ‘repetition without meaningful variations’, is this in the vein of ‘randomness not really affecting my playstyle meaningfully’? Or is this about the world changing, where the latter complaint is about your character changing?
Is ‘lack of mystery’ endemic to roguelikes for you? It’s certainly a complaint I’ve got with Dead Cells, but I attribute it to the poor writing and derivative worldbuilding, rather than the game structure. Contra Below, which is mysterious above all else, but it really is a broken implementation of the roguelike pattern (I love it regardless).
Sorry if I’m bugging you, I’m curious for professional reasons
1 Like
My opinion on Just Cause 4 is…well, mostly the same, but unlocking the lightning gun is promising.
Its default fire mode is nothing special (it just shoots a beam of lightning?). Its alt-fire, though, shoots a grenade that does nothing, until huge bolts of lightning strike down and blow up any helicopters or red-colored explodables.
I think the biggest bummer with the game is that they throw in this super Garry’s Mod-ass tether system, with balloons and boosters and different tether strengths and speeds, and then keep Rico as a glass cannon who dies real quick while you try to mess around with 'em.
At least it feels pretty good to throw some boosters onto an enemy helicopter and set them off, sending it spiraling into soldiers below (or a nearby building, or into the blue yonder, or whatever).