Games You Played Today IV: Quest of the Avatar

any idea if local multiplayer works in the vita tv version? or is it just ps4?

but yeah definitely doesn’t top the list of my favorite mario games but it’s extremely memorable to me and has an incredible TAS:

12 Likes

it will probably shock no one to hear that I am really picky when it comes to fake TV presentation in sports games and I think NBA Street circumvents that issue entirely by trying to look like a video game instead

5 Likes

The mechanic where you lose your gold coins if you get a game over always seemed really mean and evil to me. They make you watch this whole sequence of them disappearing which is sad. Then you have to fight the noises again to get them back. The world map also feels super big and it takes forever to go between worlds. I never played Metroid on GB so I feel like when people talk about the menacing lonely vibes of that game Mario land 2 is the closest equivalent i have. I also haven’t played it since I was a kid though, it’s probably not that creepy to people who aren’t young paranoid children I guess.

A whole set of levels taking place inside a giant Mario robot is still super weird though. Also iirc it has some yokai inspired enemies? It’s cool

8 Likes

GB Metroid II is probably my fav Metroid so this checks out.

5 Likes

This TAS makes me think the Game Genie should’ve been itself a game where you control a little spaceship and shoot at the bits of ROM you want to alter.

Instead of sharing arcane codes, kids would’ve abused the school photocopier to share arcane maps

9 Likes

Fwiw Sanctum 2 is my favourite TD. A big improvement.

1 Like

ah geez it was so long ago i don’t remember! one of those kid memories where you just got in a car and eventually you showed up at some place and had to do something

2 Likes

Intel out on old Reddit posts seemed to indicate a very big emphasis on co-op which turned me off a bit? Was this the case in your experience or did you play solo?

1 Like

I played through Junkoid, recently released Metroid romhack. It was really good! All the secrets (I think) had tells so you aren’t doing any obsessive compulsive stuff. The moment you get bombs is a triumph. It has…something of a story with no words. Maybe give no words a try game makers.

cw: nudity, gore, dead fetuses

That seems like a spoiler, but a good thing to have a heads up on.

It even has a generous restart system. I died maybe twice outside the bosses. You do need to do Metroid1 style health restock.

5 Likes

It’s a Japanese reading/math cram school company that expanded out worldwide. The main thing is that You take your kid there twice a week whenever they are open for tutoring and they give you worksheets to do daily at home. It’s also a little culty imo. (My oldest son is in kumon now)

Also you get kumon buxx for showing up that you get to spend on d-d-dueling

2 Likes

oh yeah @daphaknee i totally misread your post and thought you were asking for the specific kumon location lol

@cask is spot on though, reading/math tutoring company where the main thing is just doing worksheets every day and yeah

i also was an instructor for a short time and left because one of the tenets is “you can’t show them how to do it” you just have to mark it wrong and send it back to them and i would try to be as subtle as possible but the heads were still mad at me

6 Likes

Played Solo and had a good time with it. I think tbf it’s probably balanced around coop a bit more since you can only equip so many tower types, but still liked its general approach to weapon design alongside the tower building.

2 Likes

I’ve been messing around in Kind Words, which is less of a game and more like one of those very idealistic Web 2.0 kind of concepts. You write/answer anonymous letters, mostly with the purpose of finding/giving encouragement and support. You’re constrained to only a few lines of text. The game trappings/soundtrack do make it kind of a nice experience, I guess? I’ll probably keep this one installed and log in now and again for a while.

10 Likes

That seems to be a trend lately, another experiment along these lines started 2 years ago is https://www.thiswebsitewillselfdestruct.com/

I heard about it on a podcast interviewing the creator. TLDR that sort of concept basically works as planned and lonely people feel a little more connected to others when they use it, but it takes a ton of moderation work behind the scenes to prevent a tiny subset of trolls from ruining it for everyone.

8 Likes

You know, it’s a little chilling how clearly the internet has shown us just how vulnerable most social systems are to even the most casual of bad actors

12 Likes

On the other hand, deplatforming/removing them works really well.

7 Likes

Yeah, good thing we don’t live in a society founded wholly on optimizing away the human labour required to effectively moderate social spaces or we’d be in real trouble!

8 Likes

Anyway apropos of nothing it feels like a good time to thank all the moderators out there fighting the good fight

14 Likes

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. Love to see a series go through that awkward title transition phase. Had a good time with this one, not much to say…it isn’t as weird as Super Mario Land 2 but solid stuff. I’m a Wario fan now. Wario rules, Mario drools.

Wasn’t paying attention to the treasure rooms til the second world and didn’t bother with them til over halfway through so I got a crap ending…

warioLandEnd

Could see myself going back to earn Wario the best castle on a plane trip or something, it was pretty fun most of the time figuring out how to get each key to its skull door and a smooth ride overall, virtually snagless but not frictionless.

Just ordered some cheap red/cyan anaglyph 3D glasses for Virtual Boy Wario Land via mednafen and I’m very excited about it!

30 Likes