Tempest 4000 is extremely extremely restrained by Minter standards–I actually found it a bit disappointing in that regard. It’s also actually challenging, which was a nice surprise.
Started loop 3 in Nier Automata about two hours ago, and I’m currently in mourning. I just realized I’ve been playing this game for a year. Loop 1 took me like 20 hours, and I spent nearly 50 in 2 scanning everywhere and catching up on skipped sidequests. I’m pretty slow at games.
coming 2 to the end of ys 8 and realising i really don’t want it to finish because i’ve enjoyed hanging out on this dumb island so much
I picked up Psychonauts on PS4 for next to nothing in a sale at some point, thinking that I might want to play it again one day. A few weeks ago, I was trying to turn off the PS4 with the television off, and I somehow installed Psychnonauts instead.
This week, my nine-year-old nephew was staying with us, and we played Psychonauts. It’s been ages, and I didn’t remember exactly how long the game is. I was secretly hoping that we would not make it to the circus level, but that we would make it at least as far as the milkman level. I remember the circus as one of my all-time most frustrating video game experiences.
My nephew is leaving tomorrow, and we finished the theater area today. So I probably have a year before potentially having to finish the game.
It’s still an excellent game, even if the cutscenes do not look so good on the PS4.
I did the same thing with the PS3 Sega Genesis collection a few years ago. I liked that it encouraged me to try a bunch of games I had never played, since I didn’t have a Genesis as a kid. (I only got to try Sonic the Hedgehog occasionally at a store, and found myself frustrated that I wasn’t allowed to actually run fast because I kept running into things.) I remember wondering why Comix Zone had to be so hard. It’s an interesting game, but I couldn’t get anywhere.
That collection has some catchy menu music.
I was considering doing it for the Genesis collection as well, but I’d have to buy it first. I do have the downloadable Capcom Arcade compilation but some of the trophies for that look pretty hard. Still, I might try to get the trophies for a few of the games. I enjoy trophies when they are well implemented.
ok so the silver knight archers in Anor Londo are definitely as bullshit as people say but not because of the part where you’re dodging giant arrows on a narrow rooftop, which is the cool and interesting part of that set piece. it’s the fact that you’ve never fought a silver knight before this, and your first experience fighting them is on a narrow ledge, and sometimes they just don’t stop shooting at you. That is actually just mean spirited, frustrating game design.
hope you enjoyed this microwaved take, tune in next week when i call bed of chaos the worst boss
at this point, after years of these games, this is probably phoning it in and still a bit mean-spirited, but
sleepy
Welcome to Dark Souls
I have been playing the remaster of DS1 the past couple days, as well. Mostly just booted it up to see how it ran, on my fairly newly aquired boss hog $85 R9 380X, and looked in general; but now I’ve died a few times in Sen’s Fortress and I think I’m good that’s fine that’s enough.
This is the only time I have replayed any of these games I would rather just think about playing them the first time (but also on a real tip I was thinking about redownloading DS3 once I finish stream-playing Nioh)
If you do, check out my reshade preset.
that’s one of the saddest stories in videogaming! Comix Zone had the potential to be absolutely phenomenal, a real cult classic, if not a commercial hit, but it’s completely ruined by the difficulty. I suggest watching some insaniac with too much time on their hands play the game, so you can see all the cool stuff the game does. It was so far ahead of its time in many ways.
Someone should re-release it with adjustable difficulty settings
dark souls has been fun to revisit in co-op, but i just feel like ds1 is the most boring one once you know all the secrets, because the exploration and atmosphere are more important than the actual fighting, etc. i feel like ds1 can never be that enjoyable to me again until i literally forget most of this stuff. still, running around with a pal and getting into hijinks is never going to get old, so
i find it the most fun one to replay because i know all the secrets but ymmv obv
Just having consistent multiplayer adds a lot though. i love seeing so many dragons around. got killed by one last night named “dragon boi” and i was like, same
Cool, man.
I’ll take the comment on parkouring back: once you get the grappling hook especially, the parkouring gets really really fun. first person perspective also gives that extra sense of immersion, so standing on top of the bridge arch really really fucking high and then looking below was something indeed.
too bad everything else is pretty meh.
also, i’ve been trying to resume my bloodborne shenanigans. having killed rom, now i’m just exploring around. also made it to Castle Cainhurst and wow, I haven’t felt such majesty of standing in front of the castle since Demon’s Souls Boletaria 1-1. Plus the SNOW!!!
I’ve been playing through the early bits of The Misadventures of Tron Bonne after picking it up in a PSN sale some time back. After the tutorial section you start in a flying base where you plan various missions along with numerous underlings you have to send out on various missions or have develop various weapons and oh my god I am playing MGS V again.
Firewatch is real good and cool and much better than NAME REDACTED.
Even if my save corrupted at the end of the game and I am going on youtube to watch the ending.
i like garvity rush 2
bound is a strange game
man the drop rate for the balder side sword is so weird. i can’t get one at all on this dextrous character but on like a strength based play through i’m swimming in them
If you have dork souls remaster on ps4 come play with meeee~
Today’s EUIV lesson is the Absolution mechanic because it is the first time I’ve deliberately tried to get it early. This is Cebu, what starts out as a single province in the Philippines region next to Madyas and Butuan. Exploration, grabbing the Colonial institution for myself, and key conquests made it the way you see it here.
Absolution is a mechanic that gets enabled once the Age of Absolution rolls around, which occurs 10 years after the Global Trade institution is spawned or around 1610. It’s another linear bar to fill from 0 to 100 with a maximum dictated by the government you run; republics are limited anywhere from like 75 to 50 versus monarchies which can reach the hard cap. The bonuses are, fully maxed out:
There’s a bunch of fiddly things you can do to increase Absolutism, most of them involve spending your monarch points in some fashion. However, there is a disaster called Court and Country during this Age that can occur if you deliberately set yourself up for it. Typically a disaster is just that, something you want to avoid. This one does heavily penalize you, but for a minimum of 10 years and the events give you several chances to increase your Absolutism by 5 each time usually in exchange for rebels popping up. Once you’ve reached the 10 year limit, there are no rebel held provinces and you haven’t been in war, it ends. Depending on what your Absolutism is at that end, you can potentially get a massive increase to your limit so that your Legitimacy won’t mess with your current Absolutism amount and thus your bonus is maintained at maximum. If done properly, you come out with about 3/4s of the full bonus and set to max it out in short order.
Now setting yourself up for that disaster involves getting yourself into a war and having your global unrest creep up past +1 while already having your current Absolutism above 50. Typically this means no CBing a small country for the War Exhaustion and Stability hits, both increase unrest substantially. I intended to do that with Ryukyu but I jumped the gun, unfortunately. I ended up taking it and using its rebels for Harsh Treatment, spending military points and gaining +1 Absolutism each time.
What actually happened to slide me into the disaster was Japan deciding it wanted the former province held by Ryukyu for itself and declared war for it. It was a dumb move on their part, but I hadn’t realized one thing: I no longer had allies anymore. Lan Xang had somewhere along the way let the alliance drop and I had only Malacca (purple one in Malaysia) as my vassal and Backjaur (Australia) as my Colonial Nation. This was fine, I could hold due to my large ducat store and a 20 strong Heavy navy to smash theirs. But then Pasai and Ming declared a couple months after for that dangling bit I had in China. And then Ottomans decided to throw their weight in to get back a colony I had taken from them earlier!
I could hold on because when you’re a collection of islands the only way any of your enemies is going to make substantial gains is if they land troops on your home provinces (taking a page from Great Britain). None of them separately had the heavy numbers to match mine and I had enough money sitting around to replace ones that were sunk. However, Malacca was basically conquered from the get-go and Backjaur suffered a couple of roving armies wasting their time in the Australian outback.
In the end I lost my entire trading fleet, I replaced my heavies once over and suffered through the bulk of Court and Country while I was still at war with Ming. Japan could not land anything and gave up that single province because of sheer pettiness on my part. Ottomans had the same problem but it took longer to peace them out for their single province because of dealing with Japan and then having the disaster pop. Pasai took a couple clubbings of their army before they settled out of the way and quietly capitulated for substantial gains (I wanted something meaningful to come out of this war). Ming rushed back in to reconquer Malacca and I used that time to take back that little tail end in China and conquer a fort so I could spread a little further in.
So in all, it was a very busy ~20 years of playing being aware of backdooring and staying on top of rebels (particularists in particular (heh) were threatening a 120k large army if I let them reach 100% at one point; I had only 37k much of the time). Very fun and now I’m far more ready to become the full Jaguar Empire of Cebu.
I picked up Dark Souls again and started over. Got the black knight sword and halberd from my first two black nights. The farthest I have previously gone in the game was blighttown before being frustrated and quitting playing. I beat the boss and then ceaseless discharge boss and now I am heading to Sen’s fortress for the first time. I am really enjoying these new parts so far.
