Playing a JRPG and so far every bookcase I’ve tried to investigate brings up nothing, not even a terrible pun based on a famous book.
I miss Working Designs
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I’m playing Energy Breaker right now, in which every possible object is comically crammed with stuff. It feels more than a bit like a point-and-click adventure game that way, which is pretty charming. The combat is too agonizingly slow and pointless for the game to really be worth recommending, but it’s very pleasant to just poke at.
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The combat in EB isn’t great but I don’t recall it being too much of a hassle once you learn where the (unmarked) encounter tiles are and learn a good tech or two on every character
You’re also experimenting with walking/jumping “out of bounds”, right?
Yup! Interact-Jump on every edge tile on every screen.
The real drag on combat is just closing distance, because walking takes so many action points. It adds a couple totally boring turns to most battles, especially because most of the time it doesn’t really matter where you are as long as you can spam Shot. And a lot of battles feel pointless, because enemies a few levels above you take 1 damage and can kill your party members in one round, while a few levels below you they only deal 1 damage. Tweaking that system would probably solve the bulk of my problems.
All that said, the battle I left off at looks interesting and the plot is weird and fun. The protagonist is also appealingly written to play off the anime cliches swirling around her.
I took a break from Final Fantasy II to play The Banner Saga games back to back. What a breath of fresh air. I hope a third entry in the series is released eventually.
The demo for Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 is a bit limited, still fun but kinda worrying with the amount of random stuff they added in. Having to bounce into ghosts a few times before they go aggro and can kill you is such a difficult concept to wrap my head around.
What’s not to get
You are graverobbing but the departed spirits don’t care until you do the ghastly equivalent of poking a bear with a stick
Only then can you double-murder them for the satisfaction of points and sating your bloodlust
The Elite Four in Omega Ruby were surprisingly easy, but I just barely managed to beat the Pokemon Champion thanks to the power of love
There are some devilish puzzles in Inside. You’ve merely never even noticed their existence. look for yellow cables.
Been playing a variety of stuff recently:
Elemental Master (MD)
Up until a week ago, I had never played this TechnoSoft classic, which is kind of pathetic considering how much I love the ThunderForce series. Anyway, issue finally corrected. Snagged a JP copy (sans manual) for a respectable price. Took me about a week to nail the SCC (the final boss has some really obnoxious forms).
Super R-Type (SFC)
Grabbed a JP copy for the shelf… although the box is really beat up. While pretty much the same as the U/C release, the big things that jumped out at me were the Irem boot-up screen and the entire background to the first stage (while it’s only a single layer of parallax, there’s this massive Saturnian ring system that you fly past… it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than the dull space background in the SNES version). I’m determined to double loop the game this time.
Forza Horizon (360)
It was the first freebie of this month for Gold Members and the only driving/racing game I had played prior during the whole generation was Daytona USA HD (so I figured no harm no foul). Despite the hilariously awful Fast-N-Furious vibe to the entire game, I’m rather enjoying driving around the map exploring and entering various races here and there along with upgrading cars. I’m pleasantly surprised by this game.
Thunder Force II MD (MD… duh)
Finally sat down and nailed an SCC in this game after constantly getting fed up with it’s awkward structure and annoying overhead stages in the past. It’s a such a mess design-wise, but playing it will really make one appreciate just how much refinement went into TFIII (yet alone TFIV).
Thunder Force Gold Pack 2 (Saturn)
I wanted to try out ThunderForce AC (without having to track down the PCB)… and oh yeah, playable Styx in TFIV. Managed to get a decent deal on fair a copy (the price on this one is starting to climb). TFIV plays like it’s being overclocked… all of the hardware slowdown from the MD original is gone, which can make some parts of the game quite nerve-racking. The music also sound muffled, but it doesn’t cut out when the voice samples are played.
And next week I’ll delve into Thunder Spirits and Battle Zeque Den on the SFC (got an order on the way).
Played Galak-Z’s season 5 and the game is better than I remember!
Also played the first hour or so of original sin 2 and I think I want to wait for the full release because it’s quite dry at this point compared to my first impression of Cyseal.
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I think Galak-Z is a good game that I never feel like playing. Not quite sure what that means.
The pacing/structure/something was off in the original release despite near-perfect mechanics moment to moment; the endless mode corrects a lot of that
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I agree with the criticism I’ve heard about Silpheed: The Lost Planet over the years (imprecise controls, overly-long stages , etc.), but goddamn that stage 2 music is probably my favorite videogame music ever.
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yay I’m excited to get back into this because the pacing issues were the one part of the game I wasn’t super into and I actually stopped playing because of them
My biggest gripe with Galak-Z was how all the upgrades and add-ons only really felt like quality of life improvements instead of distinct weapons or gadgets that actually change how you play the game. Kinda made it feel like the game was struggling to be either a pure arcade experience or a rouge lite.
The pacing was a weird thing in the game. It really felt like something meant to be played as one long endurance run instead of stages/missions.
yeah, I’m really glad they found the time and money to patch the endless mode into the PS4 version, the game deserved it
I just found out that Tomba! is vs. hog so guess what’s on my vita now ;___;
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man tomba rules
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