Talked a friend into buying Lost Planet 2 on a steam sale and man, I forgot how great that game is.
The whole train chapter is just fantastic.
this is all anecdotal, but I think I’d be willing to forgive the bloat given what the game is trying to do if not for the reported glacial pace. that’s what really keeps me away.
Just started xenoblade x myself and I still feel i have the problem in old xenoblade where I don’t feel as though all my combat outcomes are contingent upon my decisions instead of the numbers behind my attacks and hoping I get good synch ups with AI skills.
I played Trails in the Sky for about an hour tonight. I talked to everyone in the village, then talked to the mayor like I was supposed to for the story, then talked to everyone in the village again. A good session.
4 Likes
If it’s anything like the prequel (and based on Ni_Go_Zero_Ichi’s comment, it is), the sense of decisions having weight during combat comes in around the time you start using the party meter and chain attacks to take down monsters well above your avatar’s strength level. Before that, it felt more like I was just clicking buttons until numbers made me feel good.
I finished Parasite Eve though it wasn’t easy. Or it was easy once I knew the score. The game drops two bosses in a row on you, and then if you go to the wrong room it starts the end game. Then it asks you to save, and tells you it’s the end game, but it’s not like you can go back from there to grind.
I luckily was smart with two saves, so once the final boss was unbeatable I could go back and grind for about an hour, not screw myself over weapon wise and end the game. A few times, because a zero-fail state running section sucks. Especially when you run by a save point that the game tells you “nah you can use that bro.”
What a strange video game. It’s 16bit RPG story-telling in 32-bit (right down to the moving characters around each other between talking.) It’s got Western-outsourced CG. Aya might be the biggest blank-slate 32bit jrpg protag. she repeats what other people say more than Solid Snake. And never adds to her own conversations. It’s got Yoko Shimomura music just sort of thrown around in it. Lots of scenes where there is just NO music. Survival Horror elements in a JRPG that are either useless or aggravating.
My image of this game was always an early attempt at doing cinematic AAA gaming. The actual result is like the whole time had never seen a movie before but had made a 16-bit JRPG. And they had a year to make a game.
3 Likes
the story remains mostly negligable before becoming outright irritating. the normal missions and affinity quests that get marked on the mini-map are surprisingly engaging though. it has a surprisingly organic network of sidequests that intersect and carry thru the whole game. these never quite get to ps1 jrpg melodrama levels but i was pretty impressed how much silly metaphysics and philosophy is stuck into them.
also mira totally owns, and even the seemingly boring lava, ice and desert continents are really rich. i played 110 god damn hours of this thing, and uh yeah i reckon its p good.
I beat MGS V as far as I’m willing to go today.
I’m so tired, and so disappointed, and so glad.
Even then I always felt I was just following a set sequence for every fight and still wouldn’t allow you to take on enemies at least 3 or more levels above you unless you had all the weapon gems set up in a way to nearly break the game or so.
In Xenoblade X at my current progress it feels like its to much waiting around for an AI partner to trigger a Soul Voice so that I can follow up with a skill that will get some bonus. It just doesn’t feel quite active enough. I feel like I just want a menu like original .hack that let you give orders to party members.
I keep considering this game, but stuff like this is scaring me off.
honestly my only memory of parasite eve is mall kiosks and drawings of women with short hair in nighties
which still seems way healthier than modern day anime titillation
played ~5 hours of xenoblade x & it’s absolute tripe
unsure how the font size made it past qa either, it’s unreadable even on the gamepad
1 Like
Just get Bloodborne already dude.
Towerfall is super good but I find it hard to schedule time to play it with friends.
It’s a joyless slog – I’m not sure what they were thinking creating this game with no satisfaction or any other positive feelings associated with it, only the steady tick of your declining health meter. The win screen if you can finally get to it is your vapid acquaintances briefly visiting your grave – I then looked it up and there’s no actual “good ending” better than that.
towerfall is great, even the 2p co-op mode (even playing that solo!) is exceptionally great
