the soundtrack is bananas, too. absolutely cannot hear it in-game, though - the SFX drown it out
3 Likes
the first life is strange is a weird artifact now because it feels obvious — take the talking parts of a bioware game and tell any other kind of story. a sister to gone home’s post-imm sim. but it’s also a little annoyed at the vestigial game artifice and unsure on its feet
it can still make me cry but it’s very cheap when it does. the state of the art in 2015 was pretty cheap so i can’t fault it, but the sequels have a better empathetic imagination
when it gets trippy at the end i love it and i wish they’d found those tools earlier. true colors does a fantastic job in the same sandbox but also waits until the eleventh hour. i don’t think games are particularly good at most things but they are uniquely suited to psychedelia and psychosis
i’m curious how conversant the design was with true indie twine etc stuff at the time because i think they could have avoided some first principles narrative design issues. the sense i got watching the retrospective talking head footage was they didn’t really know what they’d made until it was done
in the end the episodic schedule definitely bit them — episode 2 is the most vital and inspired
16 Likes
ive been enjoying a variety of 2D arcade games and recently tried the 1993 konami beat 'em up metamorphic force it’s this furries vs. scalies game with like big hand-drawn gay-looking sprites very silly stuff i think it’s way better than like x-men 1992 or whatever
it feels kind of like a licensed game based on a bad 90s cartoon primarily designed as a way to sell plastic toys to parents of children or whatever but isnt. its just like that. weirdly charming vibe
12 Likes
I’m planning to try Motor Raid again in pretty short order here 'cause I found that using Steam Input to swap my d-pad from “d-pad” to “left analog”–which I had to do for Sega Racing Classic 2, since that has no steering function on its d-pad–cured the steering in Motor Raid; or possibly it was also helped by picking a driver with less speed and better steering? Anyway, there’s some way to get the control to feel decent so I gotta try it with that. ^ _^
1 Like
it also has an amazing soundtrack! and like all konami arcade games, significantly more plaable if you go with the jp version
4 Likes
Yakuza 0 was actually pretty good!! I think this was the most time I’ve spent playing one of these, about 65 hours with lots of time spent doing substories and the cabaret/real estate game too. The late-game story was kind of dry for fun things to do and the plot was more monotonous than any of the other games at that point. But chapter 15 and on were very satisfying to see unfold.
I loved the hokey reveals for Kiryu and Majima’s iconic costumes that happen in the very end. It may not be my favorite Yakuza game but I totally get why it is such a fan favorite.
8 Likes
I finished Tenderfoot Tactics, it’s small scale but I got about 30 hours out of it I think? I really liked it in spite of its repetitiveness.
This game really does to orientation what Death Stranding does to walking, you are only given a few maps that don’t ever have player markers or even point to the same direction, and you really have to triangulate coordinates all the time to get anywhere. Wish Kojima made all maps bad in Death Stranding 2 TBH
In battle I went all in on big long range -earth +water spells so I could create pits and fill them with water to prevent enemies from reaching the team. It was really effective. Difficulty scales with successes and failures like God Hand and I had a ~40:1 win/lose ratio, I kept winning and enemy formations grew larger and larger but they died just as quickly from all the AoE spells and I just kept winning anyway. There was still a lot of tension from the enormous enemy firepower but they rarely got to use it
At the end of the final battle all my goblins were left standing on the last pieces of land left on the ruined flooded battlefield, and all the enemies were left swimming around, literally unable to fight. Great anticlimax
There are a few battles taking place inside tents and I always absolutely ruined the terrain there, and it always made me smile thinking about my little goblins trying to find sleep here afterwards :
12 Likes
Got a little bit further into Mega Man Legends 2 and literally the last thing I expected was the nudity, legit caught me all the way off guard.
9 Likes
On PS3, playing SEGA games like or at least sort of like the five SEGA arcade games you can play in “Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name”–which I just played on PC, for comparison.
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Sonic the Fighters
No screen filter here on PS3 and you’ve got access to move lists and higher difficulty settings and stuff so this version is technically better (my pad mashing was way more successful than in Gaiden; probably less input delay but I didn’t measure), unless maybe you feel strongly about being able to run it at higher than 1080p as I would guess you can on PC if you’ve got the right hardware.
If I really wanted to play the game it would be PS3.
~
Fighting Vipers
I like the clean Model 2 look here on PS3, it’s way less visually noisy than the Sega Model 3 Fighting Vipers 2 in Gaiden–fewer flashing FX on the eyeballs, too. And the Model 3 games run at slightly reduced screen size in Gaiden. Plus you’ve got move lists and higher difficulty settings here. And I do like that nutty, almost abstract night truck stop stage w/ the distant town that almost looks like Seattle. But I haven’t seen all the stages in FV2 and I haven’t played it on an arcade stick yet–so can’t compare the games gameplay-wise really; on pad they both felt pretty mashing-friendly, but certainly more flashy stuff happened when mashing in FV2. I wasn’t in love with FV’s gameplay when I did play it on a stick.
I’m not in love with the cheesecakery in either.
Still have to try FV2 in Gaiden on a stick.
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Virtua Fighter 2
Lots cleaner than the Gaiden version visually, w/o Gaiden’s scanline filter, & you’ve got move lists & higher difficulty settings (oh & these PS3 ports have online; no match in my hasty, frightened check). Otherwise felt about the same mashing on pad: still got toyed w/ & destroyed by Pai (she maybe let me get a HAIR closer here? slightly less input delay? don’t know really).
PC version is more convenient. Gaiden’s filter, torment of a hint more input lag… Dang I’d have to do a test. Wish I could wean myself off fixed platforms.
… PS3.
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Super Hang-On
Well, it’s a SEGA motorcycle game; it’s way better than Gaiden’s futurecycle Motor Raid so this is more of a contest w/ Super Hang-On in Yakuza 6, which I also have on PC.
In the PS4 version of Y6, in this stand-alone arcade port on PS3, & in RL according to arcade info site KLOV, SHO runs at a 10:7 screen ratio.
In Steam Y6, SHO runs at a narrower, 4:3 screen ratio: I’m running at 1080p, SHO should be 1540px wide, but it’s only 1440px wide. (Same w/ the other PC Y6 retro games I think.)
Both versions credit M2, but on MobyGames, for Y6 M2 only get “Game Development Assistance”–sounds more like Sega reworking M2’s old code. Only about 50% crossover between M2 PS4 credits on MobyGames & the more numerous names in this 4-yrs-older PS3 ver.
SHO in Y6 has a “VERY EASY” cab, alongside EASY & NORMAL; the PS3 version has two harder than NORMAL options, & EASY–but no VERY EASY–plus an option for a “stand up” arcade version harder than the default mini-bike sit-down cab. Couldn’t get as far on the easiest PS3 settings as I could on VERY EASY in Y6, even after…
Remembered SHO has Turbo: hit 280 km/h, hold Turbo AND Gas to keep TURBO engaged. M2’s remapping forbids mapping both to 1 button; I don’t want to have to hold ONE button, much less TWO.
On PC, w/ Steam Input I can map both to 1 button & have it toggle, so don’t have to hold it. Happy joints.
PS3 version has online leaderboards I forgot to check. & 3D TV support.
PC version for SHO.
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Daytona USA
Forgot the game specifically doesn’t let you remap gas and brake. It doesn’t support d-pad for steering. The steering is incredibly unresponsive–and grotesquely juddery–forcing you to resort to the super twitchy drifting mechanic on all but the mildest turns. This was not a good experience. Probably a lot better on the actual arcade cab.
Even the texture filtering is awful.
I’ll stick to Sega Racing Classic 2 (Daytona 2) in Gaiden on PC. (Plus there can use Steam Input to set Gas as a toggle so my touchy ol’ joints don’t have to hold it.) (UPDATE: my dumb toggle scheme is too complicated for my dumb brain in SRC2 'cause SRC2’s brake doesn’t work well while gas is being held down; probably just gonna hafta hold my own darn gas button after all. ; D)
2 Likes
kind of annoyed I don’t like returnal more. I’m not burned out on roguelikes or anything, I generally like housemarque’s work a lot, I think the game is pretty damn good, but after every run I’m like “eh, maybe that’s enough for me after all.”
I even like the storytelling! I should not be so down on it! but the dark souls bosses and the weapon variety and the enemy variety and so on are all only like 80% as good as I’d like them to be
5 Likes
I also really wanted to like Returnal more than I did. I eventually had to admit to myself that I just wasn’t having much fun with it and quit.
Super Stardust HD is still great, though.
2 Likes
so’s Nex Machina!
and returnal does a million things right on paper, to the point where I gave it like four chances after just not being that inspired to continue after each run, and I wouldn’t even really hesitate to recommend it.
but is it a nuclear throne / noita / necrodancer / teleglitch / qud / dead cells / anything else from the golden age of game maker / unity roguelikes? nah
2 Likes
probably a closer comparison is sunless sea, whose presentation, scope, etc I also really liked, but which just did not motivate me to keep playing it after the 1/3 mark for lack of variety
3 Likes
Yeah Returnal feels like they missed something on why roguelikes are even fun. My tactics never changed based on the powerups I got, and the room layouts are not particularly internally randomized.
So it felt close to a normal linear game that you start over from the beginning every time. Just playing the rooms in a different order within each chapter
6 Likes
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (PC/Steam)
Cleared Motor Raid on EASY & NORMAL, even with an S Rank with one of the characters.
Also, tried a silly don’t-have-to-hold-the-gas-button control toggle scheme using Steam Input for Sega Racing Classic 2, and pretty much failed to make it work. = P
I had bounced hard off Motor Raid in my first attempt; I felt like the controls just weren’t set up well / weren’t responding well. Since then I learned that well the attack buttons will auto-target to either side, so that’s nice; and you can do stuff like hold Punch to throw your weapon in a lock-on attack, charge up and punch with no weapon to power-grab someone else’s weapon, and that you have three stages of boost, the highest being that red attacking tornado effect around you. (Riders also sometimes do various flips–might be connected to “SP.ATTACK: Continue pushing the weapon button” mentioned in the game’s demo?)
Also, I think you just hafta lean ie turn into the turns more than I’d expected to have to, so what I read as unresponsive was just…not turning hard enough! Anyway I think I’ve got it now. Even S ranked it with the uh fast guy I think it was, no the NORMAL cab. No hard cab. Hrm. Well I can go for S ranks with the other characters, doesn’t feel like that should take that long. Then…scores? Hm. It feels like a really short arcade-mode run-through.
There’s lots of cool details I was too steering-apoplectic to see before, though. Got my helmet knocked off by an opponent! The huge spider AT-AT hulking over part of the snow stage! Sluicing along the snow stage! Oh and if you really want some control take the girl with the max GRIP stat or whatever it is and check out her cool kick turns; the way riders will put one foot down briefly on a hard turn is a nifty touch.
I’d come up with an elaborate set-gas-as-toggle control scheme using Steam Input that was gonna save my pwecious precious old joints from having to hold down that mean mean Accelerate button all the time; doesn’t work in Motor Raid since a) you need to pump Accelerate to trigger boost and b) brake doesn’t work in this game with Accelerate held down.
I’d thought it DID work in SRC2 but nah it doesn’t really, I mean it does but only if you toggle gas off before hitting brake if you really need to do a drift thing–which actually seems like something you want to do–drifting I mean–very frugally here and I haven’t figured out the right balance of drifting vs not drifting. But anyway you don’t have full braking in SRC2 while gas is held and toggling the gas toggle around braking when I still don’t quite get the drifting was baffling me so I’ll probably have to give up on that whole scheme for this game, too. (It’s much easier in say Super Hang-On where brake works just fine while gas is on.) And in this session my silly ol’ wrist wasn’t bothered at all by the end of it so hey well who needs toggling anyway now that I got a more ergonomic DualSense–or something, I dunno. Joints joints joints.
The transparency of the smoke clouds from cars in SRC2 is probably being rendered wrong in Gaiden’s Model 3 emulator–they clip themselves out rather than overlapping.
8 Likes
10 Likes
Mega Man Legends 2 continues to defy expectations, no more nudity (so far) but I just got the first key and people are back in the school nearby and are offering quizzes you can take for prizes. I figured there wasn’t really a ton of game lore all things considered so I could probably at least have a shot at the easy one and… it is all real world trivia that wanders between “a trombone is a what?” and “what year did Mussolini’s fascist party gain control of Italy?”
I think I am just gonna google cheat my way through this (that or just not bother) but this relatively tame at times lovely game just ever so often makes these utterly baffling design choices I can’t even begin to understand. There was also a straight up cocaine joke at one point.
17 Likes
Last night I figured I’d knuckle down with Astlibra Revision and defeat this final post-game boss so I can call this game done and dusted. I finally managed it after like 3 hours of banging my head against it (it’s a 3 phase boss where if you die against the 3rd, you have to redo the 2nd. The 3rd has a few ridiculous screen filling attacks that can break your guard and kill you outright, and the 2nd is just annoyingly drawn out).
Credits rolled, but then after that it does the “The End…?” thing and so I reload the save and turns out this game has a whole DQXI style 2nd post game with a whole extra storyline that is apparently about as long as 3 regular chapters? It also introduces entirely new mechanics?
How frickin’ long is this game
5 Likes
sorry, I should have mentioned… they let me localize megaman legends 2 when I was 12. hope you like the butt I drew
6 Likes
I just like that all the stuff mentioned in these quizzes must surely be Mega Man canon because of it.
3 Likes