I had been really struggling with the last few bosses in Stranger of Sword City and have reworked the team.
I like the odd change in balance near endgame. It seems quite blasphemous for a very codified Wizardry-like. I’m not sure if this was intended.
Basically by that point :
Mages have learned all their spells and don’t gain much from staying in their class. Clerics specifically have learned the best passive defensive skill in the game, which is a bit wasted in the back row
Meanwhile, most of the front liners have learned a skill to dual wield efficiently, but this comes at the cost of a shield, which are extremely good defensively.
A quick reclass into a dancer can net a passive skill that allows infinite range no strings attached… Meaning the warriors could be put into the back row without any issues
I swapped the two rows entirely. Front row is 3 mages, back row is 3 fighters. The mages even gave their robes to the warriors in exchange for heavy armors. The team is now unbelievably more efficient
I picked up Isles of Sea and Sky (formerly Akurra) and put a good 90 or so minutes into it and it’s rather good so far. The baseline puzzles so far are mostly block pushing ones but in this first “real” island (there is a short almost tutorial one to start) there’s already been a good bit of “how do I make my way around this place to get over there” plus dealing with an underworld and other various bits to ponder. I have seen a few instances of sort of overlapping puzzles (solve the puzzle one way to get a key, solve it a different way to get something else) so I’m excited to see if they dig into that more as I get deeper in. I had previously only played the initial demo (which was for an earlier version of this island) and so far this is what I hoped it would end up being like after that.
Finally beat SMTIV which was a miserable experience and one I will not be doing again. On the flipside Devil Blade Reboot came out today and I like it! I’ve bounced off a lot of the recent shmupwaves the last few years or so but this was the first non touhou one I bothered to 1CC (and all it took was to remake one!). The font puts in mind Ikaruga until it starts and this Silvergun at its core in everything but the one feature associates with it, like a Galactic Attack sequel except good. You can tell its a Modern release (the bloom especially is like its own ugly tribute to the RSG ports which is cute although I wish the music was a more face less bass) but also that the vanillaware guy spent 10 years making it while not drawing food.
I am so annoyed at how much time Fortnite needed to complete its battlepass this season. I like playing Fortnite! I want to play it right now, but I can’t bring myself to go back to it yet because of how much I had to cram at the end of the season to fill out the battlepass. It’s not as bad a feeling as having to play a game at set times of the day on a mandatory schedule, which is why I can never get back into MMO raiding, but it is close.
I played a really impressive banjo kazooie mod called Bear Waker which re-creates the first island of wind waker.
i thought it would be just some 5 minute thing, but we got really into it and took about two hours to complete. it’s full of cute touches and has a bunch of fun puzzles and great sense of discovery, and is just really impressively made. the guy who made it has made other highly regarded N64 mods too.
the only complaint i have is that there is a bit too much backtracking, but thats about it.
we played it on real hardware, but i’d recommend emulation. there is a chance for it to crash early on real hardware (but its fine once you’re past that point) and there are some graphical glitches
In my quest to never finish playing Blasphemous or SMT3, I started playing Theatrhythm (whatever the new one is), trying to limit myself to the Final Fantasy games I’ve played and finished, so uhh…1 and 2.
I like it, but it is kinda funny that you gotta…you gotta grind, a lot, to level up these little characters to meet some of the level goals.
Will I use the Final Fantasy 2 crew the entire game so I can just power level them to 100 and blow through these quests? Maybe…maybe…
Did you try Genshin and bounce off immediately? Yes? Cool, skip the rest of this post
Are you a current, former or some degree of disgruntled Genshin player? Wuwa is that phone video game except instead of being an action-RPG, it’s an ACTION-rpg. You time the dodges and get the slow time, you swing the weapon when an enemy has a circle and get the parry, one of the starter units is a chunk of Virgil’s moveset, also they put Virgil’s plastic lawn chair on the map
Okay but also you still have all the other bullshit like getting gear with garbage stats and rolls. The game desperately wants to tap into whatever pleasure center Genshin activated in you but also make you feel good for timing a parry and putting a boss into break
Also, this sounds weird but I think they just kinda outright lifted a bunch of concepts or assets from Tower of Fantasy (this is another Genshin also-ran except it’s a gacha MMO, which is an absolutely cursed idea from design and monetization standpoints but also it lives on because it’s a tech incubator for its publisher, which is why the phone MMO has ray tracing). I know and understand that separate parties can reach the same endpoint but both games have opening zones that are mostly post apocalypse and enemies that are cars with legs, which is too out there of a design to waste on one game so good on them but also what the heck
It’s also seemingly pushed out in an unfinished state, the localization is rough (and British), the first chunk of main scenario just kind of ends and the iOS version is the crashiest app I’ve ever used
But man, that combat. Even the bad characters feel good to play. I guess the caveat to that is since combat is so action game-y that team building is probably going to suffer, which should only concern you if you have bad brain like me and make headass comps with your stupid anime figures
I took a break from um, 45 Hours of Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth to return to a save of FF7 just outside Midgar on the Playstation Classic Mini POS. After about 5 hours I am where I am at in Rebirth. Huh.
Bear in mind I am playing in Japanese and am not trying very hard. I could not figure out how to start Fort Condor (give them all my precious money?) and I could not figure out how to get even one GP in Golden Saucer so that was also kind of a wash. Without that it is a string of tiny-weird incident and then you are dropped back on the world map to just kind of run around. I am shocked how much of Rebirth is just in 7 but you know fleshed out to the 11th degree.
But I am in RedXIII’s home town. I haven’t run into Yuffie. I am supposedly following “A Man(s) in a black cloak” but haven’t seen one since I started playing. Sephiroth did come and talk to Claud in Junon.
It’s very easy to miss stuff and even easier to miss that the two lines of dialog from an NPC were Important. You can see why kids got obsessed with it. It is full of tiny details. Maybe you could rescue Aeris if you tried hard enough.
As an N64 Child who would eventually buy the PC port day one and play it in like 2005 I was obsessed with the screenshots of the Chocobo Racing. I couldn’t believe a video game could look like that and honestly still can’t. There are still all kinds of “woah” moments. But also stuff just happens. But it is true you get out of Midgar and Shinra goes “Uh yeah we don’t care about you anymore do whatever.” My 2005 comment was how much of the story is actually focused on Shinra’s cast and your party’s is mininalized.
I guess you just make a hard choice what party you want and put your Materia there and don’t worry about it.
A peak at an ancient website told me about an Enemy Skill that gives the whole party haste so thanks guide sure that’ll break the game. That is part of FF7 and FF8 is just breaking the game.
It’s a much looser game than 6 is what I am trying to say, after the tight 6 hours of Midgar it is a real trip.
One more thing that Playstation classic is a real POS. I can’t tell if it is the shitty software or my controller that keeps giving me false positives. I have unintentionally healed enemies or hit party members with limit breaks multiple times. I did consider hacking it but couldn’t figure out if that would let me rescue my save to a good emulator.
there’s also an enemy skill that gives all your party members barrier and magic barrier. it might actually be thesame one as the haste one, i can’t remember.
i went to an arcade today and played various games. the most noteworthy being bishi bashi channel since it has no home port (and would need a specialist controller if it ever got one. maybe the best way to do it would be a plug n play?)
it’s the most recent bishi bashi game, wth the innovation that one of the buttons is now also a wheel. (didn’t taito have a bishi bashi-like that used a wheel? it maybe got a ps1 port?). also, the game’s story is that the players are youtubers doing crazy stuff to get viewers, and of course, your score is the number of viewers you get. it feels like 2018 is early for a game to come out with this theme, though logically it obviously isn’t
was this in london?..a couple months ago i visited london & the friends i were staying with were next to an arcade & there was the only time ive ever seen bishi bashi channel (& elevator action w/ the doors). i didnt like the pacing, it felt like a bit too much downtime.
also the first time in my life ive 1v1d a stranger on a candy cab ( street fighter 3) & when i mostly won i experienced incredible levels of dopamine…unbelievable…theres no reason those things shouldnt be everywhere on earth
also i definitely agree with your second point. every shopping centre in the country has a bunch of miserable prize games dotted around that you never see anyone playing. imagine if those were fighting games or stgs instead,each building little communities around themselves.
it’d be something cool for people to do, plus the locations would make more money. better for everyone!
this was it, freeplaycity (altho a lil has changed since this vid was recorded, like progear up & runnin), closed up kind of early 4 my frame of reference but neat space, lots of rhythm games on freeplay which was very cool 2 me
playing majora’s mask. haven’t played it before so unlike ocarina I’m not being bombarded by vague flashes of memories and forgotten sensations constantly so I’m not alt tabbing out to read the wikipedia entry for owen hart or watch the music video to busta rhymes “gimme some more” or what have you every few minutes
