The dreamcast one is amazing, and actually has a fun story mode.
The XBLA one was also pretty good, IIRC, but it was the one I spent the least time with.
5 Likes
DS is def the high point of the series, maybe even the treasure design ethos in general relegating the story to the tutorial and creating a danmaku charcuterie that’s communicated in tiny wav files. While the original was too big and the XBLA game too small the DS version’s the perfect middle ground.
1 Like
my biggest problem with the DS version is that all the physics and the damage feel too predictable and pat against the straining chaos of the original. Bangui-O mechanics were fundamentally flimsy and barely workable and the DS game removes too much noise
3 Likes
signalis is a masterpiece and everyone should play it
5 Likes
I’m playing that now and finding the setting and monsters samey and kind of boring. I can’t even tell what the monsters really look like. The combat is also a bit sleepy, and I don’t like that you take damage just by touching or that enemies hurt you even as you run out of reach of them sometimes. But I’m gonna try to reacclimate my expectations with the time I have left. I think the first-person pre-rendered scenes have a really cool Silver Case look about them.
3 Likes
still haven’t escaped the first area, but also not looking it up lol
2 Likes
What? Those legendary space fruits? The huge Space fruits?
After dodging spoilers for 25 years, I finally beat Symphony of the Night.
And I mean, I dodged hard. I didn’t know that the inverted castle was literally upside down or that the player character was Alucard. As insane a thing as that was to do, it was honestly somehow worth it. There’s just so much stuff in this game, and so many delightfully weird surprises: the genuinely startling confessional bit, the Clocktower gear puzzle, devil familiar casually pushing buttons, spying on the boatman, all the food.
I had played all the GBA 'vanias, so it was quite a surprise discovering that almost everything in them had been done first in SotN. It feels like it might have just solved the whole genre right off the (lol) bat, which is a little disappointing to see a quarter-century later.
30 Likes
i’ve played it a little more. i still mostly stand by my observation in the SIGNALIS thread
but it has integrated Silent Hill into its things it’s cribbing from… which is fine. Silent Hill cribbed from a lot of things anyway (David Lynch, the movie Jacob’s Ladder, John Carpenter etc). still really like the environments and overall aesthetic/presentation, still am amused by the anime robot girl story, still hate the combat and mostly find it pointless. def still into it enough to finish it though.
also there are doors you can go through in places that are not always super easy to see (i.e. in what look like the middle of hallways). i got stuck on this in the demo. so maybe this helps.
3 Likes
I am thinking, maybe I have just presumed MGS3 Subsistence is a better way to play MGS3 than the original with fixed camera angles. It would be interesting to replay the original version of MGS3.
8 Likes
do you like mgs2’s camera?
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iirc in subsistence you can switch to the original camera by clicking in the right analog stick at any time
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oh yeah you’re right!
1 Like
Friendship with Castlevania LeCarde Chronicles 2 ended over orbs. For every delightful enemy placement or devilish trap or simple wonderful murder room(The Doll Room!) the wondering around the castle got really bad. I kept yelling, “Who made this Castle? The Devil?” “It’s like some kind of dark power made this place!”
I really liked failing at challenges and my friends getting real rowdy about it. How we all kept going That’s Really Cool. How the bosses are Ys style in there is a limit to how much you can grind and eventually you just have to face them and play a little bit clever.
Then at like hour 4 I started to collect all the bobbles for the Good Ending. Which involving finding keys to /get keys/. I have played this game in small batches over six months and had forgotten the ferryman liked “pure sounds” and I had bought a flute 7 hours and 4 months back that made pure sounds and that there was a ferry man. Thanks internet!
This led to a secret dungeon to get a fake sword so that I could fight a mirror player character fight back in the castle. Unforunately all the game’s bullshit platforming and enemy replacement came crashing down on me for fucking masocore gamemaker horseshit. See I need to get through a hallway with spikes, done. But also there were floating orbs that I had to slide under and if I barely touched their large stupid hitbox they would send me back to the beginning and damage me from the spikes along the way. All of our jokes and fun was drained out of the room like a vampire biting into a…
It got quiet. I started yelling real obscenties at the game. I finally exhausted resources and died. I deleted the exe. I went to youtube. I screamed with laughter seeing the one playthrough fade to black to hide the dozens of times they tried to do it. I skipped to the ending. I discovered I had collected 6 black orbs, 4/5 equip items, and…one of 3 evil books. Yes the true ending takes 3 kinds of bullshit. I actually like the bad ending more where you get trapped in the castle and Lucifer who is The Devil tries to take over the Earth but is eventually stopped by someone else.
Maybe the funniest bit is when you meet Alucard, voiced by the English VA, and he goes I am too tired and injured you, Mary Sue, must beat the game instead.
Pretty Fun game should have stopped way shorter than I did because it just invented (in a way that made me laugh out loud) more and more complicated platform challenges to make sure I didn’t sequence break and more and more stupid keys. There is literally hidden white and black armor that they only thing it does is let you get 2 different pieces of equipment.
What a game.
12 Likes
Back on the Demon’s Souls run
2-1
Good twisty level but not much to report. Probably one of the more pleasantly redone skyboxes of all the new ones. There’s a lot more implication of the general impact of the industry of Stonefang mine, and how it’s transformed the landscape.
Of all the bosses so far, armour spider seems to be the one that’s been reworked the most. The telegraphing on certain attacks, including the flushing of the tunnel with fire, are telegraphed a smidge too far and feel a bit too pantomime. As if the boss is performing a call and response routine in which they deny hearing your first response. They also seem to have removed the trick where you can stand by one of the armour spider’s legs and stay safe? The legs just aren’t there anymore, and you’re forced right into the spider’s face.
Having unlocked blacksmith Ed, this run feels especially cruel since I won’t unlock the Flamelurker soul upgrades for quite a while, severely limiting my damage output.
3-1
Excellent level. I’ve always found it odd that the Souls games have never gone back to this particular kind of challenge. A floor plan which is mostly identical on every floor and includes wrinkles like having an east and west hall which are connected in inconsistent ways as well as a mezzanine floor which means that the player must pay careful attention to total architecture rather than just counting how many flights of stairs they’ve climbed. The floor order is thus 1F > 2F > Warden’s Hall > 3F > 4F and you start on the third floor with all floors having an east and west counterpart. Apart from the warden’s hall they have basically the same layout except they have different drop points or blockages that prevent the player from basically just navigating every floor as they please.
Also, since it’s a prison the player can unlock different cells to get different things although they will also probably unlock more enemies which complicate future runs since the doors cannot be closed again, even by death. Even though I’ve played this many times the floors have so few landmarks it genuinely feels like you get trapped and gaslit by the environment about the correct route through.
The fool’s idol was one of my favourite bosses in the original mainly because of how minimal the music was even in comparison to the rest of the day originals soundtrack. The music in the remake is the closest in spirit too the original track but is still nowhere near as effective. Compare:
Not only are the strings and piano less tense but you’ve got the same wordless choir that infests everything. One of the biggest strengths of the original soundtrack was how pared back and lacking in distinct human voices it was. This new cinematic direction is just at total odds with the sparsity of the game. however, the sound design of the spells and magical effects in the remake are just outstanding. I’m starting to think that between them you basically have perfect Souls sound design.
1-3
Good level but a real trial by fire. Really starting to feel my Limitations in terms of level and base stats. I’m doing very little damage compared to if I tackled this later in the play through and I’m having to make use of a lot of status effects, ranged spells, and good old cheesy exploits. Again, something that I don’t recall the later Souls game doing is trapping an NPC behind a guard and to get to them you must disguise yourself in the guard’s uniform to gain their trust and access to the floor they are imprisoned on.
The penetrator fight was pretty easy since I rescued Biorr and there’s not much else to mention apart from the penetrator is now a sick edgy knight with a tragic backstory. Look at that cursed arm and sword, I wish I was cool. Why did they add this!?
1-4
A really spiky roadblock that is currently threatening my entire run. This is a long and painful run even in the late game and I cannot emphasise how squishy I am. Some of King Allant’s sword attacks one hit me, Making the run through the dragon and however many knights and fat officials even more precarious. I am also certain they’ve made the elevator ride up to Allant take about twice as long.
My current strategy is basically to loot every other world that I have access to without completing the worlds in a different order but even this isn’t really pushing my stats much further. I’m considering just burning all of the souls I’ve got so far and just power levelling until I might be able to approach a decent rate of damage since this boss has always been a bit of a marathon.
What’s annoying is I feel like I could probably do the rest of the levels pretty easily so I’m also toying with the idea of putting 1-4 at the end and just doing the rest of the run in order. Playing games is meant to be fun right?
Levels remaining: 1-4, 4-1, 2-2, 4-2, 4-3, 2-3, 3-2, 3-3
14 Likes
Castlevania Chronicles Stage 06’s platforming before the boss is some audacity indeed
Daytona USA The Saturn conversion is much more charming than Yester-Me’s dismissal of a game engine barely holding together as you play it. I barely scraped a 1st on the Advanced course after two evenings of chucking needless Outrun 2 Drifting into every bend while feeling stupidly proud of myself for the Hornet not exploding. This might also remain my favorite Sega Racing title of all time by dint of vehicle gravity and the heavy sense of contact with the roads themselves, and am really looking forward to properly exploring Sega Rally & Manx TT now
Oh and the Novice course on Endurance is My Pure Zen Therapy that is personally equal to my love of SMK’s Ghost Valley 1 on 150cc
10 Likes
This is Chicago:
I’m overjoyed that the US release of namco pro tennis has the quest mode. Doesn’t it look like the kind of thing that would get cut from the localization when you compare the boxes? It almost feels like a waste of a good thing playing it rn…I need to save it for when i’m having a bad day so I can cheer myself up
27 Likes
the main scenic features of chicago in gale racer are gas tanks and palm trees
to game developers, chicago is just a mystery
9 Likes
Yeah I’m just playing Pokemon Scarlet that’s gonna be it for a while
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Well heck and there’s an $9.99 HD port on PSN that I never got because I instantly hated the DC version back in the day. Time to see how I like it on PS3. = ooo
Edit: oops nope it doesn’t work with a DS4’s R2 and L2 triggers for the unmappable accel/brake buttons. Not with the buttons on my PS3/4 arcade stick, either. Heck. Oh well, now to see if I can cajole a refund out of Sony for non-working software. ; )
Update 11/21: (No refund given!) I’ve ordered a $13 PS3 3rd-party pad from Amazon, maybe it’ll work? = o
2 Likes