Games You Played Today V: The Phantom Play’n

[yarusenai]

got back from 3 weeks in tokyo with my partner a couple of days ago. we spent a lot of time at arcades playing iidx. i am too tall so i look like a maniac when i play:

we mostly played on lightning cabs, which are newer versions of the machine that come with 120fps monitors and some other little niceties. they felt amazing! i was instantly able to read notes a lot better and i improved a lot while i was there. my partner described playing on them as getting to play on a really nice instrument.

during the trip i hit 9th dan, which i had been working towards intensely for months. i was tearing up at the arcade! three more ranks to go until i’m at the top — i’m hoping to get the next one this year.

other arcade highlights: getting on the leaderboard in outrun 2 sp, getting to try 5-key beatmania (eh) and keyboardmania (kinda cool), seeing how good and deeply strategic my partner is at ufo catchers, playing ketsui and ddp doj on big lovely tate crts (awesome and revitalized my dream to 1cc those games), playing densha de go arcade with the huge cab (felt like i had just gotten a new job), getting to play the newest version of the initial d arcade game (super different from when i was a local legend at idasv3 in my early teenage years; younger me would have loved the newer one but i still prefer the ps2-ness of the older naomi-based games)

we mostly played iidx though and it fucking rocked, around 100 credits each over those three weeks. we love that game!

here’s the card i got celebrating achieving 9dan (the course i had to pass is here for anyone curious):

so stoked that despite being born in the “arcades are dead” era, i’ve been going to arcades my whole life. it was a life-changing moment for me the first time i walked into an arcade with ddr in 5th grade and saw people who were really good playing. i wanted that to be me! and now it is. every now and then when i’m playing iidx at the local arcade, some kid will walk by and stand there watching me play for a minute and i feel like it has all come full circle. very cool.

[isfet]

so i’m finally back into SMT3: Nocturne (HD Remaster). when i got this game back in the PS2 days, i think i made it to roughly the same point (Kabukicho Prison) before going “i get it” and leaving the game alone, but unlike most games where i say “i get it,” i always regretted not finishing Nocturne.

so, thankfully, after 2 months of insistence from my wife (who, despite finding Nocturne creepy as hell, is drawn to it like a magnet), i picked it back up this week. we had started Death Stranding, but i’m not really in the mood to personally replay it and she found it too isolating to play by herself, so Nocturne has taken the place of “the thing we’re playing.” and honestly, no offense to Death Stranding, which i love, but Nocturne is obviously the better choice.

i just finished up The Obelisk and defeated the Moirae Sisters, and despite being kind of a grueling dungeon with few chances to ever feel comfortable, it was also one of the best dungeons and boss battles in the game, so far.

overall, everything in this game, even its technological limitations, all work in favor of creating an unparalleled atmosphere; there is still no other game i’ve played that hits the way Nocturne does.

i’m mostly ignoring the Amala Network since i don’t really want the True Demon ending for my first run, but i also really enjoy fighting the fiends, so i’m torn on skipping some of the Riders. i think priority one, though, needs to be “finish the damn game.”

my party got wiped twice in The Obelisk, once right before i was about to reach the final save point. i wasn’t even mad; that’s just how things go in Nocturne land.

[notbov]

finally grabbed Gunfire Reborn after it had been sitting on my wishlist for ages

I thought it was good and then I unlocked the bunny and realized one of her endgames is “you hold the trigger down and never run of ammo” and declared the game perfect and made especially for me

it’s like Enter the Gungeon, except if that game was good instead of bad

[VastleCania]

the dual wielding dog with explosives also has a couple of “basically unlimited ammo” perks. I was rolling with two rocket launchers, my explosions were large enough to cover entire rooms and I was doing lucky hits + crits about every 6th hit so I would just walk into a room and destroy everything. And I didn’t have to even think about ammunition.

Then of course my computer shit the bed for some reason, so there goes that game-winning run

BUT yeah explodey dog is good

[meauxdal]

finally got to try the first ~45 minutes of Bloodborne

killer game! my souls acumen doesn’t seem to be helping much, getting slaughtered by mooks left and right

went with the saw cleaver, love that thing! i’m extremely bad at the pistol/parry timing tho

also is it just me or is this the easiest souls-type game to get hopelessly lost in? i am constantly confused and have no sense of direction in this game!

[Felix]

@meauxdal

also is it just me or is this the easiest souls-type game to get hopelessly lost in? i am constantly confused and have no sense of direction in this game!

the first big level is intentionally like that, it becomes less so as you go

[vodselbt]

I think it comes and goes. There is a forest level later on that feels so complicated in a really interesting way that emulated what I imagine it is like to be running through dangerous wood having to make split second life or death choices while you’re being hunted or something. It’s great, and overall the sprawling incoherent and surprisingly interconnected stacked upon each other way the levels in Bloodborne are is extremely thematic.

[drastic_bb]

throwing rotten food at the fear like some kind of zoo animal lol the no kills euro extreme playthru rolls on. the difference between mgs1+2 vs 3 is theres actually a point to combat cause you can really just kill a bunch of people until the alerts end but i dont actually think playing this as a kill em all let god sort em out game is like… doing a good job of exploring its mechanics or whatever. there are a lot of games where you can dome guys with aks already (tho i will say the shotgun blast knocking over physics enabled bodies is a good time)

im at The End now…

[doolittle]

i always play 2, 4 and V tranq-only but big boss feels like a zen murder guy so 3 is a bloodbath

[captainlove]

European Extreme makes MGS3 such a crazy experience. The Ocelot team fight strategy gets so comical when they’re not even allowed to see you. I remember learning enemy detection mechanics made it so you can walk absurdly close to them without being detected.

[doolittle]

yeah! I got into this a bit a decade ago before realizing I am not physically capable of the analog input finesse it demands

[drastic_bb]

it is a bit annoying guards hear your footsteps in this one but if you run up to them fast enough you can do the cqc slam before they alert which is fun and satisfying everytime

[shnozlak]

I used a lot of lure and smash tactics in 3 using sound when I did euro extreme. I never could figure out the escort section though. Im minimum one alert. One day Ill try it again. Cat gang was so fun though.

[drastic_bb]

i think the hardest part to nokill is gonna be the chase… kojima no more of these please

[physical]

when i first played mgs3 i assumed how easy it was to accidentally cut a guys throat was some kind of Commentary on the restraint needed in combat and not just really fussy analog inputs

maybe i was onto something, big boss really does love doing a murder

[meauxdal]

more PS5 thoughts as i dabble in various things

the PS1 emulation on PS5 is… fine. i tried out syphon filter. there’s no option to play it in the native resolution, it’s always heavily upscaled. there’s no PGXP, though, so you get super-upscaled 3D content while the polygons are still wobbling as hard as ever. it’s a weird look, not really a fan

there is a “retro” filter, but it just puts a little blur and faux-scanlines up. it’s nice to have, but not a replacement for native res. the “modern” filter is weird, not sure what that one is even doing… looks bad

the input latency really isn’t great. very noticeable. i don’t think syphon filter was ever the most responsive game, exactly, but it wasn’t this bad

overall, meh. should be fine for RPGs but not sure i’d go for a shmup or fighting game in this format

trackmania turbo (ps4) is great. kind of annoying to link your uplay account, but smooth sailing after that. was thinking this might be the same game as the earlier console “trackmania turbo”, but turns out this one has totally new levels and vehicles. game looks great, runs great on PS5. not sure why you can’t remap the controls, tho, weird oversight

cod warzone ii is pretty fun! significantly more fun than the first warzone. might prefer this over apex legends, honestly. the haptics and adaptive triggers are amazing in this game, DMZ is chaotic and wild. graphics are very, very pretty on the PS5

siren (ps2) (ps4) is still cool. the upscaling looks pretty good here, and the input latency isn’t a big deal for this game.

[meauxdal]

i also tried out streaming to twitch from the PS5

really nice feature, it’s very nice and convenient to be able to just directly stream to twitch from a console without having to do the whole capture card/separate device juggling — even the twitch chat just pops up in the corner so you can keep tabs on it.

re-entering the console world after so many years in PC world is interesting… like, i know this feature has been around for awhile, but this is my first experience with it

[meauxdal]

my bb char

[Rudie]

You shoulda said hi!!! (As my family and I were extremely sick and couldn’t leave the house.)

Where was Outrun 2SP?

[drastic_bb]

wow… i beat the end and even got his camo!! i ran out of tranq bullets part way thru so i spent the rest of the battle sneaking up on him and blowing the cigarette gas on him… i couldnt think of a more proper way to beat him than by persistence hunting

the fury is a lot easier with the subsistence camera! i basically just double tapped him with mosin nagant bolt cycle cancels