okay I don’t mean to single out Kena here but
dear devs
you ripping off Uncharted and putting a bunch of ledges that are glorified rails/QTEs is not “platforming”
every time a game does this I just wish I could be actually platforming by doing the dumb shit I like to do instead of being railroaded through interactive ladders
it weighs heavily on me that I cannot post anywhere else because I would be writing essays defending my position that Balan Wonderworld is a more interesting platformer than Kena
mostly because writing that much seems like a pain
Uncharted gets away with this because it’s spectacle, it’s a bunch of set pieces strung together and the ledges get used as breathing room
you putting in all these ledges in a game about actually navigating an environment through the acts of observation and jumping is counterintuitive
stop playing other games, or games at all, for five minutes and think about it
also because it’s Valentine’s Day I reinstalled Katawa Shoujo because I saw the installer living somewhere on my hard drives and played through the intro and now I’m laying in bed alone, possibly drunkenly crying myself to sleep
so it goes
I think Prince of Persia: Sands of Time broke everyone because it disguised an observation and routing challenge as a platforming challenge with ‘solved’ platforming. Even their own sequels, even the escalated challenges in that game like the timed run at the end, didn’t understand the fundamental play they’d built, that it was about an environment obscured enough that the player was trying to read it, combined with light puzzles and combat as a distracting element.
Any platforming safety bumpers less than the honest abstraction of PoP 2008 or more than Getting Over It feel bad to me these days. I’m always annoyed to see something unfailable and be asked to go through someone’s animation system anyway
Bend’s Vita Uncharted where you paint the platforming path on the touchscreen is both a hilarious own and brisk honesty
I have been playing Pokémon Legends Arceus and it is both extremely interesting in a way I’m actively engaged in, and an absolute brain-soaking balm. I go back and forth between fiddling around with it to see what weird shit I can get it to do, and just wandering around catching every Pokémon and looting every resource just because I can.
If I had to guess, this game probably functions as a bit of a test for gamefreak to perhaps transfer over some of these mechanics to the main game, as LGPE transferred over overworld-visible Pokémon to the main games. I would be surprised if they transferred over any stealth stuff or strong/agile moves for anything, but being able to deploy Pokémon in battles on the overworld and reposition yourself during the fight is a much better battle experience. Basic tasks feel more natural; fights begin and end more quickly; I spend more time setting up a fight and preparing to win it and the decisions I’m making are more complicated. These are all good changes.
I think the fights with other humans are deeply forgettable, and the inventory management sucks ass, but it’s otherwise a lot of fun. Also the decision to lock mass release functionality in the pasture behind a star level is absurd. But I’m glad this game has that!!
I have no big opinion on the overworld art style except that the levels are under-decorated. Some areas are creepily empty. I think the style is charming, though, and the character/pokemon art remains fantastic. I love wearing and unlocking weird little outfits!
Deleted Neo World Ends With You, Space Invaders Forever, Ace Combat 7 (finished), and Mudrunner. Knew I couldn’t handle Mudrunner and my brain out right ejected it as I tried to do the tutorial.
Went ahead and downloaded PSO2 and started Installing Lost Judgement. Take me back to RgG town. The comfort.
Then played two games of Wheel Of Fortune with Lady Rude. Garlicky Pizza with Extra Sauce and Banana Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. The Dukes of Hazard.
Going through the Quintet series on my Anbernic in not-quite release order—finished Soulblazer first. It’s definitely still fun but the localization is even worse than I actually remember. It feels like reading a philosophical treatise by an alien trying to grapple with human speech. Also pretty bad/boring bosses. Basically it’s not so great but gradually unlocking little towns is actually quite fun.
On to Actraiser now—first impression is it’s way harder than I remember and also the RTS levels are actually much more arcadey than I remember. Those little monsters are coming at you pretty much constantly!
bruh
I played through ElecHead because of what you said about it and I really enjoyed it.
Those last two pieces are pretty tricky. And apparently the real challenge is finding all the alternate palettes. (I found only one.)
please, no
If it is like previous 4 times it will ask me to make a Sega Account and I will close it.
Getsufumaden Undying Moon is kinda neat. It’s super clunky and has a lot of minor upgrade systems to mess with. I dunno, I don’t entirely understand it, but it’s enjoyable.
I can pretty reliably take out the first boss, but the first enemy you come across in the second level is a real bastard.
I confess I consulted a map to help me find one of the last pieces. I was just losing my mind over what I might be overlooking and realized it was either that or I wasn’t going to finish the game.
I am delighted that I discovered a secret area that the map-maker never found.
The locations of the alternate palettes are really deviously hidden. I think I only found three on my own.
So glad you liked it! I think it’s really something special.
I found 5 alternate palettes and only 6 electronic pieces in ElecHead so far. I also beat the game before reaching the 6th teleporter. I must have some kind of perverse thought process that lets me find the weird secrets while my attention isn’t drawn to the basic ones
sounds like good and inviting level design 2 me
secrets ought to be
Once I realized the sort of thing to look for, I went back to each area to find the missing chips. But even as I was meticulously reviewing the levels for those, I ended up with just the one additional palette (beyond the three you start with).
Though I guess I did only search the areas I knew the chips had to be (based on the order and the ones I already had), then teleported out.
Today was a good game day as after apparently 40 days I finished up The Last of Us Part 2. I can’t judge the actual ending but I was so damn happy when the ending credits hit. When there is a part 3 I’m just straight spoiling myself if it is paced in this way again and penciling in a “when X happens consider that a season finale and put it down for a few months” as I think that would have helped my experience with this game tremendously.
This did free me up to start playing the gameboy Mega Man game and I took down two of the robot masters which officially makes this the furthest I’ve made it in any version of the first game. Maybe I have actually gotten a bit better at games over the years.
I also played the demo for Sokobos, a weird ancient Greece themed block pushing puzzle game where rather than push generic blocks they are specific pieces of larger structures you are trying to piece together. Some of said pieces also need to be painted certain colors by pushing them through single use paint tiles so it did seem to do something to flip up the basic formula. Seems neat for what it is.