skipped around this and was amused at a certain popup string that reads “CALM DOWN” in the midst of all the explosions, traps, large points pickups and flashing scoreline
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whenever i play data east games they have a uniquely high hit rate for good sense of humor which thus makes them some of hteb est to ever do it.
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DynaGear owns because if you 1CC the game you get the bad ending
also the devs (Scarab) can’t hide their love for Mortal Kombat (they also made Survival Arts and Battle Monsters, both fighters with digitized sprites)
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Played Minoria, a metrovania from the creators of the Momodora games. The arcadey Momodora games are so much better than the exploration driven ones. And of course it’s got a heavy emphasis on a parry mechanic because it was made in the last six years 
back to picross
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I got to the fat chocobo sits on a girl part of FFXV
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All I’ve really had the time or patience for to play lately is Mario’s Picross, but I think the more I play it the more I think it is one of the coveted Perfect Games.
Granted! It lacks a lot of the QoL sort of features later Picross games have (really, the only thing I’m missing from later entries is the ability to mark possible blocks), but as someone who has bought a lot of the Switch Picross games, burned through the first page’s worth of puzzles and then hit a steep vertical wall, Mario’s Picross is really, really good at easing up the difficulty in a gradual way that feels challenging, but also feels like…yeah, just take your time and think it through, and you’ll get it.
The way I play these games would probably drive anyone watching me insane, though. No assists, but if I make a single mistake I immediately restart the puzzle (that’s a nice thing in later ones, that you can turn off mistake notifications, and then see where you went wrong and shuffle blocks around).
I keep fucking up but I take some time, do some other stuff, come back and restart, and usually I’ll get it.
The Dark Souls of puzzlers…
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another really fun random arcade game… this one’s from taito. i feel like this era of taito (metal black, darius gaiden, elevator action returns) has such cinematic games and vibes…
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also the degree to which they clearly haven’t rewritten this engine since the PS3 even though it now has ray tracing and stuff is pretty funny… the only point of comparison I can think of is shadows of the erdtree which had a similar thing going on where the animation is more expressive than ever and the world fundamentally looks good even though the rendering feels very primitive and some aspects like the hair leap out as shitty
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Dark Seal used to be one of those games that i played once at a restaurant and then never saw again, and so i had to wonder if it ever existed, because i couldn’t remember its name
thanks to Replay Burners, i was able to rediscover it - they’re doing god’s work
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i played this with a friend many years ago, and the next time we were playing games together, he asked “can we play that gangster genocide game again?”
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replaying mario and luigi superstar saga because i love bouncing on bad dudes head with GOOD TIMING, was talking to cania about the series and there are now THREE mario and luigi games i havent even touched or looked at. i quit bowsers inside story becuase it was so so long and the microphone blowing stuff made no sense and got me stuck all the time but THREE whole mario and luigi games? thats tempting. one of em is on the switch though so i have to figure out how to get that working
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gamer’s paradox: virtually all Mario Games are also Mario and Luigi games, but no Mario and Luigi Game is a Mario Game
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Played the FUMES demo, which took the best parts of the Mad Max open world game (The driving combat) and made a whole game around it. Demo is pretty barebones: just a combat encounter and a bit of a boss fight + vehicle platforming. A little bit of Mortal Engines in there too. Demo is way too short, I need more.
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People who know nothing about Record of Lodoss War may very well not appreciate Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth’s commitment to not changing that, but I kinda dig it. Characters are certainly having conversations which mean things!
As a game, meanwhile, I’m enjoying it. The environments and monsters are immediately forgettable and lack cohesion, but the elemental alignment switching–think Ikaruga–actually manages to add something interesting to the well-trod formula.
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Finished Red Alert 3 Uprising. It was: okay. I am tired of these games now. Time to finish Tiberium Twilight, the worst entry by a mile!
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While I am sure the quality is obvious as someone that checked out of the genre at 17 what makes a good or bad FPS and what’s the unique strengths of a good C&C?
Sorry for asking an essay.
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I got to the point in Rush’N Attack: Ex Patriot where the sloppy game design and jank Unreal on PS360 got cranked to “the player is gonna have to really want to see the ending.” I had to collect six explosives
on the minimap located along the gigantic linear level with inconsistent checkpoints. After my 20th mostly the game’s fault death I noticed the game had decided I forgot an explosive way near the start of the level. I proved myself a big boy and yelled “Fuck This” and deleted it. I am proud of myself.
My conclusion from 15 years ago where you just play the generous demo and go thankyougoodbye was the right one.
My next PS3 experiment is 3D Dot Game Heroes a game I got all the way to the last boss and died at and discovered it does not have auto-saves or retries and my last save was near the start of the game. I was hate playing it most of the way through but I am older and like famicom design more and won’t make the same mistake and even if I nope out after 25 minutes that is okay.
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- Campaign Levels: The most important part. Campaign design for the series veers between no-build (micro) missions, base-building (macro) missions, and hybrids that don’t easily fit either category. A good campaign will have a pleasant mix of missions that demonstrate positive qualities of your faction’s units without being too hard, too long, or too “gimmicky”. Red Alert games have universally better campaigns than their Tiberian counterparts, with the possible exception of Nod in Tiberium Wars. Actually Red Alert series is just better than any of the Tiberium series except Sun so just assume I say that for every entry.
- Units: Good variety of units that don’t require too much or too little micro, look nice at RTS scale, and have clear strengths/drawbacks. Campaign levels should be designed to accentuate the unit designs and demonstrate their proper use in a normal match.
- FMVs: Funny dialogue and scenarios are important. Should be at least slighty corny with a fun sci-fi flair. Red Alert 2 wins this but Tiberian Sun is close behind.
There’s not really anything “unique” about what makes them good other than the vibes. Warcraft is a little too self-serious, where C&C has more fun and is more willing to get goofy with it.
What makes “a good RTS” is kind of an impossible question, so I can’t really answer it that well. I’d say my favorites all tend to have minimal micro and obviously interesting choices for units. It has to strike a careful balance where I need to juggle my attention but i don’t have to devote too much of it to one skirmish. Ideally the campaign slowly unfolds how much you have access to and constructs challenges you can only complete by embracing new strategies.
Why I think Red Alert 2 in particular is my favorite RTS? Really well-designed campaign levels (little puzzles!) with multiple secrets, excellent faction design based on goofy retro-futurism and dynamic unit compositions (with thankfully little micro), and Ray Wise as the president. It’s fun, breezy, easy, and smart.
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I played the cat game from PicoMix. It was a little annoying at times with its precision platforming, but the kind of annoying that makes you determined to get to the end. I also couldn’t help collecting every bonus item.
Hopefully the other games are as good as this one. I already know Combo Pool is.
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Where does o90s PC Magazine super darling Total Annihilation fit into this?
And Thanks!
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