i believe that’s just 776 and it has a reputation for being The Difficult One
I was literally just about to make this exact post
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finally got around to checking out Blazing Chrome. i think it’s pretty neat, but it isn’t grabbing me like a Contra title. i’m trying to figure out why, exactly. maybe because the first two stages feel kind of tame? i’m not sure. also not super keen on the weapon choices, either. are they different for each character? i probably need to play it a bit more before i reach a verdict.
after that, booted up Castlevania Collection again to see if they added the JP versions and, lo and behold, they had, so i played CV3 and 4 respectively through the first four levels.
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played a bit of the Dragon Quest XI: S demo this afternoon
not feeling it at all so far- the orchestrated music just seems overdone, if that’s the word I want
I love you so much
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thief is exhausting me so I picked up terranigma
terranigma sure is unlike any other game
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the same thing happened to me playing that today, except with a cardboard box instead of a desk. really enjoying the game so far - the layering of fmv on top of the cgi models in the cutscenes is v impressive. plus any game gets bonus points for the first npc you interact with being extremely finnish
It gets slow but the moments of epochal import hit me so hard it’s one of the most important things I’ve ever played.
Relatedly, I played the human evolution game (Ancestors) because I love Terranigma so much and it’s not necessarily a failure. I think there are very few people set up to enjoy it and reviewers (and I don’t mean critics) are absolutely the worst people to do so.
It’s entirely about encouraging intuitive, discovery-filled, slow-paces play by disguising a survival game in layers of jargon and confusing UI. It’s almost like trying to figure out a puzzle game but without synthesis and elegance; instead, a complex web of consequence as you piece together the game economy and systems. Play it real slow and think like a designer on a field trip.
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I was quoting the number in Blizzard’s own system requirement list but I suppose it’s also possible they copied the list from BFA without bothering to change the storage
I guess playing games with play time indicators really illustrated to me that at best, I can only get about 14 hours of gaming at home in a month, and that buying a bunch of games 2-3 times that in length means it won’t progress very quickly. Slow progression aside, I’ve been enjoying it, and am looking forward to my copy of Vagrant Story maybe showing up this week? (My best friend from high school and I did record an episode of our podcast two weeks ago giving our thoughts on the Midgar section of FF7 which we both played for the first time last month.)
Really, my year focusing on the original PlayStation so far has made me realize how little bullshit I am willing to tolerate when my gaming time is so limited. Games as a service tend to dictate the terms under which they are meant to be played to get you to adapt your lifestyle to them. What I need right now are games that can be played on my terms. I don’t want an endless progression treadmill to keep up with, I don’t want limited-time events to warp my schedule around, and I don’t want to have to wait for patches to download or manage storage for those patches. Give me a finished game on a disc that boots immediately 100% of the time, and only have the game be “alive” for as long as my console is on.
(I realize the above paragraph is kind of at odds with playing WoW but I was curious ok)
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I’m very interested in this
I can’t recommend it yet but it’s fascinating so far
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i hope suikoden 1 is on your list!!!
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i would love to astral chain some xanax.
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I was digging Mutant: Year Zero and its approach to stealthily dropping in and out of combat. And then I got screwed royally by RNG a few times and I went, yeah nah.
yeah the main problem with it being so charmingly slight is that once it’s no longer a totally smooth experience you’re kind of done
I quit on the spot after getting my fifth party member because I was already annoyed about not being able to use my fourth with the rest of the squad and the game was getting a little too tight
Oh, I guess it would be a good time for this!
Mutant Year Zero: Day… Last Day
So I beat this on hard (which is normal, easy is labeled normal) and it’s really not tough at all once you internalize how it works, don’t mess around with the RNG at all. I basically blasted this one group getting hit once without really being in any danger, thought it was a bit easy for what seemed to be the second to last battle, and it turned out it was actually the last one.
Apparently the RNG is faked somehow (I don’t know what that means) but I saved right before every battle so if it went to hell I didn’t lose any real progress. I think it is a bit thin in terms of viable tactics as even late game you are rather vulnerable in any straight gunfight, so it is all about cycling through abilities that stun or possess enemies for a few turns (on hard it takes three kills to recharge any of these). Probably less than 10% of the shots I took were at less than 100% certainty, which made it feel a bit more like a puzzle game.
That said a few times I either screwed up or had to fight, and given that I never healed past the midway point they were rather dynamic “skin of my teeth” deals where it came down to like only one of my guys left alive with 1 or 2 HP left against one enemy who happened to have an ability I was equipped to cancel out. They were pretty fun but I don’t know if the game is really designed to support these kind of battles with any consistency.
I think it is a good “player’s first tactical rpg” or whatever genre name is appropriate as while it is easy to screw oneself over if they don’t figure certain things out early they are given complete control of pacing and I’m pretty sure the game is set up in a way that it is possible to beat it without ever getting hit and without having to worry about the RNG. In that way it is a very controlled experience and while I can see that not appealing to everyone I think it is a good way to learn some of the genre basics.
I played No Man’s Sky VR with Index controllers* in dummy mode (infinite resources). This finally satisfies everything I wanted out of No Man’s Sky – being able to wander a solar system slowly, aimlessly, scanning things and feeding cute animals. Hello Games’ approach to VR controls is admirable. In many cases, objects and tools are interacted with in a very natural and literal fashion. Accessing equipment and commands is all through movement that makes sense on a diegetic level. Grabbing your multitool from over your shoulder is a fairly standard gesture for VR, but grabbing your headset to toggle your visor put a smile on my face. Instead of a held look or held trigger, you engage modal interactables (like your ship) via a pull. And the ship itself is controlled by grabbing the throttle and the flight stick, both of which work as you would hope.
My only ding is that the jetpack is nauseating.
To me, this is the definitive version of No Man’s Sky. The original version had a bunch of busywork to paper over the fact that there wasn’t much there; I bored of the treadmill of fetching resources so I’d be able to fetch more resources. In the original version’s creative mode, I enjoyed an occasional sight-seeing trip but it felt like playing a tech demo. In VR, No Man’s Sky finally feels like an inhabitable space, somewhere I can enjoy pretending to be for a bit, just as a playground.
- The ergonomic benefits of the Index controllers cannot be overstated.
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@problyfine photos of State of Mind put it on my radar without looking up anything else about it. Then it was on sale on the switch.
As an Unreal game on weak hardware there is a pause and a popin on any new environment. I recognize this from when I play on PC. Not so much on a console.
I wish someone had told me it was a Eurojank Heavy Rain style game about walking around. So far I have played a unfaithful husband who hates robots and another husband who needs to take his kid to a doctor’s apointment.
Then the first guy start talking about hacking access into the movescan to find his missing wife.
For how much lienance I have to trashy films and books a poorly written/acted game makes me want to give up immediately. There was like an earthquake? And the glass ground started cracking while the camera was shaking and the models stood stock still with a kind of distressed look on their face. I am saying I am learning a lot about the nature of reality.
My switch is a graveyard of dissappiontment.
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Sorry Rudie! I should have put a disclaimer along with those images. The only thing I really liked about State of Mind was navigating its environments–they are gorgeous. But the fiction is really dull, and the interactive elements are way too simple and unengaging. But I don’t think you need to blame your Switch for this. The game can’t be much better on the other platforms it released to.
(I think @SUPERSONNICK recently said they were interested in playing State of Mind? Please see my and Rudie’s posts above.)
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