yes and this is why I built a physical only demifiend
5 Likes
it’s a real marvel comics punch, perfect anticipation and follow through, nice meaty WHACK
Nocturne such a beautiful classy game too i appreciate that the coming switch remake is taking a light touch on the graphics and making vox optional. the shot composition during the dialogue scenes is masterclass and the story never feels like a bunch of talking heads
2 Likes
There’s only one difficult choice for me in this round: Dragon Quest 3 vs. Bloodborne.
Positive traits that both games have in common:
- Blank slate protagonists
- Stat increases worth paying attention to when leveling up
- An optional ability to turn into an animal (cat/beast)
- Flowery language (only NES DQ3 exists for me)
Bloodborne has an edge in a few areas, though:
- Slime scholar
- Brain trust/winter lantern
- Grant us eyes
- Grant us eyes
4 Likes
I feel like there has to be an illustration of a dragon quest slime in a mortar board cap to refute this but I’m too lazy to look
1 Like
Nocturne is such an intensely lonely game. Didn’t someone on this forum once say that Persona is about slowly making friends while mainline SMT is about your friends slowly drifting apart? I forgot who wrote this but it stayed with me
It’s telling how the biggest new faction in this game is people who want to create a world where they never have to talk to anyone ever again. I don’t think I’ve seen anything capture the essence of the loner as well - the foolish destructive appeal of isolation and non-commitment. Evan Bong Joon Ho himself made a short about hikikomoris and it felt like a surface level analysis compared to Nocturne’s depiction
Cities not being safe from random battles was such a good pressuring move - Are there no standards? Is this a joke? Every new city I was expecting that OK NOW, this one won’t have random battles, but every time it did.
Of course the older SMT games had that element too, but aesthetics made them feel different - Cities were too abstract for the player to feel betrayed by the random battles!
Pictured: SMT1 city. Barely even a mall TBH
10 Likes
I dunno if Barkley is particularly well-loved on this forum but I feel this way about so many games.
No way we all love Barkley Gaiden, im surprised it didn’t get on the list too tbh. Maybe it’s a game that’s widely appreciated but not necessarily someone’s favorite
1 Like
This is why we need ranked-choice voting!
1 Like
I tried playing it a couple years ago because of how SB seemed to absolutely love it, and the aesthetic and writing made me feel deeply uncomfortable the entire time and almost physically ill and I never actually finished it
I can’t really put into words how it made me feel, just that the entire thing gave me the creeps and it was deeply upsetting
3 Likes
This round has some strong ‘the one I played’ energy. Tbh I’m just grumpin over MGS3 and God Hand’s lack of support. I’m sure this result has to do with people’s age or some other arbitrary criteria that isn’t just people enjoyed it more/found the other more interesting.
I do think EDF being entered as a series is weird given the genre changes and wide range of quality within the series.
i realize mgs2 is kinda a loooot cooler and sexier than re 2k2 but have you all considered what a nice house it is?
wish i had screens of some other rooms but the spencer mansion really is one of my favourite places in videogames
4 Likes
I’d be surprised if God Hand doesn’t win tbh but it’s up against a very good online multiplayer series. It’s really apples and oranges.
I’ve been watching Big Saru’s MGS 3 videos (I’ve played it through myself as well) they’re very funny and entertaining but it’s up against SMB so…
3 Likes
I’m surprised people don’t talk about Mother 3’s « embrace tradition reject modernism » angle more - I had completely forgotten about it until I looked the game up but it’s such an important part of it!
I wonder if Itoi was 100% genuine about it or if it was just another tool to make him kill Mother 2? Cities had this really cool allure in Mother 2, you could order pizzas and go to jazz clubs and all, so now fuck that, Mother 3 is all about an idyllic rural community destroyed by the facile appeal of TVs and money?
Frankly the extremely naive appraisal of pastoral life was handled with such a lack of nuance, if this game was released slightly later Itoi could have been widely regarded as this ultimate boomer worthy of derision like Banksy
… I still voted for the game here because of this moment
8 Likes
I don’t think it’s as simple as embrace tradition reject modernism. The people of Tazmily left the world they destroyed behind and sealed all the knowledge of it in an egg. Only one person remembers their history and he’s usually silent. I think this is supposed to be viewed as a mistake — they tried to return to an imagined past but without learning any lessons from the future they’d created, so it ends up just reoccurring.
The story also contrasts Flint against the rest of town once it starts being modernized. he insists on keeping his country home exactly the same, even though the pigmasks keep striking it with lightning. However he’s also stuck in the past and never got over Hinawa or Claus, and spends most of the game offscreen in the woods somewhere fruitlessly searching for his son. When he shows up at the end to say “I’ve found Claus!” it’s supposed to be like, yeah dad already ten steps ahead of you.
It’s hard to interpret one way or another because we rarely get a look inside Lucas’s thoughts but i think he’s supposed to represent like, balance or whatever. Memories are what motivate him but it’s his embrace of change that helps him succeed. And the game is ultimately about ridding yourself of both worlds and creating something new.
9 Likes
I like thinking about how this could apply to any of the games in the bracket
gotta play pikmin y’all, that anti-capitalist shit is baked in from the beginning more than i remembered
olimar is a fucking idiot
7 Likes
just thinking about snorting up my snot in warioware OH OR THE NINJA GIRLS BOSS FIGHT WHERE YOU SHOVE FINGERS IN NOSES
i like how dr what’s his face, the bald guy with sunglasses, his levels theme is always like ‘reality’ and his levels are full of toilets
there was a lot of me voting against souls and kojima slime this round so it doesn’t mean i like survival horror now or anything, dont worry i still have incredibly picky shit taste
is there a mod for nocturne where i can give the dude a shirt i wanna try this game again but he looks so goofy
i hope the shirt looks even goofier. give him a band tee
3 Likes
wait why is one of the polls closed before the other ones
Surprise turbo round.