4811 replies to this topic

[Cukeman]

Just ordered a copy of Pokemon Black 2, I'm pretty jazzed about being able to bring Pokemon from Gen 3 and up to Sun and Moon. I only have access to Red (VC), Yellow (VC), Diamond, and Moon right now (I do have Fire Red, Sapphire and Ruby, just not at this address).

Edited by Cukeman, 25 March 2017 - 11:05 PM.

[The Satellite]

I've basically only had Breath of the Wild going on all last month. Specter of Torment finally came out for PC on Wednesday, and I played that with Jubbz and Moosh, as advertised in my stream thread. I just went back to get everything left in that after completing Breath of the Wild. Also playing a Megaman fangame on the side that I like so far, will probably plug it later if it stays consistently good.

[Russ]

I played two stages of said fangame. It doesn't.

But yeah, not much for me at the moment. Finished BotW a while ago. Ace Combat 3's fan translation came out recently, so that's high up on my to-do list. If you don't know, the original game was a 52 mission story with full voice acting and anime cutscenes, and a branching story path leading to five endings. The American released removed all voice acting and cutscenes and cut it down to a 36 mission linear progression. It was awful. But now that the translation's done, I can finally enjoy the game as it was meant to be played.

[Fiyaball]

Just bought Breath of Fire 4 and vagrant Story for $45. Two more RPGs to play eventually, probably not for another 3+ years at the pace I'm going

[Cukeman]

Playing through Pokemon Black 2. Incredibly frustrated by how closed off the world is, much more than usual for Pokemon IIRC.

 

Also playing more OoT 3DS. I haven't played BotW, but for the rest of the series I'm still convinced that OoT is the darkest in the series. I'm not saying the whole thing is dark, just certain parts, but those parts are far darker than anything else in the series. I often feel like MM and TP are called "dark" for things that are actually just gloomy or moody.

[Titanium Justice]

I beat Final Fantasy X a couple days ago. I wasn't sure what to expect initially, given that this game has some polarizing opinions, but to my surprise I found that I really liked it. I dare say it could possibly even be one my favorite FF games I've played, even though it does have a fair share of issues compared to some previous entries.

 

The HD collection also has X-2, which I'm going to try for the heck of it, though I'm considering that if I find it as bad as some people say it is, I probably won't play it all the way to the end.

 

Also, like a several other people here, Specter of Torment has given me another good reason to start playing Shovel Knight again. Still as solid of a platformer as ever.

[The Satellite]

After playing Specter of Torment, it made me want to play the other Shovel Knight campaigns again. Not in a "these were so much better" way, but more to see how everything connected. I started a new file entirely on original Shovel Knight since I'd done New Game Plus in the past already and just wanted to play through it again, and it reminded me just how good and wonderful the entire game is. Sound, graphics, gameplay, it's got so much charm. Then I played Plague of Shadows New Game Plus... mistakes were made.

 

Actually it's still fun, if not very frustrating because of the limited checkpoints and how tricky it is to control Plague. Plus, add in how you can only have ten health by collecting tonics in or between levels, and the fact that everything does double damage, and... it's a real pain in the ass. I also kind of realized that... Plague of Shadows now feels kind of lazy after Specter of Torment. In Plague, the world map is the same as Shovel Knight's, which makes sense, but the majority of the levels are also the same, with some slight tweaks to accommodate his play style. I mean, it's supposed to be concurrent with Shovel Knight's campaign, but it now almost feels lazy after seeing all the changes and updates Specter Knight got in his stages. I kind of miss having a world map in Specter of Torment but the full-on Megaman nonlinear style works too, and there's still plenty of charm and I wasn't expecting the story to be as good as it was. Ya know, for a retro-style 2D platformer. Not that Plague didn't also have a good story, no, I loved his.

 

But then after that I did Specter on New Game Plus and, while challenging at times (particularly the second-to-last level), was nowhere near as challenging as Plague's New Game Plus. This game... is a very good game and I can't wait to see what they do with King Knight's campaign now.

 

Also playing a Megaman fangame on the side that I like so far, will probably plug it later if it stays consistently good.

I played two stages of said fangame. It doesn't.

 

Also Russ is wrong because, after playing all eight stages, this fangame is still very good. Except for one stage that's actually pretty awful but the other seven are quite good. It has its weird quirks, but I'll get to those... after I finish the Wily stages so I can tell if it's truly worth a recommendation.

 

I just haven't beaten it yet because Shovel Knight and Breath of the Wild are huge attention hogs.

[Cukeman]

Recently completed OoT 3DS and felt like once more sharing my thoughts on this fan favorite.

 

Cons

- There are very few enemies, they are weak and pose little to no threat, they have very poor AI, and Link is overpowered.

- Death Mountain is a shadow of its former self, no array of cave systems, no large mountainside to scale, just a small trail with 3 tektites and some forgettable boulders. Weak.

- Epona collides with every polygon.

- Unskippable cutscenes

- Navi and Kaepora Gaebora are sometimes (not always) a bit much.

- Final boss is not skill-based. He has no health meter, it's merely a quick-time event. Many 3D Zelda games have this glaring problem.

- While (as prequel material) temporarily sealing Ganon away works, it became an unfortunate, tired, anti-climactic trend in the series which makes a lot of the Heroes and Sages simply look weak and helpless. Originally this was done to respect ALttP as an epic conclusion to the series, but that is no longer seen as the final chapter for better or worse (for worse), and most of the games have been officially placed in branches of the timeline that don't connect to ALttP anyway. It worked in OoT, but I don't like seeing it again and again all over the series.

- I wish discovered grottoes stayed open (more important to me than "fixing" the Water Temple and Iron Boots, seriously I never thought opening a menu to get an item was a problem- I never groaned about it in Mega Man- in fact I prefer it that way in Mega Man, and I just ignored the glowing directional stripes they painted on the walls, what's the point? All you have to do is try new rooms until you come across something you're equipped to solve, the whole Water Temple is simple trial and error).

 

Pros

- It's a musical masterpiece.

- Exceptional degree of control in combat. (No prize for Z-Targeting which existed two years before OoT in Tomb Raider)

- Some brilliant dungeon design. I love how the dungeons make full use of the new third dimension with many vertical height puzzles and navigation. Other 3D highlights include the twisting corridor in the Forest Temple.

- Fantastic atmosphere and sense of immersion.

- I LOVE how this game feels when played on an N64 controller, playing it any other way just doesn't feel right. Especially when using the Ocarina.

- The world (though small by today's standards) is fun to explore and riddled with secrets.

- Instant nostalgia.

 

EDIT: I used to think Ganon was a better fight than it is back when I used Light Arrows to stun him then get behind him to slash his tail. This time I just rolled under his legs and slashed his tail with the Master or Biggoron Sword. No arrows or magic needed. Pathetic.

Edited by Cukeman, 29 April 2017 - 01:01 AM.

[Nicholas Steel]

Neither Ganon nor Ganondwarf are Quick time events (except the very last sword attack to complete the game and even then you don't have to be quick about it).

Edited by Nicholas Steel, 29 April 2017 - 01:04 AM.

[Cukeman]

Ganondorf is damage-based, Ganon is not. None of the damage you do to Ganon counts- you can hit him 5000 times, and the only thing that matters is the head-stab (quick-time event). The same is true for dual-sword Ganondorf in Wind Waker, etc.

 

A minor complaint I had with OoT is that if you modulate the sound of the Ocarina the game won't accept it as inputting a warp song. I wanted to learn how to make the warp songs sound prettier and more accurate when I play them. It's almost insulting to be required to play the notes flat to make it count, then hear the game play it pitch-perfect for you.

 

EDIT: I finally caught the Hylian Loach for the first time in my life after all these years!!! (3DS version calls it the Hyrule Loach)

Edited by Cukeman, 29 April 2017 - 04:37 AM.

[Rambly]

I recently finished Virtue's Last Reward... and... I dunno.  The plot didn't sit as well with me as the first game's plot, I guess.  999 had such an airtight plot where it felt not only like every detail of the story was accounted for during writing but that the entire arc of the game was leading you towards the conclusion... it feels like it played this really brilliantly calculated game of connect-the-dots and it was just so satisfying to see all these loose details come together.  VLR doesn't feel nearly as airtight; it feels like there's a lot unexplained,
 

Light, non-specific spoilers

which to be fair, the game ends on a huge cliffhanger... it's clearly setting up for a sequel, although to what end the sequel answers lingering questions from the second game, I'm not sure.  I actually hear it kind of goes off in its own direction and that actually was a point of controversy, but I dunno for sure yet.

 
Anyway, I'd go into actual specifics about what I didn't like about the story, but I'd have to spend quite a bit of time consolidating and articulating my thoughts and I'm not sure how many people here have even played the Zero Escape games so it may very well be a Fool's Errand ........... I'll still probably do it some time because I can't shut up my stupid mouth about things
 
On the brighter side, I really enjoyed the puzzle rooms.  The puzzle rooms in VLR were probably better than then were in 999, even -- there were a few I didn't care for that much in 999 and I don't remember any like that from VLR.  Okay, the way, uh, certain mechanics are explained in the last room is convoluted and frankly poorly-written.  But other than that, they were consistently really good.
 
Anywayyyy. I'm also playing Phantom Hourglass.  I put a bunch of thoughts about it here, already.  I'll probably have more later.

[Nicholas Steel]

Ganondorf is damage-based, Ganon is not. None of the damage you do to Ganon counts- you can hit him 5000 times, and the only thing that matters is the head-stab (quick-time event). The same is true for dual-sword Ganondorf in Wind Waker, etc.

If none of the damage counts than you wouldn't need to deal a certain amount of damage to him to make him kneel over so that you can perform the final strike. When he is knelt over you can afaik do as many laps of the arena that you want to do before hitting him the final time, making it a non-timed, cinematic event in waiting.

[Cukeman]

If none of the damage counts than you wouldn't need to deal a certain amount of damage to him to make him kneel over so that you can perform the final strike. When he is knelt over you can afaik do as many laps of the arena that you want to do before hitting him the final time, making it a non-timed, cinematic event in waiting.

 

Pretty sure there's a minute or two before he stands up and you have to beat him down again

 

EDIT: I was pretty upset they took out the puzzle in the Water Temple where you need to spin attack a switch behind a gate.

Edited by Cukeman, 30 April 2017 - 02:41 AM.

[kurt91]

Finished playing the first Danganronpa game for the first time. It's pretty fun, although it does have the same issue as Phoenix Wright, where you know what you want to say, it's just finding the right place to say it that's difficult. (Although to be fair, Danganronpa does this to a much lesser extent than Wright)

 

The other issue that I have has to do with the final trial. Without saying any spoilers, let me explain. Imagine Phoenix Wright, but the testimonies are fully voice acted and progress automatically along with the voice reading it. You can't go backwards, but you can slow things down using the Focus skill, or speed things up to where you need. You're given a small selection of the evidence you found for each testimony, instead of having to sort through all of it at once. You load the appropriate "Truth Bullet", and fire it at the contradiction. Since the testimony is a debate among multiple people instead of coming from just one person, a big part of the challenge is also having to aim past the "white noise" from the other people around you while aiming at the contradiction. (Although you can use the "Silencer" function to shoot down the white noise in your way, it takes time and you might miss the contradiction you need to shoot.)

 

Sometimes, you don't have a Truth Bullet that will work in a particular testimony. What you do in that situation is hold down a button over a phrase in the testimony, and it gets turned into an additional Truth Bullet that you can use. This way, if the person is contradicting themselves, you can point it out. Sometimes, the correct phrase that you need to turn into a Truth Bullet is later on in the testimony, so you need to play it to the correct phrase, load your bullet, then replay the testimony with your bullet ready to shoot the contradiction. You can easily get into the habit of letting the full testimony play the first time, so you can see all of your options and gather new Truth Bullets when necessary.

 

Okay, now that the explanation's out of the way, let me get back to explaining my issue. Remember what I said about letting the full testimony play so you can see all of your options? In the final case, when you're confronting the villain directly, there's a particular testimony that has a problem with it. If you let it play out fully, you actually take damage as if you had made a mistake. Given the situation for the final case, it does make a bit of sense. However, the game doesn't tell you ahead of time that you can't listen to the full thing without taking damage. I actually lost the last bit of my health at that testimony because of it, and had to use another life to finish the case.

 

Other than that, the game's a ton of fun to play. Unfortunately, I got the first game by itself instead of getting the compilation set with the second game included. Still, I really want to get around to playing the sequel. I heard that it fixes a handful of issues that the first game had, and adds new types of segments to the trials. I do wish that the murders incorporated everybody's talents more. (All of the suspects are exceptionally skilled at a particular "Ultimate" talent, such as "Ultimate Baseball Star", or "Ultimate Programmer", or "Ultimate Pop Sensation".) Only one case seems to incorporate a killer using his talent in the murder, which seems a waste for the setting. Doujinshi comics try to mimic the art style of the original artists, so why not have something like the "Ultimate Doujin Artist" using his skill to fake the victim's handwriting for a suicide note, so the class trial believes that it was a suicide and not a murder?

[Cukeman]

Y'know the first time I played Super Mario 64 I enjoyed hearing Mario's voice, but over the years his vocabulary hasn't expanded... nowadays, especially in the Mario Kart series he sounds like he just escaped the asylum and is running around in his straightjacket shouting:

 

"Wa-Hoo! Hoo hoo! Ha ha! Whee-hee! A-ha! Yipee! Hooray! Yay! Hee hee! Oh yeh! Uh-huh! Ya-hoo! Wa-Hoo! Hoo hoo! Ha ha! Whee-hee! A-ha! Yipee! Hooray! Yay! Hee hee! Oh yeh! Uh-huh! Ya-hoo! Wa-Hoo! Hoo hoo! Ha ha! Whee-hee! A-ha! Yipee! Hooray! Yay! Hee hee! Oh yeh! Uh-huh! Ya-hoo! Wa-Hoo! Hoo hoo! Ha ha! Whee-hee! A-ha! Yipee! Hooray! Yay! Hee hee!"

 

It's become grating and annoying to me honestly.

 

   Still playing Pkmn Black 2, man this is a long game, I've never felt so railroaded in Pokemon before, everything is blocked off and you have to go way, way around and I just wanna hurry up and unlock the transfer center, but no, you have to do everything else first. 

   Playing flipped Master Quest on 3DS, surprised at how disorienting it is.

   Played the Sonic Lost World 3DS demo, great visuals, feels more like a bonus stage from Sonic 2 though since you can only go forward. The classic Sonic games had a degree of level exploration and path choosing, and puzzle solving to navigate the area and figure out where to go. Seems entirely absent here and pretty dumbed down as a result.

   Played the Metroid Prime Soccer, er Blast Ball demo. My reaction:

 

"...Why?"

 

(I had kinda hoped it'd be a pinball game)

Edited by Cukeman, 02 May 2017 - 03:19 AM.