4847 replies to this topic

[Maleboocado]

It's not that it's a polarizing game, it's that my expectations are, for better or for worse (probably both), different that what other gamers expect. I understand the game has enough reasons to be loved by many people, and, as I said, the game has an unique style. What I hate is that the only reason why Grim Fandango is a game (rather than a book or a movie) it's because it has puzzles, and the only reason why Grim Fandango has puzzles is because it's a game. I'm not saying puzzles are inherently bad, or that Grim Fandango must be a Mario-styled game (how can you translate SMB1 into a book?), but I think a game needs to justify why it's a game, and Grim Fandango doesn't do that, it puts bizarre, non-sense puzzles just because. Or are you telling me the puzzle with the pigeon eggs near the end of chapter one serves a purpose?. If the choices affected the story or the puzzles integrated well with the setting, that would have been a good thing. I haven't played neither TWD nor the Phoenix Wright games, but if what I have heard about the games are true, then the former is about choices (real choices, choices that has consequences), while the latter is a game about a lawyer tryijfg to prove the guilt or innocency of someone, therefore the use of puzzles as part of the clues and hints to solve the cases has sense. Grim Fandango, on the other hand, is happy to put strange puzzles with no narrative purpose.

And even despite the game has style, I cannot accept the cultural appropiation (you know, Aztec people are dead buth Mexicans aren't, and I'm sure their views of death, the afterlife, and religion, are far more complex that the single elements the game chooses from nowhere and uses in arbitrary ways because it's cool), I cannot accept fatphobia (big fat character with a passive role, a childlike mind and a huge attention for a single thing which is treated as an obsession? And this "obsession" being a result of his "childlike" mentality? Yup... sounds like Gladdys. Even worse because Gladdys was created as a mechanics-oriented demon, he did not even developed his love for machines), I cannot accept mental health shaming for cheap laughs (the man who gives you a gun before going to Hector's office), and I cannot accept how some, if not all the women in the game either does not have personal motivations or they have a bad ending (Eva? Works for the rebellion but she's a mere soldier, and before that a mere secretary. Meche? Sounds like she's lost in the Land of the Dead, then it's not clear if she's working with Domino, then it's clear she's... well, Manny's love with no further elements of her own. Olivia? Her twist was unexpected, but it comes at the end of the game, after having done nothing for three chapters, and she is killed. The women from Rubacava? Nah). And those are integral part to Manny's story and personal growth. Ugh.

I'm pretty sad because, having played the game AND listened to the directors' commentaries is clear that the people who worked in the game are talented and were passionated with their job, but they took the wrong approach and the wrong genre and the wrong story and the wrong characters. The voice acting is good, single scenes works for the most part, but the whole thing collapses on its own.

Edited by Maleboocado, 09 June 2015 - 04:57 PM.

[The Satellite]

Beat Laughin' Jokin' Numbnuts along with Fred Fucks. That was a pretty tough boss, but also entirely fair. Pleasantly surprising really. Also the LJN level was way less aggravating than Boo! Haunted House surprisingly. Or not surprisingly. That level sucked. But on the whole it was fun, if not possessing of some issues...

 

Next up: Gunman Clive and getting back to Oracle of Seasons. And Splatoon.

[kurt91]

I had already given up on it ever being finished, but there is finally a full translation patch for the PC version of Fate/Stay Night Realta Nua that translates everything to English and removes the H-scenes!

 

Okay, some backstory for those who don't know...

 

Fate/Stay Night is a visual novel for the PC, and one of my absolute favorite stories of all time. However, because of a very small handful of sex scenes (that are actually plot-relevant, though), it's classified as an eroge. There's a fan-translation of the original, and it's a very popular story that was later turned into multiple anime and a movie. The original novel had three distinct routes that essentially made it three full separate stories, and although there are multiple anime derived from the novel, they all took a pick-and-choose approach.

 

There was a re-release of the visual novel for the PS2, with the H-scenes removed and replaced with all-ages-appropriate alternatives, and it was labeled Realta Nua, to differentiate it from the original. A while back, an attempt was made to make a new translation patch for the original PC version to add all of the added scenes, H-scene replacements, and updated graphics, voice-acting, and music from the remade version. Sadly, that patch never came to be, and was canceled a few years ago. In the meantime, another Japanese-only release of the Realta Nua version was done, this time for the Vita.

 

Now, this particular translation that I'm so excited for got the idea to, rather than attempt to port all of the Realta Nua updates and improvements to the original PC release, simply transfer the original translated script from the old translation to the PC version of Realta Nua instead. They also added in the PS2-exclusive animated cutscenes as well as the Vita-exclusive animated cutscenes. On top of all of that, they also translated the additional scenes that weren't in the original, and correct mistakes in the original translation regarding spelling errors and incorrect words. (example: "Dirk" was misspelled as "Dark", and "lowlife" was re-translated into a more-appropriate for the character "mongrel".)

 

I've loved this story for years, and I've spent an insanely long time searching for a way to share it with my siblings. However, the H-scenes prevented me from doing so, as my mother would probably kill me for showing pre-teens pornography. With this, I can let them read it without that particular issue, as long as I make sure to turn the H-scenes off.

[The Satellite]

Finally went back to Seasons, determined to beat it. So I powered on from level three until the end. There were a couple of small annoyances, and a couple of pain-in-the-ass enemies, but overall I think I enjoyed it a little more than last time. Not that highly still, it's hard to explain but... there's a feeling I get when playing the two similar games, Link's Awakening and Oracle of Ages, that just doesn't exist in Seasons. Seasons, there's very little to do between dungeons, very little involvement with the rest of the world... I felt very little investment in it. For me, it was less of an adventure and more of a "find the places, raid them, find the next place." Not that there weren't some great dungeon design, but the season mechanic just felt a little tedious to me, and there just wasn't that investment I feel in most other Zelda games.

 

But it's still better than Four Swords, which is next. Ugh. At least I get to look forward to Wind Waker...

 

Also I'll start Gunman Clive soon.

[thepsynergist]

But it's still better than Four Swords, which is next.

Have you played Four Swords Adventures for GCN?

[The Satellite]

Yes. And I think it's pretty good. Underrated, even.

[The Satellite]

Beat two games today: Gunman Clive and Four Swords.

 

Gunman Clive is quite good, the style is amazing, the music's pretty good, and it's generally a fun platformer that managed to scratch the Megaman itch pretty well. It's a short game, but so are Megaman games, and I had a ton of fun with it. Also Duck Mode is the best thing to ever exist.

 

Four Swords still sucks.

 

To go into some more detail, I don't see the appeal in a multiplayer game like this instead of an actual good multiplayer game. As a single-player experience, it's even worse. You have no control over text speed, which is aggravating, especially if you want to watch the opening cutscene and press A on reflex in attempt to speed things up, which only boots you to the title screen. Speaking of speed, your default speed is ass, and you should not be forced to collect random, elusive, sometimes nonexistent seeds to raise your walk speed to the fastest, or what should have been your default speed. I know it's supposed to be a little competitive but it just strikes me as a really awful idea. The music is bland and droning, the bosses are easy and not fun, this is totally just not a very good package overall. I might just skip it forever in the future, unless I somehow get the chance to do multiplayer.

 

But hey, at least up next I get to play the masterpiece that is The Wind Waker.

[Eddy]

But hey, at least up next I get to play the masterpiece that is The Wind Waker.

Wind Waker 4 life.

 

 

I've still been playing GD because I'm too addicted to the game now lol. But hey, I'm making quite a bit of progress. I recently beat Hexagon Force and all I have left is the two demons, Clubstep and ToE 2.

[Maleboocado]

>But hey, at least up next I get to play the masterpiece that is The Wind Waker.

The last interesting Zelda game? Yes.
With memorable OST and characters and places? Yes.
A magical experience? Yes.
A masterpiece? No.

Just its dungeons themselves are atrocious. And that's only the surface of the problem.

BTW I should replay FSA. It was never a traditional Zelda game, but never attempted to be it, and it was funny even in a single-player experience.

[The Satellite]

The dungeons are actually great to me. I don't even think there's many problems with the game; the Triforce-collecting I never even thought was bad. It's a masterpiece to me.

[Maleboocado]

You cannot say to my face that Great Roost Island (not sure if this is the correct English name, I usually play the Spanish translation) and Forbidden Forest's dungeons are good. Seriously, nope. I can buy Tower of the Gods, which is pretty bad, but at least manages to be just a boring part the game.

Most of the game is wonderful: the sea is one of the best experiences you can find in a Zelda game, the characters are for the most part highly memorable (even despite Tetra's twist being kinda bad), the OST is very nice, the story is aceptable, the opening intro before the in-game cutscenes is very well handled... but the dungeons are bad. Really really really bad.

And the combat and weapon system is bad, and enemies are never a serious thread (if this supposed to be an epic hero's quest then why enemies are a joke?), and there's no sense of ecosystem and physical gamespace, and the overall game is a giant, big puzzle.

But it still manages to make me smile sometimes, which is why I like the game.

Edited by Maleboocado, 13 June 2015 - 06:33 PM.

[The Satellite]

Okay. Dragon Roost Cavern and Forbidden Woods are good dungeons. And Tower of the Gods was also pretty good. Command Melody and waiting on water level in the first floor can be a little tedious, but it's otherwise enjoyable. And the other two are just solid levels in general.

[The Satellite]

Started Tropical Freeze anew last night at last and made it through world three. It's a very solid game, even though it, like Returns, feels more like its own thing than it does a DKC game. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it helps it feel like less of a rehash, and there's still plenty of SNES DKC elements, although it certainly isn't stingy with the extra lives... it's still a decent challenge, just like the SNES games, but you're not likely gonna get a game over here.

 

A standout element though is the soundtrack, which is to be expected from the genius mind of David Wise. It's all very pleasing and is a great mix of mostly original tunes with a few callbacks to the SNES games. My only disappointment is the Stickerbrush Symphony remix, which I've heard before and find infinitely better than the original DKC2 version, has only appeared on one level (Twilight Terror) and I think only appears on that level, and even then you don't really get to hear it since it's a rocket barrel level, which has its own music. Music I didn't care for in Returns either, not that I like rocket barrels at all, I think they're kind of awful and should have been left out of Tropical Freeze. It was a further missed opportunity since the song was originally written for a water level, and Twilight Terror had water in it, so it could have went perfectly, but alas.

 

Also I kind of wish Bramble Scramble had been more like the bramble levels of DKC2, maybe there's still time. It's still a solid platformer, but it's clear that it's trying to be its own thing with a touch of DKC flavor. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[Logos]

I'm starting Earthbound. I want to see why this game has become such a cult-classic.

[Fabbrizio]

Got a little ways into these three games I found through the Summer Steam Sale: SpaceChem, Infinifactory, and TIS-100. SpaceChem was apparently pretty popular, but I'd never heard of any of these games. I got a few levels into each of them before realizing I should probably save them for my Let's Plays so I could share the experience with everyone, because my mind was absolutely blown by these games.

On the topic of Wind Waker, the dungeons were always my least favorite part. You know it's my favorite game of all time and I can't say enough good things about it, but the dungeons are its Achilles Heel. I don't enjoy any of them. I avoid them for as long as possible because I'd much rather be on the surface cruising around.

Edited by Fabbrizio, 18 June 2015 - 01:23 AM.