4847 replies to this topic

[ShadowTiger]

Well, it's official. From this point forward, I no longer have a life. A year late, I've finally bought Skyrim, and it's installing as I type. If nobody ever hears from me again, it's probably because I felt that food was no longer important.

So yeah, Imma play Skyrim.

That happened to me. It was one of the most immersive experiences of my life. Mod it up, if you can. It's very well worth it.

[Orithan]

Finally managed to beat Hero's Trial 3 in Four Swords. This was my fourth attempt at it and I barely managed to get through. Zone III was full of unfair battles, having died multiple times in some of the battles. Does anyone know how to access all three doors in Vatti's Palace?
 hr[/hr]
I liked the Blue Coins more because they encouraged the exploration of Sunshine's levels (regardless of wherever you need a walkthrough to find them all or not), which were way more open than Galaxy's and they didn't really amount to that much in the end. While some were only available on certain episodes but most were available from the start of each level (with the exception of Sirena Beach) and most of the rest were available from later episodes onwards (There were only like 20 or so out of 240 that were exclusive to single episodes IMO). Most of Galaxy's were straight, linear lines from start to finish with one or two if any branches along the way and each Green star were exclusive to a stage.

[Bayta]

That happened to me. It was one of the most immersive experiences of my life. Mod it up, if you can. It's very well worth it.

Hmm, even after only looking at that site for a few minutes, some of those mods look pretty nice. Yeah, I'm gonna have to download a few, so long as my computer can handle it. Thanks!

[Russ]

Finally managed to beat Hero's Trial 3 in Four Swords. This was my fourth attempt at it and I barely managed to get through. Zone III was full of unfair battles, having died multiple times in some of the battles. Does anyone know how to access all three doors in Vatti's Palace?

Go back and play the three main levels again, getting 3,000 rupees. That'll net you gold keys to open the second door. Beat Vaati, then go play the levels again getting 5,000 rupees. That'll get you hero keys, which open the final door in Vaati's Palace.

[Giggidy]

The funny thing is that I often like game series making radical changes and would be totally okay with the Zelda you described. Well... except for the part where I don't really play MMO games! I can totally see someone playing Epic Yarn and not getting the sort of thing they're looking for from Kirby... but, for me, what I always look for is how games work (or don't!) in and of themselves. (A view which actually allows me to equally enjoy games that are big departures from their established series - like Epic Yarn - and are very conservative and similar to a lot of other games in their series - like the 8-bit Mega Man games.)

Now, don't get me wrong, I liked Epic Yarn. I even played it enough to get all the gold medals in it (then again the game was easy enough I could do so on the first try). It's not my favorite game, but I would have liked it a lot better if it wasn't a Kirby spin-off. Unfortunately Kirby seems to have replaced Mario as Nintendo's go-to for "We have a new design idea but we're worried whether we could successfully market a new IP or not, so let's just slap the name of a popular series on it!"

Actually... I submit to you the opinion that the medal/score mechanic is what makes the no death aspect work. It gives certain stakes to the player, keeping them alert and careful (should they be trying to go for medals) without any of the punishment of death.

Actually, on a related note, something I thought was really well done about the medal/no death system in Epic Yarn was how well it accomplished a 'choose your own difficulty' system without having an actual difficulty selection switch (which I usually consider a somewhat inelegant solution). You can play a very relaxing game without worrying about the score, or you can try to 100% complete it and get something quite challenging... All accomplished in the same exact levels.

This doesn't work for the same reasons unmodded minecraft doesn't work as a dungeon crawler: If the rules aren't enforced, it's not a game. You can *choose* to get all the gold medals if you want, but this is never a goal the game sets for you and, IIRC, you don't even get any reward for it. The *real* goal of Kirby's Epic Yarn is to get to the final boss, to which the game offers absolutely no resistance.

Hahh. I actually have the exact opposite opinion of the green stars/blue coins; I collected every green star without loading up GameFAQs. The blue coins, meanwhile, I had to print out a walk-through to fully collect.

The difference between them for me is... In Galaxy 2, when you select a green star, you're guaranteed that you can actually find it if you look around. You know there's one there, it's just an issue of finding/getting it.

To collect all the blue coins, you have to enter a level and select which Shine to go after and hope the coins you need are even available in it. Many were only available on specific Shines... And to even get them to appear was generally something like spraying some arbitrary piece of wall. Finding these things without a walk-through meant playing every version of every level... and spraying everywhere around the level each time. I would never have done this without that blue coin walk-through.

(The green stars, if I remember correctly, also had the Metroid Prime item feature of making a sound when you're near them, giving the player another way to find them.)

Keep in mind I'm not defending the blue coins: They're what prevented me from 100%ing Mario Sunshine, in fact. My point is, the green stars were much more tedious than they could have been. Going through the levels again to find the green stars was neither new nor interesting.

EDIT: So, started playing Black Mesa. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure whether I like it or not. I mean, yeah, it's Half-Life and that makes it amazing (especially if you've never played it before), but the real measure by which you judge a remake is whether it's better than the original or not, and I don't really think I like this better than Half-Life.

Edited by Giggidy, 05 October 2012 - 09:00 PM.

[Dawnlight]

I beat Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and well as New Super Mario Bros 2. NSMB2 was overall a letdown. Nothing new to the table, the gameplay is VERY similar to its previous installments (which is both a good and a bad thing), and the 3D does not work well in this game. The amount of coins in this game represents the amount of money Nintendo is banking to the people who buy this shoddy game.

OVERALL SCORE: 6/10

I picked up Pokemon White 2 today. I originally was going to buy a copy for my cousin because his birthday is this week, but I decided to buy a second copy for myself. At least Pokemon is not like Call of Duty in terms of milked franchises. In White, I picked Oshawott. I will be choosing Snivy in this version. I'll give you my thoughts about it later.

[DashSim]

Now, don't get me wrong, I liked Epic Yarn. I even played it enough to get all the gold medals in it (then again the game was easy enough I could do so on the first try). It's not my favorite game, but I would have liked it a lot better if it wasn't a Kirby spin-off. Unfortunately Kirby seems to have replaced Mario as Nintendo's go-to for "We have a new design idea but we're worried whether we could successfully market a new IP or not, so let's just slap the name of a popular series on it!"

It's funny because it really wasn't a Kirby game early in development. I'm okay with that, though. That something is too dissimilar from its own series is just so rarely a criticism I can ever share (same with too similar). I can find it a shame when a series drops something interesting from its gameplay and stops exploring it, and I find it a shame when a series keeps using mechanics that don't work. But I think at the heart of even those it's still about how the games work as whole experiences mostly just in and of themselves. I can't put blame on someone for not being disappointed for either of those two things, it's just really far removed from how I view things and I approach games.

This doesn't work for the same reasons unmodded minecraft doesn't work as a dungeon crawler: If the rules aren't enforced, it's not a game. You can *choose* to get all the gold medals if you want, but this is never a goal the game sets for you and, IIRC, you don't even get any reward for it. The *real* goal of Kirby's Epic Yarn is to get to the final boss, to which the game offers absolutely no resistance.

It depends on why someone is playing. Someone might enjoy playing casually, just going through the levels. Another player might want to test their skills via completing the game (and from there whether the game actually does that for them depending on their skill level -- as someone who plays brutally hard NES platformers it didn't exactly hit that note for me). As for myself, I liked exploring the levels, laughing while playing co-op with friends, discovering hidden items, learning how to more quickly do speed runs and the satisfaction of 100% completing the game. All of these are valid reasons to play the game.

Keep in mind I'm not defending the blue coins: They're what prevented me from 100%ing Mario Sunshine, in fact. My point is, the green stars were much more tedious than they could have been. Going through the levels again to find the green stars was neither new nor interesting.

I miiight actually say that my enjoyment of finding and collecting them comes from the same place as enjoying finding items in previously explored areas in a game like Metroid Prime does. But I liked the green stars more than something like that, because they were in smaller, very contained levels and if a green star is selected on the star select screen you're guaranteed that it's somewhere within that level. I enjoy being thorough with a small area, rather than having to extensively explore over a vast world, sometimes not knowing if I'm even on the right side of the whole thing for what I'm looking for.

And this is really exacerbated by both how much of a completionist I am and how strongly I dislike consulting things outside of a game to help me finish a game. That's what I find that really tends gets to me as tedious. But, green stars I found enjoyable to find in their little levels; usually very creatively hidden especially given that the levels weren't (apparently?) designed with them in mind. (Wish I could bring up some example, but again, this isn't exactly fresh in my mind...!)

I think my only problem related to them were the unskippable 'there is a green star available on this level' messages, complete with loud and unnecessarily alarm sound for some reason.

[kurt91]

Well, I've just started Distorted Travesty 3. I admit, I never actually managed to finish the second game, and just watched Raocow's LP of the game. The whole idea of having lower HP and defense, no normal attack, and having to rely on a wall-jump mechanic to dodge enemies was not something I was good at.

This game's rather different. The game takes place in a world made out of retro video games, and a virus has corrupted the entire system. Since it's intelligent enough to target the main characters first, you start the game without the ability to move left/right, or even jump! You have to do a Bust-A-Move minigame to defend the main character until Jeremy (basically mission control) can hack the system and restore movement. Even then, you only get left/right movement, and your first mission is to navigate a huge platforming area to find an item that allows you to jump. It's actually a ton of fun to do, to be honest.

Each world is connected to the hub area by "gates", and each gate grants you a new method to defend yourself. For example, Gate 1 is made up of Super Mario Bros. worlds and enemies, so you get the ability to defeat enemies by jumping on them like Mario would. After you complete Gate 1 and return to the hub world, you learn the catch to your new ability. Mario-style attacks will only harm Mario-style enemies, so you can defeat Koopas and Goombas, but you have to dodge everything else.

I'm on Gate 2, based on Adventure of Link. You have the overworld to explore, top-down style, and transition to side-scrolling again when you reach a town, encounter, or dungeon. I managed to unlock the final part of Gate 2, the Water Palace. Unfortunately for me, according to the development notes, it was designed to be similar to Ocarina's Water Temple, with lots of exploration, water-level control, and drowning. I get a wide sword slash that eliminates the whole high/low attack system and makes battling very much easier, arrow-shooting that I can aim diagonally up and down, and throwing bombs.

So far, my only major complaint about the game is that it's a Metroidvania game that's heavily story-driven, but a mission recap feature hasn't been implemented yet, so it's easy to forget what you're supposed to be doing and be reduced to wandering the hub world absolutely lost if you have to stop before reaching the next Gate. It's only a demo, but it goes until Chapter 8, so it should last me until the full version comes out next year.

[RyanBlazeheart]

Dissidia: Duodecim Final Fantasy. After sacrificing a few of my comrades I defeated my first ever Feral Chaos battle in the Southern Lufenia Gateway that I recently unsealed. He came out of nowhere and I was so scared at how strong he was. Firion was the one who defeated it and earned the party a piece of Lufenian Equipment. My Boomerang Axe will destroy you Chaos! Oh and I need to go back to the Chasm in the Rotting Land Gateway to get the Terra fluffing the Moogle cutscene I guess?

Edited by Ryan_the_Dark, 08 October 2012 - 07:37 PM.

[Jared]

Animal Crossing: City Folk.
I'm trying to keep myself occupied until next year, when the new one comes out. D:

[ShadowTiger]

I'm sure I would absolutely love Distorted Travesty. I just happen to be unable to use anything other than the arrow keys to move. WASD is a huge turn-off for me for some reason.


Anyway,

• Skyrim: Hearthfire. Very nice little add-on, if you like that sort of thing. It's a bit more immersive than the free mods you can download on the PC, and the notion of adoption is pretty interesting. I don't recommend having UFO (Ultimate Followers O..something) enabled because it can mess with your options to have a steward for your house. I've already had bandits try to invade the premises, and to be honest I wasn't expecting anything like that. They just showed up while I was there.
• Fallout New Vegas: Going around trying to finish up my exhaustive list of missions I started. I'm so very, very easily distracted. By everything.
• Doom 2 Custom WADs: I just redownloaded Doom and Heretic and Hexen and I have a fancy schmancy editor and a little bit of time to use it.
• Legend of Grimrock: I never touched the main campaign more than the first floor. I'm working on a custom map. Dunno what the storyline of it is. I'm just building. But hey, I've built four floors already. O.o So I must be up to something, I guess? > >.
• Guild Wars 2: Hey, y'know what? I really like it. Sure, I do! I'm currently a level 16 Human Thief, wading into impossibly difficult situations, hoping for some loot that'll help me live just a few seconds longer. It's usually all I need.

[SpacemanDan]

Last night I cleared the O.C.U. campaign in Front Mission on the DS. Now onto the U.C.S. campaign which, from what I gather is going to be worlds more difficult. This doesn't mean much though, as I had a really easy time the more I went into the O.C.U. campaign. Duel on its own is deadly, but once you have Speed and Switch, just target the body and more often than not, the Wanzer is going down in one shot. :S

Planning on getting Black 2 tomorrow though (though I may finish Front Mission first), as the places I went to Sunday either didn't have them or couldn't get to them (Yes, there was a place or two I went to and they couldn't physically give it to me because...reasons. :S) and everything was closed today due to Thanksgiving over here.

[kurt91]

I'm sure I would absolutely love Distorted Travesty. I just happen to be unable to use anything other than the arrow keys to move. WASD is a huge turn-off for me for some reason.

Um, you do realize that the arrow keys do actually work for movement. You can use both. Personally, I prefer WASD because then the right hand naturally falls in a position to hit all the other needed buttons, like how with typing you can naturally hit all of the keys when you place your hands in a central location.

Either way, I think you can remap the keys. If not, JoyToKey works wonders with a controller, if you have one. Let me know what kind of controller you use, if you do use one, and I can probably come up with a fairly easy control setup. DT3 gives you controls gradually, so you end up shuffling things around as you get abilities until you have all the buttons mapped.

[RyanBlazeheart]

Getting the Lufenian Equipment so I can survive some of the Moogle Fried Cards. I went to get an Iai Strike set up soon. Wow some f the gateways have Crazy tough foes. Level 127 Sephiroth Manikin? I thought the one guarding one of the Chests in the gateway that gives 4 random Lufenian equips was hard. I'm using Jecht right now. He is awesome with what Lufenian Equips I currently have.

[The Satellite]

And finally finished Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I am taking a long break from this series. I'm glad to have this game finally finished; the investigations and endless reading were just getting to me and I could hardly stand it. Am I curious in how the story progresses in future installments? Yes, but not enough to just dive into the next games; that's how bad a taste half (felt like more than half) this game left in my mouth.

Next up: I'm gonna attempt to get into the Layton series. If I find myself satisfied, then I'll probably have my sights set on Layton vs. Wright when it comes out; if the gameplay of Layton is good, then of course I'd play that, since the courtroom parts are the actual fun parts, the investigations just cruelly overshadowed them.