Ep. 230 - This Podcast Is My Penance

esper

Ep. 230 - This Podcast Is My Penance

The panel reassembles once more to Game Now!, share the best soundtrack for walking your dog, and groan over a couple real Jaffeisms. Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Tim Rogers and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.

Questions this week:

Previously on Insert Credit 138: What is the best way to announce a video game release delay? (02:11)
Will the new PS Plus program be worthy of investment? (07:16)
What are the best player health management systems in video games? (13:28)
How important is background art to a video game? (19:43)
Custom Soundtrack: Half-Life 2 (26:53)
Anonymous asks: when was the last time Konami did anything interesting? (33:51)
What are the biggest missed opportunities for lawsuits in video game history? (39:59)
What’s something modern video game designers have forgotten how to do? (45:41)
Brandon Sheffield asks: What are some good action games that aren’t too hard? (51:31)

LIGHTNING ROUND: A Synthesthetic Experiment (01:01:58)

A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED:

Recommendations:
Frank: Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth if you’re Brandon Sheffield, go pirate old games instead of buying them you fools
Brandon: 2002 (2001) if you like stuff that’s stupid

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rootfifthoctave

esper go pirate old games instead of buying them you fools

i was baffled by the cries of “buy SMT4 while you can!” when it was recently on sale. the 3ds is so easy to hack, they’re shutting down the eshop soon anyway, why would you throw away £8 or however much like that?

hellojed

esper What are the best player health management systems in video games? (13:28)

I am tuning one of these right now and it’s extremely hard, especially when it isn’t just you but also NPCs who you have to heal up. You basically have to take into account when players get damaged and how often they have opportunities to heal up, and balance the things that take away health with things that add health. In my game you heal by using a common pool of energy, which you also used for ranged attacks, but you also heal the rest of the party members. I’m tuning things to be more generous because if it’s too stingy players won’t ever use it. One other thing I might add: the last 10% of health NPCs get like 50% extra defense stats to avoid suddenly dying before the player can notice.

Auto-healing in games sometimes sucks because it’s just a “hey buddy you’re going too fast” buff for the player, but honestly is a little easier to tune for difficulty because you don’t have to place health pickups everywhere. I did like how Quake kinda forced you to memorize where health pickups were, and since you didn’t have inventory you’d sometimes leave a health pack and only come back if you needed the whole thing and not just to top up.

RubySunrise

esper What are the best player health management systems in video games? (13:28)

I immediately thought of Streets of Rage, and probably other beat ’em ups I’m not familiar with. Strong moves that hit all around you cost health. In SoR4 it doesn’t take the health right away, only after you get hit once. I found it a fun mechanic that works on multiple levels. For the inexperienced player the strong moves serve to “get out of a tight spot,” while for the player more experienced in the levels and where health drops are, it works to play faster, extend combos, and look badass.

The whole discussion about the health systems in Resident Evil, BotW, and Elden Ring reminded me of how stupid healing is in Monster Hunter. It’s the basic idea present in those games but made into some kind of massive Rube Goldberg machine. I love it. It’s similar to From games, in which you have to time a heal perfectly or get wrecked. It’s dumb because to keep well stocked with healing items you have to engage in multiple complex and interconnected systems in the hub world AND play well in quests (ie not use all your items in a majority of quests) in order to have enough zenny in the bank for weapon upgrades. It’s like a clicker game but instead of clicks it’s going on monster killing quests.

dylanfills

esper What are the best player health management systems in video games? (13:28)

I like the Dead Cells health management quite a bit. It’s basically a copy and paste of Dark Souls, with a faster flask usage. However, as you progress through the higher difficulties, the opportunities to refill your flask become fewer and fewer. There are power ups (of which you can only get three) that allow you to regain health without using a flask, and some of these are well incorporated with certain weapons or other power-ups: gain health when attacking with a speed boost+extended speed boost, gain health after a successful party+a shield centric build. It requires you to weigh the benefits of picking up an offensive perk versus a healing or defensive perk.

Additionally, I kind of like the puzzle aspect of making potions in Skyrim, where you have to test out new ingredients by matching one of their four effects with that of another ingredient to discover what the new ingredient does. Finding the potion in your inventory of 800 items wasn’t fun, but the alchemy was.

esper Brandon Sheffield asks: What are some good action games that aren’t too hard? (51:31)

I suspect Brandon is aware of this game and/or developer, but I would suggest Super Crush KO. It’s a side scroller beat em up a la Ninja Warriors, although with more platform-based level design. It’s a really cleanly designed action game, with every attack well telegraphed and a number of tools to interrupt enemy attacks. The art is all pastel and really pleasant while almost (but not quite) reaching corporate slideshow aesthetic. It does have some challenge, but I refused to use a continue for absolutely no reason, which would alleviate a lot of frustration. Also almost feels like a Valis-like minus swords and magic.

I immediately thought of Black Moth Super Rainbow and TOBACCO (band versus solo project by the same guy) for the soundtrack segment. Their music is a lot of raw synths with vocoder singing and some acoustic guitar, but I quickly realized that I just like their music a whole lot and would be happy to hear it regardless of what video game I’m playing

hellomrkearns

Best video game magazine title?

Also, the game Frank was trying to remember the name of in the lightning round was Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (aka Mario Baby)

Granola

Tim’s delayed entrance was pretty funny, he just started talking and at first no one really acknowledged he’d been missing.
As for health management systems, I really like Project Zomboid’s. You get injured in specific places and you have to use whatever items you find to treat it. A zombie scratched your arm? Maybe you just looted a dentist’s and you’ve got sanitised bandages, but maybe you’re running low on items and you end up having to wrap your arm in rags made of your ripped up trousers. It’s got a few more systems like this, and combined with character building and multiplayer, I really like playing as the “medic” character and patching up my friends.

LeFish

This immediately what came to mind when Frank said Game Now.

Re: background art. Exactly as @Jaffe said, Ocarina of Time feels like a defining moment for me in terms of “see it, go there” background art. I remember a lot of magazines highlighting that you could go pretty much anywhere that you could see. This was to a point where there’s a part of Kakariko Village that you can see behind a fence but not access that was allegedly going to be accessible via the 64DD expansion, and for a period of time prior to the release of Majora’s Mask was a point of discussion prevalent among the fanbase and media alike.

On the subject of breezy action games. I know that under Insert Credit canon that it’s not a fantastic game but Mischief Makers was the game that sprung to mind. I love that nearly all of the levels have something different about them, the writing is super goofy, and it’s short levels are great for dipping in and out of.

exodus

LeFish Hmmm I’ll have to go see if this game is less obtuse now than all the times I tried to play it previously. I could never get anywhere in that game.

rootfifthoctave well, the idea is that you should pay for the games that are available for sale. The “pirate old games” comment is really just for games that you can’t buy. Plus, a bunch of people buying smt iv might encourage atlus to remaster it for modern platforms.

gsk

I have no problem rebuying old games if I feel like the licensors or other parties involved with the reissue are treating their games in a respectful manner, and I broadly support the market for legacy reissues** because I know from experience that a lot of people whose interests would be much better served by non-commercial emulation will never actually take that route for their own hyper-specific reasons, and that players of all stripes deserve curated introductions to games that they might otherwise not receive.

The rush to buy things off the PS stores before the shutdown strikes me as a little silly—the storefront barely functions and Sony clearly doesn’t have the slightest respect for their content or their customers, so why jump through so many hoops to give them money for something that can be more straightforwardly and conveniently addressed via alternative methods?

(The Atlus 3DS stuff’s also silly because those games have all gone on sale at the exact same prices every other month for years and years.)

**in spirit, not by actually buying 99% of ’em

narclaser

what is the ps3 thing tim is talking about putting a down payment on?

hellojed

Oh dang, I have another health system post. The one in Ghost of Tsushima is really complicated, because you can heal whenever you want as long as you have these “resolve” points, which you only really use for healing (or sometimes a special move). But to earn resolve points, you have to attack and kill enemies, so you’ll be in situations where you’re very low on health and kill someone, but still not have enough resolve from the kill to heal up, so you have to kill a whole nother dude which is just frustrating. Then you use a heal and you get 1/3rd of the health back.

What’s also confusing is you can get charms which modify how you get resolve and health. There’s one where you get resolve from getting hit by someone else, except more often than not this is from a death blow from an enemy, so you’re low on health, can’t heal, but after you die you finally got enough resolve to heal, which is now useless. There’s also a charm which adds regenerative health, but only if you’re out of combat, and when you get low the game tells you to “leave combat to heal” so you run off and maybe play a song on your flute on a nearby hillside while the enemies patiently wait for you to heal up and re-enter combat. It broke up combat in a weird way.

My one hint for that game is focus on upgrading the sword damage because once you can 1 or 2 shot enemies the game becomes 50% less aggravating.

rootfifthoctave

exodus The “pirate old games” comment is really just for games that you can’t buy. Plus, a bunch of people buying smt iv might encourage atlus to remaster it for modern platforms.

this is, of course, totally right and my initial comment does make me seem like more of a dick than i intended! i’m really sorry about that.

i guess my feelings about the 3ds eshop in particular are that, as soon as Big N says they’re taking it down, that’s a declaration that they no longer care about facilitating people’s access to those games. BUT you’re right in that someone might still be paying attention to those sales figures.

LeFish

exodus There are certainly a small handful of levels that are pretty bad - though from memory they’re “maze” levels. The sports event level is fun once but wears off after that.

The rest of the game? Lovely fun. With all the different ideas and gimmicks each level has, and the lengthy each one takes, I see it as a series of action-platforming vignettes. It’s comfortably one of my favourite N64 games.

rootfifthoctave

i guess i am, by my own standards, a bafflement since i had already bought some of those games on sale a while back and not even played them!

antillese

rootfifthoctave Welcome to Steam Backlog culture.

exodus

rootfifthoctave yeah, nintendo loves to yank away access! but they’re of course not the only ones who have something to gain by selling games on the store - atlus, who actually makes the thing, should get paid for it! It’s not their choice to close the store, and this discount is so enough people can get it legally before that happens. so yeah… worth considering from all the angles.

exodus

LeFish I’ll try it again… I don’t think I have ever made it past the second level because I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be doing.

notthetoilet

Great stuff today all! Got an answer for one of the questions also.

I only just finished Ys VIII this past weekend, so it’s right at the front of my brain, but I really liked the health management. You have the consumables and save points to heal if you’ve got them, but you will also recover HP slowly (at first) if you’re standing completely still in the overworld. So you can fight more recklessly if you’re comfortable adding a little meditation session between fights. Sometimes I was in the mood to never get hit, sometimes I just wanted to mash buttons mindlessly and the system was flexible enough that it always felt fair to me.

GigaSlime

I was listening to this episode in the car and I heard sirens from I’m guessing Tim’s audio right as I sped up to beat a yellow light. Thought they were after me