@“rejj”#p78874
Ha, yes, the sometimes awkward shorthands of the internet!
@"LeFish"#p78876
Yeah, the difficult thing with my dad is his absolute distrust of medical professionals, which is a short answer to how he ended up having a stroke in the first place. But when the possible outcome of "severely disabled" came up, it made him a bit more compliant.
I realize it’s messed up to complain about losing sram save progress in Super Mario Bros.
Cause obviously it wasn’t originally made to have that.
But it’s sad to lose all my scores and challenge progress in a game that is so, like I said, palm pilotty in the late 90’s portable game way. I had even marked the calendar with my upcoming events lol. So it’s pretty sad to have lost all my personalization. The game was so thoughtfully made in the miyamoto way to have you feel like your individual cartridge (or in this case, sram) is especially personalized to be yours.
Anyways, I downloaded a 100% complete save and am now casually going through lost levels and 2nd quest.
I just hate when the universe doesn’t wanna let me complete a game for real darn it.
First world problems.
@“treefroggy”#p78927 if you‘ve downloaded a 100% save file, though, you could argue they’re 8th world problems…
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@“tokucowboy”#p78773 Yurukill, so briefly I will say that it’s more of a 6 than a sought-after 7.
oh my, it's kinda funny how I agree with everything you said about it apart from how much you actually ended up liking it (I'd say it's a 10 for me!). I loved how, at least in theory, the devs kept everything accessible to newcomers of any subgenre the game covers. also, I have a lot of tolerance for the writing style they've gone with... maybe because I'm a big Danganronpa fan. it's also pretty cool how >!they subverted the usual death game narrative to place more focus on characters cooperating instead of fighting all the time. it's a death game where the only death happens to the mastermind!<. still, I 100% get the complaints and those slide puzzles sure were annoying lol
@“Gaagaagiins”#p78786 It may be a tangent, but it‘s a lucid tangent about something that’s kind of innate to the “standard” JRPG format. I felt that FFXII did a pretty decent job at it, mostly because the central conflict dealt with the people at the levers of power, so it felt natural that much of the party was not currently involved with those people on a very personal level, but that they reflected different ways in which one might glancingly interact with the ruling class in their personal lives or how‘d they’d be affected as a citizen of the world. Side characters like Larsa and Gabranth helped fill in those personal connections, and it was decently effective when they temporarily joined the party at pivotal narrative points. None of that really helped the narrative forgetting about Vayne till the last encounter, though (again, a shame, because his first speech was a wonderfully written example of how imperialism is effectively sold to downtrodden people, but that‘s my tangent). Admittedly, though, that’s all “a pretty decent job” at something that is a suspension of disbelief problem which I've come to accept over decades of conditioning.
You've got me thinking of counter examples, too. I wonder if Final Fantasy XVI will leverage that single-character-with-guests format in any interesting ways? And just at the moment, I'm playing the Live A Live remake, which addresses the problem with a bunch of separate micro-RPGs that all have manageable, ever-present parties. I never played the original, so I'm curious to see what the follow-through is on that concept. Individually, it is heightening my personal connection a bit.
@"drinkrust"#980 oh I should emphasize that I enjoyed Yurukill all the way through, for all of my acknowledgement of its flaws (again, excepting the slide puzzles which are just a very personal way to get my red aaaaaaaaaaallllll the way up). I was writing about it in a more analytical way because I reckon those problems will be hurdles for some people (it's for sure a divisive one), but on a gut level? I ate that thing up. I don't have the context of other "death game" style stuff (this was my first, somehow), but that adds a cool wrinkle, too. So, @"rejj"#455 if you liked the demo, you might end up liking it, too, because the demo is what sold me
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@“tokucowboy”#p78960 I wonder if Final Fantasy XVI will leverage that single-character-with-guests format in any interesting ways?
If Yoshi-P and the team have put in the work to make _XVI_ as compelling about this sort of thing as _XIV_ is, I think we're in for a damn good time in that regard.
So: the cat game (Stray).
This is a thing you are gonna enjoy to the EXACT degree in which you want to play an Inside/Little Nightmares, but with a cat. Solid Flashback-esque atmosphere with a dedicated meow button. Overall I'd say go for G-String if you want a linear cyberpunk adventure with more substance, but if what you want is precisely doing the feline conceit/gimmick, this game is well-done enough.
@“JoJoestar”#p78985 I agree. I don‘t know about the reference, but it’s of course a wholesome indie game with some cyberpunk aspects. At least the cat thing is enjoyable, but now what I want and need is a fully cat platform and adventure game, since this is more like a wholesome cat cyberpunk experience with some limited spaces to explore. It's fun, but… not the kind of game people thought it was originally.
Spurred on by the podcast boys, and because I too noticed the complete silence when the game came out last year and no one I knew with a Switch seemed willing to give it a shot, I picked up New Pokémon Snap yesterday!
It's cute! It's cozy! For now it feels like what it adds to the original formula is only obvious stuff, and I mean that in a good way—one that stands out the most to me is that pokémon on a specific trail will start to recognize you the more you visit. It seems to have also added boss encounters, where you'll get a kind of intimate one-on-one shoot with a single mon on the trail. I don't feel like the charm of the original Snap's loop is being weighed down by these new mechanics, although it is much more dialogue-heavy when back at the lab.
There's a narrative throughline about the resident poképrof studying a phenomenon of bioluminescence particular to the game's region based on the work of a naturalist named Captain Vince from 100 years before the game's start. >!Todd is back!!!!!< And when he showed up I shouted kinda loud.
If there's any criticism I have right now it's the same I've had with the rest of the fully-polygonal pkmn games: the character models are borderline creepy, plastic-looking dolls that retain little of the 2D designs' character or style. I think the Pokémon series has always had great character and technical art, right back to when it was all Sugimori. I would love to see Game Freak (in this case Bamco) make an effort to bring those inky contours and water colour/alcohol marker colours to life some day.
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@“connrrr”#p78998 I would love to see Game Freak (in this case Bamco) make an effort to bring those inky contours and water colour/alcohol marker colours to life some day.
Not sure if you're already familiar, but [_Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX_](https://youtu.be/14vfjRi08pM?t=3454) takes a neat step in that direction with some fun shader tricks! The animations are still a little stilted, but visually it's the closest an official Pokémon game has gotten to looking like that hand-drawn Sugimori style.
As far as unofficial attempts though, [this person on Twitter](https://twitter.com/pokeyugami/status/1527576053014618112?s=20&t=OF-kNkNRrlCzfR0B_SZp5g) has been doing some [pretty impressive stuff](https://twitter.com/pokeyugami/status/1535179892576247808?s=20&t=OF-kNkNRrlCzfR0B_SZp5g). It's possible to achieve.....
@“treefroggy”#p78927 I'm very confused. Super Mario Bros had challenges and events?
@“Funbil”#p79000 that‘s real pretty stuff what that pokeyugami person is doing. They don’t have to go all the way hard in that direction, but I hope what Spikechun did with that PMD remake somehow encourages GF to let their models have a little more life to them.
And actually now that I take a new look since 2019, Sword and Shield's NPCs do look pretty nice but the player character is noticeably more generic—from the texture shading to the blank expression on their face. I imagine that's down to the customization the player has to have over their trainer.
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@“connrrr”#p79008 the blank expression on their face
This was inadvertently funny to me when joining three other players in dynamax raids. Just four ridiculously dressed automaton-esque trainers with the exact same wide eyed expressesions.
I‘ve started playing The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story today. It’s that Square Enix FMV, murder mystery game released a couple of months ago that had virtually zero promotion in the West.
First impressions are positive. The video sequences are well directed and the actors are actually good actors! It feels like a revival of the weird Square Enix that occasionally turned out something unexpected during the mid 90s to mid 00s, and it's wonderful. I'm less than an hour in so far and I'm getting good vibes in the vein of classic Japanese murder mystery authors; Edogawa Rampo and Seishi Yokomizo, and more contemporary authors like Soji Shimada and Natsuo Kirino.
An obvious comparison would be 428: Shibuya Scramble however I think the still photographs and static of that game are a more effective medium for delivering this kind of story than a FMVs. Watching the FMVs with, almost exclusively, dialogue-only captions feels like a more passive experience than reading the dense static text of 428. However, I have also recently played Death Come True another FMV game with a similar murder-mystery adjacent plot, if a lot shorter than The Centennial Case claims to be. It would be like comparing the condensed narrative of a movie to the denser plot of a TV series in that sense. I've yet to determine whether it's a good dinner time game yet but I've high hopes.
Tangentially, and this is a separate discussion in itself but aside from Square Enix's corporate push towards NFTs and it's bizarre sell-off of Crystal Dynamics and its IP for peanuts, I get the impression that something good is in the water in that company. Their creative teams have been on fire for churning out polished AA-esque games over the last 12 months or so; Neo: TWEWY, Dungeon Encounters, this, and the Live a Live remake to name just a few.
Incidentally, **today** is the last day that The Centennial Case is discounted at 30% off on all platforms if you want to get in on the action.
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@“JoJoestar”#p78985 a dedicated meow button.
I'm all in. Thanks for the info!
I'm a little over 3/4th done with _**Spider-man (2018)**_ and boy howdy, it's a very fun video game. I will say narratively it's a total mess, but I'm starting to enjoy how silly all of it is. It's also gratuitously violent which is pretty shocking to me. There's a lot of people you witness being gunned down and several explicit depictions of suicide, so heads up about that if you wanted to play this game and haven't yet.
And yeah, that feels crazy to type about a spider-man game that's rated T for TEENS, but here we are!
Strangely, the game feels very modern AAA in tons of respect, but then incredibly 7th gen in some of the presentation and writing. It's just weirdly edgy at times where I really feel like it doesn't need to be, and there's so many moments that are incredibly silly, but not on purpose.
Take for example this scene:
Miles Morales' first day volunteering at a homeless shelter is today. He's starting there at Peter Parker's (a random dude he doesn't know that he met at his dad's funeral) suggestion as a way to help cope with the death of his father. His dad dies at the hands of a suicide bombing terrorist attack btw. While making his way there, he's confronted by muggers and saved by spider-man. Spider-man then teaches him how to throw a counter straight and roll a punch, they have a decent conversation, and miles continues on his way to the homeless shelter. One the way, he sneaks through a paramilitary check point, risking certain death at the hands of these soldiers of fortune, cause he doesn't want to be late. He arrives on time at the shelter and is met by Peter, who of course was just talking to Miles about 10 minutes ago as Spider-man. Miles suspects nothing, even though Peter's voice and build are exactly the same.
It feel like a fever dream. Solid 8/10. Would be an 8.5 but there's not symbiote suit, but they have the 2099 suit, which is neat.
@“tokucowboy”#p78773 good writeup on XII, the final few dungeons are indeed mean-spirited. that + enemies that have super arbitrary buffs applied, like “immune to damage for 1 minute” or “you can't use magic.” still unsure about how to approach these as a modern Gamer. i think i settle on trying to do it by myself until i get mad at the game, then looking it up so that at least i can finish it and feel like it wasn't wasted time. still, trying to engage with the game on its own terms and getting mad at it for being mean to me, may in fact be what i really want… i dunno
the other bewildering thing about XII is the huge number of characters that the plot treats as "important" ... i played the game more or less uninterrupted, not taking long breaks, and still by the end i found people showing up or getting major scenes that i wasn't rightly sure who they were. unsure if this was intentional
@“LeFish”#p79012 was very curious about this one thanks for your thoughts.
@“connrrr”#p78514 BTW you haven't 100%'d it until you unlock the secret Game & Watch mini game
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/85MlT0Z.png]
which even includes its own super gameboy border because it was ported and altered from game & watch gallery [upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/FaMgQZl.png]
@“treefroggy”#p79203 oh yeah!! I mean, I think I did unlock it? Just haven't checked it out yet.
normally I‘m super not into the monochrome gameboy colorizations, but today I finally got Metroid II color 2.0 running on my GBC hardware, and, with how much I’ve been enjoying SMBDX, I think giving Metroid II the SMBDX treatment– tighter controls, auxillary features, etc– would be really stinking cool.
