I‘m also having a Shin Megami Tensei Summer, because I’m playing Soul Hackers in preparation for Soul Hackers 2 later this year. I‘m only a few hours in, but it’s quite good, the tone and setting are always so interesting and forward thinking. The sense of unease and societal dread is just unparalleled. Unlike my attempts at SMT 1 or SMT If…. which I gave up on quickly, the quality of life of 3DS Soul Hackers makes it feel a lot less dated. I‘m hoping it’s the gateway drug I need to get into the older games.
@“KingTubb”#p75709 I‘m glad that someone else has been playing Air Twister. It seems like any information or discussion of it on the internet is incredibly sparse. I love how it gives off those Sega “blue sky” vibes. I also like how I was gradually getting better at the game, or maybe I was just unlocking enough hearts to play longer, and then I unlocked the easy mode gun just as I was getting tired of the experience. I’ve been playing every day because the vibes are good, a playthrough is about 30 minutes, and I want to unlock everything. I'm also glad they adjusted the daily rewards and item costs to make them less tedious to earn. All in all, a fun game.
I‘m not sure if I’m going to complete Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden.
I'm at the final boss fight/s and keep dying to the same enemies.
At the end it's an Elite 4 situation, where you have to fight 4 bosses before you can fight the final boss. I can beat two of them okay, but the two I'm struggling against is a double boss fight.
This game is unique in that the party only has two permanent members, as you go through the 4 main sections of the story 4 different pairs will join you. Each pair has a locked level, skills and equipment. The boss fight I'm stuck on is using two of these pairs together, and not my levelled characters. One of these pairs has half the defense of what I'm used to, and the other half can barely do damage.
A really great thing about this Elite-4-like boss fight is it doesn't let me save, so everytime I fail I have to fight the two bosses before-hand. This wouldn't be so bad if the boss fights weren't so long or if there was a speed up button.
I was quite enjoying the game before this, but this one boss fight has turned my chill out game into a skill based game where I'm not skilled enough.
I don't know why so many games introduce new mechanics/play styles in the last 5% of their play time. It's something that annoys me so much. No I dont want to play a shoot'em up at the end of Fairune, no I don't want to play a FPS at the end of Spirit Tracks, no I don't want to use these non-party characters after leveling up and equipping my own characters for hours on end.
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@“beets”#p79498 Will Voice of Cards be GoTY two years in a row? We shall see…
NOPE! The pre-ending you think will be the ending is really weak. The story is depressing with everyone constanly dying and the reason the main character is traumatised is awful (spoilers)|| It's because her father didn't want her to be strong, so he made the whole town bully and neglect her, then locked her in a jail. Oh don't worry dad, now I know the truth I forgive you! yayyyyy we are all so happy!!! ||. The player character has zero personality.
Sorry for being so negative but I stayed up til 2.30 last night and failed, then tried and failed again today. Stuff like this triggers my primal gamer rage.
edit; in reality all i need to do to get this boss fight is back track and buy a bunch of status healing items becuase I keep getting frozen or paralysed by the bosses even though its illegal to freeze or paralyse them.
I'm a decent chunk of the way through the second open world area in SMTV.
Young man, do you have a moment? This game is awesome.
The second area is way better than the first and the very casual 'flip your perception of what's going on' they drop at the end of the first area rules.
Just started Live A Live. Not sure if I should play Outriders or Strangers of Paradise.
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@“Chopemon”#p80343 The second area is way better than the first
the further i get into it, the more i notice that they've sort of done the thing BOTW and Elden Ring did, in the sense of "take a game in a series that traditionally has dungeons and then bake the dungeons into the open world exploration stuff." i dig it!
@“rootfifthoctave”#p80355 and I'm so glad they did. I tried the SMT3 remaster but I just cannot enjoy puzzle or maze dungeons. A big open world is much more my thing.
Rather than make up thread I’ll just post about リモココロン (rimokokoron PS2) here, which I found in a Hard Off junk bin for ¥100 and picked up based off of the awesome box design and fold out pamphlet.
It’s a simple puzzle-like game, where you’re presented with a highly scalable sprite-based scene of people doing some thing, and having different problems. The very first thing I did was help the dad who is sitting around the nabe pot clear the fog from his glasses by first zooming in on the tissues, pressing R1, and then pressing R1 on the dad. Multiple events seem to chain together, where doing one thing changes something in the scene and then other people react to it and you need to address their needs, and there’s a sense to which there are harder and easier challenges to overcome. I haven’t figured out how to get the young girl to put down her diet magazine and eat with the family yet. Literally only spent about 10 minutes with it so far, but the visual design and whole hearted presentation is absolutely blowing me away. I have the sense that stages will get pretty big given how much you can zoom in and out, but I’m trying to not look much into it.
I’ve never heard anybody say anything about this game. Is it on anyone’s radar? I think it’s hyper dope.
That sounds amazing. Sadly not close to ¥100 on ebay. It has now gone on my list for a future purchase though.
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/vCwqyt0.png]
@“Syzygy”#p80407 In name only.
Finished the first stage. The second stage is absolutely huge. Read the manual more thoroughly and the premise is that you are sending images of things into people’s heads to help them solve their problems. Figured out the only other control I missed which is you can press L1 to check the image you’re currently holding. It is a bit of a dynamic “where’s Waldo” / hidden object / kuukiyomi kind of feel. Super awesome.
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@“MDS-02”#p80402 I’ve never heard anybody say anything about this game. Is it on anyone’s radar? I think it’s hyper dope.
Not sure I can share more than what you said but it’s one of those projects from the heyday of SCEI, making great use of their connections outside of video games (art by Nakane Ken-ichi, music by Watanabe Zentarō ← all artists typically outside of video games) following the great success of Parappa and Intelligent Qube.
been playing tons of JRPGs on the miyoo mini. just going to fire some off here:
i'm even playing more games in addition to these can you believe it
@“Syzygy”#p80429 hmmmmmmmmmmmmm……
i believe you of course just grappling with what i will do with this information
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@“tapevulture”#p80426 >!then my friend (unprompted) told me that in order to find him i have to do the tarnished assassination missions!<
this is incorrect! you can get to him just through the dungeon, or you can do the missions to skip the dungeon.
edit: oh i see someone has already pointed it out. sorry!
Hey all,
It's been awhile. I haven't been playing many games recently, but I did get some time this weekend to try a few of 2022 maps from the Quake community. Really enjoyed Paul Lewitzki's [Waldsterben](https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/plaw02.html) and Suzanne "Trashbang" Will's [Head Reattachment Trauma](https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/suzyhrt.html)
The former navigates the woods to unlock access to a secret underground base. Well-executed and unique setting not often seen in the Quake engine. [upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/sFbfkbB.jpeg]
The latter is just some really polished, tight level-design with a few creative encounters.
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/ivSRR3e.jpeg]
Sidenote: Suzanne linked to her level design portfolio for her submission. I was reading some of her old blog entries, and this one about old custom maps in Counter Strike was particularly niche, great - [The Intimate Tourism of House Maps](https://thetrashbang.tumblr.com/post/153944917140/the-intimate-tourism-of-house-maps)
@“beets”#p80280 I finished Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden tonight. It was my third try overall and first since my previous rant. I did what I said in my edit, bought a bunch of group healing and status items.
I think the final boss fight it quite good overall, that one double fight where you dont have your main characters is a smidge too hard. If you know what to do ,focus on the white boss and try to lower both attack stat every turn, it becomes fairly simple. The problem is when you enter the fight you don't know what to do and are thrown off the rhythm by not having the usual moves. The other two minor boss fights, red and black, are both challenging in their own ways but not overly so.
I think the story is well structured for the game. I mentioned it in an earlier post, the story has 4 major plots, based on 4 different islands where each has it's own pair of maiden and maiden's attendant. Each of these stories can be easily distinguished from the others. This is done through the pairs' relationships, their goals and how this relates to the environment they exist within.
There is an overall plot to the story too. This concerns the game's 2 / 3 main characters, Barren, Laty and Lac. Their story starts on the Omega Isle which is doomed to be destroyed as isle is maidenless. Barren rescued Laty who cannot speak and lives with her in a cave prior to the game. He meets Lac a spirit who looks like a sock puppet and claims to be able to save the island by helping Laty become the Isle's maiden.
As the story progresses, we learn what a maiden is, by meeting other maidens, and Laty's backstory by entering and healing her heart, by battling her fears, doubts and other negative emotions.
I think the story is mostly well written, there were a couple of plot points that could've been fleshed out further or feel like they exist as means to an end. I liked that there were no plot dumps, and vital information was released in meaningful ways. The story had some mature elements that were handled suprisingly well, some others fell in line with expectations. I don't want to spoil any of it, as I believe it's best experienced first hand.
In my opinion, the first game has better characters in comparison. Even though this game was longer, I felt like the main characters, other than Laty, were under developed. They had no strong motivations or good character moments. The NPCs (non party characters) were also less memorable to the first. There is no one new like the muscular fisherman or the tubby adventurer, though they do make an appearance. I think these sort of characters made the first game so unique as they were silly but taken with the right amount of seriousness.
The art in the game continues to be outstanding, especially the character cards by Kimihiko Fujisaka. The drawings reminded me of fashion sketches, the lines are light and the clothes fit and hang naturally. I think some people will be dissapointed that character art has been repurposed. I kind of like it, it's fun to see the item shop girl become a supporting character. It adds to the feeling that someone is telling you a story.
I don't have much to say on the battle system, it still has a superbly simple structure. It is better balanced than the previous game despite all my moaning.
It's getting quite late so I'll finish it off by saying this is a really neat game, a nice length, very chill, a "[dinnertime game](https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/1363-ep-225-even-more-games-of-the-year-2021)" if you will. Although I prefer to play it as an "[after eight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Eight)" game. It's a little expensive which is why I held off for so long (I bought it on a PS4 sale), but if SquareEnix keeps funding Alim to make more of these, I'll keep buying them. I hope they do.
Figured it's a good time to try Into The Breach for the first time, since the Advanced Edition just dropped. Turns out the new content is recommended for experienced players so I ended up playing without it!
Anyways the game is really good. It looks intimidating from screenshots but the game goes to great lengths to teach you how it works, with pop-ups and tooltips on almost everything you would ever have a question about. I immediately started making my own good plays and my own mistakes instead of looking up stuff online.
Beat it with the first squad and excited to try more!
@“Snowdecahedron”#p80513 I'm gonna go back. I bloody loved Into The Breach. Especially how much of a world it paints with so little - my heart for the little speech bubbles coming outta the buildings.
I started playing the PC release of Lost Winds today. It‘s a neat, cute game that’s been adapted well from its Wii-waggle release for more traditional input methods. I‘ve opted to use a PS4 controller’s left analogue stick for general movement and the mouse for controlling the wind spirit / wind effects; I played a little while using the right analogue stick for wind movement but it wasn't as easily accurate as using a mouse.
I thought it'd feel weird using two separate input devices but after around 40 minutes I've not had any issues. The only time I need to use both hands on the controller is for very specific, standalone actions using the face buttons.
Good game too. Seems nice and breezy, if you'd excuse the pun.
I‘m big into football manager again. I think I’ve mentioned on the forum before that I like the huge scope and detail, including lots of mundane stuff, but I don't actually know or care about soccer in any way. So I play the game as basically a fantasy sports simulator. Might as well be Blitzball Manager to me.
However I recently watched several actual soccer games and I think I understand the rules and what's happening now, so I'm getting more competitive and actually upset at losing games. Not sure if I like it more or less now, but I'm definitely invested