Over the past two days I‘ve put about 14 hours in Shenmue, and after hating it when I was younger I’m kind of loving it now? Really like the slow pace of the game, how lively the town feels, and it‘s just such a relaxing game to play. I’m pretty sure I‘m nearing the end, >!I’m fighting the Mad Angels in the harbour right now!<, and super excited to get onto Shenmue II and III!
Heck yeah
i strongly recommend playing a couple hours of death stranding, then a couple hours of gravity rush if you want to appreciate how cool movement can feel in video games
@“esper”#p92181 Last night I saw gameplay of Spiderman Miles ~(~(~(~(~(“prower”))))) Morales for the first time. Having only ever played Spiderman on N64, GBA, and PS2 I think these games can be boring but this latest one paired with a good graphics card and monitor that goes 140fps or something could be pretty cool, maybe the best human flying feeling game? The true sequel to Nights into Dreams would be a spiderman without the webs? Just a thought
I completed a couple more scenarios in Live A Live and my opinions are now a bit more mixed. I’ll probably make a longer post later but the short version is the game is a lovely series of experiments with different ways you can tell a story using JRPG mechanics BUT most of the experiments are pretty shallow, almost tech-demo-like, in a way that doesn’t exactly hold up 30 years later.
Also played the first couple hours of _Star Ocean: First Departure R_, from which I can conclude that
Anyway I am definitely not playing all these mid-90s JRPGs because I am thinking of learning how to make my own game in that style, definitely not, no sir!
Last night, I guess in preparation for God of War Ragnarök coming out (which I haven't started playing yet but will be tonightBlasphemous.
Trve Gamer accountability moment: I discovered I think 94-98% of the map (first digit was definitely a 9 and the second was definitely above 3), found the second-to-last main progression boss and I think at least two other secret challenge bosses, mostly found most things without looking it up, but also looked a few things up. Maybe I wouldn't do this if there wasn't a big release I've been anticipating today, but I decided I was done with it without beating the last two story bosses or any of the challenge content.
I've been on about this kind of thing in the past, with indie Metroid-likes especially apparently (_Hollow Knight_ is the major other example), but _Blasphemous_ is also a game with a narrative and setting inspired by _Dark Souls_ in a way that I think is somewhat questionable--there's I think an overreliance on presenting _lore_ as _narrative_ in a way that doesn't quite deliver _enough_ of the latter. I think, ideally, lore, setting, atmosphere, environmental storytelling, suggestion, ambiguity... when those things are being used at their best, they're giving meaning to the narrative, and the narrative in turn makes those things interesting, but with these _Souls-_inspired games, it's more like that equal importance and exchange is too... _implied._ There is lots of moments where I feel like _Blasphemous_ wants me to accept that flavour text of how Mildred, Mother Inglorious of the Order of the Dolorous Sisters of the Blood Shawl, assented to be burned in The Tenebrous Anointed Oils of the Silent Wail for three days and three nights, all kind of makes up for the fact that... you know. Not very much of importance in the narrative happens _on screen,_ or is effected or facilitated by the player's actions. When I think about it this way, I can really see why it's a thing especially with indie games, because, well, it's economical--it's a great way to save time, money, and resources on making models and sprites and animation for stuff that matters more (and resources were used well in _Blasphemous--_it's not as substantial throughout the game as I'm sure anyone would like, especially the creators, but the pixel art and especially the animations are almost without exception compelling, grotesque, and just wonderful to look at and watch).
However, to also be perfectly fair, _Blasphemous_ definitely does it really well, and it might kinda actually sorta notably _work_ for this game and its inspirations and aesthetics. Like... this is maybe the most intensely Roman Catholic game to ever exist, there are a few rooms with (spoiler alert sorta but it's also too funny to not mention so reveal this unless you're certain you're gonna play it yourself) ||a gigantic room filling censer (and for those who haven't been to High Mass lately, that's the metal incense burner thing that swings around to spread the incense smoke around, usually they're about the size of a teapot and are swung around on chains by hand, but there are also [big ones that hand from the ceiling too).](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WTqfGpReols/maxresdefault.jpg)|| that acts as a hazard, ||swinging back and forth and slamming into you.|| I mean... let's be real, old school Roman Catholicism is the _Dark Souls_ of religion, it's all about vaguely creepy, moderately tragic, cloyingly inscrutable stuff, and if you don't like it, you simply must not be laboring hard enough or suffering gratefully enough. In many alarmingly vital ways, Roman Catholicism is Christianity: Prepare to Die Edition, in pretty much every way that sentence could be interpreted.
So, yeah, it all ends up working surprisingly well, especially with the level of detail, research, taste, and inventiveness put into the visual style and its accompanying narrative material. I don't think the _story_ is all that interesting... I'm just mostly impressed with how much I just ended up liking the vibe and the aesthetic, because I normally don't get particularly that invested in that sort of thing. It's actually the aspect of the game I was probably least compelled by or interested in going into it, so the level of commitment to taking advantage of drawing inspiration from deep wells by drawing as deep as they did, made getting through the game just to see its visuals way more of the fun than I expected. I expected EdgeLord Black Metal album art, _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ level of cheeky nods to Christian symbiology kinda dark fantasy, what I got was getting locked in the Vatican Necropolis and being asked to search for the bones of saints along a secret tunnel to the Paris Catacombs, being hunted by creatures created after someone let the ghosts of Francisco Goya and Zdzisław Beksiński into Guillermo del Toro's visual effects studio. Just a great game for seeing what kind of shit you end up seeing. And definitely all worth it for that hilarious ||giant censer.|| Videogames are art
Anyway, gameplay-wise, will say, I did eventually get more used to the movement and controls, and ended up finding the combat and ambulation to be a good time overall. It doesn't open up with a ton of variety but what you get feels well designed and eventually ends up feeling good. Great chunky sword swings, nice unlockable combat maneuvers, hit detection and feedback and such that is chunky when you want it to be chunky and crispy when you want it to be crispy. Basically, swinging that sword around for the few dozen hours you get with it never stops feeling good. Kind of like the gameplay equivalent to the above economical approach to art and animation, and, well, these are animations so I guess it's related. Make what you can make as well as you can get it and a relative lack of variety will not feel like the game is missing anything. The parries continued to feel good as hell through the game too.
Actually, I have to specifically applaud the game's particular approach to this, as it was not just that the timing window feels just right and the slowdown and move cancelling all feels great (but it does, it feels like you can parry damn near anything in the middle of doing damn near anything so long as you're on the ground and your timing is right), it's a larger mechanical contour that just kept giving to how the combat feels. The main more unique wrinkle is that, first, you can parry and prevent damage from pretty much any physical/melee attack, it's never a bad thing to make use of the parry mechanic (take note, FromSoft). For instance, relevant to the funny spoilers above, you can freaking parry the ||swinging giant censer slamming into you.|| The main distinction is that if you parry a weaker physical attack, it will give you the expected _Dark Souls_ response--it will prevent all damage and then momentarily stun the attacking enemy to open them up to a special high damage iframes cloistering counterattack that you trigger by just pressing your regular attack button after. However, if you parry stronger attacks, you still prevent all damage and get a nice chunkycrispy feedback slowdown moment to collect yourself, and while it won't stop the enemy from continuing their attack, it will slam EL PENITENE into a really anime ass backwards slide along the ground (with its own iframes as far as I can tell), so while you haven't earned a counterattack, you have earned yourself some space between you and the enemy, which you can use to get into a better position overall (or manufacture your own bespoke powerful counterattack via a lunge or a ranged attack spell).This all gives its relatively simple 2D hack and slash combat just enough of that feeling of flexibility, interactivity, responsiveness, and presence and weight of the character, that keeps it all feeling really great. I was more impressed with this aspect of the game than I thought I would be too.
In terms of its overall _Metroid_-like structure, well, it left a little to be desired in that respect, but my standards are still calibrated around my belief that _Hollow Knight_ elevated what one can expect from even a small studio making a _Metroid-_like these days. The room level design got better overall but it was never anything too spectacular. The total game world was, I dunno, pretty okay? Sometimes better than other times. The area that is a ||huge open pit filled with hazards and spooky traps built into a gigantic inverted bell|| was a fun standout. But it was mostly just serviceable with a few fun intersections and connecting gameworld infrastructure. Maybe I'm just once again reiterating how much I liked just kinda getting through it to see stuff.
I also have to give it some recognition for being a 2D platforming centric _Metroid-_like that... maybe this constitutes spoilers just with how ubiquitous if not downright cliche this is in _Metroid-_likes... seems to consciously eschew this 2D _Metroid-_like convention: the ||double jump.|| It's actually pretty light on giving you more vertical movement options in general. I don't know if I'd call this choice questionable or not, and I'll acknowledge that I tend to be a fan of how they feel (at least enough to forgive how it can lead to hackneyed elements elsewhere in the game's design). But I would have a hard time making the case that this practice in restraint produced a game with more interesting movement/traversal options or more interesting level design. I also just don't quite know how I feel about the game's approach to gating access to new parts of the map, in general. It's also a cliche at this point, and I freely admit to being a sucker for it, but let's agree that we can at least admit that it's satisfying when you're playing a _Metroid-_like and you get a new tool or ability, and then you get an "a-ha" moment when you realize how your traversal, access, or combat methods have now expanded. In the best examples the barriers or obstacles are more subtle, and require observation or creative applications of your tools, and progress or discovery of secrets is enabled by a deep understanding of what you're working with. At its least interesting, you're just being shown an elaborately stylized door that immediately communicates its impassability or immovability (I'll throw my good pal yeso a treat for reading this long review of _Blasphemous_ closely by mentioning I encountered one of these in _God of War Ragnarök_ and my teen boy really actually said out loud it looks like it's something I can't interact with yet), but also communicates that it is something possible to pass or remove, so it just tells you that you need to unlock with an unconventional key.
I think the creators of _Blasphemous_ showing restraint in making those sorts of things so limited in the game were meaning to make the experience less likely to cause that latter feeling, with their somewhat strange and honestly a bit clunky approach to _Metroid-_like progression gating. What you get mostly in this regard is a total collection of 6 items called Relics. What the game tells you is that equipping different relics confers the perception of different layers of reality. What that means in game terms is that when you have the relic that will ||cause magical platforms to appear in specific set locations... those platforms will appear.|| It's really quite uninspiring. I think the worst one is that there are ||2-3 places in the game (that I can think of) where an area can only be reached if you have the Relic that allows you to jump at max height while standing in water,|| and it's really kind of obvious that you need something like that in these places, because there doesn't seem to be any other way to continue traversing. So it sits in the back of your mind as a remaining mystery but one which doesn't really have an interesting solution. Even more frustrating is that, for some reason, you can only have 3 of these Relics active at one time, and traversing some places requires you to have a specific combination equipped. There's nothing cryptic about it either really, it's always very obvious which one you need. So it becomes somewhat reminiscent of putting on and off different kinds of Boots when you're playing _Ocarina of Time_ on an N64, unnecessary menu tedium for something that would not effect the game all that much if its utility was just more context sensitive, or if you could, like, idk, ||eventually double jump over it|| and use a more intuitive or convenient method later in the game when you are over the mystery.
All in all, I'll give it the Insert Credit vaunted rating of 7.0/10, a lot of major problems, but more than enough interesting choices and heart to make the things wrong with it feel like not such a big deal. Absolutely waste no time with the English dub and put on the Spanish dub, it's what the creators wanted to do but they chose to do English for release to make it more marketable, so it's only fair. Nothing could possibly beat that velvety corded whip sound of that Church ass Cathtilian Ethpañol on these hard ass Roman Catholic lamentations and wailing and gnashing of teeth and such forth.
In ecthelthiuth Deo grathiath, Amen.
I finished Chain of Memes, or did I??
There‘s a whole side 2. We’ll see what happens next.
Sora‘s story didn’t do much to explain the prologue of KH2. biggest example was I expected roxas to show up/ be explained and he was not. So depending on what happens in Riku Story mode, the necessity of playing this spin off just to understand the story could be highly exaggerated. It‘s confusing either way. But obviously I’m not drawing that conclusion yet.
I think the leap from the first game to Chain of Memories was the biggest in story sinfulness. In the first game, Sora is a normal final fantasy flavored modern boy with abnormally large shoes who goes to school, has parents, etc. who is swept up into a disney adventure. the weirdest it got was with the hearts, heartless, door to darkness, ansem. Chain of Memes just goes all in on ephemeral humanoids and locations. I'm not even complaining about the memory mechanics stuff-- _that_ makes sense. But now there is a young girl sora's age who has supernatural powers? where the heck is that coming from? she's not a disney princess nor is she from sora's world where kids are normal... It's already starting to be up its own keyhole.
I like the premise, videogameyness, mechanics, and compartmentalization of the game. I do like that the Kairi plotline does resolve somewhat, because I was mad that she was being replaced, haha.
Oh! and again pushing the GBA hardware to the limit, the FMV cutscenes and credits music is really good. So glad I'm playing on GBA.
@“Syzygy”#p92312 nice………? I'll look into it before I draw any conclusions, thanks for the tip! I do love the opening MV. a lot.
@“treefroggy”#p92297 Your whole description of KH1 and Chain of Memories is convincing me to try them out. I played KH1 as a kid but I never really got anywhere in the month that my brother‘s friend let me borrow it. GBA Chain of Memories in particular is what you’ve convinced me I should play, but I might as well reexperience the PS2 original first as something resembling an adult.
Soul Hackers 2 is too gotdang long. I‘m at 50 hours now and I keep thinking I’m in the final dungeon. Like I‘m pretty sure I’m in the final dungeon now but I seriously thought that in the last dungeon too. I think the only way I‘ll know I’m at the end is when I see the SMT trademark of a back to back boss fight.
I read somewhere that this was supposed to be a short SMT game, it might be in terms of comparison but:
I know the Axis levels are optional, but they also hold all the stack upgrades which make the battles interesting to play.
I feel like I'm always whining about this game, but the sunk cost fallacy is real and I'm not going anywhere. I mostly like this game, it's pretty good! There's just so many things that could make it a bit better.
I think I need to ban myself from playing SMT games for a while. I love the aesthetics and the ideas, but the demon fusing always frustrates me. I'm try to cover all the elements for each character and inherit all the right skills which just leads me to staring at the most boring menus for half an hour. I can't tell whether I like it more when the demons level up or not.
Why am I cursed to love turn based battle systems?
@“Syzygy”#p92388 so much is resistant to arcane damage in that game, my moonlight sword build made the orphan fight impossibly hard for me at the time in 2015
Been on a 16 bit beat em up kick this week, replaying the Final Fight trilogy and Knights of the Round for the millionth time. Final Fight 3 is such an under appreciated gem. I think both Streets of Rage 3 and Final Fight 3 sort of went under the radar in the 90‘s since they came out late in the console cycle and the genre had gotten stale for a lot of folks but mechanically they’re both so good.
Going to start Sonic Frontiers tonight or tomorrow. All those 7/10 reviews have me hyped. If it's a 7 out of 10 for a normal person it should be like, a 9 out of 10 for a maniac like me.
I started playing Golden Sun, which I bought from @treefroggy!
I’m really enjoying it. The music is great! The random battles go as fast as you can hit the A button with an itchy finger, and don’t drag on. The visuals look vivid and awesome on DS Lite.
It’s filled the void I’ve had after Dragon Quest 11 (after 2 years) a Baby’s First JRPG, in the best way. Not too complicated of systems, and it just goes. I used to draw these characters out of the Nintendo Power I had as a kid. But I know if I had this game I back then I would be stuck already.
@“BluntForceMama”#p92509 haha, I used to draw them too.
I‘m very pleased you’re enjoying ma game!
under appreciated video game thing Cyberpunk 2077 does well: let‘s you meet the person giving you codec quests in person. It’s neat. They give you all these missions on the codec thing, but you can also go drop in on them at their office or whatever
also I got the gun they added from the anime show. Never watched it so idk the story, but it's hilarious to use, screen-shaking recoil each time
New Super Mario 2 is fun but too easy. Maybe all the New Super Mario games are too easy. Or maybe this is the right level of difficulty to make it fun for the whole family. Anyway, I beat New Super Mario 2 with 120 lives, which is just too many.
Sure was fun though. I love Mario. I could, of course, go play any number of games, but I might play Super Mario World or Mario 3 again.
i‘m just playin SotN for the first time and it’s neat and stuff but @espercontrol is playing Death Stranding and i just wanna only heat about that experience.
i played that and FF7RM this time last year when i was in a grad class that made me feel like a fucking worm so they have become Important to me in ways i haven't experienced in like a decade. DS was such a singular experience that resonated with me so well i may never recover.
@espercontrol when you're at a place you wanna talk about, please share! same goes for anyone lttp (you're never really late)
@“Lunarchivist”#p92548 i‘m taking it slow and playing whenever the mood strikes me, but last time i just connected my first Station to a Chiral Node using my Q-Pids. the vocabulary is very funny, but this game is incredible. i do want to write about it. i’ve traveled across the us from east to west a few times and that aspect alone makes me want to write.
playing it while the social network i have most invested myself in, the one where i met my wife, is crumbling slowly then rapidly and everyone is departing into small, separated life rafts like discord servers or mastodon instances or co-hosts or nothing at all, is a wild ride. the idea of walking on two legs to reconnect them all is daunting.
i can't figure out how to get past these damn ghosts though!! not sure if it's a scripted loss or what, i keep reloading as soon as they catch me because they are too scary!!!!!!!! i may stop playing because of it.
>
@“esper”#p92556 i can’t figure out how to get past these damn ghosts though!! not sure if it’s a scripted loss or what, i keep reloading as soon as they catch me because they are too scary!!! i may stop playing because of it.
For the most early game parts, it can feel mysterious how BT areas work. It's kind of to its credit that you think it feels scripted, because, well, it might be but I actually don't think most of them are. It's just operating on a logic that's hard to parse just from experiencing it once or twice.
If it helps to give you the conviction to go on and experience more of the game, you do eventually get better tools for dealing with the BTs, including things that ||repel|| them, ||send individual ones to Heaven so you don't need to worry too much about weaving so carefully around each one,|| or even ||clear out an entire BT area, temporarily, much like how you can sorta temporarily shut down a M.U.L.E. camp.||
@“edward”#p92532 The Wii U one is a little more challenging if I remember correctly? In particular there‘s the luigi DLC which puts a time limit on everything. it doesn’t actually make anything that much harder, but the levels are forced to be shorter and there's more hijinks going on than your typical mario levels, so your brain is under more stress.