@“leah”#p127472 it is absolutely bare minimum, generic fantasy. But I’m kind of craving that. Media is so over the top, assault-your-eyeballs crazy lately that it’s nice to just, like, walk through a low poly grassy field and bonk some monsters on the head.
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@“Tradegood”#p127424 I do consistently wish I could kick my own created player out of the party
If your created character dies, the game just... Continues on.
I'm with you regarding thinking about Baldur's Gate 3 in the context of TotK. It's feeling similar to me to the opening hours of _New Vegas_, in that there's a primary driver for my character but not so pressing that the game forces me down a particular path, which makes me feel more willing to explore the world with some kind of purpose, even (or especially) when that purpose takes a backseat. I've been surprised that following some apparent sidequest led to more information/opportunity about the mind flayer stuff, which was a pretty cool narrative trick. I just wanted to save a little tiefling girl and thwart an evil druid lady!
TotK world and quest design is just not as compelling to me. I haven't thought about it a ton, but I think a big part of it must be the actual progression I get in Baldur's Gate. TotK quests have a tendency to feel like busy work to collect trinkets that allow me to do the stuff I really want to do.
I will say roleplaying leaves a bit to be desired, even if the amount of options I do have is legitimately impressive. No videogame will ever compare to actually sitting around a table with some folks and having a conversation in-character.
I can see myself spending a lot of time in this game. I love rolling characters and seeing what's possible in combat/different scenarios. I'm going to start a co-op campaign with my buddy and hopefully we can keep that going for awhile! I'm a little embarrassed to admit, but I actually upgraded my PC to get this game once I knew my friend wanted to play it together. I'm liking it much more than I thought I would, bc I definitely bounced off Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Crossroads of Time
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I think I‘m a little over the halfway point in Pikmin 2? I just paid back 60% of the debt. I’m loving the writing in this game. Some of the lines NPCs drop are brutal, like how Olimar‘s wife didn’t get that job because they were only hiring “teenagers who wear too much makeup” or every time the ship's computer chastises someone other than their scumbag boss for being lazy—up to and including the pikmin themselves.
Dungeon crawling in this game can get cramped and dicey even with the day's clock suspended and the ability to warp out at anytime. Especially so if there's water involved because even just disbanding pikmin can accidentally lead them into the drink. There was one room with a treasure on a high ledge surrounded by water with a narrow ramp leading up dotted by fire geysers, and I tried so meticulously to disable all the geysers to clear a path for my blue pikmin to then carry down the treasure and of course **14** of my red pikmin drowned to death, all only for me to find that the blue pikmin were going to take a safer path along the wall of the cavern instead. I should have figured it wasn't wide enough for the pikmin to clear it with the treasure in tow the way they encircle anything they're hauling. It doesn't feel good to lose a bunch of them at once!! or even just not realize that I left a straggler out on the field without enough time to gather them back up before nightfall. I've played like the opening hour or two of *Pikmin 3* and started the demo for *4* (Kyle Bosman was right there is SO much talking in that game) and I feel like there are some qol functions I'd love to have to make sorting through pikmin colours or even HP levels easier that would have been mappable to the GCN controller but oh well, that's just the pace that game design evolved at I guess.
Many times I have initiated a nap by accident and I'm still not sure if it's just a gag function. Whenever I want to return to homebase I invariably just walk back but I suppose I could hit the snooze even just to see the ship fail to suck in my guys.
A lot of Pikmin memes seem to be telegraphing something to me about Louie that I might not be ready to learn so I better finish this game up before something gets spoiled for me. I love the sense of humour in these games and being surprised by the places it will go to. I just started reading the [developer interview for the fourth game](https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-10-pikmin-4-part-1/) and the preamble retrospective on the beginnings of the series only reinforce the tone I keep picking up.
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Was there a particular inspiration that led to this design?
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Morii: Back then, I really liked the world of Tim Burton (3), so I wanted the designs to not just be cute, but also give a sense of eeriness, or some emotional weight. That's why I was drawing the sketches like this, with a style that layers scribbling lines.
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Hino: Nintendo games up to that point were strongly associated with the bright and vibrant designs of the Super Mario™ and the Legend of Zelda™ series. That’s why I wanted to take a bold step and depict a somber, mature, and mysterious world. So, we said, “Let’s watch a movie together for inspiration!” and the choice was an animated movie called Fantastic Planet (4). We all had puzzled looks on our faces while watching it. (Laughs)
I'd heard Brad talk about it on the Nextlander pod when the topic of "how much was Miyamoto actually involved in *Pikmin*'s creation?" came up and it looks like not nearly as much as I'd been lead to believe. Anyway, it looks worth a read.
@“HyggeState”#p127526 Hah! Is it any good? Do you literally just walk around the promenade as Sisko punching people?
@“Andy B”#p127534 I’m early in the game, but it is closer to an adventure game with light combat mechanics. I spent my first hour with it just walking around the station, and everyone is there. Even Morn!
I saw the game Carton-kun for the ps1 randomly while browsing Ether Music Club on youtube and as soon as i saw that cover with an irem logo i was interested
Then I learned it's an ochimono game and I was more than interested. been playing it today and if cleopatra fortune is the _**go**_ of falling block games. this one is the _**carcassonne**_ of tetris-likes. the idea is pretty neat. basically you have blocks with geometrical figures inside. you can't move them but you can rotate them in order to make a big closed geometrical figure.
Now I want to try the multiplayer, but first I need to convince someone to play it with me lol
still poking away at mother 3 and it is v good but also i have final fantasy theatrhythm on my 3ds and like, it‘s so addicting. i grabbed the demo of the ps5 version and played it a little and it was fine there but doing it all with a stylus makes so much more sense to me, and i’m deep into the “just one more” of it. would be sick if i could get all the dlc for the current version (nier automata tracks would kill me, but the fact that replicant stuff is on here is also killing me) but it‘s still so much game. like, maybe kinda too much, it’s a little overwhelming how much is in it
It's Link!!! I don't know that I've ever seen Nintendo characters get on-screen cameos in non-Nintendo published games before (just stuff like finding Link's tombstone in some versions of Final Fantasy 1)
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Love a good opening credits sequence 6 hours in (probably should have gotten here a lot sooner but... I got really wrapped up in the festival minigames)
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I randomly switched to my little Magnavox and I think I'm gonna play the rest of the game right here in composite, I was just kind of in a honeymoon period with my new Trinitron lol
@“HyggeState”#p127526 @“Andy B”#p127534
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine_%E2%80%93_Crossroads_of_Time
@“GigaSlime”#p127563 The >!demons!< in this series are great villains. Putting the pieces together and figuring out where they came from is such a treat.
I‘m dabbling in Armored Core because I know I am weak, I will likely impulse buy AC6 later this month, and I’m a big fan of context. For me – who, as a teen and pre-teen accidentally gravitated toward a lot of From Software titles in their time without knowing it, from King‘s Field to Lost Kingdoms – the first Armored Core was a regular weekend rental. I was 12 or 13 at the time, so it boiled down to "I like mechs, I think it’s super cool that this game lets me build my own mech."
Revisiting it now, as will be obvious to anyone who's played it with a fully formed prefrontal cortex, it hits a lot harder as a grown-up anti-capitalist comrade scum. Really an exercise in the effectiveness of saying less, staying sparse. Lord, I enjoy the asceticism of the narrative situation here; you are not a good mercenary, and it does not appear that you can choose to be one. You want the money? You do bad things. I can't envision a modern mainstream game -- one with a non-limited physical release -- saying "today's mission is to execute homeless squatters in the name of a corporate landgrab" without commentary or even the illusion of choice, without strings being pulled to either allow you to feel like the hero making a stand or to smack you upside the head with how dire that is. Very excited to continue to see how that parlays into themes of inhumanity up through six. Aesthetics-wise, I only remembered the contained corridor levels, that's what defined the image of Armored Core in my memory; when you escape into the outdoor levels, it's a very freeing kind of simplicity. especially areas with water -- any time a video game lets you skid across the surface of a body of water and gives you that satisfying spray while you're skidding around, that's the stuff.
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@“tokucowboy”#p127610 and it does not appear that you can choose to be one.
Actually you can >!just refuse to harm any civillians in the mission you're forced to take where you have to smash the underground city and let the timer run down and instead of showing up to be your enemy the silver mech pilot becomes your ally for the rest of the game!<
@“Reverse Kaiser”#p127611 Ah, I was wondering if I might be wrong about the possibility of choice even as I typed that – that‘s a cool way to implement a sense of choice. The only guide I’ve been following is a simple parts guide just so I can cruise through as much game as possible, so not knowing that, it‘s neat and tonally effective that I saw what was in front of me and just thought "well, I’m doomed to comply"
@“tokucowboy”#p127617 Yeah, finding out about that trick is like the game just holding up a mirror in front of you and it's hard to imagine a game doing that now without being so explicit as Undertale or just getting raged at by the worst kind of adult and teenage babies.
@“connrrr”#p127529 thanks for reminding me about what I love about these games. I may not ever get around to playing or replaying one again. thanks also for linking that interview.
@"phylaxis"#p127560 lol Mother 3 and Final Fantasy Theatrhythm in juxtaposition like that is interesting.
@"HyggeState"#p127327 [URL=https://i.imgur.com/0cqQ9Zd.jpg]
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@“treefroggy”#p127656 I used to play sooo much Wetrix on N64 and dreamcast with my friends. I think I tried Aqua Aqua once. I don't remember anything about it.
@“Reverse Kaiser”#p127618 @tokucowboy dudes, I attempted to play AC1 so many times over the years, and myself relating to squatters & protestors, found it incredibly difficult to role play and project myself into that world. Until last year when I swallowed that bitter pill and had a blast plowing through the first three games on playstation. I don't recall finding that secret though. I just kept starting over the save (what I call “rerolling”) until I could go through the first three missions perfectly.
I beat/finished/clocked Koudelka today on the PlayStation 1. Never really played anything like it before but it‘s a super neat JRPG. At first glance it looks like a survival horror but you occasionally get thrown into the combat dimension when you are around for a bit. The combat is serviceable once you know what you’re doing with your builds. There are some okay enemy designs but be prepared to fight a lot of cockroaches. But that's the great thing about videogames is that you can live out the fantasy of blasting a cockroach with a shotgun.
Similarly to a Resi game, you pick up a key item to slot into a statue or something to progress. Nothing too special but the game has a decent flow and you never really struggle or backtrack.
The characters are actually pretty interesting. I like the idea of playing as and experiencing this adventure with three established scumbags. I know the heroes journey is a genre but it's refreshing playing as morally dubious people.
Would I recommend? Yeah probably if you've got the time. You can beat it in under 11-12 hours so I'm happy to sign off on the short game seal of approval.
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@“connrrr”#p127529 how much was Miyamoto actually involved in Pikmin's creation?
it was his idea to make them scream when they die