Would you recommend I play PoE 1 before playing Deadfire?
Itâs been a really long time for me - but Iâd say just go with your gut and tackle them in whatever order you think youâll enjoy most. Either way, thereâll be a whole lot of lore entries to read thatâll get you stuck into the world if thatâs your thing.
I will say that Deadfire is where they really fine-tuned what makes the setting visually and thematically unique, so if you find the idea of a more traditional isometric RPG a little dull, it may be worth jumping straight to pirate time.
2 Likes
Iâll jump in here and say no, you donât have to play PoE 1. Itâs a decent game but a little slight compared to 2. Plus 2 has a turn-based option thankfully
2 Likes
Reactivated my GamePass for the first time in 2 years and I made it like an hour into Avowed and I thought the writing was unbearably groan inducing.
It feels like the writersâ main inspiration is DnD podcasts.
The whole aesthetic inspired by that Annihilation movie is kinda cool tho.
Gonna try that Indiana Jones too and then Citizen Sleeper 2. I also found that Too Human and Phantom Dust are just straight up free on the Xbox store.
8 Likes
Rolled credits on Powerslave/Exhumed (the Nightdive version). What a blast!
Itâs mostly boomer shooter but with some great platforming sections, dungeon puzzles, and metroidvania item based-progression and backtracking. The Nightdive version looks great, plays great, and controls way better than the original.
It feels very much like an Egyptian DOOM mod in the first few maps, but once you get some traversal items, it really finds its own identity.
A mechanic I really liked about it was the way it handles ammo. You pick up randomly dropped orbs from dead enemies that are either health or âweapon powerâ. Weapon power gives you ammo to whatever weapon youâre currently holding, which gives you total freedom to keep using the weapon of your choosing.
A complaint of mine is the amount of times I got stuck because I couldnât find a wall that you had to blow up with a grenade in order to proceed. Iâm sympathetic to hiding optional gear behind normal looking walls, but this game had at least 5 walls that looked to me totally normal or decorative that needed to be blown up to progress. Pretty annoying.
The soundtrack had some good stuff and featured mostly ambient, vaguely Egypt-y sounding tracks, but ramped up to some great guitar driven tracks toward the end.
Overall the game is very fast paced but leaves you with some chill exploratory or puzzle sections where you can relax with the chill soundtrack and great visuals. The Nightdive version seems to combine the best of the Saturn and PSX versions visually, and that added second analogue stick does wonders given the verticality present in many levels.
Do recommend. Beat it in about 10 hours, played on Switch. The âgoodâ ending made me laugh out loud on the train because of how stupid it was.
22 Likes
14 Likes
Have not been much of a gamer as of late, but i have been clocking in a lot of Dustforce (cross thread promotion).
Dustforce to me, is the apex of the kind of kaizo platforming thing weâve been doing for awhile. The obvious comp here is something like Celeste and I think to me, Dustforce thrives by doing a lot less than Celeste (a great game that I love).
The number one reason I can ascribe to it, is the weight to which your character moves in this game, every jump feels really impactful, and your handling is so precise, that if youâre not in complete control, your little janitor can end up feeling like a Ferrari you are ill equipped to steer. I think the fluid nature of the climbing, wallriding, and airdashing is the smoothest any of these things play, without feeling kind of off like Super Meat Boy.
The levels themselves always have a going theme (particularly memorable is the castle stuff, where each level is a bit of an ascenscion of this manor you have to clean, culminating in the hardest levels being bounding around the spires of this castle. But there is no story so to speak, just vibes and time trials.
A complaint I always see about something like Neon White is, fun to play, story annoying, if that describes you, you gotta hit dustforce.
I pop in and spend about 4-8 hours on the very hard level hitting double perfect so I can eventually hit the challenge levels, I still have about three or four super hard levels left. I just cleared hideout today.
I also have a bit of a checkered past with this thing, I remember it being one of the first indie games I was really conscious of, probably due to a 1up review or something, but it really took hold of me when it launched on Vita, which frankly, is a pretty miserable way to play it.
Anyway, this isnât me, but hereâs the level I cleared today, it took me probably 6 hours to double perfect.
6 Likes
Oddly Iâm also playing a platformer that was recommended by a poster who correctly guessed dustforce in the cross promoted thread.
As those up on your forum lore have already surmised, Iâm playing garbanzo quest.
@Mnemogenic is spot on that this is an amazing platformer that has a strangely annoying writing style that is more noticeable than it should be (but @SteveWithaB is correct that it doesnât matter). Itâs obviously very inspired by Undertale but I guess in the way Korn was inspired by Black Sabbath. Like âoh, so that was your takeawayâŚâ
But anyway, really fun game so far. Itâs refreshing to play a platformer that so far isnât momentum or âtechâ based like Celeste and the like. I love those tech platformers but itâs nice to play something a bit slower than still has a flow.
6 Likes
The three lads stomping about on a bug hunt in Space Marine 2 reminded me of Cyberpunks on the Amiga, so Iâve taken a break to play that for a while.
3 Likes
after playing a bit more of nioh (still quite early on iâm pretty sure), i can feel its gameplay intention much better. it still feels a bit too harsh for my liking with one mistake possibly killing you outright or causing a snowball that leads to that, but now it at least feels mostly fair. but this is mostly AFTER i learn the moveset which is fine, if not a bit too much for the basic enemies. they should be more able to bumble through at least a lil, but i do get the idea. bosses are a bit too much tho. it takes quite a few goes to last even 30secs cause each of their moves is too punishing when hit, and until you know what theyâre doing, you get hit. but overall, with the feel down a bit, as said before, it does seem somewhat fair now
the revisiting levels for bonus missions is fun and remembering all the nooks and crannies to go is pleasing. i still think the loot system doesnât work the greatest here, and the blacksmithing is just an extension of this. and the story feels a bit eh, and weirdly put together at times
i do quite like the game, especially now ive got a feel for it. but, it took a bit too long for my liking to get this feel, mostly due to it being slightly too harsh. iâll probs roll credits eventually if it keeps at this sort of progression
3 Likes
Finally gotten around to the Riven Rivmake still early goings (just hit Survey Island) appreciate that the puzzles have been remixed, not that my brain is overflowing with memories from 1998 or anything. But going in knowing that the solutions have been tweaked at least lets you have a fresh approach to the experience. It looks good although as with other recent Cyan games you can tell that some marquee environments had more time/money applied to them than others (the famous starting sequence lodged in everyoneâs brain for example). The character models and mo cap acting is cool and while I miss the fmv stuff I can understand how that may have been less workable in high res 3D rather than static renders. Overall I think itâs the best thing Cyanâs done since Myst V imo
6 Likes
I finished my first playthrough of Princess Maker 2.
@Mnemogenic, your tip helped a bit. I also think that upping her Morality may have had an effect - I didnât see her disappearing for the last three years of gameplay. (That could be correlation and not causation though.)
Anyway, I ended up in a much better rhythm for the last half of the game. Iâd settled on mostly restaurant work, but I added in other work (esp. Church) work to spread the stat progression some. I also took more classes in Decorum and the like. I was finally able to have Morgana talk to the Knight and then the Minister. Finally, on my last month of the game, she had tea with the Queen Consort.
The better performance in the second half was enough to get my daughter to follow a common heteronormative trajectory and be a good wife. The goddess and the in-game narration both strongly hint that this is not the worst but could be better. Even my daughter, in one of our conversations, wished that she could study more. It hurt that she was so clear-eyed about it - happy to be a wife, but wanting more.
The game seems focused on making me want to do another playthrough, and I have no shortage of things to learn. For this one, Iâll try to do one of two things: do more studying, fight more. But I feel I can do more with the palace conversations and studying earlier now that I have a grasp on stress and moneymaking, and Iâd like to figure out what the heckâs going on with the combat/adventure stuff.
2 Likes
Iâve been poking at Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for the DS here and there for a week now. This is actually the only Western released Fire Emblem that I havenât yet completed, and the only game in the series I havenât completed in some form (including remakes like Shadows of Valentia) other than Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776 for Super Famicom. This one is a remake of the original game starring Marth who some of you may know from his appearance in Codename STEAM.
When this came out, I really didnât like it. I think I was 18 when I played it and I was getting into more âââseriousâââ storytelling across media, which meant that I wanted video games to be more story driven. At the time, it felt like I should be playing more dramatic things like Mass Effect or even Uncharted, and that was where games were going.
This is all to say that Shadow Dragon is very light on story, but now Iâm cool with that. I genuinely love every Fire Emblem besides Revelation, but at times they just give you too much to read or do between chapters. Three Houses is a great game that has earned its adulation, but a second playthrough is just too daunting with the Monastery and all the dialogue.
Shadow Dragon feels like a pared down experience. I tap through cutscenes in 10 seconds and Iâm back in battle prep already. You keep getting more units every chapter in case some of yours died in the previous map because Intelligent Systems didnât yet realize how attached to their units people would become and assumed theyâd have no moral qualms with cycling them in and out of an ever dying army that was constantly replenishing itself. Of course I just turn the game off when one of my guys dies.
Anyway, good game.
9 Likes
I played a few hours of Avowed last night. Itâs good! Itâs a beautiful and streamlined experience. I like being able to roleplay a fungus-faced gun wizard detective. Iâm pretty sure this is the only game giving me that. I continue to enjoy Obsidian tweaking, refining and/or polishing up various RPG mechanics.
I think all the progression stuff is neat and easy to use. However, I think the weapon/armor upgrading is a little counterintuitive. We are born and bred to LOOT in these games. So the idea that I need upgrade my common pistol while Iâm waiting to come across a unique one that I like is a little strange. I donât dislike it, but I just kept forgetting that I should be bolting sticks and iron onto my stuff to get stronger.
I also think it was a really strong move to make your first real companion be a sick snake/fish man voiced by the same actor as Garrus from Mass Effect. I was instantly onboard with Kai and he helped pull me into the story and world of Avowed. I honestly wonder why they didnât have you meet him on the tutorial island instead. I struggled to get into Avowed for that first 45 minutes until Kai showed up.
Overall, I like it. I definitely will play more. And if anyone has any questions about it, hit em up. Iâll do the research for you!
7 Likes
I just rolled credits on Guns of Fury. Itâs a fun little mashup of Run & Gun with Metroidvanias. It was billed as a Metal Slug-troidvania, but I didnât really find it to be that. Despite some of the visual stylings, it was far more Contra than Metal Slug. Fans of the genre will know what I mean.
It was still pretty fun though, despite some of the end-game mcguffins being hidden in very hard to find places. The map design overall was mediocre, but the action was very good throughout. One of the bosses was cheezy and janky, but the rest were pretty solid.
Very impressive overall for a game with only 4 names in the credits.
9 Likes
I also played the demo for Rusty Rabbit that came out today. It performs pretty badly, isnât fun to play, and the game will not stop yapping at you about story cutscenes and tutorials. Ugh. Crossed this one off my wishlist after 10 minutes of âPlayâ.
1 Like
Wrapped up the Riven remake it was quite good. Found myself really appreciating the structure of meaningful details gradually coalescing into solving one central puzzle. The game was well-received back in 1998 but I remember (and according to wikipedia) some frustration with that method because the player can be a bit lost without a clearer ladder type progression, but that sort of approach wouldnât compel you to learn two different alphanumeric systems, for example and what a loss that would be. Riven the environment is super cool as well of course. Cyan been going since 1987 god bless. Wonder whatâs next for them: Myst III and IV arenât Miller games donât know if theyâll do anything with them
7 Likes
