I completed Klonoa 1 and 2 and have been playing Umihara Kawase Shun since then.
Klonoa 1 really worked for me as an extremely charming, idiosyncratic game with interesting mechanics. I thought everything was just right.
Klonoa 2 didn’t work for me as well. I liked Tat the cat, and some of the levels, but it seemed like they leaned very heavily in trying to go bigger, to impress and make a blockbuster in a way that took away from what had already been established and introduced more tedium instead. There were so many snowboarding levels… And I really disliked the Warring Kingdom.
Umihara Kawase Shun is awesome so far. I played Umihara Kawase on the Switch a few years back and really appreciated it but also made heavy use of the rewind feature. Shun has the opportunity to practice fields individually between runs which helps a lot, I think. I think something I’m learning about my preferences lately is that I kind of like really punishing games that are also a vibe. The music here is really good, and I’d happily listen to the soundtrack while riding a bike at sunset if given the opportunity. The hand-drawn fish people and photographed backgrounds are really cool. It’s all very comforting and inspiring, I think. As of now, I’m at Field 24. I understand what to do to these squids, it’s just a matter of execution. It feels really good to fail, have no stress about it, and slowly see myself grow.
Warning: I’m probably going to disappoint some people here.
In my latest “what should I play next on Steam Deck” poll, Signalis was the clear winner. I’m currently about 30 minutes in.
There are a few reasons I haven’t played it much:
After the poll ended, I immediately got sick with a respiratory virus. I tried playing, but I got an intense dysphoria. Horror games, and especially games where the objective is not immediately clear, do not feel good when I am sick. Hunting around for what to do next is exhausting. The sound design, while I’m sure it’s very competent, is grating on my senses and giving me not just the feeling of unease it’s going for, but also a headache. Those enemy screams are like nails on a chalkboard. I’m almost fully better now, thankfully, but I still have an almost instinctual urge to not open this game again, like one might feel about a certain food after experiencing food-poisoning from it.
This game is also not a great fit with Steam Deck. The menu UI is blurry as anything, and there’s no way to sharpen it. The assets were clearly made for a resolution that’s smaller than 720p but larger than half of it. This means that even in “pixel perfect” scaling, the menus are a blurry mess. The gameplay and cutscenes are nice and clear, but any time I have to go into a menu (which seems to be a lot, as this is one of those limited inventory games where examining your inventory is mandatory.) It’s not super optimized either. Despite the psone aesthetic, it chugs with all the graphic settings on. I wish it used psone techniques for having reflections in mirrors, because those never made my game drop 30fps.
Something else came up that I can’t talk about right now.
Survival Horror is a genre I keep wanting to like, but I think maybe it’s just not a great fit for me. I like RE7 and the remakes of RE2 and RE3. I like Silent Hill 2. But I’ve bounced off of most of the others I’ve tried. Even when I feel well, I find them more “interesting” than engaging usually, if that distinction makes sense. Maybe I just don’t like the genre that much?
Anyway, the bottom line is that I’m not far into Signalis, and I don’t know whether I’m going to continue. What I’ve seen so far has not captured me, and I feel worse every time I play it. I might try playing on my desktop, where my 4k monitor can probably handle the pixel upscaling a bit better than the Deck’s 800p screen. But then it’s not filling the niche I wanted of something to play on Steam Deck.
Anyway, sorry. I’m not liking Signalis, at least not yet.
If you’re not vibing with the first thirty minutes then you probably won’t like the rest, since it’s very much on the “dungeon crawl” side of survival horror. The story only really picks up in the second half.
signalis is one of my all-time favourite vidcons but it’s definitely a pretty specific kind of work and i wouldn’t fault anyone for bouncing off of it. i hope you feel better soon!
among other lil bits and bobs i’m still playing hyper light breaker every so often. The game’s already gotten a lot better and easier to understand moment-to-moment (omg parrying feels so much better omg crow girl owns) and as it is it’s a really chill way to kill an hour or two!
i’m really very impressed at how heart machine is handling early access and watching the game develop over time has become a big part of the appeal for me. I’m very curious (perhaps to a fault) about the iterative process of building something like this and how design decisions get made/implemented and observing their even-handed response to what was by all accounts a pretty rough reception has kept me interested. I spent several years playing destiny 2 kind of compulsively (never again ><;) and ended up being fascinated by bungie’s ultra-weird chaotic neutral development approach to the point where i still keep up with patch notes and so on long after putting the game down for good. i’m sort of hooked in the same way here tbh except the work and the team in question actually feel like they have a soul
Ooohh I put Breaker into my “Waiting for 1.0” category right at launch. Maybe I’ll check it out again! I enjoyed my time with it, but I don’t want to burn out on it before full release.
Picked up Nier Replicant 1.22etc. on Steam sale recently after getting fed up with finding a functioning iso for PS3 emulation and so far I’m loving it.
The story and even some minor fetch quests in Replicant have an emotional resonance that I didn’t find in all of my first playthrough of Automata years ago. I occasionally pick at my second playthrough of Automata but I end up bouncing off of it. Maybe after Replicant I’ll try it again; I’ve been listening to the OSTs of both games for years at this point and I love the post-apocalyptic setting.
Still making my way through Tomb Raider. I just finished up the eighth stage “The Cistern” which may have been my favorite yet. It’s a sewer stage with a water-level changing mechanic (sold yet?) paired with a bunch of keys and gators.
I’m really enjoying this game now. The move-set has sunken in and now traversal is a satisfying (and punishing) chain of expectations. Switching between the original art style and remastered visuals really makes me appreciate how ambitious the environment design was for the time. I get why this original was such a phenomenon.
The camera is butts. Shooting wolves is butts. The save system is butts. BUT I’m loving the sense of scale and increased complexity of the past few stages — I was expecting cramped hallways and a few notable set pieces, but it’s more like parkour zelda with less signposting.
Apologies, I haven’t posted more because…I didn’t play much more due to some debilitating head pain plaguing me for the past few weeks.
But I did finish 1000xRESIST today. It’s a fascinating game, one that definitely made me feel some kind of way about my own historical need to escape my parents and never look back (except when forced due to circumstance). There’s a lot happening here, and the multiple, seemingly contradictory sentiments and statements are part of the point. There is an us and an us, stretching through all moments.
The way the player interacts with the narrative (the “gameplay”) serves that narrative well, and is evocative of what is actually occurring, something that didn’t hit me in the moment but does now in retrospect.
My only real “negative” was the jumpscare at the start, but it’s a one-off thankfully.
Ok, I’m official done with Signalis. I got about an hour in, and I’m still not hooked. I also don’t like how sometimes my character just seems to panic and won’t aim their gun, even though I am pressing the aim button. I don’t like how slowly the camera moves during the first-person segments. I’m still very bothered by the menu that doesn’t upscale properly to 720p/800p.
Really, I’d probably keep playing if it wasn’t for the sound design. I absolutely cannot stand the sounds of the zombies screaming. Even the save points scream in my ear.
I’ve never stopped a game because of the sound effects before, and I now have more sympathy for those suffering from misophonia.
Thank you for that reply! I fled to Washington state and took every single after school club that I could for the same reason. I think this game might resonate with me too.
Man I am all in on Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition. Maybe it’s the Star Ocean fan brain but I’m enjoying the scifi + systems + how open this game is.
I originally played this on the Wii U and didn’t get too far into it. It was my first Xenoblade game + I never played MMOs so I didn’t get the whole combat rotations stuff. But it’s all clicking for me this time around.
Narrative wise it’s not as dense as (for better or worse) the other Xenoblade games. I can see a lot of Chronicles fans trying this for the first time and being super disappointed. But I don’t personally care - there is enough there to keep me going and engaging with the gameplay.
There is something about NLA that I really dig. The town is aggressively ‘normal’ with bug eyed NPCs going about their day in this simulated town. It reminds me of games such as Deadly Premonition or Dragons Dogma where NPCs go about their life in a very uncanny way that I find very entertaining compared to a GTA or other open world games.
I’m still early in but I’m keen to see how far I go. I don’t fully understand how the online multiplayer stuff works but I’ll figure it out eventually.
I finished mario RPG. A completely enjoyable game. I loved the quicktime events int he combat. I loved how every weapon changed it up and kept me focused. I didn’t like that bad blocks resent your combo gauge. I think my highest combo was only in the 70s. There’s a copy of Legend of Dragoon at the game stoore for 40 that I might pick up today if it’s still there. I remember that combo system being way harder. I was playing it in a time where I hadn’t yet remembered playstation buttons. We’ll see if that holds. up.
Don’t know if you’ve already started this. I recently tried the fan translation of the Saturn version and a lot of it is audio only. Turns out the console releases are missing like half of the FMV. The Mac, Windows 95, and laserdisc are complete. I really wanted to watch the whiskey drinking battle that can happen early on so I tried finding a download for any of these and for some reason they all have disc 1 of the Mac version and discs 2-5 are windows lol. I got lucky and bought the last windows copy on surugaya. It just came in and I can rip the discs if you wanted. Maybe I’ll try to put em up on archive
Yeah, that’d be great if you do! So much of the charm of those FMV titles comes from the acting and the set design, it’s a little rough just staring at a blocky still while you hear actual dialogue and environment sounds. Lemme see that car driving.
i fell out of video games for awhile. i had success dual-playing chrono trigger and grim fandango a couple months ago, so i was trying to do that with radiant historia and kentucky route zero. but while i like both of those games, i found myself not really wanting to pick them up. i find more in-depth experiences on the 3ds sort of annoying to play because of the screen size, and i think that radiant historia has some flaws alongside its cool ideas that i would be much more willing to bear if i was playing it in a different form factor. kentucky route zero is also really cool - i recently visited the noah purifoy outdoor art museum in joshua tree, and it’s got a very similar vibe - but i think i want something a little less thesis-y.
so i picked up style savvy: styling star again. charming, not mentally taxing and slightly hollow; it is a perfect mobile game. i pick this thing up and intend to play for like 30 minutes and then look at the clock and two hours have passed. i feel like this kind of game design is morally suspect but i love this game! i love those little people in my 3ds who need a perfect outfit!
I’m continuing to enjoy Shinobi, slowly working my way through it in 15-30 minute sessions, which in itself is interesting. I can’t think of many modern major studio titles that fit well into those bite-sized gameplay chunks, especially given that so many production houses are obsessed with engagement dark patterns these days. It’s nice to play something that saves between stages and deliberately asks you whether or not you want to keep playing.
I’ve also enjoyed the slow shifts in the rhythm of the game as it’s continued. Stages are broken into two sub-levels, e.g. 1-A and 1-B, with the A levels focusing on clearing encounters and the B levels on finding and destroying floating totems. Each stage also picks a mechanic to focus on: basic combat, the Akujiki mechanics, repositioning behind enemies, and so on. After stage 4, though, there’s a deliberate shift in the rhythm: the A stages are now longer and more punishing, and the B stages are eliminated entirely, skipping straight to a second boss encounter. The focus also shifts more towards environmental navigation, challenging you to hop from rootftop to rooftop during a flash flood in stage 5 before removing the floor entirely in stage 6 by sending you hurtling through a Mission Impossible-style underground lab.
As the challenge ramps up, though, the camera issues are getting a little more severe. The boss encounter in 6-A, a blind samurai showdown where you’re hanging from the wall the entire time to avoid giving away your position, is particularly rough. The narrow corridor and the need to ping-pong your way from end to end make execution pretty challenging, mostly in terms of actually being able to make your way over to the boss before losing your chain.
I might end up tapping out on this one sometime before the end, in part because I watched a GDQ run and the final boss looks like it’ll be more an exercise in patience than anything, but we’ll see! It’s cherry blossom season right now, so I’m looking forward to making my way through stage 7, a nighttime run through temple grounds littered with cherry blossom petals.
Finished GTA IV again last night. I had also finished Lost and the Damned for the first time a few weeks ago. Like I said in a past post I think GTA IV is better overall than V. I like the how gritty it is, I like the theme of monotonous violence and the cycle of crime, I also like the weighty driving and physics model. I think Niko Bellic is a better character than Michael, Franklin, and Trevor together. Having said that, I think GTA V is better in terms of overall flow and fun factor. Something I sort of remembered about IV was that back half wasn’t as strong as the first. I can now confirm for myself that the story missions lose a lot of momentum the further on the game goes. My primary complaint is that after, I’d say, the bank heist the story missions become more and more disjointed. Lost and Damned is like a compact experience of this disjointedness. Much of my time in Lost and Damned felt like a bunch of seemingly unrelated things kept happening to Johnny. Like Rockstar wasn’t quite there yet in creating a coherent story. Keep in mind I have not played any GTA before IV so I cannot say if this was par for the course with Rockstar at the time. Red Dead Redemption seems to me to be the point where Rockstar figured out how to make both a good and coherent plot.
Now, like a dummy, instead of continuing on with Kingdom Come Deliverance I found myself falling back down the Assassin’s Creed hole. I picked up Shadows today for the PlayStation 5. I kept hearing mixed things on this one from critics. One review though from a long-time AC fan said he enjoyed it and ranked it up on his top 5 alongside Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed Origins. As someone who loved ACII and really liked Origins I figured it couldn’t hurt to give Shadows a shot. My recent experience with the franchise has been pretty bad. Odyssey as a concept sounded cool to me but after about 20-30 hours I felt incredibly burnt out by it. I was burned out from Valhalla with less than 10 hours. I never touched Mirage. Here’s hoping Shadows fairs better!
I’m barely playing anything lately. I made myself a mission to get all stars and gold flags on the normal courses in Super Mario 3D Land and I thought finally I had but the ★ wasn’t showing up for World 8. Then I re-discovered that W8 has two screens and that the two stages on the second screen are very hard. I have pivoted to instead working through the special stages.