finished tunic. the postgame stuff was cool! but i felt a little… underwhelmed by it. i think it’s very clever, but i didn’t necessarily think there was more than cleverness to it, if that makes sense? it ended up feeling like a game about games, but not really a game about life (outside of being about games, which are life). a little recursive for my taste. by comparison, it reminded me at points of signalis and sylvie lime, which both have similarly meta elements but feel like those elements are anchored to more of an emotional core.
i’m planning to finish up chrono trigger next, but in the meantime i got into these littleidle horror games by adrien dittrick and june flower. i haven’t played a lot of idle games and i’m not sure that these are particularly special, but the second one in particular was fun and silly and i liked it. it’s also very nsfw lol
My partner, who usually has zero interest in video games, saw me playing The Thaumaturge this summer and said, “I think I’d like to play that with you”.
We started over from the beginning, and have been playing a couple hours a week together. We just got past where I left off initially. I haven’t taken a game this slowly in…maybe my life? I don’t know if the game is really good, or I’m just really enjoying spending the time with my partner, but it’s been great.
I quite liked Astro Bot! I also liked Astro’s Playroom so I was interested to see how a full game-length version would be. Overall I had a great time with it
There’s something missing there for me though and I’m not quite sure what it is. I think the key might be in your word use of “friction.” I am tempted to say that Astro Bot was a little too easy, but that’s not quite right… It’s not like many 3D platformers are the pinnacle of difficulty and with the challenge levels I’d say Astro Bot probably has a higher difficulty ceiling than a good lot of them.
Astro Bot compares very favorably to Super Mario Odyssey given that Astro Bot actually requires some amount of platforming at all. It also does a better job of what Mario was doing back in Super Mario Bros - introducing a concept, testing the player, evolving the concept, etc. throughout the level. I get that Nintendo wanted a more open Mario in the vein of 64 and Sunshine, but they backed off way too much to the point that they made an entire 3D Mario game into a spinoff full of possession puzzle chores. Mario via korok seeds
A slightly less favorable comparison for Astro Bot would be the “Course Clear!” 3D Marios, like Galaxy, 3D Land, and 3D World. That’s where I feel like there’s a little je ne sais quois missing from Astro. Tension? Propulsion? Tightness? I’m not sure which word quite gets at what I’m going for. Is it just that Mario runs a little faster than Astro?
I’m curious where each series goes from here and whether Astro has any impact on Mario at all. Nintendo seems to be on a baffling trend of deflating their games (e.g. Zelda, Mario, Pokemon (that’s a whole separate beast to be fair), and it sounds like that new Peach game as well) trying to “family friendly”-ify series that are already family friendly. The one sign that points in the opposite direction is Bowser’s Fury which led with Odyssey’s open-level design but had a lot more platforming and tighter gameplay overall. It’s not my favorite Mario game ever, but I see it as a step in the right direction and an interesting one seeing as they got nothing but praise for Odyssey.
As for where Astro goes from here, I’m not sure. Astro Bot is kind of a “the same, but more” expansion on their previous efforts, which is fine and even welcome given that this is their first time to expand their ideas out into full length. I don’t think they can do another game of “the same, but more.” The thought of collecting another 200+ PlayStation characters isn’t all that appealing a third time around. That being said, I have a hard time imagining them taking a Sunshine, or Galaxy, or Odyssey type of swing to completely shake things up
…
But most importantly, does anyone know if Astro Bot is gonna get more free DLC in the future? I heard whispers that maybe we’re getting more challenge levels
that’s because they have to play the little tune otherwise the ghost of xenophobic sugiyama past will come to haunt horii
also I was soooo taken aback when I heard the new “orchestrated” sound play lmao
played a little bit of this dungeon crawler called dragon ruins last night. the character and enemy art are what drew me to it. i do wish there was a bit more going on visually but i know some of you sickos will like it. the soundtrack sets the mood quite well. it’s fun and cheap:
Since no one has ever complained about game design in a Sonic game before, it falls to me to say that I loathe Sonic Generations/Shadow Generations for making you chase your reward – a fiddly little music note that jettisons through the stage on a timer – for completing a level or challenge. The concept of fighting for your reward is lame. The level is the fight. The reward is the reward. Whether you succeed or fail, you still have to re-do all the platforming you just did in the hub world to get back on your way to the next stage. I have already earned my treat, SONIC TEAM
Other than that & the requisite moments of “ope I’ve gone flying off the stage again,” etc., game is great. Shadow Generations is stellar and I hope Sonic Team keeps polishing this Frontiers track, they’re onto something there. Maybe make it look like a Sonic game next time & we’d be cooking with oil
On DQ III, I’m also an enjoyer of its looks & have said elsewhere that it’s doing the same thing we’ve been doing with polygon/sprite combos since at least the PlayStation, but it’s also reassuring & valid that you can get one of those emulation handhelds for roughly the same price as the remake & play the Super Famicom or Game Boy Color versions of Dragon Quest III with 75% more pixels & almost 100% of the same good time
Started Sorry We’re Closed and it is indeed a hot one. Silent Hill is the main comp, but going from 3rd to 1st person and flicking on the third eye to find weaknesses is making me think of Killer 7 too.
Sicko here, checking in. I’ve been eyeing that recently myself. The art style is really intriguing but I wasn’t so sure about the gameplay. Granted, I only saw very little of it and from a Youtube video by a guy that didn’t seem to know what he was doing but it seemed a bit too idle-gamey at first glance.
So if you have any positive/interesting thoughts about that after playing it a little I might cross the just-thinking-about-it threshold!
well, it wouldn’t be 100% wrong to call it an idle game but there’s a bit more to it than that. the main questions you’re asking are “do i turn back now to level up/heal/etc?” and “where does this hallway lead?” you don’t need to worry about combat decisions or anything like that.
if the art style and idea appeals to you, i’d say you would like this game. i found myself pretty hooked despite the simplicity, but then again my tastes do skew toward the degenerate.
i’d never dare to claim taste-superiority. the only thing i can confidently say is that i have one. if anything we probably share some kinship in degeneracy.
the gamer reaction to the launch eating shit is interesting in this case because the audience has a decent cohort of like old guys with “professional” jobs and this is like the only game they will purchase and play for 5-10 years. Plus it’s just more expensive of a buy-in in terms of decent gear (doesnt have to be necessarily, but lots of people sink some cash into hardware). So this is like PMC + comfortable retiree gamer rage. Sort of a unique phenomenon
wont have an opportunity to dig into the game too much this week (technical problems notwithstanding) but from what I can tell my suspicion that the game is 2020 + tech upgrade + Asobo doing in-house versions of what were 3rd party products. That latter part is kind of strange because it seems sort of altruistic: people are going to by the game anyway and make use of those tertiary features like a flight recorder, career mode, a browser-based flight planner etc through 3rd party apps or through features added to the game proper. But the core product is still the core product. So it seems like Asobo is adding to their workload I guess altruistically, which is strange to see. TBD if the in-house stuff is a replacement for by Air Hauler 2 career plugin or my Navigraph flight planner subscription, but I don’t quite know what to make of the studio’s own efforts. I appreciate it though!
Does anyone else associate the word “degenerate” with queer-bashing and other bigotry or is that just a me problem? I get really uncomfortable about how common the term is in gaming circles now.
I associate it mainly with a) what yeso said but in online circles I always read it as people liking things that are generally frowned upon by “normal” people in relation to the group they’re in. Similar to weirdo, maybe. As a sort of ironic and self-deprecating way to refer to oneself as someone who unabashedly likes something other people perceive as weird or cringe or low-quality.
