Further thoughts on Dragon Quest 3 hd because something is actually bugging me. Namely, the map in this game thinks i’m a baby, and i feel like i lose some of the experience.
I am at the ghost ship currently, and it feels pretty trivialized for something I imagine is more like catching entei, than just fast travelling somewhere and then getting there instantly on the NES. Why was it so easy to find this? Did i need the big map marker?
This extends to pretty much every dungeon, I wonder if I can turn this off, and even with objective markers off, which already feels a little bit like maybe we can listen to the NPCs, there are stairs marked on the map in every dungeon, so there is no sense of struggle for finding the stairs.
Played Final Fantasy (1) earlier this year, and part of that NES friction is fumbling around for the stairs while the mana burns. Feels like something that should be a real element of difficulty just isn’t there.
That isn’t to say there is no difficulty though - I just spent two hours trying to kill that troll boss using a strategy i thought was pretty clever. It’s just odd I can’t turn that off in a game that feels extremely definitive in every other way.
I just wrapped up Sorry We’re Closed tonight. 2024 GOATOTY for me (out of the 4 I’ve played).
I really enjoyed my time with it. I’m excited to see what this team does next.
The style of this one is what drew me in at first. Visually it seems to draw from a mixture of different sensibilities, ranging from queer-club fashion, rococo interiors, urban nightlife, renaissance painting, bdsm, christian iconography, and uhhh… Silent Hill. They combined these seamlessly into their own unique world of aloof, sexy demons, angels and humans all existing in tandem across two planes of equal-parts extravagance and putrefaction. It’s a trip to hang out in (flicking between the human world and the supernatural mirror with a snap of your fingers) — The contrast between the two really highlighting the dichotomy of experience between anyone resigned to either side.
The character designs are expertly done too, which really helps them feel more substantial and realized even with the limited graphical presentation.
Personally, the narratives were the most engaging aspect — the tone of writing and dialogue is so well done, oftentimes a grounded balance of struggling with loftier spiritual abstractions and petty, day-to-day relationship quibbling. “Love with stakes” tends to be a recurring motif and that certainly carries some additional emotional weight. The supernatural setting really amplifies those stakes with eternal punishments and consequences potentially springloaded behind every narrative choice.
The soundtrack also rules, but I won’t spoil anything too specific. My favorite track is in the record shop where a crunchy, subdued hip-hop beat gives way to a sigh of a glittery off-beat piano interlude — This specifically fits so nicely with the visual aesthetic. There’s so much impressive cohesion of its different inspirations throughout.
The only nitpick I had was probably largely due to playing with a controller versus a mouse and keyboard — switching into first-person to aim, the combat was a little frustrating in a few standout scenarios in which you’re expected to deal with swarms of enemies. Apart from that though, lining up and pulling off shots felt great as they closed in on you House of the Dead style.
Haven’t landed on anything new to play, so I’ve just been playing more Balatro.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the challenge tab isn’t a checklist of scoring goals like I thought it was, but is instead a variety of different game modes that change up the rules drastically. The different challenges are definitely the best part of this game, because they force you play in so many unconventional ways.
Through the various unlocks and such my personal bests have been ramping up exponentially and I was happy with what I’d accomplished on my own, so I decided to dig around a little and see what’s considered good. Unfortunately I learned that most everything I had pegged as being good is in fact good, and that some of the interactions I was theorycrafting in my head as potentially calculator-breaking stuff are common high-scoring strats. I was hoping the game had more of itself to show me that I hadn’t considered, but it just turns out the stuff I thought was broken, very much is.
I get that poker is a game of luck, but the RNG factor is so heavy in this game that it’s deeply annoying. Runs often feel decided one way or the other just five or six rounds in. I hate that boss blinds have effects that can end runs with no recourse, unless you’re lucky enough to have gotten a reroll voucher. I played a challenge mode that gave me a permanent joker whose effect was to make all cards count as face cards. I ran into a boss blind that turned all face cards upside down. I couldn’t see any cards in my entire hand, so of course I lost handily. I guess I should just play high card every single game, pick any single card in my hand without thought and just win.
I wish this game was balanced like Slay the Spire’s Ironclad, but it’s balanced like Slay the Spire’s Watcher.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is in playable condition at this point, and the bugs are just kind of annoying now instead of ruinous. The annoying part is also dismaying bc a lot of that stuff (bad ATC, bad AI pilots, unrealistic local traffic (F/A-18 parked at 1WI2 “Wisconsin’s Flying Ranch”, etc) has mod and 3rd party fixes that resolved these same problems for 2020 but at least so far Asobo hasn’t let the community do its thing in full. I was hoping to get back to the Around The World stuff, but even the pack-in aircraft are a little too bugged and weird for me to want to do that. A 3rd part developer Blackbird Simulations released a really nice PC-6 for 2020 which would fit the bill, but it’s not fully compatible with 2024. What’s weird about this is that Asobo contracted them to provide one of the helicopters that’s included in 2024, but even so Blackbird was posting like yeah they didn’t give us pre-release access to what we need to convert our 2020 models to the new game. So, kind of a waiting game at this point to get back into what I’d most like to be doing with 2024
Anyway, took the leap on the payware OnAir career system, which at this point (my last experience with it was in 2022 and it was a little then at that point) now seems to be about as detailed and feature rich as beloved Air Hauler 2 (which isnt compatible with 2024 so far). It costs $10/month though :/. But on the other hand the career shit is cool, the aircraft maintenance and mgmt stuff is the most detailed I’ve seen, and the flight tracking and rating is cool too
Leased a SkyCourier to make some cash while we wait to resume the other thread. Had to pick it up over by Seattle and have been flying it back to our hub at KMNM (first stop Billing, MA then to La Crosse, WI, and now from La Crosse to KMNM). Thrilling stuff I know
and you know what else is missing from Microsoft Flight Simulator nowadays is having to do ground school with Rod Machado.
If the stall speed of Airplane C (Figure 3-2) is BO mph, then climbing at a slightly steeper angle will result in insufficient lift for flight. We call this condition a stall. Done unintentionally, it leads to such primitive linguistic sounds as, “Uh-oh,” “Yipes,” and “Ahhhhh,” as well as, “I think I need to have my chakras balanced.” Needless to say, in a real airplane, these sounds make passengers reluctant to ever fly with you again. This is why an upcoming lesson will be spent finding out about stalls and doing them (intentionally, that is). Instructors have special biological filters installed that keep them from making these sounds on those rare occasions when you unintentionally stall the airplane.
I also bought Balatro as a way to get one more 2024 game in under the wire. It is very fun. I’m not sure where I fall on the immersion debate, but I do think its deliberate lack of story context makes it feel more like the gamer version of Windows Solitaire. Slay the Spire is definitely something you can sink your teeth into by comparison with a brilliant progression that feels less like number go up. Not saying that’s bad either, Balatro certainly could’ve made a story or lore about the jokers and such but clearly chose to focus purely on mechanics instead, and it’s a great game. Probably not going to be a 70 hour rogue for me though.
still cranking through Yakuza Kiwami and it still rules, i’m early in still (i think), and every time i take a break from the story to screw around once i get back into the story beats i’m like OH GOD THIS IS AMAZING!!! WHY WASNT I DOING THIS!!!
I played about 90 minutes of Nine Sols and uh oh this game might be extremely good. The combat is hard to wrap my head around, but only just enough. Every time I get into a fight, I want to get in another and see if I can do better. I want to compare it to Dead Cells in the sense that every encounter needs a planned approach. The enemies are predictable, but they’re tuned to be a problem if you can’t do those predictions pretty well.
Anyway yeah exciting game looking forward to playing more.
I had mixed feelings about Sorry We’re Closed. The vibes are great and I thought the angel/demon world that the developer wrote was pretty cool, but the main story didn’t do anything for me. The Duchess was probably the least interesting character to me, which isn’t a great sign for your antagonist.
The dungeon exploration was pretty solid though. Mixed feelings.
In Fable Anniversary Edition, the game has an odd combination of letting me do really powerful feeling things and pushing back against me
I quickly figured out that playing a pair game for 1000 gold each round was a guaranteed moneymaker.
I used my proceeds to buy an obsidian greatsword. But my hero swings it like he can barely lift it, and his movement speed is slow with it out. The game didn’t tell me directly how big an issue weapon weight is.
I keep trying to woo people, but I don’t understand the mechanics at all. I get a little heart above their head, and…? I woo too much bad the heart goes away. I dance and sometimes that helps. Should I fart?
I bought a house and set it to rent. I recall this being completely broken in the one Fable game I’ve played Fable III. So far I haven’t figured out where rent goes to.
The demon doors seem difficult to get into. One asked that I build up a big enough XP multiplier. I tried and it said I still wasn’t high enough.
Love being able to wander through areas. The saving grace of this game is being allowed to wander through Hobbe caves or marshes, no quest to it, and see what’s around
You can turn the minimap off, but that doesn’t solve the problem of the stairs being visible on the map screen. And was it the objective marker that made the ghost ship too obvious? I turned off the objective marker at the start, so I’m not sure if maybe that was it. I definitely see where you’re coming from about finding your way vs. opening the map and seeing it all laid out. I kind of like having such a detailed map in dungeons, though. The true path forward is still something I have to find, or rather for me it’s finding all the little treasures avenues before the path forward. And the map just helps save my real world time and gives my brain a little break from trying to remember which paths I’ve already tried. I like both styles, but I’m having a good time chilling a bit on this one. I haven’t gotten to the ghost ship part, though, so I’ll report back if I too find that search to be anticlimactic.
Finished every story for Sonic 06 and I’m left with feelings of “why did i do this to myself?” and “I’m really glad I finally did that.”
Let’s pretend for a second that this game isn’t a huge mess all the way through.
It’s got the problem a whole lot of games from that generation have where the ending is mostly just annoying.
In this one in particular case it feels like it’s supposed to be kind of a victory lap, which I love, but because the game is what it is, it ends highlighting all of the flaws within a very shirt timeframe.
Altogether though, i think shadow’s story is the best-playing.
He’s the best employee in the fart restaurant that is Sonic 06.
Everything you get is full of farts, but he’s very attentive.
Silver’s story seems like it should be the coolest, but it’s pretty dang garbage.
In the fart restaurant analogy he farts in your face and walks away, and every once in awhile throws a metal box at your head.
The physics in this game are baaaaaaad, and that’s Silver’s whole thing.
He throws things (mostly boxes) and sometimes they do what they’re supposed to.
Also the boxes are way too big.
What is the lore reason behind all these huge boxes everywhere?
Anyway, game bad and very frustrating, but i can say i did it now and as annoyed as i was through much of the game, i did genuinely have a good time.
I picked up Nine Sols, because it was on sale on Steam. Put a couple hours into it, I just finished my first boss fight with a big centaur. I’m guessing I’m the lone detractor around here in that I think it’s perfectly fine, but I’m not salivating over it. I’ll give everyone a moment to gather their pitchforks and torches.
The story and setting are somewhat interesting so far, but haven’t really hooked me. The controls have a little bit of heft to them that isn’t quite jiving with me.
It’s not really doing anything that I think elevates it above any of the Metroidvania games I’ve played in recent years, so I’m a little puzzled at all the talk I’ve seen surrounding it in the GotY thread. The combat doesn’t make me feel as effortlessly cool when I do good as Dead Cells did and it doesn’t feel as good on a technical level as Ender Lilies. The centaur boss had one specific attack that I swear the parry window did not match the animation making the fight frustrating and taking more retries than I felt it should’ve. I prefer Hollow Knight’s atmosphere and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom had a lot more charm.
My big gripe is the backtracking. Yeah, there’s plenty of backtracking in this genre, but this game is so slow and the manner of backtracking is grating. If I falter in combat and get severely damaged I can either trudge forward and probably die or meander back to where I came from. Sustaining damage and it hampering exploration is extreme and time consuming in this game in a way that I’ve never came across in a Metroidvania before. God forbid I need to go back to the hub to do something, the hub is needlessly large and just adds to the time waste of not making progress.
I’m having an okay time with it, it just has a lot more warts than I was expecting. I’m thankful at least that it’s gotten me out of my recent rut of playing Balatro.
