I’m not sure I’m going to finish Sleeping Dogs. I’m having fun. I love the variety of missions, the mix of cartoon antics and hardboiled cop story. The color choices in this game are wild in a way that isn’t totally cohesive but still works for me. Unfortunately it’s all presented in this way of “outsider looking in.” It’s clear to me this game was made by people who looked at Hong Kong action flicks for inspiration, but it’s all surface level. The HK of Sleeping Dogs feels voyeuristic with it’s massage parlors, night market, butcher shops, and kung fu temple. It feels like what an American suburbanite would think HK was like after watching a handful of movies.
i picked up prince of persia: the lost crown aka prince of persiavania again after bouncing off of it earlier in the year; as it’s end of year gametime, i thought it was worth giving it another shot to see if it was as annoying as i thought it was the first time around.
i must’ve been in a real hater mood before because i am having a very good time now. my original frustrations were that the combat and exploration felt off-balance and that it felt a little focus-grouped. i don’t feel the same way about the combat this time. i am still a little annoyed at how heavily they relied on enemies that can teleport out of reach, but i’m having a lot more fun with the combat system and how deep it feels - particularly with bosses and minibosses, which are a total blast. plus, the deeper i get into the game and the more i explore, the more upgrade options i can find, so there’s a lot of space to mitigate the more annoying aspects of the combat difficulty - and that’s not even touching the accessibility options, which i understand offer a lot of control over how the game plays.
the second complaint i stand by; it’s got some real ‘we studied visual and gameplay design trends’ energy to it. but i don’t feel like that’s quite as much of a negative now, because i’ve gotten deeper into the game and into the places where its exploration and moveset start to feel really, really good. i like how the game kind of morphs from moment-to-moment to break down the component metroidvania parts - i just did a series of focused platforming challenges that felt like celeste, while other parts of the game are more puzzle-oriented (the sequence in the midgame that every review talks about where you use multiple iterations of yourself to solve platforming puzzles), and other other parts are straightforward combat challenges. then those elements get recombined in different ways as the game goes on. it’s really good stuff.
There’s a story mode difficulty setting that I forgot about. @Kiki sorry I think this puts things back at square one. I tried switching the difficulty to story mode to test things out, but the game told me that switching difficulties is irreversible. I’d make a new save to test things, but it takes a bit to play through to get to combat of any note.
I spent my weekend with Metroid Fusion continuing my tradition of running a victory lap before the finale (100% items before I show the final boss what’s what). Been wondering about what a new Metroid game could feel like from a Nintendo-led R&D1 type team. As much as I enjoyed Dread, there’s a quality to Fusion I can’t quite define yet that ties the whole game together for me in ways later games don’t.
Even though I’m talking about Nine Sols in a positive light at the moment, I actually disliked it up to the first boss, and I only really picked it back up because @Death_Strandicoot had some interesting stuff to say about how it improved. And it did improve! But in the end I still think it makes a bunch of surprisingly bad missteps along the way.
I’m still not sold on the counter-dependent combat, even this far into the game, and I suspect the team knew this might be the case for the game because one of the early jades (optional gameplay modifiers, for folks who haven’t played this) that you find is one that makes the timing on counters much much easier.
Also, it’s pretty shocking to me that a game like this waits until several hours in to give you anything resembling fast travel, and when it does, it’s limited fast travel; actual normal metroidvania fast travel does eventually come, but it’s basically the same number of hours later. It’s astonishing that this gets held back for so long. And for folks who complained about Hollow Knight making you purchase the maps and map keeping equipment, I think this is equally irritating.
But I’m right at the save point before the final boss, so it did hold my attention, and I somehow managed to become good enough at the combat that I managed to make it this far. And the look and narrative are both pretty dang good! I just don’t know that it’s GOTY material for me!
I played it a little more yesterday, I think I’m nearly to that fight. I’m starting to get in a groove and I’m chilling with it. Finding some different upgrades that help with my health situation has alleviated a lot of annoyances I was having with not being able to consistently push forward.
(meaning I am once again playing puzzle games with Twitch VODs for background noise)
Games I’m liking atm:
Delete. Basically Minesweeper 3D. Very similar to Hexcells in execution, would recommend if you like those games. Some really clever stuff in here!
Exodus. Found this game thanks to Stephen’s Sausage Roll developer increpare’s Steam curator page. It’s a lo-fi 3D physics puzzle game about the disembodied hand of God parting seas and manipulating terrain Populous-style to help tiny Moses get to safety. Frequently surprised me in its brief (< 2 hrs) runtime.
SpaceChem. This is the only Zachtronics game I’d not played before. Thirteen years on and guess what: it’s still good! Really strict compared to the games that would follow, but devising solutions within those parameters is the fun of it—complicated answers to simple problems. Prospective Zachtronics enjoyers are likely better served by Infinifactory or Opus Magnum, though.
She Remembered Caterpillars. This is a straightforward logic puzzle game where you command a bunch of little guys, helping them help each other through complex networks of bridges and doors. Red guys can cross red bridges but can’t pass through red doors; blue guys can cross blue bridges but can’t pass through blue doors. Eventually you learn to combine two guys into one guy, then change them into different guys altogether. The puzzles ramp up quickly, and it’s actually pretty tough once it gets going.
The main meat of the gameplay has the player taking control of Antar, a young boy who is trying to become a Savior. What that means is a little unclear throughout the whole game. Antar can only run and jump (although he is not as nimble nor quick as I would like), has no offensive capabilities and dies in one hit. Most areas of the game turn into puzzles to guide enemies into traps and figure out the exact way to open a door. It’s solid, not amazing, and there are certain parts (particularly the chase sequences in the final level) that can be frustrating to go through time and time again.
There are sequences where you can attack enemies but they’re never very long and towards the back half of the game they’re on a timer where you have to keep defeating enemies and smashing objects or Antar disappears in a cloud of blood. The combat is very simple, only one button, but it works for what it is. The focus is more on puzzling out things than that actual combat, even in the combat sequences.
It looks great, it’s pretty short, and it’s easy to get the good ending. The story is a little strange, it’s clever in parts, but it’s a little hard to track. There isn’t much in the way of explanations, leaving a lot of room for interpretation. I normally like this sort of thing, but I didn’t feel like it all gelled together in the way I like.
I’ve been playing the Dynasty Warriors: Origins demo, and man it makes a world of difference being able to tell nearby troops to do something. Suddenly I really care about where all the troops are and my proximity to them! Suddenly it matters if a bunch of them die!
It’s really re-ignited my enthusiasm for the series. I think it’s gonna be a big one next year. You’re gonna be hearing a lot of “Wow when did Dynasty Warriors games get good???” on the internet for a couple weeks in 2025.
This is good to know. I kinda ignored Origins so far, mostly because I’ve ignored Musou games for a while now, but maybe it’s time to dip back in? Got the demo downloaded.
I was in the same boat, I think complicated by wanting to play some other game that came out around the same time? Anyway, I decided to pick this up again based on your comments now that Nine Sols is done (!). I was also honestly turned off with the whole Ubisoft connect thing that they appear to require that you do before launching the game? The game is solid though! We’ll see if it sticks this time around!
Just finished up very difficult to google game Matter.
It’s very short and weird, consisting of first-person platforming onto platforms that also re-orient your gravity each time you land on them. Each sequence is set to some great electro music and ends in wandering around a planetoid trying to find the three triangles that lead to the next level. There’s a few more mechanics, but that’s about it. It’s more about the experience than anything else and it definitely is compelling the whole way through even though there were times I felt physically ill.
I grabbed a bunch of bargain basement stuff during the Steam sale, mostly things I already had some interest in playing! But probably the one I’m most curious about is the aesthetically gorgeous but mediocrely reviewed Soul Hackers 2. I was a huge fan of the original, and kind of astonished it ever got a sequel, even if it’s one that wasn’t especially connected to the story (from what I could tell). But $20 was about the right price.
I also picked up Antonblast, and I have to say: I have sympathy for the devs, who probably started working on their Wario Land 4-esque game with a wild aesthetic before Pizza Tower was a thing. This exact sort of thing has happened to me with one of my own game launches, so I bought their game out of solidarity (but also because I think the world is big enough for 2 Wario Land 4 spiritual successors). I’ll report back, but from the demo it seems to have a lot of personality to it!
Finally, also bought Battle Fantasia on impulse because I was getting some other games and saw it come up in the impulse buy list Steam always shows you. I don’t regret it! I loved it on X360 years ago, and it was I think $2!
Oh, and I almost forgot: I ‘beat’ Balatro yesterday and I just have to mention that (spoilers just in case people don’t want to know Joker-specifics here) I had previously discovered the Gros Michel banana Joker, that gives I think x15 multiplier, but has a 1 in 4 chance of being destroyed after each round-- and when it does get destroyed, you receive the message onscreen of EXTINCT. But then during my winning run yesterday, I drew the Cavendish banana Joker, which is similar, but only gives an x3 multiplier, but has a 1 in 1000 chance of destruction after each round. This may sound weird to folks here, but I will always love a game that can make a joke about banana cultivars and their history, a subject that’s absurdly close to my heart.
I give the dev a ton of props on way that jokers are named and how that name is related to the art and function.
I’ve been pretty fed up with work this week. They just rescinded hundreds of raises because the minimum wage for except employee thingy just got shot down by some judge.
Which means I’m goofing off and playing a lot of Balatro which is great.
The Cavendish is the better card. There are additive multipliers and multiplicative multipliers(the number is shown in a red square on these). If you had 10 chips and 50 multiple and Gros Michel it would look like this: 10 X (50 +15)
