Thanks for the tip! I managed to get past Fatman with persistence. And I also got the sleepy pistol which has made the game a lot more fun. I was likely having a bad time since I didn’t have it and didn’t want to shoot people with the pistol without the silencer. I’m in action now!
Thank you all for the support, I’ll continue the mission 
MGS2 is much better in the back half in my opinion.
I feel the Big Shell is far more interesting to think about than to play.
I can’t say it’s worth continuing to play, but if you don’t it’s definitely worth watching the rest on YouTube.
why do my posts keep ending up in the wrong place oops
I’ve noticed that if I hit reply in one thread, but decide not to, that reply box stays open as I navigate to other threads. Pretty easy mistake to make, and not the best UI decision. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A moment ago, I rolled the credits on Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, which I played for the first time since… Who knows? 2007 or so? I was overdue. I was surprised at how many tiny details I remembered all these years later – it’s one of those games that made a strong impression on my young, already quite impressionable self by being titillatingly unsettling.
Speaking of unsettling, one goal I had in this playthrough was to take notes and quantify what gives these earlier Mario & Luigi games their unmistakable, “I know it when I feel it” identity. I identified some general trends, of course, but I also finally confirmed a propensity for two types of plot beat that I’ve never seen such a density of in any other game:
These two I believe to be crucial to the AlphaDream spirit. There need to be distressing ingestions, and people need to fall quite far quite often.
There are countless pleasantly uncomfortable moments beyond those that fit into those two categories, however. People are turned into mushrooms? Toads are slowly consumed by trees and turn to wood? Mario and Luigi get sucked up into a nose? There’s a caterpillar that drinks Toad blood and feeds spaceships through its butt? And that’s just in the first two hours of the game!
One thing that struck me about Partners in Time, however (in addition to the fact that the titular time travel is almost entirely immaterial to the plot[1]), is how much less structurally ambitious it is than Superstar Saga. Partners is practically “oops, all dungeons!” There’s not a single town all game! And the hub, Peach’s castle, is a large, empty prison – I remember dreaming of opening the front gates and seeing what’s outside as a wee one. No, no respite – just a series of virtually entirely linear dungeons. And… the series never really recovered from that design choice.
Bowser’s Inside Story has one town, but you go there perhaps once, and not much in the way of story plays out there. Same with Dream Team. Contrast that with Superstar Saga’s bustling Beanbean Town, which not only had oodles of things to do and find, but continually evolves throughout the game’s story. Superstar Saga was fairly interconnected and did a wonderful job of feeling like a world – but they never went back to that. Who knows why. With those self-contained islands seen in the trailer for Brothership, it seems like they’re dressing up the “levels” even less. Shame – now it’s all too similar to the structures of all the other Mario RPG series. Mario & Luigi was poised to lean more toward a Zelda-style overworld.
Should the game ever be re-released, I look forward to hearing how the new generation perceives this scene, which was localized into a sociolect of English that I was fascinated to realize no longer exists:
And the localization, about which I could write an entire post unto itself – nay, an essay, even. ↩︎
I’ve been wanting to play a video game for the past month, but I’ve been too busy to make time for them [ >:O ] – I had some free time this evening [ : ) ] so I started up A Short Hike to ease back into things. nice. gentle. I love it so much already. I miss video games. I played for about an hour, and its already making me want to go on a real hike, so it’s already a B+ in my book.
Things I like so far:
• The subtle color cycling of the horizon behind the mountain on the start screen ( I had this on for awhile before I started, it was just one of those little touches that made me realize, oh this has a lot of care put into it, huh?)
• The way the music fades out as you sit and wait for a nibble on your fishing line. really nice touch
• Big fat chunky pixels (and the ‘medium rare’ choice in the options)
• The simplicity of the main goal ( go up ) allows for some pretty easy orientation whenever you want to go off on a tangent or explore off-trail
• The lil guys™ training for the marathon ( I started running along with them just for the heck of it when I first saw them chugging along the trail, and I realized I was invested, already A- )
I finished Citizen Sleeper last night. I already had a go at it in the beginning of last year but I had a lot going on at that time and so I couldn’t get into it past my first play session. It first caught my eye in the steam store because of the art and I decided to buy it after Brandon said good things about it during an episode at the time.
I liked the bit I experienced that first time around and I never really got it out of my head so I decided to spend my weekend with it and I had a good time. Beating the game took me a little under 10 hours. I did not play the bonus content episodes that were added after the fact. I encountered the first one and the game told me that it was supposed to be late game content so I didn’t touch it and once I felt confident that I arrived at the late game I was content with what I experienced and didn’t want to ruin it by unnecessarily prolonging the experience.
The game loop is as simple as it is ingenious. The mix of resource management (energy, condition, the various items), dice rolling and the more visual novel like story sequences was engaging but also low-stress because everything runs on a turn-based cycle. The clocks/countdowns created a sense of urgency and added stakes to the game. Overall it was pretty easy but the game is good at making you feel like you’re in danger by not revealing everything to you at once.
The story is told mostly through these little mini-arcs you have with different characters and most of them are effectively written without wasting your time while still making you care for the characters. These little stories stay out of each others’ way and don’t really intersect with each other. But they do feel coherent by referencing the same locations and themes.
My main disapointment were the endings. While I do appreciate that the game tells you when you are about to commit to a certain path and allows you to continue your save afterwards to try the other endings, none of them were really satisfactory for me personally.
(Spoilers for two story line endings and a proposal for how to write the best ending™)
I just wish I could’ve stayed on the eye with Lem & Mina like a happy little patchwork family. Instead the only way (as far as I could tell) to progress their storyline was to get on the sidereal and leave. After all the examples of big corporations doing bad big corporation things the last thing I wanted to do was to join this privately funded colonization effort. I just couldn’t imagine a scenario in which this colony wouldn’t deteriorate into a corporate hypercapitalist hellscape within minutes after landing - if the ship even reaches the planet. Also I’m a little disappointed there wasn’t an option for a major ending with Tala. In my personal headcanon Lem, Mina and I just settle down in the Lowlands and I work as a chef/barkeep in the Batanyan.
The endings were serviceable however, and didn’t ruin the enjoyment I got out of the game beforehand so I’ll not dwell too long on it. If you haven’t played it yet and like a short story-focused sci-fi experience check it out!
And now I probably should get back to playing Link’s Awakening. I’m still just past the tail cave and the month is almost over, oops.
I played Animal Well. It was good. I feel like to be really impressed with it, as seems to be a not uncommon reaction out there in the zeitgeist, you would have to have not played Cave Story, a game with a similar kind of weight and heft to it, but which felt a little more meaningful, for whatever reason.
But yeah it was… good, you know? It’s good like Minit was good, where, like, you know, you just have to think, well, that was good! It didn’t really satiate any deep longings but it didn’t disappoint either. I’ll probably forget about it in 1-2 months.
Although I will say that it’s absolutely good example of my grand unifying theory for what makes a *Metroid-*like a *Metroid-*like.
I also played Tangle Tower. That was also… good. Kind of felt like Act I of a larger experience that doesn’t have an Act II-IV, or something like that. Felt a bit too much like you did more clicking than thinking often, too. Nothin’ really wrong with it, though.
I’ll probably forget about it in 1-2 months.
I played Animal Well through that PS Plus + Premium Plus Package or whatever, that let’s you play a bunch of games for free. I’ve been meaning to get that subscription again because I want to revive and finish a playthrough of DRAGON QUEST® XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age™ - Definitive Edition that, for one, has all of the Draconian Quest options on at once. Those are:
…and that has made the game a lot more challenging. I’m pleased to say that I am hurtling towards the end of Act II as we speak but the bosses are getting fucking hard as hell. Not too bad, like, maybe it will take me 3 or 4 tries and I have to make sure my whole party is as leveled up as possible. I’m not looking forward to Mordegon as that fight was hard enough with just Super Strong Enemies and Reduced Experience from Easy Fights, which is how I beat the game the first time.
Also, I am mostly doing this as I never got around to doing the Postgame, which I am looking forward to. The first moment I can I’m going to turn off all the Draconian Quest options (I believe Super Strong Enemies stops having an effect at this level anyway) like Goku taking off his training weights, power level up to 99, and get ready to fuck some shit up.
I will never forget my Husbando Sylvando The Great, he will take me in his graceful-yet-steely strong arms and protect me forever
The end of the month is drawing near and I am somehow still playing three (not counting Persona 3 in this) games simultaneously:
Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness
I only played maybe an hour of this game as a teen before deciding I didn’t like it because the main character doesn’t look as cool as Wes. But now that I fear an announcement for the end of Pokémon Bank at some point in the not-so-distant future, I’m taking this opportunity to play XD and do a modified version of the ribbon quest (get as many ribbons on your Pokémon as possible through each generation) where I only use Pokémon that Cynthia has on her Pokémon Platinum team.
XD is okay! I don’t feel very strongly about the main character–they certainly feel more like “the player” than Wes did–but Cipher is such an interesting antagonist group that they kind of carry the game. Also I think the game is cementing my feeling that double battles are better than singles.
Disco Elysium
I’m only an hour or so into this game. I don’t have too much to say just yet, only that it’s a very interesting game that also makes me feel very stressed about the clock. Will hopefully play more of this once XD is done.
Nine Sols
I talked about Nine Sols in my previous message here but I’m coming up on the end of this game and wow does it rule. I talked about the gameplay before–it’s still engaging, I’m a big fan–but this game will absolutely gut-punch you with its character arcs and narrative. I’ve been trying to take notes while I play so I can turn this game 'round in my head for a long time after. It’s really something special.
I had this game on my radar after getting a glimpse of the first 30 minutes of gameplay or so. The aesthetics got me straightaway but I wasn’t sure if the story would deliver. I’m glad to hear you like it! Metroidvanias are a genre I like in theory but for some reason I never really could get into one until now. (I know Hollow Knight exists and is beloved by basically everybody but that kept me from playing it until now. I’m kind of afraid I’ll bounce off of it like the others and do the game and myself a disservice.)
Maybe I’ll give this one a try! You can always get me with a good story.
I’m super excited to play Nine Sols. The demo rocked, and Tao-infused Hollow-Knight-meets-Sekiro is about as up my alley as a game can get without causing health complications.
I was going to wait for it to come to Switch, because I want to play it on the go, but it turns out I’m getting a Steam Deck, so I’ll be playing it on that.
In the mean time, I’m playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on my Series X, and yeah, it’s a pretty good game.
Dipping my toe in Dragon Quest 6, my god this opening chapter is painful. Usually I am not put off by having to kill slimes for a few hours but having to just walk into that initial hill and grind for an hour just to start the game really bugged me. Especially since I saved up for a weapon only to fall down a hill and immediately find a better weapon.
Willing to be skill issued here but what a particularly slow start.
How did I not know that Frogun, one of my favourites(*) of a few years back, was getting a sequel, Frogun Encore, and that the sequel came out today? Anyway I’m playing the demo just to make sure that they didn’t do something weird with it before buying, but it seems just great, as expected.
(*) This is just to note that I had some difficulty getting used to the controls of the first game and complained about it here in the past, but I really love the aesthetic and the sense of fun that it’s got to it. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the race stages from the first game… mainly because they require a really good command of the controls… which I didn’t have!
god i grabbed dorfromantik for my switch cuz i wanted some chill-out wind-down not-too-much-brains kinda of thing and i just kinda play it in two hour chunks, for my latest hyperfixation. i love a hex tile tho, i love having a whole big map in civ 5 to look at too
it’s out today?! heck yeah! frogun is such a cool little game despite being… the way it is, i’m excited to see how the sequel iterates on it. hopefully they smoothed out the difficulty curve this time lol
I’ve been gravitating toward games that feel like “just enough” as my brain has been jam packed of late. That’s often lying somewhere in games from a few generations back, or games that have a lower budget and smaller focus. Before the Green Moon hit the spot as the latter, and right now, I’m enjoying Red Faction: Guerilla ReMARStered as the former.
I never played these at the time, but I’ve said before that I love the look of a 360-era game sharpened up for modern displays. So clean and pleasant, just enough visual density. And this one, aside from having lots of Space Marine-adjacent Xbox 360 bald people, generally avoids too much cringe in its simplicity. There’s less narrative than there is hook – and honestly, the hook being “explode the fascists working on the side of authoritarian capitalism” is all I need to feel good about blowing things up in 2024. Ya got me there. Plus, the fake sci-fi version of Mars that’s cooked up in everything from DOOM to John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars always works for me, and that’s what we have here
It’s just nice. It’s nice to have a two-minute setup and then be into trucking around and obliterating bootlickers in that specific, Red Faction destruction engine that everyone always laments about “why didn’t this catch on.” Whatever, other things caught on. This is still here. Scratches a very similar brain itch to the also relaxing and just-enough-ish Mad Max game from 2014. My life isn’t changed, but I’m having a nice time.
I agree with everyone’s takes. Can’t go wrong with MGS2 either way. It’s definitely worth starting after playing MGS, just to see the evolution in gaming at that time generally, as well as to experience the Tanker segment. The second half of the game does get fun and whacky, and is recommended to experience if it’s your first run and you’re enjoying it. But if it gets to be a slog, you won’t be missing anything by just watching a YouTube recap.
That being said, I mainly agree with @Death_Strandicoot’s take on the Big Shell and couldn’t have summed up my take on it more succinctly than that haha. I’ve been replaying the series recently on my Vita and played through about 75% of MGS 1, and then only made it to the Tanker and first boss on Big Shell before being content with that trip down MGS2 memory lane and moving on to Snake Eater. I love MGS2, but the setting and gameplay weren’t exciting enough to go back to for too long in 2024, whereas I really love everything about Snake Eater just as much as I did back when it first came out and will be playing through all of it again.
When I do finish Snake Eater, it will be interesting to finally play Peace Walker and MGS 4, as I’ve never touched either one ever, despite being a huge MGS fan. They came out during my gaming hiatus, and just never got back around to em. But this is the year! (Well…that’s if I can get 4 running on my Deck. Peace Walker for sure though.)
Started playing Alisia Dragoon on the Nintendo Genesis. I don’t know if it’s a good game, but it’s definitely a cool game. It’s a standard sidescrolling action game, but you shoot lightning that hits all enemies on screen, which always feels satisfying. You can explore to get upgrades for several different dragons that you unlock. But it has problems with enemies spawning on top of you, too many enemies on screen at once that knock you back and gang up on you, and you can get hit by very hard to see bullets that can come from offscreen. This would be so hard without save states/rewind, but it’s pretty manageable if you like to cheat. I like the mad max vibe to some of the enemies.
Anyone know how to beat the Stage 6 boss who is like a wizard that summons machine guns? I keep killing his guns but then he teleports immediately after and I can’t hit him.
Whoa heck yeah! This has me excited for Snake Eater, and I can’t wait to hear what you think about 4 and PW (you have the inverse historical experience than I do).
come hang out in snake diaries and share your experiences!!
