Language…
8 users online: DinoMom, Firstnamebutt, masl, netyo, pnaha, qantuum,  Ringo, tOaO - Guests: 250 - Bots: 452
Users: 64,795 (2,378 active)
Latest user: mathew

The Arcade: INSERT COIN

I'm now 84 hours into Dragon Quest 11 and have just started the
Fortress of Fear
. So far I have had 2 deaths. I'm not doing any of the Draconian modes.
Difficulty had been reasonable up until the
Tatsunaga
boss.

Now about the boss itself. Spoilers for anyone who hasn't yet played DQ11:
This thing is absolute BULLSHIT! RNG will fuck you up. He can do 3 attacks EVERY turn and a lot of the time one will be a desperate attack of about 200-300 damage or a huge fireball doing 3 lots of at least 60 damage. 3 of my party were wiped out in about 30 seconds. I revived one with Zing Stick and then he was killed once again. Fuck this boss, the design is terrible!
Fortunately, it only took me a second attempt as RNG was a bit kinder. Good thing I deposited my 211K gold. Losing 105,500 would be painful!
Been making progress in Trails in the Sky SC. I'm excited to see where the game goes next. I'm at Chapter 5 right now, just finished doing the first round of quests at the Bracer Guild. I'm looking forward to the 3rd, Zero, playing Ao in some form, and the newer Cold Steel games and beyond.

Also, after finishing Yakuza Kiwami 2, and due to things, I'm playing the PS3 version of Yakuza 3 and not waiting for the Steam version of the Remastered version. It sort of feels like a step back, but only because it is as the game released almost a decade before Kiwami 2. I haven't played too far in but it's been alright so far. Even though a huge amount of sub stories were removed in the US PS3 version, I'm still not sure I'll do them all as there's still about 100 of them. But if they all go as fast as the ones I've done then maybe I will.
>Mark danced crazy!
Backloggery MyAnimeList
Originally posted by RPG Hacker
Just completed Ori this morning.


Wow, you're fast!
I know the game isn't long, but still, unless you didn't 100%, I thought it'd take longer than that.
Хуй войне!

桐生会FOREVER #ThankYouCoco / Rest in peace, Near, thank you for everything
Finally got around to playing Gris. It was really beautiful and stirred up a lot of emotions in me. It was a nice Christmas present for sure.
Originally posted by Y.Y.
Wow, you're fast!
I know the game isn't long, but still, unless you didn't 100%, I thought it'd take longer than that.


Yeah, I only went for a casual playthrough. I rarely go for 100% in games nowadays, since I have too many in my backlog, and also 100% completion often tends to be kinda boring in a lot of games, since it often involves doing some tedious tasks that aren't actually very fun. Not sure if this applies to Ori, though.

Going for 100% completion is something I more commonly used to do in my teenage years, when I could generally only afford single a new game every couple of months or so, but now that I have more games that I could possible play, I tend to only play them past a single playthrough if I enjoy them so much that I don't want to stop playing. Something I didn't quite want to do with Will of the Wisps mainly because the ending made me so sad that it's difficult for me to pick the game up again at all. 😭

Not sure how long this first playthrough took me. I'm guessing something between seven-ish and ten-ish hours. When I made that last post, I had already played for a bit, and I'm currently on vacation, so I can play for longer than usual. I guess that's why it seemed kinda fast. In addition to that, most Metroidvanias are also kinda on the shorter side.

Anyways, I did actually end up returning to the Blind Forest afterwards, which means I'm not entirely done with Ori yet. The game is definitely more fun than I remember it being, so I'm glad I gave it another chance, although playing it back-to-back with Will of the Wips does actually expose some of the rough edges it has.

Some of the mechanics seem to be jankier in the first game. For example, wall climbing sometimes just seems to make me fall down for no reason. The light projectile attack is also way more difficult to control than the fire projectile in the second game. I also think the checkpiont mechanic does more bad than good for the game. It's not necessarily a bad mechanic and it definitely doesn't ruin the game or anything, but I don't think it actually enriches the experience much, and it tends to lead to frustrating deaths when you forget to set a checkpoint. Definitely prefer the more traditional checkpoints of the second game. Talking about frustrating deaths, the first game also seems to like using instant death traps way more often than the second one, which kinda feels very contrary to its game design. Can't count the number of times that I've already been crushed by boulders I didn't see.

I also prefer the combat in the second game. It uses more of a direct combat system, whereas in the first game, your spark attacks anything in close proximity as long as you just keep hitting the button. That makes combat feel kinda unsatisfying since you don't actually need to aim much and just hit the button. Again, it's not really horrible and doesn't break the game, but it does feel a bit pointless and undercooked.

So yeah, Will of the Wisps definitely feels like the better game so far, but Blind Forest is still quite fun to play as well.

Originally posted by kyasarintsu
Finally got around to playing Gris.


Looking forward to play that as well. Still waiting for my physical version to be shipped. Technically already know what happens in the game, since I watched a spoilery game design analysis, but if anything, that just made me want to play it even more.
Feel free to visit my website/blog - it's updated rarely, but it looks pretty cool!
Allllright, so for Christmas I recieved my own aftermarket NES and later on I ordered Donkey Kong Classics for it.

I managed to beat that earlier record I had set on Donkey Kong on my Switch, going up to board 26 on Game A and also getting well above the looping point on Game B (had to get to 13, got to 16).

Donkey Kong Jr. is a bit tougher. I've managed to get 100k+ points on both modes and surprisingly that's without getting to max difficulty!

For Game A I gotta hit board 25 (6 loops of 4 stages) and as Game B starts on the third difficulty level, the aim is to get to board 17. I'm at 19 and 15 for my high scores respectively. Let's see if I can do that before moving to the final Famicom launch title, Popeye. I hope so because the games are really fun.

Can't forget Ms. Pac Man for my Atari 2600 in all of this either, I hit the looping point (stage 10 in this case) on every mode except for the traditional arcade one at this point. It's a tough game man. Not sure if i'll be able to hit 100k points on that mode in particular but i'll sure as hell try. I'll prioritise 'beating' the game for now though.

Lastly, I am gonna get so depressed playing Pac-Man on the same console later on, haha. 16 modes of pure cartridge garbage, I can't wait.
After 114 hours, Dragon Quest 11 is finally complete. One of the best JRPGs I have ever played. There were a few bullshit moments but I had a ton of fun with this game!
The symphonic soundtrack is just so good, even has a couple of tracks from DQ8!
I still got a bunch of optional stuff to do like the Tickington side-quests and the superbosses.
I started this indie game called Persona 5 Royal. I was able to get it for $20 so I figured it was a good time to play it. I heard that all the additions to the combat made the game much easier, so I just put it on hard mode to start and see how it goes. I enjoy the combat against normal enemies, it's engaging enough, but the bosses were much more difficult. It might be because I didn't grind at all, but I found them pretty tough.
I only beat the 2nd boss because the 4 fucking minions he summons every turn all just happened to be fire element and I had a persona that drained fire. So, with joker as my only live party member, I just whittled the boss' hp until he was dead. Since I never touched the minions, he never summoned any of another element, so they kept healing me each turn. I felt very underleveled for that so for the 3rd boss I might have to do some grinding in mementos or something.
@MarioFan22: It truely was an amazing game. Easily my favorite Dragon Quest (I had a hard time with all the prior ones, anyways).

The only thing I feel very mixed about is the post-credits alternate timeline. I feel like the very tragic and dark ending of the first timeline was actually perfect. It was what made me love the game in the first place. Sure, it was sad that so many characters had to die, including Veronica, but that's what got an emotional response out of me in the first place.

The alternate timeline, on the other hand, feels a bit too fan-fictiony. Everyone just undies and gets a happy ending. You can even decide to marry your childhood friend. In the first timeline, I especially liked how Serena inherited Veronicas power. It not only made her more interesting to play, but it also felt very meaningful. It not only gave purpose to Veronica's death, but it also was a symbol of Serena's growth as a character. The new timeline took all of that away.

I didn't absolutely hate it, and there were of course some elements I actually enjoyed, but I definitely think it made the story prior to that point less impactful. I especially dislike how the game seems to consider this alternate timeline canon.


-----------------

Today, after deciding on a new game from my Switch pile to play, I gave Super Meat Boy on a shot, and oh my god. I did not know they made an entirely new soundtrack for this version of the game. Apparently, what happened was that Team Meat and the original composer (Danny Baranowsky) had some disagreements, and as a result, they weren't allowed to license the soundtrack for the ports and had to create a new one.

This new soundtrack unfortunately feels completely wrong to me. It's giving me the same cultural shock that I got from playing the GBA version of DKC3. Like, I'm sure the new soundtrack isn't objectively worse than the old one, but unfortunately I played the original game quite a bit and in my brain, the original soundtrack is hardwired to the game. Playing it with any other soundtrack just makes me feel uncomfortable.

It doesn't help that the very first world of the new soundtrack immediately starts with some banjo music. For me personally, whenever old games get new soundtracks, any music that sticks out in the new one will make it especially difficult for me to accept that version as a whole. In DKC3, listening to Yodel music in the mountains was what made me so uncomfortable that I had to quit, and I think in Super Meat Boy, that banjo music immediately gave me that exact feeling.

As I said, those new soundtracks aren't objectively worse than the old ones. It's just that my brain has already formed so many memories with the orignal versions that I can't really prevent that from impacting me. As a result, I'm not sure if I can keep playing this version of Super Meat Boy.
Feel free to visit my website/blog - it's updated rarely, but it looks pretty cool!
Some games I played lately:
Donkey Kong Country 3-Since they added that on SNES Online and since I hadn't played it in a while and therefore not as fresh in my mind I just had to give it a go. Overall I still like DKC2 better. DKC3 is not a bad game at all, but some of the levels have a gimmick that you can't really do a whole lot with and just make repetitive set-ups to try to pad out the level length. Barrel Shield Bust-Up is one example. Another example is Buzzer's Barrage, which is uncomfortably long. Quawks (Squawks's shoddy knock-off purple palette swap) can't even spit eggs, just pick up barrels and drop them on Buzzes blocking the way while occasionally avoiding Kopters. That's it, that's the whole concept. Maybe if there was more of an emphasis on dodging and if you played as Squawks, it might have been fun.
The secret levels (with the exception of Swoopy Salvo and Rocket Rush), are easier than the main game, particularly when there are levels like Poison Pipeline and Koindozer Klamber. Stampede Sprint is a standard mine cart level but instead of a minecart you control a panicked Ellie running away from a couple rats. It is slightly more difficult if you have Parry with you and are trying to reach the bonus at the end. Criss Cross Cliffs is just bouncing on kegs shooting upward with little in the way of actual hazards. The only hard part about this level is finding where the DK coin is hidden. Kong-Fused Cliffs is way harder IMO. Tyrant Twin Tussle is also easy when you realize the bananas mark the safe spots. Rocket Rush feels like a precursor to DKCR's rocket barrel levels and requires memorization, but like with Poison Pipeline, playing it on the Switch means you can remap the left and right buttons to make the control scheme normal.
So yeah, DKC2 has much more difficult secret levels and overall better level design. At least DKC3 actually has a final boss rematch that takes more than a single hit to defeat.
Also, for the first time I actually went thru the effort to collect all the DK coins, visit all the Simon says caves (wrote down the code for the longer sequences), free the banana bird queen and see the true ending.

Bendy and the Ink Machine-Even tho I have it on Steam, I also got the Switch version. The gun mini-game in chapter 4 is NOT AT ALL suited to joycon controls and could never shoot more than half of the targets, but at least it eventually let me toggle the lever to enter the room with the theme park ride as a boss battle. Also,
fuck you Alice for making me fight Boris!
Chapter 5 is so-so. Not really a fan of the long boat section and the battle right after that was also uncomfortably long. The ending
(or beginning?)
is kinda weird, where
it looks all realistic and colorful.
This game seems to be more about the overall atmosphere than about being challenging.

Enigma-I find myself playing that occasionally when I'm in one of those creative moods. This game is like a kitchen sink of puzzles where the only constant is the end goals (match all pairs of Oxyd stones of the same color, or place all small marbles in dents in the ground). Can't really think of any other way to describe it. Given the sheer number of level packs, levels in each level pack, the fact that any level can be played any time in any order, and the sheer number of items, stones, gimmicks, etc, there's just always something to say about it, so I'll just mention some levels I played recently:
Happy New Year-An easy New Years themed level with cheap "fireworks" and was a spur of the moment upload for the occasion
Checkmate-Remember Sokoban? Well imagine that but instead of pushing boxes you're moving around chess knights that teleport 1 square over and 2 squares perpendicularly. Some levels have some of both. In this particular one, if a black chess piece teleports over a white one or vice versa, it captures the other one and replaces it, and you have to make a passageway. Also it's a teamwork puzzle. The Stable is a more standard example of chess knight Sokoban (they have to be placed on the metal tiles).
Check the Light-Chess knights and lasers. One of those "no idea what to make of it at first until I gradually begin to figure out more of it and piece together a potential solution, almost like peeling off layers" kind of levels.
Houdini-as the name suggests it involves being an escape artist, and almost feels like a room escape game. It is also part chess knight Sokoban as well. Despite taking up only 2 screens and being kinda spacious, it is actually quite long and convoluted. As is naturally the case for convoluted levels it's extremely easy to mess up a step, and yet in spite of that, it still manages to be fun. Something about the level being part of the LOTM archive and ppl giving high praise to it just kinda helped motivate my persistence, like I'd be leaving a loose end if I didn't solve it. Unlike other insanely hard levels, this one doesn't really feel overly unfair. The hard part is crossing the pit several times while tied to the orange stone while figuring out a way to carefully maneuver the swap stone (the white stone with the black circle) to the other side to access the scissors to free yourself (and while trying not to bump into the thieves too many times). There is a good reason this level is very generous with lives. The next hardest part after that is figuring out how to acquire the 2 keys. I had to resort to taking screenshots of the level and fiddling around in an image editor to strategize what I could do with the given puzzle elements without having to screw myself. As per usual, completing it feels satisfying.
Legacy custom music
A site with a non-useless dislike button
SMW hacking channel

Just finished playing Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold for the billionth time. I had a lot of fun using a glass cannon team (ronin, dark hunter, two survivalists, and a troubadour) that had a ton of evasive capabilities. Nothing feels better than killing a hard-hitting postgame boss fifteen levels early simply because my team managed to not get hit a single time during the entire 25-turn battle.
This playthrough was done with my custom hard mode patch that I showed off last C3. I continue to regularly revise and update this project. The most recent and innovative addition I've made was a series of minibosses on the final postgame floor, which serve to make the floor more of the dangerous endurance test that I feel Atlus was trying (and failing) to do in the base game.
My project is, barring a few bugs, about as complete as I'd like it. I might move onto modding another game at this point. I actually broke down the formatting of Etrian Odyssey Nexus's map data and can make some custom floors through some easy hex editing. I plan to make proper level editing tools for this, but my time learning C# has been really awful and a combination of depression, low self-esteem, and frustration with learning is making my progress very slow.

What's a better thing to do after playing a game than to play the janky DS game that inspired it? I've been playing the original Etrian Odyssey 2 on the DS with a weird chaser team: a landsknecht, troubadour, elemental ronin and gunner, and an alchemist. Landsknecht is normally one of the worst classes in the game, but this team gets to bring out its biggest strength (chasers) and is actually pretty fun to work with.
I'm having a lot of fun with this playthrough, even with this game's often-painful design. There's a charm to the pacing, atmosphere, and level design of the original EO2 that I feel the remake really failed to capture.

I'm also playing Disgaea 4. I loved this game a lot on the PS3 and being able to play it on the portable Switch with reduced loading and no vacuum-cleaner fan noises is really great. The game still has its fair share of annoying mechanics, but the changes carried overfrom the Vita version, along with some changes made in Complete, really help smooth over some of the rough patches. NIS unfortunately didn't fix my single biggest gripe with the game: the damage formula.
Still, even with the jank, I love this game. I love how chaotic the item world is, I love monster fusion, I love the weird skills, and I love double magichange. For as many improvements as Disgaea 5 made, I feel that it made many steps backwards regarding its streamlining and simplification.
I'm cautiously optimistic for Disgaea 6. I actually like the art style quite a bit but the game feels like it's coming out pretty rushed. There doesn't seem to be much content and it looks to be lacking a lot of polish. I'll still probably import it at the end of the month, assuming I can stabilize my income by then.

Originally posted by Sokobansolver
Donkey Kong Country 3

It feels like Rare was burnt out by the time they got to this game, like they didn't feel the core gameplay could stand out on its own anymore and had to supplant it with all sorts of annoying gimmicks and overly long levels. I think the game still does many things right, but its highs feel much lower and its lows are way more plentiful and apparent.

... This reminds me, I should finish Tropical Freeze. I got halfway through the forest world and just stopped playing for a few months. I like the game a lot but something about the zoomed out camera makes things feel... impersonal? I don't know, it's like I'm kinda disconnected from the player character and merely observing them. With my eyesight problems it makes it really easy to lose characters in the environment, too.

I see from the big red text on the top of the page that another C3 is coming up in a few days! I've been too distracted to play SMW hacks lately, but I promise to get on it and start providing some feedback, at least for C3. I love seeing creativity at work and really enjoy providing supportive and useful feedback.
A few days ago I finished playing the game JUMP. The credits finished at 12:12 A.M. on January 2nd. It took me just under a month to beat the game 125/69 (without any cheats of course), and I plan to write a lengthy review in the near future.

The game was both good and bad, with some terrible levels, some okay levels and some great levels. As of right now I'm feeling a 3/5 on JUMP.

I'm not sure when I'll play JUMP 1/2, but I'm "JUMP-ed out" for now.
I played that too. I really loved it, even if some of the stuff felt a little obtuse and out of my skill range. It's overall a real explosion of creativity, talent, and polish.
@RPG Hacker: Yep,
I too thought the going back in time thing was odd.

-----------------

Right now, I'm going through some random games on Xbox Game Pass to get 10,000 points for the Gamerscore challenge on MS Rewards.

So far I've played:
Unto The End - Beautiful graphics but the gameplay was massively let down by the awful combat controls.

Call of the Sea - First-person exploration and puzzle game. The world is beautiful but some of the puzzles were a bit confusing.

Carto - Overhead exploration game where you move pieces of the map in order to advance. You also pick up new pieces to add. I'm absolutely enjoying this gimmick. Not seen anything like it before in other games.
I finished Trails in the Sky the 3rd the other day. I liked it a lot! As of right now, it's my favorite Trails game (having played the previous two Sky games and Cold Steel I&II.) I liked all the lore the game dispensed and the (much needed) character development for Kevin, as well as his backstory, which rocketed him from an annoying side character to a great character. I'm not completely sure what it is, but combat felt like less of a chore now compared to SC. I also liked Ries as well, but I really wasn't sure what to think of her at the beginning. The actual plot of the game wasn't really a thing for most of the game, but I enjoyed the dungeon crawling so it wasn't a total drag. It's too bad that this is the last Trails game with this art style, because I like it a lot. The style that Zero and Ao have is fine, but I prefer the Sky style. Moving on, the music is as fantastic as always. Great battle themes, cool dungeon themes, overall I really liked most of it. I know my opinion is pretty rare, but that's fine. I tend to have fairly unusual opinions regarding the vidyas gams.

Then after finishing the 3rd, I jumped straight into Zero no Kiseki! I got to chapter one. I think this is the second Kiseki game now where the prologue didn't bore me. It's a little jarring going from the PC game to the PC port of a PSP game. Everything is so big! It's not the worst, but I do miss not having to open another menu to see the elemental weaknesses of an enemy, among other things.
>Mark danced crazy!
Backloggery MyAnimeList
I've been playing Celeste, and my decision to download and play it was pretty much from word of mouth. Kinda reminds me of VVVVVV and Hollow Knight's White Palace. Quite addicting for some reason despite also being Nintendo-hard (possibly bordering on platform hell in some spots).

Right now I'm on the Core, which is extremely different from any of the other levels since landing doesn't refuel your dashes, only the green crystals do. So far easier than any of the B-sides. The part where you have to transport the crystal in Chapter 5's B-side reminds me of one of Panga's Super Mario Maker levels, and Chapter 7's B-side is a total thumb-killer, particularly the segment containing chapter 4's gimmicks (which as of this post I still haven't gotten past yet). Wind plus loads and loads of spikes, one room with ultra-fast wind pushing you back while you have to bounce off of snowballs coming from the right side of the screen, and the room where you have to jump into Badeline so that she teleports somewhere else in the stage is the bane of my existence, cuz the final jump up from the cloud and up in between a vertical, narrow passage of spikes to what I assume is the final Badeline ball of that section seems too high to make.
I've died over 5,000 times so far (in the overall game).


Speaking of VVVVVV, I played that too. It has a pretty badass soundtrack (especially potential for anything and pressure cooker) and playing it in docked mode almost feels like being at a club. Beat it within a single afternoon since it was surprisingly short. Probably died hundred of times trying to get that one trinket (you can probably guess which one I'm talking about).
Apparently having a kickass soundtrack makes Nintendo-hard platformers that have generous checkpoints and infinite lives a little less frustrating and more fun.
Legacy custom music
A site with a non-useless dislike button
SMW hacking channel

I wouldn't even necessarily call Celeste "Nintendo-hard". As far as I understand it, the term is meant mainly for games that are hard by relying on old game design practices that were very popular in the NES days. Though maybe I have the wrong idea there.

Anyways, what I loved about Celeste was that while it had parts that were incredibly difficult, it always felt fair and lenient, and it rarely got so hard that it became demotivating. The music also helped always keeping me calm and prevented me from getting too frustrated. Granted, there are a few rooms in the game that don't properly communicate their intended solution, which can lead you to attempt them "incorrectly" and make them way harder for yourself. Happened to myself a bunch of times late-game, and also witnessed a few other people experiencing that. There's also a single room in the game that does indeed get so frustratingly difficult that it becomes kind of demotivating. But aside from those exceptions, at least to me, the game only felt difficult because of legitimate challenges in the level design, not out of any frustrating or artificial factors.

To put that into perspective, I feel the game has very different vibes from, let's say, Super Meat Boy. Both of these are difficult, challenging games, but the game design in Super Meat Boy feels like it's always just trying to stress and annoy you. The game really loves to make you feel bad for losing. On the other hand, Celeste does the exact opposite. It keeps you calm, gives you a lot of time for every challenge and actually makes you feel "good" for losing, by letting you know that you will eventually get there and that losing is just a necessary step for victory. This definitely helped me a lot. Even the really tough challenges at most got a little frustrating to me.
Feel free to visit my website/blog - it's updated rarely, but it looks pretty cool!
I agree with RPG Hacker, games like Celeste, Hollow Knight (mostly late-game areas), and most modern indie games are pretty much just like a light-kaizo. The controls are fluid and it demands that you learn the mechanics, but it's always super fair.

NES games generally could feel less reliable and have things that are hard to even deal with since you wouldn't have the proper tools (a lot of the harder games on that platform had enemies that were almost impossible to hit safely). Like in games like Castlevania, you'd have a lot of sections with stairs and enemies that are super hard to hit, it'd generally be a gamble to even know if you would get through it or die, since enemies could just hit you from all the places, knock you in a pit, etc.

In these indie games though (like Celeste), it's more like there's a particular way to do it, and it might be the only way to do it (the more alternatives a player has to approaching obstacles, the easier the game can be), but it's always super doable, and once you learn it, you can keep doing it with no problem.
Хуй войне!

桐生会FOREVER #ThankYouCoco / Rest in peace, Near, thank you for everything
Disgaea 6 came out in Japan a few days ago and I've been playing it. It's pretty fun and I don't miss most of the missing features, which I felt were just boring bloat anyway. I'm not sure I like the new scaling for skill boosting and skill levels. Enemies feel way more tanky this time around, but maybe I'm just playing wrong.