What are you Playing?
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After finishing Breath of the Wild I've had the itch to pick up another relatively open world 3D action game with fairly simple combat mechanics and a lot of control over your character's movement options (so jumping, dodging, blocking and the like are things you can do with the analogue stick/d-pad/buttons, instead of being options in a menu) that I can occasionally just pick up and play mindlessly every now and then. My main problem with Zelda was that most of the enemies were laughably easy and the crappy durability mechanics meant there weren't many things in the game that gave me a tangible sense of progress or improved personal capability.
I've tried Bloodborne but I found it way more stressful than entertaining. I'm thinking of buying Horizon Zero Dawn and giving that a go? Anyone who's played it know if it sounds like it might be up my alley?
I also like the look of Monster Hunter: World, but I've never actually played any previous games in the series so I'm not too sure about that. If anyone has any other recommendations I'd be very happy for them, I have a PS3+4 and a Wii U (don't really like playing action games on my PC but it's capable enough for them if there are any good ones I can play with a controller). -
Closing in on the end of Deus Ex. It's pretty long. Kind of want to play some strategy games after I finish it but individually they're all time sinks so I can't imagine I'll have the time to play all of them for any decent amount of time. Might start off by getting back into Factorio since it's got the power optimization stuff I'm kind of wanting to do. Sim City 4, Command (and its standalone expansions), and Aurora are the other ones I want to play.
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After finishing Breath of the Wild I've had the itch to pick up another relatively open world 3D action game with fairly simple combat mechanics and a lot of control over your character's movement options (so jumping, dodging, blocking and the like are things you can do with the analogue stick/d-pad/buttons, instead of being options in a menu) that I can occasionally just pick up and play mindlessly every now and then. My main problem with Zelda was that most of the enemies were laughably easy and the crappy durability mechanics meant there weren't many things in the game that gave me a tangible sense of progress or improved personal capability.
I've tried Bloodborne but I found it way more stressful than entertaining. I'm thinking of buying Horizon Zero Dawn and giving that a go? Anyone who's played it know if it sounds like it might be up my alley?
I also like the look of Monster Hunter: World, but I've never actually played any previous games in the series so I'm not too sure about that. If anyone has any other recommendations I'd be very happy for them, I have a PS3+4 and a Wii U (don't really like playing action games on my PC but it's capable enough for them if there are any good ones I can play with a controller).Bloodborne is probably the second hardest game in the series, so if you're looking for something similar but easier, i would say Dark Souls 3. Despite how much i dislike that game overall, it's undoubtedly the easiest to get into for an entry point: from how linear and simple it is to follow without getting lost, and how you deal with enemies/bosses. If you like it then you may become more familiar with the control schemes and general gameplay, since the series is pretty consistent in how it plays for better or worse.
Horizon Zero Dawn i would say it's like babies first third-person open world game, with a lot of polish visually in certain areas (despite how samey it all looks), but after BotW you may find yourself more limited than you would like to. You may like it, but overall i think it just entertains without doing anything noteworthy or revolutionary/redefining.Monster Hunter World on the other hand, looks like a game from the series made with the intention of being as accessible as possible for the average westerner who never tried the past games. Meaning it will be considerably easier, which in a couple of mechanics will mean less grinding, but also a less difficult/rewarding experience overall. You can try it and if you like it there are a bunch of older games that supposedly will prove to be more challenging.
Dark Souls games are probably the best pick for what you're looking for (relatively open, simple mechanics, some movement options), coupled with the overall quality of their titles (with Dark Souls 2 & 3 being the low points).
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Bloodborne is probably the second hardest game in the series, so if you're looking for something similar but easier, i would say Dark Souls 3. Despite how much i dislike that game overall, it's undoubtedly the easiest to get into for an entry point: from how linear and simple it is to follow without getting lost, and how you deal with enemies/bosses. If you like it then you may become more familiar with the control schemes and general gameplay, since the series is pretty consistent in how it plays for better or worse.
Horizon Zero Dawn i would say it's like babies first third-person open world game, with a lot of polish visually in certain areas (despite how samey it all looks), but after BotW you may find yourself more limited than you would like to. You may like it, but overall i think it just entertains without doing anything noteworthy or revolutionary/redefining.Monster Hunter World on the other hand, looks like a game from the series made with the intention of being as accessible as possible for the average westerner who never tried the past games. Meaning it will be considerably easier, which in a couple of mechanics will mean less grinding, but also a less difficult/rewarding experience overall. You can try it and if you like it there are a bunch of older games that supposedly will prove to be more challenging.
Dark Souls games are probably the best pick for what you're looking for (relatively open, simple mechanics, some movement options), coupled with the overall quality of their titles (with Dark Souls 2 & 3 being the low points).
Awesome, thanks for all the advice :).
I'm not sure if I found Bloodbourne hard per se (given that can mean a range of different things), it was more that the speed with which you could die combined with the fact that all the enemies respawned when you did die made every encounter more nerve wracking for me than the combination of tense and fun I was going for. I didn't even get that far into it tbh. I made it past the roving band of dudes in Yharnam? after carefully (and slowly) drawing them off one by one and killing them…and then once I was past them the idea that I might die from some surprise enemy whose mechanics I didn't know well yet and therefore have to do all of that again was a bit too much for me :/. What is about Dark Souls 3 that makes it easier?
Hmm a game even more limited in than BotW doesn't really sound all that appealing to me. Might have to rethink sinking any of my limited funds into that. Monster Hunter World I'll probably just keep an eye on the reviews when it eventually rolls out.
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Well, I finished the first Phantasy Star. Considering that I was able to beat it in a little over a week, I wouldn't call it a "long" game (granted, if I hadn't been using maps and guides, it probably would've taken me at least twice as long to beat). And yeah, it is pretty dated as far as the gameplay, but, for its time, it does have some really good graphics. The two most aggravating parts of the game, for me, were, of course, the confusing and labyrinthine dungeons, and whatever weird-ass algorithm they used to calculate damage. Regularly, my characters and the enemies could do anywhere between 2 and 50 HP of damage per attack. Heck, right before I went to the final dungeon, one of the common fly enemies (the weakest enemy in the game) managed to 10 HP of damage. It just made it feel like there was too much of a luck factor involved. Still, it's a reasonably fun game and I'm glad I played it, but I wouldn't really recommend it except for RPG connoisseurs.
Anywho, next up I'll be playing Pulseman and Fluidity (a Wiiware game)
And the lamb lies down on Broadway
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Beat Deus Ex.
! Chose to merge with Helios for the ending.
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Anywho, next up I'll be playing Pulseman and Fluidity (a Wiiware game)
I own the cartridge for that. Great game.
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So yeah, I ended up playing Fluidity first and…man, this is actually a really fun and addicting puzzle/physics game.
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I finished Battle chef brigade on normal, while I don't want to do it in hard, I'm doing it battling the cheffs that I missed the first time around.
And the daily cook-off is strangelly adictive, I managed to produce a perfect dish today (maximum possible dish value is 400, with the 16 full powered gems, and using today's bonus of only veggies except for the main dish <fire horse="" thing="">) getting me to the max, 525.
It was mostly thanks to the gods of rng, that with 6 fire lanterns and getting a green and blue sauces, you could get halfway there pretty easily. The rest was mixing 3 mushrooms to guarantee 1 lvl 2 and 1 lvl3 gem each, with 9 mushrooms you get another 4 lvl3 green gems, and from there, reduicing the meat to 4 gems of any color, it's easy, specially if you got another lantern to spare. I think that I had to use another 3 musrhooms to get the final green gem.
I'd wish that they keept the other daily cook offs, even without the leaderboard to do something different. Yesterday it was a mess, because the bonus was of 25 ingredients per dish, but you only had the base 5 inventory slots, and had two judges, so that's 10 hunting trips just to activate both bonus, I believe that it was impossible to get two perfect dishes in that time, and the leaderboard kind of proves it as the top score is like 700 and the max theorical score would be around 1k.</fire>
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…Finally finished S-ranks in Cuphead last night. Devil was the last one I did, but only out of procrastination. The genuinely most difficult ones for me were Cala Maria (not enough parry chances...) and Hilda Berg (!?).
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There's been a lot of Skyrim talk with it coming out for the Switch recently so I decided to reinstall it just to play for a bit every once in a while. My new character is a mostly magic user. Installed a mod that just drops me into the word without having to do the intro and has some more character customization mods.
Also playing that made me want more first person RPGs so I started playing Wizardry 8. I've been thinking a lot about first person turn based combat and had never really played dungeon crawlers or anything but it seems it's been done before so that's cool. I'm sure it could be improved on if anyone would want to make a modern game using it. Legend of Grimrock is real time but still kind of similar. The game (W8) works pretty well on a modern system considering it uses DX7.
Edit: Though the whole party system isn't something I really like. I'd prefer to have the individual characters on the map and be able to move them individually. The combat system could still be the same where everyone attacks based on their speed though. I guess that kind of clashes with the first person though with you switching viewpoints.
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There's been a lot of Skyrim talk with it coming out for the Switch recently so I decided to reinstall it just to play for a bit every once in a while. My new character is a mostly magic user. Installed a mod that just drops me into the word without having to do the intro and has some more character customization mods.
Also playing that made me want more first person RPGs so I started playing Wizardry 8. I've been thinking a lot about first person turn based combat and had never really played dungeon crawlers or anything but it seems it's been done before so that's cool. I'm sure it could be improved on if anyone would want to make a modern game using it. Legend of Grimrock is real time but still kind of similar. The game (W8) works pretty well on a modern system considering it uses DX7.
Edit: Though the whole party system isn't something I really like. I'd prefer to have the individual characters on the map and be able to move them individually. The combat system could still be the same where everyone attacks based on their speed though. I guess that kind of clashes with the first person though with you switching viewpoints.
You should give the Dragon Quest series a try, starting with 5 or 8.
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DQ doesn't stay in first person outside of battle though and also has random battles rather than enemies being on the map. It also to my knowledge doesn't have movement during battle, which is something I've always disliked about JRPGs I've played.
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DQ doesn't stay in first person outside of battle though and also has random battles rather than enemies being on the map. It also to my knowledge doesn't have movement during battle, which is something I've always disliked about JRPGs I've played.
Try the Doom RPG/Wolfenstein RPG/Orcs & Elves series then.
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The first dungeon in Wizardry 8 is pretty big. Haven't finished it after a few hours and can't beat this giant spider without losing a party member.
Edit: Played some more Wizardry 8. Realizing that I'm not really a fan of having a party. I realize this is (generally) how pnp RPGs work but there you also generally have each character controlled by a separate person and you don't have to control all 6+ people. Because of this I installed Morrowind, which I've never played, only some of Oblivion and Skyrim, to see if it'll scratch the itch I currently have.
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Finished Mario Odyssey 100% now. Luckily the jump rope moon didn't give me as much trouble as it potentially could have.
Just in time for Xenoblade 2 too.
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The Mummy Demastered
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Been playing Morrowind for a few hours so far but only just leveled up. The leveling system is pretty strange but I like it now that I understand how it works. Also playing Blast Corps. Wish someone would me a similar game. Works fairly well with minimal emulation issues as far as I can tell. Would love a port of the Rare Replay Collection.
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So I finally got around to playing Pulseman. God, the controls to this game are wonky as hell. I'm not even sure I want to finish all the levels.
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Started playing Battlefront II today. And fuck this game. That's all.
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Started my first ever soul level 1 run (in any Soulsborne) of Dark Souls 3 a few days ago.
Going for every boss (with the standard +10 raw Broadword) and "all" that's left is Gravetender + Doggy, Friede + Ariandel, Midir, Gael, and Soul of Cinder. -
Started playing Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I feel like I'm doing pretty bad despite being fairly far in the scenario I'm doing because I played for like 2 hours and didn't finish the scenario, which is an easy one on a medium size map. That might just be how long it takes to play the game though, I don't know. It's fairly interesting though. It's kind of like Civilization where you have cities that you can build stuff in and recruit fighters from but you can't actually build the cities, they're just on the map and you can capture them. There's also resources (both one time and continuous) and upgrades on the map.
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Started playing DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure (seriously, why do so many Japanese games have "DokiDoki" in the title?)
So far, a really fun and cute platformer. I got the Wii Shop channel version, so it's all in Japanese, but that's okay since, for the most part, you don't really need to understand the text (though it wouldn't hurt to have a guide on hand). I only wish the music stood out more since, so far, it's pretty much been just understated ambient stuff.
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So did anyone else play the Monster Hunter World beta? It was my first time playing a monster hunter game, though I've touched some other hunter games before, and I was very pleasantly suprised. I didn't expect the different move sets to be so fun to use. Grouping up with some randoms and trying to take out Diablos was a good way to spend the morning. This game went from not on my radar at all to a potential day 1 purchase just so I can actually get into it.
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I finally have been able to start actually playing Dwarf Fortress. Have a small fortress so far and just got a wave of migrants. I started out with a guy trained in fishing and got another two fisherdwarfs in the group of migrants but there's no place to fish around my fort. There's small patches of stagnant water that I don't think would have fish in them but that's it. When I was picking my area I wanted near a river and thought there was one here but apparently not. Might just have them hunt. There seems to be a lot of emus around my fort and I already got some guy to start hunting and he killed one. Took like 20 shots with wooden crossbow bolts though. Emus are tough apparently.
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Got my TPCast wireless adapter for Vive in, and loaded up Fallout 4 VR.
My past couple days of gaming have consisted of playing FO4VR for couple of hours, get motion sick, sleep it off, play it again for couple of hours, rinse repeat.
I do have to say cockroaches the size of a dog flying at your face inside VR is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING. I might suffer from PTSD at this rate.
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I started playing Yooka Laylee on Switch today. The game could really benefit from a map system.
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Got some more migrants in DF. Sure are a lot of useless fisherdwarves when there's nowhere to fish near my fort. Got a few farmers though so now I don't have to use my other dwarfs for that. Put a few dwarfs into a crossbow military unit too. Don't really see the use of a lye maker or other similarly seemingly useless jobs so I stuck them in the military and got them training. Also had a caravan show up but didn't want to trade anything I had and didn't really feel the need to buy anything. Have plenty of food and alcohol. Another good thing I did was get a bookkeeper so I actually know how much stuff I have.
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Finished up both of Resident Evil 7's final DLC. The free one, Not A Hero, is worth playing if you still have the game. Nice little epilogue with some fun sequences. It is more action oriented, but it still has tense moments and oozes that atmosphere the game is known for. Took me about 90 minutes to beat, which a longer run time could've expanded on some concepts, but doesn't ruin its welcome.
The final paid DLC is End of Zoe, and it was pretty good as well. You play as a completely different character, and while a bit more action oriented as well, it comes with a bit of a twist.
! Your primary mode of attack is your fists, so if you thought Chris Redfield punching a boulder in RE5 was crazy, wait until you are taking down enemies left and right with your fists. You also can get and make spears as well, which you want to have some saved for the aquatic life you go against.
This one took me closer to two hours, and after beating it challenges are unlocked, so will definitely dive into that. This one you have to buy separately or get the season pass. If you haven't played this game and have been interested, the Gold Edition just came out which has all the DLC with it, so definitely check it out. I've gotten at least 30 to 40 hours of play time between multiple campaigns and the DLC stuff.
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Finally started Tales Of Xillia 2 after being stuck earning most of the game's trophies….already seeing some things I don't like from the game unashamedly reusing assets from the first game, some of the first game's trophies being retained for some reason, apparent year long time skip, borderline useless choice system, game not knowing if it wants to make Ludger a heroic mime, Elle.
I've often wondered about that myself; seems like being supported by people who only want you there so the world can end in fire (with you going to Hell in the process) would be somewhat off-putting
3DS Friend Code 0044-2806-5284
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Getting marksdwarfs to train in dwarf fortress is a pain in the ass. Don't know if it's because I don't have enough quivers or what. I have 3 but I've never seen 3 training at the same time. And apparently you can only make quivers out of leather for some reason and not cloth or anything else and I don't have any leather.
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Picked up Persona 5 on Black Friday and have played a little bit of it.
I made the funny mistake of renting a movie a few days before mid-terms and it's been close to 2 weeks that the game sends you straight to sleep without letting you do anything else. Oh the late fees are going to be bad.
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Finally started Tales Of Xillia 2 after being stuck earning most of the game's trophies….already seeing some things I don't like from the game unashamedly reusing assets from the first game, some of the first game's trophies being retained for some reason, apparent year long time skip, borderline useless choice system, game not knowing if it wants to make Ludger a heroic mime, Elle.
I was in the minority here, but I loved Xillia. Gameplay, story, characters…perhaps my favorite Tales game.
Xillia 2 is hot garbage.
Hang in there, Kierkegaard.
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I was in the minority here, but I loved Xillia. Gameplay, story, characters…perhaps my favorite Tales game.
I thought those 3 aspects were okay, stupid even annoying in some respects but okay.
I've often wondered about that myself; seems like being supported by people who only want you there so the world can end in fire (with you going to Hell in the process) would be somewhat off-putting
3DS Friend Code 0044-2806-5284
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I thought those 3 aspects were okay, stupid even annoying in some respects but okay.
Right. Think that's the general positive stance on the game. Not mine, but for people who didn't hate it, the general idea.
Key point, though: Xillia 2 is hot garbage.
Hang in there, Kierkegaard. -
Right. Think that's the general positive stance on the game. Not mine, but for people who didn't hate it, the general idea.
Key point, though: Xillia 2 is hot garbage.
Welp I;m buckled in and riding this ride to the end…don't think (as I think I mentioned earlier) I'll be bothering with the trophies though.
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Download the Darkness 2 so I guess Xillia 2 is on the back burner for now…..also a preemptive fuck you to 2K games for killing the game's post launch DLC which I forgot they did.
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Done with Ac Origins. Awesome game by the way.
More rpg elements really fit the AC gameplay. Had lots of fun.Current finishing up Persona 5.
Also amazing, game oozes style. Storywise not as good as 3 and 4.
But gameplay-wise blows the other 2 out of the water.Also did some Firewathch. But it wasn't really for me.
Not much of a walking simulator fan.
I did hear great things about What remains of Edith Finch.
Is that recommend for someone who generally doesn't like those (Walking sim) games? -
Just wrapping up Mario Odyssey now. Gotta say, it's going down as my fave 3D Mario. I hold a lot of love for 64 and Sunshine, and I was hesitant to place it above either at first, but the more I play, the more I realize it's true.
[hide]First off, I want to address the flaws. I think the biggest one to me is that the capture mechanic is so restricted. I didn't walk into this thinking I could capture anything, but I was hoping that at least most distinct species were capturable, including NPC species. This doesn't harm gameplay so much as miss out on some flavor and fun potential, like going around and collecting moons as a 'human' in the city. The next biggest gripe is the there are a couple levels that are kinda just boring, namely Lake Kingdom and Cascade Kingdom, which are kinda lulls in the experience. Plus, the Cloud Kingdom and Ruined Kingdom are way underutilized. I know they have a few moons post-game, but it's disappointing that they aren't full levels (especially the latter). Additionally, there are some repeated an uninteresting moon concepts (slots, for instance), the music design in a lot of levels is weirdly sparse, and the game needs some sort of purple coin radar, since a few of them are obscure. Minor gripes are that only full costumes are shown in the 2D sections and not any mix-and-match ones, and hats with hairstyles should have an option to have the hair on or off. Also, a hub world would have been nice, but I'm not missing it too much. And the Broodles are kinda lame. That's pretty much it, though. The rest is all positive.
I think the main factor behind Mario Odyssey's success is Nintendo's approach to player freedom. 3D Mario is pretty well known for the way it lets you accomplish levels and tasks out of order, and Odyssey has a near completely linear level order, but the big difference is that, like the Banjo games, goal order is almost entirely unrestricted. There are some goals that can only be done after beating a boss and later after hitting the moon stones, but otherwise, the way you approach the levels any way you wish. There are a ton of moons everywhere, even before you unlock more, with varying degrees of difficulty to them (which allows players of any level to beat the game, too). The amount and variety of moons is key to making the player freedom work, since you learn pretty quickly that they can be hiding anywhere, giving you a reason to full explore the stages. The stages, themselves, are made fun to traverse and fully explore between Mario's moveset and the variety of things he can capture in the area. The whole experience is designed to both encourage and work with player freedom. This is especially exemplified in how Nintendo hid coins in places that would seem impossible to reach. If the player can get there, why not reward them? I spent time at a friends place replaying the beginning of the game on his Switch, and had a blast exploring the levels differently with the new variety of techniques and secrets I learned. It was akin to the joy I have replaying Mario 64 to this day.
My personal favorite level of the game for all of these elements is Bubblaine. While some levels have a certain linear flow to initial exploration (like Wooded Kingdom or Bowser's Castle, for instance), Bubblaine starts with you staring out at the whole level, free to go in whichever direction you want. The various captures and rocket flowers scattered around the level give you several options to explore the level, even without making use of checkpoint teleportation. Each of these methods of transport are also instrumental in getting a variety of moons, meaning that it's encouraged to try out each of them, get used to them, and then use them the way you want to explore the area. Learning the layout becomes somewhat important in the level boss, who is fought in the entirety of the level. The great soundtrack doesn't hurt, either.
While I love the openness of Bubblaine, I have to praise Odyssey for having a real gameplay variety among the levels. The levels come in three 'size' tiers: 0 purple coins, 50 purple coins and 100 purple coins. The 0 ones are basically boss arenas with some moons to find later. As much as I expressed interest earlier in seeing those levels fleshed out, I do appreciate that they did build some content into them regardless of their final size. The remaining two tiers allowed the creators more freedom in designing levels to be as big as they needed, without having to reach an arbitrary goal. In Super Mario 64 or Sunshine, levels needed to have a certain number of stars/shines, each, and as a result, some of them feel really cramped, or kind of lacking. Look at Tall Tall Mountain, where most of the tasks boil down to 'get to the top of the mountain'. Do we really need 3 whole stars for that task alone? In contrast, Odyssey does allow itself to have more intimate areas like Shiveria or the Forgotten Isle, where they don't need to stretch things to fit a scheme. On the flip side, Tostarena and New Donk City can have really big and dense layouts, respectively, because they aren't limited to a smaller size. Each Kingdom has its own central variety of gameplay and exploration, generally defined by their shape and available captures. The whole experience is nice.
Another thing I've gotta say is that man, Odyssey seems to take more notes from Banjo Kazooie than Yooka-Laylee did, so to speak. Teleporters available in each level to bring you to key areas, hidden paths to other worlds available within levels, and fleshed out local cultures. All Yooka has on it is a hubworld. I just wanted to point that out, since a lot of people came out trashing Yooka as something that was bad due to working from a bad formula, but I think Odyssey proves that you just need to take the right lessons to make something great.
Talking about customization for a bit: I love it. I had a lot of fun dressing up Mario in a variety of increasingly stupid outfits throughout the game. Want naked Mario in a sombrero? Got it. Pirate clown? You know it. Skeleton bride? Why the fuck not. Invisible? Do you even have to ask? The costume variety is a delight, and you don't even need to Amiibos to unlock everything. Instead, they're used to gain access to certain outfits early, which is totally a fine use of them. Another bit of customization is the sound test, which lets you listen to any music anywhere. I love this feature, since it mitigates my complaints about the soundtracking some. If the level doesn't have enough music, I can just put on the Bubblaine theme and it automatically becomes great. Even if I just want a tone shift, it's available. It's a really cool feature that I'm glad to have.
So yeah, I could keep praising this game all day. I haven't even gotten into how rad the ending sequence is, the great use of the mushroom kingdom, or numerous other unique things that breathe life in this game (you can play fetch with dogs using your hat because why the fuck not). Just like in the game itself, there's great things to be found in every aspect to explore in Odyssey. At the end of a year that's seen 3D platformers crawling back to the spotlight, Mario still proves it's king.[/hide]
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While everyone else is playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I just started playing Xenoblade Chronicles X. Pretty good so far, though I'm not totally digging the character designs. And it may take me a little while to get my bearings on all the controls and options.
And the lamb lies down on Broadway
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While everyone else is playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I just started playing Xenoblade Chronicles X. Pretty good so far, though I'm not totally digging the character designs. And it may take me a little while to get my bearings on all the controls and options.
Well if you've read this thread in the past you're probably well aware that I loved the hell out of XCX and if you need any clarification about mechanics or game advice, feel free to shoot. It's definitely got a daunting amount of systems to sift through. As I mentioned in the Nintendo thread I ultimately think its avatar-based main character and real player freedom really outweigh the sacrifices to story and characters. I'm 100+ hours into XC2 now (still not in post-game though lol) and XCX is the better game by far IMO.
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I've been replaying the Sly Cooper games as of late out of sudden nostalgia. Just finished 100%ing Sly 2: Band of Thieves. I remember why I consider this the best game in the series.
My only critiques are that Bentley and Murray can't pickpocket (which got rectified in Sly 3 onwards), Murray often gets the short end of having the shortest and least amount of missions, there could be more collectible treasures to help get enough money to buy power-ups, and Clock-La. Everything about Clock-La, from both the concept to the final boss being first person shooter-based with awkward aiming/shooting controls for a stealth platformer game is complete ass. It might have the worst voice actress for Carmelita though. She has no accent and it feels like she's forcing herself to say lines instead of sounding natural.
Also, while I do feel like Sly 2 is a great game, it could have benefitted from being… shorter? I know that sounds weird for me to say about a game I like to play, but it starts to drag at some point, around the sixth or seven chapter, with having eight full chapters in total. In comparison to Sly 1's five chapters, Sly 3's six chapters, and Sly 4's five-six. A bunch of the game's bosses get two whole chapters to themselves, which results in each couple of chapters having shared themes in level locales and enemies. I feel like it would have been better if they all only got one barring maybe one exception at most, and focus more time on making unique settings and villains. This would result in less chapters and more variety, which I think is a fair trade.
But yeah, Sly 2. Still love it and it has the best story developments of all four games. The move from Sly 1's linear levels to now having over worlds and multiple playable characters was ingenious. Every character has clear specialties and disadvantages that act complementary to each other. Despite the levels obviously being built around Sly's parkour abilities first and foremost, Bentley is easily my favorite to play. He has the best gameplay (tranquilizer darts with bombs are so damn cool), the best animations, the best levels, and the best character progression.
I hope that a Sly 5 can start production once the show comes out and hopefully does well. I'm praying that they go for a serialized story format loosely based on the games and not just episodic hijinks purely based around gags like Sonic Boom. Not that Sonic Boom is a bad show, I just want more compelling stories video game-based shows, and Sly is easily one of the best video games practically tailor made for an animated show format.
With all that said, it's time to move on to Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.
Spoiler:
"Life's not about finding out which card is yours, but finding out which cards you're not."
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I'm nearly done with Retro City Rampage DX on Switch. Still a fantastic game and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it (the game's on basically every system including DOS and Windows 3.1)
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Just beat Hollow Knight. That was quite the game, great music and atmosphere, and the art style was so beautiful. Got 63% in just under 12 hours, so I will probably go back to try an collect everything, and may attempt the steel run mode which sounds pretty insane.
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I've been making my way through Golf Story on the Switch. It's not the sort of thing that I'll keep coming back to or anything, but it's a game that I'm glad exists, since its gameplay premise is so interesting. It leans a lot more on the golf than I thought it would, but the idea of fusing a sports game with an overworld, RPG mechanisms and quests is really cool and makes me appreciate a genre that I'd otherwise ignore. I'm sure there are other games that have attempted to do such a thing, but it comes together pretty well here, for the most part.
Gameplay's pretty tight and easy to get the hang of, while still having a decent skill ceiling. I like that you can just set up and mess around with golfing anywhere. That bit's immersive, though I wish there was more to do with it besides the handful of quests on each course. The writing's kinda hit or miss, with some segments that are fun, and others that are more fun in theory than in execution. I like that some fantasy things exist in it, for example (ghosts, zombies, werewolves), but they aren't used in any particularly interesting way. Another major complaint is that, except for the big games, there's no internal way to quit challenges,so you often have to ride out losing games until they're over. The whole package is pretty cute, though, and I feel like I got my $15 out of it.
I would love to see some of these concepts brought further, maybe in a sequel, or a game that could take influence from it. Lay into the fantasy and weirdness even more, while adding more complexities to the gameplay. That'd be cool.
3DS FC: 0662-3589-2887
NNID: Gibbs-free
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@Count:
I've been replaying the Sly Cooper games as of late out of sudden nostalgia. Just finished 100%ing Sly 2: Band of Thieves. I remember why I consider this the best game in the series.
Last time through, I gave the edge to Sly 3 just for the sheer diversity of it all. But Sly 2 was such a massive leap up from the first (which is also great!), it deserves a world of respect just for that. Think if Sly 3 hadn't tried to throw in the kitchen sink with the # of playable characters (many of whom weren't that fun to play) it would have been an easier pick.
…I'm not sure I ever actually finished Sly 4. Huh.
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I would love to see some of these concepts brought further, maybe in a sequel, or a game that could take influence from it. Lay into the fantasy and weirdness even more, while adding more complexities to the gameplay. That'd be cool.
Mario Golf and Mario Tennis on Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance.
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Mario Advance Golf or whatever it was called was a much, much better version of what Golf Story was trying to do. It's enjoyable in its own right, but the golf itself wasn't fantastic.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
After loving Ys VIII, grabbed a handful of the older games on PC. Definitely show their age--moreso than even other RPGs of the era--but there's a certain charm to it all, plus a great sense of mobility. VIII seems to have been the first one where it all clicked, but they're all enjoyable.
Also picked up Trails of Cold Steel to give the other side of the Falcom equation some play. Veeeeery slow start, but think I see the appeal.
Hang in there, Kierkegaard. -
Still pretty early into Xenoblade Chronicles X, though this exchange was amusing.
Nagi: I would never force or coerce anyone into joining BLADE if they didn't want to.
Me: Chooses option to not join BLADE
Nagi: Guilts me into joining BLADE by saying I would've been frozen in stasis forever if not for them
