What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[BulletMagnet]

Should I feel terrible for really liking Ys 8's story?

Nah, it's hardly enough to ruin the game or anything, but speaking only for myself, every major development had me saying "seriously? That's where we're going?" Mind you, I have no problem with cheesy/ridiculous stories as long as the game is good, but Ys 8 seemed, at least to a good extent, to expect me to take it seriously, and try as I might, I just couldn't, not even a little.

[Stevens]

In a turn off events that can only be described as bizarre I have started Secret of Mana 3.

[Sumez]

[Mind you, I have no problem with cheesy/ridiculous stories as long as the game is good, but Ys 8 seemed, at least to a good extent, to expect me to take it seriously, and try as I might, I just couldn't, not even a little.

I guess the overall premise was stupid typical JRPG flare "power of friendship" stuff, but the actual story of Eternia...

Spoiler

I can't help taking it fairly seriously when a whole bunch people I've met, including small kids, suddenly start dying despite doing their best to fight a natural disaster. There's a really unique sense of despair and hopelessness to that story that totally caught me off guard for an Ys game.

I also like the creepy armchair philoshopy aspect to the question of what a person's life means when they are no longer alive, and no one is around to remember them. Does it make a difference if they even existed or not?

playing on Vita

Ah man, you're going to miss my favourite part of the game then. :\

[BulletMagnet]

I guess the overall premise was stupid typical JRPG flare "power of friendship" stuff, but the actual story of Eternia...

That much I can understand, I suppose, but even at that...

Spoiler

When people are despairing over how bitterly cold it's getting when they're still wearing those same ridiculous outfits I just had to chuckle. And yeah, there's a throwaway line in there about using some sort of "ether barrier" to stay alive, but it obviously translates to "we didn't have the time/budget to put additional skins in and thought of some stupid magical excuse instead", which kind of sums up my impression of the story's overall progression; see "your childhood friend is actually an alien doppelganger" and "nah, she didn't have to actually sacrifice herself, this whole thing is actually just some out-of-left-field goddess's dream anyway".

[Steamflogger Boss]

Starting on Ys VIII soon. Ready for that 3rd grade translation work.

I don't care who does the translation, by the end the story/scenario is going to sound like a third-grader came up with it.

I'm scared.

that being said, from what I've played, I haven't seen anything too bad, but I'm early in, I just got the bug spray
at the moment, I'm enjoying the "they're stuck on an island" premise and the actual meat of the story hasn't kicked in
playing on Vita, and I do remember downloading an update patch, I heard they had to re-translate the game or something?

Surprise Attack (arcade) - Konami's answer to Shinobi, only in a space station. Like arcade Shadow Dancer, you're defusing bombs along the way. Touching enemies is lethal, unlike Shinobi or Rolling Thunder 2. Too bad there's no melee move. It's another good game. The bonus stage is a space/sci-fi trivia quiz, with an occasional joke answer as one of the 3 choices.
One Q that I got was "What is a space probe?". I knew it was an unmanned vehicle, but really LOLed at one of the other choices: Martian tax-man.

Ooh, I keep forgetting this exists despite it sounding right up my alley.
U DID IT

Yeah they completely retranslated the game. I don't want to download a big patch and I prefer to keep my consoles offline, so I'll be playing it RAWWWWWWWW.

[Sumez]

Finished Prey. You people should play it. Sure, it has its issues, but they are all completely neglectable due to the feeling of reliving fucking System Shock again. They did all the things that Bioshock fumbled at.

The ending sucks. I mean, sure, it's not Thimbleweed Park bad, because it has a consistent theme, and it's hinted at throughout the entire game (if anything I'd say it's a little too predictable). It's pretty stupid though. It's like they had an idea for where they wanted to go, but they couldn't correctly interweave it into the plot, so instead they decided to just have two parallel plotlines and pull an

Spoiler

"it's all a simulation"

That said, the framing of it all makes it easy to enjoy the rest of it. It just feels kind of stupid that of all the choices you have throughout the game, and the things you can do differently to actively affect choices later on, ultimately doesn't make any difference at all.

Still. Play this fucking game. Marketing it as "prey" was the dumbest thing ever. They should have just called it System Shock 3 and called it a day. Hope the next one is gonna have a rogue AI with a creepy sexy voice.

Working on Doom 2016 now, and with two Bethesda games in a row, I've already had my fill of gamebreaking bugs. I really need to play something Japanese again soon.

[Marc]

I was a massive fan of FaltOut Ultimate Carnage (and the unfairly maligned Ridge Racer Unbounded), but Flatout 4 seemed to received mixed reviews, so knowing it was also a different dev, I passed on it at the time.

Picked it up on sale for £7.99, and I have to say it's not bad at all. Has the same heavy feel to it as UC, tracks are well designed and fun to drive, physics are slightly better (car no longer becomes completely weightless when wheels leave the ground), it's bloody fast, and overall I'd recommend it, certainly at this price. Good arcade fun.

[Durandal]

Finished Prey. You people should play it. Sure, it has its issues, but they are all completely neglectable due to the feeling of reliving fucking System Shock again. They did all the things that Bioshock fumbled at.

The ending sucks. I mean, sure, it's not Thimbleweed Park bad, because it has a consistent theme, and it's hinted at throughout the entire game (if anything I'd say it's a little too predictable). It's pretty stupid though. It's like they had an idea for where they wanted to go, but they couldn't correctly interweave it into the plot, so instead they decided to just have two parallel plotlines and pull an

Spoiler

"it's all a simulation"

That said, the framing of it all makes it easy to enjoy the rest of it. It just feels kind of stupid that of all the choices you have throughout the game, and the things you can do differently to actively affect choices later on, ultimately doesn't make any difference at all.

Still. Play this fucking game. Marketing it as "prey" was the dumbest thing ever. They should have just called it System Shock 3 and called it a day. Hope the next one is gonna have a rogue AI with a creepy sexy voice.

I enjoyed it, up until the last third of the game where I was so loaded up on upgrades, resources, items, weapons and what have you, that it effectively killed any reason for me to keep exploring the station any further, as I just wanted the game to end. Second playthrough with psychic powers, same shit. You just become too damn OP, and because it becomes impossible to die, there's no reason to scavenge for supplies, and no reason to do what the game heavily prides itself for. To derive any real challenge from the game after that is just to restrict yourself, which is just a consequence of terrible game balancing. I had trouble replaying the game because the sheer demoralization and boredom I felt at the last third cemented it in my mind as that part.

For a game like this, Hard shouldn't only affect enemy stat values, but it should also affect the scarcity of resources. Despite the sheer SS2 fanboyism Arkane displayed with this game, I don't understand why they didn't copy SS2's approach to difficulty settings as well, instead of settling for a banal thoughtless HP scaling difficulty setting setup.

I did notice a Survival Mode update was released for Prey, which I am psyched to get around, and the Mooncrash DLC certainly sounds interesting from what I heard.

[drauch]

Yeah, I dug Prey quite a bit as well. Enemy variety is pretty weak and that ending is rough, but otherwise like you said, it was nice to have something feel like SS again. My only other niggling complain is their art style--it just doesn't fit the dark theme. I hated Dishonored as I was hoping they would channel Thief, but I'm glad they came through with this and overall quite pleased how it turned out.

Just curious what your hangups with Bioshock were? Haven't played it since launch and have been meaning to replay, but I recall enjoying it much more than Prey. But I'm also a bit more style over substance and enjoyed the logs and setting more than anything, so that may be where I'm coming from.

[Marc]

Loved Prey, but remember myself feeling terribly disappointed by BioShock. I'd been led to expect something more than a shooter, but really, that's all it was. Great setting, standard game, from what I remember anyway. Heard the second was better, but was left that underwhelmed by the original that I never bothered.

[Sumez]

Yeah, I dug Prey quite a bit as well. Enemy variety is pretty weak and that ending is rough, but otherwise like you said, it was nice to have something feel like SS again. My only other niggling complain is their art style--it just doesn't fit the dark theme.

Yeah, I wouldn't have minded a more clear-cut clinical sci-fi with the empty feeling of true space horror. Drawing from the weird art deco style advertisements of the Bioshock setting felt completely out of place here, and I don't really understand the need for it.

Just curious what your hangups with Bioshock were? Haven't played it since launch and have been meaning to replay, but I recall enjoying it much more than Prey. But I'm also a bit more style over substance and enjoyed the logs and setting more than anything, so that may be where I'm coming from.

I actually really liked Bioshock. But it was advertised as a spiritual sequel to System Shock 2, and was anything but it. Ditching the inventory and customized way to approach the game, as well as making exploration a simple question of peeking a little off the beaten path to empty trashcans here and there, made it feel like a super dumbed down "AAA" version of System Shock.
By its own merits however, Bioshock was super cool. The setting is absolutely beautiful, with a ton of memorable setpieces, and using "adam" powers to play around with your enemies during combat was fun as hell (something Prey really lacked on the other hand).
The sequel, Bioshock Infinite is pretty much worse in every regard, with boring combat, terrible pacing, much more linear structure, and the setting feeling old less than a third into the game. However, the essence of it all is just that neither of them serve as a follow-up to System Shock at all, while Prey does in a lot of aspects.
What's interesting in that context I think, is that Prey feels every bit as "AAA" as Bioshock does, and proves that if not then, then at least 10 years later, the world is totally ready for a non-linear metroid-styled FPS game with a big inventory, tactical combat and multiple approaches to problem solving. I don't know if Prey was considered a success, but I hope it was.

[Arvandor]

EVERSPACE, I am playing all of the EVERSPACE, and wishing I could help the community grow.

[Immryr]

Can someone who is more familiar with ninja gaiden black than me please tell me how the hell to consistently lands hits on the boss of chapter 7 other than using inferno?

I was mostly trying to knock her down using the attack where you jump towards them and press heavy attack with the dragon sword, then following up with a combo, but I could not find a consistent time to actually hit her with it. She just dodges it 9 times out of 10.

I eventually beat her by spamming inferno then using the izuna drop combo when she was down but it felt like a pretty cheesy way to win. She didn't even hit me on the time I killed her.

[iconoclast]

Can someone who is more familiar with ninja gaiden black than me please tell me how the hell to consistently lands hits on the boss of chapter 7 other than using inferno?

Stay away from her and dodge the pillars/fireballs until she does her flying tackle move. If you dodge that and charge the Dragon Sword's Y attack for a moment, you can hit her as she's recovering and knock her down. You can also try to flying swallow her at certain points (eg as soon as she summons fireballs, if you're close) but I think the tackle punish is safer/more reliable. If she drops to the ground, just flying swallow.

[Immryr]

Can someone who is more familiar with ninja gaiden black than me please tell me how the hell to consistently lands hits on the boss of chapter 7 other than using inferno?

Stay away from her and dodge the pillars/fireballs until she does her flying tackle move. If you dodge that and charge the Dragon Sword's Y attack for a moment, you can hit her as she's recovering and knock her down. You can also try to flying swallow her at certain points (eg as soon as she summons fireballs, if you're close) but I think the tackle punish is safer/more reliable. If she drops to the ground, just flying swallow.

ah, flying swallow is the jump attack i was talking about. she was dodging that both in the air and on the ground about 90% of the time for me. using the charge attack after dodging the tackle should be do-able, i'll give that a go on my next play through.

i'm insanely bad at the platforming in this game. it took me so long to do the section in the warehouse in chapter 9, so many missed easy jumps. i like ryu's movement setup in general though.

[null1024]

Ys 8 [Vita]

actual spoiler

Spoiler

that entire bit with Kiergaard being a serial killer, holy fucking hell
I'm laughing too fucking hard, who fucking let any of this happen? Who's even writing this?
and then he gets picked up by that dinosaur after you fight him, shit's absurd

Shame about the cap'n.

[edit]
Dana's finally in the party. Really wish she had her double-jump item when she came forward in time.
The entire bit leading up to her being in the party was a bit of a slog. Who in fuck's name thought it was a good idea to have you run like 10 melye and then get interrupted with a cutscene like five times in a row?
as an aside, who the fuck is writing any of this, it's starting to get really, really fucking goofy

[edit 2]
"dana's people evolved from dinosaurs"
fuck off

someone at Falcom thought this story was a good idea, and I don't know why

[Sumez]

Moved from one "Bethesda" FPS to the next, taking on Doom 2016 now. Guessing I'm a bit over halfway through.
It's a fun game, but not as fun as I expected. I'm glad to see the game was more than moving between secluded arena fights as the first stage felt like. Once you get a hold of the fast paced gameplay, it also gets a lot easier, despite playing on the hardest available difficulty without unlocking anything.

I actually like exploring the levels for secrets, and most of the stages are really well designed - instead of just being a corridor, you tend to come around to the same areas and open new passageways, which makes backtracking easier, and helps you get a much better feel for the layout of the land.
The game probably isn't as good as my first impressions from it, as the combat gets really repetitive very fast, and tends to be pretty unfair at times, where pure bad luck is often able to outright kill you. But so far I'm having fun with it.

The input lag is killing me though. The game would be a lot better without it. And the checkpoint system is beyond stupid. I can't believe no one told them about that in testing.

The game also does one thing that's a pet peevee to me. Whenever you're in a room where you need to kill all enemies to proceed (something that happens a lot in this game), and new enemies will spawn once you have killed all or some of the current ones. This completely removes all sense of progression from each of those challenges, which really hurts the overall experience. It also makes it harder to balance your use of resources, though that's not as important in this particular game.
I can't think of too many other examples off the top of my head (though Darksiders was really bad with it), but I know there are a lot of games out there doing this.

[NYN]

Can someone who is more familiar with ninja gaiden black than me please tell me how the hell to consistently lands hits on the boss of chapter 7 other than using inferno?

I assume this is your first experience with the game? Alma is a whopper. I'd say she is the thoughest boss on any Black difficulty. Since she evades so much and is beastly in attack modes. I remember that my Master Ninja play was decisive on her. If I could best her I could clear it. And so it was, after many tries. Then again maybe I took the harder road in relying so much on the sword. Some use the Lunar's UT with the minions essence to some effect.

[Immryr]

Yeah it's my first time properly playing it. I have started the game before but got distracted after only 2 or 3 chapters.

I've just killed the boss of chapter 11, doku, and it feels like a pretty similar deal to alma to me except in this fight you can seemingly only land a hit at a time rather than a combo. Once again I just couldn't find many consistent ways to land damage on him. I was trying to land hits on him immediately after each of his attacks and on some of them he always blocks, some of them he sometimes blocks and occasionally doesn't. He even blocks everything when he is in the middle of his aoe attacks.

In the end the fight was really boring as I couldn't find anything better to do than holding block, rolling his attacks and waiting for him to do the charging slash, dodging that and hitting him with a single heavy attack with the dabilahro.

I know I'm pretty bad at the game but I just can't get my head round these type of fights.

[NYN]

In the end the fight was really boring as I couldn't find anything better to do than holding block, rolling his attacks and waiting for him to do the charging slash, dodging that and hitting him with a single heavy attack with the dabilahro.

I once thought using the Vigoorian Flail on Doku's spectre is the smart thing to do. You use it anyhow on the masses of ghostly fishbone and they're thematicaly connected, right? It's fast in and out and rips chunks from the bar. ka-chunk ka-chunk
Now I think of it as quite a hassle. But time was I used the flail also on the undead just because the weapon is what you get right before in the monastery. As it was meant to be used. Aah, logic is a fleeting thing...

I know I'm pretty bad at the game but I just can't get my head round these type of fights.

That's to be expected. Seriously. If you decide to walk the higher paths you will find lush surprises in new enemy types and combat situations that will drive and push you. With the most legendary calm comes great satisfaction.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Ys VIII is pretty great, no surprise there.

[null1024]

Yeah. I'm still enjoying Ys 8.
The overarching story seems to be heading in really dumb places, but on a smaller scale, it all holds up okay and I like everyone.
part of me wants to nudge the difficulty up from default, but the rest of me doesn't want to change it this far in

The Oceanus fight fucking sucked though.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I got annoyed at the game. There was some kind of dinosaur, a trex maybe? Anyway the game tells you to run away from it. I was like FUCK THAT, TIME TO STAND AND FIGHT. It took a long time of dodging and attacking (maybe 30 minutes, I'm not sure) but I killed it... Only to have the game give me no experience, and it almost instantly resurrected........

I needed a cool down period last night, but I should get back to it today.

Honestly, I've been skipping through almost all the dialogue at this point. Less talky more slashy. In fairness, I gave the game the first several cutscenes to be interesting but it's all throwaway.

[Marc]

Lost Odyssey was the first JRPG I played in about 20 years, loved it and after something with a similar type battle system if you foljs can help?

[BulletMagnet]

Blue Dragon on the 360 is by the same folks and has some similarities; if you like battle systems with a timing-based element the Shadow Hearts series (particularly the second and third ones) on the PS2 are personal favorites, and IIRC share some staff members with Lost Odyssey.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Lost Odyssey was the first JRPG I played in about 20 years, loved it and after something with a similar type battle system if you foljs can help?

Great game, my favourite JRPG of the gen.

BM already mentioned Blue Dragon, which is okay. I didn't like it nearly as much though.

[Stevens]

I think I've had my fill of Secret of Mana III, 18 hours in and the desire to play is gone.

Back to arcade stuff.

[Ed Oscuro]

Slowly working through my Summer Saliens backlog from Steam. The Vagrant is kind of a nifty game. It can be grindy if you want to upgrade stuff early, but it's quite easy to shake out of a rut. Just traveling somewhere else is good. Bloodstained is nifty too.

In FPSy news the "New Blood" team has a couple interesting titles out on Early Access, DUSK and Amid Evil. Dusk is a highly retro-themed title, something like Blood 1 & 2 with a little bit of Quake, some physics shenanigans, and too many other influences to name. Amid Evil is more straightforward to describe; it's Hexen II and Quake with heavily powerup based combat. Of the two titles I find myself preferring Dusk a bit. Dusk offers a lot of different ways to play - the highest difficulty level is still very manageable but you can choose to start every level from scratch, or you can use ultrapowerful swords and soap to cheese through the level. Amid Evil, on the other hand, has a much more demanding and slower paced melee game with its version of the famous Quake axe swinging slower and being harder to land hits with. It is also very pretty, but the shiny texturing over everything makes it hard to see sometimes.

Ion Maiden, the BUILD engine game, is fun too, but it seems to have a touch of input lag.

Free games worth mentioning: Mushroom Heroes (A Lost Vikings style game - there's a classic I ought to go play), Missing Translation (grayscale-ish puzzle platformer, mostly about the puzzles), Kirchoff's Revenge (kooky first person title a bit like Portal, but with each room containing a simple freestanding electrical engineering puzzle to solve - unfortunately there's no map design to speak of).

Game to meh about: Treasure Hunter Man 2. Interesting GBA-like Metroidvania style with a new jumping / bouncing mechanic, marred a bit in execution and uneven pacing. Free outside Steam. Wacky story, spoilers right inside the Steam Achievements.

[Sumez]

Lost Odyssey was the first JRPG I played in about 20 years, loved it and after something with a similar type battle system if you foljs can help?

Anything Dragon Quest.
Etrian Fucking Odyssey.

[dunpeal2064]

Lost Odyssey was the first JRPG I played in about 20 years, loved it and after something with a similar type battle system if you foljs can help?

As BM said, Shadow Hearts has a similar battle system (Though the first was my favorite). Legend of Dragoon has, imo, the best timing-based battle system, and is a pretty fun romp overall. The Mario RPGs (RPG, Paper, the handhelds) all tend to have timing-based stuff in their combat, but are thematically pretty far from Lost Odyssey. I haven't played it yet, but I've heard Mother 3 also has timing-based battles.

This is a particular thing in RPGs that I really love, but that doesn't seem to common. If anyone knows of more of these that haven't been mentioned, I'd also be grateful