What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Vanguard]

Doing that write-up on roguelikes made me want to play through Ragnarok again.

The early game is really fantastic. A lot of the enemies are capable of taking you down on their own, and your character heals very slowly so even a fight you survive isn't necessarily a win. Making healing rare or expensive is always such a benefit to RPGs, but it's rarely done. In the early game, the enemies' special abilities are troublesome, but nothing that'll outright end your run on its own. The item generation system is really good too, nearly everything is useful, but most items require a bit of effort or knowledge to reach their full potential. Direct damage items are rare but valuable.

Eventually your character will get enough abilities or resources to begin growing in power very rapidly and the game's nature changes. Enemy power begins to rise drastically between areas and nearly all fights become one-sided beatdowns. A lot of the enemy special abilities become game enders, and a big part of succeeding is knowing what threat they present, how to deal with, and which species to avoid entirely with an extinction spell. It's pretty fun and interesting to learn and master all of this for the first time, though in repeat playthroughs it can be a bit tedious to replay situations where you already know the solution. In this recent run I played with the most strict conduct I've played under yet (no self-polymorph, no writing scrolls of time stop, complete all quests, kill all unique enemies) and even still the ending was a foregone conclusion once I got some momentum.

It's a nice game and I've got a lot of nostalgia for it, but ADoM is probably better overall.

[BulletMagnet]

Shocked that I'm still sticking with Talos Principle, and in fact just finished a "basic" run of the game, having solved all the "main" puzzles without help - now I get to scour the areas for the cheeky hidden stuff, which is frankly kind of a pain because many are rather large to explore on foot and you don't get any kind of map. That being said, the game has been quite the pleasant surprise for me; for whatever reason, this one's "style" of puzzle clicked with me where most others don't (the dearth of physics-based nonsense definitely helps), and I really do feel like I'm gradually figuring things out, thanks to the ability to tackle most of the challenges in any order. Not everyone will love the philosophical themes lurking in the background, but for me they tie everything together rather nicely, and can be mostly ignored if you'd rather just solve stuff - the fact that the same bunch that made the likes of Serious Sam had something like this in them only makes it more charming for me. Not perfect, but any puzzler intuitive enough for me to hang with is noteworthy on those grounds alone; in some ways I might like this better than Portal. No idea how much farther I'll get, but even if it ended now the trip was worth it.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I almost accidentally beat Pillars of Eternity before doing the expansion content. At least the game warns you.

I'm pretty hyped for Pillars 2 now.

[Squire Grooktook]

Doing that write-up on roguelikes made me want to play through Ragnarok again.

By the way, I just wanted to say thanks for that. It was a very interesting read, and you clearly put a lot of effort into it. I'll definitely be referring back to it in the future if I ever have time to dive into this genre.

[pandaphantasm]

I'm trudging through the original Wild Arms for PS1. I say trudging not because the game is a bore or anything like that, but rather because it keeps friggin' freezing every 30-40 minutes or so and I'm at the mercy of save points since I'm playing on an actual beat-up console and not emulating. New groans have entered into my grunt/moan-lexicon from having to deal with this.

Talos Principle

People keep recommending this to me, looks like I need to try it Every little review / tale people tell of this is doing its part in egging me on, yours included!

[Steamflogger Boss]

Is it the console or the game disc? The console is probably cheaper to replace, lol.

[pandaphantasm]

Game disc is spotless so I'm guessing it's the console since I'm using an ancient PS2 model. Searching google gave me a bunch of GameFAQs complaints about PS2s not really playing nice with the game for whatever reason. Thank fuck it's not one of those games that refuse to run on PS2s period. I remember finding Monkey Hero for dirt cheap years ago and then getting smacked in the spleen with a distorted screen of pixel-diarrhea when I tried to actually play it.

[Durandal]

I'm trudging through the original Wild Arms for PS1. I say trudging not because the game is a bore or anything like that, but rather because it keeps friggin' freezing every 30-40 minutes or so and I'm at the mercy of save points since I'm playing on an actual beat-up console and not emulating. New groans have entered into my grunt/moan-lexicon from having to deal with this.

Speaking of Wild Arms, a new Wild Arms game was just announced!

Spoiler

it's mobage

[pandaphantasm]

Spoiler

it's mobage

Dang it! Oh well. At least it has the Wild ARMs “taste, mind, and spirit” (???).

Also, slightly offtopic but:

even getting a TV anime spinoff in 1999

Was this any good?

[Mischief Maker]

I just picked up A Hat in Time and so far I'm not happy.

I can't talk about this game without bringing in Yooka-Laylee and the politics around these two games.

Yooka-Laylee publicly kicked youtuber jontron out of its voice talent after he made a bunch of racist statements. The game subsequently got review-bombed by every single youtuber on the net, dunkie included, calling Yooka-Laylee the worst game of all time. I bought Yooka-Laylee and thought it was a perfectly fine 8/10 3D platformer.

A Hat in Time kept jontron in its voice talent (in their defense, dialog in the game is fully voiced so it would be significantly harder/more expensive to replace him) and these same youtubers praised it as the game Yooka-Laylee SHOULD have been. I just bought the game and... well... 7/10 so far.

They all promised the controls for this game were going to be so much tighter than Yooka-Laylee's. Well apparently in youtuber-ese, "tight" means "aim-assisted."

They made hay of Yooka-Laylee being made in the hated Unity engine while A Hat in Time uses Unreal 4. Well YL is the best-programed, smoothest-running unity game I've ever played while AHiT is buggy as shit months after release with constant crashes to desktop and other glitches. In fact they seem to lampshade their own shitty programming by making the merchant intentionally glitchy:



Assuming it all isn't about jontron, the biggest difference between the two games is Yooka-Laylee doesn't have any ambitions beyond serving up 3D platforming challenges in huge playground levels while A Hat in Time desperately wants to be Psychonauts, bookending every mildly challenging platforming segment with 5-10 minute cutscenes of quirky humor, but lacking the writing talent of a Tim Schafer or an Erik Wolpaw. I've finished the first world and maybe AHiT picks up later on, but so far I'd say Yooka-Laylee is the better game.

Frankly I'm pissed. Even on sale this game wasn't cheap and I've been mislead by the very youtubers gamergate promised were going to replace the corrupt incompetent magazine press that overhyped art games made by their friends. Now the youtubers are overhyping regular games voice-acted by their friends. This is progress?!!

[Steamflogger Boss]

Game disc is spotless so I'm guessing it's the console since I'm using an ancient PS2 model. Searching google gave me a bunch of GameFAQs complaints about PS2s not really playing nice with the game for whatever reason. Thank fuck it's not one of those games that refuse to run on PS2s period. I remember finding Monkey Hero for dirt cheap years ago and then getting smacked in the spleen with a distorted screen of pixel-diarrhea when I tried to actually play it.

I played it last year on a crappy PS2 and didn't have any issues. I'll count my blessings on that one from the sound of it.

I'm trudging through the original Wild Arms for PS1. I say trudging not because the game is a bore or anything like that, but rather because it keeps friggin' freezing every 30-40 minutes or so and I'm at the mercy of save points since I'm playing on an actual beat-up console and not emulating. New groans have entered into my grunt/moan-lexicon from having to deal with this.

Speaking of Wild Arms, a new Wild Arms game was just announced!

Spoiler

it's mobage

Lol gorram it.

Spoiler

it's mobage

Dang it! Oh well. At least it has the Wild ARMs “taste, mind, and spirit” (???).

Also, slightly offtopic but:

even getting a TV anime spinoff in 1999

Was this any good?

This is one I have the dvds for and never got around to. Considering the amount of anime I'm attempting to churn through right now, I won't be getting to it any time soon. Just not a priority. I think I barely paid anything for it at least...

[Vanguard]

By the way, I just wanted to say thanks for that. It was a very interesting read, and you clearly put a lot of effort into it. I'll definitely be referring back to it in the future if I ever have time to dive into this genre.

No problem! I'm only moderately knowledgeable about conventional dungeon crawlers, but I know the roguelike genre very well. Feel free to ask if you're ever looking for information or advice about them.

[Sumez]

The game subsequently got review-bombed by every single youtuber on the net, dunkie included, calling Yooka-Laylee the worst game of all time. I bought Yooka-Laylee and thought it was a perfectly fine 8/10 3D platformer.

It absolutely is.

[Mischief Maker]

Devil Daggers

Eee! This is like playing Serious Sam with an A3D card!

Oh man have I missed Aureal quality positional audio in an FPS game. Mother-FUCK Creative and their EAX horseshit!

I wish someone would put together a software-based 3D audio driver for Thief, the series just isn't the same without it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The game subsequently got review-bombed by every single youtuber on the net, dunkie included, calling Yooka-Laylee the worst game of all time. I bought Yooka-Laylee and thought it was a perfectly fine 8/10 3D platformer.

It absolutely is.

What's the general consensus on Snake Pass? It's similarly themed, though it's not a platformer per se, more of a snakey physics platformer.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Pillars of Eternity for PC

Over 60 hours spent and I don't think I missed anything. White March part 2 was probably my favorite part. The Eyeless were badass looking.

Easy 9/10 for me.

[soprano1]

Back to doing more quests in Monster Hunter Generations on 3DS.

[null1024]

Been playing some original GB puzzle games. Kwirk, Catrap, and Megalit.
Catrap is loads of fun. It's a little tile-based platform game where you have to hit all the enemies in the stage. I've literally never heard anyone ever, ever, ever say anything about it.

Also, Kirby's Dream Land is fun.

Devil Daggers

Eee! This is like playing Serious Sam with an A3D card!

Oh man have I missed Aureal quality positional audio in an FPS game. Mother-FUCK Creative and their EAX horseshit!

Man, the audio design in that game is some real 10/10 stuff.

[lilmanjs]

Last thing I played was the original Need For Speed Shift game. Fun still! It just makes me wonder how they could screw up Shift 2 so badly. New features that should make for a fun game, yet the handling is awful.

[Marc]

Gave up on Super Metroid at the Ridley fight. Don't enjoy the bosses full stop in this game, the fights just feel so clunky and graceless. This one is a pure fight of attrition, and I don't have the interest to go back and hunt down more energy tanks. I can see why it was well thought of back in the day, but for my money this style has been done far better many times since.

[Sumez]

The boss fights in general aren't too well designed in this game, and to me Ridley is definitely the checkpoint for how many energy tanks I can afford to have, but I would say it's still a really easy fight.

I really enjoy running through the game as minimalist as I can. Not as a direct "speedrun", but relying on walljumps and shinespark to skip the bosses and equipment that can be skipped is surprisingly fun. Basically the only things that take up extra time in my runs is the few energy tanks that I go out of my way to get, and the only real reason for me to do that is the Ridley fight.
So while that might sound like an argument against it, I actually enjoy that aspect in the larger context. I honestly just relax in the fight and empty my heaviest artillery into his face, which ends up eating a few energy tanks. But if I were to take the fight seriously and master dodging the damage, I would be able to skip a few more energy tanks and optimize my run in general. It's a really nice mechanic.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I don't remember having too much trouble in SM and I definitely didn't come close to getting all the energy tanks. Though the final fight was somewhat annoying iirc.

I'm waiting for Yakuza 6 now. I don't want to commit to a game now because I know I'd drop it on Tuesday.

[Marc]

VR s nice. Wipeout looks incredible, sadly as someone that's been travel sick my entire life it's a complete vomit comet in cockpit view, and tolerable for one race in chase cam providing I take ten minutes afterwards.

Polybius, Rez and Thumper are amazing. I doubt I'd be able to go back to playing these in 2D again. Rez and Thumper purely for the spectacle, buy Polybius is actually more playable - it seems far easier to make sense of what's going on due to the increased depth perception.

Resi 7 is also pretty astonishing. Shame about the low resolution and shimmering, but that's kind of negated when indoors due to the gloomy nature of the visuals anyway. Elevates a competent survival horror into something quite special.

Going forward though, I wish they'd retro-fit some older games to work with it. Instead of trying to get the latest blockbuster to work in a compromised state, I'd love to see Afterburner Climax (barf), OutRun 2, Daytona and a ton of older classics up and running. Hell, I can dream.

[pandaphantasm]

VR s nice.

...

Going forward though, I wish they'd retro-fit some older games to work with it. Instead of trying to get the latest blockbuster to work in a compromised state, I'd love to see Afterburner Climax (barf), OutRun 2, Daytona and a ton of older classics up and running. Hell, I can dream.

I don't do VR but this got me thinking... how about Rollcage? Both barf and bottom-burst?

[Marc]

God yes, I'd forgotten about that. Amazing game back in its day, wonder if it still holds up....

[cicada88]

Tower of Druaga via Namco Museum Vol. 3 on Playstation

[null1024]

Still plugging away at Catrap [GB]. It's really fun.
need to redo a few levels because I used the game's built-in rewind feature a bunch in them and honestly don't actually know quite how I really solved them

[BulletMagnet]

Methinks I'm about done with Talos Principle for the moment - managed to get ending number 2, but the third one would require a lot of beachcombing so I left that one alone. Also had a quick go at the "Road to Gehenna" add-on, which, as you'd expect, has even bigger, more complex puzzles to suss out; maybe at some point in the future I'll be in the mood to stick with them, but for now I'm satisfied with this unexpectedly pleasant little cerebral side trip, and am all set to get back to glowy blue punching random jerks to earn karaoke money on Tuesday.

[BulletMagnet]

Okay, couple of quickie impressions of Yakuza 6 -

- I suppose Sega had to update their engine at some point, and the new one does take nice screenshots (it does take a bit of getting used to returning characters looking a bit different, though...during some dialogue sequences they can come across as "puppety"), and the whole seamless transitions when going into stores and whatnot is all well and good, but the framerate has taken a major hit, and when things get busy it gets really janky, plus some goofy physics nonsense (though that at least kind of fits the atmosphere). Nothing fatal, at least very early on, but considering how my first visit back to the batting cage went, at the very least I've got some major timing adjustments to make. Hopefully Kiwami 2 improves this, but I'm not hopeful.

- "Dashing" returns, and is now absolutely vital, because Kiryu doesn't "jog" anymore, but only walks slowly if you're not dashing; you also get winded much faster (until you spend skill points on it), which gives on-foot movement an unpleasant start-and-stop feel. On the bright side random enemies seem less frequent (possibly in part because combat feels less precise now) and can be more easily fled from even if they "catch" you, not to mention that there's no real dialogue before or after most fights, so they're less of a speed bump than before.

- You now gain five different "types" of experience depending on what you're doing (working out at the gym gives mostly certain types, while chatting up hostesses gives others), and various amounts/combinations of them are required to both upgrade base stats and unlock new abilities; some stuff is locked until others are obtained first, but you've got a decent amount of freedom in how you progress. You get at least a little experience for almost everything you do, including filling in the usual "completion" list, so you're encouraged to try everything to at least some extent. Time to get my sorry kiester whooped at beginner-level mahjong yet again...

- Thankfully, alongside the requisite over-the-top melodrama, the series' trademark goofball, politically incorrect sense of humor is very much intact; Kiryu experiencing the wonders of live chat is an early highlight. I avoided a lot of the previews, including the demo, to keep as much a surprise as I could, but couldn't help glimpsing the apparent ability to basically turn Kiryu into a crazy cat lady, which I am absolutely salivating at the prospect of.

Only played a bit so far, and probably won't get another crack at it until the weekend, but in the early going it feels like Sega is going the extra mile to enhance the unique "experience" that Yakuza is, which certainly isn't a minor part of its appeal to say the least, but I have my doubts about how the underlying nuts and bolts will hold up as I get further in. Guess I'll find out one way or the other...hopefully this mindset works out better here than it did in Gravity Rush 2.

[Steamflogger Boss]

MUST NOT READ YAKUZA 6 TALK WHILE MY COPY IS STILL IN THE MAIL.

In the meantime I've been playing some Shenmue here and there, it's as bad as I remember, but I'll still probably beat it again. Not like it takes much.