I ended up trying out a few demos (Civilization V, Alpha Centauri) and reading about recommendations, which ultimately led me to the Master of Orion series. To this date, Master of Orion 2 is unanimously regarded as the best game the genre has to offer, even though it was released back in 1996.
I played a MoO2 a lot back when. Didn't play MoO1 but I heard it used the same as engine as Master of Magic which I did play.
I've played Civ 4 a bit. Compared to that I think the Master of __ games have more emphasis on war and less on diplomacy. Expansion is pretty important (to gain resources, and also because military units have upkeep), but I always felt that expansion became tedious after a while in this type of game. (Unlike say Heroes of Might and Magic where you have a limited number of heroes on the map and managing a town is not too involved.) In MoO2 you can set a planet to automatically manage itself but I rarely did that since I wanted to micromanage stuff to get an edge over the AI. So when I played I was always looking for a way to steam roll the enemy in combat without having to control more territory than them. MoO2 has a cool system where you can customize your warships...
One interesting thing about MoO is how it resembles the old Japanese microcomputer game Daiva.
MoO2 had multiplayer support but it was terribly buggy. The only was I got it to work reliably was under DOS with a null modem cable, but it took ages to end a turn. I wonder if GOG has managed to fix that.
Blinge wrote:I'm not sure what "Wishy washy lock on" is supposed to mean.
In Demon's Souls, it only works when it feels like. I can't remember any other game this maddeningly inconsistent in that respect.
Blinge wrote:For what it's worth i think Skyward was annoying garbage but it still gets 10/10 ratings across the board and sold well over 3million copies.
Lucky for Nintendo, there's no research indicating how many of those buyers even played what they bought, never mind finished the game.
Immryr wrote:I was talking about the flow and progression of the game as a whole, I.e. Your first play through of dark souls might take you 50 hours or so but on subsequent play throughs, depending on how you approach the game, you can get it down to 2 to 10 hours, rushing through areas and making it more of an arcade-esque experience (sort of).
Obviously, I wasn't commenting on completion, only what I get to do here and now when I pick up a controller.
Many (most?) games can be speedrun through, not all of them are much fun to.
The rear gate is closed down
The way out is cut off
Blinge wrote:I'm not sure what "Wishy washy lock on" is supposed to mean.
In Demon's Souls, it only works when it feels like. I can't remember any other game this maddeningly inconsistent in that respect.
as blinge said it's to do with distance away from the enemy, and also if the room or w/e is dark.
Obiwanshinobi wrote:
Immryr wrote:I was talking about the flow and progression of the game as a whole, I.e. Your first play through of dark souls might take you 50 hours or so but on subsequent play throughs, depending on how you approach the game, you can get it down to 2 to 10 hours, rushing through areas and making it more of an arcade-esque experience (sort of).
Obviously, I wasn't commenting on completion, only what I get to do here and now when I pick up a controller.
Many (most?) games can be speedrun through, not all of them are much fun to.
I'm not really talking about speed running though. at least not speed running proper, like trying to sequence break the game and learning elaborate tricks. it's just very natural for later play throughs of both the souls games and super Metroid to be much quicker than your first run.
Dunno, in the very same situation it sometimes works, sometimes it doesn't. It's pretty usual for me to be fully aware of the enemy behind me when targeting one before me, yet unable to switch the target. If (I say "if") it really is consistent, then it's hella unintuitive/arbitrary. I can't trust it to do the job that's trivial for targeting systems in many otherwise mechanically inferior games (ZOE2).
As a matter of fact, I find MGS2 game engine way more idiosyncratic/rigid nowadays, but I've never had a problem with auto-targeting of all things there.
The rear gate is closed down
The way out is cut off
Obiwanshinobi wrote: isn't Skyward Sword the universally least played, quickest forgoten one to this day? Couldn't it have something to do with the gameplay being too much of the same at last?
Lucky for Nintendo, there's no research indicating how many of those buyers even played what they bought, never mind finished the game.
So the point about it being least played was stupid then.
Immryr wrote:
as blinge said it's to do with distance away from the enemy, and also if the room or w/e is dark.
Dark as a factor began in DS2, I could be wrong.
Obiwanshinobi wrote:
In Demon's Souls, it only works when it feels like. I can't remember any other game this maddeningly inconsistent in that respect.
The lock-on is fine, within its own deliberate limitations. Locking on and switching to targets within range does work consistently. I'd venture to say you're not used to it yet as you've barely begun the game. The game demands precise inputs, which new players often drop, even if they're veteran gamers. It'd be far too easy if you could just lock enemies from miles away. Magic would be even more overpowered.
As for your between two enemies situation, I can't remember how lock on works in this situation: whether it's a case of hitting back towards the enemy behind, or left/right. I just do these things instinctively now without thinking about my inputs. But being between two enemies isn't a situation you want to be in at all, it's probably better to unlock and get them both in front of you.
>comparing Demon's Souls targeting to a mech game and mgs2
>good lord I think we're done here.
Ruldra wrote:I have this friend who's completely obsessed with empire-building games (e.g. Civilization, Total War, Europa Universalis, etc). He talks about them with so much passion and has so many war stories from them that it made me curious about checking them out. Only game I played in this genre was Star Wars Rebellion back in the day.
I ended up trying out a few demos (Civilization V, Alpha Centauri) and reading about recommendations, which ultimately led me to the Master of Orion series. To this date, Master of Orion 2 is unanimously regarded as the best game the genre has to offer, even though it was released back in 1996.
The first game is available on myabandonware so I'm giving it a try. I had to watch a playthrough and read the manual to understand how it plays (remember when you had to read manuals before playing a game?), but now I'm set. Let's see how it goes.
If I like it enough I'll probably buy MoO2 over at GOG.
Master of Orion 2 offers the most depth for how accessible a game it is, but it's highly debatable whether it still holds the crown of the overall best space 4X and is certainly far from being unanimous. Distant Worlds: Universe easily outmatches it in scale, variety and customization. Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion and Endless Space are contenders as well.
From what I've read, Endless Space got a lot of flak for its poor combat system and Distant Worlds is so absurdly complex it's overwhelming. I believe people hold MoO2 in very high regard because it strikes the right balance between depth and accessibility.
I guess saying that MoO2 is unanimously the best game was a stretch, but it's pretty much what everyone recommends when asked about this genre.
Still playing Skies of Arcadia in between blowing shit up.
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
I got back to playing Castlevania Bloodlines. I managed to get to stage 4 on one credit and made it to stage 5 after a couple continues. Stage 5 looks like it would be right at home as a Poison Ivy stage in a Batman game. Good stuff so far. I have been playing as John Morris.
Obiwanshinobi wrote: isn't Skyward Sword the universally least played, quickest forgoten one to this day? Couldn't it have something to do with the gameplay being too much of the same at last?
Lucky for Nintendo, there's no research indicating how many of those buyers even played what they bought, never mind finished the game.
So the point about it being least played was stupid then.
The first quoted sentence is a question, as is the second.
Blinge wrote:It'd be far too easy if you could just lock enemies from miles away. Magic would be even more overpowered.
We're talking of not working on dudes I'm like 3 meters from, standing right before me in broad daylight, no obcstacles between us. Mostly happens on stairs.
The rear gate is closed down
The way out is cut off
Fallout New Vegas, Skullgirls, and Ultra SF IV. Played some Battle Fantasia earlier too. Never really got around to playing this one. It's okish. I guess nothing particularly wrong with it. It just doesn't really click very well with me for some reason. I really do like the soundtrack on it, though. Evokes that classic rpg vibe really well.
Obiwanshinobi wrote: isn't Skyward Sword the universally least played, quickest forgoten one to this day? Couldn't it have something to do with the gameplay being too much of the same at last?
Lucky for Nintendo, there's no research indicating how many of those buyers even played what they bought, never mind finished the game.
So the point about it being least played was stupid then.
The first quoted sentence is a question, as is the second.
I don't really know what your point is about the zelda stuff, it doesn't refute what I was saying about influence on souls or the targeting system. You suggest Skyward sword is universally least played, then say there's no evidence to support your own claim. *headscratch*
We're talking of not working on dudes I'm like 3 meters from, standing right before me in broad daylight, no obcstacles between us. Mostly happens on stairs.
I haven't experienced this. Without meaning to be an asshole, the only explanations I can think of are input error or maybe your R3/controller is faulty or something.
Example - at the bridge's first pillar next to Phalanx Archstone there's a halberd guy on stairs I never know if I'll manage to lock on. With this kind of pesky targets, reliability of lock-on seems related to framing, as if they were more likely to get caught from the corner of my eye than anywhere near its center.
The rear gate is closed down
The way out is cut off
Fake nostalgia day
Hollowed overripe melon tried again
Was it sweet ever before?
I remember seeing copies of Nightmare Creatures on sale everywhere, and for whatever reason this title has wormed its way into my brain of late. Booted up ye newest and most horribly packaged official Pj64 release yet (I have the PC release files, but no disc for CD audio, plus it only plays the "Game Over" scene in place of any FMV) and...what a mess it still is. It's just as I remembered from last time I played around with the PC release, but with the savestate function and a more accessible control scheme I was better able to start to figure out the combo / attack system - at least with the monk. I didn't have great success. I'd like to know how groundbreaking people thought this was in late 1997 - it seems to have benefited from that short window of when something could still look made mostly from different kinds of runny feces (there's the odd nice texture here and there). By the time of the N64 port in 1998, I would have thought that window closed. Yet it was still on sale everywhere, and apparently sold in at least respectable numbers.
Gameplay-wise, enemies like to catapult around corners, hit you with attacks just moments after coming into view, and chase you all the way to a wall as you attempt to backpedal. Same enemies will often happily soak up a couple dozen solid hits - not blocked hits - or you can just kill them with a forward+a+b combo from the monk, if you can time it right. The current height of an enemy seems to be a factor here, and possibly whether they are charging. I can't be sure, but even if I did, the framerate and rapid speed of the game makes reactive gameplay difficult unless you manage to trap an enemy in a button-mashing combo - unfortunately there don't seem to be many realistic tactical options if you don't know how to immediately put down an enemy. There is ample evidence on YouTube that the swordwoman can be used reliably, so maybe I just don't know the secrets. In any case, though, it does look as if there is too much favor given to people who know how to react to an enemy that hasn't appeared yet, instead of having interesting combat and AI.
The N64 version has some benefit in a kind of assumed lock-on which works quite well sometimes, and the ability to turn off adrenaline. Otherwise, it seems to be the same as the other ports, discounting the awful MIDI work (there were some of those Goldeneye '70s lounge xylo notes in one of the early graveyards, very fitting I thought).
Even something simple like jumping is not intuitive: Why didn't they allow both types of jump to clear the same height? Standing jumps clear more height than forward+jump, which is a sensible design choice if you feel that a game should at all times mirror reality, and then design a game with many waist-high iron fences that cannot be jumped, and many knee-high walls overlooking lakes of instant death water. Not such a sensible design choice if you want your players to reduce arbitrary kneecapping of mobility; the horrible map design is just that extra bit worse because of the fear of the designers that players couldn't navigate any jumps without either a dead stop or a long running start to guide them. A rather odd decision, given the great speed and aggressiveness of enemies.
So, to sweep that away, I finally spent some time with Konami's Soul of the Samurai. Resident Evil, or Onimusha? Another game with a male/female character choice - I started with the guy, being the default once again and seemingly the more sensible choice for starting the gameplay. What a contrast with Kalisto's greenbrownghostfest, though! The translated haiku marking your saves, the rather cheesy paper door effect on some area transitions, Spirit Bugs...man, Spirit Bugs. There's some stuff here pretty reminiscent of Onimusha - Konami folks were originally promising "Bushido Blade meets Tenchu." While it's nowhere near a Tenchu game except perhaps in setting, Bushido Blade does start to explain it a bit. Once again I'm having a bit of control issues - the game has a fair number of combos as well as a Onimusha-like technical parry move, which is sweet to see in action but whose details are still a bit fuzzy to me (block+attack right when an enemy rushes at you seems to do it). Gameplay-wise, I'd actually have to judge it not being as aggressive a design as Nightmare Creatures, but certainly a more well fleshed-out one. There are some challenging parts - mainly bosses, but just getting through scrubby enemies without taking damage can be difficult. My major complaints so far are that gameplay is rather slow and a bit too stiff with controls, especially the out-of-place looking jump maneuver which would have been well replaced by a roll or dodge or something; it would also be nice to have some more button commands instead of just the analog stick + block + attack. Gameplay balance, including the reliance on health items, probably also plus the presence of some powerful weaponry, plus also a (again, like Nightmare Creatures) great ease of getting trapped flat footed, nudges players towards spending too much time slowly hacking at enemies instead of using fluid counters. Also, the sensibility of having 7 (or so) swords for the male character is kind of questionable. It's safe to say that Onimusha did this concept better, but this is a promising start for the idea.
Nightmare Creatures vs. Bushido Blade:
Nightmare Creatures has coffins trapped with seemingly undodgeable zombies, whiny ghosts, Adam (?) Crowley throwing dynamite, Samuel Pepys, upgradeable weapons, a bar with a sign that would be nice in a nicer game, enemies that can run just as well on one leg as on two and other unintentional sources of comedic body horrors, and crazy jumping.
Soul of the Samurai has a ronin that don't give a fuck 'bout da police, no Samuel Pepys, a monk with puroresu spirit, a questionably useful blacksmith, villagers experiencing sudden onset necrotization and other intentional sources of comedic body horrors, switchable threads, ikken hissatsu, delightful poetry, and soul bugs. Man, soul bugs.
At first I thought you weren't centering targets properly with the rightstick before trying to lock on, but just loaded up my file and visited various stages throughout the game. Didn't have a problem anywhere, lock-on was snapping to targets that were barely on screen, in front of me, didn't matter.
..Except that halberdier. Dead centre, just up the stairs, and it wouldn't lock-on. So you're right about him. It targeted him once he was already aggro'd and closing the distance so yeah it's annoying, but staying calm, blocking and hitting lock-on again meant it wasn't a problem. I will stress that he's the exception, rather than the rule. I've never considered the lock-on to be bad and was oddly unaware of our friend with the halberd, and I've played the damn game enough to unlock every trophy.
I also tried letting myself get surrounded and switching target between various enemies, that worked fine. I'd recommend hitting back towards an enemy if you want to target a guy behind you.. but left right seemed to work also. Though first I'd recommend getting out of the surrounded situation anyway.
Also, 1-2 is harsh for a new player, might be worth checking out the other archstones first if you're having trouble.. except Tower of Latria.
MOSQUITO FIGHTER wrote:Fallout New Vegas, Skullgirls, and Ultra SF IV. Played some Battle Fantasia earlier too. Never really got around to playing this one. It's okish. I guess nothing particularly wrong with it. It just doesn't really click very well with me for some reason. I really do like the soundtrack on it, though. Evokes that classic rpg vibe really well.
Battle Fantasia just feels too "my-first-fighting-game-ish" to me. Its overly simple, not much in the way of combos or advanced mechanics. I don't want it to be as absurd as GGXrd or anything, but it needs more to hold my interest. Too bad because I liked the art style and characters.
This is simultaneously the game I always wanted Nethack to be and the game I always wanted Diablo to be.
This game is all about nail-biting tactical turn-based combat in the style of the best roguelikes, yet has an interface as easy to use as torchlight. I'm impressed!
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.
An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.
Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
Finished the 1st two dungeons in Wind Waker. I'm really liking this game, it's maybe a bit too easy so far, but I'm not a difficulty snob, I have no issues with an easy game so long as it has something else that hooks me, in this case its great art direction and atmosphere. Sailing around on the open sea is great, good fun, stumbled upon a random submarine that I could explore. Great music in the Deku Tree area too.
A couple issues have arisen since I started, most notably the controls. I've always found the 3D Zelda games to have slightly ropey controls, I've never liked the lack of a jump button, and the game assigns many context sensitive buttons, including at least 4 functions to the A button, but then doesn't use 3 of the shoulder buttons at all...
Also, while the game gives the option to invert the X-axis, it gives no option for the Y-axis in 3rd person mode. How did this get overlooked? I've always played 3D games with an inverted Y-axis, wether its an FPS, adventure game, whatever, I've always preferred my camera stick to have airplane controls, where pulling back on the stick looks up, and pushing forward looks down. WHO THE HELL INVERTS THEIR X-AXIS??? Even worse... you can invert the Y-axis in 1st person mode, which would then make it confusing, having the axis switched only when throwing a boomerang or the grappling hook... stupid. I have to admit, while I haven't died at any bosses because of it... when the screen gets hectic or I get backed into a corner, I've mixed up the right stick and taken hits I normally wouldn't have.
I also don't understand why every dungeon has the worst spring reverb I've ever heard, for crying out loud, there are so many better reverb plugins out there now... why stick with the annoying one?
Otherwise this is great, and very, very pretty to look at.
Damn you'd think the Zoras wouldn't evolve out of their ideal environment.. urgh. they should be rulers of the damn ocean.
Nintendo first party games rarely give you any sort of options like that . It's been a while but you're saying camera controls is normal Y axis and 1st person is inverted? Im an inverter too, and that'd drive me batshit.
Grinding Gear Games released their expansion for Path of Exile last Friday, so I've been playing that lately to check out what's new. I created my witch on Sunday and am now level 21, following a crit arc build I found on the PoE forums because I'm too scrubby to think for myself (and I love arc). I'm only in the middle of Act 2 so I haven't gotten to the new act (Act 4) yet, nor have I encountered any of the bajillion new items added to the game, but there have also been a ton of quality of life tweaks and other new features since last September, which was the last time I played. Lockstep mode (no-desync netcode), quest reward gems purchasable from vendors, customizable loot filter, a couple rearranged maps/waypoints, visible item level without the /itemlevel command, exp per hour meter (mostly useful to satisfy curiosity), small latency graph (in addition to the large ones that existed before), and so on... the expansion's a real game-changer. Of course the core gameplay is still the same, but everything surrounding it works a lot smoother than before and with fewer annoyances distracting from the odd satisfaction of grinding for the sake of grinding. I'm not sure if I'll stick with it as long as I did before, but I do at least want to go through Normal difficulty to see the new act for myself.
NTSC-J:You know STGs are in trouble when you have threads on how to introduce them to a wider audience and get more people playing followed by threads on how to get its hardcore fan base to play them, too. 1CCs | Twitch | YouTube
Blinge wrote: It's been a while but you're saying camera controls is normal Y axis and 1st person is inverted? Im an inverter too, and that'd drive me batshit.
You can invert, but only in 1st person mode, 3rd person you are stuck with normal.
Unless the game turns to shit in the 2nd half Skies of Arcadia is the best RPG I've ever played.
It just keeps getting better and better the longer I play. And the stretch from Spoiler
Daccat's Island to escaping Valua the 2nd time
was a religious experience.
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
Hmm, I started playing it earlier this year and wasn't really feeling it. I felt like the combat didn't seem very deep and battles were really slow. I had just been playing etrian odyssey 3 with the battles on fast though, so that probably didn't help. I'll have to give it another go I think.
-edit- I also seem to remember not finding any of the characters very likeable.
Playing From Software's Eternal Ring on PS2 is a real shock.
I have (or had) fond memories of the Shadow Tower PS1 demo from the Underground disc I got with my first console, back around 1997/98. But for a game that's supposedly more advanced than Shadow Tower, Eternal Ring is shockingly bad so far. I will probably try to get past the first boss to see if things change enough for me to like it, but on the whole it feels like a waste of time. This has me somewhat rethinking my appraisal of the King's Field lineage of From Software games. Shadow Tower Abyss is excellent (and I finally got a physical copy + the art book on the cheap), but suddenly the only old From game of this lineage that looks like it could be passable is KF IV: The Ancient City, since Eternal Ring has me holding back my lunch and the earlier games are unquestionably going to be even rougher. Shadow Tower does have crossbows, at least, but HG101 was very muted about that too.
Speaking of things: That article sorely needs to be revisited since the Abyss translation has been released. How can you do a joint King's Field / Shadow Tower retrospective and not even mention Abyss? It may well prove to be the entire justification, pre-Souls, for the entire lineage.
Regrettably, single sessioning BDOOMv20-ized Thy Flesh Consumed has proven as addictive as previous vers, leaving many new (2 ME) games woefully unplayed. I am a committed VIOLENT GAMER, someone pls THINK OF TEH CHILDRENZ. ~Regs, The Bale Baron BIRUFORDO von BEAST FUCK Spoiler
TFW when you know zDOOM, a free mod and a level editor could happily obviate the rest of your game library.
spent an hour of nothing in GG:Xrd training mode failing to learn Slayer combos, took it to arcade mode and got bodied round 5 by Venom. I couldn't conceive how I could possibly win against his constant flurry of attacks.
I must be approaching the whole genre the wrong way, either that or should just commit to bashing my head against the wall until it breaks.
spent an hour of nothing in GG:Xrd training mode failing to learn Slayer combos, took it to arcade mode and got bodied round 5 by Venom. I couldn't conceive how I could possibly win against his constant flurry of attacks.
I must be approaching the whole genre the wrong way, either that or should just commit to bashing my head against the wall until it breaks.
I've been trying to get into fighting games too as of late, playing mostly Touhou SWR and Guilty Gear XX. I could make a freak show business over how bad I am at fighting games, but it does seem that bashing your head against the wall does produce results, as long as you aren't getting frustrated.
. It's been a while but you're saying camera controls is normal Y axis and 1st person is inverted? Im an inverter too, and that'd drive me batshit.
