What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Mischief Maker]

I'm alpha testing Aztez.

If you're a fan of Devil May Cry, keep an eye out for this one.

[iconoclast]

I never played the Fencer much so I can't really help, but I think you're supposed to move by dash canceling. If you use your shield's reflection ability after dashing, it cancels the recovery and lets you dash again, so his mobility is much better than it seems at first. Beyond that, I dunno.

EDF can also get very very hard on Inferno. I was stuck on Mission 77 for 10+ hours IIRC, and there are plenty of other ones that are just as hard. But it really depends on how much you grind. You can farm practically infinite health and nullify all difficulty, but that just ruins the game. I'd recommend starting on Hard and progressing through each difficulty naturally, at least until you get stuck on Inferno. Since Inferno (and even VH) can be so tough, sometimes you'll at least feel like you need certain weapons to complete a mission. And since loot is random, you'll probably end up farming one of the easier missions until you get what you're looking for. It's boring, but the farming period wasn't bad for me in 4.1 since it has lots of enemies and the item box drop rate is pretty high.

[null1024]

Virtual On Marz [PS2].
don't make this mistake

The worst bit is, it could at least be kind of fun... if it weren't so dreadfully slow.
The plot and presentation are corny as fuck and I at least can appreciate how fucking stupid it is, but god damn.

I've timed out more than I've outright lost missions, it's kind of aggravating.
The game is slower than OG Virtual On. It didn't need to be super-turbo fast like VOOT [I'd have appreciated that, though] -- but the decision to slow the pace down so much was a mistake, anyone who remotely enjoys VO will feel like they're swimming in molasses, anyone who hasn't played the series will wonder why the fuck this game exists.

man, the most disappointing thing about this game is that it's probably going to continue to be the last VO game forever
also, there's like a dozen different Temjin units, fucking hell

and yeah, I know it's based on VO:Force, but that game was a mistake too

[Strider77]

Powerslave on Saturn for the first time. Great so far, I enjoy the Metroid like elements and I'm a sucker for the Egyptian motif. I have to set it aside and go back and finish Last Guardian... quite eager to get back to it though.

[evil_ash_xero]

Still working on Platinum-ing Dark Souls III.

The Last Guardian.

[copy-paster]

SSF2T

I might just stick II X forever, can't stand the Super Turbo's A.I.

[Marc]

Metal Slug, which I can play perfectly for two and a half levels. Then the ST3 mid boss wrecks my shit.

And Resi 0, which I played once on release and never touched again. Imagine my surprise an beating the train level in around 20 minutes and knifing the scorpion to death.

[Immryr]

I never played the Fencer much so I can't really help, but I think you're supposed to move by dash canceling. If you use your shield's reflection ability after dashing, it cancels the recovery and lets you dash again, so his mobility is much better than it seems at first. Beyond that, I dunno.

EDF can also get very very hard on Inferno. I was stuck on Mission 77 for 10+ hours IIRC, and there are plenty of other ones that are just as hard. But it really depends on how much you grind. You can farm practically infinite health and nullify all difficulty, but that just ruins the game. I'd recommend starting on Hard and progressing through each difficulty naturally, at least until you get stuck on Inferno. Since Inferno (and even VH) can be so tough, sometimes you'll at least feel like you need certain weapons to complete a mission. And since loot is random, you'll probably end up farming one of the easier missions until you get what you're looking for. It's boring, but the farming period wasn't bad for me in 4.1 since it has lots of enemies and the item box drop rate is pretty high.

nice to see you don't have an insane amount of hp in that video. i watched someone on youtube playing inferno missions as fencer and he had 20,000 hp! haha. that must have been some serious grinding.

[Squire Grooktook]

SSF2T

I might just stick II X forever, can't stand the Super Turbo's A.I.

Reminder that vs ai in fighting games is either the worst form of pattern memorization imaginable or it's just a guessing game.

Fighting games are elaborate games of rock/paper/scissors. Play against a human or you're just rolling dice or abusing ai loops.

[WelshMegalodon]

...unless you're playing the original Street Fighter and its semi-official sequel Garou Densetsu. These are closer to Yie ar Kung-Fu than they are to International Karate and should be seen as predecessors to titles like Warzard. Ryuuko no Ken can also be said to fall into this category.

[FinalBaton]

SSF2T

I might just stick II X forever, can't stand the Super Turbo's A.I.

I play the (excellent)Dreamcast port a lot, and while it's quite the challenge, it's no cheaper than the best player I played against on Fightcade, haha.

While great players can't read your inputs, they CAN force you into situations that favours them. And they will do that ad nauseam, lol.

So far I don't get the feeling that the A.I is often being cheap though. Maybe I'm just not good at noticing that?
Each time I play the arcade mode I beat it. I loose a bunch of matches but eventually I get through.


EDIT : just realised you specified "Turbo" and not "x". Are you saying there's a difference in the AI between SSF2X and SSF2T?

[WelshMegalodon]

EDIT : just realised you specified "Turbo" and not "x". Are you saying there's a difference in the AI between SSF2X and SSF2T?

Yep.

[copy-paster]

Reminder that vs ai in fighting games is either the worst form of pattern memorization imaginable or it's just a guessing game.

Yeah you're right, honestly I wasn't spend much time playing FGs so I can't speak more about it.

just realised you specified "Turbo" and not "x". Are you saying there's a difference in the AI between SSF2X and SSF2T?

Aside from links given by WM above, here's the real difference.

[atheistgod1999]

If I max the graphics settings in Skyrim SE on my new custom-built PC, I get ~50FPS on average. Should I lower them, or is 50FPS good enough for that game?

[chempop]

Played INSIDE (PS4) from beginning to end in 1 sitting last night, a masterpiece!
Pro-tip: turn off the lights and give yourself a handful of hours because you will not want to put it down until you complete it.

[Ruldra]

For some reason I never really played the original Prince of Persia. I did finish the SNES version years ago but never played more than a couple levels from the original. So decided to give it a try yesterday.

I appreciate that the game is short enough to finish in one sitting. And the time given to you is pretty strict. Averaging 5 minutes per level, if you get stuck somewhere not knowing where to go, or if you keep messing up, the game quickly becomes unwinnable. Once you know your way around and make a beeline to the exit however, you'll have plenty of time for the later levels. So you're encouraged to learn the stage layouts and to really master the jump mechanics.

Now that I played the original, I see the SNES version with new eyes. I truly appreciate what they did in the remake: better graphics and music, more levels, new boss fights, the recurring encounters with Jaffar...only problem is that the game is way longer and can't be done in one sitting anymore (well technically it's possible but it's much tougher to do it), but damn it's better than the original in every way. One of my favorite games on the console for sure.

[null1024]

Still playing Virtual On Marz. Dunno why, but I have to see this shitshow through.
When you get a VR that isn't worthlessly slow [got a Temjin that's not fuck-slow after I was done with the Moon missions and one of the Viper II descendants that I can't remember the name of after beating the shit out of the Rose sisters with said not-shit Temjin], the game is almost fun.

They're still pretty slow though -- think Grys-Vok in VOOT [who moves at a reasonable clip for a heavy mech, but isn't particularly fast].

and then the game decides to just throw a bunch of 3 on 1 fights at you and you just get dogpiled -- was still kind of fun, the not-Viper II was pretty baller with weapon properties that seemed more like Viper II in VOOM than Cypher from VOOT [which I can't use for shit, I just get bodied whenever I try to use that thing] and I was pretty much at home and happy, but getting dogpiled really sucks fucking fuck, especially when you have paper-thin armor

and after that shit, there's some convoy missions after whatshisface with the stupid hat leaves

There's a blow up the enemy convoy one that would have been fun if it didn't boil down to "standing/walking right weapon x99999, occasionally turbo right weapon" [fast Temjin's other weapons suck and the not-Viper II didn't do enough damage to the convoy before it drove away even though all of its weapons are fairly good against VRs]. After like a dozen tries, I got that one down, sometimes the AI will absolutely gang up on you and mercilessly exploit VO's dash-freeze and pretty much hit you every time you try to move away, and lots of what felt like input reading shit any time you did anything more complicated than just mash right weapon.
And now I'm on the other one, defend four ridiculously slow vehicles from being fucked. As soon as the first one comes out the gate, you can't do enough damage to the enemy VRs to stop the vehicle from taking like 50% damage.

would love to use not-Viper II, but the thing takes too much damage, like every model in its line
but it at least has better weapons

Also, the close combat mechanics in this game suck and I hate them.
Trying to hit something in CC is more likely to have your opponent perfectly jump out of the way and then hit you while you're in recovery from your attack, and sometimes you'll definitely be in CC range and the CC mode won't enable anyway.
And if you try to dash away, the enemy is of course at advantage, because Marz seems to want to pound it into your head that dashing is ridiculously bad as an option if you don't them and that dashing attacks of any variety are almost ridiculously bad.

I'm starting to miss V-Armor a lot, too. Enemies being able to shoot you from ages away is obnoxious, and sitting from miles away and just using not-Viper's center weapon and it two shotting the enemy isn't interesting.

and if I think about it, it's like they wanted to make this game as not-Oratan-like as they could without removing all of OT's mechanics

[WelshMegalodon]

For some reason I never really played the original Prince of Persia. I did finish the SNES version years ago but never played more than a couple levels from the original. So decided to give it a try yesterday.

I appreciate that the game is short enough to finish in one sitting. And the time given to you is pretty strict. Averaging 5 minutes per level, if you get stuck somewhere not knowing where to go, or if you keep messing up, the game quickly becomes unwinnable. Once you know your way around and make a beeline to the exit however, you'll have plenty of time for the later levels. So you're encouraged to learn the stage layouts and to really master the jump mechanics.

Now that I played the original, I see the SNES version with new eyes. I truly appreciate what they did in the remake: better graphics and music, more levels, new boss fights, the recurring encounters with Jaffar...only problem is that the game is way longer and can't be done in one sitting anymore (well technically it's possible but it's much tougher to do it), but damn it's better than the original in every way. One of my favorite games on the console for sure.

Undoubtedly a fondly-remembered classic, and rightfully so. Be sure to try the Apple ][ original for animation you wouldn't have believed possible in 1989.

Do you have an opinion on the Mega-CD conversion? I remember not liking the control, but it could very well have been the emulator.

[null1024]

maybe I'm posting in this thread too much at the moment, but I guess I'm playing a bunch of video games to make up for barely playing anything for a while

Decided to check out Evil Zone [PS1].
Did Setsuna's story. Loving how corny the localization is, the voice acting, lines, and delivery are 11/10 "so bad it's perfect". Apparently, they actually had big-name voice actors for the Japanese version though, so it's still a bit of a shame. There's a little codex entry for everyone too, it's pretty great seeing things like that.
I thought the voices desyncing from the animation and then waiting until the line was an issue with disc screaming. But no, apparently they just speak too long.

The AI likes to throwloop you constantly near the end, and I cheesed Ihaduca out really lazily.
Visuals are fairly nice, except when the game decides to zoom in on the single-pixel wide wireframe strands of hair. Control is a bit iffy, despite being piss-simple. Blocking seems to be stupidly good in this, even if the game has universal full-screen grabs as a mechanic.
The fights look cool, even if some of the cinematic animations get old a tad quickly.

and really, I'd watch Guardian Angel Setsuna

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah I've never played it against a friend so I can't comment on it aesthetically, but Evil Zone is hilarious awesome presentation wise.

[Ruldra]

Do you have an opinion on the Mega-CD conversion? I remember not liking the control, but it could very well have been the emulator.

Just gave it a quick try. Not sure but the controls do seem to be a bit off compared to the DOS version, had more trouble than usual fighting the guards. Nothing that really breaks the game though.

[kaicooper]

House of the Undying Sun

awesom Space Fighter Combat..
its like Freespace and Star Wars TIE Fighter had a baby
controls r the best but u really need to plan and have some tactics to win
its not just shoot and run..its awesom hard game..and if u dare
play it on Hardest..insane


====

EverSpace (Early Access)

this game has one of the Best graphics in space..lazer bullets all over the screen
and great fights but neeed alot of time to learn the control..its hard

[BrianC]

Be sure to try the Apple ][ original for animation you wouldn't have believed possible in 1989.

Apple II Karateka also has impressive animation for the time it came out.

[Gespenst]

Replaying Ace Combat 3 (JP) in anticipation of the final English translation release within next week.

[BulletMagnet]

I backed Shantae: Half-Genie Hero on Kickstarter way back when, and thus got the game a week or two early; it's not the tightest or most hardcore platformer you'll ever play, certainly (certain upgrade combinations all but break it), but it looks lovely and runs surprisingly smoothly on my non-gaming laptop. It's not terribly long (took me around 6 hours my first playthrough, just a few percentage points shy of 100 completion-wise), which makes me wish that they'd gotten enough funding for an extra stage/mode or two, though there are a handful of stretch goals that did make it in which haven't been implemented yet, so I'll hafta try those at some point. Overall, if you don't mind a "breezy" experience this one's a solid pickup.

Elsewhere in Kickstarters That Actually Came To Fruition I've also been having a go at Hyper Light Drifter; I finished the "mountain" and "forest" areas without TOO much trouble, but the "water" area has a couple of spots where you need to perform repeated, precise dashes to pass, and I'm having a hell of a time with those. The lag time between the two/three dashes you can do immediately in a row isn't much, but it always turns out to be more than enough for a fire trap to activate or a disappearing block to vanish...there's something about the technique that I'm missing, and it's driving me nuts.

[Ghegs]

^- I played through Shantae: Half-Genie Hero in one day, took me about 7 hours (99% completion, don't know what I could've missed). Very easy game, but I found it thoroughly entertaining. So as per usual for a Shantae game, really. Difficulty isn't really what they're going for with the series.

Hyper Light Drifter[...]The lag time between the two/three dashes you can do immediately in a row isn't much, but it always turns out to be more than enough for a fire trap to activate or a disappearing block to vanish...there's something about the technique that I'm missing, and it's driving me nuts.

The time in which you have to execute the next dash shortens just a bit after every dash. So you can't keep a steady rhythm to it, but hit the button just a hair faster after each dash. Until it's at the maximum speed, anyhow. You can pull off long dash combos with a bit of practice.

[M.Knight]

How does 1/2 Genie Hero compare to its predecessors and Pirate's Curse in particuliar?

I played the latter on 3DS and thought it provided upgrades that complement each other very well. And because they can be used together to expand our range of movements, the pirate weapons easily felt better than the disjointed and pace-breaking dances. Did this step backwards hamper your enjoyment of 1/2 Genie Hero?

[BulletMagnet]

Did this step backwards hamper your enjoyment of 1/2 Genie Hero?

I've only played a little of Pirate's Curse, but I will say that based on the other Shantae experiences I've had the controls feel quite good - there are still some occasional cheap hits lying about within the levels, but they're mostly annoyances. As for the dances specifically, it's actually not bad - when you hit the "dance" button everything freezes, and four icons appear around you, each representing a transformation, and you just hit a directional button to change (and hit the dance button again once you're ready to instantly change back). Once you have more than four dances the icons will shift between up to three "sets" every second or two, so you'll sometimes have to wait a moment for the one you want to appear, but you can actually buy an item to make them shift faster, so overall I found transforming to be a mostly painless mechanic.

The time in which you have to execute the next dash shortens just a bit after every dash. So you can't keep a steady rhythm to it, but hit the button just a hair faster after each dash.

Thanks for that, will have to try it out!

[WelshMegalodon]

While I like that high-quality 2D games are still being made these days, I don't think I find Hyper Light Drifter's "retro" aesthetic as appealing as actual low-res art (such as, say, TwinBee Yahho!) from whatever time period it is attempting to evoke. Something to do with the way fancy lighting effects and rich color palettes are juxtaposed with "blocky" graphics, or perhaps the unfortunate resemblance it bears to raw capture footage from an emulator.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Yeah, I can't say I'm a fan of the "old-school but not really" aesthetic a lot of indie games go for.

Once you have more than four dances the icons will shift between up to three "sets" every second or two, so you'll sometimes have to wait a moment for the one you want to appear, but you can actually buy an item to make them shift faster

Wow, and I thought "climb ladders faster" in MM8 was a lame upgrade

- - -

I'd talk about games I've played, but lately I've just been like

Spoiler