What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:23 pm

Currently a chunk of hours into Super Daryl Deluxe, which is perhaps best described as a simplified, side-scrolling Diablo filtered through the mind of Napoleon Dynamite. It has its rough spots, but also two really big things, in my book at least, going for it: first, it absolutely oozes "passion project" from every orifice, it just feels like a small team doing the best "damn the torpedoes" they could with the ideas, inspirations and resources they had, and doesn't come across quite like anything else I've played. Second, and on a related note, as tempting as it is to stab oneself in the neck while on the oft-fruitless lookout for "hidden gems" on Steam these days, if you watch the trailer and read the description and wonder "gee, it seems like something I'd like (or hate), but can you ever trust the advertising these days?" let me assure you, the game is exactly what it says it is and precisely what it looks like (and runs without a hitch on a non-gaming laptop to boot). It's not tight enough to speedrun or anything like that, but I'll be darned if it's not one of the most pleasant out-of-left-field surprises on Steam in some time in my book.

M.Knight · Post by **M.Knight** » Sun Oct 21, 2018 9:29 am

soprano1 wrote:
Blinge wrote:Valstein Castle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSzaK_ueHY4
I came.

If you haven't listened to it already, check out The Boy's got Wings too. It's fantasic.
Felghana is a game that feels a blast from the very first second you start moving around and slashing monsters, and the music makes it even better.

soprano1 · Post by **soprano1** » Sun Oct 21, 2018 10:57 am

M.Knight wrote:If you haven't listened to it already, check out The Boy's got Wings too. It's fantasic.
Felghana is a game that feels a blast from the very first second you start moving around and slashing monsters, and the music makes it even better.

Oh, I did listen, alright!

FinalBaton · Post by **FinalBaton** » Sun Oct 21, 2018 2:55 pm

As is the case every Halloween, I'm currently replaying a classic Resident Evil

2 years ago I replayed RE2 on Playstation, last year it was RE : Code Veronica on Dreamcast(on 480p crt, looked glorious), and this year I'm replaying the OG. Resident Evil, on the Sony Playstation

Blinge · Post by **Blinge** » Sun Oct 21, 2018 6:38 pm

Haha. good shout man.

I was thinking of playing some horror in the next couple of weeks.
Not sure if this counts but this would be a good time to finally start Shadow Tower Abyss so i can tell Obscura he's wrong about everything..

In other news i've recently been playing Age of Empires II HD, and revenging myself on the campaigns that beat me as a kid. Barbarossa's dumb corpse has arrived in the Holy land and the original game's last scenario is now beaten. Some of them were fucking hard, still. God damn Persians and their elephants.
Gonna start on the Conquerors expansion now.
U ok, Huns?

Steamflogger Boss · Post by **Steamflogger Boss** » Sun Oct 21, 2018 7:03 pm

I've been playing Resident Evil 2 and I don't understand the appeal of these games at all sad to say.

Mischief Maker · Post by **Mischief Maker** » Sun Oct 21, 2018 8:03 pm

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock - Anabasis DLC.

Okay, wow. They weren't kidding about the enemy AI getting a boost. I started a fresh campaign and the two nemesis corvettes in the initial tutorial level that normally would have flown straight into my firing line, occasionally popping missile salvoes, were doing flanking maneuvers and one of them made a beeline for the Daidalos starbase. I had to launch fighters to shoot down several missile swarms (Cylons now seem to fire anime drunken missiles) until my own corvettes could catch up.

And the new Anabasis campaign is like the TV show meets FTL. You have a warfleet mixed with several civilian ships and each jump you have to survive for several rounds before jumping out to safety (one of two random locations, each with its own resource rewards and environmental hazards). Damage is persistent and if you jump without first landing your fighters, they are lost.

The one change I don't like is they brought back Star Hammer's thing where boosting engines gives a massive bonus to maneuverability in addition to speed.

This is a great game and it keeps getting better!

mycophobia · Post by **mycophobia** » Sun Oct 21, 2018 11:53 pm

Steamflogger Boss wrote:I've been playing Resident Evil 2 and I don't understand the appeal of these games at all sad to say.

theyre creepy

FinalBaton · Post by **FinalBaton** » Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:06 am

Steamflogger Boss wrote:I've been playing Resident Evil 2 and I don't understand the appeal of these games at all sad to say.

Ah really? that's too bad.

I've mentionned before how the game had me on the edge of my seat, because my inventory was really low and had to play really a long stretch without any ink ribbons among others(few medicine and ammo too). Heart pumping and relieved as all get out when I found some new ribbons. Stories of the sort. Legit big emotions. Lol. Inventory management, is one of the brilliance of this game. The fact you can't always save, is also.

Another thing I love about that series, and was VERY different back then (less so now with the abundence of survival horror games), is : you're not some powerful character, who just mows down enemies, like in a regular game. You're not a super human, or a badass OP ninja. No, it's the opposite : you are in DEEP SHIT. You are up shit creek, without a paddle. You're in so deep, that often, engaging in gun combat is not even an option! You are NOTHING, and scrambling to surive. And that feeling of powerlessness, has always really struck me as powerful, and interesting, in a game setting.

I love the fuck out of RE2 (and RE:CV too). It's one of my favourite gaming memories ever.

mycophobia · Post by **mycophobia** » Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:19 am

i beat re2 recently (claire a leon b) and finished re1 (jill) today, and i just started code veronica, which ive never played before bht it seems cool. i like that theyre basically adventure games but they dont suck.

FinalBaton · Post by **FinalBaton** » Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:22 am

hell yeah! I agree with that. That's a great way to look at it actually, haha

Code Veronica is awesome, I like it almost as much as RE2
The map is quite a bit bigger than in 2, but still compact in a way, and well designed and fun to traverse to the different areas

Blinge · Post by **Blinge** » Mon Oct 22, 2018 7:36 am

Have you ever played REmake or REmaster, baton?

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:04 pm

I picked up DV on sale a few months ago, not played this since finishing it on the DC. It looks bloody horrible on an HDTV, and I found it a bit frustrating - seems to be a lot of Zombs straight from the off that can only be run away from. Might fire it back up again tonight.

Steamflogger Boss · Post by **Steamflogger Boss** » Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:26 pm

mycophobia wrote:
Steamflogger Boss wrote:I've been playing Resident Evil 2 and I don't understand the appeal of these games at all sad to say.
theyre creepy

Yeah, not feeling it at all. Admittedly I've never really cared about horror much at all, movies or games. I remember trying some horror movies as a kid and I was just like, yeah okay this is fake and dumb. But anyway back to the game between the controls and not getting into the story I'm definitely just finishing it to finish it at this point. At least I'm almost done with the game.

FinalBaton wrote: Inventory management, is one of the brilliance of this game. The fact you can't always save, is also.

These are things that are really annoying. Not always being able to save I can kind of get behind for difficulty reasons but man, inventory management is ass.

FinalBaton wrote:Another thing I love about that series, and was VERY different back then (less so now with the abundence of survival horror games), is : you're not some powerful character, who just mows down enemies, like in a regular game. You're not a super human, or a badass OP ninja. No, it's the opposite : you are in DEEP SHIT. You are up shit creek, without a paddle. You're in so deep, that often, engaging in gun combat is not even an option! You are NOTHING, and scrambling to surive. And that feeling of powerlessness, has always really struck me as powerful, and interesting, in a game setting.

I can understand the appeal of this, I've like a few games like this recently.

Mischief Maker · Post by **Mischief Maker** » Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:02 pm

Steamflogger Boss wrote:
FinalBaton wrote:Another thing I love about that series, and was VERY different back then (less so now with the abundence of survival horror games), is : you're not some powerful character, who just mows down enemies, like in a regular game. You're not a super human, or a badass OP ninja. No, it's the opposite : you are in DEEP SHIT. You are up shit creek, without a paddle. You're in so deep, that often, engaging in gun combat is not even an option! You are NOTHING, and scrambling to surive. And that feeling of powerlessness, has always really struck me as powerful, and interesting, in a game setting.
I can understand the appeal of this, I've like a few games like this recently.

Well for me the opposite is the appeal of Aliens vs Predator 1 on the PC. They made it so you're in deep shit WITHOUT making your avatar a clumsy cripple.

In AvP1 you're as fast as the DOOM marine, your gun splatters Xenomorphs in a split second, you've already got an armor pickup at the start of the level, yet you are in VERY deep shit. Because the Aliens in this game are so much deadlier than normal FPS enemies, your vision is limited to flares whose smoke does as much to hide the Aliens as the light does to illuminate them, and at least half of them are placed in random starting locations so even if you've beaten the level several times before you never know if you're going to trip over a facehugger and get instakilled.

Blinge · Post by **Blinge** » Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:30 pm

Steamflogger Boss wrote: I can understand the appeal of this, I've like a few games like this recently.

Then you understand the appeal of survival horror.

Mischief Maker · Post by **Mischief Maker** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 2:54 am

Speed Brawl.

I give up. Not since Kromaia have I ever been so frustrated by an experimental indie game for not making it clear how exactly its gameplay loop is intended to work.

The premise of the game is you're running a race with several rooms where you have to stop and beat up all the enemies within before you're allowed to move on. Fair enough, so how do you beat up the enemies faster? You need to make attacks with "momentum" that you build by bouncing off walls or swinging around polls, etc. The game makes it clear when you have momentum by giving your character a colored trail. Attacks with full momentum do either 2x or 3x damage which translates to faster run times.

So I was expecting some kind of cross between Smash Bros. and Action Henk, which sounded amazing.

Unfortunately the game is nothing like that. First of all "momentum" is more a charge-up aura than anything physically related to how your character is moving. Falling from long distances does not equal momentum, you have to charge for a couple seconds mid-air before you can drop with any power. What's more, even when you do bounce off a surface into an enemy and start comboing them, your momentum goes away after the first punch (I think?) Again, I'm not sure of the game's intended loop, but for a game with "speed" in its title and revolving around the concept of "momentum" the actual gameplay is really slow and herky-jerky, and all the videos I've watched from the developer seem to show gameplay just as clunky.

It doesn't help that the animation for this game is terrible. Battle Chef Brigade is another brawler with very low numbers of animation frames, but has the excuse that every frame is exquisitely detailed, and aside from the dragon most of your enemies have clear attack patterns that don't catch you off guard. Speed Brawl has awful anime art (the lead character is Goku with tits) and the 2-3 frame enemy animations are really clunky to time for dodges.

Bleh! I'm open to finding out that I was playing it wrong and there's actually a fun fluid speedy experience to be enjoyed here, but I doubt it, especially considering I was getting gold medals in everything before I quit.

WelshMegalodon · Post by **WelshMegalodon** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 5:27 am

I wrote:I'm not sure what to think about Origins. Final Fantasy II received enough bugfixes and tweaks to bring it out of its borderline-unplayable status, but at the cost of Uematsu's chiptunes and Shibuya's lovely sprite art. I suppose the changes made to inventory and armor management in the first game also count as "improvements", but they also take away some of the edge that the game inherited from Wizardry. The cutscenes added to the first game also seem unnecessary, and I never complained about the high encounter rate until I saw it paired with loading times. I do appreciate what is purported to be a more faithful translation, though*, and I believe the Intelligence bug in the first game was retained for this release. (The addition of kanji also makes the Japanese version of this release significantly easier to read.)

So...

I'm still not a huge fan of the redone graphics, but after trying VI-IX I found that this was the only mainline Final Fantasy on the PlayStation I was actually interested in playing. The new assets became much easier to stomach once I started approaching this as its own game rather than as a "replacement" for the original, and to be honest, once I started playing the numerous bugfixes and altered random encounter tables actually made Origins feel more unlike FF1 than I had initially thought. Being able to buy dozens of potions at once also makes you much more open to actually using them later in the game. If nothing else, Squaresoft deserves some cred for shipping the game with a Normal Mode.

It still bugs me that the space station housing the last crystal was toned down to a mere flying castle, though. That change reflects the feel of the game as a whole, really - it's Final Fantasy, but with less of the quirks that made it a little "out there". No being forced to throw away equipment before you can see what's inside a chest. No having a hard time running away due to the calculation being bugged. No weapons and armor with elemental affinities being mostly useless. No 'Ineffective'. No Healra actually restoring more health than it should. No exploiting the Kaizoku trick early in the game (although abusing the Peninsula of Power is actually easier in this version thanks to the memo save and the battles going by more quickly).

I initially opted for the Easy Mode thinking I wouldn't have the patience to sit through all the loading times, cutscenes, and animations, but I quickly reconsidered because Easy Mode just makes the game too easy. It isn't Final Fantasy without the threat of death constantly looming over your head.

Looking back, I think FinalBaton would have proven more useful as a companion on this journey than BIL, but for some reason I had trouble getting his name down to six characters. =P

Addendum: the pink-haired NPCs at Crescent Lake now have green hair like other NPCs. How boring.

Stevens · Post by **Stevens** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 8:52 am

I played through FF on origins a few years back. Balanced party was nice and easy, but then I tried four black mages. Mistake.

I got to the final dungeon pretty under leveled, and despite the power you wield you simply have no way the heal other than potions. I didn't feel like grinding that Shit out either.

WelshMegalodon · Post by **WelshMegalodon** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 2:15 pm

The game gives you two Heal Helmets and a Heal Staff, so it is possible to leave a single nonlethal enemy on the battlefield and spend 4-6 rounds healing. (Once again, this process is much speeder in Origins.) Multiple Light Axes and the Mage's Staff also make it a cinch to farm the Dragon Zombies in the Castle of Ordeals for experience.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Sun Oct 28, 2018 3:21 am

Pang/Buster Bros. (arcade) - Got to stage 24/Paris on 1 credit. Being with Capcom at the time, Tamayo Kawamoto did the BGM. Really good stuff. If they get the PS1 BB collection out on PSN, I'll re-buy it.

Watched a video of Ocean's Amiga version on Youtube... it's amazing. A lot of arcade games got totally murdered in transition to the Amiga- but not this one, which actually looks nearly as good as the PlayStation version.

Blinge · Post by **Blinge** » Sun Oct 28, 2018 6:48 am

Welshy the first time I saw that FF image i totally missed the names

You absolute madman

Why am I the white mage ¬_¬

FinalBaton · Post by **FinalBaton** » Sun Oct 28, 2018 3:10 pm

@Welsh Thanks for the consideration

You could have typed in "Baton"

judging by that pic this is the GBA version of FF1? Looks like it's the one with the most new content according to the research I did on this remake. I have the cart here so maybe I'll try it. I was hesitant to play the thing cause I find the character sprites to look wonky, but since you seem to have had a decent enough time with the game, I think I'll give it a try(it is snowing here and I feel like staying in cozy and playing an RPG. good timing). Thanks for your impressions on it.

I have to add : like you, I have a weird fondness for dem NES FF quirks. The game just gels for me and make for a kickass package and so I can forgive some of the looser aspects. But I really shouldn't be giving my opinion on that game since I'm biased af

it is, after all, the most important game of my life and I have the feelz just thinking aboot it. Nostalgia overload here

Blinge wrote:Why am I the white mage ¬_¬

That's because you are a very, very wise platypus

WelshMegalodon · Post by **WelshMegalodon** » Sun Oct 28, 2018 8:32 pm

Blinge wrote:Why am I the white mage ¬_¬

You're complaining about being the only character that can revive dead party members, fully restore any character's health with a single spell, and warp instantly out of any dungeon? I thought you'd be flattered. =D

FinalBaton wrote:judging by that pic this is the GBA version of FF1?

No, no, this is the Origins remake on the PlayStation, which we've discussed before as being an enhanced port of the WonderSwan Color remake. Everything from Dawn of Souls onward is to be avoided for reasons mentioned in previous threads.

Bananamatic wrote:I don't really like the GBA and newer FF1 ports, they removed all of that and replaced it with being able to save anywhere, everything is way cheaper, leveling is easier, you have the usual mana system where you can spam spells much more, etc.

FinalBaton wrote:I have to add : like you, I have a weird fondness for dem NES FF quirks. The game just gels for me and make for a kickass package and so I can forgive some of the looser aspects. But I really shouldn't be giving my opinion on that game since I'm biased af it is, after all, the most important game of my life and I have the feelz just thinking aboot it. Nostalgia overload here

The purist in me feels much the same way, which is one of the reasons I had held off on giving this one a serious try for so long. There's something about the original's roughness around the edges that gives it a bit more of its own personality - this remake, while not a bad game, feels so much more vanilla in comparison. (I'm still not sure whether Mindflayers having a non-elemental death attack was carried over into this remake. Or other shenanigans like Mummies having a status attack that is actually poison/stone elemental, etc.) I guess it's sort of a Real Bout vs Real Bout 2 situation?

Not to mention that the sprite art in the original had far more character.

Spoiler

FinalBaton wrote:You could have typed in "Baton"

Duly noted. =P

FinalBaton · Post by **FinalBaton** » Sun Oct 28, 2018 9:28 pm

Ah I see. I also have the ps1 remake and have never played it. If I ever feel like playing a remake, I'll go with that one (didn't remember that it was better than the gba one, forgive my shit memory).

And yeah the NES Game's sprites are incredible. Legendary stuff even. A fine compendium of the occult
(Sweey Home seems pretty awesome in that rgard too)

Here's one of my fave, that I used as a thumbnail for one of my chiptune compositions :

Also really like this

And this

And of course, the character classes sprites are really sharp

Obscura · Post by **Obscura** » Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:45 am

Started Nioh tonight. Shit port, but seems playable at least.

As for the game... is it just me, or is this "Dark Souls but it completely misses the point"? I mean, a fucking quest compass in a Souls-like?!?!

Sumez · Post by **Sumez** » Mon Oct 29, 2018 10:09 am

"Dark Souls but it completely misses the point" sums up Nioh quite nicely. Especially the reuse of locations for multiple missions, as well as the random loot system, completely screws up the concept. Nioh relies much more on stats/character builds than a Souls game.

It does have enough qualities of its own to make it highly enjoyable though. I especially like the aspect of the enemy's stamina being a factor in combat, allowing you to either run them tired or use special methods of trying to stun them. The combat gameplay is generally extremely well designed, and it has some pretty awesome boss fights - usually harder than what you'd find in a Souls game, despite the stages being notably easier.

Sumez · Post by **Sumez** » Mon Oct 29, 2018 10:48 am

I had the game Agony on my PS4 wishlist for some reason, and it seems to be on sale right now. Still a little pricey though, and now I wonder what made me wishlist it.

Did anyone around here play it, and what do you have to say about it?

Obscura · Post by **Obscura** » Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:57 pm

Sumez wrote:"Dark Souls but it completely misses the point" sums up Nioh quite nicely. Especially the reuse of locations for multiple missions, as well as the random loot system, completely screws up the concept. Nioh relies much more on stats/character builds than a Souls game.

It does have enough qualities of its own to make it highly enjoyable though. I especially like the aspect of the enemy's stamina being a factor in combat, allowing you to either run them tired or use special methods of trying to stun them. The combat gameplay is generally extremely well designed, and it has some pretty awesome boss fights - usually harder than what you'd find in a Souls game, despite the stages being notably easier.

After finishing the first "real" mission last night (the fisherman's island where you fight the demon inside the boat), I'm wondering if I'm missing something on the combat. It seems to me that the stance system is almost totally pointless? Even using Odachi, it seems like just a thing you can do to extend combos and, with the right skills, get some bonus on your Ki Pulse. Otherwise, it seems you want to be in medium, like, all the time; longer hitstun so it combos better than low, generally better angular coverage than low too, and generally "fast enough". High stance outside of using a mid-stance attack to combo into it with Odachi is just miserable for the most part, and low doesn't have enough faster of a startup to cover for its worse coverage and damage. With Axe it's even worse, the high-stance attacks are hot garbage that serve to just get you killed. It's still early and I don't have a lot of skills unlocked (having to "unlock" skills like DMC/GOW instead of just having the whole weapon's moveset Souls-style is another huge drawback here...), but so far, things are just "dodge, basic combo, ki-pulse if you've got the time to just sit there" (and, notably, the skill that lets you ki-pulse on a dodge seems broken). It's neither fish nor fowl, with neither the freeform flair of a DMC or the tactical variety of a Souls.

Grapple is fun though, I'll give it that.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the devil trigger giving you complete invincibility is ridiculous. I mean come on.

Sumez · Post by **Sumez** » Mon Oct 29, 2018 3:18 pm

Obscura wrote: I'm wondering if I'm missing something on the combat. It seems to me that the stance system is almost totally pointless? Even using Odachi, it seems like just a thing you can do to extend combos and, with the right skills, get some bonus on your Ki Pulse. Otherwise, it seems you want to be in medium, like, all the time; longer hitstun so it combos better than low, generally better angular coverage than low too, and generally "fast enough". High stance outside of using a mid-stance attack to combo into it with Odachi is just miserable for the most part, and low doesn't have enough faster of a startup to cover for its worse coverage and damage.

I think it depends on your play style. I've heard of people constantly switching between stances, and enjoying that aspect of the game. But personally I found that whenever I switched to a stance I wasn't too familiar with, it'd just hurt my performance. Some times I tried to to go into high stance for specific boss fights if I felt like I only had very few openings and needed to dish out more damage. But at every moment where I thought it gave me some kind of advantage, I always ended up doing even better when switching back to the stance I was used to!

Personally I ended up exclusively using low style (aka. cool dodgey ninja boi) with two handed sword for the entire game, and enjoying that style immensely.

It's neither fish nor fowl, with neither the freeform flair of a DMC or the tactical variety of a Souls.

In general, I think the common enemies you encounter throughout the stages leave a lot to be desired. I usually just do the dodge->counter or slash-stunlocks to kill enemies no matter who they are, and the game doesn't really have a lot of variety in that regard. You'll basically run into the same 5-10 different enemies throughout the entirety of the game. Compare to Souls where every new area present you with entirely new challenges.
However, the game IMO makes up for that with its boss fights which forced me to rethink my strategy a lot. Most of them will kill you in just one or two hits!

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the devil trigger giving you complete invincibility is ridiculous. I mean come on.

I always hated that kind of "rage" mechanic in a game. Feels like it's only there to help people having trouble playing legit, so you get rewarded from performing poorly.
That said, as you get futher into the game, the "living weapon" mode will start charging a lot more often, and usually end up being a lot less useful. I tended to die a lot whenever I started relying on the "safety" of said mode. The thing is, even if you don't take damage from attacks, they WILL drain your bar very quickly, and the most damaging attacks will end up carrying over into your life bar, too.

Here's an example of a boss fight that I handled excellently until stupidly losing the fight in the very end when I decided to finish her off with a rage attack (skip to the end if you just want to see that part):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s51xMdXJLs

(I guess it's a spoiler if you want to discover all the bosses on your own, but I think it's the next boss you'll face, or the one after. This is the NG+ refight)

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