What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Steven]

I like Sonic Colors a lot, and it's slowly becoming one of my favourite Sonic games, but if someone was to say to me "I think Sonic Colors is shit" I'd understand. It is super messy in spots, and the recent port has a lot of problems that never got fixed. I have never played the DS version or the original Wii version, but I have been thinking about finding both of them.

I played Colors with the Japanese voice acting and text, but a few days ago I learned that the game's original language is apparently English and not Japanese, so I might play through again in English, as I always prefer to consume media in the original language if possible. I knew this was the case for Frontiers, so I played that in English, but it seems that a few Sonic games were originally written in English. The lip sync for Sonic 06 absolutely does not match the Japanese voices at all, so I am guessing that 06 might be the same way.

I don't think Colors is bad but I just find it's levels to be less interesting compared to what I prefer in a Sonic game. Aquarium Park and certain Asteroid Coaster acts stand out to me. But a lot of levels feel like an NES game instead of a flowing, organic Sonic stage. Lots of blocky sections. Lots of sitting and waiting on platforms. And it doesn't help that 80% of the game is in 2D which is massively disappointing for what it is. They never stopped doing this until their little Breath of the Wild ripoff. But Colors was the most egregious about it.

I do miss having that little double jump and it's water sections. Colors probably handled water the best in the series. And again, aesthetically it's one of Sonic's highlights. It's fun, exaggerated, festive, and is still unique in it's theming among his games. It's a lot better than more generic ancient ruins strewn about empty grass plains.

I have barely played any NES/FC games aside from Dracula, so I will take your word for it. The double jump is back in Frontiers, though, and it's probably a bit more useful there than in Colors. Frontiers also has the drop dash for some reason, but it is not especially useful in most situations. I can see it being marginally more useful in the Cyber Space stages if I ever bothered to attempt to remember that the drop dash is actually in the game, though.

[Gamer707b]

Just finished Resident Evil 4 Remake on PS4. Didn't like the original back in the day, but really dug this one. The combat felt satisfying. I'll do another playthrough on Hardcore eventually, but now I'm going back to my shmups.

[Ghegs]

Finally finished Metroid Prime, a task somewhere around 20 years of making, though this was the Remastered version.

I had the game back when on GameCube, played up to the final boss and never finished it. I still have Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii, I've played that one up to the final boss as well but never finished it there either.

This time I forced myself to beat the game so I could finally be done with it.

I like the game's exploration aspect much more than I like the combat, so when I get to the final boss, it's like...why bother with the boring part, when I've already done all the fun stuff? Especially the last two bosses which do the annoying "I'm only vulnerable for a brief period of time, just hang around until that happens" -bit.

[guigui]

Just started Death's Door, following ^'s nice read some pages ago about this game.

Apart from that really weird player character design (what, a bird that cannot fly, cannot jump ?!), I like everything about it until now. Currently trying to decipher the Urn's Witch mansion with the much needed help of my SoupHead companion.

I cannot stop seeing Dark Souls references in many places in this games. Also, most brutal game over screen ever.
Maybe I hope more character customization, weapons, upgrades, and moves will open soon because I find myself a bit limited in my options for now. Let's see how this turns out.

[copy-paster]

Gremlins 2 No death run down.

This is one of most hell of a platforming I've seen, featuring spike balls with konami hitboxes and some pixel-perfect jumps. I had to skip the last platforming on the last stage with balloon strat.

Despite this I've also appreciated of how fair it is: falling doesn't remove your entire healthbar, vicious jumps can be skipped with balloon. Boss fights are NG1-tier non-Jaquio bad though as you can cheese by standing there and keep spam your shot until they die.

[XoPachi]

Just started Death's Door, following ^'s nice read some pages ago about this game.

Apart from that really weird player character design (what, a bird that cannot fly, cannot jump ?!), I like everything about it until now. Currently trying to decipher the Urn's Witch mansion with the much needed help of my SoupHead companion.

I cannot stop seeing Dark Souls references in many places in this games. Also, most brutal game over screen ever.
Maybe I hope more character customization, weapons, upgrades, and moves will open soon because I find myself a bit limited in my options for now. Let's see how this turns out.

Death's Door left me unfulfilled and I never cared to finish it myself.
Maybe I should try it again. Not like I refunded it or anything.

[Mortificator]

Many, many 3v3 matches of Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II Retribution Elite. Let's break down that title...
* Warhammer – A line of models and attached tabletop games
* 40k – The futuristic spin-off that became more popular than the fantasy world
* Dawn of War – Series of real-time strategy & tactics games from the Company of Heroes devs
* II – Middle installment with smaller unit count but much more in-depth combat
* Retribution – Standalone expansion, has the complete multiplayer and last stand modes and its own campaign
* Elite – Multiplayer mod that fills out the six existing factions and adds a seventh

Spoiler

Playing as Imperial Guard (Inquisitor, usually) and Tyranids (Hive Tyrant). If you want to see what matches are like, check out Indrid's channel, especially the faction wars.

Spoiler

There's a certain scope I like Warhams games best at. 40k isn't mechanically or thematically suited to individual heroism, and on the opposite end, large-scale wargames lose its strength as a model line. Playing a Total War match effectively means being zoomed out to the point where your fantastic creatures are indistinct blobs, and they don't have historical depth to draw on due to being ahistorical, created primarily to look cool. DoW2 sits at just the right midpoint. It also fits the CoH mold better than CoH, which is so gamey that it barely can be said to simulate World War II while also being close enough that you're seeing squads of drab army men. Might as well replace 'em with flaming swords and bare demon butts.

Spoiler

[BIL]

That's a pretty glaring tactical disadvantage, someone could run up and bum that dude before he knew what (or who!) hit him

[Mortificator]

That's a pretty glaring tactical disadvantage, someone could run up and bum that dude before he knew what (or who!) hit him

Rectal health is an ongoing concern in the 41st millennium

Spoiler

Dedicated nurses laser in on the problem area



Proctologists follow up with a 12-gauge enema



Cleansing and relief

[Lander]

I've been bashing my way through the La-Mulana remake, with the intent of finally finishing it come hell or high water.

This is attempt number four: The run in which I finally stop being dogmatic about guide usage.

So far, mixed: As per previous experience, it's a truly mastercrafted game - easily the best Indiana Jones 'em up ever, with a fantastic OST and wonderfully realized megamythology made tangible through the world and puzzles.

Intuiting my way to previously-solved-yet-mostly-forgotten solutions has been very satisfying, with the usual share of newly-understood lightbulb moments to be had later on, but the back half still seems quite untenable unless you have hints, or saintly patience and a flagrant disregard for your free time.

Specifically around Illusion Gate / Shrine of the Mother / Chamber of Birth. It's a part of the progression graph that conjuncts aimlessness, even more obtuse - downright bastardy, some might say - puzzling, and very specific item dependencies that seem to fold back on one another until you stumble across the one small thing you've been missing.

The rewards for pushing through have been significant, with Palenque and Tiamat being two of the most spectacular bosses in the game (take golden key in hand! ), but it only looks to get more sadistic from here.

Ah well, love it, hate it

Edit: And done. Final boss was rad, though for more thematic reasons than the other fights. The grand final puzzle wasn't as brutal as I was expecting, ending up quite intuitive after having the hint guide nudge me into an understanding of its underlying mechanics, but really needed some proper "okay, this is the endgame" prompting to kick it off.

I think that's emblematic of LM's troubles as a whole; it's fantastically crafted, and is very satisfying when you're in the 'intuition flow state' having little eureka moments and making tangible progress, but frequently suffers from the one-step-too-far factor. There were loads of puzzles that would have been one of those eureka moments if not for one additional layer of obfuscation converting them into a frustrating no-way-i'd-ever-figure-that-out situation.

A few examples:

Spoiler

- The Dragon Bone statue in the Shrine of the Mother fairy room only appearing after you find the map
- The giant statue in Inferno Cavern only disappearing after you break another smaller statue elsewhere that was non-interactible earlier
- The damage-halving Fairy Clothes being hidden behind a fairy lock (i.e. something you have a 5% true-random chance of even being able to open until late-game) right when the balance starts to spike
- The one-shot puzzle for the Flail Whip presenting as a simple split-the-total problem once you have the clues, but actually involving averages. So even if you galaxy-brain your way to that logical leap, you still have a 1/3 chance of fucking it up permanently if you calculate the wrong type of average.
- The MJ background mural in the Temple of Moonlight scan puzzle
- All of Illusion Gate
- All of Chamber of Birth

Which is unfortunate, since there's clearly a profound sense of satisfaction to be had from clearing it without a guide, but being realistic I don't think it ever would have happened even with the requisite time spend - aimless wandering begets brute force, which results in lack of understanding, and continued frustration in spite of progress.

But despite its flaws, I still consider it a masterful work, and recommend it to any fans of high-fidelity metroidvania who still haven't given it a go at this juncture. But do use a hint guide if you get stuck - it's too cool of a game to not finish out of stubbornness.

[Marc]

Gran Tourismo 7 on PSVR2.
Holy. Shit.

Driving games on a flat screen are going to be hard to go back to.

[guigui]

Cadence of Hyrule. Crypt of the Necrodancer featuring the Legend of Zelda (-50% on eshop now, biggest discount since release)

Or should it be called the Legend of Zelda featuring Crypt of the Necrodancer ? It really is your typical A Link To The Past game except the combat gameplay is rhythm-based. For now, I love everything about it, it is a faithul game.

Pros :
* pixel art : ALTTP faithful, Nintendo quality.
* OST : ALTTP faithful, many remixes of the classical themes, dynamic, varies with gameplay, brilliant
* exploration and experimentation rewarded, ALTTP faithful
* difficulty : not a walk in the park. You can die a lot, but you always know why and see how to improve. Shmups faithful.
* combat system : pretty strange at first, flows very well once you get it. Way easier to master than Crypt of the Necrodancer, see beginner tips.
* you can turn off the rhythm-based part of the gameplay in the options. The gameplay then becomes movement based ala Shiren the Wanderer. I do not recommend it as you'd loose a big part of what makes this game unique.

Cons :
* the "roguelite" (please do not trigger a war over the term) aspect may turn some people off. See beginner tips. What it really is is a game where you can die, do not respawn at the same place, loose some resource, and may have to go through some of the same rooms again. Does not bother me.
* cannot tell the items you'll keep for your next run apart from the ones you'll loose. See beginner tips.

Beginner tips :
* any heart container items will stay with you for your next runs, grab and buy every time you see one.
* learn enemies pattern, do not rush, escape before attacking if necessary. Souls faithful.
* use that weapons that allows to attack 2 squares away.
* do not go for perfect rhythm combos at first, this is pretty hard.
* turn off screenshake and rumble in the options.

Hope I'll have a very good time with this one till the end.

[To Far Away Times]

I finished Dragon Age II last night.

I think the game runs out of unique art assets by about the third hour, and then there's still another 20+ hours to go. It's a testament to the rest of the game that it's able to overcome that. The characters and writing are great, the combat gets a nice glow up from the first game, but god damn the environments are awful. Probably the most repetitive asset use I've seen in a game ever.

[Sima Tuna]

I finished Dragon Age II last night.

I think the game runs out of unique art assets by about the third hour, and then there's still another 20+ hours to go. It's a testament to the rest of the game that it's able to overcome that. The characters and writing are great, the combat gets a nice glow up from the first game, but god damn the environments are awful. Probably the most repetitive asset use I've seen in a game ever.

Yeah, it's definitely a product of a shoestring budget. The negative reviews at the time speak to the colossal disconnect between what the public expected for a game with the name "Dragon Age 2" and the amount of resources the money men were willing to provide to the project. Probably the biggest case of gaming blue balls from that console generation.

I played this one a few years ago, after all the outrage had died. "Competent" is how I'd describe it. IF you can tolerate the more action-oriented combat, the extremely aggressive asset reuse and the side-story nature of the game, then it's enjoyable enough. I liked about half of the companions. Most of them didn't reach the heights of Morrigan, Leiliana, Alistair, Shale or the doggo from the OG game. But Dorf Bro is awesome.

The Qunari stuff was probably the best part of DA2 for me. I think those elements were handled well and you get to spend a lot more time learning what they are all about.

Unrelated: Metal Blades are fucking broken in Mega Man 2 holy shit. I knew they were, but ayyy lmao I didn't expect them to break the game quite this hard. I remember having trouble with MM2 in the past, when playing on emulator. But now I think it might be one of the easiest of the classic games. Just because of the metal blades. Those buzzsaws shred not only half the bosses but the majority of levels.

[To Far Away Times]

Yeah, I think that's a good assessment of DA2.

Metal Blades are so good in Mega Man 2. They can pretty much replace your main shot. Metal Man's not a terribly hard boss either, so he's a good candidate to do first.

Also, Metal Man is weak to his own weapon.

[Sumez]

Yeah, Mega Man 2 is easily the easiest of the NES classics. Without using metal blade either, too.
Funny it was the one to get an even easier "normal mode" on its western release

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The only real hurdle in MM2 is stage order; there's some extremely useful tools you get if you know the proper stage order, such as being able to skip the block jumping in Heat Man's stage, and having Flash Man to bypass some of Quick Man's lasers (or use on Quick Man himself, who's arguably one of the toughest bosses). Other than that, yeah, it's actually not that bad to clear.

The funny thing is Quick Boomerangs and Bubble Lead are also very effective and can carry you through a huge chunk of the game due to their massive ammo count. Quick Boomerangs have limited range, but double the ammo count of Metal Blades, and work against a number of targets that Metal Blades don't. I've done a Boss Weapon Only run of MM2 before (after getting your first boss weapon, don't use the normal arm cannon ever again) and Quick Boomerangs first was very handy. The problem, of course, is that Quick Man is one of the toughest bosses and stages to do first, so you're unlikely to get them early enough to appreciate them compared to Metal Man, whose stage and boss fight are both among the easiest!

The rest of the weapons in MM2 are generally situational, due to really limited ammo count. Air Shooter really hurts those jumping mechs!

MM1, MM3, MM4, and MM6 have far more well rounded weapon loadouts, with MM4's arguably being the strongest in the entire series. You've got homing missiles (Dive), a piercing boomerang (Ring), a multihitting projectile (Dust), a powerful direct attack (Drill), one of the stronger screen hitting moves in the series (Toad), the best freezing ability in the series that lets you pump shots into enemies (Bright), and a charge shot with pierce properties that lets you get a free attack in if you manage to melee with it when you're charging (Pharaoh) which is almost as good as Metal Blade is, albeit requiring more finesse. You also have Rush in his various forms AND the hovering tool from MM2 returns in the form of the secret item Balloon. And they all have relatively low ammo costs. It's nuts.

[Sumez]

I always felt like I should dislike the Crash Bandicoot games.

I think it's a mix of the whole style and tone being annoying as hell. I'm a little too old to have any sort of nostalgia for them, and just the typical type of person who sees themself as fan, is usually a very casual "tourist" type gamer with little actual insight into the games. In fact, a friend and I have an in-joke about how Crahs Bandicam fans tend to misspell the title of the game all the time.

But damn, you gotta challenge your perceptions every once in a while, and hell - turns out I actually really like the first game. Sure, it's a typical example of early 3D "euro"-jank, with a stage design mostly based on stop-and-go traps, where you wait it out and time your jump forward. But it must be doing something right, because I can't put it down!
Just playing it through is trivial, but going for the secret gem on each stage requires a pretty much flawless run through it (no-death, plus getting all creates which usually involves either challenging detours or occasional secrets), and going for one provides a really rare arcade-style rush - similar to nailing a mini-1CC that'll typically take anywhere between 5 minutes and half an hour of practice each.

I have a feeling I'll enjoy the second game a bit less, and really dislike the third one. But now I'm convinced I gotta give those a chance as well.

[Air Master Burst]

Actually, the entire original Crash trilogy is shockingly good since they all pretty much play the same. Naughty Dog knew their shit even back then. After Rayman 2 they're probably the best 3D platformers of that era (unless you really love the N64's lineup, which is fair as many do).

Crash 2 is far superior to the first in all ways except the bosses and is probably the pinnacle of the series. Warped actually gives you fun bosses, although feature creep does start to appear, and YMMV on the vehicle sections (Crash Team Racing was pretty good too, if that helps). The only thing Crash 1 does best is the atmosphere, so if you're already annoyed at the tone it's only gonna get worse on that front.

[XoPachi]

The Crash games are nostalgic for me since I only ever got to play them as a kid when visiting very distant family. So it reminds me of those days when I play the originals.
But I also just really like them in general. 3 is my favorite in the series. There was so much to do and the game stayed fun consistently.

[Sima Tuna]

I would like Crash more if I didn't suck so much balls at precision pseudo-3d platforming.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm currently replaying the first Labyrinth of Touhou game. Made it to Floor 15, the first spot where random encounters absolutely do not seem to mess around and require serious effort to deal with, particularly the Blackenmels that require defense ignoring attacks.

I'm enjoying the game a lot as usual, but the puzzle on 13F is a bit silly. Basically, there's 7 switches that you flip that determine where you teleport. It's quite easy to stumble on the memo that tells you what's going on so you can figure it out from there. The switches add up like numbers in binary, so the number 0-127 determines where you end up with several ranges of numbers going to the same teleporter so you can trial and error your way to the hints that guide you further.

The problem is that there's two specific teleports that can only be found by brute forcing your way through all the combinations since no hints exist to find these special numbers. It's clear you haven't explored the map as there's at least a large chunk missing, and it turns out the items in these spots are the most important (one basically gives status ailment immunity).

I couldn't be bothered to brute force flipping 7 different switches through every combination (spaced far enough apart that you have random encounters while going between the switches). Thank goodness for the internet so you can look up a map.

[BurlyHeart]

Back on the Metal Slug X grind (ACA NeoGeo on PS4 Pro.)

Been practicing from Stage 3 onward and it's been a blast. Just non-stop running and gunning with the occasional miraculous dodge in between. The music and animations are out of this world. Love it.

That said, the slowdown is a little annoying. But the game eating your inputs at times is even more so. Seems to happen quite a bit when throwing grenades and especially when jumping. Good example is on the Stage 3 mid-level boss. When the tanks are falling, I'm praying the grenade will actually come out. Thought maybe auto-fire was affecting it, but tried without and still had the issue.

Done some googling, but can't find anything about it. Curious if I'm doing something to cause it, or if it's just something I have to deal with. If you have some insight, I would certainly welcome it.

[Sima Tuna]

I'm pretty sure Mark MSX has turbo mode settings he uses to remove the slowdown and lag from MS2 and MSX. Check the Electric Underground youtube channel for his commentated 1cc runs.

[To Far Away Times]

Actually, the entire original Crash trilogy is shockingly good since they all pretty much play the same. Naughty Dog knew their shit even back then. After Rayman 2 they're probably the best 3D platformers of that era (unless you really love the N64's lineup, which is fair as many do).

Crash 2 is far superior to the first in all ways except the bosses and is probably the pinnacle of the series. Warped actually gives you fun bosses, although feature creep does start to appear, and YMMV on the vehicle sections (Crash Team Racing was pretty good too, if that helps). The only thing Crash 1 does best is the atmosphere, so if you're already annoyed at the tone it's only gonna get worse on that front.

I like Crash 2 and 3 a lot. Crash 3 was my favorite of the trilogy as I loved the variety. I had no problem with the vehicle levels or flying levels or whatnot.

That being said I'd wouldn't put the Crash games at the level of Nintendo's platformers. That's no slight, it's just Nintendo's platformers are kind of in a league all their own.

[Air Master Burst]

That being said I'd wouldn't put the Crash games at the level of Nintendo's platformers. That's no slight, it's just Nintendo's platformers are kind of in a league all their own.

I'd put Crash above anything on N64 except Rayman 2 and maybe Mario (it ain't my thing but I get it); I think they're tighter games that control better, and the camera manages not to suck.

[Lander]

Rayman 2 is good stuff. Though it would be better if it didn't immediately illegitimize itself by discarding the iconic fist throw in favour of unremarkable projectile combat.
How I wish 3 had kept the dark fairytale world on top of bringing back punching, much as I still enjoy its wacky cavalcade of weird.

Speaking of N64, Shadow Man is still dope. What an excellent package of quality 3D search action, rich horror setting, and writing + VO that wire-walks the line between dark soliloquy and un / intentional 5th-gen comedy.

By my deeds am I known; Jack the Rippah, clicked my 'eels as I killed 'er so I did. For we are cockney, guvnah!

I've been running the remaster with the 1.5 patch, and adding per-zone "you can get X now you've found ability Y" objectives to the warp screen was a stroke of genius that every metroidvania should employ; vague enough to keep the search gameplay intact, but hint enough to kill off the frictional aimless wandering that emerges as the problem space narrows toward endgame.

[Sumez]

Crash 2 is far superior to the first in all ways except the bosses and is probably the pinnacle of the series.

I'm halfway into Crash 2 so far, so it can yet surprise me, but so far I like everything about the first game better.

The bosses were really terrible in the first game and best not talked about, so I don't think Crash 2 is really worse for the wear there, actually.
Aside from that, however, stages feel a bit less distinct and less focused. The no-miss challenge of every stage is gone, removing the biggest appeal of the prior game, but fortunately a couple of them do have something similar with the (poorly communicated) challenges of doing 0-crate or time trials, which is still really fun.

The chase sequences which were surprisingly well implemented in the first game are immediately much worse in the second, suffering from nearly every problem those kind of stages usually have.
Going for 100% gems is a lot more obscure this time around. Some times you'll have no way to actually do it, but won't have any way to know it until later. Unlike the first game where reaching the goal and missing some boxes just felt like an invitation to hone your skills and show you're able to repeat the no-miss feat, the lack of that requirement in the second game means that having to play the stage over feels more like tedium instead.


As for the "pinnacle of the series", I'll reserve that judgment until playing 4. From what I've seen it looks like a riot.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Speaking of N64, Shadow Man is still dope.

It's is. Love being able to play on the bus (it's best in 20-30 minute chunks). And I'm really enjoying that the remaster seems to have raised it's general standing, and I no longer have to explain "no, it's not Acclaim's Soul Reaver knock-off"

I've found that "spooky zelda" sums it up pretty well.

[Air Master Burst]

As for the "pinnacle of the series", I'll reserve that judgment until playing 4. From what I've seen it looks like a riot.

Keep in mind I only played these as they actually came out. I never back-to-backed them and haven't touched any of them since probably 2001, so recollections are a bit hazy. Also, apparently the remasters change some things up rather drastically, but I've only played the originals so I couldn't say for sure.

I haven't played 4 but there are complaints about it having a lot of difficult perfect-run challenges that are required for the good ending. This seems pretty divisive, but you'll probably like it!