What are you currently playing?

[Bartholen]

Holy fuck, fuck Astel (Stars of Darkness version). How have I seen nobody complain about this shit-ass boss fight? It's legitimately one of the worst fights in the entire Fromsoft canon. How did this get past QA? Who thought this was fun? Ludicrously long reach, check. AoEs too big to run away from reliably, check. Fights like a total pussy, check. Spending most of the fight just chasing the bastard, check. Lingering hitboxes, check. Floaty movement that often takes him out of your weapon's reach and makes the camera spaz out, check. A seemingly unavoidable teleport attack that one-shots my level 135 character that has no tell distinguishing it from a normal teleport, making it impossible to dodge unless your camera happens by chance to be pointing at the right location, check. It also happens completely randomly, having no damage threshold at which it's activated, making the fight essentially a crapshoot.

While I'm at it, the Ulcerated Tree Spirit is shit too. Spastic movements, way too many moving parts to tell what the fuck it's doing, most of the fight is spent trying to get to the bugger, and worst of all it's repeated like 5 times over the course of the game. Thank christ they're all optional, 'cuz I just don't have the patience for it.

 

[BrawlMan]

I went over to my brother's and played Scott Pilgrim Complete Edition. My God this game is hard and enemies take way too many hits to die! We got to the first stage fine enough, it's the second stage that gets really tough. We were low on lives too. We decided to call it quits for now and we'll go back and do our co-op later. The game is much easier when there's a lease three or four people.

 

[Worgen]

I went over to my brother's and played Scott Pilgrim Complete Edition. My God this game is hard and enemies take way too many hits to die! We got to the first stage fine enough, it's the second stage that gets really tough. We were low on lives too. We decided to call it quits for now and we'll go back and do our co-op later. The game is much easier when there's a lease three or four people.

That's one of those annoying brawlers where you need to level up your stats. If you want it to be easy, save up and by the cybernetic arm, I think its in like stage 1 or 2 and costs like $255 or something.

 

[BrawlMan]

That's one of those annoying brawlers where you need to level up your stats. If you want it to be easy, save up and by the cybernetic arm, I think its in like stage 1 or 2 and costs like $255 or something.

Thanks for the advice. This is why I'm glad I never bought the game. My brother got it free on Game Pass. Will probably get back to that way later. Because right now, we're focused on something else. Final Vendetta comes out in a few weeks, and I'm mostly going to be playing that. If I need my RPG fix in a brawl er that bad, I'll just play Guardian Heroes and Code Of Princess. Oh yeah, and whenever River City Girls 2 comes out.

 

[Worgen]

Thanks for the advice. This is why I'm glad I never bought the game. My brother got it free on Game Pass. Will probably get back to that way later. Because right now, we're focused on something else. Final Vendetta comes out in a few weeks, and I'm mostly going to be playing that. If I need my RPG fix in a brawl or that bad, I'll just play Guardian Heroes and Code Of Princess. Oh yeah, and whenever River City Girls 2 comes out.

Its a really cool game with fantastic music, but that stat up mechanic is just super annoying. Weirdly enough all the games with Paul Robinson seem to have similar issues for me, annoying grind.

 

[BrawlMan]

Its a really cool game with fantastic music, but that stat up mechanic is just super annoying. Weirdly enough all the games with Paul Robinson seem to have similar issues for me, annoying grind.

I know, that's why it's hard for me to get in to the game. I hate mindless grinding. They would have been better off ditching the "inspired River City/Kunio RPG mechanics", and made a more straightforward brawler. I feel myself a rant incoming. I'll be back later.

 

[Worgen]

I know, that's why it's hard for me to get in to the game. I hate mindless grinding. They would have been better off ditching the "inspired River City/Kunio RPG mechanics", and made a more straightforward brawler. I feel myself a rant incoming. I'll be back later.

100% agree. Stat building works for some games but I like pure brawlers and fighting games.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Ascended a Ranger in Nethack. Not the best class, pretty annoying collecting thrown projectiles all the time and the Quest artifact is useless. Not the worst class either, though.

Speaking of which, I just learned that there is a yearly month long Nethack tournament called Junethack and registration opened today! https://junethack.net/

It's a great opportunity to get into the game if you've never tried it! The grand daddy of roguelikes that was so good thousands of people still play it today.

It just sucks that I still have 4 weeks of classes left, so I don't really have much time to play :/

Edit: also it looks like you can form a clan for group competition, so if anybody else is interested in forming a clan let me know.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

100% agree. Stat building works for some games but I like pure brawlers and fighting games.

I feel like Scott Pilgrim would've been much better if it committed to being either a standard linear stage-based brawler or an open-world RPG like River City Ransom, its clear inspiration (as well as that of the film and book). Trying to do both just made neither work well.

 

[BrawlMan]

I feel like Scott Pilgrim would've been much better if it committed to being either a standard linear stage-based brawler or an open-world RPG like River City Ransom, its clear inspiration (as well as that of the film and book). Trying to do both just made neither work well.

Mechanics: Good Vs Bad Implementation

So recently I've been thinking about game mechanics. It's very rare that any game mechanic hasn't been done before, or isn't simply a modification of a previous one. i.e. Shadow of Mordor's combat is a version of the combat of the Batman Arkham games. What makes the difference is how the...

forums.escapistmagazine.com

"RPG Elements" in games. Most of them are implemented horribly and lazily, and are only done, because X and Y game made it popular. The AAA side suffers so much from this. The RPG mechanics are not needed, can be removed, and the game would work better with out them. They're only left in there for busy work, padding, or you'll get sold DLC to "skip the grind". AA and indie games are not immune from this either. A lot of retro-2D brawlers with RPG elements are either copying Guardian Heroes or River City Ransom, and are doing a piss poor job.

The combat gets grindy and it's all about stats, to the point where you could remove it, and nothing would be lost. It worked for Guardian Heroes, because every time you completed a campaign (with multiple story paths), the stats would reset on a new game. I defend this, as keeping the stats permanent would have made your character an unstoppable game breaker, and make the game less fun and too easy. It was all done for the sake of balance. Treasure could have made it a separate mode, but then would have rescale and rebalance everything, I can't blame them for taking the more convenient option. It allows for multiple experimentation and fast paced action without the bad grind. Not even Code of Princess comes close in this regard (though better than all of its contemporaries in this regard and the combat), the spiritual successor to GH. Combat in the game is great, but not as fast paced due to being 2.5D. Playing on Switch or PC improves the performance of the game, and run at a solid 60fps. I still recommend the game.

River City Ransom has an open-sandbox, where you can properly level up without grinding too much. There are shops and places you can go to upgrade your moves and stats. The problem with a lot of these modern indie games that try copy this formula are strictly linear with no opened level design, and try to get around by beefing enemies health to high heaven, or rely too much on stat boosting. Such as Scott Pilgrim being the stand out example. Ever since brawlers been slowly breeding new life in the mid-to-late 2010s, I find less and less reason to go back to Scott Pilgrim. Especially since River City Girls came out, and does the job much better with RPG mechanics. Better yet, just play the brawlers that are strictly arcade style, but have a large move list per character, and tight level design. Give me SOR/Final Fight inspired brawlers almost any day of the week over most "GH/RCR inspired" games.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Out of sheer, soul-crippling boredom, I decided to reinstall the original Max Payne (along with two fan-made patches to get it to work properly on my system). I suppose it's the benefit of hindsight, but the bullet-time shooting and combat in general feel really clunky now. The curse of being the innovator, I suppose.

 

[Worgen]

Out of sheer, soul-crippling boredom, I decided to reinstall the original Max Payne (along with two fan-made patches to get it to work properly on my system). I suppose it's the benefit of hindsight, but the bullet-time shooting and combat in general feel really clunky now. The curse of being the innovator, I suppose.

Clunky how? Normally I would know what that means but one of the things I really like about Remedy games is they make firing a weapon feel awkward and like your character is struggling with firing it, but the shots still go where you want them too. Like in Alan Wake or Control, it never fully feels like your character is comfortable with firing your guns, but the shots still go where you want them too.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Clunky how? Normally I would know what that means but one of the things I really like about Remedy games is they make firing a weapon feel awkward and like your character is struggling with firing it, but the shots still go where you want them too. Like in Alan Wake or Control, it never fully feels like your character is comfortable with firing your guns, but the shots still go where you want them too.

It's not a thing I can really quantify; it just feels like the game isn't quite connecting what I'm trying to do with what actually happens. (Plus Max is a police officer; he shouldn't struggle with firing a weapon.)

 

[Ezekiel]

Entered a realm full of master hands in Smash Ultimate. Hope the board game is almost over, because I've been progressing through the same save on and off for almost four years.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

A Short Hike

Cute game. You do the disenchanted millennial thing of leaving the city for nature and climbing up a mountain for the sake of your mental health, but unlike Celeste it's framed as chill, zero risk walkabout in a cute little sandbox. The core gameplay is running errands for your animal buddies and building up the stamina/grip gauge that will eventually enable you to reach the top. It's all very charming, though the dialogue could be punched up. Everyone appears to speak in the same 'voice' that suggests an annoyed teenager.

 

[Worgen]

I got Granblue Fantasy Verses, still not sure if I'm going to keep it or not. It looks fantastic, but the fighting feels a bit stilted compared to what I usually like. Does seem like its got a nice single player though, which is nice since Guilty Gear just keeps having anime movies.

I also have been messing around with Doom mods again. I played through one called Countrycide, its apparently a prequel to a big one called Trench Foot. I played on higher difficulty and it was certainly hard. It does a great job of having just enough health and ammo to keep you going but never enough for you to feel comfortable. Especially with the creepy environment and horror aspects, excellent mod, makes me excited for the full mod.

I also started Ashes 2063, which is a really cool post apocalyptic mod, I'm only a couple levels into it but so far its really cool, but I haven't experienced enough of it to give more then my initial impressions since its not as much of a huge departure from Doom as Countrycide was. It does feel a bit more like Duke 3d with how the levels are built and interactions and such.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I also have been messing around with Doom mods again.

It is ridiculous how many Doom mods/total conversions are out there, and some of them are so far removed from the source in terms of looks or gameplay that it can be surprising that they run on that venerable old engine. I'd recommend trying "Hurt" and "IHNI".

 

[Worgen]

It is ridiculous how many Doom mods/total conversions are out there, and some of them are so far removed from the source in terms of looks or gameplay that it can be surprising that they run on that venerable old engine. I'd recommend trying "Hurt" and "IHNI".

Yeah, although I still have yet to find one that I love as much as Hedon, but there are some really awesome ones around. I'll add them to the list, thanks.

 

[BrawlMan]

I got the S+ Rank on RE2Remake 1st Run (Normal) again. This time on XONE. I did all S+ Runs on Normal on PS4 years ago.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Yeah, although I still have yet to find one that I love as much as Hedon, but there are some really awesome ones around. I'll add them to the list, thanks.

Have you tried Reelism 2? It's a wave-based survival mode run by a slot machine that determines enemy spawns, weapon drops, and other modifiers e.g. zero gravity, slippery floors, double damage, graphical filters. Even after the initial wackiness wears off, it's still a fun and well-designed game mode, and the sequel adds the ability to spend your points in a town between runs to gain an advantage for the next run, as well as having some hidden secrets of its own.

I suck at Doom, but I've had a lot of fun playing that one.