Silent Hill Warriors was definitely one of Koei Tecmo's more ambitious spin-off series.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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This was one of the ones that surprised me at your guess. And yes, I can imagine Uchikoshi jumping up and down in glee as well.
I have to agree that 999 was the better game. A bunch of the plot twists stretched my suspension of disbelief a little too far, like the fact that Sigma never touched his face and felt his bionic eye or long hair or realized he was old, or that nobody noticed that gravity was so much weaker or questioned Phi's super jump that much. None of the returning characters actually felt like the same people. Clover has a completely different personality, and Junpei and Akane don't really share much in common with their previous appearances either. You are right that there was a little too much repetition in parts of the game, and personally I found Zero the third to be quite a grating character. Also I have to knock major point off for ending on a cliffhanger.
I think a large part of the problem was that apparently Uchikoshi made it his goal to break all of Knox's 10 commandments, which is why you found a sheet listing them in the game. He was too focused on proving Knox wrong that he didn't spend enough time ensuring that the story itself was actually satisfying.
Are you planning on still playing Zero Time Dilemma? I told you before VLR to lower your expectations, and you should do so again before ZTD. It can still be fun, but it does contain something that I personally consider the worst plot twist I've ever seen, and the animations are often so bad as to be comical. Just enjoy it for what it is and don't hope for a lot of satisfying answers.
Those were some of my favorite parts. Also, that should be marked a spoiler.
Well as I said, that prediction was really of the "well if I must consider that possibility I can only see it going something like this" variety. That it happened to be right just says that I have managed to get a decent profile of Uchikoshi as a writer.
(unspoiled the parts that I don't consider to be spoilers).
That Sigma never examined his face never bothered me. Reading what you wrote now: yeah, it does stretch the probability, but I was caught up in the moment by the surprise so I suspended my disbelief. The gravity thing was much weaker if you ask me. When they explicitly said that Radical-6 is named such because it lowers brain processing by the square root of 6 I had a little smile on my face and thought "Oh, Uchikoshi, you adorable little math geek you.", since the notion that a disease would bring you down by such a precise amount sounded silly but I accepted it as "Hey, they can get to invent new diseases.". Once the twist that "Actually, that amount was there for a very precise reason" I rolled my eyes and thought "Well that is just RIDICULOUSLY convenient to make the plot work".
I actually saw another detail that I speculated could be a piece of foreshadowing: the sluggish animation is not due to them being bad animators; it is due to their Radical-6 infection causing a delay in mental processing.
It didn't bother me that Junpei and Akane had different personalities; a lot can happen during a lifetime. I felt Clover at least was consistent in that she was willing to commit murder towards those that kill her close ones in both titles, but that feels more like a repeat of a plot point than an actual character trait or personality. Now that I think about it: yeah, while I can see those characters from the first game turn into the characters from the second game, they are disparate enough that they might as well not be the same characters.
I also didn't like the rabbit character, but he was only really a big part of the plot for the first half. The cliffhanger ending didn't bother me, it was more, as I said, that the ending felt like it was nothing but them explaining the plot.
To be a bit more positive, one plot twist that I must give kudos for was that Luna was a robot. The way it is set up means that it is Luna that questions if you are a robot, something you as a player probably are asking yourself at the same time, so that when Luna informs a bit of her reasoning it never occurs to you that she could be talking about it from a personal experience. Once they returned to that point I was genuinely surprised, but if I had paid closer attention to K's ending I suspect I might have been able to suss something out.
I actually just started it up; my impression of the animations so far mirror yours.
Fuck God Devouring Serpent all my homies hate God Devouring Serpent
I'm closer to beating it than the Fire Giant though.
After Finishing Dark Souls Remastered, I went to Dark Souls 3 next, because I apparently have a subconscious desire for more pain.
And coming from just beating DSR, DS3 felt so strange. It's one of those two step forwards, but one step back.
Combat is a definite improvement. Animation cancelation, ability to dodge roll in any direction during a lock-on, and general area designs are far better. But it doesn't have the areas magically connecting like in DSR. While it's better than DS2, DS3 still has a linear pathing issue.
The bonfire system is great in-theory, but there are some questionable placement choices. I.e. dragonslayer armour bonfire next to grand archive bonfire. I also feel the game has a bit too many enemies who can one-shot you even with best armor.
While it's a problem with all three DS games, DS3 has some of the most annoying achievement designs. Collecting all spells sounds easy on the paper, but if you unknowingly use a boss soul on a wrong item, or kill off an npc by accident, you have to start a ng+ just to get those items. I was so close to getting the achievement for collecting all miracles, but because I used the dragonslayer armour soul for its weapon instead of the spell, I have to pretty much play the entire game again just to get its soul.
Also, if you wanna get covenant rewards as a solo player, you have to grind for them from enemies with a very rare drop rate. I thought I was going insane.
But the game isn't all that bad either; Like I said above, the combat is better with more weapons. The addition of FP bar balances out PVP so caster builds don't spam. The boss designs are cool, and boss weapons feel great to use. They don't consists of 90% heavy/great weapons and 10% regular-size/viable weapons anymore, but different items and useable weapons make collecting their souls fun.
Hmm, I could go for Elden Ring next
And coming from just beating DSR, DS3 felt so strange. It's one of those two step forwards, but one step back.
Combat is a definite improvement. Animation cancelation, ability to dodge roll in any direction during a lock-on, and general area designs are far better. But it doesn't have the areas magically connecting like in DSR. While it's better than DS2, DS3 still has a linear pathing issue.
The bonfire system is great in-theory, but there are some questionable placement choices. I.e. dragonslayer armour bonfire next to grand archive bonfire. I also feel the game has a bit too many enemies who can one-shot you even with best armor.
While it's a problem with all three DS games, DS3 has some of the most annoying achievement designs. Collecting all spells sounds easy on the paper, but if you unknowingly use a boss soul on a wrong item, or kill off an npc by accident, you have to start a ng+ just to get those items. I was so close to getting the achievement for collecting all miracles, but because I used the dragonslayer armour soul for its weapon instead of the spell, I have to pretty much play the entire game again just to get its soul.
Also, if you wanna get covenant rewards as a solo player, you have to grind for them from enemies with a very rare drop rate. I thought I was going insane.
But the game isn't all that bad either; Like I said above, the combat is better with more weapons. The addition of FP bar balances out PVP so caster builds don't spam. The boss designs are cool, and boss weapons feel great to use. They don't consists of 90% heavy/great weapons and 10% regular-size/viable weapons anymore, but different items and useable weapons make collecting their souls fun.
Hmm, I could go for Elden Ring next
Started tales of arise, it's pretty good but I'm getting old and the anime stereotype story just doesn't work on me anymore. Female lead is tsundere, check. Male lead has amnesia, check. Cartoonish bad guys who go out of their way to be evil even if it doesn't help their plan, check. Story is also strangely serious, which kinda clash with the sillier side of the story, like there's literal slave being beaten to death, but sure let's take a brake from that so that the female lead can get a new sets of clothes. Or five feet next to a dying slave there's a comical owl that give you rabbit ear... (joke on the game, now all my character have rabbits ears on during the big tragic cut scene).
Otherwise the game has the same issue most of the tales game has with bosses. Boss can't be stunlock reliably with attack, so attacking them just means you're in constant danger, you can "dodge" their attack, but the animation is all messed up and most dodge timing makes no sense so that's annoying (ie if you dodge at an appropriate time to avoid being hit you'll be hit, instead you need to dodge too late so that the attack goes clear trough your character model, but ahah i-frame). That should be a problem, except the boss aren't designed with the idea of you just staying far away from them and using long range attack to deal with them, so you can just do that to clear them easily. The ai companion are also pretty bad at dodging and there's no real way to customize their behaviour, for example the first companion you get as a poison attack, this actually work on bosses, but the AI will never use it, so you have to manually control her to use it, which is too much of a pita to be worth the small amount of damage. The main character as this flame sword super attack, but it take forever to use and leaves you defenseless during it, so it's almost never worth using, which is kinda awkward cause story wise its supposed to be this super overpowered attack, but nah, I just stand back and spam the range attack and do much better.
Otherwise the game has the same issue most of the tales game has with bosses. Boss can't be stunlock reliably with attack, so attacking them just means you're in constant danger, you can "dodge" their attack, but the animation is all messed up and most dodge timing makes no sense so that's annoying (ie if you dodge at an appropriate time to avoid being hit you'll be hit, instead you need to dodge too late so that the attack goes clear trough your character model, but ahah i-frame). That should be a problem, except the boss aren't designed with the idea of you just staying far away from them and using long range attack to deal with them, so you can just do that to clear them easily. The ai companion are also pretty bad at dodging and there's no real way to customize their behaviour, for example the first companion you get as a poison attack, this actually work on bosses, but the AI will never use it, so you have to manually control her to use it, which is too much of a pita to be worth the small amount of damage. The main character as this flame sword super attack, but it take forever to use and leaves you defenseless during it, so it's almost never worth using, which is kinda awkward cause story wise its supposed to be this super overpowered attack, but nah, I just stand back and spam the range attack and do much better.
What weapon are you using for that serpent? As an FYI it’s kind of a gimmick fight, so be sure to check the environment a bit.
My New Year's Resolution of trying to beat Hollow Knight is not going well, as I hit an incredibly frustrating point where I was about to buy the lantern after spending hours accumulating the preposterous amount of currency required to buy it, but made a wrong term somewhere, can't go back to where I came from, and it's dark- which, of course, I can't do anything about because I was just about to buy the lantern! Ugh, I remember why I quit this stupid game before.
I haven't decided if I'm going to go back and try to get out somehow but the combination of literally not being able to see in some areas, not being able to backtrack, and not being able to load previous saves certainly makes me want to quit. I think the popularity of this game is like a giant video game community troll conspiracy against me.
So back to Witcher 3, lol
I haven't decided if I'm going to go back and try to get out somehow but the combination of literally not being able to see in some areas, not being able to backtrack, and not being able to load previous saves certainly makes me want to quit. I think the popularity of this game is like a giant video game community troll conspiracy against me.
So back to Witcher 3, lol
Finished Valiant Hearts: The Great War.
I was right at the end last night. Literally right there. But I didn't know, and went to bed. I picked it up again this afternoon, played it for two whole minutes, and then the credits rolled.
Overall, I came away with a positive experience. I liked the artstyle, I liked the characters, I feel like World War 1 is a criminally underused setting, and I like how you are playing as characters who aren't in constant conflict, so you really did see a lot of things. But my biggest problem with the game is a combination of the simplicity, and the length.
Valiant Hearts is a very simple game. You are interacting with levers, or throwing stuff, and that is about the extent of it. The problem with that simplicity, though, is that it really doesn't have the legs to last as long as it does. The game lasts for six hours, but really could have been cut down to three.
With that said though, thank god for the Steam Deck. If I had been sat at my desk for the duration of this game, I probably would have zoned out about half way through.
Not sure what I am going to play next, but I am already three games in, this year. So I am really happy with myself.
I was right at the end last night. Literally right there. But I didn't know, and went to bed. I picked it up again this afternoon, played it for two whole minutes, and then the credits rolled.
Overall, I came away with a positive experience. I liked the artstyle, I liked the characters, I feel like World War 1 is a criminally underused setting, and I like how you are playing as characters who aren't in constant conflict, so you really did see a lot of things. But my biggest problem with the game is a combination of the simplicity, and the length.
Valiant Hearts is a very simple game. You are interacting with levers, or throwing stuff, and that is about the extent of it. The problem with that simplicity, though, is that it really doesn't have the legs to last as long as it does. The game lasts for six hours, but really could have been cut down to three.
With that said though, thank god for the Steam Deck. If I had been sat at my desk for the duration of this game, I probably would have zoned out about half way through.
Not sure what I am going to play next, but I am already three games in, this year. So I am really happy with myself.
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It’s why I didn’t bother with collecting trophies for DS3. Too redundant and masochistic with the covenant grinding and obtuseness. Like you said it shines best for combat improvements and I also think it has some of the best bosses/DLC in the series.
ER is like a smorgasbord for weapons, spells, etc. Pretty much anything can be made viable with the proper skills and other perks. The caveat is just, be ready for major exploration or wiki’ing locations for something you already know you’d want to use. I think the game is more engaging going in as blind as possible though for NG.
I know I need to use the thing but I'm not really specced for it so I need to summon in help from another player but that hasn't quite worked out yet. (I'm using a sorcery focused high intelligence build. If I need to fall back on melee damage I use the Carian Knight's Sword which has intelligence scaling)
More power to you if you want to take it down with normal gear, but there’s a reason that weapon doesn’t have any stat requirements. At worst a few somber stones to spare will help boost damage regardless of scaling/spec.
I do more damage with the pokey stick than without it, its just that I still don't deal much damage with the pokey stick.
Did you cry and got emotionally destroyed by that ending? Because if you didn't, you are a soul-less, heartless, scum of a human being! /s
In all seriousness, I haven't seen anyone call the ending bad. At very least, they felt bad after the credits started to roll
That ending legit makes me cry every time. I don't cry easy.
Yeah, I know what Emile did was a military crime. It's hard to say he was wrong considering you spend that entire mission hiding behind mountains of corpses in a desperate bid not to become one of them.
So I've found myself in an awkward place, after finishing pentiment I'm trying to find something to sink my teeth into on my list and I've been bouncing around. As such, I've started a couple of games.
Frostpunk: Played for about an hour. I like it, but it feels very stressful. I've already run out of food and coal at least once and a lot of people are sick now and I'm only 6 days into the default scenario "A New Home". I'm desperately trying to get a coal mine online after getting some hunting lodges up and running for food(and building roads) but I kinda feel like I'm already fucked and won't be ready for the next cold snap. Maybe if I burn enough coal I can reverse this iceball earth thing and warm the earth up again? So this one is on hold for a bit.
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak: I love the presentation in this game, the mission layout flows very well but the rock paper scissors combat and fast paced is brutal. I feel like I'm always strapped for resources, barely able to recover from losses. Like frostpunk, the desperation makes sense, it's just a bit too stressful for me ATM so I'm putting off the to the side for the moment.
The Outer Wilds: This game I'm trying to love and I restarted it to hopefully get to the point where it clicks. I'm not there yet, though I do want to get to the point where it does. Holding off ATM because the other games are clicking with me.I think it might be the spaceship controls.
Legend of Zelda: The WInd Waker(Emulated)- This is one of those games I've wanted to play forever and I think the game has started to hit stride for me. The first dungeon, the forsaken fortress, is kinda rough because it's a forced stealth mission for parts of it and this game isn't very good at forced stealth. Like it feels like it wants to be Metal Gear for that mission and....at least in metal gear you're not forced to use a stick to hit a goblin over the head and get instantly tossed in jail if a guard/searchlight spots you. However, Dragon Roost Cavern is a pretty good Zelda dungeon and I've gotten to the forbidden forest now(after meeting the deku tree) so it feels like a zelda game now. Also the sailing is nicely implemented. I also kinda like the fact people acknowledge link is a kid and you know, don't normally demand he go fight the monsters by himself, even if that's what you tend to end up doing regardless(Sure, our dragon god is acting up but it's not any of us with wings are gonna bother dealing with it right now).
My only gripe with WW so far is that the controls feel a bit wonky at times and I'm pretty sure that's because it's trying to emulate the N64 controller using a XBOX gamepad. I've learned to live with it but damn it doesn't feel intuitive most of the time and I'm fallen so many times because I hit the wrong button at the wrong time. At least save states allow me to minimize time lost from that. Also, fuck Tingle. I know it's not a hot take but honestly he just kinda gets on my nerves(especially in that one bit you let him out of jail where he keeps not leaving to give you pointless crap).
So for now probably be playing Wind Waker while making slow progress in Homeworld and then going back to Frostpunk afterwards. I was holding out for Nintendo to hopefully just release WW on the Switch like i keep hearing rumors about but honestly I'm getting tired of waiting for something that may not ever happen. Even if it does end up coming true, we probably won't get an announcement till after TotK is out and even then it probably won't be out until fall at best, so fuck it, emulate it I shall.
Honestly, there's like so many fucking game I would love to play right now but I can reasonably only make progress in like one or two so I have pick something and focus. I also want to play Pathfinder: Kingmaker but I know if I do i'll probably be playing that for the next month or two and I want to knock some other games out before starting another longass game.
Frostpunk: Played for about an hour. I like it, but it feels very stressful. I've already run out of food and coal at least once and a lot of people are sick now and I'm only 6 days into the default scenario "A New Home". I'm desperately trying to get a coal mine online after getting some hunting lodges up and running for food(and building roads) but I kinda feel like I'm already fucked and won't be ready for the next cold snap. Maybe if I burn enough coal I can reverse this iceball earth thing and warm the earth up again? So this one is on hold for a bit.
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak: I love the presentation in this game, the mission layout flows very well but the rock paper scissors combat and fast paced is brutal. I feel like I'm always strapped for resources, barely able to recover from losses. Like frostpunk, the desperation makes sense, it's just a bit too stressful for me ATM so I'm putting off the to the side for the moment.
The Outer Wilds: This game I'm trying to love and I restarted it to hopefully get to the point where it clicks. I'm not there yet, though I do want to get to the point where it does. Holding off ATM because the other games are clicking with me.I think it might be the spaceship controls.
Legend of Zelda: The WInd Waker(Emulated)- This is one of those games I've wanted to play forever and I think the game has started to hit stride for me. The first dungeon, the forsaken fortress, is kinda rough because it's a forced stealth mission for parts of it and this game isn't very good at forced stealth. Like it feels like it wants to be Metal Gear for that mission and....at least in metal gear you're not forced to use a stick to hit a goblin over the head and get instantly tossed in jail if a guard/searchlight spots you. However, Dragon Roost Cavern is a pretty good Zelda dungeon and I've gotten to the forbidden forest now(after meeting the deku tree) so it feels like a zelda game now. Also the sailing is nicely implemented. I also kinda like the fact people acknowledge link is a kid and you know, don't normally demand he go fight the monsters by himself, even if that's what you tend to end up doing regardless(Sure, our dragon god is acting up but it's not any of us with wings are gonna bother dealing with it right now).
My only gripe with WW so far is that the controls feel a bit wonky at times and I'm pretty sure that's because it's trying to emulate the N64 controller using a XBOX gamepad. I've learned to live with it but damn it doesn't feel intuitive most of the time and I'm fallen so many times because I hit the wrong button at the wrong time. At least save states allow me to minimize time lost from that. Also, fuck Tingle. I know it's not a hot take but honestly he just kinda gets on my nerves(especially in that one bit you let him out of jail where he keeps not leaving to give you pointless crap).
So for now probably be playing Wind Waker while making slow progress in Homeworld and then going back to Frostpunk afterwards. I was holding out for Nintendo to hopefully just release WW on the Switch like i keep hearing rumors about but honestly I'm getting tired of waiting for something that may not ever happen. Even if it does end up coming true, we probably won't get an announcement till after TotK is out and even then it probably won't be out until fall at best, so fuck it, emulate it I shall.
Honestly, there's like so many fucking game I would love to play right now but I can reasonably only make progress in like one or two so I have pick something and focus. I also want to play Pathfinder: Kingmaker but I know if I do i'll probably be playing that for the next month or two and I want to knock some other games out before starting another longass game.
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More Elden Ring. It'd have been nice if someone told me that Rennala opened up her second phase with a one-shot attack, but I managed to take her down in about three tries.
Also finally nabbed the Hoarfrost Stomp Ash of War, and it's not nearly as good as people have said, at least not for me. I've seen videos of people using it to rock large groups of mobs in a couple stomps, but mine doesn't fan out very far and that's if it comes out at all; there's been several occasions where I'll stomp and nothing happens. Not too mad, though; the Bloodhound Fang is carrying me along nicely and can't use ashes anyway.
Also finally nabbed the Hoarfrost Stomp Ash of War, and it's not nearly as good as people have said, at least not for me. I've seen videos of people using it to rock large groups of mobs in a couple stomps, but mine doesn't fan out very far and that's if it comes out at all; there's been several occasions where I'll stomp and nothing happens. Not too mad, though; the Bloodhound Fang is carrying me along nicely and can't use ashes anyway.