What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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Although, even the story of the Diablo franchise probably makes more sense than Killer 7.
Um, kind of? In as much that evil can never be defeated, only temporarily thwarted, and often when it is, at enormous cost and/or making things worse in the process. If you look at the overall story/lore, the fortunes of humanity have steadily declined as time goes on, so by the time of D4, a sense of utter helplessness pervades everything (and I mean everything, or at least, everything I've played so far).
I'm not following the actual diablo plot, I'm just saying it would be more interesting than what we actually got, which was just a big "congratulation, nothing you did accomplished anything". Convincing a prime evil would at least be threading new ground.Um, what?
You can pull a "technically" and say that the Prime Evils have lost against humans in a sense, but that's one hell (no pun intended) of a technically. Dark Exile? Sure, the Prime Evils were each imprisoned, but all of these things ended up furthering their aims (e.g. Mephisto corrupts all of Zakarum), and that was after centuries of carnage. D1? Sure, Diablo is defeated 'technically,' but at the cost of the heroes' sanity, plus all of Tristram. D2? Sure, each Prime Evil is defeated in a sense, but it avails humanity nothing but a short repreive. D3? Yes, Diablo is defeated at the end of vanilla, but that's rendered moot by the end of Reaper of Souls. The entire thematic throughline with the Prime Evils (heck, Hell itself) is that they can't be defeated, that all you can do is buy yourself time, effectively. Every attempt to even seal the Prime Evils in soulstones has ended in disaster.
Even in the scope of D4 itself and nothing else, the Prime Evils have "won," at least in the long term. As I understand, it's one of the key drivers for Elias's motivations. Eventually, the Prime Evils will return, and when they do, there's nothing to stop them. Mephisto (as the Bloodied Wolf) outright states that he liked the world as it was (bleak, shattered hellscape) before Lilith turned up. Lilith is the threat to Mephisto, humans are nothing more than playthings sans their nephalem birthright, and that seems to have faded into the background).
I'm assuming this is based on POD-theory; as in, you're entertaining a hypothetical that would have to emerge from the ending of ROS, since none of that is true in D4 itself, or in anything between D3 and D4. Humanity lost 50-90% of its number by the end of ROS, there's nothing in-game (that I've seen) to suggest that technology has improved. If you want to suggest that's how the story should have gone, okay, sure, that's a different issue, but there's no way D4 could exist as is if it did. You'd need a completely different game for it.
Alright, seriously, what's wrong with Neyrelle?
Eh, could work. That being said, that comes more off as a repeat of Reaper of Souls.
As far as Neyrelle, none of your ally are ever useful and all they ever do is just weight you down the entire game. Ironically the only ally that's ever actually useful is Mephisto, hence why he's the only character I actually liked in the game.
I finished off Arizona Sunshine, and boy howdy does it really start falling apart in the final third, in both a technical (lighting glitches, level navigation problems) and design (abrupt, uninspired ending) sense. It's a shame, because it followed a really tense and interesting section in a pitch-black disused mine and I was hoping that it could finish just as strong.
It's my favorite game I played this year, even though it was a replay, and even with all these huge beloved games that came out this year, some of which I played.
Most things are, but I find Killer 7 more interesting than whatever is going on in D4.
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Um, okay...
Sorry, I just can't reconcile that with my own experience (up to Act III). From a gameplay standpoint, I can't think of any time thus far when a character has weighed me down. While it's true that characters like Neyrelle don't do that much in combat, they still have status effects and the like - it's completely minor, sure, but nothing is lost from their presence.
From a narrative standpoint, again, not sure where. Mephisto helps the Wanderer at least twice in the Horadric Vault and Mount Civo (and I've written plenty about him on this thread), but he's hardly the only person to help the Wanderer - Lorath and Neyrelle both aid the Wanderer in the story, and the Wanderer wouldn't even have a bearing without the former.
Nothing.
Burnt out on games, so it goes- I increasingly need to take longer breaks between games and be more selective in my gaming. My reflexes are slow, my patience is thin.
I was on the fence about Baldur's Gate 3 and Lies of P because they look amazing but I just see myself being so frustrated and I don't wanna. Same with the upcoming Lords of the Fallen.
I'm going back to treating games the way I treat movies, where instead of asking "what should I play next?" I'll just wait until something strongly catches my interest. And I was considering some of the older games, retro stuff, but I also kind of don't want to.
The remaining games of 2023 that interest me are Cocoon (will wait for reviews, it it's as awesome as its promise), Jusant (same), and the two big games I know I'll play are AC: Mirage and Spiderman 2.
Burnt out on games, so it goes- I increasingly need to take longer breaks between games and be more selective in my gaming. My reflexes are slow, my patience is thin.
I was on the fence about Baldur's Gate 3 and Lies of P because they look amazing but I just see myself being so frustrated and I don't wanna. Same with the upcoming Lords of the Fallen.
I'm going back to treating games the way I treat movies, where instead of asking "what should I play next?" I'll just wait until something strongly catches my interest. And I was considering some of the older games, retro stuff, but I also kind of don't want to.
The remaining games of 2023 that interest me are Cocoon (will wait for reviews, it it's as awesome as its promise), Jusant (same), and the two big games I know I'll play are AC: Mirage and Spiderman 2.
Yesterday I finished Red Steel 2, and with that done, the number of games in my backlog is single digits for the first time since I started tracking it ten year ago.
I actually have a copy I got for cheap I still have not put in yet. I know it's definitely better than the first game but how did you feel about it overall? I know motion controls work fine, but if Ubisoft did re-release the game in HD with regular controls as an option, I would play it. I do know the game is the best first person shooter and hack and slash on the Wii console. Not that there's much competition on the first person side anyway.
When it works properly, it's quite fun. When it doesn't tho, it's a janky mess. And it doesn't work properly quite often. My main issue is that the two main forms of gameplay, shooting and melee, kind of work against each other. One requires steady deliberate aim of the wiimote, the other fast and wide movements. So combining them in combat doesn't flow well and is the source of most of the jank I experienced.
For example, I'm shooting a charging enemy and want to switch to melee when he's close. So I swing the wiimote. But because my swing wasn't wide and fast enough, I instead turn away from the enemy because I put the crosshair near the edge of the screen (which is how you turn). The reverse is also true, and quickly popping a shot off after meleeing is really hard, because after having swung a few times you pretty much always lose track of where the crosshair is on the screen and you waste time finding it so you can recenter. There is an automatic lock on system which mitigates these problems, but only really when you're fighting a single enemy. When there's multiple enemies, it just likes to prioritize whatever, usually not what I want it to.
Also sometimes the motion controls start wigging out randomly.
I give it to Metroid Prime Trilogy. Uses the same aiming method, but keeps all other waggle to a minimum. Also, just way better overall games.
In that case, I might just trade it in later for something else.
That's not a fair comparison. Metroid Prime is in the league of its own. Note, how I said FPS and hack n slash, but not FPS only. Also, I know there are people who don't like the Wii version of the Metroid Prime Trilogy, because there's no options or just regular controls. Because Nintendo had it in their mind at people would get "used to it" and it's a non-issue.
Though even in the hack and slash apartment, Red Steel 2 is beaten by several games released on the Wii from that genre. At least the game is functional and works most of the time compared to the first entry. I remember doing the early Wii days, that Red Steel and No More Heroes would be sold as a double pack at GameStops for about a few months. There was no way in hell I would ever pay a good game just have a bad one attached to it.
Like I said, it does have its moments, both in a good and bad sense. The shooting is pretty fun if you don't mix it with melee, and the melee works reasonably well when fighting a single enemy so the lock-on works properly. So I think a lot of its problems could be fixed if regular stages were just pure shooter. And melee was just for bosses, since those are one on one duels, they block most shots anyway, and have enough endurance and tricks so you actually need to engage with the melee mechanics beyond just spamming heavy slashes and the occasional dodge.
Finished (and platinum'd] Thymesia, and finished Celeste (though not the postgame Core level, and only 2 crystal hearts as yet).
Now playing Blasphemous 2. Just beat Benedicta, and I think I'm about halfway through. It's excellent so far, though the bosses are a little less spectacular visually than those in the first game (except for Radamés).
Now playing Blasphemous 2. Just beat Benedicta, and I think I'm about halfway through. It's excellent so far, though the bosses are a little less spectacular visually than those in the first game (except for Radamés).
Red Steel 2 is the game that led me to the Escapist. Very nostalgic.
It probably has the best use of motion controls for sword fighting that exists on the Wii. Far better than Skyward Sword. It's not a long game, and it's not bad either, you should just play it.
We know, you mentioned in the wasted plotline/characters thread.
From a first person perspective and compared to its prequel, but No More Heroes 1 & 2 beats it in that department. Even Oneechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers. An action combat game with the best motion controls will always be MadWorld.
If I have the time, because right now my gaming schedule is busy and my life is busy. I know the game ain't long, but I got too much lining up right now. Still dealing with Armored Core 6. I make no promises.
Ok, jeez. Sorry for repeating myself every 3 years or so.
Are you joking? No More Heroes didn't even use the Wii Motion Plus. The motion controls could have been replaced with a button input, same as basically every other Wii game that didn't use the Motion Plus. Also you haven't even played the game so how do you even make that judgement?
No apologies necessary. I just wanted to let you know, that I have not forgotten.
So? Not many games used the Motion Plus on Wii. A very select few even did so. I know the game improves with the most control plus, but I'm not going on my way to buy that just to make the experience better. I never once had any problems with the most controls on No More Heroes in general. The worst with mad world was that sometimes if you didn't put vertical inputs correctly when it came to a qte. But that only happened if you turned your Wiimote horizontally and then go vertically straight down.
For the record, I did play a little bit of Red Steel 2 at a friend's during college at launch, but that was for about 30 minutes. So I know it's been a long time. I never said the game had horrible motion controls nor trash, but as @Chimpzy pointed out, it does have issues or issues with targeting. That is more so the game's lock on in that case. And I'm only going by what I've experienced so far. I played a lot of Wii games, but as far as I experienced MadWorld and No More Heroes are the best when it comes to motion controls in melee action combat games. If you think otherwise, that is your opinion, and I won't hold it against you. I know you've played No More Heroes, but I don't know if you ever played MadWorld. I'm assuming that's a no. Like I said before, I make no promises. I know it's a good game, but I already got a busy schedule. I'll make time, if I can.