It's going to be a long wait. They wrote themselves into a corner. Hence why they're doing a prequel.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
- Start date
Demos...
Rise of the Ronin
All the awkward angles and wonky movements of Team Ninja with the goddamn delayed attacks that need to be awkwardly parried of the Sekiro rip-off subgenre dominating action games. Hard pass.
Shame is I actually was intrigued by the story setup. Oh well.
Schim
This is the indy sort of platform sort of puzzle game where you're a creature jumping from shadow to shadow to get around. I say sort of puzzle because yes you have to figure out how to get around but the movement is very forgiving and feels good to execute. I liked it and put it on my wishlist.
Rise of the Ronin
All the awkward angles and wonky movements of Team Ninja with the goddamn delayed attacks that need to be awkwardly parried of the Sekiro rip-off subgenre dominating action games. Hard pass.
Shame is I actually was intrigued by the story setup. Oh well.
Schim
This is the indy sort of platform sort of puzzle game where you're a creature jumping from shadow to shadow to get around. I say sort of puzzle because yes you have to figure out how to get around but the movement is very forgiving and feels good to execute. I liked it and put it on my wishlist.
The whole choose one and the other dies bit. It's either JD or Del and will Gears 6 will have to account for the player's choice at some point. The fact they chose a prequel, instead of tackling the plotline kinda proves that. We call, we wrote ourselves into a corner, so here's a prequel where we dip back into the well or have an origin episode. See Devil May Cry 3 and Metal Gear Solid 3. Those are actually great games though. E-Day might be fine, but it's funny they're banking on nostalgia while earlier and going on about how they should move beyond the original trilogy.
Also, I found from one of the user's in the comments mentioned this:
@217adaptiveperspective
Apparently it's a different Team making E-Day, and they didn't feel like tackling the story and cliffhanger the old TC Devs left for them. So they're doing E-Day to figure things out first. Also canonically Lancers with chainsaws don't start getting mass produced until around a year after E-Day, with Tai being the one to lead to it's creation.
]I wouldn't necessarily say that they wrote themselves into a corner over this. Sure, its a wrinkle that they will have to deal with, but there is definitely precedent for sequels having to deal with player-determinant deaths or choices in previous games,
Off the top of my head, Wolfenstein (2014) forces you to pick between Fergus or Wyatt at the beginning of the game, which caries into the sequel, where you are immediately prompted to select which one survived. And a number of companions can die during the Mass Effect games, that the sequels had to account for.
I think the real reason why Gears doing a prequel, instead of doing Gears 6, is due to the general lack of enthusiasm over the Swarm, and the new characters in general. I can't really blame them: sequels after the original story was concluded are generally never as satisfying, and they normally feel like a continuation for the sake of continuation. I'm constantly wishing that Halo would go back to the Human-Covenant war, even if a consequence of that is that the overall story ends up forever treading water.
That's because those devs knew what they were doing and did immediate sequels and took the into account. The Gears devs clearly didn't have a plan in mind after this.
That more or less proves my point. Ends on a cliffhanger, has enemy faction most people don't like, and the next game has to account for either character death choice. Hence why they're hitting the prequel button, because no one wants to deal with that hot mess nor how to handle it. They pretty much set up themselves or whoever is in the next dev chair for failure.
Metroid Dread: Made it to the point where I finally found out why the plot is happening. Turns out that Samus's Metroid DNA that she was implanted with 20 years ago in Fusion made her a target for this game's villain, Raven Beak, who wants to create a Metroid army to take over the universe. Since Samus already genocided the Metroids back in the second game, Raven Beak stole the EMMIs from the Federation to extract Samus's DNA.
And he built an entire extra robot army to try and stop her from leaving, because just destroying the elevators to the surface seemingly didn't occur to him.
I like the game a lot so far, but the requirement to know about the Metroid series lore may turn off a lot of people; then again, I feel like the devs probably didn't expect anyone who didn't know about the Metroid series lore already to be interested in buying the game, and at least this way the lore dumps get (mostly) extricated. And the lore dump that just happened was actually pretty good, so.
And he built an entire extra robot army to try and stop her from leaving, because just destroying the elevators to the surface seemingly didn't occur to him.
I like the game a lot so far, but the requirement to know about the Metroid series lore may turn off a lot of people; then again, I feel like the devs probably didn't expect anyone who didn't know about the Metroid series lore already to be interested in buying the game, and at least this way the lore dumps get (mostly) extricated. And the lore dump that just happened was actually pretty good, so.
Went back to Braid: Anniversary Edition to finish World 7. That's Platinum #125.
World 7 is probably the big selling point for the Anniversary Edition, although I wish it was a 'proper' world instead of a bunch of doors that you access from the commentary hub. I think it was billed as having "40 new rooms", although most of those are simply part of the commentary hub world. There're in actuality 16 new puzzle pieces to collect. The puzzles themselves are worthy additions to the game.
I went back to Foamstars, Square Enix's lame attempt at F2P liveservice, since they added an extra trophy this season. It was a case of reinstalling the game and playing the new game mode until I found a team that could carry me. Didn't take long. And that's 16 GB I'll have back, thank you SE.
Still playing Sackworld: A Big Adventure with the missus. The levels become harder around worlds 3-4. I've learned to suck it up and "have fun" (sp?) when playing co-op and go back for collectibles and no-death runs when I'm on my own.
World 7 is probably the big selling point for the Anniversary Edition, although I wish it was a 'proper' world instead of a bunch of doors that you access from the commentary hub. I think it was billed as having "40 new rooms", although most of those are simply part of the commentary hub world. There're in actuality 16 new puzzle pieces to collect. The puzzles themselves are worthy additions to the game.
I went back to Foamstars, Square Enix's lame attempt at F2P liveservice, since they added an extra trophy this season. It was a case of reinstalling the game and playing the new game mode until I found a team that could carry me. Didn't take long. And that's 16 GB I'll have back, thank you SE.
Still playing Sackworld: A Big Adventure with the missus. The levels become harder around worlds 3-4. I've learned to suck it up and "have fun" (sp?) when playing co-op and go back for collectibles and no-death runs when I'm on my own.
I completed my Bunji Run of Gungrave GORE. Fun to play him, but he doesn't have as a large move set as Grave does. Hence why he is so overpowered. Especially if you upgraded his bullet damage.
I don't think a lot of people pick up metroid for the story, so not knowing it won't be a deal breaker for many.
Bastion
The first Super Giant game and the only one I hadn't played.
It's great! For some reason I had it in my head that it was like some pixel RPG thing- just some poor memory of old screen shots or something, I dunno. But no it's just a fun straightforward action game, kind of hack 'n' slashy. In fact it feels a lot like Hades- you go from room to room, fight stuff, have an arsenal of weapons that are just really stylish variations of your standard weapon set- sword, hammer, bow, gun, etc. It feels like Hades without the parts of Hades I don't like- the "roguelite." No procedural generation, just short missions in a linear story.
The first Super Giant game and the only one I hadn't played.
It's great! For some reason I had it in my head that it was like some pixel RPG thing- just some poor memory of old screen shots or something, I dunno. But no it's just a fun straightforward action game, kind of hack 'n' slashy. In fact it feels a lot like Hades- you go from room to room, fight stuff, have an arsenal of weapons that are just really stylish variations of your standard weapon set- sword, hammer, bow, gun, etc. It feels like Hades without the parts of Hades I don't like- the "roguelite." No procedural generation, just short missions in a linear story.
Glad you are enjoying it. I have not touched the game since 2015, so I might give it a go again later. I did beat it and see both endings.
I don't know what I am playing next, but I am more than likely going back and finishing Gal Guardians and Super Crush KO.
Astronite
It's a black and white, retro looking, super minimalistic Metroidvania by a Spanish dev. Looks like Gato Roboto. It's marketed as "1-bit", which is wrong because there's also some gray in there, but whatever.
You play as a cute little astronaut that crashes on an alien planet, promptly loses his gun/dash/jetpack and has to go do the Metroid thing. You get your pea shooter back pretty quickly, but its range is pathetic compared to the shooting range of every enemy in the game.
Speaking of unfair, you start off with a measly 3 HP (and never gain any means of healing, outside saving and making everything respawn), checkpoints are few and far apart, and there's a Souls-like system where you lose your cash upon death and get a single shot at reclaiming it. The more precious items cost thousands but you you only get like 5 moneys per kill. Also using fast travel costs money. Go figure.
So it's a pretty unwelcoming game, and it also cheats halfway through by buffing up the enemies and screwing over your own progress. I happen to like it though. The game is smart with the positioning of enemies and platforms, and so long as you play deliberately you can make good headway. I've died a bunch of times but never got to lose any money. Bosses are fun, some gauntlets are pretty challenging, the upgrades really pay off, the movement abilities are easy to use and satisfying to pull off.
One last thing: the game features some truly atrocious dialogue that typically has two characters saying the same thing back and forth ("It's a door!" "Do you think it'll lead somewhere?" "We should open it" "Yes, let's open it"), and to make things even more aggravating the screen flashes a blinding white light to punctuate dialogue. Oh and I had to turn off vibration because they really overdid it with the constant rumble.
It's a black and white, retro looking, super minimalistic Metroidvania by a Spanish dev. Looks like Gato Roboto. It's marketed as "1-bit", which is wrong because there's also some gray in there, but whatever.
You play as a cute little astronaut that crashes on an alien planet, promptly loses his gun/dash/jetpack and has to go do the Metroid thing. You get your pea shooter back pretty quickly, but its range is pathetic compared to the shooting range of every enemy in the game.
Speaking of unfair, you start off with a measly 3 HP (and never gain any means of healing, outside saving and making everything respawn), checkpoints are few and far apart, and there's a Souls-like system where you lose your cash upon death and get a single shot at reclaiming it. The more precious items cost thousands but you you only get like 5 moneys per kill. Also using fast travel costs money. Go figure.
So it's a pretty unwelcoming game, and it also cheats halfway through by buffing up the enemies and screwing over your own progress. I happen to like it though. The game is smart with the positioning of enemies and platforms, and so long as you play deliberately you can make good headway. I've died a bunch of times but never got to lose any money. Bosses are fun, some gauntlets are pretty challenging, the upgrades really pay off, the movement abilities are easy to use and satisfying to pull off.
One last thing: the game features some truly atrocious dialogue that typically has two characters saying the same thing back and forth ("It's a door!" "Do you think it'll lead somewhere?" "We should open it" "Yes, let's open it"), and to make things even more aggravating the screen flashes a blinding white light to punctuate dialogue. Oh and I had to turn off vibration because they really overdid it with the constant rumble.
Metroid Dread: Pretty certain I've reached the final boss. Thinking about whether to go for it right now or circle back to the other areas to pick up all the remaining items. It's not like I don't think I can do it, I just might want to try exploring some more. A lot of optional items are hidden in places that genuinely take some thinking and effort to reach, which is a good thing - just one that might be too much of a good thing.
Eh, guess I'll go circle around, see what I can get, maybe not try too hard on the really hard ones. Not like I was expecting to get the bonuses for clearing the file quickly anyway, on my first playthrough. Can speedrun it later.
Eh, guess I'll go circle around, see what I can get, maybe not try too hard on the really hard ones. Not like I was expecting to get the bonuses for clearing the file quickly anyway, on my first playthrough. Can speedrun it later.
So I beat the Elder Dragon that you encountered at the start of the game in Monster Hunter world, and it kinda felt like that was it. Which was confusing, since I'd used the same armor and weapon the entire time until that point.
Reddit says I still have 50 more hours to go, which is a relief. Really want to change up my armor and weapons soon.
Reddit says I still have 50 more hours to go, which is a relief. Really want to change up my armor and weapons soon.
@NerfedFalcon, @Old_Hunter_77, @hanselthecaretaker2 , and @CriticalGaming, I decided to try GORE difficulty in Gungrave G.O.R.E. What the hell is wrong with me?! So far It has not gone too bad. I almost died to one of the first major 4 crime lord bosses. On this difficulty you get no checkpoints. You die, you have to start the level all over again. I dread when I get to Rose Quartz's level. I might just use the level select and do her's early to get it out of the way. I'm currently in the Vietnam levels. I'll play more when I get home from work.
And that's a wrap on Astronite.
I enjoyed it but yeah, how's this for artificial difficulty:
Halfway through the game the big bad shows up, goes muahahaha and lets you know that enemies are now tougher, as in they take double the damage to kill - meaning you now basically deal half damage.
The ultimate store reward, worth 3750 souls (enemies drop like 5), consists of a x2 multiplier for your gun. And so you now spend the second half of the game basically working towards a purchase that will roughly put you back to where you were half a game ago.
That particular bullshit aside, I found the game a solid B+. It can be unwelcoming and very punishing but I was comfortable with the difficulty level and largely enjoyed my time with it.
I enjoyed it but yeah, how's this for artificial difficulty:
Halfway through the game the big bad shows up, goes muahahaha and lets you know that enemies are now tougher, as in they take double the damage to kill - meaning you now basically deal half damage.
The ultimate store reward, worth 3750 souls (enemies drop like 5), consists of a x2 multiplier for your gun. And so you now spend the second half of the game basically working towards a purchase that will roughly put you back to where you were half a game ago.
That particular bullshit aside, I found the game a solid B+. It can be unwelcoming and very punishing but I was comfortable with the difficulty level and largely enjoyed my time with it.
I did Rose Quartz's section early so I won't have to do it later. I am finishing up the rest of Vietnam. Grave's DLC Death Ronin Costume is on sale for $0.99, so I bought it. I love the cool purple trails he leaves in the costume. I will be wearing it for the rest of the playthrough.
EDIT: Vietnam levels are finished.
EDIT: Vietnam levels are finished.
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