What are you currently playing?

[laggyteabag]

@NerfedFalcon just catching up on your Dead Space-ing.

Out of interest, what weapon(s) are you using?

As an aside, if I were to give a Dead Space pro-tip for being thrifty with your ammo: kinesis everything. If it is sharp or explodes, you're in for a good time. Big explody things are pretty obvious to spot, but pipes on walls, shelves, and slasher claws(?) can impale necromorphs, and are largely a 1-hit kill. So keep your eyes on the furniture, and smash some corpses.

Basically, if you're not entering and exiting every combat encounter holding something that can nail a necromorph to a wall, you're missing out.

 

[Chimpzy]

I'm playing Afterimage, a Metroidvania from Chinese studio Aurogon.

People call it Hollow Knight meets Ori, but I don't know. Maybe in terms of production value. There's a wealth of variety in terms of enemies, biomes, pickups, mechanics, you name it. It's all presented in that format that looks hand-drawn but the animation feels a bit puppety and with zero heft to your attacks or movements.

There's a soullessness to the game. It's dense with content and massive in scale but you never get a sense of personality from anything or a satisfying feeling of progress or discovery. I'm tempted to dismiss it as just another Symphony of the Night reskin, but I've played actually compelling SotN reskins like Bloodstained and Deedlit.

It's not a bad game by any means, just kind of uninspired in a deceptively garish way.

I've also played it this summer (you're not the only metroidvania aficionado around), and yeah, I agree. It's got nice production values, and it's all mechanically sound, and there's plenty of content. But also nothing you haven't seen before. I find a lot of Chinese games I've played are like that. Competent, but unremarkable. I suppose you could call it unambitious. There's obvious talent there, but no 'je ne sais quoi', no x-factor to push it from just another pretty good game into something memorable.

I call that sinojank. As opposed to slavjank, which is kind of the opposite: games too ambitious for what the dev can actually deliver. So you get this obtuse, buggy, ugly and/or unfinished mess of a game. But you grit your teeth and play it anyway, because it's an experience you can't get anywhere else.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've also played it this summer (you're not the only metroidvania aficionado around), and yeah, I agree. It's got nice production values, and it's all mechanically sound, and there's plenty of content. But also nothing you haven't seen before. I find a lot of Chinese games I've played are like that. Competent, but unremarkable. I suppose you could call it unambitious. There's obvious talent there, but no 'je ne sais quoi', no x-factor to push it from just another pretty good game into something memorable.

I call that sinojank. As opposed to slavjank, which is kind of the opposite: games too ambitious for what the dev can actually deliver. So you get this obtuse, buggy, ugly and/or unfinished mess of a game. But you grit your teeth and play it anyway, because it's an experience you can't get anywhere else.

I'm adopting those terms.

This is a phrase that shows up a lot these days when discussing soullessness, but this game screams "designed by AI". It's not quite "designed by committee" (ie. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown), where the effect is "this is what people want", but rather "this is what humans like". It's the extravagant colors and variety, coupled with a complete lack of theming, but also a general disregard for the player. Where in something like Hollow Knight every little platform and enemy is designed and positioned with the player's flow and thought process in mind, often as a means of tricking or rewarding them, here it's all fairly haphazard. The overall experience just isn't curated in a memorable way.

I did play two other Chinese MVs - Ender Lilies and F.I.S.T. - and while the sinojank was definitely there, the stronger theming and more focused aesthetic did better at masking the soullessness.

 

[Worgen]

Ender Lilies

Ender Lilies is Japanese.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Ender Lilies is Japanese.

Shimatta.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

ER Sherdtree, *O Mother* obtusely hidden FROM finger ruins done. Yup, needed to look that one up. Shaman Village was a cup of tranquility but these areas are so barren feeling otherwise, like finger-fucked wastelands. Now I think the only place I haven’t reached is the rocky mountainous section with apparently some curse-laden dragon(s). I also found all the extra nighttime larval tears (looked most of them up too!) and made a save file for that, so will be experimenting with whatever else I find between now and actually fighting the promised concert consort.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Out of interest, what weapon(s) are you using?

Plasma Cutter, Ripper, Flamethrower, Contact Beam. Still haven't figured out whether I care about the Force Gun or not, but Pulse Rifle and Line Gun don't do it for me. Had to pull the Rifle out for the boss fight though, because you can't get close enough to use the Flamethrower without a roar automatically forcing you back and there's Rifle ammo in the arena whether you have it equipped or not.

Basically, if you're not entering and exiting every combat encounter holding something that can nail a necromorph to a wall, you're missing out.

I get that, but in a lot of games I tend to have trouble keeping my theory knowledge in my head. (It's part of why I can't play fighting games very well either.) Since I've played a lot more of Resident Evil 4 than Half-Life 2, I fall back on my guns rather than the gravity gun when shit goes down.

And I know that's a lot of words for 'skill issue'.

 

[BrawlMan]

Plasma Cutter, Ripper, Flamethrower, Contact Beam. Still haven't figured out whether I care about the Force Gun or not, but Pulse Rifle and Line Gun don't do it for me. Had to pull the Rifle out for the boss fight though, because you can't get close enough to use the Flamethrower without a roar automatically forcing you back and there's Rifle ammo in the arena whether you have it equipped or not.

Try to keep you weapon load out to three. Either ditch the flamethrower or contact beam. Both are great weapons, but if it were me, I'd go Contact Beam in your case. Since you care about keeping your distance. The Flamethrower has a great secondary with the flame wall though.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Try to keep you weapon load out to three. Either ditch the flamethrower or contact beam. Both are great weapons, but if it were me, I'd go Contact Beam in your case. Since you care about keeping your distance. The Flamethrower has a great secondary with the flame wall. though.

Flamethrower's the only way I've found to deal with the swarmers except 'just take the damage, lol', but since I usually don't see them coming in time anyway, I guess it's about as useful as a screen door on a battleship. Also I accidentally sold all my ammo for it while trying to store it before the boss fight.

 

[BrawlMan]

Flamethrower's the only way I've found to deal with the swarmers except 'just take the damage, lol', but since I usually don't see them coming in time anyway, I guess it's about as useful as a screen door on a battleship

The Ripper and Contact Beam work well on the Swarmers too. Rarely do they get the drop on me with either of these weapons.

 

[FakeSympathy]

OoT via Ship of Harkinian has been beaten!

Man, I think it has been at least 15 years since I last beaten the game. 100% completion too! Didn't realize Biggoron Sword can be obtained as early as post-fire temple. Made the game a hell of a lot easier than I remembered.

The dungeons, the memorable characters, the special items, they are all exactly as how I remembered them to be. The game was really satisfying to play. And discovering secrets were still fun, although I found out only few of them are actually worth looking into for heart pieces and gold skulltulas.

Although I do think the z-targeting was unreliable from time to time. Also, usually I criticize a game for either having too many fast travels or having not enough. This game has a good "balance", because it's not just the warp songs, but shortcuts you can utilize as well in the lost woods. However, some areas were really annoying to reach, like Gerudo Fortress.

This game also made me realize just how useless the rupees are in this game. You can practically find them everywhere, and never have to worry about running out. The 100th gold skulltula reward was really disappointing, in that regard.

Now I'm off to either another Dark Souls un but this time with Zweihander, which I've never used in the game.

ORRRR Going back to Dragon Age Origins to wash off the bad taste known as the Veilguard

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Felt pretty motivated tonight, so I got through chapters 7, 8 and 9 of Dead Space Remake. I think I'm finally getting the hang of things; I'm still probably not using Kinesis as much as I should be, but I'm no longer in an ammo death spiral except immediately after boss fights or mini-bosses like Brutes, or those things that spawn an infinite number of minions to kill with your very-much-not-infinite ammo. Story's going absolutely wild though, and that's motivating me more than anything to keep going.

Final weapon loadout is the Plasma Cutter, Ripper, Contact Beam, and Force Gun. I know you said three weapons @BrawlMan but I'm more comfortable with this set, and four at least means I'm not getting ammo for a weapon that isn't on my hotkeys. Also I occasionally pull out the Pulse Rifle for certain sections, like the boss of chapter 8 and all of chapter 9. Only got 350 on the Valor's shooting range because I didn't notice there were arrows on the floor until after the Necromorphs were all dead, derp.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Felt pretty motivated tonight, so I got through chapters 7, 8 and 9 of Dead Space Remake. I think I'm finally getting the hang of things; I'm still probably not using Kinesis as much as I should be, but I'm no longer in an ammo death spiral except immediately after boss fights or mini-bosses like Brutes, or those things that spawn an infinite number of minions to kill with your very-much-not-infinite ammo. Story's going absolutely wild though, and that's motivating me more than anything to keep going.

Final weapon loadout is the Plasma Cutter, Ripper, Contact Beam, and Force Gun. I know you said three weapons @BrawlMan but I'm more comfortable with this set, and four at least means I'm not getting ammo for a weapon that isn't on my hotkeys. Also I occasionally pull out the Pulse Rifle for certain sections, like the boss of chapter 8 and all of chapter 9. Only got 350 on the Valor's shooting range because I didn't notice there were arrows on the floor until after the Necromorphs were all dead, derp.

There is an achievement for beating the whole game with just a plasma cutter, which sounds a lot easier than it sounds; Because instead of spreading out the upgrade materials to different weapons, you can bring one weapon to its max potential. I got this achievement myself, and holy shit, did maxed-out plasma cutter can decimate all necromorphs. Not to mention, you also save them to be used on your suit, RIG, stasis, and Kinetic upgrade.

According to this website, 20% of all XBOX 360 players who played it got this achievement in the orignal. Which goes to show It can be done. It would even be easier by lowering difficulty if someone was really struggling.

 

[meiam]

There is an achievement for beating the whole game with just a plasma cutter, which sounds a lot easier than it sounds; Because instead of spreading out the upgrade materials to different weapons, you can bring one weapon to its max potential. I got this achievement myself, and trust me maxed-out plasma cutter can decimate all necromorphs. Not to mention, you also save them to be used on your suit, RIG, stasis, and Kinetic upgrade.

According to this website, 20% of all XBOX 360 players who played it got this achievement. Which goes to show It can be done. It would even be easier by lowering difficulty if someone was really struggling

The plasma cutter is just the best weapon in the game, there's not really much reason to use anything outside of variety. The only other worth mentioning is the ripper for ammo conservation, but that only matter on the higher difficulty.

 

[Worgen]

The plasma cutter is just the best weapon in the game, there's not really much reason to use anything outside of variety. The only other worth mentioning is the ripper for ammo conservation, but that only matter on the higher difficulty.

The line gun for fun.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

The plasma cutter is just the best weapon in the game, there's not really much reason to use anything outside of variety. The only other worth mentioning is the ripper for ammo conservation, but that only matter on the higher difficulty.

Saw a post on Reddit of someone recommending you keep the Force Gun in a Cutter-only run because its ammo sells for the most per pickup, letting you buy even more Cutter ammo. Wouldn't know about that obviously, but maybe something to try next time?