What are you currently playing?

[Bartholen]

I keep repeating myself, but I just gotta glaze Tainted Grail's writing some more. I just finished up two main quests in the second area that require you to find ancient tablets. They're both incredibly well written: one is set in a corrupted temple full of undead priestesses who collectively went insane. I would talk about it at length, but I'm pretty sure I misunderstood considerable chunks of what actually happened, and I don't want to misinform people.

The other takes place in an underground castle of a king who spurned the gods. It's a very overt homage to MacBeth, down to it quoting the play verbatim at the end. But the environment and writing create this incredible sense of weight and foreboding to the whole thing. I legit can't remember the last time I experienced a quest so genuinely dark and oppressive. It's not even particularly difficult or graphic, but the way the themes are handled and presented are so much above your average video game, and even RPG writing that it makes the game feel rated M+. For example, at one point you're tasked with finding three princes around the castle. One of them has disappeared into a pocket dimension of endless emptiness. Once you beat the miniboss and convince him to show up, he pretty much goes "Okay, it doesn't matter anyway. All there is is emptiness and more emptiness". The way he's so casual about it makes it feel so much darker than any amount of gore or hell visions would.

I really hope we get a sequel or another game by this studio that's more refined, because on the gameplay front pretty much all challenge has disappeared from the game. I'm one-shotting enemies with stealth archery left and right, and even most melee enemies don't stand a chance. Sure, you die in like two or three hits, but that's assuming enemies even manage to get to you in the first place. It's just way too easy to cheese them with hit-and-run tactics.

 

[bluegate]

​

Saw that Tomba! Special Edition was on sale on the PlayStation Store for a mere fiver so I grabbed it and spent the better part of my Saturday playing it, reliving some precious childhood memories.

There's a weird bug in the game where if you open the Rewind menu using L2 and then close it your D-Pad input will be partly ignored until you input any direction using the left analogue stick. I was also a little sad to see that my native language isn't in the game as it was one of the few games I had back in the day with an actual Dutch translation. I don't need a translation to enjoy the game, but for nostalgia's sake I would have loved to play through it again in the language I played it in when I was a kid.

The game itself is just a PS1 iso running through PCSX ReARMed, but they did add a snazzy looking menu, the ability to rewind and "save anywhere" and some developer interviews.

All in all a fiver well spent for me.

 

[BrawlMan]

Arc Runner wasn't doing it for me, so I traded in for Drive Club (a game I owned at one point for PS4) and Dante's Inferno (360). The latter I only played a demo and at friend's a little bit. Not gonna lie, I am really having fun with Dante's Inferno. I got it cheap, and I thought of happyninja42 when getting this. I am still in the early game, but I didn't realize this game has a cool magic system you can switch on the fly and equip up to 4.

 

[Ezekiel]

I almost wish Samus were stranded, so that I didn't feel as lame for wasting so much time collecting upgrades in my confused search for the path to the next goal. Almost.

Spoiler

Addictive. I'm far past where I dropped it years ago.

The number of items cycled through with Select is unfortunate.

 

[BrawlMan]

I've been playing more Bomberman 94'. Loving it.

 

[thebobmaster]

Through the first dispatch shift of Episode 4 in Dispatch. Definitely working out better this time since I have been using a walkthrough. Had a couple of bad rolls, and a couple of missed calls because of poor timing on hero availability, but it doesn't really impact game progress, and I've been doing overall well enough to not feel frustrated. Story is still a lot of fun.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Returning to Far Cry 3.

The game is still atmospheric, and gameplay is fun. The Rook Islands environment has aged gracefully, and I am still having fun exploring.

However, I think the game falls hard on two counts;

1. After Vaas death, you have to complete some missions to kill Hoyt. They are both POS, but Hoyt definitely isn't as memorable or likable as Vaas; IDK, kinda feel like we should've killed Hoyt first, witness the pirates become even more chaotic due to Vass continuing to descend into madness, and then kill him as the final boss.

2. After all of the enemy bases get cleared, there aren't that many threats; No more pirates patroling the roads, no more human enemies to test out the guns, and no more big objectives to clear out on the map.

I am doing this for the 100% achievement run; Thankfully I've seemed to have unlocked most of them years ago, but surprised to see some of them still locked, such as the story-based ones or the one where you have to freefall more than 100m and live; Maybe I unlocked them on different platform.

Thank god the multiplayer server and the acheivements are gone; I just remember being it terrible on the 360

 

[Ezekiel]

Went into a level in Super Mario World again by accident. Tried pressing Select, which took me back to the world map right away with my upgrade. Now I'm exploiting it. What a dumb idea.

I don't like the Forest of Illusion. Finding the secret is tiresome in replays, even years and years later.

 

[thebobmaster]

That always bugged me. Secret exits should be just that...secret. Lead you to a new hidden area, switch palace, so on. Making finding the second exit a requirement to continue on the game felt cheap.

 

[bluegate]

Thought it was pretty neat how you would just circle around if you went with the normal exit in a place called "forest of illusion".

Sure, it was confusing for a bit thirty years ago, but the game really isn't all that complex and it isn't that hard to find the secret exit to continue.
The only challenging bit is reaching the exit as big Mario so that you can destroy the blocks to get to the key.

 

[Drathnoxis]

What bugged me was that little intersection in the middle that has no level on it but looks like it should. I spent hours as a kid trying to find the secret that would make it appear.

 

[bluegate]

The real annoying bit in Super Mario World is one of the first levels in the chocolate area, Chocolate Island 2, where the composition of the level changes depending on the level timer.

That was some Grade A bullshit with no precedent anywhere in the game. Most other secret exits can be found through thorough playing, hugging every wall, jumping in every pit, attempting to enter every pipe, paying attention, etc.

I don't remember how I managed to get to that particular exit back in the day, maybe me or my parents stumbled upon it by pure luck, or maybe one of our aquintances had a guide book...

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Damn this is making me want to boot up my Mini SNES.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

What bugged me was that little intersection in the middle that has no level on it but looks like it should. I spent hours as a kid trying to find the secret that would make it appear.

My pet peeve is that completion shows up as "96" rather than "100" because the file is counting the total number of possible exits (which is 96) rather than a percentage.

 

[Drathnoxis]

The real annoying bit in Super Mario World is one of the first levels in the chocolate area, Chocolate Island 2, where the composition of the level changes depending on the level timer.

That was some Grade A bullshit with no precedent anywhere in the game. Most other secret exits can be found through thorough playing, hugging every wall, jumping in every pit, attempting to enter every pipe, paying attention, etc.

I don't remember how I managed to get to that particular exit back in the day, maybe me or my parents stumbled upon it by pure luck, or maybe one of our aquintances had a guide book...

You just need to beat the level in under 50 seconds and that's it. The game even spells this out for you, you just ignored the hint:



Doing the level as fast as possible would be one of the most obvious things to try.

 

[Chimpzy]

So I just finished Metroid Prime 4

I have so many problems with this game. When you're proper Prime'ing, exploring for items and how to get to them, and figuring out where to go for progress, it's good fun. If only it wasn't so deathly afraid of letting go of your hand for five minutes. "Dont forget to go there, Samus" "Hey Samus, remember to collect that stuff" "Bla bla, bla bla bla". "Stfu Mckenzie, I'm exploring shit" You know what would be a big QoL improvement? An option to turn off hints. Or the npcs from talking. They're cardboard cutouts anyway. Anyway, back to the disliking.

I don't like how none of the big areas are interconnected, in a goddann Metroid game. I don't like the crystal collecting, it's annoying busywork. I don't like how little there's to do in the big empty desert overworld. I don't like how low the enemy variety is and that a lot of them are imo not fun to fight, especially the grievers with their annoying af noise and dodging. I don't like how little new abilities there are, naming then psychic does not make them new. I don't like how it doesn't really do anything with Silux, like, I kept forgetting he is in this. Speaking of, I don't like 2 out of 3 fases of his final fight. And lastly, I don't like the ending, seriously, wtf Samus. The npcs sacrificing themselves also doesn't have any punch after they already did their fake-out sacrifice in the mines.. The music is pretty nice. And while it's fairly obviously an uprezzed Switch 1 game, it does look quite nice at times, and runs very smoothly.

This might be the recency and the disappointment speaking, and I might get flak for it, but I consider it the new worst game in the series. Yes, below Other M. Because despite that PoS' many failings, it at least fails at trying something different, and I can respect that. Prime 4 doesn't only not learn any lessons from 20 years of first person games since the first Prime, it didn't really learn anything from the other Primes either, or from the rest of the franchise, or from the many other metroidvanias out there. Such a shame. When Nintendo took Prime 4 from Namco and gave it back to Retro Studios, I thought that was a good move. Now I'm starting to think Metroid has no future with them, or any team within Nintendo, and the only chance of moving forward is a bold new direction.

 

[meiam]

So I just finished Metroid Prime 4

I have so many problems with this game. When you're proper Prime'ing, exploring for items and how to get to them, and figuring out where to go for progress, it's good fun. If only it wasn't so deathly afraid of letting go of your hand for five minutes. "Dont forget to go there, Samus" "Hey Samus, remember to collect that stuff" "Bla bla, bla bla bla". "Stfu Mckenzie, I'm exploring shit" You know what would be a big QoL improvement? An option to turn off hints. Or the npcs from talking. They're cardboard cutouts anyway. Anyway, back to the disliking.

I don't like how none of the big areas are interconnected, in a goddann Metroid game. I don't like the crystal collecting, it's annoying busywork. I don't like how little there's to do in the big empty desert overworld. I don't like how low the enemy variety is and that a lot of them are imo not fun to fight, especially the grievers with their annoying af noise and dodging. I don't like how little new abilities there are, naming then psychic does not make them new. I don't like how it doesn't really do anything with Silux, like, I kept forgetting he is in this. Speaking of, I don't like 2 out of 3 fases of his final fight. And lastly, I don't like the ending, seriously, wtf Samus. The npcs sacrificing themselves also doesn't have any punch after they already did their fake-out sacrifice in the mines.. The music is pretty nice. And while it's fairly obviously an uprezzed Switch 1 game, it does look quite nice at times, and runs very smoothly.

This might be the recency and the disappointment speaking, and I might get flak for it, but I consider it the new worst game in the series. Yes, below Other M. Because despite that PoS' many failings, it at least fails at trying something different, and I can respect that. Prime 4 doesn't only not learn any lessons from 20 years of first person games since the first Prime, it didn't really learn anything from the other Primes either, or from the rest of the franchise, or from the many other metroidvanias out there. Such a shame. When Nintendo took Prime 4 from Namco and gave it back to Retro Studios, I thought that was a good move. Now I'm starting to think Metroid has no future with them, or any team within Nintendo, and the only chance of moving forward is a bold new direction.

Yeah wonder what a "breath of the wild" metroid would be like. Problem is that the classic metroid formula has been iterated and perfected in the indie scene trough a bunch of variation, but its gotten stale, or maybe more "mature" (ie fully realized).

But I'm not quite sure what that would be like, the soul of them is really the exploration aspect and the world "growing" organically has you unlock new tools. They could give you more freedom with the tool (again very breath of the wild), but these tend to break pretty quickly when the played is given so much freedom.

I dunno, maybe playing as a metroid (say the metroid from the SNES game) and being able to absorb and transform into the enemy, almost giving it some sort of pokemon aspect?

 

[thebobmaster]

For the record, there is only one level in Super Mario World that I never managed to beat. And surprisingly enough, it isn't Tubular. No, I managed to cheese my way through that one. The level I could never beat? Valley Fortress.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I dunno, maybe playing as a metroid (say the metroid from the SNES game) and being able to absorb and transform into the enemy, almost giving it some sort of pokemon aspect?

I don't know how aware of Metroid lore you are, but Metroids don't do that. In fact they were outright genetically engineered to hunt and kill the things that do that, and exploration tends to relatively straightforward when your base form can fly (as the X Parasites do, as do Metroids). You'd have better luck looking for/making your own indie metroidvania with that as a base concept.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The end boss of the Nioh 3 demo is for real.

It has 4 different unblockable attacks, 3 of which have to be perfect parried, and one of which has to be dodged very specifically, all with completely different timings and all of which do absolutely massive damage if you mistime them.

I'm also somewhat under-leveled for the boss, but that doesn't really matter for these types of games. So long as I can do the combat perfectly my level doesn't matter. I just can't take as many hits as other players who are 10 levels higher than me. The problem is that I can't do that combat perfectly though...