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[PsychedelicDiamond]

> liking the song "Jambalaya".

Which version? Hank or Jerry Lee?

My go to's the Fats Domino version


but I also love the spooky version The Residents did, mashing it up with Singing Waterfall!

 

[Worgen]

Finished South of Midnight a couple days ago, as part of my quest, not to be weird about this, to play every game starring a cute black girl. Which, unfortunately, means I have to play stuff like Forspoken (which was some of the dullest shit I've seen) or Dustborn (which was really quite bad, but at least kind of intrestingly so. I've been meaning to write about it one of these days.) South of Midnight ist better than either, low bar as that might be.

If you are after every game where you play a cute black woman then you should check out Supplice. Its an fps so the character you play is more incidental then anything, but it was enough of an issue for some moron to be whining about it in the forums. Its also a really good GZDoom shooter.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Finished South of Midnight a couple days ago, as part of my quest, not to be weird about this, to play every game starring a cute black girl. Which, unfortunately, means I have to play stuff like Forspoken (which was some of the dullest shit I've seen) or Dustborn (which was really quite bad, but at least kind of intrestingly so. I've been meaning to write about it one of these days.) South of Midnight ist better than either, low bar as that might be.

So, South of Midnight is an action platformer set in swampy Louisiana, starring one Hazel Flood. Hazel is a normal girl living in the Bayou with her mum, when one day their house gets carried away in a... well, flood, and the mum along with it. Hazel embarks on a journey to rescue her, where she learns about her own magical power, meets a bunch of quirky creatures based on local folklore and explores a magical version of her home.

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South of Midnight was made by a studio called Compulsion Games, incidentally one of the studios recently cut off from Microsoft as part of their ongoing purges. They were responsible for We Happy Few, a janky but kind of interesting Action RPG set in a dystopian Britain. Much like We Happy Few, South of Midnight tries to sell itself on the atmosphere of its setting by drawing from its real life culture. Which is quite funny, considering Compulsion Games is, in fact, neither from Britain, nor Louisiana (they're Canadian, for the record) so in both cases, they're very much taking the perspective of an outsider looking in. Which suits me just fine, because, obviously, so am I. The only thing connecting me to the Deep American South is having seen Oh Brother Where Art Thou a lot, being able to cook a pretty decent Jambalaya, and liking the song "Jambalaya".

So what I can say is, South of Midnight's primary selling point is its atmosphere and rather unique setting. The gameplay is... functional. It plays rather like Psychonauts 2, I guess, it's mostly relatively simple platforming, some very minor puzzle solving and a combat system that, I can almost promise you, you will be sick of by the end. It's... functional, but boring. Got your attack. Got your couple of magic spells with cooldown timers. Got your designated combat arenas. Yeah.

The story meanwhile is, to a fault, that of a teen (or, I suppose, we call them Young Adult) fantasy novel. "[Protagonist With Meaningful Name] thought she was an Average Teen living in [Boring Small Town, USA, With Meaningful Name], but one day she finds out she's [Special Magical Person], last in the line of [Special Magical People], chosen to fight [Supernatural Threat] with the help of [Whimsical Creature]! Insert "Hazel Flood", "Prospero, Louisiana", "Weaver", "Weavers" and "Corruption" and "Talking Giant Catfish" and you got SoM's plot, with just about all the plot beats you'd expect. There are thinly veiled metaphors for the struggles of a young person trying to find their place in the world and a reckoning with her family's history and personal growth being represented by fancy outfit changes (The Hunger Games series really liked that trope), you get the drill.

Now, as you, with the exaggerated swagger of a black teen, make your way across the enchanted Bayou, South of Midnight touches upon the regions sordid history of slavery, racial segregation, institutional neglect, wealth disparity and many cases of personal tragedy but it touches upon them the way something clearly meant for a younger audience would, in a way that's not quite euphemistic, but definitely giving you the family friendly version. The focus lies more on the whimsy of local mythology and folklore, which it brings to life very effectively. The games artstyle, designs and character animations invoke sort of a gothic stop motion look, clearly going for kind of a Studio Laika-y, Henry Sellick-y, Tim Burton-y feel and no doubt, South of Midnight looks really nice. The swamps and mountains and flooded farmlands ooze with atmosphere and I love the lighting!

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The other standout is the voice acting, which really makes the setting and characters come to life. The Cajun accents all sound very authentic (I mean, to me, at least) and they all sound very distinctive, the way in which you'd expect the characters in an animated movie to. Particularly Hazel herself, played by Adriyan Rae, who's sassy and witty and confident and pretty and would totally be my girlfriend if she were real and... sorry, what was I talking about? Anyhow, it's a good performance that really carries the game, along with Walt Roberts who plays Catfish, her companion and narrator of most of the game, with a smooth Cajun accent that's just pleasant to listen to. Most of the supporting cast is also quite good, but never quite feels like it gets enough screentime to shine, which is a shame.

South of Midnight is a pretty decent game. Not a great one, it's kind of a 6/10 that rises to a 7/10 if you vibe with its setting and art direction. I played this not expecting to be blown away by it, and I wasn't, for one because it feels a tad longer than it aught to be, but it's a decent game of modest scale. The definition of a AA production, which seems to be exactly what the western studios and Microsoft in particular seems to have mostly given up on. I don't know if this game made money, I reckon it didn't, but there's something to be said for the fact that this sort of thing seems to be relegated to the indie market at this point. If Microsoft and Sony want to solely focus on massive juggernaut projects that take hundreds of millions to make and 10 years to come out, smaller studios will have to pick up the slack for everything coming out in the meantime, and it's a shame the big console manufacturers seem to be actively disinterested in supporting them.

I hope Compulsion Games will land on their feet, because South of Midnight is a pretty decent game and a pretty significant net improvement on We Happy Few. It would be a pity if that's where their work as a studio ended. There's room for improvement but there's obviously a solid foundation there and, I suppose, potential to turn South of Midnight into a franchise, if that's where they want to go. Would be a shame if they couldn't recover.

I tried to get into this game, I was actually excited when it released on PS5 - The visuals looked terrific and I kinda love the design of the main character. But from the moment this game starts it's clear the developers did not have the talent or muscle to make this work.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

If you are after every game where you play a cute black woman then you should check out Supplice. Its an fps so the character you play is more incidental then anything, but it was enough of an issue for some moron to be whining about it in the forums. Its also a really good GZDoom shooter.

Oh, hell yeah, I'll always take a boomer shooter.

 

[Worgen]

Oh, hell yeah, I'll always take a boomer shooter.

And its a damn good one.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

DenshAttack
You. Know that grinding part of Sonic Adventure 2 most characters had in their levels? Well they just made a game entirely out of that, and put it in jet set radio world? Except this time you're a *checks notes*... bus



That is all.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Except this time you're a *checks notes*... bus

*train

A bus would be silly, come on.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Argh, I was ready for Resident Evil: Code Veronica to be over, but now I have to play as Chris Redfield. I checked a playthrough and found my spot in the story at 4 1/2 out of 7 1/2 hours. Of course my playthrough is already far longer.

Yeah, you still have an entire new location to play through as Claire after you are finished with Chris. Not even close to being done.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

I got maybe 6 or 7 hours into GoW Ragnarok, and I have been enjoying myself. I missed these characters, although I maintain Atreus looks so weirdly similar to the first game and so he took some getting used to. I did not expect Thor and Odin to be so funny and come off more as gabagool gangsters, which I enjoyed in the moment but wonder if I will end up being annoyed with later on. Also, is Santa Monica particularly good at animating characters? Every time Sindri is on screen, I can't help but smile.

That said, there are a lot of gameplay choices that I raise an eyebrow at. It's generally quite seamless to move through environments now, with Kratos using the blades as a grappling hook. But for some reason, they also litter in a crap ton of Uncharted-esque climbing sequences. The main difference from Uncharted being that you can't spam the jump button and so need to watch Kratos slowly move his big ass across the screen as if he didn't just pick a whole tree up and swing it like a baseball bat.

A lot of the early enemies are quite annoying too. They are almost exclusively stomach-height to Kratos, meaning you never actually see what they're doing if you're facing them. It also feels really dumb to be the God of War fighting iguana-sized enemies and actually being threatened by them. But the worst is that despite clearly being fodder enemies, they feel weirdly spongey. I think I genuinely had a harder time with these basic grunts than with bosses, if only because there are just so many of them I have not really unlocked much crowd-control runes.

Yup, that’s what made me not want to bother platinuming it. No matter how I upgraded or changed my gear, it got too tedious wailing away on some grunts when they barely even react to your hits anyways. It felt more like a, “gotta meet the number before they fall down” kinda thing. The first was like this too but didn’t seem as bad, and it was the first game so I guess more tolerable. But fool me once yada yada.

 

[Worgen]

I finally chose a bundle game for my switch 2, I was sure I was going to get Pokopia but after getting Pal World I knew I wanted something different. Donkey Kong Bannanza was tempting, but after playing the demo... ehh, as much as I like platformers, but for some reason Rare style ones never do it for me. So I grabbed Mario Kart World.

I gotta say, its a solid racer a but the animations on the vehicles, oh man those are a chefs kiss, the cars have so much personality to how they move and animate, they are their own characters. Its a bit weird getting used to a Mario Kart game after playing Forza, I keep wanting a hand break, but all I get is a weird drift that feels like its actively pushing your kart to the side. Not having a hand break in the freeroam is really noticeable since I keep wanting to do a sharp turn around but can't. It is very good, great maps, lots of characters and outfits, and its very cool seeing 25 racers at the start of a race. I wish I could be more granular with the ai, you will still have a few racers that keep up with you but the pack will quickly fall behind. I'm not saying I want the whole pack for everyrace, but I would like more of them to be viable since its kinda fun having a ton of them around, I'm not paying to play multi so all I have is the ai. I'm not sure about the wall driving mechanic, it seems like one of those things that would make everything even easier if you get a handle on it.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Yup, that’s what made me not want to bother platinuming it. No matter how I upgraded or changed my gear, it got too tedious wailing away on some grunts when they barely even react to your hits anyways. It felt more like a, “gotta meet the number before they fall down” kinda thing. The first was like this too but didn’t seem as bad, and it was the first game so I guess more tolerable. But fool me once yada yada.

Yeah I don't remember it feeling this annoying in the first game. Maybe I should be engaging in the more "advanced" moves that you're supposed to do while evading.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Yeah I don't remember it feeling this annoying in the first game. Maybe I should be engaging in the more "advanced" moves that you're supposed to do while evading.

If there are it’s a very specific combination of a certain runic attacks combined with the correct gear loadout that allows for max damage. And that usually involves late game stuff at higher levels.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Denshattack (demo, Switch 2)

Chalk it up in the "not for me" category.

Game is cool and fun for sure, but I'm just too old and slow for all the color and visual input and the required reaction times.
I don't have much experience and memory with all the other game things used to describe it- Dreamcast/PS2-era, 3D Sonic, Tony Hawk, Jet Set Radio. I played bits of some of those at friends' houses, sure, but that was long ago and I don't have nostalgia for those games and consoles. I can take or leave that whole anime vibe (but do think it's a perfect match for this gameplay).

I was considering buying it and was just browsing the Nintendo store and noticed it had a demo. I enjoyed it for a bit but then when I tried their post-story sort of open practice area, I just could not go 15 seconds without crashing the damn train. I just don't have the mental/visual brain capacity to handle that kind of 3D visual space so quickly.

 

[Silvanus]

Finally finished Lies of P.

It's a very good game, well polished, takes good combat cues from Bloodborne (rally system) and Sekiro (parrying to affect posture, the puppet string combat grapple thing). Atmosphere is good.

But its boss design veers into the frustrating, unfair side of Soulslikes a bit too often. Some bosses have combos that are just stupidly long, comprised of individual strikes that have different timings (Laxasia has a 13-move combo, including mini-pauses, different timings etc). A lot of the bosses have those ridiculously long wind-ups to fake you out, like Morgott. And insane tracking, turning 180 degrees at the last microsecond.

Overall a fun experience but it fatigued me by the end.

Also been playing the Star Fox remake. Very pretty, lots of fun. Appreciate the addition of challenges, expert mode, new multiplayer maps for online dogfights, the whole holoviewer full of lore, there's quite a lot of 'peripheral' additions. Though I do hope this leads to a true new entry in the series. And I want Assault on the Switch Online Gamecube app! Come on!

 

[Worgen]

Finally finished Lies of P.

It's a very good game, well polished, takes good combat cues from Bloodborne (rally system) and Sekiro (parrying to affect posture, the puppet string combat grapple thing). Atmosphere is good.

But its boss design veers into the frustrating, unfair side of Soulslikes a bit too often. Some bosses have combos that are just stupidly long, comprised of individual strikes that have different timings (Laxasia has a 13-move combo, including mini-pauses, different timings etc). A lot of the bosses have those ridiculously long wind-ups to fake you out, like Morgott. And insane tracking, turning 180 degrees at the last microsecond.

Overall a fun experience but it fatigued me by the end.

Sounds like we had the same experience with Lies of P. Those bosses became so much of a chore by the end... Although the final boss wasn't too bad. I think the worst for me was the green swamp monster thing.

 

[BrawlMan]

Getting the hang of DenshAttack. I've been getting bronze medals so far, but I am here to have fun first, then worry about max scoring later. Just when you think you've seen it all, this game throws curve balls after curve balls that makes it even more fun to play. Sega needs to learn tips from these devs, because they got the formula and switch up better than they've ever imagined.

I put myself in the mood for Ninja Gaiden 3: RE. The game can be fun, but mainly with the challenge missions/ninja trials to a certain point.

 

[thebobmaster]

Been playing a fair bit of a game called Cassette Beasts. On the surface, it's another Pokeclone, but there is a lot of thought put into the combat system, and the way type interactions are done especially feels so much more in depth than a simple "this type does more/less damage to this type". For example, use a Fire attack on a Plastic type? Congratulations (maybe), the fire melted the plastic, creating toxic fumes, and it's now a Poison type.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Made it to RCPD in RE: Requiem. Wasn’t too crazy about the city stuff getting there compared to the care center, but there were some good shooting sections and I loved being able to use the mortar rockets. Plus any chance to use a bolt action rifle is a plus for me. I learned to shoot on one of those IRL so it’s kinda sentimental. Also got ample usage out the supply box and it helped for the achievement crafting everything with Leon.

Anyways, I love when games go back to old locations like from RE2 after several generations. Yes they just remade it recently, but just the idea of revisiting a setting with hindsight after so much time and everything has happened is so appealing. Really curious to see what kind of Easter eggs they threw into it.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Getting the hang of DenshAttack. I've been getting bronze medals so far, but I am here to have fun first, then worry about max scoring later. Just when you think you've seen it all, this game throws curve balls after curve balls that makes it even more fun to play. Sega needs to learn tips from these devs, because they got the formula and switch up better than they've ever imagined.

Yeah that's the healthy attitude.
I rejected the game as not being for me after I played the demo but I kinda wanna go back to it. As long as there is at least the option to get to some kid of end of story or critical path by just getting through the main courses.

 

[BrawlMan]

@Worgen, I've been replaying some of the earlier levels in Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, and unlocking secret levels to do those. I am getting better and starting to get some A-Ranks on a more consistent basis. I got one S-Rank for the Jo Hayabusa prologue stage.

@Old_Hunter_77, thank you. Yeah, it don't require much to get to the next story path according to the reviews. BTW, I can see when and where Ragebound would frustrate you. Though I am not talking about the platforming in this case. There are tough moments there, but the game still more lenient than its NES brethren. It's even more lenient than Shinobi III under most circumstances. Though you can make the game as easy or harder for yourself, if you bought and unlocked specific charms that give different buffs or debuffs. I have not gotten to Hard yet, but I wanna save that for another time.