Well fuck…that could’ve really helped in the Leyndell sewers, especially on those pipes.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
- Start date
Think it got patched out on the various Gargoyles. Still works on the rest though.
Sure, I liked Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, SteamWorld Dig 2, The Messenger, Yoku's Island Express, Guacamelee and Axiom Verge. I've played way more than that but those are my favorites. I think I generally favor Vania over Metroid but I'm pretty open. And I don't mind that much how perfectly or loosely the game fits into the definition of the genre so long as it's good and it has a distinct take on it.
Imposter Factory.
So this is hard to really call a game. It's a basically a visual novel made in RPGmaker by Freebird games that tells a really good story but the gameplay aspects are pretty minimal. If you've played To the Moon and/or Finding Paradise, this is the same studio and the same type of game, really. I guess I can't complain because To the moon had stupid little mini-games for no real reason and they're better off gone, though Finding Paradise had a faux JRPG thing going at times that I kinda liked. Either way, this is the same pedigree and the story and character beats are top notch. I genuinely made me sob at times for how affecting at least one moment was, even though I saw it coming a long way off Pretty much the whole arc where Tobias is born premature, spends much of his life in a wheelchair and breathing tubes until he dies at a young age, which then causes mom to basically walk out and never talk to dad ever again
Overall, it's another chapter in the on-going "To the Moon"-verse, I guess. I don't know what to call these games overall storyline but it does shed some interesting light on the whole thing and you get a lot more out of it if you've played the previous 2 games, particularly finding Paradise. It runs about 2.5-3 hours, so grab it cheap if you're into this shot of thing. I really dug it, but I'm also a sucker for these type of games and the short length feels just the right length for the story they were telling.
This whole thing feels like "What if Assasins creed were a lot more grounded and a lot more story/character focused" as far as overall premise goes(the sci-fi stuff, not the conspiracy stuff) and I dig it.
So this is hard to really call a game. It's a basically a visual novel made in RPGmaker by Freebird games that tells a really good story but the gameplay aspects are pretty minimal. If you've played To the Moon and/or Finding Paradise, this is the same studio and the same type of game, really. I guess I can't complain because To the moon had stupid little mini-games for no real reason and they're better off gone, though Finding Paradise had a faux JRPG thing going at times that I kinda liked. Either way, this is the same pedigree and the story and character beats are top notch. I genuinely made me sob at times for how affecting at least one moment was, even though I saw it coming a long way off Pretty much the whole arc where Tobias is born premature, spends much of his life in a wheelchair and breathing tubes until he dies at a young age, which then causes mom to basically walk out and never talk to dad ever again
Overall, it's another chapter in the on-going "To the Moon"-verse, I guess. I don't know what to call these games overall storyline but it does shed some interesting light on the whole thing and you get a lot more out of it if you've played the previous 2 games, particularly finding Paradise. It runs about 2.5-3 hours, so grab it cheap if you're into this shot of thing. I really dug it, but I'm also a sucker for these type of games and the short length feels just the right length for the story they were telling.
This whole thing feels like "What if Assasins creed were a lot more grounded and a lot more story/character focused" as far as overall premise goes(the sci-fi stuff, not the conspiracy stuff) and I dig it.
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Capcom Fighters Collection - I mainly got this title for Red Earth, and a few Darkstalkers games, but Re Earth is the big stand out. Red Earth never got ported to any home consoles until now. I played it in the arcades once, and that was about it. What's unique about this game is game concept and mechanics. Red Earth is a boss rush fighting game with RPG elements. The boss rush portion reminds me of Konami's Monster Maulers. You can choose 1 of 4 characters. I picked Tessa first out of curiosity, and beat the game with her. She is a zoner and fun to play since I don't do those characters much.
Another unique feature is the game has passwords where you can save your characters level exp progress. So you can get back in the action at a higher level. There are multiple endings too for keeping things interesting. My next character is Mai Ling. After her, it's Leo and Kenji.
Another unique feature is the game has passwords where you can save your characters level exp progress. So you can get back in the action at a higher level. There are multiple endings too for keeping things interesting. My next character is Mai Ling. After her, it's Leo and Kenji.
Since quiet a bit of games piled up while I was playing ER for two months, I decided to grab something out of the backlog pile and decided on Expeditions: Viking. For those who aren't familiar with the series, it's a Tactical RPG game that also has a (mostly) Historical setting. In Viking, you're the newly succeeded head of a Norse Clan somewhere in what is now Denmark around 790 AD and apparently a fairly minor one at that. Your dad(the previous head of the clan) has recently died and his funeral is barely over when other clans start trying to muscle in on what meager territory you have, and even better, not everyone in your own clan is really onboard with your leadership, so you start facing challenges to your leadership right out of the gate. By the end of the prologue, after dealing with some domestic issues and enduring a viking raid(more accurately, fighting multiple battles in succession in your home village), you realize in order to keep your clan's autonomy, you need to become strong enough to prevent from being absorbed or disbanded at the next big clan gathering in a year(I'm not using the Norse words on purpose because I don't want to refer to Wikipedia every 5 seconds) and thus start looking West to the isles of Britain for a source of wealth, power and allies. And considering the name of the game includes Viking in it, you know where this is going.
The first thing you get is a character creator screen, which feels like there's way too much to throw points at but the basics are everything you expect. Dress up your paper doll avatar, give them some combat skills, etc. You can play as a man or a woman and apparently it makes little difference because if this game is anything like the previous game in the series, Expeditions: Conquistador, there's a small alternate history handwave that women are able to hold roles more equal to men then they would have historically, and thus you can have an equal gender party and lead a group while playing as a woman. Sexism is occasionally displayed but doesn't affect you terribly much because of your status.
For what it's worth, and I am not an expert on Norse society, it feels like research was done here. The society you're introduced to doesn't seem to fall into all the stereotypes head first and feels fairly grounded for the most part, where clan and interclan politics is a big thing to deal with. In the first hour, you're interrupted by a group of drunken brothers at your own feast, dissatisfied you're the new leader of the clan and you have to kill them because they leave you no choice but to fight them. Then you have to go visit their dad not long after, who apparently filled their heads with such shit and as head of their family bears responsibility for his sons(of which he has none at this point) and you're clearly meant to punish him. You can tell him all is forgiven if you swears he didn't mean anything, but you're flat out told this would make everyone think you're weak, so you can try to exile him(there's a difficult skill check invovled, which you likely can't pass this early in the game) but likely you'll have to kill him and most of his farmhands who try to defend him. You can Spare his wife and daughter who didn't try to fight you, and if you're being generous, offer to let them keep their farm instead of exiling them. Which still feels really harsh, since you literally killed their patriarch and all the farmhands minutes before, and it does beg the question of how to play so that you're seen as a strong leader but not a fucking pyschopath. You do have a reputation to build and a clan to ensure the loyalty of, so it feels like playing paragon Viking is very different then one might expect. It's not "Pick the obviously nice option", it's more like "Show strength without displaying cruelty" (for whatever that means in this context).
There's also a bit where you're challenged to a duel for leadership of the clan and whoever loses has to serve the winner per custom/law or face death/exile. You can fight fairly, but you can also cheat a little by arraigning for a trap to be set and the other guy to be poisoned(not fatally, more like giving him the shits for the day). When you win, he will call you out for cheating but also admit what you did was quite clever and he's willing to follow you loyally, since you won and he did swear to. Granted, you can also be a dick and kill or exile him as the loser, or you can accept his fealty and he becomes a party member.
As for combat(which you'll apparently be doing a lot of), it's a hex based tactical grid you can move your people around, use special attacks that you purchase with skll points, use cover, set up overwatch, etc. If you've played any isometric tactics game like XCOM, you know the drill here. The big difference is that you're using medieval weapons so you have bows for ranged and pretty much everything is a section of melee weapons and shields.
The first thing you get is a character creator screen, which feels like there's way too much to throw points at but the basics are everything you expect. Dress up your paper doll avatar, give them some combat skills, etc. You can play as a man or a woman and apparently it makes little difference because if this game is anything like the previous game in the series, Expeditions: Conquistador, there's a small alternate history handwave that women are able to hold roles more equal to men then they would have historically, and thus you can have an equal gender party and lead a group while playing as a woman. Sexism is occasionally displayed but doesn't affect you terribly much because of your status.
For what it's worth, and I am not an expert on Norse society, it feels like research was done here. The society you're introduced to doesn't seem to fall into all the stereotypes head first and feels fairly grounded for the most part, where clan and interclan politics is a big thing to deal with. In the first hour, you're interrupted by a group of drunken brothers at your own feast, dissatisfied you're the new leader of the clan and you have to kill them because they leave you no choice but to fight them. Then you have to go visit their dad not long after, who apparently filled their heads with such shit and as head of their family bears responsibility for his sons(of which he has none at this point) and you're clearly meant to punish him. You can tell him all is forgiven if you swears he didn't mean anything, but you're flat out told this would make everyone think you're weak, so you can try to exile him(there's a difficult skill check invovled, which you likely can't pass this early in the game) but likely you'll have to kill him and most of his farmhands who try to defend him. You can Spare his wife and daughter who didn't try to fight you, and if you're being generous, offer to let them keep their farm instead of exiling them. Which still feels really harsh, since you literally killed their patriarch and all the farmhands minutes before, and it does beg the question of how to play so that you're seen as a strong leader but not a fucking pyschopath. You do have a reputation to build and a clan to ensure the loyalty of, so it feels like playing paragon Viking is very different then one might expect. It's not "Pick the obviously nice option", it's more like "Show strength without displaying cruelty" (for whatever that means in this context).
There's also a bit where you're challenged to a duel for leadership of the clan and whoever loses has to serve the winner per custom/law or face death/exile. You can fight fairly, but you can also cheat a little by arraigning for a trap to be set and the other guy to be poisoned(not fatally, more like giving him the shits for the day). When you win, he will call you out for cheating but also admit what you did was quite clever and he's willing to follow you loyally, since you won and he did swear to. Granted, you can also be a dick and kill or exile him as the loser, or you can accept his fealty and he becomes a party member.
As for combat(which you'll apparently be doing a lot of), it's a hex based tactical grid you can move your people around, use special attacks that you purchase with skll points, use cover, set up overwatch, etc. If you've played any isometric tactics game like XCOM, you know the drill here. The big difference is that you're using medieval weapons so you have bows for ranged and pretty much everything is a section of melee weapons and shields.
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Viking was better than conquistador imo (have rome installed but haven't touched it yet) but it still has the same annoying problem as conquistador where the story eventually railroad you into serving one of two faction that are both massive dickhead, which I find quite disappointing. You can always just come back with a boatload (literally) of cash, but it feel like leaving the game main quest unfinished.
Gameplay wise I do think they should push the system a bit more and I hope rome does. More skill would be nice, I remember feeling like I had everything I wanted before even setting off to England (although they made a big update after I played the game so maybe that's been improved).
Otherwise its a fun little game, I do like the low fantasy approach and I really need to find the time to rome. Since they keep going back in time, maybe next will be expedition: ancient egypt.
Gameplay wise I do think they should push the system a bit more and I hope rome does. More skill would be nice, I remember feeling like I had everything I wanted before even setting off to England (although they made a big update after I played the game so maybe that's been improved).
Otherwise its a fun little game, I do like the low fantasy approach and I really need to find the time to rome. Since they keep going back in time, maybe next will be expedition: ancient egypt.
Elex? Why do I have this? I never paid for this. No recollection of wanting to pay for it neither. But there it sits, smugly in my hard drive, between Dying Light and John Wick (but not Elden Ring cause that's segregated within the elite 'PS5' section of games unable to run directly from an exterior memory source...sort it out Sony!) as if it's one of the big bois. And more pressingly, why am I still playing this shite? The combat feels like trying to squeeze through a rusty drainpipe clogged with soggy bricks - it's also trying to be Dark Souls with their stingy stamina bar and all that. The writing is too dull to be as dry as it is. The main protag is born of an algorithm running bean counters on the most averagest blandest of throaty monotone white hard boys with the emotional range of a worker ant on the strongest dose of SSRIs. The jetpack is as satisfying to use as popping silent bubble wrap in a dark room: just button press make model go up, sometime? Was going to moan about the chore of a menu and quest log, but a twisted bitter part of me is just relieved it isn't another 'Destiny' mouse pointer menu.
Yet, it does provide a jetpack. And there's a sequel with a """free""" 2 hour demo trial. Meaning something must've pleased some people somewhere at some time to inspire the financial confidence for that. These sordid fascinations will be the death of me.
Yet, it does provide a jetpack. And there's a sequel with a """free""" 2 hour demo trial. Meaning something must've pleased some people somewhere at some time to inspire the financial confidence for that. These sordid fascinations will be the death of me.
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I would love one set in the truely ancient world. Yes, I know Rome is Ancient, but there's thousands of years of civilization before Rome. I'd personally love something set before the Bronze Age Collapse in the Near East but that might be too close in setting to Rome. Or do China/Africa/Pre-Columbia Americas/etc.
I am enjoying it so far though. I haven't really had a chance to mess around with the management stuff yet, so It'll be interesting to see how that works. I got ROME on sale and probably check it out once I'm done with this.
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WORLD OF WARCRAFT
Right now I'm in Mountains of Red.
Quite often, my character's dead.
Encounter orcs with an axe,
They go on attack,
And so on ground my corpse is spread.
(Or in other words, I'm in Redridge Mountains, and I keep dying.)
Right now I'm in Mountains of Red.
Quite often, my character's dead.
Encounter orcs with an axe,
They go on attack,
And so on ground my corpse is spread.
(Or in other words, I'm in Redridge Mountains, and I keep dying.)
XENOBLADE CHRONICLES 2
So, played more of this, Iz gotz thoughtz of randomz:
-Music is still gorgeous.
-So, Jin's schtick seems to be that Blades are being enslaved by humans, and that he's going to free them...or something. Look, Monolith Soft, I get it, writing's difficult, writing things with intelligence/theme is really difficult, but this? No. Just no. It comes off as another moment where the game thinks it's more intelligent than it actually is, because there's two problems with this. One, the way Blades operate, you need humans to activate them, and bar exceptions, if the blade's driver dies, they go back to their core crystal, and lose all their memories, so while it sucks to be a Blade in some ways, that's just the way things are. Second, after 40hrs of playtime, I haven't seen a single Blade express discontent with their lot in life, and have seen one Blade be mistreated, arguably. If the game's trying to say that Jin has a point, it's failed. If Jin's completely in the wrong, then congrats, he's in the wrong, and an attempt at moral ambiguity falls flat on its face.
Bear in mind that the person Jin kills this sequence is a Blade, and said Blade is mourned by all of Indhol (both via cutscene and NPC dialogue), so well done Jin, you hypocrite.
-So, Torna's goal is to wipe out humanity, and kill the Architect. Because it isn't a JRPG if someone isn't trying to kill God. 0_0
-So we get a leadership council of various leaders to discuss the tensions between Uraya and Mor Ardain. I'll give you this, XC2, you managed to make politics not-boring, and it does add depth to the world, so good job there. Also, Zeke's done a 180 from "idiot" to "wow, this guy's quite intelligent." Still, the conciet is that he was pretending to be an idiot all this time to gather info, so, okay, I'll grant you that.
-So there's a side quest that basically involves two choir girls. One got the spot, the other didn't. The spurned one hires an assassin to kill the other girl. We defeat the assassin, and the two girls make up, discovering that the real music is the friends they made along the way. I...what? First of all, where does a refugee girl get the money to hire an assassin? Two, don't forgive the little twerp, lock her up. Third, again, YOU TRIED TO KILL AN INNOCENT GIRL, I think we're way beyond the moral event horizon for this side quest to have a "we're friends now" ending.
-Moving on, there's an assassination attempt on the gathering of leaders, and we have to suss it out. We think the food is poisoned, attack the chefs, then realize the chefs are actually genuine, and the real assassination attempt is something else. The scene is played for laughs, but those chefs are lying still on the ground through the cutscene and...um, they're not dead, right? I ask because if they are, then our heroes just killed half a dozen innocent people, and the nopon's demand for compensation is less humorous and more dark ("I want compensation for your murder of my chefs"), and guys? They're still not moving...Guys? Guys? Oh, you're running off now...leaving the bodies behind...yikes!
-So Bana is the one behind the assassination attempt, with "Giga Rosa." Sigh...y'know, at least the game acknowledges this time around that Bana is stupid and pathetic, and because I've done so much levelling, this fight doesn't last long.
-Alright, credit where credit is due, what happens next did genuinely get me in the feels. So, Bana does a suicide bombing, Niall has his Blade generate a shield around the characters, while he bursts out of the shield to try and stop Bana, fails, and is caught in the blast. Why Niall doesn't just stay behind the shield himself is something I'm not sure of, but he fails to stop Bana, who goes boom, and Niall is mortally wounded. The voice acting in this game has been a bit hit or miss, but Morag (or rather, the actress behind her), manages to do a great job in conveying a sister's grief in cradling her little brother's body as he dies in her arms.
-Of course, THAT's promptly ruined by Nia resurrecting him after some contrivance, so boo.
-But after THAT, then we get another scene between Niall and Morag, where he gives her his Blade, they're able to reminisce on older, more peaceful times, and Morag now actually has a reason to stay with the group beyond "I'm going to follow you and see what happens."
-And after THAT, we get another scene with the Urayans with the queen wondering if Niall intentionally wanted to sacrifice himself to put the Urayans in Mor Ardain's debt. Because at this point, Mor Ardain isn't looking good, but a child-emperor sacrificing himself to save his enemies? That looks great. It's not as if Niall knew Nia would resurrect him, but it did have me wondering if it explains why Niall put himself outside the shield, because he knew how to play the political game, and was willing to sacrifice himself to do it. If so...well, well played. Up until now, it's clear that Niall is highly intelligent despite his youth, so...damn man, that's kind of cold.
So, we get a death, which is subverted, which is then subverted again. Well played, XC2. Well played...
-I mentioned a few posts ago that the theme of this game is "death and decay." Well, least you think I'm getting too positive, I feel that might have been too generous. I mean, sure, it's outright stated by Amalthus that the world is dying (close to fact), that humanity is in a state of regression (more subjective), and that getting to Elysium might save the world (um...), but how much death and decay have we actually seen? Well, Mor Ardain's dying (as in, its titan), but everyone else is doing fairly well. The Urayans aren't, but that's because of Mor Ardain, Indhol's got massive political influence over everyone...there's been little to suggest in the environment as to things actually being bad. It actually makes me think of XC1 a bit, because when you understand how the world works geographically (two giants, and an endless, still ocean that's the entire universe), you can get the sense of how 'quietly horrific' that actually is, whereas in contrast, Alrest isn't too bad a place to live, even if it's on a timer.
-Also, we need more characters than the five we get. XC1 had a Fellowship of the Ring-esque setup, where we got at least one character from each race (who team up to kill God, because of course), whereas XC2 doesn't. It would be great if Vandam (a Urayan) stayed around so that he and Morag could bicker, given the tensions between their countries), but, well, no such luck.
Anyway, random thoughts, I'd actually be surprised if any of that meant anything to anyone who hadn't played the game, but meh. It's like every time the game surprises me positively, there's some other nonsense that drags me back.
So, played more of this, Iz gotz thoughtz of randomz:
-Music is still gorgeous.
-So, Jin's schtick seems to be that Blades are being enslaved by humans, and that he's going to free them...or something. Look, Monolith Soft, I get it, writing's difficult, writing things with intelligence/theme is really difficult, but this? No. Just no. It comes off as another moment where the game thinks it's more intelligent than it actually is, because there's two problems with this. One, the way Blades operate, you need humans to activate them, and bar exceptions, if the blade's driver dies, they go back to their core crystal, and lose all their memories, so while it sucks to be a Blade in some ways, that's just the way things are. Second, after 40hrs of playtime, I haven't seen a single Blade express discontent with their lot in life, and have seen one Blade be mistreated, arguably. If the game's trying to say that Jin has a point, it's failed. If Jin's completely in the wrong, then congrats, he's in the wrong, and an attempt at moral ambiguity falls flat on its face.
Bear in mind that the person Jin kills this sequence is a Blade, and said Blade is mourned by all of Indhol (both via cutscene and NPC dialogue), so well done Jin, you hypocrite.
-So, Torna's goal is to wipe out humanity, and kill the Architect. Because it isn't a JRPG if someone isn't trying to kill God. 0_0
-So we get a leadership council of various leaders to discuss the tensions between Uraya and Mor Ardain. I'll give you this, XC2, you managed to make politics not-boring, and it does add depth to the world, so good job there. Also, Zeke's done a 180 from "idiot" to "wow, this guy's quite intelligent." Still, the conciet is that he was pretending to be an idiot all this time to gather info, so, okay, I'll grant you that.
-So there's a side quest that basically involves two choir girls. One got the spot, the other didn't. The spurned one hires an assassin to kill the other girl. We defeat the assassin, and the two girls make up, discovering that the real music is the friends they made along the way. I...what? First of all, where does a refugee girl get the money to hire an assassin? Two, don't forgive the little twerp, lock her up. Third, again, YOU TRIED TO KILL AN INNOCENT GIRL, I think we're way beyond the moral event horizon for this side quest to have a "we're friends now" ending.
-Moving on, there's an assassination attempt on the gathering of leaders, and we have to suss it out. We think the food is poisoned, attack the chefs, then realize the chefs are actually genuine, and the real assassination attempt is something else. The scene is played for laughs, but those chefs are lying still on the ground through the cutscene and...um, they're not dead, right? I ask because if they are, then our heroes just killed half a dozen innocent people, and the nopon's demand for compensation is less humorous and more dark ("I want compensation for your murder of my chefs"), and guys? They're still not moving...Guys? Guys? Oh, you're running off now...leaving the bodies behind...yikes!
-So Bana is the one behind the assassination attempt, with "Giga Rosa." Sigh...y'know, at least the game acknowledges this time around that Bana is stupid and pathetic, and because I've done so much levelling, this fight doesn't last long.
-Alright, credit where credit is due, what happens next did genuinely get me in the feels. So, Bana does a suicide bombing, Niall has his Blade generate a shield around the characters, while he bursts out of the shield to try and stop Bana, fails, and is caught in the blast. Why Niall doesn't just stay behind the shield himself is something I'm not sure of, but he fails to stop Bana, who goes boom, and Niall is mortally wounded. The voice acting in this game has been a bit hit or miss, but Morag (or rather, the actress behind her), manages to do a great job in conveying a sister's grief in cradling her little brother's body as he dies in her arms.
-Of course, THAT's promptly ruined by Nia resurrecting him after some contrivance, so boo.
-But after THAT, then we get another scene between Niall and Morag, where he gives her his Blade, they're able to reminisce on older, more peaceful times, and Morag now actually has a reason to stay with the group beyond "I'm going to follow you and see what happens."
-And after THAT, we get another scene with the Urayans with the queen wondering if Niall intentionally wanted to sacrifice himself to put the Urayans in Mor Ardain's debt. Because at this point, Mor Ardain isn't looking good, but a child-emperor sacrificing himself to save his enemies? That looks great. It's not as if Niall knew Nia would resurrect him, but it did have me wondering if it explains why Niall put himself outside the shield, because he knew how to play the political game, and was willing to sacrifice himself to do it. If so...well, well played. Up until now, it's clear that Niall is highly intelligent despite his youth, so...damn man, that's kind of cold.
So, we get a death, which is subverted, which is then subverted again. Well played, XC2. Well played...
-I mentioned a few posts ago that the theme of this game is "death and decay." Well, least you think I'm getting too positive, I feel that might have been too generous. I mean, sure, it's outright stated by Amalthus that the world is dying (close to fact), that humanity is in a state of regression (more subjective), and that getting to Elysium might save the world (um...), but how much death and decay have we actually seen? Well, Mor Ardain's dying (as in, its titan), but everyone else is doing fairly well. The Urayans aren't, but that's because of Mor Ardain, Indhol's got massive political influence over everyone...there's been little to suggest in the environment as to things actually being bad. It actually makes me think of XC1 a bit, because when you understand how the world works geographically (two giants, and an endless, still ocean that's the entire universe), you can get the sense of how 'quietly horrific' that actually is, whereas in contrast, Alrest isn't too bad a place to live, even if it's on a timer.
-Also, we need more characters than the five we get. XC1 had a Fellowship of the Ring-esque setup, where we got at least one character from each race (who team up to kill God, because of course), whereas XC2 doesn't. It would be great if Vandam (a Urayan) stayed around so that he and Morag could bicker, given the tensions between their countries), but, well, no such luck.
Anyway, random thoughts, I'd actually be surprised if any of that meant anything to anyone who hadn't played the game, but meh. It's like every time the game surprises me positively, there's some other nonsense that drags me back.
Far Cry Primal
You go around R3'ing people in the neck and claiming enemy outposts. So far so Far Cry. The 10,000 bc hunter-gatherer experience isn't all that different from 21st century Far Cry: you run around a forest with a bow and arrow gathering flowers and hunting wildlife. What's so primal about Primal? You get to bait-and-tame animals, then sic them on enemies. That's a nice novelty, but I posit that if you're already pointing at someone you might as well just shoot them instead of waiting for your pet wolf to kill them for you.
As for the story, there really isn't one. You're building up a tribe and working towards genociding the other two tribes occupying the same valley. Unlike every other FC you're not a fish-out-of-water underdog and there's no charismatic villain to rally against, so there's no one to relate to and no reason to care. Even when story is usually pretty thin in a game you need some kind of vague narrative about rising to the occasion to be invested in what you're doing, otherwise it feels like you're just passing time.
You go around R3'ing people in the neck and claiming enemy outposts. So far so Far Cry. The 10,000 bc hunter-gatherer experience isn't all that different from 21st century Far Cry: you run around a forest with a bow and arrow gathering flowers and hunting wildlife. What's so primal about Primal? You get to bait-and-tame animals, then sic them on enemies. That's a nice novelty, but I posit that if you're already pointing at someone you might as well just shoot them instead of waiting for your pet wolf to kill them for you.
As for the story, there really isn't one. You're building up a tribe and working towards genociding the other two tribes occupying the same valley. Unlike every other FC you're not a fish-out-of-water underdog and there's no charismatic villain to rally against, so there's no one to relate to and no reason to care. Even when story is usually pretty thin in a game you need some kind of vague narrative about rising to the occasion to be invested in what you're doing, otherwise it feels like you're just passing time.
I finally beat Final Vendetta! I did it on Easy, but I do not care. Took me three tries total. The only difference is that you get less lives the harder the difficulty. Oh, and bosses get some more health, and you fight a few more enemies. The best way to handle enemies is to use the hidden hidden moves, the game does not tell you about. You have to figure it out all your own. Once you do, it's a matter of just using those moves and spamming them over and over about 95% of the time and getting the enemies into an air juggle. You could do the same the most bosses, those some have some tricky patterns. The best way to beat the stage 3 boss is to just wait for me to teleport do his little melee move then grab and suplex him over and over. It does the most damage to him. I beat the game with Duke. He's a black guy that's like a combination of Adam and Axel. I find him the most fun to use, cuz it's easy to pull off a majority of his juggle combos. While the final boss is different, he's nonsensical and is an overpowered ass. Like I said before, the game is only 6 stages long, and can be beaten about 25 to 27 minutes.
I made a mistake about certain unlocks and it's even dumber. This game's sense of replay value is dumb. Since I beat the game with Duke, I unlocked Survival mode. In order to be Boss Rush mode, I have to beat the game with Claire. Training mode is automatically unlocked no matter who you beat it with. Just why? I get wanting to experiment with other characters, but it doesn't add much. And like I mentioned a few posts to go, in order to unlock the hardest difficulty, you have to play hard mode with the strong but slow guy. I am so glad I decided not to buy a physical copy of this. A game like this though should have been charged no more than $7.99. Maybe $8.99 at worst. You want to play this game? Wait for a deep sale. This game is not bad, but there's not much content going for it afterward. There's no online play either. All you get is local co-op.
I made a mistake about certain unlocks and it's even dumber. This game's sense of replay value is dumb. Since I beat the game with Duke, I unlocked Survival mode. In order to be Boss Rush mode, I have to beat the game with Claire. Training mode is automatically unlocked no matter who you beat it with. Just why? I get wanting to experiment with other characters, but it doesn't add much. And like I mentioned a few posts to go, in order to unlock the hardest difficulty, you have to play hard mode with the strong but slow guy. I am so glad I decided not to buy a physical copy of this. A game like this though should have been charged no more than $7.99. Maybe $8.99 at worst. You want to play this game? Wait for a deep sale. This game is not bad, but there's not much content going for it afterward. There's no online play either. All you get is local co-op.
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There's some interesting stuff in Elex because of how janky the combat system is, the start of the game was great because of how underpower you are so you have to find all kind of creative way to take out enemy, like kiting them into hostile monster and such.
Apparently 2 is almost entirely a re hash of 1, so it's probably not worth trying.
So in addition to WoW Classic, I've also gone back to playing some WC3 matches.
Most recent one had me in Alliance vs. Scourge, and I've got to say, it had one of the most drastic turn-arounds I've ever seen in a match. I'd wiped out his expansion, had an army, and was using mortar teams to bombard his base while keeping my army in the back. By all rights, I should have won the game, because if a match has reached this stage, it's very rare for anyone to get out of it.
So what does he do? Spams meat wagons and necromancers, and generates so many damn skeletons I'm forced to retreat, and then he has the advantage through the rest of the match, wipes out my own expansion, and in the end, I'm forced to surrender, because I've run out of resources. All because at the last second, my opponent seemingly held his forces back for a massive counter-push.
Well played, mate. Well played.
Most recent one had me in Alliance vs. Scourge, and I've got to say, it had one of the most drastic turn-arounds I've ever seen in a match. I'd wiped out his expansion, had an army, and was using mortar teams to bombard his base while keeping my army in the back. By all rights, I should have won the game, because if a match has reached this stage, it's very rare for anyone to get out of it.
So what does he do? Spams meat wagons and necromancers, and generates so many damn skeletons I'm forced to retreat, and then he has the advantage through the rest of the match, wipes out my own expansion, and in the end, I'm forced to surrender, because I've run out of resources. All because at the last second, my opponent seemingly held his forces back for a massive counter-push.
Well played, mate. Well played.
Finished (and platinum'd) Horizon Forbidden West a couple of weeks ago.
Also replayed Majoras Mask on the Switch N64 player, and played Earthworm Jim 2 for the first time on the SNES player (I loved the first one on GBA when I was little).
And since then, this week I played through the artsy puzzle game Silt (some nice ideas but far too short), and am currently playing Spiritfarer (which is beautiful, and a welcome chilled vibe after the undertakings of Horizon and Elden Ring earlier this year).
Also replayed Majoras Mask on the Switch N64 player, and played Earthworm Jim 2 for the first time on the SNES player (I loved the first one on GBA when I was little).
And since then, this week I played through the artsy puzzle game Silt (some nice ideas but far too short), and am currently playing Spiritfarer (which is beautiful, and a welcome chilled vibe after the undertakings of Horizon and Elden Ring earlier this year).