I can't tell if you're joking or not.
It does sound like something Kojima would do though.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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It does sound like something Kojima would do though.
Oh sheesh…kinda glad I passed on this one. If MGSV is the last Kojima game I ever play, I’ll be happy and satisfied even given the controversy surrounding its development and “finished” status.
Yesterday I finished up Omori. While there are other games that take inspiration from Mother/Earthbound, imo this game approaches that vibe the most. It also takes a lot after Yume Nikki. It's surreal and whimsical, atmospheric and dreamlike, full of weird characters and wacky situations, and just a dash of psychological horror. While also tackling some dark and/or mature subject matter like death, grief, guilt, depression, anxiety and suicide.
It's a pretty good game, tho I do have some nitpicks. First is the battle system. It works on a rock-paper-scissors system of applying the emotions Happy, Sad and Anger. With each buffing some stats while debuffing others, and being strong against one emotion and weak against another. Happy beats Anger, which beats Sad, which beats Happy. And these can be applied to both your party and enemies, through abilities or when reaching certain stages in the battle. It's not a bad system, but for most regular battles there is not much reason to exploit weaknesses. Boss battles make better use of it, but tend to strongly favor one emotion, so you can mostly shred them by setting your party to the emotion strong against the boss', and even if they change theirs up, you can relatively easily force them back into the one your want in most fights.
Second is that it quite often does that thing where the game takes control away and then pans over to whatever it wants to show you. Wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for the panning speed, slowly panning over, and when it's done, just as slowly panning back. It got kind of really annoying towards the end.
And lastly is the ending. I got what is apparently the good ending, and I'd be lying if isn't heartfelt, but it is also kinda fucked up. So the game is basically all about the main character, Sunny, overcoming his fears so that you can finally move on from the suicide of your older sister Mari (or not, depending on your route), and also save another character, Basil, from committing suicide (or not, again depending on your route. But Mari didn't actually commit suicide. Sunny got into a heated argument with her and pushed her, which led to her falling down the stairs and dying. It was accidental, so, you know, bad but forgivable.
But here comes the messed up part. Basil saw wath Sunny did, and convinced him to make it look like a suicide, so they dragged Mari's corpse into the back yard and used a rope to hang her from a tree, so it looked like she hung herself. So while it is indeed about Sunny and Basil coming to terms with Mari's death, and forgiving themselves for what they did, and thus being able to move on, they are the only ones who do. Everyone else still believes Mari committed suicide. This includes Sunny's parents, who are strongly implied to have divorced over the grief from their daughter killing herself without any clue as to why. Like, that's kinda fucked up, right?
It's a pretty good game, tho I do have some nitpicks. First is the battle system. It works on a rock-paper-scissors system of applying the emotions Happy, Sad and Anger. With each buffing some stats while debuffing others, and being strong against one emotion and weak against another. Happy beats Anger, which beats Sad, which beats Happy. And these can be applied to both your party and enemies, through abilities or when reaching certain stages in the battle. It's not a bad system, but for most regular battles there is not much reason to exploit weaknesses. Boss battles make better use of it, but tend to strongly favor one emotion, so you can mostly shred them by setting your party to the emotion strong against the boss', and even if they change theirs up, you can relatively easily force them back into the one your want in most fights.
Second is that it quite often does that thing where the game takes control away and then pans over to whatever it wants to show you. Wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for the panning speed, slowly panning over, and when it's done, just as slowly panning back. It got kind of really annoying towards the end.
And lastly is the ending. I got what is apparently the good ending, and I'd be lying if isn't heartfelt, but it is also kinda fucked up. So the game is basically all about the main character, Sunny, overcoming his fears so that you can finally move on from the suicide of your older sister Mari (or not, depending on your route), and also save another character, Basil, from committing suicide (or not, again depending on your route. But Mari didn't actually commit suicide. Sunny got into a heated argument with her and pushed her, which led to her falling down the stairs and dying. It was accidental, so, you know, bad but forgivable.
But here comes the messed up part. Basil saw wath Sunny did, and convinced him to make it look like a suicide, so they dragged Mari's corpse into the back yard and used a rope to hang her from a tree, so it looked like she hung herself. So while it is indeed about Sunny and Basil coming to terms with Mari's death, and forgiving themselves for what they did, and thus being able to move on, they are the only ones who do. Everyone else still believes Mari committed suicide. This includes Sunny's parents, who are strongly implied to have divorced over the grief from their daughter killing herself without any clue as to why. Like, that's kinda fucked up, right?
Time for some roads, baby!
Tip; roads in areas already connected to the Chiral Network require less materials to complete.
Another tip; Mule Camps are great for resources.
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- Apr 1, 2009
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I'm really curious how that will handle things compared to the anime that is based on it.
I'm playing and have been playing Eiyuden Chronicles, Its Suikoden, anyone who likes Suikoden will like it if they aren't stupid (a very stupid post on the steam forums makes me say that). I feel like I'm about 40% or so through the game and have really hit the main meat of the game experience. Its really impressive how they seem to have things for almost any of the 100 heroes to say at times. Like, in a mission, you will have people you have to have with you, but you can take any fighters and it seems like during the events of the mission, pretty much any of the ones you choose to accompany you can say things related to the mission. Its neat since its voice acted. Anyway, yeah, great game.
Also playing Angel at Dusk, which is an interesting Shootemup where you... I'mma just link the store page, its interesting and very weird.
So I decided to plow right into Mafia 2 after finishing Mafia Definitive Edition. First off, I think my left ctrl key on my keyboard died so that's why i couldn't snap to cover anymore(remapping the keys fixed that) so that's not the games fault. My keyboard was probably due for replacement anyway at this point. Or I could just try the controller like a wierdo /jk.
That being said, Mafia 2 decides to jump a little further in time with a new character, Vito, in a different City, Empire Bay. The basic plot is that Vito was born in Sicily in the mid 1920's but his family immigrates to the US when he's a child, only to live in a shitty apartment and his dad working a shitty job before spending most of his paycheck on booze. Vito gets invovled with a youth named Joe, who gets him into petty crimes to help make ends meet, but Vito get caught during a robbery in 1943. The judge tells him he can go to Jail or join the Army(with WW2 raging) so he joins the army and gets shipped to Sicily due to his Italian skills. The Tutorial mission is Vito attacking a Sicilian town as part of the 3rd army which introduces the player to the combat mechanics and gets the game off to a quick start. It's clear really quick that Vito is a lot easier to handle in combat then Tommy was in Mafia: Definitive edition. Though this also means instead of a health bar Vito has regenerating health, so CoD was clearly an influence here.
After the intro mission in Sicily, Vito mentions he was wounded and returns to the states in 1945, where he meets up with Joe and his family again. His father is dead and apparently took out a $2000 loan(this apparently would be akin to a $35,000 loan today) that needs to be paid back ASAP so Vito realizes he needs to earn some money and honest work isn't going to cut it, which is where Joe comes in because he "knows a guy" who can hook him up with some high paying gigs. And being the game is called "Mafia 2" I can only guess it will involve organized crime in some way.
So yeah, so far a pretty good start for a crime game in about 30 minutes of playtime
That being said, Mafia 2 decides to jump a little further in time with a new character, Vito, in a different City, Empire Bay. The basic plot is that Vito was born in Sicily in the mid 1920's but his family immigrates to the US when he's a child, only to live in a shitty apartment and his dad working a shitty job before spending most of his paycheck on booze. Vito gets invovled with a youth named Joe, who gets him into petty crimes to help make ends meet, but Vito get caught during a robbery in 1943. The judge tells him he can go to Jail or join the Army(with WW2 raging) so he joins the army and gets shipped to Sicily due to his Italian skills. The Tutorial mission is Vito attacking a Sicilian town as part of the 3rd army which introduces the player to the combat mechanics and gets the game off to a quick start. It's clear really quick that Vito is a lot easier to handle in combat then Tommy was in Mafia: Definitive edition. Though this also means instead of a health bar Vito has regenerating health, so CoD was clearly an influence here.
After the intro mission in Sicily, Vito mentions he was wounded and returns to the states in 1945, where he meets up with Joe and his family again. His father is dead and apparently took out a $2000 loan(this apparently would be akin to a $35,000 loan today) that needs to be paid back ASAP so Vito realizes he needs to earn some money and honest work isn't going to cut it, which is where Joe comes in because he "knows a guy" who can hook him up with some high paying gigs. And being the game is called "Mafia 2" I can only guess it will involve organized crime in some way.
So yeah, so far a pretty good start for a crime game in about 30 minutes of playtime
I did another run of SFA2G, as Guy this time. I managed to get 1,004,200 pts. Fighting the boss AI sucks in these old arcade games! Input reading mother-fuckers!
Enjoy; this was my big bro's favorite Mafia game before III.
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I beat Alwa's Awakening and now I'm going at it again for the missing trophies (bunch of sequence breaks and an under 2 hour speedrun).
Overall I liked the game, I think it beats Minoria as an MV as well as Headlander and Deedlit, although it isn't as polished or quite as good a game as these last two.
Couple of things I didn't love about the game - the jumps get a little pixel perfect-y in the last dungeon. And in a few instances the game seems to want you to fail - and punish you for it - before you realize what you're really supposed to be doing. Conversely it's very satisfying when you find a way of creatively bypassing an obstacle course.
The other thing I kinda hate is that you get an item late in the game that reveals the invisible platforms you didn't know were there all along (and couldn't have used anyway) in a few rooms you discovered earlier that proved impossible to cross. And that kinda kills the joy of exploring a little bit. In a Metroidvania I want to look at a room and get a sense of what am I missing in order to reach an unreachable area. Here it basically boils down to a cheat code: an item that simply redesigns the room so you get across. It's lazy and especially frustrating if you dedicated any amount of time to trying to figure out how the hell you're supposed to get across with the abilities you have.
Overall I liked the game, I think it beats Minoria as an MV as well as Headlander and Deedlit, although it isn't as polished or quite as good a game as these last two.
Couple of things I didn't love about the game - the jumps get a little pixel perfect-y in the last dungeon. And in a few instances the game seems to want you to fail - and punish you for it - before you realize what you're really supposed to be doing. Conversely it's very satisfying when you find a way of creatively bypassing an obstacle course.
The other thing I kinda hate is that you get an item late in the game that reveals the invisible platforms you didn't know were there all along (and couldn't have used anyway) in a few rooms you discovered earlier that proved impossible to cross. And that kinda kills the joy of exploring a little bit. In a Metroidvania I want to look at a room and get a sense of what am I missing in order to reach an unreachable area. Here it basically boils down to a cheat code: an item that simply redesigns the room so you get across. It's lazy and especially frustrating if you dedicated any amount of time to trying to figure out how the hell you're supposed to get across with the abilities you have.
Yeah it was certainly influenced by the TPS stuff that blew up in 7th gen. I recall the driving was drastically improved (at least over the OG game…or hell probably even GTAIV in terms of playability vs “reeealizum”). I played on PC and the Nvidia destruction physics were marketed quite a bit at the time too, which I was kinda miffed about since I was an ATI boy then. Theres really not much “bad” I could say about the game; it was solid but maybe it played things a bit too safe and formulaic.
Refunded my Monster Hunter purchase because I remembered that these games benefit from online co-op and I'm not gonna subscribe to PS+ for that. And yes I know I can play solo but why start a game already being handicapped without a major feature? Nah, that's ok, it was a lark anyway. Playstation store refund policy is brutal but I still got it because I didn't download the game.
I been hankering for some AssCreed with the run-up to Red and the disappointment of Mirage and infact did a sort of inebriated speed run of AC2 a few weeks ago so I'll continue the Ezio trilogy. Ah, nostalgia.
I been hankering for some AssCreed with the run-up to Red and the disappointment of Mirage and infact did a sort of inebriated speed run of AC2 a few weeks ago so I'll continue the Ezio trilogy. Ah, nostalgia.
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There are 2 games. One is Hundred Heroes and one is Rising. Rising is a side scrolling action rpg game, but Hundred Heroes is a turn based rpg.
Sand Land. Tbh initially thought it was a VR title with a name like that. Not gonna waste anyone's time, is alright for vehicular combat RPG fuckabout funsies. Is like a... well no, not "like", is exactly Mad Max the (specifically) game and Dragon Quest smooshed into a smooshshake. Cutesie creatures and demons doing what they do best just with death cars and tanks instead. Beginning is a tad slow and couple of stealth sections are the shakier moments. Using subs not dubs is preferred. Am almost certain there was a cat merchant who flew off on a jetpack at one point after introducing themself, but sobriety level was low enough am doubting it ever happened at all.
Yeah, Mafia 1, at least the definitive edition, had cars that are kinda tricky to drive and turning is especially "fun" at high speeds. I know there's also options for "Automatic" vs "Manual" transmission in the menu, with Manual being the realistic option since all cars at the time were stick shift(to my knowledge, maybe there was some really rare manual transmission cars that existed at the time). You don't get anything out of using the manual option except a feeling of realism though, because otherwise the game is just harder and there's no achievement or anything for using the manual transmission.
To be fair, there apparently weren't many in-car radios in the 1930's either but the cars in Mafia have them because otherwise you'd never get to hear the soundtrack they paid for, so it's an acceptable break from reality there.
And yeah, Mafia 2 feels a bit more like a standard Open world game then Mafia 1 did, where the open world was basically just there to support the missions then for any other reason. There wasn't anything to really do. Hell, there's no money in Definitive edition and nothing to buy. Money only exists in the narrative and all your needs are provided for you by the mob. Mafia 2 has money and shops being present as well as the debt you're meant to pay off.
Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha (The Japanese Arcade Version of Gold) - I played this on emulation just so I could play the Dramatic Battle Mode as Ryu and Ken. I picked Ryu and selected Ken as my CPU partner to recreate the final fight scene in SFII: The Animated movie as much as possible. I actually managed to beat the final boss, Shin Akuma, on my first try! I even managed to end the first round with an Alpha Counter, and in the second round, we double teamed him from both sides and finished with Level 3 Supers via SHORYUKEN! Mine was a custom combo though! Custom combos can break the game! Dramatic Battle is so much fun! Then I rewarded with the "Credits 3 Theme" that sounds "Rhythm of the Night". Coincidence? I think not!
Played a couple hours of Balatro. It's kind of fun but I'm bored of it already. I won 3 games out of 8 and flushes seem to be the optimal strat. It's just really easy to make your deck consist of nearly all one suit and get some jokers that synergize to enormous effect. It definitely seems like it has the Monster Train problem of being kind of easy and expecting you to play forever before it will offer you some real challenge. Oh well.
Finished Higurashi: when they Cry. As I've said, I didn't know anything going in, and it revealed itself to be an effective enough version of what it tries to be. It also is something I don't have any interest in, so I won't be playing the other chapters.
Oh and to keep this from becoming confusing: the original Higurashi series was released as a series of visual novels, with each chapter sold separately. I've only finished the first one that was free on gog, and won't play the others.
Gameplay wise it has literally no choices and literally no puzzles, it merely a story that you progress through.
Graphics wise it feels like a real budget title. The backgrounds are photographs with a Photoshop filter applied to them and the character artwork feels a bit generic. They make it work though.
Oh and to keep this from becoming confusing: the original Higurashi series was released as a series of visual novels, with each chapter sold separately. I've only finished the first one that was free on gog, and won't play the others.
Gameplay wise it has literally no choices and literally no puzzles, it merely a story that you progress through.
Graphics wise it feels like a real budget title. The backgrounds are photographs with a Photoshop filter applied to them and the character artwork feels a bit generic. They make it work though.
The overall genre of this game was horror. I've been playing it through in a semi-sleep-deprived state so I don't remember all the details of the plot but one aspect I thought was a bit weak was how many details they provided to keep track of. I assume the intention was to keep multiple hooks open so the player won't be clued into what's going on thereby elevating the horror. It also had a moment where I thought "Okay, protagonist, as of this action you no longer can pretend that there is nothing strange about proceedings; you have to get professionals involved and run far far away." (it was the thing involving a needle). He however didn't do that.
At the end of the day the game didn't really provide any answers to my queries, leaving me unsatisfied. Maybe that is the point? That I am supposed to speculate on what was going on?
In the spirit of things: I think the guardian spirit (Okayami-sama) presiding over the town is able to possess anyone in his domain as his vessel, and as he does so the people possessed are of varying degree of awareness of what's going on. And he'll attack anyone that tries to expose the town as anything other than a picture perfect town. Hence why Mion was herself when upset about Keiichi revealing details about the town, but her eyes still going blank when attacking him; she was possessed in the latter case but not the former.
I don't know how they'd continue the plot from this. The three most important characters are dead. I assume they'd go with flashbacks since Satoshi was apparently an important character that underwent a similar story with the girls as Keiichi.
At the end of the day the game didn't really provide any answers to my queries, leaving me unsatisfied. Maybe that is the point? That I am supposed to speculate on what was going on?
In the spirit of things: I think the guardian spirit (Okayami-sama) presiding over the town is able to possess anyone in his domain as his vessel, and as he does so the people possessed are of varying degree of awareness of what's going on. And he'll attack anyone that tries to expose the town as anything other than a picture perfect town. Hence why Mion was herself when upset about Keiichi revealing details about the town, but her eyes still going blank when attacking him; she was possessed in the latter case but not the former.
I don't know how they'd continue the plot from this. The three most important characters are dead. I assume they'd go with flashbacks since Satoshi was apparently an important character that underwent a similar story with the girls as Keiichi.
- Apr 1, 2009
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Anime spoilers.
Hmm, I would have assumed it had choices but it sounds like it would run just like the anime. What happens in the anime is that it reaches the climax then starts over and it runs through the days again but things are different. I thought those differences would be different paths through the game, but it sounds like they both run this way. This won't just be one character makes one different decision. If I remember right, one loop in the anime involves aliens and even men in black. So things get pretty different between loops.