Please do. Fire up MAME and give After Burner a shot as well, if you get the chance.
I managed to do a 1CC of Final Fight 2: Adjusted on Normal with Haggar. I've already beaten the game on Expert and it's not worth the 1CC.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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I managed to do a 1CC of Final Fight 2: Adjusted on Normal with Haggar. I've already beaten the game on Expert and it's not worth the 1CC.
Finished Braid.
Yes, it's very cleverly designed and it very cleverly points the way so you can feel clever about figuring out every clever puzzle. It also has a brilliantly executed ending that makes up for its thin excuse of a story, all of which is dumped on you via text between levels. But I wish there was more to it, and not in the sense that I want a Braid open world with a skill tree, a forking narrative and 40 fortresses to liberate. I would've liked for instance not to be stripped of every new time manipulation ability at the end of each world, but to have puzzles build up on a combination of abilities instead of each existing in a vacuum. I would've liked for the ability to fast forward time to come into play (it's there but the game makes nothing of it). Maybe expand on the notion that rewinding time helps undo platforming mistakes - rather quickly there's no platforming to be done and no mistakes to be made. And yeah, maybe even more levels, too. I don't feel greedy for asking. Six worlds and half the levels mostly exist to tutorialize you.
But like I said in an earlier post, this and The Witness are all about marveling at the games' design and your own thought process as you navigate it. And on that note it's basically a flawless game with no chaff, no dull parts and a perfect learning curve, gameplay loop and reiteration of its structure. It's satisfying to figure out the puzzle and it's fun to go through the motions of solving it.
Yes, it's very cleverly designed and it very cleverly points the way so you can feel clever about figuring out every clever puzzle. It also has a brilliantly executed ending that makes up for its thin excuse of a story, all of which is dumped on you via text between levels. But I wish there was more to it, and not in the sense that I want a Braid open world with a skill tree, a forking narrative and 40 fortresses to liberate. I would've liked for instance not to be stripped of every new time manipulation ability at the end of each world, but to have puzzles build up on a combination of abilities instead of each existing in a vacuum. I would've liked for the ability to fast forward time to come into play (it's there but the game makes nothing of it). Maybe expand on the notion that rewinding time helps undo platforming mistakes - rather quickly there's no platforming to be done and no mistakes to be made. And yeah, maybe even more levels, too. I don't feel greedy for asking. Six worlds and half the levels mostly exist to tutorialize you.
But like I said in an earlier post, this and The Witness are all about marveling at the games' design and your own thought process as you navigate it. And on that note it's basically a flawless game with no chaff, no dull parts and a perfect learning curve, gameplay loop and reiteration of its structure. It's satisfying to figure out the puzzle and it's fun to go through the motions of solving it.
If you’re still looking for more to chew on in this regard there’s another neat puzzler called The Bridge. Steam describes it as Isaac Newton meets M. C. Escher, to give an idea. It may not have quite the GotY-worthy charm or synergy of Braid’s design, but it otherwise gets the job done.
Thank you for the recommendation. I bought it years ago in a sale but never did get around to playing it.
Enotria Demo
It ain't out till later this year, so can't know how final product will turn out. This is a souls, let's not fuck around, like, the Devs certainly arent as they clearly state their ambition in what appears to be a hastily Google translated game description telling us this is intended to take the genre in the new direction of Italian folklore and culture.based more around wearing majora's masks and magic for the world building and combat/style. Weather at least looks a lot brighter and colour infused. While movement felt incredibly familiar, the overruling soulsie purity test of whether crates and barrels disintegrate as you roll through them took a minute longer to complete. The results are...yes. yes they do. They crumble like Drake under rap beef pedo allegations.
Game description;
Oh, only just noticed the generic sub title lol! Am sticking with Enotria. Fuck the last song, no more last songs!
It ain't out till later this year, so can't know how final product will turn out. This is a souls, let's not fuck around, like, the Devs certainly arent as they clearly state their ambition in what appears to be a hastily Google translated game description telling us this is intended to take the genre in the new direction of Italian folklore and culture.based more around wearing majora's masks and magic for the world building and combat/style. Weather at least looks a lot brighter and colour infused. While movement felt incredibly familiar, the overruling soulsie purity test of whether crates and barrels disintegrate as you roll through them took a minute longer to complete. The results are...yes. yes they do. They crumble like Drake under rap beef pedo allegations.
Game description;
Trailer;
Oh, only just noticed the generic sub title lol! Am sticking with Enotria. Fuck the last song, no more last songs!
Yahtzee's review this week is making more interested in Another Crab's Treasure. I mean I likely won't be getting into any new games until June given my current schedule but if/when I do, that one looks adorable. It is getting positive praise across the board but the reason Yahtzee's review is especially resonating is because I remember his reaction to Elden Ring and all the souls-like mirroring mine, where we're both like... enough already. So the idea of not-quite-so-difficult soulslike with accessibility options and more irreverent, cartoony aesthetic is actually pretty appealing.
My only concern would be that the mechanics aren't perfect buttery smooth and that sort of thiing matters a lot for these games.
My only concern would be that the mechanics aren't perfect buttery smooth and that sort of thiing matters a lot for these games.
I'm playing Balatro, a ridiculously addictive roguelikes deck-building game. You play poker hands to score points to beat the target scores of blinds (8 antes, 3 blinds per ante). You cash out after every round and buy cards in between: Joker cards which work as buffs (5 active tops), Planet cards which raise the value of poker hands, Tarot cards which work as one-time consumables, Vouchers which are permanent upgrades and then the regular cards with added effects like glass, stone and gold. It's a bit much at first but once you get a sense of all the rules the game is nothing but fun. There's a wealth of combinations and synergies to discover between hundreds of different cards and it's engrossing to just collect them and try them all to see what works best for you.
My only qualm with the game is that some boss blinds have some truly absurd game-stopping rules, like not being able to look at your cards before playing them, or only allowing a single hand to be played. Whenever I get one of these it's basically instant failure. How do you even play around that?
My only qualm with the game is that some boss blinds have some truly absurd game-stopping rules, like not being able to look at your cards before playing them, or only allowing a single hand to be played. Whenever I get one of these it's basically instant failure. How do you even play around that?
When cards are drawn face-down, you can still make inferences about what they might be using the sort buttons. If you use a Tarot card that modifies a card, it'll flip over for a second - use it on a face-down card and you'll be able to see its face.
The 'only 1 hand' one only has the same score requirement as the Small Blind for the ante, so if you can knock that out in one shot, you're good; if not, you need to try and look for some immediate scoring jokers to add to your deck. Replacing your long-term econ or scaling hurts, but it gives you the chance to stay in the game.
(Yeah, I've played a little Balatro myself.)
The draw face down thing doesn't apply after a discard, so most of the time I'd just dump my whole hand, and like Nerfed Falcon said if you are going for flushes or something you can sort and have a pretty good chance of getting it anyway. For the 1 hand thing, hopefully by that point you have a pretty good synergy going on something so the only thing to do is to discard until you get your perfect hand and then play it.
Yeah I need to get my priorities straight. I'm maybe a little too focused on making money, I almost never discard. But the face down thing absolutely applies after a discard. I've discarded face down cards only to draw even more face down cards.
Oh, maybe. Looking at the list of blinds there are a couple that cause you to draw face down cards, a couple are only for the first draw but one is all cards.
Gave the demo a shot and, as you might expect given my turn against souls and soulslike, I hated it.
But why bother then you ask?
*shrug* I dunno I hate myself? Curiousity kills the gamer...
It's just really stiff and awkward, plays like what I imagine the original Demons Souls on PS3 might have played like. But with that annoying delay-to-parry thing that has become the norm for such games.
Verdict: *farts wetly*
So, seeing as after 100+ hours, I finally beat it and got the plat (really easy plat, just play the game), lets talk about Unicorn Overlord.
I really like Vanillaware games, their games look fantastic, the characters and backgrounds are always gorgeous to look at and there are always little details going on in the background like leaves falling, or snow falling off of trees. Or if you use the Divine Rain spell, the next few battles will take place during a thunder storm. Its these little things that I always appreciate. Their games always keep me captivated too. This is a tactical RPG where you bulid up teams of up to 5 characters and march them into war. This is during the missions, outside of missions, you wander around the open-ish world and farm resources which you can use to fix up towns, which you can then man with guards who will farm the resources for you. As well as doing additional battles or feed goats. Its all good fun and Unicorn Overlord has been one of those games that has kept me playing into the early hours with its "one more mission" or, I'll just see what this area has to off sort of gameplay.
Some of the missions however, especially in the late game, can drag on a bit too long. Though surprisingly the final mission where you finally beat the big bad and his mate doesn't for some reason. The story doesn't really matter either, it is there to get you to go from one place to another, it is just there. And the writing is as dry as burnt, unbuttered toast, there is some humour in there but the game doesn't play it up.
Anyway, you are Alain, who after an uprising, is shipped off to a remote island to be raised by father figure Josef. Years later, he returns to retake his crown from the evil Zenoiran Empire. And that's about it. The story never really shifts from that one note, I was expecting Josef to be offed at any point to add a bit of tragedy and further motivating factor to his mission. But nope, childhood friend, Scarlott gets abducted early in the game, but is soon rescued. And this is my major gripe with the story, there just doesn't seem to be any stakes other than reclaiming your throne. Zenoira never feels like a threat outside of a few bad guys "mwuha ha ha ha ha" - ing at you and then they usually die. But as you liberate the map, there never seem to be any attempt to take it back, they just seem to sit back and accept that this upstart prince is just going to take over.
And then, about halfway through the game, it tells you that you must join the Unicorn Ring with the Maiden Ring, essentially get married. At this point, all of the female characters turn into love interests, no seriously, they all decide that they want Prince cock. When the time came to choose a partner, I almost chose one of the male characters I'd got a high enough relationship with just to spite the lot of them.
The music is a mixed bag too, some of it sounds pretty epic and reminds me of the great music from Valkyria Chronicles. And then there is the music of the area known as Albion. Which sounds like it escaped from South Park: The Stick of Truth.
While it seems like I've spent a fair bit of time bashing this game, but I really liked it. The game play is what carries this game through to the end, just don't go expecting greatness from the story.
I really like Vanillaware games, their games look fantastic, the characters and backgrounds are always gorgeous to look at and there are always little details going on in the background like leaves falling, or snow falling off of trees. Or if you use the Divine Rain spell, the next few battles will take place during a thunder storm. Its these little things that I always appreciate. Their games always keep me captivated too. This is a tactical RPG where you bulid up teams of up to 5 characters and march them into war. This is during the missions, outside of missions, you wander around the open-ish world and farm resources which you can use to fix up towns, which you can then man with guards who will farm the resources for you. As well as doing additional battles or feed goats. Its all good fun and Unicorn Overlord has been one of those games that has kept me playing into the early hours with its "one more mission" or, I'll just see what this area has to off sort of gameplay.
Some of the missions however, especially in the late game, can drag on a bit too long. Though surprisingly the final mission where you finally beat the big bad and his mate doesn't for some reason. The story doesn't really matter either, it is there to get you to go from one place to another, it is just there. And the writing is as dry as burnt, unbuttered toast, there is some humour in there but the game doesn't play it up.
Anyway, you are Alain, who after an uprising, is shipped off to a remote island to be raised by father figure Josef. Years later, he returns to retake his crown from the evil Zenoiran Empire. And that's about it. The story never really shifts from that one note, I was expecting Josef to be offed at any point to add a bit of tragedy and further motivating factor to his mission. But nope, childhood friend, Scarlott gets abducted early in the game, but is soon rescued. And this is my major gripe with the story, there just doesn't seem to be any stakes other than reclaiming your throne. Zenoira never feels like a threat outside of a few bad guys "mwuha ha ha ha ha" - ing at you and then they usually die. But as you liberate the map, there never seem to be any attempt to take it back, they just seem to sit back and accept that this upstart prince is just going to take over.
And then, about halfway through the game, it tells you that you must join the Unicorn Ring with the Maiden Ring, essentially get married. At this point, all of the female characters turn into love interests, no seriously, they all decide that they want Prince cock. When the time came to choose a partner, I almost chose one of the male characters I'd got a high enough relationship with just to spite the lot of them.
The music is a mixed bag too, some of it sounds pretty epic and reminds me of the great music from Valkyria Chronicles. And then there is the music of the area known as Albion. Which sounds like it escaped from South Park: The Stick of Truth.
While it seems like I've spent a fair bit of time bashing this game, but I really liked it. The game play is what carries this game through to the end, just don't go expecting greatness from the story.
Vanillaware's last great story in their games is still Odin's Sphere. That was nearly twenty years ago now. After that they really faltered with story or don't care. It's been pretty clear though that they've always been gameplay over story even with their best titles. Odin is just the one that got Westerners invested in their future titles.
Its the fire emblem curse, all of them have serviceable but not interesting story and for good and ill that mean every tactical/medieval game need to have that too. I'm playing lost eidolon atm, a indie fire emblem clone, and it has the exact same issue, where the story is just paint by number. Worse, it has one big twist half way trough the game, but the game literally start on a flash forward of the big twist, so before you even meet a character for real, you already know they'll betray you.
NOTHING. I AM PLAYING NOTHING.
Because I finally beat persona 4 golden and Im having a midgame..inbetween game crisis.
I think Im prepared to step back and respect peoples opinion of Persona 4 golden not being the best game in the series.
Its very distinct between Persona 3R and Persona 5R because its so much smaller in scope. Its got fewer playable characters, fewer things to do, a small town mystery and its far more of a visual novel than it is an RPG. I think someone could absolutely enjoy Persona 5 and not enjoy persona 4.
Im a little miffed, maybe at myself because I beat persona 4 golden a few years ago on Psvita and thought wow its so much shorter than P3R or P5R, only to replay it this last month and find out I missed a whole 3rd of the game. Until the other two which really only have a couple ending options, with P4G Theres two more entire storylines and dungeons, one of which is literally the actual end of the game youd miss if you didn't choose just the right dialog options. In a way Im kinda just mad because Im supposed to just casually be enjoying a game and they withhold major story content for not playing with a guide and completionist mindset. Thats just stressful and thats not why I play videogames.
Anyway I think I largely enjoyed it. If I had one reasonable complaint it would be that the dungeon "key" treasure chests in P4G are largely repetitive useless baubles where as in the other two, especially P3R all the chests had actual important equipment or Outfits. Towards the end of P4G I started skipping them because I just didn't care.
That and P4R has a lot of cringe horniness that genuinely made me uncomfortable even as a standard bog horny guy. I felt like the friendships in P3R could be relatively platonic where as P4G had a near constant press for ecchi.
Now Im torn, Im once again trying to tell myself "ok dude, do something productive or at least play a normal game" and yet the one on the other shoulder says "Whelp better restart Persona 5R even though you just recently complained about how massive and mindnumbingly long it is!"
Because I finally beat persona 4 golden and Im having a midgame..inbetween game crisis.
I think Im prepared to step back and respect peoples opinion of Persona 4 golden not being the best game in the series.
Its very distinct between Persona 3R and Persona 5R because its so much smaller in scope. Its got fewer playable characters, fewer things to do, a small town mystery and its far more of a visual novel than it is an RPG. I think someone could absolutely enjoy Persona 5 and not enjoy persona 4.
Im a little miffed, maybe at myself because I beat persona 4 golden a few years ago on Psvita and thought wow its so much shorter than P3R or P5R, only to replay it this last month and find out I missed a whole 3rd of the game. Until the other two which really only have a couple ending options, with P4G Theres two more entire storylines and dungeons, one of which is literally the actual end of the game youd miss if you didn't choose just the right dialog options. In a way Im kinda just mad because Im supposed to just casually be enjoying a game and they withhold major story content for not playing with a guide and completionist mindset. Thats just stressful and thats not why I play videogames.
Anyway I think I largely enjoyed it. If I had one reasonable complaint it would be that the dungeon "key" treasure chests in P4G are largely repetitive useless baubles where as in the other two, especially P3R all the chests had actual important equipment or Outfits. Towards the end of P4G I started skipping them because I just didn't care.
That and P4R has a lot of cringe horniness that genuinely made me uncomfortable even as a standard bog horny guy. I felt like the friendships in P3R could be relatively platonic where as P4G had a near constant press for ecchi.
Now Im torn, Im once again trying to tell myself "ok dude, do something productive or at least play a normal game" and yet the one on the other shoulder says "Whelp better restart Persona 5R even though you just recently complained about how massive and mindnumbingly long it is!"
I finally finished Baldur's Gate 3. Incredible game. I did get the feeling like the overall quality was slowly deteriorating as the Acts went on, but I still thoroughly enjoyed myself, and the level of care and detail in just about every aspect is astounding. Even briefly scrolling through YouTube to see all of the other interactions that I missed shows just how much consideration was made for seemingly over possible interaction and outcome.
My only real gripes are realistically nitpicks in the grand scheme of things. After leaving Act 1, Speak with Dead seemed like less and less of a possibility, and similarly Speak With Animals never felt as impactful or as common as it did in Divinity Original Sin 2, which frequently offered whole questlines for animals.
As for an oddity, I do find it quite strange that not all classes were represented as companions, but we had two Druids for some reason. Obviously this is definitely a nitpick because you can easily just respec any of the characters to be whatever class you like, or you can just hire a hireling, but I thought it was still pretty odd. Similarly, I find it quite strange that the game has such a massive variety of different races, and yet everyone that you meet (with the exception of Karlach and Lae'zel) are either humans, or elves. No dwarves(?!), half-orcs, gnomes, halflings, or dragonborn. I think this was a massive missed opportunity.
Otherwise, now that I have finished the game after 100 hours, im struggling to get it out of my head. I played as a custom Drow (not Dark Urge) Sword Bard/Thief Rogue/Fighter, and Im just theorycrafting my next playthrough as to which class im going to play as, which character im going to play as, and which companions im going to run around with, which is really unusual, because Im normally quite happy to move onto another game after finishing one.
Alas, I really don't have another 100 to dedicate to Baldur's Gate 3 at the moment, so im moving onto something different, and hopefully much shorter, and i've landed on Black Mesa, which is that semi-official Half-Life 1 remake. Not too much to say about now, as I have only just started, but Half-Life has always been a bit of a blind-spot for me, as I only ever played bits of Half-Life 2 via the Orange Box on the Xbox, and I never finished any of the chapters.
My only real gripes are realistically nitpicks in the grand scheme of things. After leaving Act 1, Speak with Dead seemed like less and less of a possibility, and similarly Speak With Animals never felt as impactful or as common as it did in Divinity Original Sin 2, which frequently offered whole questlines for animals.
As for an oddity, I do find it quite strange that not all classes were represented as companions, but we had two Druids for some reason. Obviously this is definitely a nitpick because you can easily just respec any of the characters to be whatever class you like, or you can just hire a hireling, but I thought it was still pretty odd. Similarly, I find it quite strange that the game has such a massive variety of different races, and yet everyone that you meet (with the exception of Karlach and Lae'zel) are either humans, or elves. No dwarves(?!), half-orcs, gnomes, halflings, or dragonborn. I think this was a massive missed opportunity.
Otherwise, now that I have finished the game after 100 hours, im struggling to get it out of my head. I played as a custom Drow (not Dark Urge) Sword Bard/Thief Rogue/Fighter, and Im just theorycrafting my next playthrough as to which class im going to play as, which character im going to play as, and which companions im going to run around with, which is really unusual, because Im normally quite happy to move onto another game after finishing one.
Alas, I really don't have another 100 to dedicate to Baldur's Gate 3 at the moment, so im moving onto something different, and hopefully much shorter, and i've landed on Black Mesa, which is that semi-official Half-Life 1 remake. Not too much to say about now, as I have only just started, but Half-Life has always been a bit of a blind-spot for me, as I only ever played bits of Half-Life 2 via the Orange Box on the Xbox, and I never finished any of the chapters.
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I beat Axiom Verge 2. Overall I think I enjoyed the game, but it didn't make things easy. It's not a hard game, but it does do things that tend to annoy me in a metroidvania. Like when you go through an area you will feel like you're missing things, a lot of things and while the game gives you points you need to go to, the path there tends to be pretty meandering so you feel more like you are stumbling upon where you need to go rather then finding it. But the plot is interesting if not the best told and the music is just fantastic, might even be better then the music from the first game.