What are you currently playing?

[NerfedFalcon]

Mother 3: Chapters 4 to 6 done. With the establishment of the game's permanent party, battles start getting more complex now that you have the tools to tackle them. The story, as well, starts raising the stakes as you see just how far the Pigmask Army has spread and what they're capable of, though the game takes pains to emphasize that Lucas and his friends are still capable of fighting back. And then Chapter 6 happens.

From here, the story takes another major turn, as rather than simply getting told 'you're looking for something over here', you have to start exploring the world again. There is still some guidance, but noticeably less of it, and you can handle at least part of the chapter in various orders. In the interest of getting the band back together so that some of those sections are actually reasonable to do, though, the usual order is Chimera Factory, Snowcap Mountain, Fire Mountain, Tanetane Island.

I also remembered to pick up the Mystical Shoes and the Shield Killer, though for the latter it's apparently possible to do in Chapter 7 if you didn't earlier. As for the Friend's Yo-Yo, I decided not to bother with that one.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Last Faith. I don't know where the hell people got the impression this game was hard. Well, maybe it was around release back in 2023. Playing it today, it's one of the most amenable soulslikes I've ever played: with fast travel available from the get go and a handy item to warp back to any station within a few hours of playtime. The runbacks are practically nonexistent, you can farm and level up to your heart's content, and eventually you can respec all your stats to fit whatever build you want to try out. And bosses require almost no discipline. Also it does the Igavania thing of showering you with spells and weapons you're never going to use because the starter stuff is just that good.

 

[Ezekiel]

Sonic 2 is the worst of the original trilogy. The worst special stages, later ones won by memory after repeated attempts because of how abruptly the rings or spikes come up in turns. Blue Sphere was best. Some bland levels. What I hate most is falling through the final boss, a glitch. Happens far too often in a battle with no rings.

 

[thebobmaster]

Wow, you REALLY don't like anything close to the consensus, do you? Clear Labyrinth Zone and talk to me about bullshit in the OG trilogy.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Mother 3: Chapters 4 to 6 done. With the establishment of the game's permanent party, battles start getting more complex now that you have the tools to tackle them. The story, as well, starts raising the stakes as you see just how far the Pigmask Army has spread and what they're capable of, though the game takes pains to emphasize that Lucas and his friends are still capable of fighting back. And then Chapter 6 happens.

From here, the story takes another major turn, as rather than simply getting told 'you're looking for something over here', you have to start exploring the world again. There is still some guidance, but noticeably less of it, and you can handle at least part of the chapter in various orders. In the interest of getting the band back together so that some of those sections are actually reasonable to do, though, the usual order is Chimera Factory, Snowcap Mountain, Fire Mountain, Tanetane Island.

I also remembered to pick up the Mystical Shoes and the Shield Killer, though for the latter it's apparently possible to do in Chapter 7 if you didn't earlier. As for the Friend's Yo-Yo, I decided not to bother with that one.

Dang, you're blowing past me. I'm only on chapter 5 and I was already 4 chapters in before you started! I kind of hate the timing minigame during fights, it feels completely random no matter how much I try to time it, even if the enemy is asleep and you can hear their heartbeat.

 

[Ezekiel]

What's wrong with Labyrinth Zone?

 

[thebobmaster]

Combining water floaty physics with spikes, glitches where necessary platforms sometimes just don't appear, overall slow pace, oh, and it's extremely hard to hold onto 50 rings for the end-of-stage Special Stages. Oh, and if you hold Down when going through the end-of-stage goal in the second act, you can crash the game.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Dang, you're blowing past me. I'm only on chapter 5 and I was already 4 chapters in before you started! I kind of hate the timing minigame during fights, it feels completely random no matter how much I try to time it, even if the enemy is asleep and you can hear their heartbeat.

It feels to me like combo attacks are essentially just extra bonus damage, not like they're really needed to win fights unless you're severely underequipped or underleveled. Other than the ones with a simple and consistent rhythm, I tend not to be able to get more than a few hits myself, even with all the DDR I've played in the past. Since Kumatora can't even deal as much damage most of the time with a 16-hit combo as one of her PK moves, and likewise Boney but with bombs, I'd argue it may not be worth the effort anyway.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

(Passed the edit limit. To be clear, I'm not saying it's a bad or useless mechanic, just that it may not necessarily be worth the effort of trying to maximize damage on every single attack. There's multiple cases where just using a PK attack or attack item's better, and if you want to save a party member from mortal damage, you'll want to skip doing combos so that you can heal them faster. On top of that, there's songs where you basically won't get the 16-hit combo unless you're actually really good at rhythm games, whether it's because of skipped beats, tempo changes, or just having a tempo that's too fast to reliably keep up with. When you can do it, great, but don't force yourself to do it if it's not working out in a certain battle.)

 

[Drathnoxis]

(Passed the edit limit. To be clear, I'm not saying it's a bad or useless mechanic, just that it may not necessarily be worth the effort of trying to maximize damage on every single attack. There's multiple cases where just using a PK attack or attack item's better, and if you want to save a party member from mortal damage, you'll want to skip doing combos so that you can heal them faster. On top of that, there's songs where you basically won't get the 16-hit combo unless you're actually really good at rhythm games, whether it's because of skipped beats, tempo changes, or just having a tempo that's too fast to reliably keep up with. When you can do it, great, but don't force yourself to do it if it's not working out in a certain battle.)

After looking it up some it looks like the issue might be input lag with my emulator, which makes sense because I can't even tell if I'm supposed to be pressing the button in time with the music or not. Are you playing on real hardware since you understand Japanese?

Also, since your join date is 2011, how come you never signed up for the legacy badge? If you had you wouldn't have time limits for editing. Edit: or maybe that's incorrect. I notice that Ezekiel's is 2007 and there's no way that's correct.

 

[Ezekiel]

Also, since your join date is 2011, how come you never signed up for the legacy badge? If you had you wouldn't have time limits for editing. Edit: or maybe that's incorrect. I notice that Ezekiel's is 2007 and there's no way that's correct.

I did join in 2007. I just didn't start using it until much later.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I did join in 2007. I just didn't start using it until much later.

Then how come an archive of your profile on the old site shows a join date of 2013?

The Escapist : Profiles : Ezekiel

The mouthpiece of the gaming generation, The Escapist aims to capture and celebrate the contemporary video gaming lifestyle and the diverse global video game culture by way of in-depth features, thought provoking articles and relevant columns authored by leading video game authorities, as well...

web.archive.org

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Forever Skies
Is this good game? I can't quite tell. Can I stop myself playing it? Hell no, this weird steampunk-adjacent zeppelin project of mine has expanded (heh!) to somewhat of a post apocalyptic sky castle drenched in hippie colours and fruity shapes yet I've no idea what it's leading to or whether it even matters. Would love to see a kinda higher budget version of this as there are evident strains encountered in some areas, luckily the pause menu got this back with a "unstuck player?" and "unstuck ship?"" option which I have in no way been abusing to get out of awkward jams and tense moments

The survival mechanics seem tolerable enough as someone who usually despises them, despite some embarrassing deaths from forgetting to pause the damn thing when seeing to real life matters. Also parking is a right kunt the larger you build , can imagine a way more frustrating game if it did damage to the ship also.

So really though, is it good? Don't ask me, I'm just an addict.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Cairn is my first thumbs-up of the year.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

After looking it up some it looks like the issue might be input lag with my emulator, which makes sense because I can't even tell if I'm supposed to be pressing the button in time with the music or not. Are you playing on real hardware since you understand Japanese?

I'm not, and I'm playing the English version anyway. Playing a game that doesn't have kanji is actually fairly difficult; if a word you don't know, or that has multiple readings, shows up, then it's harder to work out what it might mean. During battles, I also don't want to have to stop and read enemy attack text.

Also, since your join date is 2011, how come you never signed up for the legacy badge? If you had you wouldn't have time limits for editing. Edit: or maybe that's incorrect. I notice that Ezekiel's is 2007 and there's no way that's correct.

I wasn't aware I could get one until, I think, they stopped handing them out. Not that I'm that torn up about it, honestly.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I'm not, and I'm playing the English version anyway. Playing a game that doesn't have kanji is actually fairly difficult; if a word you don't know, or that has multiple readings, shows up, then it's harder to work out what it might mean. During battles, I also don't want to have to stop and read enemy attack text.


I wasn't aware I could get one until, I think, they stopped handing them out. Not that I'm that torn up about it, honestly.

I see, what emulator are you using?

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I see, what emulator are you using?

mGBA 0.10.5, the latest updated version when I last checked the site.

 

[meiam]

Cairn is my first thumbs-up of the year.

The highly prestigious escapist mag seems to disagree with you

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news-cairn-first-impressions-2026/

(I will never not find it funny that escapist link don't preview on the escapist forum)

 

[BrawlMan]

I did high score run of Panzer Bandit with Ein. The cigar chumping, gun kata wielding, and explosive chucking robot of the four.

 

[Ezekiel]

Combining water floaty physics with spikes, glitches where necessary platforms sometimes just don't appear, overall slow pace, oh, and it's extremely hard to hold onto 50 rings for the end-of-stage Special Stages. Oh, and if you hold Down when going through the end-of-stage goal in the second act, you can crash the game.

First thing doesn't matter, is a nice change of difficulty, and complaining indicates skill issue. Didn't experience any Labyrinth glitches in my multiple recent playthroughs. Pace was fine. I never broke the game. Only glitch I had in these recent playthroughs was an invisible wall in a special stage.


Now we are two. Must agree, worst music of the trilogy.

Sonic 2 is the worst of the original trilogy. The worst special stages, later ones won by memory after repeated attempts because of how abruptly the rings or spikes come up in turns. Blue Sphere was best. Some bland levels. What I hate most is falling through the final boss, a glitch. Happens far too often in a battle with no rings.

Never liked it as much as 1 or 3. Music was the most disappointing. Doesn't even sound like it was made by the same people as 1.