What are you currently playing?

[Drathnoxis]

Beat the original Legend of Zelda with 53 deaths, about 20 of those on level 6 which is absurdly difficult because it's filled with the worst enemy in the game, Wizzrobes. The blue ones have a ton of health, can warp around, move through walls, shoot at you whenever you are in line of sight (through walls of course), do a ton of damage even with double defense, and can only be hurt with the sword. There are usually 3 of them along with some orange ones that pop up every couple seconds to take a pot shot at you. It's ridiculous. Level 7 was a joke in comparison, I don't think I died once. Wizzrobes along with Darknuts just kind of drag the game down. Darknuts also can only be hurt with the sword, with the additional stipulation that they are immune from the front, and also they always turn to face you within a second. The only way to kill them is to move around them, turn and stab them quick before running away. There's usually around 8 of them in a room. Actually, bombs also work for both these enemies, but you usually need those to blow up every wall looking for the way to progress through the dungeon. They probably wouldn't be so bad if the game controlled like the later 2D Zeldas, but it's a bit too clunky for the finesse you need fighting them. Also, I beat the game with the second level sword for the heck of it.

I won't complain about level 7 being in a pond that you need to intuit that playing the magic flute will reveal because I already knew about that from my first playthrough 15 years ago. Overall the game is fun, if a bit grindy, because every time you die you need to either kill a bunch of enemies to fill up your hearts, or walk to a fairy fountain on the other side of the map. Also you grind a ton of rupees to buy potions, and shields whenever you get touched by a Likelike, which is annoying. The game lags pretty hard at times too. It was a good starting ground for the series, but is improved on in pretty much every way by later installments.

 

[Worgen]

I grabbed Tempest Rising. I think I love it. It plays a lot like the old Command and Conquer games and those were my favorite RTS games. The graphics are great, the story is.... well its a bit early to tell, it is missing some of the... charm of the old live action fmv sequences that the C&C games had, but thats it. It plays really well, has a wasd present for camera controls, and is just everything I wanted out of a new yet old style RTS. Really the only thing I would change so far is making the voice lines less frequent, they seem to say something almost everytime you click.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Bionic Bay
had no expectations other than annoying part of subconscious compulsively linking it to bionic commando no matter how much I resisted. oh and a brief glimpse (but not read) over this article was first introduction to it's existence entirely;

PlayStation legend Shuhei Yoshida set to be playable in upcoming indie game

Former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida is being immortalised in pixel form thanks to Bionic Bay.

www.eurogamer.net

huh, curious choice to not even put the game title in the headline. some shitty SEO/clickbait tactic one can only imagine

despite best efforts to maintain no expectations, there was still a weird pang of subconscious disappointment to learn there's no hookshot robot arm wife when starting this. is instead much closer to a Limbo/Inside vocally mute puzzle/physics platformer with artsy intrigue and stubborn refusal to tell you shit. leans further towards kinetic physics outburst looking for any reason to fling the character around the room, plug em in keyholes, flush em down loos, explode em into orbit n such. no fucking idea what's going on or why or whether I like it, but soundtrack's pretty cool so may hang around for that at least

trailums;

Mandragora: Whispers of the elden witch teeth tree
metroidvanium, souls em up, only super early first impressions: environment's pleasantly detailed like Trine's 2.5D style, doesn't feel horrible to play, let's you faff about with shit early on if you're a compulsive faffer. can't remember a single goddamn thing about the story was really late and unsober but didn't leave any PTSD-esque offensive memories

trailumsian;

thats it, we're done, get lost ya cheeky scoundrels before I calls the police on yous again

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Found a $5 Steam game in my Youtube recommendations called Nubby's Number Factory. It's a combination of games like Balatro, Ballionaire and 2048 (who remembers that?) wrapped in the aesthetic of a Windows 95-era edutainment game, down to the bad pre-rendered "3D" graphics, wonky animations and nonsensical sound effects. You bounce Nubby the ball off of numbered pegs to make number go up; where the game gets actually interesting is that it's not enough to just beat your target score. The more you beat the score by, the more money and 'restocks' you earn, getting you additional lives if you made a mistake before as well as more power out of your next shop. Therefore, you have to be building and playing with an eye to doing the best you can rather than just 'good enough'.

Also if you don't make a big enough number the sun will explode, so y'know, no pressure.

*clears throat*

Bouncing a ball off pegs and watching number go up is fun for 30 minutes every once in a while or so; there's enough pickups and starting options to give build variety; and while I missed a lot of the time period it's evoking unlike 420 Blaze It 2, I can still tell that a fair bit of effort went into making it look like no effort went into its looks. It's not especially deep compared to Balatro (I haven't played Ballionaire but it's only like 75% positive on Steam compared to Nubby's 97%), but for $5 you can do a lot worse. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go stop the sun from exploding with the power of big number.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Finished the Khaos Reigns expansion, which was criticized for being too short, but I think it being marketed at full price was far more egregious. The length felt fine after getting it under $20, along with all the extras. Also got all of Cyrax’s combos, and missing one of Conan’s. It’s odd how the 8th always feels most difficult of the 9 typically listed (a few have 10). I can get 80% of it but the juggle after the crossover never connects for me. Meh. His lack of projectile options is a bummer anyways so I might just leave it be and try Sektor next.


While I don’t play it much other than tough parts to help out, the wife and kid are playing Sneaky Sasquatch. They beat it (well, I beat the end boss) and are going for all the extra stuff. An Apple arcade game has no business going this hard, but it’s commendable. Only shame is that it’s tied to a subscription. They have a month or two left on the deal I think, so we’ll see what happens after that.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Finished the second quest of The Legend of Zelda with 24 deaths. To anybody wondering if they should play the second quest my answer is noooooooo. It's all the terrible ideas that must have been cut from the first quest, and it's really unpolished on top of it. I got soft locked 3 times and had to save and quit. First when I didn't have any bombs and had to fight 3 Dodongos and the door had locked behind me, and the other two times were a result of the lovely red bubbles. See, the biggest new addition to difficulty is red and blue bubbles. If you touch a red one, you can't use your sword until you touch a blue one. Ever. If you leave the room, leave the dungeon, or even die. Nothing. You need to either touch a blue bubble or save and quit. It's easy to see how this could soft lock you if a game that locks you into rooms with enemies that can only be killed with your sword.

Other annoying new additions are that most of the dungeons are in random new locations on the overworld, hidden passages through walls in dungeons that you need to press up to for a second to walk through (actually these are much better than the walls that need to be bombed), and the old man that shows up sometimes in dungeons that forces you to either pay him 50 rupees or permanently give up a heart container. Overall the dungeons aren't that much harder, just more tedious. You pretty much need to walk against and bomb every wall, and push on every block. I mean, it was like that in the first quest, but it's even worse.

I'll admit I used a guide at times for this one. I found level 2 on my own after an hour of searching and figured that was enough. Since I didn't want to spend a month burning every tree and blowing up every wall on the overworld, I used the map from the first issue Nintendo Power (which doesn't give the locations for the last 3 dungeons, what the heck?!) I also checked a guide to see if I missed any dungeon items once I had gotten the triforce piece, which I had a couple times. I also got the double defense ring after level 2 and the master sword as soon as possible. I also found the red ring this time, which I didn't on my first playthrough, but I don't think it really makes a difference. Ganon wasn't any harder, which is strange. I was expecting that they would have filled his chamber with red and blue bubbles and shooting torches like they did every other room, but no.

So that's the original Legend of Zelda in its entirety. I've been kind of toying around with the idea of doing a replay of the entire series, pre BotW, but I'm thinking definitely not in chronological order since that would mean Adventure of Link is next and I'm not feeling up to it, I just can't.

Also, who the heck is S. Miyahon? Listed in the credits as Director and Producer? I thought this game was directed by Shigeru Miyamoto?

 

[BrawlMan]

I finally got a copy of Arms at a cheap enough price. The game is fun, though surprisingly difficult. Wasn't this game supposed to ease new fighting game players in? I can handle it, but you think Nintendo should've known better than to do that.

I did a few survival runs of Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold again. This time as Ryu and Sakura, and put them on the hardest difficulty. It was not easy.

Serei Senshi Spriggan I finished yesterday. It's a SHMUP that only came out on the PC-Engine, but it's available on the T-16 Mini/PC-Engine Mini. I have the mini though this time I played it on my RG35XXH. It's still a great 16-bit SHMUP, though it gets hard real fast. I still prefer Soldier Blade, but Spriggan is a close second.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Also, who the heck is S. Miyahon? Listed in the credits as Director and Producer? I thought this game was directed by Shigeru Miyamoto?

The kanji 本 that's read 'moto' in 'Miyamoto' 宮本 and other places can also be read as 'hon', so it's almost certainly either an in-joke or the translation was done by an unpaid intern.