After taking a few months off from it from self-inflicted frustration, giving Dispatch another try. Through episode 1, and the writing is still so good and fun.
What are you currently playing?
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Ghost of Yotei. It's fantastic, as expected. Have defeated the Oni, and just made my way to Teshio Ridge, which is visually striking and a nice mechanical shift (from fighting Samurai/ outlaws to shinobi).
Saw that Nioh 3 had another Demo out on the PlayStation store so I decided to download it.
It's pretty fun and meaty for a demo. The Nioh series seems to be evolving quite nicely.
It's pretty fun and meaty for a demo. The Nioh series seems to be evolving quite nicely.
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This coffee table is what Lucas is riding in his Smash Bros round intro. Now you know.
I did one more playthrough of Spike Out and managed to finally get the alternate levels the game doesn't tell you about. I managed to get to the mall, and it is by far the longest level in the game. It almost goes on for too long, but it gives you the most interesting and entertaining enemy types. You basically fight Yakuza thugs in one half, and for most of the other, it's guys in sports gear, and then back to the Yakuza thugs at the end of the stage. There is a bunch of Sega and Sonic advertising, as to be expected in a 90s Sega arcade game.
Mother 3: Defeated the Barrier Trio, one of the game's more notoriously difficult bosses. Their PSI skills hit like a truck and can't be lowered with Offense Down; they've got pretty strong defenses, including only one elemental weakness that keeps changing; they've got quite a lot of HP to work through; and their battle track is hard to work out the rhythm to, though relatively easy to handle once you know it. Also, Lucas doesn't learn a party-wide PSI shield until level 45, so if you don't want to level grind at Tanetane Island, or you didn't earlier, you'll have to rely on having him shield one party member at a time and hope nobody gets bullied. It is doable, obviously (I did it at level 39), but it took me a few tries. Don't feel bad if you have to pull out the Mementos here, they exist to be used and this is one of the fights where they definitely aren't wasted.
tl;dr: If you somehow made it this far still relying on 'attack enemies, heal when low', this is the point where you'll have to actually learn to play the game to get any further.
Just one more part of Chapter 7 to go and then we're into the endgame.
tl;dr: If you somehow made it this far still relying on 'attack enemies, heal when low', this is the point where you'll have to actually learn to play the game to get any further.
Just one more part of Chapter 7 to go and then we're into the endgame.
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Finished The Last Faith.
The ending was a bit of a bummer. Not the story's conclusions per se - you either take over the world or reboot it, who cares - but the fact that if you die during the "true" final boss then the game bugs out and freezes whenever you go for a rematch. I looked it up and this has been an issue for a while. And here I was finally playing this game that was super janky at launch, thinking that the devs would've finally gotten its shit together if they were finally at the point of releasing DLC.
Ended up restoring an earlier save from a USB drive and having to do all three final fights in one go, without dying.
The ending was a bit of a bummer. Not the story's conclusions per se - you either take over the world or reboot it, who cares - but the fact that if you die during the "true" final boss then the game bugs out and freezes whenever you go for a rematch. I looked it up and this has been an issue for a while. And here I was finally playing this game that was super janky at launch, thinking that the devs would've finally gotten its shit together if they were finally at the point of releasing DLC.
Ended up restoring an earlier save from a USB drive and having to do all three final fights in one go, without dying.
Desensitized because I played it so many times, but Sonic 3 is musically so funky. I failed to get a perfect score in one of the seven special stages. Know the game so well that I already had four emeralds in level 1 and all of them in Carnival Zone. Good that the final boss's grab deactivates Super Sonic, because it would have been way too easy otherwise, and the game is already so easy. Yeah, I could have played S3&K again, but some of the music is different.
I bought it over a year ago because of how @PsychedelicDiamond described it (Pynchon meets Rivette meets Suda51 meets...) but only now started playing Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. I'm usually leery of the purported complexity of puzzle games but early on I made a deduction, said to myself if that's the solution then the game is brilliant and when it was I did the Absolute Cinema pose. It's so freaking good.
Overall I liked LatLE. I felt like most of the mandatory puzzles were pretty fair, but some of the optional ones required leaps of logic that I never managed to gap.
Hah, I don't recommend things lightly, you know.
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I got to the volcano area in Monster Hunter Stories. So far the story is pretty fun, its childish but in a charming way. Did not expect a Saturday morning catroon mad scientist to be capturing monsters and mind controlling them, that's for sure. Gameplay continues to be quite fun, its still really nice to see what new monsters I can get and how they look in this chibi style. It does seem like the team ups from Monster Hunter Stories 2 aren't here, but it makes sense that game would have more, even though it came to steam first. I like that we are also getting some back story into Naviru, who is the weirdest Felyn around.
Mother 3: During the final dungeon, I unknowingly trolled myself with the elevators. I thought it could potentially happen, but I was still surprised when it did.
If you use an elevator to go back to the lobby so that you can buy more items, you'll have to begin from the dungeon's first area again. Honestly, with how many item boxes are around and the fact you get a full heal at the start of every floor that has enemies, this really shouldn't be necessary, so learn from my mistakes and just don't do it. The extra EXP probably isn't even worth very much, since unless you get Kumatora to level 60 to learn her ultimate attack PSI, it's unlikely to make a difference if you're one level higher or lower, since Mother 3 doesn't even have Earthbound's 'every level that's a multiple of 4 is huge' rule.
Still, this is one of the most creative dungeons in any RPG I've played, so it's got that going for it. The floor with all the bathrooms in particular is gold.
If you use an elevator to go back to the lobby so that you can buy more items, you'll have to begin from the dungeon's first area again. Honestly, with how many item boxes are around and the fact you get a full heal at the start of every floor that has enemies, this really shouldn't be necessary, so learn from my mistakes and just don't do it. The extra EXP probably isn't even worth very much, since unless you get Kumatora to level 60 to learn her ultimate attack PSI, it's unlikely to make a difference if you're one level higher or lower, since Mother 3 doesn't even have Earthbound's 'every level that's a multiple of 4 is huge' rule.
Still, this is one of the most creative dungeons in any RPG I've played, so it's got that going for it. The floor with all the bathrooms in particular is gold.
And I finally finished Mother 3.
I said I might give some detailed thoughts, but honestly, this is something that I think you need to experience to understand fully. If you don't have the means to play it, there are a lot of playthroughs on Youtube and elsewhere, and the story is the big draw for this game. I don't want to say anything like 'we'll never see another game like this', because that simply isn't true, but this game truly is exceptional. That, and I don't think I've emotionally recovered from playing it yet.
I've had a few thoughts about where to go from here, and even though I've played several 'old' JRPGs, I don't intend to force myself through Mother/Earthbound Zero/Earthbound Beginnings any time soon. Maybe I'll clean up one of the Final Fantasy games I started but never finished.
I said I might give some detailed thoughts, but honestly, this is something that I think you need to experience to understand fully. If you don't have the means to play it, there are a lot of playthroughs on Youtube and elsewhere, and the story is the big draw for this game. I don't want to say anything like 'we'll never see another game like this', because that simply isn't true, but this game truly is exceptional. That, and I don't think I've emotionally recovered from playing it yet.
I've had a few thoughts about where to go from here, and even though I've played several 'old' JRPGs, I don't intend to force myself through Mother/Earthbound Zero/Earthbound Beginnings any time soon. Maybe I'll clean up one of the Final Fantasy games I started but never finished.
Initial EarthBound impression, cute but boring.
Even with the unlimited continues, I don't respect Ninja Gaiden's difficulty. In fact, the unlimited continues encouraged them to make the game cheaper and more trial and error. Leap and then an eagle appears out of nowhere and the human before the cliff also appears out of nowhere, cauing the hero to fall. I'm still gonna keep (re)playing because it's a good NES game. Ace players certainly go by memory.
Even with the unlimited continues, I don't respect Ninja Gaiden's difficulty. In fact, the unlimited continues encouraged them to make the game cheaper and more trial and error. Leap and then an eagle appears out of nowhere and the human before the cliff also appears out of nowhere, cauing the hero to fall. I'm still gonna keep (re)playing because it's a good NES game. Ace players certainly go by memory.
Wanted to take a screenshot for my confusion as to where to go next on the cliffs in chapter 5-3 (I think) and accidentally restarted the Samsung tablet instead, losing all progress. But, surprisingly, I made it back to 5-2 in like forty-five minutes. Since it's a continue point, I've created a save just to be safe and will now go exercise finally. The bats are evil. They appear out of nowhere, so you have to go close to the jump but stop short so that the evil bat can appear and you can jump over. The speed with which I recovered my progress confirms much of it is testing and memory.
The NES Ninja Gaiden games are the chief examples of games I point to when I am thinking of the difference between fair and unfair difficulty, and it's NOT because I think they fall into the "fair" category. Even beyond just the fact that as you said, it's more about memorization of enemy patterns than anything really skill based, there's the infamous level 6. Why is it infamous? Three stages, then 3 bosses in a row. If you die to any of the bosses, back to Stage 6-1 for you. And this isn't something they overlooked. No, they caught it and kept it in because they thought it was funny.
Due to the circumstances, instead of one of the ones I started but never finished, I instead ended up starting one I never played at all before: Final Fantasy 3, the Famicom one that introduced jobs and not the American SNES one with Kefka. They really want you to use the job system to its fullest extent; even from as soon as you get them, you're being thrown into fights that basically require you to use specific jobs, though it's at least nice enough to have NPCs tell you what you should be using. It's also a lot less generous with level-up gains and early-game spells than FF1, so some level grinding's required to survive even early dungeons like the Mithril Mine; again, to be expected from a game of this era, and I've beaten a couple in my time.
Still too early on to know much about where this is going for now. I'm trying to play it with as little guidance as possible.
(I'm playing the Pixel Remaster version, not the 3D or Famicom.)
Still too early on to know much about where this is going for now. I'm trying to play it with as little guidance as possible.
(I'm playing the Pixel Remaster version, not the 3D or Famicom.)
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Started using and abusing quick saves in 6-2 and am now at the first boss. The game became trash in chapter 6. If you say you beat it legitimately, I won't believe you unless you provide footage of your hands playing the game in front of the screen and your account in the camera.
Even cheating, this thing is BS. Not fun at all.
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