What game are you playing?

[Roguey]

Finished Kirby's Dream Land, only took about an hour. Cute and easy platformer up until the final boss which was a slight bump in demand with regard to how you're supposed to approach it.

[Emphyrio]

This thing is blowing up like crazy:


Conservative estimate after Steam's cut is minimum 8 million dollars first day sales.

Why did it take so long for somebody to make this? Gamefreak should have made this game years ago.

they were doing ok selling the same game a dozen times

[Breathe]

Finished Kirby's Dream Land, only took about an hour. Cute and easy platformer up until the final boss which was a slight bump in demand with regard to how you're supposed to approach it.

I played this last year and was surprised at how short it was. It was over just as it had begun.

[1998]

This thing is blowing up like crazy:


Conservative estimate after Steam's cut is minimum 8 million dollars first day sales.

Why did it take so long for somebody to make this? Gamefreak should have made this game years ago.

they were doing ok selling the same game a dozen times

It's also one of those games that sell equally well in the West and the East. Also sits on nr. 1 in China.

[Roguey]

Finished Kirby's Dream Land, only took about an hour. Cute and easy platformer up until the final boss which was a slight bump in demand with regard to how you're supposed to approach it.

I played this last year and was surprised at how short it was. It was over just as it had begun.

Most 2D platformers without some sort of password or save system were roughly an hour when played perfectly, game-time extended through high difficulty. Kirb's only unusual for its time by not being very demanding at all (though it does have that secret harder mode it tells you about at the end in case you felt ripped off )

[KnightoftheWind]

Finished Kirby's Dream Land, only took about an hour. Cute and easy platformer up until the final boss which was a slight bump in demand with regard to how you're supposed to approach it.

I played this last year and was surprised at how short it was. It was over just as it had begun.

Most 2D platformers without some sort of password or save system were roughly an hour when played perfectly, game-time extended through high difficulty. Kirb's only unusual for its time by not being very demanding at all (though it does have that secret harder mode it tells you about at the end in case you felt ripped off )

Did you play it with the colour hack?. https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6224/

The one for Dream Land 2 is also great. https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7724/

[Roguey]

Did you play it with the colour hack?. https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6224/

The one for Dream Land 2 is also great. https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7724/

Nope, played it on the Switch (I am part of a family plan, I wouldn't pay for ancient roms/emulators myself) in gameboy color mode. Just never motivated to give it a try till now.

[Roguey]

Finished Star Wars: Dark Forces (yeah, this is just how things ended up working out). I played the demo in the 90s when I was a teenager and didn't like it (and went on to play Jedi Outcast and Jedi Knight later on and didn't particularly care for those either). Since they're going to bastardize it with a remaster, I decided to give it another try before that happened with The Force Engine. I liked it better this time, though I didn't care at all for the instadeath platforming sections (to make matters worse, the jumping timing is tricky; too soon and you won't make it, too late and you won't jump at all). If I didn't have quicksaves through TFE I would have shelved it at the first sign of them, which would have been a shame, because the levels are all right when they're not forcing you to do that jumping crap.

[Rand]

Contains body types, hard pass.

Yeah, but like what I posted to enrage the weirdos, ignore the button text.
There are only two sexes to choose from, one blatantly male, the other unmistakably female, reinforcing the natural and biological binary.
Man, were they ****** off about it.

[Rand]

[rusty_shackleford]

Nearly finished Tainted Grail Conquest, the roguelite card game. I swear it's not as **** as it sounds, it's actually based on a tabletop game.

Finished it.
If you like the idea of it, give it a try. It's not bad.
I liked the story, but it was a bit barebones.

I'd like to see someone come up with card-like combat for RPGs that's less abstract. I like having to make the most of whatever cards I draw.

Can you elaborate? Are you talking about something like Midnight Suns? Slay the Spire? Thornwatch? Or something completely different?

Any of them, my main issue is that the cards themselves are too abstract. But I like the constraints using cards can place on the player. I dunno how to reconcile it.

[Emphyrio]

Finished it.
If you like the idea of it, give it a try. It's not bad.
I liked the story, but it was a bit barebones.

I'd like to see someone come up with card-like combat for RPGs that's less abstract. I like having to make the most of whatever cards I draw.

Can you elaborate? Are you talking about something like Midnight Suns? Slay the Spire? Thornwatch? Or something completely different?

Any of them, my main issue is that the cards themselves are too abstract. But I like the constraints using cards can place on the player. I dunno how to reconcile it.

there's gloomhaven but its ****

[WhiteShark]

Any of them, my main issue is that the cards themselves are too abstract. But I like the constraints using cards can place on the player. I dunno how to reconcile it.

I think you have to invent a magic system to accommodate cards. They fail to represent anything real and any magic system that isn't custom built for cards.

[Acrux]

This thing is blowing up like crazy:


Conservative estimate after Steam's cut is minimum 8 million dollars first day sales.

What the hell is this game about?

[Goblin_Hammer]

This thing is blowing up like crazy:


Conservative estimate after Steam's cut is minimum 8 million dollars first day sales.

What the hell is this game about?

Pokemon mixed with open world crafting survival mechanics.

[Vergil]

What the hell is this game about?

Quickly shoveling out an unreal 5 early access asset flip while making many USD.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'll take five!

[Oyster Sauce]

I watched a friend play Palworld for a bit and it looks really, really bad. Even among other EA scam survival crafting games it looked and played like mobile ****.

[J1M]

Any of them, my main issue is that the cards themselves are too abstract. But I like the constraints using cards can place on the player. I dunno how to reconcile it.

I think you have to invent a magic system to accommodate cards. They fail to represent anything real and any magic system that isn't custom built for cards.

Okay, so the issue is that you like the gameplay card mechanics bring, but that since a card isn't a sword swing it's too abstract. What side of the line does Magic: The Gathering, where each card is a spell, fall for you?

[Breathe]

I watched a friend play Palworld for a bit and it looks really, really bad. Even among other EA scam survival crafting games it looked and played like mobile ****.

It's annoying how much Gen Z loves meme games.

[WhiteShark]

Okay, so the issue is that you like the gameplay card mechanics bring, but that since a card isn't a sword swing it's too abstract. What side of the line does Magic: The Gathering, where each card is a spell, fall for you?

Magic is mostly fine, though I suppose there's some weirdness with equipping artifacts to creatures without the appropriate anatomy. If I were designing an RPG based around cards, I would implement some non-card basic actions and use cards only for magic, and the magic system would be explained as powerful but fickle, beyond total control for even skilled mages. The player character would necessarily be a mage so as to make use of the card system. Major opponents may also use cards, whereas minor opponents and extras would probably stick with non-card actions.

[rusty_shackleford]

This thing is blowing up like crazy:


Conservative estimate after Steam's cut is minimum 8 million dollars first day sales.

What the hell is this game about?

The american version of pokemon

[rusty_shackleford]

Any of them, my main issue is that the cards themselves are too abstract. But I like the constraints using cards can place on the player. I dunno how to reconcile it.

I think you have to invent a magic system to accommodate cards. They fail to represent anything real and any magic system that isn't custom built for cards.

Okay, so the issue is that you like the gameplay card mechanics bring, but that since a card isn't a sword swing it's too abstract. What side of the line does Magic: The Gathering, where each card is a spell, fall for you?

The issue is that there's a disconnect between game mechanic and the game world with no explanation. @WhiteShark's solution is actually pretty good tbh, but limited because it sorta just sidesteps the problem.

[Wretch]

Tes II: Daggerfall Unity

Surprisingly good once you change some settings around. It’s much more of a sandbox or even roguelike than the normal tes special boy experience. Most people get filtered by the lack of handholding or explanation in the game but once the basics of travel, information gathering, and dungeon delving are mastered the game really opens up. The magic system is good and has tons of utility spells, which the modern rpg lacks making magic feel like a boring gimmick instead of part of the world. I would put it at about on par with or slightly lower than Morrowind’s magic system. The mechanics are a lot closer to a CRPG than the normal beth action rpg but they carry over well into the game.

There’s plenty of mods as well and some are very good (travel options). It’s also an old enough game to have concretely good factions and characters contrasted by evil creatures, factions, and characters. There’s a refreshing lack of nihilism along with a breadth of guilds to join(Mage,Fighter,Temples,Knight Orders, etc). There’s not much dialogue choice and no skill checks yet the game feels much more like a real rpg than most games packed full of those things.

Also bretons aren’t elfspawn in this game but have their own lore that mogs all knife ears. Their genocides of the orcs are also shameless and orcs cannot even be played as. The only cringe aspect of the game is the nudity which is easily modded out.

[Rand]

The only cringe aspect of the game is the nudity which is easily modded out.

IIRC, most of the nudity is mostly female breasts and generally to a narrative or verisimilitude purpose.
It's either prostitution, some particularly degenerate temples, or semi-bestial monsters that have the shapes of men (well, women, but you get the point).

The only really gratuitous nudity is the paper doll you use on the inventory screen. Which I found odd even in the 1996 original, tbh.

I'm not saying don't mod it out, by the way. And yes, it is pretty easy to do that, so go nuts.

[Wretch]

The only cringe aspect of the game is the nudity which is easily modded out.

particularly degenerate

I’m glad that at least on some level you comprehend that softcore pornography disguised as art is still degenerate.

[rusty_shackleford]

hehe I like booba

[maidenhaver]

This thing is blowing up like crazy:


Conservative estimate after Steam's cut is minimum 8 million dollars first day sales.

What the hell is this game about?

The american version of pokemon

Its about the war Sarge mentions in his gym battle, and you never hear about again.

[gerey]

After a long hiatus finally finished Resident Evil: Village. I feel the game is needlessly maligned. It's a good middle-ground between Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 4 (and the remake of 4). It's certainly not the worst RE game around, and much more refined in terms of mechanics and maps that RE7. Gunplay does feel a tad off though, which mostly comes down to the wimpy sound of the guns and the lack of feedback when hitting enemies.

And yes, I do agree with many of the criticisms, but rare is the Resident Evil game that doesn't start to lose steam near the end. The issue with Village is that the opening sections are so much better than the last third that the fall in quality is more noticeable - though I do think that all the sections of the game are better than the second house and boat in RE7. I can also appreciate that so many parts of the game try something new - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but the game keeps things fresh throughout. Also, it attempts to fix the issues of RE7 - especially in terms of enemy variety, weapon variety etc.

A big criticism is that I never had to bother with inventory management, which is in large part due to the fact crafting components are in their own separate black hole. Why they walked back on the great item management of RE7 is beyond me, except to pander to smoothbrains. Another issue is that the weapon progression is very linear - the newest weapon on offer is always better than the previous one - something RE4 was also very much guilty of.

Storywise, I feel that both RE7 and Village miss the mark - there was a great opportunity for Capcom to drive home the inherent tragedy of both stories. RE7 would have felt much more impactful if the game had given the player more chances to see what the Bakers were like before it all went to **** (we get a few, very short, glimpses of this throughout the main campaign and DLC). Same with Village, a missed opportunity to show what life in the village was like before tragedy struck, as well as Ethan's fate.

I did like Heisenberg as a character, and wished the game made more use of him. Duke is just a cheap Merchant knockoff, with none of the charm. The rest of the cast is utterly forgettable, and Ethan feels a few brain cells short for the whole duration of the story.

Also finished Mirror's Edge Catalyst. Predictably, the story was incredibly ********, but not nearly as woke as expected. Doesn't help that the worldbuilding is very poorly conveyed - apparently the world is facing an ecological disaster, there was a war between the state and corporations and the corporations won, there's a caste system and marriages among corpo elites are organized by the board of directors? It's all very vague and not really thought out.

Gameplay is fun, albeit there's a lot of times where I died because Faith refused to do what I wanted, and the last mission was a slog - instead of parkour and combat arenas it's a bunch of ****** platforming sections that drag the pacing down. Also, getting into fights with enemy groups is detrimental because then an alert is sounded and you get chased, and losing the cops is a drag - the game actively incentivizes you to avoid combat.

Side content is mostly pointless padding - but at least it encourages you to familiarize yourself with the mechanics. I still stand by my statement, it's a solid 6/10 and unlike nearly anything else on the market (only other contenders are the original game and the two Dying Light games).

[KnightoftheWind]

My complaint with modern Resident Evil is that it's unrecognisable, disregarding any issues involving gameplay. Capcom is trying so hard to be as western and Hollywood-inspired as possible, in an effort to extend the shelf-life of the franchise no doubt, that it feels like these games were made by a western AAA studio. It takes itself far too seriously for it's own good, and I dislike the turn for straight up realism. RE as a franchise felt larger than life, even in it's first few instalments. It was very much inspired by old B-movies and comic books. And by making everything look realistic, it demystifies the world significantly. Now all of a sudden a baddie like Wesker just looks stupid and out of place, and it seemed that way with the remake of 4 especially.

Some things are just portrayed better when it's stylized and a little bit disconnected. I still feel uneasy playing a game like Resident Evil Outbreak on PCSX2 and the original RE4, more than any of the recent entries. They had such a cool style to them and have aged remarkably well because of it.