Yesterday finally bought Remnant: From the Ashes on sale after seeing the new one all over Twitch. Played 6h of coop with my brother and hell was it a lot of fun. There seem to be less and less good coop games, but this one does a good job. Of course there are many small issues though (e.g. a memory leak crashing the game every few hours on Xbox lol). Glad there is a second one already waiting after we’re done.
Dude, I remember people going OFF on Returnal not offering any saves and people having to keep their consoles in rest mode for days at an end because they wouldn’t want their runs to end. I kept arguing with people on rexxit that any respectable rogue-lite/-like has a save function - STS, Hades, Dead Cells - yet they still kept arguing that implenting saves would “ruin the vision of the game” and “make it too easy”.
Guess what Housemarque did: they added a save on exit option. You can now suspend your run and finish it whenever. Not having to potentially brick your console just because you can’t save mid-game sure is a boon lol. The game sure got a lot easier with this implemented. /s
STS does allow you to cheese the game with its save system, which is why most roguelikes also delete the save file after they load it, only saving the game when you need to put a bookmark in it to come back later.
It certainly helped me during my first Slay the Spire runs, when I’d often mess up the order of the cards (the most common being applying vulnerable AFTER doing all of my attacks).
It's a problem when cheating changes people's opinions on how fun the game is. If the game forces you to use a certain mechanic that you otherwise would have ignored, that often gives you a better appreciation for the game. In the case of a roguelike, if you can cheese the save system, you're no longer required to actually get good at the game systems and can instead keep reloading until the memorize the solution, which is the entire problem the genre is out to solve.
I mean, if you're knowingly turning on cheat codes in a game, you know you're deviating from the intended experience, but if you're doing something the software lets you do, that's something the designer is trying to tune to steer you toward having a better time. Often times you can take a dominant strategy and think less of the game for it being too easy or one-note, which can and does happen when you can exploit a save system like this. I got through the first Witcher game mostly by save scumming, and I didn't think particularly highly of it, but the sequels did a much better job of introducing me to the potions, oils, and monster hunting mechanics that would have made the game easier and more solvable without save scumming. Had I known for the first game what I knew of the sequels, I might have enjoyed the game more, but that first game especially didn't force me into learning those systems.
You’re viewing games as perfect and the designers’ vision as always correct. That’s not always true. Take XCom 2. Many people may tell you that ironman mode (prevents save scumming) is the only real way to play but the game is buggy as hell. Not only do things not always work right sometimes the game just crashes. A buddy of mine has lost multiple save files because of it. The game doesn’t force you to use ironman mode so it’s not a counterargument to what you’re saying but it is illustrative of the point I’m making about games not being perfect.
Also, why do you view save scumming as the dominant strategy? In reality, many difficult and unforgiving games all but force players to use specific strategies to win. Everything you’re saying about gamers avoiding fun choices for optimum ones is not unique to save scumming. Many games already force players to do this and things like save scumming can actually allow players to try different builds that are less optimal.
It’s like someone saying the only true way to enjoy a book is by physically reading a physical copy and that audiobooks are more optimal and therefore less fun. No. Different people just want different things.
Many of the B side challenges in Celeste I played with the 90% speed accessibility option. Trying for 30 minutes to try and get a single damn strawberry was just too much for me. I still had a blast playing it.
I'm neither assuming that a game is perfect or that the designer's vision is always correct, but the designer is intending for you to experience a game a certain way, and it's often most fun that way. If certain strategies are dominant such that they invalidate large portions of the game that are there, it usually results in that game being boring. Your mileage may vary, of course, but that's how these things tend to go. The Witcher is a much more interesting game for me when you utilize potions, oils, and monster manuals, and I found the combat to be quite boring when I didn't know how to interact with those systems and instead just reloaded saves for better dice rolls. By forcing you to play a certain way, like by omitting certain save systems, they're making sure you play the way they intended, and if the game is as good as they hoped to have made it, it will result in the most people having the best time.
Here's another example. Batman: Arkham combat is an amazing replication of what Batman is in video game form. It's one man taking on dozens of others, usually more lethally armed than he is, with some athleticism and a bunch of gadgets. You're incentivized via the scoring/XP system to never button mash, use every move in your arsenal at least once, never get hit, and to take out every enemy in the room in a single flowing combo. However, it didn't steer most players into playing that way very effectively (at least on normal difficulty), and many leave the combat system disappointed that they can beat it just by attacking with X and countering with Y.
I guess this is kind of a troll comment, but Moonlight off a gaming PC or a cloud node with a GPU is actually a pretty perfect companion for the MBP’s 120Hz screen.
I just finished replaying the Arkham games. Thinking about not moving to the Uncharted series since I’ve only ever played the first game, a tiny bit of the second, and half of the fourth. Want to experience the series / story in full.
Just finished my first playthrough of Cyberpunk last night after about 120 hours. I had 3 or so gigs left but wanted to make sure I got it done before Baldur’s Gate 3 (will need to free up some disk space…).
Overall I liked it a lot, despite its many flaws. It has some moments, characters and stories that are really engaging. Judy was a standout for me, and her voice actress really killed it. I regret not choosing Female V now, but of course I had no idea at the time. And I know it’s controversial but I kinda liked Keanu as Silverhand, even though his voice acting isn’t always “good”. The relationship between V and Johnny was the thing I enjoyed the most, and Johnny’s character development.
Not sure I’m super happy with the ending I got, though, and I might go back and play out some of the other alternatives.
From memory, I’m pretty sure Judy can only romance female V (if that’s what your regret was).
I’m one of the weirdos who had a good time with Cyberpunk when it first came out. I’m really looking forward to the DLC and trying hard not to play it again before the DLC so I don’t burn myself out on it.
Yeah, Judy made a big impression on me. I’ll wait a while after Phantom Liberty’s release until I’ll play again, but I’ll definitely play Fem V then so I can see the Judy romance.
I just played through another ending today, (Don’t) Fear the Reaper into the Temperance ending, and I much preferred that to the one I got at first (Rogue’s path into The Sun ending). I’m much more satisfied with the game now.
I have heard people like that one, and I have read roughly what it’s about, but I’m saving that one for my next playthrough.
I think which one suits best depends a lot on both how you played your V and how you felt about Johnny.
For me, V and Johnny became like best friends, and so The Sun ended up feeling mostly like a letdown and a nobody wins scenario, and it felt almost out of character for V, too.
Temperance felt perfect for the story as I had experienced it, and it was also really cool to see the final dialogues inside Mikoshi from both the perspective of playing as Johnny and playing as V. Highly recommended.
SPOILERSWhen playing as Johnny (the first time), I actually thought V would interrupt a fourth time on the bridge heading towards the light and forcibly kick Johnny back into his body and make the choice for him. At least that’s where it felt like the dialogues were going. I think that would have been a cool moment, if your relationship with Johnny is high enough.
Remnant 2 has been a blast. I do wish there was 1 more world in it to make it feel a little more full, but I love every moment of these games.
Its crazy to find a secret area in a secret area, pick up a melee weapon, then discover that the secret secret weapon unlocks a secret area with another hidden area inside it for a super secret ability.
Remnant 2 is so great! What an unexpected surprise treat of a game! It really scratches a lot of my gamer itches at once.
I agree that I wish it had one or two more worlds to explore but there is so much replayability already, it’s easily worth the $50 price of admission. Looking forward the first big patch; hopefully they make respeccing significantly cheaper.
Honestly I wouldn’t mind the traight cap if they would just let us do loadouts and pay a small fee in our inventory to swap them.
It feels stifling to need to run to Wallace to make any build changes in traight layout.
Basically my only complaint though. I want this team to keep making these style games. I’ve always been a big fan of randomized tiles or other forms of procedural generation.
It’s incredible how they manage to still blend some of the best puzzles and lore into this system of world generation.
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