I don’t know how, I don’t know why… But no other game, even those inspired by and basically copying GTA, feels as good to move around in. Whether you’re on foot or in a vehicle, the GTA series just has this nice feel to it that I have only seen come close to being replicated with the very first Saint’s Row. And even it wasn’t as tight.
You can copy everything else, it seems, from the giant detailed cities, to the format of missions and the gunplay; but the driving always feels garbo compared to GTA.
I’ve only ever played Pokémon: Blue, but I enjoyed it. I used to like doing the MISSINGNO cheat to get infinite master balls and rare candy to capture the three legendary birds and roflstomp the rest of the game. Good times.
I have never played a pokemon game (except Go). I don’t have nostalgia for pokemon, but I would like to play. I am down to start at any point (I can probably emulate for any platform I don’t own). Where would folks recommend I start?
X/Y we’re the games that brought me back into Pokémon after skipping a few generations, and the upcoming Legends A-Z takes place in the same region. Seems like a great place to start.
I'd say HeartGold/SoulSilver were the absolute peak, and the best entry point. Faithful to the spirit of the originals while feeling sufficiently modernized, and they went above and beyond with how much bonus content they packed into it.
Oh nice. Someone else suggested X/Y. Do you think HeartGold/SoulSilver are a better starting spot or about the same? I only ask since it X/Y is a little newer, so might have QoL improvements
I'd say HGSS is much more polished, and the formula hasn't changed much since anyway. Only major mechanic differences in XY would be Fairy-type and reusable TMs.
IMO, XY is pretty rough around the edges, felt a bit unfinished. There's a good foundation in there, with more time in the oven Z potentially could've been one of the best games in the series...
I will back up HeartGold/SoulSilver as well. Just a perfect modernized adaption of a classic generation, lots (and I mean lots) of content, lots of catchable Pokémon, lots of legendaries, two regions… I think they really hit it out of the park with it. I also personally enjoyed using the Pokewalker to get access to exotic Pokémon.
It’s not completely free of issues (the level curve isn’t the best and - being based on an older game - it’s much less story oriented than later titles). However, I still hold it as one of the best games they ever put out, and a great entry point.
I’m not sure I’d recommend X/Y to start as others have. I definitely enjoyed it but it was noticeably dumbed-down compared to older games. It’s not as bad as S/M (which was so trivially challenge-free I got bored), but I’m concerned that you might just not be interested. They say that game freak keep releasing games for small children despite the players growing up, so bare that in mind if you find the newer games too easy.
I’m not sure I can recommend R/B/Y to a newbie either, as without any nostalgia they will probably seem incredibly dated. Maybe FR/LG is a good place to start, I hardly played it but it seems like you get the original experience with a bit of polish. I feel it’s better to start with an older game as then if you like it you can continue through them in order rather than going back to something with less features. That said if you think it’s too old and you’re not enjoying it then just skip to something newer!
I’m not too concerned with that. If I don’t like the best in the series, then I probably won’t like any of them, but I am OK with that. A lot of folks are saying HeartGold/SoulSilver as better starting points, so I went with that. Got it emulated, so no real loss for me if I don’t like it.
From the main games I have played Red/Blue/Yellow, Gold/Silver, and Emerald. I think they are all pretty close in terms of favourite, but I’ll say Blue because it was my first and had a huge impact. I remember battling other people using a link cable at school.
I think those games all have the same problem. The battle system is too slow by today’s standards. Random encounters can get annoying (thanks, ZUBAT!). It’s not just exclusive to Pokemon. Other series of the time haven’t aged as well for the same reasons. Back then it didn’t matter though.
Pokemon Stadium deserves an honourable mention. Seeing the Pokemon animated in 3D was amazing at the time. The mini-games and the gameboy pack that connected to the N64 controller were great too.
Pokemon Snap - meh. It was the type of game you play at the demo booth while waiting for your parents to finish shopping.
Pokemon Trading Card Game - the gameboy game and the physical card game were both peak. I feel like the gameboy game was slept on by many, but I loved it.
I went searching for Pokemon Red/Blue on the Nintendo Switch Online Gameboy app and all they had was the trading card version of the game. I played it for a few minutes but couldn’t really get into it. Is it nostalgia or was there something Im missing?
There is definitely a nostalgia factor, and I was into playing the TCG with the actual cards too, so that helps. It’s been a long time so I’m not sure if it would still hold up.
I have been a bit cheeky, as I have chosen my first Pokémon game as the thumbnail for this post: Pokémon Blue for the Game Boy.
Sadly, I was very young and English was not my mother tongue, so I had no idea how it worked. Skip to several years later, and I gave it another go (this time with some extremely rudimentary knowledge of English, but more importantly with some more experience in games in general). Playing Pokémon this way was a mix of an RPG and a translation based puzzle game, but I was absolutely hooked. Even though I never got past about halfway through the game before my attention faded, I must have done that first half about 10 times in those years.
Later I got Pokémon Emerald for the GBA after my previous GBA game was finished in only a few hours: I figured a Pokémon game would give me my money’s worth. Again, I played this numerous times and had a lot of fun, but never reached the ending.
A few years ago I was feeling nostalgic, and bought a second hand copy of Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu, knowing that it was a remake of my first Pokémon game of years ago. Reviews of this version are mixed because of the Pokémon Go like catching mini game, but nostalgia goggles made this an amazing experience for me. I especially remember one whole day where I was at home with a fever, laying on my couch and playing Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu while dipping in and out of the strangest Pokémon related dreams. Even with that bumpy ride, I was eventually able to reach the end of the story and beat the elite four! I know that there is stuff to do after that, but I was happy and sold my copy again.
I have recently bought a second hand New Nintendo 3DS and have been procuring a lot of games on it in a seafaring fashion. One of those that I’m giving a go is Yo-Kai Watch. I’m only a few hours in, and right now it looks absolutely gorgeous, but I’m unsure of the combat design and the actual design of the monsters. If any of you have some other 3DS tips, please let me now, I have a seemingly unlimited budget for 3DS games right now :).
Since you have a 3DS and love Pokémon I would suggest HeartGold/SoulSilver, I will always hold those games in high regard (even though it’s maybe partly nostalgia as Gen 2 was the peak of the Pokémon craze during my childhood). But I still think Gen 2 was great and still not yet filled with complete trash designs (figuratively and literally).
Though if you plan on procuring it the seafaring fashion you’d miss out on the Pokewalker!
My setup (R5 3600 and GTX 1660super) can play Cities: Skylines 2 just fine on Windows, but it runs like shit under Linux. I guess this is because of the Shared GPU memory.
Ah, I missed that comment. They even build an entire physics engine for this website, to resemble the physics in Half-Life 2. Objects like text and images interact with each other and stack on top. Love it!
Outer wilds felt really good to play, optimistic nihilism and a happy lonliness. One moment that really stood out to me was when I followed a certain object out of the solar system, spent pretty much 20minutes drifting in space listening to the other astronauts play together planets apart and watching the stars
spoilerWatching the stars slowly blink out and realizing that I won’t be able to save the sun, that it’s the whole universe going away. Givining in to the inevitability of it all ending and just watching everything end.
It’s one of the most peaceful times I’ve had with a game, and playing it in the middle of covid I cried happy tears. Go in as blind as you can.
It’s a gorgeous game experience. Not to mention they put so many other gamedevs to shame with their technical accomplishments (especially in the expansion – flooding waves in a ringworld!).
Don’t look up spoilers. Get yourself a copy and play it. Find somewhere to land :)
I was unsure if choosing a specific visual novel would make the discussion too limited, so I decided to go with the genre as a whole for this thread.
Still, I sneakily used my favorite visual novel as the image: Steins;Gate! It was my first game in the genre. I bought it on a whim for PS Vita, after seeing the glowing review headlines that applauded it for its great story and music. Little did I know that this meant only story and music: there was barely any gameplay! This together with the fact that some of the tropes felt really strange to me at the time (I was not really into anime culture) made me regret my purchase and almost stop playing.
But somehow the story got its hooks in me. Only a tiny bit at first, but day after day I became more engrossed and looking forward to my play session. I read it mostly during the night while in bed, and it really took over my life for some time. Eventually I finished all routes and achieved the true ending, which is one of my favorite endings and stories in videogames as a whole.
Since then I’ve played lots of others. Some quick thoughts:
-999: a bit disappointing, the story felt very contrived and not as great as others experienced it.
-Virtue’s last reward: a real step up from the previous game, complex and satisfying story with a very meta twist to it!
-Zero Time Dilemma: often described as the worst in the series, but somehow this story really grabbed me from start to finish. The stakes were extremely high and while the story was very convoluted, the payoff worked for me.
-Danganronpa 1 and 2: very strange and over the top, but extremely well written mysteries with great presentation and soundtrack
-Ace Attorney: the first game in the series. I played it on switch and liked it, but didn’t love it. The humor felt to childlike for me at times.
-Planetarian: fantastic little gem of a game. Most visual novels will demand dozens of hours of your time, but this can be finished in less than 5 hours. Absolutely amazing.
-Muv-Luv Extra: I am currently finishing all routes for the first game in this trilogy, as I have heard multiple times that the 3rd one is incredible. I liked it most when it was just funny nonsense (it can be quite hilarious at times). The serious parts really didn’t hit home for me and a lot of the content feels a bit problematic and strange. I suppose some of this is culture, some of it satire and it was originally an erotic game so that might have something to do with it.
A little surprised to hear Zero Time Dilemma is seen as the weakest game of the trilogy. I played them all in a vacuum, never really engaging with the communities around the franchise, and I would never have said that myself.
If I had to pick, I’d argue that Virtue’s Last Reward was the “worst” one, but I am not happy about writing that. It was a great game that I enjoyed start to end, but ending on a “this will only make sense when the 3rd game releases in X years!” note leaves a really sour taste in my mouth. The other two games are complete experiences, and when I am playing a visual novel, the last thing I want is a cliffhanger “join us next time to find out!”
That said I think I enjoyed puzzles and philosophical musings of it the most out of the three? So my opinion is more about what was bad than what was good and should probably be discarded anyway.
It was a great game that I enjoyed start to end, but ending on a "this will only make sense when the 3rd game releases in X years!" note leaves a really sour taste in my mouth.
Well, one problem with ZTD is that it completely ignored the teaser in VLR's epilogue. Actively contradicted it even.
I don't think the teaser made VLR feel incomplete though, since it was also completely disconnected from VLR's otherwise self-contained story.
I’m too baked to write a genuine answer rn but this is my favorite game. It isn’t my most played but it is certainly my most enjoyed. Something about its dance like cambat really appeals to me
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