I don’t think I’ve ever seen Okami featured in one of these lists. Just to be sure I looked up some of Polygon’s and even in their Top 500, its not there, which is kinda depressing?
I’m not a fan of Zelda games - or most Nintendo games - but I do love when people take inspiration from them and make their own thing - Tchia, Darksiders, Oceanhorn, Tunic, and Ittle Dew all come to mind just as Zelda ‘clones’ - and I think there’s no higher example of that than Okami, a game that takes its inspiration and surpasses it in every way. The graphics were at the time mindblowing(frankly, still are), with its japanese classic art style cel shading, the soundtrack is phenomenal and Amaterasu has an excellent mobility, zipping across battlefields or simply open areas with easy and fluidity. The paintbrush is a stellar tool, both to use in puzzles and in combat, and the game boasts a charming cast of characters and engaging story. Probably the saddest tidbit about it is that it was also Clover’s farewell game, after its previous, unfairly lambasted, gem God Hand and two attempts at the beat’em up Viewtiful Joe series.
Nowadays the Zelda series has gotten a whole different kickstart with its open-world entries, burying these inspirations even further, but I still believe Okami easily stands atop most entries of that series, and on its own as well.
Okami is “Zelda-like” in its kind of medieval fantasy, action-adventure presentation, and in the way towns and NPCs feel, and perhaps in some of its bosses, but really it’s not all that much like a Zelda game. Okami is an quite standard all-ages real-time-battles RPG, whereas Zelda usually have no RPG mechanics - usually Zelda enemies are defeated in just one or two hits, with little or no stats, points or inventory. Zelda games usually have a lot of focus on puzzles and dungeons, or dungeon-like outdoor areas, whereas Okami has no puzzles. On the other hand Okami is obviously very steeped in (often silly or humorous) Japanese folklore, whereas Zelda is very much less wacky and often a little more emotional and dramatic, and has its own bespoke theming.
I liked Okami but I felt it was paced really quite slowly, and the battles/enemies were a little too RPG-like for my taste, as in taking quite a lot of real time for even weak enemies. I felt it lacked the mechanical polish that Zelda usually does: I felt generally the movement was a little slow and difficult (except in very open areas) and most disappointing of all was the frankly poor recognition of what brush move I’m drawing.
Okami has a fair amount of puzzles, they’re just mostly smaller to show the wider range of mechanics. Get ball into cup, bring vines to location, memorize dots on a page Simon says style. They’re ultimately not too different from a puzzle you might encounter in something like A Link to the Past, or Breath of the Wild. Not difficult enough to be integral but enough to test your understanding of the game mechanics and later reward you for wit. Some of them also become very important for boss battles or speeding up fights with enemies.
Personally I never had an issue with brush move recognition, but I played both the PS2 and Wii versions and use a Steam Controller for PC which is the closest to the Wii’s. Of all of them, analog sticks are probably the slowest, but keyboard control is pretty clunky for movement since it was intended for controllers. Combat on the Wii was something else entirely, it was genuinely meant for that I think as it has the blended analog stick + high speed but accurate input. For today, mouse input is very good as a very light trackball but so-so for a regular mouse - so the Steam Controller (or Deck these days) is a really good medium, or maybe the PS5 controller if you can use its middle touch thing somehow.
I’d say the only complaint I could make about the game is its pacing of the story. In terms of gameplay however, you take it at the pace you want to take it at. Don’t want to fight? Avoid the scrolls. But fighting can be so fast, over in just a few inputs. Only a couple seconds so sometimes the winning battle screens themselves feel like they take longer (but they can be skipped). The isometric style during the battle rewards spacing and the byproduct is the difference in how the movement feels - it also plays into Capcom’s general affinity for artificial difficulty, something like restrictions on camera movements and animation delays for Resident Evil and Monster Hunter. It’s asking how creative can you get in this situation with these limitations?
I think the best analogy for battles with this in mind is to imagine each moment you freeze as the perfect image captured by an artist, but that can only happen when the demons are visible to the human (after Ammy stuns them). With that in mind you stun all the enemies then finish them in one fell swoop!
The game does have some pacing issues in the early game that could have been fixed by allowing to speed up if not skip cutscenes, but otherwise overall I think it nails the widening world adventure game for encouraging the player to really engage with the game engine and their wits to progress forward. I also think the early pacing does a lot for some of the revealing acts of the game, if it was fast and punchy the whole time then later elements like the events of the Ghost Ship of Heaven’s Gate would be less impactful than they are. The stakes start out low as you familiarize yourself and they ramp up as you hit act 2. From there it’s actually pretty easy to skip a lot of side missions as it streamlines you from there, unlike the early game where it can be harder to tell which quests main and side missions. Much like Twilight Princess where in the mid-late game it’s really encouraging you to continue forward but if you take some time to explore you get experiences you’d have missed - although granted Okami is a little less forgiving with the gifts, with the 99 beads being the prelude to korok seeds I swear…
Anyway lol, tl;Dr I agree about the pacing although I think it’s intentionally self indulgent on the story and the payoff is worth it and while the RPG elements you mentioned for battles are accurate, I would say that the speed and movement are more about spacing and timing. If you know the weak spot and the finisher, then each monster can be dealt with in 2 strokes, and placed well that can be the end of the fight right there.
Also not trying to discount your experience, just adding my perspective :)
I think accessibility options in games are fantastic and as long as they’re optional you can do no wrong.
I think the best thing, that’s still not as common yet, is the ability to custom map game controls within its settings. Steam’s own software can do this pretty well, but there should be support for that in every game up front.
Not only does it make it easier for people missing limbs or dexterity to play games, but it makes it easier for any person to tweak the controls for their play style.
I really hope we see more support for features like this because they can be so useful to everybody.
Wrong kind of handicap. You are absolutely right in everything you said above, but it seems OP was referring to PvP games where one player has the option to have more health or do more damage than their opponent. It’s intended to even the playing field when ones pair is more skilled than the other.
I’d be more supportive of Valve if Team Fortress 2 wasn’t a dumpster fire to play in 2024. The game is infested with bots that make anything outside of independently moderated community servers unplayable.
Even Counter Strike 2 has dogshit anticheat despite the boasts that VAC Live was a solution that could surpass Vanguard, to the point where the only good competitive experience you can have is to play on FaceIt or ESEA servers with their own ring 0 anticheat solution.
If you can only have a good experience by installing malware, you don’t have a good experience.
I really should finish building that nvidia jetson based hardware anticheat that’d allow anyone to cheat even in vanguard protected games with perfect accuracy for just ~150$. Ring 0 anticheat’s only use is to spy on you and yet people will continue defending it until someone’s proven just how useless it is.
Can only speak for the higher ranks of both games but cs2 is currently unplayable above 25k elo since its almost guaranteed to have 1 out of 10 players cheating. While i only encounter a few cheaters each season in immortal in Valorant.
I mean TF 2 is 16 years old. They just don’t really support it anymore. I can’t comprehend how it’s still in or close to the top 10 steam games by player count when it’s been dead for years.
From an in-universe perspective, it is believed by some that Bowser’s actions are not out of hatred, but that he just wants attention. So Bowser never actually hurts Peach and Mario never actually kills Bowser.
Which is why they’re willing to play sporting events together and why Bowser will begrudgingly work with Mario when his luck is down (Rabbids, Mario RPG).
Troopa Uprising would be a cool idea for a Mario game. Instead of fighting Bowser, Mario has to keep him safe from his lieutenants who represent and command each of the species in Bowser’s army.
The plot twist would be that Mario then has to protect Peach from a Toadstool uprising for the same reason.
Funny idea, but I feel like a game about the political elite crushing a revolution of the people isn’t something that would ring well with a lot of folks, haha.
In Sunshine, Peach was genuinely confused as to whether she was actually baby bowser’s mom. The only way that happens is if you fuck on the regular and do a LOT of drugs
So not only are they sacrificing more troops than a PS3-era musou on the reg, they are doing it to play act some REALLY kinky sex fantasies.
Generally the only games that are de facto exclusive to Nintendo are the ones they make themselves or those that choose to stay on Nintendo (I haven't heard of exclusivity deals, but I won't discount the possibility).
A better comparison might be Sony with Playstation (and maybe Microsoft with Xbox, though I haven't heard of as much from them on that) paying for exclusivity for a limited time.
Epic, on the other hand decided, at least at the start, to buy out almost finished games (some of which even had pre-orders on other storefronts) to have on their platform for at least a year. Then decided to try and play the victim, claiming that they had to do it to gain market share. Then claimed they were morally superior because they didn't charge as much to publishers for putting games on their storefront. While also charging just as much for the games to the consumers.
Sony have very, very few straight exclusivity deals these days, they have a super robust first party network. Nintendo and them are very comparable, in fact. Especially in that Nintendo works with more third parties or partially owned "second parties" than you'd think, since people presume anything using their IP is their game, even when it's not.
In any case, they're both as not-comparable, in that Epic games run on the same hardware and platform as Steam games, Linux compatibility aside. You don't have to pay any extra money to switch back and forth.
Epic legitimately hasn't done anything Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft haven't done on the regular. In fact, the current "boo, we hate non-Steam PC launchers" trend overlaps with the old "boo, we're pissed that former console exclusive X is going multiplatform", which was a surreal few years there.
Also, hell yeah, it's morally superior to give more of the money to the dev while charging the same up front to consumers. 100%. Every time. Epic is not doing it because they're nice, they're doing it to attract talent to their platform, which is exactly why you want competition between multiple storefronts instead of a monopoly. But that doesn't take it away from them, that's the better answer.
Fuck Nintendo to death, after listening to the abominations they committed in the Team Xecuter episode of Darknet Diaries I’m never giving them another cent.
Luckily, Yuzu runs games infinitely better than my switch anyway, so that’s awesome.
Anyone that follows the homebrew and CFW scene knows that Xecuter repeatedly and unapologetically ripped off the GPL-licensed components in Atmosphere and its various bootloader stages. On top of violating the licenses of and stealing from the homebrew community, they also added console-bricking DRM to their CFW. They’re not heroes supporting the ideological cause of piracy; just shitbags trying to profit off of it.
Oh yeah, he was totally the fall guy and had his life ruined over it. He was made an example out of, while the rest and worst of them made bank and got away with it.
Absolute bullshit. But you’re totally right, Xecutor was mostly corrupt and shitty. I forgot about the switch bricking thing, what fuckery to do to people.
Oh, there's a ton to say about why Disney get a reputation for being a litigious nightmare but Nintendo gets more of a connection to beloved franchises in a lot of the gaming community, but that's precisely why they're a good counterexample to Steam when you're talking about branding associations.
The only one that really sticks out is Starfield. Most other games I played I knew what I was getting into. For some reason Starfield surprised me, probably because it was on Gamepass (so effectively free) and because I trusted Bethesda. Oh well.
Considering the number of great games this year, that’s not too bad.
Maybe it’s just me getting older, but since Skyrim, Bethesda games have failed to capture that magic for me. They’ve been leaning on the creation engine for too long, to the point that so many of the features, not the least of which being the goddamn shouts, are all carbon copies of one another, the base building is literally just a fucking resource sink, the gunplay sucks and the enemies are all bullet sponges unless you dip into late game planets and filch a late game gun, the jobs are 90% basic bitch fetch quests, and the core gameplay loop of “go place --> grab shit --> sell shit” has not evolved since Morrowind.
I stop playing games when they start feeling like a second job, and for me that point in Starfield was about three hours in when I was trying to complete survey data for the homesteading program and I was wandering around this deserted planet, looking for samples of flora and fauna, and I scoot back from my desk as I realize, for 20 minutes, I have done absolutely nothing meaningful or engaging. The closest I’ve come is, I’ve pointed a scanner at a bunch of procedurally generated animals hoping they don’t land a hit on me because they’re too spongy for me to kill, so I can fill a meter, so that when I’m done filling meters I can go back to BDG and tell him this place is suitable for people to live. That’s not fun. It barely qualifies as gameplay, and it is an aggressive waste of time.
Make sure your games are on a SSD, this isn’t optional anymore; modern games often rely on loading assets as they are needed and if they fail to do that it could appear to stutter, among other issues. This is particularly important for UE games.
Additionally that smearing effect you mentioned could be FSR loading low resolution textures. Try tweaking your settings related to it.
Confirm, that your AMD drivers are up to date. Also If your ram supports XMP or a equivalent feature enable it to benefit from your ram. This is often overlooked.
Enable “Above 4G Decoding”. Consult your motherboard manual for details on how to do that.
Additionally if your game offers a choice between directX or Vulkan.
Choose Vulkan, if you experience problems try the DirectX options.
Yeah I wasn’t ready to swap out my whole motherboard and got a 5800x3d. A little on the pricier side still (~$320), but many games really love that extra large cache. Should hopefully keep me going for quite a while before having to upgrade sockets. There’s cheaper options than that that would still be a good upgrade, a 5700x is about $170. A couple games recently like baldurs gate 3 have been very cpu intensive.
Yuppp it's a monster gaming CPU still, I love what AMD did with the longer-term socket support. I recently got a 7800X3D, it should last a long time, but having the piece of mind that in a few years I could just drop another AM5 CPU in if I needed or wanted to is great.
Weird, the K4’s latest bios supports Vermeer, but perhaps not the X3D CPUs? But if so, even a 5600 would be an acceptable and pretty cheap upgrade over a 2600.
All running on SSD, but I aim to run at 1440p and more than 60fps. RE4 looked better than most games and had buttery smooth performance, really important for the ‘speedrun’ type trophies
I don’t think hours played/price is a good metric. Often games can be way more expensive that only last 10-20 hours yet give better gameplay and enjoyment.
Yup I think of some games as fidget spinners, they’re just zoneout games that fill time… then there are games with amazing stories, mechanics, characters, graphics etc that provide real, if shorter experiences.
The exploration and physics IS the game. You kinda do the objectives along the way.
It really helps that you follow the road though and turning off the UI. I dont think this is for you though of you got frustrated by the weather. The old man teaches you to cook and make a fire.
Sounds like you’re still at the Great plateau which is just the tutorial area of the game basically. You can watch a few videos on YouTube to find the easy way to get past it. The weapon breaking mechanic is really annoying at first but eventually you’ll realize that they did it so that you can enjoy all the variety of weapons in the game without having a hundred things in your stash. Exploration is one of the most enjoyable parts of this game so try to look around for the old man and he will help you.
This. I also remember being overwhelmed at the Great plateau, but I’m hindsight, it’s just a simple tutorial…
It just kind of sucks because there isn’t really any guidance. The key is to talk to the old man and read the book in his hut.
At the risk of almost spoiling it… they are trying to teach you the cooking mechanism, which is quite important in the game, but has quite a learning curve.
Once you get out of the great plateau, then the game really starts and boy is it big. Just enjoy the scenery and don’t get too focussed on quickly completing it.
I kind of regret rushing the game the first play through.
Eventually I played through it multiple times. It’s really, really good. But it does take a lot of time!
Played 8 hours last night so this is a very early impression. I love clutter looters and didn’t expect much else from Bethesda’s Fallout/Scrolls main studio. The Bethesda crafted areas are excellent if you are looking for what I call a Fallout / Elder Scrolls clutter looter. Lots of stuff to loot, the FPS combat is much better than Fallout 4 or 76. Don’t expect a space sim like SC or NMS this is a Bethesda Fallout/Scrolls style game with a bunch of additional systems on top of it.
First person combat
I’ve played both SC and NMS. While exploring a station in Starfield I thought to myself… this is what SC should have been for their foot exploration. The derelict stations in NMS are rather static environments and never cared for them much. What surprised me about the Starfield AI is they will “flee” or “flank” by running past you at times. I’ve lost track of enemies at times because of this and have had to go hunting for them.
Ship travel
There is fast travel. If you are looking for a space flight sim this is not for you. I don’t have an issue with fast travel as I get no thrills from traveling in space 1:1. There is simulation and there is stupid… SC leans a bit too heavy into the latter. Don’t expect 1:1 space travel in Starfield, it isn’t made for that.
Ship combat
Again this is not a space flight sim. Most recently coming off Everspace 2 I do miss the strafing controls and pedal usage, but that game is star fighter like combat. Starfield does have a ship editor and seems to be more about load out than fighter style combat. Think a bit more like Expanse style combat. I don’t have much time in this area of the game so I can’t say a whole lot more about it.
Initial impression
I love Bethesda clutter looters and this one is in space. Going to eat up the Bethesda crafted clutter looter areas. The 1,000 worlds will likely function as a massive canvas for future mods.
It took me about 14 hours in to reveal a major game mechanic that Bethesda didn’t even mention. it’s wild how big this game is I did some goofing around and side stuff but not that much.
There are strafing controls, but I think you have to have at least one rank in Piloting the game calls it thrusters. Hold space to enable strafing controls (on controller it’s hold RB and then use the left stick to strafe up, down, left and right. I don’t know exactly how it works on M+KB.)
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Edwin Evans-Thirlwell - Unscored
A short, sparky and colourful 2D PICO-8 blaster about a space captain fighting fascist robots.
This one is a parody/joke about someone who put a game on itch titled Starfield. Kind of shitty for RPS to allow. Especially since it’s directly connected on OpenCritic to Starfield the Bethesda game.
It’d be extremely unethical to score it. It’s still pretty bad to have added it to the 2023 Starfield opencritic page. A few reviewers no longer score their reviews because score in general is not a great way to recommend something. A blurb on recommendation is ideal. Like “If you are okay with X, Y, Z and are a fan of the genre then you might like Starfield.” Unscored reviews are becoming more common because of that.
Eh, it’s more that fun should be restricted to your own website. Not an aggregator website meant to show facts at a glance. Thus you are potentially ruining the factual glance.
I find grids helpful when I’m the game master, because they simplify the job of fairly resolving distance and AoE mechanics, and speed the game along. Also in big strategy games, because they allow me to plan ahead on a map with many (often stacked) units without unfair surprises.
I’m enjoying the gridless approach here, though. The computer handles the geometry crunching, there aren’t too many actors for me to keep track of, and the freedom of movement lets me play with tactics that would be impossible on a grid.
Worth noting: I don’t think D&D has ever required a grid, so it might be inaccurate to say this game has gotten rid of it.
Fair enough. I started with 3.5 and the PHB does have a section on the battle grid, though of course it’s never listed as a requirement, only an aid. I think there are certain times the grid really helps the strategy, both in tabletop and video game scenarios. Something as simple as ‘I want to block this doorway’. With the grid, it’s very obvious which squares need to be occupied. With a GM at the table I suppose you could just say ‘I block the doorway’. But, at least so far, every time I’ve tried to block a doorway in BG3 (limited play time, granted), they’ve just moved right past me, making me look rather foolish, and usually leading to my early demise.
I’ve played more BG3 now, and maybe I’m an idiot, but I can’t figure out how to block anything. E.g. I’ll stand at the top of a ladder to block enemies from climbing up, but they’ll happily climb up and walk right through me. Or standing on a narrow beam, and somehow they go to stand next to me on the narrow side to push me off? What am I missing? How are you able to block any space?
Ahoy, matey! If ye be lookin’ to improve the seedin’ of yer torrents, I’ve got a few tips that’ll make yer digital treasure spread faster than a sailor’s rumor in a tavern. First off, make sure ye be havin’ a proper port open on yer ship – aye, that’s the port-forwardin’ business. Next, check if yer ship’s crew, I mean, yer torrent client, be allowed through the firewall. Ye don’t want no scallywag blockin’ yer signal.
Now, here be the trick to gettin’ more swashbucklers to join yer crew – keep that torrent active, savvy? No need to be a lazy landlubber and abandon ship as soon as ye finish downloadin’. The more ye be sharin’, the more likely others’ll join the ranks.
And let’s not forget about those trackers, the navigational stars of yer torrentin’ voyage. Find yerself some trackers with plenty of hearties on ‘em, and add ‘em to yer torrent – that’ll give ye more chances to connect with fellow buccaneers sailin’ the same waters.
Last but not least, be mindful of yer upload rate, matey. Don’t be a hog, sharin’ is carin’ in the high seas of torrentin’. Set yer upload rate to a fair share, and ye’ll be well on yer way to becomin’ a respected seeder in the pirate bay. Arrr, happy torrentin’ and smooth sailin’, ye digital pirate! 🏴☠️
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