Continuing my ninja adventures by playing Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360 version) this week. Since the original has such a fierce following and the remaster from this year was somewhat controversial I wanted to play it first to see how NG2B with the “White” mod holds up. It was a little more involved setting up emulation than NGB and Xemu, but it’s running well now albeit with minor graphical glitches. I actually for once kinda wish I had an Xbox Series X though for that native 4k60 HDR.
So far I’m enjoying myself. The highs of the game are really high, even compared to the first game: those frenetic massive hallway fights against hordes of aggressive ninjas are just pure adrenaline rushes and thrilling but stressful in the best way. While the combat in the first game was fast, it was still very measured and deliberate. This time it’s just pure coke-fuelled rabid frenzy.
The improved graphics, animations and gore also make the spectacle of combat heightened and the dismemberment mechanic is really fun and surprisingly strategic to play with.
Some enemies are just shit to fight though, like the dogs and the flying bat demons you have to take out with ranged attacks. Also the bosses have been very hit or miss. Genshin and the spider monster were fun but I was really close to quitting the game over Gigadeath between being one of the worst bosses in gaming and glitching out of the arena 25% of the time.
I’d really like to beat it but we’ll see how far I get.
I do agree that it’s nostalgia-powered and fuelled by millennials with disposable income being a fertile market, but to me here’s the weird thing: I think pixel art can look incredibly beautiful while the old early 3D game style looks like absolute ass (such as the OG FF7 screenshot above).
But I grew up much more on the latter than the former. There has to be more to it than just nostalgia.
They already walked back on it in Max Payne 2, which made me irrationally upset at the time. But in Alan Wake 1/2 the Max Payne stand-in Alex Casey had Sam Lake’s face again… so, maybe?
I’m more worried about how they’ll approach James McCaffrey’s passing. He is Max Payne, but I feel like they will recast him out of sheer necessity (unless they really just stick slavishly to the originals and give them a fresh coat of paint).
Basically Homeless is an absolute treasure. The gas powered PC (and followup) are a personal favourite but all his build videos and his Stupid Setups are absolute gold. Using a printer as a monitor was another highlight.
I’m playing Ninja Gaiden Black this week for the first time on Xemu original Xbox emulator, and it’s been an absolute blast so far (mostly… we’ll get to that). Despite being known for its combat there is actually a surprising amount of adventure game gameplay in there, with exploration, Metroidvania-esque area unlocks/backtracking and light platforming. I’ve actually enjoyed these parts quite a bit as they’ve provided nice breathing room between fighting.
So far the game’s infamous difficulty has not yet proven insurmountable, even playing on Normal and not “Ninja Dog” (Easy). I’m on Chapter 11 out of 16 now and so far so good. It’s definitely been challenging, but not really unfair - it just constantly demands you to use all the tools at your disposal, and think carefully about every situation. It’s not a hack-and-slash; you have to be very precise and deliberate and use proper combos - button mashing will get you killed. The AI is hyper aggressive, but you have so much at your disposal in terms of movement and offensive and defensive tools that there is always a solution if you’re just fast enough, proactive enough or patient enough. A lot of fights get a lot easier if you just pick the right weapon, or right Ninpo, or remember to use Smoke Bombs.
Also, having access to Save States through the emulator makes things a lot more pleasant to play as the game is notorious for its horrible checkpointing. I’m trying not to abuse it, but I’m not really interested in wasting time either and the game is challenging enough as it is.
Chapter 9 is an absolute abomination, though. There is absolutely no reason for it to suddenly become Call of Duty, and being forced to fight two tanks, a helicopter and a radio tower full of bazookas using only a bow with explosive arrows and awful controller first person aiming was downright horrendous.
Even despite that though I still definitely recommend trying it. Setting up Xemu is extremely simple, the ROM is floating around online for free so the cost is minimal and the combat really is something special.
Disco Elysium sits completely unchallenged at the top spot as the most meaningful experience I’ve had playing a video game. I resonated deeply with its themes and its main character as someone who has struggled with depression, addiction, obsession and trouble moving on. It’s an astonishing achievement in both writing and in the use of a game as a storytelling medium, an one of the best ever examples of “video games as art”.
The rest of the list is almost impossible to order, because there are so many different ways to rank them. Games I’ve played that I think are the objectively best? Games I would like to just sit down and play right now the most? Games that made the biggest impression on me as a person, especially growing up?
Regardless, it’s probably any two out of:
Dark Souls 1
Baldur’s Gate 2
Civilization 5
Final Fantasy VI
Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
Bioshock 1
STALKER SoC/CoP/Anomaly
Alan Wake 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
EVE Online (up until 2015-16 or so)
Will probably add Expedition 33 to it in the future, but need the dust to settle on it first. EDIT: Hell, Blue Prince has a good shot at making the list too.
EDIT 2: Somehow forgot Dishonored 1&2 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. It really is impossible to list just three!
If you don’t like anime, and you’re too old to relate to teens anymore, and you might cringe at edgy youth fiction… Is P5R still worth playing?
I’ve heard some people really love it, but I’ve been very hesitant to play it for the above reasons. Also it’s like 200h long so it’s a big commitment.
I just want more granular difficulty/accessibility settings. Give me more sliders to tweak my experience. I know it might be greedy and asking for a lot but Easy/Normal/Hard or whatever is just so clumsy.
Imagine we had sliders to tweak dodge i-frames and parry window lengths? I might actually dare pickup Sekiro if that was the case.
I don’t play D&D - in fact I don’t play any TTRPG anymore (imagine having friends) - but I’ve heard a lot of criticism about WOTC’s products, yes. A lion’s share of it is about how unhelpful the official adventures are for DMs, but I’ve also heard the writing criticised from time to time.
I’ve heard good things about Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Curse of Strahd remake though.
Well, canonically Edwin gets punked by Elminster and lives out his days as a bar wench. And since they decided from the get-go to set BG3 a hundred years after the originals he’d be long dead, along with any other human NPC from the older games. Which, the fact that they started from the point of “let’s set it 100 years later” tells you enough of how much they wanted to deal with the older games. Viconia is not the only thing in BG3 that gives vibes of disdain at worst and disinterest at best for the originals. Flail of Ages is a useless trash weapon randomly sold by a vendor, for fucks sake!
I wonder how many at Larian even played BG1&2. I get such a Wiki-research vibe from a lot of the callbacks.
Viconia and Sarevok had no reason to be in BG3 and by choosing to use WOTCs deplorably terrible supplemental product lore as canon Larian has now cemented those character portrayals forever, which was just pure character assassination.
I finished Blasphemous. I didn’t go through the DLC as I apparently missed the chance for the True Ending by not doing it early anyway, so I couldn’t be bothered as I wasn’t really enjoying the game that much. Also I’ve heard it’s even more annoying. I’ll save it for a hypothetical second playthrough. I did beat the one optional DLC boss I had access to - Isidora - and the difference between the main game and the DLC is staggering. I first tried the last two bosses in the main game, but Isidora took me probably 50ish attempts. And I’m not sure it was “fun difficult” either, that second phase sure was something.
My notes remain the same: terrible platforming (and an overabundance of it) and design elements that are deliberately meant to waste your time and/or piss you off hold back what could otherwise have been a great game. I respect the artistic vision, I just didn’t have a lot of fun playing it.
As a palate cleanser I played through LIMBO, which I bought solely because it is supposedly an indie darling and was being delisted on GOG. I was assured by somebody on here that it wasn’t really “that bad” as puzzle platformers go (I hate platformers) and that it was “mostly vibes”. That was a lie - this is clearly a puzzle platformer. And it didn’t feel like a particularly good one either. Fortunately it was only a couple of hours long or I would never have been able to force myself to finish it. YMMV but it’s a solid 5.5-6/10 for me, I’m glad I only paid a dollar for it. I hope INSIDE is better as I foolishly bought both.