Worst part IMO is that original SuMo had the most interesting antagonist the series ever had, and Ultra decided fuck that, let’s rewrite that character in the most boring way possible and drop a random threat out of nowhere instead.
Honestly, at that point? I don’t care about getting them legally. And I am certainly not throwing money to the grey market either.
I am all for supporting people for their work, but since Take Two fired the studio last year, I can be sure my money will never impact anybody who actually worked on these games. Worse, it might be slightly beneficial to those who let them go.
I know most of the time when someone looks for a reason to resort to piracy it sounds like an excuse, but really, in a case like that I’d give zero fuck.
Fuck, I missed that. I liked the original Olliolli, it was a cool game to have on a 3DS. World was in the back of my mind as “might get that one day” (but too many freaking games).
That’s honestly what I am worrying it would be, and what I meant by a huge part of the game being “impersonal”.
Daggerfall has parts that are fascinating, even long after its time.
Its custom class creator is rather fun. Its magic effect system too… despite some of the most intriguing effects not even working at all. Seriously. You can craft those spells, they just don’t do anything.
Its dungeons are intimidating in scale, and the 3D automap is both a feat and almost no help at all.
There are freaking linguistic skills, plural because there are like 8 different languages or so. They are mostly useless, because they just add a slight chance a monster won’t attack you, but since you don’t know when it works you’ll murder them anyway.
And then there’s the undistinguishable random quests and the grind.
Oh, kind of like the Sorcerer default class in Daggerfall and the Atronach sign in Morrowind and Oblivion then (and sort of Atronach stone in Skyrim too, though this one is just less regen, not no regen at all).
Yeah, those are fun. You’re basically a magic sponge.
Honestly I have played only a little of Arena (very late, around the time Bethesda started to give it for free on their site). I think the farthest I went was the second staff piece dungeon.
Since most of Elder Scrolls nostalgia today is around Morrowind, it’s always interesting (and a bit funny) to find people (involved or not) who think the series started to derail with Morrowind.
I am not mocking them at all, I get it, Daggerfall and Morrowind are very different games with a different scale and focus. Daggerfall is also… quite overwhelming, and rather impersonal for 99% of its gameplay. I really don’t know what a “modern” Daggerfall would look like.
Mario Kart Wii is very cool, it has some of the best tracks and very fun physics. And I know it’s been a bit of joke online, but the wheel style motion controls were actually fine too.
Though I understand why they toned down the tricks and nerfed bikes in 7 and 8. They were fun, but a bit much.
I’ve played several Shiren games (1 on DS, 3 on Wii, 5 and 6 on Switch) and I recommend Shiren 6 (Mystery Dungeons of Serpentcoil Island).
5 kinda went too far from its roguelike roots and feels too grindy, with too many ways to escape safely, especially easy ways to undo your death indefinitely.
6 is a lot more fun to me and makes good runs and crazy builds more special again.
For a very good introduction to the series, if you can play it, the port of Shiren 1 on DS is great and already has a lot of what makes those games fun. There is also a rom hack translation for the original on Super Famicom (that one only existed in Japanese), but I’ve not played that one much.
Not sure which game you’re thinking about, there are lots of shitty Christian shovelware from that era, but Konami’s Noah’s Ark has nothing to do with it. And very little to do with the biblical story really.
I had that game on the NES (and I’m not in a Christian or religious family at all).
It’s a real game, the arcade-y kind that tries to kill you all the time. It’s quite hard.
Can’t watch now so not sure what’s in the video, but Lands of Lore 2 was quite fancy.
Had a parchment scroll-like UI with animated burning transitions, did creepy chants at you to test stereo sound.
Funny thing, it tested your CD-ROM drive speed too (it used to matter). Of course on a modern PC, you’d have the whole game on your (much faster) hard drive and simulate an optical drive with DOSBox or something. The installer runs its test and literally says : “Wow, your drive is fast!”
I’d say LoZ: Echoes of Wisdom tried to be like this, unfortunately it’s a bit bland. Might be worth checking if you haven’t yet though.
For something I enjoyed more, CrossCode is a fun top-down action RPG, but it’s more of a sci-fi/fantasy thing and a bit more on the action side. It does have extensive dungeons with lots of puzzles though (often relying on switches, timing, movable blocks and clever ways to use your ball-shooting weapon).