Coelacanth

Coelacanth, 25 dni temu

Blue Prince took a solid month-and-a-half of my life and a good part of my little remaining sanity.

I know some people got annoyed by the RNG but I felt like we were afforded enough control over it by the end, and peeling back the mysteries and solving the insane late game puzzles was just so satisfying. I also really quite liked the moment-to-moment gameplay of drafting.

Coelacanth, 25 dni temu

A new Tenchu game is what we really need.

Coelacanth, 25 dni temu

Can’t help but agree.

Coelacanth, 25 dni temu (edited 25 dni temu)

I don’t think it will suck. It will just be “more Hollow Knight” - which is perfectly fine and what people should have been expecting. Don’t think it will live up to the irrational hype though unless it’s literally the best game ever made.

Coelacanth, 25 dni temu

I still think Dark Souls 1 is more accessible than Elden Ring. Yes, ER offers more and better tools - like the aforementioned spirit ashes - but the complexity and demands of the boss fights are still much harder I would say.

Coelacanth, 25 dni temu

Oh yes, for sure! That’s what I tend to tell people whose first Soulslike is Elden Ring: Dark Souls 1’s bosses will feel very underwhelming in comparison but the areas themselves will be equally or more challenging.

Though the DLC does have a couple of fun bosses. Make sure you look up how to enter it, it’s not something you’d stumble on naturally. Also you have to do it before the final boss, unlike later games NG+ starts automatically upon defeating the final boss.

Coelacanth, 26 dni temu

I was asking the same thing a year ago 😅

Though it’s mainly multiple story-heavy games at once I couldn’t do myself I think. Jumping back and forth between Minecraft and Halo and Mario Kart and what have you feels slightly different.

Coelacanth, 27 dni temu

Buy it on GOG, I believe the Steam version of Bloodlines doesn’t even launch. GOG version comes bundled with the “basic” version of the Unofficial Patch which - as far as I know - is literally required to be able to finish the game. GOG also has a one-click installer for the Plus Patch with more restored content as of like a month or two ago, if you’re into that. I personally recommend playing non-Malkavian Basic Patch for a first experience and doing Malkavian with the Plus Patch for a second playthrough.

The game is absolutely worth it, it’s a cult classic for a reason. The combat sucks so be prepared for that and the second half of the game is extremely rushed as the developers were forced to shove it out the door but even having said that it’s a great experience for what it is.

Coelacanth, 27 dni temu

I’m playing through Ninja Gaiden 2 (X360) at the moment partly in preparation for this release. NG4 looks so fucking different but still - I think - promising. I’m not sure what I think about the full cyberpunk aesthetic but who plays these games for the story anyway? Combat looks vicious, fast and brutal and even though it looks very different from the old games it still looks good I think.

Coelacanth, 27 dni temu

It’s more about the aesthetic, I really enjoyed when it was the weird modern/ancient mix they were going with before rather than this actual cyberpunk.

Coelacanth, 27 dni temu

Actually doesn’t look half bad.

Coelacanth, 27 dni temu

Some games still do encourage that! Have you met a little game called Blue Prince?

Coelacanth, 27 dni temu

I wonder what the public response will be when Silksong releases and turns out to be just a good game and not literally curing cancer and resolving world hunger.

Coelacanth, 28 dni temu

Spaghetti Western is a very common term for those movies, or at least it was when I grew up. Sergio Leone was one of the pioneers of the genre so I guess that’s where the name comes from?

Coelacanth, 29 dni temu

Seeing as Roblox being a groomer infested hellhole has been known for years it’s surprised me that it took this long for that story to actually break into the mainstream.

But anyways yeah. Predator hive is full of predators, more news at eleven.

Coelacanth, 29 dni temu (edited 29 dni temu)

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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).

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Good-aligned “resist the Durge” works out better anyway imo and feels like the intended canon playthrough.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu (edited miesiąc temu)

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!

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

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.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I love this from GOG. I already liked them because of their game conservation efforts, but now I like them even more.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Got it on sale semi-recently but haven’t gotten around to playing it yet. Glad to hear you’re enjoying it, I’ve only heard good things.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Don’t mind me if I do wishlist that, that looks interesting actually.

I’m excited to finally get to Infinite, I own it but my backlog priority keeps getting reshuffled. I’ll get to it this year (I think).

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Don’t know if this counts as a meme or not but if it does get deleted it would probably be welcome at !gaming

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Most definitely! Gaming is especially annoying since it has three communities that are all very active and basically mirror images of eachother:

!games !games !gaming

They are all fairly “serious” with a focus on news, articles and discussion. On the other hand !gaming is much less so and is pretty much the primary place for general gaming memes.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I’m long finished with this game (well, playing it at least, I’m still watching others play it) but these are great changes. Battle Retry is fantastic but this:

Autoplay Dialogue: Added an optional autoplay feature for dialogues outside cutscenes.

is also fantastic for an overall smoother experience. Was very noticeable in the (many) camp conversations where having to input “next” all the time made them feel very stilted. Especially jarring since the dialogue in actual cutscenes is so fluid.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

It does actually kind of look like it, but doing it at Lemmy of all places sounds like a bizarre waste of money and time. Don’t think we’re big enough for those kinds of efforts?

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu (edited miesiąc temu)

Absolute insanity what even is this shit.

EDIT: What it was was “clickbait”, it turns out.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I’m back on a NG+ run of Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree. I had to take a break from the misery of Blasphemous. I might play both in parallel this week. I already missed out on the “true ending” of Blasphemous by not doing the DLC early apparently so now I need to decide if I can bother going for the “good ending” or just try to rush through the final area so I can get some credit rolling action and uninstall the game for good.

Mandragora has been fun though! NG+ could maybe use a balance pass perhaps, but it’s hard to tell with the amount of build variety. So far NG+ has felt more like a victory lap than a challenge, but I did go for a fairly greedy multiclass build so it really only came together towards the end of NG. And even then, the gameplay is fun enough and traversing these beautiful locations is fun enough that I don’t mind. And there is a certain ARPG style satisfaction in seeing your character grow in power and your build come to fruition. Easy free dopamine.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I’m excited to hear that! I also picked it up on the sale because it was outrageously cheap, but it’s not near the top of my backlog pile. Should probably rewatch the movies first too, whenever it gets time to play it.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

It’s rare to come across games that feel as much like a work of art as Clair Obscur does, especially in the AA+ budget space. It deserves the hype and the success they’ve had, and I really hope it ends up getting Game of the Year.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

It’s a weird one because it clearly has its flaws, and looking at it “objectively” it shouldn’t be a 10/10 game. But none of the flaws really affect the impact of the experience as an artwork, so it still feels like a 10/10. Does that make sense?

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Also some of the “non-lethal” fates you subject people to are way worse than just killing them.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Additionally, so many games struggle with implementing evil choices or quest resolutions that are actually satisfying or at least interesting. For example, how many times have you seen an NPC ask for a favour and the Good option is “okay I’ll accept this sidequest” and the Evil is “fuck you, I’ll decline your side quest”? How many times does the Evil option just involve murder hobo-ing to the extent that you lose a ton of content because you kill off companions and quest givers?

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Yes, I was talking about video games.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Hope you’re all well, and enjoying gaming lately. Again, all apologies for my absence from Lemmy lately :)

I do miss you and your content dearly but please don’t apologise for looking after your health!

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Games that I really enjoyed:

• Final Fantasy 7 through 10
• Final Fantasy 5

So… did you skip FF VI or did you specifically not like it?

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu (edited miesiąc temu)

Interesting, it’s my absolute favourite personally. I don’t hear many people dislike it.

On the subject of pixel art retro styled RPGs though I want to make a case for https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160/SKALD_Against_the_Black_Priory/. It doesn’t have voice acting, but otherwise should satisfy your demands given you say you tolerate pixel art. It’s very short for an RPG (16-20h) but that also means it’s very concise, has no filler and no grinding. Should play well on a Steam Deck too. I played it back in January I think and had an absolute blast with it. Cool story and world building, fun somewhat simple combat. Very enjoyable.

EDIT: though there is some dice rolling in dialogue, so maybe that’s a no go.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Still suffering my way through Blasphemous. I think I misjudged the length of it initially as I had heard it’s fairly short. I’m probably over halfway now, though. I’ve played about 13 hours and just killed Exposito.

My notes are more or less unchanged from last week. I love the story, lore and world building. The atmosphere is cool as hell and the art is great. Gameplay is janky, clunky and has an overabundance of platforming for a game that strews instant-death hazards generously all over the place and has a bunch of projectile-launching enemies hand placed to cause maximum annoyance. Plus the controls are clunky, hitboxes are janky and jumping onto and grabbing a ladder is way harder than it should be. And did I mention every single enemy deals contact damage that jolts you to the side and often knocks you off an edge?

The bosses meanwhile have been cool designs, but not really that complex or challenging. I think it’s been 3-4 tries per boss on average. They’ve been fine, but not really worth trudging through the rest of the game for.

So overall it’s been a mixed bag. I respect the game for its artistic vision, and I understand that having the player suffer is meant as a sort of method acting to go along with the game’s theme of the virtue of suffering. But I don’t know, I’m not really having fun playing it.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

No shame in enjoying a serving of slop every now and then. You can’t be expected to eat broccoli and celery all the time, sometimes you just need a burger.