Coelacanth

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I have no idea what people were expecting to be honest. Hollow Knight was already known for being an extremely difficult game with punishing anti-fun elements like runbacks and corpse runs. Which game had everyone played that got them so hyped for Silksong?

There’s a reason I stayed away from HK, and I will be staying away from Silksong too. Game looks great but I won’t be able to beat it and I won’t have any fun failing to do so.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Not everything that makes the game harder or more challenging to play is good game design though, and a game shouldn’t get a free pass just because its developers stated “well the game being hard is part of our artistic vision”. It’s fine to criticise things, even - or actually maybe especially - things we like. We don’t have to be binary about things, we can like something while still recognising its flaws.

Excessive runbacks for example is something that is primarily concerned with disrespecting your time as a player and even FromSoft seem to have realised that they’re not a good addition or a fun way of increasing difficulty seeing as they introduced Stakes of Marika in Elden Ring. Hell, even Ninja Gaiden went away from boss runbacks starting from the second game, and that came out in 2008!

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

You can also do the 2.5D style of like Trine or Mandragora.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Buying on GOG is always the play whenever the option is available.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

The 2D sidescroller base that’s at the foundation of Metroidvanias is quite a bit older than that, though, so I think it’s fair to call it an older genre. Even though it is fairly evergreen.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

To each their own, but when I played through Blasphemous just recently it felt like the game had tons of design elements intended to either piss you off or deliberately waste your time or both.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Well, I was merely speaking in general, I didn’t actually buy Silksong! 😅 The combination of being prohibitively difficult and having tons of tricky platforming (I hate platforming) means I’m just doing like with Hollow Knight and staying away to save myself the frustration.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Bloodlines 2 should be in the crew as well, though it is also actually coming out now.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Football Manager.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

An upside of SI tending to have very minor year-on-year upgrades between FM editions is that most people don’t buy it every year. It’s common to buy every two or three years, unless a momentous change is implemented. The sortitoutsi.net site has squad updates among its mods that let you play older games for longer.

Not that I want to be encouraging you to take it up, the game is literally like crack and I don’t let myself play it anymore.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I have not. How does it compare to FM?

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I’ll take a look at it, but like I said above I don’t let myself play FM anymore and this sounds equally dangerous. Do you need a PES install to play or is it fully standalone?

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I love it! I don’t know why but game cartridges always had a much better feel to them than disks to me. Could just be nostalgia for the times, though. But I recently dug out my 3DS and there is just something so satisfying about the click of inserting a game.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

They’re very different games, in my opinion. If “bang for your buck” is most important then BG3 has objectively more content. It’s way longer, has way more side content and can support many playthroughs.

I think BG3 is a very good game, but it is not perfect and it is somewhat overrated. It’s a great game, but not the best game ever. It has a fair share of flaws, and while the writing is fine it’s still very much videogamey.

Expedition 33 is more of a work of art. It still has its problems too, but at all the critical points it delivers in spades. It’s got a great cast of characters, beautiful art direction and a story with resonant themes that will hit home with most people. Plus one of the best soundtracks of all time. It’s got fantastic presentation, some incredible set pieces and moments and phenomenal voice acting, direction and facial expressions. Even though the game is turn-based, the implementation of active elements like Parry and Dodge will feel very familiar to you coming from Elden Ring. In fact, one of the gameplay designers used to be a Sekiro speedrunner, and it shows.

From your frame of reference BG3 is more like Skyrim I’d say, in that it can almost be your “forever-game”. People put thousands of hours into it over dozens of playthroughs and it has a very vivid modding scene. Expedition 33 is all about that one, cinematic impactful playthrough. Maybe you play it a second time to pick up on foreshadowing and stuff like that.

For me personally I had a great time playing BG3, but I will eventually forget about it. I spent fewer hours in Expedition 33, but the experience will stay with me way longer.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Yeah, BG3 isn’t a truly branching path game in the way something like Witcher 2 for example is.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu (edited miesiąc temu)

The gameplay is good, but being shackled to D&D 5E is not ideal. I have a lot of issues with the writing of the game in general, Act 3 is also very bad. It’s still a great game, it’s just that people frequently claim it’s the best game of all time and I think that’s overrating it.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Clair Obscur does technically have an NG+, though I’d say it’s less of a focus than in Souls games. There is, however, quite a bit of foreshadowing and pieces of the story that you won’t understand on your first playthrough but that hits different the second time through. I personally opted to consume it by watching others play after I completed my own first playthrough, but I’d say there is grounds enough for a second playthrough if that’s important to you.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Ironically much like BG3, the third act of E33 is a mess. There is a ton of important side content with character moments and lore, particularly relating to Clea but also the whole Maelle relationship quest. But the pacing is completely off, it’s all presented as optional and it just feels very rushed. A “Definitive Edition” type patch or DLC that retools and restructures Act 3 would do E33 a world of good.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Admittedly it’s been a while since I played D:OS2, but I enjoyed that combat system quite a lot. No random success chance felt good, the action economy was more interesting and the skills had more freedom and interesting effects because they didn’t have to stick to existing 5E material. Magic/physical armor was an interesting strategic factor to play around and combat mostly felt good - although yes, it did frequently and infamously devolve into elemental surface spam.

Writing wise it’s all still in the patented Larian tone, which is sometimes funny but frequently unserious and sort of Marvel-esque for better or worse. I didn’t mind it as much in DOS2, but I was quite a few years younger when I played it. The romance sucked in that game too but at least one positive is I don’t remember every companion throwing themselves at you in a pathetic display of wish fulfillment protagonist-sexuality writing like they do in BG3.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Still on the ninja grind, at this point I’m hopefully done with Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge relatively soon. Not yet, though.

I really wish this solid fundamental combat system wasn’t trapped inside a godawful game. I really truly hate everything the story and presentation is doing. The setting is shit, the narrative is shit, the QTE gameplay is shit. The levels are boring. The voice acting is bad, but not even in a fun and campy way anymore but just bad. And worst of all - unlike the previous games this attempts to be “story focused”. So instead of just getting a cutscene at the start and end of a chapter and then action in between you are non-stop engaging with the terrible garbage they’re serving.

And they even managed to fuck up executing the combat even though they have the most solid fundamentals in place of the entire series. I hate the Steel On Bone counters, and the combat is designed around spamming them all the time. It’s boring. QTE-ing a single SOB counter into multiple instant kills feels unearned, and so much less satisfying than deliberately delimbing enemies with specific combos in NG2 to set them up for instant execution.

Plus the bosses are actually even worse here. Some are okay, I know it’s infamous but the T-rex actually felt fine to me but stuff like the tank and helicopter bosses are just pure trash. I’ve also heard the final boss is a world record holder in unfair bullshit so you know, I have that to look forward to too, I guess.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I’ve dug up my New3DS again and am ordering some games for it. Castlevania is somewhat of a gaming blind spot for me, is there one playable on the 3DS you’d recommend?

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

How hard is it to hack your 3DS? I haven’t done it and I haven’t really experimented with stuff like that for like 20 years. I feel like it could be a good idea to look into after Nintendo closed the eShop and second hand 3DS games are getting more and more expensive.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Thank you! I’ll bookmark that for the future.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

It’s a great console. I’m not buying any new Nintendo products but the 3DS was amazing and the N3DSXL just feels so nice in your hands.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

This is absolutely insane. Move over Skyblivion, we have a new king in town.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Seeing as you liked Chaos Theory and look like you have access to a PS2 the co-op campaign in Splinter Cell: Double Agent (OG Xbox/PS2 version developed by Ubisoft Montreal) also tends to get good reviews. I haven’t played it myself though.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I’ve always felt that puritanical stigmatization of sex and sexuality have really fucked us up psychologically as a species.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

You’re not alone, James Gunn (yes, that James Gunn) thought the same.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

It’s a sadly forgotten relic of the old internet.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I definitely am a victim of over purchasing during deep sales and building an insurmountable backlog, but there is also something kind of nice about having a library waiting to browse after each game just waiting to install.

Regardless though, what I really wanted to say was: I’m seconding interest in your Python app, that sounds very useful actually!

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

It’s a shame we can’t follow individuals around here, so please @ me whenever you do decide it’s ready to publish. I don’t want to miss it.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I was always curious about the Playdate because Lucas Pope made a game for it and he’s a genius, but I never really could see myself justifying the massive price tag for what it is.

Also I hope you’re feeling better! It made me so happy to see a post from you again as I’ve missed seeing you around. Hope your health is improving ♥️

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Still working on Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360 version, emulated on Xenia Canary). I’m currently halfway through Chapter 12 out of 14 on Path of the Warrior, so I’m almost at the point where I can see the finish line. Still unsure whether I can beat it as I’ve heard the final stretch is pure hell.

I have never played a game that made me feel quite like this, I have to be honest. It’s one of the best and one of the worst games I’ve ever played simultaneously. If this was released today it would be absolutely lambasted for its blatantly untested, horrifically balanced and absurdly unfun encounters.

And it’s such a shame and a waste because the pieces are all there for a spectacular tour de force of an action game and you can see that side of it shine through from time to time. Whenever the game clicks and is good, it’s fucking incredible. Lightning fast, blood and limbs flying everywhere, incredible animations and brutal execution moves as you’re zipping through combat and weaving through combos. They really had the fundamentals here for something special, and the first half of the game is mostly good - albeit still with some complete garbage like Gigadeath sprinkled in.

From around the halfway point on though it’s become perhaps the most infuriating game I’ve ever played. Some of the gameplay design is just completely incomprehensible and encounters devolve into being spammed with projectiles from offsceen while you’re showered in constant explosions that deafen you and make you unable to see shit while you’re stunlocked to death unless you ignore using your combos and instead just abuse i-frames. Boss fights like the Double Armadillo I just finished feel like a straight up “fuck you” from Itagaki. Time and again I finish a fight and say “who the fuck thought this was a good idea?” out loud.

And the worst part is I’m developing such a Stockholm Syndrome I’m already looking at Ninja Gaiden 2 Black prices.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I tried to watch some gameplay footage of it earlier this year as a Let’s Player I watch played it but couldn’t stand it. I concluded the game probably just wasn’t meant for me, but it’s possible it just isn’t good. It looked incredibly boring.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

I know people love Fem V but I find Male V underrated and even prefer his delivery in some scenes, particularly

spoilersome of the stuff in Mikoshi right at the ending.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Looks like a cool game, but considering how many reviewers bring up complaints about the platforming I think I’m going to steer clear to protect my sanity.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

ZA/UM is the studio behind Disco Elysium, one of the most critically acclaimed and highest rated games of all time.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Didn’t you post this same exact question just the other day?

Coelacanth, miesiąc 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, miesiąc temu

It does play out differently for different people, but for me it was like this: first half of the playtime I had so many things to investigate at once that I didn’t care about RNG because every run was making progress on something. Late game when I started needing specific things I had already had time to unlock RNG control.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

A new Tenchu game is what we really need.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu

Can’t help but agree.

Coelacanth, miesiąc temu (edited miesiąc 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, miesiąc 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, miesiąc 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, miesiąc 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, miesiąc 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, miesiąc 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.