MentalEdge

MentalEdge, 8 miesięcy temu

I absolutely adore the remake games. They both follow a type of game-design that makes me feel like I’m playing something from the PS2 era again. Both the good and the bad. Makes me feel like a kid in the best kind of way.

The games do have some trouble with time-wasters. It’s both improved and made worse in Rebirth. Luckily, in open world fashion, a lot of it can actually be ignored in Rebirth. And if you don’t ignore it, you get rewarded with actually good side-content. And Rebirths fast travel is good to the point you basically never have to travel anywhere “the long way” twice.

I have the same problem with the combat being too easy. It wasn’t too bad with Intergrade as I was new to the combat system, but with Rebirth I am absolutely crushing enemies. I’m deliberately sabotaging my character builds to make it more challenging, but I really wish they didn’t lock “hard” behind ng+. Coming from the first game, you should be able to jump into the second at that higher skill level from the start. But no.

Don’t worry too much about your stuff not carrying over. The characters do not get reset to level zero, and no abilities. They start with a little less than what you have at the end of Intergrade, but a lot of the stuff you’ll have gotten by the end of Intergrade, is what you have at the start of Rebirth. And then over the course of the second game, you get a lot of NEW stuff, rather than just re-aquiring the stuff you had in the first.

MentalEdge, 8 miesięcy temu (edited 8 miesięcy temu)

If you’re just watching, you won’t get the main appeal of the modern FF combat systems. That being the underlying turns and the strategy around what to do with them.

And unfortunately, at lower difficulties, you can get by with button mashing. It’s really disappointing that the difficulty that actually requires thinking is locked behind ng+, but at that level, the system really shines.

It’s all strategy, dressed up as a hack and slash, but if you just button mash, don’t min-max your builds, utilize the entire party, their abilities, spells and synergies, you are dead.

And it’s all made more intense by the combat happening in real-time (though you can slow time to a crawl at any time). I really love the panic of the way you are forced to control any last surviving party member, waiting for your turn to be available so you can use a phoenix down.

MentalEdge, 8 miesięcy temu

Rebirth does something with the open world mechanics I haven’t seen in other games. It interconnects everything.

The life springs give you a shitton of materials for the crafting system, they reveal the locations of crafting recipes, and eventually the area boss.

All of which interconnects with side-quests, not just at the start as a tutorial, but throughout each region.

It hence manages to make you want to do everything, almost on accident. If you do all the sidequests, you progress the collectathon a bunch. If you do the collectathon, you end up progressing quests a bunch just by “coincidence”.

Add to that the fast travel that lets you jump anywhere instantly, and nothing ends up feeling like a chore.

MentalEdge, 8 miesięcy temu

The synergy skill that allows you to have another party member throw you into the air at an enemy, when controlling a melee fighter, (Tifa, Cloud, Red) is so satisfying and welcome in Rebirth when fighting flying enemies.

MentalEdge, 8 miesięcy temu (edited 8 miesięcy temu)

I don’t know how much you know about the intricacies of the newer FF combat systems, but “turns” are still in there, but among a bunch of new stuff that may or may not jell with you.

If you want, in the remakes you can set the combat to “classic” which makes it so that the AI controls all three charachters, rather than just the two you aren’t playing as.

This leaves you to deal with only the “turns”, and which abilities, spells, or items, to use them for. And you don’t need to be quick, the passage of time nearly pauses while you engage with the action menu to decide what to do with a turn.

Characters and enemies can only engage in basic attacks outside of their “turn”. To use abilities, spells or items, it must be your “turn”.

All the decisions that make turn based combat interesting are overlayed on top of the real-time action. At times they even overlap. When not using classic mode, it matters how you control a characters real time actions. The exact timing of when you use a turn can have consequences, you need to make sure you are standing in a good spot for a given ability, you need to make sure you’re not about to take an attack that might interrupt an action, etc.

You have to decide stuff like whether you need to use your turns to spam cure just to keep the party alive. Should Aerith spend one turn and the MP to use Cura on one party member, or wait two turns to use Pray on everyone. Should Cloud go for damage on this turn, or build stagger in case it leads to a stun and bonus damage next turn? Can Tifa keep herself alive with Chakra or do I need to have another charachter heal her? Do I remember the pressure conditions for this enemy or do I need to spend a turn on Assess to find out?

If all you want is turn based classic gameplay, then yeah, it isn’t here. But they have made something very interesting. It’s got hack slash style flashy action, but with an amount of strategy involved I don’t think any other games have achieved. It’s unique.

MentalEdge, 8 miesięcy temu (edited 8 miesięcy temu)

Edit: I feel like my comment got colored by a lot of the consequent replies. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, nor that if you want every detail, there isn’t more to see by playing it first. I’m saying AW2 isn’t among the interconnected games that you might as well not even play unless you’re up to date on every detail. Yes, it has a lot of interconnects with other Remedy games, but it’s fan-bloody-tastic entirely on its own.

You can. It’s not necessary.

It ties into stuff from Control a lot more, but even there you could play them in either order.

MentalEdge, 8 miesięcy temu (edited 8 miesięcy temu)

They created an entire new character, who is just as new to the situation as a player who might not have played the first game, allowing a new player to step into the story quite smoothly, sight unseen.

Not necessary, is not the same as “not worth doing”. All “not necessary” means is that AW2 stands entirely on its own even for players who might not’ve player the first one, or Control.

MentalEdge, 9 miesięcy temu

Nothing. My GPU is in for RMA. It died in the middle of me and a friend finally hanging out to get into the RE4 Remake together.

What I WANT to play is Deadlock.

…

Actually, I have a steamdeck, so I’ve been tackling an MGR playthrough on revengeance difficulty. But holy crap the Deadlock withdrawal is real.

MentalEdge, 9 miesięcy temu (edited 9 miesięcy temu)

Everything?

It has the complexity of a MOBA (but genius level UX that completely addresses how that would normally be daunting, through a fantastic community item build system), movement approaching the intensity of Titanfall and a match format that finally fills the hole in my heart that was left by Battleborn, and is maybe even better.

It has a a unique 80s magic/fantasy aesthetic, and what we know of the lore so far is fantastic. (I laughed out loud when walking by a radio in-game and a newscaster voice went “Have love potions ruined dating?! These 20-somethings tell all!”)

My advice, hit up !deadlock, get an invite, and just give it a try. The way it’s looking, it might turn out my favorite game of all time.

MentalEdge, 9 miesięcy temu

MOBA is an accurate description of the game systems, but playing it, it feels like the first genuinely fresh game in a decade.

To me, at least.

MentalEdge, 9 miesięcy temu

There’s a third person mod for it if that style of gameplay would suit you better.

It’s an absolute masterpiece, but it requires your active attention. You have to put the pieces it gives you together, or you won’t get that expansive “more than the sum of it’s parts” effect that really good art can do.

MentalEdge, 9 miesięcy temu (edited 9 miesięcy temu)

Because it introduces latency.

Higher framerates only in part improve the experience due to looking better, they also make the game feel faster because what you input is reflected in-game that fraction of a second sooner.

Increasing framerate while incurring higher latency might look nicer for an onlooker, but it generally feels a lot worse to actually play.

MentalEdge, 9 miesięcy temu

If you like the combat and the quarry, the Jukebox lets you play a bunch of challenge levels in locations from the same dimension as the quarry is in.

MentalEdge, 10 miesięcy temu

Is it really like that for you? Does the same thing happen with books, movies, TV? Should they have an “option”?

I have absolutely no trouble immersing myself into Aloy, Lara Croft, Jesse (Control), Red (Transistor), Bayonetta, Faith (Mirror’s Edge), and others.

Like, the character not being the same gender as me, doesn’t even register as an obstacle for inhabiting them. I’m able to mentally become them in literally the exact same way I do any other protagonist.

Since, it’s not like I need to be the same as someone in order to see the world through their perspective.

The opposite, the less they are like me, the greater the chance I’ll get to experience something from outside my own lived experience. And I like that.

I’m with women in that they should have representation in games (and stories in general), but even just for myself I’m cheering this particular progression on for the sheer variety it brings.

MentalEdge, 10 miesięcy temu

Puzzle game hall of famer, this.

My sister made me a crocheted friendship cube. It always sits next to my wifi router.

MentalEdge, 10 miesięcy temu

Sone more suggestions:

• Journey
• Donut County
• Furi
• event[0]
• Inside
• Katana ZERO

MentalEdge, 10 miesięcy temu (edited 10 miesięcy temu)

The bouncing around isn’t a bad thing.

In fact, if anything, I try to be sensitive to when I start to burn out on a game, and when that happens I avoid playing until the desire is really strong again.

Sometimes looking for something to play means having a LARGE number of false starts before I find the thing, but I make a note of not trying a bunch of similar games whenever something isn’t scratching the itch. I make each attempt with something very different.

And coming back to a game can take years.

That’s kind why you need a TON of games if you don’t want to take breaks from gaming entirely, because otherwise the medium just doesn’t have enough variety to keep the human brain engaged.

You should try shorter games, and completely ignore whether something is “big” enough to be worth your time. The big stuff is what’s boring you right now, so don’t waste time on trying to force the enjoyment.

Plus, if you’re restricting yourself to stuff that achieves critical acclaim, you’re limiting yourself to games everyone likes. That means you’re probably missing some stuff only you and people like you would like.

Not all good things are enjoyed by everyone universally, some things are just for a subset of people.

MentalEdge, 10 miesięcy temu

Crying Suns is really cool. Neat to see someone else who got hooked in the wild.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

I’ve literally used it on a boat in the middle of the sea with no connection of any kind.

The deck, and steam, pretty much just keep working without internet where any installed games are concerned. Even if you don’t activate “offline mode” in advance.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

No. I’m the sole user. Anyone borrowing it just uses my profile.

Did I claim any and all features work out in the woods?

Profile switching on steam currently logs you out, and then into the other account. There’s no login retention of every user that’s set up, so switching between users obviously won’t work while offline. Maybe it could, but not the way it works rights now.

This is like asking me if I’d tried logging in while offline. The answer is no.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

Today a lot of people learned that some always saw a nose, while others have always seen a mouth.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

Ace Combat would like to know your location

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free_speech.png

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

You’re commenting on their posts tho.

If you can’t handle actually getting engaged with, block em. What’s with this whiny shit?

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu (edited 11 miesięcy temu)

I don’t understand people who “demand” things from volunteers. Open source devs, modders, and still recently content creators are/were treated like public service workers, by some.

Imagine if we went around treating artists as if they were obligated to please each of us individually with their every piece? I’m very happy to see this attitude improve with streaming and youtube, where creators are more and more met with care and support when they have to step away for a bit or retire entirely.

It sadly seems like this modder was eventually putting in tremendous effort, in a vain attempt to please absolutely everyone using her mods. But that isn’t a good reason to work for free.

Any work I do for free, is something I do because I want to, but this modder explicitly says she did work she didn’t want to do in order to please fans. And I can’t help but ask, why? (I know why, but someone should have cared enough to show her she is allowed to just say no, and do whatever she prefers.)

The blurb about her doing music is how you’re SUPPOSED to feel doing something for fun. I’m happy that she found her way to something that makes her feel that way.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

What the others said.

Maybe you need to take a break from games and indulge in some other, or new, hobby.

I like audiobooks, electric skateboards, cycling, manga… And more.

You could also expand the kinds of games you play. I keep trying new genres and if one gets boring I try something else.

Don’t force yourself if you aren’t having fun. That’s a quick way to really ruin something you like.

I’ve gone through several episodes of feeling like there’s nothing I want to play… But, if I keep giving things a chance, and make sure not to burn myself out by trying to find something too hard, or forcing myself to play something because it “supposed” to be fun, even when right then it isnt, something eventually gets me hooked right back in.

Most recently that has been Deadlock. I can’t get enough of it and the feeling is the best.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

You might just need to reduce choice anxiety.

Once my library got really big, I would find time to game, but then waste it on figuring how exactly I want to spend the time. End up on youtube or something and not actually get into a game at all.

The solution was to keep just a few games favorited, and forget the rest existed.

When I’m done with a game, it gets unfavorited. When I buy a new game it gets favorited.

If the list gets too short, I might do some spelunking in my library to favorite something from my backlog.

This way, each time I sit down to game, I have a very short list of stuff to start or continue that I might actually manage to pick from.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

Actual game website

Also it’s apparently already being completely destroyed by a cheater.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

The environments in the game are truly insane.

The mind place IMO is one of the most graphically impressive rooms I’ve seen in any game. Saga looks SO REAL in it.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

Did you get the scare that can happen in the Mind Place?

There’s one point in the story, where after interacting with the clue board and exiting out, turning around, a cultist will appear in the room.

If you got used to just switching between the different things in the mind place using the buttons, though, instead of walking around, it never happens.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu (edited 11 miesięcy temu)

That’s a good community idea. And I’m on the right instance for it. Remedy is Finnish, after all.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

They wont.

Remedy games have been “underperforming” despite rave reviews for a while. Yet they’ve been chugging along doing what they think is neat, instead of caving into the current money-making models.

And in this case, the Epic partnership definitely hurt the game. And they know it did. Before AW2, it was microsoft putting the breaks of Quantum Break despite it being great.

Control was the first time since Max Payne I felt they truly achieved the success that their level of quality deserves (and even then it was a timed epic exclusive).

Now Remedy has set themselves up to finally self-publish the follow-up to Control. I can’t wait.

Remedy has fans, but something always seems to get in the way.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

It’s published by Epic (Control was published by 505). Unless Epic significantly compromises on their insistence of pushing the Epic store, it wont happen.

Ever.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu (edited 11 miesięcy temu)

Extremely unlikely. AW2 was funded by Epic, not just paid off to be a timed exclusive like Control (which was published by 505).

That means Epic decides where it gets distributed.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

We know one of their WIP titles is a PvE multiplayer game set in their connected universe. Aside from that, nothing more is known, except for your generic corporate “we’re excited about our future projects with Remedy” statements from 505.

I’d be very suprised if Remedy turns around and makes it overtly exploitative.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu (edited 11 miesięcy temu)

Ok. Unfortunately it sounds like you’re asking me to stop liking a studio that I like, based on speculation about how a future title of theirs might work. That’s not an actionable argument.

Nothing about a multiplayer title requires it be made in a way that will break whenever the official servers go down. You are assuming this one will work that way, and I’ll grant you it likely will.

But the change we both want isn’t going to come from voting with our wallets, but even harder.

It’ll come from something like this.

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu (edited 11 miesięcy temu)

…

That pedestal being, that they keep making games that are just plain good, despite at the same time being involved with shit industry practices by working with Microsoft and Epic?

I think that particular pedestal is pretty fucking deserved. And one that looks their faults in the eyes.

They keep making good stuff, while marred by the bullshit that allows them to fund the studio.

Why do you think I’m specifically excited for them to finally do something fully self-published, so they can make something I can enjoy with no fucking strings attached?

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu (edited 11 miesięcy temu)

Have you been petting the deer?

MentalEdge, 11 miesięcy temu

Have you noticed that the deer in the Mind Place will tell you how many you haven’t found?

MentalEdge, rok temu

• Katana ZERO
• Hades
• Satisfactory

MentalEdge, rok temu

It hurts

MentalEdge, rok temu

!photomode

MentalEdge, rok temu

Wait until you find out about the child labour stuff.

There may not be sweatshops in the developed world, but you can bet your ass a lot of roblox “dev studios” are really just one or two adults, exploiting a bunch of kids for free labour via discord.

Oh, and then there’s the fully integrated speculative market for assets and cosmetics, where ten-year-olds gain and lose thousands of real dollars in robux.

The ecosystem around Roblox is a complete shitshow that no sane parent should allow a kid anywhere near.

MentalEdge, rok temu

Remember when they said Galaxy would get linux support? That didn’t happen, and that promise got quietly retracted…

That said, Heroic is unofficial but has worked quite well.

MentalEdge, rok temu

Heroic gets a lot closer in this regard.

MentalEdge, rok temu

How tf did they think a PS3 era piss-filter would improve things?

There is so much you could absolutely tear into, what the hell do they think they are doing?

MentalEdge, rok temu

It wasn’t for me, either, but I’m fairly certain the point of Goat Simulator is that there isn’t one.

MentalEdge, rok temu (edited rok temu)

People don’t hate these companies because they “don’t cater to them”. They love or loved the games, but these companies then turn around and try to screw their own fans out of every cent, nugget of personal data, and free time, that they have. There is no anger like the anger of a true fan.

To get that pissed, you had to have cared quite a lot to begin with.

The rest, are simply indifferent.

That, is why people are upset enough to experience schadenfreude when their stocks and releases fail. Because that is an event that SHOULD be proving to these companies that if they keep pushing the bullshit, they soon won’t be catering to anyone anymore. Hence it’s something that gives fans hope that they will pull their shit together and get back to doing right by their own franchises and talent.

And we are not all in the same boat. Some of us just want good games.

Even when companies like Ubi make good games, they come with a shitload of strings like “but the monetisation is unethical” or “the devs were forced to crunch” or “the company leadership did nothing about a festering company culture of criminal mysogyny”.

Simply by operating as ruthlessly as they do, these companies are slowly convincing the world they are “non-decent” institutions. Such institutions need massive restructuring, when the don’t deserve complete disassembly.

And angering your fans is a process that only goes one way. Every fan you piss off enough to make them swear to never again give you a chance, is one you probably wont ever have as a customer again.

Yeah, some will be malicious enough to cheer at the individuals getting screwed over when megacorps eat shit. But every sane person is cheering because there is now a large pool of talent looking to do something good with their skill, out from under the thumb of managers demanding every mechanic be optimized for monetization, rather than gameplay.

This person isn’t wrong to be disgusted with people who cheer at jobs being lost, but he is also MASSIVELY out of touch with how his own company is operating, and how it is coming to be viewed by the world as a result.