raocow's talkhaus

I've been going through Yume 2kki for a while now (fan-made sequel to Yume Nikki; still pronounced "Yume Nikki" cause 2 in japanese = "ni"). I'm really impressed by the scale of the dream worlds - the original game had a lot of content to find, but in this one you get sent from place to place endlessly, and with an absurdly high amount of unique worlds you'll almost always come across something new. You could pick a starting point and go on an hour-long journey without ever having to retrace your steps or ending up back at a previously visited location. I'm really enjoying myself. Unfortunately it's still a work-in-progress, and I'm not even playing the most up-to-date version cause I'm a dumb

I guess I'm on a Boktai kick now, I just dove right into New Game Plus on Lunar Knights (reset levels and forgot that my paraSOL setting doesn't carry over but I'm reasonably sure I can set myself back to Arctic Tundra before I need it)

KobaBeach wrote: ↑3 years ago Dragon Quest 1 is also pretty open considering it takes a lot of inspiration from Ultima, but Dragon Quest 2 made it a lot more linear.
Final Fantasy 2 on the other hand goes all the way in the other direction and lets you walk straight into game over level enemy areas right out of Altair if you're lost enough. I have not replayed FF3 enough to remember how it handled it, but I think it was more linear.

I don't recall DQ1 being that way, but I'm willing to concede I kind of flew through that game quickly when I played it on my phone a couple years ago.

thatguyif wrote: ↑3 years ago I don't recall DQ1 being that way, but I'm willing to concede I kind of flew through that game quickly when I played it on my phone a couple years ago.

The only gates it has are mostly difficulty and experience gates.

Finished the main campaign of ZX Advent. Still not super sure how I feel about the ZX series as a whole. Each game does some stuff better, I found ZXA easier for the most part, though the final level had some pretty crazy stuff it expected you to do (either that or I was just being uncreative with my powers), including the final boss which gave me a very close call.

I think this one probably had too many transformations. By the time you've got them all acquired it's a real slog scrolling through all of them and trying to figure out the closest path to the one you want. Though I suppose that's why they let you do it from the touch screen, but that's not quite as convenient when playing on Switch with a Pro controller (not sure if you can touch the screen in handheld mode?). And most of the transformations were pretty much useless aside from very specific scenarios they were designed for, so I don't think that justifies it taking up space in your transformation carousel.

I'm thinking I might go clean up the last of the side missions and data disks since I think I did most of it already (I took my time to talk to NPCs and do missions for them unlike the first game where I had 0 chips by the end). Somehow managed to find all 4 subtanks, which probably contributed to me finding the game easier. Only got 2 health ups but found 3 weapon energy ups even though I never really cared about that with it auto recharging now, and also like I said, I barely ever use any abilities outside of the typical Mega Man Zero arsenal of shooting and slashing.

Also after the game was over I figured I'd run through 'Mega Man a' which unlocks upon completion. It starts off so simple I mistook it for a dinky little classic Mega Man throwback, but holy cow is there some scary platforming later on. Though the bigger issue, as always for me with Mega Man games, was the boss fight(s). The first wasn't so bad, but the second really gave me difficulty. Even after defeating him a few times I still felt like it was kinda leaving it up to RNG cause I only knew how to handle a couple of his attacks okay. Once I finally got to the final boss I only had one life left but nearly managed to finish him off. Not quite though, and had to run back through the whole thing again. The second time went a bit better but it was still somewhat close. The attack pattern is pretty heavily Mega Man 7 inspired but thankfully not quite as much of a nightmare. Woo

For me, ZX Advent feels interesting mainly when you compare and contrast with the first game. In the first game you built up your collection of Biometal models in an orderly fashion, and then in Advent you gain them in a very different sequence, mixed in with other, more exotic boss copies. It gives you a fresh experience with models you've used before, because you may find yourself relying more on a given model or an ability it has, given that you may not yet have the same toolset you had in the first game.

I too found it inconvenient that a game over in ZX was just "abort mission" but a game over in ZX Advent meant an actual game over, where you lose all progress after your latest save. The ending of the second game also felt kind of weaker. On the other hand, the map is more useful.

It's true that they made game overs more meaningful, but I still wish there was a better system for getting around the map. Everything is a one-way teleport and it made me not want to explore because once you teleport to an area, you can't leave or save until you get to a transporter again, and that usually means redoing entire levels, or significant portions of them at the very least. Sometimes I couldn't remember exactly which area something was in that I wanted to go back to, so I'd make sure to save before teleporting cause if I got there and realized I was wrong, it's much quicker/easier to just reload my save instead of running through half a level to get back to a transerver.

I think a solution to this would be a system where you couldn't teleport around a level before the boss is defeated, but once you defeat the boss the checkpoints could be used as a transerver, or even just a warp to the transerver at the end of that level. I just really was not liking how many times I redid some levels. Especially that horrible floating island level where there's wind, tornadoes, and stupid little sentinel cannons that shoot an unavoidable projectile that removes your ability to jump for a few seconds. Fuck that level

I think I'm probably not gonna go for completion in ZX Advent. I kinda started today but I went to pick up some stuff in like 2 areas and I realized that in order to do the completion stuff I'm probably gonna be doing every area in the game over like 5 times because of the annoying transporter situation, and that... just doesn't seem fun. Plus it sounds like there's some stuff I can only do in expert mode, so maybe next time I come back to the series I'll do a Aile/Grey playthrough in the harder difficulty and go for full completion

So, I got my job change and cleared the Water Crystal in Final Fantasy. Coming from Final Fantasy V, I've kind of amazed at the sort of inverse damage situation going on. In FFV, a generally good Fiesta team will always have an offensive magic user (outside Red Mage), physical attackers tend to be not that great for the simple reason that they rarely have a multi-attack, and magic is extremely powerful in the game. In FFI, though, magic isn't particularly strong at all. Granted, I have Red Mages/Wizards, and their spell power is rather weak, but even Holy is really weak on White Wizards. On the other hand, having any sort of physical attack seems extremely powerful to have. Plus, Temper stacks as does Saber, Haste doubles the number of hits you have. It takes time to setup, but after two turns you're doing four-digit damage from one character, which I can't imagine being possible with magic unless you're up some insane levels.

I mucked around in Earthgift Shrine and cleared it once. I might play Hellfire Chasm, but for the sake of the Fiesta I might just aim to finish the game instead of doing Lifespring Grotto and Whisperwind Cove (let alone Labyrinth of Time). I'm at level 40, and I think I'm probably at a level where I can finish the game if I just kept going.

Yeah, physical attacks are so good in FF1.
I know in the Dawn of Souls I've seen 5 digit damage.

I finished Horizon Zero Dawn!
What a game. The final battle where you just get to use the grenade launcher thing on everything was really rad.

I got up to Chapter 13 of FF7R.

Jessie...

im playing The Legend of Heroes II III: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch, about to finish Chapter 1, finished the Prologue the other day and it's honestly extremely high quality writing for a game that has a translation that's only marginally better than Wild ARMs 2 (both my opinion and a paraphrased quote from some rando on r/Falcom that did a "Trails-heads should play the Gagharv trilogy" thread. you can probably find it on google)

like if you were to review this based on the english version of the psp port being your only knowledge of the game is like, a travesty, and an extremely tragic end for such a honored, beautiful game. if this got a proper port that wasn't on the saturn back in like 1995? and it was released in the west? it probably would have been a cult classic, but instead it's like. completely forgotten outside of japan. Yikes

but if it did it probably would have gotten a translation by like working designs that would have added lines like chris going "holy crap jurio you're worse than kramer from seinfeld" and he'd be like "shagadelic. i have such a massive boner right now". fuck white people

also the only tloh games on pkg's psp category were tits 1-3, ao and zero which is funny tbh
i had to download this from like emuparadise????????????????? i 4get
if it was emuparadise i used a greasemonkey script to access the download

I had really struggled to get to where I did in LoH3 (Chapter 6.) It was just so meh. The constant pathetically easy battles combined with the slow and generic battle system of the PSP version made it feel very much like a slog. Though I did manage to get through A Tear of Vermillion. (I didn't know they were renumbered in the West when I played it)

Speaking of Legend of Heroes, I resumed my Trails in the Sky SC playthrough that I started in like February of this year. I blazed through what little I had left of chapter 1 and finished Chapter 2 rather quickly while making sure to heavily reference a guide for things because missable stuff is Trails's most favorite thing. It seems to be almost tradition for me to take an eternity to finish a Legend of Heroes game, Trails or no, so I wonder how long Sky SC will take me. It's been okay, kind of boring. I hear it gets good halfway through the game, but knowing how long Trails games tend to be (Sky FC not withstanding) who knows how long it'll be till I get there. What has happened has been okay, but the real story is on the backburner while Estelle and friends run around slaying big monsters and finding lost children

HatKid wrote: ↑3 years ago I had really struggled to get to where I did in LoH3 (Chapter 6.) It was just so meh. The constant pathetically easy battles combined with the slow and generic battle system of the PSP version made it feel very much like a slog. Though I did manage to get through A Tear of Vermillion. (I didn't know they were renumbered in the West when I played it)

the thing about it is that it has a really beautiful story, but it's buried under a shitpile of garbo translation LOL
i dont mind the easy battles and generic battle system, because i just devour a jrpg like one would devour subpar frozen pizza

i'm playing the pc version (win 9x not pc98) rn as a comparison and the battles are more sporadic and while they take a fucklong time as well they feel quite interesting, being somewhat rts styled or whatever???? im not sure but, characters move automatically. you can select them and have them attack an enemy, heal someone/block (depends on character), or move to a spot. it's kind of hella jank and more trouble than its worth but it's like 1994 so ill give falcom a break but man it's really cute. i think jp psp and all releases of loh5 psp had a similar system but in a plain battle screen instead of in the middle of the overworld map which while it means it has no uneven terrain, it also means its less cramped spaces and less tons of bullshit obscuring the view/character ai walking into walls

i might play the saturn version too just because I Love To Suffer

I LOVE THIS SHITTY GAME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I'm nearing Bolt at the end of Chapter 2 in Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch, just gonna go through some battles and some scenic hallways between towns to reach it and I'm at Reza in Lunar: The Silver Star because I'm playing it on my Vita now. I'm grinding for a Battle Axe and armor and also I'm Gay

also the pc version's graphics were so good that i had to change my avatar to jurio's no thoughts head empty baby 14 year old ass

Beat Christmas NiGHTS again, as I try to do every Christmas.
Didn't get all gifts though, 2lazy
Extremely glad my last filename was called LIOM!

Finished FF1 this morning. I felt I may have overgrinded a little, because with only some exceptions, I kind of breezed through the rest of the game. Having a team that's capable of physical attacks combined with Haste+Stackable Temper? You break through just about everything.

I think the only trouble I had was Warmech, which I went out of my way to fight. I heard that Lifespring and Whisperwind require significant boosts in level though (Lifespring supposedly needs 70+ to face either Shinryuu or Omega, and Whisperwind needs at least 60 to face Deathgaze and others), plus there's Labyrinth of Time. At the same time, I kind of played this on a lark, so I'd be happy with just setting it aside at this point.

What's next...unknown. Was going to play Bloodstained, but now I heard about Classic Mode and want to wait for that. Panzer Dragoon Remake I'm holding off so I can actually get Starlink out of my system. Might start Call of the Sea or Astroneer? I also just got a couple games with my eShop points, Planet Alpha and A Robot Named Fight.

Played Sunless Skies since a friend bought me it for Christmas. I'm glad Failbetter learned from Sunless Seas but even with an option for a larger font, the font size in the game is still ridiculously microscopic. The large font size is the standard font size used in most games. Which means it's still ridiculous tiny for someone with eyesight as bad as mine. Which makes it physically painful to play for any significant amount of time since I have to sit so close to my monitor and with such posture that my back, neck, and shoulders all start hurting very quickly. Their games are fun but their font size issues are seriously frustrating.

Played through Superhot: Mind Control Delete. I didn't do all the content cause I'm not really interested in doing a 100 level long marathon and whatever other crap, but I got the credits, including the silly 2 hour 30 minute file deletion ending thing (which apparently was originally 8 hours before it was patched, and was originally gonna be 24 hours)

Cool game, though it can get a little repetitive.

Recall core is the best

Ashan wrote: ↑3 years ago Played through Superhot: Mind Control Delete. I didn't do all the content cause I'm not really interested in doing a 100 level long marathon and whatever other crap, but I got the credits, including the silly 2 hour 30 minute file deletion ending thing (which apparently was originally 8 hours before it was patched, and was originally gonna be 24 hours)

Cool game, though it can get a little repetitive.

Recall core is the best

How would you compare it to the original? Loved playing the original last year.

I got a neat gift card for Christmas, so I picked up Among Us on the Switch. Won my first few games as impostor and crewmate but spent just about the rest of the time getting slaughtered in electrical or navigation on the first map. Seems right.

thatguyif wrote: ↑3 years ago How would you compare it to the original? Loved playing the original last year.

I’ve never actually played the original! I knew basically nothing about Superhot before playing it myself so I didn’t even know Mind Control Delete is kind of a completely separate experience. And even now I don’t know all of what was in the original, but i can say MCD was fun!

That's cool :)

Superhot the original is very short, I will say. I'd recommend giving it a go over a weekend if/when you have time.

So, playing Astroneer for a couple hours, I realized this is game is basically 3D Factorio. Which is fine I guess? But not really for me. Dropping it at this point.

Call of the Sea I'll start playing tomorrow-ish.

Been playing the long-awaited Super Meat Boy Forever. I was a bit disappointed that it was an auto-runner because I figured that's pretty limiting in terms of level design compared to a typical platformer, but I'm continually impressed with how many new mechanics they introduce as you go to keep the game feeling fresh. It's essentially a 2-button system where you have a jump/punch button, and a slide/drop button that'll make you belly-slide or fall faster in the air (same as The End is Nigh) depending on if you're on ground or not. But there's surprisingly large amount of nuance to the movement that you have to learn to progress, and it becomes second nature and feels pretty good over time.

Judging from the world selection map it's looking like it could be a little light on content? Worlds are pretty short and there's only a few of them, but I assume some more stuff will unlock as you go. There's dark world stages just like the first game, but I haven't been able to try any of them because I haven't figured out how to unlock them yet. There's also a pacifier you can collect in every stage, similar to the bandages in the first game, and portals that let you unlock little bonus games that are fun and creative but as far as I can tell don't unlock anything which is weird. I haven't been getting all the pacifiers because some of them seem to just be really well hidden, and it's not a super fun thing to "explore" in an auto-runner. You can try something weird to branch off the beaten path, but then you're kinda improvising to not run into a saw or fall off a cliff, and if you don't react properly you have to do it all over again. I almost had all the pacifiers in world 2 but one level I did like 5 times (and levels in this game are much longer than the first game, albeit they have regular check points between sections) and never found it so figured I'd just collect them if I stumble across them, but otherwise leave them alone for now and maybe come back for them later.

Double post cause I finished the main game of Super Meat Boy Forever.

I didn't check my final play time right after finishing the game but I'm currently sitting at 4 hours 50 minutes of play time. I'd say you can probably take like half an hour off that of that for stuff I did after beating the game. I want to say that's less than the original Super Meat Boy but I can't be sure how long that game would take me to beat at my current skill level. And I can't really test it either cause it wouldn't be blind, so it's hard to compare. I'd also like to see the metric off how much of that was boss fights, especially that final boss which racked me up 175 deaths, and I don't know how much play time. And there's also some really god damn extensive cutscenes by the end of the game, which... Look very nice but I don't think justify their existence? There really isn't any more story than the first game, and that game told its story just fine with like 15 second long movies. In this game they kinda just drag on to the point where it gets boring.

But anyway regardless of the main game's length, there definitely seems to be a decent amount to do still, so I'll keep plucking away until I'm satisfied! I've already had some fun with stuff that's opened up.

And also i'm very happy to have unlocked Mega Bandage as a playable character, that's now my go-to

Effie, 3D action adventure game

it's actually pretty solid albeit unspectacular but i'm annoyed at it bcuz you can't re-enter past areas + there's a collectathon element

meaning if you miss something you have to start from the very beginning :)

i already had to do this once, thankfully wasn't too far in, and i'm backing up all my saves now that i know this, so it shouldn't happen again, but

eeeuuggh

shame because i actually like what the game is trying to do, it's one big interconnected world with all the main areas existing in real space inside that world & they're all pretty big in scope and exciting to explore because of it, tho the combat and platforming are both

really shallow

it's not a super huge or long game so i don't think it'll wear out its welcome either, just

still a bit miffed regardless haha

So I totally forgot that when I made my save in Meat Boy, it showed me a random seed that i was able to modify. I didn't even know about this until now, but every new game has randomly generated levels made out of smaller level chunks. The levels flow together so seamlessly I would never have noticed from that alone that they're random! And that definitely adds some new context to my above thoughts.

I've started S-ranking levels which it turns out is the way to unlock dark world levels. I'm thinking I'll probably S-rank all the light world levels and then do the dark world levels and perhaps get all the pacifiers, but I'm not really interested in S-ranking the dark world levels because they're pretty insane.