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What games are you playing?

do you like them video games? what about those there romhacks? well pop on in here and talk about them then! what are you waiting for?!
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Ashan
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

Alright, finally finished off that last level. Here's some random disjointed thoughts that I'm going to spew out as they come to me.

I was able to run through all of act 6 pretty consistently in like 5 minutes by the end. I managed to find fairly consistent strategies for most of it, though the parts that were just a bunch of enemy spam I basically jumped and swung my sword a bunch and hoped I made it through.
What made the issue I described in the last post a little better is that once you beat a phase of the last boss, it's saved and you don't have to do that phase again when you get back to it. This is good because there's also a third phase, and it's actually probably the most fun one cause there's a little more strategy to it than the other 2 (although I don't know if it's possible to dodge the head when it comes off). I managed to get through the second phase by stocking up on ammo before entering the boss fight and using the regular shuriken that only takes 3 ammo per throw. It's way easier to use that than the sword since you can keep your distance and not risk contact damage. Plus it does the same damage as the sword anyway so why not use it?

I do maintain that the system of restarting the act if you die to the boss specifically is stupid because it sets up that classic NES-era song and dance of strategically dying. Kinda similar to how if you start a stage in Mega Man with 0 lives or die before the first checkpoint, you're technically best off purposefully getting a game over so you can get back to full lives. In this game, if you're in front of the boss door and don't have enough health to feel comfortable fighting it, you're better off killing yourself and trying to get back with more health. Even worse, if you're on your last life you're STILL better off getting a game over because at least you'll only have to do the level over instead of the entire act if you attempt the boss. It adds weird strategy that I don't like, and that I assume the devs probably didn't intend for you to be worrying about but it's not like you can just forget about optimal play strategy once you've figured it out.

Uhhhh anyway, that was my day today. Playing this game was kinda randomly spurred from nowhere when I was reminded I have a Nintendo Online account I got through Twitch Prime and I installed the NES collection you get with it.

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HiroshiMishima
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by HiroshiMishima »

The sorta cheap, "gotcha" nonsense in a lot of early games post-crash or '83 haunted me a lot in the NES days. I can't always say it's deliberate, I'd like to think the developers of Gilligan's Island on the NES were just not very good at things like hit detection. On the other hand, the crappy sort of fake difficulty like say.. the jumping in Castlevania (and La Mulana) is very deliberate and led to a lot of frustration.

The old Ninja Gaiden games always stood out cause of their cool cutscenes and interesting gameplay, but boy howdy were they chock of seemingly intentional ways of trolling the player. Enemy on the ledge you gotta reach? Check. Projectiles that appear after you've jumped? Check. Huge knock back from the tiniest tap? Oh yeah. I utterly failed to actually beat them as a kid, both on the NES and the SNES trilogy edition. I will say one thing, though: they were fun to play, even if you couldn't reach the end. (mind you that fun wore out after a while of dying in the same area, kinda like Quickman's laser beams)

Anywho, on my end.. I'm still playing Dragon Quest V on the NDS. I've been enjoying it a lot, finally got to the third (and I'm assuming final) generation. I like that the game follows you from childhood to parenthood, but what I don't like is the way party members are kinda foisted and yanked from you at the plot's whim. I think it would be different if the "recruit monsters" mechanic was better. Turns out they have level caps and absolutely stop growing after specific levels, but you don't know what those are until you hit them and it mysteriously stops gaining levels. I have/had a Funghoul in my party for a long time, high strength and speed.. but they capped at 15 and their health stat just wasn't up to par anymore. Meanwhile, my Slime that I never really used kept growing past level 23 before I sent it to the Monster Camp as my party grew.

I particularly dislike the way your Wife is removed from the party. You're both turned to stone by the big bad who kills your father in Generation 1's end, and while you spend 8 years as some douchbag's garden gnome she's carted off to a creepy place in gods know where to be treated as a fucking trophy. I did a little snooping and I've got to pretty much wait almost ALL of this generation before getting her back. Sure, I get some new Human party members, but gods damn I don't care about them, I want my damn wife back so me and the kids can travel as a family. Her dialogue and reactions to things made me so happy during Generation 2's second half.



Sorry about that spoilery rant, just.. kinda needed to vent that a bit. I played DQ4 some years back for the first time, and while it was pretty good it was also "different team each chapter" up until Chapter 5, so you pretty much "started over" constantly and that was a struggle. DQ5 has handled that better, but it could definitely be improved upon.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Nah, games like that are more of the exception than the rule from the old days. One of the reasons I haven't played Ninja Gaiden is because of the whole back to the beginning of the whole four-part stage deal if you lose even one life. Game over? Sure. But one life? Come on.

Most games back in those days, at least the platformers, generally made things difficult by making it tough to power up to full in time for a boss where you really wanted to. I remember the fourth stage of the original Castlevania being brutal if you lost a life in the last section of that level. Mario 1 only has a level or two without a power-up at all. But Ninja Gaiden is mostly cheap outside of the already tough twitch platforming you have to do.

Anyway, still working on Team Sonic Racing. Close to getting a platinum thing on it, so I figured why not? Also downloaded the patch for FFXV, so I guess I know what I'll be playing this summer anyway.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

I've actually never beat Mario 1 legit without the hold A to go back to the beginning of the world trick. I think having to redo the entire game on a game over is much more punishing than Ninja Gaiden's redo the act thing. Especially because hammer bros are kind of the hardest thing to deal with in that game.

In terms of what was mentioned about Ninja Gaiden still being pretty fun even without being able to beat it -- the movement and basic engine does generally feel very good. I'd like if you could climb up ledges you're at the top of cause you frequently find yourself caught onto a ledge and can only kill yourself (why can't I climb onto a ledge from the top of a ladder? It's a ladder). And a bit more midair control would be nice, both in movement and being able to redirect the direction of your slash.
I think Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment took a lot of what felt great in Ninja Gaiden and paired it with level design that actually respects the player. If anyone enjoyed Ninja Gaiden but hasn't played SoT, definitely give that game a shot.
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KobaBeach
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Bean wrote: 4 years ago Nah, games like that are more of the exception than the rule from the old days. One of the reasons I haven't played Ninja Gaiden is because of the whole back to the beginning of the whole four-part stage deal if you lose even one life. Game over? Sure. But one life? Come on.
that's actually unintended behavior due to faulty coding, i'm pretty sure it's just a poorly set value.
instead of having you set back to the stage you were, it sets you back to 6-1.

so don't feel bad about using savestates on it, that's what i did.

HiroshiMishima wrote: 4 years ago Anywho, on my end.. I'm still playing Dragon Quest V on the NDS. I've been enjoying it a lot, finally got to the third (and I'm assuming final) generation. I like that the game follows you from childhood to parenthood, but what I don't like is the way party members are kinda foisted and yanked from you at the plot's whim.
sounds like ff4

also i've been playing ff4 gba

HiroshiMishima wrote: 4 years agoI think it would be different if the "recruit monsters" mechanic was better. Turns out they have level caps and absolutely stop growing after specific levels, but you don't know what those are until you hit them and it mysteriously stops gaining levels. I have/had a Funghoul in my party for a long time, high strength and speed.. but they capped at 15 and their health stat just wasn't up to par anymore. Meanwhile, my Slime that I never really used kept growing past level 23 before I sent it to the Monster Camp as my party grew.
atlus does what chunsoft don't

but seriously consider checking out the megaten games if you want monster recruiting.
make sure you play kyuuyaku over the nes versions of non-shin 1&2 i'm hella sure those have a lot of balance improvements compared to the originals.

HiroshiMishima wrote: 4 years ago I played DQ4 some years back for the first time, and while it was pretty good it was also "different team each chapter" up until Chapter 5, so you pretty much "started over" constantly and that was a struggle. DQ5 has handled that better, but it could definitely be improved upon.
i actually really like that sort of "MEANWHILE HERE'S THIS TEAM'S STORY" nonsense which is why i enjoy games like live a live and saga frontier but i can totally understand not having fun with starting from square 1 every single time

jrpgs are a genre where you're meant to feel like your progress is rewarded in the form of strength and the ability to kick ass so to go against that can make some people upset
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago so don't feel bad about using savestates on it, that's what i did.
Well I didn't use save states, I ran through act 6 about thirty times like god intended. Bow to your superior B)
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

me, nearly legit clearing all of hydlide, holding back tears because i savescummed at varalys: keep talking bi*ch
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by BurntTenda »

I've continued playing Dragon's Dogma

I completed a couple of the Wyrm Hunt quests and a Griffin is harassing me
Somehow I did an escort quest even with that happening
I did have to retry multiple times though
Glad I had blast arrows for this one abandoned camp full of armed bandits
Something goes here sometime.
Oh yeah, I have a Youtube channel
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KobaBeach
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

I've been fucking about with dragon slyaer for the pc88 on and off and its pretty bad but i dont mind
(...)

I've also been trying out a bit of Dragon Slayer on the PC88 too. It's a super early ARPG from the same era as Hydlide, so it's not exactly any good, but it's pretty neat. You may have heard of it if you're familiar with bad Game Boy multicarts since a lot of them included Epoch's GB port. It feels a lot like a bad Mystery Dungeon mixed with Sokoban, if I had to describe it.

Again, it's not the most playable game, a lot of it is pretty stupid like the ghost that can just fly everywhere unless its blocked off by a cross and just takes items you need (keys to unlock chests, rings to push blocks, money to gain health, power stones to gain strength) and places them elsewhere around the map, potentially killing the run, but it's interesting for what it is.

HG101 says the Saturn version is the most playable in modern times but I haven't played it yet.

(...)
here's some stuff from my curiouscat about it (warning its pretty horny from furries trying to get me to be weird)
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

I booted up New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe again and I think I'm gonna go for a 100% completion of New Super Luigi U now. I owned both of these games on Wii U, and I had beaten NSMBU on that but didn't do much more. With the Switch release I actually 100% completed it (I think I posted about it a while back in this thread) but I kinda forgot the Luigi game was on there, and I think I didn't even finish the first world in that on Wii U so I'm gonna finally figure out what this is all about.
So far I've been kinda liking the bite-sized level format. And I've been less so liking some of the secrets that require ground pounding in random spots with literally no indication so you can break through some bricks and find something. I'm kinda just preparing to use Google for some secret exits cause it's not fun to just be ground pounding everywhere.
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HiroshiMishima
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by HiroshiMishima »

That reminds me of butt-stomping in Paper Mario to get Star Shards. At least the ground would wobble if you were near by, but unless you knew where to look that kinda meant a lot of stomping in otherwise innocuous places. I think you could get hints via the Fortune Teller, but it was still pretty time consuming.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

star

moon

sun

water

life

cardcaptors of the clow

expect the unexpected now

i got 3 crests on dragon quest 2 nes and im gonna grind a bit for the tower of the moon Image now that i did the watergate key mess and also got the water flying clothes. current levels are 21/20/16 (midenhall/cannock/moonbrooke (laurasia/sumaltria/moonbrooke))
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by thatguyif »

Just finished Yono and Celestial Elephants, a one-man indie game that's really adorable in many spots. It's very much designed for kids, for it's a really short game (only 3 dungeons, 8 areas), and the controls and puzzles are pretty simple. Plus the aesthetic is very cutesy. But still, I liked it as a Zelda-like game.

Gonna see what else I can finish up in the next week before FIESTA is upon us
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

i'm at rhone

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might grind to level 30 (midenhall) just to be safe

edit: i grinded to level 35 but i still got my ass kicked because dragon quest 2 doesn't know what good game design is. so fuck it!
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

Love these stupid random hidden blocks for star coins in this game :^)))))

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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Griflion »

That should be illegal :monstrosity:
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Crow »

Continuing my KH series playthrough with birth by sleep, the first one I'd never played before

The combat is a bit sluggish compared to KH2 and the difficulty curve feels a bit all over the place but it's also got new worlds and I'm enjoying it

Through one story, halfway through a second one currently
i've honestly never played a video game in my life
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by metasomnia? »

I finished World of Light in Smash Ultimate today, finally.

I still have like six games nearing the end or about halfway through and i really should finish them :slow:
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

Several years ago I decided to re-purchase a Game Boy Advance from a local used site because I still had a handful of games but had sold my original GBA at some point. When I bought it the seller included a copy of Golden Sun with an extremely tattered and worn-off label. I never really knew anything about the game so it just kind of sat around, but I've heard it's a good game so today I decided to dig that out and give it a shot.

I'm about 2 and a quarter hours in right now. So far... I think the gameplay is neat, but my god the cutscenes/dialogue are WAY too long, it's absolutely unbearable. Typically, 10% into the cutscene I feel like I've already gathered all the necessary information the story needs to continue on, but characters just keep going back and forth, repeating the same things to each other over and over again. And I wouldn't even mind if it was a bit better written but it's not really that great of writing. There also seems to be a running theme where one of these cutscenes has characters repeatedly stating that time is of the essence, and they need to get moving quickly, but then they just keep talking and going back and forth endlessly.

Like at the beginning of the game where Isaac and Garet collected the last gemstone and the temple starts crumbling, everyone is freaking out that they need to get out of there as soon as possible, but they're concerned that Isaac and Garet are too far away and won't be able to escape. Aaaaand they just keep repeating this over and over again for 10 minutes, when the two characters could have slowly made their way back and it would be no issue.

The game also frequently asks you questions that you need to give a yes/no answer to, and they're always completely useless so I don't know why they bother. Like at the beginning of the game, they're trying to do some world building and Garet goes "the four elements make up all matter, isn't that right Isaac?" And I figure it's world building so they have no reason to lie about something like that, and for the hell of it I said "no" and then Kraden corrects me, "no, actually Garet is right." Yeah no shit, why did you ask me that?

I'd like to get more invested in this game but it just does not seem to respect your time. I'm gonna continue with it, hopefully I'm through the worst of the cutscenes with it being the beginning of the game and them having to do all the story setup.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by thatguyif »

...Anyone else doing the Four Job Fiesta that starts Sunday?
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metasomnia?
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by metasomnia? »

Ashan wrote: 4 years ago I'd like to get more invested in this game but it just does not seem to respect your time. I'm gonna continue with it, hopefully I'm through the worst of the cutscenes with it being the beginning of the game and them having to do all the story setup.

hahahahahahahahahaha

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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

lufia 2 more like mafia ii

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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

metasomnia? wrote: 4 years ago
Ashan wrote: 4 years ago I'd like to get more invested in this game but it just does not seem to respect your time. I'm gonna continue with it, hopefully I'm through the worst of the cutscenes with it being the beginning of the game and them having to do all the story setup.

hahahahahahahahahaha

Well I'm glad to see this isn't just me
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Yeah, it's the series' biggest detriment. I think by the time Dark Dawn came along and basically did the same thing, people had moved on. It was definitely good when it came out, but personally, I was kind of done when The Lost Age just kept doing that.

Anyhoo, Mega Man 11 on the PS4. Halfway through the troph-chievements in less than a few hours of playing because why not? Stat padding time, but more importantly, it lets me get a run recorded for the internet while I stall with playing Mario yet again.
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Re: What did are you playing?

Post by Awoo »

Bean wrote: 4 years ago Yeah, it's the series' biggest detriment. I think by the time Dark Dawn came along and basically did the same thing, people had moved on. It was definitely good when it came out, but personally, I was kind of done when The Lost Age just kept doing that.
Hoo boy, Dark Dawn... That game has problems.

Replayed through the first two Golden Sun games fairly recently. Man, that's a lot of dialogue. I also remember the game being a lot harder than it was
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