(shouting)

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?!
User avatar
metasomnia?
butts
Posts: 527
Joined: 11 years ago

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by metasomnia? »

I haven't played Dark Dawn yet so I can't give an opinion on that, but I personally feel the entire open-ended middle section in the Lost Age where the game doesn't tell you where to go, or what to do (beyond an NPC mentioning a thing about Neptune blocking the way to Lemuria and another mentioning needing a specific item to damage him) and having a billion places to go where progression is hidden by out of the way psynergy items in areas other than the ones they're actually needed at, making you have to backtrack and figure what needs to be used where, is much worse than meandering cutscenes and dialogue, and that's not even talking about the other problems with the Lost Age in general. The first game, despite being quite chatty, at least has decent pacing and no major difficulty spikes or nasty surprises for the most part



Non-spoiler tldr: the golden sun series in general is chatty but there are worse things than excessive dialogue
Image
User avatar
YelseyKing
Anyone want a banana? :3
Posts: 1402
Joined: 10 years ago
First name: Matt
Location: Oregon

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by YelseyKing »

Heh... I haven't posted here in a while (I usually just ramble about games I'm playing on Discord these days), but I see that the discussion has moved in a "Golden Sun" direction, coincidentally right as I started playing Dark Dawn. And it's funny. My first impression of the game was "...these people *still* talk too much." Like, it doesn't ruin the games for me, but it's very noticeable.

I've heard Dark Dawn is not as well-regarded as the first two games, and has a lot of arbitrary "Points of No Return", and since I hate missing stuffs permanently, I've just been using a guide to make sure I *don't*. That said, it's pretty solid so far, like the other two games. I was looking for a solid, straightforward JRPG that didn't try to re-invent the wheel, and hopefully this one satisfies that urge.
Image
Ayjo and Meya are watching you. Be on your best behavior.

Moists:
Image

The (Talkhaus) Price is Right
On hiatus. It'll return someday.
User avatar
KobaBeach
screw it lion time. we are so f***ing back
Posts: 6926
Joined: 11 years ago
First name: David (evil)
Pronouns: he/they
Location: Portugal
https://koba.talkhaus.com/

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

i like arc the lad
Image #1 mega cd enjoyer AND "making fun of"-er Image
MaGL Patch Collection / vg backlog spreadsheet / animu list / mcmangos / steam
Image
Image
Image
Image Image
oogggghhhh games aren't art Fuck You Roger Ebert *kills him with a hamemr*
User avatar
Awoo
~wan~wan
Posts: 1522
Joined: 6 years ago
Pronouns: he/him/his
Location: your area

Re: What games are you playing? Not that >.>

Post by Awoo »

YelseyKing wrote: 4 years ago Heh... I haven't posted here in a while (I usually just ramble about games I'm playing on Discord these days), but I see that the discussion has moved in a "Golden Sun" direction, coincidentally right as I started playing Dark Dawn. And it's funny. My first impression of the game was "...these people *still* talk too much." Like, it doesn't ruin the games for me, but it's very noticeable.

I've heard Dark Dawn is not as well-regarded as the first two games, and has a lot of arbitrary "Points of No Return", and since I hate missing stuffs permanently, I've just been using a guide to make sure I *don't*. That said, it's pretty solid so far, like the other two games. I was looking for a solid, straightforward JRPG that didn't try to re-invent the wheel, and hopefully this one satisfies that urge.
Hope you like games

that have no real ending. Nothing in the story of Dark Dawn gets wrapped up, like, at all.



I love how Kraden doesn't recognize ArcanusAlex, despite him travelling with him for what, like the entire first game? It makes sense that the new characters you play as don't recognize him, but, seriously, Kraden?

Ho boy, don't get me started. I really wanna like Dark Dawn, but, gah, problems!
metasomnia? wrote:

I haven't played Dark Dawn yet so I can't give an opinion on that, but I personally feel the entire open-ended middle section in the Lost Age where the game doesn't tell you where to go, or what to do (beyond an NPC mentioning a thing about Neptune blocking the way to Lemuria and another mentioning needing a specific item to damage him) and having a billion places to go where progression is hidden by out of the way psynergy items in areas other than the ones they're actually needed at, making you have to backtrack and figure what needs to be used where, is much worse than meandering cutscenes and dialogue, and that's not even talking about the other problems with the Lost Age in general. The first game, despite being quite chatty, at least has decent pacing and no major difficulty spikes or nasty surprises for the most part



Non-spoiler tldr: the golden sun series in general is chatty but there are worse things than excessive dialogue
I loved that section, tbh fam.

It made the game feel really open, like the whole world was at your fingertips and you just had to go and explore it!


When that finally happens in Dark Dawn, it's so restricted, even without the "points of no return" if you glitch yourself back to an earlier area. Besides, there's only a few extra bosses when that really happens for the most part, anyway.

ワンワン
Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
User avatar
KobaBeach
screw it lion time. we are so f***ing back
Posts: 6926
Joined: 11 years ago
First name: David (evil)
Pronouns: he/they
Location: Portugal
https://koba.talkhaus.com/

Re: What games are you playing? Not that >.>

Post by KobaBeach »

Awoo wrote: 4 years ago Hope you like games

that have no real ending.

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago i like arc the lad
Image #1 mega cd enjoyer AND "making fun of"-er Image
MaGL Patch Collection / vg backlog spreadsheet / animu list / mcmangos / steam
Image
Image
Image
Image Image
oogggghhhh games aren't art Fuck You Roger Ebert *kills him with a hamemr*
User avatar
Awoo
~wan~wan
Posts: 1522
Joined: 6 years ago
Pronouns: he/him/his
Location: your area

Re: What games are you playing? Not that <.<

Post by Awoo »

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago
Awoo wrote: 4 years ago Hope you like games

that have no real ending.

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago i like arc the lad
Chen_question_mark.jpg
Chen_question_mark.jpg (56.57 KiB) Viewed 4769 times
ワンワン
Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
User avatar
KobaBeach
screw it lion time. we are so f***ing back
Posts: 6926
Joined: 11 years ago
First name: David (evil)
Pronouns: he/they
Location: Portugal
https://koba.talkhaus.com/

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

the original arc the lad post was just a pointless shitpost about rpgs but the meaning i ascribed to it after your post is that

due to a lack of time, arc the lad 1 literally ends as the story starts to crescendo.

you literally are given the power to stop the dark one by the guardians after they test you with a pointless mirror match and then you get captured by andel who opens the ark, unsealing the dark one. the shrine that is essentially the seal against the dark one shows up amidst an earthquake, allowing the heroes to escape.

arc (the protagonist, please do not confuse with arK) tells the heroine, kukuru, who alongside him got the power to stop the big bad, to stay behind in the shrine to strengthen the seal. and the rest of the heroes fly away in the game's airship, the silver noah. kukuru watches from a nearby cliff and the game ends.

the game was released a scant few months after the ps1's launch in japan (3 december, 1994 to 30 june, 1995). apparently the devs got too ambitious and had way too much stuff they wanted to put in the game but they had to release the game sometime after the launch window, so they rushed out arc 1 as a sort of "prologue". the game is like 6 hours long.

arc 1 ended up selling by the fuckload in japan and the lack of content kind of left a bad taste in people's mouths, resulting in arc the lad 2 (which came out in 1 november 1996) being extremely goddamn fucking massive and full of content, and also had a sort of "pseudo lock-on mechanic" where you could transfer your arc 1 stats for the arc 1 crew and items for the party in general in arc 2, all as a way to make up for arc 1's brevity.



also i just like arc the lad unironically, pretty nice srpg series and piece of ps1 history

also if you're wondering the dark one is named "the ruler of darkness" in japanese and is also literally just zero before zero
he's also called the lord of the black abyss in the fourth game
Image #1 mega cd enjoyer AND "making fun of"-er Image
MaGL Patch Collection / vg backlog spreadsheet / animu list / mcmangos / steam
Image
Image
Image
Image Image
oogggghhhh games aren't art Fuck You Roger Ebert *kills him with a hamemr*
User avatar
warpio
Posts: 290
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Canada

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by warpio »

Ashan wrote: 4 years ago Love these stupid random hidden blocks for star coins in this game :^)))))

To be fair it is KINDA hinted at with the background having a specific box-shaped hole in that one spot. Once you know that this is a game where hidden blocks are a thing, I think it's fair game to hide invisible stuff like that as long as it's hinted at in some way.
The Yoshi games are like that too with their invisible clouds. Eventually you just get a feel for the types of subtle level design hints that point to where an invisible item is, and you make a habit of specifically looking out for and checking all of those suspicious spots.

I'm trying to play through Crypt of the Necrodancer before moving onto its Zelda-themed sequel Cadence of Hyrule, holy hell this game is brutal. Whenever I get into a situation where there's a miniboss and a bunch of other enemies closing in on me, I always panic and can't figure out the right strategy under the pressure of the rhythm timing. You can actually turn off the rhythm timing feature and just play it like a normal roguelike where the enemies only move whenever you move, but that's clearly a cheat mode and it replaces your avatar character with a boring looking bald guy to let you know that you're not playing the real game.
User avatar
Ashan
The world has become a place
Posts: 2802
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Canada
https://ashan.talkhaus.com/

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

Yeah but there's a bunch of weird shapes cut out in that background so that one barely stands out.
But even if you're fine with that one, take a look at this trash:
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
User avatar
warpio
Posts: 290
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Canada

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by warpio »

oof, yeah that one is indefensible, as far as I can tell there are NO hints for that one spot you can ground pound through. that's just some awful level design.
User avatar
Griflion
I'm gonna chomp ya!
Posts: 193
Joined: 9 years ago

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Griflion »

I liked Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. I blame it on never having played the first games and so I had no big expectations.
Though

Kraden not recognizing Alex and 2 of the Characters cast coming so late that you can't really develop them character-wise

sucks.
Also the game is too easy. The combat system has some great strategic decisions (class changing in combat is actually such a cool thing) you can take, but it's never really needed.

I didn't really care about the ending since from what i known from the first golden suns (my brother played them), it's something I expected.
BUT the

Roc Feather

just being a big McGuffin with no use (yet) and a big lack of exposition regarding

Tuapureng, which are basically the BIG BADS,

(yet) just makes the game feel uncompleted. Especially since we can't really expect the sequel.
All of this just leaves a bitter aftertaste. I'm still hoping for a sequel, maybe for the 20th anniversary of the franchise. But for now it looks like we can only expect more mario sport games. :ehh:
Image
Image
Image
User avatar
computerfan0
The raddest - no, the opposite
Posts: 23
Joined: 4 years ago
First name: NO U
Pronouns: he/him/his
Location: Ireland

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by computerfan0 »

I know its basically dead, but I'm playing Clash of Clans at the moment on my phone.
User avatar
KobaBeach
screw it lion time. we are so f***ing back
Posts: 6926
Joined: 11 years ago
First name: David (evil)
Pronouns: he/they
Location: Portugal
https://koba.talkhaus.com/

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

playing Image tekken
Image #1 mega cd enjoyer AND "making fun of"-er Image
MaGL Patch Collection / vg backlog spreadsheet / animu list / mcmangos / steam
Image
Image
Image
Image Image
oogggghhhh games aren't art Fuck You Roger Ebert *kills him with a hamemr*
User avatar
BobisOnlyBob
Mythical Quadruped
Posts: 1793
Joined: 11 years ago
Location: the world is no longer a place

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by BobisOnlyBob »

BobisOnlyBob wrote: 5 years ago So I'm still playing Warframe and I'm still playing Baba is You (more on that another time)
I now have three games I'm regularly playing: Warframe, Baba is You, and Dance Dance Revolution A. I'm a very lucky man who has a refurbished bowling alley in his home town, and they got one of those lovely silver arcade machines. It's become a near-daily thing for me. And I think I might be losing weight from it, so that's a thing! I definitely have more energy, if nothing else.

Anyway. Onto other videos game:

Camera Obscura! I played this for less than an hour. Looks to be an acceptable platformer with a slightly wobbly gimmick based around taking a picture of the platforms and shifting them for as long as the exposure lasts, and an emphasis on speedrunning/minimal gimmick use, but it literally has no sound as it depends on Windows Media Player, which no longer exists in Windows 10. Not very impressed. Oh well.

Pharaoh Rebirth+! A solid, albeit short (9h) little mini-Metroidvania, made of several discrete maps instead of one massive one. Made by the same people who did SMT: Synchronicity Prologue. Good movement tools, good bosses. Amusing dialogue, although a bit lowbrow on the humour. Only really spoiled by one atrociously bad "minecart" level. Would recommend for raocow to play for an LP.

Kero Blaster! I watched DC play this a while back. I've played Pink Hour too, so no real surprises here, but it's a solid little rompy shooter by Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya, of Cave Story fame. Fun for a few hours.

Door Kickers! So let's be clear: I love tactical strategy, and especially Frozen Synapse. This totally left me cold in very little time. No story mode - campaigns have to be unlocked by doing stand-alone missions. Hyper macho pro-militaristic vibe. Planning UI is really, really bad and the behaviour of your dudes is extremely limited. I've heard great things about this but I totally bounced off it. May come back to years from now.

Yoku's Island Express! Or more sardonically, What if Sonic Spinball was good? I take that back, I love Sonic Spinball, and had a great time with this more recent Pinball-Metroidvania hybrid. One large, sprawling map with a clever fast-travel system. Very charming, great table design, good atmosphere. Not too challenging - no lives, just a little loss of your plentiful currency every time you fall through thorns. Reminiscent of modern Kirby, in a way. The only real downer is the final boss - couldn't take it seriously at all, and it wasn't very challenging, just repetitive. Otherwise a fantastic little gem. Also available on Switch.

Baba is You! Recently had a breakthrough playing this and now I'm deep into the weirder side of the game. I've clocked over 50 hours and I'm still stumped by some early-midgame puzzles, while I'm hacking my way through what I can only assume is lategame insanity. If you like Sokoban (box-pushing games like the exemplary Stephen's Sausage Roll), logic and observation puzzles like The Witness or The Talos Principle, or any Zachtronics-style programming game, you absolutely must try Baba Is You - and even if none of those sound like your thing, watch this trailer and see if it resonates with you.

Sekiro! Subtitled by Activision. Haven't got too far into this just yet - only having defeated one Major Boss, but I have a slew of minor boss executions under my blade already. Just opened up way too many routes, I went from having only two possible next areas to having like, five. Having a great time, struggling with parries but getting there. Expect to hear more from me on this game in the next few weeks to a month!

I also had a birthday recently, and so have obtained Touhou Lunar Nights, Dandara, Dead Cells, Hand of Fate 2, Supraland, darkSector, Dragonball Fighter Z, and Devil May Cry 5. Spoiled, ain't I? Sekiro means I probably won't get to those for a while yet though...
Last edited by BobisOnlyBob 3 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Alice
Posts: 2367
Joined: 12 years ago
Pronouns: Girl person
Location: Wonderland

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Alice »

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years agoplaying https://i.imgur.com/VOBdf1B.png tekken
Man, I have a lot of memories of Tekken 2. It's the first fighting game I didn't outright despise. And Tekken 7 is the only fighting game I still really play. (I have Skullgirls and I do enjoy it on occasion but it's just way the hell too difficult for me to bother playing most of the time.)
User avatar
Crow
famous knife crow thumbnail responsibility holder
Posts: 3413
Joined: 10 years ago
First name: Crow
Pronouns: she/they/it
Location: chaos garden

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Crow »

started two games over the weekend

one VN - the house in fata morgana, messed up as hell VN that's like if edith finch was a VN basically, various stories all centered around the same house and an overarching narrative, i'm only two stories deep atm but it's pretty good so far
one replay - sonic generations, the PC port feels... weird, modern sonic feels like lots of inputs are being dropped? mm. still a fun game tho
i've honestly never played a video game in my life
Image
Image
Image
User avatar
metasomnia?
butts
Posts: 527
Joined: 11 years ago

Re: What games are you playing? Not that >.>

Post by metasomnia? »

Awoo wrote: 4 years ago I loved that section, tbh fam.

It made the game feel really open, like the whole world was at your fingertips and you just had to go and explore it!


When that finally happens in Dark Dawn, it's so restricted, even without the "points of no return" if you glitch yourself back to an earlier area. Besides, there's only a few extra bosses when that really happens for the most part, anyway.

I did like that part initially, until it started causing a lot of problems. My favorite type of games are metroidvanias, so I'm all about exploration and finding stuff, but I don't feel the Lost Age handles its open section very well. Making it even worse is that fortune teller you can sometimes go to for hints, except he only says the vaguest things you need to go forward and it made an already frustrating experience even moreso.

Image
User avatar
KobaBeach
screw it lion time. we are so f***ing back
Posts: 6926
Joined: 11 years ago
First name: David (evil)
Pronouns: he/they
Location: Portugal
https://koba.talkhaus.com/

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Got owned by literal lions in Lufia II but then I got back at them with axes

Alice wrote: 4 years ago Man, I have a lot of memories of Tekken 2. It's the first fighting game I didn't outright despise. And Tekken 7 is the only fighting game I still really play. (I have Skullgirls and I do enjoy it on occasion but it's just way the hell too difficult for me to bother playing most of the time.)
Try the later Virtua Fighter games sometime, they're not juggle-based but they're pretty good.

If you've played Sonic the Fighters, it's kind of like that.
Image #1 mega cd enjoyer AND "making fun of"-er Image
MaGL Patch Collection / vg backlog spreadsheet / animu list / mcmangos / steam
Image
Image
Image
Image Image
oogggghhhh games aren't art Fuck You Roger Ebert *kills him with a hamemr*
User avatar
Ashan
The world has become a place
Posts: 2802
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Canada
https://ashan.talkhaus.com/

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

Spent like 20 minutes dicking around on this ship in Golden Sun cause I didn't see this hidden set of stairs you need to go down to get them to move the god damn ship
Image
I had to look up a guide for the second time to find those stairs. The first time was in Mercury Lighthouse where you get stuck on a square in the middle of a body of water and you're just supposed to know casting ply will make the squares turn magic so you can walk on water even though there was no indication that ply does anything other than heal, and that seems to be all it's been good for since then so I don't know why they made it have some extra function for no reason at that one specific point in the game.

Oh yeah and back to the ship thing, after all that I got absolutely massacred by the boss so I guess I need to grind now. And it seems like every time I want to attempt this boss I'm going to have to go through this incredibly drawn out repetitive sequence of doing easy fights then telling some random NPC to row the ship with too long of cutscenes. So I look forward to that.
Image
Yeah it'll also mean WE'LL BE DEAD
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
User avatar
Bean
Yep.
Posts: 4580
Joined: 14 years ago

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Going through Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It's basically taking what worked from Symphony, the Sorrow games, and Order of Ecclesia to make the kind of game I've been wanting to play for a while now. Some obtuse parts and iffy loading times when you die, but other than that, yeah. This is an exploration-type Castlevania game in all but name here.
User avatar
Ashan
The world has become a place
Posts: 2802
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Canada
https://ashan.talkhaus.com/

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

Bean wrote: 4 years agoiffy loading times when you die
Have you tried not dying? 8-)
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
User avatar
Alice
Posts: 2367
Joined: 12 years ago
Pronouns: Girl person
Location: Wonderland

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Alice »

Bean wrote: 4 years agoGoing through Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It's basically taking what worked from Symphony, the Sorrow games, and Order of Ecclesia to make the kind of game I've been wanting to play for a while now. Some obtuse parts and iffy loading times when you die, but other than that, yeah. This is an exploration-type Castlevania game in all but name here.
I've only played up to the first boss due to some health concerns keeping me away from my computer lately (really high blood pressure sucks) but the game seems even better than I was expecting. And my expectations were already fairly high since Curse of the Moon was great despite being the old-style Castlevania format that I don't even enjoy.
User avatar
Bean
Yep.
Posts: 4580
Joined: 14 years ago

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Well, Curse of the Moon took most of its cues off the two old-school style games I like the most in III and Rondo of Blood. This one feels like that mix of Symphony, Sorrow, and Ecclesia, my favorites of that style.

I tried that whole not dying thing, but some of those bosses aren't being very cooperative and didn't listen to me.
User avatar
Awoo
~wan~wan
Posts: 1522
Joined: 6 years ago
Pronouns: he/him/his
Location: your area

Re: What games are me playing?

Post by Awoo »

I've never, for the life of me, been able to get into Castlevania. Is there something I'm missing? :ehh:

maybe it's just not my thing? certainly feels that way

ワンワン
Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
User avatar
Ashan
The world has become a place
Posts: 2802
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Canada
https://ashan.talkhaus.com/

Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

I played through most of the first one on NES but never finished it, I might have to go back and do that at some point. I never played any of the later ones that got very explore-ey (I want to say Metroidvania-esque but that seems redundant) but I've heard good things so I'll probably get around to those eventually.

Also it turns out in Golden Sun you can just spam the sleep spell and it works a pretty good percentage of the time. Then you can just smack a boss to death while it sleeps through the whole battle. I just beat

Kraken

with zero issue once I discovered this, and on my previous attempted he handed my ass to me on a plate.
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Post Reply