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Post by windfisch on Mar 24, 2021 16:23:13 GMT -5
Mystic Quest was my first RPG-ish game ever as well. Probably the least linear/most complicated game I owned as a very young child. It was also the GB game that I probably got the least far in as a kid, as I didn't really have much of a grasp on the English language back then. But I played the beginning over and over hoping I'd finally get somewhere. We got a German translation over here. It probably wasn't top notch, but it served its purpose.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Mar 26, 2021 7:19:16 GMT -5
Steadfast (Android; First Time; 1 hour 4 minutes) I wanted to play something relaxing after a few days of playing surprisingly hectic games (don't believe random forums, Pilotwings 64 is stupidly stressful in every area besides the Birdman mode), so I hit up itch.io and found this visual novel made by GruntSteel and Drakes. It's a short enough story, about a poet named Finn and a town guard called Steadfast, who have feelings for each other but are scared to act upon for fear of rejection - both from the other person, and from society in general. (Yes, it's a gay romantic visual novel about anthro animals, and I'll happily admit I like playing those types of games. I am, as the Finnish say, furry trash and proud of it.)
For what it's worth, it's a pretty alright game, though I happily admit that my issues with it aren't so much flaws and more things that I'm not into. For example, the fact that both characters have very similar writing voices for their internal monologues does convey how much alike they are, but I find it rather boring because it feels like I'm just reading the same types of thought processes over and over again. That especially goes for the romantic angle they're playing up of "Person A fancies Person B but thinks they won't reciprocate, while Person B fancies Person A but thinks they won't reciprocate". I've read too many stories of that sort over the years, and felt myself thinking on repeated occasions that line from the Vicar of Dibley: "Oh, for heaven's sake. Just kiss, you morons!"
The actual execution of those ideas is fine enough for what it is, and there are some interesting things going on as the game reaches its conclusion, but it's very much not for me. If I didn't need that relaxing game, I probably would've given up after half an hour. Still, it's a free game you can get on most platforms, so if it sounds like it's up your alley, give it a go: drakes64.itch.io/steadfast
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Post by dsparil on Mar 26, 2021 8:56:46 GMT -5
Incredible Mandy (Switch, First Time)
Basically Zelda if it was just seven linear dungeons, a final boss, and no items. Although unlike most indie Zelda clones, the dungeons and bosses in this are actually decent since the gameplay mainly revolves around the unique combo of exploding swords and a robot that follows you around. What drags it down is that there's a pervasive feeling that this didn't get quite enough development time e.g. there's a mild bugginess to the later sections. It's also very strange that the default difficulty removes all the non-boss enemies from the game while they are a bit too spongy in the difficultly that does include them; I didn't actually play in this difficulty, but there's a semi-hidden area at the end that includes one of each. This is puzzle heavy enough that you don't necessarily notice the lack of them in higher difficulty, but there really should have been a middle option that kept them for variety but made them much weaker.
Also odd is that a fairly large chunk of the backstory is relegated to collectible comic pages. Around ten of the thirty-two pages are directly relevant, and those are of course the most difficult to find. I found four or five and the earlier ones are only for "flavor". What ended up saving this for me is the animated intro, "intermission" and ending. Those alone give enough of a plot that it still ends in a satisfying and understandable way. I just wish that the game had a bit more time in the oven since it gets so many of the fundamentals right.
Rating: 7
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Post by Digitalnametag on Mar 26, 2021 14:50:42 GMT -5
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales PS5 FTP 14 hours
I enjoyed the first game a lot being a huge Spider-Man fan and this game expands on that. I'm not that familiar with Miles outside of Spider-Verse and some guest appearances in Amazing, so his character was fairly new to me. He's more upbeat than Peter and brings a different perspective to the game. Liked the story here quite a bit.
This does play more like a long expansion than a whole new game but some of the added features help combat feel fresh. Stealth missions are still a weak point (Arkham does these a bit better) and enemy bases are way too populated. Thankfully there are fewer this time around. Getting rid of the padding does make the experience shorter but tightens up the game play loop. Not sure it is worth the full cost of a new game but it does include the first one re-mastered as well.
Overall had a good time with it.
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Post by spanky on Mar 27, 2021 6:03:55 GMT -5
Beat Dragon Quest (Switch, First Time)
I love the original Dragon Warrior for the NES. I did not play it until the late 90s and was immediately put off by how archaic it was...but I stuck with it and I really enjoyed how it boiled down the JRPG to it's most basic elements. There was a real thrill to finally getting enough money to buy the Steel Broadsword so you could finally kill Werewolfs in one hit so you could double your grinding speed you know?
I enjoyed my time with this but this port is...half assed in a lot of ways? The redone overworld sprites look smudgy and just sort of plastered on the screen. And there's framerate issues? Even the credits* stutter as they move up the screen, it looked really bad. The battle sprites look fine though and the music is well done. The game has been rebalanced a bit and I think some of the items are cheaper and there are now seeds you can pick up that boost your stats. To compensate some of the bosses now seem a bit tougher. This is all fine I guess. The localization is great though, they take the "olde english" of the original game and crank it up to 11.
I really wish a bit more effort was put into this but for 2.50 I can't complain really. Kinda makes me want to check out the port of the sequel as I have never played that one.
*speaking of credits, I'm just sort of baffled at the dozens and dozens of people making this port. I've seen better fan remakes.
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Post by alexmate on Mar 27, 2021 7:36:35 GMT -5
Zombeer (1st time, Windows PC - Steam timer: 5.1 hours) A fairly fun game inspired by teen horror movies. Letdown by sloppy mouse aim (or was that my bad playing). It's alike not a love, just feels like it could have used a serious cash injection. That said I would probably play a sequel.
Rating: 6
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Post by personman on Mar 27, 2021 18:31:55 GMT -5
Devil May Cry 2 via Devil May Cry HD collection, PS4, first time
I am a stubborn person that needs to go through things in order. I really wish I'd stop, but here we are. Don't think I need to go too much into this one for its reputation is pretty well known. I'd say the things that bothered me the most were how floaty things feel in melee, seriously how do you combo in this game everything just flies away out of reach, through most of the game enemies just don't even attack you half the time and there were way too many times you had a flying enemy stay off screen forcing you to shoot at the skybox. Plus the lock on is really annoying.
I do like how it held onto the horror vibe the first game had, though unfortunately most of the environments are so boring it falls flat. I did like the second to last level though, besides the lavish halls of the main villains layer just plain looking neat I enjoyed how it got over run with demon hellscape bits (and dutch angle cameras) as you progressed. Too bad that couldn't be consistent though.
Anyways it's not the worst thing ever but it's clearly unfinished. Playable enough and that's it really which honestly is worse in my eyes. I can barely think of anything to say about this thing because it's so unremarkable, just meh all around. And I don't give a crap about trying Lucia's campaign.
Rating: 4
Now then, time to stop playing bad or boring games and get DMC 3 going. Been a long time since I played this one, should be a treat.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Mar 28, 2021 10:33:36 GMT -5
I played it entirely docked and didn't notice much stuttering unless I have a higher tolerance for it. I wonder if it's a cooling issue? I doubt that's it...my Switch tends to keep relatively cool/quiet during the game and with my old faulty Switch that has never directly impacted any performance of games. Others have had the same problem with the game, and it seems to mostly pop up during travelling or during lots of action. I've gotten pretty used to it by now, I should say. Definitely there is a case to be made that it wasn't designed with handheld mode in mind, but honestly, I'm struggling to think of the last Nintendo game that was. Bowser's Fury for instance is just sub par on the go and even Fire Emblem, coming off being a handheld only series, has difficult to read small text. I see a lot of people asking for more power under the hood of the Switch so they can gain better docked performance, I just want it to live up to the promise of home experience on the go, which I think was being achieved on initial releases for the platform. I think it comes down to game design as much as graphical capabilities though. I can't really recall many Nintendo games outside of Bowser's Fury (which I didn't play in portable for even a second but considering it already slows down in docked mode I don't have to to get an idea) which have been notably worse in handheld. Outside of like readability at times. Then again, what have Nintendo put out recently that I bought...Animal Crossing and 51 Worldwide Games aren't exactly graphical powerhouses and are simple enough that they don't require small/detailed UIs. 3D World is perfect in handheld mode but it's a Wii U port. I did feel FE3H was already a bit hard to read on a regular TV (don't have the game myself), so I can imagine that being a poor fit in handheld. I'm honestly still really impressed by how well games like BotW or Odyssey play in handheld. Splatoon 2 is the gold standard I think. Outside of the smaller screen it's indiscerdible between handheld and TV.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2021 11:22:07 GMT -5
Definitely there is a case to be made that it wasn't designed with handheld mode in mind, but honestly, I'm struggling to think of the last Nintendo game that was. Bowser's Fury for instance is just sub par on the go and even Fire Emblem, coming off being a handheld only series, has difficult to read small text. I see a lot of people asking for more power under the hood of the Switch so they can gain better docked performance, I just want it to live up to the promise of home experience on the go, which I think was being achieved on initial releases for the platform. I think it comes down to game design as much as graphical capabilities though. I can't really recall many Nintendo games outside of Bowser's Fury (which I didn't play in portable for even a second but considering it already slows down in docked mode I don't have to to get an idea) which have been notably worse in handheld. Outside of like readability at times. Then again, what have Nintendo put out recently that I bought...Animal Crossing and 51 Worldwide Games aren't exactly graphical powerhouses and are simple enough that they don't require small/detailed UIs. 3D World is perfect in handheld mode but it's a Wii U port. I did feel FE3H was already a bit hard to read on a regular TV (don't have the game myself), so I can imagine that being a poor fit in handheld. I'm honestly still really impressed by how well games like BotW or Odyssey play in handheld. Splatoon 2 is the gold standard I think. Outside of the smaller screen it's indiscerdible between handheld and TV. I didn't think of Animal Crossing or 51 Worldwide Games. Those definitely run nicely in both modes. Off the top of my head games that run considerably worse in handheld mode published by Nintendo include: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, Daemon X Machina, all Xenoblade games, Astral Chain and, somehow, even Pikmin 3 DX. Then there are games that are really only designed with docked play in mind, which is a separate issue, but only emphasises it in my mind - thinking of Ring Fit Adventure, Mario Party etc here. Another game that does run well in handheld is Luigi's Mansion 3, although Next Level are pretty much wizards. I think in some cases better performance in portable could be achieved and it's a matter of priorities/optimisation. Bowser's Fury is the most extreme example, because not only is the target framerate chopped in half, but the frame pacing is awful and I found the game unplayable. You are right about Splatoon 2, Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild. All 3 still seem like marvels in portable, but all are also from 2017. I think that since then, ambitions with the hardware have perhaps grown, and performance goalposts have moved to handheld mode being 'good enough' rather than great. I'll be honest, some of these games I would always take the docked experience for anyway, but having the flexibility is one of the defining features of the Switch, and sometimes taking the system into another room with me just enables me to play in a more relaxed setting.
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Post by ZenithianHero on Mar 28, 2021 19:21:50 GMT -5
Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 (Switch, First Time, about 11 hours)
Similar set of game modes and roster as the first game. This does have a better story mode, with more options to select levels and more variety. It has a new rule mode called Skill Battle which adds skills and RPG elements to the gameplay. This was carried over from Puyo Puyo Chronicle. There is one issue with the story mode is that skill battle may need some level grinding. I completely hit a wall with the later battles. The game offers a default team with some nice equipment but that's only half the preparation I had to level up constantly to stand a chance against the final boss. For that the pacing slowed near the end which for a puzzle game like PPT was dumb. I would love to play Chronicle if Sega remaster it, but in the future Skill Battle really shouldn't be in an arcade-type Puyo Puyo game.
Also turn off Auto-Difficulty in the options unless you are good at the game because it adjusts difficulty to your win/lose ratio and you can get curb-stomped fast. With it off I actually had an easier time compared to the original PPT story mode so that's cool.
Other than that, it's PPT but more. It is hard to hate this.
8/10
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Mar 29, 2021 5:13:52 GMT -5
For no particular reason, I ended up playing some Flash games from the late 00s/early 10s last night and this morning, and they were cool enough to play through and write about.
Prequel Adventure (Browser; First Time; 28 minutes)
This is a pretty interesting game, in that it's actually a tie-in to the (sort of) interactive fan comic Prequel by Kazerad. It takes place in the world of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion a few weeks before that game's events kick off, and focuses on a newly emigrated, incredibly unlucky Khajit named Katia Managan who's just moved to Kvatch in an attempt to start over. This game is meant to serve as supplementary material to the comic, in a similar fashion to Homestuck from what I understand (I've never read either so I can't say more than that), and as such isn't particularly long. You just walk around the town of Kvatch talking to various characters, some of whom are from Oblivion and are included in a way that feels like a genuinely nice nod to people who've played it. Heck, the fact that it takes place in Kvatch of all towns is pretty cool considering its significance to the main quest of Oblivion, and how that frames certain conversations or your ability to visit certain parts of the town.
It's a fairly cosy game, with some cute artwork, relaxing music, and plenty of quietly amusing conversations with the citizens of Kvatch. I don't know if I'm interested enough to read the comic, when I kinda prefer this "Japanese adventure game" interpretation and would love to keep up with the characters this way. But it was pretty cool to be able to discover that new corner of the world through this random little game, and that's always worth celebrating.
(I'd like to link to this game, but I found it among a collection of SFW flash games on e621, a website that is very decidedly not safe for work. And the only link offered goes back to the webcomic's main site as opposed to a specific page. If I do manage to find a link, I'll edit the post and pop it here.)
Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar (Browser; First Time; 10 minutes)
I'm not really someone who's into shmups. It's a genre I respect the pants out of, but have never been able to really get into apart from Tails Skypatrol when I reviewed it for the site. Well, I guess I can add this one to the tiny piece of paper marked "Shmups I've Played For More Than Five Minutes". It's a very goofy game by I_smell about a pair of robot dinosaurs who crash land onto Earth and fly around shooting alien spaceships by roaring laser beams at them. Yep, it's definitely a Flash game from the 00s on that premise alone, but it makes good on said premise by providing a simple but solid shooter. You steer the character with the mouse and fire by holding left click. There's some strategy to consider as your beam will lose its strength the longer you hold it, so you have to use it wisely and take breaks to let it recharge - which puts you in a defensive/dodging position during some of the more hectic moments.
There's only one level to play, but it manages to develop its ideas and has a neat boss fight that was challenging enough but not too overwhelming. It's likely a bit too easy for fans of much more difficult shmups, though it was perfect for me precisely because of that. Definitely worth checking out if you have a few minutes to kill and want to revel in a silly concept: armorgames.com/robot-dinosaurs-that-shoot-beams-when-they-roar-game/3469
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Post by dsparil on Mar 29, 2021 7:19:19 GMT -5
Picross NP Vol. 2 (SNES, First Time)
For a series that was bi-monthly, it's interesting to see that there are in fact some UI differences even between the first two volumes. It isn't huge, just the addition of an explicit exit option to the hint roulette menu, but that does show how removing the need for cartridge production allows for quick response to feedback. Other changes aren't so great though. The Nintendo theme this time is Mario, but the designs don't look as good as the Pokémon ones and can be a bit cramped. The section that had scenes of historical Kyoto is now taken from a classic work of literature, but there's no expanded text to accompany it. The detailed illustration might look a bit nicer though. The sports themed section is now unthemed with makes it feel a little redundant with the main puzzle section. Not a bad release by any means, but I get the feeling that Vol. 1 might have been made extra fancy to pull people into the concept.
I finished in 10:02:33.
Rating: 8
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Post by JoeQ on Mar 29, 2021 16:02:58 GMT -5
The Way (Windows) - First playthrough, Time: 7h 37min (GOG timer) A puzzle platformer inspired by Another World, Flashback and The Dig. A man explores an alien planet to find a legendary hidden city than contains the key to eternal life and bringing his dead wife back to life. Gorgeous pixel art, solid puzzles and great atmosphere, but it falls a bit short on the story side and has really annoying and ill advised action segments. I could easily see some people ragequitting the game on a couple of those. I beat the game with both endings and found all the (few) memories. Rating: 3/5Alphabet Challenge: ---D--------M-OP-RST--W--- Number Challenge: 0-23------
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Post by personman on Mar 29, 2021 19:36:53 GMT -5
A couple of those puzzles were really bad. I remember one feeling it was made with a mouse in mind but... Its a side scroller. Then the blasted water pipe puzzle.
I'm glad I got that one on sale.
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Post by alexmate on Mar 30, 2021 7:46:59 GMT -5
Mick & Mack as the Global Gladiators (Mega Drive\Genesis, 1 st time, Timer: 43 minutes) I've decided to bullet point my mini reviews from now on:
Good Points (Ronald McDonald): * Bright Saturday morning cartoon graphics with good animation. * Soundtrack and effects by Tommy Tallarico (one of Virgin Games best composers) * The box art is awesome, especially the European version. * A licensed game that doesn't suck * Game sold extremely well and it is fondly remembered. * Tight controls, not slippery or too fast like Bubsy or Awesome Possum.
Bad Points (Hamburgler): * Too many leaps of faith * The European school of platform design (confusing layout, no arrow indicators). Feels more like an Amiga platformer which isn't a compliment. * Enemies everywhere, the game is relatively short they really pumped up the difficulty to make up for it. * Hidden projectiles from enemies often seen too late.
* Unfortunately not Tommy Tallarico's best work and largely forgettable with annoying sound when you get hit. * No bosses apart from on the last level. * Collect Fest, they did get this right with Cool Spot a year later. The McDonald's symbol you collect are also really small. * Some glitches where I fell through the platforms.
Rating: 6 (mediocre)
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