|
Post by Apollo Chungus on Jun 18, 2024 9:03:47 GMT -5
Lunistice (Switch; Replay; 2 hours 26 minutes)I haven't touched this since I covered it for my article on the website, which I wrote more or less within the fortnight of its release iirc. But I fancied a bit of a replay, especially in anticipation of the 1.5 Accel Coda update that looks like it's gonna add a lot of stuff to the main game and make some level design tweaks, so here we are. I'd say I enjoyed this in much the same way as I did before; it's a solid obstacle course platformer with good controls, plenty of varied stages, and the freedom to play it as a straightforward "run n jump", a more explorative affair with the HANA letters and secret exits, or a perfectionist run to collect all the cranes and reach the end without dying. I'm slightly more dispassionate about it, but I think that's more because I'm acutely aware at the moment of my general disinterest towards games that emphasize skilled play and reflexes and this kinda got caught in the crossfire. Obviously not its fault, since it's way more manageable than other such games in that regard, it's a "me" issue. I also made a proper attempt to replay the game as the two unlockable characters, Toree from the Toree 3D games by Siactro and Toukie from Sean Weech’s Holomento. Toree's inability to attack and dying in one hit makes him the hard mode, and I packed it in after getting to the enemy-littered grind rails in World 5-1. Thankfully, I had a better time with Toukie and even managed to reach the end, to discover that they and Toree have character-exclusive levels that put their unique abilities to the test. That's a deeply cool bonus for dedicated players, and I enjoyed Toukie's more open-ended final stage a good deal. I'm not sure where or why I picked up the habit of replaying a short enough game almost immediately after beating it, but it's a great way of getting some extra mileage out of titles I'd otherwise treat a bit more disposably. Like a fashionable nun, it's a good habit.
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Jun 20, 2024 9:38:00 GMT -5
Renegade (NES, Replay)
I've been slacking on my summer gaming. I am still playing FFVI Pixel Remaster but it's a much longer game than I remembered. After a long, HOT day at the zoo yesterday I came back and decided to play something simple that I could beat in 20 minutes to unwind. Renegade is by no means a great game - your kick is near useless, punches are risky and the endgame maze does stupid 8-bit stuff like send you back to the beginning of the game if you take a wrong path. You have to pretty much spam your kicks and grabs if you want to win. Still, I find the game sort of addicting and even find it aesthetically appealing and I can't put my finger on why. It's a 3/10 game objectively but 8/10 on a personal level.
|
|
|
Post by Woody Alien 2 on Jun 21, 2024 14:31:12 GMT -5
A couple of bite-sized games made for Metroidvania Month 24, from May 15 to June 15 of this year:
Trainsylvania (PC Windows, first time, about 20 minutes I guess)
Another Castlevania homage, but I didn't find anything good about it, apart the fact that it's playable and there are no bugs, I guess. For the rest, the graphics are ugly, the music is annoying, the sound FX are bad, gameplay is nothing special, it's too short and the metroidvania part is negligible, it also ends abruptly and has bad attempts at being humorous. If you want to be subjected to it, here's the link: kaeselord.itch.io/trainsylvaniaAlso what do trains even have to do with anything? 4/10
Twilight Fortress (PC Windows -also playable in browser- , first time, around half an hour)
Title of submission and the title screen call it Twilight Fortress, but the file is named Twilight Princess, despite having nothing to do with Zelda and being a Ghosts 'n' Goblins homage/parody instead. It stars exactly like that game, with the lovers in a graveyard at night and the girl getting kidnapped, but the ersatz Sir Arthur never comes and the girl decides to save herself. She will escape from her room and find power-ups around the castle (sword enhancements and the usual zoom, wall jump, double jump and slide) and travel the areas like kitchen, chapel, prisons, attic etc. in order to find the boss' room and defeat it. It's not bad, miles better than the previous one, but the controls aren't the best, there's no map and there seems to be no way to close the application when you've downloaded it instead of playing it in the browser. Also I went out of my way to find all the hidden chests with money, but there seems to be no use for currency anywhere so I don't know what the point of them is. And wouldn't it be cool to have an actual metroidvania inspired by Daimakaimura/Ghosts 'n' Goblins?
Currently I'm also playing another entry for Metroidvania Month and finding it very good, however I haven't finished it yet because its bosses are being a pain in the neck... Also I downloaded another one, but it didn't work so whatever.
I also played two free cutesy hidden object games on Steam:
Cats and Seek (around 20 minutes I guess) Cats and Seek: Kyoto (about 35 minutes to complete everything)
Made by the same devs, the first one is quite generic and I'm not giving it a score; the second one gives some QoL improvements like not having an achievement pop up every single time you click on a cat, sligthly more involved gameplay that includes finding keys and "easter eggs", the opportunity to change BGM and cursor, an achievement for completing the speedrun mode, and other little things that make it a bit over the rest of these very basic pastimes. I'll give it a 7/10.
|
|
|
Post by JoeQ on Jun 25, 2024 16:14:35 GMT -5
Ninja Blade (X360) - Replay, Time: 45:19:36 (timer), Rating: 3/5Replayed this for the first time in over twelve years, finally got all achievements for it. In truth Ninja Blade is one of FromSoft's weaker games, a kinda low budget mix of Ninja Gaiden, God of War and Resident Evil, but despite all its jankiness and endless QTEs it has a certain charm to it that I find endearing. A relic of the pre-Dark Souls days of From, when they were releasing tons of games and seeing what would stick. The time is calculated from the in-game timer minus my old playthrough time. It amounts to two full playthroughs of the game and many, many replays of individual stages. I cleared the game on Hard mode, got an overall rank of A+ and got all collectables and achievements unlocked. Alphabet Challenge: ABCFNPST
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jun 26, 2024 7:35:13 GMT -5
A few I forgot because I played them out of sequence:
Don Doko Don! (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
It's Bubble Bobble but with hammer wielding dwarves.
Rating: 7
Ninja Spirit (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
Great action game from Irem.
Rating: 8
Puzznic (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
I only ever played Epic's straight up ripoff Brix in the past, and the original is obviously better.
Rating: 8
|
|
|
Post by personman on Jun 27, 2024 5:09:05 GMT -5
Mega Man ZX (NDS, replay, 13 hours) Never really cared much for this one. Sure I got it on release with great anticipation but going through it left me kinda high and dry. Didn't help right around then I was on the cusp of shifting my gaming interests to being pretty PC centric which would last a number of years. Much of it was the tone the direction took which isn't bad or anything but not to my liking and today it still isn't. Everything has a very bright and cheery touch to it that just doesn't do it for it me with a more generic anime art direction that isn't repugnant but still very boring looking, like sure I can still tell the designs for the characters are for a Megaman game but there is nothing distinctive about them all looking like they could easily just be tossed into whatever vaguely scifi anime you want without sticking out even a bit. The music too while sounding fine just really went in one ear and out the other for me too, again just so typical sounding. Though that may have been by design as I've heard many times that there was some plans to have a show for this series and after Battle Network exploded as a multi media franchise you bet they wanted another. Supposedly this trailer was a pilot for said show but for whatever reason things fell through. Then there is the plot which is just vapid. Its paced terribly and everything moves way too fast for what its trying to do. Here's your mentor character you're supposed to get attached to! Oh he's dead in the first 5 minutes. There's a big huge conspiracy going on! The goal is so focused on you gathering up your super sentai plot mcGuffins that believing the big conglomerate is keeping things under cover while conducting Bombing raids on a city was way too big an ask. Main character is all "Oh noes my mom is dead, #trauma.... annnnd I'm over it! " its all just kinda dumb. I can already hear someone saying 'duh its Megaman what do you want?' and yeah sure but like, Zero 2-4 managed to have solid arcs so its not like its impossible. In the least it still makes me chuckle that the whole thing pretty much ends up being a homage to Soylet Green that movie everyone loved to reference when so few actually saw it lol. Putting the vanity aside though the gameplay itself, well I have conflicted feelings on. Right off the bat my favorite thing about it is the draw distance is finally far out enough I can see what the hell is coming now, hallefuckingjuah! The new big gimmick of this series is being able to switch between 5 different forms anytime all with their own weapons and quirks. At first I didn't care this as many of them didn't feel right and had functions I just didn't know were there till way late in the game plus they were very much designed to be played with the Type A control mode (Shoulder button just uses subweapon) where I've been used to the Type C method (shoulder buttons toggles weapon). Once I caught onto that things felt way better though some kinda note or something to let you know there are special moves each form can use by holding up or down after a charge would have been nice damn it. I was going through most the game thinking all the bosses were way too spongey. All forms outside of ZX also get this Devil Trigger toggle that makes you stronger and apply the models element if it has one so again that was huge damage I was missing out on because I just thought it was a huge energy drain, not that I had any energy for the longest time. See each boss gives you access to a form you can take and then an upgrade to one of them but these bosses have a weakspot somewhere usually very easy to hit and the more you hit them like that the weaker your reward will be until you spend money to fix it. With how hard it can be to avoid beating them without hitting weakspots the harsh punishment you get by having like no energy for that form really sucks and just exasperates the issue of their capabilities just being hidden from you. I don't think the whole system really needed to be around in the first place. But least the bosses themselves are really good. While some are definitely made with certain models in mind they all can be tackled in multiple ways pretty comfortably and afford you room to get creative like even Model LX which seems like its only good for traversal can be a monster. They're really well done. And that's where my praise ends as the rest of the game has some pretty glaring problems. So whether they took notes that so many people liked to dub Zero 1 as having Metroid elements just because the levels were connected or they thought now would be a good time to jump in one the bandwagon that the Castlevania series was enjoying this game is the franchise's first attempt at a more explorative Megaman. Not against the idea myself but clearly they weren't really up to tackling this kind of game. Biggest problem that most will mention is the map. Here is what the game shows you: And here is what the world's actual structure is like: Freaking 1:1 huh? I had to have the later image open on my phone constantly to get my bearing all the time. Thankfully the levels themselves are okay and mostly just feel like a typical Zero levels though they don't really impress either. Also much as all the different models are good for combat you'll pretty much be using Model HX all the time for general traversal and LX for water areas. The rest are fine and all but the game never really asks you to leverage their abilities at all to explore outside of one or two instances which I guess they didn't get the memo that gaining abilities and using them to find new places is what this genre was all about. Not to mention on of the sub tanks being hidden behind an invsisible door you can only see with the second screen while in model PX was dickish when your running from a wave of lava. Very lacking in secrets to find as well with like 4 health upgrades with 3 subtanks and thats it the rest of the pick ups are just data disks for NPCs you don't care about; Not too compelling to say the lest. What is really maddening is there are upgrades that are worth getting but nearly all of them are just gained by talking to NPCs multiple times with no indication you should do so. They seriously had decent fodder to encourage you to explore and then that's where you hide them? Well good job, I never wanted to talk to any of these morons at all so very well hidden, sigh. But even worse are the little sidequests you need to take which give you a paltry sum of money with only like three cases giving you something useful. These tasks aren't horrible but just uninteresting often involving little more than doing a fetch quest. What is galling again is much of these won't show up till you talk to npcs several times so they can just be easy to miss since no one has anything interesting to say. Its just plain clunky and annoying to engage with how you can't just go and do something when someone gives you a request instead requiring you to go to a save point first and then accepting the job, turning it it and then going BACK to a save point to finish the whole thing; just extra steps for the sake of it. The absolute worst of these is a pair of nurses who ask you to do the same thing 3 separate times each. Again you have no idea that you need to alternate between these two and they keep sending you to one of the most annoying areas to run around in on top of it but you'll want to do it since its finally get you your 3rd or 4th subtank. Freaking hell. Either way this was all done so clumsily and I'm not sure if they saw what Castlevania was doing at the time and thought it'd be easy to implement or just figured people were gonna play a Megaman game like a jrpg just because they put NPCs in it or what but as it stands the entire game would have been better if you just cut all of this out and left is like the Zero series with a hub you use to travel to levels. Its a bummer, every time I started to warm up to the game I'd smack right into something I really didn't like. Now sure you don't have to engage with the side stuff but the final area is tough to do without all upgrades as the game is pretty damn tough even on normal. The nonsensical world layout just really drags the game down big time as having to reference a map every couple seconds in what is supposed to be a fast paced Megaman title is a special kind of whiplash that stuck in my craw really bad. I can't hate the game though, when I was liking the game I was really liking it mainly when it was just plain remembering to be a Megaman game rather than a half hearted attempt at Metroid or Castlevania. It could have been MUCH much worse but I can't shake the feeling they just thought slapping a bunch of Megaman levels together and calling it good is all that they needed and I'm afraid that's just not the case partner. In the least though most of these issues don't go so far as to be really frustrating or anything and hell if you put a gun to my head and made me pick replaying this or any of the Zero games I would go with this (No ranking system in sight, praise be!) but it still just doesn't do much for me. As an action platformer its still a cut above many but in the shadow of the series legacy though? I just think its merely okay. Rating-6 Welp, one more and I think I'll finally throw in the towel and call this insane little marathon done. Couldn't get myself to continue with ZX Advent on the Switch collection so I'm interested to see if they managed to figure things out more or veer closer to the series roots. I heard decent word of mouth for it before but I'm still tempering expectations.
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Jun 28, 2024 9:53:45 GMT -5
Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster (Switch, First time for remaster, replay for FFVI in general)
My marathon of the Pixel Remaster finally ends! I'm a prettty big FFVI fan and I still remember being stunned watching the opening credits to the game on a snowy Christmas morning. This took a lot longer than I thought it would. My last two playthroughs of the game were sabotaged (long story) so it was nice to finally see this one through. There's SO much to talk about with FFVI that I don't really know where to start. Playing the game growing up, I played the game in the most boring way possible - expoliting the Vanish+Doom strategy or just giving everyone Ultima and letting that burn through everything. I tried to play with a bit more restraint this time, not abusing any glitches and leaving Ragnarok as a sword. Nor did I overly powerlevel and load up every character with every spell like I normally do. As a result, the game was a good deal more challenging and satisfying! I actually did not know the only way to raise character permanently stats was through esper upgrades so that triggered the min/maxing side of my brain a bit though. It still dragged a bit for me midgame - the later parts of the WoB and the first part of the WoR are low points but it really picks up at the end. Storming Kefka's tower with 3 parties and being able to use every character and resource to their full extent is extremely satisfying.
The Pixel Remaster is a bit of a mixed bag. I actually paid attention to the credits this time and finally realized that these were all made by TOSE...which explains quite a bit about this line of remasters. It suffers from many of the issues the other games do. Chuggy performance, slow/odd animations in places are pretty annoying and strip the game of some of it's personality. I also don't like a lot of the new spell animations. On the plus side, all the art does look pretty good and so the arranged music keeps things simple, to it's benefit. I think it used the Advance translation as a base for the script, which is pretty good and keeps a lot of the more memorable Woolsley lines, though I miss Kefka's "I'm going to create a monument to non-existence!" line. They also completely redid the opera scene with a quasi 3D view kind of like you see in Octopath Traveler, which was unexpected and nice to see they put in the effort. There's numerous small glitch fixes and rebalancing - too many to really talk about but they did change Cyan so you just select his Bushido technique from a menu and he THEN waits before using it. It makes him much more useful though he's surpassed by the magic users.
FFVI really represents the SNES RPG at it's height and the original came out at a time whne the system was firing on all cylinders. It's a huge game, has a memorable ensemble cast, one of the best villains and soundtracks of the series, it's fairly open ended for the genre and looks freaking great. As I mentioned I got a little bored mid-game but the start and finish of the game are so strong, it's hard for me to give this anything other than a 10/10.
I picked up FFVII on sale recently and am considering starting that next though I am feeling a bit of FF burnout at this point...
|
|
|
Post by Digitalnametag on Jun 30, 2024 8:51:31 GMT -5
Rune Factory 3 Special NS FTP 28 hours
Finishing Silent Hope lit a fire in me for some Rune Factory. It has taken me a few games but I am now firmly a fan of this series. The mechanics here are a bit simpler than the fourth and fifth games but overall progression is the same. Clear a dungeon, level skills through farming and crafting all while interacting with townsfolk, and then clear another dungeon. I like that marriage is tied to the story in this one so to progress you need to pick a spouse. I went with Karina. The game wraps up well after the final dungeon but there are a couple bonus events after. Not much to do otherwise unlike 4 & 5 but I consider 3's relative brevity a strength.
The series does seem on the cusp of greatness. If the quick equip menu was just a bit better (radial rings would be nice...) and you could equip farm tools and weapons separately without having to constantly switch between them the game play would be smoother. I cannot tell you how many times I went to pick something up or equip an item and did something unintended. Oops, didn't mean to eat that. Or throw that. There are so many mechanics that are neat but unnecessary to ever interact with to finish the game. NPC and monster party members, potion crafting, weapon skills, and the magic seeds (outside the lilypad) can mostly be ignored. I didn't bother to raise cooking beyond the mid-30s as most dishes heal off percentages anyway so just make a bunch of cheap stuff. It's cool that this stuff is there but I wish the game gave you more incentive to use it.
Still I had a blast playing this one. I'm tempted to restart Rune Factory 4 Special. 3 really clicked an appreciation for the series on for me. It filled that breezily paced crafting game fix I needed for a year without a new console Atelier title.
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Jun 30, 2024 8:54:09 GMT -5
Mega Man in Dr. Wily's Revenge (Game Boy with NSO, Replay)
Got to work on the recently added Mega Man Game Boy quintology! Dr. Wily's Revenge makes a fairly good attempt to translating Mega Man to the small screen, keeping the characters at a similar size despite a much smaller playing field. The robot masters are reused and the levels are completely redesigned and they throw in a few new gimmicks. But it's slow as molasses and it's very The Game Boy renditions of the NES songs are very well done and the new music. I also like how each of the GB games has a new non-standard Robot Master henchman for Wily. Without the novelty of playing portable MM for the first time, this is completely average, maybe even a bit below average. 5/10.
Mega Man II (Game Boy with NSO, First Time)
This one is famous for being a bit of a mess, being handled by a different developer than the other GB games. In particular, many of the sprites are oddly drawn, the music is all new but sounds shrill and terrible, and the newly introduced villain is an...evil Mega Man from the future who rides a pogo stick. Huh? I don't think it's quite as bad as people say it is. I would say it even plays a bit better than DWR. It's kind of fun being able to use Rush and the slide in Mega Man 2 environments. It evens out to a 5/10.
Mega Man III (Game Boy with NSO, Replay)
This is the only game in this series I owned as a kid. It feels like they finally figured things out there as it looks and sounds great. The Mega Man 3 stage themes in particular sound amazing on this hardware. It gets irritatingly difficult in the second half of the game - it loves throwing jumps at you that you have to have perfect timing lest you bump your head on the ceiling and fall right into a pit. Plus the Wily Machine is gigantic and a tall task without a full complement of E-tanks. Unfortuantely also there's just nothing really interesting about the game. The previous two ones had some weirdness about them which helps them stand out. This one is completely competent and sort of boring for it. 6/10.
|
|
|
Post by personman on Jun 30, 2024 22:06:05 GMT -5
Paper Mario Thousand Year Door (Switch, 82 hours (whew), first time) Well, its been a bit since I went through the first Paper Mario, I wanted to get into the whole series proper after the weird stuff I heard about Super and all the golden praise for this one, which is funny since I thought the game was received kinda poorly thanks to the Game Informer review. More I look back I see that magazine was a mass collection of bad takes I swear. Anyways as I've listened to the discourse over the series I got the impression this is one of those games where a serie's fanbase just can't get over this one, every single thing has to be compared to it and they will accept no substitutes. To be frank that is something I've always been annoyed with and it compels me to try out everything BUT that game just to be a spiteful jerk but I ended up liking the first game enough that I couldn't resist and the new re-release just seals the deal for me. Having gone through it now I can see why the fanbase is so put out with with the wild direction the series went after this since what they had here really was excellent. The first game's battle system and level design was already pretty great this just upped the ante and opened it up even more. The party you assemble is more versatile than I recall of the first's, the bosses switch things up just enough to be interesting and the dungeons are the same action platformer blend the first game had just, more. Honestly the games are similar enough I can't really think of a whole ton to say besides anything that can already said about the first one, its just that but better for the most part. Only thing I can point out that really seems like a flaw is BP is still pretty much the only stat worth building even more so now that its no longer capped at 30 which will let you hilariously break the game into a million pieces if you want to. If you can retrain yourself though things are tougher than I remember the first game being but plenty comfortable. The final boss was no joke and I pretty much crawled past by the skin of my teeth and frankly that was awesome lol. Other than that the whole crowd/stage mechanic seems like its going to play more into things and it has some influence but mostly serves as window dressing which is fine, maybe if you did an under leveled run and need to lean on star power more they would matter more. The side game got fleshed out a bit too even if the majority of them are still just simple fetch quests. It does occasionally produce some hilarity though. And that's about the extent of what I can come up for with the gameplay, its just plain good solid stuff with a puzzley battle system that stands out as its own thing (far as I know) and that's a damn good feather to have in your cap in this genre. Of course if you know this series then you understand the gameplay is only half of the equation as one of its biggest claims to fame being its charming as heck. The first game was plenty charming too but only really flirted with breaking out of the Mario mythos mold. It also has some chapters that where rather dry and dull like the area all about flowers or whatever. This time around they went for the damn jugular and produced like THE most un-Mario like script I've ever seen thanks to an excellent localization that is very of its time in ways that make me smile. It may not sound like a good thing it seriously reminded me of all those terrible sprite comics I would read in high school, it just has a similar snarky tone but is you know, good. Just about all the chapters are fun and have great themes with the only low points being chapters 6 and 7. The former banks everything on some kind mystery thing aboard a train and just doesn't quite manage what its going for but is brief enough to not be a bother. The later just throws you into a massive amount of backtracking which just screamed 'we have to pad this run time!' which if it wasn't for that new pipe in Rogueport square leading straight to the warp room definitely would have been a drag. I liked chapter 4 the best, that place is simply my kind of vibe and the forest segments with the moon in the background looked awesome. Chapter 2 is a real close runner up with the prettiest area in the game and a BGM that sounds like they stole from Okami. The whole damn game is just loaded with character, and characters! Like you had a couple people in the first game that stood out in you party like Bow maybe but here I loved each and every one of these dorks and wish more of them would participate in the cutscenes. I want to hear these guys banter with each other and hear them shoot the shit! Even a ton of the NPCs are super loveable and I just plain liked seeing the simple designs of old Mario characters taken and pushed to an extreme. Its a real art to try and keep on model with an established design and brand but add flair to it without it getting messed up and whoever was on duty for character art just hit it out of the park with this one. If I was back into collecting stuff I would want figures and plushies of all these dorks. Then of course there are the improvements the re-release brings I can only saw so much as the entire thing is new to me but at a glance it looks like a nice upgrade to me. Environments are much more detailed and have lighting which I'm looking at screen shots now and the original really looks flat. Which I can see the argument for some that all the glossiness and stuff in the new version gets away from the spirit of the series but eh, I like it all myself chapter 2 in particular looks (and sounds) so nice! I can also see some taking issue with the new soundtrack as it can seem a little over scored at times if your used to the original I bet. There is a badge to toggle between the two and I personally like the energy of the new tracks finding the old ones a little too subdued but who knows if I'd feel that way if I played it back in '04. There are a bunch of changes like QoL stuff and I'm sure some balancing too I'm not really aware of, like the aforementioned pipe to the warps. In any case seems like a great package to me and does the original justice, sure I saw the frames dip like here and there when a bunch of NPCs were in a cutscene but that's about it. Never been a 60 fps hound anyways and its a damn turn based RPG neither should you lol. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Again I guess I can understand why people are so bitter about this being the last of its kind cause I already want more of this now lol. Fortunately there are a couple indies I have come across trying to take matters into their own hands so maybe that wish will come to pass eventually. Nonetheless it still annoys me anytime this series comes up everyone just cries about the rest of the entries not being this again which just makes me want to play the other games out of spite and curiosity lol. In fact I have Super Paper Mario ready to go on my Wii U and I think I'm gonna fire it up a bit before bed tonight. Anyways this was fantastic and I'm really happy I finally got around to trying this as it deserves its praise. Probably my fav JRPG I've played in a long while. Rating-9
|
|
|
Post by JoeQ on Jul 1, 2024 5:28:01 GMT -5
Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (PC/DOS) - First playthrough, Time: 10h 28min (GOG timer), Rating: 3/5A good licensed game trapped in a clunky adventure game and awful space combat game. Based on the original Star Trek series, 25th Anniversary very faithfully replicates the look and feel of that series. It comprises of a "season" of standalone missions/episodes, where you are given a mission from Starfleet and must proceed to a star system to solve it. Typically this involves a bit of (awful) space combat, before you as Captain Kirk and his team (including a sacrificial red shirt) beam down to location for a bit of old fashioned point n click adventuring. The adventure game segments are easily the best part here, offering some nice puzzles and often having several alternate solutions to puzzles and mission outcomes depending on your choices. On the downside the UI is very clunky even compared to the game's contemporaries and there's a few annoying spots of pixel hunting. At the end of mission you get evaluated based on your conduct and then it's off to the next one. I beat the game with overall evaluation score of 71%. I blame Harry Mudd, his episode was easily the worst and dragged down my performance. Alphabet Challenge: ABCFNPST
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jul 1, 2024 7:06:53 GMT -5
Here are the current rankings:
Total Game Completions:
dsparil - 55 Apollo Chungus - 50 personman - 41 Woody Alien - 34 spanky - 23 JoeQ - 14 Digitalnametag - 11 excelsior - 6 alexmate - 3 Snake - 2 lurker - 1
First Time Game Completions:
dsparil - 48 Apollo Chungus - 36 Woody Alien - 29 personman - 13 JoeQ - 12 spanky - 12 Digitalnametag - 7 excelsior - 6 alexmate - 3 Snake - 2 lurker - 1
Total Time Spent (Reference Only):
dsparil - 385h Apollo Chungus - 265h 30m Digitalnametag - 253h 30m personman - 220h 30m spanky - 180h 30m JoeQ - 145h 30m Woody Alien - 121h 15m excelsior - 60h Snake - 19h alexmate - 10h 30m lurker - 1h 30m
First Play Time (Reference Only):
dsparil - 319h 30m Digitalnametag - 203h 30m Apollo Chungus - 186h 30m JoeQ - 129h spanky - 116h Woody Alien - 112h 30m personman - 101h excelsior - 60h Snake - 19h alexmate - 10h 30m lurker - 1h 30m
Total Time Spent (Timer + Estimated + Reference):
JoeQ - 474h 59m 36s (457h 29m 36s/0s/17h 30m) dsparil - 400h 12m (76h 42m/261h/62h 30m) Digitalnametag - 312h (0s/308h 30m/3h 30m) personman - 299h 10m (40m/187h/111h 30m) Apollo Chungus - 239h 6m (88h 40m/8h 56m/141h 30m) spanky - 180h 30m (0s/0s/180h 30m) Woody Alien - 114h 46m 27s (24h 16m 27s/90h 30m/0s) excelsior - 58h 10m (0s/14h 40m/43h 30m) Snake - 10h 33m (0s/10h 33m/0s) alexmate - 8h 49m (8h 49m/0s/0s) lurker - 1h 30m (0s/0s/1h 30m)
First Play Time (Timer + Estimated + Reference):
JoeQ - 414h 14m (396h 44m/0s/17h 30m) dsparil - 344h 25m 25s (60h 55m 25s/221h/62h 30m) Digitalnametag - 255h 30m (0s/255h 30m/0s) Apollo Chungus - 168h 40m (64h 24m/6h 46m/97h 30m) personman - 153h 10m (40m/113h/39h 30m) spanky - 116h (0s/0s/116h) Woody Alien - 105h 1m 27s (24h 16m 27s/80h 45m/0s) excelsior - 58h 10m (0s/14h 40m/43h 30m) Snake - 10h 33m (0s/10h 33m/0s) alexmate - 8h 49m (8h 49m/0s/0s) lurker - 1h 30m (0s/0s/1h 30m)
|
|
|
Post by Digitalnametag on Jul 1, 2024 20:38:58 GMT -5
Paper Mario Thousand Year Door (Switch, 82 hours (whew), first time) Glad you enjoyed it! 82 hours is, uh, impressive. Did you collect every badge or something? Super Paper Mario is a good one too! A lot of us were disappointed by the switch to action game from turn-based RPG, but if I remember correctly the writing keeps a lot of that TTYD flair. The action based game-play is decent fun too. Really the only Paper Mario game most people suggest ignoring now is the 3DS Sticker Star. I recommend Bug Fables too if you decide to look into more indie stuff. It's not quite as good as TTYD though still a good deal of fun.
|
|
|
Post by personman on Jul 2, 2024 0:46:01 GMT -5
I believe I got over 80 percent of them and did put a fair amount of time into combing for items with Ms. Mowz during chapter 7 so I'm guessing thats where a good chunk of it came from. Did a bunch of going back and forth to combine stuff with Zess T too cause what can I say? I like making food in games lol.
I'm also just a slow ass old man. Should probably change my avatar to Koopa Koot or something.
|
|
|
Post by Woody Alien 2 on Jul 3, 2024 8:00:35 GMT -5
A short game bought during the current Steam sales and two freebies.
Witchcrafty (Steam, first time, timer says 4 hours)
Platformer starring a cute witch and represented as a fairy tale book. It is sold as a metroidvania but the MV elements are almost negligible, though I recommend going back to find the hidden health shards because it becomes kind of annoying halfway through. Pixelated graphics and the soundtrack are quite good, but the rest feels either incomplete or an afterthought. I havent found as many bugs as some reviews state, but still there's some problems like not being able to understand what hurts you or when the bosses can be damaged, save points being badly placed, lack of variety in enemies, dialogues feeling awkward and stilted (game is originally Russian) and other stuff that makes it just an average/"mid" game that shouldn't be bought at full price. Also some clever ideas regarding our (barely useful) magic spells are used only once in the middle of boring "precision" platforming. And bizarrely there's achievement for the most useless stuff, like speaking to characters at the beginning of the adventure or entering new stages, but not for defeating some of the bosses! 6/10
MELLOWOLLEM (Steam, first time, timer says 23 minutes)
This palindrome title is from a Japanese dev named "Lu" seemingly specialized in short titles starring furry or humanoid characters. I have another cheap one in the backlog, named "I wish it was morning all the time", but i have yet to play it. This one is a first-person adventure where we talk with a thicc canine girl in low-poly vaporwave-esque summery sceneries and have to pick up stuff or otherwise do some other extremely simple mini-games. Turns out she's in a coma and we're traveling inside her subconscious or something like that. Kind of pointless and not really interesting, and the movement is kind of clunky. For a Steam free adventure is not bad, given the amount of shovelware and other crap, but it's not good either. 5/10
Resonance of the Ocean (Steam, first time, around half an hour)
Top-down puzzle adventure where we have to pick up objects in a dilapidated but Ghibli-esque tiny island and combine them to produce various sounds, and try to match them with the sounds made by someone else over the horizon. Game teases a lot of things with strange symbols, glimpses of the life "before" whatewer happened, but ultimately nothing is explained and it boils down to an extremely simple point and click adventure. Really cute graphics, soundtrack and general style, but there's almost no substance. But it's free so what can I do about it? 5/10
|
|