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cerastes · 2 months

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As someone who hasn't touched it yet- how does IS4 stack up? How's first impressions been?

Ok, let me give my thoughts on IS4, now that it's been a week!

TL;DR -> This Rocks, I love it.

IS4 is far, far more polished than IS3. I feel a bit bad blasting and slamming IS3 so much, but the bottom line with it is that it's just very very flawed in ways that really make it hard to revisit it in the same way IS2 is always a fun romp.

If I had to point out flaws with IS4, it'd be that, on a personal level, I wish it had a few more Normal Arknights Maps. The vast majority of maps in IS4 are pranks and checks of some sort. This isn't necessarily a negative, but I do like playing some Tower Defense more frequently than what IS4 allows, since it's always got me worried about "oh god my team lacks X, Floor Y's Map Z checks X, if I get it, I'll D I E " so I try to go for my super tried and true team instead of daring to experiment all that much. This will eventually pass, but it's been a Thing for me.

Besides that, though? I just have a lot of good things to say about it. The systems feel like they were thought out this time: The Fordartals (sp?) system allows for a lot of player expression, agency, and just in general fun in a way the Light system of IS3 can simply never hope to compare to. About the only thing the Light system did right was the way it worked thematically: If you wish to confront The Corrupting Heart, you really, really gotta go in the dark, and for the best possible chance against, Izumik, Mizuki must find the Light again and be filled with hope. Yeah ok sure, thematically, these work, but the gameplay component sucks ass, because Light exists almost exclusively as a form of punishment and in basically no way as something you can use. It opens some roads, sure, but that Rogue Trader and Wish Fulfilled node are not worth having 9 out of you 11 Operators with Metastatic. Speaking of Metastatic, the single worst thing Arknights has done, even if you are maxed out on Collapse in IS4 and are packing four fully upgraded maluses, THAT STILL DOESN'T COMPARE to how bad Metastatic was. Let that sink in.

The endings are no longer RNG! Absolutely wonderful!

Eik is the first IS 2nd Boss I can say I think is good! Frozen Monstrosity was just annoying, Big Sad Lock is incredibly static, and The Last Knight, in my opinion, is the single worst and most boring boss in the entire game, not even just the game mode. Eik is like if The Last Knight didn't suck: Same principle, but done in a way that is actually not snooze-inducing. Mind you, the principle of the fight is still not something I enjoy, but unlike The Last Knight, that's wholly a me thing, as opposed to being an objectively awful and boring fight (like The Last Knight, the worst and most boring boss in Arknights).

Even though I said I'd like some more normal maps, the maps are good, to be honest! I can't think of any Fire and Water Unions or Out of Controls.

IS4 is the Smash of Arknights: (Almost) Everyone Is Here! Brush up on your gimmicks from various events, because they WILL appear.

The Midboss philosophy in IS4 is lovely, in my opinion: It's low HP bosses who can quickly fuck you up in their own way, be it stun, immense conditional damage, or simply supporting their team so well that you get overwhelmed. The Variant stages for the bosses are entire new maps, so that's also cool.

Collapsal enemies are congruent with the map design: Collapsals can be very quick, with a caveat: Normal Collapsal mobs speed up after they get hit, Casters speed up after not attacking for a bit, Aerials are fast but always have many loops and never directly go to the point until after a while. Shattered Champions are the exception, and they can either loop a while or just go straight for the jugular, making them apt Elite units for the faction.

There's much more I could say more concisely, but really, just try the game mode, get your ass kicked a bit, learn it, and then you'll see how coherent the design of IS4 is in terms of systems, maps, enemies, and features. Sorry, IS3, but you got your ass absolutely kicked like I did on my Waves 15 runs when you'd give my 2 main DPS units Metastatic on Floor 5.

#arknights #bricelar

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shuttershocky · 6 months

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Hey Shutters, what do you think they'll end up going for regarding a 6* arts defender + that subclass' modules? And also what would *you* do?

I think that a 6* Arts Defender has the potential to be the next Horn. I think Hypergryph know it too, which is why this very old archetype has hung around all this time getting 5 stars but never a 6 star when even the damn Sentinels got their 6 star in Jessica (and Sentinels weren't even a real archetype for ages, they used to be classed as regular Protectors).

In fact, I know HG are timid about touching Arts Defenders because Viviana was our first Arts Guard in 2 years since Surtr, and they made her play like a Defender instead with her shield generation and damage reduction against elites and bosses, trying to play as a DPS tank.

Being a Defender means your stats are good. Being an Arts Protector means you have access to Arts damage on skills. Being a 6 Star means people expect you to be much, much stronger than the rest in your class, when Shalem does 2,262 single target arts DPS and has a 25% RES reduction talent and Asbestos has AOE with a range extension and Czerny has a +100% Max HP skill.

Right now, Arts Defenders are mostly relegated to niche clears and for people who simply like their characters. Their skills tend to be weird (Shalem kills himself, Czerny needs to get hit a lot, etc) to balance out how powerful the concept of combining Defenders with damage is (which goes for the others too: Juggernauts can't be healed, Duelists only block 1, etc). A 6 star Arts protector either won't be shackled by these same constraints, or will have numbers high enough to be worth the janky mechanics.

If I were to make my own 6* Arts Protector, I think mixing some of the funnest ideas from Czerny, Shalem, and Asbestos could make for a really fun operator. And because this is HG and they cannot hide from me that they take inspiration from Dota 2 skill designs, I'm also going to partially base it on a certain Dota hero, Abbadon.

I'm thinking something like:

Talent 1: +5 RES. This unit takes 5/10/15% of damage taken by allies in the 8 surrounding tiles into itself instead.

Talent 2: Every time this unit loses 10% of Max HP, attacks an enemy within range for 100% of ATK + 10% of Max HP as Arts damage.

Skill 1: SP/s recovery. When this skill is activated, +100 ASPD +50% Max HP +100% RES. This unit loses 5% max HP every attack.

Skill 2: ATK recovery. When skill is activated, range expands, all allies attacking the enemy this unit is attacking receives + ASPD. Enemies hit by this unit take -ASPD and are silenced. Each enemy killed when this skill effect is on them increases this unit's ATK by 4%.

Skill 3. Defensive Recovery. When this skill is activated, +250% ATK, +350% Max HP, +100% DEF. Healing effectiveness + 80%. Attacks change to AOE, but stops attacking (can only attack via Talent 2). Talent 1 effect x3 (+15 RES and takes 45% of ally damage into itself instead) and range expands. Talent 2 range expands to Global.

____

It sounds a bit silly but can you really tell me I'm going overboard when HG crammed everything into Hoederer's S3 to make him viable? I for one think the niche of a unit that takes damage for other units is still unexplored beyond Skadi the Corrupting Heart's S1, but I also think it will be extremely funny and unique if we have a Defender that just stops attacking and instead takes damage for all of its allies, but retaliates by shooting AOE arts blasts all around the map every time it takes 10% of HP as damage, sort of like Czerny's S2 combined with Asbestos' S2.

You'll obviously need a healsquad for this guy but I think it sounds funny and usable in niches without being a too straightforward Arts DPS unit.

___

#Arknights

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dumbfinntales · 7 months

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I finished Lords of the Fallen and boy was my experience mixed. There's some good in there, but this is one of those rare cases where the bad outweight the good. At least in my opinion. My enjoyment was like a rollercoaster going up and down, and there was even a moment where I considered the game a "flawed gem", much like Dragons Dogma for example. But then I kept playing, and yeah. More below.

Lets get this out of the way: at the very least this new version of Loft is better than the original by miles. The original Loft was so janky and generic that it was a truly forgettable experience. It's honestly not a high par to pass, but the new Loft did it. They made the world so much more intricate and interesting and the Rhogar feel a little more than just generic demons. The setting is fantastic and I found the world truly interesting, plus the atmosphere was on point. The game also visually looks gorgeous thanks to Unreal Engine 5.

The combat was very simple, reminded me of Dark Souls 1 and honestly I've been wanting a more slow paced souls game. The magic system in the game was really cool and there's plenty of variety when it comes to picking your build. I went the pure umbral route and it was fun. I also gotta give this game some props for the ammo system. If you decide to not use any magic or even ranged weapons you can still throw around grenades and bombs. They're not one time use like in the souls game and instead consume an ammo bar. In souls games you don't really feel like using those bombs, especially in bosses because if you die after using 10 bombs they're gone forever.

I found most enemy/boss/armor designs really cool. Like seriously the drip in this game is immaculate. That on top of the ability to recolor your gear makes Loft one of the best souls games when it comes to fashion and making your character look unique.

Boss design in general was fine. Not too difficult, but fun. Once again really reminded me of DS1 where once you figure a boss out they're not that hard. There are a couple stand out bosses in the game, and a couple genuine turds. One boss is a gimmick fight where you fight hordes of enemies and do a bunch of waiting around. And the games final boss is a dumb gimmick as well. Congratulations Loft, you managed to make Demon's Souls' final boss look good. That's a feat and a half!

But that's really where my praise ends. The game is absolutely muddled with the strangest design decisions that I can't wrap my head around. Like when you find new items they don't display what is new and what is old, so every time I found a new sword I had to look through my bag and try to guess what it was. Same with important items. In the midst of hectic encounters you just miss what you get. I once found a key and I had no idea where I got it.

Enemies are everywhere. It's gank city absolutely everywhere you go. Regular enemies, ranged enemies and elite enemies out the ass. Large majority of "bosses" you encounter turn into regular enemies. I can't even begin to describe the level of frustration I felt with the game when they just kept throwing more and more enemies at you all the while making the space between checkpoints longer and longer. Ranged enemies also have a ridiculous aggro range and of course everything does a shit ton of damage.

You can't even deal with the enemies one by one, because for some reason if you hit one enemy all the other enemies in 10 mile radius aggro on you as well so you're always grossly outnumbered. There was a bit in the game where they threw 3 mini bosses at you at once and you couldn't deal with them 1 by 1 because if you hit one of them they all aggro. Not to mention those constantly respawning assholes in umbral. Oh yeah, umbral. It's a neat idea as a mechanic, but got quite dull towards the end of the game. I wish there was more to umbral than a few traversal puzzles and a few side rooms you can explore.

The level design is also so odd. Every level is like a maze that looks the same. I'm usually really good at mapping out games in my mind, but I can't fully do it for this game. The swamp level at the beginning of the game is one good example of having so much shit in it. I honestly don't know if this is a bad thing or not. There are unique and beautiful vistas in the game, but also some really boring and samey ones. Some shortcuts as well didn't feel like they made sense to me. Sometimes I'd open a shortcut to somewher useless, or there was a shortcut back to the lamp behind a corner like I'm not saving any time using this?

The most frustrating thing about Loft is that underneath all the crust, the annoying encounter design and untapped potential is a decent game. I love the setting and atmosphere, the lore, the fashion, some of the bosses. It could have been so much more, but in the end my first playthrough was filled with frustration. No other game has pissed me off quite as much as Loft did. I was so frustrated with the game towards the end that I just kep summoning for bosses because I wanted to be done with it all. In the end Loft is a disappointing experience.

#a review type of deal #lords of the fallen

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belliesandburps · 3 years

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Followup with MGS4 Peace Walker and 5?

History has a funny way of repeating itself. :P

This one's actually gonna be long, so I'll cap it here to spare those uninterested in non-kink posts the burden of having to scroll past this fanboy rant. 'XD

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

3. It's Okay

Soooooo...not a controversial opinion to say that I don't think MGS4 is GREAT. I adored it when it first game out, and I still enjoy replaying it from time to time. But good lord, so many of the interviews shed light on a LOT of this games problems.

Some backstory is required. Hideo Kojima was done with MGS by this point. He planned to move on and leave the series to the younger generation. But then, there was a lot of internal conflict and struggle to determine what MGS4 should be after Fukushima quit (AND was rumored to have been murdered by the Yakuza...how that rumor started...and became a SERIOUS rumor that millions believe, I do not know...). So Kojima came back, course corrected, and the end result was kind of a giant mess.

I'm not talking story because, there's just way too much to unpack. But as a game, MGS4 can't decide what sort of video game it wants to be. It had a brilliant idea that had never been done before with its Battlefield Stealth, which were the best parts of the game. And then they get dropped two acts in, and what gets replaced in their stead is not nearly as fun.

The game had substantially less boss fights than its predecessor, and a lot of them were mechanically simplistic or just didn't let you get creative with how you fought them. And we later learned there were a lot more bosses planned, more gameplay sequences planned, and an entire other PMC group that got canned in favor of the Scarabs so Shadow Moses could be guarded by machines instead.

There's a lot about MGS4 that I love. I think the first two acts are amazing, ESPECIALLY Act 2. I think the mechanics are great. REX vs RAY is criminally fun. The sheer buffet of insane weapons gives the game a good amount of replay value. And the graphics still hold up to this day!

But what I finally realized is that the game juggles way too many ideas and doesn't give any idea the time they deserve to flourish. Battlefield Stealth could've CARRIED MGS4. But it gets dumped before we can get our moneys worth. A disguise sequence could've been really creative, having to juggle different identities with OctoMask every time one identity is burned. But it's only used once and wasted because it's only used for a terrible tailing mission that doesn't let you actually explore the European City. And too many of the action set pieces are kind of bland except the bosses and piloting Metal Gear.

MGS4 should've been MGS4. Not MGS's "Best Hits."

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

1. LOVED it!

I know this is unpopular to say, but I'll say it. Peace Walker is one of the best Metal Gear games ever made. I adored almost everything about it. The gameplay improves on MGS4 in most ways because it doesn't juggle a billion ideas all at once. It's MGS4 stripped down to stealth action from start to finish, and that's all I wanted. The level design is great. The insane volume of guns changes the entire feel of combat in later post-campaign gameplay. The mission select options mean you can jump into all the parts of the game you enjoy the most. There's TONS of bonus missions that are really inventive and fun to replay. And the story is one of the best in the series. It's straight forward, very tight, characterized well, and is the best iteration of Big Boss to date.

Peace Walker's also the FUNNIEST MGS game by Kojima as well. There's so much more personality and levity to everything, to the point where Big Boss often feels like an MCU character. That might sound bad, but it's really not. That corniness fits MGS PERFECTLY, and I'd argue is tonally spot on for this series. MGS doesn't need to be dark, gory or explicit. It's a silly series that's about giant robots, corny bad ass super agents with an anti-nuke message.

The only downsides to Peace Walker are the QTE's and the boss fights. This was a feature that only ever appeared in this game and for good reason...it was fucking terrible. So basically, you had cutscenes that forced you to do various QTE's or else get dinged on your ratings at the end, even if you played perfectly. Fairly minimal, but then, you get to Strangelove's torture. And this is the single most rage-inducing part of any MGS game ever made. It's an insanely physically painful button mashing sequence that will leave your fingers raw and your PS3 triangle buttons jamming. And the ONLY way you can replay one of the best missions in the game (the prison escape where you have no items) is by redoing that sequence over and over. And the boss fights? While inventive, they're all just grindy bullet sponges with no personality, no stealth tactics, and no room for creativity the way you can get creative with every other MGS game's bosses. This was the biggest disappointment for me because the stealth and combat mechanics of PW are great and would've been SO good against human enemies like what Portable Ops had. Instead, every boss is a mini-Metal Gear all voiced by the VOCALOID AI from the mid 2000's, and each one takes forever to destroy. It sucks because PW had a TON of bosses, but only a few of them are any fun, and that's only if you have weapons that are strong enough that they don't take ages to destroy.

But asides from the bosses, the REST of the game is so damn good that I don't even care because that's just one element to a much larger, grander game. Which is even more impressive when you consider PW was originally on the PSP before the PS3 port. And this game has more content and replay value to it than most games I've played since.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

1. LOVED it!

Hooooooookay...so, I've rambled about my storybook romance with MGSV for YEARS now. (Just ask @twistedtummies2, he's been subjected to my fanboying of this game more than anyone in existence XD) But there's a reason I regard this game as one of my all time favorites and the best MGS game to date.

It's REALLY freakin' fun.

Kojima had been re-energized by the time he got to MGSV. He'd been working on the game around the time he finished Peace Walker in 2010. He KNEW it was his final MGS game and wanted to do something completely different...

...He wanted to make a game where the central focus was on...waaaaait for it...the gameplay...

MGSV was designed to be, what he described, as a toybox. You have these missions that all take place in structurally unique outposts like any level in MGS. And the missions are designed with the structure needed so that they all feel different, but all remain so open ended that you can play them countless different ways.

MGSV's game model is everything GTA SHOULD'VE been. It fully embraces the open world freedom and incorporates that into the missions flawlessly. And it plays in such a way that stealth and combat both feel like they were the primary point. In MGS, combat is usually a last resort. But with MGSV, you can fly into an outpost blasting away on your helicopters mini-gun, shoot up the bad guys, rescue your target, throw them back into the chopper and fly away while "The Final Countdown" blares on your choppers loud speakers.

Every method of gameplay is valid and the controls, the enemy AI responsiveness, it's all, bar none, the best I've experienced in ANY video game. Sneaking around feels tight and tense and combat makes you feel like Jack Bauer on adrenaline. (I mean, he IS the voice of Venom Snake)

And I really like the story for the most part too. Its weaknesses are really glaring. Namely, the "Fun" of MGS is completely devoid in the story (which is really odd since it's FRONT AND CENTER in-game). Venom Snake only has maybe six minutes of dialogue in the entirety of this 30+ hour long game. And the way Skull Face gets completely undercut right at the home stretch is something I have NOT stopped bitching about for almost six years, and my friends can personally attest to that.

That and the ending feels too abrupt.

We know that Kojima got fired by Konami's VP and said VP scorched the entire production company after that and made a series of dickheaded decisions that pissed off a LOT of fans, burning much of the good will Konami IP fans had towards the company. But that had nothing to do with MGSV's abruptness. That was the plan from the start because only Kojima would think to end the entire series on a plot twist like that.

And I think the issue isn't the twist at all. In fact, I LOVE the twist. The issue is that the game should've continued beyond it so Venom Snake could cope with the truth and realize how badly he'd been screwed. I think even people who hated the twist could've been won over if there was a little more to the games epilogue than Episode 46.

Also, the games boss fights were a tad underwhelming. Not the fights themselves, I LOVED all five of the games bosses.

Oh? There were twelve?

No. I meant what I said. Because so many of the games bosses are rematches against the same bosses. All MGSV has is the Skulls, Quiet, Eli, The Man on Fire, and Metal Gear. They're great bosses that do everything the best MGS bosses always did; give you tons of options, incorporate combat AND stealth, have varied attacks AND even have multiple methods to sneak around the boss and avoid the fight completely. But for a game as long as MGS, you need more variety. And frankly, the bosses NEED more personality. Skull Face should've had more XOF assassins acting as the bosses in the game along with the ones we have. Elite assassins like Quiet, with their own powers and specialized weaponry so the fights feel completely different from the ones we have. And oh yeah, SKULL FACE HIMSELF SHOULD'VE HAD A GOD-FUCKING-DAMN BOSS FIGHT!!!!

Buuuuuuut those issues don't even matter if for all the games issues, I still replay it frequently when it's almost six years old.

So yeah! There's the massive rant you totally didn't ask for! :D

#ask belliesandburps #mgs4 #mgsv #peace walker #metal gear #metal gear solid #seriously #i'm very very VERY bitter about how Kojima did Skull Face dirty #here's this really great villain with a super complex backstory and motivation #whadduya wanna do with him kojima-san?#I'VE GOT IT!!!!!!#we'll do...absolutely nothing!#he'll show up in five missions out of a thirty nine mission long game #he'll talk at venom snake a few times and do some cool things #then right around the time we're supposed to fight him?#a random twelve year old will hijack metal gear through a PSYCHIC twelve year old and crush Skull Face before we can do anything cool! :D #hold your applause children! :D #................we weren't clapping kojima-san...........#also sins of the father?#heaven's divide?#donna burke is amazing #seriously she is an in-freakin'-CREDIBLE singer #sorry cynthia hall #i got love #but...#whoooooa-HHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!

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retphienix · 4 years

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FF12~

I dread my current inability to capture gameplay as I once could all because I’m lacking basic computer parts right now -.-

ANYWAY.

Started playing FF12 and here’s some stuff!

I’M LOVIN’ IT!

I know I’m in a minority, but I’ve gone on at length in the past about my love for the passive combat of DWM and DWM2, I’ve even started and (sadly) subsequently decided not to post extensive analysis of the combat system and how it emphasizes planning and build comprehension over traditional reactionary gameplay in RPGs.

Short of it? DWM combat is preplanning, building your team, building your spellbook properly, and setting each member up for success visa vie personality and “PLAN” orders (charge/cautious, etc).

You set yourself up for success and test your theory time and again until you find an encounter that counters that plan, then you adjust on the fly to counter THAT.

I know I’ve heard complaints on combat in that vein in the past, plenty of times even; Namely that it’s too passive or “Plays itself” and honestly, kinda, yeah? Yeah, it kinda does. But I find it so intriguing and entertaining to partake in.

ANYWAY. FF12 is that.

You can play it like a traditional RPG sure, but with Gambits existing (preplanning pretty much, or programming their actions) it really feels like an extension of that gameplay idea and I am living for it since so few games have any interest in doing that anymore.

Heck FF7 remake goes out of its way to play in a manner that would benefit heavily from gambits, but ignores them completely on some (my opinion) misguided design decision that forces needless micromanaging in a game that DESPERATELY wants to be fast paced and action-y.

So where FF7 remake arguably fails, FF12 succeeds, in my opinion. But clearly they have their strengths and weaknesses. FF7 is MUCH faster and more action oriented, and FF12 might just give TOO much power to gambits- though it is an opt in system so I suppose that’s not TOO bad, could just not gambit your main guy and tada! You’re playing what FF7 remake could have been lol (Being harsh).

But yeah, combat is fun for my tastes! Story has me hooked enough for a final fantasy plot! I love how, just like you’d expect from Ivalice, it immediately starts with backstabbing and political unrest! I genuinely love that- though I suspect this game will focus more on backstabbing for the war effort than say, FFT’s amazing rich elitist and corrupt religious systems plot which I adore, which I wish would be here but I doubt it.

ALSO THIS GAME HONEST TO GOD FIXES (well, rewrites, reinterprets?) SOME OF THE DUMBEST PARTS OF FFTA IN A MANNER I LIKE!!!

Namely, so far at least, Judges. Instead of being an arbitrary and extremely stupid and out of place game mechanic given physical form they are a sort of elite templar group, I dig! Also Clans are back! But unfortunately it doesn’t appear I get to run my own like in FFTA which would have been nice in a game that doesn’t suck eggs, instead the clans are a sort of overarching hunting/bounty system you partake in BUT said hunting is fun where you accept quests that spawn mini-bosses/bosses around the world to hunt. I really like that too.

Cutting away from the game itself and instead offering a touch of praise to the version I’ve decided to play- I’m playing the FF12 remaster and I just wanted to praise the inclusion of a turbo function. Yeah, I really like fast forward added to games with grind- I MIGHT (haven’t thought too hard on it) appreciate that more than adjusting in-game values to accommodate new school grind etiquette. Again, I haven’t thought on it too long, but I THINK I like having the option to go 4x speed to grind over the option to have every enemy in the game drop 4x xp/loot/AP/whatever.

Something about being able to kill the same amount of enemies I would have in the old version, but faster, is (currently) more preferable to my mindset than killing 4x less enemies than the original but getting extremely bloated rewards for doing it.

But yeah. Playing FF12 right now, genuinely having a blast. This is hitting so many notes I’ve been craving lately and I started it on a whim! I was just thinking “Well, FF7 is done, the trainwreck of an ending and all, and I TRIED FF15 but it honestly wasn’t doing it for me. Let’s try 12? I love Ivalice and any excuse to say a game isn’t as good as FFT, that’ll be fun.” and I ended up playing a game that catches my fancy :)

#RetPlays #FF12 #Final Fantasy 12 #Final Fantasy #I've taken a much more laid back narrative style since I can't capture footage and I have no idea who cares or likes or dislikes that

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teaandgames · 5 years

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The Teacup Awards (2018)

So, the cruise liner of time has set sail and crashed into the iceberg of inevitability and with it has sunk the year of 2018. I would normally say something about what happened this year but in truth, it flashed by so fast that I can barely remember half of it. I checked my archive for this year and I swear I don’t remember the entire first quarter. But hey, at least we had a few gaming scandals to keep us going.

As usual, I’m going to be using games that I’ve reviewed this year, regardless of release date. I’m also adding a new award because it’s not like these things are physical. I could add in an award for best horse bollocks if I liked, as long as I could make a tea pun out of it. Red Dead 2 would win it, by the way.

The ‘Tea Up My Nose’ Award For Scariest Game

Runner up - Lust For Darkness

I had a lot of problems with Lust For Darkness but it deserves the runner up spot for taking the Lovecraft inspiration and running with it. It didn’t slow things down with investigations and chatter, but threw us head first into a cult. It quickly steps things up as it takes us on a wild ride through murderous orgies and otherworldly hellscapes. There’s little in the way of censorship here too, which adds to the fear factor. While the actual game part of Lust For Darkness is lacking, as an experience it delivers some definitely creepy notes.

Winner - SIMULACRA

I wasn’t expecting SIMULACRA to be quite as smooth as it is. When I saw the concept, I was expecting it to be little more than just a gimmick, which would be quickly dropped in favour of more traditional horror fare. I’m happy to say that I was entirely wrong on that front. SIMULACRA ends as it starts, with you sitting in your living room tapping on a phone screen. It goes to show the power of modern smartphones, in a way. You can influence other people’s lives without taking off your dressing gown.

Of course, in the case of SIMULACRA there’s something else that’s influencing you. Some mysterious force behind the screen that has done something, though you’re not entirely sure what, to the missing girl, Anna. This is the main source of fear for SIMULACRA, the knowledge that Anna’s disappearance may not be straight forward. At first, you’re worried that you’re talking to a murderer or kidnapper - and that you might be next - but by the end you’re worried about something much worse.

What helps is the decent writing when it comes to your two main conversation partners - Taylor and Greg. They are each very distinct from each other, while still talking like normal people. If you can ignore the fact that they continue talking to you even though you have a missing girl’s phone, that is. The plot unfolds naturally into a pretty damn creepy climax. In a year that didn’t really have a knock-out horror game, in my eyes, SIMULACRA really stood out for me.

The ‘Folded Corner’ Award For Best Writing

Runner Up - West of Loathing

I have a bad habit of thinking that serious writing can be the only form of ‘good’ writing, whatever that means, but West of Loathing has shaken that. Its writing is silly but genuinely funny, which is hard to convey with a game that has no voice acting. There were many moments where the writing caused me to burst into laughter. It’s one long stream of jokes, without dipping into obnoxiousness too often. For making me laugh, West of Loathing definitely deserves some commendation.

Winner - Pyre

I knew Pyre was going to win this award about halfway through playing it. The entire space-basketball gameplay is there to feed the writing, creating a story about characters banding together in a desperate attempt to free themselves. It’s a story about friendship growing through adversity, with the bittersweet knowledge that it’s all going to break to pieces by the end. Some people won’t be able to leave and, as the central figure of the group, it falls to us to make the hard decisions.

It’s especially hard because of how well written the other characters are. In fact, I don’t think there was a single character I actively disliked and it didn’t commit the sin of making the characters all lovey-dovey towards each other either. There’s quiet animosity in the group, mainly down to old rivalries, but they don’t let it get in the way of the big escape plan at the heart of it all. Some of the characters here have wings, others are strange wyrm things, but they’re all acting very human at the end of the day.

Which is more than just decent writing, it’s what ties the entire game together and the main reason why I like Pyre most out of Supergiant Games’ catalogue. The writing is more than just set dressing and that’s why I knew it would be winning this award, come what may.

The ‘Head Nod’ Award For Best Soundtrack

Runner up - Bastion

With three Supergiant Games’ titles this year, it was inevitable that one of them was going to end up in this section. Darren Korb has consistently knocked it out of the park with all of his OSTs, but I think it’s Bastion that sticks me with me the most. It’s the one I keep coming back to, with songs like Setting Sail, Coming Home being just as powerful in-game as out. Bastion was quite an emotionally charged game towards the end and I don’t think it would have quite the punch if it weren’t for the score.

Winner - Octopath Traveler

Slightly bending the rules here, as I haven’t really written about Octopath Traveler other than a casual mention, but when I saw it got snubbed at the game awards in favour of Red Dead 2, I had to speak up. Octopath’s score is phenomenal, bringing in a wide range of different instruments to make each location feel unique. Octopath has a fairly broad map, so you can appreciate the amount of effort that goes in.

My favourite song, by far, is the song for the Sunlands, the desert region. It captures the atmosphere perfectly and makes trekking across the desert a lot more fun. It’s bouncy and joyful. Compare that to the Frostlands song, which is a little more sombre but also beautiful, and the Highlands, which is a bit more regal. The songs go some way to capturing the spirit of the place. That’s just an opinion, of course, but having spent over a hundred hours in Octopath, they really began to feel homely.

The battle music is perhaps less appealing, if only because it’s heard so many times and often interrupts the superior location tracks. That said, the boss fight songs are fantastic and really get the blood pumping. As Octopath is stuffed to bursting with boss fights, that makes the overall package worth listening to.

The ‘Finest China’ Award For Best Looking Game

Runner Up - Pyre

I haven’t played many games this year that have looked particularly ‘arty’, which is why I’ve had to change this award. It took me quite a while to decide who would be the Runner Up but I settled on Pyre when I remembered the overworld. It looks almost like a rolling painting, with each part of the world being visually distinct. Couple that with the skeletal remains of the Titans everywhere and you have a landscape that is as haunting as it is beautiful. The bright, celestial basketball fields are just icing on a good looking cake.

Winner - A Hat in Time

I’m a self-confessed lover of Pixel Art, so normally this award would be going to be one of them. But when I booted up A Hat in Time for the first time, I was in love with how happy everything looked. The girl’s spaceship looks actually comfortable and homey. It’s not stuffed with gun-metal grey and flickering lights. It’s a nice place to me. Then, when she is sucked out of the window (don’t ask), she is dropped on to an equally happy planet.

A Hat in Time makes sure to use a wide range of colours in its worlds, from the bright blues of the mafia jackets to the deep purples used in the creepy woods level. My favourite level that, by the way, right down to the design of the main boss, who forces the young lass to sign a contract under pain of death. This strong design runs throughout, though the actual main boss is a girl with a mustache. You can decide for yourself if that’s good design or not.

Either way, the bright, cartoon like graphics combine well with the sense of innocent fun and made A Hat in Time really stand out against others in its genre.

The ‘Chiseled Chin’ Award For Best Action Game

Runner Up - Wolfenstein: The New Colossus

I have two strong memories of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus (which goes to show how bad my memory is, really). The first is the moment where it totally jumped the shark, and BJ was basically turned into an even more ripped Frankenstein's monster, and the second is several moments where I equipped double shotguns. It was a risky move, as I couldn’t really aim, but I could shred the entire room in front of me. The guns feel powerful and the enemies react appropriately. While there are a few problems with it, those double shotguns feel damn good to use.

Winner - Sniper Elite 4

Sniper Elite 4 was absolutely the surprise of the year for me. I had played Sniper Elite V2 and didn’t really enjoy it. The sniping was fun but I was repeatedly put into positions where I had to use my sidearms and they really weren’t satisfying. The AI was dumb and I gave up about halfway through. I went into Sniper Elite 4 expecting more of the same. Instead, I got giant levels to roam around in and a damn good sniper rifle.

The larger levels meant that I used my sniper rifle above everything else, as I could just hide in a bush and pick off half the nazis in the area. The kill cam made it all the sweeter, as I got to see my bullets eviscerating the insides of my chosen target. You’d think it would get old but it’s the perfect reward for a shot that’s taken you a good while to set up. Couple that with the fairly easy-to-learn stealth system, and you have a nice little action game.

It does fall back on the side-arms from time to time but that’s usually only when you’ve cocked up. Even then, it’s not too bad as the fairly low health means the sidearms are just to get some space. Spray and pray then run away. If you can ignore the fairly absent story and character writing, Sniper Elite 4 is a damned good action game and a definite high note for the series.

The ‘Properly Brewed’ Award For Best Revisited Game

Runner up - TimeShift

I was very down on TimeShift in my Revisited, for good reason, but I wanted to give it a spot here because it’s one of those games that has stuck in my mind. That central mechanic, the ability to stop, slow and rewind time, is a brilliant one. It’s used in a decent way in puzzles and it’s great fun in the combat. The shooting itself is a load of old cobblers but being able to stop time, shotgun blast your frozen enemies and then watch them all get launched away is good fun that will persist throughout time itself.

Winner - Mad Father

Mad Father was completely out of left field for me. The only game I’d played like it was a brief spell of Ib, which I did for the halloween week back in 2017. I was skeptical at first, not sure how a game like that could scare anyone, but I ended up enjoying my time with it. It seemed free from the usual conventions of horror games and was free to be as weird and freaky as it wanted. After that first taste, I went to one I knew people liked: Mad Father.

It too was pretty free from constraints, able to tell a fairly sickening story rather effectively. A little girl is rather rudely woken up by a bunch of corpses stumbling around the house and they seem to have it out for her dad. Which is understandable, given that her dad is a colossal nutcase, who’s going around cutting people open for his own ends. So when the house gets cursed, his victims are naturally going to have something to say about it.

The top down viewpoint means that Mad Father can’t really resort to jumpscares to get this across. There are a few of them, as is standard, but they don’t really hit home as much as a first person game would. Instead, we have to rely on the unsavoury storyline and setting, as well as the constant reminder of death, to set the scene. Mad Father is grotesque and a damned good example of the genre.

The ‘Unwanted Sugar’ Award For Biggest Disappointment

Runner up - Super Fancy Pants Adventure

A lot of games this year have had something disappointing about them. That is the nature of the medium after all, you’re not gonna please everyone. Super Fancy Pants Adventure, however, was a rarity in that the disappointment overshadowed the whole game. It had satisfying running physics but that’s about where the excitement ended. It was crushingly easy, with boring enemies, and ended abruptly with a ‘To be Continued’. A cheap, insulting way to end a product we’ve paid for.

Winner - Dead Rising 4

Oh boy. I went into Dead Rising 4 really not knowing what to expect. I had played a good chunk of the original Dead Rising and enjoyed my time with it. The reliance on escort quests is a bit of a negative factor but the killing of the zombies was fun and the whole game had a brutal sense to it. The zombies took a bit of work to kill, for one. I didn’t get that sense in Dead Rising 4; I got the sense that they were just big sacks of blood waiting to be burst.

The problem is that zombies can’t really carry a game by themselves. They are the eternal background characters, there to give the world a sense of destroyed humanity but without the personality to do anything more. You could, in this situation, reflect that back on your main characters. But Frank West is a wisecracking dickhead, so that doesn’t really work. Instead, they got around it by forcing us into chains of gunfights with generic thugs.

Couple that with the loss of the timer, Dead Rising’s key unique mechanic, and you have a fairly humdrum game. It even, somehow, uses too many zombies, something I didn’t realise was possible. But it uses them to absolutely fill it’s bare overworld, making running through the horde on the back of a combine harvester feel like the daily commute to work.

The ‘Rate Your Server’ Award For Best And Worst Developer

Best - Team Cherry

Hollow Knight was my game of the year last year for many good reasons. It being fun, for one. But it was also a fairly beefy game and the enjoyment came from discovering new things, as you grew stronger and expanded your arsenal. On top of this already expansive content base, Team Cherry committed to three free DLC packs. The first two came out in 2017, with another early on in 2018, and even then that wasn’t enough. They released a further update in March of this year. Again, for free.

Now this shouldn’t be the standard for developers. People have got to eat after all. But the fact that Team Cherry care enough about their game - and by extension the people playing it - that they will make four free content updates (one more than they originally announced) is heartening. Some people make games for profit but I feel like this was a passion project for Team Cherry. I think it’s time to move on from Hollow Knight now, but I’m excited for whatever they choose to do next.

Worst - Bethesda Softworks

Now I’ve not played Fallout 76. So this isn’t going to me talking about the mechanics or any sort of review elements, this is merely going to be about the launch. Which is one of the worst launches I’ve seen in a long, long time. The absolute nadir of the chaos was the fact that they leaked customer data via support tickets, which is one of the one of the worst things a company can do. Society seems to be moving towards a ‘Matrix-by-Proxy’ scenario, where we don’t need to be plugged in because all of ourselves is online anyway.

Giving that information away, therefore, is pretty reprehensive. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, of course, with the iceberg being full of nylon bags and re-used Skyrim code. For a big company like Bethesda to do this sort of thing is baffling; borderline insulting. It’s like they believe themselves to be a rich man throwing coins to the poor. Give them any old tat and refuse to apologise. It’s already bad enough that they’re building their games on a creaky old engine. For attitude alone, Bethesda deserves to be here.

The ‘Golden Teapot’ Award For Best Game

Runner Up - A Hat in Time

After being fairly disappointed in Yooka-Laylee last year, I was in the market for a decent 3D platformer. I had heard vaguely good things about A Hat in Time but it kind of passed me by until it came through a Humble Monthly Bundle. I went in not knowing what to expect and it absolutely blew me away. Right from the start, seeing an impossibly adorable little girl in a top hat bouncing around on a comfortable looking spaceship, I knew this was going to be a fun game. And it was, with a host of different worlds to explore.

I played through A Hat in Time with a big smile on my face. It’s not the hardest game in the world but it was one of the few games this year that I looked forward to playing while I was at work. Tight controls, with an actually responsive camera and some great graphics to go along with it. Multiple worlds, each thematically distinct - from a mafia-controlled town to acting in a train heist film. You never knew what it was going to do next. The Golden Teapot was incredibly tight this year and it only just missed out on the top spot.

Winner - Hand of Fate 2

When I was looking back through all of the games I played this year, I realised that there was one that really kept my attention from start to finish and that was Hand of Fate 2. I remember going to work and thinking about what my next move would be; how I would tackle challenges that I’d previously failed. If a game can exist outside of actually playing it, then you must be on to something. The thirty-seven hours i’ve got on it goes to show you something about it too.

I think the main attraction is down to the core mechanic. Blending together a card game with a dungeon crawler is pretty inspired, I don’t think it’s been done too often - at least not in this way. Card games have been blended with damn near everything at this point but Hand of Fate 2 has had some time to make sure it’s buttery smooth. The best decision was to have the dealer there facing you, insulting you while you play. Nothing makes me work harder than wanting to rub my success in the face of a diseased arsehole.

Combine that with a fairly sizeable amount of content, without devolving down into grind (much), and you’ve got yourself a great package. It has a few problems - the combat becoming fairly repetitive and an awful final boss amongst others - but that core mechanic gripped me so much. It adds the perfect element of RNG to the otherwise structured campaign, making each run through fresh. Which helps in a certain level that’s just down to chance. We’ll ignore that one.

As I said before, the Golden Teapot was hotly contested and this spot changed multiple times before I finally committed it to paper. Pyre was going to be here, but it can only win so many awards. Mario Odyssey was off in the corner of my eye too. But in the end, there was only one game that captured my attention so much. And that was Hand of Fate 2. A game from 2017. Whoops.

Well that’s another year done and dusted. I’ve already got my eye on some juicy games to play for 2019, so you can expect me to be sticking around. I hope you all had a good Christmas and New years. I’ll see you all next week when we get back to normality!

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dapperkobold · 7 years

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Review at Random: Dawn of War 2

Dawn of War was a competent game desperately in need of a quality of life update. Dawn of War 2 is... different. The quality of life improved, but it’s still subject to some troublesome issues that make me frown. Also, bad replayability.

(I already did Dawn of War)

Graphics-wise, it’s fine. Move along. Sure, people who are picky about graphics will no doubt frown, butt they’re rather nice, effective, and not disruptive. Sound quality was similar.

Gameplay, however...

Let me open with a bald-faced admittance that I’m not a multiplayer player. I don’t do the PVP thing. It’s not an interest of mine. I play campaigns, I like plot and campaign missions. As a result, I have no idea how the multiplayer in this game works. The campaign is doing its own thing with its own rules.

The base campaign is really closer to a... let’s call it RTRPS: Real Time Role-Playing Strategy. You have your space marines, they level up, you equip gear that the enemies drop, you gain more stats and abilities as things go on. At the same time, the control scheme and setup means that you’re really playing an RTS game. The resulting hybrid system is... well, it’s not amazing, but I’d love to see it refined until it was. It works, certainly, it’s even good, but it could use some fine-tuning.

You level up, you invest points in stats, you get abilities. Usually I’m hard on stats in video games (especially MMOs, but that’s a line for another time), but this time they’re really straightforward. Health, energy, ranged damage, melee damage. Nice. You unlock abilities in the stats as you level them up, and those abilities are the real power behind your units.

In missions, you get equipment (called wargear as per the Warhammer tradition) and you slap those on your guys. There’s no money or stores, only what you pick up in the wild. Extra gear you can throw in the hopper for extra EXP. Not bad, I suppose, but I’ve become disenfranchised with gear systems in general and especially leveled ones. Oh yes, gear items have levels and if you’re not that level you don’t get to use that gear.

Thankfully, the gear in this game isn’t too bad. It’s mostly linear progression, but there’s occasionally the difficult choice. If this game did have a store, however, I’m pretty sure that would foul it all up, so I’m very glad it does not.

Story-wise, it’s not bad. Not amazing, but I’ll take it and be happy. The characters are fairly compelling, the voice acting is good enough, and the overall plot is really good except for the Eldar.

It’s no wonder that the Eldar are a dying people. How did they get a successful civilization in the first place with such terrible communication skills? And for being ‘master manipulators’ they... really are not. They can’t even manipulate Orks right. They aren’t smart, they don’t seem to have a solid tactical or strategic understanding, much less the social skills to really manipulate people, and they aren’t good at their jobs.

B- to B+ story, but I’m leaning towards -.

Level design I’m going to be harsher on. You’re on every single map at least twice, and I think it’s sometimes three or more times. none of the levels are super memorable, and it’s sometimes downright frustrating. Bosses are fairly common, and they’re more a drag than anything else. I was never in serious danger in a boss fight, partially due to the boss’ bad AI.

That’s not too say that the game was too easy. No, the game as a whole wasn’t too easy, just most of it was. But then some parts of it are way too hard.

I wound up playing on easy mode because the entire game has a bad case of Jekyll and Hyde. You can breeze through most of a mission, and then 3 of 4 guys are dead and the last one has a giant tank bearing down on him. By the same nature, you fight smart and bypass most of one area, and then just breeze through the rest because you just bypassed the hard part of the mission.

That said, if I could turn up the difficulty mid-game, I would have before the end. Once you get into mid- and late- game, you can blow through most anything with no trouble. You can go look up build guides for your marines if you want, but let me tell you a little secret:

There’s no doubt that you’re going to wind up overpowered. The question is how overpowered you’re going to be.

I don’t know how it is on higher difficulties (I’ve heard some horror stories) but on lower difficulties you’ll likely be fine as long as you don’t specifically hamstring yourself. Once you get past that initial hump, do the extra missions, give all your extra gear away to charity... you’ll be fine. Trust me.

However, I’ve saved the best for last: The game still has some interface issues from the first Dawn of War. The Escape key still does nothing, the hotkeys are better but still a mess, and there’s no grid layout.

Pathfinding has improved, though, barring a few MASSIVE bugs. I think there’s something wrong with Avitus’ AI that doesn’t like rocket launchers, but at least there’s no need to call down an artillery strike on your own men.

Overall, I’m not going to play through it again any time soon, but it was fairly fun.

But wait! I didn’t just get Dawn of War 2, I got ALL of it. That means I got Chaos rising and Retribution, too!

Chaos rising is more of the same. Same quality of plot, same unneeded Eldar, same quality of gameplay, same quality of RPG elements, and a slightly improved difficulty curve. You can import old saves, too, permitting you to go from ‘overpowered’ to ‘hilariously overpowered’.

That said, I’d like to go into detail on that improved curve. It no longer has harsh changes mid-mission, it now changes between Jekyll and Hyde between missions. Also, free advice: the first Eldar mission is a Hyde mission. PUT THE JUMP PACK ON YOUR FORCE COMMANDER AND BRING THADDEUS. BE READY TO LEAVE THE GROUND-POUNDERS BEHIND.

Trust me.

Really, that’s my thoughts on it. If you liked the first Dawn of War 2 campaign, you’ll likely like Chaos Rising. If you didn’t like the first one, I don’t see this one changing your mind. It has the same system, the same hotkeys, the same characters, and Avitus still doesn’t like rocket launchers, just use a heavy plasma gun or a lascannon, trust me.

Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising: second verse, same verse as the first verse.

Dawn of War 2: Retribution is quite different, though.

The RPG elements have been streamlined, the stat points now buy abilities directly and equipment has been made into more of a suite of options instead of a mostly-linear progression. I found myself actually considering my loadout and changing it instead of just rolling with the best everything, something that had only barely happened in the first two campaigns.

In addition, you can get more units, like vehicles and infantry, like it’s an RTS game! Woah! However, the level design still feels very much like it’s made for a group of four heroes instead of an army, and I found managing a large group of infantry to be tiresome, so I just wound up using elites and tanks and occasionally melee units when I felt I needed more melee presence. It worked, though.

The story stays at about the same rate, though, maybe lowering a bit. Not complaining much, it’s still not bad. Eldar are still superfluous.

The space marines campaign does lose a few points for me for benching the force commander, though. With the smaller cast and having already explored the character depth in the previous campaigns, lacking Mr. ALIEN BEANS for me to laugh at made me a little sad. Diomedes does have his moments, but that force commander and I had a good time together.

In addition, each map is surprisingly well-made, with a solid deign and no repeating. It went over well enough I wouldn’t be against re-playing it at some point. Which is a good thing, since that’s what I’ll be doing if I want to try other factions.

Yes, the other factions all have campaigns too! No, wait, it’s just the space marine one with less cohesiveness. Well... I’m not surprised, actually. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised. And while the campaign is good, it’s not so good as to make me want to play it again back-to-back.

There’s a few bugs that Retribution adds, much to everyone’s chagrin, including a sound bug that crashes the game and a few other things, but they added in a option for grid hotkeys! Yay!

It turns out that’s not as great as it could be. The order of abilities does not appear to be based on the kind of ability or the placing of the accessory in the slot, but some kind of internal counter. As a result, the hotkey that corresponds to a given ability (especially from accessories) can change every mission sometimes. It’s better than the old set up, but still aggravating.

Overall, Retribution is pretty good, yeah, but it could use more polish, except for the non-space marine campaigns, which are honestly pretty vestigial.

EDIT: I missed a few things! The below conclusion is still accurate, but maybe read the add-on.

So... after all that, I don’t know how to feel. It was a fun romp, but nothing to write home about. I might play it again, eventually, but not anytime soon, and certainly not as much as I play Starcraft 2 or the Arkham games. It’s not an amazing game. I won’t kick it, but I will say it’s not for everyone, and if you want to full experience, you should wait for a sale.

I’d say that on number scores I’d put it above half, on a tier ranking I’d call it a B maybe C, on up or down I’d give it a up, and on a grade sheet I’d give it a B-. Could use some work, but I’m not going to ask you to go back and do it again.

#reviews at random #Dawn of war 2 #warhammer 40k #stuff i made #Darnit Avitus move #Avitus go shoot the chaos marines #Avitus-#Fine #be that way.#I have tarkus #I don't need you

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rat-game · 4 years

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On adaptive AI in a jRPG context

In this piece I will talk about rat_games AI, how it will be implemented and why I choose the ways it works to... work that way. One of the main gripes with jRPGs like Final Fantasy, Pokémon and recently Octopath Traveler is the complexity of the AI. F.E.A.R, Left 4 Dead and the Sims implement revolutionary designed AI almost 15 years ago now, how is it then that playing the newest Pokémon the Trainers still work the exact same way. While I won’t claim that rat_game is the first jRPG to go a step further, doing so is the main motivation behind my entire battle system. Not only do I want it to be easily understandable but I also want it to allow for sophisticated and intelligent AI. It is fairly easy to write an AI that does well against the player. A trivial approach to an AI in a Fighting Game for example would be to analyze each player input, look up what move is best suited to for example block the attack and then execute this move. A lot of knock-off fighting games like Shaq Fu and Mortal Combat for the original gameboy (yes, they did that) took this approach and it is incredibly frustrating to play against. To remedy this, one approach would be to handicap the fighting game AI with input lag. Instead of processing the inputs and reacting in the same frame, the AI could react let’s say 20 frames later. The problem with this approach is that the AI is still too simple, it will always pick the same (optimal) action just delayed and the player will pick up on this and cheese them by for example spamming a move that will make them commit to a risky action every time and then just waiting it out and attacking. A good example for this is the final boss Dark Link in Zelda 2 for the NES. The fight is very difficult because the enemy can use the exact same moves Link can and you’d think that would make it a fair fight but because the AI is programmed as discussed above you can just stand in the corner making the AI jump infinitely and stabbing them while crouching to win. This exploit only works because the AI is programmed to do one thing depending on where the player is. Back to our hypothetical fighting game: the QA tells you about this problem, what do you do? The next step could be to introduce randomness. Instead of always picking the optimal action, the AI instead flips a coin, if heads they pick the optimal action, if tails they pick another action that’s suboptimal or even chosen at random. As far as I know the newer Pokémon games stop exactly there, difficulty is achieved by configuring how likely heads is in that coin toss, for wild pokemon they will always get tails and pick at random, for the Elite 4 champions they will always pick the optimal choice. I don’t like this approach because I would like my AI to be predictable, even if the enemy has a low difficulty. In my opinion the reason that AI like this doesn’t work is because it does not make use of a fundamental principal of computing: memory. Rarely (in jRPGs) will the AI consider previous moves by the player in their decision making process instead using simply the current state of the battle. For rat_game I tackled this problem maybe a little bit too hard as my AI does not only take into account the action in the current battle but (since my story is about a hivemind taking over the world and all of the bosses have literally the same brain in canon) the enemies take into account all of the players actions in all battles since the started the games story. Another intention with my AI that I rarely see addressed in jRPGs is multiple enemies planning strategies together. Even if the AI does take into account previous states, enemy A will analyze the states and pick an option and enemy B will do the same independently from enemy A. Being a hivemind I want my enemies to plan strategies together. For example one enemy could charge up a strong attack and to help them another enemy will protect them as long as they’re charging so they can’t get interrupted. How, then, will rat_game achieve these intentions? (warning for some programming stuff, it’s okay to skip the next paragraph)

During battle every move the player does is logged into basically a giant spreadsheet. The data stored however is not the entire game state but rather the part of the state the enemies character has access too. The player for example cannot see how many potions the enemy has left and similarly the enemy should not be able to see how much potions the player has left. Limiting what the enemy can observe in this way will make sure that the player does not feel cheated, if the enemy was controlled by a human they would have the same information the player has about the enemy and my AI should too. Having now generated all this data the AI will attempt to calculate the likelihood of what the player will do next. I studied Data Science and the first thing that springs into my head reading a problem like this is “neural networks!” or “model it as a markov chain!”. While this would work really well it is also in my opinion too sophisticated for my application. My system should only use relatively basic statistical techniques. This can happen on a by-attack basis, for example if the enemy considers casting a spell that prevents healing the attack will query the data set and lookup the average percent of one of the players party members was at before they were healed. Let’s say on average the player heals character A if they go below 40% health. If A is above this threshold the enemy will instead consider other options, if they are below they will prevent healing. This way will make the player feel like the enemy predicted their move but behind the scenes the actual calculation taking place is a simple averaging of the players health. What if multiple moves would be a good choice then? What if instead of preventing healing they enemy could’ve just attack the low-health character and killed them? To allow for this a scoring system will be implemented. Each attack-type will have a way to score how good of a choice it would currently be. Considering our healing decision the AI would look at the number of players it knows to be faster than the attacking enemy. If there are no players faster than them they will give the attack option a very high score of lets say 90 while the healing option will get 40 points. Which option is picked in the end is decided by randomness but rather than a simple coin-toss between two options all decisions are pooled and the likelihood to pick them is proportional to their current score. In our example attacking will have a 90 / (40+90) = ~70% chance to be picked while the heal prevention will have a 30% chance. This approach is similar to the coin-flip discussed above but as there will be way more than just two options and the chance for each options aren’t uniformly distributed making the outcome more predictable. If there is one objectively best answer for a problem the player knows that the enemy will go for that every time and if there isn’t, the player will have to think about what option is closest to it. Now that we know how the AI works how will we actually make it fun to fight against? Let’s first address difficulty: If every fight in the game had an AI that takes the entire data set into account it would be absolutely exhausting. Not every fight should be this much of a battle (no pun intended), hell, not even every boss should be in my opinion. My way to achieve a smooth difficulty curve is to create tiers of AI: A the very top we have the AI acting as described above: Analyzing all the players move they ever took. The only enemy that will do this is the final boss of the game. By that point the dataset will have grown very big and the more data the AI has the better it will be able to predict. Tiers below this will vary in how much data they take into account. For example the tier below the optimum could be that all moves that happened against an enemy of the same type are taken into account. The next tier could be only this battle, only the last 3 turns, only this current turn, etc.. This granularity will give me a lot of control of how to set how “smart” the enemy should act without actually implementing different AIs. The only thing that changes is how much data is considered. This inherently makes early-game enemies easier because the player just started out and the dataset will be small. This approach has furthermore the side effect that the player will be softly rewarded for switching up their strategy. If all they do is heal the same character and use the same move at first this will work but as they continue doing it the AI will score the option to counter it higher and higher until the point where the players strategy just gets countered completely. Surprising the AI with a creative approach will be the best way to catch them off-guard which may sound like it could make the AI trivial but if this is achieved by the player coming up with a new strategy every battle I am more than willing to let that happen. Another way to reduce the difficulty is a fairly obvious one: Give the enemy worse moves. If the enemy picks the optimal choice but the optimal choice is a move that isn’t that good it won’t feel unfair. This coupled with my AI will hopefully give the player a feeling that the AI does not only scale in the damage values like most jRPGs do but also in how smart it acts and that it reacts to what the player does. Closing on a personal note I will be honest and say that I have not yet fully implemented this. My engine is already set up on a software-design level to allow for this but I have so far focused on other things. When rat_game was still just a pipe dream I promised myself to make the best AI ever and use all this crazy data science stuff but having taken a step back I realized that sometimes simple is better. What is not better, however, is simplicity to the point of reducing sophistication to the point of what I have so far observed in many of my favorite jRPGs and I hope that my system will present a battle system that’s more engaging and impressive.

#rat_game #game development #game design #ai

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operationrainfall · 5 years

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Title Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair Developer Playtonic Games Publisher Team17 Digital Ltd Release Date October 8th, 2019 Genre Platformer Platform PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One Age Rating E for Everyone – Mild Cartoon Violence Official Website

I never expected Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. Not only did the release totally sneak up on me, I somehow missed it entirely at PAX West this year. So when I suddenly saw it announced in the Nintendo Download I cover weekly, I was happily stunned. After all, I did back the original Yooka-Laylee, and while I enjoyed it, it felt a bit hampered by its adherence to 3D platformer norms. Which is why it’s so funny that I loved Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. Who would have guessed that transitioning from being influenced by Banjo-Kazooie to being influenced by Donkey Kong Country would make all the difference?

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The game starts when our heroic duo crash lands in the Royal Stingdom. Capital B is up to no good, and after being taught the platforming ins and outs by the introductory level, things get dramatic. Capital B has a device that enslaves other bees, and he uses it to take control of Queen Phoebee’s Royal Beetallion. Each of these 48 elite guards now protects the dastardly villain from damage. Luckily, due to some quick thinking, you escape further conflict and land just outside his Impossible Lair. Phoebee uses some magic to create books so you can free the trapped Beetallion from Capital B before he took control of them. That doesn’t mean each one captured will be taken from him, mind you, but each guard freed protects you from harm. While you’re more than welcome to tackle the Lair first, you’d be a crazy person to do so because the titular Impossible Lair is a devious gauntlet of instant death traps, cleverly placed enemies, tricky platforming and multiple boss encounters against Capital B. It also contains zero checkpoints, so one death and you have to start over from the very beginning. So assuming you’re not a total masochist, let’s talk about the rest of the game first.

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Each of the books created by Phoebee serves as a level, and is tossed across a vast overworld. You unlock stages in groups, and though you don’t have to tackle them in order, it’s not a bad idea to do so. Namely, that’s because progressing any farther means getting past multiple paywalls set up by the conniving Trowser, and he charges you varying amounts of T.W.I.T. coins found in each of the many stages to proceed. Another reason it’s good to play each level as you unlock them is so you get flush with Quills. You can often do this by chasing Ghost Quills, or just by finding loose Quills littered about each stage. These are occasionally used to unlock things on the overworld, but they are also used to unlock Tonics. There’s a ton of Tonics in the game, and to use them first you have to find them, then pay their Quill cost. They provide a wide array of effects, some changing how a stage looks and others making the levels easier or harder with various effects. If you make a stage easier, it will take away from your Quill total at the end of each stage, but if you make it harder, you’ll be rewarded with more of them. I actually really liked this setup, since it offers the tools to tweak the game as you please. Given that I’m a platformer purist, I only really used one Tonic in my entire playthrough, which made it so Laylee would stick around longer after taking damage, giving me longer to grab her before she flaps away.

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It would be an easy assumption that the overworld is small and basic, but the truth is the opposite. Despite not being in full 3D, the top-down overworld is quite expansive and riddled with secret passages. There’s dark forests, beach-side grottoes, dank caverns and more. Getting from point A to point B can sometimes be a hassle, and often requires returning to areas from a different vantage point. Most noteworthy is that you will find Pagies on the map, and by clearing their challenges, they’ll reward you by altering some aspect of the overworld. This always opens up a path you couldn’t access before, making it easier to get around and find new things.

Another cool part of this aspect of the game is altering stages. Every single stage in the game, other than the Lair, has both an original and alternate version. You might come across a stage and by freezing it with an ice fruit, you’ll unlock an alternate version that’s totally different. These changes are very clever and often required some extra sleuthing to discover. I really enjoyed it, especially since there’s technically 48 stages instead of the base 24. That may not sound like much, but trust me it’s a very meaty experience. In my nearly 13 hours playing the game, I still haven’t unearthed nearly all the achievements, Tonics, Beetallion guards, T.W.I.T. coins or other assorted goodies. Overall it’s a really cool overworld, but with one niggle. It can be time-consuming wandering around, since after you quit and return to the game, you always start right next to the Impossible Lair. For most of the game that meant constant backtracking, until I finally stumbled upon the game’s warp feature. You can basically select any stage from the map and warp instantly there. This is great, but it would have been better if the game told me it was available.

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Much like the game’s overworld, the stages in Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair are also deceptively complex. While you can beat most of them in less than 10 minutes, finding all the hidden T.W.I.T. coins can be a challenge. Much like in Donkey Kong Country, things are deviously secreted away, and there were many stages I beat without finding more than a couple out of the possible five coins. Though most stages are standard platformer fare, moving from the left to the right, some mix things up with vertical climbing and even some backtracking. A good example is one that requires you to find five gems to exit the stage, and they’re in all sorts of places. Thankfully, each stage has checkpoints, and you can even spawn more of them with one handy Tonic. There’s a ton of creativity on display, from spinning windmill villages to underwater galleons to dangerous factories to honey-covered towns. There are even some pulse-pounding stages where you’re running from impending death the entire time. It’s all good fun, and will keep you busy without being overly unfair. Just be ready to play most stages more than once to find everything.

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More platform fun on Page 2 ->

Now, none of what I’ve been saying would matter if the game didn’t play well, but thankfully that’s not the case. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a lot of fun. Even though the duo have less abilities than in their first outing, there’s enough here to keep things interesting. Also important is that they are a duo. What that means is that when they’re separated, you’re far less capable and can’t even use all your moves. Laylee the bat is basically Yooka’s armor. If you take a hit, she goes flying around frantically. If you don’t catch her in time, she’s gone, and any more damage will kill you and return you to the most recent checkpoint. This was very smart design, and it made me more careful about how I explored stages. When the team is together, they’re capable of tricks like spinning in mid-air to go farther, rolling around and even ground pounding. Yooka can also use his long tongue to grab items and spit them out as projectiles. I thought the game controlled very well, though I found the roll / jump combo to be a bit finicky at times. The only time things didn’t work as planned was when I was rolling and somehow got stuck in a wall, forcing me to restart a stage, and another time the game force quit and returned me to the Switch home screen. Other than those, the game played perfectly well.

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Visually, I found a lot to appreciate. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a cute and cartoony game. Everything has a vibrant quality to it, such as how the Quills glow with golden light. Though there’s not a ton of different foes, they’re all distinct and there’s no color swap nonsense. I especially liked the industrial parts of the game, like red hot buzz saws and dangerous cannons. Musically, the game is also enjoyable. Some stages definitely have better tunes than others, but there was nothing that I found boring or offensive. The sound effects are also really bombastic and match the action perfectly. And thankfully the gibberish talk for all the characters is still in place, and lends everything a whimsical flair. Visually and musically, this is a stellar experience.

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It wouldn’t be fair to talk about Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair without going into a bit more detail on the titular final area. Earlier I said that it’s a very challenging sequence of traps, foes and boss fights, but let me go into more detail. Every time you play, you start off with the initial fight against Capital B. He only takes a few hits that time, but every subsequent battle he’s more resilient. His fights will gate each subsequent corridor of the Lair, and he starts getting really tricky as things progress. There’s tons of instant death traps in the lair as well, such as lasers, buzz saws, heat-seeking missiles and portals that continuously spawn foes. I ended up taking nine tries to finally beat the Impossible Lair, and that was with nearly all of the Beetallion at my disposal, 40 out of 48. It was still a huge challenge, and one that I feel needs to be gradually worked towards. And though I won’t go into spoilers, I will say it’s a good idea not to be reckless, and try and hold onto a few of your Beetallion even after you’ve finally beaten Capital B.

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Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair may not be impossible, but it is a wonderfully fun and challenging retro platformer. Though it still has much of that compulsive collector DNA from the first game, I found it much less bothersome in this format. For $29.99, you get a lot to explore in this expansive world. Though I spent around 13 hours to beat the game, I still have plenty to uncover. And that’s not even touching upon the many super secret treasures still deftly squirreled away. I would strongly encourage most gamers to check this out. With the use of Tonics, you’re able to tailor the experience to your ability level, so really it’s hard to turn it down. A fantastic and worthy follow up to the original Yooka-Laylee from the fine folks at Playtonic Games. Here’s to looking forward to whatever they cook up next!

Keep your eyes peeled and you might even find an Easter Banana or two!

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair Title Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

#2D #Donkey Kong Country #platformer #Playtonic Games #Retro #Team17 Digital Ltd #Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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ONINAKI Lets You Confront Grief in a Unique Way

In all my years of playing video games, I’ve found that the games I enjoy the most fall into one of three categories. First, of course, are the big budget AAA games―the attention grabbing titles forged from having millions and millions of dollars funnelled into their development (and marketing). It comes as no surprise when these games are good after months and months worth of footage and impressions have already circulated. Next are the beautiful disasters. These are the games so erroneously awful that they somehow loop back around and become outrageously entertaining. A rare breed of game for sure, but a fun one nonetheless.

The types of games that make up the third category, though, are the ones nearest and dearest to my heart. These games release with little fanfare and acclaim. Their graphics and gameplay are rarely anything to write home about and their fan bases are quite small. The fans they do have, though, are passionate ones. Whatever they might lack in polish and development funds, to their fans they more than make up for it with their ambitious ideas and unique stories. These games are the raw gemstones of the video game industry. Underneath all the rough, jagged edges a captivating game can be found. ONINAKI―the latest game from Square Enix and Tokyo RPG Factory on Steam, Switch, and PS4―is one of these games.

Death is held in high regard in the world of ONINAKI, such so that grief is strictly forbidden. Grief shackles the spirits of the dead to the world of the living. Unable to reincarnate, these spirits are known as the Lost. Should the Lost continue to wander in this form, they’ll eventually transform into monsters known as the Fallen. Rare individuals who can travel between the worlds of the living and the dead are known as Watchers. These Watchers aide in the cycle of reincarnation by eliminating the Fallen and ushering the Lost onto their next lives. It’s in this world that ONINAKI sets its sights on Kagachi―a stoic Watcher well-acquainted with grief. A chance encounter with an ageless girl named Linne and the vengeful spirit pursuing her sets Kagachi off on a bloody journey to discover the truth about reincarnation.

From the outset there are noticeable conflicts happening within ONINAKI. The first is between the game’s art style and its actual content. The game is presented in a beautiful 3D quasi-chibi style not unlike Bravely Default. It’s textures can look rather flat and its environments angular, but there’s a certain quality to the lighting that gives it a realistic sense of depth. This combination gives its world and characters an overall cute, toy-like appearance. Imagine my surprise, then, when the game’s tutorial chapter concluded with me executing a pair of grief-stricken parents who were mourning the death of their son.

ONINAKI is a game that’s infatuated with death, and as such treads in some rather dark territory. The Watchers’ order exists less to protect the citizens of the realm than it does to uphold the tenets of reincarnation. This can mean anything from stopping “unsanctioned killings” at the hands of monsters and serial killers to euthanizing the sick and assisting the hopeless in committing suicide. The game never clearly attempts to comment on these controversial topics or the debates being held over them around the world. It instead simply presents them as the natural result of a religious order that worships death.

Death and reincarnation as objects of worship are central to the other major conflict within ONINAKI. Though there are specific, named enemies Kagachi finds himself in conflict with throughout the game’s story, the ultimate conflict Kagachi faces is between himself and his faith in reincarnation. That much is fairly obvious from the beginning, but the twists and turns that take place throughout the story and the conclusions he’s ultimately led to are best left experienced by oneself.

My feelings on the story by the end were honestly pretty mixed. ONINAKI’s premise is novel and intrigued me instantly. The game’s gradual worldbuilding felt like a breadcrumb trail made up of bits and pieces of truth about the world that led all the way to the story’s final big reveal. It was a rewarding experience that had me constantly on the hook for the next morsel of information. It unfortunately fumbles, though, when it comes to writing Kagachi. He’s a bland and boring character in a game that lacks a party of lively personalities to make up for his lack of one. It’s hard to ever understand what he’s thinking, so his eventual moments of “character growth” come across less as believable actions and more things he has to do because he’s the hero. That combined with some pacing issues in the game’s second half are the biggest issues in an otherwise pretty good story.

Still, though, a good story on its own probably isn’t enough to recommend. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be, because ONINAKI is actually pretty fun to play too! When not experiencing the story, players will be running around 3D areas battling hordes of Fallen with spiritual weapons called Daemons. Daemons are rare beings who were unable to reincarnate yet too strong-willed to become Fallen. Only elite Watchers are able to possess and wield a Daemon. You start off with one sword-wielding Daemon in ONINAKI, but as you explore and progress through the story you’ll find many more each with their own unique weapons and combat styles. Up to four Daemons can be equipped at a time and can be cycled through as you please during battle.

Every Daemon starts off with a basic attack and one special skill that can be triggered on a cooldown. As you continue to fight with that Daemon defeated enemies have a chance of dropping upgrade items called Soulstones unique to the Daemon you’re using. Each Daemon has a unique skill tree where these Soulstones can be exchanged for new skills, passive buffs, and even memories from that Daemon’s past life. Each Daemon has their own set of stats separate from Kagachi’s increasing stat levels and Soulstone drops are rather generous, so upgrading a newly acquired Daemon to the level of your very first is a fairly easy task.

The Daemons are easily one of ONINAKI’s best features. Unlocking new Daemons adds a lot of variety to the game’s combat. In the interest of time I mainly stuck to two Daemons―one for fighting normal enemies and another for boss battles―but had I more time I would have tried to grind out the skill trees of the rest as well. While grinding out these skill trees is nowhere near a herculean task, it isn’t a very fun one. A few of the passive skills locked away in every Daemon’s skill trees are features that simply make combat less fun to be without. The simple ability to cancel out of skills, attacks, and a Daemon’s unique mobility option is essential to a satisfying combat flow, so it’s rather frustrating to have that feature locked away behind multiple upgrades. I’d say it takes about a full level of forcing yourself to use the Daemon you want to use to be able to upgrade them to a point where they’re actually fun to use. Stick with it, though, and they can become absolute wrecking balls.

The various Daemons found throughout the game are also, surprisingly, the game’s best characters. Not only are their designs all quite captivating, but also their individual stories are some of the best writing in the entire game. Each Daemon was once a living soul within the world of ONINAKI, and as you go through their skill trees you’ll receive pieces of their backstory and find out how each one of them died. In addition to being well-written side stories in their own right, they tie in to the central narrative and themes of ONINAKI as well. At a certain point, I found myself wanting to upgrade my Daemons less for the combat benefits and more so I could learn more about them. In fact, once I finish this review I plan on going back and doing just that. Given how much time was put into fleshing them out as characters, it’s an honest shock that Daemons never factor into the story as anything other than a weapon.

Looking back on my time with ONINAKI, I think it can be best summed up as a game that’s more than the sum of its parts. It’s an odd patchwork of concepts and ideas―weird, ambitious ideas that don’t always make a lot of sense or even feel like finished thoughts. It’s a conflicting game that strikes conflicting tones, a decision reflective of the many dualities presented in the narrative. There are two sides to this story, two worlds to jump between, two names for our heroes, two choices to make at the very end, and two moments I’ll remember most from my time with ONINAKI. The first was a moment of loss; the other an inconsequential choice. ONINAKI may not be my favorite game, but it is my favorite type of game, one I’ll be recommending for years to come.

REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Beautiful soundtrack

+ Good character designs and well-realized art style

+ Daemon side stories contain some of the best writing in the game

+/- Novel premise and strong ideas that mostly carry on to a satisfying conclusion

+/- Gameplay is varied and interesting, though some boss encounters are altogether frustrating

- Essential quality of life combat features are locked behind upgrades

- Kagachi is a really dull protagonist

How does ONINAKI compare to your favorite Square Enix RPGs? Let us know in the comments below!

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Danni Wilmoth is a Features writer for Crunchyroll and co-host of the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

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