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sazorak · 3 years

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Every Game I Played in 2020, Ranked

2020. Boy, what a garbo year huh? Didn't actually play that many games this year all-in-all. Happens! My backlog is getting pretty big, but I just find it hard to focus on games when I could be working on something. Or put off working on something, as it may happen to be at times.

My arbitrary decision from years ago to only attach a numbered ranking to same-year releases is getting increasingly silly, especially given my propensity to wait on playing games until I’m in the right mood, but whatever. That order matters than the dumb numerical numbering anyway.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019

Later Alligator – 2019 – Steam – ★★

The style of this game is very cute, and the jokes are funny enough. But… ok, look, I’m not one to be precious about what is or isn’t a game. But this really isn’t a game. It’s a series of disconnected, unrelated challenges clipped from Atari Free Mini Game Collection 100, wrapped in a very non-interactive adventure-game. It’s cute, it’s kind of sweet, but it’s dull. Dull dull dull. There’s a pointless, mandatory sliding block puzzle early on that infuriated me by its mere existence. Them giving the ability to skip it because “wow you’re bad at this huh”, which, while accurate, also just sold the whole point meaningless of the “““interactive experience”””.

Also: when a huge part of your game is WOW WE ANIMATED EVERYONE REALLY GOOD, text boxes that reveal word-by-word, far away from the animations that occur when said characters talk? Kind of stinks!

8. Carrion – 2020 – Steam – ★★

What Carrion does well— the whole “You’re controlling The Thing and just rippin’ people apart!” shtick— is really neat. They made that bootleg The Thing animate real-ass good.

The actual game as a whole though? Kind of garbage. Imagine a Metroidvania with zero actual exploration, where every opportunity you have to venture off the path instead results in immediate railroading with constant, utterly inexplicable one-way pipes. It’s not that it’s linear, it’s that it actively slaps you when you attempt to explore. It’s very frustrating! Add the fact that the tentacle-monster-shtick makes challenging to actually, y’know, move around and control all your bits… the only reason I finished the game was due to foreknowledge of its extreme brevity.

I think if the game were more open and less obsessed with constantly handing out upgrades, as well as having less of a focus on pure combat, I think I’d have enjoyed it more.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays – 2019 – Steam – ★★

It is well documented at this point that I am both an active Gundam fan, and as well as an on-again-off-again tactical RPG aficionado. A SD Gundam game appearing on Steam with a good English translation and localization is… exciting, to say the least. That said, I have never had much context for this game series beyond the basic facts that the combat tended to be pretty well animated CG, and that it’s vaguely similar to Super Robot Wars. Turns out… it’s really different from SRW? I dunno how the rest of the series fairs, but Cross Rays is weird as hell.

For one, there’s zero tutorialization at all. None. Almost all of what I’m going to explain here is me figuring stuff out by trial and error, or by reading junk online. Gundam is insanely popular, you’d think they’d be interested in explaining how it all works, but… nope. Even Super Robot Wars has multi-level introductory bits for new folks to show them the rope these days.

So: Cross Rays is a tactical RPG where you can playthrough the storyline of various Gundam AUs. You can play through them in any order. These playthroughs are fairly literal translations of the stories. You take control of the lead mecha from those series, fight enemy mobile suits that show up in SRW-like tactical RPG combat, until all reinforcements cease. Pretty straight forward. There are occasionally mission variants like “prevent enemies from reaching X” or “prevent enemies from destroying Y”, but even those can be just reduced to “kill everything very quickly please.”

But here’s the thing: while there is a story progression, the characters in the story itself actually have no character progression. These characters and mecha are actually considered guests, despite it being ostensibly their story. Instead, you are able to field “permanent” mecha and pilots of your own choosing, which do have progressions. There is no plot justification for this or anything like it. The game does not recognize that it’s weird that during Iron-Blooded Orphans intro where nobody knows what a Gundam even is, you can have 25 Gundams show up at once and just fire lasers at everything. That’s because this game is actually about repeatedly grinding the same set of missions over and over.

Pilots are recruited by completing certain in-mission requirements. Mecha are acquired by either by getting enough kills with the progression-less “guest” mecha, combining mecha you already have gashopon-style, completing certain quests, or by leveling up mecha and then “evolving them”. This is the actual core of the game.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays is basically Disgaea, it turns out? You’re grinding story missions at various difficulty levels in order to complete missions, try to recruit specific pilots, equip them with stats and levels to make them stronger, and then hitting mecha together in a sort of quasi-SMT fusion system until you get all the powerful mobile suits you desire.

The combat itself is kind of… bland? There’s a lot of systems, but they mostly seem in service of making an already easy game easier, or burning through tedium. There are four different difficulty modes, because there’s not actually that many different missions you can play through. The expectation is you’ll just work your way through every story beat while ramping the difficulty up over time to where the “guest” mecha would not be able to handle on their own. In fact, letting the story mecha act out the story beats is actually bad after a point, unless you’re still trying to get those lead mobile suits, or if you’re trying to complete some mission requirement in order to recruit Named Wing Grunt Pilot #246.

There is something to the notion of “I want to get N and N and N and N on a team, piloting weird but powerful mobile suits, and just solo every Gundam AU in a row,” but the whole premise seems kind of against purpose. Why bother recreating story beats at all, then? It’s not like the game even acknowledges any of that going on.

If the point is that I’m supposed to be, like in other grind-heavy tactical RPGs, breaking the systems to my own end in order to proceed… why not make the missions you play challenges focused towards that? The story progression literally only exists to facilitate the mission-based unlock conditions, which makes all the energy put into making them JUST LIKE THE ANIME really damn pointless.

I like tactical RPGs, I like breaking RPG systems so as to beat hard challenges (I beat all the insanely hard extra bosses in FFXII for crying out loud), I looooove Gundam. I should like this. But I don’t really have the “god, I NEED TO FILL THIS LIST” gene that some folks have… except as an excuse to continue to engage in gameplay I enjoy. The gameplay here seems in service of the collection, rather than the way around.

7. Pokemon Sword: The Isle of Armor – 2020 – ★★★

Pokemon’s first foray into actually doing DLC is… a mixed bag. As a positive, they’ve improved the Wild Area concept I liked from the main game, and even brought back buddy Pokemon walking behind you. That’s neat. On the other hand: the actual progression in it is completable in like an hour, it doesn’t scale with you, so you’re bound to be over leveled for it, and all the raid stuff, while still conceptually neat, is just as flawed as in the base game. And so, you’re just left with even more new Pokemon to RNG grind on to continue to catch-them-all. Nah, I’m good.

Astral Chain – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

Platinum knows how to make good character action games. They’ve made a bunch of them. Bayonetta, Nier: Automata, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. They also know how to make some kind of mediocre character action games. Transformers: Devastation, Wonderful 101, their various shovelware character action games like Korra. Astral Chain falls somewhere in the middle, I guess?

Astral Chain has all the production of their good games. It has some stylish, cool action. It has a neat core mechanical idea, in that it’s essentially a two-character action game where you control both characters at once. It has a lot of the old mechanics from some of their best games brought in; witch-time last second dodging from Bayonetta, Nier’s shooting-and-slashing combination, the Zandatsu mechanic from Metal Gear Rising, even Wonderful 101’s multi-unit shenanigans. The setting is different, and there’s some neat world flavor all in all.

But, of all games I’ve played over the past few years, Astral Chain made me more vividly angry than any other. It’s not that it’s too hard— far from it, really, I found its combat incredibly mashy. No, the problem is that it has so many shitty mechanics slathered on that it become a chore to get to the “good bits”.

Why would you put forced stealth sequences in your character action game, especially when your movement controls are not suited for it?

Why the HELL would you put platforming sections in your character action game, constantly, especially when your stupid ghost buddy can accidentally yank you off the edge, your auto-combos can just throw you off the edge, or literally anything can knock you off the edge and make you lose life?

Why would you put so many constant excuses into the world to force me use the digital sensor in the game, that also makes it miserable to walk around while using it?

WHO THE LIVING FUCK THINKS THESE SHITTY BOX BALANCING MINI-GAMES ARE FUN???

These games are supposed to encourage me to perfect everything, right? Why keep putting fucking fights you need to complete in order to get an S rank behind backtracking, or Legions I don’t have yet? That isn’t adding replayability, that’s just wasting my time. There are even in-level missions that have fail conditions that you never even know about. Surprise!!! A lot of them involve chasing after guys and catching them with your chain, which is really obnoxious to do!!!! SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The story is just Bad Evangelion, straight up. Every story beat from Evangelion is here, executed worse. They also make your character have a twin just so they can have a character who can talk and feel emotions, because your boring-ass protagonist is stuck being an emotionless audience cipher. Cool!!!

Tetris Effect – 2018 – Origin – ★★★

It’s drugs Tetris. I personally don’t use, or have synesthesia for that matter. I imagine this game is better if you do. It’s an enjoyable enough experience but it feels incredibly slight for what I was expecting from it, or even compared to something like Lumines, which has tons of replayability by way of its difficulty. Tetris just isn’t that hard, unless you’re forcing yourself to do weird shit to get points. I WILL NEVER LEARN HOW TO T-SPIN. Never.

Castlevania Anniversary Collection – 2019 – Steam – ★★★

Kind of an unremarkable Castlevania collection. Neat that it has an official translation of Kid Dracula in there, but also… look, I prefer Metroidvania Castlevanias, OK?

6. Spelunky 2 – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

I’m not entirely sure why this doesn’t click for me where Spelunky 1 did. More annoying intro levels? Too many fiddly requirements for different ending-progression? Gameplay additions that just make things more annoying? Spelunky 1 was hard, but there was a kind straight-forwardness to it, even with its weird secrets, that made it much easier to grok and continue banging your head against. I’m just not having as much fun with this. Difficulty should be challenging, not a hassle.

5. Stellaris: Federations – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

This is the year that Stellaris just broke for me.

Federations itself is a good DLC; it adds some really interesting mechanics tied to various types of multi-national unions (the titular federations, as well as the Space UN), as well as the addition of unique “origins” that allow you to further specialize your gameplay. The origins in particular are a great addition that allows more specialization and roleplay.

I’m just tired of the sheer amount of busywork Stellaris forces you to do. Every DLC adds more junk you need to keep an eye on, and the fact that the AI doesn’t even bother with it (compensating with copious economy boosts in order to keep up) makes the whole thing frustrating. It’s like playing fetch with yourself; you just get tired of chasing after your own ball after a point.

I have to wonder if they’re pivoting towards a notional Stellaris 2 at this point? Might not be a bad idea for them, though it is weird with all they talked up adding more origins when Federations came out.

4. GranBlue Fantasy Versus – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★

This is probably the fighting game I got most into over the past few years. There’s just this nice, almost Street Fighter-esque ease of execution to the controls, and that Arc Systems Works 3D-as-2D style continues to just do work. I don’t give a single shit about GranBlue Fantasy (frankly, I think I’d enjoy this game more if it wasn’t attached to a property) but the characters are fun enough to play and look at.

The big problem here is two things: no crossplay, and no rollback netcode. In the span of a month, this game became a total ghost town on PC, and it doesn’t sound like PS4 faired that much better.

Ring Fit Adventure – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

I’ve fallen on-and-off this game all year. At its heart: it works, it’s a fun exercise game. I don’t think it really feels like a “game” (in the sense that I’m not really coming to it for riveting gameplay or anything) as much as just a guided exercise experience, but… that’s fine? The in-game story is kind of flat, but funny in the fact of it existing at all. Buff Nicol Bolas and all.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen – 2017 – Steam – ★★★★

XCOM2: War of the Chosen is a great answer to what XCOM2 struggled with. As I discussed back in 2016 (Jesus Christ), XCOM2 tried to push against player’s worst instincts by incentivizing them to keep being aggressive through a whole bunch of timers— which, kind of just weren’t fun given how much accidentally walking into an ambush could “ruin” dozens of hours of play. War of the Chosen dials that back in some intelligent ways, by instead making the encounter designs themselves, as well as much more grab-and-bail mission types, encourage players to push ahead instead. Smart!

The addition of the Chosen makes the game feel more alive, and they really do make missions harder— particularly early on. But they’ve somehow accidentally fell into the hole, where XCOM just… isn’t that hard? Early on it’s challenging, particularly with the resource restrictions and all. But they keep giving you more and more options (that aren’t especially meaningful choices) that make your team more and more powerful, without increasing the strength of the enemy as time goes on. By the five-hour mark, you basically know if you’re going to steam roll the game or not.

The amount of additional character and variety in the gameplay is great, I just wish it had a more challenging difficulty curve. Maybe make the meta-layer of when enemies show up more targeted to where players are at. If a player is doing well, ramp up the difficulty, if they’re struggling, pull it back a bit. I should always feel like I’m just barely keeping ahead with XCOM, not like I’m bored. And by the end of War of the Chosen, I was kind of getting bored, really. Oh well.

3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 2020 – Switch – ★★★★

This is probably the video game that I spent the most time with hours-wise this year. I’m not entirely sure why? It’s a nice evolution of New Leaf, in that the crafting, environment shaping, and general quality-of-life improvements made are quite nice. There’s clearly been some thought on how people play these games, and ways to make the experience less frustrating.

… and yet, they kept so much tedium in the game. Like yes, the schedule stretching is the point, I get it. As someone who for some reason decided not to play with the clock, I only just recently finished the fish, fossils, and insects for the museum. But there’s just so many weird, little things that just make it hard to keep coming back to it. It’s like… to what end? When I’ve unlocked everything, and basically seen the entirety of the item list at this point, and the holiday events all being the game meaningless collectathons…. Why? I’m not going to try completing the collection; the museum stuff is about my limit, really (and even the paintings I can probably pass on).

I guess even an idealized, digital representation of a quasi-domestic life has the spiritual emptiness of consumerism-for-consumerism sake. Thanks???

Hypnospace Outlaw – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

I grew up on the internet of the early 00s. I had an AngelFire website, mostly consisting of shitty sprite webcomics and hosted Gundam pics. I remember when Google wasn’t really a thing and you would heavily rely on website compilation sites like the Anime Web Turnpike in order to find anything of value online. It was weird, it was wild. It was exciting!

The internet seemed so different back then. There was a ton of garbage online, but also, like… there was a sense of optimism to it. Folks were shitty, there was plenty of bad stuff online, but it felt so disconnected from the fabric of the physicality of real-life that it was at the same time a perfect escape.

I was young when I first got “online”, something like 12. I remember having this notion that the internet was going to be this great equalizer, that it had infinite potential to change how people behave and interact. Boy, huh.

Hypnospace Outlaw is essentially a splendid alternate universe GeoCities recreation, where you’re a volunteer moderator of a grouping of websites on HypnOS, an internet-analog you access while you are sleep. At the surface level, it’s mostly about poking around the weird alternate-historical version of the internet they created, full of kids feuding, bizarre historical divergences, and plenty of amazing bespoke weirdness. All of this is great; there’s an incredible amount of content that’s just great to poke at, listen to, and explore.

Below the surface, there’s also a rolling plotline about the ethics of this industry-owned platform, those who run it, and the way corporations handle new technology, new platforms, and emerging digital societies. There’s a late game turn that’s pretty damn affecting. And as someone who has moderator his share of internet forums in his time, trying to balance ‘do it for the community’ and what your ostensible ‘bosses’ require of you, it was kind of a weird throwback in more ways than one.

Minecraft – 2011 – PC – ★★★★★

Turns out, Minecraft is really as good still who knew??? Started playing a bunch more of it this year due to Giant Bomb deciding to do so, and yeah: still good!

2. Hades – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again— Supergiant makes damn good games. I’d been holding off on checking out Hades until its full release due to my tendency to burn out on games easily, and I’m glad I waited. Hades is a fantastic rogue-lite experience. The way it makes narrative progression part of the reiterative, randomized rogue-lite structure is just perfect.

It’s got all the usual Supergiant bullet points. Great characters, voice acting, narration, and music. In terms of gameplay, it’s probably their least ambitious game— playing something like a cousin to their original game, Bastion— but it’s also been polished to a mirror sheen. It just feels really damn good to play, over and over and over.

That being said, the second (final?) ending feels kind of…. Tacked on? It’s fine as a goal to go for while continuing to do the game’s relationship mechanics for additional story bits, but it ends up feeling kind of unfulfilling compared to the payoff of the first one.

1. Crusader Kings III – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I never could get into Crusader Kings II. Despite my interest, the sheer mechanical heft and unintuitive interface made the game a wall that I just couldn’t get over. I’m sure if I’d dedicated myself I probably could have learned it, but… ehhhhhh.

Crusader Kings III, on the other hand, has a good tutorial, a cleaned-up UI, and a very helpful highlight and tooltip system that make it much easier to understand how to actually play the game through resources inside the game itself. And, as it turns out: I rather love this game.

I mean, conceptually it’s an easy sell, isn’t it? Historical politics is something I enjoy broadly. I liked Stellaris but wish it had more narrative, roleplaying elements. They outright say that “winning” isn’t really the point of the game. Instead, it’s more about emergent storytelling and playing with the different systems and seeing what you can do with it.

My current game has had me taking the Haesteinn dynasty from its Viking origins into England, forming a London-seated Northern Sea Empire that encompasses all of Britannia, Iceland, Holland, Norway, and Denmark. I am currently working on hegemonizing Norse religious control over enough Asatru holy sites to finally reform the religion, such that more unified feudalization can occur. To that end, my current ruler’s predecessor invaded West Francia and conquered the whole of its territory, substantially reducing the foothold of Catholicism in mainland Europe… which seems to have kicked the hornet’s nest, given the Crusade I’m going to need to contend with next time I boot up the game.

Of course, a complicating matter is that my current ruler— the Emperor of the North Sea, King of Ireland and the Danelaw, liege of the King of Denmark, was elected from the extended Haesteinn family via Thing, the Scandinavian council of his erstwhile vassals. Where the previous emperor, the one who manufactured the invasion of Francia, was quite religious and beloved for his adherence to the old ways, I discovered as I took over as his successor that he really, really is into just boning down across Europe. We’re talking constantly attempting to seduce neighboring Queens and Princesses. His vassals are not thrilled with this. They also don’t care for his propensity for torturing people to death, constantly.

I had no real say in this; attempting to stay on top of a dynasty is kind of like riding a bucking-bronco, so many things are only tenuously under your control that some weird shit can happen. This is especially true when you use the systems that make it easier to maintain the coherency of your domain. The Norse religion encouraging concubinage results in you having a lot of kids, which means there’s a lot of domain partition going on (someday, primogeniture, someday). Naturally, using Thing election reduces that, but also makes you sometimes end up having to play Emperor Stabbo-Fucko because they thought he was the best candidate at the time. Hell, I thought he was the best candidate at the time until I discovered just how many people he’d be laying with on the low. But you just have to roll with it.

The way the game forces you to play ball with character traits is great. Doing things that match with the character’s traits makes them lose stress. Doing things against their character increases stress. Too much stress can force you to make the character take up vices (which can make them suffer health or opinion maluses, as well as altering their aptitudes), or even die outright. And sometimes those vices and attitudes can be boons, given they open up opportunities for different character interactions.

Emperor Stab-and-Fuck-Kingdom is perhaps the most relaxed person alive, it turns out, because his sadism makes him really enjoy sacrificing infidels, which makes the gods happy. It also freaks the fuck out of all of his vassals, so they’re a good supplicant mix of both appreciative of my religious sentiments and also utterly terrified of my skull piles. Some especially brave vassals occasionally try to assassinate me, but my lovers keep jumping in front of the knife and saving my life mid-coitus. Iiiiiit happens! :D

The game can be incredibly fun to just watch, as it becomes emergently weird. Georgia right now is incredibly Jewish in game. I’m not sure how that happened; I guess someone made a random Jewish guy into a vassal, who somehow moved up enough in the world to make it a movement? The Byzantine princes elected a Coptic as Emperor, which over the course of the decade resulted in very accelerated balkanization as Byzantium just lost its shit. The Middle East and notional HRE haven’t really unified in a meaningful way, so I’m curious how things are going to go if/when the Mongols unify and roll-on in.

It’s one of those “Just one more thing” games that can completely devour time. I have more than a few times checked the clock mid-game to see that it’s 4AM and that I’ve totally ruined my sleep schedule in the process of play. Oooooops.

I highly recommend checking it out if you’re curious; the introductory, pre-release video series Paradox put out showing off the game does a pretty good job of showing the core gameplay loop and also how weird it can get.

#GAME OF THE YEAR #GOTY #nonfiction #thinkpiece #2020 #Crusader Kings 3 #Hades #SD Gundam #Animal Crossing

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jaybug-jabbers · 3 years

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Pokemon Sword/Shield: A review of my experience

So, I’ve rung in the new year in style with a bad cold. Fortunately, I received a new Switch Lite for Christmas and a copy of Pokemon Sword, so at least I’ve had something to do while sitting about feeling miserble. I beat the game last night, and I figured I’d say a few words about what I thought of it. There are major spoilers ahead!

Graphics & Music

First of all, it looks absolutely beautiful. I’m used to using my 2DS, so the upgrade to the Switch Lite was quite the jump. When compared to previous Pokemon titles, the game is absolutely stunning to gaze upon. What’s more, the environments are varied, creative, colorful, and just lovely. They were such a delight that when I first started the game and had control of my character, the first thing I did was simply stand there for a solid five minutes just gazing on the dynamic, gorgeous countryside, butterfree flapping in the distance, Wooloo rolling around, people going about their day. It helps that I do love the UK and I’ve visited it in the past, and I have to say they did an excellent job evoking the feel of those landscapes. Exploring the towns and the environments was always a joy. Their layouts were natural, intuitive, and walking around or biking around was easy and fun. I was eager to explore every nook and cranny. Accompanying the environments was excellent music. All of the tracks were on-point. They set the feel of the location and they were all great to listen to.

UI & Battle Mechanics

Another thing you notice right away is the UI has been beautifully updated. It’s logically and appealingly organized, it’s very speedy, and there are a lot of quality-of-life tweaks and updates– such as accessing your pokemon PC from just about anywhere. (or easy access to Flying from the regular Map menu!) These tweaks have really helped smooth and streamline things and make for a better experience. It took some getting used to some of the tweaks, such as a forced Experience Share for the entire pokemon party. I’m still not sure what I think of that, but I kept reminding myself that full-party experience is standard in other RPGs, so it’s not so huge a jump for Pokemon to adopt it as well.

Characters

The game is also populated by many characters that I enjoyed. The character designs were well thought-out and appealing, and the characters themselves were fun. Hop may have a bit of a doofy haircut and be a bit of a dork, but he’s still an enjoyable rival. Professor Magnolia seems cool, as does her daughter Sonia. As we meet each of the gym leaders in turn, I generally liked them, as well. They did a good job adding little bits of personality to each of them. And yes, I even liked Leon, the over-the-top and bizarrely-dressed Champion. He was hammy and I think it worked well for him.

The Sport of Pokemon & Dynamaxing

Something else I found myself really enjoying was how much the game was emphasizing the sport aspect to Pokemon battling in the Galar region. This is something the game has always had to a certain extent, but never to the degree it has here. Pokemon battling was a huge spectacle here in Galar, done in massive statiums to huge, roaring crowds. This is a world of difference when compared to the solemn, trial-like, solitary experience of the Elite Four. It just brings and entirely different energy to the experience. And I found I really liked that. During the first few gym battles, I wasn’t entirely into it at first, largely because the first few gym fights were incredibly easy. But after they got a little harder, I started to get into the feel of things.

Naturally, the whole huge emphasis on the electric thrill of competition and of huge, bombastic spectacle was tied into the gimmick of this particular game: Dynamaxing. And as lukewarm as I was about Dynamaxing when I first heard it announced (I’m pretty tired of these gimmicks– Z-Moves, Mega Evolutions and the likes), I have to give credit where credit’s due: it was at least tied very thoroughly into the plot and into the fabric of the game. It didn’t feel tacked on, and I wasn’t resentful about actually using Dynamaxing. It may have been a silly gimmick, but it was still enjoyable to use, because it made sense to help entertain the crowds with oversized spectacle, and because there was a certain amount of enjoyment in the added strategy it required. I’m glad I was able to get into it.

I think the highest point for me about the gym challenge experience was when I was facing off Raihan. Here’s the chap they’ve been hyping for a while about facing up against, because he’s the last gym leader standing before you move onto the Semi Finals and the Finals. When you walk through the dark corridor out into the pitch, you can feel the electric atmosphere; you can hear people cheering your name as their new favorite trainer hopeful; and then, Raihan, the man who always acted so casual and smooth and cool, suddenly shows his intense side on the field of battle. He flings out two pokeballs and brags about mixing things up for you with a doubles format and with the weather, and dares you to step up for the challenge.

My two front pokemon come out– Snowdrop, my Frosmoth, and Bazz, my Grapploct. After all that weather bragging, I decide to show him, and have my Frosmoth flip his sandstorm weather over to Hail. Surprised, my opponent acknowledges that was a pretty nice move on my part. I then Blizzard and Superpower his first pair of pokemon out of the picture.

I’m feeling pretty good, and then he sends out his second pair of pokemon. I have no idea what the heck the Duraludon is supposed to be. Then he Dynamaxes it, which takes me a little off guard, as I had expected it later, but of course this is doubles so there is no later. I stall for a little bit, trying to decide what to hit the Duraludon with, and my first few pokemon go down, and the sandstorm kicks back in.

I decide to send out my Corviknight out for Dynamaxing. But I’m still floundering over the best tactic for this unfamiliar pokemon. I try Max Airstream to see how much it does, but it’s not a very impressive chunk. Then his Sandaconda gets a Glare off on my Corviknight, which is a pain. I waste one of my Dynamax turns getting paralyzed. I’ve fainted several other pokemon in the process of things. I start to think I’m toast and I’ll need to replay the match. Then I realize this stupid-looking Duraludon is, of course, a Steel type. I’d just recently put Body Press onto my Corviknight for some move variety. On my final Dynamax turn, I use it. It utterly destroys the Duraludon, which had just lost its Dynamax.

My own Corviknight falls back down into its normal state. There’s only one pokemon left on either one of our teams; his damned Sandaconda and my half-health Corviknight. The sand is still up, but my Corviknight didn’t mind that at all. It did, however, mind the paralysis and the Fire Fang the snake kept using. Fortunately, Corviknight is still a tanky beast, and I blasted away with Drill Pecks. It was tense, really down to the wire. Would Corviknight tank enough hits to make it? Would he get paralyzed at an inopportune moment?

Fortunately, he makes it, finishing off Sandaconda and taking the match. As I cheer at the victory, my pokemon cheers too, amongst all the swirling sand. The crowd roars, and I feel a genuine respect for my opponent’s skill. It was a good fight. Afterwards, when I returned to the lobby, people were congratulating me on my victory, and it felt truly nice.

Moments like these are not common in pokemon games. At least, they aren’t for me. I had felt everything during that match– the magnificent spectacle of the dynamaxing, the tricks my opponent pulled, his keen desire to win, the crowd’s thirst for a good match, my desire to pull through somehow. As it turned out, after that, I didn’t have battle quite as good. The Semi-Finals and the Finals were a cakewalk for me. Even the Raihan rematch was ridiculously easy. He changed up his team and made it much worse, so that he had different weather-setters for each poke, lacking any team synergey at all. It was a shame. Perhaps the only reason that match was so close was because I had been briefly intimidated over the doubles format and confused over the Duraludon, but I do wish those magical experiences happened more often.

Indeed, even my final battle with the Champion was a woeful disappointment. I got off one Dragon Dance with Dragapult and swept the whole team cleanly. That brings up another point, though: the difficulty level of this game. It is … well, not very high. It’s a shame. I realize it’s a tricky balance, since this game is aimed at a variety of age levels, and they don’t want it too difficult for the younger audience. Still, it would be nice for Pokemon to implement a ‘hard mode’ to help deal with this issue. Perhaps if they did, we could have more magical moments like the one I had with Raihan.

Character Development & Plot

The low difficulty wasn’t the only thing about Pokemon Sword/Shield that sometimes brought disappointment. At the end of the game, I also found the plot sort of ended up in a no-man’s land. Almost all of the plotlines felt unfinished. Marnie looked like a really cool character full of potential, but then nothing ever really happened with her character. Team Yell ended up being very different from all the other ‘teams’ of the pokemon universe, in that they were just very vocal and sometimes excessively involved fans of Marnie. I actually liked the idea of the ‘team’ not being a group of organized villians up to no good, but Team Yell’s plot ultimately petered out into nothing. The same could be said for other characters. Sonia was a cool-looking character design and again seemed to have a lot of potential as a character, but I never quite understood the point of her plot. She was … uninterested in research, maybe, but became interested? Or was overwhelemed with the work? Or … what, exactly? When she “earned” the lab coat, it didn’t feel like an accomplishment. There was no weight or clarity to her character arc in the slightest. She didn’t even ultimately contribute all that much, because she failed to even be the one to discover the Sword and Shield artifacts.

Again, we find this trend with others, such as Hop’s development. Hop is a cocky, confidant young lad who idolizes his older brother. Eventually he runs into a trainer who throws off his groove, gets into his head with some comments, claiming that he’s dragging his older brother’s name through the mud by being shite at pokemon battling. Then he starts to doubt and second-guess himself, reshuffle his team and his strategies endlessly, and so forth. Eventually, he seems to ‘get over it’ and gets his groove back, but we never are given a really firm reason as to why he gets his groove back. What brought about this change? We need to see why he’s learned and grown. And really, even when he does pull his shit together again, has he really learned much from the experience? I assumed his ultimate lesson would be to see his brother more as an equal, not as someone to idolize; as a human who can self-doubt and make mistakes just like him. But the writers passed up the opportunity to go that way with the plot. They just sort of … gave up halfway.

The most of a glimpse we get from that is something given to us from the animation itself, not the writers. Out on the pitch, during the final battle against Leon, when he’s just about to toss his pokemon out, there’s a moment when he pauses and taps both hands against his face. It’s a subtle little gesture, as if he’s trying to shake off any gnawing self-doubts and get his head into the game, and it echoes his younger brother, who we’ve seen do the same thing. It’s such a lovely little touch, such a human moment, and to me shows that both brothers have been vulnerable to self-doubt despite their swagger, but in the end can overcome it. I only wish the idea were explored further in the actual plot.

The ‘evil plot’ of this particular game also feels only half-baked and incomplete. The motivation behind Rose’s actions feels entirely absent to me, as does any logic whatsoever. What’s worse, the game leaves behind so many lingering questions. OK, so this slumbering Eternatus is the source of all Dynamax power, and he’s discovered the energy will run out in a thousand years or so. How is waking up Eternatus by feeding it Wishing Stars (which, as Magnolia later reports, are bits of Eternatus itself– so, what, feeding Eternatus pieces of itself?) going to help with that? Will it produce more energy once awake? So he planned on capturing it and … sending it out whenever they needed more energy? Or just keeping it around as a power-giving pet of some sort? But at the end of the game, the player keeps Eternatus for themselves, so doesn’t that mean Galar is sort of screwed now? How can the power plant continue to function (and Dynamaxing) if the source of that power is now inside my pokeball? Also, how exactly did Rose wake up Eternatus to begin with/bring about the Darkest Day? Just release all the energy he had at once? There’s so much that’s confusing and unclear. Basically, the plotline felt very half-baked. I had the sense the writing for this game was frankly very rushed.

It doesn’t stop there. Oleana, the whole thing with Bede, and other characters are left with tons of lingering questions and unfinished plotthreads as well. I suspect the devs simply ran out of time. It’s a huge shame, because I enjoyed all of these characters and felt there was so much potential there, but that potential was never really realized.

Pokemon

This generation has a relatively low number of new pokemon, and you do feel that a little bit as you’re going along. The older pokemon that are mixed in were chosen well, in that they blend naturally with the environments they were placed in, and they’re spaced out nicely, so you encounter a mix of new and old at a nice clip, so they have that going for themselves. But even still, yes, you do start to wish there were a few more surprising faces. Still, there’s definitely fun to be had with new pokemon, especially for some of the cooler Galar regional variants. (I fully support regional variants and am happy they made a comeback in this generation.)

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, there’s also only a very limited set of old pokemon this game has access to. Any species not listed in the Galar dex simply cannot be transferred over. This has upset many people, but when I played the game, it did not feel lacking for that reason. The sheer number of pokemon in the overall franchise is now staggering. It makes complete sense to not include every species in every game now. They intend to include old pokemon on rotation in future games, and that seems like a fair compromise to me. Am I bummed that my favorite Parasect can’t be transferred to Galar? Of course. But I’m not too worked up over the fact. He’ll see another region someday.

To finish this section off, I’m going to do a rapid-fire list of my top 5 and bottom 5 of the new pokemon.

Top 5

Corviknight: An absolutely gorgeous design and easily the MPV of my team.

Wooloo/Dubwool: It’s an adorable ball sheep/ram. You simply can’t go wrong with that. One of the first to be revealed of the new pokes, but I can never get bored with it.

Dragapult: A very creative, lizardy Dragon/Ghost creature that adorably shoots its own babies as ammo. I love it.

Grappaloct: So beautiful. Love its design, its stance, the way one tentacle is a belt, love its colors and pattern, its eyes, its cry, everything. Such a badass and I love octopi in general, so a real winner. This is the octopus we’ve needed for a while.

Snom/Frosmoth: I mean, in some ways its design isn’t revolutionary, since we already have many moth pokemon. However, Snom is still adorable and Frosmoth is still beautiful, something you cannot deny. And it’s been long overdue to get an Ice/Bug. What’s more, Snom is based off real caterpillars (jewel caterpillars), which is wonderful.

Bottom 5

Inteleon: A very distinctive design style that doesn’t look like it belongs anywhere near a Pokemon game. Just feels very mismatched to me.

Alcremie: I hate sentient food. A massive pet peeve of mine.

Applin: See above.

Duraludon: Sorry, but I still think its design is ugly. I can’t get used to it.

Mr. Mime (Galar Variant): No. Mr. Mime is always horrible. Stay away from me. Keep your creepy variant, too.

The Wilds Area

Of course, a review of the game would be incomplete if I didn’t mention the Wild Area. This section of the game was really very lovely. I enjoyed exploring what was essentially Breath of the Wild: Pokemon, and I think it’s a wonderful direction for the game to take. Wandering around, finding goodies, rare pokemon, Dynamax dens and all the rest is very entertaining and it’s just beautiful. Really makes you feel like you’re out in nature exploring, and really encountering pokemon in their natural environment. I’ve read people predicting that Game Freak is using the Wild Area in this game as a test, and something they will probably expand upon in later games. If that’s what they are indeed doing, then I welcome the change. I can’t say I am super interested in fighting wild Dynamax pokemon with my friends, but I did enjoy everything else.

Summary

So, would I recommend this game to others? It would depend on who you are. If you’re a big pokemon fan, then yes, of course. You’ll enjoy the beautiful locations to explore, the new pokemon, and the excitement of the Galar sports arenas, as well as some colorful characters. However, you are going to find some flaws. The plot and character arcs are going to eventually end up a little lacking, and you’ll find there’s not as much new content as you’d have preferred. While some aspects of this game are very well polished and complete, others feel rushed. Overall, it’s going to be a mixed experience, but I think that if you like pokemon, you will still enjoy it.

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Jan 1, 2020.

#pokemon #game review #mycontent #pokemon reviews

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shinywailordguy · 3 years

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2020 Games

Replays

DKC Trilogy (5/5) - As great as ever, competitive co-op was a fun twist

Super Mario 64 (4/5) - A lot more playable than I expected after all this time

1 - I Knew It Would Be Bad

Mega Man X7 - Widely considered to be an awful game. Mega Man doesn't work in 3D and some bosses repeat the same voice clips literally several times per second.

2 - Stop Trying To Make Retro Games Happen

Dragon Quest 1 - Fine but tedious and basic these days

Dragon Quest 2 - Fine but tedious and basic these days

Dragon Quest 3 - Fine but tedious and basic these days

Mega Man 7 - Nice colourful graphics but too hard and annoying for me Mega Man 8 - Nice colourful graphics but too hard and annoying for me

Mega Man 9 - Nice NES-style graphics but too hard and annoying for me

Mega Man 10 - Nice NES-style graphics but too hard and annoying for me

Gorogoa - Very clever but I'm no good at these kind of puzzle games and should have known better

Hitman Go - Same as Gorogoa, I got too frustrated after a while. At least I learned and didn't get Baba is You Shantae (Gameboy Colour) - You can see the beginnings of the great Shantae series but the difficulty is way higher than its sequels and it feels very clunky to actually play

3 - Mega Mans

Mega Man X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X6, X8 – Not point in repeating myself so I'm just going to combine these together since I played them all very close together. The X games are my favourite Mega Man games but I'm still not a huge fan of the bosses, the structure or the difficulty

Songbird Symphony - Lovely little platformer but the rhythm sections quickly became too messy to be fun. At least they were optional.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz - Would have been great if not for the awful, awful boss battles that ruined it

Zanki Zero - Great story and cool aging mechanices but skip the dungeon gameplay.

Disgaea 3 - Not top tier Disgaea due to somewhat forgettable characters but still quite enjoyable

Atelier Ryza - Very nice rpg but the heavy focus on crafting dragged me down more than I thought it would

Etrian Odyssey IV - I loved mapping out the dungeons on the touch screen but the battles and puzzles left me cold

Toby: The Secret Mine - Surprisingly decent puzzle platformer that wasn't just the Limbo ripoff that you might think at first glance.

Aegis Defenders - Fun puzzle platforming with tower defense that eventually got too overwhelming for me

Little Acre - Really nice cartoony Irish game that felt like it ended a little abruptly

4 - Second Chances

Pokemon Shield Expansion Pass - Really great add-ons that make me excited for what's next

New Super Luckys Tale - I had a lot of fun with this cute and charming 3D platformer

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - Nice Metroidvania where you transform into different animals to progress

Cadence of Hyrule - I can't handle the proper timed Necrodancer gameplay but this was a fun mini Zelda experience in Wait Mode

The Messenger - I enjoyed this game but the difficulty and sparse fast travel points in the Metroidvania section put me off by the end.

Scribblenauts Unlimited - The best Scribblenauts game which focuses on words instead of awkward physics (unlike the DC one)

A Short Hike - A fun and wholesome adventure

Snake Pass - I gave up on it originally but I'm glad I came back. The controls are very awkward but once I got used to them I was amazed at what I could do and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Murder by Numbers - It's Picross! Strong Ace Attorney vibes but doesn't quite match the excitement and humour of that series.

Sonic Racing All Stars Transformed - A very enjoyable kart/boat/plane racer with a fun mix of characters and levels

Team Sonic Racing - I think Transformed made me appreciate this game even more and against all expectations I loved the team mechanic

Animal Crossing New Horizons - Very relaxing but breakable weapons and crafting ruined the fun a bit for me

Owlboy - Glad I gave this a second chance, a beautiful looking Zelda-like game where you can fly Phogs - Brilliant co-op game, I loved the bedtime and arcade worlds so much

Trine 4 - Very good co-op puzzle platformer, shame about the combat

Gris - Lovely platformer that was like playing a painting

Fall Guys - Frustrating at times but a clever idea and a lot of fun especially taking turns with a group

5 - The Top 10 (in no particular order)

Sayonara Wild Hearts - The way it combines the music and visuals makes it so exciting to play through and at about an hour a go I've replayed it several times since

Links Awakening HD - Lovely diorama style graphics and even though it was the same great game as ever it still felt very fresh

Dragon Quest 11 - A massive, beautiful, traditional style jrpg that constantly surprises

Luigis Mansion 3 - The best Luigis Mansion, so much fun to explore all the unique floors of the hotel and Gooigi was a great addition

Into the Breach - Brilliant strategy game, being limited to just 3 units and only around 5 turns per battles means it has all the best of Advance Wars and Fire Emblem minus any tedium

Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair - If you ignore the Impossible Lair itself which is one of the most ridiculous difficulty spikes I've ever seen, this felt like having a new Donkey Kong Country

Paper Mario and the Origami King - I was worried about the battle system and that it was continuing the Sticker Star style of Paper Mario, but having now played it, it's a game I'm very fond of.

Shovel Knight Treasure Trove - I'm so glad I revisited this having only played the original. I loved Spectre Knights campaign but my favourite was King Knights due to the shorter levels.

Fire Emblem Three Houses - Great gameplay as always and I loved getting to know all of the characters

Monster Hunter Iceborne - Very difficult but fantastic monsters and great as an online co-op

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babybahamut · 6 years

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Games Of 2017

Once again, here is my annual review of the games I played in the course of the year. I usually only include games I haven’t played before, but this year I spent 6 months without a decent computer and therefore it’d be a very short list if I did that. Alphabetical order for no reason. Quick mention to Love Live School Idol Festival which three years later I’m still playing- much less so now that the mu’s story mode has ended (I’ve tried to, but I just don’t care about Aqours in anywhere near the same way) but I still play every mu’s event. Looking forward to what All Stars is going to bring us! I miss my girls!

Borderlands 2

A pretty fun FPS, the randomised weapons keep things interesting. I started off as the Gunzerker but I found myself resorting to sniping 99% of the time so I used a save-editor to change myself to the sniper dude and had a much happier time of it. It got kinda dull after a while though and I haven’t finished it- enemies either stomp you or go down very quickly with no real strategy involved beyond “snipe the head”, and there’s no actual impetus to do well. If you die, you just respawn a little distance away with less money (which you get an abundance of and is also not very useful) and you get to keep all the EXP you’d earned up to that point, so you can just bum-rush a group of enemies and die over and over until they’re done. A LOT of the sidequests also boiled down to “go back to this place you already cleared and do the whole thing again and the enemies are the same so they aren’t worth killing any more in EXP terms but you still have to in order to survive”, which was boring. However, it probably would be a lot of fun to play it co-op with a friend, which unfortunately I wasn’t able to do. The writing is FANTASTIC though, it’s a very funny game and Handsome Jack is SUCH a cock.

Breath Of The Wild

I mean… I don’t need to spend long talking about how exceptionally good this game is, right? Everyone already knows that. It’s really, really, REALLY good, and lets leave it at that. What I do want to talk about is something this game does that no other game has ever done for me- it made me fear for my life.

Even encountering a fairly simple mob of monsters brought with it all kinds of considerations- is it worth engaging them? Using up my equipment on these enemies when I could just avoid them might be the wrong decision, or do they have something I need? Can I sneak around them or will I be spotted and have to engage them anyway, so should I get the drop on them while I have the advantage of stealth? One of the mob is a stronger version than the rest, can I even fight him without being killed in one hit?

It’s so interesting to me- usually I throw myself into a challenge and if it’s one that I’m not matched for, I just shrug it off and come back later. This is, I think, the first time I’ve ever had that feeling of genuine survival in a video game. Really great stuff.

Frontier

This space simulator from the Amiga era was an astonishing technical achievement at the time, squeezing an entire galaxy into a single floppy disk. The game presents space in real-world scale and it literally takes days to traverse a solar system (you can increase the speed of game-time though!) and it also observes newtonian physics with the way ships move in space. There’s no goal- simply live your life in space and try to get by. A childhood fave that’s still enjoyable, but it’s gotta be your type of game to begin with.

Golden Axe

Played this co-op with Ruu! Golden Axe is a game that you HAVE to play with a friend- it’s dull as dishwater solo but with a buddy it becomes a good laugh. Gilius Thunderhead and Tyris Flare killed Death Adder and Death Adder Junior and saved the king and princess!

Gunstar Heroes

Treasure’s debut is also one of their finest games and a fantastic run’n’gun in its own right. We played this co-op too and had a total blast. It’s one of the jewels in the crown of co-op and if you have someone to play with you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more fun game to burn through. It’s also a lot of fun to play solo, which I did on Hard difficulty for the first time ever. I usually run chaser+chaser, but in Hard mode it doesn’t do enough damage so I opted for fire+laser, which apparently can destroy bullets!

Hatoful Holday

Played the first chapter of this one- the first game was really gripping but this one didn’t grab me quite so firmly. I want to come back to it though, and I’m sure it gets a lot more compelling later on.

Iji

I had the sudden urge to play this rad-as-heck indie game out of nowhere to find that after 6 years, it had been updated just a week before I got the urge. Playing through again with the improvements, this is still a great game made even better- it’s a run-n-gun that’s a little bit metroidvania, with upgradable stats, but where it shines is in the writing and logbooks you’ll find within. The world has been destroyed by the alien race known as the Tasen. A team of scientists who survived the onslaught use the Tasen’s nanotechnology to revive Iji, in the vain hope she might be able to save what remains of Earth. I actually think this game will appeal to Undertale fans, strangely- there’s a similar pacifist/aggressor system in place (though not to the extreme of Undertale) that makes playing through in both styles worthwhile. For the dedicated, the game is absolutely riddled with secrets and bonuses to find if you’re wily. Huge recommendation and it’s completely free.

Ikaruga

2017 saw the arrival of a new friend who surprised me with their knowledge of this game. Confronted with the fact that I’d bumped into someone who knew about one of my favourite games of all time, I had no choice but to play through it once more. It’s beautiful, it’s brutal, it’s smart, it’s brutal, it’s another masterpiece by the geniuses of Treasure, and it’s available on Steam for goodness sake BUY IT.

Jak and Daxter (+2)

This series is midgi’s special series from childhood, so she had to share it with me. This is the PS3 collection. I finished the first one and played some way into the second which I’m still working on. The first is your standard collectathon platformer fare that was popular at the time- Jak has a janky double jump that was frustrating several times, but it’s fun. The second game I’ve enjoyed a lot more so far, becoming more of a run-n-gun/platformer that overall has a much darker tone. I need to get back into this one but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far.

Kirby Robobobobobobot

Oh man, what an unbelievably fun and tight game. If you’ve played any kirby game before you know what to expect here, a fun platformer where you can absorb enemy abilities to use as your own. This one has the same puzzle/challenge aspects as games before it, with each level containing 3 Puzzle Cubes to collect, rewarded after solving something a little tricky or out of the way. New to this game is the Robobot Armour, which is so so so much fun to roll around in that I can’t even begin to explain. It’s so satisfying to jump in the armour and just blast through a level, and it’s used really well too- it never feels like a gimmick and you get to use it a lot. The final boss (the final encounter, I should say- there’s like 5 final bosses without including the secret and bonus extra final bosses) is great and there’s one mindblowing scene at the end where I was watching open-mouthed with surprise. Also, the soundtrack is AMAZING- it has one of the most intense final boss themes I’ve ever heard (spoiler free link), and the rest of the soundtrack has a nice crunchy metallic, mechanical sound to it. Huge recommend.

The Last Of Us

Bloody hell, it’s grim isn’t it? I enjoyed it though, the story doesn’t have many smiles but the gameplay is a lot of fun. Stealthing around and sniping jerks was the best, but the game seems to send more enemies in out of nowhere if your stealth breaks which means you can get blindsided from an area you just cleared, which is irritating. It’s very good at making ammo feel scarce but giving you enough you don’t feel like you need to conserve everything, which also rewards exploration.

Love Nikki

F2P mobile fashion dress-up game with a bewildering array of options, there’s literally 1000+ items in each category to choose from and the art is SO PRETTY. It’s not just dress-up, there’s a story mode to play through and events to unlock more outfits, plus clothing item “evolution” (collect X amount of one item and you can spend them to upgrade it). There’s a lot to do here!

Pikmin 1 and 2

Playing them both together 10 years on, I definitely would say the first game is stronger. The second added a slew of new features and QoL upgrades, but the lack of that 30 day timer really changes the feel of the game. That little bit of pressure in the first game was just oppressive enough to make you plan your movements and constantly re-evaluate your priorities, all of which was missing from 2. People considered it better back in the day to be without the timer, but I disagree.

Pokemon Moon

I was entirely ready to declare this my GotY until Pokemon Ultra Sun/Moon were announced, and now I kind of feel like I got stiffed with half of a game. But, evaluating it on its own merits, this is the best pokemon game I’ve played. I’m not entirely sold on all the new ‘mons (but Decidueye is AWESOME) but I appreciate all the ways this game finally breaks the constraints that the series has had since gen1.Major criticism I have for this one is the dull soundtrack- considering Gen5 and 6 had great OSTs it was a real disappointment.

Later on, as part of my Gym Leader Umi challenge, I came back to play the game in a more competitive way (or at least, I built a team that had competitive viability) and it provided a very different experience. It’s not quite as friendly to this style of play as Gen6 was, but breeding is quick enough and thankfully you don’t need to level your team up to 100 to use them (as online will automatically level them up to max). Nintendo’s online is still janky as heck, but this is the best it’s ever been, and I had a lot of fun playing the game in a different way. (Again, USUM tempered this by adding a slew of new stuff and rendering all my work to have been in vain, because now people only play the new games… and they aren’t compatible)

Super Mario Odyssey

Only played it VERY briefly cos we wanted to finish BOTW before jumping into this, but I’m impressed so far. I really like how it doesn’t tutorialise much- you just find stuff and interact with it and it WORKS and it’s cool.

Super Mario World

Timeless, flawless, 2d platforming perfected. Can’t be beat.

Snakebird

Bloody wars, this puzzle game is HARD. I didn’t want to just use guides because then what’s the point, but I definitely used youtube thumbnails of guides to see what kind of situation I needed to get my snakebirds to halfway into the level so I could work my way through from there. This game isn’t gentle at all, recommended if you like brainbreakers.

Sonic Generations

Like Sonic Adventure 2, this game feels janky and a little broken, but still manages to be a great deal of fun to play. I actually finished it to 100%. Contrary to popular opinion, I found the Modern Sonic levels to be better overall than Classic Sonic, but they’re both good. Some of the bonus challenges were bollocks (screw you Vector The Crocodile!!!!). The soundtrack though, hoo boy, Sonic games never fail to provide an excellent soundtrack and this one plays with the nostlagia of the older games but does enough of its own thing to be worthwhile in its own right. This rearrangement of City Escape made its way to my playlist.

Sonic Lost World

Aaarrrrrrgggghhhhhh… there’s so much in this game that could be SO COOL. There are so many great ideas and genuinely awesome fun gameplay hooks that are wasted in this game. It’s not at all BAD, but it’s frustrating to play it. I really enjoy the cutscenes between levels, they have some funny moments and good writing. I just… I want to like this game, the snowball level is smart, the under-ocean railgrinding level is so much fun, but for every great moment there’s another enemy or death pit hidden just out of view, or wonky wall-jumping section, or gameplay mechanic that is actually just broken (it’s a Wii U port and there’s one special power that utilised the second screen to play a sort of rhythm minigame- rather than replace it, they just removed the minigame altogether and you can spam the button as fast as you like with no rhythm consideration and it BREAKS). Soundtrack, again, is the saving grace.

Starfox 64

Childhood fave, its still the best Starfox has ever been. Great fun arcade-style into-the-screen shooter, very fast and fluid, branching paths through the game so you can see new levels each time you play. I adore this.

TF2

I think…. I’m at a place where I’m ready to say goodbye to TF2. The changes to matchmaking honestly took everything I enjoyed about the game away, and although the base game is still a lot of fun, it’s just not the same. The new contracts and weapons are enjoyable to play with and I wish Pyro’s jetpack had been added three years ago so I still wanted to master it, but it feels like an old friend whose path has diverged from my own now.

still not interested in overwatch though lol

TMNT

The SNES one, another co-op with Ruu. This one was his pick as I’ve never played it before! It was definitely fun- I feel like I didn’t really have much clue what I was doing but the combat is satisfyingly crunchy and enemies crumble in an enjoyable way. But, damn, what a rocking soundtrack!

Touhou 16

I will say I liked TH15 more, but this one is a great time. I actually liked the Extra stage better than the main game (complete opposite to TH15 whose Extra stage was balls). In terms of the main game, there’s really no reason not to use the Summer power- the others might have Releases that clear the screen or make your shots stronger, but only the Summer power lets you Release a single Option at a time. Losing all your Options every time you release is just too crippling, plus you then can’t do it again for a long time afterwards. Extra’s a blast though, with the backwards-facing shot making you play in unconventional ways.

Unreal Tournament

I had this on another of these lists, but when I got my new PC I wanted to test something. 200 bots on Hall Of Giants, all with instagib rifles. It ran smooth as silk and was complete and utter chaos. Great fun!

Wonderboy 2

Master System version, for reference. This is one of the very first games I ever played, many moons past. It’s still fun, but the decision to include the timer from the arcade version is baffling. The final boss is a little bit BS and game over means start from the beginning. I dunno if I’d recommend it to a newcomer, but if you’re used to the foibles of retro games it’s a good one.

Ys 1 and 2

Played through these again while on midgi’s laptop. The second game is much much better, but they’re kinda two halves of one whole so you need to put up with the first game to get to the second. The maps are confusing, but the combat is fun. Soundtrack is the reason to stay.

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That’s my lot of the year! Let me know if I played anything you played and you disagree with my opinion or you have any recs for 2018!

#BBs Retro/Gaming/VGM/Etc Culture Tag #BBs Do A Thing Tag

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junioradventure · 7 years

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[FANACCT] 170611 KNK “해달별" Fansign Experience at 제일라아트홀 (Fanboy)

Hi again!

I’m here with my fanaccount for KNK’s fansign during their “해달별" promotions.

This was a notably important fansign for me because I’m pretty sure this is my last fansign event before I leave Korea on the 22nd...

I’m so sad. ㅠㅠ

Anyway, it was a really awesome event and I’m glad I got to see my favorite group up close and personal again.

I did a video about their fansign before during “U” era too.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

KNK’s fansigns are getting more competitive nowadays, with fans buying more than 10 albums to have a chance to get in. I originally bought 9 albums, but after seeing a fan next to me at the CD store buy 10, I bought 3 more, totaling up to 12 albums overall. And I got in!

On the day of the fansign, I found the building where it was held and headed to the B2 floor. Some fans were waiting to get in, but the staircase and entrance was rather narrow. I showed my Alien Registration Card to verify my identification (though a passport works just as well) and the staff told me to pick a card that was on the table. The assorted cards were all face-down, and this was to determine my seat number. I got number 63.

I took my seat, but the rows of chairs were all close together and narrow too, not allowing much room. This was a noticeable inconvenience when fans had to squeeze past each other in the rows. I spent a huge amount of time before coming to prepare a fanletter for my bias Seungjun, so I had to write down all the post-its for the members that I would put in my album.

Soon the members appeared and the fansign went underway. They looked so handsome as always, but they look especially good with the suits in this era aghhhh.

Sorry that my picture’s quality isn’t too good, but this is how the fansign was conducted. The order was: Jihun→Inseong→Seungjun→Youjin→Heejun

MEMBER INTERACTIONS (with pictures and gifs!)

I’ll fast-forward to the interactions I had with each member. I’m sorry that I forgot some things that happened, but in the thick of the moment, it’s hard to process and take in everything that happened (for me). Luckily, I met someone at the fansign that was kind enough to take a video of me when I went through this great experience. I was really nervous again, because they’re my favorite group and this was my last time, so I was even more anxious.

JIHUN

So leader Jihun was first this time around~ Actually he was rather quiet today as well; when I met him at a fansign last year, he was rather soft-spoken too. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I pointed to the questions I had brought for him on the post-its and told him I was a part of an international KNK fan group on Facebook, and I gathered some questions other Tinkerbells wanted to know about KNK. He was listening and then all of a sudden, said, “Ah. International,” in English. THAT WAS FREAKING CUTE AHH. He was really handsome up-close, though. He looked mature and cool when he was in thinking mode, but then he lapsed into squishy mode when he smiled and it was just adorable.

He really thought deeply about the questions I wrote. I guess he had to think a lot about how to answer them. But another factor was that time was really limited and the staff members were quite strict so they moved our albums to the next member by force, cutting our time short.

Blue post-it note: Q: Which member is really the closest to Jihun-hyung...? A: I’m close with all but umm... Heejun?! Jihun had some trouble answering this question but dang, I didn’t expect him to think so seriously about it. ㅠㅠ I’m sorry if I had to make you pick a favorite! I know you all love each other LOL.

Yellow post-it note: Q: Where do you draw the inspiration when you make the choreography (for KNK)? A: There’s just times when suddenly... Ttak! I forgot what other little things we said after he answered those, but I had to move on. I gave him high-fives as a farewell and moved over to... Inseong!

INSEONG

Next was my second bias, Inseong. I greeted him by saying, “Inseonggie hyung~” hahaha because he’s just a fun, cool guy. He grinned and asked, “Hyung?” I SWEAR THIS WAS SO REMINISCENT WHEN I FIRST MET HIM in person when he asked me, “Am I hyung?” LOL. But he is just killing the visual game nowadays. He looked especially handsome today. He asked me where I’m from and I told him America, more specifically Hawaii.

Bottom post-it note: Q: Is there a place you really want to visit (vacation-wise)? A: Hawaii That’s probably why he cleverly wrote his answer as “Hawaii” for my question, but I’m not complaining! Inseong is really easy to talk to. I told him that his hairstyle for this concept suits him very well and that he looks really handsome. He was really happy to hear a compliment and ahhh he was just an excited hamster. I assured him that he was already handsome but now, even more. I basically complimented him a lot because he deserves more love and attention!! Top post-it note: Q: The most difficult point of this promotion...? A: Live...!? He explained that singing live was one of the toughest parts of promotions. I asked why, and he said it’s because he has to sing rather high. I understand him because him singing the chorus in “해달별" while dancing pretty vigorously looked really tiring... But he pulled it off! I told him he was really good and that he’s doing well. I feel like he was insecure a little about his performance as a vocalist and how well he does and I wanted to reassure him. It was time to move on so I told him bye~ Inseong really does have a warm heart and he’s such a nice person please give him lots of affection and reassurance

SEUNGJUN *BIAS ALERT*

*sigh* I really can’t express how great and caring Seungjun is. I can tell he truly loves and adores his fans, and it shows from the way he treats them. He said my name like, “Junior?” in a cute tone and I said cutely too, “Seungjunnie-hyung~” AHAHAHAHA. He immediately looked at my questions and more antics ensued.

Blue post-it note: Q: POKEMON or DIGIMON, you can only choose one A: *marks Pokemon* but went the extra mile to show his UNCONDITIONAL PREFERENCE FOR DIGIMON LIKE WHAT THE NOOOOOOO Yellow post-it note: Q: Is there a member you want to live with for the rest of your life? A: Inseong Jihun At first, he took a look at the blue note and I reiterated, “You can only choose one!” Without hesitation, he answered, “Digimon!” I was like WHAT THE HECK, NO YOU CAN’T CHOOSE DIGIMON OVER POKEMON OMGG. He was so firm, he was like, “Digimon~” in a cute tone and I told him, “Why??” He seemed a bit sympathetic and marked Pokemon, but said, “Digimon~” again and decorated a box around the word Digimon. DANG IT SEUNGJUN. I was like OTL because I came dressed in a Squirtle hoodie because I thought he loved Pokemon more but that happened. I mockingly complained, “I came dressed like this too...” Seungjun chuckled and then proceeded to gently grab my arm and draw a little heart on the Squirtle patch design on my hoodie!!!

SJ: *in a Korean accent* Hearteu~ I internally died at this cute action like I AM NEVER WASHING THIS HOODIE AGAIN LOL I also made sure to give him the letter I worked on. He then looked at my second post-it, which he thought about for a moment. At first, Seungjun wrote Inseong, so I asked him why. He said because Inseong is funny. BUT THEN LAST MINUTE Seungjun scratches out Inseong’s name and writes Jihun AND HE DIDN’T EVEN GIVE A REASON WHY LOL. So that made think like HMMMMM this ship really sails itself huh... Now I had to tell him that this was pretty much my last chance to see them... Me: Actually, on the 22nd, I’m leaving Korea, so this is my last chance to see you guys. I’m really glad I got to see you guys often while I was here. SJ: *in a cute pleading voice* Don’t go~ (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) Me: I don’t wanna leave either!

And then this happened.

OMG I was so flustered when he asked when I’ll be back with that cheeky smile that I accidentally lapsed into English hahahaha. He probably didn’t understand what I said, but I had to move on ㅠㅠ!! Wait for me Seungjun, I’ll be back!! I really want to cry now... Hahahaha. And it ended cutely because I kept shaking his hand, and then...

Thank goodness. He is the best and he’s always so sweet!!

YOUJIN

Okay I’m going to start off my account of Youjin because right when I got to him, he asked me, “Are you a fan of Seungjun?” BWAHAHAHA he called me out!! I told him that I liked all the members but yeah, Seungjun was my fave... If he noticed that, then wow...

And then it was like another round of deja vu because I told him I was from Hawaii and that he should come, and he replied, “I want to go too!” LIKE THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT WE SAID LAST YEAR AT THE FIRST FANSIGN LOL.

He looked over my questions and I told him they were from other international fans. He got super excited over the Overwatch question and his inner fanboy came out.

Yellow post-it note: Q: Which heroes (do you use) when you play Overwatch? A: Roadhog, Reinhardt, and... the last part was a bit illegible but I think he wrote the name of a Korean Overwatch player named 후아유. [If anyone wants to help me out with deciphering that, it’d be much appreciated~] He was so happy when talking about his mains for OW, but I had to tell him that I actually didn’t know the game at all loooool. I wish I could’ve nerded out with him but idk ㅋㅋㅋ He even asked me, “Isn’t Overwatch quite popular in America?” lmaooo which is true but yeah, I’m clueless.

Blue post-it note: Q: What are you most afraid of?? A: Bugs! 1인칭 horror game.

So Youjin seems to be the least fearful in the group so I also wanted to know what scares him. He wrote “bugs” and I couldn’t believe like this guy didn’t flinch for the ghost prank or a VR zombie slashing him but he’s afraid of insects??

I’m not judging tho but dang.AND OKAY I SEARCHED UP THE HORROR GAME HE TALKED ABOUT AND THAT SHIZ IS NO JOKE.

OH HELLLLLL NOOOOO YOU CAN COUNT ME OUT OF THIS GAME CUZ SHIZ I WOULD PISS MYSELF DURING THIS VR EXPERIENCE

But Youjin is a cool chill guy who loves gaming so hit him up yo

HEEJUN

Heejun, Heejun, Heejun. You never know how he’ll be like. I heard from a friend that he’s different every time which is kinda true. The first time I met him, he was comical but on the quiet side, and we were kinda awkward... BUT THIS TIME WAS JUST OMG LOL. He spoke some English to me even though I was talking to him in Korean which was cute. He said things like, “Where are you from?” and “Really?” Soooo silly. I complimented him on his English pronunciation and I DIDN’T NOTICE THIS UNTIL MY FRIEND SHOWED ME THE FOOTAGE SHE TOOK AND-

OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. Heejun’s also quite chill but he’s so funny agh.

Yellow post-it note: Q: Is there a concept you want to try? A: BTS’ Blood, Sweat, Tears hOLY SHIZ IS IT WEIRD THAT I CAN ALREADY IMAGINE HEEJUN IN THAT KIND OF CONCEPT? he already bares his chest sometimes like omfg and I can totally see him pulling it off like shiz I AM READY Blue post-it note: Q: Heejun-ah~ Please write down your favorite color!! A: Black, gray Heejun forgot because he even asked himself out loud, “Which colors do I like?” I told him, “Why don’t you know??” HAHAHA. I told him I was l was leaving soon and he just replied, “When will you be back?” LOL. IDK, I wish I knew, then I wouldn’t have to leave y’all ㅠㅠ I told him bye and he was like, “bye bye!!!” Later on, the members picked random seat numbers from a box and the chosen fans could take a selca with them. SO LUCKYY. I WASN’T CHOSEN BUT UGH IT’S OKKK. Then they played 공기, which is a Korean bean game similar to Jacks. Jihun got really competitive and he almost kicked the stage LMAOOOO. Seungjun was really bad at it and he ended up last. Youjin was first, followed by Inseong, Heejun and finally Jihun secured a place by a hair. Seungjun’s punishment was dancing to their title track with aegyo LOOOOOL he tried his best but he looked so awkward omg And that was it. My last fansign with them. I love them so much, because they’re all so wholesome and show their personalities unabashedly. All of them are SO DIFFERENT and the dynamics are just so interesting and charming. SORRY I cut it a little at the end but I have to go to class ㅠㅠ I’ll tweak this a bit later maybe but I hope y’all enjoyed this!!!!

#knk #fanaccount #fanboy #해달별 #크나큰 #팬싸인회 #170611 #sunmoonstar #gravity

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curapicas · 7 years

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Tag Game

Tagged by the lovely @kaguneko

Rules:

1. Always post the rules

2. Answer the questions given by the person who tagged you

3. Write 11 questions of your own

4. TAG PEOPLE [or not, we know how it works]

Aaand my answers are:

1. Favorite fandom?

Hmm. By fandom, I assume you mean me experience witht he other fans. Man I’m loving my interactions with fellow durarara fans, but I’ve gotta give it to Saint Seiya fandom. It’s really huge in Latin America and it’s the one that made me interact with fandoms, like, at all

2. Describe your ideal day

I’ve done all I wanted related to my work quota of the day. I’m eating delicious sushi/pizza and surfing the web with a sense of accomplishment. So really, what I need is the accomplishment

3. Would you rather live in perpetual winter or perpetual summer (complete with bugs and humidity)

Hmmm. I never really had a winter so I have pink-colored glasses when I say I’d go with winter

4. Favorite holiday and why

Easter. I’d go with Carnival because it’s really long too, but I’m not a fan of how moisy and sweaty it is, sooo. Plus I like chocolate

5. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? What drink?

Sushi and coke :))) Let me die

6. Tell me about the best book you read recently (Or fic! I’m in a dry spell)

I’m gonna cheat here, buddy. Who We Used to Be by @tastewithouttalent

7. Are you an introvert or an extrovert. Where do you go curl up when you’re tired and want to feel comfy.

Introvert. I guess it’s my bed, if I’m not reading fic in it I’m out in a flash

8. Cats or dogs? ;) ;)

Cats :3

9. If someone offered you immortality or a million dollars, what would you choose?

million dollars. With that much money I could pay to publish my stories with no care for work or if they’re bringing income, and those would be immortal

10. How do you think you’d fare in a zombie apocalypse?

I’d say I’d fare well in the first wave, but probably would be bitten while running and in general feeling like I haven’t put up as big of a fight as I could *shrugs*

11. Lake or ocean?

Ocean *_*

My questions:

1. Favorite place you travelled to?

2. Favorite movie and why?

3. Favorite color and why?

4. Woods or lake?

5. Character you want to see grow healthy and strong (I guess I’m asking for character development)?

6. Least favorite character?

7. Top 3 songs you listen the most?

8. Favorite mythical creature?

9. Chinese and solar signs?

10. Charmander, Squirtle or Bulbasaur?

11. Playing games on hard mode or watching streams of people playing the game?

I’m tagging @itsnotloveifitsjust and @muzuki-chan because sorry lovelies, I’ve already done the tagging games you tagged me in and am too lazy to redo, but they’re on my ‘personal’ tag anyway, so tagging you two back because I suck o/

also tagging @tastewithouttalent since I did mention tasty here, @zaziecurie since I wanna know her initial pokemon choice, @ikenew and @lambreta-do-capeta because why not

#personal #long post #this one was fun

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jamesbyerj · 4 years

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Project Spotlight: Daggerfall Unity

[b]Today we are talking to Interkarma, developer of [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity]Daggerfall Unity[/url] a Unity port of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall that brings the classic RPG to a new engine substantially improving upon stability and playability. Curious to try it out? Follow the steps outlined [url=https://forums.dfworkshop.net/viewtopic.php?t=2360]here[/url]. [center][youtube]RPEmRzxtJnA[/youtube][/center] First and foremost: could you give us a bit of an introduction to who you are and how you got into modding / programming?[/b] I’m just a normal geeky guy. I was born in Australia and have lived here my entire life. Most of my early life was spent in rural/outback regions due to my father being an opal prospector. I often didn’t have any technology around, not even a television. But comics, board games, and books were usually there to fill in time. I’ve always enjoyed pulling things apart to see how they work. Once I got into computers, I started doing that with software. Early on, I had an Action Replay cartridge for the family C64 that let me pause games at runtime, inspect their assembly code, make changes, rip out sprites, etc. I had a tremendous amount of fun working out how these games did some of the things they were doing and used this to write my own small games and tools. I built tools like a sprite editor, ADSR sound editor, a basic word processor, and games like a side-scrolling shooter, that kind of thing. I kept doing this as I grew up, trying to rebuild small parts of other games to see if I could do it. I didn’t make mods so much as hack around with code and try to understand how the original game was created. I’ve always wanted to create my own original games, and have dozens of ideas I want to work on. It’s only lately though that I really have the time and experience to make that a reality. [b]For those who have never heard of it, how would you describe what Daggerfall Unity is in your own words?[/b] Daggerfall Unity is a superset of classic Daggerfall. I like to describe it as “Classic Daggerfall Plus”. It’s not a remaster in the sense we’ve come to expect when this is done commercially. Rather, it’s a ground-up recreation of the classic game plus quality of life features and modding capabilities. The foundation of the idea was to port the classic Daggerfall experience into a modern game engine and give it modding support like later Elder Scrolls games. The default experience should look and feel a lot like classic, while providing for modders to remix, upgrade, and extend the base game in ways not possible in classic Daggerfall. With some of the mods available now, such as new guilds and airships, I feel like everything is working out even better than I’d hoped. Daggerfall Unity is very much its own game though and doesn’t always do things exactly the same way as classic. Usually, this is due to bug fixes in Daggerfall Unity, or platform differences as the result of playing on a different engine, modern hardware, or higher resolutions. But we’ve worked very hard to ensure the game can be enjoyed extremely closely to its roots. Options like Retro Rendering mode are there to deliver a true 320x200 experience, most QoL features can be toggled on and off, and many control element can be finely tuned. With a bit of patience, players can dial in either an pure retro experience, or mod things closer to Morrowind/Oblivion quality levels, or find something in between. Daggerfall Unity is very flexible in what you can do with the game and most people can find a setup they enjoy playing. [center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1572271568-1148969596.png[/img] [img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1572271572-2031988629.png[/img][/center] [b]From what I have learned, the whole project has kept you busy for an unbelievable amount of time. If you had to give an estimation: how many hours/days/years would you say you have put into creating Daggerfall Unity and what kept you going during all this time?[/b] This all began in the year 2001 when I started building tools to explore Daggerfall’s textures, 3D models, map layouts, etc. These were Daggerfall Explorer, Modelling, Imaging, Cartographer, and Jukebox. I started with information on Daggerfall’s file formats available from the UESP and gradually built on this with my own discoveries. I did this on and off for around 12 years, picking away at Daggerfall’s file formats and little mysteries just for my own amusement. I even had a shot at recreating Daggerfall in 2005, but lacked the experience and community then to make much progress. While learning Unity in 2014, I wanted something more challenging to work on. My wife suggested I try porting some of my Daggerfall code into Unity, to use something familiar while learning a new tool. Because most of my code from 2009 was written in C#, it was fairly trivial to port it to Unity. This is how Daggerfall Tools for Unity (DFTFU) was born. I had model importing working in a day, locations in under a week, and the whole world working within a few months. At this stage though, it was just a toolset to import assets. There wasn’t any real gameplay. This all re-sparked interest in recreating Daggerfall, something I was interested in again by that stage. I officially started work on Daggerfall Unity in August 2015 and it has been like a second job ever since. For the next four years, I would spend roughly 6-40 hours per week working on Daggerfall Unity, building a community, managing the codebase, and so on. I’d make the time a by creating a few hours each morning and evening, and basically sinking every weekend into it. [b]What would you say is the main lesson you learned from your time working on this project? What would you tell your younger self about going into a massive undertaking like Daggerfall Unity?[/b] If I was being fair, I’d probably tell my younger self to do something easier instead. Daggerfall is a huge and complex game, and my younger self made the mistake of thinking it was a simple game because it was an older game. That’s just not true, something I worked out really quickly once it came time to build some of the game systems. But now that I’ve come out the other side, I wouldn’t want to change a thing. I’ve become a better programmer, learned how to manage a large project with several developers, and grow an online community. All of this will be invaluable as I move on to creating my own games, something I wanted to do in 2014. I just had to get Daggerfall out of my system first. [b]Did you get a lot of support from the Daggerfall community during development?[/b] Absolutely! The support from the community has been incredible, and it’s the main reason I was able to make it this far. For those first couple of hard years when I was mostly working alone, the love and support I received was the only thing that kept me going. And from around 2017, the number of top-notch contributors exploded and we suddenly had brilliant devs like Hazelnut, Pango, Nystul, Allofich, Lypyl, Ferital, TheLacus, Numidium just pushing things forwards every day with a seemingly endless stream of quality updates and information. Even when I thought we had all the people we needed, devs like Meteoric Dragon came along and added loads of improvements, JorisVanEijden helped expand knowledge of the quest system, Jay_H built, tested, and fixed hundreds of quests, and Pango became an overmind generalist who can help with practically anything including community management. I maintain a full list of contributors at the below forum link. [url=https://forums.dfworkshop.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=233]https://forums.dfworkshop.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=233[/url] [img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1572271564-410713571.jpeg[/img] [b]Daggerfall (The Elder Scrolls II) was released in 1996, the same year Bill Clinton was re-elected, and Pokemon was first introduced to the world. My point is: Daggerfall came out a very, very long time ago! That being said, what makes Daggerfall as a game special to you and what made you want to revive it by developing Daggerfall Unity?[/b] I played a lot of tabletop RPGs when I was in my teens and twenties. Games like Daggerfall gave me the feeling I was playing the videogame version of a tabletop adventure run by a great DM. There were just so many deep systems to explore and things to discover. When I was playing Daggerfall back in 1996, the web was nowhere near as developed as it is now. Information was a lot harder to find. Daggerfall felt like this big black box to tease open and see how it worked. There were rumours about a dragon being in the game somewhere, and I’d set off into the wilderness looking for it like an idiot. There was always this feeling every time I went into one of those procedurally generated dungeons that I might really be the first person to explore it. There was just something very special about this game back then, and I couldn’t help but want to understand it more. Everything since then has just been a gradual evolution of my love and interest in the game. It’s not something that happened all at once, but rather grew slowly over many years. [b]What can you tell us about the Daggerfall and Daggerfall Unity community? Other than diehard fans who grew up with the game, do you get a lot of people who are only now picking it up to see what it’s all about?[/b] I’m amazed how many younger players are still trying out Daggerfall and Daggerfall Unity in 2019. This isn’t just the domain of older gamers like myself. I feel that Daggerfall Unity helps make the game more accessible to new players. It’s a smoother and more comfortable experience with a lot of QoL features and new stuff to explore through mods. Given the modern popularity of The Elder Scrolls in general, I feel like it’s a great way to experience the series roots in a more comfortable and stable manner. I also encourage die-hard retro gamers to try out the original so they can experience what Daggerfall Unity is building upon. [b]Have you taken notice of [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/29416]Skygerfall[/url] - a mod for Skyrim that aims to bring the entire main quest of Daggerfall into Skyrim? What are your thoughts on it?[/b] It looks amazing! I haven’t had time to play it yet, but I can tell it was made with love and attention to detail. I’m looking forward to giving it some playtime in the future. [b]Other than Daggerfall (Unity), do you have any other favourite games? Ever done any modding for those?[/b] A few modern favourites are Elite Dangerous, World of Warcraft, Subnautica, Void Bastards, and Outer Wilds. I’ll play almost anything, but I prefer games that give me fun systems to explore and then just take their hands off. I get really annoyed when games constantly try to guide me, or too frequently break gameplay to show me a cutscene, or take away control of my camera to force me to see something. I’m not much of a modder and have only tinkered with creating mods for other games. I tend to fall in love with systems first and gameplay later. Maybe because I grew up with basic stuff like card games and board games before I ever saw a video game, it feels like understanding rules and systems always comes before actually being able to play them. I’m the rare kind of person who prefers a heavy spiral bound manual filled with tables and formulas over an in-game tutorial. [b]Daggerfall Unity is currently released as an alpha. How can people get set up and help you with development going forward?[/b] There’s not much left on the development side that isn’t already allocated out or being worked on by someone. Insofar as the core gameplay, everything is done now and it’s just bug fixes, refinement, and features unique to Daggerfall Unity. It’s hard to imagine getting more help than I already am. There’s always room for more mods though. I strongly encourage anyone interested in developing for Daggerfall Unity now to check out the mod scene and build something awesome. Other than that, the best thing everyone can do is just keep being awesome to each other and help others create new stuff for the game. If we all continue lifting each other up, there’s no telling what people might be creating for Daggerfall Unity in a few years. [center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1572272157-1762324444.png[/img][/center] [b]Is there anything else you would like to say to the Nexus Mods community?[/b] I’d like to thank Nexus Mods for supporting Daggerfall Unity and making the lives of our players easier. I also hope [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity]the mods available today[/url] inspire other creators to make something new for the game. Considering some of the mods starting to appear, I can only imagine what the scene can look like in a few more years. I’m looking forward to seeing where it all goes. [line] A big thank you to Interkarma for taking the time to respond to our questions. As always, if there are any mod authors or mod projects you'd like to hear about, don't hesitate to send a message to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975]Pickysaurus[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597]BigBizkit[/url]. Published first at Project Spotlight: Daggerfall Unity

#Video Games #PC Gaming

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