#your PC like any decent RPG | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chemicalbrew · 6 months

Text

2023 game list, part 1: I love complaining!

Once again continuing what has become an honorable tradition thanks to @smash-64 💜

I tried to promise myself I'd be more organized this year, trying to take notes after I beat things, making lists and gifs and everything, as it has become a consistent yearly undertaking. In truth, what happened is that I felt more overwhelmed by this than I did the last three years. The best explanation I can give is a combination of two facts: this year, while not particularly worse than what came before, still saw my confidence in myself tank a bit (i.e. What does this matter when few people read it and I don't bring much things of value to the table?)...

And the fact that I played very few games that really stuck with me, that I enjoyed enough to see through to the end and feel like that had merit, for a lot of the year. When that wasn't the case, it was more than likely I'd been on my nth playthrough of Katana ZERO of the year (more on that in a later post, hopefully).

I probably need help, don't I?..

games I played, but don't have much to say about at the moment without being prompted, aside from 'I kinda liked them, I guess', ordered best to worst:

Purrfect Apawcalypse trilogy (2019-2021) - series of VNs that's genuinely just good fun as you find yourself attached to the characters before you know it. You'll know if this one is for you at a glance. Also, this is how I found out about Panel Royale! LOL

The Witch's House MV (2018) - good old RPG Maker horror with a few decent twists. The remake has good QOL changes.

Gunbrella (2023) - the plot might be forgettable, but you get a gun that's an umbrella! What's not to enjoy?

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995) - I played this game, but only in the most technical sense. Literally cheated the fun out of it - either that, or this platformer style is not for me.

Coffee Talk: Episode 2 - Hibiscus & Butterfly (2023) - the most upsetting entry on the list. The writer behind the original game has passed away, and his absence is felt keenly even if you're not aware of the fact - because this sequel lacks charm.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (2021) - yet another of those cheap and short indie 2D Zelda clones. The definition of the word meh.

Irisu Syndrome (2008) - a unique free puzzle timewaster. Tries to have a story and fails.

dishonorable mentions (the part with the most complaining)

2064: Read Only Memories (PC, 2014) [♪ Home (Not) Sweet Home]

Starts off decent enough, doing the bare minimum to string you along the mystery (which, for most people with standards, wouldn't even be good enough, but I was willing to stick with it for the sake of the neat audiovisual presentation).

As soon as the murder scene is revealed, however, the main plot starts to fall apart, and the longer you spend with the game's writing (which seems to go on and on forever) and characters (about as flat as a pancake fresh off the pan), the more bleak and yawn-inducing they seem (including Turing, who just took longer than everyone else to annoy me).

Do yourself a favor, play VA-11 Hall-A (which this game gratuitously references) instead. You'll get all the benefits of cute pixel art and upbeat soundtrack, but with an actually good story\character cast to match. I swear it says something about 2064 that one of its most exciting moments was seeing throwaway lines from a VA-11 character!

Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (PC, 2015) [♪ Climbing the Ginso Tree]

This is a game that won awards back when it came out almost a decade ago. Unfortunately, it feels like it was made to win awards and little more. While the credits scrolling up the screen tried to convince otherwise - with the usual special thanks given to families and pets of the developers - I sat there, unsure of what I was supposed to take from this experience (once again, the less words you try to use to tell your story, the more it usually suffers!).

The heart of any platformer is its movement systems - and, while eventually Ori's tools open up just enough to make you feel at least a little free and alive in its world, they also never go beyond what is almost painfully typical. Double jump, wall climb, ground pound, glide, charged projectile? None of that is going to wow anyone. The way it comes together is not too pleasant, either - Ori's too floaty and the obstacles before him, while painted with a talented stroke, are too unclear in their presentation to make for truly fun traversal. The exception to this is the escape sequences - sure, a lot of the time they're not much less frustrating than the rest of the game, but they're definitely more memorable, to the point where the accompaniment to one was the only part of the soundtrack I could think to showcase.

I don't regret the time I spent on this, per se, but what I can tell you is that it probably didn't deserve the awards. Also, the way the wall jump worked was annoying! Pushing towards the wall to do it feels very counter-intuitive, and with this I found that I much prefer when games have you face away from the wall to register wall jumps, or do not require you to press a direction at all.

Celeste (PC, 2018) [♪ Checking In] + Celeste Classic (2015, played as part of full game) :)

I was in high school when this made waves. I pointedly feigned disinterest as it splashed all over the internet, while making sure to download the soundtrack quickly and listen to it - more than occasionally - over the next three or so years. Lena Raine's work carried me through my school years and empowered me, and all the while I hadn't a clue what playing the game is actually like.

Those were the better days.

Now, the things about this game that seem to appeal the most to a lot of people are how refreshingly simple Madeline's moveset is and how much the game respects your time with death transitions and reloading, and the story it tells through heartfelt cutscenes and gameplay working in sync. To which I boldly say... none of those things are good enough.

Having to climb and manage your stamina adds another layer to navigating the rooms, sure, but to my simple ass, that's one layer too many. To the game's credit, there's a setting to make climbing toggleable instead of requiring you to hold down the trigger, and using that was the only reason I managed to push past the hotel and Oshiro (call me a scrub, it was genuinely overwhelming otherwise), but it still did nothing to change how I feel about this mechanic fundamentally.

I get it, it adds precision and verticality to your movement, and, seeing as you're literally supposed to be scaling a mountain, it's more than a natural inclusion... but its existence did nothing but add pressure for me, somehow. I would frequently forget it's an option at all before realizing the room in question expects me to utilize it. Instead of feeling like climbing expands my options, I felt constricted and awkward.

My second issue is much simpler. I'm a spoiled brat, and Celeste's respawning process involving that annoying whoosh sound effect and a transition that, yes, takes only about a second, but is still not quite instant, was not good enough. I recognize that having it be truly instant would not be ideal, either, but I can't help but wish that was the case.

As for the story... It underwhelmed me even back when I was doing surface level research at the time of release, and it's not impressing me now. It's okay, and I recognize why it would resonate with people - the themes of self-acceptance and resolve are plain to see (and just as plain to mull over). But in my time with the game, Madeline never began feeling less like an avatar for my failures and more like an actual character, never changed into someone I would truly like.

By the time I reached the Mirror Temple, I was certain that this game, in most respects, is just not what I would ever want. I pushed towards the summit anyway, and left it feeling profoundly... nothing.

However... Celeste Classic did not have any of those things! That little prototype gem of a game wastes zero time trying to set the stage and make you feel things with ~a story~, doesn't give you any opportunity to climb whatsoever, and neither does it waste your time having the screen fade to black when you die! And these three things, I reckon, are key to why this smaller version, that's supposed to just be treated as an Easter egg now, a relic of the past, and to be forgotten in favor of the project it grew into... resonated with me so much more! I beat it twice! It's lovely! It's what I actually needed Celeste to be!

IT'S COMPLICATED

AI: The Somnium Files (PC, 2019) [♪ MonzAI] + AI:TSF - Nirvana Initiative (PC, 2022) [♪ Nefarious Institute 1]

You know how they say not to judge the book by its cover? This is a story of me learning (once again) to judge a game neither by its reception nor by the credentials behind it. When I plowed through this duology, I came to understand that sometimes, lightning might strike just the once.

Of course, most of my bitter feelings about it stem from just how miraculous of a fuck-up Nirvana Initiative ended up being as a sequel (it's impressive how much it had to twist everything its predecessor stood for to even have a chance at making a mediocre point!), but a lot of the disappointment came from the way the first game carries itself in general, and maybe even from the presence this game has among fans. 'Oh, if you want more of the magic and mystery that you so enjoyed in Zero Escape, you have to try this! It'll be just as good!'

I should have had my doubts from the start, given how little I had enjoyed the ZE series after 999. AI1 flounders in many things, like its obtuse, deeply unfun gameplay loop - most of which is pressing random buttons until you see the most ridiculous shit present itself. There's also the overt reliance on stale and perverse jokes, and a story that can barely do much except trudge to the finish line and attempt to convince you the journey was worth it with a trite dance number, of all things.

But the thing is… even with all that, the first entry was somewhat compelling during its runtime, though most of that comes from its bold novelty. The idea of taking advantage of the surreality of dreams to find deeply concealed truths is fun to occasionally ponder, and there's just enough fluff to the places you visit and things you do to string you along for the ride (though having to check the same spots for flavor text on each revisit to very little results is a deep annoyance I have with both entries). The characters actually got a chance to grow (if not by much… this series' urge to be immature at every turn is nothing short of ruinous, sometimes), and their designs strike a wonderful line between outstanding and cringeworthy that makes them just… stick out in your brain, you know?

So while I thought the song and dance (both the literal and the metaphorical) were ultimately not worth much, I was still convinced, fooled by the magic just enough to see things come to an end; and the resolution itself was satisfying and believable, if nothing else. And with how exhausted I felt reaching this point, I figured that'd be enough.

To me, AI1 is all about finding shards of diamonds in the rough, and it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that its fandom runs away with what little they have to try and improve on it (and often succeed). As such, you'd expect its sequel to take advantage of how much room there is to grow, capitalize on this chance to refine things, and use the few strong themes the original presented (value of bonds and family made both by blood and by choice, finding those you can rely on to carry what you have done forward, etc)... right?

Um, yeah, turns out it twists over itself even more than I'd already thought possible in order to make sense (not to mention seemingly forsaking most of that mess right at the true end in order to approach the established universe from a contrived meta angle). If AI1 can be described as having extremely unrefined gameplay coupled with a decently intriguing story, NI is just about the opposite of that.

While I'm glad they bothered to make exploring the dream worlds enjoyable this go around, there's no way in hell that makes it worthwhile to bear witness to the innumerable ways in which this mess of a sequel sullied the already weak foundations laid down by its predecessor. When I had finished that game, I wrote, on impulse, that 'I haven't been this confounded by a sequel's existence since Chrono Cross'. It just… did not need to happen, like, at all.

Nirvana Initiative posed to me one of the worst questions you can have while playing a game, which is…

'Why am I doing this, again?'

Let's be real, it was mostly for the soundtrack. Unlike AI1, this game had passable music! Though having to watch ANOTHER dance number (like half a dozen times, actually! and no, there's no skip button!) just about had me gagging.

That's not even the worst part about that sequence, no - that would have to be the way it almost actively ruins and undermines what's probably the only passable character arc in NI (and even then, you have to squint hard for it to pass your judgement, given how it starts... gotta hand it to this game for managing to have multiple relationships with genuinely questionable setups involving uncomfortable age gaps).

I wanted to feel touched by the new, somewhat expanded narratives, I wanted to see the world grow a little, despite all the grievances I was certain I would have... But not even halfway through the plot, I realized that my true wish was to just move on. I think that's what I'll do here, as well, as even reminiscing on this chaos is quite dreadful.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch, 2022) [♪ Agnus Colony]

Don't become prey and victim to your own expectations - or to bad advertising.

Xenoblade is a special series, full of wonder and power. Words fail me this year, as they did the year before, when it comes to describing how much of an impact these games - the second entry most of all, a game I think about now and then with a bittersweetness on my heart that I oddly never can get enough of - had had on my mental well-being last year. They might as well have saved me back then, and while getting to experience them was something I'd been planning to do for a while, the specific circumstances it all had happened under were just so special, so exceptional, so wild, that it's hard to think of those days as anything but a gift.

And yet, there are plenty of things in this particular journey I still have to reconcile with. I never settled on what my impression of 1 is, in the end (or, some might say, I never properly played it); I could use a fresher look at 2, and… I never, ever, will finish Xenoblade Chronicles 3. It's a game I once had hopes for, but nowadays don't ever want to think about.

I thought it a privilege, of sorts - the fact that I was there to witness (and acquire) a brand-new release in a series that became dearly important to me. I ended up hearing many things - the trailers, the rumors, the leaks. They all spoke of a definitive resolution to the series, of levels of refinement never seen before, of intrigue so big you can barely take it, of key character appearances we were all dying to see.

Turns out most of what we were so eagerly expecting came with an extra price tag.

The base game of Xenoblade 3 is a mirage, a mere shade of what came before it. The environments are open and vast, but they look more drab than ever - and with the new autowalk feature, it takes even less time to get sick of it. The music takes you on a journey, but you forget what it sounds like far sooner than you'd prefer. The battle system promises lots of options and a nice learning curve, but it only overextends, overwhelms and forces you to grind. The cutscenes look every bit the part of a Xenoblade story, but meander and stretch things out to the point of boredom, which means none of the characters get enough time to grow on the player, either… Though a lot of them would probably go nowhere even given all the time in the world.

And the setting as a whole? Well, it's a simulation, so who cares about it feeling unique or fun? That's the point, the game says, you're supposed to empathize with these characters breaking out of their bonds, out of this miserable existence! Well, I say that things can be made appealing even in decay. You don't have to actively worsen things to make a point.

Future Redeemed is an impressive demonstration of how things could have been. It fixes practically every point where the base game falters - and it is in this part of the game where all those promises that once seemed hollow finally come true. Sort of. The exploration process is smooth as butter in the way none of the games before were, characters are at last back to having defined roles in battle, and all that teasing becomes a thing of the past as 3 acknowledges its own roots and past in full, and you think to yourself… 'If only we'd got this in the base game all along!'

But we didn't. And the credits on Future Redeemed roll far too soon to truly be satisfied. Is this how you wanted the saga to end?

honorable mentions

Butterfly Soup 2 (PC, 2022) [♪ Night Tourist] *I hope you'll forgive me for not finding a GIF for a mostly static VN...

It's so funny. For me it has been two years; for the creator, it'd been five. But I guess time doesn't matter when it comes to maturity, as I feel like both myself and this game have done plenty of growth. And for that, I love it all the more, just as I am now thankful to be able to call Butterfly Soup a short series.

Compared to the first game, the art is more refined, the tone is more consistent, and treatment of serious topics is more grounded - in more ways than one, this sequel is like a fond, yet melancholic look at what you once had, what changed since then, and what you hope to make of things. But between all that, it stays sincere and silly in the best of ways - the ones that make you feel cozy on the darkest of nights, the ones that endear you for a good while yet. Truly, this game was a ray of light in a sea of mediocrity this year.

Road 96 (PC, 2021) [♪ Hit the Road]

Yeah, I know. The fact that I have played a goddamn walking simulator at the behest of a good pal (who might or might not be reading this, hi on the off chance that you are!) is nothing short of a miracle. Not to mention the fact that I ended up having a good time with it!

I'll put it plain: the vibes of this game are almost impeccable. It wastes little time setting things up - it's the turn of the century, and a massively corrupt government is practically folding in on itself as it closes its borders. It's up to you, as you're literally put into a blank-slate teenager's shoes, to go on a desperate journey and see whether or not you make your way out.

Over the course of Road 96, you do this six times, and the people you meet on the way and choices you make with them may or may not shape not just your own future, but that of the whole country. There's nothing for it, then, but hit the road and see what awaits you, as you sit in a car that's probably stolen, blaring music from your carefully curated tapes… or are dropped off on the wayside with nothing but a paltry backpack to speak of… or find yourself biding your time near a gas station… or… whatever it is the game throws at you, as you hope that the strangers you run into actually deign to help.

Yes, the biggest way this game attempts to stand out is with our good old friend, RNG. Even reading blurbs about it, you cannot escape the all-too-typical claims of 'your own personal journey', 'a thousand unique paths waiting for you' and all that… months later, I find myself unable to decide whether this helped the game or harmed it more, as it's definitely smaller than it makes itself out to be.

As a story hook, this setup is clever and delightful, as I tried to illustrate a moment earlier, but the moment you begin to overthink it, you realize that the randomness aspect clashes hard against the continuity the game tries to establish. You, as the player, indeed learn more about the world and colorful characters in it each time you venture forth, but the avatar you control is supposed to be clueless as ever, setting out on a path that is, in fact, not quite their own any more. It's a weird gripe to have, and I found it an easy one to ignore, but I wish something could be done about it anyway.

As for the rest of the plot, let's just say it's... surprisingly binary, and the supporting cast small and not always compelling in turn. The game sacrifices some of the personal intimacy and uniqueness it has built up to make a sweeping, painfully boring statement of 'freedom good, suppression bad' before credits roll, but as damaging as that is to the overall experience, I feel like one can't deny the fundamental appeal of just being asked to go on a journey with sweeping stakes and truly, truly banging music. Seriously, it was meant to be put on speakers and blasted as the world passes you by!

In a word, Road 96 is ambitious, and in a sentence, it is ambitious, yet falling short of itself. Nonetheless, I was impressed by how it managed to worm its way into my heart for a while.

A Space for the Unbound (PC, 2023) [♪ Don't Have Much Choice]

Wouldn't you know it? I had actually played two games involving entering people's subconsciousness to solve their problems this year!

Truth be told, I'd been looking forward to this game for about a year, given that it was published by the people behind Coffee Talk (which, if you recall, I had quite enjoyed). The warm and inviting screenshots on the back-then almost empty store page, showing off awesome art and promising a sweet little journey with slice-of-life tropes and a mystery waiting to be solved… well, to say all of that was alluring is to say nothing, really. I just about jumped when I received a notification for this game releasing at last at the beginning of the year, and wasted little time trying to dive in.

The sad thing is, what you see is not always what you get. The cozy, comfortable, sensible vibes of the early game - running around the city, doing chores at your school, naming every stray cat you come across, watching the protagonist's diary fill up as he crosses all the little goals he had set in life off his precious list… Yeah, those things won't last - definitely not long enough to get you attached to characters living in this world.

As the plot begins to unfold, it fumbles over itself trying to introduce various cliches and supernatural elements, to the point where you recognize the whole experience as a tedious drag as you see exactly where it's heading, and think to yourself that you have heard all this before. It's yet another heartfelt story about self-actualization, and as the game hammers it in harder than ever before, you sigh and wish you could go back to the times of bottle cap collecting and cat petting. Sometimes, simpler is better.

Unfortunately, that's not exactly true when it comes to actually playing A Space for the Unbound. The gameplay is as simple as can be - basically all you do is walk around (quite slowly) and interact with things. I can appreciate how linear the game is, for the most part, but I wish it let us accomplish our goals without wasting too much time! Not to mention, if you try to see everything there is, you have to be prepared to deal with quite a few mind-numbingly repetitive mini-games for far longer than you have to. Don't do that. It'll just sully your impression of the game.

If you're somehow still interested in this after reading this messy opinion of mine, don't be too discouraged - you'll see plenty of beautiful sights, hear some cute music, and, maybe, be affected by the story far more than I was. (Besides, for a cat lover, it's always nice to see others appreciate them!) Just... try not to waste too much time with the game's superficial sidequests.

Tales of the Abyss (3DS, 2011 port of a 2006 release) [♪ The Distribution Base]

There's something ironic in how playing (most of) this game has been one of the best things I have done with my lovely 2DS since I homebrewed it earlier this year... and yet I quite regret not checking how (ahem) easily available the PS2 version is, instead. They may be functionally identical, but the hardware is not - you have no idea how hard some of the goddamn Mieu Fire puzzles become when your character is taking up a mere four or so pixels of an already tiny screen. Man, that was trying my patience at its finest.

These horrors aside, though, what kind of game are we even dealing with here? Well, it’s a Tales game first and foremost. I can’t deny claims that Abyss has a few strengths of its own (most notably, of course, actually bothering to have coherent character development arcs), but it’s not quite enough to obscure the ever-prevalent issues this series has:

exploration and side-questing is still annoyingly obtuse, not to mention traversal is painfully slow in the first half of the game,

some characters (in this case, Anise more so than others, but I'd argue Mieu's whole existence is part of this too) are obligated to suffer because Tales has to meet its unhealthy anime tropes\wackiness quota per game,

the skit system has not, unfortunately, evolved one bit (the amount of times I would skip a skit on accident, because any input halts its playback entirely…),

while I’m inclined to say the battle system is, for the most part, an improvement (the Field of Fonons mechanic is quite a nice change given the foundations of Tales gameplay, I have to admit), any goodwill you might want to give it gets shattered when you realize Free Run breaks bosses in half. And aside from that, it’s just your usual button-mashy fare.

So why did I push on with this game as far as I did, pulling the classic move of quitting right at the final boss instead of, well, any earlier? A lot of that is because I was just in the mood to mash some buttons in bed until I realized I was slightly underleveled for the finale and caught myself groaning at the mere thought of trying to even cheese it. A shame, that, because the ending of this game is pretty wonderful for what it set out to do, and it was the only bit I did not see on my own. It's like my experience with Final Fantasy VI all over again…

That's not all there is to it, though. Abyss has some of what's probably the most involved and curious worldbuilding (once you get past all the awkward made up jargon it loves to throw at you) of any Tales game I know! Not that this says much, because that's a low bar, and I'm not too familiar with the series at large, but it was enough to keep me engaged for a long while. And, as mentioned earlier, it puts in greater efforts than I expected to endear you to the cast as they slowly band together and uncover their own talents, purposes and aims in life - Luke in particular.

I liked him almost immediately - because I'm not too hard to please when it comes to this series, and his design is, I feel, particularly sweet and striking (especially given how nicely the game used the Important Haircut trope with him, and of course, the contrast between him and Asch). But that alone doesn't a good protagonist make - it's the fact that the story allows Luke to make mistakes (from small ones to straight-up catastrophes), get his comeuppance and grow from them organically, at his own pace, that makes him stand out in my mind.

As Luke sheds his sheltered ways of thought and accepts his responsibilities, those that were traveling with him, either out of obligation or by chance, begin to support him more and stand by him in earnest. It all comes together gradually and at a satisfying pace, and is definitely a highlight of the experience to me.

Growth and connection are probably among the biggest themes of the game, so it's nice to see that it applies pretty much equally to both protagonists and antagonists. Sure, it's the job of a Tales' Big Bad faction to be goofy and up to nefarious activities, but beyond that, the group has solid enough chemistry both among themselves and with the party that I actually ended up looking forward to most encounters with them, even if ultimately it felt a little predictable. As an aside, for a game this old, the voice acting was really good and plentiful (though there is none for skits, which sucks), and further piqued my interest in the story along the way.

To conclude, I'd like to say that the biggest thing I learned while playing this game is that I'm a sucker for grounded tales of (ha) self-actualization even this many years later. And also that once you play one Tales game, you truly, to some extent, know them all.

SANABI (PC, 2023) [♪ Warm Hospitality]

Do you want to know why I ended up playing this one? Of course you do, that wasn't really a question. I only bring this up because the answer can be revealed with a single screenshot:

...yep, the inspiration is that blatantly on display. I was expecting it, of course - the Katana ZERO community is the only reason I know of SANABI in the first place, and even as you read people's thoughts on it, the extreme similarity is practically all they ever bring up, be it in a positive or negative light. It pleased me and warmed my heart, while also making me feel wary - it's one thing to be inspired by something, and another to actually carve an identity of your own.

That said, KZ is far from the worst thing to try to replicate, particularly when it comes to visuals - SANABI has some awesome scenery that makes me feel right at home. And while the story at times feels so much like an amateurish copy that it leaves me confused more than anything (I'm sure the awkward English translation sadly does not help matters, not to mention the fact that I'd played this game in an unfinished state - you might expect me to write about it again next year!), the gameplay is anything but.

I'm sure there are quite a few platformers out there that have you use what's essentially a grappling hook to swing through the stages, but SANABI is my first experience with something like this, and in this regard the game absolutely manages to shine on its own. Movement is lightning-fast and responsive, enemy targeting is extremely generous - almost to the point of being handholdy (and, of course, they all die in one satisfying hit - as do you, if you set the game to the highest difficulty. It's nice to be given an opportunity to learn the ropes before engaging with the game earnestly!), and there's something to be said about how the level design has that extreme kind of clarity to it that I always appreciate and favors speed over precision, with how spacious everything is.

My only big issues with how the game plays are how it doesn't seem to be designed with a controller in mind (it is an option, but I found myself moving much more precisely with KBM! Me! Someone who never plays games with that!), and, once again, the just-a-bit-too-long death animation\transition. Being able to skip it helps, but I just yearn for no time to be wasted...

#celeste #aitsf #xbc3 #tales #abyss #zero.txt #yearly game list #flashing gif #.gif

9 notes · View notes

cake-warlock · 7 months

Note

What’s some of your favourite RPGs cause I finished starfield and now I got nothing. Help a fellow gamer gal out

ALRIGHT here’s a few of my personal recommendations

Baldur’s Gate 3

Available On: PS5 and PC (you’ll need a fairly decent setup)

Game Type: Open World Fantasy Turn-Based CRPG

WHY IT’S GOOD: Honestly, this game blew me out of the fucking water. The amount of freedom they give you to do shenanigans is bonkers. I carried two barrels full of drunken lizard men halfway through the game and released them in a prison to create a distraction, and the game was just cool with me doing that! The characters are also just so beautifully written and so unique. There isn’t a single companion I don’t totally adore.

Fable 2 (and Fable 3)

Available on: any XB since the 360

Game Type: Semi-Open world fantasy RPG

WHY IT’S GOOD: These games are pretty dated, don’t get me wrong. Don’t go into these expecting mechanics as smooth as what you get nowadays, but these games have charm that is unparalleled. The storylines are funny, the characters are a delight, and beneath the veneer of irreverent humor is a deeply sincere and tragic story about loss.

Resident Evil Village

Available on: all modern consoles

Game Type: First Person Survival Horror

WHY IT’S GOOD: This rec may seem unlike the others purely because of the game type, but trust me, this game has some of the most superb character writing I’ve experienced. Yes, it’s survival horror and no you don’t get any choices, but if you want a game where you can sink so deep into the characters that you feel like you’re right there with them, play this game. I have played it like five times and I cry at the ending every time. Bonus: all of the environments are just visually stunning. I could stay in Castle Dimetrescu for hours staring at everything.

Wasteland 3

Available on: All modern consoles (except the Switch)

Game Type: Open World Post Apocalypse Turn Based CRPG

WHY IT’S GOOD: You’ve heard of Fallout, well meet the BETTER Fallout. Wasteland 3 is funny, tragic, challenging, and surprisingly full of heart for a lot of its more cynical gags. All of the characters you meet are wonderfully written. The world is interesting and unique, especially in a time where we’re kind of inundated with post-apocalypse games. There’s a man dressed like Dracula who runs a mafia-esque trading hub. Robot Ronald Regan leads a cult who controls all the oil in the state. A gang of homicidal clowns roams the countryside. It’s fucking awesome.

Outer Worlds

Available On: Any modern console

Game Type: Open World First Person Scifi RPG

WHY IT’S GOOD: Dear god this game is beautiful. There are so many games that are so dull and lifeless these days, but not this one! Every single environment is packed with color and unique flora and fauna. The aesthetics are based on 1920s Art Nouveau meets science fiction. The folks you gather to serve as your crew feel like family. And all of this is wrapped in a pretty funny criticism of modern capitalism.

#ask em

7 notes · View notes

scrunkore · 11 months

Text

Scunkore Media "Thread" 2023: Part 3

welcome back to the scrunko core

25) OneShot (PC, 2016)

It's not often that you fall in love with a videogame protagonist immediately, but I did just that with Niko - the little cat creature is possibly the most adorable kid I've ever seen and I did not want a single bad thing to happen to them ever. Though that's enough about them, the rest of the cast is really nice too, and the actual game itself is REALLY good. The relatively simple item-combining puzzles aren't that special, but the story and world have such a particular vibe to them that I enjoy, especially with the kinda huge extra stuff they added sometime after the initial release of this version. And that's not to mention the extra twists that do very interesting things with the medium, and I do not really want to spoil that if you don't already know about it, so go play it if that's the case. This game is honestly beautiful and I love it, and do play it on PC if you can. [5★]

26) VVVVVV (3DS, 2012)

This game's pretty simple, but it's also kind of a classic little indie joint, and it's really cool that it got a 3DS port that actually makes (admittedly not very interesting) use of the 3D effect, probably due to how early it came out. The core gameplay is just solving puzzles by rapidly flipping gravity up and down and swooping around the world map rescuing your friends, which can be done in basically any order, and it's really quite fun for the most part. Not a whole lot to it beyond that, but its simple graphics are cute and I enjoyed it a fair bit, although I did have to use the available options to make it easier when it was its most difficult - not cheating if the options are there, come on now. Anyway, it's a decent game. [3.5★]

27) Yume Nikki (PC, 2004)

Here it is, perhaps the single most well-known RPG Maker game, as well as one of the most bizarre and cryptic even to this very day. The creator is equally cryptic, and infamously elusive, only giving an interview to Toby Fox with just yes and no answers. Nobody really knows what the game is even about other than the pretty obvious yet not very descriptive answer of "shut-in girl explores a strange and often scary dream world", and it's not like it has a plot aside from the ending that was added at some point for when you get all the collectibles, which I do recommend you try to do for a somewhat complete experience. All you do in it is explore the various weird dream worlds, each one uniquely atmospheric, intricately designed and full of secrets in the most unusual of ways. I don't think it's something you can really assign a numbered score to, it's just a surreal and unsettling experience that's worth having at least once, even if you don't enjoy it. It's fuckin' Yume Nikki, you probably already know how influential it is. [?★]

28-31) BOXBOY! Series (3DS/Switch, 2015-2019)

HAL knows their stuff when it comes to puzzle games, believe it or not, and this really shows with the adventures of Qbby the funny little cube guy. In this consistently solid series, you solve a wide range of puzzles based around creating and destroying cubes to make it to the exit, with each new game introducing its own gimmick to shake up the basic formula and make it more interesting. It's kind of a deceptively simple game, as the puzzles ramp up in difficulty and end up becoming some real head-scratchers, and I appreciate that. The presentation is also charmingly simple, with pleasant audiovisuals, and even a simply story that eventually gets surprisingly interesting in the later entries. Give these games a try to finally see what that one sticker in Kirby: Planet Robobot was all about. [4★]

32) Pokémon Picross (3DS, 2015)

Pokémon and Picross feels like a pretty effortlessly winning formula for a crossover, and this one is... well, it's okay. The puzzles are decent Picross, and the gimmick of catching and using Pokémon to help you out in the trickier stages is pretty good too, but the area where it suffers is in the actual design of the game - it's one of those 3DS titles that is basically a mobile game, with stamina cooldowns and microtransactions to speed up wait times, though like Kirby Clash it does have a cap on how much money you can spend. But that spending cap doesn't make up for the core way in which it's designed. I don't find Picross too repetitive, so I want to be able to play it for hours at a time, but the damn game doesn't let me, and it just feels kinda poorly designed in general. But when I get to play the game properly, it's solid Picross. Maybe the unreleased but eventually leaked Game Boy Color game of the same name is better just for that. [3★]

33) Learn With Pokémon! Typing Adventure (DS, 2012)

This game is such a gimmick but god, I kinda really like it. It's a typing game on the DS, and so to facilitate that they made every copy come with a small Bluetooth keyboard that was pretty good for the original price at the time but of course isn't that good nowadays. But it works quite well, it's responsive enough to play this game, even if it can be kind of awkward sometimes just because of positioning. And the game is quite fun too, it's not very long but it can pose a pretty tough challenge if you're not that good at typing fast, and the typing action is actually quite intense as you get into the harder levels. It's marketed as an educational title to help you learn typing, but I don't think it really does that so much. But it's a fun game, with pretty good music and a funny computer voice reading everything you type out loud, and I am actually glad I shelled out for a complete copy of this obscure Pokémon gem. [4★]

34) Undertale (Switch, 2018)

Yeah, I didn't actually play this one until 2023 despite being a fan of it and Deltarune for quite a while, sue me. There's not much new that I can say about it, but this indie smash hit really does hold up even now that there's a similar game from the same guy that does a lot of gameplay things better. It's filled with unique and charming characters who you can either kill or spare (the latter is what you should do, but the former can be tempting), a really good and somewhat meta storyline particularly if you go for the "true" ending, and some pretty fun bullet-dodging gameplay that can be pretty difficult - though there is an option to grind for several hours and get an item that makes it much easier, no shame in doing that if you can be bothered. You probably already know everything that one should know about this game, but yeah, I liked all those things about it that much more after playing it for myself. It's definitely something you should play if you have interest in it, and I just know Deltarune is going to be way bigger and even better. [5★]

35) Animal Crossing Movie (Anime, 2006)

It's kind of an anomaly that this movie even exists at all, Nintendo rarely makes anime adaptations of their games and they're almost never full movies, plus it's based on Animal Crossing, a game series that doesn't really have much of a story and certainly didn't back in 2006. What they actually end up doing with this one is kinda fun, it's a fairly standard slice of life anime condensed into a movie decently enough, with a very comfortable atmosphere and nice interpretations of some of the characters from the games, and the narrative follows a young girl making friends and taking part in a few of the events from the earliest entries in the series - about what you would expect from it, really. It's not anything special or even particularly good, but it's really nice to see them replicate the vibe and characters of Animal Crossing in anime-movie form, and I do wonder if they'd try something like this again. [3.5★]

36) Tunic (Switch, 2022)

I don't really play very many games that aren't in a language that I understand - it's easy to find stuff in English most of the time - but this game technically counts, because it's specifically aiming for the vibe of playing a game like that, with almost all the text in a totally new language the devs came up with entirely by themselves. And honestly, I kind of love it for that, it combines with the lonely and mysterious vibe that the whole game has. Because the game doesn't tell you much, you kinda have to feel it out as you explore the top-down Zelda-like world fighting monsters and collecting pages of the literal manual while figuring out what's going on with everything. It's filled with cryptic (sometimes too cryptic) puzzles and secrets, with one even leading to a pseudo-ARG that helped people decode its language, and it's clear a lot of love went into this project. Towards the end I did look things up about it, but as it stands, this game is a wonderful adventure that might not be to everyone's tastes, but I certainly really liked it for what it does. [4.5★]

37) Hatsune Miku Logic Paint S (Switch, 2021)

Yes, another Picross game, and this time everyone's best friend Hatsune Miku is there, along with her other Vocaloid friends for good measure. And... that's about it. It's super barebones, only offering puzzles and unlockable music, but that is basically all it needs to be. It's cute, it's Picross with Miku, it does what it says on the tin. I just don't have much more to say about it other than that, it's just an average Picross game that does average Picross things, just without using the actual name Picross. It's fine, it kept me occupied for a few hours. [3★]

Last post

#scrunkore media 2023 #oneshot #vvvvvv #yume nikki #boxboy #pokemon #undertale #animal crossing #tunic #hatsune miku #picross

10 notes · View notes

miloscat · 5 months

Text

[Review] The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: Tactics (PC)

A decent tactics RPG if a bit buggy.

The spinoff prequel show to Jim Henson's 1982 fantasy adventure The Dark Crystal was, like the film itself, a brilliant showcase of puppeteering, production design, and worldbuilding. Like many shows on their service, Netflix did not renew it for another series to follow up on its lingering plot threads, but they did at least commission a tie-in game from American studio BonusXP, who had previously made two Stranger Things games for them before shutting down mid-last year. The only other Dark Crystal game was a Sierra text adventure, which got a highly abbreviated browser-based remaster around the time of the show's broadcast.

As an adaptation of the show, the large cast and themes of rebellion and questing lend themselves well to a tactical RPG, although the reality of this game feels a bit restricted, with compact maps and characters usually limited to four or five per stage. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as I appreciated the manageable scope; I don't have a huge amount of experience with this genre but I know how bloated Wesnoth scenarios can get. The setup for this game is square grids with no zone of control, turn order dictated by a dynamic action timeline, and experience and gear gained between levels. On top of equipment customisation, there's a job system where you can shuffle anyone into any role, although they need to get experience in that job to unlock skills and advance to new sub-jobs.

The character roster again could be considered limited, with a final total of 14 selectable characters (although others join as temporary allies in various scenarios). About half are from the show with the others being OCs who fit in well enough. Most of them are Gelfling, who have the most developed job system with three broad categories of soldiers, scouts, and mages who get further specialised as you progress. Apart from them there are two Podlings and two Fizzgigs, who all have a smaller job pool but can usefully fill niches on your team.

The key art depicts the urRu urVa, but they only appear in one mission as an NPC, and the game's store blurb mentions "familiar faces from the classic film" which is just an outright lie, unless they mean broadly the races and creatures of Thra seen in the film... but I won't concede that. Lacking these kinds of surprise bonus characters, a broader array of the show's cast, or other types of creatures for the playable cast like Arathim or Lore, was a disappointment but I have to accept the realities of a likely budget development and to be fair I had loads of possible characters lingering on the bench anyway given the scale of the battles.

My core team was Deet, for me a versatile offense/healing caster, Brea, a strong healer with other utility spells, Hup, who ended up a beast-summoner/debuffer, and Kylan, a dependable rogue-type. In the mid-late game I tried to switch them all into new basic roles to level into the high-end hybrid jobs, but starting from scratch at that point made them all too weak to get by so I just reverted to their existing specialities and went from there. I played on Normal and found the difficulty to be highly variable, some levels being a walk in the park where others kicked my arse. A few missions had specific objectives or required keeping plot characters alive such that they required quite a few restarts, and that's without the crashes...

I do have to mention the state of the game, which will likely never get an update thanks to the shuttering of the studio. At first I tried to run the Mac version, but it crashed on launch without fail. The PC version at least runs, but had a tendency to crash repeatedly during certain missions. This would lose my progress in that level, since there is no ability to save mid-level (which would also have helped in the more demanding scenarios). A couple of times the game also went into a state of intermittent hanging or stuttering, and for a few of the character jobs it would reliably fail to remember my skill choices, so that I would only be able to fill two out of three available ability slots. Pretty frustrating!

The plot of the game broadly follows the show, although it skips quickly through the first half and the pace slows down for the later episode events. But this is fine, as the two mediums are very different and this works for the pace of the game. I liked when things opened up late in the game and there were a lot of sidequests and scenarios that expanded on events unseen in the show, like doing requests for each of the various Gelfling clans to win their support. The enemies consist of other Gelflings who use the same job system you do, Arathim, and Darkening-afflicted creatures, with a few Podlings and Skeksis boss fights thrown in for good measure... I was kind of expecting Garthim to show up, but I guess they really only appear in a late cliffhanger in the show.

In some senses the game works well as a tie-in to the show, but there are limits to how one is able to capture the charms of the puppetry and production design in a budget 3D video game. Apparently the range of movement of the in-game models is accurate to the puppets themselves, but rendering the characters the way they have, while necessary, does lose something, not to mention the world being built of square tiles for gameplay purposes gives the environments something of an artificial feel. You also sadly lose the show's all-star voice cast, as the game is entirely unvoiced. There are nice hand-drawn cutscenes from time to time which I would compare favourably to the better Dark Crystal comics, but they're few and far between.

Given the technical issues I had in my playthrough I find this game hard to recommend, but I did enjoy the customisation, the strategy of the battles, and the little expansions on the show's story. This definitely works best as a supplement to the show though, as it doesn't do much to flesh out the characters, assuming that the player is familiar with them. It's something to treasure in that it's a rare game based on this marvellous but niche Henson property... just don't expect too much.

#the dark crystal #the dark crystal age of resistance tactics #jim henson #bonusxp #review #pc

2 notes · View notes

sunrisetune · 1 year

Text

Finally downloaded Disco Elysium after having it on Steam for a few months \o/ Writing a list of what I know (or think I do rn) about the game before I play it, for comparative research purposes!

-The title is a pun, probably; or else the premise of Harry DuBois, the PC, only remembering he likes ‘disco’ is definitely a pun

We’re a detective and there’s a murder that needs solving

-The setting is like, a fantasy-post-Soviet Union collapse country / city, which also qualifies as post-apocalyptic though I don’t know if those are related strictly speaking In Addition: There’s a bit of “the world’s moved on since then” happening, like some things about reality and time and space are just weird now that the world’s ended, and it may be continuing to erode. The murder mystery may or may not be tied into any of that

There’s a woman who’s the most well-known (??) religious figure in the setting who may be a particularly prominent saint or a goddess, I can’t tell; part of her iconography is her exposed lungs

- The theme of the game..... actually it’s hard to describe the theme from what I know so far, I was going to say ‘morality’ but that’s not exactly it; maybe like, the way your morals and political beliefs change the way you interact with the world?

The point of the game is to romance Kim Kitsuragi

(- To be clear this one is a joke; I’m pretty sure there isn’t actually romance plotlines (except for Harry’s backstory kinda)

- There’s some kind of RPG talent system? You can put points into attributes that help you make checks for things, including violence - This is also related to the Whatever Tf They Are that constantly narrate Harry’s inner dialogue to different effects. How? No clue! We’ll learn together -These are ‘Thoughts’, maybe?? - You can pick up clothes and items that give you bonuses to said checks; one of them is a frog headband -Also you can use drugs and / or alcohol, which don’t actually have any repercussions in-game (other than making Kim sad?), but there’s still technically an addiction mechanic on us as the player bc it’s easy to get reliant on said stat boosts and use them all the time

There’s a lot of NPCs around the city; I’m assuming to give you clues to the murder and / or influence your politics mechanics-wise, and their stories are nice

- At the end of the game there’s some kind of character reckoning involving Kim giving you a score of being a decent human; this may or may be related to the actual murder mystery

Kim’s really good at pinball

#video games #Goose's original poster tag which is for Goose #''Oh all of the bisexuals Goose? You like all of them?'' Yes we have a group call every Thursday it's very nice

13 notes · View notes

doubleddenden · 1 year

Text

Okay so I've been playing Star Rail and I'm gonna do a lil amateur review because I do that sometimes

Here's my take

1. I like it. I got it for pc and it's fun when I can play it.

More under the cut

2. It is free to play with micro transactions, however I've not spent any money on it and I find it quite playable and easy to get into. That being said, I started with a lot of free stuff from starting so early and codes, so my experience may have differed if I started later.

3. It's a turned based RPG akin to JRPGs like Digimon Cyber Sleuth, Persona 5, etc, but a little easier to comprehend combat wise

4. Story and setting so far is something sort of like a mix of Star Ocean- specifically 4 with the planet hopping- or Rogue Galaxy, with... well, a LOT of mystic, techno, scifi, and religious babble. Enjoyable tho. I love space trains so much. It's dumb but classy. There's also a LOT of optional lore you can collect and read to really help you get immersed if that's your thing, and characters will have a lot of dialogue to give you more world building lore too. That being said, they do kinda just toss you into the ocean with really complex shit right out the gate with no vuild up- I've been told that having SOME knowledge of the Honkai Impact series can build upon what's given, but it's not entirely necessary.

5. Graphics are great, I like the art style and how polished everything looks. Art style works for the game and it looks gorgeous. I do think the NPCs kinda look plain, but that's about expected.

6. Music is passable. Not really finding any ear worms just yet, though. The summoning music and the train music are great though.

7. It might be me and my somewhat shit connection, but I experience lag and disconnection sometimes. This can get pretty frustrating

8. Characters are fun and have fun dynamics with each other. I already dig The Trailblazer, Dan Hung, and March 7th's dynamic- I will say, wtf is this name? Like I know why, but still, not just March, March 7th specifically is her name. Is her full name Saturday, March 7th, 5023 AD?

9. Voice acting is... decent enough. I play English dub because I have reading difficulties due to unmedicated ADHD, before anyone starts screaming at me to change languages. There's some strange takes or line reads sometimes, sometimes the voice will read something different from the text, and there's a couple of voices I wish would just sound... different. But the majority is passable to really good. I've also heard some unexpected voices- you could say they are TRASH, but I find them TASTEful.

10. Character design is pretty fun imo- definitely a bit of Genshin style, but it is by the same people so you kind of expect that. But they're fun to look at, have fun weapons and moves, and have great art. My one complaint would be similar builds and designs for some characters, but that's minor and also expected. But I will say, I do prefer a good anime style over indie cartoon or realistic style, so to me I think it's great.

11. The menus are... very complex. Easy to lose track and get lost in. I swear the pause menu rearranges every time I open it.

12. It shouldn't need saying, but: It's not Genshin Impact- that's fine actually. In fact it's great, turn based rpgs are really fun, especially JRPG styled, which i like to play (Dragon Quest 11, Digimon Cyber Sleuth, Persona 5, Pokémon, etc). While I do like exploring open worlds and having a lot of freedom and real time fighting, sometimes it's nice to have a simpler point A to point B system with smaller maps, and especially nice to have auto battle. There's a bit of carry over from Genshin, but i think it works for what's given. I do miss my emergency fo- I mean, my adorable best friend Paimon, but she and all my other Genshins are Impacting in the other game while I Rail some Sta- wait I'm not finishing that sentence.

13. It is gacha. You kind of expect it- some people won't like it, I kinda like it to some degree, but I do got issues. Basically watch your spending- again, I haven't felt the need to, unlike some games that feel like you have to to get anything done. But it definitely would help to speed things along if i were. When you get a good character, it's a nice feeling for me, personally. That being said they do give you 3 pretty good ones right out the gate, and you do gather in game materials to help you summon at a fair pace anyway, so you're rolling decently enough to get something out of it.

Overall an 8/10 so far. I wanna keep playing, but unfortunately this damn meat mech that is my wretched bodily prison of my soul requires sleep, and I have things I have to do.

#honkai star rail #star rail #doubled plays game #den reviews stuff

2 notes · View notes

spoilertv · 3 months

Text

#SpoilerTV

0 notes

8bitsupervillain · 10 months

Text

8-bit reviews: Diablo Immortal

Probably the only review of Diablo Immortal you'll see that actually talks about gameplay and not just the villainous monetization.

TL;DR: A thoroughly miserable free to play ARPG that actively fought against me trying to derive any sort of enjoyment out of it. There are a couple of enjoyable things buried somewhere deep into the game, but it really really isn't worth the effort it takes to get there.

Diablo Immortal is a game that in theory I like quite a bit. I genuinely like the story that it has, and I can even really enjoy some of the somewhat simplistic combat systems on offer. The problem I find with it is that if you are invested in the story the free to play nature of the game seems to be actively working against the game at times. The combat can be enjoyable until the game forces you to engage in the same repetitive tasks over and over in an attempt to wrangle as much of your play time for its often times aggressively monotonous and uninteresting MMO style tasks. When the game is about the story dungeons the combat loop is a pretty decent affair, nothing mind blowing, but some nice straightforward combat arenas. These have issues sure, if you decide to have a look around the rather sparse environments and then engage in conversation with the NPC of the day you do run the risk of the enemies you cleared out interrupting the conversation and having to do it all over.

It's not a particularly deep action RPG, most of the story dungeons are simply hold down attack until everything between you and the map marker is dead, but that's fine, it doesn't need to reinvent the wheel. I know this is sold primarily as a phone/tablet game, so I don't know how much gameplay innovation that crowd is looking for. On the PC side of things it feels like a weird hybrid of mechanics from Diablo 2 mixed with Diablo 3. It lacks the skill tree you've seen in games like D2, and instead has a more varied move list like what was on offer from D3. It doesn't go quite as mechanically deep as D3 did, instead of offering variations to whichever skill you choose to use you just unlock slight upgrades at set levels. The class I played for instance, The Crusader, has an attack that is a flail attack that attacks in an arc in front of the character. As you level up you eventually unlock additional perks for that move that includes knock back, or at the end of your leveling it turns from a front-facing arc to a complete 360 swing. It adds the facade of depth, but it's honestly pretty straightforward. Heck, there's even an option on the inventory screen where the game with change your move loadout to fit into one of their pre-defined playstyles.

It's not like Diablo as a series has the most elaborate of control schemes, but this kind of feels like a further simplification of the combat from the bigger more feature rich entries. Perhaps it's simply because of the fact I played this entirely mouse and keyboard, maybe playing it with a controller or on a mobile device I wouldn't have noticed it quite as strongly. A lot of the moves are dependent are moving an in-game indicator to highlight the area where the attack is going to occur. It could be the semi-circle of death as mentioned above, or moving so an arrow engulfs whatever hellspawn you're currently fighting.

Admittedly I can't say this applies to all of the classes. I assume it does, but I only played as the Crusader for the length of the campaign. I can confirm it happens with the newest class: The Blood Knight, but as for the rest of the roster this is just speculation on my part.

Still, when the game was just advancing the narrative I didn't have much of an issue with the gameplay. It's fine to cruise through a game now and then, indulge in the simple pleasure of wholesale murder without needing dedicate your entire brain to the affair. It was when the game decided it needed to introduce, and force me to do some of the free to play MMO side-activities I felt the game was getting worse. Fair play to Blizzard they tried to make me care about the side-story of the shadow war between the Immortals and the Shadows, but it wasn't a thing I strictly needed to do to be able to advance the narrative so it got shunted off to the side. The Helliquary sure did have big-ish plot significance using cutscenes to set up a rogues gallery of ever-stronger demons who will one day rise to take over and destroy the world of Sanctuary. But that's post-game stuff that doesn't factor into the plot so the story of Lassal the Flame Whip and his cohort of other big demon nasties went largely unchallenged. Also they require you to play with other players, and I don't think my works WiFi was up to the challenge of trying to host seven other players. Which is unfortunate, if the Helliquary stuff, or the shadow war didn't require other players it could've made for an interesting subplot when the main plot slammed the brakes and made me do other stuff for way way too long.

There are several points when you're cruising along in the story when the game will throw up a wall to stop you from advancing any further in the narrative until you reach a minimum level. This happens way too much, I get why they're there, you got to try to entice the player into playing the other modes and so on you worked so hard on and put in your game, but it just started killing any enthusiasm I had going for the game. Because the interesting side-plot stuff I mentioned, the stuff with the Immortals, or the Helliquary don't give you any experience you need to be able to advance the story. Sure you unlock special rare super ultra fancy armors and titles and so on, but that's irrelevant if you just care about advancing the story.

What you do instead is you have to either go into "Challenge Rifts" which are special timed dungeons where you just massacre your way through a bunch of demons until profit. The problem with these is you require a special Diablo Immortal currency to even be able to do these Rifts, and as far as I could tell during my time with the game there is no actual way to earn these Diablo funbucks in game. In addition to the Challenge Rifts there's a variation of the Rifts that's harder, and allegedly offers better rewards, but nothing that really helps XP gain. So instead what you wind up doing is doing bounties, which are MMO inspired tasks that require you to go into one of the zones you've been to and then kill X amount of a given enemy type, or farm their loot. The problem with this system is that in addition to the gameplay being rather thin and pretty dull the amount of XP you acquire for doing these is a pitiably small amount. For reasons I can only speculate about Blizzard limits the amount of bounties you can do in a day, twenty-four of them. And you will more than likely have to do all twenty-four to get even slightly close to being able to get that level up. I assume this is here to pad the numbers and make player times look much more impressive than they would otherwise. It's maddening having to stop playing the story just to go do this MMO daily-grind hornswoggle, because it can take you literal days to be able to continue the story from where you left off. If you are a strictly free to play player that is.

I don't want to focus entirely too much on the monetization aspect of this game. There are plenty of other reviews, youtube videos, and just general muckraking over the monetization aspect of Diablo Immortal. Besides depending on your individual pain threshold you could in theory play this game to story end entirely free. If you decide to give in and feed the machine upwards of five bucks you get a battle-pass that gives you a slight edge in terms of being able to level up. It doesn't just throw free XP at you, but it gives you items that fill a meter in the battle pass that then gives you XP. But then that's how these free to play RPGs get you isn't it, make it just fun enough and just annoying enough that eventually it wears you down. I admit that it wore me down enough that I broke and spent a collective ten dollars on this, and even then the constant roadblocks of trying to go through the story kept showing up. If they just had a straight up option to buy an XP boost I would whine and wail about how this is what gaming has become, but towards the end of the game I would've bought it. I admit this, like I said I spent ten dollars in an effort to try to get more XP out of the game.

I don't know what exactly the six or seven in-game currencies even do in terms of gameplay. I looked at a list that had the various currencies in the game, and I got thoroughly confused trying to read the explanation for which platinum buys you what cosmetic, or which purple obol lets you buy which moon coin which does something in theory. At the very start of this before releasing Immortal on PC maybe it would've been beneficial to Blizzard to have a paid option where you can just start with some XP boosts or lower the absurd XP requirements for leveling, although I doubt that would happen because of the massive amounts of work that would require.

It's not very often that I play a game that I think could be a genuinely good time, but the game itself seems dead-set on fighting me tooth and nail to make sure things suck. It's not just the roadblocks in the plot or the game forcing you to engage in the free to play MMO crap, it's just riddled with small annoyances. The constantly respawning enemies, ensuring you never have a moment to just explore the environments, some of whom will be elite enemies who can really put you through the ringer. The boss fights with enemies with massive health bars that aren't exactly a challenge, they're just damage sponges, and if you die during a fight there's a greater than non-zero chance that that life bar will be reset to the start of the fight so you have to do that all over again.

The fact that sometimes your character will just get stuck an a seemingly impassable bit of air and be stuck trying to walk through the section while getting sniped by a little bastard demon just out of your field of vision. The fact that in the PC version at least the game had a very common habit of crashing the game to desktop with no warning. It happened the most during dungeons, but this game was extremely prone to crashing. Didn't matter if I was playing it on my computer with the 3090, or my laptop (that it ran surprisingly well on), trying to do things was often a coin toss about whether the game was going to crash or not.

Despite this however I do have things I actually like about Diablo Immortal. The relative pointlessness of the plot aside I did genuinely like the story. Even the optional stuff that I didn't really engage with, the Helliquary and the war between the Immortals and the Shadow seemed very well-written, and I'm curious to see where those plots are going (eventually, in a youtube video, I'm not playing this game any more). Also it's an extremely minor thing but I do appreciate the fact that you can actually move your character around using WASD instead of just clicking around on the map to move your character. It's basically the only feature I wish got taken from Immortal and put into Diablo 4.

#diablo #diablo immortal #review #8bit reviews #action role playing game #arpg

0 notes

raguna-blade · 1 year

Text

So this is more rambling than anything but I have it in my head so let's get it out of there for a tick.

Like I've Enjoyed what I played of SRW30 Well enough but I also think it's kind of fundamentally not a great game game as a pure game experience. I'm not a challenge seeker by any means, I tend to leave my games on the default difficulty if anything, but there is something to be said when the game balance shatters damn near out the gate and the only real way I can achieve anything that resembles a challenge is by pumping up the difficulty (which doesn't actually change anything beyond giving the opponents extra health and more damage which doesn't actually mittigate things) and a decent amount of that was me falling into assbackwards and by quite literal accident.

Now sure, some of this doubtless has to do with when I played SRWJ and i'm probably a better game player over all, but despite the fact that I knew, very very early on, that I had broken the game difficulty, I didn't particularly find it like...distressing.

The same can be said for playing SRWOG's but we're not talking about that, because i think overall that's just an overall better game compared to either here.

And I'm trying to figure out what it is about J that lead me to being AOK with it being wildly out of balance vs 30.

My initial feeling, which I think is deifinitely a part of it but not the whole thing, is the mission structure is different. having to go in a specific route with no stops does fundamentally change the experience, especially in a strategy game. Inability to grind at all makes a big difference in RPG types strategy games, but in and of itself I don't think that's the whole story.

For one, 30's Grinding Options are pretty clearly demarcated as such, and you don't need to do them. But second, I think the difference there is...It's whatever. I don't need to grind, and honestly I don't like to either in games. It's positively dreadful for me, and in games where it's expected it's often enough to make me put it down entirely even if I objectively love everything else.

But it's a difference. But the thing I hone in on, and I think i'd have to seriously look at it more instead of just getting the idle thought off my head, is that, unironically, the way the game frames it makes it feel...less unusual that you're this hyper busted powerhouse?

Like sure, almost any game is going to go on about how you the pc (or your army) are special in some way, or just lucky or whatever and that's why you're able to do something, but here I think the way the game frames it makes it feel less inexplicable?

or no. No that's not right actually. Because both games do make a point of your crews being hyper competent relative to everyone else, but I think it does come back to gameplay to a degree, or at least, certain aspects of gameplay.

It's been a while, so anyone who has the more recent experience feel free to correct me, but I think it actually has to do with the stricter limitations for improving your pilots and machines. that means the grinding does factor in (if only as a sense of They're there as a pressure release if you need it even if you don't use it, which is a real factor if a somewhat more nebulous one), but more critically the way you can stack advantages between the two games is WILDLY different.

I know for a fact that in 30 I have quite literally made the main character (one of them) into god's perfect killing machine by more or less just throwing a copy of whatever abilities onto them because i have the space and why not, and that has rewarded me with a unit with WILDLY outsized impact compared to other comparable units. Or hell, factually just better units not afforded the same grace.

which...Makes sense, but relates back to why it FEELS so different I think, because yeah you made your character mega powerful (and the game rewards and wants this!) but it's not only a little harder, but it requires some decision making because in doing so you're also in some respects making other units weaker, but also you had to expend at least a bit of effort to figure out what was needed to do so.

This isn't to say it was a complicated puzzle or anything in J, i certainly don't recall putting hours into figuring out a build to make a unit godlike, probably at best a few minutes when I realized Oh, this fixes a problem this unit had now I can stomp, but the effort required is there and makes a difference.

Maybe should look into this more sometime.

#Super Robot Wars 30 #Super Robot Wars J #Game Balance in Probably Inherently broken games #Game Design

0 notes

endfieldhypergryphglobal · 1 year

Text

Things To Know About Endfield’s New Game

Mobile games, when asked what we thought about the two words above, we typically shuddered and shook our heads. Gaming and mobile shouldn’t go together. At least, that’s what most of the pc gamers thought.

With the advancements that are happening in technology and an increasingly mature market, games for mobile are beginning to release decent games. One game that caught my attention is エンドフィールドの新しいゲーム, an arcade game that works on equally iOS as well as Android.

What Is Special About Arknight Endfield?

ークナイツエンドフィールドAPK (Arknights Endfield Apk) isn’t only your standard strategy game for tower defense. It also features an array of colorful characters that you can increase your level to gain more statistics. Yes, there are RPG elements. It’s also a basic management game.

With all these aspects, as well as the game’s generousness with its gacha mechanics, there’s no surprise that lots of people are addicted to the game. Let’s take a look at the Arknights Review to learn more!

Arknights is an excellent game that is worth a try if you enjoy Tower Defense. It enhances the game’s formula by not letting any of the punches fall and introducing characters fully voiced and a system that is balanced.

Contrary to the typical game, which requires your entire soul to win, This one rewards you for your efforts, and you will keep returning to play more. The game’s gameplay isn’t dependent on luck, and you could even play the entire game (in the current version) without relying on characters with high rarity. It is possible to beat it using the free ones you can get!

Another thing regarding it is it’s fairly expansive. It is possible to grind to get resources you can use to acquire higher-quality characters. Although it has limitations, it’s far superior to its competitors. The game releases new events and new Operators at an interval of two weeks.

With regards to updates, The game is always offering new events each week. The game is constantly adding new characters. Missions and events are to be scheduled regularly for this game.

Conclusion

In the end, it’s an excellent game that made me think. We played the アークナイツエンドフィールド(Arknights Endfield) for about three months and had such fun playing it. Inspired us to think that spending a few bucks to show my appreciation to its creators for having a fun time was a reasonable idea. And I don’t even like gacha games.

エンドフィールドの新しいゲーム(Endfield New Game) is an enjoyable game that is a complete Tower Defense game that offers more. It’s a game I’d recommend to anyone for エンドフィールドインストール (Endfield Install) seeking an interesting challenge or a good quality, well-made RPG Tower Defense on mobile.

0 notes

leftkidpalaceplaid · 2 years

Text

Multiplayer Online Games: Group Fun, Group Adventure

Gaming aficionados without a doubt probably caught wind of the most recent frenzy throughout the last ten years - multiplayer internet games. Since the fame of RPG's and MMORPG arrived at the top, there is by all accounts generally a major event appearing consistently. It seems to be the opposition among the creators of multiplayer games is getting furious to have a greater piece of the market. That's what to do, they generally think of especially intriguing titles to tempt gaming enthusiasts.

Multiplayer web based games are the sort of games that permit anyone to play with different players or against them. Contingent upon the configuration of the game and its standards, there is typically a mission that you need to satisfy or an objective to finish to progress to a higher level. In the event that you are playing against one more player or a gathering of players, they might hold you back from accomplishing your objective. They do that since they need to arrive first or in light of the fact that your gathering is likewise becoming prevention to their objectives. To settle things, you need to rival them and ensure that you beat them or you would be the game's bad sport.

Notwithstanding, it is additionally conceivable to have different players working for you. This is called making a union and consolidate powers to construct areas of strength for an and accomplish a solitary objective. You help each other in beating the adversaries and every other person that could present a hindrance on your goals. In fact talking, this is the manner by which multiplayer web based games work and playing them can truly be a major experience. Attempt it today and perceive how you will toll against different players of fluctuating aptitude level.

There are various kinds of multiplayer internet games accessible. The most well known ones are the activity and pretending games which incorporate specific battling techniques and that's what stuff like. Military-themed multiplayer games are very well known as well, as in CounterStrike, DOTA, WarCraft, and others. Be that as it may, there are a great deal of straightforward ones accessible too, without the need of downloading anything by any stretch of the imagination.

Multiplayer web based games require procedure to succeed in it. You will not have the option to be a specialist on these games in only one day. On the off chance that you are hoping to play this kind of games, you better set yourself up for a long experience ahead. Furthermore, attempt to make companions as you learn. You will likewise require the assistance of different players to accomplish your objectives.

Assuming there are numerous multiplayer internet games for guys, female players additionally have some made particularly for them. Genuine models are Farmville and Cityville as the two of them are presented by the interpersonal interaction goliath Facebook. Attempt to sign in to your record and play them to have a vibe of it. Here, you can welcome your companions to join and play with you. Multiplayer internet games are for sure more tomfoolery and energizing than playing alone or against the PC. Certainly, nothing beats a decent game imparted to companions.

For More Information: ultrabet

1 note · View note

scrunkore · 11 months

Text

Scrunkore Media "Thread" 2023: Part 2

welcome back to the scrunko core

14) Ib (Switch, 2023)

One of the real classics of RPG Maker horror games, upgraded for the modern age in just a few little ways that manage to keep the experience feeling as it should. Ib has a perfectly bizarre and creepy atmosphere, making really good use out of its excellent concept of being trapped in a living art gallery, with decent enough puzzles to keep you engaged throughout. I'm a big fan of its vibes and its exploration of loneliness and art in general, and it has a really strong trio of characters and various different endings that I found myself liking a lot. Now's as good a time as any to check this game out. [4.5★]

15) Everything Everywhere All At Once (Movie, 2022)

Kind of a critical darling as well as an audience favourite around when it came out, and yeah, I agree with everyone else - this movie is fantastic. Really good and creative direction in an absolutely wild ride through parallel universes, family and generational trauma that I'm told can hit really hard for the Chinese-American demographic and others like it but can be enjoyed by just about anyone. It uses its ideas pretty much perfectly, and it has a whole multiverse of them to play with; I was fully engaged throughout the whole experience. It deserved those awards. [5★]

16) Fire Punch (Manga, 2016-2018)

Tatsuki Fujimoto's earlier manga series, wrapping up just before his biggest claim to fame began, really can feel like Chainsaw Man's fucked up older brother - and it kind of is, really. It does touch on some of the same things, but the world is even harsher and the suffering even greater, and the overall mood can seem a lot more nihilistic, but there is hope in there still. It's also a harder read than Chainsaw Man, but it stands alone as a rough tale of struggling through an apocalyptic world, and it gets bonus points from me for its heartbreaking trans character I don't want to spoil. I'm not sure how much I'd recommend it, with the particular kinds of misery involved feeling gratuitous at times, but I am glad I read it. [4★]

17) Super Lesbian Animal RPG (PC, 2022)

The title kind of says it all here, this is a superb RPG about anthro animal girls in lesbian relationships, and it does an excellent job at delivering exactly that with a lot more besides. The whole cast is likeable, even the asshole characters, and the story is a mix of really good fun and powerful emotional beats, naturally being queer as hell to boot. I really appreciate the gameplay too, it's by default a fairly easy game until pretty late, but it's quite well-balanced and goes out of its way to ensure you'll never even think about grinding (levels cap at 30, even), plus a lot of the fights are just really fun. Excellent visuals and incredible soundtrack too, just a perfectly well-rounded super lesbian animal RPG that I have no real complaints with at all. [5★]

18) Tembo the Badass Elephant (PC, 2015)

A little controversial back when it released for daring to be a Game Freak game not on either of the Nintendo consoles in circulation at the time, this game is... well, it's fine. Just a decent enough 2D action platformer that feels like if you modded Wario into a Sonic game with how you can speed through levels smashing up everything in your way, but the level design and even the odd boss fight reminds me of some of the worst parts of Sonic games at times, so I'm not super fond of it. It does have plenty of charm though, with a fun cartoony artstyle and some 3D setpieces that do make one wonder why it wasn't on 3DS. Controlling a badass action hero elephant saving as many people as possible is a neat idea, too. [3★]

19) Picross 3D (DS, 2009)

There have been many different takes on Picross over the years, under many different names as well, but almost nobody has done it quite like HAL did with Picross 3D. It feels like a whole different breed of puzzle, and it is indeed nothing like regular 2D Picross - the transformation into cube-based puzzles makes things far more advanced, often more difficult, and a lot more rewarding. There's not much more to this game other than the massive amount of puzzles to solve and the option to create your own, but it doesn't really need anything else. Some puzzles are extremely hard, but that's alright, and the game is the perfect fit for the DS hardware. [4★]

20) Picross 3D Round 2 (3DS, 2015)

I technically played this a bit later, but I think it makes sense to put this next to the first game. HAL managed to do it again, innovating further on the 3D Picross concept with different shapes that you can turn blocks into - a simple change, but one that goes surprisingly far towards making the game more enjoyable. It's a lot comfier with its presentation too, and there's even some surprisingly great music in there. Not much more to it than that, but it's still filled to the brim with a huge amount of puzzles, including bonus special Amiibo unlocks (there is a homebrew program to bypass this), and that's all I can ask of it once again. I'd hope for a third round, but I don't know that I'd like it as much without stylus controls... [4.5★]

21) The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC, 2023)

Sonic coming out of nowhere on April Fool's with a shockingly high-effort "joke" project was unexpected, but that blue hedgehog does have a way of blindsiding you. The game is a small but lovingly made point-and-click revolving around a murder mystery party with a few fun twists happening towards the end, and it's pretty funny for the most part, so that's the "joke" part down. On top of that, it has a really solid grasp of the characters and how to write them, seemingly on par with the IDW comics, which is more than we've seen from most of the games until fairly recently. It's something of a breath of fresh air, with plenty of fanservice, and my only real complaint is the "THINK!" segments being kind of... not very good. But as a whole, this game is really nice, and I hope they do more creative projects like this in the future. They even got the "self-insert" protagonist right, because they're such a weird and silly one. They should murder Sonic more often! [4★]

22-23) Escaped Chasm/Dweller's Empty Path (PC, 2019/2020)

I'd like to group these together, because they're kind of part of the same interesting project from Temmie Chang (yes, the Undertale Temmie). Both very short RPG Maker games with zero combat and a focus on exploring all the dialogue and plot you can get out of them. Both games have their dark elements, but Escaped Chasm definitely has the most - it's got some upsetting bits, and the ending is rather bittersweet, but I did enjoy the short tale of the lonely girl. It kind of serves as a prequel to Dweller's Empty Path, though you won't know it until you see a certain part. Speaking of which, that game is pretty nice, mostly just being a walking simulator that you can end at any time by going to bed, but there is quite a bit of dialogue for you to see that fleshes out the world and characters, with hints at what might be to come in the future. Both games adopt a Game Boy style pixel art look with minimal colour palettes and I kind of like that about them, and the developer managed to rope in Toby Fox and Camellia for musical contributions, which is awesome. Overall, the games feel like they're setting up something rather interesting, also being rather interesting in themselves, and I hope Temmie is able to do more with this in the future. [3.5★]

24) OFF (PC, 2008)

Another certified RPG Maker classic that has somehow never been re-released in any form, unless you count the official English translation from 2011, and it's certainly an odd one. The vibes are deeply unsettling throughout, the morality of the protagonist is dubious at best, and it has all kinds of strange setpieces showcasing the utterly bizarre lore of its equally bizarre world. It's kind of hard to tell what it's even really about, but it contains themes relating to religion, illness, capitalism and more besides. There are even multiple endings, including a random joke one serving as a "reward" for beating a strange and lengthy secret boss, and honestly I think the game is more of a weird French art piece than anything else. The puzzles and battle system do kind of suck in several areas, so it's all about the feeling of the game in the end, and it certainly made me feel... something. I don't think anyone completely understands this game, but I do like what it tries to do, and I respect it. [3.5★]

Last post

#scrunkore media 2023 #ib #eeaao #fire punch #slarpg #tembo the badass elephant #picross #sonic #escaped chasm #dweller's empty path #off

7 notes · View notes