Media Videogame thread

earl

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really? iirc robot still got hurt by shockwave, just bc devs like crippling robot LUL. also ur right bullet is the only option. also i disagree re: armor of thorns since its better to keep ur distance and just spam blasphemy in any and all situations, even in close quarters blasphemy > rolling since blasphemy has 0 risk attached to it
but yeah regardless excited for the next update whenever it will be, just hope the new bosses will be good (mine flayer was pretty disappointing)
It's a bad idea, sure, but there's a certain pleasure to be had in one-shotting Gun Nuts with a roll.

I believe the robot has a passive immunity to electric damage (as electrified water hurts other characters).
 

brightobject

there like moonlight
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It's a bad idea, sure, but there's a certain pleasure to be had in one-shotting Gun Nuts with a roll.

I believe the robot has a passive immunity to electric damage (as electrified water hurts other characters).
yeah I know that, it's just it is still hurt by Shockwave bc it needs to be worse than it already is -- id need to test it but im relatively sure thats how it works
 

earl

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yeah I know that, it's just it is still hurt by Shockwave bc it needs to be worse than it already is -- id need to test it but im relatively sure thats how it works
If I remember correctly the bullets linking it damage the robot, but the actual electricity does not.
Please buff the Robot why do health ups do nothing
 

S. Court

[Takes hits in Spanish]
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Well, my favorite videogame ever is Final Fantasy VI, I love the story and characters, even when gameplay can be really broken.

My second one is Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, basically because I found the new mechanism in this DLC really engaging, and mostly, I prefer it above the original because Plague Knight was my favorite character in the original game.

Now I'm playing Spelunky and Jotun: Valhalla Edition
 

earl

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Well, my favorite videogame ever is Final Fantasy VI, I love the story and characters, even when gameplay can be really broken.

My second one is Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, basically because I found the new mechanism in this DLC really engaging, and mostly, I prefer it above the original because Plague Knight was my favorite character in the original game.

Now I'm playing Spelunky and Jotun: Valhalla Edition
Just a quick question, have you tried Specter of Torment? I personally find it a better expansion than Plague of Shadows because the levels were completely redone and Specter Knight is really fast and snappy to control. The best of the current playable characters IMO
 

S. Court

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Just a quick question, have you tried Specter of Torment? I personally find it a better expansion than Plague of Shadows because the levels were completely redone and Specter Knight is really fast and snappy to control. The best of the current playable characters IMO
Yes, I actually have, and it's the one I have beat it with no deaths three times! It's pretty smooth and I really really like it, my second favorite of Shovel Knight's games

And I do agree the gameplay feels better (heck, even I have to admit Burst Jumps feel quite chaotic) I just like Plague of Shadows the most, maybe it's the fact I tend to prefer long range combat and the mechanism of Plague Knight bomb system has attracted my attention as an aspirant game designer
 
Finished the main campaign of Miitopia over the past few weeks. Although clearly a casual game and light on actual "gameplay", it's a charming and entertaining game to just watch unfold before you. Especially fun if your main party consists of you and your friends or the like, and the game's NPCs are filled via "Mii Central", more than likely giving random characters from pop culture. The story, though generic, is rather quirky and fun to play through, made even better by the interactions between your player characters as they potentially get into a fight with each other at a key moment, such as leading up to fighting the Dark Lord. Or... you could take the easy route and have a Pop Star in your party to instantly dispell any conflict that arises. If that's your style.
 

Tera Melos

Banned deucer.
Replaying FFVII. I absolutely cannot stand the cliche cheese of this game. I kind of forgot how energetic and great the setting was. How well developed Sephiroth was, and how outstanding the soundtrack is.

Everything else (especially the PC/Steam controls) are pretty garbage.
 
I'm actually really looking forward to the remake of ffvii, whenever they release it. I also played ffvii on steam and frankly didn't care much for it, it's aged really really poorly and it suffers from square's trademark tendency of absolutely botching the delivery of a really deep backstory, resulting in a confusing nonsensical mess for the player to sift through. I also didn't connect with the plot at all, though maybe some decent character models and voice acting would fix that, since I have a lot of trouble engaging with a game's story if its only method of dialogue delivery is via text.

While we're talking about FF, I might as well say that FFXV was a really interesting game in that it took everything I loathe about open world games and turned it into a strength. Normally I dislike open world games because they absolutely kill off any sense of dramatic tension by encouraging the player to ignore the story's core plot for the sake of sidequests (usually filler). But the whole point of the first half of the game is that it's a carefree adventure with some friends, which juxtaposes with the crushing bleakness of the second half of the game. From a design decision that's kinda playing with fire, since it's difficult to communicate to the player that the sacrifice in tension and urgency serves a purpose as drawing attention to it only increases the likelihood of the player getting fed up with those flaws. Maybe with a shitload of foreshadowing? Idk. Either way it worked and I thoroughly enjoyed the game
 

Mr.E

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FF7 is a seminal game for its scope. The amount of time you spend in Midgar and learning its intricacies, then many hours later SURPRISE! Midgar is only the tip of the iceberg and there's an entire world of other stuff out there for you to discover. In THREEEEE DEEEEEEEEEEE no less. You can take or leave the characters and plot. Graphics are obviously ass by modern expectations, being an early 3D title. Soundtrack is good sure, kind of a big positive of all the great JRPG classics.

Maybe someone other than mah boi Fishin will know what I'm talking about, maybe not, but I unsarcastically enjoyed the 20+ hours I spent trying to figure out how to beat the final boss of Genius of Sappheiros (at low-mid 60's). The final stage itself was rather tedious because all the trash mobs were boss-level strength. A lot of them feel cheap and I still can't even beat some of the "miniboss" enemies, many are just stat checks. Unfortunately, since encounters are random you can't plan for them like a conventional boss and it's all too easy to encounter something unwinnable. Honestly, most of the problem is that it's incredibly difficult (though not strictly impossible) to flee; I wiped dozens of times simply running into an unbeatable encounter that I also failed to flee from 5+ turns in a row. Being able to more reliably flee would at least make navigating the dungeon bearable even if I couldn't reliably beat the encounters.

The final boss, on the other hand, felt a lot more fair. Unlike souped-up random encounters, you know what you're fighting and given the privilege of always entering at full strength. It's also the only multiphase fight and the only one you get to utilize all twelve party members rather than only half (e.g. FF6), which I thought was really neat not just because "hey I get to use everyone" but it also significantly ups the level of pre-fight preparation necessary and that really butters my bread. Nowhere else in the game do you need to equip more than half of your characters and figure out how to best utilize all of them at once, and the nature of the fight is such that there's not a lot of room for dead weight. Then you have to actually execute your plan and there's just enough randomness to futz up a flowchart mindset and keep you on your toes without feeling too cheap about it.
 

Tera Melos

Banned deucer.
I gave Super POTUS Trump a try...it's unplayable and a cash grab...kind of upsetting since it was promise to be in the style of Super Mario RPG / Paper Mario
 

Karxrida

Death to the Undying Savage
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Sonic Mania is infuriating.

When the game's fun it's really fun, but it's held back by sticking too close to the classic Sonic formula and retaining mechanics that are outdated and stupid (like the lives system or 10 minute timer) and other quirks like unforgiving crush hitboxes. A number of the boss fights are also terribly designed, either being legitimately unfair (Studiopolis Act 1 and Oil Ocean Act 2) or so unnecessarily obtuse that you have no idea what to do (Stardust Speedway Act 2).

There are positives to the game. Like I said, it's actually really fun when it's not bullshitting you and you're just zooming through levels, the music is consistently great, the good bosses are actually really good, and the game looks fantastic. It just needs more polish before it can be an excellent game.
 
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Sounds about right, a lot of people (myself included) have a hefty chunk of nostalgia for classic Sonic, but even at its best Sonic as a series has always kinda tread the line between fun and irritating. I've never been a fan of the way that rings work, making you lose all the rings you're carrying after one hit in a game series that encourages going fast and leaping before you look is dumb. Still though, it's good that they recaptured the charm successfully, will get it at some point.

This upcoming month is pretty good for weeb games, Danganronpa v3 I'm very much looking forward to and pretty much everything I've heard about Ys 8 from people who have played it has been super positive. Etrian Odyssey 5 the next month after that too, though I imported it last year.
 

Mr.E

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I've never been a fan of the way rings work, in that you're all but invulnerable having just one so there's not even much of a point to collecting them.
 

S. Court

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So, I finally beat Spelunky!

Spelunky.PNG


Yep, 766 deaths to get a victory... I'm not sure if that's because game is hard, I took my sweet time with shortcuts or just because I'm bad, but hey, finally!
 


I have a little nostalgia for sonic, but close to none at all for classic sonic. Played SA2 as a kid, Rush as a teen, and bought Generations, 1, 2, 3K in college on steam. Didn't get very far in any of the classic games.

Absolutely could not put Mania down. It felt like I was constantly being rewarded for snooping about and finding secret pathways. It made me want to replay the game over and over again with each playthrough getting that much more enjoyable. The first time through feels a little tricky, but then your mastery of secrets and timing just makes ever run after feel as smooth as butter which just snowballs into finding more cool shit and secrets. The whole game radiating charm and what a love the creators have for the franchise is also super endearing. Super looking forward to DLC, cool mods, whatever the fuck gives me an excuse to play more of this game. Haven't felt this completely captivated by a game not called Pokemon in a long, long time.

Only real gripes are:
  • 10 minute timer is dumb with levels this big and packed with stuff that encourage exploration
  • Oil Ocean Act 2 boss is dumb and too slow
  • Bad conveyance in some fights (Oil Ocean 2, Lava Reef 2, Stardust Speedway 2, Titanic Monarch 1)
  • Crush mechanics are overly sensitive

I personally didn't have much of a gripe with the game over / continue system even though I know it's nearly objectively bad game design. I feel without the threat of being sent back to square one, a lot of the incentive for the neat goodies you find exploring would have had a lessened impact.
 

Mr.E

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I was just about to post about how I've become a shameful visualnovelfag since the thread went limp, so good job. Although I am still playing GoS, slow going though between starting working again and aforementioned fgtry. After the boring slog of re-recruiting every character in the immediate postgame, who thought that was a good idea?, the expansion content is more of the same dungeoney goodness the main game offered.

Of which note, I will point out that Humble Bundle is currently offering a fantastic package deal of a legitimate Match Three game and the most infamous of English VN shovelware. Telltale's The Walking Dead S1 is also currently 100% off in the store, yo (for roughly 31 more hours from now).

also I hope Tooth and Tail is good because it looks pretty sweet
 
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Mr. Uncompetitive

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With summer coming to a close, I decided it might be a good idea to write up a post of thoughts on the various games I've beaten during the break, mostly from my backlog.

Fun like the other Kirby games, but not particularly great to be honest. The Metroidvania gameplay isn't implemented very well: There's not much in the way of meaningful collectables, and while the map is useful, it's a pain to actually find in most of the levels, often being a well-hidden collectible itself, making it very easy to get lost and wander aimlessly trying to figure out where you're supposed to go (i.e. trying to find out how to enter Radish Ruins <_<). Level designs aren't very good either; Cabbage Caverns and Olive Ocean are just obnoxious with their water, with the former also being very difficult to navigate and easy to just end up going in circles. There are of areas with tight hallways you need to traverse through as well, which are also a pain. Boss fights are mostly eh (Dark MK and the Hands were pretty good, Dark Mind sucked though), while the midbosses were plain obnoxious because they respawn after leaving the screen and can't be escaped from .-. Music's quite good as to be expected from Kirby, highlights include Candy Constellation, Dark Meta Knight, and Dark Mind's theme. Other than that, it's a Kirby game, which is why I was still able to have some fun with it despite all these issues I just listed. Honestly, I think I prefer Squeak Squad over this, looking at them in retrospect.

It's a simple but fun portable puzzle platformer/arcade game, not much more to it. Very pick-up and play, but is pretty deep with tons of different obstacles and a few extra moves. You're prolly gonna die a lot, at least I did, but there's so many chances to get 1-ups (don't think I ever dipped below 40 lives by the midway point), and the game's fun enough to keep playing, so this isn't really a huge deal. Music is mostly just ok, but Showdown at the Tower is fantastic (also check out Gametal's remix of it :D). Not much more to say, definitely one to look into if you want a good game when you're travelling. It's fairly lengthy the first time around too, took me over 10 hours iirc.

I'm really late on getting around to this game, and I really wish I had played it sooner. I never played XY (I did play ORAS), so my perception is a bit skewed in that regard, but I loved just about everything in this game. OST was phenomonal, environments were gorgeous, gameplay was as fun as ever, and while the story could've been a bit deeper given how many cutscenes there were, I personally loved the characters and they really helped the carry the game. It was also the first game in a very long time where I felt "the void" after playing it for a full week. I just couldn't get over the fact that I had just finished something so great. I'm sure my opinion of this game will go down in the future, as was the case with BW1 and ORAS (two other Pokemon games I fully loved the first time around), but as it stands, it's one of my all-time favorite games, as weird as it may seem.

Already covered it in this post. Also wrote a more detailed Steam review so check that if you want lol.

I have a bit of interesting history with this game, since I bought my copy on launch day and yet, even after four previous attempts, I never actually managed to finish this game, and I kinda ended up blaming the game for it, despite everyone seeming to love this game. After finally finishing it, I must say it's still not one of my favorite Pokemon games, but it's wayyyy better than I was giving it credit for. The Pokemon variety is great (but it does make me concerned about D/P holding up), music was much better than I remember, and there were some cool locales and battles to be had, even if it wasn't as stunning as SuMo. Great game, that's about it really.

I was in the mood to play something short and simple, and so I did. This game helped prove to me how awful I am at Mario, considering it took me a few hours to figure out how to do it. The controls and physics felt kinda off, as did the hit detection at times, but it was still a fun romp. The music was probably the best part of the game, featuring one of the best 2D Mario OSTs. The catchy as hell and kinda nostalgic-feeling Overworld Theme, the other stage themes (especially Chai Kingdom) being wonderful as well, the final boss theme is being surprisingly intense for how short and repetitive it is and also makes the fight feel so much more intense, and that ending theme...wow. Not a great game, just a decent one that's got it where it counts.

A great 2D Action game from Inti Creates, but definitely a step down compared to its predecessor in my eyes. User GatoDelFuego really nagged me to play this game, and while it was definitely a bumpy road, there were still plenty of things to like. I pesonally found that the game gets hard very quickly, unlike ZX which, for better or worse, had a slow and fairly easy start before ramping things up about 4 stages in, while this game's first level plays very differently from how you'll be playing the rest of the game, while the 2nd level is more comparable to a level after ZX's first 4 in terms of difficulty, which definitely caught me off guard. Level designs in general were a bit more questionable than ZX imo, though this is partly due to the main character not being as fun to use as that in ZX, as while ZX also has some iffy level designs, this was compensated by the main character being so much fun to play as, making moment-to-moment gameplay enjoyable even if the levels were only competent. This is not the case in Advent, where the main character far worse off in being able to tackle what the levels throw at you and just isn't as satisfying to play as. The Scrapyard feels like a drag and doesn't fit well with how Mega Man levels are typically designed: This level is basically a maze featuring levers that need to be pulled to open doors and lots of switches you need to press to move blocks around so you can progress. The Highway is also a pain, being basically a messy gauntlet of enemies and three bad boss fights (first is super easy but time-consuming, second is just plain annoying and can get you insta-killed, and the third is very difficult until you get down his pattern/rhythm).

A lot of the problem I have with the levels is that this game has weaker graphics and sound compared to ZX: While there are still some excellent tunes (see: Destiny, Drifting Ice Floe, Mysterious Lab, United Forces, and Soul Ablaze), a lot of songs feel kinda samey or are just plain uninteresting, while other songs (like Floating Ruins, compare to the excellent remastered version) just suffer from not-so-good instrumentation and a surprising amount of compression, especially weird considering how clear ZX was on a audio standpoint. The game also reuses a lot of assets from ZX, namely the Snake and airship bosses. The colors of levels feel a lot less eye-catching compared to ZX, which had a rather bright color-scheme compared to this game and the Zero games using more drab colors. Even the themes/locations of the levels are kinda boring (so many levels take place inside buildings or labs; admittedly nothing is gonna top ZX's Amusement Park), and the backgrounds are also noticably less interesting. Of course, the bosses are still excellent, like all the other Zero/ZX games. And while the game was very difficult, it didn't really stop me from playing it (save for Highway and Scrapyard, though after taking some time off from the game I figured out how to beat them). I still managed to somehow finish the game without touching my subtanks, even Ouroboros, one of the hardest levels I've ever seen in a video game, and damn did it feel good to do so. I would definitely recommend this game, but I honestly think ZX, despite having some weird issues, is the better game at its core, so play that first.

Yet another game that proves how horrible I am at 2D Mario. Really can't count how many times I died in this game, and I honestly found this game more frustrating than most Mega Man games just because of how easily you can die, but it was still fun regardless. For the most part, levels, graphics, and sound are all par for the course for Mario. I do really like the physics of the game and just the sheer number of different ideas that are showcased as obstacles or gimmicks for the levels, to the point where I'd be down to combing around for all those secret levels I've missed out on. Oh yeah, Mario World really embraces the idea of secret exits this time around, which can really change up the route you take throughout the game. That being said, I don't think it's okay to force secrets onto the player. Like with of Forest of Illusion it's kinda in the name already, and I honestly didn't have trouble figuring out what to do, but Chocolate Island 3 is just silly. Chocolate Island in general kinda sucked, but I must say that almost everything from Wendy's Castle onwards was a lot of fun, featuring some challenging but very well-designed levels, with less of an emphasis on pits (thank god).

Another issue I had with the game is...strangely enough, the save system. The game only saves after completing a Ghost House, Switch Palace, or Fortress/Castle stage. However, it's any time you complete those stages, not just your first time, and while most of these levels can only be accessed once, you can go to the Ghost House as often as you like. This means that I often found myself backtracking for a full minute just to get to the Donut Ghost House and clear it so I could save the game. At that point, it really makes me wonder why they didn't bother to just implement a save system for every time you clear a level in the game. One more thing I wanna note is that this game me realize how much Mega Man and Kirby and spoiled me, because I always holding the run button while playing. I know Mario is substantially easier as long as you take things carefully, but I just find the gameplay to be much for fun this way, seeing as walking Mario moves so much more slowly, and all Mario can do is jump, unlike Mega Man and Kirby who have all kinds of offensive at their disposal. This probably also explains why I prefer Mega Man and Kirby games to Mario games.

Again though, the endgame is where the game really starts to shine in my opinion, featuring a really cool final level (love the multiple pathways, since it encourages exploring to find the path that you're most comfortable with and gives you good power-ups, the Bowser fight which, while simple, is still wonderful after all these years, and, of course, that iconic ending theme. Definitely not one of my absolute favorites, but Super Mario World is a classic game that I'm glad I played in the end.

I really don't know how to properly explain this game, other than to say that you should really go play it. It's basically a slice-of-life sort of story that just so happens to be set in a chaotic cyberpunk world, the characters and dialogue are all great, and the world that the game creates is very fascinating. Graphically and musically the game is great, but while the jukebox was a novel idea, it makes it harder for me to remember and associate moments with certain songs, which is one of the reasons why I love OSTs and is especially important for an Adventure game.

I think the one interesting aspect about this game I'd want to talk about is how it really embraces its "slice-of-life" feel. Many of the characters already have established relationships and experiences with Jill, resulting in the game just kinda starting and not really needing to establish much else of the world, since that's all done through the dialogue (not really exposition-wise) and the forums/news page. Much of the game relates to people trying to solve the problems of their past and move along in life, something I can personally relate to.

Perhaps most surprisingly of all is that Valhalla is one of the very few stories I've seen that ends on a lot of loose ends and has interesting story bits that are very much unresolved, and yet I still feel very satisfied with how it all ends. Like, yeah, it would've been awesome to learn about Alma's relation to Alice Rabbit (keep in mind that Jill knows nothing about it, only the player), what happens to the dogs, how Dana got her arm, anything about Gillian, and even the fate of Valhalla itself and the people going/working there. But you know, maybe it's okay that we didn't get those answers, cause it's not really that important; life goes on, they're alive, those events/aspects were mostly pretty small parts of their life in the end (some probably being meaningless in the grand scheme of things, like the dogs), and they still remain friends in the end; that's what matters most.


But yes, go get this game. It's of decent length (fyi brightobject), clocking in at about 10-12 hours, though there's extra endings to get and a couple side-stories to extend that playtime. The quality of the main story alone definitely makes it worth it.

Managed to beat this without using Tanks or Shop items :) ... though I died a bunch :( It's pretty by-the-numbers yeah, but it's still good ol' classic Mega Man, even if I'm not the biggest fan of classic Mega Man . Out of the classic Mega Man games I've played it's definitely inferior 9 (even if 9 is way too hard for me) and superior to 2 (very overrated game btw), and on par or maybe a little below 3. Some people have expressed that the OST for this game is pretty weak for a Mega Man game and...yeah they're kinda right. While there is one song that is truly excellent, Abandoned Memory, the Robot Masters themes are quite catchy and nothing is really bad but they're not especially great, save for Solar Man. Interestingly, this game features many guest composers from previous Mega Man games, who did the Robot Master themes, but everything else, including Abandoned Memory (as well as the Wily Machine Fight and Wily Stage 3 themes, some of the other particularly good songs) were done by Inti Creates's own composers. Anyways, fun game, not amazing though.

Finished this one a few hours ago actually. It seems like the common consensus on this game is that it's decent, but it's one of the more forgettable Kirby games. Personally, I'm really torn on this game. First of all, there's the graphics, and holy shit does it look amazing. It can get a little pixelated and muddy up-close, but I personally love the pastel-esque art style, the backgrounds are all great, and geez the animations are just so adorable to look at. The music is pretty stunning, a nice mix of typical Kirby fare with Grass Land 1, the excellent melodies of Ripple Field 1 and Sand Canyon 1, more relaxing music like Grass Land 2 and Ripple Field 2, the incredible and more ambient tunes of Ripple Field 3 (my personal fav song, partly cuz canvas curse and the awesome levels it played in) and Iceberg, the short but very catchy mini-game and Friends themes, the climactic final boss themes, and a gorgeous ending theme. Between the graphics and music, you could probably convince me this was an early 5th gen console game instead of a SNES game.

Gameplay-wise, I mostly had a lot of fun with this game. The level designs are overall pretty nice (except Cloudy Park, most of those stages suck), all of the copy abilities are great as are the animal friends, which give Kirby some slightly different platforming and movement (Nago being my personal favorite) as well as varying up how each of the powerups work (Kine having some especially fun ones). I think the most important part about a Kirby game is that they're fun. And this game really embraces that; there aren't really any horribly broken partner/copy ability combinations, so it's just a lot of fun to mess around with all the combos and not only learn about them but have a lot of fun using them all. That being said, I often realized that it's generally safer to play the game as Kirby, seeing as some of the animal buddies can't fly at all, let alone as easily as Kirby, and Kirby being a smaller character makes him much easier to manuver. Beyond this, there are a few more subtle, but very noticable changes made to the game compared to the other Kirby games: One of my personal favorites is that Kirby does not take contact damage from enemies so long as you hit them from the top of the bottom (which still destroys the enemies, kinda like Mario). But then one of the not so great ones was extending Kirby's health at a whopping 10 units (most give you ~6). This sounds really awesome, but you'll eventually realize that in order to "balance" this, the game gives Kirby a very small amount of iframes after being hit (maybe about 1 second's worth), often resulting in you getting hit multiple times by obstacles should you get stuck in them, and the animal buddy's big sizes don't really help in this regard.

Finally, there's one of Dream Land 3's more infamous inclusions, the Friend system. Basically, every level has a sort of objective you can "optionally" complete. And by optionally, I mean you need to do all of them in order to fight the game's true final boss and not get the bad ending. These objectives aren't told to you outright, as this game has absolutely no dialogue, instead using visuals and sound effects to dictate what's going on. These tasks can range from doing something with flowers, playing minigames, collectathons, that one task with Metroids, and plenty more. For the most part, it was fairly straightforward to figure out what to do, even if I knew some of them already from watching various gameplay bits of this game online. This resulting in some stages that were admittedly quite brilliant, like 2-5 and 3-6, which really make use of the animal friends and copy abilities to let Kirby interact with the environment in some different ways and solve some puzzles. However, there were still some stages that I had to look up hints for since I was pretty lost on what to do (namely 1-2, 3-2, 4-1, and 4-5). Speaking of 4-1, that brings up another issue; a lot of parts of this game can be a drag. Some stages, especially 4-1 and 4-2 (not 5-5, that stage was quite fun despite its length and simplicity), tend to go on for way too long, and the fact that missions are sometimes placed at the end of a level, forcing you to start over the stage if you fail, certainly doesn't help matters. Pretty much all of the bosses also tend to go on for way too long and/or are just plain annoying to hit. Again, copy abilities either are not especially strong or force you to use an animal buddy, whose mobility and size make them pretty unfit for a boss fight, so you're probably sticking to your basic inhales. The exception of course is the final boss, which was weird and kinda easy, but very fun nonetheless.

Geez I wrote a ton on this game, guess that goes to show how much I cared about this game (or how recently it's been since I've played it). In the end, I really liked this game, but there's too many things I didn't like for me to truly love it and proclaim that it's better than Super Star Ultra. Still, it's very underrated and is more than just "a forgettable Kirby game", definitely worth looking into.

Oh and yes, many quality memes have been made with this game's OST


What games did you guys get around to finishing?
 
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Mr.E

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I need to get on grabbing a copy of The Last Story myself.
Done. Alongside Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love. Kinda wonder if I shouldn't also nab a copy of Tales of Symphonia 2 while I'm here buying old releases, but oh well.

Being console purchases, I shall interject these before my previously planned slate of Ryse: Son of Rome / Megadimension Neptunia VII / Rabi-Ribi / XCOM2 which just got a big-time, ol-school expansion release in War of the Chosen. Who knows when I'll actually get around to doing it all because I still have GoS to finish as I have so little time back to working 50+ hours a week. :pirate: While doing minor shit on the side to kill time and football season eating up a lot of my Sundays. Hard to console and hang out on the web at the same time, I don't wanna be constantly running up and down stairs. Prob try to mash through one of them over Thanksgiving/Christmas while I have some quality home time, and then the other will have to wait for next summer? *shrug*
 

tcr

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Hollow Knight

Can't believe there's only been one or two posts in this thread on this game when I might consider it one of the greatest modern indie games. If you're a fan of Metroid or Dark Souls then you will absolutely love this game, as it combines the Metroidvania aspects of Metroid 2 --> Fusion with the difficulty and overall atmosphere of Dark Souls. I have always been a fan of metroidvania games and the sort of "use your later abilities to unlock new areas and backtrack for new items" type of game (LoZ falls into this category). Hollow Knight details your journey through the land of Hallowsnest, a kingdom in disarray and being taken over by some mysterious infection that turns the citizens into mindless insects (the theme of the people are all bugs or bug like creatures). Only armed with a simple sword and the ability to jump you have to traverse the land in typical metroid fashion, beating up bosses to access new areas and gain new powerups until maybe 10-20% in the game you get your first real mission clue. What makes this so cool is that you can literally beat the game with a percentage as low as 14%, fighting 4 bosses if you know how to correctly sequence break it (obviously first timers won't, but that doesn't mean that they will go down some linear path). I've seen a video where a dude manages to get to one of the latest game areas, an oppressive centipede / silverfish maze with literally no light unless you happen to buy a lantern in one of the shops, extremely early on. It definitely feels like you're this lonely tiny warrior traversing an entire civilization for clues as to your past and directions for the future; uncovering these little lore tablets as you go that detail the kingdom's history, such as their feud with a clan of Praying Mantises, the origins of the mysterious Pale King, even your birthplace (which I gotta say that specific area was one of the best "what the fuck" moments I've had in a long while, since the original Bioshock I'd say).

The combat is extremely immersive, especially when movement abilities are unlocked such as a dash similar to Mega-Man dashes, a double jump, a wall climbing claw, and an upgrade to your dash that turns you into an invincible shadow for the duration of it (on a small cooldown). Downward strikes on enemies in the air propel you further upward, giving you the ability to "pogo" so to speak, or even juggle yourself in the air if you're good enough. With over 100 different enemies to face, 27 of which are unique bosses many of which have some sort of backstory, you never really feel like you're doing the same thing over and over, as games like Metroid: Samus Returns or the original Metroid 2 do. The different levels and such differ, from one section of the game being a literal combat gladiator arena that tests your skills in combat (where pogoing and moving around the tiny boxed area is essential) to an area deemed "the hardest in the game" by many people. An area that has no enemies. It's all super meat boy platforming. The best part is that I'd say maybe 80% of the game is completely optional, as you literally only have to fight a minimum of 4 bosses, one of those being skippable if you practice a glitch hard enough.

Probably the only complaint I had was the difficulty of some of the fights in the game. I especially had trouble with one of the 4 mandatory bosses, and I literally had to take a break from playing the game for a day and a half because an optional boss was kicking my ass. There really isn't much you can do outside collecting another Life container or trying different charm setups (the games customisation and rpg type element) to power through fights. Additionally there is an area somewhat early on that has a mass of teleporting enemies that often appear right under wherever you are jumping or moving to, and the unpredictability of fighting them bummed me out. I also don't think much replay value can be had after a complete 100% run unless you value self-imposed challenges or speed runs of some sort, similar to Dark Souls. Obviously there are people out there that love that type of shit, but I myself am more of an "explorer" so it was cool to see all these new areas pop up as I progressed but on a second playthrough the magic gets lost a little.

Its only 15$ on Steam for easily over 70 hours of gameplay without a guide (with a full sized map on my first playthrough I completed it in 51 hours, only getting 60% completion done. Hadn't even gotten the true ending for it), with one free DLC already out and another free DLC coming this Halloween. This is one of those games I say people should definitely support, especially if you value indie (the studio had three people not including composer) companies over big brand name studios (I for one am not really that impressed when a studio releases the next Assassins Creed, or the next CoD). Easily a 10/10 game for me and I can only hope the game inspires countless other games in the future
 

Mr.E

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Speaking of shit nobody is talking about (prob cuz the thread just isn't that active in the first place), Cuphead is here and apparently its gameplay is closer to that of its graphics than the cautious pre-release skepticism that it may have been all style and no substance, so that's nice.

Not knocking Hollow Knight but there's so many good Metroidvania games made in the past few years that it's hard to pick just one out to stick on a pedestal and exclude the rest. 'Tis on my wishlist but I can say with great certainty I'm not getting around to it myself anytime soon. :[
 
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GatoDelFuego

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Speaking of shit nobody is talking about (prob cuz the thread just isn't that active in the first place), Cuphead is here and apparently its gameplay is closer to that of its graphics than the cautious pre-release skepticism that it may have been all style and no substance, so that's nice.

Not knocking Hollow Knight but there's so many good Metroidvania games made in the past few years that it's hard to pick just one out to stick on a pedestal and exclude the rest. 'Tis on my wishlist but I can say with great certainty I'm not getting around to it myself anytime soon. :[
From what I've seen it has...no levels and is only boss battles. Is this true?
 

Mr.E

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It largely seems to be Boss Rush: The Game, but there are some sustained run-and-gun platforming levels. The music and sound really tie into the old timey cartoon aesthetic too.
 

Pilo

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It largely seems to be Boss Rush: The Game, but there are some sustained run-and-gun platforming levels. The music and sound really tie into the old timey cartoon aesthetic too.
I'm actually a bit upset that Cuphead is mostly a boss rush. What few platforming levels I've seen so far haven't been particularly strong but they were definitely interesting and I think having more of them would add a bit more of the substance if you will that some say the game is lacking.
 

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