Topic: What are you playing?

[ejamer]

Your description of Severed as a first-person dungeon crawler is quite apt - between the maze-like level design (although never really a maze since you've got a visible map), the simple environmental puzzles, and the set-piece battles spread out through the levels. Again, this game reminds me pretty strongly of Killer7 because of the similar gameplay elements and highly stylized graphics - have you tried that game by any chance?

I get the feeling that Severed is just not the right game for me. It seems well-made and is enjoyable enough that I'll keep playing, but just isn't quite hitting that sweet spot that draws me in for more.

[Order.RSS]

Your description of Severed as a first-person dungeon crawler is quite apt - between the maze-like level design (although never really a maze since you've got a visible map), the simple environmental puzzles, and the set-piece battles spread out through the levels. Again, this game reminds me pretty strongly of Killer7 because of the similar gameplay elements and highly stylized graphics - have you tried that game by any chance?

I suppose on Wii U you could disable the map screen or just turn the TV off entirely, but if anything that'd probably make it more annoying to find your way... There's some puzzles which are really expedited by knowing some locations around you. What I do like about the set-piece battles is they constrain the amount of giblets in the game; if you don't pick them up often you'll be forced to make some choices in the upgrade skill tree. I think the hard mode might limit them further so you can't max out everything anymore.

Haven't yet played Killer7 despite owning it for years! Been meaning to get to that and Viewtiful Joe forever, Killer7 especially always intrigued me. Been focused on catching up on the Wii era for a while now, after that I should go back to my backlog of older titles though.

[ejamer]

... What I do like about the set-piece battles is they constrain the amount of giblets in the game; if you don't pick them up often you'll be forced to make some choices in the upgrade skill tree. ...

Yeah - I was sort of wishing you could do more battles initially, to get some practice and improve technique. But you realize almost immediately that the scarcity of healing items (although they do respawn if you leave an area) and enemy body parts to spend for upgrades is an important part of the design.

Killer7 isn't as accessible as Severed and the controls are a bit of a mess, but I think it's worth going back to experience - especially if you enjoy weird and convoluted stories. It makes No More Heroes look absolutely tame in comparison. A lot of people expected it to be a full-fledged action game, so were disappointed that the design is closer to an on-rails dungeon crawler (which is what reminded me of this game). Let us know what you think if you do give it a shot.

[oohhboy]

I never had a problem with The Island in RE4. Right from the start RE4 was a set of themed clichés each more difficult than the last. You were meant to go Rambo at TI. If you had been playing it carefully you should have had supplies coming out of the ears stocked by then without ever buying ammo.

Your play style with each set becoming more dynamic. The village was a shooting gallery. Night time brings in the full horror elements where it starts penalizing/jump scare for making head shots which was still the fastest way to kill you now dreaded. The castle has you think more where flanking, accurate location damage to use super melee moves, high power weapons were promoted including 360 Sniper noscope. Ashley forces the horror elements back with her emotional cries and hiding behind you.

The problem was that subsequent RE games learned all the wrong lessons going balls out action right from the start and stays there. Act 1 feels no different from Act 3 generic 3rd person cover/shooter. RE5 was the worse as it was a game long forced escort mission with Sheeva. Playing it on a higher difficulty with AI was near impossible. The way with how Ashley worked was fantastic! Lets give her a gun but not the brains to use it! Sheeva was a drain on supplies that was completely out of your hands and you couldn't put her in a dumpster.

[pokepal148]

Your description of Severed as a first-person dungeon crawler is quite apt - between the maze-like level design (although never really a maze since you've got a visible map), the simple environmental puzzles, and the set-piece battles spread out through the levels. Again, this game reminds me pretty strongly of Killer7 because of the similar gameplay elements and highly stylized graphics - have you tried that game by any chance?

I suppose on Wii U you could disable the map screen or just turn the TV off entirely,

On 3DS you can set the action to display on both screens so you get the 3D effect off the top screen.

[ejamer]

...
On 3DS you can set the action to display on both screens so you get the 3D effect off the top screen.

I bet this would have looked fantastic in 3D, and really miss having an actual 3DS console.
Although my New 2DS XL is a fine piece of hardware, dropping the 3D screen really does have a (small) negative effect on a whole bunch of games.

[broodwars]

So...it's Resident Evil 0's turn now and...yeah, this is another RE game I've just never liked. This is the game that pretty much embodied why the old style of RE died, from the tired enemy ideas to the increasingly tedious puzzle design to just HOW much the story makes no sense in terms of the RE lore:

I mean cmon...there was a THIRD secret mansion Umbrella mansion (if you count the Police Station) and lab under Raccoon City, this one somehow bridging the two (in ways that makes ZERO sense geographically, even if it was a nice nod to RE 2 at the time,)? Rebecca goes through ALL THAT in RE 0 yet is completely useless in RE 1? No one ever mentions Marcus or Billy ever again, yet they are pivotal to this game? Mutant Frogs, Bats, leeches, & Grasshoppers? Really?  Also, monkeys. Not mutant monkeys, no...that would be too interesting. Just regular white monkeys that serve the same role as Hunters, which is especially pointless since Hunters are in the game, too.

The big thing that kills RE 0, though, is the goddamn item management & the sections of the game where the duo have to split up & slowly trade items between each other.  The devs implemented the ability to drop items on the floor to allow players to manage items on the fly, and they removed the item boxes accordingly.

But c'mon...that's not what you used it for. You did what everyone did with that feature: you found a large central location that was safe, you dropped all your items there, and when you moved to a new area you found a new spot and schlepped everything over there. We all did it, and it adds HOURS of game time.  And SO many items in this game require 2 items spots for no apparent reason when they required only 1 in REmake.

And **** the hookshot. It's used a whole 4 times I'm the game, all 4 are story mandated, and it takes up 2 slots.

Hell, **** leech hunter, too. By far the most boring bonus game in RE history.

[broodwars]

I may have played a fair amount of Resident Evil Zero lately. -_-



Why? Well, suffice it to say that I recently watched the worst gamer on Youtube (Darksyde Phil) mash his head into the wall until he beat the game on Hard. I considered it a personal challenge, then, to thoroughly annihilate the game.

I beat it on Hard (with an A Rank, even). I beat it with an S Rank. I beat it without saving. I beat it without using healing items of any kind. I beat it only using Rebecca on the bosses.

The final boss was...interesting on Hard. I'd been running from enemies & saving ammo the entire game, but I still barely had enough power weapon ammo to bring him to his final phase. I ended up having to distract him in the final phase with just the upgraded pistol, which thankfully was up to the task.

On a side note, if you're willing to go through the 9 different realms of nonsense to unlock the infinite power weapons, RE 0 can be quite entertaining when you don't have to do any inventory juggling B.S. at all.

[lolmonade]

At the behest of some friends who love it, I've started Bioshock Infinite on PC last night.  My general impression of Bioshock 1 was that it had a great world it built, with interesting monsters and a great hook, but dragged on too long after that and generally found the gameplay lacking.

About an hour in, i'm finding this more or less the same.  Definitely looks visually better than when I played 1 on PS3 a few years ago, but seems like so far where the first game was a semi-cogent critique on Objectivism/Ayn Rand-yism, Infinite so far has been a little more focused on Religion (more specifically, some form of Christianity).  I'm waiting to see what mid-game twist there is, and whether the amount of content can be carried by the actual gameplay this time. 

Also, the melee weapon is absolutely brutally violent in how it chops up enemies.  Crazy.

[oohhboy]

There is a melee execution move but it is a mystery as to how to invoke it. I just bash them like normal 95% of the time I try. The execute vigour/pack didn't help.

it's a decent enough game and the openness is a nice change from the tiny spaces of the 1st/2nd. There are some town areas where you can break into shops extra for goodies/objective which are quite fun but does Nar Shaddaa sniper syndrome.

It's a decent enough game with better controls but I don't feel remotely compelled to play it again.

[lolmonade]

There is a melee execution move but it is a mystery as to how to invoke it. I just bash them like normal 95% of the time I try. The execute vigour/pack didn't help.

it's a decent enough game and the openness is a nice change from the tiny spaces of the 1st/2nd. There are some town areas where you can break into shops extra for goodies/objective which are quite fun but does Nar Shaddaa sniper syndrome.

It's a decent enough game with better controls but I don't feel remotely compelled to play it again.

Yeah, I can't execute it consistently, but it seems like it happens often enough if I tap the key again shortly after the first time.

I'll play through it for the same reason I did the first - to see what the "twist" is in the game, and to enjoy the world built in it. 

I might see what the controller button layout is and give it a go, I'm finding I don't care for the button layout or having to do kb+m on it, and the quick movement is causing some strange unsettling of my stomach while I play.

[broodwars]

There is a melee execution move but it is a mystery as to how to invoke it. I just bash them like normal 95% of the time I try. The execute vigour/pack didn't help.

it's a decent enough game and the openness is a nice change from the tiny spaces of the 1st/2nd. There are some town areas where you can break into shops extra for goodies/objective which are quite fun but does Nar Shaddaa sniper syndrome.

It's a decent enough game with better controls but I don't feel remotely compelled to play it again.

Yeah, I can't execute it consistently, but it seems like it happens often enough if I tap the key again shortly after the first time.

I'll play through it for the same reason I did the first - to see what the "twist" is in the game, and to enjoy the world built in it. 

I might see what the controller button layout is and give it a go, I'm finding I don't care for the button layout or having to do kb+m on it, and the quick movement is causing some strange unsettling of my stomach while I play.

Don't bank on that twist saving the game for you. It's really stupid and doesn't really make sense, much like the plot in general.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'm still plugging away at Celeste. I beat the main campaign a while ago, but tonight I finished off the last of the B-Sides, the alternate, more difficult versions of the levels. According to the stats the game keeps track of I've now died over 10,000 times in this game, but I keep going back because the mechanics and the level design are impeccable.

This is the best game I've played on Switch. This is one of the best games I've ever played on any platform. And now, on to the C-Sides....

[lolmonade]

There is a melee execution move but it is a mystery as to how to invoke it. I just bash them like normal 95% of the time I try. The execute vigour/pack didn't help.

it's a decent enough game and the openness is a nice change from the tiny spaces of the 1st/2nd. There are some town areas where you can break into shops extra for goodies/objective which are quite fun but does Nar Shaddaa sniper syndrome.

It's a decent enough game with better controls but I don't feel remotely compelled to play it again.

Yeah, I can't execute it consistently, but it seems like it happens often enough if I tap the key again shortly after the first time.

I'll play through it for the same reason I did the first - to see what the "twist" is in the game, and to enjoy the world built in it. 

I might see what the controller button layout is and give it a go, I'm finding I don't care for the button layout or having to do kb+m on it, and the quick movement is causing some strange unsettling of my stomach while I play.

Don't bank on that twist saving the game for you. It's really stupid and doesn't really make sense, much like the plot in general.

I'll bear that in mind.  That said, what I WILL say is that Infinite is MUCH more linear than I recall the Bioshock 1 feeling, and combat seems more persistent, so it's helping a lot with it feeling like it has a good pace.  If the rest of the game feels this breezy, then I won't mind if the "payoff" isn't there. 

[broodwars]

Been playing a bunch of stuff lately as I took a week off for vacation that ended up being 9+ days sick in bed with the flu. Yay. -_-

The Quiet Man - Every bad thing you've heard about this PoS is true. Don't play it.

Cat Quest - I checked it out due to a PSN credit & some high recommendations from Ceric on our podcast. Unfortunately, I just found it to be a mediocre & tedious dungeon crawler that openly boasts about how little content & imagination it actually has in favor of what it hoped to have in the sequel. Easy Platinum, though.

Death Mark - Was still in a bit of a horror mood, so I thought I'd check out this Visual Novel about a continuing battle against murderous grudge ghosts. Unfortunately, I thought it was a pretty middling experience. There are 5 main storyline chapters in this game + a bonus 6th one that takes place after the main story. After the 3rd chapter, the game pretty much gives up on being a horror game as well as an adventure game whose puzzles are governed by logic. There is a very particular path you have to take through the game to get the "good" ending, and it pretty much requires a guide because of this.

Unfortunately, the more the game tries to tie up its loose plot, the less I enjoyed the game. I like where the game ended, but I don't like the crude way it got there. There's also VERY little actual gameplay even compared to other visual novels like Danganronpa or Ace Attorney, and even less actual player choice. It's also WAY lower budget than either of those games. Get it on a heavy discount or not at all.

TBC

[broodwars]

Call of Cthulu - This game is just...odd. It's an Adventure game in the style of the more recent Sherlock Holmes games, but built around the setting and general concept of the Call of Cthulu tabletop game. As you quest through this VERY linear game, you earn and allocate stat points to various skills that influence your options when investigating areas or talking to townsfolk.  I really like that aspect of the game, as it encourages an almost Arkane style of playing your way through the narrative.  There's also very little combat, which serves this particular setting well.

Unfortunately, when the game breaks away from the general adventure game mold, it gets a bit tedious. There are a handful of mandatory stealth sections in the game, and while they're generally pretty forgiving a couple of them are just annoying as you run & hide from a monster that can insta-kill you ala Alien: Isolation.  I also feel like the narrative doesn't hold up as well as you'd expect from an adventure game, as the game descends into almost dream logic towards the end. That's supposed to tie into a Sanity meter built into the game, but this isn't Eternal Darkness. The game isn't really messing with "you" so much as it goes into scripted hallucination sequences with the characters. You really go into a Call of Cthulu game to experience your character going mad, but I don't think the devs really played with that concept as much as they teased they would.

Maybe I'll change my mind upon a replay, as there are 4 endings & I've only seen 2 of them. I'm curious if the game changes in any way if you avoid many of the triggers in the game that cause sanity drops on the meter, as I went full-blown for every one I could find.

Spryo Reignited Trilogy - A year ago, I played the Crash Bandicoot Trilogy for the first time via that remake, and I generally came away feeling that the games were colossal garbage and the remakes didn't really do anything to make the games more playable.

But this? This is MUCH more like it. I played a bit of the 1st Spryo years back on my Vita, and I generally thought it was OK but repetitive & ugly. Plus, it's REALLY hard to play 3D games these days that don't have camera controls similar to modern games, and the original games didn't have Dualshock support at all.

However, I'm REALLY digging these remakes, even though I still find the 1st Spryo kind of boring & repetitive. You can definitely see the confidence and ambition in Spyro 2's design, and it's the one I'm really enjoying now.  The games look gorgeous in their new art style, and the additional of modern controls & quality of life features added to the earlier games that didn't appear until the later ones make these collect-a-thons play better than ever. I can't fathom why these games aren't on the Switch, as I feel the Nintendo audience is perfectly suited to these games as fans of the N64-era Rare games.

[NWR_insanolord]

Every once in a while I decide to dip into my insurmountable backlog and grab something seemingly at random, and a few days ago that thing was SteamWorld Heist. Not at random, really, since I remembered it being very well received at the time, and that was truer than I thought when I saw NWR gave it three separate 9.5s from three different reviewers on the various Nintendo platforms it was released on. And after playing it, I can definitely see why. I'd always seen it described as turn-based strategy, which it is, but in a really fresh, interesting way. The very small scale with just a few characters makes it feel like nothing else I've ever played, and I've been really addicted to it the last few days.

[EllieRoss]

Hollow Knight! This is one the best game in my opinion. It's really atmospheric and balanced. I can pass this game a few times and every time I find something new. The music from this game turns me into a little trance. Its darkness is my inspiration for other activities like my job at https://educatingessays.co.uk/. Whish I had more time for playing...

[Order.RSS]

Every once in a while I decide to dip into my insurmountable backlog and grab something seemingly at random, and a few days ago that thing was SteamWorld Heist. Not at random, really, since I remembered it being very well received at the time, and that was truer than I thought when I saw NWR gave it three separate 9.5s from three different reviewers on the various Nintendo platforms it was released on. And after playing it, I can definitely see why. I'd always seen it described as turn-based strategy, which it is, but in a really fresh, interesting way. The very small scale with just a few characters makes it feel like nothing else I've ever played, and I've been really addicted to it the last few days.

Yeah Heist is a really solid game! I think 9.5/10 scores are a bit too generous, personally, but it's definitely very good. Who's currently on your team? I found myself sticking to a proven formation fairly early on and not swapping in new members often. Bit of a bummer because the last character you get, for example, has a really different playstyle, but by that time he'll be rather outclassed by the higher leveled/better equipped rest of your team.

[NWR_insanolord]

Every once in a while I decide to dip into my insurmountable backlog and grab something seemingly at random, and a few days ago that thing was SteamWorld Heist. Not at random, really, since I remembered it being very well received at the time, and that was truer than I thought when I saw NWR gave it three separate 9.5s from three different reviewers on the various Nintendo platforms it was released on. And after playing it, I can definitely see why. I'd always seen it described as turn-based strategy, which it is, but in a really fresh, interesting way. The very small scale with just a few characters makes it feel like nothing else I've ever played, and I've been really addicted to it the last few days.

Yeah Heist is a really solid game! I think 9.5/10 scores are a bit too generous, personally, but it's definitely very good. Who's currently on your team? I found myself sticking to a proven formation fairly early on and not swapping in new members often. Bit of a bummer because the last character you get, for example, has a really different playstyle, but by that time he'll be rather outclassed by the higher leveled/better equipped rest of your team.

I haven't messed with the crew much, really only when the game's prompted me to. It's mostly been the same characters, just upgrading their gear.

[broodwars]

So I finished the Spryo Reignited Trilogy, having 100%-ed (and sometimes moreso, since Spyro 1 & 3 had higher than 100% completion percentages) all 3 games, gotten all the trophies, & gotten all the Skill Points.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing through the trilogy, but Spyro 2 is clearly the high point of the original 3 games. It's the one with the best level design, the best scenario design, and it's the one that wastes your time the least & feels the least repetitive.  The game also has a bit of bite to it, as I actually had to work to beat a few of those later game bosses. The game kind of peters out towards the end, but overall it's an excellent game and a remarkable improvement over the 1st game.

Unfortunately, Spryo 3 is a marked downgrade from the 2nd game, as it returns to some of the formula of the 1st game like saving dragons (now eggs) and performing arbitrary tasks to unlock a balloon or similar device to take you to the next hub world.  It also saw the implementation of additional playable characters who are not even remotely as fun or fast to use as Spyro.  In fact, their stages tend to drag horrendously, as well as implementing an almost Donkey Kong 64 level of arbitrary character switching & backtracking.  There are some really aggravating minigames tied to these additional characters, too.

Spyro 3 also course corrects WAAAAAAAAY too much from the relative difficulty of the 2nd game, as the game's so unbelievably piss-easy I often found myself actively bored playing it, even compared to the 1st game.  The game suffers from the fact that it's original selling point was a series of quality of life improvements that these remakes retroactively applied to the 2 previous games, so the game's shortcomings are much more noticeable than they'd otherwise be.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing through the original trilogy in this beautiful remake form, and I'd love to see a new Spyro game in this style. We'll see the trilogy sells well enough to warrant it.  Unlike the Crash games, the original Spyro design actually holds up.

[Order.RSS]

I remember liking Spyro 3 at the time, mainly the skateboarding mini-game in the first world really. But yeah you're completely right, it gets really bogged down with all the side characters and semi-mandatory mini-games. You can't even rush through the game since every now and then you'll need to get X amount of dragon eggs to continue to the next world.

It's one of those games I wish I never went back to when I did, really soured my opinion on it retrospectively haha.

[broodwars]

I remember liking Spyro 3 at the time, mainly the skateboarding mini-game in the first world really. But yeah you're completely right, it gets really bogged down with all the side characters and semi-mandatory mini-games. You can't even rush through the game since every now and then you'll need to get X amount of dragon eggs to continue to the next world.

It's one of those games I wish I never went back to when I did, really soured my opinion on it retrospectively haha.

Oh god...**** those goddamn skateboarding mini-games. They are seriously the worst, outside of the 1st area where it's just a skate park. After that first area, they expect you to win races while skateboarding at .00000000001 miles per hour, doing tricks in the air to get turbo and pretty much immediately losing if you wipe out. Those races are so slow, so boring, so poorly coded, so finnicky, and so aggravating they might just be the worst thing I've experienced in quite some time. And if you haven't noticed, I play a LOT of games.

They even stuck one of those races in the bonus world that exists to unlock the true ending. ARGH!

[azeke]

Slay The Spire:



Such a smart game.

The design of deck building coupled to roguelike progression.

Balance curve that unlocks cards as you go introducing the player to interactions and synergies in natural manner.

Hundreds of incredibly ingenious mechanics with stacking relics, events, cards, card draw and discard piles, orbs.

Enemies' attacks are telegraphed in advance and you can gain a control over what you draw each turn so inherent RNG gets tamed but still provides fun variance.

Not taking cards, or outright removing cards from the deck is another great way to ensure you get specific cards more often -- for example the more basic Strike cards you throw away the more often other attack cards you will pick up along the way will crop up -- and ALL of them are stronger that just basic Strike card in one way or another.

Just amazing.

I've been watching this game on streams for several months now and was just waiting for a sale. -20% discount last week was basically an excuse for me to actually buy the game for myself and start playing.

Already put 20 hours into it and it feels i barely even started -- i was mostly playing just one character (Ironclad, 1 out of 3). Mostly just figuring things out. There are still other two characters, dailies, ascension mode, the real ending and achievements...

[broodwars]

Slay The Spire:



Such a smart game.

The design of deck building coupled to roguelike progression.

Balance curve that unlocks cards as you go introducing the player to interactions and synergies in natural manner.

Hundreds of incredibly ingenious mechanics with stacking relics, events, cards, card draw and discard piles, orbs.

Enemies' attacks are telegraphed in advance and you can gain a control over what you draw each turn so inherent RNG gets tamed but still provides fun variance.

Not taking cards, or outright removing cards from the deck is another great way to ensure you get specific cards more often -- for example the more basic Strike cards you throw away the more often other attack cards you will pick up along the way will crop up -- and ALL of them are stronger that just basic Strike card in one way or another.

Just amazing.

I've been watching this game on streams for several months now and was just waiting for a sale. -20% discount last week was basically an excuse for me to actually buy the game for myself and start playing.

Already put 20 hours into it and it feels i barely even started -- i was mostly playing just one character (Ironclad, 1 out of 3). Mostly just figuring things out. There are still other two characters, dailies, ascension mode, the real ending and achievements...

Might I suggest Hand of Fate 2, then?