Messages

26

General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: May 21, 2020, 07:33:22 PM »

More Stadia!

I didn't realize that my pro sub would hold after I canceled, but saw that there were additional free games added.


Zombie Army 4:

For some reason I thought this was a horror spin-off of a sniper game, so I was very nonplussed to discover that this is yet another horde-mode dealie with an attendantly hideous load-out interface and garish score overlay. Terrible experience, tapped out after a half hour.

The Turing Test

More of my jam in the puzzle game vein, but ultimately feels kinda undercooked and rinky dink in production. The problem with these Portal wannabes is that they never have as good a core gimmick as Portal did. In this case, the line-of-sight energy transfers, is fairly ho-hum and overly straightforward. It kind of feels like one of those physical puzzles where you move a ring through knots, but easy.

Also, another strange choice for this streaming platform, with its low production value and lack of any other potential Stadia benefit.

Speaking of Portal-likes,

Superliminal (PC):

Another undercooked indie Portal wannabe! This time the gimmick is perspectival, where any object you pick up can be up- or down-sized depending where you release it in the environment in relation to your POV. It's a neat tech trick at first but it runs out of interesting applications pretty quickly. There are some divergences into other ancillary mechanics, but none of them are particularly interesting or well developed. And like the Turing Test above, it reeks of being cobbled together with a small pool of assets in a generic engine.

27

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: April 19, 2020, 09:17:44 PM »

Back to the Switch!

I scrolled through the whole sale list this morning, and picked up these two titles at a steep discount:

Unraveled 2:

I've been interested in these games, but never enough to pay more than ~$4 for one. And that day has come! I completed the first two levels, and I'm enjoying it so far. It's a bit more physics dependent than I would prefer, but unlike most of these indie puzzle platformers, it actually feels fun and snappy to control. The 2D slice-of-life presentation is top notch, and flows well with the gameplay. On the other hand, the obligatory indie game "actually this is about emotions" thing is one of the most eye-rolling I've come across. Luckily it's literally in the background. I'm definitely interested to see how the level design develops, though I think I remember Iansane or someone saying it's just a lot of yarn swinging all the the way through.

Severed:

I don't love the Guacamelee games, but I had flagged this one on initial release given some pretty strong reviews. I had no idea it was on Switch, and from what I understand this really needs to be played on a touch screen. ~$4? Hell yeah! I put an hour in, and I'm really digging it so far. It reminds me of a Labyrinth game I was obsessed with as a kid on some early DOS modem gaming platform. I enjoy the touch combat, and it seems like it'll develop in kind of a rhythmy direction, which I am down with. I kind of want more environmental interaction, but I'm hopeful the game will develop more nuance as it goes. Visuals and overall vibe are very engaging.

28

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: April 18, 2020, 03:13:32 PM »

Stadia Trial Continued:

Gylt:

I finished this one this morning, and as I indicated above, I couldn't really recommend it to anyone. The core stealth gameplay is extremely simple and gets old almost immediately. The later buildings have bit more going on in the level-design department, but the last stretch of the game is truly lousy, with one of the worst bosses I can recall encountering (this and a few other late-game sequences feel like they weren't even playtested).

Thumper:

I'm up to level 7, and I honestly don't know how much further I'll make it. The mushy timing window for this streaming port seems to actually be working against it the further I get; there are so many inputs that it's increasingly difficult to parse the game's feedback. This is almost assuredly the worst way to play this game.

Serious Sam Collection:

I've never tried any of these before, and booted up the first game. Made it three levels in before I tapped out. I think I just strongly dislike this arena wave style, but it also plays like **** on Stadia. It hitches frequently and fails to read strafing inputs, which makes this nearly unplayable on even medium difficulty.

Grid:

I have zero interest in realistic racing games, but it's free, so why not give it a shot? I immediately hated it and didn't finish the first race.



Aaaaand that's it. I think I'm done with the Stadia service as of now. I'm a little bit tempted to pull the trigger on Red Dead 2, as I have no idea when I'll have a computer or console that could run it, but then I remember the six or so hours I played while staying at a friend's place, which I pretty thoroughly disliked.

Scrolling through the catalogue right now, and boy is this a crappy roster.

29

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: April 12, 2020, 08:47:18 PM »

I am actually very interested in Stadia and basically all other similar game streaming platforms.

My interest is a bit more from technological point of view, because i just think that the concept is just so cool and has many interesting upsides. And it's own unique downsides too -- but these are very interesting to me as well.

Seeing how Stadia is likely not to launch in my country until 2030 (if ever), i am more hopeful about trying out Microsoft's streaming platform. Me having a library of games on Xbox helps, and one can stream from their own Xboxes to say PC in my workplace without having to wait until Microsoft deploys their servers.

Thumper:

This is my first experience of the game, and it's really grabbed me. Reminds me of Rez on the PS2. I ended up playing an hour without noticing it. Very fun, great DMT-trip presentation, but even as someone who 100%ed the first two Bit Trip Runner games, it's hard as hell. This is not aided by the noticeable Stadia input lag. It doesn't matter at all in something like Gylt, but here it definitely feels like the timing is off, and I'm basically learning to play it "wrong" to account for it.

AFAIK Stadia version of Thumper has massively relaxed timings compared to regular versions.

Azeke, do you have any ability to do a Stadia trial through VPN, or is that a no-go with the distances involved in any case?

Also, did not know that about Thumper. I may just be terrible at the game. Although, today I got to the multi-track levels, and something really seems off. It tends to either not register the track hop, or it'll do two in a row. I guess this could be the fact that I'm using a joystick, but I really don't like how this feels to play with a D-pad.

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General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: April 11, 2020, 04:19:16 PM »

Google Stadia (Whatever!)

I saw that Google is giving out two free months of Stadia Pro to juice the moribund platform, so I signed myself up. It comes with 10 or so free games out of the gate, most of which I have no interest in or have already played. In general, it's pretty slick, and seems to perform significantly better than the Assassin's Creed beta. It's genuinely neat to just pop open Chrome and click play and just immediately be in a game. I have the Switch Pro controller hooked up through a USB converter on Xbox settings, and Stadia recognized it with no hitch.

As for the games:

Gylt:

It's baffling that this is the major exclusive game for the service. It's a kid-friendly take on the horror-stealth formula (the true horror is bullying!), that is too cartoony and easy to be effective for adults, and probably too scary/stressful for actual kids. It demonstrates no features unique to a streaming service, and in fact has mostly dark environments that show off the glaring streaming compression.

Stacks on Stacks (on Stacks):

I'd never heard of this, but I played a few levels and don't like it at all. It's kind of a 3D Tetris, but focused on the physics of balancing pieces. Will not be booting this back up.

Thumper:

This is my first experience of the game, and it's really grabbed me. Reminds me of Rez on the PS2. I ended up playing an hour without noticing it. Very fun, great DMT-trip presentation, but even as someone who 100%ed the first two Bit Trip Runner games, it's hard as hell. This is not aided by the noticeable Stadia input lag. It doesn't matter at all in something like Gylt, but here it definitely feels like the timing is off, and I'm basically learning to play it "wrong" to account for it. At least I don't have a basis of comparison! I'm reminded of when I set up Rhythm Heaven on the Wii U pad instead of the TV, and couldn't re-play the levels at all because I'd had the wrong delayed timing burnt into my neurons. 

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General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: February 14, 2020, 09:12:26 PM »

Strongly disagree with respected Azeke, particularly about the climbing in Origns^

Disco Elysium (PC):

I bit the bullet on this after it reared its head on the end-of-the-year lists.

It makes a strong impression in its opening hours, when its D&D overlay is still intimidating and when you have seemingly urgent benchmarks to hit with hotel fees.

Unfortunately, the actual gameplay obstacle gets neutralized after a few in-game days, and you're left with a "story" experience that incorporates an abstruse 20-category stat system to mildly direct your narrative.

Add that the game desperately needs a waypoint system, and has a needlessly clunky tool interface.

As for the story itself? I guess it's cool to see political consciousness in a video game, but I struggle to recall an actual message.

32

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: January 16, 2020, 07:09:40 PM »

Disco Elysium (PC):

Terrible title! Substantively, though, I'm not sure how I feel about this after four hours or so. The praised writing is the usual gamer-with-an-English-degree stuff you see around the indie scene, just as purple and overwritten, but there's toooons of it.

I like the concept and atmosphere and all of that, but the hard D&D RPG stuff is too much. It really throws you in the deep end with dozens of opaque stat categories and ancillary systems. Right off the bat you've got a timer and the need to come up with a large amount of money, and I was on the brink of just dropping it before I happened into the necessary sum that I happened to have the skill set for and happened to get a favorable roll with. I would be much more into this if it was just a traditional point and click with an Indiana-Jones-style character preset that would affect how you can approach the obstacles.

You can also die essentially at random via interactions the game funnels you into. Very early I found my way into a cargo area that guides you to the union boss's office. You should be talking to this guy according to the logic of the investigation! But apparently it's a kind of boss battle, and I got wiped in 30 seconds for sitting in a chair. Lost 20 minutes of progress. Similarly, I made the mistake of examining the gear shifter of a car, and went into some kind of fugue state that wiped out my resolve or whatever with no warning. Another 20 minutes gone. This feels very trial-and-error but the auto-save is not kind. So now I'm paranoid about constantly making manual saves like I'm playing Fear or some ****. Oh, PC games!

Guess I'll keep going for the time being and see how far I make it.

33

General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: January 10, 2020, 09:11:29 PM »

Devil May Cry 5 (PC):
In that view, I found Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 perfectly enjoyable, with involving spectacle, well implemented gameplay variety, and tight pacing. DMC 5 by contrast had loading screens between menu options, and loading screens in between asinine cutscenes.

You probably forgot that W101 has just as many loading screens in between chapters.

Did I forget W101 having long loading scenes between basic menu options, or between cutscenes within its (long) chapters? I recall everything being perfectly fluid inside the actual episodes of the game and its UI, but perhaps I have rose-tinted glasses on.

Another issue I have with DMC5 that I forgot to bring up is that I find Dante himself kinda unpleasant to play as. He felt sluggish. I much preferred Nero and V, and found it nettling that the more enjoyable playable characters got sidelined in the last third.

I hear you on the Dark Moon 3DS ergonomics, though; I made permanent indents in the circle pads with my thumbnails.

34

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: January 05, 2020, 07:03:15 PM »

Yoshi's Crafted World (Switch):

I'm about halfway through (I think?), and I'm decidedly nonplussed about this one. Which is a real shame, as I hold Good Feel in very high regard. Kirby's Epic Yarn is better than most Kirby games and is otherwise a delight, Wario Land: Shake It miraculously salvaged the shitty direction Wario Land 4 took, and Woolly World is hands-down the best Yoshi game (and finally made the formula good).

Crafted World, by comparison, feels half baked along the previous metrics at which the studio excelled.

-Level design for the most part feels very elementary, with the expanded perspective offering little in terms of genuinely interesting interactivity or problem-solving.

-Aesthetically, it feels kind of soft and bland. The whole "crafted" gimmick doesn't pop, and is applied inconsistently (the T-Rex is made of actual bones and is breaking actual stones? e.g.). Furthermore, the backgrounds extend out into the blurry yonder, which doesn't accentuate that this is a hand-built arts-and-craft environment. Plus, the "material" texture implementation feels very flat. Like, the rock that holds the sun gems looks better than most stuff in the actual levels.

-Unlike Woolly World, the standard Yoshi OCD stuff is overloaded and borderline unpleasant. You've got flowers, red coins, coins, and life meter on looong levels, and then additional Poochie pups and souvenirs on top of that. And in this game, if you finish a level missing a red coin, it's like "Great, there's a hidden cloud somewhere in the level track, or some **** tucked away in the background."

If I recall correctly, this game had significant delays, and what was originally shown had much more involved mechanics around flipping the perspective of the levels back and forth to navigate and interact with structures. That's almost entirely absent now outside of the odd little cloud challenge, and the largely pointless Poochie reverse courses. It feels like they had a significantly more ambitious plan for this thing, but couldn't execute for whatever reason, and had to patch something back together that's a bit paltry.

35

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Metroid Prime 4

« on: January 05, 2020, 06:23:58 PM »

As much as I enjoyed the Metroid Prime trilogy.  I think I would rather have a Donkey Kong Country Returns quality world and level design for Super Metroid.  And I think a Western Team could get that true Super Metroid feel of dread and storytelling from each screen, that has really been lacking in the 2D Metroid games, since Super Metroid.

Don't get me wrong, the games were great and Super Metroid Zero Mission is possibly my second favorite Super Metroid Game, but none of them properly had the level of environmental storytelling the SNES game had.

I'd definitely like them to take a whack at this (and certainly much more so than Mercury Steam), but I think there's a bit of an issue with massive oversaturation of the 2D genre at this point. (The video game version of "everything's too derivative of Pavement".)

I'd like to see a foray into a 2.5D Metroid, with "3D" maps but sidescrolling navigation (with interactivity with foreground and background elements). I'm imagining a bit of Lone Survivor's DNA in there. However, this would NOT be like Other M or those diorama-style PS2 Castlevania games. It would be very hard to pull off (probably why no one's really tried it), but I'd bet Retro could manage something formally innovative like that.

36

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: December 24, 2019, 06:15:44 PM »

Also listening along for the Axiom Verge / Guacamelee opinions. Have both, have started neither.

The Fall: Part 2: Unbound (PC):

I very much enjoyed the first part on WiiU for what it was worth, but was surprised to find it end so abruptly (the ability menu has several blank spots still at that point).

I never got into this series, because I always confused The Fall and The Swapper for some reason. Very similar art styles I guess. Would you still recommend the first one, knowing that part 2 isn't very good?

I would easily recommend the first one if you like adventure games. The action parts are a bit tedious, but I enjoyed the approach to puzzles and interactivity with the robo suit. It's a cool concept with a well-executed atmosphere, and pretty decent writing.

Also, despite my poo-pooing, I wouldn't exactly call Part 2 bad yet. It's also a cool concept and in interesting angle on the adventure game genre, it just plays like ass. But this is one of the few genres that can withstand that.

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General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: December 21, 2019, 07:49:22 PM »

Per the finished thread, I have some irons in the fire:

Baba is You (PC):

On paper, this is an ingenious concept. A boulder-pushing-type game mixed with a programming-type game. Way to find a niche! Based on the blank spots on the world map, I'm very early in, having only finished the second world, and I can see this becoming an extreme challenge/pain in the ass.

I applaud the effort so far, but it carries a good dose of the "This is labor" feeling from a programming game like Human Resource Machine. At the same time, I feel like it's not doing a fantastic job of teaching its rules. I found it very clever when I figured out you could do crossword-style command orientations. But fast-forward an hour and I'm apparently breaking the internal coding system to try to solve a puzzle (it's giving me a frozen screen that I can resolve by pressing a direction and transforming the avatar back and forth every cardinal move?), when the solution in fact requires an understanding that a vertical identity command (Baba is Baba) invalidates a simultaneous horizontal command (Baba is Crab). Or am I doing it wrong? I don't know about this one.

The Fall: Part 2: Unbound (PC):

I very much enjoyed the first part on WiiU for what it was worth, but was surprised to find it end so abruptly (the ability menu has several blank spots still at that point).

I didn't realize the second part ever came out until the GOG winter sale, and snapped it up. In concept, it's a pretty cool semi-left turn. Instead of a straight 2D physical adventure game, now it's a janky cyberspace metroid type game, with 2D adventure game "dungeons" where you inhabit a real-world robot and have to execute an objective within a delimited environment. Cool! Except that this has maybe the worst controls of a modern game I've ever encountered. I'm invested in the concept, so I'll keep going, but good lord, you can't even push right and left without the controllable character hitching. In the action portions, it feels like the inputs only register half the time. Baffling and infuriating, with checkpointing that seems like it was not even cursorily focus-tested.

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General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: December 21, 2019, 07:29:34 PM »

It's freezing and I've had some PTO to burn at the end of the year, so I've played through some games.

Jedi Fallen Order (PC)

This game seems to have been picked over quite a bit already, so I'll limit my remarks. In one way, it was a relief to have a relatively focused single-player game like this available from a big publisher. They seem to be an endangered species.

On the other hand, it's kind of a lousy game. I'm not yet quite deadened enough to not enjoy moving through a 3D environment like this, but lots of it is just semi-automated window dressing. The whole Dark Souls thing also feel weirdly divorced from that kind of adventure gameplay. The enemy part could have easily been replaced by a beat-em-up system in the vein of Force Unleashed and it probably would have been a better experience. The mook fighting sucks in this game, and the enemy respawning mechanic makes zero sense in context. The Sekiro-style duels against bosses are better, but there's only a handful of them in the game, three of which are the same. And my god, fighting animals blows.

Devil May Cry 5 (PC):

So, I played through the first game on PS2 when it came out at a friend's house, and remember really liking it. It felt kind of like a 3D Zelda game skewed toward combat. I hadn't played anything like it before.

Years later, I played DMC 4 on 360, and mainly remember that it seemed to have little in common with the first game, and was kinda boring.

Year later still, and 5 seems to have little to do with either 4 or the first game. Gothic castle to, like, gothic underworld or something with 4, to modern city and vans and **** in 5? Maybe I'm just forgetting.

Anyhow, it came across to me as Bayonetta for boys, right down to the biblical sin concepts manifesting as creatures, with the same tiresome campyness, but executed more insufferably. The levels feel very bare and repetitive, and switching between characters, in combination with the extensive upgrade lists and convoluted EX mechanics, made it feel chaotic and strangely futile. I suppose you're meant to replay it a bunch for better scores and have everything unlocked, but I like to run through this type of game once as an arcadey beat-em-up evolution. (Not counting Viewtiful Joe, which is the best of this genre, and the only one I perfect-scored.) In that view, I found Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 perfectly enjoyable, with involving spectacle, well implemented gameplay variety, and tight pacing. DMC 5 by contrast had loading screens between menu options, and loading screens in between asinine cutscenes.


Luigi's Mansion 3 (Switch):

I was optimistic about this, despite finding that Dark Moon soured pretty badly in the last third, and overall I think it's a pretty great game. It has tons of personality and bespoke interactive elements, which mostly makes up for a fundamental gameplay system that grows somewhat stale by the end. (Oh hey, this thing spins!)

The bosses are quite fun as set-pieces (muah to the dance floor battle), and it was rewarding to go back through the floors to clean up the missing jewels with a comprehensive knowledge of the game's design language.

Certainly the best game in the series, and it's hard to envision where it goes from here. Smash Bros. trailer ghost form?

39

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wii U)

« on: November 29, 2019, 10:31:34 PM »

I understand the opinion of Sunshine but why Odyssey?  I know many complain about the number of moons and some of the tasks being too hard or obtuse.

I mainly think that about half the levels aren't particularly well-designed. It's a good game overall for sure, and basically the best 3D platformer of the generation by default, but there's something of a hollow core to it. I think I likened it somewhere else on here to eating a bunch of a candy instead of a nourishing meal. I actually like Sunshine better, warts and all.

As far as the BOTW DLC goes, the new shrines are very good, though the in-world activities around them aren't particularly interesting. I find the extra armor sets kind of out of place and junky. The culminating dungeon and boss are excellent (and the reward is quite fun to dick around with).

Still, the only essential component of the DLC I think is the progress tracker on the map. I used this constantly and would have had a much different experience without it. Really should have been patched into the base game.

40

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wii U)

« on: November 27, 2019, 06:54:07 PM »

Odyssey is definitely better for shorter bursts. I played it before BOTW, and liked to put in 30 minutes or so in the morning before work when I woke up especially early. BOTW was too involved for that, and it personally felt like you needed at least an hour to get anything meaningful done. Just firing it up to knock off a shrine or find a couple Koroks didn't seem appealing to me, especially given how naturally digressive the game is.

However, Odyssey is at the bottom of my list for 3D Marios (only like 3D land less, if that counts), and I think BOTW is incredible. Unlike the thought traitor above me.

41

General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: November 20, 2019, 07:47:47 PM »

I also played through Wario Land 1 on the 3DS VC, and was not wild about it. I love 2 and 3, but felt like 1 was an undercooked, sluggish half-step between Mario Land 2 and Wario Land 2.

That said, supposedly Wario Land Virtual Boy really nails the Wario Land 1 approach, and is on par with the later sequels, though structurally different. And I'll probably never be able to play it!

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General Gaming / Re: Game of the Decade: Let's get this flame war started.

« on: November 14, 2019, 09:13:07 PM »

It's a toss up between Stephen's Sausage Roll and Toki Tori 2.

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TalkBack / Re: Return of the Obra Dinn (Switch) Review

« on: October 18, 2019, 09:25:05 PM »

Not sure how it would play without a mouse, but this is an absolute highlight of the last five or so years for me. Actual engagement with the form to tell a narrative that is completely entwined in the gameplay. Nothing else like it.

44

General Gaming / Re: Google Stadia

« on: October 08, 2019, 06:42:32 PM »

... 10 years from now ...

I know some people might view 10 years as the distant future, but I'm old already and "10 years from now" probably isn't enough to clear out my current backlog.

Digital streaming services for gaming sound like a glorified rental system for people who have easy access to uncapped broadband - not a bad thing, but not my thing.

If it was actually a rental system, I'd be much more into it. Like, I'd probably pay $~20 over a weekend or two to play through a shiny new single-player adventure game that I would only ever play through once anyway. I have very little interest in digital licenses over physical games in the first place, though, unless they're heavily discounted.

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TalkBack / Re: Mario And Luigi Series Developer AlphaDream Declares Bankruptcy

« on: October 02, 2019, 06:07:16 PM »

Yeah, Bowser's Inside Story was great, easily their best game. Dream Team sucked quite a lot, however, and I had no desire to try Paper Jam after that.

I actually went back to Partners in Time last year after initially skipping it, and that game, too, was a chore. Alphadream was apparently just really uneven.

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General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: October 01, 2019, 08:11:41 PM »

I completed all shrines, divine beasts, memories, side quests, DLC ('cept for Master Sword trials, fuuuck that) and collected exactly 441 Koroks.

Congrats! Pretty much agree with your entire post tbh, it's crazy to think they could build so much upon this foundation still... I like your ideas of diving and flying more. Maybe some underwater cave diving?

By the way, if you ever feel like going back, maybe reconsider doing the Sword Trials. I thought I would hate those because it sounded like filler content, but they've been a really fun surprise, to me at least.

While I don't really think the reward's worth it (a problem this game has more often), the actual moment-to-moment experience of Sword Trials is really thrilling. Fundamentally it's just a neat way for the development team to craft a few more crazy scenarios for you to figure out; things like sailing a one-man armada into a harbour, getting shot at from all directions would never happen in the world of Hyrule, but here it's more acceptable.

Thematically, the three Trials also work nicely since they appear themed around the Power, Courage and Wisdom themes often seen in Zelda games. So for the first one they expect you to go all-out with combat, whereas the last one is pretty much impossible without grasping many of the game's subtleties.The presence of the Sages basically confirms this.

I definitely struggled a lot on the last Trial because they'll suddenly throw Lynels and Flying Guardians at you, neither of which I ever really learned to fight. Had to just swallow my pride there and reach for the ancient arrows, bye-bye. Tip: cook every hearty radish separately with nothing else, that nets you several Full Recovery meals instead of just one.

I'm probably just going to sell my copy, but good to know that the sword trials are more interesting than they initially seemed. I made it maybe six levels into the first tranche, died unceremoniously, and had no intention of burning another 30 minutes on a rogue-like thing. I also never really had a great handle on the combat nuances, leaning heavily on champion abilities and meals to brute force through difficult encounters. It was only late in the game that I got somewhat comfortable with deflecting guardian beams. This is probably another legit issue with the game, in that the early going conditions you to be pretty combat averse, and by the time I was powered up I was pretty firmly in the habit of avoiding it unless situationally necessary. Also, silver monsters everywhere after you beat all the dungeons.

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General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: September 29, 2019, 08:10:01 PM »

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch):

Months after starting and nearly 100 hours later, I have finally destroyed Ganon forever and brought eternal peace to Hyrule.

I completed all shrines, divine beasts, memories, side quests, DLC ('cept for Master Sword trials, fuuuck that) and collected exactly 441 Koroks.

All in all a phenomenal game. The first third or so of my time was especially sublime, as I had viewed basically no media about the game ahead of time and had read as little as possible. A true sense of wonder and discovery that I didn't know if I could get from a game again, even if it wears off when you do a completionist comb-through. And even then, I was still digging up new nuances right up until the end (you can drop bombs while paragliding? You can do tricks while shield surfing? There's a fucking magic creature on that mountain that I saw glowing once and never again?!).

It's fitting that they used the original Legend of Zelda as a prototyping tool for this game, because I can totally envision how BOTW, excellent though it is, can serve as the base for a new series paradigm, much like how the NES game was the crude foundation for A Link to the Past, and thus the fundamental structure for over two decades of medium-best experiences.

They completely nailed the texture of the open-world experience with the environmental symbiosis and constant (and systemic) interactivity. Nothing else comes close in my experience, and in my opinion this is Nintendo leading from behind in a now-omnipresent genre that to this point has failed to truly capitalize on the original groundbreaking, but shallow, thrills of GTA III.

But as I mentioned, part of the joy here is imagining how BOTW could make the jump to a LttP level of sophistication. Double the rune powers and interconnected systems? Every shrine a shrine quest, the best element of the game? Underwater swimming and flight? Full Majora's Mask NPC complexity? A causal relationship between different dimensions/times? Skyward Sword-level combat articulation?

Aside from providing a rejuvenating glimpse of the future from a necessarily adolescent perspective, there are a few legitimate flaws.

-The divine beast dungeons are great and completely fit the ethos of the game (and it's really damn impressive that they built these actual objects). They turn the open-ended tactility of the game inside out in focused bouts, and I wouldn't have it any other way. BUT, there should have been twice as many, with more varied bosses, and the lizard one felt pretty uninspired (one 90-degree turn? C'mon, it should have been in all directions). The Champion's Ballad dungeon was fantastic, though, and an encouraging preview of how they can run with the tools they've built.

-I enjoyed pretty much all of the shrines, even the tilt ones, but they definitely erred on the side of easiness. Because this approach is new, I still found them viscerally fun, and I usually strongly dislike mushy "physics" puzzles. They managed to achieve a sweet spot between intended solution and ingenuity that maybe only the Portal games have pulled off (within a simpler framework). That said, there were about 100% too many combat trials. If these were actually varied and thought-out like the Champion's Ballad one, this would have been fine, but fighting the same robot 15 times got real old. It would have been better to just reduce the number of shrines, nothing magic about 120.

-While the shrine quests were awesome, most of the regular side quests were not. This is a open world sandtrap they haven't swung their way out of. For every good one that leverages the strengths of the game's design approach (following the Zora love letter downstream) there are five stock ones (collect 40 mushrooms). But shrine quests; man, I can't remember as stressful and delightful a moment as trying to nail that platform with an arrow from the top of the Rito spire while the shadow cutout passed over. Imagine an x^2 version of something like that through an enhanced underlying framework.

-Money is actually important and useful in this game, which is now a solved problem with the series. But in general, I felt like there needed to be another reward structure underlying the quests and activities. Stasis golf? Cool! Oh, it's just rupees? I'm moving on. The armor attributes are a potential basis, but maybe something like shifting arrows to regenerating resources with expandable caps (and types). I really underutilized arrows because I was paranoid about running out and not being able to do Korok bits.

-The armor sets are fun and a decent stop-gap for a tool inventory, but some of the upgrade paths are too onerous. There also really, really needs to be a quick select option for custom sets. I probably lost hours of my life due to a counter-intuitive impulse to save time by not going into the menu to switch gear to climb or swim faster. Similarly, there should really be a button combo to drop weapons without menu intervention.

But that's pretty much all the criticism I can muster, and they're all things that can be fixed or re-thought. Here's to the future.

48

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Untitled Goose Game: The Goose Is Loose!

« on: September 27, 2019, 08:23:00 PM »

Was excited for this, but just played it for an hour, and I'm already pretty bored. The presentation and game feel are good, but the gameplay is very simple and it doesn't seem like it's going to develop in any meaningful way in the other hour I have left.

49

General Gaming / Re: So nobody likes GameStop?

« on: September 12, 2019, 10:51:41 PM »

I was visiting a friend the weekend before last, and we had a good chunk of the day to kill before going to a wedding. We hadn't played a game together in a couple years, and settled on picking up Control for PS4.

We walked to a Downtown Brooklyn Gamestop, and it took awhile to get the attention of the clerk. First he told us that Control for PS4 wasn't out. We said that it was. He dinked around on his computer for several minutes, before mumbling that they had only gotten a couple of copies in, because it "wasn't a triple-A game" and that we should have known to reserve it.

My friend was out the door and said he'd never go into a Gamestop again because he found the experience so confounding and uncomfortable. "What's a triple-A game? Why does a game store not have copies of a new game on the shelf?"

I'm seriously confused as to how a GameStop employee could think that Control wasn't a AAA game. Has that term seriously morphed into meaning "published by one of the big publishers?" Because 505 Games isn't exactly a new entity here.

Honestly, what he probably meant to say and didn't in the heat of the moment is that they didn't order many copies because Remedy games don't sell. And judging by how Control didn't even chart in the Top 20 NPD last month, I'd say they were right about that.

Yeah, I mean, "AAA" isn't an actual retail term, this was in all likelihood some gamer dude with weird forum ideas. Also a pretty weird thing to assume a customer knows about.

Didn't know Control bombed, but . . . maybe it would have done better if they had copies on the shelves of the biggest video game specific retailer? I don't know what's going on in the industry, but discs are cheap, and there really aren't that many notable physical releases fighting for space at this point. In book publishing, you print a load of books to get them on shelves and then return them when they don't sell, and eventually remainder or pulp them. I would think printing a book is more expensive than pressing a disc and slapping it in a case.

50

General Gaming / Re: So nobody likes GameStop?

« on: September 12, 2019, 10:10:01 PM »

I was visiting a friend the weekend before last, and we had a good chunk of the day to kill before going to a wedding. We hadn't played a game together in a couple years, and settled on picking up Control for PS4.

We walked to a Downtown Brooklyn Gamestop, and it took awhile to get the attention of the clerk. First he told us that Control for PS4 wasn't out. We said that it was. He dinked around on his computer for several minutes, before mumbling that they had only gotten a couple of copies in, because it "wasn't a triple-A game" and that we should have known to reserve it.

My friend was out the door and said he'd never go into a Gamestop again because he found the experience so confounding and uncomfortable. "What's a triple-A game? Why does a game store not have copies of a new game on the shelf?"