Messages

26

TalkBack / Re: The Blue Coin Cast: Episode 1

« on: September 30, 2019, 03:37:28 PM »

If you go back to that retroactive thread, you will see my mug, over and over again.

If you go and listen to that podcast, you will hear my voice.

and if you go and watch Jame's stream archives, you will hear him thanking God himself for me.

I have many things to say about this game.

27

TalkBack / Re: What is SNK and Who's Terry Bogard?

« on: September 28, 2019, 02:03:58 AM »

In spite of the fact that i grew up with an SNK Fighting game as one of my first fighting games period (the 3DO port of Samurai Showdown), I wasn't exposed to Terry Bogart until one time my friend rented KoF 99 from the local blockbuster. Granted, that game was emblazoned with K' on the cover, and I remember playing a lot of Benimaru in that game. I had no clue that KoF was a crossover fighter, or... really, much of anything. it didn't really leave much of a mark on me...


Really, it wasn't until years later when I started getting into MUGEN nonsense that I truly began to understand the importance of Terry Bogart to SNK's history. that actually lead me to getting Garou on XBLA, and... promptly getting my rear handed to me by stupid dumb SNK CPU input reading nonsense.

28

TalkBack / Re: Deadly Premonition Origins (Switch) Review

« on: September 25, 2019, 09:18:38 AM »

Mr. Joseph De Vader.


You have experienced a strange masterpiece, yet your review score paints it as only pretty deece. At the same time, it matters not about it's score, weather that be a 10, a 1, or even a 4. You cannot rob it of it's accolades; Deadly Premonition's legacy is already made.


... So Says Mr. Yoshi




In all seriousness, the action segments come off as especially awkward because of the fact that a lot of the times, Melee weapons are balanced in such a way that they are far more potent at dealing with the Limbo Heath Ledger monsters coming at you than many of the early guns! in particular, the Guitar that you borrow from the gas station attendant is about on par with the strongest melee weapon in the game, and you should avoid turning in his sidequest until much later in the game, given how hard the monsters of Greenvale get shredded by a good ol' El Kabong from Grecotch, which also is a melee weapon with infinite durability.


but yes, if you like B-movie quailty, David Lynch's works, Shenmue, or a game that clearly loves the popular culture with a batshit insane cast and plot, Deadly Premonition comes highly recommended.


If you're curious about the game, I would also like to point you towards one of the greatest Let's plays I've ever seen; an individual who goes by SuperGreatFriend did an amazing playthrough that breaks down Deadly Premonition in an amazing way, going so far as to incorperate movie reviews for various films that York and Zack have conversations about in their car rides around Greenvale, the HEAVY Twin peaks inspiration, and generally what makes each of the characters in Greenvale feel more like people than NPCs.

29

TalkBack / Re: La Mulana Games To Be Collected For Western Release In Early 2020

« on: September 02, 2019, 02:04:58 PM »

My only hope is that by the time these console verisons hit, Nigoro doesn't have as many game-breaking bugs with La Mulana 2. I really loved that game, but it suffered from patch to patch from some very real issues that would render the game in unwinnable states in ways that were very clearly NOT intended (Things like Ankh Jewels disappearing from inventories, doors meant to let you leave areas that disable the holy grail just randomly getting removed from the game for a patch, Mini-bosses permanently despawning without their death trigger opening up vital treasures, major incompatibility between game versions rendering specific saves unplayable, etc.)


Take it from me, the person who forced La Mulana Retroactive upon this community; La Mulana 2 is every bit as brilliant and ball-busting as the original, but I could not reccomend it to anyone because of the game-breaking issues that forced me to use the steam console to revert to previous patch versions of the game to finish it.

30

TalkBack / Re: When A Video Game Becomes More Than Entertainment

« on: August 21, 2019, 04:43:53 PM »

so, without even reading the article, (by the way, don't worry, I will.) I thought I'd share my own Final Fantasy VIII memories, unspoiled by whatever prose Mr. Lloyd has written up. I find that I talk a lot about Final Fantasy VIII these days, what with the Eden-based raids in Final Fantasy XIV having such great music remixes and having to... talk to folks who like this stuff about Final Fantasy VIII.


Up to that point, I was the kid with the N64 while my friends all had Playstations. I had discovered Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics this way, told my cousin, and he told me that "It was time" and he gave me a copy of Final Fantasy on NES. once I played through and beat FF1, he let me borrow Final Fantasy VI (which... I still have that cartridge because he gave away his NES before I had a chance to return FF6!). I played Final Fantasy VII myself through the PC version on my dad's PC, but... I was still dancing around having a playstation. I was still going to my friend's house and playing FFT, still playing Brave Fencer Musashi with them and checking out that TOTALLY SWEET Final Fantasy VIII demo disc it came with!


Then it happened. Christmas, 1998. Dad got me a playstation wtih NCAA March Madness '99, and...! Final Fantasy VIII! all my friends had been playing it of course, but now was my chance to set aside my gameboy obsession and play the new Final Fantasy...!


only... something went way over my head. I distinctly remember making it to right before the lunatic pandora and having difficulty with some of the side content before I gave up. I'd LONG stopped understanding what the plot was even about, and I really didn't feel particularly attached or endeared to any of the characters besides maybe like... Laguna and his friends? they seemed way cooler and more heroic than the characters you actually played as in my mind...


And I never really finished out the rest of the game. I eventually got a bunch of other FF games for my Playstation (I was the only one of my friends who bothered with Final Fantasy IX, as all my friends didn't like the art style or something...), and for a time, Final Fantasy 8 was that one that just... kinda confused me with all the crazy crafting and junctioning and such. I think FF8 might have actually been the first video game I played with a crafting system in it.


Jump forward to the late oughts. I'm an edgy college kid, Planet Gamecube is NintendoWorldReport, and the rise of Youtube is happening on a large scale. a crop of individuals making entertaining video reviews of games spread like a rash in the wake of the Angry Video Game Nerd. I'm talkin' folks like Armake21, BlackbusterCritic, and... most importantly, Noah Antweiler, known by his moniker The Spoony One. Now... I could go into a massive essay on the mental breakdown of Spoony and how his star fizzled when he was one fo the brightest and funniest dudes pioneering the Youtube boom, but that'd be beyond the scope of this.What was important was his multi-part magnum opus where he ripped into Final Fantasy 8 and called it out for how awful and damaging to the Final Fantasy brand the game was!


At the time, it beggared belief. at this point, 10 years had hazed over my FF8 memories and he was... reminding me of parts of the game that were particularly unfun, so I sat down with it for my second and final time... and I was astonished at how poorly it panned out. I still didn't understand the story, but that was because FF8 is such a weird fever dream of a JRPG plotline that it makes me laugh out loud. even being more on top of the game systems and understanding the game better, it commits sins that I could not forgive, and suddenly I bashed on FF8. hard. I still kinda do to this day.



I think when I had my REAL understanding of what FF8 was, however, was in 2015. a Zoomer friend of mine is going back and checking out Final Fantasy games. I'm jaded at this point. Final Fantasy XIII had broken me and cemented the idea that Square-Enix internally had lost all their talent and were too busy sniffing bath salts to put out compelling games, and it took external teams like Sillicon Studio and Eidos to keep them afloat and remind them of what good, fun games looked like. in an attempt to educate this friend on the rise of Squaresoft, I had him playing through FF games sequentially, and we finally made it to FF8...


... and we had a blast. granted, not because we legitimately were enjoying the game on it's own merits, no. My friend was... riffing on it? he was laughing at some of the dumb, DUMB stuff that happens. we were naming the GFs silly names, I think we named Angelo something very lewd that made fun attack names like Anal Rush, Anal Recovery, Anal Reverse, Anal Search, and my personal favorite, Anal Cannon (spoilered for offensive language) and laughed at how silly some fo the game's setpieces are and how poorly the narrative and characters play out. I recognized that Final Fantasy 8 wanted to do new and ambitious things and carve it's own path with all the crazy money put into it... but you know what else was like that?






That's when it clicked. Final Fantasy VIII is a hilarious game for all the wrong reasons, and for that, I can't hate it. it is a caliber of Kusoge all in it's own. It tries SO hard to be a love story, a story of an introverted individual finding his heart and learning to accept friendship while battling against the most inconvenient form of time travel ever concieved. It is a game of insane shared amnesia and dumb coincidences. it is a game where the best way to play it is to not kill monsters, but to turn them into cards to turn into items to turn into spells to junction your stats. It is a game where casting the cure spell lowers your maximum HP and that the meta in battle is to mash the triangle button until you get a limit command rather than wasting your time on any other type of attack.

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TalkBack / Re: Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (Movie) Review

« on: May 14, 2019, 03:46:00 AM »

I didn't have the best experience viewing the movie. that may ultimately cloud what I think of it, but I was in a weird and depressive mindset going in, and ultimately it was... okay.


I think if you have no dang clue what the idea behind pokemon in general is, you'll probably come out of detective Pikachu feeling weirded out.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 13, 2019, 04:39:05 AM »

I actually used Larvesta in Ultra Moon. Between the EXP share, it's absurd attack stat, and the fact that the evolite is a thing, it's actually really solid and you can reasonably evolve it before you reach Ultra Necrozma so your overpowered hell moth can help you with that, the last trial, Victory Road, and the Elite 4.

Anyways I'm exploring some side content right now. People complain about Black and White being painfully linear but there is a lot of side areas you can explore and things to do.

yeeeeeeeeah, mine is Timid. :I still usin' Evolite on it, though. that's a really stupidly good hold item.

33

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 12, 2019, 12:28:39 AM »

a lot of first party DS games in general have held on to their value for the most part. $25 is actually pretty good.

Heart Gold and Soul Silver are incredibly pricey.

Looks like you're right on $25 being the decent fetching price for Black/White.  I'll probably dip in this week. 

There was another DS set of Pokemon games that had a sticker price of $50-60 on the shelf too.  Forget if it was Sapphire or something else?  Just the sticker shock still taking me aback.  Man, they should really offer these older ones digitally if just to make them available for something other than bloated prices.

the DS's lifespan encapsulated (at least as far as core games go, becuase I'm not going to list off every pokemon dash, mystery dungeon, conquest, torzei, typing tutor, and ranger game here.)...

Pokemon Diamond
Pokemon Pearl
Pokemon Heart Gold
Pokemon Soul Silver
Pokemon Platinum
Pokemon Black
Pokemon White
Pokemon Black 2
Pokemon White 2


I imagine between Nintendo never really discounting pokemon games, the reason these games retain their value so much is because of how interconnected their eco systems are. I remember at the realization that Diamond/Pearl/Platinum HM fodder 'defog' got a very strong buff to make it a competitive viable move that people scrambled to breed up viable pokemon in the gen 4 environment and then jump through the various hoops to get them transferred up.

34

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 11, 2019, 04:01:21 AM »

I took a really bad spill on friday and haven't had much motivation to play pokemon over the weekend, but I'm heading to celestial tower. although Chandalure is a favorite pokemon of mine, I don't want to double up on fire types, so I'm interested to see if we have something fun lurking within like Duskull or Misdreavus or the like. it's been fun to see what they've mixed into the unova dex to spruce it up from BW. I'm also starting to FINALLy see some evolutions in my party, which is nice considering one of my main critiques of BW.


for some reason, weather it was a balancing choice made based on the way the EXP calculation scales or what, someone at gamefreak decided almost every Unovan Pokemon is an INCREDIBLY late bloomer.

Sure, some of your weaker varieties like the likes of lilipup, Pidove, and the starters are still relatively early, but even the early bug types are late bloomers. Sewaddle is your early game quickly evolving bug type that has low potential for a final evolution is 20 for Swadloon and Friendship for Leavanny. Venipede similarly is 22 for Whirlipede and 30 for Scoilopede.

these are the sort of numbers that most normal pokemon from earlier generations would hit their Evo at.

that's not even getting into the likes of Deino, who's stuck in it's base form all the way to 50 to get to Zweilous and 64 for Heidreigon. I'm of course using Larvesta, which doesn't get to become Volcarona all the way until LEVEL 70!!!

there's other ones like it too, such as Mienfoo at level 50 to Mienshao, 54 for Rufflet/Vullaby into Braviary/Mandibuzz, 52 for Pawniward into Bisharp, etc.!

if I have any big tip for you folks playing, it's that the trade evo and stone evo stuff in Gen 5 is very good because it's available so relatively early in comparison to everything else. in BW, I remember half of my team being the likes of Whimsicott, Conkeldurr, and Accelgor for that reason.

35

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 07, 2019, 07:47:21 AM »

Sorry, one more, because I found it and it really craps all over USUM's rendition of this song.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 06, 2019, 07:58:19 PM »

Made it to chargestone cave, wherein my hunt for a tynamo has been a tecious one. Eelektross is a pokemon that fascinates me because on paper it should be amazing but in practice it kinda is mediocre. if it had like... a leaky battery eel look and was Electric/Poison with Levitate? it'd be brilliant and might actually see play as a superb walling pokemon instead of just existing. oh well. still seems neat to be this pokemon with no weakness but just doesn't have the stats or diverse movepool to take advantage of this fact.



Can I take a moment to gush about the soundtracks here? something went VERY wrong with the way pokemon games are scored after Gen 5. I don't know if it's that they were no longer limited by sample-based sequencing, Junichi Masuda finally broke, or what, but the Gen 6 pokemon music with few exceptions sound like the sorts of compositions that are trying to parody what your standard Masuda composition for pokemon sounds like, or are really annoying sounding and forgettable EDM.

BW's soundtrack I feel has it all. memorable battle tracks, catchy and chill town themes, route themes that inspire grandeur or in the case of the BRILLIANT Route 10 theme, finality. BW2 only gets BETTER about this. I've been grinning ear to ear as I get to each gym and hear it play it's own remix of the Pokemon gym theme. the music at the world tournament is incredible. Hugh's musical themes get me boppin' my head, Colress' theme is amazing, and then there's stuff like Virbank City, which is so chill that I've just been listening to it while I do art. I've been taken aback by how much has immediately struck with me. I also love the idea of the Critical HP music theme, using the traditional 'you left your car door ajar' style alarm as an actual instrument, and think that it's a crying shame that this wasn't adopted into Gen 6 or Gen 7's soundtracks and expanded upon; I'm thinking compositions that are Panel De Pon style critical themes for each major battle theme.


I feel like the instrument choice is superb as well, which is why there's a whole youtube cottage industry of people who make remixes of songs using the BW/BW2 sample library to recreate tracks and do their own thing. this phenominon does exist with the other pokemon games (particularly Gen 3 and it's trumpet-heavy samples), but I feel it's most prevalent with the Gen 5 stuff.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 05, 2019, 03:52:28 AM »

yeah, as I said, the badges only level gate traded pokemon's obedience. HMs are a tool of sidequesting and sequence breaking, which makes them feel less tedious as they did in the past, as rather than progress gates, they serve as bonus incentive if you bring your HM Specialists into the unexplored depths of a cave.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 04, 2019, 06:33:08 PM »

PokéStar Studios was the best thing to ever come out of any of the games, I'd gladly take a full spinoff game like that.

That is all.

That'd actually be awesome. it's an idea that could ACTUALLY be fleshed out into something amazing. especially with a Super Mario Maker-esque scripting component to it. sadly, that's an idea too awesome for Gamefreak. better call Genius Sonority up on the phone.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 04, 2019, 05:19:51 PM »

... thinking back, I did play this game with Oshawott originally, which meant I got milage out of Pidove at this point in the game and probably didn't notice that AS badly.

The encounters are rigged so that Pidove won't appear before you beat the first gym.

Wow, really?!? I thought I remembered Pidove being available in Dreamyard, but I guess maybe that's Pinwheel forest I was thinking of? that's a good example of my memory failing me pretty hardcore, I guess. like I said, I totally forgot the Pokemon Musical was a thing until the guy handed me the prop case in BW2.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 04, 2019, 02:45:25 PM »

... thinking back, I did play this game with Oshawott originally, which meant I got milage out of Pidove at this point in the game and probably didn't notice that AS badly.


I'm not going to pretend Gen 5 is perfect, because it isn't. there's a lot of stuff where they try an idea and half-heart it, like... rare encounter spots... the shaking grass, clouds of dirt, shadows in the water, and shadows cast on the bridge are all gigantic missed oppertunities, as with the shaking grass, 99.99999% of the time you can expect to see Audino. Drillbur with the dust, Ducklett/Swana with the shadows, and Jellicent/MAYBE the ooposite color of Basculin that's native to your version of the game.


Although dream world and the entralink are dead features, the Dream World Website was actually kinda terrible and I disliked every time I had to navigate that website that felt like it was a product of the AOL Fun and Games gate.


there is a LOT of ansulary bloat that I had honestly spaced out of my mind until I saw it, like the Pokemon Musical. BW2's Pokestar studios falls under this too, but at least Pokestar studios has a bit of a puzzle element to it that makes it... I dunno, kinda neat? I wish it had more immediate and tangible rewards. could be a fun feature to bring back in one of the Pokemon games that has trainer cosmetics.the 3DS Dream Radar App that was released with BW2 also falls into this category. and Entralink missions in general, but that's a criticism of all pokemon I can make post Gen 3. there's just a LOT of it in Gen 5. Black City/White Forest. there's another example.

Triples and Rotation battles are fun formats they thought up and then consequently dropped them for future releases because they were both under supported in the games themselves and also caused the poor 3DS performance to start chugging like it's Turok 2: Seeds of Evil.

I also feel like the Unova League in Black/White 1 kinda takes a massive back seat in relevance because of the sharp, nearly blinding spotlight put on Team Plasma. I don't think even Team Rocket over the course of two games has ever felt so monolitic as Team Plasma does, and it actively serves to choke out some other elements of the adventure when so much of the game is Team Plasma, Team Plasma, Team Plasma.

41

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 04, 2019, 08:54:28 AM »

it's kinda tough...

Samurott is a water type with equally decent attacking stats, but no bulk nor speed to back them up.

Emboar is all right, but feels like he's just blaziken with a thicker body thanks to the type combo and distribution of his stats. I have a soft spot for him.

Serperior is actually pretty bad without it's dream world ability, which you can't access without a website that went defunct even before Nintendo pulled the plug on Nintendo WFC. that being said, nowdays in modern pokemon games where you have access to Contrary, Serperior is used pretty widely because of how dumb the Leaf Storm nonsense is.

Gen 5 I think was the first generation where I actually boxed my starter after getting Samurott for the Pokedex. My plan was to use Jellicent anyway, and Unova has plenty of wonderful pokemon to chose from.



Actually, one of the joys I've had with playing BW2 is seeing the way they've distributed encounters. This seems to be the first game where they adopted the mentality of making various areas of the game very densely occupied by wild pokemon, which struck me when I played X/Y for the first time as a good move; in that game's blatant Viridian Forest paralell, they specifically packed in just about every early bug-type line that you could ever want along with some other goodies new and old. Seeing early game Koffing, Grimer, Riolu, Mareep, Magby, and Elekid sprinkled in with your BW early game staples like Pidove, Lilipup, Patrat, and trubbish made me genuinely smile. (I'm the sort that in Sun/Moon ended up trying to SOS chain me the early game salamence)

So...my experience with the series is Blue/Red, and then dabbling in X/Y before dropping it.  Sounds like B&W2 are what the majority are playing here, so I'll look-out for a cheap copy near me and see if I can scoop it up.

I'd take Pokepal's advice; play BW1. the big thing is that BW2 is so heavily remixed it's almost like a different game. VERY different narrative, completely different early game, refers to plot elements of BW1, etc. You even play as a different trainer and have a different rival.

also, the thing about BW1 is that they very tightly keep the Unova Ecosystem shut in. you will not see a Pikachu or any recognizable pokemon until after you have bested the endgame of Pokemon Black and Pokemon White, whereas BW2 is less concerned about that.

42

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Retrospective Playthrough #1: Pokémon Black and White

« on: March 04, 2019, 03:35:59 AM »

as I said in discord, I've already been playing BW2 just for grins, and Pokepal is absolutely right so far on a lot of things. it does make me sad to play and see how many features are just broken or destitute from the death of Nintendo WFC.

Playing this has reminded me of so many small QoL changes that Black and White made that got dropped like a bad habit for X and Y and had me angry at the time of playing that game. little things like very smartly placed Doctor/Nurse trainers that offer your trainer their services to refresh your team without having to take a trek back to town if you are able to best them, or BW's own abolishment of the HM involving making them strictly for optional goodies rather than roadblocks for the main path. this left Gym badges to strictly be the obedience threshold for non-OT pokemon.


Dungeon design is brilliant non-linear affairs sometimes that will only give you a peek at some of it's goodies, as dungeon and route layouts can end up changing with the new seasonal system, along with the wild pokemon table and such.

Some of the gyms are the most brilliant things that they ever had in the series. I still hold and maintain that Cilan/Chili/Cress of Striaton Gym is one of the most brilliant opening gyms to a pokemon game ever, and offers a tight set of tutorialization opportunities WITHOUT doing things like feeding the player free pokemon or new exp share or such.

Some of my favorite pokemon designs overall belong to the 5th gen alumni. as a matter of fact, I feel I should point out at this point that since my BW2 run is pretty casual and such, I decided I wanted an alternative starter and Pokegen'd myself a larvesta, because I thought it'd be amusing to have a starter that has no chance to evolve until well into the post-game of my journey. also, Volcarona has rapidly become one of my favorite pokemon. Pokegen will also be used if I need a trade evo or want to mess around with a pokemon that has it's dream world ability, such as Shed Skin Scrafty.

I'm currently at Nimbasa city. I remember in BW1 that some pretty important character development for Bianca happens at Nimbasa, and that struck me as being something bold and WAY Different for a pokemon game to be doing at the time.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 609: Anime Word Cloud

« on: February 12, 2019, 06:00:18 AM »

To elaborate on James' point about games that have a "GBA-ish look", it's that a lot of GBA games would use brighter pastels that were easier to see without a backlight, with sprites that are either rather low detail and chunky, or consumate to their SNES counterparts, but obviously at a more zoomed-in and intimate scale. I personally just think that's a 'this is an indie game' sort of look. i'd lump celeste in that category too.

I'm more just happy that Chucklefish is showing that that Stardew Valley publishing money is being put into their internal projects to make them not as decidedly stiff looking as Starbound was. as much as I love the dickens out of Starbound's setting and find it's gameplay to be a far more zen-like experience than say... terraria, it feels like Wargroove on the whole is a far more focused game than that.

... which is to say, it is focused on outside of a few small liberties, filling this niche that feels comparable to Black Hole Rising but with a more fully featured editor (since the editor is the same tool they used to make the story mode), rather than how crazy fully featured Dual Strike on DS was. it effectively has a near identical roster of unit types if we take Md.Tank out and have a water based infantry unit. the real big diffrerence is that units are even more disposable in Wargroove considering the fact that you can't passively repair your units by just sitting them on a property, but rather have to pay to heal them. you also can't combine platoons as a cost-cutting measure to repairs. it's got juuuuuuuuuust enough there to not be the exact same game, but it's sooooo close. I also agree that Regna is a pretty annoying character by design. then again, considering the nature of what Regna is, it kinda makes sense?



Also, fun little fact for those of you who may actually read this post; The Floran are actually something lifted straight from Chucklefish's other first-party offering, the aforementioned Starbound. Nuru is even a character you encounter in that game as a space-faring hunter who decides she wants to help your character save the universe. I Guess after all that happened, she decided to take it easy and do some old-fashioned primitive hunting on an under-developed world!


--------------------------------------------

I started Octopath Traveler with Primrose and feel like I was immensely rewarded by both having the most compelling of the 8's story front and center to grab me, and having the best party member in my party at all times to get EXP and money when those resources were in high demand.

I also had a merchant around quite a bit to toss BP around a lot and really got into the extra classes who can give you a head start on having boosted attacks, and that speeds things along quite a bit for the mid to late game if you're the sort who's skilled enough to beat those optional super bosses. Said Super Bosses are where the likes of poison damage, because it's percentile, can often outpace the turn-to-turn damage your party is doing, especially if your focus is keeping the boss pinned down as much as possible. Leg Trap is invaluable in this regard as well.

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TalkBack / Re: The Thirsty Mage Episode 6 - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

« on: February 03, 2019, 04:45:40 AM »

so, I played through this again later last year. I did it within the span of a day and a half. it was my first time I ever got 100 Super Jumps and thus the might of the Super Suit and the Attack Scarf. if you can get 100 Super Jumps, the game effectively ends at Monstro town, as the super suit is so disgustingly powerful, especially when given to a character like Mallow who's crowd controlling weather based magic effectively nullifies all normal enemy encounters outside of the most stalwart of foes. it was quite the trip to play that way though.

I also got the Star Egg and Sheep Attack. the Star Egg is a pretty sutpid and overpowered item too.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 160: Live from the Internet, It's Technical Difficulties!

« on: February 01, 2019, 03:07:33 PM »

once again, thank you guys for having me. sorry I had to keep it brief, but I didn't want to hold you guys up enough to push the last game out.

In hindsight, I wish I'd have gotten to talk about Game 4 with you guys. that's a game I feel passionately about and would have probably called Syrenne out on-stream, preaching from the mountaintops on how it is one of the most refreshing experiences in it's genre that i had had in a LONG time.

46

TalkBack / Re: Dragon Marked for Death (Switch) Review

« on: January 31, 2019, 04:53:59 PM »

that's super unfortunate. this game looked hella slick in it's trailers. :C

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TalkBack / Re: Wargroove (Switch) Review

« on: January 30, 2019, 07:54:02 PM »

You forgot something.


+Features the best Starbound waifu as a commander

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TalkBack / Re: 9th NWR Charity Live Stream

« on: January 23, 2019, 09:05:50 AM »

Seriously, thank you for putting your 1%er power towards helping a noble cause, Pdoksus.

49

Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 606: Flexing on Undead Taxmen

« on: January 22, 2019, 09:03:13 AM »

if Gui gets to put Katamari on his list then I get to put Freedom Planet on mine because that came out on switch in 2018!


All kidding aside, it's always fun to hear these sorts of things. honestly, 2018 was a weird time where I've done a lot of gaming, but it was moreso concentrated in a few spots rather than a chance to sample a lot of games. According to steam, I'm up to 1847 hours in Final Fantasy XIV. granted, some of that has been AFK idling, but MAN has Eorzea sucked me into it's gaping maw like Fortenite absorbed Jon.

I don't even think I purchased a retail switch game until Octopath Traveler. granted, I loved the dickens out of that game, but something happened where where Octopath Traveler and Syrenne divided by zero and simultaneously killed my desire to play my Nintendo Switch and listen to Radio Free Nintendo for a good several months. maybe it was also that 2018 has been one of the roughest patches in my life as well...

I feel like Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon needs a nod. it may actually be one of my favorite Inti-creates games I've ever played, and I'd play it again over the likes of Castlevania 3 at any oppertunity.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has been a strange journey for me.World of Light and it's highly symbolic and allegorical narrative had me stop and question the nature of something that I always think of as the celebration of... well, at this point, I think it's safe to assume "all of japanese gaming" is an apt description of Super Smash Bros. now. I feel a strange and somber feeling come over me whenever I play the game. I don't know what else can be said about it that hasn't been beaten to death by the rest of the internet or that woulnd't start a nuclear flame war in the comments here.

Mega Man 11 exists and isn't even the best Mega Man game I played this year. it did make me consider some things I should and should not do in a little game dev project I did work on during 2018?

and then... I know I sent an e-mail having a small existential crisis over this, but... then there's La Mulana 2, a game that does SO much right in my book, but then also does things that I cannot excuse. as of the writing of this forum comment, La Mulana 2 ver. 1.4.4.2 is still the current version of La Mulana 2, and it is a broken version of La Mulana 2 where you can soft lock he game in an area with a save point that you are more than likely to use. I did this to my save file 39 hours in, and had to look up a trick to revert my version of the game to a previous patch via use of the steam console in order to fix a bug that has been reported to the devs for the past 3 months now and there has been no hot-fix.

I suppose I finally played Undertale this year, and... it's all right? I still have a LOT of problems with it, but I cannot deny some of it's qualities.

Deltarune is immediately a better game, and it's literally just a free demo, sooooo....

I started playing and Dropped Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition! that came out in 2018... I guess... maybe...

otherwise, everything I can think of that i played this year was either a fan game of some sort, a Doom WAD, or Rivals of Aether, which isn't a 2018 game but had some relavent 2018 DLC.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 605: Remembrances of Games Yet to Release

« on: January 14, 2019, 02:53:49 AM »

I think at this point I have to accept that I enjoy very different JRPGs from the standard JRPG playing members of this show. I LOVED Octopath traveler so much, even if there's some repetition to be had with it's opening hours.

If I had to say what I really love about it, art direction aside, is that it's straightforward in the ways it needs to be and then invites you to just go nuts and be a party of adventurers with different quests who are just hanging out together because it's just safer to go about traveling like that. it reminds me a LOT of the sort of feelings I get playing Dungeons and Dragons a lot of the time, actually. Especially given the path action driven sidequesting, it REALLY can feel like a JRPG lens on my favorite parts about tabletop RPGing.

I also feel like it lets me have freedom to go about exploring without outright crushing your skull in unless you do something CLEARLY stupid. it'd be easy to compare to Final Fantasy 2 on the famicom if the areas weren't clearly delineated.

I love this game because I can clearly see the vision the team had for it and the unflinching way they stand there instead of compromising it to make little tweaks that would appease the sort of people who like conciets like the affinity chart make me smile.

There's a reason I stuck with Octopath traveler and dropped Xenoblade Chronicles 2 like a bad habit.

I feel like I SHOULD play Xenoblade 2 again, but like... I feel like as long as I'm playing Final Fantasy 14 and that continues to be a more engaging experience for me that I won't be able to enjoy Xenoblade Chronicles 2.