Messages

101

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch Top Ten

« on: August 13, 2022, 03:23:30 PM »

Out of that original top ten, I haven't played four of them. Metroid Dread and Fire Emblem Three Houses I do have, so will get to them eventually. Hades is currently on Game Pass so I could check it out sometime. Steamworld Dig 2 is one of those games that often goes on sale for deep discounts, so I haven't felt compelled to scoop it up until I'm ready to play it; I may also try to procure one of the physical versions if I can.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

« on: August 13, 2022, 01:45:41 PM »

Mega Man X5
I've always heard the series took a sharp drop downhill after X4, but I could never be sure if it were really true or not. So I've gotta say...

...Yup it's true, X5 is terrible. Stage design isn't just poor, a lot of it borrows ideas from past games in worse ways, particularly the final stages, and there's less variety. I guess they became creatively bankrupt after 4. This isn't the end of it though. The game is also timed in a way that decreases each time a stage is played, whether completed or not. This serves to discourage the usual exploration until all eight regular levels are finished. What's more, the lower this counter gets, the "higher level" the bosses become, gaining more health the longer it takes to beat stages. On top of all this, they learned nothing from complaints about Nintendo and added an annoying helper character who stops the action to point out mostly obvious stuff every couple of screens. Seriously, one of the help messages is literally "You should proceed by stepping on the platforms."

To say one positive thing, the idea of scaling bosses based on the player's completion kinda makes some sense for these games and the way upgrades and weaknesses work, which can make it easier to start things out before all that stuff is obtained and help prevent becoming too powerful. But X5 poorly implements it.

Did you play as both X and Zero?  X4 was literally designed with Zero's close combat in mind so playing as X is pretty much an easy mode.  Zero story is also the true story in the canon as well since X5 will even refer to events that are only shown in Zero's story.

Yeah, I went back to check out Zero to see if anything were different. Maybe it's because I was familiar with the game at that point but I actually found Zero to be general easier. There are a few trouble spots and bosses where not being able to shoot is a real hindrance, but the saber is so powerful that it wreaks everything it can reach. I zipped through the eight main stages, but seeing nothing was really different I stopped short of the final.

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words XX: #2 Is #1 - The Game Begins

« on: August 10, 2022, 10:19:57 PM »

The Buffalo Bills

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

« on: August 09, 2022, 12:09:53 PM »

Mega Man X4
While I knew that the leap to PlayStation would mean fancy cutscenes because they could, I forgot about how it would also involve having annoying voices for everyone and every little action! I guess I also forgot how heavily compressed scenes were back then, as the opening anime was grainier than an old VHS tape. Moving past that, I gotta say...

...There isn't much more to say at this point! Perhaps I'm just getting used to the way these games work but I found this one to be the easiest game so far, sans the last boss which was a slog. Though it is also less punishing with things like more generous checkpoints so that's good. There's more story now which I guess is to try and give a better sense of place for everything, but it isn't interesting. Still solid presentation with a nice variety of themes and stages. This might be my fave so far, though the little annoyances I mentioned may be enough to bump it down below X2. It's tough to say.

With that, the Mega Man X Legacy Collection itself is now complete! I'm tempted to argue that it should be added to the list as well... but that probably wouldn't be right. Although I s'pose that the collection has medals to earn and a bonus challenge, which I didn't go for, so if I really wanted to add it then I'd probably have to complete that stuff. Perhaps another time, as now it's on to the second collection. Wish me luck!

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

« on: August 08, 2022, 07:31:42 PM »

Thanks Khushrenada. I'll have to see where I left off in Super Bomberman R then, who knows, perhaps I'm close to the end anyway!

WarioWare: Smooth Moves is my fave WarioWare game, though Get it Together! may top it as it's really good. I don't recall there being any special denotation for reaching certain scores in one microgame but I'm also not a high-score chaser type person.

Bastion is indeed one of the lauded games back during the indie boom of 2008. A lot's changed since then and the indie scene has grown exponentially, so it wouldn't surprise me if Bastion doesn't hold up. I've barely played it meself but I remember a similar first impression as yours.

As for Super Mario Maker:
-You can bypass the daily unlocks by placing thousands of blocks in the editor. Place a huge rectangle of blocks, then use the copy function on it and paste it across the whole stage and you can unlock stuff in just a few minutes each.
-Aside from that, the only other unlock would be the costumes for the Mystery Mushroom. You get one random costume each time you clear the 100-Mario Challenge, and there are some for each difficulty so you'd have to clear all four many times each.
-Sometime last year they shut off the ability to upload levels and closed the bookmark site, so those two things are no longer accessible.
-I would say there is no reason to play this game now when the sequel exists. There are a few things here that didn't carry over but they are not significant enough to really matter: the lanky shroom, layered pipes, and the mystery mushroom costumes come to mind.

Super Mario Maker 2 does have a story mode with its own set of levels, so completing that should certainly count towards "beating" the game. One thing I will say, I felt like this sequel didn't have as much personality as the first one, lacking weirdness like the lanky shroom, the fly-swatting minigame, and Mary O. as you mentioned. The addition of co-op alone makes it a worthwhile sequel however.

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words XX: #2 Is #1 - Sign Up Thread

« on: August 08, 2022, 02:53:55 PM »

I feel like we're still missing a few. Have you sent messages to people on both the forums and on Discord?

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

« on: August 08, 2022, 02:51:14 PM »

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is way better than it has any right to be, it's still one of my fave Switch games. It's definitely worth playing and while I wouldn't want to discourage someone trying it, it is indeed a longer game and not one I'd recommend going into with a focus on simply completing it. Even with skipping side stuff it'd probably take dozens of hours to play through, but it's more enjoyable to not rush it and take time.

Super Bomberman R - Decided to go back to a game I played a bit of in each of the last two BacklAugusts as a potential buzzerbeater and ended up finishing the story mode and getting the credits for this as well. Only thing is to keep playing to unlock all the various accessories and maps in the store but I don't know how much grinding I'd want to do for that. Unless there's an easier way to get coins that I'm missing here.

I played this a while back, but put it down since the single player was kinda meh and the online was dead by the time I got into it. Is it a relatively short game? Perhaps I'll boot it up to see where I left off and see if I can finish it up.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

« on: August 05, 2022, 09:44:33 PM »

Mega Man X3
Continuing my saga with a renewed sense of vigor, I jumped into the next game in line with mild expectations. I know the actual cartridge of X3 is quite valuable at this point, which is a reason I appreciate collections like this. This one is the fave of one of my friends, and I've gotta say...

...He must be a masochist! X3 is significantly more difficult than the first two for all the wrong reasons, feeling rather sloppy in many respects. This game in particular made me realize a big issue I have with this series as it was most apparent here: the toughest part is trying to get started. Most bosses are brutal with just the buster, especially in the beginning with no upgrades. However, many bosses become crippled in some way when their weakness is used on them, making winning easy. The final set of stages in this one are also a boar even with max upgrades, I can't even imagine trying to do them any other way!

I understand that a reverse difficulty curve like this helps to offer a sense of progression, as the player certainly feels more powerful as they go. I also appreciate the concept of making upgrades optional which can add some replayability. I think these ideas could be handled better than they are in this series, because too often it teeters between only the two extremes of being either tediously difficult or bonehead easy. It's a bummer too since I like the music and themes of this game. It's a real shame that the collection doesn't have save states as I would be enjoying these more if it did. It does offer something called "Rookie Hunter mode" which appears to be some sort of easy mode, but I was hoping to not have to go that route. If the latter games only get tougher from here then I may not have much choice. Fortunately, it can be toggled on and off on the fly, so I can still start on normal and just flick it on to get past any roadblocks.

This wraps up the SNES titles! I'm curious to see if the move to PlayStation with X4 brings any noticeable changes. So far, I've been using an actual SNES controller, or I guess technically it's a replica since it came with the SNES Classic. Hopefully it's still usable with the remainder of the series.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

« on: August 03, 2022, 08:08:08 PM »

One word of advice when playing the X games is to go into options menu and set the Dash ability to the L or R button.

Thanks for the advice, but I did figure this out with X2 where you start with the dash. Speaking of which...

Mega Man X2
Wasting no time I quickly moved on to the next title in the series. In the interest of full disclosure, I have been consulting a weakness chart for these games to counter-balance the lack of save states. Certainly not expecting much, I gotta say...

...I liked it better than the first! While it does have a number of the same issues, the difficulty felt better-balanced, and the presentation is stepped up a notch. Starting with the dash this time is probably a good idea because of how it's pretty much a necessity to have any hope of avoiding damage. It has some neat ideas in it like the bounty hunters that are after X, although it seems odd that they're hidden away in stages as opposed to more actively engaging in battle with him. Whereas the original game was a 6/10 experience for me, I'd probably rate this one a 7/10. Let's see if this upward tick continues into X3, next time!

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TalkBack / Re: Tetris 99 Second Chance Cup To Begin Friday

« on: August 02, 2022, 12:38:20 PM »

I miss the early days when these events would award gold coins.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

« on: August 02, 2022, 12:30:14 PM »

Mega Man X
Way back when I was younger, I did play Mega Man X on the actual Super Nintendo, but I never finished it. I later sold the cartridge when I bought the PS2 Mega Man X collection, which I proceeded to not play and it wasn't all that long after that the X Legacy collection was announced. Oops! I don't recall liking the game very much but it's been so long, I figured I could give it another shot and see if I can better appreciate it now that I'm older and wiser. And I've gotta say...

...I still find it kinda meh! It's got the usual Mega Man staple of good presentation and a variety of stages, and I like that it features robotic animals to differentiate itself from the original series. When it comes to action games like this, I tend to prefer something more straight-forward and less complex, so for example things like having to replay stages to find upgrades is more of a boring slog than anything. After I completed the eight stages I just used a password to acquire all the items and skip over that nonsense. I've also never particularly cared for challenging games although this one seems harder than the original series for the wrong reasons. It also still has the NES problem of enemies instantly respawning if their start point barely scrolls off screen; I thought this was the Super Nintendo what even is this?!

It doesn't help that the Legacy Collection doesn't have save states or rewind for some odd reason; these are almost a necessity to overcome some of the archaic design decisions of these old games. It's certainly got me worried about how the rest of this series is going to go! But who knows, if the fans thought the later games went downhill from here then maybe I'll think the opposite since this first game missed the mark for me.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

« on: August 01, 2022, 03:02:29 PM »

From what I have heard the GameCube X collection is fine, it's just the regular Mega Man collection that's a little wonky. Neither one has the full collection at this point although in the case of the X collection, it's missing X7 and X8 which seem to have some of the worst receptions so perhaps you're actually dodging a bullet there. The regular series has had 9 and 10 since then, and the Legacy Collection 2 also includes all of the paid DLC they released, so if you were to get any of the newer collections, Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 would give you the most content you don't already have.

EDIT: I've made the list of games I'm looking to tackle on my Backloggery account if you anyone is really that interested in what I'm thinking of gaming this month.

By the way, you forgot to insert a link here. Or perhaps you did this on purpose as a way to gauge if anyone would actually try clicking on it.

Happy Anniversary!

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words XX: #2 Is #1 - Sign Up Thread

« on: August 01, 2022, 01:49:14 PM »

Oh, did I miss a discussion on this somewhere? I didn't think we had decided who was going to host the next one. I was hoping to see a Khushrenada vs Insanolord rematch as Khushrenada goes for back-to-back wins, but perhaps some other time.

If this is what's happening then you can count me in.

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: A bunch of finely written posts here

« on: August 01, 2022, 01:46:05 PM »

Finally, some recognition!

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TalkBack / Re: Kirby's Avalanche Headlines New Additions To Super NES And NES Libraries For Switch Online

« on: August 01, 2022, 01:44:27 PM »

The Japanese app is getting Kirby Star Stacker instead of Kirby Avalanche.

That's Kirby's Super Star Stacker, good sir!

I never played Kirby's Avalanche but it's just Puyo Puyo so nothing interesting there. I tried out Kirby's Super Star Stacker and it's... pretty weird! I can't think of another game to compare it to so I guess that makes it more of its own thing at least. The CPU is surprisingly brutal for a Kirby game.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

« on: August 01, 2022, 01:40:24 PM »

I think I'm in the mood for some classic gaming. Perhaps it's about time that I dive in the Mega Man X Legacy Collection collection and make my way through this famous and infamous series. These are probably relatively short games too, right?

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TalkBack / Re: Minecraft Legends, Action Strategy Spinoff, Coming To Switch In 2023

« on: June 12, 2022, 04:58:27 PM »

I didn't care for Minecraft Dungeons because it's a rote dungeon crawler that doesn't make good use of its source material. This trailer barely seemed to show any gameplay so it's tough to say if it'll end up the same way, so I'll need to see some more.

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe.TV Words+ 19 (Series Finale)

« on: June 12, 2022, 04:47:21 PM »

In regards to that high odds of survival, let's say it is the start of Round 2 and I have the first selection. Despite high odds of selecting a Safe Word, I can't take advantage of that since I have to select someone else and give them that advantage. Sure, I'm supposed to be seeking out the Bomb Word to eliminate that player but it is not like the Bomb Word will be obvious. So, I select a player and they are safe and the round goes on. Now there are three choices left in the round and I'm still waiting for a player to select my name in the round. Despite starting the round, I could not take advantage of the high percentage of Safe Words and now am in high danger of being eliminated this round because there are a low percentage of Safe Words left.

I actually didn't remember having this as part of the rules, but I went back to check and apparently I did. If I used this idea again then I would allow players to choose themselves if they hadn't already been chosen. I don't think this would solve much of your overall problem, though.

I'm not sure if I can think of a twist that wouldn't make things more random, I guess this game has less room for experimentation than Mafia does.

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TalkBack / Re: UNCONFIRMED: 1-2 Switch Sequel Developed, Received Markedly Unfavourable Product Reviews

« on: June 08, 2022, 05:33:36 PM »

the game released as-is would damage the company’s reputation as a great software developer

This didn't stop them from releasing the first game... 

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TalkBack / Re: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition Being Sold In North American My Nintendo Stores Tomorrow

« on: June 08, 2022, 05:30:43 PM »

Good luck everyone!

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe.TV Words+ 19 (Series Finale)

« on: June 03, 2022, 07:13:45 PM »

If it's available, I wouldn't mind hosting the next game. It'd give Khushrenada a chance to go for back-to-back wins, and I'm kind of curious if he can make it. I'm sure he'd kill for the opportunity, which is why I'm offering, it's for everyone's safety!

Do people like little twists on the formula, or would everyone prefer to stick to the basics? I remember when I did one where people chose another player to target with their word choice, but I can't recall the reception it got...

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe.TV Words+ 19 (Series Finale)

« on: June 01, 2022, 06:08:01 PM »

Congratulations to the winner, Khushrenada! And thanks Bungle4 for hosting this, you sure put an oddly lot of effort into these somewhat disturbing descriptions when people chose the wrong word...

I couldn't decide which one to go with so I took a cue from Mop it up and selected one randomly, and it did me just as much good as it did her.

Well if it didn't work for me then why would you try it?!

I guess the key is to use a random method, but then choose something besides what it lands on...

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe.TV Words+ 19 (Series Finale)

« on: May 30, 2022, 07:59:05 PM »

I actually used dice to decide the word, to try getting around the dealie of sussing out what I might choose, but even that can't work for me!

Ah well, I ain't even mad. A classic showdown between Khushrenada and Insanolord is always entertaining to watch!

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe.TV Words+ 19 (Channel 9)

« on: May 29, 2022, 07:41:32 PM »

• Khushrenada as Andy Bernard

Andy Bernard?! I think I should have been Creed...

Interesting. For some reason I had you pegged as a Kelly.

That's actually somewhat accurate to my real life.

I knew it all along!

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe.TV Words+ 19 (Season 7)

« on: May 26, 2022, 12:45:38 PM »

Amazon Prime Video!