Messages

76

TalkBack / Re: Pikmin 4 Announced (Re-Announced?) for 2023

« on: September 13, 2022, 03:50:26 PM »

That article is from before "Hey! Pikmin" was revealed, so they could have simply been referring to that. Was there mention of a "Pikmin 4" after "Hey! Pikmin!" released?

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TalkBack / Re: Octopath Traveler II Revealed, Launching February Next Year

« on: September 13, 2022, 01:08:57 PM »

I still haven't even played the first one!!!!!!

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TalkBack / Re: Goldeneye, Mario Party, and More Coming to Nintendo 64 on NSO.

« on: September 13, 2022, 12:25:12 PM »

I'm surprised they're releasing the Pokémon Stadium games onto this, I figured if they ever re-released those they would be separate paid releases so they could add in support for HOME. Trying to beat these games with nothing but rentals is downright brutal, if not outright impossible.

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TalkBack / Re: Kirby Re-Returns To Dreamland In Deluxe Edition February 24

« on: September 13, 2022, 12:13:25 PM »

I could have sworn it was already possible for all players to use Kirby in this game... or are they simply highlighting this feature since it wasn't possible in Star Allies?

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TalkBack / Re: Pikmin 4 Announced (Re-Announced?) for 2023

« on: September 13, 2022, 12:11:03 PM »

Refresh my memory, what were the exact comments years ago? Can we be sure it wasn't just some misunderstanding over "Hey! Pikmin"?

Regardless if it's a new development or a long-completed game, still glad to see a new Pikmin! Looking forward to more being revealed.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Sales Thread

« on: September 13, 2022, 12:02:45 PM »

Yowzers! Pretty crazy. I wonder if this is just the fans of Splatoon 2 jumping straight into it, or something else. It'll be interesting to see if sales have a big drop later, or will be able to maintain some big legs.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Splatoon 3: Enter the Splatlands

« on: September 13, 2022, 11:55:21 AM »

The big deal for me is how when you play Turf War in a party, everyone is always on the same team together rather than still randomly assigning teams as in 1 and 2, so now my SO and I can finally play Turf Wars together and make a mess as we should! Sure, we could still play the Ranked modes on a team in 2, but, we never liked those as much as good ol' Turf.

I've seen a few of you guys playing. Anyone wanna share thoughts?

Hey mate, come to think of it, I don't think I have you as a Switch friend for some reason! Would you like to add me?

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

« on: September 13, 2022, 11:51:23 AM »

Of course I was using those, I wouldn't have played through the required ten successful runs just doing the same exact thing! Plus I needed those to keep getting more rewards. Unfortunately, I was on a bit of a time crunch due to the game leaving Game Pass, so I didn't get to try out some of them such as Extreme Measures. Even so, a majority of the game is the regular enemy encounters so I'm not sure that would have changed how I feel.

The reasons you mention are why I rated the game an 8.5 to begin with; if I were just scoring based on gameplay alone then it would be much lower.

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

« on: September 09, 2022, 11:50:50 AM »

I was trying to not double post, but nothing's been happening so... I have little choice!

Sometimes that's for bad, like when a charming little turn-based RPG like Ni No Kuni was absolutely ruined by trying to get all the familiars and their variants. But you don't KNOW going in how these things are going to shake out. You don't KNOW going in that NNK's method of managing familiars is utterly tedious and that some familiars have absolutely ridiculous spawn rates. You don't KNOW going into easy-going World of Final Fantasy how utterly grindy it is to clear all the monster ability boards, or how bullshit the post-game dungeons are.

I was thinking some more about this point, and, have you heard of a site called TrueTrophies? It's a place where it shows the average completion time for games to obtain all trophies, as well as having a list of all the trophies and a percentage of how many players have obtained each one. This site seems like it may help answer some of these questions before playing a game, possibly being able to recognize which games will be a painful experience and avoid playing them.

Just Dance 4
Almost had my first 5 star ranking. I seemed to be like a move or two away from it with how the ranking meter looked. I guess I should admit that it is not like every time I dance along I'm doing great in case I've made it sound like these games are a breeze.

I've gotta say, I don't think I've ever pictured you as much of a dancer. It must be quite the sight to behold...!

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

« on: September 02, 2022, 12:41:59 PM »

While it's too late to count it now, since I had started Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse before August ended, I decided to still finish it up. It's a bit of a mixed bag, but is overall an okay game, and better than the three linear Vanias I just played (though the original and The Adventure are both low bars to clear). A nice variety of stages including neat visuals and music, and branching paths at a couple of points which I guess was their way of mixing Simon's Quest with the regular Castlevania formula, and different characters to try out. The game generally feels better balanced, at least until the last few stages which become pretty questionable yet again. I still don't care for the stiff and limited movement and general gameplay flow though.

There are now three games left in the collection, one of which I've played and completed before in Super Castlevania IV, not sure if I'll play it again or not. I don't think this series is for me, the games just don't feel good to play.

And with that, it looks like Backlaugust is over! I seem to have really been in the zone this time, with 17 games in the bag, goes to show what one can accomplish with a little determination! And a lot of insomnia...

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

« on: September 01, 2022, 12:14:53 PM »

Hades
I completed this last night right at the buzzer, so there was no time to write about it before now. But I've still gotta say...

...It's a clever way of entwining the roguelite setup into its story and theming! The writing has a good sense of humor while still taking its story seriously, a rarity for indie games. It all goes a long way to help contextualize the game and makes for nice incentives to keep playing, as there's lots of little details everywhere to discover based on the player's actions. There are a wide variety of modifiers to unlock and augments to find that allow for different kinds of playstyles and helps keep things interesting, at least for a while.

The gameplay itself however, feels a little shallow. For some reason I was under the impression that this was more of a dungeon crawler, but it's actually just a series of rooms full of enemies that must be defeated to open the entrance to the next room full of enemies. The camera doesn't do a very good job of keeping enemies on screen, instead showing a focus on the protagonist and often making visible far too much of the out-of-bounds areas. Each weapon has few moves at its disposal. With how many runs it takes to complete the story, much less everything else on offer, it starts to feel repetitive sooner than it should for this type of game.

Because of the above, I don't think I quite understand all the accolades it had received. With that said, at least conceptually, it sets a new gold standard for how to handle a roguelite game. I just hope the next one is built upon a better gameplay foundation. Overall, I'd probably call this a solid 8/10 game, maybe 8.5 on a good day.

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NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia XC: Theme to be determined. Sign-up Thread.

« on: August 31, 2022, 11:40:58 AM »

But it's gotta be Xenoblade Chronicles as the theme, it's just gotta! I've a feeling that we're gonna make it that even if you choose something else anyway! And you don't have to worry, I myself have played only XC1 and XCX so there won't be any spoilers for 2 and 3 from me.

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

« on: August 31, 2022, 11:37:15 AM »

I'll tell you why I've done it before as I've wondered that myself...

Just to add on to this since Khush touched on some of it...

Thanks for responses. I can't say I can relate, as I play games for fun, so usually when it stops being fun then I move on to play / do something else. I guess in these such cases for you folks, the enjoyment there is derived from the act of completion itself rather than the journey, which makes sense as the way you described it.

Though I s'pose there are still some examples where this phenomenon did happen to me, but it certainly isn't a way I prefer to play games if I can avoid it. It probably happened more often when I was younger, for example I know I played through all of SMB2j even though I don't particularly like it. Then again, I guess there are a couple examples of this from this very Backlaugust, most notably the case of beating Mega Man X6 even though it's a dumpster fire with no redeemable qualities. But I think this kind of thing is a lot easier with classic games since they're usually pretty short; X6 was just a few short hours of misery. Modern games are so heavily padded that I can't even imagine attempting something like this with them, especially since it tends to involve more repetitious grinding. If I'm going to be performing a mindless monotonous task, I'd rather it be for something more useful, such as chores or learning a new language.

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

« on: August 30, 2022, 01:07:32 PM »

Continuing with this classic games binge, I next booted up the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. This compilation has save states at least so that helps... or a save state, I guess, woulda been nice to have more. I've never played most of the games in this so now's as good time as any to dive right into the series starting with the very first. And I've gotta say...

...The original Castlevania doesn't hold up at all! Slow, clunky, enemy-spam are the three words I'd use to describe this game. What's that? I used four words? Try re-reading them, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Castlevania: The Adventure - I wish I started with this one as it has other problems on top of the ones above! There's a lot of slowdown in this game which can result in dropped inputs; I'm pretty sure this is just how the game is and not a fault of the emulator, as the second included Game Boy game has no such issues. Good thing it's short, at least. Didn't they remake this for WiiWare? Too bad they didn't also include that version.
Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge - I liked this one better than those first two, the level design starts to get more interesting and it generally feels less cheap.
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - Now here's where things start to get interesting. I've tried to play this game before as a kid, but I never managed to figure out where to go after the first mansion. I had a guide handy fully expecting to be referencing it often, but I actually only used it a couple of times, including just to figure out the function of an item (I wonder if this is one of those games where having the manual was a big help in knowing how things work). A couple of things I also recalled from memes, such as the kneeling at the cliff with the red crystal for the warp tornado to appear.

The main source of difficulty in this one is exactly that as well: figuring out how to progress. The general combat feels easier than the three prior games I played, in part because Simon gets pretty powerful with upgrades and some sub weapons have infinite uses. Most enemies just bumble back and fourth and there are few bosses throughout the game. It's also surprisingly forgiving especially as an NES title, as upon getting killed Simon simply respawns on the most recent piece of safe ground touched, so the only incentive to play well is to avoid a loss of currency and EXP which isn't that big of a deal.

This game overall isn't all that obtuse, but since those couple of moments totally stall progress then it's easy to see why it gained such a reputation. To be fair, it's difficult to strike a balance with any kind of puzzle, providing just enough clues to figure it out without flat-out spelling it out, but in this case I think it'd just take a little bit of rewriting (or hiding a few more) clues to make this game work. I still liked it the best of the bunch so far, however I don't think it stands up to its contemporaries like Metroid and Zelda II.

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

« on: August 30, 2022, 11:33:33 AM »

God I'm just credits and done. Imagine 100%ing Pokémon Black 2. Crazy talk.

Have you at least checked out the PokéStar Studios side story? I felt it was by far the best thing about the Gen V games.

When I first beat this game, I found it to be incredibly frustrating, but with redeeming value. Now that I've seen the godawful, tedious-as-hell side content, I hate this game. Seriously, it's sheer, unadulterated grind getting the Dream Eaters leveled-up via dozens upon dozens of play of the same Water Barrel & Balloon mini-games. I don't understand why they have the battle portals randomly generated on a once-per-drop rotation per world per character. Seriously, what is even the POINT of that?

Funnily enough, though, I have Platinumed several Pokemon clones: Ni No Kuni 1 and just this year World of Final Fantasy. And yes, they were both wretched experiences to 100%.

Perhaps this is a stupid question, but I gotta ask, if doing things like this is such a terrible experience and you hate a game, then why do it?

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words XX: #2 Is #1 - The Final Four

« on: August 30, 2022, 11:23:41 AM »

Congratulations Khushrenada on being everyone's fave sidekick!

Hm, does this mean that I need to host the next game, so that Khushrenada can try for back-to-back-to-back wins...?

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

« on: August 25, 2022, 09:35:35 PM »

So with this now being a "completed" game for me, can I count it towards Backlaugust...?

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

« on: August 24, 2022, 11:54:59 PM »

Woah woah woah you're supposed to conspire against Khushrenada, not against me!

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

« on: August 24, 2022, 09:54:12 PM »

The Buffalo Bills, they seem like a reliable bunch.

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

« on: August 24, 2022, 05:53:22 PM »

Time for some more scattershot games!

Chex Quest HD
I bought this out of curiosity when it was on sale for 18 cents. For those unaware, it's a remake of a promotional FPS game in the 90s that some lucky kids found in boxes of Chex cereal. What a strange thing to bring back, nostalgia knows no bounds! And I've gotta say...

...I'm hungry for Chex Mix! It's only 5 stages long and they're about as large as a midsize DooM level, so it was a pretty quick completion. I mentioned DooM since the original utilized the DooM engine, though this one is a full remake that redesigns the stages with some 3D elements like moving platforms and room-over-room architecture. The whole thing feels very amateurish, like something a fan makes in Unity; I can't help but feel the actual original game has more charm, it's a shame they didn't also include it in this package. This remake also appears to be missing several features from the original, such as difficulty settings, a map, and some sound effects.

Super Bomberman R
This is a game I put down years back since I wasn't into it. I had gotten it mainly for multiplayer, but even way back when, it was already dead online. Going back to it, I can see that I had left off at 3-1 in the story mode. Resuming play, I gotta say...

...I can see why I didn't stick with it! Each stage is basically defeating all enemies or avoiding enemies, without much to switch up the monotony. The bosses are a little more interesting, but drag on a bit long. At least it can be played in 2-player co-op. I finished all the worlds including the bonus world. I regret buying this game, but oh well. There are cosmetics and battle arenas to unlock from collecting coins, but story mode hardly doles out any, so I can only imagine how long that would take to get everything. I wonder if playing online gave out a lot more coins...

Pokkén Tournament DX
On a whim I decided to try out this game about a month ago, and have been playing it in short bursts off and on. I don't normally care for fighting games but my significant other is into them so I figured I should try out some more of them. And I've gotta say...

...I liked it a lot more than I thought I would! It strikes a good balance of complexity and accessibility, and avoids a number of elements that I dislike about the genre. The controls and mechanics are pretty simple to pick up and learn with no complex combos or button inputs, but there's still a good variety of moves to keep things interesting. There are a lot of visual indicators which make it fairly easy to keep track of what types of moves are being used and understand what happened in an exchange to do a better job dealing with it next time. The phase shift mechanic is clever and helps fights be a real back-and-forth affair instead of just getting trapped in combos a whole match. The game featuring Pokémon characters makes it feel more goofy and less dramatic than a typical fighter.

Anyhoos, the credits rolled after beating the single player leagues, so I'm counting it as a completed game though I'm not done playing it. There's one bonus league to play, plus some more mission panels to finish. There isn't a whole lot to the game so I don't know how long it will last, it could use some more modes and options. The roster feels a little light with 21 characters (+2 as expensive DLC, no thanks), but each one has a fairly unique moveset so there's a lot of variety amongst them. I wonder if we'll ever get a sequel to expand on this solid foundation...

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

« on: August 20, 2022, 01:54:06 PM »

Mega Man X8
We've finally arrived at the (current?) conclusion to the series. I'd heard a little about this one, the consensus seems to be that it managed to bounce back after the dreck streak. I've gotta say...

...I'm not so sure it's any better! While this game retains 3D graphics like X7, it largely eschews the 3D movement sections, featuring mainly 2D gameplay. There are still a couple of 3D stages that feature a speeder bike, one of which is a chase sequence that zips around like crazy and makes it unclear exactly where objects will pass by. It's easily the worst stage in the game and one of the worst in the series in general. The 2D stages have a few interesting setpieces which take advantage of the added depth, such as a battle with a giant construction robot that involves knocking around cranes in the background. The character switching returns with some improvements, including being able to recover a portion of lost health when changed out; auto-switching to the second character if one gets killed instead of ending things there; and a new powerful double attack.

Introduced this time around is a currency system, which is now used to purchase various upgrades from a shop. I was never a fan of this idea in Mega Man 9 and 10, and it's done to worse effect here. Some upgrades still need to be located within stages before they can be bought. The main issue is that many upgrades are obscenely expensive, I played through the whole game and could barely afford more than the simple life upgrades because of how much everything cost. I can only imagine the amount of grinding it would take to afford everything, it just wouldn't be worth it. The one upside, in theory anyway, would be that it allows choosing which upgrades to obtain first, rather than luck of the draw of whatever was found in a stage.

Overall, I can see why people would find this to be the better game and it probably is, but I feel I got more enjoyment out of X7, if that makes sense. Which it doesn't.

And with that, the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is complete, as well as the whole series! Once again, there are medals and bonus challenges, but I think I'm especially not going to bother with those for this set of games. While X8 and maybe X7 are worth trying out, this part of the collection is most likely not worth it. It was fun to play through this series and experience the history, even if I didn't find any of the games to be particularly good. With that said, seeing just how bad things could get with these later entries, it kind of has given me a better appreciation for the first four titles; they have their share of issues but at the very least they turned out as something playable!

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

« on: August 18, 2022, 10:10:21 PM »

Mega Man X7
Here it is, the one and only. The supposed pinnacle of badness with the X series. Can things truly get worse than X6? Can it live up to the anti-hype? I've gotta say...

...I'm not sure I see what's supposed to be so bad about this one! For the first time in the series (and possibly in franchise history?) it transitions to 3D, and has a mix of side-scrolling "2.5D" sections and free-roam 3D areas usually with a fixed camera perspective. It results in a wide variety of stages with each one feeling pretty unique from each other, such as jumping across a fleet of jets to dashing up a spiral staircase with a huge mech in the middle. Most of the bosses take place in 3D arenas as well, allowing for some setups not possible before. Characters can now be swapped by the press of the button, providing more variety and making it easier to find the right tool for a job. The new playable character, Axl, can copy the form of some enemies, which is actually less useful than it sounds since most enemies pale in comparison to the normal player abilities, but it can still be amusing!

Then again, I s'pose I still can't argue that it is a good game, because it certainly has its fair share of issues. The biggest bummer for me is that the weakness weapons for most of the bosses don't deal more damage than a charge shot or Zero's sabre, though they can still stun the bosses to disrupt their attack. It's a shame the devs screwed up the iconic staple of the franchise. The fragile Reploids in distress are back, but don't feel as bad this time: there are a lot fewer of them who offer upgrades, and most of those ones appear to not be in harm's way. The upgrades are not shared between the three characters, which is particularly a problem with the health upgrades as they go to the character who picked it up in a stage, or defeated the boss. X is weirdly an unlockable character now who joined in about halfway through the normal stages, which also poses an issue with non-shared upgrades since he starts at square one. The voice acting is bad, though no more so than it was in X4, 5, and 6, but I guess the reason it's more infamous here is due to how some bosses constantly spam their lines like a runner on the nightly news who rushes up to the camera for 15 seconds of fame. I personally was a bit tickled by this, however!

With that said, it feels like the most unique game in the series and offered up some interesting ideas, which was enough to carry some enjoyment for me. I haven't come across very many games that feature 2D gameplay with a 3D world, particularly a Mega Man style of game, and I've always kinda wondered why that is. A lot of interesting things can be done with an environment that isn't so strictly 2D, there's some untapped potential there.

On a random note, I had thought that the yellow thing on Zero's back was some kinda cape, but seeing him in 3D, it's actually long hair?! Wwwooooooaaaaahhhh

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

« on: August 17, 2022, 09:04:03 PM »

I don't trust this guy at all, but Andy Richter.

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

« on: August 17, 2022, 03:36:24 PM »

I gotta admit, that isn't the bomb word that I expected Khushrenada to choose. Which also means that he outwitted me as well, gah! Targeting Nickmitch is pretty cruel though.

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

« on: August 17, 2022, 03:34:50 PM »

Mega Man X6
I was a little nervous moving on because if I recall correctly, the games only kept getting worse. And I've gotta say...

...Ow, it's painful! This game is so much worse than X5 it almost feels intentional. The level design isn't just bad, it's also really slow due to elements that slow down the player, such as slow auto-scroll; moving pieces of the stage; a repeating spongy miniboss; etc. Another issue with this is that messing up means a slow slog to get back to that point. Many upgrades are tied to rescuing Reploids, who can now be killed by enemies, some of which are set up for this to happen really quickly basically requiring memorizing the game, meaning that some upgrades are permanently missable without restarting the whole game.

Fortunately most of the bosses are pretty simple and easy by comparison, with the exception of Infinity Mijinion which is one of the worst bosses ever created in any game ever. The final stages are a hodgepodge of bad ideas including requiring certain upgrades to complete. One more thing that makes matters worse is how X can no longer fire through walls or platforms; this was also present in X5 (and maybe even X4, I can't recall), but it's a much more noticeable annoyance here with the way levels are set up and having to keep enemies away from the rescues.

I'm tempted to call this one of the worst games I've ever played, it was just a miserable experience. But I know that next in line is X7 which seems pretty infamous, so perhaps I should hold off for now on that designation. I shudder to think...