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NWR Forums ID Verification / Re: Quick! Let's poison the machine learning models lurking the forums.
« Last post by Wah on August 02, 2026, 09:38:56 AM »LucarioGirl69 is a real person.yes
Recent Posts
72
TalkBack / Re: Splatoon Raiders Fixes My Biggest Problem With Splatoon
« Last post by Khushrenada on August 02, 2026, 01:20:48 AM »Oh yeah. Looter Shooter. I never thought of something like Destiny 2 (my main point of reference for that type of game) when seeing this in action but now that you say that it does seem kind of obvious.
However, it seems rather ironic that for a game being billed as the first Splatoon single-player game that it works best with multi-player (co-op).
However, it seems rather ironic that for a game being billed as the first Splatoon single-player game that it works best with multi-player (co-op).
73
General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog
« Last post by Evan_B on August 01, 2026, 05:42:10 PM »Might pick this one up, myself. It's on sale on PSN right now for $8. Concerned about the game's description referencing a time limit, though. I don't generally enjoy speedruns.If its any consolation, the game features a variety of ways to extend the time limit, and there are quality of life features that allow you to remove the time limit mechanic entirely. The "Good" ending even involves resetting the game's clock entirely, so that you don't have to worry about any of that stuff.
74
General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog
« Last post by broodwars on August 01, 2026, 02:14:51 PM »So, I guess I’ll count my first finish, as I was up until 12:00 am last night closing it out: I just completed a “good ending” run of UNSIGHTED, which I had not done previously. This involves a late-game quest and new boss fights that are particularly brutal. I won’t lie- I did kick on “Explorer Mode” for additional stamina and more forgiving combat, as the game’s reliance on perfect parries and additional mobs in the final boss phase were a bit too much for me to handle. I have no qualms in admitting this.
I’ll circle back to my initial rating of the game in my own thread, but to be honest, I doubt it will change much.There’s some post game features that make the whole thing even more appealing from a NG+ perspective, and some extra modes that unlock as well (roguelike dungeon crawler mode?! Completely unnecessary but amazing) that make this easily one of the best top-down Metroidvanias (maybe also a Zelda-like?) I’ve ever played.
Might pick this one up, myself. It's on sale on PSN right now for $8. Concerned about the game's description referencing a time limit, though. I don't generally enjoy speedruns.
75
General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog
« Last post by broodwars on August 01, 2026, 11:52:11 AM »So, for my other game I've been in a bit of a Kingdom Hearts mood lately. The game I've really been wanting to replay was Kingdom Hearts 2, as it's the only game in the series I've never played in its HD form. I've always felt like I should replay the other games in the timeline first, so last month I finally sat down and did my Proud Mode run through KH1 to complement the Never Change Equipment + Speedrun + Never Die run I did a decade ago. After that, I reloaded my decade old save and finished 100%ing the game for the Platinum.
With KH1 out of the way, that only left 1...huge annoyance...in my way of getting to KH2.
The GBA version of Chain of Memories was my first-ever Kingdom Hearts game, and I remember finding it OK at the time but very confusing since I'd never played the original. Years later, Square-Enix remade the game using KH1 assets, and gave...some...of the cutscenes voice acting. I hadn't played it since back on the PS2, but I'd been dreading coming back to this one because...
Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories fucking sucks. It sucked then, and it sucks now, and it ESPECIALLY sucks after having just dumped a ton of time into KH1 so you can really see just how lazy and thrown-together this remake is.
Every bad story habit the KH series ever developed either started or got considerably worse in Chain of Memories:
1. Making spin-off games on other consoles required reading for understanding the plot of the MAIN games.
2. Endless cutscenes featuring dudes in cloaks spending minute upon agonizing minute just standing stiff as a board in empty rooms and talking absolutely meaningless **** AT people.
Or to put it another way...
3. Really terrible voice acting from the KH-original characters.
4. Disney worlds where the plot is ultimately a complete waste of time.
And on top of all that, you have a card-based battle system that is both irritating and completely broken. The devs wanted to have their cake and eat it: they wanted the button-mashy combat of the original Kingdom Hearts, but they also wanted the player to stragically play the card game WAR at the same time. The 2 just don't go together. Enemies attack too frequently to really make it practical to take your time shifting through your cards, and yet unless you set your deck up with high value cards trying to button mash is just going to result in constant broken combos.
Progression is reliant on drawing random map cards with particular values, but if you care about leveling-up and acquiring rare enemy cards, you'll only use a handful of map cards so what's the point of having the rest?
And I feel like whoever designed the Sleights system in this game wasn't talking to the rest of the dev team, because you can absolutely embarrass just about every boss in the game (except Vexen, who loves his 0 cards) by just setting your deck up for sleights like Sonic Blade and Megaflare to stunlock them all to death.
And if you want the full experience, you have to play the game as both Sora and Riku. Riku uses fixed decks and can't use healing cards, so his is definitely the harder experience, but that's really not saying all that much. At least this isn't the PS3 version of COM, where you had to beat the game 6 times for the Plat (3 as each chacter, 1 for every difficulty level).
And what is all this tedium in service of? A story that is both critical to understanding Kingdom Hearts 2, and yet utterly pointless. SDG don't even remember it happened by the end. The main purpose the game seems to serve is to explain why half of Organization XIII is dead by the events of KH 2, and it seems to me Nomura could have just set aside his 13 obsession and just made the Organization...not contain 13 members (and yes, I know there are actually 14, and it's stupid).
Oh well. At least the game is done and I'm clear to finally get to KH 2 Final Mix by the end of the year. I still have to go back and finish-up my Platinum runs (plural) on Birth By Sleep, but as that's generally considered the hardest game in the series to Platinum (since you have to 100% the game as all 3 characters) and it's a prequel, I feel content letting it wait until after KH 2.
With KH1 out of the way, that only left 1...huge annoyance...in my way of getting to KH2.
The GBA version of Chain of Memories was my first-ever Kingdom Hearts game, and I remember finding it OK at the time but very confusing since I'd never played the original. Years later, Square-Enix remade the game using KH1 assets, and gave...some...of the cutscenes voice acting. I hadn't played it since back on the PS2, but I'd been dreading coming back to this one because...
Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories fucking sucks. It sucked then, and it sucks now, and it ESPECIALLY sucks after having just dumped a ton of time into KH1 so you can really see just how lazy and thrown-together this remake is.
Every bad story habit the KH series ever developed either started or got considerably worse in Chain of Memories:
1. Making spin-off games on other consoles required reading for understanding the plot of the MAIN games.
2. Endless cutscenes featuring dudes in cloaks spending minute upon agonizing minute just standing stiff as a board in empty rooms and talking absolutely meaningless **** AT people.
Or to put it another way...
3. Really terrible voice acting from the KH-original characters.
4. Disney worlds where the plot is ultimately a complete waste of time.
And on top of all that, you have a card-based battle system that is both irritating and completely broken. The devs wanted to have their cake and eat it: they wanted the button-mashy combat of the original Kingdom Hearts, but they also wanted the player to stragically play the card game WAR at the same time. The 2 just don't go together. Enemies attack too frequently to really make it practical to take your time shifting through your cards, and yet unless you set your deck up with high value cards trying to button mash is just going to result in constant broken combos.
Progression is reliant on drawing random map cards with particular values, but if you care about leveling-up and acquiring rare enemy cards, you'll only use a handful of map cards so what's the point of having the rest?
And I feel like whoever designed the Sleights system in this game wasn't talking to the rest of the dev team, because you can absolutely embarrass just about every boss in the game (except Vexen, who loves his 0 cards) by just setting your deck up for sleights like Sonic Blade and Megaflare to stunlock them all to death.
And if you want the full experience, you have to play the game as both Sora and Riku. Riku uses fixed decks and can't use healing cards, so his is definitely the harder experience, but that's really not saying all that much. At least this isn't the PS3 version of COM, where you had to beat the game 6 times for the Plat (3 as each chacter, 1 for every difficulty level).
And what is all this tedium in service of? A story that is both critical to understanding Kingdom Hearts 2, and yet utterly pointless. SDG don't even remember it happened by the end. The main purpose the game seems to serve is to explain why half of Organization XIII is dead by the events of KH 2, and it seems to me Nomura could have just set aside his 13 obsession and just made the Organization...not contain 13 members (and yes, I know there are actually 14, and it's stupid).
Oh well. At least the game is done and I'm clear to finally get to KH 2 Final Mix by the end of the year. I still have to go back and finish-up my Platinum runs (plural) on Birth By Sleep, but as that's generally considered the hardest game in the series to Platinum (since you have to 100% the game as all 3 characters) and it's a prequel, I feel content letting it wait until after KH 2.
76
General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog
« Last post by broodwars on August 01, 2026, 11:23:30 AM »I'll go and throw a few of mine in that I finished this morning, both of which have been in the backlog for a very long time:
The Legend of Zelda (NES) - For around 40 years, I've been trying to get through this game, but for the life of me I could never stand to play this game for more than few dungeons. Ironic, really, considering that up until Breath of the Wild, Zelda was my favorite gaming series. Well, figured I'd finally take advantage of Switch Online and get it done.
Yeah...I'll give the original Zelda credit that it's much more fully formed than something like Metroid or Kid Icarus, but this game's execution is a real mess. You pretty much need a vintage Nintendo Power or the modern internet just to figure out how to progress in this game, and to my surprise that's not really due to needing to bomb every wall or burn every tree. Yes, there are a few secrets hidden that way, but only 1 dungeon and no progression-critical items. That said, I didn't appreciate this game having a fast travel system, but it's hidden behind a bracelet hidden underneath an armos I didn't know existed until I was trying to track down the last few items in my inventory.
The biggest hurdle to progression is just how the dungeons seem to be randomly scattered around, with no regard as to what players will have available to them, and the pure moon logic required to access some of them. For instance, there's one dungeon you can only find by playing the whistle in front of it, which is a dungeon item you might not have found and up to this point you've maybe only explicitly used to deal damage to one specific enemy. And in the overworld, this whistle largely works as a fast travel system, teleporting you to a random dungeon entrance. Who the **** would think that playing the whistle in front of a pond would do anything? The only hint an NPC gives you about it is "Ponds without Faeries hide secrets" or some such thing. Considering that pond is patrolled by a random Moblin, I thought this was where you maybe used the meat. Thank god for rewind.
You can definitely tell in the dungeons that this is a first attempt, as there are just some boneheaded design decisions. For instance, enemies seem to have fairly random movement patterns (especially the Wizzrobes) and hit like a truck (again, especially the Wizzrobes), and yet they almost never drop hearts. It's almost always nothing; ruppees; or the occasional bomb. You're basically required to find the item that unlocks the ability to buy potions from the witch by the 4th or so dungeon, because you just won't have the health. One of the dungeons (#4, I believe) has more locked doors than there are keys, so if you explore you'll actually run out of keys and will have to leave the dungeon to go find or buy more.
And why do you need to kill all the enemies in a room before moveable objects become moveable? It doesn't work that way in any other Zelda game.
And don't get me started on the cluster**** that is Dungeon 9, the final dungeon. I probably spent more time in that dungeon than the other 8 combined just because it's huge; full of bombable walls you need to open to proceed; and it loops back in on itself multiple times with one way doors and hidden stairwells. I never did find the ring that gives you the 75% damage reduction, but I sure did find Ganon before I found the Silver Arrows required to kill him or the map and compass that would have told me where he was. THAT sure was a fun discovery!
Overall, I'm glad I finally finished it, but like most NES games it really is more of a proof of concept.
And no, I've never finished Zelda 2, either (though I have gotten close) but I also really don't want to.
The Legend of Zelda (NES) - For around 40 years, I've been trying to get through this game, but for the life of me I could never stand to play this game for more than few dungeons. Ironic, really, considering that up until Breath of the Wild, Zelda was my favorite gaming series. Well, figured I'd finally take advantage of Switch Online and get it done.
Yeah...I'll give the original Zelda credit that it's much more fully formed than something like Metroid or Kid Icarus, but this game's execution is a real mess. You pretty much need a vintage Nintendo Power or the modern internet just to figure out how to progress in this game, and to my surprise that's not really due to needing to bomb every wall or burn every tree. Yes, there are a few secrets hidden that way, but only 1 dungeon and no progression-critical items. That said, I didn't appreciate this game having a fast travel system, but it's hidden behind a bracelet hidden underneath an armos I didn't know existed until I was trying to track down the last few items in my inventory.
The biggest hurdle to progression is just how the dungeons seem to be randomly scattered around, with no regard as to what players will have available to them, and the pure moon logic required to access some of them. For instance, there's one dungeon you can only find by playing the whistle in front of it, which is a dungeon item you might not have found and up to this point you've maybe only explicitly used to deal damage to one specific enemy. And in the overworld, this whistle largely works as a fast travel system, teleporting you to a random dungeon entrance. Who the **** would think that playing the whistle in front of a pond would do anything? The only hint an NPC gives you about it is "Ponds without Faeries hide secrets" or some such thing. Considering that pond is patrolled by a random Moblin, I thought this was where you maybe used the meat. Thank god for rewind.
You can definitely tell in the dungeons that this is a first attempt, as there are just some boneheaded design decisions. For instance, enemies seem to have fairly random movement patterns (especially the Wizzrobes) and hit like a truck (again, especially the Wizzrobes), and yet they almost never drop hearts. It's almost always nothing; ruppees; or the occasional bomb. You're basically required to find the item that unlocks the ability to buy potions from the witch by the 4th or so dungeon, because you just won't have the health. One of the dungeons (#4, I believe) has more locked doors than there are keys, so if you explore you'll actually run out of keys and will have to leave the dungeon to go find or buy more.
And why do you need to kill all the enemies in a room before moveable objects become moveable? It doesn't work that way in any other Zelda game.
And don't get me started on the cluster**** that is Dungeon 9, the final dungeon. I probably spent more time in that dungeon than the other 8 combined just because it's huge; full of bombable walls you need to open to proceed; and it loops back in on itself multiple times with one way doors and hidden stairwells. I never did find the ring that gives you the 75% damage reduction, but I sure did find Ganon before I found the Silver Arrows required to kill him or the map and compass that would have told me where he was. THAT sure was a fun discovery!
Overall, I'm glad I finally finished it, but like most NES games it really is more of a proof of concept.
And no, I've never finished Zelda 2, either (though I have gotten close) but I also really don't want to.
77
General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog
« Last post by Evan_B on August 01, 2026, 11:00:05 AM »So, I guess I’ll count my first finish, as I was up until 12:00 am last night closing it out: I just completed a “good ending” run of UNSIGHTED, which I had not done previously. This involves a late-game quest and new boss fights that are particularly brutal. I won’t lie- I did kick on “Explorer Mode” for additional stamina and more forgiving combat, as the game’s reliance on perfect parries and additional mobs in the final boss phase were a bit too much for me to handle. I have no qualms in admitting this.
I’ll circle back to my initial rating of the game in my own thread, but to be honest, I doubt it will change much.There’s some post game features that make the whole thing even more appealing from a NG+ perspective, and some extra modes that unlock as well (roguelike dungeon crawler mode?! Completely unnecessary but amazing) that make this easily one of the best top-down Metroidvanias (maybe also a Zelda-like?) I’ve ever played.
I have a few smaller games to tackle this month, and about a week and a half of decent down time where I can invest in them, so I’m hoping I can give some folks here a run for their money.
I’ll circle back to my initial rating of the game in my own thread, but to be honest, I doubt it will change much.There’s some post game features that make the whole thing even more appealing from a NG+ perspective, and some extra modes that unlock as well (roguelike dungeon crawler mode?! Completely unnecessary but amazing) that make this easily one of the best top-down Metroidvanias (maybe also a Zelda-like?) I’ve ever played.
I have a few smaller games to tackle this month, and about a week and a half of decent down time where I can invest in them, so I’m hoping I can give some folks here a run for their money.
78
TalkBack / Re: Splatoon Raiders Fixes My Biggest Problem With Splatoon
« Last post by broodwars on August 01, 2026, 06:24:34 AM »I'll admit that I haven't really kept up with the news on this one too much. But is Raiders supposed to be like a Roguelike or Roguelite game?
Not in the slightest. You have a persistent character level with skill points, perks, and gear you unlock. The only thing vaguely Roguelike about it is that the game's kind of hard when played Single-player (but extremely easy when played in co-op), so it's easy to get overwhelmed by the swarm and lose your lives. Losing all your lives kicks you back to your ship with everything you'd already gathered up to that point, and you have to start the level over.
This game is a looter shooter, like a level-based version of Borderlands.
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TalkBack / Re: Splatoon Raiders Fixes My Biggest Problem With Splatoon
« Last post by Khushrenada on August 01, 2026, 12:38:45 AM »I'll admit that I haven't really kept up with the news on this one too much. But is Raiders supposed to be like a Roguelike or Roguelite game?
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NWR Forums ID Verification / Re: 2000 reasons you are still a Nintendo fan
« Last post by Khushrenada on August 01, 2026, 12:36:50 AM »1750. Super Mario Sunshine. (I'm not sure if anyone gave that reason before and I don't feel like checking. Sunshine will always be a special game to me.)
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