Foolz said:White and purple Pikmin, not sure if I'm forgetting any others. Apparently they're not new to the series, but they're not in the main campaign, in any case.
Really? I played the campaign and was honestly bored (at the time) with how you could just cheese the bosses by doing some damage, go to the ship, come back clean up later since the game wasn't all that hard or challenging. In retrospect leaning towards that being a me issue, for not going the extra mile and trying to optimize a run better just because the juice system is too lenient (but this was also a by product of my memory of the first game keeping you more honest in comparison, so 50/50 on that one). Didn't even do the mission mode shit.
Probably should have given the new found rekindled love for DMC and openly digging Resi 6 for mercenaries alone.
Gagan said:Really? I played the campaign and was honestly bored (at the time) with how you could just cheese the bosses by doing some damage, go to the ship, come back clean up later since the game wasn't all that hard or challenging. In retrospect leaning towards that being a me issue, for not going the extra mile and trying to optimize a run better just because the juice system is too lenient (but this was also a by product of my memory of the first game keeping you more honest in comparison, so 50/50 on that one). Didn't even do the mission mode shit.
Probably should have given the new found rekindled love for DMC and openly digging Resi 6 for mercenaries alone.
Nah, that's fair; there's basically no pressure after the first day or two. And yeah, the combat wasn't great other than as an obstacle to exploration and fruit collection. The RTS elements I thought were actually pretty solid were about time management not in avoiding starvation, but in grabbing as much shit in as short as time as possible, while also progressing the story.
Gagan said:Since I'm still no PC Life for now.
I beat God of War 3: The game having more of an enemy roster, more straight forward gameplay and less walking, and an actual air game makes it more viable for multiple spins. This time I bothered to explore grab concepts a bit more, having abilities tied to a magic meter is way the fuck better than cool downs. That said, eh as enjoyable as the combat is on a primal level, it's outclassed by Japanese action games. I'll still take it over most things the western end of game development makes, but as much as I don't agree with the absurd praise around Dad of War, I am probably more disgusted by the reverence that the God of War games had at the time and especially Kratos. He fucking suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. Still tho fun game. The boss fights suck tho. Like outside of Zeus, all of them are wack. Poseidon is brain dead and only enjoyable for the spectacle. Hercules n Hades are pretty basic bitch fights. And the rest are garbage. Zeus is probably only a tier above basic bitch, but a far cry from being in the same conversation as Nelo Angelo, Credo, Vergil, Jeanne, Genshin, or any God Hand boss.Again good game, about a 7/10. But fuck being up to snuff with Devil May Cry 3 and its ilk, I wouldn't put any of the God of War games over DMC1.
I also beat Marvel's Spiderman. It's a reasonable upgrade over Batman combat. It adds some much needed tools to his roster. Your equipment is way too strong, and trivializes a lot of fights, and not enough of it can be used for a creative combo route. So I ended up not using that stuff to make the game funner, enemy roster n combat has a bad habit of falling into arkham/mordor traps of silver bullet design, and fuck any mary jane n miles segment. WHo...........fuck off. The actual spiderman stealth is I would argue a downgrade from Arkham games, which lets be real weren't exactly Metal Gear or more appropriately Hitman to begin with. Not big on the bosses, but I found the Vulture+Electro segment cute. Story wise its a solid spiderman yarn, I like that they play it straight and don't try to pretend the people playing the game don't know who Doctor Octopus is. The ending is a reasonable gut punch for cape shit. I'm not a spiderman fan, I thought the cartoon was wack as a kid lol, so what little extra praise I give batman games for having well Kevin Conroy ass Batman isn't a luxury Spiderman benefits from. But I think it's a much better game ass game than the Arkham games ever are. It needs some challenge rooms tho. Oh and the open world shit, smh. 6/10
since I'm on a 4 game Sony first party kick, might as well make it 5 in a row with The Last Guardian and beat it this time.
I have since beat the Ueda games bake to bake to bake. In reverse release order (well technically not really, the version of Shadow of the Colossus I played was the remake, but the gameplay is 1:.9999999999), so I'm counting it.
The Last Guardian while killer vibes, n atmosphere, and Ueda's brand of minimalist story telling and just let the mood n vibe of the gameplay try to convey the plot is enjoyable enough. But my issues with the game after working out my impatience with Trico, got me to just say fuck it and look up what button command does what, because the puzzles themselves aren't really puzzles. They suffer from a lot of what makes 3D Zelda puzzles not fun, in the sense that they are glorified nuzzles (Darksiders dev term). The primary hurdle with the puzzles is getting an AI companion to pass by various barriers when they have less movement capabilities than you do, only being able to climb up short ledges. So you must work to create paths the AI can traverse to get them to the next door. The solving of puzzles, rather than requiring actual logistics is more frequently a process of having Ico climb to the next point of interest along a relatively linear path and activating the thing that moves the game along, then dragging Yorda through to the next area. In a very zelda-like fashion, progression is defined largely through activating things rather than actually having to solve interactive systems, like portal, braid, or trine. Predictably every single puzzle consists of leaving companion, navigating the environment, and activating something to let companion progress past a road block.
The issue with that is it obviously limits any sort of lateral thinking required on the player, and THIS FUCKING PAINS ME, because I didn't want to replay Ico and dislike it. But this is a general issue with TLG, and my beef with this as someone who plays actual fucking puzzle games, is that I'm not satiated by puzzles for dipshits. The lack of challenge would be one thing, but I want to be more involved in the process. And in the case of TLG, I can see replays just turning my part of the equation into a fulfill your part of the script. Which is also my beef with the setpieces. You may be involved, but you're involved in the same way you are in a scripted ass CoD thing. There is one answer, one thing you need to do, and it has to be done this one way. It creates a static gameplay loop. Combat is little batter than this since you just watch Trico do all the work or mash square in Ico.
Now with that said, I will concede as much as I prefer the pacing of Ico (this game is simpler in its ambition with its companion AI), I can't lie and say Trico isn't a more compelling exploration of that concept at least through systems n story telling purposes. Yorda is less her own entity in the gameplay n story, and a glorified plot device. I equate her to those totem polls you move around in Wind Waker with the dominion rod. In fact Tomas's boy Ueda probably a bit sexist given the women in his games are either dead, dragged around by the dude, an evil queen, or a big stupid animal that isn't a dog (trico). Where as Ico's biggest story beat: yorda saving ico is reserved for a cutscene, Trico's biggest moment is done in gameplay. And it's pretty cute. Having her take forever when you issue the correct command to go about her business n do the thing can be tedious, but as stated it does sell the notion that Trico is her own entity with her own arc in the story. And you the player are your own self as the shit heel boy. I don't think the leep of faith segments are good. Namely for the simplest reasons, I know what a full speed death looks like in that game, and its rarely doing that slow mo shit. SO when I leap of faith, and it slows down, I kind of already knew the first time I was about to be saved by Trico. It's not that fucking cool when it happens, borderline patronizing n inscure of the game to be like "look at this thing we did". Kind of like Naughty Dog who insists you recognize how pretty the view is in an Uncharted game.
I think it takes something out of that moment that would be cooler if it was happening full speed.
Shadow of the Colossos tho in comparison to the other 2 you don't enjoy exclusively for the vibe I would argue. It is straight up a good ass fucking game. Could the horse stuff be less cumbersome and less tripping of the player character? eh sure. But its more of a simulation of the colossus body movement n physics that come from that as well as the players own inertia, grip meter, and climbing. So a more skilled player is able to do wild shit on some colossi and skip entire steps. The first flying colossi for instance the obvious way is to just grab and more or less crawl your way from one wing to the next. The baller way is to when the bird goes side ways, to time it so when you drop from one wing side, the bird will go horizontal again just in time for you to grab the correct wing. Simple example, but there are crazier options with the other Colossi. And the basic grip meter creates a more solid loop, that makes for fun efficient playthrough runs of the game. It's why SoTC speed runs are actually a lot of fun (and probably why you should still take the OG/ Remaster over the remake if one was to get into speedruns), and why Ico's speedrun looks like the same shit everyone plays, ditto TLG, because as stated those gameplay loops are more static in nature.
So nowadays I would say Shadow of the Colossus is Ueda's best game full stop (8/10), happens to be his best experience game as well I would argue, tho the argument is certainly there for TLG, I guess. If you like playing a worse game.
*sigh* I'll admit Tomas, I had to question myself beacuse I stated to someone on my discord, I can't be the same person who bad mouths batman combat, and zelda, and a bunch of other games for a lot of uninteresting interactions that do little more than look interesting as opposed to the games that went through the trouble of actually being engaging, n fun, and worth getting good at. Like I can justify it on some level, as Batman and Zelda have more pretense of being fun games, they are just shit. Where as Ueda's games are more into being deliberate experiences much in the way of a Journey or Edith Finch, but he did put in that lame ass queen fight and that melee combat. So like I understand that I should be calling Ico a bad game. But fuck you I'm not gonna do that because I like Ico lol, and even tho I think TLG is worse, I don't actually have a reason for anything it does worse, because it really does do things better than Ico, but kind of fuck that game. So I had to question if I care more about calling TLG bad or more about liking Ico, and I choose to continue to like Ico, great ending, fantastic music playing over the credits. 7/10 for both Ico and The Last Guardian.
#MaximumIntegrity
but if you force me to be honest, I'll admit that any other present day game doing that shit I would have given like a 5/10 if I was being nice.
I thought SOTC was your favourite all along, though?
It wasn't. I was Team Ico. haha get it? Get it?
Do do you get it?
Gagan said:It wasn't. I was Team Ico. haha get it? Get it?
Do do you get it?
Oh yeah, I think I asked you on a podcast we did. I was surprised, as obviously SOTC should have been your favourite, even though Ico is the best. 
Ico is not on the PS4. 
It's still kind of kills me just how big this game is. During the credits they show some of the different recruitable characters in the middle of different boss fights. there's probably about 30 different characters you can have on your team throughout the game, and there's at least 10 I never saw and a couple others I never realized could be in your party. With as much story as there is in this game, I'll probably go back to it at some point. Not for a while though. I need some mindless violence now.
Congratulations on not dying.
Well you still have that Shin Megami game to kill you, so it's not all bad news.
Foolz said:Well you still have that Shin Megami game to kill you, so it's not all bad news.
Yeah, even I'm not enough of a masochist to go back to Devil Survivor. I learned that lesson. At least for another couple years.
I completed Vampyr this morning and really enjoyed it. The setting and atmosphere were great. I loved exploring though I got lost a bit. The combat was eh at first. It wasn't very exciting or deep, until about the halfway mark when I finally leveled up certain skills. I guess I wasn't leveling Jonathan up correctly to notice a difference. Like Foolz, I tried to keep all of the citizens alive. That is until near the end when the foes I was facing were far stronger than me. Then I started to embrace and suck on the citizens. I sucked on two nurses, a doctor, a suffragette, and a murderer.
How did they taste?
Full of iron.
I beat Final Fantasy 7, og ps1 ass FF7, for the first time. I'm officially a true 90s kid now.
Ahem.
Everything that is a mini game in this game is hot garbage. None of it has any complexity or depth to stand on its own as anything fun, and since its not an extension of the core mechanics of the game, I don't just accept it as variety worth gassing up. The submarine shit was dumb, the train shit was dumb, the the squating was dumb. A lot of it is just dull busy work vehicles for story shit. Some of it fun story shit (The cross dressing cloud stuff is pretty good), but a lot of it is doo-doo butter. I think the materia system isn't worth writing home about. But I'll lead further into what I just don't like about the jrpg ATB/Turn based battle system. At its best the game is a whole lot of nail down dps/buffs/debuffs in an alotted time, and you are taking the educated guess that i will live past the opponents attack to get one more hit, and when you don't trust that guess you heal up your party and rinse n repeat the party. Some enemies throw in unique quirks. There was one enemy where half of it could be hit by magic and another half of it could only be hit by physical attacks, the final area has so many enemies hitting you with dead spells. But all in all, the lion's share of the gameplay is really boring combat. Because you can cruise control battle your way through.
If you do no items run, this isn't that interesting, because your heal spells are stronger anyway and you have a big ass party. If you do a no heal spells run, that's kind of more interesting since your items cost actual currency, which ties into getting weapons n armor upgrades. So I could see making this more challenging on yourself that way, and that getting more fun out of the system. But as is, the system is way too boring, with the saucing relegated to the materia. So the materia, I don't fucking care for it. You spend hours getting a lot of bullshit useless duplicate materia of shit you already have, lightning, fire, another sense materia, another luck plus materia, etc. And the fun combinations don't come until, well late into the game after the battle system has already become boring (unless again you handcuff yourself to extract fun from it). Im sure there is a lot of wacky shit you can do by the end game, I like that the curse ring puts a curse on the character (but OD beefs up the characters status), and when paired with a Tifa weapon (where she gets buffs when she has a status effect on her, including curse, she gets an insane power boost), and then if you pair that with added effect+destruct on armor, you won't get killed by the curse. But still keep the status, which means you still keep your buffs. That shit is hella cute.
I like that you can hit enemies with elemental or added effect confuse, and it will confuse enemies. I like that there are things putting sleep on your own teammates so you can stop them from killing your whole squad while they are confused. So that aspect was cool. But the overall gameplay is shallow when played full options available to you, and the customization is far too boring for large stretches of the game. Also to make materia work, a lot of these characters are homogenized in their abilities n options n stats, so they can work as either a mage or physical attacker, and it limits wacky builds short term, mid term, and what I'm seeing long term as well. Like finding crazy builds of a specific character are few n far between the cast. That's something that's funner to do in other FF systems, namely specifically the new expert sphere grid in FFX remaster was way funner to explore its bullshit take on a skill tree.
As for the story, it's kind of dumb. It takes itself seriously enough and its so long winded about so much shit, there were cutscenes I really wanted to fucking end quicker. But I like characters enough. Tifa and Barret are really underwhelming given their status, but I surprisingly don't think Aeris is wack? Through osmosis I know a lot of this game, and a lot of the hot takes around this game. So finding out CLoud isn't emo, Aeris isn't a saint goody goody, and Sephiroth isn't completely an unjustified mama's boy was a bit of a shock. Aeris definitely a freak, Cloud says shit like mosey, and Seph gets upset because he find out he isn't a real person, his existence is manufactured. He goes insane, this is a fairly common clone trope, so I don't understand why him saying mother all the time meant he is mamas boy the character. There is a relative tragedy angle to the Sephiroth character, also the music is fucking hype. Based Uematsu does it again bois.
I'm not a jrpg person, so maybe I'm just not wired to appreciate the game enough for the story shit that people love it for, but I dug the characters n lore enough to want to see a youtube session of the remake so i can ge tthe whole story and dirge of cerb, and crisis core, because fuck playing those games. Also seriously a legacy of a buster sword? ANOTHER FUCKING ONE WINGED ANGEL? FUCK YOU SQURE. The gameplay is way too bleh for large stretches. I much prefer tactics games to turn based jrpgs. I much prefer western turn based rpgs to this shit. Less real time with pause, but eh still better than this.
4/10 if I wanted to be mean
5/10 actually
6/10 if we want to hold the me being anti-jrpg against me.
So 5/10, still not the wost campaign thing I played this year, that's still Halo 2. But Halo 2 is forgiven since its multiplayer is legit as fuck. All time classic.
Tough to argue with most of that. Combat in Final Fantasy 7 was always bad. It really wasn't an exaggeration when people make jokes about pressing X to win. Combat really didn't require any thought. It was an unfortunate route that they started to go down in Final Fantasy 6 and went overboard with it and 7. I think that's why we got the ridiculous draw system of Final Fantasy 8.
Materia was also super overpowered, particularly if you went on the late game Materia hunts. Seeing Knights of the Round was pretty awesome, but not much stood up to it especially if you paired it with mimic materia.
Anyway, it was a right place right time game, had the kind of story you didn't often see in games and brought jRPGs to the masses. I loved it at the time, and nostalgia can still carry me through the first 10 hours or so, but I'll freely admit I wouldn't recommend anyone picking it up today unless they were really into old school jRPGs.
Anyway, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. The puzzles just aren't quite as clever as the creator thinks they are or at least wanted them to be. Without going into too much detail, because I don't think anyone really cares, you juggle up to four screens to figure out puzzles, but sometimes that's just not enough and important things happen off screen that you can't see.
So yeah, another artsy fartsy game. Not as offensive as others I've played, mainly because this game was pretty short and as a pure puzzle game it gets a little more leeway for me then it would have if it was a different genre.
<3 Aerith.
I think people like Tifa and Barrett so much due to the size of the former's tits and the latter's....gun.
White and purple Pikmin, not sure if I'm forgetting any others. Apparently they're not new to the series, but they're not in the main campaign, in any case.