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| |  "Re(1):RANDOM GAMES #36- Sonic the Fantasy Que" , posted Wed 24 Jan 14:19  
I just discovered a Thai card game called Commandeer. It uses a grid to place units and different cards can attack in different directions. Most units have way more defense than attack so you defeat other units by careful positioning, playing command cards when you're attacking, and so on.
https://www.commandeertcg.com/
The factions have fun themes like...
Heisenberg- World War super science faction, their cards focus on ranged attacks (dudes with guns) and discarding opponent's cards (hackers)
Shangri-La- Buddhist cultural sphere faction, mostly samurai, kungfu dudes, and Thai interpretation of Hindu spirits. Haven't played as them yet
Lemuria- Your D&D academic wizards. Fey, zombies, that sort of thing.
Avalon- Christdom faction, ranges from Arthurian knights to 1700's pirates. Mechanically they focus on playing lots of small dudes that boost one another when in formation.
Hero Kingdom- Kamen Rider and Shocker faction. I think Kamenrider style focuses on strong individuals and Shocker style is on swarms of goons.
DC Comics- Apparantly it's not that hard to get the DC comics license in Thailand. Seemed to be a one time thing as they aren't featured in booster packs, just one complete set.
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| | "Re(2):RANDOM GAMES #36- Wild Guns everywhere" , posted Sat 27 Jan 06:29
Good news for Prof, Wild Guns is going to be ported to Switch, along with new features described in the PR below. I don't think they have specified whether the PS4 and Steam versions will be updated in any capacity (either for free or via a DLC). Speaking of which, the game is also described as « A big hit on Steam and PlayStation 4 » although the SteamSpy data available suggests they probably had modest expectations to begin with.
quote:
Wild Guns Reloaded Fires Its Way On To Nintendo Switch
The Arcade-Style Shooter Series Returns to Nintendo!
Burlingame, CA. – January 25, 2018 – Natsume Inc., a worldwide developer and publisher of family-oriented video games, today announced Wild Guns Reloaded for the Nintendo Switch; coming early 2018. A big hit on Steam and PlayStation 4, this is the first time the game will be available for the new Nintendo console.
Wild Guns Reloaded is a fast-paced gallery style shooter mixing the Wild West with steampunk. Players can play as Clint, Annie, two new characters, or all together in multiplayer action! Each can jump, dive and roll to get out of the way of the barrage of bullets enemies let fly – or shoot them down with their own gun!
In Wild Guns Reloaded, Annie has tracked down the famed bounty hunter Clint to get revenge on the Kid gang. With eight stages, each with three zones, there's plenty of bad robots to blast away. With a true arcade game feel, Wild Guns was the first sci-fi western to arrive on home consoles and, to this day, there really isn't any other game like it!
"Natsume developed the original Wild Guns in 1994 for the SNES, and we are proud to continue this legacy in Wild Guns Reloaded for Nintendo Switch," said Hiro Maekawa, President & CEO of Natsume. "We've included some brand new features for the Switch version that we're very excited about!"
The Switch version offers new game modes, such as Beginner Mode. Now, newcomers can play the arcade-style shooter with unlimited lives! And in contrast to Beginner Mode, Boss Rush: Time Attack was created for Wild Guns veterans. For the hardest of the hardcore, Boss Rush: Time Attack mode lets players take on all the bosses in the game, one right after the other! How far can you get?!
Même Narumi est épatée !
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| | "Re(2):RANDOM GAMES #36- CupHead?" , posted Tue 30 Jan 02:30:
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I just came across a game called CupHead. Seems very old school and a challenging game like in the 90s. I have not seen the cafe speak on it. Anyone have there thoughts on the game?
Cuphead is ridiculously good. I think that's an opinion that doesn't need to be debated, like, water is wet, British cheese is terrible, Cuphead is better than anyone who's been following the game since a couple of years even hoped it would end up being.
It's been a couple of years now that the industry and tools available have reach a point that "indies" went from meaning "cute little game to waste time for a couple of hours" into "the actually interesting good games that challenge you the way old games used to".
Hollow Knight is still the best game of 2017, and has a good shot at 2018 too.
My one biggest complaint about Cuphead is that until you reach the point where the boss noticeably changes animation to a weakened state, it's really hard to tell how well you're doing until you die, and impossible to tell how much damage anything does. I don't really know if using the fully charged (MEN'S BEAM!!!!) attack is better than using the lesser charged attack multiple times... it'd make sense if it was, but I don't really know, and the game is hard enough and predicated on being hard, so I don't like being blind about that. In the case of classic Contra, it'd often be the case that a boss might contain multiple smaller elements or simply aren't very durable in the first place, so by incidentally destroying those, you could very quickly and intuitively feel how much damage your weapon could do, and how much your damage increased when you got closer to things/mash harder/etc.
[this message was edited by Spoon on Tue 30 Jan 02:31] |
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| "Re(2):RANDOM GAMES #36- CupHead?" , posted Tue 30 Jan 13:10
quote:
I just came across a game called CupHead. Seems very old school and a challenging game like in the 90s. I have not seen the cafe speak on it. Anyone have there thoughts on the game?
Cuphead is ridiculously good. I think that's an opinion that doesn't need to be debated, like, water is wet, British cheese is terrible, Cuphead is better than anyone who's been following the game since a couple of years even hoped it would end up being.
It's been a couple of years now that the industry and tools available have reach a point that "indies" went from meaning "cute little game to waste time for a couple of hours" into "the actually interesting good games that challenge you the way old games used to".
Hollow Knight is still the best game of 2017, and has a good shot at 2018 too.
I've manage to play some Cuphead as well. Too bad semester has started for me (network classes), so I couldn't play as much as I want too. (Can't wait for Wild Guns Reloaded, though.)
Seem like Square-Enix heard the complains about Project Octopath Traveler's "distracting HD-2D" effects, as they've now given the option to turn them off in the game, among other things...(Maybe if enough people request it, there can also be completely-flat 2D lighting mode too)
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| | "Re(2):Taito Station Undercover documentary" , posted Thu 15 Feb 11:21
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I know "reality" television has nothing to do with reality but I never understood how the Undercover Boss scenario is supposed to be remotely believable. For a low-level position they hire a person nearing their senior years -who is also wearing an obvious wig- and then follow them around all day with a camera crew? Nothing suspicious about that!
I understand how you can pull it off for the first season. You could use age to explain the cameras, saying that it is a documentary about an older gentlemen entering the workforce. You could even pass off the disguise as an old guy who is trying badly to look younger. Or allow that people will suspect the disguise, and kind of play along with the idea that the guy might be the host of a new show, or some former d-list celebrity that no one recognizes, or whatever, and realize that eventually people are just going to decide he's a nobody that doesn't matter after a few weeks. For the first season, people have no reason to assume the guy in disguise is their boss, and entry-level is low enough that they likely have never seen their boss to recognize him.
The believability completely tanks after the first season though, once people know that the show exists. Yeah, not everyone is going to know about the series, but the odds are that someone will, and cameras+newbie (bad disguise or not) is a dead giveaway at that point.
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| | "Re(1):More Monster Musings" , posted Sun 25 Feb 10:28:
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Should I stick with one weapon in MH or should I branch out and have something for every occasion? There doesn’t seem to be any penalty for switching other than the need to grind for material. Then again, that may be a big enough deterrent to keep me from experimenting. I wonder how veterans of the series handle this?
Although I have already played for several hours I really need to knuckle down and advance the story a bit more. As it is I’ve been having too much fun meandering around the landscape. You can climb, crawl and find all sorts of other ways to explore. Sometimes when I’m out on these nature walks I have to pull out my long sword and hack something to death but the primeval world is tough like that.
Exploring during expeditions is great fun for me as well. Plus, you will end up with a lot of useful supplies/crafting materials and strong knowledge of the areas, which will help you a lot during hunts. I wish there were a little more depth available (for example, the fishing is a bit too limited to be a hobby unto itself). But I still get a kick out of exploring. I recommend not eating beforehand. For one, you save money. Two, encountering large monsters feels a little more dangerous and you may get that pleasurable "fight or flight" feeling in certain situations.
As for the weapons, I am sure there's a lot of room for mastery that would reward you for sticking exclusively with a single, technical weapon like the Charge Blade. That said, I don't think it's overly difficult to reach a base level of proficiency with any weapon, and they are extremely well-balanced. There are major differences, but no weapon is going to be as complex as picking up a new fighting game character. My feeling is that learning the enemies is ultimately more valuable than learning the nuances of individual weapons (though doing that is fun and valuable as well).
A great way to spread out, in my opinion, is to consider broader weapon roles. There are ranged and melee weapons, so why not have at least one of each? Then there are the various elements...again, why not have one of every flavor? If there's a certain monster that's giving you trouble and making the game feel temporarily less fun by repeatedly putting your ass in that cart, what better excuse to mix it up and try something new?
Maybe you've been using a beefy, fire-element great sword, but you are having issues with Rathalos who keeps hovering above your head and whacking you with his super-damaging tail-flip attack. This could be an excellent opportunity to try out the Bow, which allows you to stay out of range and hit him even when he's up in the air. And why not imbue your bow with the dragon element, which Rathalos is very susceptible to? The extra elemental damage should help make up for your lack of familiarity as you learn the ins and outs of archery.
Whatever weapon you're using, you'll learn more about various monsters' behaviors and attacks, so you're always getting something out of it (including monster parts to make new weapons with). Maybe you'll find one weapon that is so much fun for you that you won't feel the need to try anything else, but in general, I would say that trying a new weapon in MHW is low investment, high return.
There's no way to really screw yourself over, and you can refund materials (though not gold) if you decide to roll back an upgrade to try a different path (or a different weapon type). I have never felt I had to start all over with a tier 1 weapon and work my way up. Resources are plentiful. Go ahead and experiment!
For recommendations, I'd say try a ranged weapon, try something with a shield, and try dual blades just so you can land the Attack On Titan-style Levi buzzsaw attack by dashing off a ledge in demon mode.
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[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Sun 25 Feb 10:56] |
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| "Re(5): Iggypath Traveller" , posted Mon 19 Mar 05:34
Somehow, I just knew there would be something wonderful on Octopath Traveller if I looked for it, and lo and behold, the lovely official site has new videos on the merchant Theresa (can buy things from all townspeople) and one other job I was too excited to watch because I knew I was already sold on the game and wanted to talk about it here.
I recall some serious griping about the game's lighting earlier, which given the rarity of an actually pretty new 2D RPG seemed sort of unsporting in the same way that maybe my saying how ugly KOF XV is wasn't very nice. I recall reading an article a month or two ago about how the staff had majorly reacted to all criticism and introduced different lighting options, etc., so now there seems to be very little excuse to not enjoy these lovely Yoshida Akihiko character designs and classy music.
Actually, the lighting may have been odd before, but it created this effect that I kind of liked of the world being a bunch of little dollhouses...in a rare case of a non-traumatic memories of SaGa Frontier or FFVII, it reminded me of the 2D-sized but pre-rendered-looking towns.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| "Re(1):Random Dragon's Crown merchandising" , posted Fri 4 May 20:32
Really minor note, but this month Rayman Legends is available for free for PSN Plus users, so it's been a nice opportunity to take that game for a spin.
I only had a really brief experience of it from a demo years ago, , but the art is on point and the game flows really well - IIRC, it was originally designed for the Wii, where some section had you resort to a helped character to affect the stage through bits where you're use the touch screen - here the circle button seems to take care of that instead, and the whole thing flows a lot better thanks to it.
Another thing I like is one of the unlockable playable character, the viking girl Barbara - I like that kind of design/archetype (and it turns there there seems to be a bunch of characters based on her you can unlock too), and while it's not the first thing that would have come to mind to add to the Rayman aesthetics, there's some twisted fun on having her use an axe on things Rayman just tends to punch.
I wonder, will we ever get a game where we get to unlash her and her axe on the Rabbids?... This shared universe business is just asking for it, even if it mean Rayman gets to sit out of another game he helped bring to life after the Rabbids got a bit too successful...
...!!
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| "Re(2):Random Dragon's Crown merchandising" , posted Thu 10 May 22:06
I'm glad that Dragon's Crown is going to be released in 4K, I played a lot of this game in the Vita, but the small screen and the slowdowns made a not so good experience
quote:
Really minor note, but this month Rayman Legends is available for free for PSN Plus users, so it's been a nice opportunity to take that game for a spin.
I only had a really brief experience of it from a demo years ago, , but the art is on point and the game flows really well - IIRC, it was originally designed for the Wii, where some section had you resort to a helped character to affect the stage through bits where you're use the touch screen - here the circle button seems to take care of that instead, and the whole thing flows a lot better thanks to it.
Crrect me wrong, but does Legends include Origins or I'm making up stuff?
Another thing I like is one of the unlockable playable character, the viking girl Barbara - I like that kind of design/archetype (and it turns there there seems to be a bunch of characters based on her you can unlock too), and while it's not the first thing that would have come to mind to add to the Rayman aesthetics, there's some twisted fun on having her use an axe on things Rayman just tends to punch.
I wonder, will we ever get a game where we get to unlash her and her axe on the Rabbids?... This shared universe business is just asking for it, even if it mean Rayman gets to sit out of another game he helped bring to life after the Rabbids got a bit too successful...
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| | "What a horrible night to have a Curse" , posted Wed 16 May 11:31
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While on one hand, with all the indie pixelated Dracula clones out there, it makes sense to have one by Igarashi, those special effects in the boss scenes are really misplaced. They're too busy and flashy for the otherwise simple environments, making me wonder why they didn't go for a SFC rather than FC style.
Even though the release date is this month, I'm hoping the bosses as shown in the video are works in progress. What the video shows is an inconsistent hodgepodge.
First, there are the higher resolution "paper cut-outs". You could argue a NES precedent for this in the form of giant bosses that were displayed through use of the background layer. Those kinds of bosses were often detailed and colorful. Though Curse doesn't stick with the "background" restriction, and also displays large, higher detail boss parts over the regular action. Nor does it stick to the resolution restriction, resulting in boss images that look like paper cut-outs or Colorforms stickers being slid over the screen.
The train boss is passable. The higher resolution art doesn't fit the art style of the rest of the game, but it kind of works there to make the boss look more unnatural. Animation is okay.
The treasure vault boss, whether intentionally or not, pays a nod to the use of a black background surrounding the giant boss, but uses paper cut-out hands to attack. Perhaps because only the hands move, this boss looks less active than the train. It feels like there should be some other background animation effect. (Maybe even to function as an attack telegraph.)
The two-headed dragon just looks lazy. It looks like two paper cut-outs of dragon heads being slid back and forth over a paper cut-out of a body, spitting overlapping paper cut-outs of flame, all of which are layered over footage of a NES game. The biggest issue is that there hasn't been any effort even put into making the overlapping parts mesh together. It is just square cut-outs.
Alongside the higher resolution bosses, you have the "almost fits a NES game" bosses.
The turtle-person goes too far in the other direction, with uninspired and poor use of its three colors resulting in something that you'd expect to see in a mediocre NES game.
The electricity boss is fine. Umbrella girl is okay enough. The other electricity thing looks okay.
And then there is the third visual style... While the Umbrella girl borders on this, it truly fits the giant vampire girl(?). Here we get a character that kind of fits the visual style of the rest of the game, but functions similar to the paper-cut out fashion. What stands out here is her flight. While her attack is animated, her flight is just a static cut-out being slid across the screen.
The overall combination of these different styles (as well as the lackluster results in a few specific bosses) makes the whole product (at least when viewed in trailer form) feel a bit cheap.
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| | "Re(5):What a horrible night to have a Curse" , posted Thu 17 May 23:27:
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Well, not everyone can be Yacht Club Games.
I don't think it's that different from what Yacht Club did, and Shovel Knight wasn't a perfect "8-bit game" either. It's not an emulated approach but an idealized approach where limits are broken for the sake of sanity. The idea is not to become an NES but to create a "comforting" approach that accurately apes that feeling without the accompanying frustrations. It's like sure they could emulate VRAM limits and processor hit from effects and particles, but for what purpose? To get flicker and slowdown? In the end it really comes down to style, not technology.
Well, the entire article is about Shovel Knight "breaking the NES", so I'm certainly aware that they are bending the rules (it's quite a good read if you wanted to know exactly where and why they decided to "cheat").
I haven't really made a deep study of Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon at this point, but my initial impression is that Shovel Knight is done more artfully. For example, Baines complains about the two-headed dragon boss looking lazy/incongruous and I don't think there's anything that jarring in SK.
That said, I don't think Curse of the Moon looks terrible by any means and the gameplay looks quite fun (the wizard guy looks like he has some cool tricks). So I probably will check it out.
EDIT: I guess it's also worth mentioning that the Shovel Knight team had some rough spots and had to go for five months without paying anyone. There's always a cost. And of course I don't mean to denigrate the efforts of IntiCreates here who are undoubtedly super-busy and super-hard-working people judging from their release schedule.
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[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Thu 17 May 23:56] |
| | "Re(10):What a horrible night to have a Curse" , posted Fri 25 May 06:02
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I think it's more than just "cohesive", because some of the directorial choices arise from careful study of the technical limitations of the 8-bit consoles. So they have codified very carefully the limitations that they want to adopt and stick to them 100%, while for the things they choose to break, they do so very selectively. For instance, they do adopt palette limitations, but they don't adopt sprite count limitations.
I'd say that is still cohesive art direction, it is just making the effort to work out the details of that art direction. Even if every artist knew to work within "realistic limits" when doing retro game art, it would still be a matter of "cohesive art direction" to establish what those limits are.
Which is where Curse of the Moon's bosses appear to fail. It looks like a game where different artists each had different ideas of what "retro game art" looked like, so you have a hodgepodge of different methods. It's like hiring a bunch of artists to create fantasy art for an illustrated story, but forgetting to tell everyone to use the same media, so you end up with one artist turning in giant oil canvases, another doing acrylic paints on canvas board, another doing their art in watercolors, and one person doing their drawings with MS Paint.
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| | "Re(8):Curse of the Samurai or RE2" , posted Wed 13 Jun 09:52
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Tsushima annoys me every time I see it.
* The narration is so American it has to appeal constantly to "LOOK HOW JAPANESE EVERYTHING IS WE'RE SO MUCH IN JAPAN RIGHT NOW". It's terrible.
* The American dubbing is bad and weirdly racist, but worse, the Mongols have a weird filter on their voices to make their speech less distinct and more alien. Or maybe their voice was recorded in the middle of the Gobi. It's difficult to hear what they say, except when suddenly they shout SAMURAI very distinctively so the American audience can remember how SO JAPANESE the game is. I'm sure they'll shout GEISHA and NINJA later in the game.
How can American designers create a racist game without a single white character is beyond me. Or maybe it's that thing with alt-right people loving Japan so much because Japanese are honorary white for some reason.
* Combat does nothing to me. You can go the Bushido Blade route of 1-hit kills, or the normal video game route of waking the sword like a stick until the HP bar of the enemy is depleted. You cannot have both at the same time. You need to chose, game.
My first thought was that "I think this is necessary for people who AREN'T as well-informed as the MMCafe crowd", and after talking with another friend, I think more strongly about that.
To wit, I first watched that trailer with no audio, and it looked really good! Then when I watched it with audio, it felt off.
The first thing is that for the sake of the trailer and the main market in North America, the game is dubbed in English. So already, things are going to be a bit off. The need to constantly point stuff out my buddy cites as "you'd be surprised how poorly people understand historical Asian settings even in the age of the internet". The target audience of the game isn't just the audience that buys Yakuza (e.g. a crowd that already loves Japanese culture/cinema/etc.), but also the audience that bought their previous games of the Infamous series.
The English dubbing makes everything weird, and the emphasis placed on things feels like a bizarre localizing of what Western audiences perceive of as "overacting" in Japanese TV/film. The fact that historical setting X that is trying to be authentic has people speaking a language that was never spoken there is already going to be a leap. If they enunciated in the fashion of modern-setting Western cinema pieces, would that be a bigger leap? I don't know. I do think it's unfortunate that choosing to adopt stereotypes in order to provide legibility for a less-informed audience is the choice that they went with. But I do think that a Japanese voiceover option would make this a lot less bad.
I'm ok with not-quite-Bushido-Blade because that's what Samurai Shodown was, and even Nioh features plenty of enemies that almost die instantly (e.g. you kick them until their stamina drops to zero then you do a finishing strike on them) but don't quite die instantly.
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| "Re(9):Curse of the Samurai or RE2" , posted Wed 13 Jun 11:23
quote:
Tsushima annoys me every time I see it.
To be clear, when I said it looks incredible, I meant that very literally. The ambience, fields, town, effects and movement look great. I am not quite as optimistic about the story or how the game plays.
The voices I found more ostensibly silly than anything. The problem is that while the accent isn't really necessary, when there is no accent present there are people who will just tongue-in-cheek ridicule the game as being set in feudal California. A Japanese dub was the first thing I was hoping for but who knows if a studio like Sucker Punch has the connections to do that convincingly for the whole game.
As for the swordplay, the issue you're talking about I think stems from developers trying not to limit what the player will attempt to do. It's "you'll do this thing and we'll make you love it" vs. "we really want you to do this thing, but if you'd like to hit buttons and see shit happen that's also an option." So I'd like to think you can just choose to play one way for the whole game but who knows, maybe I'm mistaken.
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| | "Re(4):Random games: did you know?" , posted Mon 16 Jul 02:56
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Ninja Baseball Bat Man was designed by Drew Maniscalco of Irem USA. He took inspiration from things like TMNT and Batman and sent his design doc to Irem Japan which developed the game.
It was designed by a guy in the US named Drew? I'd never have imagine.
One other cool thing about Ninja Baseball Bat Man is they have a pretty wide variety of special moves for the era. It came out in '93 and I believe it has way more special moves/techniques (like [down, up + button] as a basic example) than other contemporary games. Capcom's Punisher... which I think just has that one [d,u] command. I think I remember liking the twin bats guy, who had lightning-based moves.
I also remember the good/awful character select screen music, which if I remember correctly is a two-second loop composed of four notes and a deep voice saying "OHH YEAHH."
Oh my gosh, thanks for that info! I actually just recently beat Ninja Baseball Batman with my brother and my oldest friend a few weeks ago at a bar in Bangkok.
I'd always wanted to play it ever since I saw a few tiny screenshots of it in EGM years ago! One of the screens had the airplane boss and I drew him a lot that year. That game has such FUN art.
Finally getting to play it--it did not disappoint!
Mosquiton, your description is spot on! I was shocked by the variety of moves in the game! I was pretty drunk, so I don't remember the exact mechanics, but I recall that certain inputs allowed you to attack downed enemies, and there were a suprising amount of dash attacks and most suprising of all the game had SUPER MOVES! And I dont just mean the typical press attack+jump at the same time to do an area attack that consumes a little of your life bar, I mean big, meaty, screen filling supers. I want to say you had to grapple an enemy, then jump then press A+J in the air?
lemme look it up ...
Holy cow, each character's moveset reads like an early PSOne era 3d fighting game moveset!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/arcade/568361-ninja-baseball-bat-man/faqs/53661
Wow I barely scratched the surface of it! I gotta play it again!
The game has such a great aesthetic! I love these weird USA/90s Japan coproductions!
www.art-eater.com
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|  "Re(9):Random Nioh: did you know?" , posted Thu 26 Jul 22:57
Recently I started playing Nioh. I know the game has been out for a bit but considering it's long gestation it seems only natural to wait a bit before buying a copy. First off, I like the combat. While the game has the trudge, die, repeat formula of a From Software game the fighting isn't done with the shoulder buttons. Instead, it uses the face buttons which is the way God intended action games to be played. I'm only at the start of the game but I can already feel that I have a fairly good idea of how I'm going to be approaching most fights from now on. Thankfully, the action feels like it's going to be enjoyable no matter how many times I swing my sword.
Speaking of which, I'm having trouble deciding on a secondary weapon. My main weapon is the katana since it feels like a decent, well rounded weapon. After that, I'm at a loss. Should I go with double katanas just so I can stroll through the levels wearing three(!) swords? I'm leaning toward using the ninja chain since it seems to have decent crowd control, hits a great deal and -unlike the spear- doesn't clang against the walls as much.
One thing that's charming about the game is that it's a bit of a mess. For example: The drops are too frequent so you end up carrying around piles of garbage. The crafting system feels like a lot of work for minimal reward. There is a secondary leveling system involving titles that I discovered and subsequently forgot about until a friend reminded of its existence. One would think that a game that had been in development for so long would be a bit more polished. I'm not any of this is bad, mind you, instead I'm amused by how many rough edges made it into the final product.
I can't imagine what sort of Akira Kurosawa film would feature a white guy samurai throwing a magic dog at demons but somehow that turned into a game that's a hybrid of Ninja Gaiden and Tenchu. I'll be curious to see what sort of new silliness the game will throw my way.
Since this shouldn't just be me using this forum as a blog post here's something akin to news: Golden Axe is getting a stage play. Is there an audience for this?
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| | "Re(10):Random Nioh: did you know?" , posted Sat 28 Jul 07:03
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Recently I started playing Nioh. I know the game has been out for a bit but considering it's long gestation it seems only natural to wait a bit before buying a copy. First off, I like the combat. While the game has the trudge, die, repeat formula of a From Software game the fighting isn't done with the shoulder buttons. Instead, it uses the face buttons which is the way God intended action games to be played. I'm only at the start of the game but I can already feel that I have a fairly good idea of how I'm going to be approaching most fights from now on. Thankfully, the action feels like it's going to be enjoyable no matter how many times I swing my sword.
Speaking of which, I'm having trouble deciding on a secondary weapon. My main weapon is the katana since it feels like a decent, well rounded weapon. After that, I'm at a loss. Should I go with double katanas just so I can stroll through the levels wearing three(!) swords? I'm leaning toward using the ninja chain since it seems to have decent crowd control, hits a great deal and -unlike the spear- doesn't clang against the walls as much.
One thing that's charming about the game is that it's a bit of a mess. For example: The drops are too frequent so you end up carrying around piles of garbage. The crafting system feels like a lot of work for minimal reward. There is a secondary leveling system involving titles that I discovered and subsequently forgot about until a friend reminded of its existence. One wo
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Yeah, Nioh's got a lot to like about it and a lot that leaves you going "I guess they didn't have time to make this bit better". I really like how fully realized each weapon's moveset is, but because the moveset is tied to you the character and not the weapon, finding weapons isn't exciting as it is in Dark Souls, nevermind the sheer frequency with which you find them.
The spear to me has the flashiest moveset which makes it fun to use, but I agree that some of that fun gets limited when it's clanging off the walls all the time. I really liked the variety and versatility of the weapon that let me pretend I was Ass-quake, and it has quite astonishing DPS if you want it to do that. I wasn't a big fan of the double katanas, which neither seemed to be tops in DPS or in terms of interesting moves for the stats I picked for my character.
There aren't many kinds of enemies, but all of them are fun to fight except this one ninja enemy that deals way too much dmg wtf
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| | "Re(4):Re(10):Random Nioh: did you know?" , posted Tue 31 Jul 07:35
I just started last month as well, so Ishmael and I both have the chance of playing the game after all the patches (on PC, the DLC is included, so we have all the weapons from the start, and some DLC-only enemies added to the main campaign. I heard the vanilla game was more stale).
For the equipment, I didn't bother choosing a weapon until I finished the game. Whenever I got a stronger new type of weapon, I'd just play with it until its bar of affinity was filled, then I'd move to the next. It made the beginning a bit messy, but also quite varied because I ended up using all 7 weapons until the 5th map, where I started narrowing my choices.
From what I've read, all weapons are good, so it's really only down to personal choice. I didn't like the double swords either, and the katana is a bit boring, so I played with mostly spear or odachi (for long range pokes), tonfas (for close range) or kusarigama or axe (for whatever, I'm just going to press buttons and see how quickly I die). I'm well into NG+ now, and I still haven't decided on a pair, which is a testament to how fun the combat system is for me.
The stats are something that was annoying at the beginning, but I've been instructed by a Nioh pro to raise all the stats to 20 gradually, starting with the one that raises stamina, and only then to start thinking about specializing in one stat. That was a very helpful advise.
Another thing to make the game more enjoyable: ignoring the forge entirely until NG+. There is no reason to go there until then.
For the inventory clutter, it took me some time to find the shortcut "select all items with a rarity lower than X", but once I found it and could give over a hundred items to the spirits in one clic, it made everything much smoother.
So, yeah, clunky game, but weirdly addictive. I also started it after I had the weird idea to play Dark Souls 2 again from start to finish, and I think I'm officially fed up with that series for a while. Nioh's energetic combat was all I needed.
I hope it forces From to upgrade their system and make Sekiroh better.
The less said about the scenario, the better. I'd really like to know what Kurosawa's script was compared to "white guy goes to Sengoku Theme Park and befriends every character".
Musou has a similar problem as Nioh, in that every important character from the Sengoku era is great and fantastic and a good guy deep down, even if he killed a few tens of thousands of women and children on his way to make a better country for everyone. One of the reasons I like BASARA better is that it doesn't hesitate to make bad characters truly evil, some other comically bad, some other oddly shades-of-grey bad, and then top it all up with Wakamoto. Even the "good" characters are weirdly self-centered and don't see the problem in killing a few hundred innocent just to go say hello to their neighbour.
A Sengoku where everyone is a nice-person-who-only-wants-the-war-to-end-so-people-could-be-happy is so LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.
Except Kobayakawa. Apparently even Koei Tecmo agrees that this guy was a clown.
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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| "Re(5):Re(10):Random Nioh: did you know?" , posted Wed 1 Aug 03:02
quote:
For the inventory clutter, it took me some time to find the shortcut "select all items with a rarity lower than X", but once I found it and could give over a hundred items to the spirits in one clic, it made everything much smoother.
Oh ho, that is useful! That let me quickly clear a great deal of detritus out of my inventory.
One last Nioh thing: the shrine kodama make incredibly annoying noises. I often stay in the vicinity of the shrine for protection when I'm checking on new items or debating on where to invest my skill points. But the entire time I'm there those little avocado looking bastards will not shut up. Just let me change my clothes in peace!
quote:
The less said about the scenario, the better. I'd really like to know what Kurosawa's script was compared to "white guy goes to Sengoku Theme Park and befriends every character".
Musou has a similar problem as Nioh, in that every important character from the Sengoku era is great and fantastic and a good guy deep down, even if he killed a few tens of thousands of women and children on his way to make a better country for everyone. One of the reasons I like BASARA better is that it doesn't hesitate to make bad characters truly evil, some other comically bad, some other oddly shades-of-grey bad, and then top it all up with Wakamoto. Even the "good" characters are weirdly self-centered and don't see the problem in killing a few hundred innocent just to go say hello to their neighbour.
I'm amused that in Nioh everyone is happy to pawn all the heavy lifting off to William, the undocumented worker but that's giving the plot far to much credit.
One of the reasons that I think Basara burnt out quicker than the Musou games is that in games like this every character is someone's husbando. If someone were to do a Musou with a modern setting they wouldn't look to politics for inspiration, instead it would work better if the factions were rival Korean boy bands that were literally fighting for control of the music charts.
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| | "Re(1):Streets of Rage 4, Shenmue 3, Seaman 2." , posted Thu 30 Aug 03:46:
quote:
Speaking of big-budget experiments, I've always viewed Shenmue as an amazing failure of a game. During the Dreamcast era Sega was laboring under the insane notion that games like Seaman were a good idea. Shenmue was the ultimate manifestation of that credo. It was gigantic labor of love where the term "love is blind" was never more apt. While I admire the audacity of the original game I agree with Iggy that the rerelease and Shenmue 3 are going to be huge expenditures of time, resources and nostalgia.
An amazing failure is, despite its flaws, amazing nonetheless. It can provoke thought. It can contain isolated moments of greatness and wonder. It can potentially inspire future works that are both amazing and successful.
I don't really have much of a personal relationship with the Shenmue series. But I think it's easily earned the right to take a crack at finishing the story and delivering a better version of a concept that was flawed in its execution but in many ways ahead of its time.
Like so much of Sega's output it was so far ahead of it's time. There's no GTA or Yakuza without Shenmue paving the way! Aside from laying the groundworks for modern 3d open world games (and QTEs), what I really admire about Shenmue is it's overall sense of visual/world fidelity. It's a very complete feeling world. Much more so than a lot of the games that came after it. GTA 3 was a fun sandbox, but Shenmue felt so much more lively (and just had way better graphics overall in spite of being older and on weaker hardware). Sure it's clunky, but it's also overflowing with personality. I think that's what brings people back to it over the years. It's like going back to a little town that you love. Shenmue feels like a place, which is quite an achievement for a game!
Also it has SUKEBAN and is thus very good
quote:
It can contain isolated moments of greatness and wonder. It can potentially inspire future works that are both amazing and successful.
YES! Totally agree! This is how I've long felt about films and comics, and more and more about games. It's just that games are such a time sink compared to movies, so it's harder to be forgiving.
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Thu 30 Aug 03:53] |
| | "Re(1):Shenmue - I can't think of a good title" , posted Thu 30 Aug 03:51
quote:
Speaking of big-budget experiments, I've always viewed Shenmue as an amazing failure of a game.
While Jim Sterling isn't exactly...appreciated in certain circles, I think he pegged it right when he called Shenmue "the foundation for great games that came afterward", but that Shenmue itself is only a prototype. A prototype that has not only not aged well, but one that wasn't even that great at release.
Jim's description is a bit harsher than that. I don't agree with his judgement that Shenmue was always ****, but I do see it as a game that at best was somewhere from rather to heavily flawed. Shenmue was a bit of ambition, a bit of hype, a bit of Sega Dreamcast fanaticism, and a lot of forgiveness. Which is why I vote it was a mass hallucination.
I might be more interested in reading what he has to say if he didn't have to say it through his hyperbole/negativity-fueled persona. Much like some of the games he bashes, there's too much crap for me to wade through!
But that doesn't mean he can't have some interesting ideas or be right-ish about things. Still, one of my friends who had never played Shenmue and mostly plays fighting games recently got Shenmue on Steam and is loving it, even in spite of its rough edges. Certainly, faster loading times makes the experience a lot better. But Shenmue is so broad in scope it's amazing it manages to do anything well. At the time when it was new, there was really nothing which tried to do as much and in as much detail as Shenmue. Grand Theft Auto 3 really isn't the same.
Today, Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku is very much the distilled version of Shenmue, and aside from the different setting and hilariously giant scope, I think you'll be hard-pressed at this point to determine what Shenmue 3 will try or even be able to do better.
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| | "Re(2):Shenmue - I can't think of a good title" , posted Thu 30 Aug 05:41
quote:
This is how I've long felt about films and comics, and more and more about games. It's just that games are such a time sink compared to movies, so it's harder to be forgiving.
That's true, it can take a lot of time to get the full experience or even just the real essence of a game. And it can be hard to forgive when a game seems to be wasting your time (i.e., you're putting a lot in without getting much out).
But like you said, sometimes a game can create a world where it just feels compelling to simply be there. I need some space (usually years) between viewings/readings of my favorite movies/novels, but I will absolutely hang out in a great RPG (or RPG-esque game) for days or even weeks on end.
quote:
Today, Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku is very much the distilled version of Shenmue, and aside from the different setting and hilariously giant scope, I think you'll be hard-pressed at this point to determine what Shenmue 3 will try or even be able to do better.
If I could tell Shenmue one thing, it would be this:
"Remember, you only need to compete with one person: Yourself."
/ / /
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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| "Re(3):Streets of Rage 4, Shenmue 3, Seaman 2." , posted Thu 30 Aug 05:59
quote:
My heart already belongs to the superior sukeban.
I was going to connect this to the Kimagure Orange Road talk in the non-gaming thread by promoting MY superior (almost) sukeban, but Iggy's choice is so overflowing with justice that I cannot disagree.
As for Shenmue, real-life experience probably enhances or detracts from the game. Truth be told, we never played the thing to completion: no matter how many replacement copies we got, we inexplicably could never get disc 3 to work, to the detriment of my forklift-driving dreams. But a bunch of us were just so taken with the fidelity of the world, and how accurately it reproduced a neighborhood in Japan (minus the kung-fu), the sense of place. The way the fluorescent light flicks on in your room just the way it does in a Japanese house, the box of tangerines in your closet, the little touches all around.
GTA might have been the great expander of the open world genre, but its open world always looked shitty and lame to me, a place I neither had a personal connection to nor had any interest in visiting virtually. Maybe Ryuu Ga Gotoku has been a greater success because the overall story and crime setting are more interesting to anyone regardless of where they've lived, while still containing the same joys of fooling around in the meantime.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| | "Re(2):Streets of Rage 4 is ...finally....here" , posted Mon 3 Sep 22:23:
Wow, only found out now about SoR4... This could be fun! But I hope there are more playable characters than just Axel and Blaze; come on, SEGA, give us at least Adam!
(I'd ask for Skate, but it's understandable if SEGA decides it's not a good idea to have a child fighting a gang of adult thugs)
quote:
Will Koshiro mark his return as a playable character or music composer?
That would be great! Although if he doesn't, there's still hope for a great soundtrack; I mean, I remember lots of people being outraged when KI 2013 didn't bring Robin Beanland back for the soundtrack, but then Mick Gordon ended up delivering even better music than the original games... and then Gordon left before Season 3, people were outraged again, and in the end Celldweller and Atlas Plug replaced him and managed to present some of the best tracks in the game (notably, Tusk's and Eyedol's).
Hopefully the same happens to this game in the case Koshiro doesn't return. But I think he will.
quote:
Axel looks like he put on forty pounds but still insists on dressing like he did when he was eighteen. That’s not a good look.
Yes. Though to be honest, I'm more concerned with Blaze keeping the strapless top and miniskirt to fight in the streets; that's basically foreshadowing for some serious wardrobe malfunction...
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Tue 4 Sep 03:55] |
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| "Re(3):Streets of Rage 4 is ...finally....here" , posted Mon 3 Sep 23:37
quote:
Wow, only found out now about SoR4... This could be fun! But I hope there are more playable characters than just Axel and Blaze; come on, SEGA, give us at least Adam!
(I'd ask for Skate, but it's understandable if SEGA decides it's not a good idea to have a child fighting a gang of adult thugs)
Will Koshiro mark his return as a playable character or music composer?
That would be great! Although if he doesn't, there's still hope for a great soundtrack; I mean, I remember lots of people being outraged when KI 2013 didn't bring Robin Beanland back for the soundtrack, but then Mick Gordon ended up delivering even better music than the original games... and then Gordon left before Season 3, people were outraged again, and in the end Celldweller and Atlas Plug replaced him and managed to present some of the best tracks in the game (notably, Tusk's and Eyedol's).
Hopefully the same happens to this game in the case Koshiro doesn't return. But I think he will.
Axel looks like he put on forty pounds but still insists on dressing like he did when he was eighteen. That’s not a good look.
Yes. Though to be honest, I'm more concerned with Blaze keeping the strapless top and miniskirt to fight in the streets; that's basically foreshadowing for some serious wardrobe malfunction...
VIDEO 24/7, whom I have never heard of before, had Hands-on gameplay with SOR4.
I want to post my rant and opinion on the newly announced SOR4, one of rare rants I make on the cafe, not sure if I should though.
Long Live I AM!
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| | "Monokuma and Zero's creators join forces" , posted Tue 11 Sep 23:49:
It seems that Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi (the respective creators of the Danganronpa and Zero Escapa series) founded a new game company, Too Kyo Games.
As a fan of both DR and ZE trilogies (in DR's case, I consider DRV3 as the actual third chapter rather than that awful DR3 anime), I must say I'm quite curious to see these two men collaborating in the same projects and all the insane ideas they may come up with (even if a little disturbed by the "children's death game, by children, for children" concept of one of the games).
EDIT: the first project seems particularly interesting... Limit X Despair. "Despair" is pretty much Danganronpa's favorite word, while "limit" could allude to the time limits imposed on characters from both the Zero Escape and Infinity series... Intriguing.
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EDIT 2: I finished following the Root Double VN this weekend, and just found out its creator, Takumi Nakazawa, is also part of Kodaka and Uchikoshi's new company! Wow, Too Kyo Games is probably the closest thing one could have as a dream team of developers for visual novels...
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Tue 2 Oct 03:24] |
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| "Re:Toaplan Lives! All your IP are belong to.." , posted Thu 13 Sep 13:17:
A new company called Tatsujin headed by Masahiro Yuge.
quote:
Yuge was one of the composers of the legendary company Toaplan and according to this he is the owner of almost all classic Toaplan licences, including Tatsujin itself (known as Truxton in the US), Tiger Heli, Flying Shark, Twin Cobra, Zero Wing (yep, that "all your base" game), Snow Bros, Dogyuun, Batsugun and much more.
It seems he is really interested in make new things with those games and he is searching for investors.
This is big news for Arcade fans! I can't 100% confirm this, but I remember reading some years ago in japanese sites that the current (at the time) owner of Toaplan IPs was extremely against using their IPs for new stuff and that's the reason why none of these games had new releases since the nineties (with exceptions of some Toaplan games licenced by Taito). I don't know if this was a change of mind or whatever, but I hope we can have good things from this new company. A new Batsugun release sounds perfect now (the Saturn version is now very expensive) and Snow Bros was very, very popular in latin america and Korea.
(Thanks to Hayama Akito of ResetEra.)
[this message was edited by sfried on Thu 13 Sep 13:17] |
Rare Customer   | "Re(2):Capcom Beat em up Bundle" , posted Sat 15 Sep 05:47
I thought Chisato Mita was a freelance artist since she designed characters for Macross Delta but she still works at Capcom. According to this 2016 interview (translated here), she started her career as a background designer, then also designed characters and illustrations.
Some of the games she has worked on:
Capcom Belt Action Collection / Capcom Beat’em Up Bundle (PS4, Switch - 2018) Limited CD illustration
E.X. Troopers (PS3, 3DS - 2012) chara-design, background design, illustrations
Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (3DS) Background Art Support
Street Fighter V Arcade Edition (PS4, PC - 2018) illustration
Toraware no Palm (iOS, Android - 2016 ) chara-design, background design, illustrations
Toraware no Palm: Refrain (iOS, Android - 201X)
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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| "Re(10):TGS Bundle" , posted Fri 21 Sep 05:37
quote:
Do you remember love when Toshinden was marketed as the counter to Virtua Fighter, back when 3D fighting was new?
What a superdimensional reference! I remember people going nuts over Toushinden, which is puzzling in retrospect, although it was temporarily kind of pretty, and certainly much flashier than Virtua Fighter 1, which was very boring to my young eyes. But by the time beautiful Virtua Fighter 2 came around, that was that. I had NO idea they were the same people behind Oneechanbara, however!
Meanwhile, I am going to talk about this quote:
SF5 is getting a dojo mode and a dojo.
over here, since SFV currently features in about three different threads.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master   |
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Oh Naka-san, do you know how meme your character has become on the internet 
"Re(3):RANDOM GAMES #36- AZEL!" , posted Tue 30 Jan 18:11:
"Autobiography of a Fleece" , posted Thu 15 Feb 14:28
"The Famicom Mini is back!... in two offerings" , posted Mon 14 May 23:48
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!? 
).
