Better camera, Lakitu got the sack? He was okay…mostly
Delfino Plaza seems like a cool hub
The levels are huge, like 2-3 times as big as Mario 64 worlds
Mario's movement feels great, super responsive and easier to do his more '''''intermediate''''' moves from 64 like the 'run one way, jump backwards in the opposite direction'. The loss of the long jump will be mourned but soaking the ground in front of you as you run so you can jump into a super fast slide is a fun substitute.
-The level design so far isn't bad, but it's all just different parts of Delfino right? That might grate a little after more Shines. No snow stuff or anything?
-Not sure what to make of FLUDD overall yet.
-FLUDD-less stages are big stress
Enjoying it quite a lot so far, boss fights have been real fun (the one where you pull a squids arms was fucked up wtf). The huge levels seem to be a way for them to fit different objectives on the same map as I've done some that had me ignoring like 80% of them to get a Shine, same as in M64 of course but those stages were smaller.
Additional PLAY: Rock Band 4 - Managed to get a second guitar from the scumbags at CEX; I thought I was getting a basic black Strat but they shipped me a really nice folding Jaguar controller. Now I'm back into this with quick bursts before I start work in the mornings, but can also play co-op with Debs when she's around. Had a quick look at the DLC to see what's new since I last played and hoo mama, that's dangerous for my wallet.
I think it's still on sale digitally on Xbox for £12 or so right now… as a karaoke game where you just need a USB mic, that's not a bad deal.
The Rivals expansion is pretty cheap usually, that adds lots of stuff including loads of songs, a second story mode and a whole asynchronous multiplayer mode where you form a “crew” with other players and compete in weekly challenges for unlockables and rewards. It’s pretty good.
Worth checking in the store for free stuff too, there’s quite a bit.
Yeah, already grabbed Rivals and all the free songs. Think my tally is now over 600 (which also covers exports for RB1, 2, 3, AC/DC and Green Day… I missed LEGO RB sadly). Still lots of songs I'd like to get though.
I finished Last of Us 2: The Never Ending Story last night. I was being egged on this weekend by the guy who loaned it to me and, at about 11PM when I told him where I was he indicated this was nearly the end. Think I finished it off about 2AM.
No spoilers follow, the vaguest of nods to portions of the game but I've tagged it anyway. Spoiler - click to show There's a lot of really great and interesting stuff in it but I didn't think it stuck the landing. I don't have anything much to add that hasn't been covered in the main thread but the back half of the game left a larger impression than the first half (marking that as Ellie's journey to the Aquarium). The game seems to step up a notch as you approach the Aquarium and then, although there's a sense that it tried to shoehorn a lot of character legwork into the second section, it felt a fresher, more engaging and, dare I say it, fun (nothing in the game is really fun but.. You know… Degrees of everything).
There were moments in the 2nd section where I was genuinely shocked and delighted when beats from the first half of the game are tied up or you're seeing events unfold that you only heard about in the first half.
The end section goes on a bit but I found Santa Barbara more fun (cough) than a lot of what came before but had a feeling that was due to the 2nd half empowering the player. I just wished the character motivation had been softened a bit in the run up to the final fight and that last encounter was cut altogether with everyone going their separate ways.
I've picked up with God of War again this evening, though haven't progressed the story much; just bimbled about in a side area, freeing a dragon and looting an old Dwarven castle. I'd forgotten almost all of the controls, but it started to come back to me quickly enough; it's just like riding bike.
Ah thanks for the heads up! I'll definitely hold fire then.
(I didn't wait.)
YouTube's creepy algorithm recommended a 'How to start Forsaken' video, and I figured it out.
Genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Varied missions, sense of humour, a plot that actually made sense(!). I didn't do any of the post-game stuff (it never appeals), so on to Shadowkeep now which is equally fun so far.
The halloween music in the Tower has jumped straight into my list of Best Game Choons, too.
Oh, okay then! You should pop over to the Dreaming City and try and find Petra Venj. She probably has some quests for you in that area which, if you followed Forsaken closely, you probably haven't even been to yet! It's a great looking area with some great visuals and some really good music.
Spoiler - click to showYou can also pop to the tower and speak to Banshee-44 about getting Cayde's handgun as an exotic. It is extremely stompy and has a really nice quest associated with it where you go around the system to all these places that were important in Cayde's story and find hidden lockboxes he left behind with 'if you were the one that did it…' messages
Also, the Dreaming City has maybe the best raid in the game in it. 5 encounters that all have mechanics that layer on top of each other, teaching you how the fights go, teaching you what the symbols on the walls mean and how to read them until you feel like you're solving a puzzle while climbing this incredible tower with your friends as a space dragon rips the joint up.
Upgrades are real easy to do now. If you get a piece of armor that you like the stat rolls on (look for 60+ rolls mostly) you can keep it and feed it a 1050 roll using an update module later on. Upgrade modules are available from Banshee for credits, from bounties he offers or through the season pass. They are very cheap and plentiful. Honestly, don't worry about light level for stuff, you'll get to 1050 pretty fast and then it's onto the pinnacle grind.
It's an exotic, so you can resummon it from your inventory/collections tab and it'll come out at an appropriate light level.
Additional Play: Disgaea 5. This is the Complete version on the Switch and it's just a big glorious sea of big numbers to splash around in. Like most Disgaea games, it's nowhere near as funny as it thinks it is and the characters are vaguely annoying, but then you don't really play these things for the storyline and at best it's an interruption to the hugely important task of making things hit really really hard. There's so much to do here it's hard to know where to start - even as a veteran to the series I'm struggling with some of the new features like Squads, Sub-Classes and Interrogation, and how reincarnation works in this game is anybody's guess (it sort of made sense previously) - but these games have a way of gradually introducing stuff so I'm kind of just going with the flow and I'm sure it'll all make sense in the end.
Mario Sunshine - It's better than I remember but I gave it a real go and it's definitely the weakest Mario for me, the levels in the end of the day aren't nearly as memorable as Mario 64's, partly because they've all blended into one big Delfino mish mash in my brain and partly because some of the level themselves are kind of not that good, like the Harbour or the Theme Park which both feel like they have large parts of them that only exist to fill space. And some of the shines, like all of the ones where you chase Shadow Mario to hose him down until' he gives up feel like wastes of time.
It's a lot shorter than I remember it being too, even though there's more mandatory levels I think there's half as many worlds but a shit ton more hidden Shines dotted throughout. There's a whopping 22 Shines I think gotten just from finding every Blue Coin one by one and trading them in ten a pop for a Shine from the Cabin. I like extra Stuff to do and all but those Blue Coins ain't it for me, either you take a while with a guide or forever on your own…not in 2020 I'm afraid :shrug:
I think the best thing to sum up how uninspired some of the game can feel at times is that really lazy 'came and went' final boss at the end where you tip over Bower's bath by rocket jumping and then butt slamming the bits at the 4 corners. It felt like it was missing at least 5 mechanics, it's such a whimper to end the game on. Special mention to the part before that where you have to steer a boat through a Lava cavern and not bump into ANYTHING, so of course it's fucking called Corona Mountain, literally could not have released this collection at a better time.
Finally, made my mind up about FLUDD. It's kind fun, it had potential (the other fun but underused nozzles you get) but it's biggest impact overall feels like an easy jump corection device. It's hard to deny that when Shadow Mario steals it from you and you have to do those levels without it that you actually just end up having more fun..then almost as if to reinforce this further you'll get it back and have to chase Shadow Mario whilst spraying him with it for several loops around a level until he gives up, basically something only possible because the FLUDD is a thing. If the whole game was based of the FLUDD-less levels maybe we'd have another stone cold classic but I guess they tried. Luigi Chads win this ROUND HAHAHAH LOL POLTERGUST > FLUDD!!!!!!!!!!!1111 XD
I find it hard to say it's irreeemably shite, but for a Mario game I think it's harsh enough to just accuse it of being unfun in places. Look forward to a non Galaxy player-Oddysey player's impressions of Galaxy tomorrow! D:
They really released their limiters for this one huh? I did the first three Stars for the first Galaxy and had a blast just collecting star bits and blasting through space. I don't even know what the hell just happened tbh, there was a gravity capsule planet, some hollowed out planets with me running on the walls from the inside..then a dinosaur plant thing that I knocked out with it's own cocnut tail, I fed a star some bits then it exploded and became another planet. phew!
There is one issue for me though and I dunno' how big it's going to be yet and it has nothing to do with the game: I didn't realise I'd have to use Joycons and mine have some drift, enough that at times Mario walks to left as he fights my input to move right . I have a pro controller….an unofficial one, I can't remember anything about the official one having Gyro stuff but I guess I knew and then forgot, either way I can't use mine. So far it's not really hampered my enjoyment yet, but who knows how many Black Holes I'm going to fly into by accident later? Pretty annoying considering it's not exactly my fault.
When it was unoticable, I forgot how fun it is to play games with them with both arms totally unrestrained though. Such a nice little console .
Ha, it's actually good that people are starting to pay attention to the the gacha part of the game now, even beyond the rolling aspect once you finish the current patch story it becomes a fairly different game. You've explored everywhere, you have dailies to do and the game is currently hampered by a very tight 'stamina' system that limits what you can do unless you pay money, though I think in it's current form it's not actually worth spending too much money because some of the low gacha rates and stuff are kinda ridiculous.
It doesn't ruin everything for me (It has severely limited how much I can play a day though atm) but I think people will start dropping it once they finish the patch and realise the grind can't be avoided forever. On the bright side, the current co-op event was great and a good sign of things to come. New characters will soon be available (if you can roll them, 0.6% chance btw) and they released a new trailer that's as high production values as the rest of the game, it doesn't seem like they intend to rest on their laurels at least (I imagine they can't, this beast probably requires soul sacrifices to keep alive, god help us).
(Kick ass, Klee! Fly as free as the bombs you like to throw around so haphazardly )
In my case, keeping up with Granblue Fantasy is hard enough, let alone this too. Not to mention the new FFXIV patch mode content (Which I should do a write up on soon, as it should interest Wev who I think can actually take part in it now)
Nah, that looks extremely fucking sinister. Dislike.
Not sure how, it's ridiculous.
I really need to put some time in this. Jumpy Dumpty!
Well I meant more about the incredibly manipulative Gacha shit coupled up with the cutesy kid/weeb friendly character designs. Thinking about it and how it could be/will be applied to other games gets you into some extremely dark places extremely fast.
Gacha shit coupled up with the … weeb friendly character designs.
This is not a new thing. I follow a fair few hardcore otaku types on Twitter, and most of the ones who can read Japanese have been side-loading apks for anime-style gambling collectathons at least since Granblue Fantasy came out in 2014, if not some flavour of Idolm@ster before that.
Genshin Impact is, however, worrying for its sudden ubiquity, and the alarmingly breathless press it's received. But rapid iteration on existing mechanics is the way mobile games do business, so it was inevitable that someone was going to break into the mainstream with a gacha game eventually.
Buy this isn't even unprecedented with big-name games companies - Nintendo (who own part of gacha mobage pioneers CyGames) have implemented these mechanics in all(?) of their own mobile games.
And honestly they're not any more objectionable than loot boxes (which is to say, they are a scourge and a danger and should probably be banned).
Nah, that looks extremely fucking sinister. Dislike.
Not sure how, it's ridiculous.
I really need to put some time in this. Jumpy Dumpty!
Well I meant more about the incredibly manipulative Gacha shit coupled up with the cutesy kid/weeb friendly character designs. Thinking about it and how it could be/will be applied to other games gets you into some extremely dark places extremely fast.
But, hey, jumpy dumpy
Ahh, gotcha. Yeah, I see that and definitely agree with both you and aniki at the clearly intentional leverage of the mechanics. I thought you meant the character design in general and the storyline they're presenting. My bad.
And if we're talking loot boxes, Pokémon Go's refusal to acknowledge that its egg system is a version of that absolutely sucks. The new one, a red Rocket egg, can get fucked. Having to do a bunch of battles, then win a boss fight to get one, THEN walk 12km to hatch something that's got more of a chance to be a goddamn Absol than anything new? No thanks. They need to at least release the percentage chances as everyone's suggesting. Just because you buy the egg incubators (the means of hatching) and not the egg itself doesn't make it exempt from being a loot box.
I was unable to get 69420 triumph points but this is still pretty good
There's some of that patented Bungie being really fucking weird at us with an ARG probably happening right now too in Destiny, so that's neat. https://www.bungie.net/7/en/direct/analyze
I bought the first once and bounced off it. Bought Taken King when all the articles said "this is what Destiny should have been!", disagreed and left. Bought Destiny 2 when all the articles said "this is what Destiny should have been!", disagreed and left.
But this time, something has changed. I don't know whether they've done something to the gunplay, or the gameplay flow, or maybe it's just the Xbox One X factor… but I suddenly can't stop playing.
I've done things in a weird order (Forsaken > Shadowkeep > Osiris > Warmind) because it's still a directionless mess, and I forgot to Google the order. And I don't have Live Gold, which has made most quests outside of the main one impossible, but I've really enjoyed myself. Pleasant surprise of 2020, that.
(Also worth saying, I never would be one of these people who grinds the 'end game' and plays raids. So maybe what's changed is, the game finally has a wealth of single-player story content with unrecycled areas. All for free – thanks Game Pass.)
A lot's changed. The gunplay's a lot snappier and feels closer to what Halo should probably feel like these days. It really is tremendous feeling.
What expansion did you like the most? I really liked Foresaken but, man, I'm gonna miss Mars. Warmind was the debut of one of the bigger, weirder science fiction ideas that doesn't stray too far into science fantasy. Mercury, Io, Mars, Titan all being deleted at the end of the season in 20 days time is really something. There's going to be an big in-game, live event called Cataclysm Protocol which might involve the change over to Beyond Light.
(Also worth saying, I never would be one of these people who grinds the 'end game' and plays raids. So maybe what's changed is, the game finally has a wealth of single-player story content with unrecycled areas. All for free – thanks Game Pass.)
It's also worth pointing out that the raids are pretty easy at the moment. If you were on PC, I would grab you, make a group of nerds, and content tourist you through them because they really are something special!
What expansion did you like the most? I really liked Foresaken but, man, I'm gonna miss Mars. Warmind was the debut of one of the bigger, weirder science fiction ideas that doesn't stray too far into science fantasy. Mercury, Io, Mars, Titan all being deleted at the end of the season in 20 days time is really something. There's going to be an big in-game, live event called Cataclysm Protocol which might involve the change over to Beyond Light.
Yeah Forsaken and Mars were probably my favourite two (still playing Mars). The facility on Mars feels like the closest we've gotten to identifiable, future-sciency buildings. I'd like to see a bit more of that; something that survived the cataclysm intact.
I'm definitely planning on hopping back in when my Series X gets here. My character is at least a year and multiple expansions behind the curve, though.
Yeah Forsaken and Mars were probably my favourite two (still playing Mars). The facility on Mars feels like the closest we've gotten to identifiable, future-sciency buildings. I'd like to see a bit more of that; something that survived the cataclysm intact.
Boy do I have good news for you about Europa, then. There's a lot of exploring sciency Clovis Brey buildings to be done, including a trip to the Deep Stone Crypt which is somehow tied to the Exo's lore.
I'm definitely planning on hopping back in when my Series X gets here. My character is at least a year and multiple expansions behind the curve, though.
Boy do I have bad news for you about Europa, then. Anything from the game pre Foresaken is disappearing into the disney vault.
Darkest Dungeon - There's a Kickstarter for a board game version and I might have got a little overexcited. Backed it immediately. That box is going to be rammed, the way it's flying through stretch goals.
New Play: Mortal Shell
I can't remember what the appetite round here is for the Soulses games but I'm a fan of the whole lot. I enjoy the initial run and like digging about online for the lore once I've completed the game but the process of playing it endlessly or even a NG+ hasn't ever appealed. I've not played any of the DLC either because the barriers these games put up to getting to the content is so idiosyncratic and unintuitive. I get it but I don't totally get it.
Mortal Shell hit my radar on release because it was billed as a more streamlined Souls-like. There are no character upgrades, limited weapon upgrades but there's still unforgiving combat, cryptic lore and foreboding world style. It really delivers on the description and is reckoned to last 10-20 hours rather than 50-100.
I'm enjoying it after a fashion. It does a few interesting things that add to the genre although I've put off writing about it because it's also incredibly childish. There's no way the devs weren't snickering up their sleeves when they based the story around retrieving glands and having a central mechanic where the main character can 'harden'. The harden mechanic is interesting; there are no shields but the player can hold a trigger to turn to stone. You can do this at any point – mid swing or while falling – and it acts as a block. It's good for fights and if you're surprised. Parrying is also more forgiving and grants health a la Bloodborne. You also use preset characters called Shells. These have different attributes that can't be altered. One has high stamina but low health. One has high health but low stamina. One is an all rounder and the last one is a geek who gains benefits from exploring lore.
There are also only 4 weapons in the game but these can be upgraded to do more powerful and different attacks. It does a nice thing where you get to the hub and you can see there should be extra shells and weapons. You can examine their crypts/weapon slots and get a glimpse of where they are in the world then go off and explore looking for the landmarks these visions showed. After that you find three dungeons where the glands are located, retrieve them and… that's pretty much the game.
The other unique thing is familiarity with items. If you use an item you find out what it does. If you use it often you become familiar and that can have benefits. There are, for example, yellow mushrooms that if you eat give you X poison damage over X seconds. If you keep taking them you build up poison resistance. You keep finding these seemingly useless mushrooms but then you enter a dungeon full of enemies that can poison you.
The main niggle about the game I've found is that enemies are always super accurate in terms of getting the player. They home in on the player and seem unable to deviate from your path once they're aware of you. As a result a lot if fights involve walking backwards until their animations run their course and then attacking in the window that follows. However… You do get a good item to noise them up. I found the lute early on. Using it makes your character sit down and play which aggravates nearby enemies.
I'm enjoying it but get the feeling that if you weren't into these games already then a lite version probably isn't the place to start.
Getting a little exhausted with Disgaea 5 - it's extremely good but also massively disrespectful of the player's time, I can see myself needing to put hundreds of hours into this even to get to grips with it at a basic level and most of those hours will be fairly repetitive. They've added so much stuff to the series over the years that this is just bursting at the seams, it makes Disgaea 1 (an extraordinary timesink in its own right) look positively streamlined. I dunno, I like it, I'd like to see more of it but I also want to have a life and occasionally play something else, neither of which it seems entirely compatible with.
I did download Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! for about a quid in the sale too and that is very much my sort of thing, a kind of insane pressure cooker of incoming food orders and ticking timers played out in a flurry of button presses that's like culinary rhythm action when you get into the groove. It's compulsive.
Disgaea story modes are not too bad, but the powering up? Yeah that's a grind.
Anyway I beat Mario Galaxy with the bare minimum of 60 Stars, reasons for this were that Cold Steel 4 aka GOTY 2020 is coming out tomorrow and I wanted it off my backlog and secondly….I got burnt out after three Mario games in a row, I really do think I handled this collection in the worst way possible, as well as underestimated how much effort it would feel like to get 120 stars for each game but oh well.
Mario Galaxy is still incredible though, it's just a ton of neat little almost mini levels all with their own 'gimmick' packed into one game, it's a cool idea and more than welcome after Sunshine threw 7 or so different types of Delfino at me. I can't think of any time like in 64 and Sunshine where I was like 'this Star isn't fun to get' although I got a bit fed up of the gravity flipping Mario's directional control in quite a few Galaxies. I'd need to play Odyssey again to see if I truly think it's better though, which I won't be doing anytime soon obviously.
I dunno when I'll return to the collection to get more stars, the honest likely answer is 'never'. I hear Mario Galaxy lets you replay as Luigi to get all 120 again for a final Galaxy? I dunno' how people stomach that when I barely managed just 60. I feel the time I'd do all this extra stuff is looooong past.
It was a lot of running and jumping though! And no story to break it up except the for the wee characterisation in Galaxy that made me despise Peach??? We stan Rosalina
I did download Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! for about a quid in the sale too and that is very much my sort of thing, a kind of insane pressure cooker of incoming food orders and ticking timers played out in a flurry of button presses that's like culinary rhythm action when you get into the groove. It's compulsive.
I had enough gold points to get this free, and played the first day. Fuck, my head hurts from that. I dunno if I can stomach a whole game of it.
I had enough gold points to get this free, and played the first day. Fuck, my head hurts from that. I dunno if I can stomach a whole game of it.
God yes, it’s overwhelming at first but it’s amazing how quickly you’ll improve. Try the other restaurants as they unlock, one of them should click. I think Eaty’s was the most straightforward of the first few options.
One hint is that stuff is always shown in the right order, so if you’ve ticked off a menu item and you’re looking for the next then it’ll never be backwards in the list. Also the buttons for the items are always in the same order X, Y, A, B. Use your Holding Stations, prep as much in advance as you can. Finally if you see something that’s got (say) four options and the customer orders four things then you can just press all the buttons and move on! It will fall into place surprisingly quickly.
A good few hours into Trails of Cold Steel IV now, the game I've been waiting ages for and….it's a Trails of Cold Steel game! That prologue was so fucking sick but…fanservicey in a way that will 100% go over the heads of the people who haven't played Trails in the Sky. I can't imagine doing that bit and not knowing who I'm playing as there. Spoiler - click to showIt's Estelle and Joshua! The characters that started this long series off, way back in Trails in the Sky!.
Anyway, I'm playing bits of Ys Origin here and there and the bosses for this are still as hard as ever, like the rest of the game is easy and very snappy dungeon crawling fun then you get to a boss and die a lot until you learn his patterns. There are 3 characters to play this as, but after I beat it as Yunica I'm going to move on to Ys Memories of Celcetta (The once Vita exclusive one), then I'll play Ys 1 and 2 before returning to Origins as I hear that makes Origins a better experience.
Want
I know Trails of Cold Steel IV JUST came out. But the game AFTER that (Hajimari no Kiseki) has been out in Japan and it sucks knowing unless I take like 2 years to beat Cold Steel IV I wont be seeing peep from it for a year or so. So yeah, I want that. I guess now I'm back on this train I realised how damn comfy it is and don't really wanna' ever get off. ;;
Bin
The release for Cold Steel IV was so botched, pre-load didn't pre-load and also stopped the pre-ordered editions from installing at all for nearly two days. Meanwhile the people who didn't had no issue buying it and installing it. It was a very specific cockblock to everyone who pre-ordered it specifically, never heard of that happening before ever. Understandably people were very salty about this, in the end I had to double dip because I couldn't be bothered waiting since we didn't even have an ETA, so I made a new account and bought it again, say what you want/laugh I don't care. :^) (It's fixed now btw)
. I have a pro controller….an unofficial one, I can't remember anything about the official one having Gyro stuff but I guess I knew and then forgot, either way I can't use mine. So far it's not really hampered my enjoyment yet, but who knows how many Black Holes I'm going to fly into by accident later? Pretty annoying considering it's not exactly my fault.
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