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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jan 27, 2023 16:12:14 GMT -5
Ya'll sound like me with Breath of the Wild. I go searching for shrines, koraks, food and gems once I get off the great plateau. I can't tell you how many times I have played that game and only once fought Ganon; the first time I played it.
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Post by arfetto on Jan 28, 2023 2:45:33 GMT -5
Today I completed Shining Force III Scenario 1 (Sega Saturn). I spent 63 hours on it.
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Post by arfetto on Jan 29, 2023 6:05:05 GMT -5
Tonight I started playing Lunar: Eternal Blue (1994) for the Sega CD. In 2023 I hope to beat a lot of my older games. 
I'm making some animated gifs as I play. ![]()  My flying pink cat, I mean dragon, uses her fire breath to finish off a slime. I like how the old man's hat pops up in the air when he gets attacked.
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Post by impulse on Jan 30, 2023 11:59:35 GMT -5
I'm still playing through God of War: Ragnarok. I'm taking my time with this one and having more gaps than I might otherwise. It seems much bigger and longer, and I also don't want to rush it. Some overall thoughts after being initially impressed with its technical presentation... - I'm still impressed with its technical presentation. It's gorgeous and runs great. Still better than GOW 2018.
- I'm a little disappointed with it structurally. It's more "video gamey" than 2018. It still has the supporting characters chiming in and giving advice, but it's FAR more heavy-handed and obvious. You barely get to a puzzle, and a side character starts giving you instructions. It feels very artificial and unnatural whereas suggestions felt more natural in the first game. More "obvious exposition or pop-up tip" and less organic chatter.
- This isn't the game's fault and is just part of being a sequel, but the story is nowhere near as immediately grabbing as GOW 2018 since the mystery and unknowns of the first game are no longer so. "How did Kratos from GOW 1-3 end up here? What changed? How will these new relationships pan out?" It's just "more." Let's keep the story going. Which is fine, just par for sequels. Just lessens the overall impact.
- I'm glad the devs realized the map in the first game was a big problem and hard to use, so they changed it...unfortunately, it's not much better.
- The armor and weapon management UI seems even more confusing and unwieldy than in GOW 2018, and it wasn't even great there
More surprising to me, I'm actually not enjoying the combat much, at least not nearly as much as the first game for a number of reasons. - There are a lot of really annoying enemy types, especially early on. I get having nuisance enemies that are low-damage but dangerous in numbers and small and hard to hit. They are EVERYwhere in this game.
- Rather than focusing on satisfying battles, the game seems to just have enemies swarm you, so you have to constantly deal with the swarming nuisance enemies while trying to have a serious fight with a stronger enemy type. I get the use in small doses, but they overdo it to the point that it's less challenging and more just really annoying. I'd rather have times when I can have a satisfying one-on-one without needing to constantly manage air support.
- They have SERIOUSLY nerfed runic attacks, including some of my go-tos from the first game. Far less damaging, and cooldowns are insanely long
- Speaking of runics being less effective, that is partially because.... what is going on with the lock-on system in this game?! It unlocks if you switch to a ranged throw, if you get hit, any number of reasons. This is really unusual for this type of game, and particularly frustrating when you are juggling 5 enemies on the ground and 3 or 4 airborne nuisances pelting you all the time. I think this adjustable in the admittedly very thorough accessibility options, and I might go ahead and switch it on to something more in line with games of this type.
- They also seem to have seriously nerfed Kratos. I know some amount of this just comes with sequels. If you kept all your upgrades and strength from GoW 2018 the game would be too easy, but he's supposed to be an incredibly tough god. They seem to have overdone it.
- Also not just strength, but the moves. They took away most of the moves I used in the first game, and I am not personally a fan of what they replaced it with. This might be amplified since I replayed GoW 2018 right before starting this one, so it's more obvious, but I really feel off my footing in the combat. I find only a handful of moves helpful, and you hardly get to use them due to constantly having to dodge being pelted by nuisance enemies.
- Speaking of dodge.... the dodging and parrying/blocking in this game feels sluggish and imprecise. I might be spoiled from having played through most of the recent From Software Soulsborne games since I did 2018 (Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring) but for a game that chooses to emphasize parrying, it feels really roughly implemented, especially after Sekiro which made it artful.
All that is a lot of words to say that I'm still in it for the story, and the presentation is incredible, but the actual gameplay is surprisingly disappointing and annoying. Maybe there is a curve and after getting sufficiently leveled and gear upgrades it will feel more like a seasoned god of war tearing it up and less like a frustrating mess with a glass-jawed protagonist, but for now, some of the shine has rubbed off.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2023 13:15:17 GMT -5
Look at this:
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Post by Batflunkie on Feb 17, 2023 18:58:37 GMT -5
Man, the Mega-CD could have been as great as the CD add-on for the Turbografix/PC-Engine if it had better support and most of the titles weren't bottom of the barrel FMVs |
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Post by impulse on Feb 19, 2023 21:14:18 GMT -5
Man, that was a crazy time of gimmicky add-on peripherals and everyone trying to out-power each other. So much fracturing of the market, splitting content to thin, and pricing average gamers right out.
And I ate up every bit of it in Electronic Gaming Monthly and Gamepro.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 7:53:56 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 18:44:07 GMT -5
Hadn’t heard of this until now:
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Post by Batflunkie on Feb 21, 2023 20:28:01 GMT -5
Hadn’t heard of this until now: The first Star Fox/Lylat Wars is a fun little rail shooter that's moreso just an excuse for eye-candy with all the flat shaded polygons. The unreleased sequel (which is also pretty fun) is what became the basis for Star Fox 64
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Post by impulse on Feb 22, 2023 10:31:43 GMT -5
Star Fox was basically a tech-demo for their new rendering chip or whatever. I wasn't terribly impressed at the time because I didn't appreciate the jump to 3d at that age.
Also, let's be real...early 3D graphics were ugly. IT'S TRUE, AND YOU KNOW IT!
Circling back to God of War Ragnarok...
Finally, now that I am just about in endgame, the combat no longer feels wildly imbalanced. I finally feel like Kratos, God of War, not Glass Joe from Punch Out. The later areas have fewer instances of the nuisance enemies, you can take a punch without dying, and finally you do more than chip damage. For a brief point, I got so frustrated I dropped the difficulty to story mode just to push through. Even then it was no cakewalk. You had to actually be on point, but I could beat bosses in one tough go. This was only briefly in a mid- to mid-late point in the game, because it quickly got to easy. I then put it back on normal, and even THAT is too easy now. It's like I finally got over the curve which came way too late.
There is a late-game area that is rather expansive that is the first time that has really captured the sense of adventure, exploring and hunting of the Lake of Nine in GoW 2018. It's the most fun I'm having in the game so far, which I have otherwise mostly been in for the story.
It remains a beautiful game with stunning presentation. It's a shame how unbalanced and frustrating the combat and gameplay was for most of the game, but at least it got there in the end. Unlike GoW 2018, I don't see myself replaying this one.
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Post by Batflunkie on Feb 22, 2023 18:47:52 GMT -5
Also, let's be real...early 3D graphics were ugly. IT'S TRUE, AND YOU KNOW IT!
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like in the early days with stuff like Battlezone and Tempest it was kind of like abstract art. But when we got to the PS1 era, yeah, it's kind of a visual collage of vomit. Some games still looked decent though like Crash and Spyro, but that's about it
But yeah, stuff like Castle Master is just beautiful to me
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Post by badwolf on Feb 23, 2023 10:05:39 GMT -5
Speaking of early 3D did anyone else play Elite back in the day?
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Post by impulse on Feb 23, 2023 10:34:44 GMT -5
I should specify that I'm referring specifically and primarily to PS1/N64 era 3D when there was a big leap. Like anything else, even technology wasn't immune to the awkward growing phase.
Not to say there were no exceptions or clever tricks to workaround limitations. There were plenty of great-looking games then, too. It's just that sandwiched between mature 16 bit pixel era art on one end, and the more advanced 3D stuff on the other, that batch has aged pretty poorly overall.
Mario 64 was stunning, though.
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Post by Batflunkie on Feb 23, 2023 10:36:24 GMT -5
Speaking of early 3D did anyone else play Elite back in the day? I tried it, thought the controls were a bit wonky, but it is a simulation after all. Thought Frontier Elite II was really gorgeous looking for the time
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