[Mentalist]

Whew, sworded that boss good, finally.

24% of the map explored, there seems to be only one way go now. Unless I missed another fake wall somewhere.

EDIT: May 5th: fake walls are annoying, but hide good secrets, like mana meter upgrades

I also found a relic that creates extra platforms so I can reach some out of the way items.

I desperately need a double jump though.

about 46% explored, beat another boss- this one was pretty formulaic, got him in like 4 tries. Got a few new locations to explore. I collapsed a giant upside-down bell. I hope that was a good thing?

Really good game so far.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 06 May 2021 - 01:31 PM

[Aptorian]

 Aptorian, on 03 May 2021 - 02:45 PM, said:

And then I started playing Kittens. Oh boy. This is an insideous idle game. The tag line "The dark souls of incremental gaming" is no joke. It's not so much an idle game as it's a spread sheet management game.

I've been playing the game for a few weeks and the game keeps opening up deeper and deeper subsystems that all feed into one another. You harvest catnip to feed your kittens. You harvest wood and minerals to build houses and libraries, etc. Then you start collecting metal and coal to upgrade stuff. And luxury items to trade. And soon I'm progressing through the history of kitten civilization, unlocking new scientific discoveries, creating religions, automating cultural progress and exploring the planet. I'm supposed to just check the game every now and then but I find myself just staring at the thing. Micro managing ressources, waiting for the numbers to fill up. Oh, this game's got me good. Good thing I don't have a social life.

Just did my first reset in Kittens after around 3 weeks.

Got a 54% boost to all production and got to religious transcendence levels that I hear I will be able to convert into faith bonus once I unlock space travel and research metaphysics. I've been trying to stay away from the wiki because, like Dark Souls, the game doesn't tell you in detail what all the upgrades and expansions actually do. There's a lot of fun in trying to guess just what new functions do when they open up.

But looking up the faith mechanics and how to reset the game, I realize after the first reset I've only just begun the game - When I reset today I'd just entered the industrial age and was approaching rocketry and nuclear fission. But apparently there's space travel, time travel and summoning Elder Beings still to come.

I've read comments on Reddit from people who've been playing for a year and still not reached the end game despite doing dozens of resets.

EDIT: Just found out that Kittens is apparently in a genre called "Unfolding games". I looked up other unfolding games and I realized I was basically staring into the Abyss from which no social life or chores can be salvaged.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 09 May 2021 - 12:26 PM

[Malankazooie]

Made an attempt to play The Director's Cut DLC for Borderlands 3. Been awhile since I last jumped on, and dang-it, I must have got sloppy with my loot the last few times I played because I spent about an hour cleaning up my backpack and bank. Holy snikees I had duplicates and low level legendaries. I didn't feel like starting any of the new missions after that, so instead I just tracked down the Xur of Borderlands - Maurice's Black Market vending machine. Just like Xur in Destiny 2 a weekly reset happens and the vending machine moves to a new location. Aw man, you can buy legendaries, but shit is expensive!

[Malankazooie]

Still marathoning through AC Valhalla. Level now up to 320s-ish, iirc. I've taken out all the Zealots except one. Been working on just finding all wealth, mysteries and encounters (which amount to little side quests). There are so many of them, I've spent the majority of my time doing that. The map is looking picked clean now and void of any of the yellow, blue and white markers that correspond to these.

Playing this game and traversing everywhere on the map has agitated a question I need to ask - What's the deal with hedgerows in England? They're everywhere. Good thing my horse can jump, but I make it a mini-challenge to spot the openings and gallop through them instead of jumping over the hedgerows, which are EVERYWHERE.

[Mentalist]

Blasphemous update: YUSSS

I beat that stupid Bloodstained crossover time trials quest. Never doing another lantern jump ever again.
Beat the next boss right after- took maybe 5-6 tries, until I got comfortable with blocking basic moves.

Only the final boss to go, so might do a bit more scrounging for collectibles first- I need some more money to donate to the church for a new skin, and also for that retro arcade level (for another new skin).

Generally, the game's been a blast, and I kinda wanna play the NG+ just for the new bonus quest; but I've got a biiiiiig list of stuff, and this can wait.
Without the DLC content, this is a 9/10 game. Love the aesthetics and the atmosphere, the combat is fun, and although there's a lot of frustrating insta-death falls and spike pits, it's generally still a good time as a platformer.

[Mentalist]

Beat the last boss in Blasphemous, and figured I'd call it quits. There's still NG+, and I didn't finish the retro 8-bit stage, but I'm getting annoyed at having to grind the Tears to pay for each run at it-it's set up as an arcade mahine that costs 2500 Tears per run. Not a crazy amount, but I'm just getting tired of it.

Overall, pretty fantastic game. I'd have liked an encyclopedia of some sort that kept track of lore of all the key items I had to use/give away, though. Other than that (and the annoying difficulty spike that was that Convent boss), I largely had a blast with it. The bonus DLC content (the time trials) weren't the best addition imo, since they emphasized a mechanic that got introduced early on, but only needs to be used once to get a collectible in the main game; Whereas the time trials make it one of the key elements. So this was annoying and a significant chunk of my 66-odd hours was spent trial and erroring those. By comparison, only one boss in the main game took me more than a dozen tries.

"Iconoclasts" is very different. It's colourful, feels pretty anime, but the actual story is pretty dark if you think about it. It's really chaotic, too, as a bunch of platforming and puzzle-solving gets interjected by some cutscenes, then a chase sequence and a boss fight; It's certainly a major change of pace.

Edit: the dialogue gets worse, though the world setup is interesting.
This is much more of a puzzle game than a combat-focused one, and it's pretty cool. Not a whole lot in terms of exploration, as the story feels pretty linear, and there's not much use for all the extra stuff I'm collecting (so far). I wonder if it might get more open as I get more abilities?

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 15 May 2021 - 03:35 PM

[Aptorian]

Wasn't really feeling any of the games I had lined up so I decided to pick a wild card from Gamepass. I started up Crackdown 3 and I am having a blast with this game.

I can understand why it didn't get a strong reception and Microsoft wasn't pushing the game, because it looks and plays like an Xbox 360 game. But this feels like all the good parts of the 360 era.

This is basically just more Crackdown. You run around chasing ability orbs and shooting people. Kills for skills is in full effect and the legendary Agency leader is constantly in your ear urging you to be aggressive and get stronger.

Also Terry Crews is a perfect fit for this game. Just the right amount of over the top energy.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 16 May 2021 - 10:24 AM

[Mentalist]

Iconoclasts really goes into weird places with its world-building. Fun bosses, too. The Tower was pretty confusing level, though.
Still not crazy about the extra exploration and secret-hunting, overall, but the story's fun enough to keep me going.

[Bapop]

Finally gave Hollow Knight a try and I am hooked! I'm a big fan of the aesthetics and how thought through all the areas feel. Whenever I fail to get to grips with a boss I can just move on to another area or revisit a previous area with the new skills I have and find new venues to explore.As someone who's gotten stuck on so many of the bosses in Demon's Soul I really appreciate when a game lets you run off to greener pastures and come back once you have a better grip of the game.

[Mentalist]

I really need to give Hollow Knight another try. I rage-quit after losing 2k Geo and then stumbling onto 2 merchants I could've spent them on right after.

It's close to the top of my Metroidvania to play list though, so I'll get to it (again) in a few months

[Aptorian]

I liked Hollow Knight but I quit after a while because I thought there was far too long between check points/Bonfires. I'm not fond of the drop your experience/money on death design when there's five miles from your corpse to the check point.

[Tapper]

Playing Shadow Empire, a TBS hex wargame, so far with little success but enough angles to keep trying and to spend time referencing the (huge) manual.

[Mentalist]

Into the final stretch of Iconoclasts (literally have 100% completion, and just going through a bunch of bosses now).

Things have really gone off the rails.

Spoiler

So at first it was just a "rescue your brother" thing, but then suddenly there's a.... revolution? and we get to City One and end up confronting the Living Goddess, and then the revolution follows us, and then... all the bad guys die, and now suddenly we're off to space to talk (or fight) a cosmic deity (the StarWorm) to save the world?

This is weird. Is this what JRPGs do? I'm not really familiar with the genre, because it had its heyday on consoles back when I was an RTS junkie on PC.

Maark, D'rek, BK? is this normal?

In terms of actual gameplay, some of the secret hunting is a bit "meh". I've used a guide for a few chests and their hiding spots are a bit arbitrary. The overall traversal powes being tied to your 2 tools (the wrench and the gun with its various forms) are clever, and some of the late-game puzzles were pretty fun. I liked the pacing, the combat wasn't bad (for the most part encounter design was solid), and there were loads of fun bossfights to keep things fresh. Took me a while to figure out I can skip cutscenes, though, so that was a small irk.

There's a few secret bosses I didn't unlock, since I' need to visit certain hidden characters at particular times, so this might warrant another run... later.

[Maark Abbott]

 Mentalist, on 19 May 2021 - 03:08 PM, said:

Into the final stretch of Iconoclasts (literally have 100% completion, and just going through a bunch of bosses now).

Things have really gone off the rails.

Spoiler

So at first it was just a "rescue your brother" thing, but then suddenly there's a.... revolution? and we get to City One and end up confronting the Living Goddess, and then the revolution follows us, and then... all the bad guys die, and now suddenly we're off to space to talk (or fight) a cosmic deity (the StarWorm) to save the world?

This is weird. Is this what JRPGs do? I'm not really familiar with the genre, because it had its heyday on consoles back when I was an RTS junkie on PC.

Maark, D'rek, BK? is this normal?

Yes this is relatively tame as far as JRPG territory goes.

[Malankazooie]

Forgot I downloaded Hollow Knight for monthly games from PS +. Decided to jump in. Nice break from what I have been playing. I have the Voidheart Edition. What does that mean?

Having fun. The dying and losing all your currency (not sure what it is called in the game) and landing back at the last bench can be frustrating. There is a travel system though, but I'm just barely into it, so not sure how extensive that is. I've found the second bench, so that has been encouraging.

There obviously are upgrades to allow you access to parts that are currently impossible to get to/through, right? Like the worm child in the glass up on a ledge that my jump can''t reach, and the spikes/thorns that prevent me from jumping on platforms to another little trapped guy.

Really enjoy the visual style, and simple game mechanics.

[Mentalist]

 Malankazooie, on 20 May 2021 - 03:37 PM, said:

Forgot I downloaded Hollow Knight for monthly games from PS +. Decided to jump in. Nice break from what I have been playing. I have the Voidheart Edition. What does that mean?

Having fun. The dying and losing all your currency (not sure what it is called in the game) and landing back at the last bench can be frustrating. There is a travel system though, but I'm just barely into it, so not sure how extensive that is. I've found the second bench, so that has been encouraging.

There obviously are upgrades to allow you access to parts that are currently impossible to get to/through, right? Like the worm child in the glass up on a ledge that my jump can''t reach, and the spikes/thorns that prevent me from jumping on platforms to another little trapped guy.

Really enjoy the visual style, and simple game mechanics.

VoidHeart includes all the DLCs, I believe- meaning, there's more secret questlines scattered throughout the world.

The currency is called "Geo" and you don't lose it when you die- your "ghost" carries it, and if you go back and kill it, you get it all back. The thing is, if you pick up any currency on your way to it, and THEN die before killing your "ghost", you will spawn a new "ghost" (with the much smaller Geo amount), and your previous "ghost" (and the associated Geo) will be gone forever- this is how it worked back in Diablo II as well, so this isn't a new approach.

The game is a Metroidvania, yes. You will gain additional abilities that will let you go back to previously inaccessible areas. There's a decent amount of backtracking in the game, that's why there's a subway system.

I need to go back to Hollow Knight. It's currently 5th in the Metroidvania category in my "to play" list (I just finished item 2, Iconoclasts last night). Unless I get side-racked by Biomutant releasing next week (there's a pretty high chance of that happening, NGL), I should be back to HK in about a month or so.

[Aptorian]

Finished Crackdown 3. What an awesome game. If this had a new game plus I'd jump right back in.

All games should have ability orbs that slowly make you more and more powerful.

[Mentalist]

hey, Apt, you dislike children, right?

Here's a game about being a memory of a creepy clown girl trying to take over the subconscious of a 10 year old boy:



It's like if Cuphead was a Metroidvania, but also made by a Russian with a Master's degree in psych.

It's like 9 euros on Steam, too.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 20 May 2021 - 11:10 PM

[Malankazooie]

Been awhile since I played a metroidvania type game. I think the last one was Guacamelee! Had great fun with that one.

Anyway, it's been a process of brain rewiring to become competent with the timing of Hollow Knight. That, and deconstructing enemy patterns, so as to implement the timing of attacks and avoidance. With that said, do you guys have any advice for a Hollow Knight n00b? I made an attempt at the "False Knight" boss and ehhh, no bueno for me. I think I need to buy some more items before I should try again, not sure though.

[Mentalist]

False knight is the first boss. You kinda have to get through him before you do anything, I think.

Iirc, you just gotta wait until he gets tired and stay away from him until then. It's a pretty basic pattern.