[Aptorian]

I tried out Crash Bandicoot 1 and I bounced right off the first few levels. Don't know if I'm just getting old or the games design was always bullshit hard but I had a ton of problems dealing with the platforming and timing.

[Serenity]

Briar King, on 14 September 2020 - 03:55 PM, said:

No exp with the Sky games but I dug the quartz lvl ups. Some of them really help you become a little beast esp the magic focus ones. Phew! You will get some quartz that have multiple spells so it which really helps with the 8 slot maximum.

I got one of the multi-art quartz during the first field study, which was great. I love the way the Trails games actively encourage you to use the big spells and skills. All the games in this series (that I've played so far) are a slow burn at the start, but I'm on the second field study now (with Jusis and Machias scraping sparks off each other!), the main story hasn't even started yet, and I'm already head over heels in love with it

[Maark Abbott]

Mentalist, on 02 September 2020 - 12:17 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 02 September 2020 - 11:52 AM, said:

Playing Deus Ex again. Heard there's a patch or pack of some sort for it that makes it bearable because holy fuck it can't run well on a modern machine.

? Really?

I mean, there's like a million mods for it, but last I checked, it just worked.

I may need to re-install it now.

New Vision and Give Me Deus Ex are 2 most common tweak mods.

I found out the issue is a problem with OpenGL - basically the game runs so fast that it shits itself, so there's a replacement openGL file you can add to it that caps the framerate and from there it plays absolutely fine.

I also went back to Stellaris but am dropping that fully. That new patch kind of made it a drudge and I'm not having any fun with it any more.

[Mentalist]

Been checking out some demos on Steam

Clan N is a vaguely historical beat-em'up set in ancient Japan. Keyboard controls were really weird (O for light attack, P for heavy, U to dodge, etc), so I resorted to the oldest trick in the book- button-mashing. I did pretty terrible, but the demo had infinite lives, I think. Looks pretty, and if I can remap some controls I'd be willing to check out the full version.

Then I tried a demo for "Guardian of Lore", a very pretty-looking metroidvania that has you play as a guardian of a magical library that contains the "lore", aka, knowledge of various people's (based on Native American folklore). You get to actually enter the stories and prevent them from being scrambled and rewritten.
The premise is neat, but the controls are pretty floaty, and I didn't feel anything for that combat. Hopefully these things can be improved before release.

Lastly, I played the demo for "No place for Bravery" , a top-down action-adventure with a very Sekiro-esque combat. It was pretty good until I reached the end boss. That thing can one-shot you in seconds if you fail to parry its many various attacks. Took me about an hour of increasingly mounting frustrations, as I'd die within seconds of engaging, or at best after a few clashes. When you hit an enemy, they flash. When you get hit, you flash, and it's all super-distracting, and the health and posture bars filling up the entire top of the screen are not helping, because they flash, too, but you can't look up and see how much damage you're doing to what, because if you do, you'll get killed in that split second of inattention.

Eventually I DId get into "the zone", where I was able to break his posture bar the required 3 times to deliver a beat-down to the health bar; at which point the demo ended. I am left thinking that the ideas are quite nice, but I'm not sure the soulsborne combat really works well for this type of top-down action adventure where standing behind a massive enemy could obstruct my view of my character entirely. Also, performance could certainly use work, and I'd like those flashes on hits to be optional in the final build.

[Mentalist]

More demos this evening-courtesy of the Steam's "Digital PAX" event:

"Morbid: the Seven Acolytes". Another top-down Soulsborne title. This one's legit. Very gothic, with "Cronenbergian gore"- the devs' description, but it checks out- and fun enemy designs. Played for 75 mins, but hit a stumbling block when button prompts for parry told me to use the same button as what was already being used for my gun. Not sure if that's a typo, so I asked the devs and let the game be for now. Give me a full release with remappable controls and I'm all in on this, though.

"Gestalt- Steam & Cinder"- this was just an updated demo, nothing really new here. Checked out the side-quests and menus; main combat is still clunky because of awkward buttons, though; also, I suck at anything WASD. But beyond that, I can't seem to get the timing right on the dodge-roll, since it's directional and only works backwards from where the character's facing.

Speaking of updated demos- I checked out "There is No Light" again. It was made more helpful, and I can switch a bunch of buttons... But the movement is still WASD, and in fast-paced combat situations I just panic and start blindly mash direction buttons- which is not good here, cuz the demo has spiders as enemies, and they're damn fast.

Conclusion: next month for my birthday, I'll be getting a "proper" gaming keyboard where I can remap WASD to cursor keys no matter what the game might think.

Also checked out a little demo for a game "Guild of Darksteel"- a side-scrolling fantasy action game. Low-poly aesthetic and an interesting combat system. Solid work for a solo dev; I'm not sure I'm sold on the game, but I am certainly intrigued.

[Malankazooie]

"A subtle patina is not an tarnish but a filigree"

[Mentalist]

Beat the demo for "Morbid". I suck at parrying, which does not seem to be doing much, so I just did max dodge-rolls instead. The boss was tough, but I farmed a bunch of "infinite stamina for 15 seconds" items, and that made the killing much easier.

The game is legit. Proper gothic, with a creepy ambient soundtrack and horrifying monster designs. Making my way through that garden filled with various blood-dripping monstrosities gave me REALLY strong Blood Omen vibes. I am totally in for this game.

[Serenity]

Briar King, on 15 September 2020 - 03:01 PM, said:

Serenity, on 15 September 2020 - 10:09 AM, said:

Briar King, on 14 September 2020 - 03:55 PM, said:

No exp with the Sky games but I dug the quartz lvl ups. Some of them really help you become a little beast esp the magic focus ones. Phew! You will get some quartz that have multiple spells so it which really helps with the 8 slot maximum.

I got one of the multi-art quartz during the first field study, which was great. I love the way the Trails games actively encourage you to use the big spells and skills. All the games in this series (that I've played so far) are a slow burn at the start, but I'm on the second field study now (with Jusis and Machias scraping sparks off each other!), the main story hasn't even started yet, and I'm already head over heels in love with it

Yes I know! I find the games to be so fucking predictable but the things like those 2 and other things really bring out the pop of the games.

Your gonna wind up passing me up.

Oh I doubt that!

I am in Chapter 3 now. The boss battle at the end of Chapter 2 seemed a sudden difficulty spike, although I made it more difficult for myself by A) being smart enough to know a boss battle was coming but being dumb enough not to make sure all my s-crafts were ready before it started, and B ) concentrating on the wrong boss first. It still would've been tough, because they hit hard, but those were rookie errors on my part. Still, managed to survive and get through it.

The end of Chapter 2 also featured the second reference I've noticed to characters from the Sky trilogy, in this case Estelle and Joshua (the two unnamed Bracers mentioned by Toval). The first one was Olivier/Olivert's brief and unnamed appearance at the end of Chapter 1.

[Mentalist]

And this is why i hate WASD. My pinky hurts from all the CTRL I've been tapping with it to Dash. When I'm on cursor keys, I also use my pinky to hit Space, but the spacebar has way less resistance than CTRL.

Anyway, I've been playing more There Is No Light demo. Started from scratch, and there's a nice combat tutorial now. Eventually got to the same part (fighting a bunch of different spider breeds in abandoned railway depot that's got toxic waste leaking everywhere- so it's not quite a sewer level, but it sure tries to look like one. Once you actually fight your way through some proper BS encounters, there's a really cool narrative area. I'm not gonna spoil it, but I found the ideas to be really original-and you don't get to say that often about a quasi-isometric post-apoc game.

And once I was through exploring that area and chatting with everyone, there's a whole other section, that's got even more save points (the Depot had 5, this one appears to have 7?). My, that's a real meaty demo.
Gonna keep plugging away at it tonight; maybe check out what's new in the Raji: An Ancient Epic demo, since that was apparently updated as well...

Edit: messed around with AutoHotKey some more, and now it's working in a lot more games. Finished the demo for There Is No Light- it's pretty immense, though the enemy designs kinda suck- not visually, but there's these kamikaze demons that keep spawning in and as soon as you get close they explode with AoE damage- turned some encounters into basically bullet hell, and I'm not a huge fan of that genre.

But, this is good news. With AutoHotKey being a thing that works, I can go back to a bunch of older games I previously put down due to them being locked to WASD. Very good thing indeed.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 19 September 2020 - 06:01 AM

[Maark Abbott]

I got sucked back to Stellaris. The new mechanics took some getting used to but make more sense when you play as outright space assholes.

Currently nearing endgame year so wondering which we're gonna get. There's a large expanse of unclaimed space on the eastern side of the galaxy so I assume Prethoryn Scourge, but I've also got experimental jump tech so I could accidentally summon Extradimensionals...

[Maark Abbott]

Briar King, on 22 September 2020 - 02:56 PM, said:

Play Cold Steel already

I still have three or four games on my JRPG backlog mang

[Aptorian]

Playing more Persona 5 Royal.

I finished the second palace with plenty of time to spare. Just doing daily life stuff now to level up and wait for the next target.

I just did a story bit where two of the boys from the crew, set up an empty apartment to invite a sexy maid over for... They're not quite sure. They just found a brochure at school. And if course they roped me into it.

They chickened out and ran away so my character is left alone with the prostitute. Then it turns out that the prostitute is your school teacher moonlighting as an escort. Very awkward.

This game goes places.

[Aptorian]

I went over board during this Japan sale and bought Persona 5 Royal (instead of the library copy), Nier Automa (I swear I'll play through this one day), Dragon Crown Pro (Because look at them titties) and Castle Vania Symphony of the Night because I should probably play this eventually.

[Mentalist]

Aptorian, on 25 September 2020 - 05:27 PM, said:

I went over board during this Japan sale and bought Persona 5 Royal (instead of the library copy), Nier Automa (I swear I'll play through this one day), Dragon Crown Pro (Because look at them titties) and Castle Vania Symphony of the Night because I should probably play this eventually.

Nier Replicant re-make (of sorts) is coming out in April.

I'm gonna hold off on playing Automata (which I own) until I buy and play through that.

Also, Hellpoint on GOG got updated, and achievements finally work now.

Time to dive back into it. I stopped when Horizon came out on Steam, now it's time to kill some more eldritch space things.

Edit: (Sept 27th). Chopped my way through another district and a half, and actually meeting some NPCs now, which is cool.

Got one more cosmic God to murder; but this last area is immense, and there's an enemy type who frequently kills me with their goddamn radiation attacks. Might be time to switch up my armor, finally...

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 27 September 2020 - 03:31 PM

[Aptorian]

Nier Replicant is a remake of the first Nier, right?

Anyway besides playing A LOT of Persona 5 I also played some Hades last week and I don't think I like the game that much. I get the praise for the art work, voice work, writing, world design, etc. but the actual combat just isn't that fun. I don't like most of the weapons and the spear, which is good, doesn't do enough damage for my satisfaction. The game is also surprisingly one note. It's just one combat room after another. There's no breaks in the combat loop.

[Mentalist]

Aptorian, on 29 September 2020 - 03:29 PM, said:

Nier Replicant is a remake of the first Nier, right?

Anyway besides playing A LOT of Persona 5 I also played some Hades last week and I don't think I like the game that much. I get the praise for the art work, voice work, writing, world design, etc. but the actual combat just isn't that fun. I don't like most of the weapons and the spear, which is good, doesn't do enough damage for my satisfaction. The game is also surprisingly one note. It's just one combat room after another. There's no breaks in the combat loop.

Yes, that's the 2010 Nier, but the Japanese version, where the protagonist is trying to save his sister, instead of his daughter, like it was in the Western release. Also, there's some extra new story content, and gameplay is being fine-tuned with QoL stuff.

[Morgoth]

Aptorian, on 29 September 2020 - 03:29 PM, said:

Nier Replicant is a remake of the first Nier, right?

Anyway besides playing A LOT of Persona 5 I also played some Hades last week and I don't think I like the game that much. I get the praise for the art work, voice work, writing, world design, etc. but the actual combat just isn't that fun. I don't like most of the weapons and the spear, which is good, doesn't do enough damage for my satisfaction. The game is also surprisingly one note. It's just one combat room after another. There's no breaks in the combat loop.

Huh, I love the combat in Hades. I find it fast, smooth and intuitive. I like how every weapon feels unique, and how much the gameplay changes based on what boons i receive.

[Aptorian]

How far are you into the game, Morgoth?

I don't know if the upgrades will improve the feel over time but after defeating the furie/first boss, I just don't feel very satisfied going through the same rooms, dying over and over, gradually getting better stats. It might also be the randomness of "the boons" from the gods. A lot of the boons just don't feel very good to me.

It's probably just me not gelling with the game. The critical and user reception has been very positive.

[Morgoth]

Aptorian, on 30 September 2020 - 08:57 AM, said:

How far are you into the game, Morgoth?

I don't know if the upgrades will improve the feel over time but after defeating the furie/first boss, I just don't feel very satisfied going through the same rooms, dying over and over, gradually getting better stats. It might also be the randomness of "the boons" from the gods. A lot of the boons just don't feel very good to me.

It's probably just me not gelling with the game. The critical and user reception has been very positive.

I'm not sure how to define progress. I got to the end boss of the third layer on my second run, but I struggle to reliably even get to the third level on the average run. I just unlocked the fifth weapon. There are signs now of a much larger story, but only through vague hints and some environmental storytelling.

I make an effort to always pick a boon that's listed as fated (meaning I've not selected it before), and that have shown me some cool skills I normally would not have gone for. Dionysus' in particular I thought to be weak at first, but have found to be very practical in pretty much all situations.

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 30 September 2020 - 10:54 AM

[Mentalist]

Reached the true final boss in Hellpoint.

This is gonna take a while. That final fight is basically a cosmic fever dream.