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gamesception · 5 years ago

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@retphienix said:

I gotta thank ya for the @ because I struggle to keep tabs on tumblr with all the updates bricking my addons etc x.x Not that I was particularly on top of things before that lol.

god, same, yeah. no problem.

Also thank you for reminding me that Hollow exists, downloading now because I’m more or less juggling games to see which I intend to sit down and marathon a lot of and that’s a good idea for a title!

I really cannot recommend it enough. Easily the game I’ve played the most over the last couple years, and probably the game I’ve enjoyed the most since Undertale. That includes Dark Souls, which I first played during that period, and I *really* liked Dark Souls.

I would love to hear your take on it, when and if you end up getting around to it. It’s also nice to recommend a game to you that isn’t, like, bad in more ways than it’s good, with the great aspects that do peek out at you through the jank only serving to taunt you with the actually great game that might have been.

I do maintain that a game that’s bad in interesting ways can be a more compelling experience, and make for more interesting analysis, than a game that’s just good, but Hollow Knight isn’t *just* good. It’s fantastic, in a dizzying myriad of compelling ways that are all interesting to discuss, from the way it builds its tone and atmosphere to the way it highlights the best of what the classic 2d metroidvania has to offer while also sidestepping a lot of the genre’s pitfalls.

I don’t know what it is lately with various games I enjoy or try to keep tabs on suddenly and arbitrarily making difficulty spikes that don’t fit the game? I mean, it’s hollowknight, it’s a souls like and all that jazz, but you’d know better than me in this scenario since YOU PLAYED IT

It’s not all that bad, since it really is quite overtly segregated from the rest of the main game, and isn’t necessary to get what otherwise feels very much like the actual canon ending. Honestly, though, I think there was maybe an over reaction on Team Cherry’s part to what seemed to be a relatively common complaint about the base game, one that I would have shared honestly, in that it didn’t feel like there were enough difficult late game bosses to take advantage of the knights full move set.

This is something of a natural consequence of the open design of the game. It starts out pretty linear, but once you get a couple movement abilities virtually the entire map opens up and you can go almost anywhere, finding meaningful progression pretty much wherever you go. As a result, though, the devs are almost never sure of what upgrades you already have when you reach a boss, so they couldn’t really include any in the main game progression that required you to have particular upgrades to effectively fight them.

I think the trade off in favor of exploration is worth it, but it does leave a bit of a gap in difficulty for those who are old hats at 2d platformy action games.

But it seems like what the devs heard was “Hollow Knight is a baby game for little children”, and their response was basically

The first three content pack updates added several new and much harder endgame bosses, most of which are a ton of fun and have fantastic presentations. They even went back and ramped up the difficulty of some of the lackluster bosses in the base game, in particular one boss in one of the few late game areas that does need more of the knight’s move set to reach now calls on the use of those abilities in the fight itself.

And people loved it! All these expansions went over great. People loved the Grimm Troupe in particular, in part because of the legendary difficulty of its final boss. So it’s perhaps not surprising that the devs pushed even further in that direction for the final DLC, one that revolved entirely around bosses, and it’s not surprising that they ended up overshooting the mark for a fair portion of the audience. And given that there are many players super invested in the lore of the game that found themselves gated out of new endings by an absolutely brutal slog of an overlong boss rush capped off by a much more difficult version of the one boss in the main game that most players already thought was impressively hard?

I really do think the Godmaster DLC is worth trying even for those who go in content that they’ll never beat it. Some of the fights that can be accessed much earlier in the DLC are really cool and worth experiencing in their own right, but I have nothing against anyone who takes one look at it and just nopes the heck out, and I can’t disagree with those who point to it as one of the few noticeable flaws in what is otherwise a truly majestic game overall.

Some of it probably comes down to that “souls like” moniker. Hollow Knight really isn’t a souls like. Its a classic 2d metroidvania action-platformer, that just happens to have a similar tone, story structure, and method of lore delivery that are all heavily inspired by Dark Souls specifically. And the game really benefits from that influence. But where the game tries to parrot souls-like mechanics, whether in super hard bosses that the player is meant to throw themselves at repeatedly until they ‘click’, or in the corpse run mechanic, which is overly punishing in the early game when money is hard to come by and some progression paths are gated behind expensive purchases, but means nothing at all in the late game since HK doesn’t have a leveling system like DS does, so once you’ve purchased the stuff you want there really isn’t any cost to losing your cash on hand any more? That doesn’t work so well.

Worse, it’s actively detrimental to the idea of exploring wherever you like, by pointing the player back in the same direction every time they die, when players in the early mid game might be better served by taking death as an indication that maybe they stumbled into an area that’s a bit much for them right now and they might be better served by trying another path first.

There’s one clear example early on of a particularly tough optional boss fight against multiple opponents. If the player dies to this boss, the game even puts a friendly npc on the path back who heavily implies that the boss is maybe too tough for them, and the player should look for a way to upgrade their weapon before coming back. But that npc shows up /before/ the player reaches their corpse, which happens much closer to the boss itself, and by the time you get there to get your money back - again, this is still relatively early game so loss of your money really stings - and by the time you reach your corpse you’re right outside the boss door, and taking another crack at it can feel less daunting than climbing all the way back out of the area.

If you do beat the boss, ... actually, no I wrote a fair bit but no, cut that. I've got more to chatter on about that but I don’t want to spoil more than I already have. The point is, while it’s really cool you can beat this boss and the area behind it “early”, and I love that the game lets you do that, the corpse run mechanic pushes players who are less comfortable with the game mechanics to keep throwing themselves at the fight when they might be better served by trying another progression path.

monhun

I haven’t played the the new Taroth or however that’s spelled. Heck, I haven’t fought master rank jiva either. The most recent thing I’ve tried is the raging brachy. I actually found that fight pretty fun. Reminded me why I like Monster Hunter. But after seven runs in a row without getting a single reactor drop it also reminded me why I don’t like Monster Hunter nearly as much as you & Bard do.

Still, we should do a few runs together again at some point.

Man, what a thing to type when discussing a souls like, asking to martyr myself mentioning difficulty spikes or difficulty modes/options heh.

Honestly, I kind of share the criticism some people have made of the souls-like genre overemphasizing difficulty. Mechanical challenge is a key aspect of the games, but Dark Souls 1 in particular is really Not That Hard. It’s obtuse more than anything else, but once you know what the stats mean, know how to upgrade your weapons, and have a feel for the mechanics, it’s not that bad. Especially if you take advantage of the summoning / multiplayer mechanics. I know purists can get uppity about getting help, but those mechanics are part of the game for a reason. Dark Souls is probably the easiest of the souls-like games I’ve played so far once you know how it works. I’d also say it’s probably my favorite, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

The over-emphasis on difficulty alone when people discuss souls games can get in the way of enjoying them. For instance, it leads to situations like new players trying dark souls for the first time bumping into the skeletons at the start of the game and thinking “wow, dark souls really IS as hard as they say” instead of “these guys are clearly too tough, I must be going the wrong way”. It can also lead to developers focusing too much on challenge, and on a particular /kind/ of challenge, and missing out on the other compelling aspects of Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, including the way Demon’s Souls in particular emphasized delivering a variety of game play scenarios, or how it understood that a well placed deliberate anti-climax of a boss can sometimes be more engaging than yet another straight forward test of reaction time and pattern recognition.

>final achievement BIG CONGRATS, THAT’S SICK! I know what going over the edge on a game renown for challenging gameplay can do to ya, and that’s quite the darn accomplishment!

Thanks! I’m quite proud of myself, even if there are harder things that I still haven’t done in the game yet, and probably won’t ever. Stuff not tied to explicit achievements, but that still have little in game rewards or markers that you’ve done them. I certainly wouldn’t say I’ve mastered the game. But I’ve probably gone as far as I’m going to go, and I’m quite content with how far that turned out to be.

Not that I’m done with the game. I’ve played it all the way through three times already, and I can already tell it’s a game I’ll be coming back to replay fairly regularly.

>no thanks, I think I’m good I’m probably projecting since I’ve said the same thing 100 times (or thought to) on this very blog, but I ‘assume and apologize if I’m wrong in doing so’ you say this because you feel some sense of guilt like you didn’t ACTUALLY do all you could and you must put on airs for the blog and let me say, screw that noise.

Oh, no, not at all. Yes, there’s stuff left that I’m not able to do, and there’s people WAY better at the game than I am, but going by steam achievement records less than 3% of the people who beat the first boss go on to beat the final pantheon, so by that metric I’m in the top 97% of rattatas Hollow Knight players.

So yeah, I feel pretty chuffed with myself.

>Can’t promise it’ll suddenly be my next game, and even if it was it wouldn’t sadly get much showing I suspect because my pc is more or less down. I DID get replacement equipment so MAYBE? But I haven’t sat down and attempted to get my old setup running again.

So it goes. Again, if and when you do play it, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Even if I can’t, like, watch you stream it or whatever. Honestly, I’d like to be able to just blather on about it to you at more length without feeling like I’m spoiling stuff.

#retphienix #redphienix #hollow knight #hollow knight spoilers

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retphienix · 4 years ago

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I think you're thinkin' the Link's Awakening remake but spot on and WW works too since both have that kinda style.

You're worry on this remake being too... well, just a remaster and not a remake- I'm right there with ya, or at least I am now since I hadn't put much thought into the reveal since I'm not nostalgic for 4th- your wish to see them flex on the remake is one I just have to agree with.

Ooh I like that comparison a lot because it echoes shit I've said on pokemon but in a way I hadn't thought to compare.

Pokemon SnS vs Monhun World in terms of "losing" content in order to polish a new idea where one succeeds and the other is pokemon not doing jack.

I said it more roughly, why am I so spicy and grouchy today about pokemon? lol.

On a grander scale I'll be honest and say a bit of what I said on my main.

I, by all accounts, should eat my hat and be proud that Arceus is happening since I literally said TODAY that I think Pokemon should mix things up.

But I'll be brutal and say you might be right on too little too late because I don't feel that at all.

I'll stand by it, I'll eat my hat, this is one of the things I've directly asked for.

But my stance has always been "Pokemon should either refine the hell out of itself instead of being lazy and copy pasting and cutting content and shoving one-time-use gimmicks in, or it should accept some risk and innovate"

They have kinda proven they have no interest in refining and would rather just cut content and play it so safe it loses me entirely- so I was surprised to see them do this.

I am glad they are doing this (arceus that is), but the game itself?

eh... uh...

Open world ain't enough for me to say they innovated, that's just chasing the current nintendo trend, the same trend that existed in all of gaming for years and only works in nintendo right now because nintendo hasn't really done it before.

And the game itself has nothing else that sparked interest in me- combat looked, well, Just bad. Real bad, didn't like that. So the two things they showed were "It's open world!" which by itself isn't much but IS a good step! and "Combat looks bad!" which is the wrong message to send lol.

I have genuine hope that Arceus is innovative, fun, and successful. It did not sell me on this first showing.

Between my two wishes for gamefreak, between refining and expanding pokemon or innovating and mixing up the entire formula- the former is my preference, but I'm glad they are at least TRYING the latter instead of doing neither.

My thoughts on the remake were kinda just nothing? Your words gave me more to say or think on than I had before readin' your take- my entire take was "The chibi models look like shit." because I think the chibi style only looked right in the sprites up to and including 5th gen, 6th and 7th gen used more realistic proportions on 3d models and I prefer THAT for models.

But I can't even visualize what any of the switch pokemon games look like without a google search so yet again, when it comes to pokemon, my perspective is obstructed and lacking.

I just think these 3d chibis look bad and wish they stuck with 3d well-proportioned models. The rest of the game looked... well it looked like what I've seen of let's go? Kinda "meh" battles and all? I mean this part isn't entirely the new dev teams fault but will we EVER see a pokemon game where the pokemon do their god dang moves against each other instead of just flailing particle effects at each other from across the room?

I KNOW THAT'D BE HARD, BUT WE'VE HAD OVER 20 YEARS TO FIGURE IT OUT!

So the 4th gen remake before readin' your take pretty much left zero impression aside from "ew, don't like those chibi overworld models. Shoulda gone half chibi xy or less chibi sunmoon"

But you know what?

Both of us? Imbeciles.

We're not talking about the only objective 100% total success and the next evolution of gaming that was shown here?

SNAP 2 BAY-BEEEEEEEE

So about that Pokemon Direct

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Ok, I was expecting gen 4 remakes, but I was expecting them to be in the style of sword & shield, proper gen 8 games with gen 8 mechanics and maybe an added wild area, or, if failing that, to be Let’s Go style games. This certainly has let’s go style graphics, with maybe an even more simplified overworld art style reminiscent of (though not as polished as) the Windwaker remake. But gameplay wise? These look to be like, tile for tile remakes of the original gen 4 games, the kind of port that you half expect there to be a toggle switch to the original game’s graphics & sound because apart form that this just looks to be straight up diamond and pearl re-makes, for better but also potentially for worse. Hopefully they bring forward some of the rather significant improvements to those games from their platinum 3rd version, including the significantly expanded postgame features from the battle complex, or reschuffling some plot progression to reduce backtracking through the area’s very large routes with their too-frequent random battles.

Also, it’s not even developed by gamefreak? Like, they contracted this out to another company? That’s… I mean, gamefreak’s been putting less and less direct effort into the “main series” games, if this counts as ‘main series’ then we’ve hit the natural endpoint of that trend. But is ‘main series’ even a thing anymore? Will sword and shield go down as the last true ‘main series’ pokemon games? If so, that’s kind of sad.

To be clear, I don’t hate the look of these Diamond and Pearl remakes. The chibi, windwakerish, let’s goish graphics are, imo, a better fit for traditional pokemon gameplay, so if anything I consider them to be an improvement on sword & shield there, even if wind waker did that style much better. And game play wise? I mean certainly the die hard g4 fans should be excited for such a faithful recreation of the original games, but I’m left wondering how this fits in with sword and shield and the series as a whole. Will the available pokemon be limited to the original Sinnoh dex? Will I be able to transfer pokemon in from other games at all? What will the multiplayer features be like? If it’s literally Diamond and Pearl with a different coat of paint, why wouldn’t I just re-play Platinum instead, when that was already an objectively superior version of the same games, and by an even wider margin than most ‘3rd version’ games?

Of course, the big news today wasn’t the games that Gamefreak apparently haven’t been developing, but rather the game that they have been:

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For years people have been saying the pokemon series needed a major shake up. I’m not sure I agree, I think the core pokemon experience still largely held up, and just wanted new pokemon games that maintained and iterated on the best features of previous generations instead of abandoning them. Features like the battle complex, pss, dex nav, your pokemon following you, etc. But many wanted something radically different, a dramatic departure from the staple gameplay elements that have defined this series since red & blue. Ditch routes. Ditch gyms. Ditch enemy teams. Reimagine pokemon from the ground up. Open World pokemon. Pokemon: Breath of the Wild. And this game looks like Gamefreak is legitimately trying to deliver on just that sort of major shakeup.

That’s not what I personally wanted, but it’s at the very least interesting. That’s at least differentg. It looks better than sword and shield. Certainly closer to what I’d expect from a big name switch game. Maybe not all the way there yet, and even in this little teaser there’s still some painful dropped frames, and the overworld pokemon don’t seem to be reacting to anything the character does, and I can’t quite tell if the draw distance is as ridiculously short as sword & shield’s wild areas, so maybe the game will still look like a mess. Sword and shield had problems in its early trailers and they didn’t get better. But there’s still up to a year of development time to go on this, and that’s if it doesn’t get delayed. so I’m not passing any sort of judgement yet.

I will say if this game is mostly restricted to the sinnoh dex, or even less than that, I’ll be much more forgiving of it here than I was with the sword and shield dexit controversy, because Sword and Shield really wasn’t trying much new in terms of gameplay, and the graphics and game balance didn’t show the sort of improvements from g7 that would justify the cuts made to what has been the defining feature of the series to that point, the pokemon themselves. Much like Monster Hunter World’s reduced monster variety compared to previous games was easy to forgive thanks to the dramatic and largely successful overhaul of the presentation and features of that series.

It’s way too early to say whether what Gamefreak is trying here will be successful or not. But again, it’s at the very least very interesting and, to me anyway, extremely unexpected. Maybe too little & too late to draw back those like @retphienix who have already drifted away from the series, and I’m not at all convinced that I’ll like either of these games. But yeah, at the very least I’ll be looking forward to hearing more about them as they get closer to release.

#retphienix #responses

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minisception · 3 years ago

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2021 Summer Painting Challenge: July 17

July 17th? Geeze, what happened? I take a break for like a weekend and next thing I know more than half the month is gone! What happened?

Oh, yeah. Bideo James.

I mean, it wasn't just that, I had a fair bit of house work and work work to catch up on, and my AC broke which left me largely unmotivated to do anything at all until I could replace it, but yeah. What free time I've had so far this month has gone to these two games, one a remaster of a game I loved from the PS1 era, and the other a moody atmospheric 2d platforming metroidvania with a soulsesque feel.

Sadly, Legend of Mana doesn't really hold up. Oh, sure, it still looks good - once you get over the janky mismatch of the clearly-designed-for-CRT pixel art sprites with the crisp, high def, water-color style background art. And the remastered music sounds great. But the combat gameplay was pretty bad by the standards of its own day, and nowadays it's just... I'm sorry, past me, but it's just aweful and absolutely brings down the rest of the experience.

Like, yeah, there's so much to do, so many systems to engage with between skills and special attacks and smithing and pets and spell crafting and robots, and absolutely none of it matters because the core combat system it's all layered on top of, with its sludge-like movement and extremely passive enemies, just doesn't give you any reason to engage with any of it. There's an option in the remaster to turn off the enemy battles altogether, but while the game's various story paths aren't terrible for action rpgs of its era, they're not strong enough to be an entire game in themselves. Such a shame, really. I was hopeing it would be something I could recommend to @retphienix, but while I'd love to hear his thoughts on it, I just can't recommend it as worth the time investment, despite how lovely everything /other/ than the gameplay is.

Ender Lilies on the other hand is actually pretty solid, and it did draw me in enough to 100% it. It's no Hollow Knight, IMO, but for fans of the genre it's absolutely worth a deep dive while you're waiting for Silksong. I'd say it's more on the Castlevania side than the Metroid side, but I honestly haven't played enough Castlevania games to say that with confidence. I do wish it was eventually a bit more clear on some basic details of the premise. Unless I'm mistaken, the game never really explains the 'Rain of Death' that is a core aspect of the premise. Like, does the rain cause the blight? Spread it? Activate it? The blight itself is emanating from the abyss deep underground, how does it get into the clouds to rain down from above? But whatever, the game's more about its atmosphere and tone and themes and gameplay and challenge, and those are all more than strong enough to make up for a bit of murkiness in the narrative, which is pretty common in souls and souls-inspired games regardless.

....

So, anyway. Yeah. With my new AC in place and video game fugue passing, where am I with the Summer Painting Challenge? IIRC my pledge for the month was:

Commission Raven Guard Rhino

10 Zombies

10 Dire Wolves

I had also intended to get some of those sidequest tutorials left over from June done this month, but now it's going to be a bit of a struggle just to finish my relatively modest pledge for July. Not as much of a struggle as the June pledge was, but still. The rhino definitely needs to come first - I was supposed to make commission progress along with the pledge last month and that just didn't happen. The last batch I finished for that commission was so brutally overdue that it's a wonder I can show my face in public. A bit of work yesterday leaves progress here:

A pretty decent start on the internals, which I want to get painted before assembly. The goal for today is to finish the internal painting and basic chasis assembly, as well as assembly & texture painting on the dire wolves and zombies. Goal for the weekend is to finish painting on the rhino chasis - leaving aside accessories like the doors & pintle guns.

The finished product should be something akin to the previous rhino I did for the same commission:

The new one one won't have the same round side doors & fancy modeled front plate, but needs to hit about the same painting quality & style.

#2021 summer painting challenge #warhammer #40k #30k #random video game tangent

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imperial-scrolls-of-honor · 7 years ago

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@retphienix's DW1 replay is making me itchy to play the PS4 version of DQ1 (in Japanese). As much as I love the GBCs aesthetics, I've replayed that version too recently to go back to it yet. I'm not beating DQXI anytime soon to get the free version, and I need to practice my Japanese, I think I'll buy it soon, lol.

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retphienix · 3 years ago

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I've been using emulators since I was a kid and I've only ever toyed with shaders like twice before, so I sat down and toyed for a little bit for fun, there really are a lot of subjective improvements to be made that's for sure.

Despite having played most of these games on original hardware, I've never been a purist who 'needs' shaders built to make it look like it's blurring on an old CRT through composite (hence why I don't fuck with these settings usually) but I gotta admit, I do like how it looks with some of these effects lol.

I wouldn't mind doing some research and trying out some shaders meant to replicate the OG look for some future games.

Also wouldn't mind just fumbling around for a bit for a look I prefer, but in those situations I'm probably gonna say screw it and go unshaded.

Anywho, nice to toy with, some of these looks really do feel like a vast improvement over unshaded and jagged. Others just made me nostalgic but definitely looked worse lol (like, not 'improvement' worse, 'worse worse').

OH! And turns out there's shaders that just show the console as a border if that's your feel for handhelds. That's neat, genuinely fun and explains the widespread use in youtube content lol.

#Pokemon snap #retphienix

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gamesception · 6 years ago

Video

@retphienix

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RPGs with tons of characters

This video is sponsored by Knights Chronicle for iOS and Android, download it here

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retphienix · 3 years ago

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There are so many fucking games I want to play for the blog and I hypothetically have the time, but the energy, the attention span, the drive?

In more positive terms here are some various titles I plan to give a shot for the blog.

Let's do a 5am state of the blog kind of thing to clear some thoughts, eh?

Morrowind (Current Game ramble)

For the moment the blog is more or less on break with me playing Morrowind ""For the blog"" but mostly for me, because that's just a game I've wanted to explore. Not that every other game on the blog isn't that, just that I looked at Morrowind and said "That'll be a terrible game to present naturally. That's a stream game, or a condensed video, not a liveblog" and then did it anyway.

I'm loving Morrowind! Honestly the sense of mystery, fantasy, and adventure is just chef kiss levels of perfect to me.

But it's terrible in a photoset, I'm not particularly interested in doing another format for the game, and it's a game with less 'intense narrative themes!' and more 'Incredibly different game design compared to modern Bethesda' in terms of discussion material and let's all be real here:

We're all fucking tired of that conversation lol.

So there ain't much to talk on in depth, it's more of a "Here's a newbie seeing new things!" playthrough with nothing to talk about after the fact, which ain't a strong point for the blog- again- that's a stream/video kind of thing.

ANYWHO- Morrowind fun, about the only news I can offer on that series is that it might abruptly end and become a 'for me' series because I'm not particularly interested in beating the game nearly as much as I'm interested in exploring aimlessly and seeing what happens.

I'm not playing Morrowind for the end goal of beating the main quest, or beating the DLCs. I'm playing it to wander into caves and find new pants, so if I reach a point where I'm satisfied with what I've shared and my motivation has not borne a new end goal then I'll end the live blog and move on to a new game :P

Backlog

The short statement I'll make is that this blog is a hell for my backlog.

Even without infinite money on hand I've ended up with so many physical and digital games just sitting here waiting to be played either because they caught my eye or because of recommendations by various people over the years.

I keep sitting down, cataloguing my backlog, realizing it's pointless to catalog, deleting it all, and then starting over yet again.

The fact is, if anyone recommended it it's probably still sitting in a text document somewhere, or physically on my shelf, and I don't remotely know when I'll get to it.

I've yet to hit the point where I decide to turn this blog into work, so I have never sat down and gone "Well, Retphienix NEEDS to post! Sit down, 8-12 hours minimum, let's play the next game!"

And part of me wishes I'd do that, but the fact is this isn't a job. There's no money here, there's the opposite even! I don't remotely see it that way, but if you squint and tilt your head I've spent a lot of money on this blog over the years.

Capture devices (a lot of them!), consoles specifically bought for the blog, controllers out the wazoo, I've gone through multiple computers for this thing, and the games, my lord the games- so many games.

And that's fiscally, what about manpower? So many hours have gone into this blog, so many hours poured into the background of making all this work, researching shit, putting my all into formulating my opinions clearly for posts, writing, hell video shit even though it's mostly clips as my one step into edited content became an impromptu awkward hiatus from doing more lol.

What was I on about.

Despite all that nonsense, Retphienix is a passion project. Not a job.

If I lack the passion in some sense then the work doesn't get done "just for the sake of the work". And I don't mean lost passion as much as "No motivation on x day; tired on y day; interested in doing something else on z day" etc.

If things aren't clickin' I don't force it, so the blog has all this backlog and isn't put together in a way that facilitates burning through it quickly.

I do sometimes wish things were different though, I know I'd still enjoy such a playstyle, but I can't justify "faking it til you make it" in a format that literally isn't built to pay and was never intended to.

I can't work myself for nothin'.

Hypothetical "Next" games

While the backlog is a wild wasteland of titles, there are some that just kinda guarantee their spots sooner rather than later.

Yakuza 6 and 7 along with Judgment, obviously. The series is one of my all time favorites and I generally have some of my absolute most fun on the blog side of things with those games, so it's a winner on two fronts. It's just fun to react to, post out of context things for, and talk with other fans about and for whatever reason tumblr has a healthy enough fanbase for the series that my meager blog gets some attention there.

Dragon Quest has a strangely weighted chance all things considered. DQ has many of the same advantages as Yakuza- it's a series I adore, it's fun to talk about in this format, and the fandom is big enough to occasionally spill my way making the blogging experience a bit more fun. It's also a series where I don't know what'd come next to be fair. Probably DQ4? I mean, might as well continue on from that point since I have 1-3 done. I can't exactly justify replaying the entirety of DQ11 no matter how much I want to! Turning on the games above gave me DQ goosebumps which kinda settled how likely it is to show up sooner rather than later, lol.

Jeez. I looked at one of my surviving lists and that's like all that's popping out at me.

Other series feel like giant leaps with no gas in the tank, like do I want to start playing Kingdom Hearts? Not really, not right now. Do I finally play Lisa? Eeeeeeh. Persona? Hmmmm.

I haven't the fuzziest. There are so many one off interesting titles, but if the drive ain't there they might as well be textbooks.

Perhaps instead of any major next game I'll just do some afternoons exploring random titles for a bit here and there with no intention of beating em.

The idea is enticing as hell, but the feeling of not giving the game's a "real shake" feels bad.

We'll see. The only certainties seem to be Yakuza and DQ, as much as I'd prefer far more.

Side project hypotheticals

Outside of the basic live blog stuff I'm still interested in exploring scripted stuff. Mostly to prove to myself that I can overcome some anxieties and break from the meandering pace the last effort gave- I can write! That much I know! So just gotta trick myself into writing for a video and then make the video after the fact lol.

Current thoughts are on a video exploring the monster taming sub-genre. It's a genre near and dear to my heart, and one I know some weird things about as is- but mostly it's a genre I KNOW I know very little about despite that, so I'd like to give it an overall look, or perhaps just explore some random entries, I haven't a clue lol. I'd mostly like an opportunity to talk about some interesting entries in the genre, things like explaining my adoration for DWM while explaining how the flaws make it really rough today, or the interesting mash of genres that is Lost Magic, or the more modern take that mashes idle-like mechanics with Siralim Ultimate.

Won't lie, playing the demo for Monster Hunter Stories 2 threw a wrench in that plan because it made me want to talk about it and how the genre might have a new breath of life after really grinding to a halt as pokemon became what it is today, but all to be seen or not lol.

As far as other things like streams? Not really.

The concept of writing a bit more on games is tickling the back of my head lately, but that mostly just means "more posts that aren't live-blogging" as I haven't the fuzziest where I'd share such nonsense.

Really it's all up in the air as far as retphienix content is concerned, beyond the live blogging obviously.

5am closing

It's fun to explore what games have to offer, both on the individual level, the personal level, and as a whole- as a medium.

So I like Retphienix.

And I like all I've made here.

I hope to continue for a long, long time- no matter what future formats might look like.

#Retphienix

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retphienix · 4 years ago

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It's crazy that I have such memories attached to Army of Two when according to the timestamps on achievements I played it for 5 days in 2008, then came back a year later to do one mission more at least.

Now I know WHY that's the case- this was during a time where I'd play a LOT of hours EVERY DAY, so 5 days of near sleepless play is a lot, and 5 days of play with my best bro at the time is gonna build memories- but it's still a game I effectively played for less than a week in some respect and yet I hold it as a top coop game experience that I've had lol.

Wonder what my timestamps on 40th day look like.

#retphienix #Army of Two

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retphienix · 4 years ago

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It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

#Retphienix #gaming #video games #gaming liveblog

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retphienix · 4 years ago

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Digging my 360 out is always a weird blast from the past for me, especially if I hook it up to an ethernet and look at more stuff (I recall getting really emotional over a lost family member's account still being there the last time I did this, I won't this time I promise).

Instead I just wanted to point at some of what shows up on My Games tab because it's a fun mix of good memories and things I don't recall at all.

Beat Hazard, played a bunch of songs on that.

My nerd ass getting all the achievements on Fallout 3 and NV because I was obsessed.

GAME ROOM existing, oof.

Hitman Absolution was my first hitman game if you don't count a handful of minutes at a relatives! I LIKED it! What the FUCK! lol I'm glad I liked it, but I honest to god could not go back to it today, I'm certain of that.

Maxed cheevos on I Am Alive- a game most don't respect at all but I really enjoyed it at the time- it came out when I was obsessed with post apocalypse stuff so it scratched that itch at just the right time.

I Made A Game With Zombies in it is a MASTERPIECE of a game, highly recommend looking up a playthrough for the music alone.

Iron Brigade is actually a game I've brought up before! For good reason! It's a game I love wholeheartedly and I think to date it is the only game I became THAT invested in the COMMUNITY side of things.

And what a unique experience that was.

Picture a game, right. You love it, it is niche as heck and you love it. The game has an official forum and pretty much no other place on the internet- so the forum is active! The devs are there! The best of the best and the most obsessed are there!

Now picture my nerd ass diving in, making an ass of myself, becoming at least recognized by a great portion of them, receiving a gift from the DEVS THEMSELVES, building the wikia with them, writing guides with them, stupidly turning down the opportunity to be involved in world first perfect runs with them (what the fuck was my problem) building broken strats with them-

I was incredibly active on the community side for that game, I miss that dearly. I really should take such a big commitment step again for the next niche game I enjoy :)

Enough about IB.

I went and maxed out Minecraft on 360 for some reason? What a bizarre thing to do. I'm pretty sure the achievements were stupid as hell (I ain't checking) and I don't recall really "playing" much? But that's also the biggest platform I ever played minecraft on? Oof.

Monday Night Combat, that was a fun game during its time.

Maxed out oblivion- fun story on that one.

Oblivion was one of those few games that I was hyped beyond words before release. I would watch the trailer again and again, I'd talk with friends and family about it nonstop, I recall going on and on about being able to choose how you used weapons, dual wield, one hand, two handed, magic, bow- I was blown away by the concept.

I did a similar bit of "gushing about basic mechanics" with Halo 1 to parental figures, that was fun.

But anyway- I was hyped for Oblivion, and I got all the achievements as you can see- but to this day I have not actually done much in Oblivion lol.

Little kid me was new to the entire concept of an open world RPG!

Little kid me JUST followed the quest markers and ONLY for the main quests and guild quests!

Little kid me did NOTHING in Oblivion! lol

So I have all these hours in it, I went and did a lot of the traditional Oblivion things like making a 100 chameleon armor set with duped sigil eyes or whatever but I haven't actually "just played" Oblivion, outside of stealing, I did a lot of stealing. But side content? Nope.

OH HECK YEAH PAYDAY 2!

I played Payday 2 on 360!

For those who don't know, PD2 on 360 is the OLD version, the OG skill system and the like. It's kind of a train wreck, but I played it nonstop for like a week? Maybe just a weekend? I recall telling my cousin to get it and then I don't remember us actually ever playing? I played with some friends, then by myself, then quit.

Fast forward and I buy it on PS4 and play it TOO MUCH then buy it on PC and play it TOO MUCH lol.

Oh, Rainbow Six Vegas is in the mix. Vegas and Vegas 2 were extremely fun IN THEIR TIME. I'd revisit them with a friend I'd bet, but the liklihood of that is kinda low.

You could use the 360 camera to add yourself to the game which was sick, and I'll never forget that sniper rifles could pinpoint blind fire due to an oversight. If you went against a wall (it's a cover shooter) and clicked in the zoom toggle for a sniper you would "zoom" your blind fire reticle which actually made the sniper go from "blind fire inaccurate" to "pinpoint directly on the reticle accurate" so snipers were busted lol.

If my reckless ramble wasn't a hint at what I'm about to say at the beginning: The 360 was the true height of my gaming history. It was the console I played as a teen which is to say it was the console I had infinite time and resources to pour into, and pour into I did.

Even today I don't just sit around playing games nonstop, sometimes I wish I would, but it just doesn't "fit" anymore- but kid me? He loved that shit.

So when it comes to stories I have about games, most of them are about the 360 which means a lot of them aren't really the most entertaining to share I think?

Most people want to hear about classic game stuff, or modern game stories- but I have all this weird and out of place knowledge about what it was like being obsessed with games on the 360- an experience a lot of people my age also have so, again, they aren't interested in hearing :P

#retphienix #xbox 360

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