#after all this time this art thing is still unintuitive to me

[kaiserouo]

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[echoweaver]

Your thoughts on the Sims 1-4

Guess I’m in the mood to do these. Grabbing a tag from @mosneakers​.

Sims 1: The big thing I remember about this game is that it could take your sim hours to cross from one end of the house to the other. Thus, if the sim got up at the normal one-hour-before-work, they often wouldn’t have time to both pee and eat. I got obsessed with designing and efficient house, with the kitchen right outside the bedroom door, so that my sims could get to work with the best mood. 

Then I let the garden go bad, and it would destroy my sims’ mood on the way to the carpool, and it took me forever to figure out what was going on :-D

Sim 2: I remember being thrilled by how much easier it was for sims to get around their house. The introduction of lifespans intrigued me. However, I hadn’t really figured out what I wanted to DO with this sandbox game yet. Playing Sims gets boring if you don’t have some kind of a goal. I’d never heard of a generational challenge, much less rotational gameplay, and I hadn’t plugged into the fan community yet.

I did dabble in mods -- mostly the mod to drastically increase the chance of a sim being abducted when using the telescope so I could make alien babies. I built a household from two CAS-built sisters who were of different races. One of them married a man, and the other a woman, and then I got frustrated that the lesbian couple couldn’t make babies. They adopted, but I was annoyed by how genetically boring their adopted son was. Then I got obsessed with trying to get one of the lesbians to cheat on her spouse to make a baby without being discovered. Where is artificial insemination when you need it?

Later, I created a new sim who married into the Broke family. I got bored and tried to starve Dustin to death to make a ghost. when I removed the door to his bedroom and his needs got very low, he got down on his knees to beg the Watcher for his life. I felt so guilty that I actually turned off the game and never went back!

Sims 3:  This is where it happened for me. Open world and a town that aged with my active household just better matches the way I imagine playing. I even figured out generational play, at least somewhat, before really plugging into the fan community.

I didn’t realize until reading @mosneakers and @natolesims‘s memes that there was so much hate floating around for Sims 3 art style! I admit that I do dislike the child faces. I thought Sims 2 faces were too long and thin. Sims 3 faces seem to have overcompensated by being just a bit too round. Otherwise, I’m quite sure I don’t know what you guys are talking about. LOL.

I don’t think I’d still be playing if it weren’t for NRaas, though. Sims 3′s open world was pretty ambitious, and their data management was totally not up to the task. I spent years offering tech support on people’s blogs when they started to suffer data corruption in generation 2 or 3. You just can’t play without at least minimal mods to clean up save files. It’s unintuitive that a modded game is more stable than vanilla, but it’s just true. Sad, but true.

Sims 4: I have played this very little, not because I hate it but because I am stubbornly determined to finish my 10-generation legacy. A lot of folks just rebuilt their household in Sims 4 and continued to play. At the time Sims 4 came out, I was playing supernatural-heavy games with custom skintones, so I’d lose almost everything if I ported them over. It also turns out that it’s hard to face going from a heavily-modded, 11-expansion experience to a game with base or just one expansion. I have a lot more sympathy for Sims 2 players who skipped Sims 3 entirely.

I have a hard time facing the color presets and closed world, but the game in its current state really seems to have done great things with gameplay. If/when I get the Samples done, I’ll take a look at making the switch. Of course, by then Sims 5 will likely be out, so maybe I’ll skip....

What is your favorite Expansion pack

Generations and/or Seasons. But it’s really hard to choose.

Small pets or Horses?

I really,  really love Sims 3 horses. Since I’m modding pets, it can probably be guessed that I like the animals in general :).

What is your favorite active career?

Yes.

I have had a ton of fun with almost all active careers. If forced to choose, I might go for firefighter.

What is your favorite Lifetime Wish?

Buh. I really dug the Photography one I guess. I just like doing different ones.

Whims or Wants?

I’m sorry. I have no idea what this question even means (blush).

What is your favorite Occult?

I feel like all the occults in TS3 are kind of underdeveloped. That said, witches are pretty cool.

Cowplants, Bonehilda, or the Social Bunny?

Bonehilda

How do you pick your sims names?

I am absolutely OBSESSED with names. I’m sorry I only got to name one flesh-and-blood child, so I let it all out in naming my simmies. I get into the head of the parent(s) and come up with lists from whatever they would like. My saves are very gameplay-directed, and tend to randomize most traits, so I intentionally don’t build a sim to a name or try to make a sim’s name suit their personality at all. After all, when we name our children, we get no say over who they eventually become :).

Do you create a spouse for a sim, or do you go after a townie?

Townie! My gaming style is heavily gameplay-oriented. I want my sims to choose their partner using wishes and attraction and whatever else the game provides. However, I also am incredibly interested in genetic experimentation, so I do allow myself to change the physical appearance of some sims before making babies with them if they are too bland. I populated my Samples save from scratch, largely using downloaded simalikes of real people. I have NRaas set to use existing sims in the town or in my sim bin, to generate new ones. So basically I do my best to have the most interesting genetics pool I can so I don’t need to edit faces.

Do you prefer to follow storytelling Simblrs, or do your prefer gameplay Simblrs?

I’m not totally sure what this is asking either :-D. Are “storytelling” simblrs the ones that largely use the game as an artistic medium for screenshots using poses and whatnot? My play style is to play the game and build stories from it, so I’m not entirely sure what category I fall into myself.

I suppose it doesn’t matter because I follow both. I’m not terribly drawn to dressup challenges and lookbooks.

What year did you join Tumblr/Simblr?

I have absolutely no friggin idea. I tried to look back in my email archive to track notifications, and that failed. I came back after three years, so it has to be at least for years before I returned....?

[nautilusopus]

as someone who's only played FFXIV and looking into getting into the rest of the series, is VII a good game to start with? If not, do you have a recommendation of one that might be? I'm not sure what would be the best jumping in point to the more traditional games, though I am no stranger to RPGs.

That's actually a good question. Obviously I'm biased here but yeah, VII is definitely a solid place to start, in terms of difficulty level, tone. I would also recommend V or IX, since I'm of the opinion that V has the best gameplay in the Final Fantasy series hands down and also is a good introduction to gameplay elements that hold constant more or less across every game, and IX has a lot more "classic FF" flavour of the earlier games but updated with better game mechanics (my first FF was IV and as much as everyone likes to rag on VI and VII, if any game has aged badly it's that one).

So, brief rundown:

VII: Best writing hands down, and it should come as a surprise to no one but I'll die on that hill. Like... fuck dude. Some of the most nuanced character writing I've seen in maybe anything, so much thought put into the world and the themes and how the characters interact with them, genuinely clever plot twist with extremely subtle implementation that only gets better on a second playthrough (if you somehow haven't had it spoiled for you after following my blog for this long lol). The materia system also allows for a lot of player freedom and cool combinations enabling all sorts of different abilities, and it encourages you to get creative with what you can do by linking different kinds. Biggest downsides include the fact that it has some really unintuitive and frankly not fun minigames you briefly encounter, and that it's not especially difficult, which can be a little disappointing at times About the only boss I ever had real trouble with was the Missing Number (which will beat your ass if you don't know what you're doing), so while you CAN come up with cool materia combinations, overlevelling and mashing "attack" is also a viable strategy.

V: Best gameplay across the board. Fun battles, good pacing, doesn't make me do any goddamn motherfucking snowboarding. The job system also allows for a lot of player freedom and strategy, and was eventually lifted more or less wholesale for X-2 (only now it's SEXY~). The story isn't particularly deep, but it's not really trying to be, and what is there is genuinely heartfelt. It's definitely got a stronger emphasis on comedy and is one of the more lighthearted entries in the series. If you're looking to get seriously fucked up on some primo storytelling you'll probably be disappointed, but V isn't trying to be that, and if you just want a fun romp you'll probably really love this one.

IX: Despite the chibi art style this one also has a heavier focus on serious character moments the way VII does, and has almost this weird melancholy vibe to it sometimes that I really enjoy. Also visibly a lot of sincerity put into the plot and characters, and a lot of strong theming as well. Biggest downside of this one is that writing-wise it kinda peters out towards the end. The gameplay on this one is very solid and understandable and fun, but it's a bit more limited in what you can do due to everyone's "jobs" being fixed, and coupled with the lack of the weird Rashomon-esque thing VII had going on it doesn't have the same kind of replay value as VII or V. Still, just a really fucking excellent entry. People compare it to Wind Waker a lot and I think that's fairly apt, both because tonally and art-wise it's pretty similar, and because due to said art style people shat on it so hard when it came out, and it wasn't until much later that it was vindicated by history on account of it being good.

If you're coming in from XIV, I'd say IX is your best starting point, since it shares a lot of the same bones.

Also VI fans are gonna kill me if I don't mention VI so VI is also good and sort of a midway point tone-wise between V and VII, look I'm sorry guys I haven't played VI in years I don't remember anything aside from the fact that I vaguely remember enjoying it please don't yell at me

[kinsie]

Game Impressions from PAX Aus 2019

Wake the fuck up, samurai. We've got a city to burn.

Every year I go to PAX Aus with some close friends to check out the Incredible Future of Games that everyone else already checked out six months ago, along with some cool weird indie shit and some awesome retro stuff. And every year, I write a little diary of what I saw to share my impressions with my friends. This is that diary.

Doom Eternal

Okay, let's get this out of the way. I played Doom Eternal pretty much as soon as I got on the show floor. It may shock you to know that it is, in fact, good.

No pictures of the demo units, sorry, so have this big logo.

The demo started with a little grey-box tutorial map just to teach you what you need to know for the demo level, since it was taken from the middle of the game. It looked very Snapmap-y and had some Doom 2 MIDI music playing. After that we were given about 25 minutes to acquaint ourselves with the lengthy "Mars Core" mission they've been showing since E3. I was at the start of the first arena of the hell bit when I ran out of time. :(

Here are some scattered thoughts from playing:

Your standard running around and double jumping feels much the same as in Doom 2016. The dashing feels great, although I think it might reduce your air control a little afterwards as I had some trouble overshooting a platform in the floating debris bit.

Climbing walls felt a bit weird to me. You have to press E on the wall manually to grab onto it, which feels a bit unintuitive when you're plummeting past it. Also feels a bit odd considering mantling up walls is automatic. You can auto-grab onto walls if you dash into it, but I think it's only for the first bit of the dash? Maybe I'm just bad at videogames.

I think the Combat and Super Shotguns now use different ammo types? I could have swore there were situations where I could select the Combat Shotgun but not the SSG.

The Chainsaw now no longer has even the slightest pretence of being a "real" weapon. It's now just a swing animation when you press the button, like a melee attack, before bringing your weapon back up.

When you have the SSG's Meat Hook attachment, a little meathook icon appears below the crosshair. When you're close enough to an enemy to grapple onto them, the icon floats over them, indicating that it has some kind of auto-aim mechanic to reduce frustration.

There was a monster with swords on its arms that acted an awful lot like the Baron of Hell (might have been the Hell Knight, looking at the Quakecon footage of the same fight) but it looked quite different. Looked fuckin' cool, whatever it was.

The platforming but in the debris section with the giant floating red barrels was actually kind of frustrating. It wasn't always clear where you needed to go, and the climbable bits tended to blend in with the rest of the world. Then again, keep in mind I have a frankly abysmal sense of direction. Thankfully falling into the void just whacks you for a paltry five health and teleports you back onto safe ground.

The locational damage stuff is really fun. Breaking a monster's guns has a satisfying metal "PING" sound to it to inform you that the dude got fucked up and is weaker now, and that you should keep doing it.

When I picked up one of those "?" secrets, the pop-up box told me that they unlocked "collectable dolls" and "cheat codes". The former is vague, but I suspect they'll be like the mini-Doomguys but of more characters. I'd imagine the latter will be like in Rage 2.

Oh, and it looks a million bucks, too. Though you probably didn't need me to tell you that.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with what I saw and it's even more of a pity it's not coming out next month.

Not Indie Games, But Also Not Doom Eternal

The Vive Cosmos felt really comfy - the lack of cabling and the decent display resolution made it feel a lot more natural than the Gen 1 Vives I've previously used. The game they were using to demo (Audica), however, was pretty lame. A rhythm-target shooter that didn't really take advantage of the medium at all.

Bleeding Edge was not inspiring. It was basically the control point mode from TF2 or Overwatch, except every character was a third-person brawler with little emphasis on projectile weapons beyond the occasional special. It felt like someone making a claim at TF2 or Overwatch's throne several years late while bolting a weak character action game on, which is fairly odd considering how innovative and critically acclaimed Ninja Theory's previous game was.

Dreams is fairly fascinating in its potential. The creation tools weren't available in the demo build so I can’t really judge them, instead there was a choice of eight developer-made experiences ranging from Mario-inspired obstacle courses to videogames as art.

I didn't get the chance to actually play MediEvil, but I watched some folks play it and it basically just looks like the PS1 game with more triangles, with all the slightly wonky 32-bit gameplay that entails.

The demo unit for Monkey King: Hero Is Back had some utterly bizarre graphics settings for some reason that made it look like I was playing a JPEG file, with big whopping compression artifacts surrounding each character. Weird!

Not happenin’.

Indie Games

Grabimals is a brilliant local co-op puzzler where players roll around as shapes and link together to solve puzzles like catching a falling water droplet, crossing a gap or casting a shadow that matches an example image. Supposedly it's still a ways off from release, but it's already impressively polished (disregarding one hilarious crash bug we found by accident!)

Hamster Scramble is a really fun take on Puzzle Bobble, with platforming elements, team play and the ability to jump over to your opponent's screen and fuck their plans up directly. It's an absolute blast and didn't feel like it was almost a year away from release.

Fork Knights is a platform fighter with an emphasis on one-hit kills. The character designs are cute, but I can't really say the gameplay itself struck me, to be honest.

Baron is an eight-player single-screen local multiplayer dogfighter. Fairly simple mechanically, but pretty fun all things considered.

Broken Roads had some lovely hand-painted art assets and some interesting ideas like a literal moral compass, but the demo build showcased was waaaaay too early to be shown off to the public. Of the eight or so areas present in the demo, only two had any characters, interactivity or really anything other than wandering around set up, and the combat side of things was extremely rough and sequestered off to a side area as a "well, if you insist..." kind of deal.

Misadventure In Little Lon is a true-crime adventure game for mobile with a unique mechanic - each "scene" is integrated into the real world via AR, with characters (that resemble Poser models more than a little bit) speaking to you directly. Not sure if it holds up over an entire game, but it's attention-garnering at least.

Speaking of true crime, The Black Window tasks players with using an Oujia board to question Australia's first female serial killer, with responses taken from court records and letters from the time. The well-acted performances of the actual individual in question's words lends it an impressive atmosphere, which the booth added to with a big wooden oujia board type thing you could "type" on. Sort of.

ACID KNIFE is real, real early, but the aesthetic is awesome and the pixel art is great. Hopefully it grows and expands into something special.

The Vigilante Proclivities of the Longspur is an oldschool Lucasarts-inspired point-and-click adventure with a custom demo scene set at an oddly-familiar videogame convention. Pretty promising so far, but could do with a good bit of polish - I'm pretty sure there was only one sound effect in the entire demo, and dialogue was often lacking in punctuation.

I didn't get to play Hot Brass but I watched over shoulders and talked with the developers, and it looked pretty cool. It's basically a take on SWAT 4's rarely-imitated brand of tactical copwork, but with a Hotline Miami-style top-down perspective, but with all the characters abstracted down to simple board game like tokens - a circle with a coloured outline denoting attitude towards the player, with a weapon icon if armed.

Blood Metal... Blood Metal is not good. It is extensively not good. Development seems to have only started in July, so one can still hope that the bad AI, unsatisfying gunplay, buggy collision detection and complete lack of damage feedback (outside of some ridiculous, sight-obscuring gouts of blood) get fixed over time. The 80s action movie aesthetic and low-poly artstyle forces it to be compared to Maximum Action, which is at least a fun kind of jank...

This Starry Void is a real-time, tile-based 3D dungeon crawler set in an abandoned spacecraft. It seems pretty cool so far, but it could probably use some UI/UX tweaks. The attempts at a "graphic novel inspired" visual style for the environments could probably benefit from looking at how Void Bastards did things, as well.

Lethal Lawns and Beam Team are fucking arcade games with massive cabinets. In 2019. Granted, they're also on computers and coming to consoles and stuff as well, but still! They're both pretty simple games, and therefore best played in cabinet form.

Unpacking is a "zen puzzle game" by the developers of Assault Android Cactus about the second-worst part of moving house, unloading an unseen character's packing and getting a glimpse into their lives as a result. I wasn’t able to play it due to an unexpectedly-crowded booth, but the pixel art is quite lovely.

Feather is a chill game about being a bird and flying around an island trying to find its secrets. I tried the Switch port, which played alright but obviously (and understandably) toted a lower framerate than the demo PC.

Topple Pop is a cute puzzle game that blends together elements of Tetris, Puyo Puyo and that one joke game that was Tetris but with a proper physics engine. Looks cute, with a fun gimmick!

Shooty Skies Overdrive is an VR spinoff of the popular mobile shmup, and basically similar to that one shmup minigame in Valve's The Lab. Weave your plane, which is attached to one of your hands, through incoming bullets and enemies like a toy! The 3D effect on the incoming projectiles looks great, but they can tend to get in the way of the action sometimes.

Dead Static Drive has been at like the last three PAXes and it looks better every time I see it. I hope it comes out this decade.

Snow Mercy is a third-person shooter/strategy thing where you hunt down icecubes to spend on an army of snowmen to crush your opponent's base before they crush yours. Not a common genre combo, reminds me of C&C Renegade a bit.

The Adventure Pals has graphics straight out of mid-2000s Newgrounds and level design out of pretty much any european platformer, but it didn't seem too bad from my brief prodding at it. The player character is perhaps a bit too small for my elderly eyes in Switch portable mode, but that's about as far as my gripes go.

[game-boy-pocket]

No one asked for it, but here's my RPG experience

Final Fantasy

I've played the first seven, but I use the term "played" loosely. After all, I've only finished the first two and really only enjoyed the first one. I dont know, something about these games just lose me when I try to play them. I really want to give 4, 6, and 7 another chance and I'm dying to play 9, I think I'll like that one. I may also revisit 3, but I think I'd rather do NES than DS... lastly, Mystic Quest actually looks fun to me. Idk, I know it's not a true FF game but it's always intrigued me.

Dragon Quest

Love this series. Finished the first 6, played some of 7, 8, and 11. Loved most of them. Mixed feelings on 2 and 6. The only one that I didnt really enjoy much was 7, which is why I'm playing 8 now despite not having finished 7... I do want to come back to it.

Chrono Trigger

Played and finished the DS version. I might catch some flak for this I think the game is just okay. Frog kicks ass, couldnt tell you most of the games plot points. I'd like to replay it someday.

Super Mario

I played every Mario RPG until Sticker Star and Dream Team. Have no plans to try Color Splash or Paper Jam. Super Mario RPG, and Bowsers Inside Story were my faves. Obviously they left huge impressions on me.

Pokemon

I was a very loyal fan until recently. Gen 7 mark's the first time I couldnt finish a Pokemon game and might end up being the last one I buy. I enjoyed gen 1, 2, 3, and 5 a lot, and they left pretty big impressions on me, as they did many. But I think I've had my fill.

Earthbound

This ones pretty special to me. I played all 3 games back to back, and replayed them all a few times. I'll never forget these games. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Magical Starsign

Picked this one up for dumb reasons. And because I recognized one of the characters from Super Smash Bros Brawl's trophy collection. I dont remember a thing about it other than it having a weird art style and unconventional characters. I dont think I'll ever finish it.

Contact

Another game I picked up for dumb reasons. Another game I could scarcely recall the plot to, other than the cute pixelated scientist man and his dog on the upper screen, and the mindfuck ending where the protagonist becomes sentient and tries to throw rocks at the player... I also remember the start up being rough as hell.

Kingdom Hearts

I played KH1 and KH2. I remember fun action RPG gameplay, and fun Disney fan service. Couldnt tell you a thing about the plot other than it being an incomprehensible word salad. I think I'm ok not playing any more of the series.

Mana series

I played a lot of Secret of Mana, but I lost interest at some point in an inn run by a mushroom creature I think? I dont remember the plot in the slightest. I do remember the menu bein the most unintuitive menu I've ever had to navigate... I also played Secret of Evermore... I remember this one much better but I still abandoned it in the pirate area because it has the same damn menu system.

Tales of

I played Tales of Symphonia to kill time while waiting for the release of Super Smash Bros Brawl. I remember liking the gameplay and graphics a lot but I cant say I remember the plot... here's what I do remember. "Demon fang! Demon fang!" "Titans! Go!" "Dwarven Vow!" Pinching Genus's nose in his sleep for some reason. Yu-gi-oh voice actor. "Yoog-drasil." Lloyd got punched by his dad in front of his friends. I think there was a dog thing? Zelda 2 style overworld.

Undertale

I think this is one of the most creative and fun RPGs with a great cast of characters, a unique idea for a battle system, and an emotional story that I'm going to remember for a long time, I hate what meme lords have done to its reputation..... I haven't played Delta Rune yet, though I downloaded it ages ago.

Skies of Arcadia

One of my all time favorites. Encounter rates can get tiresome though, and I'm not a fan of the hidden "reputation" system, or certain bosses leveling to match you. But this one made a huge impression on me. It's never too moody or serious, but it's also not a total clown show either, it's just the right balance in tone for me

...and thats it. I was considering trying out Breath of Fire on the SNES online once I'm done with my dive into Dragon Quest. Theres actually a few things I may have missed on this list... this was not a good idea, but I spent my time writing this so I'm not wasting it.

[acosmicmouse]

A Cosmic Mouse Guide: Being Small

Happy New Year! /  新年快樂 It is that time when so many of us make resolutions to eat better, exercise, lose -x pounds, gain +500 confidence and energy. But the way society has taught us to do this is stressful and unsustainable. I don’t pretend to be an expert; but I know this: if you aren’t happy, what difference will it make to lose weight? I don’t care how amazing I might look if I did fad diet #4, or exercised intensely every day, or only ate between __ AM and __ PM every day, and obeyed all these arbitrary, unintuitive  rules people have come up with to try to lose weight. Nothing would be worth the stress of it all. Instead, if you want to lose weight this year, I want to invite you to try some things that worked for me. 

Take your time. You don’t have to rush.  Over five years, I’ve lost over 85 pounds. It seemed very slow at times. But I am happy to have taken that time to get where I am now. Any time I would try something new, and it would help me lose weight, the first thing I would ask myself is--can I do this for an indefinite amount of time and still be happy? If the answer was no, I would move on.

Pretend you are at your goal already. What would the small-you do? What would the small-you eat and drink? How would the small-you feel? Why wait until you are small for those things? Try to picture an ideal day at your goal weight, and you’ll find just about all of it is possible today.

Learn what your body likes to eat. After you eat something, see how you feel. Do you feel good and have more energy? Nice! Eat more of that. Do you feel gross, stuffed, sluggish, or bloated? Maybe you want to avoid that food.

Try new foods! Make it a fun and exciting event, once a week, once a month--invite your friends to try new foods with you. Go on a little road trip to different ethnic markets. Research recipes you think you might like.

Try different ways to cook foods! Look up rice cooker recipes. Get a little air fryer to experiment with. Stir fry is always successful. Try making your own dried fruit. Summertime?! Cook your food on a campfire!!!! Let your sense of adventure be your compass. (If you are not a great cook, like me, don’t worry--if it comes out badly, you don’t have to eat it. You won’t gain weight from bad cooking. :D )

Learn when your body likes to eat. Hungry when you wake up? Have breakfast then. Not hungry at all in the morning? Wait until later to eat. Only hungry at 6:18 AM and 9:42 PM? Go for it! After all, you are a cosmic mouse now--you will not be confined by a clock.

Learn how much your body needs. You don’t need to keep eating until you’re feeling stuffed, just until you’re not hungry. If you aren’t sure, take a break--you can always eat more later. You also don’t need to starve. Eat enough, just not too much. If you feel better grazing, then graze. If you feel better having full meals, have full meals. This can be different every day. That’s okay too.

Identify non-hunger triggers. Do you eat when you’re bored? Watch a good show, read a good book, knit, crochet, go for a walk, go snowshoeing, ride a bike, learn a language, start an indoor garden, go on a cleaning spree with music or a podcast on, get in the car and go exploring! Do you eat when you’re lonely? Call a friend. Do you eat when you’re tired? Take a nap or go to bed early if you can. Sad, angry, frustrated, etc? It’s hard, but try to face those things nose to nose like a brave little mouse.

Try different activities! If you enjoy the gym, good for you! But most of us don’t. Exercise doesn’t have to feel like a chore though. Try different kinds of dance. Try ice skating, snowshoeing, skiing, snowboarding, extreme sledding, bowling, golf, hockey. Going for a quiet walk after work can be relaxing. Try qigong, yoga, pilates, different martial arts. Don’t stop until you find something you enjoy. It doesn’t have to be intense either. Gardening may not seem like a workout, but it’s better than laying on the couch.

Use what motivates you, and avoid what pressures you. If the scale motivates you, use it to your advantage. Or if, like me, you feel more pressured by the scale than anything, just weigh in once a month--or not at all! Pay more attention to how you feel, how much energy you have, how loose your clothes feel, and how happy you are with yourself. Use those feelings to motivate you. Once you know how good you can feel, you will want things to stay that way.

Keep your house, car, computer, and workplace clean and tidy. Your mind will take ques from your surroundings. If you live in clutter and chaos, your mind will be cluttered and chaotic. If your surroundings are clean, harmonious, organized, and generally pleasant--your mind will be too.

Make sure you sleep enough. Sleeping less than you need is seen now as a sign of strength and perseverance, but that doesn’t make it healthy. Sleep as much as you need, but not more, as often as you can. If you need to catch up on sleep, it is much better to nap during the day than to go to bed early or wake up late.

Make sure you get enough water. It can be very hard to lose weight if you don’t stay hydrated. Kind of like trying to scrub a pan with a dry sponge. If you don’t like the taste, try adding fruit slices. Foods with a lot of water are helpful too: soups, melons, tomatoes, celery, peppers, eggplant.

Have fun! Time flies when you’re having fun. Before you know it, you will be at your goals. And until then, isn’t it better to have a good time anyway?

Bonus Some of my favorite cooks on youtube: Li Ziqi, pictured above, is my absolute favorite. If you want to see how beautifully life and food can come together, I highly recommend her videos. Mike Chen’s channel Strictly Dumpling is amazing. If you need help awakening your sense of foody adventure, Strictly Dumpling is for you. If Thai food is something you enjoy, Pailin’s Kitchen has tons of recipes and cooking videos.

[kingofthewilderwest]

What do you think is the working logic behind the puzzles in Deponia? I think I said “what is this game?” Or tried to on seeing the stream

“What is this game?” is an apt reaction to this series! XD It’s not every game that, to sabotage a post office, you: gas and steal a parrot… give it to your ex-girlfriend so she rants to it… take the parrot back… and put it on an emergency telephone line, where it can repeat what it heard from your ex and make it sound like it’s reporting an emergency about you… so that the phone operator at the post office is busy and you can sneak in. How did the game writers come up with this? When it comes to bizarre solutions, Deponia has a blast.

Gameplay solutions aren’t easy and can feel unintuitive. It’s probably the most common criticism (outside the edgier humor) for the Deponia series. That said, there is a brand of logic to Daedalic Entertainment’s solutions. I’ve noticed that, in the solutions to games like Deponia, there’s trends.

1. Everything is mentioned for a reason. While solutions might not be easy, I do appreciate that Deponia puts hints in dialogue for what you need to do. What might seem like silly humor or miscellaneous dialogue might actually be an arrow pointing to what you need to do. Every item you have in inventory you need. A high amount of comments Rufus or NPCs say will guide you to your solution. The hints are there, but not blatant, such that an adult player will need to investigate and think.

For instance, in the first game, you’re stuck in a line to meet the mayor. The men ahead of you in line have weirdly shaped hats. Rufus can make fun of those hats, and the men respond that these were made by the roofer because the roofer had nothing else to do. If you go outside, you’ll notice that the village roofs do in fact look similar to these men’s helmets. In fact, you can tell which man owns which house, because the helmet matches the house. So, you need to go to some demolition plans, mark that these houses should be demolished, and ring the demolition bell. Because their houses are now in danger, the men with those hats rush to their homes, leaving you free to steal their spot in line and see the mayor. The hint about the hats is in the dialogue because they mention the roofer, and the demolition plans show you the roofs of various houses... but it’s difficult to realize that how you progress forward in line is by using demolition plans to destroy houses that are part of the game’s background art. You have to make the connection that the demolition plans show houses, which houses you explode must be relevant, and that the roofs of the houses correlate with the men with the strange hats.

I can’t criticize the solution because it’s all hinted. It makes sense once you piece things together. But I did sigh to myself when I looked up a walkthrough and realized what I had to do.

Other times, it’s less direct than that. If you have to interact with the same object three times, for instance, the game tries to hint that by having different dialogue each time. But I sometimes fail to realize the importance of that dialogue change and get stuck because I didn’t interact with the same object enough.

2. Combinations have a convoluted creative sense. It’s a game of inventive substitution for tools. I’m rarely using a wrench as a wrench or cotton candy as cotton candy. Why eat cotton candy as food when I can turn it into a torch?

In the third game, the kids I’m looking after want to be tucked into bed. I don’t have blankets for them, but I can get giant tortillas that work like blankets. I’m using a tortilla outside its intended use, but I’m using a tortilla in a way it can be improvisatorily functioning. Game solutions make an amount of practical sense because, sure, giant tortillas are blanket-like, but because I’m using them in a way I don’t ever use them in real life, it’s hard to realize what I need to do.

Combining items extends the game’s creative difficulty further. I don’t need to use one item in a novel way, but I have to figure out how to combine multiple items into a novel way. We’re building new tools out of random inventory. That can be very hard to figure out, because I’m repurposing multiple things to make a repurposed final tool.

Sometimes, wordplay solutions even happen. Rufus complains about Cletus having oily hair, so to disguise ourselves as him, we should probably use real oil. In Deponia Doomsday, we’re supposed to make a hat out of drinking straws and tin foil… but when all we have is biological straw-straws, we use that as substitution.

There is a logic to how we use items, but it’s markedly different than what we use them for in irl existence. It’s all about repurposing, repurposing, repurposing.

3. Solutions require world know-how and tropes. There’s one point where I’m supposed to mix red and white mushrooms into an alcoholic beverage for a mustachioed plumber - a Mario reference. Another time, I’m to hook Cletus up to a flagpole by his underwear and hoist him up high. Another time, I’m supposed to start to escape jail by releasing a kitten through the bars and watch it climb up a tree, where my jailer then enters Firefighter Mode to rescue the kitten.

All these are tropes we’ve probably heard of: firefighters rescuing cats stuck in trees, underwear getting flown on a flagpole as a prank, etc. But we the players have to recall these tropes ourselves… and use them to our advantage.

We have to look at everything in our environment, how it might interact with other objects, and creatively connect the dots.

There are other trends I’ve noticed with Daedalic’s gameplay solutions, but I think those are the big three trends. Once I figured those out, I got better at picking up solutions in the Deponia series. I’m still liable to get stuck, and some solutions are more natural and feasible than others to figure out, but at least I know what to look out for and how to problem solve.

One last thing, though:

Regardless of what you need to do to get the solution, the game has a delightful way of differentiating expectation from reality. I might use my items for an intended effect. What happens might not be the effect I expected.

For instance, in Lonzo’s bar in Deponia Doomsday, he has a dartboard game with prizes for someone who hits the bullseye. That seems like a good gameplay hint that I need to use a dart to hit the dartboard and get his prize. But, when I, the game player, select the dart and point it to the dartboard… Rufus doesn’t hit the target. The dart bounces off the target, hits Lonzo, tranquilizes him into unconsciousness, and leaves me with a way to steal all his things behind the bar counter. That’s one way to get those items! Not what I expected to happen, but it worked!

I love that the game does this. The player doesn’t have complete control over Rufus’ actions because we can’t control the outcome of his attempts. All we can do is click to attempt; he’s the one that succeeds or fails. He might blunder us into something different than what we wanted! I might try to pull a lever to save Goal, and click the lever to do so, but Rufus will pull the wrong lever and dump her out a moving vehicle. In Deponia Doomsday, I might think I need ice cream for a paintball gun, when the ice cream workers’ kitchen is on fire… but I never save them with a fire extinguisher. Rufus confuses a fire extinguisher with flammable materials instead, sends it to the workers, destroys their place, and gives me access to a new item I wasn’t anticipating.

This creates unpredictability… making the games all the more wacky to experience, the humor more unexpected and hysterical, and Rufus a distinctly unique person in how he crashes through life. 

I haven’t played hoards point and click games, so I’m no expert authority… but I think it’s safe to say Daedalic has a markedly distinct way of how they handle in game challenges and solutions. “What is this game?” is applicable both to what ridiculous solutions I need to conjure, and what ridiculousness happens once I find that solution.

[spiffyworks]

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching

SSSo recently, after finishing (an admittedly long-overdue) a piece, I decided to download a trial of the new Corel Painter 2019. I hadn’t used Painter since my old DeviantArt days (circa 2005) and wanted to see how it felt with more digital art-veteran hands. Loaded it up, started sketching my default doodle-muse and wow, that “Real 2B” pencil feels great. I loved it so much, and wondered why. 

That’s the story that is spawning this weird personal series of Software Surfing. I wanted to write little notes to future-me on how it felt using my favorite sketching tools in each program I have, and after the sixth one I thought it might be a good idea to check out inking, colouring, painting, etc. and writing those down as well.

So I’m writing this series for myself, but making it available in case anyone else can benefit as well. Thanks for sticking with the intro, let’s get into it.

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching Artist’s Software Surfing P2 - Inking Artist’s Software Surfing P3 - Colouring Artist’s Software Surfing P4 - Painting

There are many ways to sketch, but this is specifically the classic “pencil” or “drawing” form using the tools with the program’s default settings.

As an introduction, this is my doodle-muse, Cloey. She was my first original character, and though I don’t usually share my anthro art on here (I know that’s not everyone’s thing) I do have a separate blog for that stuff that you can find here if you’re so inclined. If you’re familiar with Artgerm (and you should be), she’s basically my Pepper.

Corel Painter’s “Real 2B”:

The one that started it all. The pencil just GLIDES, and I’ve always loved when you can tilt a pencil tool and it will shade just like tilting a real-life pencil. The only thing I want from a program now is to be able to bind touch to blenders so I can use my finger to smudge-blend the scribbling. (I tried drawing that fist so many times /fume)

Likes: Tilt functionality, line width variance, stroke speed, eraser Dislikes: Rebinding Rotate Canvas tool was a pain. I like Shift+Space, and that key combo is reflected in the shortcut panel, but it just continued to pan. Never worked for me, and rotating or flipping the page quickly is crucial for my sketching process. Also sometimes if I quickly resize the eraser and mash it down to use, it won’t detect any input.

Photoshop, Kyle Webster’s “2B” & “Animator Pencil”: 

**Disclaimer** Firstly, I’ve used Photoshop for over 15 years now, and it’s a great digital art tool, but for drawing and painting I find it’s sorely lacking. It’s slow, expensive, and unintuitive. That being said, there are some things this program does exclusive to others so I’m still clinging to it (desperately) and while I would definitely recommend something else for budding digital artists, I have to supplement my misgivings by purchasing additional plugins and tools, such as the famed Kyle T Webster’s Ultimate Megapack for Photoshop (

which is now complementary with Photoshop CC, damnit

). Unless otherwise noted, all the brushes I use in Photoshop will be from that pack. **End Disclaimer**

Following off the heels of Corel, I remembered messing around with another “2B” (which btw is my personal favorite traditional pencil to sketch with) in Kyle Webster’s Drawing Box in Photoshop. It felt a bit similar, but with no tilt functionality and it really lacked the chunky-thickness (a scientific term) I enjoyed with Painter’s pencil. I switched to my favorite (and the favorite of MANY digital artists btw) his “Animator’s Pencil”. So chunky, but the ability to shade lightly... It’s really a fun brush to use for sketching digitally. Still one of my absolute favorites.

Animator Pencil Likes: Line width variance, texture fills in and scales perfectly Dislikes: It’s a photoshop exclusive, a program that for some reason you can’t bind shortcuts to whatever you please, takes forever to load, and WAY too often suffers input lag while drawing. Also no tilt shading, :’( aw

Paintstorm’s “Textured Pencil” & “Pencil Tilt”

As a bit of an aside, I love Paintstorm, Paintstorm is what got me back into digital drawing and painting after doing 3D and game design for 7 years. I bought it for the very low price of entry (2 licenses for $30) and was impressed by its ability to customize literally anything in the program. You can create your own tool/brush boxes, bind any shortcut to any key combination, and every single brush tool adjustment comes with the most customization control of any program I’ve come across since Photoshop set the bar way back in the day. Out of the box a lot of the basic brushes have that old OpenCanvas or PaintTool Sai feel, but more recently they’ve added some very textured default brushes you can play around with. It’s also hands-down the FASTEST program I’ve ever worked in. I highly recommend giving it a try, it’s great for learning and experimentation. I grew a lot working in Paintstorm.

The Textured Pencil is a fun sketching brush, you can get as think or thick as you’d want and it keeps a clean outline. The Pencil Tilt really blew my mind the first time I used it. YOU CAN SHADE! It was the first time I had ever seen a program do that. The tilt has a great texture, fantastic control, and gets just as dark as you’d need. I’d recommend using them both, the Textured Pencil for a cleaner sketch, and the Pencil Tilt for something more expressive or loose.

Krita’s Ink-Tilt & “Sketch”:

I’ll be honest, I have almost no experience in Krita despite having downloaded and given it a try back in 2014. It was a hell of a time to figure out how to rebind my usual shortcuts (flip horz, rotate canvas). I couldn’t even rebind colour grab/eyedropper. Yikes. I opened up the “Sketching” brush box and there were only two options, made worse as one was a sketch pen... That lacked the flexibility of ballpoint. 

First I grabbed the pencil dubbed “Sketch” and was bewildered why the size of the circle was so large compared to the mark it made. Very confusing. Feeling intimidated, I abandoned it immediately to try out the “ink_tilt” (which by the way there’s no tilt functionality??) and hated it. I reluctantly went back to the pencil and just started trying to make marks. Wow. It’s weird, but surprisingly fun. You have to be willing to relinquish a LOT of control, but the shapes the brush makes while moving and tilting during a stroke can yield some really interesting and suggestive shapes. I would say great for early concepting or making something really loose and expressive. Fun to play with, but not really practical.

Clip Studio Paint’s Real Pencil & Rough Pencil

I’ve been wholly immersed in CSP since I purchased the program back in late 2016. It goes on sale often, so you can pick up a nice fully featured program for ~$35. I’d had my eye on it for a while and still really want to get into self-publishing comics, so I picked it up, bought a couple of brush packs for it (it’s pretty lacking in default painting tools) and I’ve been illustrating in it ever since. The brush creation isn’t as fun as Paintstorm, but brushes are quite customizable. I usually like to use the “Rough Pencil” if I want just a little texture and line variance, or the “Darker Pencil” for something cleaner. Trying to be different, I just jotted out a couple heads in ones I don’t normally use, the Real Pencil and Design Pencil. The Real Pencil has a lot of texture, but for some reason in CSP the textures don’t seem to scale with the brush, so I tend to avoid using it in most cases. I hate the design pencil, I just could never get dark enough. I guess that’s probably the point, though.

Well, that definitely wraps this digest up. I feel refreshed after trying out a lot of new digital sketching brushes. I was really reminded of how much I enjoyed drawing in Paintstorm. I hope someone other than me found this useful or otherwise inspiring! Sometimes, especially if you’re stuck in some art blockage, it’s a good idea to try something new, and for me digitally that’s hopping programs and trying new brushes.

I’m thinking about doing inks, colours, and painting at some point. Let me know if anyone’s interested in those! I’m planning on doing some for myself eventually, but I might expedite a post if anyone is interested. o/ Take it easy,  y’all.

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching Artist’s Software Surfing P2 - Inking Artist’s Software Surfing P3 - Colouring Artist’s Software Surfing P4 - Painting

[leslogames]

Layers

Wow, what a Ludum Dare last weekend. 72 hours to make a game based on a theme, this time being: “Deeper and deeper”. Normally it takes me a huge chunk of the time trying to think of an idea I want to explore, this time was no different, but actually the time where less I knew what I was doing for the longest time. This is a journey in detail of how I designed the game:

------------------------------------------------------------Brainstorm

Ludum Dare started 3 AM here, so I decided to go to sleep prior to the announcement of the theme, and handle it next morning. I spent most saturday just blocked without any interesting idea to pursue, however, there where two concepts that kept coming back to me:

Digging game, but with water, which spreads when there is space to the right, left or bottom. This would affect the character, making him float, having a sort of “Snake and ladders” situation.

Fossils card game. Having a board with dinosaurs, different cards for different type of soils, in each turn players would place those cards over the board, creating piles that players would have to dig in a second phase of the game.

Whenever I’m looking for jam ideas, there are two big questions to ask “Do I want to make the game?”“Can I do the game in that time?”, very early on I need to know that there will be some art-light way of presenting the game to the player, since I’m not a good artist, and that the programming will be bounded enough.

------------------------------------------------------------Blind work

At night, I was dry. No clear goal, no line of mechanics, no concept of game, no hint of the art and no focused path. I didn’t even open the game engine yet to prototype anything.

“At this point I should be making something, anything”

Opened Game Maker 2, and, inspired by the two previous ideas, I decided to start with the art, trying to make a sprite that could work both as a tile and as a card. Of course, I started with water.

Somehow, I got into the flow of drawing tiles, and made some more. I got a nice looking physical tile look that draw my attention, and worked on a free space spot where these tiles would fit. 

End of day 1.

------------------------------------------------------------Rules

The physical look of the tiles made it weird to make a side view digging game, but I still wanted to explore this idea. I started creating a player character (a cursor), with a movement affected by the tiles the character was in.The first rules I made where:

Empty: player falls south / gravity. Water: player floats north / buoyancy. Fire: ice movement (ironic)

This batch of 3 simple rules was extremely corner casy, like an infinite loop between water and empty, or ending on fire at the edges of the screen. I tried a couple of variations to make it feel right, but it wasn’t making any sense.

However, I liked the idea of moving around the tiles, so worked from there:

Tiles affecting adjacent tiles: The player movement could be normal, but have some stats (life, oxygen, speed) affected by the tile they were in, and after X number of turns, tiles would affect its surrounding. Again, some unintuitive cases made the system unpleasant (fire next to water, who wins?)

Character actually acting as a cursor to select things: I really disliked this approach, a mouse input system would make much more sense. It also felt closer to a match 3 game, that I wanted to avoid, so players wouldn’t be influenced by an existing genre.

Character movement affecting tiles: Ah! This was interesting! It was easy to define rules, the player had much more control over the board and the number of things that happened per turn were limited to 1, making much readable. Got some rules in that made the system playful and unbalanced before letting it rest.

------------------------------------------------------------Sound

Break from design to make some sounds to have a better idea of how the game felt, good sounds can really help understanding a game and allow for more minimalist animations.

I looked for some sounds in freesound.org, and treated them with audacity, combining, removing noise, cutting, adding small effects...

After that I opened Ableton to start composing a main theme for the game. I usually start finding a pair chords + sound preset to get going, after that, a simple melody and some beats. I then copy and paste the number of bars a couple of times, making a couple of variations (no drums here, melody ends differently...), find a spot for a drop down, adding a couple of instruments and followed to reintegrating all the elements in a more uniform composition.

This is the first time that I made the audio in the second day instead of the last, and I really appreciated being able to listen to everything for a longer period of time, to find the weakest spots and change them if possible/necessary (I unfortunately didn’t have the time to polish the song, sad emoji).

------------------------------------------------------------Objective

I jumped to the design to figure out what the game was about before going to sleep. The temporary set of rules I had was clear about something, there were elements that were predominant, and had more chances to end up overpopulating the screen; I needed a way to get rid of tiles.

At this point, I was pretty convinced that I needed to make the game about sedimentation and fossils being preserved, digging was at this point pretty unrelated, and if not, the game would be completely out of the jam’s theme.

To better represent the sedimentation I needed to stack the tiles, and that implied that the information was much less readable once they were stacked. I needed a way to let the player understand the quality of their performance by solely looking at the grid.

I created an automatic system that after X moves a new row would appear on top, and the bottom discarded to the sedimentation pile, that would be the “final score”. Since information needed to be on the grid, every tile should have a clear value to the player, being the lazyest option: points. Another score attack game.

I don’t think points are the funnest stimulous, but they get the work done in a game jam, and I find very fun designing fair system points; there is something pleasant about finding numbers pattern matching what you think it’s fun about the game.

End of day 2.

------------------------------------------------------------Play

After spending the morning making the gameplay loop to work, it was time to play with a more critic mindset. Some weak points I noticed:

The automatic counter condition (X moves) felt claustrophobic, every move mattered, so it wasn’t only deciding how to alter the elements but finding the optimal path. Also, the system creates kind of a dynamic laberinth, where the direction you enter a tile matters, meaning that detouring is a necessary technique for getting the best boards; hence penalizing movements was contradictory. Focusing only on turns where there was some change in the grid seemed to be a much more interesting approach (This was much clearer because I already added the SFX for the “special” moves while there was nothing for the “normal” ones.)

Rock power up (Pushing a row or column) was very strong, if you managed to have two, it was most of the time the best move to make, allowing to change the positions of 5 tiles in a single turn. I needed to limit the number of uses, specially given that I wanted this to be the tile with more value, creating a tension between the powerup and the points it would give.

Air powerup (swapping with any tile) was really weak in comparison to stone, and I wanted both to be seen as “items”, limiting its uses too. I decided to make air actions free, but I regretted it later.

Fire was rarely useful, and only something you wanted to extinguish as soon as possible. Adding a new positive interaction could create more interesting decisions of when to extinguish it. I looked at the possible interactions of the fire with existing tiles, and created a new tile, sand, made by drying mud. I added a couple more interactions to make it part of the system (mud + air: sand, water + sand: mud)

Polishing the values of the tiles after seeing what a random run’s score was, the ideal to me is that the score is near zero, so I decreased the value of all tiles by 1. I also reordered the values so the “heaviest” tiles were the best, trying to match the theme, as well as making the most valuable tiles not appear directly on the grid (a new line is made first by fire, water, grass, mud and one empty space, and then change one random place to another empty space).

Intuitively I chose a maximum of 8 rows, so runs were short, but long enough that empty spaces could ruin the score, making the management of those key for the best scores.

------------------------------------------------------------Tutorial

This is usually my nemesis. I tend to underexplain the mechanics and system of my games and players normally struggle to understand what is going on; I’m in a never ending journey to a middle ground between giving enough information to get started but never holding the hand of the player.

In this case, despite seeing the special moves as simple individually, there were a lot of them, so teaching all of them was not an option: it was too much information at once. However I should explain the difference between a normal move and a special move.

First time doing an interactive tutorial, and I think the result is good, there is a small of initial information, given step by step, and that instead of giving away everything, stops by encouraging players to explore and explicitely acknowledging the lack of explanation. It works much better, although it isn’t everybody’s cup.

Probably the biggest flaw is not pointing towards the UI elements (tile values and highscore list), which was the part of the game the least understood (I misjudged the clarity of those). I also regret forcing the tutorial to stop, instead of allowing to experiment freely until the player pressed or hold a key to start the first run. 

------------------------------------------------------------Polish

Nothing interesting here, except that for the sake of consistency, I made the air power up cost a special move very late, without balancing further, making it a tile that felt more as a punishment than a tool. I will probably add a couple of rules to it after the jam ends to make it more valuable. The rest was adding visual polish, mainly to the score system which was the last thing I added.

End of day 3

------------------------------------------------------------End

This is layers: https://le-slo.itch.io/layers

[aion-rsa]

15 Hardest SNES Games of All-Time

https://ift.tt/3tsRYCX

In their move from the NES to the SNES, Nintendo and its development partners often relied on using 8-bit games as the basis for 16-bit innovations. While that approach helped move us towards the future of gaming, it also meant that many SNES games felt spiritually similar to NES titles.

That also means that many SNES games retained that arcade-like difficulty that would, in some ways, define over a decade of gaming. While the average SNES game didn’t feature nearly as many of the technical and design hurdles that contributed to some of the most difficult NES games ever made, the console is still the proud home of some of the most enjoyable challenges in video game history.

Whether you fondly remember them when you look back on this era or whether they’ve become the star of your worst gaming nightmares, these are the 15 hardest SNES games ever made:

15. The Lion King

Much like how Disney tucked Mufasa’s devastating death scene into a children’s movie, the SNES version of The Lion King lures you in with the promise of a whimsical adventure and then stabs you in the back as soon as you let your guard down. 

The Lion King starts off easy enough (at least relative to other games of this era) and even impresses with its colorful visuals and surprisingly faithful soundtrack. However, most new levels introduce a vicious spike in difficulty that will undoubtedly leave you wondering why you suddenly suck. Then, about halfway through, you’re blindsided by an escape level that’s arguably as challenging as the speeder bike segment in Battletoads due to its use of both front and rear threats rendered in not quite ready 3D technology that makes controls frustratingly unresponsive.

While the latter half of the game steps off the gas just a bit, The Lion King’s challenge roadblocks ensure most young gamers never made it that far. 

14. Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts

It’s amazing that Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts is at least as difficult as its predecessor considering that its controls are vastly improved and the action is significantly smoother overall.

However, it appears that Capcom felt that since Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts was much more “playable” than Ghosts ‘n Goblins on NES, that meant that they could make the game noticeably more difficult. This sequel features more on-screen enemies and more environmental hazards but the same iconic health system that essentially leaves you with a razor-thin margin for error that might as well be non-existent due to how difficult it is to progress after a single hit. 

While this game’s hard mode may be the most difficult challenge on the SNES, I’ll “split the difference” slightly and rightfully refer to this title’s normal mode as one of the most punishing experiences in the history of Nintendo consoles. 

13. Battletoads in Battlemaniacs

Truth be told, I debated whether or not to include Battletoads in Battlemaniacs given that the game is probably slightly easier than the NES original. At the very least, it repeats a lot of the original’s best tricks.

However, familiarity does little to diminish just how difficult this game truly is. Once again, the “highlight” of this game’s difficulty is the various vehicle sections that require you to avoid various obstacles while moving at high speeds. The infamous speeder bike section in this sequel is as hard as it ever was, but I have to give a special shout-out to that vertical scroller level that requires you to maneuver between wall spikes that force you into a “safe zone” that’s only about as wide as your character.

I’d consider this the best way to experience Battletoads due to its visual and control improvements, but the game is so difficult that it rides that line between being addictively challengingly and frustratingly cruel.

12. The Simpsons: Bart’s Nightmare

Yes, Bart’s Nightmare is a pretty bad game that suffers from some often awful controls, but it would likely still be remembered as one of the most frustrating SNES games ever made even if it was a bit more refined. 

Essentially a collection of “minigame” levels, Bart’s Nightmare forces you to quickly master a series of entirely new scenarios with their own rules. That’s annoying, but what makes this game so noteworthy is that some of the individual levels in this game are as mechanically challenging as they are conceptually confusing. There’s no better example of those concepts than the game’s Indiana Jones tribute level: a bewildering collection of platforms and traps that would still be difficult to figure out even if things weren’t constantly trying to kill you. 

This is one of the SNES’ best examples of a game that lures you in with its familiar name and then compensates for a relatively short amount of content by making everything as hard as possible. 

11. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest

Growing up, I don’t really remember hearing many kids talk about how hard the Donkey Kong Country series is. It wasn’t until years later I really started to see more people give this franchise the respect it deserves as the home of some of the most infuriating platformers ever crafted. 

Donkey Kong Country 2 is the arguable apex of this franchise’s difficulty curve. Once again, the “problem” here is the variety of the game’s stages. Even if you’re able to keep up with a series of (certainly creative) new challenges, you’ll eventually encounter a new stage that uses an old mechanic but makes things roughly twice as difficult as before. To make matters worse, the mechanics are spaced out in such a way that you basically need to re-learn them while now battling a much more difficult version of the concept. 

The good news is that Donkey Kong Country 2 is actually a genuinely well-designed game that encourages you to keep trying even as it mercilessly forces you to doubt your abilities. 

10. Earthworm Jim 2

While the original Earthworm Jim is difficult, not even that game can prepare you for how unforgiving Earthworm Jim 2 truly is. 

If Earthworm Jim 2 only consisted of its side-scrolling stages, it would still be in the running as one of the harder SNES titles. However, we once again encounter a “Battletoads” scenario where the game’s special vehicle and race sections raise the overall difficulty to such a degree that I honestly can’t say I’ve ever spoken to anyone who managed to beat this game as a kid or adult without at least relying on emulator save scumming. 

Oh, and the fact that some of this game’s most infuriating levels also see you, quite literally, let puppies down every time you fail is an exercise in pure cruelty. 

9. Jurassic Park

During the 8 and 16-bit eras, it was relatively easy to buy into the idea that a game was simply impossible. While that distinction was sometimes afforded to action titles that demanded perfect reflexes and pattern recognition, you more often heard it used to describe titles of that era that left you wondering “Where am I going, and what am I supposed to do?”

Few games of that mold are more memorable than Jurassic Park. What starts off as a seemingly simple top-down action game quickly reveals itself to be a labyrinth of puzzles, awkward first-person segments, and enemies that can kill you before you have a chance of figuring out where you’re supposed to go next. It honestly reminds me a little of the notoriously difficult Fester’s Quest for NES. What’s worse is that there are no save points or passwords, which means that you’ve got to beat the whole thing in one lengthy sitting.

I’m actually a little impressed that this much creativity went into a relatively early licensed game, but Jurassic Park is a prime example of the kind of game that essentially demands a walkthrough as even figuring out which direction you’re supposed to walk in is often unintuitive.

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Games

15 Hardest NES Games of All-Time

By Matthew Byrd

Games

25 Underrated SNES Games

By Chris Freiberg

8. ActRaiser 2

The original ActRaiser was also fairly difficult, but its blend of platforming, action, and town building is so impressive that you kind of forgive it for its difficulty spikes. For ActRaiser 2, developer Quintet seemingly convinced themselves that the reason people loved the original was because of its challenging side-scrolling levels rather than its variety. At least that’s my best explanation for why they abandoned the town building elements and instead focused on crafting the hardest side-scrolling levels imaginable. 

Much to the dismay of many young gamers, they accomplished that mission in such a way that ensures the mere mention of ActRaiser 2 can unlock a treasure trove of repressed gaming memories. Some of this game’s challenges are amplified by its sluggish controls and animations, but much of the difficulty comes down to the level design. From floating platforms to the pit of deaths, ActRaiser 2 is like a hall of fame for every controller breaking concept of its era. 

The shame of it is that ActRaiser 2 is really just a few tweaks away from being one of the underrated gems of its time. Instead, the game’s only notable legacy is the crushing weight of its difficulty and some great art direction.

7. The 7th Saga

The SNES is rightfully remembered as the home of some of the best RPGs ever made, but few of those RPGs are necessarily remembered among the console’s most difficult games. That being the case, you may go into a game like The 7th Saga feeling pretty confident. 

If so, then consider this your fair warning that The 7th Saga is absolutely one of the hardest 16-bit games ever made. For some reason, this game’s developers decided to make the U.S. version of this game even more difficult than it already was. The result is a project with typical RPG challenges that are amplified by the fact that enemies can survive an absurd amount of damage that makes level grinding more important than ever. Sadly, the U.S. version of the game makes leveling even slower than before, which means that already challenging battles feel that much more laborious.

The 7th Saga is actually a very good game, but its already challenging puzzles, dungeons, and bosses are made legendary by virtue of one of the most questionable difficulty bumps in gaming history. 

6. Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

I actually love the SNES trilogy of Star Wars games and recently wished that a developer would revisit their core concepts and update them for modern platforms. If that happens, though, then there’s going to be an interesting debate about whether those games should retain the difficulty that has come to define The Empire Strikes Backs. 

The other two Super Star Wars games are difficult, but Empire Strikes Back is on another level. While some of the vehicle stages are annoying, they’re not necessarily the reason so many gamers never beat this sequel. That honor instead belongs to the absurd toughness of the average enemy combined with the need to navigate some tricky levels while battling them. How can so many creatures survive so many blows from a lightsaber? Why is absolutely everything in this galaxy (including wild creatures) so hellbent on killing our heroes?

Empire Strikes Back often avoids feeling cheap or especially cruel, but that’s cold comfort for a legion of fans who have still never beaten this game. 

5. Contra III: The Alien Wars

I don’t have to tell most of you that Contra 3 is a hard game. It is, after all, a Contra game, which means that it was designed to be frustrating. Even still, there are reasons why Contra 3 stands out to this day as the hardest game that many of us played growing up. 

Here again, we have a SNES game where the developers must have thought to themselves “Well, if we’re giving them better graphics and better controls, then we should probably make everything more difficult to compensate for the natural frustration we lost.” As such, Contra 3 ups the ante of the franchise by taking what was already a very difficult action experience and adding a variety of expertly placed environmental hazards that keep you constantly off-balance. It certainly doesn’t help that the bosses are some of the toughest in the series’ history and that the game’s top-down segments offer a uniquely challenging break from the standard side-scrolling action.

This is really just a great action game that so happens to also be maddingly (but appropriately) difficult

4. Hagane: The Final Conflict 

Hagane: The Final Conflict wasn’t especially popular when it was released in 1994, but this is one of those games that was “resurrected” by the internet. Those who did play it spent years passionately encouraging everyone to revisit this truly overlooked gem. 

Before you do play this game, though, you need to know that Hagane is almost comically difficult. While Hagane’s generous controls and incredible overall design mean that you’re not hindered by fundamentally unfair mechanics, the sheer amount of obstacles this game throws at you will leave you laughing at the game over screen as you try to process what just happened. Imagine Shinobi with even more enemies and environmental hazards. That’s the basic Hagane experience.

That said, Hagane’s incredible controls, lightning speed, and excellent level design make it worth every frustrating moment you encounter along the way. 

3. U.N. Squadron

You can’t talk about the hardest SNES games without talking about the console’s collection of side-scrolling shooters. Which shooter is the hardest, though? Super R-Type? Axelay?

Actually, I think that honor belongs to U.N. Squadron. This often underappreciated game initially impresses with its surprising customization options, but it’s perhaps best remembered as a stunningly hard experience. Even though U.N. Squadron isn’t as “cheap” as similar SNES games and doesn’t suffer from as many slowdown problems, this title compensates for its lack of inherent issues in other ways. Actually, U.N. Squadron‘s enemies and levels are cleverly designed to quickly produce some of the tightest death zones you’ll find in any SNES game.

Even genre veterans will find themselves sweating during this game’s final levels. Don’t even get me started on how rough the higher difficulty settings are.

2. Zombies Ate My Neighbors 

At a time when zombie games were still a novelty (which feels like a lifetime ago), Zombies Ate My Neighbors allowed players to test their mettle against an undead horde while enjoying creative and colorful visuals complemented by a fairly tight control scheme. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like it would be one of the hardest SNES titles. From moment to moment, I’m not sure it is.

However, Zombies Ate My Neighbors has truly earned that distinction amongst gamers who have actually tried to beat this game. Not only does Zombies Ate My Neighbors feature nearly 50 levels (each of which is more difficult than the last), but the game’s resource system means that even a minor mistake on a level can make every level that comes afterward even more challenging than it would otherwise be. The constant onslaught of resource-demanding bosses can also easily wear down the patience of even the most composed players.

Even amongst the speedrunning community (to which some of the most skilled gamers in the world belong) Zombies Ate My Neighbors is considered to be one of the most difficult games ever made from a completionist perspective. If you really think about it, you’ll probably realize you never actually made it that far into the game no matter how much you played it. 

1. Castlevania: Dracula X

With Super Castlevania 4, Konami dialed things back a bit by granting the player more control over their character. The game was still difficult, but the fact that it allowed you to do things such as swing your whip in any direction made it much more accessible than anything that came before. 

Castlevania: Dracula X, on the other hand, throws all of that out the window and replaces those expanded controls with more environmental hazards than ever before. Considered to be the “true” successor to Castlevania 3 due to its retro controls and design, Dracula X can also be considered the hardest game in a franchise synonymous with difficulty. There is almost no margin for error in this action title as nearly every jump and swing can end your run if they’re not executed perfectly. 

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The cherry on top of this one is a final boss fight against Dracula that forces you to jump across tiny platforms as you try to beat what would already be a difficult boss even without the gimmick. It’s an appropriate nightmare of a gaming experience.

The post 15 Hardest SNES Games of All-Time appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Quick Game Reviews: Games I played 2019

Hey All! We’re doing this again. Just a quick run down/impression of every game I played in 2019 (not necessarily released this year), and whether or not I recommend it and how much.

I don’t really do much creatively now a days. Or at all really so this is just a thing I’ll do.

Let’s get going; there are 55 individual items on this list this year, and 2 of them are trilogies, and then there’s Pokemon in there too, so you know there’s a rant coming! That’s a lot of ground to cover.

... I forgot how to do the tumblr bars that I use to separate sections so it’s just gonna be one big thing separated by just pictures instead after this keep reading split. There’s a lot of games.

Sonic Forces [Steam]

Coming off of Sonic Mania, this certainly served as a wake-up call as to what the Sonic franchise currently is, and how important it is that you have designers that know how to use the mechanics they’re building. It’s not “Bad”, but a lot of parts of it are. Modern Sonic stages are short but fun, the avatar stages had potential but fell short when they focused on the more tedious aspects of combat while platforming, which made the Avatar + Sonic stages a midway point between “Eh” and “Eugh”. Classic Sonic stages were just straight up really bad; They feel weird to play and don’t have any flow going to them whatsoever, which is really bizarre given they had the Sonic Mania team and didn’t work with them to build good levels, and how Sonic Generations at least understood parts of what made Classic Sonic good.

Not a terrible Sonic experience, but an incredibly skippable one at best. Play Colors and Mania instead.

Gizmo [Steam]

Gizmo is a “Prototype” of a 3D platformer that never came to be. As their steam store page suggests, they really love the genre and there’s a lot they wanted to do with it, but they realized that it was out of their scope so they packaged up the level they had and released it for free on steam. Honestly, it’s a really good start and I had a lot of fun with the one level they made; I really wish they could’ve made the full game but absolutely massive props for releasing what they did.

It’s free, like 3D platformers in any regard? Try it.

Suzy Cube [Steam]

Another 3D platformer, but this one’s in the vein of Super Mario 3D Land. Actually... It really IS Super Mario 3D Land in most ways. Definitely not a bad thing; if you’re going to emulate another platformer SM3DL is a good way to go, but that’ basically the experience here; SM3DL but with simpler design and controls, a little floatier as well. Levels are linear but there’s some good stuff in there, though the bosses are very repetitive and do take their sweet time near the end.

Like SM3DL? I Did, and this is more of that, so go ahead

Octopath Traveler: Wayfarer’s Edition [Switch]

I spent a few hours on this and only got to 3/8 characters (this is very little into the game). I can see a JRPG fan loving this, but to me the few mechanics they did introduce where definitely interesting in battle, but were a bit overwhelming and disparate outside of it. This isn’t bad; they definitely mostly allow for different interactions between you, the world, the NPCs and all those interacting with each individual character uniquely, but I wasn’t really in a mood to piece together a great, well-fleshed-out world.

JRPG fans will like it, and while I’m not one of them I can see there’s a lot to like here

The Marvellous Miss Take [Steam]

A Stealth game where you wander the halls of various galleries (levels) and try and steal all your art back without getting caught, as one of I believe 3 different characters (I only got two). Again, I’m a bit out of my element here. I’m not a huge fan of stealth games, as one mistake usually means tossing the whole experience out, but honestly this is a very well stylized, neat take on it so it’s some fun for sure.

A fun romp for Stealth fans, and there’s a lot of missions and variations to take on.

Donut County [Steam]

Donut County is a game not unlike Katamari Damacy where you gather objects to get larger to gather larger objects. Where it varies however is that each level is a linear “puzzle” where you try and figure out how your hole interacts with the environment and what order you need to make things fall in it. It’s a fun experience, but missing any sort of replay-ability or nuance, so the Katamari comparison really ends after the immediate premise. That being said, it’s funny, well-stylized, and a nice little time. The interactions you have with the various elements on screen and the whole are interesting and make for some interesting puzzles and funny situations, but it can’t or at least doesn’t really go very deep with it.

A fun, quirky indie experience. Worth a shot if you want a charming, funny game to have a short but interesting time with.

Ittle Dew 2 [Switch eShop]

Ittle Dew 2 is an incredibly good Zelda-like. Like, very incredibly good. There’s a whole lot to explore, there’s tons of secrets, every part of it oozes charm and character. There’s tons to do and get, and there’s absolutely no shortage of difficulty. There’s even a whole lot of super-secret, incredibly difficult content that ranges from “Oh that was nice to stumble on” to nightmare-inducing monsters in hidden dream worlds accessible only via looking it up or remembering every detail you stumble on and piecing together a series of steps that rival ARGs. That being said, it’s satisfying just to beat alone without going that hard, but man, finding the rest is a whole new experience.

I can’t recommend this enough. This is an excellent, well-made adaptation on the top-down adventure model

Nippon Marathon [Steam]

This is an interesting little game, but for me it fell very short. It’s definitely a better multiplayer experience than single, but it stands on it’s premise: you’re a character running an incredibly bizarre race as if you’re in a Japanese gameshow. It’s funny and weird, and honestly not a bad premise... but for me, it fell on it’s face when you finally figure out how everything works, and suddenly you realize how incosistant and random parts of the games that shouldn’t be are. Platforming is weird, CPUs range from obnoxious to completely useless, and the story itself loves to put like 5-9 cut-scenes between actual gameplay.

Fun with Friends, but only very shortly. I’d just recommend Mario Party honestly.

Super Dungeon Boy [Steam]

This is a pretty standard, level based indie pixel platformer. You can decide whether or not to use checkpoints, when to activate them, and find quite a bit of secrets. Honestly, it’s not bad, but it doesn’t really do anything particularly interesting and I found it overstaying its welcome near the end.

It’s not bad, but you’re better off with some more notable Indie 2D platformers.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy [Steam]

As a big fan of classic 3D platformers, it was a crime that I never got into Crash back in the day. I did try and get through the original Crash on an emulator years later, but honestly I’m glad I waited for this. This trilogy faithfully recreates the original 3 crash platformers, for better or for worse. I loved playing through Crash 1; It’s playstyle is a product of its time, but it’s still really fun and has a lot of secrets. Crash 2 expands on that, adding even more levels and secrets while keeping the core gameplay the same. Crash 3... Did the thing that a lot of series of the time liked doing: focusing on minigames rather than the actual platforming. 2/5 levels in each of the worlds were normal levels, the rest were underwater, auto-runners, races, etc. Additionally, 1 clearly got the most love, 2 did a pretty good job, but 3 was less polished overall. Looks like they ran through the games and were running short on time near the end, and the Spyro trilogy sees this too. It’s a shame, but I digress.

Worth the purchase for classic-lovers, but parts of it needs to be enjoyed with that time of game design in mind as well; There are a few unintuitive secrets and minigames that don’t hold up in the modern age. 

Grapple Force Rena [Steam]

So I’m a big fan of GalaxyTrail, the indie company behind this game and Freedom Planet because of how good the latter was. Before Sonic Mania, I would’ve called Freedom Planet the best 2D Sonic game. It’s a great experience that gets its core gameplay and is genuinely a fun time, but has moments where it falls on its face before picking itself up again. Notably Boss fights and Story in FP were pretty jarring against the rest of the gameplay (Boss fights could get PAINFULLY hard, story meandered and got weird). Overall I was excited to play another game from them.

Grapple Force Rena has similar problems with it’s Boss fights being pretty bleh, it’s story being quite bizarre (but not bad, just weird), but with it’s gameplay being pretty good still. Not FP good, but good. I’m thinking this is just something the designers need to work through; Bosses doing things off-screen and being unpredictable is a common theme, but their level-design is really good so I’m still looking forward to their future work.

Another 2D Indie-platformer with a fun gimmick, good for a nice time if you’re in the mood for it.

Deep Rock Galactic [Steam]

You and some friends pick one of 4 up-gradable, customizable mining classes and launch onto an alien planet infested by bugs to complete various mining objectives, usually mining a certain amount of special minerals or destroying specific bug targets. The mines are procedurally generated which is neat, and the humor’s pretty funny, but at the time it could get pretty repetitive.

You can also get overwhelmed really fast if you’re not careful, but honestly like Left 4 Dead that has it’s own charm in some ways. It’s all about who you play with. I wouldn’t be opposed to revisiting this one day if/when it has enough content.

It’s a lot of fun with friends, but you may get bored of it after a few missions and you run into the same patterns and environments in the randomizer.

Wargroove [Steam]

This was an attempt to try and get into the strategy genre again for me. It’s definitely a charming, well-polished game, but I found after a couple levels its slower pace and more strategic elements (literally the point of the game) just wasn’t for me (I’m very bad at strategy games (dumb)). There’s definitely a lot here for those who are into the genre, but I have a feeling with how much buzz was generated over this the people who would like it know they would. 

A well-made take on Advance Wars and grid tactics games, but definitely not for me

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing [Steam]

I picked this up because I remembered how fun its sequel was, that the sequel to that is coming out this year (later in this very post), and that I never beat it on the 360. Definitely a fun game in its own right, and you can see how well it was expanded on in the sequel, but it also has a variety of its own issues. Mainly, Super Monkey Ball stages are geometric, really bad levels, and there’s a pretty small amount of levels overall. Overall though, the challenge mode is a lot of fun and this would be a fun multiplayer racing game.

Also doesn’t run/upscale well on modern PC, so make of that what you will. Overall this didn’t age well; maybe on console where it runs without PC variables messing with things, but this in and of itself was Sega’s first, admittedly very good, step into the kart-racing genre.

It’s great, but just get the sequel, Transformed. It does everything better, rivaling Mario Kart 8 and beating it in some areas even.

Risk of Rain 2 [Steam]

I played this when it first “entered” Early Access, so it’s probably an even better experience now. It’s a good time running around, learning each character and power-up, and figuring out how everything interacts for sure, but it can also get very frustrating very quickly. additionally once you start looping it gets pretty dull; you’ve basically seen everything the game has to offer after your second loop. This is a pretty common problem for a lotta proc gen games though. It’s a fun 3D combat romp with interesting ways of expressing variety, but I’d wait until it gets more content if it hasn’t already

Yoshi’s Crafted World [Switch]

This game gets a lot of praise, and honestly I can see why. It’s the essential 2D Yoshi experience with a cute theme and a whole lot of things to do and collect. I definitely enjoyed my time with it, but I found myself burned out about halfway through. It was very strange.

Levels each try and have one new mechanic in them, and the play with the foreground, background, flipping levels and all that is neat, but together it just kind equates to more sub-areas than really anything effective there. Additionally the styling is somewhat inconsistent (Why are some characters like Piranha plants and shy guys just kinda normal when everything is made of crafts? How come the Yoshis are just fuzzy yoshis, is that supposed to be felt?), and even some of the color tones hurt my eyes during extended play. That being said, while I preferred Wooly World, this really is a great 2D Yoshi experience and worth a pick-up. I believe it even has a demo.

Sea of Thieves [Windows 10 Store, Gamepass]

Gamepass was a buck for 3 months so I gave this a pick-up with some buds. I really enjoyed my experience with it; the random sea monster fights were really intimidating (at first) the quests they added in the update this year were pretty entertaining, and PvP can sometimes be fun.

... But then you get a game where you spend the entire 5 hour session fighting with a group of griefers who only want to sink your ship and then find you again when you respawn, meaning you get 0 gold for it. They needed a lot more variety for combat and sea monsters as well. Megaladons were scary at first, but eventually they just turn into a nuisance, and the Kraken is pretty vanilla as well. All in all, it’s a fun experience with a group of 3 friends who are into it as well, but the lack of goals and directions can turn you off pretty quick if you can’t make your own fun of it.

Snake Pass [Windows 10 Store, Gamepass]

This one is honestly pretty fun and I didn’t give it enough time at the... time? Good words C, doesn’t matter only King’s reading at this point. Hi King. 

Anyway, the game controls surprisingly well once you get the hang of it. Oh I should explain it. Hey this is a game where you control the head of a snake and then use the rest of it to grip onto ropes, platforms, sticks, vines, etc. to traverse a level. It’s pretty fun, and there are a lot of collectibles to keep you busy too. Again I didn’t finish it, but it definitely seemed pretty doable and didn’t overstay its welcome. I’d give this a hearty recommendation overall, but the controls very much make it not for everyone.

Team Sonic Racing [Steam]

I’m gonna be contrasting this one with the next one, Crash Team Racing, quite a bit here. First though, after S&SASR:T (nice acronym), my hopes were high on another racing game from these guys, especially one that narrowed its focus down to just Sonic since that would allow it do depth instead of breadth. In some ways I got what I wanted; mechanically the team stuff is really fun and interesting, and the racing itself holds very well. Thematically just using wisps for items is also pretty good... but...

The roster, level, and car variety kinda suck. There are only 4-5 teams, some of them don’t make any sense, and with Sonic’s gigantic roster that’s a crime. They did the small roster in order to have unlockable parts (I believe it was 30 per car?), but honestly that just allows you to min-max or play what character you want without actually playing different styles. Half the levels are re-used, and the single-player mode is really not much better than the first game in the series. That being said, it’s a shame they didn’t go hard on the roster and marketing, because this game shines with how much better it plays than most other Kart racers and how deep the team mechanics can go. I really want to recommend this one, but since there’s no competitive community and the online is dead, I really can’t say it’s even better than the last game in the franchise, which is better for a casual dip into because it’s best mechanics are pretty surface level and quick to get.

Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled [Switch]

This game has the opposite problem than the last one: way too much characters variety, not enough depth. I get that this is a remake, and that they had to stay faithful in some regards, but to me this just didn’t age well at all. it feels stiff, you can get screwed over at the wrong time and throw the whole race, the challenges can be very unforgiving for that reason, and holy funk the loading times. I averaged 40 second load times on the Switch, and yeah it’s not the most powerful console in all existence, but that’s just gross. They did an update that improved it a little after I had finished playing but I have no interest in going back.

This is faithful, colorful remake as far as I can tell, so if it’s for you you already have it and likely love it. As a modern day kart racer, building off what the genre’s learned for the past 20 years? Mario Kart 8 and Sonic Transformed blow it out of the water.

Super Mario Maker 2 [Switch]

How many games are left- oh jeez I’m not even halfway done. Why did I save this all for the end of the year.

Super Mario Maker 2 improves on the original in almost everyway, with the exception being that the online is still pretty not good and you should be able to download and edit other peoples levels. The Single-Player campaign is a very welcome addition, I’m not a huge fan of the 3D world style but it’s there and okay, and multiplayer can be fun. When it works. Very rarely.

The lack of amiibo costumes also kinda sucks, but honestly with how much content there already is and how well they supported the last game, this game really should’ve been something I revisited constantly. However due to my own personal “journey” (personal character traits that are generally negative and get in the way of me actually doing and enjoying things), the creative spark I had that made me really want to create and share levels just isn’t there, so this fell off my radar pretty fast after several frustrating moments both making and playing.

It’s still a fantastic game, and I would heartily recommend it. But don’t go into it expecting modern day QoL online features..

Earth Defense Force 5 [Steam]

Fight giant ants, Frogs, aliens, and God. Get all sorts of crazy, hilarious weapons and robots.Play with friends for best experience. 10/10

Basically the same exact game as the last one, and they changed the song you sing to be worse. 1/10

Look it up on Youtube and you’ll know basically immediately if this is the game for you. It’s obscenely long and repetitive, think Hyrule warriors level of repeating content, so if you’re not into it, you’ll never even beat one run.

Evoland Legendary Edition [Steam]

This is a cute idea that’s done relatively well. You go through the whole game “unlocking” very basic features which match up with the general progression of adventure -> RPGs through the years, getting more and more complex as the game goes on. It’s nice, it’s funny, it doesn’t try to be to intense or in some cases polished (and indeed that’s the point sometimes).

It’s not really anything groundbreaking, but I had a smile on my face as I went through it so if it’s on sale and you want some nostalgia based humor, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Minit [Steam]

This was one I was expecting to be a short, rather bland idea that I would think “Oh, that’s cute” and then walk away from. And I mean it was, but it was also surprisingly well done and polished, which is odd to say about a 2-color game where the gimmick is dying a lot.

It’s true though; you pick up the cursed sword and from then on it’s a classic top-down adventure game ala Zelda where you have 60 seconds (one minute) to do something in the world to progress. This can range from moving an obstacle, finding a new item, setting a new spawn point, or just learning something new. It’s pretty fun and very clever. Honestly a really fun little adventure. Again, short but very sweet, and there’s a lot of replayability for secrets and speedruns if you’re into that

OKAMI HD [Steam]

I’ve always heard great things about this game, and honestly I can see it. But like... it felt like 45 minutes of cutscenes back to back before the game even starts, and after that it is not afraid to stop you even more to explain. I get it’s an older game, and I’d probably have really liked it back in the day on the DS, but oof, this could’ve used some modernization. It’s a pretty game, but I couldn’t get very far. It definitely tells more than it shows, and I don’t have that much patience, but there’s definitely an audience for it so I’d use someone else’s recommendation to determine whether or not you want to pick this up

Speebot [Steam]

I have a lotta platformers on my list this year. This is another puzzle platformer, you play as a little robot and try to get to the end of each winding level. Some have powerups like an umbrealla that lets you go further, a jet pack to jump higher, etc. Each level has a collectible or something along those lines, and honestly it’s not a bad game by any stretch.

But with all the other platformers I’ve played, and with the weird angle this one sticks to it’s hard for me to recommend, especially when you hit the “final” level and find out there’s a lot more game but you can’t beat that level until you go back and find everything. Again; not a bad game, but you can do far better in this genre.

Dr Mario World [Android]

I really wanted to like this game because I like Dr. Mario, but man they did a whole lot wrong. For starters: gacha needs to die. It’s gambling in Mario, so focused on kids. even its advertisements were very kid focused, so they should feel ashamed of themselves for that. They only kinda get away with it because the gacha does incredibly little past getting a slight advantage in Multiplayer vs, but we’ll get to that.

The story mode starts out fine. Pills move up, you need to clear all the viruses in the set amount of turns, your score is determined by your combos & pills remaining, etc. That part’s not bad until you get later in the game when you realize oh, some of the viruses are random, and so are your pill colors, so sometimes you just lose a level and that’s it. Getting all the stars on a single level later in the game turns into spending all your stamina and hoping for good stuff and luck on your character’s abilities getting proc’d, which since most of them are useless that doesn’t happen often. That’s when this feels more like a cheap puzzling phone game than it does a well-tested, polished experience like what I typically think of with Dr. Mario. So it doesn’t at all feel like a Dr.Mario game despite trying really hard to be, and with how hard games on mobile already pretend to be Nintendo games, it feels like one of the cheap knock-offs.

Multiplayer vs is a little better in feeling like Dr. Mario, but WAY WORSE when it comes to luck and character choice. Each character has an attack (how many rows you send over to the other side)  and defense (How likely your character will block rows sent over). Winning strat is to go HARD on defense (best you can do is ~75% chance of defense without more buffs iirc), or go full glass cannon and win fast. Peach for example can buff up to 76%, maybe even 80% with the right gacha rolls, which allows you to more or less consistently rely on your own skill for clearing the board. But she’ll only send over one row at a time, where say Bowser can send over 4. Sure, odds are he’ll miss, but he’s going to try several times and it only takes one landed shot to kill you. If you clear all your viruses, 3 more rows appear for each player, but if it’s time with an attack, hey look, 7 rows and whatever pills were floating are now landed, so you just immediately lost.

This is a bad game, and not even a Dr. Mario experience. Skip it; you can do better on mobile in this genre, or just pay for a game that’s worth your time.

Slap City [Steam]

So I’ve not played much of this, in fact I got it recommended by a coworker, but this guy is a comp melee player and said this game slaps. that was really funny C so it’s a 2D platform fighter filled with wacky characters from the studio who brought you Ittle Dew 2 (which you should play) and Princess Remedy (Which is free, and you can also play). It’s unique in that it knows it’s ridiculous, and it doesn’t have characters that feel like smash bros character clones. It’s physics are pretty interesting too, so I can say This is like smash bros, but in its own unique way, and you should give it a go if you’re itching for smash you can play on PC

Pokemon Masters [Android]

Another cruddy gacha game! This time with your favorite pokemon characters who are finally given personality that the games themselves never did well enough because GameFreak can’t do story. Is that unecessarily harsh on Gamefreak? Maybe, but maybe they should make better games that are actually better games! Anyway, this one isn’t made directly by Gamefreak and I’m letting my anticipation of reviewing Shield spoil this one.

So when this was first announced I thought it was going to pair with pokemon Home, and be the “Battle Frontier/ Stadium” that would constantly be updated and supported along with the mainline games, as well as add new interesting challenges and challengers while allowing each individual character and battle type to shine.

What it ended up being was a gambling simulator that you can grind the same 3 missions for weeks and weeks to level up your duos enough beat the main story. Like, I’ll give them credit for not doing stamina and actually writing the characters, and the core gameplay isn’t bad, but don’t waste your time with this; it certainly loves doing so for the sake of convincing you to drop more money on it to get it to stop.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 [Switch]

Surprise hit this year. Honestly massive props to King, who is again the only one reading this so Hi King, for recommending me this for my long flights to and from CA this year. I played it for weeks afterwards, and even wanted to 100% it. It’s like what if you took minecraft but actually made it so your villagers were people with personality who had lives and could maintain and use all your rooms, which could be given specific purposes. Why yes, this is a kitchen that you can use in conjunction with a dining room to make a restaurant supplied by the storage room filled with crops from the nearby farm you don’t even need to maintain after you set everything up!

My only complaint with this is you can hit the villager cap very quickly, and that the story can overstay it’s welcome (it was like 60 hours for me). It’s on Steam now, and I suspect modders will help out with those complaints though, so now they just need to add switch save cross-play and JEEZ people need to get this game so we could all build a massive self-sustaining utopia. Get the Steam version because it’ll eventually allow you to mod out the restrictions, but to me this is Minecraft but better in every way. i can’t recommend this enough in that regard.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna, The Golden Country [Switch]

So last year I had problems recommending Xenoblade II- wait was it last year or the year before? Doesn’t matter; I still do, but I finally decided to give this game DLC/Prequel a go. To my surprise it’s... in the same boat, but for different reasons. Let me explain:

I want to recommend XBCII for the plot, but I can’t because it’s so heavy in fanservice, anime tropes, and genuinely bad jokes and writing that the parts I want to focus on are undermined, and the parts I want to say are so bad it’s good are as well. This prequel I want to recommend because the plot sets up weird elements and makes the main game make more sense, but one of the main characters’ motivations still make no sense with their actions in the next game and you really do need to have played the original to get it. I will say, the ending of the prequel’s tone sets up and contrasts really nicely with the tone throughout the original. Also Rex is a complete idio-

I want to recommend XBCII for the combat, but it doesn’t work until you get 85% the way through, which is 60 hours of your time that I can’t ask of you if I can’t even play games for an hour when they frontload their tutorials. This prequel has better, more streamlined combat, but in someways it removes aspects of the combo system that really brought the original together (at the end), and the only super amazing fight is the final battle, which is again a long ask.

The Prequel definitely improves the QOL, getting rid of the gacha blade system for set party members, and really doesn’t waste your time there, but it’s also lacking in its world in that you only explore 3 titans, half of one isn’t present, but I don’t know what I expected with DLC.

Anyway, play this if you enjoyed Xenoblade Chronicles II, but as a standalone or intro into it, it’s another difficult recommendation for me to give.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening [Switch]

Remember on WiiU when games that were remakes were priced less than the $60 asking price, even though they added a fair amount of content? I miss that.

Anyway, it’s Link’s Awakening that’s been heavily stylized and has a number of QOL improvements. It looks very pretty and plays well (drops frames a lot though which is strange), but it doesn’t add much other than a dungeon maker mode which doesn’t work online and is incredibly bland and limited, as well as a hero mode which is pretty straightforward there; just a hard difficulty with some knobs turned to make it so.

Link’s Awakening DX is available right now to buy on the 3DS eshop for like $6, and is a very close experience. I can’t say the graphics, QOL improvements, and single very underwhelming feature addition justify a $60 price tag. If it ever goes on sale for $30, sure, but it’s Zelda so don’t hold your breath.

Bomber Bother [Steam]

TRANS RIGHTS. ARE HU-MAN, RIGHTS

clap clap

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair [Switch eShop]

This is a very interesting, well-designed game from the 3D overworld to almost every 2D level that was clearly lovingly crafted that I would heartily recommend...

HOWEVER. It has one major flaw: It’s first and “final” level, The Impossible Lair, and that’s it’s premise.

It is incredibly unforgiving (I get that’s the point), very unfair (Again, I get that’s the point) and you’re supposed to lose it. A lot. And when you do, the villain who cheated laughs in your face and plants a big EPIC FAIL stamp on screen. You know; disparaging the player for doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.

The main crux is that you once the game kills you and decides that was your fault, you run through many actually good levels that change depending on the 3D environment around them that you can manipulate to unlock additional hits to take into the impossible lair. Problem is even after you get all 48 hits, you’ll find that one mistake can cost you several hits at once. Because the level is garbage and incredibly unfair. This aint the Dark Souls of platformer levels; this is the incredibly hard Mario Maker level with a 0.000001% clear rating because it dropped thwomps on you out of no where near the end of the level. Only throughout the level. With changing physics and underwater sections.

You get the point. If you can stomach playing an incredibly bad level, which unfortunately was the main draw of the game, the rest is a very solid Donkey Kong Country style platformer. But also: Tropical Freeze exists on Switch right now, and while it doesn’t have the 3D overworld gimmick, it doesn’t have that bad level problem either, sooooooooooooooooo weigh those options.

Ring Fit Adventure [Switch]

This was a surprising announcement and release, and not just because the premise was crazy and weird, but that it was actually by itself a good game. You run through a world using the Joy Con strapped to your leg and jump, blast, and manipulate air using the ring, which is actually pretty good at reading your inputs, as well as putting up enough resistance to put up a work out. The RPG mechanics itself are pretty straight-forward, but they work for doing reps and working up a sweat.

I can’t speak for how good this is at losing weight; I have a terrible track record with exercise which always kills it no more than 2 weeks in, and every review I’ve seen (not that many admittedly) says it’s good for working up a sweat and they didn’t gain weight, but they also didn’t see any loss. That being said, I’m sure this pairs excellently with diet and is fun in it’s own right. It’s a surprisingly great, charming game all by itself, and a good way to keep in motion, but don’t expect it to work miracles on it’s own.

 Mario Kart Tour [Android]

This is the most Pay-to-win, exploitative, disgusting gambling game aimed at kids using a beloved franchise video game I’ve ever seen. Do not buy this, and if anything actively encourage Nintendo to do better.

Well, that was easy.

....

So I guess justifying that, fine whatever. Each course has a small number (sometimes only one of each) of characters, karts, and gliders that are in focus, and without the right ones in the second half of each “tour” you won’t be able to get enough stars to get the gifts in the tour, which allow you to play the gacha for the EXTREMELY LIMITED characters in focus for at most 2 weeks, usually only one. Additionally you get a pitiful amount of rubies (rolling currency) each tour anyway.

You can do some challenges on the side for more stars, but it’s calculated in such a way that you absolutely must do those challenges to get enough stars to get all the gifts anyway, and half of those require specific characters as well. Often times the characters which are on sale in the weekly $20-$40 character packs, which is disgusting. Also, rolling the same character/kart/glider (we’ll say items now) increases the “Skill” of that item, which maxes out at a level of 6. Now that doesn’t mean 6 duplicates will max it out and you won’t roll them again; each skill level requires more and more dupes to complete. For rare characters which you have to pay over $200 to guarantee you’ll roll, you’ll need to do it at least 10 times.

Sad about how little rubies you’re getting? Excellent news! The bonuses other games usually give out to get you to keep playing are locked behind a subscription service. for only $4.99 a month, you can play a free-to-play game that actually wants to hook you on paying for the gacha. Since it’s a much better experience when it actually wants to care about your existence (now that you’ve proven you have a credit card and are willing to drop money on this game), you’ll be duped into going on forums and explaining how actually the subscription pass is an amazing deal! Praise Nintendo, as you spend $60 in a year for a version of Mario Kart that doesn’t play well, is completely random, and doesn’t reward you for skill as much as it does taking your money.

Do not even download it. This will be a case study in the future when we review how developers used the psychology of sunk cost and addiction to sell virtual items to the masses using brands they trusted.

Evoland 2 [Steam]

So whereas the first game was just a quirky little game that was having fun with a gimmick, this game appears to be an actual, fleshed out JRPG with some puzzley, platformer elements thrown in. Which is cool, and I don’t necessarily mind. There’s still some charm going on with the style changing and the mechanics of traveling through time in both the mechanics and the story.

But it’s a very different game in tone and execution. It’s for sure not a bad experience, but a more traditional JRPG one, which I wasn’t in the mood for when I picked this one up

Spyro Reignited Trilogy [Steam]

This has a lotta similar beats to the Crash Trilogy: The first game is well-done, the second is even better, but the third one is a little less polished and the presence of minigames is... disappointing. That being said, I liked this one a whole lot better than Crash. The music is fantastic, The level design for the most part is really well done, It’s got it’s own style and charm, and the gameplay itself holds up surprisingly well. Unlike the Crash Trilogy, I actually was very happy to 100% all three games. Whether you’re new to classic Spyro or want to relive it, it holds up very well in this trilogy. Protip: you can just delete the movie files for the startup logos and intro to immediately get into the game menu. 

That being said, in some aspects they were a little TOO faithful. All the characters existing in multiple places at once and feeling really stilted wasn’t really needed and they could’ve done better there. The skateboarding minigame is buggy and awful as all hell, I would’ve liked to have seen the speedway courses more fleshed out, and honestly I think it would’ve been cool to see a new level or two just to show that the developers can match the magic.

I mean that’s the point of these, right? To gauge the interest in re-introducing classic Spyro formula for future games? And not just a cash grab working of nostalgia for those sweet sweet moneybags?

Anyway, Activision making you sign a 42 page disclaimer before playing single player games is pure nonsense, what is that abou-

Luigi’s Mansion 3 [Switch]

This game is really good. I was a little worried after Dark Moon that it’d be incredibly linear, and to be fair... It kind of is. But in a good way, where you can explore a bit as you go through, and even revisit past areas with the knowledge gained from future floors for goodies, and honestly at this point we know I’m a sucker for collectathons so yeah.

Gameplay-wise it build on Dark moon’s mechanics while adding a few clever ones of its own. It’s incredibly well done and Next Level Games really made a gigantic effort to make each character express themselves in their own way, even if they were clearly somewhat limited for like Peach or Mario (Kinda weird how they seem to express themselves via their Spin-off like out bursts of “yahoo” and “Oh my” but that’s nitpicky af). The game is packed with secrets and is really funny and clever about them, as well as containing subtle nods to not just things present in the original but also how the original was structured for the longtime fans of the series. As a single player game, it’s a genuinely great time.

As a multiplayer game? It’s pretty good too. Scarescraper was a fun mode in Dark Moon and I’m glad to see it back, and for a few rounds it’s genuinely a fun time. Like all Proc Gen games though, you start to get a feel for what happens where and it becomes pretty easy to complete each floor and even carry teams which otherwise wouldn’t have succeeded. In that way, I’m both a little happy the Multiplayer will be getting DLC to add more variety, and dissappointed that it wasn’t there in the first place since right now Scarescraper is a carbon copy of how it was in Dark Moon. But I mean, it’s fun and they didn’t have to do it, so it’s definitely still worth a play.

Basically this is the best Luigi’s Mansion experience, and a must-have on switch. Next Level Games is a wonderful studio, and I’m happy to see them knock this out of the park.

If only that 3DS remake of the original was on switch instead tho

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 [Switch]

It’s really weird how this series plays out. It’s a pretty fun game in it’s own right, but what doesn’t make sense to me is their character choice. Clearly this is a fanservice series; Mario & Sonic characters duking it out in a friendly setting where nothing really matters to either franchise, and a little story that provides historical info about the olympics at the same time. It’s fun, for sure, but why does it limit some characters to just single events? Fan favorites like Diddy, Rouge, Rosalina, and Espio (and boring characters like the koopalings or the deadly six) really don’t have a reason to be limited in such a way, especially when they were used in previous games, so why do it? It’s quite strange.

Additionally the game could use a lot of QoL updates, none of which should be new. It’s essentially a mini-game compilation, and a lot of them are a lot more complicated while only being like 2 tries long, so being able to easily shift between them would be nice. Or at least have clearer explanations as to how to play or what each character does.

That being said, the classic style games are pretty fun, and the events are also pretty good once you get the hang of them so it’s a fun experience worth trying with some friends casually if you’re into that.

Human: Fall Flat [Steam]

So this one’s an old one, but so are a few others on this list so it’s fine. This is one of those games where the controls being wacky and strange with the physics is the draw. Again, normally don’t go for this, and I’m sure I’d get over it very quickly in single player. Multiplayer though? Incredibly fun. Highly recommend this with a couple friends and the steam workshop for some wacky skins for a fun evening.

Tiny Barbarian DX [Steam]

I dunno what possessed me to play this one. It’s another indie retro-styled platformer, and this one specifically seems to be structured like Ghosts and Goblins. It’s pretty difficult, but not overwhelmingly so. That being said I didn’t get very far, so take my experience with the first level with a grain of salt; it looks like it gets pretty tough later in the game.

It’s another indie 2D platformer that doesn’t really do much other than be difficult and have some basic combat mechanics. Not bad, but not really noteworthy there either.

Untitled Goose Game [Switch eShop]

This game stands really hard on its premise, which is completely fine because the premise of living out being an asshole goose is an amazing one and all power to it for doing it. You feel like an asshole goose every step of the way, including when you can pointlessly flap out your wings to look like a bigger asshole, which mechanically does absolutely nothing.

The puzzles are clever, though a few of them take a bit too much waiting or setup for my tastes. It certainly is an enjoyable time, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome being only a couple hours long at most. It does offer speedrunning challenges and secret tasks however, similar in replayability to Journey so that’s going for it as well. God I love Journey.

Anyway, you know about this game already, if you laughed at its premise you’ll like it.

Fighties [Steam]

I didn’t spend very long with this one, but I think I still get it. It’s a Platform fighter with 1-hit-to-kill, each of the MANY characters (very few of which are available at the start) have their own gimmick. It’s like towerfall, but less polished and with a ton more character variety, but since it doesn’t do a great job of explaining it and there’s more complexity in an otherwise simple game. It’s a simple concept, but it’s done way better in games like Towerfall.

New Super Lucky’s Tale [Switch eShop]

All the platformers on this list. So this is from my understanding the best version of this game, the original being a VR game for Xbox. Going into it I knew this was a game that was basically an intro for newer/younger players into 3D collecting platformers, but I was pleasantly surprised by how incredibly polished it is. Everything feels really good to play, and there are a few moments when the gameplay is like “eh, not so sure about that”, the marble levels and auto runners specifically, but everything else is so good I have to say this is an absolutely wonderful experience.

For those who have played 3D platformers before, yeah this game is pretty easy. But it’s never really boring though, something other games have an issue with if they’re too straightforward. Finding the collectibles never really blows you away in challenge, but still feels rewarding, and at the end of the game there’s a whole section similar to Champion’s road that puts everything you’ve learned to the test in some particularly challenging levels, with a really tough collectible to find in each. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s a very well done platformer in its own right and worth a pickup for those who love that formula, or those who haven’t been exposed to it somehow.

They do try a little hard with the plot at the end though with an avengers style ending and that was a little corny. It’s fine tho.

Pokemon Shield [Switch eShop]

Here it is peeps. The big ol rant. The part where I call this game a gigantic pile of trash.

Like the picture, get it, it’s garbador but really big. because this game is garbag-

So I’ve already ranted for what feels like 9 long essays about this on twitter so I’ll sum up as best as I can here. Or at least shorten it. This game is by far the worst in the franchise, and here are my points:

This game is the shortest in the franchise, ranging at most 21 hours to beat the story, pretty bad for a Pokemon game let alone a JRPG

There are only 10 routes, all of which are linear and there are no “dungeons” like Team rocket hideouts, winding caves with multiple floors and interlocking paths.

The Gym challenge is the whole game. The antagonists whole plotline is introduced and then resolved just before the champion’s fight at the end in under an hour, again with no “dungeon” or build-up

Characters will often times tell you about all the interesting things they’re doing when you’re not around, stuff that in previous games you would be doing, before telling you to go back and just worry about the gym challenge. The most egregious of which is when Leon’s like “WHAT’S THAT COMMOTION OVER THERE!?”, runs off screen <fade to black pointlessly>, you go follow him through the next load zone just off screen, and are presented with a newspaper article of Leon defeating a Dynamaxed pokemon by himself right before where you’re standing and had to walk through anyway. The game is littered with similar moments, from Sonia putting together what happened in the past, to Hop beating you to the end of every route.

Only 3 legends, only 2 of which you can catch and doing so is mandatory

Battle tower is pathetic

Despite being on a cartridge that is MANY TIMES larger on a system that can save data orders of magnitude faster, you still have the same amount of pokemon storage space as previous games. Worse, they made no effort to make the UX of navigating the PC better and searching still doesn’t work like a search should

The wild area feels like an Early Access concept that wasn’t fleshed out properly, There’s nothing to discover other than Pokemon soulessly wandering around at most 20 feet away from you due to draw distance

The UX, and really the whole formula hasn’t changed at all, and fights take obscenely long because GF seems to think they’re developing for a Gameboy game still and animations and each individual line of text need to occur painstakingly slowly one after the other

Gigantamaxing, arguably the most interesting part of the game, is OBSCENELY rare to get specific pokemon for, and is honestly a post-game thing. It took me longer to roll a GMax Hatterene than it did to get 3 shinies. Having no way to G-max the pokemon you already have the adventure with is completely counter to the series’ core

Taking out all the online functionality they’ve had since gen 4 (a gen that had way more content), just to sell it back to you in a phone app that won’t be out for another half a year is a crime. The existing functionality, which requires a subscription already to use and doesn’t even properly work is a pathetic joke when the DS games had this solved first try in 2006 without a subscription

GF still doesn’t know how to make characters behave like humans, doing the classic turn in place, play same animation, talk, turn in place, animation, talk, walk off screen, fade to black because we can’t even unload characters properly thing

The intro to Pokemon cutscene, Hop’s in battle dialog, Piers singing, and many of the cutscenes with Leon all feel like they need to be voice acted. But aren’t, for whatever reason, which feels INCREDIBLY tacky and something I’d expect from a unity indie company

This game has less content overall than the first Pokemon games on the 3DS, and is arguably less polshed than the GBA ones in terms of their actual gameplay

All of this, and it’s clear that it’s a rushed, unfinished 3DS game. Only you get the privilege of paying $60 for it instead of $40, $120 if you want both versions which is a whole nother rabbit hole of “How are they getting away with this crap”

Notice: I didn’t mention Dexit once. That’s because the premise for the backlash is set on only being able to transfer pokemon that are already in the game, but I feel like I need to point out something people seem to miss, surprisingly? ... Pokemon Home isn’t out. It won’t be for 3 more months. Meaning you can’t transfer your Pokemon at all. This game isn’t even feature complete, and given that it’s one of Nintendo’s flagship franchises and isn’t supported by the cloud save feature, which again you need to have a subscription for to play a lot of the main features of this game, is another kick in the face from GF. Pokemon Home, or some sort of Switch-compatible storage system, should’ve been ready when LGPE launched last year and available to NSO subscription owners as a substitute for their inability to save progress. The fact that we have to wait until March to pay for another separate form to store Kilobytes of data on top of the subscription and insane markup on the base game is exploiting the franchise even more.

This is the worst game in the franchise, the most expensive game in the franchise, the most barebones game in the franchise, one of the buggiest games in the franchise, and the game in the franchise that cares the least about your time or previous experiences with it. I would say skip it, but it’s already sold way more than it has any right to, which is why I bought it as well. TPC and GF know this will always sell, so why put in the effort to top themselves with the highest grossing media franchise of all time. The sunk cost fallacy has my over 20 years of collecting hostage, get out while you can.

Halo The Masterchief Collection: Halo Reach [Steam]

This is unfortunately another game that serves as an example as to why I struggle with Multiplayer games. I’m unfortunately so far behind my friends that I consistently land bottom of the board, and there’s only so many times that happens before playing the game jut feels bad for me. That eing said, there’s a lot to like about this game in that aspect so I can’t hold it back because of my own personal struggles.

As for the campaign, it definitely feels like a game from it’s time, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I had fun with it, though i can’t say I’d do it alone or grind it out. It feels rather short, and I guess Reach isn’t a good starter point; just canonically the first in the series. It’s it’s own FPS experience and it’s unique in its own ways, so it’s worth a shot to try it out f you’re unsure where you are. But it’s also Halo, Xbox’s flagship title, so you probably also already know if it’s for you.

Sonic Forces: Speed Battle (Android)

So the mobile games this year aren’t reviewing well, and with my trek back to CA for the holidays I thought I’d give this one a go. It plays a lot like Sonic Dash; you auto-run forward, collect rings and power-ups, however this time there are a large variety of characters with different attacks to choose from. And you’re fighting other players. It’s pretty neat.

Monetization wise, it’s technically gacha, but not intentionally. You get character by getting enough of their “cards” to unlock them, and you get their cards via either random in-game chests which you unlock by playing/waiting (or watching ads), or you can buy packs that just flat out have the cards you need. The only “Gacha” in there is by technicality, you can buy red rings (premium currency) to buy the chests you normally find quicker, but those won’t have special characters usually. I like this model a lot better; If you want to pay money for a special character, you can just buy the character. If you want to play free, you’re not at any disadvantage because limited characters aren’t in a gambling banner, you do quests to get there cards.

That being said, after you play for a couple days it loses most of its charm. There are a lot of characters, but their abilities are near-identical, just with some bonus flair that has more minor effects. After playing 50 30-second ish matches, you get the picture and there’s not a whole lot of strategy left. There’s potential here, and the monetization model is definitely a lot friendlier, but overall it’s a pretty bland experience once you understand the core gameplay.

So when is that chao garden mobile game that ties into new sonic games gonna come ou-

The World Ends With You: Final Remix (Switch)

This is one I’ve been meaning to play for a long, LONG time but was never in the mood to get started on it. I knew it was a JRPG with really quirky plot & mechanics and a cult following, and boy do I need to be in the mood for that in order to actually get through them. They have a huge tendency to offload a crapton at the front and I’m very easily turned off by that, unfortunately.

As I was here, again, unfortunately. I can see why people like it, but I gave it a couple hours, argued with the controls,  got frustrated with the puzzles (getting stumped on the puzzle in the screen shot for 20 minutes before backtracking and realizing the game locked the solution I already knew behind an NPC I had already talked to was not great) and decided it was a “try again another day” sorta thing. I did this to Xenoblade Chronicles as well, and now I can’t recommend it enough and automatically buy every game in that franchise, so it’s no dig on this. I don’t have any valid opinion on this yet.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD (Switch)

I don’t think I like Super Monkey Ball everyone! The first 3 worlds were fine, world 4 was starting to show some nonsense, and then world 5 and 6 had me going full “THAT WAS GARBAGE, I WAS ROBBED.” Cobalt Caverns has 2 levels specifically where it’s a straight crapshoot whether it works or not, and given that there are 6 playable characters one of those levels is straight impossible if you pick the wrong one.

I mean it’s fully possible that I “Don’t get it” of course. That the level that flings your character through a course at super speed that you have very little input in, which ejects your ball at random is in fact deterministic and possible with every character. That the course where you cross a winding downhill tightrope that doesn’t have the checkerboard pattern so you can’t see it tilts enough to make light characters fall off every time is in fact really clever.

But I don’t have the patience for it. Granted, I know Monkey ball is an arcadey, high-score experience and not one where you just go through the levels once and have a reasonable expectation of being able to complete them with relative, linear ease. But it just rubbed me the wrong way. I imagine if you know you’ll like Monkey Ball’s replayability, you’ll love this, but if you’re unsure then I’d say it’s not a game for the impatient.

Kero Blaster (Steam)

This is one that I’ve been meaning to pick up for a long, LONG time. Cave Story is probably one of the most important indie games out there, it was a ton of fun, and with recent resurfacing of Nicalis hate for doing Pixel dirty on the rights to the game and its characters, I figured now was a good time to try it. Especially since I liked its demo, Pink Hour, well enough last year.

It’s... Fine, for sure. nothing particularly wrong with it, but nothing really great about it either. I was okay with my time with it, and it felt like cave story. But it lacked a lot of the secrets, unlockables, story, etc. and the shop system really wasn’t as fun a system to replace it. That being said, it’s clearly supposed to be replayed since you unlock the first achievement and a new, harder mode after you beat the final boss, so there’s more there for sure. It’s a short, well-contained experience with some secrets to replay for, but overall nothing truly ground breaking. But you should be getting this to support Pixel rather than buying another version of Cave Story he won’t even get money for. And then Play Cave Story right now as well anyway, because Pixel still has it up on his site available for free. 

Brawler 64 (N64 Controller)

So I know it’s not a controller, but all my N64 controllers are trashed and I needed it to actually play some games so I’m just gonna review them here. These controllers are nice. I’ve always wondered why it was so difficult to find really good N64 replacement controllers that were designed sensibly so a human with two hands could actually use it. And that’s what this is! pretty neat.

Aesthetically they nailed the look; mix of grey and then the classic N64 colored see-through plastic, which is a controller look I miss but I understand not wanting to show internals now that they have moving parts. Buttons all are sensibly placed and it feels comfortable to hold. Only two gripes I have with the controller:

1. It feels really light, and a a result the handles feel a bit cheap. I feel like a hard enough grip could crack it, though I’m not sure that’s the case and I’d have no reason to grip that hard anyway

2. the trigger buttons (Z-button replacement) is analog despite being a digital input on the original controller. This makes no sense; I love a good analog shoulder button, but since the Z-Button is only digital, it would be way more satisfying and responsive to just have it clearly click to indicate the button’s being pressed.

Despite that, these controllers fix the main gripes with the original N64 controller and will probably last me a very, very long time. I’d recommend them as a good replacement

Pummel Party (Steam)

So this is a very “violent” but property generic version of Mario Party available on Steam, up to 8 players and compatible with online. Honestly, I only played one game but it’s pretty fun! I’m not sure how it evolves as you learn more mechanics; Mario Party can vary wildly in how that happens with sometimes it being a good thing to know the advanced mechanics and sometimes it revealing the flaws underneath and making it unfun past the first couple games, or with people who don’t.

But this was fun. Lots of weird items, they clearly tried to do something differently and balance out some stuff with the death mechanics. Some of the controls for the minigames are ehhhhh (should devote to encouraging a keyboard and mouse OR controller, rather than middling between them) and we saw a few repeats in a 25 turn game which was surprising, but we may have been unlucky. Definitely pick it up with some friends if you had a need for Online Mario Party

Gato Roboto (Steam)

God this game is adorable. It’s a super fun, condensed Metroidvania adventure that’ll run you under 3 hours, but it’s well made and look great, even with its 2-tone color scheme everything looks clear and pretty. Sound effects are great too.

The experience itself isn’t particularly ground breaking, but it wasn’t trying to be so that’s fine. I managed to find all the pick-ups, and not once was I like “Oh god, it’s a miracle I found that” or “I never would’ve guess this did that.” Everything was clear, it was crisp, and it was fun. Plus it’s got nice support for speedrunning; I was almost tempted but that’d be a fun reason to stream and I can’t have fun so that’s off the table. I highly recommend it; it’s just a short but seat and well-made Metroid game and sometimes that’s hard to come by without other new mechanics getting in the way.

Momodora III (Steam)

Got this one in just under the wire (hours before 2020). There’s a lot of small indie platformers on this list too.

So if you’ve played the much more, erm, advertised sequel, this game is a lot less metroidy and a lot more linear. You can go back and discovere secrets, but there’s not a lot (as far as I can tell), and it gets pretty tough in places. Even still though, I got 87.5% in under an hour and 5 minutes and beat the final boss (there’s seemingly a secret one tho).

So gameplay wise it’s fun, it’s pretty solid, and it has a few moments where you’re just like “Oh, that enemy throws instant death bombs, so uh, don’t die.” Overall though a quality experience, a lot of replayability if you love the first playthrough as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Best Game I played in 2019: Ittle Dew 2

This one was a bit tough here, so I’mma have an honorable mention section that’s basically equivalent. But this game takes the Zelda formula and polishes it while still being quirky and its own thing, then takes it WAY further with all the secrets, bonuses, power-ups, and dear got the nightmares you find. If you’ve ever enjoyed any Zelda game, ittle Dew 2 is a must-play for you as far as I’m concerned.

Best Game that Actually Came out in 2019: Luigi’s Mansion 3

This one’s easy. Next Level Games put so much polish and charm into the franchise while putting a lot of wit and depth into each room on the hotel. It’s not without flaws, but it more than makes up for them by being it’s own thing while building off both the previous two Games

Honorable Mentions: Dragon Quest Builder’s 2 & Spyro Reignited Trilogy

For just being like, great goddam games. Seriously; DQB2 kinda blows minecraft out of the water if only it had less town limitations and multiplayer server support. And Spyro aged pretty well with this trilogy, so I can’t not love it being a 3D platformer collectathon enthusiast.

Honorable Mentions That Are Quick but Great Experiences You Should Play: Gizmo, Minit, & Gato Roboto

I find I like short, simple experiences a lot more these days. These are that; well-made games that are far from overstaying there welcome definitely worth a go if you have a few bucks (or free I guess since Gizmo is a free unrealized demo) and an hour or two you just want to enjoy.

Also, Bomber Bother’s just really funny and free and spawned from a great cause so like why not.

...

And that’s all! One day I’ll actually like make a good game, or do something interesting, or leave Texas! Or any number of things other than typing out my opinion online that nobody even asked for for that sick dopamine rush.

mmmmm

C ya!

[pinupgalore-lanadelrey]

Lana Del Rey - Flaunt Interview

Lana Del Rey is… happy? 

“I think I was feeling happy that I was present, and not afraid in a way that I couldn’t enjoy my everyday things,” the musician says of the new record’s title, sat in blue jeans, cross-legged on the floor of a Chateau Marmont hotel suite, enjoying French fries and a Diet Coke on a balmy, breezy Friday afternoon. “I’m the kind of person that really loves those things. Like when I drive, I love every road, and I can’t believe that I’m in L.A. I love the architecture, grabbing a coffee, striking up conversation with the people I encounter. And I hate when I can’t enjoy the little things because in the back of my head I have concerns or preoccupations. So for me, it was that sort of lust for life. It was kind of just about happiness.”

“The record has fewer dimensions,” she remarks. “But they’re more beautiful than in the past. I had no idea that would make it easier to talk about.” Has this ease with discussing the content perhaps coincided with a sort of softening, or openness toward her in the arenas of public or journalistic reception? “I feel that,” she says thoughtfully. “And it’s helped me be more open as well. Because it’s hard to talk about your innermost feelings if you feel the reception will be cold. And I hung back for a while. I did a handful of interviews, but not many in the last few years. But also I was writing and writing, and digging through stuff, and not writing things as easy to digest or discuss. It still comes from me, but as I’ve evened out as a person, I don’t have as much I don’t want to say. I feel comfortable.”

“Da-vid La-Chapelle. Whoa. Da-vid La-Chapelle,” Del Rey says breathily, “I just couldn’t believe it,” Del Rey says. “Because I always make things really hard to work, because I don’t want to talk that much. So I had defiantly said to someone, ‘Don’t ask me unless David LaChapelle is shooting it.’ And then I get a call from Stephen Huvane [a partner in Slate PR], and he’s like ‘David LaChapelle is shooting it and you’re going to do it.’ So when I got to his studio, which is like a few blocks from my house, I was blown away. He’s amazing. And he thinks big picture, and different picture, and textures, and he doesn’t want to do a simple portrait right now because that’s not where he is in his life. And I’m the same way. I don’t want to make a pop record if I’m feeling more acoustic, for instance. And so he’s very true to his own space. There’s not that many people that I would follow into the unknown, so to speak, but with him, I would probably do most of what he suggested.”

David LaChapelle - “I have had a relationship with Flaunt for a long time. Lana’s a down-to-earth person. I like her writing. I saw her show at the Hollywood Bowl, and really liked the music, and that inspired the concept and ideas for the photos. Lana was interested in the artistic angle, not a promotional angle, which I really liked. Much more interested in creating art than promoting something.”

Notably, there is a track on Lust for Life, recorded with Sean Lennon, a layered and playful number that explores, among other things, John Lennon and Yoko Ono – a canonical deity of lust and artistry if ever there was – that sees Del Rey refreshingly step outside her own paradigm. “I felt like it belonged to someone else,” she says of the single, “Tomorrow Never Came.” “And I never feel that, because I like to keep everything for myself. I thought it might be strange for Sean to sing a song about John and Yoko as well. But I think the fact that I sing, ‘Isn’t life crazy now that I’m singing with Sean.’ It points to the fact that we’re both aware. I didn’t want it to come out exploitative in any fashion. Not that it would. Still, I wanted to be as careful as possible. I wanted it to come across layered with this sort of meta narrative mixed in. In a way it’s a song about a song.”

I speak over the phone to Lennon, currently in New York, who originally received a very simple version of the song from Del Rey with only her vocals, guitar, and an organ. “To me,” he shares, “Ninety-nine percent of what is magical about that song was already contained in her original vocal performance. I felt like it was my job to simply highlight and accentuate what was already there in her voice and melody, and in her lyrics. Everything I played was merely ornamental, like tailoring a ballroom gown on an already stunning woman: the only way to mess up is if you take away from or disguise the beauty that is already there.”

Considering the lineage in the song and their first collaboration together, I ask Lennon what he learned from the experience. “She has exceptional taste,” he remarks. “I told her that working on her song was a valuable lesson since I often modulate and take unintuitive chordal and melodic twists and turns, and she reminded me that you can be perhaps even more compelling if the melodies and chords feel natural and intuitive, not contrived or disorienting as in my music. Anyway I’ll never forget when she called me after I sent her what I did and her first words were ‘It’s perfect!’ I almost cried with joy because I honestly don’t think anyone has ever said that to me about anything I’ve ever done. It was a very good feeling.”

Beyond the meta-awareness of the lyrics and rich instrumentation [Lennon added “acoustic six- and 12-string guitar, electric guitar, lap steel, upright bass, vibraphone, harpsichord, orchestra bells, drums, and Mellotron strings, and shaker”], a particularly resonant lyric repeats itself a handful of times: You weren’t in the spot you said to wait. I ask Del Rey if there are running themes of stasis or waiting elsewhere on the record. “I think that’s why I felt that of anything on the record, that wasn’t my song,” she considers. “I didn’t feel like I was waiting for anything. It’s really not about anything personally, except that I love the sonics of it; the filters. I try to be as careful as I can that I’ll want to sing stuff on stage that I write. And that song will be an easy one to do because it doesn’t pull at any heartstrings or anything. And I know it’s special to Sean as well, because he’s his dad’s biggest fan. And so I like that, in a small way, they had a moment, in whatever surreal way that could happen.”

 Accordingly, you have my personal favorite track on the record, “God Bless America,” an unbridled spanker of a song that’s title refrain is followed by, “And all the beautiful women in it”—that’s instantly echoing through your melon and one in which Del Rey remarks, “Yeah, I went there.” She describes the song, of which Mawson shared earlier his reluctance to release as a single, given the tendency of Del Rey to net the mentioned public polarization, “It has some strong messaging,” she says nodding. “Some iconography, with Lady Liberty, fire escapes and the streets, and I do get a little New York feel when I listen back to it.” I tell her the song feels grandiose in production, anthemic in verse… very New York in fact, a sparkling pile of empire and accomplishment. And while New York (and its banks) have churned out the free world leader and a boys club not so concerned about everyone therein being blessed, moreover the “beautiful women in it”—reminding us that grandiosity has its pitfalls—“God Bless America” could easily ascend the ladder as a 2017 rally cry.

I ask her if she feels the appropriative nature of the song title may stir any pots of sorts.”Well, it’s the God word,” she says measuredly. “But the phrase has wider meaning. It’s more of a sentiment. When I wrote it I didn’t feel like it was confined to a traditional portrait of the Lord, as some sects might see it. It was more like, ‘Fucking God bless us all and let’s hope we make it through this.’ She further explains the genesis, “When all the Women’s Marches were happening, I had already written this song, because I had been hearing a lot of things online. And I have a sister, and a lot of girlfriends, who had a lot of concerns about things that were being said in the media by some of our leaders. And I saw an instant reaction from women, and I was like, ‘Wow. There is no confusing how women are feeling about the state of the nation.’ And so without really trying to, I felt compelled to just write a song and say we are all concerned. And it really made me think about my relationship with women. And I felt proud of myself, because I do love the women in my life. And I take care of them, and I ask them what they think about music, and guys, and problems, and I thought it was so cool that I’m really right there in the same boat with them. And sometimes I’m not. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got my finger right on the pulse of what’s going on, and then some of my music comes out and it’s like, ‘Fuck, that was a miss. Fuck, that’s not what people feel, at all. But with this, I was right there with everyone.”

Considering the caution from management around the track, I ask Del Rey if the potentiality for rib kicks, or what have you, is particular to her, not just someone famous. Does she feel she’s been on the receiving end of a sort of media lust? A presumptive, dutiful debunking of myths? “Perhaps,” Del Rey considers. “Or the journalists don’t have enough going on personally andthey feel like their contribution to current culture is myth building. It’s either one. It’s a broad mix. And I’ll definitely take accountability for how my energy has informed a lot of not true stories. But 50% of that has just been someone’s personal agenda.” Still, despite the pricks and pokes over time, Del Rey does feel the media is incredibly important and worth fighting for at the moment. “That’s why I do love journalists,” she says, “when they’re not assholes, because writers are critical thinkers. They’re people who think it’s important to have conversation, and conversation can lead to change.”

I’d agree: the fundamental purpose of media is to present the facts and propel conversation. That, of course, has been tossed into the bullshit blender of late; a corrupted election, orchestrated intel leaks, and in turn media’s brandishing “the enemy of the people” by the venal and orange President Trump, has the press in a pretty gobsmacked, beleaguered position. So ass over heels that even the governing party’s own Fox News mascot, Bill O’Reilly, has finally been ousted for sexually pawing and verbally gnawing on women whom his employers have considerably paid off over the years to keep hush. It’s a mess out there, right or left or between. “I feel like this election jolted almost everyone who was floating around, feeling weird, whatever… right into the current moment,” Del Rey says. “I know several people that had a sort of drifter mentality that are now in the thick of it, considering things, and considering their own contributions, and what matters. I’ve known what matters to me for a long time, so I was already kind of there, but I didn’t really see it going this negatively. I feel like we’re in a bit of a Hitchcockian experience, and you’re in a scenario, and every day you wake up and you can’t believe the things being said and done are real. And I think some people are questioning if this shit is actually happening, like especially with the North Korea issues, which are really the scariest because you’re talking about nuclear annihilation.”

“The world is in an extraordinarily tenuous place. And while it could be said, certainly for the sake of this piece, the earliest seedlings of civilization were wrought with lust for power, we are, it seems, at somewhat of a tipping point. On the topic of the Women’s March, I share a video of the protests in Caracas, Venezuela, where some two million people were marching that morning against President Nicolás Maduro, dozens of whom were reported killed by police or government backing loyalists.” I remark that the collectivist, community-making nature of protest could perhaps only be likened to the power of song. Is there anything on the record that explores this swell of community-making here and around the world at present? She considers. “Well, I have a song that’s quite aware about the collective worry, about whether this is the end of an era. It’s called “When the world was at war we kept dancing.” But I actually went back and forth about keeping it on the record, because I didn’t want it there if it would make people feel worse instead of better. It’s not apathetic. The tone of the production is very dark, and doesn’t lead to a fucking happy feeling. And the question it poses: Is this the end of America, of an era? Are we running out of time with this person at the helm of a ship? Will it crash? In my mind, the lyrics were a reminder not to shut down or shut off, or just don’t talk about things. It was more like stay vigilant and keep dancing. Stay awake.”

Given the pace and intensity of the environment in our surrounds of which the artist speaks, I point out that there are still moments on the record that feel lonely, or lost in expectancy, far from active. I cite a lyric: “We get all dressed up to go nowhere in particular.” Del Rey shares that she’d had a phone call with a friend earlier that day, about their personal lives, their music, and she states that he too raised that when talking about artistic stall as a demonstration of stasis. She disagreed with him. “It wasn’t about stasis. I meant that you don’t need to have anything to do to get dressed up and feel special.”

We live in a culture where pressure and precedent abound, one in which women are constantly challenged with not feeling special based on their body, their skin color, their age, their social position, their follower count. Does she agree? “It’s more like we just don’t have as much cultural practice at taking the time to appreciate ourselves for who we really are,” she says. “We spend a lot of time when the nation was founding building government, money, and then getting the education system down, so it’s not like some cultures where you take time to mediate, et cetera, on your own dreams, wishes, self worth. I think it’s not enough practice. It’s not like they teach you that in school. But I think that that’s changing too. That’s actually a lot of what the record is about. Even in “God Bless America”… ‘Take me as I am, don’t see me for what I’m not… Only you can save me tonight.’ It’s about seeing people: what they’re actually doing. Who they actually are.”

In that sense, Del Rey is championing the same values as her influential predecessors, few and far as they may be, or as bamboozled by the power systems in which they thrived. Consider “Beautiful People,” where she trades verses and coalesces on the chorus with the one and only Stevie Nicks, of whom I refer to as a bonafide badass. “I didn’t know what to except or that I could even ask her, Del Rey remarks. “When I went through ideas of women that could really add something to the record, she was the one we kept coming back to. ‘Bonafide badass’ is a great phrase for her. She’s really real. And she’s still fucking touring, which baffles me. There are so few women doing that. You’ve got Courtney Love, who works, sings, tours… there’s not that many women who were making music in the ’70s or ’80s who still make music. It really is pretty crazy.”

“I know a couple of people who love to write,” she says as we’re collecting ourselves to leave the hotel room, “and love to rhyme, love melodies, and I do too. But to me it’s so much more than that. It feels like a life’s work and it feels like it’s really important just to me, so I put a lot of time into it.”

We’ve been speaking for a little over an hour. I return to a conversation we’d briefly shared on the photo shoot regards this, Flaunt’s music issue, and its theme (“heartbreak”), determined before we’d secured Del Rey as our cover subject. She’d been briefed on this by her publicity team and was admittedly wary about aligning. Again, that embodiment dilemma. Appropriation? Role playing? “Everything I’ve done in the last two years,” she says with confidence, “I would never say anything that wasn’t true. Even in the music. That’s why I was nervous about me being on the cover, and in big font “The Heartbreak Issue” because the thing is, I don’t feel heartbroken. So I didn’t want to continue a narrative that didn’t apply to me. Because the only person who truly cares about whether I continue that narrative, or any, is me. So I have to do my due diligence. And it doesn’t always work, but I’ll be damned if I don’t fucking try.”

[lethriloth]

Who's Who (And: how do you spell that?)

This is the first of what will (hopefully) be fortnightly updates on one of the D&D games I”m running. Because session logging turned out so well last time, and I really should get around to doing it again now. This first post got really long by the time I was done introductions, so I'm separating it out and posting the first actual account later.

Before I begin telling our story, I’d like to introduce the player characters (And some pertinent setting details). Before I can do that, though, I need to discuss spelling – transcription, rather – conventions. Largely at my players’ urging, (Though they might be regretting that now) I did some rudimentary conlanging for the setting. While I have not yet developed any scripts for these languages, when I asked VulgarLang to give me vocabulary, it was kind enough to also give me phonological rules for each language. Sometimes rather a lot of them. This means that some of the spelling is, if not irregular, somewhat unintuitive. Add to that the fact that there are some sounds simply not heard in English, and you have a few difficulties. So, what I intend to do is this: Whenever a name is introduced for the first time, I will include a phonetic transcription if the pronunciation is not obvious. After that, I will simply write the name as it is spelled in the Vulgar output and my notes. If you don’t care about pronouncing names right in your head, skip the next paragraph.

While I will give the phonetic transcriptions in proper IPA, I do not want to go through the hassle of installing and learning an IPA keyboard, nor do I particularly wish to copy-paste IPA characters more than ~once per name. So, outside of the phonetic transcriptions I will be using the following spelling conventions: Nasalized vowels – which are fairly common in Ohi – will be marked with a tilde, long vowels will be denoted by repeating the vowel character, â will be used for [æ]. “gg” will be used for the glottal trill, [ʀ] “rr” for the alveolar trill [r], and “r” for both the alveolar approximant [ɹ] and the alveolar tap [ɾ] because in-universe the only people who bother to distinguish them are extremely pedantic elves; Both are used in older dialects of Raxak [ɾaxak] (elvish), but nowadays most people treat the sounds as if equivalent. The combination “th” will be used for the voiceless dental fricative, even though in Ohi “th” (pronounced as separate consonants) is a valid cluster; in a probably fruitless attempt to minimize confusion I will write the latter as “t’h”. “sh” will denote the postalveolar fricative, and “x” the velar fricative. Also, Raxak names are whispered when spoken by elves or people sufficiently enamored with elves (*cough* @theunitofcaring​ *cough*) to be stubborn about precisely correct pronunciation. A generally safe assumption is that the names of elves are correctly pronounced whispered, and that all other names are generally voiced.

To understand the characters, you will need to know a few things about the world. Orcs and Elves are variants on humans, descended from tribes that were taken from the world at a time when the boundaries between the planes were thin. When they returned to the world, centuries later, they found themselves physically transformed by their experiences; the gross physical changes are of little consequence for the moment, apart from the effects on their fertility: though each kind remains fertile, they are no longer interfertile with each other, and their children with unaltered humans are themselves sterile. The inability for a cross-race union to produce a fertile heir has shaped the customs of all three races, especially among the nobility of each. A married noble couple generally has a shared set of concubines of different races – sometimes infertile halfbreeds who will produce no children at all, but more often other-race purebloods. The couple’s children by their concubines are valuable, trusted family members who, in theory, are unlikely to scheme against their parents or siblings due to their absolute inability to legally inherit. With that explanation out of the way, on to the PCs themselves:

Thiet of Ishto Theit is a half-orc who embraced the role his parents had planned for him as a member of the clergy. He eagerly and earnestly devoted himself to the worship of Ggita [ʀita], the god of knowledge and of the Sun, and was rewarded with His blessing and a limited ability to directly call upon His aid. Unfortunately for him, Thiet ran afoul of church politics – specifically, he unknowingly made an enemy of the full-blooded scion of a more influential noble house, and was quietly shuffled off and discouraged from further pursuing a church career. Not knowing the true reasons for his dismissal, he concluded that his faith must have lapsed and set off in search of some sort of righteous task to prove his faith.

Erkad [eɾkad] of Ishto Thiet’s brother Erkad followed the other traditional path for halfbreed children: Going to special schools to learn to command and lead the family’s personal armsmen. Of course, personal martial skill was valued as highly as an understanding of tactics or inspiring speeches, and so as a crowning accomplishment before graduation, Erkad was tasked with completing some sufficiently heroic deed. When his brother mentioned his own self-imposed quest, Erkad saw a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

Ksea of Shuu Ksea grew up loving children. She would never have any of her own, being half-elf, but she helped raise her younger siblings. When her younger sister came of age, her parents arranged a marital alliance between house Shuu and house Ishto. To sweeten the deal for the higher-ranked and more prestigious Ishto, Ksea was included as a part of her sister’s dowry, to act as a nanny and caretaker to her sister’s children. She did this gladly, growing quite fond of the kids and picking up a bit of magical talent in the meantime. When her nephews Erkad and Thiet, now fully-grown, asked for her help on some damn fool hormone-driven quest for holy relics or something, she agreed to come along, if only to keep an eye on them.

Ero [eɾo] Ero is an example of a rather rare phenomenon in this nation: an actual bastard. To be precise, she is the bastard daughter of the king-consort. Now, the king is obviously not a bright man – he cheated on the queen, and, what’s more, he did it with another human – and he was compassionate enough not to have the evidence of his poor life choices killed or abandoned, so he hatched a… cunning… plan to hide the evidence of his folly. He claimed that the child was the bastard of one of the orc men in the royal harem, then contacted an alchemist to make this story more plausible. The alchemist devised a potion, which Ero was raised to believe was essential medicine for a life-threatening medical condition. The potion drained her of color, giving her the superficial characteristics of a half-orc, which served to prop up the lie for a decade or so before it was bowled over by pubescent hormones. Specifically, Ero found herself pregnant, which should have been quite impossible for a half-orc. After suffering a miscarriage, Ero fled the capital, seeking to meet up with her academy friend Erkad and get away from the city long enough to resolve her identity crisis.

Sothet [hoθet] of Thâthikis [θæθikit] (Raxak name) Sothet’s human parent was given away in an attempt by their family in to solidify an alliance with the more prestigious elven House Thâthikis. For all her life, Sothet has been aware that she exists only because of that now deteriorating alliance. With her parent’s status in the family perilously unstable, Sothet was never trusted with real responsibility in the way that halfbreeds usually are. This left her relatively free to pursue her own path in life, while still being able to draw on family connections. Sothet chose to express that freedom by studying various magical arts, primarily taking up wizardly magic but also for a time attending seminary alongside Thiet to learn as much as possible about miracles. Growing increasingly displeased with both her parents, as well as the system that put them together, she focused her studies on one goal: Having a child, and in doing so turning the political system grounded in halfbreed infertility on its head. When she heard about the half-orc Ero’s miscarriage, she thought she had found the key – or at least part of them – to the puzzle, and so arranged to join her friend Thiet’s expedition in order to get close to Ero and learn her secret.

[mattgambler]

Dark Souls versus Nioh

TLDR: I played Dark Souls 1-3 about 18 months ago and yesterday I abandoned my first ever Nioh playthrough halfway through. I compare my experiences and declare them both winner and loser at the end of the day.

Today after waking up I was greeted on Discord by a public message of one of my mods which had me typing frantically in a matter of seconds: so Nioh went the same path as every other soulslike game ? Final call on it matt? ( wich mechanics where new wich ones where even more frustrating and wich ones where a welcome change from the other soulslike games?) I wanna clarify that I played a couple of “soulslike” games over the past 2 years and rarely left one of them unbeaten, so his first line had me somewhat confused about what exactly he meant, given that I had abandoned my Nioh playthrough halfway through only the day before. The games I had played (and I am aware of the fact that some rather important ones are missing) were the three Dark Souls games, Salt and Sanctuary, Dead Cells, Titan Souls and now Nioh. I usually want to beat these sort of games even if I don’t enjoy them, and be it only so I an criticize them without sounding like a whiner who simply didn’t git gud enough. Useless gamer pride, I know. But while I sat there, talking about how I had beaten all the other games before this one, I knew what he was probably talking about - which was me not liking the game. I also didn’t like DarkSouls 1-3 that much, and back when I streamed them it was usually me versus my chat as I tried to win the unwinnable argument of convincing fans of a game why it was clearly and “objectively” bad. Or at least not as good as everyone wanted me to believe. But let’s look at Ashtaks actual question. At first glance, Nioh does a couple of things which had me praising it as soon as I encountered them. Inventory indicators for what you had picked up since you last looked into your inventory. A clear path to follow. Storytelling that looked like actual storytelling for a change. I was sure I would like this one! But the longer I played, the more I noticed the glaring flaws that were worked deep into the games core, and which became even more apparent given how those flaws were mostly absent from the soulsgames I had worked my way through back then. The linear progression was nice in comparison to the at times random and unintuitive nature of Dark Souls, where I only managed to find the painted world of Ariamis after my chat had given me step by step instructions on how to find and enter it. But at the same time the missions soon started to feel same-ish, another temple, another batch of yokai that had corrupted something vengeful spirits something save that village something hope you dont mind taking a look at my yard while you are there Anjin Sama please make sure I didnt leave the window open. The storytelling had me intrigued for about as long as it took me to realize that the narrative was meaningless and bland and that it didnt make much sense up to the point I had reached in my playthrough. There’s a villain and he wants to gather that ressource Amrita that the game had introduced you moments before, now he stole your guardian spirit which you apparently had all along and that seems to be the only spirit in the world that can detect that Amrita stuff even though you are collecting it left and right as quickly as you can because the next levelup will require another 78 000 units of it because, hell, gotta keep you grinding, am I rita? The inventory indicators were good at least. Sorely needed in the trash collecting simulator that both Nioh and the games in the Souls Franchise are, too! But while it made sifting through trash a lot easier and more practical, it didn’t really change the fact that I was collecting trash 99% of the time. At least in Dark Souls you didnt feel like losing out if you left that stuff lying on the ground because you couldn’t exchange it for souls as easily, if at all. (I don’t exactly remember.) But while I’m listing pros here just to pluck them apart right afterwards, I wanna say that weirdly enough I felt like I enjoyed Nioh more, on a surface level. Sure, the story was weirdly uninteresting, but at least it was there, right? The game was reusing the same enemies for mission after mission, but at least it didn’t give me bullshit like the Anor Londo archers or the Tomb of the Giants, or that fucking disgusting curse mechanic in the canalisation of dontaskmewhatthatareawascalled. At least I had my sense of where to go and my inventory indicators for newly picked up equipment, right? And finally some proper tutorials! Yes and no.

While Nioh comes with a metric shitton of improvements that Dark Souls would have desperately needed back then, while it looks great and plays smooth and overall does everything I wanted Dark Souls to do back then, it lacks the inspiration and credibility to actually make it all work for me. On day 6 I encountered a bossfight that was somewhat similar in tone to the Sif encounter in DarkSouls. You know, sad music, the boss was kind of a good guy, this time it was a cat spirit instead of a giant wolf, but yeah, you get it. All it accomplished was making me realize that I never cared much for that feline companion of mine in the first place. Sif, in comparison, had never been my companion. He(?) had never tried to be loyal or helpful to me. Weird how I still ended up caring so much more for him than for my own weird cat buddy that I had never really gotten to know all too well, but... at least he was around? I guess? Must have been the missing limping animation. Another thing that always struck me as unpleasant about the Souls games was that there were no proper tutorials. Here, you are in a cell, now go die. Again, Nioh delivers where Dark Souls fell short, several nicely spaced out tutorials to show you the ropes, how to switch stances, how to use skills, how to take a dump behind a tree. But while Dark Souls would have had me confused about many things if not for my chat, Nioh locks tutorials behind mission progress and usually ended up teaching me things only after I had figured them out on my own. And weirdly enough, those tutorials managed to both make me feel as if they were holding my hand too much as well as(!) if they weren’t clear enough on things. How do you even pull that off? Sure I’m learning in detail what I already know, but I still need to do the tutorials for the rewards and it has me standing there unsure about why it is not continuing because I already did what it wanted me to... I think.

And then there is all the stuff that is missing, at least up to the point that I reached in the game. While Nioh does a somewhat good job of fixing DarkSouls’ flaws (Seriously, that inventory indicator, how could you not have that, Dark Souls. I mean what the actual fuck.) it took things that were good and working and just left them out. Basic stuff, like leaving messages for other players, complex and intriguing things like covenants, boss weapons. Incredibly vital stuff like secrets! Dark Souls is full of them and while I was sometimes annoyed by a bonfire being too well hidden, or another entire area being hidden behind a random wall segment in an even more random wall, Nioh feels like it is incredibly afraid to hide anything, or give you a glimpse of a later boss in the distance, or leave any sort of mystery as the story progresses. The bad guy? Yeah, he stole that spirit to collect amrita. That spirit? Yeah, it has been with William since he was a child. That mission? Yeah, seemingly the kids were turned into yokai, or the shogun (or whatever he was) blew up his castle but he also broke his teaset and that teasets name was “flat spider” in japanese and because he broke it the boss of this level is a giant spider. Oh, that character you didn’t really care for? Here is an entire page of exposition for you if you wanna learn his role in all of this. Considering all of this and more (incredibly uninspired and therefore often confusing leveldesign, to name one of several things I’m not gonna go into too much detail here)  I would already come to the conclusion that Dark Souls is a way more interesting and mysterious game than Nioh. Wild, reckless, interesting. Stupid at times, and fuck the tomb of the giants, what an embarrassing fuckup of modern game design, but still, a wondrous and intriguing journey overall. Personally I liked Dark Souls 2 best. But still I would have considered calling Nioh the more solid game, in a casual,  gamey way. It plays well, you progress through it, you probably have somewhat of a good time anyway. I’ve always considered Dark Souls, especially the first and probably most iconic one, as more of a weird art piece than an actual good game. But Nioh was too hard for me. Yes, harder than Dark Souls, and not in a good way as far as I’m concerned. The sheer number of times I was literally oneshot with full hp because I didnt dodge this attack or that combo in time is just too damn high. Many deaths in Dark Souls came from intricate traps or simply stupidly falling to my death (because fuck swimming or holding on to ledges, right?) but while Nioh does that sometimes as well, the sheer damage that enemies deal with each attack and your characters morbid fetish for being stunlocked made what could have been at least casual fun into a frustrating mess over time. And I used a spear, the only weapon that scales with the hp stat anyway.  I might just be bad, or not patient enough to die through yet another 20 bossfights until I figure out how to dodge enough attacks to barely succeed. But then again, I might just have had more fun dying in Dark Souls than I had dying in Nioh.

[doktorpeace]

2 4 17 18 30

2: Favourite genre?RPGs probably. I’ve played too many 100+ hour RPGs for them to not be. I love games that are in depth and detailed and have a lot to do. Personally I think the best way to experience a game is to engulf yourself in it as much as possible, and while it’s fun to like, blow through a puzzle game or a platformer in a day or two, sometimes it feels great to just lose yourself in a game for a week or two. At least it’s that way for me. Mechanics, story themes, characters, settings, everything can vary so much and in such meaningful ways. I feel RPGs tend to be more meaningful by convention of their genre being more ‘full’ in terms of worldbuilding.4: Top three video games?I did a Top 20 countdown a little over a year ago at the request of a friend and at the time I said Super Smash Brothers as a series, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Final Fantasy X. But after attempting to replay X recently and also experiencing a few more games in the last year I can easily say Persona 3 has safely snagged that #3 spot. I’d probably still say XBC and Smash are in the 2 and 1 spot though.17: Favourite video game character?Gosh this is hard. For a long time I would have said Proto Man without a second thought, but ultimately the Mega Man series canon is fairly shallow. Proto Man’s a great concept with a few really good stories (and a great band named for him) but he’s definitely not number one anymore. I’m not sure who I would say is #1 though, I’m a little too fickle to have a definitive absolute favorite individual character in that way I think. Dunban, FE’s Ike, and Aigis come to mind though.18: Favourite video game villain?This is a bit easier to narrow down. I’d probably say The Boss from MGS3 is exceptionally good. Her motivations and goals are honestly even better than the player’s and it really hurts to kill her at the end. Snake continues on in life, but misinterprets her dying wish and, well, we see how that impacts the world of MGS for the rest of the series.30: What aspect of a video game is most important to you - eg graphics, storyline, soundtrack, controls?For me I’m willing to slog through a bad looking, poor controlling game for a good story. Not all games need a story though, and ultimately what makes a game an enjoyable gameplay experience is the control scheme. Controls are incredibly important and otherwise very fun and good games can be really marred by unintuitive or just plain bad controls.After that I’d say Story is most important but by a slim margin.Then the content of the game itself generally. Again, games can be great with no story or in spite of a bad story, so this can supersede story in terms of importance for games that aren’t RPGs or story focused genres. A game can have great controls and a good story but if you’re a slog to playthrough or just generally uninspired you’re not really making a good game are you?Sound design next. Soundtrack, sound effects, voice acting, etc. Any one of these things can be bad or subpar and a game can overcome it, but good games mechanically can be ruined utterly by having a combination of these. They can go from enjoyable to downright embarrassing to play.Then graphics. Visual Art is such a subjective medium and that extends to games. Games as a whole are an art form but really you can sell bad or minimalist graphics as apart of the charm, like Thomas Was Alone for instance. Sure, I like seeing some good looking games like Xenoblade X, Motiga’s Gigantic, FFXV or the oh so stylish Persona 5, but there’s plenty of room in my heart for games like F-Zero which never really looked great but were fantastic experiences.

[ourjoelurena-blog]

The Genius of Hideo Kojima

           Before I begin writing about my favorite aspects of the documentary of the production of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4, I’d like to say that I am a huge fan of the Metal Gear Solid series and Hideo Kojima. I find Metal Gear to be a series that masters the fine line of taking itself seriously, while having absurd elements, which are reflected and juxtaposed off each other in a way that is evocative of magical realism literature. I actually remember that about 5 years ago, when I was 15 years old I was going to watch these documentaries, but I saw the spoiler warnings and instead decided to play through the Metal Gear Solid series, as I had already heard of them due to their revered status within the gaming community. It took me about a year, and I unfortunately still haven’t had the opportunity to play through Metal Gear Solid 4, I’ve played through the other 3D titles in the series, and I can definitely say that they were the most unique gaming experiences I’ve ever had. Not only were they expertly linear stories, they incorporated so many different art forms like western espionage and military stories and did it through the tropes of anime storytelling. The gameplay was innovative in the way it showed an over the top perspective coupled with action game mechanics, even if at times it felt clunky and unintuitive. If you have a chance to pick up those titles via the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, or any other means, I highly recommend them.

           I found the process of, “idea notebooks”, that Kojima used for MGS 2 to be very similar to my approach of ideation. Because I don’t think of myself as a very creative person, whenever I feel like a good idea, I like to jot it down on my phone or if anything just repeat to myself and internalize it until I get the chance to write it down. Unlike Kojima’s team however, I feel like I don’t flesh out my ideas enough to make them as best and worthwhile as they can be. I say this because some of my favorite gameplay additions to Metal Gear Solid 2, like the wall stick, and the first person perspective shooting, were created and iterated upon through this process.

           Metal Gear Solid 4 is often referred to as ‘Kojima’s opus’, and after having watched this documentary, I now believe that saying more than ever. Something that struck me early on in the documentary is the way in which Kojima and the other team leads in Kojima Productions spoke about the turmoil of development on the Playstation 3. Seeing the faces in that team meeting as Kojima reiterated that the last 3 months is when the game will really come together and when all the teams will finalize their aspects of development was hard to watch, but indicative of the realities of game development. I often struggle staying motivated in projects if things don’t line up, but seeing Kojima and the other team leads just being honest with their team is something that I realized I never really had in a work environment. While that honesty can be hard to hear, but it’s the type of honesty that shows me that leadership has faith in their team.