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eat-the-richard · 2 years ago

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GAME OF THE YEAR ("GOTY") (as they call it) 20222

Fellas!!!!! Howsit going Tumblr, felt like writing about video game again because my brain loves video games! I like thinking about video games more than actually playing them! There’s plenty of us out there who watched a baker’s million video essays in their adolescence and have been poisoned (PLAGUED... even) with gaming knowledge and insights. And I’m one of them!!!!!!!!!!! So here it is, Y'INZ... my top 300 games of christian year 2022.

And just to preface before one of you FREAKS gets any funny ideas, I think basing your GOTY lists on just what released in a given calendar year is bogus! If you do this, GET OUT OF HERE! If you only play the newest games on your PS5 and don't even look at anything released before 2018, everyone at the lunch table thinks you smell weird. So put on some antiperspirant and play freaking Halo Combat Evolved for pete's sake! (EDITOR'S NOTE: Despite this joke, Richard has not yet completed Halo: Combat Evolved despite owning it.)

HONORABLEST MENTION

Sometimes you have a list that has honorable mentions. me too!

Mario Kart 8 Booster Course Pass (Nintendo Switch)

This is actually not very good since it's just cheap mobile game levels imported into the MK8 engine. Unfortunately I love giving Nintendo money AND happen to think that playing Mario Kart after a hard day at the mine shaft is pretty relaxing. So even if they imported levels from like Forza Motorsport I think I would like that.

Sonic Origins (Nintendo Switch)

Is this even really a game to rank on a list like this? 30 year old Genesis remakes shoddily copy pasted into the Hedgehog Engine for some reason? With extra content really not worth engaging with? Ehhhh whatever man, this guy has Sonic 3 in it. You ever play Sonic 3 before? If not go do that instead and come back ONLY IF you've completed at least Flying Battery Zone. I would go further but I'd totally understand if you stop playing after pushing the Sandopolis blocks.

WWE 2K22 (PS5)

Regrettably, the newest outing from 2K Sports and WWE is probably my second most played game on this list. Not that this game is even bad, I mean it is probably the best WWE game in the last 10 years. Tons of modes, good visuals, cool roster. I played the banana slamma outta this game for like a month. But then I realized I was having more fun assigning championships to created guys on my roster to match the week-to-week championship histories of modern WWE and AEW rather than, you know, actually playing it. So I haven't touched this in about seven months. Something about the moment-to-moment gameplay of 2K just doesn't engage me at all, feels too slow but also not impactful enough to match how wrestling actually feels to watch. Feels faker than the real thing, believe it or not.

Ship of Harkinian (PC)

This only didn't make the list since, I mean like it's Ocarina of Time from 1998 which I first played in 2010 and have replayed approximately 8 times. But I've been waiting for something like this since the Ocarina of Time source code was 100% decompiled late last year, and the fellas over on the King's ship have given me everything I wanted. 60 FPS gameplay, tons of tweaks to improve on OOT's core features, support for nearly every device under God's watchful glare, controller remapping AND analog camera. Still doesn't look as good as the 3DS version but if you choose to play Nintendo Switch Online version rather than this you are under arrest.

OK THIS IS THE LIST EVERYTHING BEFORE WAS NOT REAL

16. Super Kiwi 64 (PC)

I remember picking up this game while being stressed out about going to a social function. The sales pitch for me was simple: it plays like an N64 platformer AND you can beat it in an hour.

As someone who has more games in his backlog than iPhone chargers in his plastic bag of chargers (pictured), it feels good sometimes to just... crank one out y'know? One session of non-stop platforming and you never have to worry about it again. Pure dopamine to your chrome dome.

It helps that SK64 is a pretty fun time too. With controls so fluid that I don't think I messed up one of my thousands of jumps, levels which are just the right about of expansive as to not be too imposing or restrictive, and a story which makes me grin to the edge of my cheek bone but not further, this is an easy recommend for people of my age range and taste in gaming.

15. Astro's Playroom (PS5)

That's right gaming public, PROOF that I own a PS5. I purchased that white block of solid matter in January after realizing the sheer amount of gaming experiences I was missing by not being in the PlayStation ecosystem. Of course, directly after making the plunge, one of my main PS holdouts I thought would never release on PC (Spider-Man (2018)), well, did. So I haven't really used my PS5 as much as I probably should have for a $500 investment. My fault, of course, for being bad with money.

But for the brief three hours that I was playing Astro's Playroom, I was not thinking these things. Not that I was absolutely head over heels in love, just that I thought, "hey! this little (big) ps5 system ain't so bad! it has this cute little robot game where I can be surrounded by playstation propaganda and murder the dinosaur from the ps1 tech demo!"

I put this game right above Kiwi since they are both pretty short but the sheer effort put into Astro's presentation just notches it a little ahead. You can tell the devs of this loved making it and, hey, I loved playing it too. A little bit. Not $500 love but maybe $10 over the course of 50 years love.

14. Mario's Super Picross (SNES) (by way of Switch Online)

Much like Kiwi, I played the majority of Picross this year while being stressed out over a social arrangement. But while the social arrangement surrounding Kiwi's purchase and playtime was honestly not that bad and I was just being an anxious little bear, the social arrangement surrounding Picross was a wedding. A wedding I had no friends to go there with, taking place 6 hours away with a crowd full of people who went to Liberty University. Needless to say I was dreading the days leading up to this thing. I distinctly remember sitting there, in my rented Airbnb quite literally just in someone's house, thinking to myself, "why the fuck am I here in someone's house for a wedding I will not have fun at?"

So instead of thinking that, I got lost in Picross. While a game I've certainly heard plenty about, Picross seemed to me like it would be confusing to learn and not super fun for me to play. But all it took was a friend explaining the basics to this Japanese-language-only game for me to figure it out. The game started with easy 5x5 puzzles to get my feet wet with the idea of breaking blocks to match the numbers on each row and column. But before I knew it, I was staring down the barrel of a 25x20 board with 30 minutes to figure everything out. And the cool part was that I didn't necessarily feel overwhelmed by that point. The concept had seeped itself into my head that much.

I'll definitely be playing more of this game in the future. I don't think I've even completed a quarter of this game's gargantuan list of puzzles. I kind of don't want to complete this one because I know if I do I'll be sent down the rabbit's hell of Picross games. That puzzle debt is too great for me at the moment.

13. Sonic Frontiers (PC)

Nearly two years ago, I wrote a bunch of words about Sonic on this very blog that ended with this pretentious garbage:

I don’t want SEGA to half ass [the next Sonic game]. I want them to boldly step into that abyss with a vision of Sonic that appeals to the heart of the fandom. Because, even if it’s been down recently, that heart is still beating, and after the abuse it’s already taken, it’s going to take a hell of a lot to get it to stop. And if SEGA can get this heart pumping to its full extreme as it had in years past, we may have something legendary to look forward to.

And, uhh, that kind of happened? Sonic fans seemingly across the board (or as much across the board of lavishly online Sonic nerds as you can get) are utterly in love with Sonic Frontiers for appealing straight into the heart of early 2000s Sonic fandom.

There's plenty about this game that I can look at and say with certainty that I absolutely love. These main four hedgehog et al characters have never been written this well in a mainline title of the series. At its best, Sonic running around the open world is a straight up good time. And the three titan boss themes have been permanently stuck in my headphones and may be some of my favorite songs of the past several years.

So its a shame then that Sonic Frontiers doesn't quite come together very well. The gameplay loop just feels kind of... random to me in a way that no other game in the series has ever been. In a four hour Sonic Frontiers review podcast (*shudder*) JebTube calls some of the challenges that open the map up "Among Us tasks" which may have just ruined that part of the game for me. More than anything, though, the controls just don't quite stick the landing for me. You feel pretty magnetized to the ground even when running off a ledge, which feels pretty strange when the very foundation of this series is based on being launched up a vertical slope into the air.

Still, it's hard not to respect what SEGA was able to accomplish with this one. Harping on potential is often a fool's errand but sometimes, with a media property that has spat you into the dirt more often than not, its hard not to cling onto that potential so that hope isn't totally lost.

12. Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit (PC)

Thankfully, even if the mainline Sonic releases are spotty, fanmade content has kept the spirit alive and beating. And this title, made entirely by one guy (Noah Copeland of bearded twitter PFP fame), is the latest in the Sonic fandom's absolute service to older games in the series. From the Retro Engine decomp releases to mods that force games like Adventure DX and Heroes kicking and screaming to the operating table, Sonic fans love improving on older games. Because we love those games. And preserving the core of what made those games so special while improving on the many objective flaws they may have it's the highest tribute you could possibly make to it.

Triple Trouble 16-Bit may be the shining example of this phenomenon. The base of this remake is in an already decent Game Gear game released in 1994, at the height of Sonic's popularity. But it's just too hard to play those Game Gear games in the modern day. There's a certain retro crappiness that comes with playing a game like that, with cropped aspect ratios and 3rd rate visuals bringing down a decent concept. With a fresh Genesis inspired coat of paint and enough tweaks to the overall package that make things way better to actually play, Copeland's project is pretty clearly the only way to play that game right now.

Seeing this game given such love and care makes me yearn for this treatment for other older Sonic games. Like, hear me out OK? Sonic Rush. 16:9 widescreen. No screen switching weirdness to make it easy for modern screens. CD quality soundtrack. Turn down the trick SFX. And tweak the level design to not be so unforgiving. I would do that but I'm a talentless hack!

11. Spider-Man Remastered (PS5)

When I purchased my PS5 earlier this year, I had two games in mind to play on it. One of them was Spider-Man, which has been taunting me for the last five years since its unveiling at one of those old E3 shows. Swinging around like the red guy is just one of those innately fun ideas, I think. Kids think it when looking outside the car window. Adults think it when looking outside their office's window. I want to jump out of here and swing around monkey-style!

Really, Spider-Man only needed to do that right and, shocker, it does do the swinging right. It doesn't even really matter that the open world is in New York, the pinnacle of urban homogeneity and therefore not an incredibly fun world to look around in. New York City skyscrapers were tailor-made for web swinging and video games have been trying to capture that magic for 40 years. You can argue that the 2004 Spider-Man 2 game has a bit more depth to it, but 2018's version is just so smooth and effortless. Really makes me feel like Sp-

Of course there's a story and structure to this game too. Which were both fine. Both serviceable, both doing exactly what they needed to and nothing more. Which probably is bad if you like Spider-Man more for its narrative. But also you don't exist, I had just made up a guy in my head.

10. Dark Souls II (PC)

The end of 2021 revealed to me one crucial detail - I like Dark Souls and Soulslike games after years of failed attempts. This realization occurring conveniently before the release of FromSoftware's next behemoth Elden Ring. So the race was on - how many Soulsborne games developed by FromSoftware could I complete before getting to Elden Ring?

In January, all eyes turned to Dark Souls II as the immediate next step after slaying Lord Gwyn. I've heard a lot about it, not all positive of course. There's a lot of annoying little things about this one. The controls feel a little weird. The health bar is constantly going down. The levels feel kind of samey and lack a ton of level-to-level cohesion. The bosses are truly all over the place.

But, like, Dark Souls 1 had a lot of problems too. So why did I not love this one as much? The gameplay loop involved in tackling monumental challenge is still as fun as ever, and none of the areas are truly repulsive in quality or anything. Maybe it's the fact that I can't really remember much about the experience that says it all here. Still, I had a good time messing around with this one, and even from the bit I experimented with it looks like replaying DSII is definitely worth it.

9. Risk of Rain 2 (PC)

Gamer confession time - I do not care for Roguelikes. I've tried, believe me I've tried. Isaac, Gungeon, Necrodancer, Spelunky, none of these ever did anything for me. So what were these missing? At risk of going on too much of a tangent, let's just keep it simple. They didn't have multiplayer.

Risk of Rain 2, has multiplayer. And just by nature of that one addition, I'm sold on the idea of randomly generated runs of similar content. What can I say? Reacting to the different events in every run is a lot more fun when there's people to react with. Tackling the challenge of getting to the end of a 90 minute run is a lot more satisfying when it's a group effort. And learning the game's mechanics and intricacies by asking a question to a human is a lot more engaging than doing so to a Fandom page.

You know what else Risk of Rain 2 has? Loader. Gosh damped Loader is in this game. Loader has a grapple hook that can fling her across the level AND can uppercut small critters. I want to be her when I'm robotic and dead.

8. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PC)

Star Wars is kind of exhausting to engage with. Thankfully, beyond being another piece of the Disney media machine, Jedi Fallen Order is a pretty fun game as well.

I had this game on my backlog for about two years and I'm glad I finally got to it. The main make or break for me, the Metroid-enjoyer of my friend circle, is how the levels would be laid out to incentivize exploration and finding essential movement-based items along the way to facilitate progress. And while not as good as, say, Metroid Prime in that regard, Jedi Fallen Order hits a lot of those beats. I didn't even think there'd be a double jump in this game (for some reason) but when I got one it immediately made me think of all the new areas I could explore with that new ability. Combat is pretty fun here as well, with a slew of abilities both involving your saber and your force hands to obliterate the white menace (Stormtroopers) and all rats that come from the dirt.

Taken as just a game, it's a good time, albeit one that feels like a mashup of a lot of other successful game ideas and mechanics. But when all these mechanics and features are wrapped in a cozy Star Wars shaped wrapping paper along with a gift card to "Actually Tells an Interesting Story of Regret and Acceptance Without Relying Too Heavily on Star Wars Tropes And Areas," maybe it comes together better than the sum of its parts.

7. Splatoon 3 (Nintendo Switch)

Boy howdy, do I love giving money to Nintendo. One of my favorite pastimes, that and sitting. I'll be honest though, I wasn't too keen on engaging with Splatoon 3 up to launch. Nothing really grabbed me as someone who only liked Splatoon 1 and 2. To be honest, I was more of a fan of the single player modes of those earlier games. So if anything, I would just get it for the campaign. Which would have been fine, Splat 3's story takes the best of Octo Expansion's creative level ideas into a wild story that ends with a cool boss fight, like expected.

What I didn't expect was for one of Splatoon 3's multiplayer modes to make a believer out of me, which did end up happening. Not turf war though, at least not really. Still only think that mode is alright at best and infuriating at worst. Or Ranked/Anarchy, sweating in Splatoon feels like a recipe for a brain tumor. Splatoon 3's biggest win is the new Salmon Run. Well, "new" isn't really accurate since its mostly the same thing as Splatoon 2's mode. However, Splatoon 3 surprised millions and soared above the competition with just one innovative tweak and trick - throwing golden eggs with the A button.

And with that, Salmon Run can be played far more offensively, letting you run around all over the place with your Tri-Slosher while throwing eggs into the net from the lower level of the map. And my golly, when I nail a buzzer beater where the last second egg throw into the net just meets the quota to move onto the next level, I felt more comfortable with parting $20 a year for Nintendo Online than I ever have. Until the next communication error, of course.

6. Dark Souls III (PC)

Dark Souls III, the fifth Demon's Souls game and the fourth game on my Soulsborne list, was made for me by the Abyss Watchers. My experience with those guys is what these games are all about. A brutal challenge which I throw myself at time and time again, originally feeling so hopeless and beaten but gradually growing in both skill and confidence to conquer your fears and goals. Dark Souls III is also made by the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, a beautiful fight befitting of its name in which your rolls and R1 presses must fit in tandem with the bosses enveloping swings and spins. When judging Soulsborne boss fights, DSIII is easily my favorite in the series.

And on the quality of those bosses DSIII sits here on my list. Because the rest of the game is kind of forgettable. Maybe it was just Souls fatigue that did this to me but I really don't remember a whole lot beyond the bosses from this game. I remember the one terrible swamp area that felt like dragging my foot through a... mud... puddle. And I remember the area that was kind of black and white that looped back around on itself. That's about it though, and this Souls fatigue kind of bleeds into the overarching themes of the game, it seems like. This world needed to die, leaving it all in the past to chart new territory. Dark Souls is over, but it's spirit will continually revive into greater things.

5. Cuphead: Delicious Last Course (PC)

I have only played Cuphead as a multiplayer experience. Over the summer of 2019, my roommate and I gorged ourselves in Cuphead's challenge and aesthetic. He would wake me up at around 11am, staring with loving yet needy eyes which told me to get my ass up and back at the setup. Much like Risk of Rain 2, the joy of accomplishment feels all the sweeter when shared, and the journey to get there all the more fun. We even learned the Cuphead barbershop quartet jingle, singing it on the way to Frenchi's to the bereavement of passers by.

At the end of our journey, I distinctly remember feeling excited for the new DLC level to release, as at that point it was scheduled to drop later that year. Less than a year turned into three, and by the time the Cuphead DLC launched for a measly $8, I knew we needed to get together again to experience the heights of beating the piss out of bees and carrots yet again.

Cuphead's Delectable Lone Continuation is, put simply, more Cuphead. It didn't necessarily set to light the world ablaze like last time, but as a fun revisit of the mechanics and aesthetic, DLC was everything I could have wanted. We certainly didn't find it as hard as the end of the base game, given we beat everything within two sessions and five hours. But perhaps we have simply grown as gamers, and as men, since our last time at cartoon town.

4. Spark the Electric Jester 3 (PC)

Spark hit the big time this year, notable since it was the first time the Yellow Lanky Brown-Coated Hat Wearing Clown Man has ever hit my purview. Taken on its own, Spark 3 is an impressive feat for a single developer, as high speed 3D platformers are a tough mix to develop for. You have to simultaneously create large, sprawling landscapes for the characters to traverse through, while being keenly aware that the world is often going to be breezed by in a matter of seconds.

But taken as a culmination of developer Lake Feperd's body of work over the past decade, forged in the fangame scene before tackling the challenges and expectations of original IP, Spark 3 rises ever higher. Comparing footage of the game's two predecessors reveals a steady forming of confidence in how to make games that feel and, more importantly, flow like this. With controls that propel the titular character seamlessly to impressive speed, and level design that facilitates such high speed without becoming too much of a straight line. Developers with higher budgets have been treading this line for years, and often fail to hit the peaks of this wondrous adventure.

High speed doesn't define Spark though, as a character and as a game. There's a lot of thought put into how each level fits into the overarching world. You're not just running through levels for the fun of it, these are genuine places that are inhabited by people. If you stray off the linear path to collect any of the colored coins scattered through each level, you'll find each area is fleshed out beyond the point of necessity. The story is surprisingly deep and moving for a game of this style, with twists and turns that call into question the world you've just blazed through. More than anything, Spark feels like a labor of love, and hopefully that love is reciprocated.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (Dolphin)

It's easy to take for granted the emulation paradise we're currently experiencing. Nearly every console ever developed has at least some group of passionate hobbyists working to preserve that hardware and software library therein to players and developers for years to come. Even modern consoles like the Switch and PS4 have impressive emulation solutions right now, with undoubtedly more progress to be made in the coming years.

Most impressively, though, is Dolphin. A combined emulator of the GameCube and Wii consoles, Dolphin has been polished to a mirror's shine. Nearly every game worth playing on these two systems have been made fully compatible, with remaining loose ends being closed every day. If Dolphin closed up shop five years ago, it would still be among the most feature complete emulators to this day, but the continued progress is nothing short of inspiring.

No emulation experience has left me in awe more than when me and three other friends played Four Swords Adventures earlier this year. By linking Dolphin and another GBA emulator (mGBA), utilizing the built in Netplay features in Dolphin to connect to each other, and remapping our controls to better suit modern pads, we were able to play one of the most chaotic, insane, well paced, and ultimately fun co-op experiences Nintendo has ever made. While the original game was hampered by insane accessibility concerns (four GBAs for crying out loud!) and has not been ported officially to anything since, this emulation solution has blown the door open for future players to experience this multiplayer masterpiece well into the future.

2. Elden Ring (PC)

There was no doubt FromSoftware's latest game would hit this list, as it has and will do for the lists of thousands of gaming-obsessed wannabe writers over these past and future months. It's very concept left people in want - an open world Dark Souls game with the highest production values and development time in the Soulsborne semi-franchise. These games' following has progressed far beyond cult, as Elden Ring and its impact caused these games to hit the mainstream. Reverberations of which caused me and my friends to embark on our Souls experience in the preceding months. Along the journey, we fell in love with what was on offer - the world, the design, the challenge, the community, and the sense of achievement, specifically on my end, of finally putting a series that I always knew I would love solidly into one of my favorites.

All roads lead to May, when everyone I knew was either already playing or had just started playing Elden Ring. The experience of early Limgrave is something really special, and it remains my favorite part of the game. Truly no path in this early area is the wrong path. Each story and journey embarked is entirely unique to each of the millions of players. Open world games rarely get this unique part of their appeal; playing games like Spider-Man this year only reinforced this perspective. While each player is bounded to come across some of the same things, the pure scale and density of the world is something to behold, and to experience everything requires commitment and time.

But often, when beholding the monolith of something seemingly insurmountable, motivation is fleeting. Admittedly, after getting through Leyndell and conquering Morgott, I simply ran out of gas. It should have come as no surprise, given I had been gorging myself in Souls content for the preceding months and that Elden Ring on average takes around three times the hours to complete compared to the preceding titles. I took a three month long break from completing its remaining areas, in which even when I got there, I was struck by the quality difference between the early and end game. This is to take nothing away from what Elden Ring achieved, though, and the experience I had playing it. Ultimately, it's an experience I'm glad I had, particularly at the end of my Souls journey. But as the months went on, my experience with Elden Ring was not what stuck with me as the peak of my gaming year.

1. Bloodborne (PS4)

I bought a PS5 to play this game. I've owned Bloodborne for many years, with my first experience occurring in 2015. My time with the game was short, as very soon afterward I was whisked off to college without a PS4 to play with. But much like how the experience of trekking through the Undead Burg and Parish is still baked into my skull even years after first attempting it, I will never forget my first run through Central Yharnam. That packed alleyway full of damned locals wielding nothing but their bare fists and torches to light the way, dimly lit and dankly produced with the pronounced, overwhelming horror of a gothic town gone mad with sickness and death, remains the most striking opening to a Souls game FromSoft has ever made.

I didn't get much further than the Father Gascoigne fight before I stopped playing that first time, but something about those early hours kept drawing me back to Bloodborne. Even when I was pitch broke and jobless in college, I would frequently check for the price of PS4 Slims on Facebook Marketplace to see if I could get one for close to $100. While the PS4 has a great library, with tons of quality titles that I would like to play at some point, only one made me eventually pull the trigger when money was right.

And here I was, March of 2022, having bested Dark Souls 1 and 2 and becoming innately familiar with the Souls series, finally sitting in front of my obnoxiously high latency television that was stating the Bloodborne title screen. At last, I was ready to give this experience another crack. And of course, a master at gaming and gameplay that I am, I still got rocked at this same Central Yharnam graveyard. As I soon learned, knowledge of previous Souls games actually isn't that much of an advantage. You don't play Bloodborne like Dark Souls, a fact I was harshly reminded of going straight from DSII to BB to DSIII. It's been repeated to the point of chronic eye pain at this point, but the lack of shields in Bloodborne really makes a difference in how you trudge through it. This lack of instant defensive options combined with the regain system of getting back health upon hitting an enemy, the insane number of quality trick weapons at your disposal, and the complete lack of things like slow rolling and armor upgrades forces players to approach combat scenarios not so much as a studious, opportunistic Dark Souls player but as a ravenous hound, thirsty for carnage and blood vials.

Which, even in context of the game world, makes sense. You aren't a cursed undead trying to escape a rotten world by resetting the cycle of anguish, escaping this cruel engagement through wits rather than brawn. You're coming here. To this ruinous city on its most vile, violent occasion. The utter definition of eldritch, cosmic horror which unravels slowly and grotesquely as the game progresses. You, in your pride, come here to cure illness. And in your attempt, you find yourself adapting to match the furor and intensity of the beasts you fight in your path. Even if a cure can be found here (it can't), the sickness you receive in return can't be worth the trouble. Beasts all over the shop...

I usually don't think of games like this. I have what my goofy favorite YouTuber NakeyJakey calls goopy goblin gamer brain, a sickness which makes you compare every video game to Super Mario. Gameplay comes first and foremost; it doesn't really matter how it all comes together as long as the core is solid. So perhaps its because Bloodborne quite simply can't get out of my head months after completing it that puts it at the top of my list. The more I think about the experience in its totality, the more in awe I feel of it. Games like Bloodborne are not created by pure artistic competency or raw man hours put in. There needs to be a certain alignment of the moon and amygdala to have something so horrific and beautiful exist on our revolving hellfire.

My "New Year's Rockin' Wish" is for Bloodborne to release on PC, if for no other reason than for my friends to play it. They helped me get over the hurdles needed for me to enjoy this series, so they more than deserve to experience what I believe to be the crowning achievement of the FromSoftware catalog. But if Mark Sony hates God and mocks death as much as I think he does, he will continue restricting access of Bloodborne to a sub-30 FPS experience even on my $500 white rectangle. And for this, my gamer brainiacs, he will go to, and burn in, hell.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!

#game of the year #goty #sonic #elden ring #dark souls #bloodborne #playstation #ps5

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fayesdiary · 2 years ago

Note

Oh, the video game ask has so many good questions: 1, 3, 5, 6, 14, 20, and 22, or if you don't feel like answering that many questions, then two of your choice!

1) Last game you finished

Dark Souls Remastered, weirdly enough.

I actually played the original version on PC a long time ago, but I never finished it because it was on an old laptop, the original port is garbage, and so by the time I got to Lost Izalith it turned into a slideshow which made it straight up unplayable, which was such a shame because I was especially into the series at that point.

Say what you will about the changes the remastered made, but at least it made Blighttown and Lost Izalith playable and that's good enough for me. Nice to get that pebble out of my shoe at last.

3) 1-3 games you’ve played in the past 12 months that you really enjoyed

Have you heard about the underrated indie Action RPG CrossCode?

No seriously, I know I never shut the fuck up about CrossCode but it's for good reason. The graphics are so pretty and the presentation is top notch, the music is SO GOOD, the gameplay is unbelievably fun and the story... don't get me started on the story. I still have so many feelings about Lea.

Seriously I am going to break into all your houses just to drop a copy of CrossCode and leave, just play the game already

Another great indie that gave me too many feelings is OneShot! I really recommend you play it, and I do mean play it. It's one of those fourth wall breaking games but executed so well, so if you don't play it yourself you lose so much of the experience.

5) Game(s) coming out that you’re looking forward to

Kingdom Hearts 4 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth!

Not that I'm likely gonna play them anytime soon though, since they'll likely be on PS5 only. I am absolutely playing the whole Remake trilogy when it comes out in the inevitable cheap bundle, though!

I doubt I'l have the same patience for KH4 though...😰

6) A series you’ve enjoyed since your early days of gaming and still enjoy to this day whether it still has games coming out or is one you return to

Kirby!

Been playing that since I was in middle school and I've been a huge fun of it ever since, the games never miss!

Speaking of, I just bought Forgotten Land and I can't wait to play it👀

14) A song that’s sure to hit your nostalgia buttons

Dearly Beloved. Almost every version of it but especially KH1, 2 and 3.

20) A boss you think is really cool

Slave Knight Gael is the last boss of Dark Souls 3 and is so fucking cool. The lore, the music, the atmosphere (all the lightning in the final phase!), and the boss itself is just top notch.

Really, the best way they could have ended the Souls trilogy.

22) A game ending that’s really stuck with you

The endings of KH Days, Undertale and Mother 3. And yes, it was because they were all absolute punches in the gut.

#ask replies #loregoddess #my rambles

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lady-byleth · 2 years ago

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Quick info on the Tales of Symphonia Remaster:

I am absolutely stoked to be able to play it on a console I own, with a controller I'm used to and without performance issues on my end (PS4 version played on PS5 just FYI) BUT

It's just...so lazy. The graphics are okay and I feel like the combat goes more smoothly - tho granted that may be cuz I'm playing with a familiar system - but I don't see...any actual improvements on dialogue or mechanics that could've been put in.

Hell, at some points the dialogue is worse than before, not in quality but in that characters will say something while the game displays one speech bubble and when you go to the next one the voice over will repeat that exact same piece of dialogue again. This has never happened on my PC version, has happened a lot on this one, and it's frankly...annoying that such a dumb mistake is happening on a REMASTER

Not to mention they still can't let Zelos say "hunny" to Lloyd which, given its 2023, is really sad.

I haven't finished yet, just got back to Sylvarant so I'd say I'm past the halfway point by a bit but still have a good stretch ahead, but I remember that there were a lot of pronoun mixups for the soulmate scenes with Zelos in them, as well as a bunch of grammatical errors, and if those are still there then this is really just the same game smacked onto a different medium and as much as I love playing this again...

Idk yall, unless you actually plan to make improvements on a game...don't re-release it...

The remaster of Vesperia was good cuz it included the Japan exclusive content we never got in the west. That alone made it worthwhile. But if Bamco can't even remove their no-homo bullshit from 20 years ago then what even is the point, you know?

I love this game deeply and I am happy to own a physical copy that runs on a console I have readily available with no bugs that I've encountered but...*sigh* at least it isn't a full price game...

Really pissed about the "hunny" thing tho...it's been 20 years...god damn it...

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emilypemily · 3 months ago

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bc I am turning 30 in a couple months I thought maybe I should treat myself to something big, like a PS5.

And then I remembered how expensive they are so I’ve ordered a PS3 because it turns out a lot of the games I would like to play are on the PS3 anyway and if I wanted to play them on a PS5 I’d have to either pay a lot more money or stream it

Mainly I just wanted to play fallout new vegas, but today I bought that game and a few others from CeX, where I’ve also ordered the PS3 from, so the games are new vegas, red dead redemption, mirror’s edge, and the last of us. I do kind of want to play skate 3 as well but that’s more expensive, and they didn’t have mass effect in the shop. Something I guess kind of funny buying a console for my 30th birthday that came out in the UK mere days after my 13th birthday but it’s cool that these games are new to me, and the sun total is less than £80 console included.

I actually started writing this post bc it was funny to me that the copy of the last of us that I bought features on the cover the version of Ellie that looks inexplicably like Elliot Page. Like for years I just assumed he did the mo cap for the game and probably voiced Ellie bc like, why else would that character look like that. Very weird day when I finally googled the game and found out he had nothing to do with it at all and that later versions of the game had to change Ellie’s face to look less like him.

The PS3 arrives tomorrow and I’m gonna be playing new vegas first and then I go away for a week so it might be a while before I find out if this version of the game is the Elliot Page one.

#I know red dead redemption is now on switch but the ps3 version was £1.50 #the most expensive game was new vegas at £6

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mpsideadump · 5 months ago

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me and my dad playing Baldur's Gate 3

So our physical copy of Baldur's Gate 3 arrived a few weeks ago now and both my dad and I have been having a blast playing this game! I wanted to just ramble about the game but mostly I want to highlight my dad in this post. I do want to say that I knew some act 1 and act 2 stuff (never even seen act 3) before playing the game myself cuz I didn't think that a physical ps5 version of the game would ever come out but my dad is going in completely blind!

We're playing on our own campaigns on our own accounts. I've just made my way to Act 2 meanwhile my dad's just found the tiefling Grove because he's getting used to the mechanics (never played DnD before but does enjoy the turn based combat system).

I'm playing a half-drow bard (I had been planning my character for a long time since we pre-ordered the physical edition) while Dad's playing an elf monk. Funnily enough we stayed up til like 1 a.m. as I helped him create his character (like explaining race bonuses, Stat distribution, proficiencies etc.). The actual character creation (appearance and stuff like that) took 2 whole hours as he kept on discovering what features the creator allowed. I'm never gonna forget his reaction to being able to have two different eye colors. He went something like "oh hell yeah I'll have that!".

And I legit laughed my ass off at his reaction to the genital customization and how he actually took like 2 minutes (I'm not joking) looking through the options and trying to figure out the differences between them 😂

Anyways, aside from character creation, I'm watching my dad play through the beginning of act 1 to see his reactions to everyone and giving him tips and pointers for combat and exploration (organizing the party, what can and can't be used as an action, etc.). I'm completely hands off on what he does though such as decisions and where to go .

Some highlights of his campaign so far:

Shadowheart being missing on the beach cuz he went to camp first thing after the ship crashed (and me discovering a new way to meet her at the tiefling grove)

Him not liking Astarion upon first meeting but keeping him around cuz, again, he's missing Shadowheart and really needs another party member.

Giving Astarion the ugly leather helmet and NOT EVEN HIDING IT because he's punishing him for insulting his character for "being from different circles" (from the Baldurian dialogue option)

Immediately liking Gale and saying he looks like Jesus Christ

Going to the tomb and losing two hours of progress after meeting Withers because the Gane crashed as he was organizing stuff (he thus learned the lesson of always saving before and after something important happens)

Speaking of, he spends A LOT of time organizing his things like actually putting collected books in book stacks and even placing bottles on the bottle rack

Becoming a fellow Lae'zel enjoyer and (please remember both of us haven't gotten far enough in the game to learn more of the characters just yet) agreeing that Shadowheart is annoying with her racism (though I do understand githyanki are extremists in their own way)

Sending Lae'zel to camp begrudgingly to recruit Shadowheart then immediately sending her to camp as well (thankfully they didn't kill each other while he was away but I have seen the moment where they do actually try to kill each other during a long rest 😉)

almost losing Gale because he used the tadpole on him as he was confessing about his condition and had to pass a DC 10 persuasion check (without proficiency and Shadowheart's guidance) to keep him around

Karlach is the only origin character he's yet to find but he's currently thinking of finding her after going to the goblin camp cuz he wants to focus on the main story. I predict that he's gonna love her upon meeting her!

While I'm pursuing Gale and Lae'zel for a romance (I'll choose which one I commit to throughout Act 2), I'm not too sure on who Dad is gonna pursue or if he'll even pursue anyone at all. If trends are anything to go off of, I think he might end up going for Shadowheart cuz he's romanced Miranda in Mass Effect and Yennefer in Witcher 3. However, if he's got taste, he's gonna go for Karlach is my guess.

All in all, I'm happy that both of us are playing this game because it's been a long time since we've had a game to bond over. We tried playing Final Fantasy 16 together but he couldn't get into the combat and I felt bad wanting to continue by myself when this same thing happened with FF15. He introduced me to video games and I loved watching him play when I was a kid and then eventually going on to play and beat multiple games he wasn't able to complete himself.

I hope both of us are able to get to the end eventually for this adventure :)

Dad's character: Soon-tion

My character: Tala

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #rambles #ramblings #gamer dad #Gamer fam

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bearpillowmonster · 2 years ago

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REsident REvil 4 REmake REview

Attack of the games I've tried and didn't like then came back later to love.

I've played RE3 more times than I care to count because I had a lot of fun with it but fun doesn't always equal the perfect game, it has its flaws. I just run through it so much because it's easy and I've learned it, the actual game I gave a 6/10, all I ask is that this one beats that.

I don't know if I'm going to be the first person to say this but here are my honest thoughts…let me preface by saying this is the PS4 version. It ran fine, a few hitches but nothing unplayable, nothing intolerable, just small little stuff. Graphics are obviously downsized as the same with file size which I expected but judging from the PS5 footage I've seen, that mainly affects performance, the graphics remain similar enough.

When I first saw the trailers, the graphics looked obviously good, I was blown away with RE2 and I'm not a total graphic fidelity guy or anything, I still play old games but I can also appreciate a good graphics game as much as anyone and I'm sorry but that first chapter of the game is just bad. His hair glistens, which sounds pathetic to complain about but in a nighttime setting, especially that opening scene, it just doesn't make sense when Leon's hair lights up the room more than his flashlight. In the light, it looks real good but aside from the environment, it renders the photo mode almost pointless because Leon's face is so stock it's not even funny. It wouldn't be a problem because you're looking at his back anyway but photo mode allows it, so you see it. There aren't filters or poses either, maybe I was just spoiled by Horizon Zero Dawn. But that's not even all.

This game is a remake of something from 2005 and it reflects that, there are a lot of narrow linear passages to get from point A to point B, it feels like you're heading from town setting to town setting to wipe out waves of zombies. I know this was more action based than that of the previous entries but still, do you beat enemies or outrun them, do you save ammo or not? It's a gamble.

One of the things that turned me off initially from the 2005 version was that everything seemed very samey, like I was shooting these villagers that were copies of each other and they just kept reappearing. Now there are some zombies that you'll see copied but now it's not so glaringly obvious due to the upglow. But it can get really irritating hearing them say the same voice lines over and over, I missed when they didn't talk. But what that first chapter covers is when I sold the original game back, heck it's what they based the demo off of. When I played the RE2 and 3 remake demos, I was blown away but had I played this one, I might not have picked it up. But! It kind of gets better and better as it goes on so you're clear :)

There are certain parts where it hit that whimsy because I would be like "I'm actually doing this." I don't really wanna spoil those moments for you (if you don't know them already from the original) but even knowing some of them were coming, I was reminded of how cool some of the gameplay context moments were in Jedi Outcast and how rare it's been since then to feel that.

Leon is very reactive, whether it be his grunts and breathing or when he's hurt to when there's poop and flies and he waves his hands and puts his hands up to his face. There were some points that I knew what was going on just based on his reactions alone. I mean the controller itself is used quite effectively too with voices coming on it and such.

Leon's whole personality has shifted, he was a dork in the last game (RE2) but he's become hardened, something that I've always found the contrast of as a little too much, too uncomfortable for me but hearing his voice lines, he's still a dork at heart, just has a lot more going on and is better prepared for it…mostly. In RE2, he'd say "What the-" whenever he saw something unnatural like a zombie now he says it when he sees something common like a bodybag. I mean, what happened between 2 and 4 is really up to a few second recap so a whole game could've filled that period but whatever. If you get confused, apparently Darkside Chronicles has some of that information but you probably know that's not an easy one to find.

One of the things I enjoyed about RE3RE was that it had the quick dodge. Some people thought this mechanic was too broken because once you got a rhythm down, you could parry. Well you don't have the quick dodge this time (THANKS A LOT!) but you have an evade which is a quick time that appears whenever it feels like it. But you can also stealth kill if you have the knife and if they have a knife then you can parry that and I say if you have the knife because it now breaks and you can either repair it or find a new one but eventually it wasn't really a problem because I found them so frequently. You also have a melee which after getting a zombie stunned you can kick for a wide effect (hitting multiple targets) and or depending on the situation, strike them with your knife. It's especially helpful when they've hit the ground because you're not awkwardly standing over them to try and aim your reticle to make sure they stay down while they're rising up again, instead, you just give it a finishing move. But what's that? You have no room for a knife in your inventory because it's packed with grenades? Just use the item box. What's that? You can't store just anything? Mainly weapons? Well, that sucks. So it gives, it takes.

In fact, I feel like what I liked about RE3 wasn't really present here but what I disliked about RE3 wasn't really an issue here either, leaving room for new things to like, perhaps even more. With that said, there are parts reminiscent of RE3RE like how the Hospital plays out, having Jill out of commission and you play as Carlos to go around the place, getting key cards and such, running into pale heads, giving her a cure. That's basically done the same way with Ashley and Leon, it's not a tired trope because it's only happened once before as far as I know but that's the only pass I'll give it for that. This is also a much longer game than the previous ones so it's not as detrimental.

There are traps now, stuff to slow you down and hurt you just a little but enough that it may hurt more in the long run (not like poison but if a zombie gets you or something, you're down that much more) but you can eat chicken eggs now, so you're good! Speaking of zombies, they are indeed zombies but more like people with a spell put on them sort of. Necromanced or whatever. You can jump through windows, the world is bigger to explore but not so big that you're getting (totally) lost (I mentioned linear passages after all). This allows for more collectible opportunities.

Money, there's a money system which is obviously used for the merchant, this allows for challenges you can complete for dough, similar to that of the ones that are usually in the menu. Most of your weapons come from this but that's the thing, I feel like everything is a soft introduction and I in no way mean that in a bad way, I mean it in the best way. You're not forced to use the merchant if you don't want to but it's definitely helpful and you can still pick up some of the weapons and items here and there like any other game if you wanted.

There's a treasure system which you can collect stuff and then apply gems to make them more valuable to sell. It'd be cool if the treasures were collectibles in the menu and you in turn put gems in them to unlock the models and concept art they already have in there but still cool. Use that money to get upgrades and repairs and stuff.

It's split into chapters for whatever reason, which I don't really care for, it doesn't exactly hurt the experience but it does add to a series of other problems I had, making it feel like each chapter was something new but at the same time disjointing it overall. Sometimes like a tv show. Revelations did that as well. At one point I remember thinking "Did that happen in the actual game?" referring to the original, as if I wasn't already playing a game, it was kind of like an adaptation to me, where these scenes that I felt like I should know were being brought to a new screen kind of like HBO's The Last of Us. I feel like this was probably made for fans of the original. One thing I already know I prefer in the original is Ramon's design. He was a creepy little kid before, almost like a puppet but now he's just a little old man that acts like he's at the opera.

It ended up ranking about where I expected with me preferring RE2 just a little more for being a bit tighter around the edges but this game does improve on a lot from the ones previous, putting it above RE3 overall, we'll see how the memories of this game hold up though. I may even visit the original (is it that different?) now that it gave me interest. I was a little disappointed by that ending though. Not by the final boss or cutscenes but more that Ashley was pushed aside "We're a team, right?"

#re4 #re4 remake #resident evil 4 #capcom #resident evil 4 remake #video game #review #photo mode

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drpepper0703 · 2 years ago

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hi everybody i have played through most of the sh2 remake (havent finished it completely) but i will say i was wrong!! its very well done and i think bloober really pulled through ^_^ what i originally said abt the remake is below and i will admit i have had a complete change of opinion!!! (i still think if u have access to the original game u should try it out ^_^)

sad for anyone whos first experience with silent hill 2 is going to be the remake; bloober cannot make a horror game to save their lives (ex. this twitter thread explaining the plot to the medium and on a lighter note jerma laughing at the layers of fear baby) and they're taking away things that make silent hill 2 actually. scary. (dramatic lighting is limited and no fixed camera angles, plus the newer graphics in my opinion aren't as scary in general, and on top of that, the fear of how they're known to treat mental illness which is a big part of the game) being on steam makes the game a LITTLE more accessible, but being a ps5 exclusive screams cash grab more than "we want silent hill 2 to be available for old and new fans!!!" silent hill 2 is just not a game that can be successfully remade without taking away what makes it silent hill 2, and this remake is definitely not getting the love and care that it deserves. (honestly nothing will come close to the hand animated facial expressions of the original cutscenes) if you don't have access to a copy or emulation of silent hill 2, please, please, at least watch a no commentary playthrough of the game to experience what the original was like before playing the remake.

if you do have a copy of sh2 on the pc, there is a project called silent hill: enhanced edition that makes it playable on modern pcs which you can find here!

edit: i saw someone say that you can buy sh2 on the xbox store, which is technically true! its the hd remake which includes sh2 and sh3 though, and i would definitely not recommend playing it. long story short, it’s basically unfinished versions of the games with not so good graphics overlaid on top. konami lost the source codes to the original games which means the hd remake is in fact a LOT worse than the original games. it’s definitely playable, but there’s a lot of known issues.

#talks #silent hill #silent hill 2 #silent hill 2 remake #jerma #jerma985 #konami

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bunnymajo · 2 years ago

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The IDW Sonic cast & Sonic Frontiers: A silly mini fic

Surge & Kit drop in the middle of station square, the streets completely empty aside from parked cars

Surge: *kicks over a parked mini van* Hahaha, guess it’s my city now!!

She continues breaking some windows and other light property damage but no one really comes out and stops her.

Surge: What gives??

Kit: ...maybe it’s because the new game came out? Everyone’s too busy

Surge: I don’t care how fun the new “God of War” game is, hmph. guess I’ll take this closer to home

Kit:...uh...

Scene change to Tangle & Whisper’s treehouse bungalow, Surge busts through the front door. Tangle, Jewel & Whisper are all playing Sonic Frontiers on a big screen TV, the PS5 version, it’s Jewel’s copy.

Surge: Sup losers?

Whisper: Don’t talk to me.

Tangle: Surge, I told you you’re only allowed here during company parties. Here, you and Kit can have this trail mix I made if you go away *hands her a bag of trail mix with her tail*

Surge: *grabs it and stuffs it in her pants pocket* damn, I can’t believe you’re all really playing this baby game.

Jewel: The story’s actually pretty good, did you want to come ov-

The entire room: *intense glares*

Jewel: o-or not...

Surge: Hmph, I’ve got better things to do than to hang out with cub scouts looking at a screen running around in circles

Tangle: really? *gestures to Kit with her tail*

Kit’s playing a tiny portable version of Sonic Frontiers on a modded Switch that Tails built him for games, He’s trying to hide it behind his ears

Kit: Uhhh the company sent me a copy to review! I can explain!

Anyway the lowest rated score for Sonic Frontiers was written by Surge & Kit.

#surge does not play any sonic games on principle #except maybe sonic the fighters or shadow the the hedgehog #or she plays them just to have sonic instantly run into spikes or fall off a cliff #also i just like the idea of every sonic character collectively just taking the day off to play a new sonic game like it's a holiday #anyway #fanfic #surge the tenrec #idw sonic

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the-twewy-sequel · 3 years ago

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NEO: The World Ends With You Japanese Limited Edition Photos!

So, being the TWEWY fan I am, I kinda couldn't resist importing the super expensive and much-cooler-than-what-the-West-got limited edition for NTWEWY (https://store.jp.square-enix.com/item/SE_E2694.html), and I've actually had this kind of huge box just sitting in my room for ages, so as mentioned, I finally opened it today and took some photos of my spoils.

The bag, which contained a box with almost all the other goodies, looks pretty cool imo, and has the "funny game master saying", but I don't think I'll actually be able to use it. Not quite my style, I guess. Maybe one day I can come up with an excuse to use it anyway though, haha.

At first, the box just has the game and the Mr. Mew plush, and the game is, of course, in Japanese. Obviously I already played it and beat it, opting for the English Switch version, so now I've got a copy for both systems and in both languages, haha.

However, opening the box further reveals that there are multiple goodies! Here's a poorly lit photo above, lol. (I'm sorry, unboxing this took a while and I only had so much energy/effort to spare into taking good photos rn ^^; haha)

This cassette-player like box contains a Rindo pin and a reaper pin (think that’s what it’s called) that... looks pretty cool, but unfortunately can't turn back time no matter how hard I squeeze it. Though I dunno, maybe I just don't know how to use it right. Don't think it came with instructions, but if it did, they were in Japanese and I didn't try to translate them XD

This is the artbook, but with the cover taken off. That's right, it says "TWEWY"! Thought this was really interesting given that the Japanese name is, of course, quite different, but it seems like the English name has kinda caught on to an extent even in Japan, which I think is pretty neat.

Also, I did look at the inside, and it's classic artbook stuff, but well, it's NTWEWY, so I enjoyed it! Had some art I hadn't seen before too. (And some spoilers I guess, but hopefully collectors know it's better not to open such limited-edition-artbooks before beating the game, haha.)

The game and Mr. Mew. Dunno if I'll actually ever play this version of the game, especially with the PS5 already being a thing, and uhh, honestly I'm not a plushie person, so Mr. Mew doesn't have much use either, but... that's ok, collecting stuff I don't use isn't so bad if it's for TWEWY, right? XP

Lastly from the collector's edition, a mini soundtrack! Inside is a list of the songs, as well as a little booklet or such that has lyrics for the songs. only listened to a couple songs so far but between this and the full soundtrack I showed earlier, I think I'm set for NTWEWY's music, haha. Also, I lowkey still own a CD player that doubles as an alarm (not sure what it's called anymore), and I put this mini soundtrack in it, so now I might end up waking up to NTWEWY music sometimes. :P

But wait, there's more! Actually, I got something from the TWEWY Animation merch line that Square Enix also had on their Japanese store. So this is separate from the NTWEWY collector's edition, but I had it shipped in the same box, and so here it is!

W-What are these? Acrylic stands! Each one was about about $15 or so, but when I realized they all form a mural or w/e when put together, I kind of couldn't help but get all of them...

The lighting in my room at night is kinda poor and the photo doesn't look good with a flash imo, but I think y'all get the idea—the 5 of them complete a set, and I'm happy to have them as a way of remembering/appreciating TWEWY.

---

Overall I'd say I'm very happy with the collector's edition and acrylic stands, even if I do realize it's kind of a waste of money—felt like I needed to live it up for the sequel of one of my all-time favorite games, you know?

But at the end of the day/as I basically just said, these are kind of just ways to help remember and convey my passion for the series, and I think the most important thing is our own experiences with the games and how we feel about them. Merch is just a bonus, haha. And I mean, I think with this I should be good on TWEWY merch for a good, long while now, ;).

#twewy #ntwewy #the world ends with you #neo: the world ends with you #twewy animation #collector's edition #limited edition #acrylic stands

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bihet-dragonize · 2 years ago

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Doom anon here, bitching about modern controllers & modern joysticks

so about my difficulty readjusting to Doom with joysticks after playing the PlayStation Doom on PC with a mouse in the PsyDoom source port (great source port btw, the best way to play the PlayStation Doom & Final Doom ports imo)...

it didn't help that I was using a new controller because my Switch pro controller's joystick drifts, so I got this GuliKit KingKong 2 Pro or whatever... I have mixed opinions about it

like as a controller it's fine and as a Switch controller it's adequate, it's got gyro and it can wake the console from sleep and it even has NFC, all it's missing is HD rumble

but it's terribly unergonomic and idk why they gave it analog triggers when Switch can't use them (except it also has modes for Xinput, Dinput, and Android, so that's why), and the joysticks use Hall effect sensors so they won't drift (which is great, and its main selling point) but they're a little loose like on a controller that's been used for a decade, and I hate the face buttons and I'm not a fan of the shoulder buttons and the rumble is bad when playing on Switch (not on PC though, which makes me think it's an HD rumble mismatch since it's read as a pro controller by the Switch) and there's not an app for it so any configuration happens with button combos

it'd be a decent controller, but not at a $70 price tag. it's insane that it's $70, but I think they're exploiting the fact that the Switch pro controller is a $70 "premium" hunk of junk with the same type of cheap garbage potentiometers every modern joystick has been using, and people are more aware of joystick drift on Switch so even though the same cheap potentiometers are in the PS5 and Xbox Series controllers they bank on the higher profile Switch failures to sell this

8bitdo is doing the same thing now. they're copying off GuliKit to put Hall effect sensors in a controller for Switch to charge $70 with the promise that it won't drift -- "would you rather pay $70 for a drifting Nintendo controller or $70 for non-drifting?" is essentially the tactic. and it's so scummy. hilariously transparent too, since the new 8bitdo has 3 versions and only the Switch version is $70 and only it has Hall effect sensors, so it's pretty blatant why that is

obviously GuliKit weren't the first to use Hall effect sensors for joysticks, Sega did it back in the 90s, but no one else had done it since. and I'm sorry but Hall effect sensors aren't that terribly expensive to implement, they're charging more just because they can and they know people fed up with cheap potentiometers will cough up the dough

it's ridiculous. it's not even that potentiometers are inherently this terrible (though all will inevitably fail eventually and sooner than alternatives would since they're mechanical), it's that the ones being used are complete junk in an effort to shave off a tiny bit of cost per unit to increase profits. for them to then take decades old technology and pass it off as new and charge a premium is disgusting

that's not even getting into the fact that the way these Hall effect sensors are implemented is bad and stupid, if you look at a teardown of the GuliKit I bought and compare that to a teardown of the Dreamcast controller you can see how much worse the GuliKit design is

and, the GuliKit one still drifts! it's not the same type or extent of drift, but without a pretty sizeable and foolishly implemented deadzone active, the joysticks on the GuliKit controller don't go back to center, they drift like crazy in a very small area around the center. it's not always noticeable all the time in-game but in testing it is, and I wouldn't mind the dead zone except that instead of recalculating the values so that you keep a full range of input to be read by the console, all the lowest values are simply completely discarded, which depending on the game is quite noticeable actually and can be seen in testing apps and on the Switch's joystick calibration menu – the cursor will jump from the center to further away, which pro controller and joy-con won't

also, Switch pro controller has roughly circular input, but in Switch mode the GuliKit controller has pretty square input. people argue about circularity being super important, but frankly some older games that expect square input are near unplayable with circular input, whereas square input is just more of an inconvenience when a circular input range is expected. still, for Switch specifically, it should be circular – they fixed this for other modes with firmware updates, but not for the Switch mode. very strange

the 8bitdo one coming out will probably be better in some ways, but it's not gonna have NFC, and it's not gonna wake the Switch, and I despise the godawful D-pad people praise 8bitdo for, and the gyro is terrible in their $50 controller I got, and the software app for them is missing tons of features that were standard for cheap $20 controllers you could get 15 years ago…

anyway none of that relates to Doom but I am just incredibly frustrated with all these big companies making awful controllers and awful joysticks. I literally never had any drift until getting a Switch, and the joy-con and pro controller started drifting inside of 2 years. the springs in old controllers I own became super loose, but they still don't drift. New 3DS (unpopular opinion maybe but once I got used to it that circle pad became my favorite analog joystick), Wii U gamepad, Wii U pro controller, Wii nunchuk, Wii classic controller, GameCube controller, MadCatz GameCube controller that's gross and falling apart, N64 controller with a joystick so loose you can't use it, PS1 controller, cheap Logitech PC gamepad that was 20 bucks 15 years ago, nothing I owned drifted -- maybe other parts failed for other reasons (the flimsy plastic cap on my 3DS busted and I tore it off), but joysticks never drifted on me

speaking of N64, that wasn't a potentiometer or a Hall effect sensor, it was an optical sensor, which if you implemented it correctly would be a better idea than Hall effect sensors imo. but the N64 stick has other problems unrelated to the sensor

one last thing though, okay? so let's say for whatever reason, it's too hard to do optical sensors or Hall effect sensors, even though they had both for joysticks in the 1990s and those weren't expensive. okay I'll accept this false premise, it's too hard or it's too expensive, and also consumers shouldn't complain because everything will fail eventually (I have seen sooo many galaxy brained gaming youtubers say this). okay, so then why the fuck aren't joysticks all modular and easy to replace, with parts easy to buy? if you know it will fail, why is it not a priority to make it more replaceable for the consumer?

any child could disassemble and replace an N64 joystick easily enough, I know because I took apart my controller as a kid to try to figure out why the stick got so loose -- the N64 joystick's sensor wouldn't fail, but the other parts were still junk

you didn't need a special obscure screwdriver, you didn't need to worry about stripping cheap fragile screws designed to discourage user repair, and you didn't have to desolder anything either. the same was true of the Dreamcast controller, in fact its joystick is even easier to replace (but you'd probably never need to do it)

instead we now have in the Switch pro controller screws that strip incredibly easily and joysticks soldered to the board that you can't replace without desoldering them and then soldering the new one back on, so that you either have to send it for repairs (which they won't do if you tried to repair it yourself!) or buy an entire new $70 controller because the absolute cheapest part that would be incredibly easy to replace has failed through normal usage because the company that makes it has not made it to last long at all. that isn't the fault of the manufacturer of the potentiometers, it lasts as long as they say it will, it's the controller manufacturers making it intentionally difficult to replace who are to blame. at least there's no soldering to replace the joy-con joysticks, but it's still a royal pain and way harder than it needs to be tbh

but, you know... "capitalism breeds innovation!" that's why we went from the optical sensors and Hall effect sensors of the 1990s to the absolute cheapest junk sensors we could, only to come back to old technology decades later to market it as new and exciting and charge a premium for it

the only thing capitalism innovates is new ways of exploiting people, because that is its only goal, accumulate wealth by every means available to you. when your ideology values money above all else, it obviously isn't going to care about anything but money. why use a better technology when you could use a cheaper one? why make repairs easy when you can charge people for it instead?

anyway, sorry to make it political, but like... it literally objectively is a result of capitalism

also this is extremely tame compared to a lot of the atrocities done by capitalist ideology, in comparison to those things the joysticks don't matter even a little bit, but I can care about things big and small simultaneously, it isn't like it's mutually exclusive or anything

No you're 100% right to be annoyed about this. Especially when you KNOW that capitalism is ruining something you enjoy, but you alone can't do much to stop it. And yeah capitalism just recycles old shit while encouraging planned obsolescence. It happens with basically all technology nowadays (I see it with cellphones a lot cuz I like watching cellphone repair videos), so it's no surprise that it would be happening with Switch "Pro" controllers. And yeah companies fuck8ng HATE the idea of the consumer being able to repair their own products cuz then they can't suck people dry of all their money indefinitely. It's absolutely fucked and it doesn't matter if it's "insignificant" in the grand scheme of Fucked Up Shit Caused By Capitalism. It's another example of how -no matter big or small- capitalism will ruin everything.

#my answers #Kia's answers #and wrt cellphones an planned obsolescence that's why I don't genuinely subscribe to the brand wars people have over phones #cuz ALL of them fucking suck

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