(163.54 KB 800x800 )

>>3
>Megaman 2
Megaman 2 was one of the first games I played in my life. Having played Megaman as a child is very special to me. As a child, I remember playing Megaman 2 on trips to my grandmother's house (this was the only NES game still there), but I could only get past Flash Man and Metal Man. I was under ten at the time and had little to no experience with video games. My latest playthrough of Megaman 2 was through the Megaman Legacy Collection. The Megaman 2 game was exactly what I remembered - a fun, simple game that can be enjoyed anytime. What I don't remember is how difficult it was. My lack of gaming talent may explain what I am about to say, but even Flash man's stage was harder. It's funny how the stages were harder than the actual bosses this time around in Megaman 2. As I recall, I found it challenging to go through those parts where Megaman had to avoid those stupidly strong beams in Quick Man's stage. Those beams are scary. Another challenging stage was Crash Man's stage. The birds on the stage kept making me fall, and I was exhausted by the time I got to Crash Man himself. As for boss fights, none were particularly challenging, except when you were forced to fight them one after another. The most challenging fight during this run was grass man due to how big he is and because I underestimated him. Growing up, I remember being scared by Dr. Willy's suit in this game. It still creeps me out, but last time I just tried to defeat him as fast as possible. Overall I'd recommend Megaman 2 to anyone who likes video games, and you should play it soon.

(97.16 KB 424x600 )

>>5
>My lack of gaming talent may explain what I am about to say, but even Flash man's stage was harder
wut¿
>It's funny how the stages were harder than the actual bosses this time around in Megaman 2
But that's all classic Megaman games
>As for boss fights, none were particularly challenging, except when you were forced to fight them one after another
I beg to differ, since by that point you probably know all of their weaknesses and can steamroll them in seconds
>grass man
lol

(216.97 KB 800x1136 )

Alright, time for the big one.

--Preamble--
I have finally played the BEST versions of every single reboot Ninja Gaiden game. I'm deeply in love with (most) of this series, and will be writing extensive reviews on all three of them. I promised this months ago in the bunker. It's been quite a while since I've played NGB, but I still remember most of it as it was a very memorable experience.

As usual, expect heavy spoilers and lots of autism.

--LEVEL DESIGN--
Starting from the top, level design. Ninja Gaiden Black shares many similarities with early Devil May Cry titles, particularly the first. The level design is more reminiscent of Resident Evil than a straight action game. You will often find yourself traveling back and forth between areas to find keys and solve puzzles, while enemies respawn throughout. The level design itself is very varied as well, featuring tight platforming, mazes, and a strong atmospheric presence. I only ever got confused once, and that was in Level 10. However, that isn't a bad thing, as that level is meant to evoke a confusing aqueduct. The level design meshes well with the many aspects of combat and puzzle design, and never gets boring to look at or explore. There is something special to be said that 80% of the game takes place in essentially one massive map divided into individually directed levels. Level 3 in particular takes place within the streets of the city Tairon, and you travel back to that map many times in order to navigate towards other maps or return to shops and checkpoints. It all flows amazingly well and is a spectacle to behold.
10/10

--GAMEPLAY--
I'm listing this as "Gameplay" rather than "combat" because Ninja Gaiden Black has a lot more to offer than just combat. We're going to start with the combat though.
Compared to DMC or its sequel, NGB is a much slower and heavier game. The weapons swing slower, the combos are shorter, and you physically travel slower as well. Everything about the game is heavier. You start off with no special abilities at all-- you can only do the most basic of combos and special moves. As you progress through the game however, you gradually collect all of Ryu's signature abilities. The Guillotine Throw, the Izuna Drop, the longer combos and the fancy weaponry. The weapons themselves are also very muted in their style as well. The Lunar Staff is a simple realistic bo, the Nunchaku are just that-- Nunchaku. The weapon variety doesn't slack however, as there are greatswords, magical demon katana and the ever disappointing Vigoorian Flail. Let's not forget the ranged weaponry either. This game also has a bow, shurikens, and the most important one of all; the Spear Gun. All of them have their uses, but the Spear Gun in particular is useful only in a few scenarios. It's a gimmick weapon for the water stages, which just so happened to be my least favorite.
The enemies themselves are typically slower, yet are still extremely dangerous. Ninja Gaiden's legendary difficulty applies DOUBLE to this game. Due to the more open-ended game design, your resources are going to be drained especially quickly if you're slow and dumb. Particularly against the Black Spider Ninja, as they are extremely swift and do massive amounts of damage. The same could be said for the bosses, and Doku in particular took me an entire day to beat. They are extremely varied and interesting, and only once or twice to they boil down to "big enemy in the center of a large arena". Special props go to Smaugan and the Bone Dragon. Other than Doku though, I never found any of the bosses superbly difficult like I did in 2. I never understood why so many people found Alma so difficult, she's never killed me.
Combat isn't everything this game is good for though, as it also has mild platforming and puzzle solving. The platforming isn't anything super crazy, but it's there and it's appreciated. It helps to break up the monotony and makes traversing the levels significantly more fun and engaging. The "puzzles" aren't anything to write home about though. The game would definitely be worse off without them, but ultimately it all boils down to "find the key to put in the door". It's an excuse to get to the two other big gameplay elements.
8/10

(1/2)

(1.84 MB 1920x1080 )

>>8

--CONTROLS--
This is a game for the original Xbox, which means it does control a tiny bit odd. However, if you're used to action games of the time, it won't be a problem at all. Ryu handles nicely and the combat is extremely fluid due to the great control scheme and game physics. However, the water controls are questionable at best, and made the water levels a total pain. The 'water run' ability is completely useless and impossible to do because you can only do it on land while entering water, which isn't a viable thing to do in any of the stages where water may be a concern.
9/10

--MUSIC & ATMOSPHERE--
It's no secret that NGB has spectacular music. Just listen to this.
https://youtu.be/EcRhZ5Tx02E?list=PLQIhRE6-S9wPyB4FGxliNHj9WAoh50xb1
https://youtu.be/LyGwYwI9uyg?list=PLQIhRE6-S9wPyB4FGxliNHj9WAoh50xb1
https://youtu.be/75alHVa9Mxg?list=PLQIhRE6-S9wPyB4FGxliNHj9WAoh50xb1
The music speaks for itself, frankly. The game has an incredibly unique and inspired atmosphere, mixing badass ninja action with a techno-fantasy steampunk setting and slick breakbeat tunes. Really, you'd probably expect it to all clash terribly, but it doesn't. The game itself has more calm tracks to break up the high-octane boss fights and combat setpieces, setting the scene in a deeply troubled and corrupt Tairon. You travel from military bases to underground temples to the Underworld and demon castles, all interconnected by a masterfully crafted 'open world' environment.
10/10

--STORY & SETTING--
Ninja Gaiden Black has a story, and it's actually pretty good. I'm not going to walk you through it, but I will talk about it directly. It takes place in the capital city of Vigoor, Tairon. Ryu's home village has been attacked in pursuit of the Dark Dragon Blade, and his childhood friend is slain by Doku, 'Lord of the Fiends'. This sets you on a journey to Tairon in order to seek out Doku, slay the lord of Vigoor, and retrieve the Dark Dragon Blade for revenge, and to protect the delicate balance of good vs. evil. It's not the craziest plot in the world, but the world its set in and the story of Tairon is what sells it for me. Tairon is an extremely religious and totalitarian state that mostly keeps to itself, however through the events of the story and the few days that the game takes place in, you go from slinking through the alleyways and streets, taking out night watchmen to fighting the military during the daylight hours. Eventually, some sort of sickness breaks out and all of the soldiers, citizens and whomever left remaining in the city is transformed into a Fiend, filling the streets and causing general chaos. You watch Tairon fall from grace into bloodshed, and by the end when Ryu himself is infected and slowly turning into a Fiend the story, however mediocre it might be, has gripped you and won't let you go until you finish it.
9/10

--GRAPHICS & AUDIO--
Ninja Gaiden Black is an EXTREMELY impressive game from a technical standpoint. It has massive vistas, plenty of polygons, loads of enemies and tons of particle effects running all the time and it never once lags or stutters. The sound itself is deeply satisfying and never slouches. The sound of bloodshed and heavy metal whacks permeates throughout the entire game. The pre-rendered cutscenes in particular look spectacular, and have a level of polish not seen in titles at the time. NGB was truly a show of technical prowess by Team Ninja. Remember, Halo 2 released in the same year and looks outdated by comparison.
10/10


--CONCLUSION--
Overall, NGB is an extremely good game that anybody who considers themselves to be an "action game fan" MUST PLAY. Really, you should play it even if you aren't. It is a life changing experience, and I can guarantee it will suck you in up until the very end.


--I WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME BUT DON'T HAVE AN XBOX!--
Fear not, my friend! I don't have one either. However, you can play Ninja Gaiden Black with Xemu, which is a surprisingly powerful Xbox emulator. It takes a lot of setting up at the start, but once you get past that hump it's as smooth as a baby's bottom. Easy as a NES emulator
(2/2)

>>8
>>9
Why are you posting your spaced out review that no one is going to read on here and not on Steam?

>>10 You should keep it to at least 2 newlines and not 3 and an additional newline for the rating seems unnecessary and so is the preamble. Just try to keep in mind if you need to put down a newline or if it is unnecessary because It just looks weird.

(174.50 KB 800x1121 )

--Preamble--
Let it be known right here and now that Ninja Gaiden 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. Not only is it just a good game, but it also actively changed my life and inspired me to become a much better person. I am not joking. It is the single most important videogame I have ever played, and I hope to provide enough motivation for others to experience it themselves.

--LEVEL DESIGN--
Ninja Gaiden 2 takes a much more simple, linear approach to level design than its predecessor. Levels do not intersect, there is no backtracking, and there are virtually zero puzzles to solve. Instead, the focus is on creating combat arenas and fun platforming challenges. This title goes back to its roots and puts much more emphasis on having a focused, tight experience. The level design as such, is much less meaty. There is significantly less to talk about, as it impacts the game on a much smaller scale. That does not mean it is bad though. Every single level is dynamic and unique, and none of the stages mix together at all. The level designs, philosophies and gimmicks included in every level are completely unique and make every single stage stand out amongst the crowd. For example, level 2 has you climbing up the burning Hayabusa Tower, with lots of verticality and tight rooms. Level 3 takes place in the sewers and streets of New York, so it's fittingly spacious and wet. Level 6 takes place inside of a giant gothic castle, so there's lots of fancy rooms and furnature and twisting halls, etc. Each level is unique and inspired in its own way, in a sort of 'traveling the world' style.
9/10

--COMBAT--
If NGB had decent combat with a hearty helping of plenty of other things, NG2 is the opposite. It has the best combat of any action game released, yet it's only good at that one thing. It doesn't even TRY to pretend like it has puzzles, and while it does indeed have the occasional key, that doesn't quite count as there is nothing to solve. It's just there to break up the monotony, much like the platforming in NGB. The platforming in NG2 is also much more refined, as it's better implemented into the combat itself. You can do special power attacks after jumping off of a wall or while wall running, encouraging the player to engage with the environment more while in fights.
The combat itself is flawless, and I'll explain why. NG2 follows the philosophy of "quantity, quantity, quantity" as every single encounter has seemingly endless hordes of relentless, intelligent, and deadly enemies. I struggle to put into words the sheer off-the-wall kind of combat this game has. Every enemy is faster, deadlier, smarter, and more numerous. Fitting with his deadlier foes, Ryu himself is more powerful. He's learned a lot since his last encounter with the Fiends, and the player has access to things like the Guillotine Throw, Izuna Drop, and super long combos straight from the start.
Everything that NGB did, NG2 turns up to 20. Fitting this new high-octane bloodbath, there is now an "Obliteration Technique" mechanic. When you attack an enemy, you have a chance to do a critical hit and blast off one of their limbs, depending on the attack you were doing. Lopping off an opponents arm or leg changes their AI and opens up their toolkit to give them access to extremely deadly suicide kills, which will most assuredly take you with them. Alongside this however, you can do a special move to instantly kill any enemy that is missing a limb. As such, this results in extremely satisfying and addicting combat, with a fun loop of disabling and then extinguishing your enemies life force.
Alongside these new changes to the core gameplay loop, the emphasis on the Ultimate Technique. I didn't touch on it in the NGB review because it never really impacted my gameplay much, but now the UT is the glue that holds this game together.
Every enemy drops 'Essence', which can be health, money, or ammo for your magical abilities. However, this Essence can also be used to charge your UT a level. This means that if you kill some enemies and then begin to charge your UT fast enough, it can charge nearly instantly, letting you continue the carnage. Including the fact that charging a UT as soon as you land after a jump and the new addition of '360 UT's', this ability is extremely important to anybody who wishes to try and survive the onslaught that this game will unleash upon them.
While this system was technically included in NGB, it was extremely slow, clunky, and I never once felt the need to use it. There were never enough enemies and they were never dangerous enough to warrant it. However, for NG2, knowing how to effectively use your UT's will save your life. That is a guarantee.
The ranged weapons and the ever-useful "Spear Gun" return as well. However, this time they're even more critical than they were. Due to the new critical hit mechanics, the Incendiary Shurikens can now instantly delete an enemy's limb, allowing you to immediately remove problem enemies from a fight. The Shurikens let you stun an enemy while you're on the go, preventing them from shooting at you, and the Windmill Shuriken gives you a swift mid-combat beheading tool. It's much more useful compared to its more tame NGB counterpart.
Ninpo make a return as well, much beefier and much deadlier than before. Ninpo are magical spells you can cast in exchange for your Red Essence. They will often instantly kill problem enemies around you, and give you valuable I-Frames to plan your next move.
10/10

--WEAPONS--
Yeah, I'm dividing all of this stuff into separate categories. That's how big this is.
The weapons in NG2 have seen a massive facelift since their NGB incarnations. The Lunar Staff sports new spikes on the ends, the Nunchaku have been dropped completely in favor of new razor-blade Tonfas, and new weaponry such as the Kusari-Gama or the Eclipse Scythe have been added. The arsenal of weaponry at your disposal is so distinct and unique that not even games like DMC5 have been able to touch it.
Personally, my favorite weapon is the Lunar Staff, but each and every one has a use and a fan. Except for the Vigoorian Flails, those still suck. Each weapon has longer combos than in NGB, each weapon swings faster, hits harder, and makes much more satisfying sounds.
An important detail to note is that Ryu has noticeably gotten more skilled as a fighter and warrior since NGB. He uses some of the same combos from that game, but they're faster and he's since learned much more deadly tactics. He's developed as a character inbetween the games, and you can see that in every animation and motion.
10/10

(1/3)

(337.66 KB 3456x1080 )

>>11
Sorry pal, this is how I've done it since the start. Nobody but you seems to have ever cared.
Also, it's important to note that the Ninja Gaiden games aren't on Steam. The Sigma versions are, but I'm not writing about those.

>>12
--DIFFICULTY & ENEMIES--
Ninja Gaiden's legendary difficulty applies QUADRUPLE to this game. It is by far one of the most difficult videogames I have ever laid my eyes on, only beaten out by Shinobi 2002.
And I want to emphasize this.
Ninja Gaiden 2 is hard. It is the kind of game that separates the boys from the men. It will grow hair on your chest. This game will kick your ass endlessly.
That is a guarantee.
I mentioned previously that your foes are faster, stronger, smarter, and deadlier in every single way to NGB. This game knows that, and it knows that you knows that, but it wants to MAKE SURE that you know that. The very second you are given control of the game, you are surrounded by 6 enemies that will make quick work of you if you stand around reading the tutorials.
There are indeed tutorials-- little text boxes at the bottom of the screen that give you invaluable information. The game knows you won't really be able to read it though, and it doesn't care. You WILL learn how to fight those enemies, and you will learn FAST.
None of your opponents exemplify this games masochistic difficulty more than the Incendiary Shuriken Ninja. These are enemies that show up in hordes from the third level, and they're by far some of the most dangerous. They will throw explosive kunai at you while one or two from their pack attack you from both the back and the front. Remember, these enemies are SMART. They will surround you, they will block off your escape routes, they will flank you and take you by surprise. They will never attack you all at once, only two or three at a time. That doesn't mean the other members of their group aren't harassing you with whatever they can muster, be it guns or Shurikens.
In order to beat them, you must outplay them and beat them at their own game. Your special attacks give you I-Frames, which gives you critical time to let those explosive kunai detonate on you without doing any damage. Doing an OT gives you I-Frames as well, alongside doing UT's. Use these abilities alongside your deadly combos, high mobility and parry abilities to wipe them out.
10/10

--RESOURCES & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT--
In NG2, your health and Ninpo are resources to be used and preserved at your will. You can buy plenty of things from Muramasa, like in NGB. However here, the system is so intricate that it deserves its own section.
Killing enemies gives you Essence. Essence is money, which you use to buy weapon upgrades, healing items, Ninpo and items that can be used to increase your maximum health. If you're a skilled player, you will be doing two things. 1) you will be using your UT, which gives you extra Essence when you kill enemies with it. 2) you will not be using your healing items often.
When you do not need to use your healing items often, you will have excess money to be used on weapon upgrades or secret items you missed. You have shown that you do not need your healing items, which means that you will have much more health in the future. By being a skilled player, you are essentially buying yourself insurance just in case you make a mistake in the future. You did not use your healing items in the past, so when you do need them you have lots of them, and you have the money to buy it all back. You also have more money to buy weapon upgrades and Incendiary Shurikens, which gives you further insurance because your weapons are significantly more powerful and you have extremely powerful abilities at your disposal more often.
Now, what happens if you aren't a skilled player? You must use your healing items and Ninpo refills much more frequently. Because you aren't skilled, you must also buy more healing items from the store. You are likely also not doing your UT's properly, which means that you will ultimately have less money all around. This means you will suffer in the future, because your room for mistakes is virtually nonexistent and your equipment is much less powerful.

If you are a weak, low skill player, the game indirectly punishes you. This punishment ultimately forces you to get better, because you have much less room to make mistakes. If you persist, you will get good enough to survive.
Weak men create hard times. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times.
10/10

--CONTROLS--
NG2 controls similarly to NGB, yet I find it somewhat lacking in some areas. The controls heavily emphasize the combat, and yet I find precisely moving Ryu around in tight environments to be kind of tough in some ways. There are some platforming sections that can be a little annoying due to the imprecise movement. However, despite that setback, the game still controls wonderfully and it hardly gets in the way of my experience.
8/10

--MUSIC & ATMOSPHERE--
Ninja Gaiden 2 is still no slouch when compared to NGB, however I find it lacking in some areas. 'Atmosphere' is something much less focused on in NG2. While it's still there, the game doesn't give you much room to soak it in or bask in the environments. The music is also generally less impressive I find, including much more generic orchestral inclusions alongside the more heart-pounding breakbeat synths. The scale of everything in NG2 is so much larger, so much bigger. The music speaks to that scale, with large pounding orchestral swings and thick synth pumps underlining it. The whole soundtrack sounds so much bigger and more important than the subtle yet punchy songs of NGB.
NGB is more consistently good, but NG2 has higher highs and higher lows. Listen to these.
https://youtu.be/gdLFqyyc7xo?list=PLZrdyF-ch7zb0HMJSkcGbNZ1DYa57WUwt
https://youtu.be/hyHeR_fctJg?list=PLZrdyF-ch7zb0HMJSkcGbNZ1DYa57WUwt
https://youtu.be/GUDUxjzI5jo?list=PLZrdyF-ch7zb0HMJSkcGbNZ1DYa57WUwt
It still has some of that strong grunge, but it's less present.
Despite those setbacks though, I would argue that the scale of NG2 and the sheer size of the soundtrack somewhat weighs it out.
8/10

(2/3)

(367.50 KB 800x533 )

>>13

--STORY & SETTING--
Ninja Gaiden 2, while arguably more fantastical than NGB, does away with the fictionalized setting. Every stage in the game takes place somewhere you could point to on a map, from the deep jungles of South America to the staggering vistas of New York, this game travels the world.
This is because of one thing-- the Four Greater Fiends. Genshin and his mistress have attacked Hayabusa village and stolen an artifact that will let them raise the Archfiend Vazdah. Doing this has opened a rift between the Underworld and Earth, allowing the Greater Fiends Volf, Alexei, Zedonius and Elizebet to escape and wreak their havoc all across the globe. It is Ryu's duty to travel across the world and slay these demons, hunt down Genshin and Elizebet, and prevent the awakening of Vazdah once again.
Overall, I find the setting and plot of NG2 to be of lesser quality to NGB. The settings are less creative, and the plot itself is much less personal or engaging. I find myself only watching the cutscenes for the badass one-liners.
7/10

--GRAPHICS & AUDIO--
If NGB was impressive, then NG2 is doubly so. This game was released exclusively for the Xbox 360, because none of the other consoles at the time were powerful enough to handle the gibs. Due to the extreme amounts of gore, violence, and blood, the game requires lots of resources to run properly. Hell, there's a section in level 10 with so many enemies that it actually makes the game lag. This is a consistent thing across all (good) versions of the game, emulated or not. The game itself is stunning, but shows more of the stank of its era than NGB does. That does not make it any less impressive however.
I emulated NG2, and there were lots of visual bugs that would theoretically get in the way of ones experience. Icons in menus were limited to two at a time, text would often garble and cut itself off, and icons would have strange color changes or would be blacked out entirely. However, the visual bugs are exclusive to the menus and do not affect the actual gameplay in any way whatsoever.
Now, the sound. NG2 is renown for its extremely satisfying and punchy combat, and the sound has almost everything to do with that. From the meaty thwacks and the crunchy sounds of people having their limps popped like berries, it all activates a primal instinct inside your head. It's incredibly satisfying and rewarding. The screen shake and the sound effects every time you swing your weapon and decimate your opponents is addicting. It is the gold standard for how to make your combat satisfying for the eyes and ears.
9/10


--CONCLUSION--
Ninja Gaiden 2 is by far the best action game ever made. Period. It is a MUST PLAY for anybody and everybody. This game absolutely changed my life, and it's changed the lives of so many others as well. Not through the story or characters, but from the gameplay itself. It truly is something to marvel at, and will hopefully be held within the annals of history for decades to come.


--I WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME BUT I DON'T HAVE AN XBOX360!--
Fear not, my friend! I don't have one anymore either. However, you can play Ninja Gaiden 2 with Xenia, a... questionably programmed emulator for the Xbox 360. It takes some workshopping, but after only a short while you will be able to play this game on your computer whenever you desire.
It is important to note a very strange bug however. Once you complete a level, no matter what, you must ALWAYS reset the emulator before playing the next one. The game simply cannot move on. Be sure to save after every level completion, then simply close the emulator and reopen it to get to the next stage.

(3/3)

>>10
Why are you posting here and not on twitter or whatever social media that doesn't require reading more than one sentence at a time? Retard
>>8
>>9
You promised autism and delivered. Nice review. I never played on a Xbox and never cared enough about its games at first glance to try and emulate it. Definitely going in my backlog, hopefully I actually get around to play it

>>15
Has nothing to do with reading more than one sentence at time because it is clearly a quality post. Just looks bloated because of the unnecessary newlines.

>>16
Anon, it's called a paragraph. You normally start a newline at the end of one, or when you want to emphasize a particular line. It would be worse and harder to read if it was a big wall of text with no commas or proper organization.
This is basic writing 101 stuff

>>6
>wut
I died multiple times at similar points in the level.
>But that is all classic Megaman games
It took me a while to figure out the bosses' patterns, but once I figured it out I won. That might be me misremembering, but I couldn't steamroll the bosses with just their weaknesses. I had to have a little skill which is obvious.
>grass man
He shoots like that, so I'll keep calling him that. My error is making me laugh myself.

>>3
Been playing stray recently honestly quite zen although it does feature a bit of backtraccking which hasnt been so cash money to say the least.

>>19
In my case, I dropped Stray really early on. Walking and walking just to stop sometimes to solve obvious "puzzles" wasn't of my taste at all

>>20
The only selling point that game has is that you play as an epic cute cat. It's one of those walking simulator types, don't feel bad for not liking it.

>>21
Do you think Stray could be fun if you play it little by little?

To the anon that mentioned that overleveling and grinding on dark souls would only work for early game bosses, LOL. Being retarded actually worked and i pretty much slayed manus with like 6 hits. darkeater was actually more tricky but overall it was a piece of cake. Zwihander strength build for the win.
Dark souls was a quality game overall from gameplay to story although the crystal caverns and the witch of isalith battle was honestly more frustrating then it should have been.

>>22
Checked and disagreed. Games should be fun to play for any amount of time, be it 10 minutes or 10 hours. I didn't even really have fun with the small sample of "gameplay" I experienced since I kept anxiously expecting and waiting for "the actual game" to start and I lost my patience fairly quickly when I realized it was one of THOSE "games"

(117.31 KB 720x1080 )

--Preamble--
This review is probably going to be my longest. Not only is Ninja Gaiden 3 just a bad game, it's also a disrespectul and egotistical game. I'm going to go in depth, and talk about not only the original game, but also Razors Edge, which is the version I played. I'm also going to talk about the Master Collection PC port, as well as Ninja Team and the creator of the series, Tomonobu Itegaki. We're going to start this one off a bit differently.

--STORY & SETTING--
Ninja Gaiden 3 has a story. I can say that much. I don't know most of it because the cutscenes were so unbearable that I started skipping them on level 1. However, I still got the general gist.
There's this evil mask dude who wants to fight Ryu or something. When they do fight, he forces the Dragon Sword-- Ryu's special weapon, and makes it "fuse" with his arm or something. It makes Ryu very sick, and fills him with... guilt? I think. Either way, the big idea of the plot is that Ryu is actually the 'bad guy' or something, which is retarded. Ryu has never actually killed or hurt anybody of innocence. Every single enemy from both of the previous games were either allied with an evil force, or were that evil force itself. From the soldiers of Vigoor to the Black Spider Ninja Clan and the Greater Fiends, every single one of them were tied to the Fiends themselves, which is this universes equivalent to a Demon.
Ryu Hayabusa is not an "evil man", he is a Demon Slayer. The story tries to paint Ryu as a bloodthirsty brutal maniac who's just "in it because he enjoys it" which, while also not true, is retarded. Ryu has never been characterized as a particularly sadistic or violent man. Sure, he's done many violent things, but he doesn't enjoy it. He only does those things out of necessity, and when the world isn't being threatened by evil demonic forces, he leads a very peaceful life.
To be specific, at the end of Ninja Gaiden 2, Ryu slays Genshin, who gives a small speech about how "he and Ryu were just doing the best they could for their clan". Ryu ultimately respects Genshin, as a fellow ninja and as a warrior. The final cutscene of the game features Ryu placing Genshin's sword in the Grave of Saints, which is a holy place on Mt. Fuji to honor dead warriors and soldiers. If Ryu were an insane, violent menace, he likely wouldn't have done this, as concepts of respect or honor wouldn't matter to him.
Not only does the story directly contradict the characterization and plots of the previous 2 games, it also fucks up the intended character development of Ryu in more ways than one.
A character I didn't mention in my review for Ninja Gaiden 2 is Irene Lew. Irene was a CIA agent and Ryu's primary contact for traveling the world as he did. In the original NES trilogy, Ryu and Irene get married and run a curio shop in New York, and the introduction of the character in NG2 is meant to be a direct tie to those games.
Considering the fact that Itegaki intended the reboot series to be directly tied to the NES titles in some way, this connection to Irene is no accident, and it's obviously meant to be built upon as a romance for the future. It's not a bad idea, introducing a stoic, silent hero to a character that really touches them in a way that lets them open up.
Ninja Gaiden 3 disagrees. Instead, a new set of characters are introduced. Some single mother and her daughter. Throughout the course of the story, a """romance""" builds up between the single mother and Ryu, coming to a head when the daughter calls Ryu "daddy" in a cutscene so hilariously tone deaf that I'm surprised people actually take it seriously. It's a comical misunderstanding of not only Ryu as a character, but the plot points and direction that Itegaki set up with the first two reboot games.
Another detail I found particularly cuntish is what they did with Genshin and his sword. Like I mentioned previously, NG2 ends with Ryu placing Genshin's sword in the Grave of Saints and praying for him. NG3 once again features Ryu returning to the Grave of Saints, and TAKING Genshin's sword back to be used again. This would be BLASPHEMOUS in the real world! Taking a fallen warriors blade long after he's been set to rest is so incredibly disrespectful and idiotic I wish I could meet the guy who came up with that idea so I could bash his skull in or something. Not only is it out of character, it's just fucking STUPID, and is another item on the list of terrible things this game does with its story.
Something something bla bla bla, eventually some crazy stuff happens and the antagonist becomes an ally and-- whatever who cares. It's bad, it's REALLY bad. It's disrespectful too, because it completely shits on everything Itegaki was trying to do with the character.
0/10

--MUSIC, GRAPHICS SOUND & ATMOSPHERE--
NG3 tries to bring back the grungy breakbeat synths of NGB, and with full force too. However, much like everything else this game tries, it doesn't work. The music is so chaotic and disharmonious that it oftentimes blends into the background, alongside the absolutely horrendous soundscape.
Everything is too loud, everything explodes, everything is stock sound effects. Not a single second goes by without some dumbass robot or machine making sounds so disgusting to the ears that it drowns out everything else. The game seems to be TRYING to make you go deaf without chaotic everything is. You can hardly discern what sounds are coming from where because there is just noise ALL OVER THE PLACE.
One detail I noticed in the menus was that... the sounds were.... blurry?
They were really low quality. The menus used the same sound effects from NG2, except it was like they were recorded with some shitty Xbox mic. When I first booted up the game, I was genuinely shocked and I laughed my ass off. They couldn't even get the SOUND EFFECTS right from the previous game! It's fucking embarrassing.
Like I previously mentioned, the music isn't very good. Normally I could remember AT LEAST one or two tracks, even if the music isn't good, but here I just didn't hear any of it. Everything was so chaotic all the time that the music wasn't allowed to breathe. The music itself is also the least preserved of the series, with NGB and NG2 both having extended soundtracks on YouTube. With this game there's nothing of the sort.
It's a shame too, because the music itself isn't actually that bad.
https://youtu.be/eOlKdIA3p8A?list=PL24DFBD46E0EA6A5F [Play]
https://youtu.be/kJ_rLgmBYEc?list=PL24DFBD46E0EA6A5F [Play]
https://youtu.be/aUcql79uBg8?list=PL24DFBD46E0EA6A5F [Play]
I could totally imagine Arachnoid fitting in with a cool 'Doppleganger Ryu' boss fight in NG2 or something, it's so sad.
It's also just impossible to hear over the god awful sound effects, and the fact that EVERY SINGLE TRACK is the same sort of breakbeat synth, they start to meld together into one big sloppy goop.
Let's not even get into the 'atmosphere' of this game, if you can call it that. NGB had a thick, unique atmosphere helped by the amount of downtime you got. NG2 had a general idea of atmosphere and brought the thunder sometimes, but it was less present with the general action taking more of a center stage. NG2 even had one of the best songs ever composed in history as an ambient track. NG3 on the other hand has... nothing. Each stage is unique, but there's like, 8 of them, and you don't even play as Ryu for 2 of those (I'll get to it).
I don't even have the energy to talk about the games graphics. The visual style is trying way too hard to be 'epic and gory' even though the original release had the least amount of blood in the entire series. It's just dumb, and looks mediocre at best. That's really the worst thing you could say about a Ninja Gaiden game, huh?
Shoutout to that one area in level 2 where Muramasa's theme is playing on a radio. In the game where Muramasa doesn't show up until the very end, and it's for a minute long cutscene before he disappears forever.
Fucking terrible.
2/10

(1/?)

(2.54 MB 1149x955 )

>>25

--COMBAT--
Now it's time for the REAL bad stuff. Team Ninja saw the perfect balancing act that NG2 had, and thought it a great idea to completely change it.
Let's just go through a list of all the 'big changes' from the previous game, to keep this organized.
>Restoration items such as healing or Ninpo items have been removed
>Ninpo has been removed entirely, replaced with a new system
>Essence has been removed
>All of the speed buffs from NG2 have been removed
>Every weapon except the Dragon Sword and its variations have been removed (I'll get to it)
>Every Ninpo except for Inferno has been removed (I'll get to it)
>Critical Hits and Obliteration Techniques have been removed (I'll get to it)
>Every alternative ranged weapon has been removed
>Enemies are significantly more tanky
>Special moves or attacks such as the Wind Run or the Guillotine Throw have to be purchased individually and have been made infinitely less effective
>Enemies will attack you simultaneously and all at once, and they do significantly more damage

Sounds pretty bad, right? Yeah, it is. Now, let me tell you what they REPLACED all that with.
>Instead of healing with items purchased from a store or found in the world, using Ninpo to damage or kill enemies fills up your health
>Ninpo is now represented by a bar that fills up when you kill enemies
That doesn't sound too bad though right? Well, here's the catch. There are still plenty of enemies, and since their AI has been gutted, they will attack you relentlessly without any of the balanced finesse of NGB or NG2. Due to this, you're likely going to find yourself getting hurt more often. Since you're getting hit more often, your health gets lower. When your health gets low, a red jelly effect is applied to the edges of your screen and a heartbeat sound effect starts playing, adding on to the already disgusting soundscape.
Since you need to kill enemies to heal, the game is supposed to follow a loop of
>Kill enemies
>Heal
>Kill enemies
>Heal
Much like nu-Doom. It doesn't work like that though because the bar you have to fill is MASSIVE, and the amount of enemies you have to kill is enough to last for several fights. It fills up so slowly that you're ultimately going to be spending 90% of your time with low health. When you DO eventually get your Ninpo bar filled up, and you hit some enemies with it, it's not even enough to fill up even a TENTH of your full health bar. I'm not joking. The WEAKEST healing items in NGB or NG2 would fill up your health by AT LEAST a third in the early game, if not MORE.
Combine this travesty of a health system with the fact that enemies do nearly double what they did in previous games, the fact that your "Red Health" is significantly more punishing, and the extreme levels of tank we're dealing with, and you have quite possibly the least fun combat system I've ever seen in a game. It's so bad they had to patch in a way to insta-kill entire groups of enemies while you're invincible, which is something the PREVIOUS GAMES ALREADY LET YOU DO!
The lack of Essence also hurts this game immensely. In NGB and NG2, you were meant to use the Essence drops from enemies to effectively charge your Ultimate Technique quickly, so as to keep killing enemies. Due to the lack of Essence, that means that you can no longer rely on your skill as a player to charge your UT's frequently and get extra cash from the whole affair. Instead, seemingly at random, your weapon will get a special red-glow effect on it. When that happens, you're allowed to instantly charge a max-level UT.
????
I don't get it, but it's bad and not fun.
0/10

---WEAPONS, NINPO, AND SPECIAL ABILITIES--
I said I'd get to it, here we are. In the original release of Ninja Gaiden 3, there were no other weapons. Critical Hits were removed completely, and the only Ninpo was the Inferno spell. However, in the Razors Edge rerelease of the game, those things were added back in.
Except they were bad.
So, in NGB and NG2, you would get weapons from the game world. For example, in level 1 of NG2, you got the Lunar Staff. In level 2, you would get the Falcon's Talons. In NGB, you got the Lunar Staff in level 2. That's just how you got the weapons, and when starting a new game you would have to traverse to that point to get those weapons again.
However, considering the fact that Team Ninja are allergic to putting effort in, in NG3RE, you just GET the weapon. In level 1, you're given the Falcon's Talons. I can't remember where you get the rest, but that's how it goes. You don't get the items from the game world at all. However, this also means that when you're starting a new game after collecting those weapons, you NO LONGER GET THEM at that point. You must purchase them. However, this also means that you can buy whatever weapon you want straight from the start, which is actually pretty good.
One oddity about the weapons is that their combos are completely different from NGB and NG2. For example, in NG2, the jumping Heavy Attack for the Eclipse Scythe was a downwards stomp sort of move. In NG3RE, that same move belongs to the jumping LIGHT ATTACK. I don't get it. The combos are completely changed and totally different, which while not inherently bad, makes me personally very uncomfortable. I am a wizard with the Lunar Staff in NG2, but in NG3RE I avoid it like the plague because the combos are so comparatively terrible. Really, every weapon has had a MASSIVE downgrade from NG2. Every weapon does less damage, has worse combos, is generally less effective and honestly more boring. Due to the extremely tanky nature of the enemies I just find myself using the Eclipse Scythe the most because it does the most damage. It's comparable to the Kusari- Gama in NG2, which I'm not even sure is in RE. The Critical Hits make a return too, but enemies are so tanky that 90% of the time you'll have to wail on them for upwards to 10 seconds before you even get a limb to fly off, compared to the lighting fast rates that NG2 had.
There's an extra Ninpo added too. Just one though. It's the Wind Blades Ninpo, which actually fucking saves RE because it has a lower kill requirement than the Inferno, and heals you for more. Without the Wind Blades Ninpo, this game would be at least twice as frustrating and infuriating, which is saying something because it's the worst game I've ever played in my life.
The Special Moves are a total nightmare too. Do you remember how I mentioned that Ryu becomes a more skilled warrior in between NGB and NG2? How moves like the Izuna Drop, Guillotine Throw and other similar things had to be learned in NGB, and then were simply unlocked from the start in NG2? That no longer applies here. This the other way that this game completely disrespects Ryu as a character.
It seems as if he's forgotten how to do even the most basic of ninja moves, as you have to unlock things like the Wind Run with the new currency system. You're essentially forced back into a NGB level-1 type of power level, and have to work to get back to what you were able to just start out with in NG2. Not only is it annoying, it's not fun either, especially considering just how useless all of them are now. In NG2, the Guillotine Throw was one of the most powerful abilities you had, as it guaranteed a Critical Hit on an enemy, allowing you to effectively dispatch foes with style. In NG3RE, it basically doesn't do any damage, and the timing is totally fucked too.
Don't even bother, just button mash. All of the cool or special abilities Ryu had in the past have been downgraded to a point of absurdity, it's just not fun anymore.
0/10

--THE ALCHEMISTS--
These guys get their own special section, because of how bad they are. The Alchemists are mini-boss type enemies that only show up a few times, but each time they do it's a total shitshow. They usually show up in a trio, with each one of them fulfilling a different tactical purpose. One of them will get close to you and attack in close range, another will support the melee attacker with his own spells, and then the third will shoot projectiles at you from a distance. The sheer annoyance that even fans of this game can express at their existence should be proof enough that this is a bad idea. Not only are they tanky as Hell, they also have a habit of blocking 95% of your attacks. Even when they aren't blocking, it feels as if you're trying to take down a Colossus with a pool noodle. They do ridiculous amounts of damage and their AI ensures that you will never be allowed to rest or even heal during these fights. Your Ninpo must HIT an enemy and DO DAMAGE for you to heal, but given the fact that these guys can generate their nigh-indestructible shields at any time they wish, it is GUARANTEED that trying to heal during the fight will simply allow them to build their shield and then block it. Ninpo take a short while to actually activate, so they use that time to make it ineffective. Hell, most of the enemies in the game can cuck you like that, which is just another problem on top of that healing system. It's extra pronounced for these guys though because you can't rely on I-Frames to avoid getting hit in the first place, due to the fact that there's only 3 of them.
0/10, fuck you

(2/?)

(74.14 KB 612x800 )

>>26

--BOSS FIGHTS--
The bosses in NGB and NG2 were interesting, engaging, difficult and fun in many ways. Sure, there were a few stinkers here and there like the Golden Dragons, but otherwise they were generally pretty okay. Ninja Team didn't like that unfortunately, so they decided to make every bossfight overly long, tedious, bullshit and require constant QTE spam. They're absolutely brutal, but not in the good way like the previous games. They're just unfair The spider tank boss in level 1 shows up like, 4 more times in the game, and it requires you to do a QTE on 6 of its 8 legs. Particularly on the warship level, you have to fight two in a row right before a 3 phase boss fight. That boss in particular is pretty well known for being total horseshit. You have to avoid its homing rocket spam and shoot at it until it crouches down and lets you hit one of its arms. Not only do you do virtually no damage to it, even with the Eclipse Scythe, but you're only allowed to it it maybe a few times every minute at most. It's not even guaranteed to happen, because it's very possible for the mech to stand up before you even get to the arm, and the chances of you being able to do a full combo on it are close to zero. The previous games are notorious for having a very backwards philosophy on bosses. They are extremely fast, dangerous, and can fuck your shit up in seconds, but they're also very fragile. The philosophy of 'speed and danger over durability' applies throughout NG2 in particular. Those bosses had very low health bars that you could decimate within 2 or 3 combos. If you were good enough, you could take them out within seconds. NG3 follows the exact opposite philosophy, of having bosses that struggle to kill the player yet last FOREVER. They're disgustingly boring, and such a slog that it makes me want to kill myself. They're copy-pasted everywhere too, particularly in the Ayane levels(I'll get to it).
1/10, I got a good lark from the giant cyborg dinosaur boss. I was not laughing with the game.

--LEVEL DESIGN--
The level design in NG3 is comparable only to DMC5-- that being it's boring, lame, linear and just outright bad. NGB had a pseudo-open world as a large map you returned to multiple times. NG2 had secrets, traps, environmental hazards and platforming. NG3 has... hallways and rooms. Hallways and rooms. Hallways and rooms. That's all they could think of. That's all there is. Just variations of hallways and rooms. Fuck, I'm struggling to even think of interesting things to say about it because there's just NOTHING THERE. There is NO LEVEL DESIGN. It's just hallways and rooms. Hallways and rooms. Hallways and rooms.
0/10

--QUICK TIME EVENTS--
It was the early 2010's, so of course the game had to have QTE's. They're EVERYWHERE. The platforming is reduced to QTE's, there's at least 7 instances of QTE's in the first level alone. All of the bosses have QTE's implemented into them. QTE's are all over the place and they ruin the pacing as well as compeletely destroying any sense of 'feelgood' action that the game could have had, because the agency is still being taken away from the player to show off something cool, except now they have to Press X to Not Die. It would be better if they were removed completely
0/10

--AYANE--
Ayane is a purple-haired waifu type member of the Hayabusa clan that was introduced first in NGB. She's been in the games since the start, yet up until NG3 she was unplayable. NG3, much like DMC5, forces the player to play as shitty unfun characters for the name of some misguided 'variety'. Much like how in DMC5 I just wanted to play as Dante or at least Nero, yet they kept shoving that faggot V in my face.
I am NOT playing a NINJA GAIDEN game to play as literally anybody BUT Ryu. I don't give a single FUCK about Ayane, she is a non-character that existed exclusively for Dead or Alive and to give the player tutorials in NGB. She's such a non-character that she showed up for a total of ONE cutscene in NG2. She had less than 30 SECONDS of screentime, and I was perfectly satisfied with it. I didn't even mind her in NGB at all, because she stopped being involved about halfway through it. What I DO mind however, is being forced to play as her. She plays completely differently from Ryu, and yet is ALSO missing upgrades and abilities. You play her for a grand total of ~2 levels, and yet you're expected to spend your HARD EARNED CASH on upgrading a character that I can guarantee you NOBODY has EVER cared about? She even gets to use the Incendiary Shurikens, which is just a slap on the balls after all of the arsenal fuckery Ryu's had to deal with. Her Guillotine Throw is also totally fucked, no longer throwing the enemies but instead just disabling them on the ground. It no longer serves the same purpose it once did, meaning it is somehow more useless than the Ryu version.
Even worse, in the second of her levels, you have to fight a trio of copy pasted bosses that you ALREADY FOUGHT AS RYU. The boss alone was already a massive pain in the dick, but 3 of them? 3 of them is 3 times as painful, and makes me want to kill somebody 3 times as much.
0/10

--CONTROLS--
Much like the Sigma versions, the controls are edited ever-so-slightly. It's not much of a difference, but it is noticeable. The game ultimately controls fine, but it feels less precise than its predecessors. Like your inputs are being filtered somehow and are coming out slightly crooked. It's strange.
4/10

--FLASHBACK SECRETS--
This game as "secret" Crystal Skulls that the player can access if they're on Normal Mode or higher. These secret areas are set up like flashbacks to previous (Sigma renditions) of areas in earlier games, such as the courtyard in level 2 of NG2. In these areas, you fight hordes of enemies before fighting another copy pasted 'throwback boss'. In one you fight Doku, in another you fight Alexei, so on and so forth.
These are quite possibly the worst parts of the game. You have to sit here and watch as it damn near violates the previous games legacy, as if to say "see, these games are cool! I totally like them! I'm doing this because I enjoy those games!"
It may not seem like a big deal, but with the context of this game and the Master Collection to go by, it's just salt in the wound. It's mocking not only the player, but the past games in the series. It's outright disgraceful.
0/10, they aren't even fun

--TOMONOBU ITEGAKI--
So, now's time for the meta talk. Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 were the brainchildren of Itegaki, who also created the Dead or Alive series. He singlehandledly revived Koei Tecmo by himself with the release of those games. Eventually, well after NG2 is made, he resigns from the company allegedly because they were withholding payment from him or something.
The reason as to why I sperg out so much about NG3 is because it's not only bad, but it's outright disrespectful to Itegaki and the series as a whole. The new game director wanted to make the NG games "more like Devil May Cry", which is quite possibly the worst thing you could say. One of the reasons as to why NG was so successful and popular was because it WASN'T like DMC. It ESPECIALLY wasn't like modern DMC. Fumihiko Yasuda and Yosuki Hayashi fundamentally didn't understand what made NG good, and ultimately decided to change it to better fit their idea of what Ninja Gaiden "should be". Ninja Gaiden 3 is the result of somebody thinking that they know better than the original creator and fucking it up so monumentally, yet facing no repercussions. They indirectly completely shat upon the legacy and reputation that Itegaki and the rest of Ninja Team worked hard for years to create. NG3 single handedly KILLED Ninja Gaiden, and arguably Dead or Alive to a degree.

--WHAT'S WITH THE SIGMA VERSIONS?--
Not too long ago Ninja Team released the "Ninja Gaiden Master Collection", which is a compilation of the worst design decisions ever made for a videogame series.
I'm not going to go through all the changes of the Sigma versions, however I will summarize it.

NG Sigma:
>Removed all puzzle elements
>Made enemies tankier
>Added one new weapon
>Added filler chapters where you play as Rachel, a side character
>Added copy pasted bosses to new areas
>Made enemies less aggressive
>Changed the controls to be less intuitive

NG2 Sigma:
>Removed all puzzle elements
>Removed purchasable weapon upgrades, limiting them to individual "blue" stores and completely destroyed the balance
>Removed gore and blood
>Made enemies tankier
>Increased enemy damage
>Added filler chapters where you play as Rachel, Ayane, and some other lady
>Removed many enemies from encounters
>Made enemies less aggressive
>Added copy pasted bosses to new levels
>Changed the controls to be less intuitive

To put it simply, the new folks in charge completely destroyed the games and made them nearly unsalvageable. Then, they decided to port these versions and ONLY these versions to PC, claiming them to be part of some "Master Collection".
Not only did they gut the series by making a new, totally dogshit sequel, but they also went back and RUINED the previous games, told people that they were the SUPERIOR VERSIONS, and then ported THOSE VERSIONS to PC. They did just about everything they could to ensure that the original releases of the games were unplayable. According to them they "couldn't salvage the source code", but I'm pretty positive that's a total lie.
Nowadays, if you want to get the DEFINITIVE Ninja Gaiden experience, and you don't have the original consoles, you have to emulate them or hope you got them when they were on gamepass for the Xbox 1. There is no other way.

--CONCLUSION--
Fuck you, my hands hurt. This game sucks. Don't play it. Don't even look at it. It's just bad.

I'm playing through starcraft and I'm having a blast. I didn't expect a strategy game to work so well with a story, and I'm enjoying it.
I'm probably not saying anything new, but I think it's cool how balanced the game is, in the sense that every unit is unique but there are no obviously useless/OP ones and I like how each faction has its gimmicks.
Overall the game feels very fun to play for me, even if it's difficult for me to pinpoint why. Maybe it's just the loop of gathering resources, building defenses and an army and then going out to destroy the enemy that is so satisfying. Anyway I've been really into it lately.
It does get a bit tricky for me to use tactical unit's abilities and that's a bit of a problem since they generally are pretty powerful, but I'm sort of getting the hang of it.
My nitpicks would be some minor path-finding issues, not being able to select more than 16 units and droids sometimes closing themselves off and getting stuck when building something, but these are hardly significant. The game's just great IMO.
Oh, and I don't like that to install the game I had to install the blizzard store. I hate installing stores for just one game.

(71.08 KB 349x276 )

>>13
>If you are a weak, low skill player, the game indirectly punishes you.
A lot of games do this, but I don't think it's a good thing honestly. Generally games try to balance the challenge and player skill level, for example by making later levels harder. From this perspective it doesn't make a lot of sense to give bonuses to players that are already doing fine, but I guess it feels rewarding

>>36
The way I see it, using this method forces the player to get good at the game. There is no easy path through, nor' any way to cheese it-- you've made bad decisions due to your lack of skill and now you have to deal with the consequences. Ultimately it prevents the player from just skating past the difficulty by spamming healing items constantly, and forces them to actually get good at the game they're playing so they don't NEED to heal.

Making my way through Jenka's Nightmare, and while I've never been a cavehead or whatever you call being in on the culture of wanting to be bedfellows with the rabbits and robots in the original game, I think it delivers on the promise of being an unofficial sequel to Cave Story.

The problem with making a sequel to a beloved game, or any piece of media for that matter, is two-fold. It has to have enough original content on it's own right, while ALSO making sure to adhere to every little plot nugget dropped lovingly by the original creators. Within the realm of video games, you also have to deal with the players preconceived notion of the gameplay loop, general tone, visual design, and everything that, in the mind of the audience, made the original game worthwhile.

Jenka's Nightmare solves this problem well. It adds very little in the way of new sprites and no new music, but this can be forgiven as the game itself plays much like the original: Very well. The difficulty curve rises slowly but steadily, and I believe there are even tweaks added to nerf the more broken strategies. The level design feels like such a natural extension of the ideas that Pixel initially laid out, but still has some new implementations of them.

In closing, I would say that Jenka's Nightmare is a solidly crafted experience, and if you've been itching for some more Cave Story, it's well worth your time.

(381.27 KB 1263x1079 )

I torrented GTA SA: Definitive edition today. GTA SA is a game I've put over a thousand hours into over the years and everyone and their mother have said everything there is to say about GTASA:DE, but I wanted to see just how bad it is first-hand. This is supposed to be the latest version of the game and it includes stuff like a "fix" for the infamous rain effect, but even then it's still full of errors that are probably impossible to fix.

First thing I do is boot up the game and I'm greeted by one of the most horrible UIs I've seen in my life. I go into options to manage graphical settings and put everything on max except for AA and DLSS which are off because I don't want this shitshow to look blurry on top of being ugly.
Then I go to setup the controls and I find the first fatal flaw: You can only assign one button for each action, while in the PC port of the original you could assign up to three different keys for the same action; but as some kind of "One step forward, two steps back" thing now you can assign the same key to multiple actions, while in the original you couldn't.

After finishing my configuration, I go back to the main menu and start a new game. The menu has only ONE. The loading screen has no music, but at least it's fast (I don't really know if this is on the devs or on the repacker so I won't put it as an actual complain).
The introducing cutscene starts and the models are hideous, especially the blonde airport lady who went from looking lowres and lowpoly in the original to look like a cave troll here. This will be a trend through the whole game because everyone looks gross and even deformed now, especially most women for some reason.
The cutscene continues and CJ is arrested by C.R.A.S.H. and this entire scene is ruined by the lighting because you can't see shit since the sun is shining bright behind Tenpenny so you can barely see his face in the exaggerated shadow. This Unreal engine lighting is a problem that will persist in every single scripted event since the original game only had this strong shadow on ONE place: Madd Dogg's mansion, and that's because it's the first stealth mission of the game.

This cutscene ends and I'm thrown into another, but this one is actually just an scripted event in-game so I can try out a legacy bug to see if it works: The Universal bug. In the original, if you type the jetpack cheat (YECGAA or ROCKETMAN) while in this event where Tenpenny drives you around Balla turf, the cutscene will end at the usual time but it won't trigger the "Aw shit, here we go again", you will die instantly instead and this will unlock every single interior of the game, including every single house that is available during the house robbing side mission and one-off interiors like the crackhouse from Cleaning the hood and Jizzy's brothel. In the DE it does not unlock the houses, but it does unlock everything else so it's still useful.

I finally started to actually play the game and the lighting and volumetric clouds by themselves are pretty nice, but that's all on Unreal Engine 4. The cars looked pretty alright, but the camera was pure cancer. On the X axis it works, normally, but on the Y axis it moves at 0.01% of the regular speed or something. I have to drag my mouse all over my desk repeatedly if I want the camera to move up or down, and this does not happen underwater or while aiming so it's entirely on the dev team. I have no idea how you can end up with a camera like this and not have patched it by now, maybe it's because most of the fags who actually bought this mess are controllerniggers, but I digress.

I drove around a bit and encountered the memephysics people used to talk so much about. A random car crashed into me and my own car caught fire and started spinning at 300km/s until it hit Pizza stack's side wall, luckily this comical situation only lasted a couple of seconds and I could get out of the car before it killed me.

After that, I went and stole the Firetruck that's always near the Skate park and started the firefighter mission for ez early money and fire immunity, but the camera thing was really apparent here since normally you can aim anywhere comfortably, while with this camera it was like how it was in GTA VC and in III where you could not aim anywhere and you had to align the truck perfectly with the fire you were extinguishing, at least here I can still use the X axis of the camera normally.

I finished the firefighter mission and went to buy a house to save the game since I don't have access to CJ's house and realized the font for the price of the house is Arial or whatever the fuck that default looking font is called and that really pissed me off. This whole UI is a fucking mess with zero consistency, which includes the smeared AI upscaled HUD weapon icons which look like absolute diarrhea when compared to even a simple HD vectorization made by a modder years ago for the original game. Not even the mission markers follow a theme like in the original game, now it's just a random font, as if they said "Let's pick the shittiest fucking font we can find and let's use that for the mission markers. The second shittiest will be used on the properties' price and income numbers".

After this ordeal I wanted to finish my session with the only grind this game has: Lung capacity. You need an specific Lung capacity level to have access to the mission "Amphibious assault", which is a main story mission and thus required to beat the game. I spent around 40 minutes swimming against the ground and I discovered some more things: The game is strangely quiet for some reason, so much I had to put the game and system volume at 100 to be able to hear all the water sounds clearly, in the DE CJ does not breathe desperately when you get out of the water with a low breath bar like in the original; and I discovered a visual error I had never heard of before: Sometimes when you swim back up after diving CJ will keep swimming after hitting the surface for an extra stroke or two and he'll be in the air for some seconds.

I finished my grind and decided to close off with a mission, so I went and started "Cleaning the Hood". The game went as normal ignoring the hideous models and just when I was getting out of the crackhouse the game froze. I hadn't saved in ages so I shat myself and gave it some minutes, and after that I tried to kill the process with task manager but it decided to work again after that; so I guess the game is still unstable like it was on release, just not as much.

I finished the mission, saved the game and decided to fly around in the jetpack and the game goes full retard with the low poly models and the low poly models themselves are horrendous. The trees up close look like trees while the low poly ones look like huge white dragon dildos or some shit like that, the color does not even make sense.

And not to mention the retarded jetpack controls that made me resort to using a c*ntroller since with my configuration it was literally unusable and I lost any patience I had long ago. This is not the only change in control it has, because the BMX controls have also been bastardized since now you can't use it normally, you can either stay still or sprint until you run out of stamina and until then you can sort of use it at standard speed, at least until your stamina recovers some seconds later. And who the hell calls the walking button "stealth"? Goddamn not even one thing in this remaster remake or whatever the fuck this abomination is had any actual thought put into it.

Well, these have been my first impressions of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas: Definitive Edition. I am not planning a 100% run or anything like that, specially since I've already used a cheat and that locked me out of the 100% permanently in this save, but I do intend to do most of the content available. Hopefully these disappointments will numb my senses from here on out and so I won't pay much mind to minor bugs and mistakes

(127.95 KB 512x512 )

>>90
Sounds shitty. I looked up a video and don't like how it looks. HD remasters rarely end well.

>90
No surprise it's total dogshit. I wouldn't recommend you keep playing the game though because I doubt you would have much fun, unless you enjoy Bug Hunting in which case go hog wild I guess

Metal gear solid three was pretty damn fun, ANDthe story was great. i find myself wanting to re-play it dispite beating it years ago. I beat the main series (in chronological order) starting with three and ending with metal gear 2 for the MSX (best fucking retrogame of all time, regular metal gear was shit and too repetitive) and i couldn't beat metal gear solid since i am unabled to find a physical copy, and because of that mgs 2, 4 and mgrr will have to wait.

(2.25 MB 1920x1080 )

I played for the entire afternoon. I didn't run into many new problems today and I even found some things I actually like about it. Good news first: The NPCs are much more aggressive now and have amazing accuracy. In the original game NPCs usually fired in bursts of 3 shots with around a second and a half/2 seconds inbetween bursts and at worst 2/3 bullets would land on you; while now they simply empty their mags at you and they rarely miss regardless of distance, so some fag across the bridge with a SMG can snipe you as soon as he sees you. They also have some Terminator reflexes now so they shoot at you the exact instant you enter their line of sight which makes just running and gunning with a Mac 10 a suicide move, so now the game actually encourages you to play it carefully (either that or it wants you to land headshots extremely fast).
When first trying out the lowrider minigame, you are now able to change the money of the bet while in the originals it was hard set to 50. This is a nice but rather trivial extra 1k$ you can get for doing the Cesar Vialpando mission.
Those are all the positive things I can say about it for now.

I know this thing is like a port of a port since it's based off the Xbox 360 version which is based off the mobile port and I wouldn't doubt for a second if someone told me the mobile port was also based off the PC port; so I know I'm probably missing something that was changed way back there and was just ported over to the DE since I never played any of those shitty ports (from Wardrum studios/Grove street games), but I'll still refer to them as if they were originally from the DE just to simplify things because this, the mobile port and the Xbox 360 port were made by the same team.
I decided to keep trying some legacy exploits/bugs, and I found interesting stuff.
A bug that somehow used to be generally unknown up until some years ago is one that lets you instantly kill the driver of any car if it has an unlocked passenger seat. All you have to do is press the sprint button while you are hijacking the vehicle from the passenger seat and then the driver will just drop dead. Surprisingly, this doesn't work on the DE.
A classic bug that lets you easily complete the Burglar side mission in one night is (thankfully) still working, all you have to do is go to the Boxville that is between the blue houses in Ganton (preferably at exactly 20:00 so you can use the most time available to steal stuff) and then start the Burglar mission. After that you just get out of the car, go to either blue house, steal something and then get out. Deposit the stolen item in the van and then go to the other blue house right in front of the one you just got out of. Repeat the stealing process and then go back to the blue house you entered first: The stolen item has respawned, and if you steal from there and go to the other house those items will have respawned, too, so you can simply alternate between those 2 houses and you'll easily make over 10k$ in one night which is the money required to complete the side mission and unlock unlimited stamina, which is extremely helpful for the rest of the game, specially if you are going to complete most of the content at your own pace like me.
A minor map error that I couldn't get to work, and maybe it doesn't at all here, is one where you can glitch through one of the garage doors in one of the houses in Idlewood and you can get inside. It's nothing more than a neat thing in singleplayer, but in some SAMP/MTA DayZ servers you could use this as a secret base since most of the fags that frequent those servers lack general bug/glitch knowledge of the game.
Another thing that got fixed is the infinite ammo glitch inside every ammunation with a target practice. You used to be able to enter, instantly quit and then some of your weapons would get their ammo doubled and this had no limit since it wasn't intended. It used to work with the silenced pistol, all SMGs and all assault rifles (some other weapons too, but I don't remember them right now). This does not work in the DE, so one of the main attraction of the Universal bug, which is early infinite ammo, ceases to exist here.
One legacy bug I forgot to try out was one that lets you skip the dance minigame in Life's a beach. You have to recruit one homie and take him to the beach party, and then you just have to try to enter the van with the stereo. CJ won't be able to open the door at first, but your homie will enter the passenger seat and then you will be able to steal the van and complete the mission. it'd be nice if it still worked here.
A bug I'll try out tomorrow is the C-Bug. It singlehandedly killed all traditional PvP in multiplayer GTA SA and it actually is useful in singleplayer when destroying vehicles or against Big Smoke. All you have to do is fire the Deagle at your target and then instantly press c to crouch (it's the default on the original PC port and it remains as the default here), this will cancel the cooldown and you will be able to fire again, then you repeat this until you either empty your mag and reload or you get to 1 bullet and you quickly switch to another weapon and then switch back since switching weapons instantly reloads them.

I also encountered some other random bugs that I didn't know of. One that got me really confused was one where whenever I headshot a balla, he just recoiled like I hit him with my fist. I had to headshot him around 13 times for him to die, I dunno what that was all about.
I did mention the AI being more aggressive, but in turn it now is more retarded. While I was doing Gray imports I faced the typical ruskies in forklifts with red explosive barrels on them. Normally thei drive directly at you as soon as they see you and you have to blow them up before they get too close, but here they did a 360º turn (multiple times) and drove away, hitting themselves repeatedly against the walls and one even managed to get all the way to the back.
The physics actually surprise me further with how bad they can be at times, I simply ran into a car (on foot) from the side and it stopped in its tracks. I also ran into the front of a motorcycle and it also stopped in its tracks, allowing me to instantly steal it with the "Jumping on the bike from the front" animation. That actually was pretty cool, so I don't put it as a complain even if it wasn't intended.
An annoying thing that constantly cuts my flow off is that running doesn't instantly cancel the crouch animation anymore, so not you can't crounch and then instantly make a run for it, now you have to stand up and then run, losing some precious seconds that may cost you your weapons and some money on a shootout against the police. This also happens when stealing on the burglar side mission, so you have to watch out for that.
An asset that really gets on my nerves is a texture of a bunch of leaves that somehow is NEVER placed correctly. Near the train station in LS half of the texture is floating in the air and when I finished Just business (the last Big Smoke mission), the screen was obscured by it near the end when the bike does a dramatic stop and the camera is on a low angle. It's like they didn't even playtest their shit. There are thousands of obsessed GTASAfags like myself all over the world who would betatest their "ROCKSTAR HIRE THIS MAN" experiment for free, so they either barely tested it because they didn't give a fuck and their "We've loved Rockstar's games since they came out!" is a lot of bullshit or worse, they did test it but thought it was good enough.

The UI keeps pissing me off. This time the ammunation purchase menu has a nonsensical icon: The SMG category, which only includes the MP5, is represented by the Tec-9, which is actually a Micro SMG. Even little kids know this, come the fuck on.
On the different clothes shops there was originally an "accesories" category which contained shades, masks, bandana masks and various stuff like that depending on the shop, but now it was renamed to "Shades" with a fitting icon. This was an extremely retarded design change and there was no reason for it to be this way.
The restaurant UI would actually be an improvement over the original one if it didn't include that fucking slow and unnecessary animation that shows you the model of the different menus you can choose. In the original it was really slow and you had to go one by one to the menu you actually wanted to buy (the biggest one in most cases). Here they had an opportunity to make a change for the better, but they simply introduced their modern UI on the side and kept the animation mechanic as is; even if you manage to press the button quickly enough to get to the desired menu it still has to show you the models of the menus you went through one by one.
I mentioned the radar icons being fucked before, but the C.R.A.S.H. radar icon is simply an insult to the original. It used to be a white C with a police siren inside the gape between both ends of the C. In the DE it's just a fucking blue C with a font that isn't the same one they used for the rest of the radar icons. The entire UI direction is an fuck you and two middle fingers to the concept of taste and good design.

Both the dancing minigame and the lowrider minigame have been bastardized, simplified and casualized beyond belief. It no longer follows the rhythm of the song and for most of it you just have to hit one note every 3 seconds. It's not like they were very engaging before, but I'd rather try to get a high score on a remotely challenging rhythm game instead of boring myself to death with a braindead minigame that lasts a couple of minutes. Thankfully I won't be doing any of the girlfriend shit (except trying to get the obscure cutscene where Denise can find out you have more girlfriends) and I think I might even kill Millie just to skip a couple of dates and get the Casino card as soon as possible.
Talking about simplification, the forklift has been reduced to only having 2 states: Raised and lowered. You can no longer raise it and lower it manually like in the original game. This thing is only useful in only one of the early missions so I have no idea why they would change something so inconsequential in such a radical way.
And if we mention bastardizations we can't ignore the climate. The original game had dozens of different states and vastly different colors, even some "exaggerated" ones like the blood red sky that is seen in the last Toreno mission or the purple sky that can be seen when you are on the desert during a sandstorm. I haven't gotten there yet, but I'd bet they don't exist here since I've seen at most two types of day skies and two types of sunsets. Even the rain used to be able to generate rainbows in the sky sometimes if it started and ended naturally, while in here the rain is vastly inferior to the original even when fixed and probably the only rainbows I'll see in this playthrough will be the ones in the faggot district in SF.

All in all, I've actually done all of the important side missions so now I can keep completing all the main/secondary missions until the end of the game, so I'll finish it tomorrow or the day after.

>>90
>The menu has only ONE.
I meant to say "The menu has only ONE sound" lol. And it's not even the correct one, since it should use the sound for accepting an option, but it actually uses the sound for canceling an option. They had to apply literally ONE sound correctly in this entire section and they couldn't even do that.
>>92
>I doubt you would have much fun, unless you enjoy Bug Hunting in which case go hog wild I guess
I didn't know I did, but now I do lol. And even when the remake is executed in the worst possible way, the original game is still behind those mountains of shit so fun is still on the menu
>>91
>That pic
Sums it up pretty well. It reminds me of the Directx 2.0 and 3.0 mods, but the difference is that those are fanmade mods created by just one man for the original game and this was supposed to be THE remake that a game like GTA SA deserved.

>>94
I'm glad there are other anons writing big autistic effortpost reviews. It's good you're enjoying your time with the game even though the UI is dogwater

(1.93 MB 1920x1080 )

Day 3 of playing this thing. I finished all the main and secondary missions on LS up to Green Sabre and conquered every gang turf (the first of two times in this playthrough).

The aggressive AI made the gang wars actually challenging, since in the OG I would exclusively use guns with low weapon skill, like in this playthrough they were the normal pistol, the silenced pistol, the Deagle, the shotgun, the micro SMGs and such; but I had to half-ass it and alternate between those and the AK/M16 because even while having expanded health and expanded armor I still was getting my ass handed to me in some situations.
And in the mission "Reuniting the families", after you drive to the place and watch a cutscene, you start crouched with a regular shotty outside of the Jefferson motel and you are supposed to just sneak to the door and continue the mission, but what I normally do shoot at the SWAT members with the shotty to farm some more weapon skill if I don't have it at Hitman level yet, but when I tried that here I was killed in seconds since all of the present SWAT members instantly locked their fire on me with their SMGs.
All of this was pretty engaging, so I praise the aggressive NPCs yet again.

Of course there were bugs today. I tried out one of the most famous GTA SA bugs first and it worked (partially). I'm talking about the Jefferson motel underworld access bug. In the original game there are 2 localizations where it's easy to get to the underworld: The Jefferson motel and the gym in Ganton. In the DE the missing portion of the ceiling of the gym was actually fixed so you can't mess around there anymore, but the hole in one of Jefferson motel's rooms is still intact. To get through the hole and land in the ceiling without mods, first you have to activate the KANGAROO cheat to super jump, then you have to jump to get on a plant that is under the hole, the wall will help you have an easier landing. When you are there, you have to line up your jump (a Deagle/Silenced pistol/Assault rifle can make lining up easier) diagonally, then run for a second and jump right before you fall from the plant. If you did it successfully you should be standing over the ceiling and you'll see several save icons floating around, along with the entirety of the motel's layout. If you have expanded max health you can actually tank a fall from any height, but to make it "safer" you can bring a parachute or get one with a cheat. Next, as part of this ritual, I have to jump to the right side (from the perspective of when you jumped from the plant) and normally you'd find the area around the Jefferson motel with missing textures and no peds or NPCs in general (asides from cops if you have a wanted level) sort of like the PUs from SM64. This underworld actually has access to every interior in the game and even gives you access to unused interiors, but generally it's impossible to make it to most of them since the yellow arrows are all over the place, outside of your reach if you don't use mods.
In the DE it doesn't work like this at all. The beginning actually got me hyped up because it was exactly like in the original with the floating save pickups, but when I jumped down I realized it wouldn't be fun at all since the entire screen was obscured by an strange brown fog that didn't let me see anything, and some kind of map limit fuckery also didn't let me roam around freely since it kept teleporting me back to the general Grove street area arbitrarily, and the only way to even see something was to activate the unnecessary, stupid and ugly weapon wheel, and even then it puts the game in slow motion even if you use the speed up everything cheat so this was a massive fail. Maybe I can see something if I bring Night vision/Heat vision goggles but I doubt it'll make it any more interesting.
When I was gangbanging I found a rare legacy bug: Someone getting run over but the corpse remains floating in the air. I rarely find this in the original, so seeing it in the only DE playthrough I'll ever do is pretty neat. https://files.catbox.moe/tc1bf9.png [Show]
A legacy trick/unintended strat I forgot to mention yesterday: On the OG Loc mission you can skip most of the bike chase if you bring an M16/Other weapon with high damage and good accuracy (even an RPG or a well timed grenade would be good) to kill the Vago with a headshot in an specific spot around Los flores or simply destroying his bike if you can't land the headshot. In the original game, doing this will play the cutscene where you just killed him, CJ will offer driving Loc to his technical janny job and when the cutscene ends, you'll be back to where you were and you can continue the mission normally. In the DE however, it teleports you to the area where the cutscene happens. Not too important, but I've never heard of anyone else doing this and finding a new thing is cool.
There are some places in the map where there are gaps between the floor and the hills, but I don't remember if this also was in the original.
A legacy trick that still works is the one that makes police helicopters stop chasing you if you get under a bridge. Pretty useful for police chases, before you get the gatling or the sniper rifle at least.
A legacy bug that I haven't gotten around to try out is one where grabbing onto a ledge on Sweet's house's roof instantly kills you. This is an engine problem if I remember correctly, so maybe they fixed this bug, maybe even involuntarily.
Some other legacy bugs I'll be trying out will be the infamous "Basketball glitch" that happens when you save the game at Madd Dogg's mansion near the end of the game and the bug that makes the game impossible to finish if you used the riot cheat, more specifically if you use it before the mission where you save Madd Dogg from killing himself because when that cheat has been activated at any point in your save it irreversibly changes some values with how the NPCs work and turning the cheat off won't turn everything back to normal; so Madd Dogg will bug out during the cutscene and will fall to his death before you even get the chance to control CJ, instantly failing the mission every time.
A problem I've been running into since the start and I hadn't mentioned until now is the fact that the notifications are bugged out. Most of the time they play the notification sound, but they don't appear on screen so you have to manually check everything. I almost missed a couple of gang territories because those times not even the notification sound effect played and the "Turf being taken over" icon has no priority here, which is another UI blunder.
A bug that pissed me off further was one that happened to me on the bridge above Grove street. In the original game, be it because on an oversight, foreshadowing or whatever reason; the bridge has an specific part that can be destroyed when you drive into it or shoot at it. This happens because in the final mission, Tempenny falls through that bridge in the stolen firetruck and dies (I know everyone already knows how GTA SA's story goes, but I wanted to see if the spoiler thing has been implemented on the site) and when you destroy that part of the bridge, it obviously should lose its collition since it isn't there anymore, but on the DE the collition remains and you can't drop down to GS from here anymore. Now I'm curious of how the final cutscene will play out.
And that bridge collition was not the only messed up collition in the game. I've found at least a couple of street light posts that have their collition and their model in different places, so you can go through their model and crash into an invisible object
And talking about street lights, in the original when destroyed they fell down to the ground, they broke down and then they disappeared after a moment. In here they just go through the fucking floor as if they were being dragged to hell.
A mechanic I wasn't expecting this thing to have is the car dirt mechanic. Cars start out clean, but the more you drive them off road the dirtier they get and the only way to get them clean is to repaint them on a Pay 'n Spray or changing its color on a Transfender and other similar vehicle tuning spots. Supposedly, Rockstar had originally planned a car washing mechanic and this is supported by the various car washes around the map and the fact that you can see a working one during the rail shooting section in Reuniting the families. This did not work on the original PC port of the game by default and the famous modder Silent had to make a patch to fix that, so it's surprising they put at least that much care into this.
Some other problems the original PC port had were some trucks missing their second set of tires, so i'd have to check that.
One final bug, and the one that ended my session today, was something that I don't know if to blame it on the game or on my machine; but when I was driving around the countryside that connects LS with SF on my way to Angel Pine, the Stallion I was driving overturned, scraped along the hill for some seconds and then I got a blue screen on my computer. I took it as a sign so I layed off the game for the night.

I kept looking closely at the games' textures and some of them look even worse upon closer inspection. The graffiti woman near the bridge in Ganton is deformed and smeared and the same goes for one of the GSF members, the one that uses a basketball shirt with the name of a team on it. In the original it said a low res name (maybe Rimmers, since that's a popular one in the game) but here that thing looks like it's in Hebrew. That GSF member's shirt is also a victim of the infamous default font since the useless retards who developed this abortion of a remake had a moment of lucidity and decided to actually take advantage of this being a remake and they made variations for the usual peds you see around the game, but their minds went back to retard mode when making the textures so you have stuff like that NPC I mentioned having a completely fucked shirt, and on release that same shirt still had the bump mapping for the stilyzed 7 from the original game so it's even more laughable since it was a poorly made texture poorly placed in an otherwise decent shirt model.

Another thing that was bastardized is the bench press minigame. In the original game, you had to mash 2 buttons to lift the bar and it was harder or easier depending on the weight and CJ's current muscle stat. If you tried to lift the heaviest weights from the beginning it would be impossible since no mashing could make up for CJ's weakness. On the DE, however, they threw this simple system out the window and instead introduced a braindead "press a button when a particular part of the bar gets highlighted" and even if you go for the heaviest weights from the start you can still lift them easily since the highlighted space is big even in the "hardest" difficulty, so a skelly CJ can go to the gym and instantly lift 320lbs (145kg for my burger friends) without breaking a sweat. And of course, the UI for this new minigame is atrocious.

I'll correct something I had wrongly stated in my previous post: The main menu does not have only one sound, it actually has only two. And neither of them are correct, since the sound I missed at first was the "highlighting an option" sound, but it uses the "accept option" from the original. If they had used all 3 sounds then none of them would be correct, come the fuck on.

Something I haven't mentioned until now but still is important is how you require a more than decent GPU to run this thing. I'd understand such a high requirement if it was some imppresive thing like that "GTA IV: San Andreas" mod that got C&D'd almost a decade ago, but this runs slightly worse than GTA V for me. I can get a modded copy of the original game with better looking graphics, models, textures and certainly with better FPS.
What pisses me off the most about all this is not the butchered remake itself, but the fact that this once in a lifetime chance of getting some kind of "GTA SA: Director's cut" with most of the beta content that was cut because of time/space or simply not knowing how to make it work at the time; with extra QoL features and GTA V tier models and maybe even new animations made from the ground up without fucking too much with the original fun physics; maybe even new weapons and transportation methods like the skateboard that was in the beta, all of this with a built-in mission creator and browser based on DYOM, which in itself was based on some DLC missions the game was planned to have in the original PS2 version; that dream opportunity gone forever in the worst possible way.

I know this seems to be turning into more of a diary blog than a review, but the game has so many details and this remake has so many faults that I can't do them all at once off the top of my head after I finish it, I have to write them down before they all get together in my mind in a single blur that screams "This remake is shit".

>>95
Yeah. Writing long posts like this is actually pretty relaxing and a remake as bad as this is the perfect fuel for posts

(4.25 MB 1920x1080 )

Day 4. Now it's just plain GTA SA, but harder in some missions. I tried to marathon every mission from Body harvest to Monster in this afternoon, but in the end I finished my session after killing Jizzy. At least I did the Zero missions.

There are a ton of problems that had annoyed me since the start, but I forgot to mention them since I was too busy thinking about all the other issues at the time.
The worst one in the entire game is how they shuffled the standard order of selecting your weapons. In the original game the order was: Fist/Brass knuckles, Melee weapon, Pistol, Shotty, SMG, Assault rifle, Rifle, Heavy weapon, Throwable, Gimmick slot and Gift; a pretty logical weapon order that you can learn immediately. In the DE they moved EVERYTHING around with no order whatsoever. Why the hell would I want my the weapons before and after the fist to be the Heavy weapon and the throwable? The melee weapon is somewhat deep in there, which makes it even more ridiculous because since I'm accustomed to the sensible weapon order I often find myself changing to my next gun to avoid reloading and I find myself with a shovel in my hand in the middle of a shootout with this relentless new AI.
The radar wasn't spared from fuckery, either. The original radar works in a simple way: it just shows you the map, icons, north and a marker that you can put anywhere in the map for whatever purpose. Here they tried to make it like the GTA V radar, even including that unnecessary angle thing it has. The funny thing about that is that it isn't well made (what a surprise) since a lot of the parts of the map don't stick together properly on the radar. On this beautiful screenshot I've uploaded you can see how there are some light blue pixels around the brown lines in the radar: Those are transparent gaps caused by the devs being asswipes. On Doherty it's way more obvious since over there you can see a big straight line on the part of the radar where the construction site and the street meet. A mod that turned the vanilla radar into the GTA V one already existed for the original game for almost a decade and it worked flawlessly even with unrelated map mods like the realistic or the vectorized one; so I'm running out of insults and metaphors to describe Grove street games' incompetence.
Another thing that doesn't work like it should is the new GPS mechanic that came with the angled map shit because "muh GTA V". It tries to show you the "legal" path to your destination like in GTA V and IV, which I guess is fine, but the problem is that this "correct" path is incorrect. Most of the time the lanes it wants you to adhere to are the opposite ones and most of the time it wants to make you take a ridiculously long route to get to a place when there already exists a shorter legal way to get there. And the GPS line is ALWAYS yellow even when you are following different objectives, something that does not happen in the modern games since in those the GPS line color changes depending on what you are following.
Talking about body harvest, I wonder what the hell happened there. I looked up a video of the mission and it didn't have those yellow square things that are supposed to be wheat. That mission also suffers from the meme physics, since when you crash into one of those giant hay piles they don't break down like they are supposed to, they just bounce at high speed and then fall through the ground. In this mission, and the reason it's named like this, you can run over hillbillies with the harvester you are stealing and their remains are spit out from the back of the machine along with a cloud of blood. I was further disgusted by the fact that the remains in the DE use the exact same models as the original game, along with their weird original lighting. Did they think I wouldn't notice? Or did they not notice it themselves? Either way, that's the second most notable part of this mission. The most notable one is that the hicks will fuck you up if more than one gets you with a rifle shot, once again because of the more aggressive AI. It actually makes this mission even more engaging, so that's always a plus.
An animation from the original game that is completely fucked here is the soda drinking animation. In the original CJ puts the can in his mouth and then drops it with its apppropriate sounds, but here he awkwardly puts it on his forehead. Not even surprised.
I learned that the ruined jetpack controls weren't limited to that, but were a quirk of every single thing that can fly.
Supply lines is an infamous mission because the fuel was tightly limited in the original PS2 version, so it was made easier in all consequent ports including the original PC port. On here I think they made it even easier since I barely got to the middle of the gas tank when I completed the mission, despite taking 3 times more time than normal because the RC plane controls were so fucking bad in both KBM and cuntroller. When you are getting the plane off the ground sometimes it just locks to the right or left and flies in a straight line for a moment, crashing with whatever it finds in its way and making you lose more time. You can't control the camera with the mouse, either, something that worked perfectly in the original PC port but here it doesn't because fuck you, and even with the controller it doesn't actually move, but it just moves momentarily and is extremely limited, basically locking you view the back of the plane.
Something I don't understand is why my performance tanks on almost every interior. I may be playing at 70 fps fucking around outside but when I enter Zero's shop my fps drop to 20 or lower. Finishing the last Zero mission like this actually gave me nostalgia of when I first beat that mission on an ancient potato computer, so I guess that's a cheap plus.

I hadn't mentioned until now, but i think the water is ugly. It looks like blue mercury or some shit like that instead of actual water.
Something that really pissed me off is a weird lighting thing I saw while doing the 555 we tip mission: On one hand you had the ground being illuminated by a near street light and it looked natural, like smooth ground tiles, but a bit behind that light there was another different light that looked like it was being reflected on a puddle, wet surface or on a polished tile and this made absolutely no sense. How does something like this just slip by? This is what I'd expect from a ENB in 2014. https://files.catbox.moe/7oyans.png [Show] <-Look at it for yourselves.
I finally got to Amphibious assault and it was fucked in the ass by this remake. In the original, this mission happens in an extremely foggy weather which explains why enemies can't spot you instantly on the water, but here everything is perfectly clear so it feels like every Vietnamese needs glasses or something because they can't spot a nigger swimming around their boats in plain daylight. This also renders the gigantic lights pointing to the water ridiculously useless.
Another thing I hadn't mentioned is that now you can't see the health of your enemies when you point at them. Not really essential, but that's a feature that has been completely lost.
Something that actually is essential but was fucked beyond repair is the melee mechanics. They weren't the best in the original, but on here this autoaim shit completely destroys any freedom or quality this once had. There are two main types of attacks: The "normal" ones that you can do by just pushing the attack button and the "technique" ones that you can learn at Dojos and change most of your moveset, most notably the main combo which used to be activated with pointing + button to get in the car; but here both the normal attack and the main combo are activated with the same attack button with the main combo being activated by attacking + pointing and the normal attack by just pressing the button. In the original, you could point an whatever direction and CJ would just attack there, like it should work, but here CJ's attention will be grabbed by the nearest NPC so if you want to punch a car but there's a cop walking by then enjoy your wanted stars, faggot.
I don't get the point of all this autoshit in these modern games, this thing even has an autojump function. Might as well implement an "autogame" that plays a video of a random longplay from jewtube.
Another horrible new addition is the outline shit, which I deactivated from the beginning. It makes your objectives have an ugly white outline around them when you are pointing at them, which is completely unnecessary since the original game aleady had something like this and it was the same thing that told you how much HP an NPC had, which was removed.
A surprise feature that did get ported is one of the shittiest ones in existence: Aggressive/Vengeful drivers. In the original PC port this was introduced because they hate me. The way this mechanic works is simple: Sometimes when you crash against other cars, there's a chance they will retaliate against your crash by trying to repeatedly ram their car into yours and will follow you for the rest of their NPC lives unless they despawn because you got too far from them or you shoot at their car, instantly making them flee like any other NPC.

I tried out the instakill bug on Sweet's House's roof. It only worked if your game was running at over 60 fps, so for this I turned the graphics all the way to low and something interesting happened when I tried the bug: The game automatically lowered itself to like 25 fps every time I did the climb for the bug. It was going at over 100 fps and suddenly it dropped to 20 for the climb and then went back to 100+ when CJ stabilized himself. Maybe they did know about the bug and added this bandaid tier "fix" that lowers your fps when trying to climb something; either that or my machine is subpar, but i wouldn't like to think the latter.
I spent much more time driving around the countryside and discovered that all of the countryside in general is modeled like shit because there are gaps that let you see the void everywhere, one even goes along a huge chunk of a road and it's quite thick.
A visual error that happens sometimes for some unknown reason is one that makes the leaves in the ground adopt rainbow-ish colors. This depends on the camera angle and has no apparent cause for it.

Man, this game feels way longer when you are always on the look for something that may bother you.

(3.18 MB 1920x1080 )

Day 5. This ends tomorrow. I continued from where I left it yesterday and completed both San Fierro and Las Venturas.
The only good thing I can say about the lighting is that it makes the Caligula casino heist more immersing, since in the original you could easily pass from using the night vision goggles but here you can't see shit in that darkness. Something similar happens in the final mission, so I'll be looking forward to that.

I expected the Flight school and N.O.E. to be ballbustingly hard, but they were fine on cuntroller, I even got some gold medals and no bronze medals in the flight school.

Something that remained fucked up is the Jetpack. Not only is it a pain in the ass to control, which is an immense downgrade from how fun it was in the original game and the OG PC port, but now it actually lost details. Originally, the small propulsors on either side would tilt depending on your input, so going forward with the jetpack would make the propulsors tilt back to complement the feel of using the jetpack, but now they remain completely still. Fuck.
And when I did the Green goo mission it was fucking hell, easily the hardest mission in the game in this because I had to quickly change between using the controller to use the jetpack and the mouse to aim and shoot. Had to do around 5 times, and on the last one I stopped giving a fuck and cheesed it by waiting on a roof and then killing all the soldiers with the minigun and then going in to get the green goo from one of the crates.
I forgot to mention they didn't fix a small incoherence on the mission where you earn the papers for the garage in Doherty: Since the original game, the cutscene shows you won a silver colored RZ350, but when you actually get to playing the race the car is black.
Something pretty stupid that I noticed is that the gold dollar symbol that appears when you can get income from an asset still has the fake glowing gold texture from the original, so now you have a floating dollar symbol with an actual gold effect over a fake yellowish gold texture.
The performance keeps diyng randomly on most interiors, which made completing that mission where you go to Liberty city, that mission where you highjack a plane and the Caligula heist mission really awful to play, which is a shame since they are very fun when you get than 20 fps.


I tried the riot cheat bug I mentioned yesterday: It still works. https://files.catbox.moe/rsvlg0.mp4 [Play] I don't know why the "Cheat activated" popup appeared again when I got into the mission since I didn't input it a third time.
I also got my first actual crash the first time I tried to input the cheat, I don't know why that would happen lol.

Today I had a longer session than normal, but surprisingly I didn't find much that was notable, probably because I catched most of it with my first 4 posts. Tomorrow I'll probably rate the experience overall.

>>90

It's sad that fan-made reverse engineering projects look more appealing than the official remasters. Legit, all these companies need to just release the engine source code whenever extended support development ceases so that the community can take it from there. It's a waste of a really amazing game to just leave it like that abandoned and full of bugs and compatibility issues down the road when new operating systems deprecate API calls and sunset legacy tech.

Can you imagine how much more hollow the modern video game development industry would be if John Carmack never opened the floodgates for modders and hackers to tinker with his engine and backend technology? VALVe today wouldn't have been as robust and filled to the brim with creative designers, programmers, and engineers had it not been for modders like the ones who were involved in DOOM and Quake's creative community.

Not to mention, there were community posts about how dangerous it is to play GTA:Online due to mod menus just completely going hayware all because Rockstar's multiplayer development team have nothing but monkeys and incompetent developers failing to come up with proper solutions to these exploits and leaving everything up to the burden of them and their shitty, insecure peer-to-peer infrastructure model. Also, Activision's lack of support and giving a damn for older games that people still treasure, like Black Ops 2 and Black Ops 3 being unsafe to play on PC and consoles due to modded lobbies and online mafias coming after snitches who dare to try and fight those trying to save the game they love; and don't get me started with the Save Titanfall campaign.

In short, if your game is no longer in active development, try to snipe away all proprietary parts of your game engine, and put it up as free, libre, open source software so you can tell your fans to fuck off and do it themselves. Please.

>>102

Oh yes, for the reverse engineering projects that the fans attempted to do, but failed due to T2's legal team getting in the way, do a search up on GTA's RE projects.

(2.54 MB 1920x1080 )

Finally.

The second part of the final mission no is even easier than in the original. You are supposed to flee Smoke's crack palace within a time limit while killing gang members and trying to not catch fire. In the original the "gimmick" of this part was taking the night vision goggles on and off depending on your situation, since they made the enemies visible in the mild darkness, but they also made the flames mildly harder to see. In my case I'm always immune to fire so I never care about that, but since everything is too fucking dark with UE lighting I definitely needed the goggles, and here they made the flames neon white and impossible to miss.
The mission Vertical bird doesn't have the red blood sky when you start anymore, so that's another unique thing that was left out.
I tried doing the basketball glitch, it still works. What a shit.
As a last "fuck you" from the game, CJ's face got corrupted randomly in the final mission, poor man looks like he started rotting. Reminds me of that weird skin thing that randomly happened in Idolm@ster Starlit Season. I guess it's a UE thing since both games use that.

I realized I skipped the Wang cars missions since I also skipped the driving school, but I don't care enough to go back.

Overall, this remake is so poorly made it's funny. Bugs everywhere, horrible textures, misinterpretation and butchering of the original game's vision and atmosphere and a waste of time for a casual playthrough that isn't centered on making fun of it. No one should play this shit, just pirate the original PC version and mod it to hell and back.

>>103
The RE projects got attacked by T2? Fuck, I didn't know that, I still have REVC and RE3 stored somewhere. But that isn't that surprising, unfortunately, even mods like GTA Underground got a C&D for whatever reason, Take2 just fucking hates its own fanbase, I guess. Glad I've never payed a cent for any of these games.
>>102
>
In short, if your game is no longer in active development, try to snipe away all proprietary parts of your game engine, and put it up as free, libre, open source software so you can tell your fans to fuck off and do it themselves
One good thing the DE achieved was leaking a bunch of source files in the Switch port.

I just played How Fish Is Made. It's free to play on Steam and very short, took me around 40 minutes to beat it. It's an interesting horror-ish game. You play as a fish. You talk to other fish. It's very strange. The writing is great. Highly recommend.

(130.29 KB 616x353 )

Did anyone else try out this piece of shit when it came out? A friend convinced me to play it when it was FOTM and it played like trash. Every character felt floaty, the hits didn't feel like they had impact and it's full of jank. It was so bad I completely forgot I even played it until some moments ago

>>164
I did. Me and a buddy got it because we just wanted to see how dogshit it was. We played it for a while and enjoyed it occasionally but it's just not a good game. I played it on release and the Finn/ Superman problems were immense. I don't know what balance changes they've implemented and frankly I don't care.
I'll take a look at it again when they add Samurai Jack

>>165
I doubt Jack can save an awful base game

p3fes.jpg p3fes.jpg

(107.25 KB 640x904 )

p4g.jpg p4g.jpg

(75.53 KB 474x474 )

p5r.jpg p5r.jpg

(86.83 KB 1024x1024 )

I’ll be reviewing the 3 “modern” Persona games, the spin-offs from Shin Megami Tensei that are more popular than the main series, namely Persona 3, 4 and 5. I have not played Persona 1 and 2, although the mechanics that really set Persona apart from the main series were only introduced in 3 anyway. I am still interested in trying them at some point, though. At the moment, I am still playing 5, but these games are really long and I have wanted to post these reviews for a while now, so I’m just going to do the review for 5 when I eventually finish it.

>What is Persona?
Persona is a hybrid of your traditional dungeon-crawling JRPG, which more or less plays like the other SMT games, and a slice-of-life school simulator that is tied together with a time-management element. You play through roughly an entire school year, and are only able to do one or two activities per day, once after school and possibly another at night. In your normal life as a student, you spend time levelling up your social stats, or building relationships with other characters called Social Links (or Confidants in 5). You are not just an ordinary student though, as you and your friends have the ability to summon a Persona, an entity that represents a facet of your inner-self. Using this power, you fight Shadows, strange creatures that, in one way or another, show up in some alternative world that’s different but connected to our own (the specifics are different for each game). This entails exploring a dungeon of some kind, and thus the game is about managing your time between building Social Links and delving deeper into the dungeon while a deadline of some sort is encroaching.

As a sort of general comment for all three games, I think they offer a unique experience among most JRPGs as they actually do incorporate some role-playing elements instead of just being about combat. It’s nothing super deep or intricate, for the most part it’s just selecting different dialogue options, but it’s still there at least and (mostly) all the characters you interact with are well-written and entertaining. On top of that, these games have some absolutely top-tier music. Honestly, some of the tracks have been engraved in my memory and play in my head while I walk to class, just like in the game lol. Finally, these games are LONG. They are well worth it though, but if you end up trying one of these games and are kind of eh on them, just know that powering through the rest of it will be quite the commitment.

Before I begin the reviews proper, here are the particular versions of each game I played.

>Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES (FES version released 2008, NA version for PS2, emulated with PCSX2)
>Persona 4 Golden (Golden version originally released 2012, ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023)
>Persona 5 Royal (Royal version originally released 2019, ported to Nintendo Switch in 2022)

At the end of each review, I will give some bits of advice for if you are interested in playing to hopefully increase your enjoyment and not miss out on anything, so don’t skip over the end.

Joy.mp3 Joy.mp3

(2.58 MB 00:02:50)

Mass_Des...mp3 Mass_Destruction.mp3

(3.39 MB 00:03:30)

Want_To_...mp3 Want_To_be_Close.mp3

(2.47 MB 00:02:33)

When_The...mp3 When_The_Moons_Reaching_Out_Stars.mp3

(2.45 MB )

>>342
This is a fat ass review for a really long game. I have to also explain how the mechanics of the series work in this one, so the next two won’t be as long. Please bear with me until then.
---
>Persona 3
The first SMT game I tried was Strange Journey on the DS (would not recommend that as a starting point) and I just couldn’t get into it. It was still somewhat interesting at least, so I decided not to give up on the series and instead I chose to try a Persona game. So I downloaded the ROM for 3 and I was immediately drawn in by the opening cutscene. I had to keep playing just to know what was going on, and from that point I basically played nothing but this game for about a week straight. I think I am a bit biased because this was the first one in the series that I tried and thus everything about the mechanics was novel to me, but this game is still easily my favourite of the 3. In fact, it might be one of my favourite games that I’ve played, but it’s certainly not without its flaws.

>Setting
You play as a high-school student who has moved to the city of Iwatodai, where you have been assigned to stay in a dorm. You shortly learn of the Dark Hour, an extra hour of the day that occurs after midnight, where most people turn into coffins and Shadows lurk about, attacking those who have remained conscious. During this time, reality is distorted, and a giant tower called Tartarus appears where your school is. The members of your dorm are part of a group called S.E.E.S, disguised as a school club, which is tasked with using the power of Persona to investigate the Dark Hour and Tartarus and fight Shadows.

>Slice-of-life simulator gameplay
While not exploring Tartarus, you will need to live your life as a normal high-school student. Sometimes during class your teacher will pick on you to answer a question, and at lunchtime one of your friends might ask if they can hang out with you. After school, there are a variety of different characters you can spend time with and build Social Links with. More characters become available as the game progresses, whether that be from you being able to join different clubs at school, or being introduced to new people while spending time with others. You also have 3 stats you can level up: Academics, Courage and Charm, which are needed to start certain Social Links. You can also spend your time doing some other things, like in the mall there is an arcade where you can play games that level up your Persona’s stats.

This is the first game that introduced the slice-of-life simulation elements and the Social Links, so there are some rough patches. Firstly, every Social Link with a female character is inherently romantic. As I’ll discuss in the dungeon-crawler section, it’s extremely useful to level up as many Social Links as possible, so playing optimally requires you to form a bit of a harem. Your Social Links can also reverse, dropping to level 1, if you neglect someone for a long time, cancel your plans with them, or in the case of a girl who starts to have feelings for you, spend too much time with other girls. Once you max out a character’s Social Link though, it can never be reversed, so you can, in fact, be banging every female in school without repercussion, which is a bit of an issue.

Secondly, this game does not have a separate Social Link for each of the male characters in S.E.E.S, only the girls (so you can date them). There is a general Social Link for the entire team that automatically progresses as you go through the story, which sort of substitutes for that, and you do spend time with them through other cutscenes, but you can’t ask them if they want to hang out after school or something. Finally, the game does not have a lot to do during the night other than explore Tartarus. There are only 2 Social Link characters at night, both of which are kind of hard to unlock, and some activities to level up your social stats. Once they’ve been maxed out though, you’ve got nothing.

>Dungeon-crawling and JRPG gameplay
The dungeon you explore in Persona 3 is Tartarus. You go through procedurally-generated floors where you can find chests, Shadows to fight, and must find your way to the staircase to the next floor. Healing your health back is easy, but SP is more limited and is used for every skill that isn’t a physical attack. Additionally, spending a long time in Tartarus will cause a character to get tired, making them weaker, and they will automatically go back to the dorm after you return to the entrance. If you get tired, you might miss certain events in the slice-of-life part, so you only want to explore so much of Tartarus each day, although powering your way through is still possible, which is a bit of a flaw in my eyes. Every day, the phase of the moon will change, and on every full moon, a big bad Shadow shows up and must be defeated. After every full moon, a new part of Tartarus opens up. The basic game-loop is then to try to go as far as possible into Tartarus before each full moon. The game more-or-less plays like standard Shin Megami Tensei, with some small differences. Every attack has a different element, and Shadows and Personas have specific affinities for each element. Striking a weakness or getting a crit causes the target to get knocked down, and if you used a single-target move, you get to perform an extra action. If you manage to knockdown every enemy, you are able to perform an all-out-attack, which deals loads of free damage. This makes random encounters go by quite quickly, as you can often knockdown every enemy in one go and quickly defeat them. The thing is though that the same rules apply to you; having your own party members’ weakness hit means they get knocked down and your opponent gets an extra turn. This means you have to be conscious about which party members and Personas you bring with you.

The way the Social Links interact with the JRPG part is in the changes to fusion. In the SMT games, you can fuse different demons (in this case, Personas) together to create a new one, and you are able to transfer skills from the constituent demons to the new one. This means your party is constantly changing as you try to create more powerful Personas. Every Persona is associated with one of the Major Arcana from the Tarot, and every Social Link also represents one of these Arcana. When you fuse a new Persona, the power of the corresponding Social Link will be absorbed, granting a bunch of extra EXP. You can only fuse Personas up to your current level, so this allows you to get Personas that are a higher level than you. This makes Social Links crucial to your success in combat, which ties together the two parts of the game quite nicely. Only the protagonist can change which Persona he has equipped; everyone else has a specific Persona unique to that character. You can bring along 3 other party members, and the number of Personas you can switch between increases as you play, starting from 8 I believe, so you have quite a lot to play with.

Now for some issues. Firstly, Tartarus can get quite repetitive. The visuals of each block don’t change often enough, and the music is basically the same track with extra elements added on as you progress. You do get a selection of other BGM to choose from, but this is sort of a band-aid fix. The gameplay is also always just going through each floor and trying to reach the top. No extra gimmicks, or puzzles, or anything like that. That means you also avoid having to do any serious bullshit, so it’s sort of a blessing and a curse. Because you will constantly switch between Tartarus and the slice-of-life gameplay, the game still tends to stay fresh, but it is a very long game. Your mileage may vary, basically.

Now the main “issue” with the combat, and in fact one of the first things people will bring up about the game in general, is the fact that you cannot directly control your party members. This was changed in the PSP version of the game, but that version also looks like shit, and made changes to the combat making it easier overall. Instead of issuing commands directly, you can give them general orders which dictate what their AI will do. They will follow what you tell them to do to a tee, often to a fault. This means you have to plan out your turn in advance. In an interview, the director and I think the lead artist stated they designed the game in this way so that your party members really felt like distinct characters instead of just puppets you control. I actually really like the idea behind this, but it just falls short in execution. The problem with the AI is that, for the most part, they do what you would’ve done, but at other times they catastrophically fail. The AI is not able to detect when an enemy resists an element, only when they block, repel or absorb one. I remember against a particular boss, Koromaru, the dog, kept using the big fire spell, Agidyne, when the boss resisted fire and it only did like 6 damage each time. So I gave him the “Conserve SP” order in the hopes that he would just use his normal attack, but instead he just waited and skipped his turn each time? The AI is also very reluctant to use multi-target healing skills and is also unaware of the turn order it seems. If the boss hits your entire party for a big chunk, instead of just dealing damage and letting the healer use the multi-target heal, they’ll all try to heal each other with single-target healing skills or items, wasting a lot of time. You can get around this by telling everyone but the healer to only attack and ignore support moves, but then you might actually want to have them use a healing move on a certain turn. On top of all this, if you get knocked down, you can’t issue orders until you get up, which means all hell can break loose if your team had some weird order given to them. Although the AI is definitely flawed, I think most of the issues from this system stem from the fact that you have to really commit to each turn and live with the consequences. Most people expect JRPGs to let you have full control of the battle, so when they play this game they automatically think it sucks instead of having a bit of an open-mind. It’s not like there is any rule that states you need to have full control of the battles, and instead you need to have faith in your teammates, which helps make them feel a bit less artificial. Until they act completely retarded and break the illusion, of course. You still have a lot of control of what happens, though, but there is still the chance for something unexpected to happen. This makes the game a bit more difficult than it otherwise would be, while offering a bit of a change in pace, even if it can cause some frustration along the way. I think this is one of those rare and interesting directorial decisions that leans more on the experimental side, so going into the game with a good mindset will really help with your enjoyment.

>Soundtrack
Like I said in the first post, I’ve attached some personal favourites. The game’s soundtrack mainly consists of a sort of hip-hop/jazz mix that I don’t really know the proper name of. It’s different from anything I’ve listened to, at least, and includes a couple of more unconventional sounds, but I couldn’t help but bob my head to nearly every track. The percussion and bass give each song a great rhythm and feel, and the more emotional tracks manage to pull on the hearts strings. A particular musical moment that stood out for me was the theme used in the mall and shops. The mall theme is a really groovy and fast track, while the shop theme is a half-time version of the same song with a fat bassline. There is one song that is used during emotional/sad moments that I think was a little overused, but otherwise I never tired of any of the songs, even after listening to them so many times throughout the game.

>Story
I won’t go into that much detail to avoid spoilers, but I think the story of this game is great. The ending made me cry like a bitch for like 10 minutes straight, and put me in a sort of state of euphoria for the rest of the day, which is the most emotional a game has ever made me feel. Sometimes you see people describe the ending to a game like that and then you play it and feel nothing. This game resonated with me, so I hope if you play it, it will resonate with you, but of course, I can’t promise anything. I would say the game’s central themes are about mortality, and confronting the fact that, one day, you will die, and that you only have so much time left. In the final cutscene, there was a particular line one of the characters said during an emotional scene that really made me stop and think about the game I had just played, about the time I spent with other people, about the shit my friends in the dorm and I had gone through to get there, and about the symbolism present in the game and in the opening cutscene to the original version (the FES version has its own OP, but very cleverly, they made the original OP play after you die). Then the credits roll and the song that plays incorporates all sorts of leitmotifs from the game’s soundtrack, and then the few tears I had turned into a full on cry. I think the main reason this game’s story works so well is that, thematically, it ties into the mechanics of the game, namely spending time with other people, and the time-management element. It feels like the gameplay and the story were made in synch with one another. The later games keep the mechanics, but don’t really tie the story in that well and I think that is the primary reason they fall short for me.

>Advice
These bits of advice apply to all the games, actually, but I’ll put them here as I recommend you start the series from this game anyway. The first thing I would recommend is to name your character your real name. Maybe you are the type of person who just names their characters your username or something, but people refer to you by name a lot so having something weird will stick out more than anything. Plus, this game is about building relationships with other people, so having them refer to you by your name will help you feel a bit closer to them.

For the JRPG part, the biggest piece of advice for ALL the Shin Megami Tensei games is that you should not neglect buffs and debuffs at all. Unlike other JRPGs, they are crucial to your success and add a lot of strategy to the gameplay. Some of the party members you can bring learn these skills. Setting them to the Heal/Support tactic will cause them to prioritise these moves. Unlike the later SMT games, Persona 3 does not have an option to choose which skills are transferred when you fuse Personas. Instead, the moves that are transferred (shown in blue) are random, and in order to reroll them, you need to deselect all the Personas, and reselect them again. It can be quite tedious and time-consuming to get the correct skills, so be ready to go for a sub-optimal set of skills if only like 2/3 of the ones that get transferred are what you want, otherwise you could spend an eternity rerolling. Finally, don’t neglect the power of physical attackers. I went the whole game neglecting a particular party member, before realising that having someone good in physical damage is actually really useful as a lot of bosses don’t have weaknesses to anything. I had to level him up from level 25 to 65, which of course took a lot of grinding. SMT games are not really about grinding, as fusion is almost always the quicker and more effective option, but that doesn’t apply to your party members in Persona so don’t fall into the same trap.

Reach_Ou...mp3 Reach_Out_To_The_Truth.mp3

(2.70 MB 00:02:57)

A_Sky_Fu...mp3 A_Sky_Full_Of_Stars.mp3

(2.56 MB 00:02:46)

The_Almi...mp3 The_Almighty.mp3

(4.24 MB 00:04:40)

Heartbea...mp3 Heartbeat_Heartbreak.mp3

(2.07 MB )

>>343
>Persona 4
Personally, I think this is the weakest of the three overall, but really they all excel at different things. My main issue is that it often feels like Persona 3, but again, and it doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself, but it’s still a great game that is worth playing.

>Setting
You arrive at the small, country town of Inaba, where you will be staying with your uncle and his daughter and attend the local high-school. You shortly make some friends and learn about the Midnight Channel and a series of murders occurring in the town. As the rumour goes, if you stare into a TV at midnight while fog has set in, the Midnight Channel will appear, and you shortly learn that those who appear on the Midnight Channel are actually the soon-to-be murder victims. You discover that there is another world inside the TV, and so you and your friends take it upon themselves to rescue the victims and find the true culprit.

>Slice-of-life simulator gameplay
Basically the same as Persona 3, with some small improvements. Firstly you can now be platonic friends with girls. Social Links can no longer be reversed, though, so it’s actually easier to get a harem going as there are no repercussions. You can now hang out with all of your party members, even the guys, and doing so will unlock some special abilities for them in battle, which does make the game easier. There is way more shit to do at night, like hanging out with your friends, reading books, or taking up a part-time job, another new addition. After a certain point in the story, you and your friends all get motorcycles, and you can ride with one of them to a hot spring to learn a special skill or remember a forgotten one. There are now 5 different social stats, up from 3. Instead of a moon cycle, the weather will now change. After it rains for a few days straight, it will be foggy and the Midnight Channel will show up. If you don’t rescue the victim before then, you will get a game over. The final change is that you now go into the dungeons during the day, and doing so prevents you from doing anything at night. This doesn’t really matter as I’ll explain shortly.

>Dungeon-crawling and JRPG gameplay
There are now different dungeons, one for each character that you must save, but they play mostly like Tartarus. The difference being that they are way more visually distinct, have entirely different music, and occasionally include some minor gimmicks. For the most part, this means backtracking to a specific floor to collect a key you missed. A small step up, but nothing major.

More significant are the changes to combat. First, you now have full control of your party members. You can now guard on your turn, which increases defence and prevents you from being knocked down. Multi-target skills that get knockdowns will still grant extra turns. Hitting an enemy that is knocked down will no longer cause them to get back up, and targeting a weakness on an enemy that is downed will cause them to get dizzy, keeping them on the floor even longer. These changes in particular remove some of the strategy from the combat in my opinion, as you can just spam multi-target skills willy-nilly and deal tonnes of damage.

A feature I neglected to mention in Persona 3 was Shuffle Time. This was a little mini-game after a battle where you picked a card and could recruit new Personas, or get some extra money, EXP, items etc. In Persona 4, the cards aren’t shuffled around anymore and you can just pick the exact cards you want. The cards are WAY better than in 3 as well. The Cups card in 3 only healed HP and I think very rarely could heal SP, but in 4 it always heals both. This makes it way easier to just stay in the dungeon and beat it in a single day. There is also a card that levels up one of your Persona’s skills, allowing you to get end-game skills very early on, ruining the balance. Combine these problems with the special abilities your party members get from levelling up their Social Links and this game becomes a cakewalk. There was one boss in the game that I did find very challenging, but that was because I was under levelled and at that point, I hadn’t realised how easy it was to break the game, nor had I put too much time into my teammates’ Social Links.

Beyond that, there are some nice quality of life changes made, particularly to fusion. You can now do a fusion search, which shows all possible Personas you can make with what you have, instead of having to manually select each combination. You can also choose exactly which skills are transferred over to your new Persona, which saves a lot of time. Finally, you can also inspect what each skill actually does, which previously could only be done when you open the skill menu outside of battle, AFTER you had already fused your Persona.

>Soundtrack
The music drops the hip-hop/rap elements but still retains a lot of the style from Persona 3’s soundtrack. The main disappointment is the battle theme, which sounds kind of generic and doesn’t really get me hyped up like Mass Destruction did in 3, but I still liked it and sang along with the lyrics eventually. There are still some great tracks in this game that really fit country town vibe, and are just as groovy and catchy as those in 3.

>Story
This is the main reason I think this game is the weakest of the three. The murder mystery plot is dumb. The actual villain does not have a compelling motive and it really feels like they went “eeny-meeny miney-moe, this dude is the killer”. A big part of the game’s theme is accepting a part of yourself you’d rather hide from others. Doing this is how the characters are able to awaken to their Personas, after all. This has absolutely nothing to do with the plot though, and eventually it seems this premise is kind of dropped as characters in the TV world don’t even have anything to hide.

The strength of the story in this game is the time you spend with your friends. This game really drives home the slice-of-life stuff and I think it does a good job of making you feel like you’ve made some friends in your new town. Combine that with the parental bond you have with your uncle and your precious cousin who’s like a little sister, and by the end of the game when you leave town it really can feel a bit sad having to say goodbye to everyone. My problem is that this part and the plot are not really linked together.

Now my final complaint about this game is the way to unlock the true endings. In order to actually catch the killer, you need to answer 7 dialogue options in a row correctly, all of them just leading you to tell everyone to calm down. Pick the wrong ones like me and you get the bad ending, so I had to look up a guide. I don’t think I should need to resort to a guide to beat your game. This isn’t actually the true ending though. You need another specific set of dialogue options to get the actual final dungeon. There is also a bonus dungeon you get by maxing out Marie’s Social Link before December, and beating it gives you the Super True ending. I liked Marie, so I had already maxed out her Social Link by then anyway, but really I don’t mind that something like that is optional (Recall what I say here for the Persona 5 review).

>Advice
Not much to add here, other than to keep aware of the requirements for the actual endings. You will likely need a guide to know what to do, and missing them does mean you won’t really get to complete the game proper.

I’m still playing through 5, but I will post a review once I’m finished with it.

(1.25 MB 1366x768 )

I picked up Resident Evil 4 many years ago. I believe it was on a good sale at the time, or maybe part of a Humble Bundle. Until recently, I hadn't gotten around to playing it, but shortly before the release of the remake, I figured it was as good a time as any.
I highly recommend this game to anyone. It's tightly paced, full of clever ideas, and crafted with great care. I had been apprehensive about playing it before any of the first 3 in the series, but that didn't matter much.
I seriously respect this game's combat; it's balanced so that every move takes some thought. Ammo, space, and time must all be carefully managed to avoid being overwhelmed. The game leans into this dynamic with each enemy or mechanic it introduces. It demonstrates an understanding of game design that can truly only be achieved by someone who loves video games. It's no surprise to me that this game is so beloved.
It also strikes me as very replayable, so I imagine I'll come back and try the harder setting one day. I don't often replay anything except Max Payne, so this is a ringing endorsement. It hits a similar combination of amusing writing and gameplay that never gets old.
The only issues I had were with the faulty PC port. I experienced some slowdown and crashing. There are supposed to be fixes, so if you play it yourself, look out for those before you start.
Anyway, pic related is my results. I don't expect they're too impressive, but the accuracy must be worth something.

(1.01 MB 2066x1441 )

I just played this thing and it's amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ-iyClGZMI [Play]
It's Aqua Ippan, apparently it's made on Game Maker 2. It's heavily inspired by Metal Slug (or you could also say it's a clone) and the creator is a huge fan, in his page he even has tutorials of sprite ripping and guides about how to make MS-styled sprites.
Aqua Ippan looks beautiful and it plays really nice. The setting, from what I played in the demo, is pretty grounded in reality so it gives me a MS1 feel, which I love since it's my favorite one. The level design seems to be pretty alright, it has some sections that remind me of MS levels in how they are designed.
The boss of the first level (the only one in the demo) isn't really hard, but it's definitely harder than the Tetsuyuki, specially because this boss has a second phase (which is easier than the first one for some reason).
The kids you rescue through the level are this game's equivalent of POWs, and instead of giving you weapons/bombs right away they show up at the end of the level to give you bricks, replacing your oxygen tanks as your bomb and obviously, the more kids you rescue the more bricks you'll get, although you only get them periodically.
And talking about the oxygen tank, that's the default bomb. The only thing of the game I didn't really like, although it's probably due to me not knowing how to use it properly yet since from the trailer it seems like the point is making it bounce on different things while I'm currently using it like nades in Metal Slug. Not even Stone works like this, so it certainly will take me some time to assimilate by the time the full game releases.
The highlight of the entire thing is easily the graphics. Like I said before, everything looks awesome and while the background looks good, it doesn't distract you from the main action.
The original music and sound effects weren't really remarkable, but they are not bad, I think.
One thing I absolutely loved was being able to just restart from the beginning by selecting an option on the menu instead of having to quit and then start again like you do in MS6 and 7/XX and the ports of the older games.
I'm really missing the pressence of a vehicle right now since there are no vehicles you can use in the demo. The developer seems like he knows his stuff so I'll trust him to add something similar in a later demo or the full game.
Another interesting thing is that you can gain 1-ups here from 7-up soda cans. You get 2 or 3 in the first level, so it's pretty scrub-friendly, I guess. The difficulty in general isn't really hard, but it's the first level and I'd rather not draw too many conclusions about this too early.
The girls aren't exceptionally cute, but I find the way their eyes are drawn to be pretty captivating.

It's definitely worth checking out, can't wait for the full game to come out.

Beneath_...mp3 Beneath_the_Mask_UlqMBPH.mp3

(4.25 MB 00:04:38)

Life_Wil...mp3 Life_Will_Change.mp3

(4.26 MB 00:04:22)

Take_Ove...mp3 Take_Over_E9CopKp.mp3

(3.50 MB 00:03:46)

Wake_Up_...mp3 Wake_Up_Get_Up_Get_Out_There.mp3

(4.47 MB 00:04:38)

>>344
>Persona 5
Before I begin, I have to preface this by saying that I did not complete the additional content added in the Royal version, namely the extra semester and a new dungeon, final boss and ending. Unlocking this extra content requires you to max out the school councillor’s Social Link (now called Confidant), which I didn’t do before he leaves the school, which is only at the third to last dungeon. Supposedly, maxing out Akechi’s Confidant also gives you some extra story, and again, he leaves at the third to last dungeon. I don’t really understand why they would make such a substantial amount of content entirely missable, especially considering that there is no way you would guess what the unlock requirements would be. If you played the game blind like I did, there is a good chance for you to miss this, and if you do want to see what you missed, be prepared to replay 80 hours worth of JRPG.

Anyway, Persona 5. Even if you have no idea what Persona or SMT is, you’ve probably heard of this game. It is by far the most popular of these games and if you’re like me, that makes you a bit sceptical. This game is actually really good and makes a lot of solid changes to the gameplay, even if it is a bit on the easy side.

>Setting
After being framed for assault and expelled from your school, you are sent away from home to Tokyo to stay with a family friend during your year-long probation. You shortly discover the existence of the Metaverse, a cognitive world which represents the corrupt desires of the people. Those with particularly strong desires form Palaces, which serve as the game’s dungeons. Inside, there is a treasure of some sort that manifests itself after the owner of the palace is made aware in the real world that someone knows about their sins. After their treasure is stolen, their evil desires are removed and, wrought with guilt, they confess their crimes at their own accord. Thus, you, your friends and a talking cat form the Phantom Thieves on a mission to change the hearts of criminals as you seek to bring the corrupt adults of the world to justice.

>(Art) Style
I didn’t make a section for this in the other reviews despite the fact that they have some great art styles, but this game blows them out the water. You might have noticed already from the images I’ve attached that each game has a distinct colour associated with it, and red is a perfect fit for 5. A central theme of the game is rebellion and nearly everything serves to capture this theme, from the art, the way the characters move in battle, the music and the UI. Yeah, even the UI looks great. This game just looks cool and, honestly, I wish more big budget game developers realise that while good graphics will look good on release, style is eternal.

>Slice-of-life simulator gameplay
The big change this time around is that ALL Confidants now give you passive bonuses after ranking them up. This gives you a reason to spend time with different characters beyond just wanting to progress their story and get better fusions. There are quite a lot of different bonuses that actually have quite major effects. This unfortunately can make the game a bit easy, but the game can still offer some decent challenge (with one boss in particular being a very jarring difficulty spike). There are, once again, even more things to do, with a much wider range of areas you can go to as you learn about new places in Tokyo while progressing your Confidants.

>Dungeon-crawling and JRPG gameplay
This is where most of the changes to the gameplay were made. Each Palace is now a fully hand-crafted dungeon, which includes some minor stealth mechanics and puzzles. There are three collectible items per dungeon, and getting all of them gives you a special accessory. This makes the dungeon-crawling much more enjoyable than previous entries and is a great change. On top of the normal dungeons, you can also go into Memento’s, which is a procedurally-generated series of different floors, where you can go further in after each major dungeon, similar to Tartarus in 3. You get different requests to change people’s hearts that act as small side-quests, and this requires you to beat a boss somewhere in Memento’s. You can find stars which you can turn in to increase your EXP, item or money gain within Memento’s. This turns it into the optimal grinding spot as you can just sprint into an enemy and automatically defeat it if its level isn’t higher than yours.

As for the battle mechanics, each party member now has a gun that gets a certain number of shots per battle, and gun is now a new damage type on top of physical. In addition, you now have Nuke and Psi skills, and Light and Dark now have normal damaging skills instead of being purely insta-kills. This makes it a bit more difficult for the protagonist to have access to every single element and makes your teammates a bit more useful. The Shadows you fight are actually different demons now and instead of recruiting Personas through shuffle time, you negotiate with the demons to recruit them. This makes the game more similar to mainline SMT than the previous two and I prefer this style a lot more.

As for fusion, Personas now have a passive ability separate from their skills, which can also be transferred using fusion. You also have the ability to sacrifice a Persona to give another EXP and potentially transfer skills at random, or you can turn them into an item. Another new addition is the fusion alarm, which has a random chance of occurring after you win a battle. This powers up all of the fusions, but using the same method more than once can cause accidents. This means you can fuse Personas with even more EXP gains, higher stats, more skills that you can transfer, plus, random skills have the possibility of mutating. The sacrifices give you even more EXP and item fusion gives you even more powerful items. Considering that you can simply spend money to resummon a lost Persona that you’ve registered to the compendium, and it’s very easy to get money from Momento’s, you can very easily get some super stacked Personas and equipment by waiting for the fusion alarm.

An issue present with the Royal version are the DLC bonuses. All the DLC that was present in the base game is automatically unlocked for you in Royal, which includes some cool costumes, but also a lot of accessories that give you bonuses. More intrusive are the new Personas you can fuse, which mostly consist of Personas from the party members of previous entries. Now more Personas are cool and all, but the DLC Personas are automatically registered in the Compendium, and for the first 3 or so times you summon them, they are free. This holds true even if you fuse them normally and register them afterwards. A lot of them have really good stats, skills and passive bonuses too. In theory, you can, from the start of the game, summon the best Persona in the game, who is level 90 (a level that would take an eternity to grind to) for free, and just steamroll through the rest of the game. I didn’t summon any of these Personas unless I actually obtained them through normal fusion, but the free summoning still made the game easier. These bonuses should really have been optional as they just bloat the item and Compendium list for players who aren’t interested in using them.

>Soundtrack
This game, again, has a fantastic soundtrack. This time around the hip-hop/pop elements have been dropped almost entirely for a jazz/funk style with a noir sort of sound especially in the calmer tracks. Not exactly an expert on the names of these genres but it sounds great and fits the theme of being an undercover thief perfectly.

>Story
Much better plot than 4 with more interesting twists and reveals. Somewhat ironic considering that was a murder mystery and now you are actually playing as a gang of thieves. On the other hand, I never really felt like I made friends with the other party members. In Persona 3, your relationship with the other characters is more similar to that of a colleague and develops into an actual friendship as the game progresses and I think they wanted to do something similar with 5 but never succeeded. The slice-of-life parts where you just hang out with your friends weren’t really that frequent and you hardly do any dumb shit where you just dick around with everyone. The only character I felt a bond with was Sojiro, your acting guardian while you are on probation, as I think they showed him warming up to you throughout the game in a way similar to your uncle in 4. Upon going back home at the end of the game I still felt accomplished after beating the final boss, but it didn’t feel bittersweet leaving my friends behind like in 4, nor was I in tears like in 3. The story doesn’t exactly have much to take away from on a personal level but that’s mostly due to the nature of what happens. I can’t exactly embrace the rebellious nature within and reform society without doing something incredibly rash in real life. That being said, the story still has some interesting moral issues to think about and has great entertainment value.

>Advice
Max out Maruki’s Confidant. Probably Akechi’s too. Don’t be like me and miss out on all the extra shit.

>>358
Not letting me attach files for some reason? Anyway

>TL;DR
There are some very long posts so if you have a passing interest in the games but don’t want to read 3 whole reviews to see if it’s worth your time, here’s the short of it.

These are some great JRPGs and an excellent introduction to the SMT games. The slice-of-life and time-management elements are novel and you’ll interact with many entertaining and well-written characters. The only warning is that these games are very long. For reference, Persona 3, 4 and 5 took me 77, 55 and 80 hours respectively to complete. And I didn’t even do the extra content in 5, which I’ve read online adds an additional 10-15 hours of gameplay. Most of them start a little slow as they mostly have a lot of story at the beginning but after the first hour or 2 it really gets going. I’m usually not a fan of story-heavy games, or traditional JRPGs for that matter, but these games managed to capture my interest and if you are interested in playing something different, I think they’ll do the same for you.

As for how you should play them, release order is (as usual) the best, although the stories are independent from one another. The modern ports of 4 Golden and 5 Royal are good, but for 3 you have to pick between the more challenging and graphically superior FES version on PS2, or the Portable version which adds additional stuff and the option to play as a female protagonist. This is the only version available on modern hardware unfortunately, and I think for the best experience, you should emulate the PS2 version of 3. You can even mod in widescreen support and HD textures if you want.

I don’t like giving a numerical rating for reviews but If I were to order the games in terms of how much I enjoyed them, I would say 3 > 5 > 4. If you actually read through all the posts, thank you for your time and I hope you give one of them a try at some point.

i was playing 2008's dead space for the first time in a long while. (on console, in 4k resolution and HDR) everything actually aged quite well. the audio and graphics look good and I'm fine with the gameplay. i wish Issac hallucinated more, especially in the style of dead space 2 (like that once scene in the kindergarten with the doors opening and closing). more psychological horror would have been better then the overabundance of jump scares, the only good that did was make me nervous of dark corners but to someone else it might have desensitized them to the point where they it can make the necromorphs non-scary. i would have liked more audio and text- logs but i guess thats just a nitpick on my part.

>>398
something i loved is when you see a sign for "biological prosthetics" and you read a text log about how people tend to lose a lotta limbs on planet crackers and it makes you think what they mean by biological. so i turns out in another text log is that they clone crew members, and the baby clone are rendered braindead and grown into adults for which they harvest body parts from which is fucking sick. then you encounter the cloning chamber and the dude getting killed by the clone baby necromorph. after all is said and done if you look at the clone babies in jars they fucking twitch. great storytelling there

>>399
God damn. I've been a Dead Space fan practically since the original came out but I never knew that-- I don't read text files in games. That's nutty, and actually explains why the babies are there in the first place. Crazy

>>406
theres a text log basically stating outright you can get a front seat in line by bribing the people dealing with the "biological prosthetics"_
https://deadspace.fandom.com/wiki/Log:Newborns
there was also some newborns on the ship.

(801.53 KB 1558x837 )

I just 100% the Steer madness remake and it's even worse than I expected. I was hoping for "vegan cow GTA meme game" like I saw in the gameplay for the original game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7bfNZKwD78&t=2519s) but this is more of a chore simulator. You just run around from point a to point b on a tiny map. You can't use vehicles aside from a shitty rental bike which was bugged and had shitty controls, you can't go on the street so you can only move on the sidewalk, the dialog and and performance of the characters is atrocious, the human models look ugly, the missions are more tedious than fun since almost all of them are fetch quests; in general a bad game with absolutely no charm. The depth of the whole thing is sub-flash game.
One thing that did make me laugh was that they managed to cram in one of those missions where you have to follow a dude without him noticing you, so you have to wait for this old guy walking at snail's pace while you just tap left for a minute.

Worst thing is that I actually had to buy the game because no pirated site I knew had it. It's so devoid of content and engaging anything that I managed to complete it in a little more than an hour without even trying. Absolute waste of time, you can get a better game experience by opening flash games at random in flashpoint.

Clearly your just mad because your a casual and i think you should re-play so you can get good.
Was it a remake by the original creator? Was there a reason to even have a remake in the forst place for such a fascinating game?

Here is my thoughts on Bloodborne.

Pros,
For a game released in 2015, The graphics are amazing. Everything is heavily textured Enemy and character animations are fluid. Best voice acting especially for an English dub. Enemies tend to plot against you meaning its especially important to study their nature and plan ahead. Sometimes they even get the better of you and you have to think quick or die hard. Yharnam got the old Dark souls layout back and encourages exploration again. Collecting keys, finding secret doors, and sometimes after finding a secret door you'll find yourself at a coinvented spot for backtracking. Health no longer requires you to go back to the bonfire to recharge, instead health is a consumable and certain enemies tend to drop them meaning you can keep pushing forward for more bloodechoes (souls) without having to lose progress. The music in this game is incredibly deep and powerful. The Latin translates to English and reveals more of the story. The weapons are easy to buy and fun to play with and can easily upgraded encouraging different playstyles. The gothic horror and Lovecraftian theme is perfect and done well. evenly distributed and spaced out. The lack of weapons is easily compensated by different tricks they can perform, often transforming one weapon into another to fit a different circumstance and use. Every boss in this game teaches you a skill and is important to the story in one way or another and deeply rewarding to fight.

Cons,
One might say the music is TOO dramatic, where instead a more subtitle approach would have been appreciated. The graphics lack anti-aliasing so everything is jagged and blurry as heck. Game is locked on ps4 and modding is hard. PS5 has no improvements besides having HDR and a slightly better framerate. Speaking of framerate, It sux. The controller feedback even has a three second delay to compensate which also sucks. The lack of weapons and outfits might be annoying to some. Major translation issues with the English dub and plenty of content gets lost in translation or heavily edited, and content was also cut out at the last minute which should have stayed.

Gameplay
Unlike dark souls, the gameplay is breakneck and fast as heck although if you don't want it to be that way there is plenty of weapons to change that. Guns are used to "riposte" or stun enemies for which you can either insta-kill or heavily damage within a small window of time, or just strike back. There is no hiding behind a shield this time around, or parrying. You can also turn bloodborne into a third person shooter by upgrading your gun and a special skill called "bloodtinge" which relates to "blood" and gun-based weaponry. (it'll take some time because guns are weak in this game because riposting, but not impossible or useless to accomplish.) You can break the legs and arms of bosses making them go into a frenzy but making them weaker.

(1.31 MB 1280x720 )

I picked up Cult of the Lamb on a whim about a week ago because I remembered the buzz around it last year. It's currently the newest game I own, and my feelings on it are pretty mixed. I've never played a game quite like it before (which might not be a statement on the game's unique quality as much as one on the variety of games I play) but in a nutshell, you're spending most of your time in an endless balancing act. You're constantly managing your resources, keeping various meters fed, doing quests to get items to level up a meter to get another item and so on... It all feels so inane, but it's strangely addictive all the same, imbuing me with the desire to go just a few more minutes to get some stupid quest fulfilled, which then turns to hours; there's never a time when you have all bases covered and can rest easy.

A lot of the leveling up is in service of your crusades, what the game calls its action/roguelite portion. The gameplay here is fine. The biggest issue is how the three-quarter perspective will leave you unsure on the exact position of enemy bullets, what would be a major gripe if not for the fact the game is pretty easy. What really hurts you is how when you lose a crusade your cult loses faith in you, believing you weak, and that's the one stat where everything goes to shit if it's not full. On that note it's difficult to even find a good time to do some combat because the in-game clock still runs and your cult suffers without your constant attention.

The interactions with your cult are pretty fun, at least, and had me endeared to the cute characters. I felt sad when certain ones died of old age and gave them a funeral. One just came up to me and said he loved me, which was cute. However, there is at least one too many references to coprophagia in this game. You can make your followers eat bowls of shit and one even specifically requested i make them one. I don't like the shit eaters in my cult.

Overall it's a very time consuming game, but I'm enjoying it for what it is. I doubt I'll pick it up again once I put it down, but it's nice to pick up a new game outside of my comfort zone.

Alan wake has a great story yet somewhat simple gameplay that makes it boring to play sometimes. Point flashlight, Shoot and copy paste that a few times.

In regular portal you can do trickshots that allow you to skip levels, which is sadily absent in portal 2, although there's a ton of hidden areas and easter eggs then regular portal.

20230903...jpg 20230903075452_1.jpg

(94.07 KB 1920x1080 )

20230207...jpg 20230207055511_1.jpg

(229.24 KB 1920x1080 )

20230906...jpg 20230906052454_1.jpg

(495.25 KB 1920x1080 )

This isn't necessarily a proper review post, but I'm going to write about and recommend a few different games that aren't out yet. I'm not sure if you can get all of the demos right now because I got them during the festival but they're still worth keeping an eye on.

--PERIPETEIA--
The demo for this game is as long as some other whole games, and for that reason alone I recommend checking it out. There's lots of other reasons though-- namely... well, everything I guess. The gameplay is about as ImSim as you can get, with a lot of crossovers from other games. The stealth system is almost as in-depth as Thief, the gunplay is very reminiscent of E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy (A game I also recommend you buy and play wholeheartedly), and the inventory system is like Diablo. In fact, the whole game is such a wonderful synergy of almost all legendary Sci-Fi Dystopian pieces of media that if you're even somewhat familiar with the genre then you'll see a lot of familiar things, but the game doesn't lack its own personality either. You can really tell it's Schizo Euroslavjank to the max. Graphically and atmospherically it's a treat. Pics related.

--RADIO THE UNIVERSE--
I didn't mention it but Peripeteia is-- "schizo-core" is what it's called nowadays. If you think that game is schizo-core though, then you haven't seen ANYTHING. Radio the Universe is a little Zelda-esque top-down action game where you play a robot anime girl (just like Peripeteia now that I think about it) and... well, that's all I can glean. The gameplay is interesting but simple, and it gets the job done. Satisfying, and fun. However, the real big selling point is the story/ atmosphere-- and how you experience it. The game really tries to sell the experience of being a robot, and it shows. Playing it even makes your real life feel artificial!

--SLAVE ZERO X--
You know Ninja Gaiden? What about Devil May Cry? Strider? Now-- what if those were real fighting games? Slave Zero X is a sort of weird mishmash of other action games and it works nearly PERFECTLY. While the game has an unremarkable story, the gameplay is why you pick this bad boy up. It's the marriage of so many other things-- fighting game controls, massive hordes of aggressive enemies, high difficulty, and big emphasis on combos. I don't mean "X-X-X-X-Y-Y-Y-Y-X-Y" shit, I mean ACTUAL combos, that you do yourself. None of that "press button to cool" shit either. Everything badass you do, YOU DID. It's unrelentingly difficult, spectacularly gory, and unimaginably fun. The demo itself is however extremely barebones, and the pause menu doesn't even work. You can't change any of the controls either, so experimentation is necessary. I kind of like it honestly-- it provides a serious barrier to entry that games like this deserve and need.

Overall even if you can't play any of these demos, I think these are games worth looking out for in the future. I know I'm gonna pick them up

I hate climbing those towers in oblivion to close the gate so much. Keep in mind avoided the main story and did all of the side bullshit and DLC (besides knights of the nine because i couldn't find all the things to do the DLC) And then i played the main story but its WAY too much of a chore for me to even bother so i basically stopped playing. Its been months and i was focusing on other games. Its like climbing the towers in assassins creed and far cry.
TODD HOWARD YOU HAVE FORSAKEN ME.

(88.55 KB 960x698 )

Well I'll rant about Sonic Frontiers' Final Horizon DLC.

The DLC has some really nice extra content that can last around 15 hours, possibly more if you wanna 100% it.

The platforming challenges are harder, some are really neat and interesting, others are just plain absurd and expect the player to use exploits to move around, in a case of the devs trying to outsmart the players. This might come from the case of the devs seeing the feedback of the base game being too easy, and wanting to crank that up, but have gone over the line in the difficulty.

They added new characters (Tails Amy and Knux), but they all control fairly shitty. Tails can't use homing attacks, Amy has lackluster combat, and Knuckles is the worst of the three. They all have animations that at times take way too fucking long and break the flow of the game. If they controlled like they did in adventure, ie, without animations for gliding or doing a slam attack, it would be far better.

The camera is also a huge dick move with knux, especially on a platforming challenge that seemed to be 2D, but because it isn't it's just a complete annoyance and it's extremely easy to fall off.

Combat got improved, and the world map bosses are much toughter, with harder attacks and bigger health bars. Some are neat changes to the pace, but others are just annoying. The biggest gripe would be the huge health bars, besides that the new enemies are ok.

What really sucks is that some of the platforming challenges that lead to story bits are tough as balls and give no margin for mistakes. They had no checkpoints for each of them, the same for the cyberspace stages.

Cyberspace has also got some new stages, for the most part they're extremely nice. But they also added different challenges that revolve in looking around the place for flickies, and these break a lot the flow of the game. I assume these might be similar to the "Find Missing Chao" challenges in SA2, but the thing is, you only had to find that and the stage was over. There is also no easy way to find them besides scouting the whole place so that also sucks.

Finally, the final act requires you to go through a boss rush, in which they completely changed the way Parry works to actually require timing, the issue is that the window of opportunity is extremely tiny in Hard, you get a very tight amount of time, and the second boss is reliant on you parrying properly with the new system in order to damage it. So it is a complete annoyance.

For the last boss, the devs just completely hid the way in which you're meant to damage him behind 100% completion. Stupid. After getting to know how to do that the boss is extremely easy. Or at least fairly easy.

The DLC is all over the place but I at least expect the devs to get the feedback and to understand what they did right or wrong. Hopefully the next game will be even better.

I find the control scheme of the old republic to be shit and its going to take time for me to be used to it, Being able to pause to efficiently utilize your team is important. (i was having trouble pausing the game to change the attack for every team mate, i might be stupid though) For an old game the graphics are incredible and the music is outstanding. the voice acting is a nice touch too.
The combat is fine insofar that you have to be wary of overpowered enemies that will tear you apart if you aren't prepared. I was better off trying to do as many quests as possible to level up and to explore where it is safe for me to venture so i can get items to give me the edge. I guess the only real complaint is that the overcity in taris is kinda dull as compaired to other areas in the game but it doesn't matter.
I encountered a weird bug where if you try to leave a building you will get stuck and run in place but if you squirm a bit you'l be freed.
There was these interesting puzzles where you had to touch buttons in sequence to a story so you dont get nuked to death by a trick chest and the items in those chest helped out a ton. One quest turned me into an assassin for hire and another had me dancing with a twi'lek so she can become a professional dancer, There's plenty of neat stuff to do and i'm digging it so far. The morality system is for shit, saying and doing good stuff means you earn good points and being an actual nigger for no reason what so ever means you get bad guy points is honestly stupid because the lore in game is more complicated then that. The jedis are bitches and the sith are more of a political faction then just "evil bad guys" potrayed in the luke skywalker movies. but its an old game so whatever.

The english dub of zone of the enders second runners MARS is so fucking bad lol even though the remaster came out in 2018.
There has been no update to patch the engrish, No way to play the game in japanese, But with translated english dialoge, Its just incredible.
The gameplay is fine, The difficulty varies like in one case i beat this boss by accident by fucking bum rushing him and killed him in one go and another time it took me a long while to beat a boss. A short game, Took me roughly 2 hours to beat on normal difficulty. The graffics are decent enough.
I wonder how the other versions look and sound and if they are diffrent. (i am a consolefag btw, played on my ps5)
It's only really worth the 5 bucks i payed for and it would have been better if they didn't fuck up the dub to be honest.

>>866
hardcore mode was a good way to play the game because it means your FUCKED. weight actually fucking matters, ammo even has weight to it. you have to eat, sleep and drink regularly or else you'll get your stats lowered, and even die. getting crippled sucks because either you have to see a doctor, use a doctors bag, take hydra, and there's no other way to heal your limbs. if only fallout three and the other early todd howard games had this feature. it makes the gameplay tense and "real" instead of getting overpowered early on. it means you HAVE TO craft to make items so you don't waste caps. another thing is that companions DIE, and stay dead along with important characters instead of ragdolling and reviving like if nothing happened.
weapon mods are fucking pricey and i dont know how fuckers can even earn as much cash to buy anything, including implants.. how? i mean i spent damn near all my fucking caps (8000) reparing my fancy stealth suit from the old world blues dlc lol and i am OUT.
early on in the game while helping a cult kill themslelves, i encountered a game breaking bug while leaving a building where the game literally killed itself with a black screen of death. i freaked out because i realised i forgot to save and i thought i lost four hours or so of gameplay but it turns out i was lucky to have an autosave on hand. i had to find an alternate route to exit the building because every time i used the main exit i got fucked. i have no fucking clue why. another problem is NPCS bugging out. rad scorpions bug out and flip into the floor ON THE FUCKIGN REGULAR.

This year I decided I'm going to do a complete Genlocke through every easily emulated Pokemon generation, from R/B to at least B2/W2. Gameboy through DS. Basically how it works is basic nuzlocke rules (can only catch first mon of each route, pokemon that are killed remain permanently dead, a few other tweaks like no items in battle), then upon beating a game I use save editors to transfer all my dudes to the next game. Pokemon can only be used if their level is under the max of the next gym leader/boss trainer. When transferring to a new game I can revert 6 dudes back to level 5, first form, with the moves appropriate for that level. That way my endgame team can roll forwards. While at it, I figured I'll share some thoughts and opinions on the games as I go through them.
>Blue
No secret that gen1 is primitive. SpA/SpD are rolled into one stat, can't see the power of moves in-game, no running shoes, blah blah blah. I'm not here to bash this game because it isn't like future games, just to judge how it stands on its own. It's incredibly buggy, frankly if you're playing it in the 2020s that's part of the reason why you touch it at all. The bugs contribute to the fun, that's the mindset you need. I chose Bulbasaur for that reason, if you pair Leech Seed with Toxic then Leech Seed starts using the damage counter for Toxic for God only knows what reason. Incredibly broken strat in the late game. This and an Amnesia Snorlax were more than sufficient to beat the E4. In sum, I like gen 1. It hasn't aged abominably, but it hardly wears its years with grace. Wouldn't have much value to a new player. Still, the feel of the world (dialogue, sprites) are way different and it's fun to imagine what other directions the franchise could have taken from that very early point.
>Crystal
Generation 2 did a lot of things right for atmosphere. Johto is super cozy with its quaint settings, day/night cycle, and charming tunes. However, it also introduced some problems that echoed into later games. Firstly, pokedex bloat. I understand that at the time of the games development they were thought to be closing out the franchise, but the fact is that many pokemon introduced in this game are totally useless. Ledian, Ariados, Noctowl, Furrett, etc are well designed visually but are inexplicably shit and outclassed even in the early game. Other mons might be useful but are abominably rare or unavailable until the literal end of the game. Misdreavus, Murkrow, Slugma, Sneasel, Qwilfish, Mantine. Second, the difficulty curve is awful. For the last few gyms there are no practical ways to train your guys, you feel underleveled when you hit the last Johto gym if your team hasn't been organized specifically to counter it. Then you beat the E4 and venture back to Kanto. Ward off Level 2 diglets and pidgeys for a bit. You find a gym leader, and their mons aren't even level 40 at a point that your own are likely pushing 60. Baffling from a design perspective. Although far more stable than the first games, gen 2 still has a lot of bullshit. Most of Kurt's special balls are totally sterile. The one that's supposed to be good for catching mons that evolve with a Moon Stone got boned and instead is specially effective for mons that evolve with a Burn Heal, which isn't actually a thing, so the ball is just totally useless. A particularly disastrous incident saw half of my mons lost from the PC, one box inexplicably cloned over the other. Absolutely horrible, lost me my Alakazam and many other warriors for a senseless, cruel, unforeseeable reason. Worst part is, I've no idea what caused it; I was just using the boxes normally. The box systems in the first two games are total cancer. Redeeming points: the new types (dark and steel) are both fantastic as are held items and time based events; all became mainstays of the series. I like the story with the Team Rocket remnants, even if the gameplay side gets repetitive with all the Zubat and such. Some of the best spritework in the series can be found here. Introduction of shiny pokemon is good (I didn't find any but it's still a fun feature). The secret final boss is awesome and gives something to work towards. Rebalance the levels of wild pokemon and trainers and tweak the stats and movesets of the shittiest shitmons and this could be a very worthy contender for best title in the series.
>Emerald
I had exposure to Gen 1 and 2 as a kid, but was too young to really appreciate them. Generation 3 is the first I really got into, so I know the region of Hoenn inside and out. That knowledge translated to me not losing a single goddamn pokeman throughout the whole region, I'm quite proud. Still, not a perfect gen. Cardinal sin of the "save teh wurld" plot, "quell the ancient god pokemon bcuz ur special and the bad guys are idiots who thought they could control it" just isn't as engaging to me as "here's the pokemon mafia, beat them up as a sidenote to your journey while the region itself stays a main focus." It'd be fine if it was just these games that did it, but the plot got recycled in every game hence. I suppose box art legendaries are just too good to pass up from a marketing standpoint. The legendaries are OP compared to past legends like Moltres, Suicune, and Ho-Oh and are available before the game's main challenges (unlike gen1 Mewtwo, the gold standard of overpowered mons). Overabundance of water in the late game, both thematically and in gameplay creates very boring routes and battles (both the final gym leader and champion are water type in Emerald). I also feel I should mention the underwhelming nature of the rival character. Still, introduction of unique abilities and a wider variety of hold items added depth and variety to gameplay. Double battles are wonderful, wish there were more tough ones because Tate and Liza and the high level duos in Victory Road are some of my favorite fights in the series. They require a different level of thought. Gen 3 offers more polished gameplay than the first 2 gens. Upgraded movement speed! Modern PC management! There are neat areas like Route 113, Route 111, and Mt. Pyre that make the most of the GBA's graphic capabilities. I will say it's disappointing that these games don't feature a gen 2 style day/night cycle, since it has clock based events and it's not a difficult thing to include. The GBA era games sit in a comfy nexus between simple hardware while still offering features, fantastic for emulation and romhacks.
>FireRed
As the first remake, I guess it could be worse. The graphics and audio are very distinct, it's interesting how the feel of Kanto was preserved rather than recycling tilesets and sprites from Hoenn. Really sells the more developed and polluted setting of Kanto vs the more tropical one of Hoenn. I wish they went further in a few places, there are some restrictive choices made that seem intended to enforce gen 1 style gameplay and denying more modern developments: Pokemon like Golbat, Chansey that received evolutions in Gen2 can't evolve until the postgame, no mons at all from later gens until postgame, no eggs until post game, meager selection of hold items obtainable in the main game. There's a segment in the mid-late game where the player is relayed to a new area, the Sevii islands, and cannot return to Kanto until a fairly obtuse sidequest is completed. It even restricts use of the PC boxes, which is just plain irritating especially if you don't know this segment is coming. The Sevii Islands are redeemed in the post game, where even more islands are made accessible- 7 in total- with plenty of interesting areas, puzzles, features, and little bits of lore on classic characters. One of my favorite bits about these areas are the use of Gen 2 music remixed for the GBA. The atmosphere of the islands is very nice and relaxing, with low populations of people who enjoy the quiet humility of island life. Reminds me of this site actually, in a weird way. At the same time, the atmosphere isn't overly comforting. There's some rugged terrain to be covered; canyons, vaults, volcanic mountains, stretches of open ocean (but not to excess, like in Hoenn). The post game is great because it has so many features that belong in a remake, filling in features that are conspicuously absent in the originals. If these were distributed more evenly throughout the main game, I'd say FireRed and LeafGreen are the quintessential Pokemon experience that should be looked to as a standard.
Anyways now I need to make the jump to Platinum on the DS, I'm not nearly as familiar with it so I'm expecting to see some challenge return to this long-ass run.
tl;dr Clover is still the undisputed best pokemon game by every conceivable metric.
Would anyone be interested in a thread where I give a dramatized retelling of this run as I do it? I like making a story of things as I go, but I don't really want to blogpost if nobody cares. I'd leave it open for dramatized stories from other anons about their games, pokemon or no.
>>867
I play exclusively hardcore/max difficulty in NV, it turns the early game into a total bitch and even when you're kitted out you need to step careful. Much more immersive, it's a great feature to have. Also, as you said, it makes crafting actually matter. Survival becomes a necessary stat instead of almost totally useless unless you want Rad Child. Going back to normal difficulty with no water requirements or ammo weight feels like god mode. The game is IMO more satisfying and immersive in HC, and I recommend the mode to anyone who's played NV and hasn't tried HC. Great foresight on the dev's part for including something like it.

>Would anyone be interested in a thread where I give a dramatized retelling of this run as I do it
This has potential. Do it!
>I don't really want to blogpost if nobody cares
Aww, I care though, I just read it and sometimes don't respond lol.

>>868
which verson of pokemon do you prefer?

999 was pretty fun but i got stumped with the piano puzzle with the off tune key board, and the sudoku puzzle at the games climax. something funny is that i had cheated myself out of the blackjack (or was it poker?) puzzle by picking random bullshit without thinking like a fucking idiot and somehow i just won. i replay the game now and then to get the diffrent endings, still holds up.

>>359
Did you hear about persona 3 reloaded? From what i understand it's a total remake of 3. Also persona 5 has a few spin off games like strikers and tactica. Bought 'em, will probably do a review of them later once i reach a point in royal where i can understand the storyline and play them in chronological order.
I noticed that the audio in royal for the switch at times is super compressed to thd point where it's (for lack of a better word) "crunchy", I'm not an audiophile so it doesn't bother me too much but it is quite noticable.
>never made friends
You really dont have time to talk to anyone. Keep in mind i'm literally brand new but i was literally just had ryuji thrown at me and we went through some bullshit and then he was like "meet me at the rooftop later", It's not like you had the time to really talk to him at the get-go.

I just got 101% in Pizza Tower. I enjoyed it greatly. The movement is fun, and I was still learning new tricks all the way to the end. It really shines when going for P-ranks, as they force you to optimize. I'd advise anyone who just gave Pizza Tower a casual run to go back and try for full completion; it's practically where the real game starts. The levels are all carefully designed for speed. Perfecting the boss fights is fun too, especially since you can parry just about anything.
Aside from the gameplay, Pizza Tower brings an abundance of expressive animation along with a memorable soundtrack. It's also one of the funnier games I've played.
It took me this long to try it, but I think Pizza Tower is among the best games of last year, not that I played many. If you like its style, you can't go wrong checking it out.

outerworlds is strange. i have a sinking feeling that they copy pasted the engine from oblivion. strange camera zoom in on characters faces when you talk to them, same swordplay, uncanny valley faces, you also have a fallout 4 vats rip off, it doesn't feel unique to me. i haven't bothered buying shit from vendors and i never bothered selling shit either, i never used items just the healing item adreno and everything else is just "fluff", useless junk. dispite exausted all of the dialoge options per area up to roseway i'm not too emotionally invested in the story. to make matters worse your choices don't matter. there's no impact for the shit you do besides the ending. i was reading that YOU CAN LITERALLY KILL EVERYTHING IN GAME and still beat the damn thing. i can be a total asshole and all it does is make characters mad but thats it? i can choose nicer dialoge but no matter what its still the same. o can choose a skill based dialoge option and all it does is get me more fucking XP? no special story based shit just more XP? the problem is some of the writing is actually great and it feels like it was wasted on a lackluster game. thank goodness i only payed 5 bucks for a copy.

i will leave a quick review of the aquarius expedition in no mans sky.
i had some problems with the previous expedition, adrift. it was cool at first but then it got boring real fast. in short its chores and collecting bullshit thousands of times for "prizes". aquarious had a mini story about a dude called the angler, which was one of the things that kept me going. some of the missions was actually fun, like collecting pearls or trying to catch cerian fish. part of the problem with the "certian fish" part is that i had to find a scorched planet an it took me so fucking long. (couldn't find the right planet) i dont have the time to play videogames so it was especially painful. another problem was resource gathering, as always is it really fun to sit there and mine a rock for 5 hours? not exactly. what about the rewards? cosmetics. i think they look cool but, if you specifically dont care then it was worthless from the get go.

>>1023
what i mean by resource gathering, is that you need power to do things or recharge things, and to stay alive and then you need to craft so basically you literally have to grind and collect shit for a few hours. if you dont have any in game money you can't just buy the shit you need and call it a day and alot of times they won't have what you need exactly or it'll cost too much so your pretty much on your own.

>>1023
Isn't that the entirety of no man's sky? A complete boring grind fest where basically nothing ever happens. Says I played it on my steam for 50+ hours in like 2022 although I don't remember playing for that long but all I remember is going from one planet to another planet that was completely randomly generated with nothing to really do apart from like mining resources, scanning stuff for your index, maybe sometimes finding an abandoned base to explore. The only interesting aspect I remember was like upgrading or buying a new ship but even the fell extremely short and I forgot all about it. Why couldn't it have been just a single planet or a few planets with stuff to do everywhere you go...

so i played a bit of nier automata. thd gameplay is that of darksouls, you have the doge button with i frames, light attack, heavy attack, and then a new thing which is the dron thing that can shoot at people. you also still have to deal with a large amount of enemies swarming you, and gimmick bosses with patterns to memorise.
i'm playing on the nintendo switch and part of the problem that comes to mind is the camera. in the intro there is several sequences that change the cameras perspective and gameplay, and it zooms out way too fucking far to the point where i have no god damn clue what i'm doing whatsoever. i'd also like it if they didn't rely on the "swarm enemies" tactic since its kind of an old meme for games. i find the story kind of dubious as of yet because it makes no sense. your a robot right? you die and get reset and you don't really lose anything and they feel emotions but also have to suppress their feelings but like such a big deal was made out of a character dying for no real reason.
part of the thing i enjoyed was the bullet hell stuff, haven't played a game with those features and i thought it was neat. keep in mind i played up to the point where you make it on to earth and free roam so i don't know much so my opinion is more surface-level.