SleepingSilence

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

HAAK is another metroidvania that I unfortunately had to stop playing. Because it pulled a game-breaking glitch on me six hours into my playthrough, where I no longer received any currency and couldn't progress in any meaningful way.

So aside from the Ori-like (trial and error) chase sequences that I hated. Its a shame that I'm unable to continue for now.

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TemTem has managed to piss me off, and continues to be an absolute borefest. Making my attempt to rant about what it fails at, too cluttered and long to be readable. So fuck it. I’m doing it by bullet points instead...

Graphics

• The human faces are fucking ugly.
• The frame rate is stuttery and inferior to the PC version.
• The environments are plain-looking, samey and confusing to navigate

Characters

• No character has said anything funny or interesting throughout.
• Most NPCS are assholes. (And not even the fun snarky kind.)
• The dialogue is bad. Yet you’re forced to talk with every trainer, before and after fighting them. (None of which give you anything of substance for your wasted curiosity.)

Exploration

• The rewards for exploring are minimal to none. (Especially lacking in the cities.)
• Every starting quest is either “give me your Temtem”, or is hard locked until you go through multiple cities.
• Like the worst of pokemon. You will step on a battle with every other step. Or one step away from every exit.

Combat and Battles

• Every single trainer has the same monsters from one to five a piece. (Usually four of them.) All water, wind and able to poison yours for several turns. So I've fought what feels like a hundred of the same fucking NPC already.
• With the "stamina bar" preventing your Temtem from attacking more than two or three times each fight, without needing to wait for it to recharge. (Meaning you’re wasting more time switching between characters, or losing health every fight.)
• Plus an added penalty for level differences. Making the EXP grind even more monotonous and slow. Despite being obviously required to progress.

TemTem/Variety

• You get about a dozen choices to start with. (One of three starters, and a generic lot to catch.) Most having the same three types, and almost none of them evolve for some reason?
• Wild pokemon don’t even have different movesets, or base traits as far as I’ve seen.
• Plus, there is no fucking way to farm money in this game. Except for way later on, (apparently) where you can release the ones you’ve caught for pittances.

Fuck this game.

• Everything costs an arm and a leg, and you don't get shit for money.
• So you (like I) will probably run out of it, the second you enter the absolute shitshow that is the first "gym". A maze of offscreen teleporters that force you to go through the whole thing, before you can even leave. (And it autosaves everything, so my unpredictable mistake cost me severely.)
• So with all that, several crashes, and music that is beyond uninteresting to listen to. This game (and the snowball’s chance in hell that I’ll ever finish playing it.) is not looking promising…

Nexomon Extinction is basically better in every way.

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Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

The TemTem character creator is pretty lame. (Just saying. Haven't even gotten my starter yet. Trying to play the campaign with a friend.)

Headlander is probably a 6 out of 10. (+.5 if I add 'I liked it' bias to it.) Decent quirky Metroidvania. Combat and puzzles are easy to deal with. The map is good enough, and its pretty easy to level up. The story, sidequests and many of its upgrades are pointless. And the final level feels thrown together (with a random ass Simon Says minigame in it), and the final (2nd) boss was defeated by me smacking it across the head and then promptly going to a corner of a room where the boss couldn't hit me with any of his attacks. Rinse and repeat. Oops.

But if I were to recommend a Metroidvania for 20 bucks. I'd say Islets has been quite a charming and breezy experience thus far. With enough challenge (in its platforming sections and bosses specifically) that it doesn't suffer from being too easy. (Like Headlander, or Haiku The Robot.) The map, easter eggs, character interactions, rewards, upgrades, monster variety, it has everything and its doing them pretty well too. If anything, its grab bag style of game design, feels a bit unfocused. With the character feeling a bit floaty (and twice as fast as most action platformer MC's.)

However, its probably a good game, when your biggest/most common criticism is the NPC's dialogue is often amusing. But they feel like NPCS. Some repeating one line, usually boss lore, long after it mattered. Other recurring characters will speak about events in the wrong order. (Because you happened to show up too early/late.) For example, the rival makes a witty pun about how he somehow managed to connect two of the islands (the gimmick of the map) in his sleep. But by that time, I already connected three of them. So the interaction feels unnatural.

But unless it falls off hard in its second half. I'd say its well worth it. If you've finished Hollow Knight. (Or want an easier/adjustable difficulty version of it.)

Edit/Update: Islets was honestly a lot of fun for the ten hours I spent with it. Though after becoming more than a bit overpowered, (which almost seems intentional the way you're forced to fight multiple previous bosses, just to completely kick their ass.) The final boss and the charm in its characters pulled through. And it even managed to feel rewarding to 100% the game and find all its secrets. Strong 8 to 9 out of ten. Liked it all the way through. Small bugs and gripes aren't even worth mentioning.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Damn there's like 30 games on there tho. And even just counting exclusives there's a fair number.

Also this idea of having to 'justify' a purchase with some arbitrary number of games is wild. If someone wants to play Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart then congrats, the purchase is justified!

@Fabricant451

...Buyers Remorse Detected...

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For his first day, he downloaded Destiny 2 and he watched Ghost Stories on it.

Yes, I'd agree. If there was a game on the PS5 that he really wanted to play. He should buy that, and then the console it comes on. You buy consoles to play games. Not the other way around...

But I'm just teasing. The user interface is where the PS5 truly shines. And hey, I got a free year subscription of PSN Plus (that I'll rarely use) because it wasn't redeemable on the PS5.

So woot. Another mediocre Need For Speed game is all mine!

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If your friend pays for a PSN subscription they can get access to games on the Catalogue for no money.

@Dark Cloud

He got the console bundled with Horizon's sequel. Not that he was particularly interested/almost gave the code to me.

And I did help him put the random assortment of titles that he got with a PS5 plus sub into his library. (Since he was having trouble figuring out the UI.)

Though, I'm also not a fan of how they've turned the PS Plus subscription into a tier-based subscription. Just to make everything more complicated and expensive.

It's genuinely turned me off getting the console myself. (Along with everything else Sony's been doing.) And I'll likely make purchasing a better PC, my preferred choice in gaming.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

@Dark Cloud I did. So I hope its at least mildly entertaining.

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My friend finally managed to find and purchase a PS5 (the last one in stock) today. Now all he has to do is justify the amount spent on a console with no games on it...

Toontown | The Guild's #1 Stop for Cartoon Discussion

Didn't really like a lot of Primal's 2nd Season. (And its conclusion is a "You don't have to watch this anymore" kind of end.)

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Because of internet clips (of later seasons) and a friend claiming he was enjoying episodes of it. I tried watching 'The Amazing World of Gumball'.

It's okay. I can't exactly say its gut-busting hilarity. (Or very interesting.)

Maybe I'll look up "best episodes" and save myself the filler. (If I decide to watch more, anyway.)

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Death's Door crashed on me in the middle of its unskippable end credits and made me fight the final, final, but not final boss twice. (Or more.) It's fun, I guess. But I cannot be bothered to do the end game content.

On that note, several games I got for a buck review.

A Robot Named Fight: Eeeeeh. It's Permadeath Procedural Generation Metroid Deadcells. I didn't hate it. But it's a bit dull, and not engaging enough to keep unlocking things little bits at a time. So I'd rather play something else.

Wuppo: I was surprised how charming this was to start with. Basically a point and click adventure (in gameplay) with a decent variety of boss fights. However, it lost me in its city level. In that its sprawling and not very clear where I'm meant to go. Or what I'm suppose to be doing. And it expects me to grind for quite a bit of money. But what made me stop, was its real time waiting for things to pass. In many more places than you'd imagine. In some bizarre attempt at realism in this world of sentient hat-wearing balls. (So it's REALLY damn slow.) And it seemed to be broken on top of it. So when it expected me to do a bunch of busywork and odd jobs to progress, I decided to stop.

Headlander: This has been a very interesting experience. (Flawed as it might be.) Its probably my favorite of the three. Except the terrible boss fight.

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I don't really want to buy TemTem. (With its mobile game currency/battle pass shit.) But my friend really wants me to. So I might get strong-armed into playing that.

Connect 4

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What shows/movies are you watching?

Cyberpunk Edgerunners is the kind of anime I expected Devilman Crybaby to be. Which is why I still haven't seen it. (All style, no substance.) Worldbuilding is borderline comical. Cheap flashes of vulgarity/sexual scenes in some attempt to be mature. Trope characters without clear motivation. Deaths of main characters all fall completely flat. (Laughed out loud in the final episode.) Predictable nonsense plot. The music often sucked and didn't fit the tone of what was on screen. (As typical for Netflix anime.) And a lot of the action scenes were in slow-mo and lacked any kind of logic. (Fight choreography in general was poor.)

It honestly felt like a show had a wasted budget, and its ending was beyond unsatisfying.

5 out of 10. (And that's being generous.) For decent character design and nice looking art. (But its Studio Trigger, so...its to be expected.) First half is more watchable than its second.

What Are You Listening To?

It's singing, so it counts.

I think I might've coughed up a lung.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

I'm only halfway through Death's Door. But I'm not seeing why the critics have this tied with Tunic in score. (Seriously, you're f*cking dreaming.)

Though the YouTube space that both originally praised it to high heavens too, before dialing it back to "This is good...(But not perfectly good.)" - Says every analysis title I’ve seen, after Tunic was released.

Is also a statement I may find more or less contentious, whenever I happen to finish the game. (But this game's quality thus far, is clearly not much better than simply above average 6/10 affair.)

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Character / Controls: The crow is cute and the controls are functional. (With only minor hiccups in my secondary powers not always firing, or doing what was intended.) So I’d say it meets the serviceable standard that it was probably aiming for.

Combat / Upgrades: All the upgrades require grinding (or more so collection hunting) and are not very impactful/noticeable in gameplay. With the secondary powers ‘upgrades’ feeling incredibly obtuse and unnecessary. (More like how they should’ve started-grades.) But the combat itself is fairly straightforward, and simple when it works as intended. With slow-paced fights and heavy dodging required for just about every encounter. (Having a few different weapons that all feel the same, except not as good as the starting weapon.) But it could probably keep me entertained…if not for…

Enemy AI / Variety: There is none. No, not really. But there’s so fucking many “stuck fighting waves of dudes” combat arenas, and every level has the exact same spawn pattern and mooks to deal with. (Except for some color and appearance changes.) So it starts feeling pretty repetitive, pretty fast. (Even sharing very similar mini-bosses in each level thus far.) But the even bigger issue is everything else…

Like their attacks striking you somewhere impossible (usually leaping/distance attacks), hitboxes that can be inconsistent (like your distance attacks passing through them and doing no damage), cheesing AI by standing somewhere out of bounds and striking the poor bastards to death, while they stare obliviously into space. (This has happened numerous times so far.)

Because the AI seems to be very basic and not very good at staying alive. (Whether it kills allies faster than you can, charges off a cliff, or teleports right next to you so it can be stunlocked to death.) It feels like the enemy's spongey health bar is all that’s keeping them a threat.

Boss Design: The first few have been the brightest spot of the game (and is the one thing I’d argue Death’s Door has made both easier and more entertaining than Tunic.) Even if I’d argue each might be a bit too easy and ‘interacts’ with you a bit too similarly. (You get a few intro lines and some “oh, I’m so evil and mad” dialogue (four times) each time you clear an area.)

Though I’ve also spoiled myself to know that my very next fight is supposed to be less well crafted. So, we’ll see how I feel about them in the end…

Exploration / World Design: One of its biggest letdowns. (As far as I’m concerned.) Since the levels themselves feel thrown together, and hardly feel like a cohesive world that was lived in. (Besides, how dead simple/time-wasting filler all the puzzles are, in a world full of dumb AI.)

But one of the biggest problems and patterns that I’ve noticed in most games (including this one) is that a game will (almost) always be worse off without a decent map. (Because every great game I’ve played in a bit, has a great map and/or world building atmosphere.)

Unfortunately, this game has no map whatsoever. So good luck wandering aimlessly and having no clue as to where you’re going, most of the time. Which makes traversing, backtracking, scavenger hunting for good ending collectables, power ups, finding where you’re supposed to go, etc etc. More tedious than it needs to be. (A bit of a meandering chore.)

Graphics / Charm: The artstyle is appealing (hard to say it's anything but nice looking) and the game runs smoothly. But the charming moments in its dialogue and story feel overstated. (In that, I’d argue only a few lines and bits are memorable in a positive way.)

Soundtrack: Another thing that probably carried the game for most. The music is noticeable and bombastic at times. But I’d argue that its placement has repeatedly messed with the tone. (Where the combat music will begin blasting the moment you step anywhere near any action. Just for the music to continue banging on, long after you decided to head in the opposite direction.)

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So yeah. I’ll keep playing. But the (mainly subjective) art and music does not equal an eight out of ten game. Almost everything else could be improved upon, mechanics could be better explained, and certain main building blocks are poorly thought out. (Like its exploration.)