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Post by Sarge on Jun 15, 2020 22:53:16 GMT -5
Yep. I bought a lot of PS1 games back when they were doing flash sales that were worth a flip. Got a ton that fill up a 16 GB card.
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Post by Sarge on Jul 1, 2020 21:46:37 GMT -5
Time to resuscitate this thread! Just finished off Indivisible, one of only two projects that I've backed via Kickstarter/Indiegogo. It turned out very well.
For those that don't know it, this is heavily inspired by Valkyrie Profile's battle system. Everything happens right on the map, which is really cool. Combat never gets crazy deep, just complex enough to not get old, but not so complex that you struggle to have fun with it. The cast is astoundingly varied, which is awesome. I don't think their backstories are quite as in-depth as VP, though, which still hits a high benchmark for me. But there were some truly funny moments through the game. Razmi is awesome throughout.
Since Lab Zero developed this one (the folks that did Skullgirls), you can imagine that this game can be a little... risque at times. In that sort of Matt Bozon Shantae sort of way. Nothing insanely overt, but they clearly love their beautiful women.
What surprised me more was how much exploration there was in the maps. Lots of platforming challenges and navigational puzzles, and pretty large areas to boot. The only disappointment is that you'll end up traversing the primary areas more than you'd like by the end, even if you are usually unlocking new stuff. I'd have liked one or two more unique environments. And I don't care for climbing Mt. Sumeru multiple times, even if it's fairly quick with all the new navigation techniques. Maybe I'm nitpicking too much, though - it's not like there isn't a ton of backtracking in most exploratory platformers, including the greats like Super Metroid.
If I'm honest, the game looks like what teenage me thought games of the future would eventually look like. Hand-drawn, cartoon-style stuff. The game looks quite nice. Sure, it doesn't animate like a Disney film, but they also don't have a Disney budget. Performance on the Switch was mostly very good. In most areas, it was 60 FPS, with occasional stutters. A few areas tended to stutter a lot, but it didn't greatly impact things overall.
The music was interesting. They brought on Hiroki Kikuta, who y'all probably know from the Mana series. While there are some strains of Mana tunes in here occasionally, many of the tunes more tilt towards more ethnic tunes, especially given the source material's roots in Hinduism/Buddhism. There's also a cool tune in a more tribal society that I really liked - it reminded me of some music in Skies of Arcadia.
This track has that Mana-ish bit in there.
And the track from Kaanul:
My brain associates some of that with this track from Skies:
Audio design is fine, although Ajna's "GRAAAAH!" yell every time she starts a dash is annoying. It gets eliminated toward the end, but I wish I could have gotten rid of it sooner.
I think I've settled on an 8.5 for this one. It's really, really good, and if you have any love for Valkyrie Profile, give it a go. Time for full completion: 26h40m.
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Post by Ex on Jul 2, 2020 20:48:07 GMT -5
SargeI'll be honest, I didn't know anything about Indivisible until you started talking about this game. So I watched about five minutes of gameplay of it this morning. I know you're a big fan of Valkyrie Profile, and its clear Indivisible approximates VP's gameplay very closely, so I can see why you like it. Personally Indivisible isn't something I'd play for a shallow reason, I do not find the sprite artwork appealing at all. That's the same reason I didn't play Skullgirls... this character art style just does nothing for me. I understand the gameplay is probably a lot of fun in both of those games, and if you enjoy the art style all the more so. Well I'm glad you got your money out of your investment. And the inclusion of Hiroki Kikuta as the music creator was a nice touch.
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Post by Sarge on Jul 2, 2020 21:55:36 GMT -5
Speaking of art styles a lot of folks apparently don't like, I just finished up Streets of Rage 4. I'm going to need some time to decide exactly where I'd rate it, but I don't think it's any lower than an 8/10. I caught a groove toward the end. It doesn't quite feel like SoR2, despite keeping a lot of the movement from there (like toei said, no dodge rolls/dashing from SoR3), and Axel feels a bit slower than his speed rating would suggest. But at the same time, there are some interesting combo opportunities here that didn't exist in prior games - lots of chances to bounce enemies at the edges of the screen (no waiting for them to come back on here!), as well as chaining the normal combos with your special moves like Grand Upper or your clearout attacks. Funnily enough, I didn't use those much at all - there's a risk/reward with using them, and in most cases, it was more advantageous for me to just fight my way out. I did tend to use Star moves when trapped, though - they don't actually do a whole lot of damage to bosses, so they're better in crowds. And the people that complained about bosses having too much health I think may have been using either jump kick strats or not chaining special input moves, because I felt they were just about on the edge of correct; maybe slightly too much, but not ridiculously overkill. Music ranges from fine to good, but nothing bumps like the original SoR or several of the SoR2 tracks. I'm going to give some more tracks a listen, though, because there were a few I liked. I do think, once coupled with the lighting effects and whatnot that the game looks really nice, and does have a grungier feel than you'd think. I don't know if she's playable, but I'd hoped that Estel, the muscle-y SWAT chick, would unlock somewhere down the line. All in all, a worthy purchase, and one that will probably go into my rotation. I'm pretty sure I don't like it as much as SoR2 right now, but I definitely like it better than the American release of SoR3. (Also, in a completely insane development, that puts me at 100 games beaten this year. Oy vey.)
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Post by Ex on Jul 2, 2020 22:18:23 GMT -5
that puts me at 100 games beaten this year Wow. I'm only at 27 so far. Probably because I spent a whole lot of time on one single game; New Vegas. Plus I've put large amounts of time into various RPGs that I ultimately dropped, probably 45-50 hours in sum total there.
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Post by Sarge on Jul 2, 2020 22:32:28 GMT -5
It seems nuts, I know, but it's clearly a lot of shorter stuff. I beat like 20 games for Game Gear month, for instance. I just did the math, thinking I have to be way ahead of my hour count compared to last year with all the COVID stuff, but not really. I'm sitting at 392 hours right now, and I had 752 hours last year total (at least in the games beaten category). So I'm surprisingly not that far ahead of the pace.
I'm also actually finishing games I start this year - several longer titles I just didn't let languish, but got 'em done before moving on.
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Post by Ex on Jul 2, 2020 22:39:35 GMT -5
It seems nuts, I know, but it's clearly a lot of shorter stuff. Exactly, I know what you mean. I could have beaten a whole lotta 8/16-bit action games in the ~117 hours I put into F:NV.
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 2, 2020 22:43:11 GMT -5
I keep forgetting that Shiva is actually playable in the original SoR3. I always remember about Roo, but eh... lol.
The fangame SOR Online had so many cool extra characters, like a female-Shiva equivalent, Mr X himself, one of the whip girls, etc.
But yeah I need to get on SoR4.
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Post by Sarge on Jul 2, 2020 22:46:34 GMT -5
It seems nuts, I know, but it's clearly a lot of shorter stuff. Exactly, I know what you mean. I could have beaten a whole lotta 8/16-bit action games in the ~117 hours I put into F:NV. Yuuup. That's a big ol' time sink. Kinda like the years where I knock out Breath of the Wild or Xenoblade 2 or whatnot. I think the longest game I've beaten this year has been Deus Ex, and that was only 43 hours. The next closest are Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, Indivisible, and Control, at approximately 27/27/20 hours. But that's a bit misleading on L:SSH, as it probably only took me under ten hours of play this year to finish.
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Post by Ex on Jul 3, 2020 1:01:29 GMT -5
I think the longest game I've beaten this year has been Deus Ex, and that was only 43 hours. I have noticed lately you've been playing shorter games in general. Also branching out into other genres more often as well. By "other genres" I mean not just JRPGs and platformers. For example, you play a fair amount of adventure games lately. Now that's a genre I'd like to get back into more often myself.
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