I have 100%-ed both Crash 2 and Crash 3 on the N-Sane Trilogy. I still quit Crash 1 part way through the second island.
Crash 1 is not a well designed game. The N-Sane Trilogy has made some things easier by reducing gem requirements and letting you save anywhere you like, but counteracts this by the slight differences made to the physics and controls making some levels much, much harder.
2 and 3 have hard parts - especially if you're going for 100% - but they're nothing compared to the frustration with 1.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 4:32 pm
by Strangething
So I know some of you play Warframe.
Anyone want to talk Tenno? Do we need a dedicated thread for it?
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:27 pm
by SlateSlabrock
All I ask is for platformer games to stop including mandatory racing mini-games. Let me do the fun thing you (and I) do well, not the dumb thing I'm bad at and specifically didn't buy a game to do.
Anyone want to talk Tenno? Do we need a dedicated thread for it?
Make the thread!
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2018 6:23 am
by Perrydotto
Also, re: videogames, they can offer all sorts of challenges and what's easy for one person is tough for another. Don't use a game to tell yourself that you suck, when every game and every situation has a different challenge. "I was good at this one game but bad at the next one, clearly I suck and should not play games" is a very mean and shitty thing to say to yourself. Getting good is strictly optional, IMO - Improve your skills if you enjoy it, but don't fuss because it's how you "have" to enjoy the game. Find what you have fun with, and take a break if you're not having fun. It's your hobby, not mandatory torture or something, play what you enjoy and in ways you enjoy it. I'd say that's what doing it "right" is all about - Right for your enjoyment, not simply "right" for some supposed standard of gaming.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2018 12:59 pm
by Madeline
It’s a lifetime of bad habits catching up with me. When I was a kid, I was lucky to get more than one of those Tiger Electronics handheld games a year. So I had to play the shit out of them whether I enjoyed it or not. In high school, my mom gave me a Game Boy, and later I bought a used NES by mowing lawns for months on end, but it was still the same idea: maybe two games a year, and they’d be used, and I had to exhaust them. I still feel like I have to do that, especially now that I can’t buy games for myself anymore. I also hate when endings or unlockables that I want to try are locked behind super hard content, because I can’t stop myself from feeling compelled to see them. I just want to play content tourist, not display mastery. I don’t enjoy getting good. I know this is the weeniest-sounding thing ever, but it makes me so anxious that I stop enjoying the game. All I can think about is that I can’t do it and that I’m going to fail. I wanted to give up constantly in Celeste, and the only reason that I didn’t is because everything about the game encourages you to keep trying without feeling bad if you can’t play it perfectly.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2018 2:56 am
by Gloomy Rube
Celeste is SUPER good at not judging you. A lot of games with something like assist mode would judge you for using it, like "ah, not a REAL gamer, ehhhh?" like lots of cheat codes in the 90s and early 00s. Celeste is more like Doom in that way, not worrying about -how- the player plays the game, just letting them go at their own pace.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:28 am
by Madeline
Yeah, it’s nice.
Also, I apologize to everybody for clogging up the thread
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2018 1:17 pm
by W.T. Fits
For those who played it, how is Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon compared to Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse in terms of difficulty? I remember borrowing it on NES (never owned it) and getting to the section where you could recruit Alucard, but never really made it further than that before I had to return it. Picked it up for the Virtual Console on Wii, and I think (?) I vaguely recall making it to the same area as before but again, never finishing it. The Simon/Richter announcement for Smash kinda got me in a Castlevania mood, so I dropped a dollar to get Dracula's Curse on my Wii U (it was discounted due to me having bought it for the Wii) and now I'm having difficulty even making it to the top of the clock tower to recruit Grant.
Basically, I'm wondering if Bloodstained will scratch that "I want to play Castlevania III" itch, but without having to get kicked in the teeth by archaic, outdated gameplay design decisions. Like getting to the top of a flight of stairs, turning around to whip something behind me and falling to my death because oh hey the top of the stairs aren't technically a solid platform for you to stand on. Or scrolling the screen up just enough that a platform that was previously visible is no longer there, and since the game doesn't let you scroll back down, if you fall over there, you die because platforms that are half an inch off-screen are effectively nonexistent.
For those who played it, how is Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon compared to Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse in terms of difficulty? I remember borrowing it on NES (never owned it) and getting to the section where you could recruit Alucard, but never really made it further than that before I had to return it. Picked it up for the Virtual Console on Wii, and I think (?) I vaguely recall making it to the same area as before but again, never finishing it. The Simon/Richter announcement for Smash kinda got me in a Castlevania mood, so I dropped a dollar to get Dracula's Curse on my Wii U (it was discounted due to me having bought it for the Wii) and now I'm having difficulty even making it to the top of the clock tower to recruit Grant.
Basically, I'm wondering if Bloodstained will scratch that "I want to play Castlevania III" itch, but without having to get kicked in the teeth by archaic, outdated gameplay design decisions. Like getting to the top of a flight of stairs, turning around to whip something behind me and falling to my death because oh hey the top of the stairs aren't technically a solid platform for you to stand on. Or scrolling the screen up just enough that a platform that was previously visible is no longer there, and since the game doesn't let you scroll back down, if you fall over there, you die because platforms that are half an inch off-screen are effectively nonexistent.
Curse of the Moon is nowhere near as difficult as Dracula’s Curse on a normal playthrough when you recruit allies. There’s a casual setting which gives you infinite lives while leaving the difficulty curve alone if you don’t want to worry about earning one-ups. It does take some mechanical cues from NES Castlevanias in terms of jump height and distance, but you aren’t going to get killed by screen scrolling or attacking from the stairs.
It’s a really fun game if you’re wanting to scratch that itch.
Next, I thought, oh, I’ll play all the Mega Mans again. It might just be that Crash isn’t my thing. I did manage to beat Mega Man 1, but I haven’t had the courage to fire up 2.
You beat what is arguably the hardest of the NES Mega Man games, and you think you're bad at video games?
You beat what is arguably the hardest of the NES Mega Man games, and you think you're bad at video games?
Oh god it sounds like the worst kind of humblebrag. I don’t know, I get really depressed and down on myself very easily, and I don’t have a good perspective on things a lot of the time (understatement ). I’m so used to seeing people talking about destroying bosses I can’t beat, or losing online (I always do), and I kind of just assumed I sucked.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2018 12:56 pm
by Aria Genisi
Nah, Megaman 1 is legit the hardest NES mega man game. They were trying to find their groove, and it ended up with a game that's perfectly fine on most accounts, but it has some wonky elements (magnet beam being required but you have to collect it from elec man's stage, those flying platforms from ice man's stage, and the guts man platforms) alongside some actually pretty damn difficult shit (yellow devil, but also the wily stages in general, as well as individual parts in the 6 main stages).
Other games in the series can be difficult, absolutely, but MM1 is genuinely a really rough one to start with, so if you've managed to just beat it, you're actually a bit better than you give yourself credit.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2018 1:43 pm
by Madeline
I guess my perspective has been warped by my brain problems. Well, that and lots of people trying to humblebrag for real by claiming every difficult game is “easy” to give themselves an ego boost and wind people up. Although I’m still cringing at myself doing the same thing. Even if it was unintentional, saying “geez I’m bad at stuff, I can only beat this super hard NES game” looks terrible.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2018 4:05 pm
by Princess Flufflebutt
a lesson is to be taken here. You rock!
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 12:00 am
by Mechanical Ape
Telltale's Walking Dead: The Final Season!
This one's got 4 chapters in all. Chapter 1 dropped last week, the others are being released between now and December.
I liked this one a lot! Clem continues to be great and I liked the other characters we are introduced to. Art and animation are better than ever and I liked the action sequences being somewhat open-ended so that you have to strategize and maneuver a bit. The story was compelling with a really memorable final scene.
My only disappointment was (and this is a first for Telltale) there were no choices I found difficult. There were choices, certainly, but none that I really agonized over -- no Sophie's Choice choices, if you know what I mean. That's Walking Dead's bread and butter, after all, and I hope the next chapters will rip my heart out the way I demand.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 8:53 am
by Aramek
I beat the story for Monster Hunter world and am now starting to attempt to do tempered battles.
I am getting fucked!
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2018 6:04 am
by SlateSlabrock
Finished a run of Not Tonight, a new game lifting the mechanics of Papers, Please (although apparently not from the same developer).
It's... fun to play, but flawed. And not due to reason most of its bad reviews give ("How dare you diss Brexit?!"), but because it's significantly longer than Papers, Please, and there's basically a good and a bad ending. Getting the good ending requires setting up a lot of dominoes, all the way back to the beginning of the game, and by the time you realize you've messed up, you'll have to basically start over. Playing a second game will be a lot easier, since you know all the tricks of the trade, but there's no way to make it go any faster.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 12:47 am
by Aria Genisi
I picked up The Messenger and it's pretty fantastic!
The short of it is, it's a ninja-themed sidescroller, in the vein of games like Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi. Except, it's extremely well done, and takes out the rather high difficulty and poor design that crops up in those games, focusing on keeping the positive aspects to create an action game with really tight controls and is just a blast to play.
The game also has a bunch of rather fun dialogue and has a rather interesting story. If you're interested in the game, I highly recommend not spoiling yourself on it, and just play the game. It's really worth checking out.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 2:31 pm
by Octavia
Help I've gotten back into Diablo 3
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 9:51 pm
by West Filly
Every now and again I get back into Diablo 2. 3 never grabbed me though.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 10:45 pm
by Gloomy Rube
I've really liked what I've played of Grim Dawn, in the vein of talking about diablo or diablo-likes
Necro skeleton + skeleton mage build is stupid fun and I love it.
I don't want to have to pay for Necro, so I've been having fun with Leapquake Barbarian.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2018 11:51 pm
by Angel Beat
Teamwork, yay.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2018 10:44 am
by Fizzbuzz
The delayed Nintendo Direct is going to run tomorrow:
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2018 12:58 pm
by Venusy
Nintendo have tweeted that there's a free 7 day trial of Nintendo Switch Online from 19/09, so I guess it starts for real on the 26th.
EDIT: Also, not all games will support cloud saves - Splatoon 2 and Dark Souls are two really notable cases so far.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2018 3:22 pm
by Fizzbuzz
Nintendo hyping cloud saves and then disabling cloud saves for one of their biggest titles using the service is a severely dumb move.
I can vaguely get why they did it; the speculation I heard is that it's because a player could savescum after a losing streak or a bad gear ability roll (the latter of which was a popular tactic among serious players in the first game). But if that's the problem, why not rework Splatoon's saves to keep stuff like that saved online? And why don't ARMS and Mario Kart have cloud saves disabled, too?
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2018 8:49 pm
by Madeline
I was going to say, couldn’t Nintendo just keep that info on their own servers, rather than having it player-side? I mean, it might be too late to fix for Splatoon 2, but they need to take that into account for Splatoon 3. It would prevent save scumming without forcing people to lose their gear and ranks if their Switch breaks and they can’t send it in to Nintendo to swap it for whatever reason. It’s silly enough that only Nintendo can move saves off of the Switch until online launches, they didn’t need to add another hurdle for the player base.
Dark Souls I’d just put down to Bamco bungling this particular release every step of the way.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2018 1:10 am
by Pocket
Wait, what is there to "save" in an online multiplayer game? Are we talking about gear granted by playing the campaign? Because I thought that was was all fixed, like you get exactly this thing after completing this level.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2018 1:41 am
by Venusy
Splatoon 2 has a lot of purchasable gear with randomized abilities, normally autosaving as soon as that ability is rolled. Especially if savescumming was a common tactic in Splatoon 1 as Fizzbuzz said, I can see why Nintendo would want to crack down on that. (The Octo Expansion also introduces a vending machine after completion that also can give out some good randomized rewards - including cash for more online multiplayer gear).
Pokémon Let's Go also has cloud saves disabled, but that's pretty standard; almost every Pokémon game (with trading) on a console that allows save file copies has blocked the option to do so.
So far, SSBUltimate says it supports cloud saves on the eShop page, at least.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2018 3:28 am
by Pocket
I'm confused; why doesn't it just log the abilities you rolled on the central server from the get-go? That's how every other online game already works. Is Nintendo really just that clueless about how to do online stuff?
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2018 7:37 am
by Fizzbuzz
Yes, Nintendo really is that clueless.
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2018 8:32 am
by Pocket
So... does that mean they don't log any of your character's info on a central server? It's all stored locally? Level, rank, all that?
Re: General gaming superthread
Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 2:50 pm
by Venusy
Level and rank must be stored online for the SplatNet 2 app to work, I guess? Maybe they're stored locally as well, and I don't know which version would be considered the source of truth in a conflict.
I'm really curious how the reaction of people who don't watch Nintendo Directs is going to be to the online suddenly being paid for - I can see a lot of parental complaints happening, and there's a reason why the other manufacturers have stuck to the introduction of new consoles to make online pay-to-play.
