Rax/Maz/Jimbo 2020 Games Thread: "S.T.A.R.S...."

[Gendo]

Everyone needs to stop their other games and start Celeste.

[Raxivace]

I can't explain why, but something about Celeste's aesthetic just looks very immensely unappealing to me so I probably won't play it tbh.

Like some of that spritework I'm seeing on the Steam page has that "GBA shovelware from 2002" look.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Spring cleaning is a mess because I literally move everything out of every room, steam clean the carpets, mop/wax the floors, clean the walls, dust/vacuum everything, polish the wood, and then move everything back. Every room takes a solid day to do. You don't know how filthy a place is until you move stuff out and start looking in all the nooks and crevices that stuff like book shelves and dressers hide.

Dude that's why shelves and dressers were invented, to hide that stuff. Same thing with rugs- hence the expression "sweep in under the rug"!

You're going against the natural order of things!

The problem is that if even if my eye can't see the mess, my sinuses can smell it! It's nice having everything clean.

I guess I could tackle RE3 after Cuphead, unless you really want me to play it before Cuphead. Only thing that gives me pause is that it hasn't been all that long since I played RE2 and I generally like to give these series a good break until I'm back in the mood for it. So while I don't mind playing RE3 I might not like it as much as I would if I waited a while, but it might not matter too much.

If you're not up for RE3 yet, that's cool.

I think I'd at least like to play it after Cuphead since before I started Yakuza I was thinking of playing some MegaMans after that since I was in the mood for a side-scrolling shooter. Then they released Cuphead for PS4 and that was perfect timing.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Everyone needs to stop their other games and start Celeste.

I might check into Celeste after Cuphead and then probably RE3. I almost never start new games until I finish the last one, which might be a mistake on my part as playing multiple games might help alleviate burnout.

[Gendo]

Everyone needs to stop their other games and start Celeste.

I might check into Celeste after Cuphead and then probably RE3. I almost never start new games until I finish the last one, which might be a mistake on my part as playing multiple games might help alleviate burnout.

I'm the same, at least with most games. The exception is when I'm playing a game with my wife, while also doing on on my own. Like right now where Mario+Rabbids is the main game that I'm playing with my wife, but then I'm playing Celeste when we're not hanging out together. Or games like Mario Maker, which you're never really "done" with; but you just load up from time to time.

[Raxivace]

I think I'd at least like to play it after Cuphead since before I started Yakuza I was thinking of playing some MegaMans after that since I was in the mood for a side-scrolling shooter. Then they released Cuphead for PS4 and that was perfect timing.

This reminds me, I saw a video yesterday from one of the guys that did the MegaMan Legacy Collection talking about the difficulty of releasing and preserving older games like that. Kind of interesting stuff.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLWY7fC ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]

Follow up lecture as well:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp-DRU2 ... =emb_title[/youtube]

[Eva Yojimbo]

I think I'd at least like to play it after Cuphead since before I started Yakuza I was thinking of playing some MegaMans after that since I was in the mood for a side-scrolling shooter. Then they released Cuphead for PS4 and that was perfect timing.

This reminds me, I saw a video yesterday from one of the guys that did the MegaMan Legacy Collection talking about the difficulty of releasing and preserving older games like that. Kind of interesting stuff.

Watched the first vid (don't have time now to watch the other) and it's a great talk. I learned a ton and I think he gave me a new appreciation for the argument of preserving old games as they were or as close as possible. I also feel extra good about buying the Mega Man Legacy Collection as I definitely want to support this effort.

[Raxivace]

Yeah the videos bring up some interesting issues. I can't remember whether its the first video or the second, but its wild that the American release date of the original Super Mario Bros. of all games is just straight up lost information we don't have anymore.

It makes me think about how kind of arbitrary a lot of video games feel. Like its weird to me consoles are, well, separate consoles and not more akin to different models of blu-ray players. Like imagine if Criterion blu-rays could only be played on Panasonic blu-ray players or some shit. We would find that bizarre but culturally we seem to accept console exclusivity when it comes to video games, even though at the end of the day I'm not sure there's THAT much difference between PlayStation and Xbox (Switch at least is pretty unique).

[Eva Yojimbo]

He mentioned that SMB date thing in the first video that I watched. I think the reason that we have multiple consoles in gaming is simply because the market has sustained the viability of them. Home video definitely had its own version of "console wars" with VHS/Beta Max, again with DVDs/Laserdiscs, and then again later with blu-rays/HDDVD. In all those other cases, though, one of the formats failed leaving only one. To me, it's almost more surprising that PC Gaming never wiped out console gaming given that most modern consoles are basically just PCs running their proprietary software. Probably much of that's due to how long many titles have been exclusive to certain consoles.

[Raxivace]

I think part of the reason consoles keep on too is that while if you're able to keep up to date with your PC you usually don't have problems with newer games, there are still weird areas where it can be a bigger pain in the ass to deal with than I think most people would want to spend the time on- see what happened to me with Fallout 3 recently (It took me several hours to set up to even run and even then it still crashed a bunch), and that's with a game that's still commercially available on Steam. Had I just bought, I dunno, the Xbox 360 version I could just pop it in and not have too many issues. There's an ease of use with consoles if you just want to play a game.

Tradeoff of course is that the PC version is open to all kinds of crazy mods and such (Some of which are necessary for even the modest goal of partial stability lmao), but I'm not sure that game will even be able to run on computers in another 10 years without even bigger hurdles to jump through than there are now.

[Raxivace]

Lmao it just occurred to me I had a much easier time running Lost: Via Fucking Domus than I did once mega-popular game Fallout 3.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Yakuza 0 - 7/10

This is, by a good distance, the weirdest game I've played since I've been back into gaming... maybe a candidate for the weirdest game I've played ever. Girlfriend Reviews nailed it with their "100% Certified Bananas" summary. It's also impossible to sum up this game in any meaningful way. I guess I'll say that, at its core, it's a melodrama that follows the paths of two young Japanese gangsters from different cities: Kiryu is framed for the murder of a civilian, and to help prevent bringing heat on his (gangster) family he quits to uncover the truth behind the framing; while Majima is an ex-Yakuza and owner of a Cabaret who is tasked with murdering a young woman that ends up becoming her protector. This main story is largely built around a beat-em-up brawler system that (eventually) offers three different combat modes for each protagonist with a ton of unlockable abilities and weapons.

However, this central core of the game is only a small part of what makes this game so unique. For starters, there's about a bazillion side-stories (Ok, in reality there's only about 100 according to the IGN guide I used to find them all), and these side-stories are completely different in tone from the main story. If the main story is pure melodrama, these side-stories are often gleefully goofy, often downright comedic, and frequently utterly ridiculous. They run the gamut from helping fake-Steven Spielberg film a music video for fake-Michael Jackson, helping a kid retrieve a stolen video game, helping a dominatrix learn how to be, errr, domineering, discussing the tax policies of Japan, signing up for a medical study, writing post-cards to a radio personality, exchanging messages with a mystery woman on a bathroom stall, seducing women over a call-in phone business, finding cards of Japanese pornstars for a horny guy named Mr. Libido, racing toy cars with kids... are you getting the picture here?

The above also doesn't even represent all of the actual side-content. Though they're often not actual side-quests, there's a wealth of things to do across the two cities in the form of mini-games: classic arcade games, bowling, batting practice, fishing, darts, pool, gambling, shogi, mahjong, claw machines, karaoke, disco clubs, not to mention the dozens of restaurants and shops. Many of these will (at various points) become connected to different side-quests so you'll engage with them that way, though just as many will not and are left to do at your discretion. Both protagonists will eventually get access to a side-quest that's so large and time-consuming they're more like diagonal quests. Kiryu gets access to a real estate business, while Majima gets to run a Cabaret Club (different from the Cabaret he already owns). In both cases your job is to take over different areas, which will trigger battles with the business/club owners of that area. Winning these will unlock certain abilities for both characters, and both carry their own self-contained story with them. Though these are slightly less silly than most of the side-stories, they aren't as serious/dramatic as the main story either.

While a game like Metal Gear Solid 2 may represent postmodernism in gaming philosophically, in design I'd almost argue that Yakuza 0 is more emblematic of that movement stylistically. Its wildly disparate tones and wealth of things to do in the game without any real attempts made at making everything cohere into a whole is as impressive as it is mildly infuriating; Mildly infuriating because I feel that the main game itself is quite excellent, while the wealth of side content is an enormous mixed bag. Of course, it would be possible just to play the main quest and ignore much of the side material, but there are two arguments against that: the main one being that ignoring the side-material will limit your options in terms of leveling up your characters' abilities and stats, as the side-quests are often tied to the huge "diagonal quests" that are needed to unlock them; the second argument would be that this side-content is arguably the biggest part of what makes this game feel so unique. Sure, perhaps the main quest is the best thing here, but by itself it would probably make for a fun but unremarkable game.

Still, looking back on the experience, it's hard for me not to criticize those two enormous "diagonal quests" for how much time they take to complete them and for how little worth it they seem like in retrospect. Take Kiryu's real estate business. Initially, this seems like a great way to make money, but given how much money it takes to buy up businesses and invest them, by the time you get around to collecting money it hardly seems worth it, especially when it's much easier to farm Mr. Shakedown--a "boss" that roams the cities looking to take your money while carrying a lot of his own--on a loop to get money. The story surrounding the real estate business is also pretty bland and the mechanics of running the business is quite boring. Majima's Cabaret Club is better, but not by much. Similar to Kiryu's real estate business it's not worth it for the money, because by the end the most you'll be making is 100 million yen a go, compared to Mr. Shakedown whom you can farm in the same amount of time for 1 billion yen. However, the story (or stories) of the girls and bad guys surrounding the cabaret club are better, and the mechanics of running it are better, though very tiresome after a while, and much like the real estate business it takes a looooong time to complete everything.

The actual combat system is mostly fun, but suffers from a similar problem many recent games like God of War do in that once you unlock certain heat moves and basic combos, almost all the other abilities you can unlock are pretty superfluous and you can pretty easily make it through the game with the basic abilities for each fighting style, only switching between the styles themselves for variety or for taking advantage of certain situations. This makes unlocking all of the abilities pretty worthless, even if you manage to farm the money and complete the diagonal quests to do so. The game also offers a wealth of weapons you can use, but the method for obtaining has the be the absolute stupidest system I've ever seen in a video game. First, you can only do it with Majima, and the way you do it is via a shop by sending out agents to various locations. These agents will bring back weapons and materials based on pure RNG. Based on what they bring back, you might get weapons, or just the recipes to craft weapons, or the parts to craft weapons. But, get this piece of stupidity: if they bring back a recipe, the recipe WON'T TELL YOU WHAT PARTS YOU NEED! Yep, only if you already have the parts will it tell you what you need, so you're left just guessing. Again, like most of the side-content, you can completely ignore the weapon search, but it seems a shame given that using weapons adds a nice variety to the combat that can otherwise get repetitively button-mashy.

The story itself is actually quite good, I must say. Towards the end I was genuinely looking forward to getting to each cutscene. Though I do stand by some of my early criticisms that often the cutscenes are too long and built upon too much repetitive, dull exposition; but once all the main characters are introduced and various events are set in motion, things get much better and mostly retain that quality until the end. It was genuinely surprising at how emotional some moments were, despite my knowing how melodramatically contrived it all was. In a way, and from a cynical perspective, the game almost plays like a satire on the entire notion of the yakuza ethos. At one point I was reminded of how Anno once called Japan a nation of children, and the wealth of mini-games the Yakuza partake on could be seen as a subtle jab that, at the heart of it all, these are all just children playing at being powerful businessmen, and there is something vaguely ridiculous about the samurai-like stoicism that they all move around with and talk with. I don't know how much (if at all) this was intentional, but the end result is an interesting mix that blurs the line between genuine melodrama and satire... though, in retrospect, maybe that's always been what the best melodrama has done.

Ultimately, this is an incredibly hard game to rate because it does a lot well, a lot interestingly, and a lot that feels like time-wasting nonsense, but that mix-bagged nature is undoubtedly part of its charm too. Though the gameplay left a lot to be desired, the story actually has me really interested to play the later games to see where this story and these characters go, because it certainly finishes with the feeling that they've just barely scratched the surface.

[Raxivace]

^Great review. Despite what sounds like some hiccups, Yakuza 0 sounds like it will be extremely my jam, especially with that comment about its postmodern style.

I do wonder if what you say about how even with owning a business its difficult to actually make money isn't actually the point or part of potential satire, but that may be just me transposing modern American political discussions onto a Japanese game. Still, that doesn't sound that far off from what Yakuza's older brother series Shenmue did, where you had to get a shitty job driving a forklift for literal hours just to make some cash (Until sequels anyways where you could gamble your way into wealth).

[Raxivace]

BTW I see that the arcade games that Yakuza 0 has (Space Harrier, OutRun, Fantasy Zone, and Hang-On) were all also featured in Shenmue II. They were also directed by Shenmue director Yu Suzuki.

Did you try any of these? I tried them in Shenmue II and while they look great I thought all four of them kind of played like ass tbh. I think Fantasy Zone was the one I liked the most but even that was kind of whatever to actually play.

[Eva Yojimbo]

It's not so much that you can't make money with the business, it just requires quite a bit of time/effort and in the end it isn't work it because you can make more in less time by farming Mr. Shakedown. It's also not really worth it because most of the abilities it allows you to unlock tend to be only minimally useful.

Yakuza 0 in general had me thinking about how common it is in modern games to use some kind of quasi-RPG ability-leveling system and how variable the quality of these systems are. IMO, the biggest problem seems to be that many games can't find ways to reward or provoke you to use those abilities as often the simplest combos are the easiest way to get through enemies. This was certainly the case for Yakuza 0 and God of War. In retrospect, Spider-Man has handled this issue the best, because all of their abilities/gadgets were useful and especially on hard you really had to master using them to get through the game. AC:O was similar in having a lot of useful abilities that you had to juggle between. It also really makes me appreciate how Dark Souls achieved a similar thing merely via its weapon/armor choices. I think the key issue is that if games are going to offer the option of having builds and abilities, it needs to have parts of the game that take advantage of that, rather than feeling like you can get through anything with just the most basic mechanics; otherwise, why have it?

Anyway, yes, I did play all those games because you could get completion points for reaching a certain score on them, which I did (one side-quest is also tied to them). They weren't too difficult though and they controlled pretty well I thought. Not sure if your difficulty with them was due to how they were done in Shenmue II or if it was just the games themselves. FWIW, I actually remember playing Space Harrier and OutRun in arcades as a really young kid, so that was certainly a trip down memory lane! Of all of them, I think OutRun is still a really solid game. It's certainly simple but well-executed I think, and the different branching paths definitely make for high replay value.

[Raxivace]

That does remind me of a related issue in these kinds of games where three or four tools/abilities are so much better than any other choice that you wonder why a million other options exist. (Edit: Actually I guess that's what you're basically saying anyways (EDIT 2: Actually maybe not. In something like Witcher 3 I'm not sure Quen spam was necessarily the best way to get through that game but it still defeated literally 95% of encounters for me on hardest difficulty so there's that I guess)).

Yeah its possible Shenmue II just handled those arcade games weird. Whenever I get around to Yakuza 0 I'll have to try them again.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I think that's one of the pitfalls (a few abilities being so useful/OP there's no need for the others), but I think a big reason for that is that many of these games don't seem to know how to design enemies that can meaningfully challenge a player to use new abilities as opposed to just spamming whatever they're used to and whatever works for them. Now, obviously it's also a challenge to make those enemies beatable if the player doesn't have the ability, but again I think Dark Souls is a great model for how to do this. Clearly some enemies are very difficult to beat with certain builds, but conversely some enemies are much easier to beat with that same build. With Spider-Man it's a bit easier because there aren't really builds, just abilities/gadgets to unlock as the game progresses and usually when you get a new one the game will present an opportunity to learn/use it, and then later on it will present a variety of enemies that challenge you to remember what abilities/gadgets will be most useful.

God of War and Yakuza 0 both fall into the trap of where typically the most effective thing is just the basic combo you can unlock early on. Maybe a few other things will be useful later on, but there's rarely any impetus to really try/practice new things because you can pretty easily beat enemies with your basic abilities, and it's not as if they made enemies that are obviously weak to certain abilities or styles. I do think Witcher 3 did pretty good on this front, at least to the extent of having certain enemies be weak to certain abilities and resistant to others. Like, there were definitely situations where I found any of the other magics more useful than Quen (igni on hordes, aard on anything that flew, yrden on ghosts, and even axii had a few enemies weak to it). If anything, I just think maybe the game could've been made more challenging overall to provide more incentive for using them and the various other buffs.

I guess it boils down to this philosophy: if you're going to offer an ability, create situations where that ability is really useful so that not having it/using it will make it a more significant struggle.

[Raxivace]

With Spider-Man it's a bit easier because there aren't really builds, just abilities/gadgets to unlock as the game progresses and usually when you get a new one the game will present an opportunity to learn/use it, and then later on it will present a variety of enemies that challenge you to remember what abilities/gadgets will be most useful.

I almost think these kinds of systems are what's best for design tight game design (What Spider-Man does sounds similar to Kingdom Hearts II in a way, which I think was really good about this), since you create some clever enemies and setups if you have an idea of what specific abilities a player is going to have into an encounter and don't have to accommodate for a million variations like in Dark Souls or whatever.

Not that Dark Souls method is bad, I love the game obviously, but a its different kind of experience, trying to see how many of your build's square pegs can fit into the round holes you come across.

Like, there were definitely situations where I found any of the other magics more useful than Quen (igni on hordes, aard on anything that flew, yrden on ghosts, and even axii had a few enemies weak to it). If anything, I just think maybe the game could've been made more challenging overall to provide more incentive for using them and the various other buffs.

Part of the problem too is that IIRC a lot of Geralt's damage is tied to his level, and that being too low level just leads to chip damage and some abilities not always being super useful. Maybe abilities just needed to be stronger in general, but with less options to upgrade them or something.

Like I remember posting a video here a few years ago about how I got an infinite combo going on some boss many many levels above me, but because I was like 30 levels below him I ended up just spamming chip damage for 10 literal straight minutes until he died. I wish that it could have been that instead of doing that (And if the game had a minimum damage floor so even in his weakest state, Geralt wasn't doing literal 1 attack point of damage per hit) that I could have used my Witcher abilities in a clever way to take out the beast instead of goofy abuses of the game's geometry and basic attacks.

Of course at a certain point I may just be asking for a different game. I wonder if PC modders have doing interesting things with Witcher 3 mechanics.

I guess it boils down to this philosophy: if you're going to offer an ability, create situations where that ability is really useful so that not having it/using it will make it a more significant struggle.

100%.

[Raxivace]

The last of these Type-Moon games for the time being, and a SNES classic.



Fate/hollow ataraxia (2005) - This is a strange game- basically its the followup to Fate/stay night though I wouldn't call it a full blown sequel. It's a "fan disc" expansion of sorts, though in terms of story it does still take place after the main game. Kind of. Ostensibly it's also a remake of Kagetsu Tohya but fitted for Fate/stay night's cast and setting, except I'm not entirely sure that's what the game actually is?

We basically start out with two narratives here- the first features the goofily named and rare Irish anime character Bazett Fraga McRemitz (Who seems to suffer from some partial form of amnesia) and her notably weak Servant “Avenger" trapped in a time loop based around four days in what seems to be some form of the Fifth Holy Grail War from Fate/stay night. Maybe. It could also be the Third Holy Grail War they're trapped in. It could also be simply Bazett trying to restart the Fifth Holy Grail War six months later. I'm not entirely sure what exactly she thinks she's doing at given time in retrospect now.

Bazett and Avenger are generally interesting characters. If anything my biggest complaint about the game is that they're mainly kept to this pseudo-framing device thing, because their weird interplay that initially starts as “woman that's all business" and “weaker brash guy that enjoys poking her" only gets more complicated as it goes on as they continue to fight various opponents and their bond at first gradually strengthens and then weakens.

Their bits only make up something of a…framing device? I guess? Point is we only occasionally come to and from this story over the point of the game.

The main meat of the game follows Shirou from Fate/stay night Or so we're lead to believe in the aftermath of the Fifth Holy Grail War (Though it doesn't seem to follow any particular ending from FSN). Thing is, Shirou and his pals also seem to be trapped in a four day time loop.

This main portion of the game is where the biggest comparison to Kagetsu Tohya is drawn, as most of the time you spend in the time loop is on goofy slice of life shenanigans. Basically, each of the four days has three portions- morning, afternoon, and night. Each portion presents you a map like this…


^Apologies for not getting a higher quality image. This was best I could quickly find online.

Where the icons with “New" give you an extraneous bit, and the “!" icons are how you progress the actual main story. The “New" sections are generally okay I guess- some of them I thought were funny, and some I thought I were decent expansions on FSN characters (Particularly some of the classmates that didn't get a whole lot of time in the original game).

Probably my favorite sillier bit of the game is when you can choose to go see a movie, and instead of the movie being portrayed with traditional 2D sprites like the rest of the game is, they use dolls and puppets and such.






^Fate/hollow ataraxia: A Film by Todd Haynes it seems.


^Even Tsukihime characters get minor cameo here!


^From now on all of my positive movie reviews will solely compose of me reposting this image.

Anyways I generally thought these bits were okay to decent to good on their own, but this kind of stuff did make up the vast majority of the game (Not that I did math to figure this out or anything, but I'm guessing its somewhere in the 70% range) which is a bit much (Especially since the original FSN was not exactly lacking in laid back scenes such as the endless cooking bits), though this sort of ties into themes of the main game (More on this later). Other scenes within these "New" bits that weren't comedy-focused at least gave either more time to minor characters from the original game that didn't get much screen time, or more backstory to major characters from the original. Most of the extra backstory bits I didn't really need to be honest, though the little extra bit you get about Shinji and how ever became friends with Shirou to begin with was something I appreciated this game including because that was honestly something I had wondered about in FSN to begin with.

There is also a kind of interesting bit here where this game is not only planting seeds for the Fate/Zero prequel light novels (Which would start publishing in 2006), but honestly it even sets up large scale story elements like Medusa transitioning an Avenger class Servant in her own right called Gorgon that wouldn't get paid off for another 10 years until the Babylonia chapter in Fate/Grand Order. So that's a thing I guess.

Anyways, the more focused “!" bits in this game are generally fine- they usually involve Shirou coming across some problem (Usually getting killed by something or other), and having to find a different “!" event that gives him key to passing whatever roadblock he's currently at. In a way this is a huge departure from how Kagetsu Tohya handled things because it was genuinely puzzling in that game to figure out how to progress through the dream world/time loop, Hollow Ataraxia makes it incredibly straight forward- I'm guessing this is because of how absurd Kagetsu Tohya could get but in a way I would have preferred something closer to the intent of that game, where you could feel genuinely lost in the world. Still of these Type-Moon visual novels that was the only one that really felt game-y to me while the rest were all much more straightforward stories, and well arguably Hollow Ataraxia is more on-brand with this method. Still, it would be interesting to something like Kagetsu Tohya's method more specifically tried again one day. That also isn't to say I was against Hollow Ataraxia's method, its just different than I was expecting.

Eventually as you get far enough into the main story with Shirou, Bazett and Avenger pop up as antagonists he needs to figure out how to deal with and this is where I get confused, and I'm no longer entirely sure whether we're in Kagetsu Tohya-style dream world, some Inception style dream world with multiple layers running, or that this isn't something more akin to the flash sideways from Lost where time doesn't seem to exist. We eventually find out that in the main portion of this game, we haven't been playing as Shirou really, but as Avenger either imitating the form of Shirou or having possessed Shirou. Despite all of these explanations of "Avenger" being a "0" who needs to latch onto something like Shirou, I'm still not sure what that's actually communicating. If this is a dream world too, the discussions about Avenger/Shirou being the only "fake" don't really make sense to me.

Either way, how “Shirou" could end up fighting Bazett and Avenger at one point too confuses me. I've tried looking up fan explanations online, but none of them seem quite satisfying to me. It doesn't like that many people have actually played Hollow Ataraxia either, which makes me a bit dubious of any opinion out there right now that seems to get labeled as a fan consensus.

I suppose it could also be something akin to the flash sideways too, and honestly at least on the surface it would explain a lot about this game. Like how despite being a "sequel" to FSN it doesn't really follow from any of the routes, how characters that should have died (Such as Saber, Shinji, and honestly even Bazett) are still walking around, maybe even "Shirou's" prologue where he's suddenly surprised by Caster's appearance. the general tranquil tone of this game etc.

Like the game's title is even "Hollow Ataraxia". Supposedly "Ataraxia" is a Greek word meaning "peace", and well this game is nothing but repeating days of "hollow peace" or "empty peace" or however you want to reword it. In that sense its just like the Flash sideways, and such a title even seems to anticipate the most obvious criticism of what this even would be.

That makes thematically interpreting what this game is getting at tricky though, because Avenger wanting to live as "Shirou" in some fashion and finding his redemption through his life and mining every possible combination out of the endless four days and saving Bazett also makes him an almost Raiden-esque stand-in for the player, who themselves are mining this "empty peace" by living as Shirou until they get bored of it and have to move on and truly end the loop. But then what does that actually say about the player themselves? Like Avenger rapes a woman at one point and while its only kind of less awful than it could be because the person is a fairly psychopathic masochist, I'm not really sure that maps well onto players simply wanting some eroge scenes. That rape scene is also the only sexual content in the PC 18+ version that's actually part of the main story too, but man is it thorny to deal with. There's also argument I suppose that Caren was leading Avenger on (I think there's talk about her masturbating while watching "Avenger" die from outside the Church's window a couple of times, though that could also just be Avenger's crude humor rather than something we're meant to take as gospel), but even so I am not the person to untangle this on their own. Certainly not in a major public space online where such topics get reasonably heated and are understandably contentious.

This explanation also gets complicated though by the fucking epilogue where we actually have the "real" Shirou again, but his life doesn't seem that different than it does on a base level in the supposed dream world. Like Saber is still around, it seems like a lot of the other Servants still might be. Bazett and Caren seem to exist too. This peace seems exactly as empty as the peace of the dream world, but this we're meant to take as real. Maybe? For all I know this is a dream world too, just another illusion, but then again maybe the point is that all that video games are is nothing but meaningless illusions anyways. That does seem more cynical than what was likely intended, but it is kind of an odd inclusion and perhaps harms the game.

Also while we're on the topic of Lost comparisons, Avenger ended up being an incredibly similar character to Man in Black/The Smoke Monster, though in my opinion better executed. Like he's still got a sympathetic backstory being random villager from thousands of years sacrificed so he could become Angra Mainyu, "All the World's Evil", a kind of devil-ish figure in Zoroastrianism of all religions. Despite sympathetic backstory he is still responsible for some awful shit (Particularly in Heaven's Feel route from FSN), though the way to "defeat" Avenger ending up being him finding a chance to redeem himself even a little bit is much more thematically satisfying ending than Lost's explanation of "lol we just gotta kill him".

This is honestly an interesting game and it despite hours of slice of life stuff that I probably could have done without, I do still find find this to be the hardest story from these guys to know what to do with. I'm not sure how much of that is intentional narrative obfuscation and how much might be some weird translation issues, but it is something to puzzle over I guess.


^Perhaps its appropriate then that that there's a running motif through the story of Avenger trying to solve a slide puzzle toy. He may have done so, but I'm not there yet.



Fate/unlimited codes (2008/2009) - And the last of these Type-Moon games that's currently in English. If you've played any 2.5D fighter for the PS2 from the mid 2000's, this is any one of those except ported to the PSP of all systems (And this is the only version America got). Kind of bizarre that this was even released in English (Especially since it features hollow ataraxia characters like Bazett), but its nice that it happened once upon a time I guess. This game was published by freakin' Capcom of all people too, though developed by Cavia (The studio behind the original NieR and Resident Evil: Dead Aim of all things).

The features here are pretty basic. There's no Story Mode or anything, though each character's Arcade Mode has a few straightforward cutscenes. There's a Versus Mode, Training Mode, a few special challenges etc. It's alright for what it is. I will say I did find myself thinking about 3D graphics from the PS2 era and how well they've aged. Like just looking at a screenshot…



^It shows its age (And honestly this looks slightly better than it does running on the PSP or Vita- I'm guessing this image I grabbed online was taken from an emulator). Its not like, making my eyes bleed (Anime stylization may help a bit even) but I do suspect 3D from this era won't quite hold up super well over time the way, say, a lot of N64 games don't look super great aesthetically today. I will say 2D sprites in general seem to have held up better. Like playing this right after those Melty Blood games the difference is noticeable.



^Like this screen from Melty Blood (One of the games coming out around the same time as Unlimited Codes anyways) still generally looks good and seems like will age more gracefully than some of these mid-2000's 3D games.

Despite that, Unlimited Codes is okay for what it is.



Super Mario World (1990) - Yeah this is still an excellent 2D platformer. Its so good that I'm not sure that there's actually much to say about it again- its just generally tightly designed.

I think the thing I appreciated the most this time around is that while uses a similar setup from SMB3 (Mainly through world map, having a flying power etc.), I don't think I really appreciated before how the secret exits with the keys probably come from SMB2 having keys you have to drag around to locked doors (As well as secrets through the potions and such, and SMW doesn't really have a direct equivalent to that). I only say "probably" though because in SMW once you find the key the keyhole it goes to is usually like, right next to it. I think there was maybe one instance where actually getting a key to the appropriate spot was tricky but it didn't happen very often.

The other thing I found myself missing here was in SMB3's inventory system. SMW only lets you have one spare item at a time which is fine, but there was something kind of fun about stocking up in SMB3.

When it comes down to SMB3 vs. SMW, I'm not really sure which I prefer (Both are better than SMB2 IMO). I think SMB3 is probably slightly tighter mechanically, but I also generally like the aesthetics of SMW more so its hard to pick a favorite here.


^Also I never realized before that there were Yoshis in this game that weren't green! I'm guessing that really paved the way for SMW2: Yoshi's Island down the line.

[Gendo]

I finally bought Untitled Goose Game today, because it's on sale. Don't know when I'll actually play it; given my huge backlog of Switch games to play. Almost done with Celeste though.

[Gendo]

Super Mario World (1990) - Yeah this is still an excellent 2D platformer. Its so good that I'm not sure that there's actually much to say about it again- its just generally tightly designed.

I think the thing I appreciated the most this time around is that while uses a similar setup from SMB3 (Mainly through world map, having a flying power etc.), I don't think I really appreciated before how the secret exits with the keys probably come from SMB2 having keys you have to drag around to locked doors (As well as secrets through the potions and such, and SMW doesn't really have a direct equivalent to that). I only say "probably" though because in SMW once you find the key the keyhole it goes to is usually like, right next to it. I think there was maybe one instance where actually getting a key to the appropriate spot was tricky but it didn't happen very often.

The other thing I found myself missing here was in SMB3's inventory system. SMW only lets you have one spare item at a time which is fine, but there was something kind of fun about stocking up in SMB3.

When it comes down to SMB3 vs. SMW, I'm not really sure which I prefer (Both are better than SMB2 IMO). I think SMB3 is probably slightly tighter mechanically, but I also generally like the aesthetics of SMW more so its hard to pick a favorite here.

^Also I never realized before that there were Yoshis in this game that weren't green! I'm guessing that really paved the way for SMW2: Yoshi's Island down the line.

Did you 100% it? A few of the levels in the special world are quite tough; but of course nothing compared to various rom hacks and Celeste which takes inspiration from rom hacks.

Yeah both SMB3 and SMW are excellent. I feel like SMB3 has a bit too much going on; such a huge number of powerups in terms of both things that change Mario and things that you use on the overworld map.... the problem is that a lot of them are barely used at all, because you have too many different items for the amount of game there is. And a lot of hidden mechanics that you never see or understand unless you actually spend time to learn about how things work; like the coin ships appearing. I think SMW is better off for having fewer items that are explored more deeply.

[Raxivace]

Did you 100% it? A few of the levels in the special world are quite tough; but of course nothing compared to various rom hacks and Celeste which takes inspiration from rom hacks.

I did the special worlds at least, but with the caveat I that used the Switch save state features. If the Cuphead posting has taught me anything, its that I'm probably the worst among all the Pitters Placers at these 2D platformers lol.

Yeah both SMB3 and SMW are excellent. I feel like SMB3 has a bit too much going on; such a huge number of powerups in terms of both things that change Mario and things that you use on the overworld map.... the problem is that a lot of them are barely used at all, because you have too many different items for the amount of game there is. And a lot of hidden mechanics that you never see or understand unless you actually spend time to learn about how things work; like the coin ships appearing. I think SMW is better off for having fewer items that are explored more deeply.

I think I can agree with this about the powerups and such at least. I'm not even sure what the coin ships thing you're referring to in SMB3 is, which is to your point really.

[Gendo]

I'm not even sure what the coin ships thing you're referring to in SMB3 is, which is to your point really.

Heh, yeah. Under very specific circumstances, the hammer bros that move around randomly on the map can turn into a gold ship; and if you get to that gold ship, it's like one of the end-of-world boss ships except it's filled everywhere with coins.

https://www.mariowiki.com/Treasure_Ship" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Eva Yojimbo]

When you're finished I want you to copy/paste all of the text you've written on various Fate/X media onto a Word doc and report back on what the word count is. I think you've probably written enough on that series to fill a companion book!

Super Mario World (1990) - Yeah this is still an excellent 2D platformer. Its so good that I'm not sure that there's actually much to say about it again- its just generally tightly designed.

Awesome game. It came with the SNES I got when I was a kid and I must've played it non-stop for months. This was before online guides so it took forever to unlock all of the secrets, but I sure did have a sense of accomplishment when I did. I adored the world design and really just the overall game design. SMW VS SMB3? That's a tough one. I probably spend an equal amount of time on both games. I perhaps have fonder memories of SMB3 as I spent most of my time on that game playing with my cousin, which was really fun. But if I'm not considering that, I do think SMW is the slightly better game. One game I'd be really interested in revisiting is SMW2 as I do remember enjoying it but I didn't spend nearly as much time with it as the others. Would be interested to see how it holds up.

[Raxivace]

Heh, yeah. Under very specific circumstances, the hammer bros that move around randomly on the map can turn into a gold ship; and if you get to that gold ship, it's like one of the end-of-world boss ships except it's filled everywhere with coins.

https://www.mariowiki.com/Treasure_Ship" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Huh, interesting. I'm surprised I had never even heard of this before.

[Raxivace]

When you're finished I want you to copy/paste all of the text you've written on various Fate/X media onto a Word doc and report back on what the word count is. I think you've probably written enough on that series to fill a companion book!

To have you of all people say I've written a lot about something sure feels strange!

Just counting on what I've posted on Pitter's so far and counting the related games and anime, it comes out as... only about 18.2K words, which isn't much all things considered. I'm sure you have single posts from your EGF days longer than that!

Keep in mind there is still an anime spinoff I haven't watched yet (Though I don't have high expectations for it based on the few episodes I've already seen), and there were few other anime that I watched but didn't make posts about just because I didn't have much to say about them (Carnival Phantasm, Today's Menu for the Emiya Family. The former here is actually pretty good absurdist comedy too, but that doesn't really lend itself well to the kind of reviews we write here.) or because I was watching them as they aired and just never got around to rewatching them so I could have an easier time writing something about them (Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files {Rail Zeppelin} Grace note, Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia (The latter here is a fairly straight adaptation from the FGO video game though anyways)).

Btw I should probably add that besides fan translation projects that take an indefinite amount of time, there is another game confirmed to come out in English...and its a cooking game. For the Nintendo Switch. That's right, its time to go full Walter White. It's time to cook, Jesse. Or it would have been had Covid not delayed everything...

Awesome game. It came with the SNES I got when I was a kid and I must've played it non-stop for months. This was before online guides so it took forever to unlock all of the secrets, but I sure did have a sense of accomplishment when I did. I adored the world design and really just the overall game design. SMW VS SMB3? That's a tough one. I probably spend an equal amount of time on both games. I perhaps have fonder memories of SMB3 as I spent most of my time on that game playing with my cousin, which was really fun. But if I'm not considering that, I do think SMW is the slightly better game. One game I'd be really interested in revisiting is SMW2 as I do remember enjoying it but I didn't spend nearly as much time with it as the others. Would be interested to see how it holds up.

I love SMW2 myself. I might actually replay it, but I had beat it before already and played it a lot as a kid between the SNES and GBA versions.

My avatar here is even from SMW2!

[Gendo]

SMW2 is certainly good, but it's also clearly not a Mario game.

*Edit* Sorry, was thinking SMB2 of course. I only played SMW2 a tiny bit as a kid; never owned it or beat it.

When it comes to 2D Mario; nothing beats Mario Maker for me. The amazing creativity of things people out there have come up with just makes for so many good moments and endless replayability.

[Raxivace]

Even with SMB2, a lot of its eccentricities from being reworked from Doki Doki Panic bled into main series enough that I'm not even sure I can say it isn't "a Mario game" really despite all of its other weirdness.

[Raxivace]

What I will say about Yoshi's Island on the other hand though is that its promotional video that I discovered on YouTube the other day sure is a thing.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Not a lot of time today, but I came a cross a video from WhatCulture on YT saying that Metal Gear Solid is going to be getting a remake on PS5 with the other games getting an "HD" remaster. They went on to talk about whether or not this will level the playing field with Microsoft buying Bethesda and other studios in terms of exclusives. Will be interested to see if they can maintain the integrity of MGS without Kojima's involvement.

[Raxivace]

I saw those rumors. I can't even begin to care about an MGS1 remake without Kojima.

MGS1 has already been remade once anyways as The Twin Snakes. Doesn't really feel necessary.

[Raxivace]

It would be like remaking Eva without Anno, really. I just don't think you can do better than emulating the creative eccentricities of the original with these kinds of cases, and even then the mere act of emulating them (Assuming they're understood to begin with) means it'll still likely feel like a pointless copy.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Not sure if I'd go as far as to say it's like remaking NGE without Anno. It's not like animation technology has evolved leaps and bounds in the last 20+ years like video games have. That video you posted about emulation actually got me thinking about this issue in general and why I don't feel like most video game remakes are quite the equivalent of film remakes, and I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that video games have had this strange evolution from technology so limited that the games were basically abstract (Atari, NES, SNES), to where they first started getting more realistic (PS, N64), to the modern generations that are incredibly realistic. That "middle evolution" of the PS/N64 (even PS2) era strikes me as being great for remakes because they're much closer to the ultra-realistic styles of modern games but tend to look awful by comparison. I also think it's possible to simply maintain most everything from the acting/story to the mechanics to even the cinematography/editing, but just do a complete visual overhaul. Now, whether or not they'll do that, something completely different, or maybe something in the middle like RE2 remains to be seen; but as long as they don't take too many liberties it could still easily be a great game.

[Raxivace]

It's not like animation technology has evolved leaps and bounds in the last 20+ years like video games have.

I dunno that this is necessarily true- it's not like traditional animation cels and multiplane cameras and such that were used on Evangelion are really a thing much in animation anymore. Its all on computers and digital animation now. Like I'm guessing that there's probably more in common in the technology used on Disney's Snow White and Evangelion than Evangelion and any modern animated series.

My complaint about the MGS1 thing was more of one from an auteurist perspective though anyways than one based in technology (Though it does relate), as Konami has actively gone out of their way to get rid of such figures in their company like Kojima or even Koji Igrashi. They seem more interested in pachislot these days than creating video games with any sense of style anymore, and when they actually tried to do their own MGS game recently in Metal Gear Survive it was not well received.

I also think it's possible to simply maintain most everything from the acting/story to the mechanics[...]but as long as they don't take too many liberties it could still easily be a great game.

Thing is, MGS1 was very much a product of its time, and a lot of what was cool about that game I'm not sure can even work in modern games. The Psycho-Mantis boss fight for example doesn't really translate into an era of wireless controllers, and honestly even the "puzzle" of finding Meryl's Codec number on "the CD case" is trickier in an era of digital sales becoming dominant (A problem I'm sure has come up with the ports of the PS1 version of MGS1). I have no idea how you would even sell the already silly Liquid/Miller twist with a more realistic style either and without the abstractions of PS1 models to hide it (To say nothing about how Peace Walker and MGSV reworked Miller's character in massive ways). From the outset some of MGS1's most iconic and infamous bits don't even make sense to directly recreate without massive liberties for the modern era.

People give Kojima flack for his long cutscenes and Codec scenes, but his core gameplay mechanics are often directly tied into that same story, and that's not a simple thing to recreate. Like you can't just do to MGS1 what Bluepoint did to Shadow of the Colossus and seem to be doing to Demon's Souls and have "The same game, but prettier". And even if you could it still wouldn't feel right to me without Kojima's involvement.

Recreating the spirit if not the original text of MGS1 in an actually worthwhile way is more defensible but just not a task I think modern Konami is up for, especially since Twin Snakes shows how easy that is to fuck up even when you had Kojima himself producing it.

[Raxivace]

That all being said there's no way this could be worse than the MGS1 novelization.

Yes, there's an MGS1 novelization. Yes, its horrible.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I don't think CG animation is really a direct improvement over traditional cel/multiplane animation, it's just a different style all together. It's not a direct comparison to how the bits and other various technologies available to game programmers have increased over time to aid in the rendering of more realistic character and world models. I don't disagree with you about Konami in general though. What's pachislot?

I also don't disagree with most of the points you make about MGS being a product of its time and how many of its unique/interesting ideas not working well (if at all) in the modern era. But I'd also suggest that many of these ideas were only small elements in the game, even though many of them add a lot to what made it innovative/interesting (like the Psycho Mantis controller thing). However, I think about the wealth of cutscenes and codec conversations that could be improved a lot with better technology. It's very hard going from playing modern games with their gorgeously rendered worlds and character models and then go back to something like MGS1 with its blocky, fuzzy characters and minimally detailed world. I even think games like Final Fantasy VII, which a lot of people complain about, aren't nearly as bad precisely because it is so cartoony and abstract, but a game like MGS wasn't meant to be that. It's meant to have realistic looking people in a realistic looking location, and the PS1 technology was fundamentally limited in its ability to do that.

You may be right that Konami isn't up to the task of recreating the spirit of the original MGS but I guess hope springs eternal as the saying goes. I do get the sense that most studios doing modern remakes of games know how passionate and persnickety gamers are about these titles and most (at least, so far) haven't been bold enough to release half-ass cash grabs by sloppily remaking beloved titles. Whether or not MGS will continue in that tradition remains to be seen I guess and I certainly hope it doesn't depart too much for the original. Maybe a remake with but with the spirit/goal of a remaster, I guess.

[Raxivace]

I don't think CG animation is really a direct improvement over traditional cel/multiplane animation, it's just a different style all together. It's not a direct comparison to how the bits and other various technologies available to game programmers have increased over time to aid in the rendering of more realistic character and world models.

I don't mean evolution in the sense that animation is better now, just that its very different in how its done.

I don't disagree with you about Konami in general though. What's pachislot?

Some type of Japanese slot machine. Basically, Konami makes way more money from throwing their IP on one of these bad boys than do from actually making video games.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... =emb_title[/youtube]

Hilariously, there was a Castlevania one of these they did as well that they proudly declared had themes of "erotic violence".

I even think games like Final Fantasy VII, which a lot of people complain about, aren't nearly as bad precisely because it is so cartoony and abstract, but a game like MGS wasn't meant to be that. It's meant to have realistic looking people in a realistic looking location, and the PS1 technology was fundamentally limited in its ability to do that.

Yeah I really just don't agree your POV that MGS1 is meant to be a completely realistic game (To say nothing about how stylized that Shinkawa's promotional art for MGS1 is). I think what they're going for is a sort of unreality where parts are realistic, other parts are involving a single man fighting tanks, a cowboy, a cyborg ninja, and literal giant robots explicitly based on anime, and other parts like the character models are in-between both of these, and all of this is played on somewhat abstract arcade-y game design (Similar to how the game mixes "real" history and conspiracy theory and fiction, maintaining the diegetic world at times while also bleeding out into the "real" world of the player etc.).

I'd even say this is part of the series' whole postmodern style that builds up to the climax of MGS2.

And tbh I don't think FF7 is that much more abstract than MGS1 in its aesthetic. Like Cloud's world map model is silly and "chibi", but his battle model doesn't seem THAT different in style than MGS1 to me. Like yeah Cloud has spiky anime hair but even in FF7 that's considered a somewhat unusual feature of him, and FF7 Remake gives him more of a FFXV-esque look anyways.

You may be right that Konami isn't up to the task of recreating the spirit of the original MGS but I guess hope springs eternal as the saying goes. I do get the sense that most studios doing modern remakes of games know how passionate and persnickety gamers are about these titles and most (at least, so far) haven't been bold enough to release half-ass cash grabs by sloppily remaking beloved titles. Whether or not MGS will continue in that tradition remains to be seen I guess and I certainly hope it doesn't depart too much for the original. Maybe a remake with but with the spirit/goal of a remaster, I guess.

Resident Evil 3 says hello.

This conversation makes me realize I need to finish FF7 Remake too, because its goal doesn't seem to have been to replace the PS1 game but insure it stays alive in a way, since its more some kind of pseudo-sequel thing.

Maybe one day the Tsukihime Remake will come out too and will do something interesting and relevant to this conversation. Its only been 12 years since it was announced, its coming any day now.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I don't think CG animation is really a direct improvement over traditional cel/multiplane animation, it's just a different style all together. It's not a direct comparison to how the bits and other various technologies available to game programmers have increased over time to aid in the rendering of more realistic character and world models.

I don't mean evolution in the sense that animation is better now, just that its very different in how its done.

I was talking about the former. With video games more bits have allowed designers/programmers to simply do more rather than being forced into abstraction because of the technological limitations of the earlier systems. There may be some equivalents in film and animation, but often it's just different things entirely like with CGI VS cels.

I don't disagree with you about Konami in general though. What's pachislot?

Some type of Japanese slot machine. Basically, Konami makes way more money from throwing their IP on one of these bad boys than do from actually making video games.

Hilariously, there was a Castlevania one of these they did as well that they proudly declared had themes of "erotic violence".

Makes sense. I thought it might have something to do with pachinko. I want to see this "erotic violence" in a slot machine game!

I even think games like Final Fantasy VII, which a lot of people complain about, aren't nearly as bad precisely because it is so cartoony and abstract, but a game like MGS wasn't meant to be that. It's meant to have realistic looking people in a realistic looking location, and the PS1 technology was fundamentally limited in its ability to do that.

Yeah I really just don't agree your POV that MGS1 is meant to be a completely realistic game (To say nothing about how stylized that Shinkawa's promotional art for MGS1 is). I think what they're going for is a sort of unreality where parts are realistic, other parts are involving a single man fighting tanks, a cowboy, a cyborg ninja, and literal giant robots explicitly based on anime, and other parts like the character models are in-between both of these, and all of this is played on somewhat abstract arcade-y game design (Similar to how the game mixes "real" history and conspiracy theory and fiction, maintaining the diegetic world at times while also bleeding out into the "real" world of the player etc.).

I'd even say this is part of the series' whole postmodern style that builds up to the climax of MGS2.

And tbh I don't think FF7 is that much more abstract than MGS1 in its aesthetic. Like Cloud's world map model is silly and "chibi", but his battle model doesn't seem THAT different in style than MGS1 to me. Like yeah Cloud has spiky anime hair but even in FF7 that's considered a somewhat unusual feature of him, and FF7 Remake gives him more of a FFXV-esque look anyways.

Obviously there's lots of elements in MGS1 that aren't realistic, but in terms of the general world and character designs I think it was. I certainly see a big difference between this: https://www.unilad.co.uk/wp-content/upl ... Meryl8.jpg and this: https://rpgsquare.files.wordpress.com/2 ... titude.jpg I'm not sure what to say. I also don't see a huge difference between FF7's battle models: https://jegged.com/img/Games/Final-Fant ... Battle.png Maybe slightly less cartoony than the world/map models, but not hugely so, and still a long ways away from MGS's style.

You may be right that Konami isn't up to the task of recreating the spirit of the original MGS but I guess hope springs eternal as the saying goes. I do get the sense that most studios doing modern remakes of games know how passionate and persnickety gamers are about these titles and most (at least, so far) haven't been bold enough to release half-ass cash grabs by sloppily remaking beloved titles. Whether or not MGS will continue in that tradition remains to be seen I guess and I certainly hope it doesn't depart too much for the original. Maybe a remake with but with the spirit/goal of a remaster, I guess.

Resident Evil 3 says hello.

Hmmm, well now I'm interested to play it and see what I think. I'm surprised to hear they half-assed it after giving RE1 and RE2 the primo treatment.

Anyway, I did start Cuphead the other day. Definitely digging the aesthetics and the gameplay is, for the most part, straight-up old-school Contra, just with an entirely different aesthetic design philosophy. It's definitely a game that's earned its reputation for being hard af, but I wouldn't say that there was anything that felt unfair or that made me frustrated after completing its first world. Probably the two hardest levels for me were the frog bosses (I really had trouble with that last "slot machine" form as platforming/gunning was really hard to time right), and Treetop Trouble. Really fun game so far though and I'm loving the variety of the levels. More than the game itself I think what's even more challenging is constantly holding my thumb on the fire button while running around. I forgot how carpel-tunnel-inducing some of these old games were! As is this is probably a game I'm going to struggle with playing for long periods, but that's OK as I've been pretty busy recently anyway, especially with football starting back up.

[Raxivace]

I was talking about the former. With video games more bits have allowed designers/programmers to simply do more rather than being forced into abstraction because of the technological limitations of the earlier systems. There may be some equivalents in film and animation, but often it's just different things entirely like with CGI VS cels.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "more" in video games. Games are certainly larger in their file sizes these days and take longer to complete, but its also easy to find people arguing that games are no longer released complete "like in the old days" in an era of DLC and patches and such. I tend to think a lot of games feel bloated these days myself.

Of course I think there are bad things about "the old days" those people are choosing to ignore too.

Makes sense. I thought it might have something to do with pachinko. I want to see this "erotic violence" in a slot machine game!

I don't even remember what they were referring to with that anymore, but the phrase has stuck with me.

Obviously there's lots of elements in MGS1 that aren't realistic, but in terms of the general world and character designs I think it was. I certainly see a big difference between this: https://www.unilad.co.uk/wp-content/upl ... Meryl8.jpg and this: https://rpgsquare.files.wordpress.com/2 ... titude.jpg

Well obv. I'm not referring to chibi world map models of FF7 there- I said as much in the post you're quoting. Though I could easily imagine the train or anywhere else in Midgar really easily being the setting in the Metal Gear universe- its even already pretty close to the Blade Runner-esque setting of Snatcher which is explicitly imagined as a sequel to the earlier Metal Gear games on the MSX.

I'm not sure what to say. I also don't see a huge difference between FF7's battle models: https://jegged.com/img/Games/Final-Fant ... Battle.png Maybe slightly less cartoony than the world/map models, but not hugely so, and still a long ways away from MGS's style.

I'd think having human relatively human proportions is a pretty big difference from the chibi style...

If you ask me, the only real difference between battle models of FF7 and MGS1 is that MGS1 is obviously a later title and benefits from technological advances. Had FF7 come out a few years later, it would look closer to FF8 in terms of the quality of its graphics (Which was really only continuing aesthetic trends for the franchise that FF7 started anyways, to the point that one of advertising points for FF16 is moving a bit away from that).

Like when I think cartoony games on the PS1, stuff actually trying to emulate cartoons like like Spyro or Crash Bandicoot are what come to mind, and not really FF7.

Hmmm, well now I'm interested to play it and see what I think. I'm surprised to hear they half-assed it after giving RE1 and RE2 the primo treatment.

While both of those games change things about the originals I think they at least get to the spirit of the originals very strongly. RE3 OTOH fucks up Nemesis and is just a very linear action game in general. There's few times where you're actually making any kind of decision about what to do or what route to take somewhere or whatever.

Since beating RE3 I found out that it was made by a lot of former Platinum Games staff, and that explained a lot about RE3 to me because like all of their games are designed in a similar way, as they're linear character action games (Basically descendants of Devil May Cry if you need an older example). That maybe works for those kinds of games but not really for survival horror titles. Even the "action" RE games like RE4 at least gave you a variety of weapons to upgrade and such.

Anyway, I did start Cuphead the other day. Definitely digging the aesthetics and the gameplay is, for the most part, straight-up old-school Contra, just with an entirely different aesthetic design philosophy. It's definitely a game that's earned its reputation for being hard af, but I wouldn't say that there was anything that felt unfair or that made me frustrated after completing its first world. Probably the two hardest levels for me were the frog bosses (I really had trouble with that last "slot machine" form as platforming/gunning was really hard to time right), and Treetop Trouble. Really fun game so far though and I'm loving the variety of the levels. More than the game itself I think what's even more challenging is constantly holding my thumb on the fire button while running around. I forgot how carpel-tunnel-inducing some of these old games were! As is this is probably a game I'm going to struggle with playing for long periods, but that's OK as I've been pretty busy recently anyway, especially with football starting back up.

Ah yes Cuphead, I really loved its aesthetic too which of course really reminded me of noted cartoon game Final Fantasy 7.

For real though, I never played much Contra but Cuphead was pretty hard for me. I think the bosses are probably generally fair despite being hard, though honestly the platforming levels I don't think are nearly as tightly designed as the bosses are. I also thought King Dice bordered on being unfair, but no one else here seemed to have as much trouble with him as I did.

I do kind of wish there was an option to just never stop firing. I agree that holding the button down just gets old after a while.

[Raxivace]

Oh yeah one other thing about Cuphead is that it had maybe the best musical score in gaming for 2017. I really dug what it had going on there.

[Gendo]

Oh yeah one other thing about Cuphead is that it had maybe the best musical score in gaming for 2017. I really dug what it had going on there.

Had to check the release years of Undertale and Celeste to see if I could counter you, but they're 2015 and 2018 respectively.

As much as I remember liking the music of Cuphead while playing it, I don't remember any specific tracks from it, and haven't ever found myself going back to it just as something to listen to. Whereas I listed to the Undertale and Celeste soundtracks all the time.

[Raxivace]

^What happened to Super Mario Bros. 5 through 34?

Super Mario Bros. 35 (2020) - Similar to Tetris 99, this is SMB1 converted into a battle royale game. You and 34 other players platform through classic SMB1 levels, each on your own screen. As you kill enemies, they get to sent to the screen of whoever you are "Attacking". Likewise, their own enemies are being sent to you. Last Mario standing wins.

Its a simple riff on SMB1, but man is it addictive. I only finally just won a match myself a few minutes ago, but man getting Bowsers and Bloopers and such thrown at you in 1-2 sometimes makes it feel more like The Lost Levels (Well the actual stages are still SMB1 at least so its not that bad). Also, to help compensate for the amount of enemies screwing with your muscle memories of SMB1, you can spend coins you pick up on a sort of item randomizer which will give you either a Mushroom, Fireflower, Star, or POW Block (Kind of strange to have the last one in SMB1 but oh well). You also have larger, separate coin bank to take a Mushroom, Fireflower, or Star into a round with- I always picked the Fireflower since despite costing 50 coins and being the most expensive, its still the most useful for the amount of enemies coming at you (And picking up additional Fireflowers in the stage then means you easily and often get an additional 15 seconds added to your timer) and even with losing a lot of matches I still had around 2000 coins in this larger bank.

There's still not a whole lot to say about this game really, and sometimes the level cycling can be weird (On the match I won, I must have played 1-1 six or seven times), but still its just super fun to pick up and play.

[Gendo]

I both want to play this and don't want to. I've been having some fun watching various streamers play it. I just have so many things I want to play, along with so many movies I want to watch; some things must be sacrificed.

[Raxivace]

With SMB35, the game is only available for a limited time so not playing it really is a sacrifice.

[Raxivace]

Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) - I finally got around to beating this. Overall its a really solid reinterpretation of the Midgar portion of Disc 1 of FF7 into an action RPG. A very very expanded portion. I spent about 40 hours on Remake overall without yet starting the post-game stuff, while the equivalent sections in the original game took me maybe 10 hours the first time through. On my recent replay of the OG game with the in-game cheats and such, it took me like 4 hours to get out of Midgar.

There are really only two complains I have about the gameplay. One is that during boss fights, sometimes bosses will go into an animated sequence when they lose a certain arbitrary amount of HP, so it can sometimes feel like you've wasted MP or a Limit Break or whatever when you pass these limits before you intend to. The other thing is that I never liked the motorcycle segments and would honestly put the ones in the original game over them- sure they were easier than than in Remake, but in Remake they're just too involved for me and it sucks to have "fights" where you arbitrarily can't heal at all.

Overall though the combat system is fun system I liked playing as Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and Barret. They all play uniquely without being too difficult to pick up, which is important because you're encouraged to constantly be switching between characters in FF7 Remake.

This leaves the story. In general I really like what they did here, particularly in how even nameless NPC's from the original game get expanded roles here and become actual characters, to playing up the moral ambiguity of Avalanche's eco-terrorism and how not even everyone they claim to be fighting for in the slums would be necessarily supportive of them, to honestly even the explicit changes in the narrative. This seems to have been the most contentious change among fans, but I think its really opened up the later games to be true to the spirit of the original FF7 if not the original text. I honestly can't say I know what's coming now in the upcoming followups to FF7 Remake now that all bets are off, but its exciting. Its possible they could fuck it up, but I'm optimistic for the future even if I'm worried my faves could now die in this version of the story. "Terrifying freedom" indeed.


^Even the final line of the damn game where Aerith talks about missing fucking Midgar of all shithole cities feels pretty ominous. Sure, there are characters that are now alive in Remake that died in the original but I would not expect the good times to last forever, especially with the tone of the actual ending scenes.

[Gendo]

Pretty sure FFVII (original) will be the next game I play on Switch. Only played the very beginning before.

[Raxivace]

Lol Sephiroth is coming to Smash Brothers.

This owns so hard.

[Raxivace]

[Raxivace]

Like its honestly absurd to me that a single game can allow you to play as

-Mario
-Banjo-Kazooie
-Sonic the Hedgehog
-Solid Snake
-Ryu
-Ken
-Like three different versions of Link
-Samus
-Mega Man
-Pac-Man
-Simon Belmont
-Cloud

And now Sephiroth of all characters.

[Gendo]

Needs more Earthworm Jim.