1
Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)
« on: March 02, 2021, 05:59:40 PM »
Byblos at 4 makes me think this is disregarding availability.
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2
Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)
« on: March 02, 2021, 02:04:34 PM »
Just to doublecheck, when is the earliest you can get a Materia Blade? And are these rankings factoring in the availability of that, or does it assume one is hacked in along with the Soldier class itself?
3
Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)
« on: December 22, 2020, 12:09:04 AM »
One idea to nerf Priest's rankings would be to just use the first set of generics that the game generates for you, instead of rerolling for optimum brave/faith/zodiac compatibility. That would be a cross the board nerf for spells, but especially for healing/buffing ones, like most of White Magic.
As a general matter I think your general assumptions (PSX NA version, generics only, full mechanics knowledge and high faith wherever applicible) is inevitably going to skew heavily towards the mage classes because they have far and away the best skillsets for anyone who understands how all the game mechanics works - magic feels like it was balanced around the obtuseness of Faith and charge times, both things that I've seen a lot of FFT novices struggle with. Moreover class mixing helps a lot to cover for the weaknesses of individual mage classes, so they all wind up ranking better than on, say, a pure SCC difficulty list.
Most of the special characters only join in chapter 4 so they'd be hard to work into these analyses even if you wanted to, but I would imagine factoring in Agrias would benefit a bunch of the physical classes, especially since Holy Knight is a kinda underwhelming class statistically so she probably wants to spend most of the game in various carrier classes.
As a general matter I think your general assumptions (PSX NA version, generics only, full mechanics knowledge and high faith wherever applicible) is inevitably going to skew heavily towards the mage classes because they have far and away the best skillsets for anyone who understands how all the game mechanics works - magic feels like it was balanced around the obtuseness of Faith and charge times, both things that I've seen a lot of FFT novices struggle with. Moreover class mixing helps a lot to cover for the weaknesses of individual mage classes, so they all wind up ranking better than on, say, a pure SCC difficulty list.
Most of the special characters only join in chapter 4 so they'd be hard to work into these analyses even if you wanted to, but I would imagine factoring in Agrias would benefit a bunch of the physical classes, especially since Holy Knight is a kinda underwhelming class statistically so she probably wants to spend most of the game in various carrier classes.
4
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2020 Season 2, Week 3
« on: November 20, 2020, 12:45:03 AM »
Messam Elmdore (Final Fantasy Tactics) vs Clarine (Fire Emblem: Sealed Sword)
Clarine's best case scenario is that you give her a C rank in Anima and you don't penalize her level for crappy staff exp, in which case she does 12/45.4=26.2% damage. Her worst case scenario is that you limit her anima rank to D and keep her level at 20/15 instead of 20/20 that strict equal exp would give her, in which case she does 9/45.5=19.8% damage.
Elmdor is pretty clearly above average speed (he's dead average to endgame PC but is fought before endgame, and especially before Thief Hats as Snowfire noted) and pretty easily 2HKOs her with ITD/ITE/AoE damage by pretty much any scaling. I don't remember MC's formula for converting speed from other games to FE right now, but I'll tentatively assume she doubles, since this is completely one-sided otherwise.
My respect for Elmdor's HP is probably lower than everyone except maybe Dhyer (somewhere between 0.5 and 0.6), but I also hold GBAFEs to a higher kill threshold due to how universal counters are, so she doesn't 2HKO even though I... probably give her the full 12 damage here.
Hubert von Vestra (Fire Emblem: Three Houses) vs Rude (Final Fantasy VII)
My memories of Rude's boss fights is pretty much blank so I'm going by the stat topic for him. Looking at that...Rude 1 is terrible, Rude 2 is optional and permanently missable (even though Gelnika itself isn't), Rude 3 has rubbish HP and hits the wrong defense, Rude 4 is optional and you only need to KO one Turk to finish the battle even if you want to steal from them, so I'm definately not taking it seriously in the DL.
So, let's look at Rude 3. Triplecast Spark is a 2HKO on average HP based on Meeple's numbers, but a high res Fire Emblem mage is a hilariously bad target to use multiple weak magic hits against. His physical is a 5HKO and his HP is comedically low.
Clarine's best case scenario is that you give her a C rank in Anima and you don't penalize her level for crappy staff exp, in which case she does 12/45.4=26.2% damage. Her worst case scenario is that you limit her anima rank to D and keep her level at 20/15 instead of 20/20 that strict equal exp would give her, in which case she does 9/45.5=19.8% damage.
Elmdor is pretty clearly above average speed (he's dead average to endgame PC but is fought before endgame, and especially before Thief Hats as Snowfire noted) and pretty easily 2HKOs her with ITD/ITE/AoE damage by pretty much any scaling. I don't remember MC's formula for converting speed from other games to FE right now, but I'll tentatively assume she doubles, since this is completely one-sided otherwise.
My respect for Elmdor's HP is probably lower than everyone except maybe Dhyer (somewhere between 0.5 and 0.6), but I also hold GBAFEs to a higher kill threshold due to how universal counters are, so she doesn't 2HKO even though I... probably give her the full 12 damage here.
Hubert von Vestra (Fire Emblem: Three Houses) vs Rude (Final Fantasy VII)
My memories of Rude's boss fights is pretty much blank so I'm going by the stat topic for him. Looking at that...Rude 1 is terrible, Rude 2 is optional and permanently missable (even though Gelnika itself isn't), Rude 3 has rubbish HP and hits the wrong defense, Rude 4 is optional and you only need to KO one Turk to finish the battle even if you want to steal from them, so I'm definately not taking it seriously in the DL.
So, let's look at Rude 3. Triplecast Spark is a 2HKO on average HP based on Meeple's numbers, but a high res Fire Emblem mage is a hilariously bad target to use multiple weak magic hits against. His physical is a 5HKO and his HP is comedically low.
5
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2020 Season 2, Week 1
« on: November 02, 2020, 05:20:27 PM »
I just checked the stat topic, and OK claimed that Kafuddle was ~45% accurate MT.
I haven't played DQ8 yet myself, but based on past experiences with DQ games, but that sounds fairly plausible to me.
I haven't played DQ8 yet myself, but based on past experiences with DQ games, but that sounds fairly plausible to me.
6
General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2020: The true last year of the current decade
« on: June 08, 2020, 02:22:48 AM »
Ocarina of Time 3D beaten. I got most of the items in the game, but not all; Biggoron's Sword, Ice Arrows, the fourth bottle, and Gold Skulltulas past ~54, most notably. Some very belated thoughts on this very historically important game:
-The game's pace is honestly pretty brisk if you know exactly where to go at all times, but it grinds to a halt if you ever decide to explore every nook and cranny of the game, either out of a desire to be thorough or just because you're lost and don't know where to go. I personally wound up using a guide for most of the game past the Great Deku Tree as a result, as I prioritized not wasting my time over the satisfaction of solving every single bit of the game on my own.
This isn't through any major design flaw of the game, mind you; it's just an inevitability when dealing with large maps without extremely powerful movement options. I do think Nintendo has been extremely conscious of this when designing 3D Zelda games, hence the constant use of assistant characters who can give you tips, and quite possibly the increased linearity of Zelda games up through Skyward Sword (though increased plot complexity is just as responsible for the latter, if not moreso).
-That said, Kokiri Forest deserves a lot of credit for being a carefully designed location to let players naturally learn how to control Link and use his various moves naturally, rather than making you go through a scripted tutorial. It follows in the footsteps of Peach's Castle from Mario 64 in this way. Deku Tree also deserves mention for its emphasis on verticality in both progression and puzzle solving, in a way that 2D games could not achieve. I could be wrong here, but this feels like an area where Shigeru Miyamoto put a lot of personal emphasis on designing. Meanwhile, later Zelda games where he took a backseat would go on to make their forced tutorials longer and longer, until BotW did a 180 in series direction.
-Compared to 2D iterations of Zelda, I thought that OoT's controls suffered from a lack of precision around the margins. The biggest offender was the context-sensitive A button, which frankly was overloaded on the amount of things it had to do, which lead to the occasional frustrating ambiguity. Pushing blocks vs climbing on them was a problem that came up throughout the game, while dismounting Epona vs speeding up vs (rarely) talking to an NPC took the longest time to resolve. This was never a major issue per se, and by 1998 standards I imagine the game's controls were amazing, but compared to something like ALTTP the relative imprecision is pretty noticable. The N64 just didn't have enough buttons to do everything Nintendo EAD needed players to do without making the occasional compromise.
-Enemy density is way lower than games like Zelda 1 or ALTTP, possibly due to N64 hardware limitations, and the Z-targetting (well, L-targetting on 3DS) system makes most enemies ignore you when locked on, so crowd control is almost never an issue. This meant that humanoid enemies that can block/parry your attacks (i.e. Stalfos, Lizalfos, Gerudo Guards, etc.) were just about the only things that really made me think about combat outside of bosses and mini-bosses. There's no random enemy that is as dangerous as a Lynel or Wizzrobe or Hinox, either, so as soon as I got a few bottles the game's difficulty largely flatlined. Iron Knuckles, a mini-boss, were just about the only enemies that hit hard enough to make me learn to dodge their attack patterns, but they are so slow that by the end of the game I beat the last two without taking a single hit.
-Having beaten every Zelda game prior to OoT expect for Zelda 2, I can definitively say that this is when the series really focused on making the majority of bosses into what are essentially puzzles, rather than just the occasional Arrghus here or there. Just about every boss here is designed around using the dungeon item to stun/expose them, then hit with a sword. This honestly makes sense when you remember that OoT lacks stuff like a dedicated jump or dodgeroll button that are staples on most 3D third person action games, in favor of assigning a bunch to the usual Zelda items. This leaves less options for the designers to create a good pure combat boss, so emphasizing the gimmicks does make sense on paper. This does wind up leaving a player's opinion of bosses completely dependent on how well you felt the gimmick was implemented, though.
-The most interesting puzzles, IMO, were the ones that implemented verticality in some way. The least interesting were the ones where you pushed blocks on a flat surface; they felt like slower, less interesting versions of stuff I've done a million times in 2D Zelda and Pokemon games.
-I feel like scope and spectacle are a big part of OoT's appeal to the masses, not to mention 3D Zelda in general (and arguably the entire third person action/action-adventure/action-hybrid-something genre). Oh, and immersion (something that many 'hardcore' gamers are obsessed with, in my experience), though that suffered from playing on an old 3DS where the stereoscopic 3D doesn't work properly anymore. A good example of this would be the castle collapse sequence near the end, which is trivially easy and has a timer that's practically irrelevant, but the whole sequence looks and feels cool, like you're in an interactive cutscene. The game is full of moments like this, like when you first step out onto Hyrule Field and see how large it is, or even the opening scene where Navi flies around Kokiri Forest in first person view, giving the player a good view of the game's 3D environments. I suspect that moments like these blew a lot of people's minds when they first experienced it as a kid, who would go on proclaim OoT as the greatest game of all time on various parts of the internet for the past two decades.
On balance, I'd say that OoT 3D is a good game in a genre that just... isn't one of my personal favorites. As someone who mainly grew up on 16-bit era games, I prefer the brisk pacing and tighter controls of 2D Zelda games over the grander spectacles and increased immersion of 3D Zeldas. It was still well worth the bargain basement price I paid for it, but I feel even more justified in my lack of interest in the 3D branch of the series now.
-The game's pace is honestly pretty brisk if you know exactly where to go at all times, but it grinds to a halt if you ever decide to explore every nook and cranny of the game, either out of a desire to be thorough or just because you're lost and don't know where to go. I personally wound up using a guide for most of the game past the Great Deku Tree as a result, as I prioritized not wasting my time over the satisfaction of solving every single bit of the game on my own.
This isn't through any major design flaw of the game, mind you; it's just an inevitability when dealing with large maps without extremely powerful movement options. I do think Nintendo has been extremely conscious of this when designing 3D Zelda games, hence the constant use of assistant characters who can give you tips, and quite possibly the increased linearity of Zelda games up through Skyward Sword (though increased plot complexity is just as responsible for the latter, if not moreso).
-That said, Kokiri Forest deserves a lot of credit for being a carefully designed location to let players naturally learn how to control Link and use his various moves naturally, rather than making you go through a scripted tutorial. It follows in the footsteps of Peach's Castle from Mario 64 in this way. Deku Tree also deserves mention for its emphasis on verticality in both progression and puzzle solving, in a way that 2D games could not achieve. I could be wrong here, but this feels like an area where Shigeru Miyamoto put a lot of personal emphasis on designing. Meanwhile, later Zelda games where he took a backseat would go on to make their forced tutorials longer and longer, until BotW did a 180 in series direction.
-Compared to 2D iterations of Zelda, I thought that OoT's controls suffered from a lack of precision around the margins. The biggest offender was the context-sensitive A button, which frankly was overloaded on the amount of things it had to do, which lead to the occasional frustrating ambiguity. Pushing blocks vs climbing on them was a problem that came up throughout the game, while dismounting Epona vs speeding up vs (rarely) talking to an NPC took the longest time to resolve. This was never a major issue per se, and by 1998 standards I imagine the game's controls were amazing, but compared to something like ALTTP the relative imprecision is pretty noticable. The N64 just didn't have enough buttons to do everything Nintendo EAD needed players to do without making the occasional compromise.
-Enemy density is way lower than games like Zelda 1 or ALTTP, possibly due to N64 hardware limitations, and the Z-targetting (well, L-targetting on 3DS) system makes most enemies ignore you when locked on, so crowd control is almost never an issue. This meant that humanoid enemies that can block/parry your attacks (i.e. Stalfos, Lizalfos, Gerudo Guards, etc.) were just about the only things that really made me think about combat outside of bosses and mini-bosses. There's no random enemy that is as dangerous as a Lynel or Wizzrobe or Hinox, either, so as soon as I got a few bottles the game's difficulty largely flatlined. Iron Knuckles, a mini-boss, were just about the only enemies that hit hard enough to make me learn to dodge their attack patterns, but they are so slow that by the end of the game I beat the last two without taking a single hit.
-Having beaten every Zelda game prior to OoT expect for Zelda 2, I can definitively say that this is when the series really focused on making the majority of bosses into what are essentially puzzles, rather than just the occasional Arrghus here or there. Just about every boss here is designed around using the dungeon item to stun/expose them, then hit with a sword. This honestly makes sense when you remember that OoT lacks stuff like a dedicated jump or dodgeroll button that are staples on most 3D third person action games, in favor of assigning a bunch to the usual Zelda items. This leaves less options for the designers to create a good pure combat boss, so emphasizing the gimmicks does make sense on paper. This does wind up leaving a player's opinion of bosses completely dependent on how well you felt the gimmick was implemented, though.
-The most interesting puzzles, IMO, were the ones that implemented verticality in some way. The least interesting were the ones where you pushed blocks on a flat surface; they felt like slower, less interesting versions of stuff I've done a million times in 2D Zelda and Pokemon games.
-I feel like scope and spectacle are a big part of OoT's appeal to the masses, not to mention 3D Zelda in general (and arguably the entire third person action/action-adventure/action-hybrid-something genre). Oh, and immersion (something that many 'hardcore' gamers are obsessed with, in my experience), though that suffered from playing on an old 3DS where the stereoscopic 3D doesn't work properly anymore. A good example of this would be the castle collapse sequence near the end, which is trivially easy and has a timer that's practically irrelevant, but the whole sequence looks and feels cool, like you're in an interactive cutscene. The game is full of moments like this, like when you first step out onto Hyrule Field and see how large it is, or even the opening scene where Navi flies around Kokiri Forest in first person view, giving the player a good view of the game's 3D environments. I suspect that moments like these blew a lot of people's minds when they first experienced it as a kid, who would go on proclaim OoT as the greatest game of all time on various parts of the internet for the past two decades.
On balance, I'd say that OoT 3D is a good game in a genre that just... isn't one of my personal favorites. As someone who mainly grew up on 16-bit era games, I prefer the brisk pacing and tighter controls of 2D Zelda games over the grander spectacles and increased immersion of 3D Zeldas. It was still well worth the bargain basement price I paid for it, but I feel even more justified in my lack of interest in the 3D branch of the series now.
7
General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2020: The true last year of the current decade
« on: May 13, 2020, 01:08:35 AM »
Zelda 1: So after stumbling upon level 8, I decided to go left and see how far I could go blind. I managed to get the book, but took enough damage in the process to convince me not to go any further. At that point I decided to go look up maps online, and just blitz through until I got back to level 9 with a full inventory. I realize that by doing so I was kinda missing the point of Zelda 1 for a lot of people, but I wanted to get to level 9 while my interest was still strong. I remembered enough of the game between my vague childhood memories and some speedruns I've watched recently to have a truly blind experience, anyhow.
Once I beat the initial eight dungeons, I bought a fresh potion, went to the entrance of the final dungeon (which I still remembered clearly, it's a pretty memorable location), and attempted to go as far as I could while playing blind. I used NSO's rewind if a bomb didn't reveal a hidden path since the bomb count is so low, but otherwise avoided save states or rewind within the dungeon. My general strategy was to go down any stairs that I came across since I needed the Silver Arrows and wanted the Red Ring if possible, and otherwise avoid any unnecessary combat. I managed to get the Silver Arrows along the way, but didn't find the Red Ring. Eventually I stumbled upon the Patra room that I knew from watching speedruns was right before Ganon with ~5 hearts left and no more potion uses remaining. I did not expect to beat Ganon blind since I didn't even know his pattern at the time, so I saved and quitted from the dungeon, to buy another red potion before coming back.
Some thoughts on Level 9, as well as Zelda 1 in general:
- Level 9 is seriously huge compared to previous dungeons, no wonder I got stuck as a kid in the pre-internet age. The huge quantity of non-item stairs complicated navigation a lot, as well. If I were taking this more seriously I would've resorted to hand-drawing my own map, just to mark down all the stair connections since you don't see those on the in-game map.
- IMO the low bomb count (8, upgradable to 16) works well for combat purposes, but was low for finding hidden passageways. Not being to spam bombs freely makes Darknut rooms a lot more challenging and also kept midboss Dodongo encounters from being total fodder, the limits felt like they really made sense there. On the other hand, every bomb that you waste trying to find a secret passage but failing is really painful, especially in a large dungeon like level 9, hence the limited rewind use. The larger bomb counts of newer Zelda games would've made up for the lack of wall indicators in dungeons, since you know hidden paths can only be in the very center of a wall if they exist, but as it is you do wind up feeling that absence.
- Ganon's pattern is kinda neat once you understand it, but if you don't the fight winds up being kinda dumb and frustrating.
- In general, I think the greatest strength of Zelda 1 is the brisk pacing. The game goes by really quickly in segments where you know what you're doing, and even when you're stumped it doesn't take long to wander around trying stuff out. Neither the combat mechanics or the game's primitive puzzles are all that interesting in a vacuum, but moving quickly from room to room felt quite satisfying, while even wandering around blindly didn't feel tedious since I never got *completely* stumped at point in time. It helps that while the game can be admittedly obtuse at times, the actually mechanical difficulty never gets painful the way it does in many NES games, while still retaining enough challenge to feel engaging.
A lot has been said and written about how later Zelda games have gotten progressively more linear and guided up (up until the radical course change of ALBW and BOTW), but I suspect the reason Nintendo went in that direction is because they realized that the games were getting slower to navigate, especially after the jump to 3D. It's a lot more reasonable to expect a player to explore every nook and cranny of an overworld when you can go from one end of the map to the other in a few minutes without a fast travel mechanic.
Super Mario Maker 2
While I'm at it, I might as well write something about the game that spiked my interest in Zelda for the first time since ALBW's release back in 2014. I've played SMM2 on and off since it was released last year, but most of my favorite levels have been utilizing the Master Sword power-up added last December.
For self-explanatory reasons, Mario Maker will never have the extensive one-off stage features that Nintendo utilizes to keep things fresh in regular Mario games. The unfortunately consequence of this, though, is that it can make the easier levels really forgettable if they don't have some sort of theme or really clever design to them. Easy difficulty Endless mode in particular got tedious pretty quickly. That largely left puzzle levels, gimmicky levels, and high difficulty levels. The former two are hit-or-miss for me, and while I do enjoy the occasional challenge level so long as it doesn't hit Kaizo level, my hands start hurting after playing one of those for a while, which forces me to take a break. The various speedrun levels that clog up popular can be fun in moderate doses, but too many of them gets repetitive, plus they obviously don't amount to long play times.
The Master Sword mixed things up by encouraging level creators to make exploration heavy levels in Zelda-esque manner, which I wound up really enjoying. Link's moveset adds a ton of options for interacting with on/off switches, pow blocks, p switches, etc., while also making combat more engaging than the usual Mario level. The net result is a lot of lengthy, moderate difficulty levels that can keep me engaged without causing hand pains while offering an experience that obviously can't be obtained from any commercial Mario game. Or Zelda game, for that matter, although I now wish Nintendo would make a Zelda platformer that played like this. Incidentally, I also tried out Zelda 2 on Switch, but lost interest in it pretty quickly - its combat mechanics are much less interesting to me than SMM2 Link's.
(It has also resulted in some kaizo levels that are mind blowing to watch when a top-level player manages to complete them, like this one by CarlSagan42, not that I'm crazy enough to ever attempt those myself.).
I briefly considered replaying ALTTP or ALBW or Cadence of Hyrule to follow-up on Zelda 1, but then I spotted OoT 3D going for really cheap on ebay and order it on a whim. Stay turned in a few weeks for my incredibly belated opinions on Zelda's jump to 3D, assuming I don't have to resort to ebay's money-back program.
Once I beat the initial eight dungeons, I bought a fresh potion, went to the entrance of the final dungeon (which I still remembered clearly, it's a pretty memorable location), and attempted to go as far as I could while playing blind. I used NSO's rewind if a bomb didn't reveal a hidden path since the bomb count is so low, but otherwise avoided save states or rewind within the dungeon. My general strategy was to go down any stairs that I came across since I needed the Silver Arrows and wanted the Red Ring if possible, and otherwise avoid any unnecessary combat. I managed to get the Silver Arrows along the way, but didn't find the Red Ring. Eventually I stumbled upon the Patra room that I knew from watching speedruns was right before Ganon with ~5 hearts left and no more potion uses remaining. I did not expect to beat Ganon blind since I didn't even know his pattern at the time, so I saved and quitted from the dungeon, to buy another red potion before coming back.
Some thoughts on Level 9, as well as Zelda 1 in general:
- Level 9 is seriously huge compared to previous dungeons, no wonder I got stuck as a kid in the pre-internet age. The huge quantity of non-item stairs complicated navigation a lot, as well. If I were taking this more seriously I would've resorted to hand-drawing my own map, just to mark down all the stair connections since you don't see those on the in-game map.
- IMO the low bomb count (8, upgradable to 16) works well for combat purposes, but was low for finding hidden passageways. Not being to spam bombs freely makes Darknut rooms a lot more challenging and also kept midboss Dodongo encounters from being total fodder, the limits felt like they really made sense there. On the other hand, every bomb that you waste trying to find a secret passage but failing is really painful, especially in a large dungeon like level 9, hence the limited rewind use. The larger bomb counts of newer Zelda games would've made up for the lack of wall indicators in dungeons, since you know hidden paths can only be in the very center of a wall if they exist, but as it is you do wind up feeling that absence.
- Ganon's pattern is kinda neat once you understand it, but if you don't the fight winds up being kinda dumb and frustrating.
- In general, I think the greatest strength of Zelda 1 is the brisk pacing. The game goes by really quickly in segments where you know what you're doing, and even when you're stumped it doesn't take long to wander around trying stuff out. Neither the combat mechanics or the game's primitive puzzles are all that interesting in a vacuum, but moving quickly from room to room felt quite satisfying, while even wandering around blindly didn't feel tedious since I never got *completely* stumped at point in time. It helps that while the game can be admittedly obtuse at times, the actually mechanical difficulty never gets painful the way it does in many NES games, while still retaining enough challenge to feel engaging.
A lot has been said and written about how later Zelda games have gotten progressively more linear and guided up (up until the radical course change of ALBW and BOTW), but I suspect the reason Nintendo went in that direction is because they realized that the games were getting slower to navigate, especially after the jump to 3D. It's a lot more reasonable to expect a player to explore every nook and cranny of an overworld when you can go from one end of the map to the other in a few minutes without a fast travel mechanic.
Super Mario Maker 2
While I'm at it, I might as well write something about the game that spiked my interest in Zelda for the first time since ALBW's release back in 2014. I've played SMM2 on and off since it was released last year, but most of my favorite levels have been utilizing the Master Sword power-up added last December.
For self-explanatory reasons, Mario Maker will never have the extensive one-off stage features that Nintendo utilizes to keep things fresh in regular Mario games. The unfortunately consequence of this, though, is that it can make the easier levels really forgettable if they don't have some sort of theme or really clever design to them. Easy difficulty Endless mode in particular got tedious pretty quickly. That largely left puzzle levels, gimmicky levels, and high difficulty levels. The former two are hit-or-miss for me, and while I do enjoy the occasional challenge level so long as it doesn't hit Kaizo level, my hands start hurting after playing one of those for a while, which forces me to take a break. The various speedrun levels that clog up popular can be fun in moderate doses, but too many of them gets repetitive, plus they obviously don't amount to long play times.
The Master Sword mixed things up by encouraging level creators to make exploration heavy levels in Zelda-esque manner, which I wound up really enjoying. Link's moveset adds a ton of options for interacting with on/off switches, pow blocks, p switches, etc., while also making combat more engaging than the usual Mario level. The net result is a lot of lengthy, moderate difficulty levels that can keep me engaged without causing hand pains while offering an experience that obviously can't be obtained from any commercial Mario game. Or Zelda game, for that matter, although I now wish Nintendo would make a Zelda platformer that played like this. Incidentally, I also tried out Zelda 2 on Switch, but lost interest in it pretty quickly - its combat mechanics are much less interesting to me than SMM2 Link's.
(It has also resulted in some kaizo levels that are mind blowing to watch when a top-level player manages to complete them, like this one by CarlSagan42, not that I'm crazy enough to ever attempt those myself.).
I briefly considered replaying ALTTP or ALBW or Cadence of Hyrule to follow-up on Zelda 1, but then I spotted OoT 3D going for really cheap on ebay and order it on a whim. Stay turned in a few weeks for my incredibly belated opinions on Zelda's jump to 3D, assuming I don't have to resort to ebay's money-back program.
8
General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2020: The true last year of the current decade
« on: May 11, 2020, 04:19:28 AM »
The thing about Trials is that we saw gameplay footage back when the game was first announced, and it was clear that the battle mechanics were completely revamped into something resembling a modern arpg. It was pretty clear that Square-Enix actually listened to the complaints about the previous Secret of Mana remake. That was no guarantee of quality, obviously (and I haven't played past the demo yet, so I can't speak to that myself yet), but at that point I already thought the devs were at least on the right track.
Pop'n Twinbee - Started this up on a whim, and was pleasantly surprised. A shoot'em-up game with an energy bar and an energy shield, and both can be recharged by drops? Plus a difficulty slider in the options menu? Holy crap, a rare shmup that I can play without savestates and not get my ass kicked! It was also a lot more newbie friendly than the NES Twinbee game, which I had tried out last fall; that game was probably easier than Gradius overall, but I still wasn't getting anywhere without savestates. The game has no mid-stage checkpoints from what I can tell, but is overall forgiving enough that you shouldn't need them, at least once you learn how the power-up system works to prioritize getting shields and options.
The in general is designed around the SNES's strengths and weaknesses as a system, which is to say it's fairly slow-paced for its genre but has lots of color and pretty sprite graphics. From what I can tell it's an outlier within the whole series for being made for a console originally rather than starting out in the arcades, but as a shmup novice I can really appreciate its design choices.
Zelda 1 - So as a kid, I got all the way to level 9, but got stuck there in the pre-internet days and lost interest in the game. Never got around to picking it up, and even if I could dig it out from my parent's home I'd imagine the battery's dead by now. Finally felt in the mood to go back to it a few days back, and I'm already paying for NSO so it's 'free'. Used the SP ROM to cut out on a ton of money grinding since my main interest was getting back to level 9 quickly.
At first I started playing blind, more out of laziness than anything. Went straight to level 1 and cleared it out in a few minutes. After that, I vaguely remembered level 2 being to the east, but I got lost and somehow managed to stumble on level 8 next of all dungeons, which has to be the most Zelda 1 thing to do ever.
Pop'n Twinbee - Started this up on a whim, and was pleasantly surprised. A shoot'em-up game with an energy bar and an energy shield, and both can be recharged by drops? Plus a difficulty slider in the options menu? Holy crap, a rare shmup that I can play without savestates and not get my ass kicked! It was also a lot more newbie friendly than the NES Twinbee game, which I had tried out last fall; that game was probably easier than Gradius overall, but I still wasn't getting anywhere without savestates. The game has no mid-stage checkpoints from what I can tell, but is overall forgiving enough that you shouldn't need them, at least once you learn how the power-up system works to prioritize getting shields and options.
The in general is designed around the SNES's strengths and weaknesses as a system, which is to say it's fairly slow-paced for its genre but has lots of color and pretty sprite graphics. From what I can tell it's an outlier within the whole series for being made for a console originally rather than starting out in the arcades, but as a shmup novice I can really appreciate its design choices.
Zelda 1 - So as a kid, I got all the way to level 9, but got stuck there in the pre-internet days and lost interest in the game. Never got around to picking it up, and even if I could dig it out from my parent's home I'd imagine the battery's dead by now. Finally felt in the mood to go back to it a few days back, and I'm already paying for NSO so it's 'free'. Used the SP ROM to cut out on a ton of money grinding since my main interest was getting back to level 9 quickly.
At first I started playing blind, more out of laziness than anything. Went straight to level 1 and cleared it out in a few minutes. After that, I vaguely remembered level 2 being to the east, but I got lost and somehow managed to stumble on level 8 next of all dungeons, which has to be the most Zelda 1 thing to do ever.
9
RPG Stats Forum / Re: Final Fantasy 6
« on: March 03, 2020, 02:09:35 PM »
Late to the party here, but you can in fact get infinite Behemoth Suits, because the boss who drops it will spawn on the Veldt.
10
General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« on: May 25, 2019, 04:28:57 PM »
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Got a digital copy of this for essentially free due to Black Friday deals last November, then promptly ignored it in favor of other games more immediately interesting to me, like Smash Utimate. Finally got around to playing this about a month ago. I haven't played a Mario Kart game for more than a few minutes since the SNES original, so I started with 50cc.
The game is quite good technically and in terms of track design, both in terms of quantity and quality for the latter. Watching a few GDQ VODs has convinced me that MK8D blows away the previous games for track quality, and a grand prix run even convinced me that Nintendo actually toned down the item nonsense that some of the past entries had spiraled into.
With all that said, it's clear now that Mario Kart is a franchise that just doesn't excite me, at least as a singleplayer game. After finishing all the grand prixs a few weeks back, I've had no interest in going back to the game, even though I did enjoy my time with it. It's just that other games interest me more, even ones that 99% of the planet would consider worse. For instance...
Nights of Azure 2
I'll be honest up front, the main reason I had any interest in this is that I heard that NoA was a series that had actual canon yuri relationships, and not of the "let's write the player character as male, then add a female option with bare minimum edits to the dialogue" kind. That puts it on an extremely short list with... um, I'm not actually totally sure what games actually count here. Most people on Gamefaqs seem to prefer the first one, but I don't have a PS4 and I've heard the PC port has some issues, plus my current computer only has integrated graphics. Meanwhile I got a new copy of the NoA2 Switch for only $23.
Gameplay was pretty much what all the reviews said, an arpg that is generally so easy there's no reason to do anything but mash the light attack button and use special abilities when the activate. I actually had one loss to the very first boss because I didn't bother to block or evade its attacks at all, because I had no reason to do either up until then. Second time around I put in some actual effort and won with no serious issues. After that, the bosses were pretty much trivial except for the DLC ones (whose difficulties are variable depending on when you fight them) and the final boss, whose third form is a huuuuge spike in damage output.
The combat system was still fluid enough to be decently enjoyable and never offensive, which is a good thing since I had to play through the game twice to get the true ending with all the epilogues, which involved a lot of repeating the same areas over and over and over again to fulfill quests. That got kinda tiresome, even though I liked the game's atmosphere and music in general.
The game has a time limit system similar to some of the Atelier games (same developer as Nights of Azure - Gust). I don't think it's as well implemented as the Atelier games that I'm familiar with, though. Those tend to have lots of endings, but this game only has two + epilogues for the true ending, and it is literally impossible to get all of those epilogues on a first run. Then on NG+ the time limits are removed, which combined with some clear bonuses for having both endings result in a obvious route to go through the game: get normal ending on first run, then grind out all the sidequests for true on NG+. The only reason I didn't completely rush the first playthrough is because I was forewarned ahead of time about the difficulty spike for the final boss.
The absolutely worst thing about the game is the way it periodically crashes to the home screen. That's just inexcusable for a commercial game from a major developer, and I would be far more pissed if I had paid full price for the game, or even worse, the collector's edition. The one mitigating factor is that the game only ever crashed on me during the hotel, so as long as I went to save ASAP anytime I came back from combat I would never lose meaningful progress, but it's still an obnoxious problem to deal with.
Now for thoughts on the story and characters, since that's what I really cared about to begin with. Spoiler tagging everything just to be safe, even though not all of it is spoilertastic.
The much-publicized lily system felt like it was kinda bait-and-switch in the end. There's some kinda flirty lines in the game when you build up affection with your AI partners (and I am kinda impressed at the developer's lack of subtlety in labelling the party members as 'Lilies'), but I didn't really get the sense that anyone except for Lilia and Rue had outright romantic affection for Aluche, aka the childhood friends whose relations had already developed before the story started. I still liked having an extra party member to fight alongside, including non-romantic options, so I'm glad Gust put them in this game. I wonder if the pre-release marketing caused some backlash when the game shipped with only one predefined pairing, though. Speaking of which...
In the end, Aluche and Liliana's relationship was pretty straightforward: they were childhood friends who were already in love when the game started. You see them interact in various story scenes plus the blue lily quests, but there's no major conflicts or development in their relationship throughout the game. That's fine in a vacuum - I enjoyed what was shown of them, and the lack of melodrama was, in some ways, a relief. The issue is that I don't think Gust built them up sufficiently for what happens during the true ending.
On paper, I quite like what happens there- Aluche uses Rue's power of transforming thoughts into power to fuel Lilia's time slowing. So long as she holds onto Lilia and their love remains true, Aluche can maintain the localized time stoppage forever. That's a rather beautiful image to end a story on, and considering why Malvasia turned to villainy it is quite fitting that she is stopped by an act of love, rather than one of violence. It is doubly fitting that two people who are effectively Alstromeria's reincarnation and successor combine to stop the plans of her tragic ex-lover. The most insightful review that I've read of NoA2 (http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2017/10/review-nights-of-azure-2-bride-of-new.html) compared both this game and its predecessor stylistically to opera. That's a fitting comparison for how the true ending unfolds, but I think the buildup to it wasn't convincing enough. Personally, I think an ending like this (two lovers frozen in time eternally, to save the world) as a conclusion to a story that tries to convince the audience that this is the grandest romance ever, with two lovers who would move heaven and earth to be together. Something like Beren and Luthien, or hell, Arnice and Lilysse from Nights of Azure 1, based on the descriptions I've read of that game. Instead, what we got with this game was a kinda understated relationship that didn't get super built up or emphasized in-game (since a lot of screentime went to the other lilies). Looking at places like Gamefaqs, I've seen a lot of people who didn't care much for either the AlxLilia romance or the true ending, and in hindsight I think that's understandable.
That said, as someone who's kinda jaded by the heavy presence of the "love is beautiful because of its fleeting nature" trope in Japanese yuri works, I appreciate the fact that this game essentially went in the opposite direction, with two lovers united for eternity. Maybe I'm being optimistic here, but I get the impression that Aluche and Liliana aren't cryogenically frozen in a near-death state, but that their time together is warm and loving, even if it feels like they are trapped in a prison to their friends back in the world.
On the whole, I found the backstory of Malvasia with Alstromeria to be the game's better executed love story. That is operatic to the bone, a doomed romance with beautiful highs that ends in pure tragedy. It's a pity that DLC2 doesn't have any voice acting, since the flashback scene in that was the most emotional moment in the game for me.
As for the rest of the cast, I wound up liking pretty much everyone except for Eleanor well enough to enjoy their screentime. Everyone else has a backstory that helps flesh their characters out beyond the surface-level anime tropes while expanding on NoA's dark, gothic setting. It's a pity that it came in part at the expense of developing the main romance, but the time certainly wasn't spent in vain.
One other notable thing is that *all* the authority positions in this game are filled by women, even the assholish and villainous ones. Every known knight is female as well, although that's admittedly based on a sample size of 5. That's a lot of traditionally-male roles occupied by women in the setting. The game never draws any attention to this, but it does subtly influence the game's gender and power dynamics that feelly pretty signficant to me as a laymen, although I'm not really qualified enough at either lit crit or feminism to say definitively. But he whole knight protects damsel from villain trope just feels different to me when all three roles are filled by women, and that's before we get into the ways the story winds up subverts the initial dynamic. The fact that the villain is essentially a lesbian who turned heel due to her lover's death is something that might have felt really problematic in a different story, but the fact that her grief is portrayed sympathetically (well, at least once we got the full story from DLC) and she is far from the only lesbian in the story ameliorated that concern to me. This kind of all-female cast is fairly common in bishoujo anime and manga, but less so in a video game, and especially one with such a dark tone and aesthetic.
On a related note there is absolutely zero homophobia in-universe, although human bigotry towards demons serves as a suspiciously similar substitute during the backstory. But AlxLilia for instance face absolutely zero social stigma, which I understand is the same as the first NoA.
On balance, I can't say that Nights of Azure 2 is a great game, or maybe even a good one. Both gameplay and storytelling have serious flaws. Nothing deal-breaking to me, but a lot of fans of the original online seem to have been disappointed with it, and the sales numbers dropped pretty badly in Japan. But with all that, there were elements of the game that I found really interesting, and which I really enjoyed, so I don't regret my time spent on it for a second. Canon yuri relationships are so rare that even a deeply flawed game with one feels noteworthy to me, and this game handled its romance with enough sincerity to keep my attention. I'm probably on-board for any sequels/follow-ups that Gust makes, although I'm really not expecting one considering the sales numbers.
Got a digital copy of this for essentially free due to Black Friday deals last November, then promptly ignored it in favor of other games more immediately interesting to me, like Smash Utimate. Finally got around to playing this about a month ago. I haven't played a Mario Kart game for more than a few minutes since the SNES original, so I started with 50cc.
The game is quite good technically and in terms of track design, both in terms of quantity and quality for the latter. Watching a few GDQ VODs has convinced me that MK8D blows away the previous games for track quality, and a grand prix run even convinced me that Nintendo actually toned down the item nonsense that some of the past entries had spiraled into.
With all that said, it's clear now that Mario Kart is a franchise that just doesn't excite me, at least as a singleplayer game. After finishing all the grand prixs a few weeks back, I've had no interest in going back to the game, even though I did enjoy my time with it. It's just that other games interest me more, even ones that 99% of the planet would consider worse. For instance...
Nights of Azure 2
I'll be honest up front, the main reason I had any interest in this is that I heard that NoA was a series that had actual canon yuri relationships, and not of the "let's write the player character as male, then add a female option with bare minimum edits to the dialogue" kind. That puts it on an extremely short list with... um, I'm not actually totally sure what games actually count here. Most people on Gamefaqs seem to prefer the first one, but I don't have a PS4 and I've heard the PC port has some issues, plus my current computer only has integrated graphics. Meanwhile I got a new copy of the NoA2 Switch for only $23.
Gameplay was pretty much what all the reviews said, an arpg that is generally so easy there's no reason to do anything but mash the light attack button and use special abilities when the activate. I actually had one loss to the very first boss because I didn't bother to block or evade its attacks at all, because I had no reason to do either up until then. Second time around I put in some actual effort and won with no serious issues. After that, the bosses were pretty much trivial except for the DLC ones (whose difficulties are variable depending on when you fight them) and the final boss, whose third form is a huuuuge spike in damage output.
The combat system was still fluid enough to be decently enjoyable and never offensive, which is a good thing since I had to play through the game twice to get the true ending with all the epilogues, which involved a lot of repeating the same areas over and over and over again to fulfill quests. That got kinda tiresome, even though I liked the game's atmosphere and music in general.
The game has a time limit system similar to some of the Atelier games (same developer as Nights of Azure - Gust). I don't think it's as well implemented as the Atelier games that I'm familiar with, though. Those tend to have lots of endings, but this game only has two + epilogues for the true ending, and it is literally impossible to get all of those epilogues on a first run. Then on NG+ the time limits are removed, which combined with some clear bonuses for having both endings result in a obvious route to go through the game: get normal ending on first run, then grind out all the sidequests for true on NG+. The only reason I didn't completely rush the first playthrough is because I was forewarned ahead of time about the difficulty spike for the final boss.
The absolutely worst thing about the game is the way it periodically crashes to the home screen. That's just inexcusable for a commercial game from a major developer, and I would be far more pissed if I had paid full price for the game, or even worse, the collector's edition. The one mitigating factor is that the game only ever crashed on me during the hotel, so as long as I went to save ASAP anytime I came back from combat I would never lose meaningful progress, but it's still an obnoxious problem to deal with.
Now for thoughts on the story and characters, since that's what I really cared about to begin with. Spoiler tagging everything just to be safe, even though not all of it is spoilertastic.
The much-publicized lily system felt like it was kinda bait-and-switch in the end. There's some kinda flirty lines in the game when you build up affection with your AI partners (and I am kinda impressed at the developer's lack of subtlety in labelling the party members as 'Lilies'), but I didn't really get the sense that anyone except for Lilia and Rue had outright romantic affection for Aluche, aka the childhood friends whose relations had already developed before the story started. I still liked having an extra party member to fight alongside, including non-romantic options, so I'm glad Gust put them in this game. I wonder if the pre-release marketing caused some backlash when the game shipped with only one predefined pairing, though. Speaking of which...
In the end, Aluche and Liliana's relationship was pretty straightforward: they were childhood friends who were already in love when the game started. You see them interact in various story scenes plus the blue lily quests, but there's no major conflicts or development in their relationship throughout the game. That's fine in a vacuum - I enjoyed what was shown of them, and the lack of melodrama was, in some ways, a relief. The issue is that I don't think Gust built them up sufficiently for what happens during the true ending.
On paper, I quite like what happens there- Aluche uses Rue's power of transforming thoughts into power to fuel Lilia's time slowing. So long as she holds onto Lilia and their love remains true, Aluche can maintain the localized time stoppage forever. That's a rather beautiful image to end a story on, and considering why Malvasia turned to villainy it is quite fitting that she is stopped by an act of love, rather than one of violence. It is doubly fitting that two people who are effectively Alstromeria's reincarnation and successor combine to stop the plans of her tragic ex-lover. The most insightful review that I've read of NoA2 (http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2017/10/review-nights-of-azure-2-bride-of-new.html) compared both this game and its predecessor stylistically to opera. That's a fitting comparison for how the true ending unfolds, but I think the buildup to it wasn't convincing enough. Personally, I think an ending like this (two lovers frozen in time eternally, to save the world) as a conclusion to a story that tries to convince the audience that this is the grandest romance ever, with two lovers who would move heaven and earth to be together. Something like Beren and Luthien, or hell, Arnice and Lilysse from Nights of Azure 1, based on the descriptions I've read of that game. Instead, what we got with this game was a kinda understated relationship that didn't get super built up or emphasized in-game (since a lot of screentime went to the other lilies). Looking at places like Gamefaqs, I've seen a lot of people who didn't care much for either the AlxLilia romance or the true ending, and in hindsight I think that's understandable.
That said, as someone who's kinda jaded by the heavy presence of the "love is beautiful because of its fleeting nature" trope in Japanese yuri works, I appreciate the fact that this game essentially went in the opposite direction, with two lovers united for eternity. Maybe I'm being optimistic here, but I get the impression that Aluche and Liliana aren't cryogenically frozen in a near-death state, but that their time together is warm and loving, even if it feels like they are trapped in a prison to their friends back in the world.
On the whole, I found the backstory of Malvasia with Alstromeria to be the game's better executed love story. That is operatic to the bone, a doomed romance with beautiful highs that ends in pure tragedy. It's a pity that DLC2 doesn't have any voice acting, since the flashback scene in that was the most emotional moment in the game for me.
As for the rest of the cast, I wound up liking pretty much everyone except for Eleanor well enough to enjoy their screentime. Everyone else has a backstory that helps flesh their characters out beyond the surface-level anime tropes while expanding on NoA's dark, gothic setting. It's a pity that it came in part at the expense of developing the main romance, but the time certainly wasn't spent in vain.
One other notable thing is that *all* the authority positions in this game are filled by women, even the assholish and villainous ones. Every known knight is female as well, although that's admittedly based on a sample size of 5. That's a lot of traditionally-male roles occupied by women in the setting. The game never draws any attention to this, but it does subtly influence the game's gender and power dynamics that feelly pretty signficant to me as a laymen, although I'm not really qualified enough at either lit crit or feminism to say definitively. But he whole knight protects damsel from villain trope just feels different to me when all three roles are filled by women, and that's before we get into the ways the story winds up subverts the initial dynamic. The fact that the villain is essentially a lesbian who turned heel due to her lover's death is something that might have felt really problematic in a different story, but the fact that her grief is portrayed sympathetically (well, at least once we got the full story from DLC) and she is far from the only lesbian in the story ameliorated that concern to me. This kind of all-female cast is fairly common in bishoujo anime and manga, but less so in a video game, and especially one with such a dark tone and aesthetic.
On a related note there is absolutely zero homophobia in-universe, although human bigotry towards demons serves as a suspiciously similar substitute during the backstory. But AlxLilia for instance face absolutely zero social stigma, which I understand is the same as the first NoA.
On balance, I can't say that Nights of Azure 2 is a great game, or maybe even a good one. Both gameplay and storytelling have serious flaws. Nothing deal-breaking to me, but a lot of fans of the original online seem to have been disappointed with it, and the sales numbers dropped pretty badly in Japan. But with all that, there were elements of the game that I found really interesting, and which I really enjoyed, so I don't regret my time spent on it for a second. Canon yuri relationships are so rare that even a deeply flawed game with one feels noteworthy to me, and this game handled its romance with enough sincerity to keep my attention. I'm probably on-board for any sequels/follow-ups that Gust makes, although I'm really not expecting one considering the sales numbers.
11
General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?
« on: October 15, 2018, 02:28:22 AM »
Portrait of Ruin: Holy shit the 5th level of Nest of Evil was a ridiculous difficulty spike, even moreso than the 4th. The double Creature room was insane, I had to resort to the stall for one minute and then run strategy so that I only used up half my potions instead of all of them. Next room followed that up with some enemies that OHKO'd me when I tried to fight it blind. I learned my lesson and closely followed a faq for every room from then onwards. Nothing wound up being all that bad, but I wasn't taking any chances. Abaddon died pretty quickly to Vampire Killer crit spam, but with the caveat that I'm pretty sure I'm overlevelled at this point (L62, which didn't stop the first two rooms from being hard as fuck).
I should get around to typing up general thoughts on the game later, but I wanted to get these thoughts written down while they were fresh, at least.
I should get around to typing up general thoughts on the game later, but I wanted to get these thoughts written down while they were fresh, at least.
12
General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?
« on: September 17, 2018, 02:31:21 AM »
Portrait of Ruin: Started this up a few weeks back. Mainly been spamming the hell out of the shuriken subweapon after I grinded it out to mastery, the damage output is pretty crazy if they focus on a single target.
13
General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?
« on: September 03, 2018, 03:55:48 AM »
Just played Donkey Kong Land 3 on a whim, beat everything except for the time attacks in 3 days here. I did a blind run of every stage first, then went back with a map to hunt down secrets I missed. Dumping some scattered thoughts on it here:
* On balance, the game's level design is pretty solid, which is its biggest overall strength as a game. I think the Gameboy's low tech actually worked out well here, in that it kept Rare from getting too gimmicky, especially compared to DKC3. For example, Ellie the Elephant no longer runs in a panic when she sees the generic rat enemy, which means there's no entire stage designed around a frightened Ellie charging through at high speed. There's also no direction-changing water, no rocket stage, etc. Aside from the two bodsled stages (which are pretty awfull, for reasons to be discussed later), stage gimmicks are fairly mild and are pretty integrated with the core platforming.
* Conversely, the game really suffers from sprites being too big relative to the Gameboy's tiny screen, which means massive visibility issues all game long. Running is not safe unless you're backtracking or have memorized a stage beforehand, which is a real bummer for a platformer. Getting lost is really easy in some of the really big stages (especially underwater ones), the camera not panning properly is your biggest danger in several boss fights, and any situation where you have to go downwards is a bit scary if you don't have a map open nearby. Oh, and the two aforementioned bobsled stages (this game's minekart equivalent) are by far the worst in the game due to how little visibility you have on what's coming ahead. On balance, these camera/visibility issues keep the game from being truly good, I'd say it's just okay on balance.
* On the upside, at least they fixed the issue from DKL1 where sometimes the camera won't scroll down properly so the game thinks you fell down a bottomless pit even though there's plenty of solid ground beneath the camera. That is the single biggest piece of bullshit that I have ever experienced in any commercially released platformer, which is saying alot considering I've gone through Yoshi's Island DS.
* On average, I found about 1/2 bonus stages and most of the DK coins when going through blind. Most of the bonus stages are located in reasonable locations provided you are patient enough to deal with the game's limited, but there were a couple of invisible barrels that I would never find in a million years without a guide or map.
* The game's controls felt a bit slippery to me, though I got used to them pretty quickly. Rare seemingly compensated for this by being unusually generous with hitboxes for the player. It felt like the game would let me bounce off any enemy as long as I wasn't coming from right below it, and the game was super lenient with registering barrel hits when you're holding one. This was most obvious in the second K. Rool fight, where Kiddy Kong can hold a barrel right in front of him and it will hit K Rool as he flies above you, even though he won't damage you during that phase. At least Dixie holds barrels up over her head, so that makes sense.
* Squaks was consistently the easiest animal buddy to use, in large part because they never put him in any hard stages (like all bramble or something). Squitter was the hardest, I had to remap the Select button on the emulator to create a web platforms faster.
Lastly, I actually played the Japan-only GBC version with a fan translation patch. The coloring is kinda lazy and uglyish looking, but the overall visibility improvements are definately worth it. It also had a certain novelty value that helped convince me to give this game a shot.
* On balance, the game's level design is pretty solid, which is its biggest overall strength as a game. I think the Gameboy's low tech actually worked out well here, in that it kept Rare from getting too gimmicky, especially compared to DKC3. For example, Ellie the Elephant no longer runs in a panic when she sees the generic rat enemy, which means there's no entire stage designed around a frightened Ellie charging through at high speed. There's also no direction-changing water, no rocket stage, etc. Aside from the two bodsled stages (which are pretty awfull, for reasons to be discussed later), stage gimmicks are fairly mild and are pretty integrated with the core platforming.
* Conversely, the game really suffers from sprites being too big relative to the Gameboy's tiny screen, which means massive visibility issues all game long. Running is not safe unless you're backtracking or have memorized a stage beforehand, which is a real bummer for a platformer. Getting lost is really easy in some of the really big stages (especially underwater ones), the camera not panning properly is your biggest danger in several boss fights, and any situation where you have to go downwards is a bit scary if you don't have a map open nearby. Oh, and the two aforementioned bobsled stages (this game's minekart equivalent) are by far the worst in the game due to how little visibility you have on what's coming ahead. On balance, these camera/visibility issues keep the game from being truly good, I'd say it's just okay on balance.
* On the upside, at least they fixed the issue from DKL1 where sometimes the camera won't scroll down properly so the game thinks you fell down a bottomless pit even though there's plenty of solid ground beneath the camera. That is the single biggest piece of bullshit that I have ever experienced in any commercially released platformer, which is saying alot considering I've gone through Yoshi's Island DS.
* On average, I found about 1/2 bonus stages and most of the DK coins when going through blind. Most of the bonus stages are located in reasonable locations provided you are patient enough to deal with the game's limited, but there were a couple of invisible barrels that I would never find in a million years without a guide or map.
* The game's controls felt a bit slippery to me, though I got used to them pretty quickly. Rare seemingly compensated for this by being unusually generous with hitboxes for the player. It felt like the game would let me bounce off any enemy as long as I wasn't coming from right below it, and the game was super lenient with registering barrel hits when you're holding one. This was most obvious in the second K. Rool fight, where Kiddy Kong can hold a barrel right in front of him and it will hit K Rool as he flies above you, even though he won't damage you during that phase. At least Dixie holds barrels up over her head, so that makes sense.
* Squaks was consistently the easiest animal buddy to use, in large part because they never put him in any hard stages (like all bramble or something). Squitter was the hardest, I had to remap the Select button on the emulator to create a web platforms faster.
Lastly, I actually played the Japan-only GBC version with a fan translation patch. The coloring is kinda lazy and uglyish looking, but the overall visibility improvements are definately worth it. It also had a certain novelty value that helped convince me to give this game a shot.
14
General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?
« on: May 14, 2018, 12:00:27 AM »
Fire Emblem Fates: After about two years, I finally went back to my original Conquest Hard file, which I had previously downgraded to Normal to complete the first run. Most resets thus far:
C24 (Hinoka): 1 reset when I realized that Azama was immobile and thus couldn't be entrapped, ~4 tries to convince myself that just bumrushing with Corrin+Camilla wasn't going to work, then about ~5 tries with a full team. In the end I resorted to having Corrin+Jakob rush the boss ASAP with dragon vein boosted mobility and depend on RNG to actually kill Hinoka while hexed, because the waves of Kinshi Knight reinforcements were just too much for me to hold off for very long. Exploiting Hinoka's item drop to switch Corrin's weapon from Dual Katana over to Grim Yato for the enemy phase probably helped me survive and kill her backup Oni Chieftain, that was the one moment in the stage where I felt clever. The next turn I would've 100% been overrun and lost someone if I didn't manage to seize successfully.
C10 (Unhappy Reunion): The stage that made me downgrade to Normal originally. Took 5 tries and one strategy tweak to win. This time I played the entire run with animations off, which made all those failed runs bearable in length.
C11 (Rainbow Sage): I had 3 resets on this stage due to repeatedly stupidity somehow. First time around I actually forgot the stage was kill boss instead of rout or sieze, so I accidentally killed Hinoka before I opened both chests. Second time around I forgot that Azama had his personal skill IN ADDITION to Counter, what an asshole. Third time I got overly aggressive with positioning Dwyer. Even a few weeks later it still boggles my mind that I somehow had 3 resets on this one but then went and beat C12 on the first try.
Biggest change besides more game knowledge is using a bunch of the class changing items from path rewards and the Awakening DLC stage this time around, which helped a lot midgame with raw stats. Dread Fighter is also a powerhouse of a class in general, especially on a file where I don't have much access to Master Ninja due to Kaze being underlevelled and barely usable when he rejoined.
C24 (Hinoka): 1 reset when I realized that Azama was immobile and thus couldn't be entrapped, ~4 tries to convince myself that just bumrushing with Corrin+Camilla wasn't going to work, then about ~5 tries with a full team. In the end I resorted to having Corrin+Jakob rush the boss ASAP with dragon vein boosted mobility and depend on RNG to actually kill Hinoka while hexed, because the waves of Kinshi Knight reinforcements were just too much for me to hold off for very long. Exploiting Hinoka's item drop to switch Corrin's weapon from Dual Katana over to Grim Yato for the enemy phase probably helped me survive and kill her backup Oni Chieftain, that was the one moment in the stage where I felt clever. The next turn I would've 100% been overrun and lost someone if I didn't manage to seize successfully.
C10 (Unhappy Reunion): The stage that made me downgrade to Normal originally. Took 5 tries and one strategy tweak to win. This time I played the entire run with animations off, which made all those failed runs bearable in length.
C11 (Rainbow Sage): I had 3 resets on this stage due to repeatedly stupidity somehow. First time around I actually forgot the stage was kill boss instead of rout or sieze, so I accidentally killed Hinoka before I opened both chests. Second time around I forgot that Azama had his personal skill IN ADDITION to Counter, what an asshole. Third time I got overly aggressive with positioning Dwyer. Even a few weeks later it still boggles my mind that I somehow had 3 resets on this one but then went and beat C12 on the first try.
Biggest change besides more game knowledge is using a bunch of the class changing items from path rewards and the Awakening DLC stage this time around, which helped a lot midgame with raw stats. Dread Fighter is also a powerhouse of a class in general, especially on a file where I don't have much access to Master Ninja due to Kaze being underlevelled and barely usable when he rejoined.
15
General Chat / Re: What Games are you Playing 2017?
« on: July 04, 2017, 07:14:55 PM »
It's been over a month since I beat the final boss and I've come to accept that I'll probably never seriously tackle the bonus dungeon in FE Echoes; 10 floors + no save points/checkpoints just isn't the sort of challenge that I'm interested in at this point in my life.
I am almost done grinding out support conversations though, which I never even started with Fates; the short support list makes this a lot less daunting than it was in Fates or Awakening. I did get pretty much all the non-S rank supports in Awakening, but that was a time before I had mobile RPGs to scratch my itch for mindless grinding while listening to podcasts.
I am almost done grinding out support conversations though, which I never even started with Fates; the short support list makes this a lot less daunting than it was in Fates or Awakening. I did get pretty much all the non-S rank supports in Awakening, but that was a time before I had mobile RPGs to scratch my itch for mindless grinding while listening to podcasts.
16
General Chat / Re: What Games are you Playing 2017?
« on: June 07, 2017, 10:13:55 PM »Fire Emblem Echoes
I did turn back time after I found out the hard way that it was a moving final boss. I'm not really sure how to beat him without losses without illusion targeting cheeze; I think that you might just have to lure him away from his badass support while staying out of range of it, which is doable but painful.
If you made Faye a Cleric, she gets the Rescue spell at a lowish level. What I did after taking out Jedah was warp Alm in to kill the Medusa caster, then immediately Rescue him out the same turn. Did the same on the next turn to take one the Witch boss on the left side, while the one on the right got baited out while safely out of the final boss's range. Once the fight was down to just the final boss + Mogalls I sent in only Alm + people who gave him support bonuses and whom I could count on to take a few hits, with one Fortify and two Physics for safe long range healing.
Warp/Rescue/Fortify/etc. not limited by finite staff uses is pretty abusable lategame, once you get the tools to not care about the HP penalty.
17
General Chat / Re: What Games are you Playing 2017?
« on: May 22, 2017, 11:31:47 PM »
From developer interviews apparantly Gaiden had the bulk of its plot written out in the manual, but no one's ever translated that to my knowledge. The actual in-game text was barebones even by 8-bit standards.
I've reached the end of chapter 3 in Echoes on Normal/Classic. Anecdotally hit rates in the remake feel a *lot* better than they were back in Gaiden, but it's possible my memories are exaggerating how painful the latter was. Nosferatu in particular doesn't feel like an excercise in masochism this time around (it helps that you don't have to kill stuff with it to get meaningful exp for healers this time around).
Conversely, I've gotten an almost comical amount of 1 stat level ups thus far, even for people with really good on-paper growths (Alm, Celica, Catria). It's not a big deal overall, especially considering the promotion system, but it is a shock to the system after the inflated growths of FE 12/13/14.
I've reached the end of chapter 3 in Echoes on Normal/Classic. Anecdotally hit rates in the remake feel a *lot* better than they were back in Gaiden, but it's possible my memories are exaggerating how painful the latter was. Nosferatu in particular doesn't feel like an excercise in masochism this time around (it helps that you don't have to kill stuff with it to get meaningful exp for healers this time around).
Conversely, I've gotten an almost comical amount of 1 stat level ups thus far, even for people with really good on-paper growths (Alm, Celica, Catria). It's not a big deal overall, especially considering the promotion system, but it is a shock to the system after the inflated growths of FE 12/13/14.
18
General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper
« on: March 26, 2017, 02:15:49 AM »
Also the recent moment where they accidentally replaced the Halloween items with their JP versions (X synergy, blitzball instead of thrown for the pumpkin) which naturally ending up screwing over a bunch of people who had the pumpkin equipped on someone like Refia.
19
General Chat / Re: What Games are you Playing 2017?
« on: March 04, 2017, 10:06:21 PM »
The caravan is such a half assed mechanic in DQ4/5/6. Either give me 4 or 8 party members. Don't randomly allow me to have 4 or 8 party members. Especially in a game with expensive items. Obviously the 4 left are eventually going to be rubbish.
The Knick Knack museum has yielded no rewards yet but has been massively addicting
The DQ6 version of the caravan is actually different from 4 and 5. You still can't switch the inactive PCs in during most dungeons, but they will get exp/job points, letting you grind up an underlevelled new recruit or send someone down the Luminary path without having to endure the godawful Gadabout phase in your party. Caravan PCs can also cast healing spells on your active party members out of battle, saving MP on your main team.
20
General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper
« on: February 27, 2017, 01:58:54 AM »
Oh god the status spam from Demon Wall was insane. Looks like I really need to figure out if Necrophobe is beatable with my current gear.
21
General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper
« on: February 15, 2017, 11:10:12 AM »
I got Penelo SSB.. and freaking Vaan Burst. That's a huge win.
22
General Chat / Re: Fire Emblem Heroes Topic: You knew this was coming!
« on: February 04, 2017, 02:57:43 AM »
Not even being made a 4* can save Sophia from being bloody awful.
That speed is really something.
That speed is really something.
23
General Chat / Re: Fire Emblem Heroes Topic: You knew this was coming!
« on: February 04, 2017, 12:53:32 AM »
Got a 5* Robin in my first five-roll, which was enough for me to not bother rerolling.
ID: 2701983344
ID: 2701983344
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General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper
« on: January 25, 2017, 01:16:44 AM »
Summon banner gave me Yuna's HP Stock Medica, Terra's BSB, and Hope's OSB to go with his SSB and BSB. Yeesh, RNG really wants me to use Hope on mage teams.
25
General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper
« on: January 16, 2017, 11:31:06 PM »
Oh that reminds me, but could you please change your RW to Vessel of Fate or Aerial Burst or Scorching Flames, CT? I auto-follow anyone I know is an active DLer regardless, but I am basically never going to actually pick Deprotega from the RW list nowadays.