Dec 1, 2017 17:00:39 GMT knox said:

Majora's Mask is my favourite game of all time, but I can see it being hard to get into if you didn't play it as a kid with next to nothing else to play .

Still, I beat that game probably once a year.

That was the problem. Since it was a late console release, not only were there more technically impressive games on the market, but other systems became affordable. From my experience, I was having a tough time juggling it and Banjo Tooie. Once I received a PS1 for my birthday and received copies of Final Fantasy IX and Monster Rancher, it was tough to go back.

I'm glad I eventually did go back as it's one of my Top 50 games of all-time.

This past week I played through...

Final Fantasy VI - I'm about to confront Kefka and Gestault on the Floating Continent. Unfortunately the area is extremely confusing and I keep finding myself back at the airship. I've since taken the time to help level up Gau who is one of the more broken characters in the game, so I'm grinding at Veldt to teach him some new abilities.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest - So I was reading through r/speedrun and found that Cheese05, the current 120 Star WR holder in Mario 64 was making a play for OoT 100%. For whatever reason, watching his run inspired me to play through MQ once again and see how well it played up on a second playthrough. Obviously the more you play through the game, the better you can understand the designer's intentions and appreciate how it challenges it's players. I've since beaten the game, but during that 4 hour Cheese stream, I was only able to make it up to the Well, with the Forest and Fire temples costing me plenty of time.

The rest of the month looks like more FF6, Xenoblade 2 and Oracle of Ages/Seasons.

Finished Stick of Truth. Really great game, although outside of the regen part of the Al Gore fight I never really had trouble with the battles. Getting the farts right during training on the other hand...

Other than collectibles (24/30 Chinpokemon) I did everything that I could.

Okami
Okami's biggest selling point is its art style. Look for a screenshot or video of the game to see what I mean. It's beautiful and unique. The story is kinda cool too. Evil Japanese god got sealed away years ago, he is back, all the land is cursed. You are the good god, who takes the form of a white wolf. Your goal is to uncurse all the land and defeat/seal the evil god. You also have a companion, some fairy nymph thing who can draw. You can, for instance, draw a circle around a patch of decaying shrubbery and it restores to colourful flowers in an aesthetically-pleasing cutscene. As unique as this artstyle is, and as well as it's integrated into the game, it does become ordinary after several hours of play. Once those smoke and mirrors are gone, the flaws in the gameplay become apparent.

Okami is basically a Zelda game in disguise. You run across the world, gaining skills and items that unlock new areas, alternate between dungeons and exploration, NPC sidequests, the works. It's significantly worse than a Zelda game for two main reasons. First is the combat. Combat in Zelda does get monotonous, but it's easily avoided, and most enemies can be dealt with in seconds. Combat in Okami is also fairly easily avoided, but the battles can take several minutes because some of the enemies require you to wait a lot before they make themselves vulnerable. It's tedious and not at all challenging. By far the biggest problem is the drawing mechanic. The hit detection, for lack of a better term, is awful. At first you only have to draw lines and circles in vague areas, and that's easy enough, although even drawing circles around things fails some of the time. A bad sign. What killed the game for me is a drawing mechanic introduced about a quarter into the game. You draw a line from a special blossom to a hook-shaped object to attach a vine from the blossom to the hook. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, the first big boss of the game heavily relies on this mechanic to defeat it. You have to stun the boss, and vine-hook blossoms to two of its legs. It's unbelievable how difficult this was. In drawing mode time is stopped and you can move your camera almost anywhere. Most of the time I got a good enough view of a blossom and a leg. Draw a straight line from blossom to leg. Nothing. My success rate was at most 20%, and sometimes the vine didn't even connect along the line I drew. That battle took me at least 30 minutes. Immediately after that there's a minigame where you have to create six vine-hooks in a time limit. The blossoms are tiny, the hooks are tiny. A similar success rate, and the vines didn't connect to the hook I aimed at. I spent 15 minutes on this minigame. The most I got was 3 hooks in the time limit. I tapped out. I was on the verge of quitting anyway, because the game was generally too easy (probably aimed at a much younger audience than me) and boring and the visuals no longer had any appeal. That was the final straw.

That's two incomplete PS2 games in a row (Star Ocean before this). Maybe I have to revisit an old game next before trying something new.

Dec 3, 2017 5:04:05 GMT Big Pete said:

Final Fantasy VI - I'm about to confront Kefka and Gestault on the Floating Continent. Unfortunately the area is extremely confusing and I keep finding myself back at the airship. I've since taken the time to help level up Gau who is one of the more broken characters in the game, so I'm grinding at Veldt to teach him some new abilities.

UGH. Getting Rage abilities for Gau at the Veldt is definitely the most frustrating grindfest part of Final Fantasy VI. Most of the time I just stay for an hour or so and just get whichever I can get. That's probably why I don't really use him that much. He's a high effort, high result character. FFVI will always have a place in my heart for having a playable Moogle. <3

I never used Gau because by that point there are already more than enough good characters to use, and I wasn't going to fiddlefuck around for hours figuring out what the best rage abilities were. More effort than is necessary.

Final Fantasy VI - After playing through the game, I've got to admit the comparisons between it and FF7 confuse me. I suppose it's because for many it was the epitome of the forth generation titles, but you would think that over time FFV would take over. FFV is the game that focus' more on gameplay, provides a bigger challenge and inspired a whole sub-series that's still popular to this day (Ivalice). If anything, FF6 is where the series became more streamlined and wanted to become more cinematic. While it gives it an honest go, there's a reason why the PS1 version added FMV cutscenes and that's because without them the game is just a bunch of sprites bobbing up and down. Furthermore, due to memory limitation, a lot of the dialogue has been cut-down so characters aren't afforded a lot of personality. A part of that is due to the localisation which seemed to be intended for kids growing up with Power Rangers, Ducktales and the fare of the day but the translation does have this naivety about it. It also supposedly changed a few characters around and made them more upbeat. Setzer in the original was supposedly this really morose customer obviously yet to come to grips with the passing of Daryl, but in the FF3 version he's a thrill-seeker.

While the game left me confused with it's 'hardcore' reputation, it's still an enjoyable adventure of rebellion and redemption. A lot of the locales like the Opera House, Zozo and the Ghost Train are enjoyable and the game typically does a good job of spicing things up every once in awhile. The big change is about two/thirds through the game where it goes from a linear narrative-based game to an open-world game filled with sidequests. I enjoyed the latter, but can't help a lot of character development was lost once you got access to the new airship. The game only gives you so many reasons to enjoy the characters, very few are actually fleshed out. My take is that the game wanted you to consider who the main protaganist was and while Terra and Celes have the best cases, you could easily pick somebody else as your avatar and the game wouldn't change too dramatically. It's a far cry from say Final Fantasy X where you are Tidus and everything is from his perspective.

So in the end I gathered most of the characters (I let Shadow and Cid die because I didn't know any better), spent a couple of hours grinding for Kefka's tower and stormed through it with little drama. Perhaps the biggest challenge in the game was getting 'Charm' as one of Gau's rages. Charm is one of the most broken spells in the game as it works on every single boss and it basically amounts to 'stop hitting yourself' the move. It's silly that Square left it in the game, but to their defence, getting that move was a pain in the ass. Veldt has 60 something fights, and of those 60 fights, only one cycle contains the necessary skill. The game wants you to keep going through the cycle until the enemy in question shows up. However, there is an exploitation in emulated versions where you can save state, go and fight an enemy in a near-by cave and reshuffle the deck. After doing this about 30 or so times, I eventually got the encounter and breezed through every encounter. Now, I can't imagine what it would have been like getting that skill in the original SNES version. You would think all you'd have to do is save and reset for it to show u;. Unfortunately resetting the game completely resets which cycle you're up against, so it's only useful in trying to speed up to the cycle you want to come up against. Keep in mind, if you're an 8-year old kid in '94, chances are you wouldn't have been aware of it.

In my playthrough I didn't save Shadow. I knew what was needed ahead of time, but couldn't get it right. Wasn't willing to restart so alas he died. He is my personal Boba Fett. He lives on as an iconic character despite his claim to fame being that he looked cool.

It bummed me out, I was so self-conscious of keeping him in the party and assumed the opportunity came in the World of Ruin. It never occurred to me that I had to wait until the final four seconds for him to jump aboard.

It's a shame, because I learned his secret on TV Tropes instead of learning about it in-game.

I've always referred to shadow as a she😶

Had to keep Shadow, if not for the character, you gotta do it for the RelmxInterceptor companionship. You can't displease lil Relm, one of the better characters in the game.

Been playing a different version of Super Mario 64 with my niece today on my soft modded X-Box, this is a 2 player version where you can play with Mario and Luigi simultaneously, I guess this is a rom hack or something but it's pretty cool, we have a lot of fun with it. Makes my heart smile the way my niece says Luigi, "I wanna be WEEGIE!, you be Mario!".

Dec 9, 2017 0:03:26 GMT Big Pete said:

FFV is the game that focus' more on gameplay, provides a bigger challenge and inspired a whole sub-series that's still popular to this day (Ivalice).

Ivalice? This one passed me by. Please elaborate.

I'm going for 100% completion on Lego Avengers. I finally finished Lego Batman 3 a few days ago (only took about three years), so now I've got the taste for collecting billions of things.

I'm at about 58% now. This might take a while.

Dec 9, 2017 10:57:43 GMT Emperor said:

Dec 9, 2017 0:03:26 GMT Big Pete said:

FFV is the game that focus' more on gameplay, provides a bigger challenge and inspired a whole sub-series that's still popular to this day (Ivalice).

Ivalice? This one passed me by. Please elaborate.

I doubt it, the Ivalice series refers to Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Advance, Tactics Advance 2 and Final Fantasy XII. Even though it isn't a Final Fantasy game, Vagrant Story is also from the same fictional universe.

FFV popularised the job system which FFT straight up lifted.

Dec 9, 2017 12:26:35 GMT @aaron said:

I'm going for 100% completion on Lego Avengers. I finally finished Lego Batman 3 a few days ago (only took about three years), so now I've got the taste for collecting billions of things.

I'm at about 58% now. This might take a while.

I just love hero lego games.  Considering you know more than half the things you're collecting, it's more fun.  LEGO Avengers may be one of my favorites cause of the awesome teamup moves and finisher moves.  Scarlet Witch's one move rips a lego in half...brutal.  She my fave.

Dec 9, 2017 14:51:53 GMT Big Pete said:

Dec 9, 2017 10:57:43 GMT Emperor said:

Ivalice? This one passed me by. Please elaborate.

I doubt it, the Ivalice series refers to Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Advance, Tactics Advance 2 and Final Fantasy XII. Even though it isn't a Final Fantasy game, Vagrant Story is also from the same fictional universe.

FFV popularised the job system which FFT straight up lifted.

Didn't realise all those games were set up in the same universe. I'm generally not a fan of the job system, or at least how it's been executed in the games I've played, such as FFIII, FFV, and FFT.

I liked the idea of it in FFT, but not the execution. The decision to give each character a clearly defined role appealed to me since it adds more strategy and personality to the party. What I didn't like was the character building, and how you would have to go through the same process no matter if the character was a basic recruit or a major character in the story.

Actually, come to think of it, the job system in FFX-2 was such a chore that I dropped it for over 10 years before picking the game up again. Maybe you're onto something Emp?

The problem I have with the job system is switching roles can be such a pain in the ass. You have to carry around a set of equipment for every single character/class combination you intend to use. Then when a bunch of new jobs are unlocked, you have to buy a ton more equipment and keep it hanging around. The alternative is to use the same jobs for the whole game, but that often isn't feasible, nor is it particularly fun. The exception is FFI, which forces fixed jobs from the start and is still awesome. Perhaps the reason that game works is because there's so few job options. Come to think of it, FFIX is basically a job system game in all but name. Vivi is a black mage and can't do anything else. Zidane is a thief, and so on. It might work for the same reason FFI works: the jobs are fixed from the start and there are relatively few of them.

Honestly, RPGs without an explicit job system do the job system better. Take FFVII for example. I have a mage, a warrior, and sort of an all-rounder. I didn't need to explicitly assign a job to do that. I did it by assigning Vincent a ton of magic/summon materia, which boosts his magic power and MP while reducing his attack, defense, and HP. Conversely, Yuffie has none of that materia, but materia like Deathblow, HP Plus, Counter Attack, and 2xCut which enhances her physical attack power. Cloud is similar. He has more support materia like Enemy Skill and Cover, but he's primarily a physical attacker. When I was younger and didn't know what I was doing, every character was a jack of all trades and thus nowhere near as effective as they could be.

Looks like I've identified the problems I have with the job system: too many jobs is bad, and being able to switch jobs at any moment is bad.

Awesome. Sakura announced for SFV! :3 I like this outfit.

Onimusha: Warlords
Onimusha 2 is one of my favourite games and I've played through it many times. The original Onimusha is a different matter. I only played it once as a teenager, then I guess I must have returned it to the shop. I recently reacquired the game, and a couple of days ago I put the disc in for a much overdue playthrough.

The plot is not really worth discussing. It's basic and silly and not told very well. The voice acting is awful. In the second game it was so bad it's good (and actually good in places), but the voice acting in this game is plain bad. Much like the sequel, the original game does have a bunch of goofy, moustache-twirling villains, but this is another aspect that didn't work as intended until the second instalment. One particular villain is the mad scientist of the demons. You encounter him a bunch of times. He taunts you with a cartoony high-pitched voice, sets his minions on you several times, but you never get to actually fight him, which is kinda lame. No comeuppance. The Stephanie McMahon of Onimusha.

Clearly most of the effort was put into the gameplay, and it's here where the game shines. It's basically a less flashy God of War-esque hack and slasher. You can equip one of three melee weapons. Each has a limited amount of attacks and combos, but the combat is really smooth and never gets old with the variety of enemies on offer. The strafe mechanic is also really nice. Hold R1 to focus on an enemy, the movement buttons then circle around it, or take a quick step towards/away. Combining strafe movements with regular movement is important to effectively tackle multiple enemies. There's also the awesome critical hit mechanic. Time your block just right and you can strike with a insta-kill counterattack, which also guarantees you get a healing soul. This gets a mini-tutorial in the sequel, but in the first game the player doesn't know it exists unless he gets one by luck. The boss battles are generally a lot of fun, and are the game's greatest strength. Especially when you have to fight a clone of yourself. Samanosuke clone has exactly the same abilities as the player, and uses the block very freely. It's really tough to score a hit on the guy, but really rewarding when you hit him enough and win the fight.

On the other hand, there are several big design flaws, which suggests that this game was kinda rushed. (1) Fixed camera angles. While not a huge problem in itself, the camera angle changes are really erratic (and laggy in places). If you're fighting some enemies, and take a step in the wrong direction, the whole viewpoint changes instantaneously. You have to spend time finding where your character is, adjust your movement accordingly, and probably take some damage in the process. Very frustrating. Another consequence is you often fight enemies that you can't see. In some screens you're not aware enemy archers exist until you're hit with an arrow from nowhere. (2) You have some missions with a secondary character which are completely pointless. She plays exactly the same as Samanosuke, except she has fewer attack patterns, less health, and can't absorb souls, which means she can only heal with precious healing items. (3) I got stuck on one puzzle because I entered a pair of rooms in the wrong order, forcing me to reset. Fortunately there was a save point shortly before these rooms, but I doubt that was done by design. (4) This isn't really a design flaw per sé, but there's an optional dungeon that nets you a new weapon on completion. This weapon is so powerful it's game-breaking. At least four times the damage of any of your other weapons. The good thing is that you can only get the sword just before the final dungeon. The final dungeon is a short corridor with like four enemies and then the final boss. The boss itself is a cake walk. His attacks are really easy to dodge. He has a ton of health. With the super powerful sword, it took over 10 minutes to kill him. If my damage estimate is correct, that's approaching an hour long battle using the regular weapons.

The game is very short. Finished it in under 4 hours. The concept is solid, the combat mechanics are generally awesome, but the primitive story, the terrible voice acting and the various design flaws give the impression Capcom half-assed this game. Still, it's very fun and worth checking out if you like a simple hack and slasher. Fortunately the Onimusha concept lived on, and was vastly improved on in the sequel, which I shall be playing next.

The problem I have with the job system is switching roles can be such a pain in the ass. You have to carry around a set of equipment for every single character/class combination you intend to use. Then when a bunch of new jobs are unlocked, you have to buy a ton more equipment and keep it hanging around. The alternative is to use the same jobs for the whole game, but that often isn't feasible, nor is it particularly fun. The exception is FFI, which forces fixed jobs from the start and is still awesome. Perhaps the reason that game works is because there's so few job options. Come to think of it, FFIX is basically a job system game in all but name. Vivi is a black mage and can't do anything else. Zidane is a thief, and so on. It might work for the same reason FFI works: the jobs are fixed from the start and there are relatively few of them.

I had never thought of it that way. More or less, it's a matter of efficiency vs. effectiveness. With the job system, characters can become more powerful and are more capable than other systems. However, it requires far more time and knowledge to get the most out of the system, while others are more straight forward. One issue I had with FFVII is that it felt like the materia was more important than the characters. In such a narrative-driven game, it created a strange disconnect where characters could be interchanged so readily. FFVIII had a similar problem, but this time in the form of summons. With the job system there isn't that disconnect since the characters are learning that specific role.

As somebody with no imagination, the job system works.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC; 2001) - Three dungeons into the game, and it's basically Link's Awakening with a few N64 cameos thrown in. Which is to say it's pretty fun, LA was a light-hearted version of LttP which 'juzzed' the series up instead of trying to make big waves. These games follow in a similar vain, with a few gimmicks thrown into the adventure. Namely there's a ring feature which will grant you an extra ability - similar to the masks in Majora. The other is a slew of animal buddies who you can ride to help you navigate through tricky areas. They seem like they belong in another game, especially since they haven't been seen since but they were alright for the time.

Where the game largely works is in it's world design. I feel like the game handles the time travel mechanic better than OoT, with more paths opening up based on whether it's the future or the past. Meanwhile in OoT, you always had to go back to the Temple of Time and hope that there was some short-cut song to lead you through the area. The other nice part to it is that the game doesn't just recycle the same species we've seen over and over again. It isn't a soft reboot like BotW which included such original species as the Gorons, Zoras, Ritos, Gerudos and Kokiris - they actually throw a few different species into each game and an evil main antagonist. Actually, that's one aspect this game handles really well as you tend to check back with the main antagonist every couple of dungeons as their strength over the region weakens. It makes it better than say OoT where Gannon checks on you half-way through the game and then just plays the piano for the rest of the playthrough. Of course, in typical Zelda fashion if you beat Oracle of Ages and Seasons, you can unlock the true boss fight which turns out to be Gannon, but I consider that more DLC than anything else.

One area it distinguishes itself from other Zeldas is it's reliance on colour. Since it came out from the GBC, they make a big point about colour and there's a few puzzles through out the game where certain colours have to match in order to unlock doors. Usually it involves putting the blocks in the right order, or rolling a block until it matches the right flame. They're OK and one of the early puzzles had me stuck until I realised the game wanted you to make use of the environment.

Have you gotten to the Goron area where they throw one of those "find all your stuff" puzzles on ya? Worst part is the simon says music game. So frustrating. Of course it could've been in Seasons not Ages...

I started A Hat in Time. Got my first few pieces and I already can say I've enjoyed it 10x more than Yooka Laylee.

Dec 12, 2017 12:20:59 GMT @ness said:

Have you gotten to the Goron area where they throw one of those "find all your stuff" puzzles on ya? Worst part is the simon says music game. So frustrating. Of course it could've been in Seasons not Ages...

Yeah, that might be in Seasons. In Ages they have something similar where you get shipwrecked and find yourself on an island filled with lizard people called Tokays. Same deal, except the mini-game involves throwing meat at every single Tokay that spawns through these left and right channels in the room.

I was wondering, do you still have that Top 50 GB/GBC list handy? I kept a copy of Shin's SEGA countdown, but didn't get an opportunity to jot yours down.

So, I purchased a Nintendo Switch along with Mario Kart tonight. I'm going to grab Mario Odyssey or Breath of the Wild tomorrow.

Dec 14, 2017 4:37:47 GMT @theshow said:

So, I purchased a Nintendo Switch along with Mario Kart tonight. I'm going to grab Mario Odyssey or Breath of the Wild tomorrow.

You can't go wrong with either choice. Both games have cemented themselves in my Top 50 of all-time and I can't wait to replay them again.

Speaking of Switch...

Splatoon 2 - The latest Splatfest (Sweaters vs. Socks) was this weekend. I didn't really have a dog to pick in this fight, so merely went with Sweaters since it was basically team red. Unfortunately I only learned about this Splatfest at around 2am this morning so I was only able to make it up to Champion before time was called. This may have been my worst Splatfest performance yet. Apart of it was because the games were played on some of my least favourite stages, but the other was just my aiming was all over the place. There were so many times where I had my target lined up and I would just spray my ink like an extremely loose night out on the piss.

Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages - I just completed the Goron dungeon time and collected my fifth essence. I should be further along than what I am, but I got lost for an hour trying to figure out where to go for the forth dungeon. In the end, it was a really stupid solution where I had to use my recently acquired item to shoot a switch that was hiding behind a giant bush. I had been on that screen for a few minutes and was convinced there was no way it could work, completely ignoring the clear channel there. All I could think of afterwards is thank god I'm not a popular Twitch streamer, that would have been everywhere. I'm enjoying the game well enough, especially with all the Majora Mask and OoT cameos, but some of the puzzles are doing my head in. The 4th dungeon had a bunch of flaws puzzles where you had to go in a specific order to unlock a chest. One of them must have have taken me at least 20 times and I still don't know how I completed it.

My little niece is being pulled to the dark side by Super Mario 64 two player mode, we've been playing a lot of the older Mario games lately and she has this weird obsession with Luigi. We play the fuck out of Super Mario 64 in two player mode, we never accomplish anything as far as conquering levels or anything we just run around jumping on shit doing flips, swimming around in the water and climbing trees and stuff, she has so much fun with it.

Also been playing Banjo Kazooie with her from the N64. I had never played this before but I seen the little preview for it on Coin Ops 8 on my soft modded Xbox and it looked like something my niece would love and she does, hell I'm kinda digging it too, pretty good little 64 bit 3D platformer in the vein of Spyro and Crash, I actually kinda like it better than those.

Seriously, this soft modded Xbox business is phenomenal to have if you have little kids, being able to flip around between all these games and systems with the push of a button is so nice(every 5 minutes usually hear that dreaded, "I want to play something else!"). Also playing those games you love with them for the first time is such a good time, we got down on Streets Of Rage 2 a couple of nights ago, it went over well with her, good times. 

If anyone wants to play Street Fighter V, my username is Sasha_Banks