So, speaking of Undertale and intro games to genres, might as well use this thread (a mod can move the conversation for keepsake if need be)...

I've always heard games like Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, and Final Fantasy praised super highly. What would be good introductory games to those genres or play styles? I'm so curious to give 'em a shot, but also so worried they either have a steep learning curve or will Shadow of the Colossus me. If there's a better way to slide into them, I'm all ears.

For full disclosure purposes...

I owned/played the first Final Fantasy on NES, and it simultaneously frustrated me and terrified me. I couldn't figure out the story, the gameplay mechanics or strategy, and HATED all the surprise battles from wandering around lost in the woods. Never touched a Final Fantasy after that. Honestly, trauma from the first Final Fantasy probably played a role in my hate for Zelda... which then carried over into subsequent Zelda games. For whatever reason, Pokemon on gameboy (which felt similar-ish to Finaly Fantasy) wasn't nearly as terrifying or off-putting. Not sure what the difference would've been.

I rented an N64 release of some version of Resident Evil. Maybe the sequel? I don't know. I recall it being terrifying both because of subject matter and also because of the awkward third person shooter setup. Although, first person would've probably been equally terrifying. Maybe scary games just aren't for me.

I've never seen or played anything Metal Gear Solid-related BUT... I have played Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six game on N64. It's alright. Takes way more stealth and strategy than I was used to from my run-and-gun GoldenEye days.

Meanwhile, I'm afraid to invest money into Undertale because from screen caps it looks like it's similar-ish to the first-ever Final Fantasy? Makes me nervous.

I would highly recommend Resident Evil 4. The original three games were notorious for having tank controllers which made it difficult to control the character to add tension to the game. RE4 basically took the survival mechanics of the RE series, but made the player more able and allowed them to put together one of the best action games of all-time.

I'm honestly not sure if JRPGs are for you. Do you have any other experiences outside of Pokemon?

Apr 28, 2020 13:36:47 GMT Big Pete said:

I would highly recommend Resident Evil 4. The original three games were notorious for having tank controllers which made it difficult to control the character to add tension to the game. RE4 basically took the survival mechanics of the RE series, but made the player more able and allowed them to put together one of the best action games of all-time.

I'm honestly not sure if JRPGs are for you. Do you have any other experiences outside of Pokemon?

What's a JRPG?

And not sure overall on RPGs, to be honest. Are RPGs essentially just like video game format of watching a movie or TV show or reading a book or comic? If so, I think I'd rather just watch a movie or TV show or read a book or comic.

A JRPG is a Japanese Role Playing game and either denotes a turn-based JRPG similar to Dragon Quest or an anime inspired RPG like Xenoblade Chronicles or Tales of Symphonia.

It depends. Some JRPGs can be very text heavy and it can feel just like that. While others are more like adventures where you're exploring all these highly detailed worlds, collecting loot, rescuing people or slaying strong enemies.

I was thinking maybe Super Mario RPG or Earthbound would be more in your wheelhouse? Or even Undertale since it really isn't that long a game (although it's very text heavy, good tho and Wife might like it).

Big Pete should move 🤯's question and discussion into a new thread.

As you command Emperor

Apologies for the boring thread title, I just couldn't channel that Dragon Ballin' Cartoon Groovin' creativity.

I wonder if RPGs would be more Wife's speed for video games? She loved her Professor Layton puzzle games on Nintento DS a million years ago. Those seem RPG-y with her beloved puzzle solving overlaid. Also, her thumbs tend to hurt after lots of joystick/button manipulation... so I wonder if the slower pace of an RPG would allow her to take her time, rest her digits, etc.?

Random parallel conversation topic...

What was everyone's entry point to first person shooters? Guessing Doom or Castle Wolfenstein for us elder millennials? Then a big game. Then either Turok or GoldenEye? Maybe Halo for elder zoomers?

If you want to try a few more genres why not get a game rental service like Gamefly or something like it. So if you don't like it you won't really waste much money.

Metal Gear Solid story has a little no actually very convoluted story. The Last of Us or Dishonored probably will be good starting points for Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil genre if you aren't a fan of their genres. Final Fantasy 6 or 7 probably got most people into JRPGs. It you don't like random encounters then "Tales of" series is a good starting point. And Tales of Vesperia would be a good one for PS4.

Apr 28, 2020 16:26:47 GMT 🤯 said:

I wonder if RPGs would be more Wife 's speed for video games? She loved her Professor Layton puzzle games on Nintento DS a million years ago. Those seem RPG-y with her beloved puzzle solving overlaid. Also, her thumbs tend to hurt after lots of joystick/button manipulation... so I wonder if the slower pace of an RPG would allow her to take her time, rest her digits, etc.?

Random parallel conversation topic...

What was everyone's entry point to first person shooters? Guessing Doom or Castle Wolfenstein for us elder millennials? Then a big game. Then either Turok or GoldenEye? Maybe Halo for elder zoomers?

Unreal Tournament and Time Splitters

Apr 28, 2020 16:34:06 GMT X-zero said:

Apr 28, 2020 16:26:47 GMT 🤯 said:

I wonder if RPGs would be more Wife 's speed for video games? She loved her Professor Layton puzzle games on Nintento DS a million years ago. Those seem RPG-y with her beloved puzzle solving overlaid. Also, her thumbs tend to hurt after lots of joystick/button manipulation... so I wonder if the slower pace of an RPG would allow her to take her time, rest her digits, etc.?

Random parallel conversation topic...

What was everyone's entry point to first person shooters? Guessing Doom or Castle Wolfenstein for us elder millennials? Then a big game. Then either Turok or GoldenEye? Maybe Halo for elder zoomers?

Unreal Tournament and Time Splitters

Ah, shit... forgot about the fork in the road where some kids went the PC gaming route. So that would be Unreal, Quake, Half Life, etc. right?

I would have played a tiny bit of DOOM and Duke Nukem while visiting relatives, but I really didn't get into FPS' until Goldeneye. I wasn't even that good at Goldeneye, I was that kid who would play Oddjob and STILL die all the time. As a result I never really enjoyed multiplayer as much as single where I would just mess around in the early missions, exploring all the levels and some of the pointless additions like the tank in Runway.

I would dable in Halo, TimeSplitters 2, Battlefield 1941 etc. but wouldn't really play any real multi until CounterStrike 1.6 with my mates. Again, I largely sucked but every now and then I'd fluke a couple of head-shots and get to show off. I'd always try and get a game of TFC but by the time I got into it, it was pretty dead, so when TF2 came out I jumped into it hard.

Quake 3 was always pretty popular in high school since it was the one game on every PC, so the final week would just be this massive LAN party filled with guys who weren't even in our year level but knew it was on.

I've never played a CoD, ever. My brother bought CoD 4 when it came out and I have no idea what happened to it. We mostly played Halo 3 around that time anyways.

Apr 28, 2020 17:21:41 GMT Big Pete said:

I would have played a tiny bit of DOOM and Duke Nukem while visiting relatives, but I really didn't get into FPS' until Goldeneye. I wasn't even that good at Goldeneye, I was that kid who would play Oddjob and STILL die all the time. As a result I never really enjoyed multiplayer as much as single where I would just mess around in the early missions, exploring all the levels and some of the pointless additions like the tank in Runway.

I would dable in Halo, TimeSplitters 2, Battlefield 1941 etc. but wouldn't really play any real multi until CounterStrike 1.6 with my mates. Again, I largely sucked but every now and then I'd fluke a couple of head-shots and get to show off. I'd always try and get a game of TFC but by the time I got into it, it was pretty dead, so when TF2 came out I jumped into it hard.

Quake 3 was always pretty popular in high school since it was the one game on every PC, so the final week would just be this massive LAN party filled with guys who weren't even in our year level but knew it was on.

I've never played a CoD, ever. My brother bought CoD 4 when it came out and I have no idea what happened to it. We mostly played Halo 3 around that time anyways.

Duke Nukem was one of my first side scrolling PC games, along with Commander Keen! My mind was BLOWN when Duke popped up years later on N64 in 3D as a FPS and also with such raunchy content.

I find a lot of highly acclaimed games incredibly frustrating and people leave out a lot of downsides to games they love, myself included. Which leads to the disappointment when some plays a game you absolutely adore and they aren’t into it.

For example I love MSG but the codecs and cutscenes can become insufferable for some... I love FFVIII but the whole intro with the constant junctioning tutorials is an absolute drag.

Conversely I played RE2 Remake last year and hated it, I love horror but I just can’t get into games with scarce resources even if that’s what drives the horror. My frustration outways the sense of dread.

Start of with MGS V, it’s one of the earlier games in the timeline and it had enough of a standalone storyline to enjoy..by far the best game in terms of gameplay.

I haven’t played much of it but Final Fantasy XV would be the best option if turned based isn’t your thing.

Apr 28, 2020 17:56:00 GMT System said:

I find a lot of highly acclaimed games incredibly frustrating and people leave out a lot of downsides to games they love, myself included. Which leads to the disappointment when some plays a game you absolutely adore and they aren’t into it.

For example I love MSG but the codecs and cutscenes can become insufferable for some... I love FFVIII but the whole intro with the constant junctioning tutorials is an absolute drag.

Conversely I played RE2 Remake last year and hated it, I love horror but I just can’t get into games with scarce resources even if that’s what drives the horror. My frustration outways the sense of dread.

Start of with MGS V, it’s one of the earlier games in the timeline and it had enough of a standalone storyline to enjoy..by far the best game in terms of gameplay.

I haven’t played much of it but Final Fantasy XV would be the best option if turned based isn’t your thing.

MGS4 could definitely feel like watching a movie at times.

I very much understand your hatred of all things JRPG based on your experience with the first Final Fantasy game. The old school 8-bit JRPGs, such as the first Final Fantasy and first Dragon Quest games, are all awful experiences. You are forced to monotously grind into oblivion, and explore the most convoluted labyrinths. Random battles was a fairly new concept at the time, but it has not aged well.

Pokemon Red is far more palatable as a JRPG experience. The wild encounters are limited, and there's a nice balance between story, wandering around towns, and exploring dungeons.

If you don't like story-heavy introductions or primitive dungeon crawling, then it's very hard to recommend a JRPG because most of them fall into one or both categories. Perhaps Final Fantasy 7 is the game for you. The game thrusts you into battle mode right away, the combat is fast-paced and it's a pretty easy game, all things considered. Also has awesome music, awesome story, awesome everything. There's a reason it's objectively the best game ever made.

Dragon Quest VIII might also be a good introductory game. I'm not a big fan of the Dragon Quest style of JRPG as a whole, but VIII hooked me like few other games have. The story is not overly complicated, the graphics are charming and the voice acting is phenomenal.

For lack of a better place to post this, and to combine the two front of mind topics of the day for me today...

One of my life goals project-wise is to learn how to program an N64 video game so that I can essentially take No Mercy and further develop it to completion. I spent some time with a GameShark trying to learn hexadigit coding or whatever, but that was getting me nowhere fast. And I long ago flamed out with trying to download and play the emulator mods on my PC, so I presumed trying to develop my own mod would be just as pointless. Plus, I'd still be constrained to playing on the PC.

Ultimate dream was essentially my own mod, loaded onto a cartridge, played on a real N64.

Dr. Emperor, Lionheart, c... Silly dream, or more within reach than I'd think?

Apr 28, 2020 23:03:08 GMT 🤯 said:

For lack of a better place to post this, and to combine the two front of mind topics of the day for me today...

One of my life goals project-wise is to learn how to program an N64 video game so that I can essentially take No Mercy and further develop it to completion. I spent some time with a GameShark trying to learn hexadigit coding or whatever, but that was getting me nowhere fast. And I long ago flamed out with trying to download and play the emulator mods on my PC, so I presumed trying to develop my own mod would be just as pointless. Plus, I'd still be constrained to playing on the PC.

Ultimate dream was essentially my own mod, loaded onto a cartridge, played on a real N64.

Dr. Emperor, Lionheart, c... Silly dream, or more within reach than I'd think?

Easily possible. People do this all the time. Search around - there’s web resources for this. Coding for N64 is a massive pain in the ass is the biggest hiccup. You could learn how to code it without too much effort in a matter of weeks tops though.

Apr 28, 2020 23:06:09 GMT Lionheart said:

Apr 28, 2020 23:03:08 GMT 🤯 said:

For lack of a better place to post this, and to combine the two front of mind topics of the day for me today...

One of my life goals project-wise is to learn how to program an N64 video game so that I can essentially take No Mercy and further develop it to completion. I spent some time with a GameShark trying to learn hexadigit coding or whatever, but that was getting me nowhere fast. And I long ago flamed out with trying to download and play the emulator mods on my PC, so I presumed trying to develop my own mod would be just as pointless. Plus, I'd still be constrained to playing on the PC.

Ultimate dream was essentially my own mod, loaded onto a cartridge, played on a real N64.

Dr. Emperor, Lionheart, c... Silly dream, or more within reach than I'd think?

Easily possible. People do this all the time. Search around - there’s web resources for this. Coding for N64 is a massive pain in the ass is the biggest hiccup. You could learn how to code it without too much effort in a matter of weeks tops though.

I imagine you'd have to learn C, or even machine code, to program an N64? One of my old friends used to develop for the original Playstation. Can't remember if he used C or machine code. Maybe both.

Programming in these languages for a console is fundamentally different from something like Python. You're programming very close to the hardware, so almost directly moving data around from one memory location to another. Gets intense, and tedious, but it's certainly possible.

Yeah, luckily they used C for N64 so it won’t be as difficult as coding a NES mod. A bit more reasonable. Still, I don’t think 🤯 has the dedication to pull it off unless naked Disney latinas are involved.

Apr 28, 2020 23:38:16 GMT Lionheart said:

Yeah, luckily they used C for N64 so it won’t be as difficult as coding a NES mod. A bit more reasonable. Still, I don’t think 🤯 has the dedication to pull it off unless naked Disney latinas are involved.

That's the premise for my dream No Mercy mod, so... Might be more motivated than you realize.

I figured as much.