Chatting about games

>Sifu
Starting to want to play this. Saw you guys talking about it after the update.

GN1:

>NGB, the Sigmas and 3/RE
So they appear in most games except 1 and 2's vanilla releases? Seems the same goes for NGS2 vanilla too. Either way, noted.

>Mega Man 11
Infinity has you covered. Pretty much agree with everything he said. I wish to play that game again, since I only got to play it on a friend's Switch once (and never again).

>Legends
Might be fun to play casually, as I've enjoyed them as a kid. What I don't like about 2 after replaying it is that you only get to use one subweapon at a time (and since the very first game in the franchise, you could use multiple of them). If you want to use another, you must backtrack to wherever Roll is. There's only a couple of decent subs, but nothing too special by Action standards, I'd say. There is also a grinding aspect to it in that you often need to get money to upgrade your subs, life bar, and the Buster (though you can get parts for the latter via chests).

The highest setting is definitely balanced around with subweapons in mind, since I did a Buster only run and I was doing extreme chip damage to certain bosses. Somewhat alleviated towards the end, but still. You might also argue that with early-mid game subs, the bosses are just damage sponges on Very Hard. Maybe even the endgame. I forget.

Infinity:
>2, 3, 9-11
I find that the more I replay 3, the less I like it. The rushed nature of the game really shows (inputs being eaten, large hitboxes *mostly noticeable in the Doc Robot stages*), suddenly how easy the fortress becomes, etc. but yeah, I'm also a huge fan of 9-11.

By the way Infinity, how would you treat these games relative to a traditional Action game? Does the 'color coded' (for lack of a better term) weaknesses of bosses (mostly for 4 and beyond, since in 2 and 3 there was more than 1 weapon that could cause a lot of damage to certain bosses) limit your enjoyment of it? What do you think of Mega Man & Bass, 7, and the Gameboy titles?

>MMX
Also agree with what you say. Many hate X6, but what do you think of it? I don't hate it myself.

Haven't played X7 and X8, but heard the former is the DMC2 of the series (must have sucked to be a fan of both franchises, since DMC2 and X7 came out relatively close to each other). X8 seems to be a 'love it or hate it' type from what I've seen.

Roy:

>Sifu greatest action game made in the West
You talking recently? What about God of War classic or Warrior Within? Did you ever play Streets of Rage 4? I did like the game despite the modern stuff I always hate. Maybe I’ll get back into this one.

>Ghostwire
Wasn’t a fan at all, the game is nice looking though.

>Death Stranding and KH3
Both great ones. I loved FF7R and Halo Infinite too.

Objection Man:

>MM3
My love for it is partially nostalgia, I definitely can acknowledge that 2 is superior of the classics and the new “retro” era is also better in every regard. But I’ve always liked it much more than the following few entries.

>MM relative to traditional action game
It’s an interesting question because I’ve thought for a while now that bosses are usually the worst part of the genre, typically limiting what you can do a lot and making a lot of moves/weapons not have their typical properties and function. But with MM you can still fight the bosses without the “correct” weapon(blizzard is godlike on anything in 11) and though there were weaknesses throughout the stage the game doesn’t really railroad you the way some games in the genre do. So I’d say the series can stand alongside traditional titles, just not quite as complex.

>MM and Bass and game boy titles
Never played them.

>MM7
I only beat it once and I don’t remember it very well. The weapons were good though.

>MMX6
The game comes off as complete bullshit but when you approach it different than the other games it’s quite good(similar to something like NG2).

>X7 and X8
X7 sucks but X8 is actually pretty good. It suffers more from “okay this part is shit” more than any other game in the series but the levels that are good are solid.

> Halo infinite
That one was a great diamond in the rough too. See, it isn't all that bad.

> Sifu
Yeah man I mean legit the top of the top. It is super good, only made better with each subsequent patch and update. The original game had potential, but with the Master-Mode update it really shined bright, really forcing you to 'git gud' (lol) and use all your tools. Normal Mode was eventually too passive and easy making a lot of moves pointless. Master changed that. Now there's also combat modifiers (stronger enemies, faster enemies, OHKO mode, NUR mode) to change shit up even further.

Only the bosses are a tad weak imo, but that's pretty much a genre staple at this point haha

After the SH presentation yesterday I was thinking, is this the most creatively bankrupt generation as far as AAA goes? I swear you can count the new IPs on one hand. Everything's either a sequel, a remake or a reboot.

I haven't looked into the new SH. I just know it's Silent Hill 2. What's wrong with what they've shown so far?

It's not about SH2 specifically, just that lately there have been lots of remakes and sequels and very few new IPs from AAA devs. It's like the only thing they know to do. For the movie industry has also been the same the last few years.

For SH2 I actually don't mind a remake, not because the game needs it, but because unless you emulate it on PC you are not going to experience it proper on modern consoles since the HD port was shit, so it's fine in this case. But then you put it into context with DS and RE4 remake and it paints a bad landscape regarding the industry lately.

Good point.

Real lack of originality these days.

Ordered Tactics Ogre Reborn. Should arrive Tuesday.

Anyone played Hades?

I bought it for $15 new but it won't arrive until after the new year.

> Anyone played Hades?

It's alright, I think it got too much praise and is far from the masterpiece it may seem if you look at reviews and accolades. As with other Supergiant games, the game has an astounding presentation and Nintendo-like levels of polish. However, as with other Supergiant games as well, once you start looking under the hood there is not much depth.

Roguelites have to balance player skill and progression: If the game focuses too much on player skill then progression (weapon and skill upgrades, levelling up...) loses importance. This can impact the game very negatively, as the player will not feel the need to try other stuff and all the different wepaons and skills at his disposal will lose their meaning, so the game will soon become very repetitive. But if the game focuses too much on upgrades, then the player can feel that his skill doesn't matter and that his progress only depends on what build the RNG gods bestow upon him on every run. Hades is in this last group of games that put too much focus on upgrades, so once you get a hand of the basic core mechanics, there isn't really much for you to learn. A lot of the upgrades are just passive buffs that will just destroy the enemies on their own, so the way you play in your 20th and 100th runs, or in the first and the last room inside the same run, will vary only very slightly.

I think it got so much praise because the way it handles all the story and player progression until you beat your first run is very well done; Even if you die on the first area you'll still be making progress in the way of permanent upgrades and there will always be new stuff to check in the hub. That is masterfully done and all roguelites should learn from it. So probably 90% of players just got through that first run, gave the game a 10/10 and dropped it right there, before really needing to engage with the mechanics in a much more deep way to tackle the higher difficulties.

It left me a sour taste because that path until you complete your first run is amazing, but then it's like the facade falls down and the game behind it all is really, really basic.

>there is not much depth.
Explain.

>as the player will not feel the need to try other stuff and all the different wepaons
This is not an issue for me.

>that will just destroy the enemies on their own
Like status effects?

>Explain.

In my time with the game I didn't ever feel like I had to engage with anything past the most basic mechanics. I had the same experience with Transistor: Both game shave a very cool combat system on paper, but the game fails in presenting situations for you to engage past the core of the system.

>This is not an issue for me.

Roguelites are designed to be replayed a lot of times. These types of games are built on a simple system from which different gameplay sceneries emerge by combining elements, weapons, powerups...This is done through randomization and is a critical element to keep the experience fresh. If the player always has the same skills in every run he will probably get bored of the game sooner than someone who is trying everything that the game has to offer, because the core system tends to be very simple: The quantity of different gameplay situations you may encounter will be severely diminshed if you remove player abilities/weapons from the available bag of tools the game can pick from.
Anyway, note that I was saying this about roguelites that are balanced too much towards player skill, which is not the case for Hades IMO.

>Like status effects?

It's been a while since I played the game, but I remember there being all kinds of passive effects that could clear rooms while you just dashed around and attacked mindlessly. I remember dropping the game becasue the second time I beat the final boss I still hadn't figured almost nothing about his moveset yet my build destroyed it almost on its own (and this was not only with Hades, but with a lot of the enemies and bosses beyond the 2nd area). I didn't need to engage with the enemies to roll over them and this is something I don't like, I preffer when games kick my ass and make earn a victory. If they present something as a huge challenge but then allow me to easily beat it by making me overpowered I feel lied to.

>presenting situations for you to engage past the core of the system.
That sounds like the Mayo 'tell me exactly what to do' approach. I don't need games to force me to do anything.

Sounds like it has good status effects.

>That sounds like the Mayo 'tell me exactly what to do' approach. I don't need games to force me to do anything.

You were asking about depth, IMHO having 3000 different ways of dealing damage isn't adding any depth if all you have to do in all cases is the same action and that is an universal answer to all the situations that the game presents to you.

I love Bayonetta, but 90% of her moveset is redundant. It's awesome for combo variety, but I'd love it more if it had several special "normal" moves like sweeps and some enemies nudged you towards using them. For example, the sweep works great against Grace and Glory (and even Gracious & Glorious). That adds depth, you now have another tool that you can use if so choose to. The game is not "telling you exactly what to do", but it's presenting a situation where sweeps are very useful. It would be even better if there were more combos with sweeps with them instead of just the one there is, but at least it's not something mandatory that you're forced to use.

My complaint about Hades is that you don't have any of these, everything works and there's no reason to use A over B.


>Sounds like it has good status effects.
It's not just status effects, it's things like your attack dealing electric damage that automatically chains through all enemies, your ranged attack becoming a saw that bounces around and destroys everything without you even having to aim, your dash repelling everything back to the enemies...It reaches a point where you can dash chaoticly while you mash the melee and ranged buttons and things will just die around you.

>IMHO having 3000 different ways of dealing damage isn't adding any depth
Ok that wasn't what you said before.

Yes, if you had say, a fireball that did 300 damage and an ice spike shot that did 300 damage, no properties like burn or freeze, then yes that is not depth.

Is that what's happening here? Are there no special properties like freeze, burn, poison, etc?

>sweeps in Bayo
Agreed. They're fantastic. Wish it wasn't locked in a string and just a single move.

>everything works and there's no reason to use A over B.
Are the weapons different? There's a bow which has to work different from a sword.

>electric chain
Don't see anything wrong with that. Destroy All Humans and Transformers Armada have a gun like this.

>saw that bounces around
>don't have to aim
Does it track enemies or bounce randomly? Any traps?

>things will just die
Are there higher difficulties?

>Is that what's happening here? Are there no special properties like freeze, burn, poison, etc?
There are a lot of different special properties like that, the problems are:
1- You always activate them the same way (normal attack/dashing/ranged attack...the trigger process does not differ depending on the powerup or weapon).
2- There'll all be overpowered by the time you really need them so the different effects really don't matter as just activating any of them means that you win.

The powerups you get are all things that are applied on top of your normal moveset. So it's not like you get a new move that you need to learn how to use, it's just that your normal move now has X additional effect. And these powerups are always benefitial, so you don't even have to make the choice of using them or not in some specific situation. There are no choices or changes to your playstyle at all. In fact, the more powerful you become the simpler your playstyle becomes, as the very basic isolated interactions you trigger with you basic moveset are enough to deal with the high level enemies. Instead of having to engage the enemies in close range like you did in the first encounters of the run, you can now move to the other point of the room and safely spam your special attacks from a distance. So this means that you don't even need to learn what attack patterns or behaviours they use as they'll usually be dead by the time they can close the gap.


>Are the weapons different? There's a bow which has to work different from a sword.
Yeah, there are 6 weapons, you choose one at the start of each run and that's it, you can only change it between runs. The moveset is quite simple (3-4 moves in total counting things like attacking while dashing).

>Don't see anything wrong with that. Destroy All Humans and Transformers Armada have a gun like this.
What I mean is that it's an example of an effect that doesn't bring any interesting choices to the game, you just keep playing as usual but now you deal more damage to more enemies "for free".

>Does it track enemies or bounce randomly? Any traps?
You can aim it and it bounces around reaaaally slowly, which makes it more destructive as it hits enemies repeatedly. When it finds an enemy on its way it'll melt it's healthbar.


>Are there higher difficulties?
It's a weird system in which you raise "heat" by tweaking some aspects of the game. It's been a while since I played, but I think it was stuff like removing healing items, enemies dealing more damage, more enemies per encounter, tougher enemies...It's not like the game was balanced for "Hard" and you can't really appreciate it in the default difficulty, as you can configure harder difficulties in completely different ways.

>activation
Sounds like the usual ARPG. I'm always after games that let me attach status effects to me weapons.

>just activating any of them means that you win.
Enemies die too fast?

>moveset simple
Not really an issue as great games like Shinobi, El Shaddai have small, simple movesets. It could be an issue if you can't use the moveset in different ways.

>What I mean is that it's an example of an effect that doesn't bring any interesting choices to the game, you just keep playing as usual but now you deal more damage to more enemies "for free".
That's a good point. In the games I mentioned there are properties like stun and in both games the weapons are tied to a meter. And you have to aim.

>difficulty
So modifiers to make it harder. Hopefully it gets hard enough that status effects actually matter. Watching some videos, it looks like it's all dodging while getting in attacks when you can while the passive stuff flies around. So a harder mode would likely just be more of that.

Still, I'll give it a go.

>Sounds like the usual ARPG. I'm always after games that let me attach status effects to me weapons.
More than attaching them to your weapon, you do so with an action: normal attack, dashing, dashing attack, ranged attack, special attack...In theory you could have different effects for each action, but in pratice it's much better to try to focus on 1 or 2 (electric, water, slumber...) in every run, that way they sinergise with each other better and is easier to upgrade them (I don't think you can find more than 2 different types of upgrades in every run).

>Enemies die too fast?
Yup, or the effects are too powerful, like turning enemies against each other. Or they deal huge AoE damage so you just have to dash around while you damage everything automagically.

>Not really an issue as great games like Shinobi, El Shaddai have small, simple movesets. It could be an issue if you can't use the moveset in different ways.
Dead Cells is a great example of a simple moveset done right: You have even less moves than in Hades (if you only count your 2 main weapons), but the weapon mechanics and enemy design make the combat amazing. Same with Hyper Light Drifter, which has a very similar combat system to Hades, but which I enjoyed much, much more. In Hades I didn't feel that flexibility because you're always using your moves in the same way no matter the enemy

>Watching some videos, it looks like it's all dodging while getting in attacks when you can while the passive stuff flies around.
That's a very good description of it without having to use 2000 words like I did

>Still, I'll give it a go.
Absolutely! It's not a bad game by any means, but I feel it gets too much hype for what it is. When I first played it everyone was saying this was the best roguelite ever and how it had better combat than Enter the Gungeon or Dead Cells, so when I got to playing it I felt pretty disappointed, specially after having had a similar experience with Transistor. In a way, I feel about it the same way as when people say that GOW2018 has the best combat system ever and that it's pushing the Character Action genre forward.
You can expect a good game, but not a great combat system.

>focus on one or two
Is that how upgrading works? Like picking up another of the same type levels it up like Vanquish guns?

> that way they sinergise with each other better
Do elements affect one another? Like can you use water to conduct electricity?

>like turning enemies against each other
This game has confusion and it's OP?! I'm going to be very happy.

>Dead Cells weapon mechanics
What are they?

>Hyper Light Drifter
Really liked this. Beat the game and wanted to keep playing in the arena but the slowdown was too much.

>That's a very good description of it without having to use 2000 words like I did
I like enemies dying to status ailments without me touching them so I should be able to get some fun out of this. Hopefully the modifiers make the enemies tougher.

>Transistor
I have that. Only played it a little and found the system really interesting. I messed with the slots and came out with a robot dog that could cause confusion. But the state didn't last long enough to be fun. Maybe there's a way to make it stronger. I don't think I fully understood the system.

>people say that GOW2018 has the best combat system ever
This should be classed as a mental illness.

>Is that how upgrading works? Like picking up another of the same type levels it up like Vanquish guns?
After some rooms you have to choose 1 upgrade. The upgrade can be a new powerup (for example deal electric damage with your normal attack) or an improvement (electric damage is 50% more powerful). As the number of powerups you can find in a run is limited, it's better to focus on a single element, so that the improvements can have more impact. So if in previous rooms you chose electric damage for your normal attack first and then electric damage for your ranged attack, when you apply the "+50% damage to electric" it wil benefit both your normal and ranged attacks. If you chose different upgrade elements after every room then you would end up the run with many different elements at their base level.
I think it's not possible to have more than 3/4 different gods/elements appear in a single run and the game favours gods you've already chosen in previous rooms, so the game itself pushes you in this direction.


>Do elements affect one another? Like can you use water to conduct electricity?
I don't think so, but you can find dual upgrades that mix 2 elements, though they're very rare.


>What are they?
There is a HUGE variety of weapons (swords, bows, spears, knives, hammers, many different shields, spells...). Every weapon has wildly different usage (speed, range, hitbox, cadence, some have combos, others can be charged...) and different conditions for critical attacks. Critical attacks are not a nice extra to have, but something you NEED to use constantly if you want to advance. The conditions for critical is specific for every weapon, so there is a sword that deals criticals when it hits the enemies from behind, a pickaxe that crits when fully charged, a whip that needs to hit the oponent with the tip, a bow that needs to be shot with specific timing...So your main weapon can completely change how you fight.
Now, you can have 2 main weapons, so you can choose a second weapon to cover the weakness of the first one (like one for short range and another for long range) or to work with it: You can have a hammer that crits when the enemy is stunned and a shield that stuns enemies on parry, so now your playstyle is about parrying enemies and finishing them with one big hammer crit.
And then you have 2 special skills, which you can use to further support your main strategy: If you have the dagger that crits when hitting enemies in the back, you can have a skil that teleports you right behind the enemy, or if you use the hammer you can use a stunning grenade...Skills have cooldowns and you can also choose different ways of reducing it, for example by parrying enemies with a shield.
Weapons and skills can have several perks like causing bleed, poison, freezing...So you can end up with a teleport skill that causes bleeding and an assassin's dagger that deals +50% damage to bleeding enemies.
So in the end each weapon is very different and pushes you towards certain playstyles, but then you have a lot of different ways to tweak that playstyle even further and even with all those combinations and overpowered sinergies you may get, the core of it all still resides on player skill and how you handle each encounter to trigger those crits without dying.


>I have that. Only played it a little and found the system really interesting. I messed with the slots and came out with a robot dog that could cause confusion. But the state didn't last long enough to be fun. Maybe there's a way to make it stronger. I don't think I fully understood the system.

Yeah that's a good way of putting it, I found cool stuff to do in theory, but then in practice it didn't work too well. I studied the system a lot and looked for guides and such because in the end I felt like I was missing something just like you say. But after not finding anything, I concluded that the combat just lacked balancing, which is the same feeling I get with Hades: A cool combat system on paper but on practice I feel like it lacks something to make all the pieces work together.


>This should be classed as a mental illness.
I'm so happy that I've found this forum :)

Played it a few hours. Agree with pretty much everything you said about it.

The status effects are great. They work even on bosses which is something I don't see often. I got the bow and first boon I got was Hangover (poison). But yeah the way you fight never changes. It's just attack>dodge>attack forever. Got boring very fast.

Love the artwork. The game actually came with a small art book with all the characters.

Played a bit more. This game sucks. I'm confused. How did this get praised at all? People must just like that and funny lines.

> Played a bit more. This game sucks. I'm confused. How did this get praised at all? People must just like that and funny lines.

After speaking so much about it I reinstalled it and have been playing a bit the last days. There is no rewards whatsoever to learning the enemy patterns and behaviours: Getting good ranged damage (via ranged attacks/upgrades or status effects) and hiding or running away is a much more effective tactic than dodging enemy attacks at the last moment and using the opening to punish. Engaging the enemies isn't a viable strategy at all as sometimes you'll have several overlapping attacks, AoE explosions, tracking lasers and environmental traps that make it impossible to not get hit unless you're using one of the boons that make you invulnerable to everything.

IMHO a good game should allow the player with enough experience and skill to get through all challenges in the game without getting hit not even once. This was as true in Mega Man 2 35+ years ago as it is in Dark Souls today. I don't think this is possible in Hades and I don't think that the game is even trying to teach the player how to get to that point. Great games teach you how to do that just by playing, like Tropical Freeze or Neon White. I don't feel like I'm getting any better playing Hades and I've beaten the final boss twice today, I'm only learning about overpowered boon combinations and cheap tricks. Dead Cells removes healing items as you advance in the game, that is the way the developers have of telling you that they know that you can do better, it's like they're removing the training wheels. Hades, on the other hand, gives you more life, more continues and more methods of healing as you advance. I see this as the developers admitting that the game is an unbalanced mess so you may need all this stuff to get through some of the shit you're going to be facing.

>How did this get praised at all?

junkies (gamers) love their virtual gambling; these kinds of games are both "fun" (highly addictive) and have "value" (timesinks) so they're perfect for the typical gamer who doesn't know the difference between addiction and fun and whose brains have been rewired to not feel motivation to play anything that's not giving them a steady stream of soul-sucking compulsion with big gambling rushes. the quality of the game in which someone is sinking all of this time into is never brought into question because by virtue of dumping lots of time into a game means that-- no matter what you say/know-- you must have found it fun and that there's no better way to spend your time; the junkie mind can't conceive of it in any other way. refer to: the comment section of any negative Steam review over a certain amount of hours played.

so i think it'd be a real struggle or impossible to find a roguelike/roguelite/whateverthefuck out there with even middle-of-the-road combat because these games are built around the addictive mechanics first and foremost (and why not, it's extremely difficult to make quality combat)-- they are the addictive mechanics and the combat is there to facilitate that. they're like McDonalds chicken nuggets; the nuggets are delivery devices to get that sauce into your mouth.

What's the forum's views on and rules around emulation?

And while I'm waiting, what controllers do people use here, and do they overclock them? I'm considering a Dualshock 4 for overclocking to a 1ms response time, but I'm not sure if it'll make my reactions better. Once you master an enemy, you stop reacting to them and anticipate their movements. Anyone use a hall effect joystick controller?

> emulation
In general, free to talk about it. Just don't share like hyperlinks or shit. Not that I'm against it, but it'd just be a shame if this forum somehow got nuked for having some megalinks here or w/e.

> controller
My fav. is THE DUKE, but I only have the classic. Still looking for the xbox-one version, that controller just fits my hands like a glove. That said I firmly believe that controllerspeed and efficiency matter less than familiarity i.e. using a controller that your mind just grasps instantly.

Understood. 2023's when I finally got into it, although I used it before for Bayo 2 and BotW.

I saw TGBS' Onimusha video. I don't see why he's such a purist about the original hardware. He said the high-res texture filtering of an emulator would give the game a bad look. Emu's the only way people are getting access to a lot of these older games, and not everyone has space to put or access to a crt either.

Started: Godhand, Astral Chain, NG1(B), GoW1

Matt wasn't kidding that Godhand's never getting a sequel. It's like the antithesis of modern action games, from the camera to the movement, so you're appealing to a niche of a niche. I like the dynamic difficulty, the way it averages what level you're at, and find ducking less risky than reviews had me believe. Having a random demon pop out is both fun and terrifying, but I haven't died yet. I guess dying would relieve all the tension, so it's good that I haven't. There's probably a liberal use of magic pixels keeping me alive.

This and Vanquish give me a much better insight into how Shinji Mikami makes games and scoring systems. I thought of a Bayo game where you parry with the right stick instead of the left. It would tighten up the window for parries in response. After God Hand, I'm not so sure. The instinct is strong to nurse the camera with the right stick. GoW lets you roll with it, but it seems camera control is here to stay. I'd say playing Godhand is essential for anyone making a game who's qconsidering using the right stick for evasive manoeuvres.

Either I'm misremembering, or Gow1 isn't as forgiving as GoW3. I have plenty of health, but the Hydra's tells are very small. Any time it wiggles its ears or moves its head a little seems to be the window of attack. I saw Phoenix Wright's video on [] [] /\, so I know what tricks to use. The balancing mini game seems out of place, although I like how the game just calls the qtes a mini game and Zeus' light a save point. NuGoW and other cinematic games do their best to disassociate from being a game.

It's too early to tell if it's good gameplay wise, but Astral Chain to me is just Scarlet Nexus with blue instead of orange highlights (although AC came out first). If you could make a modern game in 2 years, you'd think SN ripped off AC. I don't like the walkie-talkie sequence, and the constant breaking up of the action in the 1st level. Say what you will about Dmc5, that's something it shied away from mostly. Being my first Platinum game since Nier Automata in 2017, something just feels different about the company.

I'm actually coming round to the Switch. Now that I'm actually playing its games, I feel like a kid again in the best possible sense. My fondest gaming memories were back when I'd swap out discs or cartridges, before it was all saved to the hard drive. Switch haters should try out some exclusives. Might get a Switch 2, or a handheld exclusively for emulating. I've got Pocky & Rocky and Origami King next on my list.

All of a sudden, the backlog's not such a big deal. I know the homework that needs to be done to get on top of action games:

Chaos Legion (there's a PC version with no way of buying it, so it's abandonware)

GoW2 and PSP versions

NG2 (dusted off the "How to enjoy NG" article - Roy said that the Sigmas aren't bad games, but NG2 was almost unrecognisable from NGS2.) I'm enjoying what I've played so far with NG1, although I haven't met Alma yet. The camera's a little dodgy, but dodgy cameras and action games go together like dumb characters and horror movies.

Onimusha (and maybe re2/3 classic, if we're doing fixes camera angles?)

W101 (I try not to emulate what's on Steam, but Roy hates it and Matt loves it, so I should probably demo it before buying)

Transformers Devastation and Legend of Korra (removed from Steam)

Kingdom Hearts Trilogy (was unaware till, I think, Phoenix Wright pointed out that its combat was equal to dmc)

Mad World

Nightmare on Elm Street

Ghost Rider

Bayo 3 (next on the list). I know the story and have seen the gameplay, which is true of almost everything I've started but not finished.



This review jibes with me, and while I'm not likely to change my mind on the story, it's about time I came to my own conclusions on the gameplay. What do people who have finished it think of it? I know Bayo 2 gets flak for blocking enemies who can't be relaunched, but Sphere Hunter argued that enemies should be more challenging than jugglefood. Plus, enemies with shields should use them, and their backs are wide open.

As for controllers, I use the XSX controller. I sold my Xone to buy it. People say they're the same, but handling both at same time, you can tell the XSX is smaller. Your hands grip closer to the front where the triggers are. For the team who made it and got laughed at for the minor difference, in the unlikely event one of you reads this, I want you to know that I feel the difference, and appreciate the changes you made to make it fit 95% of hands better.

Xbox controllers have an 8ms response time and can't be overclocked. If I were on the market for a replacement (I never keep 2 controllers at the same time, except my Ps3 one), I'd consider a King Kong Pro 2 controller, which doesn't get stuck drift due to hall effect sensors. It's not crazy expensive either. The thing is the buttons screw me up. I know you can change them, but going from the Xbox to Nintendo layout really screwed me over in games like BotW. Since Xbox and PS are my main layouts, it would've been much more convenient for me if MS had copied Nintendo's button layout or used symbols.

I'm using emulation a lot, and as long as a game works correctly (not just visuals, but also audio, game logic, AI behavior etc...) I'll probably prefer to use an emulator over real HW and I personally feel emulators can bring the best out of games with higher resolutions, more stable framerates and letting me use any controller I want. FWIW, all the BC OG Xbox and 360 games on X1/XSX are being emulated.

In the case of games with pre rendered backgrounds like Oni 2 and classic RE or pixel art games, I wish I could play them on a CRT, although CRT shaders can help (like the built in one in Duckstation)

God Hand - Such a masterpiece, I truly feel that Ninja Gaiden and God Hand were tailor made for me lol. I loved the controls and camera right from the start, and the dodge system is brilliant. Mikami knew it will be a niche title that won't sell well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytr-v4CAnHE&ab_channel=miekkobe

I'd also highly recommend playing Viewtiful Joe, it's also a very unique and fun.

Switch - I would love to play some exclusives, but not on the actual hardware.

GoW - You can emulate them on RPCS3, as well as PCSX2 and PPSSPP.

NG - I'm playing NGB and NG2 on XSX, Xbox emulation is getting better but not sure how good is it currently. NGS1 and NG3RE work perfect on RPCS3, including all the online features of 3RE that were removed from NGMC

>GoW on RPCS3
How is it? I remember that 3 was pretty rough some time ago.

>Xbox emulation
It's decent but still a long way to go. NGB doesn't work that well but other games do, like Genma Onimusha (super light game thanks to the prerendered backgrounds). X360 emulation is better.

I should have clarified I meant that 1, 2, CoO and GoS work perfect on RPCS3 (from what I tried and footage I watched at least). I might still play 1 and 2 on PCSX2 due to having the proper 4:3 AR instead of the cropped 16:9 that is forced on the PS3 version.

3 and Ascension will require the most CPU power you can throw at them, but on such PCs I think they should work well.

Stay away from that PC version of Chaos Legion. It's a broken, glitchy mess. I wouldn't recommend it even of it's your only option.

I played my PS2 on an HDTV for a while. It's ugly but playable.

Working on getting a Retrotink so I won't have to worry about CRT again.

John_T_Smith wrote:
junkies (gamers) love their virtual gambling; these kinds of games are both "fun" (highly addictive) and have "value" (timesinks) so they're perfect for the typical gamer who doesn't know the difference between addiction and fun and whose brains have been rewired to not feel motivation to play anything that's not giving them a steady stream of soul-sucking compulsion with big gambling rushes. the quality of the game in which someone is sinking all of this time into is never brought into question because by virtue of dumping lots of time into a game means that-- no matter what you say/know-- you must have found it fun and that there's no better way to spend your time; the junkie mind can't conceive of it in any other way. refer to: the comment section of any negative Steam review over a certain amount of hours played.

Very good point about the game being addicting instead of fun: I think the constant rewards you get after every run, even if you die on the first area, are a huge part of what made it so well-received. There are a thousand upgrades to unlock that will little by little make you stronger, and the combat depending so much on the boons ensures that it's just a matter of time before everyone finds an op build that will take them to the end.


>so i think it'd be a real struggle or impossible to find a roguelike/roguelite/whateverthefuck out there with even middle-of-the-road combat because these games are built around the addictive mechanics first and foremost (and why not, it's extremely difficult to make quality combat)-- they are the addictive mechanics and the combat is there to facilitate that. they're like McDonalds chicken nuggets; the nuggets are delivery devices to get that sauce into your mouth.
I don't agree with this, there are plenty Roguelites that are built on good mechanics. Dead Cells for example has very solid gameplay and a good combat system, and I don't think that it exploits player addiction in any way.

GoW1 runs fine on rpcs3. Although there's a black bar under the pre-res cutscenes that switching to fullscreen in-game doesn't solve. 3 and Ascension are listed as "in game" rather than "playable" on the compatibility page. But I have the original hardware for them.

>Viewtiful Joe

Knew I was forgetting something. That and NG3RE. NGB runs fine for me on Xemu (60 mostly, with a few dips). Will test NG2 on Xenia tomorrow.

>Chaos Legion

Is there really no mod or anything that fixes it? I heard it was bad, so I might just get the PS2 version, but I assumed someone fixed it over the years.

Ffxiii Trilogy got fixes modded on PC, and that's universally hated. Although it was my first FF, so I have a soft spot for it. Loved Xiii-2, but hated Lightning Returns, until I played an old save this year. Fighting Caius while underlevelled, I actually had to learn the battle system. It's not as bad as I thought. Yes, you have to switch out roles often, but if you're in a zone where someone's strong to lightning and weak against wind, you can safely assume the nearby enemies you bump into will have the same weakness.

>Bayo 3

Will start tomorrow. One more thing to add about the review I linked. He talked about how the climax cutscenes were an implicit contract with the player - you see the cutscene, you win. But now Bayo has these unwinnable fights where she's humiliated. Also, Yahtzee talked about the lack of catharsis from the climaxes when you can summon a demon whenever.

I know it's story and game design rather than mechanics, but from what I've seen, little things seem to have been shaved off. Matthewmatosis mentioned the randomised grunts, preventing you from keeping an audial check of where you are in a combo (and presumably there to be more cinematic and less game-like) , and the lack of twirl animation when rotating the left stick, which normally signals that your next attack will be the 360 sweep.

>roguelites
It's a mess, I agree that there are ones with good mechanics like Dead Cells but the structure is usually annoying to me and hurts the game. And I think the extrinsic motivation factor is driving a lot of the format's popularity, especially for games that have arcadey-feeling mechanics.

>"the quality of the game in which someone is sinking all of this time into is never brought into question because by virtue of dumping lots of time into a game means that-- no matter what you say/know-- you must have found it fun and that there's no better way to spend your time"
Yeah this is crazy, sad to think about.

>Is there really no mod or anything that fixes it? I heard it was bad, so I might just get the PS2 version, but I assumed someone fixed it over the years.
Not that I know of.

If you get the PS2 version, note that the Japanese version is overall far easier.

>GoW1 runs fine on rpcs3
Better than PCSX2?

>NG2 on Xenia
Works great but there are some workarounds that need to be done in order for the game to function properly. Fortunately nothing crazy.

GoW 1 and 2 on PCSX2 do have some minor upscaling glitches remaining (fine on native) whereas RPCS3 doesn't have such issues, but I don't mind them. I was able to run them with upscaling on both emulators without dropping below 60. They run great on good PCs.

The reason I might play them on PCSX2 and not RPCS3 is due to the PS3 version being based on the fake, cropped 16:9 mode of the PS2 version, so I would rather have the proper 4:3 aspect ratio which isn't available in the PS3 version, unless there's a patch for it. Sadly, FMVs are also cropped.

How's the input lag on both RPCS3 and PCSX2? I played GoW2 on the PS2 emulator and remember it being fine on that front.

Hmm. Now I have to play the ps2 and ps3 verison of gow. Are the psp games also cropped on ps3? Then I won't really have anything to play with rpcs3.

>no matter what you say/know-- you must have found it fun and that there's no better way to spend your time

Yeah it's a pretty sad sunk cost fallacy. I sunk at least 500 hours into Genshin. What a joke. I could've used that time to master a good game, skill or language. What got me out is realising there are plenty of dopamine fiends that vampirically suck your time while you feel awful about it during or later. It helps that Genshin just copy-pastes levels and enemies into different biomes, and it's not hard to guess what future levels will look like.

Roguelites and open worlds, the modern day skinner boxes amirite?

As long as you enable optimal frame pacing in PCSX2 (it provides the lowest amount of input lag), input lag of GoW in PCSX2 should be the same as RPCS3. They feel very responsive in both emulators.

The PSP games were 16:9 to begin with so they aren't cropped, they look and play great on RPCS3.

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