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Posted: Apr 05 2015 08:09 pm

Finished up Brothers. I dunno, it didn't live up to the rave reviews that I remembered. I got it for a free download, so I need to keep my grumps reasonable. Though I have two main conclusions:

1: For each brother you are assigned one joystick (movement) and one shoulder button (interaction). As I said earlier, controlling two brothers generally feels neat, but there's not really much "puzzle" behind their interacting with the environment. The game is also pretty obvious with what objects you can interact with. So to me the "aha!" feel you get for solving a puzzle never really occurred, just "I used to be there and now I'm over here" until I reached the end. Controllers these days have two shoulder buttons, could it have been possible to give each brother another action?

2: The environment is beautifully rendered, the music fits nicely, and the overall message that the designers want you to walk away with is crystal clear, even with the running time of 3-5 hours. This all works as an "experience" styled game, but if I had paid the full $15 for a copy (i.e. during initial release) I would probably have buyer's remorse. Especially since a decent book can probably do better for cheaper.

Anyways, I recently picked up a copy of Super Mario 3D Land, and am looking forwards to playing it soon.

Posted: Apr 10 2015 05:00 pm

Currently playing through Final Fantasy VI; even though I've had the game for almost ten years and I've played through a good majority of it, I've never actually beaten it. Which leads me to my question: I know that you're "supposed" to level up all the characters, but what team of four is the best for the endgame? Right now I'm on the Floating Continent and I'm leaning towards Terra, Sabin, Shadow, and a tie between Edgar and Mog.

Joined: Aug 05 2008 Location: CA Posts: 867

Cameron wrote:

Currently playing through Final Fantasy VI; even though I've had the game for almost ten years and I've played through a good majority of it, I've never actually beaten it. Which leads me to my question: I know that you're "supposed" to level up all the characters, but what team of four is the best for the endgame? Right now I'm on the Floating Continent and I'm leaning towards Terra, Sabin, Shadow, and a tie between Edgar and Mog.

First of, be sure to save Shadow! I feel obligated to say this as you mentioned that he was one of your favorites. I'm not sure how far you have gotten in the past but you are at the point where you could potentially lose him for good.

The game gets a lot more interesting after this. It's entirely possible to beat the game with three or four characters. However, I would not recommend this as the side quests that are involved in the World of Ruin are pretty great, and it is difficult to do so without three viable groups. No spoilers intended but the last dungeon requires you to split your parties up. So recruit all of the characters and level them up.

There is a specific forest in the game that you can utilize to level and "Esper" up everyone, even the characters you couldn't give a shit about in under two hours. Do not underestimate the power of Locke and Gau.

Also, Shadow's lore is some of the best in the game. Stay at inns often when he is in your party. Wink

[SPOILER:9bf0514104]Strago: I have one request... Show me your face. Even if you are him, I have no intention of wasting time trying to talk you into staying. I just want to know... for Relm's sake...
Shadow: ...... (He takes off his mask and shows Strago his face. However, his back is turned so that the player can't see.)
Strago: Thank you... Shadow. ...Come, let's have a drink.[/SPOILER:9bf0514104]

You will miss Mog's water dance if you finish the Floating Continent too. Not a very big deal but it is worth checking out.

I thought Hardcore Gaming 101's April Fools joke was pretty good. It applies to FFVI.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kusoge/kusoge-finalfantasy6.htm

Joined: Aug 05 2008 Location: CA Posts: 867

Platinumed Bloodborne. Laughing

Still not anywhere close to where I was before my initial save got corrupted/bugged with gems and weapons, but whatever...

Posted: Apr 15 2015 12:58 pm

Played through Rome: Total War until the 3 Roman houses conquered the known world. I may try to declare war on them at some point but that will be a looong campaign and I don't want to start it just now.

I'm playing through Lord of the Rings: War in the North now. It's much better than the reviews indicate. It reminds me of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. It's not a full, open world game but it takes you to a lot of famous Middle Earth locations that don't get a lot of attention in the books and movies. Many of the areas look really good and, as a Tolkien fan, it was fun to experience them.

Due to recent events, I also gave the original Zelda a try for the first time since my childhood. It's amazing how much I remember and how much I forgot at the same time. After a few hours, I've completed dungeons 1, 3 & 4 and got the White Sword and Blue Ring. I can't find dungeons 2 and 5 anywhere and I'm going to try to find then without the internet so wish me luck.

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

I'm on a huge Civilization V kick lately. After that's done and I get paid again, I'm probably going to pick up GTA V for the PC. I've been looking forward to it for ages.

I also got a 3DS a couple months ago and played through Majora's Mask 3D. It was better than I expected, and felt good to go through everything again. I got to do Mario 3D Land before that, which was pretty good. Felt kind of short and incomplete though.

I picked up a mod that allows me to play Half-Life 2 with friends called Synergy. It was crazy, but hilarious and fun stuff. We're going to do Episode 1 sometime later.

Posted: Apr 20 2015 03:29 pm

Playing though Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (I like Ys Seven better...) and replaying Shantae: Risky's Revenge.

Posted: Apr 22 2015 12:13 am

Just finished Saints Row: The Third yesterday. I had stopped playing for months cause I just got bored. I picked it up again and saw I only had like 15 missions left, so I bombed it out yesterday. I didn't feel as satisfied as when I finished Saints Row II. In II, I felt like I really fought my hardest for my goal, and felt that taking out the enemies was a big achievement. I didn't get that with this. By the end of it, I felt like I just put down some dickheads that deserved it.

Posted: Apr 24 2015 04:36 am

Why did I buy the New 3DS? I feel like such a tool, considering how dead Nintendo is to me these days. I assumed a wave of worthwhile stuff would follow its release but ever since I got the thing, the eshop has been in the most piss poor state I can ever recall seeing (which is an impressive feat mind you). It's got extra buttons and processing power but I don't know of anything coming up that'll be utilizing them. I cracked because I was actually able to get the Majora's Mask edition. Before that I didn't give two shits. I should've just let it go. This is for sure the last piece of Nintendo hardware I'm purchasing so at least it's pretty.

Posted: Apr 25 2015 12:54 am

I have yet to see an exclusive game for the New 3DS that looks like it's actually utilizing it other than Xenoblade Chronicles, and I'm not particularly interested in playing that.

Posted: May 02 2015 09:45 am

Last night I realized I've never played Castlevania III doing the stages where you don't get the other characters. It was like playing a brand new classic Castlevania game.

Posted: May 05 2015 10:13 am

Toejam and Earl.

I may fire up Earthbound in the near future, this time with the hope of playing it all the way through as I still have yet to beat that game.

Joined: Nov 29 2014 Location: England Posts: 8

Recently been playing an awful lot of point and click adventures for some reason.
I recently bought the Kings Quest Collection, and it sparked me to look more into the genre again. Broken Sword, Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Sam and Max, Space Quest. So many classic adventures that really do hold up today.
Still trying to beat the first Broken Sword, forcing myself to not use a walkthrough or FAQ. Not as easy as it sounds.

Joined: Feb 04 2015 Location: California Posts: 49

No More Heroes 2

Posted: May 15 2015 01:04 am

Methid Man wrote:

Toejam and Earl.

I may fire up Earthbound in the near future, this time with the hope of playing it all the way through as I still have yet to beat that game.

I put a bit of time into Earthbound the other day and think I will continue playing a bit more over the next couple of days.

The same day I played that, I put in Uncharted Waters: New Horizons and played it for several hours. Discovering new cities, profitable trade routes and villages can get a bit "addicting" at times. I find that game more enjoyable than a lot of RPG's. The overworld/sailing overview reminded me a bit of the Final Fantasy II overworld art style which I really liked despite not playing that game much anymore.

Joined: Aug 05 2008 Location: CA Posts: 867

Playing Mortal Kombat X recently and it's pretty damn fun. Still get tired of them replacing every C with a K however.

Witcher 3 drops in about an hour though so there goes 100+ hours of my free time...

Posted: May 21 2015 11:25 pm

I had been playing Syndicate on SNES quite a bit. It's neat for being on the SNES but it's not a great game by any means. Tried it out on PC as well as I heard it was far, far better but I haven't enjoyed it significantly more than the SNES version so far, even though the PC version is definitely superior in all technical aspects. The PC version is definitely the superior version from what I can tell, but there is just something more enjoyable or satisfying about being able to carry out assasinations, civilian massacres and drive by shootings on the Super Nintendo.

Posted: May 24 2015 04:21 pm

Shin Zelda Densetsu. Another hack of the original Zelda. It's pretty awesome if you're a fan of the original game. Very much like Outlands, it's harder than the original (of course). You play as princess Zelda trying to rescue Link.

Posted: May 25 2015 01:03 am

Does it have any references to Shin Megami Tensei?

Speaking of ROM hacks, I played a hack of Super Mario World called The Lost Adventure Episode III. The fun part of these hacks isn't necessarily the level design or ASM gimmicks, but working out all the references to other games in the custom music and graphics.

Posted: May 25 2015 03:16 pm

I skimmed through some videos for that hack, looked very interesting. Mega Man, Castlevania, other Mario games, Sonic, etc. Looks like it took a lot of work.

Posted: May 26 2015 03:24 pm

I've been playing Axelay for the last couple of nights. I like it a lot. Space Shooters/Shmups are one of my favorite type's of games (or at least for retro games) but it's becoming pretty apparent that I am not very good at them lol.

Posted: May 27 2015 04:28 am

Got into Kerbal Space Program for a while; super fun.

At one point I had a Kerbal stuck in orbit without any fuel to decay his orbit, so I tried to rescue him by having him spacewalk to another vessel. Unfortunately I suck at aligning/docking spacecraft and I shot by him wasting too much fuel. But he did have enough thrust in his jetpack to push him to the atmosphere Razz

.

Except I couldn't switch away from him while in atmosphere, and the "rescue" ship crashed and burned...

...but the freefalling Kerbal survived. Laughing

-after he crashed into the ocean, not dead-

A nice solar eclipse later in the game:

And my first successful Mun landing:

"Successful"

And now I'm playing Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Brothers, because I got a Wii U. Mostly Mario Kart 8. Smile

Joined: Dec 17 2014 Posts: 4

Currently I am playing through the NES version of Final Fantasy on my Wii virtual console with my 7 year old daughter, I'm trying to get her into RPGs. Right now I am still in the Earth Cafe right before the Lich battle. My party is 3 fighters and a red mage.

Posted: May 31 2015 05:16 am

Playing Splatoon, and really enjoying it.

The aesthetics are adorable, I've only been kicked once by lag, and after an initial awkwardness with the motion controls it's pretty good for quick aiming adjustments (not as good as a mouse, but better than just analog sticks).

I hope they up the number of levels per hour, or however long the wait is, because I'm a little tired of the Saltspray Rig level. I think I was sent there about 70% of the time in the last hour. Confused

Anyone else playing it?

Posted: May 31 2015 01:04 pm

I have played Splatoon and have enjoyed it thus far. Some of the graffiti seems to be random miiverse posts. Maybe we'll get lucky and see one of sidewaydriver's posts as graffiti.