Game opinions thread (what did you play, what did you think?)

fake

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Finally getting around to Bayonetta 2 on Smitch.

Bayo 1 was tied for my favorite game of last gen (along with Super Mario Galaxy) so I was really looking forward to this. I'm only an hour or so in, and I'm glad to see the gameplay and combat really hasn't changed much. The graphics look like they could've been from the 360, but oh well. Really looking forward to playing through this and getting gold medals for each battle.

I also downloaded the Langrisser I & II demo. I love that the OG character portraits, bitmap maps, and OG BGM are available, but I hate that they animated their mouthes and eyes during the dialogue. I also wish they had the original battle sequences and sprites rather than this bogus Flash style shit. I'll probably buy the full game when it's on sale. SRPGs are definitely not my cup, but I love the early '90s anime style so much that I'm really drawn to the series.
 

jro

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Langrisser I and II on Switch is really good. The new art is ugly as hell indeed, though, agreed. I think you can change to the old character sprites but maybe you can't change to the old backgrounds?

Bayo II is still a fun game but it's much easier than Bayo I and loses something due to that, IMO. I've replayed B1 four-ish times and it never gets boring since it stays so challenging (and the ranking system is very strict), but I got bored about a third of the way through my second playthrough of II and never went back. Much more forgiving ranking system also which is neither here not there.
 

ggallegos1

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Langrisser I and II on Switch is really good. The new art is ugly as hell indeed, though, agreed. I think you can change to the old character sprites but maybe you can't change to the old backgrounds?

Bayo II is still a fun game but it's much easier than Bayo I and loses something due to that, IMO. I've replayed B1 four-ish times and it never gets boring since it stays so challenging (and the ranking system is very strict), but I got bored about a third of the way through my second playthrough of II and never went back. Much more forgiving ranking system also which is neither here not there.

Bayo 2 was a fun one for sure. I played it on Switch and even in handheld mode it still kept me hooked in. I do agree with the notion that it was a bit easier, I finished it but it did lose a smidge of it's charm as a result
 

fake

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Langrisser I and II on Switch is really good. The new art is ugly as hell indeed, though, agreed. I think you can change to the old character sprites but maybe you can't change to the old backgrounds?

Bayo II is still a fun game but it's much easier than Bayo I and loses something due to that, IMO. I've replayed B1 four-ish times and it never gets boring since it stays so challenging (and the ranking system is very strict), but I got bored about a third of the way through my second playthrough of II and never went back. Much more forgiving ranking system also which is neither here not there.

You can change to the old character portraits for when they pop up in dialogue, and you can change to the old level backgrounds. But when it goes to the battle scenes, it turns into that gross web comic looking style. I'd be tempted to play Langrisser 1 on Genesis, but I'm betting there are a lot of QoL updates in the Switch version that make it worth bearing through the bad art :lolz:

Yeah, I did notice Bayo2 seems a bit easier but I was hoping it was just because it was the first few levels. My cat doesn't really watch TV but when she saw parts of Bayo2 she was tranfixed. I showed my GF and I was anticipating her thinking the character design of Bayonetta was cringe but she thought she was badass.

I'm really kicking myself for what I did with my Bayo1 saves. I was clearing HDD space on my 360 and meant to delete the install files of Bayo1 but accidentally deleted my saves where I had beat the game on every difficult from normal on up and got at least gold for ever fight. Uhhhg. It's been so long that I can play it again and it will feel fresh, though. I'm betting Bayo3 won't be out for another few years.
 

jro

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Morbid: The Seven Acolytes - Fun, if a little shallow. Basically a 2-D isometric Souls-like that's more forgiving than most games in the genre (you don't drop your experience when you die). Still pretty challenging most of the time with a nice sense of exploration and progression to the world and some good boss fights.

Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition - Played through the original DMC5 when it came out in 2019 and liked it a lot then, and I still like it quite a lot now. Finished it on Devil Hunter mode yesterday and started into Son of Sparda mode. Still can't beat Urizen in the prologue, figure I might as well just finish Son of Sparda and one-shot him on Heaven or Hell mode. Adding the Vergil mode is a nice touch as well, probably will eventually play through that too. Some of the level design is weird and too padded, and the camera can have some issues (especially when you're playing as V), but it's a great game, overall, and one of the rare games that I'll play through again and again.
 

jro

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Foregone - basically takes Dead Cells' gameplay, dumbs it down some, and then turns it into a Souls-like instead of a Rogue-lite. Pretty fun, for the most part, but the stages tended to drag on too long and enemy variety was severely lacking. Several fantastic boss fights (that tended to be far harder than the rest of the game) made it worth a playthrough.
 

jro

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WISE FROM YOUR GWAVE! Bumpin' this like a mofo.

I just finished Scarlet Nexus. It had really enjoyable gameplay combined with really terrible level designs and a final boss that's, just, yeah. Anyway, same developer as Code Vein, and I'd guess it used the same engine, just tweaked. SN's combat is fast to the point of chaos much of the time, rather than Souls-like like CV. But it's fun, definitely fun, kept me playing for 20+ hours even with many of the levels making me grind my teeth.

Levels felt like an old-school RPG much of the time. Long, winding mazes where you have to find a key then backtrack to a door, find another key, or similar, punctuated by big rooms with fights.

Then the final boss... yeesh, for both good and bad. Took me over forty minutes, with one phase including a rotation of set pieces with one, in particular, that nearly broke the game right near the end (I wouldn't have been happy) where my character would only spin in place instead of move with the camera also locked on that point while I got pelted with projectiles, luckily rotating to the next gimmick fixed it. Fight felt properly grand in scope and finishing it was a little like beating a hard Souls boss, but I also almost broke the disc.
 

Dr Shroom

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Finished the Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster today.
I think its a good version, but a bit easier than the original one. Some jobs are still pretty much useless (Scholar, Bard comes to mind) and the last boss just spams the same group wide attack over and over. Music is nice and being to run and walk in diagonals is a nice QoL improvment. I prefer this over the 3D version.

Took me almost 13 hours to beat, so it's clearly one of the shorter FF games.
 

k'_127

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Is the screen scrolling smooth when walk around? The Romancing Saga ports had this low FPS which made it annoying for me when played on a TV.
 

Pretty Amy

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Is the screen scrolling smooth when walk around? The Romancing Saga ports had this low FPS which made it annoying for me when played on a TV.

I played 2/3 entirely on the Switch in handheld mode because of that.
 

k'_127

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Popful Mail - Sega CD

popful-mail_4.pngScreenshot_20211107-084443_1.png

+ Excellent presentation overall
+ Good variety of locations and monsters
+ Branching paths that encourage exploration and re-visiting previous areas

- Health is too low. You usually die from 3 hits, and recovery items are scarce, especially in the beginning
- While walking, the camera keeps you near the front edge of the screen while it's scrolling, giving you a hard time seeing monsters ahead
- Coupled together, the previous two points make progressing a chore I save-scummed my way through most of the game.
- Second half is somewhat linear
 

sylvie

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Playing Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors for PSVita

Not sure how long I'll actually play this, wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but I enjoy the trashy hentai / ecchi theme and mechanics. You use the touch screen to "punish" your slave girls and it raises their stats and teaches them skills.

My only complaint is that the battle system and party building system is a bit shallow. Feels more like a gaccha game for a smart phone than a true RPG. You raise their stats by groping them in various ways using the touch screen, which is cool, but you can't equip them with any items or armor and combat, while turn-based, is simplified to 1 out of the 4 party members acting per turn, which seem to be chainable or whatever but still not very captivating.

That being said, if I get much farther in it, I half-expect things to open up and become more interesting. So far it's looking like a grind and a shot in the dark and a half-chub.

It seems like Dungeon Travelers 2 is more what I was looking for, retaining the trashy hentai shit and adding a much more complex yet traditional RPG mechanics. Had to buy a cartridge of the game online though, as the game was delisted from the PSN which is fucking annoying

EDIT: in other news, I notice a pretty retarded opinion in this thread regarding Final Fantasy XV.

XV is a solid game.

HONEY, BABEY, if you think that's a solid game, you need electro shock therapy. Because it's a fucking piece of unfinished garbage. So think again sweetie
 
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sylvie

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Still playing Breath of the Wild, in spite of having logged more than 250 hours into it (I believe the game itself has given up counting my time spent). Those … koroks are wily. So far, this is the best Zelda game I've played.
🚨 Autism Awareness Alert 🚨
 

fake

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Anyone going to play SMT V? I'm mid-Octopath but would like to try it after that. I loved Nocturne, but the style of IV just didn't interest me and I never picked it up.
 

ggallegos1

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Anyone going to play SMT V? I'm mid-Octopath but would like to try it after that. I loved Nocturne, but the style of IV just didn't interest me and I never picked it up.
I am, probably after Dragon Quest XI, just got it in the mail and stoked to play as i loved Nocturne and IV
 

BlackaneseNiNjA

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Anyone going to play SMT V? I'm mid-Octopath but would like to try it after that. I loved Nocturne, but the style of IV just didn't interest me and I never picked it up.
Whats up fake, I’m currently playing through SMTV and I’m really enjoying it so far. Of course, the fun of the press-turn combat system is preserved, but a ton has been streamlined since Nocturne so you may really dig it despite skipping both 3ds SMT IV entries.
 

max 330 mega

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Been playing nothing but megadrive this week since getting the analogue SG, and have been discovering games ive never played before that have blown me away with how great they are. Im in love with most of these:
Rocket knight adventures (one of the most technically impressive 16 bit games i have ever seen)

Vectorman 2 (why is the color pallette in this game so dark bland and shitty?? Not digging it)

Chiki chiki boys (really want to play this one multiplayer, its so much fun)

Dick Tracy (hard, but i really dig the variations in gameplay a lot)

Pulseman (weird seeing a gamefreak title pre-pokemon. Another super visually impressive game)
 

fake

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Whats up fake, I’m currently playing through SMTV and I’m really enjoying it so far. Of course, the fun of the press-turn combat system is preserved, but a ton has been streamlined since Nocturne so you may really dig it despite skipping both 3ds SMT IV entries.
Thanks, dude. I remember Nocturne being challenging, but veering into frustrating at times. Would you say V is similar? Or is it just challenging in a good way? (I think the benchmark for me is if I lose hours of progress because there aren't enough save points / item pickups.)
 
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BlackaneseNiNjA

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Thanks, dude. I remember Nocturne being challenging, but veering into frustrating at times. Would you say V is similar? Or is it just challenging in a good way? (I think the benchmark for me is if I lose hours of progress because there aren't enough save points / item pickups.)
SMT V’s challenge is at a decent sweet spot since it has 3 selectable difficulty levels when you start the game: casual, normal, and hard. If you select normal, the game allows you to adjust the difficulty down to casual at any point.

SMT V can also be way less punishing than Nocturne due to a lot of other streamlined improvements:

  • Health, MP, and Magatsuhi can be restored while running around and exploring.
  • Random Battles are gone; enemies can now be seen in the environment and can be directly engaged or avoided.
  • The separate functioning “Terminals” from Nocturne have been replaced by “Leylines”. It is now possible to save, heal, shop, teleport, fuse demons, and upgrade skills all from the same save locations in the overworld.
All of these additions are not indications that SMT V does not offer a fantastic challenge. The above improvements just help the game feel a bit more balanced and respectful of the player’s time imho.
 
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fake

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SMT V’s challenge is at a decent sweet spot since it has 3 selectable difficulty levels when you start the game: casual, normal, and hard. If you select normal, the game allows you to adjust the difficulty down to casual at any point.

SMT V can also be way less punishing than Nocturne due to a lot of other streamlined improvements:

  • Health, MP, and Magatsuhi can be restored while running around and exploring.
  • Random Battles are gone; enemies can now be seen in the environment and can be directly engaged or avoided.
  • The separate functioning “Terminals” from Nocturne have been replaced by “Leylines”. It is now possible to save, heal, shop, teleport, fuse demons, and upgrade skills all from the same save locations in the overworld.
All of these additions are not indications that SMT V does not offer a fantastic challenge. The above improvements just help the game feel a bit more balanced and respectful of the player’s time.
This is perfect - thank you!
 

k'_127

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La Mulana EX


La Mulana was originally an indie game that was released in 2006 on PC with MSX graphics, and was remade 5 years later on Wii (titled La Mulana EX) with Steam and PS Vita ports following shortly after. The remake was also recently ported to modern platforms along its sequel's release. Pics of the original release:

lamulana-3.png lamulana-7.png

lamulana-comp1a.png lamulana-12.png

Generally, I have very strong and mixed feelings about the game:

+ Heavily inspired by old adventure games like the the MSX' Maze of Galious (its main inspiration), The Goonies (MSX) and Castlevania 2. It captures these games' spirit so well

+ Excellent variety of maps to explore and challenging monsters

+ Tons of items and power-up's to collect as well

+ Controls, platforming and combat are all excellent too

+ Killer soundtrack

- The game is designed to freely complete most objectives in no particular order. The maps are inter-connected, and you can obtain abilities and beat bosses in many many possible sequences. It may sound like a good thing, but it's not (will explain below).

- The puzzles are extremely cryptic, not just for optional power-up's or secret items, but for many crucial parts of the game, especially the later ones. It's hard to tell whether you are supposed to solve a puzzle now, or if it's meant to be solved later. It's also often not clear what does a puzzle unlock (it may open a locked door in an entirely different area, for example)

- And here is the shitty part: having the two points above coupled together, not only will you eventually be bound to heavily rely on guides, but it will also be so hard for you to pin-point your current progress in these guides, making you feel completely lost most of the time.

- You will spend a lot of time combing the map over and over as a result, which may totally ruin the pace and makes you waste a lot of time just trying to figure out your next step.

I enjoyed the game overall, but I hope the sequel heavily tones down the cryptic secrets shit. I know it's intentionally trying to emulate this aspect from older games, but this is going overboard.

I think it's best enjoyed with a single 100% collectibles playthrough. That took me about 40 hours using guides for the later parts.

I don't recommend going for achievements / trophies. It involves speedrunning hard mode with 100% completion in a single playthrough. There are many missables too. I did it anyways following an excellent youtube guide (took me an additional 7 hours).
 
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