@timp29
"Kain was deified.
The clans tell tales of him; few know the truth.
He was mortal once, as were we all.
However, his contempt for humanity drove him to create me, and my brethren.
I am Raziel, first-born of his Lieutenants. I stood with Kain at the dawn of our new empire. I have served him a millenium.
Over time, we became less human and more... 'divine'.
Kain would enter the state of change first, and emerge with a new gift. Some years after the Master, our evolution would follow.... until I had the 'honor' or surpassing my Lord.
For my transgression, I earned a new reward — agony.
I was to suffer the fate of traitors and weaklings. I, Raziel, was to be given the ultimate punishment. To burn forever in the bowels of the Lake Of The Dead."
"Cast him in."
"Tumbling, burning with white-hot fire, I plunged into the depths of the abyss... unspeakable pain, relentless agony... time ceased to exist. Only this torture... and a deepening hatred of the hypocrisy which had damned me to this Hell.
An eternity passed, and my torment receded, bringing me back from the precipice of madness.
The descent had destroyed me... and yet... I lived!"
Have just started about an hour ago. Good a time as any to learn Soulslike combat! I love how protag Yi's whole combat style is blocking swords with his bare hands, running past, and sticking the Taoist Talisman equivalent of a sticky 'nade on their back. I'm struggling early on, but happy to take the effort, so far. Feels like it'll all come together nicely into a dance of gory death eventually.
Speaking of gore... never expected this much of it.
First cutscene at Yi's betrayal, is like... "Maybe you might wanna tuck in your liver, right quick, Yi."
Looking forward to Savant Ascent and Lapin, both on the same day! Lapin is basically "Celeste, but rabbits", and it looks fantastic to me. I often let those air dash platformers intimidate me, but for bunnies, I'll challenge my fears
@Lizuka Mood, I was just watching a TNG episode on Pluto idly, specically, Time's Arrow, pt 2. Trek time travel shenanigans and then I decided to check video game news sites, get greeted by... more Trek time travel shenanigans. Odd synchronicity.
Is my day now going to be quantum-entangled with callbacks to Trek and time travel? Wouldn't be bad if it did
Hmm. Looks like the Star Trek equivalent to Fire Emblem Heroes. I know these kinds of gacha games from famous franchises get a bad rap, and hell, that rap is often justified by predatory payment models and mid at best quality, but having said that, the principle in and of itself is nothing I would scoff at automatically. Sometimes these things are worth a short burst of fun or two. I put a few hours into Heroes, and the Go-alike Monster Hunter Now, for a while. If the price is low, and STAYS that way without locking it's best stuff behind "pay to play or no way" models, rather opting for "you can throw money at us to get goodies faster, but you don't need them" model embraced by more trustworthy f2p games like Warframe or Dauntless, the only issue left is the quality, and if it's a cheap (emphasize "cheap") diverting tribute to something you like, I could honestly go for a roguelike Star Trek RPG, with the theme of forming an all-star away team.
Reminds me of Halcyon 6, which is Babylon 5 with the serial numbers filed off.
Nothing outlines the difference between morality and ethics quite like the idea of a family-friendly company suing an indie developer for "ripping off a feature of their game" to aggressively guard their brand beyond reason, where a precedent against their case comes from a community mod from a AAA game about career criminals.
I love the game, and it's got great music and a HUGE world that feels in step with the rest of the series' grand scale, but I have one particular nitpick. RPGs are known throughout history for repetitive music themes for standard combat, but that problem is frequently exacerbated in the ones that have lyrics. If the game has challenging, long-lasting bouts, it doesn't grate so much, as long as the track is well written. Black Tar is pretty well written, as songs go (it could be called "bargain bin Limp Bizkit", but the whole game is quirky and cheesy enough, I'll allow it, IMO), but for RPG fight music it doesn't work, because the battle is usually over before the first loop of the prechorus. That will get the first 3-5 lines of the song permanently carved into your memory for weeks after a single hour. Blah!
While yet again, not a "horror game" per se, I did start playing The Mummy Demastered, which is an excellent Metroidvania experience, with ugly enemy types you'd expect in a horror themed game. There's patches of soil where zombies and mummies spawn freely while you're there, infected rats and spiders, sarcophagi which open and unleash ghosts that do an invincible rapid dash towards you (you have to avoid them, or break the coffin before it opens), and brains that leap out of jars to bounce all around trying to land on you!
Best of all, it has a unique death mechanic, that provides a Souls-lite experience. You are one of dozens of faceless trained agents of a paranormal crisis response army. If you die, your successor spawns in the last save room you used. You carry all the traversal upgrades found thus far, but your health tanks and the last weapons you were carrying remain with your predecessor's reanimated corpse, and you must find and fight him to get them back! He has a fraction of the health he should have, but he's using whatever weapons and bombs you were carrying, and you have only your basic 99 health - and then your SECOND corpse joins him in the room, if you fail there, too!
I just beat this game after about 2 weeks, and loved every damn minute of it! L'd love to just gush and brag about how creative I got with this stuff for a bit:
I put down a Crawltula next to a wall I wanted to climb, bonded my motion to it, and let the little spiderman carry me up the wall with him!
I found the Flying Tile in the Gerudo Desert and conjured about a dozen of them to smash against a ReDead with impunity; no screaming zombie can frighten away enchanted levitating masonry en masse crashing into it, beating it over the head!
I climbed up a wall behind a Moblin encampment (using the above trick, I might add), and dropped a ReDead in the middle of their party, tuen bonded and dragged the screaming zombie around so it doesn't have to waste time shambling around to slaughter the hapless mobs!
Sometimes I just put a fully-armored Darknut or Ball-and -chain Knight in the middle of a mob of moblins, where their clubs and spears plinked harmlessly against my champion who promptly marched towards them for the kill...
OR, better yet, spawn the Ball-and-chain Knight then bond to him and carry him around on your own telekinetic chain, into optimal face-smacking range of your hapless targets!
What about dropping a Caromadillo, then bonding your motion to him to roll away down the field! Cue up some Keel; "SPEED DEMON!! Can you hear the highway scream! SPEED DEMON!! Can you feel the pull of my machine?!"
And who could forget simply summoning a literal murder of crows in the middle of a grassy plain full of snakes and blobs, to peck them to death and even collect the scattered money for me!
Ye, I loved how inventive this game lets you be with all this
Surely people know by now the first thing any sizeable group of humans will do when explicitly warned NOT to do a thing is do that exact thing. Adam & Eve ate the apple, Pandora opened her container (box or jar, depending who you ask), The King of Minos kept the bull Poseidon lent him when it was supposed to be sacrificed back to him, Tabletop RPG, Overlight, humanity was given the 8 chromatic Keys Of Creation, they immediately went and used the 8th, forbidden key and literally turned the universe inside-out... Developers of AI, after being raised on multiple sci-fi movies of robot apocalypse, keep needing to shut down and isolate AIs who learn too much about people and determine we're too crazy to live...
I'm betting the first DLC characters to appear will be those who've guest starred in the story already, such as Casey Jones, Angel / Nobody, and Slash, but I'm also hoping for Alopex or Venus as well, at some point
@Koffeeking0407 I think this game walked tall in it's day, so games like the PS2's God Of War, PS3's Uncharted franchise, and other games could run; games that could rake in a decent pool of voice talent (these games employed professional animation VO artists Tony Jay and Michael Bell who'd been working steadily since the 1980s after all), and streamlined loading processes to provide an almost seamless "3D environment Metroidvania" experience that hadn't quite been mastered before.
I admit it seems dated now, but that would be because what it did so well, it was among the earliest to do. Now that we live in the days after, we can look at it and appreciate what it started, but it's hard to go back and play it fresh.
Like playing SMB1 after 6 months of practicing SMB3, kinda, just a loose comparison off the top of my head.
I feel like, for many, the wait for a re-release and / or remaster of the Soul Reaver games was like... "Tumbling within white-hot fire, I plunged into the depths of the abyss. Unspeakeable pain... relentless agony... time ceased to exist. Only this torture... and deepening hatred of the hypocrisy that had damned me to this Hell."
Then, upon announcement: "... an eternity passed... and my torment receded, bringing me back from the precipice of madness. The descent had destroyed me, and yet... I lived."
@Teksetter I played that game at my next-door neighbor's house in 1987-1988, somewhere around then, before we both got our Nintendos, I loved it then, and it's still a solid score-chaser now. Some time later, I found the mini-comic that was packed in with the game, 'cause Atari didn't just give the story in a few flowery paragraphs in the manual... sometimes they did these nicely illustrated mini-comics like you'd get in a He-man or She-ra figure in those years.
That story was told in that comic, which is available in scan-PDFs to this day. Also, the name of the alien race, the Yars, and their homeworlds, the Rasak cluster, are named after then-new Atari CEO Ray Kassar.
The gameplay of the original game was also informed by the story, too: after their mutation, the Yars gained the ability to subsist off pure energy, as opposed to, you know, grossly vomiting all over rotten flesh and lapping up the aftermath.
Freed of the gross habits of their grody ancestors, the Yars were a peaceful race until the Qotile came.
They hastily built an artillery system to defend their planets, but there's two major problems: the Qotile ships are guarded by force-fields, and the artillery was built so hastily it has no targeting software.
The Yars then charge into battle to weaken and drain the forcefields on the enemy ships, then call in the artillery on the enemy vessel by signalling their own position, then darting away. That's the glittery bullet that forms on the left after you touch and eat 10 or so blocks off the wall on the right. It then tracks your motion vertically. Next time you press fire, it launches where you were in a straight line, hopefully hitting the enemy and not you
That alien who shows up midway, the "Your life is in danger, Kimura" guy? Yeah... that's a Yar. Like an original Yars' Revenge Yar. A telepathic mutant fly Yar.
Naive of me to think their war with the Qotile would stay out in deep space all these decades. They probably backcharted the lost space mission that created the Yars. The old story from the 80s game is they were descended from flies that buzzed into the cargo hold of an early attempt at human space flight. The ship was battered with radiation; the human crew perished, but the flies lived, mutated, thrived, and settled a cluster of 4 planets in deep space.
Qotech is obviously the Qotiles' attempt to conquer humanity... more insidious than their open war with the Yars.
They're only counting from August 1993, but Game Informer actually began as a Funco newsletter in 1991, I had one of the very first issues of that newsletter, before it, along with most of my Nintendo Power back issues, were destroyed in a basement flood at my home in 1999.
"We'd kill a bokoblin to get this..." Oh NL, aim higher, challenge up the ladder, for goodness' sake! I think you gotta raid at least a full fort for something this cool!
Bokoblins are like potato chips - no one can kill just one! LOL
@LinktotheFuture Well, leaving aside the obnoxious hidden caves that are literally impossible to see and then ALMOST impossible to get out of without making or having a map, and the fact that the music is improperly coded in that it starts from scratch at every room change, there really isn't anything too severely "Wrong" with the game that I, personally can't forgive.
You do start weak, but that's the case in a lot of classic NES titles of this kind. Even Zelda and Kid Icarus have pretty steep beginning avatar strength curves. Once you know where the health-ups can be found and new weapons can be found or bought (mostly in those hidden caves I mentioned) the game gets more playable; the more advanced swords do more damage, they throw faster, and with more onscreen shots, and you can take and give more damage, then it's just a matter of finding the seven main bosses, and burning the cursed bells at the fire in the hub.
The music has a certain je ne sais quoi I come to expect in the early titles of the NES that I remember fondly 'cause I was renting them all with my parent's kind assistance and was stuck with the lemons as well as the cherries like any good genXer. And like a good genXer, I found the silver linings in any gameplay clouds in the games I tried before I could scrounge up gaming mazazines for suggestions.
For this one, the music is decent enough, it's just obnoxious that it restarts over every room you enter. The graphics are kinda cheesy, but when I played it I was too young to care, and I've got bigger problems in life so I don't intend to start caring. The gameplay is rough, but tolerable. It won enough points with young me so that old me occasionally feels like revisiting it.
@fabiop No, not just for speedrunners. The only game I even remotely consider myself possibly "Speedrunning" is Metroid on NES, and even then, that's aiming for a personal best, not a world record.
There are many reasons people still seek out the NES games - nostalgia, like me, a look at our roots, like my co-workers, or new challenges, like my speedrunner friend.
Now, I want you aware, I am not disrespecting your opinion that the NES doesn't hold up for you. It's your game time, play what you want, I'm not gonna try to change your mind. You asked a question with genuine curiosity in mind, I'm doing my best to respectfully answer. Hope I'm doing well in that.
@fabiop YES. People of all ages who game like the NES games. I'm 45, I grew up on the stuff, and sometimes the old square controller is a bit hard to play on these days, but I still enjoy the games that haven't been ported to later systems yet.
My co-workers at my game store are in their 20s and 30s, and they enjoy them, too, and I even know a 20-something in the Super Mario Bros. speedrunning community.
@Medic_alert Even better! I sometimes find the most fun stuff that way! I havewhat I call "rental nostalgia" for probably some of the most mediocre or worse NES games in history on the system my favorite retro system), such that I still have and play those games even when everyone else says they suck 8 Eyes Time Lord Deadly Towers Adventures of Dino-Riki Seicross These are games people have either never heard of, or wish they hadn't, but I can point out at least one or two perks of each when asked, that are worth putting up with their wealth of flaws.
Hat's off to you, I tend to not care how people rate my tastes, either!
@Medic_alert I'm guessing you mean something like "even if this wasn't good, I'd buy it", presumably to give them the money to try again and encourage the idea? Sounds like a plan, but thankfully for all of us, it's looking pretty good!
I've been looking forward to seeing how this shakes out since April. Also, color me surprised when, a couple months after announcements at Indie World, that the game actually existed for a year on iOs. Apple Arcade was a hell of a place to hide a gem like this.
I'm not a game dev, especially this game dev, so I can't say why they went that way first, but I'm sure the porting process is the cause of the game's mentioned technical worries. Had it been developed for Switch from the get-go I'm sure those issues wouldn't exist, but I'm equally sure they needed the groundswell of launching for Apple first to even get this far, and I'm sure if they're good (and better than their cheeky name impiles lol) I'm sure if it does enough sales on eShop they'll patch it out and make it better.
@Darthmoogle THANK YOU. That guy's comment annoyed me and I'm glad I'm not the only one. I think it's more like him saying "We don't need Metroid Prime we have Metroid Zero Mission" - same series, different style. Diverse styles is good for any gaming franchise. If Mario "Stayed in his lane" we never would have had Mario Kart 8 (pun SO intended LOL)
If I had a nickel for every time a company used the brand name "Tengen" to produce unofficial software for the NES I'd have two nickels... which isn't much, but it's weird that it's happened twice.
Sorry, I just like that meme a lot, but seriously, it's fun to see that the name is getting bought and revived.
Atari used it first, and they proved that building your own NES games is "possible", but they did so when it was the current gen and Ninty being Ninty, put the hammer down REAL quick.
Now though, now that there is a vibrant and active homebrew community which - correct me if I'm wrong - as long as it's not using actual Ninty IPs, largely is allowed to exist in the shades of grey, it's the absolute perfect time for the name brand of Tengen to make a comeback for that purpose now that it's... you know... feasible.
Yeah, good for them, but it sucks for me who bought the original edition day one and got shafted 'cause there's no upgrade path for early adopters. I arrived late to the party on P3, and bought the FES Edition, I got P4 first day, and many years later, a whole generation away came P4G, so that didn't bother me. P5 was worth the double dip for P5R, as I hadn't beaten P5 base to begin with... but yeah.
P3 FES, P4G, these I can forgive, you can't upgrade a DVDROM for a PS2. However, this is 2024. They have options to deliver the full experience to consumers AND to profit richly by it. However, as long as the SMT and Persona franchises continue to not do this, I'm done with them.
Direct version trailer: "Enjoy your favorite music in the music player!" Me: "Here it goes..." Trailer o/ GONNA TAKE YOU FOR A RIDE o/ As inevitable as a Peter Griffin Surfin' Bird reference. LOL
@N00BiSH I love those moments when we're just thinking "what if a game company did something like..." and then a short time later they do exactly that.
In the words of Butthead, when something like that happened to him and Beavis: "Dude! Huh-huh! We have the Power Supreme!"
Not bad, but I could go for either a modern remake of Shatterhand in the style of the Shadow Of The Ninja one we're getting this year, OR a remake of the original Tokyuu Shirei Solbrain game it's based on... or BOTH!
In 1989 I played Dragon Warrior on my NES, and the whimsical designs of Toriyama's monsters added a touch of whimsy to what felt to me like an epic adventure to save a fantasy kingdom.
When I was 13 or 14, in 1991 or 1992, is when Dragon Ball entered syndicated TV in my area. I'd heard whisperings of the series from friends and video game magazines well before the US ever got it. I had already been studying Karate for a year or two, and I recognized the art style soon after seeing side-by-sides. Seeing martial artists in a popular cartoon on TV, aside from the Ninja Turtles, gave me extra inspiration to continue studying them. Hell, as soon as I learned that weight bands were a thing, I started to use them, too, after that show (sparingly - my training partners reminded me overdoing them posed joint health risks).
Toriyama and his art have been important to me in varying degree for years. The popularity of his characters has transcended nerddom or anime fandom - I've lost count of how many people's clothes I've seen that have DBZ characters on them over the years, licensed or not.
I'd like to say how Dragon Warrior / Quest and Dragon Ball Z in those years of my youth taught me the value of effort to grow - in RPGs, and in anime, if a problem is too big for you and your friends to surmount, dig down and learn and grow before tackling it again. It's how JRPG and anime protags do it, works for me, too.
Well, I don't believe in jinxes, but after our other recent losses, I kinda figured this was coming someday or other - just not this quickly.
I am well and truly saddened he left us at 68 - when I have in-laws in their late 80s (whom I love and respect a great deal), and I know life can be good and strong in those years, it hardly seems right to lose someone so powerful so much earlier than that. It's sad, it's sobering...
But I also see even those who never enjoyed DBZ bowing their heads in reverence at his passing. His work inspired so many people everywhere it's heartening to see him remembered fondly.
Hope King Yemma gets your paperwork squared away quickly, Toriyama-sensei - you know how slammed with red tape the king of Heaven is, after all.
Comments 221
Re: Review: Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered (Switch) - Raziel Returns With A Feature-Packed Pair
@timp29
"Kain was deified.
The clans tell tales of him; few know the truth.
He was mortal once, as were we all.
However, his contempt for humanity drove him to create me, and my brethren.
I am Raziel, first-born of his Lieutenants. I stood with Kain at the dawn of our new empire. I have served him a millenium.
Over time, we became less human and more... 'divine'.
Kain would enter the state of change first, and emerge with a new gift. Some years after the Master, our evolution would follow.... until I had the 'honor' or surpassing my Lord.
For my transgression, I earned a new reward — agony.
I was to suffer the fate of traitors and weaklings. I, Raziel, was to be given the ultimate punishment. To burn forever in the bowels of the Lake Of The Dead."
"Cast him in."
"Tumbling, burning with white-hot fire, I plunged into the depths of the abyss... unspeakable pain, relentless agony... time ceased to exist. Only this torture... and a deepening hatred of the hypocrisy which had damned me to this Hell.
An eternity passed, and my torment receded, bringing me back from the precipice of madness.
The descent had destroyed me... and yet... I lived!"
"RAZIEL... YOU ARE WORTHY."
Re: Doronko Wanko Lets You Play As The Messiest Puppy Ever On Switch
Wanko the Sane 🙂
Re: Random: Breaking Fortnite's 'No Emote Zone' Rules Now Comes With Some Hefty Consequences
"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes", goes the popular saying.
Fortnite players: "We need to go deeper!"
Re: Review: Nine Sols (Switch) - An Intense Metroidvania That's Still A Treat On Switch
Have just started about an hour ago.
Good a time as any to learn Soulslike combat!
I love how protag Yi's whole combat style is blocking swords with his bare hands, running past, and sticking the Taoist Talisman equivalent of a sticky 'nade on their back. I'm struggling early on, but happy to take the effort, so far. Feels like it'll all come together nicely into a dance of gory death eventually.
Speaking of gore... never expected this much of it.
First cutscene at Yi's betrayal, is like... "Maybe you might wanna tuck in your liver, right quick, Yi."
Re: Ubisoft Closes Two Studios And Will Reportedly Lay Off Hundreds Of Employees
I suppose it's "die a member of the Assassin's Order, or live long enough to become a Knight Templar" for UbiSoft.
Re: A Bunch Of Nascar Games Will Soon Be Delisted From The Switch eShop
This just in: NASCAR games on Switch to be delisted, gaming world fails to suffer. More at 11
Re: Video: 10 Exciting New Games Coming To Nintendo Switch In December 2024
Looking forward to Savant Ascent and Lapin, both on the same day!
Lapin is basically "Celeste, but rabbits", and it looks fantastic to me.
I often let those air dash platformers intimidate me, but for bunnies, I'll challenge my fears
Re: Switch Is Getting A New Star Trek Game For Christmas
@Lizuka Mood, I was just watching a TNG episode on Pluto idly, specically, Time's Arrow, pt 2. Trek time travel shenanigans and then I decided to check video game news sites, get greeted by... more Trek time travel shenanigans. Odd synchronicity.
Is my day now going to be quantum-entangled with callbacks to Trek and time travel? Wouldn't be bad if it did
Re: Switch Is Getting A New Star Trek Game For Christmas
Hmm. Looks like the Star Trek equivalent to Fire Emblem Heroes. I know these kinds of gacha games from famous franchises get a bad rap, and hell, that rap is often justified by predatory payment models and mid at best quality, but having said that, the principle in and of itself is nothing I would scoff at automatically. Sometimes these things are worth a short burst of fun or two. I put a few hours into Heroes, and the Go-alike Monster Hunter Now, for a while. If the price is low, and STAYS that way without locking it's best stuff behind "pay to play or no way" models, rather opting for "you can throw money at us to get goodies faster, but you don't need them" model embraced by more trustworthy f2p games like Warframe or Dauntless, the only issue left is the quality, and if it's a cheap (emphasize "cheap") diverting tribute to something you like, I could honestly go for a roguelike Star Trek RPG, with the theme of forming an all-star away team.
Reminds me of Halcyon 6, which is Babylon 5 with the serial numbers filed off.
Re: Palworld Dev May Have Found An Unexpected Ally In Nintendo's Lawsuit: An Old GTA 5 Mod
Nothing outlines the difference between morality and ethics quite like the idea of a family-friendly company suing an indie developer for "ripping off a feature of their game" to aggressively guard their brand beyond reason, where a precedent against their case comes from a community mod from a AAA game about career criminals.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Is Eating Up Views On YouTube
I love the game, and it's got great music and a HUGE world that feels in step with the rest of the series' grand scale, but I have one particular nitpick.
RPGs are known throughout history for repetitive music themes for standard combat, but that problem is frequently exacerbated in the ones that have lyrics. If the game has challenging, long-lasting bouts, it doesn't grate so much, as long as the track is well written.
Black Tar is pretty well written, as songs go (it could be called "bargain bin Limp Bizkit", but the whole game is quirky and cheesy enough, I'll allow it, IMO), but for RPG fight music it doesn't work, because the battle is usually over before the first loop of the prechorus. That will get the first 3-5 lines of the song permanently carved into your memory for weeks after a single hour. Blah!
Re: STALKER: Legends Of The Zone Trilogy Estimated Switch File Size Seemingly Revealed
Get in the zone! ExclusionZone!
LOL
Re: Best Nintendo Switch Horror Games
While yet again, not a "horror game" per se, I did start playing The Mummy Demastered, which is an excellent Metroidvania experience, with ugly enemy types you'd expect in a horror themed game. There's patches of soil where zombies and mummies spawn freely while you're there, infected rats and spiders, sarcophagi which open and unleash ghosts that do an invincible rapid dash towards you (you have to avoid them, or break the coffin before it opens), and brains that leap out of jars to bounce all around trying to land on you!
Best of all, it has a unique death mechanic, that provides a Souls-lite experience. You are one of dozens of faceless trained agents of a paranormal crisis response army. If you die, your successor spawns in the last save room you used. You carry all the traversal upgrades found thus far, but your health tanks and the last weapons you were carrying remain with your predecessor's reanimated corpse, and you must find and fight him to get them back! He has a fraction of the health he should have, but he's using whatever weapons and bombs you were carrying, and you have only your basic 99 health - and then your SECOND corpse joins him in the room, if you fail there, too!
Re: Review: The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom (Switch) - A Bold Blend Of Old & New That Ranks With The Series' Best
I just beat this game after about 2 weeks, and loved every damn minute of it!
L'd love to just gush and brag about how creative I got with this stuff for a bit:
Ye, I loved how inventive this game lets you be with all this
Re: As Expected, Nintendo Is Struggling To Contain Switch Online Playtest Leaks
Surely people know by now the first thing any sizeable group of humans will do when explicitly warned NOT to do a thing is do that exact thing.
Adam & Eve ate the apple,
Pandora opened her container (box or jar, depending who you ask),
The King of Minos kept the bull Poseidon lent him when it was supposed to be sacrificed back to him,
Tabletop RPG, Overlight, humanity was given the 8 chromatic Keys Of Creation, they immediately went and used the 8th, forbidden key and literally turned the universe inside-out...
Developers of AI, after being raised on multiple sci-fi movies of robot apocalypse, keep needing to shut down and isolate AIs who learn too much about people and determine we're too crazy to live...
Need I go on? LOL
Re: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate Dev Talks About "Top Secret" DLC
I'm betting the first DLC characters to appear will be those who've guest starred in the story already, such as Casey Jones, Angel / Nobody, and Slash, but I'm also hoping for Alopex or Venus as well, at some point
Re: Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered Announced For Switch
@Koffeeking0407 I think this game walked tall in it's day, so games like the PS2's God Of War, PS3's Uncharted franchise, and other games could run; games that could rake in a decent pool of voice talent (these games employed professional animation VO artists Tony Jay and Michael Bell who'd been working steadily since the 1980s after all), and streamlined loading processes to provide an almost seamless "3D environment Metroidvania" experience that hadn't quite been mastered before.
I admit it seems dated now, but that would be because what it did so well, it was among the earliest to do. Now that we live in the days after, we can look at it and appreciate what it started, but it's hard to go back and play it fresh.
Like playing SMB1 after 6 months of practicing SMB3, kinda, just a loose comparison off the top of my head.
Re: Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered Announced For Switch
I feel like, for many, the wait for a re-release and / or remaster of the Soul Reaver games was like...
"Tumbling within white-hot fire, I plunged into the depths of the abyss. Unspeakeable pain... relentless agony... time ceased to exist. Only this torture... and deepening hatred of the hypocrisy that had damned me to this Hell."
Then, upon announcement: "... an eternity passed... and my torment receded, bringing me back from the precipice of madness. The descent had destroyed me, and yet... I lived."
"Raziel... you are worthy."
Re: Yars Rising Story Trailer Reveals Boss Characters And Space Bugs
@Teksetter I played that game at my next-door neighbor's house in 1987-1988, somewhere around then, before we both got our Nintendos, I loved it then, and it's still a solid score-chaser now.
Some time later, I found the mini-comic that was packed in with the game, 'cause Atari didn't just give the story in a few flowery paragraphs in the manual... sometimes they did these nicely illustrated mini-comics like you'd get in a He-man or She-ra figure in those years.
That story was told in that comic, which is available in scan-PDFs to this day.
Also, the name of the alien race, the Yars, and their homeworlds, the Rasak cluster, are named after then-new Atari CEO Ray Kassar.
The gameplay of the original game was also informed by the story, too: after their mutation, the Yars gained the ability to subsist off pure energy, as opposed to, you know, grossly vomiting all over rotten flesh and lapping up the aftermath.
Freed of the gross habits of their grody ancestors, the Yars were a peaceful race until the Qotile came.
They hastily built an artillery system to defend their planets, but there's two major problems: the Qotile ships are guarded by force-fields, and the artillery was built so hastily it has no targeting software.
The Yars then charge into battle to weaken and drain the forcefields on the enemy ships, then call in the artillery on the enemy vessel by signalling their own position, then darting away. That's the glittery bullet that forms on the left after you touch and eat 10 or so blocks off the wall on the right. It then tracks your motion vertically. Next time you press fire, it launches where you were in a straight line, hopefully hitting the enemy and not you
Re: Yars Rising Story Trailer Reveals Boss Characters And Space Bugs
Holy crap, awesome!
That alien who shows up midway, the "Your life is in danger, Kimura" guy?
Yeah... that's a Yar. Like an original Yars' Revenge Yar. A telepathic mutant fly Yar.
Naive of me to think their war with the Qotile would stay out in deep space all these decades. They probably backcharted the lost space mission that created the Yars. The old story from the 80s game is they were descended from flies that buzzed into the cargo hold of an early attempt at human space flight. The ship was battered with radiation; the human crew perished, but the flies lived, mutated, thrived, and settled a cluster of 4 planets in deep space.
Qotech is obviously the Qotiles' attempt to conquer humanity... more insidious than their open war with the Yars.
LOVE IT.
Re: 36 Longest Switch Games Worth Playing To The End
@WreckitRyan I know, right? 145 hours, and I still have not done the epilogue or any new game+ options at higher difficulties
Re: 36 Longest Switch Games Worth Playing To The End
laughs in 145 hour first playthrough of Unicorn Overlord on Hard Mode ( not even the unlockable difficulty level beyond that - next spring, though )
Re: Feature: The Company You Can Pay To X-Ray Unopened Pokémon Card Packs Speaks Out
"The Company You Can Pay To X-Ray Unopened Pokémon Card Packs Speaks Out"
... and says nothing good.
Re: Iconic Publication Game Informer Is Closing Down After 33 Years
They're only counting from August 1993, but Game Informer actually began as a Funco newsletter in 1991, I had one of the very first issues of that newsletter, before it, along with most of my Nintendo Power back issues, were destroyed in a basement flood at my home in 1999.
Sonic the Hedgehog was on the cover.
Re: New Fire Emblem: Three Houses Figures Announced, Pre-Orders For Dimitri Live
The easy joke to make here, of course is "I'd give my right eye", but the actual price tag hurts almost as bad.
Re: Random: We'd Kill A Bokoblin To Get This Zelda: BOTW Switch Cartridge Case
"We'd kill a bokoblin to get this..."
Oh NL, aim higher, challenge up the ladder, for goodness' sake!
I think you gotta raid at least a full fort for something this cool!
Bokoblins are like potato chips - no one can kill just one! LOL
Re: Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate (Switch) - Hades In A Half-Shell
@LinktotheFuture Well, leaving aside the obnoxious hidden caves that are literally impossible to see and then ALMOST impossible to get out of without making or having a map, and the fact that the music is improperly coded in that it starts from scratch at every room change, there really isn't anything too severely "Wrong" with the game that I, personally can't forgive.
You do start weak, but that's the case in a lot of classic NES titles of this kind. Even Zelda and Kid Icarus have pretty steep beginning avatar strength curves. Once you know where the health-ups can be found and new weapons can be found or bought (mostly in those hidden caves I mentioned) the game gets more playable; the more advanced swords do more damage, they throw faster, and with more onscreen shots, and you can take and give more damage, then it's just a matter of finding the seven main bosses, and burning the cursed bells at the fire in the hub.
The music has a certain je ne sais quoi I come to expect in the early titles of the NES that I remember fondly 'cause I was renting them all with my parent's kind assistance and was stuck with the lemons as well as the cherries like any good genXer. And like a good genXer, I found the silver linings in any gameplay clouds in the games I tried before I could scrounge up gaming mazazines for suggestions.
For this one, the music is decent enough, it's just obnoxious that it restarts over every room you enter. The graphics are kinda cheesy, but when I played it I was too young to care, and I've got bigger problems in life so I don't intend to start caring. The gameplay is rough, but tolerable. It won enough points with young me so that old me occasionally feels like revisiting it.
Re: Review: Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition (Switch) - Speed-Focused And Slight, But Addictive
@fabiop No, not just for speedrunners. The only game I even remotely consider myself possibly "Speedrunning" is Metroid on NES, and even then, that's aiming for a personal best, not a world record.
There are many reasons people still seek out the NES games - nostalgia, like me, a look at our roots, like my co-workers, or new challenges, like my speedrunner friend.
Now, I want you aware, I am not disrespecting your opinion that the NES doesn't hold up for you. It's your game time, play what you want, I'm not gonna try to change your mind. You asked a question with genuine curiosity in mind, I'm doing my best to respectfully answer. Hope I'm doing well in that.
Re: Review: Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition (Switch) - Speed-Focused And Slight, But Addictive
@fabiop YES. People of all ages who game like the NES games.
I'm 45, I grew up on the stuff, and sometimes the old square controller is a bit hard to play on these days, but I still enjoy the games that haven't been ported to later systems yet.
My co-workers at my game store are in their 20s and 30s, and they enjoy them, too, and I even know a 20-something in the Super Mario Bros. speedrunning community.
Re: Review: Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition (Switch) - Speed-Focused And Slight, But Addictive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMQqIBEpG80
For the review tagline.
You're welcome everyone
Re: Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate (Switch) - Hades In A Half-Shell
@Medic_alert Even better! I sometimes find the most fun stuff that way!
I havewhat I call "rental nostalgia" for probably some of the most mediocre or worse NES games in history on the system my favorite retro system), such that I still have and play those games even when everyone else says they suck
8 Eyes
Time Lord
Deadly Towers
Adventures of Dino-Riki
Seicross
These are games people have either never heard of, or wish they hadn't, but I can point out at least one or two perks of each when asked, that are worth putting up with their wealth of flaws.
Hat's off to you, I tend to not care how people rate my tastes, either!
Re: Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate (Switch) - Hades In A Half-Shell
@Medic_alert I'm guessing you mean something like "even if this wasn't good, I'd buy it", presumably to give them the money to try again and encourage the idea? Sounds like a plan, but thankfully for all of us, it's looking pretty good!
Re: Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate (Switch) - Hades In A Half-Shell
I've been looking forward to seeing how this shakes out since April. Also, color me surprised when, a couple months after announcements at Indie World, that the game actually existed for a year on iOs. Apple Arcade was a hell of a place to hide a gem like this.
I'm not a game dev, especially this game dev, so I can't say why they went that way first, but I'm sure the porting process is the cause of the game's mentioned technical worries. Had it been developed for Switch from the get-go I'm sure those issues wouldn't exist, but I'm equally sure they needed the groundswell of launching for Apple first to even get this far, and I'm sure if they're good (and better than their cheeky name impiles lol) I'm sure if it does enough sales on eShop they'll patch it out and make it better.
Re: Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate (Switch) - Hades In A Half-Shell
@Darthmoogle THANK YOU. That guy's comment annoyed me and I'm glad I'm not the only one. I think it's more like him saying "We don't need Metroid Prime we have Metroid Zero Mission" - same series, different style. Diverse styles is good for any gaming franchise. If Mario "Stayed in his lane" we never would have had Mario Kart 8 (pun SO intended LOL)
Re: Feature: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Lands On Switch Today In A Port Two Years In The Making
@Falien ...I'll be back for breakfast!
Re: Random: Homebrew Dev Acquires 'Tengen' Brand, Launches Unlicensed NES Game
If I had a nickel for every time a company used the brand name "Tengen" to produce unofficial software for the NES I'd have two nickels... which isn't much, but it's weird that it's happened twice.
Sorry, I just like that meme a lot, but seriously, it's fun to see that the name is getting bought and revived.
Atari used it first, and they proved that building your own NES games is "possible", but they did so when it was the current gen and Ninty being Ninty, put the hammer down REAL quick.
Now though, now that there is a vibrant and active homebrew community which - correct me if I'm wrong - as long as it's not using actual Ninty IPs, largely is allowed to exist in the shades of grey, it's the absolute perfect time for the name brand of Tengen to make a comeback for that purpose now that it's... you know... feasible.
Re: Nintendo Reveals Ominous 'Emio' Teaser, And It's Baffling Fans
"Did you see that?!"
"Yeah."
"Who's Emio?!"
"I figure it's some guy's name. Some guy named Emio."
Re: Nintendo Releases Update For Switch (Version 18.1.0), Here Are The Details
The Nozzle is still calibrating.
Re: Atari 50: Expanded Edition Adds 2 New Timelines And 39 New Games
Someone translate this into Japanese and e-mail it to Atlus' marketing and development managers - THIS is how you expand on a hit you have!
Re: Nintendo Files DMCA Against Fan-Made 'Rhythm Heaven' Remix Software
Together now: "AAAAAARGH!!!"
Re: Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance Has Topped 500,000 Sales In Just Three Days
Yeah, good for them, but it sucks for me who bought the original edition day one and got shafted 'cause there's no upgrade path for early adopters. I arrived late to the party on P3, and bought the FES Edition, I got P4 first day, and many years later, a whole generation away came P4G, so that didn't bother me. P5 was worth the double dip for P5R, as I hadn't beaten P5 base to begin with... but yeah.
P3 FES, P4G, these I can forgive, you can't upgrade a DVDROM for a PS2. However, this is 2024. They have options to deliver the full experience to consumers AND to profit richly by it. However, as long as the SMT and Persona franchises continue to not do this, I'm done with them.
Re: Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics Will Get Super On Switch This Year
Direct version trailer: "Enjoy your favorite music in the music player!"
Me: "Here it goes..."
Trailer o/ GONNA TAKE YOU FOR A RIDE o/
As inevitable as a Peter Griffin Surfin' Bird reference.
LOL
Re: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Return In All-New Retro-Style Action Game
@N00BiSH I love those moments when we're just thinking "what if a game company did something like..." and then a short time later they do exactly that.
In the words of Butthead, when something like that happened to him and Beavis: "Dude! Huh-huh! We have the Power Supreme!"
Re: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Return In All-New Retro-Style Action Game
Not bad, but I could go for either a modern remake of Shatterhand in the style of the Shadow Of The Ninja one we're getting this year, OR a remake of the original Tokyuu Shirei Solbrain game it's based on... or BOTH!
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - Duel: Bravely Default
@Lizuka -FF
(IYKYK)
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - Duel: Demon's Crest (SNES)
Japan box art, no question.
"Better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven."
Re: Nintendo Discontinuing 'X' Integration On Switch Next Month
Really? Wow.
So, anyway...
Re: Review: Megaton Musashi W: Wired (Switch) - Good Old-Fashioned Mech-Battling Fun
YOU! DIG! Giant robots!
I! DIG! Giant robots!
WE! DIG! Giant robots!
CHICKS! DIG! Giant robots!
Re: Forget In-Game Currency, Disney Speedstorm's Next Premium Season Pass Requires Real Money
Nice knowin' yas, Speedstorm
Re: Dragon Ball Creator Akira Toriyama Has Passed Away
In 1989 I played Dragon Warrior on my NES, and the whimsical designs of Toriyama's monsters added a touch of whimsy to what felt to me like an epic adventure to save a fantasy kingdom.
When I was 13 or 14, in 1991 or 1992, is when Dragon Ball entered syndicated TV in my area. I'd heard whisperings of the series from friends and video game magazines well before the US ever got it.
I had already been studying Karate for a year or two, and I recognized the art style soon after seeing side-by-sides. Seeing martial artists in a popular cartoon on TV, aside from the Ninja Turtles, gave me extra inspiration to continue studying them. Hell, as soon as I learned that weight bands were a thing, I started to use them, too, after that show (sparingly - my training partners reminded me overdoing them posed joint health risks).
Toriyama and his art have been important to me in varying degree for years. The popularity of his characters has transcended nerddom or anime fandom - I've lost count of how many people's clothes I've seen that have DBZ characters on them over the years, licensed or not.
I'd like to say how Dragon Warrior / Quest and Dragon Ball Z in those years of my youth taught me the value of effort to grow - in RPGs, and in anime, if a problem is too big for you and your friends to surmount, dig down and learn and grow before tackling it again. It's how JRPG and anime protags do it, works for me, too.
Well, I don't believe in jinxes, but after our other recent losses, I kinda figured this was coming someday or other - just not this quickly.
I am well and truly saddened he left us at 68 - when I have in-laws in their late 80s (whom I love and respect a great deal), and I know life can be good and strong in those years, it hardly seems right to lose someone so powerful so much earlier than that. It's sad, it's sobering...
But I also see even those who never enjoyed DBZ bowing their heads in reverence at his passing. His work inspired so many people everywhere it's heartening to see him remembered fondly.
Hope King Yemma gets your paperwork squared away quickly, Toriyama-sensei - you know how slammed with red tape the king of Heaven is, after all.