RetroOutcast

And this is why I'm antinatalist.

100 hours of unpaid work is not enough. He needs to be fired and put on blast.

@ArchRex Yeah no this game is more on the just right/tough side of things if you're not just racing to the end.

I'm about three and a half hours in and really enjoying this so far. I was thinking the metroidvania aspects would really hinder the experience for me but so far I haven't really gotten lost and the game is nice enough to at least give you a couple hints after acquiring an artifact. Only real gripe with it so far is the swimming controls (then again what FPS has good underwater handling? I'll wait.) and the whole monsters-packed-into-tiny-corridors thing it likes to do.

@Magrane To me the Celeste approach is getting rid of lives so that it's "fair", but proceeding to make every screen a nusiance that will require you to die somewhere in the double (and eventually triple) digits to overcome.

As for this game, I tried it out and while the lives system is there...it definitely was not built around it unfortunately. Same as Crash 4- it's there but the actual design and gameplay is more contemporary. Pretty disappointing.

@Jumping_Dead This is why I never support Kickstarter projects. I think Yacht Club's growth has made them greedy, no different to how Wayforward has been since Half Genie Hero released.

It also makes me question their overall confidence in the project if they're just giving out demos to infleuncers and websites who, quite frankly, will probably feel obligated to hype this game up. Sure, it looks great...but that's not a substitute for actually being able to play it and seeing for yourself. Cyber Shadow also looked as amazing as Shovel Knight from the trailers (especially since they made it seem as if you got all of these neat moves out the gate instead of gradually unlocking them- borderline false advertising imo) but tbh I felt it was a 6 or 7/10 max once I actually played through it.

@ramu-chan I've got to agree with you here, and I'm someone who almost exclusively plays older games at this point. The thing that bothers me most is that now the press and devs think this is what people adored the most about everything made in the 80's and 90's. The "git gud" ***** really needs to die- difficulty is really only a small piece of the puzzle.

May have to pass on this as I'm sick of "git gud" games. Shovel Knight had the perfect balance, Cyber Shadow was honestly too frustrating for its own good at times (although I did wind up finishing it on Game Pass)...it's almost like they've forgotten that it was only a small portion of NES/SNES that were truly balls to the wall when it came to difficulty. It wasn't this big, defining feature until recently and I've always found it kind of stupid.

An actual indie game that has a 16 bit art style that looks authentic? Sign me up.

@victordamazio 10th generation: No games at all- just ideas sold to you for $79.99.

If you ask me we need another industry wide crash. It's gone too far.

So they're finally getting it to the point it should've been at when it launched...slowly.

Devs are getting so lazy that even emulation is following the "launch now, fix later" approach. Yikes.

Lost me at roguelike

Yet they still can't fix the number one issue with this game- the fact that you can't distinguish your bullets from that of enemies.

Come on, it's game design 101 when it comes to these sort of games. Contra did it like 30 years ago, and so did Metal Slug. Instead of peddling more content, they should have focused on this first. Smh.

Yeah, no. I'd actually like to be able to play the game when it comes out...not like a year later. It's funny how LRG has scammed people into buying far more for the base game and then has them waiting even longer just to play it. Maybe I'm just weird because all of those little extra goodies just don't justify it for me. :L

@Magrane I think Crash 4 started that trend. The Alex Kidd remake also had a toggle for infinite lives.

Honestly, if a game is built around the lives system, that's what I want to use. It's honestly quite rare for a game like this to really be built around that, though. A lot of devs think the celeste approach is the only one that works. :L

Finally...something that is not a mehtroidvania or rouge-like. Art style looks a little generic, but I can forgive that in this case.

Oh look a reason to renew my Netflix subscription- it looks so good even if the episodes are short

I know I'm usually pessimistic about newer games but this actually looks good. Like really good. After how disappointing and generic Star Allies was...this is going to be nice.

@Anti-Matter I just want to know why it's rated T

@BloodNinja It's competition and arguably better built but sadly I think that price is going to be a deal breaker for most people.

@Heavyarms55 It's not just a Nintendo issue, but I've seriously never had this happen with non Nintendo products and tbh I played far more PS2 and Xbox than Gamecube back in the day when I had all of those. Even then...guess what got the drift first?

I was interested until I swa the price

@The-Nate Oh no I completely forgot about them having hold of Taito properties..ew.

@somebread It's still enabling ***** behavior from devs and companies when a journalist defends a game that is this fundamentally flawed.

This article definitely took off in terms of shares and engagement and I'm sure some are going to take it as "We can keep getting away with producing crap because people will still buy and defend it".

Case in point Square Enix is now trying to get away with NFT ***** after unleashing this turd upon us.

Somebody please get Gex away from this awful ass company

sigh

And this here is why we are going to keep getting crappy games. Sure, Nintendo Power may have given the thumbs up to virtually any piece of ***** that found its way onto the NES back then...but no publication has ever went to this length to defend a game as problematic as Balan.

What incentive do companies and devs have to improve when people are just going to continue getting on their knees no matter what they churn out?

We'll see what happens. Personally devs have been delaying games and making promises they can't keep for some time now. If it turns out that this is actually a good game and has something to show for the delay...that's fantastic. If not, it's just more proof that Sega is still as incompetent as ever with just how many games they've fumbled on in the past 20 years.

And this is the same company that wants to charge us $50 a year for online services when they can't even use the money towards improving the servers

These devs are just getting lazier and lazier when it comes to retro game compilations and remasters. Unless I see "M2" somewhere...I'm not going to waste my money on the compilations these days.

I seriously thought that was Space Cadet Pinball on the screen for a minute lmao

@Paraka hell even asking for updated textures is probably asking too much of these devs and Nintendo in 2021

Physical compilation or bust. Put all three games on a single cartridge and price it around the same as Cruis'n Blast...couldn't be that hard. Not paying for games I can't even keep on my console if I decide I don't want to keep paying for a trash online service.

@roy130390 I doubt we'll be seeing a bunch of legitimate exclusives since there's an emphasis on cross generation support. At least not for a few years.

@CharlieGirl Right. I'd totally get it if they were talking about the sequel, but 2021 has been the year of constant delays so it also doesn't surprise me too much. Clockwork Aquario also got pushed back almost half a month just for America after already having been pushed back last year to Q2 2021 only to be pushed back until damn near 2022. Granted, that wasn't an entire port...but still in all pretty weird.

Sonic Origins also seems to be going through the same issue, and all it is is a compilation of some Genesis and a Sega CD game. I don't want to pull the "lazy dev" card since I know people get triggered by that around here but...something is definitely going on in the industry and I have a feeling its more than just covid with some of these.

@Handsomistic15 I feel like their track record's been a bit hit-and-miss recently. The Shantae DLC for instance was way the ***** overpriced for what it was and took ages to actually release...then they went the "launch now, fix a year later" route for 7S. We'll see what comes of RCG 2 and Zero.

@roy130390 I suppose it's all subjective. Out of those, only ratchet and clank sounds good but I'm not paying $500+ just to play it on a new console that most people can't even get ahold of yet. Chances are it's also probably a game that could have worked as a cross generation release from what I have seen of it.

$20 is just way too much for something like this. I'll maybe try it on a deep discount...like $5.

No surprise here. 2021 was a ***** year for games...at least 2022 will be better.

@Fugman It also has several QOL updates such as notes not resetting if you die on a stage so, really, it's a much better investment unless you just really like to lick boot or are somehow super opossed to emulating games in 2021.

@Fugman Just emulate it or get the XBLA version.

I've had the definitive version on XBox 360/Xbox One for years. And you know what the best part is? If I decide I don't want to pay $50 a month for a trash service...I still get to keep the game.

Laziness and greediness seem to be recurring themes in the modern gaming landscape...

Oh man I can't wait for Sonic 3 and Kunckles: KFC Edition

So not only is the service absolute garbage...but it can't even stay up reliably.

Again...is the full package really worth sixty a year?

@r0mer0 ditto on pre-ordering especially digital. That's just giving these devs money just for the sake of giving them money. Would you give a chef the full price of your meal (plus the tip) before you even got to see the damn food?

@CharlieGirl Yeah, I never understood why people always jump to "the reviewer/OP is just too young to understand" whenever a game like this gets a negative (or sometimes even lukewarm) review.

I've not played Bloodrayne even though I grew up with a PS1 and PS2. Most of my time was spent on games like Ratchet and Clank, Sly and Klonoa. That being said it wouldn't surprise me if I were to try this out and find it out unplayable since that's been the case coming back to a lot of early 3D games. These just sadly didn't age as well as 32/16/8 bit games.

yawn

It's not on here but Clockwork Aquario drops on the 14th- pretty excited for it since it got delayed to hell and back.

How hard is it to look at games like Polyroll and Oddmar (both mobile to Switch games that I would have never suspected to be mobile games at first glance) and do what they did?

I'll never say that mobile games coming to Switch is inherently a bad thing because of examples like the above, but it seems like more and more of them are just lazy crash grabs with no consideration of the jump/changes in hardware.

@CharlieGirl It's weird to think about how much has changed even in just the span of 7 years. If the original Shovel Knight was in development or releasing just now...it would have probably been half of the final game's campaign with the rest "coming soon". (1-2 years later)

@CharlieGirl At least Shovel Knight felt like a completed game even before all of the DLC...at least it did to me.

Nowadays, devs want you to fork over money to play things in "early access" and push things out in a late alpha or beta state at full price. It's a problem that mostly started with AAA games but it's definitely crept over to the indie scene. It's very disappointing.