What are you playing?

GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Ok, I finished the M&M7 Tutorial level.

This isn't just clunky, this is full on JANKY. There is SO much jank in this game I'm surprised it isn't made by a Russian dev house.

Don't go in there, there's a dragon in there!
Don't do it!
Don't do it!
Ok, common sense tells me that at this level, when insects and bats are kicking my ass, I stand no chance in combat against a dragon, and everybody says not to go in there, so I won't.
Gee, where can I find a longbow and the missing contestants? I've looked everywhere except...

Oh you gotta be kidding me. Gotta sprint the hell around a red dragon as it shoots fireballs at me, grabbing everything off the floor until I find the two missing quest items I need. AND IT IS SO JANK. Anna and Snuffles take a fireball to the face and die somewhere in the process, but death in this game seems to be about as inconvenient as a parking ticket, so no big - just a quick trip to the healer, drop a couple hundred gold, and bada bing bada boom, back in business.

My enthusiasm is waning fast.

Maybe I should try the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition instead. Might be more what I'm looking for.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Frank said:
So in the spirit here, I'm playing the FF1 pixel remaster. I haven't played FF1 since I was 7 on the NES when I borrowed it from my aunt's friend.

I just got Scourged by a Dark Wizard before any member of my party could react. TPK. One spell.

OK.
Click to expand...
(psst, Disco Elysium is a really good rpg)
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
This isn't just clunky, this is full on JANKY. There is SO much jank in this game I'm surprised it isn't made by a Russian dev house.
Click to expand...
There's a bit of a learning curve dealing with the fact that the environments are 3D even though the sprites themselves are not. This lends an additional element of strategy later where you can dodge incoming missile attacks by, well, just moving your party's hitbox out of harm's way or behind cover. Also your characters are hella squishy until you finally get decent equipment (which as you might expect does not happen until after the tutorial).

I find it amusing that you chose the Chuck Norris lookalike to be your Monk.
Also I know you probably picked her because she's a redhead, but DAMN she is such a whiner!
My usual power party in this game is Paladin/Archer/Cleric/Sorcerer, but I have also played Ranger/Druid/Cleric/Sorcerer when I feel like I want to be able to make potions on my own instead of having to depend on whatever is up for sale in the shop.
...basically you're always going to want to have at least one Cleric and Sorcerer in your party, is what I'm saying.

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

And I won’t be insulted if you dump the game unfinished, I mainly suggested it as a sort of 16-bit bridge between 8-bit U3 and 64-bit BG3.
But I will say that if you dump it now, that means you won’t have gotten to play Arcomage…

—Patrick
 
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figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Frank said:
So in the spirit here, I'm playing the FF1 pixel remaster. I haven't played FF1 since I was 7 on the NES when I borrowed it from my aunt's friend.

I just got Scourged by a Dark Wizard before any member of my party could react. TPK. One spell.

OK.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that lines up with my memory of Final Fantasy 1. Lots of bullshit.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
GasBandit said:
In retrospect, FF1 was ridiculously grindy and completely on rails (the overworld map is an illusion)
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There is some sequence breaking possible. I always did the Castle of Ordeals and Ice Cave to get the rat tail, airship and class changes before going through the volcano.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
A long time ago, Dei and I tried Hammerwatch. It's a co-op pixelart Gauntlet clone. It didn't stick with us. I tried it again today, just to give it another chance.

I can see why we dropped it almost immediately. The gameplay is spammy and tedious. The levels are WAY bigger than they need to be, and incorporate excruciating levels of backtracking, and key hunts can take what seems like hours. The inability to zoom in and out of the map is unforgivable, and the default control scheme could not be worse. Which is perplexing because if you change it to mouse aim, autofire, and remap the fire and ability 2 buttons to M1 and M2, suddenly the controls are great.

It's a pity because there's a good concept under all that tedium... but obviously they had a level designer who was being paid by the tile.
 
Frank

Frank

That's a wrap on FF1. I'd forgotten how little actual game there is.

GasBandit said:
In retrospect, FF1 was ridiculously grindy and completely on rails (the overworld map is an illusion)
Click to expand...
I mean, this is true for most Final Fantasy games. (maybe not the grind, but illusion of choice on where to go)
 
Fun Size

Fun Size

Started Scarlet Hollow this weekend and blew through the first chapter, which is your basic haunted town visual novel. I'm a big fan of Abby Howard's cryptid/monster designs in The Last Halloween and The Crossroads at Midnight, so this was a no-brainer (I actually kickstarted this one). It was a good choice and I had to stop because there's only two chapters and I'm blowing through both, but there are enough choices from the get go that I know I'm going to play this repeatedly.
 
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Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

My internet at home has been super spotty, meaning I can't spend all my time playing FF14.

So I've been playing through Persona 4 Golden on steam instead. The steam port is pretty good, and aside from a few cinematics not getting properly upressed overall it looks damn good.

It's also my favorite persona game, though keep in mind one only played it and 5. I'll be emulating 3 next though
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Edited to change BIGASS SCREENSHOTS into imgur album



I never got around to playing the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition, and wouldn't you know it, it went on sale today for 5 bucks. I haven't played the original in 20 years, so I figure since I seem to be jonesing for old school RPGs lately, this'd be a good opportunity.

I had absolutely no idea that this is, like, Emrys' most favorite game ever. She's got THOUSANDS of hours in it.

She watched me play and kept saying things like "go over to the right and look under the third tree" and there's like a stupidly overpowered ring there that doubles your spell slots. Holy crap.
 
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GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
It's clear to me Baldur's Gate is one of those games that just really gets a lot of benefit from Nostalgia Goggles. This game just... isn't very good. The interface is opaque, even the "enhanced" one, the difficulty ramp is obnoxious ("Oh look, I've effortlessly killed everything in my path until suddenly the boss at the end of Nashkel Mines has an undefeatable swarm!"), so much of the game is traipsing around empty maps for no good reason other than enforcing the immersiveness of the tedium of travel on foot, and combat is an impenetrable mass of impossible to follow information. It's clear that I liked this game so much back in the day simply because there was nothing like it, and we were used to playing arcane (and I don't mean magical) experiences.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Also not a fan of how many companions come in pairs, and how every dismissed companion either lingers right where you left them or goes to a decentralized location.
 
Dirona

Dirona

In FFXIV there's a seasonal event going on at the moment in the casino. As a result, I've been doing a lot of jumping puzzles, which I generally suck at, and have been doing pretty well.

Yesterday evening I decided to take on a notorious overworld jumping puzzle - the big ass tower in the center of a hub-city. I made good progress (making it consistently ~50% of the way up before falling, and farther than I had previously made it), but didn't make it the whole way.

This morning, after failing in the same place for probably 25-30 mins, I finally got past it and made it the rest of the way to the top.
Success.png

I am overly pleased with myself.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Dirona said:
In FFXIV there's a seasonal event going on at the moment in the casino. As a result, I've been doing a lot of jumping puzzles, which I generally suck at, and have been doing pretty well.

Yesterday evening I decided to take on a notorious overworld jumping puzzle - the big ass tower in the center of a hub-city. I made good progress (making it consistently ~50% of the way up before falling, and farther than I had previously made it), but didn't make it the whole way.

This morning, after failing in the same place for probably 25-30 mins, I finally got past it and made it the rest of the way to the top.
View attachment 38516

I am overly pleased with myself.
Click to expand...
But did you manage to hit the lamp post on the way down?
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
So, I found this game on GOG called Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown.

www.gog.com

Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown

Inspiration:Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown is a classic western RPG inspire
www.gog.com www.gog.com

Was it worth $14? Probably not. But it is scratching that itch that both M&M7 and Baldurs Gate failed at.

1628356797688.jpeg


It's a first person, turn based, combat-focused RPG where you make a 7 character party and go on a very vaguely defined quest.

1628356990546.png


The center 3 positions are the ones that take all the damage but have the highest initiative (they get to go first), whereas the 4 positions on the flanks take their turns later but are rarely targeted by enemies. Oh, everything is 90 degree angles and turns, like Ultima 3 - So even calling it a 3D engine is being VERY generous.

But it's sucking me in.

So anyway, above you see Keltsy the Bard, AnnaDei the healer, Terrik the Champion, Gas Bandit the Knight, Charon the Warrior, Tinwhistler the Ranger, and Snuffles the Mage. Right now we're cleaning out an ogre stronghold. For reasons.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I've been getting into a lot of retro gaming, mostly PS1, since I never owned a ps1 as a kid, so these games are all new to me.

I'm also playing on this, which has been an amazing handheld:

612xGXNZ39S._AC_SL1500_.jpg


It's a single board computer with a 1.7ghz quad-core processor running a modified version of arkOS, which is Ubuntu based os using emuelec as its front end, basically making it a dedicated emulation machine. It can handle up to PS1 flawlessly, and even N64 and PSP with only minor stuttering (mostly when first loading up). I've had a ton of fun toying with and modifying it, trying various custom firmwares, and pushing it to its limits.

The best part is it has built in wifi and can automatically download box art and metadata for the ROMs you put on it.

Being from China, it also came with like a thousand ROMs already on it which I immediately tossed because they were of wrong regions or poor translations and I'll provide my own ROMs thank you.


So far, mega Man legends is the most surprising gem I've come across
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Frank said:
So this looks rad. Which model is it?
Click to expand...
It's the RG351M. The RG351P is the exact same chipset and cheaper, the only differences being M has a metal enclosure instead of plastic and a built in wifi chip (though the 351P can still connect to wifi with a dongle).

The RG351V also recently came out with again the same chipset but in a different form factor and a bit of a better screen.

1628478043660.png


The V loses the second thumbstick, but that's really only useful if you plan on playing FPS ports like half-life (which runs pretty well) or Quake. Since very few PS1 and back games actually make use of the second thumbstick with the dualshock having come out so late in the playstation's life.


All of these are also perfectly playable out of the box, but getting a bigger SD card and flashing a custom firmware onto it is recommended and super easy to do just by following an online guide, even if you aren't that technically adept. I've personally tried the top two most recommended firmwares, ArkOS and 351Elec, and while ArkOS is considered better and able to push a little bit more performance out of it, I like that 351ELEC basically makes it into easy mode and automatically sets up all your emulators with the preferred settings.

All of these are running an emulation backend called RetroArch which basically acts as an operating system for emulators, and can be installed to PC or just about any device if you want to try it out by itself.

RetroArch

RetroArch is a frontend for emulators, game engines and media players. It enables you to run classic games on a wide range of computers and consoles through its slick graphical interface. Settings are also unified so configuration is done once and for all.
www.retroarch.com
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

I mainly wanted to know if it was individual/private like Minecraft or “public” like NMS (always the same even when not shared).

—Patrick
 
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