Started playing this game and played it for a whole hour today. Pretty good start, and as usual I got a few good laughs from the character dialogue š¤£. Haven't moved on to the second area yet because I'm busy grinding experience points in the first area.
@graymamba Haha, it is really cool! I wish I could tell you more about her, but she passed away just a few years after when I was still young, so my personal memory of her is sadly limited to a few things here and there. I do remember that the reason she had a SNES was because she loved platforming games! She had the whole Mario collection as well as the Disney movie tie-ins like Aladdin and The Lion King. I'd watch her occasionally beating a level of one before demanding to take the controller and play myself (which she luckily always let me do). The memories may be few, but they're good at least! And don't worry... since you've turned around on your thoughts regarding other's preferences in games, we can all just band together to dismiss people who don't see gaming as an art form now. The enemy of my enemy is my friend! Haha.
@Vermines Yeah, the music is really the star of the show. That said, I think the Mega Drive version was different from the SNES version, as many of those movie tie-ins used to be back in the day. The SNES version was probably easier then, since I remember finishing it many times as a young child. Fun times!
After really enjoying the PS4 port of classic PS2 game Bully last month, Iām back on the PS2 ports with Psychonauts. As a general rule Iām not really into cutesy platformers but it is pretty cool to be fair. Very creative as is expected from Double Fine, a really goofy (in a good way) art-style and some great voice acting. Better than I was expecting tbh.
@graymamba Glad to hear youāre enjoying it. I tried playing it again after the excellent sequel but struggled to properly get into it again, itās definitely showing its age. Double Fine always deliver something interesting though!
āReason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.ā -C.S. Lewis
@Metonymy it was a game if two halves for me today, the morning I played through some levels (the mental psyche palaces of the various patients at the asylum) that I found pretty mind blowing in the best possible way. The creativity and specific mechanics for each (particularly the theatre and Waterloo) were brilliantā¦ then there was this afternoon š¤¬! Ascending the Asylumā¦ and then as ending the meat-circus just exemplified how janky the controls of old games were. I havenāt been that frustrated for a while fair play š
@graymamba Canāt say I had Meat Circus flashbacks on the bingo card today but here we are š¬ I really enjoyed the Waterloo level as well! Safe to say when you get around to the sequel, they did an excellent job of doubling down on the better half while losing the lesser.
āReason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.ā -C.S. Lewis
I finished Shovel Knight just after midnight, good way to ring in the new year if you ask me, glad I've finally got it off the backlog as it's been there for 6 years. Wanna knock a few more off before I pick up anything new.
@Th3solution Wanted to give you an update on my progress through 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim! It's been about one month and a half since I started and I've now racked up roughly 25 hours of playtime. Most of my characters have one chapter left before clearing their stories and I'm making my way through the last area of the battles. It has admittedly taken a while to get to this point, since I usually play games a lot faster. I've really treated it as a game to pick up and play whenever it is convenient and I have some spare time, rather than carving time out of my day to engage with it specifically. I think it's both the best and worst thing I could've done. I did find myself close to burning out on it on multiple occasions, so it helped mitigate that possibility. It's just a lot of story happening concurrently with minimal gameplay. It can quickly feel overwhelming if I'm not pacing myself properly, even in these later stages.
It's possibly the worst thing I could've done in the sense that I am so lost on all the narrative threads at this point. Don't get me wrong. I have a grasp on the over-arching narrative and what is happening in this universe and such, so it's not like I ever feel confused by how it all ties into the larger narrative. It's more so that it's so many different characters that I have a hard time retaining my memory of everything that has been and will be relevant in their respective campaigns. Some stuff will be brought up chapters later that I might have played weeks ago... and so much will have happened since that the specific events have blurred in my mind and I don't feel caught up. The Memory Files can help on that front, but they're not all that exhaustive. The Event Archive I find rather useless, since I don't really want to replay sections I've already played and it's not sorted in the order I've played the narratives either. I wonder if I would've been better off just mainlining characters until I hit a point where their stories lock rather than what I've been doing. I've basically been trying to keep everyone at similar percentages and thus alternating between thirteen stories at once. I can't imagine that has helped me make sense of it any!
Like I said though, the main threads are very well-established at this point, so I'm not necessarily having trouble placing them in the greater narrative. It's more so placing the characters' plot beats in relation to other characters and remembering all the details that might at some point become important again. I also realised quickly that not all characters are following the same timeline so to speak, so I'll have seen an event from one character's perspective early in their campaign only to relive it through the other's late into theirs. It has resulted in some weird switcheroos where I figured I was at one point in the narrative only to realise that some stuff actually hasn't happened yet in the campaign I'm playing. Don't get me started on what era all these characters originate from either. I've entirely lost the plot on who is from where and I'm only really getting a grip of the different eras and what has happened in each right about now... while nearing the endgame.
I appreciate the novelty of the presentation and do think it's very cool and well-conceptualised in what it's doing, but the actual experience of playing through it has often felt lacking. The pacing of the narrative has also been all over the place. I'll hit a certain character's chapter with huge revelations only to be playing what feels like build-up to one or five different twists for the next few hours. That, or the opposite will happen where I'll experience twist after twist after twist. I can't fault the narrative or the writing since it has been incredibly well planned out and everything does make sense for as far as I can tell. I have not noticed any plot holes or major issues with any story-lines. It's just the presentation of it that makes it all way more confusing than it needs to be. I understand that's part of the appeal, and I'm not trying to say that it it shouldn't have been so mysterious or twisty, because that is one of the best parts of the writing. But I do think a lot of the mystery and twists come from a place of the specific gameplay mechanics put in place rather than what is naturally occurring in the writing, which I feel does it an injustice more often than it helps the narrative. I wish I'd maybe looked into some kind of preferred play order rather than just choosing to play whatever whenever. I can only imagine that it actually would've put the writing in a better light if I did, but then again, that comes down more to the presentation than the quality of the writing itself.
Ultimately, i do think it's a narrative worth experiencing and I have largely had a good time with it. I am excited to be nearing the end and see how it all pans out. I just feel like there would've been a better way to experience this narrative than what is currently on offer, and that does annoy me somewhat. Knowing I've played through such an intricately woven and expertly intertwined story, but in what feels like a highly impractical way that only did it an injustice. If you ever do get back to it, I might recommend you do what I didn't and look online what stories you should maybe prioritise to lessen the confusion and have a better paced experience. I don't know if any guides like that exist considering the nature of how Vanillaware wants you to play, but I do feel like it would all in all make for a better time with it. It's too late for me to turn back now so late into the story, but it might help you on your journey if you ever try getting back into it!
@Tjuz Thanks for the update on 13 Sentinels! Thatās sound advice and if I do return to it I might look into a play order guide. I wish the game could be cloud streamed because it would be a great Portal game.
But yeah, my limited experience with the game gels with what youāre saying about the disjointed approach to the story telling being a hinderance to people playing it slowly with gaps between play sessions. When I did go back and try to get back into it thereās even more confusion than normal with trying to remember āNow where am I and what was going on?ā, which is already a challenge if too much time elapses between sessions with a traditional game, much less one that is inherently confusing with multiple timelines and multiple characters and an open nature to which order you play them.
Iām not sure if you played or are familiar with Beyond Two Souls? Itās another game that was criticized for the disjointed way in which it told the story in a jumbled sequence and so Quantic Dream released an update to the game where you can play it in chronological order as an option. I never played the game, partly because every time I wanted to start it up, I couldnāt decide whether to play in its original non-consecutive order or whether to play it in the straight ordered timeline. Apparently thereās advantages to both.
āWe cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.ā
@Th3solution Oh, I'm shocked you can't stream it to the Portal. Given, I'm not entirely sure how the Portal works, but I assumed that just about everything could be streamed if there's wasn't any specific technical reason it'd be blocked. It sounds like it's more selective than that, which is a shame. I've been playing it on the Switch too, so i totally understand the temptation of this one being a good ''sit back and relax'' experience. Or lie in bed and relax in my particular situation!
I do remember playing a few hours of Beyond Two Souls back on the PS3. I have honestly no clue how far I got into the game. I remember a fancy ballroom scene, a prison cell, a homeless shelter... Not sure how long this game was, but I'm sure I didn't finish it at the time. I also have no clue if I played it in the chronological or disjointed version. I no doubt played it quite a bit after release so I'm sure both options were there at the time, but what I chose? God knows! Whichever way I went, it doesn't seem like I was invested enough to complete it. I've had the same experience with Quantic Dreams's Indigo Prophecy, but they got me eventually with Detroit: Become Human. I'll definitely look into this whole update and stuff just out of curiosity though, even if I am highly unlikely to ever get back to it.
@Tjuz Well, you can stream anything from your PS5 to the Portal, but for older titles not on the cloud it has to be streamed through remote play streaming, tethered to your console. And that works really well and gives a stable experience if the internet is halfway decent, but I favor cloud streaming where I donāt have to rely on my PS5 being on. The cloud streaming library, although vast and including hundreds of games, is limited to mostly newer titles that are native PS5 games, and even then not all are on the cloud service.
āWe cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.ā
Anyone here who has played Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy? A mention of Eidos Montreal's version (which I loved) in another thread reminded me of it, and it's probably the one game in Telltale's catalogue I haven't tried. They're basically the only Marvel characters I have any affinity for within the movies as well, so I wonder if it's worth tracking down and checking out. It seems to be the forgotten child of their catalogue since I never see anyone mention it. Looks like it had fairly mixed, but overall fine, reviews at the time. What are you guys' thoughts? Worth looking into?
Started the Homefront: The Revolution campaign today andā¦ on the whole Iām really quite enjoying it. Do I understand why it reviewed so poorly? Yes! It feels really janky, particularly when you first start it. And because it controls so janky, it can feel really difficult, particularly when you first start.
If you stick with it thoughā¦ you start to acclimate. You start to get a feel for the gunplay that initially felt uncontrollably jankyā¦ and as a result of that, you start to be able to deal with the games combat that initially felt noticeably difficult. Iām not excusing it, the devs really didnāt help themselvesā¦ and then theres disappearing and reappearing enemies, many side missions that just totally glitch out and enemy AI that can totally disassociate itself from whatās actually happening at any one timeā¦ but Iām still enjoying it for some reason. š
I loveFarcry and I get a bit of Farcry from this, albeit harder andā¦ well worse. In Farcry I find the stealth just hits that Goldilocks-zone, while it can be very hit and miss hereā¦ but that in turn makes me play more careful, which would make perfect sense if I was actually trying to be stealthy. It just all feels very tacticalā¦ because if you donāt treat it with that level of respect, youāre dead. And Iām here for it not gonna lie.
As an aside, the trophies are giving me kittens!. Not only are there a butt-load of missables but there isnāt any real resource that could mitigate those through research. I guess that itās such a niche game thatā¦ theres just not much useable info out there, so youāre just left inching forward (in terms of game progression) in the hope that you havenāt locked yourself out of anything. Itās also notoriously one of the most glitchy of ps4 games in terms of trophy-tracking, soā¦ well wtf, Iām in it now!
Iām aware that I probably sound very schizophrenic when talking about this gameā¦ and I feel it too. š¤£ itās stressing me out in multiple waysā¦ but itās also ticking a decent amount of boxes that rarely gets ticked (or not as often as Iād like anyway) ie open-world tactical guerrilla war-fare. Iām intrigued to see how I feel once itās all said and done.
@Tjuz yeah Iāve played itā¦ not sure Iām the right guy to comment though, as I just donāt gel with Telltale games (wellā¦ I quite enjoyed the Game of Thrones one if Iām honest). I thought the Guardians one was much of a much-ness with their other efforts tbhā¦ and not in the same league as the Eidos Montreal one. Hope you end up enjoying though, if you do choose to play it.
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