Sno

Just a few initial thoughts on it - Holy shit, Ocarina of Time is still really good. I mean really, really good. For being one of the games that essentially established how 3D games should work in the first place, it is incredible that it holds up so well. The lock-on system is still a little squirrelly when it comes to finding the right targets to changing targets, i kind of wish they had done something to change it up, but i can't tell you what that thing should have been. If it's never bothered you before, it won't bother you here. I mean, it's just that the only things they've really changed about the game are some details about the interface, but the lock-on wasn't touched, and it's one thing that probably could have been improved somehow. The touchscreen inventory stuff seems fine, it's certainly a lot quicker to access than the original menus were. Odd thing is, the way the controls are setup, you only have two of the face buttons available for items though, so they give you a few extra touchscreen buttons to round it out. Still, it's easy enough to determine which things need to be mapped to actual buttons and which items are used infrequently enough to be fine on the extra touchscreen buttons. Also, it looks great, the models look sharp and the textures are very crisp and clean. Environmental geometry seems largely untouched, dungeons in particular can look very old. They replaced all the static 2D backgrounds in the towns with very highly detailed polygonal analogues. It comes across as a little uneven, with some parts looking nice and modern, and other parts looking almost like the original game. The gyroscopic camera control is really pretty brilliant. It's not exclusive to the first-person free-look, you also get some slight gyroscopic camera control when holding down the lock-on trigger without a target in sight, which is awesome. It's just a quick way to glance up in the corner of a room to see if you're missing something, the gyroscopic free-look is basically acting as your right stick camera control. It's very nicely implemented. (Get used to turning with your 3DS, so you don't lose the 3D, heh.)

Gaaah. The giant smiles, i had forgotten about those, such a pain in the ass. One of the better boss fights in the game though, at the end.

For your edification. Don't you feel enriched?

Would the 13th be enough for everybody?

2fxVeAVl2I8

Alright, so if everybody is falling behind... This is quite a long level too, so should we delay that next deadline for a while? If so, for how long specifically?

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-insanely-twisted-shadow-planet/17-4617/ This is looking pretty great.

So this game had me more or less up until the end, but the story kind of goes right off a cliff. Not in an especially disastrous way, the final parts of the game just seem sort of lazy. I didn't really like the ending i got either, but there's nine and the one i got wasn't even one of the "true" endings. I still like the puzzle mechanics though, and finishing the game opens up a few bonus modes relevant to having more of that. In fact, i'm now in this place where i like Catherine more as a puzzle game than an adventure game. (Or a visual novel if you still want to call it that.) I did really enjoy playing through Catherine, I would recommend it.

So i went ahead and played through this and... Egghhh. I don't know to articulate how i feel about it. I don't think it's bad, it's very interesting. I feel it was worth the 15 bucks, if nothing else. It feels like something with big ideas constrained by... i don't know? Deadlines? A meager development budget? This technology and these ideas deserve something more, and i don't mean that they should have just made populous, i don't think that is necessarily the "something more" this needed. Also totally infuriated by the AI pathfinding, your little dudes are idiots. They're constantly getting hung up on terrain for no reason, or taking the long way around something. There's some really incredible stuff in the later scenarios, but the game sort of lost me when it started introducing elemental plants and getting away from the terrain deformation mechanics a bit.

Chantelise was apparently an earlier game from the same developer as Recettear. I hear it's quite enjoyable, but much more of a straightforward action RPG.

I actually played through Okami for the first time just before playing Okamiden, and Okamiden is basically more of the same. I mean, it's weird how smoothly the experience of playing Okami transitioned into Okamiden, the sequel picks up almost immediately after the end of the first game. It's actually even a lot of the same environments recreated in significantly lower detail for the DS hardware. (Which are then further broken up into small chunks with many loading zones, something that really starts to grate.) Didn't really think that the d-pad was really suited to the 3d environments or the clumsy free-roaming camera, and the paintbrush recognition is still really spotty. Combat isn't as deep as it was in the original, but the quests and dungeons are well designed, and the story is super charming. (The english localization has a ton of typos though, it's weird.) I didn't finish it, it's something i've been meaning to go back to, i got the impression that it was a fairly substantial game. (Set those expectations straight though, i wouldn't expect an Okami-length adventure. That first Okami is an absurdly over-long game.)

Alright, next milestone is finishing Target 02: Cloudman by August 6th. Week 1 - Target 00: Angel Week 2 - Target 01: Sunset, Part I Week 3 - Target 01: Sunset, Part II Week 4 - Target 02: Cloudman ^ So finish up to here ^ Week 5 - Target 03: Encounter, Part I Week 6 - Target 03: Encounter, Part II Week 7 - Target 04: Alter Ego, Part I/II Week 8 - Target 05: Smile, Part I Week 9 - Target 05: Smile, Part II/III & Target 06: Lion Personally, i think this is one of the most enjoyable levels in the game. It's also one of the longest, so keep that in mind. Same rules as always - Limit discussion to whatever the group is playing or has played, don't skip ahead. Spoiler tag your story discussion, gameplay discussion doesn't need to be treated in the same fashion.

I don't even know what all the things i was checked for are. There were so many tests and so many different specialists, and much of the last time i was in the hospital was spent kind of delusional and exhausted. (I remember the details of hallucinations so clearly, but almost nothing else.) Having a history of it, i know they were concerned about cancer, but biopsies were always inconclusive. I mean, and when it was the worst, after the immediate and most serious problems were dealt with, i kind of just got better on my own. I mean, you don't get better from cancer without intervention. So leads were exhausted, i was feeling healthy, and thus sent on my way. Have been under close watch since the then, and generally eating and living much healthier to offset lingering problems, but things are still looking up Was pretty wrecked by the last couple years, but relative to how much worse it could have still been, i feel like i got off scot free. Shit, putting this into words is bumming me out. Anyways, I have an MRI coming up. If that looks good, i guess i'm pretty much in the clear for the foreseeable future. Hurrah.

I don't think it's really fair to condemn the game as lacking scope and freedom based on a couple introductory tutorial stages. I mean, has anybody played the full thing? Do the later scenarios open up at all? I know, at the very least, the scope of the powers available to you broadens pretty dramatically as you continue playing. It certainly doesn't seem to top out at being a "vacuum cleaner" sim. Also, yes, i completely agree that all the comparisons to Black & White and Populous have been pretty misleading. The game that, in my mind at least, this seemed to be the most similar to was Darwinia. Guiding NPC's from place to place so they can autonomously complete predefined tasks, while you are off engineering the environment to be safe for them.

I... didn't really like Minish Cap.

So now that the 3DS is getting a massive price cut, Nintendo is moving quickly to compensate early adopters. http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=30048 Am i reading this right? So ten free NES Virtual Console games, and... Exclusive access to GBA Virtual Console games... Also for free, or paid? (Edit: Re-reading that, it sounds like the GBA games will be free too.) Either way, that's a lot of free shit. (A lot, i'd say they're even overcompensating. Twenty free games!) Man, and these are really incredibly good games too. Nintendo really doesn't want to piss of those early adopters, i guess. Metroid Fusion, Mario vs Donkey Kong, WarioWare, Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart Super Circuit, etc... The NES games aren't anything to scoff at either, hard to complain about Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros, even if i do already own multiple copies of those. I guess i'm happy? I don't feel particularly cheated by the price cut, i've had fun with my 3DS, and price cuts are always an eventuality. I suppose it's happened unusually early in this case, but the 3DS sales were apparently precipitous. I wasn't expecting a price cut until the holidays, and i certainly wasn't expecting such a massive one. I mean, holy shit, 250 to 170. Daaamn.

It's a long complicated story that never really had any clear answers, but it all got pretty bad, had a lot of unexplained problems. Maybe the worst of it was my kidneys just kind of randomly shutting down for a couple months, really just barely made it through that alive. Not something you expect to go through in your mid twenties. Hey though, things are looking up. Way to go me.

Can i post life news in this topic too? I'm pretty thrilled about not dying. After spending a combined total of probably about four months in and out of hospitals over the last few years, coming excruciatingly close to death on several occasions, being told that i am currently in good health is awesome.

I try to look away, but my eyes keep drifting back to the ass cheeks.

I said "virtually no dissenters", and while you may find it unbelievable, it thus far is not untrue. So i take it Gerstmann didn't like it, then? I haven't listened to the Bombcast this week, so i don't know anything about what those guys are saying, they haven't yet published a formal review. Right, well this right here is one big problem. The reason I was interested in this game is because i was pretty fascinated to see somebody try to tackle themes of infidelity and marriage in a medium that has virtually never seen anything remotely like this outside of the indie space. Just go watch anime, though? This is not a linear narrative, it takes advantage of this medium. You make choices that affect both the story and your character's state of mind, and occasionally your character makes further choices autonomously influenced by the state of mind you have fostered. I mean, I couldn't tell you how much the game can really branch without playing through it multiple times, but with four hours in, i am fascinated by how this game is developing. That's an easy and understandable argument, but if you took out the puzzle game, then it would have just been a visual novel. It never would have been released in the west, and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. So then, yeah... The puzzle game in Catherine? I still really like it, it's an actually well designed puzzle game with deep and interesting mechanics. It just also feels like a completely different, separate game. You have here two pretty cool and interesting games that each might have been interesting even on their own, but here they are, inexplicably, as the same product. Admittedly, i'm in it for the story, and i'm playing through on easy. It was a choice i made after hearing a friend speak about how insanely hard a time he was having on the normal difficulty. Thing is, on easy, i haven't gotten anything below a silver, so perhaps now too easy? Or maybe just right. Panties? What? No, that CE just has a pair of boxers like the ones worn by the protagonist during the nightmare puzzle sequences. (While having one of the female characters printed on that pillow case is playing off the trend of god yes absolutely creepy anime body pillows.)

Gave the trial a shot. Does this remind anybody else of Darwinia?

Always looking for more cool games in a Metroidvania vein, and have been really looking forward to this one, kind of loosely been following its development for the last few years. Personally, of this year's Summer of Arcade line-up, this is the one i'm most excited about.

I have friends screaming at me about how great this game is, and also that it's murderously difficult. (Even though the US version is apparently several steps removed from the original Japanese release, with numerous new concessions to easing up the challenge.) The critical response also seems to be pretty universally positive, it's surprising to see virtually no dissenters for such a strange and potentially divisive game. Can't help but wonder if this will be another in a string of critically appreciated games that just tanks, there seems to be a lot of interest and awareness for this one though.

Harman's two caretakers are indeed (probably) the same person and... You know, the thing is that this game leaves a lot of elements open to interpretation. I could still tell you what I think is going on with that stuff, but for me it would involve discussing the end of the game and huge spoilers, so I'm going to hold off on that. (Personally, replaying the game, i'm really interested to see if what was my interpretation of the story will hold up.) I hope people don't think I'm being spoilery for saying even that much. Most of the interesting story discussion is going to come from the final few chapters, but i would love to see everybody else who hasn't previously finished the game speculate about things though. (Like, you know, the locked doors in the Killer 7's hideout and the horrible screeching and screaming coming from behind them.) Also, KAEDE, you need to buff up her criticals and waver before she's useful, yeah. Also, Garcian dying is game over, reload a save. Don't die on a corpse run, basically.