SecretAsianMan

What lobotomy is describing is exactly the reason I can't play that game. The story is based on an existing story, namely the classic Chinese novel Journey To The West. It's a reimagining obviously and of course anyone is allowed to tell the story and put their spin on things. But in general I can't take reimagining's of that story because it has special significance to me (something I've mentioned before in this thread). I really had no idea how the game ended and now I'm glad I didn't finish it because I have a feeling it would have been extremely disappointing to me.

My birthday is in early Sept. Because of this, I've had more than one birthday fall on the first day of school. Worst present ever.

It wouldn't be a proper Games Done Quick marathon without a Metroid race of some kind.

This discussion is becoming increasingly weird and fascinating to me. I agree with most of your technical points, but draw a totally different conclusion. I never found the hitboxes or knockback to be a particularly big problem, mostly an occasional annoyance at worst. The enemies are rather simple in design and action but again, that never bothered me. I agree with Griddlelol in that I never felt the controls were loose. I understand what you mean when you say they don't have weight but I found the movement to be responsive rather than sluggish. While I think the room design could be more interesting, I don't think it's broken. I could always navigate the room and move on, provided I survived the enemies and traps of course. Some were more difficult than others but none of them felt particularly unfair to me, at least until the NG+++ when the game becomes a bullet hell. And as for the treasure room example, you gave a solution to it yourself. Locking down the castle is a perfectly sound tactic. Yes, you lose gold but the potential payoff is gear or runes. It's a choice that you as the player have to decide. I actually liked the idea because it provides some benefit and reason to pick certain traits or skills that you might not ordinarily use. Plus you don't have to do it at all. I never locked down the castle and I beat the game several times with a fully unlocked skill tree and all the gear. If certain gear was locked behind a chest that required you to be a specific class or have a specific skill, then I might agree with you. But as it stands, you can entirely ignore that if you wish. You are allowed your opinion of course so don't think I'm trying to say you're wrong. I just find it interesting that what you perceive as faults I find to be strengths.

I agree with your second statement, but I personally found it fun. I think the level design fits with how the game plays and the core mechanics, while relatively simplistic, are fine. I also don't disagree that it mimics Castlevania's mythology, but again that's a fairly common motif in games.

I enjoy that after the apocalypse, Chris has managed to create a really pretentious gated community. I remember playing a game called Zerg Soccer when the first StarCraft was released. I don't think it was quite the same as the strikers variant discussed but its the earliest version I can recall playing.

I think Rogue Legacy imitates Castlevania in that it imitates other games that imitate Castlevania. Yes, those mechanics are present in Castlevania, but they're also sort of standard fare these days so I don't know that saying it wants to be Castlevania is entirely fair. I also disagree that it doesn't reward skillful play. It's entirely possible to do well and beat the game with very few levels and abilities. It takes good knowledge of how rooms are generated, enemy behavior, classes and traits, and movement abilities. It's admittedly designed more towards progression via grinding but there's still room for skillful play.

I love the Battleblock run, but my favorite PJ run is probably this one from SGDQ last year. Witwix's stuff is also great. Besides being good at a hard game, he's also entertaining. I really liked his I wanna be the Boshy run from this year's AGDQ. He and several others donated for every death he had, even purposely killing himself several times just for laughs.

This is a very odd topic for me to be starting because this is exactly the kind of game I don't play, but I saw it at PAX and feel I should bring it to people's attention. Neverending Nightmares is being made by Matt Gilenbach, the same guy who made Retro/Grade, the rhythm based shmup where you pilot a spaceship that's moving backwards in time. It was mentioned a couple times on the cast. It got pretty good reviews but sold almost zero copies. Matt suffers from OCD and depression, and after the financial failure of Retro/Grade, his memories of battling his mental illnesses from a decade ago came flooding back to him. He wanted to remain an indie developer and basically decided to make a game out of his nightmares and suffering. It's influenced by the artwork of Edward Gorey and Silent Hill 2. If you're interested, the game is being kickstarted right now. I'll probably throw a couple dollars at it, even though I'll never play it because I'm a baby.

I felt that way about Alex too. I don't necessarily think he was actively trying to insult anyone who uses gaming peripherals, but he had a very exasperated tone in his voice. At one point he said something like "if I ever end up with a 'gaming' anything, I'll kill myself". In a way he kind of sounded like one of those people who leaves a negative review of a movie or game without ever having tried it.

Simple answer? PJ. His runs are always a highlight for me. I forgot about Axiom Verge. I was also hoping someone would do a run of that this year. Too bad.

I'm looking forward to PJ's runs because those are always entertaining (although this year they're both at times I won't be able to watch live). And witwix is doing Boshy again which is sure to be fun as well. TASBot is doing Ikaruga which sounds like its going to be bonkers.

I want to tell you to keep going because the second half of the game is arguably what it's really known for, but that won't fix any of the issues you seem to be having. Keep in mind that I haven't actually played the game myself. The closest I've come is watching several speedruns.

I'm not playing with the commentary yet because I want to relive it once as a game before I start looking behind the scenes. I'm looking forward to that stuff though.

This is probably going to be a repeat of stuff said in this thread but it wasn't said by me so here goes. Despite loving this game as a kid and being really excited for the remaster, I didn't actually pick it up until the last Steam sale. I started playing it last night and I'm surprised how much of it I remember. I probably can't recite the puzzle solutions directly from memory, but as soon as I was there I knew exactly what to do. Without worrying about trying to figure out the puzzles, I've been able to stop and truly appreciate the art and style of this game. It's such a fantastic setting. That said, the remaster is rather glaring in a lot of ways. Seeing a higher texture head on a low res body is really jarring. Having it suddenly pop into an original cutscene then return to the updated game really emphasizes how much time has passed since the game's release. Still, I'm having fun swimming in nostalgia. I'm even using the tank controls, as Tim intended.

Personally, I'm a fan of the space elevator concept for material transport. We're increasingly approaching the point where it's technologically feasible.

You're not Cardassian at all! (But congrats!)

I agree with this sentiment, I was just taking exception to the idea that RPGs are the (seemingly) only genre that has what could be considered trash mobs.

Did they call it a submarine sandwich or something else?

But button pressing isn't? Does that mean using a mouse to click on icons is a skill?

So is the idea then that trash mobs are a system or mechanic and not a concept? What if I were to make an RPG that required a series of random button inputs in order to initiate the attack (something like a QTE with an infinite timer) but the enemy still died in a single hit and dropped nothing of value. Would it not be a trash mob because I can't walk away from the controller or look at something else while doing it? I'm not trying to be contrarian or anything, I just like to figure things out by trying to poke holes in it.

If mindless is a metric then I feel that a lot of FPS games have trash mobs because I certainly feel that way when playing. And even in that case, the actual encounter is still an incredibly weak, easily defeated enemy that doesn't offer much of anything other than to waste some time.

The action you take in FFX to maximize the experience gain is a trivial action though. You pretty much just have every character hit a guy at least once before the end of the encounter. The actual monster you're fighting is still completely useless, only requiring you to hit a button every now and then to execute your action. The game might have a complex system but the monster is still time wasting trash that you're farming. I also disagree with your statement about FPS games. They have repeat sections and encounters all the time. I would say that in a lot of games, shooting the most basic enemy requires an analogous amount of skill to fighting a trash mob in an RPG. Moving and aiming are the baseline mechanics for an FPS. It takes a trivial amount of effort to deal with an FPS equivalent of a trash mob. This concept is losing more and more meaning to me as we drill down to further and further specifics. I feel like we have more exceptions than actual cases.

I agree with that. I think if we're going to use those definitions, then I would say I haven't seen trash mobs in a long time. Games at this point have evolved enough that there's a lot of nuance in even the basic types of enemies.

Happy Birthday jennegatron!