Roderick

Nondescript Adventure Gaming Topique

Recommended Posts

Faced with serious charges, the Non-LECckian Adventure Rebels are forced to found a topic of their own to discuss their various random sojourns into the genre! Let's find out what fate has in store for them...

 

gfs_97344_2_10.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

(From the other topic)

 

Yikes, struggling through Benny's part in I Have No Mouth makes me realize this game is totally unplayable without a walkthrough. It's a shame, but the constant barrage of inexplicable things triggering for no apparent reason and objects you can only pick up when obscure conditions are met make this a huge drag. Here's how bad it is: even WITH a walkthrough right beside it, I'm struggling to get the right responses and steps down. Not every part is this bad fortunately. Pity, because the game has a lot to offer with its moral quandaries, but the design is uuuuuugggghhh.

 

Will keep playing though, the atmosphere is too good and the themes too rare to quit. Also, the music (a discordant wailing of digital organs and accordians) has lodged itself in my brain.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Zanthiaaaaaaaa!

 

I've got no other adventures going outside of my blabbering about Gray Matter in that thread. It was after game blabbering though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Did anyone else ever play "Redjack: Revenge of the Brethren"? I remember playing it when I was younger, and it scared the crap out of me. But I really enjoyed it.

...looking back, the graphics are... not that great. Early 3D models and all that, I guess.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I looked up Redjack on Youtube and I think the models are pretty nice, actually. I was expecting rudimentary 3D models, but they look detailed enough. They're also animated like claymation, which adds a fun touch, I think.

I Have No Mouth:

Finished the Nimdok sequence, but I'm pretty sure I didn't get everything out of it. Without saying anything specific, I really liked this part. It's less obscure than the others, the puzzles seem to make more sense, and it still has interesting choices. The setting, while again on the nose, is very tense. I'm gonna replay it tonight to see if I can get the full story.

I'm quite surprised by the guy's weird name though. Nimdok... that's not a real name! Not even in Germany. It's such an obvious made-up name, I wonder why Ellison went with it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I Have No Mouth:

I finished all the sequences now. What a mixed bag! Some are really better than others, though I appreciate the level of creativity that went into all of them. There's not one that's dull or too long. Each of them has at its base an interesting moral dilemma to solve and a choice of what to do. Gameplay-wise it's all incredibly awful and difficult to parse, necessitating walkthroughs, but still. The game does switch indiscriminately between harrowing humanity and DID SOMEBODY ORDER A LARGE PIECE OF HAM?

Now I'm onto the finale, which has already started out pretty swell.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I "finished" I Have No Mouth in a sense... I followed a walkthrough to the letter and somehow I was missing essential items at the final section. I think you maybe only get them if you max out their "goodness"? Since I didn't know where I messed up, I just looked up the final section on YouTube.

 

This game is as heartless and ruthless as AM himself and just proves to me that if the game is old and NOT from Lucasarts, use a walkthrough for every step, you'll still mess up somehow, because old games are supposed to be broken hard and logic and fair play is for sane people pussies...

 

I'm so glad the next game I played was a "whimsical" tale of a postapocalyptic world where a couple of roaches go in search for a flower and the dead end is practically extinct and games have a hint system to counter their own moon logic.

 

I'm slightly curious to play Daedalic's hidden object games that came with the same bundle that the roach game did, they've evolved so much they are practically adventure games by now. I haven't played one in years, so who knows how they are now!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ha, that's my exact experience with I Have No Mouth. I finished it this evening.

I took pleasure in running around the final area to figure out the options and possibilities, but all too soon I discovered I was missing some totems as well. Namely; Nimdok's. It's true; even if you use a walkthrough, it's hard to finish the game properly. At least I take some comfort in the idea I wrapped up the final act and got to the 'best' ending without hints. Then I looked up all the bad endings on Youtube, where every character changes into a hideous blob creature. This game.

So, now that that's done, I'm going strongly with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies too! Hooooly cow this is a good'un. So far it's easily matching the rest of the series. Such fun murder mysteries and insane characters!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Finished Dual Destinies (not the DLC yet though!) and it was really fun. For some reason it didn't make the huge impression on me afterwards. I see no reason why it shouldn't have in terms of quality. Maybe it's just that it was all familiar ground? I also felt the difficulty was on the easy side. I was never stumped and the game seems to telegraph the solutions heavily as soon as it intuits that you might be slightly unsure about the puzzle. It's a far cry from the obscurity of Justice for All, but misses the refined balance of Trials & Tribulations. Perhaps that's the reason it didn't make a big splash for me. Though the excellent 'unmasking animations' top everything that came before.

FFVII-CLOUD.jpg

I've started playing Final Fantasy VII, the Steam version. «Whaaaaat», you say, for two excellent reasons. You say this firstly because it's not an adventure game. Yes, no, but it totally is. I'm using a thing called «character booster», which is a legit option offered to give your fighters basically infinite health, mana and money. This makes battle a formality and is excellent for me, since it shifts the focus on the story flow and progression. You say this secondly because I'm an avowed Hater Of Final Fantasy VII. Yes, 'tis true. It was the first JRPG I played and the reason I despised the genre and the game for a long time. But now I'm a different person, I've come around to appreciating (some) of the trappings of the genre and am curious what I think of it now. So there you have it.

Fun fact: I'm playing the game with the Xbox 360 controller mod made by our own Thunderpeel2001! Also, the game looks good in high res, even without graphics mods.

About the story: so far Cloud is being a morose asshole, Barret is an insane caricature and it's all pretty clunky and hilariously overt. Please, Tifa, tell us more about the childhood promise you made with Cloud. Cloud, with his dreamy Mako eyes.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In my book an adventure game is more or less an RPG without combat, so yeah, this counts to me. Is that option really in the game or is it a trainer?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In my book an adventure game is more or less an RPG without combat, so yeah, this counts to me. Is that option really in the game or is it a trainer?

Gemini Rue has combat.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's a bit of both, Tanu. It's a feature neatly incorporated into their account system (which is, of course, horrible). You activate it for you save and then you can't undo it again, and all the dudes in your current group get max ides health.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That's why I say "more or less", the adventure game was born when they tried to port a D&D game to PC and it had minor combat. To be more specific, to me an adventure game is like a table top RPG game where your main "weapon" is your brain, but that doesn't mean they can't have combat, it's just not it's primary focus.

 

I've recently been thinking about game genres a lot... maybe it's about time to start a new topic about it?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Final Fantasy VII talk

I made it through the opening hours set in Midgar. I remember this from the last time I played it. I remember it as the best part, the most adventurey and story-driven part. Now the overworld has opened up and I fear I'll get lost in muddy 3D filled with random battles and looking for the right place to trigger the next story bit. We'll see how it goes.

The game so far is pretty fun though. The Midgar section was well designed and the story fun to go through. Tifa and Aeris' rivalry for Cloud's affections is pretty sweet and the game has a good rhythm to it (here at least). It also featured an endless staircase, is that the first instance of Endless Staircase? I mean, it's way before Metal Gear 4Solid 4 raised eyebrows with it.

I also appreciate quite a lot how much personality and distinction they managed to give characters and enemies, considering they're formed of a crude amount of polygons.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You might get lost in the over world now and then... I would just look up a spoiler-free FAQ if that happens. It's definitely worth playing through the rest of the game if you like the first bit. The story-heavy sections will be more spaced out from here on, but they're still worth going through. Also the plot will become exponentially more incomprehensible, but it's fun in its own way.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I would advise looking up a guide on the two optional characters at least, since it's possible not to recruit them and miss out on some chunks of story. Vincent I didn't personally give a stuff about, but Yuffie's side story in Wutai was pretty fun from memory.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is it easy to miss them, even if you're meticulous in combing through the world? Or do you need some super obscure combination of events to make them join? I'm hesitant to resort to [spoiler-free] walkthroughs, but if it makes me not miss out on side characters, I'll do it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I care so little for Vincent that I don't even remember how he joins.... I'm pretty sure none of them are miss-able though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I seem to recall there's a haunted house somewhere... it's been a good seven years or so since I first poured 30+ hours into this game before quitting.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't remember Vincent either, but Yuffie is easy enough to find, she just shows up in a random encounter in one particular area of the world. If you're combing the world then they're probably not all that missable, I just assumed you might've been breezing through since you're using cheats.

 

Relevant bit of trivia: there's actually a GF ability (or whatever the materia equivalent was) in FF8 that disables random encounters entirely. Too bad that's not the only unbearable part of that game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

FFVIII is out now as well. I'm totally tempted, since I never actually finished that one back in the day. My friend renamed Rhona and her dog to Siphylus and TheClap. We were so hilarious. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The only thing I know of FFVIII is that a friend of a friend named Squall "SOLIDE" in all caps, so that was pretty fun. I'll get to it after I finish VII, jesus guys, one geriatric JRPG at a time!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The game so far is pretty fun though. The Midgar section was well designed and the story fun to go through. Tifa and Aeris' rivalry for Cloud's affections is pretty sweet and the game has a good rhythm to it (here at least). It also featured an endless staircase, is that the first instance of Endless Staircase? I mean, it's way before Metal Gear 4Solid 4 raised eyebrows with it.

Super Mario 64?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The most creative I got was renaming Cloud "FUCK ME" so all the other characters would yell it when he jumped into the train at the start. Man, what a riot.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now