Media Videogame thread

Pilo

uses walther
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
yooka laylee seems to be mediocre feelsbadman
yooka laylee has been getting mixed reviews and generally seems pretty half baked from what ive seen of it, which is disappointing considering the team of ex-rare employees who were working on it. i think there are some silver linings in the dark cloud though, the controls are pretty solid most of the time only being offset by a clunky camera and the ost is amazing (grant kirkhope definitely delivered). the game not being full priced certainly helps me sympathize for its simple plight but i still think playtonic kind of dropped the ball on this one.
 
I'm really mixed on Nioh. The combat is solid and has a good, fairly high level of challenge, relatively similar to Souls games while still having enough of its own identity to not feel like a total ripoff, and the things it changes with the combat don't feel like steps backwards. The problem is that nearly everything else about the game does, the endless stream of randomized loot that enemies drop and you find in chests doesn't really add anything to the game, and the mission based structure is a downgrade to the fairly open world of Soulsborne games, it allows for more story focus but the story sucks.

The thing that got me to stop playing was that the enemy variety is also pretty weak, I think there's a grand total of 20 nonhuman enemies and halfway through the game you've seen nearly all of them and the scenery gets repetitive too (though there's a nice looking area or two as well, the water shrine was great). I was having a lot of fun for awhile so it certainly has potential, but idk. I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel but some of the issues are more design choices than actual flaws.


and on the subject of Soulsborne, Bamco posted a teaser for something that seems like potentially a spinoff or spiritual successor to Bloodborne, with the tagline "Prepare to Dine":

 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Good lord. Nier: Automata. Go play this game if you haven't. It is literally pure gold and cures cancer too.
 
I don't like Nier Automata nearly as much as a lot of people seem to but I have to admit it has some great moments, in particular the final ending. It's also the first time one of Yoko Taro's games is actually any good as a game

and on the subject of Soulsborne, Bamco posted a teaser for something that seems like potentially a spinoff or spiritual successor to Bloodborne, with the tagline "Prepare to Dine":
http://gematsu.com/2017/04/code-vein-first-details-screenshots

it's being done by the God Eater team so it's hard to tell if it's just that with a new coat of paint or something different, idk
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Get gud bro. I had to redo the intro like three times before I got to the first save. Game is hard. lol

Oh and playing through the game, there's a part midway that fucked me up hard and I had to redo five times because I forgot to save the before the third time I died.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Spam dodge like a mad person. Also I really love the overclock plug in chip. It makes me feel like I'm playing breath of the wild on drugs.
 

Sondero

Don't you dare say you'd rather lose!
is a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnus
Just beat Zelda Breath of the Wild. Overall, I'm very pleasantly surprised by how it turned out, despite some flaws I have with it. Before getting into it, I had some concerns like the world being too good for its own good, a lack of characters, how much the weapon system would suck or how forgettable the soundtrack would be. Of course, most of my concerns were laid to rest and I also found a lot of enjoyment in places I never expected to, but at the same time, some minor problems I didn't expect also arised, but they weren't major enough to make me dislike the game.

The world may seem big, with how much time it takes to traverse it by foot. But thanks to all the different kinds of transportation and fast-travel, that's not really an issue. You can ride a horse almost everywhere, you could climb mountains and then glide a long portion closer to your destination, or you could find huge physic objects and launch yourself places with the Stasis Rune.
There's also enough stuff inbetween major areas, which makes the travel to and from them less like a tedious walk through a desert of nothingness, but more like a fruitful journey. No matter which direction I would go, I could find a potential Korok seed or a shrine, both of which rewards me from completing in a meaningful way that isn't just "here's a part of the percentages you'll need to get the big hundo".

With how much the trailers and pre-release footage focused on the great plateau and shrines, I was concerned that the whole game would just be a massive forest with some mountains and next to no cities. However, I'm thankful that there turns out to be towns with tons of characters to speak to. Which makes the game feel a lot more lively, despite its very poor ratio of populated areas to wilderness.

To begin with, I really wasn't fond of how weapons are handled in this game. The fact that they break after only a little bit of use made it impossible to get attached to any of the weapons but the Master Sword (funny detail about that, someone told me to use that sparingly, but I ended up taking out small-fry with it, because the Master Sword would return later if it broke, but other strong weapons would be gone forever). But maybe it's my love of the Ratchet and Clank games that's kicking in, where when you bought a weapon, it'd upgrade the more you used it, and I just don't like stuff that's different. I also find it weird how the only weapon you can use infinitely here are the bombs, while melee weapons like Swords, Axes and Clubs are limited. I can see the merit of the weapon system, with how it introduces resource management to the combat, but it just rubs me the wrong way.

The soundtrack of a game is very important to me, if it's good, it can knock the game out of the park for me. But if it's bad, it could completely ruin the experience. There are some tracks I really like in BotW, but those are only around the end. When just walking around the world, the music gets too quiet for my taste and just makes me wish they took more notes from Skyrim. Overall, it doesn't take away from the experience, it just doesn't make me adore it.

A thing I really adore with this game is how much fun climbing is. In every other organic sandbox game I've played, the same question popped up: "why can't I just climb that mountain-side, instead of finding a path around it?" This game runs laps around games that make me ask those questions, by making Link able to climb almost anything! It gets a bit ridiculous at times, like how he can climb flat walls with no place to get a grip or climb nearly 135 degree walls, but I admire the game for it, since it makes climbing a central piece of viable solutions to combat scenarios. Like you can climb away from some enemies, as long as they don't have ranged weapons, or you could just enter a room with a tough enemy and climb around it.

That also brings me to another thing I really like, the armor system. In a lot of shrines, you're awarded pieces of clothing for your effort, they all have different armor ratings, but some of them also have an added effect, like making you resist fire/cold or my favorite: let you climb faster. If you have a whole set of armor, and upgrade all parts of it twice, you'll get very neat bonus effects, like moving faster under certain circumstances or consuming less stamina from doing certain actions. My favorite has to be the effects from the upgraded climbing gear set, as it makes climbing mountains a lot quicker and more fun. But I suppose it makes repeat playthroughs hard to adjust to, since it gets easy to become reliant on permanent upgrades like that.

The Shrines contain by far some of the best puzzles the Zelda series has ever had. While the quality of the shrines vary quite a lot, I'm really fond of how some of them are handled. There may seem to be a set solution you're meant to use with each one of them, but there's been a lot of times where I came up with alternative solutions that made me think "was I supposed to solve it that way?" But I don't really care, since there was nothing stopping me from doing that. You could call them lazy for not patching out unexpected solutions or you could say that they reward creative thinking. I don't care which one it is, I prefer it to be this way a lot over puzzles that have contrived reasons to only be solved 1 way.

With how open the game is, there are a lot of difficulty spikes, depending on what order you do stuff in. There's an order it expects you to do stuff in, but you're never forced to abide that. So you could end up having a relatively easy first dungeon, then bust your balls on the next one, but then have the rest of the game be a complete cake-walk. Though I suppose a wonky difficulty curve is just a prize to pay for having such a realistically open world to play around with.

Of course, I mentioned that there were some unexpected problems, and no games are perfect, so it's best to acknowledge them, so they can be improved. The game has some performance issues, like there have been a couple of times during combat that the game just freezes for a couple of seconds, if a lot of stuff is going on on-screen. This may have something to do with the fact that I played the Wii U version, but I also heard reports of performance issues from the Switch version. I don't really mind issues like drops in the frame-rate, as long as it's not causing me to die or take lots of damage unnecessarily, but I can see why it'd bother some people.

The part I was the most disappointed by in this was the end-game. I feel like beating all the divine beasts would've been more rewarding if I got an extra phase of the calamity ganon boss fight rather than just having its health cut in half. Cutting out each of the pre-calamity ganon bosses were nice of them, though.

The ending is rather disappointing as well. I didn't want it to be Lord of the Rings-like ending, but I feel like what I got was a bit too little for such a long game.


Sorry if I bored anyone by making you read through all of that, there was just so much I wanted to say about BotW.


If I were to sum up my thoughts on the game very quickly, I'd say there are some good parts and some parts I don't like, but the good definitely outweigh the bad.
If I had to put this game on a list of my favorite Zelda games, I think it would rank second. I still have a fondness for Twilight Princess that can't be beaten by this. Nostalgia plays a huge part in that, though there are some elements that I genuinely believe are better in Twilight Princess, like the soundtrack and the Dungeons. Though comparing BotW to TP isn't really fair for either game, considering how different they are. I'll most likely return to BotW, to try playing it differently (like going straight to Ganon like a Speedrunner, doing a run where I only get Stamina or only get Health upgrades etc.).
 

Oglemi

Borf
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I've been hunting Koroks for the past 5 days and I can't. stop.

THEY'RE SO CUTE I MUST HAVE THEM ALL

I've had the game for a ~month and I'm only 2 Divine Beasts in with 2 entire Tower areas I haven't touched yet, good lord.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
idk but just beat nier automata and holy fuck was that one of the best endgame sequences ever. I was crying as the credits rolled, and I haven't cried in a long time.
 

GatoDelFuego

The Antimonymph of the Internet
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hi, so after buying nier automata and completing the intro i have come to the sad conclusion that i'm probably better off upgrading my video card before i start playing again. playing on 20fps is unpleasant, to say the least.

i'm not sure what video card to buy though, i've been thinking between the new RX580 and the GTX1060. what should i do
here's my other specs btw
http://i.imgur.com/j0jFiRB.png
What is your monitor? 1060 will crush 1080p, but if you can't get above 60fps on your monitor there's really not too much of a need. An old Rx480 will play stuff like gtaV at 90fps. No need to waste money on a shiny new rx580 for 20 more fames that you'll never get to see anyway.
 

GatoDelFuego

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i'm not really planning on upgrading to 1440p 144hz any time soon though
Yeah so I'm saying if you're going to upgrade now, a 480 can meet/exceed your needs on games for a couple years. No need to get anything more powerful than a 480 (you could even get away with a 470/1050 ti? depending on what you want) cause you won't see those frames. No need to buy a "new" / "good" graphics card like a rx580 because you won't need that much power with just a 1080p display at 60 hz
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Sandy Bridge 4 lyfe yo

The 500 line is just a refresh of the 400 line, they're basically super-factory overclocks. GTX 1060 and RX 480/580 are basically top end cards for 1080p/60hz gaming. Most enthusiasts suggest the latter because they're usually cheaper, but if you find a cheaper 1060 on sale then get that. Or if your PSU is balls and only has a 6pin connector, because the 480/580 take an 8pin but the 1060 is more efficient and only takes a 6pin. I bought myself a 1050 Ti for Christmas (along with finally moving up to 1080p) for my aging prebuild, before I realized my old card already took a 6pin anyway so I could've spent up $30 for a 470. *shrug* Oh well.

I'm waiting for Near A Tomato to price drop because I'm both poor and cheap. I myself am currently on a weeb tear finishing Nepnep RB3 (which is like 10 steps forward, two steps back from the first two entries), after which will follow more weeb shit and RTS shit in some currently unknown order... including Moékuri which is both. *ahem* and it's also pokemon
 

OLD GREGG (im back baby)

old gregg for life
At some point in the recent past i gave pokemon vega a try and despite being a total grindfest i made it to the sixth gym, at which point I just stopped playing for awhile. It left a lasting impression on me, though and ive decided to give it another go. I was impressed with the fakemons and custom music so i figured why not. Im now in the postgame and have to say it is by far one of the best pokemon hacks ive put any time into, mind you ive also beaten light platinum and flora sky. Also very high quality hacks. Just wondering if anyone else has played vega? Its really good if you can handle the grindy difficulty.
 
At some point in the recent past i gave pokemon vega a try and despite being a total grindfest i made it to the sixth gym, at which point I just stopped playing for awhile. It left a lasting impression on me, though and ive decided to give it another go. I was impressed with the fakemons and custom music so i figured why not. Im now in the postgame and have to say it is by far one of the best pokemon hacks ive put any time into, mind you ive also beaten light platinum and flora sky. Also very high quality hacks. Just wondering if anyone else has played vega? Its really good if you can handle the grindy difficulty.
Since you brought up Vega, do you know a good place from where I can download it? I've been irking to play it for some time, but you never know with some of these sites.
 
some sort of Mario + Rabbids RPG has been rumored for awhile

It doesn't sound terribly good, but all the Mario RPGs have actually been pretty solid on their first game so I want to have some hope. On the other hand, if you compare it to recent Paper Mario or & Luigi it doesn't look too hot.
 

breh

強いだね
It's real, some guy had mario from it with sunglasses shopped on as his avatar on twitter for a while apparently lol

I don't have high hopes for the game, less because it's rabbids or anything but more because crossovers tend to use the mario license poorly... idk, maybe it's laziness because slapping mario's name / face on it pretty much makes it sell, so there's no reason to really try. Assuming that one defines a "mario + x" game as one that features mario on the cover but is made by a developer outside of the nintendo umbrella, I can't think of a good game in that category short of maybe fortune street if that counts.

I never really made the connection until now, but I feel like rabbids are a sort of proto-minion. Evolution is truly a beautiful process.
 

Pilo

uses walther
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
While my hopes for this Mario + Rabbids game aren't tremendously high either I'm going to reserve most of my judgement until the game has at least been announced since the so-called advertisement slides seem preliminary at best given their poor grammar and broken English. That said, judging by the small amount of information available to us currently I think the game has a bit of potential and as Fishin said Mario RPGs normally do tend to be good although I'm not sure whether or not that statement applies to this game since Ubisoft is making it. Only time will tell I guess.
 

Pilo

uses walther
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
nintendo's new headphone design baffles me

i understand they're just breaking into the market but that's hardly an excuse. Seriously, who greenlit this clunky pair of headphones you have to plug into your phone via an adapter? This once again begs the question: why can't nintendo do things normally?
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Good thing the number of Nintendo Switch consoles I own is equal to the number of smartphones I own.
 

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