#but ive had a lot of fun with the gameplay & i have all the rings now so im like :( i dont want it to be over...

[orcelito]

Literally forgot I was playing fire emblem engage on hard mode

I just thought the game was just like this

[lowpolyshadow]

sonic frontiers review go!!!! (non spoilers then MASSIVE spoilers under the cut) TLDR overall score: i would say it's an objective solid 8/10, but for me personally i just. i just had so much fun. 10/10

gameplay (combat/bosses) 9/10 gameplay (cybers) 6.5/10 gameplay (shmovement) 8/10

i fucking Love. Comboing Shit For Video Game Combat. it's Fun. it's Exciting. I Love That Shit. excellent combat system, i just wish either skills were harder to unlock or there were just more to unlock (preferably the latter i guess, but i can't think of anything i want ... added ... it's just that skill points are so easy to come by and i maxed out the tree pretty fast, so i have a bunch of excess points for nothing. tbf i have a LOT of excess EVERYTHING but)

bosses were fucking excellent. THE highlights imo. mob fights and stuff are fine, everything manages to be its own puzzle which i adore but mini bosses and bosses are the shit. the cyberlevels are fun genuinely but either too short to get into, have some jank physics in a couple of them, or . well some of them aren't that fun GJKLASDF but i didn't hate them! ive only played sa2 so i only recognized those ones + the Super iconic ones (chemical plant and all that) and that probably affects judgement since blind reacting to a sonic stage is the fun part imo

they're ridiculously easy (to... me at least) though. besides 1-2's s rank which i finally got, i was able to get all four missions done for every cyber level within one sitting ... on average like . 3 tries per i'd say (blind first, going back for any red rings or ring reqs, and then speed) with some taking a few more for speed but never more than like. 10-20 min tbh. in general i almost want a very hard mode bc the game overall was a very chill time, which is fine but sometimes i want my shit rocked

parries being Not timing based both threw me off (bc i would try to let go at the exact time when in fact you just hold it) and made them feel a little less ultra cool since sonic will just hold the parry for as long as ... you do, essentially (though there is heavy end lag on it so if you don't parry anything that's at least punished) it's a minor tryhard gripe where i wish there was like a PARRY parry i could toggle or smth

i like being sonic in a big environment it's just fun. the amount of fucked up shit you can do is great, he truly is a prime candidate for bigass open areas (and he controls pretty nicely, just got a couple weird moments and things like he goes into 'trick' mode too easily or some platforming things don't work the way they're supposed to bc you go too fast lol)

story…… 8.5/10 characters 10/10 i like them :)

character writing was absolutely the highlight for me this game, good banter, many quips, overall just characterization i adore and love to see i was well fed this game with my beloved little scrimblos it was a good time

the story itself went pretty hard ngl, a lot more lore than i expected and generally it was sonic taking its ridiculous plot seriously again which is all i wanted !!!! it's like somehow ridiculous but probably the most straightforward story they've done in a while, but that's not a bad thing. good story i pogged a few times

music 11/10 straight bangers they just don't fucking miss

i don't think i have much spoiler stuff i'd wanna say other than i genuinely think they hyped themselves too much at the start. like the gameplay was fun learning how it works, how movement goes, the setup and everything etc. etc. i always 100% the map first thing as soon as i can then go through for anything i need/pick stuff up along the way and then i do the boss fight

and that first boss fight. is so fucking sick. oh my god. i felt like. if i was 12 and played this and got to experience that boss fight the way i did now it would've literally changed the trajectory of my life. it DID change the trajectory of my life right now at 23 it was just pure hype, i was so giddy, i had the biggest fucking grin i was literally ready to physically pop off yelling LETS GOOOOO i just let the little tutorial popup chill while i head banged to the song like dear fucking god dude. INSANE intro they set the bar way too high off the bat

wyvern/second boss was perhaps my favorite mechanically just bc it really goes at you the most, you gotta react a lot and parry a lot to get through the fight which is Fun .... giganto/first boss tho. easily the most memorable experience in gaming that i've had in years. it was just so phenomenally done, probably biased bc it's the first one but shadow of the colossus-ing your way up to his fucking head to get the emerald, turn into super sonic, hear that FUCKING SONG

but this game has sonic be so fucking anime and that means knight/boss 3 easily has the best fucking finisher when sonic picks up a sword the size of the island itself and does the most anime cut in half shot he possibly can god it was so fucking SICK THIS GAME IS SICK SONIC IS THE COOLEST

the story weakness imo is the ending where they had so much build up but not a Ton of payoff, not even talking about sonic like essentially dying in soul/mind and then being revived with friendship (based tbh) but like the last boss fight and last islands just weren't nearly as cool as the others imo .... supreme was a lil similar to giganto and went by a lot faster than expected, probably bc by that point sonic's probably juiced up from upgrades (i went all in on attack no defense too lol sooo) ... i love a good bullet hell but i wanted a super cool super sonic fight, a hyper sonic fight, something that lets me go to town and see a fucking Spectacle

fun bullet hell but that wasn't what i'm HERE for (also finally hearing im here was sick but the fight itself really was so short/not quite as hard or anything innovative that it.... ehhh .... plus it was oddly quiet compared to the other songs i think, like, the sound mixing)

the ending feels a liiiittle rushed? The End is cool as a concept especially with how fucked up we know it is but i dunno, it really does feel like it blew the load a little too early and the ending just didn't live up to earlier hype/expectations

but it was still fun it just. it just didn't make me Feel the way giganto did, the way wyvern did, knight was where the hype started dropping off a liiiittle but knight was still a fucking SHOW where sonic beats a mf with his own shield AND THEN BLOCKS A SWORD BIGGER THAN MOUNTAINS WITH HIS OWN FUCKING HANDS THEN USES IT AGAINST HIM ITS' SIK IT'S SICK the final boss didn't have any truly THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME bits that really let you walk away going YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and that's the part they need to fix

also no boss rush :/ brings the score down tbh i want to relive these things so fucking bad

the character relationships were soooo good though i just. gughugh. i don't want to get emo again but GOD they're such good friends they love and care about each other, i'm obsessed with amy saying how sonic loves the world and he has so much love to show because it's true sonic just LOVES living he loves life he loves getting to just Be and

tails is growing up on him faster than he expected .... uuu ....

and the fucking SONIC AND KNUCKLES BAYBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAH BUTTING HEADS SNARLING AT EACH OTHER LAUGHING AND GIVING FIST BUMPS AND TALKING SHIT THEY WERE SO GOOD YEAHYEAHYHEAY MOTEHRFUCKING KNUCKLES SWEEP BABY LETS GOOOO

god. so good. so fucking good. this is a game about love (sonic and his friends, eggman and sage of all people, the koco and their. selves? their history?, even chaos technically ....) and who am i if not a fucking Sucker for that shit. lets show that creep the real super power of team work

i did not actually hear vandalize in game yet because that is apparently only if you go into the final fight on easy or normal (i played to completion on hard exclusively) but the "true" ending song by nate goddamn wants to battle is INCREDIBLY sonic. one way dream is soooo reach for the stars/endless possibilities. it just makes me Feel happy. it's a little melancholic the way all of frontiers sort of is, but it's still hopeful and all about like. going forward. overcoming anything in your path and getting better for it and seeing the start of another new adventure and that sure is sonic the hedgehog

[waywardsalt]

this has been a good year for new games for me, ironically bc i had a shit time with totk and was able to better recognize what i like. totk is a game i have not touched since beating it, while every other game i have played this year have be considerably better and just. idk good experiences

so some reflection on the games i played for the first time this year that i really liked!

i played fire emblem engage this year- i literally forgot that that happened this year, i've only been counting games since totk, and i've played some good fuckin games after totk, but i honestly had a good silly time with fe engage. the music is great, the story is a bit flat and hammy at times but was still engaging (hah) and i was pleasantly surprised by the development of the main character, and it was pretty hard even on an easy difficulty, which each map sometimes taking an hour to get through as the story progressed. plus i can't deny that the referneces to other fe games with the emblem rings was a cool selling point, i'm not too familiar with the other fe games and it was interesting to see some of the characters from them. loading into lucina's paralogue and instantly recognizing the map layout and music got to me pretty good as someone who was introduced into the series by awakening. it was great!

i played persona 5 royal after totk and. what a fucking palette cleanser it's one of the best games i have ever played and i've... somewhat liveblogged my first playthrough and snippets of my second, it's fantastic (not flawless tbf) and just a lot of fun. the music is great holy shit and it was also just a great story to experience, with some interesting messaging throughout with the confidant stuff and the things brought up by the third semester. i didn't even initally get persona 5 with the intention to play it myself, it was for my sibling, who played it once and put it down and hasn't touched it since while i picked it up on a whim and was hooked by the music and style and gameplay and... holy shit it's so good. i don't even mind okumura's palace too much.

i managed to get myself a copy of kid icarus uprising (and also got the guide book by accident, don't ask, it's helpful anyways), and... they sure did make a third person shooter on the 3ds and it sure does. Handle. in all honestly the controls are kind of a mess but the game feels really good to play when you get a handle on them, even if i keep accidentally sending pit falling to his death in the ground segments because just moving him is a bit rough. the game is also surprisingly hard, and i wouldn't just chalk it up to the controls, and the music (esp the tracks for the air segments and the way its timed to the game events... ugh) is fantastic, and what i've seen of the story and characters so far is charming! i have only gotten up to past chapter 9 out of... 30? because each chapter is fairly long and... those controls. it's great!

i also managed to get my hands on shin megami tensei iv! i first found it through the fantastic soundtrack, played the first through hours after it failing to boot a few times and getting fucking destroyed by the earliest enemies because holy shit this game will beat you into the ground if you try, and was like 'hm i wonder why they went with that specific sound for a lot of the ost' and then got to fucking tokyo and i. i do not know a lot abt smt iv's story and i'm grateful. getting to tokyo was a bit internal 'holy SHIT' moment and i am so desperate to figure out what the fuck is going on with this story and world it's really fascinating. i haven't progressed the story in a while even through i know where to go just because i'm trying to level flynn and my demons and do side quests because i am not going to underestimate any new encounter ever it's fantastic.

did i start playing clangen this year? i might have. it's good. it's fun. i've played it on voice call with my friend a few times. i'm currently hooked on starting with 1 apprentice and 1 kit like a lot of people are doing on here, building cool stories based on it. it's neat.

that's (probably) all of the new games i've played (and enjoyed) this year so far, but i found out that fallout: new vegas is ten fucking dollars on steam (20 with all of the dlc) and i might have to give that a shot after tracking down a bunch of mods to keep it from crashing, and just from what i've seen of people talking about it, it sounds like a game i really need to try either this year or sometime next year. i'm mostly still just floored that it's less than thirty dollars.

[wisdomshoes]

alright, I read it... I don't really understand your take on Elden Ring, if it's just dark souls 3 but worse than it's still a good game also, why does it being overrated make it worse? one of them being music is really funny to me just because I've never met anyone who doesn't like music. all around you have pretty good taste 👍

have a great day :]

i KNOW, I'm so perfect in every aspect yet no one ever compliments me. i mean they do but i shrug it off with a joke or a bit and entirely forget about it. (anyways here comes a thorough explanation on why i fucking hate elden ring) (oh god i am so sorry if you're gonna read all of this) (to prefix this i wanna say you're wonderful and i hold no ill will towards you and i don't want you to feel bad about liking elden ring or fromsoft. i love you. personally. this is not parasocial)

also elden ring is shit. it being overrated is a problem because fromsoft might just get the idea to make more games unbalanced but also make them completely without challenge by adding super op items. then again fromsoft rarely ever listens to fans. they just do what the hell they wanna even if it's shit. part of the reason why i love and hate them. end game pve unbalanced as shit. having spent 60 points on vigor should stop me from dying in two hits. enemies have so much HP it's just not rewarding in any way to fight the lot of them. unless ofc you force yourself to use stupidly op starts and items. so you lose either way unless you ride past them. dungeons are unmemorable except a few actually interesting ones. the world is rather empty and besides blowing a massive hole in the ground and burning down a tree is not really affected by anything you do. all the open world is is spectacle. just a lot of sepctacle with very little gameplay. they made multiplayer unfun. not only invading. duels (rip) and arena are just a shitfest of people only using the most overpowered bullshit and when they're not, they're using fucking magic. which if you play your cards right makes you pretty much immortal. i only found one way to counter semi decent mages. it's being a mage. only time I had fun was this one time in like level 100 arena where this guy changed his entire set to mine including weapons and kicked my ass. besides that only fun in pvp is low level. mages aren't bullshit yet, people don't use the fucking rot (mostly), people are just having fun. actually not pvp, just arena, cause when you invade low level it's always going to be a gank of one regular character and two ng+7 assholes baiting invaders. but that's just part of fromsoft pvp i suppose. the 60 euro experience ladies and gentlemen. instead of balancing it, make it so unfun for one side people will just stop playing it! what else.. they added horses but no horse combat. way to go from. status effects are just taken too far. curse is still useless though except for cheaters. status effects apply through rolls and you can easily make an instaproc build. im not sure if that happened in their previous games. all of the enemies you fight are going to or have been reused. can't have sex with the fingers. 0/10 would probably play it for another 300 hours. I'm not proofreading any of that.

but the mods are great. im not buying the dlc though. it's just going to be more of the same. i mean maybe they could improve it to dark souls 3 standards but if i wanted that I'd just replay dark souls 3. im far too busy replaying Sekiro for the 50th time though aka THEIR BEST GAME BY FAR.

also ive met several people who "don't like" or "don't listen to" music. fucking lunatics, i didn't keep contact with them. also i don't just like music, I'd be dead without music. im beyond obsessed. that's why i felt the need to add it y'know. anyways love you.

[bearpillowmonster]

Top 5 Games I've played in 2022

I replayed a few games this year like BBS, but Kingdom Hearts gets a spot on pretty much every list that I could make so I'm going to leave stuff like that and Pokemon Colosseum out. I also didn't want to include more than one from each franchise, just like the other lists.

Mass Effect: Aw man was this good, I understand now. I bought it and didn't want to put it down, I just continued on to the second game, no buffer. There's just so much to like about it and I know it's an unpopular opinion but I prefer it (legendary edition) to ME2 so I included it instead. Great gameplay, great characters, a lot of choices. It's great.

Conker's Bad Fur Day: I almost didn't want to include this because I started it before but just never finished it then I thought that maybe I had to. You see, I love platformers and there are very few on here, heck there are very few now and days in general. I think some of it is funny, I think some of it is overloaded with rauch when it doesn't need to, but at its core, the gameplay is really fun, being able to float around with your tail is a joy and I wish other games would take note.

Metroid Fusion: I tackled. I wrestled with this one because I played five Metroid games this year and they were all really good, it's just a question of which was the best. I should've just made it Other M and been done with it (audience laugh) but I think when it comes down to it, the ones that I held highest, I virtually liked for the same reasons. First off the speed and movement of the gameplay is spot on, impressive, it amazes me how the more games that come out, the better it feels to control. The subtle details of the bosses and environment really get you invested in what amounts to a 2D game like the system isn't outdated at all. So which one did I pick? I'll leave that up to you to decide but I know which one.

The Force Unleashed: I played this when I was younger but only got to the first level because I thought it was hard and I was scared that it might not have aged well but I stand corrected, I had a lot of fun, the physics are fantastic, still stands up pretty good today, the story is great, it calls upon a lot of what I like about Star Wars, it's something I'll always consider in my canon despite what others may say. (looks at Andor) Oh, look at that.

Super Castlevania IV: Uh...did that just happen? Did this one squeak by? I literally just finished it but I went back through the list and yeah, I think it might be better than a lot of the other contenders. Sure, there are some that might be better suited (Like Elden Ring) but I haven't finished those yet so I can't include them. I don't think this game overstays its welcome, I think it's pretty well crafted for what boils down to a sidescroller, I could barely notice. It did what I asked so why shouldn't it be on here?

[thevindicativevordan]

Finished Halo Infinite (that and school are why I haven't been as active of late) and I want to talk about it. SPOILERS below.

Might be my second favorite campaign after Halo 4 and a huge step up from Halo 5. 343 has done a much better job at getting me to care about Chief as a character compared to how Bungie approached Chief, and Infinite is a continuation of that. Throughout the game we are given constant reminders of just how tired, sad, and downright broken Chief has become. Cortana's betrayal has really fucked Chief up emotionally, and now he has to work with her "sister"/clone who looks exactly like her. Was absolutely shocked when I saw him promise the Weapon that he would protect her while at the same time he's loading up the deletion protocols in case she turns against him. Level of cold-bloodedness displayed there from Chief that we don't usually get in the games. The Weapon herself was a great audience stand-in and replacement for Cortana as Chief's AI helper. Enjoyed her chipper attitude and naïve sincerity, contrasted well with Chief's stoicism much as Cortana's snark did. Weapon is explicitly framed in-universe as a do-over for Cortana, letting us have a Jen Taylor-voiced AI companion we like without all of the "galactic tyrant" baggage. I appreciated that they finally followed up on what Halo 4 teased by giving us a "Cortana-model" AI who isn't the same as Cortana despite coming from similar origins. Just praying that tease at the end doesn't mean she's actually going to start calling herself Cortana, that would be unbearably idiotic. Elsewhere I saw a theory that she could be named Joyeuse or "Joy" to continue the theme Bungie established of naming AIs after Charlemagne's swords, and I hope that's true. Ended up liking the Pilot a lot more than I expected, having someone act as the representation for how the "civilian" population reacts to all the batshit insanity of life in the Haloverse was a nice change from the usual focus on military personnel.

Gameplay was an absolute joy, haven't had this much fun playing a FPS since the first Destiny game. For all the hate the campaign got, people really seemed to dig the gameplay and MP side of Halo 5, glad to see 343 kept and improved on the gameplay aspect (I haven't touched multiplayer yet). Grappling around made the game feel like first person Spider-Man at times, certainly made terrain traversal a more enjoyable experience for me personally. Throwing in my ten cents here, as a fan of the Forerunner guns from the previous 343 games I was sad that they were all removed. Miss the ground pound as well, but I guess those were necessary sacrifices to try to appease the Bungie diehards.

Infinite doesn't do as much with the open world as I was hoping for, storywise the open world aspects aren't acknowledged at all. Far as the story goes all the FOBs I reclaimed and the Marine Squads I liberated might as well not exist. Gameplay wise however, conquering Banished outposts with a squad of Marines armed to the teeth was utterly exhilarating. Definitely feel like a badass hero leading your 5 man squad into enemy territory and just cleaning house with it, so I can overlook the Gameplay and Story separation.

Having gushed over how much I enjoyed it, let's get to the part that's likely to be divisive: Infinite essentially torches everything Halo 5 set up on account of how unpopular 5's plot was. Cortana and the Creator/Created War? Gone, happened completely off-screen including Cortana's death. Infinity? Destroyed. Palmer/Locke/Spartan-IVs? I'm assuming some of them must still be alive elsewhere on the ring, but as of right now it's just Chief again. Hell even though the main bad guys are the Banished, our only interaction with Atriox, their founder and main foe of Halo Wars 2, is a cutscene at the start where he kicks the shit out of Chief and the post credit scene at the end. Otherwise he's believed dead the entire game by everyone, and his follower Escharum has taken over instead. Infinite is a weird mix of nostalgia throwbacks to the Bungie era - which admittedly makes sense given this is the first game in years set on an actual Halo ring - and also still trying to push the franchise forward. We get a new Big Bad replacement at the end that's hyped up to be "EVEN WORSE THAN THE FLOOD!" which is a bit of an eye roller.

Cortana is the big hurdle 343 had to clear, and I'm feeling mixed about how she was handled. On one hand she got about as good of an exit as she possibly could get given what she became. Dying a villain, but one who tried to give Chief a chance to set things right with her last act was really the only way to try to "redeem" her without using the copouts of "actually she was mind controlled/hacked/someone else impersonated her". Infinite walked a fine line between tossing out as much of what came before as it could without completely disregarding the past, and Cortana was the one element they really had to address.

Still I can't help feeling upset that the amazing ending she got in Halo 4 was undone, just to give her a much shittier ending in Infinite, where she died after having completely fallen off the deep end. As Cortana herself says "we keep saying goodbye to each other" and every one since 4 has just been dragging a character through the mud who should've been done after 4. In 4 she died a hero whereas in Infinite she died a genocide committing monster who had a last second change of heart. Story is constantly pulled between trying to appease the Halo fans who were upset she was made a villain while at the same time having to deal with the fact that she was a villain. Final goodbye with Cortana in Infinite is well-executed - it's pretty much a meta apology on 343's behalf for how they fucked her character up - but it just doesn't feel as satisfying a goodbye as you'd want from a character we spent years bonding with.

Halo's plot has gone in a loop, fitting I know, but we're essentially right back where we started. Chief and not!Cortana (who may end up literally calling herself Cortana if that tease at the ending means what I think it does and 343 are braindead) are on a Halo Ring fighting the not!Covenant who want to destroy humanity, while another alien race imprisoned on the Ring wants to break free and threatens both groups. Credits hit right as it felt like the story was just starting to ramp up. They still don't even have a way off the Ring by the end!

Despite the entire game making ominous references to "The Endless", we end the game knowing practically nothing about them, same as when we started. Harbinger doesn't exactly strike fear in my heart based on appearance either, so I hope the rest of the Endless (assuming she was one which we aren't sure of either) are more intimidating in terms of design. Plot isn't much to write home about either, it's just Chief and the Weapon trying to piece together what the fuck happened during the 6 months he was out. Billing the game as being about "exploring the mysteries of Zeta Halo" was pretty dishonest. Other than the fate of Cortana, none of the mysteries are answered, we're left with more questions than answers. At the end we still have no real clue what makes Zeta "different" from the other Halos.

Reason I'm not more negative about the game overall is it appears we're getting more DLC soon that will progress the story, and I also understand that the new regime at 343 is basically trying to tie up the old guard's loose ends, so that they can then move on to the stories they want to tell. Much more interested in whatever Staten is cooking up than I am in trying to turn Reed's proverbial straw into gold. Plus the story is really about the emotional relationship between Chief, Cortana, and the Weapon, and that aspect is absolutely nailed and helps carry the campaign. Gotta admit that all those cutscene hologram/flashbacks to various moments from Halo lore, in both the games and the books felt very rewarding as someone who only casually dips into the deeper ends of the Halo universe.

Infinite feels like a better executed attempt at what the Star Wars sequels tried for, mixing the old and new. While I'm still sad about how badly the potentially exciting ideas set up in Halo 4 and Halo 5 were executed and are now abandoned, I'm interested in the new mysteries and plotlines being teased. 343 seems to have at last settled on a direction for the franchise, and seemingly more campaign DLC is coming soon to continue the story. Infinite isn't a perfect game, it's not the ideal sequel to Bungie era Halo or even Halo 5, but it's a damn fun game that brought some new ideas to the franchise while jettisoning what didn't work before. Excited to see what comes next for Chief and company!

[necrocrunk]

top five snacks, top five music artists, top five video games.

had to take a shot for this one. lets do this.

dont like many snacks. but whatever

mini m&ms. these shits are the superior m&ms. not even the peanut ones compare. if i see these its on sight

reeses pieces. idk what it is about reese and his fuckin pieces, but the cups cant even contend

doritos sweet and spicy chili. we always have these at my house because i fucking LOVE them. honorable mention to baked bbq lays tho 

strawberry yogurt simply chex mix. idek if they make these shits anymore but i had them EVERY DAY at lunch when i was in highschool. i miss them every fucking day of my life, they’d be no 1 if they were easier to find

cheddar chex mix but only the chex mix in the bag. i only want the chex fuck the other shit

this ones hard BUT my top 5 of all time???? lets go

purity ring. i love this band with all my heart, i’ve seen them live and i never Dont adore their music. its amazing

glass animals. they came in at a weird point in my life and i still fuckin love them. seen them live too! very very very very good music and the closest vibes ive found is still woozy. give them a listen too

ghost. i HAVE ALSO seen these guys live. this was the band that finally inspired me to pursue satanism/luciferianism because of the power i felt over christian roots and bullying.their music makes me feel so individually powerful its good content

gorillaz OR orville peck..... im always excited about a new gorillaz song dont @ me.

this number reserved for all the rest of them. anyway. mitski, voltaire, diablo swing orchestra, second person, midicronica, dent may, owl city, black moth super rainbow..... sleep party people???pony pony run run. a bunch of bands that have stuck w me!

LAST but not least... this ones super hard 

journey. this was my game of the decade. i IMPLORE everyone to play it at least once, especially with someone else in game. it’s a beautiful, beautiful game that makes me cry every time i play it and ive beaten it over 20 times

bloodborne. have you watched the hbomberguy video on this game yet? its so undeniably good. it is EXACTLY my aesthetic, blood/gore, dark victorian and plague ridden cities, cool hats, scary monsters, cool fuckin weapons, beasts, cosmic horror done right, etc. it’s an AMAZING game 

persona 4. sorry i really like this game. im a big fan of games that focus around your relationships and how you navigate them, and thats essentially what persona games are. im not big on 5, but 4 really stuck with me. i think it’s because i played it when i was only a year younger than the protags

watch dogs 2. this is really my true no 2. i LOVE this game. i will wax poetic about this game for years. it’s got a diverse cast, a super fun protagonist, tons of cool character design and development, and an all around fun story. i love hacktivism, but i especially love the morals of rising up against corruption in this game. the gameplay isnt the best but i love it regardless. the fandom and old ARG it was running was super fun too. i’ve replayed this game multiple times without any dlc and i ADORE it. it was super underrated for its time IMO

destiny 2. unfortunately, i have a lot of fave games. very few have the hours ive put into destiny. hours played with friends, fuckin around, grinding for new content, etc. and i still have never done a raid! regardless i really love this game ive been playing it since D1 beta and i’ll be playing it till the inevitable D3

[ghoststowertour]

I really want to get back into Sonic, but I'm not sure where to start. Do you have any suggestions?

you can start ANYWHERE n play in any order really,, but if you play for the game mechanics/gameplay or for the story,, read below the cut for some recommendations,,

i started with sonic heroes which is great if youre looking for funky game mechanics, fun level design, interesting storyline and boppin tracks!! theres four stories you can play (team sonic/dark/chaotix/rose) and theres no particular order in which to play them so go crazy!! the bonus stages are always a blast n this one holds a special (stage) place in my heart,,

if youre aiming to play in chronological order story-wise, theres sonic adventure & sonic adventure 2, which are more story-oriented n have super neat game mechanics (climbing/gliding/racing/ t h e   c h a o   g a r d e n /etc.)!! the soundtracks for both of these games are REALLY good,, (heroes is a sequel to sa2 and references some events that had taken place in the latter)

i havent done much of 06 but its got a pretty solid storyline!! i cant say anything for graphics or gameplay as ive yet to play it, but it looks fun!! 

the storybook spinoff series (sonic and the black knight/sonic and the secret rings) are SUPER fun to play and are VERY story-oriented,, they introduce some funky new game mechanics n the level and general game design is v nice to look at n play with!! 

the shadow the hedgehog spinoff game is p entertaining because of its whacky storyline and different paths that you can take as you play through the game - good luck finding that DAMN fourth chaos emerald,,

i havent played rush shuffle or rivals but they all seem to have super neat game mechanics of their own as well as fun interactions between characters!!

generations is definitely a good place to start if you want to go through all of the fun stages throughout the games n play with both classic n modern mechanics!! its got lots of fun challenges you can do too!!

havent played colours yet but it looks SUPER good!! its got some funky new game mechanics (wisps) which look REALLY really neat!!

unleashed is fun to play if you wanna try smth a lil different from the usual sonic gameplay,, its more action-oriented as you fight through the night and dash through the day - v good storyline and the cg opening cinematic is to DIE for,,

mm,, oh!! and forces is v v fun and has both classic n modern gameplay as WELL as letting you create and play as your own sonic OC!! which can be v cute or make for some funny cutscenes,, also the bosses are SUPER fun and each level is always fun to go back to n play over n over again!!

if i missed any or if you guys have any recs feel free to add on to this post either via rb or in the comments!!

[codyjayplays]

My Top 4 E3 Announcements

It’s been a couple of weeks since E3 ended and I’ve got a few games I keep coming back to and thinking about. 

1. Final Fantasy VII Remake

So for as long as I can remember I’ve always been a Final Fantasy fan. It started on Super Nintendo with Final Fantasy IV known then as Final Fantasy II. It introduced me to the melodrama and grandiose of JRPGs. I kind of skipped FFVII when it came out because I didn’t have a PS1 until a few years later. I’ve started multiple playthroughs on different ports so while I’m familiar with it but I have no nostalgia for it. Even so, this remake has me extremely excited. The characters look the best they have ever looked, the environments have been embellished to such a beautiful degree, and the combat seems both thrilling and tactical. The combat takes some cues from both Final Fantasy XIII and XV, two games that can be polarizing but I love, and also Secret of Mana. By my accounts that seems like a recipe for a good time.

https://amzn.to/2Xwc6qt

2. Trials of Mana/ Collection of Mana

Of course being an early fan of Final Fantasy also meant being a fan of the Mana games. Seiken Densetsu 3 was one of the first games I ever emulated. My brother and I spent countless hours playing this game and now we can relive those moments in full 3D. The remake for Secret of Mana was a huge letdown for me because it played exactly like the original except in 3D. For some reason my brain couldn’t accept it but for the remake of Trials of Mana it seems I won’t be having that problem. In a similar vein as FFVII Remake except without the huge budget, Trials of Mana is being remade with modern audience in mind. It still has the item wheel and the same plot, but all of that has been expanded. Another one of my issues with the Secret of Mana remake was the fact that the original game had content cut due to space limitations. One of the only bummers about this game for me is the lack of co-op but that’s fine because Square Enix put the Collection of Mana on the eshop. This collects all the Mana games originally released on Nintendo platforms in the 90s.

https://amzn.to/2LrMN2a

3. Eldin Ring

There has been no gameplay footage of this game but I’m excited none the less. From an interview Hidetaka Miyazaki gave with IGN, this game sounds like the next evolution of Dark Souls. More open environments and a backstory created by George R. R. Martin have me excited to explore From Software’s latest entry into the Souls-like genre.

https://amzn.to/2FACDJ7

4. Dying Light 2

More people need to be playing Dying Light. More specifically, more people need to play Dying Light with as many friends as possible. This game is probably one of my favorite multiplayer games of all time. It mixes in an open world, parkour gameplay, zombie frights, and a fun combat system. Everything I’ve heard of the sequel has me hopeful that it’ll be even better than the first game. Now your choices will drive the narrative forward; you could never see certain parts of the game map depending on the choices you make. I might have to play a lot of my game single player just so my friends and I can talk about how different our worlds are.

https://amzn.to/2X5bZOa

[recentanimenews]

Find a Fresh Start in Life is Strange 2, Episode One: Roads

There’s a moment towards the end of Life is Strange 2’s first episode that perfectly exemplified the sequel’s direction. After a particularly stressful sequence, one of the few friendly faces I’d found pulled me aside for some encouragement. “The past is the past,” he says, quite literally gesturing toward the remnants of my time spent in the first game. Of course, he doesn’t know what happened in Arcadia Bay, nor does Sean Diaz, Life is Strange’s new protagonist. I know, though, and Dontnod knows too. It’s a clear message both for those who played Life is Strange and those who didn’t. It’s time to leave Arcadia Bay behind. Set your sights on Puerto Lobos.

The first Life is Strange released over the course of 2015 as a five-part episodic adventure series. Set in a coastal town in rural Oregon, it followed a high schooler named Max Caulfield who awakens the ability to rewind time. After using her power to save the life of an old friend, the two begin searching for a missing person. The game made waves for its tackling of heavy issues such as bullying, suicide, coming out, and sexual abuse within its coming-of-age drama framework.

    I’m a big fan of the first game, but was apprehensive when a sequel was announced. To me, the first game’s story was already as complete as it needed to be. Luckily, Dontnod felt the same way and promised that Life is Strange 2 would be something completely new. After playing the first episode (simply titled Roads), I can assure you that they’ve kept their promise.

Life is Strange 2 centers around Sean and Daniel Diaz, a pair of brothers whose quiet life at home with their dad is suddenly and violently taken from them. On their own and on the run, they decide to make the long trek from the Seattle suburbs to their father’s childhood home in Puerto Lobos, Mexico. While their journey in Roads has only just begun, their story will supposedly take place over the course of an entire year as they cross the American countryside in search of a new place to call home.

  In many ways, it’s the same Life is Strange you already know and love. Aesthetically, it’s identical to the first. Effects such as wind, fire, and running water are once again animated in 2D to charming effect. Character models are rendered in the same plastic-looking style as before,and facial animations are as stiff as ever as a result. Limited facial expressions that couldn’t keep up with the voiceover work undercut more than a few of the episode’s more emotional scenes. It’s the one glaring flaw in the way this game looks, which is normally gorgeous. Much of the episode is spent in a beautiful autumn forest environment that I couldn’t help but take screenshot after screenshot of. Expect to find plenty of opportunities to sit down, listen to the soundtrack, and gaze at shot after shot of all the lovely scenery.

Speaking of the soundtrack, Life is Strange 2 features another well-curated selection of licensed songs. I have this game to blame for me listening to Phoenix’s “Lisztomania” more lately than I have in years. While I do love these licensed soundtracks and believe they add a lot to the Life is Strange experience, they give me concern over the series’s longevity. Recently, Grand Theft Auto IV had to patch out licensed selections of its soundtrack, and the Alan Wake series had to be removed from storefronts altogether due to expiring music licenses. I noticed that Life is Strange 2 has an option to turn off licensed songs, which I hoped meant would replace them with originals. Unfortunately, all it does is mute the music altogether. It’s a good feature for streamers and let’s players who need to avoid copyright takedowns on their videos, but I worry about what happens when the licenses expire. Will anyone who picks up this game a decade from now have to settle with stark silence where a poppy intro used to be? It’s not quite a knock against Life is Strange 2, but it does make me wonder.

    The gameplay of Life is Strange 2 is where it begins to diverge from its predecessor. You are still walking around environments in third person picking up and reading as many objects as you can, but the original’s time rewind ability is absent. This is to be expected, of course, but unfortunately there’s no actual replacement for it. This time around the playable character doesn’t have any powers whatsoever. Before, Max’s rewind ability gave her a variety of time manipulation puzzles to play with and the ability to change dialogue choices over the course of the game. Failing puzzles got characters hurt or killed, and I found myself hitting a few game over screens I needed to rewind out of and start over. If the first episode of Life is Strange 2 had any failable moments, I never found them.

While not being able to play with any fun powers is a bit disappointing, Life is Strange 2 does bring something new to the table: your brother Daniel. As Daniel’s caretaker, everything Sean says and does influences him in one way or another. By the end of the episode I had already felt the consequences of some of my decisions, and Dontnod promises that early actions will only continue to influence him as the story progresses. Moral choices are nothing new these days, but what I found interesting is how many of my little choices seemed to affect Daniel. Being a rather energetic child, his curiosity had him drifting around every scene looking for any way to occupy himself. Sean had plenty of opportunities to bond with Daniel in these scenes or to leave him be and attend to chores such as shopping or setting up camp. All of these interactions contributed to Daniel’s hunger, exhaustion, security, dependence, and overall bond with Sean, which further affect his behavior from scene to scene.

  I tend to play games like Life is Strange with a compulsive need to see every single thing I can, but Daniel’s inclusion in the game changed all of that. While he never ran off and got into trouble, I was always worried he might and stuck close by. I pestered him to go to the bathroom whenever I found one. I refused to even look at toys for the flavor text because I was strapped for cash and didn’t want Daniel to hope I’[d buy one for him. He whines, but he genuinely wants to help. He complains, but only because he doesn’t understand what’s happening. He lashes out at Sean, but his love for his brother is apparent. His behavior felt believable, and I quickly found myself sinking into my role as his protective older brother.

Finally, Life is Strange 2 diverges from the first game most notably with its story and subject matter. There’s no missing person to find, no bullying ring to take down, and no town to save from disaster. There’s no mystery here, only an adventure. This is a story about a pair of brothers on the run. It’s the relationship between these brothers that drives the story forward this time, rather than the intrigue of a good mystery. The story as a whole is massively elevated by the strength of its dialogue, which is an incredibly funny thing to think for a game called Life is Strange. The first game’s attempt at writing ‘teen’ dialogue was charmingly out-of-touch, so it’s surprising to hear the teens in this game talking like actual teens. Unfortunately, the delivery often leaves something to be desired. Many of the line readings -- particularly from Daniel -- sounded rather stilted compared to the first game’s pretty solid dubbing.

It’s also worth noting that this game is more overtly political than the last. The first moments of the episode are dated October 28, 2016, and why Dontnod set the game in 2016 instead of 2018 is immediately apparent: Sean and Daniel are the sons of a Mexican immigrant. Diving into Sean’s sketchbook reveals a reference to a recent debate on TV. “He’s not actually gonna win, right?” asks a friend of Sean over text message. Multiple references are made to building a wall, for crying out loud. The very incident that puts Sean and Daniel on the run could be ripped straight from the headlines these days. “Everything is political,” declares one character to another. It’s clear that Dontnod believes that, because this game is rife with it.

This is, of course, only a review of Life is Strange 2’s first episode. The story is far from over, so there are plenty of lingering questions. The big one is what role the supernatural will play in the story. While Sean doesn’t have any abilities, someone else does. I won’t spoil who or what kind of powers they are, but they play an important role in episode one - albeit a brief one. Whether or not they will be implemented into gameplay at all remains to be seen. I certainly hope so.

The other big question is how exactly Life is Strange 2 will link up to The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, a free downloadable game meant to act as a prequel to Life is Strange 2. While Chris (aka Captain Spirit) doesn’t show up at all in the first episode, upon going back to his mini-story I found that not only is there a reference to the inciting incident in Life is Strange 2, but the previously unnamed characters Chris meets at the end are in fact Sean and Daniel. How they will link up remains to be seen, but I’m very excited to find out.

Despite all my little quibbles and qualms and comparisons to the first game, after finishing this episode, all I could think of was how good it was. It’s not the same Life is Strange as before, but I never wanted it to be. This story has already both impressed and broken my heart multiple times over. With Life is Strange 2, Dontnod is heading in the fresh direction the series deserves. I can’t wait to see more.

REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Gorgeous visuals

+ Story that is as relevant as it is emotionally arresting

+ Accurate teen dialogue

+ Pleasantly curated and orchestrated soundtrack

+ Choices are more active than before

+/- No powers to mess around with, but taking care of Daniel adds an engaging layer to gameplay

- Disappointing absence of facial animation in key moments

- Some stilted line deliveries throughout

-----

Danni Wilmoth is a Features and Social Videos writer for Crunchyroll and also co-hosts the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[bucreviews]

Unpopular opinions

Here are a few I have:

I think Rocky II might actually be a little better than the original. I think Rocky reasons for fighting him this time are more interesting. You need to watch the first two back to back to get a really satisfying end to the story. The only issue I have with it is the climax, since you kind of know he’s going to win this time.

I like Thor: The Dark World, as just a fun action flick, I think it’s perfectly serviceable. I kind of understood people dislike of the first Thor, since it’s clearly not as good as the other MCU films. But once the second one came out, surely everyone kind of knew by the point, the kind of lower standard that the other Thor films were, so I don’t really know what anyone was expecting. More Loki I guess.

I don’t really think The Last of Us is good as a video game. I think playing it is an awesome experience because of the story and graphics. But the gameplay is pretty repetitive and a lot like many other games out there.

I didn’t like the graphics in Twilight Princess. The more realistic look doesn’t seem right to me in a fantasy game, Skyward Sword got it right I feel. The game overall is still good though.

I thought season 4 of Breaking Bad was the least good. Didn’t care for the way Gus died. Also I kind of liked Fly.

I think Game of Thrones has got progressively less good from season 5 onward.

I liked the Black Mirror episode Metalhead. I do get people’s main issue with the lack of explanation as to what had happened and what anything was. But that’s kind of what I liked about it, it was the not knowing that sucked you in and added to the tension. Not sure why it was in black and white though.

I love the skits that the Nostalgia Critic does in a lot of his later reviews, I think a least three clipless reviews are among some of my personal favorite reviews of his. I also really miss his editorials.

I consider Smooth Criminal to be Michael Jackson’s best song. I also think the album Bad, is on par with Thriller.

I really like Coldplay, I know all their songs sound the same, but that’s kind of what I like about them.

The Waterbending Master is my least favorite episode of Avatar the Last Airbender. The Great Divide is bad, but also pretty harmless, it didn’t piss me off like The Waterbending Master did.

I don’t think Steven Universe is a great show, it’s decent, in fact at its best it’s outstanding. But there is way too much filler for me to consider it great, especially since it’s, not good filler a lot of the time. The long hiatuses don’t bother me, I can go do other stuff, but I can see why other are annoyed by them since the show has so much filler.

I’ve seen Fight Club about five times now and I still maintain that the twist makes no sense.

I think Kristen Stewart might be a good actress, she just had nothing to work with in the Twilight films.

I liked the Doctor Who two-parter The End of Time.

I loathe the films of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix. I feel they are both terrible adaptations of those books, which in the case of Prisoner of Azkaban really disappointed me because that was my favorite of the books.

I think The Two Towers is the best of the Lord of the Rings films.

I loved Iron Man 3, I don’t really understand the criticism that Stark doesn’t spend much time in the suit, that’s the idea guys! The films ask the question of what Stark is without the suit, and it then shows that he can still kick ass even without it.

I don’t really understand why Michael Caine is so highly regarded as an actor. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a bad actor by any means, there’s just nothing about his acting that makes it stand out to me. He’s got a good voice I guess, which I guess is why he gets a lot of wordy roles.

I think Rocky IV is worse than Rocky V. V for me at least had a few interesting ideas, it’s just depressing as hell. IV is beyond dumb from beginning to end. Ivan Drago isn’t really a character, he’s just a thing for Rocky to fight. There’s a bit too much Cold War propaganda, and Creeds death seemed unnecessarily dark. The robot was cool though!

[daleisgreat]

30 Years of Genesis: Going 30 Years Playing No More Than 30 Minutes of Sonic

This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Sega Genesis in North America. I had such a nostalgia trip reliving my memories of the GameBoy while crafting my recent GameBoy 30th Anniversary piece, that it only seemed fitting that Sega’s iconic 16-bit platform gets the same honors of recounting my memories with it. If you are looking for a more authoritative historical piece on it I recommend either Phoenix IV or Console Wars. The former is a strictly informative recounting of the history of the system while the latter is an entertaining retelling done in the form of a novel after days of interviews with everyone involved. The following are my own personal experiences of playing the Genesis over the past three decades.

I remember first encountering the Genesis while spending either Thanksgiving or Christmas 1991 over at my older sister and brother-in-law’s house. I was only eight at the time, and remember being perplexed at the black gaming box and the thought that there could somehow be other systems than the good ‘ol NES. I did not subscribe to any gaming magazines at this point and I think I was still about a year away from experiencing Sega’s deluge of combative commercials against the SNES. During that holiday season of ’91 I recalled playing the first Streets of Rage on the Genesis with my little brother nonstop the couple days we were there. I remember being blown away by how superior it was graphically to what I experienced with other NES brawlers before like Double Dragon. We only got up to the stage where we faced off against the dueling karate sisters who kept whooping us and neither my brother nor I had the skills at the time to get past. The next year or two the only times I recall playing the Genesis were at my sister’s for the holidays or the occasional store kiosk. I remember my brother-in-law picked up other games we played regularly like ToeJam & Earl, Buster Douglas Boxing, Toxic Crusaders and PGA Tour Golf. I dug all of them, especially ToeJam & Earl where I had no idea what was happening half the time with its unorthodox level structure and item pick-ups, but loving the co-op gameplay, stylish graphics and its funky beats at the time. Brief memories of store kiosk play from the early 90s consisted of being horrible at the original Sonic the Hedgehog because it was too fast for my childhood noggin’ to comprehend. I also recall being confused at early editions of Madden Football at store kiosks because when I would press buttons to hike the ball ‘Audible’ would appear on screen and then eight or nine-year old Dale had no idea what that meant compared to easier pick up and play NES pigskin games I was conditioned to.

Until Christmas of 1995 I probably played no more than about 10 Genesis games all together. I was more aware of the system by that time thanks to reading magazines more regularly at that point and hearing from classmates who had the system, but until that point I was pretty loyal to my NES still (I did not get a SNES until late ’96). For the Christmas season of ’95 my best friend at the time who coincidentally lived three blocks away from me, Rich, received a Genesis and that was when I got a lot more hands-on time with its extensive library of titles. Rich and I shared a lot of similar game interests which at that time was a ton of sports games, fighters and action/brawlers. For the next several months I was over at Rich’s for countless sleepovers and going nuts with fighters like Mortal Kombat II and Evander Holyfield’s Real Deal Boxing. Real Deal Boxing blew away Buster Douglas Boxing with more authentic boxing gameplay and an insanely thorough career mode where we would take a created boxer and move him up the ranks as champion until his skills gradually weakened with age to force his retirement. We absolutely ate up the sports games at that time. We played what seemed like an infinite amount of Madden NFL ‘97. A much wiser 13-year old Dale was no longer befuddled by the intricacies of Madden and we had so much fun with it. We would create many players to deck out our teams and keep running blitzes to try and injure the players because there was an intense bone-breaking injury sound effect that we ate up. It was like the equivalent of Favreau and Vaughn going nuts in Swingers when they made Gretzky bleed in NHLPA ‘93.

Mutant League Football was another favorite of ours that made that injury sound effect in Madden child’s play. EA also made MLF and it was the equivalent of NFL Blitz at the time with larger-than-life mutants and animals literally killing each other on the field with over-the-top hits. It was possible to force a team to retire due to killing off too many of its players which was always our desired objective! If you have not played its spiritual successor follow-up, Mutant Football League on PS4/XB1 I give it the highest of recommendations because it perfectly capture the sensation of the Genesis game while bringing it up to contemporary standards. We also played a lot of EA’s violent driving game, Road Rash II. Being able to race motorcycles and knock out your competition with chains and nightclubs while trying to evade the cops seemed revolutionary when playing it for the first time! We later discovered EA’s take of Road Rash on rollerblades in the awesome rollerblade stunt/racing game Skitchin’! Fun fact about Skitchin’ is that the competitors you race against have gnarly nicknames like ‘Thrasher’ and ‘Jackal’ and thus in ’96 was the origin of how I came up with what wound up as my online handle but at the time was my radical Skitchin’ username, ‘Gruel’ to blend in with the rest of the pack and have stuck with it all these years later!

After spending several months devouring a good dozen or so Genesis games with Rich, it did not compare to the summer of ’96 when Rich signed up for the Sega Channel! I remember it launched in 1994 and seeing commercials for it at the time where it seemed too good to be true where for about $15/month would net the user a Genesis cartridge that would connect to a cable line and get the Genesis online streaming access to a rotating 40-50 Genesis games a month. That is right, decades before services like OnLive and Playstation Now, the Genesis did streaming gaming back in ’94 and it worked like a charm! Check out this pristine archival footage of the menus to see how it all worked. Sega Channel essentially was what Xbox Game Pass is today, and I am surprised to hear how little it is discussed when people reminisce about the Genesis. We discovered so many new games this way and for that entire summer I was over at Rich’s about three to four days a week binging on Sega Channel games until Rich’s dad got on my case because I was over so often. I remember discovering new sports games on there like the innocuously titled Super Volleyball that we became somehow addicted to and the surprisingly awesome Tiny Toons ACME All-Stars that had its own killer spin on arcade basketball and soccer that it played like NBA Jam but filled with crazy Tiny Toons power-up attacks. Sega Channel is what additionally exposed me to co-op games like General Chaos, the Streets of Rage sequels and Gain Ground and classic single player games like Shadowrun, Comix Zone and Vectorman that Rich and I took turns trying to keep progressing through. Sega Channel also was my first exposure to the classic Bomberman franchise with many nail-biting rounds played of Mega Bomberman! It came as no surprise to me when I finally bought a Genesis a few years later in 1999 that the first games I hunted down for it were those same games I first discovered on the Sega Channel! In April of 1999 shortly after I turned 16 I got my first after-school job and after a few paychecks I went to Wal-Mart to determine what should be one of the first games to buy on my own! This was around the time when Majesco re-released the third, mini-sized Genesis model at a discount price of around $30. I was legit stunned at that price for a brand new system, even if it was for a ten-year old platform at that time I could not help but instantly snatched it up!

If you read my GameBoy special from several weeks back you will recall my lamenting over its lackluster wrestling games compared to the superior ones on the 16-bit platforms. On Genesis, Rich and I played way too much Royal Rumble on the system. Other wrestling games I picked up for the Genesis over the years was the inferior predecessor to Royal Rumble in Super Wrestlemania. While I had a blast with Rumble way back when, it regrettably does not hold up well all these years later with its over-reliance on a button mashing grapple meter that obliterated thumbs that I have no idea how I tolerated at the time. Saturday Night Slam Masters was a unique wrestling game from Capcom. It is essentially Street Fighter II in a wrestling ring, complete with victory taunts, Mike Haggar from Final Fight in its roster and even has a few wrestling moves sprinkled in! I loved how they had over-the-top laser light entrances and larger-than-life character sprites at the time, and I recall enjoying the Genesis version more than the SNES. There was nothing else like it since, and on occasion I will still throw it in every couple of years. I continue to hope one day Capcom will release its sequel, Ring of Destruction in a random collection of arcade games because it never got a home port all these years later.

Sports games ruled on the Genesis! Pictured from clockwise at top left is Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing, NHLPA '93, Super Volleyball and Tiny Toon ACME All-Stars I mentioned some of my favorite sports games for the system above, but it really needs to be emphasized how big sports games were on the Genesis. Both Sega and EA pumped out a seemingly endless line of sports titles for the system. I remember getting into silly speculation with Rich over how much extra memory that yellow tab on the EA carts allowed EA games to play better. For hoops titles I got my NBA Jam and Live fix on SNES, but on the ‘ol Genny my go-to basketball games were the oft-forgotten NCAA skinned version of Jam in College Hoops. I occasionally also threw in the hand-me-down street ball version of NBA Jam in Barkley Shut up Jam. I loved Madden, but Sega’s Joe Montana line of gridiron games were just a notch or two below too. For baseball, Sega’s World Series Baseball titles were in a league of its own when it came to gameplay and presentation with its larger-than-life hitter/batter perspective. For hockey EA’s NHL line was/is legendary! About four or five years ago my friend Derek gave me a ring to come over for some impromptu random gaming and he never played much Genesis before so when he got over I had the Genesis hooked up and laid out all my games for it and of that night we had the most fun playing a few rounds of NHL ‘94. At that point it was a 20-21 year old game and it still held up as one of the best hockey games of all time.

For brawlers I loved the Streets of Rage games, but I think it is my secret shame that I have yet to complete a single one. That must one day change! I did love the exclusive Genesis TMNT game, Hyperstone Heist! It was right up there with Turtles in Time and every couple of years my friend Matt and I make it a ritual to plow through that game. After many attempts we also conquered the Genesis port of the awesome arcade brawler, The Punisher! It does not have as friendly of a continue system as Hyperstone Heist so Matt and I had to learn to play a little more conservatively and not rely on mindless button mashing. It felt gratifying to have all that hard work pay off and beat The Punisher….until we got a copout ending screen of text saying ‘Now play like the Punisher and try hard difficulty.’ We did not, but I wound up looking up the ending several years later and at least Capcom made it worth your while because it had a far more intricate ending than many other brawlers at the time. The one Genesis brawler that always had our number was Captain America and the Avengers. It is a lot of fun to play, but it does not allow that many credits and by setting ourselves up with the max lives and continues that game was still a beast, and even playing conservatively and having so many attempts we only managed to make it to the final boss, The Red Skull, only once. Let us fast track to about a little under 10 years ago when a co-worker approached me about being interested in buying his Genesis/Sega CD/32X along with a couple dozen games. He was saving up to pay off his upcoming wedding and he gave me a list of everything he had along with prices for everything he wanted going by what he saw off eBay auctions. I did some price researching of my own and made him an offer of around $250-ish for the ‘tower of power’ and about 20 games combined for all three systems. Looking back I accidentally lucked out with that offer because it was only a couple years later when 8/16-bit prices on the used market took a huge jump. I never had a must-have desire for a Sega CD or 32X, but there were always a couple of games I wanted to play on them that I eventually hunted down. I liked the versions of WWF RAW, Doom, Virtua Racer and especially Virtual Fighter the most out of my dozen 32X games. I recall as a then 10 and 11 year old being disgusted by early polygonal console games like Star Fox and Virtua Racer and was more on board with FMV games being the future, but remember being a little taken aback by Virtua Fighter indicating that there may be something to these 3D polygons. The 32X version is a surprisingly faithful version to its arcade counterpart.

I need to dive into my SegaCD games more one of these months. I hunted down all the must own titles for it like the Working Design RPGs, Shining Force CD, enhanced versions of Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Returns and Snatcher which I hope to one day knock off my gaming bucket list. Regrettably now my only SegaCD games I invested a decent amount of time into are WWF Rage in the Cage (essentially Super Wrestlemania but with some FMVs and a bigger roster), Slam City with Scottie Pippen (a abysmal FMV-based street hoops title) and the underrated SegaCD exclusive brawler, Prime. I am a huge Ultraverse comic nut and I ate up Prime on SegaCD since it was the only game released featuring characters from that comic book line before Marvel acquired them and cancelled all their books within a couple years (yes, I am still bitter over it). It is only one player, but Matt and I spent a few attempts taking turns at beating levels until we finally vanquished it. We even had an attempt thwarted when Prime was loading the final boss battle when a flipping blackout halted our progress! As memorable as that moment is I will instead forever associate Prime with its unrivaled and unforgettable opening theme music (seriously….give it a listen!). I need to give a shoutout to the official handheld Genesis, aka the Nomad! My brother surprised the hell out of me one year with it for a birthday present. My favorite Nomad memory is my brother getting hyped for getting his own version of Genesis Shadowrun and I told him I would come over and bring my Nomad and my version while he played on his television and we could both start off our own new game and exchange tips and hints in a friendly rivalry type of way. I think my brother must have gotten the Genesis version of Shadowrun mixed up with the completely differently designed SNES version because he tried to run around aimlessly and gun down everything which is not how you want to play the Genesis version. We were planning that day out for weeks and I remember being stunned after about 15 minutes when I was starting to sink my teeth back into Shadowrun’s cyberpunk action-RPG brand of awesome when my brother out of nowhere went ‘screw this, let’s play something else!’

As I wind down I want to give many thanks to Sega for keeping the Genesis relevant throughout this century with its gratuitous re-releases of physical and digital collections. I have no idea why, but I keep on buying them for the convenience of having them for the latest system. It started with the Sega Smash Pack on DreamCast seeming like a killer value in 2001 for 12 games for $40. Then a few years later on PS2 I snatched up Sega Genesis Collection which seemed like an even better value with just over 30 games for $30! Then in the 360/PS3 era along came Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection which offered 40 games for $30!! Sega also sold a lot of the games ala carte via each console’s digital storefronts. Then last year we got Sega Genesis Classics on Xbox One/PS4 with 50 games for $30!!! The last several years Sega also has been licensing out to At Games to release their own pre-programmed Genesis mini console with dozens of pre-installed games. I held off on getting those after hearing how awful its emulation and shoddy production quality is, but after hearing how Sega finally decided to manufacture their own Genesis Mini themselves this fall and handed off the emulation duties to the acclaimed emulation studio M2, I could not pre-order fast enough! I have no idea why I keep deep diving down this well, but hats off to Sega for keeping me coming back again and again! Similarly with my GameBoy flashback piece, I had an unorthodox experience with the Genesis. I was not a hardcore Sonic or Phantasy Star player like the average Genesis owner. If you ask me any day of the week my answer to what my favorite Genesis game is, it could be either The Punisher, Madden NFL ‘97, Shadowrun, Hyperstone Heist, NHL ‘94 or Skitchin’. That is another thing that made the Genesis great was its mammoth library of diverse titles so there was no doubt something for everyone! With that I will put the kibosh on this look back of my favorite moments with the Genesis as I anxiously await for my pre-order of the Genesis Mini to arrive in a few months! Want more Genesis Love from me in Audio and quasi-video form? I was looking through my hard drive archives and a decade ago while I was still doing my videogame podcast, On Tap, we did a special 20th anniversary special on the Genesis where my co-hosts and I reminisce about the Genesis. I went ahead and uploaded it on YouTube so if you want even more Genesis takes then click here to give it a listen! Also recorded throughout 2009 from the On Tap archives was installments from our history of comic book videogames series. In this next episode I uploaded to YouTube is the second part of series where we breakdown every single comic book licensed game on the SNES and Genesis! My co-host Matt and I did thorough research for this episode and played almost nearly every single comic book game from this era in preparation for the episode to give the most up to date research and to see if these games (of which a vast majority are beat-em-ups) still hold up. Click here to give it a listen! My Other Gaming Flashbacks GameBoy 30th Anniversary

[vice-s-assistant]

Voices of the FGC: Andre/Dream Boy Purple of Skullgirls Latin American (SG LATAM)

Over the last five years, Skullgirls has been the “Lil’ Darling” of the Indie movement in Fighting Games. It the game that’s thrived when people said it was “dead”, multiple setbacks, from its former publisher, and various other hay-makers that come with its game development. Through all of that though, it has not only survived, but grown. Now as the actual final patch for the game comes out, the current call for the game, it’s a good time to look back and see it lasting effect on the fighting game landscape. I sat down with a friend of mine, Andre/Dream Boy Purple, who was the lead organizer for SG LATAM, a Skullgirls Latin American group, for his thoughts on Skullgirls, its effect on him, and his organization.

Vice’s Assistant: Alright let's start off with your name for the folks who don't know and what you do with Skullgirls?

Andre/Dream Boy Purple: Name is André, well basically I created and have been running SG LATAM a Latin American focused community for Skullgirls, as well as trying to use the group itself as a medium to spread the word of SG on other LATAM communities.

Banner from SG LATAM Facebook page

VA: How did you find out about Skullgirls?

Andre: Well, back in the day of 2011, I happened to stumble upon a trailer for Double, a character in the game before the game came out. It honestly left me pretty surprised: just the sight of the animation was pretty cool on itself, but it also looked like a really fun fighting game, especially considering I was into Marvel at the time. It was a no brainer (sic) that I soon got it for the 360 when it released.

VA: And when you first got the game, did it just "click" with you, or did that just come on later down the line?

Andre: Ha ha, that's actually a curious question. When I first got the game, I had my fun with it, but I guess there were a bunch of things that I didn't really enjoy with it. Things like the speed, the constant touch of death combos, the animation having to display the hitboxes for it to run smoothly, and even the netcode even though it was still rollback. It was in a rougher state than the one we have now, I endend (sic) up playing it casually during that time and no thinking much about it.

VA: After you spent time with it though, when did things start to feel like "I really dig this game"?

Andre: That was way down the line, after the whole fiasco with Reverge Labs having to dismantle and reform into Lab Zero, and the launching of their crowdfunding campaign. I started to take interest in the game again after all there were a lot of things that were issues of mine adressed (sic) on the game since then like the speed or balance patches (we didn't get those on the 360 at the time sadly), plus new characters and a PC port after hearing that I made up my mind of giving the game a second chance and ended up falling in love with it then.

VA: Nice. I kind of started to dig the game after I've spent time with a few months later. Skullgirls was my "burnout" game after I would do long sets in SSF IV AE. After a while started fooling around with Fortune and started to realized I like her rush down stuff...even though I was probably abusing some of her nasty damage stuff she had in Vanilla Skullgirls.

Andre: Yeah, damage was kinda ridiculous in vainilla (sic) I remember seeing some videos of Severin back in the day of him killing characters anywhere on the screen with just one bar.

Couldn’t find a combo of Severine killing with one bar but here’s a 100% combo. These were common (and annoying) in Vanilla Skullgirls.

VA: I couldn't do that kind of stuff, and still can't, but I remember basically using the head to trip someone, going to rekkas, blockbuster. It was super easy to do and boy howdy you could get some nice chunks of damage off.

Moving forward, what in you decided that you wanted to foster your local community to get more people into the game?

Andre: Well when I really started to get into the game once again I started wanting to play more against people and Quick Match did only so much. So I searched around forums and Facebook groups for a LATAM community only to find out there were really none. I found a couple that talked about the game, it's (sic) lore, and played casually but not really one focused to compete with each other. So I quickly took action into it. After all if you want something done you should do it yourself. I created a very basic logo in PS and started a FB group which I tried to promote constantly to friends and in FGC groups. Thinking back to it, it was probably annoying for them to see me do that but I was determined. Ha ha.

VA: Since starting it, how has thing’s gone?

Andre: Well it has been growing pretty nicely and steadily. We're around 600-700 unique members between the FB, Discord, and Steam groups. The Discord is pretty active every day and people are constantly talking and playing on it. We got an actual logo for our group and not just a photoshopped SG logo. We have done plenty of tournaments now under the name "Trifulca en el Ring" with custom flyers for each edition. We've also since have partnered up with Arcade Rumble (a FGC Latin American group) and they have helped us do things like have better production streams, bigger audience to announce our stuff, and in ocassions (sic) even give out money prizes for our tournaments.

Poster done by Abraham Rodriguez

VA: Beyond just the SG LA community, how do you think Skullgirls has grown within the last 5 years? The prevailing joke is "Skullgirls is dead," but the truth is the opposite: Skullgirls is one of Steam's best selling fighting games (CORRECTION: Skullgirl is not one Steam’s best selling fighting games, far from it, but there are a lot more people who have then you think) , showings a plenty tournies, and even a "mini" convention at AX in Phoenix, AZ  (Correction AX is in Los Angeles, California, not Phoenix, AZ).

Andre: The SGC (Skullgirls Community) has grown a lot, right now we have things like the Skullgirls Tour which is basically or own version of CPT or KI's world cup with 12 tournaments both offline and online. A lot of people have also joined through the PC community, thanks to it being a complete steal at just 15 bucks for the game, having one of the if not the smoothest online in a fighting game beautiful animation, great gameplay, and the low specs it has. You see new people trying out the game constantly, be it the Skullheart* or Steam forums, as well as in the SG LATAM community. We get people who are new all the time and it also helps the abundance of helpful people and events that are run online by the community. Things like Skullbats, Monday Night Blockbusters, SG Brazil weeklies, and even our own "Trifulca en el Ring" series just goes to show that SG was never or ever will be dead. You'll always have people to play with, you just gotta look for them.

VA: With the last patch finally out, do you feel the game has finally reached its ideal state? Or are there things to feel still need worked on?

Andre: Well considering how Mike Z is, he will always find something to work on, but as it stands, the game is really balanced to the point where tier list are pretty universaly (sic) thought as a matter of opinion, and even then there isn't that much of a diff (sic) from the bottom to the top. Considering SG is pretty unique with it's (sic) focus on resets, I think in it's (sic) current state it will pass the test of time just fine.

VA: What do you think Skullgirls' lasting legacy will be?

Andre: That a community and it's game can last and grow as long as they keep pouring love into it. There's only so many big tournaments for SG (biggest being Combo Breaker) since the whole EVO ordeal of 2013, and barely losing to Smash SG hasn't really been a mainstream fighting game at all. Which to my eyes only makes more impressive what it has been able to acomplish (sic) thanks to the developer support and the constant effort by the community to run events; making tech, helping the devs find bugs, the community being so inclusive. I think SG will still be played many years from now, and until the eventual SG 2, I doubt the constant income of players will slow down anytime soon.

VA: Finally, do you have any advice for people still timid about getting into Skullgirls?

Andre: Well SG is a fighting game, and like any of them, it's not easy to get to certain competitive level. That's the first fact that you have to accept but there's so many resources and people willing to help: on Discord and the Skullheart forums as well as groups targeted towards new players that you'll have people around your level to play against. A lot of people get discouraged because they jump online first thing, and they get massacred since SG is a fast game, and also focused heavily on resets. Even people with past fighting game experience have a hard time when they first play against experienced people, but it really doesn't take that long to get the hang of it, and SG having such an amazing training mode also helps. To sum it up, I know it may seem overwhelming now, but there's so many people willing to help you, and it really is worth it to form (sic) part of such an amazing community.

VA: One last thing: Where can people reach you and be a part of SG LATAM?

Andre: People can reach me personally through my Tumblr or Twitter

http://dreamboypurple.tumblr.com/

https://twitter.com/DreamBoyPurple

For SG LATAM they can reach either through our (sic) FB group or Discord, Discord being the more active one of the 2

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SGLATAM

To both Andre for the interview and Yahoo’s E-sports’ Michael Martin (https://twitter.com/Bizarro_Mike) for advice with interviews

You can also watch Andre attempt to go against the world in a 100-man quick match kumite in Skullgirls today at 6 CDT on his Twitch channel:

https://www.twitch.tv/dreamboypurple

[exilesofembermark]

Game Dev Update | 4.28.17

“You ate the last Twinkie...” - Master Dwarf Thisguy ^

We’ve waited to show more than a glimpse of the dwarven race on Embermark until our own hammers were pounding out the mass of loot we’ve promised in Dev Updates past. Now that the promised loot train is rolling, it’s time to really take a look at our stout, grumpy friends. 

Last update, we covered the beginning of our game mode experimentation, world map navigation, a Legendary sword and the ability to view your Battle History. This time, its about content and gameplay. Read on to check out our new icon system, new battle environments, new loot, an upcoming AMA, your chance to help design an item that ends up in the game and what we’re learning about battle mechanics. 

Oh, and dwarves.

DWARVES

Whether they’re holed up in the caverns and carved-out tunnels of Siege or feverishly rebuilding the once-great Anglon, dwarves in Embermark are a force to be reckoned with. Here’s an Elite version of our angry fellow from above:  

We started the dwarf-creation process exploring what we wanted the basic proportions, faces and gear types to be, as well as where they reside in Embermark and what their background is. As you can see below, Beardbo Grumperson IV there on the far right is a look we’ve stuck with through the representation of our Elite fellow above. 

There are a few geographic locations where the dwarves in Embermark tend to be found (though they travel and team up a bit more than dwarves in many other settings), and as mentioned before, the region of Siege is one of them. They’ve gone underground for the past several hundred years as Embermark was overrun and a terrible place to live, but a few ancient entrances to their underground lairs are still visible on the world map:

3D design proceeded much as all the humanoid races we’re developing have-- from the base player model, with some changes that led into a distinctly dwarven look:

And unless the dwarf in question has been beaten in battle to a humiliating degree lately, he/she usually has some manner of facial style going on:

We couldn’t resist this one:

And this one, with a better look at some of the tattoo designs we’re playing with:

I’ve mentioned the history and background of the wolves in Embermark before (despite my bold-face lie about there being no rats, bats, wolves or skeletons in this game). They’re a mean and cunning lot, with far more organization to a “pack” than typical. 

Well, this gives you a clue about how dwarves on the continent feel about them:

Depending on the proportions of our humanoid NPCs, we’re making versions of all their gear to also fit the player, for extra tasty drops.

ICONS

When you have a lot of lootses in a RPG, someone has to make the icons. And usually, artists hate doing it cuz there’s so many and it takes so long and it’s not sexy.

WRONG.

With Exiles, it is sexy (and so are you).  We’ve had the same placeholder sword/boot/pants icons in just about every screenshot you’ve seen up till now (like here and here). No more!

Because we aren’t satisfied with that (and hate sleep), we created a new icon creation pipeline that takes EACH design for a piece of loot and creates an icon for it. So for every item you get, you’ll see a Tier 3 (that’s the highest) image of that item over a rarity color (either nothing, blue, purple, gold, or green) to give your loadout that extra oomph you’ve been looking for. 

GAME MODE EXPERIMENTS

As fast as the content train is moving, the mechanics train is hurtling along just as fast. Now that we have most of the Abilities, Stats and Talents working for the Warrior and Mage classes, we’re diving into what will make the moment-to-moment gameplay the most strategic, satisfying... and visceral! To that end, we have our 4-Ability loadout that we’ve talked a lot about, but last week, we got a second mode of combat going-- The Deck. 

With The Deck, the rules of the game are still the same:

 WEGO-style turn-based with initiative determining order of ability execution 

Abilities combine with Gear & Talents to create effects on either character

First character to die (there’s no fainting in Exiles) loses

However, instead of a 4-Ability Set, you now choose 8. 4 are chosen for you randomly at the beginning of a Battle and the others are in queue. As you use Abilities, they cycle back into the deck and the next Ability in the deck becomes available (see the smaller “coming” Ability represented below-- that is WIP as is everything in these Updates, and it will get a proper UI representation if it ends up being something we support).

Initial testing has proven fun and maddening-- my main Mage “MoarMagicks”still can’t consistently beat SingmeAsong’s main Warrior “Jackal,” despite my clearly superior strategies and build-- and we have some work to do on what the mode does to overall balance. But it’s promising, and we’re excited to show it to you if it ends up passing muster. 

AMA

We’re getting ready to do another AMA! If you’ve got burning questions about Exiles, from features to rules to lore to whatever, join the crew and the community for an evening of anything goes-- even making fun of the devs-- we can take it. Submit questions/discussions now on the Reddit thread, and we’ll have some answers ready. And you can win stuff! We’ll be doing some good old-fashioned rolling (of virtual dice) for in-game prizes (loot table is forthcoming, and will be published on the AMA thread in the forums).

So head over to the Discord channel on MAY 9 at 5:30 PM Central Time and get the inside scoop on all things Exiles.

WE HAVE AN ANDROID BUILD

“WHAT?!”

Yes. MANY of our early testing sign-ups have Android devices, and I have some good news for them-- we have an early Android build! Now, before any shenanigans break out, you should know that it’s rough, new and not as far along as the iOS build. But it lives, and you Android users will be kicking arses before too long right beside your iOS brethren.

VANISIR 

Along the southwest of Embermark is a region called Vanisir, a mostly arid-- but critical-- piece of land, given its major port, resources and the presence of a manageable Breach. We’re rolling out Battle environments for each of our starting world zones, and Vanisir’s first can be seen here, with an unfortunate player sizing up the enemy that I can’t stop showing to you-- the overly intelligent and vicious WOLF. 

“Hey, didn’t I just see you atop some dwarven shoulder armor?”

THE PLAYER CREATED GEAR CONTEST (PCGC)

Players have been guiding us every step of the way toward Embermark and it’s time for them to get a piece of loot or two (or more) in the game. All of the rules surrounding battle and loot haven’t been revealed, but those of you following the development of the game probably have an idea or two rolling around in your heads about a piece of equipment that would do X, Y, or Z.

So the 1st Exiles Player Created Gear Contest (PCGC) is on! Check this thread in the forums for all the details and how to submit your idea. One lucky (and clever, and creative) winner will get their piece of loot in the game (and get a copy of it themselves) and many will win prizes based on the criteria you see in the official thread!

LOOT UPDATE

The loot train continues, and our artists are feverishly designing, modeling texturing and lootzing armor weapons and even rings now (rings are just icons, so they won’t show up on your person, but whatevs). 

Armor for the Warrior is getting the color-tell treatment, as we showed for the Mage armor earlier. You’ll see it throughout the system as you start to play, and it’s turning out to be both useful and sometimes hilarious, depending on the how close your gear build preferences are to your color preferences (did someone say transmog? *whistles as he walks away). 

Behold the Axe of Cleaving (your head from your body)!

You will see this spear put to good use by our draconian friend below.

I’m not even sure what to say here other than I wouldn’t want it connecting with any part of me...

We continue to design various silhouettes for shields, for those sword-and-board enthusiasts out there...

And here’s one more! (this one’s a stock broadsword, but I still lurve it)

MILITARY

Last couple of Updates, we’ve been showing off a race of baddies that will hound and hinder you throughout your journey to be among the Marked. Their political and military machinations threaten to overrun the entirety of Embermark.

They also look like dragons, have wings and are awesome. Now we’ve got them animating in the engine and will be playable in short order. Like the dwarf above, we created their gear with an eye towards dropping it for you to use in your own loadouts.

(Alas, I had to fool with this one quite a bit to get it under Tumblr’s 2 MB GIF limit, so if you want a higher quality look at this attack, it’s here)

REMEMBER

We’ll keep sharing details as we head into testing (remember to PM TheWizard on the Exiles forums if you want in on closed testing & beta later), and you can count on early impressions from the testers throughout our various channels.

If you haven’t already, follow along with the Exiles development on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven’t, I’ll find you. And SMITE you.

GET IN ON THE CHATTER

If you want to hear about the game, ask questions or connect with others who are helping the development team think about features, design and narrative, hop into the Discord Channel for live chat and say hi– it’s a friendly lot with plenty of daily shenanigans (there’s even a Shenaniganizer).

THE BONUS

I leave this here without comment.