#|| also as an old FromSoft game player who has played most of them through snickers at the thought | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

syrinq · 1 year

Text

sy's beautiful list of hypothetical changes for warframe in a perfect world

also known as my SO and i have a love/hate relationship with this game, because it's the closest thing to the 'perfect' multiplayer game that can be played for hours upon hours upon hours, yet so extremely far away from it because of Things.

also known as: we discuss how we'd have approached & designed this game differently, to tailor it to our most perfect needs in a hypothetical alternate universe. because multiplayer games suck ass, generally, but they're the only type that allows playtime extension through content updates. unfortunately they are also awfully painful to plan & turn out to be a mess of code usually, meaning starting from scratch is the best approach to implement ginormous changes, etc. etc. etc.

also known as: i'm making a list out of this in case i somehow ever design my own multiplayer pve/p game so i know Exactly What I Want. or DE somehow releases warframe 2 and are open to suggestions. LOL

*cracks knuckles* This is Fuck Ass Long by the way Haha Oopsiedoodle

the most fun and important thing about warframe has always been its core gameplay loop. the parkour, the shooting, the warframe abilities, all of that shit is *chef's kiss* prime fucking shit. the only gameplay that hits as smooth and satisfying as that mechanic-wise, is fromsoft with its melee combat system that somehow feels like you're playing an fps but melee.

unfortunately that awesome gameplay loop is shoved away to make place for new doohickey cool projects, like open world v5 that isn't really open world, story continuation that's locked behind a linear progress and endless fucking grinding. SO HERE WE GO!

---

1.Star chart lvl 1-30 remains the introduction, BUT it serves as an introduction to multiple things aka the beginnings of mission types, warframes, lore/mini quests to understand what the fuck you're actually doing. The nodes for the open worlds? GONE. REMOVE THAT SHIT. WE DON'T NEED POE AS LIKE THE 5TH NODE ON EARTH. keep these shit nodes at the end of a branch & locked until further notice.

We are going starchart old-style, keeping the junctions & the bosses that drop the warframes 'n weapons. This 'introductory chart' should allow the new player to get their first few equipment shit, in order to get prepared for The Next Things. It also will give the player 'mandatory' tools to navigate said Next Things, such as the railjack, archwing & necramech introduced earlier, rather than 500h+ into the game.

---

2. 'Content islands' should be handled like WoW new players are irredeemably fucked if they want to do the new war. the amount of required grinding you've got to do to get there, BECAUSE MOST RELEASED CONTENT IS MANDATORY, is awful. fucking. awful. who wants to go through the star chart, get open world rep, get a railjack, get a necramech, etc. etc. just to see how the story continues? it's a linear rollercoaster that you can't get off of, and this is utterly awful if you're a newcomer with limited information i propose dlcs like world of warcraft instead. CONTENT ISLANDS SHOULD BE OPTIONAL INSTEAD OF MANDATORY TO ENGAGE WITH AND TO PROGRESS FURTHER IN THE GAME. if you want to hear the entire story? yeah, you CAN do them, but you aren't FORCED to grind your brains out. blah blah blah, i get that it's a combination of poor decisions & shit planning & f2p methods, but still. as a result they're doing 'duviri is an alt. start heehee', but come on. these ''content islands'', such as the open worlds and railjack missions, should be introduced after the initial star chart is finished AND PROPERLY ALSO RATHER THAN RANDOM BUTTON X IN THE CODEX FOR QUEST Y.

okay. locking story behind story quest to tell it linearly, FAIR AND SQUARE. but to require 84914309328 farming things, fucking railjack, etc., is fucking ridiculous. these separate 'content islands' should be independent from each other and not depend on each other for mandatory 500+ hours of farming. this is TORTURE

---

3. More star charts notice how i said initial star chart? yeah, so, imagine, instead of the fucking steel path, IMAGINE a brand new star chart of some imaginary solar system/galaxy. the 2nd star chart introduces new tile sets, new missions, new enemies/factions that further pull the player into the world of warframe, and runs from lvl 30-60. possibly up to 90. with the increased difficulty, this is also where ''other methods'' can be allowed/introduced, such as a necramech in missions for boss fights or with a cooldown for example. necramechs should have that feeling of power armour from fallout, not some limited corn cob you can only utilise in an ''open world'' setting. yet you somehow need that for a story mission. what the fuck. and then, steel path difficulty, is the 3rd star chart, that is yet another one with new tiles/factions/whatever, and runs from 100+ to whatever the fuck steel path does. this is WHERE YOU REALLY CRANK YOUR BRAIN, aka a more gradual 'difficulty shift' towards steel path. rather than going from mindless fuckbeast killing to CHESS MASTER IQ 1MILL AND STRATEGISING WHAT YOU USE, this is fucking dumb. going from 0-100 literally

---

4. If you make a content island, don't hop on the hype train yeah yeah, duviri paradox and you can ride a horse and melee people with your drifter like you're playing fucking elden ring. sea shanty song because popular pirate game released.

it's so obvious that big updates like this are a try-out experiment to try the Next Big Cool Thing because Epic and have new gimmicks. yes, it can pull in more new players or let old players return. but then they stray away because new content's locked behind 483924320 hours of farming. so that's a le epic fail

content islands for multiplayer games happen. hell they happen for singleplayer games. the problem here is that when they fundamentally feel so DIFFERENT from the main gameplay, is that it gets fucking stupid. railjack? makes sense. you're in space.

you go into duviri to level up your drifter rogue-style...... ??? huh?????? i thought we were playing in skinny mecha suits? what the fucking hell?

and once you're done with content, you're done, you're never looking back. the new war gameplay experience with the grineer & corpus guy, neat! but now kahl is fucking stuck at a singular farming access point for the rest of his life, offering nothing interesting ever again. he's clem in a new suit. fucking. Hell. can we stop prioritising OHH NEW SHINY! and you know. make everything actually make sense & polish old stuff here and there.

and making content islands dependent on each other, so it ''links them together'' in the most awful way possible, is also dumb. it's only dependent because you need shit from old world y for new warframe z. THAT'S STUPID! KEEP IT SEPARATE IF YOU WILL, OR ONLY UTILISE BASE-GAME RESOURCES. YOU'RE INTRODUCING A MILLION NEW THINGS AND IT IS AWFUL! FUCK YOUR OROKIN FISH THAT I HAVE TO SLAUGHTER FOR MY SINGULAR (1) FRAME RECIPE!

IMAGINE INSTEAD, you have to revisit something for a new quest/update sometimes (not always), and it feels somehow different, instead of the same but +100 levels or it's alad v but now with an std! gods!

the most useful 'content island' that's frequently used still is nightwave, despite how fucking odd its beginnings are. that shit with the investigating some murder scene. what in the fucking hell man, what is this, i'm sherlock-fucking-holmes with a katana in space? why am i helping out this random woman. why am i screaming at some ginormous statue. what in the goddamn. at least the weeklies are relevant.

---

5. (Re)implement raids or 'dungeons' & LOVE tileset generation the random tileset generation, ARE WE GOING TO USE IT FOR MORE THAN JUST STARCHART MISSIONS? IMAGINE, specially-crafted tilesets for raids or dungeons, that also randomise each time you do them with 8 folks, so it keeps it fresh regardless of the objectives! and then there can also be special maps for these things to begin with!

why are there so many set maps now? citrine's last wish. the open worlds (understandable in that regard). quest number 100 that goes somewhere unknown with a specially-crafted area that you never go to again. you bitches remember the red veil? is harrow just chilling with them now? i don't know nor care

why do some starchart planets STILL have extremely similar tilesets, or ones that are incredibly frustrating to navigate? fuck me, i hate the derelict and uranus and that one icy planet i forgot the name of. faction-linked tilesets, fine for multiple star charts, but, gods, imagine more planet-linked tilesets that actually show the personality of the planet and how said faction has adapted itself to it. you know, besides water floors and doors on them. that'd be cool!

then they dare introduce the zariman mission with a new tileset but then it's just..... there. one new thing to the starchart, that you can't even get to for a million years. didn't we have this supposed earth rework like 483294032 years ago? god. i feel old and i'm only in my 20s.

---

6. MAKE ACTUAL OPEN WORLDS love it when you go into fortuna or some shit and do the same 5 bounties on the same 5 places until you're dead. okay, fine, you can do multiple missions in a row without leaving the map, BUT THERE IS NO POINT. MAKING THESE MANDATORY TO GET REP AND A NECRAMECH OR FIGHT THE ORB MOTHER ALSO IS FUCKING DUMB!

there should be more than just those bounties on the same 5 places. keeping them is fine, whatever. BUT COME ON, WHERE'S THE OPEN? EIDOLON IS LITERALLY JUST A FIELD

imagine, you explore, and you find a secret hidden boss that gives new warframe parts. never advertised in the trailer. it's just some guy there. you know, elden ring style! discovery! npcs walking about like you're in skyrim and you get credits for saving them or whatever, instead of HAVING to go to ''enemy camps'' and then you get spotted and shot! for what? NOTHING

what if there were optional (mini-)quests in the open world that could reward you with shit more useful than 5k credits? or share a bit more on the lore? the introduction to gara's quest without having to listen to onkko who looks like he's about to die. there's no ''open'' in open world if you only add in bounties, some stupid fishing mechanic, mining and tranquilising animals like you're in ark: survival evolved

also. for the LOVE OF GOD I CAN'T SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING IN POE OR DEIMOS. FORTUNA IS THE CLEAREST I CAN SEE AND YET IT REMAINS SHIT TO NAVIGATE! WHY DID YOU ADD FAST TRAVEL POINTS AFTER 5 MILLION YEARS? THE PARTICLE EFFECTS THE FOLIAGE THE BRIGHT COLOURS GOD MY EYES AND MY BRAIN

---

7. Rewrite that entire fucking mess of a story In an ideal world, the operator wouldn't exist because Fuck Them Kids. Get the drifter instead sacrifice-way, if we REALLY need to have a ''mech pilot'' so fucking badly. The introduction to these quests should be smoother, at least HINTS of it when you go through the initial star chart, rather than having to find out through the wiki, inbox or codex that -apparently- these things exist.

imagine, a new node pops up after a certain point in progression, and you're like owo what's this? BOOM. YOU GET SUCKED INTO THE TITANIA QUEST. or alternatively there's a mysterious cutscene that draws your attention once you finish the node, BUT then the problem of that is the amount of quests that'd be introduced & then overwhelm the new player.

also why can everything be thrown back to the orokin as the origin of all that is there? we're in space, for fuck's sake, give me more unique aliens! more outer forces at play besides those sentients that look like walking matchsticks!

you'd think life would be a bit more varied than blue long-armed humans, regular humans, capitalist humans, cloned humans & humans infested with fungi & humans so infested they became mech suits & sticks invented by the blue humans. oh and telepathic kids.

you're a multiplayer game. THERE IS CREATIVITY IN THOSE FRAME DESIGNS. YOU CAN DO THE SAME FOR THE FUCKING WORLD BUILDING, INSTEAD OF SLAPPING A SHINY LIGHT ON A HUMAN AND CALLING IT A NARMER. YOU ARE AS AWFUL AS MARVEL IN TERMS OF ALIEN DESIGN writing a better story is also heavily hindered by the fact it's a multiplayer game. how am i supposed to believe I AM THE ONE SPARKY if there's about 10 million other bitches besides me on fortuna? tailoring it to fit the multiplayer narrative would also make it more immersive and believable, aka you're not JUST the only one. you're just a speck of nothing in the grander scheme of things, or whatever.

this'd also allow multiplayer quests for once, because solo-ing every story-related thing is a bit.... eugh. admittedly, they did scale things to be 'bigger' with yapping about the zariman update, and I Get That Multiplayer Game Planning Is Awful And Is Messy, but god fucking damn. incoherent mess with 10 million buzzwords, plotholes and whatever else exists. YOU CAN BE INCOHERENT AND INCONSISTENT. BUT IF IT'S A STORY TO BE CONSUMED BY AN AUDIENCE, THAT AIN'T GOOD BUDDY!

---

8. In an ideal world the Warframes are actually Just Guys Unique abilities? Yes please. Unique idle animations? Yes please still. However WHY do SOME warframes get special roll animations while others don't? It's fucking dumb. There should be a 'standard' at least for particular body types, aka Grendel Big And His Arm Is Clipping Because Of Standard Animation. this also adds more onto the feel that warframes are unique and ''alive'' rather than skin puppets. because seriously Fuck Them Operator Kids And Drifter Adults (But Less)

have a main animation set (walking/jumping/rolling/etc.) for the 'average' body. have one for flying types. have one for bigger bodies. have one for smaller bodies. etc.

i don't want that airy feel with zephyr like she's incredibly awful to control. give her unique animations instead, and begone with that walking-on-clouds shit! rhino's walk should FEEL HEAVY BECAUSE HE'S HEAVY! hypothetically, what if grendel bullet-jumped around like he's some kind of sonic ball, instead of being as agile as the skinniest skin puppet? EVEN MORE PERSONALITY, BABY, RATHER THAN VALKYR 2.0!

---

9. A BIT MORE customisation freedom & optimisation The regular classic palette should be fully unlocked to every single player normally. I AM SO GODDAMN TIRED OF ALL THE WHITE/BLACKS + GREENS OR OTHER BRIGHT COLOUR. additional palettes being 75p that's fine whatever. why don't we include more cosmetic shit in login rewards or quest/nightwave shit that isn't a random wall picture?

material customisation should've been a thing from the start. though the way they do it now with voidshell skins, is fine really. BUT IN MY IDEAL WORLD, part of customisation normally.

amps/customisable weapons/whatever should be able to get their names changed always for free, though possibly at a cooldown interval of a month because. idk. database issues or whatever. you can also name rename regular weapons after max. rank and pets with platinum, sure that's fine whatever. imagine being able to give your own warframes a name as well. customised names for non-modified things should still show up to other players as nezha, baza prime, etc. because otherwise Confusing As Fuck, Baby!

the tennogen shit? that's fucking awesome, keep it coming. big minus of that, is when tennogen shit is out-of-date once the prime releases, and that Sick Ass Revenant Immortuous Helmet looks fucking HORRIBLE due to material differences. (another reason i'm an advocate for material customisation from the get-go)

some customisation shit should just be free. I GET THAT IT'S F2P. BUT WE DON'T REALLY NEED TO PAY FOR FACE TATTOOS. FACE TATTOOS, FOR FUCK'S SAKE! the older/outdated a cosmetic is, the cheaper it should be if made by DE. why do you want me to pay 50 plat for what's essentially a moving texture on a 2D plane. this shit should be like 15. I'M LOOKING AT YOU ASA SYANDANA. this is the same shit as nintendo still asking 60 quid for yoshi's doodoo world that came out in the 1950s or whatever. FUCK YOU, WHY DON'T YOU REALISE MORE PEOPLE WILL BUY IT AT LOWER PRICES IF IT'S BEEN A (REALLY) LONG TIME?

also: optionally, tennogen artists should be able to permanently 'lower' prices of their older items if they want to. good thing DE is doing tennogen sales tho, i guess

recolours of syandanas/armours/similar cosmetics (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, BARO KI'TEER PRISM SHIT!) should be treated as skins rather than separate items. it clogs up the fucking menu so bad. do it like fortnite skins, or, you know, how you select the appearance of something with weapons.

"BUT SY, WHAT IF I GET THE RECOLOUR FIRST" yeah so this system is dumb to begin with. cosmetics with recoloured versions should be rewarded for free rather than pay 50p-100p a recolour. TAKE THAT, AVIA ARMOUR SET

also can we stop having those cinematic market preview shots of new frames and whatever. i can't see what the fuck i'm looking at let alone what the thing looks like. ew

AND HEY. I KNOW WISP IS A FAN-FAVOURITE AND YOU KEEP RELEASING SKINS TO GET THAT SWEET $$$, BUT FUCK ME, I WANT COSMETICS FOR LESSER-LOVED WARFRAMES MORE OFTEN! FUCK YOU ASS-LOVING BITCHES

---

10. I Get That It's Spaghetti/Years Upon Years Of Code But Wow These Bugs Are Random XD saryn my poor girl i am so sorry for your loss of a cracked spine and having your innards penetrated by whatever this new positioning bug is in the market preview

my poor baby mustard will remain forever a premature piece of cyst. poor thang isn't even alive. undeveloped flesh beast. (Note that this has been an issue for uh..... At least a year at this point)

sigh.

---

*insert 2-hour break here because holy fuck the drifter faces are horrendous and i just HAD to fix mine's even though they've got a hood on 24/7*

---

11. Old Frame New Jacket You know what those fuckers at Hi-Rez do for smite? when an old ass model gets so ugly, they make it a new sculpt + model. The old version is still attached as an extra skin. you wanna look at sobek's glow up? of course you do.

what a beautiful boy!

anyway. can we do this for excalibur and nyx and whatever. you can switch between the old/new version and accompanying tennogen skins just fine. but still. my poor boy excalibur looking like a loose candy wrapper on the street

this also helps with keeping the art consistent. like, okay, i get it, excalibur looks basic as fuck, you're more prone to buy a skin for him. but this is just lame

cosmetics bring in money. fashionframe is endgame. i get it. fine. but fucking hell can we also stop implementing things that look way cool, but ruin the practicality of play?

ephemera wings? fuck you especially. fuck you extremely hard. 10 million warframe effects and it's just a visual mess upon visual mess.

---

12. Fuck That Farming Grind Extreme 1000 some bitches love farming. i don't. there should be more QoL to farming as well as better RNG rates & less RNG occurrence in general & better amounts of resource drops, especially for endless missions.

it should be a crime that there's double RNG upon RNG. RNG for getting a specific relic. so you can put in a stupid item, to increase RNG chances to get that specific item you want from it. that's SINFUL. AWFUL. WHO CAME UP WITH THIS? I'M GOING TO HAUNT YOU

why are the rotations like AABC? that's fucking stupid. why do you get so many shit things on rotation C only, aka after 20 minutes of wasting your painful life? can't we do it like khora, where you have a chance to get a part on rotation A, then B, then C? you know? more efficient time instead of purposefully making the player go fucking insane and then give in to buy with plat?

i got a life, homie, i cannot dedicate to the grind full-time. waiting 3 days for a frame you crafted, fine, whatever. but timegating a lot of shit behind that 20-minute mark, oh you're just asking to be punched

the faction rep farming with the tokens from deimos? good change. they should keep that. although farming rep in general is god awful and those rates should be lowered to begin with. why the fuck do you need to be rank 5 of the main faction and then rank 5 of the side faction to get some stupid wristband for your mecha pilot. that's dumb.

and the recent thing with citrine, that you can farm resources to buy from some guy to guarantee the part? also good! keep doing more of that shit, instead of locking the latest warframe behind arbitrations, which REQUIRES YOU TO DO X AND Y AND Z AND THE ALPHABET and you're 85 and about to die. god. this is awful.

AND HEY. WHY DO I NEED 120K FUCKING ALLOY PLATES FOR A FUCKING INCUBATOR JUST SO I CAN GET A STUPID CAT TO WALK AROUND MY SHIP? WHAT THE HELL

---

13. Fuck Them Power Creeps, Give Me Actual Challenge the modding system is already complicated enough and you add a whole new set of power mods again, now from the archons? why do we even still have damaged mods? that's stupid. rid of them. god. i'm going to jump off a cliff.

I LIKE IN THE STAR CHART THAT IT'S DIFFICULT WHEN YOU START OUT! YOU DIE! YOUR BULLETS DO SHIT DAMAGE! NOBODY FUCKING CARES ABOUT AOE OR YOU! THE ENERGY & HEALTH MANAGEMENT COULD BE A TAD BETTER BUT STILL!

for the love of god can we stop this power creep. fine, you one-shot every single thing when you know what you're doing. but can we just not have this at all? one-shotting lvl1-30 enemies. fine. whatever.

sorties and arbitrations and similar are fine also, but, come on, dude, that's just an endless defense mission with an increased level for ''difficulty''. that's dumb. and also the fact you can one-shot them. where's the design in that?

red crits constantly in steel path shit after learning your stupid shield gate and navigation skills? i think that's dumb. it's a nobrainer. you have 0 thoughts doing warframe like this and it makes the grind unenjoyable, ALTHOUGH EASIER to get through

increase the difficulty, NOT BY JUST LEVELS! lower the amount of shit power warframes and weapons can get! why is AOE still the meta! why are boss fights only increased in ''difficulty'' by giving them invulnerability, gated health bars or disabling your abilities! that's so fucking stupid!

MAYBE INTRODUCE MORE ENVIRONMENTAL MECHANICS FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS LIKE BOSSES ALSO. THAT ISN'T JUST *corpus hound blares and spins lasers in a cone, also known as your average spy mission* OR *guy screams and there's water and you just have to jump up a little*

why do people have to learn stupid mechanics like shieldgating in order to get crazy mad unkillable with a 100armour frame with no health mods, instead of, i don't know, utilising the actual tools at disposal! can we balance warframes and weapons more for a more even playground! good fucking gods. the game is fucking pve, but the only pve available is the loot & the parkouring & useless minigames in open worlds. WHAT ELSE

---

14. I am New and I Need Mommy new player experience remains absolute dogshit JUST because of the focus on new stuff & the fact that it very heavily deviates from what you start out as

hello? in-game wiki? or at least more comprehensive tutorials that aren't a stupid wall of text like we're playing a jrpg. i will Not Remember what you said about the modding system. like at all.

the fact that you will NOT survive without the wiki or someone to teach you is utterly awful for the survivability of a f2p game. how in the fuck warframe's still standing is sometimes beyond me. fun gameplay loop maybe. jesus

---

15. Prime shit should be Better than 10% health stat increase Hello? you're missing out on the opportunity to make primes actually fully worth it, besides a new look with overwhelming gold ornaments. or, you know, someone wants nidus, but nidus prime already came out, so, you know, why bother with the regular one unless it's for MR

what if abilities were also just stronger? so. you know. it actually feels more like a prime rather than a golden iphone you bought from the store, only because you didn't like your black iphone. sigh.

the increasing amount of fucking normal tex lines + details on primes (and newer frames in general) is also god awful.

HELLO? I CAN'T DISTINGUISH NOR READ THIS VISUALLY

---

16. Companions are still pretty much useless yeah girl i love going into steel path and then my sentinel is immediately dead because this motherfucker's health is so sad and bad. the CONSTANT notification of a pet dying because it's in a high-level defense mission. god. help

at this point you might as well make companions fucking invincible and only have them for flair or small QoL changes. you know... how mmos do it... like the sucking up items with a sentinel. the fact that my sentinel can just kill starchart enemies on its own is dumb, yet it dies immediately if it comes close to level 60.

companions are never going to have the usefulness of palicoes in monster hunter and frankly they shouldn't do that either. we already got frames. we already got weapons. cats having a random farm boon. fine. pet the dog maybe. also fine. BUT WE ARE IN A SKIN SUIT FOR A REASON, BOYS!

---

17. Redundant & inconsistent things that should be rid of or fixed archwing should only be a means of quick travel in open worlds and railjack. why are there still archwing missions. fuck uranus for having so much fucking water.

why do we need to keep track of 4839248320923090423 resources with each new update? this is so fucking awful. i'm holding my entire inventory and 5 of each component falls out. goodbye. why do we even have so many status types also when there's a clear preference for viral + heat?

the abundance of mods? fuck that. why do we need primed. why do we need archon mods. why do we need arcane mods. why do we even have umbra at this point. simplify it, for god's sake, there's a bazillion things at this point that basically do the SAME THING so you can only STACK IT. BUT FOR WHAT? WHAT'S THERE TO KILL BESIDES STEEL PATH OR ARCHONS WITH THOSE MODS? TELL ME FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

WHY IS THE OPERATOR/DRIFTER EQUIPMENT UI DIFFERENT THAN THE WARFRAME ONE? WHAT THE FUCK? DO WE REALLY NEED 5 MILLION BUTTONS IN THE MENU AND UI, IT'S SO OVERWHELMING

newly-introduced ''pity systems'' or changed mechanics should be also applied to older versions. why the fuck is the mining game different still, if you use the poe drill vs. the fortuna drill vs. the deimos drill? why the fuck is getting a dog fundamentally different to a cat to a moa. WHY DID THEY NEVER INTRODUCE TOKENS FOR FORTUNA & POE? THIS IS SO FUCKING DUMB AND INCONSISTENT!

syndicates are also so fucking redundant, with their expanded system compared to usefulness in practice? what? i'm picking between pokemon sword & shield to see which special frame-specific mods i can get besides relic packs? and also who'll sometimes come to assassinate me? that's it? and i can pick out of 6 different factions with a different look that you could've definitely built more on lore-wise? but the only one you basically build on is teshin for some reason? christ.

---

18. Where is the multiplayer in my multiplayer game? you can solo shit if you want to. farming and gaining xp becomes a fuckton easier with a squad. maybe you can do steel path easier. but that's it. most of the time you're in random squads. forgettable usernames. forgettable places. etc. etc.

with the previous point about difficulty and also a more multiplayer-tailored story, this can also just boost multiplayer interaction over solo. it's a multiplayer game ffs, why is the main story acted out solo?

it's the same with any multiplayer game that's too piss easy. remember classic warcraft? yeah i didn't play that, but fucking hell bitches would get into a party and become friends over fucking questing.

this is a general anonymosity issue with the internet/gaming/whatever as a whole, but still, fuck me, warframe literally doesn't feel like a multiplayer game whatsoever. utilise that mechanic besides shitty host migrations and crossplay! god! there's barely even any pvp!

---

19. For Fun Gimmicks should stay For Fun Why in the hell is there a faction for a hoverboard in fortuna......... Why do I need to tranquilise 5 fucking animals for 1 plushie and that's the Only Way I Can Get Him........ God. Good god why can't it just be simpler and easier. this is so fucking stupid, holy fuck. farming for cosmetics, fine. farming for a stupid plushie so your ship looks less bland and depressing, that's just dropkicking the player into a chasm

---

*add in comment here that my post is getting so long that it's making the tumblr editor glitch. this is extremely funny to me i am writing a book here*

---

20. Mastery rank is a fucking sham locking things behind mastery rank is fucking dumb, especially if they require something like MR10 and you get the equivalent of a starter weapon. my god.

mastery rank is there to show your 'progress' of the game, but really the majority of it is levelling gear. discovering new locations and quests only add so little. do you know how stupid that sounds?

what the fuck am i mastering here? how to shoot a guy with my goddamn hek? what da hek is going on?

it is true that mastery rank can be more-or-less tied to someone's experience with the game, but even then it's flawed. it's not a good indicator. the rewards you get from the tests, fine, great, but other than that, it's just another fucking bar to fill, like, you know, the millions of other bars in this fucking game

---

21. There is always fucking Something You Don't Know when it takes over 1k hours to learn of something new, especially if it's a required or fundamental part of the game, that's so fucking stupid. i still don't touch steel path despite min-maxing my warframes. i still don't use specters or whatever the fuck. i don't care enough to do sorties or arbitrations or whatever because fuck me what do they give me? nothing of worth to me.

some see it as a bonus that there's always something to learn. i agree. but if it's for fundamental systems that will be required in the journey (EVENTUALLY), then, you know. that's. so. stupid.

look at this fucking shit ass table of game mechanics, some technical in the background, most of them part of your moment-to-moment epic gaming.

like what the actual fuck? it's so clear that you can build upon coding, or reinvent coding to copy-paste it into a new zone (multiple areas that count as your 'decoration zone'). yet by multiplying what's essentially the same, you're just, again, bloating the system with useless crap that could've just utilised the original base.

the last time i actually saw a new fitting mechanic, was when disruptions were introduced, because, wow, that was an actual entire new game mode, rather than copy-paste defense but NOW with gems to collect. sheesh. again, this is the focus on shiny new & adding more shit onto the pile, rather than keeping it more concise. eugh

---

22. I'm feeling 22 i'm actually not 22. my head is empty and this is like an essay. there is 4832948230 more things but above? yeah that's about the majority of it.

here is an irrelevant beast you will never see on mars ever but only about once maybe.

that's my ted talk. good bye

#sy.txt #eugh #thsi is 5k words i actually can't believe i did legitimately write an essay #sy's shenanigans

0 notes

lacquerware · 3 years

Text

2020 Recap - My Year in Gaming

2020. What a year for video games. I had big plans for last year, but in the end I did very little besides play video games, and I don’t think I’m alone there since we were all stuck at home looking for a way out of reality. I wanted to do a year-end recap as I’ve done sporadically in past years, but this one will be different than the typical “Games of the Year” format because despite all the games I played in 2020, almost none of them came out in 2020, and some of the things that defined my year in gaming weren't even games.

Resident Evil 3 Remake (PS4)

RE3 was one of the only games I played in 2020 that didn’t coincide with the deadly pandemic's spread across the US. RE3 is, of course, a game about the spread of a deadly virus in Anytown, USA. It was an appetizer, I guess.

When the Resident Evil 2 remake dropped in 2019, there were some things I loved about it, and a few things that felt like steps back from the original. I feel much the same about RE3. I had also theorized that a Resident Evil 3 remake would be better off as RE2 DLC than as a separate full-length game, and considering how short RE3 turned out, with some of the best sections of hte original cut entirely (namely, the clock tower), I stand by my theory.

Oh well, at least Jill gets this rad gun, which for the time being is the closest thing to a new Lost Planet we can hope for anytime soon.

Sekiro (PS4)

Sekiro is the first video game I ever Platinumed. This is partly because conquering the base game was such a spartan exercise that going the extra mile to get the Platinum didn’t seem so bad, but it’s also surely a result of the pandemic. I needed a project and a big win. Who didn't?

I wrote at length about why I like Sekiro more than every other modern FromSoft game, and also about the game’s cherry-on-top moment that reminded me of blowing up Hitler’s face in Bionic Commando. Please read them!

Death Stranding (PS4)

Release date notwithstanding, this was obviously the Game of 2020. I wrote about it here, here, and here. This game bears the distinction of being the second one I ever Platinumed. It took 150 hours. Only then did I learn I had a hoverboard.

Streets of Rage 4 (PS4)

This is the only 2020 game I played for more than a few hours. In fact, I cleared the entire game at least five times. I still don’t think it captures the gritty aesthetic of the prior Streets of Rages (nor even tries to), but this is probably the best-feeling bup I've played. Huge bonus points for finally bringing back Adam, but in the end I found it hard not to pick Blaze every time.

Blaster Master Zero 2 (Switch)

What impressed me about this sequel from Inti Creates was that it wasn’t just more of the same, even though that would've been fine. BMZ2 builds on its already excellent predecessor with a catchy new format where players can freely cruise the cosmos and stages take the varied form of planets—some big and sprawling, others short and sweet. Hopping at will from planet to planet without ever knowing what experiences and treasure each one held felt like system jumping in No Man’s Sky and island hopping in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, both of which felt like opening presents.

Dragon Force (Saturn)

Charming, satisfying, and addictive as a bag of chips. Unlike a bag of chips, when it’s over, you can do it all again. And again. And it’ll be different each time! This might be the first strategy game I've truly loved. Better late than never.

The PC Engine Mini

The PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 Mini seems a particularly justifiable mini-console for people outside Japan because so many missed these consoles entirely, the games are hard to obtain, and the lineup includes titles spanning the entire convoluted Turbo/PC Engine ecosystem—the TurboGrafx-CD/CD-ROM², Super CD-ROM², Arcade CD-ROM² and SuperGrafx, in addition to plain, old standard HuCard games. I myself didn’t know the first thing about these systems before. It’s like reliving the nineties again for the first time.

Most of the titles included are simple action games that don't require a command of Japanese, but make no mistake: being able to understand Snatcher and TokiMemo does make me feel like an elite special person worth more than many of you.

(Side note: From a gender representation perspective, the difference between Snatcher and Death Stranding is stark. Virtually every interaction with every woman or girl in Snatcher is decorated with ways to sexually harass her. Guess someone finally had a conversation with our favorite auteur.)

A Gaming PC

I’d threatened to transition to PC gaming for years after beholding the framerate difference between the console and PC versions of DmC in 2012, and last July I finally took the leap, buying an ASUS “Republic of Gamers” (ugh) laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU. It seems like consoles are getting more PC-like all the time, especially with all these half-step iterations that splinter performance and sometimes even the feature set (à la the New 3DS and Switch Lite), so with the impending new generation seemed like a fine time to change course.

In the half-year since, I’ve barely played a single PC game more recent than 2013, but just replaying PS3-era games at high settings has been like rediscovering them for the first time.

I also finally experienced keyboard-and-mouse shooting and understand now why PC gamers think they're better than everyone else. Max Payne is a completely different game with a mouse. Are all shooters like this??

The USPS

Early in the year, I rediscovered my childhood game shop, Starland, which is now an online hub known as eStarland.com with a brick-and-mortar showroom. To my delight, it has become one of the best and most modestly priced sources for import Saturn games in the country, and I scored Shining Force III’s second and third episodes, long missing from my collection, for a mere ten bucks each!

In June, I treated myself to a trio of Saturn imports from eStarland: the tactics-meets-dating-sim mashup Sakura Taisen 2, the nicely presented RTS space opera Quo Vadis 2, and beloved gothic dungeon crawler Baroque. Miraculously, this haul amounted to just around thirty dollars total. Less miraculously, they never arrived. This was the second time I’d had something lost in the mail in my entire life, and also the second time that month. Something was wrong with the USPS, and it wasn’t just COVID pains. We would soon learn Trump had been actively working to sabotage one of the nation’s oldest and most reliable institutions in a plot to compromise the upcoming presidential election.

Frankly it’s a miracle there’s still such a thing as “delivery” at all, and a few missing video games is the last of my worries considering what caused it, but nevertheless this was an experience in my gaming life that could not have happened any other year. I won’t forget it.

*By the way, USPS reimbursed me for the insured value of the missing order, which was fifty bucks. So I actually profited a little off the experience.

Mega Everdrive Pro

I love collecting for the Genesis and Mega Drive, but I will not pay hundreds of dollars for a video game that retailed for about sixty. The publishers never asked for that, and the developers won’t see a (ragna)cent of the money. I'm also far less inclined to start collecting for Sega CD, since the hardware is notoriously breakable, the cases are huge and also breakable, and the library just isn't that good.

Still, I'd been increasingly curious about the add-on as an interesting piece of Sega history, so when I learned Ukranian mad scientist KRIKzz had released a new Mega Everdrive that doubled as a Sega CD FPGA, I finally took the plunge into the world of flash carts. This has proven a great way to play some of the Mega Drive’s big-ticket rarities I will never buy—namely shmups like Advanced Busterhawk Gley Lancer and Eliminate Down—as well as try out prospective additions to the collection. I never would have discovered the phenomenal marvel of engineering and synth composition that is Star Cruiser without this thing, but now that I have, it’s high on the shopping list.

The Mega Everdrive Pro is functionally nearly identical to TerraOnion’s “Mega SD” cartridge, but slightly less expensive, comes in a “normal” cartridge shell instead of the larger Virtua Racing-style one, and supports a single hardworking dude in Ukraine rather than a company with reportedly iffy customer service.

Twitch

Getting a PC also resolved issues that had long prevented me from achieving a real streaming setup, and much of my gaming life in 2020 was about ramping up my streaming efforts. I even made Affiliate in about a month. Streaming has been a great creative outlet and distraction, as well as a way to connect with other people during the COVID depression and structure my gaming time. Find me every Monday through Thursday 8-11pm Eastern at twitch.tv/lacquerware.

Metroid: Other M (Dolphin)

PC ownership also gave me access to the versatile Dolphin emulator, liberating a handful of great Wii exclusives from their disposable battery-powered prison.

One of the Wii games I fired up on Dolphin was Metroid: Other M, a game I’d always wanted to try but had been dissuaded by years of bad publicity and the fact that I never had any goddamn batteries. I know I should temper what I’m about to say by acknowledging that I was playing at 1080p/60fps on a PS4 controller so my experience was automatically a vast improvement over that of all Wii players, but I’m increasingly confident Metroid: Other M was the most fun I’ve ever had playing a Metroid game. I haven’t decided yet if I’m willing to die on this hill, but I will just say that if you like the Metroidvania genre in general and aren’t particularly attached to the Metroid series’ story or its habit of making you wander aimlessly for hours, there’s a very high chance you will enjoy Other M—especially if you play it on Dolphin.

Don't Starve Together (PC)

Don't Starve is the only game my friend Jason plays, so last year I tried to get into it with him. I respect this game's singular devotion to the concept of survival, but make no mistake: every session of Don't Starve ends with you starving to death. Or freezing. Or getting stomped by a giant deity of the forest. The entire game is staving off death until it inevitably comes. Even when death comes, you can revive infinitely (in whatever mode we were playing), which means even death is not an end goal. There is no end goal. You don't even have the leeway to "play" and create your own meaning as you do in similarly zen games like Dead Rising.

Don't Starve is a game for people for whom hard work is the ultimate reward in and of itself. Don't Starve told me something about Jason.

G-Darius (PS1)

In the early fall, Sony announced they were dropping PS3, PSP, and Vita support from the browser and mobile versions of their PSN Store, and since the PS3 version of the store app runs like a solar-powered parking meter in Seattle, I decided this was my last chance to stock up on Japanese PSN gems.

Among my final haul, the PS1 port of G-Darius proved an instant favorite. Take down the usual cast of mechanized fish in a vibrant, chunky, low-poly style that perfectly inhabits the constraints of the original PlayStation hardware. I believe this is the first Darius game that lets you get into giant beam duels with the bosses, which is quite definitely one of the coolest things a video game has ever let you do. The PS1 port is also surprisingly feature-rich, including some easier difficulty levels that present an actually surmountable challenge for non-savants.

This one’s coming to the upcoming Darius Cozmic Revelation collection on Switch alongside DARIUSBURST, a good-ass romp in its own right.

Red Entertainment

In my effort to shine a tiny spotlight on some of the unsung Interesting Games of gaming, I found myself drawn again and again to the work of Red Entertainment. First there were cavechild headbutt simulator Bonk’s Adventure and twin shmups Gates of Thunder and Lords of Thunder on the PC Engine Mini. Then I streamed full playthroughs of the PS2’s best samurai-era, off-brand 3D Castlevania, Blood Will Tell and the Trigun-adjacent stand-‘n-gun, Gungrave: Overdose. Then I was dazzled by Bonk’s Adventure’s futuristic spin-off cute-‘em-up, Air Zonk, which was also sneakily tucked away on my PC Engine Mini in the “TurboGrafx-16” section. It turned out all these games were made by the same miracle developer responsible for Bujingai, the stylish PS2 wushu game starring Gackt and a household name here at the Lacquerware estate. How prolific can one team be???

Month of Cyberpunk

In November, I started toying with the idea of themed months on my Twitch channel with “Cyberpunk month.” It was supposed to be a build-up to Cyberpunk 2077’s highly anticipated November release, but holy shit that didn’t happen, did it? Still, I always find myself gravitating toward this genre in November, I guess because I associate November with gloom (even though this year it was sunny almost every day). A month is a long time to adhere to a single theme, but cyberpunk is such a well-served niche in gaming that I could easily start an all-cyberpunk Twitch channel. The fact that we’re so spoiled with choice makes Cyberpunk 2077’s terrible launch all the more embarrassing. Here are just some of the games I played (and streamed!) in November:

Ghostrunner Shadowrun (Genesis) RUINER Remember Me Transistor Rise of the Dragon (Sega CD) Shadowrun (Mega CD) Cyber Doll (Saturn) Binary Domain Shadowrun Returns Blade Runner (PC) Deus Ex: Human Revolution Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Observer

Shadowrun on the Genesis gets my top pick, but the two most recent Deus Ex games are great alternatives for those looking for something in the vein of 2077 that isn’t infested with termites.

Lost Planet 2

Every year. I played through it twice in 2020.

Dead Rising 4

I slept on this one too long. While it's a far cry from the original game, it's easily the most fun I've had with a Christmas game since Christmas NiGHTS. This is the game a lot of people thought they were getting when they bought the original Dead Rising with their new Xbox 360--goofy, indulgent, and pressure-free.

Devil May Cry 5: Vergil (PS4)

Vergil dropped for last-gen consoles in December and breathed a whole lot of life into a game that was already at the head of its class.

Nioh 2

I’ve only played a few hours of Nioh 2 because I promised my friend I’d co-op it with him and wouldn’t play ahead. But he’s a grad student with two small children. Nevertheless, Nioh 2 is my Game of 2020.

And that's it! Guess I'll spend 2021 playing games that came out last year, and maybe eventually getting vaccinated? Please?

11 notes · View notes

achronologyofbits · 4 years

Text

GOTY 2019

I wanted to write a personal Game of the Year list, but I realized I really didn’t play that many games that were new in 2019. So I’m ranking them, but it’s less a “top 10” and more a “10 games I played and how I felt about them.”

10. Kingdom Hearts III

Kingdom Hearts III plays like a game from 2005.

I’m not sure I can fully articulate what I mean by that. Maybe I mean its combat is largely simplistic and button-mashy. Maybe I mean its rhythms of level traversal and cutscene exposition dumps are archaic and outdated. Maybe feeling like this game is a relic from another time is unavoidable, given how many years have passed since its first series entry.

But there’s also something joyful and celebratory about it all — something kind of refreshing about a work that knows only a tiny portion of its players will understand all its references and lore and world-building, and just doesn’t care.

Despite all the mockery and memery surrounding its fiction, Kingdom Hearts’ strongest storytelling moments are actually pretty simple. They’re about the struggle to exist, to belong, and to define what those things mean for yourself. I think that’s why the series reaches the people it does.

Those moments make Kingdom Hearts III worth defending, if not worth recommending.

9. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Admittedly, I only played about 10-15 hours of this in 2019. Perhaps fittingly, that’s about the amount of time I originally spent on Dark Souls when it released in 2011. I bounced off, hard, because I didn’t understand what it was asking of me. Once I did — though, it has to be said, I needed other people to explain those expectations to me, because the game sure as hell didn’t — Dark Souls became an all-time favorite. And I’ve played every FromSoft game since then, and enjoyed them all. Until Sekiro.

Part of it is, again, down to expectation. Dark Souls trained its players on a certain style of combat: cautious movements, careful attention to spacing, committing to weighty attacks, waiting for counterattacks. In every game since then, FromSoft have iterated on those expectations in the same direction in an attempt to encourage players to be less cautious and more aggressive. The series moved from tank-heavy play in Dark Souls, to dual-wielding in DS2, to weapon arts and reworking poise in DS3, to the system of regaining health by attacking in Bloodborne.

In some ways, Sekiro is a natural continuation of this trend toward aggression, but in others, it’s a complete U-turn. Bloodborne eschewed blocking and prioritized dodging as the quickest, most effective defensive option. Sekiro does exactly the opposite. Blocking is always your first choice, parrying is essential instead of largely optional, and dodging is near useless except in special cases. FromSoft spent five games teaching me my habits, and it was just too hard for me to break them for Sekiro.

I have other issues, too — health/damage upgrades are gated behind boss fights, so grinding is pointless; the setting and story lack some of the creativity of the game’s predecessors; there’s no variety of builds or playstyles — but the FromSoft magic is still there, too. Nothing can match the feeling of beating a Souls-series boss. And the addition of a grappling hook makes the verticality of Sekiro’s level design fascinating.

I dunno. I feel like there’s more here I’d enjoy, if I ever manage to push through the barriers. Maybe — as I finally did with the first Dark Souls, over a year after its release — someday I will.

8. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

In December, my wife and I traveled to Newport Beach for a family wedding, and we stayed an extra day to visit Disneyland. As an early birthday present, Aubrey bought me the experience of building a lightsaber in Galaxy’s Edge. And the experience is definitely what you’re paying for; the lightsaber itself is cool, but it’s cool because it’s made from parts I selected, with a blade color I chose, and I got to riff and banter with in-character park employees while doing it. (“Can you actually read those?” one asked me in an awed voice, when I selected a lightsaber hilt portion adorned with ancient Jedi runes. “Not yet,” I told her. “We’ll see if the Force can teach me.”)

Maybe it’s because I just had that experience, but by far my favorite moment in Jedi: Fallen Order is when main character Cal Kestis overcomes his own fears and memories to forge his own lightsaber, using a kyber crystal that calls to him personally. It’s maybe the only part of the game that made me feel like a Jedi, in a way the hours of Souls-inspired lightsaber slashing didn’t.

I think that’s telling. And I think it’s because so much of Fallen Order is derivative of other works, both in the current canon of gaming and of Star Wars. That’s not to say it’s bad — the mélange of Uncharted/Tomb Raider traversal, combat that evokes Souls and God of War, and vaguely Metroid-y power acquisition and exploration mostly works — but it’s just a titch less than the sum of those parts.

Similarly, as a Star Wars story, it feels under-baked. There’s potential in exploring the period immediately after Order 66 and the Jedi purge, but you only see glimpses of that. And I understand the difficulty of telling a story where the characters succeed but in a way that doesn’t affect established canon, but it still seemed like there were a couple of missed opportunities at touching base with the larger Star Wars universe. (And the one big reference that does pop up at the end feels forced and unrealistic.)

When I got home from California, I took my lightsaber apart just to see how it all worked. Outside of the hushed tones and glowing lights of Savi’s Workshop, it seems a little less special. It’s still really cool…but I sort of wish I had had a wider variety of parts to choose from. And that I had bought some of the other crystal colors. Just in case.

That’s how I feel about Jedi: Fallen Order. I had fun with it. But it’s easier now to see the parts for what they are.

7. Untitled Goose Game

Aubrey and I first saw this game at PAX, at a booth which charmingly recreated the garden of the game’s first level. We were instantly smitten, and as I’ve introduced it to family and friends, they’ve all had the same reaction. When we visited my brother’s family in Florida over the holidays, my eight-year-old niece and nephew peppered me with questions about some of the more complex puzzles. Even my father, whose gaming experience basically topped out at NES Open Tournament Golf in 1991, gave it a shot.

I’m not sure I have a lot more to say here, other than a few bullet points:

1) I love that Untitled Goose Game is completely nonviolent. It would’ve been easy to add a “peck” option as another gameplay verb, another means of mischief. (And, from what I understand, it would be entirely appropriate, given the aggression of actual geese.) That the developers resisted this is refreshing.

2) I’m glad a game this size can have such a wide reach, and that it doesn’t have to be a platform exclusive.

3) Honk.

6. Tetris 99

Despite the number of hours I’ve spent playing games, and the variety of genres that time has spanned, I’m not much for competitive gaming. This is partially because the competitive aspect of my personality has waned with age, and partially because I am extremely bad at most multiplayer games.

The one exception to this is Tetris.

I am a Tetris GOD.

Of course, that’s an incredible overstatement. Now that I’ve seen real Ecstasy of Order, Grandmaster-level Tetris players, I realize how mediocre I am. But in my real, actual life, I have never found anyone near my skill level. In high school, I would bring two Game Boys, two copies of Tetris, and a link cable on long bus rides to marching band competitions, hoping to find willing challengers. The Game Boys themselves became very popular. Playing me did not.

Prior to Tetris 99, the only version of the game that gave me any shred of humility in a competitive sense was Tetris DS, where Japanese players I found online routinely handed me my ass. I held my own, too, but that was the first time in my life when I wasn’t light-years beyond any opponent.

As time passed and internet gaming and culture became more accessible, I soon realized I was nowhere near the true best Tetris players in the world. Which was okay by me. I’m happy to be a big fish in a small pond, in pretty much all aspects of my life.

Tetris 99 has given me a perfectly sized pond. I feel like I’m a favorite to win every round I play, and I usually finish in the top 10 or higher. But it’s also always a challenge, because there’s just enough metagame to navigate. Have I targeted the right enemies? Do I have enough badges to make my Tetrises hit harder? Can I stay below the radar for long enough? These aspects go beyond and combine with the fundamental piece-dropping in a way I absolutely love.

The one thing I haven’t done yet is win an Invictus match (a mode reserved only for those who have won a standard 99-player match). But it’s only a matter of time.

5. Pokemon Sword/Shield

I don’t think I’ve played a Pokemon game through to completion since the originals. I always buy them, but I always seem to lose steam halfway through. But I finished Shield over the holidays, and I had a blast doing it.

Because I’m a mostly casual Pokeplayer, the decision to not include every ‘mon in series history didn’t bother me at all. I really enjoyed learning about new Pokemon and forcing myself to try moving away from my usual standards. (Although I did still use a Gyarados in my final team.)

As a fan of English soccer, the stadium-centric, British-flavored setting also contributed to my desire to see the game through. Changing into my uniform and walking onto a huge, grassy pitch, with tens of thousands of cheering fans looking on, really did give me a different feeling than battles in past games, which always seemed to be in weird, isolated settings.

I’m not sure I’ll push too far into the postgame; I’ve never felt the need to catch ‘em all. But I had a great time with the ones I caught.

4. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

I have a strange relationship with the Zelda series, especially now. They are my wife’s favorite games of all time. But I don’t know if I’ve ever actually sat down and beaten one since the original Link’s Awakening. Even with Breath of the Wild, which I adore, I was content to watch Aubrey do the heavy lifting. I know the series well, I’ve played bits of all of them, but most haven’t stuck with me.

Link’s Awakening has. I wrote a piece once about its existential storytelling and how it affected me as a child. I love the way the graphics in this remake preserve that dreamlike quality. It’s pretty much a re-skin of the original game, but the cutesy, toy-set aesthetic pairs well with the heavy material. If this is all a dream, whose dream is it? And when we wake up, what happens to it?

Truthfully, some of the puzzles and design decisions haven’t held up super well. Despite the fresh coat of paint, it definitely feels like a 25-year-old game. But I’m so glad this version exists.

Oh, and that solo clarinet in the Mabe Village theme? *Chef’s kiss*

3. Control

I actually haven’t seen a lot of the influences Control wears on its sleeve. I’ve never gone completely through all the episodes of the X-Files, Fringe, and Twin Peaks; I’m only vaguely familiar with the series of “creepypasta” fiction called SCP Foundation; and I have never endeavored to sit through a broadcast of Coast to Coast AM. I’m also unfamiliar with Remedy’s best-known work in the genre, Alan Wake. But I know enough about all those works to be able to identify their inspiration on the Federal Bureau of Control, Jesse Faden, and the Oldest House.

Control is an interesting game to recommend (which I do), because I’m not sure how much I really enjoyed its combat. For most of the game, it’s a pretty standard third-person shooter. You can’t snap to cover, which indicates you’re intended to stay on the move. This becomes even more obvious when you gain the ability to air dash and fly. But you do need to use cover, because Jesse doesn’t have much health even at the end of the game. So combat encounters can get out of hand quickly, and there’s little incentive to keep fighting enemies in the late game. Yet they respawn at a frustratingly frequent rate. The game’s checkpointing system compounds this — you only respawn at “control points,” which act like Souls-style bonfires. This leads to some unfortunately tedious runbacks after boss fights.

On the other hand, Jesse’s telekinesis power always feels fantastic, and varying your attacks between gunshots, thrown objects, melee, and mind controlling enemies can be frenetic fun. That all comes to a head in the game’s combat (and perhaps aesthetic?) high point, the Ashtray Maze. To say more would be doing a disservice. It’s awesome.

The rest of the gameplay is awesome, too — and I do call it “gameplay,” though unfortunately you don’t have many options for affecting the world beyond violence. The act of exploring the Oldest House and scouring it for bureaucratic case files, audio recordings, and those unbelievably creepy “Threshold Kids” videos is pure joy. The way the case files are redacted leaves just enough to the imagination, and the idea of a federal facility being built on top of and absorbed into a sort of nexus of interdimensional weirdness is perfectly executed. And what’s up with that motel? And the alien, all-seeing, vaguely sinister Board? So cool.

With such great worldbuilding, I did wish for a little more player agency. There are no real dialogue choices — no way to imbue Jesse with any character traits beyond what’s pre-written for her — and only one ending. This kind of unchecked weird science is the perfect environment for forcing the player into difficult decisions (what do we study? How far is too far? How do we keep it all secret?), and that just isn’t part of the game at all. Which is fine — Control isn’t quite an immersive sim like Prey, and it’s not trying to be. I just see some similarities and potential, and I wish they had been explored a little.

But Control’s still a fantastic experience, and in any other year, it probably would’ve been my number one pick. That’s how good these next two games are.

2. Outer Wilds

Honestly, this is the best game of 2019. But I’m not listing it as number one because I didn’t play most of it — Aubrey did. Usually we play everything together; even if we’re not passing a controller back and forth, one of us will watch while the other one plays. And that definitely happened for a large chunk of Outer Wilds. But Aubrey did make some key discoveries while I was otherwise occupied, so while I think it’s probably the best game, it’s not the one I personally spent the most time with.

The time I did spend, though? Wow. From the moment you wake up at the campfire and set off in search of your spaceship launch codes, it’s clear that this is a game that revels in discovery. Discovery for its own sake, for the furthering of knowledge, for the protection of others, for the sheer fun of it. Some games actively discourage players from asking the question, “Hey, what’s that over there?” Outer Wilds begs you to ask it, and then rewards you not with treasure or statistical growth, but with the opportunity to ask again, about something even more wondrous and significant.

There are so many memorable moments of discovery in this game. The discovery that, hey, does that sun look redder to you than it used to? The discovery that, whoa, why did I wake up where I started after seemingly dying in space? Your first trip through a black hole. Your first trip to the quantum moon. Your first trip to the weird, bigger-on-the-inside fog-filled heart of a certain dark, brambly place. (Aubrey won’t forget that any time soon.)

They take effort, those moments. They do have to be earned, and it isn’t easy. Your spaceship flies like it looks: sketchy, taped together, powered by ingenuity and, like, marshmallows, probably. Some of the leaps you have to make — both of intuition and of jetpack — are a little too far. (We weren’t too proud to look up a couple hints when we were truly stuck.) But in the tradition of the best adventure games (which is what this is, at heart), you have everything you need right from the beginning. All you have to do is gather the knowledge to understand it and put it into action.

And beyond those moments of logical and graphical discovery, there’s real emotion and pathos, too. As you explore the remnants of the lost civilization that preceded yours, your only method of communication is reading their writing. And as you do, you start to get a picture of them not just as individuals (who fight, flirt, and work together to help each other), but as a species whose boundless thirst for discovery was their greatest asset, highest priority, undoing, and salvation, all at once.

I don’t think I can say much more without delving into spoilers, or retreading ground others have covered. (Go read Austin Walker’s beautiful and insightful review for more.) It’s an incredible game, and one everyone with even a passing interest in the medium should try.

(Last thing: Yes, I manually flew to the Sun Station and got inside. No, I don’t recommend it.)

1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

If I hadn’t just started a replay of this game, I don’t think I’d be listing it in the number one slot. I started a replay because I showed it to my brother when we visited him in Florida last month, and immediately, all the old feelings came flooding back. I needed another hit.

No game this year has been as compelling for me. That’s an overused word in entertainment criticism, but I mean it literally: There have been nights where I absolutely HAVE to keep playing (much to Aubrey’s dismay). One more week of in-game time. One more study session to raise a skill rank. One more meal together so I can recruit another student. One more battle. Just a little longer.

I’m not sure I can put my finger on the source of that compulsion. Part of it is the excellence of craftsmanship on display; if any technical or creative aspect of Three Houses was less polished than it is, I probably wouldn’t feel so drawn to it. But the two big answers, I think, are the characters and their growth, both mechanically and narratively.

At the start of the game, you pick one of the titular three houses to oversee as professor. While this choice defines who you’ll have in your starting party, that can be mitigated later, as almost every other student from the other two houses can be recruited to join yours. What you’re really choosing is which perspective you’ll see the events of the story from, and through whose eyes: Edelgard of the Black Eagles, Dimitri of the Blue Lions, or Claude of the Golden Deer. (This is also why the game almost demands at least three playthroughs.)

These three narratives are deftly written so you simultaneously feel like you made the only possible canonical choice, while also sowing questions into your decision-making. Edelgard’s furious desire for change is just but perhaps not justifiable; Dimitri hides an obsession with revenge behind a façade of noblesse oblige; Claude is more conniving and pragmatic than he lets on. No matter who you side with, you’ll eventually have to face the others. And everyone can make a case that they, not you, are on the right side.

This is especially effective because almost every character in Three Houses is dealing with a legacy of war and violence. A big theme of the game’s story is how those experiences inform and influence the actions of the victims. What steps are justified to counteract such suffering? How do you break the cycle if you can’t break the power structures that perpetuate it? How do good people end up fighting for bad causes?

While you and your child soldiers (yeah, you do kind of have to just skip over that part; they’re in their late teens, at least? Still not good enough, but could be worse?) are grappling with these questions, they’re also growing in combat strength, at your direction. This is the part that really grabbed me and my lizard brain — watching those numbers get bigger was unbelievably gratifying. Each character class has certain skill requirement prerequisites, and as professor, you get to define how your students meet those requirements, and which they focus on. Each student has certain innate skills, but they also have hidden interests that only come to the surface with guidance. A character who seems a shoo-in to serve as a white mage might secretly make an incredibly effective knight; someone who seems destined for a life as a swordsman suddenly shows a talent for black magic. You can lean into their predilections, or go against them, with almost equal efficacy.

For me, this was the best part of Three Houses, and the part that kept me up long after my wife had gone to bed. Planning a student’s final battle role takes far-seeing planning and preparation, and each step along the way felt thrilling. How can you not forge a connection with characters you’ve taken such pains to help along the way? How can you not explode with joy when they reach their goals?

That’s the real draw of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I think: the joy of seeing people you care about grow, while simultaneously confronting those you once cared about, but who followed another path. No wonder I wanted to start another playthrough. I think I’ll be starting them all over again for a long time.

1 note · View note

invokingbees · 6 years

Text

Demon’s Souls: A Personal Retrospective

Well shit, they actually killed it. A very small part of me believed that the uptick in activity last night might make the parties involved ‘forget’ to shut down to online for a day or two. Maybe that activity had a positive effect somewhere. Ireland’s falling to shit with all this snow, so I’m gonna sit here and wax lyrical about one of my favourite games, in honour of the online passing.

Beware of spoilers and also a really really fucking long post.

The world presented to us in Demon’s Souls is one where a primal being, the Old One, has awoken due to the re-discovery of the magical and powerful Soul Arts. The northern land of Boletaria is covered by a Deep Fog which brings soul-devouring demons with it. It is dominated by the Boletarian Palace, wherein dwells Old King Allant, with additional regions spread out from it, such as the Stonefang mines where workers uncovered something ancient in the deep tunnels. There’s the Tower of Latria, whose ruler returned from a journey with a strange yellow robe and turned Latria into a nightmarish prison where he made his own demons. The 4th (or 6th, as fans call it) land is the Northern Limit, shut off to halt the spreading scourge of demons. The Shrine of Storms is a remote island inhabited by barbarians who worship the wind and storms and death. Lastly, there is the Valley of Defilement, a place where all that is unclean is cast, and festers.

The lands are divided into Archstones, for as the fog spreads, reality becomes more and more unstable. The Nexus is a temple built and maintained by the Monumentals, who keep everything running as smoothly as possible. The Archstones connect the different lands together through the Nexus. It is tended to by mysterious but kindly Maiden in Black, a woman wrapped in black, her eyes covered in wax. She is the first, and possibly best, Patented FromSoftware Level Up Waifu™, she provides the ability to level your stats and not much else but look adorable kicking her heels on the stairs. She’s a good kid. Maybe.

The story of Demon’s Souls concerns you, the player, the Slayer of Demons, your soul trapped by the Nexus. It is your quest to slay the powerful demons roaming the land to be called upon by the Old One. What happens next is up to you. Do you lull it to slumber, or take the power of Demon souls for yourself? The central themes to DeS are the loss of human identity, hubris and forbidden power. There is much talk of becoming a demon yourself, succumbing to the power. Characters reference it, such as the Crestfallen Warrior, who tells you after you’ve killed your first demon, that you’ve ‘fallen for their trap’. Stockpile Thomas reminds you almost constantly that ‘You’ve got a heart of gold, don’t let them take it from you’. The risk of becoming a demon is always there, if you’re not careful. He who fights monsters kind of deal. Sage Freke talks of the power of demon souls being able to ascend humanity to a higher plane. If all this sounds at all familiar, then you’ve played Bloodborne, arguably a spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls, which contains many of the same themes, albeit in a more overtly Lovecraftian sense.

Demon’s Souls true strength, to me, lies not just in its seamless multiplayer, strategic and tense combat or ingenious level design, but in its atmosphere. DeS draws you into its world flawlessly. The colour, the sound, the sheer emptiness of it. Some areas are stronger than others, and those stronger areas are, to this day, I believe unmatched.

Boletarian Palace resembles most its successor games, and has the atmosphere of decaying age like so much of Dark Souls. It’s a vast, mighty palace below a mountainous arch of stone. It would seem that at one time Boletaria was prosperous and powerful, but since the advent of the fog, it is abandoned all but for the soul-starved slave soldiers and mad warriors prowling the halls and ramparts. Two massive dragons, the king’s pets, circle the skies burning down anything at all. It is inhabited by four powerful Demons: the Phalanx, a mass of dark slime covered in shields and protruding spears, the Tower Knight, a colossal armoured behemoth armed with a magic lance and vast slab of steel that gives it its name, the Penetrator, an agile and powerful, looming warrior covered head to toe in armour, armed with a devastating longsword. Lastly, there is King Allant himself, or more correctly, his demon. Boletaria is a wonderful place to explore, with all sorts of secondary paths, hidden areas and ledges to get to. Its shortcuts feel great to unlock, too, the level design here is fantastic.

Stonefang, I have to be honest, I’m not terribly fond of. I would rank it lowest in a tier list of lands. While the first section is mostly fine, it’s really in its second area that loses much of its fun. It’s a maze of tunnels I’ve found myself lost in more than once for a while. But luckily, if you know what you’re doing, you straight up just skip the entire level! Stonefang is inhabited by the mindless remnants of its mining population, shortish, what would almost be Dwarf-like people were they not covered in reptilian scales. It would seem that close proximity to the thing found buried within the deep dragon graveyard has caused this metamorphosis. Large, explosive ‘bearbugs’ and rock worms can be found here. Three demons take residence in Stonefang: the Armor Spider, a massive metallic arachnid, the Flamelurker, a fiery humanoid demon and lastly, the titanic Dragon God. Stonefang is also home to the advanced blacksmith who can upgrade weapons in a bunch of ways, as well as use boss souls to create unique weapons.

The Tower of Latria is the game’s crowning achievement in atmosphere, and is not only oppressive, but genuinely unsettling. From the get go you are greeted by an eerie stillness broken only by the moans of suffering issuing from somewhere far off and the sinister chime of bells. The bulk of the prison complex is inhabited by mindless dreglings imprisoned in the cells, left to some unspeakable fate. Patrolling the halls are monstrous guards resembling, slightly, Mind Flayers from D&D (indeed, the fanbase refers to them as such), but they also resemble not just in aspect but action, the Brainsuckers from Bloodborne, one of many callbacks BB makes to its great grandaddy. There are, too, gangly gargoyles crouching atop pillars, waiting to strike. After the first boss, you enter the perilous heights of Latria - thin walkways looking out over drops into pitch darkness, roaring winds, broken arches and vast towers. The area is dominated by a central pinnacle, in which hangs suspended by mindless worshipers, a huge beating heart, which drones and pulses. You descend to the depths of the towers, too, to the blood swamp beneath, where strange red tentacles lazily waver and hideous human-faced insects skitter about. Latria has three demons, first the Fool’s Idol, a fake god made in the image of Latria’s imprisoned queen, used to subdue to inhabitants. There are the two Maneaters, chimerical gargoyles utilizing strong tackles, pummels and sonic blasts to kill. Lastly, atop the dizzying zenith of Latria, is the Old Monk, a withered corpse barely alive, the body of Latria’s former ruler used as a medium by golden yellow robe, now seeking a new vessel. The Old Monk battle is unique in that it is an online experience (sadly now unattainable) where the robe summons an invader to fight you, or a nondescript NPC if offline. Unfortunately, the unique head gear, Old Monk Head Wraps, was only available if you were summoned as the Old Monk and defeated the host. The head piece provided additional magic damage at the cost of lowered magic defense.

Next, there is the Shrine of Storms. A bleak, weathered land of ruined fortifications, inhabited by undead skeleton warriors (gnarly skeletons, too, bones wearing bone armours!), a wandering Vanguard demon and the iconic Storm Beasts. Further within you encouter powerful Grim Reapers who summon strange, shadow creatures, slow but powerful. Even stronger versions with powerful lasers exist further into the tomb-riddled island. Invisible, stalking, giggling shadow creatures deliver fatal blows from behind of you take their bait. Explosive spirits and iridescent slugs also dwell within the Shrine of Storms. The Shrine’s three demons are the Adjudicator, a mythical figure brought to life by the deep fog, the Old Hero, a towering, agile, but blind humanoid demon and lastly, the epic Storm King, a vast version of the Storm Beasts which flies in the thick clouds around the stark monolith forest. One can fight the Storm King normally, with bows or spells, or you can venture into the monolith forest, dodging the Storm Beast spikes, and take the Storm Ruler ruler, and conquer the maelstrom... Shrine of Storms is probably my favourite area for its general aesthetic. It and Latria represent just how immersive Demon’s could get. Every area in the game has a cohesive, consistent theme and feel, but Shrine and Latria totally dominate the rest.

Lastly, there is the Valley of Defilement, a deep, dark crack in the earth where all the filth of the world ends up. You first traverse the shanty town of rotting wooden planks, built into the sides of valley, which eventually widens and descends into a gaping mire of poisonous swamp. The level of toxicity grows the deeper you get, and ends in a cave where the worst corruption lies. The valley is inhabited almost exclusively by its goblinoid residents, outcasts and exiles, who grow to great sizes and strength, surprising the unwary. There are also, to be found, some blood-swollen tics and flies as well as a mass of giant slugs latched onto the FromSoft mascot weapon, the Moonlight Sword. The valley’s three demons are the Leechmonger, a monstrous mass of swamp leeches brought into cohesive existence. There is the Dirty Colossus, a shambling form full of bloated flies. And there is the Maiden Astraea, guarded by her loyal knight, Garl Vinland. If I’m to be honest, I kind of hate the Valley of Defilement. For me, it’s the least fun to play in, Stonefang may be boring, but the Valley is frustrating. Then why do I rank Stonefang lower? Because valley has Maiden Astraea.

Astraea is the point in the game where the player is really confronted with the reality of what they’re doing. It asks them do they really know what they’re doing? Astraea implores you to leave, that there’s nothing here for you to pillage or plunder. Her guardian, Garl Vinland, stands firm between you and her. You are greeted not by towering demons or creeping monsters, you’re met with people. Garl Vinland, giant mace aside, is a man in armour. Astraea is a woman in robes. Nothing more. She came here to ease the suffering of the residents and Garl came with her, to protect her from the likes of you. But you need that demon soul, to save the world...or claim the power for yourself. Regardless, Garl and Astraea do not make it, and you’re left with a particularly sour taste in your mouth after she says ‘Take your precious demon soul’ and dies right before you. All the whole, the best theme in the game plays.

Demon’s Souls is somewhat famous for its gimmick boss fights, something that occurred less and less in Dark Souls games, although DaS3 had a few more unique battles than ‘large creature’ and ‘armoured humanoid’ or ‘Artorias clone #15′. Bloodborne matched DeS in this regard with bosses like Micolash, One Reborne (a straight Tower Knight callback) and Witch of Hemwick. I personally like the boss fights over later Souls games because each one is unique and brings a lot of flavour to the proceedings. The levels are the real challenge, the strange bosses simply top of the experience with something memorable. But a lot of people don’t seem to like the gimmick bosses, which is a shame, because From has made a good few memorable ones. There’s nothing like Demon’s bosses: the fierceness of Flamelurker, the cinematic marvel of Storm King, the heart-wrenching dialogue from Maiden Astraea, the sheer mortal terror of Allant’s level drain attack, the level of dread seeing a second Maneater health bar pop up or the excellent HA HA-HA HA HAA theme of Tower Knight and Penetrator.

I don’t know what else to say about Demon’s Souls, I’ve said way too much already. In the short time I’ve known it (I only bought this game sometime last October I think), it’ quickly become one of my favourite games. It’s a raw game, that’s for sure, experimental and this is why it’s so good. Dark Souls may have been more fleshed out in some areas, but Demon’s Souls captured an idea unrefined and it’s interesting to experience that vision. It has unparalleled immersion and atmosphere and a uniquely horror-tinged fantasy world. It’s also a great game! Honestly, genuinely it still holds up. If you’ve played Dark Souls or Bloodborne, you’re right at home and I earnestly believe it deserves to be played. The online may be dead, sadly and the custard tornado forever out of reach, but it’s still perfectly playable and needs to be played.

I hope this awful, awful torrent of words spurred you into digging out your PS3, or maybe even buying a cheap one, and giving the grandaddy of Souls a shot.

Until the Old One awakens from its slumber once again.

Umbasa.

#Demon's Souls #umbasa

16 notes · View notes