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monasticmaestoso · 11 months

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I am curious. What r your top five video games

WHOOPS I only just saw this now lmfao sorry

I'll stick to one game per franchise but u can assume im recommending the whole series

5. Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee

One of my two biggest childhood influences. Ps1/PC puzzle/platformer/adventure game about a funny blue guy escaping from slavery when he discovers his whole race is about to get butchered and sold as food products. Gets back in touch with his native roots and gets granted spiritual powers to help him free his fellow captives and topple capitalism while killing hundreds of cops along the way. There's no guns but there are grenades occasionally. Or you can possess the cops and make them use their guns to kill other cops. And then blow themselves up. Has a ton of sequels and a couple remakes, ports and remasters on PC and just about every other console. Cannot recommend enough. Also you can fart on command this game has a dedicated Fart button you use it for communicating (and then in the sequel you can possess farts too)

4. Myst

The other childhood influence. This game and whole series made me a huge wanderlust slut. Point and click adventure, puzzle solving, world exploring, journal reading. Some puzzles will definitely have you Stumped (but feel free to hmu bc I still have the first game memorised like the back of my hand and am happy to offer guidance ^^) my fave is actually the third game Exile, but I gotta pay respect to the OG. It's full of images and sound effects that remain engraved in my brain in vivid detail 20+ years later

3. Bloodborne

I'm actually not talking abt the whole "series" here I dont rly care much for dark souls etc. It's just this one lmao. Love the tone, love the gameplay, love the level design, love all the horrid monster designs. Love the Rally mechanic discouraging you from hiding and playing safe when you should be going full throttle wailing on everything as fast as possible. I love learning to party attacks with a firearm instead of a shield. I love the blood vials system. I love the doll I love Eileen the crow I love lady Maria I love all the funny little creachurs and most of all I love dying and being dead

2. Final Fantasy V

This ones kinda personal and maybe a bias I guess but idk this was my first FF and even now when I go back to it it just Hits Different somehow. Maybe it's nostalgia/bias but even comparing it to the other pre-ps1 FFs it's just got this vibe of its own. The music helps ofc the music is so fuckin good esp the new pixel remaster arramgements. Anyway it's a nice fun story about Four Complete Randos And Their Grandpa And Pet Chicken And Pet Dragon And Pet Sea Serpent And A Gay Pirate Gang And A Furry And Also A Tortoise At One Point who fight against a Giant Evil Tree that spent like a hundred years absorbing all of the most Evil souls in the world and now he wears a big blue suit of armour and calls himself Exdeath. He wants to conquer and kill and maim and destroy and eventually suck the entire world into The Void for no other reason than he's evil and loves being evil and badass. Not a whole ton of complex plot depth but that's why it's so approachable as a FF game. Also this game is where Gilgamesh and Battle on the Big Bridge came from, plus Omega and Shinryu, so if you like those then you're obligated to play this one. Also one of the main characters is a genderfluid twink with a thing for silver foxes and another is a non-binary/transmasc pirate

1. Kingdom Hearts

I couldn't not lmao. The entire series Of Course but also in this case I specifically mean the first one. Again it might be nostalgia bias but the first KH just has this unique charm to it, this warm atmosphere that none of the others have been able to replicate. Traverse town feels like a second home to me

#kingdom hearts #final fantasy v #bloodborne #myst #oddworld #maestoso #ask

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cerastes · 4 years

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You see, Bloodborne had some brilliant set pieces. I don’t mean aesthetically -- that goes for every game -- but conceptually.

What I want to talk about today, specifically, is Yahar’gul the Unseen Village. It’s what I truly deem a masterpiece. Allow me to elaborate:

Yahar’gul the Unseen Village is, normally, an endgame location in Bloodborne. It’s the one of the last places you see in the game, and the area that kicks off the third and final act. Not counting optional areas, it is the second last area of the game. But, as most people no doubt know by now, you can access Yahar’gul much earlier, during the first act of the game, before even fighting Vicar Amelia and Rom the Vacuous Spider, and thus, before the Paleblood Sky and the Blood Moon. By dying against a Snatcher during the early parts of the game, instead of respawning at the latest Lamp you interacted with, you are instead appropriately snatched away to the Unseen Village well before the game necessitates you to go there.

And you are simply not supposed to be there.

Now, of course... You are. You didn’t glitch the game out, nor did you sequence break. You did nothing illegal, and the game is functioning as it is meant to: By doing that sequence of actions, you can arrive at the Hypogean Gaol area of the Unseen Village. You are even encouraged, from a gameplay perspective, to come here for valuable loot and to open a door that will make your life much easier much, much later in the game. What I mean is that a perfect mix of the ambiance and the game mechanics themselves warn you that you should not be here. Leave now.

Enemies are evidently stronger than anything you’ve fought so far sans bosses. If you didn’t let yourself die to a Snatcher on purpose to get there and instead died while fighting for real, you are not going to have a good time, as the generic enemies in Yahar’gul at this stage are stronger Snatchers than the ones out there, and numerous ones at that. But, you see, the enemies are strong enough to be a greater threat than anything you’ve faced before, but not strong enough that they are simply impossible to deal with. It’s a very well calculated balance. You shouldn’t be here, but if you dare and have the skill to back up that courage, or perhaps, that curiosity... Well, maybe you can be here.

Unlike any other area in the game sans the Hunter’s Dream or boss battles, the Unseen Village actually has music.

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...And by music I mean, of course, ritual chanting. Ritual chanting that echoes through the hostile, decrepit streets of the Village as you try to find a way forward. Chanting that gets louder the closer you get to the large door at one ‘end’ of the area, a door you can interact only for it to say “Closed”. There’s no way for you to open this door currently, and right on the other side, the cultists chant their sinister tongues. You are not supposed to be here. Leave now.

The area is small. It’s small enough that you won’t stay here for long, but still large enough that you can explore. It’s a neat balance. See? Just like with the strength of the enemies that lurk its streets, Yahar’gul, at this early stage, offers you just enough to make it an area that is simultaneously gameplay-worthy, and at the same time, oppressive and hostile. You are not supposed to be here. Leave now.

You are somewhere forbidden, somewhere where you should not be, witnessing something secret, hearing something sacred. This is all exemplified the best with two factors that add in to the “you shouldn’t be here” vibe: Pick-ups and Scurrying Beasts.

Before you arrive here, your regular pick ups consist of low tier Coldblood pick-ups, tier 1 and 2, maybe 3 if you get lucky. The very first Coldblood pick-up you find in this area is tier 7. Right after, you find a tier 8 Coldblood. At this point, just from those Coldbloods, you can get around 3 whole levels. Just from trash pick-ups. It’s obviously wonderful, but it also warns you that you are not supposed to be here. Leave now. As for the Scurrying Beasts, the Crystal Lizard equivalent that must be killed before they vanish, those little weak creatures that take no more than 4 hits on average to kill if you’re on level and running appropriate damage? The Scurrying Beasts you find here take more than 10 hits to kill with your current strength. When even the garbage loot monster is more durable than the tough mini-boss enemies you’ve been fighting before, well, you know the game couldn’t be clearer about how you should leave this area.

It all works perfectly because it’s a harmony of wanting the player (out of universe; you) to stay (good loot, plenty of experience/currency on each kill, powerful items) and warning the character (in-universe) to leave right this moment (supposedly weak enemies taking many, many hits to kill and killing you in few hits, yet not so drastic that it dissuades you from trying, rather, it wants you to try harder, and a hostile ambiance full of strong, rare enemies made commonplace). It manages to both be a narratively powerful and intriguing set piece while never abandoning the most important aspect in a video game, the one aspect you can simply not compromise on: It being fun to play and rewarding to experience.

#Bloodborne

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rosecorcoranwrites · 5 years

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Video Games as Interactive Storytelling

As I previously established, video games are a worthwhile form of storytelling, combining the best aspects of books, movies, and comics. They are unique among mediums, however, for being a truly interactive form of media. They are games, after all, and thus incorporate aspects play and choice.

Environment

Because you, the player, control the character, you experience the world as if you were in it, much more than in any other medium. You explore the environment. You fight the boss, and experience the struggle of battle. You help various NPCs, or non-player characters, with tasks. You make friends and allies, and fight alongside them. Although I never like my favorite characters getting hurt in any medium, when people attack my allies in video games, it's personal.

And that's what video games do: offer an incredibly personal experience. Unlike books, movies and comics, where you have to read from start to finish, video games let you meander and spend time in the setting. In games like Zelda, Okami, or Dark Souls, you can discover secrets that aren't necessarily part of the main plot. These can include hidden areas or side quests. Sometimes these add to your understanding of the story or make the main plot more emotionally impactful. For instance, I actually did all those side quests for people in Okami, so the cutscene during the final boss fight was personal to me. I helped those people; they were lending their strength to me.

You can also gawk at the extra details of the world. One of my favorite examples of this is in Skyrim, where you can read books of short stories or admire intricately carved Nordic architecture, neither of which are important to the story or gameplay, but which make the experience more complete and immersive. I like to wonder at the fact that some person was paid to write those stories and design those carvings; they’re neat little details that someone at the studio thought were important enough to put into the game.

Even a game as linear and straightforward as the Ace Attorney series allows for a sort of exploration. Though you can only "move" through a series of set-like locations during the investigation stages, you can click on almost every object in order to hear banter between you and your assistant. While this doesn't generally offer much in the way of world or story building (unless the object turns out to be a crucial piece of evidence) it does let us experience more chemistry between the characters, endearing them to us even more.

Choice

Games in which the player’s choices effect the story obviously offer an interesting experience. Certain games have binary choices—send this character to the safety of the cathedral, or to be experimented on in a laboratory!—while others have branching trees and dozens or hundreds of possible endings. Many games incorporate a morality system, where the more bad choices one makes make for a darker ending, with the best result being the “Good ending” and the worst result, the “Bad ending”; many games opt for multiple bittersweet conclusions.

While some such games have fairly blank-slate, player-insert characters as protagonists (that is, they don’t have too much personality, because the player can fill that in), others have very specific motivations, while still offering choice. My sister was describing her initial frustration, in Red Dead Redemption 2, that she could only make not-so-good choices in some of the side quests. This makes sense, given that you are playing as an outlaw in a gang, but was still annoying in a game that claimed to give one choices. She was later delighted, though, after something important happens to the character (spoiler: they find out they have tuberculosis, which not only makes them sympathize with one of their former victims of the same condition, but also forces them to come to terms with their decisions, as time is running out), and good options start opening up. The way the game presented choices made sense for that individual character while still giving the player the freedom to reject certain choices if they want. Masterful!

Happenstance

I will say, however, that player choice is not totally unique to games, as Choose Your Own Adventure books were and occasionally still are a thing. Programmers can program in more possible choices than can be contained in a physical book, but the storytelling principal is the same. More interesting, I think, is video games’ ability to create random happenstance. What do I mean? Depending on what the player does when, they might stumble onto a part of a game in a different way than other players.

For example, in Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, musical themes for each location play during the day, while nighttime has only sound effects. As anyone who has played Ocarina can tell you, the Gerudo Valley theme is some of the coolest, most adventurous music in the franchise, and it starts playing in the canyon, before you arrive at the desert. In order to get to the desert the first time, you jump your horse over a broken bridge, which feels pretty awesome to a first time player. But for me, it was more. I arrived on horseback at the canyon at dawn, rode to the edge as the castanets of the Gerudo Valley theme started playing. Just as I jumped, the sun came over the horizon and the guitar began! I could have sworn there was even a lens flare, but that might have been my imagination reacting to the epicness of what was happening. It was a totally random, unrepeatable event, and I’ll never forget it.

In Okami, I never knew that going through some torii gates led into mystical areas while going around them led to ordinary shrines, because I always went a certain way. Thus, my mind was blown when I discovered, after following a little sparrow girl through a gate, that what had once been a solid wall was actually a pathway. It wasn't until my second play through that I went around the gate of the first shrine, which led to a glowing portal to a celestial world, and discovered nothing but an ordinary statue in a moss-covered cave. I never knew!

In another Zelda example, every player had a different experience of their first Blood Moon in Breath of the Wild. Blood Moons are events that serve to replenish the enemies in the area, but in-game are meant to be the malice of the main enemy infecting the environment and causing monsters to resurrect. They happen at random, and are preceded by the music changing, the light dimming, black wisps issuing out of the ground, and, of course, the full moon turning red. My brother first experienced it while looking at some goats in a pasture outside an inn, while my sister experienced it after climbing up a tower to reach a treasure chest. Never having heard that Blood Moons were a thing, their thoughts, respectively, were, “What the HECK is wrong with these goats!?” and “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry! I’ll put it back!” I’m sure others have their own fun stories of their initial horror at what was happening.

Social Interaction

Cast your mind back to when this whole diatribe of mine began (many weeks ago), when I mentioned a coworker of mine saying that video games don’t inspire social interaction. Just the opposite is true, and it always has been.

One of the first, if not the first video games was the two-player game, pong. Though not actually a story game, this led the way for more two player, and then multiplayer games. Kids used to go to each other's houses and play Mario Brothers or Bubble Bobble; now, they interact with friends and strangers across the country in online, multiplayer games. There are even games that have “emotes”, special moves you can do to communicate with other players without voice chat. Others let you vote for another player as the MVP of each round to show your appreciation. Lest you think it’s all online, Nintendo is keeping in-person multiplay alive and well with games like Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Smash Brothers.

Single player games, too, invite interaction. Pre-internet, people would spread hints and strategy and cheat codes by word of mouth. “How did we know how to do that move without reading the manual?” my sister asked, recalling some odd special move in an older game. “I think a friend must have told me, and they probably heard it from one of their friends.” Nowadays, internet forums and Let’s Play videos serve the same purpose: a community of gamers helping each other out and spreading information about games.

I myself have talked repeatedly about what my brothers and sister experienced in their playthroughs. Some of this is because some games are too hard for me (like, every game FromSoft will ever make), but a lot of it is just because there was one TV and not enough time for me to start my own game. I’ve never actually played Sekiro or Bloodborne or Last Guardian, but I’ve watched people play all of them from start to finish, so I still have that experience. My brother and I both gasped when we first encountered a Mist Noble and its enchantment in Sekiro (and my advice, “Kill it with fire!” worked like a charm). My sister and I squeed over the griffin-dog-thing’s cute antics in Last Guardian. Unlike books, comics, and movies, which are best enjoyed in silence, video games invite conversation during play.

Online streams offer a similar experience. Even here, choice rears its head. Some streamers play it straight, from start-to-finish, with little editorializing. Others derp around doing a lot of nonsense, or add hilarious commentary, often adding their own layer of storytelling to the mix. Viewers of said streams can type comments in real-time, so that the streamer interacts not only with the game but with his viewers, and the entire experience is like one big conversation. Who said video games don’t inspire social interaction?

Community

Right about now is when I connect this new form of storytelling to something ancient. Books are the new songs and poems, movies are the new plays, and comics are the new tapestries and hieroglyphics. What, then, are video games? As I said before, they take elements from all of these other mediums: video games are the new bard adding their own lyric to a song, or the actor playing a well-known role a different way, perhaps due to choice or happenstance.

But mostly, video games are the new play, that most primal and primordial of all human storytelling. We play as soon as we can think, and play act as soon as we can walk. Children assign themselves roles and act them out together. Humans are communal creatures, after all, who process narratives by interacting with other humans.

To some extent, all storytelling is like this, as it is one human telling something to another rather than keeping it in their head. Video games, though, bring back the communal aspect of storytelling. Wanting to take part in stories—whether as a child going on adventures with friends, or an adult participating in a narrative ceremony, or anyone telling a story around a fire to a group of rapt and responding listeners—is part of being human.

At some point, however, that part of life got chopped off and shunted to the corner, as if adults shouldn’t desire narrative play unless they are writers. Thus, video games are put down as childish, or geeky, or not as valid as books. Oddly, they are stereotyped as being something beloved by loners, which ignores the vibrant and vocal gaming community.

I’m not sure where the animus towards gaming comes from. Why is immersing oneself in an imaginary world while staring at a book is considered high-brow, but doing the same while staring at a screen considered low? I don’t know, nor do I want to. What I do know is that some of the most unique, innovative, and emotional, stories I’ve ever seen have been those in video games, and I hope that in the future, more people give them a chance.

And those, dear readers, gamers, viewers, and story lovers of all stripes, are my thoughts on video games.

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killscreencinema · 5 years

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Undertale (PlayStation 4)

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Undertale had been on my radar for a long time due to having watched a playthrough of it on Twitch by the now defunct Red Letter Media related gaming channel Previously Recorded (hosted by Jack Packard & Rich Evans). Man, I sure miss listening to those guys jibber-jabber while playing games I had previously never heard of but would go on to love; games like FTL, Bloodborne, and now Undertale!

I really enjoyed what I watched of their run and was anxious to check out the game myself, but at the time, it was only out for PC and the only computer I had access to was my work laptop... which only runs games if I hack into it to override admin permissions. Which I later figured out how to do with FTL and I’m still proud of myself for doing it! However, the prospect of spending money on a game I might not even be able to play didn’t bode well for me then, so I was content with limiting my Undertale experience to watching the stream and listening to the BEAUTIFUL soundtrack.

UNTIL NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After its initial release on PC in 2015, Undertale was eventually ported to pretty much every console in existence, including my beloved PS4! The game was developed and published by Toby Fox, which isn’t the name of a studio but ONE GUY. This story isn’t new in the world of indie gaming (see: Cave Story, which probably had more than a little influence on the development of Undertale), but that doesn’t make it any less impressive, especially considering the sheer scale of creativity and excellent craftsmanship on display here. Make no mistake here - Toby Fox is a genius and Undertale is a masterpiece.

The game beings with an introduction explaining how humans and monsters used to live together until a great war exiled all monsters to an underground world with no hope of escape. You play as a child, who falls into the underground, where she is relentlessly hunted by the monstrous denizens who want to use her soul to finally return to the surface world. Despite the overwhelming odds, the possibility of surviving the ordeal unscathed while also avoiding killing any monsters fills her/him with... DETERMINATION!

The game plays like a RPG, where you traverse an overworld of sorts, and explore dungeons, all while being pulled into random enemy encounters. However, this is where the game takes an interesting turn: instead of fighting the enemy, you are strongly encouraged to negotiate a peaceful resolution with every enemy using the “Act” option, followed by the “Mercy” option once the enemy stands down. There are unique strategies to mollifying every monster, which are hinted at via things the monster’s say in conjunction with analyzing the monster using the “Check” command. In the meantime, you avoid their attacks by navigating your heart icon through what could best be described as “bullet hell” mini-games, which is a fresh, unique way to keep otherwise repetitive turn-based combat stimulating and lively! Even if the game didn’t have a pacifist option, which adds a slight puzzle element to each fight, this bullet-hell feature for defense is by itself a brilliant battle system innovation.

As previously mentioned, you have the option of fighting your way out of the underground or... friending your way out of the underground. This ultimately leads to a decision between performing a “genocide run” of the game or a “pacifist run”. While I have completed the pacifist run, and got the “true ending”, I haven’t done a genocide run, nor am I sure I ever will. Quite frankly, I enjoy the story of the game in pacifist mode and love the characters so much, the thought of murdering them breaks my heart. I accidentally killed Toriel, the friendly goat lady who finds you at the beginning of the game, during the battle where she tries to force you to stay with her for your own protection and that was upsetting enough (I ended up reloading the game and “Sparing” her the next time around after figuring out what I had done wrong). So by the way pro-tip: when performing a pacifist run, note that you will never EVER need to use the “Fight” option until you get to King Asgore and, even then, if you’ve done everything correctly to get the “True Ending”, that fight won’t even happen (although I’d recommend purposefully getting the “Neutral Ending” first as it is interesting in its own way and makes the “True Ending”, where you save everyone, all the more satisfying). Sentimentality aside, the game just doesn’t seem as fun or interesting if you’re just cutting a swatch of destruction like you’d any other RPG. I’m sure curiosity will eventually get the better of me and I’ll check out that option.

Before I wrap up my review, I want to reiterate how fucking good the soundtrack is, which was also composed and mixed by Toby Fox (the guy’s a goddamn machine!). While one may argue the variations of the “Undertale Theme” throughout the game can be a little repetitive, I’d counter that by saying it is effectively used to set the emotional tone of a scene. Even if I had never heard of Undertale, that little jingle would move me to tears; it’s just a nice bonus that the soundtrack serves to augment a fun, memorable story. I laughed, I cried, I laughed again, and I cried again, which is a combination of emotional reactions I haven’t felt from a game in a good long while.

Undertale is one of the few games I’d consider more of an “experience” than a game and an enriching one at that. If my review hasn’t convinced you to play it, than at the very least, I recommend exploring the soundtrack, starting with this:

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#undertale #toby fox #sans #papyrus #indie games #RPG #flowey #asgore #toriel #ps4 #playstation 4 #sony #undyne #review #red letter media #rlm

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invokingbees · 6 years

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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

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sirbadgerduke · 6 years

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God of War: “The Dad and The BOY”

God of War, God of War 4? whichever you decide to choose to call it, I payed it, finished it and thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish, which was a few days ago. It’s fantastic to see a worn out franchise(and protagonist) gain some maturity and depth much later in in it’s life(and the protagonist’s). Now you might have seen the rave reviews, videos, etc, that claim it to be the “Game of the generation!” and while, I definitely think it’s GoTY material, I’m unsure if I’d actually call it that myself.So basically this is why I enjoyed this title. God of War 4. or stylized as “God of War” is a sorta continuation/reboot of the popular hack ‘n’ slash, ultra violent God of War series developed by Santa Monica Studios. Originally, David Jaffe worked on the original and it’s first sequel, Where as the current title was directed by Carl Barlog. The game follows an older Kratos, who has left Greece to live a life in the Norse Realm of Midgard, here he has a wife and a son. The story follows both Kratos and Atreus(the song of Kratos who is affectionately referred to as “BOY”) as they head to the highest peak in all the realms to spread Kratos’ wife’s ashes, as her last wish. You face off against Aesir, Nordic monsters and undead, and even a dragon along your journey. As it begins, it grows from a simple coming of age tale, to much grander in the schemes whilst ending on that smaller, simpler note akin to the beginning. First of, let’s talk about characterization, story and writing. Kratos gains a lot more depth than he ever had in previous iterations. Far from the ever rage filled murderer, he’s now cold and distant, averting from his past in a sort of shame filled expression, until he must beckon the call and embrace his past again. He has to teach Atreus how to survive as a warrior, and most importantly, as a man, all the while he’s learning himself on how to be a better parent now that they both lost the matron of the family.Little things from the simple “almost loving pat on the back” to when Kratos allows Atreus to carry his mother’s ashes to the peak, all signify how Kratos grows, and it’s superbly written. We cannot forget Atreus, from his naive “I just want dad to recognise how much I’ve grown” to his sudden realisation(and arrogance spike) that he’s pretty much a god to him coming to terms with the revelation, it’s paced well enough and tugs at your emotional heart strings here and there. Baldr, makes for a captivating antagonist, while you don’t see him all that much? he still is a compelling and surprisingly sympathetic villain. From the brotherly spat and affection of Brok and Sindri to the wry wisecracks and banter of Mimir, and ofcourse Freya, the supporting cast is just as delightful and well written. The meat and potatoes, the gameplay. You’ll notice how you don’t wield the blades of chaos(not yet anyway) at the start of the game, but the “Leviathan Axe” is now your new arm. Combat is mapped in a Dark Souls like structure with an “over of the shoulder” camera angle added, this heightens just how much more primal, visceral and brutal the game has become. Long gone are Ultra violent, ultra gore riddled kills of yonder, replace with surprisingly less bloody but more grounded executions that still look stylish without it being too much. It’s a MATURE violent game that’s for sure, in both aesthetic and overall feel. There’s also some light customisation and RPG like systems almost similar to Destiny(only done RIGHT!).Bosses are pretty damn fun, although there’s an over reliance of Trolls, I would’ve toned them down a notch but the most fun are Baldr, the Dragon and the Valkyries(although they can be surprisingly cheap at times). All in all there’s a sense of “Metroidvania”aesthetic to the whole game, basically as you backtrack with new found abilities to unlock secrets and more loot and it never feels like you have to get all the secrets in every nook and cranny, you do as much exploring as YOU want to do. So level design is up next. It’s a breath of fresh to find a game that is both single player, linear and one with an actual fucking story! Levels are just big enough for exploration and moving along the story. It never feels overwhelming or too big, as many “open world” Games seem to feel like in my opinion. There are multiple realms to explore and traverse, even two “Post-Game” realms to get some nifty combat and exploration trials down(One of them being also a Psuedo-Dungeon Crawling like Realm) it’s all made very intricately, with care and attention to allow you to either pedantically explore for everything or to just go along with the plot. Each realm is distinct and eyecatching; to the beautiful and floral aesthetic of Alfhiem to the fiery demonic volcanic browns of Muspelhiem to the eerily deathly green glow and wintry winds of Helhiem. Next up is visual and sound aesthetics. This is a gorgeous looking game, pure and simple. It’s surprises you how the PS4 can even run it sometimes. While there’s a more gritty, realistic look to it compared to the more cartoonish look of the older titles, it’s still diverse in colours, with Midgard’s mix of whites, brown and golds to the harsh, dreary toned down pallet of Niflhiem, this game will stun you, regardless if you care or not care about graphics or art. Enemy designs are really cool, from the weird witch like Revenants to the large, lumbering trolls, there’s just enough variety to not make it repetitive The sound design is also equally as grand, maybe less so, but that’s not a hindrance at all. From the cackling of the ice as it freezes your foes, to the roars of the ogres and the snarls of the wolves, it all sounds meaty and really big. The music itself is sublime, having this sweeping orchestral score with Nordic like vocals overlayed to give it that extra sense of “Norse Mythgology” Norse-ness. Lastly the voice acting, Christopher Judge was a fantastic choice for a more grizzled, older Kratos, and hopefully something that sticks in future games. Atreus, Mimir, Baldr, etc all have stellar performances under their belt in this title. Overall, God of War, Dad of War, GoW4, etc is a sublime game and a fantastic exclusive to boot. Carl Barlog put passion and care into making this title, ,the SMS development put their passion, heart and soul into this title, and it really shows through. A near flawless game, made to give a franchise a long needed sense of maturity and depth without losing the fun, visceral and brutality of what made the previous games so popular in the first place. This title alone proves that “Single Player, linear game experiences” aren’t dead at all, it just that publishers like EA, have just forgotten what makes them great. If there’s one nitpick I had to give for the sake of “objectivity£” it would be there’s no New Game Plus mode, but I’m sure that will be remedied in a future update. This game has had almost similar impact on me than Bloodborne had, that is how much I’m recommending it. Biased Score: A+ Unbiased Score: A

#god of war #santa monica studios #video games #video game review #video games as art #ps4 #sony #ps4 exclusive #review #reviews #god of war review #Adventure Games #video games reviews #ps4 pro #action games #norse mythology #norse

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daydream-gaming · 7 years

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Evaluation

Ellika’s Watcher is a personality driven game, or so I wanted it to be, I say wanted it to be because It really isn’t that much of a personality driven game but rather more of a pixel hack and slash. Starting my project, I tried to stay to time management, however I while progressing my project I found out that I was not good at this skill. Therefore, in my finally product I have changed a few things, from making a impossible to complete research schedule to making my production way too short and giving myself way too long to make pre-production. My final product is still the same has it was going to be but with less content. I acknowledge these flaws and I am glad I made them, it allowed me to grow as a developer and made me learn major lessons. Things also went well in my project such as my research and getting feedback from my own target audience helping me out on my decisions.

The original idea of Ellika’s Watcher was kept and much research went into games that I wanted it to be like, a game that is most referenced is Titan Souls, I wanted it to be open environment, for retro style gamers to explore. Keeping it kid friendly but also appealing to the wider audience. The idea originally came from the first two mini games I created the theme of them was good, then I looked into the Final Fantasy games where the games are the same but with different characters with games slowly starting to change it up. Me just finishing my last game “Ellika Flyers” made me come up with an idea of making a sequel to the game, but changing up the actual game and making new characters just using the same world. This is done by keeping the “Ellika” part but adding a new word to it that would have to do with the game. I later planned and made the narrative for the game by using Scott Rogers guide. It was important to get the narrative before I get the second part of the name because it would have to do with the main part of the game. So, when I decided that the main character Chester was a former Watchmen and an Eye monster killed his town and family it made sense to call it Ellika’s Watcher referring to both the creature as that is what it is known by, and the main character’s former guard position. This is smart and makes it a play on the word.

In my pre-production and planning stages I planned on 3 levels, a starting room, a cave room and a cave boss room. This would be major change in my game, I did not have enough time to be able to debug the game where you couldn’t go into the last room due to a bug, I had to scrap the 3rd room and make it into the second room, this means the player only has 2 rooms to explore. This makes the content of the game lack in some ways and doesn’t give the player a full experience. The player also doesn’t have the ending I originally wanted, a ending where when you pick up a certain item you get to see some dialogue pop up and after that you return to the menu however now it just returns to the menu without the dialogue.

Somethings that did however go well was when I added mechanics like saving the game in and adding new enemies and making a boss. They all worked super good, the progression of the game also felt good. You never feel like you are at an unfair disadvantage, you also don’t feel like you are too overpowered. The game progresses you by giving you XP by leveling up, this will give you damage, Hp and stamina. This helps you in the game especially if you decide to kill all the enemies you will feel the benefits with the game. The style of the game and the target audience I was going for was also a neat leash I could easily find and use. As many of these old lost types of retro gamers exist and only have recently been found again by games such as Titan Souls, Bloodborne, Dark Souls, etc. Games that make the concept of a game harder than it should be creating a sense of achievement for every little thing thy do. Another reason why games such as Titan Souls got so much recognition by these gamers was because of the of its style and I really tried to capitalise on that genre of 2D top down games with a challenge.

Time management was a problem as stating it earlier, this is good though, I knew it would be a problem as I took way too much on my hand and couldn’t keep up. At times, I asked myself to do up to 3 different blogs at a week which I wasn’t even thinking about all of the research and planning that goes into each one of my blog posts. I also underestimated the time I would take creating my game. It ended up with a lot of bugs and unfinished making it not a pleasant experience. You can tell that I definitely spent a lot more time on Room 1 than I did on Room 2. This is due to making my sprites and then coding the entire room and making the mechanics and Gameplay. This took me around 3 weeks to do, so when the last week of production came up, bearing in mind I still was doing research, had a social life and other life events going on I was not able to finish the game to my satisfactory level. This was all not considered when I made my Gant chart and I have learned that I should for the next project I do. I thought I would be able to do work all the time which turned out I couldn’t.

The gripping tale of Chester White a man that has varies of talents making his way into the cavernous caves of the Watchers cave to get revenge for his family after the watcher unmercifully killed them all in an all scale battle. The monster attacked on a night where Chester was out of the village and he had to watch from a distance as his village got burnt to cinders. The whole story has a bigger meaning behind it such as don’t do drugs or abuse subscription drugs and don’t take your loved ones for granted as you don’t know when your last moment is with them.

The Narrative theory I followed is a simple yet in-depth model, it makes you pity the main character and sympathize with him, this will help you relate with the character and but also make you angry at Chester because he lays and pitys himself drugged up on anti-depressants and alcohol. Abusing them. I made this so you go on a roller coaster ride, it is a similar narrative for to what the 2000 Gladiator movie used. However you never feel angry towards him. You also know. Gladiator was a huge inspiration during the writing of the narrative. I used the narrative Scott Rogers provided in his book Level up! I found this the easiest one to use but also made me think the most giving a challenge at the end where you have to make Chester have a bad streak 7 times in a row and justify why he does. I did it because we all feel like we have had everything go wrong in one day right? well this shows that but a bad luck strand over the past 15 years. Making the character relatable in someway to everyone.

Overall having to adapt to the time wasn’t really my thing for this project and I will definitely try to follow my plan next time a lot better and make it a lot more humanly possible. This will stop me from having to sacrifice Gameplay, research time and make the overall final product a lot better. I am glad I was able to try this style, next time I will try to assure myself that I will follow the deadlines a lot more by doing more research into those weeks of planning and I will also try to make sure I have time for myself and not make 3-4 blog posts a week that are bad quality compared to 1 good quality post. The style of the game stayed the same at the end, with some minor tweaks in room 2 as there wasn’t enough time making it look incomplete or like an early version of the game. I really liked out the narrative finally worked out, I got the story down how I wanted to make you root for the “underdog” which is Chester after the story shows how much bad luck he has had in the past. This adds to his personality and shows why he has such an abuse for drugs.

I have been heavily influenced by Titan Souls and Gladiator I liked the the atmosphere they create in emotional scenes but also make the an action pact experience. The Game and movie really made me think about design choices. Gameplay, and Storyline these are most important parts of the whole project because it influenced the final game for better or for worse.

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redline1221 · 7 years

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🐷 which muse is most likely to win a pie eating contest🍁 what inspired you to write/create (All of them, you meanie )

🐷 which muse is most likely to win a pie eating contest

@arandrian Most people don’t know but that boy can pack it away like it’s nobody’s business. He’s got the metabolism of a hummingbird (highest metabolic rate of all animals) and given how much he loves food...damn right he’d win that contest in a heartbeat. Then literally just walk for miles working it all off.🍁 what inspired you to write/create (All of them, you meanie )I AM NOT A MEANIE. AnD OBOY HERE WE GO.

@denlandis - The Knight. He has heavy inspiration from my first community wide established Blood Knight character, Dendanis, back on Moon Guard. I have always had a fascination for the stories of Knights. Started with King Arthur, and just went on from there. Medieval era movies, fantasy genres, etc. I always look for the knight in the group. The idea of chivalry and its practice, I dunno, it’s just something that’s always resonated with me. With him though I wanted to do something different, so rather than a commoner he was a noble. Instead of trained fighter from birth, he was going to be a caster and switched. There are definitive notes of the original laced into some of the moments and behaviors, but he’s been a treat to write.

@aenlandrin - I’ve always enjoyed playing assholes. Figured I’d get that out of the way. Basically I enjoy writing, on occasion, the noble caste in Sin’dorei society and with that caste comes the command of some powerful magic. Blood Elf politics are generally swayed either through expansive military careers, or by how much magic you wield. Given the story I’d developed for @denlandis, it was natural to create the elder of the three brothers as well, too. He takes some inspiration from my other caster, @aenlanin but is decided less a dark character and has more of a presence to him in the way he’s written. Also, Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Nuff said.

@tennesonrhames - I blame @adilynia for him existing. Her cheeky, witty, ridiculously adorable barmaid @georgianathackery inspired his creation. With the notion of getting into Alliance RP I needed to come up with SOMETHING. My other love in terms of writing and movies, is westerns. I LOVE me a good western. So when I was sitting here thinking up a character so we could break into alliance RP, I randomly thought of an image of Karl Urban as Black Hat from the movie Priest. Never even seen the movie but I liked the image. Leather duster, aged hat, the yellow eyes. I’m also a phenomenal proponent for anything From Software, and with that getup I instantly thought of Bloodborne. So thus, the gilnean monster hunter with a leather duster and a busted up black hat was born

@redoriantherogue - Original inspiration for this boy was my rogue back on Moon Guard, Adardrian. He was a street rat turned soldier who eventually became a rogue, offering his services to the highest bidder and leading a group of mercenaries. DORIAN by contrast was once a noble merchant who traveled the world, had an extensive education, and prided himself on his looks and his shrewd business tactics. The common thread for the two of them were the women they loved. Both were priestess’, gifted in the light but physically very weak due to the use of magic. In Adar’s story they were able to overcome their trials, and currently live in his rebuilt tavern/inn somewhere in the Barrens. In Dorian’s story, Seranah (The sister of the Dwin’arniths) perished shortly after the scourge invasion. This single event is what created the man that Dorian is today, because it caused a universal shift in his entire story.

@arandrian - My love for exploring, and watching everything space related honestly. I enjoy writing characters that are enthralled with the world they live in, and who tell stories. That’s who Aran is. He’s the wanderer and the storyteller. He encompasses that feeling I get when I look out at the ocean or watch things about space and go “I WANNA KNOW WHAT'S THERE” because Aran’s like “I AM GOING TO GO FIND OUT” and he does, and he brings back ridiculous stories.

@aenlanin - He was actually a transfer from Moon Guard. The original inspiration for him was 1: my love of darker RP and the fact I hadn’t written any in LONG time, and 2: @knife-in-the-shadows. My wife had crafted an utterly brutal, femme fatale character, and I have a weakness for a vixen in leather that’s as likely to kill you as kiss you. He’s also inspired in part by the Ben Barnes portrayal of Dorian Grey. In the movie and book, you see a character that goes from innocent and naive to life, to having experienced so much of it that they seek the darker side of it. They thrive on the pain and the next new high from something they’ve never tried before. It leaves them cold and jaded, and a lot of that is translated into Aenlanin’s character. He lacks morals because he’s seen enough of the world to know they’re unnecessary. He lost a wife and two sons, and whatever life he had before is a distant memory.

@sathiossunwarden - I’ll again reference my love of writing assholes. With Sathios I wanted to take a departure from my typical plate wearing fighter. Rather than a noble, stalwart soldier sworn to his people, Sathios is an honorless brute whose only care is money and the next fight. His origin was in that chivalrous, noble sort of background, but after the Invasion he was literally just abandoned by the city he’d sworn his sword and life to, and ended up adrift with nothing to hold onto. So he did the only thing he was good at, fighting and killing. Also, Brock O’hurn. Because Brock O’hurn.

@sigmundironblood - Being my only Final Fantasy character I regularly play, with Sig I took some inspiration from my wife’s character @helenestonefist. Brawler from a lost city, the Ala Mhigans are a people out of place. They don’t have their own home any longer, and they don’t really fit in with the rest of the world because people have such a negative view of refugees. With Sig I wanted a simpler character just trying to get by, and making ends meet where he can. Miner with a night job of fighting in the pits using his muscle and skills to earn money. Pretty straightforward. :)

OH MY GOODNESS FINALLY DONE. THAT WAS SOOOOO MEEEEAN. *cut sarcasm* :P Was nice to write about all the fellas or as they’ve come to be known, the Beefcake Train.

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waynekelton · 4 years

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Pascal's Wager Review

Pascal’s Wager may sound like a Gallic gambling game, but it is in fact an argument formulated by the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal. The crux of the argument suggests that we should hedge our bets by believing in God and abiding by his rules. Sure, we may have to spend our Sunday mornings sitting on uncomfortable pews in draughty churches. We may have to sacrifice some of life’s little luxuries and abstain from certain unwholesome practices. However, in return, there is the prospect of a pair of wings, a harp and eternal happiness. Then again you could just throw caution to the wind; live the life of a scoundrel and take the chance that you will not have to spend the afterlife stoking the fires of Hell.

You may well ask what has all this to do with mobile games? Well, enter Pascal's Wager and lead character, Terrence who has been banished from the church for transgressions and is struggling with his theological doubt. Who is Terrence? Imagine tearing The Witcher’s Geralt of Rivia away from yet another round of Gwent and dumping him into an even bleaker and more hostile world, heavily influenced by Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Indeed, the elevator pitch for Pascal’s Wager must have been to replicate Dark Souls’ aesthetics and gameplay on mobile devices. Apple was suitably impressed, being quick to jump on the bandwagon and showcase the game on its latest devices.

Talking of horse-drawn conveyances, Pascal’s Wager begins with a cutscene carriage ride. It may not cause the PS4 underneath your telly any sleepless nights, being a bit blurry and choppy (more VHS than UHD). However, for a platform that not that long ago saw controlling an ever-growing snake as the apex of mobile entertainment, it is mightily impressive. Obviously, you are not going to get the lavish detail and extra polish that a triple-A console release allows. Yet, for sheer bloody-minded ambition, the developer, TipsWorks, deserves admiration.

As already touched upon, our hero resembles someone cosplaying Geralt at a comic convention. Indeed, with a name like Terrence you would assume that he would be more at home sifting through stalls of limited edition Funko Pops rather than hacking and slashing his way through monster-ridden landscapes. It is a dark domain, both metaphorically and literally. The sun has long since crashed into the sea, causing a dark fog to enshroud the world. Only the mysterious colossi, who emit sparks of light can keep the fog at bay. But now even these glorified standard lamps are beginning to fail, and it is your job to find out why.

The first few combat encounters serve to lure you into a false sense of security. Terrence uses a combination of fast slashes and powerful slices to dispatch a few blissfully unaware snail guys without so much as breaking into a sweat. However, any game inspired by the gothic action role-playing of Dark Souls, which is admired and loathed in equal measure for its unforgiving difficulty, needs to be tough. Thus, any hopes of a walk in the park are laid to rest as soon as you encounter the first boss. This is also the point at which you will also realise that the touch controls will simply not do. It is not enough to just master the art of stabbing and lunging; you will also need to perfect the parry and dodge, and all of this is just too much for touch controls to handle. Now is the time to dust down a trusty console controller and take advantage of Apple’s new pairing feature. Even with a controller, you are still likely to die numerous times, but you will at least stand a chance of working out each boss’s weaknesses. Each move has to be considered, as stamina is limited and mindlessly pummelling away will only get you killed. The game’s influences are obvious and with the right controller, combat works well. Taking down a boss that has been making mincemeat of you feels immensely rewarding.

Pascal’s Wager does try and introduce a few ideas of its own. Exploring such a harrowing world has an impact on Terrence’s reason. If he doesn’t restore his sanity with potions then his mental state can lapse into the abnormal or, worse still, lunatic. A neat touch is the way that Terrence perceives how the world changes as his sanity slips away. The skies redden, enemies become tougher to defeat and our hero’s abilities weaken. On the plus side, defeating enemies whilst non compos mentis will earn extra rewards.

So far, I have only talked about Terrence, but other adventurers are encountered along the way. There are a total of four characters, each with their own combat styles and related skill trees. You can take two characters into battle and as soon as one is defeated, the other will enter the fray. This adds a welcome extra layer of strategy, as you try and work out which characters are best deployed against a particular boss.

In addition to the unsuitable touch controls the game does have a few other problems. The text translation can sometimes feel awkward and the camera is a bit twitchy. The voice acting is amdram, understandable when taking into account the game’s much lower budget. On the positive side, the music and sound is excellent, creating a wonderfully creepy and bleak atmosphere.

Pascal’s Wager replaces free-range roaming with small, self-contained areas. This is a blessing as navigating your way around the levels can become frustrating. The game requires quite a bit of backtracking and with no detailed map or compass, and few landmarks or signposts, travel can become confusing. The latest version includes a jar of ten jellyfish, which can be used to leave waypoints. Even so, a map of your immediate surroundings would really cut down on the frustration, especially since visiting shrines to restore health and save progress also causes defeated enemies to respawn.

There is a lot to admire in Pascal’s Wager, it offers 20 hours of challenging gameplay without resorting to in-app purchases. It shows ambition and scope and although it could be accused of borrowing too much from Dark Souls, it has at least captured the tone and core gameplay of its muse. I just wonder if there is really a market for this type of game on mobile devices. The game pretty much demands that you play with a controller, not the ideal set-up for playing on the bus. Even if you are going to play at home, the chances are that you already have a console where such games feel much more at home.

An Android version is due Q2 2020.

Pascal's Wager Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Hey team,

Hoping that everyone is doing well and are having a great time making or playing games! This is part 2 of my mini blog series on Gaming Details, the aim for this mini-series is to get us as developers to think about how we turn these dull ‘non-game’ moments and make them serve the bigger picture. Make them enhance your game’s vision. For part 1 click here

In the previous part we talked about:

Loading Screens

Opening menus

Save points

In the second part we are going to discuss:

Experience /Levelling Up System

Control Layout

So let’s waste no time and jump into it.

Experience/Levelling Up

I originally had not planned to do a section on experience yet, while playing Final Fantasy XV I discovered another super smart mechanic used by the developers’ @SquareEnix now it is simple, yet it is an intelligent take on the leveling system.

Like all RPGs you earn xp through quests, kills, exploration, etc (standard stuff) but the setting of the game (which is important for this awesomeness) is that you and your friends are on a road trip, so you have to camp under the stars or find a place to stay the night. Now it is how they merged this theme with the gameplay that makes this so special!

[embedded content]

When players gain this xp it does not automatically go to the player, even if the player has enough xp to level up. It stores it away, to get that xp which is stored, they must camp!

Think about that for a second……….. Okay got it? So now it’s not this lame feature which is just there for storytelling, it has a purpose and makes players want…..Nay, need to camp.

I loved this and was blown away by it. Because now there are strategies to gaining xp. Because players can camp under the stars and gain no level up bonus multiplier, or they can pay in-game currency to stay at a hotel to get an xp multiplier of 1.1/1.5/2.0.

So like what I did a couple of times is just hoarded my xp until I had something like 30k and then stayed at a hotel to double my xp to 60k.

There are multiple videos on how to gain X xp:

[embedded content]There is still grinding in the game to gain this experience but they brought a new strategy element for players to think about when leveling.

Remember don’t just give something a story context, give it mechanical context to, because when they combine it is one of the most powerful tools out there).

Another game which handles leveling up in a risk-reward system is Bloodborne.

The developers’ @fromSoftware are renowned for their challenging design philosophy and letting go of the player’s hand. (I have not played much of the Souls games and believe they also use a similar system as Bloodborne. I have played Bloodborne so I feel qualified to talk about this, so if Dark Souls does use a similar system please let me know)

Instead of gaining xp players gain Blood echoes from each kill (depending on the difficulty of the enemy will determine how many blood echoes players get from that monster).

Now it is what you as a player can do with these echoes which makes players choice so strong, as these blood echoes are used as in-game currency to purchase items or to level up the player's character. Now players have to make a tough choice, do they purchase items such as bullets which they no will come in handy to help them short term work their way through this level or to level up which in the long term will be more useful.

Now you may be thinking, man this is already a tough choice, I am unsure what I would do if I was a player, well wait there is more! And it does not make life easier.

As mentioned earlier, you collect these blood echoes from killing enemies. Then you go to this vendor aka The Doll who cannot be found just anywhere in the game, she is only in one area called Hunters Dream which players can only teleport to once they are at/discovered a lantern:

Again another choice to the player, do they go see The Doll and risk coming back to this area swarming with monsters which they have just killed. This is not even the most interesting part of their system!

It is what happens when players die that make the choice truly a tough one. So when a player dies once, the player loses their Blood Echoes do not fret, all is not lost. On your first death players can travel to where they last died and collect their Blood Echoes but if they die a second time then those echoes are gone for good! So now here comes the ultimate risk-reward choice, when the player arrives at a lantern do they go see The Doll with the Blood Echoes they have or do they risk going further to kill more enemies to get more Blood Echoes but the risk of losing them due to death increases.

A brilliant risk, reward system here which has lead to some brilliant rage quit moments on Youtube. Overall it has given the player the choice to make which leads to a more engaging experience, this sync up with their challenging philosophy.

Those are two example of how developers are mixing up the leveling system and how it enhances their game for a gameplay mechanic and even gets player thinking about how they level, which is a fantastic game loop within itself.

Controller Layout

The controller layout is super important and is part of what many devs refer to as a part of the Three C’s. A lot of time will be put in this, into the feeling of the controls, how intuitive it is, is it too stressful, easy to read and feedback (with the lightbars in PS4 controllers and vibrations). Yet one of the things that we do not always see is controllers, being used to deliver emotion.

In my opinion, this can be done, after playing Brothers: Tales of two sons I was blown away by how I felt (near the end of the game) by pressing a certain button. Spoilers a head here is the controller layout for the game:

As you can see the left side of the controller is for the Big Brother ‘BB’ and the right side is for the Little Brother ‘LB’ which mean players have control over both brothers. So you progress through the game solving puzzles, each character having their own ‘special ability’. Big brother can lift heavier items, Little brother can squeeze through small cracks.

These are kind of standard things but again it is how it mixed these abilities and the controls together which is what makes the magic. So the little brother cannot swim, so players must bring the brothers close together and use the ‘Left Trigger’ as the BB to help the LB swim.

Big brother sadly dies, near the end of the game. So this is sad because we have lost a character but the game is not over, no now as the little brother makes his way home. Players are no longer using the left side of your controller, which represents the emptiness of loss that little brother is feeling. That we have all felt after a loss, we can no longer speak, or touch or lost ones.

Then the final hurdle stopping little brother from reaching home is a river, which has an extremely fast current, in a storm. So if you swim you can see LB struggling, but if you press BB trigger LB starts to swim with much more ease.

That there to me is very smart as if this button is LB trying to call out for help from BB despite him gone and remembering what he taught him during their adventure.

(Now this controller layout really achieved its goal of delivering an emotional impact however, these controls were tricky at first to get your head around. After completing the game and speaking to others I do not think players ever fully mastered these controls, they still made small slip ups to the very end. So if doing something like this, try to make the controls as easy to use as possible. Controls are how we interact with the games, a slight delay after pressing a button to trigger the movement of a character can cause frustration. Just something to keep in mind)

Thanks guys, this concludes Part 2 of Game Details series, I will keep bringing these out as I discover more details that I think we should all praise and learn from. I do not feel you need to do all of these to make a great game, as these have to fit your design needs and the game you are creating.

Hope you have found this useful, if you want to send me examples of awesome details or just see what I am up to then you can:

Twitter: @MaxPears

Instagram: @Max.Pears

Sincerely

Max

#IFTTT #Blogger

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killscreencinema · 5 years

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Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)

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Xenoblade Chronicles X, released by Monolith Soft “X”-clusively for the Wii U in 2015, takes place on an alien planet named Mira, where the last remnants of humanity have crash landed after Earth was decimated by a mysterious alien force known as the Ganglion. The human survivors live on in the form of “mimeosomes”, which are enhanced cyberorganic duplicates, which are being controlled remotely by their real bodies while in stasis in a massive vault known as the Lifehold.

You play as a freshly revived from stasis new recruit in an organization known as BLADE, whose mission statement, besides gathering resources and fending off hostile creatures for the residents of the fledgling city of New Los Angeles, is to find the Lifehold, which was lost during the crash landing, before it runs out of power, killing the rest of humankind in the process. The only problems is that BLADE is in a race to find the Lifehold against their old pals, the Ganglion, who are committed to finishing the extermination they started.

I normally don’t go into so much detail about a video game story, but goddamn if this one didn’t capture my imagination like no other video game in awhile, especially a J-RPG, with all of their tired tropes. In fact, while I greatly enjoyed the first game, Xenoblade Chronicles, I found the story to be disappointingly banal, especially from a studio like Monolith, who are known for complex plots since the days of ye olde PlayStation with Xenogears (when the creative team was working under Squaresoft). I love the idea of humans rebuilding civilization, with their main hub of New Los Angeles having the familiar California architecture juxtaposed against a strange, alien landscape. I love the idea of these people being trapped in cyber-organic bodies, which if killed, would merely trap their consciousness back in their real bodies in stasis. What a mind trip it would be for someone close to you to die, but if you’re able to find where their real body is tucked away, you might have a chance to bring them back for realsies! To the game’s credit, it deeply explores both the negative and positive psychological implications of such an existence, albeit in a melodramatic fashion one comes to expect from most anime (which J-RPGs are basically offshoots of). The characters are all well-rounded, with Elma, your commanding officer and all around badass bitch, being my favorite. I even love what Elma says whenever she levels up:

“Strength comes from experience. That’s true on any planet.”

Meanwhile, whenever my character leveled up she’d exclaim “MY GROWTH SPURT!!!” Which is... weird. I guess it’s better than your 13-year-old teammate, Lin, yelling that.

You’re well-advised to spend most of your time with Elma and Lin, getting them nice and strong. You can also choose fourth party member from a variety of characters you meet along the way. The longer you spend time with your team completing missions, the more your affinity grows with them. One you reach a certain affinity level, it opens a personal side-quest with each respective character, which are worth doing not only to further dive into the story, but for the “fortune and glory, kid, fortune and glory”, as Indiana Jones would say.

While I can’t say enough things about the story, the gameplay is just as solid and immersive. It plays basically just like its spiritual predecessor, for it should be noted at this point that gameplay is the only thing is has in common with the first game as it does not continue the story. It’s almost like how Mega Man X *kinda* continues the story of the original Mega Man series, but with a darker, more sci-fi tone. Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2 are pure fantasy (with a lil bit of sci-fi), while Xenoblade Chronicles X is sci-fi fantasy all the way. It’s pretty much the J-RPG version of Mass Effect, but without all the sex.

The battle system is in real-time, with your various special moves set up in slots. You can unleash them at will, or wait for your comrades to request a specific move, which is optimal as it is one of very few ways to heal your party. Plus, those special attacks have to recharge, so you don’t want to be stuck with no specials while your party’s HP is in the red, and one of them is begging for a heal. Aw~kward! I do like how streamlined it feels as opposed to the kind of turn-based fighting I’m used to in J-RPGs, although it’s always stressful not being able to control the three other party members beyond issuing generic squad orders like “Concentrate your fire” or “assemble with me” or “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE” before running from danger like King Arthur and his knights running from that bunny in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

You’ll be using that order a lot by the way as, similarly to the first game, low level enemies cohabit alongside extremely high level enemies all over the world maps. While most of the time the super strong monsters will ignore your existence, unless you pick a fight or bump into them, others might not have such a chill disposition and will prefer to trample you instead. Running into an area populated by high-level enemies can feel a lot like when you accidentally wander into a dangerous neighborhood. There’s nothing like looking for a rare item in a cave only to realize it’s full of enemies twice your level, so you carefully back away like the Homer Simpson meme:

You might think I’m complaining, but I actually really enjoyed this in both games, as it really makes it feel like a truly open world and having to tread softly or risk sudden annihilation from a level 80 tyrant you didn’t know was there makes it feel more like an adventure. That being said... it can also be incredibly infuriating when you’re flying around in your mech suit, which are called “Skells” in this game, and you innocently bump into a powerful bad guy only for him to promptly blow up your Skells, leaving you with a salvage cost in the MILLIONS. Yep, that’s when you normally “save scum” by loading up a previous save, but damned if they didn’t make it a pain in the ass what with the obscene loading times and all the fucking menu screens you have to press A through. While it’s true that players who are savvy about planting mining beacons in the most optimal way to earn money will have more credits than they know how to spend, you will trash your Skells a lot, and that shit adds up, especially when you’re trying to save for more powerful Skells or expensive equipment.

By the way, I don’t want to understate how fucking cool it is that you get a giant mech robot to ride in halfway through the game. I was already onboard with Xenoblade Chronicle X before that happened, so adding a giant mech robot to the mix is like discovering for the first time how freaking delicious Fritos are in chili. Like... I love chili, but I had not idea it could be improved THIS much with Fritos! And just as the initial buzz of getting a Skell starts to wear off, YOU GET A FLIGHT MODULE THAT ALLOWS YOU TO FLY ALL OVER THE MAP WITH IMPUNITY! Hey, you like chili and Fritos? Howz about a blow job too? I mean, you’ll have to listen to an irritatingly catchy J-pop song while you’re getting the blow job, but still awesome!

Which finally brings us to the music. Holy shit. The music is composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, who did the music for the anime series Attack on Titan. There are lots of great tracks for the game... well except for both the day and night themes for NLA, which will get stuck in your head so much you’ll scream into your pillow while trying to sleep at night (meanwhile in your brain you keep hearing, “Uh, yeah, uh, yeah, oh oh oh”). Even the worst track is forgivable if only because the main theme to game, innocously titled “Theme X”, is one of the most goddamn beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard in a game in years. Listen and let the goosebumps wash over you:

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It’s obvious I love the game, but there are negatives too. For one, I didn’t finish the game, because HOLY HELL are the final bosses difficult. Firstly, any hope that you have of beating them is with your Skells, so should they get wrecked somewhere along the way, there’s no way to bring them back, so you’re SOLAMWF (or “Shit out luck and mighty well fucked” as George Carlin coined). If you saved before the fight, your heard was in the right place, but guess what? You’re fucking trapped. You can’t leave to buy a stronger Skell or level grind. It’s a goddamn dead end, emphasis on the word “dead”. Fortunately, being a seasoned RPG player, when Elma asked me not only once, but TWICE, if I was ABSOLUTELY sure I’m ready to enter the Lifehold, I got the subtext and didn’t save once inside. However, stupidly, I did save after accepting the final mission, which effectively locks out the affinity missions, which can be much less redundant way to level grind than doing the “Basic Missions” (which consists of tasks like fetch quests and monster bounties). I tried like hell to grind to level 50 and save up enough credits to buy a level 50 Skell (which were the minimum recommendations for evening the odds against the boss), but I still couldn’t beat him.

So out of frustration and boredom, I rage quit the game and moved on to something that will hopefully be a lot less strenuous... Bloodborne (wah-waaaaaah). I like Xenoblade enough that I’ll return to it and continue grinding away until I eventually beat it.

So yeah... Xenoblade Chronicles X is pretty fucking great. I would cautiously nominate it as the best RPG you’ll play on the Wii U (below Breath of the Wild of course).

#xenoblade chronicles x #Monolith Soft #jrpg #wiiu #nintendo #rpg #role playing games #scifi #skells #video games #xeno #anime

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invokingbees · 4 years

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Top Games of the Decade

IT ME FAVOURITE GAMES OF THE LAST DECADE!!!!! OH SHIT!!!!!

Entirely predictable but here you go:

2010 - Demon's Souls

Fuck you! Came out in PAL territories, aka, me, in 2010, so it counts. I played the Souls series ass backwards, and played Demon's nearly last, but I completely and utterly fell in love with it. I've babbled like a fool about it before, but it boils down to its powerful atmosphere of horror and strange hostility, as well as its gameplay which holds up so well, it's still fluid and satisfying, the soundtrack is unique, its mechanics are baffling and weird and I just really, really honestly love it to bits. And you can get back online again with the fan server! Or emulate it if you have a powerbeast of a PC, but no online.

2011 - Dark Souls

I mean, I guess, I've played it four or five times now. It's actually my least favourite of the Souls games for gameplay, it's a step back from Demon's in terms of general movement and combat, but it can't be denied that its lore is so powerful. It sets up a fascinating mythological world of pseudo-materialist fantasy, it's full of implication and possibilities, full of holes and shit that makes no sense and we love it, it's perfect. It's enthralling. I might not enjoy actually playing it but I could talk about it for hours.

2012 - Dishonored

I was never one for stealth games, because I'm shit at them. But for some reason I checked this out and I'm REALLY glad I did. I found the gameplay really fun, the powers are super fun and the levels are great to explore. Also, time stop. But what I came out of the game with was a fascinating setting with a weird Victorian/Dieselpunk setting that goes HARD cosmic horror, but really subtly. Dishonored's world is incredibly well structured, the story of Corvo's revenge against the assassin who killed his girlfriend THE EMPRESS and kidnapped his daughter THE HEIR TO THE THRONE takes precedence, but throughout it all is a looming sense of a cold, hostile universe of weird alien horror. There's the ever-present implication that killing off the whales will make something horrible happen. There's the occult nature of the nameless Outsider and the people who worship it and try to contact it. There's a supercontinent across a monstrous ocean filled with who knows what horrible shit. The setting is so full of flavour and I love exploring it every playthrough.

2013 - Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen & MGR: Revengeance

This poor, poor fucking game. Gutted in production, whittled down, concepts stripped away, areas ripped out. The game isn't even half as big as it was in early production. And yet it is STILL amazing. A grand fantasy adventure with a rich, classic, mythological feel to it, with a fairly unique metaphysical component behind it all. Dragon's Dogma is the story of you, a no-name fucko whose comfy little village gets attacked by the best dragon in all of media, you're the only madman with the sheer balls to attack it, get slapped away, and then get your heart stolen and turned into a semi-immortal Arisen, who is goaded to go fight that fucking dragon. But there is a LOT going on behind the scenes, both in the Duchy of Gransys and the very universe. Dragon's Dogma is like the best loveletter to medieval European fantasy I've ever seen, its monsters have a gnarly medieval manuscript look to them, ripped right out of Classical mythology, folklore and traditional fantasy. There's court intrigue, dark secrets, much talk of destiny and epic quests. Everything about Dragon's Dogma is just pulsating with ADVENTURE. You get up to three other companions, your Pawns, inter-dimensional pseudo-humans whom only the Arisen can command. That's where it starts getting weird, the game has a whole theme about the power of will, cosmic cycles and shit. And that's not even mentioning the SICK FUCKING COMBAT. Directed by Hideaki Itsuno, he of Devil May Cry fame, the game has robust and really powerfully satisfying combat, even a DMC Stinger. You can climb on monsters to attack weak points, glide on harpies, your pawns mimic your strategies like re-lighting extinguished lanterns - there's so many little details you can discover for yourself in exploration and combat. Of course, the game also has the most visually impressive and satisfying magic of any videogame. You haven't felt powerful until you've played a Dragon's Dogma Sorcerer, calling down meteors, summoning spires of ice, point blank sniping drakes out of the fucking AIR, or piggy-backing on your Sorcrer pawn's in-progress spell to suddenly unleash a massive torrent of DAMAGE. Gransys is also a beautiful place to explore, and the main hub, Gran Soren, feels like a proper huge town, as well. The game has quirks, mainly in its slightly weird levelling system, as well as the delightful pawn chatter that reminds you at every turn how wolves hunt, or what goblins are weak to. But then there's Dark Arisen, a tragic tale set in a pocket dimension or possible 'outside' realm, pitting you against the rage of a former Arisen who spurned the cycle, a massive hard as shit megadungeon full of really great stuff. I just cannot recommend it enough, and it's on just about literally every fucking platform.

I have never played a Metal Gear game before. I'm a shitter and they're kind of hard to track down where I am. Just how it is. I'm also massively intimidated by them. But then I watched Super Best Friends (RIP) play this fucking nonsense and I knew I had to feel it for myself. What is there to say? It's fun, it's goofy, it's played totally straight and quite serious at times, it's an absolute meme engine, it's so full of character and flavour, it is undistilled HYPE jammed into a disc by divine spirits and doled out to humanity. I'm not a character action man, never been good at DMC games, and I will never be good at them, or this, but by GOD do I have fun whenever I play it. Zandatsu is just the shit, forever, every song is GREAT, the game so expertly drives and controls moments of exciement and tension, it's like a big blockbuster movie that actually cares and has something complex at the core of it. Yeah there's like political and cultural concepts and musings and that's great, but I'm an idiot who wants to cut things with my sword. Everything and everyone is charismatic, and most importantly, totally earnest. It never really winks at you or says 'hurr we're sooo cuh-razy amirite', it just does its thing and nothing ever feels out of place. We can be talking about destabilizing impoverished nations with corporation-led private armies one moment and chuckling at MEMES DNA OF THE SOUL the next and it feels fucking normal. I'm rambling but I just really love Revengeance and I have no idea how to handle it. What an entry point into such a convoluted series.

2014 - Dark Souls II

Ah yes, the black sheep of the family, the only one not directed (but kinda overseen) by Miyazaki, with a notoriously troubled production whose director was fired halfway through and replaced, then the game kind of scrambled together. But, like Dragon's Dogma, it kind of worked out well. DaS2 is recognizably Dark Souls. But what I like most about it is, like a lot games I love, the story, the world, the feeling. Dark Souls 1 and 3 are grand, they're about cycles and fates and illusions, but DaS2 has a really personal angle. You came to Drangleic to free yourself of the curse. You're not a Chosen Undead or anything, you're someone that by their own hand, went out to cure themselves of the undead curse. You got there, and found the kingdom in shambles, the king gone, something horrible having happened. So you find out that he probably has the answer, and you go track him down, only slightly unwittingly following in his own footsteps, doing what he did. Before you know it, you're fit to become the next monarch. And when you finally do find the king, hollowed and mindless, well you best pick up the pieces and do this monarch thing. And you do it...maybe. You take the throne, the most powerful being in the world. It's up to you what happens next. Or maybe you don't, and leave to find another way out of the curse. I love the feel of Drangleic, it feels wartorn, I love the details put into making you feel like you're traversing an old battlefield with the hollowed out soldiers still following their last orders, their last memories. The Giants, as characters, are fascinating, however little we get of them. Revealed to not be monsters, but a people King Vendrick attacked and stole something from, who struck back in violent retalation for a horrible wrongdoing. Dark Souls 2 is just far enough removed from Dark Souls 1 that it could be its own things that brings over a few core ideas. I would have liked to see that happen in Dark Souls 3, but alas. My love of Dark Souls 2 is almost all lore, world, flavour. Its gameplay is actually fine, I think, a lot of people think its bad but I think DaS1 combat is pretty bad. The game has issues, like the doubling down on difficulty but not really getting it well, but for all the problems it has, it does a ton of things very well. It introduced some great ideas we never saw again, like bonfire ascetics, powerstancing, a changed up NG+, full left-hand movesets, and so on.

2015 - Bloodborne

You don't even know, you can't even comprehend, I doubt you could even imagine my love for this thing. It was my first 'Souls' game (although I think it's different enough it shouldn't be lumped under that banner) and it is, to this day, and forever shall be, my favourite. It is, in my opinion, THE best piece of modern Lovecraftian media out there. Period. It handles everything just so right, despite being an action game, it never betrays what makes Lovecraftian, and wider cosmic horror work. I could go on a very, very long time about all of this and one day I might. Bloodborne is just basically perfect, tonally, thematically, it's so rich and weird and intricate and it is, all of it, balanced with masterful precision. Gameplay-wise, it's just so f u c k i n g o o d. Like, this here, this is the best it's ever been. DaS1 feels like glacial ass compared to this, awkward, stuttering, lacking in energy. DaS2 is fine, in fact I think it's the best speed for the Souls game, but man are like all of the movesets just really bizarre and unsatsifying. DaS3 is just turbomode seizure-souls with zero weight, and don't get me started on the bossfights. But Bloodborne? It is both fast and heavy, the ferocity of attacks has weight, everything hits with satisfaction, every weapon is tailor made to be unique and feel unique. The game is a labour of love made with tech more than capable of realizing it, and it shows. There's nary a thing in the game that doesn't feel polished, that doesn't feel out of place. We know from datamining Bloodborne got switched around and whittled down a lot, but these were clearly necessary changes by a director honing a concept into perfection. And just as a weird cosmic horror gothic action game, it's so strange in just general existence it deserves to stand out and be praised. And although shitters and fools will bandie around the word edgy, they're tasteless jackasses with no ounce of aesthetic nuance.

2016 - Dark Souls III and Far Cry: Primal

CAVEMAN SHIT IS COOL AND WE REALLY DON'T GET ENOUGH OF IT. Never played a Far Cry game apart from this one, never plan to! I just like me unga bungas! What can I say, the land of Oros is gorgeous, the light, the trees, the mountains, the marshes, the animal sounds and deep rumble of caves, the proto Indo-European language crafted especially for the game, it's a place I just like walking around. It's supremely comfy and dangerous and exciting. Gameplay is a complete template sure, regardless of having never touched another Far Cry game I can feel that, but it sure as shit works.

Dark Souls 3 is a very complex game, because while it's a total smorgasbord of top tier dark fantasy aesthetics, none of it really comes together very well, it's a game oozing with creativity, but also feels like a haphazard mishmash. It's a game Miyazaki didn't really want to make, but had to, after the reception of DaS2. But for all that it's just Bloodborne Souls, it's still a fantastic game full of memorable enemies, areas, bosses, a game with a really unique general tone of exhaustion in every little detail, of a world falling apart at the seams. And you don't save it, either. The good end of Dark Souls 3 is the end of fire, but it doesn't really accomplish anything other than letting nature take its long diverted course. The DLCs don't fix that either, everything ends up in the Dreg Heap, all of 'human enterprise' for naught, but there's a smidgen of hope in the new painted world whose pigment is Dark. As you can tell I like DaS3 far more for its atmosphere and flavour rather than its story (which actually makes no sense whatsoever and is the worst in the series due to being literally incomprehensible and unfinished) or gameplay, which is perfectly fine and fun at many points, but the bossfights mostly boil down to flailing around like a fucking lunatic with 15 hit combos. There's concepts like the Deep which are so fundamentally important to major players but vague and with little to no elaboration. I literally couldn't tell you what Pontiff Sulyvahn was about, and he's supposed to be the main villain? DaS3 suffered its internal change arounds in a way that it came out weaker, with many other concepts dashed aside. But that doesn't stop it all from being fascinating and being a nicely definitive, if massively obscure, ending to a landmark series. When your game ends at the literal end of all time, you're done. Good night.

2017 - 2019 fucking nothing I guess

Yeah not even joking here, gaming more or less ended in 2016 for me. Yes I've played games since then but nothing's left an impact for me the ways the others have, and I played all those past their prime. All but two of my favourites were Japanese games, too.

Honourable Mentions:

The Elder Scrolls Skyrim

Gotta mention it. Dumped literal years into this fucking thing. And that was on Xbox 360 with no mods! But it proved far too shallow in the end, and even with the Special Edition that allowed mods on consoles, it's just not good enough. Frankly, Dark Souls has ruined videogames for me and I pray Bethesda pull up the slack with TES6 and reintroduce the flavour that makes TES what it is, and gives us more than serviceable combat. But as for Skyrim, it's fucking boring and shallow, story is rail-roady as fuck, combat is just terrible aside from some magick, although Shouts will be forever iconic, and will be one the more fun and interesting videogame powers for me.

Death Stranding

I got to this a little late, and had I played it earlier and completed it, it would likely be 2019's best game for me. As I'm still barely into it, I can't say much more than its mechanics are fantastically fresh, no game has made just walking around so enthralling and the world is compelling and bizarre. Every BT encounter is tense and boy are they fuckin spooky. I'm dying to know where it'll go next.

God of War

I'm a fan of the old GoW games because they're really fun and super over the top. GoW2 is one of my favourite games, it's incredibly well made, great environments and combat and bosses. It's a big ol' blockbuster. Dad of Boy is a very different beast. Scaled way, way down, and given the Sony Cinematic treatment, though not necessarily to its detriment. The game has problems. I mean, yeah, Kratos snapping Baldr's neck and saying 'violence is bad' is kind of fucking stupid, but I guess I get what they were going for. Gameplay-wise, pretty good. The axe is satisfying, though the Blades of Chaos are more so, and actual hits do feel nice and heavy, though I bemoan the lack of blood. What's most suprising is how it felt like a God of War game just from a different angle, the exploration and puzzles were familiar in feel. In fact I have a lot of praise for the game in its characters and gameplay, even its story. But I'll probably never play it again. Once completed I felt absolutely no want to go back again, despite the NG+ introduction. I hope they follow it up.

Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order

I was very unsure about this but something took a hold of me and one trade in of Skyrim later, I was home playing Star Wars. And oh look, it's the best piece of Star Wars media since the buyout! Mandalorian aside, but there's very little that feels 'Star Wars' about that other than the paintjob. Anyway. Fallen Order takes place somewhere between episodes 3 and 4 in a newly risen Empire before Luke and all that shit happens. Ex-Padawan Cal Kestis is hiding out on some junkyard scrapper world and has to run when he saves a buddy with the Force. He teams up with an ex-Jedi, a space goblin, the best droid buddy ever and eventually a goth alien to find a Jedi Holocron containing info on young Force-sensitives throughout the galaxy before the Empire gets it. It has a wonderful sense of adventure to it, and that really holds it together. I actually think it feels like a remaster of an older gen game, to be honest, especially the platforming which just feels far too videogamey, but that doesn't stop it from being fun. The combat is almost ripped right out of Sekiro but I like this waaaaay more than Sekiro. Effortlessly deflecting blaster shots back at Stormtroopers and taking out whole groups is the good shit. Fighting melee guys is challening but never oppresively so, and bossfights against Inquisitors are fairly gruelling but rewarding. If you're a shitter with no reaction times like me, you can switch that up almost on the fly so you don't end up feeling like every encounter is a chore. Best of all is the lightsaber customization, a necessity for any Jedi-centric Star Wars game and now you can even remove Cere Junda's ligthsaber switch with the latest update! But you know what? Unless they release DLC, like God of War, I don't know if I'll ever play it again.

Ziggurat

Combining wizards, Quake and rogue-likes, Ziggurat has you playing a wizard shooting your way through a trial to be accepted into an order of magicians. That's it. You get your wand and can pick up a rapid fire staff weapon, mid-range spell weapon and slow but powerful alchemy weapon. There's a bunch of different ones for each type, some better or more satisfying than others. There's talismans that can grant special abilities but with long recharge times. Most importantly there's the level up system where you must choose one or two random perks each time. This is where the variety and replay value comes in, making the most of perks you get and potentially building absolute beasts of characters over five levels. Games are short but sweet. You unlock different characters too, based on things achieved in-game. Each character starts with a number of perks and some have unique handicaps like low starting health or levelling up slower. Honestly, not much to say other than I really enjoy it, it's super fun to pick up for half an hour and play.

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symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

Hey team,

In the previous part we talked about:

Loading Screens

Opening menus

Save points

In the second part we are going to discuss:

Experience /Levelling Up System

Control Layout

So let’s waste no time and jump into it.

Experience/Levelling Up

[embedded content]

When players gain this xp it does not automatically go to the player, even if the player has enough xp to level up. It stores it away, to get that xp which is stored, they must camp!

Think about that for a second……….. Okay got it? So now it’s not this lame feature which is just there for storytelling, it has a purpose and makes players want…..Nay, need to camp.

So like what I did a couple of times is just hoarded my xp until I had something like 30k and then stayed at a hotel to double my xp to 60k.

There are multiple videos on how to gain X xp:

[embedded content]There is still grinding in the game to gain this experience but they brought a new strategy element for players to think about when leveling.

Remember don’t just give something a story context, give it mechanical context to, because when they combine it is one of the most powerful tools out there).

Another game which handles leveling up in a risk-reward system is Bloodborne.

Instead of gaining xp players gain Blood echoes from each kill (depending on the difficulty of the enemy will determine how many blood echoes players get from that monster).

Now you may be thinking, man this is already a tough choice, I am unsure what I would do if I was a player, well wait there is more! And it does not make life easier.

Controller Layout

That there to me is very smart as if this button is LB trying to call out for help from BB despite him gone and remembering what he taught him during their adventure.

Hope you have found this useful, if you want to send me examples of awesome details or just see what I am up to then you can:

Twitter: @MaxPears

Instagram: @Max.Pears

Sincerely

Max

#IFTTT #Blogger

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