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vikas7890 · 5 months

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The Best Deals on PC Games in Steam Autumn Sale 2023

The 2023 Steam Autumn Sale is now live, bringing new and returning deals on PC games. The event is live for a week, running until November 28 at 10:30pm IST, slashing prices by up to 85 percent on select titles. Blizzard’s Diablo IV, which recently came to Valve’s storefront, has gotten a 40 percent discount — Rs. 3,359 — tossing you into the hellish landscape of the Sanctuary to battle…

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datcloudboi · 4 months

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List of Video Games Turning 10 Years Old in 2024

Alien: Isolation

Assassin's Creed: Rogue (the one where you play as an Assassin turned Templar.)

Assassin's Creed: Unity (the one set during the French Revolution.)

Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky

Azure Striker Gunvolt

The Banner Saga

Bayonetta 2

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea (the DLC where you go back to Rapture)

A Bird Story (a sort of spin-off of "To the Moon")

BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! (is this a sequel to 1 or a prequel to 1? I forgor)

Bravely Default (in North America)

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (the one with K*vin Sp*cey)

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (to date, the last new Castlevania game to release)

Child of Light

The Crew (going offline at the end of March)

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die (a wonderfully strange game from the guy that made Deadly Premonition)

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (in North America)

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (in North America)

Dark Souls II

Deception IV: Blood Ties

Demon Gaze

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

Disney Infinity 2.0

Divinity: Original Sin (from the team that would go on to make Baldur's Gate 3)

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Dragon Age: Inquisition (the winner of GOTY at the very first TGAs)

Drakengard 3

Earth Defense Force 2025 (EDF! EDF! EDF!)

The Evil Within (from the creative director of Resident Evil)

Fable Anniversary

Fairy Fencer F

Far Cry 4

Freedom Planet

Guilty Gear Xrd Sign

Hyrule Warriors

Inazuma Eleven (in North America. And digital only.)

Infamous: Second Son (as well as its expansion, First Light)

Kirby: Triple Deluxe

The Last of Us Remastered (just one year after the original version came out...)

The Legend of Korra (the game from PlatinumGames that you can't buy anymore)

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

Lego The Hobbit

The Lego Movie Videogame

Lethal League (from the team that would go on to make Bomb Rush Cyberfunk)

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (the third and final chapter of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy)

Lisa: The Painful (yes, really)

LittleBigPlanet 3

Lords of the Fallen (not to be confused with Lords of the Fallen, which came out in 2023)

Mario Golf: World Tour

Mario Kart 8 (the original version)

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes (the prologue to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which came out 18 months later)

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Might & Magic X: Legacy

Murdered: Soul Suspect (it's like Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, but not as good)

Natural Doctrine

Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! (a from the ground up remake of the first Oddworld game from 1997)

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 (yes, it got a sequel. I don't know how or why.)

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

Pokemon Omega Ruby & Pokemon Alpha Sapphire

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy (the last time that Professor Layton himself was the protagonist. At least, until the New World of Steam comes out)

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Pushmo World

Risen 3: Titan Lords

Sacred 3

Samurai Warriors 4

Shadowrun: Dragonfall

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (the 3rd one)

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments

Shovel Knight (yes, really)

Skylanders: Trap Team (the 4th one)

Sniper Elite III

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Steins;Gate (in North America)

Strider (the one from Double Helix)

Sunset Overdrive

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS (or Smash 4 for short)

Tales of Xillia 2

Tales of Hearts R

The Talos Principle

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call

Thief (the reboot)

This War of Mine

Toukiden: The Age of Demons

Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark (this game merged the storyline of the War for/Fall of Cybertron games with the storyline of the Michael Bay movies. I’m not joking)

Transistor

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

The Walking Dead: Season Two

Wasteland 2

Watch Dogs

The Witch and the Hundred Knight

The Wolf Among Us (sequel this year!)

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z

Yoshi's New Island

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jacqcrisis · 4 months

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The worst travesty Blizzard has done to their games is in the re-release of Diablo 2, they stole my main man Baal's camp. They put that bitch through conversion therapy. They took the cunt he was serving and threw it into the garbo.

If you haven't, watch the original act V cutscene for Diablo 2. It's four minutes long and contains the best villain intro ever. Baal is full of a sass. An old queen who is having so much fun on his march to ruin literally everything.

Baal tells gate grandpa he'll consider his proposal and with a fruity little motion, he pretends to do just that, lips pursed in a mockery of deep thought as he's surrounded by his buff demon army. And then, with a glee, he turns that grandpa into several pounds of dry aged rib roast. After which, he does that gay little finger waggle, delivering a taunt to the audience to come get him before he wriggles his spider legs in delight as he evilly laughs like the prissy little bitch he is.

He's perfect. He's camp. He was my crush for a solid year when I was 10 and I still love him now.

The remaster has the same voices, but the team saw Baal and his little smirk and said no. No we can't have that much queer in 4k. They Disney remaked my favorite villain and it's a crime frankly.

#diablo #diablo 2 #i love baal so much #hes a bitch and hes perfect

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thevikingwoman · 7 months

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Top Ten Video games

thanks @keturagh for the tag!

as this list shows - I'm not young, and I started out with PC gaming, where truly my love for gaming was built. It was hard to pick 10 games - for being a "gamer" I don't actually play a lot of games, and there's only a few games that really stick out as truly noteworthy over time to me. Criteria is muddled - games that are great, games that are fun, games that defined a moment for me. Yes, there's a certain amount of nostalgia too here. I've by internal logic excluded text-based IFs from considerations.

Tagging @myreia @galadrieljones @galadae @roguelioness @redinkofshame @lilas @coldshrugs @allaganexarch @a-shakespearean-in-paris if you want! And anyone else! tag me!

Civilization

I refuse to pick one, but I'll probably go with IV if I had to, just because of the music and I think it's where they introduced cultural victory. Civilization was the first video game I brought with my own money, and yes that's an old pic of all the boxes (I don't have the Civ I box 😭but I still have the disks and manual). I also have Civ VI, but no new pic. Civilization is genre defining, a PC gaming defining game - there is no other game like it.

2. Diablo II

I played so much Diablo II - it was such a fun game full of fun gameplay. It was also the first game I truly played online - meeting new and wonderful friends and got embroiled on online drama! Diablo II was just sheer fun, from the builds to the loot to the secret cow level. The cut scenes were phenomenal, the one above is still one of my favorites of all time - the shattering of the world stone. Tyrael was possible my first video game crush, yeah just the wings and voice, don't @ me

3. Warcraft III

I played so much Warcraft III. The gameplay was fantastic, just a great RTS. It had humor, but also possibly the most heartwrecking storyline I've played - the fact you get to play out Arthas decent into evil was a stroke of gameplay and storytelling genious. Coupled with this era of Blizzard's cinematic department, the hands down best cut scene ever. This remains a top game for me.

4. Mass Effect

What can I say? Mass Effect is fun to play, has a pretty great and well written story - it's one of a kind to be honest. I don't do shooters, but I do do Mass Effect.

5. Pharaoh

I love city building and this was the best one. IS the best one, as this is remastered on steam. I'm currently playing this, and this is from the other night. I love this! pyramids! logistics! production! bright colors!

6. Dragon Age Inquistion

would be weird if I didn't include this one, right? I love the game and I love all the stuff that lives in my brain because of it. Also I do think the combat is fun? I think mechanics and environment wise it's also the best of Dragon Age.

7. Assassin's Creed Odyssey

I had a hard time picking between II (best boy Ezio, Desmond), Origins (pyramids! BAYEK and AYA, the mature story!!) and Odyssey - in the end I think Odyssey won because of the feel of AC - assassin, the vast explorations, the many quests, and ofc yelling in DMs over lost love. Not to forget - clop, clop, clop, the fake minotaur quest.

8. Jedi: Fallen Order

Look, I don't like platformers or difficult combat, but story mode hit the spot, and the story was SO good. Cal Kestis is my son in my heart, the story and his character touched me.

9. World of Warcraft

well, the sheer amount of time and investment I put into this game count for something. At some point it seemed like half the world played it, for good reason. I don't think I can go back, but WoW was the first MMO I truly enjoyed, and I love the art style so much. and I got to turn into a demon for massive damage, and endlessly frustrate my healer. Infinite mana, baby, just heal me

10. Master of Orion II

another old 4x game, this just hit the spot somehow.

other contenders: Geometry War Retro Evolved, Tetris, the MasterMind game my dad coded himself and we had a vicious family competition for the leaderboard, Settlers III, Heros of Might and Magic (but I don't recall which version I loved the most), and Warlords (the original DOS game)

#about me #tag game #I love getting tagged!#long post #video games #and yes kids those are 5 3/4 inch floppy disks that actually flop

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i-drop-level-one-loot · 6 months

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Pssst hey poke poke wanna rant about Diablo II is it any good Iv been considering getting into the series

Absolutely!!!!!!!

Oh my fucking God, ok ok ok...

So. I love it.

Diablo II remastered is my favorite in the series, and I can't even verbalize how much of a fucking gremlin I become over this game, bro. Dude. Okay so. Hot takes, coming in, but the second one is my favorite in terms of art design, gameplay, and overall vibe. It's also a pain in my ass. But a good pain lol.

In terms of playability, something a lot of people complain about with older games is the lack of explanation for a lot of gameplay mechanics (not just Diablo, if you play older games you probably know what I'm talking about), so the first two games even remastered can feel sluggish, unnecessarily difficult, and confusing. Which are very valid criticisms, I don't side with gamers who complain about new games coddling their players however. Straight up, the horadric cube in D2 doesn't have an instruction manual. Bless the internet.

Diablo 1 and 2 have just an incredible atmosphere and artistic design. It's dark fantasy. The angels are sick as fuck. The cover art; o r g a s m i c. Like,

And for some people who didn't grow up playing Diablo II, the learning curve is really steep. But I enjoy it! I love starting new characters and then deleting them again because I found a better build. Experimenting without looking up guides for point allocation and gear.

This is the cover art for Diablo II: Resurrected.

This is how I want to feel going into my fights. This is my enemy. Sexy as hell. I would recommend this game, it's one of my all time favorites. The characters are connected through your battlenet account, so if you buy the game for your Xbox and for the Switch as I did, you play your same game. Which is probably a no brainer for people who played video games for a lot longer than me, but I didn't have a console until I was in my twenties.

If you ever get this game, and wanna cry when encountering the first boss, I will give you my ultimate guide to how this dumbass cheesed their way through the encounter without dying ❤️

Also, secret level, near the beginning of the game you go through a portal and you can pick up a dead guy's artificial leg. Keep it. Later, you can use it with the horadric cube to unlock the best fucking level of all goddamn time. 🐮

Now, the other games... Diablo III.

The gameplay was way too easy (for me at least). After the first boss the story gets better, but everything about the third game is super different.. It's art is super stylized. It feels cartoonish in the lineup. It isn't dark, even with the body horror and literal demons, because everything feels colorful. It's the anime inspired fantasy roleplay version of the grim dark heavy metal fantasy games. I liked the story, because I was so invested in Diablo II that I needed to experience what came next, and I don't regret playing it, it was fun, but it didn't have that replayability factor imo. That's just me though.

Before anyone complains, yes I played RoS and Death was sick as fuck, these are just my silly little opinions playing the games. But like, it just didn't frustrate me, or make me feel like I was in a life and death war. But, if you like power play fantasies, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, necromancer broken as fuck. Kept having to raise the difficulty while playing because I blasted through everything.

Before I go on, you know that trope where angels are dicks? Cuz these games are full of angels that are huge dicks. Best angel in the entire series is in the third game, he's the best character, I won't say his name because they act like it's supposed to be a surprise that he's an angel but ahshgsjsj..... I replay for him, and Diablo, but other than that it's only fun to play with someone who hasn't experienced it yet so I can vicariously feel their enjoyment. If that makes sense.

And my ultimate disappointment, Diablo IV.

The story is awesome. The cut scenes are cinematic. Lilith is superb. They went back to the same dark realistic atmosphere of pre D3.

I'm just really bitter about microtransaction hell, season passes in a game that just came out and was so pricey, and end game content that felt like a chore instead of a game.

It was super rewarding the first playthrough, don't get be wrong! The story was so fun, and the monsters were delightful bastards. They brought back the Butcher from part three, but unlike in D3, he was a huge asshole in D4, sunnova bitch lol

The game was so fun until we got to the end game and season of the malignant.. the developers keep arguing with the community whenever they bring up valid criticisms instead of addressing what's lacking. I wish the game wasn't so expensive, because I would recommend it if it was just a fun game..? I liked it, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the developers do something better with season passes or with future dlc expansions.

I hate real world currency in game shops and a lot of season passes. DLCs I understand. I like. But a season pass that's ridiculously expensive on top of an already pricey game that doesn't add enough new content for actual gameplay and instead makes you grind for a new horse skin? And grinding.

Ugh. I still really enjoyed it, but I can't in good conscience recommend it because the price makes me feel guilty. It's great, until you beat the game. It's open world, but the missions are limited, and the grind isn't rewarding. Again, crossing my fingers they make it more fun with future updates.

Such a bad bitch. Fucking love her. Mommy. The initial game is great. Just not for that price. Open world games should be playable forever, and that's what D4 promised, they just didn't deliver.

Sorry if this is a mess, I'm about to fall asleep ❤️ but yeah, I fucking love this series, even when I don't. The story and characters and the atmosphere when it's there.

#thank you so much for asking this!!#i love diablo ii #i fucking love video games #diablo 2 #diablo #diablo 3 #diablo 4 #lilith #cow level

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crabs-and-bongos · 7 months

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The Diablo 2 remaster fries my video card, I'm a little burnt out on Stardew Valley... Lord help me, I'm considering installing WoW just to go fishing...

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grimae · 9 months

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What/who, were your inspiration(s) that contributed to your art style? Any advice or techniques that you learned to help implement them to your art?

I've been searching for dark fantasy artists that have somewhat the same type of drawing style. I'm heavily inspired and would love to learn how to make my art have the same feeling to it.

Difficult question but I'll do my best to answer it as coherently as possible! First of all - massive inspiration for me is 80s and 90s fantasy, folklore, video games, music, the usual. I always jokingly said that my art style is the result of a person who has been sat in front of Diablo 2 at a way too young age but the game is still one of my biggest inspirations in art. Especially as time goes on I massively prefer those old school late 90s, early 00s graphics over any remaster. Beyond that, campy and colourful 80s fantasy in the vein of Ridley Scott's movie Legend is much more appealing to me than the next gritty and eternally grey HBO series. I'm also a big fan of Sergei Parajanov and his movies tho. As it stands with dark fantasy, I truly believe that while it's also often a core feature of it, it as a genre is not ultimately defined by gore, blood and mature topics, but rather a raw and unfiltered experienced that is not supposed to be palateable to a broad and corporate audience. In my experience, people writing and designing dark fantasy things for the market create the most shallow and boring content filtered through 50 layers of "what is cool and badass" instead of "what is unique and feels honest". This one goes more for writing but writing and drawing goes hand in hand for me - starting in the 2010s I feel like there's a belief that a story can only be mature if people say fuck often enough and if the setting is as grim and hopeless as possible, ultimately resulting in dishonest and shallow writing. You can see it in many things, such as Netflix' Castlevania, which carries over nothing of the games awkwardness that resonated more with me than any cool one-liner. When it comes to designs, give me Blasphemous' Altasgracias, a three-faced bearded and naked woman, over any badass Artstation dude bro design. I massively adore quirky and goofy aspects in darker settings. It took me very long to be interested in Dark Souls because I thought it's just going to be another throwaway epic fantasy game, as this is what people tried to get me into, until a friend told me about dumb stuff like Frampt dangling from the ceiling and Big Hat Logan, which clicked with me more than Cool Badass Boss Fight With Orchestra Number 24. I don't think I can help you much with techniques. I draw massively on intuition alone and describing why I do what I do is difficult. I can give you basic art advice in the vein of composition, lighting, yadayada, but why my style looks the way it does... dunno, I sieved it out of the dirt, then cooked it with all my interests until everything evaporated and this was left at the bottom of the pot. As for the music side of inspiration, I mostly listen to Black Metal, Neo-Folk and Trip Hop. Bands like Bethlehem, Kinit Her, Dead Can Dance, E-L-R, Portishead, Ulaan Passerine, Rope Sect are always on.

This post got long. Have some pictures under a read more, and thank you for the interest and the ask!

Diablo 2

Blasphemous

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors \ Тіні забутих предків by Sergei Parajanov

The Colour of Pomegranates by Sergei Parajanov

Album cover of Storm of Radiance - Kinit Her

#asmo labert #long post #ask #lovelorn-fatale #soak everything you love in like a sponge or glue that stuff on you like a scrapbook #keep true to yourself and your interests and don't try to sterilize things to make them more appealing #stay away from AI generated stuff

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ronqueesha · 11 months

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All of my friends are playing Diablo 4 right now, but I have no plans of buying it any time soon. I still remember all the issues Diablo 3 had at launch. Error 37. The real money auction house. Even my friends back then dividing themselves into little cliques and groups because only a few people could be in a game at the same time, so there was no room for... well me. That soured my entire opinion of the game for many years, and it wasn’t until I picked it up on switch that I actually put a lot of time into it.

I’m actually sitting here wondering if I should buy the Diablo 2 remaster and relive my childhood glory days of playing an assassin. Or maybe trying out the D2 necromancer after having a lot of fun with the D3 necromancer,

#diablo games always get better with time #bug fixes and responses to the playerbase complaints #as well as additional content and new stuff the launch version lacks

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raspberrykraken · 9 months

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The Current State of Blizzard Properties as of 7-24-2023

Diablo: Lore/Story getting progressively worse/bad from one game to the next including Diablo Immortal and Diablo 4

Diablo 2 Resurrected: A game for the most hardcore Diablo 2 fans with updated graphics or you can turn them off to experience the hirez pixels

StarCraft 2: Lore/Story progressively worse/bad, put on maintenance mode, competitive cancelled although its a free game now/has been awhile which started with the custom game arcade then the whole thing did. Heck, Legacy of the Void didn’t have a cinematic when you first opened it originally when it came out.

StarCraft Remastered: Experience StarCraft with updated graphics

World of Warcraft: Lore/Story progressively getting worse/bad by each expansion and retcon

Classic World of Warcraft: Just like Old School RuneScape, with the queues for items and everything

Warcraft 3 Reforged: A game to delete all the copyright infringement that people we committing in custom games, ruins the reasons why people were playing it.

Overwatch 1: Deleted, why did I pay $60 for that?

Overwatch 2: Lore/Story cancelled, competitive now cancelled as of today with all the esports staff being laid off

Edit: Overwatch 2: The lore/story is still on through how Overwatch 1 was. Comics, cinematics, anything available outside the game. Additional modes to be added for $15

Heroes of the Storm: Cancelled/put on maintenance mode

Hearthstone: Essentially bloated pay to win aspects, esports tournaments and staff have been significantly reduced

And thats it. That’s what’s going on with all these properties from this small indie company. Which is the narrative anyone wants to say whenever there is any kind of criticism leveled against them. I have been a long time Blizzard fan so you can say I am part of the problem in supporting them. To me Blizzard is nostalgic but I never had a real chance to get into WoW because we lived on a farm with dial up until 2010. So if I wanted to do anything online I had to go to college or a cafe to play games. I don’t know how to feel about it in 2023.

#blizzard #blizzard entertainment #news #thoughts #hot takes #small indie company #cancelled #competitive analysis #competitive cancelled #Overwatch #wow #StarCraft #Overwatch 2 #hearthstone #heroes of the storm #diablo series #nostalgia

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spidersymbiotes · 6 months

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Poesia #2 de "Relatos de la Carpa del Diablo" - Walter Contreras

#la carpa del diablo #Walter Contreras #PJ Harvey #Nick Cave #Henry Lee #Poesia #Spotify

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duranduratulsa · 6 months

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El Diablo (2010 Remaster)

youtube

Spooktober song 🎵 of the day 2: El Diablo by Arcadia (1985) from So Red The Rose #arcadia #eldiablo #soredtherose #SimonLeBon #nickrhodes #rogertaylor #rogertaylorduranduran #duranduran #spooktober #halloween #october

#arcadia #so red the rose #el diablo #simon le bon #nick rhodes #roger taylor duran duran #roger taylor #duran duran #80s #Spooktober #Halloween #october #Youtube #Spotify

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sniperct · 9 months

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We got a new Diablo, a new Final Fantasy, and a new Zelda at the same time, and this is the year Hollywood wants to test us

Also! Metroid Prime remastered, RE4 remake, street fighter 6…. lots of others, and upcoming we have pikmin 4, baldur's gate 3, starfield, mortal kombat 1, assassin's creed mirage, super mario bros wonder, spider-man 2, mario rpg remake, and a whole lot more

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gaminghearts1-blog · 8 months

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Suikoden I & II HD Release Gets Pushed Back to 2024?

It seems like 2023 has been a great year for video game releases especially with the success of games such as Diablo IV, Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy XVI along many other titles. It seemed like Konami had planed on releasing remastered versions of Suikoden 1 & 2 this year for PS4, Xbox, Steam and Nintendo Switch; but now those plans have apparently been delayed. The team working on the…

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#Entertainment #Fun #Games #Gaming #Gaming Article #Gaming Industry #Gaming Life #Gaming World #Nintendo Switch #PS4 #Steam #Suikoden #Technology #Video Games #Xbox One

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misscaptainbear · 10 months

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Emulation

I've been thinking about emulators a lot recently, since getting a retro-handheld and emulating a bunch of games. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and I've been inspired in various ways - I'd love to put together a project that integrates a lot more game improvements into an emulator. Here's some of those concepts:

(Pictured above, Phantasy Star 1 for the Nintendo Switch, showing emulated game and extras like maps and character healths)

(1) Extra-Textual Information

I've seen a few emulators dabble in this with varying degrees, and I always find it a treat. Some things, like providing things like maps or quests that the original game didn't track for the player (due to tech limitations) or more narrative-contextual things like character portraits or illustrations from the manuals. Shout out to the WanderBar plugins developed by Legends of Localization author, Clyde Mandelin.

(Pictured above, Seiken Densetsu/Final Fantasy Adventure showing emulated game and extras like enemy stats or item descriptions and illustrations from the manual)

Additions like this are important for many different reasons; more approachability to a wider audience (Truncated text like LIT3 from Final Fantasy 1 spring to mind), a richer more 'fulfilled' version of the game the artists and designers intended but couldn't represent, and accessibility features that allow differently abled people to enjoy games in an era that frankly didn't make much of an effort.

And, integration with existing walkthroughs wouldn't go awry, since older games sometimes require esoteric requirements to progress that are simply unreasonable to ask in the more modern era of game design. (Though opting in to these systems would be a necessity)

(Pictured above, a screenshot of an Ascii rendering of the title of The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, from GameFaqs. Ascii you can trust!)

Honestly, I could go on and on. Things from concept art to advertisements to additional media like the Link to the Past Comic would give a more fulsome and authentic experience.

(2) Modding and User Generated Content

Really, the above are only possible via community efforts, obsessively collecting data. Thus, the ideal system for this to work within is one that in open source and has robust and well-documented modding tools.

Having used Mesen and Project64 to mess with graphics and textures, this is really powerful, but also feels like a half-measure at times, as it's still restrained within the graphics capability of those systems, and often simply a 'resolution' slider.

(Pictured above, an unfinished Final Fantasy Mod replacing graphical assets with concept illustrations from Yoshitako Amano)

One thing that springs to mind is the implementation of the Diablo 2 Remaster; The developers spoke about essentially having an "API" to reach the important parts of the game's original implementation to then add extra (visual) information on top of. Things like 'player facing direction' can be added on to in order to rotate the rendered model and slerp it smoothly between those angles, something not possible in the original implementations.

Thus, the core of the game is preserved, with only the presentation changing.

This is mentioned for it's structure, obviously there's tons of labor that goes into these graphical assets that just aren't possible for a layman to create a games' worth.

(Pictured above, a comparison of screenshots of Diablo 2 and Diablo 2 Remastered demonstrating the rendering-level improvements)

(3) Creativity and Freedom

The two above points really imply this third one, which is a more collective ownership by the community. Something that a system like this would unlock is the ability to remix and remaster a game in a way that could be anything - respectful to the original intent, or a wild re-imagining of what the game might look like directed by you.

(Pictured above, the Boss Room from Legend of Zelda redrawn with a much higher fidelity pixel art)

(Credit to Zaebucca, apologies for reposting art without reblogging it properly. Link)

(Pictured above, a Dragon Boss Fight from Golden Sun redrawn as higher quality digital art)

(Credit to Sabbitabbi, apologies for reposting art without reblogging it properly. Link)

This sort of preservation-through-community is wildly important in an era of games that have been all but abandoned by their developers (if the studios in question still exist, even) and games that are profound in shaping the genres of their era are fading away; Something that the youtuber Nerrel has touched on in various videos of his.

(4) Actually Making the Damn Thing

There have been some previous work on things like this that I really admire, but haven't really seen (or weren't built for) widespread popularity in the larger gaming sphere.

(Pictured above, the dragon boss from Legend of Zelda, projected oddly into a 3D scene with a sword being thrown sideways at it)

One well meaning but obviously comedic attempt was done by Tom7 (Suckerpinch) on youtube, where an automatic system was programmed to 'convert' NES games to 3D. It's an interesting experiment but honestly proves to me that any automatic or AI assisted route is futile; that this would have to be hand tuned or developed.

A similar attempt to the above is the steam released 3dSen, which is really impressive but has similar pitfalls to other emulators described above - by systematizing the rendering, it imposes strange and unintuitive requirements on graphics that simply don't have to be constrained that way. This is caused by the automatic nature of the game (see water tiles below)

(Pictured above, 3DSen screenshot showing graphical problems when rendering water tiles)

So what the heck does the ideal system look like for this sort of thing?

The biggest parts of those (and I'm omitting a bunch of things, obviously) would be an emulator core with game-specific knowledge built in that's available to a scripting layer. The scripting layer in turn would interact with this and where appropriate interrupt the emulator's rendering to inject models, sounds, menus, etc.

The original game rom would not be distributed in any way, but could easily be md5 checked and verified for correct behaviour with the API. The Data Packs would ideally be a solid file (probably just a renamed zip lol) so they could be easily distributed and 'opened' by the emulator, instead of having to do tedious mod installation.

Within the data packs would be some sort of scripting initialization hooks and file organization such that resources are appropriately loaded and fed to the rendering system as needed.

Now, as for when I actually start working on this...? Whew, we'll see. But I'm hoping this resonates with some folks out there!

#gamedev #retro games #game emulation #games preservation #modding #modded game #remastered #classic games

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dufrau · 11 months

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please let me know how miss nancy wheeler fares in diablo 4 world. what class is she. is she a little blood covered bastard. spill the details. also how are u finding diablo 4 so far ive always wanted to get into hack n slash games and im a lil curious abt the new diablo game. ik diablo 2 is like peoples number one best game ever in the world ever ever. (hm maybe i shld play that hmmm)

Nancy Wheeler is a rogue. She is indeed very blood covered.

I have legit just started (i played a few hours of the beta a month or so ago too) so its hard to say whether its like Good or not, but im enjoying it so far! These games are really mostly about how good the endgame content is so I wont know how much i love it for a while.

Diablo 2 is great, i loved it back in the day, but going back to it now it feels very old, even the remastered version it just feels dated to me. But a lot of people fully disagree with me so your mileage may vary.

I was a Diablo 3 enjoyer, which is a controversial take, a lot of people hated that game because it was not exactly the same as Diablo 2, but i found the endgame loop to be just exactly the kind of thing I enjoy, so it was great in my opinion.

So far for Diablo 4 i can say the graphics and sound design and all the superficial stuff is really nice, and the gameplay is fun so far!

Anyway Nancy Wheeler is about to fight a boss I should probably help her!

#fishvibes?#this nancy wheeler is more stabby than shooty but she is terrifying and small nonetheless #asks #video game stuff

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dennydraws · 11 months

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Finally finished ...

Whew, what a ride :D (Spoilers ahead!)

I started in early December but managed to finish just now, after dropping and picking the game a couple of times.

Apparently I was on Chaos route the whole time and got the Princess ending! I played mostly blind except for recruiting Catiua cause for the life of me, I couldn't tell which option would make her happy and I was way too tired to redo the battle if I chose wrong.

Not gonna lie, Catiua's sudden attitude change felt so out of the blue in my route cause Denam literally saved her just a fight ago and next she was like "He will leave me!!" :/ girl, pls... I'm trying here with everyone and their dog after my arse for things I didn't do!!

The level cap was absolutely annoying at first and the reason I put the game down several times. I understand why it was placed but there were points in the story where it feels like fight after fight you get zero rewards and no upgrades. I need the rewards, dang it XD

I had a lot more fun in chapter 4 when I started doing side content and lurk into Palace of the Dead. I loved dipping my toes in and looking for treasures. I didn't go far though but I did leave it with like 6 undead dragons, about 5 undead humans and 2 necromancers :D Which reminds me, I kept recruiting people from the story fights whenever I could, lol maybe that's why I took so long :D;;

I see how this game inspired FFT and I can see so many story points that were taken and amplified a lot in FFT. I don't want to compare the two games - they may be similar but they do have very different tone to me.

I really enjoyed the characters, everyone just felt so ...human? But also that made fighting everyone a whole more difficult. Canopus definitely gets my fave character badge. Such a fun fella and he joins so early. He never left my party :D Our momma hen! With how Hamilton ended it really makes me want to push to finish CODA and get him... but that means clearing PotD twice? Argh xD I do enjoy PotD, I enjoy getting goodies and I don't mind the fights but I'm a bit tired and hunger for a different game.

Lastly, I saw a reviewer who played TO for a first time complain the final dungeon was too hard (?) ... did we play the same game :D;; Or was I over prepared cause I poked side content and felt relatively geared? Dragons and Gryphons? You can petrify them, you can charm them! You can fall? That's the enemy's problem cause I am exploiting this in every corner. >u>;; The final boss was spooky but not too hard, I felt like the battle vs Oz and Ozma was way, way harder and I barely made it ;;;;

Speaking of... What's with people opening locked doors to the abyss to get power? Sir... it was locked for a reason. What do you expect to get from there? A pat on the back from El Diablo released from it's infernal prison and a cool toy to rule the world? You, my good sir, are getting one shot by the thing locked there and it'll go destroy the world making it our problem now... 😩

And lastly ... time travel is canon? As in it get acknowledged in the records and mentioned and I'm just imagining Denam picks the world card at the end and think "Had I taken another choice... another path then Vyce..." I still want to punch him but I've seen The Butterfly Effect enough times to know anyone can change with different circumstances >u>;

WELL that's gonna be it~ Glad I played and finished this classic :D Next on my list is "Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song remaster" and I expect it to take another 6+ months from my time to complete lol;;;

#Good Morning!#Denny rambles about games :D #Tactics Ogre

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