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nazmazh · 3 months

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So, yeah Palworld.

Despite the tone/direction of the hype, it's not really a replacement for Pokémon.

It is, however a replacement for ARK. And it's been quite good at that so far.

And considering the BS ARK pulled with their pricing and release plans and all that recently (not to mention their apparent utter aversion to optimizing the game even slightly - I'd really rather not have to dedicate nearly half of a hard drive to keeping it installed and updated, only for it to still struggle to run certain parts thank you very much), I know a lot of people that were looking for something to scratch that itch.

It might not be dinosaur-flavoured, but the mons are an appealing substitute on many levels. And the more direct automated use of them in more complex tasks is definitely a neat addition - And that's before even getting into the whole "parody of cute monster taming games" aspect - Which I don't think would have carried a game on its own for me, but is a solid enough flavour element here. Plus, expressly elemental creatures also creates more opportunities for use in the base system.

Also, as a quality of life thing - I really like that within a base, all storage is linked, so you can start building without having to go back and physically carry the materials to where you're using them. Hopefully though, a future update goes even further with this and has a system to link storage across all bases. So that you don't have to run, say, metal back and forth from the one base that produces it to others that have the more advanced production facilities.

Also - Battling/catching is a far less tedious system than KO'ing a critter and sitting there, keeping it unconscious and feeding it (especially feeding it only specific special optimum taming food) for hours to add a new critter to your team.

Something I hadn't thought of until just now - The Breath of the Wild-style movement/stamina system has felt very great! Movement feels speedy enough, the third-person perspective feels good for the sort of things you have to do, and being able to just start climbing is amazing! Something that's definitely lacking in both ARK and Pokemon (well, until you get the right upgrades in Sc/Vi, anyway). Is it the best implementation of such a system? Oh, definitely not, it still feels very unpolished compared to, say, BotW/TotK - But for this type of game, it's a very nice addition.

The actual battle system has very little in common with Pokémon - Not even something like Legends: Arceus. It's definitely much more of a free for all. It's honestly closer to Pikmin than Pokémon, but honestly still closest to stuff like ARK.

Anyway, yeah, it's been a solid zone-out and do tasks while watching YouTube/tv/whatever game, which has been a niche I've needed filled for a while. Much as I love Alan Wake 2 and my old standby Dead by Daylight - You do need to actively pay complete attention to those ones and can't have something else running alongside them.

The actual Pokémon has been sort of filling this role for a bit, but I've reached a point there where I'm just running around levelling my mons, which is fine, but familiar. Palworld is a new world to explore, with tasks that aren't quite as mindless. So it's a nice change of pace for the time being.

My sleep schedule however, is not a fan of the "Just one more thing..." Mentality I get from it (and a much of this whole genre).

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One last note - The controversies.

Believe me, it absolutely raised my suspicions when I first heard about it overall - How could such a game not be a cheap cash-in? Probably just a bare bones, barely functional early-access asset flip game with a splash of edgy "pokemon (but just legally-distinct enough) but what if guns and expressly killing and eating them" for flavour/a gimmick, right?

But then it seemed like there was an actual game there. Systems had been thought out and appear functional - At least on a level that's on par with other decent early-access games. So, at least so far, it's not a cash-grab rip-off.

When was the other shoe going to drop?

Well, there's two drums people seem to beat loudly right now: "They're ripping off Pokemon and Nintendo's totally gonna shut them down!" And "The game totally uses AI for it's designs!", with a final offshoot of that to the effect of "This company's a scam!"

Well, to that first point - Nintendo is infamously litigious and very quickly moves to take down anything infringing on their copyrights. So, the fact that this game, being made by a "proper" development studio/company (ie: not just a couple of fans working on it as a hobby), which had publically discussed the making of the game over the past few years, made it to the point of early-access release without being taken down - That probably speaks to the "just-legally-distinct-enough" nature of their mon designs and capture systems, which are probably the two aspects most similar enough to raise eyebrows.

Now, certain visual elements do appear to be the same/incredibly similar - But I'm not sure that "facial features being used in conjunction with each other" is something they can copyright. As long as these devs/designers reverse-engineered their own versions of things, and didn't actually just rip Nintendo/Game Freak's models, I don't think there's much that actually is actionable there. The parody element is another angle that probably provides some broad cover as to the design similarity (in that you want people to clearly understand the reference you're making, so you want some similarities).

At any rate, I imagine the most profitable media franchise of all-time is probably gonna be just fine if someone makes allusions to them and their designs in an entirely different game. Pokemon doesn't really need anyone starting a crusade on its behalf, y'know?

To the stuff about the company (Pocketpair) itself. Well, there's a little more meat to those complaints there.

The big one - That AI was used in Palworld's design/development. That appears to be not true, or at the very least, not something that's been confirmed. If it were true, they'd have to disclose that for their Steam store page. So, at least, they did not openly use AI here (and its dev cycle began before the rise of the big AI boom, so it's less-likely that it was used). They'll probably face some sort of repercussions from Valve if they were deceptive about using AI, and there's not really a great reason to not be upfront about it, so, for now, I don't think they have used it here.

Believe me, if I suspected for a moment that AI was being used to cheat artists/designers out if work, I'd be out there, beating that drum too. But, given what evidence we have now, I just don't think they have for Palworld.

That being said...

Their CEO has definitely made some very sus statements about wanting to use AI going forward. Including comments about mon design in-general (nothing specific to Palworld, though, as far as I'm aware). And they have expressly used AI before, in their game AI: Art Imposter - So there is definitely a willingness on their part to use it (Though I'm not sure calling it 'Art Imposter' necessarily constitutes uncritical, effusive praise - But still, they used it in the game anyway). So that's definitely something to keep an eye on.

The whole situation with Pocketpair's other big game, Craftopia being an anime-styled, open world sandbox survival crafting game still in early-access definitely rubs some people the wrong way - Not the least of which are people who have been playing that game and feel as though they may have been playing an elaborate beta test that's going to be abandoned in favour of Palworld. And, like, I do get that - But, so far anyway, development appears to still be proceeding on Craftopia as well. So, I guess you can pick your preference from them - Whether you want the edgy Pokemon parody content in your game or you'd rather just have the "not-blocky Minecraft" type of stuff.

Ultimately, I don't think Pocketpair has any sort of loftier, noble ideals about being a better kind of gaming company or anything. They're certainly not a company that has earned any great leeway or trust from me - But they're definitely not just a cut-and-run scamming asset flipper gaming Steam's storefront.

I won't say Palworld is a "completely unproblematic fave forever" or anything like that, but from what I've been able to find, there's nothing in it/it's development history right now that makes it morally objectionable enough to avoid in my books. It's fine.

It's fine.

Other people might have different standards for what's unforgivable; but, the controversies about it definitely seem overblown or misrepresented - In my mind, at least. Its premise certainly could be alienating to a lot of people - But if you don't want to play it, you don't have to. If you don't like it, you can just say as much. You don't need to build it up into a whole big moral crusade to justify not really feeling like playing it. That's fine.

That's fine.

#Palworld #long ramble #this definitely got longer than I set out to write #ah well

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longroadstonowhere · 1 year

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okay on the one hand i definitely played too long today, like i was telling myself to stop for several hours at the end there

but on the other hand i wanted to finish one particular quest and, well, it took a while to do

so, uh, i’ve finished nearly all the main quests i think? so spoilers below

yeah, today i finished up the gerudo quest, as well as saving and rebuilding lurelin, lots of exploration trying to get into the kokiri forest before realizing you have to go down to go up (or at least that’s what i ended up doing and it seemed intentional), saving the deku tree (in what felt like an absolutely dogshit fight), finally went to hateno village and tarrey town (didn’t actually do much there but i visited them), finished all the geoglyphs, got the final memory, tried like five times to pull the master sword cuz i had to go get stamina vessels in between each try, which meant i had to do random shrines for a while, and finally did manage to pull it out

....

so like

zelda’s actually a dragon

like they really fucking did that

no last minute switcheroo of ‘oh mineru is the dragon and zelda’s actually totally fine’, which is what i was expecting - on screen she eats the stone and becomes a dragon

so uh botw/totk zelda wins the ‘most tragic zelda’ competition i think - oot zelda and... i think aol zelda were top competitors, but you just can’t compete with ‘struggle for years with the very concept of using the light force, then finally figure it out only to spend a hundred years doing nothing but holding back the calamity, and then on a fun archaeology trip you accidentally wake up the demon king and get sent ten thousand years into the past where you eventually choose to give up your entire sense of self and wait ten thousand years to give link a fighting chance’

geez, i’m really comparing this in my head to ruby’s half-suicide in rwby this past volume... like, i can’t even articulate much right now except that i’m sad for her

so i guess evil zelda is probably mineru? because like she hasn’t factored into most of the story at all, except for the bit where she mentions her power is to separate her soul from her body - only i guess she might also be in the purah pad? or in that construct that was holding the purah pad? zelda said something to her when she gave the purah pad up so like, who even knows anymore

well, anyway, that’s a whole thing i get to wrestle with, and we’ll see how the story plays out with the final battle

everything else i did today was unequivocally a good time - loved that they brought the gibdos back, but like they’re some kind of weird insect? great choice, totally bizarre in the best way possible, and i had a funny moment in the lightning temple where i was trying to figure out how to get to one of the batteries with rizu, and i kept popping up to the seventh floor cuz i knew i had to get her there somehow but i thought i had to get her there to open the door for the boss room, and then literally just before i got the last battery i realized ‘oh the entire point of the temple is to get rizu into that room’

i was also pretty proud of figuring out that you had to get to the deku tree by going into the depths, that was pretty cool (mildly terrifying cuz of enemies on the way but cool nonetheless)

however, the fight to save the deku tree? that was the first time i looked anything up, because i was getting mauled by the floormasters (or gloommasters or gloomhands or whatever their name is, like hell i’m stopping in the middle of a fight to take a picture of them), and i figured i was missing some essential point to the fight, like there was some easy way to counteract gloom that i just didn’t know about, but no, turns out the way to fight them is to know they’re coming, set yourself up in a bit of the room without gloom, and just shoot like eight bomb arrows into the center of their formation

the phantom ganon fight was also difficult, but that at least felt more reasonable to be as hard as it was, and i eventually made it through by upgrading some of my armor and eating a really good defense up food item - the items he dropped are sweet, too, although i’ll probably never use the sword unless i absolutely have to cuz uh slowly dying does not sound fun

so right now i have a full extra ring of stamina (thanks zelda) and i believe fifteen hearts, though it’s honestly hard to count, which feels like a decent amount to try fighting the final boss with, although i might wanna make another good armor up thing if possible, and also who knows what’s in store once i finally go into hyrule castle

but that’s for tomorrow, because i do need to sleep now and we’ll see when i wake up what i’m feeling like doing

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mrmallard · 4 months

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Okay, got my Nintendo Switch stats ready to go!

...NOOOOOOOOOO

Honestly I didn't play as much Switch this year as I did last year. My pro controller has drift in both the sticks, and I recently plugged my PS3 back in so I've been playing that.

Okay, MK11 is a little bit embarrassing.

I bought the game for like twelve bucks. It's an inferior port - not to the degree of MK1, but it's pretty slow.

The reason I have so much playtime is because I was trying to complete the Krypt, which is where you spend in-game currencies on chests to get skins, "konsumables" and additional fatalities and brutalities. This requires a lot of in-game currency, which you have to farm, and to finish the Krypt you have to perform 25 fatalities on every member of the base roster of the game - which adds up to like 675 fatalities.

Tears of the Kingdom was a great game. I think Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece - at the risk of sounding like a pretentious douchebag, I feel like BotW is a very diagetic game. You get those piano licks and OST elements as far as music goes, but for the most part it's the wind blowing through the trees, it's the grass swaying, and you're left to your own devices to fiddle with the controls and have your own adventure.

Tears of the Kingdom reneges on that, but I think it's necessary. If they just made BotW again, quiet and contemplative and vast, it would be way too similar to BotW. So Tears of the Kingdom goes full gamification - here's a suite of editing software, here's a fuckload of doohickeys and doodads, use them to navigate three separate layers of Hyrule. TotK is probably one of the best sandbox games I've ever played, with the way you're able to manipulate your surroundings and build these vehicles. I feel like the developers had so much foresight that your average Joe could have a dumb thought for a contraption that not even they think is gonna work, set themselves up, try it out - and have the contraption work first-time. The shield-spring combo comes to mind, what a great combo.

I'm mixed on Persona 4. I've already played 3 and 5 years ago, so playing 4 after years of hype was bound to be a bit disappointing. I will say that Naoto is my favourite Persona character, but by that same token Yosuke and Teddie are my least favourite Persona characters. It was okay, but it was overlong and I wasn't as interested in the story as it was told as I was interested in my own theories and headcanons. I had a great theory for who the serial killer was, and it went completely to the wayside.

I won't get into Naoto, though I will say that for as much as I had trouble with the direction the game took with her, it still felt more respectful and less shitty/lurid than the way Danganronpa 1 approached gender.

I'm surprised that "action" was my most played genre this year. My guess is that MK11, Minecraft, Diablo 3, Stardew Valley etc. etc. are all tagged as Action as well as other genres.

You can see that October and November are light on gameplay. That's because I plugged my PS3 back in around that time, and I've been prioritising that console with FF13 and the Kingdom Hearts games.

A few standout months:

I bought Persona 4 in February. I was gonna leave it until after my vacation in April, but I managed to squeeze it out over February and March. I'm probably gonna revisit it soon.

April was a short month because I spent two weeks on holiday. I spent three days in Sydney to see Counting Crows, then I spent a week and a half in Adelaide which was great. I didn't take my Switch - it was a good choice, but this was when the Mega Man Battle Network collection came out, and I was DYING for that collection. As soon as I got home, I spent my last thirty bucks on a Switch gift card and bought Vol. 1 of the collection. Haven't even finished MMBN2 by the way, but I'll try and get back into it soon.

I bought Tears of the Kingdom a couple weeks after it launched, and I played it daily through to the end of July. No joke, I was going to work, coming home, playing TotK (and probably eating some cheap, discounted deli food from the supermarket next to my place) and going to bed. This is where my pro controller sticks began to drift - my Joy-Cons drifted way back in the day thanks to a brief but intense Fortnite fixation, and TotK ultimately took out my pro controller. Nintendo needs to fix their drift issues, I hope they've got fuckin NASA engineers working on the next controllers to mitigate the problem.

And then right after I decided I was finished with Tears of the Kingdom? Fuckin HYRULE WARRIORS, baybee!!! Man I love that game. A quarter of my year was spent mostly on Zelda.

This year was a much smaller year for Nintendo in my life. I still played over 500 hours of Switch games, but with the controller sticks on all my Switch controllers drifting and a rumoured new console in 2024, it is what it is.

#nintendo #long post

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connectwired · 10 months

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Since I have no other place to go for this, I want to start out by saying that Nintendo needs a refresh. By doing a refresh with games and hardware, expectations can be thrown in a new direction, and speculation can be all the more fun. That said, what we want and need differs from how Nintendo views, so what I say should be taken lightly unless stated otherwise. I'm VERY open-minded, so I may go on and on, and I'm also open to criticism on the things I think about.

First off, the next console. I believe it'll stay relatively the same as the Switch but with the best internals they can get their hands on. They'll probably update the Joycons a bit and reintroduce the standard D-pad, or they may take the Steam Deck approach and glue them on. The standard will have a higher quality OLED screen to compete with others and possibly better sound. Not much more I could think of but it's enough to compete for next gen and try to bleed into the future gen. It opens up the possibility for more open first party games as well as more intricacy and design, increasing the odds for success (most of the time). Third party games will run better too.

Next, let's talk games. 2D Mario has been refreshed with Wonder, Zelda with TotK and BotW, Pikmin is still going, and Metroid... we don't know what's happening there, but it did have Dread. Mario Kart is still going strong, but there's only so much left they could do until they run out of options for one game. Smash is dead for now, but that's a topic for later with Mario Kart. Animal Crossing is iffy, as the player base has likely been halved since release; I know I don't play it anymore, and I've heard that it's got several issues that I agree with.

I want to go in depth about the state of Mario. Mario fans will be feasting soon with Wonder and RPG, and I'm one of them. Super Mario RPG is, if you couldn't tell, my favorite RPG, and I'm incredibly ecstatic for the remake. I have faith it'll sell well and be given the recognition it deserves. The music and graphics seem phenomenal in the remake, and everything seems like how we viewed it in the original; our minds were brought to life with this game.

Next is Wonder, which is an interesting beast I would love to tackle. The art style is amazing and a big step from New, just as much as the soundtrack is. It's all soft and colorful while remaining fast and enjoyable; such an appealing game hasn't happened for 2D Mario in over a decade. I love the new voice lines - despite Martinet possibly being replaced - and the new sound effects are great too. It's so experimental yet seems to be promising.

3D Mario games are pretty much due for a new game at this point. We haven't seen one since Bowser's Fury, which was only about half a game, if that. The last full game was Odyssey all the way back in 2017. It's understandable why it would take so long, but at least throw us a hint once the new system is revealed. It would be cool for it to be inspired by Wonder, but I could see it branching off of Odyssey or Galaxy too.

Super Smash Bros. should be getting a new game within the next 5 years. Whether it be a reboot, Ultimate Deluxe, or a continuation, I'm certain it'll be good. If they reboot the series, I imagine they'll keep a handful of characters and add a lot of new ones while also making completely new movesets for most fighters. Ones without new movesets would obviously have some changes though. The stages have a chance to be completely new. A continuation would likely cut some of the roster while adding new ones and do the same with stages. A continuation could be Deluxe but with different features and a new story. There are lots of debates about what characters would get in no matter what way they take, but I think the few that are locked in are Geno, Shantae, Sans, and possibly Cuphead. Personally, I wish Springtrap and Reimu would be in too, but sadly I don't believe they would. Same for Goku who will never be in.

Mario Kart is the only thing left on my mind, as it hasn't had a new game in about 10 years, less if you count Tour (but who would; it's a live service mobile game based on Mario Kart 7). It needs a new game very soon after the DLC is done, but there's one question that everyone has: where do they go next? I think they could take the Sonic R route and have it be more open world. Mix that up with all of the items in Tour and maybe some new stuff inspired by 2D and 3D Mario, and you've got something magical. Doing something like Double Dash and having two drivers per kart would be cool too. The roster needs an update as well, but Tour has added plenty of characters over time. They could bring back all characters, and if possible, add a separate menu for costumes and alternate colors. Tracks could be more based on games and even the recent movie. I would love to race around in something like Beach Bowl Galaxy or a fire flower field.

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