Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[Briste]

25 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

Wish I could remember my rule of thumb. I wrote it down somewhere... But I had a general idea of what to bring on each dungeon, depending on the length and location. Honestly, torches are so cheap that I wouldn't skimp on them. You get better rewards if you fight in the dark, but I always found it best to keep my light maxed out. You should also check out a curio guide, because I didn't understand their usefulness on my first playthrough...

 

I kept my Renauld until the end of the game.  Pretty sure he got the killing blow on the final boss.

I generally don't, however I was running out of inventory space...it wasn't until the next quest that I learned by accident how to equip the trinkets, which in turn opened up some inventory space. I usually keep it in the middle. I don't like getting stressed just by walking, but I want decent drops. As it gets tougher, I'll probably go with max torchlight. So far, I touch all the curios...most are nothing or bad...but I can't not check them  

 

I'm jealous! Renauld was gonna be my guy! I almost lost my Leper too, thankfully he didn't die from his heart attack. That would have been a true kick in the nuts. I haven't done a ton of stuff in town yet...I'm trying to save my resources until I have a better idea what is going on. Sadly, Renauld was a guy I had spent money on to remove a quirk, so that was a waste. I figured out camping a bit yesterday and I feel like I'll want to focus on upgrading skills first.

 

 

/edit Thanks for the curio tip...I never would have thought that using items on them would affect what they do lol 

Edited October 29, 2019 by Briste

[Cassylvania]

7 minutes ago, Briste said:

I generally don't, however I was running out of inventory space...it wasn't until the next quest that I learned by accident how to equip the trinkets, which in turn opened up some inventory space. I usually keep it in the middle. I don't like getting stressed just by walking, but I want decent drops. As it gets tougher, I'll probably go with max torchlight. So far, I touch all the curios...most are nothing or bad...but I can't not check them  

 

Yup, you're doing what I was doing too. The game does a terrible job of explaining curios. If all you're doing is checking them, you're going to end up hurting yourself. What you WANT to do is offer them the right item. For example, if you offer Holy Water to a shrine, you'll get a buff. If you try to open a sarcophagus without a shovel or key, you'll probably get sick. I went through most of the game without knowing this, and just assumed certain curios will almost always bad.

 

Just do yourself a favor and bookmark this: https://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/Curio

 

35 minutes ago, Briste said:

I'm jealous! Renauld was gonna be my guy! I almost lost my Leper too, thankfully he didn't die from his heart attack. That would have been a true kick in the nuts. I haven't done a ton of stuff in town yet...I'm trying to save my resources until I have a better idea what is going on. Sadly, Renauld was a guy I had spent money on to remove a quirk, so that was a waste. I figured out camping a bit yesterday and I feel like I'll want to focus on upgrading skills first.

 

Try not to get too attached to your guys. They're all going to die. ?

 

I don't have many suggestions to offer when it comes to your hamlet. Just remember it's not like XCOM, where you can screw up your base by not building the right structures at the right time. I usually burned through my gold after every mission. The most important thing, I think, is figuring out which skills you like on each class...and upgrading them whenever possible. You also got the right idea in removing negative quirks early on. If you wait, they can get locked in. In time, you'll get a feel for which quirks you like and which need to be removed immediately. Otherwise, you've probably seen stress management is a big deal. Having more room in the Abbey (and lower costs) is a good thing.

 

I really hope you didn't enable the DLC. I can't imagine having to deal with Crimson Court or CoM on your first playthrough.

[Rally-Vincent---]

@Mori

 

Do Crown Guardians in Nuclear Throne only drop ammo from their exploding ball attack after Loop? I finally stored a gun gun in the proto chest, but I don't seem to be able to farm energy in pre-loop crown vaults.

[Mori]

14 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I thought the beacon was broken too. It's not. To use it, you have to first select the item from your inventory and throw it on the ground. Then, you can have Derek teleport to it by selecting it from his skills (the same way you'd use sprint). Just BE SURE TO PICK UP THE BEACON BEFORE YOU FINISH THE MISSION. The game warns you if you're about to leave the beacon behind, but if you spam X like I do, you might miss it.

 

 

Ah okay, thanks for the info.

 

 

Quote

 

Monster's a pain in the final mission. I got lucky on my hardest playthrough by having the console right next to the exit room, but I've had other times where they're on opposite ends of the map. Unfortunately, I think your next map is "locked" as soon as you finish each mission, so you can't just reload a save from the world map screen. You might consider backing up a save right before finishing the second to last mission... Just in case the layout of your final mission sucks.

 

I am usually not a fan of making saves, but only because it Always takes fucking ages to open up the Cloud saves. Does anyone else has this issue aswell? It sometimes takes roughly 5 minutes until I have Access on all my Cloud saves.

Anyway I guess it makes sense to make a save. It would be terrible to have a good run, just to get screwed in the end again.

While we are at it, is there anything I have to pay Attention to on the endless runs or can I Play them like the usual runs? On my Expert Plus run I ended up with Cloaking RIG III and just rushed the map, rewind and get out of the missions as fast as possible. Does this still work on later stages in Endless?

 

7 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

@Mori

 

Do Crown Guardians in Nuclear Throne only drop ammo from their exploding ball attack after Loop? I finally stored a gun gun in the proto chest, but I don't seem to be able to farm energy in pre-loop crown vaults.

 

It could be possible, but I am not entirely sure. I think in Hard mode you can go in Vault 1-2 and farm it there. However getting there is already a pain in the ass.

 

But what are you trying to do now? Do you want to farm ammo or do you want fo farm Energy? You can go either way, if you want to farm Energy you have to Play with Y.V. in hard mode or loop in normal mode to get the proto chest to spawn and choose the Crown that hurts you when Opening chests and giving you Energy for it. Do this until you reach Level 10 and go to Y.V. Mansion.

 

If you want to farm ammo Drops with gun gun, Play with robot in hard mode or loop in normal mode.

 

Of Course you Need a melee weapon for both ways, since you Need to destroy the green balls.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited October 30, 2019 by Mori

[Cassylvania]

On 10/30/2019 at 3:38 AM, Mori said:

While we are at it, is there anything I have to pay Attention to on the endless runs or can I Play them like the usual runs? On my Expert Plus run I ended up with Cloaking RIG III and just rushed the map, rewind and get out of the missions as fast as possible. Does this still work on later stages in Endless?

 

 

I suggest treating Endless the exact same way you do Expert Plus -- that is, assume the game ends on Day 7, and do everything in your power to get all the items and skills you need by then. After that, you'll generally be rushing every map, taking 12 hour missions and avoiding stages with drones. (I recommend K&O or FTM.) You'll eventually need to find an exit card to leave each stage. Definitely use Internationale and Derek to speed things up. Other than that, maybe consider visiting a Detention Center early on and restarting if you don't like your third agent. You can make do with anybody, but Banks, Dr. Xu, or Prism are ideal. The game really seemed to like giving me Decker for some reason.

 

I managed to beat Ethan Must Die last night, on my fifth or sixth try. (Yeah, I know I said I'd only give it a couple shots, but most of my deaths were immediately at the start.) It wasn't as bad as I thought, but not being unable to save had my heart racing on the boss. I managed to kill her with only three bullets left...or maybe a bit more, because I kept firing at her gross ass until I was empty. That should allow me to platinum RE7 today, but I'll probably wait until midnight so I can get a sweet Halloween plat out of this.

 

I'll try the no death speedrun in Little Nightmares tonight too, but don't hold your breath. I'm usually only good for one miracle per week.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Cassylvania

[Rally-Vincent---]

10 hours ago, Mori said:

It could be possible, but I am not entirely sure. I think in Hard mode you can go in Vault 1-2 and farm it there. However getting there is already a pain in the ass.

 

But what are you trying to do now? Do you want to farm ammo or do you want fo farm Energy? You can go either way, if you want to farm Energy you have to Play with Y.V. in hard mode or loop in normal mode to get the proto chest to spawn and choose the Crown that hurts you when Opening chests and giving you Energy for it. Do this until you reach Level 10 and go to Y.V. Mansion.

 

If you want to farm ammo Drops with gun gun, Play with robot in hard mode or loop in normal mode.

 

Of Course you Need a melee weapon for both ways, since you Need to destroy the green balls.

 

I already tried Hard Mode 1-2 with Robot and Crown of Guns, but the balls dropped nothing. I fear I have to loop to do it.

 

I can't go the Y.V. route, I don't have a Crown of Hatred yet because I am bad at the game and unlocking post-loop crowns is a nightmare for me. I'll do that last.

 

But thanks.

[RuneEyesDragon]

On 10/29/2019 at 11:53 AM, Cassylvania said:

Unfortunately, I'll always be a gen 1 player at heart... I can't learn all these new Pokemon or types or moves or forms or evolutions. That's why I was kinda hoping they'd remaster Red and Blue for the Switch. I would've been fine with that as our first REAL Pokemon console games.

 

They did remaster Red and Blue for the Switch... but they tainted it with Pokemon GO crap. I just reloaded Pokemon Let's Go Eevee and hated it - I kept losing Pokeballs because of the dumb Pokemon GO catching mechanics. Leave that crap to the mobile game. The big sh** is that this is the only way you can gain decent EXP by getting a catch combo up to Level 99. There's a video about someone getting an entire team of Pokemon GO Pokemon up to Level 100 by chaining Butterfree and it was boring.

 

I'll still beat Let's Go Eevee so I can get transfer some of the Gen 1 Mons to Pokemon Sword and Shield, but I'd rather export a Swords Dancing Double Edge Gloom from my Virtual copy of Pokemon Yellow so I can teach it Leaf Blade as a Bellossom and really wreck Chansey. Also, you can't get Meltan except through Pokemon GO, which stinks as Melmetal looks like one of those Digimon in Cyber Sleuth and really awesome.

 

I don't mind you being a Genwunner, Cass. As long as you are civil about it. I hate rabid Genwunners because they wish they could make Pokemon Red and Blue 2 instead of giving the other mechanics a chance. I admit that it would be nice to Earthquake a Weezing and kill it but to each their own. I can see why people are Genwunners - Game Freak think Pokemon is a great testing ground for stuff they try and throw in the trash. I want Pokemon to be more than just earning eight badges and then fighting the champion of the region. At least Sword and Shield seem to be a bit more reactive with all of the commercial sponsorship things

 

Happy Halloween, Cass! May you never accidentally drink a Polteageist.

[AJ_Radio]

Let me know how Batman: Arkham City is @Cassylvania.

 

I'm finally going to play it this month and hopefully finally put it to rest. Had it on my profile for four years now and it's sticking out like a sore thumb unfinished.

 

I honestly find the Batman combat and predator challenges fairly easy. The combos are definitely easier than they were in Arkham Asylum due to your combo not going out as quick. Plus Batman's stun move that affects multiple goons is rather overpowered, which definitely makes it easier to get the required scores.

 

I played a little bit of Robin and Nightwing and their moveset is not as good. But if this is anything like Arkham Knight then I should be able to do all those challenges. Catwoman is definitely the hardest, her Thief Vision is crap and she has a lot less health than the others.

 

Definitely need to check what I need for Perfect Knight. I think you can screw yourself over if you didn't do everything on New Game Plus. Thankfully you don't have to collect those annoying Riddler collectibles again, since there are 400 of them.

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 30.10.2019 at 8:38 AM, Mori said:

You can go either way, if you want to farm Energy you have to Play with Y.V. in hard mode or loop in normal mode to get the proto chest to spawn and choose the Crown that hurts you when Opening chests and giving you Energy for it. Do this until you reach Level 10 and go to Y.V. Mansion.

 

 

Can I just say that I hate that the game stacks up against you? SInce I didn't unlock CoH yet, and I failed the Gung Gun, and The Crib doesn't have Golden Nuke or Golden Disc when you go from L1-2, I went to L3-2 with Y.V. doing the Oasis skip, got the CoH from L 1-2 Crown Vault (just in case), and I was killed with only only a few enemies alive and a few rads away from Level Ultra by an effing Elite Shielder. Ugh.

[Cassylvania]

On 10/31/2019 at 9:49 PM, RuneEyesDragon said:

I don't mind you being a Genwunner, Cass. As long as you are civil about it. I hate rabid Genwunners because they wish they could make Pokemon Red and Blue 2 instead of giving the other mechanics a chance. I admit that it would be nice to Earthquake a Weezing and kill it but to each their own. I can see why people are Genwunners - Game Freak think Pokemon is a great testing ground for stuff they try and throw in the trash. I want Pokemon to be more than just earning eight badges and then fighting the champion of the region. At least Sword and Shield seem to be a bit more reactive with all of the commercial sponsorship things

 

Eh, I just don't like how they keep reinventing how the world of Pokemon works. I would've preferred if each iteration just introduced a few new Pokemon and maybe one or two ideas that weren't there before (like how Gen 2 introduced the night and day system, or how Pikachu would follow you in Pikachu Yellow). It's when they start introducing concepts that go directly against what has already been established that I begin to lose interest. We'll see how the gimmicks are handled in Sword and Shield.

 

On 11/1/2019 at 6:35 AM, Spaz said:

I played a little bit of Robin and Nightwing and their moveset is not as good. But if this is anything like Arkham Knight then I should be able to do all those challenges. Catwoman is definitely the hardest, her Thief Vision is crap and she has a lot less health than the others.

 

I'm still working on Nightwing and haven't started Catwoman yet. I wouldn't mind doing all their ranked maps, but the predator campaigns are awful. I just can't do them consistently enough. In Lost City (Extreme), for example, I can do either the line takedown or the baton knockdown at the start of the map, but I get killed immediately after that 80% of the time. In the video guides I've watched, people will jump over a railing to get to the sniper on the ledge, but the angle they take for that jump seems impossible. When I do it, Nightwing lands right in front of an enemy and gets his head blown off. Sometimes the enemy will take longer getting there, but it seems too random to rely on that strategy at the end of a campaign run.

 

Other than that, I have maybe 40 Riddler trophies to find, most of the side quests in NG+ (it's stupid you have to do those twice), and two more dates with Calendar Man. It may end up being a very Batman Christmas.

 

Alright. Don't say lightning never strikes in the same place twice.

 

Not a Platinum #Why - Little Nightmares

 

If there's one thing I love about the internet, it's that it has allowed smaller indie games like Undertale, Celeste, and even FNAF to gain a cult following. I'm not sure how successful these games would've been back in the day when it wasn't so easy to share theories with thousands of other like-minded and sick-minded individuals. Games like this, I think, thrive because they create a world that sticks with you long after you stop playing. When I finished my first playthrough, I went onto YouTube to see how other players interpreted the story, and it's really cool to see some of the ideas out there, about who Six is and how she's related to the Lady and why the guests on The Maw are so fuckin' disgusting. And even though the DLC may have answered some of those questions, I think it brought a lot more, and I'm OK with that. A good game should make you want to know more.

 

Is it worth a play? For the atmosphere, absolutely. It's a very odd mixture of unsettling, unappealing, and intriguing. I guess it's sorta like a major car wreck on the highway, where you don't really want to look because you know there are probably mashed cars and mangled bodies, but something inside of you forces your eyes that way. Maybe it's curiosity. Maybe it's human nature. Either way, it's messed up, and so are the developers for creating this game. I thank them for that.

 

However, I'm immediately going to rescind that compliment and say Hard to the Core is one of the worst designed trophies I've ever seen. This is NOT the kind of game that should have a no death speedrun. If you're going to do that, we need three things: a death counter, a timer, and better controls. The jumping in this game is questionable at best. Basically, picture Dark Souls, but as a platformer. That's essentially what Little Nightmares is trying to be with this trophy. Well, jumping doesn't work in Dark Souls, and jumping doesn't work here.

 

That's not to say the gameplay is bad. It's good, in fact, but death is something you should expect. It keeps you tense. It makes it scary. I don't know why the developers thought it would be a good idea to put the flaws in their game on full display with this achievement, but nobody will blame you for using a USB stick to back up your save.

 

It's not often I say this, but I think this game is probably worth the full $20 price tag, even if you're likely only going to get 6-10 hours out of it (depending on your luck with the speedrun). If you aren't a completionist, definitely check it out. If you are, be aware that there's one trophy that may ruin the whole experience for you.

 

Platinum #189 - Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

 

This game was freakin' gross too. You know, not every horror game needs to make me want to vomit. I think the worst parts are in the DLC, but the main game will have your stomach churning from time to time. Oh, and after playing for about twenty minutes... Yeah, I think Ethan would've been better off leaving Mia behind. That's boyfriend of the year material right there.

 

Anyway, you've probably already played this if you have any interest in the RE series, so I'm just going to say that it was a fairly challenging 100%. I think we're maybe talking a 6/10, if the platinum is a 4. I know some people had trouble with the Ethan/Joe Must Die campaigns and 21+ Survival, but I was more concerned about Night Terror. I just don't like horde modes, or having to stand in places where enemies can spawn behind you. It goes against my whole approach of see-death-coming, you know?

 

I wouldn't recommend this game if you get scared easily or prefer having your food properly digest, but the Gold Edition is a steal at $20. You're talking a solid 40-50 hour experience that never gets dull. All jokes aside, the DLC is actually REALLY good. You get three more campaigns to play through (all of which play out a little differently than the main game), two fun mini-games (one which makes the game a lot less scary and the other which turns it into torture porn), and Ethan Must Die (which is not as bad as Hard to the Core, but I'm not sure no death runs should rely so heavily on RNG either).

 

I think that's enough scary games for now. We'll wait a while before tackling RE2 and The Evil Within.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Cassylvania

[AJ_Radio]

7 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I'm still working on Nightwing and haven't started Catwoman yet. I wouldn't mind doing all their ranked maps, but the predator campaigns are awful. I just can't do them consistently enough. In Lost City (Extreme), for example, I can do either the line takedown or the baton knockdown at the start of the map, but I get killed immediately after that 80% of the time. In the video guides I've watched, people will jump over a railing to get to the sniper on the ledge, but the angle they take for that jump seems impossible. When I do it, Nightwing lands right in front of an enemy and gets his head blown off. Sometimes the enemy will take longer getting there, but it seems too random to rely on that strategy at the end of a campaign run.

 

Other than that, I have maybe 40 Riddler trophies to find, most of the side quests in NG+ (it's stupid you have to do those twice), and two more dates with Calendar Man. It may end up being a very Batman Christmas.

 

Alright. Don't say lightning never strikes in the same place twice.

 

That's what I always hear from people.

 

The predator challenges are definitely a lot harder than they were in Arkham Asylum. The worst in Asylum was finding a creative way to take out the goons, but RNG was never an issue. Here in City it seems RNG is a big factor as to how well you're going to finish those predator campaigns. Nightwing and Catwomen I hear are often the worst. Plus they're not as durable as Batman.

 

I found all the Riddler trophies without looking up a guide. When I did Arkham Knight I was required to look up a video, because some of them were outright ridiculous.

 

Yeah the AR Challenge sucks, and I have to do it again in NG+. I always failed finishing it at Joker's Carnival.

 

I just adjusted my time and date for Calendar Man. That was actually one of the trophies I got four years ago back in 2015, was one of my rarest since I only started trophy hunting.

 

7 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

If there's one thing I love about the internet, it's that it has allowed smaller indie games like Undertale, Celeste, and even FNAF to gain a cult following. I'm not sure how successful these games would've been back in the day when it wasn't so easy to share theories with thousands of other like-minded and sick-minded individuals. Games like this, I think, thrive because they create a world that sticks with you long after you stop playing. When I finished my first playthrough, I went onto YouTube to see how other players interpreted the story, and it's really cool to see some of the ideas out there, about who Six is and how she's related to the Lady and why the guests on The Maw are so fuckin' disgusting. And even though the DLC may have answered some of those questions, I think it brought a lot more, and I'm OK with that. A good game should make you want to know more.

 

Indie games weren't a thing back then. It was all about the latest and greatest games and how much buzz they accumulated. Starcraft 1, Diablo 2, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are just some of the games that have stuck with me many years after their release. I don't think "indie" was really a word back in 1999 - 2001, because mainstream games were mostly the only big concern at the time.

 

Ever since we got shit like the controversial Mass Effect 3 ending, the crap EA pulled with the Dead Space franchise that ended up being Dead Space 3 and eventually the demise of the entire series, and more recently, microtransactions and lootboxes that have affected games like Stars Wars Battlefront 2, Middle Earth: Shadow of War and Fallout 76, there's been more of an incentive to make smaller, good quality indie games.

 

My personal favorites are Velocity 2X, Shovel Knight, Furi, Super Meat Boy, Slain: Back From Hell and Guacamelee. I don't particularly like how a lot of them borrow an extensive amount from the old 1980s/1990s games we all grew up with, but a few like Furi redesign the wheel a bit and implement a new style of play. Furi is awesome, so if you haven't played it yet I would definitely recommend it.

 

I personally think the AAA industry today fucking sucks. But what's worse is there has been a general lack of AA games, the middle ground. Not as big budget at what Naughty Dog or Call of Duty put out, but not as low budget as what you'll typically find in a lot of indie games. The PS3/360 generation had a good offering of AA games. Stuff like Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and Splatterhouse which is mostly gone this generation. I had more fun with Vanquish than I had with a lot of the more recent AAA games.

 

AAA games nowadays feel too big business and corporate, which I greatly despise.

[panikooooos]

6 hours ago, Spaz said:

But what's worse is there has been a general lack of AA games, the middle ground. Not as big budget at what Naughty Dog or Call of Duty put out, but not as low budget as what you'll typically find in a lot of indie games. The PS3/360 generation had a good offering of AA games. Stuff like Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and Splatterhouse which is mostly gone this generation. I had more fun with Vanquish than I had with a lot of the more recent AAA games.

Preeeeeach ? Really good take, I always felt like this generation felt "off" and while I can't exactly pinpoint it this is definitely one of the reasons.

[RuneEyesDragon]

On 11/1/2019 at 8:39 PM, Cassylvania said:

This game was freakin' gross too. You know, not every horror game needs to make me want to vomit.

That's what I will never play a horror game. It either has tons of jump scares or lots of gore, which is a sad remnant of the old slasher flick era of Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th.

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 28.9.2019 at 7:26 AM, Cassylvania said:

Anyone excited for any upcoming games?

 

Put one more on my definite-buy -list: Disco Elysium has been announced to be ported to PS4. 2020 is going to be a good year for me.

[Cassylvania]

On 11/2/2019 at 4:56 AM, Spaz said:

The predator challenges are definitely a lot harder than they were in Arkham Asylum. The worst in Asylum was finding a creative way to take out the goons, but RNG was never an issue. Here in City it seems RNG is a big factor as to how well you're going to finish those predator campaigns. Nightwing and Catwomen I hear are often the worst. Plus they're not as durable as Batman.

 

Nightwing is awful. Top of the World (Extreme) requires landing three headshots with his wrist dart attack, which is really hard to aim and only has three charges. End of the Line (Extreme) has two medals that require having multiple enemies stand in the right place at the right time, and the only consistent way I can find to do that is as soon as the map starts. Once the enemies begin searching for, there's too much reliance on RNG. Unfortunately, doing either of those medals will alert the guards, so you just have to pray the AI cooperates for the other. But the medal I hate the most is saving the jammer guy for last. Say what you want about wall vision, but it wouldn't be an Arkham game without it.

 

On 11/2/2019 at 4:56 AM, Spaz said:

I personally think the AAA industry today fucking sucks. But what's worse is there has been a general lack of AA games, the middle ground. Not as big budget at what Naughty Dog or Call of Duty put out, but not as low budget as what you'll typically find in a lot of indie games. The PS3/360 generation had a good offering of AA games. Stuff like Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and Splatterhouse which is mostly gone this generation. I had more fun with Vanquish than I had with a lot of the more recent AAA games.

 

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West really deserves a remaster. I've debated going back to it, as it was the very last game I played on my old account, before my PS3 died. I thought it was every bit as good as Uncharted, The Last of Us, or God of War, but I guess it underperformed because it wasn't an official AAA title. Don't know anything about Splatterhouse, but I tend to agree with your opinion on the industry today. It's gotten to the point where I don't even consider buying AAA games until they've been out for a year or two. I know they're going to add DLC, that New Game+ will probably be a thing, and that you're better off waiting for a complete edition or a deep sale. I feel more confident in spending my money now on a game that is finished.

 

That said, it's great that the selection of games is so big now that you could reasonably ONLY play indie games from now on and be set for years to come.

 

OK. I'm trying to get the remaining eight Arkham City trophies (minus Calendar Man and the plat) Thanksgiving-ready. Genius, Sphinx' Riddle, and Family Jewels are there. Nightwing Revenge is there, but I still have the final predator campaign to do for the other trophy. Got quite a few ranked maps and campaigns to do with Catwoman. And I don't know what all is required for Perfect Knight - Day 2, but I'm going to be pissed if it doesn't pop before I have my fill of turkey. Fortunately, I can grab whatever trophies are remaining on Christmas, if Bats tries to screw me over.

 

I also finished my first playthrough of Nine Parchments. The game both is and isn't what I expected. I guess I assumed the "nine" referred to the number of characters you could play as (joke's on me, as there aren't even nine characters on the cover), but it actually refers to the number of spells you get in the game. Basically, each character begins with three predetermined spells, and you can choose another spell (from three randomly-determined ones) every time you kill a boss. You can also unlock different variations of each character by accomplishing feats, and every trophy in the game is tied to a character unlock, which is kinda cool. I wish more games had trophies that double as in-game rewards.

 

The game is also as hard as fossilized dinosaur shit. I mean, we're not talking SMB levels of hair-pulling, but this is a twin-stick shooter that kills you in just a few hits, and I'm pretty sure dying in Hardcore Mode deletes your save file. I played on Easy and died several times on most levels. The trick, I think, is choosing the right combination of spells, but it's a little awkward switching between them. See, they all share the same button on the controller, but they each have their own mana bar, so you spend most of the time flipping between spells and attacking while you're on the move. Both enemies and spells represent one of six elements (with the usual fire-beats-ice-but-ice-also-beats-fire logic), so you can choose to generalize or specialize primarily in one element. I find ice to be the most useful so far because freezing enemies makes you less dead, but healing is nice too because it can kill shadow monsters.

 

I'm not sure how many playthroughs are required. Some guides say two or three, but there are a bunch of trophies that require having four of the same element in your spellbook, so I would imagine you might need at least six partial playthroughs, unless you get really lucky with RNG. I'm going through the game a second time as Aussie Elsa, who starts with two ice spells, and I only got my third about halfway through the game. Fortunately, the game is only about six hours long.

 

I'll hold off a recommendation for now, but I will say it checks one box perfectly, and that's the ability to comfortably watch movies while playing. Probably not on Hardcore, but it's a very simple and light kind of game.

[AJ_Radio]

6 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

Nightwing is awful. Top of the World (Extreme) requires landing three headshots with his wrist dart attack, which is really hard to aim and only has three charges. End of the Line (Extreme) has two medals that require having multiple enemies stand in the right place at the right time, and the only consistent way I can find to do that is as soon as the map starts. Once the enemies begin searching for, there's too much reliance on RNG. Unfortunately, doing either of those medals will alert the guards, so you just have to pray the AI cooperates for the other. But the medal I hate the most is saving the jammer guy for last. Say what you want about wall vision, but it wouldn't be an Arkham game without it.

 

The lack of gadgets and lack of durability is what makes them hard.

 

Combat wise, nothing tops the Community Challenges from Arkham Knight. Combat I would argue is the easiest in this game. Did the trophy for pulling off 15 different moves in one combo and I didn’t find it too hard. 

 

I’m bad at stealth, so this will take a while. I have a YouTube playlist ready for the Batman Predator Challenges. Not so for Catwoman, Robin or Nightwing. 

 

10 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

OK. I'm trying to get the remaining eight Arkham City trophies (minus Calendar Man and the plat) Thanksgiving-ready. Genius, Sphinx' Riddle, and Family Jewels are there. Nightwing Revenge is there, but I still have the final predator campaign to do for the other trophy. Got quite a few ranked maps and campaigns to do with Catwoman. And I don't know what all is required for Perfect Knight - Day 2, but I'm going to be pissed if it doesn't pop before I have my fill of turkey. Fortunately, I can grab whatever trophies are remaining on Christmas, if Bats tries to screw me over.

 

Riddler trophies are much easier here than they are in Arkham Knight. The problem is keeping a checklist of everything you have left. Doing all the side missions again in New Game Plus is just stupid. 

 

I think you can royally screw yourself with Perfect Knight, so I would definitely keep tabs on what you need left. 

 

13 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West really deserves a remaster. I've debated going back to it, as it was the very last game I played on my old account, before my PS3 died. I thought it was every bit as good as Uncharted, The Last of Us, or God of War, but I guess it underperformed because it wasn't an official AAA title. Don't know anything about Splatterhouse, but I tend to agree with your opinion on the industry today. It's gotten to the point where I don't even consider buying AAA games until they've been out for a year or two. I know they're going to add DLC, that New Game+ will probably be a thing, and that you're better off waiting for a complete edition or a deep sale. I feel more confident in spending my money now on a game that is finished.

 

I think my problem is because I’ve been gaming for so long and for so many years across a multitude of systems, not a lot jumps out at me. 

 

I was a lot easier to impress 15 years ago. 20 years ago I was a kid trying to get his hands on every PC Gamer and Nintendo Power magazine just to see the new print ads for new games. During the heydays of Ocarina of Time I couldn’t wait to rent new N64 games. I was one of the lucky few kids who had access to a PC, because my 65 year old dad did PC gaming for a while. 

 

Age has a lot to do with it. But another reason is the fact you really don’t have to wait anymore. I have several hundred games combined on Steam, Microsoft and PS4. Add 80 games from my backlog. A few dozen on GOG.com. As a kid I had maybe 10 - 20 games I actually had, including PC titles. 

 

It was funny the other day as I was downloading PS Plus titles I got a while back like Just Cause 3 while I was sitting there with beer in my hand. It seemed to me that going out and renting a game or buying a game was more exciting. Especially back then when you practically had to go out since the internet didn’t give us as many options, especially the pre YouTube days. 

 

I can understand a 10 to 16 year old kid getting all excited for the newest games. I used to be one of those kids. But now it just feels that stuff is blending in. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of good games. The immense excitement I used to get years ago has mostly vanished.

[Cassylvania]

1 hour ago, Spaz said:

I think you can royally screw yourself with Perfect Knight, so I would definitely keep tabs on what you need left.

 

You got me worried. That better not happen.

 

1 hour ago, Spaz said:

I can understand a 10 to 16 year old kid getting all excited for the newest games. I used to be one of those kids. But now it just feels that stuff is blending in. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of good games. The immense excitement I used to get years ago has mostly vanished.

 

I wonder if years of disappointment factors in too. Like, we're old enough to have seen many of our favorite series be dragged through the mud. I don't know what it is for you, but it's been 15 years since the last real Harvest Moon game. Every new cow pie Natsume drops on us is like a kick in my childhood. And I know Natsume has gone through some changes, and I know Story of Seasons is the future of the series, but the crushing disappointment of so many bad titles has left a sour taste in my mouth. What developer do you really trust these days? If you were going to open your wallet right now for a developer, to shell out money for a game that you know next to nothing about, who out there do you have the most confidence in? Capcom? Rockstar? Naughty Dog? The only right answer, as far as I'm concerned, is Nintendo, because they at least seem to have some QA going on. (I'd also say From Soft has earned my trust, for now.) That wasn't the case back in the day, or at least it didn't seem to be. You could trust branding. Now, I clutch my wallet with a tight fist.

 

We take for granted the ease of access to things today. Like you said, part of the "experience" you used to get from video games was that initial waiting period. Having to sit on your thumbs (or worse, mow lawns and save up money ?) for weeks or even months at a time was normal. I'd put games on my Christmas list as early as June, which I imagine would be a sin for kids today. And I don't so much blame them or their parents, as our world is just moving faster, but I wonder how much is lost by not going through that process. I remember trying to rent a game from Redbox last year, and it ended up being a nightmare because I had to go to three different places to find the game, but then the disc wasn't in the case so I had to return it, but CVS wouldn't take it back and told me I'd have to go online to fill out a form, and then I had to drive back to the store and use a free coupon code to rent the game, but only after I returned my copy, and I sure as hell wasn't going to risk getting the same case back, so I rented the new Tomb Raider movie instead and yes, it was terrible, and yes, this is a run-on sentence, but I'll be damned if I didn't force myself to squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of that movie that I could. That's not exactly how things were in the 80's and 90's, but you appreciated things more because of the work involved to get your hands on something.

 

But it's the same with movies and TV shows. I didn't mind waiting for new stuff to come out, because I guess I didn't know any other way. There was that sense of excitement and anticipation. Like, I remember one episode of Kenan & Kel ended with a cliffhanger where (uh, spoilers, I guess?) Kenan moves away, and it bothered me for a whole week until I could see the resolution. I guess that's why people enjoy all these modern shows with a story arc that spans the entire season or even series. I was going to say that I don't understand binge-watchers, but now I'm thinking maybe I side with them, because instant gratification has spoiled me too. I don't like when a show tells me I have to wait to see what happens. Maybe it's just because it was less frequent back then, that a two-parter was something to be excited about. You could always tell when a show was going to do that too. Two-part episodes were always of a higher quality than the rest of the show. ?

 

So, I don't know. There are things that I miss, but I like to think that we're generally in a better place than we were 20 years ago. We just gotta kinda stop inherently seeing change as a bad thing. I think if we went back to those days now, knowing what we know and what we've become accustomed to, I don't know if it would be as great as we remember or would hope. The 90's were just a special period in our lives, where time has made us appreciate all the things it had to offer.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Cassylvania

[AJ_Radio]

6 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

You got me worried. That better not happen.

 

It's not too horrible. Just read up a guide on it and you'll be fine.

 

6 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I wonder if years of disappointment factors in too. Like, we're old enough to have seen many of our favorite series be dragged through the mud. I don't know what it is for you, but it's been 15 years since the last real Harvest Moon game. Every new cow pie Natsume drops on us is like a kick in my childhood. And I know Natsume has gone through some changes, and I know Story of Seasons is the future of the series, but the crushing disappointment of so many bad titles has left a sour taste in my mouth. What developer do you really trust these days? If you were going to open your wallet right now for a developer, to shell out money for a game that you know next to nothing about, who out there do you have the most confidence in? Capcom? Rockstar? Naughty Dog? The only right answer, as far as I'm concerned, is Nintendo, because they at least seem to have some QA going on. (I'd also say From Soft has earned my trust, for now.) That wasn't the case back in the day, or at least it didn't seem to be. You could trust branding. Now, I clutch my wallet with a tight fist.

 

The thing is back then, games were more passion projects than they were a method to get quick profit margins. You didn't have giant publishing companies pushing the developers to rush their games early. That has definitely been the case these past few years, notably with the latest Tom Clancy game from Ubisoft and Battlefield V, both of which got panned by gamers and critics alike.

 

Nintendo has shown longevity and I respect them for that. However their library caters to younger gamers, particularly kids. I'm not saying someone in their 30s or 40s can't enjoy a Nintendo Switch game, I have friends in real life in their late 30s and early 40s who still enjoy what Nintendo puts out. But what they have is mostly the same rehashing of their long established series. Mario Kart was great for a long time but after so many titles I just sort of got burnt out on the games. The last Super Mario game I truly loved and enjoyed was Super Mario Galaxy 2, and that was already a decade ago. The only series that I still enjoy playing in the present day is their Super Smash Bros series. Always a great game to hook up with friends, although I don't have a Switch myself so I've basically had to play it at their house.

 

I trust very few developers. As much as we like to gripe about their lack of communication on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms, I have to put the blame on the gamers as well. The meltdown that No Man's Sky had and the angry mentality of the modern gamer that followed after Sean Murray hid himself from the negativity was enough for me to know that gamers aren't completely innocent either. All of that backlash was just a waste of time and energy, even if No Man's Sky didn't come close to what we were expecting it to be. It was basically an unfinished mess.

 

6 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

We take for granted the ease of access to things today. Like you said, part of the "experience" you used to get from video games was that initial waiting period. Having to sit on your thumbs (or worse, mow lawns and save up money ) for weeks or even months at a time was normal. I'd put games on my Christmas list as early as June, which I imagine would be a sin for kids today. And I don't so much blame them or their parents, as our world is just moving faster, but I wonder how much is lost by not going through that process. I remember trying to rent a game from Redbox last year, and it ended up being a nightmare because I had to go to three different places to find the game, but then the disc wasn't in the case so I had to return it, but CVS wouldn't take it back and told me I'd have to go online to fill out a form, and then I had to drive back to the store and use a free coupon code to rent the game, but only after I returned my copy, and I sure as hell wasn't going to risk getting the same case back, so I rented the new Tomb Raider movie instead and yes, it was terrible, and yes, this is a run-on sentence, but I'll be damned if I didn't force myself to squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of that movie that I could. That's not exactly how things were in the 80's and 90's, but you appreciated things more because of the work involved to get your hands on something.

 

So true.

 

I remember in 1998 - 1999 me and my sister would go to our local video rental store. It was honestly no different from Blockbuster but you get the idea. We'd spend 10 - 15 minutes combing through the games, I can remember renting Mario Party 1 & 2, Goldeneye 007, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and several other games.

 

Granted my sister is several years older than me so at that time I was still going through school while she was wrapping up her high school years and working towards university. So for a while, every few weeks on a Friday we'd calmed down and went to the video rental store together. She paid for the renting and usually, we had roughly a week or so to play through the games and then return them. Normally we didn't complete our games, but as long as we have fun playing them that was all that mattered.

 

Then around 1999 I had a friend, who is sadly dead and gone because of a tragic auto accident, come over to my house and we'd take turns playing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. We'd spent hours and hours and hours on it. Same with Goldeneye 007. We used to have sleepovers, which I really don't hear from kids at all anymore. We'd get up at 7 - 9 AM in the morning, hang out, have water balloon fights and Super Soaker fights, then casually play video games until around 9 - 10 PM then we'd go to sleep.

 

Later in life around the early - mid 2000s I actually went and rented PS2 games on my own. Devil May Cry, GTA Vice City, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Hitman: Blood Money and Jak 3 were a few games I remember renting. I worked a part time job and it was actually a little exciting to turn in your paycheck, then drive down to Blockbuster to rent the games.

 

I've been on the short end at times, forgot to return a game when I was supposed to and had to pay a over charge fee. Good times though.

 

Just sitting in your house all day long and buying up 20 - 50 games at a time really takes out the fun and appreciation you got when you were able to get a new game. I can't imagine kids and young adults today trying to drive over to a video rental store and paying to rent a game or movie like we used to do.

 

6 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

But it's the same with movies and TV shows. I didn't mind waiting for new stuff to come out, because I guess I didn't know any other way. There was that sense of excitement and anticipation. Like, I remember one episode of Kenan & Kel ended with a cliffhanger where (uh, spoilers, I guess?) Kenan moves away, and it bothered me for a whole week until I could see the resolution. I guess that's why people enjoy all these modern shows with a story arc that spans the entire season or even series. I was going to say that I don't understand binge-watchers, but now I'm thinking maybe I side with them, because instant gratification has spoiled me too. I don't like when a show tells me I have to wait to see what happens. Maybe it's just because it was less frequent back then, that a two-parter was something to be excited about. You could always tell when a show was going to do that too. Two-part episodes were always of a higher quality than the rest of the show.

 

That was such a great show on Nickelodeon. So was Nickelodeon GUTS, Hey Arnold!, Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life, Doug and so many others.

 

Honestly I cannot get into these modern shows. Game of Thrones burnt me out after the third season. A few I've seen on Netflix and Amazon Prime make absolutely no sense unless you've watched them from the very beginning. Pisses me off because everybody else who has watched them religiously is already into the fourth or fifth season. I mean fuck, I don't want to sit down and watch 30 - 50 episodes, which are 50 - 60 minutes each, just to play catch up. That's far too much.

 

I've literally had people gasp and scratch their head when I said I prefer stuff like Family Matters, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Home Improvement, Boy Meets World, 3rd Rock From the Sun, Married With Children, Roseanne, Seinfeld, Saturday Night Live, the Simpsons, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and *insert every 90s and 2000s sitcom* over today's melodramatic, violent modern shows with a story arc. I mean, I watched the entirety of Dragon Ball Z and every episode that show made, that took forever to get through. So I don't hate or dislike every show with a story arc. The Sopranos is one of my all time favorite shows. Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire and Mad Men are shows I immensely enjoyed. I like a good drama. But every fucking modern show with a story arc is just tiring and cumbersome to me.

 

At least they're better than Reality TV, which is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

 

6 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

So, I don't know. There are things that I miss, but I like to think that we're generally in a better place than we were 20 years ago. We just gotta kinda stop inherently seeing change as a bad thing. I think if we went back to those days now, knowing what we know and what we've become accustomed to, I don't know if it would be as great as we remember or would hope. The 90's were just a special period in our lives, where time has made us appreciate all the things it had to offer.

 

Because that is nostalgia.

 

I watched some episodes of the Disney cartoon Gargoyles, popular cartoon from the mid 1990s that I absolutely loved as a kid. Then I saw all the flaws and inconsistencies it had, plus being a cartoon show catered to kids, makes it more obvious that it can be cringe worthy. Swat Kats: The Radical Squadron was another show I loved back in the day that had me scratching my head a few times when I watched a few episodes.

 

With Donald Trump at the helm and our government being a riddled mess, I tend to think we aren't in a better place. We can work to make positive change for a better future for future generations. Our generation has yet to make any serious progress with that, as Baby Boomers and more recently Gen X hold many of the executive positions.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Spaz

[Briste]

7 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

8 hours ago, Spaz said:

I think you can royally screw yourself with Perfect Knight, so I would definitely keep tabs on what you need left.

 

You got me worried. That better not happen.

The only missable trophy is the Catch trophy, but fortunately you can get that like 10 minutes into the game so it isn't a big deal. I don't think you can screw yourself over on Perfect Knight. It is annoying to redo all of the side quests, but the Riddler trophies carry over to both playthroughs, so at least you don't have to duplicate that. I found the helping the Political Prisoners to be the most annoying to redo...but that wasn't that bad either. You can screw yourself in Arkham Origins, because there is a Predator Challenge that can only be done in one area and it doesn't reset after you beat it. You also have to do the challenges in order, so if you aren't to that challenge by the time you get to that predator map...you need to do another playthrough. There is nothing in Arkham City like that though. My last side quest to get that trophy was Zasz.

 

8 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Top of the World (Extreme) requires landing three headshots with his wrist dart attack, which is really hard to aim and only has three charges.

For this map, I always started with this challenge and just reset if I missed it. I found the easiest place to get this done was from the Gargoyle on the opposite side from where you start. There is a guy that stands still over there and you have all the time in the world to line up your shot. After you get him down, usually three or four bad guys run over. You usually have a few seconds to line up another shot, if not if you wait there, the thermo guys will come look at you. They give you a lot of time to line up your shot as well. If you miss one shot, retry. It took me three or four tries to get that one. If you get all three, just take your time to do the rest. I find hanging out at the walkway in the middle of the zone gives you a good view to do the mine explosion. He tends to lay them in the same places, so just pick one and wait for him to set it and boom.

 

I found the Youtube videos not to be extremely helpful, since they are like speed records and I don't have that kind of skill. But some of the challenges are uniquely set up and the order you do them does kind of matter. Honestly, the biggest pain in the ass for me was anything involving Catwoman's Caltrops...half the time the enemy just kicks them out of the way. I found they work better if you don't throw them at an enemy, but put them around a corner or something and they run into them.

 

For campaign maps, I save the penalties for combat challenges since I found those very easy compared to the predator challenges. On the campaigns where this is no fighting, I would front load the penalties. I would try my hardest to get as many out of the way on that first challenge since your retries to count against you until you beat the zone. There are a few exceptions since the booby trappd gargoyles make a level infinitely harder.

[AnEldritchThing]

10 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

11 hours ago, Spaz said:

I can understand a 10 to 16 year old kid getting all excited for the newest games. I used to be one of those kids. But now it just feels that stuff is blending in. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of good games. The immense excitement I used to get years ago has mostly vanished.

 

I wonder if years of disappointment factors in too. Like, we're old enough to have seen many of our favorite series be dragged through the mud. I don't know what it is for you, but it's been 15 years since the last real Harvest Moon game. Every new cow pie Natsume drops on us is like a kick in my childhood. And I know Natsume has gone through some changes, and I know Story of Seasons is the future of the series, but the crushing disappointment of so many bad titles has left a sour taste in my mouth. What developer do you really trust these days? If you were going to open your wallet right now for a developer, to shell out money for a game that you know next to nothing about, who out there do you have the most confidence in? Capcom? Rockstar? Naughty Dog? The only right answer, as far as I'm concerned, is Nintendo, because they at least seem to have some QA going on. (I'd also say From Soft has earned my trust, for now.) That wasn't the case back in the day, or at least it didn't seem to be. You could trust branding. Now, I clutch my wallet with a tight fist.

 

 

I may just be a man-child at heart but I still get super excited for new releases and announcements, particularly if they come from particular studios *coughFromSoftcough*. Admittedly, I do have a lot more skepticism though as well. This past weekend with Blizzcon 2019 is a perfect example...I used to always get so hyped for new games / xpacs but in recent years I can't help but see nothing but corporate marionette puppet shows laden with faux passion in their presentations beyond their hype-generating cinematics. In generally, it does get harder and harder each year to get that game excitement high from the past.

 

That being said, there is one corner of the gaming industry that keeps catching me offguard with quality and that is the indie scene. I've been finding more consistently great, unique experiences from it that top even most of the AAA releases. What Remains of Edith Finch, Celeste, A Hat in Time, Salt & Sanctuary, Hollow Knight, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, A Plague Tale Innocence, Outer Wilds...all of these games were made with such a palpable passion for the medium that is sorely missing from most AAAs now. Hell, I just platinumed Outer Wilds and it might be one of my favorite games of all time on all fronts and it is from a relatively small studio that crowdfunded the project. The indie trend doesn't seem to be slowing down either. Some RPG called Disco Elysium is getting rave reviews and it coming to consoles next year. I strictly a console player but I am tempted to get on PC just to see what the hype is about.

 

TD;DR / What I am getting at is that if you are missing some of those old highs from gaming, check out the indie scene. A good chunk of the developer / studio passion seems to be there now.

Edited November 6, 2019 by GameMatter

[RuneEyesDragon]

21 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West really deserves a remaster.

 

Sly Cooper really needs to be ported to the PS4. I don't feel like buying the games on my Vita and the PS3 versions suck in controls. But they're not going to do it since Sony is too busy with PS5 now. Those games had great dialogue in them.

 

Also, Pokemon-wise, I would love it if Pokemon Sword and Shield had in-game achievements similar to the medals in Black 2/White 2, and you'd get rare items if you did the harder challenges like the Battle Tower. Nobody plays the Battle Tower except for ribbons, which stinks as Emerald's Battle Frontier had a lot going for it. Fighting Pike Queen Lucy after only two runs of the Pike shows how the game can ambush you and surprise you, but now Game Freak is too scared to do things to challenge players. I appreciate the fact that they revealed that you can change your Pokemon's nature with mints and feed them candy to give them free EXP, but it makes those of us who struggled through Gen 3 onward feel cheated. On an off note, I wish that the Fairy type had been added in Gen 3 as a special type, since Eevee has a fairy-type evolution so it still fit the theme of "if Eevee has a type evolution, it's special, that and dragon."

 

Sorry to jump in with that. A lot of people leaked a lot of stuff and it got taken down and now Pokemon Sword and Shield are almost a week away.

[Rally-Vincent---]

@Mori Sorry to bother you again. Do you know if there is a limited number you can enter crown vaults? I was walking around with Eyes in L1 to store the frog pistol, but neither L1 3-2 nor L1 5-2 had a portal, and of course I did not reach L1 7-2. I am running out of ideas on how to achieve something in this game.

[Cassylvania]

On 11/6/2019 at 8:23 AM, Spaz said:

I've literally had people gasp and scratch their head when I said I prefer stuff like Family Matters, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Home Improvement, Boy Meets World, 3rd Rock From the Sun, Married With Children, Roseanne, Seinfeld, Saturday Night Live, the Simpsons, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and *insert every 90s and 2000s sitcom* over today's melodramatic, violent modern shows with a story arc. I mean, I watched the entirety of Dragon Ball Z and every episode that show made, that took forever to get through. So I don't hate or dislike every show with a story arc. The Sopranos is one of my all time favorite shows. Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire and Mad Men are shows I immensely enjoyed. I like a good drama. But every fucking modern show with a story arc is just tiring and cumbersome to me.

 

I think it can be done right (you included several good examples there), but I just don't like it's become the new standard. I prefer movies to modern TV shows because generally, when I go to watch something, I want to see the resolution that same day. Not all the time, but I'd say 90% of the time. Shows like Power Rangers, Space Cases, and The Secret World of Alex Mack had an overarching storyline, but each episode was a self-contained story. That put more pressure on writers to tell a good story, because they couldn't just bait you into coming back with a cheesy cliffhanger, and it prevented them from painting themselves into a corner, which you see in a lot of modern shows, where the writers clearly didn't think far enough in advance about how the story would play out. A good example of this is any season of 24, which was one of the first shows I remember using the continuing episode formula, where the characters end up doing things that make no sense when you take into account their past actions. Normally, if you have a character fall into a pit, you'll have time to think about how that character will get out -- and you can revise your story accordingly. The problem with continuing episodes is that writers often only plan out one episode at a time, and it becomes really obvious that they probably wish they could retcon some of that stuff later on. That's not to say 24 was a bad show, because I actually really liked the first five seasons, but it brought forth a lot of problems with the formula that I haven't seen revolved yet.

 

Most of the 90's shows you named were sitcoms, so there wasn't really a singular plot, but certainly something like Boy Meet Worlds had a steady progression and evolution of the main characters. That was nice to see. I can't think of another show from that time (outside of maybe Friends) that allowed you to grow up with the actors on the show. Usually, when the actors get too old for their respective roles, the show is cancelled and maybe a spinoff is introduced. That's what they did with iCarly, which was the last good teen sitcom I remember watching. I didn't care for the spinoff.

 

We had our fair share of mediocre shows too, though. I thought I really liked Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers and Captain Planet, but going back and watching them as a 30-something made me rethink that part of my memory. Other shows held up really well. DuckTales, Johnny Bravo, and Animaniacs are timeless, and Batman TAS may be one of the greatest shows ever created. But the 2000's brought a lot of great cartoons too, like Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe, The Amazing World of Gumball, and Gravity Falls. I'm not ready to say we had it better as kids. In fact, if anything, I'd argue the drop in quality of animated shows from 1995 to 2015 is the smallest of any form of media (including movies, music, and any other form of TV show). I don't know if I'd say it's necessarily better or on par with what we had, but I haven't lost faith in animation, like I have the rest of Hollywood.

 

Although I do think gaming has gotten better since the 90's...

 

On 11/6/2019 at 9:47 AM, Briste said:

I found the Youtube videos not to be extremely helpful, since they are like speed records and I don't have that kind of skill. But some of the challenges are uniquely set up and the order you do them does kind of matter. Honestly, the biggest pain in the ass for me was anything involving Catwoman's Caltrops...half the time the enemy just kicks them out of the way. I found they work better if you don't throw them at an enemy, but put them around a corner or something and they run into them.

 

Top of the World (Extreme) is even worse on her than Nightwing. I try to watch the videos, but I can't pull off some of their tricks. My strategy is just to wait on the balcony for about 25 minutes so I can pick off enemies one by one. Even then, I sometimes get seen, and then Catwoman either gets gunned down or commits suicide over the ledge. I wish she'd automatically grapple to safety, like what happens in the rest of the game.

 

On 11/6/2019 at 0:11 PM, GameMatter said:

That being said, there is one corner of the gaming industry that keeps catching me offguard with quality and that is the indie scene. I've been finding more consistently great, unique experiences from it that top even most of the AAA releases. What Remains of Edith Finch, Celeste, A Hat in Time, Salt & Sanctuary, Hollow Knight, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, A Plague Tale Innocence, Outer Wilds...all of these games were made with such a palpable passion for the medium that is sorely missing from most AAAs now. Hell, I just platinumed Outer Wilds and it might be one of my favorite games of all time on all fronts and it is from a relatively small studio that crowdfunded the project. The indie trend doesn't seem to be slowing down either. Some RPG called Disco Elysium is getting rave reviews and it coming to consoles next year. I strictly a console player but I am tempted to get on PC just to see what the hype is about.

 

I'll have to check out some of those games, since I loved all the ones you mentioned that I have played. In fact, I believe three of them (Celeste, AHiT and S&S) are on my favorites list in the OP. (OK. I just checked. S&S didn't make it, but there's certainly a case to be made there.)

 

While we're on the subject, though... I would like everybody to give Little Nightmares a round of applause, for it made my favorites list, despite severely grossing me out. That's not an easy thing to do. (To make my favorites list, that is. It's easy to gross me out. I won't even eat an open-faced sandwich because the name makes me gag.) I'll have to think if every game on that list really deserves to be there, but I'm OK with it for now. Maybe I'll try to keep it to a top 20 or something at some point.

 

I do want to comment on something else Briste said and Pokemon, but it's past my bedtime, and I hate when I close out my browser and lose what I just typed. So, instead, I'm just going to say that Nine Parchments really pissed me off, as I went through the whole game a second time and ended up with three ice spells, three fire spells, and three lightning spells -- which means zero trophies to show for it. Also, there are only five kinds of spells in the game, which seems really confusing to me since each type is both strong and weak against another type, but I guess lightning just fucks up everything. (Just like Final Fantasy, am I right? ?)

[Mori]

8 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

@Mori Sorry to bother you again. Do you know if there is a limited number you can enter crown vaults? I was walking around with Eyes in L1 to store the frog pistol, but neither L1 3-2 nor L1 5-2 had a portal, and of course I did not reach L1 7-2. I am running out of ideas on how to achieve something in this game.

 

No problem.

I dont think there is a Limit. However from L1 on, it can happen that you accidently destroy the Portal, before it gets activated, because it gets chaotic very fast. I cant see any other reason for Portals not being there.

[Arcesius]

3 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I'll have to check out some of those games, since I loved all the ones you mentioned that I have played. In fact, I believe three of them (Celeste, AHiT and S&S) are on my favorites list in the OP. (OK. I just checked. S&S didn't make it, but there's certainly a case to be made there.)

 

Salt and Sanctuary was indeed fantastic. I have to say though, Death's Gambit is very similar, and I prefer its artstyle over the cartooney S&S. If it keeps being as good as it has been, I might consider this one to be even a bit better than S&S.. but let's see, it's still early  

 

Now if you would play Hollow Knight and Furi... (sorry, I told you I wouldn't stop insisting ?)

 

 

3 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

While we're on the subject, though... I would like everybody to give Little Nightmares a round of applause, for it made my favorites list, despite severely grossing me out. That's not an easy thing to do. (To make my favorites list, that is. It's easy to gross me out. I won't even eat an open-faced sandwich because the name makes me gag.) I'll have to think if every game on that list really deserves to be there, but I'm OK with it for now. Maybe I'll try to keep it to a top 20 or something at some point.

 

I absolutely agree with you, and I'm really glad that you liked it so much  I would even agree with your point on Hard to the Core being a bad trophy for such a game, but I really like ironman runs (at least if they aren't too long), so I never got frustrated with it. 

 

It is definitely a game that I still think of every now and then despite having played it almost 2 years ago, and one that I have also put in my top-5 indie games at some point. It might be out of that list in the meantime though, but that is just because I have played some absolutely fantastic indies since then.. ?

 

Actually, your concept of the favorite list is something I might copy for my own checklist as well.. I only have that list in my head, and would be nice to write it down and see how it changes over time