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Necrothatcher
Mar 26, 2005




AngryRobotsInc posted:

The cape in Super Mario World is the worst.

FINALLY someone who agrees with me.

I hate that loving thing.

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AngryRobotsInc
Aug 2, 2011

Necrothatcher posted:

FINALLY someone who agrees with me.

I hate that loving thing.

A friend of mine and I are 35 and 34, respectively. We've both been playing Super Mario World since childhood. And he admitted the other day that he only just this year figured out how the thing works. It is not intuitive at all.

I'm sure the manual probably explains it, but I never had it and only learned because of the internet, and he never bothered looking it up!

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Absolutely incredible

Der Kyhe
Jun 25, 2008

Tiggum posted:

I've been watching this LP of Evil Genius and it amazes me that I ever got as far as I did in that game, because everything about it is a little thing dragging it down. It's an amazing concept but they just did absolutely everything wrong - and that's before you even get to the ways it's literally broken.

A bit late to this party but there are two gamey things that make Evil Genius millions times more enjoyable:
A) Edit the max minion amount to something more reasonable like 250 or 300 minions (doable with simple editing work on .cfg file) and
B) Grind 3-5 mil. dollars at the start by stealing before the tutorial unlocks the heat mechanic (doable in Vanilla if you know when to do it).

Those two alone make it possible to overlook almost all other problems the game had, and makes it a funny pseudo-Dungeon Keeper with a 70's Bond theme.

This game does not have achievements or multiplayer, so there is no inherent cheating involved on fixing the balance issues.

Inspector Gesicht
Oct 26, 2012

500 Zeus a body.


What are other games are where it advantageous not to progress past a certain point because it'll only make things harder or annoying? Like never killing the first dragon in Skyrim so you can explore the world unmolested.

Leave
Feb 7, 2012

Taking the term "Koopaling" to a whole new level since 2016.

AngryRobotsInc posted:

A friend of mine and I are 35 and 34, respectively. We've both been playing Super Mario World since childhood. And he admitted the other day that he only just this year figured out how the thing works. It is not intuitive at all.

I'm sure the manual probably explains it, but I never had it and only learned because of the internet, and he never bothered looking it up!

Wait, diving to gather air, then pulling back up to catch that air in the cape didn't click with either of you?

Olaf The Stout
Oct 16, 2009

FORUMS NO.1 SLEEPY DAWGS MEMESTER

Leavemywife posted:

Wait, diving to gather air, then pulling back up to catch that air in the cape didn't click with either of you?

I know right. The same mechanic is how batmans cape works in the arkham games, and it's how you maximize your flying potential in Apex Legends and other drop-in battle royale games.

AngryRobotsInc
Aug 2, 2011

Leavemywife posted:

Wait, diving to gather air, then pulling back up to catch that air in the cape didn't click with either of you?

It certainly didn't click for me when I was younger. It was a "Ohhhhh." moment when I looked up how it worked.

For him, he played it maybe once a year, and went "This sucks" and went back to Super Metroid.

RyokoTK
Feb 12, 2012

I am cool.
There’s a tutorial box in Donut Plains 1, the first level where you get the cape, that tells you how to use it and gives you a ton of space with no hazards to fly around.

Away all Goats
Jul 5, 2005

Goose's rebellion

Inspector Gesicht posted:

What are other games are where it advantageous not to progress past a certain point because it'll only make things harder or annoying? Like never killing the first dragon in Skyrim so you can explore the world unmolested.

I remember in one of the earlier Harvest Moon games the first night on your farm lasted forever if you never went to bed. Since time and stamina was such a precious resource the pro move was to clear out your entire field (it starts off overgrown and covered in weeds/stones/logs) the first night by regenerating your stamina at the spa.

Leave
Feb 7, 2012

Taking the term "Koopaling" to a whole new level since 2016.
Edit: Never mind, I was being a jerk.

Leave has a new favorite as of 19:00 on Oct 6, 2019

Snake Maze
Jul 13, 2016

3.85 Billion years ago
  • Having seen the explosion on the moon, the Devil comes to Venus

Inspector Gesicht posted:

What are other games are where it advantageous not to progress past a certain point because it'll only make things harder or annoying? Like never killing the first dragon in Skyrim so you can explore the world unmolested.

It probably doesn't work anymore but at release in Metal Gear Solid 5, you could get all the benefits of an FOB without the "other players can steal your single player resources" aspect by only doing the first half of the tutorials for it.

Mamkute
Sep 2, 2018
Wolfenstein the New Order: The 'Big Robot' at the end of the London level is just a robot with a better gun and too much health.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

My real-life tabletop RPG story is that my brother tried running a Call of Cthulhu game using a scenario from the book (the game was new at the time) and one dick in the group looked up the scenario ahead of time and so always knew what the surprises or dangers were, but would pretend he was just really good at figuring things out.

For video games, I tried Path of Exile but was severely turned off by the convoluted skill systems, lack of money, tons of jargon-filled tiny descriptions on every item, piles of gear that's hard to decipher, and a tiny inventory. I'm sure it makes sense over time, but it's seems an example of a system that kept adding more and more for veterans with little concern for new players. I liked feeling fairly powerful early on, and combat seemed okay, but it's so drat obtuse and unfriendly, and I just don't have time for that kind of nonsense at my age.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Ugly In The Morning posted:

I used to love the original XCOM games but I can’t play them anymore because the UI is painfully 90’s. There’s so much stuff that games have figured out since it came out that we take for granted.

Try Xenonauts.

Captain Hygiene
Sep 17, 2007

You mess with the crabbo...



Decided to jump in on the free PS Now trial and finally getting around to playing Arkham Asylum (having played everything from City on at some point). It feels like a pretty tightly-designed game that seems like a better fit than the later, more open-world style. But man, I'd forgotten just how annoying the "mash X to open grate" prompts get, and it somehow feels worse in a closed, almost claustrophobic level. It's just like, what else does that mechanic do other than waste my time before I can progress? "No, game, I just want Batman to stand there holding onto the thing blocking literally the only way forward, I don't want him to open it" :confused:

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

The Lone Badger posted:

Try Xenonauts.

I did, I didn’t like it at all. It seemed pretty joyless. I keep meaning to give it another shot one day but there’s so much poo poo coming out this month I’m not sure when I’ll be able to. Phoenix Point looks cool as hell, though.

AngryRobotsInc
Aug 2, 2011

The biggest thing bringing Drill Dozer down is that Game Freak hasn't made a follow up.

The Moon Monster
Dec 30, 2005

Away all Goats posted:

I remember in one of the earlier Harvest Moon games the first night on your farm lasted forever if you never went to bed. Since time and stamina was such a precious resource the pro move was to clear out your entire field (it starts off overgrown and covered in weeds/stones/logs) the first night by regenerating your stamina at the spa.

Adding to the fun, you still get exhausted so if you decide to do this so your character will play a *pant with exhaustion* animation for a few seconds every 5 times you swing your hammer or whatever.

Olive!
Mar 16, 2015

It's not a ghost, but probably a 'living corpse'. The 'living dead' with a hell of a lot of bloodlust...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4REqswOtMh0

There's too much combat in Dragon Quest Builders 2.

Len
Jan 21, 2008

Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!


Olive! posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4REqswOtMh0

There's too much combat in Dragon Quest Builders 2.

I just finished combat island and it doesn't get better

Olive!
Mar 16, 2015

It's not a ghost, but probably a 'living corpse'. The 'living dead' with a hell of a lot of bloodlust...
I'm in the postgame and it doesn't get better.

Screaming Idiot
Nov 26, 2007

JUST POSTING WHILE JERKIN' MY GHERKIN SITTIN' IN A PERKINS!

BEATS SELLING MERKINS.
There's a faction of enemies in Warframe called the Sentients, biomechanical robots whose gimmick is that the were built to learn and evolve to fit any scenario to aid them in their original task of terraforming worlds for their Orokin empire masters. They became sentient when, after serving their masters, realized they were doomed to extinction and thus decided to turn on them in the hopes of saving themselves and everything they had built.

This translates in-game to them resisting all of your damage until you reset their vulnerabilities using your warframe's operator's psychic Void blasts. Which means you have these stupid-looking floating robots slapping you with murder-bolts while you're fumbling around as a disgruntled teenager firing weak little pew-pew lasers instead of murdering them as the horrifying faceless killer cyborg you may or may not have paid actual money to play as.

Sentients don't show up very often, but when they do it's usually an important story mission, or something necessary to complete the plot. But good god they are such a drag to fight and bring down an otherwise loving awesome game.

Hell, almost all of Warframe's boss fights tend to suck, relying too much on the venerable gimmick of "hit this specific spot during this specific moment to succeed, also there's a billion things shooting at you at once."

Len
Jan 21, 2008

Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!


Olive! posted:

I'm in the postgame and it doesn't get better.

Oh good

Like I get it, builder isn't a murder machine she's a builder but Jesus Christ fighting anything is just miserable. My go to for anything super strong is trap it in a hole and let Malroth handle it. If he dies his health will eventually tick back up and he can get another try

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

Screaming Idiot posted:

There's a faction of enemies in Warframe called the Sentients, biomechanical robots whose gimmick is that the were built to learn and evolve to fit any scenario to aid them in their original task of terraforming worlds for their Orokin empire masters. They became sentient when, after serving their masters, realized they were doomed to extinction and thus decided to turn on them in the hopes of saving themselves and everything they had built.

This translates in-game to them resisting all of your damage until you reset their vulnerabilities using your warframe's operator's psychic Void blasts. Which means you have these stupid-looking floating robots slapping you with murder-bolts while you're fumbling around as a disgruntled teenager firing weak little pew-pew lasers instead of murdering them as the horrifying faceless killer cyborg you may or may not have paid actual money to play as.

Sentients don't show up very often, but when they do it's usually an important story mission, or something necessary to complete the plot. But good god they are such a drag to fight and bring down an otherwise loving awesome game.

Hell, almost all of Warframe's boss fights tend to suck, relying too much on the venerable gimmick of "hit this specific spot during this specific moment to succeed, also there's a billion things shooting at you at once."

Actually, that's not quite right about the Sentients story-wise. The Sentients made an objectively correct choice as terraforming robots: they came from a system that had been pretty badly hosed up, and realized that the main problem they'll face as terraformers isn't from the worlds they'd been sent to terraform, those are fine: it's the Orokin (or descendant groups) that'll inevitably turn up and gently caress up the environment.

There's a few Warframes that are uniquely pretty decent at fighting Sentients if you're not a fan of the 'intended' method (which is fair enough). Something useful to know is that all of the Sentients drop a full energy restore on death, so you can basically just go ham on any Sentient that turns up and not be worse-off for it. Some Warframes can do pretty well using that; my favorite is Gara, who can theoretically build up an infinite damage aura when she's fighting a map full of Sentients.

Screaming Idiot
Nov 26, 2007

JUST POSTING WHILE JERKIN' MY GHERKIN SITTIN' IN A PERKINS!

BEATS SELLING MERKINS.

Cleretic posted:

Actually, that's not quite right about the Sentients story-wise. The Sentients made an objectively correct choice as terraforming robots: they came from a system that had been pretty badly hosed up, and realized that the main problem they'll face as terraformers isn't from the worlds they'd been sent to terraform, those are fine: it's the Orokin (or descendant groups) that'll inevitably turn up and gently caress up the environment.

Well, DE themselves seem kinda muddled on it. Storywise the Sentients are kind of sympathetic -- they wish only to live, but the Orokin were bastards and thus deserved to be wiped out, though the Sentients would have done better to send mimic emissaries to the non-Orokin to say, "Hey, the Orokin enslaved us too, let's live work together to gently caress them up, then we can coexist in the beautiful worlds we have terraformed."

In-game though? They are a loving slog to fight, and even the ways to cheese them are annoying. Give me inbred Russian space marines and 80's synthwave space-capitalists any day.

Inspector Gesicht
Oct 26, 2012

500 Zeus a body.


What are games that are diminished by having either a voiced or a silent protagonist?

I was disappointed with Ajay in Far Cry 4 because despite his historical ties to the current conflict he offers no viewpoint and doesn't undergo any personal change. It was also a wasted opportunity to have a Nepalese character voiced by a white guy.

Fallout 4 is obvious. Bethesda likes to promote features like a voiced protagonist to wow the press, but they never have to consider the drawbacks of said decision because they'll already have your money by then. Meshing a find-your-family plot with open-world gameplay totally works (if you are CD Project Red) but Bethesda are too indebted to their ageing engine to ever realise that goal.

The Iconoclasts suffers from a muddled plot and an extremely bitter tone. The worst part is you play a silent-protagonist who is constantly patronised, insulted, and debased by the entire cast. It really made me wish there was a "Punch NPC in the face" option during conversation.

Doctor Spaceman
Jul 6, 2010

"Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."
Gordon Freeman being a silent protagonist means that conversations in HL2 are weird, one-sided affairs where you jump around the room picking up poo poo while people blab exposition at you.

Captain Hygiene
Sep 17, 2007

You mess with the crabbo...



I would sort of rather have Big Boss Snake just silently mime the words "Metal Gear...?!" in MGSV than have bored Kiefer Sutherland do his mediocrest job at taking over an established character.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Gordon Freeman being a silent protagonist means that conversations in HL2 are weird, one-sided affairs where you jump around the room picking up poo poo while people blab exposition at you.

I love how they billed that as “never taking control away from the player” when on replays it really means “all the tedium of a cutscene infodump, but you can’t skip it”

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Gordon Freeman being a silent protagonist means that conversations in HL2 are weird, one-sided affairs where you jump around the room picking up poo poo while people blab exposition at you.

I've always liked the theory that, unique among silent protagonists, Gordon Freeman is actually mute. The only person on your side that ever mentions it in HL2 is Alyx, who mentions you're 'not much of a talker' only when she first meets you. It makes some sense that she didn't actually know that and was told afterwards, while everyone else you interact with has some experience with Gordon and knows you don't mention it. Dr. Breen also mentions it, but only privately when he's basically just antagonizing you; he doesn't mention it to the Combine because it doesn't matter, and he only raises it to you as a taunt.

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

Captain Hygiene posted:

Decided to jump in on the free PS Now trial and finally getting around to playing Arkham Asylum (having played everything from City on at some point). It feels like a pretty tightly-designed game that seems like a better fit than the later, more open-world style. But man, I'd forgotten just how annoying the "mash X to open grate" prompts get, and it somehow feels worse in a closed, almost claustrophobic level. It's just like, what else does that mechanic do other than waste my time before I can progress? "No, game, I just want Batman to stand there holding onto the thing blocking literally the only way forward, I don't want him to open it" :confused:

There's sort of a justification in that it might potentially affect stealth sections, but otherwise I wouldn't be surprised if a non-zero number of them are there just to help buffer loading.

AngryRobotsInc posted:

The biggest thing bringing Drill Dozer down is that Game Freak hasn't made a follow up.

:yeah:

Inspector Gesicht posted:

What are games that are diminished by having either a voiced or a silent protagonist?

Blade went from being a snarky dude throughout SiN and then is almost completely silent throughout SiN Episodes.

Inspector Gesicht posted:

The Iconoclasts suffers from a muddled plot and an extremely bitter tone. The worst part is you play a silent-protagonist who is constantly patronised, insulted, and debased by the entire cast. It really made me wish there was a "Punch NPC in the face" option during conversation.

IIRC, Owlboy has the exact same thing going on except it is literally text that your character is mute so it adds an extra nasty feeling to how much everyone shits on him.

Captain Hygiene
Sep 17, 2007

You mess with the crabbo...



John Murdoch posted:

There's sort of a justification in that it might potentially affect stealth sections, but otherwise I wouldn't be surprised if a non-zero number of them are there just to help buffer loading.

Nothing's ever jumped out to me about the first possibility, but I could forgive it if it's a secret loading mechanism. I always forget games don't actually run on magic, and still need clever trickery to actually run right.

moosecow333
Mar 15, 2007

Super-Duper Supermen!
Wish the loading was buffered in a more interesting way. ‘Oh, you’re Batman and can literally leap across a room to do a sick backflip dickpunch on that goon? Cool, spend 7 seconds trying to move a little grate.’

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

moosecow333 posted:

Wish the loading was buffered in a more interesting way. ‘Oh, you’re Batman and can literally leap across a room to do a sick backflip dickpunch on that goon? Cool, spend 7 seconds trying to move a little grate.’

Batman actually has different animations for opening a grate depending on whether there are enemies around. If there aren't he'll usually kick it open really quickly, if there is he'll take more time to pry it off silently.

So if he's taking that time to do it, then you want him to, otherwise you're gonna get a face full of bullets.

Philippe
Aug 9, 2013

(she/her)

Inspector Gesicht posted:

What are games that are diminished by having either a voiced or a silent protagonist?

Dishonored 2 improved a lot over 1, but I think that this is the main thing, storywise. Having a voiced protagonist, whether it's Emily or Corvo, makes a lot of sense, and I don't really know why Corvo was silent in the first one.

ilmucche
Mar 16, 2016

John Murdoch posted:

Blade went from being a snarky dude throughout SiN and then is almost completely silent throughout SiN Episodes

Did they ever make more of those? I remember the first one not being too bad. The theme song or whatever was pretty bond like. Bikini scene was strange and made zero sense to me, and I've never figured what the story actually was.

orcane
Jun 13, 2012

Fun Shoe

John Murdoch posted:

Blade went from being a snarky dude throughout SiN and then is almost completely silent throughout SiN Episodes.
The one episode anyway, before the entire studio switched to making casual games :v:

The censored version massively dragged the original SiN down, especially when you get to the mutant factory. It's just boxes on little carts driving through the factory. gently caress you Germany. At least that was easily fixed in some .cfg file IIRC.

Glukeose
Jun 6, 2014

Re: silent protags, I just jumped into the Fire Emblem franchise with Three Houses and while I really love it so far, the mute protagonist is an absolute black hole for dramatic tension in the story.

It's not like you have any agency in the development of the character, so them being totally silent just serves to make them look like a weird robot when their father is killed or their mentor turns into a dragon. Given how the rest of the cast is fully voiced, it really stands out when all my PC can muster is a head nod, grunt noise, and single motion with their forearm. This is especially egregious in cases where the NPCs are having full-blown emotional breakdowns with the PC. It just feels like it clangs with the heightened emotional tone of this anime-rear end swordman game.

It's also bizarre when you level up and your PC does actually talk. So there is voice acting for them, but it's only in generic combat barks.

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Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

Glukeose posted:

Re: silent protags, I just jumped into the Fire Emblem franchise with Three Houses and while I really love it so far, the mute protagonist is an absolute black hole for dramatic tension in the story.

It's not like you have any agency in the development of the character, so them being totally silent just serves to make them look like a weird robot when their father is killed or their mentor turns into a dragon. Given how the rest of the cast is fully voiced, it really stands out when all my PC can muster is a head nod, grunt noise, and single motion with their forearm. This is especially egregious in cases where the NPCs are having full-blown emotional breakdowns with the PC. It just feels like it clangs with the heightened emotional tone of this anime-rear end swordman game.

It's also bizarre when you level up and your PC does actually talk. So there is voice acting for them, but it's only in generic combat barks.

Okay, that's a... weird one. Because the only Fire Emblem I've actually played is one of the GBA ones, but I very distinctly remember the protagonist having a fair amount of lines in that game (granted, GBA, so nobody was voiced). So that's a relatively recent change.

It sounds like they might be cribbing from the Persona games, but not doing quite as well. Personas 3-5 have 'silent' protagonists, in that they don't speak in scenes but do have dialog choices and combat lines. But those games have done really well at not setting it up in a way that feels weird, as well as giving those protagonists a distinct personality even without voiced lines just through character design, movement and dialog options. In Persona it doesn't feel like your character is silent, it just feels like they're quiet, that they're not the type to do a lot of talking.

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