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Der-Wreck
Feb 13, 2006
Friday nights are for Wapner!

The facial animations and acting in much of the story mode are fantastic. There’s a bit between Sindel and Shao Kahn after they first reunite and beat up Sheeva where Shao Kahn says something to the effect that Sindel’s still got it. She just looks up at him with this look of “oh, don’t I know it?” Topped off with a little eyebrow raise to drive the point home.

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exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


Cleretic posted:

Mortal Kombat 11 reintroduced Friendships! They're almost all really good, with some real highlights among them in terms of 'they didn't have to do these littler details, but they did'.

-Jax plays a sax cover of the Mortal Kombat movie theme.
-The Joker gets stopped from doing a Fatality by a Batarang, and spends the entire ending animation trying to look harmless while looking back at where it came from in fear.
-Spawn reads a trashy supernatural romance novel about Spawn. The cover is fully rendered.
-Skarlet paints a stick figure in blood, because her voice actor is also an artist.
-Baraka cuts up a cake used in one of the Joker's Fatalities, because he was the target of it in the Joker's trailer.
-My personal favorite, though, is that Kabal (assassin speedster, or 'Edgy Flash') plays some of what appears to be a marimba cover of Running In The 90s.


Also in this update is a new story mode chapter, that is mostly about Shang Tsung being smug while everyone picks fights with him. But this isn't a little thing, because Shang Tsung's voice and facial capture is done by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, so he steals every single scene often while doing nothing.

The little details are great, such as when you look closely at the high striker game in Shao Kahn's friendship and the lower rungs are like: You Suck, Pathetic Mortal, Worthless, etc.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
Another thing for the Tyranid campaign in BFGA2: since the Tyranids don't talk, the campaign's story is told by everyone else in the galaxy as the Hive Mind listens in on their communications. And for once, the fact that almost everyone in 40k acts completely, self-destructively stupid is played entirely straight and gets everyone killed for it.

From the very first mission where the overconfident Adeptus Mechanicus gets in way over their heads and are turned into Tyranid poo poo for it, to "WE HAVE NO NEED OF ALLIES OR FANCY TACTICS! TYRANIDS ARE MINDLESS BUGS AND THE IMPERIUM OVERCOMES!... Oh God-Emperor they're eating everything and everyone..." it's honestly refreshing to see the dumbass space Nazis get exactly what they deserve. The point is repeatedly made that if any of these morons actually worked together and took the threat seriously, rather than being space Nazis who believe their own propaganda, the Tyranids would get blasted out of the Segmentum without fanfare. But they're space Nazis, so they're morons and fall one by one into the maw of the Great Devourer.

As someone who used to like 40k but started to dislike it intensely in recent years, and picked this game up since it was on sale for ten bucks, it really is quite refreshing to roll in and kill all the goose-stepping space Nazis and laugh at them.

40k really needs more games where you don't play as the Imperium. Bash a fash, in space. Or eat a fash, as the case may be.

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


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

Der-Wreck posted:

The facial animations and acting in much of the story mode are fantastic. There’s a bit between Sindel and Shao Kahn after they first reunite and beat up Sheeva where Shao Kahn says something to the effect that Sindel’s still got it. She just looks up at him with this look of “oh, don’t I know it?” Topped off with a little eyebrow raise to drive the point home.

Liu Kang's eyebrows alone deserve an acting credit.

Nuebot
Feb 18, 2013

The developer of Brigador is a secret chud, don't give him money

Gay Rat Wedding posted:

Castlevania symphony of the night has food items you use by dropping them on the floor and you run over them to heal. Except for the peanut, which claims it is “difficult to eat,” because alucard flicks it in the air and you have to eat it by moving under it and holding up to catch it in his mouth.

At the start of the game you arrive wearing some of the most powerful items, the Alucard Sword/Shield/Cape, which Death steals from you early on. You can find them again hidden toward the end of the game, but much earlier than that, you can find a secret containing the Alucart Sword/Shield/Cape which have slightly different descriptions and crappy stats. If you equip all of them, your name on the menu changes to Alucart.
They also have the semi-hidden bonus if dramatically increasing your luck if you have all of the Alucart items on, which makes them very useful for farming rare items.

Some of my personal favorites though include the overt Jojo references; one of the first accessories you can find is a stone mask that raises your intellect, and there are a few fist weapons with an input skill that let's you do the traditional punch-flurry and, unless I'm thinking of a later game, Alucard even says "Ora Ora Ora" while doing it. But also if you use bat form to fly into a very small space and transform back, Alucard will be comically confused and upset by this.

Owl Inspector
Sep 14, 2011

Doc M posted:

Not officially, but it should run fine on a PlayStation emulator.

This is what I’ve been doing after playing bloodstained made me want to revisit the two “igavanias” I’d played ages ago so I decided to go through all 5 of them in order. With the exception of aria of sorrow which has some unique frustrations and is really held back by limitations of the GBA, the games all hold up extremely well. I’d never played symphony of the night before a couple weeks ago and had a really good time overall. The soundtrack is the best out of any of them, it has a lot of little touches with personality, I unironically love the hammy-rear end voice acting and weird translation, and the 2D sprites are high quality and hold up way better than the PS1 games of the era that tried to do 3D, which look like terrible garbage now.

I will say I agree with all the issues this video points out (the drat clock got me stuck and I had to look up where to go) but when I normally struggle to stick with anything more than a decade old these days, symphony is pretty great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1hHOVIkrcc

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters
I would love to see a remake of Symphony of the Night that kept all this stuff but revamped...well, most of everything else. The map design sucks, the game is aimless, moreso than most Metroidvanias, the UI is terrible, the slew of one-use items that don't do anything but clog up your inventory is a waste, and the warp points are inconvenient as hell.

I appreciated a lot of the finer points in the game, but by and large it feels dated for the genre when it comes to certain elements.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

Samovar posted:

This, while literally accurate, so poorly captures the level of smugness that Shang Tsung gives off. It's simply incredible.

It's impossible to accurately capture the level of smugness Shang Tsung gives off. It's impossible to not hear him go "Hmmmmmm?" and not crack a grin at how much of a dick he is. The story mode stuff in Aftermath is my favorite of the Modern Kombat story modes, which is saying a lot because the Modern Kombat story modes are some incredibly great stuff.

exquisite tea posted:

The little details are great, such as when you look closely at the high striker game in Shao Kahn's friendship and the lower rungs are like: You Suck, Pathetic Mortal, Worthless, etc.

Ahahaha, those are all things he interjects in Mortal Kombat 3, I love it.

TontoCorazon
Aug 18, 2007


I love in the soundtrack for Abzu most of the songs are named after the aquatic animals that appear in the game, labeled as their scientific names.

bewilderment
Nov 22, 2007
man what



rodbeard posted:

It annoys me that so many licensed DnD and Warhammer games use the license for lore instead of gameplay. To hell with actually trying to organize playing one of those in real life at my age.


The one DnD edition that actually bothered to be an interesting balanced game had its digital lead go and murder-suicide their wife.
A significant number of older edition fans were also very upset that classes other than spellcasters were interesting and fun to play.

Larian is probably gonna try their best with the new Baldur's Gate but it's notable that the bits that make those classes interesting are being imported from their Divinity system (the 'dipping' elemental system) instead of being native to DnD.

Previously, the Neverwinter Nights games for third edition tried to work by spraying healing items everywhere and hugely inflating the number of enemy encounters you'd face compared to an actual session of DnD, making the classes without daily resources a little more valuable, but that was generally a nonissue since you could often just hit the rest button any time.

Just Offscreen
Jun 29, 2006

We must hope that our current selves will one day step aside to make room for better versions of us.

Morpheus posted:

The map design sucks, the game is aimless, moreso than most Metroidvanias

Hard disagree. The map could be a bit more elegant in how some sections are laid out, ill grant you (Caverns), but I prefer aimlessness to the opposite, where the game just flat out tells you where to go.

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters

Just Offscreen posted:

Hard disagree. The map could be a bit more elegant in how some sections are laid out, ill grant you (Caverns), but I prefer aimlessness to the opposite, where the game just flat out tells you where to go.

It's not just that it doesn't tell you where to go (which is fine, for a Metroidvania), it's that you don't know why you're going where you're going. The mission is to kill Dracula, but you find that you need a super high jump to reach him. So you...well, wander around for hours to get it, somewhere, basically just going to a place because it's a place that's available. Like, being told where to go is one thing, being told why you're going somewhere is another.

Anyway my biggest gripe with the map is..well, it's hard to describe. There's one particular part where you are presented with a thin corridor full of spikes. Oh, no worries, I thought, I'll come back when I get bat powers. So I do, I come back, sweet, can get through this spike tunnel. Nope. There's a grating, can't get through that. Okay, so I guess I need the go-through-grating power. So I get that, come back (which, each time, is an annoyance). Except that, no, the mist power doesn't work because there are spikes in front of the door, or behind it or something. Point is, you don't need the bat power, you need the spike-destroying boots after all. So the third time I come back here, now I can make it through this annoying corridor.

Also another part where there's a gap you can't cross because it's too wide. But then I got the double jump or high jump or something, and thought of it immediately, and returned to find...a larger gap immediately after where the new power doesn't work.

So many points in that game where just filled with aimless, pointless backtracking, something that modern metroidvanias have really gotten a handle on..for the most part, anyway. Once you get all your powers, the game actually becomes a lot of fun.

Edit: poo poo this is the wrong thread for gripes. I did like how there are just a bunch of chairs to sit on for no real reason, and one that lets a specific familiar sing a song. And the eagles that you see get born, hatched, and fly off on their own in the eagle tower.

Morpheus has a new favorite as of 17:30 on May 29, 2020

rodbeard
Jul 21, 2005

bewilderment posted:

The one DnD edition that actually bothered to be an interesting balanced game had its digital lead go and murder-suicide their wife.
A significant number of older edition fans were also very upset that classes other than spellcasters were interesting and fun to play.

Larian is probably gonna try their best with the new Baldur's Gate but it's notable that the bits that make those classes interesting are being imported from their Divinity system (the 'dipping' elemental system) instead of being native to DnD.

Previously, the Neverwinter Nights games for third edition tried to work by spraying healing items everywhere and hugely inflating the number of enemy encounters you'd face compared to an actual session of DnD, making the classes without daily resources a little more valuable, but that was generally a nonissue since you could often just hit the rest button any time.

gently caress off

SkeletonHero
Sep 7, 2010

Skeleton War 2020
I want to play a DnD action game where I have a blink dog companion that helps me with takedowns and I can double-jump using immovable rods but also have a special move where I slam a motherfucker's face directly into one.

Rip off Shadow of Mordor and put on a coat of DnD paint, is what I'm saying here. Give me a sweet, sweet cinematic execution where I individually chop each eye stalk off a beholder and then gouge out their central eye with a voulge. I want to collect 140 mephits to unlock a Planescape Easter egg.

Double Punctuation
Dec 30, 2009

Ships were made for sinking;
Whiskey made for drinking;
If we were made of cellophane
We'd all get stinking drunk much faster!

Doc M posted:

Those witches throw cats as well, so the Cat-Eye Circlet is totally useful! :radcat:

Yet another example from SotN is the Holy Symbol, which is a well-hidden item that lets Alucard move through water without taking damage (dude's got vampire blood in him, after all). When you finally find this most hallowed of relics, it turns out to be a snorkel.

Symphony of the Night owns and I regret not playing it until last week.

It’s J for Jesus.

Screaming Idiot
Nov 26, 2007

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

BEATS SELLING MERKINS.

Double Punctuation posted:

It’s J for Jesus.

Jesus didn't actually walk on water, he just swam beneath it and everyone was all like "dude you didn't even come up for air" and the J-man was all, "I have this holy symbol of My name" and here we are.

Captain Hygiene
Sep 17, 2007

You mess with the crabbo...



Christianity is not a game :c00lbert:

Lobok
Jul 13, 2006

Say Watt?

Captain Hygiene posted:

Christianity is not a game :c00lbert:

Are you sure? There's magical abilities and extra lives and fans who can't handle the main character being a POC.

Byzantine
Sep 1, 2007

Captain Hygiene posted:

Christianity is not a game :c00lbert:

Kitfox88
Aug 21, 2007

Anybody lose their glasses?

SkeletonHero posted:

I want to play a DnD action game where I have a blink dog companion that helps me with takedowns and I can double-jump using immovable rods but also have a special move where I slam a motherfucker's face directly into one.

Rip off Shadow of Mordor and put on a coat of DnD paint, is what I'm saying here. Give me a sweet, sweet cinematic execution where I individually chop each eye stalk off a beholder and then gouge out their central eye with a voulge. I want to collect 140 mephits to unlock a Planescape Easter egg.

The prestige class that fought with immobile rods was one of the only good things out of 3.5 :hai:

Bloodcider
Jun 19, 2009
After a few hundred hours in Red Dead Online, I decided to finally see what GTA Online is like. Turns out they have a cross promotional thing where you can go on a treasure hunt to find a gold plated double action revolver from RDR! I double-tapped the holster button out of pure instinct and my GTA character did the revolver spin trick just like in Red Dead. :clint:

Supersonic Shine
Oct 13, 2012
Speaking of Shadow of Mordor, in Shadow of War, you have to recruit every orc through forcible brainwashing because they're basically unrepentant masses of evil stuck in humanish bodies. Even the slave orcs won't fight for you until you force them with your ghost powers. However, there's one exception to the rule: there are chained up half-trolls who will start fighting on your side once you free them, no branding required. It's obviously a workaround for them being more difficult to brand than their normal-sized counterparts, but I like it as a proof of concept of sorts. The Nemesis system would gain a whole lot of depth if your enemies could join up with you of their own free will, and it's already incredibly engaging to begin with.

The Zombie Guy
Oct 25, 2008

SkeletonHero posted:

Give me a sweet, sweet cinematic execution where I individually chop each eye stalk off a beholder and then gouge out their central eye with a voulge.

This sounds like a glory kill from DOOM.

I recently finished the campaign, and I never got tired of doing them.There's a huge variety of different ways to rip and tear enemies. You get different kills for being in front, above, beside, and for targeting specific body parts. One of my favourites is the "Screw Top" glory kill, where the Doom Marine stomps on the back of an enemy's leg to drop them to their knees, then grabs and twists the head.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
More Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2, from da Green Kroosade's last stand against the Great Devourer.

One, the name of the clan flagships in this mission was great. The Spitfiya (Evil Sunz), Moonraka (Bad Moons), and the It Hurtz (Blood Axes).

Two, nothing says Tyranids like seeing 61 troop assaults ticking down on an enemy ship. Two Space Hulks, and I took them both by boarding.

No one beats Tyranids in a boarding fight in this game, which is how it should be. What you call a fleet, they call a buffet line hidden inside tin cans.

Ruffian Price
Sep 17, 2016

Supersonic Shine posted:

The Nemesis system would gain a whole lot of depth if your enemies could join up with you of their own free will

They kinda tried to have it both ways with Shadow of War, Monolith got tons of flak for having a brainrape mechanic in Mordor so Branding is now Dominating and there's the loyalty stat so orcs can go "nah man I don't really feel your leadership style"... but they kept the (I guess iconic) branding animations which don't exactly match those changes

You might enjoy the Blade of Galadriel DLC, as it replaces brand/dominate with recruitment missions, but they're not part of the Nemesis System.

Der-Wreck
Feb 13, 2006
Friday nights are for Wapner!

I'm playing through Yakuza 0 and one thing that really stuck out to me is the amount of flavor text in the weapon smuggling mini-game.

There are descriptions of each agent you can send out on scouting missions that tell you the background of the agent, why they are involved in weapon smuggling, and the reason behind the amount they can carry. Like the travelling cellist can fit a ton of poo poo in his cello case! But the sexy smuggler only carries a small handbag.

There's descriptions of each location you can search for weapons too.

moosecow333
Mar 15, 2007

Super-Duper Supermen!
I love everything about the new MK11 Aftermath story. There is even a great part where Raiden and Liu Kang begin to fight just like they had in every other timeline and like how they did in MK11’s normal story.

Also the choreography is really really good. I love that style of fighting.

Rigged Death Trap
Feb 13, 2012

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Ruffian Price posted:

They kinda tried to have it both ways with Shadow of War, Monolith got tons of flak for having a brainrape mechanic in Mordor so Branding is now Dominating and there's the loyalty stat so orcs can go "nah man I don't really feel your leadership style"... but they kept the (I guess iconic) branding animations which don't exactly match those changes

You might enjoy the Blade of Galadriel DLC, as it replaces brand/dominate with recruitment missions, but they're not part of the Nemesis System.

Plotwise the game is plenty explicit that domination is bad bad bad poo poo that evil does, and you need a way to explain how orcs, normally devoted to Sauron through his own domination, now are loyal and servile to you.
LOTR as a whole is also pretty explicit that you dont fight evil with evil lest you become of evil.

The gameplay undermines that message completely, however.

Ass-penny
Jan 18, 2008

Robert J. Omb posted:

Just received the “Over familiar” debuff in Void Bastards.

I thought it was just a throwaway joke for the specs screen... until I boarded the next vessel...

This game has a weird sense of humor about it. This and the Over formal trait were pretty funny to me fashow.

Torment: Tides of Numenera was full of weird, funny finds. Probably my favorite being an obelisk that shows mostly mundane visions of the future. I wish I could find a screenshot on my phone.

TontoCorazon
Aug 18, 2007


rear end-penny posted:

This game has a weird sense of humor about it. This and the Over formal trait were pretty funny to me fashow.


It's the most British humor video game.

Robert J. Omb
Dec 1, 2005
The 'J' stands for 'AAARRGH!'

TontoCorazon posted:

It's the most British humor video game.

I think it succinctly answers the question, “what if Douglas Adams had written ‘Event Horizon’?”

As a previous poster mentioned, the gameplay loop can become a little repetitive but it’s short enough that the game doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Also, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the Janitors’ ramblings: “Is that you, Gary?” “If we’d fixed the hand dryers we wouldn’t be having this problem.”

Mierenneuker
Apr 28, 2010


We're all going to experience changes in our life but only the best of us will qualify for front row seats.

Surpriiiise buttface! Oi, twatface!

Juves are great :allears:

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

Ruffian Price posted:

They kinda tried to have it both ways with Shadow of War, Monolith got tons of flak for having a brainrape mechanic in Mordor so Branding is now Dominating and there's the loyalty stat so orcs can go "nah man I don't really feel your leadership style"... but they kept the (I guess iconic) branding animations which don't exactly match those changes

You might enjoy the Blade of Galadriel DLC, as it replaces brand/dominate with recruitment missions, but they're not part of the Nemesis System.

I mean, War also outright added a "effectively lobotomize this loving orc for having the audacity to be higher level than you" button which really cranked up the squick factor.

Though I do like the fanatics who can shake that off and proceed to paint themselves up with hand marks.

Herr Bazooka
May 21, 2007
I thought that in Shadow of War its fairly clear that you are not a good guy(s).

Hel
Oct 9, 2012

Jokatgulm is tedium.
Jokatgulm is pain.
Jokatgulm is suffering.

Herr Bazooka posted:

I thought that in Shadow of War its fairly clear that you are not a good guy(s).

It makes clear that Celebrimbor is a bad guy, but it generally falls on Tallion being a "Hard man making hard choices" side, especially with the ending pointing out that Tallion kept Sauron from conquering the rest of the world until Frodo could do his thing. The DLC characters are clearly good guys through and through, though they also lack the mind control.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

moosecow333 posted:

I love everything about the new MK11 Aftermath story. There is even a great part where Raiden and Liu Kang begin to fight just like they had in every other timeline and like how they did in MK11’s normal story.

Also the choreography is really really good. I love that style of fighting.

Is that the scene where Revenant Liu Lang’s legs spontaneously break because Shao Khan broke Past Liu Kang’s legs with a hammer? That was fantastic. I love when they take advantage of the time travel stuff, like when Sonya ends Present Kano’s hostage situation by shooting Past Kano in the face.

Brazilianpeanutwar
Aug 27, 2015

Spent my walletfull, on a jpeg, desolate, will croberts make a whale of me yet?

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Is that the scene where Revenant Liu Lang’s legs spontaneously break because Shao Khan broke Past Liu Kang’s legs with a hammer? That was fantastic. I love when they take advantage of the time travel stuff, like when Sonya ends Present Kano’s hostage situation by shooting Past Kano in the face.

I was confused by past johnny being shot in the leg not affecting present johnny even though they literally just showed past johnny getting a scratch in his face which affected future johnny.

exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


It's deeply amusing to me that Mortal loving Kombat lore has somehow become so complex and convoluted that every new story chapter in MK11 has to begin with Raiden or Shang Tsung expositing exactly what is happening.

moosecow333
Mar 15, 2007

Super-Duper Supermen!

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Is that the scene where Revenant Liu Lang’s legs spontaneously break because Shao Khan broke Past Liu Kang’s legs with a hammer? That was fantastic. I love when they take advantage of the time travel stuff, like when Sonya ends Present Kano’s hostage situation by shooting Past Kano in the face.

The time I was thinking of is actually earlier but that fight is stopped by Fujin intervening. I adore how this fight is so important it keeps trying to happen. Oh, and it was just nice to see the bad guys win for a bit? I feel like in the last few games enemies existed to talk tough then immediately lose and this helped give them credit as actual threats.

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Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


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

moosecow333 posted:

The time I was thinking of is actually earlier but that fight is stopped by Fujin intervening. I adore how this fight is so important it keeps trying to happen. Oh, and it was just nice to see the bad guys win for a bit? I feel like in the last few games enemies existed to talk tough then immediately lose and this helped give them credit as actual threats.

I know there's some people who are really mad about Sindel being a villain, because she wasn't in the pre-MK9 continuity and that form of her is apparently pretty popular. But personally I don't mind it, because it actually gives the usual villain stable a woman who isn't someone's underling. Kronika's not sticking around, after all, even though she'd be an awesome standard fighter.

Also, villainous Sindel is the only character in Aftermath that comes close to Shang Tsung's charisma, and it's fun to see the different side of Shao Kahn she brings out.

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