What Are You Playing?

Ruhe Strom said:
so any fighting game aficionados out there with some recommendations?

I'd recommend the King of Fighters series, specifically versions 1994, '95, '99, '00, XIII and XIV. '94 and '95 are classic and they come with heavy battle damage per hit. These are harder games in the franchise. 99 is a more well rounded game with the best game mechanics imo. '00 changed a bit to cater to more combos and lastly, XIII and XIV have modern game mechanics with bigger (infinite) combos/ attacks.
 
Right Now i have a ton of unfinished games to play (which im doin) :

Borderlands 2 (almost finished)
GTA V
MGS4 Gun of Patriots
Tales of Xillia 2
Demon's Souls
Dragon's Dogma : Dark Arisen
Fallout: New Vegas

Then ill move to PS4 :ganishka:
 

Scorpio

Courtesy of Grail's doodling.
Ruhe Strom said:
But I'd like to explore the genre much deeper, so any fighting game aficionados out there with some recommendations?

Arc System Works make a lot of well-received fighting games; Guilty Gear being the highlight. Guilty Gear Xrd -Revelator- just came out on steam a couple hours ago and I would highly recommend it, although the game does take a bit of effort to learn as there are a bunch of different systems. The payoff is high though. Otherwise Blazblue is more or less a more casual version of GG.

I definitely agree with IncantatioN that the KoF series is great, select titles excluded. I'm also really dubious of the new one, though I haven't played it to confirm. If you end up liking KoF and feel like learning a game nobody plays, I hear Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm is good. Oh! And Skullgirls is also a highly regarded fighter! I've been meaning to try to go back and learn it myself, as I missed it when it's ship sailed. My understanding is that it still has a dedicated community though

And finally, I would like to know just who made the decision to force players to collect every. single. god. damn. tribal in Jet Force Gemini before you go face the boss of the game. What a freakin' nightmare. Was there any talk about making a sequel (completely devoid of tribals)?
 

Ruhe Strom

'Moon Pie... what a time to be alive."
Oh my, so many questions. He didn't seem at all phased, but I'm sure my father's chilly heart has been warmed by your queries. Right then, where to begin...

Cyrus Jong said:
Interesting. Was anyone at the company able to legitimately beat Battletoads?

There certainly was! He recalls at least one masochistic tester being successful. Nobody else he is aware of managed it.

Walter said:
Related to a previous question : was there actually any playtesting of the infamous jetski level, or was that just not a process back then?

What were his feelings about the recent Rare Replay -- seeing people respond well to those old games again?

In a way, that level did get a lot of testing, as everyone had to have a go to see how hard it was, but otherwise it remained like that because the designers were having a sadistic streak.
As for Rare Replay, I asked him about it a while after it came out (he'd left the company a few years prior), and he cynically dismissed it as a cash grab on Microsoft's part, preying on people's nostalgia. I actually followed it a bit and while I do agree with him, it's definitely a great compilation made with a lot of love.

Scorpio said:
And finally, I would like to know just who made the decision to force players to collect every. single. god. damn. tribal in Jet Force Gemini before you go face the boss of the game. What a freakin' nightmare. Was there any talk about making a sequel (completely devoid of tribals)?

There was no one human culprit as such, it was more due to an over-reliance or overconfidence in the 'collectathon' methods employed in Banjo-Kazooie, which really put a bum note on a great game for many. Although endgame Wind Waker had a similar thing going on, so perhaps the Japanese liked it. Apparently there was a Game Boy version being made somewhere that never saw the light of day, but any ideas put forth for a sequel would just be funnelled towards Dinosaur Planet, which would eventually become Star Fox Adventures.
 

Ruhe Strom

'Moon Pie... what a time to be alive."
Congratulations Griffith, you get an entire post dedicated just to your questions.

Griffith said:
Since Rare has made some of my favorite games, sure! What's the inside view of the Donkey Kong Country franchise beyond obvious pride in its success? The first and second ones I replay with a friend to this day, but we felt the third was a little different and wonder if something specific in the production related to that or if it was just regular changes with time/evolution. Same with DK64 though it was very different and obviously more like Mario64/Banjo Kazooie; so, what most inspired the transition from sidescrollers to 3D collecting as it were, was it internally embraced or something they felt they had to do because of where the industry was going? What was the collaborative relationship like with Nintendo and their characters (or more interestingly characters Rare created that then belonged to Nintendo) and what's he think of what Retro Studios did with the series? Also, what's his favorite game, and/or are there Rare games he doesn't like?

DKC seems quite revered as an interesting moment in which they contributed to the major Nintendo canon while still basically creating their own setting and cast from the ground up, and also revitalised an ageing SNES. Technically it was something very ambitious and fresh for them and of course Killer Instinct was in development around the same time, so it was all cylinders on full for 3D SGI technology. Also, DKC seems to represent to many the start of Rare's 'Golden Age', a term that everyone here will surely understand.
DKC3 was where the magic of the franchise wore off somewhat. The most specific aspect of production he can recall was less involvement from Nintendo. Miyamoto was directly involved with the original, and it could be said that the designers got less ambitious with the gameplay over the course of the three games. Unsurprising considering the significant financial investment they had in it.

The lean towards the 3D collectathon was certainly an effort to run with the times, but also to distance themselves from the style of Mario 64 (with Banjo having been so similar to it). But obviously they also did many collection-light games in the N64 period, so they had no intention of constraining themselves with that.
The relationship with Nintendo was just right. That is to say, they shut the hell up and let them do what they wanted for the most part, checking up every now and then. They were also very trusting with their characters (the Donkey Kong redesign set a good precedent it seems). To offer some juxtaposition, Microsoft imposed a very different method on them which was met with significant disgust yet never changed. They would not stop getting involved. The number of lengthy official meetings about nothing of any importance whatsoever went through the roof, and there were god knows how many pointless micro-managing HR-type jobs set up to convolute everything and fracture the creative process (despite the difficulties he and I think they did quite well with the games they released early on in that period, certainly on the 360, although many might disagree).

We like Retro Studios. Retro know what the heck they're doing and he probably couldn't have picked a more trustworthy developer to continue the series. Neither of us have played the most recent DKCR, but we played the first one and that was damn good. He must know a few people that work there because for one Christmas I asked for a copy of Metroid Prime Trilogy (quite rare and out of print at the time) and he went and asked the director of the game to send a mint copy, which was completely bemusing to me.

My dad's favourite game is Ocarina of Time. The most vanilla pick of all. Although I can't decide between Halo:CE or Dark Souls myself, which is still pretty vanilla. But they're all vanilla favourites for good reason I suppose.
There definitely are Rare games he dislikes. Diddy Kong Racing for example, which he describes as 'naff'. The last Rare game he had any involvement with (and probably the one that finally broke him) was Kinect Sports, a sour note to end on if you ask me. There is another that he remembers distinctly from very early on when he joined as a tester in the eighties, which is an educational Sesame Street game, in which he had to spell baby words for agonising hours on end. Thank goodness things improved from there.

I hope your questions have been answered to your satisfaction, as I don't know how much more I'll get out of him. My dad was the sort of guy who refused to be photographed if a journalist was interviewing him and his peers.
 

Scorpio

Courtesy of Grail's doodling.
Thanks a lot for the replies! And of course, thanks a ton to your dad for the taking the time, it was a very interesting peek into the inner workings of some of our favorite games!
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Ruhe Strom said:
Congratulations Griffith, you get an entire post dedicated just to your questions.

I'm pleasantly surprised; when I saw your previous reply I assumed, like Dorothy in the the Wizard of Oz, there was nothing in that bag for me. :guts:

Ruhe Strom said:
My dad's favourite game is Ocarina of Time. The most vanilla pick of all. Although I can't decide between Halo:CE or Dark Souls myself, which is still pretty vanilla. But they're all vanilla favourites for good reason I suppose.

Right, I was curious if he would answer with his favorite Rare game, in general, or even both in the same, but of course that's perhaps the most appropriate answer of all on the subject; OoT is probably my favorite too.

Ruhe Strom said:
I hope your questions have been answered to your satisfaction, as I don't know how much more I'll get out of him. My dad was the sort of guy who refused to be photographed if a journalist was interviewing him and his peers.

Very much so, my thanks to him and yourself for all the insights and taking the time. It was interesting to see where things matched up and didn't with my perception.
 

Ruhe Strom

'Moon Pie... what a time to be alive."
Been playing Titanfall 2 the past week since I got it for Christmas. A really fun time, especially for a big mecha fan like myself. I had always been a bit miffed that the first one was Xbone exclusive, but very glad this new one's more widely available. Unfortunately, the game was released around the same time as Battlefield 1 and Infinite Warfare, so could not possibly hope to compete (despite being the best of the three in my opinion). The campaign, while short, is very dynamic and enjoyable, especially with the difficulty cranked up, and doesn't overstay its welcome. A few small things ought to be tweaked in the multiplayer I think, but otherwise it holds its own phenomenally. Just a shame there aren't as many players online as the other big two.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Rhombaad said:
Finished Dragon Quest IV over the weekend and started playing Dragon Quest V. :badbone:

Cool. V is special — tells the most personal story in the series.

I picked up VII over the break, and am about 10 hours into it. It's ... slow. One of my least favorite games in the series, but I had read that the remake fine-tunes its shortcomings enough to make it enjoyable. That's a half-true statement.

BTW Rhombaad, you've got about two weeks to catch up to VIII before it lands on the 3DS. You can do it! :ganishka:
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Walter said:
Cool. V is special — tells the most personal story in the series.

The series' director said it's his favorite. I'm enjoying it a lot so far. Each game has been better than the last.

BTW Rhombaad, you've got about two weeks to catch up to VIII before it lands on the 3DS. You can do it! :ganishka:

Hehe, I don't know about that. I'm planning on playing VII and VIII on the PS1 and PS2, respectively, but I may check out the remakes one day. I would've preferred to play the original versions of all the games so far, but the NES versions of I to IV weren't localized very well from what I've heard, and V was never brought to the SNES in the States. Oh, well. They've been fun to play on my iPhone.
 
My Rotation over the last month or so:
-Dark Soul 3
-Everyone's Gone To Rapture
-Fallout 4: Nuka World
-Diablo 3
-Gone Home
-Diablo 3
-The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
-Diablo 3
-The Witness (So many headaches!)

I got some many games on the back burner that I'm starting to find it daunting:
-FF 15
-Dishonored 2
-Dead Rising 4
-The Last Guardian
-Walking Dead Season 3
-XCOM 2
-My Nintendo Classic

Not to mention the very decent year of game releases we're going to have this year!
 
What did you think of Everyone's Gone To The Rapture, Death? I love the idea of the game, but there was so little interactivity with the environment that I got bored and never finished. Absolutely gorgeous game though. And I love the soundtrack.

As for me, I'm playing FFXV right now. It's literally everything I ever dreamed of seeing in a FF game, but for some reason I'm having a really hard time getting into the game to the point that I haven't played it in the past couple of days despite having some free time to play. I don't know if the problem is the game or me though.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Hey Death, you're still playing a lot of D3, so I presume the latest updates are treating you well, or is it just tyical Diablo addiction? The D1 areas go live yet?

I'm playing Hyper Light Drifter, which Wally was kind enough to gift to me. It lives up to the hype for me too, looks/sounds great and is very atmospheric (it's like 8-bit Blade Runner), as well as having good controls, addictive gameplay and just enough challenge make it all feel worthwhile. It's going to be a bit short (about 8 hours) though if I don't discover more to do/a reason to keep upgrading my abilities. If I had to complain it's that it doesn't really pay off on some of the apparent lore lending it some of that atmosphere.
Who are you and your friends, what's it all about, what's up with the giants that never do anything, etc?

Also played simutaneous 2 player co-op Shovel Knight on my Wii U (using the SK amiibo) with a friend over new year's weekend and it was a blast. Exactly what I'd been looking for with Mega Man 10, so it's fitting though bittersweet that it took the closest thing we've got to Mega Man 11 to get there. Now I'm going to finally do the Plague Knight DLC campaign before the Specter Knight one comes out.
 
The latest update is a very pleasant surprise. In the pervious update they added difficulty T13 and a few set adjustments that were pretty cool. But the most recent one added a new mission, I really don't want to spoil it but the mission is only available for a limited time. I don't want to spoil anything but let's just say it's a great throw back to the original Diablo. I highly suggest logging in and giving the mission a quick run through with a high level character. It adds a few new secrets as well. There is a few new legendary gems, and we're still trying to see just how many new items are included.

Sometimes these updates put in very small changes that make big differences and they tend to be hard to notice. Espiecally if you have to pick up a new version of any changed item to get its tweaked stats, particularly on set items. But all and all these small changes add tons of hours of experimentation. In fact it couldn't come at better time for myself. My team are trying to break our highest greater rift number, which is 79 with four people. We're completeing the greater rift with only seconds to spare. So this means we have a ton of adjusting to do on sets to open up more play time for higher difficulty greater rifts. To be honest the last few rifts we even got lucky on. We definitely hit a big wall until we figure something out.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Griffith said:
I'm playing Hyper Light Drifter, which Wally was kind enough to gift to me. It lives up to the hype for me too, looks/sounds great and is very atmospheric (it's like 8-bit Blade Runner), as well as having good controls, addictive gameplay and just enough challenge make it all feel worthwhile. It's going to be a bit short (about 8 hours) though if I don't discover more to do/a reason to keep upgrading my abilities. If I had to complain it's that it doesn't really pay off on some of the apparent lore lending it some of that atmosphere.
Who are you and your friends, what's it all about, what's up with the giants that never do anything, etc?

Awesome, glad you enjoyed it!

As a backer of the game on Kickstarter, I had lofty expectations for it. I was hoping it would scratch that missing Secret of Mana itch (probably the closest approximation to what HLD is trying to do). But rather than be a successor of sorts, what made this game memorable for me was the sound/music and the visual design. Controls never felt 100% solid to me. I often guessed at where I'd land after a dash, even in the final moments of the game. It wasn't SUPER CHALLENGING, per se. Just not as comfortable or controlled experience as it should havebeen. And of course, like everyone else, I felt it was about 1/3 of the game it should have been in terms of length. The scope of the game is reminicent to the opening bit of Link to the Past, where you've just assembled the three medals, and unlock your true quest. Only in HLD,
that just triggers the final zone of the game.
:sad: Still, a fun experience while it lasted, and I don't regret backing it on Kickstarter.
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
Been a while I played a video game but I got Pokemon sun for Christmas and finished the main storyline two days ago. I'm gonna do some grinding to g some more Pokemon and start the few post story missions.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Death May Die said:
The latest update is a very pleasant surprise. In the pervious update they added difficulty T13 and a few set adjustments that were pretty cool. But the most recent one added a new mission, I really don't want to spoil it but the mission is only available for a limited time. I don't want to spoil anything but let's just say it's a great throw back to the original Diablo.

Yeah, I've gotta give that a shot, but I haven't been able to bring myself to log in for months for the reasons you highlighted in the rest of your post and the eventual burnout, at least for me, that comes with it... gotta try that limited time event though, I'm sure I won't get sucked back in to the cycle of clicking and looting. =)

Actually, I think I more recently was played D2, built up a level 91 IK barb for fun and to try Ubering but never actually got around to the Ubers part. I guess I should just log back in and trade my extra gear for keys or see if I can't ride someone's coattails in, but I also wanted to solo it even though it requires pretty ridiculous optimization with that build.

Walter said:
Awesome, glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you and thanks to you!

Walter said:
As a backer of the game on Kickstarter, I had lofty expectations for it. I was hoping it would scratch that missing Secret of Mana itch (probably the closest approximation to what HLD is trying to do).

I read the creator envisioned a cross between ALttP and Diablo (which IS kinda like Secret of Mana...), so lofty indeed! I'm glad I didn't have such expectations going in or I might not have enjoyed it like I did. I was actually a bit skeptical that the experience would live up to how good it looked, which I think helped.

Walter said:
But rather than be a successor of sorts, what made this game memorable for me was the sound/music and the visual design.

Exactly, if the game didn't look and sound the way it does I wouldn't have been interested in the first place. That was the hook, and while it was certainly a worthy delivery system for that aesthetic, the game itself doesn't rise above it or anything. Altogether though a cool time while it lasted.

Walter said:
Controls never felt 100% solid to me. I often guessed at where I'd land after a dash, even in the final moments of the game. It wasn't SUPER CHALLENGING, per se. Just not as comfortable or controlled experience as it should havebeen.

I kind of gave it the benefit of the doubt as I played, as if it was all intentional, like the weird timing employed for the chain dashing, but it occurs to me now it just might not have been as good as it could be like you say. All in all, the controls and challenge level meshed well enough with the design for an evocative experience though, even if I was fooling myself a bit.

Walter said:
And of course, like everyone else, I felt it was about 1/3 of the game it should have been in terms of length. The scope of the game is reminicent to the opening bit of Link to the Past, where you've just assembled the three medals, and unlock your true quest. Only in HLD,
that just triggers the final zone of the game.
:sad: Still, a fun experience while it lasted, and I don't regret backing it on Kickstarter.

Yeah, it's definitely a worthwhile experience, and while it could have gone on longer and still held my interest at least it certainly doesn't overstay its welcome. Speaking of Kickstarter "investments," has there ever been a better payoff for a game like this than Shovel Knight? I'm genuinely asking as I'm too ignorant of the crowdfunding scene overall, and what's come out of it, to have an informed opinion other than that game certainly delivered and apparently still is. On that note, is Mighty No. 9 the worst, or is that designation reserved for the biggest vaporware offenders? When will Aaz join, or start, the class action suit to force the release of Star Citizen? =)
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Griffith said:
Yeah, it's definitely a worthwhile experience, and while it could have gone on longer and still held my interest at least it certainly doesn't overstay its welcome. Speaking of Kickstarter "investments," has there ever been a better payoff for a game like this than Shovel Knight? I'm genuinely asking as I'm too ignorant of the crowdfunding scene overall, and what's come out of it, to have an informed opinion other than that game certainly delivered and apparently still is. On that note, is Mighty No. 9 the worst, or is that designation reserved for the biggest vaporware offenders? When will Aaz join, or start, the class action suit to force the release of Star Citizen? =)

Shovel Knight was fantastic. I'd say it's had a better result than HLD in terms of being a Kickstarted game, because of all the delays around HLD. I've backed about a dozen projects, and some ended in spectacular failure. I would nominate Shovel Knight as the best, and Unsung Story as the worst, just from my own experiences.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Walter said:
Shovel Knight was fantastic. I'd say it's had a better result than HLD in terms of being a Kickstarted game, because of all the delays around HLD.

Certainly, Shovel Knight has all the charm of an indie game but with seemingly more polish than many of its glitchy mainstream counterparts these days (the cheeky dialogie alone exemplifies this). It's more like a boutique experience, "hand-crafted" to perfection. Of course, I'm biased because it's basically a clone of one of my all-time favorite game series with elements of others, but the execution leaves objectively little to critique.

Walter said:
I've backed about a dozen projects, and some ended in spectacular failure. I would nominate Shovel Knight as the best, and Unsung Story as the worst, just from my own experiences.

I considered backing Mighty No. 9 but held off because of my instinct that Inafune is full of shit, and it seems that was the right call. Actually, come to think of it the only project I back is SK.net! :badbone:
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Death May Die said:
I don't want to spoil anything but let's just say it's a great throw back to the original Diablo.

So, I did the Darkening of Tristram event on D3 with my oldest Diablo buddy and... no sir, I didn't like it! Going in I figured the PTR bitching I'd heard about it was the usual entitled Diablo fan complaining about freebie, which sometimes seems like the true objective of the game, but by the end of the event it felt truly half-assed and not a tribute that did the original much justice.

Tristram and the first four levels of the Labyrinth we're fine enough and got me properly excited, but it seemed to literally descend into madness as it went on. The main problem to me is the environments nor map designs matched their D1 counterparts at all, which would have been challenging but at least least get one or the other (the look or the shape). Now, I didn't expect them to create new maps/environments or even manipulate existing ones beyond lightning, but at least use common sense in your choices (some of these ideas are bad suggestions considering the alternatives, let alone making the final cut). They saved the worst for last turning D1 Hell, one of the coolest in the series, into a generic dungeony stone dungeon (The Halls of Agony, but not even the red variant, WTF?). The Halls would have made better Catacombs, and Arreat and the Hell Rifts would have been natural fits for the lava caves and hell respectively (they could have even used multiple designs for each type, like mines to Arreat for the caves as you descend). I wondered if maybe they were sticking to Act 1 environments for some kind of consistency, but my friend thought I was giving them too much credit.

Anyway, it's a novelty, but I think I would have preferred a more straight ahead, common sense D1 recreation in the D3 engine that actually utilized the natural environmental counterparts from D3 (D3 Hell should still be Hell in Tristram, etc). I think Act 1 of D3 itself is a much better Diablo 1 tribute than this "remake," and frankly I'm glad it's a temporary event and can only hope they improve it next time.
 

XionHorsey

Hi! Hi!
What I should be playing: Final Fantasy XV/DQ7/Soul Hackers
What I am playing: Saga Frontier

There is something about Saga Frontier. Despite it's flaws, it stood the test of time for me. Especially the Asellus scenario.
 
Playstation network had a great flash sale this past weekend and I bought quite a few games. Most I haven't had a chance to touch yet.

I'm grinding my brain cells down (further) by playing The Witness. Great puzzle game.
-Valiant hearts, this one had my eye for a good while now, I finally bought it with the sale. It's a great little WW1 game. Great art direction.
-Trials Fusion, more of the same from the previous games but the familiarity is a advantage with great selection of new extreme race tracks...down side... micro-transactions out the ying yang...
-Surgeon Simulator, best 1 hour of my life before I put it down as it met all expectations, and soon to be my new house party challenge game.
 
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