Grangle1 @ Grangle1 @lemm.ee

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2 yr. ago

You mean GNU/Linux/pasta, gotta have that clarification in there.

That's the one thing I would really appreciate about Souls-likes: no RNG, less being forced to grind for better stats/gear, if I want to beat the challenge I have to improve my own skills and legit "git gud", as they say. When you finally beat it, it feels so much more satisfying. So I appreciate the genre from a design standpoint. That said, the frustration of the hours to days it would take me to do that is enough to keep me from playing them myself. That, and the super-dark art and aesthetic of so many of them turns me off from them too. I prefer brighter, more colorful games.

I was in Japan from 2008-2012 and had both games. Frankly, while both games were good, I remember preferring Super Stars even though Ultimate Stars upped the amount of just about everything. I think the thing was that partially due to the language barrier (I learned a good amount of Japanese while there but never became fluent enough to understand manga-type writing, lol), the simpler mechanics of Super Stars were easier to manage and the ton of stuff Ultimate Stars gave you was just overwhelming.

Overall it's not "difficult", I would say, but there are individual things I find difficult here or there. A couple bosses (looking at you, Water and Lightning Temple bosses) took me more than one try to beat, and there have been a few shrine puzzles I had to look up solutions for, but those are exceptions to the general difficulty. The most difficult thing to me for general difficulty is trying to figure out how to reach a lot of places in the sky. I'm on the " final push" to get all the shrines before I take on the final boss, and I'm definitely gonna get them all on the surface, but I may choose not to do all the sky shrines because I just don't know how I'm going to get up/over to them. In many cases, islands are just spaced out too far apart or too high for devices to last long enough to reach, and you can't really glide to them because you're always on a soft descent when gliding. Basically, sky navigation has me kinda stumped, and I may find getting all the sky shrines to then just not be worth it.

Yes, Wario Blast! It was actually my introduction to Bomberman.

For mine, I always enjoyed the original Mario Land and Kirby's Dreamland, and always wanted the sequel to each, but never got them.

For longer games, if I replay them it will be immediately after my first playthrough, and even if I found a game to be really fun the first time, for me there has to be enough variety on the second time through to warrant putting in the time. One game mentioned in the article, Fire Emblem Three Houses, is a great example of this. Completing one path can take upwards of 50-70 hours on its own, and there are four paths available. However, each path is so unique, with completely different units, maps and story, that it's like a brand new game every time, which prevents any potential experience of monotony someone might have from doing a repetitive action ad nauseam or seeing a certain cutscene for the billionth time. Games that allow for a big variety of character builds/loadouts or party configurations can let players try a bunch of new things to play through the game in a fresh new way, even if levels and story are essentially the same. Playing the three different runs in Undertale is another example of a game that can provide vastly different experiences based on player choices and actions, allowing for great replay value for your time. New Game + modes can also help cut down time investment depending on the bonuses you can carry over.

The games I come back to for replays years after the first time or that I go in on remakes for, though, are the ones that don't require a lot of time or effort from me to get through, those comfort games I know like the back of my hand and can beat in one sitting. The standout one for me in that regard is Sonic 2. I've played that game since childhood, I know all the secret stuff to find and all the best pathways, but there is still something about it that scratches that platformer itch and is just long enough to get good enjoyment from it and put it down satisfied when I get through it without it being the majority of my day. If I want to mix it up, there are a billion and one remakes and mods that I can choose to change things up just enough to prevent it feeling stale. As a working adult, it's games like that that have the highest and most lasting replay value for me.

Don't know how that would be. A gain for the Steam Deck is a gain for everyone else on Linux too.

Makes sense. Even back in its hardware heyday, BlackBerry leaned on its strong security reputation to mainly market itself to business/enterprise users and was the only hardware trusted by high security sectors of the US government.

I was just going to comment that the wheel was exactly like the Life board game, lol.

Makes sense. IIRC there's games still being released for the last-gen Xbox and Sony consoles, or if there isn't they only stopped very recently, and the new consoles are a couple years old now. The 3DS still got games for about a year into the Switch's life. Supporting last-gen hardware for a while into the current gen is nothing new.

There was a track maker add-on to F-Zero X for the N64 DD that only released in Japan. One cool thing they could do is put F-Zero X on the Switch N64 Online with that track maker added and if possible with online play and/or the ability to share tracks. That would be awesome.

Along with a brand new entry in the series, please. 😁

GX is indeed obnoxiously hard, but I don't ever remember X being too bad at least for Grand Prix or other regular races. I don't remember ever beating Death Race in X, but I will say I remember it was one of those modes that was still fun to try over and over and improve at.

Addiction, compulsion, whatever you want to call it, it's well known a lot of games have mechanics intended to keep people playing a long time, and for some it can be a serious problem. I've had friends (yes, more than one) addicted to MMOs who would play for 48+ hours literally non-stop. That's not healthy, especially if real life responsibilities and connections are being neglected for it. Skinner box mechanics can be as bad for players as loot box mechanics.

BotW and TotK are a very different type of game from OoT. As others have pointed out, there are a lot of environmental mechanics to learn as well as how to find and use different types of weapons due to weapon durability. It's a much more open ended game than OoT where exploration is much more of a focus, whereas OoT is more story focused and has a more specific order to do things (which isn't 100% set in stone, as the whole Spirit vs Shadow Temple debate proves) that's still more straightforward than the newer games. I like both types of games, especially for both OoT and BotW/TotK being gaming masterpieces for their time, and the three of them are my top 3 Zelda games for sure. But if you don't like one or more of them that's perfectly fine. Not every game will appeal to everyone.

It was rather surprising to see how much the following two games ret-conned from Apollo's first game. Apollo's back story was completely changed, the idea of jury/lay judge trials never went anywhere (ironically until the prequel series which takes place in the UK instead of Japan-erica - and I am aware it was shoehorned in AJ as Takumi advocating for jury trials in Japan), Apollo seeming to have a falling out with Phoenix off-screen then reconciling almost instantly, they just seemed to only carry over Apollo, Trucy and Klavier, and Trucy and Klavier didn't even necessarily need Apollo to be there to be relevant. Fortunately the ret-cons worked out for the better for his character. I would imagine any future AA7 will feature at least one case in his office in Khura'in, and Athena will take over Apollo's former role as Phoenix's main protege/successor.

To me it sounds like an idea most people would say is a good idea because people like choice on principle, but the vast majority of people will then just use Chrome anyway.

Completed the story part of the Pokémon Teal Mask DLC and mostly completed its pokedex as well (just need one other version exclusive and one trade evo... I hate trade evos...), so I will probably mostly be going back to finally finish Tears of the Kingdom or playing my PC strategy RPGs, with small checks for raids featuring those last two pokémon every so often. I started one of those strategy RPGs last night, Symphony of War. Billed itself as more of a Fire Emblem clone but actually pulls more from Langrisser, IMO. Just advertises with the Fire Emblem name for recognition, probably. Anyone else here know Langrisser? Picked the remakes of 1 and 2 up on the eShop a couple years back but I admit I didn't get too far in it. Might be another thing to look at going back to after TotK.

Heck, a Roku Streaming Stick is enough for me in that regard and many smart TVs have that stuff built into them by now.

Nintendo understanding this market is a big part of how they've been outselling MS and Sony in the Wii and Switch generations despite being behind on hardware power.

Star Fox Zero was even close to the end of the Wii U's life cycle, so the gamepad wasn't even "new" by that point. They really should have either not used the dual-screen gimmick altogether (realizing that people can really only focus on one screen at a time), better optimized their level design for its use, or where it could have actually worked was to use it only in a 2-player co-op mode where one player piloted the ship with a Wii-mote/nunchuk and the other was the "gunner" using the gamepad to shoot enemies. (I'd also allow the player with the Wii-mote a gunning option, maybe point-and-fire like shooting star bits in Mario Galaxy, or give that player control of the bombs.)