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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by BoneSnapDeez Fri Mar 03, 2017 7:31 pm

That looks like a swell game. I have a hard time justifying the purchase of a Vita VN for full price though, especially with so many great <$10 ones on Steam. Maybe someday I'll grab a few of these pre-owned...
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Exhuminator
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Exhuminator Fri Mar 03, 2017 10:37 pm

Good review Elkin.

Some of the highest praise I've seen for Root Letter had to do with its backdrops, which are artworks based on photographs of a real Japanese town. I've read many reviewers say the immersion and atmosphere is extraordinarily well done. Many reviewers noted the story is intriguing and stays interesting all the way through, high praise as many visual novels have fluff filler slow parts or lose steam eventually.

A common complaint I saw from some reviewers was a themed of misogyny running through Root Letter. Now I can't vouch for that, or agree it's true (not played yet), just noting I read that complaint more than once from multiple reviewers. If you're someone who is sensitive to misogyny you might want to take that into consideration.
PLAY KING'S FIELD.
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ElkinFencer10
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by ElkinFencer10 Fri Mar 03, 2017 11:01 pm

Exhuminator wrote:A common complaint I saw from some reviewers was a themed of misogyny running through Root Letter. Now I can't vouch for that, or agree it's true (not played yet), just noting I read that complaint more than once from multiple reviewers. If you're someone who is sensitive to misogyny you might want to take that into consideration.

I don't agree with that complaint. I can see how some might feel that way - Max makes some rather rude and random comments from time to time - but there's only one female character who give the impression of yielding to men IMO. Snappy, in particular, takes no shit from no one and fuck you if you've got a problem with her.
Exhuminator wrote:Ecchi lords must unite for great justice.

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isiolia
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by isiolia Fri Mar 03, 2017 11:42 pm

ElkinFencer10 wrote:I don't agree with that complaint. I can see how some might feel that way - Max makes some rather rude and random comments from time to time - but there's only one female character who give the impression of yielding to men IMO. Snappy, in particular, takes no shit from no one and fuck you if you've got a problem with her.


Yeah, I would say that complaint is reaching...though, of course, that's from a male perspective. Generally speaking, you do tend to dig up dirt/secrets on people to force them to cooperate, and at least one of the women you're basically blackmailing her with swimsuit pics...
Some of the letter responses you can (and ultimately need to, if you want to see all the endings) are pretty blunt as well.

Still, relative to so many other games, there's not much to really complain about in that regard.

As I mentioned when I played it, it was somewhat disappointing to have one "real" ending, and most of the rest just kind of having oddball off-the-rails stuff happen in the last couple chapters (of course, if you really liked those, maybe check out Another, the anime version is readily available at least).
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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by BoneSnapDeez Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:49 pm

1. Chrono Trigger (SNES)
2. Gyromite (NES)
3. Lucy -The Eternity She Wished For- (Steam)
4. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Famicom)
5. Radical Dreamers (SNES)
6. Video Games 1 (TI-99/4A)
7. Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (Famicom)
8. Exile (TurboGrafx CD)
9. Exile: Wicked Phenomenon (TurboGrafx CD)
10. Xak (PC Engine CD, Xak I・II)
11. Xak II (PC Engine CD, Xak I・II)
12. Neutopia (TurboGrafx-16)
13. Captain Silver (Sega Master System)
14. Märchen Veil (Famicom Disk System)
15. Vanguard (Atari 2600)
16. Kangaroo (Atari 2600)
17. Front Line (Atari 2600)
18. Mario Bros. (Atari 2600)
19. Harmonia (Steam)
20. Donkey Kong (Atari 2600)
21. Jungle Hunt (Atari 2600)
22. Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (TurboGrafx CD)
23. Gorf (Atari 2600)
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You know why I own this game? Because I can't read. Or spell. Years ago I thought I was buying a copy of Atari's Golf. Ended up with Gorf. Turns out that this is a pretty notable Midway arcade game. It was ported to several systems, with the Atari conversion being done by CBS. Ah yes, remember when companies like CBS, 20th Century Fox, Mattel, Parker Brothers, and Sears all published games? Those were the days.

Oddly enough, every home port of Gorf has has one specific level (out of five) removed, as it's a direct rip-off of Galaxian. Perhaps this is also why the game has never appeared on any Midway compilations.
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Gorf plays in the fixed shooter fashion, where your ship shoots vertically and can only move horizontally along a line at the bottom of the screen. There are four distinct stages - rare for any game of this era - and a final boss even makes an appearance in stage four.

Amusingly, stage one is a direct Space Invaders rip-off. I guess Taito cares significantly less about copyright than Namco. This is also the hardest segment of the game. The "invaders" are aggressive and it's here that you'll discover Gorf's main quirk. Only one (of your) fired bullets can remain on the screen at a given time. And if another one is fired, it cancels out the one that's already onscreen. Thus, actually hitting enemies takes some meticulous timing.

Level two has consists of ships with giant lazer guns and some speedy swooping foes. It's not too tough, but requires a little bit of clever maneuvering. In stage three the enemies emerge from a black hole. There's a bit of "perspective" shown here as they get larger upon approach. The hostile ships are pretty easy to shoot down, though they emit some large projectiles which will destroy your bullets. The final boss (known as the "Flag Ship" apparently) is almost as pathetic as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Vanguard. It just kind of lobs around the screen waiting to be annihilated. Seems like the arcade original had a lot more going on at this point. And now I have just described the entire game. Isn't Atari awesome?
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Overall, Gorf looks and plays reasonably well. It's fast-paced, fluid, and takes some modicum of skill to master. It's a great edition to any Atari 2600 library, and it's always thrilling to discover games this old that contain some kind of end goal. I'd recommend it alongside Phoenix, which is another solid fixed shooter and another early example of an arcade game with a final boss.

P.S. HUGE SPOILER
GORF IS FROG SPELLED BACKWARDS
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elricorico
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by elricorico Sat Mar 04, 2017 9:20 pm

1. Crimson Skies:High Road to Revenge (XBOX)
2. Super Smash Bros WiiU (WiiU)
3. Fire Emblem Heroes (Android)
4. Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (WiiU)
5. Ys I Chronicles (PSP)

6. TMNT The Hyperstone Heist (Genesis)


I beat this game on Normal difficulty this afternoon. Had a pretty good time.

As far as beat-em-ups go I've always liked the Turtles series. I had never played this particular entry until getting it with some trade-in value about a week back. My first play confirmed that I was going to enjoy the game, but I didn't have time to try to beat it. Today I had more time and was motivated to try for the end.

This is a great looking, good sounding game with really tight control that very rarely takes any cheap shots at you. Once you know the strategy to each enemy you should be able to take them on with minimal damage almost every time. Boss patterns are pretty straightforward for the most part, though I still don't know the "right" way to handle Tatsu. It's a little on the short side; maybe one more level would have been just right.

This game will be on my shortlist for co-op when I have someone over that's into playing retro games. I'll probably set it on the Hard difficulty level for that, as I've heard that 2-player mode is pretty easy.
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Fragems
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Fragems Sun Mar 05, 2017 12:41 am

1. VVVVVV (Vita)
2. Firewatch (PS4)
3. Watchdogs (PS4) replay
4. Watchdogs 2 (PS4)
5. Adr1ft (PS4)

Adr1ft

Honestly this game dragged on way way to long. It's basically a walking simulator in space with really really slow movement through the environment. The puzzles aren't really difficult and really aren't much of puzzles honestly just very simple obstacle courses to navigate. The oxygen management system doesn't really add much to the gameplay since it's everywhere and just serves to further slow as you have to pick up canisters or recharge at stations very 2-3 minutes. Plus the story isn't to amazing and trickles in really really slowly as you collect audio and text logs. Navigation can also be somewhat confusing since the minimap is 2d and it's hard to tell a nav points location via scanning since they are white as is most of the station and they blend in with all the oxygen markers as well :P. Graphically it is a pretty game and floating in space is pretty cool but there just isn't much to the game and it ends up being a 4-5 hour drag as you slowly repair the ship via a very repetitive set of tasks :P.

Was really hoping for some cool set pieces with the ship tearing apart and/or environmental hazards but there isn't much that really puts you in danger aside from some shitty electrical objects which can insta kill you if you bounce into them on accident :P. There is only one scene that involves space debris that is actually moving at a dangerous speed and it's really brief which was disappointing. Really I feel like the game would have been 100 times better if managing your velocity was required, but your suit is pretty damn slow and the second you let of the boost it decelerates as if their is air resistance :roll: . Also while bumping into stuff hurts you it would take some effort to damage the suit to the point of breaking it unless you avoided the repair stations which are everywhere.

Altogether this will scratch your space walk itch but it grows boring really fast as their is no sense of urgency or much variety to the game play.
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noiseredux
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by noiseredux Sun Mar 05, 2017 1:34 am

I have been interested in that, but more as a VR experience.
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Fragems
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Fragems Sun Mar 05, 2017 12:06 pm

As a VR experience it might be interesting. Graphically it's beautiful if you take the time to look around. However it is just way to long and repetitive and the super slow movement speed sucks :P. This game would have been better at 2 hours as opposed to 4-5 if you take your time.

The ending is kind of a let down to although their is supposedly multiple endings but as far as I can tell no one has bothered trying to unlock them.

Anyways its on sale for five and it might be worth that much to someone wanting to play around in a moderately large space station sandbox in space. Aside from some locked doors the station is completely open from the start with the only restriction being your air supply.
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by PartridgeSenpai Sun Mar 05, 2017 1:37 pm

Partridge Senpai's 2017 Beaten Games:

1. Tales of Hearts R (Vita)
2. UPPERS (Vita)
3. Volume (Vita)
4. Overlord: Minions (DS)
5. Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS)
6. Overlord II (PS3)
7. Overlord: Dark Legend (Wii)
8. La-Mulana (Remake) (PC)
9. Infamous: Second Son (PS4)
10. htol#NiQ: The Firefly Diary (Vita)
11. Blood Bowl (360)
12. Dead to Rights: Retribution (360)

13. Bioshock Infinite (360)

I tried this game back like FIVE years ago, and have been meaning to go through the rest of it for a while now. I'm a fan of the first two games, so I thought it'd be right up my alley. Although Bioshock 2 is still my favorite, I'd say I like this one on par with the first one, as I found very similar problems with them both.

This is a first-person shooter, so a big qualifier for how much I like it is how satisfying the gunplay is. The reason I like 2 the best is because the guns are really meaty and fun AND the plasmids are still great fun. The reason I don't like 1 so much is because the guns are all shity little pea-shooters and it's a lot easier just to melee everyone in combonation with fun plasmids (bees, fire, etc). The reason I like this one only about as much as 1 is because it has a similar problem: The guns are fairly meaty and effective (although feel pretty wank in the late game), but the plasmids (or should I say "vigors") are really boring and 9 fights out of 10 I forgot I even had them. That was my biggest complaint years ago, and it still is. The game will even pop up notifications at you, "Don't forget to use your Vigors!" and I just couldn't help but chuckle because I really plainly didn't need them more often than not. I usually only used them for the novelty of it.

This goes into my comlpaint that the game is far too easy on the default difficulty. I realized this too far into the game though, and you can only pick the difficulty at the start. I'm usually pretty bad at console shooters, so I picked normal instead of hard, but even for me the game was REALLY forgiving. Even the very final battle I did terribly on, and still managed somehow to do it in only one try. The guns were meaty enough to be fun though, so that wasn't so bad.

Speaking of mechanics, I don't really care for the gear system too much. I really liked how Bioshock 2 did their sub/passive plasmids, and I don't really know why they went back to one a bit like Bioshock 1's. They made it ever worse, in my opinion, because they made it like the bone-charms in Dishonored. Where you find gear is pre-determined and specific, but which piece of gear this actually is random. This being the case, you can either have a very well paced progression of gear from beginning to end, or more likely you'll have what I got which is finding some really great ones early on, and then almost all new gear I found for the rest of the game was totally worthless and disappointing :/

I liked the story okay. I thought the two main characters had a very well portrayed relationship for a video game. I already knew one of the twists at the end, but not the other. However much that contributed to my ability to successfully guess the last twist like halfway through the game, I can only guess. It was an interesting portrayal between a father and their child though, an interesting twist on how Bioshock 1 did it. It brings up some other interesting themes, such as how the freedom fighters can end up being just as monsterous as they tyrants they're overthrowing, but I ultimately didn't like the setting or the story themes as much as I like 1 and 2's Rapture.

Verdict: Recommended. It's not the best shooter in the world, but it's a pretty darn good one, and not one you'll feel like you're wasting your time with. Lots of goodies to hunt for, dudes to kill, and mysteries to encounter. It's not Wolfenstein New Order or Doom 4, but it's still a fun game.
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