one-armed dwarf

Someone mentioned it to me on GTM I think. I don't really like rogue-like or rogue-like-adjacent type games tho. I have a flight coming up soon tho so maybe if there's a deal on Switch I can check what this thing is about 🤔

They really messed up trying to do the 2nd run scenario thing. The ways in which it's harder and/or different aren't enough to make it really feel like a worthwhile time to do it all again and more Mr X isn't fun because he's neither scary nor interesting as enemy types go. Like there are minor ways in which he gives an interesting flavour to exploring the station, like if you forgot to clear a hallway out of lickers and now you're fucked for going down that hallway cause you can't creep past a licker when the Tyrant is stomping behind you. But that's it really. I really wish there was an A playthrough just with that B playthrough ending so it feels a bit more complete. The A Leon run on hardcore is the best time I had with the game but doing B Claire is sort of dull to me just kiting that big fedora asshole around. It just comes down to the lack of interesting options to deal with him, the choice is made for you and it's just to run away. The A scenario uses him much more sparingly and is better for that imo. I tried that Hunk thing and didn't like it much, it's just a zombo gauntlet. I would like to see them try and design interesting difficulties for the core game. Like maybe add some weird modifers like item boxes being unique (REmake 1 has this). It would create issues going to the lab but would still be interesting. Or make that no item box trophy be linked to a game mode which removes them altogether.

Why are you ruining these guys fun Blakey, that's what I do. Go kill the heartless Enjoy Crackdown guys.

Well if we're going to be recommending 60 metacritic games up in here then it's got to be Nier. The first one. It's also got explosions. Of emotion.

I have definitely written "a return to normalcy" in some college essay before and I'm Irish. Now that I've repeated the word in my head so much reading the last few posts the word makes as much sense as Kingdom Hearts' plot. Edit turns out that that phrase I used is the same presidential slogan. It's a post-WWI invention. I'm sure now it does get used a lot by historians as I think about it. So I guess within that historical context the word is used to describe returning to normality from a state of trauma. So Blakey used it correctly because the Frozen world is fucking shit.

I started this one today. Beat the first world and onto the second. Early impressions is combat has a nice "swimming" movement to it albeit it is very floaty like the spinoff games. Worlds are massive and some of it almost feels like an anime/Disney take on (old) God of War games. Music is great, as usual. Hoping to hear some old tunes return (hopefully Hollow Bastion). I started it on Proud mode cause I figure if I've played three of these games back to back and can't handle its hard mode at this stage well then I'm really just hopeless. So far it's not very difficult but it is a reasonable challenge. It makes it so it isn't just a mash X fest. It is very heavy on cutscene interruptions in the early hours however and it gets sort of annoying, it's a bit Metal Gear at times. WRT spoilers I'm going to defer to riksp or someone else as to the best approach. I'm thinking anything that was in a trailer is fair game for an open screenshot because this is a very pretty game with lots of shiny stuff that's fun to show off. Or maybe all screenshots could be put in spoiler text it's all the same. No HDR in this game, interestingly.

This is the director of Bayo 2, not known if he was directing Bayo 3. Announcement was drafted in January so seems timed with that new Platinum game announcement yesterday or to chase away speculation that Bayo 3 is having development difficulty. https://www.resetera.com/threads/it-seems-like-yusuke-hashimoto-left-platinumgames-and-isnt-directing-bayonetta-3-confirmed.99725/

Him and Jeff were really down on the xbox demo last year, said it felt off. Hopefully then 5 the full game is better at onboarding people with its fighting systems. A thing I'm bummed by looking at previews is the full game looks like Bloodborne visually. It's all grey and dark purples and dark hues everywhere and Dante and Nero get lost in the action. Is this the only trick the RE engine is capable of pulling? Very very detailed looking grimy environments? Is this what I get for not playing on a HDR OLED?

FFIX has a bug with its music, it repeats the background themes from the beginning after every random battle. https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-newly-released-ffix-ports-still-have-the-music-bug-from-the-ps4-version-vii-will-probably-be-the-same-why.99634/#post-17907408 The other ports of IX have this as well. Lots of the FF ports have this for some reason, they are so lazy with preserving these games. FFVII had some really bad stuff where it would cue a completely different music track and kill cool moments in the game, like playing the mako reactor theme during the big disc 2 twist. That neural AI mod looks more interesting by the day ----- BTW, Pious or Och or whatever you're called, will you be buying Dragon Quest XI now? At least now you can play a version that doesn't sound like R2D2 farts.

I don't know, the scene where Link meets a nightmare hobo felt pretty out of place I thought.

It's the Nier Automata director, which is their most successful project. It's got a bit of MGR in there maybe, least I feel it looks similar mechanically. Kamiya taking a hands off role here, did they ever say if he was on Bayo 3 or not?

Oh wait you mean they fixed my main problem with DQ 🤔 Links Awakening btw, believe or not was inspired by David Lynch's films and Twin Peaks. It's a weird fucking game so I hear

I am upset cause the two things I want most are still a no show (Bayo 3 and SMT) Also FFIX is one of my least favourite 🤣

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Frozen felt lazy to me. I've never seen the film so maybe I'm at a disadvantage. I think Toy Story is the best world maybe cause they had more liberty to insert their KH canon in a way that didn't piss off Pixar. But in some worlds like Frozen you can sense they were working within strict limits and the results are disappointing. The game never stops being great however. I think my favourite is the Corona world but mainly cause I've not seen Tangled and now I want to cause it's got a mean horse in it with an attitude problem

This little combat arena here outside the hotel is why I love the series. That rocket arm is unwieldy and unnecessary but so much fun. The most fun I've had with a weapon since that electric bat guitar in DMC3 Tho it is difficult to control. The trick I think with 5 is you got to embrace the floatiness a bit and leverage the inertia Nero's attacks have. That's where I was getting to with the Tony Hawk's analogy. You can throw Nero around the place pretty much. But anyway, someone posted this on a DMC discord I'm on. Don't know if it's legit but maybe something is coming soon DMC2 is a "genre defining" game 🤔 I guess I will have to buy these if it's real.

Thrillhouse cancelled. Wait till you get to Frozen world.

Can someone @maf with this news he'd find it very interesting

Aw man, I love Nero I've had it with Dante by now and would happily see the baton passed. I couldn't cut it with him in 4 and found style switching with 6 weapons too much so I do understand what it's like to feel lost in these games.

DMC4 had a very basics of basics tutorial where the explained shit like how to shoot your gun and side-roll Dante's attacks with Nero. That was only a few years after DMC3 so I'd be stunned if 11 yrs after 4 they didn't have the same thing here. DMC is a frustrating as a fan to share my excitement over cause they all kind of have not just a skill floor/ceiling but an "entertainment floor". Especially with one which is this sort of throwback to the more mechanically obtuse but limitless style of the older games. It's tough to say to people "well you see you just haven't experienced the real shit yet". I can tell you how great it feels to me to keep Nero in the air indefinitely by jumping off enemies heads, smacking them down and picking them up again and then surfing rockets into them. I can say that it feels great to orbit around Goliath's head and dodge his blows and air-streaking into him with a firey motorbike sword (my own playthrough is top of the page for that). That all this is a consequence of my own input and not a cutscene, random QTE or pre-baked combo string, that's what makes it so satisfying. The sheer number of little decisions you're making every second when fighting stuff. But it's hard to convey what's so good about it when we're talking about gamefeel and things like this. This is why we're such a precious lot I think when it comes to our fandom of the games and our over-reaction to the streamlined DmC. I think it is true about 3 though, that game was faster than this. But I think if you go back to that game and re-learn the basics a lot of the same 'wtf-ness' applies as to here when you're not used to how it plays. Anyway that's why I think it's good to try the demo out cause a game like this ain't for everyone. I mean that in a non-elitist sense btw.

Launcher is on R1 & back on analog with triangle/y, there's a skill list in the demo to show that stuff. Lockon and analog is the move modifier for Nero (as in classic DMC) I'll say I don't agree with the button mashing criticism tbh. The design philosophy of dmc has less in common with Bayo than it does with 2D fighting games like Street Fighter. By which I mean a "combo" is built out of all the different skills in Nero's arsenal rather than doing a PKPKP style combo string with a big finisher. So you shouldn't be mashing attacks out really. I do agree with hit feedback tho There's a good vid here by a resetera member lowhighkang showing shit off who's better at these games than I could ever hope to be

I've put so much time in the demo that I'm sure I would have had the full release beaten twice over by this point. Now I know what people meant about that Sons of Liberty demo back in the day. My feelings on it is when it comes to the nitty gritty of hitting things with your sword that DMC5 has a weird "delayed" feel. It's either the heavier animations with the way they get blended together and maybe some RE engine input lag, but it is very noticeable comparing it with DMC4 and even DmC. Hit feedback is also weaker than those games, the Red Queen has a soft impact even when using the exceed function. But on the other hand the expanded air mobility options are so fucking good. Closing distance is always a problem in DMC cause you've not got a Bayonetta dodge/transform into panther button. But Nero has so much control now in the air that it feels like a Tony Hawks game. You can keep yourself up in the air more easily with an air taunt (touchpad on ps4) or enemy step off a monster's head (way easier in 5 than older games). You can pop an enemy up in the air and lock him up with the punchline's basic attack and then call that rocket back and surf it over to another group of enemies and kickflip those fuckers into the air and jump off and blow the rocket up. Or mash on them with your sword while the rocket bounces them around. Or just leave them there and look for a different target. Even with basic ass demo Nero the different paths you can take are dizzying and the different ways you can play around with that boss are really fun. You can parry his charge with Overture and Nero gives him a bit of smack talk along with it. Goliath can destroy the entire play space and all the debris remains as latent physics objects to get in your way or for Goliath to eat and spit at you as a fireball. One guy even parried his fireballs with a kickflip from punchline. Beautiful stuff.

But what's even better than that? Mr DMX

I liked KHIII a lot but reading Blakey's post I wonder what version he played 🤔 I imagine him playing games like this

I wish I had the balls these Mega 64 guys have