reizak on 5/1/2020 at 14:02
I've also been playing Blasphemous over the holidays and I'm enjoying it. The messed up vaguely Catholic iconography seems like such an obvious font of inspiration now that someone used it that I'm surprised games aren't full of the stuff, although I feel like they kinda peaked right at the start with the blood hat and haven't done anything equally delightful since. I was worried it might get too hard at some point, but I'm at the final boss now and there wasn't anything particularly infuriating up to this point, except maybe the Wall of the Holy Prohibitions boss who I managed to run into a bit too early while exploring. I gave up on the final boss after a few hopeless tries, but my sword is still missing a couple upgrade levels so it should be doable after hunting those down. All in all an enjoyable game, if a bit unpolished.
I used to think that I don't like metroidvanias having never really played them in my 30+ year gaming history, but with this, Dead Cells, Ori and Hollow Knight it seems like it's in fact just about my favorite genre suddenly apart from the perennial 100-hour RPGs.
Sulphur on 6/1/2020 at 05:47
Quote Posted by henke
I just wanted the Dark Souls
feels without it being a whole, exhausting Dark Souls
thang.
That's kinda impossible, man. You can't slice out the arduousness and the difficulty from a Dark Souls game without losing part of what makes it Dark Souls in the process. You essentially get an esoteric Metroidvania then, of which there are plenty as everyone else has suggested.
N.B.: Blasphemous is definitely Dark Souls inspired, even going so far as to include parrying, but it's (
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/353207/How_Blasphemous_level_design_iterates_on_classic_Metroidvanias.php) more or less a metroidvania.
Thirith on 6/1/2020 at 09:34
I can't say I know the genres well enough to get involved in a genre discussion, but for me the thing that makes Hollow Knight feel surprisingly like Dark Souls (or indeed Demon Souls) is the combination of tone and theme. I agree that Hollow Knight is cutesy and cartoony, but for me that effect skims on the surface of a deep melancholy and a sense of a world passing, or having passed already. In terms of gameplay and gating, Hollow Knight is clearly pure Metroidvania, with many of the upgrades coming straight from Metroid & Co, but the feeling this game evokes is *so* close to the feeling I get when I think of the Maiden's line at the Nexus: "... so the world might be mended." I can't think of many games that deliver this particular brand of melancholy as well. (I do wonder occasionally what, for want of a better name, a Hollow Knight Prime would look like and if it'd even be possible to translate Hollow Knight's aesthetic and tone into 3D.)
Tomi on 6/1/2020 at 20:04
Quote Posted by Thirith
I agree that
Hollow Knight is cutesy and cartoony, but for me that effect skims on the surface of a deep melancholy and a sense of a world passing, or having passed already.
Can't argue with that. :) Melancholy is a good word to describe it indeed - there's that melancholic feel in both
Hollow Knight and
Dark Souls that you managed to put into words. What
Blasphemous lacks in melancholy, though, it makes up for in cruel weirdness.
I think I've progressed quite far in Blasphemous now. It's a metroidvania alright, but at times there's way too much running back and forth in the game. Not just because I'm dying a lot - this game isn't really
that difficult - but I often have no idea where I'm supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do next. I'm still enjoying the ride, but I'm starting to hope that this isn't a very long game.
And yeah, the music reminded me of Diablo too!
Anarchic Fox on 7/1/2020 at 01:02
Quote Posted by Thirith
I can't think of many games that deliver this particular brand of melancholy as well.
I tried to search my mind for examples, and instead what popped up was Tolkien. :p
Taking a break from
Super Mario Odyssey (whose secret level is a terror), I'm playing a silly but engrossing browser game called (
https://pmotschmann.github.io/Evolve/) Evolve. It's pretty much what
Spore was trying to be, helped by being all text.
heywood on 7/1/2020 at 20:39
Currently playing Lego Batman on Wii with my kid.
Not that anybody cares. This is just an example of the kind of post that's harmless in a megathread, but wouldn't justify a separate thread.
SubJeff on 7/1/2020 at 23:32
I'm being incredibly boring and playing Death Stranding and Spiderman on PS4.
And still playing Company of Heroes 2 on PC.
I guess I'll finish Wolfenstein on PC this year, finally.
The only game I'm looking to buy this year is Horizon Zero Dawn.
henke on 9/1/2020 at 12:38
In case ya hadn't heard, the Sockpop collective are a group of young game developers who's mission is to make the rest of us look lazy by releasing 2 games per month. I played their 3 latest games, here's WOT I THINK.
Blue Drifter[video=youtube;lIhYKeB0E40]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIhYKeB0E40[/video]
Blade Runner by way of Bernband. Take on a job, identify the target, eliminate them, get out clean, get the bounty, go to space. Took around 15 min to play through, short but sweet.
Goblet Cave[video=youtube;h7x3gV2Xg4g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7x3gV2Xg4g[/video]
Spelunking in a procedurally generated cave. I was gonna make this game! In fact I have a rough prototype from a few years back of something kinda like this. This is not bad, though I didn't get very far on my first attempt, will need to try again at some point.
Deer Hunter II[video=youtube;c7kcqLLjCiI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7kcqLLjCiI[/video]
Mostly these Sokpop games are little more than a neat idea of a game, but this one actually has some meat on its bones. I ended up playing it for a couple hours today, and got quite close to beating it, I think, but eventually gave up. Relatively big world to explore and some solid gameplay systems lead to neat moments of emergent gameplay, like when I realized I could throw a rock to scare a deer to come closer.
Inline Image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gy16144p2fy80nc/Deerhunter2GIF.gif?raw=1
henke on 9/1/2020 at 18:34
Also just finished...
GRIS (Switch)
Very beautiful platformer with slick controls and some pretty fun movement mechanics. Low on difficulty tho, and the story isn't much to write home about. Style over substance really. Hell of a style though.
Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4)
You might've read my bellyaching about the infuriating combat on the last page, but after I turned down the difficulty I started enjoying it a lot more. The metroidvania-structured levels are a lot of fun to explore, and I liked all the little readables that fleshed out the world. Best, and most surprising of all, was how much I enjoyed the story and the characters. I think this Star Wars story might've engrossed me more than any of the new movies did.
Sulphur on 9/1/2020 at 19:40
Wait, did you try playing SWJFO on Jedi Grandmaster difficulty first? Because that's definitely not something that'd be fun (did you see what it does to the parry window gauge when choosing the difficulty level!?). Jedi Master seems just about right.