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I also hadn't played Alan Wake, and I would agree with your friend -- that particular DLC most was just kinda meh for me. I'd say you're not missing anything if you skip it.You may be saying hey wait, there are two DLCs, what gives? And, well... I had previously started the other DLC, which felt weird because I knew I recognized the name Alan Wake from somewhere, until I realized that it was a game (the Control team's previous game) and the whole DLC was basically a tie-in/crossover. A friend who absolutely loves Control said I wouldn't get much out of that DLC unless I'd played it, which I haven't, and the DLC is apparently just kind of mediocre without that context. I also don't particularly feel like following up the Foundation DLC with a seemingly less-related story that I won't get half of, so I've called it there and feel ready to move on.
I'm in the minority of those who thinks that mechanically, Alan Wake is the stronger game. A lot of that is for the same reasons that lead to just turning on invulnerability. Yes, augments help make later stuff easier but honestly not that much and frankly the loot/augment system was my least favorite part of Control. The whole thing felt half-baked and more a concession to modern gaming's drive toward increasing engagement by putting everything on the loot/crafting/customization gameplay loop rather than crafting a nice, finely tuned difficulty curve for a fun shooter (which makes me extremely incredulous about this Borderlands-esque multiplayer spin off they're making but I digress) -
Anyway! Alan Wake! It's gameplay is good like 90% of the time but you have to play it the way the game wants you to, which is different from basically any shooter at the time or since! But I did a run through the game's Nightmare mode feeling like I have a pretty good grasp on it and was surprised that it was a good time and relatively easy! And I'm someone who has to play the Uncharted games switching between normal and easy in order to make it through them. And I really enjoyed the writing and overall story, doubly so now with the added Control context! But like the gameplay, it comes with the caveat that the main character is insufferable as the game's primarily about a bad person getting a tiny bit better, but that can be a non-starter for some people.
I guess what I'm saying is that I also recommend Alan Wake with caveats, just as I would with any other Remedy game.
I also hadn't played Alan Wake, and I would agree with your friend -- that particular DLC most was just kinda meh for me. I'd say you're not missing anything if you skip it.
I picked this up during the recent Steam sale and finished it the other day. I guess I must not be as fast as Beowulf because it took me about 4 hours to 100% the game. Overall I liked the game but it did burn off some (but not all) of its goodwill with the last two dungeons and the final boss. (Of course some of those were from hitting my pet peeves.) It does have some pretty sweet tunes in it - which helped it stay in my good graces. It plays nicely and isn't too hard overall but if you are looking for a Zelda-like that has you using all of your tools and scouring everywhere for items and to solve puzzles then you might want to look elsewhere.Shipwreck (PC, Zelda-like) – Inspired more closely by Link’s Awakening, your hero is shipwrecked on a mysterious island and tasked by the local villagers to gather four seals from various dungeons and defeat a ghost terrorizing the island. There are a couple of irritating design choices (you need to beat a 50 GP per try “sword training course” to get the crossbow that you seem to need to proceed; the heart containers are optional finds within the dungeons; there are several “blank spaces” in the inventory) but they had some fun with this. And so did I; it’s about two hours’ worth of game.
And I got another winning Ascension run with the same character. Turns out a deck built around keeping yourself alive indefinitely and absolutely burying yourself in status buffs is a real good strategy.Finally managed to get a winning run in Meteorfall, excellent deck builder RPG. Extremely well suited for mobile play (it’s on Steam as well, but I imagine it loses quite a lot when you don’t have the immediacy of being able to play it on commutes or in a long line or wherever).
I really enjoyed that game, I should replay it.I picked up Child of Light recently, and I just finished it yesterday. I enjoyed it for the most part. The art was great, and the poetry was a neat gimmick, I guess, but I suppose it can't help but feel forced at times. The gameplay is basically Grandia. On Expert, enemies can hit pretty hard.
Anyway, I do wish the game had more options for healing in battle. It felt like I was constantly running low on healing items, and only one character has healing spells, but you are limited to two party members. The firefly can heal, but it is far too slow.
At any rate, it had been on my radar for a while, so I'm glad I finally got around to playing it.
Your description sounded really cool, so I started playing this and it is indeed excellent. Thanks for posting about it!Weird and Unfortunate Things are Happening is a solid, free RPG that offers lots of the good JRPG bullshit with none of the bad JRPG bullshit. It's blatantly Earthbound inspired but the focus is more on grown-ups. In fact the two protagonists you'll spend the most time with are both adult women: a dorky lesbian psychic who aspires to be a cool aunt, and a grumpy ex-secretary who wields the Power of Gun. Together theyfight crimereluctantly team up with Polite Cthulhu to fight Rude Cthulhu to save the niece/town/world.
It features dungeons that are generally breezy and interesting to explore, clever puzzles and secrets that aren't too obtuse (and the toughest ones are optional), turn-based battles that execute the fundamentals well with a few unique twists, and a story that's reasonably well written with several heartfelt moments and zero memes. It's rather longer than it first appears, averaging probably in the 15-25 hour range. If I had one complaint it's the common RPG one in that it starts to feel exhausting toward the end (not sure if I'll try that bonus dungeon ever), though the quality level remained high throughout and the finale was quite satisfying.
But someone really should've told them the right way to pronounce "Stuyvesant", yikes.
How do they mispronounce it in the game?
It’s possible that no one on the VO team heard the word before.
Mightyblue has it right. And on a game of this scale, it's pretty common to have an internal pronounciation guide for exactly those times when no one in the room has heard a particular word. And then if you're still not sure, the next steps are 1) Google it, 2) ping the writer of the script to see if they know, and if all else fails, 3) record the line with multiple pronounciations to make sure your bases are covered. This all takes, at most, two or three minutes.I mean, sure, but New York is filled with Dutch names. Accent and pronunciation checks is one of the early steps for script direction before you go into production.