Do you still pick your preferred character ahead of time? That's what it was like at launch. So say I was Ryu - I go set character, then go to online matches. When i wanted to change characters, I had to move out of the online menu entirely then set character to Birdie or whatever, then go back to online menu. UI in SFV was def cumbersome.
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Gripe about What You're Playing 2: Bellyache-tric Boogaloo
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Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Yeah, I haven't played SFV and the only thing I know about it is that the menus are horrible. I vaguely remembered a Penny Arcade about it and yep, even they thought it was baffling.
ArugulaZ
Fearful asymmetry
I just watched the NES Works review of Rampage, and it reminded me of how disappointed and disgusted I was with that conversion. Apparently it was done as contract work by SAS Sakata, which previously had served up green hamburger patties in the NES version of Burgertime, and it really shows. I bought this game. Like, bought it with real world money, at around the time it was released, because I loved the arcade version so much and wanted to play it with my brother, who was very picky about what he played but actually did like this particular game. This port of Rampage is ass, and it demonstrates a "get it done, move on to the next one" attitude by the developers. You know what, SAS Sakata? Rampage may not matter to you, but this game had personal value to me, and probably my brother too. You don't get to slough it off, grab your paycheck, and call it a day.
Kids paid real, out of their pockets, probably earned from washed dishes and mowed lawns money for NES Rampage. Can you imagine a kid running out and buying this, thinking he's going to get a recognizable port of the arcade game? Can you imagine how utterly crushed he would be by the quality of this turd? The characters are tiny, the graphics are dull, the sound is repetitive. It feels like "just good enough for the money" contract work. It's a conversion so bad that MyArcade felt it was necessary to add features that were missing in its el cheapo, $20 arcade cabinet powered by an NES on a chip. MyArcade, which previously established itself as a manufacturer of cheap all-in-one consoles sold at Walgreens. The negligible quality of NES Rampage was an affront even to THEM.
My point is this: nobody at SAS Sakata could possibly have been proud of their work. Nobody in that miserable company was going home to their kids that night and saying, "I'm happy with what I've done. This represents the best the NES could do, and I can directly compare this to the arcade game and be satisfied with what I've accomplished here." No, they wouldn't admit to what they've done. It would be a source of deep shame for them, as well it should be. It's the video game equivalent of a dog old enough to know better peeing on the rug, because it couldn't wait that minute to be let outside. You could have at least tried. You didn't bother. Rampage for the NES is dog urine, seeped into your carpet.
Kids paid real, out of their pockets, probably earned from washed dishes and mowed lawns money for NES Rampage. Can you imagine a kid running out and buying this, thinking he's going to get a recognizable port of the arcade game? Can you imagine how utterly crushed he would be by the quality of this turd? The characters are tiny, the graphics are dull, the sound is repetitive. It feels like "just good enough for the money" contract work. It's a conversion so bad that MyArcade felt it was necessary to add features that were missing in its el cheapo, $20 arcade cabinet powered by an NES on a chip. MyArcade, which previously established itself as a manufacturer of cheap all-in-one consoles sold at Walgreens. The negligible quality of NES Rampage was an affront even to THEM.
My point is this: nobody at SAS Sakata could possibly have been proud of their work. Nobody in that miserable company was going home to their kids that night and saying, "I'm happy with what I've done. This represents the best the NES could do, and I can directly compare this to the arcade game and be satisfied with what I've accomplished here." No, they wouldn't admit to what they've done. It would be a source of deep shame for them, as well it should be. It's the video game equivalent of a dog old enough to know better peeing on the rug, because it couldn't wait that minute to be let outside. You could have at least tried. You didn't bother. Rampage for the NES is dog urine, seeped into your carpet.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I'd never seen the arcade game but my cousin got Rampage for his birthday one year. It was quickly taken away as soon as one of our parents saw us make a monster eat a person. Which of course just made us really excited so despite it being lame it was still the forbidden game and had a hold on us because of that. Neither of our parents did a great job hiding things or noticing when we got them and put them back in the hiding place so we played it a lot.
I also got it as a Birthday present one year and… didn’t play it a lot because it was a very long and repetitive game, but, y’know…
Twere fine, by an 8-year-olds reckoning.
Twere fine, by an 8-year-olds reckoning.
I started Outer Wilds and was really liking it, but I've kinda hit a bit of a wall. There are some places where it says I still have things to find—the settlement on brittle hollow, the sunless city, and I know there's other stuff on ember and ash twin—but they're kind of pains in the ass to explore, and I've gone back repeatedly and still not found anything new.
I'm so tired of those labyrinthine caves, I don't want to wander in search of the goddamn quantum rocks anymore.
I don't know how many times I'll have to go to Dark Bramble before I manage to actually progress in there and can actually explore some stuff.
Or areas like the rocket that was sent to the comet, or the comet itself, where it feels like I've done everything there is to do there but I'm still missing something big that feels like it should be obvious.
I was really hooked on the game, and have made what I think is pretty good progress, but suddenly I hit a few of these things that just feel kinda like chores and it absolutely killed any momentum the hooks were pulling me with. I want to keep loving you, game! Stop making that hard!
I'm so tired of those labyrinthine caves, I don't want to wander in search of the goddamn quantum rocks anymore.
I don't know how many times I'll have to go to Dark Bramble before I manage to actually progress in there and can actually explore some stuff.
Or areas like the rocket that was sent to the comet, or the comet itself, where it feels like I've done everything there is to do there but I'm still missing something big that feels like it should be obvious.
I was really hooked on the game, and have made what I think is pretty good progress, but suddenly I hit a few of these things that just feel kinda like chores and it absolutely killed any momentum the hooks were pulling me with. I want to keep loving you, game! Stop making that hard!
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I watched my husband play this game and swear 40% of his time was spent swearing at the screen or being frustrated. But he still liked it!
That makes me feel better and encourages me to (look some stuff up and) proceed! Thanks y'all
4-So
Spicy
So, Last of Us Part 1. Not really a gripe per se (because I understand Joel's choice) but isn't it a bit "Well, WTF, man" that we spend all game looking for the Fireflies and when we finally find them we murder a ton of them? Not the narrative choice I would have made if I were Naughty Dog, even if I understand why they'd go that direction.
Becksworth
Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
I think Haiku the Robot takes the limited narrative/direction in Metroidvanias into the other extreme. To put in terms of Super Metroid, imagine you had no real clue just what the hell was going on and if you were heading in the right direction until after you beat Crocomire.
I enjoyed Monster Train so I thought what the heck and picked up Slay the Spire too and...I want my money back. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, it just doesn't feel as good or fun as MT did, and I realized partway into my third run that I just wasn't really enjoying it. I might try a bit longer and see if it clicks - I was also in a bad mood that day - but I'm regretting that I picked it up at full price and Switch doesn't give refunds. Boo.
FWIW, Roguelike deckbuilders are arguably my favourite genre of video game these days, and I think Slay the Spire is, if not my least favourite, certainly in the bottom 25%. I've never understood the phenomenal popularity it enjoys in the space, when there are so many better alternatives. Certainly part of it was that it got in pretty early, but I've played at least two genre entries that predate it that I prefer. So you're not alone!
Besides Monster Train, what are some of the other Best ones?
Depends on what you're looking for! IIRC you've already played Inscryption, which would otherwise probably be my #1 recommendation.
I loved Griftlands, but it's very much narrative first, gameplay second, and didn't have much of a tail for me at all-- I beat it once with each of the 3 heroes and then called it done, since those playthroughs each felt "canonical" to me. But I loved my time with it!
Dicey Dungeons is a delightful game with a pretty long tail. Bright and colourful and funny with lots of distinct tiny challenge runs to mix things up. Has a fair bit of randomness to the gameplay, being built around rolling dice, but lots of tools to smooth out that randomness as you build your kit. It's arguably not quite a deckbuilder, but I'd say it's close enough to count (and one of the classes is outright building a deck of cards).
Roguebook is probably the closest to Slay the Spire, but you have a pair of characters instead of just one, and they each have their own deck. Also, it replaces StS's map (which I didn't like) with a much more robust navigation puzzle when you're revealing the map in segments to try and find battles/events while making a path towards the exit. Oh, and it's all a bit cheerier and more colourful.
Banners of Ruin is another one that I didn't spend a ton of time with, but still quite enjoyed while I was playing it. Its spin on things is that you control a whole party of 3-5(IIRC?), each of whom have their own decks and move around a small grid, and also they're all animal people (sorry, no birbs) and everything is grimdark. Also, instead of a map, you just draw cards from 3 decks, which feels like a more appealing abstraction of what Slay the Spire is doing anyway.
Star Renegades isn't actually a deckbuilder at all, but it lives in an adjacent conceptual space with a lot of the same tensions and decision-making and I enjoyed it quite a lot, so its probably worth calling out (also, technically it has cards for camping, but that's a minor mechanic). You build a party of space rebels and fight an evil empire through time loop shenanigans, unlocking more characters and gear with each successive run, all with a Grandia-style turn system.
Other than that, I've got a few on my backlog that I'm waiting to play, like Gordian Quest, Across the Obelisk, and Nowhere Prophet, all of which I've heard good things about.
Rogue Lords is kind of a middle ground between Roguebook and Star Renegades, and I can’t say enough positive things about it; it’s legit one of my game of the year contenders
Star Renegades is my strongest recommendation of the ones JBear's listed; I think I played it for 70+ hours?? It's got both extremely satisfying combat and party building. Like, someone could just make a regular-ass JRPG with that battle system and it would rule.
I think I already own Star Renegades too, based on the high recommendations around TT, so I'll kick it up the list.
In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, with an active party of 3 drivers with 3 blades, between the accessory(2), pouch item(1-not sure max, but in chapter 5 i think max across three members is 5), aux cores(1-3), and weapon chip(1), you could have something like a theoretical max of 48 items to go through, and an inventory that balloons out of control even without buying a single thing. That's not counting the two party members that are not active, not is it counting upgrade paths like affinity. This is simply too much to deal with. Maybe the idea is to keep up with parts of it and then only really focus into it when you find fights you struggle with, but it only ever gives off the impression that I'm going to be stuck behind if I don't spend 20 minutes every time i switch party members figuring out the right combinations.
Now, it hasn't really hampered my play that much, surely have run into a couple of bosses that took multiple attempts and some item moving because I don't keep up, but it's just extremely offputting in a game that wants to let you have a bunch of blades. I'm sure by the end I'll end up with a specific team I like and then only keep them upgraded, but I don't like that I have to decide if I want to keep a blade unused or spend a few minutes to make sure I have good equipment. Really minor complaint, one that feels worse than it is, but I'm annoyed!
Now, it hasn't really hampered my play that much, surely have run into a couple of bosses that took multiple attempts and some item moving because I don't keep up, but it's just extremely offputting in a game that wants to let you have a bunch of blades. I'm sure by the end I'll end up with a specific team I like and then only keep them upgraded, but I don't like that I have to decide if I want to keep a blade unused or spend a few minutes to make sure I have good equipment. Really minor complaint, one that feels worse than it is, but I'm annoyed!
I like Clockwork Aquario but I think I understand why Westone may have passed on releasing it back then. It's charming, has great Sprite work and music, and controls well enough, but the gameplay hook just really isn't "there". You can throw stunned enemies, and it do that you can hit them from underneath or jump on them or attack them, and then throwing them can chain points, but the camera is zoomed in enough that there's not a lot of opportunities to chain as they fly off screen. Bosses and midbosses can be hit, jumped on or have things flung at them too, so I never felt I got into a groove with how to move through the game. Also, locking the free mode behind a clear and forcing a limited credit mode sucks. I got to the final boss but took a while to figure out its weak point, and got my last life on the 9th credit knocked away with a few pips left and had to restart the whole game because I couldn't add one more credit in, so I watched the continue count down and my interest fade away. Worth trying? Sure. But I think I'm good.
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
I’ve been going through the bonus content in Kirby: Triple Deluxe before heading on to Planet Robobot. All that is left is the True Arena, and it is not going easy on me. The super special arena in Forgotten Land wasn’t a total breeze, either. Only, that let you use a secret, very powerful copy ability to make much more doable. Nothing like that here. You have to bring it, and I left it in the car.
ArugulaZ
Fearful asymmetry
Aquario just seems... void of meaningful gameplay. I mean, everything holds together, but in the barest, simplest ways. It reminds me of when they released Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars and just dumbed the hell out of an established franchise. You know how Super Mario Bros. 2 felt a little looser and more relaxed than the first one, a bit less linear and with a bit more freedom than before? Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars went in the opposite direction. It made Wonderboy look like a feast of deep, hearty gameplay.
madhair60
Video games
I can't remember what it's like, but I did it with the Stone power and a surplus of patience. You are completely untouchable in Stone form so you just need to get cheap hits and WAIT.
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
That’s what I ended up doing! Things were fine until I took a risky hit and the rock ability fell off a platform during the first Queen fight.
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
I got it done using the rock and being a lot more careful. The dash attack with the rock ability can do some real damage when you time it right. I appreciate the advice.
Becksworth
Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Binging on a bunch of Sonic-likes such as Freedom Planet 2 and the Spark games, I come to a conclusion that making good Sonic games is just really hard...
When one of your core design principles is "gotta go fast" you end up having to design bigger levels than you would vs a more Mario like paced game just to keep even in terms of runtime. No wonder Sonic like games are notorious for design issues. They have to work twice as hard to even be on par with the average platformer.
When one of your core design principles is "gotta go fast" you end up having to design bigger levels than you would vs a more Mario like paced game just to keep even in terms of runtime. No wonder Sonic like games are notorious for design issues. They have to work twice as hard to even be on par with the average platformer.