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Gripe about What You're Playing 2: Bellyache-tric Boogaloo

4-So

Spicy
Don't remember their being an increase in violence toward animals over something like Odyssey or Origins but the violence against humans is definitely more visceral. But the reason I stopped playing Valhalla was because it was a.) boring and b.) the idea of the protag being in the aggressor group seemed to be counter to the entire series. I know AC has never been super historically accurate but the idea of Vikings just wanting to be buddies, really we do, just let us take over, was a bridge too far. Maybe that changes over the course of the game but after 25 hours in, I bailed. That's more than enough time to spend with a game to know if it doesn't work for you.
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
Eh, I ended up watching several cutscenes last night, thinking I could watch things coming up to at least have some guidance. And there's a disturbing amount of violence against animals in this game. I really don't like it! I really don't remember the previous games being this brutal to animals or humans although it's definitely been increasing since the Ezio series. And yes, Vikings and that time in human history were brutal so this accurate but ugh. Not what I want. So oh well, purpose served by renting I suppose.
I really wish the Discovery Tours were available as a stand-alone option on consoles, too. I have no interest in the Animus nonsense and the never-ending Ass v. Temp stuff, and I bounced right off of the Ubi cycle of games, and AAA M-rated violence is often too much for me...But running around sandboxes as you wish without stabbing everything and learning shit in the process? I want more of that!

I'm in no rush to pick up Valhalla (Even if UbiSoft wasn't shitty money is tight at the moment and I prioritize Switch stuff when I buy games), but once the Discovery Tour is patched in odds are good I'll eventually pick it up on one of the many sales.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I think at this point the Ezio trilogy was practically a different series. I'm a fan of those games but not AC as a whole, and for all the reasons noted I'm not going to buy Ubisoft stuff anytime soon.

I'm sure at some point Ezio killed a pigeon or something and horses definitely died offscreen, but Connor was the first time I really remember being offput by the violence.
 
I haven't played Hyper Light Drifter in a while so I gave it a whirl. I thought this game was pretty frustrating the first time I played it, and was immediately struck by how inflexible the player character is at the start of the game.

Action games are tricky regarding abilities. Sometimes it feels like you get a power solely because it's the gimmick in an area and thus the powers don't feel particularly special. But in Hyper Light Drifter's case, the various sword and dash abilities all feel like something you should perhaps start with- they're never NOT useful, and it takes a while to get the ball rolling. Most of them feel like tremendous boons once obtained. It's like the first Megaman X game, but every power is the frickin dash boots.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
I'm enjoying Griftlands so much as a narrative experience that each play feels like my own personal canonical play-through, which means that I can't bring myself to play each character more than once and see all of the cool alternate random events and build variety.
 
I forgot to save Fritz. This playthrough of Chrono Trigger is tainted now, but I'm already at Denadoro Mountains, so what can ya do?
 

zonetrope

(he/him)
Guacamelee 2: I like the precision platforming + Metroidvania parts of this series a lot, but my brain is just not built for memorizing and executing fighting game combos, and it feels like this sequel cranks up that element a lot compared with the original.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
For all the hype surrounding it, Skatebirds isn't a very good game. It's unpolished and janky... camera angles are a mess, and your character will often get stuck between partitions or face the opposite direction of where you need him to go or wipe out immediately after he wiped out the first time. The game can't decide if it wants to be a spiritual revival of Tony Hawk (and it doesn't do that very well) or forge its own path (and it doesn't do that very well, either). What it immediately makes you decide is to play one of the good Tony Hawk games instead.
 

zonetrope

(he/him)
Guacamelee 2: I like the precision platforming + Metroidvania parts of this series a lot, but my brain is just not built for memorizing and executing fighting game combos, and it feels like this sequel cranks up that element a lot compared with the original.
Turns out I just shouldn't be playing it on the Switch undocked. The controls aren't really optimized for the button layout, and the view is super zoomed out. I'm having a much better go at it on the big screen with a Pro controller. I love that the primary gameplay upgrade this time around is that you get to really wreck shit as the chicken.
 
I like so much about Phoenotopia: Awakening, except... playing it. By which I mean I have a grand old time cavorting across the countryside, exploring spaces for secrets and collecting all the things. But anytime i have to go through a new, difficult area, or fight a boss, or face any kind of challenge it falls apart because the combat isn't very fun. You get knocked around like a ragdoll for... reasons? any time you get hit, and none of your weapons feel even a little bit satisfying. I can get past with some effort, but I don't like having to, even with all the difficult options turned down.
 

Syless

<internal screaming>
(she/her)
I'm trying to play Fallout 1 fairly, no cheats, no meta-knowledge and it's just... what exactly are they expecting me to do to *not* be underleveled compared to all the quests? I'm following the plotted line and die everywhere no matter what I do. Is this a JRPG? Should I be grinding radscorpions in the desert?
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
You're kinda expected to save-scum your way around, finding some check or loot cache that gives you enough of an edge to complete a few more checks, and so forth. Once you know where the easy and valuable stuff is, yeah, you can crack both early Fallout games open like eggs, but they're also of the era where the devs don't spare the player.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
The Duck Tales remaster is really well done, and the sprites are amazing. But the final escape sequence is absurdly hard. One mistake, or just being a bit too slow, and you die instantly. I tried being as fast as possible, thinking I had even skipped a bit, but the lava still got me. What the hell? Which, in itself wouldn't be so bad, but having to redo the whole, long, relatively hard level, with a long boss fight is very demotivating. I wished they hadn't added that bit, and just ended with the race against Magicka and Glomgold.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Jim Power (Super NES, but most likely everything else) is a total crapfest. Think of anything you hate about European-designed platformers, and uncannily, you'll find it right here. Oversaturated colors? Check. Frantically bouncing objects everywhere, and characters that move and animate much too quickly? Check. One hit kills, including deaths from such unlikely sources as deer-dogs on stilty legs and drops of water? Check. Cheap gameplay that forces you to creep through each stage, risking the ire of an unforgiving timer? Check. Enemies that simply cannot be killed, like barrel throwing soldiers hiding in the background and arrow-spitting idols? Check.

And all this is AFTER installing a patch that removes the game's nauseating parallax scrolling, which makes you feel like you're trapped in a Tilt-A-Whirl with the lever set to "hurl." The patch might make the game "playable" in the most generous sense of the term (you can hold the controller without succumbing to violent bouts of projectile vomiting! Yay!), but Jim Power is gonna need three or four more to make it anywhere near fun.
 

Syless

<internal screaming>
(she/her)
Okay, I beat Fallout. It's a hard game, but in the end, very fun.

...Fallout 2, on the other hand...

Aside from the game's terribly designed opening and general dislike of you using anything but unarmed/melee for the first few hours, I just reached New Reno and... wow, the game is insufferably misogynistic. I'm playing a 4-charisma girl, and it feels like 90% of NPCs in the city are calling me ugly, and the ones that aren't are still locking me out of content for being female at all. Fallout 1's difficulty was challenging, but tolerable, but this... yeah, no, Fallout 2 is staying on my list of unbeaten games.
 

Ludendorkk

(he/him)
Jim Power (Super NES, but most likely everything else) is a total crapfest. Think of anything you hate about European-designed platformers, and uncannily, you'll find it right here. Oversaturated colors? Check. Frantically bouncing objects everywhere, and characters that move and animate much too quickly? Check. One hit kills, including deaths from such unlikely sources as deer-dogs on stilty legs and drops of water? Check. Cheap gameplay that forces you to creep through each stage, risking the ire of an unforgiving timer? Check. Enemies that simply cannot be killed, like barrel throwing soldiers hiding in the background and arrow-spitting idols? Check.

And all this is AFTER installing a patch that removes the game's nauseating parallax scrolling, which makes you feel like you're trapped in a Tilt-A-Whirl with the lever set to "hurl." The patch might make the game "playable" in the most generous sense of the term (you can hold the controller without succumbing to violent bouts of projectile vomiting! Yay!), but Jim Power is gonna need three or four more to make it anywhere near fun.

 

Yimothy

Red Plane
(he/him)
I’m playing Metroid Fusion for the first time, and it’s mostly pretty good once I’d adjusted to the wonky jumping. I got up to the SA-X chase sequence after the spider boss, and after several attempts I made it to the last room, where I hid behind the wall and hoped for the best, but also placed a super bomb. The enemy came in and shot me through the wall, but the exploding bomb revealed a passage in the roof before I died. So I spent many, many attempts going for that roof passage, fleeing back to the previous room, finding the hidden passage in the floor that requires two different weapons to open, and trying to get it open and go down it without getting killed by the returning enemy, and eventually after ages upon ages I pulled it off. Then it’s quite a while before I reached a save point and could relax.

I’ve been playing without a guide, but this was so egregious I wanted to know what other people had to say on it so I had a google: turns out if you hide behind the wall like I did the first time the enemy goes away. It’s not supposed o shoot you through the wall. I guess it shot because of the super bomb I used, but after that first attempt I thought hiding was futile. Why is the roof passage even there if you’re supposed to wait for the enemy to leave and then walk out the door? Its only apparent purpose is to make me miserable.
 

Ghost from Spelunker

BAG
(They/Him)
Jim Power (Super NES, but most likely everything else) is a total crapfest. Think of anything you hate about European-designed platformers, and uncannily, you'll find it right here. Oversaturated colors? Check. Frantically bouncing objects everywhere, and characters that move and animate much too quickly? Check. One hit kills, including deaths from such unlikely sources as deer-dogs on stilty legs and drops of water? Check. Cheap gameplay that forces you to creep through each stage, risking the ire of an unforgiving timer? Check. Enemies that simply cannot be killed, like barrel throwing soldiers hiding in the background and arrow-spitting idols? Check.

And all this is AFTER installing a patch that removes the game's nauseating parallax scrolling, which makes you feel like you're trapped in a Tilt-A-Whirl with the lever set to "hurl." The patch might make the game "playable" in the most generous sense of the term (you can hold the controller without succumbing to violent bouts of projectile vomiting! Yay!), but Jim Power is gonna need three or four more to make it anywhere near fun.
That's not all!
You know those overhead levels in Contra III nobody likes? Stage 2 of Jim Power has more of it!
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I thought you were literally telling me to lower my standards, which made me think, "Hey, Jim Power sucks! I shouldn't have to lower my standards THAT much!" But no, that was just the title of the video, and probably a suggestion from the creator to expect crap from the video game industry that week.

By the way, I felt just a teeny bit guilty for downloading Jim Power without buying it, so I grabbed the Steam version for three bucks (normally five, but I bought other games earlier that were part of a package). Problem is, the three versions of the game run like ass on Steam! Plus the advertised Genesis/Mega Drive version (coming soon! Really! We just don't want to give you a concrete date!) isn't there, so I had to pirate a game I already bought. On the plus side, I don't feel guilty about it anymore.
 
I thought you were literally telling me to lower my standards, which made me think, "Hey, Jim Power sucks! I shouldn't have to lower my standards THAT much!" But no, that was just the title of the video, and probably a suggestion from the creator to expect crap from the video game industry that week.

By the way, I felt just a teeny bit guilty for downloading Jim Power without buying it, so I grabbed the Steam version for three bucks (normally five, but I bought other games earlier that were part of a package). Problem is, the three versions of the game run like ass on Steam! Plus the advertised Genesis/Mega Drive version (coming soon! Really! We just don't want to give you a concrete date!) isn't there, so I had to pirate a game I already bought. On the plus side, I don't feel guilty about it anymore.
Video World is a series that Madhair did a few years ago. You should watch it, it's pretty great.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I, uh, got more than 100% in Spyro 3. In the level Seashell Shore, I got 410 of 400 gems, and am now on 101% completion. Sparx doesn't show any gems, and I got all the eggs, but I still don't get the 100% completion message. I hope this doesn't mess anything up, when I try to open the last level, which I need 100% for. It shouldn't, as I will have more than required, not less, but still, not great. Also, this seems to be a new glitch, as I can't find anything about it on the internet. Huh.
 

Ludendorkk

(he/him)
I thought you were literally telling me to lower my standards, which made me think, "Hey, Jim Power sucks! I shouldn't have to lower my standards THAT much!" But no, that was just the title of the video, and probably a suggestion from the creator to expect crap from the video game industry that week.

By the way, I felt just a teeny bit guilty for downloading Jim Power without buying it, so I grabbed the Steam version for three bucks (normally five, but I bought other games earlier that were part of a package). Problem is, the three versions of the game run like ass on Steam! Plus the advertised Genesis/Mega Drive version (coming soon! Really! We just don't want to give you a concrete date!) isn't there, so I had to pirate a game I already bought. On the plus side, I don't feel guilty about it anymore.

The opening bit is like two minutes of shitting on Jim Power
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Okay, Scarlet Nexus is doing way too good a job conveying a polluted metropolis. They got grayish smog haze down perfect, and I'm having an asthma flare up just looking at it.
 
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