Lurker > Paratroopa1

colliding posted...

Are people in here seriously thinking Trump gave away Alaska?

There have been rumblings of him trading some of Alaska's mineral rights to Russia so I wouldn't get too smug yet

Dressed Man

Precipice

I just did a rank of boss fights for myself to see how it would go, and I have Crush Crawfish, your #4, as my #23, lol - meanwhile your #23, Sting Chamelon, I have at #4!

Taido (Kenichiro Fukui Extend Remix)

I DO agree that Buffalo has the best stage in X3; it's got a really unique vibe (which most X3 stages are lacking), the ice physics are pretty fun, and it actually has some decent setpieces like the last room. It feels a lot more full and well thought out. It's still not a top-tier stage, in my opinion, but it gets like a B.

Also sorry most of my comments are just negative about X3, I just didn't have a lot else to remark on lol

Blast Hornet's stage is one of the stages that I think is emblematic of how bad X3 is; it's almost completely empty, the huge hangar section outside should have stuff happening but just kinda doesn't; the spinning laser blade miniboss is fine but the thing where it's dropping cargo boxes or whatever seems totally pointless. The stage doesn't really have any setpieces to speak of. There's nothing fun to do with the ride armor. Bleh.

O Mai Padme H, part II
where is smiley?

Toxic Seahorse's level and fight are definitely among the better ones in the game but I still cannot abide by this MMX3 overranking

FIGHT!! Ver.1
Obtain An Unused Whale In The Abstract Sea

8.5

Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
Spiral of Erebos

A fine batch of retirees where I don't feel excited at all about any of them

(8) Risk of Rain 2: Seekers of the Storm - O Mai Padme H, part II
(8) Fire Emblem Awakening - Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
(8) New Roommania - where is smiley?
(7.5) Grandia II - FIGHT!! Ver.1
(7.5) Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - The Turks - Tseng and Elena
(7.5) The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - Spiral of Erebos
(7) Shinju no Yakata - Loneliness of the Caged Bird
(7) DoDonPachi Blissful Death Re:Incarnation - Taido (Kenichiro Fukui Extend Remix)
(7) Minecraft: Tricky Trials - Precipice
(7) SOUND VOLTEX III GRAVITY WARS - Liminality
(6.5) WACCA Reverse - Obtain An Unused Whale In The Abstract Sea
(6.5) SaGa Emerald Beyond - Auld Lang Syne
(5.5) Legaia 2: Duel Saga - Lost Forest
(4) Heaven Burns Red - Shiva (Glacier Remix)
(4) Waterworld (SNES) - Mission Theme 02
(3.5) Kingdom Hearts II - Sanctuary

Loneliness of the Caged Bird
Lost Forest

Oh yeah, I guess it is. I didn't recognize it.

I've only just heard about the Homestuck drama and I'm immediately exhausted by it

I used to love Homestuck and I just couldn't give a flying fuck about this animated series, if you told me like 10 years ago I would have been thrilled

I'm really off-put by the fact that the clip doesn't use any recognizable music

I decided to break mine down, apologies for the spammy list:

(25) I'm intimately familiar with it:

Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario World
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
Mega Man X
Gunstar Heroes
Super Metroid
Final Fantasy VI
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Donkey Kong Country
Chrono Trigger
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Super Mario 64
Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars
Kirby Super Star
Tetris Attack
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Mega Man X4
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
Star Fox 64
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Banjo-Kazooie
Pokmon Gold & Silver
RollerCoaster Tycoon

(14) I've played a good chunk of it, enough to know the game, but I haven't beaten/mastered it:

Star Control II
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Doom
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers
EarthBound
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
Doom II: Hell on Earth
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy Tactics
Half-Life
Suikoden II
SoulCalibur
F-Zero X
Worms Armageddon

(11) I've played it but only a little bit, not enough to know the game well:

The Secret of Monkey Island
Terranigma
Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares
Quake
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Moon: Remix RPG Adventure
Metal Gear Solid
Ridge Racer Type 4
LSD
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings

(39) I've never played it:

Tetris [AcademySoft/Mirrorsoft]
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Dragon Quest V
Streets of Rage 2
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Day of the Tentacle
UFO: Enemy Unknown
System Shock
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
The Neverhood
Sid Meier's Civilization II
Riven: The Sequel to Myst
Fallout
The Curse of Monkey Island
Tekken 3
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Fallout 2
Resident Evil 2
Xenogears
Grim Fandango
Thief: The Dark Project
StarCraft
Crash Bandicoot: Warped
Panzer Dragoon Saga
The King of Fighters '98: Dream Match Never Ends
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus
Street Fighter Zero 3
Radiant Silvergun
Planescape: Torment
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Fight for the Future
System Shock 2
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Silent Hill
Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Unreal Tournament
Crash Team Racing
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!
Quake III: Arena

(11) I've never even HEARD OF it:

Battle Garegga
Blood
Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire
Blade Runner
The Last Express
The Last Blade 2
Serial Experiments Lain
The Longest Journey
Jagged Alliance 2
The Silver Case
Garage: Bad Dream Adventure

If you take all the ones I've played at least a little bit, I have exactly 50 played, lol

But if you take only the ones I can say I've meaningfully played I've only played 39

Has everyone really played the 1986 version of Tetris? I find that hard to believe

Florest
where is smiley?

And I mean of course it's his list so he's allowed to go off of vibes, I just don't understand the vibes lol

I understand that I'm a Mega Man head of course, but I am one because I just think it's so blindingly clear that even the worst Mega Man game has a level of polish and fun that makes it top 50 on the NES at minimum, there's better games on the console but not many

Also, hilariously enough, I think Mega Man 2 is kind of overrated? It's my childhood favorite game but that game has some really awkward bits in it

It's better than fucking Karnov

I really do not understand what Jeff has against Mega Man 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmJ4Ywi9uIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHYU9jAsecI

7.5

Stow-on-Side
The Turks - Tseng and Elena

I'm not watching these episodes so someone let me know if they do ever take the piss out of Elon, like, really good, not just a warning shot across the bow. I gotta know if I have to eat my words at some point, I'll happily eat shit on this one if I'm wrong about them

I also don't understand why there isn't an option like, I haven't played this game but it looks cool, recommend me other stuff like this

This is the most useless thing I've ever seen in my life

STARRY NIGHT FEVER
At Tokione

Kenri posted...

Kinda don't understand how this is supposed to work. I started a run and it gave me Stardew Valley, which I dragged to my "loved" deck, but then everything after that was a farming/life sim game. I tried again choosing to start with Obra Dinn as loved and it just gave me detective/murder mystery games? I feel like they need to start by importing my Steam library or something, otherwise I might as well just look games up by genre.

Yeah this is how it went for me. The first game I got was Civilization (not a specific one, just... the series, I guess) and I said I loved it and now it's only giving me city builders and shit

FIGHT!! Ver.1
assemble

Spiral of Erebos
Miralodia Expressway

SeabassDebeste posted...

great stuff from every angle. i think kineticism and achievement absolutely belong as their own categories at this level. there's probably room to consolidate exploration/discovery and puzzling and achievement and routine a bit but they have enough minor distinctions that i'm pretty okay leaving em be too.

kineticism is a type of aesthetic enjoyment so unique to games that i think it rightfully belongs in its own category. aesthetics can refer to everything not involved in the mechanical input of the game. i'd argue that to extend the marathon metaphor, the tactile experience isn't so much feeling the wind in your face, but the burst of your foot striking the road and the surge in your legs and twisting of your arms when that happens - something that literally requires performing the act to experience (unlike story, gfx, or music)

Yeah you 100% get what I'm going for here

Epyo posted...

The "Routine" one surprises me, I can't really think of a game I've ever played as routine unless I was either, seeing numbers go up, or feeling like I'm getting better at it.

It's definitely a really huge part of the gaming landscape and I think it's a driver of game playing that doesn't really fit very nicely into any of the categories. I mean basically every video game scratches at least 2 of these itches (a lot of video games are capable of scratching literally all 10 of these itches) but something like - the first example I could think of was Animal Crossing, which the closest thing would be creativity, but a lot of people don't pick up Animal Crossing to go really hard on decorating their room or town, they just log in to do their daily chores and then log out. It's just part of your routine. Any 'daily login' games are kinda like this but they don't have to be - this is a big part of the reason why I play roguelikes for instance, it's like a "I want to have something in front of my face to play while I watch a youtube video" kind of thing. It's a little bit discovery, a little bit mastery, a little bit problem solving, but there's also just a big driver that's just like, just having a vague, non-demanding task to do that isn't particularly urgent, or immersive, or difficult, or anything at all really.

Precipice
Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)

If I were going to expand this framework, here's all of the distinct and common motivations I can think of for playing a game:

Discovery: Playing a game to explore its world and find out what's in it

Immersion: Playing a game to appreciate the world and enjoy escapist fantasy within it

Completion: Playing a game for the satisfaction of beating it or doing everything there is to do in it

Mastery: Playing a game to develop and hone your skills to compare to or beat others

Problem-solving: Playing a game to use thinking skills to solve challenges

Tactile: Playing a game for the rudimentary fun that comes from pressing buttons and seeing things happen

Narrative: Playing a game to enjoy the story, characters, writing, cutscenes, etc

Social: Playing a game with your friends, or with a community inside or outside of the game

Expressive: Playing a game for creative opportunities or to be self-expressive

Routine: Playing a game because it's a habit or to pass the time

I can think of other minor motivations like "playing a game to enjoy its music" or "playing a game to interact with a novel piece of technology" but they're all more uncommon and more easily grouped into these ten. I wasn't trying to limit the list to ten, I just wrote all of the ones I could think of. My biggest problem with the framework I wrote is that I think "appreciating the game's visual experience" and "escapist fantasy" might be two different boats but I can't think of a way to cleanly separate the two. I think there might also be room for something like the idea of "tinkering", like fucking around with a game's emergent properties to see what you can get it to do, but I sort of left that implied by discovery

Epyo posted...

Wellll where do you draw the line though, between the cool VFX/SFX happening right when you press a button, versus 5 seconds later, versus constantly happening in the background? Feels like it's all one pillar to me.

You just drew the line! Happening when you press a button versus happening in the background! Two completely distinct feelings.

Epyo posted...

Well being able to constantly improve your time sounds like depth of Mastery, and the feeling of the wind sounds like Atmosphere!

Again, so we're talking about the same pillar that includes the entire concept of narrative and worldbuilding? That's the same pillar that "the tactile sensation of successfully landing a punch" falls under?

banananor posted...

if you're talking specifically about "correctly", wouldn't that fall under mastery?

No because mastery isn't inherently necessary. It's the difference between running a marathon because you want to improve your time and running because you like feeling your body move fast and the rushing wind in your face. These are two very different enjoyment mechanisms!

if you're talking specifically about the "juice" of the jumps, wouldn't that fall under what's called "atmosphere" via the below?

No because I simply think this is forcing the concept of "atmosphere" to cover way too much ground. The tactile feel of a punch landing or a bullet striking its target is different from a beautifully rendered backdrop.

Dels posted...

imo... yes.

"i am getting to experience the feeling of doing X thing even though i can't actually do that thing irl" (go on an emotional journey, explore a haunted mansion, jump around like a ninja)

I'm talking about the mechanical action of pressing a button at the right time to achieve a satisfying outcome, not about the fantasy of being a cool action hero

banananor posted...

I don't think you need to add kineticism or whatever- as you said it falls under atmosphere.

So "the feeling of timing your jumps correctly" and "enjoying a well-told narrative" are the same pillar?

The worst review for this recommending Katana Zero instead (a game that I despise with a burning passion) is the best possible endorsement of this game

Another thing that's missing here is just playing something out of habit or to spend the time. Like people who play Animal Crossing every day just to keep up their town, or someone who pulls out Candy Crush on their phone just to waste a few minutes. Not really covered here. You might argue that's not a reason people "love the pastime" but I disagree.

Leonhart4 posted...

There should be something for something akin to Conquest, which isn't the same as Mastery. Platformers could fall into something like that.

And yeah, Atmosphere is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

I think "Conquest" and "Mastery" can probably be kind of covered by the same pillar, although again the description of Mastery is way too narrow a definition. Infinitely scales? I really don't need my mastery games to infinitely scale

I think your first pillar is far too narrow in scope also, the whole "and the game didn't tell you" comes across like you have a specific agenda for what YOU think is good in a game. I think "discovery" is an idea that stretches further than that, and it ought to, considering some of the stretches the other pillars are making, especially Atmosphere.

MacArrowny posted...

No categories for action games or platformers is surprising.

Yeah I think there's no pillar that describes the joy of kineticism that comes from action games. "Mastery" doesn't cover it properly

I also think the Atmosphere pillar is covering a LOT of ground by having to cover everything related to story and characters

To the West
-(LYSINE)-

Takmi (Hommarju Extend Remix)
Kaze no Ne
Taido (Kenichiro Fukui Remix)

Iclucian Dance
Florest
Meta Knight's Revenge