Lurker > mrmallard

#14: Ambition of the Slimes

This is a cheap tactical RPG starring a bunch of slimes that can take over the human body. They decide to get revenge on humanity for using them to level up, and through possessing human hosts they slowly fight their way through an entire kingdom.

Like with Labyrinth of the Witch's Mystery Dungeon format, I'm not the biggest fan of tactical RPGs. The production value of the game is fairly low too; dialogue is poorly translated, and the graphics, interface and button mapping is all lacking. But there is a silver lining in that the mistranslations are goofy and funny, not frustrating and shitty.

I thought that the possession mechanic was interesting and fun, and there's a lot of slimes with different abilities that make each mission an interesting puzzle. The game's hard as sin, so you want to pick the best slimes for each scenario. Also, the environments are low-poly 3D diorama-like maps, which is charming in its own way.

I would actually recommend Ambition of the Slimes. It's a cheaply localised game made by a small dev studio, and it has heart for days. That being said, it has shortcomings - but like the games that came before, this is a budget title. If you're a tactics guy, look into Ambition of the Slimes.

#13: Diablo II: Resurrected

I got this game in a pack with Diablo III on sale. I didn't particularly want it, but it was like ten bucks more than Diablo III on sale and I figured I might as well.

I actually really like the first Diablo. It's moody and fucked up, and the combat and sound design is immaculate. I also love Diablo III, I discovered it with a friend and I've got years of great memories attached to it. This remaster has a lot of visual polish, but I think it suffers from being on the Switch; if I was gonna enjoy this game, it'd have to be on a PC.

The cutscenes are amazing, but the dialogue text is miniscule and I just can't get used to the combat. I know it's Diablo III bias, because that game runs like a fucking dream on console, but I just can't get into Diablo II on a controller. I'll have to try it on PC one day.

#12: Digimon Cyber Sleuth

Digimon Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition is a port of a pair of PSVita games. It has reasonably high production values, everything has a 3D model and there's this whole wacky digital story about getting sucked into the internet.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the cliched anime story or the character writing. The game, like a significant amount of later Vita titles, were localised on the cheap with no English voice-acting - that takes me out, personally, but that's kind of a normie take on it. Overall, you can tell that Cyber Sleuth is a Vita game, and it just has a weird feeling to it all - it's the most well-produced game on the list so far, but there's enough noticeable corner-cutting that something feels off. I gave the game an honest go, and I just didn't like it.

Nah, you're pretty much set. Maybe up your heart counter a little bit more, otherwise you're gravy.

Also, idk if you've noticed this, but (game mechanic spoiler) the lightroots correspond to a shrine on the overworld. So if you're having trouble finding new shrines, you can hunt down some lightroots or vice versa

I took a gamble on a third party youtube .apk because the app has been really fucking me off lately. It's got good reviews and it works like a dream - I've even got a pop-out window so I can watch longform content while I grind OSRS on my phone. There's a little bit of jank, but it doesn't pause my music after four songs so fuck it.

Butterfiles posted...

I never understood pop songs that removed guest rap verses

God, I heard the version of California Girls by Katy Perry that cuts out Snoop Dogg for some backwater American states and shit. Apparently that was just a trend during the late-00's/mid-10's whenever a big song had a rap verse.

Like imagine being such a dumbass hick piece of shit that you fuck with the biggest song of the summer because "uh buh guh snoopie doopie is an bad rap man, save morality!!". Imagine living in a shithole like that.

#17: Drawngeon

Drawngeon is a budget title that looks like someone drew it in a school book. Unfortunately it plays like someone drew it in a school book too. I played it once for five minutes and it ate ass.

I knew it was gonna be a mediocre experience, but something about it reminded me of Guild of Dungeoneering - I had it on PC, and it recently got a Switch port. Guild of Dungeoneering is actually really fun, I'd recommend trying it out. Don't buy Drawngeon though. It's dogshit.

#16: Zodiakalik

Zodiakalik is a very cheap turn-based RPG. Some of the graphics are bugged, the low-poly look is interesting but it feels like a product of its budget more than anything, and the battle mechanics were pretty stiff and slow. I didn't get far with this one either.

There's a first-person mode that I thought was really fun and interesting. That being said, the game failed to impress and I didn't get far. It was, like Drawngeon, a budget purchase - but I feel like Zodiakalik has more integrity than Drawngeon, and while its design isn't very good and is noticeably unpolished, it was at least - to a degree - playable. A little bit novel, even. I still wouldn't recommend this game though.

#15: Labyrinth of the Witch

This is a Mystery Dungeon-type game. One day I had a hankering for that type of game, and I had my eye on this one for a while due to it's decentish graphics and cheap sale price.

What sinks Labyrinth of the Witch is that it's clearly a port of a phone game. The interface is all bubbly and arranged like cellphone buttons, and I think there was a gacha wheel as well for some reason. I gave it a fair shot, and it scratched that middling Mystery Dungeon itch I had - but ultimately, I'm not a huge fan of this style of game in the first place, so it rolled off like water from a duck's back.

The game just has a very cheap, cynical vibe to it. The part about it being an obvious phone port is what sealed the deal for me.

Also, before I do anything else - I haven't got any mainline Final Fantasy games on my Switch because I've either got them on other platforms or I'm planning to get them in the near future. Specifically, I want to play the Pixel Remasters and FF8 - I've watched a full playthrough of 7 and determined that the jank isn't for me, I had the PS1 Classic version of 9 and got kinda far but the emulation jank on PS3 sucked, and I've played the X games a lot.

By RPG, I mean games where the traditional RPG elements of levelling and specialised battle systems are front and center. My main focus is turn-based RPGs like Dragon Quest, but I have a small handful of other games like Tactics Ogre or Mystery Dungeon-type games. I'm not going to count action RPGs like Bayonetta or musous like Hyrule Warriors, and games that significantly follow other genres that rely heavily on RPG elements like Borderlands aren't eligible either.

That being said - I'm usually not a big fan of games like Cat Quest, but I really liked Cat Quest so it makes the list. I'm also counting dungeon crawlers like Diablo and Torchlight. I feel like those games trend closer to action RPGs than the sort of "core" RPG experience described above, but ehh.

So here's the list in alphabetical order:

Ambition of the Slimes
Atelier Escha and Logy
Brave Dungeon
Cat Quest
Diablo II: Resurrected
Diablo III
Dragon Quest 1
Dragon Quest 2
Digimon Cyber Sleuth
Drawngeon
Hand of Fate 2
Labyrinth of the Witch
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Phantasy Star 1
Torchlight II
World of Final Fantasy
Zodiakalik

And I'll get working on those reviews.

If you had a Wii, or knew someone with a Wii, you know how much plastic shit accumulated in the form of peripherals. Plastic guns, plastic steering wheels, plastic swords - and it was all bulky and shitty. Even if they were fun to use, the fact that the Wii hasn't been "current" in about ten years has made those peripherals garbage through years of inactivity.

With Labo, peripherals can be built sturdy enough to last for a good while, and when you stop using it - it's either torn, degraded, melted with a hose or recycled. Cardboard is also cheap to manufacture, and it can be made with recycled/reclaimed materials. It's more economical and environmentally friendly. It's a slam-dunk.

The issue with Labo is how insanely specialised it is. "Oh, make this robot backpack and play a robot game. Here, make a stickbug and vibrate your controller to make it walk". They made a VR headset, and it's a viewfinder. If they had established a baseline of quality that any Switch games could integrate into themselves, the Labo could have genuinely been an innovative replacement for the traditional plastic peripheral.

Its gimmicky implementation killed it. If they had built a quality product that applied to a wide range of playstyles, I think the Labo could have been successful.

Kamil posted...

wtf this literally tastes like nothing

yeah, I had a 12% bourbon called Beardedady that tasted like nothing. Shit sucks, right?

Fun fact, red wine puke smells like raisins

oh yeah here's some pics

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/1/AAbh80AAEqXp.jpg https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/2/AAbh80AAEqXq.jpg https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/3/AAbh80AAEqXr.jpg

Crimsoness posted...

The past wasn't filmed on tiktok

what kinda boomer ass shit is this

Resident_Hill posted...

(it's happened before you say but THIS is the end?)

gj

majin_nemesis posted...

why are people so incapable of understanding diseases and virus outbreaks?

U

Wow, why'd he do it now

It's a shame how good of a dating app it is, but shit like Tinder and Bumble milk shitty dating app trends and prey on desperation as a revenue stream.

wanderingshade posted...

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

Good man

You suck

For real though - I had 20 years where my life fucking ate ass, and I'm finally at a point where my life is my own path. Shit is always garbage, I'm always sad and depressed, but I've gotta look at the dressing around everything and acknowledge that things are a lot better now than they used to be.

GranolaPanic posted...

Thats what Ben Shapiro does.

Ben Shapiro chose to follow Catholicism, at least publically, to meme on people. He doesn't give a shit what happens culturally or ethnically to Jews.

Calling Ben Shapiro a Jew is like calling Paul Joseph Watson a lover of the fine arts.

MaxEffingBemis posted...

Sure and prominent Jewish groups will ignore this and continue smearing Ilhan Omar instead

Jews Will Overlook Real Antisemitism To Attack Political Opponents

She's an 8 at worst, you're just a shitty gimmick poster who's used to gutter sluts and feels shitty bc Robbie doesn't fit the stereotype

gatorsPENSbucs posted...

this is still up? Kinda answers the topic title perfectly

You suck

Cool, I'm gonna punch RFK in the back of the head

I'm sick of people using their religion

Jokes aside, I'm of the belief that individual belief is fine while institutional belief is inherently corrupt. Let people believe their shit, but when you put someone In Charge Of That, human bias - and thus, evil - gets involved

I've felt like this for a while. I used to say that there would be a fundamental societal shakeup during my lifetime, I just didn't expect it to be so soon.

What I've chosen to believe is that ultimately, "eras" are self-selected retroactively, and anything you read suggesting otherwise is pushing a narrative. Everything's coming to a head, but anything that deals in personal information is trying to absolve themselves of blame and make any bad stuff as local as possible. It's not enough that the world is ending, it's your fault too.

Ant Man 1 was okay, I feel like it was moreso Edgar Wright's leftovers that was entertaining. The second Ant Man movie was dogshit - it was a Fine MCU movie but it was a boring, overlong movie that I straight up didn't enjoy.

I didn't watch Quantumania because I split from my Marvel-fan friends a couple years ago. That being said, the movie just never appealed to me. Like HaHa Look At Them Talk to Bill Murray, Very Funny!!! that shit fucking ate ass.

Aloc posted...

CE center left.
261 center right.

With refugees from 261 we've gotten closer to center.

Didn't someone from 261 threaten a mod's children

hockeybub89 posted...

Nebraska is an evil place

I disagree. America, as it exists with letting these evil fuckers get away with what they want, is evil. The fact that people are willing to break the law and go to jail for this sort of thing is more a symbol of hope than anything else imo.

Garabandal posted...

Really baffling that's the episode they won't air when there's episodes that are so much more offensive.

No no, it's offensive because it suggests that the beginning stages of life should be ended!!!

Meanwhile the actual fetal tissue people are caught up in looks like this:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/3/2/AAbh80AAEqRk.jpg
That's a fetus at eight weeks.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Hercules suffered from low TV budgets and having to adhere to network content restrictions.

Hercules benefitted from low TV budgets and having to adhere to network content restrictions.

America is weak as fuck for that one.

I caught that shit on TV, it's a mid episode that's elevated by the controversy. American TV stations refusing to air it is stupid as fuck.

TheShadowViper posted...

He is a great Hercules, just separate the character and the man. It isn't actually that hard.

He is a great Hercules. The issue is that the guy is shitty to a noticeable extent, where he's going down all the shit-ass conservative rabbit holes and calling for a lot of fucked up shit, and it's hard to seperate his inflated personality from the characters he plays. "Just separate the character from the actor" is bad advice because if I could just watch a bunch of dumbass characters fucking around without thinking about how Kevin Sorbo would have Mexican children raised by American parents to "get the bad habits out of them" or whatever the fuck, I would. But the weirdness he brings to the table is really fucking weird.

GranolaPanic posted...

Its happening.

No it's not

Torgo posted...

All kidding aside, both Hercules and Xena were objectively terrible shows

Yeah, and Ice Age was a dogshit movie compared to Toy Story. Doesn't mean it wasn't an entertaining movie.

Please, tell me what makes your favorite movies and TV shows objectively better media than Xena and Hercules.

Robot2600 posted...

Hercules is dumb i thought it was weird that old guys were so into it, even at the time.

I was into it when I was like 14. It's just dumbass fellas getting into punch ups, it's great fun.

Irony posted...

Hercules and Xena were awful.

Wow Christ, sounds like a you problem

Irony posted...

However Lucy Lawless is actually a decent actress while Kevin Sorbo is just a Hallmark level actor.

...okay we actually have some common ground in all this

Robot2600 posted...

how is xena so "awful" ? it's TNG with lesbians and death frisbee.

I dunno, I just didn't like it. I don't hate it, and I respect the hell out of it. I just thought Hercules was stupider and I liked it better.

I wasn't a big fan of Xena, but Hercules was a stupid fucking show and I loved it. It's hard for that to be untainted when Sorbo is a full-ass Qanoner.

https://youtu.be/Xd7yXgf0DNM

Johnny_Nutcase posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtIlG87_D28

Thank you for not posting The Weeknd

I'm listening to counting crows rn. I bought An Innocent Man by Billy Joel on my Adelaide holiday so I listened to the album last night

Torgo posted...

"Looong April, and there's reason to believe..."

Decent rock/folk/alt band from the 90s. I like them.

I love them. I just missed out on the genetic lottery that would have made them cool

ragnarokius posted...

It's hard to imagine people being judgy of another person's vices at a concert of all things. That hardly sounds unique, and even kinda tame tbh.

It was less judgy and more then talking about that guy who was getting fucked up. I'm telling you, that was the biggest crowd of stiffs I've ever seen (that was my second concert ever)

I went to a Bad//Dreems concert a couple weekends ago and ended up getting in my first moshpit ever, the Counting Crows audience fucking blew chunks of bleeding asshole in comparison.

So heads up, I'm getting shitfaced on wine right now so this is gonna be a bit meandering

I spent a week and a half in Adelaide back in April, but I was in Sydney for three days to see Counting Crows. The concert was mostly older people, the only people who were there to vibe with the music and have fun were me and this hyperactive Indian fella who was living it up. Accidentally bumped into some people and trod on some people's feet behind me. I was a shitty crowd member to my surrounding crowd members, but fuck me, I've been listening to the band for ten years and I wanted to dance to their music.

I'm gonna start with the most negative thing I have to say: it was weird seeing them as old men. Like they sounded fantastic, but knowing I was 30 years late to the party was disheartening. Adam Duritz has a bald spot, that was fucking wild. They were also going through the motions, Adam was throwing out the directions but it was such a well oiled machine that it felt more like Adam was acting than actually directing.

They perked up a lot when they played the Butter Miracle suite, but that's 18 minutes of material y'know. It was really fucking good though, absolute highlight of the show. They also played for a lot longer than I thought, I was expecting them to play for an hour but it was like two and a half. I don't go to many shows.

I probably spent like $300 on drinks, I kept buying four at a time and putting them in my jacket pockets. This is cringe as fuck, but as we were all leaving after the show, I heard some people talking about me - they were talking about the guy who kept showing up with drinks and getting shitfaced. I turned and was like "well what can I say, I like being triple-parked", meaning I like having three drinks in my hand. It was a good show.

I don't like the visual side of Counting Crows, and seeing them live really set that in stone. It would have been great seeing them back in the day, there's a great recording where Adam plugs an AIDS support group and a group trying to clean up the Hudson river, but I never really liked their music videos. The music at the show was fantastic, they've absolutely honed their craft after 30 years on the road, but it was oddly confronting to acknowledge that the band are all old men now. Like that's how aging works, but the music and the image I have of them is a snapshot of them in their youth, and knowing they were a solid 20+ years older than me was a whole trip. Concert was fantastic though, the cheapest ticket was $150 and it was a standing ticket at the front and the price was totally worth it.

It was a good concert, they sounded fantastic, but they don't buy into "image". Whatever image you have of them from your fandom of them, it's not true. They're a bunch of old dudes who don't play up any sort of "legacy". Adam got rid of his dreads, which I believe was mostly a wig by the time he got rid of them, and they're a lot older which makes sense. Let go of image, you'll be a lot happier. The music is - again - a well-oiled machine. If you see them, don't expect to be wowed by stage presence. They're old pros who play to the bleachers. It was an odd experience, but the music was fan-fucking-tastic.

Questionmarktarius posted...

It just did become saturday, so I am too.

Aldi wine is damn good for how cheap it is.

Aldi booze is cheap and fine enough. I got my wine from IGA, which I live next to.

dn lean left

But genuinely, CE has too many shit-for-brains posting dogshit from Page Six to be "left-leaning". Anywhere that takes politics seriously would be all over that shit in an instant, but people genuinely engage with that sort of thing as if it's a Valid Point that Has To Be Debated.

I'm having a Wine Saturday, four bottles of Shiraz and a little bit of vodka. Didn't realise that Shiraz was a red wine, but it's eight standard drinks a bottle and they were $4.99 each.

I've been spending a lot of weekends hanging out with people, it's nice to just stay in and be a degenerate for once. About half way through the first bottle and I can't feel my fucking face

Smashingpmkns posted...

https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1680018748365852672

Makes sense I guess. I have a feeling they're gonna put off *big spoilers obviously* Joel's death til they can't.

I think it's more likely that they're making an Ellie season and an Abby season

I remember when he got a $200 million contract bonus around the same time he laid of 190 employees. This was while Activision was making record profits during the pandemic, too - there's plenty of money for the boss and the company, but fuck those 190 people specifically.

Sounds like a you problem

It sounds less like she's "into" it and more like "oh I guess this is part of the job, go at it I guess - I'll take it as a compliment"

Damn girl, make your shitter pop