Lurker > transience

3. Mega Man Maker

PC

This one's a weird one because it's both free and essentially in early access. They're adding tons of new features every month. A new patch just came out today that rewrote how moving platforms operate.

So, I got Mario Maker for Christmas last year and spent maybe one hour playing it. I just.. don't like Mario all that much? Good games for sure, but not something I really want to make levels for. Mega Man? I *love* Mega Man. This is kinda the Mega Man game to end all Mega Man games for me. It certainly lacks the progression, but I can get my fill of all the NES Mega Man games at once here.

I also really like making levels. I spent about 8 hours making a really elaborate metroidvania level. (They've added new abilities, like keys and findable weapons in-stage that will let me go even deeper on this. One day I'll make an amazing level that is way beyond the scope of a dumb level creator like this.) I made a hilarious level where Metal Man falls 10 screens shooting blades at you until it turns into bullet hell. There are a ton of really fun gimmicks that you can play with. You're always at the mercy of the community but if you find a good group of friends who like to make levels, Mega Man Maker is kind of amazing.

It's a damn shame that this isn't officially supported because it's polished enough to be that. If this was on a platform like Steam, it would be huge.
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xyzzy

I played like 25 minutes of Nier 1.

I didn't do a full 100 hours.. maybe like 87? I'd have to look
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xyzzy

I would go with mushihimesama. I haven't played it but I've always viewed it as the definitive bullet hell game. (I don't think of Ikaruga as bullet hell)
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xyzzy

I take it you're familiar with Ikaruga?

I'm not an expert on this genre, but I always go to Ikaruga first
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xyzzy

here are some honorable mentions

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus - I didn't play this one, but I did play New Order this year. I watched this game on youtube and hoooly crap. it's probably my winner for best story for 2017. there are about seven insane moments in this game. it'd definitely be on my top 10 if I threw down the money for it instead of just watching it on youtube. I love the Wolfenstein series.

Dragon Quest VIII 3DS - would probably be my #1 if I counted it as anything more than an enhanced port. I love DQ8 and the 3DS tweaks make it even better. having it handheld is great too. I love any game that is handheld. will I hold out for DQ11 on Switch? we'll see.

games I wanted to get to but haven't:

Hellblade
Xenoblade 2
Super Mario Odyssey
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Night in the Woods
Nier
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xyzzy

I think we should start thinking about all-star starters

here's how I'd go

East

Kyrie Irving
Demar Derozan
Giannis Antetokoumnpo
Lebron James
Kristaps Porzingis

West

James Harden
Steph Curry
Kevin Durant
DeMarcus Cousins
Clint Capela
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xyzzy

4. Persona 5

PS3, PS4

Persona 5 has style for days. It just looks and sounds so good. The move from rural to urban really helped Persona come alive. They made a lot of really smart mechanical changes with Persona 5, the smartest of which was to give some kind of gameplay boost to every single social link. Social linking in Persona 5 is one of the most conflicting things because you have to balance who you like against what you might get. There's a give and take to P5 that really works.

Past that, after nearly a decade, this game is just more Persona 3/4 with worse pacing. I can't say enough about how poorly they paced this game! I'm a Persona 3 guy which means that I want my game to move at the expense of character development, but like, man! There are significant stretches of the game that just drag on. P5 certainly has peaks and valleys, and some of the valleys stretch much longer than they should.

This game is really well made and I'm glad that they nailed it after so many years off. Persona has never looked or sounded better, and the story here might be the best they've done. I value pace a lot in my 100 hour RPGs, though, and that really stunted this game. Well, that and the way it limped to the finish line. Oh well. This game is pretty good.
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xyzzy

oh I just mean go for that pick. I wouldn't trade anything. you have a decent top 2-3 and just need one more guy to be competitive.
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xyzzy

it might be for the best. your team was fighting for .500
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xyzzy

5. Life is Strange: Before the Storm

PC/Consoles

Before the Storm probably shouldn't exist. Made by a different developer, playing as Chloe Price, a character with a pretty firmly defined personality, is a little unusual.

But Beyond the Storm stands out, and stands on its own two feet, in a good way. It has a decidedly different feel than Life is Strange -- while Life is Strange peddles in the nostalgic and the unusual, Beyond the Storm is middle fingers to the sky everywhere. Chloe is odd to play as at first until you eventually get on her level and start to see the world through her dark eyes. This game is pretty morose thanks to who you play as.

Chloe's relationship with Rachel Amber, the main mystery from the first game, works on several levels. It plays into who Chloe is, the nature of a fleeting high school relationship, and the fact that you know this can't turn out well in the end. It's those personal moments between Chloe and Rachel that define Before the Storm, and despite my skepticism, they work. This game resonates. It's certainly different than the feeling of playing the original but it's still quite likable. I love Arcadia Bay.
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xyzzy

CT just doesn't seem like a very fun challenge game. you don't want to fight those enemies more than once and a lot of the boosts are off of tabs/equipment. I guess it's cool that you can use your tabs on just three guys.
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xyzzy

Xenosaga's worth it but the first two games are basically setup for the third and that's hard to buy into
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xyzzy

I have Crono/Robo/Frog which isn't that interesting

I don't think I'm gonna do it, not with other games waiting for me to break into them
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xyzzy

6. Hollow Knight

PC, Switch

The act of playing Hollow Knight feels really good. It's got a great tone and simple movement feels really good. There's something to the sound effects and to the weight of the character that's really satisfying. Moving from place to place is an enjoyable thing. Unlocking a new movement ability is super exciting.

This is incredibly important because Hollow Knight has some mega flaws. I gave up the game for a month because of how frustrated I was trying to navigate without a map. You find maps while exploring areas but the levels are so maze-y that I get mega lost. Save points are few and far between which becomes an issue because Hollow Knight can be pretty tough. The same goes for fast travel points.

When this game works, it really works. If it had a fixed map system, I would think really highly of it. It has a nice difficulty level and the interplay between healing your character and using magic is really interesting. It's got a loneliness to it that matches up with what you'd want from one of these Metroid kinds of games. It feels unique. But when you're lost, it can be maddening.
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xyzzy

I would agree if there weren't circumstances, I don't think people would go after Russ if he

- had the second best record in the league
- were missing their second and third best players
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xyzzy

I've done like 30 or something fiestas so I'm the wrong person to comment, but that party can definitely steamroll the game once you get past world 1. world 1 probably wasn't bad either since Monk is still useful.

but like I said, I know that game like the back of my hand. my first fiesta was Monk/Berserker/Geomancer/Dancer which is just about the worst party you can get for a Fiesta. I ended up beating it at level 52 or something crazy.
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xyzzy

wow that's some luck
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xyzzy

not a bad party, but I can see how the last boss could be a struggle. there are five or six classes that can deal with Almagest and, while you have two of the better ones in Samurai and Time Mage, they're not the instant win buttons that you'd want. Monk's HP might have let you survive at lower levels though. then again, you probably abused Thief's Flee ability (because why wouldn't you?)
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xyzzy

what was your ff5 party?
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xyzzy

what got you in 5? just the last boss, or something else?
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xyzzy

Capela is a big loss. he should start the ASG at center
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xyzzy

Leia lifting the rocks would have been bad. that is Rey's moment.

I also object to her being 'untrained' - she's pretty clearly been experimenting and training herself, with or without Luke holding her hand.
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xyzzy

7. Metroid: Samus Returns

3DS

I have such a hard time evaluating this game. The things that it does well are also done well by every other great 2d Metroid game, like the feeling you get when you're space jumping all over area 5 and destroying everything in your path. On the other hand, it's really easy to point to a few things here and there that are done kinda poorly. It really screws up Metroid 2's atmosphere, especially at the end, and the circle pad gimps this game's control significantly (not the game's fault per se, but some of the control decisions are clearly made with that monstrosity in mind). I'm not exaggerating when I say that when this feels like classic Metroid (something it pulls off quite often), it's one of the best game experiences of the year. You know, if you only played video games in 2017 and ignored the fact that other Metroid games exist. Or if you ignore the fact that AM2R exists which is a fantastic game on its own merits (my GOTY for 2016).

I don't know that I'll ever come back to Samus Returns and it's so unfair because it's well made in most aspects. I guess that's the challenge of living up to a series that I hold in the absolute highest regard.
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xyzzy

I don't even think you can call her a villain.

I didn't play the Michonne games so I can't compare. they felt more in tune with the show and I'm really only here for the Clementine arc. I don't remember exactly what my Clem ended up as so many months later. I'd go check but I don't want to install some 10gb.

Walking Dead S3 spoilers. though you can gloss over the details - (https://imgur.com/a/mWk63)
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xyzzy

I definitely haven't played Nier or a few others that I might have liked that would push it higher, but that's every year. the ones I was most interested in this year were mostly good, but this list feels like a lot of games that belong at #6 on a top 10 for whatever reason
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xyzzy

8. Monument Valley II

Mobile

Monument Valley looks and plays like a puzzle game but that's not what makes it good. This isn't The Witness. You're not going to spend 10 minutes looking at any one puzzle here. It's a light puzzler at best.

It's the aesthetics and the serenity that makes this series of games so memorable. It's how the levels rearrange themselves. It's how the mechanics feel when you slide everything into just the right place. It's just such a pleasant game. There's a mechanic once you beat a level where you get to make a shape that's both fascinating and satisfying without having any real gameplay implications whatsoever. It's that kind of stuff that makes me absolutely adore these games.

Monument Valley 2 is probably better than the original, but also feels less essential by virtue of being a sequel to something that's so experiential in nature. I played it again today and realized that you never really remember how to do these puzzles because the puzzles themselves are not really the focal point of the game. It's the way that the characters move around the screen, how you walk upside down and twist reality that stays in your memory. Because of that, it's a fun game to go back to every once in a while. There aren't too many games that are 100% pleasing to play. Usually there's a level or a mechanic that frustrates you, or a storyline that's meant to rip at your heart. Not here.
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xyzzy

9. The Walking Dead: Season 3

PC + consoles

I think a lot of people ended up disliking this game? To be honest, I think it's more Telltale fatigue than anything. I only really play TWD games so I don't suffer from it that much. Even with that, I also found it kinda hard to get excited for this game and ended up just playing through it after all the episodes came out.

And.. it's pretty good? I liked season 3 quite a bit more than 2. They made a smart decision by allowing Clementine to be an NPC as you get to enjoy her characterization and let her walk in and out of the story as needed instead of needing to solve every dumb puzzle as her. Season 2 Clem was good but everyone around her was an idiot. They allow other characters to stand on their own here a lot more. Clem has such plot armor at this point that it's helpful to put a new face into the mix. Javier is a good character too.

I don't ever know how to talk about these choice-based adventure games without saying too much, so I'll just leave it at this: it can't touch the first season of The Walking Dead -- nothing can -- but this one goes a long way to correcting a lot of the complaints about that game. The amount of diverging paths, especially at the end, is kind of shocking. I'd be surprised if someone playing the game today would end up with the same ending that I got. I'm excited to play the final season and see where my Clem goes.
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xyzzy

10. Cosmic Star Heroine

PC, PS4

Cosmic Star Heroine is easy to like. A lot of indie RPGs are of the RPG maker or 8-bit aesthetic. CSH punches a couple of levels above that, going for a Saturn-y look that still feels retro but not painfully so. Zeboyd makes good games but a lot of them are pretty low budget and rely more on poking fun at RPG conventions and simple gags than anything you can really latch onto. CSH makes a good effort at breaking out of that mold.

The upgraded aesthetics, as well as the music. really go a long way in taking this game seriously. It's got a nice sci-fi look to it. The story's okay - sometimes it falls back into parody but it shines through by the end. The characters aren't especially deep but they have good abilities and are likable. It's more of an ensemble cast with the exception of the hero, Alyssa, who's likable and has good skills.

The game has a pretty interesting battle system that probably isn't worth explaining in depth here, but it encourages a lot of experimentation and thought. Every turn feels like a slow tug of war (in a mostly good way) and each ability has to be calculated. There are meters upon meters to pay attention to and a good player can really exploit it in fun ways. Having been away from this game for 8 or so months now, the thing that stands out the most is the push and pull of feeling like you're going to eat it followed by pulling off a miracle. Play this on a moderate difficulty and learn the systems. It's worth it.
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xyzzy

2017 was.. pretty good? A lot of people talk about 2017 as this incredible year, one of the best ever, and I'm not totally on board with that. It was certainly better than last year, but I think I liked a few other years more so far.

That said, this list is woefully incomplete because I won't have a Switch for 3 more days. The Nintendo trifecta (Zelda, Mario, Xenoblade) are all untouched, and trying to squeeze them would mean this list would hit in like May of 2018. If those games are as good as advertised, maybe 2017 really is an all-time year. We'll see.

2017 had a lot of fun ones. Here are ten that I liked, done relatively quickly. My goal is to complete this before Christmas so I can just dig into Mario and Xenoblade without anything on my plate. Get ready for quick writeups!
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xyzzy

yeah I'm not doubting its quality. I just don't know anything!
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xyzzy

yeah I haven't been able to tell what makes this game good. there doesn't seem to be one particular feature, like Xenoblade's exploration or Persona's progression or Tales's battle system. I'm guessing it's just got charm.
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xyzzy

forget lgbt, Persona can't even treat women right
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xyzzy

that's for her though, against the enemy. this is for her best friend. (or lover? which is kinda dropped completely? is that merely a choice?)

the dark room is fine - but I think I expected there to be some kind of event besides the dark room that made her go missing. not sure where my brain went on that but I didn't expect them to just be besties for 3 years until she gets dark room'd.
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xyzzy

the only place I thought they dropped it hard was the transition to the dark room. that was just unnecessary. I also expected much more of a, I don't know, consequence for Chloe's actions. Chloe doesn't seem absolutely panicked to find Rachel in LIS like it would seem, but I guess it is 3 years. I'm surprised those signs would still be up so much longer if she was taken, but then I guess I don't know what the timeline is when she is taken there. I saw a date on her phone but I'm not sure what date it is.
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xyzzy

Beasley over Rose justified
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xyzzy

so, most of you don't know this (and don't need to know this), but my oldest is adopted. I met her when she was 2 when I met my wife. her dad has never been in the picture, has a really bad past and was never on any birth certificate. I adopted her when she was 4. we've always been open about this because the idea of what happened to Rachel has always terrified me down the road, where I become some kind of villain for obscuring the truth in the name of good faith and protection. still, the thought of her tracking down a drug dealer -- or that's what he was years ago -- is kind of a nightmare. I hope it never happens and when we cross that bridge, it's going to change lives.

what I'm trying to say is that I get James Amber here. I get protecting Rachel at a very core level. if it were me, I probably would have selected the protect Rachel option.

but this is Chloe and Chloe will never hold back. I spent about 90 seconds at the choice, thinking about what I would do until I remembered that I'm playing somewhat of a preexisting character and had no qualms about selecting what I selected. I take this entire chapter probably very differently than someone who's like 19 years old with middle fingers to the sky every day. I wonder how I would handle something like Life is Strange if I were, say, half my age.
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xyzzy

just finished. I have really complicated thoughts about this, more personal ones than anything, but I think I took this episode a lot more positively than others. at the very least, I didn't feel as conflicted as I did with LIS episode 5 -- but I also was a lot more invested in that one. I did end up getting really into Chloe by the end of episode 3 though.

I might give it some time to go over my thoughts, but I will say this -- you respond to this episode in a totally different way if you are a parent
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xyzzy

bulls :(
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xyzzy

tough to beat Xenogears. good choice.
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xyzzy

what's game 128 going to be?
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xyzzy

Hux needs an underling to kick around to be on Tarkin's level.

why do people keep talking about Phasma as if she mattered at all? even the movie doesn't make her out to be anything more than a foil for Finn.
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xyzzy

nah, Hux is the latest in a long line of empire bureaucrats. he's likable though and is lasting longer than the guys that Vader would eliminate every hour or so.
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xyzzy

yeah that's exactly where I was going
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xyzzy

Kylo Ren is like a Final Fantasy villain
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xyzzy

yep, but uh there's more to those characters than just being boys and girls
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xyzzy

saw it again tonight with my 10 year old. still pretty good. there's about an hour long stretch that's definitely not as good on a rewatch -- basically, the Finn/Rose stuff -- but once Rey gets to Kylo, everything from that point on is great.

my daughter's first comment was how she didn't like Kylo without a shirt on, and her favourite part was Luke brushing his shoulders off after the guns. take that as you will, I guess.
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xyzzy

LeonhartFour posted...

I've wondered this before but I was skimming through some AAI1 stuff last night and it occurred to me again, but is Lang illiterate? Like, every time someone hands him a document, he asks Shih-na to read it for him. Or maybe it's just he can't read English/Japanese despite being able to speak it since he can supposedly read those scrolls with Lang Zi sayings on them.

I was just going over E2-5. Lang reads the will without any help.
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xyzzy

that ending is not good

the Means transformation is
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xyzzy

hyperspace is already some kind of magic voodoo, I don't think attaching logic to it really works. I would just let it be weird and nebulous, kinda like the force.
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xyzzy

unrelated (sorta), I think about this insane thing all the time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ai5UPjr3W8&feature=youtu.be&t=116
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xyzzy