Poll of the Day > What are you Currently Playing? *gamer edition*

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CoorsLight posted...

The thing about those randomizer games is it sounds like you need to be really good at pulling off sequence breaks as I assume it's not really possible otherwise

Some ranomizers have settings for what tricks you need to know - for example, for Zelda 1 you can set the logic to ignore the screen wrap trick even though it's used in almost all speedruns now

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FF14 and Gundam Battle Operations 2 take up most of my time, but otherwise im making my way through yakuza series (on kiwami 2, started on Zero).

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DirtBasedSoap posted...

how does a randomizer exactly work/play out? I love OoT but Ive played the shit out of it

You can set the settings to be as minimal or as crazy as you want.

My typical playthrough mixes up all the item locations, including the songs and the rewards from Gold Skulltulas (dungeons only, you can replace the ones in the overworld as well but that just seems tedious to me). Also, shops carry 4 random items in my runs. You'll find items randomly and then have to think critically about what you now can access with that item.

I did a crazy run where every entrance is randomly tied to another random area. I had to use a pad of paper to keep track of it all. Kind of fun but too much work to do again.

I always set it so I don't have to use glitches or sequence breaks to progress. That's an option though if you want an added dimension of difficulty.

Someone said this all creates an artificial sense of difficulty, I disagree. It's no more artificial than how random Zelda 1 was. To me, it makes it a fresh game each time and puts much more focus on the exploration aspect of the game. There are so many grottos and areas in the vanilla game that serve absolutely no purpose, a randomizer makes all of those places potential required areas to visit.

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final fantasy xi
the great ace attorney chronicles
tales of arise
resident evil 8 (not much, but still need the plat)
crusader kings III (again, not much, but still need 2 steam achievements that I'll probably never get)

Gamespot had a story about rare SNES games popping up at a store... and instantly grabbed my attention because the subheading mentioned Lufia II

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/rare-sealed-snes-trove-discovered-by-german-retailer/1100-6496260/

tbh, wish Lufia II would get a port to Steam or somewhere else so I could *legally* replay it.

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ReggieTheReckless posted...

final fantasy xi
the great ace attorney chronicles
tales of arise
resident evil 8 (not much, but still need the plat)
crusader kings III (again, not much, but still need 2 steam achievements that I'll probably never get)

I just got the unlimited ammo STAKE in Village.

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Pokemon Shield

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DirtBasedSoap posted...

how does a randomizer exactly work/play out? I love OoT but Ive played the shit out of it

It essentially forces you to reevaluate how you accomplish tasks. For example, you get bombs far earlier than the hammer, but there are many places that are functionally opened by both of them because they both break big rocks. Meanwhile, you might not need bombs for another dungeon- so Bottom of the Well might be explorable before Dodongo's Cavern. If you get lucky with warp songs, you can check the vicinity of the desert colossus early. If you have the settings set to randomize Kokiri Sword, you might even have to get out of the forest via the Lost Woods somehow! (I don't use this setting because fighting with deku sticks is annoying)

The fun of a randomizer is looking at all of your available tools, figuring out logically what you can accomplish, and doing as much as you can so you hopefully get more tools. At any one time there's dozens and dozens of things you can check, and the skill in randomizers comes from routing as many checks as possible based on what you've already accomplished and what you can accomplish.

It really rewards thorough understanding of the game and its mechanics, because suddenly every chest in the game is potentially very valuable. It's very customizable; you can even force certain chests to have certain items, if you want to mess around in the early game with bows or the biggoron sword or something. Though the settings usually exclude glitches in their logic by default, it's a nice excuse to practice them anyways; I've picked up a log of bomb-related shenanigans in randomizers just trying to go faster.

If you want to check out what they're like, zfg is probably the best OoT player in the world with absolutely arcane niche knowledge about the game and does them every now and then on extremely hard settings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gfy6zqDPJw

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CoorsLight posted...

The thing about those randomizer games is it sounds like you need to be really good at pulling off sequence breaks as I assume it's not really possible otherwise

Randomizers use logic to change the sequence. Most randomizers allow you to choose whether specific glitches may be included in that sequence.

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there's even optional logic to ensure any areas where the lens of truth can be used requires the lens of truth to logically proceed (aka basically the lens will not appear in chests behind invisible walls), despite it being perfectly reasonable to memorize most of the invisible platforms/walls in the game after doing a few randomizers

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Psychonauts 2. Managing to squeeze in a hour ish every other day or so

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G lol Im

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Super Mario 64 PLUS. Just finished a 120 star run.

This is a mod of the unofficial PC port and I think it's absolutely the definitive version of Mario 64 now. 4K, 60FPS, improved controls, analog camera control, expanded moveset, restored beta elements, etc.. After I finished this, I booted up the original game and I was just shocked at how different it feels.

Up next. I think it'll be Psychonauts since I wanted to replay that before I tackle the second game.


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