Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-01-02, 19:15:

Started playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake a couple of days ago. It's an interesting game to be sure, but my first impressions are m […]
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Started playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake a couple of days ago. It's an interesting game to be sure, but my first impressions are mixed.

First, the good stuff. Despite me playing this on a PS4 Pro, the graphics look amazing. In particular, the character models are of very high quality, and can almost match the CGI used in the FF7 Advent Children movie. Environments look great too, for the most part. There are a few instances where low-res textures are used, and sometimes assets take too long to stream in. But overall, this game looks absolutely gorgeous.

Sound design is exceptional as well. The voice acting is great, and I'm happy that the entire Japanese cast from the AC movie got to reprise their roles. That said, the English voice overs are solid too, but I'm simply used to the original Japanese version. The music is mostly good, especially the variations of the familiar tracks from the original game. But the newly created tunes are a mixed bag. Some are decent, while others don't really fit the game. And the "old school" renditions of the tracks that come from jukeboxes are often too distorted to be enjoyable.

The combat is somewhat fun, but I wish it had an actual turn-based option like the original game. The "Classic" difficulty setting isn't a proper substitute. As for the new side quests, they are lazily designed and of generic MMO quality. Meaning, it's always either "defeat x enemies" at a certain location, or "gather x things" and bring them back. Very lame.

Story wise, I do appreciate expanding the lore behind some of the background characters like Jessie, Wedge and Biggs. They feel much more important this time around. What I don't like are the main plot revisions which make this game deviate too heavily from the original. It feels very "fan fictiony" despite being written by the original creators, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, I'm about 10 hours in, but the game hasn't really grown on me yet. Mostly because there's so much bland, filler content. Other times, you are forced to slowly walk around (can't run or leave the area) while listening to exposition. There's also an overabundance of cutscenes, which tend to pop up every 5 minutes or so. And while these do look great, they make the game feel like an interactive movie at times. Some of the puzzles and mini games are also a bit tedious.

Your complaints are valid, and you'll continue to encounter them as time goes on. It's a very pretty, enjoyable movie.

BetaC wrote on 2024-01-03, 05:41:

Your complaints are valid, and you'll continue to encounter them as time goes on. It's a very pretty, enjoyable movie.

Heh, figures. With all the filler content, FF7R sometimes feels like the Hobbit movie trilogy. It irks me that the devs took areas which were just short travel screens in the original game, and padded them out to 30-40 minute sections using combat and mini games. Turn off some giant lights to restore power? Play with robotic arms to lower a ladder? Yeah, no thanks.

In contrast, I'm really enjoying the extra story additions for the party members, especially Tifa and Aerith. Thanks to the improved cutscenes, which now have full voice acting and realistic body language, you get a better sense of who these characters are, and how they really feel. I want to see more of that, and less of the pointless filler stuff.

I am basically doing a full F1 season on World Circuit (1992, also known as Grand Prix) so far so fun.

i played fallout 3 again, this time aiming for near 100% and being 'very good' in choices all the way through. I also played the DLCs.

I did what i normally do in RPG games: did as much side quest and other things before following the main quest, tried to level up and maximise skills and focussed on 'cerebral' or tech skills rathe than fighting, although thanks to the skill books i ended up pretty good at everything 😀

fallout 3 has been covered enough and in my view is better than all its DLCs, much richer as an environment

the DLCs
Operation: Anchorage - not really that good in my view, interesting but not as engaging
The Pitt. - Best one for immersion even though its quite short, the giant steel yard is memorable. Enjoyed the 'no good choices' aspect of the end game too
Broken Steel - must have for changes to the main game and new levels, perks - but the campaign itself was just ok though improved as things went along
Point Lookout - good at being different but similar, interesting characters to meet. Overall i wanted a bit more from the locations though, many were very small in gameplay scope
Mothership Zeta - very different feel and very much for amusement, seems almost not to be fallout. Its fun but not great, some nice characters

.
i also tried playing SiN - but that just made me feel ill in a travel sickness kind of way, as it did the first time i played it years ago, strange its one of the few games that can do that!

Hooked up some nice Klipsch tower speakers in my room and decided to check out some Wii games via the Wii U's backwards compatibility. Wii games on the Wii U look a bit odd, because they run at 480p with fake letterboxed widescreen but are upscaled to 1080p and look questionable at times. It has some jagged lines but usually looks fine. Most blurry textures are due to the Wii's VRAM limitations anyways (around 48MB I believe) which is more obvious in the Dolphin Emulator.

Super Paper Mario is what I'm playing n0w and although it's pretty fun, I wish it had the battle system from the older games. The problem solving is neat and the dialogue is pretty edgy and funny for Nintendo standards. If anyone here actually likes Nintendo games which I haven't seen here yet, a unknown gem on the Wii is Rabbids Go Home. If you can get over the sole inclusion of the Rabbids it's a neat 3rd person platformer with a soundtrack by a Moldovan brass band bizarrely enough. Deserved to be on a more powerful platform, but the Wiimote controls are neat.

Making good progress in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I think I've warmed up to it slightly. Some of the gameplay additions are nice, such as learning special skills by using certain weapons. Kinda reminds me of FF9 where that approach was the key to developing your characters. It's also pretty neat that your weapons never become obsolete, since you can use skill points to upgrade them to your heart's content.

On that note, I think I'm starting to appreciate the combat for what it is. It may not be turn-based, but you do eventually get some extra options, though that only comes after acquiring multiple weapons and learning their techniques. Pair that with a bunch of support materia, and some decent tactical options are suddenly at your disposal. And thanks to the new Colosseum addition, you have the perfect place to test all that stuff out.

As mentioned before, I really like the expanded stories of returning party members. Barrett's new scenes with his daughter were really heartwarming. And seeing Aerith actually save her (instead of just hearing about it) was very nice. As for Tifa and Cloud, they now have a beautiful scene together after a certain tragic event occurs. Good stuff all around.

The new content and NPCs in the Wall Market were hit and miss though. The Colosseum section was nice, but I wasn't particularly impressed by the newly introduced characters and their stories. And some of the events that now occur feel kinda shoehorned in, as if the developers wanted to add something novel and flashy. Worst of all, the new stuff in the Train Graveyard dragged on way too much, and really messed up the pacing of the story.

I think I'm entering the final stretch now, at least based on what I remember from the original game. The party is supposed to leave Midgar after the section that I'm about to enter, so I'm guessing the end of the game can't be too far away.

Finished all episodes Jazz Jackrabbit 2: The Secret Files. I wanted to play different parts with different characters, for variety's sake. Unfortunately, I happened to have been playing through "The Secret Files" episode with Lori, and got stuck on the insanely annoying platforming section. I ended up cheating through that one, because I'm too old to suffer through badly designed action 'puzzles'. Later I learned that there are tricks that make it possible with Lori, but it is still easier than with one of the other characters.

My conclusion is that Jazz2 is an average platformer at best. Very pretty, good music, a good amount of secrets to find, and slightly varied gameplay for each character. However, platforming in general is too slippery (feels almost worse than Jazz1?), gets monotonous after a while, and levels have various bugs in them. Once or twice I got stuck in a wall unable to move. Fortunately, the ability to save anywhere mid-level is present, which also helps against some of the annoying bosses.

Also finished the main campaign of Doom Eternal twice - first playthrough on medium difficulty, then Extra Life mode on easy, just to enjoy a relaxed pace. It is the kind of a game that goes from frustrating to fun after you pass a certain threshold of skill. I don't care about getting really good at it. At some future point I will probably play through the DLC campaigns, but I don't feel like trying the harder modes.

Finished Final Fantasy 7 Remake. At one point, during the Shinra building raid, I thought I had encountered a game breaking bug while traversing the air vents. After some googling, turns out you need to control the character in a very specific way (tap the analog stick instead of holding it) which isn't done anywhere else in the game. It's weird that Square's QA department didn't catch this, and even weirder that it never got patched.

After escaping the Shinra building, you encounter Motorball, the most frustrating boss in the entire game. It's not a regular battle, since Cloud's on a bike, and has no access to materia and items. Basically, you end up fighting the camera more than the boss itself. Meaning, you need to hit Motorball at the exact right spot, while you're both moving and the camera wobbles around you uncontrollably. Simply terrible design.

After that comes the final boss fight and the ending, both of which diverge significantly from the original FF7. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that these events resemble something that one would find on a fan fiction website. The changes make this game feel more like a "what if" retelling than a proper remake.

Overall, I would rate FF7R as a slightly above average game. Its gorgeous graphics, fantastic cutscenes and expanded lore were offset by crappy filler content, mediocre combat and unnecessary plot alterations. With a bit of extra effort from the developers, it could have been a great game. But as it stands, this remake didn't live up to its full potential.

Finished my F1 season on World Circuit (1992, DOS), and obviously, World Champion. Another game to the list of completed games!

Portal: Revolution was just released today so I'm playing that.

Jamestown
After focusing on RPGs for several years, I decided to take a short break from the genre and play some shmups. This one has been sitting in my Steam library for years, and I remember it receiving a lot of praise when it was released... so I gave it a shot and became somewhat addicted!

First of all, it's a great looking game, with graphics that remind me of Metal Slug. It's pretty unique for a shmup in that it takes place in a steampunk version of colonial America. It's also got a lot of content, including a shop where you can purchase different ships and extra modes.

When you first start the game, only the first stage is unlocked. After completing the first three stages, you need to go back and beat them all on the "Difficult" level to unlock the fourth stage. Then, in order to enter the final stage and "beat" the game, you need to beat every other stage on the "Legendary" difficulty level. Once you've cleared all five stages on Legendary, you can then play the game more like an arcade game ("Gauntlet" mode), where you have to start from the first stage and beat the game with just two continues. By breaking the game up like this instead of immediately forcing you to get through the whole game in one run, you always feel like you're making progress. It's easy to practice if you're having trouble with a particular stage, and if you get totally stuck, you can always try clearing one of the earlier levels on a higher difficulty level. This is therefore a pretty good game for learning how to play shmups, because the structure of the game sort of trains you to play them properly.

Over the past few days I cleared the "story" mode on Legendary to get the ending, and then cleared Gauntlet mode on Normal and Difficult. It makes you realize how skill-based shmups are, because these stages gave me a lot of trouble my first time through, but now I'm able to clear Gauntlet on Difficult without getting hit. It feels very satisfying to get better and better at the game.

I plan on playing until I can beat Gauntlet on Legendary (possibly until I can clear it on one credit), but probably won't bother to clear the stages on the two highest difficulty levels.

Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra

Somehow I've played over 10 hours without resorting to making a character spreadsheet. But I've gotten to the point where it's practically required if you want to intelligently upgrade your characters' items, so I just broke down and spent 30 minutes doing it. The trouble (like with many DOS-era RPGs) is that there's no easy way to tell which items are actual upgrades, whether you scavenge them in loot or buy them in shops. And there's so many item slots it's hard to remember who needs what. Each character can have a:
Melee weapon
Ranged weapon
Armor
Shield
Cloak
Helm
Necklace
Medal
Belt
Gauntlets
Ring
Boots
Misc Item

And most items have a main attribute and special properties that modify the main attribute. For example, a Great Axe makes 3-21 HP of damage, but if it is Lapis Great Axe, it gives +2 to damage and To Hit, making it a +2, 5-23 weapon. But the game doesn't just tell you this. You have to pay to have the weapon Identified in a shop. And if you don't write this down and forget, you have to pay again. You can use a site like this:
http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/pc/mm3/items.shtml
but it's more handy to have it in a spreadsheet to have all item information for all characters in one spot.

So there's a lot of micro-managing when you get loot or enter a shop. Knowing whether an item is better than one that's already equipped is a...process. 😀

The graphics are gorgeous and the gameplay is as addicting as any M&M game. I love the map sections and exploration of said sections. It's kind of like mowing the lawn when filling each section's automap. Level progression is logical and keeps you from going places you aren't supposed to go yet. I mean, you *could*, you'll just get your ass kicked. Leveling up and improving character items to make them successful in the next map section is probably half the fun with this game.

Last week I started Fallout 2 (though I still haven't finish NfS:U2 yet). Decided to go easy on myself and went with a high luck-high intelligence character. Chose to take my time and play it properly, rather than rush through it. It's the GoG version, which made me wonder if there are any changes compared to my old CD (magazine bunldeware) version. It's been a long time. Maybe I should play the two simultaneously?

I think GOG just uses the high resolution patch and sfall. So any changes would all be in the ddraw.txt for sfall.
Of course which of those settings differ from the base game you'd have to do some work to find out.
It's probably a pretty old ver of sfall too.

They don't use the restoration project or unofficial patch project if that's what your asking.

https://github.com/BGforgeNet/Fallout2_Unofficial_Patch
https://github.com/BGforgeNet/Fallout2_Restoration_Project

RandomStranger wrote on 2024-01-07, 15:39:

Last week I started Fallout 2 (though I still haven't finish NfS:U2 yet). Decided to go easy on myself and went with a high luck-high intelligence character. Chose to take my time and play it properly, rather than rush through it. It's the GoG version, which made me wonder if there are any changes compared to my old CD (magazine bunldeware) version. It's been a long time. Maybe I should play the two simultaneously?

Fallout 2 is such an amazing game.. I can still feel the chills I got when arriving at the oil rig and having a chat with Cassidy about how he never expected to live this long. So good man..

Speaking of Fallout, Timothy Cain has been uploading a lot of videos on YouTube, which include a lot of stuff on Fallout. I'd recommend checking them out if you're a can of the series.

i never played fallout 1 and 2
very much enjoyed fallout 3 (post a few above)
now playing fallout new vegas - initial thoughts are that yes its slightly better in rpg mechanics than fallout 3, and the degree of choices are even greater but its somehow a little less compelling in narrative and 'tone' than fallout 3. still, it is good. one thing so far, i have encountered a few comedy elements - more than in fallout 3 and perhaps less subtle, more jarring though not spoiling the game. i have read that fallout 2 was slightly criticised for getting carried away with the humor compared to fallout 1

Over the last week...

Fallout 76 (WAY too many hours in this one) =/
Craft the World
C&C Remastered

And a long list of Win95 games on my EPIA-800 powered ITX build so I could complete a blog post I neglected for months. 😜

gerry wrote on 2024-01-10, 08:57:

i never played fallout 1 and 2
very much enjoyed fallout 3 (post a few above)
now playing fallout new vegas - initial thoughts are that yes its slightly better in rpg mechanics than fallout 3, and the degree of choices are even greater but its somehow a little less compelling in narrative and 'tone' than fallout 3. still, it is good. one thing so far, i have encountered a few comedy elements - more than in fallout 3 and perhaps less subtle, more jarring though not spoiling the game. i have read that fallout 2 was slightly criticised for getting carried away with the humor compared to fallout 1

I thought the humor was perfectly balanced in Fallout 2 FWIW..

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