[Event] The PokeCommunity Game-Along IV: A New Gaming

[Panda280]

Took a break for the last one because I went to play xc3 again. Xd. This month I'll play Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King. It's a 2d Zelda-like game.

 

[Panda280]

Finished it. It was a fun Zelda-like game. The weapons were pretty good. I've never expected that a bomb can be this good. The sharp end was pretty fun to swing at, but when releasing, it didn't do a fast spin around like in Zelda game.

The story was ok. I like that it was told through a grandpa to his grandchildren. I didn't 100% it, but I got plenty of heart containers. Would recommend to someone who like 2d zelda.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

Posting as the credits roll for the second time on TUNIC. I got through both of its endings, and also pretty much 100%ed it. (not counting any missed money/basic consumables chests, if there even were any) I'll give my more in depth thoughts on the game below.

Spoiler:

I went into TUNIC with a little bit of an idea of what to expect already, the fact that the game was styled a little after Dark Souls in terms of difficulty and that it had a large emphasis on world exploration. What I couldn't have accounted for was the sheer obscurity of many of the game's puzzles. I found myself having to look up a walkthrough just to make basic story progression in the earlier points of the game, and its reliance on the player finding all of the most necessary hint pages while hiding the arguably MOST important one as well as it did, led me to having to trek back to a much more difficult section of the game considerably earlier than I should have been there due to me completely lacking any knowledge on where the game wanted me to go next. Most of the game's boss fights were rather fun, and the final boss wouldn't have been so bad if the cost to resupply your non-permanent consumable items wasn't so high as to not be worth it late in the game. The worst part of TUNIC by far for me is that it suffers from not really knowing just what kind of game it wants to be at the end of the day, and the mechanics that it does have do not like to play together well enough to make a long term enjoyable experience due to the vastly different gameplay required to fully clear the game. The 'puzzles', if you can call them that, toward the end of the game consist almost entirely of pressing the D-pad buttons in the right order to unlock what feels like (after the game is over) meaningless garbage added to pad out the 'secrets' list, more than they are there to reward you for actually finding them. (and good luck on that without a proper internet guide, by the way) There is what feels like a lot more I want to say about this game, mostly in the 'negative critique' area, but I'll let it rest now with a proper rating. If I were just judging it for the combat alone, I'd give it an 8.5/10, because the combat, while not always perfect, felt good to play. If I were just judging it on its puzzles and exploration aspects, I'd give it a 5.5/10, due to how obscure a lot of those aspects were, unnecessarily so, I'd say. But both of them combined, I'll give it a 6.5/10. It was cute, had Foxes, was fun to play at points, had decent but not outstanding music, had a VERY cute 'true ending', and that's about it.

 

[Cherrim]

I finished Garden Story about a week ago. I ended up using the umbrella weapon a bit more often than the sword during the main story and I felt a bit bad about it so I was thinking I might find a different sword game to play, but that seems unlikely. However the umbrella basically plays like a rapier and I did make an effort to use the more traditional sword weapon through the postgame that I completed so it did feel within the spirit of the rule and I'm content with that.

I actually realized that Tunic was also on my list so that was gonna be my replacement game but unlike Alex I did not go into it with the understanding that its difficulty was styled after Dark Souls and I found it way too difficult and frustrating even if I liked the idea of it so I dropped it very quickly ahaha!

 

[Devalue]

Pops in late. Finished a Fire Emblem playthrough started last month. (Probably could have counted for this month, given the percentage of time spent this month. Expected to be done sooner, also.) Picks Link's Awakening DX for the Game Boy Color. Listed as an option for a previous Game Along entry months ago. Finally commits to it this time. Might be able to squeeze it in before the end of the month.

Never really played this game before, for some reason. Beat Link to the Past at least once.

 

[Janp]

I beat Star Wars Jedi Survivor. I used dual swords stance for 99 % of the game, so I think it counts. I also used blaster stance, but it's basically sword + blaster. It was a good sequel. But I think the original had better story.

 

[Devalue]

Finished Link's Awakening DX for the Gameboy Color. Disliked it. Spent most of the game getting annoyed by something or other. Blames some of it on hardware limitations (such as only having two buttons). Does not explain all the bad stuff. Vented in a game journal entry on it.

 

[Ullion]

Just finished Pathfinder: Kingmaker just a moment ago, i'll come back and edit this post with a longer form of my opinion on the game tomorrow after I get some sleep. A tl;dr for now:
-The story was surprisingly good
-A lot of the choices seemed to matter in one way or another which is a very pleasant surprise!
-Gameplay-wise most of the game was solid-to-good, but the last 2 chapters were absolutely atrocious (constant fights/waves/rooms/battles of the same enemies over and over again)
-Some of the mechanics (as I understand) are pretty true to the source material of Pathfinder, and I feel like they don't actually translate as well to a CRPG from being a TTRPG originally
-As someone fairly new/unfamiliar with the DnD and Pathfinder systems, I do feel as if I like the Pathfinder system more, and that the class system/availability in the game was nice (and I know it gets better in Wrath of the Righteous)
-Some of the dungeons were neat, some of them were a royal pain in the butt

All in all, a mostly positive experience - and one that I think I would have enjoyed more had I not had a deadline to reach (I quite literally played this game from noon to 2am with only minor breaks for food and such just to get it over with) :p

edit: So I won't expand much on what I said already since I think I summed it up fairly well, but I will leave a couple of spoiler-y thoughts down below:

Spoiler:

1. Linzi's scripted and unpreventable death in chapter 7 was well done if it had to be done at all. She was one of my main 6 so I was thoroughly saddened/disappointed to lose a full-time party member without a way to save them. Thankfully she is still around story-wise as the narrator, which I loved her & and her voice for!

2. More of expanding on what I said in the list above; chapters 7 and 8 felt more-or-less as just a gauntlet of fighting hordes of enemies called "Wild Hunt Scout/Archer", where all of them have a passive ability called "Wild Gaze" where if you don't pass a will saving throw, your characters get paralyzed (ie. their turn gets completely skipped), and since these enemies come in packs it's very common for that debuff to stack to 10 turns. I have 2 characters out of 6 that consistently failed their will saving throws, as such I basically played the entirety of chapters 7 and 8 with only 4 of my 6 party members... one of which was a last-second fill in because of Linzi's death.

After reading some guides online, apparently you're supposed to stock up on scroll of "Freedom of Movement" spells, and have one of your spellcasters bring it as well. The big issue I see with this is that, again, there are long ass gauntlets of fighting these enemies over and over, so how many times would I need to cast this? Outside of this paralyzation, the Wild Hunt Scouts are a joke to fight, but the archers are one of the scariest/rippiest enemies in the entire game. I genuinely think this is either the biggest problem in the entire game, or at best the second-worst problem (I'll get to that next point!), and could have easily been alleviated in a few ways: just have a better variety of enemies (especially if this crap lasts over 2 entire chapters), or reduce the overall number of encounters, or have more than one way to counteract the Wild Gaze, or don't have it stack in duration with each other.

3. This is one of my biggest problems that (I think) arises from being too close to the source to the source material; enemies that can lower your chartacters stats on hit. Chapter 4's final dungeon, as well as the final dungeon in chapter 7 have a decently large amount of ghostly enemies that can sap your characters attributes if they dont make the appropriate saving throw. I imagine in the pen-and-paper version of this game, your encounters with these are slower paced, more spaced out, and fewer in total - making this fairly debilitating mechanic much easier to manage. In-game though? These fights were only out-numbered by the gauntlet of Wild Hunt enemies mentioned above. If any of your characters attributes managed to get lowered to 0, they outright die. Now there is a spell to counteract this (Lesser, Normal and Greater Restoration), but like Freedom of Movement, it's limited in numbers of usage. Thankfully, resting which outright cure all sapped experience... except you can only rest in a dungeon if you have enough rations on you.

In the chapter 4 dungeon, they lock you inside the dungeon (cool story beat though!) and set off poisonous trap to kill you quickly - which I really genuinely liked. I just went in with 0 rations, since every dungeon up until this point you could leave and rest normally. Also for reference... rations weighed a lot so I usually tried to be greedy and bring as few with me as possible, which is 100% on me. Chapter 7 was the biggest offender since you also couldnt leave the dungeon, but there was a merchant who sold rations fairly cheaply. If it isn't clear yet - chapter 7 really sucked gameplay-wise. :/

 

[gimmepie]

Finished FFXIII! Basically, a fantastic story wrapped up in a pretty bad game. More detailed thoughts in my journal.

 

[gimmepie]

Point 3

Spoilered since you spoilered.

Spoiler:

If it makes you feel better, having your stats lowered in a TTRPG also sucks just as much. There's an infamous d&d creature called an Intellect Devourer than can reduce your int to 0 and make you a vegetable. Then, if they want, they can later subject you to an Int save that you cannot pass anymore to steal your body and run off with it.

 

[gimmepie]

August - Short and Sweet

Sometimes, the best things come in small packages. The best experiences can be over in moments while suffering can be drawn out over hours. every now and then, it's nice to dive into something that doesn't outstay its welcome and goes out on a high note. Also, Get-Together is this month and things are about to get busy as all hell.

This month the theme is short games. More specifically, the game you play must have an estimated play time of eight hours or less.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

Are we allowed to pick games that we know we can beat in under 8 hours? Like for example, I can any% Zelda Majora's Mask(N64 version) in a single Link cycle, which is absolutely no less than 3 hours, yet the estimated play time for any% says it takes 20 and a half lol.

 

[gimmepie]

Are we allowed to pick games that we know we can beat in under 8 hours? Like for example, I can any% Zelda Majora's Mask(N64 version) in a single Link cycle, which is absolutely no less than 3 hours, yet the estimated play time for any% says it takes 20 and a half lol.

Specifically games designed to be under that time.

 

[Janp]

I'm tempted to pick some obscure game that's on my itch.io list and takes like 15 minutes to beat. But it felt like cheating a little bit, so I pick The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. I love the original, so I'm looking forward to this updated version.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

Hmmm. While a bit tedious for how I specifically play games, this does give me a very good excuse to finally play 'The Shrouded Isle' that I've had in my backlog for probably 5 years lol. According to 'HowLongToBeat', it clocks in at about 4 hours for any%, so it fits the challenge perfectly.

 

[gimmepie]

I'm going to do No Longer Home for my game.

 

[Devalue]

Selects Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes for this month. Planned to go for something short on the same reasoning. Estimates about 3 hours of game time.

 

[Cherrim]

A short game? Twist my arm why don't you.

I'll go with Oxenfree II. Picked it up on release day but haven't had a chance to sit down and play it yet. HLTB says it's about 6 hours for the main story, so it counts!

 

[Devalue]

And done. Was indeed a short game. Finished in half the estimated time (or slightly above). Game Journal entry.

 

[Ullion]

Spoilered since you spoilered.

Spoiler:

If it makes you feel better, having your stats lowered in a TTRPG also sucks just as much. There's an infamous d&d creature called an Intellect Devourer than can reduce your int to 0 and make you a vegetable. Then, if they want, they can later subject you to an Int save that you cannot pass anymore to steal your body and run off with it.

Spoiler:

That's rough, and yeah I don't think any mechanic that permanently lowers one's attributes or character levels is particularly enjoyable, I feel like temporary (ie. debuff ends when the combat ends)are just a better way to go. I think what made it truly gruelling in Kingmaker was the absurd number of encounters that can lower your attributes like that back-to-back which wind up with the player using up all their spell slots and/or scrolls to use Restoration to deal with it, or to rest a lot (which can be really time consuming).

_________

Welp, short games are something I don't frequently play/buy but at the very least I do have Portal in my steam library that I haven't played since it came out. I have a few other games I can think of that I may consider as well, like Left 4 Dead or maybe a round of civilization if that counts?