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Still not a fan of the counter mechanic in the remake. If at least it was more of an optional thing. But with almost every enemy charging at Samus it felt really forced and gimmicky
Dood Trigger™
I can see why it would be annoying to do it all the time if you didn't like the parry in the first place. I enjoyed it, though.

So as in the last couple of years, I'm starting 2019 with a blind playthrough of a classic RPG. And to make my life a little easier, I'm narrowing it down to 16-bit, mostly SNES for now (if you can even call the SNES RPG library 'narrowing it down').

Right now I'm undecided between Secret of Mana and Earthbound. I asked for info in a couple of message boards, and it looks like SoM is a much shorter game, so maybe that's what I'll end up playing if I can't decide based on their story or gameplay.

What I heard the most is that parts of SoM's design haven't aged super well, like the menus and the weird screen scrolling. And in Earthbound's case (or against it), it appears to be more of a vanilla RPG with nothing standing out gameplay-wise.

We'll see!
I like turtles.
Quote from Opium:
I finally got into Hollow Knight.  It's great but I wish the game gave you better clues on where to go next

There are definitely a couple of bits that are a bit TOO obscure as to the intended direction. I had to eventually look up the locations of a few items. One of the patches did add a feature where you can buy pins from the map store and put them on your maps to mark "come back later" areas/points of interest. That can help when backtracking after getting an upgrade.

Also, you can downard-aerial-attack the mushrooms to bounce really high on them. I always tell people that up front because the game doesn't make it plain at ALL despite requiring it pretty early on.
Secret of Mana's menu's are fine and I don't remember any scrolling issues. However the game as a whole feels kind of broken. It was developed for the CD addon Nintendo was developing with Sony and quickly forced onto the regular SNES when the deal fell through.

It's not much of a great game when played today as an adult, especially in single player mode. Worth checking out to see what the fuzz is all about but it's best played with friends 20 years ago :(
red chamber dream
i finally finished inside. played it on switch ... it was ok. i don't understand why playdead's games get so much hype, but it had some clever puzzles. also a few super obtuse ones
Edit history:
Opium: 2018-12-31 04:33:33 pm
Opium: 2018-12-31 04:32:29 pm
Opium: 2018-12-31 04:32:05 pm
I lost 13,000 geo permanently in Hollow Knight :(

I activated the Sharp Shadow charm and went onto some platforms with spikes above and below them.  I didn't realize that this charm changes the length of your dash, so I was permanently stuck because the platforms I was on require that you dash from one to the other, and you can't jump because there are spikes above and below.  You can't jump, and dash the sharp shadow dash overshoots the platforms, so I couldn't go forward or back.  Just had to die.  It took at least 20 hours of gameplay to get that much geo.  It sucks that I lost it over what IMHO is a design oversight.  I guess they just assumed that the player would have tried out the sharp shadow before going into this area, but that's a shitty assumption for the few players (like me) who didn't.
I like turtles.
That really sucks, especially because Sharp Shadow is otherwise a great charm to equip. Were you in Queen's Gardens with it?
Dood Trigger™
Happy Yet Another Year, everyone!

Started Secret of Mana (SNES). First playthrough. Dunno how many hours in, but I just got my first elemental thing.

Not in love with the gameplay so far... I'm okay with the power bar essentially making the combat turn based, and I like being able to move and attack on my own. It just has this cadence... like everything was supposed to happen faster than it does. I hope I can 1-shot enemies soon enough, because waiting for the full bar 7 times to kill a stationary fish gets a little old. One thing I do appreciate is the 'ding!' you hear when the bar is 100%. At least you don't have to constantly look at it.

Am I missing a way to read item descriptions and compare stats? Or do you just guess what to buy in the shops?

There's a few things that already feel like they're gonna snowball... like items in chests disappearing before you get a chance to manage the inventory... party members getting stuck in the environment... dash being locked to one direction only. Chrono Trigger paid a lot of attention to that stuff and it all helped make the game flow as well as it did. Sadly I know I take these things for granted sometimes.

Also, the screen scrolls way too close to the edge. I often exit rooms by accident and run into enemies that I'm pretty sure I would've avoided otherwise.

*takes a breath*

Still liking the game alright, though. I'll continue tomorrow.
red chamber dream
uhh i'm playing child of light on switch and it's fucking awesome. basically a it's a metroidvania rpg with turn-based combat. not sure why i initially skipped it (it's a few years old) but i'm glad i saw it on the switch eshop
I finished Hollow Knight.  What a treat. Tons of content. There's not freakin' way I'm going through the frustration of that godmode place or that lame white palace area.  I'll just finish at 98%, 46 hours.

Started playing Bloodborne again lastnight for the first time since I bought it a few years ago.  I made a fresh file and cleared everything right up until Father Gascione without having any trouble at all.  I just wish the game wasn't so hard to understand.  There's too much stuff about it I don't grasp, and I hate not grasping the way the game works.
Quote:
Am I missing a way to read item descriptions and compare stats? Or do you just guess what to buy in the shops?

You basically buy everything each time you get to a new shop. 99% of the time it's better than your current stuff, only exception is when you can get the gold island stuff early.

Thinking of dropping Let's Go Pikachu. 3 badges in. it was nice to check out, but I don't feel like continue playing tbh...
Dood Trigger™
Okay, I think I found a more enjoyable pace for Secret of Mana. The AI is doing slightly better now, I've been switching characters more frequently, charging weapons, and I'm just buying every new item from the shops (thanks, ryu). I read the manual too, which does explain a few things... Faerie Walnuts are good, very good.

I will say that I'm not feeling the story or characters at all. Outside of the occasional witty comment by Sprite, these heroes feel more like avatars than their own characters. The settings look nice, but I haven't met a lot of memorable NPCs or villains (well, Santa was pretty dope). Is there even a main villain in this?

I noticed that you can hit enemies while they're knocked down. As long as characters take turns knocking them down, you can land multiple consecutive 100% power hits. Makes the combat a little less slow (but still pretty tedious).
the story never made much sense to me either lol

think the translation was better in the remake but even that was forgetable
Dood Trigger™
Yay, Flammie!

Man, they should’ve given us the overworld sooner, even without fast travel. You don’t realize how immense this world is until so much later in the game.

I can safely say that I like Secret of Mana now. Still has a kajillion annoyances I’d rather not deal with, but I guess the fact that I’m still interested even after enduring so much crap says a lot.
I like turtles.
Quote from Opium:
I finished Hollow Knight.  What a treat. Tons of content. There's not freakin' way I'm going through the frustration of that godmode place or that lame white palace area.  I'll just finish at 98%, 46 hours.

Agreed on Godhome (even though I'm doing all that myself right now) - but I'd argue White Palace is definitely worth it, and not as hard as it seems at first. If you finish both White Palace and get to the end of Queen's Gardens (after the boss there) you can get access to unlock a new ending.
Dood Trigger™
Finished Secret of Mana in something like 27 hours. Or 5 days IRL.

Liked
- The presentation was sweet. I love the colorful graphics and most of the music (boss theme got old fast, though). Crystal Forest was breathtaking

- It had that HOLY SH!% big moment where the game opens up and you realize how massive and full of possibilities it is. Yeah, I'm talking about Flammie. That wasn't quite World of Ruin mind-blowing, but still a very satisfying turn of events

- I like the balance of melee vs. defensive magic vs. offensive magic between the three characters


Mixed
- Not sure how I feel about the design of the dungeons. They were short and uneventful for the most part, until the end game where they were suddenly long and exhausting and just kept recycling bosses. It's a tough comparison with Chrono Trigger, where each dungeon had its own atmosphere, set pieces, interesting ideas, proper length and build up


Didn't like
- The gameplay. It's like the dev team had an argument about whether SoM should play like Zelda or Final Fantasy, and both sides of the argument did their thing without resolving the conflict. So we get this awkward mash of real time AND semi-turn-based action, where each style feels like an obstacle to the other (oh, did the enemy evade your fancy Lv.7 sword attack that you spent 9 minutes charging? Oops). Then there's constantly babysitting the AI... I bet the gameplay is more fun with other people, and I did get used to it after a while, so I won't say this is flat out terrible. But I'd rather play Zelda or Final Fantasy instead

- Story... oof. I barely remember it. The main characters are more like avatars, the writing isn't anything special, and the quest is just kind of fantasy generic

- General QoL stuff, or lack of... why couldn't the AI heroes ignore rocks and other objects? You have to physically avoid these obstacles while leading the party, anyway, so it's not like they're letting you clip through gates or something. Ring menus are cumbersome. Poor item descriptions. Screen scrolls too close to the edge. Dash is useless. The list goes on


*phew*
SoM is a very flawed game, and I know I said a lot of unflattering things about it, but I was overall pleased. It made the absolute worst first impression, and I had to kinda force myself to get used to the battle system and other quirks, so I definitely understand if someone gave up a few hours in. But I'm glad I insisted. Can't say I'm dying to replay this, though.
Secret of Mana's gameplay is pretty garbage, yeah. Charging sucks, there's too much magic spamming, and the accuracy RNG screws over the action side of thing.
I hate Forbidden Woods in Bloodborne.  I've found every item, and opened every shortcut, but I still just run in circles because the place is a freakin' maze from hell.  I can end up anywhere, but never on purpose.
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Turns out making a place loop back on itself seventeen times from any given direction is annoying, actually. Who would have thought. The boss is the scariest in the game because there's not guarantee you'll find them again in a timely manner if you die.
Ah, just when I thought Forbidden Woods was shit, I got to the part of the game that I quit on years ago: Nightmare Frontier.  This area is pure shit.

Everything looks the same, so I just end up going in circles. 

There are little stones on the ground that you can't step over, so you just get stuck on them constantly.  You almost have to just push the joystick in every direction until you find a direction you're allowed to move in. 

Having to do this constantly is how I lose my sense of direction.  Having to turn so drastically every few feet makes it damn near impossible to remember which direction I was trying to go.

I don't know how long I spent in this area when I gave up, but it was a very long time.  I think I'm done with Bloodborne.....again. 
Quote from tomatobob:
Turns out making a place loop back on itself seventeen times from any given direction is annoying, actually. Who would have thought. The boss is the scariest in the game because there's not guarantee you'll find them again in a timely manner if you die.


Do I have to do the FW boss now?  I just went there to get the tonsil stone, and ended up picking every single other item in the area just trying to find my way out. 

I'm using the fextralife game progression guide and am at Frontier Nightmare worst-area-ever-made place.
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Forbidden Woods boss is required so you'll have to do it eventually. Nightmare Frontier is totally optional iirc and is a dead end if you don't care about chalice dungeons.
oh weird.  I thought I wrote down 'optional' next to all the optional areas on my list.  I thought I had to go to Frontier Nightmare.

I still have no clue wtf a chalice dungeon is or how it works.  There's a lot of shit about this game that I don't understand.
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Chalice dungeons are shitty optional dungeons and they work by being boring levels full of garbage enemies with too much HP and a low chance to drop the good gems for your weapons. I think Blood Starved Beast drops the first item that you can use to access them. You can place it at one of the empty gravestones around the Hunter's Dream if you want to go in and see what happens when you make a Souls level by slapping sets of the same three rooms together.
I kinda tried to do that, and I had no clue how.  One tombstone would tell me one thing that I didn't understand, while another tombstone would tell me another thing I didn't understand.  I have no clue wtf they're talking about or what they want me to do.  What are they even for?  If that's all they are, then why are they even in the game?