Jonnas

I finally tried the demo yesterday and... it was surprisingly good? It definitely felt like a few chapters/story beats were missing, but I was still impressed. Aesthetics look a bit bland at first, but there's some character to it. Surprised to see it was so... XIX Century; The RTS genre managed to be translated surprisingly well to console controls. Had no difficulty whatsoever (and it helps that time stops while you're selecting); Voice acting is excellent, while writing is concise enough to not let me get overwhelmed by the setting; Gameplay loop was quick and snappy all around. Even in-between chapters. After Three Houses (and really, most turn-based Strategy RPGs), I'm finding value in this. The only issue is that 60€ feels like a very steep price to ask for a game like this. Despite my praise, this feels like a lower/middling budget game, 30€ at most.

I didn't realise the Brazilian dub trailer was getting dropped at the same time. I checked it out and... sure that Mario is better, but their Bowser & King Penguin were massive downgrades. You win some, you lose some.

Honestly, a much better trailer than what the majority of children's movies usually get. We actually had a substantial scene that sets the mood for the film. Managed to be humorous without ever undercutting Bowser as a character (which is a general concern I had). More importantly, did you notice some unique-looking goons in Bowser's army? For example, there was a Koopa with an eyepatch. Hoping we get some Paper Mario looking NPCs with character. As for the voices: Jack Black is doing good as Bowser. I feel like we need to hear him talk some more, but I do dig his villainous glee; Kamek sounded fine. Had some Vizzini (Princess Bride) vibes from him; Chris Pratt as Mario did nothing for me. Mario sounded really bland, I was hoping for a bit more enthusiasm; Keegan Michael-Toad was excellent. Hoping he gets a lot of screentime; Charlie Day had a single grunt as Luigi, and it was a good one; King Penguin was the best, whoever that was. So yeah, mostly positive impressions.

Before I decide to do anything for October, here's a couple of entries: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call Which song are they acapella-ing, I wonder? I mentioned a few times in the thread proper that I've been playing this game. The music in FF is absolutely gorgeous, so the premise had a head start, really. But more than that, it's a very chill game. You can just hop into any song and do whatever you want. Or pick whichever party you want. Perfection is entirely optional. I can honestly say it's the most tranquil rhythm game I've ever played. I do like the Quest Medleys as well. Do you want the game to just surprise you a handful of random songs? Pick one of the quests and enjoy. Shout-out to the first Long Quest throwing FFIV's Final Boss theme at me on the highest difficulty right in the middle, that threw me for a loop, and summoned the drummer inside of me I didn't know existed. Sure, the Quest Medleys have failure states, but even those are pretty forgiving. A ton of items and skills you get in this game are all about recovering HP or minimizing damage (or compensating for failure in some other way), which means the game is essentially telling you "it's cool to miss about half of the song" most of the time. It's rare to see a rhythm game being so cool with player's imperfections. Now, I'm a perfectionist, and I always want to do the best I can. Myself, I can focus entirely on inflicting more damage and maximise loot (that is, the unlockables). I love that Theatrhythm panders to various skill levels (and each song having three difficulty levels? Lovely). As a result, my girlfriend actually plays this game during lazy evenings, no pressure whatsoever. So yeah, after completing one of each Quest, plus unlocking Chaos, I feel like I "beat" the game... but I'm certain to play this casually for a long time to come. And speaking of stuff I'll be playing... Puzzle Bobble You can practically hear the music This was on sale on Switch! Man, I have so many memories of seeing this Arcade cabinet everywhere, and I always tried my best shot at the game. This game is pure gold, so simple and addicting. It's interesting to revisit this with a more conscious mind for game design, seeing as each board has a fixed layout, but the balls you get are random/procedurally generated. A bit frustrating, but it allows strategies to form, and for the player to manage whatever hand they get. I haven't beaten it yet, because it's quite difficult to do so. I'll keep trying, and I don't know when I'll succeed. I'm just adding it to the Diary now because... I've already seen what the game has to offer, honestly! I always knew what I was getting, and now it's just a matter of defeating this very simple roguelike-like. EDIT: Turns out, that was a couple of days later Managed to reach the end of Puzzle Bobble

The only Monkey Island I've ever played was the third one, and I could follow it just fine (Guybrush is an easygoing skinny pirate, Elaine is his girlfriend/fiancée, LeChuck is an undead pirate who's always planning to make their life miserable). The only part that weirded me out was when a returning character popped out of nowhere and the game barely explained who they were. Considering the tone of the series, continuity isn't too important. I'm supposing the same is true for this game, at least. I haven't read/watched any review.

This concept definitely had legs to be something good... I like the idea of sealing Ganon in a book, bring it back to CDi I'm more worried about the fact that Strategy games are supposed to offer a lot of choice and variety on how to play, but their pitch kinda sounded like the solutions were linear and clear-cut. Then again, if it's just puzzles, that's fine too, it just wouldn't be a "Strategy" game per se.

Jeez, that's still pretty violent. Concussions can be serious, make sure you recovered fully. I hope you're feeling better now, at any rate.

It can happen, as long as they limit it properly. For example, only with specific moves with a lot of endlag, or only moves that leave the opponent in a crumpled state, or just handpick which specific moves it happens to. What's tricky is that I don't think that Kazuya hop kick was any of those things... unless the specific combination of low vs. "hopping" attacks is among the few interactions that mid-match slow-mo can happen to. Just saying, it's possible, as long as it doesn't happen often. It could just be a matter of the move itself being nerfed But more realistically, they drew attention to that dodge in the trailer, so yeah, likely a new combo break mechanic (one that only works on grounded strings, I figure. Can't see that working against juggles)

Alright, so what happened was that the shards are handed out only at the end of the quest. After I defeated the final quest boss, I got all the shards at once. And finally, Vivi has been unlocked He jumps whenever he attacks, so cute!

I definitely defeated him, had Zidane, Laguna, and Cloud fire off their ultimate attacks (the ones that come out only on the strongest enemy) just to guarantee at least that kill. The enemies cycled back to the first one and everything. Don't remember if there was an explosion, though.

Alright, seeing as Wigletts are apparently meant to be (or just resemble) Garden Eels, it's time I talked a bit about their presence and influence in Iberia. So yeah, hope that helped.

Seems that GVG posted a video about the release history of ToS: Just in case you weren't aware of why some of us are sceptical of its recent releases, this video sums it up quite nicely.

I faced a boss on one of the quests (FFIV Final Boss, on Ultimate Difficulty), and I think I did pretty well, considering I never had any formal drumming lessons. Sure, I Miss'd or Bad'd the last 10 hits or so, but still, got an S-rank. But then I notice I didn't get any of the Orange Shards that were associated to him! What the hell? I definitely defeated that boss! What's the condition to get the Shards?

Diglett pre-evolution, I assume? Disclaimer: Rest assured, we do not have white larvae with red noses digging around in our Iberian beaches. We do have sand fleas though, but they look nothing like that.

It should be noted, the typical healing class is called "Cleric" (also "Priest" or "Troubadour", but these are clearly not her case). If she's classified as a "Monk", then that should explain why she seems to be more combat-focused. Amusingly, with the use of knuckles/gauntlets with some healing magic on the side, this class sounds a lot like traditional Final Fantasy monks as well. (Curiously, the "Monk" class has only been used so far to refer to the offensive White Mages of the GBA era, Lucius and Artur. The Engage!Monk is clearly something new, even if it shares the same name)

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles in your life, Julius, but thank you for sharing, in any case. If taking a break from N-E can help you through this rough patch, then take as much time as needed. Personal health (in body, mind, and overall life) is of chief importance, do what you must to recover. From this side, I'll miss your absence (I very much enjoy reading your comprehensive viewpoints and reviews), but I'll be rooting for you as a person all the way. I believe things will get better. Take care.

Feeling very tempted to get Murder by Numbers and/or Scott Pilgrim... I ended up buying 80s Overdrive on the 3DS instead

Following my Super Punch Patrol playthrough last month, I actually decided to play another game from my backlog... and forgot to do a write-up. Oopsie. Final Fight Turn the beat back! I had this on the Capcom Beat'em Up Bundle, but never finished it. After SPP, I figured I owed it that much. And look, it's got a lot of charm, excellent character design (including the first Trans character in videogames, afaik), and I certainly respect the fact that it basically Codyfied an entire genre, but... it's so bloody difficult! I literally couldn't go through a level without losing, like, 4 lives in the process. If it weren't for the unlimited quarters, I wouldn't make it past Stage 2. Legitimately unfair difficulty. (As for who I used to beat this game... try to Haggard a guess) Coupled with the fact that it's kind of hard to actually learn how to do Guy's and Cody's moves as a casual player (the enemies swarm you so fast!), it's easy to see that this game 's mechanics have aged somewhat poorly. Graphically, it's still nice, though. Chunky sprites, colourful backgrounds, distinctive characters, and it manages to have so many Guys on screen. Arcade or not, this was wild back in 1989. But really, outside of the respect it deserves, I didn't enjoy this one much. Which is a shame, as I love seeing how this world and characters continued to develop in the Street Fighter series. ... It did make me curious to recently check out another classic beat'em up, though. Streets of Rage Check out those bare knuckles! Yeah, I had never played this one, can you believe it? I did have it on the Mega Drive collection on Steam, so it was easy to check. I hopped right away with Axel and thought he was ok. I was curious to see the differences between characters, so I tried out Blaze and Adam. After confirming that the characters were basically identical save for some animations and raw stats, I decided to stick with Adam, as he clicked almost immediately. I had a great time with it! It's much more forgiving than Final Fight, the enemies actually give you room to breathe and the difficulty curve actually functions well. There are some difficulty spikes with the bosses, but they can be figured out (though the twins were unreasonably annoying). The only part of the game I felt was unfair was the boss rush at the end, with Mr.X himself feeling super easy after that grueling gauntlet. Graphically, it's serviceable, but aesthetically, Final Fight definitely has the upper hand. The only really memorable designs were the bosses, the juggling clown enemy, and the-one-good-guy-in-the-police who launches napalm rockets for you. Music-wise, it's SOR all the way, baby, it's catchy, high-energy, and funky all at the same time. Still have that Mr.X boss fight track in my head. So yeah, clearly the game was heavily inspired by Final Fight, but by designing it first for the home consoles, they made an experience that gels much better with modern gaming. I will admit I used save states as checkpoints (and to get through the boss rush with minimal frustration), but if I wanted to properly play this in one sitting, it'd be totally feasible to learn the game, as it is forgiving enough, despite the spikes. Sega may have had an Axel to grind with Capcom, but with some Adamant effort, they sure left their mark on the genre in a Blaze of glory. Yeah, nailed it.

Thanks for reminding me about Freedom Planet 2! The game's looking crazy good, and I'm glad that seems to be, in fact, true! Sad thing is the terrible timing for me. I'm busy with a lot of stuff in life, in the middle of a couple other playthroughs, and it's also been pain to play anything on my PC lately (it takes forever to boot, among a bunch of other flaws). As such, I'm tempted to get this on Switch when that version comes out... Or maybe I should just get a better PC already. Regardless, I'll pick it up as soon as a good opportunity clears up.

I'm not particularly fond of Earthbound, myself. It's got charm, but that's it, really. I can certainly relate to H-o-T's write-ups. That said, Mother 3 is a much better game. It's worth trying out even if EB was underwhelming

Congratulations: you win. At life in general as well, clearly

For those who are interested, here's a pretty good breakdown of the trailer:

Gotta say, this looks way better than any of my expectations! Tekken Force mode AND Tekken Ball mode? You can play with stage hazards on!? Blanka has MechaKoopas?!? Street Fighter VI is looking to evolve the genre by reviving some of its wackier concepts. Finally, another fighting game besides Smash seems to be doing an actually fun single-player mode. It's been forever!

Yeah, I thought those were weird, but looking at the joy-cons, I figured that's what it was. Despite me preferring the stylus, the buttons are just as fine... except for those "Hold" inputs that end on a Slide during FMSes. As I move the circle into its final position, the game registers it as an attempted "good" Slide. Do you think it's possible to make it so that one stick controls the circle, and the other one takes care of the Slide at the end?

Alright, two questions: 1. In FMS stages, what is distance, exactly? In BMSes, I get it, there're enemies, and damage, and stuff. In FMSes, it's like... why should I try to improve from 6000m and 8000m, for example? 2. Are there any elemental weaknesses (like WarMech being weak to Ramuh)? I thought it was mentioned somewhere, but I'm not sure if I just imagined it.