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WackerJr

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Posts posted by WackerJr

  1. Posted

    For those that have played the game.  I’ve never played a Ratchet & Clank game before, but I have both the PS4 Ratchet & Clank remake (via the PS+ free game a while back) and Rifts Apart.  Would you recommend playing the original before Rifts Apart?

    That’s what I was planning to do, but it would be useful to get your opinions?  Thanks!

  2. Posted

    They’re saying all the right things, as people rightly have concerns on a number of areas that Bethesda have fallen foul on in the past, or that similar games (of a much smaller scope!) have, but they haven’t been afraid to address them and reassure people that they have considered them and are ensuring that the game plays well.

    Whether they’re all talk and no trousers we’ll find out soon enough. I’m still surprised it’s so close to release date.  It looks good, it has a great premise, I’m not sure it could possibly live up to all of its promises, but let’s see.

  3. Posted

    Spoiler

     

    Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan (Switch)

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    A game that’s unapologetically friendly and wholesome. 

    If you told me this game has been made by a unicorn I would probably have believed it! The world has had its colour removed and it’s up to Billy to travel the world and restore colour by recruiting various creatures using words of positivity and encouragement.

    You move between islands on your boat, only being able to travel a set distance before your fuel runs out (to stop you travelling to the end island immediately), and yes, before you ask, your boat is indeed called the “Friend Ship”!

    It’s essentially a turn-based RPG where each creature you’ve recruited has up to three colours/shapes associated with them.  Each turn you select which creature from your group (a random selection from those you’ve recruited are available to use each turn) and which colour/shape you want to use.  Each creature you confront is susceptible to certain colours.  You can guess or you can reveal some each turn by selecting one of three things to say, with the most encouraging response being the right one every time.

    In a kind-of similar way to the Paper Mario / Mario & Luigi series. You play a mini-game each for each creature you use.  Unlike those series, failing the mini-games mean you deal no damage at all.  There’s a slight risk-reward system as you can choose multiple creatures to play in order to ‘attack’ with more colours, with the difficulty of the mini-games increasing as you do.

    There are a few different mini-games (match the symbols, press the right button combo, an Arkanoid-style game & a few others) although they do get quite repetitive, especially where you HAVE  to do it for each attack.

    Sometimes the encounters force you to follow set rules, such as not being allowed to use certain creatures.  These are more fun and creative, but sadly they’re few & far between.

    While the encounters are a little basic, the most puzzling parts are finding all the various creatures, some involve platforming, there’s switch puzzles, maze puzzles and a few others.  Quite a few of these are quite creative and challenging in places.  These were the parts I had the most fun with.

    I played the Switch version, and the game does chug at times, surprising considering the simplistic cartoony graphics, and it is a little rough around the edges.

    It was a better game than I was expecting, and while I got bored of the encounters, I quite enjoyed the challenge of tracking down all the creatures to 100% the game, although it’s not a difficult game to complete the story without finding everything.

    It’s not subtle with thrusting its positivity down your throat (I can’t imagine it’ll be top of @EEVILMURRAY’s wanted list!) but I can appreciate the developers putting something a little different out there, and my young daughter enjoyed watching me play and selecting the best responses.  It won’t appeal to everyone, and I won’t be going back to it, but I don’t regret playing it.

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  4. Posted

    9 hours ago, Dcubed said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen.  I present to you, the most British game ever made…

    It’s an Amiga, generating a Teletext version of Worms with a real Teletext signal :D

    That’s amazing! Haha! It certainly beats “Bamboozled”, a multiple choice questions game which (besides the latest football scores getting updated, albeit you had to wait for it to scroll through 2 or 3 other pages of scores first! How did we cope before the internet!?) was sadly one of the most exciting things Teletext had to offer!

    • Haha 1

  5. Posted

    AI: The Somnium Files (Switch)

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    I’m a big fan of the Zero Escape series, as well as Danganronpa, so the promise of a murder mystery visual novel from Spike Chunsoft was particularly appealing!

    It was… ok. Not as good as the aforementioned series unfortunately, but the whole premise has potential.

    You play as Detective Date, who is missing an eye, but with a computerised eyeball in its place, which is sophisticated and advanced enough to communicate direct with Date, and the ability to take on a small bear-like appearance when out of his eye socket. If this sounds weird, it really is! But makes sense over the course of the game and enables lots of banter between Aiba (the AI within the eye) and Date.

    The majority of the game plays out like your typical visual novel. Use your cursor to click around the screen on items of interest, and read/listen to lots of dialogue, with your dialogue or question choices not affecting the story.

    While there’s the odd QTE during cutscenes, the other gameplay element is where you enter a dream world to solve a particular problem within 6 in-game minutes. Viewed from a 3rd person perspective, moving around causes the clock to tick down. There are a limited number of objects you can interactive with. Each object gives you a few choices for how to interact with it, each choice will use up a set amount of your time (for example, you find a gun next to a locked door, and can choose whether to try and shoot your way out or use the gun to try and unlock the door).

    These dream worlds vary in quality, with often only a few objects to interact, and a little on the easy side until later on. There may be a couple of solutions to these worlds, and each cause the story to play out on a different path. I liked being able to select any part of the storyline at any time, to work your way to the true ending.

    The story is twisting, confusing, and clever, as you’d expect. Date is not the most likeable main character, running the gannet of acting a jerk much of the time, to some tender moments later on.

    The humour wasn’t necessarily my favourite, with an over-abundance of crude jokes, and too often referencing Date’s particular fondness for adult magazines.

    It does give a very enjoyable staff credits sequences though!

    Ultimately, a very mixed bag. I enjoyed the premise of the puzzle sequences, even if the idea was better than the execution at times. It seems odd to say I was disappointed but I’m glad they made a sequel, which I’d like to try this at some point. Especially as there’s no hint of further Danganronpa or Zero Escape games at this time.



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  6. Posted

    I came across this Zelda: Minish Cap and Phantom Hourglass manga in my local library the other day. Is this genuine? I’d never seen it before and very strange to have the page numbers going from right to left (so page 1 is at the back and the final page is at the front).

    Admittedly my local library has gone up in my opinion, knowing they’re offering books like this!

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  9. Posted

    The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC)

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    Short but sweet.  This Phoenix Wright-lite game starring an ensemble of Sonic characters, like others have said, was the best kind of surprise!  More amusing than the animated Sonic series’, with witty writing clearing produced by those with an appreciation of the characters in the franchise and comfortable at poking fun of themselves.

    Great stuff!

     

    Spoiler

     

     

    • Like 1
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  11. Posted

    Apologies if I’ve missed it here or in another thread… so with the tracks on the final two cups to be revealed I wonder what tracks we’ll get.

    I expect there’ll be more predictions closer to the time, but for now here are mine:

    • Airship Fortress (DS)
    • Bowser’s Castle (N64)
    • Delfino Square (DS)
    • Dino Dino Jungle (GCN)
    • DKs Jungle Parkway (N64)
    • Rainbow Road (Wii)
    • Koopa Beach (N64)

    Plus one more new course, that’s not a Tour one.  I’ve lost track a little on which courses are remaining mind! 😁

    • Like 1
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  15. Posted

    Oxenfree (Switch)

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    I bought this on Switch before I realised it's included as a free mobile game with my Netflix subscription...

    It took me a while to really figure out what I was doing, as your character, Alex, walks around an island with her friends, and you listen to a lot of dialogue between them.  Often, up to three thought bubbles appear above her head and you have a few seconds to either ignore them, or select one in order to respond to the conversation.  It's not quite clear for a while how much this affects the story, although it turns out it does affect your relationships and contribute to the eventual outcome.

    The story turns out to be a creepy horror-esque tale, which I won't spoil.  It was clever, but it didn't grip me as much as I'd have hoped.

    The dialogue is fun, and voice acting really good.  There is a LOT of walking between locations though, and this quickly got tiresome for me.  The conversations as you trek across the island on your way to you next goal help alleviate some of the time, but as there's no platforming as such, it does become a bit of a slog.

    I can see why people enjoy it, and I wanted to like it more, but it was a really mixed experience for me.

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  18. Posted

    Daisy Cruiser and Koopa Cape are two of the more memorable tracks, so I’m pleased to see them make MK8, it’s just a shame I’ve always been terrible at both! 😂

    Three Tour tracks is a disappointment for me.  I admittedly haven’t played hem though, so I’m open to trying them out.  Hopefully they’ll have enough distinct personality to stand out from the other your tracks.

    Overall, with the exception of the new course, this is probably the wave I’ve been least excited about, but that I know the least about, so going in with an open mind come Thursday.

    • Thanks 1

  21. Posted

    After how strong and capable Peach was in the Mario movie, I’m glad they’ve given her a chance to shine again in her own game.

    I really REALLY hope they’ve learned from the first Princess Peach game, and that this one doesn’t focus on using Peach’s emotions to get through it, and shows her for the strong character she is.

  22. Posted

    Slay the Spire (PS4)

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    Finally got around to playing it after getting it on PSPlus and having friends recommend it.  Combining a roguelike with a deck-building card game seemed like an ideal match to me, and the developers did a great job with this - it's really good!

    I was a little overwhelmed at first and it seemed really difficult to come up with an effective strategy, but once you started deciding on a particular way to play depending on what cards the RNG Gods decided to offer you on each run, it got slightly easier and is great at giving you that feeling of satisfaction (and relief!) when a plan pays off and you win a battle against seemingly overwhelming odds!

    Each run is a little long for my liking, taking potentially a couple of hours if you manage to make it to the final boss at the top of the spire.  I enjoyed it enough to play it enough to beat the final final boss, although not enough to beat the 'ascension' challenges with any character, which are different rules for a playthrough (such as enemies dealing more damage, shops charging more, more bosses, etc.) of which there are 20!

    Ultimately it is repetitive, it is effectively a lot of turn-based battles where you choose what cards to play each turn, I enjoyed it.

    Spoiler

     

     

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    On 20/05/2023 at 1:43 AM, Glen-i said:

     

    Also, I played through Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap after @Dcubed booted up the Master System version, which is literally the worst thing you can do.

      Games Glen has played in 2023 (Reveal hidden contents)

    Fire Emblem Engage
    The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
    WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames
    Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
    Metroid Fusion
    Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
    The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
    Octopath Traveler II
    Kirby's Dream Land
    Metroid Prime Remastered
    Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

     

    In what way out of interest?  Just playing it in general?  Only as I have fond memories of the SMS version and have the Switch 'remaster' but haven't touched it yet... 

  25. Posted

    I really hope it sells enough copies for Capcom to finally make a sequel.  I feel bad as I’d love to add to its sales on Switch, but I’ve replayed the game on DS a few times already…. 😃

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