Lurker > KCF0107

Palace
Kataklysm
Thermosphere

Me

Myst

Swamp
Tetroid
Battle

After going through that, I think that I want to use my last nom on something sillier/more relaxing

Castle on the Coast

KCF has beaten Hauntii

I do ultimately think that this is a good game. It's fun at its core, they got a lot of mileage out of a limited character to come up with a lot of interesting puzzles and other activities to get stars/push the game forward. The art style in and of itself looks gorgeous, and the sound design and music are great.

It is also an extremely frustrating experience with glaring and really baffling flaws. The first area didn't offer a whole ton, but the camera was pretty much fixed at the same level and not really needing it to be flexible given the smaller scale of relatively close proximity of everything you could explore to and an ideal object population density. I did have some issues judging my and my destination position when flying as a ladybug, but I ultimately didn't find it to be a big deal.

I agree that the carnival area was the best of four. This was when I started wanting a player-commanded flexible camera so I could zoom out a little bit on command to see around or above some objects and do a better job at understanding my approach and mapping out the near and overall area in my mind. There were some issues with red on red colors for some fights, so it wasn't my favorite place combat-wise, but it really shone in star hunts. I loved the plentiful roller coaster stuff, not so much for each individual task, but for how this showcased the best that the art style accomplished in the game. You had a white roller coaster on dark tracks with light highlights. Important objects were all highlighted different colors, like rings blue and bombs red. And to finish things off, the backdrop was all dark. Everything was crisp and clear, and maybe the most fair feats of dexterity in the game. I had a lot of fun with those and it was also really cool to center the area's boss fight around that.

The final two areas were also plenty of fun, but the camera and color schemes/usage were frequently an issue and could be downright dreadful. I vaguely caught some glimpses at the credits, and I think this was a pretty small development team at Moonloop to where I assume that they did a lot of play testing themselves. I just cannot believe that they put in all this hard work and experienced the wildly inconsistent camera that abruptly zoom in or out and not focus on the player as they were being attacked or trying to do some timed or platforming feat or having objects strewn on the ground that had so similar hues/tints that it was hard to grab them or interact with them, if you were even aware of their presence, and thought it was good to move forward with. At the end of the game, I picked up a hat on the ground, and I didn't even see it because it was almost pure white on a white floor.

When both issues were combined, it was dreadful. I once had to go through an area that had a very zoomed out, isometric angle where there were a ton of enemies around and about, and by going into the area, you would trigger a button-command turret, which for those who haven't played, meant that if you tried attacking your attackers (and why wouldn't you), you would also control the nearby turrets. I couldn't see the location of the bullets coming out of the turrets because of the combination of the zoom, angle, and white turret bullets on white floors. I of course got shredded and was left with half a heart. It was just an absolute mess.

Like I said, overall I did enjoy this game, but I would put this in the pile of games I had fun with but can't imagine ever wanting to replay it in the future.

Go

Wave Race

Trade:
Bulls received: G Josh Giddey
Thunder received: G Alex Caruso

Monthly Progress
Hauntii - Kenri, Sean
Alba - Sean, darkx, Kenri, KCF
DKC - Paul

Nominations
Ark - NORCO
Cody - Call of the Sea, Bugsnax
darkx - Simpsons Hit and Run, Kena: Bridge of Spirits
KCF - Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, Raji: An Ancient Epic, Paradise Marsh
Kenri - You Have to Win the Game, Chants of Sennaar, River City Girls
Sean - Wolfenstein II, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, Half-Life 2: EP 2

Supports
darkx - Raji
Sean - Sennaar

Drawing in 5 days

Heaven
Light
Palace

Golden

Aww yeah, my noms went 2-0 in the first round

I decided to give Hauntii another shot, and the subsequent two locations have been much better. I like how the emphasis is on exploration and they have the stars as (necessary) rewards for brief feats of dexterity and what have you. I find almost all of that enjoyable, but would it kill them to have an area map of some sort (I would even accept a mini-map) to not discourage me from exploring? They reuse assets a ton in an area, so there aren't a good amount of markers as I try to map the area in my mind. I try and cover a lot of ground so I can nab some collectibles, but if I come upon a portal or whatever they are called to launch me to the next area, I'm probably going to take it lest I want to risk struggling to find my way back to it.

I'm the only one who has brought up its camera, and I find that hard to believe I'm the only one who has strong feelings toward it. The player has no control over it, and it can be downright hostile with its poor angling, random zoom in/out, and/or use its wonderful art style against you by blending details together to make it harder to discern necessary things (doing that ship boss with the sandwhale blending into all of the dark spots and some of the lighter spots in the vortex area sand was downright criminal with the angles they gave).

Bonanza Bros.

Celestial
Darkness
Solitude

Check

Billy Mays was almost 15 years ago!? Wow

I still need to keep this bumped. I may or may not create a new topic before going to bed

I only looked at what I was interested in, and I'm saying Mario Party for now.

Grand Prix

Late
Ultimate
GET

Light

Asteroids

I'm not sure if I want to continue with Hauntii. I'm not really getting any sense of accomplishment however far I am (having no idea how to gauge progression is certainly a factor), and as cool as the art style is, having some scripted fights with the camera zoomed out and dealing a bunch of stuff going on while trying to find red enemies on red environments is a bit overwhelming.

Remodeling
Untamed
Mayan

Point

Colts have been taken within the past day for those looking for a team at the last minute

River City Ransom

Paradise Marsh will be my third nomination

KCF has beaten Alba: A Wildlife Adventure

It is hard to believe that it has roughly been two and a half years since I first beat it. It's just as enjoyable now, though I still wish there were more non-avian wildlife

Kilter

Compass
Desert
Crumble

The Steam sale will begin after the drawing, so I'm just going to choose games and hope they are included in it.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom
Raji: An Ancient Epic

Elite
Origami
Wings

Mice and Men

coming down to our final days

Monthly Progress
Hauntii - Kenri, Sean
Alba - Sean, darkx, Kenri
DKC - Paul

Nominations

Supports

While Super Mario World, Far Cry 2, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Banjo-Kazooie do, the vast majority of my top games do not, so I guess modest/no trees wins

Target

Strange
Favorite
Sunset

we could dance

Sky
Color
Unravelling

Agent 47

Thousand
Jaguar
Stage

Brain

I never watched Game of Thrones to even have to deal with context.

The Night King

I listened to it in full while I felt like jumping forward in Light of the Seven a few times since it wasn't catching my interest

Probably around 95% or so

100% on PC which is the vast majority of my purchases, 90-ish% on Xbox, and 75-ish% on Switch

bump

It was an extremely vanilla tactics game from what I played. Comparing this to Mario vs Rabbids is an insult to the latter