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| Topic | Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition Part II |
| Simoun 12/20/21 10:55:44 PM #96 | Labyrinth City: Pierre the Maze Detective (PC) This looks amazing. Straight out of the children's books but alive and animated. I know that its primarily a maze game but damn if they were capable of making something like this, can we please have Where's Wally as well? I only have one tiny complaint though and its the music. The music is great and loopy for all your mazing needs. Each level has checkpoints that ramp up the music in some ways. However, the designers thought it was a bright idea to end the each catchy looping track with an even smaller "follow-up" track that lacks any substance. It's as if it was created so you don't encounter this latter track, forcing you to hurry along missing collectibles in order for the 7 main levels to be replayable. Its dastardly and I don't like it. Were it not for the animated awesomeness and sense of childish wonder, I would've given up on this ages ago. --- It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you. |
| Topic | Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition Part II |
| Simoun 12/17/21 2:26:42 PM #92 | Shantae and the Pirates Curse (PC) Finally finished the third game in the series. All I can say is I'm glad I never played this on the 3DS. It has a very stressful final dungeon that's basically an exercise in platforming and I was incensed at the sudden increase in difficulty. Reminded me alot of Impossible Lair! Made me finish my items tho which was nice a challenge. This is game is okay. I hate the backtracking and the music is mehh---every track is actually great for like the first 15 seconds attuning to the theme of the level then it devolves into this megaman chiptune mix that I could care less about in a game like this. Not to mention the hidden collectibles that have absolutely no clue for some of them but you need all of them for the Golden Ending. jeeez --- It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you. |
| Topic | Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition Part II |
| Simoun 11/29/21 11:03:32 PM #73 | Mundaun (PC) Very nice aesthetic horror game with a twist on curses and how to deal with them. In a stunning move never before done in any indie horror game, in order to get the best ending Very few jumpscares but don't really love the stealth. Fortunately, there is a difficulty setting. The open-world nature of the game reminds me of Kona which I'll have to beat someday but that game was more Painscreek Mystery Solving with Survival Mechanics. This one is more I Wont Tell You What You're Looking For Haha Enjoy Exploring and Backtracking. It's not necessary but strewn throughout the game are items that permanently increase your stats and you will need them for the night phases which require sloooooowly crawling around sentient hay bales and killer beekeepers. There's even a weapon that requires going all the way back to the first house to unlock a door you may have forgotten ages ago and I can't imagine going through the first time on Normal or Hard without this gun. Probably my hatest collectible is the Coffee which requires about 4-5 "ingredients" collected in various places, then you have to backtrack to an oven to heat it up and drink it for permanent HP raise. And you will need it! Theoretically speaking, I'd just play this with a guide for the collectibles, if all you wanna do is story stuff. In this case, I don't mind it as much because the exploration part is very fun as well. That said, I didn't mind because the environment, the characters, and the plot was pretty interesting and fresh. It wasn't just any Old World "you dont understand our ways" villager horror. It was something more realistic that really challenged the way I thought about things honestly. --- It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you. |
| Topic | Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition Part II |
| Simoun 11/27/21 10:20:21 PM #69 | Astalon Episode 2: Tears of the Earth (PC) No there is no Episode 1. The title is an homage to Star Wars. This was a surprisingly good game. I don't know what I was expecting going into it. I just knew it was a platformer in the retro style graphics. What this game is is a Metroidvania with souls-like mechanics---you literally gain souls and use them for upgrades when you die but you also have to start over with any shortcuts unlocked being permanent. There's been a few games with this formula before but unlike Rogue Legacy the levels aren't randomly procedurally-generated and unlike Dead Cells, the upgrades actually stick instead of adding to the slot machine of potential goodies. The design clearly intends you slowly build up your strength until you become OP and it is well-deserved. Cost of the upgrades as well as increasingly costly temporary upgrades don't make it feel like a slog. Combat is solid and punishing even with basic enemies since there's hardly any way to regain life that isn't connected to costing souls you'll often find yourself dying over and over but ever so slowly inching towards mapping out the tower as you memorize enemy behavior and map hazards. Checkpoints and Waypoints are few and far in between despite being permanent---a true oasis which makes the challenge just right for me. Fuck DS-style gameplay that's thinly veiled an attempt at padding the game out. There is one bottleneck however with the first boss from which you'll be starved of souls to upgrade much unless you don't spread it out between your three characters. But when I got that down and I seriously had to think about boss patterns and whatnot because I wasn't OP yet, dying approx 10 times in the process, the rest of the game flowed smoothly. That's right, count em. Three It's your classic Warrior, Rogue, Mage setup which is weird for a game set in the year 20XX but yeah. Despite the drip fed story there is very little to tell and whatever is revealed is enough. You're heroes. The Dark Knight has poisoned the village with his tower. Slay him. There's also some soul stuff happening with the mage and the Dark Knight has backstory but I'll let you guys learn all about it. What little conversations the three have is endearing. You can tell these adventurers really are friends who have some pretty big shoes to fill. Lots of homages too as you unlock And you'll want to, as that nets you the True Ending. It's also honestly very fun to eventually become OP and kick ass. Even with the best unique item you'll still feel challenged and if you don't there's 2 more Castlevania-ish modes of play where you play as someone else. There's even a Ghouls n' Ghosts gargoyle enemy that acts the same annoying way meh. If I had a complaint it would be the character switching only goes one way which gets annoying when you unlock the secret characters. And the bosses could use some balancing but there's a Boss Rush mode so I'm not complaining for real lol. There's also because of the oldschool "enemies reappear in each new screen" mechanic, it's very easy to farm for souls if you put in like 30 minutes. I got my characters killing in 2-5 strikes as early as the halfway point. All in all contender for my game of the year. Honestly, there's just been so much of it for this year. I'd rather not put Enderal as that's just cheating. Game automatically wins in my book. Anyways, Astalon is also on the Switch. I thoroughly recommend it as it was kind of quietly released last July with little to no fanfare. --- It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you. |
| Topic | Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition Part II |
| Simoun 11/16/21 3:09:19 PM #53 | Salt and Sanctuary (PC) The original "2d Soulsclone" beat. Excited for the sequel next year. This game....is okay. I super hate the platforming and there are alot of stigmas this game brought that eventually petered out once the rest of the soulsclones came in. It is not a fun game but it has the charm of probably being the closest to a DS clone which the author admits I think. --- It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you. |
| Topic | Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition Part II |
| Simoun 10/31/21 11:20:46 AM #24 | Hellpoint (PC) 5/10 Soulslike. Lore was typical and it was trying too hard to be a Souls clone. Enemies and bosses were okay, but unflattering at best. Probably what sets it apart is the level design which is really more intricate than it seems which is fine if it encourages exploration but about half of those places require precise jumping. Jumping puzzles with DS controls and momentum is ass. I've died more times falling off of something than actually getting killed. It doesn't help that achieving the best ending requires you to do this as well as find some of the most well hidden secrets I've seen in a game like this. --- It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you. |
| Topic | Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition Part II |
| Simoun 10/18/21 11:59:50 AM #10 | Nancy Drew 33: Midnight in Salem (PC) End of an era. End of a saga. If anyone cares, documented well in KCF's threads and sheets, I began my foray into the Nancy Drew games back in 2018. 32 Point Click shenanigans later, it ends here tonight. I originally fell in love with one of the games even earlier and I knew at the time that there was an announcement for this one in particular. But its release is mired in controversy and drama. To sum it up, Her Interactive decided to do an Engine change, turning their 2 Games A Year Development Cycle into a 4 Year Slog, which in any other context for any other video game was normal. But after a decade of it for ND fans, it was inconceivable. I was sick of waiting too at the time so I decided to just play every game in order and hope that by then 33 would finally drop. I wasn't disappointed in the publisher. But is this game disappointing? Absolutely not. I don't care what longtime fans say as well as the not-so-good sales. This game is great. It "grew up" in a way that I feel was necessary and I hope if there was ever a next one, they could build on this engine that already exists into something more. Basic as this game was, it had everything I ever wanted in a teen mystery videogame (and it didn't help that I was also into the recent TV Series which had the same vibes minus the adulterated content). Mystery was great. Villain was great. Suspects were great. We got to see the Hardy Boys in 3d and they still wouldn't show Nancy's face :/ I think the strongest points were the writing and the music. Unfortunately for a game that came out in 2019 the standards for gameplay have since become more sophisticated. Confusing layouts, crashes and bugs, and an abrupt final act for a 29 dollar game is not acceptable. Moreover, it basically lost its audience for those who loved the previous 32 games even the bad ones. I don't really agree with that last part but it is the major opinion. If this is the last game in the series, then I'm glad it ended like this. The way it ended in the game is very sweet as well with --- It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you. |
| Topic | Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition Part II |
| Simoun 10/17/21 3:45:30 PM #8 | Dead Cells w/ All DLCs (PC) All bosses beaten. Man this was more tiring than I thought. I think I prefer Hollow Knight but only just by a little bit. Maybe I'm just not into this kind of roguelike progression but this game in particular feels like a slog through each of iteration. --- It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you. |
| Topic | Do not see 6:45 (movie) |
| Simoun 08/09/21 8:53:18 PM #44 | My personal favorite loop movie is Triangle --- It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you. |
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