LazBro
Prolific Poster 
Posts: 10,282 
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 19, 2023 8:55:58 GMT -5
I am, for the first time, playing through The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past. I'm rather enjoying it! It's very old-skool and reminds me a lot of games I used to play on my ZX Spectrum back in the 80s (specifically, Gauntlet, though quite a few others including the Knightmare series). It's my very first Zelda game besides the soothing pleasure of watching my fella play through TotK, and I haven't actually played that one myself. I'm greatly enjoying it though! What I'm having the most problem with is using a controller rather than a keyboard/mouse setup. Almost all the gaming I've done post-16-bit computers has been keyboard/mouse and the game I've played most often is Call of Duty (II, though also both Modern Warfares and V). Adjusting to using a controller is driving me nuts at the moment because i'm not at the stage where pressing the right buttons is instinctual. It's all muscle memory and I don't have it yet - it's like learning new chords on the guitar except on guitar when you have to stop and look at where your fingers are meant to go a guard doesn't pop up and unexpectedly stab you (well, hopefully). This makes for an occasionally-frustrating experience as my fella - who's been playing these games for the best part of a couple of decades - grinds his teeth while I (who have been playing for the best part of a couple of hours) die in yet another stupid way. Ok, he doesn't always grind his teeth. Just sometimes. That said, it's a really fun game, only occasionally annoying (boss levels, mostly) and I'm very much digging its retro vibe and soundtrack. Will I go on and play more Zelda games? Well, if this one is anything to go by, the answer is yes! (Watch this space). If you can find a way to play Legend of Zelda: Four Swords in this day in age (I don't know how but maybe), that's a top-down Zelda game in the Link to the Past style that you can play with your fella. I played it with Mrs. (then girlfriend) Bro, who like you did not have a lot of controller experience. It was a more forgiving game than Link to the Past, so we moved along fine, but I remember her frustration and bafflement with me whenever we'd enter a puzzle room. When you've been playing Zelda games for almost your entire life, you don't even have to look at the puzzle. You instinctively know the solution, and she kept getting mad at me for knowing what to do so quickly. I had to remain quiet and let her figure them out. |
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 19, 2023 8:57:55 GMT -5
Prole Hole can A Link to the Past truly be said to have a “retro” vibe when it’s a thirty year old game with thirty year old game aesthetics?
|
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,282
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 19, 2023 9:00:46 GMT -5
Obviously I play a lot of Metroidvanias. It's among my favorite genres, and the very best ones rank among my favorite games. At the top of the pile is Hollow Knight. This is not news to anyone.
The question that always intrigues is why. What is it really about Hollow Knight? Sure, it plays well, it's got a neat story, it looks good, it's got a good length ... but so do all these other Metroidvanias. What really is the secret sauce?
I think I figured it out. Here is a clip of a gameplay video which demonstrates the sauce. You only need to watch like five seconds. From 5:52 - 5:57 should be plenty. Do you see it?
Here it is. This is what makes Hollow Knight better than all those other games: the knight keeps moving when he attacks. Attacking doesn't slow you down. Such a small thing, but it feels so much better than other Metroidvanias to not stop every time you attack.
|
|
|
|
Post by Didja Heah That, T? on Sept 19, 2023 10:15:08 GMT -5
It's Back.
IT'S BACK
|
|
|
|
Post by liebkartoffel on Sept 19, 2023 11:27:23 GMT -5
Prole Hole can A Link to the Past truly be said to have a “retro” vibe when it’s a thirty year old game with thirty year old game aesthetics? Rando, have you ever seen the popular Christopher Guest film A Mighty Wind, which features a very important discussion on what constitutes "retro" (or, indeed, "nowtro") aesthetics? m.imdb.com/video/vi1523237913/ |
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 19, 2023 12:11:21 GMT -5
Prole Hole can A Link to the Past truly be said to have a “retro” vibe when it’s a thirty year old game with thirty year old game aesthetics? Rando, have you ever seen the popular Christopher Guest film A Mighty Wind, which features a very important discussion on what constitutes "retro" (or, indeed, "nowtro") aesthetics? m.imdb.com/video/vi1523237913/I’ve seen zero Christopher Guest films. |
|
|
|
Post by liebkartoffel on Sept 19, 2023 19:52:36 GMT -5
Rando, have you ever seen the popular Christopher Guest film A Mighty Wind, which features a very important discussion on what constitutes "retro" (or, indeed, "nowtro") aesthetics? m.imdb.com/video/vi1523237913/I’ve seen zero Christopher Guest films. That's a shame. It is one of the three Guest-directed films I would recommend you watch, but we would have to discuss that in a different thread. |
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 19, 2023 20:02:33 GMT -5
I’ve seen zero Christopher Guest films. That's a shame. It is one of the three Guest-directed films I would recommend you watch, but we would have to discuss that in a different thread. I bet the others are Waiting for the Guff-Man and Best in Show. |
|
Baron von Costume
TI Forumite
Like an iron maiden made of pillows... the punishment is decadence!
Posts: 4,684
|
Post by Baron von Costume on Sept 20, 2023 12:59:57 GMT -5
Prole Hole can A Link to the Past truly be said to have a “retro” vibe when it’s a thirty year old game with thirty year old game aesthetics? Also when it's arguably the game all those games are aping with their retro vibe. |
|
|
|
Post by Prole Hole on Sept 20, 2023 13:07:13 GMT -5
Prole Hole can A Link to the Past truly be said to have a “retro” vibe when it’s a thirty year old game with thirty year old game aesthetics? It's an aesthetic. It looks retro. Therefore, pretty much by definition, it has a retro aesthetic. |
|
|
|
Post by Prole Hole on Sept 20, 2023 13:09:19 GMT -5
I am, for the first time, playing through The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past. I'm rather enjoying it! It's very old-skool and reminds me a lot of games I used to play on my ZX Spectrum back in the 80s (specifically, Gauntlet, though quite a few others including the Knightmare series). It's my very first Zelda game besides the soothing pleasure of watching my fella play through TotK, and I haven't actually played that one myself. I'm greatly enjoying it though! What I'm having the most problem with is using a controller rather than a keyboard/mouse setup. Almost all the gaming I've done post-16-bit computers has been keyboard/mouse and the game I've played most often is Call of Duty (II, though also both Modern Warfares and V). Adjusting to using a controller is driving me nuts at the moment because i'm not at the stage where pressing the right buttons is instinctual. It's all muscle memory and I don't have it yet - it's like learning new chords on the guitar except on guitar when you have to stop and look at where your fingers are meant to go a guard doesn't pop up and unexpectedly stab you (well, hopefully). This makes for an occasionally-frustrating experience as my fella - who's been playing these games for the best part of a couple of decades - grinds his teeth while I (who have been playing for the best part of a couple of hours) die in yet another stupid way. Ok, he doesn't always grind his teeth. Just sometimes. That said, it's a really fun game, only occasionally annoying (boss levels, mostly) and I'm very much digging its retro vibe and soundtrack. Will I go on and play more Zelda games? Well, if this one is anything to go by, the answer is yes! (Watch this space). If you can find a way to play Legend of Zelda: Four Swords in this day in age (I don't know how but maybe), that's a top-down Zelda game in the Link to the Past style that you can play with your fella. I played it with Mrs. (then girlfriend) Bro, who like you did not have a lot of controller experience. It was a more forgiving game than Link to the Past, so we moved along fine, but I remember her frustration and bafflement with me whenever we'd enter a puzzle room. When you've been playing Zelda games for almost your entire life, you don't even have to look at the puzzle. You instinctively know the solution, and she kept getting mad at me for knowing what to do so quickly. I had to remain quiet and let her figure them out. I mentioned this to my fella but he thought the chances of being able to make it happen were less than zero* so sadly, Four Swords are going to have to remain sheathed. * More accurately, it's too much hassle to try and find all the tech to make it happen when there are other games which are multiplayer and exist on the console that's actually in our living room. |
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,282
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 20, 2023 14:13:04 GMT -5
If you can find a way to play Legend of Zelda: Four Swords in this day in age (I don't know how but maybe), that's a top-down Zelda game in the Link to the Past style that you can play with your fella. I played it with Mrs. (then girlfriend) Bro, who like you did not have a lot of controller experience. It was a more forgiving game than Link to the Past, so we moved along fine, but I remember her frustration and bafflement with me whenever we'd enter a puzzle room. When you've been playing Zelda games for almost your entire life, you don't even have to look at the puzzle. You instinctively know the solution, and she kept getting mad at me for knowing what to do so quickly. I had to remain quiet and let her figure them out. I mentioned this to my fella but he thought the chances of being able to make it happen were less than zero* so sadly, Four Swords are going to have to remain sheathed. * More accurately, it's too much hassle to try and find all the tech to make it happen when there are other games which are multiplayer and exist on the console that's actually in our living room. For sure. It definitely would not be worth tracking down a Gamecube and multiple SPs. I wondered if it'd ever seen some kind of Switch virtual console release that allowed simple couch co-op with controllers, but I recognize that's unlikely. |
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,282
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 21, 2023 8:08:05 GMT -5
I've just come across the term "bullet heaven" to refer to games like Vampire Survivors. A contrast term to "bullet hell", in a bullet heaven you are not the fragile hero dodging the big bad's bullets. You ARE the big bad, and you are shooting all the bullets.
It's not a perfect title. In early game, you are quite weak and the gameplay is more like a traditional bullet hell. But I dunno. I like it. When you've got a good run going and you "play" the last 10 minutes of a stage by simply idling because nothing can hit you, it does feel powerful. I like it better than "survivor-like" which I'd also seen.
|
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,282
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 21, 2023 10:59:34 GMT -5
Mr. Dolphin is in, and he goes hard.
|
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 22, 2023 10:02:33 GMT -5
Dark Souls - So far I am really not enjoying this. I cannot advance past either the Taurus Demon (or whatever the Minotaur guy is called) or a very tall knight guy in a suit of armor. I’ve spent over three hours and from what I understand this is still very early in the game and it’s not intended to take like 100+ hours to beat. I don’t know what humanity or undead souls do, or if they’re useful at all if I don’t want to start shelling out for a Nintendo online subscription that I’ll barely use so I can play in multiplayer mode. The game is just one bleak expanse of extremely repetitive, unrewarding gameplay to me at this point.
|
|
|
|
Post by liebkartoffel on Sept 22, 2023 13:40:34 GMT -5
Dark Souls - The game is just one bleak expanse of extremely repetitive, unrewarding gameplay to me at this point.  |
|
|
|
Post by Frohman on Sept 22, 2023 15:15:14 GMT -5
Dark Souls - So far I am really not enjoying this. I cannot advance past either the Taurus Demon (or whatever the Minotaur guy is called) or a very tall knight guy in a suit of armor. I’ve spent over three hours and from what I understand this is still very early in the game and it’s not intended to take like 100+ hours to beat. I don’t know what humanity or undead souls do, or if they’re useful at all if I don’t want to start shelling out for a Nintendo online subscription that I’ll barely use so I can play in multiplayer mode. The game is just one bleak expanse of extremely repetitive, unrewarding gameplay to me at this point. There's a trick to defeating the Taurus Demon that requires looking around the arena you fight him in and utilizing a certain technique you may have picked up on during the beginning of the second Asylum Demon fight. I think what you're supposed to be doing there is telegraphed to you the player in a relatively straightforward way but I can see how you might miss it if you're going into boss expecting the same strategy you employed against the first boss to work against the second, not to mention it's always nerve-wracking imagining the kind of shit you'll have to go through again if you die, so it can be hard to keep your wits about you and take everything in. The very tall knight guy is completely optional, and typically not someone you'd go out of your way to fight unless it's your second playthrough and you've already familiarized yourself with how the combat works. |
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 23, 2023 9:54:27 GMT -5
Dark Souls - So far I am really not enjoying this. I cannot advance past either the Taurus Demon (or whatever the Minotaur guy is called) or a very tall knight guy in a suit of armor. I’ve spent over three hours and from what I understand this is still very early in the game and it’s not intended to take like 100+ hours to beat. I don’t know what humanity or undead souls do, or if they’re useful at all if I don’t want to start shelling out for a Nintendo online subscription that I’ll barely use so I can play in multiplayer mode. The game is just one bleak expanse of extremely repetitive, unrewarding gameplay to me at this point. There's a trick to defeating the Taurus Demon that requires looking around the arena you fight him in and utilizing a certain technique you may have picked up on during the beginning of the second Asylum Demon fight. I think what you're supposed to be doing there is telegraphed to you the player in a relatively straightforward way but I can see how you might miss it if you're going into boss expecting the same strategy you employed against the first boss to work against the second, not to mention it's always nerve-wracking imagining the kind of shit you'll have to go through again if you die, so it can be hard to keep your wits about you and take everything in. The very tall knight guy is completely optional, and typically not someone you'd go out of your way to fight unless it's your second playthrough and you've already familiarized yourself with how the combat works. I murdered the Taurus Demon. Should I kill this guy I met who keeps talking about how obsessed he is with the sun? Is he good or evil or what? |
|
Invisible Goat
Shoutbox Elitist 
Grab your mother's keys, we're leaving
Posts: 2,644
|
Post by Invisible Goat on Sept 23, 2023 11:40:51 GMT -5
There's a trick to defeating the Taurus Demon that requires looking around the arena you fight him in and utilizing a certain technique you may have picked up on during the beginning of the second Asylum Demon fight. I think what you're supposed to be doing there is telegraphed to you the player in a relatively straightforward way but I can see how you might miss it if you're going into boss expecting the same strategy you employed against the first boss to work against the second, not to mention it's always nerve-wracking imagining the kind of shit you'll have to go through again if you die, so it can be hard to keep your wits about you and take everything in. The very tall knight guy is completely optional, and typically not someone you'd go out of your way to fight unless it's your second playthrough and you've already familiarized yourself with how the combat works. I murdered the Taurus Demon. Should I kill this guy I met who keeps talking about how obsessed he is with the sun? Is he good or evil or what? Generally I'd be careful with fighting NPCs. Some of them can turn out to be very tough because their "questline" intends for you to fight them much later. Also some of them can give you useful items at some point if you keep running into them and progressing their stories |
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 23, 2023 21:14:08 GMT -5
I murdered the Taurus Demon. Should I kill this guy I met who keeps talking about how obsessed he is with the sun? Is he good or evil or what? Generally I'd be careful with fighting NPCs. Some of them can turn out to be very tough because their "questline" intends for you to fight them much later. Also some of them can give you useful items at some point if you keep running into them and progressing their stories I already killed some guy who I guess was trying to sell me something, but that’s because I thought he was a regular enemy at first, but after I hit him with my axe he was really pissed off so I had to kill him or he would’ve killed me. He had less health than the Taurus Demon. |
|
Invisible Goat
Shoutbox Elitist
Grab your mother's keys, we're leaving
Posts: 2,644
|
Post by Invisible Goat on Sept 24, 2023 10:22:57 GMT -5
Generally I'd be careful with fighting NPCs. Some of them can turn out to be very tough because their "questline" intends for you to fight them much later. Also some of them can give you useful items at some point if you keep running into them and progressing their stories I already killed some guy who I guess was trying to sell me something, but that’s because I thought he was a regular enemy at first, but after I hit him with my axe he was really pissed off so I had to kill him or he would’ve killed me. He had less health than the Taurus Demon. Yeah, I don't know the specific merchant you encountered but that could be bad because he could have had exclusive items that would be valuable at some point. I definitely have attacked friendly NPCs accidentally in all these games though cause you're so keyed up an anxious everything seems like a threat |
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 24, 2023 13:55:45 GMT -5
I already killed some guy who I guess was trying to sell me something, but that’s because I thought he was a regular enemy at first, but after I hit him with my axe he was really pissed off so I had to kill him or he would’ve killed me. He had less health than the Taurus Demon. Yeah, I don't know the specific merchant you encountered but that could be bad because he could have had exclusive items that would be valuable at some point. I definitely have attacked friendly NPCs accidentally in all these games though cause you're so keyed up an anxious everything seems like a threat IG, are the rats in Dark Souls really big or is my character actually just very small? |
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,282
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 26, 2023 14:49:48 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't know the specific merchant you encountered but that could be bad because he could have had exclusive items that would be valuable at some point. I definitely have attacked friendly NPCs accidentally in all these games though cause you're so keyed up an anxious everything seems like a threat IG, are the rats in Dark Souls really big or is my character actually just very small? The rats are really big, and in fact, if you persevere you might get to see an even larger rat not too far into the game. Not so much the rats, but the size of enemies relative to the Chosen Undead (the generic title of the player character in Dark Souls 1) has lore implications. Many characters and humanoid bosses you meet are noticeably taller than you. There are reasons why. This is most obvious in a mid-game area called Anor Londo where you'll find several elements in the architecture that are designed for both tall things and short things. It's cool. It's visual storytelling. |
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,282
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 27, 2023 10:07:04 GMT -5
Forbidden West coming to PC. Just waitin' on Ragnarok and Demon's Souls.
|
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 27, 2023 12:39:42 GMT -5
Should I kill Andre of Astora?
|
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,282
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 27, 2023 12:55:47 GMT -5
Should I kill Andre of Astora? The easy answer is: don't kill any non-hostile NPCs. Why would you even want to? Don't overthink the game. Don't kill things that don't want to kill you. |
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 27, 2023 12:57:11 GMT -5
Should I kill Andre of Astora? The easy answer is: don't kill any non-hostile NPCs. Why would you event want to? Don't over think the game. Don't kill things that don't want to kill you. Have you ever killed Andre of Astora? |
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,282
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 27, 2023 13:00:09 GMT -5
The easy answer is: don't kill any non-hostile NPCs. Why would you event want to? Don't over think the game. Don't kill things that don't want to kill you. Have you ever killed Andre of Astora? Of course not, but I know what happens. The game keeps going, and you can eventually find other ways to get good upgraded weapons, but like ... why? |
|
|
|
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 27, 2023 13:01:39 GMT -5
Have you ever killed Andre of Astora? Of course not, but I know what happens. The game keeps going, and you can eventually find other ways to get good upgraded weapons, but like ... why? Oh, so what happens isn’t a good thing? |
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,282
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 27, 2023 13:06:11 GMT -5
Of course not, but I know what happens. The game keeps going, and you can eventually find other ways to get good upgraded weapons, but like ... why? Oh, so what happens isn’t a good thing? No, I won't say unless you want me to. Don't want to spoil, but no what happens is a bad thing. You're punished by inconvenience, since Andre is the blacksmith. The weapon upgrade vendor. By far the most important merchant in the early game and arguably the entire game. |
|
