Chatterbox: Video Games

@Thnikkafan: Hardly, I'm talking in terms of content rather than how it looks. I really couldn't care less about photorealistic people at 60 FPS.

edited 21st Feb '15 11:48:07 AM by Naspah

@Thnikkafan: I think people are more concerned about the fact that large-scale JRP Gs in the grand tradition are not exactly typically expected on a phone.

(Also pardon me but I'm suddenly recalling I think it was your strong reaction against my use of the term "casual" in one other thread that had very little to do with a "casual"/"hardcore" distinction.)

edited 21st Feb '15 12:42:52 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

Tri Ace is at its best when it makes action RP Gs like Star Ocean or Lightning Returns. Those just do not work at all on phones. Hell unless it's a turn based RPG those types of games just do not work at all on a phone without a controller, it's why Fighting Games do not work on them too.

edited 21st Feb '15 2:50:42 PM by Memers

I could imagine fighting games working with gestures, actually.

Replaying old Zelda games (like, the first and second) makes me realize how bad the pacing of the old games was. I was thinking to how in the "good old days" of my childhood (1980s), games were simple to get into and out of, and they didn't waste time with tons of dialog and other stuff, but you just started playing immediately.

While I do still think modern games can learn a few things from the past when it comes to just hopping into the action and not having to worry about annoying stuff, playing Zelda 2 made me realize that the game is pretty much an endless stream of action. I spend so much more time in maze-like temples than doing anything else (likewise with the first Zelda), that I realize why pacing that splits up the action can definitely be a good thing, like exploring the towns and talking to people in, say, the 3D Zelda games.

While I still have the complaint that modern games break pacing and slow things down too much, there's something to be said for how they at least have you doing a bunch of different things so it's not the same experience all the time.

I did not care for the original Zelda at all. I understand being cryptic and letting the player figure out what to do on their own, but telling the player absolutely nothing is not the way to go about it.

I was 7 years old when I first played the original Legend of Zelda. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Mostly watching my older brother play it, but I played it through too. Bear in mind back then, we had magazines telling us all the secrets, or at least a lot of them.

I guess the game is a product of its time, then, in a really bad way.

Yup. I think there are old games that hold up pretty well, like Super Mario Bros. 2, but a lot of the more puzzly games don't.

Anyway, I was thinking more about the pacing of the old Zelda games. You spent most of your time in dungeons if you knew what to do, or wandering around lost and looking for stuff if you didn't. Personally, I wish the overworld and underworld had equal importance, or more on the overworld, myself.

Most of it was translation errors. The Japanese version wasn't as vague in most spots.

Does it ever hint that there's a dungeon around somewhere and how to get to it?

So I have to ask, how difficult is it to build a Gaming PC? The recent stuff with The Order 1886 has sort of soured my already low opinion of where console gaming is headed this gen.

It's not very hard, you'll need to be patient if you want the best deals on the parts though. Once you have them it's just a matter of putting it together, if you don't know how, there are plenty of guides around the internet.

Recently I've been thinking about the technical limitations that gave a game series something unique, like the fog in Silent Hill. I can't really think of anything else though.

edited 21st Feb '15 10:25:21 PM by Naspah

The one thing I don't like about the first Metroid game is that you have to bomb a specific floor tile in Norfair to get to Ridley's lair, and that tile is NOT indicated by any hints. Not even, say, a blank tile in that same column but further down. And you can't shoot the wave beam downward.

Aside from that, though, I think it works out.

Regarding good games on smartphones:

I don't often play JRP Gs, and I don't know Tri-Ace's work specifically, so I won't comment on the viability of their style of game on a smartphone.

However, I disagree with the general claim that "... it's impossible to make good games on [smartphones]": I think (and have found) that a game well-designed for the device can be very good indeed.

From my own experience, I have two examples:

First, The Room 2 (I haven't yet played the first game). It's a realtime-3D first-person puzzle game, with gameplay somewhat reminiscent of Myst: each area has a set of mysterious objects to manipulate and figure out, with completion of a room's puzzles allowing the player to progress. The puzzles aren't too difficult, but I found them fun and fair.

More to the point, however, I feel that the game makes excellent use of the touch-screen interface: aside from simple turning and zooming, the puzzles often involve more-or-less direct manipulation of objects by touch-dragging, resulting in interactions that feel very natural and intuitive; puzzle-elements move more or less as one would expect them to. For example, a key might be turned by dragging it around in a circular motion; a drawer might be slid open; a flap might lift up; and so on. This adds a degree of complexity and variety above what would be likely with a simple single-click interface, but without the obfuscation of adding discrete commands or the decreased immersion of dedicated puzzle-screens.

Second, I've been having a lot of fun with the Lone Wolf game (this one, to be specific; I believe that there is also a set of more-or-less direct conversions of the gamebook format, which I'm less interested in). The main of it is essentially a game-book, albeit one rather well-polished for the digital medium.

The combat, however, is another matter. Here I'll confess that I don't think that I read many of the Lone Wolf gamebooks, but I imagine that they were most likely similar to Fighting Fantasy: dice are rolled, values compared and numbers updated. The combat in this game is quite different, being a semi-turn-based (employing a "Combatant Cooldown System", specifically), tactical affair. I'm finding it both fun and challenging. (Although that challenge may just result from inexperience with such mechanics on my part! ^^; )

I'll confess that I have my differences with the combat system, but aside from one touch-region that sometimes moves a bit more than I'd like, those differences are not related to the fact that it's being played on a smartphone.

I know of at least one traditional JRPG that's designed to work with just touchscreen alone, and that's A Witch's Tale. I'm otherwise unfamiliar with it though.

edited 22nd Feb '15 10:37:45 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

Shut UP, Summerill.

Can I not battle you without you giving me five to twenty sentences about just how you intend to make me wish for death / submerge the world in DAAAAAAAAARRRKNESSSSSSSSSSS?

Bought an NES flashcart. I now own every single game for the system, all on a single cartridge. It's so cool being able to play these games on the original hardware.

The only problem is that I'm not sure what to play first, since I have over 800 titles to choose from (sure, Sturgeon's Law takes care of some of it, but still).

shatterhand and vice project doom. you'll thank me later.

I didnt have much time to play either, but holy cow, the first one is pretty much "save the world by punching" and the latter seems to be a cross between Spy Hunter and Ninja Gaiden.

Thank you.

I like to play Resident Evil 3 when it's rainy. I don't know why it just feels appropriate.

Odd question: I've been looking at a lot of sprite rips for the 2D Castlevania and Metroid games and I noticed that the backgrounds seem to include the floor and the walls. Does anyone know if the games used bitmapping for collision detection (or some of them; I'd guess it was more likely that the PS 1 Castlevanias used it than any of the Metroids), or if the "solid" parts were only defined by tiles?

edited 14th Mar '15 3:00:32 PM by Bisected8

I just played through Die Hard Arcade for the first time. Why is there no works page for it? But I'll give my thoughts here.

It's pretty fast and fun, and is over with quickly. Levels go by quickly and change ideas enough that I don't have time to get bored with them. The graphics are laughably bad, as it was made in 1996 and yet the Nintendo 64 console is noticeably more powerful and could easily have done better. Sound is ridiculous as well, with really dumb voice clips from everyone. Not a fan of the Press X to Not Die events, but whatever. They go by quickly, and the game doesn't rely on them, though there are maybe a little too many of them.

The whole "rescue the President's daughter" thing is getting really old. Cutscenes were cheesy, and super-brief. Music was forgettable, and I'm surprised it's by Howard Drossin, because he did some nice work on Sonic 3.

One problem I have with the game is its controls. The graphics are in 3D, but the game limits you to a 2D plane. Why? I can only use weapons in the direction of left or right, which took a while to get used to. I also don't like how your character can't turn around quickly. The Streets of Rage games had better character movement. However, this game has a greater variety of attack moves. I started to learn combos, like my favorite - the grab-kick-kick-jump-punch-punch-punch combo that lets you grab an enemy and pin them to the ground, beating on them. The attack move variety is great, and so are the many weapons you can pick up and use. Honestly, if it weren't for the clunkiness of the movement controls, I'd even call this a great arcade game. But the movement controls, combined with some cheap "made for the arcade" moments that kill you just to eat more quarters, take away from it.

Still, I can see why this is considered a Sega classic.

edited 15th Mar '15 8:03:28 PM by BonsaiForest

Can anyone help identify a game?

Unfortunately I don't remember that much of it, but...here's what I do remember:

• presentation format: 2D platformer (sprites)
• probably from the 16-bit era or earlier
• colorful and well-defined but relatively simple graphics (I think) (so probably late-8-bit or early-16-bit)
• probably a run-and-gun
• one of the stages involves going through a jungle or some woods. In this stage, you have to go into the water and swim underneath a barrier/wall/obstacle, to progress. This obstacle is long relative to your character, though not long relative to the size of the rest of the stage. You are moving to the right during this segment. I don't think this is the first stage of the game.
• the instance of this game that I saw was probably not on NES or SNES. I did not recognize it as either one, at least. I remember that the game system is a console (not handheld; this was played on a TV), and I didn't recognize the style of cartridge or the system machine. This was many years ago, though, when I was a kid.
• I think the instance I saw was untranslated and in Japanese.

edited 25th Mar '15 6:03:08 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

From Asuras Wrath Official Complete Works

the completed version of the space fortress in the game.

How big do you all think it is?