Video Game Discussion Thread vol. 2

[DoctaMario]

Sometimes I wonder if some of the old games I like are because I played them when they came out, because game design wasn't quite as "figured out" as it is now and bad design got more of a pass because of that, rather than because they're genuinely good games. Like, if I had to go back and play them for the first time today, would I still like them or would I think they were trash?

 

Games feel like classic books or albums in that way to me. Some of the titles regarded as "classics" make me wonder if you just had to be there, and if you weren't, it probably won't have the same impact. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by DoctaMario

[Lantis]

I think that is exactly what is happening to me right now playing Super Mario 64. For context purposes, in the mid 90's, I finally decided to ditch Nintendo consoles and go with the PSOne, so I never got a chance to play the N64 at launch but I did look at everyone raving over SM 64 as the pinnacle of 3D platforming, a pioneer, and looking and playing it now....I kinda don't see why. Precarious jumps that are hampered by touchy physics and shitty camera (like seriously I have a hard ass time adjusting that shit even with both options)? No thanks. I see why it could be considered the measuring stick for every 3D platformer afterwards, but man....

[MillionX]

man, even at the time, Super Mario 64 didn't really grab my attention... I knew there was no way it could top Super Mario Bros. 3 or World anyway, tbh.... also, I was fully on board the PlayStation hype train from day 1, so the n64 in general really stood no chance, at least with me.  PS1 was the undisputed champ of that era in gaming.

[Camacho]

52 minutes ago, Lantis said:

I think that is exactly what is happening to me right now playing Super Mario 64. For context purposes, in the mid 90's, I finally decided to ditch Nintendo consoles and go with the PSOne, so I never got a chance to play the N64 at launch but I did look at everyone raving over SM 64 as the pinnacle of 3D platforming, a pioneer, and looking and playing it now....I kinda don't see why. Precarious jumps that are hampered by touchy physics and shitty camera (like seriously I have a hard ass time adjusting that shit even with both options)? No thanks. I see why it could be considered the measuring stick for every 3D platformer afterwards, but man....

That's a good litmus test. I'm sure lots of people playing mega man 2, Mario 3 or Super Metroid for the first time today would love them if they have the patience/appetite for 2d games.  That's not a universal quality for what we think of as the classics- my favorite example being the old Sonic games, which I maintain fucking blow if you don't have heavy nostalgia blinders or a furry fetish. I have a hard time believing anyone in their 20's that gets into retro games would enjoy Sonic if they haven't had an interest built by cartoons or something. 

 

[Lantis]

I remember playing Sonic 1 not that long ago, and was hampered by the fact you couldn't go fast without risking rushing into a bottomless pit or some spikes at full speed. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of the character's gimmick eh?

 

But then again Sonic fans start counting from 2 anyway so probably that's on me.

[Hawkingbird]

Just now, Lantis said:

I remember playing Sonic 1 not that long ago, and was hampered by the fact you couldn't go fast without risking rushing into a bottomless pit or some spikes at full speed. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of the character's gimmick eh?

 

But then again Sonic fans start counting from 2 anyway so probably that's on me.

In Sonic 1 going fast is only viable in Green Hill and Starlight. It's a standard platformer otherwise. Sonic 2 is when speed was built into the series heavily

[Chadouken]

I remember playing SM64 back when I first got the N64 and it blew my fucking mind. If Nintendo would release it with a free roaming camera it would still hold up today. That's the only thing that makes it not have aged as well as it could have.

[MillionX]

yeah I wouldn't be interested in playing the first Sonic game ever again, most likely... the real quality was in that 2nd game.  Sonic 2 is the legend...it surpassed the original in every way.  The spin-dash was simple, yet such a huge addition to the gameplay of the series from that point forward... it would also be the debut of Tails, and if I recall, the first time Sonic has the Super form.

 

...but some random shit--->"Crapweasel" is such a funny term to me; I should make a character of that.... that might be the next Mii character right there.

[Sonichuman]

13 minutes ago, Chadouken said:

I remember playing SM64 back when I first got the N64 and it blew my fucking mind. If Nintendo would release it with a free roaming camera it would still hold up today. That's the only thing that makes it not have aged as well as it could have.

A more modern camera would being SM64 up to date and that's really the only major flaw that came with age (mechanically...not graphically) that game has.  SM64 at the time was revolutionary for it's camera work and 3D platforming and a lot of 3d platforms owe their DNA from that game.  It's just that the camera system has aged horribly now since that games release since everything else has iterated and improved on it mostly through just natural progression in control features ( C buttons being replaced with another analog) .  Same thing with Goldeneye.  Goldeneye is still mechanically a great game that age just hasn't been kind towards.  If the original got it's frame rate fixed, graphics updated, and you were now able to use the analog stick instead of the C buttons to aim and strafe then I think people who never played the game would be able to see why that game held a spot in so many peoples memories.  Chances of that game ever getting updated though are slim despite the trademark showing up this year.

[Lantis]

Didn't Golden Eye get a remake back in 2010?

[iStu X]

 

[Sonichuman]

5 minutes ago, Lantis said:

Didn't Golden Eye get a remake back in 2010?

It was completely remade and different.  It used Daniel Craig instead of Pierce Brosnan and some of the stages were the same but the layout and a lot of the things you did in the game were completely dif.  I'd probably say percentage wise that game was like 90% new.  Follows a lot of the story beats but it was different.  The actual Goldeneye N64 game has never been remade or updated officially.  Only fan stuff.

 

Edit:  To even add more to this despite the new Goldeneye's release some people didn't like the fact that it wasn't anywhere near a 1 :1 remake of the orginal.  I remember working at GS and trying to tell people that the game was still good but people were still either disappointed in that when they found out and some didn't want to even bother giving the game a shot.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Sonichuman

[RSG3]

I think a decent amount of not being able to understand why a game like Mario64 is considered so amazing generally boils down to a lack of research about what the market was like at the time (for anyone who didnt grow uo in it i mean.) Think about what other 3D Platformers released in that time frame. All the ones before M64 really suck and usually aren't actually 3D but 2.5 and do bad leveraging of it to boot. Crash Bandicoot 1 was the same year as Mario 64 and while awesome doesn't do the environment Mario 64 does. It's a smaller game with most of its levels being side scrollers anyway, otherwise it's just tunnels. The first 3D Platformer i can think of off the top to really rival Mario 64 was Spyro The Dragon and that's a whole 2 years later in 98. Same with Banjo-Kazooie, that's 1998. 

 

I can't think of one single 3D platformer in 96 that delivered the quality of experience on the new expensive hardware like Mario 64 did. Is there something I'm not thinking of?

Edited December 22, 2021 by RSG3

[DoctaMario]

55 minutes ago, Chadouken said:

I remember playing SM64 back when I first got the N64 and it blew my fucking mind. If Nintendo would release it with a free roaming camera it would still hold up today. That's the only thing that makes it not have aged as well as it could have.

Free roaming 3d cameras still aren't the best they could possibly be to this day. People would shit on the Castlevania N64 games for the camera, yet Soulsborne camera shits itself if you get your back too close to a wall or if you're fighting a boss much bigger than a humanoid. If there's one thing I'd like to see get improved more than anything, it's free roaming 3d cameras. Maybe there are games that do them spectacularly, but if so, I haven't played them. 

[RSG3]

12 minutes ago, DoctaMario said:

Free roaming 3d cameras still aren't the best they could possibly be to this day. People would shit on the Castlevania N64 games for the camera, yet Soulsborne camera shits itself if you get your back too close to a wall or if you're fighting a boss much bigger than a humanoid. If there's one thing I'd like to see get improved more than anything, it's free roaming 3d cameras. Maybe there are games that do them spectacularly, but if so, I haven't played them. 

The Demons Souls remake found a decent solution to this problem. When the camera gets jammed up against the player the player becomes transparent. It's a pretty good solution. Doesn't fix every problem but then I am generally of the opinion that a lot of what people call camera problems I consider the inherent gamey nature of a "camera" be it 2D or 3D. 

 

I think Ninja Gaiden Black has one of the best 3D cameras anyone could ever ask for but a lot of people call it crap. I just think they tend to not be good at using it. People seem to think the view space of the game should be automatic, not something they have to deal with and I disagree in most cases. 

 

Generally the solution for those kinds of people is just zoom the camera out like they do in the Arkham games, or shit Wonder 101s is basically always out. Works great for W101 but in a lot of games I'm not much a fan. Like sometimes the cam in Bayonetta is zoomed out so far i cant see the cool shit im doing which is like 60% of the point of even playing that game. 

 

My personal opinion is I know how to use a camera and I know how to learn to not put myself in the shit situations that make the Camera a problem (90% of the time) and I just don't feel like I need the game to babysit the camera for me all the time. I play without the lock on in Souls games a lot because you have more visual control that way. 

 

Now excuse me while I go play DMC1 where they bolted the camera to the wall and told you to deal with it lol. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by RSG3

[Chadouken]

11 minutes ago, DoctaMario said:

Maybe there are games that do them spectacularly, but if so, I haven't played them. 

Odyssey's was decent. And BotW. I think Ghost of Tsushima has a good camera, and Destiny while in 3rd person is amazing.

[Sonichuman]

13 minutes ago, RSG3 said:

I think a decent amount of not being able to understand why a game like Mario64 is considered so amazing generally boils down to a lack of research about what the market was like at the time (for anyone who didnt grow uo in it i mean.) Think about what other 3D Platformers released in that time frame. All the ones before M64 really suck and usually aren't actually 3D but 2.5 and do bad leveraging of it to boot. Crash Bandicoot 1 was the same year as Mario 64 and while awesome doesn't do the environment Mario 64 does. It's a smaller game with most of its levels being side scrollers anyway, otherwise it's just tunnels. The first 3D Platformer i can think of off the top to really rival Mario 64 was Spyro The Dragon and that's a whole 2 years later in 98. Same with Banjo-Kazooie, that's 1998. 

 

I can't think of one single 3D platformer in 96 that delivered the quality of experience on the new expensive hardware like Mario 64 did. Is there something I'm not thinking of?

I'm looking at the list of games that released in 1996 (only do that if you want to feel yourself age instantly)  and the only thing in the list that might be close is Pilotwings but my time with that game was extremely limited and from what I remember I don't think the camera system allowed you to really move around the character from different angles.  Nothing else from what I'm looking at this that year is doing camera work like SM64 was doing.  Tomb Raider 1, Star Wars Shadows of the Empire, RE 1, Crash 1 Bubsy 3d (lol)...yeah I'm not really seeing anything here.

[RSG3]

9 minutes ago, Sonichuman said:

(only do that if you want to feel yourself age instantly)

Too late. The very nature of this convo makes me feel ancient lol. 

 

Edit: I also think one of the natural aspects of being revolutionary at something is the fact everyone's gonna gank your ideas to the point that it becomes common practice and no one will be able to appreciate your forsight down the road. 

 

It's like when people call Sienfeld cliche, you know?

Edited December 22, 2021 by RSG3

[iStu X]

4 hours ago, Sonichuman said:

Saw a rumor for this awhile a go, looks like it panned out.

 

I’ve always been confused about this release. What is this exactly? Is it a remake? Or like, an abridged of the entire series? I’ve never played any of the Hack games so I have no fucking clue 

[purbeast]

3 hours ago, Chadouken said:

I remember playing SM64 back when I first got the N64 and it blew my fucking mind. If Nintendo would release it with a free roaming camera it would still hold up today. That's the only thing that makes it not have aged as well as it could have.

Yup same.  Mario 64 is why I got my first job.  So I could buy an N64 and Mario 64 at launch.  Also bought Pilot Wings.

 

I would take the bus to Toys R Us a couple times a week to play the display N64's with Mario 64 that they had out like a month before it was released. 

 

It was simply incredible at the time.  And as you mentioned, if it had a free roaming camera, it would hold up just fine today.  Back then we only had 1 analog stick, and even that was new on the N64 controller, so there was no way to use one to control a camera.  The C buttons worked just fine back then.

 

Most games that come out now a days don't even hold a candle to the music in Mario 64 either.  

Edited December 22, 2021 by purbeast

[Sonichuman]

I took a look into 1997 out of curiosity and doesn't look like there is reallt anything that year with either...Croc?  Blast Corps allowed camera movement around your character but I believe it was at a set distance IIRC.  Actually I don't even really need to look at anything in 97 cause I just looked up when the first dual shock was released and that was 11/20/1997.  So there wasn't anything on Playstation before then to even account for that.

[DoctaMario]

2 hours ago, RSG3 said:

The Demons Souls remake found a decent solution to this problem. When the camera gets jammed up against the player the player becomes transparent. It's a pretty good solution. Doesn't fix every problem but then I am generally of the opinion that a lot of what people call camera problems I consider the inherent gamey nature of a "camera" be it 2D or 3D. 

 

I think Ninja Gaiden Black has one of the best 3D cameras anyone could ever ask for but a lot of people call it crap. I just think they tend to not be good at using it. People seem to think the view space of the game should be automatic, not something they have to deal with and I disagree in most cases. 

 

Generally the solution for those kinds of people is just zoom the camera out like they do in the Arkham games, or shit Wonder 101s is basically always out. Works great for W101 but in a lot of games I'm not much a fan. Like sometimes the cam in Bayonetta is zoomed out so far i cant see the cool shit im doing which is like 60% of the point of even playing that game. 

 

My personal opinion is I know how to use a camera and I know how to learn to not put myself in the shit situations that make the Camera a problem (90% of the time) and I just don't feel like I need the game to babysit the camera for me all the time. I play without the lock on in Souls games a lot because you have more visual control that way. 

 

Now excuse me while I go play DMC1 where they bolted the camera to the wall and told you to deal with it lol. 

Interesting RE Demons Souls camera. I feel like I can't really use the lock on in Bloodborne when I'm fighting a beast boss because it makes it really hard to see things, but some of them are so fast (Hot Dog for one) that you almost need to. I never really got into the newer Ninja Gaiden games but the collection is on sale, maybe I'll check out this camera lol

 

While I get why people didn't like how DMC1 or Lament Of Innocence had the "bolt on" cameras, I didn't think those were bad solutions and LoI was a much better looking game than Curse Of Darkness because of it. 

[DoctaMario]

2 hours ago, Chadouken said:

Odyssey's was decent. And BotW. I think Ghost of Tsushima has a good camera, and Destiny while in 3rd person is amazing.

I still need to get GoT. My damn backlog is getting bigger and bigger 😩 What did they do camera wise in that game that made it so good? 

Edited December 22, 2021 by DoctaMario

[purbeast]

7 minutes ago, Sonichuman said:

I took a look into 1997 out of curiosity and doesn't look like there is reallt anything that year with either...Croc?  Blast Corps allowed camera movement around your character but I believe it was at a set distance IIRC.  Actually I don't even really need to look at anything in 97 cause I just looked up when the first dual shock was released and that was 11/20/1997.  So there wasn't anything on Playstation before then to even account for that.

If I recall, Ape Escape was the first game that utilized the dual sticks on PSX.  I don't think it was even called Dual Shock at the time because it didn't even have rumble in it at the time.  Think it was just Dual Analog or something.

Edited December 22, 2021 by purbeast

[Chadouken]

4 minutes ago, DoctaMario said:

What did they do camera wise in that game that made it so good? 

Can't really remember honestly, which is a good thing 😂

 

I know you have the option to lock on enemies or not though.

[RSG3]

11 minutes ago, DoctaMario said:

I never really got into the newer Ninja Gaiden games but the collection is on sale, maybe I'll check out this camera lol

Whoa whoa haha i very specifically said Ninja Gaiden Black lol. 

 

11 minutes ago, DoctaMario said:

While I get why people didn't like how DMC1 or Lament Of Innocence had the "bolt on" cameras, I didn't think those were bad solutions and LoI was a much better looking game than Curse Of Darkness because of it. 

I also think the "bolt on" camera is fine to, it just requires intelligent placement of said camera. Capcom was generally on point with it to. 

 

Also Lament of really under rated. They should have built on it instead of trying to do Symphony in 3D tho I get why they tried. 

[Sonichuman]

8 minutes ago, purbeast said:

If I recall, Ape Escape was the first game that utilized the dual sticks on PSX.  I don't think it was even called Dual Shock at the time because it didn't even have rumble in it at the time.  Think it was just Dual Analog or something.

You are actually correct my man.  I had to relook it up cause it looks like the dual analog came out april 25th in Japan with Tobal 2 and Bushido Blade.

 

 

[purbeast]

Just now, Sonichuman said:

You are actually correct my man.  I had to relook it up cause it looks like the dual analog came out april 25th in Japan with Tobal 2 and Bushido Blade.

 

 

Tobal No 2 was fucking AWESOME.  Loved that game.

[Camacho]

3 hours ago, DoctaMario said:

Free roaming 3d cameras still aren't the best they could possibly be to this day. People would shit on the Castlevania N64 games for the camera, yet Soulsborne camera shits itself if you get your back too close to a wall or if you're fighting a boss much bigger than a humanoid. If there's one thing I'd like to see get improved more than anything, it's free roaming 3d cameras. Maybe there are games that do them spectacularly, but if so, I haven't played them. 

I have played a lot of 3rd person games where the camera was fine- From's certainly aren't among them. Sekiro's camera has been their best, but even that one sucks ass in tight quarters (Lone Shadow Longswordsman anyone?). 

[Hecatom]

3 hours ago, RSG3 said:

I think a decent amount of not being able to understand why a game like Mario64 is considered so amazing generally boils down to a lack of research about what the market was like at the time (for anyone who didnt grow uo in it i mean.) Think about what other 3D Platformers released in that time frame. All the ones before M64 really suck and usually aren't actually 3D but 2.5 and do bad leveraging of it to boot. Crash Bandicoot 1 was the same year as Mario 64 and while awesome doesn't do the environment Mario 64 does. It's a smaller game with most of its levels being side scrollers anyway, otherwise it's just tunnels. The first 3D Platformer i can think of off the top to really rival Mario 64 was Spyro The Dragon and that's a whole 2 years later in 98. Same with Banjo-Kazooie, that's 1998. 

 

I can't think of one single 3D platformer in 96 that delivered the quality of experience on the new expensive hardware like Mario 64 did. Is there something I'm not thinking of?

As someone who gre up during the timeframe, i never really liked Mario 64.

I think that it laid off the basis of what platform collectatons where going to be, and for that it was important, but it wasn't my cup of tea.

 

I actually preferred the corridor/2.5d thing that Crash was doing because it worked more than what Mario 64 was doing, for me at least, if i had to put it in words, i would say that for me Crash still felt like a platformer, while MArio 64 was heading into a different direction.

 

And seeing both games with modern lenses, we can see that Crash still pass the test of time, while Mario 64 not so much 😅

[RSG3]

4 minutes ago, Hecatom said:

As someone who gre up during the timeframe, i never really liked Mario 64.

I think that it laid off the basis of what platform collectatons where going to be, and for that it was important, but it wasn't my cup of tea.

I'm not that big a fan of 3D Mario in general. None of them are my favorite Mario games. 

 

And no I don't really agree about Crash 1 passing the test of time. I agree with Sonic and the others. Add a 3D camera to Mario 64 and it becomes a really modern game. Crash 1 still plays like a really old, slippery early PS1 game where distance is hard to judge often and the stage ideas eventually start to wear a bit thin. Kinda like Sonic, Crashs next two outings are much better. 

 

Imo anyway. 

[Hecatom]

17 hours ago, Sonichuman said:

MBTL Next Char vid

  Hide contents

 

 

 

I knew she was going to be the next character.

It was so obvious from the Visual novel stand point, plus, also because she is a heavy spoiler for Ciel's route, which imo, it was the reason why no dlc chars or season pass was announced, they are trying to not spoil the visual novel after all.

 

I think that outside Satsuki, the season pass of TL would be mostly if not only compromised of the new chars of the Tsukihime Remake, since the story and most of the cast is very different from the original one.

 

Now, what i didn't realize with the VN was that her Dead Aposttle form looks younger than her human form.

After all, Noel in the VN is posing as a new teacher for Ciel and Shiki.

 

[nickmanx5]

1 hour ago, iStu X said:

I’ve always been confused about this release. What is this exactly? Is it a remake? Or like, an abridged of the entire series? I’ve never played any of the Hack games so I have no fucking clue 

last recode is a collection of the gu series and a bonus episode the gameplay has been speed up and its a pretty decent dungeon crawler.

[DoctaMario]

34 minutes ago, RSG3 said:

Whoa whoa haha i very specifically said Ninja Gaiden Black lol. 

 

I also think the "bolt on" camera is fine to, it just requires intelligent placement of said camera. Capcom was generally on point with it to. 

 

Also Lament of really under rated. They should have built on it instead of trying to do Symphony in 3D tho I get why they tried. 

Is Black in the collection? I have it on my wishlist mainly because Sonicabid has talked it up so much but I honestly don't know much about the series beyond the time I tried to play it at a buddy's and it just didn't click. But that was the first game. 

 

Curse of Darkness actually has a lot of really good things going on with it. The steal system is cool, the bosses are fantastic, the weapons and crafting system are pretty cool, even the Pokemon mechanics are fun. Wish the level design wasn't so bloody fucking awful. 

[RSG3]

1 minute ago, DoctaMario said:

Is Black in the collection?

It is not. That collection only has the Sigma Editions. 

[Camacho]

2 hours ago, DoctaMario said:

Curse of Darkness actually has a lot of really good things going on with it. The steal system is cool, the bosses are fantastic, the weapons and crafting system are pretty cool, even the Pokemon mechanics are fun. Wish the level design wasn't so bloody fucking awful. 

You left out the best part of CoD- the music. Might be my favorite Yamane OST. It woudl have been great if Konami had nabbed someone from Capcom to do the level design after LoI's issues.

 

Back to the camera topic, OoT was the first time I felt a 3rd person camera was done well. 

[Chadouken]

I always thought Street Fighter II had a decent camera.

[iStu X]

1 hour ago, Chadouken said:

I always thought Street Fighter EX2 had a decent camera.

Me too bro. 

[DoctaMario]

1 hour ago, Camacho said:

You left out the best part of CoD- the music. Might be my favorite Yamane OST. It woudl have been great if Konami had nabbed someone from Capcom to do the level design after LoI's issues.

 

Back to the camera topic, OoT was the first time I felt a 3rd person camera was done well. 

To be honest I only finished CoD once so I can't remember a lot of the OST. Started it a couple more times, even wrote a Trevor Mode FAQ, but could never bring myself to finish it more than the once. LoI had one of my favorite osts in the series though. 

 

It was a legit bummer that the level design in CoD was even worse than it was in LoI after all the shit they got about that game's levels being bad. I can't even wrap my head around that at all. Both games had excellent atmosphere although being able to freely rotate the camera in CoD made it seem a little like a movie set, but it was still good. I'd love to see someone do hacks of those games and keep everything but the levels the same. 

[Sonichuman]

 

[RSG3]

4 hours ago, Camacho said:

You left out the best part of CoD- the music. Might be my favorite Yamane OST. It woudl have been great if Konami had nabbed someone from Capcom to do the level design after LoI's issues.

 

Back to the camera topic, OoT was the first time I felt a 3rd person camera was done well. 

That's because it goes without saying. Every Yamane OST is a banger. 

[Sonichuman]

Nintendo of Australia joins in at poking fun at Jaffe

Jaffe responded...he's still refusing to hold the L

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Sonichuman

[RSG3]

They are taking the piss you goofy fuck lol

[Sonichuman]

Horizon Forbidden West will be nearly 100GB without the Day One Patch

 

[Jurassic]

 

[AriesWarlock]

 

 

20 hours ago, DoctaMario said:

I never really got into the newer Ninja Gaiden games

 

Come on, bruh!! At least play the first game in the collection.

[RSG3]

54 minutes ago, AriesWarlock said:

 

Nope. I don't like this. This is too close. 

[iStu X]

Jaffe is a fucking loser but you know he’s just dragging it along because it makes him “relevant”

[Wellman]

3 hours ago, iStu X said:

Jaffe is a fucking loser but you know he’s just dragging it along because it makes him “relevant”

At this point everyone is laughing so it is all good. 

[AriesWarlock]

Free Vampyr PC Game Download

 

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/vampyr