Aaaaaand another game that I started goes on pause...
Community MetaSteam | September 2024 - The emperor protects, BOY!
- Thread starter Mor
- Start date
- Status
Aaaaaand another game that I started goes on pause...
Yeah the argument that companies know what they are doing is BS grade 1
If that was the case than Consoles wouldn't be stagnant. Or Xbox wouldn't be dead, or Nintendo wouldn't have the WiiU, or Sony wouldn't go full into cinematic 3rd person action SP games in PS4 times and being Pikachu faced when it is unsustainable in PS5 times and their GaaS initiative such a misfire.
Oh and EA, Ubisoft and Epic trying to half ass their own stores.
This is it. I will believe they're pulling it off
One interesting thing, is that games take so long to make now, that by the time they come out, all the internal data that they have is totally out of date (even if the original data was accurate), and interests may have shifted completely..
Finished
After the first one that was cute, but uninspired and a bit empty beside the great dungeons, it's good to see a follow up that improves so much. It keeps the nice dungeons and make them less linear and a bit more like pre-1998 Zelda (when a lot of them really started to be a long corridor - which is not always a problem, but made some games like TP a bit dull) forcing you to look around for the way to go, but with the slight downside of making bosses easier and mechanically a bit more limited. They did put at least two of them per dungeon, at least? The item list is much larger, too, even if it's all really Zelda, including an instrument to play different songs... and one of them even calls your horse (or pig, if you so choose). Bit on the nose.
The real winner is the game world which is far more interesting, with tons of hidden chests, cave puzzles, and even mini dungeons of a few rooms each... even the map chunks are better and more linked together with frequent secrets hidden if you look around. And it's not only for heart/magic pieces too, the game has multiple collection side quests rewarding melee skills or the magic medallions like the original handed over too easily for little work.
They also thankfully changed the potion system that now works like empty bottles in Zelda (although you still have too many for the game to be really challenging) instead of a stackable consumable... no more finishing the game with 50 potions of "I win". It also means there's tons of materials to pick up on the ground or from enemies to make said potions, but also to complete little side quests, and it does help a bit when you go from "get 20 of the 1 kill item that drops on everything in the area" to "get different seashells, one of them is only on beaches", little changes that help recontextualize and add much needed variety. They also added fishing, and... yeah that one is a bit annoying (and weirdly story relevant), but it's not in the way.
Really enjoyable Zelda clone, one of the really good ones on Steam. If you're not looking for more than a pure Zelda clone, because it sure isn't trying to be anything else...
After the first one that was cute, but uninspired and a bit empty beside the great dungeons, it's good to see a follow up that improves so much. It keeps the nice dungeons and make them less linear and a bit more like pre-1998 Zelda (when a lot of them really started to be a long corridor - which is not always a problem, but made some games like TP a bit dull) forcing you to look around for the way to go, but with the slight downside of making bosses easier and mechanically a bit more limited. They did put at least two of them per dungeon, at least? The item list is much larger, too, even if it's all really Zelda, including an instrument to play different songs... and one of them even calls your horse (or pig, if you so choose). Bit on the nose.
The real winner is the game world which is far more interesting, with tons of hidden chests, cave puzzles, and even mini dungeons of a few rooms each... even the map chunks are better and more linked together with frequent secrets hidden if you look around. And it's not only for heart/magic pieces too, the game has multiple collection side quests rewarding melee skills or the magic medallions like the original handed over too easily for little work.
They also thankfully changed the potion system that now works like empty bottles in Zelda (although you still have too many for the game to be really challenging) instead of a stackable consumable... no more finishing the game with 50 potions of "I win". It also means there's tons of materials to pick up on the ground or from enemies to make said potions, but also to complete little side quests, and it does help a bit when you go from "get 20 of the 1 kill item that drops on everything in the area" to "get different seashells, one of them is only on beaches", little changes that help recontextualize and add much needed variety. They also added fishing, and... yeah that one is a bit annoying (and weirdly story relevant), but it's not in the way.
Really enjoyable Zelda clone, one of the really good ones on Steam. If you're not looking for more than a pure Zelda clone, because it sure isn't trying to be anything else...
Remember that Finish duo who've been actively working on the survival sim UnReal World for the past 32 years?
1/2 of that duo just dropped the family management sim, Ancient Savo. Feels just as gritty & charming as URW.
Not for the feint of heart but gd is it a true gem for fans of scrappy garage-devs.
I loves me some passionate folk-art in digital form.
Arch Linux and Valve Collaboration - Arch-dev-public - lists.archlinux.org
lists.archlinux.org
Then what was the fucking point of making a big deal out of announcing this? lmao
I mean, I'm sure the big push they've been giving the series is because they have a new one on the way and they kinda needed to rebuild the audience. But come on now...
Discussion - Should I buy a Steam Deck or a Switch?
I want to buy a handheld console to play games while lying down. The Switch has some exclusive games, but I often play indie games like Darkchaser:Battletide and Astral Ascent, which are not available on Switch, so it seems that the Steam Deck might be more useful for me?
metacouncil.com
So just looking ahead to February...
Civilization 7 is coming on 11th February
Kingdom Come 2 11th February
Assassin's Creed Shadows 14th February
Avowed 18th February
Monster Hunter 28th February
Pirate Yakuza 28th February
Some of these games are kind of fucked right? I feel like Monster Hunter and Civilization will be fine and everything else will get suppressed.
Civilization 7 is coming on 11th February
Kingdom Come 2 11th February
Assassin's Creed Shadows 14th February
Avowed 18th February
Monster Hunter 28th February
Pirate Yakuza 28th February
Some of these games are kind of fucked right? I feel like Monster Hunter and Civilization will be fine and everything else will get suppressed.
It’s a bit of a shame that Hopoo are on Deadlock when they are such a creative team. But I guess/would hope they knew full well what they would be doing when they jumped over to Valve.
on a completely unrelated note, anybody want To drop me an invite…
on a completely unrelated note, anybody want To drop me an invite…
Which games have great mysteries in them?
Be it in story or puzzle or level design?
Be it in story or puzzle or level design?
Avowed is definitely at risk here. Especially since its on Gamepass. Most will overlook it unless it reviews really well.
I feel like AssCreed and Civ7 will be better (more complete) 6 months after release with expansions, patches and discounts.
Kingdom Come 2 also feels like one of those games that will drop in price fast too.
Monster Hunter will devour everything tho. Most of those games are lucky its the end of the month for MH so there is still some breathing room.
But people only have so much money so the popular co-op game will likely get the $$$ in Feb.
Assassin's creed is bigger than every game on that list with the exception of maybe monster hunter. As bad as valhalla was they made well over a billion dollars from it, the IP is huge.
Avowed is turbo fucked tbh.
Resident Evil x Stellar Blade?
This looks cool.
This looks interesting.
This looks hilarious!
Last edited:
Phil should just delay Avowed again. All those Feb games are very long too. People will be playing them for 50+hrs and some much longer like Civ.
Or maybe smarter to move it up for a January release if its ready.
Obsidian games are never big sellers so they need to find a good release window so more eyes are on them.
Or maybe smarter to move it up for a January release if its ready.
Obsidian games are never big sellers so they need to find a good release window so more eyes are on them.
Avowed is the only game on that list I'm interested in playing close to release.
Civ will only get civ packs for the first year or so. The first expansion won't come out till 2026 I'd imagine. So while you're right that the game will get better over time, people who want to play Civ will play it at launch. I just had a look and Civ 6 launched with a peak CCU of 160k 8 years ago. I'm expecting Civ 7 to start at 250-300k if the game looks good to people. Personally I'm going to buy it for sure but I'm definitely not sold on the idea of era resets. I have no idea why it's supposed to be a good idea and it sort of feels like a change for the sake of making a change.
Monster Hunter I would have said will cross a million CCU at launch but the system specs they've released and whatever we know about the performance of the game so far might hinder that. Hopefully they'll do a demo and it can run well on midrange/median systems as well. I'm actually quite disappointed that it has no hope of running well on the Deck. More than I should be since I'll be able to play it fine on my desktop. Just assumed I'd put a ton of hours into the game on the Deck.
AC for sure is a huge franchise and it'll do really well on consoles. All the other games I listed will sort of skew towards PC though (except probably Yakuza) so the competition on the PC side of things will affect it's sales. But returning to Steam will also boost it's sales considerably so we'll have to see how it all plays out.
Decided to replay RE2R immediately followed by Sherry's campaign in RE6. I can't believe they still haven't made a game that reunites these 2, blows my mind.
Regarding Metaphor, it's indeed a great game, I hope they patch it fast. The demo definitely left me wanting more. If they could have a hotfix for launch day that would be great.
Regarding Metaphor, it's indeed a great game, I hope they patch it fast. The demo definitely left me wanting more. If they could have a hotfix for launch day that would be great.
Last edited:
I'm not defending them, I agree that they need to fix the game. Just that Sega's outsourcing history for ports have been extremely mediocre outside of Lab42 (that did the Yakuza 0 and Kiwami ports). Catherine Classic never got fully fixed, and the other Yakuza ports are a mixed bag (Like Kiwami 2 and Y6). Valkyria Chronicles had some issues that weren't patched, and Vanquish was a hell of a lot better quality wise than the Bayonetta port.
It's pretty bad for something being sold for $70, just the bar is so low for Japanese ports and translations in general. The general track record seems to be dumping a rushed port onto Steam and then promptly abandoning it.
I'm mainly saying that this is a good learning experience for them.
Reinstalled The Sims 4 and the game has like events with quests now? Bruh
Even this point I don't agree with. Games end up this bad, not because the devs doing the porting are dumb dumbs who don't know how PC work, at least that seems kinda silly to me. Given the evidence, it seems pretty clear that what happens is that they ( the devs doing the porting) aren't given the resources and time they need to make a quality work. How much time and resources depends on the project in question. If indeed this is someone's first PC game rodeo, then it's obviously a dumb idea not to have some veterans who at least help as external partners.
Look at how KT keeps porting shitty PC ports for literally over a decade now. I love the Atelier games, but it's absolutely insane that Atelier Ayesha, just like all three Atelier Arland games before them, has 1 second lags when you open up the "wrong" menus.
It's extremely good. If you want to be reductive, it is just Persona 5 with a fantasy skin, but it makes a bunch of small improvements to the formula that I'm left wanting more.
Big Persona Fan but have not looked at this game at all
It's extremely good. If you want to be reductive, it is just Persona 5 with a fantasy skin, but it makes a bunch of small improvements to the formula that I'm left wanting more.
has it social events? And all the other milestones that makes Persona... Persona?
Or is the "Persona with a fantasy skin" just about the setting and combat like Persona Dancing was "persona as a dance game" that was nothing like a persona game.
It is literally Persona 6
It shares many of the hallmarks of Persona games ala social links, social stats and a calendar system. There is more emphasis on dungeon crawling compared to Persona as the demo has three dungeons (with an optional 4th dungeon that was extremely hard and I couldn't finish in time as the demo ends 3 days after the prologue).
In as many words, yeah.
Kiwami 2 and Yakuza 6 were even by a pretty well known porting studio too (qloc), so hiring a reputable porting studio doesn't guarantee the end products ends up with no issues. At least the in-house Like a Dragon PC versions have been fine.
From the Atlus side, they've been experimenting with Unreal Engine, maybe Metaphor will be the last one in the old engine?
Premise is in a fantasy world (but also real world? Can't say right now). That's a huge upgrade from Persona imo.
I recently came across an image of a popular upcoming game and I'd like to reopen the whole 'bad UI' can of worms that was popular earlier in the year when suicide squad released. I still maintain my opinion that game's UI wasn't worse than 90% of any other game's UI but that's besides the point now (or is it?...).
The image in question:
So, is this good UI design?
I know it's a turn based game but still... how can anyone glance a this and be instantly informed of what's going on or what options the player has? I'll give it points for style but from a usability standpoint, perhaps the single most important metric of an UI, it seems rubbish. I can barely read the text, the fonts and color palette choices are questionable at best, the HP/Mana indicators are so miniscule they might as well not even exist, etc... Honestly it's a mess or maybe I'm just getting old and my eyes are failing me (which really isn't a maybe at this point...)
But I'd love to hear the opinions of those actually interested in the game.
The image in question:
So, is this good UI design?
I know it's a turn based game but still... how can anyone glance a this and be instantly informed of what's going on or what options the player has? I'll give it points for style but from a usability standpoint, perhaps the single most important metric of an UI, it seems rubbish. I can barely read the text, the fonts and color palette choices are questionable at best, the HP/Mana indicators are so miniscule they might as well not even exist, etc... Honestly it's a mess or maybe I'm just getting old and my eyes are failing me (which really isn't a maybe at this point...)
But I'd love to hear the opinions of those actually interested in the game.
By the way:
www.gog.com
If you don't want it on steam the Legacy of kain remaster is going to be on GOG as well
Legacy of Kain™ Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered
Celebrate Soul Reaver’s 25th Anniversary Experience the epic conflict of Kain and Razi
If you don't want it on steam the Legacy of kain remaster is going to be on GOG as well
It's mostly just bonkers UI design. Metaphor, at every possible point, goes for the loudest, most maximalist design choice possible. It's not simply "hard to read", it's loud to the point of screaming in your head.
The strange thing with their overall artstyle is that I think the only way you can enjoy this, is on a 4K screen, with maybe 150% resolution scale, or there about. With some mods, I can get it to run mostly at 30 on the Deck, but it looks so bad on a 800p screen, because of how overly busy the UI is. Even if this releases on the Switch 2, it won't be a good experience, unless you play docked on a larger screen.
As for your question: it's probably a terrible choice, but on some level I also respect the artistic vision here. It's like you are walking around in a super dense Hieronymus Bosch painting, with the UI adding to that visual madness, without simplifying anything.
It looks a lot like later Personas, just twisting the art style. It seems fine to me. It tells you what each button will do pretty specifically, presumably you do need to play a tutorial to get the combat rules/abilities and what not but even without that you can sort of guess what's going to be possible just by that image alone already. I prefer that to something like SMTV's which lacks any character and could have been from any other game, they should have themed it accordingly. I don't really get the proposed issue, it seems like something you don't even need to read after you get the hang of it and just head straight for the skill/sub menu/option you need, pausing or cancelling if those enable additional information (ie success % of a chosen skill on the given enemy if that's transparent) so I don't think the text should be even bigger to be more easily readable (color wise it seems fine, black text on white bg, white text on that purple, whatever). I suppose making size an adjustable % could work but with all that extra flair it's probably not easy to make it a user option without messing it up.
Last edited:
In having a headache trying to understand where to start with Atelier, any help?Many KT games which haven't been discounted for months or YEARS are on sale.
If you can stomach the early PS3 vibes, I'd recommend RoronaIn having a headache trying to understand where to start with Atelier, any help?
There are lots of individual series in the franchise, and for each of them you can start at its beginning.In having a headache trying to understand where to start with Atelier, any help?
The beginning of the "Arland" series is Atelier Rorona
The beginning of the "Dusk" series is Atelier Ayesha
The beginning of the "Mysterious" series is Atelier Sophie
The beginning of the "Secret" series is Atelier Ryza (this series is unusually simple to identify since it's consecutively numbered)
- Status