Coelacanth
@Coelacanth@feddit.nu
- Comment on Hands-on with the Retroid Pocket 6; The 8GB Sweet Spot (my own article/interview!) 1 day ago:
I don’t think I play enough retro games to warrant owning one of these, and if I was to buy a handheld it’d probably be a Steam Deck. But they are such nice objects I kinda want one anyway.
Great article as always, I love your content. I especially appreciated the developer interviews about the 8GB RAM limitations.
- Comment on Day 625 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 3 days ago:
I could barely get through one playthrough of it to be honest. The first 20ish hours were alright but by the end of the 60h playthrough I had to actively force myself to finish it. I agree that the story is competent but nothing special, and the way it’s mono-serious and every line is delivered in the same dour, stoic monotone just wore me down over the playthrough. Plus the quest design is repetitive and pretty dull, as is the open world stuff. And the combat is fine but really not deep or varied enough to fuel such a long playtime.
While the world is gorgeous from a visual design perspective, I didn’t really get the alive sensation at all personally. That is something I felt in RDR2 for sure, but Ghost just felt like a bog standard Ubisoft open world to me.
But I seem to be in a minority feeling this way about Ghost so maybe I’m just getting old and cranky.
- Comment on Day 624 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 4 days ago:
I’m with you. I thought it was alright but I never saw what everyone else seemed to see in the game. I do admire it for being both beautiful and immaculately optimised however.
- Comment on I wish videogame culture would take more cues from readers 5 days ago:
Totally. I wish I had some friends to get that experience more often. Closest I’ve been have been online discourse when playing certain games around launch, like Blue Prince, E33 and Elden Ring.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 29th 6 days ago:
D: !!! Damn. Alright, I’m in. everything sounds pretty great.
I’ll be curious to see if you feel the same, but it’s this thing where the game has a very unique and distinct voice and art direction, the characters are all slightly odd, the game has a lot of little systems and secrets and details that make you go “oh that’s cool”. I dunno it’s totally vibes-based but it gives me a similar emotion. I guess the exploration focus in a dangerous environment also plays into it I’m sure.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 29th 1 week ago:
Please don’t let me discourage you, I’ve played some more today and the game is amazing - it’s just not a game you play for the combat. It’s not like Sekiro or Ninja Gaiden or Rise of the Ronin or something where you’d be like “damn, I just want to get in some fun fights today”. Withering Rooms is all about exploration, story, world building, mood, atmosphere and light horror and so far it really shines there. The setting is really cool and it has a very unique vibe to it, almost hitting me the same way as the unique vibe of Dark Souls 1 hit me the first time I played it. So if you were itching for a roguelike and this is your vibe I think you’d like it a lot.
At the same time, I also really enjoyed Enotria too. I don’t know what it is with me and somewhat janky AA games with a lot of heart, but it’s a weakness I think. Greedfall was similar for me (though unfortunately I’ve heard the sequel is not so good 😓). I hope you don’t run into too many bugs, I know there are still some in Enotria unfortunately. But I had a good time with it. Really pretty and well designed environments, cool setting and Commedia Dell’Arte theme, good music too.
Just set your expectations at “charming AA jank” and not “Lies of P level polish” and you’ll be alright.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 29th 1 week ago:
I’ve seen enough to tell you that this will be quite a whiplash after Sekiro, that’s for sure. This is more Dark Souls 1 than anything, although without the stamina. It’s slow, it’s clunky, you run away and kite a lot. If you unironically liked the combat in DS1 you might enjoy this.
But that being said, I think there is also a bit of a design choice in making the combat clunky and difficult. You’re playing as a 14-year-old girl and it’s a horror game. Enemies are supposed to be scary. You’re not supposed to easily go toe to toe with everything.
That being said I’ve barely scratched the surface, and it also looks like the game is both full of tools to use for combat and that this is the intention - use whatever you can to survive. Again goes with the horror. Spells, decoys, temporary invisibility, even a flamethrower according to the trailer. Plus hit and run attacks, hiding and backstabbing and so on.
We’ll see where I land on it, but so far the rest of the game has been so intriguing that I don’t mind the combat regardless.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 29th 1 week ago:
Just started Withering Rooms* today, a very unique horror roguelike with a great story, some superb world building and some ass janky combat.
Only 2-3 hours in but I am really liking what I see so far.
- Comment on What was the first game you ever bought ? 1 week ago:
First game I got or first one I bought for my own money? The first game I ever got and played was Super Mario Land for the GameBoy. I remember when the hype around Pokémon Red/Blue coming to Europe was building I was trying to calculate how many weeks of allowance I would need to save up to afford it, so that might have been the first one I actually purchased, I can’t remember for sure if I bought it myself or got it as a gift. Diablo 2 launched a year later and I know I bought that one as I vividly remember the car ride back from the store, so otherwise that might be it.
All of these were of course incredibly worth it. I would never have gotten into video games without that GameBoy and Super Mario Land I think, and Pokémon was a formative experience for me as I got to participate in the whole Pokémania phenomenon. And Diablo 2 is one of the games I have the most hours in over my childhood, it kept resurfacing over my school years as me and the other gamers in my school would randomly get the urge to start playing Diablo 2 again randomly almost yearly over the course of like 8 years after its release.
- Comment on The Expanse: Osiris Reborn | Official Gameplay Trailer 1 week ago:
I have a feeling this will be to Owlcat was BG3 was to Larian.
- Comment on What Happened To Video Game Ambience? (YouTube Essay, bensmotel, 7min) 1 week ago:
Suprised to not see any footage of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, but happy to see some mentions in the comments at least. That game still holds up in terms of ambience.
- Comment on Day 615 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 1 week ago:
I never played it but I watched the ChristopherOdd Let’s Play of it and enjoyed it. Fun little game for sure.
- Comment on Deadhaus Sonata Q&A: Denis Dyack on Tarot Cards, Loot Based on Quantum Physics, and Building a Spiritual Successor to Legacy of Kain 1 week ago:
Combat looks so-so but the card based abilities sounds cool enough for a wishlist.
- Comment on What is on your next-to-buy list? 1 week ago:
- Withering Rooms - 2.5D horror roguelike in a procedurally generated victorian manor. I’ve only heard great things and it looks phenomenal and unique.
- The Drifter - Australian point and click with beautiful pixel art, a supposedly amazing story and some stellar voice acting.
- Death Howl - turn based strategy meets deckbuilder meets Soulslike!? Looks beautiful and interesting.
- Radiolight - Horror walking simulator that looks inspired by Firewatch and Alan Wake. Looks interesting.
- Seance of Blake Manor - Was a huge hit last year, I’m keen to try it. Agatha Christie simulator in a mysterious manor sounds good to me.
- Murders on the Yangtze River - Chinese Ace Attorney but more serious and less silly is what I’ve heard it described as. I’m intrigued.
- Comment on Capcom says it 'will not implement assets generated by AI into our game content,' but still plans to use AI to 'enhance efficiency and boost productivity' in game development 1 week ago:
Same goes for some of the main story writing I’ve seen. Truly uninspired stuff, just absolute blandness.
- Comment on Crimson Desert Players Think They've Found AI-Generated Art In-Game 2 weeks ago:
I haven’t gone deep into the rabbit hole myself, I watched a video about Crimson Desert today which reported on it, and in the video the original comment was cited as being from blind, and teamblind’s whole schtick is supposedly that’s it’s verified professionals only. But it could still be a larper and whatnot I suppose.
- Comment on Crimson Desert Players Think They've Found AI-Generated Art In-Game 2 weeks ago:
I didn’t see anything about the story being finalised “a week before launch”, only that it was re-done and finished late. And I have yet to see a better explanation for the random sky island bullshit other than BotW did it and they wanted in on the action.
I thought the point of teamblind was that only verified industry professionals could post there? But if it’s a LARP forum like 4chan then that’s different. I’m not super familiar with it.
- Comment on Crimson Desert Players Think They've Found AI-Generated Art In-Game 2 weeks ago:
If the insider reports from those anonymous dev forums are correct then that would explain a lot.
- Comment on What's your opinion on post-game content? do you do it? or are you done with the game when the credits roll? 2 weeks ago:
For me it mostly depends on what the ending of the main story is like, and how invested I was in the narrative. If I was really invested and the game ended in a satisfying way my overwhelming impulse tends to be to immediately uninstall. A kind of “snapping the finished book shut and placing it on the bookshelf” thing that is satisfying in and of itself.
- Comment on Crimson Desert Players Think They've Found AI-Generated Art In-Game 2 weeks ago:
Makes sense to me. From what I’ve seen I fully believe the UX and control scheme was vibe coded by an intern who has never touched a video game before.
- Comment on Crimson Desert Surpasses 2 Million Sales, Fixes And Improvements Planned 2 weeks ago:
Oh of course not, I was just musing out loud. But I think maybe I just don’t “get it” and am not in the target audience anymore. I think what made me understand what the game is is someone said that it’s just an offline MMO. I think if I was still sixteen or something I might have been into dedicating the next six months to nolifing this game. But these types of games are just not for me anymore. I don’t play any MMOs anymore for a reason.
- Comment on Crimson Desert Surpasses 2 Million Sales, Fixes And Improvements Planned 2 weeks ago:
I’m glad people are enjoying it but it looks both boring and exhausting from what I’ve seen of it. I wonder if the playerbase will remain or if it’s just the hype wave.
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
Radiolight came out last fall and looks good! But I agree in general that there aren’t as many or frequent releases of them as during that boom.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 15th 2 weeks ago:
Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight was a huge part of my childhood, I have such a love for that game. I had just gotten into Star Wars after my family introduced me to the original trilogy and the FMV videos between chapters were just the coolest thing ever to me. Kyle Katarn is still one of my favourite Star Wars characters.
That being said, I recently watched Mapocolops play through the game and I was flabbergasted at some of the peak 90s level design in the game. Literally have no idea how I managed to beat it as a kid.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 15th 2 weeks ago:
I feel obliged to remind you that it was not me in that clip but some very experienced Ronin player - my own gameplay is much less crisp! But still yeah, maybe I should put Sekiro on my “to be considered” list…
Have a nice week you too! :)
- Comment on What games are you picking up March 19th? 2 weeks ago:
I should not be buying more games considering the size of my backlog. That being said, I currently am playing and enjoying a copy of Rise of the Ronin acquired courtesy of FitGirl, and so if that one goes on sale for ~€20 again I might buy it because I’d like to own it actually, I wouldn’t mind supporting Team Ninja further and log my playtime on my Steam account.
Also have some other wishlist items I’m itching to pull the trigger on if a deeper sale materialised:
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
Bethesda has announced its long-awaited list of updates and additions to Starfield, which fans have been anticipating as the game’s ‘version 2.0’ moment.
Starfield has fans?
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 15th 2 weeks ago:
Well, I will definitely follow your playthrough and listen to your thoughts as you get deeper into it. Since Rise of the Ronin (that I’m playing currently) also is very parry-focused I’m getting closer to thinking I might be able to tackle Sekiro but… I’m still scared. Ronin still has a lot of safety nets like buffs, heals, allies, martial arts, guns etc to help you through fights if you’re struggling.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 15th 3 weeks ago:
Cairn is like a… climbing simulator? From what I’ve seen. It looks neat.
How are you finding Sekiro? I still haven’t tackled it, I’m too intimidated by both the parrying, the inability to “hide” (no over leveling, no magic, no cheese) and also… I suck at rhythm games.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 15th 3 weeks ago:
Rise of the Ronin
Still having fun with the game, but a small hint of “fuck me, this is a long game isn’t it?” is beginning to crop up. I am itching to explore some more fighting styles but there are still like a dozen of them I haven’t found and another dozen whose final moves I can’t access because they simply say “continue story” or “spar with ??? in the dojo to unlock”. Maybe I should have beelined the main quest more, but… that’s not really how you play an open world game is it?
All the same, the combat is super awesome, Ryoma is a great character and I can’t wait to romance him. If you can pick it up on sale and have a good PC that can run it, you enjoy parrying (and don’t mind open world games) I would recommend it.
Ninja Gaiden
Finished chapter 6 of NG4. It was pretty tough even on Hard, and quite annoying at times. I don’t want to know what Master Ninja is like. The playthrough is going slowly since Ronin is taking most of my time, but I don’t want to completely lose track of it since I am really enjoying the game. I also snuck in some random chapter challenge gameplay of modded Ninja Gaiden 2 Black since there is just something special about NG2 and the moveset mod is so much fun. Still waiting for the release of the final version of the White mod, at which point I’ll probably do a full playthrough of it on Mentor difficulty (Master Ninja is… probably not in my skillset).
Chrono Ark
I started another run, but really haven’t played much as Ronin sidetracked me so much. I really need to get back to it. This is a great game and I really do want to see that true ending.