audaxdreik

@audaxdreik@pawb.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Shadow Tower Abyss (PS2 - FromSoftware 2003)

  There’s a growing trend in indie games for the King’s Field-likes; Lunacid, Dread Delusion, etc. I’m a huge fan and if anyone has any other good ones to recommend, please let me know!

  But for this I thought I’d return to the roots. I’ve picked at King’s Field I (JP) and II a bit before and while I enjoy them, they’re overall still very clunky and I usually get distracted. I wasn’t sure how long I’d stick with Shadow Tower Abyss, but I feel like this one I may very well see through, I’m enjoying it quite a bit so far. That’s not to say it’s not still a clunky slog, and it’s certainly not for everyone, but there is real charm there.

  (Scoring system: 1-5 being bad, OK, good, great, excellent with decimals being vibe based to push it closer to one rather than the other. For example 3.2 is meant to indicate a bit better than just good, but still not great. 3.8 might indicate close to great, but missing a few aspects that prevent it)

  Sound: 3.2/5, Good. Like a lot of FromSoft games, there’s not really much music aside from the occasional musical sting which provides effective ambience. The sound design is minimal as well, but there are some very good moments of creepy thrumming, droning, and distant screeching that make it an intense environment to inhabit.

  Graphics: 3.5/5, Good. What’s on display is generally competent and atmospheric, each new area has its own theme which is interesting to explore, but still, I feel like they could’ve done a lot more with the PS2 graphics. It’s certainly an improvement over King’s Field '94, but exactly how much is debatable …

  The monster design is pretty good, everything has this kind of alien/abyssal feel to it. The overall theming is on point. Areas of the game have simple descriptions (i.e. Blue Light Area) that give the impression the player character is a foreign explorer rather than anyone with innate knowledge of this weird world. It’s a small aspect of world-building I appreciate.

  Gameplay: 3.8/5, Good. Overall control still feels dated, but much less clunky than previous entries. The player moves at a brisk enough pace, but still slowly enough that you soak in the environment and progress feels meaningful. Being an older game you can’t really rebind the controls, but there are a variety of schemes including Type 4 which allow for the expected, modern dual analog stick looking/movement.

  Combat can still be a little boxy and clunky but each weapon offers a left and right slash as well as an overhead bashing and frontal thrusting attack. Each weapon also has related stats for these types of attacks and enemies will have weaknesses or possible points of dismemberment making them vulnerable to particular attacks. Unlike some of the earlier King’s Field games, connecting attacks always feels good and has satisfying feedback.

  The stats system is definitely very obtuse, even if you are familiar with From’s games and I recommend consulting a guide quickly before your first time playing. Again, as is very typical in From’s fashion, there isn’t an abundance of items but what exists is very deliberate. Money consists of these single large coins which you usually only find 1 or occasionally 2 at a time. Most things will only cost a handful of coins with healing potions being 2, boxes of ammo (for your gun!) being 1(?), and weapons and armor ranging anywhere from ~4-15. You’ll also find a plethora of items scattered throughout the game so there’s no shortage.

  There is a unique balancing though as in order to heal yourself from the rare healing stations you have to sacrifice items for their value, although I’m early enough in the game that a basic Hat still seems to fully heal me from low health. In order to repair durability on your items from the rare purple repairing stations, you must sacrifice health with items like magic rings requiring sometimes more health than you currently have! This creates a tense and balanced management situation that feels like you might possibly softlock yourself by eating through too many resources, but so far hasn’t proved an issue for me. As a personal aside, I’m a big fan of playing games as they were designed so I’m doing my best to only save at the rare save points and not save state my way through the game, although this is of course up to your own tastes and discretion.

  But is there a poison area with forced damage, I hear you ask? Yes, you fool, YES! Why would you even doubt it? Don’t let this discourage you though as understanding the stats system and equipping proper armor allows you to minimize the damage per poison tick such that it creates urgency as a pressure point more than a pain point. Definitely sacrificed a few lives just scouting the area out, though. Game Over means reload a save.

  Summary/TL;DR Shadow Tower Abyss is a very competent dungeon crawler with a unique theme and atmosphere that’s worth exploring if you’d like to see historic FromSoft (it’s 20+ years old, as an ancient gamer I can use “historic” if I want). Miyazaki gets a lot of credit for modern From games and while a lot of that is certainly due, it’s fascinating to see how many of these deliberate design concepts have always been in their DNA.

  ---

  As an aside, one day I’m going to write an entire essay on what makes a Soulslike a Soulsike. I missed the boat on the original hype and only got into them during COVID lockdown in 2020. I didn’t think I’d be a fan of the grueling, “git gud” experience but I’ve come to realize that’s not what makes those games interesting. It’s one concept and some people may find it unsatisfyingly vague, but it’s not the bonfires, or the losing souls on death, or the dodge rolling. It’s the stone-cold deliberateness. A lot of the difficulty from these games arises out of that deliberateness; what items you choose to equip and how you observe and approach unique situations. The games aren’t good because they’re hard, the specific design elements that make them hard are also the things that make them good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lords of the Fallen 2 Will Be Revealed During Gamescom⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The Surge 1 & 2 are massively underrated. They’re not without their annoying issues but even despite them I can enthusiastically say I enjoyed my time with those games. 2 was a big improvement as well. I’ll get around to revisiting them sometime and doing a second playthrough.

  I never even got terribly far in the first LotF, it just straight up did not feel good to play. Everything was just a bit too clunky and jank around the edges. I intended to check the second one out but never made it a priority, guess I never will.

  I’d absolutely take a Surge 3 from the other guys though!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨High Score on DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks! Yeah, only the first score extend. I’ve been trying to figure out the game on my own since I kinda treat these things as puzzles, but I think I’ve really maxed out what I can understand and it’s time I watch a video or two of a pro playing. I have a general concept of how things work, but I often forget where the hidden bees are. I’ve memorized a bunch of patterns but I still don’t really approach things with a “plan”, mostly just survive and pick up bees when/where I remember them. I also probably hold onto my hypers too long to use on the midboss and endboss, I could be more efficient with them.

  Had no idea I was so far off on the scoring, though, oops. I can get the hidden extra on Stage 3 before getting the extend pretty easily, but I’ve only ever been able to get into Stage 5 twice as it is. I thought my barrier was skill, but maybe it’s scoring (AND skill). I appreciate the advice!

• High Score on DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsupawb.social ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨3⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Any good Android games that aren't roguelikes?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I really like The Quest for being a simple first person, dungeon crawler RPG. There’s an overworld and towns and a story, so it’s not just straight dungeon crawling. Nothing mold-breaking, but for a mobile game that I just want to fill some time when I have nothing else in my pockets, it absolutely does the trick.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Games Where Nothing Happens (SPOILERS for various game plots)⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  github.com/sayucchin/P2-EP-PSP/

  This isn’t the CJ Iwakura patch, but if you’re not into fan translation drama that won’t mean a whole lot to you. It’s fine!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Games Where Nothing Happens (SPOILERS for various game plots)⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This reminds me that there’s an official fan translation for Persona 2: Eternal Punishment PSP version. It has some many quality of life improvements I was holding off on completing the duology until it was available.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Need a keyboard with a dedicated "slop" button⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, sorry, that wasn’t directed so much at you as it was using your post as a starting point.

  I remember the Folding at Home program, that was more about distributed computing than AI. Game AI has been well-discussed for decades now, but in 99.9% of other AI cases it’s usually in reference to the current trend (or trying to ride that wave) and like 0.1% niche nerd talk you caught a stray from.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Need a keyboard with a dedicated "slop" button⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I really don’t think there is any useful generative or general AI.

  So a lot of the issue is how marketing got their slimy tentacles around the word, but most “useful” AI is domain specific, symbolic ML (machine learning). Even LLMs have their uses in very specific domains, but again, general usage is very questionable.

  People are already somewhat familiar with ML, but that’s been kind of covered by the catch all term “algorithm”. What most people understand as “the” algorithm (YouTube, Twitter, whatever) isn’t a single algorithm, but a complex set of algorithms often at least partly compromised of some sort of ML.

  All that to say, the general public really doesn’t need to know this stuff and the serious engineers couldn’t care less of our opinion of it. Fuck AI.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft concedes that 'The Outer Worlds 2' retail price was too high — Xbox says it "will keep our full priced holiday releases at $69.99," with refunds incoming⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is the biggest factor for me now, too. Not to go all old man Millennial, but humor me for a second:

  I’ve been playing games since the NES era. The scene used to be a lot slower and while I never played every single game that came out or even every console, I was enough of a hobbyist that I could still follow all the major developments. These days, there’s simply TOO MUCH. And I don’t mean to imply that an abundance of choices is bad, just that it’s an absolute firehose that no one person can follow. You have to dedicate yourself to your specific interests, your specific niches. These can well be served by indies and the whole back library of games.

  Because that’s the other thing, we’re starting to more thoroughly recognize games as art, as a library rather than as pure content. Unless you are absolutely committed to sucking on the end of that firehose to catch all the new content at its zenith, what’s really the point?

  Fuck man, it’s time to go back to the NES for me, pick up all those games I never beat as a kid and sink 10,000 hours into learning how to speedrun some of my favorites. There’s simply no need to spend $70-80 fucking dollars on subpar, rushed, exploitative content. Fuck 'em.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Butlerian Jihad is NOT a warning against AI⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  LLMs are a tool, and all tools can be repurposed or repossessed.

  That’s just simply not true. Tools are usually quite specific in purpose, and often times the tasks they accomplish cannot be undone by the same tool. A drill cannot undrill a hole. I’m familiar with ML (machine learning) and the many, many legitimate uses it has across a wide range of fields.

  What you’re thinking of, I suspect, is a weapon. A resource that can be wielded equally by and against each side. The pains caused on the common person by the devaluation of our art and labor can’t be inflicted against the corpofascists; for them, that’s the point. They are the ones selling these tools to you and you cannot defeat them by buying in. And I do very much mean the open source models as well. Waging war on their terms, with their tools and methods (repossessed as they may be) is still a losing proposition.

  By ignoring this technology and sticking our fingers in our ears, we are allowing them to reshape out the technology works, instead of molding it for our own purposes. It’s not going to go away, and thinking that is just as foolish as believing the Internet is a fad.

  Time will tell. How are your NFTs doing? (sorry, that was mean)

  The negative preconceived notion bias is really not helping matters.

  Guilty as charged, I’m pretty strongly anti-AI. But seriously, watch that ad and tell me that the disorienting cadence of speech and uncanny, overly detailed generated images look good? Most of us have seen what’s on offer and we’re telling you, we’re tired.

  ---

  Look, I do apologize, I’m very much trying not to be overly aggro here or attack you in any way. But I think discussions about the religious overtones and belief systems of the BJ are exactly where we’re at.

  How o3 and Grok 4 Accidentally Vindicated Neurosymbolic AI

  This is a really interesting article. Gary Marcus is a lot more positive on AI than myself I think, but that’s understandable given his background. If I do concede that some form of AGI is inevitable, I think we are within our rights to demand that it is indeed the tool we deserve, and not just snake oil.

  AI art still ugly, sorry not sorry.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Butlerian Jihad is NOT a warning against AI⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Kind of really disagree with this video 😕

  I’ve only read the first two Dune novels, and that awhile ago, so I’m poorly equipped to have this conversation, but the video focuses on the idea that fascists are perpetuating it to keep powerful tools of liberation out of the hands of the proletariat. You wouldn’t agree with a fascist, would you? While there may be some truth to this, it completely ignores the cause of the BJ to begin with. It was in fact a rebellion by the people against those tools.

  Even taken at face value, the video seems to posit that because the fascists can’t be trusted, AI is indeed a powerful tool for liberation. I don’t see that as the case. It hardly needs to be said, but Dune is a sci-fi novel, the context of which does not currently apply to our real world circumstances. AI is the tool of the fascists, used for oppression. I don’t think it can simply be repurposed for liberation, that’s a naive interpretation that ignores all of the actual ways in which the current implementations of AI work.

  Disgusting AI-generated add for merch halfway through.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss - Closest modern equivalent?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve somehow heard about this game before but failed to realize what this actually was. Oh no … I can feel a new obsession coming on …

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Statement on Stop Killing Games - VIDEOGAMES EUROPE⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Comes to mind as an example that already exists, …steampowered.com/…/MEGA_MAN_X_DiVE_Offline/

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI Job Fears Hit Peak Hype While Reality Lags Behind⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  gazeon.site articles keep getting posted, what is this source? Seems to be mostly a biased, pro-AI rag.

  Distrust 😠

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Statement on Stop Killing Games - VIDEOGAMES EUROPE⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  For sure, 💯

  • secure players’ data: there should be no sensitive player data being stored on a private game server like that anyways, you’re connecting to a server, not logging into a service
  • remove illegal content: not the developer’s responsibility in this case, it’s the responsibility of the private server (admittedly this could get messier with net neutrality and safe harbor stuff? unclear, but point remains, it’s still not the developer’s responsibility here)
  • combat unsafe community content: ditto. Not the the responsibility of the developer but the private servers. It’s often been argued that the smaller communities of private servers do a BETTER job of moderating themselves)

  ---

  • would leave rights holders liable: HERE IT IS! We can’t let you self host something like Marvel Rivals due to all the copyrights and trademarks and brand protections. How dare you!
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Statement on Stop Killing Games - VIDEOGAMES EUROPE⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Absolute trash statement, I really hope this bites them.

  They’re just repeating a lot of the same misinformation that Pirate Software had been saying, the exact things that had riled the gaming community and caused this latest wave of action. We’re already primed to discount the points they’re trying to make and it shows exactly how disingenuous they’re being.

  Positively, I hope this reflects some true fear on their end.

  Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.

  As has been stated over and over and over again, private servers used to be an option until the industry decided they weren’t any more. If the result of this is that it forces the industry to not make shitty, exploitative games, that’s still a win for the consumers. I would rather have no game at all rather than something that psychologically tries to exploit my FOMO and drains my wallet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Like it or not, developers are experimenting with AI for their remasters and remakes - but can they ever be any good? [Eurogamer]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Walmart Scales Back Self-Checkout Amid Security and Customer Feedback⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The Safeways here in WA (at least in parts) have shifted from the old weight-based system(?) to some new AI/camera system. It gets upset if you move incorrectly in front of it because it thinks you may have bagged something you hadn’t scanned yet.

  Last time I went shopping I got stuck weighting for 5+ minutes when the machine flagged me and there wasn’t any available staff to review it with me. When the manager finally came over, we had to watch the video capture of me scanning (love the privacy invasion) and then she counted the items in my bag “just to make sure”. Afterwards she stood behind me and watched me finish scanning “in case it happens again”. Whatever. This feels neither efficient nor convenient. It feels like something else.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft’s New Xbox Strategy Starts with Windows and Ends with No Console⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I keep screaming about how the TPM 2.0 requirements of Windows 11 are insidious due to the ability to implement remote attestation now. I don’t think they’ll spring the trap immediately, but it’s locked and set and you’d be a fool to believe it won’t happen eventually.

  Remote attestation allows changes to the user’s computer to be detected by authorized parties. For example, software companies can identify unauthorized changes to software, including users modifying their software to circumvent commercial digital rights restrictions. It works by having the hardware generate a certificate stating what software is currently running. The computer can then present this certificate to a remote party to show that unaltered software is currently executing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nintendo Switch 2 Hacked in 48 Hours — But Here’s Why It’s Just the Beginning⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It still brings a smile to my face every time I play Mario Kart 8 on my Linux desktop using a PS5 controller.

  I pay for games where I think money will get to the creators that deserve it, but Nintendo only gets my most sincere disdain.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft and Asus announce two Xbox Ally handhelds with new Xbox full-screen experience⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I suspect handhelds are going to be the future for awhile now. It’s not just out of a growing demand or simply because portable graphics processing and battery power have improved (although those factors do help) but it’s another chance to:

  1. Push locked hardware
  2. Funnel to controlled storefronts
  3. Bring down and moderate the increasingly unsustainable AAA development costs

  Those first two aren’t particularly surprising, they’re the key elements that Nintendo has honed in on while Sony and particularly Microsoft continue to struggle. Microsoft feels like they’ve just left XBox to languish while they focus on Game Pass as a means to ensnare you into their economy which is why they’re first down this path, but I think Sony will follow shortly. In an ideal world, I’d love to see Sony get back to hardware manufacturing with a Vita like device you could load Linux/SteamOS onto. Vita was a great little product, done so dirty.

  But moreover it’s that last point, really. It’s hard to continue to push out these extraordinarily big budget, bordering on AAAA (lol) territory games that continue to flop. I know the Switch 2 is already doing stuff like Cyberpunk 2077, but that stuff can still be hell on battery life as well as requiring lower resolution and lowered visuals in portable mode.

  I feel like Nintendo is making a big mistake pushing that 4K60 envelope with the Switch 2, although I see why they made that maneuver. The Switch was perpetually underpowered and they felt the need to close that gap, but they already struggle to push out big budget tentpole franchises as is illustrated by Mario Kart World being the only big release title. Also, I just want to generally point this out, Nintendo suffers from needing to up the stakes. It’s what lead to Mario Galaxy being such a grand adventure, then Odyssey going even bigger than that. Now we have Kart World because … gotta get bigger than 8 Deluxe somehow I guess.

  I don’t know what any of this means or where it’s going, I just wanted to try and call out some of these observations. Turbulent times ahead, I don’t know that anyone really knows what the next 2-3 years will look like.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨CODE VEIN II — Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re not wrong. You didn’t even stick around for the pole dancing boss! youtu.be/m4f4z6fZh1I?t=651

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨CODE VEIN II — Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes! The original Code Vein is one of my guilty pleasures. It’s very rough in spots and a lot of the levels feel like they’re just hallways to connect arenas, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had if it looks like it might be your kind of thing.

  The character had a ton of options and the character builds in game let you unlock skills from classes for permanent equip so you could start to blend the classes together to your liking, creating some really cool builds if you put some thought into it.

  It’s a silly game, but one I recommend if you’re just looking for a bit of fun and not expecting an overly engaging experience.

  …

  It’s been a few years, actually reinstalls

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Deathloop is free to claim on Epic Games⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  YES! Thank you, finally someone else who sees it!

  In my opinion, Deathloop is a spiritual successor to the OG System Shock as well. System Shock 2 and Prey (2017) both adopt RPG elements which is all well and fine, I adore both those games, but OG doesn’t have them and leans more on the interplay of immersive systems, really giving credence to the immersive simulation labeling that feels a bit more obtuse these days.

  In OG System Shock, I really do feel you’re supposed to play with the Mission difficulty maxed so you have a time limit. It’s fine if you don’t, I’ve still never beaten it with the time limit on either Enhanced or Remake, but hear me out. System Shock (especially the REAL OG release) was an older game where you were meant to invest more time into it. You were supposed to do new game runs where you start from scratch, learn the world, learn the systems, and push further every time. It becomes more menacing when SHODAN is a real opponent that you can literally “lose” the game to.

  Modern gamers don’t really tolerate that kind of stuff because losing a good run to an 8 (or 10) hour time limit feels like a waste of your time, and I can sympathize with that. That’s why Deathloop pulls the idea of runs into a metacontext where you’re reliving the same day over and over again, learning the layout of the different areas at different times of day, making use of the tools available to you until you’re ready for THE DAY when you do THE RUN and basically speedrun the game.

  Part of me wonders what a Deathloop without Wenjie’s preservation mechanic (I forget what it’s called at the moment) would look like where you’re forced to re-gather your favorite weapons from their specific locations each run would look like, too. But I get why it was included and I’m not ready to say it would 100% be a better game without.

  Oh and Julianna obviously acts as the SHODAN antagonist stand-in even though I know their personalities and motivations are very different. You get how having an ever present, somewhat omniscient foe hunt you is kinda the same.

  There’s more but I won’t ramble any further. I know they’re very different games, but you see the outline, right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Zynga shuts down Torchlight 3 developer four years after its acquisition⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think a lot of it is timing, too. Remember, the first Torchlight was 2009, we’re talking pre-indie craze. There’s been no Super Meat Boy or Fez yet, I think. ARPGs hadn’t absolutely flooded the market yet and seeing a very competent and stylized, if simplistic Diablo-like back then could generate some interest. That carried on to the 2nd, which had a lot of improvements.

  There’s a bunch wrong with 3 and Infinite, but they were also competing in a saturated market and, you’re right, the Torchlight “brand” didn’t really have enough luster on its own to carry a series.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When making lots of small games is more sustainable than making one big one⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I absolutely recommend it! Slope’s Game Room has an excellent, 2 hour retrospective you can put on while you work if you want a pretty good deep dive. Other than that, I recommend getting yourself set with some emulators so you can kind of dig through the series. A lot of the early games are difficult and I think it’s perfectly fine to kind of just pick through them a bit, get a taste, move on, return to the ones you like, etc.

  You can absolutely feel the arc of design elements through the early series up to the pinnacle, Rondo of Blood. That’s because it was all being done by Konami teams, often who knew eachother or were handing the projects off. Rondo hits this sweet spot where you can feel the inspiration of old vampire novels combined with dramatic stage plays (the stages have dynamic names like Feast of Flames instead of just area descriptors), told with 80’s anime cutscenes, wrapped into a videogame package. It’s truly a work of art that both wears its influences on its sleeve and also that couldn’t really exist the way that it does in any other medium. So where do you even go from there? Symphony of the Night! It takes everything that works about Rondo and kicks it to 11 while flipping the franchise on its head with an absolutely rocking soundtrack and sprawling castle. You can enjoy these games in a vacuum, sure. But playing the series up to that point gives you a real appreciation for what they were going for and how they accomplished it. I don’t even think you really need to play them in order because going back and returning to previous entries almost feels like fitting in missing pieces of a puzzle.

  The series flounders a bit when it hits 3D, but it will always have a special place in my heart. Koji Igarashi takes the Symphony of the Night formula and basically owns the handheld world, especially from Aria of Sorrow into the DS trilogy, A++. Ultimately I think he developed that formula enough on his own that breaking it off into the Bloodstained series feels right and good, I think he’s better off this way not weighed down by Konami and the Castlevania franchise, but in this way, we still feel that arc of development. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night actually took a bit to grow on me, but once it did, I saw it as the most Igavania game that ever existed, he has refined the formula.

  All this to say that we just don’t get experiences like this anymore, where series have the proper time to cook and develop. Instead we get Concord where they pour millions into something and try and ram it down your throat, “You WILL enjoy this new franchise. You WILL pick one of these characters as your favorite to get invested in, even though we’ve given you no reason. You WILL make this your ONE game you play because … reasons?” Ditto Marathon. Ditto MindsEye (likely). Ditto all the other rubbish they keep pushing out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When making lots of small games is more sustainable than making one big one⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  As to boycotts, your individual purchases always matter; not just with what you don’t buy but also what you do buy.

  Agreed. I’m having a bit of a hard time articulating my ideas properly.

  I think my overall point is just that it’s really hard to organize purposeful and effective boycotts these days, especially since no matter what the issue, there’s usually a counter movement dampening it. Whatever market forces are causing these companies to register the lack of interest and disdain the consumer market has, I’d like to identify it and capitalize on it because when the market adapts, it most likely won’t be to the consumer’s benefit.

  You could live quite happily off indies these days, but it’s hard to ignore the thrashing leviathans. I’m not sure how much I really care about them anymore, but they do take up a lot of the oxygen in the room. And they seem to control a lot of platforms/storefronts as well …

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When making lots of small games is more sustainable than making one big one⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is media literacy as it relates to gaming - specifically about the design conversations developers are often having amongst each other that players only vaguely feel. Let me elaborate:

  A good example is the Castlevania series. From early on, Castlevania was always both refining and reinventing itself. Vampire Killer and Castlevania feel to me like a kind of A/B testing to see what hits. When Castlevania prevailed, they immediately began iterating on the formula with both Simon’s Quest and Dracula’s Curse figuring out different modes of gameplay through nonlinear level design and changing characters. Super Castlevania IV was already a remaster of sorts starring Simon Belmont. Of course followed by the all time greats Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. It had trouble jumping to 3D with the N64 entry which was just called Castlevania again and eschewed the burgeoning Metroidvania/RPG elements of its predecessors.

  This eventually leads us to Lords of Shadow which I can certainly respect as a good game with a dedicated following, but it never appealed to me and I had a hard time putting my finger on why. It’s because it’s not just a reboot, but one that kind of wholesale grabs the QTE/cinematic/rage mode game mechanics of the 2010’s and stuffs them into a Castlevania package. It’s difficult to say anything isn’t a “true” Castlevania game in a series that was already very loosely defined as “gothic action probably with Dracula somewhere?” but it had very firmly stepped away from the conversation of its own series.

  Even if you’re new to the Castlevania series today, I think you can find great satisfaction in trawling through the depths of the franchise, playing them in chronological release order, and appreciating the various thematic and gameplay elements that each entry contributed to the series. I think gamedevs could learn a lot by looking at this evolution, too. Take look at the Release timeline and note the space in between early entries.

  Nowadays, a big game will spend multiple years in development. Inspirations it may have taken from the gaming landscape are years in the past, assuming it even picked up on them when they were peak. When that theoretical game exists, someone may then take inspiration from it and push it into their years long development. The needle moves sooooo … slowly …

  And because of that, as we all know, they’re willing to take less of a risk on creating innovative games. There’s this prevailing notion that there are only “good” and “bad” game design concepts and if you mash enough of the good concepts together in a package, you’ll have a good game. They’re all homogenizing because they’re no long trying to deliver on a product to entice you to play it, they’re trying to force a platform/market on you. Take a look at Concord or Marathon or MindsEye or any of the other monumental flops. Kind of like the DCU in my mind; you know the proper thing to do is take the time to build out the world and characters by giving satisfying entries that serve people the things they’re craving. But they keep jumping the gun. If you really wanted Marathon to succeed as a GaaS, why not create a single player game first and allow players to get accustomed to the world and give them something to value to pull them away? The eagerness with which they keep sacrificing projects to snap the trap shut early and make their money back should be a big clue.

  Anyways, speaking of MindsEye, I was watching this video earlier which speculates the game was supposed to be another metaverse platform called Everywhere, akin to Epic’s Fortnite. Nobody wants an everything game. Nobody wants an everything app. I don’t want ONE game that I play for the rest of forever, that’s not a thing I ever wanted. They’re trying to forcefully dictate the market at us and everyone is just gagging. As consumers I don’t think we can put effective boycotts together anymore but the market is so utterly saturated and overwhelmed that you literally cannot get people to care. It stands at the complete opposite end of what the article discusses and I think that’s worth meditating on.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MindsEye boss claims game's negative reaction ahead of release has been paid for in "concerted effort" against studio⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The game looks fiiiiiiiiiiine but I’m already exhausted at the thought of another $80 USD price tag with DLC/microtransactions and forced multiplayer elements.

  AAA studios are all doing the same sorts of things and putting just a little twist on it hoping it’ll be enough to persuade you away from all the other AAA games and studious out there doing the exact same thing.

  I’m not a hater, I don’t hate your mediocre looking game that absolutely fails to stand out from the crowd, but I’m not gonna buy into your advertising for it either. To anyone who finds a home in this game and enjoys it, I’m legit happy for you. Mostly I’m just never going to think about this ever again.