What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

[Zevox]

Finished my re-run of Ocarina of Time. I didn't quite 100% it, but I basically did everything short of tracking down all 100 Gold Skulltulas, and I still had over 70 of them. Only needed to look up where to find the last three pieces of heart, too - and I was kicking myself for forgetting two of those.

A notable takeaway for me is, well, it was a lot easier than I remembered. And I don't just mean because I know so much about it, I mean enemies just didn't do much damage even when they hit me. Heck, traps and other dungeon hazards were still doing only a quarter of a heart in damage at the end of the game. Most bosses were extremely easy as long as you knew what their trick was. And the only normal enemy that really did enough damage to feel like a threat were the Iron Knuckles, but you only fight a few of them in very late game (Spirit Temple and Ganondorf's Castle), to the point where they're practically treated like mini-bosses. I guess I just felt like it was harder when I was younger because I wasn't as good at real-time games back then. I might owe Twilight Princess a reevaluation, I remember my main criticism of it being that it was too easy, and I honestly felt at the time like its predecessors had been harder than it.

But yeah, despite that, I still love it, and playing it will always be a joy for me.

And with that done, I'm thinking it's perhaps time to bust out Skyward Sword HD. I remember that being the one Zelda game where I legitimately wasn't sure whether I might think it was actually better than Ocarina of Time back when I first played it; and hey, what better way to decide than to play both back-to-back?

[warty goblin]

Finally finished downloading the oddly huge King Arthur: Knight's Tale the other day, and have been giving that a whirl.

Initial impressions are very positive. The set-up is rather interesting, you play as Sir Mordred, resurrected after the Battle of Camlann by the Lady of the Lake to re-kill the now cursed King Arthur. This is a fairly clever set-up, since the outcome of the story is unknown, and you start in the uncommon position of being (or having been) the bad guy, but you are free to become a good ruler if you want. The whole story takes place in a rather nightmarish Avalon, which is a sort of twisted version of fantasy Brittannia, and populated by the surviving or reanimated members of Arthur's court. Essentially this lets you retell a sort of mirror version of the Matter of Britain, without trampling on the original story. The art style is great as well, gives me a very Elden Ring vibe, except with the huge advantage of actually having a story with characters and everything, and not requiring me to slog through Elden Ring's boring-ass gameplay to experience.

The gameplay is a fairly standard turn based tactics affair, though pleasantly using a full AP system instead of the XCom move plus action system. There's a class system for the various Knights you recruit, but it's more like a descriptor than a rigid formula; the different Knights get personal skills and abilities in addition to their class skills, so even if you run two dudes with two handed weapons they can't be copies of each other. And the Knights are figures from Arthurian mythology, with their own personalities and voice acting and (non-customizable) appearances. I like this; I never cared about Random XCom Soldier #12, except insofar as replacing a high level dude was a pain, but I do have opinions about Sirs Balin and Balan.

[Cespenar]

Finally finished downloading the oddly huge King Arthur: Knight's Tale the other day, and have been giving that a whirl.

I was curious about it as well. Might give it a try after I finish this "how is this actually a real game" title called Death Stranding.

[NRSASD]

Playing Red Faction Guerilla: ReMarstered. While it is absolutely a bit dumb and the story is a fun little revolution plot bolted to the side of a flaming heap of Hero’s Journey malarkey and insipid characters, I’m having a great time. By playing on the highest difficulty and using only captured cars and wielding only proximity mines, remote charges, and a pistol, I’ve got the difficulty where I want it. Cover is important because you need to get close, but cover is only temporary due to all the explosions. It’s a lot of fun having to plan the most efficient way to rearrange municipal architecture while said municipality is trying to kill you.

[Eldan]

I was curious about it as well. Might give it a try after I finish this "how is this actually a real game" title called Death Stranding.

I'm fascinated by Death Stranding. I like the idea of playing some sort of courrier trying to transport heavy cargo across a desolate wasteland on foot and maybe solving some kind of plot involving ghosts (?), it sounds nice in a quiet sort of way. But knowing this is by Kojima, I also expect tons of gimmicks, too much and too complicated plot and really, really long video sequences, none of which sounds appealing at all.

[IthilanorStPete]

I'm fascinated by Death Stranding. I like the idea of playing some sort of courrier trying to transport heavy cargo across a desolate wasteland on foot and maybe solving some kind of plot involving ghosts (?), it sounds nice in a quiet sort of way. But knowing this is by Kojima, I also expect tons of gimmicks, too much and too complicated plot and really, really long video sequences, none of which sounds appealing at all.

That's about what I think, too. I'm curious what people who have played it have to say.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm fascinated by Death Stranding. I like the idea of playing some sort of courrier trying to transport heavy cargo across a desolate wasteland on foot and maybe solving some kind of plot involving ghosts (?), it sounds nice in a quiet sort of way. But knowing this is by Kojima, I also expect tons of gimmicks, too much and too complicated plot and really, really long video sequences, none of which sounds appealing at all.

To be honest it's mostly going to work or fail based on if the traversal itself is fun, and apparently Death Stranding kind of failed on that.

Honestly shipping things have enough of an audience that it could work. Get a well designed map, throw in the ability to resupply at certain places to encourage planning a good route, and focus on getting movement right. I'm imagining having some kind of rock climbing system where you have to choose where to place (persistent) pitons. Then throw in some kind of plot that metaphorically relates to something, like being tormented by ghosts and a commercialised afterlife.

Sadly I imagine that Death Stranding is a lot more than that.

[Cespenar]

I actually liked what they did with the main controls. There are these physics based realistic minimechanics to turn walking into a minigame on its own, which is pretty good, since you actually think about how you're walking, how much you're loaded, how sharp you can turn corners, etc.

But then, they didn't trust that this would captivate people on its own. So there's the thriller/action gimmick in which there are these unavoidable areas where you're chased by invisible timeghosts. Which isn't a bad gimmick, but what happens is that because there's such a "raised-stakes" kind of danger, they've made the main mechanic (carrying stuff) easier and more railroaded. So in the end, as long as you survive the timeghosts, you have zero challenge from the other parts of the game, which is its downfall in my opinion.

Also, there's the fact that all of what Eldan said a couple posts above are true, which subtracts from the game a reasonable deal as well.

Like, some of the Kojima jank is enjoyable, but then they go and have Guillermo del Toro spend hundreds of lines tutorializing to you what the next totally needless gimmick item does in great detail.

I know this is all an incoherent ramble, but I think it mirrors the game well in its incoherence.

[IthilanorStPete]

I actually liked what they did with the main controls. There are these physics based realistic minimechanics to turn walking into a minigame on its own, which is pretty good, since you actually think about how you're walking, how much you're loaded, how sharp you can turn corners, etc.

But then, they didn't trust that this would captivate people on its own. So there's the thriller/action gimmick in which there are these unavoidable areas where you're chased by invisible timeghosts. Which isn't a bad gimmick, but what happens is that because there's such a "raised-stakes" kind of danger, they've made the main mechanic (carrying stuff) easier and more railroaded. So in the end, as long as you survive the timeghosts, you have zero challenge from the other parts of the game, which is its downfall in my opinion.

Also, there's the fact that all of what Eldan said a couple posts above are true, which subtracts from the game a reasonable deal as well.

Like, some of the Kojima jank is enjoyable, but then they go and have Guillermo del Toro spend hundreds of lines tutorializing to you what the next totally needless gimmick item does in great detail.

I know this is all an incoherent ramble, but I think it mirrors the game well in its incoherence.

Thanks for sharing your impressions. Think I'm going to give it a pass, then.

[Anteros]

Death Stranding is...ok. It's definitely not worth the full price, but if you can pick it up for cheap it's interesting enough. For the most part I found that the "carry lots of stuff" parts and the "weird ghost" parts didn't overlap that much, so if you're mainly interested in the courier bits there's plenty there.

I've also been playing King Arthur, but I managed to get myself possibly hardlocked because of a bug where my turn ended without my input twice and I took a ton of easily avoided damage. I figured that the game wasn't hard enough even on very hard to warrant restarting the map at the time, but now that I've noticed the injuries piling up on my knights I'm regretting it.

[Spore]

Playing Red Faction Guerilla: ReMarstered. While it is absolutely a bit dumb and the story is a fun little revolution plot bolted to the side of a flaming heap of Hero’s Journey malarkey and insipid characters, I’m having a great time.

I mean the original Red Faction had a story stapled onto its actual premise of: "Here is a destroyable overworld, have fun with it." and it showed. I was so excited to finally play it, only to realize you have nowhere NEAR enough explosion power to alter your gameplay with that mechanic.

Seriously, if you have a gimmick like that, at least make the melee weapon with infinite ammo do it too Half-Life 2 style. You got the gravity gun for physics shenanigans. Red Faction could have given you some kind of drill or pneumatic hammer. You are a MINER for crying out loud.

[Zevox]

I've gotten started on Skyward Sword HD - and since this version has both motion control and regular control options, had to try both. Trouble is, I think I prefer the motion controls for combat (the sword swinging, mostly), but regular controls for everything else; but despite there being a couple of options for things you can turn on motions controls for while otherwise using regular controls, the sword is not one of them, oddly enough. So I kind of have to pick one, and I'm leaning towards regular controls. While I'm not a huge fan of the sword attacks being on the right control stick for that, it may be preferable to the awkward motion controls for flying the Loftwing or balancing on tightropes.

Setting that aside though, I'm quickly enjoying myself and remembering why I liked this one so much. There's just something pretty satisfying about enemies needing you to attack them with some amount of precision from specific angles in order to actually hurt them, compared to every other Zelda game where you can swing wildly and be perfectly fine. Feels fitting, for a series where puzzles are such a big element, for combat to have a bit of a puzzle element to it as well, where you need to figure out how to get at a foe's vulnerable spots. And it really feels like they do a lot more with the characters than in other Zelda titles. Even minor characters have distinct personalities right from the get-go, and especially Zelda herself feels like a much more distinct person than in any other title. She's assertive, quick to take action, and seemingly fearless; but also very kind and thoughtful with her friends, playful and prone to teasing people, and obviously has a crush on Link. And that's just from the game's opening, I'm barely past the first dungeon. It's pretty refreshing to see so much personality out of the game's title character given how often she's just the friendly princess/damsel in distress. Even Ocarina of Time Zelda ends up falling into that despite spending half of the game secretly aiding you as Sheik.

The only thing I could do without gameplay-wise is the stamina meter. I'd honestly forgotten that was in this game. Granted, they put enough of those green fruits that replenish it around that it's usually not an issue, but still, I don't see any good reason for it to be there at all.

[Mechalich]

I mean the original Red Faction had a story stapled onto its actual premise of: "Here is a destroyable overworld, have fun with it." and it showed. I was so excited to finally play it, only to realize you have nowhere NEAR enough explosion power to alter your gameplay with that mechanic.

Seriously, if you have a gimmick like that, at least make the melee weapon with infinite ammo do it too Half-Life 2 style. You got the gravity gun for physics shenanigans. Red Faction could have given you some kind of drill or pneumatic hammer. You are a MINER for crying out loud.

The original Red Faction had the limitation that if you destroyed too much of the overworld it would inevitably crash the game and/or your PC. I recall the original demo had a white room with infinite ammo that you could go to town on, and I crashed my PC several times doing so. It was an idea ahead of its time, in many ways it still is, since the number of games that have allowed for even limited mechanical implementation of terrain-deforming options is puny.

[Eldan]

I actually remember being surprised just yesterday in Cyberpunk 2077. Some turrets were shooting at me, I took cover behind a chunk of concrete in a ruin, and the turrets shot it to bits until it crumbled.

Positively surprised, really.

I'm still really liking Cyberpunk 2077. If it had shipped in the state it is now, I'm pretty sure it would have been quiet successful. The environmental design, especially, is delightful and the city is enjoyable to just walk/drive/climb/fall around in.

[Razade]

Been pushing through the Kingdom Hearts series for a project and...is the first Kingdom Hearts just not very good or is it just me? The controls are middling at best, the enemies have a ton of obnoxious I-Frame states or fly or both, the difficulty of bosses swings back and forth with no real clear tactics other than "damage rush" and the camera is probably the worst boss of them all. The level design is also abysmal for almost every map. The Tarzan level is barely a level and navigating it is a chore, Atlantica wouldn't be so bad if the camera wasn't so crap and enemies just spawned every five seconds and Neverland also barely qualifies as a level.

Been enjoying a lot of the second game a lot more but holy crap is Timeless River terrible. Constant, boring and useless cutscenes abound in a game with already way too much show and tell and not nearly enough letting me just do my own thing for a little while. Combat started off better but the forms and a lot of the reaction moves make it feel so slide-y in the second slew of worlds. Land of the Dragon is also a huge let down, as far as level design goes.

[Anteros]

That's funny. I consider the first game to be the best. The plot actually makes sense and it's not a button mash fest.

[Rynjin]

That's funny. I consider the first game to be the best. The plot actually makes sense and it's not a button mash fest.

People overplay how much of a "button mash fest" KH2 is. It's the most like a proper character action game of any game in the series, and there's a lot of nuance in how you can set up your combos and abilities for challenge runs.

KH1 is extremely clunky by comparison. Still a good game, I replay it every couple of years, but it IS very much a "mash fest" since there's not a ton of nuance to the gameplay.

Once you get Ars Arcanum the game basically loses all challenge, and before that just regular attacking everything is fine to beat any given enemy. Or spamming magic, since magic busted in KH1.

Proud mode is a chore to get through in the first game, but Proud and ESPECIALLY Critical are extremely fun in 2 since there's actually stuff you can do to negate and avoid damage effectively.

But Birth by Sleep is still probably the best game in the series anyway.

[Razade]

The plot in one is certainly better if you're not in for Final Fantasy plots but on replay in 2022...it's not really much of a plot. The plot of each world is frankly non-existent, the most you get is a "oh no, villain's doing weird stuff" and the longest one takes an hour at most to work through. The meta-plot is even more barebones. The Princesses of Heart are being captured, Riku is with the Heartless, Kairi happens to be a Princess and then somehow, Ansem takes over Riku and we have to save him. That's it. Less than a paragraph. Two at least expands on it. I get people not really digging just how much more Final Fantasy they brought in, and the plot goes utter bonkers post 2, but it at least had people with motivations. I beat the first game in about 16 hours and I got almost every Dalmatian, got all Poo's pages and beat the Olympius stuff. It may be your favorite game Anteros but I think most people just have rose tinted glasses on how good it really is. I found it an unpolished mess of a game with frustrating controls, barely any story to engage with and the later fights were just a damage race which I won because I was overleveled as hell. And I went in with the same general feeling. 1 was better overall than 2. I'm finding that's not the case.

It's mostly just a matter of the fact that Kingdom Hearts was made for the PS2 and it's showing it's age. With a better camera, better balance for bosses and a few QoL fixes it wouldn't be so rough. As it stands, no mini-map, no actual markers for where you need to go or what you need to do and no help from the cut scenes and a barebones story doesn't really do much for me. This game is contemporary with things like Metroid Prime, Mario Sunshine, Grand Theft Auto 3, Morrowind, Windwaker, and Time Splitters 2. Some of the literal best catalog of their respective console from the same year. No one can look me in the eye and tell me Tarzan's level is as good as even the worst level in Kingdom Hearts 2. I'd dare anyone to try and excuse the boss battle with Ursala as anything more than an unbalanced mess. I'm cool with challenging games, I've beat every Dark Souls and Soulslike there is on the market from Nioh to the Code Vein to Dark Souls 3. Challenge isn't a problem. When my two companions literally just die and can't raise because Ursala's lightning is spamming on them the entire fight so the moment they come back to life they're dead because they can act...that's a terrible boss fight. The bosses in 2 may be a bit more QTE heavy, but even the worst of them isn't as bonkers as Ursala or Dragon Maleficent who legit one shot me 14 levels over the recommended level because she pushed me into her fire and I got stunlocked and both my companions were dead from her previous (seconds before) stunlock fire wall death.

Once you get Ars Arcanum the game basically loses all challenge, and before that just regular attacking everything is fine to beat any given enemy.

Also this. I killed Ansem, Seeker of Darkness's solo form fight with Sora with two Ars Arcanum.

Or spamming magic, since magic busted in KH1.

But only this for regular enemies. Magic basically does nothing to bosses, especially Gravity which every boss is fast enough to get out of.

I have 3, just to finish the trilogy, and I have access to all the side games. So I've got a lot of games to get through on top of all the other backlog I've got. I'm just hoping 3 isn't as much a let down as it looks. Got it for 6 bucks, so even if it is...I didn't spend a lot.

[Whoracle]

But Birth by Sleep is still probably the best game in the series anyway.

Gather! Thunder! Thunder! Farewell! *repeat ad nauseam*

Sorry, couldn't resist. Don't get me wrong, I like BBS, but the gameplay is quite boring, and it was where the series' plot lost the rest of its marbles.
KH2FM is IMHO the most rounded game, in terms of story and gameplay. Sure, it has a lot of jank in both departments, but it strikes the best balance compared to all other games.

[Anteros]

I can confidently say that mindless button mashing is more than sufficient for Critical in KH2 considering I've done it at least twice. There might be a deeper combat system there for someone who wants it, but there's no real reason to ever use it outside of personal preference.

[Razade]

I don't mind mindless button mashing in a game where I'm not really expecting challenging combat. Dark Souls Kingdom Hearts is not. I'd totally be down for a Kingdom Hearts game with Dark Souls combat.

[Rynjin]

Gather! Thunder! Thunder! Farewell! *repeat ad nauseam*

Sorry, couldn't resist. Don't get me wrong, I like BBS, but the gameplay is quite boring, and it was where the series' plot lost the rest of its marbles.
KH2FM is IMHO the most rounded game, in terms of story and gameplay. Sure, it has a lot of jank in both departments, but it strikes the best balance compared to all other games.

Eh, I like BBS exactly for what it is: a mobile game in the way that used to mean before phone games ruined the term.

It's extremely fun in short spurts and it's fun playing with the abilities system, grinding, and mixing abilities to see what pops out. It's the same reason I love Final Fantasy Legend 2/SaGa 2 so much. Yeah, you can find an optimal build and stick with it pretty early, especially as Aqua, but I don't think that's a mark against it.

Plus I really don't see how BBS is where the plot lost its marbles. That dishonor goes to DDD in my opinion.

Plus, if you don't think this is still the tightest ****, I don't even know man:

[Anonymouswizard]

I remember KH1 being fine. Not sure I ever got past Atlantica, but it was fine. 2 had better gameplay and a somewhat stronger overarching story.

I've never played BBS, but I have played 3D which uses the Command Deck, and I have to say that it made gameplay leagues better than the first two. The way character switching happened was annoying though, and I feel like Sora got more level than Riku, especially in the final world.

[Brother Oni]

Uh guys? Kingdom Hearts 1 is 20 years old - of course there's going to be issues with it feeling a little dated and controls being a bit janky, especially in today's post Souls games environment which has raised the bar.

[MCerberus]

Playing Red Faction Guerilla: ReMarstered. While it is absolutely a bit dumb and the story is a fun little revolution plot bolted to the side of a flaming heap of Hero’s Journey malarkey and insipid characters, I’m having a great time. By playing on the highest difficulty and using only captured cars and wielding only proximity mines, remote charges, and a pistol, I’ve got the difficulty where I want it. Cover is important because you need to get close, but cover is only temporary due to all the explosions. It’s a lot of fun having to plan the most efficient way to rearrange municipal architecture while said municipality is trying to kill you.

My friend-group exclusively calls that game "Kool-Aid man simulator"

[Razade]

Uh guys? Kingdom Hearts 1 is 20 years old - of course there's going to be issues with it feeling a little dated and controls being a bit janky, especially in today's post Souls games environment which has raised the bar.

I was at least talking about the 1.5 which came out in 2013. But I don't think it's even good by its contemporary's standards, its 2002 release, as other games set in that time which I brought up. I'm not saying "compared to modern games, this 10-20 year old game doesn't hack it.". I'm saying "Kingdom Hearts wasn't that great in 2002 or 2013."

[Rodin]

I have a really hard time with the argument "this game you enjoyed the hell out of and played several times to completion is a bad game" no matter how you look at it in the future. That isn't nostalgia glasses talking - at the time it came out, you played it and you thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.

To me, that's the definitive answer right there. It was a good game when you played it, because otherwise you wouldn't have obsessed over it. Any looking back 20 years later is tainted by the same shift in perspective that causes you to rate things higher with nostalgia goggles.

You can compare to contemporary games all you like and say "Well, objectively, these games had better gameplay/mechanics/story/whatever..." but at the end of the day none of that matters for judging whether a game was inherently good.

Did you enjoy it when it came out? Yes? Then it was a good game. QED.

[Wookieetank]

Did you enjoy it when it came out? Yes? Then it was a good game. QED.

I'll second this. So long as I'm having fun with a game, its worth playing. Hell some companies bank on this *cough Bethesda cough*, and provide some very roughly finished products.

[Zevox]

Uh guys? Kingdom Hearts 1 is 20 years old - of course there's going to be issues with it feeling a little dated and controls being a bit janky, especially in today's post Souls games environment which has raised the bar.

Raised the bar on what, exactly? "Great controls" is not what comes to mind for what Souls games are known for me. And while I haven't played the more recent ones (DS3, Demon's Souls Remake, Elden Ring), the ones I have played were at best just fine in that regard. To an extent their deliberately slow-paced gameplay where you can never cancel any animations can make the controls feel worse than really are, even.

[warty goblin]

Except from a purely polygon-crunching perspective - and a certain amount of interface design - I'm pretty hesitant to say things like old games don't hold up because new games do things better. Certainly once you get out of very early, nearly experimental titles when, e.g. 3D was brand new and people were still figuring out basic things like level design and camera control. By the time you get to the mid 2000s though, a lot of those early issues had pretty much been solved and were common knowledge enough that many competently made games were using them.

At that point it's mostly just a matter of taste. I can't comment on Kingdom Hearts specifically, but I really enjoy the button-mashy feel of older melee games. It's fun. It may not be deep, or complex, or rewarding, or punishing*, just simple, satisfying and fast-paced fun. I don't like Dark Souls combat, so the last half decade or so of making everything slow and weighty and attaching goddamn stamina bars to everybody and treating animation cancelling like the plague has made games worse from my perspective. I used to really love third person melee games, and I hardly play them at all anymore.

Things can evolve over time without becoming better or worse in any meaningfully objective sense of quality. If your tastes run modern, a 20 year old game is probably not great, if your tastes don't run that way, a modern game could well be worse.


*How the bloody hell punishing turned into a general-purpose compliment for anybody but a dominatrix I will never understand.