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Phantom Abyss (PC) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 19:14:27) |
I'd heard of the game's hook (or gimmick if you will) as, everyday it's a different 1st person platforming game/run, and if you die - that's it. Play a different run later.
I'm guessing stuff changed along the way, though the concept is still here - it's a reasonably challenging rogue-like 1st person platforming game. I've had fun, you have a whip to help you climb and each level has different modifiers (the whip has an ability) and you can pick up boons in your run (if you have enough coins to afford them) and hopefully make it to the end. BUT, you see a bunch of ghosts for everyone else who played this level - if someone died, you can collect their spirit or something for a small heal! During each run you collect keys you can use to buy permanent upgrades, and so you go up the progression ladder of many roguelites...
Someone described this as first person temple run, which is close enough? I mean, the levels themselves are a lot more interesting than the "mere" reaction times that temple run goes for, here you can side-step/etc. stuff - and there are different paths, and in all you can be a bit creative for how you approach stuff...I've had fun so far - unlocked all the green levels and I've started on the blue ones!
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Cuphead (Switch) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 13:37:03) |
I only get to play this when my son comes around - and we play together and I realized, yeah - I need to either start practicing seriously or just give up. And, I enjoy playing it co-op, so there's not much sense in practicing, so I decided to give up.
We did make it to the 2nd island(?), and played some of the levels there - but I was clearly starting to see a steeper path to success. As in, it too us (mostly my fault) more and more tries to make less progress. He's already played it, beat it too? So, not much point for him really.
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Sonic Rush (DS) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 13:34:08) |
I started playing this from the saved game - with new(?) character Blaze on "area 2" (I don't remember the exact name). And, I just could not beat the level - it was set in the casino world, and everything was moving super fast and on "automatic" - so, you just press move and the character zips along, bounces, etc.
It's actually quite boring! Because you just do this, at some point you hit an enemy (very few enemies in the game!), lose your rings, and then carry on. But, I'd lose because I'd fall into a bottomless pit, lose three lives and then out.
I'd say it wasn't so much frustrating as it was a disappointment. Yes, the point of Sonic is that it's "fast" - that's it's thing. But I find that there's little interaction to the game for most of the levels - you just "go along with the direction". It's neat when sometimes you get bounced around automatically, but for the most part I like to control the character.
So, I deleted the save file and started a new one, this time with Sonic in the equivalent of green hill zone. This level has two areas and then a boss. So, it's like 3 levels make up a level.
And, the experience was pretty similar - run on automatic for a while, lose rings suddenly or die, repeat with a bit more caution...etc. I did make it all the way to the boss fight - which I almost beat one too many times, and I just realized - ok, this is dumb - at least the boss fights have more gameplay ( you dodge, make an attack when the weak spot is open, etc.) - but it's still a pretty boring/uninteresting platforming experience.
So, off to the shelf it goes!
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Secret Files: Tunguska (DS) by jp (Apr 4th, 2025 at 19:16:25) |
I think there's a weird moment in time when everyone thought that point-and-click style adventure games were dead, but they were not. And, I think this game is an example of a game that was under the radar of "mainstream" games press at the time? Or at least under the radar of the average consumer of videogames...
This particular game is also a strange little time capsule - it's a port of what I think was a PC game...also at a time when people where porting all kinds of things to the DS. And, it works! Well, from a UI perspective at least. And it works pretty well. At least compared to another adventure game I played recently on the DS whose name I'm blanking on as I write this. I bounced on that one because it had some character/3D interactions that were awkward and unintuitive. Here, they were much smarter about it (I'm assuming they made UI "concessions" because it's on the DS). So, while you have a 3D character that navigates a static space - you don't actually have to move the character around directly in order to interact with objects/places in each scene. Press one button and all the interactive spots highlight, and you can just tap on them directly. I LOVE this solution - especially because I was never a fun of the "hunt for the pixel" approach that many games had (on PC) - and I'm super glad it didn't come across into this DS version (for all I know, the "here's all the highlights" was also possible on PC).
But, the UI triumph aside, I still kind of bounced off this. I got stuck on a puzzle (how typical!) - and what I had to do was leave a location to visit another location and then continued...this seemed really "unfair" to me - as in, unintuitive - mostly because I had assumed I could not leave the locatio in the first place. It wasn't entirely unintuitive - but it was the sort of puzzle where I was sure I should be able to (in this case) get the key out of the aquarium - but it turns out that no, I had to leave the place, do some other stuff, and then come back. At this point I was well into the tried-and-true "try all the things with all the things", except that I did not know I could leave the location I was at. Sigh.
So, from glancing at my list of DS games I still need to play...well, I wasn't THAT interested in the story so far and the puzzles didn't feel particularly interesting either..so, it was an easy game to put on the shelf.
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Shogun Showdown (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 4th, 2025 at 18:33:00) |
Clever little tactics roguelite. It reminds me of Into the Breach and other tactics games where you are given clear information about what enemies will do each turn. It's also reminiscent of Into the Breach because of the small play space. Basically, the game takes place on a 2d plane that is divided into like 8 or 9 spaces. Any given character occupies 1 space and can move left or right. You build a "deck" of "tiles" that include attacks and other special abilities, many of which involve movement (e.g., a forward dash that moves to the nearest frontal enemy and deals 1 damage). Your goal is to build up your tiles and progress stage by stage until you kill the Shogun.
During each run, you can purchase and upgrade tiles, mostly increasing their damage or decreasing their cooldowns, purchase passive abilities, use items, and other standard roguelite stuff--make yourself stronger by strategically handling whatever random things you get.
Most every action you do takes a turn, and all characters take turns at the same time. So, you move right (1 turn) and all the enemies do a thing (one might move left toward you, one might queue up an attack). Then you queue up an attack, and those two enemies might queue up an attack and attack, respectively. Actually, it also reminds me of Crypt of the Necrodancer, which works like this, where all characters act simultaneously. In that game, when you move, everything else moves. Shogun Showdown is like that. When you do something, the enemies do something.
I beat the Shogun for the first time this evening, which was maybe my fifth run or so. I had what felt like extremely overpowered weapons, a sword that I'd leveled up to deal 5 damage with only a 2-turn cooldown. I also had a bow-and-arrow with 4 damage and a 3-turn cooldown. The kicker though was a curse that doubled the next damage on an enemy. So, I'd just queue the curse, the sword, and the arrow. That took literally half the Shogun's health bar. Did it again, dead and into phase 2. No problem. Did it two more times. Dead. Easy. When you beat the Shogun, you unlock "day 2", which is the next difficulty level. You can also unlock additional characters with different skills, and you can keep unlocking new tiles and stuff. I consider it beat after taking out the Shogun once. It's a fun game, really tight, and makes you think ahead. It doesn't do much that you haven't seen before though.
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2285 registered gamers and 3255 games. 7787 GameLogs with 13264 journal entries. 5110 games are currently being played.
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Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (PS2) by dkirschner |
| Awesome so far, much more like Persona than Digital Devil Saga. Cool demon recruitment system. ----------------- Excellent game. Gets tough at the end. Great party/demon customization options. Must think a lot! |
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most recent entry: Friday 5 October, 2012
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I think I'm done with Nocturne. It lasted me like two months! That's pretty damn good. Excellent game, excellent excellent game. I read back over my previous logs and think I said most everything to say. Just...it continues on. I just have many more examples of all the cool things.
I never mentioned the art design I don't think. The art in SMT games in general is real unique, but Nocturne especially. My favorites are these characters called 'manikins.' They are people born from mud and basically look like they're dressed in rags/prison stripes/insane asylum jackets. They are all kind of blank-looking and they have convulsions. I loved looking at them. And they are so sad in the story! They're just kind of weak and dumb and quirky and outcast, but oh so likeable, so I felt sorry for them because the other characters generally hate on them. Lots of the bosses look really badass too. Go look up some of the artwork. And even though it's almost 10 years old on a last-gen system, I swear it looks better than half the stuff out today.
The level design I also came to appreciate very much. Most of the dungeons were long, but not too long. Usually they were broken up into several floors or sections, which helped. As I got into the game, dungeons started becoming more puzzle-like. Lots of the puzzle elements were more like tricks. Sometimes I walked through a door, and it would only be a one-way door, so I couldn't go back. I'd have to take a long way around. My favorite dungeon in recent memory was the one with the painting illusions. It was this mansion place with tons of hallways going every which way. But they weren't as real as they seemed. Many times, what appeared to be a hallway was a painting of a hallway. The hallway would show some signs of distortion, like the depth would be off if you stared at it, or doors would be painted on the wall and have no protruding frames. If you "fell for it" a guardian literally called you a dumbass and kicked you somewhere else on the floor. I really liked paying attention to the details of the hallways and doors and lights and things to try and catch illusions! Sometimes the hallway *looked* like an illusion but if you got close enough, you saw that you could actually go through and that it was built that way, not painted. Really neat stuff. I'll also say how well done the sound design is. There's no voiceovers at all. Just sounds and music, and it conveys all the right moods at the right times, and is not overbearing. Wonderfully done.
The party customization kept getting better and better. Today I came across this boss who just annihilated me the first few times. He was tough because he was almost 100% resistant to all damage but electricity. The problem was I didn't have any electricity-using demons besides my healer, who I needed to, well, heal. Solution? Go to the Cathedral of Shadows, fuse two demons to get one with a sweet electricity spell, and then buy another electricity demon that I'd previously registered. BAM, 28,000 macca and 15 minutes later, I had a party with 3 electricity-users and I went back and owned the boss. I did find a problem though, and that's that I was able to build such awesome demons through fusion, that eventually I couldn't keep all the useful spells because you can only transfer up to 4. For example, my healer is currently level 57. I have no idea when I got it, at least 10 levels prior I think. Maybe even like 43 or 44. So it's long since quit learning new skills. But I haven't fused it with anything else because it is so ridiculously useful. It has Mana Refill, which I transferred to it from some other demon even farther back (actually I think I wrote about transferring Mana Refill to a demon in a log over a month ago - I've kept that same skill the whole time!) It has a heavy heal all skill, a medium force attack all, a medium electricity attack all, revive, a high odds expel attack, and some other stuff. Like, I don't want to lose any of that, and it won't all transfer. Actually, I think Mana Refill is quite a unique skill because that one really rarely will show up on a potential child's skill list. So...my problem is that some of my demons are too good...Ha. But it is getting a little tough because now she's so far behind my main character and the other demons in level. 57 to main character's 70 (demons level up about half as fast as the main character, so you have to fuse them and recruit more to keep them most useful with high enough HP and stuff).
Speaking of leveling, I'm stuck. I'm in the last dungeon and fighting a boss who is too strong. I know what I need to do. Kind of like the boss where I had to have characters using electricity, this one is even more specific. I need the War Cry skill which drastically reduces enemies' attack and magic power. But I don't have it, and I kind of don't feel like fusing a demon who does because the bosses are starting to get like this, really hard where you MUST have x, y, z skill in order to stand a chance. This current boss for example, he casts a spell called Apocalypse, which is unblockable/undodgeable and hits my characters for 400 HP or so. My party has like 406, 460, 600, and 650 or something, so that is A LOT of HP. Basically if they aren't at full they die. So of course the boss gets 2 attacks every turn. He casts Apocalypse twice! Bam, all dead. I'd need so much more HP to survive, which is not feasible. So what I need is a demon with War Cry. But it's got to have other useful skills too. I fear that fusing is about to become grindy. I read up on a walkthrough a little about the later bosses, and yeah, I think I will just call it here and finish up watching on YouTube. It's funny, over on Howlongtobeat, I was wondering why the average time for Nocturne was like 70 hours. I'm at like 45. Yeah, I think I found out why tonight. I supposed you eventually have to spend time really really really building specific demons for these final bosses.
Also those long play times probably have some of the extra stuff added in, like the Amala Network, which is a 5-floor dungeon that you periodically unlock sections of by defeating the Candelabra fiends. I killed a couple fiends very early on, and I think I went inside the Amala network twice. I don't know what the point of it is, whether it's to get treasure, or just to find more Magatami or what. I just ignored it because I didn't know what it was for and I had enough dungeons and hard enemies to fight anyway.
So looks like the end. The point of the game's story is that a new world is going to be created after the apocalypse that happened in the beginning. Throughout the game, you learn about the characters and gods who are vying for control to realize their version of things. Will it be a Darwinian world where only the strong survive? Will it be a highly individualistic world where no one has to do anything they don't want? Will it be a world where everyone is equal? Or one where there is no emotion? There are like 5 or so of them I think, and throughout the game you make dialogue choices that affect which ending you get, and maybe you choose one or the other for good at some point. Anyway, we'll see what I choose!
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