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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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Brigandine - The Legend of Forsena (PS) by brenolleite |
The game is amazing for people that love strategy games, it has so many elements of strategy like territory control and classes for each unit. I have been in love for this game since I played it. |
most recent entry: Monday 2 March, 2015
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History - The game was developed by Hearty Robin in 2 April 1998, Japan. It is a role-playing game for PlayStation platform, a North America version was created in October 31 1998 by Atlus. In 2000 a new version of the game was developed by Hearty Robin, it was called Brigandine: Grand Edition. In this version, it was added multiplayer features where could be played with in the maximum 6 players, which one controlling one nation.
Game Features - It is a turn based game, where nations are battling to control the world. The game is basically divided into two modes, the battle mode, and the preparation mode, they will be better explained later. There are six nation to choose, each nation has a position on the map. Each nation has its captains, and each captain has their own skills to be used in the battle mode. Each nation has their own qualities and weaknesses, it is a rock, paper, scissors rule, where one nation is really good against other; And it is really bad against another one. The map is design with road and castles, each nation starts with a set of castles in the map; And their main goal is to dominate all
the castles in the map. In order to dominate one castle, a nation has to attack it and win the battle mode. Each nation has some captains and troops, the nation has to organize its troops into their castles in order to defend their castles and to acquire other castles.
Map Design - There are basic two maps in the game, the preparation map where all the castles are described; And the battle map, where the battles happen. Basically, the preparation map is a map simulation a real world. It has roads and its castles, in order to attack an castle the nation has to have a road connecting both castles. A nation can move their troops between castles in each stage. Those stages are counting as days in the game, so each day a nation can attack castles that are linked with its castle, or it can move their troops between castles, and it also can be attacked by other nations. Choosing the right path to attack and defend is a clever choice is this game, there are not enough troops to defend all castles; So, it is needed a good strategy in order to block the roads with a few castles.
Characters in Battle mode =>
Captain: In the game it is called rune Knight, it is the knight of chess to Brigandine game. The battle ends when it dies, so the troops has to protect him or her in order to win. Each rune Knight can lead a certain amount of troops in the battle, it means that a weaker captain may have more troops than a stronger captain(stats compassion). The captain has normal stats as in RPG games like experience, hit point, and mana. As higher its level more troops it can lead, and its skills can deal more damage. Different from troops captains do not have
permanent death.
Troops: Troops are types of monster like dragons, ghouls, and fairies. They also have the normal stats like hit points, experience, and etc. However, they change their form when they hit level 10 and 20(maximum level is 30). So, they have a basic type of classes in each character; Where the player can chose with monster it will become. Moreover, each of them has its own weaknesses and strengths. The troops can be crafted into each castle using mana, each nation earn an amount of mana per day depending how many castles they have in that day. They have permanent death, it means if one dragon died in battle you lost it, which make really hard to put your troops at maximum level.
Two phases of the game =>
Prepare Phase - This phase is divided by days as said before, each nation can choose adjacent castles to attack, and to move troops between its own castles. It is a pure strategy phase, where players are choosing the best location to defend and attack the enemies player. It is a battle for territory control, and it is one of the most important roles in the game. There are places with is better to be because there are less routes going to that castle, which means that the player can organize its troops in order to protect these routes. If a nation attacks and castle that is empty is automatically take it to itself, but if there are monsters protecting the castle a battle is start(battle map).
Battle mode: The battle mode is a simulation of the castle battles, so each castle has its different battle map. The map is divided into a hexagonal grid, where each unit occupies one. Some maps have water that normal monsters cannot pass thought, but flier monsters can. The battle is turn based, so each turn a player can move its units and attack the other player or computer's units. The battle can finish in two ways, the rune knight being killed or by retreat. A nation can always choose to retreat in his turn, when retreating there is a chance to the other nation capture some of your units. Moreover, if you rune knight dies and still having alive troops they are all captured by the winner nation. In the end of the battle mode, every alive unit earns experience. In each battle mode, a maximum of the rune knights is allowed. So, the battle finish when all them are dead. If one rune knight dies, and troops that are lead by him stop to move, and there is a chance to the other nation capture it.
Game Story - There are some stories in the single player mode, where nation are friendly(they can do alliances). And, there are a lot of cut scenes explaining about each rune knights. However, that is definitely not a game to count upon the story line. It is a game, that focus on the strategy side of the RPG. Where, the player feels in a medium age war controlling a whole nation and its troops in order to raise its empire.
Game Strategy - There are a bunch of strategy elements on the game as said before, the preparation phase requires a good understanding of the opponents and the map itself. The battle phases, requires good chooses to move your troops and protect the captain. The game is pure strategy, choosing how to move your troops around and trying to find the weakest point of the enemy nation in order to raise your empire.
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