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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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most recent entry: Wednesday 30 March, 2011
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Drakan: The Ancients' Gates
Drakan is an 3rd person action adventure game with a few RPG elements. It was developed by Surreal Software and published in 2002 for the Playstation 2.
Story:
Drakan: The Ancients' Gates is a sequel to Drakan: Order of the Flame but the story is not dependent upon the first game. You Play as Rynn, a dragon rider who is bonded to her Dragon Arokh who is a Dragon of the Elder Breed, which turns out to be very important. To Summarize Rynn and Arokh are summoned to the City of Surdana where they find out an evil race of demons know as the Desert Lords are gathering monsters from around the world and enslaving humans cities. They only way to fight back is to awaken the rest of the Elder Breed, who have the power to save them. They are told the only way to do so is to Activate several Gates that are scattered around the world. Arokh alone posses the ability to reactivate these gates so the task falls to you the only Dragon Rider.
World:
The World of Drakan is very large, and filled with places of interest and things to do. The Game is basically broken into several zones that each have a main quest and several minor quests. Each zone has a different theme, such as Forrest, Coast, Arctic, and Desert, this variation of scenery helps keep things fresh and gives a sense of progression. You begin only being able to travel in one zone, but as you progress through the game you are given opportunities to travel to new zones and once there you then must find and unlock a Gate in that zone which allows you to travel back to the zones you have previously been, by traveling through the gates. You do most of you large scale travel with the help of your Dragon Arokh who will go anywhere he can fit, but as he is quite large this leaves you to explore all those dungeons, caves and Buildings on your own. In general the world is very pretty for a game of its time, and the environment are generally interesting to traverse.
Dialogue:
The game is fully voice acted and you can talk to everyone you meet. Overall it is acted and written fairly well. Most of the dialogue is actually worth listening to and there is a definite humor is some. I found that I especially loved the back and forward between Rynn and Arokh.
Controls:
The controls are well thought out and map well to a console controller. I did find the movement to be a little stiff, this is due to the lack of sensitivity setting options that I am used to modern games. Instead of newer games where you press the stick in one direction and that is the direction you run, Drakan uses the scheme: press up move your character forward and Pressing left or right turns Rynn at a set rate left or right. This probably sounds worse than it is as the camera stays behind Rynn so movement end up working like most games Its just turning is a little to slow. The game does allow you to change the control scheme to duel shock but there is still no sensitivity so it didn't really help me. However even with this issue I was able to get used to the controls fairly quickly.
Combat:
There are basically two kinds of combat in Drakan, ground combat and aerial combat. More of the Game takes place on the ground so ground combat is more complex. For ground combat basically you can have a one weapon and optionally a shield. You are able to perform a 3 hit combo with melee weapons as well as 8 different special attacks. Each special attack has a different range and a different swing, you learned to chose which special to use based on the enemy you are fighting and the position you and the enemy are in. This special attack can have a variety of effect such as staggering your opponent, knocking them down, and even disarming them. To perform a special attack you press a combination of up to 2 buttons on the direction pad followed by the attack button. This allows you to very quickly choose the best special attack and execute it in combat. This system felt great to me, it was like mixing a simple fighting game into an action game. It added the tension of making you be careful not to mess up a special attack under stress. It was also a great way to map more attacks then would fit on a normal console controller. In addition to the melee option Rynn is very maneuverable, she is able to dodge attacks by rolling or Flipping out of the way, which is very important as her health does not recover over time. In addition to dodging Rynn is able to parry or block (if she has a sheild equiped) incoming attacks, this however requires timing as you can not simply hold down a block button.
Arial combat is actually done well in Drakan. The controls to fly Arokh feel pretty good and he is responsive. Basically Arokh can fight other flying enemies and enemies on the ground. He starts with fire breath but you can find other breath weapon types. Each breath weapon type has two attacks which generally fall under the categories of ranged and close quarters. Arokh is able to make may breath attacks quickly but each attack takes energy. The energy bar regenerates fairly quickly but it is slow enough that it is better to only attack when you are sure you can hit. In order to dodge incoming attacks you can try to dodge by quickly flying up or diving down. I found that i tended to strafe enemies while zig zaging up and down to avoid incoming fire.
Gear:
In Drakan you have a fairly small inventory that contains all the weapons, armor and items you are using as well as what you are carrying. The inventory is slot based so larger items take up more space. Due to the size of the inventory you cannot just carry everything you ever find with you, choices of what is useful have to be made and everything else should be dropped or sold. In addition to limited space your weapons and armor all have durability, where each hit you deal (or take for armor) reduces the durability of the item by one and when the item has no durability left it cannot be used. Items that are broken in this way can be repaired but when this is done the total durability of the item is cut in half. This imposes a natural limit on how long you can use any particular item and forces you to change your gear as you find new things.
Leveling:
This game has a very simple leveling mechanic, when you gain enough experience you gain a level which gives one skill point. You may spend a skill point in one of three categories: Melee, Archery, or Magic. You can not every reset your skills. And based on your skill you are able to use different and better items and magics.
Overall:
Basically I remember loving this game as a kid when I first played it, and now when I come back to it so many years and game later I find I still find the game quite enjoyable. I even like the combat so much that I wish other newer games were like it. It has its flaws but Drakan has aged very well.
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