What Are You Currently Playing? 6.65: Neighbor of the Beast

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Good god! You have both my congratulations and my sympathies for accomplishing that feat, my good sir.

Now 101% The Evil Within, which includes beating it on AKUMU difficulty.

[talonmalon333]

Mine too... though maybe a bit more sympathies from me... just kidding.

Honestly, I never even tried to complete that game. I just got the bare minimum amount of junk needed and then beat the final boss and shelved it. I feel like, for every level in the game, I always got sick of it and be so ready to move onto the next level, which I proceeded to play and got sick of before long. It's a cycle with no exceptions.

[Avaitor]

Wow, that's an excellent write-up, Foggle! While I mostly agree with you, I did not have the same patience that you did for the game at all. All that backtracking and the lack of fun in the mini-games, no thank you.

But there is some competence in the game, and fun to be found initially. It just drags when you add in all the other characters, especially when the only real goal is for them to collect shit.

[talonmalon333]

It feels like they could have made five decent games out of it, but instead made one overly long bore.

[Foggle]

Now 101% The Evil Within, which includes beating it on AKUMU difficulty.

Oh god... I think I might actually try once I eventually get the next gen version. We'll see.

Honestly, I never even tried to complete that game. I just got the bare minimum amount of junk needed and then beat the final boss and shelved it. I feel like, for every level in the game, I always got sick of it and be so ready to move onto the next level, which I proceeded to play and got sick of before long. It's a cycle with no exceptions.

Wow, that's an excellent write-up, Foggle! While I mostly agree with you, I did not have the same patience that you did for the game at all. All that backtracking and the lack of fun in the mini-games, no thank you.

But there is some competence in the game, and fun to be found initially. It just drags when you add in all the other characters, especially when the only real goal is for them to collect shit.

Yeah, it's not a bad game by any means, and the first couple of worlds are actually a lot of fun. The later levels have their moments as well, but the sheer amount of mini-games it starts throwing your way after you've unlocked all the characters makes the incessant item collection feel even draggier than it normally would. Really, I only decided to 101% this game because:
A) I never got the chance to as a kid, and I wanted to prove it could be done.
B) I've recently been revisiting and 100%ing my other favorite collectathons from when I was a kid, so I figured why not?

It feels like they could have made five decent games out of it, but instead made one overly long bore.

Yeah. There really should have been no more than two playable characters.

[talonmalon333]

Yeah. There really should have been no more than two playable characters.

But then we wouldn't have the DK Rap, which is the best part of the game.

[gunswordfist]

i was going to fight ceaseless discharge but got lost and found the mmm guy. what he said about the swamp made me want to explore it even more. i usually just run through the place due to the annoying poison. i found and climbed up some big branch into a big tree and...got one item. this made me think of that god of war secret i heard about with the empty room and two big statues. there's no way a giant tree just has one item. long story short, after awhile i made it to ash lake.

[Foggle]

And now I'm playing the SNES remake of Megami Tensei 2. (That's right, just Megami Tensei, no Shin here!) For 1990, the depth displayed in this game's storytelling and gameplay mechanics is almost unthinkable. Of course, neither really compares to what came later in the series, but the combat system holds up better than nearly any other turn-based RPG from the same time period, and while the dialogue is simple and kind of cheesy, the writing is surprisingly complex and mature. That said, this isn't the original NES version, but I'm pretty sure the remake doesn't really change anything outside of making the graphics not incomprehensible.

I also tried the original Megami Tensei, but that one's basically just a convoluted dungeon crawler with no plot, so I stopped after a couple hours. It was kind of fun, though.

Yeah. There really should have been no more than two playable characters.

But then we wouldn't have the DK Rap, which is the best part of the game.

True... but what if it wasn't? What if DK64 was actually a worthwhile followup to Banjo-Kazooie and/or Donkey Kong Country? I think that would have been worth losing the DK Rap over.

[gunswordfist]

also yesterday, i played streets of rage remake for the first time in probably over 2 years. i first tried to beat the sor1 route as rudra to get the secret ending. i was getting used to playing as her and getting reacquainted to the game so i didn't fair as well. just got to the ship. also, i didn't know i had it on hard mode. i probably was trying to beat hard mode back then since i beat normal so many times. after that, i picked my main, adam and played the route that starts with sor3' 1st level. i didn't get my level saved right so i ended up messing up that playthrough. i i also bought beta max and volleyball. next time i'll solo as adam and plan on beating normal on each route and then hard and then mania.

[talonmalon333]

True... but what if it wasn't? What if DK64 was actually a worthwhile followup to Banjo-Kazooie and/or Donkey Kong Country? I think that would have been worth losing the DK Rap over.

I don't know. I actually like the other Kongs. I think they could have made it work having five Kongs, but only having to do things one time instead of five. They could have made each Kong be playable in different ways (as they did), and just built a single experience that requires the combination of all five of them, as opposed to making you play through the levels one time for each Kong.

[gunswordfist]

i prefer it when games have multiple characters that you aren't forced to use.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition has one of the best optional extra playable characters of all time.

I also like playing as Jetstream Sam in his MGRR DLC episode, but Platinum Games missed a huge opportunity by not allowing him to be playable in the main game.

I've never been too keen on the extra playable characters in Ninja Gaiden games since they never feel as satisfying to play with as Ryu, with the exception of Razor's Edge, in which they all feel way better to play as than Ryu, but that's just a testament to what a piece of shit NG3 is, since in terms of controls, that's the worst that Ryu has ever been in any Ninja Gaiden game. Once I beat the main story for him, I literally just exclusively switched to using Kasumi for the remainder of my time playing that game before I got tired of it, which didn't take very long at all.

[gunswordfist]

i stopped ceaseless discharge.

[gunswordfist]

also yesterday, i killed the hydra at ash lake, joined the dragon covenant and got all the way up to red of chaos.

[gunswordfist]

i am enjoying playing duke nukem on come get some mode. it has the right amount of enemies for me. i started playing because i heard that the captured women say "kill me", drinking from broken toilets and hydrants and assault troopers can revive. also, i just found the peep show rooms in level 2. basically i havent been paying attention. lol