What Are You Currently Playing? 5.05: You Are (Not) A Gamer

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Resident Evil 4.

Why, yes, it is one of the best video games ever conceived and created.

[talonmalon333]

RE4 is one of those "Games You Need to Play Before You Die" games.

[gunswordfist]

That's it?

Well, yeah. We've pretty much given up on you at this point, anyway.

That warranted a legitimate laugh.

[Kiddington]

Playing DKC2 again reaffirms all of the glowing things I said about it in my little writeup for the Top 100 list.

This game is the absolute pinnacle of Donkey Kong. About as close to perfect as a platformer can get.

[gunswordfist]

My lil bro and me have been tried to beat Gunstar Heroes on Hard Mode again over the last two days. On Monday, it took us 4 to 5 hours to get past stages 5. We finally did it when my brother 2 of the orange gun or whatever it's called. We got up to the last boss gauntlet, I got up to Orange and couldn't get past him with my brother dozing off so I ended it there. Yesterday I got past Stage 5 by myself in one try with the double Chaser. I beat Seven Force and Black by myself too. It took us a few tries to get the ship part in 6. Oh, speaking of 6, when we got to the last "Vectorman" boss on Monday, I thought that part was disappointed. I wish it did more than 2 attacks. Back to Tuesday, we couldn't get past Black Fly after hours of trying so we called it quits there. He'll be here in a few minutes so we'll try eat some more pizza and cookies and try again.

[gunswordfist]

We tried Hard Mode on GSH again yesterday. I beat Seven Force and Dice Palace and Black by myself. I almost solo'd Stage 5 but Smash killed me. It only took us like 2 tries to beat the ship segment and of course Guard Device is easy. Then comes the hard part. During the boss gauntlet, I finally got past Black Fly but was too half dead to beat Green and my brother and me only got there together once but same story.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Until my first rotation starts on May 28th, I pretty much have a bunch of free-time until then. So I ended up digging up my old Game Boy Advanced and found my copies of Oracle of Ages/Seasons. I decided to start with Ages, and surprisingly the memory still works for that game (though, I have no idea if my Seasons cartridge will hold up, since I haven't tried that one, yet).

My god is this such a good game. I think the one thing that this game does right more than anything else is the expert pacing. The game doesn't get off to a slow start (which, IMO, is kind of a problem with A Link to the Past, and various other Zelda games), and instead has a good, brief story introduction, and then introduces you to its main gimmick of time travel right away, while also throwing in plenty of classic Zelda-style twists and turns to keep things interesting as you progress through the game. Flaship also seemed to know just the perfect amount of stuff to make you do in-between dungeons so as to keep the game from feeling too quick and linear, while also never making you feel like the game is being dragged out with medial chores and fetch-quests just so that you can get to the next major dungeon. Its like one constant string of events that perfectly lead one into another, and it gives the game a quality in which its hard to put it down once you've been playing it for a while. Sure, the game is a bit on the easy side, but that doesn't bother me when the design makes it so much fun to play, anyways.

[Nel_Annette]

Ages is my favorite Zelda game followed by Seasons, so I'm glad to see you're enjoying it still over a decade on. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, Oracle of Ages/Seasons are my favorite 2D Zelda games, by far. After I finish those, I'll finally get onto the Minish Cap, which I never finished before, and then after that I may finally go back to play through A Link to the Past. And then after that I'll possibly play through Link's Awakening again, but that's only if I'm in the mood for more Zelda by that point.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just got past the Wing Dungeon in Oracle of Ages. I have to say that I actually like the side-scrolling segments in this game. They are very brief but also very well designed. Its a great throwback to Zelda II, except that unlike Zelda II, the Oracle games actually do side-scrolling Zelda the right way. Actually, to be honest, I was never against the idea of a Zelda side-scroller. I just think that Zelda II didn't really execute it the right way. If Nintendo ever felt the need to be experimental with the franchise again in the future, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing them take another stab at a Zelda game that's mostly based around the side-scrolling perspective. If handled right, it could be a completely unique new style of gameplay for the series, while still retaining the feeling of a Zelda game, on the whole.

[talonmalon333]

The game doesn't get off to a slow start (which, IMO, is kind of a problem with A Link to the Past, and various other Zelda games)

A Link to the Past actually has one of my favorite starts in the entire series. Five minutes into the game, and you're already in a dungeon.

But yeah, Oracle of Ages is awesome. Shame that not as many people played it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The first 10 minutes of the game are fine, but after that I feel like I get stuck doing a lot of aimless wandering as the game is not at all clear on where to go next, and doesn't even give you much in the way of story for a while. You just have to take some clues and do some pretty unexciting stuff until the game picks up again, and for me there was a good 30 minutes after the game's prologue where I felt like things were dragging until I finally started getting into it again. There are also portions in the middle of the game which I feel can drag, in-between some dungeons.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The first time I played ALTTP I got stuck wandering the map, but I never really had that problem after that. For an "introduction" the five dungeons you go through take quite a while to traverse. But I never really found the introduction slow at all, like Talon said you're in a dungeon within the first few minutes which is basically how it should be, in my opinion.

The first time you walk into the Dark World after beating Agahnim is still daunting to me, however. It's like THERE ARE EIGHT MORE DUNGEONS ARE YOU KIDDING ME and they are all over the map!

[gunswordfist]

Didn't get too far past Smash until my bro fell asleep on GSH. Dammit.

[Grave]

Finally got some free time (I'm off all next week due to being laid off... It's sad that I'm happy about that).

Anyway, haven't really had the chance to play much because I've been either tired or just too lazy to bother playing games, but I am going to continue with Super Street Fighter 4. Thought I had my main character figured out until I saw Evil Ryu being played at a high level. I've always considered him to be a lot of fun, but his damage output is crazy and I like it, but to get me prepared for Evil Ryu, I chose to use Ken as well since Evil Ryu is a execution heavy character. Third character has not been determined yet.