Flashfall's recent activity

  1. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link Parent
    That may be by design, the overarching plot is your character being suddenly dropped into this "Court" in a position of far too much responsibility and your primary motivation is to figure out...

    turned off by the story/dialogue just cause I felt thrown in the deep end.

    That may be by design, the overarching plot is your character being suddenly dropped into this "Court" in a position of far too much responsibility and your primary motivation is to figure out what the hell's going on and how to get out. The game creator wants you to be initially confused and overwhelmed like your character, but then also take it in stride and figure it out as you go.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link Parent
    "Gaol" is a dated British spelling of "jail", so maybe they intentionally used that version of the word to better fit the setting? Unless they only did it sometimes, in which case that would most...

    I also notice a bit of sloppiness in the translation, like spelling "jail" as "gaol"

    "Gaol" is a dated British spelling of "jail", so maybe they intentionally used that version of the word to better fit the setting? Unless they only did it sometimes, in which case that would most likely be sloppiness.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link
    SkillUp mentioned Titanium Court in the latest episode of the Friends Per Second podcast and it totally sounded like something I would normally never touch but it also sounded so absurdly indie...

    SkillUp mentioned Titanium Court in the latest episode of the Friends Per Second podcast and it totally sounded like something I would normally never touch but it also sounded so absurdly indie that I figured I'd try it anyway.

    So anyway, this game is absurdly indie haha. The core game loop itself starts as a match 3 that shapes the battlefield for the second part, which is a sort of auto-battler where you summon units and use spells that consume resources you get from the match 3 section (matching things gets you that resource). Your castle, the eponymous "Titanium Court", is one such square in the grid, and there are various enemy forts or other threats that can appear and also be matched away, with the rest being what you need to deal with during the auto-battle phase. There's also shops and chests that can appear on the grid during the match 3 and you can access them after the match 3 phase is done and prior to the auto-battle phase. There's a lot more nuance to it than I can describe here so I'll just say it's very unique without being too complicated to pick up quickly.

    The storytelling is uh, I really can't describe it in words other than "very, very indie". I have no idea who the developer's target audience for this game was other than people looking for an indie game experience. It's not unpleasant or crude, but frequently eccentric. It's got humor, but in a weird way? Words really fail me here. Wouldn't say it's a must-try but if you're looking for a unique indie experience it'll definitely give you that.

    3 votes

  4. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link
    I've put a dozen hours into the latest hyped co-op horde shooter, Far Far West, and so far it's been a fun time with a friend. It's got the first person responsive arcade movement and shooting of...

    I've put a dozen hours into the latest hyped co-op horde shooter, Far Far West, and so far it's been a fun time with a friend. It's got the first person responsive arcade movement and shooting of Deep Rock Galactic and the open map and mission design of Helldivers 2 where you can wander and complete side objectives as you please, with the only fixed order requirements being a main objective, boss fight, and extraction fight. The art style is a simple, cartoony 3D one that's not painful to look at, and the theme of robot cowboys fighting a skeleton army's unique and humorous enough to stand out a bit.

    There's a decent spread of primary and secondary weapons that all feel very different, as well as a good selection of spells that have some interesting synergies with each other. There's a good 6 maps already available and they all look distinct enough, though the maps are fixed and only the objectives are randomized each time. Build variety, aside from choosing weapons and spells, comes from Jokers, which are modifiers for your character and weapons. Each can equip their own jokers with a slot limit, with higher rarity jokers taking up more slots. Jokers can also be found or earned mid-mission, though those only last for the mission duration.

    For an early access launch, there's a good amount of fun to be had for 20 bucks. Definitely better with friends as these kinds of games tend to be but good enough to stand on its own solo.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Flashfall
    Link
    I've been following a few shows this season, sequels like Re: Zero and Iruma-kun season 4, and some hyped manga adaptations like Yomi no Tsugai and Witch Hat Atelier. So far though, the one I'm...

    I've been following a few shows this season, sequels like Re: Zero and Iruma-kun season 4, and some hyped manga adaptations like Yomi no Tsugai and Witch Hat Atelier.

    So far though, the one I'm enjoying the most is Nippon Sangoku, a tale of 3 warring nations that formed after the societal collapse of Japan and one young man's journey to unite them. The art is bold, high contrast, and generally beautiful to look at. The important characters all stand out a lot by their personalities alone, though distinct character design is not lacking at all either. The storytelling is framed like a retelling of historical events, and the animation from small details to action scenes is high-quality. There are scenes with bloodshed and death, but if you're alright with that then I highly recommend giving this one a try.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link
    Played a lot of Windrose with a friend and we've more or less finished all the exploration and mission content currently available. All in all, a really solid survival crafting game with a bit of...

    Played a lot of Windrose with a friend and we've more or less finished all the exploration and mission content currently available. All in all, a really solid survival crafting game with a bit of a learning curve for both ground and naval combat, but plenty of great quality of life features out of the box, and a decent execution on the pirate theme. Took us 60-70 hours to clear all the missions, max out our preferred equipment, build the current biggest ships, and explore all the points of interest, and that's including the tedious resource gathering, so it's a good value for 30 bucks. We're not avid builders so we'll just wait until more content is released to pick it up again, but the building system and available building pieces are quite good and varied, and if you visit the subreddit (r/crosswind, that's the game's old name), you can admire other players' Spanish-style mansions, sprawling pirate coves, or minimally functional leaf shacks.

    Also really briefly started a new endless mode run on Frostpunk 2 to hunt down a few more achievements and by the "end" of that one I managed to have a workforce 17 times higher than my population. Love how absurdly imbalanced Fractured Utopias can get, very much looking forward to Breach of Trust in June.

    6 votes

  7. Comment on How are we all feeling about piracy these days? in ~movies

    Flashfall
    Link
    In the words of Gabe Newell, "piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". I pay for convenience and a good user experience, and if I'm not getting that then I don't pay....

    In the words of Gabe Newell, "piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". I pay for convenience and a good user experience, and if I'm not getting that then I don't pay.

    I don't pirate ANY games anymore because Steam is just incredibly convenient (plus I like multiplayer co-op stuff and that just doesn't work with pirated copies). It also helps that I know the publisher/devs get a sizeable cut of my purchase there so I'm actually supporting them.

    For shows and movies, the only streaming service I use is Prime Video but that's only because it comes with Prime, and even then I still need to put up with ads. Anything on any other streaming platform that I really want to see can usually be found on a free streaming site within a few minutes (though you have to be careful not to click on ads with those).

    For anime, the only major anime streaming platform for the West is Crunchyroll, but their selection's limited and the streaming quality's mid and the subtitles aren't always good and very little if any of the money they make goes back to the anime studios. Plus, they've been working with Japanese publishers to very aggressively crack down on unaffiliated anime streaming sites, which is understandable from a business perspective but still rankles the Western anime community. After the last streaming site I was using went down last month I've just decided to torrent all the things I want to watch, and I've set it up so that I automatically download the latest episodes as they're uploaded so it's still pretty convenient. I'll support anime studios more directly by buying merch for shows I'm really into, but Crunchyroll isn't getting shit from me.

    15 votes

  8. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link
    So I finally finished the story of Death Stranding 2 and yeah I still stand by the writing itself being very B-movie quality but it doesn't even matter because it's VERY self aware of that and the...

    So I finally finished the story of Death Stranding 2 and yeah I still stand by the writing itself being very B-movie quality but it doesn't even matter because it's VERY self aware of that and the visual spectacle that goes along with it is phenomenal. There were definitely some better executed sequences with real emotional impact at least, and the rather convoluted plot actually ties itself up quite neatly. Fair warning though, the last few story missions that make up the climax and ending have A LOT of cutscenes and will take a couple hours to get through. You'll have moments in between to save if you need to come back to it later, at least. Won't spoil anything in particular, but you'll definitely enjoy them more if you're a fan of Kojima's previous games, he knows what we like.

    I'm in the post-endgame now where I'm free to wander as I please so naturally I'm gonna max out connections with all of the delivery locations for completion's sake, maybe donate building materials and stuff to other players now that I've finished restoring the entire highway. Keep on keeping on.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link
    Still playing Death Stranding 2, my intense need to build every stretch of highway or monorail as I connect more parts of the map is really ruining the pacing of the story for myself, haha. Those...

    Still playing Death Stranding 2, my intense need to build every stretch of highway or monorail as I connect more parts of the map is really ruining the pacing of the story for myself, haha. Those special moments during story orders where the music kicks in are also notably less impactful when you're in a vehicle, so I've decided to avoid using vehicles for story orders altogether to maximize the vibes. Writing's still mediocre, but the ideas and execution are top-notch.

    Also hopped back on Warhammer 40,000: Darktide to try out the new Expeditions game mode, and learn the Arbites class while I'm at it. The new game mode itself is different, it plays like a weird version of Deep Rock Galactic where you're meant to get in, get as much stuff as you're comfortable with, and get out while fending off a horde, and you're actively trying to avoid enemies due to limited supplies and a time limit. It's not bad, but I don't really want to play it more than the regular game mode. Arbites on the other hand has been a joy to play with. The durability of the class is incredible, the unique weapons feel great, all of the abilities feel strong, and the dog is actually really helpful. Plus, the voice I picked for mine is such an asshole and it makes for hilarious bits of dialogue mid-mission.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on I'm glad Hideo Kojima went into games instead of directing movies in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link Parent
    In terms of understanding what's going on the cutscenes are pretty vital, I'm pretty sure Kojima is self-aware on how unintuitive or nonsensical many of his ideas and plot points are so he just...

    In terms of understanding what's going on the cutscenes are pretty vital, I'm pretty sure Kojima is self-aware on how unintuitive or nonsensical many of his ideas and plot points are so he just chooses to have people explain it to the main character rather than leave it to the player to figure it out. Not all cutscenes are just boring exposition dumps, sometimes there are just very cool visuals going on with little explanation, and I'm still only in the first third of the game so maybe it gets better once the main character's finally up to speed on who's who and what's what.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link Parent
    This is funny to me since I haven't played a mainline Pokemon game since generation 3 (Ruby/Sapphire and Fire Red/Leaf Green), so I have no idea what QoL additions are in the modern Pokemon games,...

    I'm old, but I've never owned a gameboy and never played a Pokemon game until 2020, so there is zero nostalgia associated with this game for me. This game is insanely frustrating to play without the QoL additions of modern pokemon.

    This is funny to me since I haven't played a mainline Pokemon game since generation 3 (Ruby/Sapphire and Fire Red/Leaf Green), so I have no idea what QoL additions are in the modern Pokemon games, and I can't remember anything being particularly frustrating when I played them on my GBA but it has been 20 years, so...

    2 votes

  12. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link
    25 hours and 4 "episodes" deep into Death Stranding 2 on PC so far. I made a post a bit earlier with my in-depth thoughts here, but the general gist of it is that Kojima's an awful scriptwriter...

    25 hours and 4 "episodes" deep into Death Stranding 2 on PC so far. I made a post a bit earlier with my in-depth thoughts here, but the general gist of it is that Kojima's an awful scriptwriter and the narrative's rather contrived but the gameplay's excellent and it feels good to share structures and items with other players and see the "likes" pop up when they use them. It's still more or less the same gameplay as the first one, so either you're already into the whole delivery game thing or you're not.

    6 votes

  13. Comment on I'm glad Hideo Kojima went into games instead of directing movies in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link Parent
    It's definitely a niche title and the core gameplay loop of just delivering packages from point A to B definitely turns away most people right off the bat, but it's very much about the journey and...

    It's definitely a niche title and the core gameplay loop of just delivering packages from point A to B definitely turns away most people right off the bat, but it's very much about the journey and not the destination. Sometimes it'll be an uneventful trip where you just take a quick drive to a nearby shelter, other times you'll be carefully traversing through hostile territory trying to damage your cargo as little as possible, or navigating through rough terrain for the first time and trying to figure out a route with the tools you have on hand. In other games this kind of activity would be a boring chore but here it's a puzzle that has occasional moments of zen.

    One of the most memorable moments I've had in DS2 so far was during an optional job to neutralize a bandit camp and retrieve their stolen goods. I had an engagement which started stealthy and finished as a shootout with some brawling (the melee combat's surprisingly dynamic). As I was gathering up the cargo after the fight, the rain intensified and the water level of the nearby river rose, so I had to make a makeshift bridge with some ladders I picked up in the camp to cross back over. I exhausted my stamina halfway on the return trip, so I sat down on a forest path to rest and restore it a bit. The game gave me options to massage my shoulders and stretch my legs and I don't know if they actually helped but it felt like they did. Some somber music began to play while I was resting too, and I've only heard it play when I rest. I thought it was interesting, how the game has this emphasis on moments where you slow down or relax where most games are about hyping up big moments with lots of action.

    The actual most unique feature of the Death Stranding games though is how they're single player games with seamless multiplayer interaction. While you'll never actually see another player, you can still help each other out by contributing to or building useful structures that are shared across multiple players' games, or donating supplies, or leaving deliveries at intermediate locations for other players to complete. They're total strangers you'll never meet or talk to, and you may not get anything for helping them aside from some digital thumbs up, but there's something really wholesome about being able to help each other even from a distance.

    9 votes

  14. I'm glad Hideo Kojima went into games instead of directing movies

    ~games Ask
    I'm currently 20 hours and 4 "episodes" deep into Death Stranding 2 on PC and I don't have the patience to wait til the Monday megathread rolls around again to voice my thoughts. This isn't my...

    I'm currently 20 hours and 4 "episodes" deep into Death Stranding 2 on PC and I don't have the patience to wait til the Monday megathread rolls around again to voice my thoughts. This isn't my first time playing a Kojima game; I've got over 100 hours in the first Death Stranding and I've also finished multiple entries in the Metal Gear series, I've even played Boktai 2 on the GBA (though I didn't know that was a Kojima game til much later). I enjoy the vision, wackiness, flexibility in gameplay, and emphasis on little details that are fairly characteristic of a Kojima game, and those things are definitely very present in this one as well. That said though, there is one thing that only becomes more and more clear as I progress:

    Hideo Kojima is terrible at writing dialogue. By that, I don't mean characters fail to express themselves or convey ideas well through a lack of words; rather, they're entirely too reliant on words. In an era of cinema that loves "show, don't tell", Kojima leans more towards "tell, tell, tell some more, and then maybe have a bit more tell as a treat". Any character with a backstory that Kojima wants you to know about will spend a good 10 minutes unloading their life story almost as soon as they meet the main character. Any time there's a new piece of information being revealed, someone will explain it to you in textbook-level depth. I'm not sure if Kojima thinks that it's ok to have so many incredibly long exposition-dumping cutscenes in his game because the ratio of cutscene to game is still fairly low but all I can say is these cutscenes and talking sequences are not good cinema. I don't care which movie star is getting a cameo when the script itself is this absurdly poor, my immersion is shattered and watching has now become a chore.

    That said though, it's not like the game is devoid of cinematic moments, they just happen to be entirely outside of the cutscenes themselves. By far the most memorable and impactful moments in this game and the original are those times of solitude during a delivery where you're just quietly traversing through a zone, luggage in tow, and a Low Roar track starts playing. It's during these moments of calm, of pure show and no tell at all, where the player gets truly immersed in the role of the main character and has time to contemplate their journey while taking in the beauty of the nature around them. These aren't accidental or purely player-driven moments, those songs are set to play at a particular place during certain missions and knowing Kojima, he definitely had a major role in directing these as well. So it's not like he doesn't know how to create absolute cinema, but at the same time it's limited purely to gameplay moments where you're not forced to listen to someone deliver a 10 minute monologue in a way that no actual human being talks.

    So yeah, thanks for not becoming a movie director, Kojima. Your script writing's terrible but your gameplay ideas are great. I'd suggest you hire an editorial team but you probably already have and ignore them.

    29 votes

  15. Comment on The ethics of buying, playing military, war or games inspired by them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link
    I'm pretty sure Lockheed Martin's made more from a single sale of an F-35 than all the licensing fees for ALL games that have used their planes combined, never mind just Ace Combat. When it comes...

    I'm pretty sure Lockheed Martin's made more from a single sale of an F-35 than all the licensing fees for ALL games that have used their planes combined, never mind just Ace Combat. When it comes to supporting them monetarily, these licenses are probably such a small drop in the bucket that I wouldn't feel guilty about that angle at all.

    If these games were to make a real impact that might be ethically dubious, it would be how much they inspire or motivate their players to actually join the military and inflict violence in real life. A not-insignificant number of actual military pilots in the US and Japan are fans of Ace Combat and may have been inspired to become pilots through the series, but that doesn't necessarily also mean they were inspired to become warmongers that approve of LockMart and the military industrial complex.

    I myself am a fan of the series but definitely not a pilot, but I love the planes as marvels of modern engineering, less so as killing machines. Ace Combat lets me appreciate that without hurting a fly. I have no qualms with buying more Ace Combat games, but I won't buy LockMart stocks.

    5 votes

  16. Comment on Yakult ladies are an icon in Japan in ~life.women

    Flashfall
    Link Parent
    This immediately set off a whole bunch of middle-marketing red flags for me. I guess if it's just older retired ladies getting some extra scratch while they travel around their neighborhood it's...

    Yakult ladies aren’t classified as full-time employees, but kojin jigyo usha (roughly “sole proprietors”), essentially making them owners of bicycle-sized franchises. They purchase product from Yakult and make a profit based on what they can sell. Yakult says the average earnings of a Yakult lady are roughly $682 USD a month, compared to an average of $1,774 per month for Japanese women broadly. In Yahoo Answers forums, Yakult ladies claim wildly different profits: Some say they work only three hours a day and make more than the company average. Others claim to work far more, selling roughly $2,700 worth of product in a month to take home about $600, roughly a 22 percent cut.

    This immediately set off a whole bunch of middle-marketing red flags for me. I guess if it's just older retired ladies getting some extra scratch while they travel around their neighborhood it's not so bad, but the American skeptic in me says that probably isn't the case.

    12 votes

  17. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link
    I tried the demo for Windrose in Steam's NextFest and I haven't made much progress yet but it already feels like a better thought out pirate adventuring game than Skull and Bones. You've got the...

    I tried the demo for Windrose in Steam's NextFest and I haven't made much progress yet but it already feels like a better thought out pirate adventuring game than Skull and Bones. You've got the usual trappings of a survival crafting game with resource gathering, base building, etc., and then there's also your ship which you can improve as well, and conveniently summon to the nearest shoreline at the press of a button. I haven't had any naval combat yet, but on-foot combat is rather awkward and seems to be heavily intended for a co-op experience, as dealing with multiple enemies at a time when solo just turns into an exercise of poking the closest enemy and running away lest you get jumped. I very much intend to play this with a friend when it does come out though, and it's still a pretty solid package overall in spite of that, so I'm looking forward to release.

    4 votes

  18. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link Parent
    Yeah the weakest part of The Alters is definitely the gameplay since it's more of a discovery puzzle rather than a dynamic challenge, so once you've seen it once and figured it out that's it. As...

    Yeah the weakest part of The Alters is definitely the gameplay since it's more of a discovery puzzle rather than a dynamic challenge, so once you've seen it once and figured it out that's it. As for the characters, some of them are a little over the top caricatures and the crisis event does feel forced, but I enjoyed the little back stories each of them had.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on The tiny details in Red Dead Redemption 2 you weren't meant to notice in ~games

    Flashfall
    Link Parent
    The shooting in Max Payne 3 is pretty solid, but it is largely due to using bullet time as much as possible, which is encouraged due to how incredibly cinema it is.

    The shooting in Max Payne 3 is pretty solid, but it is largely due to using bullet time as much as possible, which is encouraged due to how incredibly cinema it is.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Flashfall
    Link Parent
    I haven't read or seen any version of the original folk tale but I don't think any prior knowledge is needed to get the full context. The folk tale is mentioned and briefly summarized in the movie...

    I haven't read or seen any version of the original folk tale but I don't think any prior knowledge is needed to get the full context. The folk tale is mentioned and briefly summarized in the movie dialogue itself so you won't be left wondering what it is if you have no idea at all.

    2 votes