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STEAM | July 2017 - Magical Pyres can't melt Cold Steel

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Amzin

Member
Well I finished Hyper Light Drifter. The main stuff anyway, not interested enough to comb every nook and cranny.

The last boss was great. It is fucking beautiful, both in artstyle, design and animations.


But ultimately I just found it 'okay'. Biggest problem for me being how it's difficult and - more often than not - frustratingly difficult, instead of fun difficult.

I also have no clue what the story was about in the end, it's very obtuse and tries to tell its story without a single line of text.
It's not really a negative, just saying I didn't get anything, lol.

It's weird how different people can respond to different kinds of difficulty as tedious vs. fun. I find Hard West, Furi, Thumper, and a few other ones to be in the "tedious" category, whereas HLD I found to be perfectly balanced with checkpoints and fair play. For me I guess, it's about what you end up having to re-do when you fail and how much of the failure was your fault.

E.g. in Furi, the only phase of the bosses I have difficulty on is usually the last one. But that last one can just wipe out the 3 "lifebars" you have (which are really just limited use checkpoints because the boss health resets for the phase too) and then I have to do the ENTIRE FIGHT over again even though it's only the last one that matters anymore.

In HLD I came across one room I just didn't "get" the combat for it until like a dozen or more tries of dying, but the checkpoint was at the door to that room and the entire thing, fail or succeed, took a minute or less. I appreciate a game that doesn't waste my time with having to redo things I already showed I can do.

Hard West had the worst offender of this I've ever seen in Chapter 2 and it has caused me to still not go back to the game, even though I'm sure it is one of the only cases of that.

Edit: I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, these are just opinions. I just find it interesting since I have a very low tolerance for tedium (I think) that what you considered tedious I considered fun, and probably vice versa.
 

Wok

Member
GH2xKwC.png

Resolution and screen captures are awful in Tender Loving Care. There is even a smeared notification that the screenshot has been saved at the bottom right of the screenshot.

I find [Furi] to be in the "tedious" category, whereas HLD [...] to be perfectly balanced with checkpoints and fair play. [...] it's about what you end up having to re-do when you fail and how much of the failure was your fault.

E.g. in Furi, the only phase of the bosses I have difficulty on is usually the last one. But that last one can just wipe out the 3 "lifebars" you have (which are really just limited use checkpoints because the boss health resets for the phase too) and then I have to do the ENTIRE FIGHT over again even though it's only the last one that matters anymore.

In HLD I came across one room I just didn't "get" the combat for it until like a dozen or more tries of dying, but the checkpoint was at the door to that room and the entire thing, fail or succeed, took a minute or less. I appreciate a game that doesn't waste my time with having to redo things I already showed I can do.

I don't get the comparison with Furi. A priori, Furi has a less punitive checkpoint system compared to HLD. In Furi, if you fail one step of the fight, you have a minor punishment and you don't have to redo the fight from the start straight away, you just have to redo the previous step of the fight. In HLD, if you fail at the last pattern of the boss (and die), then you have to fight from the last checkpoint, which is from before the fight even started. Maybe fights are shorter in HLD, but here again, Furi is all about boss fights, so having short boss fights would not make any sense.
 

Ascheroth

Member
It's weird how different people can respond to different kinds of difficulty as tedious vs. fun. I find Hard West, Furi, Thumper, and a few other ones to be in the "tedious" category, whereas HLD I found to be perfectly balanced with checkpoints and fair play. For me I guess, it's about what you end up having to re-do when you fail and how much of the failure was your fault.

E.g. in Furi, the only phase of the bosses I have difficulty on is usually the last one. But that last one can just wipe out the 3 "lifebars" you have (which are really just limited use checkpoints because the boss health resets for the phase too) and then I have to do the ENTIRE FIGHT over again even though it's only the last one that matters anymore.

In HLD I came across one room I just didn't "get" the combat for it until like a dozen or more tries of dying, but the checkpoint was at the door to that room and the entire thing, fail or succeed, took a minute or less. I appreciate a game that doesn't waste my time with having to redo things I already showed I can do.

Hard West had the worst offender of this I've ever seen in Chapter 2 and it has caused me to still not go back to the game, even though I'm sure it is one of the only cases of that.

Edit: I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, these are just opinions. I just find it interesting since I have a very low tolerance for tedium (I think) that what you considered tedious I considered fun, and probably vice versa.
Yeah, I'm not averse to difficulty.
I played through Ys 1, 2 and Origin (Yunica route) on Nightmare and through Oath in Felghana on Inferno after all : P
The checkpoint placement is nice, although it's sometimes kind of annoying to start with your exact health and potions. I once barely scraped through a section and had just 1 health left with no potions and as you can imagine, that wasn't enough to get through the next room.
So my options were: teleporting back and trying again, which would respawn all the enemies I already bested earlier (huge annoyance) or just backtracking and backtracking on foot until I found some potions again.
That sure was tedious.
I also think that the controls/inputs aren't as tight as they could be, leading to some frustrating deaths.
 
After 4 try, i finally got past first 100 years in Stellaris without any major disasters. This i choose one of standard civs, my neighbors finally was just as good in military technologies as me, and other civ with huge space fleet for some reason become my best and created federation with my empire. It helped me a lot, i conquered all nearby civilizations and demanded their vassalisation, and now i have more credits than i can use. Thanks to my federation friends i also successfully defended against some crazy warmongers from different part of galaxy and tried to turn my empire into their vassal. Now i'm trying to invite other empires to federation, but most of them for some reason don't like me and have "wary attitude". Need to look closer to those opinion modifiers, what does "-50 base" even mean?

After playing 6 hours straight my main complains is trading and diplomacy. I'm surprised to see Paradox game with such weak trading component, there is no trading markets or merchants, you just producing money like minerals and science points. Diplomacy is even more random than in EU and CK, some of opinion modifiers just gave you huge negative penalty and there is no explanation why exactly this empire hates you so much. It's still very addictive game, but it doesn't look as deep as other Paradox games.
 

MUnited83

For you.
Do indirect kills count as a kill in Dishonored? I'm playing Brigmore Witches and I want to open up the cells but not if the kills made by the prisoners count.
 
In Stellaris, Trade, Warfare, and Diplomacy seem like big expansion holes that will get filled in down the road when their banner expansion hits. I don't think they've said what the first real xpac will focus on, but I suspect/hope it will be one of those.
 

Ascheroth

Member
Anyway, let's do some fun(?) pricing speculations!

Cold Steel: 30$ with 10% launch discount
Zwei Zwei: 20$ with 10% launch, similar to Xanadu Next
Ys 7: probably also 20$ with 10% launch discount
 

Tonton

Member
Anyway, let's do some fun(?) pricing speculations!

Cold Steel: 30$ with 10% launch discount
Zwei Zwei: 20$ with 10% launch, similar to Xanadu Next
Ys 7: probably also 20$ with 10% launch discount
Pretty much expecting that too and preparing for it
Just worried about the regional price for Ys VIII and Tokyo Xanadu really
 

Ascheroth

Member
Pretty much expecting that too and preparing for it
Just worried about the regional price for Ys VIII and Tokyo Xanadu really
Yeah, those two are probably going to be full 50$ releases.
...Which means I don't know if I'll get them at release, with 3 other Falcom games occupying my time, lol.
 

Tonton

Member
Yeah, those two are probably going to be full 50$ releases.
...Which means I don't know if I'll get them at release, with 3 other Falcom games occupying my time, lol.
You mean $60 right? Can only think of Bandai Banco that does $50 on PC these days

And even then Tekken was priced like a $60 AAA game for me >_>
 

Amzin

Member
I don't get the comparison with Furi. A priori, Furi has a less punitive checkpoint system compared to HLD. In Furi, if you fail one step of the fight, you have a minor punishment and you don't have to redo the fight from the start straight away, you just have to redo the previous step of the fight. In HLD, if you fail at the last pattern of the boss (and die), then you have to fight from the last checkpoint, which is from before the fight even started. Maybe fights are shorter in HLD, but here again, Furi is all about boss fights, so having short boss fights would not make any sense.

Maybe there's been a patch to Furi since I played, but when I failed a boss fight at any stage I started at the very very beginning. The Time boss was godawful because of this because he has very, very slow phases even when you know exactly what to do. And I agree, boss fights ARE Furi, they should not be short, but there's no reason to make me redo something I just did (often multiple things) just because I couldn't figure out the new thing (often unrelated to the previous things) fast enough. To me, THAT'S tedious.

The boss fights in HLD are indeed much faster but the "phases" are all more or less dangerous versions of each other, for the most part. Contrast that to the "phases" of Furi where frequently each phase can be very different, aside from the theme. Which again makes me feel like "why am I doing this again? It teaches me nothing about the part I failed at and is wasting my time"
 

Tizoc

Member
Is Xanadu Next good? Worth 25 bucks CAD?
I refunded Ghost 1.0 and Icey. Couldn't feel em. So I'm getting 28 bucks CAD back into my steam wallet.
Xanadu next is a neat falcom action rpg
It is more tpg than ys games imo
The game involves exploration and the combat feels reminisct of diablo somewhat & there are also a few light puzzles
If u like action rpgs i would def recommend it tho dunno at that price
 
Cold Steel isn't going to be less than $40, in my opinion. More features are going to be added like more VA lines for instance.

I just don't see this being sold with a MSRP of $30.
 

Jawmuncher

Member
Resolution and screen captures are awful in Tender Loving Care. There is even a smeared notification that the screenshot has been saved at the bottom right of the screenshot.



I don't get the comparison with Furi. A priori, Furi has a less punitive checkpoint system compared to HLD. In Furi, if you fail one step of the fight, you have a minor punishment and you don't have to redo the fight from the start straight away, you just have to redo the previous step of the fight. In HLD, if you fail at the last pattern of the boss (and die), then you have to fight from the last checkpoint, which is from before the fight even started. Maybe fights are shorter in HLD, but here again, Furi is all about boss fights, so having short boss fights would not make any sense.
It's because TLC is a port of the mobile version. Had they given us the DVD version it'd look way better.
 

Arthea

Member
Cold Steel isn't going to be less than $40, in my opinion. More features are going to be added like more VA lines.

I just don't see this being sold with a MSRP of $30.

that's what I thought too, but maybe they will price it at 30, it's the first game in series and second comes soon after, so they might to as they did with sky, only this time it will be 30 for the first game, 40 for second, and probably 40-50 for third, depends if it releases simultaneously/close or not
 

fuzaco

Member
Cold Steel isn't going to be less than $40, in my opinion. More features are going to be added like more VA lines for instance.

I just don't see this being sold with a MSRP of $30.

If it's 40, I'll wait for a sale. I already bought both CS1 and CS2 boxed for the Vita at release, but haven't played them yet (expect for the prologue of CS1). Thought I would play them on PC, but 40 is a bit steep for doubledipping to me.
 

MadGear

Member
I'm almost finished with W40k Space Marine again. At first I was worried that I would end up not enjoying the game as much as I used to but the second half saved it for me. The first half is weird. It starts out with a strong gameplay introduction but then resorts to a lot of walking through mostly uneventful corridors with the occasional Ork encounter. The second half is much more busy and interesting, although a bit unbalanced since melee combat is barely an option anymore. It's still an absolutely average game but I enjoy it nonetheless. It just sucks that it never received a sequel.
 

Anteater

Member
i just kill everyone that noticed me in disho 1

which was basically everybody to my surprise

otherwise i keep my kill count as low as possible
 

QFNS

Unconfirmed Member
What you missed in the recent EVO '17 Street Fighter V pools
CKgD4inWsAAfjcn.jpg:large

Been watching Mahvel and KoF so far and it's awesome. I'll probably not tune in for SFV at all. Tekken has looked pretty hype as well, and I haven't seen DBZF, but that art style looks amazing.
 

Tizoc

Member
Been watching Mahvel and KoF so far and it's awesome. I'll probably not tune in for SFV at all. Tekken has looked pretty hype as well, and I haven't seen DBZF, but that art style looks amazing.

DB FighterZ is best when players who know how to play it, are playing it.
 

Nzyme32

Member
peaceful sneaking in dishonored is such a boring way to play the game

So I really enjoyed the Stealth stuff (and generally is my choice of playing games) but it can be hit and miss in other games. Without doubt though, Dishonoured is a lot more fun and cathartic doing a chaotic fast OP run through levels
 
Is there any way to block getting group invites? This shit is getting kind of annoying having to block a new spam account 2-3 times per day
 

Anno

Member
Next game from the Slain folks looks really cool. Hopefully the game starts good instead of being remade to be good.

X0kIaD8.gif
 

zkylon

zkylewd
i hope there's a mod to remove all the kingdom hearts stuff :>

So I really enjoyed the Stealth stuff (and generally is my choice of playing games) but it can be hit and miss in other games. Without doubt though, Dishonoured is a lot more fun and cathartic doing a chaotic fast OP run through levels
yeah if you like it that's really cool but i feel they really designed the game in such a way that makes actively engaging with ai with your full range of abilities way more fun when you're being chased or when you're setting up lethal traps than just choking people from behind and hiding the bodies

in general that's an issue i find with stealth games but it was specially egregious in dishonored cos they gave you all those awesome powers and you never used any of them cos they were all lethal. also the choking animation was really boring and repetitive, while slitting someone's throat had like 6 different types and they all felt really satisfying to use

in general i find stealth games to be in a really lame position with the whole lethal/non-lethal. it's like the genre got stuck in the red/blue blade from metal gear 2, there's very rarely meaningful tradeoffs or interesting differences between going one way or the other, so why bother

like the whole 'chaos' thing was interesting but they never do much with it. more rats is cool but i murdered everyone in disho1 and never noticed the game feeling actually different

dishonored is a game i'm generally pretty negative towards cos it has so much potential, it could be a real successor to deus ex, but it never felt like it became the next generational leap in the genre, it's polished and fun, but it's not to deus ex what deus ex was to thief, and there's really no excuse for that at this point
 
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