What are you currently playing?

[DarkTone | 984]

House of the dead remake. 

[TriHart | 88]

I've am revisiting Pikmin 2 on the GC. I never got far when I played it on release, just kinda lost interest. 

I appreciate the lack of time crunch that the first and third had (I liked the way the time limit was imposed in those games, don't get me wrong, and I still enjoy them with it) and I enjoy playing in the Pikmin world with new goals. 

I can't decide if I like this format better than what 1 and 3 provides...

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

Playing Hollow Knight for the first time. Got it on Switch for Xmas. Just got my dash and am headed to the 3rd or 4th area.

[Link | 2,712]

Gato Roboto. It looks like Game Boy. It's Metroid but you're a little kitty cat. $2 on Switch store during the current sale. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,532]

19 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

Playing Hollow Knight for the first time. Got it on Switch for Xmas. Just got my dash and am headed to the 3rd or 4th area.

I think of all the Metroidvanias I've played in the last 5 years (Dread, Samus Returns, Ori, both Axiom Verges, the Shantaes, the Alwas, Blasphemous, Carrion, Tales of Iron, Bloodstained, Salt & Sanctuary, Cave Story, The Messenger, God knows what else), Hollow Knight is the game coming out on top.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

On 12/30/2022 at 12:34 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

I think of all the Metroidvanias I've played in the last 5 years (Dread, Samus Returns, Ori, both Axiom Verges, the Shantaes, the Alwas, Blasphemous, Carrion, Tales of Iron, Bloodstained, Salt & Sanctuary, Cave Story, The Messenger, God knows what else), Hollow Knight is the game coming out on top.

I'm just not feeling it. I just beat what I presume is the 3rd boss fight and I'm finding this game quite tedious - to the point where it's becoming a grind. It's actually quite frustrating somehow even though it's not overly challenging... Hard to explain. Might start fresh when I have a few hours uninterrupted to play. I think I've been playing around 6 hrs now and feel like I could get back to where I am in 30 min. 

[a3quit4s | 4,098]

Rocking my Analogue Pocket and Super Mario Advance 2. Getting all 96 exits!

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

1 hour ago, a3quit4s said:

Rocking my Analogue Pocket and Super Mario Advance 2. Getting all 96 exits!

Honestly tho how amazing is the pocket? If you have big hands you may get crampy, I 3d printed a clip on piece that made it a lot better

[a3quit4s | 4,098]

6 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

Honestly tho how amazing is the pocket? If you have big hands you may get crampy, I 3d printed a clip on piece that made it a lot better

It’s really nice but like you said because it’s based on the SP, holding it as an adult for a long period of time is cumbersome. The buttons are also not as responsive as I’d like  and the shoulder buttons are terrible and mostly useless. I wish I could order a dock and not have to wait 6-12 months for it to come, I’d just play it docked 24/7. The design should have been based on the original GBA and laid out like a steam deck or Switch. 

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

On 12/29/2022 at 3:46 PM, Andy_Bogomil said:

Playing Hollow Knight for the first time. Got it on Switch for Xmas. Just got my dash and am headed to the 3rd or 4th area.

 

On 12/30/2022 at 11:34 AM, Reed Rothchild said:

I think of all the Metroidvanias I've played in the last 5 years (Dread, Samus Returns, Ori, both Axiom Verges, the Shantaes, the Alwas, Blasphemous, Carrion, Tales of Iron, Bloodstained, Salt & Sanctuary, Cave Story, The Messenger, God knows what else), Hollow Knight is the game coming out on top.

 

10 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

I'm just not feeling it. I just beat what I presume is the 3rd boss fight and I'm finding this game quite tedious - to the point where it's becoming a grind. It's actually quite frustrating somehow even though it's not overly challenging... Hard to explain. Might start fresh when I have a few hours uninterrupted to play. I think I've been playing around 6 hrs now and feel like I could get back to where I am in 30 min. 

I think it should be more acceptable to dislike Hollow Knight. If you can power through to the end, it's a very cool experience, but the game has some serious faults, especially early on. I think people are too forgiving of it's problems since they tend to go away as you're hitting hour 10 or 20. I would go so far as to call the early parts borderline bad due to some baffling and punishing design decisions. In my opinion, a great game should be great from the start. Discovering new things should be just as fun as mastering them. Personally, I'd rather play any number of other Metroidvanias and games like Ori absolutely smash Hollow Knight.

I did a longer write up somewhere else about my issues with the game and I'll share it here if I find it.

Anyways, more power to people who love the game, but I certainly wouldn't feel bad or wrong for disliking it.

[spacepup | 2,404]

Hollow Knight is such an interesting one, because it definitely has quite varied opinions.  I don't fault anyone for not liking it, but for me personally, I found the game to be absolutely fantastic.  If there were flaws early on, I guess I just forgot or didn't really notice them.  That's not to say they don't exist - but clearly for me all I really remember is how much fun I had with the game and the amazing ambiance. 

I've had some people tell me they didn't like the dark style - if the style doesn't really mesh with you, that's fair and is a personal preference thing.

As for gameplay, I felt it had a pretty good balance of challenge but not being impossible, and it definitely carries the progression and exploration mechanics of a good metroidvania.

All that being said - different people have different tastes, and there is no definitive objective 'proof' to how good a game is or whether everyone should like it. So some people will just not like certain games and that's ok too.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

The game is definitely not bad, I just personally find it a little tedious off the rip with collecting geo, finding the map guy, and some paths being somewhat tough to find by design. I don't like the map setup where you don't even uncover what you've traveled unless you find the map dude (as far as I know). I bought a charm to help me see in the dark which ended up as a dead end with my lack of other abilities and then had to grind a little to open a fast travel site which wasted a bunch of time. I walked by a hole/door in the ground that's tough to see even when you know it's there that wasted another probably 30-40 minutes of mindless backtracking/exploration. I got smacked into the acid with a explosion that took two hits, and then died when I hit the acid. I traveled all the way back from a save point only to have my 'soul' off screen and unreachable because of how I died... another bunch of wasted time and significant geo. It's pretty easy to take damage on the vertical scrolling sections from not seeing what's off screen, which again has cost me a few deaths, but maybe my fault for rushing.

I went into this game completely blind... knew nothing about it except only hearing how awesome it was and that it was a metroidvania type game. I was talking to my brother about it and he essentially said the same things as you guys, that it's slow off the start, a little cryptic, but gets a lot better once you are more established in the game.

I think being a little more cautious with my exploration and maybe playing for a slightly longer chunks will help. Like I said though, I feel with some costly mistakes up front, missing that door, and knowing the mechanics slightly better I could condense my 6 hours into about 30-40 min or less which is why I am claiming it to be a bit tedious... maybe some bad luck mixed in there.

The last metroidvania type game I played was Strider (2014) and thought it was fantastic. Maybe HK will grow on me a little.

 

[a3quit4s | 4,098]

1 hour ago, spacepup said:

Hollow Knight is such an interesting one, because it definitely has quite varied opinions.  I don't fault anyone for not liking it, but for me personally, I found the game to be absolutely fantastic.  If there were flaws early on, I guess I just forgot or didn't really notice them.  That's not to say they don't exist - but clearly for me all I really remember is how much fun I had with the game and the amazing ambiance. 

I've had some people tell me they didn't like the dark style - if the style doesn't really mesh with you, that's fair and is a personal preference thing.

As for gameplay, I felt it had a pretty good balance of challenge but not being impossible, and it definitely carries the progression and exploration mechanics of a good metroidvania.

All that being said - different people have different tastes, and there is no definitive objective 'proof' to how good a game is or whether everyone should like it. So some people will just not like certain games and that's ok too.

I thought it was more fun to play with a walkthrough. You burn so much time wandering around that you start to lose interest. Some will probably consider that cheating, but whatever if I wander around for too long and make no progress I’m more likely to to lose patience and quit. Plus finding all the power ups and stuff make the game a little bit easier. I don’t hate myself and I’m not trying to play every game at Dark Souls difficulty lol

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

11 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I thought it was more fun to play with a walkthrough. You burn so much time wandering around that you start to lose interest. Some will probably consider that cheating, but whatever if I wander around for too long and make no progress I’m more likely to to lose patience and quit. Plus finding all the power ups and stuff make the game a little bit easier. I don’t hate myself and I’m not trying to play every game at Dark Souls difficulty lol

Meh I use walkthroughs all the time. I'm old and tired with a family, obligations, etc, I don't have hours upon hours to explore games like I used to, I wish I did, but the fact is I'd rather experience the game in the time I do have then waste my time.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,532]

2 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

games like Ori absolutely smash Hollow Knight

Interesting.  I just had a lot of fun with Ori, but I easily prefer Hollow.  Different strokes I guess.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

4 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

It’s really nice but like you said because it’s based on the SP, holding it as an adult for a long period of time is cumbersome. The buttons are also not as responsive as I’d like  and the shoulder buttons are terrible and mostly useless. I wish I could order a dock and not have to wait 6-12 months for it to come, I’d just play it docked 24/7. The design should have been based on the original GBA and laid out like a steam deck or Switch. 

I honestly haven't had these issues, but to be fair I do have the dock so I've tried both, and also the shape of the Pocket is largely like a Game Boy Color which is comfortable for long play.  L/R I didn't have an issue with, yet, but I also haven't gone nuts playing Doom(or some FPS) or worse yet a F-Zero Climax long play where L/R are in constant use for turns, maybe it would cramp but having button pushes/diagonals and that sort miss I have not.  Maybe their build quality is crap and random?  They've never done a d-pad and buttons before, just a bare system leaving it to the hit-n-miss 8bitdo quality stuff.

The dock itself has problems, the firmware isn't very reliable and loaded with bugs.  At face value it's fine, it works as it should as a dock, where it comes up, mostly, is with wireless.  The thing is a piece of shit when it comes to bluetooth 2.4g style wireless detection AND acceptance.  You can get it to see it, but good luck getting to where you can configure the buttons as it won't, and worse, the idiot thing when you turn off the Pocket itself forgets the controllers and it's very random if it will sync back up.  You might get it on the 1st try, 10th, never?  I got fed up with that, poked about, dumb luck has it found a video from reaperman (atariage long time member) where he tried many and found a WIRED 8bitdo SNES style pad with dual analogs (SN30 USB Pro) that worked flawlessly buttons laid out right everything, so I ordered that and it has been smooth sailing since for control.  But, the dock also won't remember settings in places at all, by default with gameboy I've had to go in and tell it repeatedly to go to 6x mode which is a large box 95% as tall as the screen, but it will default to the handhelds really high res and cuts off part of the screen which sucks.  GBA doesn't do this, it's already wide screen but the box of GB/C it's a bad case of stupidfingers having to fix it repeatedly.  IT badly needs a firmware update and analogue isn't the best about those at times and have a pattern with that.  I hope someone just makes a CFW for it like the supernt/megasg jailbreaks that makes it stick.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

On 1/7/2023 at 10:26 AM, Reed Rothchild said:

Interesting.  I just had a lot of fun with Ori, but I easily prefer Hollow.  Different strokes I guess.

And I have zero qualms with that. Everyone should play what they love. I think there is some level of objectivity when you focus on the technical aspect of gaming, but in general it's a highly subjective hobby and I love that part of it. I just hate typing "in my opinion" after every statement. Everything I write is my opinion! So hopefully no one takes any offense to what I say.

[Gloves | 11,779]

Gaming before bed vibes. 

[MagusSmurf | 577]

Saw the discussion on Hollow Knight so played the first 3 hours since it's on my Backlog. Most recent notable thing that happened was the Hornet fight.

This game is playing things REAL close to the chest. Having health recovery be something you manage yourself rather than something you rely on random drops for is neat and I like the lack of stats and experience points. But in terms of what you can actually do it's been very limited. You start off with just a melee attack and a jump and it hasn't been quick with new abilities either.

I think they probably got a little too cute with the mapping; it feels like it's set up to slap new players in the face but now that I've got the Quill and Compass it's been basically inoffensive. This Souls-inspired "lose all currency upon death, recoverable only if you get back to where you were" hasn't hurt me so far but feels obnoxious for the sake of it. It'd be one thing if there were only optional character upgrades to buy but there's also maps and fast travel points and I also see the shopkeeper selling a key and something I think lights up dark areas. These are not things that seem like they should be gated behind grinding for unskilled players.

The bosses have been cool though and I've got a Dash now (also a projectile albeit not a spammable one). I could see this game getting to greatness, it's got stuff going for it, but I don't think greatness is here yet.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

I played and beat Kid Icarus for the first time! It seems so difficult but once you learn the tricks and tips of how to power up it gets pretty easy. It was quite fun and I enjoyed it a lot!

[avatar! | 1,811]

7 hours ago, CodysGameRoom said:

I played and beat Kid Icarus for the first time! It seems so difficult but once you learn the tricks and tips of how to power up it gets pretty easy. It was quite fun and I enjoyed it a lot!

Always loved the music and graphics...

[Sumez | 2,952]

On 1/7/2023 at 2:17 PM, DoctorEncore said:

I think it should be more acceptable to dislike Hollow Knight. If you can power through to the end, it's a very cool experience, but the game has some serious faults, especially early on. I think people are too forgiving of it's problems since they tend to go away as you're hitting hour 10 or 20. I would go so far as to call the early parts borderline bad due to some baffling and punishing design decisions. In my opinion, a great game should be great from the start. Discovering new things should be just as fun as mastering them. Personally, I'd rather play any number of other Metroidvanias and games like Ori absolutely smash Hollow Knight.

Your take on Hollow Knight is kinda upside down to me. I don't think there's anything taboo about disliking Hollow Knight, I think plenty of people aren't fans. I'm not crazy about it myself because it felt quite generic to me, but I do realise it's a good game.

The thing is, the weakness of the game to me definitely isn't the early part of the game, that's where I had by far the most fun - it's the late part where you've mapped out most of the game and there's little new to discover. You're just going by the numbers at that part, filling out the remaining blanks. Most metroidvanias have this issue because of how much they rely on the satisfaction of exploring hte unknown, but I think Hollow Knight is a real textbook example!

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

17 hours ago, avatar! said:

Always loved the music and graphics...

It's pretty great. I just did the Game Boy one last night too. Fun games!

[Gloves | 11,779]

I've gotten a few more stars in Mario Galaxy and... no motion sickness so far! I honestly think that the CRT is doing wonders in this regard, there's no motion blur and the resolution isn't being upscaled or anything (it's really quite small in fact). I'm quite enjoying it thus far!

[a3quit4s | 4,098]

After getting all 96 exits in Super Mario World on my pocket (super Mario advance 2), I’m moving on to playing Earthbound on the pocket (SNES core). I’m finally going to finish it!