Video Games

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Dec 21, 2013 6:47 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOq4IiuRMWk
http://www.destructoid.com/hyrule-warri ... 7678.phtml

what

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Dec 22, 2013 1:07 am

Parthenon wrote:Wait, they are charging for it on Steam? I thought they were giving it away and asking for donations. What's different in the Steam version that they are charging $5?

Aside from the convenience of auto-updates and all that, getting it on Steam counts as donating so you do get all of the donor options.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 2:04 am

So I've been playing the PSP fighting games for the A Certain Magical Index and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha animes recently. Aside from being untranslated, they're really pretty good.

Both are pretty solid about having characters play like their anime versions. In Index, Touma is nightmarishly annoying to fight as the ranged blasters because he keeps punching your attacks, Meltdowner sits back and fills the air with death rays, Kuroko teleports around the battlefield while pelting the her opponent with darts and then responds to any ranged attack with a charge-up time by teleporting in and kicking them in the face, and 10032 has an assault rifle and brings friends. Likewise, Nanoha herself hits like a nine-year-old girl but has an exceedingly powerful ranged moveset, Vita and Signum are brutal close-in fighters but lack much ranged power, Fate is moderately good at any range and pretty fast, and Reinforce is basically unstoppable.

Index has a pretty diverse array of character movesets triggered by button combinations, and most of them have some special effect like Stiyl throwing down card traps or Misaka gathering a cloud of iron sand to speed up her sword/whip attacks. Unfortunately, many of these are fairly unintuitive. The manual probably explains them, but I can't read Japanese. It's also got a partner system, where each active character can select one of the other characters as a backup (plus Index and Last Order are avaliable exclusively as backup characters) and occasionally call them in to use one of their attacks. There's also some sort of bonus selection with options unlocked by character pairings, but since I can't read the bonus descriptions I've been grabbing them entirely at random.

As might be expected, the Nanoha games have fights occurring in the sky, and characters have movesets for both long and short range, plus all of them can activate shields and dash. Everyone has a magic bar, which is used to power the long-range attacks and is recharged in close combat, or by draining it and waiting for the character to load a new cartridge. There's also a bunch of skills characters can select from that give various bonuses, and every character can go into "Full Drive" mode to get temporary infinite energy and access to a short-ranged, hugely telegraphed attack that goes into a cutscene, deals a shitload of damage, and tosses the enemy a huge distance away.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 3:07 am

http://austinwintory.bandcamp.com/album/the-banner-saga

Some of the OST for Banner Saga was released in advance. I'm really looking forward to this game, and it's apparently coming out in like a week.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Jan 10, 2014 10:36 pm

http://www.indiedb.com/games/heroines-quest

Freeware, inspired by Quest For Glory. I suspect it's quite good, but haven't finished downloading yet.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sat Jan 11, 2014 5:34 pm

I am (probably) going to receive the steam key for The Banner Saga sometime soon. If anyone wants it (existing users only), please post ITT.

edit:

TarkisFlux wrote:I'd be interested in that key Starmaker.

ok

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Sat Jan 11, 2014 8:08 pm

I'd be interested in that key Starmaker.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Jan 11, 2014 8:21 pm

Game of the year 2013

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jan 11, 2014 10:41 pm

Started up a Sorceress. So we'll see how that goes...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Jan 12, 2014 10:14 pm

...it's going pretty well! I like the spells, and the sense of depth to the game.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Jan 15, 2014 12:58 am

Banner Saga is out, and feels pretty cool so far.

I also just saw an announcement that there's a sequel to my favorite tower defense game coming out. http://www.defendersquest.com/2/

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Jan 15, 2014 4:09 am

I played Killer is Dead

Goddamn, this game feels great. The basics of combat are attacking things when they're open, using guard breaks when they're guarding, and dodging when they attack you. If you dodge at the last moment possible you get a bullet-time effect wher eyou can mash attack as fast as you can... but time is still flowing so you can get hit if you're too focused on fighting, BUT it also makes it easier to dodge again and get another bullet time effect. This game combines prediction and button mashing comfortably.

The 4th boss fight was so hard I had to take off my pants to beat it.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Jan 15, 2014 4:43 am

So, Revengeance is out of PC. It's pretty neat. Setting the dodge key as "Z" wasn't the smartest move though. And it destroys my Razer Blade if I turn on the antialiasing :|

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Jan 16, 2014 12:33 am

OgreBattle wrote:The 4th boss fight was so hard I had to take off my pants to beat it.

There have been many games where I had to get nude to beat difficult bosses.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Jan 16, 2014 4:42 am

The Banner Saga is cool. It reminds me of the "King of the Dragon Pass", and things that remind me of KotDP are cool. I don't like the pacing all that much though - the story of Ludin and Co distracts me from the characters I actually care about - Rook and Co.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Jan 16, 2014 8:09 pm

The Banner Saga would be a lot cooler if it resolved any of the various WTFs it introduces. As it is, it's kind of hard to get involved because all I know is that things are happening for reasons. Also, it just kind of goes until it stops.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Jan 17, 2014 4:31 am

I'm just on chapter 4 now.

Varls and humans have fought the dredge and won. SUDDENLY the sun stopped, but no one cares much (WTF?!). Now, Ludin the prince of humanity and some varls are going to the varl capital to sign the truce or something. SUDDENLY the dredge attack and kill the prince of the varls, with the possibility of Ludin being a traitorous bastard. Meanwhile, on the other end of the map, Rook and his daughter encounter the dredge, and are forced to flee with their whole village, with Rook becoming a chieftain. They come across some city/fortress, which is locked up and torn by factions fighting for it. Rook peacefuly (in my case) or by force enters the city. That's where I'm now.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Jan 17, 2014 4:33 am

Nidhogg is an amazingly fun game for what it is, which is a brutal tug of war-esque battle between two retro-pixelly fencers. It's also best played with friends, but its $15 pricetag ($12 at the moment, on sale) makes it something of a hard sell. I really think the devs fucked up their pricing on this one - it's the sort of game you can explain in a sentence, teach in a minute, and then spend hours straight playing, but it is not priced like an impulse buy. I genuinely want to advertise on the game's behalf, but it does not want to be sold, and that is a situation that has undoubtably played out across many a conversation these past few days. And by the time it drops to the level of an impulse buy, that word of mouth advertising will have dried up. If this were 10 or even 5 bucks, they would have made at least twice as much money off me as they actually have.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jan 17, 2014 6:06 am

I'm very interested in it. Any word on a console release?

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Jan 17, 2014 7:01 am

I'm just glad that you can finally play Nidhogg someplace that isn't an arcade machine at an indie game convention.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:58 pm

indiegames.com did an article on Dom4

http://indiegames.com/2014/01/a_newcome ... ions_.html

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 4:20 am

Nidhogg is amazing, but it probably works best at with a group like the one I was just with- a group of 8 people gathered round a projector with two control pads attached to the laptop.

We were playing Nidhogg for hours- it's easy to pick up and I managed to go for about twenty games undefeated against everyone until the junk food caught up to me and gave me a headache.

I would definitely recommend it as a party game.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:38 pm

I've suddenly realised what Banner Saga reminds me of. Final Fantasy 13. For the duration of the game you are locked in a corridor, and you can never leave it. Your choices are meaningless, your future is preordained. You will fight when you are ordered and you shop when you are allowed. You may struggle and you may take a step left or step right, but you can never ever leave the corridor. The corridor is your master, and it will lead the caravan in the only direction possible.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 9:21 am

Divinity: Original Sin* is up for early access on Steam. It looks really good: we're talking your basic isometric turn-based small-party combat thing that you might be used to from playing Baldur's Gate etc. However you can zoom and rotate the camera because it's built out of polygons, not just a painted background.

The actual area looks lovely, your characters can converse with one another and argue while talking with NPCs, you can do things like summon rain to put fires out... although it's in early stages, it looks really good.

Also the finished product will come with a toolkit so you can build your own adventures.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 9:26 am

I hope it's better than Dragon Commander. The idea was fine, but suffered from terrible lack of focus. IMHO, the game would have been better as an action, a la Drakengard.