Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

[nosimpleway]

Dredge was in a discount pack with Dave the Diver on the summer Steam sale, so I got that one too.

So, foreshadowing. The media is hinting at the twist ending early on, only you don't recognize it for what it is until you already know what the twist is. Boy, this Atlas guy sure is polite when he says "Would you kindly" so many times. James Sunderland acts like he has zero regard whatsoever for his own self-presevation, doesn't he? Hey, how come Master Miller is in speechless shock when Donald Anderson suddenly dies of a heart attack?

Dredge has some of that super-early foreshadowing, too. It is incredibly vital you do not notice it, because at the end of the game an important NPC asks "So hey do you know what's going on here?" and if you've already put it together and answer yes, the game goes "Oh well look at you, smart guy" and puts you on the path to the bad ending.

Dredge is an excellent case of a game not overstaying its welcome. Right around the time I was going "eh, I don't know if I really have another chapter in me..." I realized the game was almost over anyway. It took about eleven hours, so I would have been mad if I'd gotten it at full retail price. But that's what Steam sales are for, right?

[nosimpleway]

shapez is what you get when you take what setting or background or, uh, gameplay pressure there is out of Factorio and are left to build belt-spaghetti in peace.

[Friday]

So on the Switch they have GBA games, and I saw Fire Emblem there. Just Fire Emblem. No subtitle or number. I have never even touched a Fire Emblem game before, I know nothing about them other than "tactical rpg". So I loaded it up and my adventure with Lyn/Lyndis and two horsemen (one incompetent, the other a stick in the mud) began.

So my question is, I'm about four maps in to this game and it's fun enough, if very simple. Is this the first Fire Emblem game? The title screen said 2003. Is this where I should start with the series? Because while I'm having fun if all there is to this game is "Sword Beat Axe, Axe Beat Spear, and Spear Beat Sword, also stand on forest tiles whenever possible" I feel like I should skip ahead to a more robust game with more advanced mechanics to give the series a fair shake.

Like, what I mean is I would never tell someone to play the original Harvest Moon for SNES if they wanted to try out a farmsim, it's simply too outdated and basic. Is that what I'm doing here? Am I playing toddler-Fire Emblem, and if so, what game should I start with as a complete neophyte?

[nosimpleway]

The best part of Castlevania: Revamped is the name.

[Destynova]

Been doing more Shadow of the Erdtree and I found this mound of stuff in the NWish part of the map. Checked it out and got several lumps of gold laced poop.

Touche Miyazaki.

[Friday]

There are only two constants in Fromsoft games: Poison swamps, and poop as an item.

[Friday]

and also a female NPC who is barefoot as a treat

[Caithness]

So on the Switch they have GBA games, and I saw Fire Emblem there. Just Fire Emblem. No subtitle or number. I have never even touched a Fire Emblem game before, I know nothing about them other than "tactical rpg". So I loaded it up and my adventure with Lyn/Lyndis and two horsemen (one incompetent, the other a stick in the mud) began.

So my question is, I'm about four maps in to this game and it's fun enough, if very simple. Is this the first Fire Emblem game? The title screen said 2003. Is this where I should start with the series? Because while I'm having fun if all there is to this game is "Sword Beat Axe, Axe Beat Spear, and Spear Beat Sword, also stand on forest tiles whenever possible" I feel like I should skip ahead to a more robust game with more advanced mechanics to give the series a fair shake.

Like, what I mean is I would never tell someone to play the original Harvest Moon for SNES if they wanted to try out a farmsim, it's simply too outdated and basic. Is that what I'm doing here? Am I playing toddler-Fire Emblem, and if so, what game should I start with as a complete neophyte?

The first Fire Emblem game was on the Famicom. (It's also available on Switch, in Japanese, if you make a Japanese e-shop account which only requires an email address.) I don't think the GBA game is a remake/port of the first one but I could be wrong.

[Thad]

The first Fire Emblem game was on the Famicom. (It's also available on Switch, in Japanese, if you make a Japanese e-shop account which only requires an email address.) I don't think the GBA game is a remake/port of the first one but I could be wrong.

A glance at Wikipedia says that the GBA game was released as just "Fire Emblem" in the west because it was the first game in the series to be released in English, but no, it's not the first game in the series.

More properly, the original Famicom game is Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and the GBA game is Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade.

The Switch version of the original Famicom game was actually localized and released in the US, but it was one of those bullshit limited-time things and you can't get it legally now. I assume that pirates still have easy access to it but I haven't really looked into it. (Reminds me, though, I started the GBA version of the original Shining Force and should probably fire that one up again sometime.)

[nosimpleway]

Presumably there is some strategy to Rollscape, but it appears to be a matter of random stuff happening randomly and maybe the game gives you a combination of randoms that make number go up. The game reminds me most of Balatro without playing like Balatro at all, and the decision space is muuuuuuch smaller.

[nosimpleway]

Two hours in and I'm still not sure about Palia. It is at its core "what if Stardew Valley was an MMO", in that it's mostly cozy homesteading and endearing yourself to the local villagers by bribing them with gifts every day. It seems like it's mostly consequence-free, from what I've read your crops don't wither if they're neglected and friendships don't decay over time. I'm sure the devs would really like for you to keep checking in and doing stuff! But I guess it hasn't figured out how to compel that kind of behavior out of the player yet.

But the game's only at 0.18, so it's still real Early Access. Controller support is spotty, and there are some rough patches around getting started. At one point I went into a spot that hadn't been introduced yet and the game tried to throw three tutorials at me at the same time.

I guess it's like any MMO and whether or not it holds my interest for long will depend on whether I can find a group to run with.

[beatbandito]

I estimate I'm about 50-70% total completion on a pirated copy of Link to the Zelda: Echoes of Gamelon. Thoughts so far:

Wish the bosses weren't built around classic Link sword swiping. Most of the gameplay is fun, but in dungeons it's largely just one enemy echo you got at the beginning that will work like a dungeon item. Outside of dungeons there's more creativity available, but I pretty much have one go up item, one cross gap item, and a few enemy echoes, and it's very rare that I need to mix things up.

Maybe like BotW I'm just not creative enough to figure out fun and unique item combos, but it feels mechanically not incredibly deep. Most disappointing is that while you CAN technically just spawn tables and smash them into every enemy in the game, they really really don't want you to, enemy health is tuned up and damage from thrown items is incredibly low.

[Yoji]

For what it's worth, Unit 01 seems to be having a blast. At first I thought they were a friend of all living things, like a little Saint Francis. But watching them now and how excited they get over getting nqw monster echoes, I think they might also be a budding warlock.