Video Game Thread v. Series Xbox One X Series Switch S 5

[Cool Chris]

One of my biggest frustrations from my childhood is not being able to beat "Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts" on the original SNES, really fun game (At the time) but frustrating to beat.

Did you beat Ghosts and Goblins on NES? I owned Ghosts and Goblins but don't think I got past the level with the fat dudes at the building and just gave up. One of my best friends had Super Ghouls and Ghosts, and I remember playing it, but not getting far. James Rolfe/AVGN has a 3-part video of him and Mike beating it, and it is about as hilariously frustrating to watch as actually playing it.

The Switch has NES and SNES bundles you can download and play for a couple bucks and month.

[ErHaO]

Super Mario World is one of my all-time favorites. I'll never forget when a friend and I randomly decided to 100% the entire game in a day, which ended up taking us past midnight. It's also quite a difficult game, especially if you don't play a lot of platformers. I replayed it a couple of years ago and it was a surprising reminder of how games used to treat difficulty versus now.

Yes retro games do not fuck around. The SNES classic tought me Dark Souls/Hollow Knight was the norm back then and the punishment for death was often actually harsher. I used savestates in some games (though only at the beginning of levels/dungeons). But a difference to me seems that games were much shorter and the content was to get a little further each time you revisited it.

One of my biggest frustrations from my childhood is not being able to beat "Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts" on the original SNES, really fun game (At the time) but frustrating to beat.

include me in that group that looks back on the SNES and can remember a TON of games where I just couldn't get past a certain point no matter how hard I tried.  Batman, Castlevania...  Only when I got to the PC then to the PS did I start to actually finish games.

Is there a way - short of the SNES itself - of going back and playing any of those games?  I know I had a disk of Atari games - they were ok - and I downloaded Dark Forces to my xBox once (it SUCKED; the controls were all screwed up because they weren't "remastered" to the xBox, so they were very counter-intuitive.

There are many ways.

The legal ways:
-Nintendo Switch online base subscription (it is affordable, a couple of bucks per month)
-A SNES classic mini that comes with 21 games (very nice little thing, but redundant if you own a Switch and have a sub)
-Look at collections by the major publishers. Castlevania and Mega Man collections are examples of great and authentic ports that include some SNES games.
-Buy an HDMI clone system and track down the actual carts of games you want (Hyperkin Retron 2, for example)
-Buy a cart reader, track down the carts, dump the rom on an emulator platform of choice.

For the Switch you can buy an actual wireless SNES controller (is it is in stock, that is). And there are plenty of good SNES controller clones (8bitdo).

Super Mario World is one of my all-time favorites. I'll never forget when a friend and I randomly decided to 100% the entire game in a day, which ended up taking us past midnight. It's also quite a difficult game, especially if you don't play a lot of platformers. I replayed it a couple of years ago and it was a surprising reminder of how games used to treat difficulty versus now.

Yes retro games do not fuck around. The SNES classic tought me Dark Souls/Hollow Knight was the norm back then and the punishment for death was often actually harsher. I used savestates in some games (though only at the beginning of levels/dungeons). But a difference to me seems that games were much shorter and the content was to get a little further each time you revisited it.

One of my biggest frustrations from my childhood is not being able to beat "Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts" on the original SNES, really fun game (At the time) but frustrating to beat.

That game is hard as fuck, never even tried getting far. But from what I gather, those games were already considered hard in an era full of hard games.

Mega Man games are also hard as hell I recently found out.

I did play the Maximo games as a kid, which are kind of spiritual successors in a 3d setting.

[Stadler]

I can get an anthology of Castlevania games - something like eight or nine games - for $19.99 from the Sony Playstation store.  Might do it when I'm done with Resident Evil.

[ErHaO]

My parents gifted me tickets for the 35th Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert in Amsterdam 2023. Might revisit some FF's this year 

I can get an anthology of Castlevania games - something like eight or nine games - for $19.99 from the Sony Playstation store.  Might do it when I'm done with Resident Evil.

It is a good collection in my opinion. You can also quicksave anywhere, making it way more accessible.

[Cool Chris]

Playing Super Ghouls and Ghosts right now. Even with liberal use of Suspend Points it was a beast to get through Level 1. I might keep going but imagine hitting a wall of frustration soon.

Castlevania was one of my favorite NES games, though I don't think I beat it till later in life. I even loved Simon's Quest, and managed to beat that (thanks, Nintendo Power). I never owned 3, but also loved Super Castlevania on the SNES. I didn't own any non-Nintendo consoles so never played any of the other games, except a bit of that garbage Castlevania 64.

On the topic of YT videos, I enjoy a channel called Game Maker's Toolkit, that focuses on level design among other things. Lots of good analysis on Zelda dungeons and level design in Metroidvania games.

[Revenge319]

After 64 hours, I have completed Elden Ring. I enjoyed this game, but I'm unsure how good I would say it is. There's lots of things that the game does really well, but then there are some aspects that range from underwhelming to really irritating, and those things do bring down the experience. It's definitely at least an 8/10 based on the things I enjoyed about it, but I'll have to figure out how much higher I could reasonably rate it.

[ErHaO]

After 64 hours, I have completed Elden Ring. I enjoyed this game, but I'm unsure how good I would say it is. There's lots of things that the game does really well, but then there are some aspects that range from underwhelming to really irritating, and those things do bring down the experience. It's definitely at least an 8/10 based on the things I enjoyed about it, but I'll have to figure out how much higher I could reasonably rate it.

I have a few major gripes with Elden Ring, mainly with the bossfight mechanics and story, but the plusses are so big for me that it is at least a 9. Not a single open world title has come close to me in terms of loot progression and rewards for exploration.

Surprised you already finished it in that time though. I am just past Fire Giant at like 100 hours. I did a couple of major sidequests though (most notably Ranni), some of which are lenghthy.

[Revenge319]

After 64 hours, I have completed Elden Ring. I enjoyed this game, but I'm unsure how good I would say it is. There's lots of things that the game does really well, but then there are some aspects that range from underwhelming to really irritating, and those things do bring down the experience. It's definitely at least an 8/10 based on the things I enjoyed about it, but I'll have to figure out how much higher I could reasonably rate it.

I have a few major gripes with Elden Ring, mainly with the bossfight mechanics and story, but the plusses are so big for me that it is at least a 9. Not a single open world title has come close to me in terms of loot progression and rewards for exploration.

Surprised you already finished it in that time though. I am just past Fire Giant at like 100 hours. I did a couple of major sidequests though (most notably Ranni), some of which are lenghthy.

I explored a lot of optional places, but my main focus was getting through the main story. I think I only finished two, maybe three sidequests, but they were all short in length. My biggest issue is the bosses, too. Some bosses feel like they should've been in Bloodborne or Sekiro, and there's a lot of bosses that deal way too much damage with any attack. For every bad boss fight, though, there are some great ones. I don't really have any issues with the story, though; out of all the From Software games, this was the first game where I actually took a little interest in the story. Not enough to make me go out of my way to uncover all the lore or anything, but when I saw certain bosses or events, it did make me wonder about what kind of role and story the boss had, or what kind of effect was really being put on the world.

I haven't played many games with an open-world element to them (Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man PS4, and the Xenoblade games are the only ones I can think of right now), so I probably don't appreciate that aspect of Elden Ring as much as other people do, but solely based on exploration and the various locations you can find, I would say Elden Ring succeeds in being an open-world game, and it was a consistently enjoyable part of my playthrough.

[cramx3]

Nice to see SOMETHING from Dice about the future of Battlefield 2042.  Sadly, I have no confidence season 1 will be anything fun or interesting.  Still can't believe how bad of a launch this game was and how much of a failure it is in the FPS genre.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6XyWDWDAK8 and RIP Hazard Zone mode. 

[Dublagent66]

Well, taking single player campaign out of it certainly didn't help.  Unless I missed something.

[cramx3]

Well, taking single player campaign out of it certainly didn't help.  Unless I missed something.

I'd say that was very low on the reasons it failed, but certainly one of them.

[Dublagent66]

I think I played BF 2042 for about a half hour and it wasn't nearly what I expected.

[cramx3]

I put around 100 hours in.  I didn't hate it, but it had issues. Some serious ones. I haven't touched it in almost 6 months mostly because they haven't added anything to the "live service" game and they have hardly communicated anything.  In that time I know they finally added a scoreboard and VOIP, but like, that's bare minimum that should already be in a team based FPS game.  Season 1 comes on next month and there's no gameplay of the new map or specialist yet.  It's just an epic failure from a AAA studio. 

Pretty sure no one will be playing BF come the fall when COD MW2 comes out. 

[Dublagent66]

Yeah, and I don't remember any updates coming through since launch.  Speaking of COD, I still need to finish Vanguard.  Barely started that one also and got side tracked.  Story of my gaming life.  Sniper Elite 5 comes out tomorrow and all my attention will be diverted to that.

[cramx3]

I didnt buy Vanguard, looked terrible and the vanguard integration into Warzone has not been the greatest so I'm glad I didn't give them my money for that game.  However, I will be buying MW2.  Game looks like it has potential with the new DMZ mode (an escape from tarkov like mode apparently), the return of ground war, and of course to level up the guns before Warzone 2 comes out plus an updated engine. 

[ErHaO]

Death's Door is absolutely amazing. I was expecting some Souls-like game and the initial area gave me that vibe, but soon enough it turned into an excellent 2d Zelda experience that is of the same quality. Recommended for sure. And despite all upgrades being the super common tried and true ones (bomb, hook etc.), the game as a whole does not feel stale one bit. It is also super polished with good attention to little details.

Yeah, and I don't remember any updates coming through since launch.  Speaking of COD, I still need to finish Vanguard.  Barely started that one also and got side tracked.  Story of my gaming life.  Sniper Elite 5 comes out tomorrow and all my attention will be diverted to that.

Sniper Elite 4 was great. I was super surprised how good of a game it was, one of the perks of a game subscription model is that I try out these lower scoring AA-ish games and sometimes they are, to me, much more enjoyable than the big hits. I remember watching Enemy at the Gates as a kid every now and then (film) and Sniper Elite 4 gives you that experience in game form. Apparently 5 takes that sandbox approach and improves upon it, which sounds great to me!

And it is on gamepass, so I will for sure play it this weekend.

[ErHaO]

I am, unfortunately, dissapointed with Sniper Elite 5. I feel it is one of these cases where a game scores higher because the branding is getting bigger, but it is actually not a better game (major example is Dark Souls > Dark Souls II). Sniper Elite 4 to me feels like a much better game in many aspects.

The main reason is the out of control invisible walls. I swear every minute I want to go somewhere but the game does not allow me. The level design sucks because of this in my opinion. And I think I got detected like 20 goddamn times because the game did not let me pass a bush, walk under a big wooden structure, or vault over a "wall" at knee height (3 meters further and you are allowed to vault over the same wall).

Furthermore, when dropping bodies somehow the game does not let you drop the bodies very often. Seriously, I wanted to hide a body in a bush of like 15 square meters and in only in one very specific spot it would like me drop the body. Result? Me wandering around with a dead body like a moron and triggering an alarm. Also, you can't knife enemies when they are in some sitting/leaning animation and being close to them to knife leads to instant detection.

Some of these things are probably bugs that can/will get sorted out, but I feel the core of the leveldesign and the endless amounts of invisible walls is inherent to the design. Two maps into the game it feels like a dealbreaker to me.

The shooting is nice and the graphics have improved, but the game feels very restrictive for a sandbox game and two maps into it I can't name an element that they have added/improved over SE4.

[Herrick]

ErHao that's really disappointing to hear. I thought those Sniper Elite games just got better and better since the second game. I don't really count the first because it feels too different and it's older.

[Revenge319]

I've been playing a lot of Sekiro recently, and I'm currently at the final boss. The amazing thing about this game's difficulty is that the bosses seem so hard at first that they feel nearly impossible, but by the time I've learned them, they feel easy enough that in most cases, I almost feel like the fight is too easy and I want something harder. I can consistently get through half of the final boss now, but he really goes crazy on his second health bar.

[XJDenton]

I put Sekiro down just before the final boss due to work, I worry if I pick up the game again all my muscle memory for that game will be gone.

A game I've owned since early access just got its proper release (Hardspace: Shipbreakers). Pretty good fun if you are the kind of person who like job simulators mixed with puzzle solving elements, except the job can kill you.

[Dublagent66]

Sniper Elite 5 is no doubt glitchy.  I even had to restart the game once due to constantly falling through the ground into an endless abyss.  And yes, I've experienced invisible walls also and melee attack glitches, but I believe most of this will be corrected over the next few updates.  There are some improvements in skill upgrades once you work your way through the maps.  SE4 was a more polished game, but I didn't get that one at launch.  I'm sure it had it's fair share of glitches also.  One thing about SE5 that I can't wait to try once finishing the main campaign is Axis Invasion mode where you can join another player's campaign (they can also join yours) as a sniper and try to take them out before they finish the map.  An interesting twist for multiplayer.

[Herrick]

Herrick finished Dying Light 2 a few days ago...or last week. Now I am replaying the first game. I never played The Following DLC. I'm kind of not enjoying this game that much. It's much more difficult than I remember. I turned it down to normal and I'm still dying a lot. I cannot defeat groups of human enemies 

[Herrick]

Spider-Mang & the Miles Morales games are coming to PC. I already played the main game on the PS4 but I wouldn't mind replaying it. I haven't played (or bought) the Miles Morales game yet. Hopefully they will keep doing this kinda stuff so I won't have to buy a PS5.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/marvels-spider-man-remastered-releases-for-pc-in-august/1100-6504096/

[TheOutlawXanadu]

Wasn't sure what game to play next so I decided to pop in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and pay for the PS5 upgrade. I'm actually pretty surprised by how much I'm enjoying it. Chloe is a pretty awesome character and of course the visuals are stunning. I can't play Naughty Dog games all the time but they're a nice palate cleanser because they're so short and simple.

[Dublagent66]

The Lost Legacy is actually my least favorite of the series.  Sorry, but it really isn't Uncharted without Nathan Drake. 

[cramx3]

Before my trip to Progpower I bought the new Kirby game for my switch to play.  So much fun.  It was actually my first time using the switch in handheld mode as I used it mostly as a console to play with my gf at home.  But I found it very comfortable to hold for long periods of time and the game is pretty damn fun.  I didn't beat it, but I'm prettty sure I unlocked the last level before I got off the plane on my way home.  Apparently the game also has a co-op mode so I'll have to check it out with my gf one night. 

[XeRocks81]

so after a year of never confirming that The Last Of Us part 1 remake was really a thing or not, ND finally announce and it looks… fine, I guess? Don’t know that it’s worth that much money though.  I honestly thought they were starting over from scratch but I guess that wasn’t realistic. 

[XJDenton]

I saw some shots comparing the two versions and honestly couldn't tell which version was which.

[ErHaO]

It basically is part 1 built from the ground up with the fidelity of part 2.

Not really necessary for sure, but it is nice to have part 1 and 2 look the same. Obviously part 1 still looks good, but the difference between 1 and 2 to my eyes is very big.

While I am a huge fan of 1 and 2, I actually never fully played Left Behind . And I assume this will include the excellent online mode? For me the package will be worth it.

I am still a bit confused why they went for this though. I think they should've combined it with a PS5 version of part 2, which would make the price tag seem better.

[cramx3]

Played Battlefield 2042 for the first time in like 6 months last night since season 1 finally dropped.  I feel like it's the same buggy mess  New map and new specialist are fun, but I'm not sure how long I will stick around playing it.  Just not enough content for a full season after 8 months of no content from the game.  I'll be bored with the new map fairly soon I'd imagine. 

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

How have I not seen this before?!?!

It's Ocarina of Time soundtrack turned into a prog rock album. Amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDH3g6rRjM8

[Ben_Jamin]

How have I not seen this before?!?!

It's Ocarina of Time soundtrack turned into a prog rock album. Amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDH3g6rRjM8

Have you heard Master Sword.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yXITCW4LGU

The Final Door is the second track from Master Sword's upcoming power metal album, featuring 8 powerhouse vocal-driven songs, all based on music and lore from the Nintendo series The Legend of Zelda.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

How have I not seen this before?!?!

It's Ocarina of Time soundtrack turned into a prog rock album. Amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDH3g6rRjM8

Have you heard Master Sword.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yXITCW4LGU

The Final Door is the second track from Master Sword's upcoming power metal album, featuring 8 powerhouse vocal-driven songs, all based on music and lore from the Nintendo series The Legend of Zelda.

Ooh, I'll definitely have to check that out 

[Ben_Jamin]

How have I not seen this before?!?!

It's Ocarina of Time soundtrack turned into a prog rock album. Amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDH3g6rRjM8

Have you heard Master Sword.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yXITCW4LGU

The Final Door is the second track from Master Sword's upcoming power metal album, featuring 8 powerhouse vocal-driven songs, all based on music and lore from the Nintendo series The Legend of Zelda.

Ooh, I'll definitely have to check that out 

Both are awesome.

I just recently discovered Master Sword, and thought. Man that's some awesome Zelda inspired music. It's more on the Power Metal side, but it's really well done.

[XeRocks81]

This looks really cool,  The Plucky Squire

https://youtu.be/xFQkyzPKMYA

something happens around the 45 second mark that made me exclaim "holy shit!" out loud to no one.