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alienjesus
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by alienjesus Mon Jan 11, 2021 7:50 am

I loved Skyward Sword - I blasted through it the week it came out and rank it amongst my favourite games in the series.

I started up Lost in Shadow (or rather A Shadow's Tale as it's called in Europe) last year too. I got a good chunk into the game but also found myself struggling to motivate myself to play further and never finished. There's nothing really wrong with it, but it felt a bit repetitive to me.

I finished up Sonic Generations last week. It's interesting to see where the franchise was at in 2011 when this came out for 20 years of Sonic - the game has levels based on the classic games (Green Hill from Sonic 1, Chemical Plant from 2 and Sky Sanctuary from Sonic 3 & Knuckles), followed by 3 from the Adventure era which I surprisingly had quite a lot of nostalgia for, but the change of setting really came through - much more urban environments represented with both Speed Highway and City Escape. Finally get to the (at the time) 'modern' era which really starts in the doldrums with Sonic 2006, and then gradually picks back up with Unleashed and Colours. It'd be interesting to see a newer take on this with the current 'modern' era featuring Sonic Lost World, Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces.

Speaking of Sonic Mania, thats a game that does this premise but better, in all honesty. Especially with the 2D stages, which have weird physics and which move altogether too fast at times in this - the spin dash in particular takes off like a rocket and I couldn't make out what was happening after using it most of the time. The 3D stages are superior in this game although I felt the first half of the game was better than the latter. The Sonic 2006 stage was especially bad (how appropriate), whilst the Colours stage was a bit tedious. The highlights were the recreation of Sonic Advernture 2's opening level in the 3D stages, and the excellent Rooftop Run from Unleashed.

Overall though, this is a good game and I had a great time with it. As an old-school European fan I'd have liked to see some representation from the 8 bit games and I'd even like to see stuff from the Advance or Rush games - but as is the game doesn't outstay it's welcome. I'd recommend it. It's a shame Sega decided to throw out the baby with the bathwater again after this and needlessly redesign the Sonic formula again - they were onto something that worked in this era.
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prfsnl_gmr
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by prfsnl_gmr Mon Jan 11, 2021 10:57 am

MrPopo wrote:
prfsnl_gmr wrote:Despite some inspired moments, Skyward Sword is the worst LoZ game. Good luck, PH.

That's a weird statement in a universe where Minish Cap and Zelda II exist.


Minis Cap is, I agree, a very mid-tier LoZ game. Still fun. Zelda II is god-tier, 8-bit awesomeness, however.

.....

On topic, I started Portal 2 last night. I’m playing the co-op game with my son who, coincidentally, was born in 2011. (It’s hard to believe this game’s as old as my son. :lol: ) Anyway...it’s a lot of fun. I was concerned my son wouldn’t be able to handle the controls, but since he’s been playing a lot of Goat Simulator, he was quite comfortable moving around in 3D space. Like me, he thought the game was very funny, and him playing it was pretty funny too. At the first encounter with something resembling an enemy, he yelled, “Dad! I’ve got this!” before running in guns blazing. I had to remind him that this was a puzzle game and that he only had a portal gun, incapable of hurting anything. He yelled, “Oh no!” before running back out of the room. I ultimately let him focus the laser on the drones so he could at least feel like he was “shooting” them. :lol:
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PretentiousHipster
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by PretentiousHipster Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:34 pm

Seriously? I gotta repeat the 3 areas in Skyward Sword? Very disappointing considering the variety that the Zelda series is known for. At least the side quests are actually decent. I guess the best way to summarize the game is that it's a failed experiment that gave us Breath of the Wild.
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by marurun Wed Jan 13, 2021 2:01 pm

I have a lot of eligible titles for this but I'm still trying to make time to wrap up the Trials of Mana remake, so this month is not looking good for me. Home stressors and pandemic life are making game time hard to find. But I love following along as you folks talk about what you're playing.
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alienjesus
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by alienjesus Wed Jan 13, 2021 3:32 pm

PretentiousHipster wrote:Seriously? I gotta repeat the 3 areas in Skyward Sword? Very disappointing considering the variety that the Zelda series is known for. At least the side quests are actually decent. I guess the best way to summarize the game is that it's a failed experiment that gave us Breath of the Wild.


This is a legitimate complaint but I actually think they do a pretty good job of making the areas quite different second time round.
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by PartridgeSenpai Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:31 pm

PretentiousHipster wrote:Seriously? I gotta repeat the 3 areas in Skyward Sword? Very disappointing considering the variety that the Zelda series is known for. At least the side quests are actually decent. I guess the best way to summarize the game is that it's a failed experiment that gave us Breath of the Wild.


Yeah, it's a game that suffers REALLY bad from padding. I found it easily 10 hours longer than it needed to be when I played through it a couple years back. It was a game that was a product of adversity and had a really weird dev cycle and it REALLY shows. As much as I may like it's writing, I'm really not a fan of the game design in Skyward Sword.

I'm ultimately really happy that it killed the OoT formula enough to give us BotW. The series REALLY needed a shot in the arm like that.
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PretentiousHipster
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by PretentiousHipster Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:29 pm

It still follows the formula of games from that era though. The trials in each area is basically a combination of Phantom Hourglass and Twilight Princess.

There is one cool thing about it though. I realized that Link has a hobby!

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Sload Soap
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by Sload Soap Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:03 pm

Pointless backtracking and padding is sooooo 2011.
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Syndicate
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by Syndicate Thu Jan 14, 2021 10:10 pm

...I really like the idea for the January Together Retro, I had totally forgotten how many great games came out in 2011. I feel a bit bad though b/c I haven't really been able to finish too much over the other two TRs I jumped on, I'm still working on Okami from December :lol: I guess I'll aim a little lower for this one, I think I should be able to handle Sonic Generations, Rayman Origins, and Ms. Splosion Man. Maybe Hard Corps: Uprising and Outland would make nice stretch goals.
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Re: Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

by PretentiousHipster Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:40 am

Looks like Skyward Sword is gonna be delayed. Injured my thumb badly at work and I need the left thumb to move the thumbstick :lol: I assume it's ok to post here next month if there are any new aspects of it worth posting?
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