Join in on our classic gaming club!
User avatar
MrPopo
Moderator
 
Posts: 23908
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 1:01 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by MrPopo Sun May 09, 2021 1:05 pm

Finished up Daggerfall. Original one sentence review applies. I'd rank it as the lowest of the five mainline games.
Image
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
User avatar
PretentiousHipster
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 1322
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2020 12:10 am
Location: Canada

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by PretentiousHipster Tue May 11, 2021 3:03 pm

Blade of Darkness gets more and more fantastic. I am such an idiot that I gave it a 6/10 when I started my youtube channel (but scores by their nature are idiotic to me tbh).

An underrated aspect of the riddle of steel deals with the shield. You hit a shield with a huge strike, get blown back, have that "oh shit" moment and then get hit at with a combo, losing a large portion of your health. But, do a combo strike, and end it right when they lift their shield, and their shield will get destroyed.

Not to mention the combo of some swords, but it made me feel like such an idiot. Each weapon tends to have their own moves that you unlock after reaching a certain level. I got a sword that glows red from a boss called the queen's sword. I didn't see a combo and thought it was useless, but kept it cause it looked nice. Turns out, you gotta go to the "special" section of the menu, not "weapons" or "abilities" and in there the queen's sword has a combo that is a life drain attack. It makes the game SO much easier after that, but of course it will only work on those who are alive. Undead or skeletons? No way jose.

My only huge gripe with this is that you can only have 4 weapons, technically only 3 as one will be dedicated for the terrible bow and arrow that is only used to shoot switches. Fortunately you can get a mod that increases that number to 16.
User avatar
Syndicate
32-bit
 
Posts: 227
Joined: Mon May 25, 2020 10:37 pm
Location: NoVA

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by Syndicate Fri May 14, 2021 7:24 pm

alienjesus wrote:Looking forward to this.

I was planning to play Metal Gear Rising.as my game, but because I'm worried about spoilers I'm going to play through Metal Gear Solid 4 first.


...that's a nice one, I totally forgot about Metal Gear Rising.
User avatar
alienjesus
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 8775
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 7:10 pm
Location: London, UK.

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by alienjesus Fri May 14, 2021 8:08 pm

Well, I finished Metal Gear Solid 4 tonight, so I should be diving into Rising this weekend!
Image
User avatar
alienjesus
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 8775
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 7:10 pm
Location: London, UK.

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by alienjesus Sat May 15, 2021 6:34 pm

I started up Metal Gear Rising today, and it sure is batshit crazy. It takes the wierdest most anime parts of MGS4 and really leans into them hard. As an extension of the MGS universe I'm not sure how I feel, but in itself it seems fairly light hearted and fun.

Combat is interesting, very much like Bayonetta, but with one big difference that so far I'm struggled to get used to - there's no dodging here. Instead, you must watch for enemy attacks and counter them by doing an attack in the same direction they're swinging from. The timing of this is proving quite tough, and I'm struggling even with some basic enemies like Gekko's (mech walker robots from MGS4). I've found bosses a bit easier than the Gekko's actually, due to more health and being more consistently able to counter.

The game is pretty gory, which really isn't my thing. I've never been one for gore, it actively puts me off normally, but I'm doing my best to shrug it off for this one and just enjoy the camp that goes around it.


I'm also playing Ys Seven on PSP which I think fits the theme too. Combat in the game is fairly basic with a combo delivers when mashing X, but the is a little bit more to it. You can use special skills by holding R and pressing any of the face buttons, and there's also some skill to dodging or blocking enemy attacks. Enemie's can be stunned if you wail on them hard enough too.

You switch between characters, and their weapons are good against certain enemy types. So far I have 2 characters with slash type weapons, which are good against soft enemies, and one with a strike type weapon which is good against armoured enemies. There's apparently piercing weapons too, which are good against light and flying enemies, but I've yet to get a character with one of these yet.
Image
User avatar
SpaceBooger
Moderator
 
Posts: 4382
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:40 am
Location: The AK-Rowdy

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by SpaceBooger Sun May 16, 2021 12:30 pm

Playing more DQ: Swords and 4 hours in. I must preface it's the end of the school year, track season, and I have 3 kids playing soccer on different teams so as a teacher, coach and parent my video game time (on a TV) is limited to Sat and Sun from 7-8:30 am.

I am currently on Chapter 5 and have played each of the previous chapters twice. I do this because like every other Dragon Quest game - grinding is necessary. I play each of these levels twice to grind and take the other path branches I did not take the first time. Also, since this is like an on-rails, motion-controlled RPG (check out a review video to get a good idea of how it works) it pays off to replay each chapter to get a better rank and reward.

I really am digging the game after struggling with the motion controls at first. I am no getting more used to the controls but still miss the movement I wanted from time to time. Overall for a game that is only 8-10 hours long, I am milking every minute from it... plus a shorter game during this month keeps me motivated to continue it with my limited playtime.
BLOG | BST
Systems Owned: NES, Game Boy (Original, Pocket, Color & Advance SP), DSi, 3DS, Genesis, Sega CD,
Nomad, SNES, Saturn, PS1, Dreamcast, XBox, PS2, Gamecube, Nintendo DS, Wii, PSP, PS3, WiiU & XBONE.
User avatar
PartridgeSenpai
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 2989
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
Location: Northern Japan

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by PartridgeSenpai Mon May 17, 2021 9:44 am

Started up Maken Shao today, and it's a very odd update to Maken X. They made the camera first-person to third-person, sure, but there are a lot of other changes, some weird, some bad, some good.

Levels having mid-level save points is very very good.
Replacing the swastikas with the Japanese character for "nothing" 無, very odd.
Replacing the soul level system barring your taking over new bodies to paying for each possession with your points you earn by playing well, outright worse because now if you're trying out different characters you gotta grind for it instead of just swapping between whomever as long as you're the right level.
Then there's also just the fact that the levels and enemies quite often just feel like they were not designed to be played in third-person, as they weren't.

I'm gonna have to finish it tomorrow, but it's a very odd experience given what I remember of the original :lol:
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
User avatar
PartridgeSenpai
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 2989
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
Location: Northern Japan

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by PartridgeSenpai Wed May 19, 2021 7:45 am

Some 12-ish hours later, I beat it! I've beaten Maken Shao, the bafflingly inferior remake of Maken X on the PS2. Tying into the TR theme, it DOES enhance the combat, although unfortunately that largely just adds up to making the game worse XP. I guess the moral of the story here is that sometimes simple is just better (or maybe don't try and just pour more technicality into a level system that really doesn't accommodate it well in the first place :b)
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
User avatar
alienjesus
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 8775
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 7:10 pm
Location: London, UK.

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by alienjesus Thu May 20, 2021 7:15 pm

I picked up Metal Gear Rising again today. I wasn't much looking forward to it because stuff didn't gel with me at all last time, but obviously sleeping on it did me some good because it all came together today and I had a good time. Whereas before I would fail every counter attack this time I was a parrying machine and I made good progress - I took down level 2 and level 3 of the game, which puts me about half way through. There's 7 levels supposedly but it sounds like most of the later ones are short and mainly just the boss fights - plus there is a level 0, so I actually am about half way.

Hoping to play some more tonight and at the weekend, ready to finish up next week - then it's time to prepare for next month's TR and the summer challenge!
Image
User avatar
Note
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 1259
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 4:39 pm
Location: NYC

Re: Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

by Note Fri May 21, 2021 12:27 am

Finally fired up some Soul Calibur for a few hours tonight. My favorite character in the game is Kilik but sticking with TR's theme I used another character I also like, Hwang. Regarding the combat, I like the characters who have smaller swords/blades that are quick and easy to maneuver.

Xinghua, Sophitia, and Yoshimitsu were some of the characters I played as this evening but spent the most time playing as Hwang. I like his move set and smaller blade, as I feel the characters with the larger swords and axes can get caught off guard if they attempt an attack and miss the opponent. The quicker characters seem to have more of a chance to recover if put in that situation and even though their initial hits might not cause as much damage as say Nightmare, Siegfried, Astaroth, or Rock, the faster characters have opportunities to combo and the damage adds up. Also, it's fun to throw in a kick or two after a few swings of the blade.

Over the weekend I'm going to play as a few more characters, definitely Mitsurugi and Lizard Man as they also have swords, but aren't tank type characters, so I think they'd fit my play style.
Return to Together Retro

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests