What are you playing?

[Markies]

I started Fear Effect on the Playstation 1 this afternoon.

I am going to try and keep an open mind, but I don't know about this one. The graphics look really cool and it feels like you are playing a movie.

However, I instantly ran into tank controls and the inventory was quite awkward.

I am interested to see what it is like, but I hope the gameplay and controls aren't too terrible.

[Xeogred]

I ended up watching LP's of Fear Effect 1-2. The graphics are cool and all, but the controls are absolutely horrifying. And I say this as someone who loves the RE tank control scheme. In Fear Effect it's more complex because you have to roll around and manually aim more, all the while the game has some weird health regeneration system with no pickups. Lots of backtracking and weird ass puzzles, goofy stories. Once I finished up the LP's I was glad I didn't try to play too far.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Yeah, the epic Binary Domain is by the same devs. It's so easy to see with those down time in between moments in Binary Domain where you can walk around little markets and talk to people... those parts are like straight out of Yakuza. And the humor/seriousness is similar and awesome.

You know a Yakuza 1 remake is hitting the PS4 and US this summer right?

OOOoooooo. I'd be tempted, but that'd involve:
A. Waiting for that to come out and then buying it and restarting (when I'm already in the mood to play it now). and
B. Less practice of Japanese listening/reading practice, which I need as much as possible of.

I'd have to play through Yakuza 2 this way anyways, so I might as well just use this copy. Thanks for the info, regardless, though, Xeo Senpai

[Xeogred]

Will you get enough out of those games even without understanding the dialogue/text?

I think I'm about halfway into Sonic the Hedgehog 4 episode 2. Like the first episode, I'm actually having a solid fun time with this. But the bosses are even worse than episode 1. These games basically do that thing where the bosses have numerous stages to the fight and then can throw out a lot of instant deaths that can get you easily, then you lose minutes worth of progress. Lots of trial and error. I wish I was kidding, but these boss fights feel longer than the actual levels. They went way too far making these overly complex and aggravating.

[Exhuminator]

Started on Kid Icarus: Uprising tonight. Played for about two hours and made it to chapter 6. I figured I was halfway through or something, then I found out there's TWENTY FIVE CHAPTERS. I don't know how I feel about that right now, but thus far the game has really impressed me. I had no idea it was directed by Masahiro Sakurai. That's the only non-Kirby / non-Smash game he's directed. I could tell he had to be involved as soon as I saw the menus and the way hits were portrayed in-game. Hopefully Uprising will maintain a high degree of variety to keep a rail shooter interesting for that many chapters. If anybody can do it, it's got to be Sakurai-san.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Will you get enough out of those games even without understanding the dialogue/text?

I mean, I'm hardly fluent in Japanese, but I'm certainly far from illiterate

There's usually just a word I don't know every line or two, depending on the topic of conversation. Other than that, I almost always have a fairly solid grasp of what's going on. I got my ass handed to me in the fight in the club though, because I didn't realize you gotta go heal manually after each fight Xp

Edit: Just finished chapter 3 and it was CRAZY-sauce. I don't think I realized until now exactly what kind of brawler-RPG genre it was in X3

[Xeogred]

That's cool, I'm envious hehe.

Yeah... it's practically like an adventure game beat em' up. I love when there's like main stages that are continues hallways and areas of enemies like an actual beat em' up level before a big boss.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I'm very, VERY cool with how in love with Yakuza I'm falling. This game just has so much awesome in it, it's hard to contain X3

Some of my favorite scenes so far:

--The one where you rescue that dog. That scene went EXACTLY how I wanted it, to the point where I was shouting at the screen for things to happen and then they did. That is just the MOST satisfying thing to happen in game cutscenes possible X3

--Fighting the last match in the arena. I mostly only like this one because I was very proud that I could tell that the final fighter's Japanese has an American accent. I mostly thought it was funny though, because the only reason I can tell is because I have a friend in class who talks just like that

--Wandering into the adult video store and being absolutely horrified at what you could ask to purchase at the counter. I allllmost was curious enough to try and buy one, but I chickened out real quick. The "~G-Cup Nurse Sexual Harrasement~ Vouyer Tape" made me run out of the store as soon as I parsed out what the kana between the ~'s was

--Speaking of wandering, wandering around the city searching for sidequests and locker keys has been far more addicting than it deserves to be. Especially the locker keys part. They're just SO satisfying to find

I'm glad I already went so ham in tracking down a few of the games for the series. Sometimes when I do that and then don't play any for a while, I end up in a scenario where I just gotta resell 'em all because I don't like the first one (and I'm too eager to buy things ).

I've also noticed another interesting thing. Maybe it's just because of the very strong Tokyo-flavor the game has, or the very eccentric characters, or perhaps just because you can get swords and lead pipes so often, but I'm getting a very Streets of Rage vibe from Yakuza. Is that just me?

[Forlorn Drifter]

You know a Yakuza 1 remake is hitting the PS4 and US this summer right?

Seriously? All these suggestions that gaming is pulling towards Japanese developed again may not be wrong.

[Xeogred]

And to think you're just getting started on the franchise PartridgeSenpai.

You know a Yakuza 1 remake is hitting the PS4 and US this summer right?

Seriously? All these suggestions that gaming is pulling towards Japanese developed again may not be wrong.

I've seen some others put it in another way that also makes sense, Japanese games never really left, there's definitely tons of great stuff from them on the PS3/360. But the Western market and publishers/developers dominated the last gen volume wise, except they basically collapsed on themselves and everything went too far. Now there's been more studios and publishers closed than ever before and we only have these monsters like EA, Activison, Ubisoft, Bethseda, etc, but you can only pump out so many games with that Uncharted/CoD budget. Yet... Japanese devs are working on minuscule budgets with games like Breath of the Wild and Nier in comparison and hitting critical acclaim. I'm all for pushing the tech forward, but it's never going to be the biggest selling point for games at this point in the industry. And I think even casual gamers are waking up to this. Plus it doesn't sound like I'm the only one with open world burnout with the Western stuff. They have gotten lazy, with a few exceptions popping out like Horizon every once and awhile. The Western side of gaming did themselves in. Capcom trying to Westernize and outsource everything last gen almost killed them. Xbox running out of juice is just more evidence that the tide is turning.

All that aside, I have always had a bias towards Japanese developed stuff anyways and so yeah... I'm very happy they're dominating again and at the forefront. It feels like I'm back in the 90's in ways. This is why I keep saying anyone who thinks this gen sucks or isn't on board yet is crazy!