What are you playing?

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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: What are you playing?

Post by PartridgeSenpai »

The first game's combat is probably one of its worst stumbling points. Things get a bit better once you start learning the martial arts moves in the park place (whose Japanese pronunciation I never looked up and English name I do not know :P ), but it's really slow and the same moves are best moves. The sequel improves a lot on the combat, and also makes the adventure stuff usually give you better stats or new moves too occasionally. In Yakuza 1 is almost all just doing quests just to do them to get money. I had WAY too much money all the time though, so buying health drinks and weapons was never something I got into too much. I'd try one of the other games before you give up on it forever. If you still really wanna do the first game first though, I'd try out the remake they did.

I actually hate really deep fighting games like Tekken or Virtua Fighter because I'm so terrible at them, so maybe that's why I like the more simple combos in Yakuza better. I'm not sure I'd even like the fighting in Shenmue that much if it's Virtua Fighter-y. If anything, your post has made me really wanna seek out Berzerk on the Dreamcast :lol:
Last edited by PartridgeSenpai on Tue Apr 25, 2017 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Xeogred
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Re: What are you playing?

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I'm sure isiolia could back me up on this, but DS2 just might have the most player depth in the entire franchise. It has the most magic paths (Faith, Int, Pyro, and Hex), most weapons and equipment, most everything. The onslaught of builds you could make in this one is probably endless. The only knock I can think of giving it is that the atmosphere isn't as thick as the other games, but when it comes to the gameplay... it's just supremely fun. Still a 10/10 in my book. I probably have a combined 200 hours worth on merely two characters across my PS3 and PS4 versions.
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Xeogred
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Re: What are you playing?

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I am two worlds into Kirby's Dream Land 3, I'm having fun... but it's definitely a weird one.

- I think I'm okay with this cute and colorful art style, which is extra unique for its time. But the status bar taking up literally 1/4th of the screen, makes the entire game feel off and weird. Maybe they had to make some sacrifices for this art style, I have no idea.
- Levels are very formulaic and uninteresting. In Adventure, Dream Land 2, and Superstar, you never always knew what was behind a door. But here it feels very rinse and repeat, most levels are 2-3 main hallways with an animal room, maybe a secret health room, and not much else in between.
- The animal friends are terrible outside of the fish for water areas.
- Seems more viable to go powerless, the controls and physics do feel kind of weird. And the powerups don't have advanced movesets like in Superstar. The powers themselves don't even seem that varied, like the fire spark ball and the spike ball being the same thing. This game just feels kind of sluggish, which is odd since it came out in 1997, two years after Superstar. So it feels like a downgrade in several ways.

It's fun enough. The music is incredible for sure and I really do like some of the levels, like the waterfall/temple-esque areas that look really cool visually. Doesn't look too long so I'll knock it out, but yeah I guess I wasn't missing a whole lot here.
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Exhuminator
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Re: What are you playing?

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Xeogred wrote:Maybe they had to make some sacrifices for this art style, I have no idea.
Yes. Kirby's Dream Land 3 uses "pseudo high-resolution" mode, which allows for color blending between two adjacent pixels to blend dithered sprites. This takes extra processing power, so cutting down on screen real estate helped. Also this cart uses SA-1 to process game data at a faster rate, which was necessary for the large number of bitmaps and special effects.
So it feels like a downgrade in several ways.
That's crazy talk IMO. The graphics are no downgrade, neither is the OST. And you failed to mention two of my favorite things about DL3. The puzzles and the co-op. Every stage has a puzzle to figure out (that's how you make the creatures happy at the end of the stage).

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And you can play through the whole game co-op (as the black slime for player 2). I had a lot of fun co-op'ing DL3 with a girl I dated back in '99. And again years later with my daughter.

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I suppose you make a fair argument about the stages, but I think they were designed simpler to make co-op play easier.

DL3 is just fantastic IMO. I think it's superior to a fair many of Kirby's other games.
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Xeogred
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Re: What are you playing?

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Yeah I kind of figured they had to make some compromises.

Forgot to mention the blue blob. This is probably more fun with co-op in general. But going solo here and not really wanting to bother with the puzzles at all (unless I naturally have the solution at a specific moment, or solve the minigames correctly, etc), I don't want to be bothered.

I'm mainly just saying, the controls/powersups feels like a massive downgrade from Superstar. My issue with Superstar when I go back to it nowadays, is that I wish it was just one single huge game (The Great Cave Run thing is amazing and I like the Meta Knight ship, etc)... but otherwise the gameplay itself is incredible. Every power up has some combos or a charge attack, etc. It rules. This feels very slow and chunky in comparison. It's odd whenever you land from floating too, Kirby will automatically blow out the air bubble but stops you in your tracks. Something about that weird second jank feels different from the other games.

I doubt Adventure will ever be topped for me.

It's a bit insane it's a 1997 SNES release haha. Looks like Mega Man & Bass came out in 1998!
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Exhuminator
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Re: What are you playing?

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Xeogred wrote:I doubt Adventure will ever be topped for me.
Oh damn it now we have to rank them.

The Kirby games I can think of...

Kirby's Dream Land 8)
Kirby's Adventure 8)
Kirby's Dream Land 2 8)
Kirby Super Star :?:
Kirby's Dream Land 3 8)
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards 8)
Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land :?:
Kirby & the Amazing Mirror :?:
Kirby: Canvas Curse 8)
Kirby: Squeak Squad :?:
Kirby's Epic Yarn 8)
Kirby Mass Attack :?:
Kirby's Return to Dream Land 8)
Kirby: Triple Deluxe :?:
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse :?:
Kirby: Planet Robobot :?:
Kirby Super Star Ultra :?:
Kirby's Pinball Land :?:
Kirby's Dream Course 8)
Kirby's Avalanche :?:
Kirby's Block Ball :?:
Kirby's Star Stacker :?:
Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble :?:
Kirby Air Ride 8)

8) = I played through it.
:?: = I haven't played it.

So out of all the ones I have finished, I'd rank from greatest to least:

Kirby's Adventure
Kirby's Dream Land 3
Kirby's Dream Course
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Kirby's Dream Land 2
Kirby: Canvas Curse
Kirby's Dream Land
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Kirby's Return to Dream Land
Kirby Air Ride

PS Nintendo loves the SHIT out of Kirby. :shock:

Edit: I literally forgot I beat Kirby's Return to Dream Land on Wii. That's 'cause the game is bleh.
Last edited by Exhuminator on Wed Apr 26, 2017 10:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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pierrot
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Re: What are you playing?

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PartridgeSenpai wrote:The first game's combat is probably one of its worst stumbling points. Things get a bit better once you start learning the martial arts moves in the park place (whose Japanese pronunciation I never looked up and English name I do not know :P ), but it's really slow and the same moves are best moves.
Yeah, I'm Komaki Shutaro's protege, and dodging his baseballs was a real PITA. (The park is Sai no Kawara, by the way.)
PartridgeSenpai wrote:The sequel improves a lot on the combat, and also makes the adventure stuff usually give you better stats or new moves too occasionally. In Yakuza 1 is almost all just doing quests just to do them to get money. I had WAY too much money all the time though, so buying health drinks and weapons was never something I got into too much. I'd try one of the other games before you give up on it forever. If you still really wanna do the first game first though, I'd try out the remake they did.
Yeah, I don't mean to make it out like my complaints are representative of the series as a whole, and I would imagine that a lot of them were addressed in the sequels. I should probably emphasize more that I actually do like Ryu ga Gotoku, for the story anyway. I don't think it's great, but it's at least entertaining.
PartridgeSenpai wrote:I'm not sure I'd even like the fighting in Shenmue that much if it's Virtua Fighter-y. If anything, your post has made me really wanna seek out Berzerk on the Dreamcast :lol:
Aw, but for a martial arts enthusiast, Shenmue's combat is so good! You can actually train to make each move more effective; There are some really snazzy combos; Some of the later moves you learn are so brutal; There's a lot more of an emphasis on footwork, countering, and reversals. It's definitely a lot easier to throw out the moves you want in Yakuza, though.

Yeah, Berserk is actually a pretty cool game. The combat might still be a bit deeper than that of Ryu ga Gotoku's, and the story, while relatively self contained, isn't really given any context for someone who isn't familiar with the manga (me). It's basically just a slash-fest, though, and a fairly fun one when you don't have to contend with walls holding up the BFS.

Xeogred wrote:- The animal friends are terrible outside of the fish for water areas.
Coo's still good, just not quite as good. I really didn't care for the animal friends that they added, though. I like Nago, but Pitch totally sucks, and Chuchu's powerups suck.

Exhuminator wrote:Oh damn it now we have to rank them.
[...]

Kirby's Adventure
Kirby's Dream Land 3
Kirby's Dream Course
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Kirby's Dream Land 2
Kirby: Canvas Curse
Kirby's Dream Land
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Kirby Air Ride
We don't have to. Epic Yarn and Air Ride are certainly the best Kirby games, though.
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Xeogred
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Re: What are you playing?

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Exhuminator wrote: 8) = I played through it.
:?: = I haven't played it.

PS Nintendo loves the SHIT out of Kirby. :shock:
:lol:

I'm just going to work off the list alienjesus gave me a few pages back I think, mainly just been wanting to check out the ones that have the Adventure/Dream Land DNA. I guess it's amusing it took me until 2017 to play Dream Land where it all started. But I grew up on Adventure.

What I have left:

Kirby's Dream Land 3
Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land
Kirby: Squeak Squad
Kirby's Return to Dream Land
Kirby Triple Deluxe
Kirby: Planet Robobot
Kirby 64

I still can't get over how jacked up Kirby & the Amazing Mirror was, it was like a Metroidvania gone horrible, utterly, completely wrong. Somehow... when the genre had clearly been very defined by that point too. I guess they probably want players to spend dozens of hours with it, which is good for a handheld game. But yeah I couldn't finish that one.

I guess you gave it a :?: , but so basically from what I recall it wanted to be a Metroidvania, except the maps never really fit together very well and instead of interconnected hallways and such, you had the classic Kirby doors. But it never really made sense how the doors connected to other rooms. And there were numerous forked paths to which, if you went the wrong way, you would have to backtrack several areas to get back to that fork and take the right path to the new area or boss you had to beat. And the whole warping system made no sense. Kirby & The Amazing Clusterfuck.

Maybe I'll consider Kirby's Dream Course again though. Not sure if I've ever spent much time with that one. But I tend to like those weird isometric ball puzzle games.
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: What are you playing?

Post by PartridgeSenpai »

pierrot wrote:Yeah, I'm Komaki Shutaro's protege, and dodging his baseballs was a real PITA. (The park is Sai no Kawara, by the way.)
Of the very few times I died in that game, more than one of those times was to those god damned baseballs :lol: . It's worth persevering through though. Some of his later moves are craaaazy good (or very very silly). Especially the counter and fall-recovery moves he teaches you. They allow for a lot more depth in the combat, and you'll really freakin' need 'em if you wanna do crazy stuff like beating all of the Colosseum challenges.
Xeogred wrote: I still can't get over how jacked up Kirby & the Amazing Mirror was, it was like a Metroidvania gone horrible, utterly, completely wrong. Somehow... when the genre had clearly been very defined by that point too. I guess they probably want players to spend dozens of hours with it, which is good for a handheld game. But yeah I couldn't finish that one.
The reason it feels so weird is because it's not so much a Metroidvania as an exploration game. The whole point of the game was get join up with a bunch of friends, fan out, and find treasure in a Kirby-tastic fashion. Now, how successfully they actually did that is up for debate, but it's an interesting concept certainly. This does mean that it makes for a fairly frustrating and strange single-player experience, though.

Now on the topic of Kirby games I am very well versed. Out of the 25 Exhumy Senpai listed, I've extensively played or beaten 20 of them (haven't played Rainbow Curse, Dream Course, Tilt N' Tumble, Star Stacker, or Triple Deluxe, but RC and TD are on my want list). I've always been a huge Kirby fan, so it's not the easiest thing in the world to rank them as they tend to differ fairly significantly, so I'll just list my favorites.

Main Series (ones that play like a Kirby game):
It's a tie between Kirby Super Star and Kirby 64. 64 has such very fun bosses and combo-power ups, but Super Star has such great freakin' co-op. I adore the bite-sized bits of content as well in Super Star. If you're just having a friend over for the day, you can rush through one of the shorter ones together, or you can tackle a bigger one if you have someone more reliable to play with. Super Star probably narrowly beats out 64, tbh.

Spin-offs (including puzzle games):
A tie between Canvas Curse and Kirby Mass Attack. Both are very quality games with interesting playstyles and tons of replayability for getting better ranks. I've played both of them to death and recommend them both very highly :)


As one last note, I was always under the impression Dream Course was a crazy golf game. Is that not the case? O.o
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Xeogred
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Re: What are you playing?

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So... should I just put the rest of Kirby on the backburner until I get married or something? :roll: :lol:

Actually yeah, I guess Dream Course is kind of like old golf games of that style. Hit Kirby around an isometric level to beat up the baddies. I just looked up videos... I forgot it wasn't a free roaming Monkey Ball kind of thing.
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