What are you playing?

[Exhuminator]

It was the first Gigas. The one that looks like four derpy looking heads glued onto a stool.

I went and looked it up, and I do remember that boss. Honestly I don't remember what strategy I used to get passed it, but there seems to be solid advice here: http://skiesofarcadia.wikia.com/wiki/Recumen Certainly nothing about just restarting the game that I saw. There are different ways to deal with the Red Ray attack besides just "Secondary Cannon".

[Sload Soap]

The two Gigas bosses I've fought so far (and most of the air battles tbh) have just been cases of defending until you can unleash the harpoon cannon.

[Exhuminator]

The two Gigas bosses I've fought so far (and most of the air battles tbh) have just been cases of defending until you can unleash the harpoon cannon.

That's how I remember them being. Outside stomaching the ridiculous encounter rate and slow battle animations, there's not much challenging about SoA. Not saying it isn't a good game, it's a great game.

[Sload Soap]

I noticed some people, including over at HG101, say the encounter rate was high. I'm not sure it's any higher than most jRPG's I've played recently. Bout the same as FFIX I'd say. But yeah, now I've got a handle on it, it's a pretty easy game.

Moral of the story though: Never give up. Don't stop believing. And when life gives you armour plated space parasites you make lemonade. Really bad tasting lemonade.

Apropos of nothing:

[alienjesus]

I noticed some people, including over at HG101, say the encounter rate was high. I'm not sure it's any higher than most jRPG's I've played recently. Bout the same as FFIX I'd say. But yeah, now I've got a handle on it, it's a pretty easy game.

I remember the windy bit on the way to Ikataka (I think? The green continent anyhow) with the wind having a really high encounter rate on the Gamecube version.

[Exhuminator]

Yeah this game is internet notorious for its encounter rate.

Here's what TV Tropes says about it:

Skies of Arcadia for the Dreamcast had extremely excessive amounts of random battles, a feature made all the more irritating by the fact that the theme of the game is supposed to be free-roaming exploration — rushing on deck every ten seconds to fight off wave after wave of sentient leaves and oversized tapeworms when you're looking for treasure or Discoveries kind of spoils the mood. There are even random battles in areas where the pressure and winds are supposed to be so great that the characters don't dare step outside the ship. The Director's Cut Updated Re-release for the Gamecube supposedly cut down on the amount of random battles, but many gamers still complained about them.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... Encounters

Although there were items you could use to lower encounter rates while flying around, when you were on foot going through dungeons they did nothing to help.

[Gunstar Green]

The two Gigas bosses I've fought so far (and most of the air battles tbh) have just been cases of defending until you can unleash the harpoon cannon.

That's how I remember them being. Outside stomaching the ridiculous encounter rate and slow battle animations, there's not much challenging about SoA. Not saying it isn't a good game, it's a great game.

Skies of Arcadia is a weird game. It's everything I hate about RPGs but I can't help but love it because the world it created is so infectiously wonderful.

[synbiosfan]

I've been playing NES Mappy a lot the last few days. I won a Mappy arcade years ago but sold it pretty quickly.

Since it's a simple game the NES port is very good.

[Gamerforlife]

Still playing Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - New 'n' Tasty, and it still sucks. As a fan of the series, (except for Stranger's Wrath, which isn't an Oddworld game), I am both surprised and disappointed by how much I am hating this game. I don't remember this game being this awful. It seems my nostalgia goggles aren't working correctly. The controls are SHIT, absolute SHIT. And the sadistic, obnoxious level design seems built around exploiting that as much as possible with extremely challenging platforming sections that require a level of precision that this game doesn't have. Also, this game has some of the worst stealth gameplay I've ever seen.

Absolute garbage this game

I also played a little Shovel Knight. I absolutely DESPISE games that track your deaths and this one does via a witch in the first village. If you're OCD this forces you to try and play the game without dying which a tall order for a game like this. Also, nothing about Shovel Knight feels relevant. It plays like so many 8-bit, 2d action platformers, which means that it also plays like the one thousand or so games of this ilk you can find all over PSN, Xbox Live, Steam, Nintendo eshop and the PC indie scene.

Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of how trendy the retro, 2d platformer has become, especially since very few people are doing anything new and interesting with the genre. It's just a bunch of nerds rehashing past glories over and over again, because they can't actually come up with original ideas

[Damm64]

It's just a bunch of nerds rehashing past glories over and over again, because they can't actually come up with original ideas

Like the whole gaming industry?