cadevader

Buddy

I am very exited 

overall it has a very different feel due to how they changed the turn system, weapons, and the characters.

 For the characters, instead of having custom dudes you get pre-made guys, each with their own unique perks and abilities. this makes things more narrative driven since they can give each characters their own voice and personality. I really enjoy this change, but I don’t think it would fit in a mainline game.

another major change is the weapons you use. They got rid of the tech advancement other the other games. Instead of going from ballistic, to laser, then to plasma, you stay ballistic the whole time and just upgrade those weapons overall. the plasma and other weapons are saved for ‘exotic’ weapons that let you put what used to be minor skills onto any character that can use that weapon. this really ads more mechanically diverse classes since you can trade out an ability you don’t like on a character for something that synergies really well with them, or you can instead just give them a more general and powerful ability with little synergy.

And finally, the biggest change is the turn system and combat loop. Instead of your team going at once, and then the enemy team goes all at once; you have a DnD initiative system. This means that the enemies act while you act and allow for shorter engagements, and more meaningful mechanics. So, instead of slowly planing and setting up attacks, you sort of do a DnD style roundabout of everyone doing their own thing but sort of together. this also means that the character you have go first really matters as it is better to have a character go early that either gives battlefield control, or defensive buffs. And, it is better to have someone go last who heals so they can heal after someone has taken damage. This also allows the game to be faster since if a fight is only one round, it is still meaningful. I think this mechanic could fit in a mainline game, and I would be hesitant, but interested in what could be done with it. I still really like the old, all at once style, but I could always replay 1 or 2.

I’ve been playing Baba is You lately and I have been loving it! I think it is really cool that it uses the mechanics themselves as the puzzle. In a normal puzzle game you are constrained by a puzzle’s rules and have to work around them to reach the goal. However, in Baba is You, you alter the rules to reach the goal. I think it is a super clever way to have game mechanics, plus the game has a lot of personality and charm to boot!

I used to know someone who was really into Dead Space so this brought back some memories. All of Noah Caldwell-Gervais’ videos are really good and I would recommend giving them a watch if you have the time.

They tried changing my password and they changed the name to _PacoSanchez_ of all things, what a lame name. Looks like my name on minecraft is  _PacoSanchez_ for a month. 

Here’s what gets me: 

1. they bothered to try and steal my minecraft account of all things, like it isn't that expensive to buy the game.

2. they chose such a boring and lame name. Like, they had the power to name themselves whatever they wanted, and they chose a plain name with underscores around it. like, come on dude be creative? 

like, their name is probably paco sanchez judging by the name, and they are probably around 11yrs old judging by the underscores, but come on, you could try better bud. If you can bother to figure out my login info, you can bother to put in some effort.

The ending really got me in a place that is hard to describe, like not a sad feeling, maybe more like a comforting feeling? I dunno but I haven’t had many games get me in this way so that’s something big. It uses the vaporwave aesthetic to keep the gameplay and setting interesting, while using it to tell an interesting story. Where Griptape Backbone is about vaporwave itself and the emotional feel of it, Broken Reality is about the ideas and statements surrounding vaporwave. It’s more nostalgic than it is depressing, while at the same time bringing up the consumerism and social media aspects of the movement.

the game tells you almost nothing about the story, and instead shows it or gives some weird imagery for you to interpret on your own. And, honestly, that’s really refreshing? Like, that is one of the reasons I like FRACT OSC and Antichamber so much, they don’t go out of their way to tell a deep or complex story. And like, the story is there, you just have to dig a little and decode the imagery to get to it. Like, you get movies every now and again, like Total Recall or Inception, that leave big questions unanswered, and you almost never get that with games. I really feel like games can provide a more interesting way to do that also, like you can mess with players more using the mechanics to suggest things to the player. I’ll discuss the dealio under the read-more link to avoid spoilers.

On this day, Jan. 20th, 2019, I beat Ocarina of time for the first time.

It is really interesting to play it now, since it is such a product of its time. There are so many tutorial things and so much repetition simply because 3D games like that were still relatively new and a 3D zelda was very new. It is also weird using only one analog stick for everything, since nowadays almost all games use 2 stick controls.

Overall, I liked it. However, I wouldn’t say it is a favorite. How’s that for a hot take? But really, I prefer Breath of the Wild’s non-linear open world over OoT’s linear progression. I would love for there to be a solid mix of both the game styles in a single Zelda game though. Like, take the open world sandbox nature of BotW and make a bunch of sprawling dungeons with interesting mechanics and themes like in OoT. Yeah, it would be tricky to do in a way that feels good to play, but I believe it is possible. Hopefully Nintendo will figure that out, or at the very least a talented indie dev will.

In terms of themes, the game uses The Hero’s Journey as a pretty solid framework for its story, and it doesn’t really have any strong running themes other than the whole coming of age deal. This isn’t inherently bad, since a lot of the purpose of this game was to figure out what a 3D Zelda would be like. It does have a more melancholy feel to it though, and the progression from OoT to Majora’s mask is very clear and natural.

I also like the Biggoron’s sword quest because the sword itself is very powerful, but to get it you have to go through a whole hullabaloo of delivering things to people. it is an interesting way of balancing it out more than just, like, limited use or some other mechanic.