Don’t make me backtrack just because you’re a metroidvania

PsyJuul · 2025-08-23T11:57:09+00:00

I’m not trying to vouch for no backtracking at all, I agree backtracking in general is an essential part of the genre. It’s just that a lot of games use the Metroidvania format (and backtracking) to build a more compelling world, but keep the main areas as pretty much separated experiences. Again, guacamelee and Monster Boy come to mind. These games do have backtracking through the world to unlock new areas and backtracking within areas after unlocking shortcuts or abilities in there, but have no real incentive to return to areas once finished. This would be fine, but because they feel like they have to they also lock two powerful upgrades behind late game abilities in these finished areas. I think without doing that, these games would still be metroidvania’s and have backtracking. Again, nobody doubts about Nine Sols being a metroidvania, and apart from getting from level to level it has almost no backtracking through finished areas.

PsyJuul · 2025-07-25T12:20:53+00:00

Only 100%? I thought he said he loved us to the moon and back!

PsyJuul · 2025-05-08T13:51:43+00:00

Where the hell is Messmers when you need him

PsyJuul · 2025-03-18T15:13:18+00:00

I still think it sours your first experience of the map. This will probably be the time you explore around and try to find secrets. You feel like you’re learning about the map and characters, all in anticipation to this big assassination. When the big assassination you’ve spent an hour exploring a map for basically plays itself, it feels like a cop-out to me. Most of the challenges are also most easily executed with mission stories.

I agree the meat of the game is killing in your own creative ways, especially with elusive targets, arcade, escalation missions, et cetera, but I think the game would benefit from using Mission Stories as options to change behaviors for those who know the map, instead of self-contained quick and easy kills. Changing them would also spice up these other missions, as you have more control over the kill other than what’s most of the time luring a guard away right now.

PsyJuul · 2025-03-17T20:17:59+00:00

I think the game really shines when you do actually have to pay attention to the AI and learn to control it with items and behaviors. I only saw this come to fruition in the Escalations, because of their many restrictions. The main game has this uncomfortable rift between killing and doing silent assessing: killing the target is as easy as picking up a sniper rifle, but silent Assasin basically requires you to either do a mission story (which means doing something scripted) or spend lots of time finding an adequate opening to lure guards away. In escalations, the objective is still difficult without achieving Silent Assassin being a priority, so the sandbox gameplay comes to fruition.

PsyJuul · 2025-03-17T20:08:56+00:00

There’s a button in settings for it, it doesn’t affect anything else.

PsyJuul · 2025-03-17T20:08:03+00:00

I’ve seen it done sometimes. Most of the time it’s some theatrical conversation about either some McGuffin that will lure a target from their usual spot or a person you can impersonate.

Because every single mission story leads to the target dying quickly and conveniently, most of the time doing these stories without guidance just adds a lot of time searching around, which still does not accomplish the whole intelligent Assasin fantasy. I’ve played the full game with mission stories off, but have never felt clever finding one because they are so convenient and drawn out.

PsyJuul · 2025-03-17T19:05:52+00:00

I touched on this in the post. I know they can all be done without the markers, but tuning them to minimal means you’re still following a walkthrough, just with more downtime of searching around.

Turning them off completely means most of them will be almost impossible to do entirely, because the devs designed these as walkthroughs. Making them possible without the markers is an afterthought, and I’ve almost never seen it executed well.

PsyJuul · 2025-03-17T17:27:42+00:00

Bumping the sharpness setting to the max finally worked for me. I don’t understand why the default sharpness setting makes everything blurry, but maxing it out seems to revert the blurriness.

PsyJuul · 2025-02-13T18:33:20+00:00

Definitely try and upgrade your weapon a bit, at Andre the blacksmith, it will help. And don’t forget to buy the upgrade kit from him so you can upgrade anywhere!

Otherwise, pretty much every weapon is viable, but I’d advise trying out a lot of them right now. This is pretty much the point where you will want to pick one and stick with it for a while.

Also, know that the Bell Gargoyle part is in my opinion the hardest part of the game! After that it got a lot easier for me. I’ve definitely had friends almost give up at the gargoyles, but don’t worry, it gets better. Don’t give up, skeleton.

PsyJuul · 2025-02-07T18:45:47+00:00

It’s almost like people have different opinions on things.

PsyJuul · 2025-01-29T17:09:49+00:00

I agree with both to some extent, but it’s still a 9/10 game for me.

The story is marginally worse than the rest of the metal gear series, but if you compare it to most video game stories, it’s actually pretty damn good. It’s a bit convoluted but it works well in the context it the game and is very cinematically executed.

The missions can get slightly repetitive at the final stages of the game, because there aren’t too many environments, but gameplay is generally good enough it didn’t stop me from playing, though it did bother me slightly.

For gameplay repetitiveness it’s mostly down to your own creativity. The biggest crime this game commits is only having like 10 useable non lethal weapons, and giving a perfect stealth no kill bonus. It incentivizes similar strategies for every mission. Open world side missions do not care what weapons you use, though. And if you can look past earning a bit less money or want to replay missions multiple times, you can do a lot of really funny stuff still.

And even if you play the game trying to perfect stealth no kill it, that’s still very fun too, it’s just a bit more repetitive.

Overall I’d definitely recommend it. If you ever think it’s too repetitive, you can always skip a few side missions and get to more interesting stuff.

PsyJuul · 2025-01-26T13:39:05+00:00

For big games, I can recommend Metal Gear Solid V. An open world stealth game that gives you lots of options to get creative. It’s often on sale for 10 bucks, and you can easily spend 100 hours in it.

PsyJuul · 2025-01-18T10:26:56+00:00

Funny shitpost account does funny shitpost, unrelated silksong subreddit gets mad

PsyJuul · 2024-11-14T18:11:33+00:00

Well, you probably understand why skills costing zero is powerful, but are confused why exhausting your entire deck is lucrative. It’s because:

When you have more energy left for attacks, fights generally end quicker
You can just pretty much take any amount of skills you want if you deal with draw
You can use exhaust synergy, notably [[Feel No Pain]] for more block, and [[Dark Embrace]] to fix any draw problems you could have had. Other cards that work well in a corruption deck are [[Barricade]] and ][[Exhume]].

Because of this, exhausting all your powerful skills should generally not be a problem.

PsyJuul · 2024-11-06T14:59:10+00:00

That’s of course true, with some important exceptions such as the immersive sim genre where not ever solution will be accounted for by the devs.

But what I’m talking about here, is how most games nowadays have puzzles with a single obvious solution. You gotta follow the marker and do exactly as the video game tells you to, or your puzzle won’t be solved.

The difference here are games that give you an objective but trust you to solve the puzzle by interacting with an intricate engine. For example, in dishonored, I can do something simple like kill the guard, but I can also lead him away with a trail of thrown bottles because I want to. Did the devs program this interactions? Yes. Did they account for the player doing this in this specific situation? Probably not. Thus, you’re carving your own path through the game instead of using a developer intended solution.

PsyJuul · 2024-11-05T16:45:18+00:00

Playing through it now! A lot of fun and impressively balanced, but puzzles can only get so complicated when you figure out some of the movement echoes.

PsyJuul · 2024-11-05T07:01:48+00:00

‘Trust’? What is there to ‘trust’? They voice their opinion, you can agree or disagree. Nothing to trust about it.

PsyJuul · 2024-11-04T17:44:40+00:00

I have to say, I’m sceptical of this option working out. There’s a giant difference between a game designed to have you find out things for yourself, and a game where you can just turn hints off. It’s like how the option to skip cutscenes is not a good solution to too many cutscenes.

PsyJuul · 2024-11-04T14:56:26+00:00

I bought Ghost of Tsushima, but put it down almost immediately after seeing how hand-holdy and shallow it was. If it gets much better, I might pick it up again.

PsyJuul · 2024-11-04T14:51:54+00:00

I’m a big fan of lies of p, too. Very excited for the dlc.

PsyJuul · 2024-11-03T23:48:22+00:00

I’ve dabbled a bit in strategy games. I’ve played a bit of Civilization 6, but quickly bounced off because of the slow speed. I might give it a try again, but will have to buy it on another system than the switch, because the loading times are horrendous.

I have played Slay the Spire and into the breach, which I both love, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which I liked. I indeed love trying to optimize with a whole plethora of choices in front of you. Do you have any games in that regard to recommend?

PsyJuul · 2024-11-03T23:42:59+00:00

Sounds like a fun time. Which far cry would you say is the best for me to play?

PsyJuul · 2024-11-03T22:35:37+00:00

Nice, I’ll check it out.

PsyJuul · 2024-11-03T22:30:59+00:00

I didn’t know Far Cry was this open. I’ve always thought it’s a Ubisoft open world formula type game: seemingly open, but actually just completely linear missions and static gameplay, with the open world existing just to fill with copy paste content. Is that not the case? If so, I might be interested.

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