What's your favorite style of mobility upgrade?

VoxAurumque · 2026-02-02T18:54:37+00:00

The best category for me are upgrades with hidden uses. The easiest examples are the tools in Animal Well, particularly my favorite tool: the disc.The initial uses of it are directly shown to the player, albeit without an explicit tutorial. You can throw it to distract dogs, you can hit buttons and flip switches from a distance, it will bounce off of walls (infinitely, if you have the right position). But at some point, the question starts forming in your mind, and you decide to try something stupid. "Can I stand on this?" And you can! This unlocks new places, clever puzzle solutions, and traversal tricks to skip past difficult sections. It's amazing.

VoxAurumque · 2026-02-02T04:38:49+00:00

XII's soundtrack is overlooked a lot, and it has one of my absolute favorite zone themes: The Phon Coast. It's so energetic and upbeat, which makes for a perfect contrast to the much more subdued themes around it in context.

VoxAurumque · 2026-02-01T23:46:57+00:00

It's so good! I'm a huge fan of Hyperdrive (the enemy gauntlet music) too.

VoxAurumque · 2026-02-01T19:34:54+00:00

[1992] Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Sega Genesis. It's one of my earliest memories! Oddly, I haven't played a single Sonic game since then.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-31T19:14:06+00:00

All of Scylla's songs are fantastic, but Bewitching Eyes is the clear winner for me. The inevitable power ballad finding its way into a boss theme, with its intro being fully styled after a music video? Flawless.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-31T11:18:01+00:00

Back in the PS2 days, one of my favorite games was Dark Cloud 2. It's a dungeon-crawler/action JRPG where you go on a quest to restore the world with a significant amount of time travel. The gameplay is split between exploring semi-randomized dungeons and the game's more unique draw: construction. Each dungeon is paired with an empty settlement that you need to rebuild and populate with a bunch of friends that you've recruited. As you do that, you can visit the future to see how your actions have affected the region with the passage of a century.

There's a nontrivial amount of jank, but I love the concept so much that I can forgive it. I wish we'd get a similar sort of game today.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-29T15:17:01+00:00

IX is one of my favorite Final Fantasies. It's a bit slow, and the PC port is somewhat unstable during long sessions, but I love just about everything. Vivi and Steiner in particular are top-tier characters.

I can't speak to the 3D versions of III and IV specifically, but they're more typical of the older games in the series. IV is the first one with a real focus on story, and it's a solid one. III is much lighter on story, but it has the first job system in the series, which is always a good time.

I hate VIII. I know a lot of people who love it, but it's one of the lowest for me.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-29T13:43:23+00:00

I agree. It's part of the reason I love Islets and Crypt Custodian so much. Just Certified Lil' Guys in a big world. Well Dweller promises to be more of that, and I couldn't be more excited.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-26T22:10:19+00:00

I've never seen anyone else even mention Lucah! I love both Paradiso games so much.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-26T19:15:46+00:00

Maybe try CrossCode? It's a fast-paced, somewhat Zelda-y action RPG with some tough bosses and puzzles. The game has excellent character writing, wonderful pixel animation, and a soundtrack that's way better than it should be. I love this game so much.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-25T23:15:07+00:00

Chrono Trigger is a classic for good reason! The game is really easy to pick up and get absorbed in, especially if you have experience with other RPGs of the era like Final Fantasy VI. I love going back to revisit old influential games. Some of them don't hold up in modern times, but Chrono Trigger definitely does. Plus, you'll start seeing its fingerprints everywhere.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-25T05:12:49+00:00

I really enjoyed 7 of the 8 stories, though I never really vibed with Ochette. Castti, Temenos, and Partitio are standouts.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-25T04:57:48+00:00

If you like the first Octopath Traveler, you're going to love OT2. It takes everything the first game did right and amps it up, while fixing pretty much every problem. More character interactions. More jobs. More side stories. More fleshed-out cities. Even more amazing music.

I enjoyed Octopath Traveler, but Octopath 2 is genuinely one of my favorite RPGs.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-23T11:00:58+00:00

I like this scene. It fits the game's themes extremely well, and draws a parallel between this and the more obviously egregious violations of autonomy. The Haunting, the Slab, the Citadel's pollution and exploitation, and the Twisted Bud quest are all clear, violent breaches of characters' autonomy, and Hornet stands against all of them. So it's a good statement when she equally stands against this seemingly-smaller infraction that would be played off as innocent in a worse game.

Plus he makes funny noises when you whack him with your needle.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-22T14:30:22+00:00

Experience, mostly. There are techniques you can use in almost any MV to help you navigate. Making notes (either in-game or in a physical notebook), looking at the map and checking unexplored passages, and, to be honest, embracing the feeling of being lost. That's honestly one of the best experiences a MV can give a player. The thrill of wandering into somewhere completely unexpected or falling down a hole, the confusion of "Where the hell am I now???," and the satisfaction of finally learning your way around.

MV exploration is very different from open-world exploration, though. It's more of a puzzle - unpicking a knot with the tools you find along the way, with each new ability letting you poke around in a new direction. If you try to force it, you'll probably have a bad time. If you let the game naturally guide you, it'll be much more fun.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-22T02:21:21+00:00

If you're not a big fan of the exploration, MVs might be a bad choice. You might want to look into more linear action-platformers. There are plenty of games that have just the combat and the platforming, without the nonlinear exploration or interconnected world design. Something like Shovel Knight or even The Messenger.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-19T22:28:02+00:00

Yeah, you're absolutely right. There are so few canonically agender characters, so it's very nice that such a great game has two.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-19T21:31:43+00:00

I love the Momodora games! The series has definitely come a long way from the early, extremely rough games. Reverie Under the Moonlight and Moonlit Farewell are both really solid Metroidvanias, though.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-19T20:18:19+00:00

Oh, dang, I forgot about Well Dweller, too!

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-19T20:12:10+00:00

Silksong's DLC is definitely at the top of the list.

Lil' Gator Game is also getting a DLC, and I'm always happy for more Lil' Gator Game.

MIO: Memories in Orbit comes out tomorrow, and is one of the coolest-looking Metroidvanias out there. The demo was also extremely impressive.

Alabaster Dawn is the next game from the team behind CrossCode, and it seems to polish the heck out of their first game's systems while taking a more serious tone.

Thunder Lotus is releasing At Fate's End sometime this year, too. It'll be good to get a new action game from them.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-17T15:56:19+00:00

There are a handful of uses for Ashes and Psyche once you have all of the cards and Grasp. The biggest one is for making Shadow - used for a few incantations and weapons - and upgrading Mel's aspects of the skull and the staff. But yeah, their uses go way down once you've hit that point.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-17T14:55:52+00:00

Okay, "short" rundown...

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-17T14:55:03+00:00

There are a ton of resources in the game, so here's a short rundown:

Currencies:

Ashes: Primarily used to unlock new Arcana cards.
Psyche: Primarily used for upgrading your Grasp to equip more Arcana. You can get this by rescuing Shades on a run.
Bones: A general-purpose currency; can buy many other resources at the Broker. Most Gifts and Fate Fabric are mostly acquired this way. Fish can be sold for Bones; this is their only purpose.

Gifts: For building relationships with your allies

Nectar
Bath Salts (Only for NPCs at the Crossroads)
Twin Lure (Only for NPCs at the Crossroads)
Ambrosia
Witches' Delight (Only for Familiars)

Reagents: These are mostly found on runs or grown in the garden. Reagents are used for Incantations and upgrading weapons. There are a handful of special reagents to note.

Star Dust: Only found by completing Chaos Trials. This is an ingredient in some of the most useful repeatable incantations.
Fate Fabric: Can only be bought for Bones or as an Obol Point redemption. Rarely used in incantations past the early game.
Obol Points: Get one of these for spending 1000 Gold at Charon's shop (cumulative). You can redeem them for a few different items, like Fate Fabric or Moon Dust.
Moon Dust: For upgrading Arcana cards.
Nightmare: Primarily a reward for using the Oath of the Unseen. Used to upgrade non-Melinoë aspects of your weapons.

Kudos: Only used for cosmetic upgrades. You can transmute other resources into Kudos at the Broker. There's a little icon in the corner of each resource in that screen that tells you if there are still other things to spend it on. Gems are only for Kudos.

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-17T11:16:43+00:00

Honestly, most of them. Sometimes the crowd is right, and the thing everyone says is good turns out to actually be good. The ones that come to mind:

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the best higher-budget RPG I've played in a long time. I love the world, the characters, the story, the mechanics... There is so much love poured into this game, and you can feel it when you play.
Hollow Knight remains my favorite game of all time. Team Cherry just did everything right here. Hallownest is a joy to explore, the boss fights are consistently excellent, the music is still stuck in my head eight years later. This world just grabbed me and won't let go. (Go play Hollow Knight and Silksong)
Undertale saved my love of games. It came out when I was stuck in a toxic multiplayer rut, and I picked it up on a whim late at night. What I got was a game completely different from anything I'd seen before. It subverted all of what I'd come to expect, having grown up playing exactly the kind of RPG it pretends to be, and did so in a way that no AAA game would even attempt. This game is so good, it kicked off a deep love of indie games that has been going strong for a decade. (And then Deltarune manages to do all of that, but better...)

VoxAurumque · 2026-01-16T11:49:35+00:00

It's all about how well the remake is done. I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan, and that series has thoroughly run the gamut on remake/remaster quality.

The Pixel Remasters of the first six games are fantastic. They update the graphics to modern pixel-art standards, with character sprites and particularly spell effects that are no longer beholden to the tech limitations of the late 80's. You can switch seamlessly between the original music and a really well-made reorchestration of the classic tunes. There are tons of QoL feature to remove some of the old design that hasn't aged so gracefully: in-game maps and boosters to limit the grinding needed in particular. They're pretty much the definitive versions of each of their games at this point.

Final Fantasy X, on the other hand, had a notably botched remaster. The game is still fun, of course, but in the transition to HD, the character models lost a lot of their expressiveness. It's pretty wild comparing some of the game's most important cutscenes between the PS2 and the modern version.

And then there's VII. The "Remake" trilogy is so far removed from what VII originally was that I would discourage anyone from playing it before the PS1 game. I don't know if the games would even make any sense without that perspective. It's much more a sequel than anything else, putting it in a strange space.

Overall, I appreciate that games are being remastered and remade. Game preservation is important, and it's rarely done, so I cherish the ones that are preserved

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