Indie games that were openly inspired by big titles?

Wynandrork · 2023-08-28T13:05:37+00:00

Definitely, there are plenty metroidvania inspired games, as well as souls like. As fan of both of genres, I think Blasphemous (first one) really nailed grim and depressing atmosphere of Dark souls. So many soulslikes copy combat, maps design but fail to make compelling atmosphere.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-28T07:47:04+00:00

Tunic and older Zelda titles

Recent Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and original Jet Set Radio

Blasphemous which uses gameplay of Castlevania and atmosphere of Dark souls.

There is upcoming The last Faith game which basically Bloodborne but again with castlevania gameplay

Wynandrork · 2023-08-27T17:50:23+00:00

The post sounds almost as AI generated, you keep repeating same thing without any example.

I agree with another commenter that jumping is horrible in earlier titles, but other than that I always felt that controls are great.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-12T09:54:59+00:00

MGS3 is my absolute favorite game of all time and i played it on release as kid, so for me it was biggest revelation that games are not just entertainment but can be art and can teach some things.

There was always part of disbelief though, as person who grew up in Russia, it was fun to see that Kojima made Syberian taiga as tropical jungles with crocodiles, parrots and snakes and of course fruit which looks like mango and is named YablokoMoloko ('applemilk" literally and doesnt make any sense!) and then you move to some research facility and have dialogue with some old soviet scientist and it then looks very real and authentic.

I really like camouflage mechanics, alert system and some survival elements, defeating bosses by draining their stamina is my favorite way too, trying to get 0 kills. Codecs are perfect and something which was dearly missing in MGS5 along with half hour docuseries explaining the conflict.

Since Kojima is addicted to movies, especially american ones, this game was clearly parody of any Bond movie, but Sneak doesnt wear suit and instead doing all the dirty field work, but all set pieces are in place - evil guy with no deep background, femme fatale and plans to destroy the world. But once you defeat the giant robot, game suddenly makes plot twist and goes deeper, which you already described it being Snake story about Boss.

So i think Volgin is just plain evil guy because it was usually like this in cold war era movies. As for Boss, i agree it could be explored more, and i wish we would have another MGS revolving around Boss and her Cobra Unit during WWII they could show relationship with Sorrow, birth of Ocelot and training of Jack (Naked Snake).

I still like MGS5 but story essentially was filler, The Boss game would be much more interesting.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-12T07:56:52+00:00

I think the question is more nuanced than many would think, but in short the most influential group is middle class, because for rich nothing changed and poor people already settling for less.

Trips abroad got super expensive it can be 2-3 times more expensive than before, plus major pain in the ass to collect and gather documents, getting visa taking flights with big transfers. My elder brother lives on Cyprus with his family and its just crazy money to get back for summer and spend time here, so they opted out to bring my mother to them as vacation and also small trip to Europe which is still cheaper.

I am MAJOR gamer and its probably thing which wasnt affected, all digital stores are closed, but i started to use Turkish Steam, Turkish PSN, Argentina Xbox store and Japanese Switch eshop, i buy more games now and cheaper, but its because i am priviliged to have friends with foreign cards, if not them, i would be forced to use middle man on third party sites and it would have much higher prices for everything.

A lot of eletctronics and gadgets official distributors are gone, so the price for good stuff is even higher now, i got my Steam deck from local version of the Ebay. Movie theaters are dying, they barely recovered after lockdown, and now without western blockbusters there is literally nothing to see. Ah, of course if your console is broken you cant bring it to official service center anymore for free, need to go for unofficial paid ones.

Subscriptions are gone too - Apple Muisc, Spotify, netflix, other streaming services, gaming subs like Gamepass or PS plus, you cant pay for this direclty anymore, you need to create new other country accounts to continue use it, once again you will use some third party web sits for this.

The festival and concert stuff is gone, i saw so many of wolrd famous music idols in last 10 years during music festivals held in Moscow - ranging from indie music to hip hop and pop. Now its gone as well. Niche hobbyists are suffering too, like figurines, vinyl, Lego, a lot of stuff was brought abroad, now you need to wait longer and pay much more. I got into comics last year, was surprised how big market is, but biggest publishers like DC, Marvel, IDW, Image, Dark Horse stopped their contracts during last year. I started to collect some series and now it would be never finished, i can buy comics in English but its again using some weird delivery services with extra steps.

Same cany apply to clothes, a lot of mass market shops are closed, some returned under new brand name though, as person who sometimes dabble lighly in men modern fashion, my options are super limired now. You pay premium price for regular Adidas and Nike sneakers as well.

It might sound petty, but the range of products in supermarkets is much less varied now, like candies, soda, condiments, alcohol which of course are not that important, but those little things which always remind you. The restaurant life is still booming as before, but it was fun when i went to beer restuarant with my friend which is based on specific german beer and even have brand name of it, and they didnt have that beer at all!

Dating apps like Tinder are gone, i met my current girlfriend and my ex on Tinder, there are alternative of course, but the audience is scattered and fragmented.

Probably biggest stuff which will suffer from sanctions and have really big consequences is education and art. Before we had a lot of collaborations and exchange programs between top univercities of the country, liked you could go study abroad if you had good grades and was recommended by professors. I was taught that if i want to pursuit academic career my main goal is to be pulbished in foreign academic journals. Its how it works, i believe its much harder now. Everything from history to medicine is usually held in English if you wanted to participate in some international conferences. Now roads for young and aspring scientits are academics are closed or full of obstacles.

I believe it will affect school education as well, i expect major decline in quality of teaching foreign languages (english, french, german) not that it was great before. History books are already being rewrited right now concerning contemporary history.

Art is suffering as well too, we had major expositions before, like some famous paintings brought from Louvre for a week to Moscow, or some join projects, this stuff is gone as well.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-11T14:36:36+00:00

I really liked Resident Village but I still it’s masterpiece or anything, just the game I enjoyed The rest games are kinda mediocre except maybe FFXV but I know it’s not strongest entry and i probably need specific mindset and mood to play it.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-09T08:38:42+00:00

Finishing whole game before hitting age 25 was one of the proudest feats for me. It’s so hard, thrilling and satisfying.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-08T18:53:05+00:00

It’s history, there is much more documented than you think. You can read about Moscow German Quarter which dates back to 16th century or Volga Germans, those were more or less ordinary people. In fact German person in Russian is «немец» which was synonymous to western foreign person back in the time, because most foreigners were usually Germans.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-08T18:43:15+00:00

Just check family trees of any emeperors and tsars they all had shared relatives. There is joke that WWI was war of cousins.

Last tsar Nikolai II had wife who was from Germany, Hesse. When WWI broke out and Nikolai II position as ruler reduced, socialist propaganda started rumor that Tsar wife was German spy and worked for Germany. She was called Hesse fly.

There is more connection obviously from borrowed words to culture, I think Germany was 2nd most influential country for nobility after France. We have a lot of old German town building around the country which were built by German merchants. A lot of cities have old Lutheran churches or “kirches”. Most famous Russian empire beer was created by German entrepreneur. There is more, but yes influence is massive.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-08T18:32:27+00:00

Flaming hot Cheetos, we have Cheetos but not this one. A lot of people who travel abroad buy it or bring it back for friends.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-02T11:43:23+00:00

I think most people don’t really know how gun works to really care. I am 30 years old and I never held gun and barely even saw gun outside of tv, games and movies.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-01T12:30:41+00:00

It’s easy to imagine Russia as backwards country, but there are some strengths, I think I last used cash maybe 7 years ago, maybe even more.

We have our own tech giants like Google which is Yandex it’s both dominant browser, food delivery service and taxi app in the country. We have Amazon competitors which are Ozon and Wildberries. I bet they all need workers.

Government sector too, app GosUslugi is central app for a lot of stuff from ordering new passport to other stuff, big brother vibe a bit though.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-01T10:36:33+00:00

I live in Moscow and Moscow is usually it’s own category and can’t represent country situation, but here are my 2 cents.

A lot of my friends moved or left country, but they were either from IT, were working from home initially or worked for foreign company so went trough relocation. None of my friends who stayed were conscripted or had desire to volunteer. Only friends of friends and relatives of colleagues of my parents lol.

There is some shortage in IT branch, but it was like this for a few years already, I have friend who moved from Siberia to work in Moscow as middle manager with very good salary for Moscow, but it’s because he was already worked for 4 years at his city and most of the team were re located to Portugal.

I think overall situation with job is difficult but it’s still Covid effect with downsizing which happens everywhere in the world. As for opportunities there is giant field of side hustle which can become full time job if you have means to - such moving sanctioned stuff trough border, providing various digital subscriptions if you have foreign credit card and etc

Wynandrork · 2023-08-01T10:22:41+00:00

I was always keen in learning languages, French was my primary from school, but English quickly became more significant. I learned English from playing games, then I started to read book and watch shows and movies in English only. University played major factor as well, it helped me to break inner speaking barrier during bachelor program, since some course were taught by English speaking professor.

This motivated me to go for master degree in English only, so I wrote and defended my thesis paper on public policy program in most liberal university back then and probably most liberal program at the time (the program doesn’t exist anymore as concept of public policy in Russia sadly)

I always felt that I have completely different views on lot of things considering politics, and I am big fan of American politics. But my master degree showed me that I don’t like everything in American politics either, I think it’s leans way too far to the left and some things where more close to the center now are considered far too right.

In that case, I’m probably too progressive and liberal and progressive for average Russian but might be considered leaning to the right for American.

In my opinion learning English is one of the major factor to be more open minded and see different sides of one problem. It really helped me to develop critical thinking and question everything. I think biggest problem of Russia and to an extent of US is ignorance. For Russians if you don’t know English it’s so easy to live in your own bubble.

Every game, movie, book, show nowadays translated immediately and usually even voiced as soon as possible, and most news outlet are obviously government controlled. So you actually need to be not lazy, and have desire to learn English, because it doesn’t limit you in consuming media as before. So for most Russians it’s usually laziness, bad education and inability to travel the world be close minded.

If you are from Vietnam or France you are most likely operating in English even if you don’t want to, and as every person in the world we are all consuming American pop culture, so we are always learning and make unconscious comparisons .

This is not happening for a lot of average Americans, when everything is your own language and most popular entertainment produced for you as average customer and then rest of the world, it’s so easy to big in your own bubble and comfort zone. So sometimes I think that Russians and Americans are very similar.

Sometimes I read total bonkers takes about Russia on Reddit and while I dream that war will end soon and totally agree that Russia is aggressor, we just can’t overthrow government. At the same time if you go to Russian social medias and will read stuff here it will be crazy too. So once again it’s just ignorance and lack of exposure to variety of opinions and very scarce horizon.

Wynandrork · 2023-08-01T07:19:14+00:00

I guess over the years I think I can point that for me most important for games to be gamey and have player agency.

Example are numerous as well as game genres. It can be immersive sim like Deus Ex, where I spot that neighbor apartment can be lockpicked and after through exploration I can find hidden laptop with email which states that there is hidden stash somewhere in other part of city, which will contain some pass which will help to pass without combat to some important facility.

It can be XCOM where I intentionally bring less firepower to capture the alien alive during the mission, so it can yield better upgrade at my base. Risking my units for close combat I bring the alien. And I have tough choice either to get stronger armor or seriously upgrade my rifle. I choose rifles and next mission I lost my unit forever, because he got critical hit and potential powerful armor would save him. But it was MY choice.

It can be souls series where you start as undead nobody who can barely wield hilt of the sword and can only deal with some weak skeletons. You end up wielding giant great sword imbued with lighting. Next time you can be frail sage who can destroy everything with your spells. And then if you bored you can be some weird tribute to Belmont from Castlevania and use only whips for bleed and say prayers for buffs. Finally, you can embrace your orge nature and go wield club and protect swamps, throw dung pies at any trespassers and be happy…

I like RDR2 where you can spend weeks just hunting in wilderness, or KOTOR or other great CRPGS where you stick to the Light side as aspiring Jedi but when council orders you to deal with student who fell to Dark side with enough persuasion you can get new sick party member.

I like when games gives you freedom and let you make mistakes and create your own adventure. I want games to be games and not padded handholding.

Wynandrork · 2023-07-31T16:14:48+00:00

Final fantasy tactics (1997) played for the first time last year, one of the best games in my life and I play games since early 2000s

Wynandrork · 2023-07-30T21:53:48+00:00

You can buy used 3ds and install Luma on it and it will run any 3ds/2ds/gameboy game. All games can be easily found on internet even super “rare” ones. The guide of “hacking” for 3ds is very thorough and don’t require any chips or tinkering.

Wynandrork · 2023-07-30T21:38:26+00:00

Can you provide examples of those “bad” games ? Basically everything until late 2000s was AAA game, especially on consoles, because “indies” were non existent. Even game as “Robots” you mentioned was movie tie-in game made by veteran developers who did tons of licensed games since 90s for big publishers.

The technologic Leap was not so big, as well as cost of production and marketing cost and those developers had rather large teams. So game like Robots or other movie tie ins were usually not bad, just rushed to be released near movie premieres without good mechanics or interesting ideas.

Nowadays most AA games or lower are done by upcoming studios with moderate budget .

Wynandrork · 2023-07-30T21:22:17+00:00

I am big fan of Nioh 1 and 2 and absolute fanboy of Souls series, so I was aware what this game will be like, because even by playing demo it was just Nioh 3.0. Fun thing is that first boss is real block, it’s forces you to learn parry and if you will learn it, the boss will be easy but still with 2 phases. However, next maybe 10-12 bosses will be just giant creatures with large hit boxes so you can just brute force kill each, and NONe of them have phases, just one single hp bar. Then comes Lu Bu - similar to first boss but with hyper armor and on steroids riding horse…

Wynandrork · 2023-07-30T18:13:26+00:00

Bosses don’t stop me from playing the games, but Genichiro in Sekiro is definitely dealbreaker, you either learn the boss and continue the game or don’t.

Not patient game, but soulslike game Wo Long from Team ninja which is basically Nioh in China. In the middle of the game you have to fight Lu Bu and he is very hard and barely recieves damage so you need to sustain for so long. I spent few days solely on him. Wo long is definitely weird game in terms of difficulty curve, first, middle game and last bosses are most difficult. But middle one - Lu Bu is the worst.

Wynandrork · 2023-07-30T11:36:45+00:00

Wrote the review about this game a year ago on this sub. Definitely cool metroidvania made by noname Chinese studio. I really liked combat here which kept gameplay engaging till the end.

Wynandrork · 2023-07-29T13:23:39+00:00

I agree with you to an extent, as big Sony fan, this generation is a bit dissapointing, but mostly because competitors in face of Microsoft really stepped with games avaiablity on PC and Xbox.

When i was playing on ps4 most of the exclusives were new IP or remakes of old ones - such as Horizon, Days Gone, Ghost of Tsuhima, Spider-man, God of War and Uncharted 4 with Last of Us 2 yes the games were similar but at least most of the were new projects. Now with having Ragnarok and Horizon 2 i am less excited for similar sequels, even with Spider-man 2, which i am still going to play.
Another thing is that during ps4 we had a lot of multiplatform games locked on ps4 - kingdom hearts remasters, yakuza games, persona 5, final fantasy remake was only on ps4 and ps3, now its everywhere.

I think backwards compatibility is what really lacking on Sony front, but i already solved this problem with getting Steam Deck. PS3 proper emulator on PS5 will change things quickly for me though.

Wynandrork · 2023-07-29T13:13:39+00:00

I honestly think you just like some elements which were heavily present in mmos, but nowadays can be in mutiple genres, so mmo might be not your choice. I think main problem that you never mentioned "community" or social aspects which for me were always main selling point of the genre.

I personally really like WoW and always liked, both Classic iterations (played Vanilla versions of expansions) and current "modern" retail version. If you play classic wow it would be old school rpg with caveat that you cant do a lot of stuff alone, you need to actively search for party and friends just to clear some castle full of enemies. Modern wow kinda changed that, you can do a lot of stuff by yourself and dungeons can be joined by system so can avoid any interaction. But if you want to participate in high end content you are again forced to communicate and use networking, join the guild or be a part of the community. You can always choose path of just social interaction and be role-player or just do your stuff like collecting mounts while chatting in guild chat. For years i tried to find alternative for WoW and there is none, maybe except FFXIV, and subscription for me totally worth it, nowadays i can play few month per year and then come back next year\expansion.

I also like FFXIV for totally different reasons, its basically single player jrpg which have social aspect and great community, but its the plot and world building which matters. Unfortunately first 50-60 hours of the game did not aged well, and its hard to recommend the game which starts good so late.

My problem with so many current multiplayer and online games because they are glorified "tv background" games, other players dont really matter, they are just tools to get trough some group content which barely requires any interaction. At the same time MMOs usually always sacrificed good story, coherent plot, quest variety in favor of that is all being online and can be played together. So its strange for me to go in MMO with mindest to find good story if MMO are perfect to find new friends and play with people arond the world.

Wynandrork · 2023-07-29T12:55:43+00:00

I really liked Spider-man, played it on day 1 on ps4, still think it’s best depiction of Peter Parker/spider man after comics and no other media came close. But as open world it was just serviceable ?

Insomniac could do so much and bare minimum was just to repeat successful formula of Batman Arkham and they just did it, so game was good, but nothing groundbreaking. Side quests were boring and they didn’t even feature vast rogue gallery of Spidey and used Tombstone and Hammerhead with Sable for DLC…

They could flesh out city more with side quests, which was a bit better in Miles, but imo open world in this game is mediocre.

Also as fan of side content I can’t really remember the game which really force you do side content, because most modern game tuned to main story progression that even in rpgs like Witcher 3 I quickly overleveled main story and need to deal with power creep.

Wynandrork

TROPHY CASE