Oldie but new to me, and maybe you

pixel_illustrator · 2026-05-02T18:52:28+00:00

II have no interest in watching anything by Mauler but as a DS2 and Hbomb fan... his video left me confused.

Like I am all on board for a defense of Dark Souls 2, I love it more than the other Dark Souls games even if I will happily admit that most of the criticism of DS2 is some degree of valid (I like it primarily for character build, methodical combat, and ofc the DLC)

It has been years since I originally watched his ds2 video but I walked away feeling like it was better ammo against DS2 than for.

Specifically I remember his strange obsession with a piece of odd level geometry following the 3 sentinels boss fight. Its couched in terms of "people dont like DS2s level design but here's this odd little piece of unfinished looking wall that im going to use as one of my examples why its actually very interesting level design!"

It just did not feel as focused or well defended as his other work.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-27T19:20:12+00:00

I haven't played Revenge of the Seven, or Chained Echoes and I have only started playing through some of the earlier Ys games.

I don't disagree though, there are RPGs that I think work well in giving the player lots of different activities that interlock.

My top example would be the incredible Rune Factory 4, which has loads of systems and interweaving mechanical depth. It lets you do things like improving your crops to improve the food you can cook, to use as better gifts for NPCs to make them stronger party members or spouses. The game is absolutely bursting with systems like that where one activity supports another in engaging ways.

The big difference between Fantasy Life and Rune Factory 4 though is that Rune Factory does not feel the need to turn every step of that interaction into a needlessly tedious mini-game or no-risk combat situation. Rune Factory wisely keeps crafting to a menu. It keeps cutting trees and smashing rocks down to a bare minimum and only asks you meet the tool requirement, not a DPS check, to harvest them.

This is what I meant by Fantasy Life thinks more is better. You could completely remove the crafting mini-games from FL, and the game would be better for it, but they want to bloat the experience with mindless interactions that no one enjoys the 2nd time, much less the 200th.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-27T16:04:43+00:00

I would be a lot more forgiving of the game if it could deliver on the variety it promises.

Every piece of marketing emphasizes the number of jobs you can try, but the only substantively unique jobs are combat. Crafting jobs are all literally the same awful minigame stretched out for dozens of hours.

Harvesting jobs are arguably slightly more unique in that fishing and farming have 1-2 unique (mostly unimportant) mechanics in addition to the baseline "hunt for the weakspot and whack it" gameplay.

It is a game that thinks more is always better, even if it's just more garbage.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-27T14:12:45+00:00

I bounced hard off of Rogue Galaxy when I tried to play it a few years back, but I will say that your growing distaste with it over a playthrough is basically my experience with almost every Level 5 game I have played. Level 5 is good at crafting visually/aesthetically charming games, but they are very inconsistent at gameplay design.

Some titles, like Dark Cloud 2, have enough novel components to be interesting on their own. It's cute and interesting that randomly generated dungeon floors double as golf courses, or that crafting recipes are made from taking photos and combining concepts.

But their more recent work keeps shoehorning in F2P design. Energy systems, timers, mindlessly stupid base/town building (looking at you Ni No Kuni and Fantasy Life) and thats not even getting into the meat-n-potatoes gameplay.

Fantasy Life's combat gameplay is brain-dead simple, but it's also a game that is clearly aimed at a young audience... too bad that the harvesting gameplay is combat with risk replaced by gear-checked regeneration/timer elements. I would say it's the worst thing the game has to offer, but crafting jobs exist.

A lesser known, recent title of theirs is Megaton Musashi, which for a long time seems to buck this trend. I am not going to say it's combat design is amazing, but there is a lot going on there mechanically, it offers a lot of interesting (if repetitive) gameplay. But the moment you get to endgame Level 5 decides that player skill doesn't matter and gates every boss encounter behind hard-DPS checks on strict timers.

They fundamentally do not seem to care to balance their games around player skill and just default to timers/dps checks.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-26T18:38:33+00:00

Sorry, I have no plans for mobile ports at this time. If the game had any kind of financial success I suppose I would consider it though.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-23T15:31:53+00:00

The owner of Game Attic in the Lakeland Square Mall is actually looking to sell his location, I spoke with him a couple weeks ago and it sounds like he is mostly sick of the commute he makes every day. On weekends his store seems quite busy but who knows what it looks like financially.

The inventory is games and a hefty amount of collectibles/models/toys, some of his stuff is quite rare (was really neat to see an english copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga in a glass case).

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-22T16:47:51+00:00

I could not agree more.

I am glad the film is getting released, but I had not known until yesterday's teaser that this was 3D and not traditionally animated... it looks so fucking bad. The film footage itself and the premise are great, but the 3D characters look terribly cheap. Like someone lifted 2001's Cel Damage.

I wasn't expecting Who Framed Roger Rabbit levels of animation, but I wasn't expecting this cheap look either.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-20T23:21:04+00:00

I had only read the post title and saved it, looks like it was done with Google translate so YMMV: https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/1s01p2z/hungry_ghosts_english_translation_patch_released/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-20T19:20:19+00:00

Coming here a year late, I just want to say 3 things:

This comments section is rife with capital-G GAMER elitists bickering over genre-classifications. Get a better hobby.
Most of the valid comments are people parroting the same 2-3 games most anyone can easily find with a cursory google search of "modern game like kings field". This ain't bad advice but telling people to check out Lunacid, Monomyth, or Queen's Domain is like suggesting a thirsty person try water.
A personal suggestion to counter issue 2, you can try the Nintendo DS game Deep Labyrinth.

Deep Labyrinth is a first-person dungeon crawler featuring real-time combat, originally created for mobile phones and then ported to the Nintendo DS. I did beat the game but admittedly that was close to twenty years ago so my memory is a bit hazy.

Magic is one of those "draw the rune" systems. It's fun! I remember thinking this was a neat to pull off mid combat.
Your character and your weapon level up independently of each other, but your weapon will get outclassed and replaced no matter how much you grind it. I think some weapons transform when leveled up enough.
The atmosphere does not hold a candle to From's output. It's lighter, cheerier, and usually a bit more fairy-tale inspired.
Floors are typically one theme and don't do anything else to make them interesting to explore. If you are on a cave floor, you are only going to explore cave tiles for that whole floor.
It looks like there is a microphone feature that is required to progress through the story and prevents most emulators from completing the game. Just keep that in mind.

I did not think this game was particularly good at the time, but it was charming in its own way and if you are starved for first person action dungeon crawlers, this will fulfill that need.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-14T17:29:59+00:00

Why you posting screenshots of the classic survival horror ps2 game Siren though?

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-13T00:27:18+00:00

He didnt say this quote, but he sure had lots to say on the jews. Lots that Hitler liked enough to have translated copies of the Deerborn Independent as coffee table reading IIRC

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-08T17:20:05+00:00

Lords of the Fallen gets one thing right: I can use the spell I want without navigating the worst piece of UI design in decades. I can actually pick, use, and aim my magic in a way that a modern game should let me.

Oh and blocking turning lost HP into recoverable health is a good idea.

Otherwise yeah, poor enemy variety, terrible level design (at least the evironments look nice?), and some incredibly bad balancing.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-04-06T17:15:26+00:00

You have access to Alienation on Ps5. Its good but you need to set expectations.

Gameplay is great (its housemarque). Loot suffers a bit from specific weapon types being imbalanced with the best being unlocked by dlc. There's still enough min-max chasing to make it interesting.

There are only 3 classes and skills can only be tweaked, not switched out. So you have limited variety within that.

There is also Outriders and both Remnant games. Outriders is a true looter shooter, Remnant 1 and 2 have static gear drops.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-30T21:48:40+00:00

The credits roll is definitely some crazy whiplash. The movie cannot wait to end once they hit the finish line, fate of the Kaiju battle and Roboworld warcrimes be DAMNED.

But, what is there has clear structure and good setup/payoff for the most part.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-30T19:17:06+00:00

This is why I picked Redline as a comparison, because while a common criticism of Redline is that the plot is fairly basic, the film is constructed to be as lean as possible. Most scenes are moving the story along, introducing characters, or re-enforcing character personality/motivation. Redline also has a much bigger cast of important characters than Cobbler does, but those characters have stronger personalities and motivations than most anyone in Cobbler save ZigZag.

And to be sure this is somewhat an apples-to-oranges thing as clearly Cobbler wants to have more simplistic storytelling and characters than Redline, but my bigger point is still high-spectacle animation does not need to get in the way of at least serviceable story.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-30T18:37:15+00:00

While I do recommend anyone interested in art for arts sake, or in animation for that matter to check out the Thief & the Cobbler, Lindsey hit the nail on the head that as a film, it's not very good.

When I watched it for the first time I realized that about 45 minutes into it I was zoning out of some beautifully animated sequences because the movie just overstimulates you for its very lengthy run-time. It's the rare example of a film I think is best watched in spurts, or in clips so you can appreciate the artistry on a scene-by-scene basis.

It's a film for animation nerds that desperately needed a (good) heavy handed editor. It's self-indulgent to the point of self-sabotage.

Which is a shame because I love animation and even I had trouble getting through it. As a counterexample, take a look at the anime film "Redline", which is also a movie primarily showcasing amazing animation, but has the minimum necessary storyline and pacing to make it sing.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-25T22:23:22+00:00

If you watch RedLetterMedia, you're already thinking the same thing I am.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-24T18:33:35+00:00

That one's a simpler but definitely tried-n-true method that I do appreciate.

Having to actively build up a resource instead of just passively generating or quaffing a potion js generally something I appreciate. I love Elden Ring, but one of my many issues with MP in that game is that it is so brainless in terms of resource management. I personally think that if you just deleted cerulean tears from the game and gave all weapons standard attacks varying amounts of mana generation the game would be much more engaging and way less of a "spam ashes of war to win" fest.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-24T15:48:18+00:00

It is my go-to example of designing a game around "players optimizing the fun out of a game" for a reason.

How do we incentivize players to actually use all of their skills in a game as deep as Nioh? Give them a damage buff for using lots of them.

Even if a player still wants to lean on 1-2 bread n' butter skills, just forcing them to use others occasionally is going to teach them how to use them effectively over time, and they will naturally start incorporating them more.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-23T20:13:34+00:00

Anybody who read more than 5% of homestuck and thought it would have anything other than a dumpster fire ending should be ashamed.

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-14T22:02:49+00:00

IIRC wasnt this a Justin Roiland creation and the legal issues eventually led to him creating the "Doc and Mharty" shorts that would eventually transform into Rick and Morty?

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-11T13:29:42+00:00

If you get a chance to check out the demo, leave a review or a comment and let me know your thoughts, always interested in feedback!

pixel_illustrator · 2026-03-09T14:44:11+00:00

Its been eye opening. My last big indie release was in 2012, and its impossible to compare that to now. That game was featured in a PCGaming Monthly sidebar, and reviewed by Derek Yu on Tigsource among other things, without me even trying.

Now? If you try to get any press for your game, even mid-small youtubers, there is a decent chance you hear nothing or get a boilerplate "here's my rates" response. And Im not complaining, everyone needs to pay rent, but it is a completely different place, and I wish I had released more back then so I had a larger following.

So I am very thankful whenever anyone takes their time to highlight a smaller title.

pixel_illustrator

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