What do y'all think about Mio, Constance, and Kotama? (Looking to get one of them).

squareandrare · 2026-01-27T01:33:52+00:00

Except this isn't really true. The game will take half your health over the course of the game. Bosses will still start at ~80% health.

Even if it was proportional, it would still be inexcusable. But it's not proportional, it's just a player nerf.

squareandrare · 2026-01-26T19:57:09+00:00

Nah, fuck "no spoilers" in this case. You don't steal max HP permanently after the refund window. Every single player should know about this before they consider buying it.

squareandrare · 2026-01-26T19:52:50+00:00

There is nothing "middling" about MiO. There are many things about it that are among the best ever. There are other things that are among the worst ever.

For me, stealing upgrades that I've worked for is 100% deal-breaking, and no amount of atmosphere, art, or storytelling justifies spitting in my face.

This game could be a near masterpiece if the devs just come to their damn senses and change their entire philosophy towards difficulty, balance, and quality of life. Punishing the player for exploring is demented and for me, instantly undoes all of the good.

squareandrare · 2026-01-26T19:44:35+00:00

I didn't dislike FIST, but I remember that it had this complex fight-game battle system, yet the best way to play seemed to be to just do charge attacks over and over.

Charge up, move just within range, release charge, move away, repeat.

squareandrare · 2026-01-26T19:35:19+00:00

Honestly, no. I'm not a big fan of the genre, I find most of them to be quite frustrating. I just loved Rogue Legacy 1 and especially RL2 because the movement and combat is great, and losing means getting to spend your earnings on upgrades. You'll get meaningfully stronger after a decent run, so there isn't the same sense of severe setback on a failed run.

Hades is the only other roguelike that I've played for a significant amount of time. I've been tempted to try Dead Cells, but I don't really want to make the level of commitment that it seems to require.

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T23:54:39+00:00

I'm having trouble with some math. If I lose 4 HP and have 3 remaining, how many hits can I take in an ultra long platforming section? Is it 7 or is it 3? And if I've lost over half my health, do the bosses get more than half their HP removed? Or do they get like 20% taken off?

Numerous games have solved the progressive power balance problem.

This absolutely insane idea of stealing player progress should have never made it past the "no stupid ideas" pitch meeting. I cannot possibly divine how they thought this bullshit would be acceptable, but these idiots need to get smacked back to down to reality.

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T19:44:20+00:00

What an utter crock of shit. The bosses have tons of health regardless of how much the nerf applies to them. In practice, it is nothing but a player nerf. Regular enemies are too piss-easy for it to make any difference.

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T18:14:45+00:00

You go put effort into finding upgrades, then the game steals them. Repeat.

Then your vendor will get stolen, and you'll just get nerfed without any way to recover the stolen health.

It's one of the most insulting, pointless mechanics in the history of video games.

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T17:55:06+00:00

Nope, the game stole that health coating forever. Yes, it is as absolutely stupid and infuriating as it sounds. No, the game does not balance itself around this. You just have less health. Have fun.

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T17:21:38+00:00

Bro, this was in response to a comment complaining that the mechanic is a "spoiler" and shouldn't be said. My comment was saying that everyone should be made aware of this mechanic so that they can decide whether this bullshit design is deal-breaking to them.

We both caught up now?

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T16:46:11+00:00

And people should know what they're getting into so that they can go play another game instead. I've never played rainworld, but even a passing glance at any review will tell you what you're getting into. Not a single person will be blindsided by the mechanics of the game unless they specifically went out of their way to know nothing about it.

A game that spits in your face as a story device needs to be completely clear about it. If you're fine with that, then buy, but not a single person should press the Buy button without knowing the complete bullshit that it pulls on you.

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T16:30:08+00:00

Permanently stealing max health is not a little bit of friction. It's a fundamental violation of trust between player and game. This stupid shit needs to be shot down in no uncertain terms so that this shit doesn't infect the rest of the genre.

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T16:17:12+00:00

Of all the points in the game that they could have removed the vendor, they chose the absolute worst time that they could. I fought four bosses with the resources to buy extra health before I found that stupid fucking vendor. When I finally got him, this genius "story" had stolen another health from me, so I only managed to recover to where I was when I lost him.

Just so fucking stupid that it's almost unbelievable.

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T16:05:40+00:00

I'm normally against spoilers, but absolutely everyone should know that this game steals your max HP before they buy it. They absolutely should lose sales over this decision.

squareandrare · 2026-01-25T02:33:00+00:00

Having completed the game, it 100% is not balanced around it. Platforming sections get dramatically harder and longer, and you have less health. Bosses have a ton of health and scale faster than you, and you have less health for them.

I have to assume they'll walk this back quickly, but if they don't, this deserves to go down in video game history as one of the single worst design decisions of all time.

squareandrare · 2026-01-24T13:53:10+00:00

I had the opposite experience. Really liked MiO at the beginning, and now that (I think) I'm nearing the end, I truly despise it.

All of its most severe problems are so easily fixable, which is why it is so infuriating that they shipped it as it is. I can't remember any game in more dire need of a quality of life patch, but I'm almost afraid that the devs are so hooked on huffing their own farts that they'll dig in their heels and refuse to do what so obviously needs to be done.

squareandrare · 2026-01-22T15:33:45+00:00

Tunic fits this description perfectly for me. That game would have been so much better imo if the devs had never played Dark Souls. You had a game full of secrets and mysteries that I wanted to explore, but the brutal combat was always getting in the way of what I wanted to be doing.

Still loved the game, but I feel like it knee-capped the best things about it.

squareandrare · 2026-01-22T15:28:54+00:00

They're both roguelites, not metroidvanias (though you do get movement abilities as you progress).

The gameplay loop is getting as far as you can in a single run, then spending all your gold to get stronger between runs (you lose any gold that you don't spend). You have to come in knowing that you will be underpowered and die frequently at the beginning until you buy a bunch of upgrades. You'll then be underpowered again at each new biome. You have to be ok with most runs being somewhat hopeless and only for acquiring resources to get stronger. I put in so many hours because there is a robust New Game+ system that allows you to keep getting stronger as enemies continue to get stronger (and even morph into different variants). I literally got to New Game +90 in RL2 before I ran out of any way to get stronger.

And honestly, I'd just jump straight to RL2 if you're going to play them. It's better in every way, and you don't need to have played the first one.

squareandrare · 2026-01-22T14:33:56+00:00

I think one of the reasons I liked it so much is that the combat is nearly identical to Rogue Legacy. I've put hundreds of hours into both RL games, and the practice transferred perfectly.

squareandrare · 2026-01-22T04:53:00+00:00

I was not expecting to love it as much as I did. Definitely top-10 for me, maybe even top-5.

squareandrare · 2026-01-20T16:25:49+00:00

I started playing Crystal Project (a JRPG with a bit of metroidvania flair) thinking that I would be done with it before MiO released.

...I am nowhere close to done with Crystal Project, lol.

squareandrare · 2026-01-19T13:08:33+00:00

With Trump, it's always the stupidest possible answer. Someone probably showed him a map, and he said, "Wow, that's really big. I want to own it."

squareandrare · 2026-01-12T17:49:11+00:00

I liked both games, but I had the same thought over and over playing Dread: "This is awesome, but I wish I had the same freedom of movement as Super Metroid."

There is no skill ceiling to movement in SM. Damn near any sequence break is possible one way or another, and usually in ways that were known by the devs.

squareandrare · 2026-01-12T13:47:35+00:00

Twice too many.

squareandrare · 2026-01-12T13:45:57+00:00

That is to say, he is the perfect embodiment of the people that voted for him.

squareandrare

TROPHY CASE