The 2024 Backlog Challenge

[wongojack | 331]

30 minutes ago, T-Pac said:

I realized it's been almost a month since I finished my last game for the backlog challenge. I've still been playing stuff, just sidetracked from the list I made in January...

Which has me wondering - is anyone finding more success with the goal of "complete this many games" vs "complete these specific games" for the year?

[T-Pac]

I knew that I would drift from any list that I made in December or January.  My interests move around as the year goes by, and I like it that way.  The solutions for me were to either provide only a subset or provide the entire freaking list (which I still might've strayed from anyway).  I provided a subset, and I've taken a few bites from that while playing a lot of other backlog games as well. I like the list I provided, so I'm planning to use it as a guide for my gameplaying decisions the rest of the year.  Still have some time . . .

[LHCGreg | 149]

Prison City is done. It's a solid NES-style action platformer that takes inspiration from Power Blade and Shatterhand. I beat the main game in both Modern and Classic (hard) difficulties, bomber mode in Modern and Classic, and the boss rush in Modern and Classic. I found a secret that you gives you unlimited 1ups on the very long HQ level towards the end where you have to plant bombs in a bunch of places on a huge map. That helped me get through on Classic difficulty. I couldn't find anything on the internet about it except a hint in patch notes from 2023-10-06. It's not a very popular game so I'm genuinely wondering if I'm the first person to find it. The guy who recommended the game to me didn't know about it and he has 260 hours logged and speedruns the game. I feel like I should pick an agent number and write a letter to Nintendo Power classified information or something.

Spoiler

In the top left of the big HQ level, crouch facing left on the gargoyle statue for several seconds. 1ups will rain down on you.

Grade: B+

[Floating Platforms | 826]

22 hours ago, T-Pac said:

Which has me wondering - is anyone finding more success with the goal of "complete this many games" vs "complete these specific games" for the year?

I chose the goal of X games and it's also been a long time since I've finished one, but that's because I'm mostly bouncing between several longer games at the moment. I found that having a narrow-focused, specific game list was not fitting my personality. I definitely want to play a lot that's on my shortlist, but only if I'm in the right mood when it's time to start something new. For example, I'm sure I'll enjoy the God of War reboot and I'm really interested in eventually playing it, but I've gravitated towards other stuff that suits me more in the moment instead. I need that flexibility. Also the X games technique makes the goal easier to hit since there is a mix of long and short titles.

Right now, I'm only slightly more than halfway done with 16 of 30 done, but even though there's only a few months left in the year, I will probably get to 30.  These longer titles will start to fall pretty soon since I'm at the tail end of 3 of them, and then I can supplement with quicker games to cross the finish line if I need to.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,977]

The specific lists work for me, but I think that's for a couple reasons:

1. I think fairly hard about my list, and put together games that are mostly safe bets.  Incredibly safe bets, actually.  There was no chance I wasn't going to get sucked into Bloodborne, Ragnarok, and Village
2. For the riskier entries (mostly older games that have slipped through the cracks like Turok 3) I consciously make sure they're all fairly short.  I don't want to get stuck with a 40 hour game I don't like.
3. Flexibility.  I'll still play backlog games not on the list if something comes up.  My kids want me to play Miles Morales and Tears of the Kingdom?  Sure, I'll hop in.  I suddenly feel the impulse to pick Inscryption back up?  Sounds good to me.

 

I actually already have my list for next year, and feel good about.  Lots of bangers that are gonna get 8s and 9s from me.  And instead of targeting some arbitrary number (which might influence me choosing a bunch of short, non-essential titles), I'm going after the Witcher 3 and Disco Elysiums of the world.

 

 

Also, hypothetically, and speaking kind of broadly here, but... if I can't motivate myself to play something, why is it on the list in the first place?  Those games need to be written off.

[Floating Platforms | 826]

5 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Also, hypothetically, and speaking kind of broadly here, but... if I can't motivate myself to play something, why is it on the list in the first place?  Those games need to be written off.

Maybe I worded it poorly or made the mistake of using a specific game as an example, but with my list and mindset, it's not that I'm not motivated a specific game because of what that game is - I may not be motivated to play that specific genre, or a game with that length, or a game with a specific expected difficulty, or even a game from that system when I'm ready to pick something new from the list.  With My GoW example, it's been one that I've strongly considered a few times, but ultimately decided I wanted to play something else that I thought fit its category a little bit more.  I wouldn't say that means it should be written off.  That would be like saying anything that doesn't make the 2025 list should be written off since there's not enough motivation to play them in the next 15 months.

What it really comes down to for me is that my game playing whims are very fickle and change as often as the weather in Chicago. However, I also like to stay with just one game per system (most of the time). So if I'm 50% done with an action adventure on one system, I can pull a different genre in a different system from my short list to scratch whatever specific variety itch I have at that specific point in time, and I don't have to worry about creating a strict syllabus for the entire year. Plus, if something comes up life-wise, I can still make progress towards my overall goal by switching gears to shorter experiences.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,977]

Oh, I was more speaking to myself there 

Like if I create the list and I'm resistant to the idea of starting one of the games on it... then I have to ask myself why it's on there in the first place.

[Floating Platforms | 826]

7 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Oh, I was more speaking to myself there 

Ah, my mistake!  Please disregard my rambling!

[Lago | 241]

Been a while since I have posted an update.  I’ve been busy!

8/23/2024 The Oregon Trail for Switch. Beat!

Man this game was just chill.  There was still a lot of Oregon Trail being Oregon Trail but I enjoyed this so much!  If you enjoyed the original this is a true tribute to that.  I’ll be playing this again.  Estimating I spent a solid 7 hours so far.

NES World Championships.  Played all I needed to.  Counting it.  Bought this game for straight up nostalgia.  Had a lot of fun with it for a bit.  Kids developed a love hate relationship with it.  I want to get 4-8 friends together and play the snot out of this for an afternoon.

College Football 25.  Beat!  I know, I know. It’s a sports game.  I really enjoy sports games.  Plus it’s the first official college football game in over a decade. That’s a tragedy.  My coworkers are wanting to start an online dynasty.  I’m considering it strongly enough to actually get Gamepass again.

Game on Friends!

 

[twiztor | 925]

no picture, as there's no credits per se, but i beat all of the Super Mario Bros. 3 e-Reader levels this morning. i cheesed it a little, creating restore points after each level (effectively giving myself infinite lives) but only used that cheap trick once (a level that forces you to jump across those flying beetles- i'm terrible at that!). also, i didn't collect all of the special coins in each level.

there was some fun design in here. they used the SMB3 base, but incorporated aspects from SMB2USA and SMW, so that was cool to see. also had some good challenge (at least as far as 1st party Mario goes). but as is the nature with this sort of thing, playing so many of these levels back-to-back highlighted the inconsistency. 

also, this cemented that to me, SMB3 > SMW

[T-Pac | 8,225]

On 8/19/2024 at 10:03 AM, Floating Platforms said:

I chose the goal of X games and it's also been a long time since I've finished one, but that's because I'm mostly bouncing between several longer games at the moment. I found that having a narrow-focused, specific game list was not fitting my personality. I definitely want to play a lot that's on my shortlist, but only if I'm in the right mood when it's time to start something new. For example, I'm sure I'll enjoy the God of War reboot and I'm really interested in eventually playing it, but I've gravitated towards other stuff that suits me more in the moment instead. I need that flexibility. Also the X games technique makes the goal easier to hit since there is a mix of long and short titles.

Right now, I'm only slightly more than halfway done with 16 of 30 done, but even though there's only a few months left in the year, I will probably get to 30.  These longer titles will start to fall pretty soon since I'm at the tail end of 3 of them, and then I can supplement with quicker games to cross the finish line if I need to.

 

On 8/19/2024 at 10:22 AM, Reed Rothchild said:

The specific lists work for me, but I think that's for a couple reasons:

1. I think fairly hard about my list, and put together games that are mostly safe bets.  Incredibly safe bets, actually.  There was no chance I wasn't going to get sucked into Bloodborne, Ragnarok, and Village
2. For the riskier entries (mostly older games that have slipped through the cracks like Turok 3) I consciously make sure they're all fairly short.  I don't want to get stuck with a 40 hour game I don't like.
3. Flexibility.  I'll still play backlog games not on the list if something comes up.  My kids want me to play Miles Morales and Tears of the Kingdom?  Sure, I'll hop in.  I suddenly feel the impulse to pick Inscryption back up?  Sounds good to me.

 

I actually already have my list for next year, and feel good about.  Lots of bangers that are gonna get 8s and 9s from me.  And instead of targeting some arbitrary number (which might influence me choosing a bunch of short, non-essential titles), I'm going after the Witcher 3 and Disco Elysiums of the world.

 

 

Also, hypothetically, and speaking kind of broadly here, but... if I can't motivate myself to play something, why is it on the list in the first place?  Those games need to be written off.

Both of these approaches make a lot of sense.

I think my main problem is that I hate facing-off against the inertia of starting a new game. Sorta like working out - I know I'll usually feel good once I get going (just like I know I'll usually enjoy a game once I'm in the thick of it) - but I always have to "force" myself past that initial hurdle. 

Specific game lists help me get past that start-inertia by holding me accountable for beginning those games in the first place - but on the other hand, specific game lists can hold me back from diving into a different game where, for whatever reason, I'm not feeling that start-inertia in the first place.

Maybe I'll try a mixed approach next year and see how that goes.

[T-Pac]

[T-Pac | 8,225]

34/40 - Darius Force [Nintendo Super Famicom - 1993]

Finished: 2024/08/25

Caveats: Used save-states and Easy mode to play every stage and get all 3 endings.

[T-Pac]

[Brickman | 4,222]

Tomb Raider: The Prophecy (GBA)

Pretty fun Tomb Raider game with an isometric type view. It gets a bit repetitive with having to constantly look for switches to open doors but for a handheld Tomb Raider they did an OK job.

DK: King of Swing (GBA)

This game has an interesting concept with using the L and R buttons to move through the levels but it just ends up hurting your hands after a short period of time. The difficulty spike is crazy in this game and could probably rival some NES games at times. It was a very average game overall. 

I've now complete 45 GBA games which was a side goal of mine for the year. 

Bart & The Beanstalk (GB)

I wrote a small review in the GB thread. Overall I thought it was a decent game and I enjoyed learning it. Once you master it you should be able to get through it in about 25mins or so.

[greenthunder | 120]

As usual, I fell off my list around May. Been caught up in playing newer releases and pickups, plus also spending time tinkering with some games, so my list progress hasn't moved at all. Of course, that isn't a bad thing.

Currently replaying a game I beat last year on my Switch, but I'm thinking it might be finally time to start Persona 3 Portable or get back to Trials of Mana after. I haven't played much of anything on my 3DS lately, so I'm thinking maybe Attack of the Friday Monsters or Fragrant Story soon since those will be easy to knock out.

This is a tangentially related thought, but anyone else struggle with the mental block of actually starting games? I find that unless it's from a series or developer I like, I struggle with getting over the hump of getting the game off my shelf, putting it in the console and getting started. Most of my games I know I'll like once I actually start, but I don't want to start them.

[Philosoraptor | 482]

It's been a bit! Unlike the last time, life caught up to me and I haven't had much time to play video games. After Sumez made some great comments back in July about lag and response time, I did some science and measured them on a bunch of games, systems, and TVs/monitors to determine how much lag I was getting. I don't own a CRT, but I do have several computer monitors and flatscreen TVs.

First off, I determined that about .08 seconds of input lag feels good to me. Less is obviously better, but I start noticing lag at about .10 seconds. I also found out my TV only adds .01 seconds of lag when it's outputting its native resolution (1080p), but adds more for older, lower resolution outputs. This is apparently common in the industry, especially for non-gaming TVs. It costs more money to make older input types and lower resolutions run as fast as the native resolution, and that's an easy way for manufacturers to cut costs. Most people aren't trying to plug in a SNES to a flatscreen anyway.

The first remedy was simply plugging in my old consoles again. I discovered Retron 5 adds about .04 seconds of lag across the board, which pushes basically every console it supports over .10 seconds of input lag, at least for the games I tested. That's fine for RPGs and games that usually need translations, but not for anything that requires precise reaction times. Edit* This may be because the Retron 5 outputs in 720p, not 1080p. My TV upscales 720p to 1080p, so not everyone may have this issue or this much input lag with a Retron 5.

The other remedy was getting a Retrotink 5X Pro. On top of adding a bunch of really nice filters, interlacing options, and inputs, it upscales and outputs those inputs to 1080p without adding really any input lag at all. This lets my TV output the signal from whatever console I'm playing in its native resolution and further cut input lag.

Sadly, during this whole process, I found out both my Game Gears and my SNES were dead. The Game Gears probably just need recapping, but I couldn't figure out what was happening with my SNES. I ended up buying a modded SNES Jr. that outputs using a YPbPr component cable, and upon arrival, it didn't work either. Turns out my two OEM power bricks were actually the issue. After getting a replacement, not only did the SNES Jr. work, but so did my original SNES. Oh well. The SNES Jr has some game incompatibilities anyway that my version 1 SNES doesn't, so it has some use.

_______________________________________________________

Anyway, since my last post, I've only beaten two games: Mario Kart 7 and Moco Moco Friends. I'm not going to go into how great Mario Kart 7 is because it's more or less Mario Kart 8-lite without a versus mode. If you like 8, you'll like 7. 9.5/10.

Moco Moco Friends, however, I will talk about. At 27 chapters, the game ends up being about 30 hours long, but the amount of content, intrigue, and fun certainly don't fill the runtime. Honestly, this game would be better served at half that length with an extended postgame.

The goal of the game is to recruit plushkins (monsters) and eventually be rewarded with essentially an "outstanding achievement" award for helping people and solving problems. To recruit Plushkins, you can either spin the gacha using currency you get in game (like Yo-Kai Watch) or recruit them after battle at a low chance (like the MegaTen games).

The characters, while annoying to some, are almost ubiquitously airheads. Their voiced catchphrases, like "Heaven! HEAVEN! Ulu-luuu" and "Muka Chakka Fire" can grate after the 30th time, though. There's little to no character growth, and, aside from the few twists at the end, what you get in chapter 1 is what you get in chapter 27.

Dungeon-wise, this game is super bland. Almost every "randomized" dungeon is three floors (two exploration floors and a boss floor) with between 3 and 7 rooms. The only exception to the rule is the very last dungeon, which has an extra exploration floor for a total of *gasp* four floors. Enemies are visible on the maps, as are resource gathering points, but if you fight everything in the game, the difficulty curve is really fair.

The battle system is a 3v3 turn-based strategy affair. Statuses, especially sleep, are super busted. Not only will enemies not always wake up when hit (seems like maybe a 33% chance), but you can hit them with sleep again while they're asleep to prolong the status. Once they're asleep, your spells and attacks (all of which have at least a 10% chance of missing), always hit. Most of the game was spent with my starter plushkin spamming AOE spells while another spammed AOE sleep spells and the third attacked. Each spell costs a certain amount of AP. However, Moco has a pool of shared AP for all her plushkins, which is recovered at the end of every turn. So there's at least some strategy to battling. Sleep only costs 1 AP, though, and Moco recovers at least 2 AP at the end of every turn. Busted.

The plushkins themselves are usually well designed and cute, but the how they distributed them across the runtime could have been improved. There's 135 of them, but you only really start running into new ones 20 chapters in. So you see the same 25 or so plushkins or their evolutions for most of the game, and you have to recruit the other 20 evolution lines in relatively few chapters if you're inclined to recruit them all. 

Overall, it's alright. It just gets a lower grade for:

• Being too repetitive.
• Not having a skip button for dialogue (everyone gets a few lines, making every interaction much longer and tedious than it needs to be).
• Introducing a bunch of resource gathering and crafting mechanics that become useless with the post-battle recruitment system AND being able to game the gacha system to pull rarer and more desirable ones by saving before pulling and resetting when you get skunked.
• Never really having any revelations when it comes to dungeon design or battles.

Moco Moco Friends could have been so much more. Instead, for me, it's a 5.5/10.

Edited August 27 by Philosoraptor

[Reed Rothchild | 9,977]

On 8/26/2024 at 6:52 AM, greenthunder said:

is a tangentially related thought, but anyone else struggle with the mental block of actually starting games?

No, but my early play sessions are usually pretty short as I warm up to a game.  I generally have to get 5+ hours in before the groove happens.

I'm guessing my next game will be GTAV, and I'll jump right into it.  I'm actually pretty excited; it's long overdue.

[JamesRobot | 6,059]

Progress!  Two games in one month after wrapping up Bionic Commando Elite Forces on Game Boy Color.  Pretty much another reboot of the Nintendo version but no Nazis.  You get to choose between a female or male commando and the sprite animations are very fluid and satisfying.  Gameplay is tight and you gain the ability to drop down from platforms which is a nice qol improvement.  Overall very enjoyable.  I completed 100% of the levels including the two secret areas that give you a promotion.

[greenthunder | 120]

7 hours ago, Philosoraptor said:

Moco Moco Friends could have been so much more. Instead, for me, it's a 5.5/10.

I've been interested in Moco Moco Friends, but I've always heard it's a fairly average comfort food game at best and is pretty taste dependent, which seems to line up with your thoughts. What is the resource gathering/crafting for exactly, equipment?

[Floating Platforms | 826]

On 8/26/2024 at 7:52 AM, greenthunder said:

This is a tangentially related thought, but anyone else struggle with the mental block of actually starting games? I find that unless it's from a series or developer I like, I struggle with getting over the hump of getting the game off my shelf, putting it in the console and getting started. Most of my games I know I'll like once I actually start, but I don't want to start them.

I wouldn't say I have a block on wanting to start games but I always want to make sure I have a big block of time for anything I'm starting. A lot of more modern games will be cutscene heavy early on, so I want to get through that and have the ability to actually see some of what the game has to offer.  Conversely, if it's an older game, I still want several hours free so I can really get into the flow and learn a bunch.

[Floating Platforms | 826]

Danganronpa V3 is now done!

I actually finished the main story several months ago, but each game has side modes and this 3rd entry actually has 3 different ones as well as "casino" games, so getting the platinum meant there was a lot to do and I took a break in between.

There's a lot I can say with this much stuff to do.  First: the main game. For the most part it follows the normal trend and loop of build up to murder, investigation, class trial and repeat. This story was longer than the others but the cast of characters was comparable.  The big complaint many people have was with the twist near the end. I didn't hate it, but I understand why others would. It's nowhere near as bad (to me) as the BS I saw last year with Zero Time Dilemma.  Oh, and this entry definitely felt like it was more lewd/hornier than others, which is saying something and a little off-putting this time.

For the extra modes, one is the relationship builder/story extender. It's something that also has been standard in all 3 games. Basically the game ignores the concept of murder and you need to max out your bonds with all the other people. It's extremely simple, but a way to get more back story and characterization, especially from those that get killed off early.

The other two modes here are intertwined. There's a board game feature where you roll the dice and use the different spaces to level up your character and gain battle skills.  Those character builds will then be used in the other mode which is a dungeon crawler with 100 levels. This becomes a loop where there are 3 levels of cards you can upgrade in the board game side and you need to progress far enough in the dungeon to unlock those higher level cards to use in the board game to use in the dungeon to unlock better cards to eventually min-max your way through the final bosses (or look techniques up in a guide like I did).  Sadly this was too tedious. The board game is inoffensive the first few times, but it takes 15 minutes or so if you're trying to level properly. The dungeon involves random encounters (which I hate) and treasure hunting with some bosses every 10 levels. It's fun at times, but wears out its welcome.  These two modes have been given their own spin-off game which I own and will probably wait quite a bit to start after spending so much time on them here.

Lastly, there's the casino stuff, which is really arcade game versions of mini-games that you do in the trials. The toughest one is the treasure hunter where you have a grid and need to chisel pieces to uncover enough things to score high. Getting the S-Rank trophy took a few nights of dedicated trying. There's also a racing one that's trash and full of RNG and a fishing one that was easy.

I enjoyed my time with it all, but even with breaks it was A LOT. I find getting through a Yakuza game to be easier than this for whatever reason. The other 2 didn't have as much stuff. This was a bloated adventure.

Speaking of Yakuza, I'm working through Kiwami 2 and I'm on Chapter 10.  On 3DS I'm nearly 40 hours into Mario & Luigi Dream team and I'm guessing I'm 2/3rd's done.  Picross S3 only has a few more pages of puzzles to go. I've been working on SMB Advance 4's e-reader levels and I'm over half-way on that. I started another Nancy Drew last night. I'll probably get another PS4 game going now that this one is done. Progress is happening!

[Philosoraptor | 482]

On 8/27/2024 at 7:12 PM, greenthunder said:

What is the resource gathering/crafting for exactly, equipment?

So, you can craft six different types of items:

• Healing Items - Heals Plushkins inside and outside of battle.
• Assist Items - Increases Plushkin recruitment chances at the end of battles and and speeds up crafting item generation in the garden.
• Bloom Items - Unlocks a Plushkin's talents.
• Awaken Items - Raises a Plushkin's level cap.
• Equipment Items - Improves various stats. Each Plushkin can equip one item.
• Evolve Items - Evolves your Plushkin when they reach a certain level.

Crafting materials can be obtained at randomly generated gathering points in the dungeon or by planting and harvesting seeds in the garden. So, if you have bad luck in the dungeon, you can just plant a bunch of seeds and gather the rewards later. It takes either 10 or 30 minutes from planting to harvest, but some Plushkins can reduce that time and you can use Assist items to speed it up as well.

Honestly, the only thing I really found to be worthwhile to craft were equipment items. When a Plushkin levels up, their HP is restored, which really negates the need for healing items for most the game. Bloom, Awaken, and Evolve items are also OK, but your starter Plushkin evolves at certain points in the story by itself without you having to use items, and you're likely to recruit or get better Plushkins in the gacha before needing to evolve or improve them. Unlike Pokemon, the level caps and total stats of each Plushkin are tied to their "Rank," which can be from D to S. It seemed like the stat totals of every similarly ranked Plushkin were the same, just with different stat distributions. The level cap for D is 20, and it increases 10 levels for every rank up to S, which has a level cap of 60. 

I never used Assist items to improve recruitment chances, but I'm sure they're also OK. Probably more useful if you want a certain Plushkin or if you want to "catch 'em all." However, the equivalent of your Pokemon PC in this game only holds 60 Plushkin at a time (there are 135 total). So a "living dex" is impossible in this game.

On 8/27/2024 at 7:12 PM, greenthunder said:

I've been interested in Moco Moco Friends, but I've always heard it's a fairly average comfort food game at best and is pretty taste dependent, which seems to line up with your thoughts.

Pretty much. I found it to be a good "turn your brain off" game. It's also a good pick-up-and-play game, as each dungeon really only takes about 20 minutes to get through, you can leave a dungeon at any time with no penalty, and there's a save point in the hub world. Some chapters require you to get through as many as six dungeons, but most of them require you to get through one or three.

Edited August 29 by Philosoraptor

[Sumez | 3,174]

On 8/13/2024 at 4:00 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

Overall a mixed bag from the first game.  I'll take a month off before starting the third game.  Thank God it's much shorter according to hltb.  And then next year I can do the Crossbell stuff on my Switch and not my non-gaming laptop.  Another relief.

Don't know if you've been following my own writeups on the series (my thoughts on TitS2 were similar to yours). But Trails in the Sky 3 is sort of a breath of fresh air in that it doesn't feel like it wastes time. There's barely any actual plot in the game itself, and is more of a dungeon craler.
It has a framework story which is mostly just some flashbacks shown inbetween chapters, but aside from that it's just a ton of fractured scenes centered on one or more of the characters from the first two games, fleshing out their history and, perhaps more importantly, foreshadowing things that are going to matter several more games down the line.

I understand why people see it as the most "skippable" game in the series, because it doesn't strictly tie into the other games - but personally I think it does a really good job at connecting them in its own weird way.

Speaking of which, the reason I've been mostly absent from this thread is that Trails to Azure is a long game.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,977]

On 8/30/2024 at 4:36 PM, Sumez said:

Don't know if you've been following my own writeups on the series (my thoughts on TitS2 were similar to yours). But Trails in the Sky 3 is sort of a breath of fresh air in that it doesn't feel like it wastes time. There's barely any actual plot in the game itself, and is more of a dungeon craler.
It has a framework story which is mostly just some flashbacks shown inbetween chapters, but aside from that it's just a ton of fractured scenes centered on one or more of the characters from the first two games, fleshing out their history and, perhaps more importantly, foreshadowing things that are going to matter several more games down the line.

I understand why people see it as the most "skippable" game in the series, because it doesn't strictly tie into the other games - but personally I think it does a really good job at connecting them in its own weird way.

Speaking of which, the reason I've been mostly absent from this thread is that Trails to Azure is a long game.

Yes, I read every writeup everyone does.

I started Trails the Third a week ago.  I'd say the format is a welcome change: I couldn't explore that same region yet again.

[greenthunder | 120]

On 8/27/2024 at 12:49 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

No, but my early play sessions are usually pretty short as I warm up to a game.  I generally have to get 5+ hours in before the groove happens.

I'm guessing my next game will be GTAV, and I'll jump right into it.  I'm actually pretty excited; it's long overdue.

 

On 8/27/2024 at 10:53 PM, Floating Platforms said:

I wouldn't say I have a block on wanting to start games but I always want to make sure I have a big block of time for anything I'm starting. A lot of more modern games will be cutscene heavy early on, so I want to get through that and have the ability to actually see some of what the game has to offer.  Conversely, if it's an older game, I still want several hours free so I can really get into the flow and learn a bunch.

These are also fair perspectives. It definitely takes time for games to start clicking, so maybe I'm just not looking forward to that slow part. Another issue I have with starting games like the Xenosaga trilogy is that I see lots of people hype them up, so I'm afraid of the games not living up to my expectations and just take the path of least resistance by playing another game instead. Probably says more about me than anything really.

Anyway, I ended up knocking out Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale in three hours. It doesn't have a lot going on, but I don't mean that as a bad thing, as it's a story about childhood that doesn't overstay its welcome. I enjoyed just wandering around, talking to everyone after story events and just soaking up the backgrounds and music. The card game is fairly simple but does have some strategy going for it. Also, I love the silliness of the fake spells and the kids (pretending to?) fall down.

Spoiler

The story starts out rather mundane in the sense the monsters appear to be just the local TV station's doing and the kids don't know any better, but then twists it into a more fantastical direction. I'm actually a bit uncertain whether the fantastical stuff really happened, but that's part of the appeal of it.

I'm a tiny bit disappointed the story doesn't give enough glims to unlock all the cards and grinding them out is going to be annoying, so I'll probably be done once I complete the last episode. After that, probably Fragrant Story?

[Sumez | 3,174]

Trails to Azure - Beaten 20/8

Being now five games into what's arguably the most impenetrably story-driven series in all of video games, my patience is really starting to wear thin for its anime'isms.
The first game (Trails in the Sky) started out like any other cliché anime story, but quickly won me over with its focus on emotional dialogue and likable characters.
The next game already started showing its cracks when it took well over 30 hours for the story to get anywhere, and Trails to Azure has a similar problem.

This is the second game featuring the "Crossbell" cast and setting, so instead of easing us into a story by introducing the characters and world in which it takes place, they spend an equal amount of time just faffing around slice-of-life moments with stuff that is already well established. Whenever characters talk to eachother they take the long way around, exchanging pleasantries and smalltalk as one would in real life - but for the person playing the game it serves no purpose outside of wasting time. It doesn't flesh out the characters, and it doesn't move the plot anywhere, and it's accompanied by the series tradition of showing every single step of every single character every time they slowly enter or exit the scene before anyone continues talking. The pacing is, quite frankly, abysmal. Thank god the game comes equipped with a "fast forward" button.

Trails in the Sky had the advantage of Estelle as the main character. Although a bit of an anime cliche hothead herself, she had a ton of personality, and was extremely likable in her own endearing way.
Lloyd of Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure is fine I guess, but he's a completely forgettable milquetoast anime guy with the traditional ability to unintentionally win the affection of every hot chick in the game (ie. every single female character over 14). Only a couple of hours into this game we're momentarily introduced to a new saucy woman who wastes no time to snuggle up to our protagonist, and immediately proceeds fondling one of the female main characters, announcing excitedly how large her breasts are.
It's incredibly immature and embarassing, and at times I'm really confused about why the Trails series has received so much praise for its storytelling.

... But at the same time, I can't stop tuning in every week. In my writeup of Trails in the Sky 2, I compared the series to following a soap opera, and that feeling has only grown since. About halfway through Azure, a bunch of characters from the previous "Sky" arc show up briefly alongside other characters strongly foreshadowing future games, and at that point the overarching interconnected relations between the games and the different nations they take place in managed to grab its hold of me. This is the true appeal of the Trails series. With its glacial pace and insane regard for pointless details comes an almost Stockholm Syndrom-like captivation of its world.

When the story finally does take off in the 11th hour, being as backloaded as TitS2 was, boy does it take off. So much happens in the final chapter that it could easily have been stretched to the entire game, and at this point the game in general does a lot to regain my interest and respect.
The series-spanning Goofy Anime Villain Organization are present throughout, but are not posed as the primary threat. Instead, Trails to Azure goes all in focusing on the political aspects. Aspects which were touched on in previous game, but which were then quickly brushed aside, much to my dismay.

In Trails in the Sky, international conflicts were primarily redelegated to the past, and any political threat that occured was literally resolved with a single speech five minutes later. Trails to Azure completely reverses this tendency, and instead of painting a picture of a continent at newfound peace, it digs up all the tension going on below the surface revealing how close it is to an all-out war.
Of course, we still end up climbing a magical mystical tree to fight a literal god, as per JRPG standards. But it's actually quite commendable the way the game managed to weave that fantasy into a more grounded plot - the part of the Trails series that has always been its strongest suit.

[Sumez | 3,174]

On 8/27/2024 at 5:57 PM, Philosoraptor said:

First off, I determined that about .08 seconds of input lag feels good to me. Less is obviously better, but I start noticing lag at about .10 seconds. I also found out my TV only adds .01 seconds of lag when it's outputting its native resolution (1080p), but adds more for older, lower resolution outputs. This is apparently common in the industry, especially for non-gaming TVs. It costs more money to make older input types and lower resolutions run as fast as the native resolution, and that's an easy way for manufacturers to cut costs. Most people aren't trying to plug in a SNES to a flatscreen anyway.

0.01 seconds is really good. Of course, this is as far as I can understand based on your own measurements, so I guess it's 0.01 over that of a CRT.

But just to clarify.
At a 60FPS game (which is basically every console game up until the 16bit generation), one frame is 16.6 miliseconds - that is, ~0.017 seconds.

The way a video game typically works is that it spends a frame calculating what is going to happen on the next frame, so it's ready to draw it before it gets sent to the TV. This is what we consider "zero lag".
In practice, that means in a "worst case scenario", you'll push the button while the game logic of a frame is being calculated but after it polled the input for that frame. So you'll have wait that entire frame, and then it'll start processing your input on the next frame while you're seeing the frame calculated previously. You won't actually see the effect of your input one frame later when that one starts being drawn. That's roughly 0.03 seconds. On top of that, it'll be another 0.017 before that frame is drawn entirely, due to the progressive nature of CRTs drawing a picture.

That is, again in a worst-case scenario, a total of 0.047 seconds based on game logic alone. I'd still say a CRT is "zero" lag, because the signal actually sent from the console itself, is seen on the CRT zero miliseconds later.

So if you're measuring 10 miliseconds of lag on your HDTV, I think that is basically nothing on top of what you get from a CRT.
0.08sec is nearly 5 frames of lag. IMO that's pretty much the threshold of tolerable. All depending on the game, really.

Edited September 4 by Sumez