Yeah, in Super Metroid, etc you're always blasting things from afar so there's never much in the way of danger from enemies. Since that's the case it always seemed pretty excessive that the game drops energy refills like there's no tomorrow. Like...wanna make this at least a little tense?

Huh, just kinda randomly came across this 2D side-scrolling indie horror game Ascension.

http://magnesiumninja.itch.io/ascension

Looks really neat, but only plays on Windows . I'm sure one day I'll stop being computer retarded and learn how to install Windows safely on my Mac... meh, maybe I'll just get the tech guy to do it when I have him upgrade my system

It's pretty good, I got stuck and couldn't finish it, but I might fire it up again one of these days. Good, creepy atmosphere and surprisingly polished for an indie game.

I'm not a Mac wizard, but have you tried running it with Wine?

Hmm, Wine looks interesting. I've never looked into it before because I never really need to use Windows programs, but it seems like a cool resource. I wonder if you can use it to run software that requires any version of Windows, however new or old, and if it matters how old your Mac is (as long as it's an Intel Mac, as I noticed on their FAQ)... I'm running on OSX 10.5.8 and have never updated, which is why I need to upgrade soon, headed for obsolescence, baby!

This talk of Metroidvanias made me remember I'd completely overlooked Metroid Zero Mission. Should definitely get up on that. Never beat the original so it'd be a blast to play both back to back.

The best "remake" next to Resident Evil (GC) in my book by miles.

And Zero Mission destroys Fusion.

After all the talk about Castlevania and Curse of Darkness, I went back and gave it another play and actually finished it this time. I breezed through it for the most part, but man, the Dracula fight was such a pain in the ass, until about 4:30 in the morning when I suddenly got into the zone and crushed it.

Oh, okay, nice. I really liked Fusion (even if it was kind of a cakewalk) so that sounds awesome.

Speaking of 8 bit stuff, are the original two Metal Gear games worth spending time with?

Probably not, the MSX versions seem a lot better from everything I've heard. I'm an MGS diehard but those dogs in the beginning of MG are so annoying haha, I've never cared to play much. But the MSX versions sound completely different.

Also, Kojima had nothing to do with Metal Gear 2 NES, Snake's Revenge. Metal Gear 2 on the MSX is the true sequel. Both MSX originals are available on MGS3 Subsistence I believe.

Oh yeah, I have Subsistence, that's why I asked, hehe.

Oh, no, I mean playing drunk.

But seriously, as far as I know, you can run any program with the same version of Wine, but it requires some fiddling around with the settings. Don't quote me on it though, I've never actually used it.

Wine is like magic when it works, but when it doesn't fixing it can get really, really frustrating.

With winecfg you can configure basic settings of your wineprefix(es), like the Windows version it's mimicking. One thing that I found very confusing in the beginning are wineprefixes. Basically wine uses fake Windows file systems in certain directories. In Linux the default wineprefix is under /home/username/.wine , which contains the fake windows file system and registry your Wine apps are using when nothing else is specified. When you install an app through a helper program like winetricks, it creates a new wineprefix for each app because that's better for compatibility. The active wineprefix is specified by a system variable which you can set in Linux by putting WINEPREFIX="..." before your wine command.

If that's sounds too confusing, you can try PlayOnLinux (apparently there's also a PlayOnMac), which is a GUI for most of Wine's functionality and might help you avoid the command line entirely.

So here's Death's Gambit, yet another "2D Dark Souls-like" indie, this time also with influence from Shadow of the Colossus:





I know the whole "Dark Souls mixed with ___" is getting kinda eye-rolling but, well, it does look really fucking cool. For once it's not a Kickstarter; they considered it, but got picked up by a publisher so they won't need it. I don't know the release date though, unfortunately. PC only for now.

What indies are you all looking forward to the most? For me, Salt & Sanctuary, Cosmic Star Heroine, Slain!, Ghost Song, CrossCode and Viking Squad all look really awesome. Other than Bloodborne I can't think of a single AAA title I'm looking forward to more than these, to be honest. I hope they deliver.

Axiom Verge and Ghost Song.

This might sound trendy itself, but I don't really care for modern "indie" games. Shovel Knight is literally like the only exception to me and was amazing, but all the rest I've tried over the years can't hold my interest at all. If we see the return of some legit good sprite artists someday and they can deliver a more authentic retro aesthetic, that's awesome... but until then, I'd rather just go back and play SNES, Genesis, NES, etc games I haven't played before instead of diving through the piles of crap out there thesedays, "indie" included.

I hated Cave Story and Fez especially.

Oh yeah Axiom Verge looks decent too. Though generally I don't care for the ultra-retro or ultra-pixellated NES-look myself, to be honest. I prefer the 16- and 32-bit look and feel like most of the games I just listed, or even a more polished "HD" 2D look like Dust: An Elysian Tail (which I just finished two days ago, pretty neat game).

What do you not like (or what don't you find appealing) about the games I listed?

Holy crap, I finally got around to modding FTL, starting out with the Captain's Edition, and it's amazing. Adds tons of new features - graphics, music, new weapons, new enemy types, new events - it feels like a new expansion, essentially, and it's compatible with tons of other mods. Right now I'm running with the CE and the starting ship layout randomizer - a mod that randomizes the layouts and starting loadouts of the available ships, offering a lot of interesting and unique combinations. Anyway that combination basically makes for a whole new game to explore.

@Morrigan What about that one indie RPG that's in the works, the one that's sort of a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment? Dunno if you're into that sort of thing (can't remember your take on that sort of RPG at the moment), but it did seem pretty damn cool. Ghost Song did also seem really neat, probably the only indie Metroidvania thing that ever seemed worth spending money on to me.

Ok, so now I'm actually almost 3 hours into Symphony of the Night (before I was only 45 minutes in...bizarre, it seemed longer than that) and yeah, it is really fuckin' easy. Getting more potion drops, too, though I don't even really need them. Have the Were Bane and Medusa Shield at the moment, just got the double jump a bit ago. Breezing through so far. Ugh, the music is so fucking good!

One thing that amuses me about this game is how baroque and totally meticulous and overwrought it is EXCEPT FOR THE INVENTORY SCREEN.

Thanks for the Wine info, people. I will definitely keep it in mind and will try installing/using it after I get my system upgraded.

This thread is being infested with feminist social justice warrior bullshit.

Well it's good you're here to set us straight, then.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/hyrule ... 0-6425601/
Oh fuck what

That implies you have the mind capacity for such a thing to be possible, but stupidity is something we haven't figured out how to cure.

Do you even have a point, mate? Or is leaving reduction grenade shrapnel in your wake the only way you can get your rocks off any more? And trust me, that's totally fine if it is: we're open to all sorts of gender fluidities and sexual preferences here. No judgements at all, breh.

Thankfully, we have invented a cure for trolling. (That is a threat, not an idle remark, Metallic Kilt.)

Bioshock is real cool. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out as I get a feeling I'm getting somewhat close to the end.

The DLC for 2 and Infinite are actually incredibly worthwhile too. All around one of my favorite trilogies.

That fucking does it: as soon as I'm done with my current runthrough of Risen 3, I'm playing the entire Bioshock trilogy and all the DLC.

I've only ever gotten about halfway through the first one (even though I played that section perhaps 30-40 times?), for reasons that still elude me.

That fucking does it indeed, do it.

Growing soft, bats? Luckily I, the proud Skeleton Queen, am here to remedy to your weakness.



That game is ridiculously addictive. Wish it didn't have so many horrible framerate drops on some maps though....

And I beat Bioshock. Years late to the party, I know, but I gotta say that was a phenomenal game. Sure, there's stuff about it that could have used improvement (mainly how irritating it was to hack everything...95% of the time it was easy as shit to hack stuff but just took up time for no reason, and 5% of the time you had those tiny grids for hacking safes but could just auto-hack tools on 'em), but the story, voice acting, art direction and variety in the gameplay were all a blast.

I'm real glad my prediction about where the plot was going turned out to be way wrong. The whole thing was exceptionally dark, often horrifying stuff, often told subtly enough that it didn't hold your hand through the plot, which I really appreciated. I'm looking forward to the second and third games, for sure, but for now I'm gonna take a break from Bioshock to play some other stuff.

Bioshock 2 fixes a lot and improves upon the actual gameplay quite a bit. You can now dual wield plasmids and a gun, hacking is resorted to a time bar "hit the button when it's in the green" kind of thing (if that makes any sense, basically it takes a few seconds) and yeah, the Minerva's Den DLC was amazing. The story isn't as good, but I don't think it's bad either. I love how most complaints when it was new were that people wanted a new environment, or it was uninspired because you're back in Rapture... because that was a really generic setting in the first place wasn't it? So does Fallout 2 suck? System Shock 2? Thief 2? Um yeah, nope. 2 is top notch and I thought it had an even darker, more horror-like vibe throughout, even if the story isn't quite as twisted. Any fan who skips 2 has only done a disservice to themselves.

Speaking of Bioshock, am I the only guy who kinda likes Lamb over Ryan as a villain? I mean, don't get me wrong, Andrew is great as an antagonist, but I found Lamb generally more intimidating, in no small part due to the fact that cults of personality creep me the fuck out.

I would seriously consider getting a WiiU just for that game. I mean, I'm already obsessed with the -Warriors games already (they're all equally addictive if you haven't played the others), and the few short hours I played Hyrule Warriors was just a total blast. Fighting the Goron armies hurt my soul so much because omg look at them they're adorable it's like they all just want to give you a hug THEY'RE ACTUALLY SMILING THE WHOLE TIME AWWW

Guess we'll have to see what batman thinks. I don't like her nearly as much, but she does seem a bit more "evil".

It is the game that keeps on giving, DLC actually done right. I have like 60 hours on it, some people are nearing 300. I haven't even beat the first Adventure map.

The Dynasty Warriors franchise is a lot like the Tales games to me. I check one out every couple of years since they're coming out constantly... I get a fun few hours out of them, then never beat them. I've played a good handful of both series' and never beat them. It bugs me when I don't beat games... haha.

Anyways, Castlevania diary update!

Beat Bloodlines! Had to do it on Easy with 5 lives though haha, did it with TEXAN John Morris haha. Most of my first runs were on Normal though, I couldn't really tell what the difference was. It was still brutal and this one only gives you 2 continues, unlike most of the others that are infinite.

Stage 6 was incredible, probably one of the coolest CV levels out there. It was so weird and caught me off guard, then half the level was an insane boss rush, but a doable one. I think this game really excelled with the bosses... some of the best bosses in the series for me, it was riddled with awesome bosses and mini bosses. Fantastic music, really cool levels and visuals that felt different than most, so this one definitely has an awesome unique flavor to it.

I think this is how I'd rank the traditional CV's:

Rondo of Blood
Super Castlevania IV
Bloodlines
Castlevania
Castlevania Adventure Rebirth
Castlevania III
Dracula X

I predict Chronicles being somewhere in the middle there. Videos I've watched make it look really cool, outside of the main characters looks haha.

Harmony of Dissonance is the only one of the Metroidvania's I need to beat, so I might check that one out soon as well to polish that off. I know I played a chunk and didn't like it much, but it can't be too bad. Maybe I'll appreciate it more now.

I don't have much nostalgia attached to CV, so while I did like the first game a bit, I do think there's a big gap after that one for the rankings above. I'm a bigger fan of the 16bit games and the Metroidvania's by a good bit.

Dracula X and some of the others, as frustrating or bad as they got sometimes, they're still pretty good compared to other games. It's just a great formula that works well.

I think it's funny to see how heavily this series probably influenced Ghosts n' Goblins too. That series is a bit too brutal for my liking, but I am a huge fan of Super Ghouls n' Ghosts and would place that towards the top tier of the list there up against some of those Castlevania's. I think I might replay that one soon too.

Perhaps this is where Demon's and Dark Souls got their roots... but yeah, they're nothing compared to how insane some of these CV games were. They don't mess around.

If anyone happens to be interested...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1578116861/toejam-and-earl-back-in-the-groove

...there is a new "kickstarter" campaign for a new Toejam & Earl game, wherein one may "fund the funk," as it were. Perhaps, the Metal Archives could have an influence the game soundtrack. Make suggestions in the comment section on the Kickstarter site!

Tell everyone you know to care and care to know!
Fund the Funk!

So I just beat Symphony of the Night. Very...abruptly? That was anticlimactic. I guess this was the "bad" ending. But...uh...how would I know I wasn't supposed to finish it that way?

Also the faerie familiar sure made that fight easier.

Hahahahahahaha

Oh, you sweet summer child

Waaaaaaattt

I mean yeah, this was obviously not the outcome I expected/wanted, but I thought I was progressing logically through the game.

Why they do this to meeeeee

Ooof, never play STALKER if you're afraid of false endings...

Eh...okay. Time to start over, I guess. This is annoying.