Mr. X's Game Blog/Thread: Late to all the Parties

I need to boot up Bastion again. I played it a lot when I first got it, but I bounced between a lot of games and ended up leaving it on the backburner. I remember having to come up with a weird control scheme for it through J2k, since the game wouldn't natively recognize my gamepad, and it otherwise makes you aim using the mouse. It made the shooting challenges kinda tricky for me, but it was still fun.

I figure I'll at least complete Bastion before picking up Transistor, but there are also a few other games I need to finish first. It's definitely cool that there are still studios making cool adventure games like this.

What other games are you looking at playing?

If you're enjoying Bastion a ton, just wait till you get to Transistor. It's a lot like Bastion, though with more of a strategy overlay and system to it. Still, I enjoyed Bastion, but if you love Bastion, you'll enjoy the crud outta Transistor, too. Made by the same guys :D

I haven't played those games myself yet, but I've heard multiple times that's exactly how you might feel at the beginning. Supposedly everything will come together at some point, and you'll just start having fun. There may or may not be a blinding light involved.

Some say you might also need to put the game down for a while and then come back to it later.

Mr. X said:

I dont give up easily so Im going to play until I beat it. But right now, feels like running into a wall repeatedly.

Kind of mad how much currency I lost.

Demon's Souls is maybe not as good a starting point for the series as Dark Souls. In many ways it's more rewarding and tense, but if you're new to it or not sold on the games particular combat engine, it can be frustrating. I have heard many long term fans of the franchise say it's their favorite, but it's definitely harder to get into.

The main thing seperating them, besides the metroidvania approach of Dark Souls, is that Demon's Souls has much, much, much longer distances between checkpoints. Dark Souls? You lose maybe 5-10 minutes if you die. Demon's Souls? 20+ and all your healing items and your body motherfucker.

As a fan of arcade style games like Contra where a game over banishes you back to the beginning, I actually prefer this playstyle because it introduces real and palpable tension to each battle. Every choice matters, and the game feels constantly varied because you're never replaying the same 2 minutes over and over when you die unlike checkpoint heavy games.

As for the actual difficulty, it's basically like a Mega Man style game. Seems overwhelming at first but learning enemy patterns and mastering the mechanics makes it feel a hell of a lot more manageable. Hell, if I remember correctly they even went out of their way to make the execution in the game as low as possible. There's a ginormous buffer on everything that lets you get moves and shit out on the first frame all the time.

But like I said, whether you have the patience for it depends on how much you enjoy the combat. It's basically a 3d version of the classic side scrolling/platformer Castlevania's, where everything you do has strict start up and recovery frames and you have to choose when to attack and defend very carefully. If you're into that, it's probably the best of the best for that deliberate and serious fighting style, but if you want something more fast and flashy you're better off sticking with a Platinum Game's title.