thatdudeguy

So I've already put way more hours into this game than I would have expected (I bought it for an upcoming trip but have probably burned through half of the game already), and it is a great $15 purchase. The golf mechanics are satisfying (if long putts can be a bit hit-or-miss to predict) and it has played around with its core mechanics in some fun ways.

As one goofy example, a certain course asks you to use vintage club sets and you may not immediately notice that while using them the names of the irons change from "3 Iron", "5 Iron", etc. in your swing HUD to "Mashie", "Spade", etc.

There are charming characters, bizarre narrative shifts (fight resurrected skeletons in one scene, complete a tournament while your ex-wife heckles you from the crowd in the next, and play some frisbee golf after that), and some enjoyable pixel art. It seems like the perfect Switch game, suitable for bite-sized chunks or longer play sessions.

Although this game was a great surprise, its small-town pixel-art charm has more than anything made me excited to pick up Stardew Valley for the Switch.

After reaching Power level 259 tonight, I have to report that I'm really digging the grinding phase of D2. The simplified currencies and seemingly guaranteed Exotic drops every handful of hours make a two-hour Adventure, Lost Sector, or Strike grinding session engaging and rewarding. This is great news as a parent with little time to devote. I feel good chipping away at this game, rather than binging as I felt compelled to do in D1.

@fatalbanana said:

I think that a good point (not sure if I read this in the article or heard it on a recent Waypoint podcast) is that regardless of good or bad intent of the original artist, the eventual effect is alienating or disappointing some of Destiny 2's players. That's a problem that Bungie already employs many people to prevent, and it's a good thing that they're taking corrective action to fix it. But it's also not asking much for Bungie to pledge to help identify these problems at an earlier stage in the future.

It's totally fine (read: I certainly don't want to legislate against it) to insert edgy or offensive content into a videogame or any other media if that's your intent. It's totally fine to boycott or criticize that material if you're offended by it as well. But the case here is a developer that didn't intend to offend or push boundaries published some material that offended, and took steps to correct that after-the-fact.

@efesell said:

I'm buying weapons and armor during the story pretty frequently (sub-optimal, yeah, yeah) and am still drowning in glimmer. Public events seem to produce way more than needed.

Goddammit. I wasn't going to play this game. I wasn't going to play this game. Then I caved.

I absolutely love it, midway through the story campaign. Bungie seems to have chucked all the annoyances of the onboarding experience of the first game (I have little idea how the endgame experience has changed) and added at least a semblance of a story campaign. Shooting things and watching the numbers go up remains as fun as ever. And unlike the first game, I am relatively satisfied with paying $60 for its story mode and PvP alone. I don't regret the purchase. The Diablo-style loot-shooting is all a bonus now.

But the best improvements have been to the patrol experience. It now feels like something dense like The Witcher 3, where I can ignore most of the blips on my map, but they're there when I feel like a bit of grinding and provide token story motivation or interesting combat challenges.

Something I've found interesting is that almost every area I've encountered so far has tons of "black-smoke-blocked doors", which appear to be used to configure shooting arenas for different purposes. I have only seen the same arena reused once, and the experiences were very different.

I'm also enjoying this a lot, midway through World 2. I like the more relaxed difficulty, hit percentages, and platformey nature of the movement options. And it's more charming than I had assumed.

After Disgaea 5 got me back into enjoying SRPGs (and also having fun mechanics exploits), I'm loving the Switch as a short-burst tactical game console. I can knock out a map or two and investigate upgrades in a short play session, then hang it up. XCOM always made me feel like I needed longer play sessions to keep the metagame progression in my head.

@efesell said:

Ditto. I'm a few hours in and having some trouble remembering how each power works on-the-fly. I'm also finding it kind of hard to identify which character I'm controlling, since they are generally small sprites. But the game has been gorgeous and interesting. I'll stick with it for a few more hours, at least.

W00t! It appears that it is on track for a release, and has been in some form of development for the last three years. Thread vindicated!

100% agreed. @unastrike is the best! In addition to all of the awesome behind-the-scenes work which we're not privy to, I love his enthusiastic promotion (and analysis) of games and genres that weren't previously a large part of the Giant Bomb wheelhouse (Monster Hunter and the weirder fighting games come to mind.) I hope we get to enjoy his presence on the site for a long time to come!

PSN: TheDudeMabry

After a 12-minute wait to get into a lobby, the PS4 version has worked great for me. Again, I agree with the janky as hell gameplay descriptor, but it really feels fun and the majority of folks I've played with are using their mics and location-based comms to make this feel like a real genre movie experience. As a F13 fan, this is totally better than I could have hoped for.