CptBedlam

@rikimaruu: Just stop, OP. This thread has become a dumpster fire like I haven't seen quite in a while on GB because of you and your self-proclaimed masterful debate skills. Really good work! Pat yourself on the back! Everyone else is wrong. Your time spent on political debate forums definitely paid off as everyone can see.

Also, Sekiro is actually among the better Souls games in many respects imo and I played them all to exhaustion (still like DS1 best). All of them have different flavors and people naturally prefer different games in the series. The only people that are wrong are those that prefer DS2 (half-joking).

Have fun, I lurked a bit, now commented once and will never enter this thread again.

Cool overview! I feel like something like this should be officially available on the site. ;)

(+ sub-categories)

I played it for quite a while on PS3 and made quite a bit of progress. It's a good learning tool.

Then I tried to continue playing it on PS4 and PC and there was noticable input lag which kinda ruins the game. Don't know if it's my setup or something. Maybe I should try some other cable setup specifically for the game on my PC.

@bakoomerang: I'd be interested if it's still available. :)

@ everyone here playing this game: try the CRT filter. It's great and I can't go back to playing without it frankly. The damaged wires filter is also pretty fun.

Since @jeff seems to be into this game, I really would love to see a regular feature of him playing through it and a couple of duders watching. No pressure obviously but I really liked the Friday stream. :)

@humanity: I'm currently at the last boss and will just tell you that the game changes pretty significantly halfway through (or rather 2/3rds). Up until that point, I merely thought of it as a very good version of that kind of game. By now it has risen to the top on my list of those kinda games (modern spin on retro platformer / shoot em up) that I played in recent years. There was the occasional frustrating boss or level section but nothing was so extreme that I wanted to give up. It often only seemed that way when first encountering a new problem. At the worst, I died like 10-20 times at a few difficult sections which, yeah, I suppose can be too much already for some people. But overcoming challenges feels so rewarding in this game; as does the character getting stronger and the player mastering new abilities (things get crazy).

I'm also loving the numerous and blatant videogame references (Mario, Megaman, Metroid, Castlevania, Thunderforce, Contra, ...).

The optional upgrade system at checkpoints is a pretty clever idea, too. Usually I would attempt the next section without spending money on upgrades but if the section or boss turns out to be difficult, you can just choose to make your life easier. Really helped at certain points and and gives you an additional fun thing to consider while going through the game.

My only two small gripes:

- the game structure reveals itself to be a semi-connected Metroidvania and it became a tad confusing when I was trying to collect the last upgrades in order to 100% the levels (the map is not made for that). Collecting everything turned out to be pretty easy and quick in the end though fortunately. You can pick up 100% of the upgrades before starting the last two levels even.

- in some sections during which the game demands especially acrobatic maneuvering I found the control inputs failed me a little bit. For example, the character not turning around as quick as I wanted or a double-jump not executing for some reason.

Great game overall and I feel it's a little underappreciated at this point.

(Better than The Messenger imo and at least on par with the quality of HUNTDOWN, which was one of my favorite games of 2020).

As soon as they announced the online-focus, I was out for good.

I've been here since the beginning and I will keep subscribing no matter what because I want those guys to keep doing their thing and entertain me (and sometimes get me through rough stretches in life).

However, these days I do wish there were more QLs and sometimes I wonder how much work is required to produce those. Is it really that much so two staffers can only churn out about one QL per week on average? (that's what it feels to me). Maybe (or rather likely) I'm underestimating the production aspect. Then there was of course the owner change behind the scenes which for sure required some time investment as well. Also, Covid happened and everyone had to readjust their lifes and production pipelines had to be adapted.

Yes, this is also a quiet period for big releases but it'd be the perfect time to catch up with some smaller gems that came out last year. Especially in the early years of GB timely QLs of recent releases were never that much of a priority.

For example, I wish the criminally overlooked HUNTDOWN - one of my favorite coop-games from last year (it's simple but every aspect of it is perfectly executed) - had received at least a bit of a discussion or a QL. It was only mentioned once on a Bombcast I think and quickly brushed aside. Yeah I know, I'm usually not asking for a QL of specific games but my feeling last year was that a LOT of games worth QL'ing were kinda missed or ignored and a lot of time went into continuous Minecraft streams with the whole crew and similar stuff. I'm aware that a lot of people enjoyed those and that not all content can be for everyone but the scales tipped a bit further away from what I usually enjoy on GB.

My top 3:

1. Ghost of Tsushima (most pure fun I've had with an open-world game since H:ZD or ever; and my god it's beautiful. I was engrossed for weeks.)

2. HUNTDOWN (too many people are sleeping on this absolute gem of a game; also weird that the GB crew never really looked at it. It's a fantastic couch coop game, too)

3. The Last of Us: Part II (everything about this game has been said, it's not without flaws but one intense ride)

Disappointment of the Year: Doom Eternal (good game, in some ways superior to Doom 2016 but overall I don't like the direction they've gone into with this game both story and gameplay-wise)

Game Everyone Seems to Love Except Me: Hades didn't do it for me. There's something about Supergiant games' games that I just can't bring myself like, no matter how I often I try. Glad that it is successful though.

It was a crazy ride. I really didn't expect that this game's overarching narrtive and character stories would catch my attention as much as they did.

Why do I not see more of a discussion around how Bugsnax are partly a metaphor for drug and processed food addiction? Food disguised with shiny wraps and pressed into appealing shapes, masking its true origin from the consumer. The rose-tinted glasses attitude of everyone, you are what you eat and all that. Sometimes I felt like a drug dealer ignoring the consequences of my actions, because my progress and my benefits! Preaching moral lessons around food and drugs may not the game's primary focus (or maybe it is?) but that aspect is definitely there; a little too on the nose even. No one on any podcast I listen to goes into this.

The welcome LGBT stuff is not really talked about either.