This is basically a standard gacha game with a light flavoring of pinball mechanics. As someone who has dabbled in too many gachas over the years, I recognize just about all the standard mechanics you'd find in just about every gacha game these days.
Its disappointing that they basically completely neutered the actual pinball gameplay, but it's not surprising given that they want players to focus on pulls and levels over everything else. You're not supposed to be able to skill your way past challenges, you just have to have enough power level to surpass them.
I'll also add that a lot of this game seems rough in terms of the translation. My 5-star character has skills that are untranslated, mission text boxes clip in weird ways, random parts of character descriptions are not translated, etc. The main story seems fine enough, but there is a lot that appears unfinished in terms of bringing it out in English.
Late to the party, but loved this show. Just hearing the glee of people understanding new things, correcting long-held misconceptions, or seeing how the world all connects will never get old for me. No need to turn this into a literal re-hash of what they teach in a high school physics course on electricity.
The only thing I wish Bakalar had corrected, which might have solved Dan's concern of turning into Alex Mack, is the difference between electrons and neutrons/protons. Electrons are fleeting and orders of magnitudes smaller compared to neutrons and protons in the core of an atom. Things can lose or gain electrons all the time as they just are orbiting around the nucleus. Splitting the core of an atom so that something loses neutrons or protons is literally a nuclear bomb-level event that changes the fundamental nature of that atom.
Can't wait to watch this, it's something I've been curious about for years. The wild west of app store ads is insane and I can't believe it hasn't been shut down by the government. Just blatant false advertising on what the game actually is, ads that claim you will win thousands of dollars a week playing bingo or solitaire, weird "sexy" game advertising in otherwise ostensibly all ages games. So much nonsense.
Great video! Love the Mario deep cuts that only exist in the deepest recesses of my memories.
Also seeing ChipCheezum's name at the end of the video was another big blast to my memory given how much time I spent watching Chip and Ironicus videos back in the early days of LPs.
Very much looking forward to all of these. And it will be nice to have some edited content on the site again. In the deluge of livestreams last year, Abby's highlights of her Sims streams were refreshing to have over a whole bunch of stuff you'd throw up in the background.
Nintendo spun the terrible community features wheel and came up with the worst possible options again. I thought we'd moved past the Nintendo friend codes / third party site methods of exchange.
I don't know if Game Builder would have had some big Mario Maker like community out there building cool shit, but releasing it like this is basically a death sentence for the game long term. I get that you don't want a bunch of unfiltered nonsense going out to everyone, but there has to be some better solution than just throwing it out there with literally no way to share/find things in-game.
I'm with Jeff that I love everything about this game except the roguelike elements. I've watched a fair amount of runs now and the game does not seem to match some key, necessary roguelike elements to make this a game I'll drop 100+ hours into over months. I still want to try it because I like a lot of what they're doing, but I struggle to see a game I'll be playing all year.
Even though the combat feels snappy and your character feels quick, the runs are way too long - you need to have a run I can finish in a quick sitting, not something that takes an entire night. I don't have 1-2+ hours to spend on a run most of the time.
There's lots of modifiers, systems, and artifacts, but none of them appear game changing, and lots of the game appears samey and slow to start. The best roguelikes feel wildly different from run-to-run and in the most recent incarnation of roguelikes (Hades and Monster Train) they've also added that runs feel different from the jump with custom builds and immediate bonuses.
Lots of bad randomness - roll the dice on something good versus damage is a terrible item. It never feels good to be on the bad end of that, and it makes for very annoying decision-making. It's far more interesting to have defined risk/reward (pay X health to get X reward; take on X challenge to get X reward) than it is to just add an additional RNG level on top of the randomness that is already inherent in the genre.
Also a small thing - but why does the adrenaline upgrade effect flash your character red? Every time it happens I think it's a damage indicator.
I would be all about this game if I could find a PS5. Roguelike with cool story-based reason for your looping runs? Heavily mobile third person shooting? Weird, gross, hard sci-fi aesthetic? Check, check, check.
LegalBagel's comments