Mysterysheep

@gamer_152: Yeah, you're right. I didn't really go into detail about my game's system, but it was definitely a case of bad systematisation. The system was too simplified for such a nuanced topic and that, ultimately, did the character I was trying to portray a disservice. That's not to say that with more time and thought I couldn't have created a better system that was, itself, more nuanced and respectful.

Quite a bit different from the issue with DDLC, I'll admit. I was a bit vague with my comparison at the end there, but I was basically saying it also suffers from the issue of trying to do two things at once that don't exactly mix well in how they're executed. While my game's character was compromised by being in a game too mechanically simple, DDLC's characters were compromised by being in too goofy/crude a horror game. It's a bit of a broad comparison and maybe fairly obvious, but the point still stands. Of course that's not to say that you can't make those combinations work, it just requires a deft hand. LISA, for example, is a game that covers a lot of serious, dark topics while also having a goofy sense of humour, and it seems to pull it off for the most part.

@gamer_152: Yeah, that's very true. Not to veer too dramatically away from the original discussion, but I had a very real experience of this struggle when working on a game myself for a college project.

The game was a sort of life sim (think Animal Crossing, but with a stronger narrative focus) where you had this close friend you would message on your phone and hang out with in person. It was meant to educate teenagers, in a broad sense, on mental illness and attempt to reduce the stigma surrounding it through play. The idea was that your friend in the game suffered from some form of mental illness, but the game never explicitly shared this bit of information. Instead, you as the player would gradually pick up on it from your friend's behaviour, day-to-day.

The intention was that through dialog interactions, you would either alienate or form a closer relationship with your friend. Trying to encourage positive interactions through the game's mechanics led to this weird dilemma, though. I wasn't sure if the game was illustrating to the player to be supportive to friends in need or encouraging the player to simply manipulate conversation to "win the game". Basically, I had fallen into this exact dating-sim/VN trap that you discussed! At the end of the day, the game was never finished for this reason, along with the fact that writing a convincing portrayal of a young person suffering with a mental health issue is an extremely difficult task.

It just goes to show that using games to impart some kind of real-world lesson, especially while trying to incorporate some form of role-playing within them, can be incredibly dicey with the ultimate risk being that the lesson gets completely miscommunicated and the game ends up causing more damage than good. It's this incredibly tricky tightrope to walk and, while I appreciate DDLC's attempts, it pretty much serves as an example of this exact problem.

As many others have said this seems more like a symptomatic behaviour than a specific illness. Anyone here a bit more familiar with WHO and can fill me in on what this classification ultimately means? Does this result in funding research into game addiction and developing specialized therapies to help people suffering from it?

@rethla: Yeah, the PS3 version of the game is kinda renowned for being an awful port, so that might have played a part.

Yeah, a lot of weird stuff going on. Bayonetta from the first game, not the second. Her face is all bloodied up during the shots where she fires her guns. New enemy that seems to rip shit to pieces, both her bullets and... her? The logo treatment also seems to emphasize shit being ripped apart and broken, as it is literally a crack. Soooo.... time travel and ripping stuff to pieces? I dunno! I haven't had a chance to play Bayonetta 2 yet so I might be missing some hints. Is the moon being red significant?

@brackstone: Bingo! The man's great at mixing together crazy imagery and set pieces, but the moment it comes to character dialog... hoooo boy! I really worry because I love the fact that we are given next to no information about what's going on in these trailers, and that is a large part of what makes them so engaging and fascinating but, I bet the moment we have the game in our hands, Kojima is going to try and contextualize it and it'll be super fucking dumb.

Also, like others have mentioned, we don't know what this is as a game yet and that leaves me a bit ambivalent towards playing it. Kojima seems to be credited as Designer on MGS V, so that gives me hope that perhaps what that game was to play wasn't just the result of other, smarter staff members on the team. Let's hope Kojima's got some good, unique ideas in the gameplay department too.

Saw it featured as part of this video:

I'll say I'm intrigued but I'm also a bit too broke right now to drop $10 on pure curiosity. Maybe I'll pick it up sometime down the line. Would you recommend it?

If we're just talking about visual quality, I actually think this looks pretty good. It emulates 2D, hand-drawn art with 3D pretty well without looking like some odd hodge-podge of the two like other recent games.

Check out Mighty No. 9:

And here's the in-development Bloodstained:

It all just has this half-baked look to it, never really feeling unified. Mega Man 11, on the other hand, actually seems to bring the look together and make it feel cohesive. In fact, if you look at Capcom's track record with trying this kind of technique in the past...

Now I'll agree with others that it looks like it's mostly the movement and animation that seems a little off, but hopefully that's the stuff that get's tweaked later on. Then again, this might be one of those situations where, while playing the game, the movement makes more sense. Mega Man has always relied on pretty twitchy movement, so perhaps the lack of a smooth transition between jumping and other animations is a necessary trade-off for making the game play well. We will see!

@changethel1ghts: Do yourself a favour and pick up it's sequel, Jet Set Radio Future, instead. While it's a lot less colourful visually (and the soundtrack arguably sounds a bit dated with all of it's 2000s-ass, techno-ish remixes of the original game's more timeless sounding tracks), it controls a hell of a lot better and is more forgiving in it's general difficulty.

If you have a 360, the original game works through backwards-compatibility. If you have an Xbox One, it may even arrive as part of their Original Xbox Backwards Compatibility initiative.

Still holding out hope for a Jet Set Radio 3 that mixes the original's style with the sequel's improved gameplay...

I finished it and got all the cards recently (there is a true ending), it's a lot of fun! Part of the joy of it is that it seems absolutely nonsensical upon the first few times you play it. As in, things feel like they are happening at random and there is no rhyme or reason to them. If you stick with it though, you'll start to figure out more about the mechanics and systems at play and it can become REALLY engrossing.

I played Onion Games previous game Dandy Dungeon a lot too, but due to the free-to-play nature of it (lots of grinding to upgrade equipment/repeating dungeons over and over for items) I ended up dropping off it feeling a bit bummed despite the fact that there seemed like there was an interesting game in there. Million Onion Hotel feels like a step in the right direction though. I'm glad they had the confidence to charge for their game and I really hope it pays off in terms of sales.

In case there are people who care, Onion Games is led by Yoshiro Kimura. He was formerly a part of Love-de-lic and has been largely responsible for games like Little King's Story and Chulip. In other words, he makes the kind of weird-ass, Japanese games that are becoming harder to come by these days. If you, like me, wanna see more of that stuff then PLEASE support this game!

A few clues for people having trouble with Million Onion Hotel:

1. Only go for multiple lines when you have the time to spare (roughly a minute of time to spare is usually enough)
2. The amount of time you spend in fever mode, collecting additional onion soldiers for use in boss battles, is reliant on the number of bells you've tapped
3. The bigger a combo of lines, the more bells you're rewarded
4. Similarly, you can form combos DURING fever mode, as well, in order to collect more bells that will extend its duration
5. Cards you haven't yet collected in your list often have clues in their descriptions, not just for how to obtain them but also for useful mechanics in the game