The level design is still flat and simplistic, the controls could be a lot better, and though rings finally have a purpose, the scoring system still doesn't make any sense in spite of entire levels where amassing huge scores is the whole point.
They fixed a couple of easy issues but the game at large still isn't very good, in my opinion.
I was writing up a response to that, but then you came and took the words out of my mouth. Good man. This doesn't fix my own issues with the game, and I'll still go with what I wrote when IrishNinja asked me about it in the LW thread. Not at all.
And my response would've been longer, too, which leads me to...
Also it makes me a little sad people feel this way:
This is why I was more than a little miffed that some people seemed to frown upon my posting style a few months ago. In fact, you know where I learned how to post at length about something?
From reading GAF! Reading GAF all the way from late 2007 to the time I'd registered in early 2010 and got approved in early 2011. A lot of the posters who I read most often and had respected more because of that were ones that sometimes posted lengthy posts and impressions. I thought that that was how you were supposed to post on here, so I kind of adopted it. The posting quality was at least a little more passionate than it was now, but you know how it goes now. This isn't the thread to complain about it, but this site is not the one I joined, or read a few years ago. Nope.
I mean, it says something when people take well-known posters for their sarcasm fairly seriously, and those guys have been here long and are known for their posting style.
I really do think that year buffer people used to have between registration and approval might have done some good. It would at least encourage you to see how things should be done if you did pay attention to the better posters. There seemed to be more signal to noise than noise to signal. I know older folks in this thread could speak better for that.
3D Space Harrier is pretty much on the same level of Taxman's ports, right down to the whole "adding content that wasn't in either game's original release" thing.
This. Buy that shit. I'm glad I actually paid attention to you guys for once.
super mario 3d world - just fantastic.
gta v - a really weird game in that... i think they achieved the best possible balance rockstar could find, but i still find myself wondering if the game would be better if it did x... and that would come at the detriment of other element y. i do like, but a bunch of things feel like a missed opportunity.
metal gear rising: revengeance - watching the credits on this bad boy right now. this feels like a ps2 era game in 2013. i mean that in the best way possible, flaws and all.
tearaway's good too. i just don't know why i keep putting it off. i got pretty far and it's the one thing keeping me from starting zelda.
Glad you liked Revengeance. I'd... probably say the same thing. It really does feel like a better PS2 era game, and it comes off better for it. Reliance on the technical playing approach as opposed to accomplishing a lot of other stuff. It's just pure fun.
I still need to crack away at 3D World. I might actually do that tonight if I don't decide to play Bravely Default instead. But I should chip away at BD too. But 3D World is definitely one of the better platformers I've played all year. Very cohesive, very fun, looks great, sounds great, varied styles, knows how to incorporate gimmicks well, etc.
Bravely Default is the FF5 sequel I'd always wanted. It does so much right in terms of game design that I don't know how to begin describing it.
Haven't played GTA5. Will wait. I didn't like GTA4 very much (iirc, I gave it a negative point when you did GOTY 2008 2012 Edition). I have other stuff to play in terms of genres I frequent usually, so I don't mind.
You should finish Tearaway. I finished it last week. Don't have time to write up impressions but I'm pretty positive with it. I'm just kind of feeling bad that I played SM3DW between the times I'd started Tearaway and finished Tearaway. They're both dramatically different games despite being in the same genre so it is hard to compare the two, but for some reason, I do. Either way, both of them are very good at what they do. Very polished. Tearaway's my favourite Mm game at this point.
Either way, I'm fairly happy with platformers this year. I have some PC stuff to get around to again, and I have to play Pac-Man CE DX+. Nert messaged me the other day to tell me some stuff from CE DX+ OST's up.
Reentrance BGM
Pac Steps (<-click this pls)
Dig Dug
SonicGAF's Song of the Day - #78
Song:
Open Your Heart
Game: Sonic Adventure
Album: Sonic Adventure OST
Composer: Jun Senoue
Arrangement: Jun Senoue
Usually you'd hear people saying that this was the theme that started it all: a long tradition of rock themes in Sonic games. Some would say that it started a tradition of vocal music in Sonic games but we all know that started a looooooooooooooooooooong time before Sonic Adventure. In any case, in many aspects, design-wise, musically, sound direction-wise, etc. Sonic Adventure was a large turning point in what we knew as 'Sonic', perhaps even to some people's chagrin.
I was thinking about it a little today and I realize that I just wasn't fond of Sonic Adventure from the start. Our money went to the bills, so I never got a Dreamcast when it first came out. My cousin's family was fairly rich and got every system ever (hence I got to play some
awesome CD-i games when I was younger!), so I went over to his house to see Sonic Adventure a few times. I don't think I ever liked it right off the bat. It made me nauseous, and I couldn't understand why they went with that game design at the time. Granted, I was 11 and barely knew anything about game design or anything else, but I just... didn't get it, I guess? I don't think I played Sonic for the story, nor did I play it for more interaction between Sonic and NPCs, so I guessed it wasn't for me. I somewhat left feeling disappointed. I guess I was locked into this mindset of just wanting a straight-up platformer. And you all know that that's changed given my feelings towards Unleashed. Unleashed exhibited better RPG mechanics than other RPGs of this generation, for instance.
I still don't look at the Adventure games very fondly, keeping that in mind. I like what they tried to
do, but so much the execution.
That, and I was transitioning into playing PC games at the time since we usually kept our computer upgraded, so I was more enamoured with playing cRPGs, Quake II/Doom (oddly enough Quake II/Doom got me nauseous, but I thought everything about those games were cool), learning about MUDs and older RPGs, older adventure games, etc.
Oh, this is just fantastic. The transitions are
so gooooooooood.