/vnt/ - Vidya & Tech

>>45
At the moment I play Blood and a few pseudo retro games namely Lunacid, Turbo Overkill and Wrath; Aeon of Ruin

I think i dont need to introduce Blood.

Lunacid is a throwback game to old From Software titles before they made Demon Souls, from what I've seen so far they nail the design of the world, comparable to Dark Souls if you ask me.

Turbo Overkill and Wrath are inspired by Quake, Wrath is from 3D Realms and you can feel it, and TO is from Apogee and takes the ridiculous 80s action cyberpunk trope to the extreme.

>>46
>Blood
Ah nice, recently went through that and enjoyed it a lot more than I did when I tried to play it 2 years ago. Build engine games never seem to sit right with me for some reason so it was a real disappointment to play something as fast paced and skilful as Blood and just dislike it. Giving it a second try on it's intended difficulty and crouching everywhere really made it a fun experience even if it took me around 3-4 hours to see that.

Tried to play Duke Nukem 3D for the 4th time or so in my life and going from Blood to Duke feels like a downgrade. Thinking of maybe trying it on a harder difficulty or something.

Consider this cute half-orc. Joking aside, has anyone played Headon? Its a really good throwback shooter, running on gz doom.

>>47
my problem with duke and shadow warrior is that even after so many years i still get lost in some maps which never happens to me with blood but that may come from the fact that i played it a lot more. I may catch some flak for the following but if you ask me you can brute force most encoutners in duke and shadow while blood expects from you to learn the ropes but when it clicks its just such a blast. I also prefer the stlye of blood over duke and shadow, love me some evil dead; 80's action and hong kong cinema is great too dont get me wrong.

>>48
Great game but most level flow kinda weird, also the latent sexuality undermines the seriousness the story tries to convey. You can definitely feel that the dude who made this game made his money with futaporn with the characters from said game.

>>50
>does the sight of cleavage make you insane?!
the only thing you are right about is the pacing of the level most of them are a slog especially if youre a secret hunter

>>45
Played Nejishiki (1988) by Will published by Zeit for the PC-98, emulated on Neko Project II th + Textractor + jDeppL for machine translation. An adventure game where Yoshiharu Tsuge's various stories and themes connect in dreamlike fashion to form a surreal biography of his inner mind.

As a game, it is rough. Progress is slow and obtuse. You find yourself exhausting meaningless small talk options again and again because one of them may suddenly be the key for progress. There's usually something to clue you in on what you have to do if you take the time to think about it, sometimes relating to the manga story a character originally appeared in. And when you realize on your own, it's very satisfying. But it won't be smooth sailing, and that's clearly intentional. It will make you feel the agony that the boy in the original Nejishiki story goes through. Even worse if you need translation like me. That aside, there really is meaning and poetry to think about behind a lot of what you have to do and go through, which is appealing.

As an artsy adventure into Tsuge's mind, it is incredibly interesting. The setting built by his characters arises naturally, captures their charm and sense of humor, and slowly pulls you into a world permeated by the melancholic tone of their stories. Actually being there in the final days of old rural Japanese life, experiencing its decadence while the economy is ironically getting better, mourning the death of this old way of life because, however miserable and often stupid it was, in the end there was something indescribably valuable in it (at the very least, a metaphorical hometown for our main character) being lost too... It is quite powerful and dare I say beautiful. It makes you feel the ambivalent yet poignant nostalgia and the growing alienation that drive Tsuge inward into the world of dreams and delusions that takes over his life. And this dreamlike spiral labyrinth that he wanders in search of himself is frighteningly compelling.

All in all, this game was a crazy experience and a meaningful addition to the works of Tsuge. I couldn't get sound to work but it didn't bother me at all. Oh and there are a few playthroughs on youtube you can look up by the japanese title, ねじ式.

Playing Star Ocean 2 : Second Story again. The pixel art and music are great. The fighting style is more like modern jrpgs are today instead of turn based like previous games.

I recently played Resident Evil 1&2 for the first time, absolutely awesome games, didn't expect them to be this much fun.
Looking forward to play 3 and Dino Crisis in the future.

Also replayed Turok1&2 which are also great.

Not sure what to play next, I think it's either Armored Core (PS1) or Galaxy Fräulein Yuna (PCE).

The PS1 game Baroque finally got an English translation a few days ago! I'm really looking forward to trying it out. It seems like a very interesting game.

Currently playing through Grandia 1. I haven't really played many JRPGS before so I was worried about getting bored but I am having a lot of fun. Justin and his friends are really adorable and I like the main plot of searching for a lost civilization.

I'm also playing Metal Slader Glory on the NES. It's a fairly okay text adventure so far, the mystery surrounding the slader is fairly interesting. The artwork is very nice too. I wish the SNES remake got translated because the art in that game is gorgeous.

The only retro game I'm going through right now is The Secret of Monkey Island. I tried to not use a guide through that game but found myself stuck as the troll wanted something that I just did not have. I searched EVERYWHERE and had no idea what to do. I then checked the universal hint system website and was incredibly pissed that the herring was the answer and the way to get it was to WALK ON THE DOCK which I just decided to not do because the game has a weird perspective so when I walked to the end of the dock I thought that's all you could do and never thought to walk south of my characters position to interrupt the bird. Even the idea of a "red herring" made me think it was a joke the devs put it to make me think it was important or something.

Anyhow, I did that and I'm currently fighting pirates to learn all the insults and rebuttals to say to people.

>>54
2 weeks late but very nice. RE1 and 2 are great games. The original RE2 is my favourite and I remember playing through both stories it in one sitting since the remake was coming out the next day and I wanted to play the original beforehand so I could compare to two. I loved both but found RE2 to be absolutely fantastic. RE3 is good as well, I sadly never finished Dino Crisis.

Hope you update us on the other two games you played, anon.

>>55
Ah, Baroque. I remember a lot of people talking about it in my circles but never really gave it a shot. Will have to look into it sometime in my life.

>>56
Grandia is really fucking good. I went through it back in 2017 or so and had a blast. I also had some hearty chuckles at things like the "v slash" for sounding like idiots who say "slash v slash" when referring to /v/, and of course the Red and Blue pills you can take during the game to recover MP.

Also best theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_mPCmwJV5M. Love characters like those three.

If you want more games that have that fun adventure feel give Lunar Silver Star and Skies of Arcadia a shot. Skies of Arcadia is my favourite game of all time due to the adventure aspect of that game and I adore Lunar for the same reason.

>>57
>Hope you update us on the other two games you played, anon.
I actually didn't feel like playing anything recently.

I picked up learning Japanese again however, after taking a break for a while.
Might play something in Japanese soon, just need to find something I'm interested in and is manageable with my jap skills.

>>58
>I actually didn't feel like playing anything recently.

For the first time in around 5-6 years I've also felt like this too. I used to complete around 50-70 games each year but right now as of July I've only finished 14 and a lot of those have been long JRPG's that have taken up so much of my time. Even now I'm playing through Tales of Symphonia as well and I've only just started on Disc 2 after 33 hours so I'm far from over and it's getting to me after all these RPGs this year. I want to finish it to move onto other games but playing it has been a hassle despite it being quite good.

Good luck with the Japanese anyhow, anon. I should really attempt to learn it some day for the dozens of games I'd want to play.

I finished Digimon World for the first time today.
Very frustrating at first but it then became a lot of fun as I progressed and learned how stuff works.

There is still tons of stuff I haven't seen or done, even though I had put many hours into it.
Awesome game.

>>55
The patch for the original is still being worked on.

Recently went through the Super Shinobi, fun game but a real trial and error ordeal. Took me around 7 hours to finish and a dozen+ attempts (the first boss was the hardest for me, took me like 40 tries). By around 2 hours in I decided playing it on Normal was a hassle and threw it on Easy which kept the difficulty the same but gave you tons more lives which was MUCH more manageable.

I'd say if I were to give it another shot on Normal I could easily make it to the 7th stage without dying since I know those early stages quite well and how to work around them, but after that I remember finding the 7th stage to be incredibly difficult just due to the pitfalls and knockback. I was also pretty much checking a guide for all the secret goodies in all of the stages after around 3 hours just to help me with anything, and it really helped to know a stage had a secret ninja magic, power block or 50 shurikens in certain areas.

The final stage is impossible without a guide or retrying it around 20 times since it's a labyrinth and you really don't have the resources to search through it all, you just need to get from the start to the end so you're not a weak mess by the final boss.

Anyhow, here's the final scene in widescreen thanks to the emulator I was using. Only part of the game that works well with it and looks good.

Moved to /vr/.

After getting my ass kicked by it some years ago I decided to set the record straight and try out the NES Ninja Gaiden once again. While the game may seem daunting at spots, there's always an optimal way to approach any given situation, so after a week and a half of casual practice I managed to finally beat it. Might even come back to it later to see if I can do it without continues.

Immeadtly after I tried out the sequel, and while it has some neat additions, it doesn't feel as tightly designed as the first game so I'll probably take a while to finish. I've also heard the third game got a nasty difficulty raise for the US version so I'll have to look forward to that as well.

>>65
Good job, Ninja Gaiden is a series I want to give a shot since it feels like it'd be quite fair once you get it all down and probably a lot of fun too. I remember trying my hardest to beat Castlevania 1 and after 2-3 days of trying I got it down and now I can do it in under an hour and it's really fun for me.

Have you seen the PC-Engine version? Basically straight up ports with better graphics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj_nZdlr9bU&t=457s

>>66
>Have you seen the PC-Engine version? Basically straight up ports with better graphics.

I knew about the SNES port but not about this, might check it out once I'm done with the NES versions, though I've never done PC-Engine emulation before.

Castlevania is another one I have to retackle. Farthest I reached was Death, I remember I got good enough to do most of the stage without getting hit, but still could never get past him since I refused to use any weapon other than the whip for some autistic reason.

>>67
>but still could never get past him since I refused to use any weapon other than the whip for some autistic reason.

That's fair I guess, I'd say at the very least you should use the crossbow, feels the most fair against him since you're both using spinning projectiles at that point.

>>63
Onto Shinobi 3 now and I've spent around 2-3 days on it in short 1-2 hour bursts and while I really love the jump in quality the game has AND how it works 80% of the time with the widescreen mode (pic related, stunning) I'm really annoyed with the double jump.

I absolutely hate the double jumping in Shinobi games. It feels like it NEVER wants to work when I actually need it to but when I'm just running about a stage normally it works all the time but for a dodge or high jump it just fails me. I get that it's a jump that needs to be performed at the PEAK of your jump, but damn man, it fucking never works for me.

I actually lost my progress this time round on the final stage because the game requires you to do a double jump twice near the end of the stage to get to the 2nd level and I failed in with the last 5-6 lives I had, every time in the same spot. The game also jumps in difficulty from stage 1-5 to stage 6-7 which is really annoying but understandable I guess.

Still going to try it while I can.

>>67
>whip only
>against Death

Good god man.

If you ever try again, the secret is triple shot Holy Water and just stunlock him. If he gets out you're dead.

>>68
>>70
Yeah, I remember feeling like an idiot after reading an interview (https://shmuplations.com/castlevania/) that confirmed you're meant to use subweapons against him, but it atleast allowed me to get over that mental block. Still, I'll have to wait until I'm finished with the Ninja Gaiden games before I decide to seriously tackle it once again.

>>65
Two down, one more to go.

As said earlier, the game introduces various upgrades compared to its predecessor, and while some of them I definitively welcome (proper wallclimbing for once), it just didn't feel as tightly designed as the first. Shadow clones are fun to use, but the amount of sprite flickering they cause can be detrimental, similarly the addition of stage gimmicks bring some variety to the level design, but oftentimes I found them to hurt the core gameplay. In spite of this I still found the game to be easier, extra lives are plentier, ammo refills are more generous, but most importantly, shadow clones allow your attacks to cover a lot of ground with subweapons, so overall there's less need for precision and memorization in order to go through the game.

I checked out the third game afterwards, and even from the little I played you can tell they spruced up the difficulty for this version, nonetheles a good first impression so I hope it manages to sustain that throughout the rest of the game.

I've been playing Super Mario 1. Great game, loved at all the secrets you can use to make replays easier (wraps at 1-2, 4-2, the 1UP at 1-2, secret coin rooms, etc) and the atmosphere. I read and heard people talk about how Super Mario Bros 1 makes you feel like your going on an adventure across a world and this feels like it. All the transitions and obstacles reinforce a cohesive setting (2-1 is underwater, 2-2 has fish, you see Mario go underground for cave levels and in castles for -4 worlds)
Just wish that it wasn't two hits and you're out if you have the fire plant. I heard Super Mario Bros 3 US edition edited it so you can take two hits if you have a fire plant, and it can help in this game. It's extremely punishing: the mistakes are easy to avoid, but you can snowball your way to death if you're not careful, which is why knowing where the wraps are is important (although I will admit, I dislike using wraps all the time, and only use them for a session. Reason is if I abuse wraps, it'll have the save scumming effect of me just focusing on clearing certain levels and not the game, robbing it of that cohesive experience)

>>73
Literally the first game I played when I was a toddler.
Would love to replay 1 and 3 on my NES but it seems to be daying soon, getting weird graphic glitches that make the game unplayable.

F

Wanted to play Star Ocean 1 (SNES en patched), but apparently that version is buggy and freezes frequently.
Literally froze within the first 2min...

Not sure if I want to deal with that shit, if it does that every few mins at least.
Maybe I was just unlucky dunno.

Will try again tomorrow, if it crashes again I will just play the PSP remake instead.

I considered getting a Playstation Classic or PS TV for PS1 games and other emulators but holy fuck these things suck.
Not only are they expensive, they are also weak af and only output 720p max and image quality warries from one title to another.
What the hell?

Getting a mini PC instead for living room emulation.

>>76
What about the MiSTer? It's cool tech and it covers the era you mentioned

OP here, sadly haven't been playing a lot of games this year but I recently went back to finish The Secret of Monkey Island and LeChuck's Revenge.

I played the original IBM release with the Special Edition voices via SCUMM VM and it was such a great experience to hear the voices of the characters as you did things, it gave a lot of life to the game and the choice of voices for each character was amazing. I sadly played the game without the CD audio so I'll forever prefer the Adlib version of the OST to the CD one.

The first game took me months to finish, I started in June and didn't finish it until last week when I forced myself to. It wasn't that it was overly difficult (although, there were a lot of obtuse puzzles) it was just that I never felt the drive to play it and getting stuck really hurt the fun of playing the game. I tried my hardest to not use a guide but had to use Univeral Hint System by the time I got the bridge troll. My own fault for overlooking the "red herring" in the game and assuming the devs were playing a meta-joke on me and that it should be ignored because it's a red herring, when they were playing a *meta*-meta-joke on me where the red herring is VERY important to progression.

After that I was able to go through most of the game without a guide, sword fighting using insults is a genius concept and I loved figuring the combos out, and getting the crew together on the ship was fun and I loved the idea behind making a potion using substitutions for items (need a skull, use a pirate flag). Monkey Island really annoyed me as I couldn't find certain locations due to how pixelated the map was and solving the final dungeon was difficult as I assumed I needed to figure out a pattern over just having an item that would tell me the way to go, sadly used a guide a bunch there.

Still, a great game even if you can't lose. Made me laugh a lot and I enjoy when a game can do that and getting stuck was a chore. I loved Guybrush's voice and how he's basically the smartest idiot in the room at any given time, a character trope you don't see a lot of.

I started the second game right after and loved it a lot. Expanding on the first game tons and having the experience of how this game worked made playing it a lot less tedious (until Part 2). I did have to use a guide right at the end of Part 1 because my logic was always 3/4th of the way there and this game always made me think of solving a puzzle one way only to find out the real solution was completely different to what I was thinking. In Part 2 I was stuck on the spitting contest (requiring a green drink you make yourself and some in game cheating), the monkey wrench (using an actual Monkey you hyponotize into being a wrench) and the fucking non alcoholic grog (using a flyer someone gives you to paste on a wanted poster to get them arrested so you can steal their belongings in jail) as they all had me completely confused on how to solve them for hours resorting to UHS again. Made me say "HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO FIGURE THAT OUT?" multiple times.

I loved how the end of the game has LeChuck using a voodoo doll on Guybrush and you have to counter him by creating a Voodoo doll of LeChuck in response. Felt like a very smart and fun way of ending the game even if finding all the pieces was pretty annoying (closing an elevator door on LeChuck to get a piece of his beard) but I guess you'd eventually figure it out given enough time.

I'd say even with all the confusing puzzles and solutions I think it's better than the 1st game as it just adds so much more to the world, even if mulitple islands make traversal annoying for puzzle solving as you're going back and forth a lot and Guybrush still never gives any great hints for puzzles leaving it entirely up to the player.

Currently on the third game Curse of Monkey Island and been enjoying it so far, the artstyle reminds me very much of Dreamworks movies I watched as a kid which is nice. Haven't had to use a guide yet but I guess I'll just have to see if I've improved as an Point and Click Adventure player

>>45
you need to replay the tales of destiny remake for the ps2, it's the best tales of game in my opinion and one of the best of all time

>>79
Maybe one day, for now I'm still going through Legendia. Turned out there's a whole 2nd part of this game I didn't even know about...

>>80
I personally never could sit and play Legendia all the way through. I didn't think it was awful or anything like that but for some reason I just couldn't find the motivation to play it any longer after so many hours.

>>81
I feel exactly the same way. I don't know if it's just burnout over the years but this is the first time n my life where I just don't want to go and finish a game that I'm already hours into.

I really do want to finish Legendia to move onto Abyss, but I just can't bring myself to play it. I started the game back in JULY and only finished the first half of it this month. Learning there are even more quests after the "main" story is over just left me with an awful taste in my mouth, I don't want to play 30 more hours of that game but at the same time I want to finish it before moving onto the next game.

It's not even a bad game, I'd rank it somewhere in the middle so far. I like the characters and it has the best music out of all the games so far, but playing it is just not fun at all, it also has AWFUL blurring when emulated that my eyes still aren't used to (pic related).

>>82
Are you using PCSX2? I've never seen that blurring effect you've posted here while using an emulator.

>>83
Yeah I am, I think it's part of the game to make it seem more "fluid" at native res when played on an actual PS2.

When emulated it's very noticeable and I don't think there are any solutions to it.

i have been playing buzz aldrin race into space so much that i can basically speedrun the game at this point, i have never won tho since everytime an accident happens or an astronaut dies i restart it.
Yes i know that in reality accidents used to happen in the space race but at the 7th sputnik freezing or exploding mid orbith i have all the right to get mad >:(

>>84
Does that happen with any other games?

>>86
If it has I've never noticed it this badly before.

I know you can manipulate it so it's not as bad using skipdraw and stuff, but this time around it's not fixable.

>>87
Was going to say, I've never experienced it myself personally. I think I'm going to download Legendia and see if I experience the same blur effect as you have. I'll be back in a day or two to let you know how it goes.

Legendia anon, I'm back. A slightly bit longer than I originally stated. I had a few things come up and problems with my ISP. Anyways, while working with a computer that had a fresh install. I went ahead and booted up Legendia on PCSX2. I had no issues at all with blurring. What graphical settings do you have set? I actually first started it up with the default settings. I even messed around with a few tweaks just to see if by chance I'd end up with a blurring effect. Still never did. Even when I disabled the anti-blur setting that was toggled on by default. I didn't get anything like what your screenshot is showing. I did notice a very very slight blur but it wasn't anything at all to get worked up over. I'm also curious to know what your specs may be. Perhaps it could even be a GPU issue that you're dealing with.

>>89
Webm related is how it looks in motion to me.

I'm not sure what settings I would've changed to make it be like that, you can see them here. I also have some texture replacement mod installed to make all the character portraits HD and widescreen fixed, but I'm not sure that would be an issue.

The blur isn't terrible and I've gotten used to it over time, but I do wish it just wasn't there in the first place.

>>90
>Anti Blur
Is that setting checked?

Also does it look better when moving if the internal res is set to x2?


I had a game that looked similar but also when standing still, I played around with the texture offset settings until it looked acceptable, its a bit hacky but als last resort can help with that stuff.
Not sure if that would break the looks when standing still in your case as it seems to look fine without motion.

>>91
Even with Anti-blur on it still has blurring. When the res goes down the blurring is harder to see, so at native you can barely see it but at a higher res it's very noticeable.

I still think it might just be a game thing at this point, even on other versions of PCSX2 I have this issue and have seen others with it to. Trying other PS2 games I have I see no blurring like this game has.

>>90
>>92
I'm curious about if this is primarily a Windows problem. I don't have the issue at all with Legendia while running PCSX2 on various Linux distros.

>>93
What version and renderer?

I'm wondering if I should buy a Steam Deck for retro gaming.

I have a decent Desktop, but lately I'm programming a lot on it for uni and afterwards I'm kinda burned out and want to be as far aways from it as possible.

>>95
Well, what video games are you gonna play?

>>96
Mostly PS1, N64, SNES, GBA, PSP.
I have a Vita that could play most of these but the screen is so small and I'm not getting younger...

>>97
> console list is not higher than PSP
Netbook or some old laptop (thinkpad lmao almost anything from 2006-8 is fine) is a better option in this case imho.

Steam deck is an overpower and overprice for such emulation. This valve's monster is designed for modern games and modern console emulators after all

>>95
Buy the steamdeck if you have the money. A turnkey solution which you can take yourself to the sofa will be a joy after all the messy shit you have to do to make programs work programming.

>>78
>Monkey Island
I love the first two games so much, even if 2's ending is really weird.
They got a good voice actor for Guybrush in the remasters, he fits the role really well in my opinion.
Anyway, how appropriate, you fight like a cow!

>>100
>I love the first two games so much, even if 2's ending is really weird.
Yeah, it's a shame we'll never truly see what Big Whoop was in the end, I'm surprised Ron Gilbert was fine with just dropping that series to start his own, I get it made him millions in the process but it wouldn't sit right with me to leave a creation I made to someone else without finishing it off first.

I think after finishing Curse, it might be my favourite of the bunch. I love the idea of this absolute idiot having someone's life in his hands that he was the cause of. The first two games felt quite selfish in that Guybrush wanted to do things for himself (be a pirate, find Big Whoop) but this time around it felt a lot more interesting as there's an actual stake involved in saving Elaine and I was a bit mixed on her falling for him but I think he's earned it by the end. I adored the artstyle by around 2 hours in, it was like watching a Dreamworks movie with how it looked, it's a shame we never got a movie in the 90s, would've been cool to see. The music was fantastic and a huge step up from the Adlib stuff from the DOS versions.

I was able to work the game out without having to rely on a guide *too* much (I think around 10 times) and I was really annoyed at myself and the game for the times I did use the guide since the logic was either 90% there for me (did everything required for the gold tooth puzzle but couldn't figure out that I had to fly it out the window by inhaling helium and blowing a bubble with bubble gum the tooth is attached to) or something I would've never done (putting the portrait in front of a porthole and going on the other side to make Guybrush look like he's a family member). Still, it was a very enjoyable game even when I did have to check a guide and I was able to finish it quite quickly by checking when I was stuck instead of attempting everything possible.

I did find the game had a similar vibe to the first one with how similar the actions you take were, such as finding a crew and the insult sword fighting but that wasn't really a bad thing, rather a "oh, I'm doing this again" feeling. I think it's the funniest Monkey Island game by far and had a similar vibe to Golden-age Simpsons. I can remember laughing incredibly hard when Guybrush died, escaped the coffin and I was thinking to myself "oh yeah, I buried Stan in a coffin in the last game, wonder how he's doing then opening the next coffin I see and having him pop out with his trademark theme start playing.

The final battle with LeChuck was incredibly frustrating and a downgrade from 2, even if the logic is mostly the same. Just a hassle to figure it out while he's following you around.

Still very much like the first two games, I think I'd rank it 3 > 2 > 1 so far. I heard Escape isn't very good but I'll still give it a shot anyhow.

>They got a good voice actor for Guybrush in the remasters, he fits the role really well in my opinion
I love all the voices, a real shame Earl Boen died recently. I always wondered who LeChuck was and I can't believe he was Silberman from Terminator, made me even more sad after that. I'm currently playing through Escape (well, I've only played about 10 minutes of it) and I hate how they've changed Elaine's voice.

>Anyway, how appropriate, you fight like a cow!
I am rubber, you are glue.

>>60
Why can't I get any Digimon besides the poopmon I swear I didn't have any care mistakes