Earthbound might be the most damaging game ever made. The games it inspired are trash and probably caused more deaths (through trooning and suicide) than any "violent" game.
All the "Quirky" indie games are trash that take the quirkiness of the original as justification for degenerating into an infantile state.
Earthbound is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer of video games. Not perfect but solidly made and innovative for it's time. But the people who liked it are psuedointellectual post modernist idiots who completely misunderstood what made it unique and compelling. Thinking it being "subversive" and "quirky" for it's own sake was the appeal. Without understanding what made it subversive and quirky. These talentless retards don't actually have any original ideas or any real thoughts at all. But they're arrogant and then begin to create games based on what they think Earthbound is that all fail and look identical to one another.
I confess that I don't see what is so subversive about Earthbound.
Quirky, sure, but subversive? It's mostly a parody of various Western locations. That's not subversive from a Japanese perspective. Subversive for them would be saying Shinto and Buddhism are crap or something.
I confess that I don't see what is so subversive about Earthbound.
Quirky, sure, but subversive? It's mostly a parody of various Western locations. That's not subversive from a Japanese perspective. Subversive for them would be saying Shinto and Buddhism are crap or something.
If you've been on tvtropes you'll see that "subversive" means not on the norm (in a non offensive way). So having to dig through trash for items is subversive because you usually have chests, and having to talk with your dad is subversive because it's usually a menu.
Let it be known that poison is a shit status effect that's usually far less effective than direct damage (unless it HAS to be manually cured/has a good side-effect). The fact that it ignores defense is moot as it usually doesn't inflict much anyway.
I'm interested. Jimmy was a horrible slog after the first half though and I did end up fucking with the stats to let Jimmy one hit kill anything. But I did consider it a very solid first attempt and am interested to see on what he delivers. Hope he can keep his autists (and his own) on a leash though.
This is the part that worries me, it's one thing to build a game on your own clock, another to make a promise to a block of internet strangers. They can go from fans to you most dire enemies.
I also saw he comitted the biggest fuckup I see a ton of Kickstarters do. Physical rewards that aren't directly under the control of the creator. He is going to learn the hard way that those plushies or snes boxes will be a factory of headaches, as well as money vortexes for little gain.
That aside, I tend to like these small projects, they are almost always flawed in some way or another, but you get to see some neat stuff from somebody having a vision 100% their own, for good and ill. Too bad most are tranny plagued lately...
I have played 4 hours of Long Gone Days so far, the game really isnt very "quirky" much less earthboundy but it's still rare to see a modern day turnbased rpg that takes itself completely seriously so i'm gonna ramble a bit for those interested. The game is made on unity but sure as hell feels like an RPG maker game, which allegedly was originally. It sounds and looks very pretty, and other than fixed dialogue speed and no control settings (you can't even toggle auto-run) it's fine.
This is one of those stories about a soldier who finds out the military force they fight for was actually super evil all along so deserts and fights back, and i think there is a lot of potential for a modern story like this but sadly so far i dont feel it, mostly it feels like a very sanitized story that is trying really hard to not offend anyone so it doesnt land that well.
To summarize the first arc:
-The Core AKA "Shit outer heaven" is a secret independent military force that is completely underground and has acess to the whole planet via trains (??). They create people in tubes to be child soldiers and can be hired as PMC.
-Rourke is the protag and one of those soldiers. He was teached that The Core are the "protectors of humanity" and he's been trained to be a sniper since the day he was born.
-The Core starts a mission to dress their soldiers as polish and invade russia. Rourke finds out he wasnt protecting people but actually doing some sick war crimes and feels bad about it so he quits.
-Rourke asks the doctor to help him escape and both get branded as traitors. They go to russia and protect a city with help of 2 citizens now all 4 are being hunted and they must find a way to stop the potential world war (maybe? idk).
So here is my problem with this: This premise is retarded because everyone is retarded.
(me too)
You're telling me you indocrinated this guy WRONG for 22 years as a joke? You sent these soldiers on a false flag operation but none of them speak polish so they all speak english on the field? You got this last day substitute and didnt tell him what's the mission about?
And that's my other big problem with this story, it's treats the audience as todlers while being shallow. This isnt really a "War = bad" story, it's about an evil non political super army trying to take over the world and the heroes must stop them.
(Yes rork, i could tell that already from your previous 6 lines where you said they trained you as a weapon.)
W-Wait, you're telling me the player still didnt get it so must spell it out?!
I also can't sympathize with Rork because
1-I hate his portrait. He has this "otome game husbando face" (long nose, sharp chin, long neck), a generic mary sueish personality (alternating between polite and sassy) and he never conveys much emotion beyond mild surprise or annoyance.
(my face when i'm sad but i'm too handsome to cry)
2-I'm not sold on his guilt because it's ironically too much for how innocent he is. Rork is fine with getting executed, quits instantly, has zero doubts about fighting his "brothers" and keeps saying how he NEEDS to save others for "the sake of his own sanity". Other than fainting the first time and a few flashbacks, he seems fine really.
(note that i'm not asking rork to have ptsd breakdowns every 5 minutes but even FF4 and FF6 on the snes sold "war veteran seeks redemptions" better)
Otherwise, i also don't like the combat system as it's the epitome of "fake tactical". There are only soldiers and drones so far and they all have 1 or 2 attacks. You can aim at head/body/arm but only the arm is worthy cause it has balanced aim+dmg AND you can stun the enemy which can break fights completely (i stunlocked the first boss twice). There is no exp and the story is completely linear so all sidequests and items are missable and you only recharge MP (Morale) by answering the good replies and sidequests but they throw a ton of items at you so if you're good at rpg economy this is a snoozefest.
THAT BEING SAID, it's still a fairly novel game at worst so i'm actually still interested in playing if only to see where this goes. It's basically half visual novel chilling around a city and other half is PG-12 war rpg, and i'm very forgiving to games that trying something new, while this one isnt offensively bad so i'm enjoying it in my way.
If i had to improve or change the story, i would play more on Rork's early ego (he starts very confident and sassy) so he's an arrogant and brags about what a great sniper he is, while later he finds the truth out by himself instead of having someone explain to him that he's dumb.
I confess that I don't see what is so subversive about Earthbound.
Quirky, sure, but subversive? It's mostly a parody of various Western locations. That's not subversive from a Japanese perspective. Subversive for them would be saying Shinto and Buddhism are crap or something.
Just being set in an modern American world was subversive in a genre full of fantasy games. And Earthbound constantly played with JRPG cliques in clever ways.
Yeah, earthbound was only subversive in the sense that it either doubles down on dragon quest cliches or twists them to the setting in a funny way. Like, Ness isnt the chosen one because he found a magic sword, but because he literally IS and this time traveling bee told him at the start of the game.
But i think what the inernet lost is that Earthbound isnt really a comedic or depressive game. It's "quirky" in the sense that it's a japanese game with puns and weird enemies but it plays itself completely straight and never gets edgy. Even the Mr. Saturn are simply weird/alien creatures who symbolize childlike inoccence so they have a foreign font, foods and verbal tics. Undertale really isnt like earthbound at all because it IS a comedy game where every npc is a joke dispenser.
Either way i have finished Long Gone Days and unfortunally i must say the game never gets better than the first arc and kinda shits itself on the way. All i wanted was a mostly serious modern day war RPG but the game goes anime and Rork is giving shallow friendship speeches to an insanely evil military villain who wanted to take over the world.
Some of the worst things on spoiler
1-There are literally 2 enemies in the ENTIRE GAME, human and drone, with the later ones having more annoying skills or extra hits. Boss fights are bad cause if you get lucky you can stunlock the boss by shooting it's arm. Stat buffs are completely broken for some reason, with atk+ nearly doubling damage and att- drop literally dropping enemy damage from 70+ to 1. Only the final boss was the threat cause you stun by shooting and he has his own buffs/debuffs that seemed to last forever. They couldnt even make game/story integration well, withe the hacker teammate not being better against drones.
2-Death became a comically videogamey thing after the first arc. Rork has the option to snipe a few security guards which he says must be civilians which is so OOC it borders on character assassination (it's revealed later they're kidnappers and allied with the villain so it's fine tho!). One civilian team mate reveals she looted a shotgun from a corpse and joins you during a fight with you and she has no trauma from this. Our team is 2 soldiers and 4 civilians (1 unarmed) and we are mowing down the best army in the planet with no explanation.
3-The attemps at drama are fifth grade shounen shit. Boss says the general gave rork everything, rork says his friends gave him more. Boss says rork is still killing people, he says he kills for his friends. Boss says he can't betray general because general gave him everything, Rork says general is evil. General says he's protecting humanity from itself by controlling it, rork calls him a power hungry tyrant.
4-Characters are 1 dimensional and only Rork and Lynn have arcs, but rork self doubt if he's doing the right thing is solved too fast and Lynn's" distrust issues" come out of nowhere. There is no inner conflict and everyone sides with rork. My favourite character was Ivan who's is simply a nice teacher who "fights" by cheering your squad so hard your stat raises and he's completely useless storywise besides inspiring Rork during boss fights. Hannah at the final arc isnt playable but it's weird how you just step at poland and she appears out of nowhere and lets you sleep at her house (you can tell the story got rushed).
5-The whole BREEDER plotline is bizarre. You see, the core doesnt actually produce it's own soldiers, they need to kidnap women from the surface so they can be mothers producing offspring until they die, which contradicts the claim that The Core was fully self sufficient but no one points that out. Lynn was tricked too but she escaped to Russia thanks to one The Core traitor. Lynn talks about this like she has nightmares for years about it but according to the timeline it should be less than a week since she escaped.
I think the game simply flops in all it's attempts to do what it was marketed as.
-A different view of war? It's not really saying anything by dumping everything on 1 non political villain guy trying to take over the world cause he's greedy. It's not even realistic as we just assume 2 soldiers + 4 civilians can do this this.
-Communication is key? You simply dont understand shit until the translator joins your party so you're playing a normal game. I understand it would be awkward to have the translator constantly going "and he said that-" but the way rork can talk directly to people and they talk back, you basically forget there is supposed to be someone translating everything to the other group.
I was wondering if Rork would have to diplomacy his way with people who doesnt understand him or if someone would betray rork by twisting words but not really. Wasted potential.
-Keep morale high? It feel like this invisible meter that raises when i do sidequests the right way and tell people i feel guilty and fight for my friends. Maybe there are differences if your morality is low and bad endings but i doubt it would be that significant.
-Sniper mode? Twice at the start of chapter 1 (russia), one optional for chapter 2 at germany and one mandatory before the final boss. Not like adding more would improve game much tho.
-No random encounters because every fight is plot relevant? Totally not true because there are many fights that only seem to be there because it's a game and no one even mentions it. Just kill these 3 people to get a key so you can do the same again 15 minutes later. You just had to copy LISA pacing here.
I almost wish they went full anime and had dating social links or something. The most you get is two optional hang out moments where you learn a bit about your 2/5 of your friends.
-A different view of war? It's not really saying anything by dumping everything on 1 non political villain guy trying to take over the world cause he's greedy. It's not even realistic as we just assume 2 soldiers + 4 civilians can do this this.
Le War is le Bad. Deep shit that wasn't said a billion times. It doesn't even sound like the game pull the moral ambiguity idea, it's standard "the side you start on is the bad side!" shtick.
Le War is le Bad. Deep shit that wasn't said a billion times. It doesn't even sound like the game pull the moral ambiguity idea, it's standard "the side you start on is the bad side!" shtick.
I'd argue it's not even saying "war is bad" because there isnt really any "war" past russia/chapter 1, which isnt even war but one guys plan to make poland look bad so they take it over . There is very light Rork PTSD, one politician being against immigrants, kidnapping dissenters and women kidnapping and the main insane villain with a military fascist state but that's all there is, they're think that happen so you can tell this villain is evil and we move on.
A real "war is bad" story at least puts their own themes and characters that tie back into war being bad. Final fantasy 4 starts with Cecil genociding mages and quitting when the king tricked him into nuking a city, so he seeks atonement protecting a mage girl and becomes a paladin. Final Fantasy 8 is about everyone being a war tool in some way and choosing to not be etc.
The lesson from Long gone days is that you shouldnt lie to your soldiers or one of them might get sad and kill everyone on his way to shoot you. The attempts of drama are shallow because there is no significant hardships or doubts on anyone of your team. I don't know if it was real life wars that forced devs to tone everything down but in the end it's all looks painfully bland, naive and uncharismatic.
The game released, according to some positive reviews the game is "Berserk with mouses" although more negative ones claims the dev pushes a political agenda nowhere to be seen on the demo, make of that what you will.
The game released, according to some positive reviews the game is "Berserk with mouses" although more negative ones claims the dev pushes a political agenda nowhere to be seen on the demo, make of that what you will.
Depends on what political agenda. Nobody has pandered to me in decades, but knowing how game development goes I imagine it panders to something that will piss me off. The game does certainly look neat though.
Adding hearthbound to the list here, it's interesting how everyone forgot about this game considering how much the internet hyped this as "the next Undertale" View attachment 5322371
I assume you actually mean Heart Bound (Heartbound, HeartBound?) as that's what's in the video. Did that guy stick a knife into an electric socket and then get talked to by his dog?
The game released, according to some positive reviews the game is "Berserk with mouses" although more negative ones claims the dev pushes a political agenda nowhere to be seen on the demo, make of that what you will.
The game released, according to some positive reviews the game is "Berserk with mouses" although more negative ones claims the dev pushes a political agenda nowhere to be seen on the demo, make of that what you will.
