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Open Thread #396: Gaming

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31 thoughts on “Open Thread #396: Gaming

  1. Despite my earlier comment about Fate/Grand Order, I still consider it a beautiful piece of fiction. Its just unfortunate the setups you have to take in order to succeed in the business world.

    I made the comment elsewhere that people who become super rich/successful probably never manage to do so in a completely sin free way. Its just the damned nature of the game. Honestly, if I owned the rights to FGO, I’d be doing the same thing they are doing now, maybe donating some of the extra profit I earn towards the causes that I feel is of great importance. (or so I tell myself that I would do. I won’t discount the possibility that greed might overcome me if I ever find myself in that position. hopefully not.)

    Normies will spend their money on all sorts of frivolous nonsense anyway. I suppose you may as well profit off their legal addictions so you can put some of that money into not just benefiting your life, but into furthering the causes you care about. that will probably be what I’ll have in mind if I ever do get to trying to start a business.

    On a completely different and less serious note befitting this thread, I talked about games I found myself burying into for awhile. I can’t believe I forgot to mention what may have been the most recent experience (I often go months these days before I get into my next video game) of them all; Amagami ebKore+

    I think this is the first time I’ve played a translation patch via an emulator (I would recommend the ps2 version. PSP’s text had issues displaying character names and looked worse graphically). Its a dating sim rather than a traditional VN. There is no violence or action in the game, but the story and drama definitely kept me interested for awhile. I forgot what stopped me but I almost finished. No full blown 18+ content though if that’s what you’re looking for, though there’s definitely some kissing and lightly erotic stuff in it.

    I’ll probably just download a 100% save file and continue where I left off to finish off the remaining heroine story routes rather than start all over should I get back to this.

  2. I was really close to getting a 1CC in the arcade version of Street Fighter II earlier today. It did not work out, but the resulting two-credit clear was still a new personal best. The SNES version is less difficult.

    1. After having gotten close to a 1CC in Street Fighter II multiple times over the last few days, I finally did it today. In my last round against Dictator I even played flawlessly. This is the Japanese arcade version.

      Interestingly, Capcom programmed two 1CC staff rolls for this game. There is a very short one if you do not lose a round. It only lists the staff on a bunch of static screens. The other is more cinematic as it shows the characters fighting, and it plays if you lost at least one round. I wondered why the longer staff roll gets triggered if you have lost a round. At first, I thought it may have been a programming error, but there is a better explanation: if you did not lose a round, you have probably seen the longer (unskippable) staff roll plenty of times. Thus, it is no longer a reward for the player. On a side note, players who required more than one credit to reach the end of the game do not get to see the staff roll.

      I may try getting a 1CC with some of the other characters as well. In any case, I see myself playing this game for quite a while. In addition, I made a shortlist of arcade games to dedicate some time to. Several of these games I have played quite extensively in the past already, but there is a big difference between being reasonably competent at a game and getting a 1CC. It is also an easy trap to believe that just because you can play each stage well enough most of the time, or sometimes even perfectly when practicing, you will be able to quickly string together a 1CC. A 1CC run is not the sum of your best segmented performances over the course of a game.

    2. “It is also an easy trap to believe that just because you can play each stage well enough most of the time, or sometimes even perfectly when practicing, you will be able to quickly string together a 1CC. A 1CC run is not the sum of your best segmented performances over the course of a game.”

      I do feel practice mode has its place, but I have certainly found that when it comes down to the heat of the moment that it is much easier to make a mistake. Segmented practices such as attempting a level or opponent, then taking a breath before going back over the same sequence over and over again is certainly less intensive then playing the game as intended. The one game I really did this with was DDPDOJ mobile edition. You can start a practice run on the final level, for example, at full power with 3 lives, yet in reality you may reach the final stage with only some of those resources. This makes reliance on skill much more of a factor in such moments.

    3. I have played through this version of SF II with Ryu, Ken, Blanka, E. Honda and Guile thus far. My only 1CC has been with Ryu, though. A playthrough with Chun Li would be an interesting challenge. As a kid, I could play quite well with her in the SNES version. I think I even managed to achieve a 1CC at the highest difficulty level.

    4. You guys ever noticed that Asians get very ethnocentric about this game? If you play the arcade versions they HATE losing to White guys. Most aren’t even Japanese lol. In SoCal it’s mostly Vietnamese and Filipinos. They just think they are better at it.

    5. This seems to be true for all races. I recall seeing some footage of urban gentlemen not reacting well to getting their clock cleaned by a white guy. For some strange reason, there seem to even be tournaments that either exclusively cater to urban gentlemen or just happen to attract a very large number of them.

    6. Also, is there an etiquette to this game? I had this Asian dude stunned in the corner (you know, when you can’t move back any more). So I threw a hurricane kick, knowing when he came to and blocked, he’d still get KO’d. He said, “you did me dirty.”. WTF?

    7. SFII is still being played online via Fightcade. The revision SFII: Hyper Fighting can be played online also officially via the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary collection. The only etiquette I am aware of is that certain characters are banned from tournaments because they are overpowered, such as Akuma/Gouki in Super SFII Turbo, but never moves or tactics. For instance, there is a tactic in SFII called “tick throws”, which is quite nasty but a competent player can avoid it. Yet, this is not a broken tactic, even though it was perhaps not intended by the developer. Instead, you can find it in a lot of fighting games, decades later. Even SF VI has them.

    8. “you did me dirty”

      I’d assume he was probably just poking fun at his own situation and pwnage, but you probably would have been able to tell if that were the case.

      Probably was just sheer frustrated and being a sore loser at that moment would be my guess. some people take this stuff really seriously, enough that they even want to fist fight about it if things don’t go their way:

      Fighting definitely has its time and place. This is not one of them. Immature trash talking I’m sure has much to do with these incidents though.

    9. In college I had a couple of roommates who would bitch and whine when I would school them. I always used Ryu and would continuously throw fire balls at them. And if they jumped at me I would simply round house them. They saw it as “cheating”. Or that I didn’t attack. As if fire balls aren’t a form of attack. I asked him, “how do you want to get your ass kicked?” So I jumped at him, punched, kicked, swept, threw. And he stilled cried and bitched 😆

      He would call my system “ghetto” because by then Sega Genesis was “outdated.” He didn’t even have a system of his own.

    10. I completely forgot but I once beat the crap out of this guy at MK7 so bad he threw and empty beer bottle and smashed it on the ground.

    11. When I read MK7 my first association is with Mario Kart 7. That game was mostly played online, which connects to a Mike Tyson quote Maou brought up before (“Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.”). There is sometimes horrible online etiquette, but this is primarily because of people knowing that there will be no real-world consequences. Thus, you have people “teabagging” their downed opponent, both in shooters and fighting games. In a face-to-face match, though, you would not needlessly provoke an opponent and instead resort to deescalation tactics, which, in your case, led to the guy merely smashing a beer bottle on the ground and not throwing it at you, or worse.

    12. Man, sometimes its easy to forget just how petty and low class the average person is when you’re an introvert whose interests are mostly non-mainstream. (I was into anime, video games and martial arts long before they started being considered “cool”) I’ve talked about my unreasonable uncle before, but thinking about it, he’s a pretty good representative of the average loser. Petty, an “expert” on the flaws of others yet zero sense of self-reflection, etc.

      I’ll consider that a good thing though. they say you are the average of every 5 people you hangout with. Hopefully its rubbing off of me. lol.

      Maybe the reason these folks have no chill is because they have nothing else to be proud of. you beat their asses in a video game that they (think) they are good at, and all of a sudden their entire world falls apart!

      I don’t get petty when I get clowned on in sparring (and that feels and IS literally a hella lot more up close and personal than getting your ass kicked in a video game), because I don’t define my self-worth and identity (even though I talk about MA a lot) at how good I am at it. (and because my training partners are mature about it) I’ve accomplished other things that I take pride in. and somebody being better at a specific thing than me doesn’t take away from what I’ve accomplished.

      http://aaronsleazy.blogspot.com/2013/10/friendships-in-real-world.html

      Oldie Goldie by Aaron!

    13. I had a roommate years ago that was better at video games than anyone I’ve ever met. But sucked at everything else. This loser could never make rent on time.

      We played lots of games but I was better at Tiger Woods Golf. I held the record for the best round of our apartment and all of our friends. He beat it one day……..with one problem. The deal was that we had to play randomized courses. That way nobody could just memorize a course. But that’s exactly what he did. With the excuse that Pebble Beach is a really tough course. No course is that tough if you’ve played it a thousand times.

    14. I agree with u guys about toxic people online. One time playing Tiger Woods online, I thought I could play on Expert. “Hey,” I said to myself, I’ve won multiple championships against the computer on Expert.” I didn’t realize I’d face greens that resembled the Grand Canyon. Completely unrealistic. I took too many puts to put it in the hole and some loser said, “fucking idiot.” This guy probably played this game 24/7 in his mom’s basement. Explains the skills and social isolation/skills.

      I learned this early in my message board days. These people are not normal. Even if you try to make peace with them they will continue to attack you. The only thing that stops them is when they get arrested for a school shooting. I’m exaggerating, but u get the point. They can’t function in normal society.

    15. This is a very valid point. The level of autism you encounter online is often beyond the charts, with people dissecting games, and movies, at a level that I find quite alienating. Years ago I played through the two Western-released Fire Emblem games for the Gameboy Advance, and when I looked up discussions on strategies, I came across an FAQ for the first one of these games that described exactly how to move which character for optimal play. Thus, to be really good at it, you basically memorize, or simply copy, a fixed sequence of inputs. From the shmup community I know of guys who spend many hours per day for years in order to compete for top spots in the leaderboard. On one hand, I admire this level of dedication but on the other I hope that these guys have a self-image that goes at least a little bit beyond being one of the top 3 players in the world of some rather obscure game.

    16. Speaking of golf games, are you familiar with the Everybody’s Golf series? I own one of them for the PlayStation 3. They are quite well-made but I hardly put any time into them.

    17. I think South Park lost relevancy once the show became too reactive. I recall some episodes where they provided commentary on ongoing political events, which is probably a bride too far. The first few seasons I quite enjoyed, though.

    18. @Aaron

      I’ve never played Everybody’s Golf, but thanks for the suggestion. I’m getting a little sick of Tiger Woods. It’s really just a way to kill time. Play a round, here and there, down a beer. The only difference in TW games is graphics, which is why I never bought a new PS. But your suggestion is right up my alley because of graphics. Thanks, man.

    19. Not to get sappy, but the crew here is the only place I feel comfortable communicating online. Cheers to everyone. Thanks for running such a quality site, Aaron. 😊

    20. I concur GLAS. Not too long ago, I saw a reddit thread where a guy was asking about what to do about a female friend who was giving him mixed signals. Everybody was giving the standard politically correct safe but ineffective advise of giving her space, and that anything less than absolute enthusiastic reciprocation means “no”.

      And you know what? In an ideal world, where women didn’t play these damned plausible deniability games, this would be indeed be the right thing to do to ensure everybody’s well-being and satisfaction. Sadly, we don’t live in this ideal world. It’d be one thing if you just didn’t get laid from not taking the risk. But you get shit-talked and called a cowardly faggot behind your back for not “risking being creepy”.

      In fact, any discussions about “escalation” done in mainstream circles get dim views, as if you are a sleazy (pun intended) seedy creep for even daring to think about it.

      This is one of the only places where this reality is acknowledged and discussed upon.

    21. That’s so true Maou. I showed that video I’ve linked to here on Scotty’s physical escalation to my friend, and he compared it to rape! I mean, seriously? I guess we live in a different (real) world.

  3. Have you guys played “Blasphemous”? It seems to be inspired by Christian mythology with very christian names for bosses such as “the exhumed archbishop”. The design is very nice but its gameplay does not seem to hold upwith old games of the same genre Sleazy enjoys playing.

  4. Aaron, I moved this conversation over here so as to not hijack your original topic any further.

    “Congratulations on not only getting a 1CC but a 1LC! Drainus looks pretty good, but I have not played it myself. If you like horizontal shooters, check out Natsuki Chronicles on Steam. I like it a lot. This game gets discounted heavily during sales events. A better game is probably Deathsmiles, which is also on Steam. My favorite horizontal shmup is Progear, though, which is only available via emulation.”

    Drainus is one of the better looking horizontals, I think. I’ve heard it described as euroshmup-y, but I think it was a lot of fun. It’s one of the first shmups I really committed to besides Caladrius Blaze.

    I also 100% Natsuki’s story mode a while back as well. It’s really fun, but I haven’t even booted up the arcade mode. As far as Qute shmups go, I also really enjoyed Eschatos. Fun fact: I actually 1CC’d it via Switch on very easy mode after about 5 tries, and got into the top however many hundred score rating (I’m think about 500) a few slots above where it cuts off. I don’t know if that means that only 500 people total even have scores or if I did pretty decent by cracking the top 500.

    I also have only barely played Death Smiles on mobile. Since getting into Dark Souls I haven’t played any shmups, but I anticipate getting back into them at some point.

    1. Regarding your top 500 sore in Eschatos: I am under the impression that not a lot of people buy shmups and of those, only a small number play them with at least a modicum of dedication. Thus, it is entirely plausible to me that both conditions are true, i.e. only a few hundred people were eligible to submit a score but by doing that you already cemented yourself probably somewhere in the top 5 to 10 percent of the player base. These games normally only sell a few thousand copies. Probably most people who buy physical editions do not even unwrap the game, or they may buy two copies: one to open and play once or twice, and another as a collector’s item.

  5. My favorite fighting games were the UFC ones. I quit playing them because you had to buy the PS4 to play the new one, so I said fuck it. I would dominate on “very hard” difficulty level. But could only break top ten on “expert.” Never played online.

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