Video Games are awesome

[Sparky Prime]

My oldest daughter really enjoyed the first Hollow Knight. I played it a bit and liked it, but never got very far.

I got pretty close to the end of the game, but didn't quite finish it. I only had one more Dreamer I needed to break the seal of to unlock the final boss. I know where the Dreamer is, but I don't know how to get to it. I'm sure it's just a hidden path or something, but it's a difficult area to explore, so I put it off and didn't get around to it again.

[andersonh1]

My oldest daughter really enjoyed the first Hollow Knight. I played it a bit and liked it, but never got very far.

I got pretty close to the end of the game, but didn't quite finish it. I only had one more Dreamer I needed to break the seal of to unlock the final boss. I know where the Dreamer is, but I don't know how to get to it. I'm sure it's just a hidden path or something, but it's a difficult area to explore, so I put it off and didn't get around to it again.

It's a tough game in areas. It's well-crafted and aesthetically beautiful as well. There are some talented people out there.

[Sparky Prime]

It's a tough game in areas. It's well-crafted and aesthetically beautiful as well. There are some talented people out there.

Absolutely. City of Tears in-particular is one of my top favorite areas of any video game for how beautiful it is and how soothing the music.

[Sparky Prime]

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

Edit: Rewriting everything now that I'm near the end...

The story:

Spoiler

Samus is called in to help defend a Galactic Federation outpost that is under attack by the Space Pirates, lead by Sylux (who somehow has a new breed of Metroids that can merge and enhance the body of another being). Their goal is to take an artifact the GF discovered, which is hit by a stray shot and activates, teleporting everything around it to an unknown planet.

Samus' suit malfunctions (resetting her abilities for this game), and she receives a psychic gem, allowing her to interact with Lamorn technology. The Lamorn are basically extinct, having accidently transformed their race into monsters with "green energy" they were hoping would make their world safer for them. But they left behind recordings so that one day their "chosen one" would arrive to bring their legacy (the memory fruit) to another world. So Samus needs to gather a number of keys for their teleportation technology (which is the only way off the planet either way), as well as green energy crystals in order to access the memory fruit. However, the game is not clear that the green crystals are required to get the memory fruit at the beginning.

I'm underwhelmed by the abilities in this game. For the most part, they just add "psychic" to abilities Samus gets in any other Metroid Prime game. Psychic scan visor. Psychic boots. Psychic bombs. Psychic spider ball. And so on. Some of them may add something, like being able to suspend a morphball bomb in midair, then use the psychic grab, and throw it at an object. But for the most part, it's the typical abilities Samus normally has. There is a somewhat new ability in the psychic beam that acts sorta like a guided missile but is annoying to control, and it really doesn't get much use. I don't like how they handled the elemental (fire, ice and electricity) shots in this game. First you have to collect a chip, and then bring it back to base camp for a GF trooper to install it for Samus. These swap out with the missiles rather than the power beam, and require ammo to shoot. There's also upgrades for these weapons in various 'shrines' allowing them to be charged.

Annoyingly, some enemies the game wants you to target a certain weak spot, but doesn't lock onto directly. So, the game will lock onto the main body, and you have to use the "free aim" function to hit the specific spot. You can do this manually with the right control stick or motion controls, but I always feel like I'm fighting against the game this way. I find it easier to just aim myself.

It's obvious they wanted this to be somewhat of an open world game with a desert hub area that connects a forest, volcano, ice mountain, power/manufacturing plant and underground mine area. Unfortunately, how it's implemented doesn't work well and makes this feel small for a Metroid game. The desert is mostly empty, which you're meant to drive the motorcycle around in, collecting green crystals. The motorcycle, for being the main gimmick of this game, really doesn't get much to highlight it. Besides the desert, the only other area you can use it in is part of the volcano, needing it to hover over some lava, and half the boss fight. The other areas also feel fairly straightforward, not offering much for different paths and exploration like Metroid games usually do.

Samus gets some help in the form of several Galactic Federation troopers. Kinda reminds me of Other M, except these characters are featured more. I don't mind this as an idea, but how it's implemented is not great. One of these guys acts as the hint system to push Samus in the direction to go, but it's too heavy handed. He immediately tells Samus where to go after each objective is completed. It was really annoying just after getting the motorcycle... At first he said I could chose anywhere to explore for the teleport keys, but that was a lie, as just after he said that, he suggests going to the volcano.

I wish the Metroids were better utilized. We only see one at the beginning of the game take over the first boss. Given the weak points the other bosses have, it's implied they were similarly infected, but we don't see it happen. And, I'm not sure why. I guess the Metroid is supposed to make them stronger and loyal to Sylux, but it just doesn't seem necessary to me. If anything, the weak points they gain as a result is more of a flaw. Sylux is also not really seen much. Two of the boss fights with him turn out to be a security robot using a holographic image of him.

Collecting the Green Crystals to get the Legacy Suit/Memory Fruit is annoying. I know a lot of people complain about the relics/keys of the previous Prime games, but this is so much more tedious. This is something I think they indented for players to be collecting throughout the game, which I did, but you're going to be grinding for them no matter what.

I am still enjoying playing the game for the most part. But it is apparent there was trouble during the development, making this feel somewhat rushed and incomplete from what it could have been.

Spoiler

The 100% rewards breaks from the Metroid Prime tradition of a post-credits scene hinting at a future game. Although, there is an extra cutscene of Sylux back when he was apparently a regular GF Trooper. He commanded a mission that went bad. I guess it's meant to show why he hates Samus so much, but... Samus just happens to show up and help out. It's not a strong enough scene or reason to justify his motivation. The other reward is Samus without her helmet in the final scene.

[andersonh1]

When I was in college, I made an effort to preserve a lot of my old PC games by copying the floppy disks to a CD. Most of these were games that ran in DOS, so needless to say I haven't seen them in 25 years. I downloaded DoxBox X the other night and sampled a bunch of those old games. A few still won't run, because of course in the old days of copy protection the game needed the disk in the drive to run, and I obviously don't have a floppy disk drive on my computer. But many of them required a word from the game manual (I still have them all in a box... those old manuals were too nicely made to contemplate throwing away!) meaning I can dig them out and play if I want. It's amazing how many of these games were still familiar, down to the opening screens and the music and the gameplay. So what did I sample? Here's a list, and if you've never heard of most of these, I'm not surprised. I miss the days of going to the mall of going to Babbage's or Electronics Botique and browsing the latest PC games.

- Barbarian
- Blood Money
- Castlevania
- Dark Sun Shattered Lands
- Double Dragon 3
- Duck Tales The Quest for Gold
- Impossible Mission 2
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Loom
- Menace
- Populous
- Riders of Rohan
- Risk
- Ultima 8
- Zany Golf
- Weird Dreams
- Zeliard

My daughter and I spent a couple of hours just sitting there enjoying exploring what these old games looked like. Great fun!

[andersonh1]

I've really gotten back into "Champions of Krynn", one of the gold box D&D games from SSI. I had a lot of fun with these back in the day, and I can see why, replaying it after all these years. The graphics are pretty primitive, all things considered, but the game is addictive regardless. I bought a set off Steam, which includes some nice modern additions to make it a little more playable, including digitized versions of all the manuals and some other interface enhancements outside of DOSbox, which is what actually runs the game. My youngest daughter's been sitting there watching and enjoying the game as well.