PixlBit

WiiU

Looking back now, was it really that difficult?

The only Castlevania game that I gave up on was Order of Ecclesia on DS. I felt the game was a bit too hard at the time for whatever reason, and there was this weird mechanic introduced in the beginning of the game where you used a magnet power up, which created a sphere of magic around you and you had to hold down a button combination to sling yourself across the stage. I got used to it of course, but then you were required to also do this during a boss fight and I just wasn’t feeling it. Thus, I gave up. Revisiting the game now, I still feel that magnetic pinball power-up to be a bit annoying, but I definitely love the rest of the game regardless. It is more of a throwback to the original stage-by-stage Castlevania template rather than the large interconnected world of Symphony of the Night and other games like it on DS. That’s exactly what I was looking for. I nice little throwback in a franchise I enjoy. It’s like a retro remake of a classic like Megan Man 9 & 10, or maybe dare I say Might No. 9?

Anyhow, this game is very Darks Souls 2 and Bloodborne—in atmosphere and level design. Sure, there are plenty of influences in Dark Souls from other genres, but it’s pretty cool to see a pixelated action game with the weapons variety, level design, boss fights and feel of a Souls game. I guess I can appreciate it more now looking back. I still think it is pretty difficulty, especially the boss fights. The game is definitely giving me a retro challenge I hadn’t experienced in quite a long time.

I got Dragon Age Inquisition for like $8 on PSN. I enjoy the series and need to finish it, but the open world direction just put me off. I would have preferred a more directed experience like DA2 or at least something similar to DA1, but maybe this game has something in it that will make me like open worlds, or keep on hating them, I don't know? I'm not that excited to see Zelda go Skyrim, or HD versions of Skyrim for that matter. I need an entry point I suppose. Xenoblade chronicles was great, as well as FF12, but those games weren't empty and always gave you somthing to do, like in an MMO. I might be confusing Open Worlds with Sandboxes, as these two words are used interchangeably.

I'll see ya'll after 100 hours of Inquisition, or 10 if I get bored...

 
Only 4 dungeons?

I hesitate making this blog on this site because I know most of you are either console-only gamers or retro gamers, which I am also, but most of you probably won’t care about the little old ‘PC Show’ that aired between MS and Ubisoft conferences. Nick Dimola tweeted something about consoles being dead and I was like, why? You didn’t like the MS games? They looked pretty sweet, and I don’t even own an xbox. Then I watched the MS conference in full, and basically most every console exclusive is coming to Windows10, and there is cross-buy and cross-play in some cases which basically turns Xbox into more of a gaming service more than a console. So, most XBox games are coming to PC, most Indie games are already on PC or at least start off there. Japan is releasing more and more games on Steam, like Final Fantasy etc. Then there are games on PC that may or may not go to console. The PC is in a pretty advantageous position right now if you’re a gamer that wants to sample a bit of everything right now, and some would argue always has been, but I also love my console and portable games so it’s not true for me. I’m not a PCMaserRace snob at all, but as a gaming enthusiast, I want to play every type of games. I’ve even setup DosBox, if you don’t know what that is, don’t ask. It is severely nerdy to discuss and I feel shame admitting it.

Grabbed this from PC Gamer site. E3 starts Sunday afternoon with EA then later Bethesda, MS/Sony Monday, Square Enix Tues.

All the excitement around new Doom got me hyped for playing "Hard Reset Redux" on PC.  I remember the game came out a while ago, if you don't know Hard Reset is a first person shooter with a cyber punk setting. It's a fairly simple and old school design with a wonderful art style. Sometimes I just want to shoot a bunch of robots instead of zombies or soldiers. I prefer playing FPS games on PC rather than console, and my PC cant really handle newer big releases so I like that I can play a fun new great looking shooter at full settings with no slowdown. It's very arcadey. I'd have to play Doom on PS4 if I was really interested, but Hard Reset on Steam is fine for now.

If you don't know already, there is an Odinsphere demo available on PS4 right now and it lets you  play through a couple of small stages and two boss fights with 5 different characters and it looks amazing and all the different classes are different enough to make multiple playthroughs worth while. If you missed out on the beautiful 2D game on PS2, here is a chance to play it in full glory. The demo is short but fun.