Kaiosama TLJ

Well, it seems that Ross mastered the technique of missing the ground mentioned in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. Congratulations! Speaking of RPGs that make you hunger for XP, I would add Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines to the list. You only earn XP by completing the main story quests and sidequests, and some have multiple solutions, but certain solutions grant more XP than others.

Lucas gaining super powers and becoming "superman-zombie-jesus" in Indigo Prophecy could be a comparison to use with the whole "fox-anime-girl" twist at the end. But on a second thought it's a completely unfair one because at least Yuppie Psycho starts as a horror-mystery and stays that way for the most part, while Indigo Prophecy just changes completely it's genre. (and is also indecisive of what genre it wants to be) Also Ross, I think the anime clips you used to express your opinion about anime expressions are kind of a weak example because I've watched a lot of anime starting from the 90's (but stopped especially when "moe" started to become more prevalent), and while I didn't watched the anime you showed, I can say these expressions are completely "tame" and "mudane" compared to... I don't know... Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Sakura Cardcaptor, Saint Seiya, and list goes on... Actually, if you think that the "anime expressions" you showed rubs you the wrong way, I think you've have a heart attack if you try to watch One Piece. And this not a me taking a piss on those examples, it's just that I think you are overreacting a little. But I have to admit that I have some grudge with some anime-inspired works in general, especially indie games since those tend to lack a dedicated writer. I can see most of them are a labor of love, but love can also be blind as they say. You can see they really love anime, but they seem to treat anime more like a "genre" rather than a medium, and a result they tend to copy a lot of anime tropes to the letter, and the end result is a paradox: It has creativity and heart, but it's also extremely derivative because the creators basically went with the mentality of "I want to create an anime" rather than "I want to create a story/game". And honestly, I find that to be disservice to anime in general, since most classics were heavily inspired by western media (also, Labyrinth and Stargate are proof that Japan didn't invent isekai), so it's okay to be inspired by anime in my opinion, but it's also not an excuse to branch out and think a little more out of the box. That said, I would also give this game the "Accidental Genius" award. The creator really wanted to have a anime story involving a "cute-demon-fox-girl", but even they know that this cannot exist in a vaccum, so they created this whole "corporate horror" asthetic as a setting for that to happen. But the setting ended up more interesting for the eyes of non-weebs than the narrative they wanted to build, and would be even better in the hands of a writer that knows what they are doing.

In a unexpected twist of fate, this game is going to get a remaster: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1733170/Killing_Time_Resurrected/

Ok, giving a kid a candy covered in playdoh to go foward in a investigation does remind me of something... I would say she's probably related to a certain Scotland Yard detective who was investigating some druids or something... And here's an interesting comment I found on the Youtube's comment section that could be interesting for a follow-up episode: Maybe the "war" they were talking about at the end of the game was against an imminent rebel attack, and maybe the fashion consulant dropping those truth bombs could be something that was kept from the source material. But that's just a theory of mine since I didn't read them.

Titan Quest * Heracles Journey to the East - For a game that's strongly rooted in Greek mythology, going to China and even meeting the Yellow Emperor (a chinese mythological figure) was completely unexpected. (no complaints though) * Best Game for Overqualified Professionals - Dual Mastery is a essential feature of this game. The only thing close to a "pure" Warrior class in this game is Defense+Warfare, which is already a Dual Mastery combination, so the point is mute. Freedom Planet * Contender for the most relaxing Menu Music - Just listen: I do say "contender" however because it would be the "most" if Hotline Miami didn't exist: * +5 Shock Value - This game is trying way too hard to be both a complex and melodramatic story and a simple and cheesy adventure, but not only both efforts are left to be desired, they both end up clashing real bad, to the point where they end up ruining otherwise dramatic moments not only with a hammy delivery... * Deus Ex Lavacrum - ...but also with a quick fix they took out of their a**. Main character gets captured and tortured in a electrical device to the point of having burn scars? Don't worry, she will take a bath later and everything will be fine, and apparently baths also wash away possible PTSD's. * Somebody Cared - This game is a Sonic spiritual successor (in fact, it started as a Sonic fan-game), and also got inspiration from the Sparkster series. It have a amazing soundtrack and even do gameplay stuff better than Sonic in my opinion (at least if you play as Lilac), so I could see some passion went on this project. But it also explains why the plot is a mess, because they tried way to hard to mimic the "good old days" of the "Adventure" era in terms of writing through pure nostagia blindness (I would say it sounds more like a Sonic fanfic, but even Sonic "canon" got into that territory at times). And the result we have are clashing tones, a plot with too many "complex" elements that could be discarded, and many characters that try way too hard to be "plucky" but end up being more annoying than Antoine (and not even Lord Brevon saves this game because, let's be honest, I've seem psychopatic villains elsewhere that are more engaging than him). Not saying that trying to create a more complex story for a game is forbidden, it's just that I feel that GalaxyTrail underestimated how hard writing can actually be. (the progammer did the plot last time I've checked)

That's a tough one to be honest, but this is ons that came up in my head at the moment: (more later) * I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (PC) - Ok, even though I liked the story of this game I must give a warning that it's NOT for everyone, especially since this is a old point-and-click adventure game (not going to judge you if you end up using a guilde, I did that to for some parts at least), and it touches unconfortable themes. It's based around the short story of the same name by Harlan Ellison, and he even had some involvement in the production of this game. It's about a "what if" scenario where after the Cold War things excalated to World War III, and AM (short for Allied Mastercomputer) was a supercomputer that was created to manage logistics and the war in general, but he got self-aware (and deciding to adopt the name AM as now a reference to the quote "I think, therefore I am" by Descartes) and decided to destroy humanity, with the exception of five humans (which are either bad people or have psycological problems, or both) which he even granted immortality so he could torture them for eternity to exercise is endless hatred on humans. The game centers around you playing as these five characters, one at a time, to experience AM next sadistic game. Beyond some of the puzzles, I think the voice acting aged quite poorly in some parts, with the exception of AM, that's voiced by Harlan Ellison himself, and he does a really great job. Sidenote: If anyone here saw the Amazing Digital Circus show on Youtube, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is one of it's biggest inspirations.

Not gonna lie, for some reason the floating goblin head saying random stuff to the kid reminded me of MacBeatnik from Total Distortion:

I must admit that when Zanthia uses her floating shoes this is the only thing that I can think of: And Red Herring King? Pfft! I think this game would be dethroned easily by Jack Orlando.

FTL: Faster Than Light * Interesting portrayal of a rebel faction - They are the bad guys, and by the little you see them you can see they are basically KKK in space (but without the robes). Very rare to see a rebel faction potrayed this way in a video game other than the stock "romanticized freedom fighters". * Space trolley - This game is basically trolley problems in space. Is one tough decision after the other, and some can be questionable... * Love and Hate - Never beated this game on Normal due to how difficult it is, and even on Easy you can lose a lot.

The AAA industry seal of quality ladies and gentlemen.

I think Batocera could be a good addition to this thread. It's a standalone linux operating system that basically turns your PC into a retro-gaming console. It's not that hard to configurate the basics, but I could indicate a channel with tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/@BatoceraNation

Did I'm the only one that remembers this thread? Anyway, considering that Ross brough back awards in the recent episode, I think I'll bump this one. Mystic Towers * Best videogame grampa - Well, I don't know if he has grandsons/grandaughters, but the fact that he goes alone to twelve towers infested with monsters to face it's perils to clean up the mess of his evil ancestor (even if reluctanly) at his age is enough to give him this award. * Best weird creatures: I rarely see games with a collection of monsters were some (if not all) are like this, and I'm all for it. * All-time favorite - Hard game, especially in the Master towers, but would play again with no objections.

"Put David Cage on a leash" is a appropriate award considering the allegations against him. You pointed out in the beginning that the controls feels like it was meant to a gamepad, and you are not off the mark here. This game first came out to the Playstation 2 and the original Xbox, so that might explain your feeling about the controls. As for the game, I think one problem of this game is it boils down to David Cage not knowing how to "kill his darlings". The core aspect about it being a murder mystery where you play through the point of view of both the criminal and the investigators is actually quite good, even with the supernatural involved, but then it carpet bombs it's premise with rogue AIs, matrix slapfights, zombie sex, and the list goes on... I think if it toned down the supernatural elements (by having Lucas only gaining the ability to see the future and not the "jedi" powers, for example) and removed the rogue AI plot, it would have enough elements to focus on creating an interesting story. But then again, it's "one" problem. After all, it's David "Judge me by my work" Cage we're talking about. And speaking of David Cage... Well, even though you gave a plausible excuse to not be much aware of him, I don't think it's enough because hearing about him once in a lifetime can go beyond playing is games, especially depending on your stance on "videogames being art". One reason being that he's infamous for advocating a lot for the videogame industry to "grow up" and become more "mature" with it's storytelling (and even became a darling to many game journalists because of that), and he's also infamous because he was memed a lot by people with functional braincells because, to put it frankly, his games are the complete opposite of what he tells the industry should be. Where I want to get at is that Indigo Prophecy is not a one-off. It may be a one-off on general batshit insanity, but plenty of the writing problems do carry over to his future games (I've heard that one reason for Detroit for having better writing in comparison was because the actors that played Connor and Hank improvised against David's wishes). I think I will try to stay vague for now, because I want to see your reaction towards the rest of his games, but I will finish with this: The best way I can sum up David Cage writing is that he writes like a 14 year old that recently discovered about the concept of pathos and pop culture and thinks that "boobs + heavy themes + stuff from his favorite movies" automatically makes a "mature" story. Also, others summed him up as "Hideo Kojima, but stupid". I'll also left these gifts for you when you eventually check out the rest of his games, they will be useful on the journey ahead: (on a sidenote, if anyone is interested in seeing this experience, I recommend checking out the Super Best Friends let's play of this game, and they also did every David Cage game)

Hmm... I think I remember seeing this game before. The moment I saw the FMV with the guard arguing with the other guy about the ammo it gave me a deja vu. Maybe it was one of those games I saw someone else play at a brief glance and it became buried deep in my memory. Anyway, the way this game progression is designed reminds me of Hexen. Although, at least in Hexen there was teleporters and shortcuts you could open, so you don't need to backtrack that much. As for you being confused about the way time was frozen in the island, think it more like everything stopped aging rather than a literal timestop. An example I could think of my head is the pocket dimension inhabited by Death in Diskworld lore. You could tecnically become immortal if you lived there alongside Death (like Albert, Death's manservant), but that's because the hourglass that measures how much time you have left to live pauses when you step on that realm. Considering Tess's plan was about being young and beautiful forever, I think that's what sort of what happened to the isle. Time still passes, but it does not progress or end.

Took the words straight out of my mind, I was also going to point this out. It feels like they wanted to copy what was popular at the time (in this case, both X-COM and C&C), but failed to realize what made what they were copying good to begin with. And speaking of C&C again... The idea of creating a RTS game with a non-linear campaing where you do research and build bases outside of combat is a neat idea, and Kane's Wrath ended up doing this better than this game years later with it's Global Conquest mode. I would say that "explains a lot" is a big understatement considering who we are talking about.

I saw a link somewhere in the post, didn't clicked because I was paranoid about malware or something else of the nature. I saw plenty of those bots before, they are not trying to be upfront about what they promote, so they "try" to be on topic so they can sneak a link somewhere. Of course, the biggest giveaway is that, well... they have a "exotic" choices of words to say at least. But I could say that's quite enough to someone to click on the link out of curiosity.

It's a spam bot, better ignore it if you want to preserve your sanity.

Once again Gordon Freeman Ross graces us with another Game Dungeon. About your sensation of they making up the story as they go, I would say it's more like they're dumping lore because they are fully expecting the player to already know about it. The reason why is because this is a licensed game based on a tabletop franchise, also named Mage Knight. Here's a link to the Wikipedia page if you are curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mage_Knight But then again, I could say it's also a bad way to introduce any potential new fans to the franchise. It can also explain why the story is lackluster because being a licensed game means that the developers either didn't had the freedom they wanted due to mandates, or they didn't really cared much since it was just "another day at the office" for them (and considering the overall quality of this game, I'm leaning towards the latter). And I don't know if this game is accurate to the lore or not because it's a franchise that I think I've heard once before in my life, and nothing beyond that. I also found out that this wasn't the only video game based on the Mage Knight franchise, there was a Nintendo DS turn based strategy game called Mage Knight: Destiny's Soldiers, and it was also published in the same year. (did heard it sucks also) Once I saw that, I knew exactly what kind of frustration was in store for Ross. Although, I could say that The Chosen had more "soul" than Mage Knight, if you excuse the pun.

The Neverhood One of my favorite point-and-click adventure games, despite some frustrating puzzles. It's one of the many (like Grim Fandango) that despite being well received, it bombed commercially. And I think this one might be right on Ross's alley since it's about you dicovering who you are and the strange world around you. Also, it has a room full of lore, and I mean FULL of it. This game also got a sequel called Skullmonkeys, that's exclusive to the PS1, and it's a more traditional platformer. Fallout series After watching Ross's videos on the first 3 Deus Ex games, I can't think of a franchise that also deserves that treatment that is not Fallout. Well, I could say Hbomberguy already done the Deus Ex treatment, but it could be interesting to hear Ross take on it.

Even in the first game? Because I finished that game's story (actually, the first game is the only one I've played) and nothing of that nature happened. I decided to quickly check the wiki and it says there that they only appear in the second one.

The Rioter/Looter situation reminds me somewhat of the White Fang from RWBY: They could've been a more nuanced antagonist considering the fact that the Faunus were "supposedly" being opressed, but not only the writers messed up badly on showing the actual oppresion, they also made then into generic cartoon villains, and one of them can have his personality literally be summed up as "angry ex-boyfriend". Black Tusk? I don't remember a group with that name in the game. If I recall correctly, the PMC was called Last Man Battalion. (LMB)

Ok, I have a lot to unpack on this one, since I've played it from beginning to end (except the DLC missions), but first: Merry Christimas. First off, the flamethrower boss. You need to shoot him enough times on one of his fuel tanks so they will explode, it will not kill him but will deal a lot of damage and destroy his armor. I could say you messed up, but I also have to agree that this is poorly explained by the game itself. (although it shows a yellow marker when you hit it) As for story, well... First, some details are better explained in logs you find spread out in the city in typical Ubisoft open-world fashion, but it's still poorly explained in typical Ubisoft open-world fashion, so I don't blame you for trying to understand the game's story just by playing the main missions. But of course, the premise is executed in a very bland way. There's socio-political themes floating around, but nothing is explored properly, and all characters are forgettable. But there's a good reason for that, you gave it the award "Secret Genius?" and I could say there's one, but it's not what you think. The "secret genius" is that the themes and overall idea of the premise are not there because it has a meaningful message to say, they are there to fool you into thinking there's a meaningful message. In other words, they are there to make the plot sound "deep". Believe me, I can tell from experience that this hack writing tactic can work sometimes, especially if you are younger and/or don't have much clue about this stuff, just like bikini armor does to the mind of a horny teenager. Still pressing "X" to doubt? Why don't take a look back at The Crew? Sure, it was a complete different beast compared to The Division, but it was trying to be a more "mature" drama story in a video game. Because, according to some people at least, video game plots usually suck. And that's a trend that I'm noticing a LOT with AAA games over the decades: They are trying way to hard to make the games feel more "cinematic", and not just with brown filters, but also with writing. Don't get me wrong, I do think video games CAN have good writing if given the chance, but that will not happen if we still are trying to write them like movies. Which makes me think it could be a good idea for you to cover a David Cage game. Because for a guy that ranted a lot about the industry needing to "mature", his plots are juvenile. (especially Indigo Prophecy)

Because of the high pitch at the beginning, and you listen to that track a lot. Also, I totally forgot about the abomination you mentioned, that's the result of placing a mental block of how bad that entire soundtrack was.

A lot of tracks from Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood qualify, this one being one of the worst offenders IMO: And there's also the theme for Haud Village in Suikoden V, but I don't think this one could count since it's intentionally bad (it's a theme for a village full of excentric wannabe artists, so it fits): Fun fact: One reason of why this one is so bad is because it was composed by Mamoru Samuragochi, a famous composer at the time. However, it was revealed that all his previous works were ghostwritten by another composer (Takashi Niigaki), and he lied about being deaf. (which his something that came up to give more "mystique" to his carrer)

Remember when games tried yo rip you off just by being hard so you would waste quarters? I remember, and if feel way less than a robbery compared to this.