Dark Bahamut and Dark Yojimbo Fights

Confused About Retro

So I've joined a couple of retro gaming groups on Facebook recently and thanks to their stream of delightful posts now filling up my feed it got me wondering, just what constitutes a "retro" game? 

When I think about retro I think about stuff that looks like this 

This 

Or this 

Hell, I guess at this point you could even consider PS2 kind of retro although I hate to admit that because it makes me very much aware of just how old I'm getting.  

What I found interesting is when a post came up saying "What retro RPG would you like a remake of".  The usual slew of SNES games and things like that came up but then one guy came along and said "Lost Odyssey".  This made me raise an eyebrow because that game is on X Box 360, surely that can't be retro, I mean look at it

At first glance it doesn't exactly scream retro does it? For arguments sake I decided to ask my wife how old something has to be for it to be considered retro to her.  She said that anything older than 10 years she would consider retro.  This would place Lost Odyssey, a game released in 2007, in the retro category.

However I also did a Google search and found a forum where a number of users agreed that anything older than 2 console generations is retro, which would then place Lost Odyssey in the category of modern game.  

The lack of consensus presents an interesting topic for debate but becomes a real pain in the butt when it comes to things like streaming on Twitch.  For example I'm currently streaming Ys Origin which was released in 2006.  Now streaming under "Retro" would be preferable because more people would be watching there rather than the individual game.  But Ys Origin isn't a game I'd consider retro really and I wouldn't want to piss off Twitch admin or viewers by streaming in the wrong category.  

To me, retro is pre-PS2/GameCube/XBox is retro and that era is old but old enough quite yet to be considered retro.  I'm always interested to hear other people's opinions on it though.  Like I said before I think I don't want those systems to be retro because it makes me feel old but I'm sure to some younger gamers those consoles are ancient history. 

Dark Ixion and Shiva Fights

Slay The Spire First Impressions

While I was drinking in a video game bar near my house, a friend of mine fired up this game on a laptop he brought on down and we had a merry old time playing this over a few drinks.  Granted I was a bit drunk when I tried it so if any details I mention now are off a little, forgive me, but I only did one run so it's not like I went that deep into it anyway.

Slay the Spire is a sort of Roguelike deck building game and if there is a story involved then I sure as fuck wasn't paying attention to it.  Basically there's a big spire and you gotta go fuck up all the demons inside it.  When you fire up the game you get a choice of either a warrior guy or a sort of thief type guy and for the one run I did with my buddy we played as the warrior.  From there you are given a map of levels and each level will have a battle or some kind of event that could either help or hinder you.  You fight your way through each map until you either are killed or you make it to the end which sounds easy but if you didn't know what I meant by "Roguelike" before, that means that death means you have to start all over again, no saves.

Anyway the big pull of the game is the whole deck building things.  At the start you're given a bunch of basic shit like attacks, blocks and a skill or two and as you progress you get more and more cards for your deck.  However just putting cards willy nilly is a sure fire way to get killed pretty quickly as you have to juggle things such as cost, synergy and deck size.  For example, if you clear a fight and are presented two cards that don't really fit well with your deck it might be better to pass so that you aren't drawing shit from a bloated deck later on.  Cards aren't gone once you use them either (unless it says "exhaust" on it), you just get 5 randomly each turn so keeping your deck well focused is pretty key.  You can also level up cards so they have greater effect and there are also non card relics (or artifacts or something like that, I forget the exact term) which you can equip for various buffs and effects.

While I did have great fun with the game, and the core deck building element is extremely solid, I have two big problems with Slay the Spire.  One is the fact it's early access, but only because I fucking hate early access with every inch of my being.  Granted, the developers are being very good with it and clearly are putting the effort in but I still can't bring myself to buy a game with that label on it.  If you stumble across this post AFTER the full release then disregard this point, obviously.  The other problem I have is the art style and general look of the game.  Now I'm no artist, I struggle to do stick figures in MS Paint but Slay the Spire just doesn't look like a game you'd spend money on.  It looks like the kind of game you would have found on Newgrounds back in the day, like the whole thing has been made in Flash or some shit.

However don't let that deter you from picking it up if you don't mind the early access because it's a pretty incredible game.  I didn't finish the one run I tried, I died somewhere fairly late in game so I'll be watching the updates carefully for the full release so I can have my revenge.

Dark Valefore and Dark Ifrit Fights

Paying To Save With Metal Gear Survive

This is a game I've mostly ignored.  I saw some of the initial stuff that was put out and I was so disgusted that I just ignored it from then on out.  It's a fucking disgrace that a series like Metal Gear Solid has been reduced to an online zombie survival game.  I mean the groundwork is there to make some kind of legit survival type game within the Metal Gear universe that you could play online but instead they just copped out and used fucking zombies.  But whatever, I'm sure fans of the series know how shit it is and even newcomers probably aren't going to be swayed when there's so many other fucking zombie games on the market.

What I'm mad about with this post is the news I caught wind of about how you save the game.  When you start the game you are given one save slot, if you want to have another save slot you have to pay 1000 "SV Coins" which is the games premium currency and this basically translates to $10.  Now people have been complaining about loot boxes recently but this just takes the fucking cake.

A loot box, by itself, isn't THAT bad of a thing.  The only game I'm currently involved in playing that has them is Overwatch and in that game the boxes contain nothing but cosmetic shit to make your character look different.  Someone who is level 50 and has opened a ton of boxes has no inherent advantage over the player at level 1 who has opened 0 but the level 50 guy probably looks a bit cooler.  This got shaken up a bit with Battlefront when the loot boxes started containing game changing shit like weapons and gear which meant that players who paid money had an advantage over those who didn't in a game that was already like $60 just to play in the first place.

But that's nothing, NOTHING compared to the bullshit that is being forced to pay money to save your game.  I guess it's another character slot or something like that but even then that's bullshit.  Imagine if you are the kind of person with lets say, 2 siblings who all love Metal Gear SO MUCH that all of you are willing to give Survive a chance.  So you log on Steam, you drop 35 fucking Pounds for the game itself and you make a dude and you have a grand old time.  Then your brother wants to play so now you have to pay an EXTRA £10 just to let him play his own guy because you don't want him fucking up your shit.  Then your sister comes along and decides SHE wants to play so that's ANOTHER £10 just so she can make her character and play.  That's £55 for the game and enough slots just to let people who live with you play.  Don't tell me "just share the one slot" either because if this was me and my wife, I wouldn't want here anywhere NEAR my save files, fuck that.

The only game I remember doing this other than this is FFXI and at least in the game you can KIND of justify having the one character because each job in that game levels up individually.  So if you wanted to play a thief and your brother wanted to be a black mage then those two jobs level up independently so while still bullshit at least you and someone else could, in theory, play your own shit.  Also my time with FFXI was extremely limited back in high school so there's even a chance I'm wrong about that one.

What's even worse is that not only is paying to save complete dogshit but the launch itself has been SO BAD that there's been an apology issued in the form of 100 SV coins.  So for your unplayable mess of a shitty Metal Gear game you get 1/10th of a save slot.  I get the feeling that this Metal Gear won't be Surviving for very long.

I'll see myself out.