Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 13 [Final]

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 12

My Top 3 Games of Heisei

If you're a piece of weaboo trash like me then you'll know that on May 1st the era of Heisei is coming to an end and it will change to Reiwa.  If you aren't a piece of weaboo trash and don't know what that is the name of the era in Japan changes when the emperor changes.  This effects the Japanese calendar so right now the year is Heisei 31 but as of May 1st the date will change to Reiwa 1.

I saw a tweet that said that Japanese gaming magazine, Famitsu, asked 7000 people what their top 3 games of the Heisei period were.  Heisei started in 1989 so that's a huge pool of games to choose from.  The top 3 for them was Chrono Trigger, Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Nier: Automata.  So of course like the self important little shit that I am, I'm going to tell you my top 3 games of the Heisei period.

#3 Hotline Miami

This entry could have been one of so many things.  It could have been Undertale, it could have been ANY Shin Megami Tensei game, it could have been Dragon Quest 11.  Ask me tomorrow what my number 3 would have been and I promise you it will change, I just can't really pick with great certainty.  The game that sticks out in the front of my mind right now though is Hotline Miami.  Released in 2012 (Heisei 24) it was a violent, retro style half action half puzzle game that had you don an animal mask and mow down men in white suits.  It was fast, frantic, fun as hell and became one of my core speedrun games for a long while

If you've not played it then please give it ago.  Great gameplay, great soundtrack and great style.  It's cheap on Steam so don't dilly dally, go buy it NOW

#2 Shadow Hearts

Shadow Hearts is a sort of unique JRPG released in 2001 (Heisei 13) on PS2.  It follows the adventures of half Japanese, half Russian protagonist Yuri Hyuga as he travels across Asia and Europe in an attempt to stop all manner of nightmare creatures and an English gentleman from doing all manner of unspeakable things.  The games most interesting point was its "Judgement Ring" battle system, every time you did ANYTHING in a fight you had to play a sort of little timing mini game that would decide the outcome of your action.  Miss the ring and you'd fail your attempt but get right near the edge of the hit zone and you'd be awarded bonus damage/healing or, lets say if you were using a stat-up item, a greater increase to that stat.  The game also had a sanity system where if your characters fought for too long the stress of battle would cause them to go berserk and you would lose control of them.

Yuri also had an ability to fuse into one of about 21 demons to aid you in battle, all with really cool abilities.  If you REALLY knew what you were doing you could get some secret demons too that would essentially break the game and make you an unstoppable power house.  Getting them was a challenge but when you pulled it off the reward was very much worth it.

It also has a sequel, Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant which is also worth playing but nothing quite beats the charm that the first game had.

#1 Panzer Dragoon Saga 

I mean, I gush about this game a lot, did you really think it could be anything else for me?  Released in 1998 (Heisei 10) for the Sega Saturn, Panzer Dragoon Saga is easily one of the best RPGs I've ever played in my damn life and almost nothing has come close to besting it.

I could go at LONG length about why this game is so good but instead I'll just link my playthrough of it and you can see it for yourself

I'm also learning how to speedrun it currently so drop in the stream to see my progress with that.

If you can play it for yourself you ABSOLUTELY should.  Don't question me, just do it.

---

Of course, 1989 to 2019 is an extremely long time so I'm sure almost everybody will have a different set of 3 games that mean a lot to them.  If you feel like telling me your top 3 then let me know, maybe you'll really love something that I've not heard of and I can find a hidden gem that I missed during my youth

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 11

New Stream Schedule

Right, bit of a short post this time round but I'm changing up my stream schedule a little bit.

As of today, the only days for a guaranteed stream will be Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  There MIGHT be streams on the other days of the week but don't expect them to happen too often.

There's a number of reasons for this.  First and most importantly when it comes to the site is that I feel like the blog and the YouTube channel have kind of been sidelined in favor of me streaming almost every day.  It would be nice to take some pressure off myself (purely self inflicted pressure) and have time to write more posts here or actually create some content for the YouTube channel that aren't just off the cuff game play commentaries.

The other reasons are more personal but include stuff like wanting to work on other personal projects, spending time with my family and trying to make a schedule in such a way that accounts for doing bullshit overtime at work.

The rotation of whatever day, NES Wheel, donation games and speedruns will not change, just the frequency at which these are happening.  Hopefully I'll have some time to make more improvements to the stream as well.  I got a new computer that's absolutely bestial and I'm clearly not using it to its full potential.

So again, thanks for the support, hope you keep watching and supporting the rest of the content, hopefully I'll have some exciting things to put out soon!

Sekiro doesn't need an easy mode, you daft sod

I was hoping this would die down, but it's been about a week and its still cropping up on my Twitter feed so its time for my hot take on the Sekiro easy mode debate.

If you don't know what's going on then thank your lucky stars but allow me to fill you in.  Sekiro was released not too long ago, a game that's basically a Souls title but set in feudal Japan.  Instead of fighting demons like in Souls or Lovecraftian horrors like in Bloodborne, you fight ninjas and shit.  My experience with the game at time of writing is extremely limited but it's fun as all hell and extremely challenging.

I can pinpoint this controversy starting when some daft cunt called David Thier on Forbes wrote an article titled "Sekiro: Shadows Dies Twice Needs to respect its players and add an easy mode".  Now lets ignore the fact that this guy is so stupid he cant even get the title right but this article sparked a bit of a thing on Twitter where a bunch of people who suck at games agreed wit him, and anyone with motor functions above that of a 4 month old baby thought that those people should fuck off.

I will take the top 3 arguments that I saw that these idiots on Twitter were making and tell you why your opinion should be thrown in the bin and you should never be listened to again.

1. The game should be accessible to everyone.  It's too hard and drives people away

The short answer to this one is that the game just isn't for you. From Software made the game THEY wanted to make and THEY made an extremely challenging game that requires you to get to know it pretty well in order to win.  This isn't about From respecting you, it's about you respecting that a group of artists wanted to make a game that's hard as shit and that's what they did.  You crying about it is directly disrespecting the vision of these people who brought a game to the market with a very specific audience in mind.

Now I'm not saying don't play it, you just have to "git gud" (more on that later).  If gitting gud at Sekiro is too much for you, go play Breath of the Wild, go play Skyrim, go play The Witcher or any of the other hundreds of games that are more than happy to hand hold, quest marker, auto save every 30 seconds your way to victory for you.  There's nothing wrong with those games, I like those games, but sometimes I want to beat my face off a brick wall and for that reason I'm glad that Sekiro and SoulsBorne and as unrelenting as they are.

If From Software WANTED to put in an easy mode, then fine, no complaints from me.  But saying that From are "disrespecting their players" because you can't figure out how to parry correctly and learn a boss pattern are too just makes you look like an entitled little prick.  Their game, their rules, step up or step off.

2. The "git gud" mentality is "gate keeping" and turns people off the game

This point always makes me chuckle for two reasons.  The first being that this is the internet where people will call each other the most horrible, racist, bigoted shitty things at the drop of a hat for almost NOTHING.  People who play souls tell you get good at the game your playing instead of whining about it and THAT'S "gatekeeping"?  Are you insane?

The second funny thing is that if you go into a Souls community with actual questions for advice, tips, how you should set up a character and things like that, they are more than happy to help.  If you go in there with a positive, can do attitude, I GUARANTEE you that 9 times out of 10 you'll get some genuine help.  You are right in saying "git gud" is an insult but its not aimed at the lesser skilled looking to get better.  It's aimed at people like Thier and everyone who agreed with him, who got killed by the first few enemies and threw a strop screaming "this game needs to be made easier for ME!" on social media.

3. Making Sekiro hard is ableist

BAM! THERE IT IS!  It's 2019 so everything has to be some kind of -ist or -phobic, right?

This point is interesting because I do sort of agree that it would be nice if games COULD be a bit more accessible to people with limited functions so that more people could enjoy these games.  It's a big world of super fun media and it would be a shame to miss out on it because you were in an unfortunate accident or you were born with some kind of defect that leaves you unable to play.

But the game that you decided to pick on for this point was a Souls game.......are you really that fucking stupid?

Souls games ARE hard as hell, everyone knows that, but because of that people have done incredible things with it, they, got gud so to speak.
You think Souls is discriminating against you because you have no use of your arms? Well it's been provably done with feet only

and not just that guy.

People have beaten these games in all manners of ways with all manners of objects from Guitar Hero pads to Frying pans.  You might have a point if you went against literally ANY OTHER GAME with this point, but you chose a Souls game, you are just ASKING to be clowned on.

Sekiro doesn't need an easy mode, end of story.  Complaining that Sekiro needs an easy mode is like me complaining that a romantic comedy movie doesn't have enough horror elements.  Those movies aren't FOR me, there are plenty of other movies to watch.  Just the same, Sekiro might not be for you, there are plenty of other games you could play instead.  If you want to take the time to build your skills and achieve victory, the community will welcome you with open arms, but just don't cry when your caustic whinging makes people tell you to fuck off instead

RIP Wowaka

On April 5th the Japanese musician Wowaka passed away of heart failure, an extremely sad piece of news and considering his young age of 31 an extremely surprising piece of news too.

He did a lot of work with Vocaloid over the course of his career and has put out some of the most well known tracks, a lot of which have been featured in the Project Diva games.  Personally I have more plays of the song Unhappy Refrain than any other song in the entire series.

If your interested about the man himself, here's a link to his Wikipedia article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wowaka

I will round of this post by leaving some of my favorite tunes of his for you to listen to.  The guy made a LOT of really good stuff and I recommend checking out his catalogue of work.

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight part 10

Shovel Knight Part 9