Hey all, since it doesn’t seem like GuyWTriangle is available to post the weekly thread (hope you’re doing well!) and I wanted to ramble about Zelda II since I’ve become a little obsessed with it, I decided to just make the thread myself this time.
Zelda II Enjoyer Zone
I finished Zelda II the other day and ended up falling in love with it! The first time I tried playing it around a year ago or so, I found it way too harsh and frustrating. This time it clicked with me though, and now I’m convinced that this game has been unfairly maligned. The combat is definitely very hard, but once I got used to it, I thought it actually felt great and is mostly fair. You often can run away from troublesome fights too, especially once you unlock the down thrust and can bounce over enemies heads, which I appreciate. Pretty much every enemy has a strategy around how to fight them, and I thought it was fun to figure them out. Magic feels the most impactful out of any Zelda game I’ve played, and I thought that it made for interesting dilemmas with how careful you have to be with spending it. Resource management in games has always been fun to me, but a lot of Zelda games make managing your resources irrelevant because they throw way too many refills your way. Finding the magic refills in this game was such a relief specifically because it is so sparse.
I was really wary of the XP loss and respawning in Zelda’s room when you game over at first, but I was surprised to find both of those mechanics actually grew on me, especially the XP loss. There was one point about halfway through the game where I was deep in a dungeon, with low health, no magic, on my last life, and sitting on a few thousand XP, close to a level up but not close enough that I could safely level off of the enemies around me. So I decided, fuck it, I’m probably gonna die down here and lose it all if I continue, so let’s try and make it back to town so I can heal. I carefully crept back through the dungeon, nervously sweating and biting my lip, and just barely made it out and back to town before farming a level up real quick, and at that moment I became convinced that the risk-reward around losing your XP made the game more exciting and interesting. Getting game over and having to walk back across the overworld to the dungeon I also ended up somewhat liking, since the items you find in the dungeons can make shortcuts for the trek back. It felt like a good way to make getting the items and then losing sting a bit less. It’s not as cool for me as the XP loss thing, but in the end I was surprised to find an appreciation for something that just seemed annoying at first.
I will admit that the Great Palace is a nightmare hell dungeon. Even with the map I was drawing for myself, it was really hard to keep track of where I was. Some of the rooms are just downright cruel too. I could not figure out a way to consistently fight the Fokkas (the jumping bird knights) and I found it really frustrating, not to even get into the final bosses. I can’t quite bring myself to call it a badly designed dungeon because the labyrinthine nature isn’t really unfair, it’s just kind of a lot, and I feel like if I were a better player it wouldn’t have been so painful dealing with the enemies, but shit, that was too much for me.
If you are interested in trying this game yourself, here’s some advice:
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If you are playing the NES rom on an emulator, PLEASE use a hack to remove the rapid color flashing when you die. This effect is awful and very aggressive, like I would not be even a little surprised if it has killed people in real life. By far the worst part of the game, and it has been patched out in every official re-release for good reason.
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Any time an NPC tells you something meaningful or you see something you might want to remember, write it down. This game is way less cryptic than people sometimes make it out to be, but that’s only if you listen carefully to the hints and keep note of them.
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Similarly, when you go into the dungeons, get a few sheets of paper and draw a basic map for yourself as you go. People complain a lot about the dungeons being confusing and difficult to navigate and this completely negates that problem. It only takes a little time and, in my opinion, is actually pretty fun.
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If you struggle with fighting the Iron Knuckles (the knight guys with the shields), you should know that you can hit their head even when they have the shield held high. Jump next to/towards them, and slash in the air while you are falling next to them. If you do it right, you can hit them consistently and it makes fighting these guys way less frustrating.
Anyways, now I’m on to Dragon Quest II for the NES. I played the original Dragon Quest recently and unfortunately it didn’t really connect with me, but I’m actually liking this one a lot more so far. I hear it will get very difficult soon though, so we’ll see if that stays the case. Hope you all have a good week!
Won a game of civ V with friends
Reasonably close game, I got lucky and had almost half of the world’s uranium supply in my borders though. Also full games of civ take forever even on quick, damnGot into Project Silverfish recently, the seemingly based gay furry STALKER-like. Low budget, single-dev afaik, but a lot of fun with very solid gunplay and exploration. Surprisingly creepy and atmospheric too.
Love that the secretly bourgeois-funded “Insurrectionist” faction are described as wearing “little fashy armbands”, and the undead cyborg-cops are called “dead pigs”.
One posthuman merchant greets you, saying you “look like a shrewd business…man? Eh, gender isn’t real”. It’s great
I can’t believe I’m getting bullied in the reports to pin this
Also I’m playing dispatch.
It’s fairly enjoyable for being capeslop. I don’t watch T.V, movies, or really consume much contemporary u.s media, so I’m not particularly over-inundated with the whole great flood of capeslop over the past two decades.
Kinda makes me want to watch breaking bad though.
do it. dooooo it! but! only watch season 1 and stop. then tell breaking bad fans that and watch them explode.
Should have keep me as mod nerd
Should chose to be a gamer nerrrrrd
Continued my game of Workers and Resources. Population climbed to 6100 as I built out the rail network and an industrial farm on the outskirts of an empty field where I plan to build a capital city (coincidentally where Havana is located IRL). While the farm was building, a minor logistical crisis happened, limiting access to food, clothing, and electronics at the main shopping center in the first city. The population dropped to around 5800. The town is also reaching the limits of its power grid and experiencing occasional blackouts.
With the intermittent revenues from bulk crop rail export added to the coal mine, the republic is operating at a modest profit, but it may be time to take out a loan anyway to build up Havana and an assortment of factories to process the crops into finished goods like livestock, alcohol, fabric, and food.
At about 5km from the only Soviet customs house (And with the West another >20km in the other direction at Guantanamo), truck logistics are pretty strained in this location. The trip takes nearly an entire “day” in game, and the distance is close to the 5 hour limit for worker commutes from the first city by bus. I need to make sure I can move everything in bulk by rail or there will be no hope of building settlements even further. Several maintenance buildings in the first city will need to be demolished to make way for a commuter rail line and to move gravel in bulk.
I’ll post a couple pictures when I get home from work.
First, here’s the map I’m playing on. I believe the scale is 20x20 km. The straight line distance (through the ocean) from customs house to customs house is 22.5km.
The only Soviet customs house was placed on the western-most tip of the island. I’m not particularly thrilled with my set up, but I’ve got rail and truck distribution hubs along with some other infrastructure. The coal mine and coal ore processing plant are in the background
Another view of my main town. On the left are my trash processing and gravel processing complexes. The gravel complex includes an asphalt and concrete plant. A single bus line is able to supply workers to both of these complexes.
This is the new area I’m working on. Those silos required 800 tons of concrete to build. About 70-80 round trips from the concrete plant depending on which size mixers were summoned. In hindsight I should have asphalted the whole path first (though I did most of it). I was able to deliver the 200 tons of steel it needed by rail though.
Reviewing the stats so far, and there are a couple things of interest. I only invited 530 immigrants, so the population has increased by an order of magnitude the old fashioned way. Since they’ve all grown up within one bus stop of a technical university, 99% of the adult population has a university education. Even though I stopped importing concrete 7 years ago (5 years into the game) when I built the concrete plant, and without adjusting for inflation, I have still spent more on concrete than I have on cement (the dry powder that gets mixed with water and gravel to produce concrete). Top expenses are Steel (can’t replace until city 3), Fabric (turned into clothes and sold for profit), Fuel (domestic sources a little further than iron), and Electronics. I can probably import a lot less electronics, I have people in prison who own computers in 1972. It will make propaganda a lot more effective once I set up TV / radio stations though.
1·1 month agoWhat’s the map? There are few Cuba maps.
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I continue to play Warframe, finally hit LR4, and instead of answering the looming question of “is it actually reasonably possible for me to hit LR5”, I will continue grinding out the very few remaining things I’m missing. Sadly I am running out of podcasts, and when I do that’ll be it for a while.
Im fucking around with Age of Wonders 4 which is fun, I got a new screen and the colours of that game look really great on it
Falling hard for jrpgs - recently got a pocket emulator for my commute - and got into tactics ogre/ffta, and now FFV. Honestly you all are missing out on not being isolated from gaming until later in life :p
If you can get it, try ff6 out. It’s a straight banger
Yeah I’ll try that for sure. ROMs are incredible. Trying almost literally every game that sounds appealing lol
Those emulation handhelds are super nice! I love being able to just carry a gaming device around in my pocket again. There’s something especially cozy about RPGs on a handheld I think.
I was uncertain, but got a good deal on one second hand, and it’s everything I hoped it would be! Also it’s been a fun first exposure to Linux!
Started playing Subnautica submersed VR mod. It adds motion controls and its really cool so far
That sounds terrifying.
my submarine got eaten by a sea monster in VR it was very not chill
Zelda II love! ❤️ Definitely took me starting it a few times to really get into it, even with a guide, but after I beat it, its one of the only games where I decided I’d just immediately play through it again.
Friend asked to play rocket league the other day, so we did. Why is it like 40gb!? Just 20 seasons of skins and songs?
a little more time stranger with my fiancée
a bunch of warsim, a fun text-based procgen heavy kingdom management simulator thing
started my first playthrough in years of steambot chronicles (need to search for it) a very underrated and mildly obscure ps2 rpg with a lot of cool stuff going onStill UFO50. Overbold, Velgress, and Campanella 2 continue to elude me. Pausing on Caramel Caramel for now
UFO 50 is such a treasure, I ought to play some more
Campanella 2 is absolutely brutal, it’s totally up to luck if you get a map where you can finish even the first area without running out of fuel. Overbold isn’t that bad, if the upgrade that spawns health packs goes on sale definitely get it, it’s the most useful one by far.
That requires surviving long enough to get the health pack and subsequently getting the pack
what’s your favourite titles so far?
Campanella, Elfazar’s Hat, Bug Hunter, Attactics, Grimstone
I have something of a soft spot for Zelda II, since it was the first Zelda I ever played. It was the first game where I ever encountered the concept of XP, and it made me feel all
when I thought ”hmm, maybe I should just stay in one place and get a bunch of XP, that’d make the game easier” (ironically I’d grow to hate the concept of grinding later). My friend actually managed to finish the whole damn thing without a walkthrough or anything.
”I AM ERROR” was not a mistake, the guy’s name is Error and Bagu’s name was mistransliterated, it’s actually supposed to be Bug. Error and Bug.Anyway, I’ve still been playing Night Striker Gear and still haven’t finished a single route.
My friend actually managed to finish the whole damn thing without a walkthrough or anything.
Impressive! I was fairly close to this but there were a couple things that tripped me up and I needed a hint for. I’m pretty sure I would have never found Kasuto without a guide telling me I could break the forest tiles lol.
”I AM ERROR” was not a mistake, the guy’s name is Error and Bagu’s name was mistransliterated, it’s actually supposed to be Bug. Error and Bug.
I saw this on the wiki because I was curious about Error’s name lol. Also the art for Bagu from the comics is so funny compared to the sprite
im somewhat shocked by this but, still, abiotic factor. 50 hours in and it still changing things up and being interesting but i think we’re getting near the end.
I have been playing age of mythology, mostly trying to unlock more blessings and legends
Nubbys Number Factory got a new update that added custimization so i picked the fish, and tried to win with mutant tony, a little hard but i will try again
Nubbys is so good
nubby comment spotted
Its good, my favorite combo is happy seal with evil goose
Playing through Pikmin 4 again with the new update. Now with FIERCE DIFFICULTY! It’s a blast. Enemies are tougher and more aggressive, and you’re limited to a max of 60 Pikmin instead of 100. Stuns and freezes (both application and duration) are also halved, so you can’t just ice bomb and one-shot Sovereign Bulblax with 100 dudes; you actually have to fight them.
