[FKW'07]Portrait of Ruin feels really different

JamesE · banned Joined: 05 Dec 2006

Somewhat surreal, to be playing this so sleep deprived (sup Gingalingadigdong)

It's kinda hard and bosses are very pattern based and lots of the rooms have really interesting layouts yet feel nothing like SotN and jesus, what's wrong with you people?

Renfrew · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:43 pm

How long until the next Castlevania thread is posted? Who can say?

diplo · Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Location: Brandy Brendo's bungalow

james how far have you played

JamesE · banned Joined: 05 Dec 2006

Toups · tyranically banal Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Location: Ebon Keep

I never said it was the same as Dawn of Sorrow.

But I did say it was shit, and I stand by that statement.
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diplo · Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Location: Brandy Brendo's bungalow

JamesE · banned Joined: 05 Dec 2006

Deets · Joined: 05 Dec 2006

I don't think you're going to like the areas as much when they make you go through them again, but palette swapped and rearranged slightly. Then again, you are James. Prove me wrong!

JamesE · banned Joined: 05 Dec 2006

Deets · Joined: 05 Dec 2006

No, actually. The inverted castle revealed how ingenious the level design was, because dude - it worked upside down and felt completely different! Portrait of Ruin's rehashing isn't really interesting at all on any level, so it just feels like laziness. Even so, I don't think the game is terrible or anything. I liked Portrait of Ruin a fair amount even after I got to the palette-swap areas. I do find it interesting that you love stage 5 of Gunstar Heroes while I view it as padding. It seems relevant.

JamesE · banned Joined: 05 Dec 2006

Stage 5 is purity

Stage 5 is the beast unleashed

Stage 5 is the kind of amazing orange only a blue, blue sky could become

mechanori · Joined: 04 Dec 2006

Portrait of Ruin is a pretty horrible game.

JamesE · banned Joined: 05 Dec 2006

thank you for that info-fart, comrade mechanori

help yourself to a patriotic fruit roll-up

mechanori · Joined: 04 Dec 2006

Go ahead James. Say something about the game.

Deets · Joined: 05 Dec 2006

Ebrey · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Los Angeles

dmauro · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: Broker

That egypt music is hot.
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dongle · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: Berkeley, CA

I'd like to know what you think of it after you're done. The game lost its momentum, for me, at least.

SplashBeats · Guest

Deets · Joined: 05 Dec 2006

Your mileage may vary and all that. The tricks I use in stage 5 of gunstar heroes (sliding + grabbing + standing-slide) are the same ones that I use to defeat the enemies in the other stages of the game, but instead of interesting set pieces it's just a big stretch of nothing with the same enemies over and over. I mean, my standard for it being filler is simply that it doesn't have any new ideas. I realize that by describing it as padding and lazy it comes across as me saying that I don't like the stage, when that really isn't the case. I just think it's interesting that James has described it positively in the past with absurd hyperbole when it just seems like a by-the-numbers stage to fill in the gaps between stages 1-4 and the rest of the game.

Mr Mustache · Mean Mr. Mustache Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: Bushwick

The first Ninja Turtles aside, are there any games that are not completely annoying, that involve character swapping.

Because I don't think they exist.
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The people are like wool to me

another coma · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 4:56 am

Lost Vikings?
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Toups · tyranically banal Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Location: Ebon Keep

Intentionally Wrong · Joined: 05 Dec 2006

I tried to defend Portrait of Ruin in the last Castlevania thread. I said it's basically a barometer for how oversaturated with Castlevania the player is. If you hate it, guess what! You've played too many Castlevania games!

If you like it, maybe you haven't played enough!

If you can't decide whether you like it or not, YOU WIN!
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JSNLV is frequently and intentionally wrong.

Toups · tyranically banal Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Location: Ebon Keep

JamesE · banned Joined: 05 Dec 2006

aerisdead · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Location: Toronto, Canada

showka · Joined: 04 Dec 2006

JamesE · banned Joined: 05 Dec 2006

Hi Showka

Predator Goose · Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Location: Oversensitive Pedantic Ninny

kthorjensen · He brought three meals Joined: 06 Dec 2006

dmauro · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: Broker

Toups · tyranically banal Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Location: Ebon Keep

Deets · Joined: 05 Dec 2006

ajutla · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: kansas city

the thing with portrait of ruin is that at best it's relentlessly fucking mediocre and at worst it's just really subpar - it's not put together with any kind of care or attention to detail; it's just another 2d platformer game. to argue that if you don't like it you're just burned out on castlevania makes no sense. I mean, i could see someone LIKING it just because THEY LIKE CASTLEVANIA, but you can't just invert that shit and say it's still true. there are a lot of relentlessly fucking mediocre 2d platformers out there. portrait of ruin is just like all of them.

they're okay games - vapid but entirely playable, sure. when i look at portrait of ruin and say that it blows, i'm saying that, you know, i have a life, and i would rather spend my time not playing videogames than playing them in the vast majority of circumstances. because of that, a videogame has to like, really compel me in some way for me to want to actually waste my time with the thing, and that forces me to be discerning. most of iga's previous castlevania games compelled me just because they were castlevania, and i was willing to forgive the fact that they weren't perfect games, just because i liked the concepts so much. with portrait of ruin there's a shift of balance, like, i like the concept of castelvania, but the problems this game has outweigh that.

so i take away the castlevania part and all that i'm left with is this dull little portable game. i don't want to play it. it's bullshit. it has less to do with castlevania burnout and more to do with castlevania fan syndrome only going so far. the fact that i like castlevania automatically gave them game an edge over most other games i might play for the first time these days - i went in to the thing really wanting to enjoy it, and yet despite the extra points portrait of ruin can't make it.

in fact, fuck, i'd half-seriously say that portrait of ruin is if anything a barometer of whether or not you have taste in games. which is to say that if you like portrait of ruin, that doesn't mean you have bad taste. it means you probably have no taste.

you might have no taste because you played a lot of videogames as a kid and still play them now as an adult, but, unlike me, you haven't lost that spark that made any game you played fucking awesome when you were eight; even if something objectively was trash, you still loved the hell out of it because it was a videogame and videogames excited you. if that's the case, fine, i don't care. more power to you. you're enthusiastic. you like games for their own sake and they don't have to try very hard to please you. that's fine. you'll probably enjoy just about anything you pick up. have fun.

for me, it's just that there are factors i have to weigh. it's not burnout. it's the fact that i have played tons and tons of side scrolling 2d action games in my life, and eventually the charm wears off and i start to see them all as basically the same shit. the only way they can differentiate themselves is by playing in a unique way or having some neat context like castlevania has. otherwise i just don't care. i've played these games before. i don't want to keep playing them.

which might make someone like me fundamentally weird, because, you know, on a very basic level, i do not like videogames, i'm pretty sure. i buy games these days and never finish them. i play them for about an hour and then stop. i can't motivate myself. it's just bullshit. especially the way most games are now. they don't try for anything complex or psychological, they're just little stimulus-response monster-killing adventures designed to jack off your brain's pleasure sensors and keep you buying the same fucking recycled products every year. i mean, i might as well just masturbate, it's cheaper, it even feels better.

most games are uninteresting. that's the big problem with portrait of ruin, for me: i think it is an uninteresting game. i guess i can understand that people who like games more or whatever, you know, maybe they like it. that's cool but to me it's kind of depressing. i mean, come on, guys, you have played this game before, many, many times. this is a slight variation on this fucking idea that's been regurgitated ad infinitum since 1997. for me, at least, i have to put my foot down. just because i think castlevania has some cool aesthetic elements, that's not going to make me just automatically spend fucking forty dollars on every new piece of shit castlevania product that comes out. i want to know if the game is actually interesting first.

Ebrey · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Los Angeles

diplo · Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Location: Brandy Brendo's bungalow

JamesE · banned Joined: 05 Dec 2006

At Brauner

Guys I made the most delish glazed chicken tonight

2 tbsp wostechester (sp) sauce, mix with one tbsp sugar and and two teaspoons of mustard, heat until sugar has dissolved and that shit is reducing nicely

I suspended it in a bowl over boiling water fyi

Ok, add that some nice chicken that you've lightly grilled on both sides and grill it the fuck up ok

I served it in a pasta salad with bacon and mayo

Shit is outstanding and now I have vodka

OK? This game

I am still enjoying it. Before I got tipsy, even. The final four dungeons are a delightful throwback to the old NES trope of young times (CF: Mega Man), the bosses are tight provided you never use the shop, and the RPG stuff like quests makes me happy

You are all jaded sourpusses imo

My chicken is awesome

Also also also

A PAINTING OF THE SOUL!

eat my fucking chicken
hi tim