didn’t it get a complete rewrite?
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Yes-ish
The two major updates to the game was 1.25 and I.V (the more significant)
1.25 attempted to improve the battle system by a little bit by changing the long regular attacks into a shared “Beatdown” skill, added elements to each character and enemy, and rewrote a small handful of cutscenes (+ one or two extra bosses).
I.V did a complete overhaul of the battle system, the dark game where all the action elements are removed and are instead focused on character builds with karta, and a completely overhauled mind dungeon too. As for the story, there’s a whole chunk of re-done cutscenes, new bits of story, and an entire subplot with the Nameless Child, and a lot more boss encounters in the mid game.
I’m currently playing the original Earth Defense Force, called Monster Attack in Europe. You can take down a bunch of mini UFOs with one places rocket launcher shot, so I’m happy.
You can only play as the basic soldier, so no flying with the Wingdiver, it’s such good jank either way.
In many way EDF hasn’t really changed that much, which is why I love it so much? Just wanna shoot beeg boog!
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I’ve been playing Ladykiller in a Bind as I go through Christine Love’s ludography and it might be my favorite of her work so far. It’s an eroge set on a cruise ship where a lesbian plays the role of her twin brother and tries to navigate the social situations that he’s left for her. Has a very fun frame narrative (she’s narrating the events of the game to him afterward and their arguments make up a lot of the game) and generally great exploration of erotic themes. I think Christine Love’s metatextual work on visual novels are some of the only western meta-responses to the genre that work for me because even though they have their criticisms they also understand what makes visual novels good as well without insisting that the genre itself is some kind of albatross.
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Been a minute since I posted here. When the Animal Crossing New Horizons update came out, I got briefly re-addicted to that game but that seems to have run it’s course already. I’ll probably hop back onto it because I do want to unlock all the little Nintendo consoles you get for building all the rooms at the hotel, or whatever you have to do exactly to unlock it.
I played Viractal with 2 of my roommates, it’s very fun. Then I got sick, so we haven’t done anything beyond the first scenario yet.
Anyway, today I realized something, I don’t think I’ve yet bought any games in 2026, so I’m inclined to see if I can keep that going as long as possible. I’m sure you all know what it’s like to have too many games and not enough time.
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it is years late but I have been enjoying tekken 7, installed it on Ene and have been grinding ranked matches. I play Eliza
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I’m playing Shining Force III for the first time, with the intention to play the entire III trilogy. Really liked the first two games and the spinoffs as a kid, but III’s low print run was already prohibitively expensive even by the end of 1998, so I missed out.
It’s pretty janky, and I think being “there at the time” would’ve helped to sand some of those edges off (i was there at the time for plenty more janky Saturn RPGs), but I’m really enjoying tackling a battle per night before bed.
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I’ve been replaying Sonic Adventure, I decided to try the Dreamcast version after years of only playing DX on PS3 and PC. 30 FPS is definitely a downgrade from what I’m used to for this game, but I’d say it’s worth it since it’s a much less buggy version than DX, and the lighting looks a lot better too
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Curious how you would define “jank” as a descriptor, whenever I encounter it in my travels it feels as if it’s being defined differently by different people. I’m not sure if I’m convinced it exists or if it’s just a matter of mismatched expectation.
That’s the only game I own physically on Dreamcast! So startlingly beautiful, it’s a shame what DX and its various ports have done to that games whole aesthetic. I’m glad you’re enjoying, it’s far and away my favorite Sonic game.
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Movement is very slippery (to me) and it’s not always easy to interact with the intended object/tile. it’s understandable as i believe this is SONIC/Camelot’s first time implementing 8-directional movement alongside a fully 3D, player-rotatable map. It’s not hampering my enjoyment
Interesting. I haven’t played any of the Shining games (yet! I almost started the series for my Grasshopper Manufacture playthrough, but just decided to skip the games that they worked on in that series…) so I’ll have to see what I think of that when I end up playing it. I’m very curious about them!
@homefires hello 
I saw in your intro thread a King’s Field mention
I’ve only ever played the US King’s Field 1 and Eternal Ring but it’s a franchise I really want to get more into. A few of my KF-enjoying friends and I absolutely adore Kira’s Lunacid - and if you haven’t heard of it before it’s totally worth checking out!
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I’ve been thinking about this some too lately. I’ve definitely said things like “this game has a lot of jank” or “the controls are terrible” before but if pressed to actually define what I’m saying I’m not sure I could.
My latest use of the word jank was showing my partner Fallout New Vegas. I was using it mainly to describe the bugs and strange behavior that you see in a game full of so many autonomous moving parts. I think I could comfortably say that New Vegas has some jank, or at least a high chance of producing jank due to its complexity, but that it in no way detracts from the experience I have with that game (and having played it so much, feels like part of the experience in a way I’d probably miss if it was gone).
Probably off topic, but on the other hand, I imagine there are examples of “bad controls” but I can’t think of them. A lot of control schemes for certain game types have been homogenizing over the years but I think that the way in which we physically interface with a game is always going to be super subjective. The first time I saw how alternative input options could be used to interface with games in endless ways to provide options to people with different levels of physical ability it really blew my mind. And even with games where I’ve complained about the controls, if I stick with it long enough, it normally doesn’t bother me anymore, and there’s even something kind of novel about figuring out how to operate a game successfully.
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I think that for many games, learning to control the game is a fundamental part of their artistic expression and that’s been sort of lost in the past fifteen years or so. It feels like control schemes sort-of homogenized in the 7th gen and really calcified in the 8th and 9th gen of video games, and you don’t really see very many new games with very creative controls anymore.
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hi! I really adore king’s field 1 US, though I haven’t finished it yet. my love of the series largely stems from playing the fan translation of king’s field JP. there’s such a suffocating quality to the droning repetition of the soundtrack and the textures and the winding corridors. you push through the space like it’s mud, or like the armor you’re wearing weighs more than the ceiling above you. there’s a lot of intrigue in how much thought you have to put into resource management (like any good dungeon crawler), but also into your positioning and spatial awareness, since you turn and move so slowly. it’s dreamlike. I highly recommend it. I’m looking forward to playing the rest of the series when I find the opportunity. I usually play games while hanging out with my girlfriend now, and first person games make her motion sick, so I just need to make time to do it on my own.
as far as lunacid goes, I’m sorry to say that I don’t care for it that much. in widening the aspect ratio, raising the render resolution, and giving you mouse control, I feel like it loses a lot of that woozy and discomforting undercurrent that gives the king’s field games tension.
as far as visual stylings go, I’m more partial to how creators like bryce bucher approach that particular 5th gen reexamination that’s trendy right now. I favor the deliberately low resolution, 4:3, dithered look of a game like fatum betula.
as far as mechanics go, I haven’t really seen that anyone is quite brave enough to approach game design with controls that are deliberately frictional enough to capture what I like about king’s field.
I admit I only played a few hours of lunacid though, I’ve been considering giving it another shot since so many people adore it. at the very least I’m curious about the sequel/spinoff that’s made in that one king’s field level creator.
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I kinda rail against the idea of jank. I think that there are games that genuinely feel bad to play, like the Atari 2600 port of pacman. I also think that some games that people think control poorly are just unfamiliar and not inherently inferior.
the original release of kingdom hearts doesn’t have right analog camera control, you have to use the shoulder buttons to move the camera instead. a lot of people dislike this but by moving camera control to your index fingers, your right thumb is freed up to use the face buttons without as much contention. also, the right analog stick functions as a way to navigate the menu, leaving you free to move and menu at the same time, allowing you to use magic and items without leaving yourself vulnerable. it’s unfamiliar and people favor the rereleases with more traditional controls, but I think getting accustomed to what the original controls offer is rewarding.
even a game that doesn’t control “as intended” can have value. sonic heroes is not the greatest game, for a lot of reasons. however I think that learning its quirks is more interesting than anything it does “on purpose” in regards to its gameplay. it’s a balancing act, where acting too impulsively can throw you into the void, and many things that appear to be shortcuts are more like traps. getting familiar with the game is like solving a puzzle. it’s very consistent, just not intuitive.
I think people like to use jank as a catch-all for “friction I don’t like”. I think there can be value in all friction though. doesn’t mean there always is, but it’s far more interesting to examine than dismiss. sorry to bombard you but I have a lot of thoughts on this topic.
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i hope you enjoy them when you get around to them! they were the first tactics games i played, and they’re definitely babby’s first strategy rpg (with the exception of farland story) but they’re really accessible, attractive, and joyful
Yeah it definitely does - and also unlike KF you can level or find ways to move very quickly/freely. The prequel, Tears of the Moon, made in the Sword of Moonlight engine has a lot more of the KF friction and presentation but you won’t get that in original Lunacid. I really enjoy its atmosphere, systems, and level design and am not as attached to the specific parts of KF you mentioned (so idk if another shot at the game would change your mind about it)
I love the original release of KH and I played it when I was young enough to not have any baked in conceptions about control schemes. I still think it’s fun to control on PS2 (it was one my first games on a dualshock and I was surprised “X” wasnt jump in other games). In general I prefer KH1’s more “stiff” combat to KH2’s more flashy floaty system.
Yeah I 100% agree with this. I think “the controls are bad” has a similar meaning. There’s a very unique connection you make with a game that you have to learn and that doesn’t completely match intuition or standardized patterns. It can be really rewarding.
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I have returned from three weeks of Arknights Endfield-induced madness. I know about the predatory nature of gacha games and all, and my perception has been coloured by the fact I’ve been doing nothing but saving for the character I want, meaning I haven’t actually seen much of that aspect and blah blah blah, but this game really feels like it was a passion project by Hypergryph. Like, there is no way in hell any corporate boardroom would’ve signed off on a game that mates Genshin Impact’s real-time action RPG combat to a freaking Factorio-style factory builder, and yet here Endfield is, and it’s not just making it happen, but it’s truly excelling in making the two halves work together in ways that feel genuinely well-thought out for the sake of making the gameplay enjoyable. It’s a rare case of a gacha game where I feel intrinsically motivated to keep playing because there’s genuinely so much to do, and not like the game is just trying to keep me busy all the time.
I also really like the touches it has that allow it to one-up Genshin, like having all party members active on the field at the same time, with you only controlling one at a time while the rest are CPU-controlled. They even put in things like having your teammates help you collect items, mine ores, or even waving at you and guiding you to a nearby treasure chest you might’ve missed—it really makes you feel like a team, and not just a player shapeshifting between four random characters based on whose skill needs to be activated next.
I have my concerns about the gacha for sure—the fact there is no 50/50 pity is something even Hoyo gachas aren’t cruel enough to subject their players to, and I worry that the most substantial sources of gacha currency are non-renewable. But at the end of the day, this is a rare case of a gacha game that genuinely feels like a game first, and it’s such a unique experience that I was able to get so much mileage out of without spending a single cent (since the game isn’t on Steam yet I’m not sure how many hours I’ve logged, but it’s gotta be at least 100) that honestly I kind of want to recommend it anyway—as long as you think you have the restraint to resist its monetization practices.
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