What are you playing?

[rabidtictac]

I FUCKING LOVE LUMINES! It's basically the first game remastered, which is fine by me because the second game had licensed music that was mostly terrible (Black Eyed Peas for example). I was thinking of getting Puyo Puyo Tetris eventually but this is just fucking nice! My favourite PSP toilet game by far.

I don't even play puzzle games and I love Lumines too. The psp lumines is a great game. I can't remember if I have the first one or the second one. It's the kind of game you can always come back to and have fun with.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Man, Into the Breach is pretty fun so far. Pretty simple tactical game on the surface (the only random factors are the enemies behaviors), and I like how you always know what the enemies are trying to attack, or where their reinforcements will pop up next turn. This is pretty important since preventing infrastructure damage is your primary goal in the game (also the primary target of your enemies; they don't really go for your mechs directly unless there isn't anything else interesting around). Your mechs can take a hit (far better than the buildings), but damaged buildings reduce the overall power grid, which is your true health bar. And that shit can drop hard if you don't keep those bugs in check.

The mechs also allow for some goofy stuff. The last squad I've unlocked has a jet fighter that "jumps" over an enemy, dropping a smoke bomb on his way. Doesn't really deal a lot of damage, but it's about the surest way to cockblock the enemy's planned attack (units in smoke cannot attack). The other two ways involve killing the enemy outright (though boss-type enemies can definitely take a hit) or pushing and/or pulling them so their attack either whiffs or hits a mountain or other enemy (a lot of weapons push enemies), which might not work if there's an entire row of buildings.
Some giant boss hornet trying to wreck your shit? Just hop over him, and you don't have to worry about it for this turn. Even better if you use the jet's default mech squad, cause one of the other units there makes all of your smoke clouds electric to add some free damage.

The one thing I'm not so sure about is that all your mech unlocks are tied to coins you gain from achievements. In FTL achievements where just an alternate way to unlock ships, with the main method being beating the game with your last unlock.

[AdorableOtter]

Looks like a better punch club rather obvious rip-o.. I mean homage to Kunio-kun games.

ftfy



There are many RCR/Kunio spiritual successors it's hard to tell what's good/bad. I'm pretty sure nothing can beat Mother Russia Bleeds (basically Capcom's Punisher with drastically different aesthetics) though.

[rabidtictac]

Yeah, that's what I thought of as well.

Pretty much the definitive kunio experience is either river city ransom/EX or kenka bancho: badass rumble. I'm playing RCR Rival Showdown now. It's pretty alright, but I struggle to recommend it since the game has a MASSIVE stat wall. They mislabel the difficulty modes too. "Beginner" mode is the normal mode of the game for NG. The other mode is specifically for NG+ and you will get fucked if you pick it. But they make it sound like the hard mode is the normal mode.

The difficulty is mostly based off doing 1 damage to enemies too, so it really feels like bullshit when you're rolling a fresh kunio and you have no stats or moves. Once you upgrade your equipment and level a bit, the game difficulty is fine and it feels much less unfair. Enemy gangs vary a lot in terms of how strong they are, so you need to check to see if you can even damage an enemy or gang before you try to fight them. You can just run away if they're too strong. You also don't fight with allies very often, so you're always outnumbered. AI is pretty strong in general and they'll exploit tactics like jump kicks and wakeup stunlock combos that hurt a lot when you have low defense. That said, it's fun to get new moves and unlock ultras and shit. The sprites look like trash in screenshots (they seem like NES rips) but they animate very well in cutscenes and in motion. Rival Showdown also captures the japanese fight school manga feel a lot better than Underground. The dialogue isn't full of memes and the references are integrated really well into the storyline. I guess I'd say it's typical japanese "clever" humor where it doesn't try too hard.

[Kugelfisch]

The first additional character for Mario Tennis Aces is available. Play in an online tournament and you get Koopa. I've played, and won, a round against a Waluigi with Bowser.
I'm currently playing some games against the AI to get a hang of Koopa. He's a speed type character and boy is he fucking fast! New top tier for sure.

In the current meta, Bowser Jr. and Waluigi are top tier. Both are defensive characters and have very large reach and far reaching trick shots. Trick shots in general are a bit too easy to pull off but that will likely change. Another top tier is Chain Chomp, being a fairly fast power character.
Koopa is so damn fast, you don't even have to use trick shots to reach balls far off. You can play close to the net and stop shot pretty disgustingly.

I guess I'll main Koopa until Blooper comes next month.

[rabidtictac]

Waluigi has always been top, especially lefty version. Yoshi was another top tier in older games IIRC. He was very fast.

[Kugelfisch]

Yoshi is still fast but I feel like he's not fast enough to make up for having a lower strength. Toad has terrible reach. So does Koopa but he's mega fast. His shots are weak and he suffers load of pushback but I feel like his speed and good stop shot make up for that.

[rabidtictac]

Paratroopa was OP as hell in the gamecube one. Boo also. Boo was like Yoshi mixed with Waluigi. The only downside to him that I remember was you could accidentally shoot more shots out of bounds. But you just have to correct for it manually by not hammering the direction buttons so hard when shooting.

[Kugelfisch]

Boy, I'm getting my shit pushed in with Koopa. Granted, I play on expert but there are two more difficulties above that. I mess up a whole lot and don't really get to apply his speed. I get bullied real hard because they always have more meter than I do because I can't into trickshots with Koopa.
Boo is the total opposite. He's slow as fuck. His side trickshots have good reach but his back and front one are the slowest shit ever. He's great online against people but the AI doesn't get fooled by hard curves most of the time.

I'll try and get confident with Koopa to go into round 2 of the tournament with him. The shitty thing about the AI is that I've never seen it getting screwed by a lob. If they have any meter at all they will answer with a zone shot. If not, they will still easily get it.
I got a bit mad just now. I'm fucking basic shit up like reacting badly to trickshots. If they get a stop shot with a forward trickshot, I know that the answer can only be another stop shot but I always fall back to answer some normal shot.
Nothing is more annoying than reacting wrong to shit you know but only realizing it right when you do it.

[mad bum]

You're hyping the shit out of this game, now I want to play it. Maybe I'll rent it at my library this week.