Podcast 516 - The Agents of Ma'am Show (Sonic Mania, Observer, Agents of Mayhem, and More!)

While I agree that the resetting of the zone instead of the act is a weird choice, the lives and continue system more like older games that had no saves, no level replaying, and reset when the console was powered off. They're designed to be played and failed multiple times getting a little further each time. From experience you'll learn paths and remember that you need to jump at certain times to avoid things. Previous games before the save slots (3) were more about collecting continues than lives because if you run out of those it's total a game over. The older games tend to culminate in single act zones (meaning continuing isn't that punishing in the mania style) and last few back to back bosses in those games had 0 rings, so 1 hit deaths. Needed precise dodging and weak point timing. You need to spend the early game building up that buffer of continues. Continue is 4 lives. Would you rather farm 4000 rings? Or 10 continues? Bonus stages are where you farm continues. In Mania, your “cool bonus” from those affect your end act score. Enough end act score gives a continue. So you can think of your objective in the levels as building your continue buffer for the end game. You only have so many chances.

I've been waiting for a reason to buy No Mans Sky since it came out, I've always been excited about the idea of the game. This recent update seems like what it needed to get me finally buy on a decent sale, I'm glad Krispy gave it another shot. Star citizen is no where close to being out so maybe this can finally fill that void.

I don't know if anyone has clarified this for Krispy over the past two weeks, but just so he and his wallet may sleep soundly at night, all of the stuff from Overwatch's Summer Event last year was brought back for this year. You can find them in loot boxes or use coins to unlock them and they're even at the normal price. I have no doubt that all of the stuff from this year will make a return next year which is why I'm not too worried about collecting everything now.

I'm really happy that you guys are playing Hollow Knight. It's a really enjoyable game and by far my favorite game of the year outside of Tekken. I hope Team Cherry keeps adding on to the game because I can't get enough of Hollow Knight. If you guys haven't already, you should try fighting the two bosses they added in the free DLC, they're really fun.

I hate Illinois Nazis...

When Nick spoke of using sound direction in clever ways, he mentioned that it is something either underutilized or not used at all in most games (I honestly forgot exactly what he said, but along the lines of that.) HOWEVER, you'll find that most FPSs rely on crucial sound direction cues when detecting other players. I just recently experienced a lot of cases in Battlefield 1 where the direction of the source of footsteps and screams allowed me to kill folks creepin' up on me.

Quick comment on the FF12 remaster which I'm almost through (love that 4x speed). I can't remember if the older versions had language options, but I've been playing this with Japanese voiceover. I find Vaan more likeable, and Fran and Balthier in particular have awesome Japanese voiceovers.

On the discussion of playing from the villains perspective: Drakengard 1 & 2 actually does this. In Drakengard 1 the more endings you get the more you realize that the main characters aren't exactly the greatest of heroes. In 2 you play a character in the opposing army where you realize the main character of 1 is a monster who is slaughtering your armies by the hundreds for selfish reasons.

I like how the best sonic game in we've had in years is basicaly just the first one again