Video Game Discussion 6

[Zorua 124]

Previous Thread: https://community.910cmx.com/index.php?/topic/5590-video-game-discussion-5/&page=1

It's been...almost two years since the last thread died, so...yeah.

 

So, since the last thread post, I got a Nintendo Switch and a few games for it: "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", "Tears of the Kingdom", the "Mega Man Battle Network Collection Volume 1" and "...Volume 2", "Little Kitty, Big City", "Echoes of Wisdom", and "Splatoon 3" and its DLC. My brother also got "Pokemon Violet" and its DLC, so that's a bundle of fun as well.

 

Smash Ultimate, I've unlocked all the fighters and spirits, beat story mode, and occasionally come back to it to make a new stage or play against my brother.

Tears of the Kingdom is fun. Being able to build all sorts of fun contraptions to zip around the map, like a car or a hoverbike, is just...it's so fun. If I had any criticisms, it's minor things with writing, and that's it.

Echoes of Wisdom was another fun Zelda game. Playing as Princess Zelda for a change and being able to copy several overworld objects and enemies to basically treat the overworld as a puzzle unto itself. Meanwhile it has the most insane lore drops.

Mega Man Battle Network 2 was the first Mega Man game I ever played, and 6 was even more fun, so getting the full collection means I can enjoy both plus everything I missed for the other four games in the series. Currently still working on the first game.

I...haven't opened Little Kitty, Big City yet. I don't know why. It's an adorable game where you play as a cat. Why haven't I started it up yet? What's wrong with me?

Pokemon proves to be just as fun as expected. I'm not sticking with the planned team I had in mind, though, but rather rotating out who I'm using for the next badge. I did manage to get a Zorua for the first time, so that makes me happy.

Splatoon is my current obsession, though. I've picked out two weapons to stick with, beat the DLC and keep going back to it for funsies, having a blast in Salmon Run, and even dabbled in Tableturf because why not.

 

Overall, I'm having fun. I'll put up more specifics about one thing or another later.

[Zorua 124]

I found myself gravitating towards two Splatoon weapons in particular: the Enperry Splat Dualies, and the Inkline Tri-Stringer.

 

Dualies are a weapon class introduced in Splatoon 2. Essentially, they're a pair of dual-wielded submachine guns. They have an interesting quirk of them being the first left-handed weapon you can have; all other weapons are wielded in the right hand, making peeking around right corners dangerous unless you're willing to expose your entire hitbox. The Dualies don't have that problem. Dualies also have a dodge roll; by pressing jump while firing, you'll get a rapid burst movement in a chosen direction. This can let you avoid shots and practically dance around opponents, and helps you fast fall if you need to go down quickly for whatever reason. Each dodge does take up ink, and there's a bit of a cooldown after your second dodge before you can dodge again. But the best part about the dodge is when you dodge, it combines the firing hitboxes and ups the rate of fire, letting you deal even more damage until you start moving again, which puts things back to normal. These are rapid-fire weapons that have a safety window that lets you get out of dodge (heh.) if things get tough.

The Enperry Splat Dualies is a variant of the default that has some very useful extra gear. Its sub weapon (secondary fire / grenade, basically) is the Curling Bomb. Throwing this will cause it to move forwards in a straight line, leaving a trail of ink behind you, before slowing to a stop after some distance and exploding. It can bounce off walls to get some unexpected hits. And you can charge it to reduce distance traveled but shorten its fuse; I've gotten some surprise kills with partially-charged Curling Bombs. The main utility for these, however, is getting to the center of the map quickly, or even getting deep into enemy territory quickly. Sometimes, working as a distraction is the way to go, and by surprising them in their own base, they're focused on you, freeing up your allies to cover more turf and gain ground.

The special weapon (ultimate / Final Smash) for the Enperry Dualies is the Triple Splashdown. This causes you to go up and then slam down on the ground, creating a powerful shockwave of ink that can instantly splat the enemy. It also creates two giant fists at slight offsets to your position which also create their own shockwaves. If you use this on a ledge, the fists can fall over the ledge to hit ground below you. This can work as a panic button if needed. One of the fun things here, however, is that you can use the Triple Splashdown while super-jumping to an ally (super-jumping basically being fast movement to an ally, spawn, or temporary jump point, letting you get to where you need to go quickly). If you jump to an ally and activate the Triple Splashdown, you'll skip the initial jump up portion of the special and just land with the impact directly. Enemies can see where you're jumping to and might try to spawn camp you, so landing with a Splashdown will be a huge surprise. The tradeoff for that is the fists don't appear, so you lose a slight bit of range. You and the fists can also be shot before landing, but the timing to get all three is fairly tight.

Overall, this is a very mobile weapon that can get in, cause trouble, avoid dying, get out quickly if needed, and creates an instant kill radius in a pinch. Very fun.

 

My second weapon of choice is the Inkline Tri-Stringer. Stringers were introduced in Splatoon 3, and they're basically a bow and arrow that fires three shots, aligned horizontally if fired while on the ground and vertically if fired while in the air. Tapping the fire button will just shoot a few spurts of ink. Holding the fire button will charge the shot, and reaching the first stage of charge will cause the shots to fire projectiles that stick into surfaces and explode after a bit. They have a wide spread, which can be good for covering turf and surprising enemies, hindering their mobility. But continuing to hold the fire button will increase the distance the shots travel and tighten their spread. At the second stage of charge, they're practically one shot with three hitboxes, and you're unlikely to hit multiple targets with this unless you're aiming close to a wall or something. But that just means that you're hitting them with three targets, any of which that miss will probably explode at their feet. And there's this oh-so-satisfying electric zap noise when all three shots connect with the same target. It's one of the best sounds in the game. Especially if you hit them from over cover; the shots arc, so you can shoot them even if they're hiding behind a wall, and getting a KO with that is the best feeling ever. Whether it's a direct kill or getting them with the splash damage, some of my favorite kills come from using this weapon.

For the Inkline kit, its sub weapon is the Sprinkler. This places a, well, sprinkler that covers the ground around it in ink. In Splatoon 1, the Sprinkler was one of the reasons I loved the N-ZAP '89 because of how much it covered turf to build up my special. It's received some nerfs since then, so I tend to replace it in a new spot as I go, but it can still be useful. If nothing else, placing it around a corner that the other team has to work to get to will help keep an area clean. And dropping it somewhere as a distraction can help; the other team wants to get rid of it, so they focus on it for a moment, which could be enough to let us advance and kill them. Put it in the right spot and it can also simply hinder their movement. It can also block a shot once before breaking, which is a very niche use but still potentially useful. Since the Tri-Stringer isn't the best at covering turf, the Sprinkler is good for making up for that.

The Special is the Super Chump. I mentioned super jumping before. Super Chumps create a lot of fake super jump indicators, but instead of decoy players landing there, it just places explosives. These explosives can be destroyed before they blow up, but if they're left alone, they not only cover more turf over a decently large area, but they can get a ton of surprising kills from people who were too close to one they didn't see or didn't think was close enough to get them. I have gotten several surprising kills with this special.

Overall, this is a decent long-range weapon that can cover a surprising amount of turf, with incredible potential for kills if you master its firing arc.

 

My main goal is to have one weapon of each of the eleven weapon classes as my go-to for that class. Two down, nine to go, and I think I have an idea for four of them...

[mlooney 3,731]

Whenever I hear about "Splatoon" I'm reminded of this:
 

 

[mlooney 3,731]

$180 for a freaking mouse?  More with the fan?  Only 11 hours battery time?  WTF
https://www.techspot.com/news/108016-noctua-pulsar-create-gaming-mouse-built-fan-sweaty.html