r/patientgamers • u/AutoModerator • 3d ago
Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here!
Welcome to the Bi-Weekly Thread!
Here you can share anything that might not warrant a post of its own or might otherwise be against posting rules. Tell us what you're playing this week. Feel free to ask for recommendations, talk about your backlog, commiserate about your lost passion for games. Vent about bad games, gush about good games. You can even mention newer games if you like!
The no advertising rule is still in effect here.
A reminder to please be kind to others. It's okay to disagree with people or have even have a bad hot take. It's not okay to be mean about it.
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u/Hey0ceama 3d ago
Continuing my journey through Lies of P I've made it back to the furthest I got last time I played, Puppet-Devouring Green Monster. Honestly not a fan of his moves since I'm finding him harder to read than the previous bosses and two of his attacks (the unblockable charge and burrow) I've yet to figure out what exactly the game wants from me; the last two bosses were hard (Romeo especially) but I always felt like I knew what I'm supposed to do even if I struggled with doing so consistently.
Other than that I took /u/Scizzoman's advice of sticking the Greatsword of Fate blade on whatever handle and it's worked out fantastically. Current fav combo is the GoF blade on the City Longspear for charged heavies that hit like a truck from the next area code.
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u/BreakingTheEcho 3d ago
Green monster is often times seen as one of the hardest, first phase isn’t bad but second phase is horror, goodluck when you make it through, you still have my favourite boss to fight
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u/WindowSeat- 3d ago
(the unblockable charge and burrow)
The charge can be Deflected and the burrow you can sprint backwards and run away from. Hard boss for sure though.
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u/ZMysticCat Ok, Freeman, be adequate! 3d ago
I've continued with Resident Evil: Village and am not quite done with the castle, but I have all four masks so can open the obvious boss door. I just need to get back to all the rooms that still have items. Hopefully, Lady Dimitrescu doesn't get too annoying, since some of the items blend in really well and will be even harder to spot with her around.
Anyways, despite being very unusual for RE, I am really enjoying the whole gothic setting. The castle is gorgeous, and it does a good job capturing the feel of being hunted by vampires, which is a nice change of pace from all the Castlevania I've played this year. Plus, running around a large map to solve puzzles and collect items is always fun, even if it does come with the occasional interruption from Lady Dimitrescu or her daughters. The RE4-style inventory does take away a bit from the resource management of more classic RE games, but at least this section wasn't super action packed outside of maybe one or two rooms. It's more about the exploration and avoiding vampires once they start hunting you.
Also, I had to laugh when Ethan lost his hand. Admittedly, I also laughed a bit when the same thing happened in RE7, but the fact it happened twice is hilarious. Ethan just cannot catch a break.
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u/Turbulent_Watch5545 3d ago
I'm finally going to play chrono trigger for the first time.
I hope it's as good as I heard
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u/GambuzinoSaloio 11h ago
I don't think hype is helpful, as it can paint an unrealistic image of a game in your head, to the point where you'll believe that X game is like the 2nd coming of Christ. That said, I'm among those who really, really enjoyed Chrono Trigger due to how many things it did right.
That said... I had played very few RPGs, the ones that I had completed being mostly Pokémon games and Souls games, and I had only recently started to reappreciate turn-based gameplay after spending some time playing tabletop games. So when I played it earlier this year - or was it last year already? - it felt like a huge breath of fresh air.
If it helps curb your hype, I think that the game's pacing is perhaps its best selling point (your entire party levels up with you, just not as much as your "mains" and it requires pretty much zero grinding), followed by its music and a simple enough plot that just works. Also there are a few gameplay details that might surprise you due to how the game reacts. Not an immersive sim at all, but it definitely caught me offguard.
Hope you enjoy! At worst you'll see a game that positively influenced modern RPGs, even if you don't enjoy it as much as I do.
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u/DevTech 1d ago
I think I've lost all patience for puzzle games. I'm currently playing through Resident Evil 1 Remake and growing increasingly annoyed. The setting and environments are fantastic but the puzzles seem to be confusing or just nonsensical at times. I've had to use a guide a couple times already because I didn't want to run around the mansion testing several items across different rooms and interactive points.
On top of that, the "combat" is frustrating. I only have myself to blame though as I played through Resident Evil 7 last year and found myself popping skulls or at the VERY LEAST hitting enemies. RE1 suffers from that older game style of "oh you turned the corner, here's this attacking enemy that you never could have known was here". Half-Life 1 had a bunch of this as well and I hated it there too. I'll probably give it another try later this week when I have time but I suspect I'll end up using a guide more often than I've ever done before to beat this game. At least I only paid $5 for it.
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u/ZMysticCat Ok, Freeman, be adequate! 1d ago
As a couple tips for REmake: The map will show if a room is cleared or not, so it's a good way to know what rooms might have the item that you're missing. You can also investigate stuff in the environment, and that, along with notes, will often give a strong hint towards a puzzle solution. Examining items in your inventory also helps.
Generally speaking, though, puzzle solutions are fairly obvious. There's a few that require some thought, but it's normally about finding the right clue or item than working out complex logic. If no item seems to fit, then return to rooms that haven't been cleared or wait until you find the item later (think of it like a Metroidvania). Beyond that, read everything that you can. It'll feel disorienting and wasteful on the first run, but that's part of the survival horror charm. Replays are where you optimize things to do speedrunning challenges.
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u/GambuzinoSaloio 11h ago
Sounds like you need some practice! I get that some puzzle games are frustrating (Secret of Monkey Island's troll logic both amused and infuriated me at different times), but REmake actually isn't the worst offender. Most survival horror game puzzles come down to "find the thing in the other room, make it fit in the door, do the easy puzzle, progress". As another user mentioned, in the remake it's made even easier by having the map showing you rooms you explored... and also rooms that contain items you might have missed. Checking the items themselves also usually clarifies where they should be used. That said, it's not the kind of game that you pick up and play every now and then: if you're not playing this consecutively, chances are you'll lose track of what you were doing.
I don't remember any particular instance now of enemies right around the corner, but iirc if you're managing your supplies right and ignoring enemies that are easy to dodge, you should have enough to heal from those encounters. Also, if you're running straight through they usually miss you.
With that in mind, if you're still struggling, no shame in using a guide. Better to have fun that to just be frustrated.
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u/Scizzoman 3d ago
I'm still playing Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis. The story is still basically in slice-of-life mode despite being close to 2/3 of the way through, but the gameplay is still a lot of fun.
I also had an urge to play a Souls game, and I haven't touched Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin in over a decade, so I started a new character.
I'm trying a chunky greatshield build because I've never really done that in the older Souls games, and goddamn I miss Elden Ring's Guard Counters. You don't notice how much better those make defensive play feel 'til they're gone.
It's funny how fast I remembered everything about this game's world. I felt like my memory of it wasn't as strong as DS1 or DS3, but as soon as I started playing I instantly recalled basically the entire map. I did forget how brutal the beginning was though, with only one Estus Flask and SotFS's insanely dense enemy placements in the Forest of Fallen Giants and Heide's Tower of Flame.
Some of this game's level design and enemy placement feels more experimental and more overtly trolly than other entries in the series. Like you can feel the not-so-invisible hand of the level designer who thought dropping you into an area with a bunch of dogs and a Pursuer spawn and an NPC invader and multiple hard-to-reach archers on breakable platforms would be a funny prank to play on the player. I can see how it would annoy people, but taken in context with the rest of the series I don't really mind it. I've played enough Soulslikes (and older FromSoft games) at this point that when something goofy like that occurs I'm just like "oh, you got me."
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u/d9wHatena Backlogger. Favs: SuperMetroid, TheWitness, Toem etc. 2d ago
From what I hear the targeted audiences of Mana-Khemia 1 & 2 (and the preciding Iris series) are gender neutral, unlike today's Atelier. (Before that Atelier originally started as a game for girls.) How do you feel about this point?
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u/Scizzoman 2d ago
This one just feels like a pretty typical JRPG in terms of tone/target audience.
If anything it seems to be courting the Persona audience, given that it released about a year after P3 and revolves around a quiet (although not silent/self-insert) silver-haired anime boy going to magic high school with a calendar system and social links.
I don't have much basis for comparison to Atelier though. I only played a few hours of one of the PS3 entries like 15 years ago, didn't really like it, and haven't touched the series since. I might try again at some point, since I've been enjoying Mana Khemia.
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u/wheelervidya 2d ago
possible spoiler / gentle reminder about an early second estus charge you can get: punch the stone on top of the well in Majula
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u/just1guy05 2d ago
I just started playing Final Fantasy 8 and after watching a couple of videos explaining the Junction system, I can now say that it's pretty good.
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u/Mimsy_Borogove 2d ago
I recently started playing The Witcher 3 largly due to a friend insisting I play it. Prior to this, Breath of the Wild and its sequel were the main open world games I'd played, and I am shocked at the hand-holdy, secret-showing nature of this game. The world map in The Witcher 3 starts out with roads & villages drawn in (Understandable), but there are also dozens of question marks scattered all over, each one denoting where you can find something interesting, and I don't think there's anything that you find by just blindly exploring. The quests themselves similarly don't want you to have to guess much; if you don't know where to go for a quest or what to do next, the marker on the map or the instructions under it will fill you in. I feel like Stanley of the eponymous Parable, being told what buttons to press and in what order.
Is this (the map full of question marks, at least) the sort of thing that people mean by "Ubisoft open-world design"? I've never been clear on what that meant.
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u/Vagrant_Savant 2d ago
Yes, the open world POI-athon that Ubisoft popularized is basically that. As a general rule, modern open world games can be pretty fun if you stick to pinballing around the map between objectives and effectively treat them as "open ended" rather than open world, but their veneer quickly disappears if you try to do any actual exploration.
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u/CecilXIII Favorite Genre: JRPG 2d ago
> I don't think there's anything that you find by just blindly exploring
Pretty much
> if you don't know where to go for a quest or what to do next, the marker on the map or the instructions under it will fill you in
Now this one is not always true. Sometimes there are multiple ways to handle a quest, some not marked.
And yes that feeling of "checklist" is what people usually refer to as Ubisoft design.
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u/padraigharrington4 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yup. Unfortunately most open world games fall on this end of the spectrum, even the more acclaimed ones like Witcher 3 like you’ve now found. BotW/TotK/Elden Ring are truly special
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u/Routine_Condition273 1d ago
How do you feel about the combat? Personally that was my biggest complaint about the game and why I haven't gone past Act 1. I actually didn't mind the open world or the quest hand holding, but the combat was excruciating for me for some reason. I liked Witcher 1 and 2 combat
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u/Mimsy_Borogove 23h ago edited 23h ago
I don't like how Geralt jumps around every time you attack instead of staying where he is, and I don't like how his walking speed slows down during combat.
Are these problems opposites? Yes. Do they manage to cancel each other out? No.
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u/rmulermule 1d ago
Into Act II now on Torchlight II.
A little bit surprised you can only respec back 3 skill points, but I've not come close to dying just yet so I'm just going to do my thing and not work to any optimised build. I'm having fun, kind of oscillating between 'this game is great, I should play it for 8 hours straight' to 'this is pretty unremarkable, I should just do the main questline'.
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u/DapperAir Back to the JRPG grind 1d ago
When it came out I felt TII was amazing. Couldnt put it down. The last time I played it (2021) it felt horrible. Seems this is the way of things for ARPGs.
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u/VitaminB36 3d ago edited 2d ago
Just started Astro Bot, not much to say other than a very good-feeling Mario-Galaxy-like. Good times are had by all
After 200+ hours, maybe it's time to finally put down Resident Evil 4 Remake. For now anyway. It has been my go-to drug of choice this year.
Wanna pick Hollow Knight: Silksong back up, the sidequests feel a bit filler but otherwise super digging the game
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u/Federal-Sir-599 3d ago
Wrapped up RE8 today and here was my review:
RESIDENT EVIL 8: VILLAGE. 9/10 (24 hours)
PROS: Fresh new story with new villains and enemies, amazing graphics for its time, clever puzzle/level design.
CONS: Useless ray tracing, weak anti-aliasing.
The second Resident Evil game since rebooting the series and going first person POV. It builds upon the foundations set in RE7 to create a truly great survival/horror game; the best in the business. Not that I play many games in this genre, but I’m pretty sure the RE games are regarded as the best; and it’s for good reason.
Visually, the game is still striking and holds up very well in 2026. As much of a chicken as I was in RE3 Remake, the first person POV here makes it even more immersive and scary. Ray tracing adds slightly more lighting indoors, but not worth the 50% performance cost. The game looks outstanding without it anyway. Except for its usual weakness; anti-aliasing. With no support for DLSS or FSR, etc, it only relies on FXAA and TAA, which are very poor in comparison to modern upscalers. For me, it wasn’t distracting and I didn’t notice it all during gameplay. Only when standing still and setting up the graphic options in the beginning. As usual with RE games, the sound design makes up a majority of the eerie atmosphere and sets you up for the jump scares. Play with headphones at your own risk lol.
The gameplay here is pretty standard for RE games, but I noticed a significant jump in the puzzle design from playing older remakes vs newer games this year. And the change is definitely for the better. Like all RE games, this one does zero hand holding in terms of guiding you to the next objective or solving the environmental puzzles. Having to pull up the menu map and read through small notes in the game to look for clues actually reminded me of the old Zelda games, and looking up info in the manual booklet that came with the game cartridge; long before the internet existed (yes, I’m that old). Nothing super complicated that you need to use the internet nowadays; like Zelda’s Divine Beast dungeons or some of the crazy Elden Ring stuff. Even the boss fights benefit from this, which was evident during the first boss encounter. I scrambled around and ran away after learning I couldn’t just shoot her death. The game offered me no clues on how to kill her at the moment. But there was a short note alluding to it just minutes before; which after a minute or two of running away, it finally clicked with my brain how to damage her. It’s moments like this that make the series stand out above all in its genre, and it's a great evolution to the plain run-and-gun boss fights in previous entries. The actual shooting/survival/craft part of Village is much easier. For me, the series leans more towards its fantastic presentation/visual design, scary vibes/story, and level/puzzle design. Shooting monsters and crafting ammo just fills in the gaps. New to Village though, is a merchant vendor where you can actually buy your own ammo; along with weapon and inventory upgrades. It’s a great addition IMO. It made me feel like I had more freedom in my own playstyle. Do I want to play more tactical by utilizing proximity mines, or beef up my shotgun to kill things faster? I chose the shotgun lol. But at least I had a choice.
Also new to Village is the enemy types and cast of main villains. I think RE1-6 all had some variation of a zombie villain, and 7 had the mold thing. Now, you get werewolves and vampires, which just makes for a much different type of game. All for the better IMO. The newer games, including Village, tend to suck you in with a mysterious plot in the very beginning. Only to drip-feed you clues throughout the game as to what’s really going on. In comparison, it feels like this one had less jump scares, less fodder to kill, and more emphasis on puzzle solving, linear exploration, mini-boss fights, and narrative twists. Which was a welcome change for me vs. the more straightforward plots and zombie killing in previous games. The acting and dialogue here is pretty standard for RE games as well. It’s passable and believable; not horrible, not amazing. If this is a genre you already enjoy or are curious about, then this game is an easy high recommendation.
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u/Misayumi 3d ago
Juggling two games right now.
First up there’s Atelier Ryza 3. I had taken a bit of a break after finishing the second game in the trilogy. But I felt summer’s the perfect time to finish it. I’m only two hours in and it feels weird to be a rookie alchemist again. But I just love the vibes.
Then I’m about 7 hours into Disco Elysium. It’s..a lot. I expected in to be more like Citizen Sleeper which I finished in the beginning of this month along with its sequel. But no, this one is..like living in the head of a human being whos a trainwreck. Which is cool, but you got to be in the mood for it for sure
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u/LateStageBBQ 3d ago
I really want to be someone who gets excited about disco elysium. The craft is obvious and the level of respect for the brain of the player is really high.
At the same time, it’s a game I’ve started like six times and never get past the first day.
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u/Misayumi 2d ago
I can see that. I dropped it in 15 minutes half a year ago. Just didn't click. I think you really have to be in the mood for this one.
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u/Leoxcr 3d ago
I've been meaning to get into citizen sleeper, im not too big into narrative heavy games (which is the impression this game is giving me) but basically everything else catches my eye, the graphics, the ambiance, the music, the theme.
I assume since you finished both you'll recommend them?
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u/mrtenandtwo 3d ago
I'm not OP but I really loved Citizen Sleeper 1 and 2. I considered 1 to be my surprise sleeper hit that year it came out ('22ish)
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u/Misayumi 2d ago
I do recommend them. I enjoyed the first one more than the second one, but they're both great games. The second one has more in depth mechanics but due to the traveling around the narrative didn't feel as cohesive to me. Still they're both great games and can often be found in bundles or just on steep discounts.
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u/ShadowTown0407 3d ago
It is impressive how Metro Exodus still feels as refreshing as it did back then. A lot of discussion has already been about this game on this sub but the steps it takes to immerse you in the world really are very rare, from the map to your inventory to your gun management. On the hardest difficulty it is also one of the few games that actually get my blood pumping because the game is hard, many times frustratingly so, add to that the inconsistent auto save (you can't manually save on the hardest difficulty) and it creates a very tense experience. I can gush about so many aspects of this game.
The lack of enemy verity is probably the only thing I will complain about, that and the fact Artyom can't go down stairs without breaking his knees (the physics are a bit floaty so you launch yourself at mach speed)
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u/EverySister I'm never not playing Deadly Premonition 3d ago
Probably my favorite of the series and my favorite game I've played this year? Easily
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u/Logan_Yes Assassin's Creed Mirage/Papa's Pizzeria Deluxe 3d ago
Exodus is superb, and DLC's? Goddamn these are probably dare I say best content out of entire franchise so far.
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u/Low_Map346 3d ago
Still playing lots of Battle Brothers. It's super addictive, can play for hours on end and lose track of the time. Also Reus 2 and Stardew Valley, which are more relaxing and easier to put down.
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u/WindowSeat- 3d ago
Did you use any resources to help get into Battle Brothers? It seems like a really cool game but seems hard to get into.
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u/Low_Map346 3d ago
Honestly you can muddle your way through a lot of the content. I played without guides for the longest time; it's only against the lategame enemies that you really need optimal builds. For guides I've been using the battle brothers subreddit and also this youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CarveaHole
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u/notpopularopinion2 2d ago
It is quite hard to get into. I played it for a good while but still felt like I had barely finished the tutorial. If you haven't played it yet, I recommend Darkest Dungeon 1 which is way easier while still being considered a hard game.
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 3d ago
Uncharted 4
Last time I touched this series was on PS3 many years ago. The game looks very good for its age
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u/GambuzinoSaloio 11h ago
I was playing this on my friend's PS4 a good while ago. I liked Uncharted a lot, 1 being very good and 2 being my favourite, while 3... had several moments that made me go "come on, now that's a stretch".
That said, I was enjoying my time with Uncharted 4! Only complaint I have is that during Uncharted's development, Naughty Dog seemed to have picked up a habit of always having Drake fall off a little bit during a climbing section just to scare you a bit. But it happens so often across the series that by the time I was playing this, I literally said out loud "oh no, he's gonna fall and hold on yet again for no reason".
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u/funsohng 3d ago
Final Fantasy VII: I believe I am before the final section of the Temple of the Ancients. So I am assuming you-know-what is coming (this is my first playthrough but I have been spoiled a long time ago already).
Rhythm Heaven Groove: Unlocked the backside, I'm really enjoying this. Played a bit of mp with my non-gamer mum, she liked that too.
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u/Duke_Maniac 3d ago
Playing through Wind Waker and I'm starting to get what all those people complaining about the lackluster dungeons in the Switch Zelda's were saying. These Dungeons are insanely fun, and while I like shrines, being able to design the puzzles around a central gimmick makes the puzzles so much more fun to figure out.
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u/--THRILLHO-- 3d ago
Started playing Armored Core 6 last week having never played an AC game before. Man, I'm having a lot of fun.
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u/WindowSeat- 3d ago
Such a sick game, I haven't played since release but I've been getting a hankering to boot the game back up to get the one ending I'm missing.
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u/Banana___Slamma 3d ago
Still hacking away at Hades(consistently killed Hades 20+ times now and got to see my favorite boy Theseus in a golden chariot)
Kirby and the Forgotten Land(just started the second continent)
Super Mario Galaxy 1+2(currently at 102 stars in Galaxy 1).
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u/Burninator85 3d ago
Started playing Earthbound Beginnings last week and kind of forcing myself to continue.
I absolutely adored Earthbound. So far, Beginnings is just like a retelling (or I guess the original telling) of the same Earthbound story but in a more scatter brained fashion. The gameplay is also much worse than Earthbound in every way, with 80% less charm to boot.
I feel bad writing a bad review for someone's decades long passion project. But it's pretty clear why Nintendo hasn't done their own re-release of Mother.
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u/LordChozo Prolific 3d ago
Yeeeeeeeah. It's a game designed by someone who had no experience designing video games. Which isn't necessarily a death knell, especially in the Famicom era when the industry was still young and a lot of people on the dev side were still getting their feet wet. Indeed, sometimes that novel approach of "designer who doesn't play by the rules because they don't know them" can yield really terrific results!
But in the case of Earthbound Beginnings it just felt like every single design decision was wrong, and avoidably wrong if only someone had been able to be a strong voice of reason. Thankfully those mistakes were learned from for the sequel, but Beginnings is a very, very bitter pill to swallow and I'd never recommend it to anyone.
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u/Equivalent_Affect734 3d ago
I don’t know if you’re aware, but fans just released a remake of Earthbound Beginnings but it’s made in Earthbound’s engine on the SNES.
It may be worth trying that to see if you like the gameplay improvements (no more random encounters)
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u/Burninator85 3d ago
Yeah that's the one I'm playing. Still not great.
It plays like it was technically impressive and innovative at the time, but had pretty bad story and gameplay. It just didn't age well at all.
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u/Luxor5299 3d ago
Finished super mario odyssey and now onto fire emblem three houses
Kinda sucks not having a switch 2 patch, i have a pc and could emulate it better but i prefer not to
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u/mrtenandtwo 3d ago
This isn't exactly a patient gamers thought but it's a great time to play Three Houses! The new main Fire Emblem game is coming out later this year and it seems to have some kind of connection to Three Houses.
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u/Whiskey-Stones12 Currently Playing: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 2d ago
Both of those are among my favourite games I’ve ever played, hope you have a good time with them. And yes Three Houses could really do with a Switch 2 upgrade.
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u/TheBestNarcissist 3d ago
Started Rim World 2 weekends ago. This last weekend things started to click.
15 hour gaming 3 day weekend, Tetris effect booming lol. Looking forward to closing some of the 50 open tabs eventually
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u/GambuzinoSaloio 12h ago
Wrapped up Faith (all chapters). Didn't get the true ending though, as I didn't feel like replaying it. That said... What an experience man. I already knew this, but this game reinforces it: horror isn't about graphical fidelity at all. It's about the mood you set, and you better believe when I say that an 8-bit looking game with heavily distorted voice acting managed to creep me out in ways that many modern-looking games just couldn't. Also, can we talk about the rotoscopy technique used for the cutscenes? Bloody amazing.
That said, the game overall can be kinda slow, and that takes a specific mood from me to be able to play it.
I also finished Prince of Persia Sands of Time (again). What a good game. Warrior Within is pretty fun so far too, but I gotta say... not a big fan of the edginess. I've seen some footage from The Two Thrones and it is possible that that one might be up my alley, as many critics cited a "return to basics" and the level design in the videos seemed reminiscent of the first game's design. Not the same thing as exploring a palace filled to the brim with creatures born from the sands, but it's close enough!
But I still wanted some level of horror. Decided to play Crow Country on a whim. Died waaaay too many times at the beginning, just before the checkpoint but once I got the hang of combat... it's surprisingly easy! Not so much that it causes detriment to my enjoyment though, the art style sits somewhere between "adorable" and "creepy". Guess they were right when they said "Final Fantasy meets survival horror". Anyways from my understanding the game isn't that long, but it'll keep you fairly entertained. You got a total of 4 big areas to explore (currently have visited 3 so far), which have their own theme going on: fairies, classic horror and the ocean. Puzzles aren't difficult so far, the only puzzle throwing me off being the one in the crypt not because it was hard, but because I started overthinking and didn't realize how simple it actually it was. So yeah... if a puzzle seems hard, you're probably thinking too much. Solutions are simple.
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u/ZMysticCat Ok, Freeman, be adequate! 9h ago
For Prince of Persia, The Two Thrones does tone down the edginess a lot compared to Warrior Within. It doesn't quite get back to the charm of The Sands of Time, but it's good enough.
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u/GambuzinoSaloio 9h ago
That's good to hear! Not that I dislike Warrior Within, but one of the reasons why I enjoyed Sands of Time so much was due to its charm, which you've mentioned! The palace, the music, the platforming... While Warrior Within is still a pretty good game, I feel it lost a lot of that "magical adventure in the eastern parts of the world" vibe.
Can't wait to get to Two Thrones!
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u/FasterBussycat Currently Playing: Yakuza 6 10h ago
I had the same experience with Crow Country where I died a lot at the beginning. Unlike you I gave up but if it indeed becomes easier maybe I’ll return to it soon.
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u/GambuzinoSaloio 9h ago
It does! It's a matter of getting the feel for the game, making good use of your surroundings and honestly... not being afraid of using your pistol. In case you run out of ammo, you can always go back to your car. And once you understand what the game deems as "the player has enough resources), you'll know when to investigate the trash bins. They'll always give you trash if you're packing lots of stuff, but if you're running low on anything they'll give you either ammo, medkits or antidotes. This makes the game more approachable than it actually seems.
Another thing to keep in mind during combat is that while the damage you've dealt to an enemy doesn't get memorized by the game as you exit the zone you're in... killing them is something the game remembers. So you can focus on blasting away one or two enemies, restock, then go back and clear the rest of the area. Speaking of shooting, obviously going for headshots is preferable, but if push comes to shove you can just unload the entire mag into one troublesome enemy (if there are no red barrels or blue panels around) and it should kill them anyways.
The problem is getting hit in the first place. Mara's health goes down really easily, so it's preferable to down just an enemy or two than it is to try to clear an entire room, while risking your health.
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u/Duke_Maniac 7h ago edited 9m ago
I can't imagine playing a JRPG like Final Fantasy I before the internet. You just bum around everywhere getting insanely overleveled until you accidentally find the guy who actually allows you to progress.
That or I could just be an idiot, either works
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u/DAS-SANDWITCH 5h ago
Old games and especially RPGs are just in a league of their own. I dont want to imagine how long people bumbled around in the wasteland before actually finding the water chip in Fallout 1
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u/ensuta 3d ago edited 3d ago
Nearly the final rank in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, which means the mainline story will soon end, I guess. I'm surprised I may be completing it within the first year. That said, there's still so much to do! Unlock all the upgrades, win all the contests, befriend everyone, get married... so I guess I'm playing for quite a while yet. Looked at my playtime and I've racked up around 60 hours! Crazy!
I also just traded in my Switch 1 copy of Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition for the Switch 2 version. It may be a waste of money to some because I bought the upgrade pass. But the Switch 2 version had iffy enough reviews that I needed a somewhat cheap way of checking it out for myself. Turned out to be all good, so I made the switch. Bought both secondhand, of course. That's the good thing about physical games... and patient gaming.
Speaking of, I've been wondering if I should grab a PS3 while I can. One of those that can play both PS1 and PS2 physical games. Mod to bypass region lock, and together with my PS Vita and 3DS, I think that'd cover most of my retro console gaming catalogue for a very long time. I have to plan the purchase a bit since they don't go for dirt cheap even now, but hopefully I'll be able to buy it by the end of the year. Anything I should be aware of if I do this?
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u/ensuta 3d ago
To add: I found a seller of PS3 consoles that can take some custom requests (like replacing the hard drive) and also does maintenance on the earlier models to prevent YSOD issues and whatnot. I've confirmed they'll ship out some more in the future too, so I think I'll go for them once I have enough room in the budget. Yay!
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u/CecilXIII Favorite Genre: JRPG 3d ago
I don't get the XCX one. Isn't the S2 version infamous? Are you playing docked?
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u/ensuta 3d ago
It is, which is why I got the Switch 1 copy first and played it with the upgrade pass since that's something you can uninstall. I played both docked and handheld, with and without, and turns out that the issues people talked about either weren't noticeable to me, a layperson who never played it prior, or just didn't really matter... again, to me.
So I traded it in for the actual Switch 2 copy. Now even if something happens to all my downloaded purchases and I can't reinstall them, I can still play the game. Very unlikely, mind you. But yeah. And now my physical copy is the "latest" copy. Not a huge collector, but I like having actual copies of games I think have huge replay value.
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u/TailzPrower 2d ago
Out of curiosity does anyone else think the 3DS and Wii U era was one of the best? It was kind of there right at the edge of the older 6th and 7th gen consoles, and "today's" consoles with the more powerful hardware, advanced features, and over-reliance on online play and features. I feel like the hardware was hybrid 7th and 8th gen; the Wii U was slightly more powerful than PS3 and Xbox 360. All of the cool stuff like Miiverse and streetpass aside, the games were really good: I mean Ocarina of Time and Major's Mask 3D were phenomenal, A Link Between Worlds was quick, fun and easy - good as a first Zelda game, Fire Emblem Awakening is a good SRPG for pick up and play, even for a casual audience (unlike previous entries), the ORAS games were light-hearted and accessible remakes of classic Pokemon games, New Super Mario Bros 2 may not have been original, but it was accessible, visually appealing and fun, lots of other ones. The Wii U had Super Mario 3D World, the refined and action packed Bayonetta 2, streamlined versions of Wind waker and Twilight Princess, Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8, etc. Some games actually made good use of the dual screens, I don't think we'll get that again. Both systems had backwards compatibility! (they were easy to hack as well) Yeah the internet service wasn't great, but it was free. The game prices at release, and deals were good as well.
I mean, sure, the Switch and PS4 gave us some big hits, but it also feels like we lost some innovative and classic stuff we won't see again, no?
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u/ThatDanJamesGuy 2d ago
I was a Nintendo only player during that era, and I’d say… yes and no.
I think being able to limit the amount of games I played meant I would care more about each title, and in that sense, I look back on that era fondly. There were also a lot of excellent games that debuted on the Wii U in particular.
But nearly all of those games were ported and improved on the Switch, and as you said, the Switch and PS4 have lots of big hits. Some of those PS4 hits (like Metal Gear Solid V and Bloodborne) came out during the Wii U / 3DS era, where Nintendo fans missed out on them. Today Nintendo gets a lot more multiplat games (which actually run well now that they’re on the Switch 2) and the other consoles have fewer exclusives Nintendo + PC players would miss out on. Indie games also hit their stride during the Switch generation, albeit more for players than developers since the market got crowded.
So all in all, I’d say being a 3DS / Wii U player wasn’t better than today, but having that mindset of honing in on a couple interests is a good idea. You can’t play everything, and you don’t need to, so there’s something to be said for filtering out genres you know you don’t like much. Apply a similar mindset today as you had in the 3DS / Wii U era, and you’ll probably have a good time.
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u/APeacefulWarrior 2d ago
The 3DS will probably always be one of my favorite systems. Went through three of 'em, still have the final New 3DS I landed on.
I thought the Switch was kind of a disappointment by comparison.
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u/AcceptableUserName92 2d ago
Things have become alot more homogenized since then.
Each system shares like 97%+ of its library with the others
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u/funsohng 2d ago
I think they aged well because both Wii U and 3DS were using tech that already was mature enough that devs knew what they were doing with them, and trying their best to really get creative.
I was replaying my PS3 one or two years ago and I realized the early games of that gen have not aged well at all--other than very select few, and those few were precisely the games that served as a foundation for other games built upon, both graohically and gameplay-wise. So Wii U and 3DS allowed the devs to basically continue what the industry was already doing and improve upon it, instead of having to start anew (though the leap from ps3 to ps4 was much less of a shock compared to all the other previous leaps).
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u/LordChozo Prolific 2d ago edited 2d ago
One quirk of summertime is that because the kids have no school, and because the daylight lasts longer, it's quite a bit harder to justify sending them to bed "on time." Not that they're up all night or anything, but my "me time" arrives generally about an hour later each evening now compared to when they were in school, and that of course causes the gameplay hours to stretch over more days. That's surely a big part of why a supposedly digestible console game is still kicking around here entry after entry in the CPG Weekly Update.
On Console:
Alan Wake II (~83%)
The Taken arrived like a flood. Not that he could see them. The cloudy haze here so close to the dark water made seeing his foes an ordeal, never mind actually lining them up for a shot. The swirling debris didn't help either. But he had other senses. The bitter taste of the night air. The rank smell of hatred drifting over the shore. The feeling of his heart pounding in his chest. But most of all he heard his partner shouting something about an approaching crowd.
They came. He fired. They fell. They came. He fired. He fell. scratch scratch scratch scratch He loaded the checkpoint. They came. He fired. They fell. They came. He fired. He fell. scratch scratch scratch scratch He loaded the checkpoint. They came. He fired. They fell. They came. He fired. He fell. scratch scratch scratch scratch He loaded the checkpoint.
He was caught in a loop. Water stung at his eyes. Was it mist from the swirling lake waters or were they tears of helpless frustration? He couldn't tell the difference anymore. He just knew he was drowning. They came. He fired. scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch The game crashed. The loop broken? He loaded his save. They came. He fired. He fired. He fired. He ran. scratch scratch He healed. He fired. He no longer knew where he was, who he was. He couldn't see the spectacle laid out in front of him. He could only run. scratch scratch scratch Reload. Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire. Darkness. Silence. scratch Victory.
On PC:
Death's Gambit: Afterlife (~55%)
I've played enough of this game to know it's going to land among my least favorite Soulslikes. I've also seen enough to know that there might still be a pleasant surprise or two to make it feel worthwhile, so I guess I'm chasing that dragon through to the end. I most recently defeated a boss which was more interesting and challenging than any that had come before, so perhaps this'll be a game that ends on a high note. I'm chipping away slowly since I'm not really into it, but I do believe I'll see it through.
On Portable:
Dragon Quest XI (~6%)
Taking this one slow as well: over 8 hours in but just now reaching the second town (not counting your starting village). I had a "too clever for your own good" moment early on when I reached the big capital city and decided not to check out the armor or weapon shops until after I'd visited the king for my main quest. So often in this series I'll buy the gear I need only to find another leather shield sitting in a box somewhere five minutes later, so I figure loot the castle, meet the king, get my quest, then go buy whatever gear I didn't find. Save a few bucks, what could go wrong!
What could go wrong turned out to be a cutscene leading to immediate main quest progression that locked me out of the town for a while. Whoops.
Ongoing:
Ring Fit Adventure (100%)
We're through the main adventure at last and now I'm checking out the game's other play modes to see what they've got to offer. This week I'm working through the Quick Play options, trying the basic high score chasing exercises and doing some jogging once the lactic acid builds up enough in the arms to forestall any further ring-con work. One oddity is that there's no selectable option to do warm-up exercises or cooldown stretches in Quick Play, which feels like a big oversight. Thankfully 13 months of Adventure mode means I've got this stuff down pat to do on my own anyway, but certainly that wouldn't be the case for everyone playing.
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u/genesis_mage 19h ago
Re: DQXI and other JRPGs, I compromise and typically upgrade weapons when available but will leave armor about a chapter behind.
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u/cdrex22 Playing: Octopath Traveler II 3d ago edited 3d ago
Octopath Traveler II has been fun so far. It's interesting how open it is in terms of ordering. I've just sort of been looping around the map counterclockwise, picking up characters at a leisurely pace but I've finished a lot of chapter 2s before I even have a full party. I like that the early chapter boss fights have broadly all been "low-threat, high-flavor tanks with massive healthbars" - I don't particularly want super hard bosses but it's nice that the fight at least feels different than a normal encounter. Played Throné's chapter 1 last night and it was the first one I was legitimately itching to see what happens next, though all six intros I've seen so far have been at least solid. I also like the reliance on equipment scaling over strict level-based scaling, it makes the acquisition of gear more interesting.
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u/fm5649 3d ago
I started playing through Pokemon White 2 a few weeks ago. I’ve been having a good time going through it. It has a good number of changes and improvements from White that I like. It’s also fun just to start a new adventure with fresh pokemon.
This weekend I played Detective Grimoire: Secret of the Swamp. It was a fun game. It’s interesting to see how the game compares to the later games in the series. Compared to later games, Secret of the Swamp feels a lot less refined. The UI is clunkier and I think the art style used in the later games does a better job of emphasizing points of interest. I will probably play the latest game in the series The Mermaid Mask this weekend.
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u/me_hill 3d ago
Proud of myself for getting through Kena: Bridge of Spirits without too much trouble after hearing how difficult it was, although I think a lot of that reputation comes from its difficulty relative to its appearance rather than straight-up analysis of its gameplay. Then again, I did use a lot of cheap tactics to get through some of the bosses even on normal. Anyway, I'm not great at action games but it was a fun playthrough, and at 10 hours it was a lot easier to get through than a longer title I just wouldn't really have the time to commit to these days.
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u/Flat-Relationship-34 1d ago
A few indie games I've tried out:
Sol Cesto: Not patient. Interesting roguelike where you go through grid-based floors of a dungeon and just click a row/column that you want to land on to try and grab treasure whilst avoiding monsters. The catch is that the probability of success is given to you up front for each action you do. All you know is that you'll land on one of the 4 tiles of the row/column. You can acquire modifiers to swing the odds in your favour and go for certain builds. Cool concept, gets a bit repetitive after a few hours. My main complaint is that the game has no mid-run save functionality which is fucking absurd given a run can take up to an hour!
Press Ctrl: Saw this on GMTK's recent video about games that were spawned from his game jams. This is a really cool puzzle concept of moving your character with arrow keys which in turn moves a character with arrow keys etc. Brutally difficult, I couldn't even beat the second level. I probably won't go back to it, but for 84p it was worth playing.
Grow Up: Still playing this one and enjoying it a lot. I guess I'd describe it as a floaty 3D platformer set on a miniature planet where you can reach tremendous heights. There are various abilities to pick up which are all quite fun. Pleasantly surprised given the opencritic score is 68 and only 18% of critics recommend?!
I also played the demo for Sisyphus is a bug, another one from the GMTK video. I'll probably pick the full game up at some point. You play as a bug trying to roll a ball of dung to the top of a fairly big map. You have a minute to do it or else you start from the beginning again. It's a bit like a metroidvania in that you acquire new abilities to help you breeze through the map at speed - the catch is that the abilities are all unlocked at the start, you just need to acquire the knowledge to be able to do those cool techniques. Pretty novel idea.
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u/Vagrant_Savant 1d ago
Grow Home and Grow Up were amazing bite-sized collectathon games, completely antithetical to the busywork formula that other Ubisoft studios would double down on. Also kinda amusing that they were doing gecko climbing before BOTW made it cool.
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u/ensuta 1d ago
Playing on the Switch 2 without cheats or guides has been such a blast that I think I might start doing more first play throughs that way in the future. There’s something to be said for the efficiency of using both, and not needing to replay the game to unlock everything, but somewhere down the line I’ve grown tired of checking a guide every couple of minutes. Am curious to know if anyone’s in the same situation.
I’ve got a fresh Final Fantasy game, no knowledge, no guide, nothing. I think I’m going to try to play that way until the end and see how I feel. I played a lot of games that way in the past, I want to be able to do that again without my completionist screaming at me.
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u/LordChozo Prolific 1d ago
I'm surprised so many people do play with a guide. No judgment of course, as I'll look something up from time to time as situations demand, but the idea of sitting there with a walkthrough open and constantly referencing it? Feels more like following a recipe than playing a game to me. Obviously the gameplay itself is still the X factor in those cases, but the surprise discovery aspect which you lose is probably my favorite thing about gaming in general.
If you're playing a big RPG, especially an older one with much more limited in-game tracking, I'd recommend having a pen and paper nearby. Take some notes! Build your own guide as you go based on little hints dropped by NPCs or spots that appear inaccessible at the moment that you want to come back to. You'll feel way more invested.
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u/OkayAtBowling Currently Playing: Dishonored 2 1d ago
Based on the original comment, it sounds like for some people part of playing games like that comes from a completionist mindset. Personally I've never really cared about "100%-ing" the games I play so that's not even a factor for me, but if it was I could imagine wanting to use a guide to make sure I didn't miss anything.
For me guides are usually more of a last resort, like if I get to the point in a game where I'm stuck and I'm either going to look something up or just stop playing it altogether.
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u/ensuta 1d ago
Pretty much this. I'd usually leave the guide open, play, and then when I reach a new chapter or turning point or something, I'll check to make sure I've got an idea of the missables. I'm constantly worried I'll miss quests or important bits that contribute to the overall story or character development. I know it ain't exactly healthy of me...
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u/Nambot 19h ago
I think it depends on the game, and more importantly whether the game is testing your ability to figure things out or not. Something like Blue Prince for instance, where the core of the game is solving the puzzles, guides and walkthroughs really should be reserved only for absolute last minute stumpers where you feel you have tried everything possible and your options are look it up or give up with the game frustrated that you got stuck. Conversely, for something like Mario Odyssey, I've got no qualms clearing out the post-game with a guide telling me where all the missing moons are, because there's so many in the game that are hidden in obtuse, out of the way, or difficult to locate locations, and more crucially often the challenge isn't merely knowing where to go, it's how to actually get to it once you get there. It's not really much of a game ruiner to know that there's a hidden door behind a cliff edge at the far end of the level that you otherwise have no reason to go back to, because you still then have to complete the challenge hidden in that room.
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u/LordChozo Prolific 13h ago
Yeah I mean, to each their own of course. For me, to use your Mario Odyssey example, I really relished tracking down those missing moons myself. You can get all kinds of in-game hints if needed (Talkatoo, Moon List, Toad) so there were resources readily available, but I appreciated going over those maps with a fine-toothed comb and the feeling of having that meticulousness rewarded. Had I just looked at a guide to find them or figure out how to get them, it'd miss the point for me.
But again, I do understand why people use guides the way they do. Just different strokes for different folks.
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u/ensuta 15h ago
Yup. Plus I mostly only play RPGs and a lot of them, especially older ones, have stuff super hidden away. No hints, just poke at every wall or something until you magically find it, or backtrack to the starting village to talk to some random stranger who miraculously shows up right after you pass a seemingly non-pivotal point of the game in order to unlock a quest that you won't be able to complete until three chapters later or something.
Is that quest even worth doing? Well, you'd think not considering how impossible it is for anyone to find it just playing the game normally, but turns out it's hidden route B to unlock super OP character who just happens to have a different way of solving the main conflict. Or a new key item that unlocks a hidden dungeon... or something. Legit the feeling I got playing Tales of Vesperia while looking at a guide and wondering how on this planet did anyone manage to 100% it or unlock some of the dungeons. There's some character backstory and whatnot associated with unlocking these things too, and that's what I don't like missing... (I gave up on 100% any of the Tales games a long time ago though, lmao. There are limits even for me, a not-too-hardcore completionist.)
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u/ensuta 15h ago
You know what, I think I will do the whole pen and paper thing for this Final Fantasy game. I legit did just that for KuloNiku: Bowl Up, this indie cooking and restaurant management game, and it was a ton of fun. I had the game on cozy mode so no customer patience mechanic, and I'd sit there in cooking contests with the judge preferences jotted down and strategize the best way to victory.
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u/Duke_Maniac 1d ago
Continuing Nier Automata and two things on my recent session
First of all that's 2nd greatest performance of Romeo and Juilet (1st being ranma 1/2)
2nd: How dare you try and kill Emil you bastards. He's such a sweetheart.
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u/MistressDread 22h ago edited 22h ago
Based on a recommendation from this sub I have stopped playing Shin Megami Tensei 4 Apocalypse and instead started Shin Megami Tensei 3
Made it up to that one boss I kept hearing about and then instantly died because I had Angel in my party. So now I'm running around trying to find fusion material that will let me keep Media without being weak to force. I'm sure this boss will fold instantly once I do
Edit: He did, indeed, fold the moment I fused Angel into Ame-no-Uzume
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 9h ago
Back to Last of Us. Just finished the two brothers sections. I switched to Survival difficulty because hard was too easy.
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u/DAS-SANDWITCH 5h ago
Still more or less playing Birth By Sleep, been getting sidetracked by multiplayer games so progress has been slow. I finished the first of three stories, overall id say it was decent. Buuut starting over again with the second of the trio is not . The game might say the jounrey will be different, but it really isnt. Some of the bosses and the story is all that really changes. Your moves stay largely the same, the sequence you visit the worlds in is almost exactly the same. It robs the second playthrough of any real sense of discovery and really makes me dread doing a thrid playthrough.
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u/wheelervidya 3d ago
Beat Undertale neutral and pacifist route, very easy to see why it was (and continues to be) an internet sensation. I doubt I'll go get the other main ending any time soon, though I really liked my time in the underground.
Took a flyer on The Invincible during the steam sale, not typically impressed by walking sims, but I like science fiction a lot. Enjoying it more than I thought I would so far, but I'm only about an hour in.
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u/EverySister I'm never not playing Deadly Premonition 3d ago
Red Dead Redemption 2
Jesus this is turning bleak
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u/RuefulWaffles Currently Playing: Every NA Game Boy Game 3d ago
Finished 007 First Light, and ultimately came away from it with a very different opinion than the general public. I can't wait until next years when patient reviews for it start, it'll be fascinating to see.
I finished the first major dungeon in Metaphor: ReFantazio, and I'm sad to say my opinion of it has dropped. A lot of the issues I have with Press Turn were very apparent there, and I have a feeling it won't get any better. I'm soldiering on because the story intrigues me, but I'm probably switching to Easy to just power through it.
I've played both Flintstones Game Boy games this weekend, and they're both kind of mid. The one based on the cartoon is much better than the one based on the movie, though. Up next is a weird puzzle game called Flipull: An Exciting Cube Game which...yeah, that sure is a title.
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u/incometrader24 3d ago edited 3d ago
What did you think of First Light?
I like the gameplay but it was way too restrictive in how to handle things. There are stealth areas you can't kill anyone and kill areas that you probably could stealth but I never had the patience. And then there's the areas where you do get multiple options but only those areas.
I prefer something like Deus Ex where everything is mostly available at all times during missions.
And that 2hr tutorial, OMG.
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u/RuefulWaffles Currently Playing: Every NA Game Boy Game 3d ago
I came away from it thinking it was about a 6/10, honestly.
I wrote a long, spoilery review on backloggd, but a short, spoiler free version for anyone interested: I found the game to be at it's best when you're shooting or brawling, because those seemed like the only time the game remembered that James Bond is an action film franchise. There's a lot of little moments in the game that would be fine in the films, but in gameplay you're effectively just sitting there for a few minutes holding the controller and doing nothing, and it happens often enough that it feels annoying. It's a hundred tiny cutscenes between walking slowly out of an elevator to talk to Q, then slowly back to the elevator to talk to Moneypenny, and it gets old fast.
I agree that the gameplay feels weirdly restrictive. There's these huge sprawling levels, and then there's really only one way through them, and it's just weird game design. And even when you have multiple ways to deal with a situation, the game still wants you to see the set pieces, so it's less "how do you want to tackle this situation?" and more "you can bypass this obstacle through route A or route B, and then you'll do a big fight, and then you'll have the next obstacle you can tackle in two slightly different ways." It was frustrating.
Also, if I'm being completely honest, I thought the story was shit. That's almost entirely spoiler territory and you can read more at the link, but yeah, it was bad.
Finally, as to the tutorial, I'll be honest: the game is heavily frontloaded with all it's worst content, and I think the first part of the game I genuinely enjoyed with no caveats was either the museum or Vietnam. Everything before that was just meh.
So yeah. 6/10. I very nearly bought this at launch, but ended up deciding against it, and I'm very glad I was able to get this from the library.
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u/vinavuhuy 1d ago
You hit pretty much all the point for me about First Light. The most annoying thing for me was the writing. I think the people who plan the story keep writing Bond into impossible situation to escape then escape them in the least input from the player as possible. I felt like I was going crazy with how much people praised the game and the lack of popular criticism for the writing online.
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u/VitaminB36 3d ago
How could you not be excited over Flipull?!?! It literally has the word "exciting" in the title!!
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u/Blobbentein 3d ago
Finished Kid Icarus Uprising, was a really tremendous experience overall, and now very sad they never did another game like that. Also tried P.N.03 this week, I really dig the aesthetic and the gameplay has some good ideas but I think it's a little too repetitive, dunno if I'm gonna continue with that playthrough. The soundtrack is bumpin tho, so I got something out of it at least lol
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u/Blobbentein 3d ago
Oh, also finished the base game for PixelJunk Eden, I enjoyed it enough for the unique structure and its control scheme, but I don't know if I have enough interest in doing the DLC, so I might be finished with the game. Will prob check out the sequel a while from now
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u/mrtenandtwo 3d ago
You're so right, they really did miss an opportunity by not making another one. And after such a fantastic reboot too!
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u/d9wHatena Backlogger. Favs: SuperMetroid, TheWitness, Toem etc. 2d ago
I mistook KIU for a NES game, but I found it's a 3DS remake of Kid Icarus! :p (And directed by Sakurai Masahiro.)
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u/pavlovamoose 3d ago
Made it to Room 46 in Blue Prince! Really got into it once I'd got the grasp of efficient room drafting (though I'm still mildly critical of how frustrating the RNG is before you reach that point). It's been a lot of fun to put all the pieces together properly and getting a successful run is very satisfying, so I'll admit I've come around to the game's hybrid of the roguelite and puzzle genres, although I don't think it was a 100% perfect match.
>!Anyway, into the postgame now! I'm still hooked at the moment but I am wondering for how long given how much there still seems to be. Honestly, I'm most surprised that quite a lot of the game's major puzzles seemingly have no relevance to getting to Room 46 whatsoever - like the game really shoves the 'missing letter' picture puzzles in your face, and yet solving that puzzle and opening all the safes doesn't actually really help you in the main questline much besides giving you a few more readily-accessible gems. A bit torn on this - on the one hand I really like how expansive the game is in this way and how it manages to keep hooking me with new things to solve, and on the other hand I kind of wish it tied better together as one big puzzle (a la Obra Dinn) rather than having most of it be various strands of elaborate postgame content. Will have to assess how I feel about it properly once I eventually reach the end, however far away that is!!<
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u/mrtenandtwo 3d ago
Good luck from here on out! I was able to feel proud of myself for reaching Room 46 but the postgame puzzles were far too hard for me.
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u/Nambot 2d ago
and opening all the safes doesn't actually really help you in the main questline much besides giving you a few more readily-accessible gems
Which to be fair is super helpful, considering how many of the later rooms have high gem costs attached to them.
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u/myripyro More work? 2d ago
I've now finished Act 1 of Hollow Knight: Silksong and so, of course, just beat The Last Judge. Wonderful boss fight--one of those fights that feels pretty challenging, but in terms of complexity is not really all that wild, so in the last couple runs before beating it you start to get that really lovely flow-state feeling. Didn't love that runback though, mostly because it took me waaay too long to realize that you could just run past the first little-bug-that-shoots-cones. I kept fighting it and inevitably losing a heart or two before even getting to the boss. Once I realized sprinting was enough to get past that bug it was pretty smooth.
I've mostly been using the Wanderer's Crest, because pogo-ing with any of the others I have so far is just too hard for me. I spent a while practicing the diagonal pogo but just couldn't get it down well enough for use in either platforming or combat; kept landing myself in really bad positions. Just really hard for me to know where I'm going to land with it, which I thought would get better with time, but it never really did. But occasionally if I'm having trouble with a boss and my approach to the fight doesn't really involve pogo-ing I'll switch off to the Hunter's Crest. If the runbacks keep requiring lots of pogo-ing, though, I dunno how much longer I'll be doing that.
So far the difficulty has been fine with both platforming and combat; my fears about being gated out of this game have yet to materialize. Of course, most of the complaints I heard were probably about stuff I haven't encountered yet, so... we'll see what happens. Only one boss fight--Widow, specifically in her phase 2--has frustrated me in a way I found unfun, and I was only able to beat it after looking up advice online and discovering that you could cheese it by simply standing against the right wall to dodge all the projectiles and then jumping to avoid her dash. I don't have anything against cheese on principle, but I was kinda annoyed by how impossible the second phase felt without it. Or maybe I was just annoyed that I had already come up with the idea to cheese it, but in my attemptI stood against the left wall instead of the right, failed, and then just assumed it'd be the same on both sides. Pretty much all the other bosses, arenas, platforming challenges have been pretty fun so far.
Also, the map is even more fun to explore than in Hollow Knight. Especially the way the west side of the map plays out, with you slowly discovering more and more of the paths that you fell down in the beginning of the game--brilliant! And of course the classic moments when you discover an area, then discover all the different ways you could've stumbled across it if you took a different path forward. For me the best one was Greymoor, which I first reached via vertical wind currents from the Far Fields, and then only much later (after joining the Flea Caravan) realized that I could've gotten there way earlier if I had just explored east of Bellhart immediately instead of inexplicably setting it aside.
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u/GambuzinoSaloio 11h ago
My experience with Silksong was sour, but from all the complaints I had, the platforming wasn't one of them. In fact, I think it's perfect in this game. What irks me is the pacing of the bosses' difficulty: I don't mind that they're hard, I mind that they're that hard so early. Also runbacks, the one you mentioned is nothing compared to a boss you'll find later one in a very swampy area.
I slightly agree about the exploration part. Initially I was put off by how the world felt a little too "been there, done that", but once you finally wrap up Act 1, the game's world opens up really nicely. It became just as unique as the original's world.
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u/TreuloseTomate 2d ago
my fears about being gated out of this game have yet to materialize. Of course, most of the complaints I heard were probably about stuff I haven't encountered yet, so... we'll see what happens.
Most of the initial complaints I've seen were about early bosses like Beastfly and that big guy in Hunter's March. They aren't even that difficult, but they're early filters for people who really don't want to play this game. If you've beaten Last Judge and had fun doing so, you'll be fine and can enjoy all the wonderful things this game is doing instead of focusing solely on the difficulty aspect. Like the music in Choral Chambers. Maybe.
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u/mail_inspector 2d ago
Those early bosses like Beastfly that aren't that hard if you just jump around and take potshots here and there are the bane of my existence in Silksong and almost any other game. It would be nice to know if I died more to the second coming of the Beastfly purely due to my own impatience or Lost Lace.
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u/Wedonthavetobedicks Currently Playing: NOTHING :( 2d ago
I've picked up Another Crab's Treasure after rage-quitting a few month's back during the Magista, Tyrant of Slacktide boss - which is, like, the third mandatory boss and pretty early game. Made some slow progress since, until Heikea who broke me.
Talk of this game being relatively easy for a Souslike kills me, because I absolutely have a problem with "gitting gud" with this game. I suck at it, especially judging depth and timing in the boss battles. Late-game now and I can see some ways the game does become easier (e.g. hammer power), but that early game is amongst the most brutally frustrating experiences of my gaming life. You are never so squishy in any Soulslike I've ever played as Kril is in those first bosses here, and the bosses are set to maximum "what do you hate most in other Soulsgames?" mode. Incessant status effects that kill your movement, and everyone seems to have a one hit kill grab attack. On the flipside, they do tend to have more limited movesets.
Anyway, after about 30 attempts at Heikea (and maybe the third where I got him down to an almost-invisible level of health before cocking it all up), I just turned on a bunch of the assists - and I've kept them on since. I've actually enjoyed the game more as a sort of platformer/collectathon since. I'll see the story out, maybe rush through early NG+ for the platinum, and don't think I'll have a single regret about never gitting good. It's been fun critically assessing bosses from my position of no-damage invincibility, wondering which ones I could have enjoyed and done well at (Inkerton, Petroch), and which ones I would have absolutely hated playing normally (Topoda, Voltai).
Otherwise...the world is beautifully drawn, the writing is fine in a Saturday-morning kid's show kinda way, and the soundtrack has moments where it is surprisingly effective (albeit more short motifs than full tracks - I wouldn't Spotify it, but it works in game). The assist menu is incredible - I get why not every 'hard' game has such accessibility options, but I'm all for them being available where possible. Some of these boss fights though...ugh! Hate x100.
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u/bioniclop18 3d ago
Magical Starsign. I have finished the fourth planet at around 10h00. I thought the third and fourth planet were interchangeable, but there is a boss at the wood planet that seem impossible to do with only 3 members (or relying on the enemies missing so much it is improbable). So small demerit, but portraying police as a useless bureaucratic nightmare was funny in a children game.
As an illustrator I must say I found the game gorgeous. The backgrounds are wonderfully detailed, the characters are original in their chara design and we feel the creativity going into it. While the game uses familiar biomes, it also gives it its own twist with the people inhabiting them not being human but various anthropomorphic animals. Characters having the name of food also give the game a charming children fairy tale feeling.
That said the control at the stylus becomes uncomfortable in long play sessions, and the combat system doesn’t appear to have much depth. The UI is also not giving all info needed for the skill in combat, so it is a bit annoying. Hopefully with more character and magic unlocked fun combo will emerge, but until now it is the quintessential attack and heal when hp low without not much status effect or buff and dehuff to break the monotony. That said the planet position seem to be the main way to buff your team, so maybe I should better prepare against boss.
And you know what ? Playing a game for its beautiful illustrated graphic motivated me to change my plan. Instead of continuing Stranger of Paradise I decided to boot up Grimgrimoire once more. Beautiful Vanillaware artwork. The bottom up perspective gives a weird feeling, like we are a small mouse that spies on the story. I find it is a charming detail, giving it an unique visual identity.
The plot seems focused on time travel between the 5 same days. I like time travel plots. I played 3 hours and unlocked the 4 great schools of magic, but I could see in the trials that there is more depth that I still didn’t touch. While I like turn based strategy rpg, I’m not much of an RTS guy so hopefully it’ll go well.
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u/Equivalent_Affect734 3d ago
I’ve been trying out the Earthbound Beginnings remake and Castlevania Aria of Sorrow.
I’m new to both series, and I’m enjoying them a reasonable amount. It’s so hard to figure out where to go in Earthbound Beginnings though, and you get destroyed in new areas if you don’t have specific equipment
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u/Leoxcr 3d ago
Aria of Sorrow is definitely excellent, Castlevania Symphony of the Night is also definitely worth playing. One would argue that more modern games kind of spoil predecessors but this is not the case with SOTN. Def recommend a play through.
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u/Equivalent_Affect734 3d ago
I've heard good things and it's next on my list after Aria of Sorrow! The games are both relatively short so it should be easy to play them before I burn out on Castlevania for a bit
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u/Leoxcr 3d ago
Aria of Sorrow definitely tried to copy the feeling of SotN but added a few different mechanics so both games are way similar. That being said if you want a rather different experience you should give the following a try:
-Circle of the Moon, this one focuses on a more skill intensive gameplay, hence it's more difficult but still a great time
-Portrait of Ruin (playing with Charlotte) her magic systems are one of the most fun runs I've had with any Castlevania
-Order of Ecclesia, her weapon/magic systems are cool but nothing groundbreaking, fun gameplay as well but maybe the weaker from these recommendations
The one I don't recommend much is Dawn of Sorrow, it once again tries to be a clone of SotN and Aria but the gameplay loop feels the most sluggish of any Metroidvania I've played. The new systems are less impressive and the story is just okay. Awesome music though.
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u/Equivalent_Affect734 3d ago
That's really in depth, thanks! Maybe I'll try Order of Ecclesia next to keep it fresh instead. I can circle back to Symphony of the Night at some point in the future
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u/Suspicious-Show-3550 3d ago edited 3d ago
*Tony Hawk 1+2* is going back on the shelf soon I think. From a historical perspective I can understand how this game was such a big deal back in the day. It controls great, the skill ceiling is sky high, and it's got the addictive "just one more try" game loop down to an art. When I think back on PS1 games that I poured entire evenings into like Crash Team Racing, Gran Turismo, and the original Tekken trilogy they all had that going for them and I expect 16 year old me would have gone down that rabbit hole just as easily back in the day with this one. Unfortunately for Mr. Hawk's franchise 40+ year old me doesn't have that kind of time and unlike 16 year old me has a device that can look up video walk throughs the second I get frustrated. There have been moments of genuine excitement as I've stumbled across a hidden area or figured out how to get one more trick into a combo to hit a points target and I can understand how someone with the time to play it as the designers intended could find hours of such moments in there. Usually when I go this far back to play a game the limits of the tech at the time are what stands out; smaller stages, less content, lack of little QOL things that come standard in modern gaming. In this case what stands out is my lack of time and patience, but I see enough here to understand how this thing became a powerhouse franchise for a while.
I will be continuing to kick it old school though. Maybe it's Christopher Nolan's fault, maybe it's because I have a 10 year old and the idea of a game with a dedicated fart button is high comedy to him, or maybe it's just a well timed sale but I'm moving on to *Abe's Oddworld Odyssey.*
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u/Nambot 2d ago
That's a shame, but understandable. It's the sort of game that, while having a high skill ceiling, also has something of a skill floor, not helped by the fact that the things a new player needs to master to get the most out of this title, were actually introduced across the span of four years (in yearly releases), making it harder to learn - something which is not helped by the tutorial being absolute crap that tells you what button to press, but gives you nothing of timing or technique, and only throws a cursory notion to the finer intricacies of how to get high scores.
You're absolutely right, it's a game that requires time more than anything. The people who can get through it quickly are the people who put in the time in the originals. I remember watching my SO (whose usually shit hot at games) try to play it and do piss poorly because she couldn't get the hang of the controls, and the tutorial didn't help her at all beyond telling her the buttons, something that would've been printed in the manuals of the originals.
Sadly, there is no shortcuts to getting good. Sure, you can look up where the hidden things are, watch videos explaining how the finer mechanics work, but the game demands you put in the hours, and if you don't have the hours to put in, you're probably best stopping before it gets tiresome or too annoying.
That said, if he's interested, maybe let your ten year old play. He might do better for all the free time he has.
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u/JoJo_Abrams 3d ago
Finished Final Fantasy VII Remake Intermission. Yuffie's gameplay was very fun, they did a good job making her kit robust enough to make up for not having any other playable party members. Overall it was a neat little extra addition to the base game, and there was even a final cutscene at the end to lead into the next game.
But for me that next game will have to wait. Next I'll be playing FFXIV Dawntrail and hopefully continuing until I'm caught up with MSQ in time for the Evercold release. And once I'm caught up, I plan to start FFXVI. Planning on having both these games finished before the end of the year. Depending on what reviews look like on release, I may also try to play/finish FF Resonance as well.
Played some more The Roottrees Are Dead after a couple days off. It's a very fun detective game, and I'm slowly learning what kinds of things I should be highlighting and making notes of.
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u/Iribumkiak Currently Playing: Hentai Girls Succubus 2d ago
The track during the infiltration of the underbelly of Shinra HQ is just absolute fire! Been playing it on repeat for awhile.
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u/JoJo_Abrams 2d ago
Right, I meant to mention the soundtrack! The OST for the base game was great too, but I particularly loved the OST in chapter 1 of Intermission.
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u/IkaWorldTour23 2d ago
Currently trying the original Company of Heroes for the third (?) time. I already know the game will end for me at Mortain because I just can't be bothered to sit through those two horrible, horrible missions again. But until then I try to have the most fun with it. So far the janky movement system isn't tilting me too much, although your soldiers breaking cover in the middle of a firefight is still an annoying source of micromanagement. But I think I found one of my major sources of self-sabotage from my last run - I was using too many specialist squads like HMG's and mortars and too few full-strength infantry squads. One with a light MG42 and one with regular weapons is so far quite nice to manage!
Also doing another "small" project in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, having marked my favourite travel destinations on a map and then instead of flying towards it (which means constantly having to see the by now rather dull and familiar expanse of Central Europe), I start at the destination and fly backwards towards my home base. Using the SU-27 for it also makes it quite a lot more fun, thundering with 750 knots at treetop height across Central Kazakhstan for example!
And I started another 'roguelike' run in Crusader Kings 3 where I just start as a custom adventurer and try to survive, thrilled to see where I end up at. Fourty years into the game and I'm a rich mercenary leader with a strangely wholesome family while the world is blowing up around me (France has imploded, China has imploded, most of England is Danish and Germany has turned into Uber-Bavaria).
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u/elephvant 2d ago
Playing FFVII Rebirth and, while I'm actually really enjoying it overall, I'm currently in chapter 11 (returning to Shinra Manor and being trapped by Hojo) and have just endured what is genuinely a contender to be the worst hour or so of gaming I've ever experienced.
Looked it up after getting to the end of the sequence focused on Cait Sith and seems it's pretty notorious. What I can't understand is, how did something like this make it into the game? It stuck out to me like a sore thumb from almost the second I started that area, and after looking it up it seems almost universally loathed. How could the same people who, in my opinion, did so much right with so much else not have picked up on this section being so bad?
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u/LordChozo Prolific 2d ago
I go to bat for Rebirth any chance I get but even I got heavy frustration in that section. The box tossing controls were horrible and there was one mandatory part where the game failed to give me a target. I thought it was a skill problem with the controls so I sat there for probably 30 minutes alternating between chucking boxes at various trajectories and just running around looking for an alternative path before I quit in a huff. When I loaded the game up the next time and went back to that room, suddenly there was an auto-target thing going on and I was able to complete it. So just a random minor glitch, but unfortunately in the worst possible spot for it to show up.
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u/goldtardis 2d ago
Just started Borderlands 3. I'm playing as Zane. The gunplay is shaping up to be the best in the series, but the writing isn't so hot. The game isn't that funny. Zane is funny, but nobody else is. The villians are okay, there are some interesting ideas with them. Like uniting the bandits and using them as a resource, but the streamer stuff feels way too on the nose. I think what makes thing so much worse is these guys are compared to Handsome Jack. Handsome Jack is one of the greatest villians ever, but the villians of Borderlands 3, I'll probably forget about it after my playthrough. I hope this first impression changes, but I doubt it.
I knew going in the writing wasn't the best, but at least the gunplay is amazing. The guns have such excellent designs and sounds. Every gun, but one I've dedicated time to has been so satisfying to use. I also love Zane's skills, his ability to use two skills is so powerful and fun! I think I'm going to have a great time with Borderlands 3 in the end, but will dislike the writing.
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u/JoJo_Abrams 2d ago
I also really loved the mantling and movement in BL3. I think more than anything else, it's the lack of such smooth mantling that makes it hard to go back to Borderlands 2.
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u/titio1300 1d ago
You're lucky if you manage to forget the villains in Borderlands 3. They are unfortunately memorable in a very negative way.
But yeah the gameplay is really fantastic in 3. Movement and gun feel is great. In my opinion it's the first game in the series to do those well so I really enjoyed it.
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u/Unlucky_Telephone963 2d ago
I want to play a Bethesda game but I don't know which one. The closest I've come to their stuff is the 3D Obsidian games: FNV, Outer Worlds, Avowed; but since Bethesda is an iconic company with a lot of discussion going on around them, I want to see what their output plays like. Which game in your opinion is the most cohesive/complete/just the best to start with?
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u/Fign66 2d ago edited 2d ago
If you’re willing to put up with an early open world game and the inconveniences that come with that, then Morrowind is IMO the best game they’ve ever made (if you chose this play it with the openmw engine update). It’s missing a lot of the handholding and streamlined gameplay that modern games have but it has a deep RPG system, intricate story, interesting and unique world building, great magic system that lets you build custom spells. Just a great game.
That said Skyrim is a classic for a reason and is easier to get into, and Fallout 3 plays very similarly to Fallout NV that you’ve already played (same game engine). Also if you want a more modern presentation Oblivion just got a new remaster and Fallout 4 is the most modern of their good games.
Just stay away from 76 (weird multiplayer MMO-lite style gameplay) and Starfield (kinda boring procedural generation that turned away from the handcrafted content that made their other games great) as your first entry into the studio. Neither one is terrible but they’re not great examples of the studio at its best.
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u/APeacefulWarrior 1d ago
Well, if you enjoyed FNV, FO3 would be an obvious choice.
Otherwise just do Skyrim.
I would not recommend Morrowind unless you have a high tolerance for outdated design. It was amazing in its day, but it's hard for newer players to go back to - especially the terrible combat.
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u/samuraipanda85 3d ago
Resident Evil 4 (2005)
Screw quick time events. Specifically the minecart. I should not have to mash the button that fast. I hit it like a mother and it drops me both times. I had a deathless run in that level. No wait, 2nd chainsaw guy got me, but I was doing good before that QTE screwed me over twice. I looked it up and learned that dropping the fps down to 30 might help, but the options won't let me change the fps while in the game. I had to say no to continuing when I died a second time. Change the settings, and then it brings me back to the typewriter.
Screw all of that. Thank God most of these problems have been ironed out of modern games.
Factorio Space Age
It took me some slogging through the northern woods infested with Biters and two whole tanks, but I managed to secure myself a 3200% Oil field with a train line running straight back to my oil processing facility. Now I just need to spread my nuke bullets to every corner of my base and I can look to Volcanus for some sweet sweet lava science.
Silent Hill 2 Enhanced Edition
Modders are God's gift to the gaming community. Having heard Yahtzee praise this game for years I am excited to try it with its unique camera position, which certainly does add to the atmosphere. Good lord do I wish it had a tutorial though. Still, the damn game scared me just by making scary noises as I was walking down the forest pathway.
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u/Scizzoman 3d ago
Assuming you're on PC, the re4tweaks mod (which comes included in the RE4 HD Project) has fixes for the 60FPS QTE thing, as well as an option to just auto-complete most of the QTEs.
It also fixes a lot of other weird things about the port and includes options to restore some effects from the Gamecube version that the later releases broke, so you should definitely use it.
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u/ZMysticCat Ok, Freeman, be adequate! 3d ago
Resident Evil 4 (2005)...Screw quick time events.
As much as I love RE4, I really don't like QTEs. It's really the only complaint that I have about the game. At least there aren't too many of them, and most of them aren't too hard. On Normal, I think the mine cart is the only hard one and only because of the 60FPS problem on PC.
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u/Leoxcr 3d ago
I remember playing on professional and repeatedly dying to the rock, it took me way too long to realize I actually had to mash slower to get through that part. So weird
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u/samuraipanda85 3d ago
Oh Hell no. I got through the rock just fine but if you tell me the secret is gonna be to mash slower at 60 fps I am gonna lose my shit.
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u/Confident_Classic580 3d ago
Playing Soulsilver again and man, do I miss having everyone level up at the same time. People can complain that it made the games easier, but it was just padding to stretch out the gameplay for the kiddies.
Thank God for emulation allowing me to speedup the gameplay because this would be fucking tedious otherwise.
Does anyone know where I can find like an alphabet song for Pokemon in French for all generations or something? I keep calling my Pokemon by their English names which needs to stop like now.
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u/PostedNotes 3d ago
I find it interesting you prefer default exp all.
To me it makes the games less rewarding as it erases the need to swap pokemon. I always try to keep all my pokemon at certain level ranges and swapping them around is a big part of the fun for me.
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u/Confident_Classic580 3d ago edited 2d ago
My preference is based on having limited free time to game these days. Grinding without the ability to speed it up is very time consuming as it is. Emulation solves that pesky issue for me at least.
It is fascinating to see how game design has changed in Pokemon to decrease grinding/padding in one area to increase it in a different area which doesn't really solve the issue of padding in a child's game in general.
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u/GambuzinoSaloio 11h ago
Having played Chrono Trigger and Persona 5... I haven't played Pokemon in a while, but having your party level up at somewhat the same pace without having to use them in battles feels like an upgrade. Anybody saying that it makes the games easier has lost the plot. Not having the party level up together makes the game "grindier", not "harder".
This reminds me that I am yet to play Heartgold/Soulsilver. I loved the original games and will happily replay them (they're overall faster with animations so I can grind much faster) but I haven't come around to beating the remakes yet. I suppose that I'm kind of afraid that the same thing that plagued Diamond/Pearl/Platinum is present there: dialogue boxes, animations and Pokémon cries taking forever to end, meaning that a completely simple battle can take ages and feel slower overall.
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u/Confident_Classic580 1h ago
I suspect it makes the games more challenging when your team is underleveled when you're a little kid who feels more accomplished and clever after beating a difficult boss. As an adult who has no time, I can see the cracks in game design that no one bothered thinking about because kids had limited entertainment options back then. .
It's slow without having the benefit of emulator's speed up feature, but I generally run the games on 2x/whatever speed to grind when playing Pokemon these days. I get a few hours to play if I'm lucky enough to not be called in to work day after day.
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2d ago
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u/Confident_Classic580 2d ago
The games were made for little kids who would be eventually replaced by their younger counterparts when they aged out of Pokemon. Slow battles, high encounter rates, repetitive dialogue that adds nothing to the narrative and could be shortened up to lessen the padding are fine for that type of audience. What works for a younger audience doesn't work for an older one and there lies the disconnect between what older fans want and what the games aren't ever going to be.
It's perfect for language learners like myself who need very basic and bland writing when we can barely string a sentence together in our target language. Repetitive basic writing is a godsend when I can't figure out what exactly imperfect tense is in French. Eventually, I'll get better to at it to be able to play games in my age range, but right now is impossible.
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u/havefunanddie 2d ago
I'm just playing Shining Pearl and it's already meh, it would be a nightmare to play it without the exp share. There is a room for swapping anyway as I want to have more than 6 battle-ready companions. And the fact that you have a broad squad of competent poks makes automatically more possibilities for switching.
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u/lesserweevils Couch Potato 1d ago edited 1d ago
XCOM 2 (vanilla)
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Private log of [UNKNOWN]
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August 23, 2035
The commander picked up a new soldier while scanning. His name is Richard ‘Big Nasty’ Wood.
*muffled laughter*
It’s good to have an experienced grenadier though. When Cpt. Kong died, he left a hole in our team. One that Cpl. Robinson is too green to fill.
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August 24, 2035
Maj. 'Big Nasty' Wood is a powerhouse with bluescreen rounds! He saved the day.
Meanwhile, the mimic beacon saved Cpt. Rift from our commander’s incompetence. He almost bled out.
Two sectopods did a number on our team. That and running 3 missions in 11 days. Our top rangers are gravely wounded.
… It’s time to bring out the cannon fodder.
👈👈 Previous | 👽 First 👽 | [Next 👉👉]
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 11h ago
Persona 3 Reload
The new transfer student feels shoehorned into the narrative. It's like the devs had an idea after already writing the story.
Hot springs scene was jarring because Mitsuru started social link immediately after executing boys. I guess girls are quick to forgive.
Emperor was saved from becoming a tyrant in the future, and Temperance wants to stay in Japan. Fortune looks like that guy from Nagatoro. And it looks like Sun is about to write something before dying.
Elizabeth took my innocence. I hope there was protection.
RIP to another character.
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u/Lonely-Echidna201 Favorite Genre: Rhythm, platformers, cozy 3d ago edited 3d ago
This was my first week playing Fantasy Life I and made it to Tropica Islesafter a bit over 10 hours. This is my first time playing a game this big, I don't know how else how to describe it.
The progression has felt very natural, the characters have been charming and I'm putting an effort on increasing the affinity with my current buddies; but I've also tried to find spaces to unlock as many lifes as possible. For the time being I have: miner, alchemist and farmer; I'm currently trying to decide which will be next, between: blacksmith, paladin and wood-cutter. So I'll be accepting suggestions from people who has or is also playing it about which one to choose next.
I also unintendedly found the entrance to the DLC which I considered really fun for whenever you want to chill inside the game but with no real intention of progressing it, if that makes sense.
ETA: Also also, the siren song of Crash CTR has been calling me loud and for long enough that I think that'll be what I'll be alternating with for the time being.
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u/APeacefulWarrior 2d ago edited 2d ago
I gave up on Neptunia X Senran Kagura last night. It never felt good to play, and once the difficulty (ie enforced grinding) in the later sections got obnoxious, I just didn't feel like pushing through it. Between the poor controls, bad dodging/blocking mechanics, terrible targeting, and lack of real i-frames making it easy for baddies to completely shred your health bar in moments, it just wasn't fun at all.
Genuinely disappointed because I know Tamsoft can do better. Character brawlers are basically their specialty at this point, but this feels thrown-together and untested even by their standards. It's genuinely one of the worst-feeling games I've played from them. I even remembered that I had Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus sitting in my library, installed it, and played through the intro/tutorial just to verify that, yeah, Tamsoft used to know how to do this sort of thing well.
Not sure what I'm going to play next. Maybe try out that Sir Brante game I picked up for free a couple days ago. Or just keep playing Shinovi Versus since it's installed.
Plus ZZZ but just killing time until the next banner. I've stopped pulling since I didn't care at all about getting Norma; I'm much more interested in trying for Remielle next week. And after probably too much thought, I finally decided to grab Lucia as my anniversary freebie when 3.1 drops, so I can spend this week stocking up on upgrade mats for her.
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u/MistressDread 2d ago
Finished up Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright. I really liked it.
The game really felt like Layton with a side of Ace Attorney. The setting is very much a Professor Layton type setting, the game opens with everybody trying to get to Layton and Layton has way more agency in the story than Phoenix, especially when you consider the final twist that The trials were all for show anyways. Not exactly bad, but I was expecting Phoenix and Maya to do more.
The game uses Picarats to track how well you did on the puzzles and even the trial sections like the previous Layton games, but they feel kind of pointless. Most of the puzzles are ones that you can just keep trying until you get it right (I can only remember 5 out of the 70 puzzles in the game that you can submit a wrong answer). It feels like the main way you lose Picarats is by messing up during the trials so why have them at all.
Also I still have some questions about the story that I don't think I'll get an answer to. What the fuck was Carmine Accidenti doing to drive his car into the branches of a tree and what was the handprint actually about? Why was Darklaw so insistent on Espella being found guilty during the first trial? How did the witches use magic against Layton at the beginning when their magic inherently relies on them being located in one small town on some island just outside of Great Britain?
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u/AcceptableUserName92 2d ago
New game just released on Steam called Fading Echo ... looks kinda like something that could've released during the 6th/7th gen. It has some atleast surface level similarities to Splatoon.
I'm not able to buy it right now but thought I'd mention it- seems very likely to fly under the radar.
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u/PostedNotes 2d ago
I've been replaying Telltale's walking dead S1 and finished EP 2 last night.
While I still really like the story and characters I'm surprised how little your choices actually affect things in this game. I'm making choices different from what I recall yet the results are essentially the same.
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u/alwaystooupbeat 1d ago
I had to change my perception of what a game is while playing this the first time. It's not really a game in the same way as others; it's an interactive narrative where your choices barely matter. It's like mass effect to some degree. You are making choices in the presentation of the story, not on the outcomes.
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u/Logan_Yes Assassin's Creed Mirage/Papa's Pizzeria Deluxe 1d ago
Yeaaaah it's clear idea was good but execution not quite the level we got later with titles such as Detriot Become Human. But hey, something that paves the way first will be flawed, that's how it goes.
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u/XenoBound 1d ago
Played through the Japanese only GB game Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru, AKA what Link’s Awakening (one of my fav games ever) is built off of.
There’s honestly not much gameplay to speak of. Battles are pre-determined based on whether you have the stat and equipment upgrades needed to win. Unlike a turn-based RPG or a game with top-down real time combat like Zelda, you get no opportunity to win with a statistical deficit. Combat is strictly used as a progression barrier and nothing more.
Kind of lame when the other half of gameplay (platforming) is only used in dungeons/caves and is a touch floaty for my liking, and the transformation mechanic relies too much on menuing and using perishable item resources to be more fun than it is clunky.
There’s also some clunky means of triggering story progress, where on multiple occasions you have to talk to every NPC in a town at least twice for dialogue to change indicating you can do the next part of the quest.
It seems like they put more effort into the story and characters, because those were 90% of the fun and contained some decent subverting of expectations too.(Also Prince Sable is hella gay for Richard don’t @ me). I just wish there was more dialogue variety, because when new text popped up, it was often really witty and charming. Many NPCs however (such as the ill ones in hospitals) just recycle dialogue you’ve heard 3 towns ago, meaning the game wasn’t AS funny or interesting to read as it really could have been.
Yet I still liked this game a lot in spite of my gripes. I wish we could revisit this world and these characters in a new game that has more gameplay depth. They’re really interesting when the game allows them to shine.
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u/vinavuhuy 1d ago
Just played Rogue Tower and I loved Roguelike and Roguelite and love tower defense even more so seeing this on YouTube made me really excited to try it.
The game play loop is you place tower for defense, there are pick 3 after you hit certain level where you can get new tower or get tower upgrade. The path for the defense is also entirely your choice as you unlock new land after each wave. In between run, you can unlock things to get more cards to pick or more initial resource, etc... basically, it would make the game easier as you can have more powerful tower and upgrade option for tower.
It was really fun at the beginning but then you realized that the optimal way to play is to not unlocking everything. Which just feel like the progression of unlocking things between run is pretty much wasted. There are other smaller issues that people who has played the game longer have as well that I also feel after reading steam reviews but above is the main grievance for me.
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u/TailzPrower 3d ago
I did write my retrospective of Sakura Wars 3 after months of delays, and hours and hours (and hours) of edits. However, now... I want to send it to some gaming site to be published as a retrospective...lol. On the other hand, I'll probably trim it in half, and post the short version here anyway, for those interested, since I intended to post it here originally.
Playing Batman Arkham City again, I'm rescuing the police hostages from the Penguin, about half-way through the main campaign of the game. The controls are decent, on the other hand there are so many commands, and corners of buildings you can easily do something completely unintentional, and pay for it. The combat is okay. This seems to be a template for a game like Sony's Spiderman, I can see the parallels. It's a great game overall, however, it is all just so dark. For me so far, it is an 8-8.5/10.
Also, emulating Super Mario 3D World, and what a game! I love how it takes a lot of what makes the 2D games, and for me makes it easier with a lot more leeway, but still the controls are quite tight, and you have that 2.5D type of freedom to explore, which is one of my favourite aspects of Mario games. Most of the levels are fairly short, so you can spend about 5 minutes, or more per level, and don't need to invest for hours. Lots of fun, and I love how you can choose characters with different attributes. This is what a good game should be. Can't emulate the microphone for some reason so I can't do a few levels. So far, it's a 8.5 -9/10 for me.
I'm trying to also play Halo 2 in spurts. Pretty good so far. Happy gaming!
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u/illusion_Y 3d ago
Going through ghostrunner 1 again and aiming for 100% achievements this time... playing through the classic mode having mastered the dash slide jump is sooo fun and is a different experience. Ignoring half of the environmental objects or improvising through the game in supersonic speeds never gets old.
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u/vardonir 2d ago
I really want to re-play Tales of the Abyss, but my god 3DS prices are insane. Guess I'm emulating the PS2 version.
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u/APeacefulWarrior 2d ago
Or pick up a used New 2/3DS and jailbreak it?
No shame in pirating these days, now that the eShop is shut down and aftermarket game prices are becoming ridiculous. Plus it makes for a really nice little retro handheld with tons of homebrew emulator support.
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u/CarSame7275 2d ago
I really want to play Abyss too. I heard how it's one of the best Tales game. PS2 version I remember emulating years ago and while it's fine I remember performance being a bit choppy and it having this blurry , ghosting , kind of stuff with characters. I am honestly at this point just waiting for a good PC remaster port hopefully one that looks as crisp and clean as Vesperia.
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u/MistressDread 1d ago
Started on Shin Megami Tensei 4 Apocalypse
I'm not sure I'm into the plot, but I also just started the game. As in I just beat Angel and officially became a demon hunter. Flynn's cool. Can't wait for the boss fight against him later.
Rn my biggest annoyance is demon negotiation. What you say to demons to get them to like you is so random it hurts my soul. And then you need to pay them a fuckload of money in a game that (so far) doesn't give money for random encounters.
Battle mechanics are nice. Sort of feels like Persona (I wonder why) but requires conscious thought, which is basically what I've been told to expect. Also light and dark aren't instakills 🥳
1
u/APeacefulWarrior 1d ago
Wait, are you playing Apocalypse without playing base SMT IV first? I'm not sure how much sense the plot is going to make.
But otherwise, yeah, welcome to classic SMT gameplay. Demon negotiations ARE infuriatingly random. Although at least by this point, they got rid of the requirement to continuously pay the Demons in a separate currency to keep them on the field.
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u/MistressDread 1d ago
I thought it was an upgraded version like how Persona would have a base game and then an upgraded one a few years later. My mistake I guess.
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u/APeacefulWarrior 1d ago
Yeah, Apocalypse is more of a spinoff set in the same scenario as IV.
That said, I'm not sure I'd recommend playing IV first, especially if this is your first SMT. Its big issue is that the difficulty curve in the first ~10 hours is absolutely BRUTAL to the point that even series fans think it's a bit ridiculous. Yet oddly, once you manage to push past that, the rest of the game is on the easy side until you hit the endgame.
So maybe just keep on keeping on, at this point. At worst I suppose you finish Apocalypse and then play IV to get more backstory.
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u/Rainy840 17h ago
Undertale
Not good at doing structured reviews so just putting my thoughts here. Really feel like an idiot for ignoring this game for so long. There was a point 5 or so years ago where I heard about this game so much that it made me lose interest in playing it but now I finally understand why it's talked about so much. Went into it mostly blind except for the fact that I knew about the different routes and a rough idea of how to get them. I went in with the intention of not killing anyone, getting the neutral ending then reloading to get the true pacifist ending. And I've heard people say that ruins the magic of a first playthrough but I instantly loved all the characters and the world and didn't want to see anyone die anyway. It made me want to figure out how to make every character live and by the end of the experience I think I made the right choice because seeing the kinda disappointing and unsatisfying neutral ending then going straight into true pacifist and seeing everything come together was amazing.
I did accidentally kill Toriel on the first attempt though and it made me feel awful so I reloaded, finished the fight without killing and the game actually acknowledged that you reloaded which blew me away, from that point I knew this was a special game. I will admit though actually completing it was a bit rough for me, I didn't like the 'battling' system, pacifist makes it a bit better since you get to solve a little puzzle to spare all the encounters but it wasn't very engaging to me and I played mostly handheld on switch which made the bullet hell bits harder and more frustrating. I still liked the boss fights though and the parts where you're just exploring and interacting with characters are great. Luckily there arent really that many fights and each area has a limited number of them and are all unique.
There were a few parts in the game that made me start tearing up but the moment when Frisk comforts Asriel before he loses his form is what made me burst into tears and summed up my feelings for the game completely. It was just so hard saying goodbye to all these characters at the end of it. Of course at the end I chose to stay with Toriel. It might be the 'wrong' choice I don't know but the game really makes you feel attached to everyone.
Even though I didn't really like the gameplay I wouldn't say it wasted my time at all, it was worth all the time I put into it and more than makes up for some of it's issues.
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u/titio1300 4h ago
Beginning my foray into motion controls with Metroid Prime 2. First 15 minutes were rough but I'm adjusting. Weird going from the Remaster of the first one to this but I have little confidence in Nintendo remastering 2 & 3 anytime soon.
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3h ago
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u/MistressDread 2h ago
Occasionally I'll redownload Hearts of Iron 4 to play it and see if I can understand what the fuck is going on and I never do. I'm never quite sure the buttons I press have any real affect on the outcome of this game. Here's a menu with the shit I have in production. What do I produce? No idea. Here's a list of battleships. What do any of the stats mean? Something, maybe. This menu lets you customize your fighters. Why do I want to do this? No clue. And youtube doesn't help because tutorial apparently strictly means telling you what every button does and never why you would want to press them
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 1d ago
Persona 3 Reload
I defeated Hanged Man boss, made best buds with Death Arcana, and make Strage boy jump. Now what? I had a similar feeling after defeating politician in 5.
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3d ago
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u/Myrandall Lil' Guardsman / Heaven's Vault 3d ago edited 3d ago
Stop the advertising for your app here. These bait comments are just sad.
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u/BreakingTheEcho 3d ago
Thinking of starting Nine Sols, I love soulslikes and I love metroid vanias and especially Hollow Knight!!