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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
So last week I got my Steam Deck. I didn't really know what to think when I put a preorder down, but I was willing to give it a shot on the grounds that:
Oh. My. God. I friggin' love this thing! Easily the best tech equipment I've got in a while! The openness to faff around, mod stuff, add new things, and tweak existing things is just unparallelled. So far I've:
It is such a beast, I love it! Honestly, right now I'm just playing all the games because I can! The only thing I had difficulty was playing GOG titles, and honestly that's fair enough - I think that will require a lot more tinkering than what I'd like, but at least the option is there in case I feel bored!
I would say that as someone who grew up PC gaming, loves Linux, and is a tinkerer at heart, the Steam Deck feels like it was built for me specifically. I know some prefer the "plug it in and play" approach, and honestly that is fine and great too - for me, the Steam Deck is the dream device I never knew I wanted until it arrived in my hands.
Love this post! It’s always a delight seeing the delight people get from their Steam Decks. I feel the exact same way about mine.
Somewhat surprisingly, this isn’t that uncommon. As much as I love devs that provide native Linux builds, some of them don’t get the same love as their Windows counterparts, and we’re left with either inferior versions or outright unplayable ones. Proton acts a nice backup in that case.
For a long time I prioritized GOG over Steam, but Valve’s Linux support won me back over. At this point I’ve re-bought most of my GOG library on Steam simply for convenience’s sake.
Anyway, enjoy your wonderful new device and all the delight it brings!
Yes! Same here! I was an absolute die-hard DRM-free person, but this device man... I mean, how can I not support Valve after the Steam Deck!
I absolutely love it - no mincing words! It's funny - I bought a PSP to play some GTA games on that platform. Then the Steam Deck comes along and replaces my PSP, Xbox Series X, and my Nintendo Switch (as a handheld device, although I've heard it can emulate it, and ngl I am rather tempted to emulate the Switch). It's just such a magnificent beast!
I have been playing Melty Blood Type Lumina. Very fun game, and I'm coming off Guilty Gear Strive. I love Strive, I just haven't played it in a while. I'm planning on going back soon, I just wanted to experience the new Melty because I always enjoyed playing as Ciel, Arc and Hisui and Kohaku. I wanna practice with the new characters as well. I'm playing on PC in Linux, and it runs just fine!
As far as other games I'm playing, Azure Striker Gunvolt, which is very Mega Man-ish, but it is a series made by Inti Creates, who were involved in the creation of several Mega Man titles later in the series. Anyways, the game is very fast-pasted and is practically made to speedrun. I'm still getting used to the speed, myself.
I also play every now and again Streets of Rage 2. 2 and 4 are my favorite in the series. I love everything about those beat 'em ups.
I'm hoping to eventually get Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge on Switch. I played it at a friend's place and had a blast.
Type Lumina's pretty fun! I've picked it back up recently too, probably for the same reason as you -- the recent patch -- and have had a lot of fun mixing people up with Dead Apostle Noel. I'm not sure how long I'll stay on this game, though, with Guilty Gear Xrd's rollback netcode announcements yesterday...
Is Azure Striker Gunvolt the kind of series one should really start from the beginning with, or does it make sense to just start on the second game?
I'd say it more sense to start from the beginning in regards to Azure Striker Gunvolt, since it does have a story, but on the other hand, I feel like you can largely ignore most of the story and play it like you would any Mega Man game.
The Guilty Gear Xrd rollback makes me wanna purchase the game for PC. I previously owned it on PS4 I think? But I never got all the DLC. If it's cheap I'll definitely get it!
I see! It's been a long time since I've played any Mega Man, but I've just coincidentally been thinking about replaying some -- but I figure this time, maybe I should just try something new.
Xrd used to go on sale pretty regularly, around $10 for the bundle including Rev2 and all DLC characters. I wonder whether we'll see sales like that again; they don't seem to be as common for BlazBlue Centralfiction anymore, now that that game has received a rollback retrofitting.
Oh really? Well, in any case I'll put it on my wishlist.
BTW, is your name a reference to Marisa Kirisame from Touhou? I assumed it was. I'm a Touhou fan as well. I remember buying the original games(Not the PC-98 ones, that would be a whole other ordeal lol) from these sites that sold directly from Japan. ZUN's art is so great(And music too, of course). I haven't played the latest game though. There's been a lot of good Touhou doujin games/fangames that have made it to the West that I want to play, like Akumajo Remilia and such. Eager to try those out!
Yep! The very same ordinary magician. I haven't played mainline Touhou since Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, but I'm planning to get caught up a little later this year. Akumajo Remilia looks interesting -- have you tried Touhou Luna Nights? It's a metroidvania with a very cute time stop gimmick.
Oh no, I've not tried Luna Nights. I saw a friend play it and it does look fun though! I think playing as Sakuya is cool, from what I saw.
Playing Mass Effect 1 Legendary cause Game Pass and I'm in a sci-fi mood. The RPG bit is kinda simple and doesn't require much of me.
Besides, I got confused and thought Shepard had to be a soldier. 10 hours in, looks like I could be anything. I don't like shooting things all that much anymore 🤷
Because I enjoyed Her Story so much, I got Immortality recently, and had an absolute blast with it. But be warned, it is way, way creepier than Her Story - it's basically a horror game.
Despite my previous comment, I bought Slime Rancher 2 to check it out a bit and support the devs. In an effort to not play it, I'm going to work on 100%ing the first one, as there's a lot I need to do that was added over time, and it's been fun. I have every farmable plort being farmed, and am working on setting up research portals so I can switch between selling and storing plorts.
Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands: I'm digging the FO3 content, but the story is kind of railroady so I'm doing the Wasteland Survival Guide quests for a change of pace. I picked up perks to increase ammo drops and the game feels far better, but still challenging even on Very Easy.
I picked up all of the Wasteland series (1, Remastered, 2: Directors Cut, and 3) and have been playing 1's remaster. It's brutal, and you can basically do a lot. Looking into the game, many problems have more than one solution. I also found that in Wasteland 2 you canonically shoot the kid who has a rabid dog early in the first game (he's "left for dead," and has an irrational hatred towards the Rangers). I haven't gotten that far in the remaster because it's hard as hell and I keep losing crewmates, and I'll admit I've just tried walking around and seeing what sort of trouble there is from radiation zones to the perils of Las Vegas (where the end game is, with swarms of huge mechanical abominations). I'm thinking of taking the same approach with the series as I did Elder Scrolls and Fallout by starting with the newest game and working in reverse to learn things.
Ardenfall It's a demo of an RPG in development that is unabashedly inspired by Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. The developer posts updates on /r/morrowind, and I was curious about it, so I downloaded it. I made a comment in @lou's "What game would you like to exist?" thread about what I would like in an Elder Scrolls-style RPG and this game has a lot of it, and some stuff I wouldn't have thought of. It's got per-action XP with skill points, but first-person action and fairly in-depth world interaction, with a FO4-style looting interface. It's built around low-poly characters with colors instead of textures which is an interesting aesthetic. I will say that it has a similar feel but doesn't feel like it's trying to copy Morrowind. It also handles interactions similarly: Text boxes with options and unspoken dialogue, with NPCs that have phrases when you attract their attention or interact with them. I need to play more of the demo, but I've got high hopes for this game.
I finished (100% of) Ender Lilies, a metroidvania very much in the style of Hollow Knight (but with anime humans). It takes place in a gloomy, largely underground and/or indoors environment where everyone has been corrupted by a "blight" which turns them into all sorts of tentacley monstrosities who want to kill you.
In addition to the typical metroidvania ability+area unlocks (wall climbing, dash, etc) the key mechanic consists in "equipping" spirits you purify (every boss and miniboss you defeat are equipable) so you can use their attacks. There are more than 20 spirits so you can play the game in many different ways, some strictly better than others in my humble opinion.
Everything else plays very much like Hollow Knight: You find (many) "relics" (charms) which you equip into a limited amount of "slots" (notches). There is a limited amount of heals you can use, which recharge when you checkpoint by resting in a bench (yes, exactly like HK). There is a fast travel system and a map. Enemies can be quite challenging and rely heavily on parrying and/or dodging, just like HK. If you like HK you may enjoy this game! It's hard but fun.
I also played The Forgotten City. This is the opposite of Ender Lilies; a 3D game designed around investigating, finding things and chatting (note: the abundant dialogue is fully voiced), though there are some very mild combat and platforming sections.
The protagonist, who I cheekily named Maximus Decimus Meridius (an excellent decision as it turned out) wakes by a river with amnesia. A mysterious girl in a hoodie tells you she rescued you and a guy called Al from the river and Al ran into some nearby underground ruins, and will you please go look for him? You end up, of course, trapped in the ruins, except... Somehow you fall into a portal and warp into an unspecified past, where a community of citizens of the roman empire are living their lives, unable to escape the underground city themselves. The local magistrate explains to you they live in terror of the Golden Rule: In their city, if anyone commits a crime, god?? turns everyone into one of the gold statues you see liberally peppered around the tunnels and walkways. This, it turns out, is true. But not to worry! The magistrate found a ritual that can be used to bring help from the future in exchange for his life; if anyone triggers the Golden Rule, he'll open the portal and yank a random descendant to the beginning of the day so that he can undo the mess. Who did you say you were again? Oops.
Your objective is to figure out which of your fellow prisoners (many of whom, you'll find, are terrible people) is going to break the rule and keep them from doing so. If you fail, or commit a crime yourself, god?? brings all the statues to life and they start shooting arrows at everyone, turning them to gold. The magistrate rushes to perform the ritual and open the portal, which you can then use to restart the iteration. Time loop! According to the magistrate, if you just stop the crime from happening he'll never have to call you, so you'll escape this fate. Your objective is to do so... Or figure out another way to leave or help the trapped victims if you want. There are four possible endings.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits was released today on Steam, so I'm starting that.