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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.
Stardew Valley.
I suddenly understand how people used it to survive Covid. It's a puzzle game in the best possible way
I just got through most of a challenge playthrough where I'm only allowed to make money from fruits and byproducts (preserves/wine). I can mine, forage, and plant other stuff - but I can't make money off any of that unless it's a fruit. The exception being completing quests that don't involve fishing or growing, like getting Robin's axe.
It was an especially interesting run to me after hundreds of hours in the game - I've done plenty of different styles of playthrough but this was particularly challenging in the early game since you don't really get a lot of opportunity to make a ton of money from fruit early on.
I still feel strongly that it's one of the best indie games around - I can't think of many people that wouldn't enjoy it.
Ha. Not something I'd have considered.
I'm just enjoying building a farm that looks nice. The level of insane optimisation I've seen folks go for is amazing.
Oh it gets intense for sure. But it's also great that you can just, chill. Just unwind and simply enjoy making a pleasant environment.
Ooh, that would be a challenge. Especially since you can't make the choice about Demetrius' cave project until you've accumulated 25k in the first place! How did you get the ball rolling in the early game, did you have to wait until Salmonberry season and then Summer to get things moving?
That's exactly why I wanted to try it - essentially exactly what you're thinking. It's largely foraging for a long while, but I did decide that since I'm not making money off of it, I can plant and harvest other crops for the experience in farming to get things moving a bit.
You get given various seeds as rewards for getting library completion as well and that goes a long way when you're in the early game. I did also do everything I could to get as much money as possible for strawberry seeds at the egg festival since they're a HUGE profit point early on.
I also recommend finding a loop you're comfortable with for foraging so you can actually get that level up and get better fruits not frequently.
Final caveat is that I did make the exception for community center because I refuse to go the Joja route. That isn't really about money though so I didn't really feel like that was out of the spirit of the run.
My wife finally finished her challenge run of getting 100% collection, while running Stardew Valley Expanded and the Ridgeside Village mods. It was very interesting at the end trying to figure out exactly which small items she had missed and their requirements for unlocking the recipes.
I started playing it recently because the mobile version ended up on Apple Arcade. I like the graphics, the music, and the gameplay, but it's hard to say I'm deeply pulled into it. I'm intent on not looking anything up and just letting the game introduce them, but I feel overwhelmed (too many quests). Oftentimes, I do the loop of "sleep > water plant > repeat", which feels like I'm "wasting" game days. I wonder if it's an allegory for real life (sleep > work > report) that makes it so demoralizing.
Once you figure out that Melons are energy God and you upgrade the watering can, life gets a lot easier in that game.
But you do have to start slow and not go maximum Minecraft farm.
I’ve been playing it obsessively for weeks. I love the light magic within the world and the adorable aesthetic. I’m trying not to get caught in the trap of trying to optimize my farm to the point where it feels too much like work to maintain. I do love that there’s always a new upgrade to earn with the money from your farm.
That's my issue as well, I'm a staunch optimiser and need to not be.
I found the game a dream to play on a cooler, rainy day last week. Really great game on a Steam deck.
I fired up Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I'm doing sort of a slow play focused on exploring the world and training with a hand-to-hand Khajit, and not doing the main quest until I've done some of the major side questlines. All my builds in these games lean on destruction and restoration and archery, because it's great to be able to initiate combat, heal for free, and negate healing effects with fire.
The hand to hand aspect is kinda nice. I stole the Gauntlets of Kwang Lo and use the console to make them not stolen, since I didn't want to wait for a fence/enough money to lose to do it "right," and they provide an alright boost in combat, but as my Hand to Hand skill increases they seem less effective.
I want to get to Nocturnal's daedric quest but am trying to explore to find the Daedric shrines, or expose their locations with NPC interactions.
The only metagamey stiff I'm doing is poking interesting quests, like Glarthir's, or the Gauntlets of Kwang-Lo, and quicksaving often since I'm getting rocked pretty hard.
I'm also back on Dark Souls 3 after the (somewhat expected I suppose) disappointment that is Diablo 4. Like you, I always return to souls. But what I find interesting is, unlike you, I can't stand Monster Hunter. When "World" came out everyone compared it to dark souls and quite frankly the only thing they have in common is that they are both action RPGs.
Also, while I finished Elden Ring twice, it's just not nearly as good to me as any of the dark souls games. I'd rather play dark souls 2 for the fifteenth time than boot up Elden Ring again. Anyway, cheers to dark souls 3.
Tri on the Wii was my introduction to monhun as well. I bought a modded Wii and tri was one of the games already on the SSD. Fell in love and have played all of them since.
Funny, I've also completed all of From's games except for Sekiro. I'm actually quite good at parrying in dark souls, bloodborne, and Elden Ring. But sekiro felt like an entirely different monster, one that I just couldn't get down.
Also have 1000G on ER and dark souls 3, as well as both gen versions of dark souls 1 & 2. All on Xbox. I had to borrow a ps4 just to play bloodborne. And I did complete the bluepoint remake once but don't own a ps5. I just really like souls.
Hey, I also did all achievements on Steam and platinum on PS5! I don’t have an Xbox but you’re making me want to borrow a friend’s to get the hat trick.
I did the PS5 platinum first, and it was my first ever Souls game. Then on PC I did it with no summons, which was a challenge for me. Some day I’d love to attempt a no hit run but I’m nowhere near that level yet.
I absolutely LOVE Monster Hunter but I really can't get into any of the Souls game for whatever reason.
If you’re hell-bent on trying, Sekiro might be your gateway. Fast, familiar platforming with From’s brutal combat loop and enough moves and style variation to keep it from feeling shallow.
I was gifted a copy of Sekiro a couple of years ago, I really should get through it eventually lol
I'm also playing DS3 again! Also doing a STR run! 😁
This time I'm playing it for an audience but since I've already 100%'d the game before I don't feel the stress of having to do everything and I can just enjoy it more casually.
I've been spending the past few months finally playing the Legend of Heroes series, also known as the "Trails" series, in order of release. I'm a huge JRPG fan, and this was a series that I had initially felt a little daunted getting into... but now with all of the games being translated into English, it's a GREAT time to get into the series! I picked them all up for a great price during the Steam Summer Sale, as well as a Steam Deck - which they're a perfect fit for, since so many of them started as PSP or Vita games!
I beat Trails to Azure yesterday, and started Trails of Cold Steel the same day. I've been enjoying it immensely so far! It retains pretty much everything I've come to love about the series, but is clearly advancing and evolving, which is nice to see! It is a shame to see some features that I'd grown quite used to disappear, but I'm coming around quickly.
For those entirely unfamiliar to the series...
The Legend of Heroes series are classic turn-based JRPG games, renowned specifically for their extremely high-quality writing and worldbuilding. The games are organized into 'arcs', each taking place in a different country of the world, and between games and arcs there is a huge amount of continuity. You can expect characters from previous games to reappear - not just main characters, but even side characters and NPCs! There's a whopping ten games in the series translated into English so far, each continuing the story of the world!
When it comes to the writing, I can't gush enough. First of all, unlike many RPGs where the NPCs are constantly parroting "Welcome to Corneria", the NPCs in this series are always changing their dialogue, responding to even the smallest changes in the game's plot. For those like me, who enjoy reading all the dialogue a game has to offer, it's a blast. The side-quests also tend to be much more interesting than a typical RPG. There are the usual fetch-quests, of course, but there's also riddles, mysteries, relationship drama, and more! There's also lots of fun books to acquire, which are basically little novellas that you can read!
The first two arcs also refreshingly have plots that build up nice and slow towards "saving the world". They do eventually all reach dramatic finales, of course, but the progression makes it feel much more earned, and a significant chunk of the first game in the first two arcs (Trails in the Sky and Trails from Zero, respectively) is dedicated to "slice-of-life" level adventure, with a much more laid-back and chill vibe than many other RPGs out there!
The worldbuilding is very thought-out, with things like "Why do my characters lose all their spells between games?" being explained in-story, but notably, your characters do not lose their levels between games, which is really fun! It was fascinating, for example, seeing how incredibly powerful your characters become through the arc of the first three games. Furthermore, it's awesome seeing events and characters and lands from other games be referenced across the games - the continuity is extremely impressive, and lots of things from future games are foreshadowed far in advance.
One thing that I'd say is a 'minor' downside is how much the games rely on having a guide to really experience everything. I think the intent is to reward replayability of course, but many of the most interesting side-quests are 'hidden' and require you to really snoop around and talk to every NPC to find. Likewise, some important items are hidden with extremely time-sensitive windows to acquire - these items aren't essential to beat the game or anything, but they are very fun to collect, and they are used to acquire the ultimate weapon at the end of the game.
Gameplay-wise, it isn't a slouch either. As noted, it is a very traditional turn-based JRPG, so if you're not into that, that's a bummer... but for those who can't get enough of them, like me, it's perfect! The two main selling points of the battle system are the "Action Time Bonus" system and the "Orbment" system.
Action Time Bonus: On the left side of the screen one can always see the "AT Bar", a classic JRPG staple that shows the sequence of upcoming turns... but each turn can also have an associated AT Bonus, which will be a small effect awarded to the character who takes the turn in that slot. Naturally, abilities and effects that manipulate the sequence of turns are very important as a result, and make battles quite interesting!
Orbment: A unique take on FF7-style materia. Each character has an orbment which features 'slots' arranged in 'lines' of connected slots. You can plug a 'quartz' into each slot, which have various effects like changing stats, allowing certain spells to be cast, but also other random abilities, like seeing treasure chests on the map, or passively regenerating HP, etc... Quartz are each associated with an element, so each element has its own 'playstyle' - and character orbment slots can be elementally restricted, as well, meaning in a certain slot only a quartz of a certain element can be placed. Lastly, the 'longer' the lines on your orbment, the more oriented you tend to be towards spellcasting (to summarize very briefly), while a character with lots of shorter lines tends to be more physically-oriented. Overall, the system means that characters are extremely customizable, but each have their own "feel". For example, Kloe from the Trails in the Sky arc has one extremely long line of slots - fantastic for a spellcaster! - but a third of the slots are restricted to Water element quartz. This means she's almost certainly going to be one of your spellcasters, and probably going to be a Water spellcaster... but you could build her differently, if you chose to! I had a LOT of fun playing around with various builds for characters and discovering cool strategies for each character, and throughout the games, the system only gets more and more interesting with time.
Whew! That's a lot of words... but hopefully it's enough to convey how much I've grown to love the series. As a schoolteacher, summers are precious opportunities to catch up on games like this, and I've been having a blast spending this summer playing through the Legend of Heroes series. I hope other people will give it a shot too, especially if, like me, you were looking for more JRPGs in your life!
Currently playing an Archipelago multiworld server with some folks from the r/games discord server. Basically, we're all playing various games that are randomized and have all their items shuffled into a giant pool, then distributed randomly across all the games. I'm doing Donkey Kong Country 3, and by beating a level I looted the Surf HM to someone else playing Pokemon Red, for example.
It's great fun and a great way to play games asynchronously, and across all the ponds (since latency doesn't matter).
Currently Civilization 5, haven't played it in several years but it's just as addicting as I remembered. However the AI seems to be a little strange, Isabella just invaded me despite being half a map away, and then just walked her army into the middle of my territory before declaring war on me and then promptly being slaughtered. But overall it's pretty fun.
Also reading through Muv Luv, I just finished Extra which was very strange, but not bad and it does seem like it's getting more interesting.
And I'm still occasionally reading through Moe Moe World War 2 (somewhat), that's not been translated anywhere but it's got to be one of the most absurd and hilarious games ever.
Sometimes I regret spending so much on my PC when half the games I play are mid 2000's VNs which could probably run on a toaster lol. I mean I guess it probably helps late-game civ a bit.
Ooh, try playing Old World. It's sort of like a cross between civ and crusader kings.
There's no going back to civ for me now - I hadn't realized how much I was missing the rpg element and now I can't play without it.
I bought this. I need to play it. I'm a big into total war
Pikmin 4! Id never played a pikmin game before but after watching the trailers and some gameplay i realised it was so many things i adore in games, i can just pick it up and play as long or as little as i want and still feel like im progressing. Plus i just adore playing on my Switch OLED.
I bought Pikmin 4 a couple of days ago after playing the demo, and I'm having a blast.
The only other Pikmin game I've played was Pikmin 3 Deluxe. It was fun enough, but the graphics were very dated and the game was unexpectedly short.
I'm finding Pikmin 4 a lot more fun, and the graphics are very charming. I hear it's also significantly longer than 3 was.
Jagged Alliance 3 is eating up my life.
My Friday and Saturday nights were spent playing it until 3am. It's good! I like it, it's a worthy sequel to one of the all-time best tactical RPGs out there.
I'm about 75% of the way through the game I'd reckon. I have a good 6-merc squad outfitted with 2 snipers, a machine gunner with an assault rifle alternate, a fast moving sneaky recon person with an assault rifle and a shotgun, my explosives man (Barry) with a grenade launcher, and my medic -- Dr. Q, an Asian martial arts guy who I gave a machete to and slashes through enemies like they're nothing.
I'm taking a break for a few days so I don't burn myself out, but I think I'm going to wrap up and finish it, and start a new run to try to do more of the quests that I locked myself out of. Maybe I'll switch up the play-style and try something less rifle-intensive.
Very much recommend the game to fans of tactical RPGs, it's similar to (but imo way better than) X-COM and X-COM2.
I'm always looking for games in this genre so I'll have to try it out. Never played a Jagged Alliance game but love XCOM and really loved Gladius back in the day. Was extremely disappointed with Gears Tactics and so haven't found much to scratch that itch since XCOM 2.
Waiting for it to go on sale :) and looking really forward to playing it. I've been starving for another good Jagged Alliance title.
Playing JA1 at the moment because my last JA2 1.13 playthrough was only in February and it's been a while since I played the first title. I gotta say it holds up quiet well, better then I expected :)
How does JA3 compare to JA2? I common complaint I've heard is the small map size you have for the firefights.
I've, to confess, never really gotten past the early mid-game of JA2 1.13 (Drassen, been to San Mona before, but haven't gotten close to the end), so my experience is somewhat limited, but...
JA3 is well compared to JA2 vanilla or stracciatella, not necessarily 1.13. 1.13 has way more guns, but JA2 has a good amount of variety to guns, with the main classes (pistols, SMGs, ARs, rifles, explosives) having a few different options each, with a decent gradient of low quality to high quality, and low caliber to high caliber.
The balance is a bit raw still, SMGs don't have much use, rifles are a bit too powerful, ARs are probably fine with some tweaking to how bursts work, and I think there's a bug with MGs being fixed in a patch soon, where they're a bit more powerful, but I still think they have a good balance of what they do for how much ammo they eat up.
There's no Bobby Ray's equivalent in the game, you can get some guns in a few markets like in Fleatown, but its not the same. There's mods (btw this game already has a thriving mod community on Steam) to do that, but the game isn't as sandbox-y as JA2, where you could buy all the weapons you need and do whatever playthrough you want.
I don't think the maps in JA2 are small, some of them (especially in cities) can be quite large, and moving your teams around to reposition can take several turns. I don't know where JA2 1.13 is at right now with ranges, I know there was attempts in the past to make the range of gun fights in it more realistic, and as a result, also extend maps to be very large. JA3 does not do that, the ranges of gun fights are comical if you compare them to the real world, but I don't think they're bad either. It's a compromise between having fights extending over realistic distances, where you need to have huge maps, like every fire fight being over the length of central park, with a game thats more reasonable to develop and easier to play (i.e. you don't have to zoom out to the point where your mercs look like ants to see who they are shooting at).
JA3, I would say, is like a modern version of JA2 vanilla, with some style brought in from XCOM. It's not as big of a game as JA2 1.13, but I think over time it has a modding community that can build up to that. For someone who likes the JA series outside of 1.13, I think it's a great purchase and worthy part of the franchise.
I've been playing Remnant 2. I bought the ultimate edition of the game to get 3 day early access to play with a couple friends, and I have been absolutely loving the game. Every other souls-like I've played, including Remnant 1, I've absolutely hated. Something about the control schemes for most of the games and the overall clunky way they handle has always been a barrier to me continuing to play them. I don't actually think Remnant 2 is different in this regard, it feels the same as Remnant 1 to me, but something about it is drawing me in.
Overall the game is amazing though. Good combat, cool skills, fun items. I would highly recommend it and I can only see it getting better as they update and as the DLCs come out.
I'm in the same boat. Aside from not liking Remnant 1, anyway. I'm also avoiding any spoilers or item locations online, half of the fun for me is figuring out the puzzles or the alternate win methods for bosses. I already know I need to go back through Ne'rud for a few different ways of doing things (it was my first world).
I've also loved the fact each world has is own stories to tell that don't care about yours. And beyond that, there definitely looks to be at least as many build options on this have as there was in the first, including the infamous "flop" build. And I've already found a side arm that kind of mimics my favorite from the first game.
Started up Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (Steam) about a week ago. It's an interactive Visual Novel patterned on Koushun Takami's novel, "Battle Royale." So a bunch of high schoolers are imprisoned in a sorta high school and they have to kill each other til only one survives and gets released.
However, there's a 'whodunit' element as once one student is killed, the remaining students must investigate and hold a trial to determine who committed the murder. If the students judge correctly, the murderer is killed and the story progresses. But if the students finger the wrong person, they all die, except for the actual murderer, and it's game over. I love the Phoenix Wright/Ace Attorney series, so this is right up my alley.
I've played the previous two main entries and really liked them, but I'm having trouble keeping interested in this iteration. The characters don't seem as likeable or interesting to me as the previous two. Having played the previous two, it's also obvious how this is going to turn out. I just don't know which characters will survive to the end, aside from the one I control. That said, the franchise has an overarching lore and backstory to it, which is naturally told through the games. And that's what I'm interested in. How did this world come to be? Who's kidnapping students and putting them through this terrible game? And why does it keep happening over and over again to different groups of students?
Having started it, I'm planning to finish it. Though hopefully it'll get a bit more interesting. I'm still in the early game, having only gotten passed one trial, but it's still seems pretty slow. Come on game, start murdering more high schoolers! /s
If you're disappointed in Dangan V3 now, just wait until the ending; the twist is very unpopular among the fan base.
I think the V3 characters bring the greatest value, not in the main game, but in the alternate game mode "Talent Development Plan", as well as its quasi-sequel Dangan S, where they're interacting with characters from other games (for example, a memorable interaction between Tenko and Mahiru). That said, the trial mechanics in this one were pretty neat, and the fifth case was a particularly interesting one.
It's super interesting that the the people who liked Danganronpa are mixed on the ending. I didn't know that.
I loved the Danganronpa series specifically because of V3. If they hadn't made that game, I'd just regard the series as good, enjoyable games, sort like I do with the nonary games or phoenix wright series. But v3 sealed the series as a winner for me. I actually recommend it to people because of V3.
I'm not part of a fanbase. Nor do I play VNs to the level that hardcore people do. In fact, I just finished stein's gate for the first time this morning. So I'm way out of the loop.
Anyway, I hope the GP plays through V3, because I think it's worth the time spent.
Started playing Hunt: Showdown last week, and despite being normally very risk-averse in video games I kind of enjoy it in this one. The very temporary nature of your hunters and equipment makes it feel more acceptable to use and lose things, which is great for people that typically horde tons of stuff they never use like me. The tension and pacing of firefights in this game is also like nothing else. Rather than people just trading storms of lead with automatics, the limitations of the 1800s-era arsenal makes every single shot count, and fights that don't end immediately can end up being short, violent bursts of action followed by a period of stressful quiet as people duck into cover to patch wounds and reload one round at a time. Every fight you do win feels like a real accomplishment, and successfully extracting after a number of violent bouts against players and monsters alike feels like the grand reward that it should be.
750+ hours in Hunt now! Despite every round being very similar you rarely have the same game twice, and crytek are good at breathing new life into it with fairly frequent updates.
I've been playing Suzerain again, a game where you play as president in a fictional world set in a world that has strong parallalels to our 1950s cold war.
It recently got a massive, free update and it's so. God. Damn. Good. The world building got expanded a lot and it doesn't just feel like a feel a few countries anymore but a real, proper world. More events and policies you can enact and the music man. I'm hooked again lol.
Aside from that, I've also been playing Master Detective Archives : rain code. By the same makers as from Danganronpa I think? It's good but not quite as hooked as Suzerain. I think my taste in games got mostly more mature though. The quality is good but I can feel my preferences shifting in the long haul.
I've been playing Death's Door. Currently against the final (?) boss, which I find quite more difficult than the previous ones. I'll have to re-explore the previous areas to up some stats. The game is nicely paced, I felt that each zone was just long enough, the exploration aspect and puzzles are not too tedious, and the combat is not too hard. Aside from that last boss, which is a bit frustrating. I'd like to finish it before moving on to Dredge.
I also "have to" finish Diablo IV's campaign, but... meh. The first few hours were nice, but there's unfortunately not much more to see. It feels like they mixed Diablo 2 and 3 together and somehow ended with the worst parts of both games :(
Death's Door had such a surprisingly great soundtrack. The Gravedigger's Heart is such a memorable melody, and stands up there with some of my favorite ambient pieces from games.
Death's Door was one of the games I finished in my "I'm gonna clean up my backlog" year. I enjoyed most of it but honestly if we're talking about the same thing, the final boss left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I beat it but it was a bit of a slog.
I'm talking about the last great soul. I guess there's another boss after that, haven't looked up.
But yeah, the previous great souls were at least a bit interesting with their gimmicks, here the fight is too punishing, too long, and just not fun. I actually hope there's something nice after that because I don't really want to end a nice game with a boring grindy boss fight
It's a really good game otherwise don't get me wrong! But yeah it's funny to me that theoretically the biggest bosses were the least interesting. It's been a while since i played it so I don't remember much of the game tbh but yeah, hope you enjoy!
Playing Luck Be A Landlord and Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate for my roguelike podcast this week.
Luck Be A Landlord - I initially thought was a cute yet shallow experience, but the more I've spent with it, the more I realize how deep the item synergies go and how crazily broken you can make the game. It probably makes sense to try and beat the first floor without any guides to try and get a feel for the game, then to try and "get good" by referencing the wiki after. It can be difficult to know when to pick which symbols when in order to build cascading synergies, but also difficult to know when to mill out your "deck" of items to optimize better. Deceptively thinky of a game!
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate - I think the presentation here is great, but I'm not so sold on the actual gameplay to some extent. I think chess variants are interesting overall, and this one is more interesting than most, but it feels like something's missing here. One thing that kind of irks me is how easy it is to get checkmated without any recourse. If I have two shotgun blasts ready to go and I'm effectively checkmated, I should be able to kill one of the opposing pieces to unblock it. Maybe that's where the transformation cards come into play more? I play a ton of chess puzzles on lichess, so it's not unfamiliar territory, but something feels 'off' about how you can't respond to being put in check easily.
I've been very interested in Luck Be a Landlord! I still need to pick up the game myself, but even knowing very little about it, it seems quite fun. I've had rave reviews from friends. Glad to see more praise for it, makes me even more interested.
Does it seem necessary to play it with a wiki? I liked Slay the Spire plenty blind, for example, but I did enjoy it more when I installed the mod that let you see enemy behavior patterns and the like without needing to have a wiki open to consult... Is it stuff like that, or is it perfectly fun without?
I was having fun without wiki help, but it was kind of hard to know when to pick a certain item in some spots.
You can see all that item X has effects A,B,C but it doesn't tell you if that item is used by others. Probably to keep verbiage to reasonable levels I think.
For example getting lots of of an item like fruit has effects with stuff, but unless you remember that Ms Farmer or some other item consumes the fruit, you can be left with a bloated deck. It's something you can reason out via playing it a lot, and runs go by fast enough that you can see almost everything in a couple hours.
I'd only really use the wiki if you're trying a hard difficulty modifier and you need to get that deckmilling engine going just right.
I've been playing Shotgun King and I think if what you're describing is accurate, you actually can get yourself out of checkmate if you have shotgun shells ready to go, you just need to be able to kill the opposing piece(s) in 1 blast, since it counts as a turn to shoot. I've done it a couple of times, it's kinda tricky to pull off. You'll need to get rid of your two shields though.
Up until last Saturday I was playing Against the Storm. It's pretty damn good. It's kind of a mashup of a few different genres: it's primarily a city builder, but it has elements of rogue-lite and deck building as well. The Civilization "just one more round" energy is strong with this one.
Over the weekend I decided to finally bite the bullet and give Final Fantasy XIV a try with the free trial. I've been hearing for years how awesome the storytelling is, but I gotta say, I'm about 20 levels in and I keep waiting for it to get somewhere. I just opened up airship travel, so hopefully that kicks things into gear, but so far I'm not hooked. I'll give it to the end of the free trial, but it's going to have to wow me to get me to shell out for a subscription, which I haven't done since my Ultima Online days (1998-1999).
I've played 10,000 hours of FFXIV.
If you don't like the linear questing format of mostly dialogue, with the sprinkle of dungeon or trial here and there, that format never changes, just the plot itself improves as the world building backs off and actual stakes rise and payoffs arrive.
You don't have to listen to the "just keep playing, it gets better!!!" folks if you're one of many people who bounce off the game due to format rather than content.
Just my thoughts on the matter, anyway.
I don't think I have an issue with the questing format, although what I've seen isn't exactly thrilling. Does it ever improve beyond "kill X number of Y and report to Z"? Because it got to the point pretty early on where I'm not even bothering to read the dialogue in quest assignments because it's not very interesting. That's not a good sign for engagement.
Another 1000-something hour-er here. I think the quests for the most part are never going to be great. There are a few memorable ones, but not until several expansions down the line. But they're most there to just deliver you the story. The real meat of the gameplay is the dungeons and other shared content (which also improves significantly as the game goes on).
Honestly, I think you'd be fine mostly skipping dialog in ARR, and maybe checking in when you get near the end of that first expansion or pulling up recaps. They recently redid the end-of-ARR instances and they're significantly improved vs what they were, and a little closer to the quality level achieved later on.
It's unfortunate, but ideally you'd get at least somewhat into Heavensward before making a full go/no-go decision, but I'll agree it's a big ask.
Personally, I mostly skipped the early story (I was more into the leveling and the gameplay) and started paying more attention around expansions 2/3. Overall, it's very much worthwhile if you put the time in. The whole story arc that concludes with the most recent expansion is pretty incredible. And the modern dungeons/trials/raids are tons of fun as well.
Frankly, that sounds more like your first couple job quests than your MSQ, cause it's not that often that it's literally kill X number of Y but it will be a lot of go talk to this NPC, go talk to that NPC, follow some footprints (which would be an interactable that you just click on a few times), then talk to another NPC, maybe a solo instance with some basic combat, then more dialogues and going to talk to someone. In the latest expansion a feature was added where an NPC can follow you around and you can have a dialogue with them for a few points, and the expansion prior did this thing where you go into a first person mode and either search for something or shoot some kind of projectile, but both don't really represent a significant meaningful change to the presentation of the story. The vast majority of the levelling and story progression experience is dialogue, with a sprinkling of solo duties and a dungeon every couple levels and a trial a few times per expansion.
To be clear, the narrative wrapper around why you're talking to what NPC or interacting with some interaction point or killing some monster or going into some dungeon/trial all becomes way more interesting as the writing does improve upon entering the expansions, but the writing improving does not get leveraged into making the actual "task" of playing the main scenario quests any more interesting. The solo story instances do get better over time too though, there's a really memorable one in the newest expansion for example. For the most part though, you're playing a visual novel between dungeons and trials.
Honestly speaking, I've felt for a while that players who are coming to FFXIV from a long history of single player narrative JRPGs, i.e. final fantasy franchise fans are the ones who should sit through MSQ, while players who are coming to FFXIV from other MMORPGs should buy a story skip and skip all cutscenes (the story skip never covers the newest expansion) to endgame and just dive right into raiding or whatever it is that people talked them into trying the game in order to play. But it's a tough pill to swallow to tell people that because their past is MMOs and not JRPGs that the game should basically cost more upfront, cause skips aren't cheap for whatever reason.
A lot of what you're saying is sounding like the game isn't really going to work out for you, but don't let the weirdo cringey parts of the community guilt you about that. It is what it is, I love this game deeply, and that includes the story, but holy shit does the community ever over-promise to outsiders.
I'm not so sure it won't work for me, as I am exactly that single-player JRPG type you're referring to. One of my main gripes about MMORPGs is that they tend to neglect story in favor of PvP (could not care less without trying), raiding (I could be persuaded, but not a priority) and grind loops (which I'm cool with, provided there's some sense of progression and reward). That's why I decided to give XIV a shot.
I've got a fair bit of trial to go yet. We'll see how well it manages to get its hooks into me.
At some point in October they'll be adding another expansion to the free trial so there's even more coming before you hit the subscription-wall.
20 levels in is REALLY early. The plot starts to open up when you start meeting the actual game cast, and many will tell you ARR is the least interesting part of the story (though imo, it's fun for the worldbuilding). It's when you reach Heavensward that the story gets good.
I know that's extremely early on in the game progression, but I've only got until level 60 with the trial. It needs to give me a reason to shell out for the full game plus subscription cost PDQ.
It's understood in most media that it's important to get the hooks into the audience quickly, especially these days. Can you imagine if the first ten minutes of a Bond flick were just him calling his travel agent to book his flight to Prague or whatever? That would be about the equivalent to telling your MMO player to kill the 5 rats that have been terrorizing the countryside and report back to the quest giver. Granted, you generally don't need to teach a viewer how to watch a spy thriller like you need to teach a player how to play your MMO, but I know tutorializing can be more engaging than this. I've seen it.
I wouldn't call ARR a long tutorial. It gets into the "real game" less than halfway through, arguably faster than most MMOs. The problem is that the plot is a bit boring for a long while.
But don't you worry, I understand the concept. I know it's asking a lot to someone to go through that much playtime before reaching the "good part". I'm only trying to inform.
By the way, until level 60 is a LOT of time and progression, for the record. That's all of ARR and Heavensward; pretty much everything until the beginning of Stormblood. Not only that but you should be getting access to Stormblood for free too in late October, as they just announced.
I got into a kick playing Against the Storm a few months ago, I'm looking forward to picking it up again now that there have been more updates. Getting a new update every other week has been an interesting cadence to get into, no other games I'm aware of have such big updates on such a regular cadence.
I just had my summer vacation, managed to snatch a really cheap PS5 disc edition, bought all the PSPlus subscriptions and all. I meant to play through Miles Morales, HZD2 and the works.
What did I play instead? Dave the Diver on my Steam Deck. It was the perfect summer holiday game, clear main loop (dive twice, manage sushi restaurant once, goto 10).
BUT, the characters and upgrade animations are so bonkers you keep with it. And then it throws new mechanics and more crazy characters and locations at you at the perfect pace so you never get bored. It might actually be a 10/10 game for me.
One card game I've recently gotten into is crew, it's a pretty fun one like skull king but co op the missions evolve to get more complicated but the simplest form is that your trying to make sure one specific person wins a specific card.
The main videogame I've been playing recently is elden ring, still one of the best co op games that I have thanks to the co op mod.
I love Crew! I find that it's hard to get your head around at first, and every time someone new joins you kinda have to go through it all again, but once you do it's so satisfying to have a well oiled machine up and running with a group of friends. I really like Crew 2, it's a lot less "random" imo
Currently playing Silent Hunter III. The whole process to get the game running with all the mods installed was a grind. But I recently found (via SovietWomble) a full game with mods pre-installed (it presumes you do have a license for the game).
It works great, apart from the occasional game crash. I love getting back into it, but definitely takes some time to learn all the torpedo targeting tricks again.
Have you ever given "UBOAT" (https://store.steampowered.com/app/494840/UBOAT/) a try? It's a recent sub game in the Silent Hunter vein. Still being developed, and I can't say it will be as thorough as a game with tons of mods, but it's a nice recent game in the genre and runs pretty easily and well.
It is on my wishlist, but I rather wait until it is out of early access
Starting to peter out a little bit on Persona 3 Portable, but hopefully I'll get some motivation to pick it back up and start playing again pretty soon. It's already been an ongoing game for me for the last 8 years, so I'm sure I'll get back to it. Initially started playing it on an emulator on my phone, moved to an actual PSP and now a Vita and at one point, also had my save moved over to my Steam Deck.
Speaking of the Vita, someone recently ported Eldritch to it, which is a game I've had in my library for I don't know how many years now and never really got around to it, so I installed it on my Vita. Been playing it here and there and it's pretty neat, but I'm not entirely sure it'll have the sticking power I'm hoping for, but it seems pretty brisk, so I'll keep playing for now.
My current obsession is Transport Fever 2. I'd put 60-hours into it late last year and then put it down, but refused to uninstall it from my Deck, as I knew I'd be coming back around and damn, you bet I have. Whenever I play these games (previously played the first), I get absolutely sucked in and obsessed with optimizing things to get my transport lines flowing smoothly. I recently had a breakthrough in understanding with the game, even though I've put more than 200-hours into the series as a whole so far, which has caused me to become all the more obsessed, because I'm having enormous success with my company this time around. I've become a ruthless CEO. If your line is underperforming, I have no problem cutting a huge amount of jobs to pull things back out of the red.
I've been playing Murder by the Numbers since it went free in the epic store. It's kind of a Phoenix Wright style detective game. You question suspects, look for evidence and so on. But it's also a pictocross style puzzles you have to solve whenever you're searching for something.
The story is fun with likeable characters. the mysteries are logical without being obvious.
Also has an awesome theme song https://youtu.be/j1IxqH_AP3Q
Murder by Numbers was the game that re-ignited my love for picross. On top of being amazingly well presented with its art and catchy music, it is genuinely of of the best playing picross games available. I can't recommend this one highly enough.
Turtle WoW Hardcore. The combination of the expanded WC3 story and the fact that I only have one life is really doing it for me. After several false starts, I finally got out of the single digits and have a lvl 16 mage. Long may he last.
Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition. I discovered the original as a kid getting into PC gaming, and it was a big part of my childhood despite being relatively unknown to all but diehard fans until the last few years with retro shooters becoming popular. I enjoy it because unlike a lot of FPS games, it strikes a good balance between power fantasy and deadly insta-kill traps, so you never feel completely safe or indestructible. Some of the levels can make you want to pull your hair out, but when you finish one (especially a boss map) it feels like an achievement. It has something of an arcade-like feel with the score system and tons of jump pads. Seeing the message "Ludicrous Gibs!" never gets old.
With the remaster, they added a lot of quality-of-life improvements, a proper working map editor, and even little things like adding the alternate and female versions of enemies that were left out of the original game. Also some of the best MIDI music ever composed in the medium, in my opinion.
I tried to get ROTT working a few months ago on the recommendation of a Civvie 11 video, and none of the source ports I tried worked.
May just pick up this edition.
ROTT has had a pretty chequered past as far as source ports go. WinROTT and the GL variants were the only real way to play it for a while, unless you felt like suffering through the DOSBox method (which I did and do not recommend). This version is ideal if you don't want to bother with a lot of tinkering just to get a considerably more jank experience. Also, avoid "Extreme ROTT" if you see it, it's just a bunch of shovelware and troll levels.
Persona 5 Royal:
My goodness, it lasted for 84 hours and I still want to play it more. Music ,art style, gameplay, character interactions are all enjoyable. Definitely worth a play if you are familiar with jrpg games.
Love myself a great JRPG! Are you in the market for a new JRPG to replace it, do you have one lined up already, or you playing something else next?
I have yet to decide, I will either choose the newest Final Fantasy or going to play Tales Of Berseria again.
Now that I think about it though, Final Fantasy seems more like it. I should forget as much of Berseria possible before attempting a re-run or else I might get burnout from Tales series.
I'm back on the Monster Hunter grind, playing with my friends through Sunbreak! I really loved World, and honestly I still think that Wirebugs make me a worse hunter in general but it's still super addicting. I'm a gunlance main which is pretty rare if I say so myself!
I’ve been playing Diablo 4 - Season 1. I rolled a necro who is much more powerful than my Eternal Realm Rogue.
The most hated changes were rolled back by the time I started but it does feel a lot more deserted now. It’s harder to find groups, LFG discords are pretty empty. I have a core group I play with but if they aren’t on I usually will just hop off. I’ll probably take next season off and rejoin in season 3 or 4.
I've been playing Ravenswatch for a few days and it's everything I expected from a roguelite, even in its alpha stage.
Great art direction, very dynamic combat - comparable to Hades -, good characters and ennemies diversity so the fights are always a blast, and a great boss design.
It's very refreshing and the next updates to come look like they'll deliver even more. A definite recommendation for people who like the genre.
Alien: Isolation
I finished it over the winter, but the DLC will keep me coming back over and over. Of course I will be replaying it in its entirety, but that will probably be another winter pastime. The game is, to me and many others, just incredible. It was the early days of AI and the implementation of it in this game is wonderful.
Play it, especially if you are a fan of the movie franchise.
I find the AI is pretty hit-or-miss. Sometimes the Alien detects you sniffling from the other side of the level and runs over to kill you, and sometimes it stands quite literally beside you and doesn't seem to know where you are.
Strangely, and entirely unexpected to myself even, a friend of mine pulled me back into League of Legends. I haven't played it in about five years or so, maybe longer, but the new Arena 2v2v2v2 mode is surprisingly fun to play.
I'm steering clear of the Summoners Rift 5v5 because I'm completely done with that gametype, but the arena is refreshing and fun.
I've buried my nose in Rune Factory 4 (Special). I've never played a Harvest Moon style game before, but this one is half Harvest Moon, half
JRPG, so that helps. It's mostly chill (apart from the odd typhoon or snowstorm!), but the bosses can provide some challenge. There are six bachelors and six bachelorettes to pursue; while you can only pursue the opposite sex, the one you marry does give you a biological child after a time skip, so I'd say it's justified. I'm stuck between Clorica, the narcoleptic and sleepwalking yet highly competent (even while sleeping) butler, Margaret, the big-sisterly elven musician, and Dolce, the stoic medium with gothic aristocrat vibes. The other bachelorettes are Forte, the ladyknight, Xiao Pai, the mature and intelligent yet clumsy and accented bath house employee (whose mother is the owner), and Amber, the... loli (seriously, she's so childlike in appearance and demeanor that it's genuinely disconcerting that someone would pursue her).I've just started playing Little nightmares 2 on my Steam Deck but I'm kinda stuck in the cellar of the house, so that's super annoying. Apart from that, I really like the game. It has a great atmosphere: I feel it's like a mix between Limbo and INSIDE... It's almost as if Limbo was remade with the graphics of INSIDE. That's not a bad thing, I really loved those games and don't mind hanging out in a similar world again.
Edit:Oh, my bad. It seems I just wasn't supposed to do anything else down in the cellar... I've just made it through the Hunter's cabin, now I'm trying to escape...
Edit2: and now I'm stuck at a broken bridge...
Edit3: now I'm stuck behind the Teacher's desk...
Skyrim. I think internet memes have kind of primed me for disappointment and I didn't get that at all. The dungeon exploration gameplay loop and some of the sidequests were pretty fun.
The main story is not doing much for me, on the other hand.
For me right now it's:
I recently finished Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, which I enjoyed just as much as I was hoping to. Great Team Ninja combat with what I thought was a super interesting and unique gear/class system. And I thought the story was genuinely pretty good, although it had the usual Team Ninja awkwardness and Final Fantasy campiness. My biggest problem, and what ended my playthrough, was hitting on the realization that the endgame was a little too samey to keep me playing.
For the first time in one of these games, I followed a "get to the endgame" guide starting with the first (of three) DLCs. By the time I got to what amounts to the endgame (The Rift, which has basically endless floors that can each be cleared to access the next), my character was in such OP gear that all challenge was sucked out of the gameplay. That, and watching build guide videos and realizing that people hundreds of floors into the rift were doing one of the exact same three floors that I was currently doing. That pretty much combined to smother my interest in continuing.
Had a hell of a good time for 110 hours or so though, so if third person ARPGs are your thing, I highly, highly recommend SoP.
After hitting that abrupt end to my time with SoP, I was craving some more Team Ninja goodness, so I started up another playthrough of Nioh 2. My god, this game is so good. It's just...so freaking good. This second playthrough was soooo much smoother than the first time I played a couple years ago, so I've relatively quickly (for me anyways) just about made it to the endgame. Really looking forward to pushing this character through the last difficulty level and into the Depths. Absolute masterpiece of a game, and I cannot wait for the third installment.
I just picked up Final Fantasy XVI and have been enjoying it. Coming from a background with XIV, VII Remake (and a little bit of the original VII), it's quite different. It could almost be a Witcher game in terms of the world and gameplay. The action is definitely more refined than VII Remake, and the boss fights feel a lot like XIV (though not as drawn out since it's only a one player game).
This is what I've been playing as well. Good lord, I love those boss fights. They're usually just enough of a challenge to be enjoyable, and then the Eikon segment are pure spectacle but in a way that just makes me laugh with delight. And the characters are quite likeable so far (or at least I think so).
They're very spectacular. The difference between how eikon/primal summoning works in FFXIV vs the eikons in XVI is a really interesting twist, and it gives it some of that stupidly overpowered shounen anime energy. Ramuh basically goes full Dragonball.
I'm surprised I haven't seen any comments about Battle Bit Remastered yet! Been solely play that fps in the last month. It's very well put together.
I enjoyed it at first, had to drop it because of how repulsive my experience with the players was. After being called some form of expletive for the 20th time, I decided maybe it wasn't for me.
I’m actually in a bit of a funk right now. In the first half of the year, I beat (Got the platinum for) Disco Elysium, Dark Souls 1-3, and finally conquered Cities: Skylines. Ever since, nothing has really been a must-play game.
I was really looking forward to finally trying Persona 4 Golden as Persona 5 was my favorite game of the last generation, and I was psyched to pick up Inscryption as well, but I just can’t get into either of them. I was playing through Rogue Legacy 2 as well for a bit, but that’s just feeling like a slog now too.
I’m hoping Spider-Man 2, Cities: Skylines 2, and possibly Armored Core 6 can suck me back in, but I’m just feeling a bit blah in the meantime
Project: Gorgon
I had this game wishlisted for the longest time, but then forgot what it was about.
I’ve played Asheron’s Call (AC) for a very long time, it was my first MMORPG and has made a lasting impression on me. Project: Gorgon (PG) captures some of the magic I felt with AC.
I don’t think it will ever be able to dethrone AC because nothing can best a great memory, but it is something else than your typical MMORPG.
It has a lot of fun skills that keep surprising me and that I’ve never seen in other games. You can almost be whatever you want to be/play.
I’ll be playing it for a while for sure, but many other great games are lurking around the corner that will be getting my attention (starfield, baldurs gate 3, …)
Running through stuff from Fanatical Bundles before Detective Rain Code arrives.
The Last Friend
Plants vs Zombies-style lane Tower Defense but with doggos as turrets and mixed with a Beat-em-Up because you play as a post-apocalyptic dude rescuing dogs against dognappers. Mostly ran SP recovery (because special moves mostly OHKO normal mobs, apply knockdown, always hit Off The Ground, and can be chained into each other for elite mobs), water and lvl 3 sniper turrets for CC, and walls for the last 2 worlds once the grenade spam started. There are a few brawler-only levels including all but one boss, so think about whether you're into beat-em-ups first. No post-game content besides the Boss Rush for grinding dog treats and the achievement challenges. It was 6 hours to complete, a decent way to spend an afternoon.
Twilight Town: A Cyberpunk Day In Life
It's a short linear Visual Novel clocking in at 40 minutes about a guy who lost most of his money gambling for funds to upgrade his illegal self-learning AI waifu out of loneliness. It's a mundane and surprisingly wholesome story about him realizing that the people around him are his friends and that life isn't so bad. Credit where it's due, it has a nice amount of pixel art for its length.
Corpse Factory
A 9 hour, fully English voiced visual novel with 3 choices total about a website that can kill people by request via sending the victim a photo of their corpse. That's the window dressing anyways because there must be so much forensics evidence lying around; it's really a psychological story about the temp office worker behind the site dealing with her various mental disorders (starving herself for beauty despite being paper thin, fear of unfamiliar locations, megalomaniacal ambition to bring death as Corpse Girl) and her trying to take back control of her life (making more friends, taking her medication seriously, bringing about death as Corpse Girl). That last part sounds like a joke but no, each terrible act gives her more self-confidence and her daily life improves because of her renewed will. I think the first half is nice, but Act 3 is when things completely fly off the rail and jump the shark in concluding the story.
Spidersaurs
Meh. I haven't played any Run and Guns in a long while, but this doesn't feel like a good one. There's just a lot of random bullshit that adds up and makes it unpleasant to go through:
Well there's 3 HP to a life and both heroes have different sets of weapons so that's something to its credit? The Spreadshot sucks though with Crush being the best option here and laser/flamethrower being a close second.
Exile Squadron
I don't really have much experience in horizontal shumps, but I don't feel much desire to replay this one. On the plus side, the game lets you test out most of the basic lvl 1 weaponry before you decide what to upgrade with crystals (went with rocket launcher, flamethrower, and shield) and you get to new game+ your file which is nice. On the other hand, the graphics aren't stylized, it runs into the issue where what's the foreground and background isn't clear, and any contact damage will take a life with enemy ships and shots abruptly coming from off-screen at times. 6 levels total, not sure how much that is for horizontal shumps.
Breath of the Wild
It's my first Legend of Zelda game, so there was some adjustment/catch up, but I'm loving it. I love exploring the world, learning my limits in game, solving the puzzles. The koroks are adorable and love stumbling on their puzzles too. I don't love that my weapons break, but there could be worse things since I do seem to get more regularly.
Been playing a bit of Insurgency Sandstorm on gamepass. Pleasantly surprised with the gunplay. Feels like this game should be better/more popular than it is. Also a bit of Diablo 4 Season 1.... but I dunno... the game is half baked, I might have to come back to it after a few updates.
Kinda in limbo with games at the moment. Don't really want to start into anything too seriously with Starfield so close now.
I went back to MechWarrior 5 after a long break, because I know for sure I'm gonna get sucked into Armored Core and wanted something more procedural to mess with until that comes out.
I use a few mods with it, and have been playing the same career mode game continuously for...ever, really. I haven't started a second game yet. In my game it's 3079, all the usual events have played themselves out and there are no more news posts. Thanks to some mods, clan 'mechs are roaming around, and I've got a roster of nothing but hero variants. The goal is to get to having operated for 65 in-game years, at which point I'll declare myself retired and start a new game.
Overall I've had a great time with it. Cool as a first time experience getting into something Battletech. I never played the tabletop game, and only briefly played some of the older games. With this I've decided to get my head around the timeline, lore, etc and in general that's all been cool. With MW5 specifically, the mods have really added a lot to it. I think id have gotten pretty bored of the base game, though its DLC adds a bit I've had fun with. It is definitely simplified compared to older games, and until I got the mods the AI was some real trash. But it's been cool to see the timeline unfold, learn about where the game is situated in that, see what other machines I can salvage, etc.
In any game like that I like to be small and fast. So I use a hero Raven most of the time, backed up with the biggest shit I'm allowed to take with me. I like to think of it as a bow and arrow - the "bow" are my three heavier squadmates running defense/spotting things, and I am the "arrow", running out from behind them and taking shit down with short range missile launchers. The variant I have also has jump jets, and it is tremendously fun to hop over stuff while maintaining a lock/firing at them. I even did a weird little wall-kick lol, because the collision can do some funky things when you're ascending.
I have been playing on a steam deck, so I've been careful about loading too much shit in it, but I think I'm running up against the limits of a non-yet another mechlab loadout. When I tried that mod/its companion mods I found the load times between menus ballooned, and I couldn't really find a way to make that better. Like, sometimes two full minutes just to enter/exit the mech bay, and longer trying to change up stuff in missions (on the deck - on PC it's all good, but I want to play on the deck). I'm hoping when I start a new game I'll see some more, because I know for sure some of the mods I got don't fully do what they do unless you start a new game.
All in all, great time, would totally recommend, though if you're an old MechWarrior fan it might not scratch the itch as well as youd hope, is about where I've landed on it.
Have you tried the Battletech game at all? Some pretty neat mods to make it simple or complex as you want. I got about half way through the campaign before I had to but it down for reasons but it is a blast. More focused on squad tactics then a single 'mech.
I did! I'm waiting for it to go on sale. It looks cool and the mods I saw seem pretty awesome. Though I lack the tabletop experience it seems like a lot of folks are dedicated to getting as much of it in as they can, I can get behind that.
I too lack any tabletop experience (and yet I bought the most recent Kickstarter despite not having any one to play with. I just like the models and the universe.) The video game Battletech has been a great primer though, and the I just love how crunchy and deep the game is.
I've been playing Battlefield 2042 and I am loving it. I know the game had an abysmal launch, the worst yet for a Battlefield title, but I am having a blast playing it. The game is currently on "Season 05" and I guess they've done a crap ton of work since launch because I am enjoying it like I have previous games in the series. It was free on PlayStation Plus at some point and it's on Xbox Game Pass as well.
I'm currently in the middle of a replay of Red Dead Redemption II for the first time since it came out in 2018. I originally played it on Xbox One, but now I'm playing the PC version on a machine that has enough horsepower to play it in 1440p with most of the settings maxed, and it is fantastic.
I'm in the middle of chapter six now, which is where
spoiler
the wheels really come off for the gang after they return from Guarma, and Arthur starts to really feel the health effects of his tuberculosisI love this game. It was too slow-paced and clunky for many, but a single player, high-quality open world adventure like this is my jam.
I'm now looking forward to the upcoming rumored remaster/remake of RDR 1.
I've been playing FFVII: Remake (the Steam version). I've had a very confusing up-and-down experience with it so far. TL;DR: there's a really solid and enjoyable combat system at the core of this game, but it feels like many encounters are designed to make interacting with that system as tedious and frustrating as possible.
I really enjoyed the beginning several chapters of the game. The combat system is a clever blend of action and turn-based combat. And as a modern "remake," it really improves how the different characters' personalities come through with proper voice acting, being able to see characters' faces, etc. I feel a lot more attached to Aerith and Barrett in particular compared to the original. I like that Midgar is a lot more fleshed out. Sure, it gets a bit padded with fetch quests at times, but I prefer that to the original, where Midgar felt less like a massive city and more like a series of smudgy textures.
My experience was overall very positive up through the Airbuster fight. After that, it took a surprising turn downhill. That's about the point where the game starts introducing encounters that feel almost deliberately designed to be tedious. There's the Rude fight, where if you get close to him, he just does an unblockable, undodgeable grab and takes control away from your character for several seconds while he does his move. If you keep your distance, he chases after you and does a leaping attack to close the distance, or fires a homing sleep attack (again, taking control away from you) that forces you to drop everything and kite if you want to avoid it. So most of this fight was spent running Aerith in circles around the arena.
Then, the hell house fight -- I could spend a lot of time complaining about this one, but I see there's already plenty of discussion online covering what sucks about this encounter. As a side note, if the game let you spend 1 ATB to change a materia slot out, that alone would resolve probably 90% of my gripes about this specific fight (the last 10% being the god mode shield being another tedious mechanic to interact with).
Past that, several more boss encounters where the game interrupts the flow of combat so the boss can have a cutscene and reset their stagger bar, or where the encounter mechanics are designed so you can only use one specific character doing one specific type of move to move forward, etc. I don't think it's at all necessary for providing a challenge. Behemoth-0 was an enjoyable fight that punishes you for button mashing without thought, but still let you play the game without putting tons of mechanics in the way.
Apologies that this become a rant. It's just a bummer because I started off really loving the game. But I'm now at the end of chapter 14 and that feeling has completely shifted to not being sure if I even want to play the rest of the games in the remake series if they keep the encounter design the same.
I was playing lets school. But I am waiting on that now as it gets a little buggy now and then so hoping for more updates.
So I went back to minecraft, my last instance was on 1.18. I have made a 1.20.1 pack to play, so far so good, managed to make it run nicely it's good to be back have missed minecraft nights.
Trying to catch up on some smaller, shorter games before I lose my entire life to Starfield in less than a month...
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy - I grew up playing the Professor Layton games and this is scratching a similar itch. Fun characters, incredible music, and the "turnabout" moments are always so exciting. It does suffer from the usual point-and-click issue where game logic doesn't always align with real world logic and you resort to trial and error (pun intended) throwing evidence at witnesses just to advance the story. Still, really enjoying my time so far. This is the perfect game for the Steam Deck - you can crank the power consumption down to almost nothing and get ~6 hours of playtime.
Divinity: Original Sin II - The Baldur's Gate 3 hype is in full swing right now, but I am forcing myself to not buy it because A) see the first line of my comment and B) I had originally bounced off DOS2. Figured while I was feeling FOMO I'd give it another shot, and I'm glad I did. The game is really clicking with me this time (though I'm still on the first island). I think the Fort Joy area suffered from giving the player too many options where it felt like everything I did was the first step in a new questline and I wasn't actually making progress. I also feel like the quest log is a little too vague - normally I like that, but in a game with this much to keep track of I really need more detailed logs.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II - I was always a pro-Nintendo/anti-COD kid growing up, but recently I've chilled out and started trying to find the fun in every game I play. My friend bought the campaign for me recently and I've been having an okay time with it. MWII is a visual spectacle, the campaign missions are fun, and the gunplay feels great. I do not enjoy the nationalistic "OOH RAH!" elements. I don't think I've fully figured out the flow of the gameplay yet, as I'm pretty good at other shooters (Apex, Halo, etc.) but keep getting obliterated in multiplayer. That being said, I love being able to hear the frustrated screams of people I kill.