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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.
My Steam Deck was delivered last week which lines up well with the TV primarily being used for Olympics coverage. It's been excellent to have a way to play my steam library elsewhere around the house. I've played quite a few games since getting the deck:
Thank Goodness Your Here is a short (2-3 hour) "puzzle" game. Think of Untitled Goose Game except British and leaning more into absurdist comedy. Calling it a puzzle game is also a stretch. You wander around, people ask you to do things, you keep advancing and eventually help them out. It mostly feels like playing a cartoon of Cartoon Network.
Devil May Cry 5 is a game I've wanted to play for a while. SO far a typical character action game with over the top rule of cool. I mean... a sword with a motorcycle throttle that you crank to charge it up? Awesome. I've never played DMC but I quite like it so far (3-4 hours).
Skald: Against the Black Priory a retro western RPG like. Think Baldur's Gate. I haven't sunk much time into it but it executes well and seems like a solid RPG with it's dice based ruleset visibly on its sleeve. The art style is hitting the nostalgia center of the brain pretty hard. It's kind of clunky on steam deck because it assumes you are playing with a mouse? I need to see if I can remap the controls.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon is my first experience with Yakuza games. Ichiban crew on me instantly, the story hooked me, it's got the perfect amount of bizarre humor which is nicely explained away by Ichiban being a Dragon's Quest fan and viewing his life through the lens of a classic RPG hero. Strong Don Quixote vibes.
The game tries to address crime in a nuanced way. I think while the game aspires to say something interesting about prostitution, homelessness, it is a bit clumsy. It works for the most part but I don't really expect this game to deliver any particularly hard hitting social commentary.
The last point of criticism I have so far is the onboarding time. I understand this is just kind of how JRPGs are, so I don't give this much weight myself. But my god are some of these cutscene sections long. There is a lot of story, background, world building that the devs needed to get done. I like the cutscenes. The writing is quite good and not the typical JRPG stuff. But I didn't know saying "I'm ready" could mean 2-3 relatively easy fights and 2 hours of cutscenes. I'm about 7 hours in, I feel like I've played about 1-2 hours.
I've only hit a couple of the famous minigames. I do like them. My favorite so far is one where you have to stay awake at an art house film theater. A bit bummed that the whole Sujimon arc isn't in this game. I'm hoping i have the energy for Infinite Wealth after this game. I probably will play it because I love Ichiban.
IIRC, the structure of most Yakuza game for most of the chapters is as follows:
If side quests (substories) are available, then it means that you are in free roam
Generally you get out of the free roam mode by going to a specific place. At the very end and also with some meatier chapter the game will tell you that this is a point of no return.
Usually this format of game loses steam for me. It's working in Yakuza because I'm actually engaged with the characters party due to the strength of the writing. Feels like I'm wading through much less jrpg-type filler dialog. Characters have interesting and nuanced motivations. I only flagged it because as someone who doesn't play many JRPGs anymore I was a bit surprised. But it largely works and thankfully with the steam deck it is easy to pause and put it down when necessary.
Ah, you're in for a treat! DMC5 is one of the finest game in its genre. It's such a generous game, at least last mechanically! Dante moveset is still intimidating for me due to the sheer amount of freedom you have. Sometime I wish that there were level design around some specific part of its arsenal so that I could learn it better.
Note that while story wise you can be content with doing only one run, gameplay wise I think it's meant to be played several time (if possible on a higher difficulty level). It's less of a focus on exploration and discovery and more on the mastery of the game system.
Mechanical spoiler at the end
It blew my mind that you unlock Nero's Devil Bringer just before the final fight. As DMC4 fan that was a tool that I didn't expect to show up again (it's was available all throughout DMC4) . If that's not a clear signal to revisit the level at full power, I don't know what is.Pro tip: for Nero, remap the gun action to a shoulder button, and unlock the charged shot. Now you have a very good move that you can use to link combo, or just do a good amount of damage (especially at level 3).
I'm a new Deck owner as well. Overall really liking it, but two days ago one of the shoulder buttons stopped working suddenly. Reached out to steam and they're having me send it in. But the way they phrased it kind of souring my initial high of owning the Deck:
Eeww, don't like that. Unnecessarily combative a simple "Thanks for being a new Steam Deck owner. Please send the device in for a complimentary service." garners more goodwill.
absolutely I would have been happier with your response -- especially because they're out the same amount for the service. Was caught off guard by the response that's for sure.
I'm the Witcher 3 guy. I have finished the base game month ago and since then I did the Heart of stone DLC (very good) and now I have started Blood and Wine DLC which seems to be much bigger than the first one. If I'm honest, the game is still the same - it is great! But I'm looking forward to be done with it. I play it since beginning of March and I limit myself to one big game at a time, thus I haven't played anything else for five months (and it will half a year wheb I finis Blood and wine). I suppose I already had too much Witcher :-D
For more information:
I play on highest difficulty which makes you use all the arsenal you have at your disposal or you're dead. Well, you still end up dead many times through the game.
It still stands up really well even after 9 years since launch. It has received next-gen patch, but I use classic version on Steam Deck (looks great on small screen and uses much less power) - you can force this version through "Beta" in Steam's games' properties.
I love how the game is so diverse! Be it war-destroyed Velen or big city of Novigrad, Skellige islands, each one is different and with it's own (and especiallyin Velen also heavy) atmosphere. You have so much to do in this game, some quests are easy almost "fetch me this" type, many are convoluted mess that keeps on going and changing and you will love it. Your choices matter in this game, you can easily change life of someone or many people at once in the game. You hae to decide quite a lot, actually.
I play on Steam Deck, so gamepad, basically, and I encourage everyone who despises gamepads to give it a try. This game is perfect on gamepad!
If you're gonna play it, don't forget to visit Passiflora in Novigrad!
Balatro
Visited a friend, he told me to sit down and try this game. Instantly hooked. Bought it for myself later the same day. It really scratches the deckbuilder and roguelike itch for me. If you're not familiar, it's a roguelike retro video poker game with deckbuilding, and it's pretty great. Having lots of fun unlocking new content and trying higher difficulties.
I had some trouble getting the Steam version running on my old Linux laptop. Ended up downloading the game engine from the software centre and launching the game from CLI. Once I figured that out, it ran great, and it's very touchpad friendly.
Midnight Suns
I picked this up for free a few weeks back. Had to install Epic Games store. I'm a fan of tactical turn based games and Firaxis. But I remember there being mixed reviews on release. Which is why I didn't buy this before. So far I'm enjoying it.
I like the card system during combat. It forces you to be more careful about the moves you make. There's a lot more to do outside of combat which is surprising. I like building relationships and exploring and collecting things. So this is right up my alley. There's a resource collecting and crafting that I'm not too hot on. Just because resources don't respond everyday. It makes the game a bit more tedious than I'd like.
Overall I'm glad I decided to download this.
Got into the Mecha BREAK beta through a Twitch Drop Steam code. Game is a blast, and I feel like I barely scratched the surface.
I've been enjoying the various types of combat, every class, at least for now, seems playable and brings something interesting to the game.
I'm jealous that you're in the beta. Being an old Exteel player I've been very much looking forward to the release of this game. Are you able to share any more information on how the game actually plays?
If you want a key, find a Twitch stream with drops on. As long as your Steam account is linked to twitch, you'll get a beta key 15-20 minutes into that stream. They are doing server maintenance 08/09 130a -08/10 1030p PST, but the beta will be open for 3 more days after that.
Sure! Now, my word comes just as a casual gamer, and I have no idea, nor have I researched builds for the beta.
I've been playing with keyboard and mouse, and the controls feels generally intuitive. I had to rebind a couple keys to my mouse, but that's probably a personal preference.
The Mechs available for the beta were varied quite a bit. I tend to gravitate toward the nimble Mechs. My touchstone is Gundam, and anything that gets me the snappy handling, and fast strafes are the kinds of Mechs I want to play. I played the close combat Panther, with Lance+sword, and Aquilla, the distance sniper.
There is also heavy Mechs, both offense and defense. Haven't played much with them, but the defensive ones can anchor themselves into place. The heavy attackers just bombard the field with damage.
I played one game with the light support mech, and enjoyed it. It has some weapon capabilities too, but I was keeping my team alive, and it did that well. As damage, it would use the drones to deal DOT, which was cool, and you can have offensive drones and repair drones going at the same time.
Looking through customization options, they seem endless. You can modify just about anything on any mech, though I don't think you can wholesale swap any weapon into any mech. Defeats the purpose of the mech "class" I think
Gameplay wise, I played a few different game modes. Capture and defend the base, capture the flag, escort the tram. All the maps I felt played well, lots of vertical room for flying, and wide enough you don't feel confined. You can do cool combos with the melee units.
If you have specific questions, I'd be more than happy to answer.
Thanks for the detailed response! I saw that they opened up the beta for all over the weekend but unfortunately I wasn't able to get the time to try it.
The one question I have is on customization, I've tried to find the answer but everything I looked up about customization is on the pilot character and not the mech itself for some reason. In Exteel all the mechs had interchangeable parts with their own stats (HP, armor, weight and so on) so you could mix and match the arms, legs, core, head, jetpack, etc, which allowed you to build a mech exactly to your play style. Is Mecha Break similar in that regard?
In the Beta, you could not take a chassis, and then put whatever you wanted on it. I think that was moreso because the beta was multiplayer, objective-based games. The intention is that all the Mechs fill a specific role, and I think the customization you are talking about goes against that idea.
You can add mods to the kits for each mech, things like decreased energy use for dash, higher jumps, stronger beam weapons, etc.
Having a space-themed time lately, I did a playthrough of Empyrion Galactic Survival which was quite a lot of fun - the same itch as Space Engineers, but with more of a No Man's Sky exploration bent. When playing this game it is almost obligatory to use the Reforged Eden mod that is available on the Steam workshop, it enhances the vanilla experience considerably. It is more relaxed in several ways than Space Engineers, and more demanding in others; the PVE combat can be punishingly intense but I find that I prefer that to the SE paradigm where there is effectively no endgame challenge that does not involve PVP.
After coming to the end of that playthrough I did 30 hours or so of ΔV: Rings of Saturn, which is a delightfully atmospheric little hard sci-fi asteroid mining simulator. I had a lot of fun with the mechanics and getting my process down for pulling in large hauls. The endgame is currently pretty thin but there are plenty of easter eggs and little nuggets buried in there for folks who want to go exploring.
I borrowed the PS5 from my brother to play some PS5 things. The first of those things (by recommendation) was Astro's Playroom. It's a colorful, cartoonish 3D platformer on the casual side of things, and not super long, but very polished and pleasant to play. Astro is a little robot whose world is made of playstation hardware, playstation peripherals and playstation exclusive gaming franchise references. It was fun to try to identify the various games being parodied around the game world. There are many collectibles (playstation themed, of course). The game also functions as a tech demo by making use of every? possible way to register inputs on the PS5 controller. I imagine it was difficult to strike a good balance between doing this and not falling into design pitfalls, but they pulled it off nicely, probably in no small part due to the game not overstaying its welcome. I enjoyed it and recommend it.
If you've read my posts over the last few weeks, you'd know how much of a game roulette I've been in. I just haven't found something to lock in on for more than a few hours. I did it yet again by booting up both Mass Effect and Ghost of Tsushima this weekend. I only played ME for an hour or two (I mean, I've played it a dozen times, so I'm not bent out of shape if I don't wanna play it again), but I did play GoT for more hours this weekend than I had in any single game for the past few weeks.
It's just such a relaxing game, even though the premise is war. The environments are just beautiful and it's nice to ride your horse through the scenery and explore. Hopefully I can keep my attention on this for a while, because I don't want to continue playing game roulette. I might just be getting burnt out on games in general lately, though, I've been watching a lot more TV than I have been playing games.
In the board game realm, I played my second game of Twilight Imperium. I love this game, though I wouldn't want to play it more than a few times a year. This time, it was a 4 player game and we each took 2 strategies each round, so it went pretty quick (6ish hours including our lunch break?). I played the Barony of Letnev, had a slow start, and I just never really caught up. I at least got to create a death fleet at the end of the game capable of annihilating anybody else, I just didn't get much of a chance to use it before the game ended, I started my mass production a round too late. Oh well, the game is still a blast to play and now I'm kind of in the mood to play Endless Space or Civ 6 or something.
I also still have No Man’s Sky on my wishlist. I’m not much into survival crafting, but I still want to try it eventually as the setting might interest me more than the more generic settings in a bunch of other survival games. Maybe the time is soon now that I was bitten by the space bug, idk
Ghost of Tsushima is probably one of my favourite open world games. The world design is condensed enough that I never felt overwhelmed when travelling, to the point I rarely used the fast travel.
I have around 200 hours of playtime in Breath of the Wild, but I used the horses for collectively maybe 30 minutes. How Ghost handled horse riding was much more satisfying, always spawning behind you no matter where you are, and generally less cumbersome.
It’s a very easy game to get lost in, the world is small enough that locations feel unique, and nothing feels repeated.
Playing some Tunic - small fox on a big adventure.
It's a Zelda-like crossed with Metroidvania-like. Definitely quite a bit farther on the difficulty spectrum of where I usually hang out (casual cozy games) but it's so darn cute I'm giving it an honest go. My enjoyment of secrets and exploration, and of translating runic texts will have to carry me through the brutal boss battles. I might end up having to use the difficulty and cheat settings (built in), if I can't get past even after full translation of the runic guides and after I've maxed out upgrades.
I absolutely adored Tunic and 100%ed it way back - it's so much fun and I never got tired of the moment when I'd leave an area just to be right back somewhere I was in early game and just didn't see the exit of.
I thought the game was reasonable in difficulty once I got used to spamming "bombs" and the combat in general. One of the early bosses drummed it into me about a dozen times over and after that I just didn't struggle anymore - it just got fun.
Enjoy the rest of it!
is it normal for someone to have to farm for lots of money to buy enough bombs?
I've twice started this game (on game pass PC and as a ps plus game) and twice I've bounced off -- I really don't like the combat. I tried the easy mode but even then I just get bored with the combat and how punishing it is.
Is the game just not for me?
For what it's worth, I enjoy the exploratory aspect of the game.
I like the exploration as well....to a degree. The early game is BRUTAL. I complained about it endlessly, to my spouse. I only pushed through because my kid was playing and really wanted to be able to share the experience with me together. It was a hard push. Where am I supposed to go? Am I supposed to be constantly dying? How am I supposed to explore if I'm dying to mobs with lasers and great swords when all I have is a stick??
I think one has to really want to push themselves hard to enjoy this kind of game. I will also say that after finding a sword, the game becomes manageable in its brutality, and gets much
easierLESS frustrating as one gains more stats and find more items and have more things to do before having to face the totally unfair bosses.I remember having gotten to the sword on my first playthrough and getting fed up with the combat. So I guess sadly this game just isn't for me. Bummer, since the idea behind it is so cool.
Yeah, I hear you. It's such a cute game but it really does want to fully emulate the experiences of those classic "dude that's so unfair" types of games.
May I recommend Pikmin 3 Deluxe and Pikmin 4? Little critter, big world to explore. Also very cute, also exploration and rewards, also lots of little hidden secrets, but a lot more forgiving and much less brutal combat (especially Pikmin 4). There are big monsters and bosses, but it doesn't require anywhere near the level of precision/execution required using sword/shield/run/roll/kite, to play Tunic.
Thanks for the recommendation!
(!!!) in Tunic, I got to a part of the game that just felt insanely unfair. In the options menu there's "no fail mode" and other accessibility settings. I used them, got through, got the McGuffin, and back to exploring and unearthing secrets. The developers out them in there, I have to get less shy about using them. Not young anymore and can't spend all summer getting frustrated. Cheers!
The kids have been playing Lil Gator Game and liking it. It's somewhere between a Zelda-lite and A Short Hike, which they also enjoyed. I think they're not getting the Zelda references, so I'm going to have to force them to enjoy things from my childhood once this game is over.
We also pulled out Paper Pirates for a family get together. It's like the Jackbox games where everyone plays on their own tablet or phone, but it's a mafia/werewolf style social deduction game that works for a good mix of ages (we had 9 people from 5 years old to 48).
for Paper Pirates, how would it work if family/friends are not in the same room? I'm looking for a fun game specifically to play with people who (1) are far away and (2) don't all need to buy a copy
We've done that, and it works great as long as you have a way to share the main screen from the computer where the game is running, like if everyone is on a Zoom or Google Meet call. The same is true for the Jackbox games. [Edit to add: to be clear, you only have to buy the game once on the computer; on the phones and tablets you just open a web browser and enter a code]
The only problem we've run into was when my brother was viewing the Zoom call from another city and trying to wirelessly cast his computer screen to his smart TV. That added a little too much lag for some of the Jackbox games but probably would have been fine for Paper Pirates. It also probably would have worked if he had used an HDMI cable to connect his computer and TV instead.
Nice! Thanks for the details - I think this will work for us
Oh, Paper Pirates looks very cute! Love party games and hidden identity games, will have to check that out. Thanks for sharing that one!
Slay the Princess was lovely, I don't know how else to really describe my experience. the hand-drawn art shifting from beautiful to bizarre to incomprehensible sells it for me on its own, but then it's topped off with almost hegellian writing? I'm going to be thinking about it for a while.
I've also been playing the Wario Land series, so far the standout has been the virtual boy entry weirdly enough. it's easy to emulate despite being sort of obscure, and changing the visuals to black & white instead of that hellish red makes it a lot more enjoyable. something about how crisp the sprites are in this one makes it feel much more modern and fluid than entries that came a decade later. even the beautiful animation of Shake It for the Wii doesn't hold up because of the low resolution. I love wario so much.
Marathon Durandal recently got a steam release through aleph one and it's really just awesome. i played the first on steam a few months ago and just got done working my way through this one. the map designs can be irritating, the lack of health and oxygen can be cruel, the objectives can be impossible to locate, but this is one of the best games I've ever played. I've rage quitted so many times from these games and taken several day breaks just to jump back into them because the writing and tone stir something in me that no other games can. I highly recommend playing through these if you can stomach it, I've lost sleep and been late to lectures because I've been thinking about it so much. without sharing spoilers, I feel like this experience is similar to a primary theme of the story and like it's almost giving me stockholm syndrome to empathize with a character within the story who got very tired of these dumb spaceships! compared to other shooters of the time, it's amazing, the lighting, the mouse look, the non euclidian maps, the intricacy of the story, they all come together into a mind breaking trilogy that I think I'll have to replay over and over again.
Finally caught-up to my friend in Turtle World of Warcraft, so now I'm going to work on some secondary skills and then pretty much take a break from the game. I still enjoy it, but I'm not interested in playing like I used to and would rather play other stuff since I don't need to worry about catching-up anymore.
Also been making slow and steady progress through System Shock Remake, which I'm really loving. My loving it is a complete 180* from where I started on release last year; where it just felt disappointing for some reason. I played the original (Enhanced Edition) back in 2020 and really loved it, so much that it climbed into my top games of all time and the Remake just...wasn't it? I tried again later in 2023 on my Steam Deck and still wasn't having fun, not to mention, the Deck just didn't feel like the right fit for it. But a couple of months ago I bought an eGPU for my laptop and it's been absolutely divine; I decided to start SS again on my laptop just a couple of weeks ago and it runs beautifully, solid 60FPS @ 2160x1350 on my laptop, plays great and is just hitting right now. I've put about 7-hours into it at this point (Up to 20 total from my previous attempts), having now fully explored Storage and thinking I can finally finish off Reactor level since I have the enviro-suit.
I've also been playing Death Rally Classic fairly seriously for a competition on a forum I'm on, so that's been fun. It's a great game and I've played it plenty in the past just for fun, but now it's fun to have an overall goal to beat my other forumites, which I probably won't succeed in.
Once I'm done with that, I'll get back to playing Diablo 2 Resurrected on my Steam Deck, which is just a great fit. I'm of the opinion that ARPGs are really only good when they're played with a controller on a handheld where you can suspend at any time; any time I've played Diablo or any ARPG on a proper computer, I get bored pretty rapidly, but on a handheld, I just have a great time and always want to play more.
Lastly, before bed time I'm still cracking away at Professor Layton and The Curious Village on my DSi, doing a few puzzles before going to bed. I did cheat and look-up the solution for puzzle 41, but that's because I felt that it wasn't really a puzzle and instead, an exercise in tedium and memory.
Ooh, the Professor Layton games were a highlight of my young adulthood. Probably the first videogames I really got into personally. I played the second game so many times that I was able to complete it once even after I shattered the top screen of my DS (which, most relevantly, is where all the puzzle descriptions are written, though luckily not the actual dialogue and gameplay in the pre-3DS games). Excited to see how you enjoy the rest of the game/series.
Recently finished the main story quest in the Dawntrail expansion of Final Fantasy XIV. I enjoyed it overall. It's a good change of pace and intermission before whatever the next wave of longer term story will be.
I've been speculating a bit about that...how back in A Realm Reborn the story was fairly low stakes by later standards, aside from a couple of points and ended on a high note...and then they flipped the table over and did something shocking in the post-expansion patch content as an on-ramp to the next expansion. It kind of feels like we have a similar situation again.
Rogue Legacy 2, got back into it in the last week or so and didn't have to remember any story. It's a great platformer with strange mutations, like only being able to see in black & white. Each life you play is next in line of succession in your family, and when you die in the game you get to spend the loot your last character got.
It's a fun game that's very low stress to play, and I stumbled upon some advancement the other day which made it way more fun.
Bought Humanity on sale. It's a puzzle game with a sprinkle of quirky weirdness. Almost like Katamari Damacy but way more serious, maybe Tokyo Jungle is aesthetically more similar.
Anyway, it's about 10 hours or so if you get the platinum and then there's the user created levels, though I've yet dive deep there so no idea if it's worth one's time.
I'm not going to explain the gameplay mechanics too much, you'll get the gist after watching 30 seconds of gameplay. But it is somewhat similar to Lemmings.
And yeaah.. I liked it. The story was enough to carry through the game but puzzles were fun. I'd wait for a good sale, 30 bucks is a bit steep for what there is. 10 bucks would be fine.
I enjoyed Humanity too. It's from the developers of Tetris Connect and Rez, so like those games it has memorable music and atmosphere.
Still playing very casually Trackmania, aiming for the silver medals on the most of Track of the Day tracks. I have a few Author medals, but never intentionally, so I just ignore them ).
Also casually enjoying Dave the Diver. As I already write in previous threads I was cautious to play this game, because it looks like a lot of stress, but, apparently you can play it even as cozy game.
Playing through Trails through Daybreak ever since release. The 11th installment in the series and the start of a new arc.
I think it's a good starting point for new people - the returning character play very minor roles until like chapter 2-3 (new characters in "preview" at the end of last game doesn't count). The story & game progression itself feel like a remix of the past 10 games. That being said, it doesn't pull me in as much as Cold Steel 4. Basically most of the game so far is evil people do evil things - but that also a remix of how first part of Trails in the Sky SC was. Other than large character development of its almost-10 main cast and various support characters, the plot itself only picks up in Chapter 4 which is two from the end of the game.
For returning fan this time town NPC may not all be talk-able and half only have one dialogue. I think it is acceptable because the town are now livelier with a bit more NPC. The problem though is that the dialogue itself is less interesting. There's still town NPC with their own life story, but some NPC are just doing nothing but talk about the news all game long. The city is big though - took me 3 hours to talk to everyone at the start of the finale. Also, apparently they blew the budget on the game engine this time and fishing and poker are not playable, even though this time we work with the legendary Gambler Jack & Halle themselves.
I just completed the game and I'd say the first half is semi-interesting like Sky SC, the second half is very good that I stayed up til 3AM in work day to play. Although it's no match to the legendary Crossbell's Longest Day. The ending though, most of Trails end in a cliffhanger, perhaps except Zero. This time it ends like Zero, except in Zero Lloyd close the big case and this time the job from Agnes didn't get a closure. After the credit ends I was preparing for a post credit scene, or extra main menu item but nope. That's it.
Another concern is I think the English localization take a drop in quality. I believe the previous long time series editor passed away after Reverie. This time I see Celis curse "hell" that previously would be "gehenna" and I think I saw a "snowball chance in hell". I'm not a native, and they added more idiom and stuff which make some conversation to me feel like Mare's lore dumps. Meanwhile the town NPC sometimes are underedited and they use Japanese mannerism that should've been rewritten.
Hm, I didn't catch those translation errors! I had actually been impressed by a lot of the work in translating idioms to use "Poms" and stuff, so that's a bummer some slipped past the editors. I know that they brought on a lot of the fan-translators from Geofront for Daybreak, too. Hopefully it's growing-pains of them working in an official environment and on more of a time crunch!
Hey, someone else playing Trails through Daybreak! :D I've been playing it myself since I posted a few weeks ago, and just started the finale.
I've really enjoyed the story myself. Like you said, it feels like a "remix" of the past 10 games, but I feel like a lot of its influence is drawn from Trails from Zero, which is one of my favorites in the series. I've really enjoyed the chapter-based structure, and the compelling mysteries and characters of each scenario. I agree that the overarching villains of the game, Almata, are lacking in depth comparatively and are often "evil for evil's sake", but the scenarios themselves have a lot of intrigue going on to make up for it, and having a 'clear' villain is helpful at times when many quests and story events can veer a bit more into the 'gray' than usual. I loved the Cold Steel arc, but I did miss some of the more 'worldly, down-to-earth' vibes of Liberl and Crossbell, so I've really enjoyed the return to that 'feel' in Daybreak so far.
There's definitely more 'background' NPCs than usual, but the NPC stories that are woven throughout the game are really good in my opinion, and I've really enjoyed keeping up with all of them, and it has some of the best supporting characters in the series IMO - Dingo and Marielle are truly amazing!
How have you been liking the gameplay changes? There's a lot about the new Quartz system I absolutely adore, but I do miss some aspects of the Master Quartz system. I wish we had more of a variety of 'interesting build-around quartz' (like Heidrun, Mercy, etc.), and likewise, more interesting build-around Holo Cores (like Loray, Bathym, etc.) Arts Drivers and Plugins had me excited from previews, but they're a little less interesting in practice than I'd hoped for - however, it's great to be able to more easily customize what Arts you have available without compromising Orbments. And while I really like the idea behind Shard Skills and the S-Boost system, I still haven't sat-down and really played around a lot with that system, since I prefer to wait until I have a lot of the high-level Quartz before really fiddling with orbment lines and the like. Overall though, I love the return to orbment lines and quartz colors really mattering, but in a way that doesn't feel as reductive as the Liberl and Crossbell arcs did!
How have you been liking the main cast? I've really enjoyed the party and their dynamics and chemistry throughout the game, and have found them to be some of the most lovable casts of any of the arcs. It's tough to beat the SSS, and of course the Liberl crew is timeless, but they're honestly neck-and-neck for me!
So nice to find a fellow Trails fan! : )
I'm in the finale as well! Hopefully I'll finish it this week, and I still have chapter 4 routes to replay (probably the first for this series to have branching routes)
As for combat I'm not expert in Trails combat - I always play it on Easy and I almost quit FC in the castle dungeon as I was on normal. In SC there's a GameFAQs guide which give exact quartz setup for every scripted fights. I think since Reverie the game also stop giving weapon upgrades in the chest and requiring the player to actually buy weapons now (and perhaps quartz if equipping more than 2 characters). The new real time combat system make going through trash mobs easier (although you may get damaged more than turn-based since it depends on the player's dodge level and not character's dodge level). As for quartz I feel like the list of arts is both a limitation and isn't - there's an art driver that allow player to specify every single available arts so my Agnes can cast A+ arts in every elements. I believe in the past we could've more arts than Daybreak, so now Agnes have almost no room for healing or low-EP arts. (Although her crafts could be used as a replacement, which other ark feather casters can't)
Main cast (spoiler!)
For the main cast I like Agnes, Risette and Judith where they act as part of the team and also represent the organization they comes from. Ferida, while the token child soldier character, bring some world building of east Zemuria and comedy to the team. Aaron adds Randy-style comedy, but unlike Grimcat he never get to be Tyrant again which is disappointing. It's not helping that I didn't upgrade his gear often so he felt quite weak. He is also supposed to be our connection to Heiyue but Ashen already got that role anyway. Quatre I feel like they're more civilian like Agnes and Risette is already the technician on the team. They could've been a supporting character like George or Tita. As for Barkhorn I think I need to finish the game to see if he's of any importance, but the Gralritter probably play significant role anyway.Notable mention to Prince Sherid which I don't understand why we need a clone of Olivert. Perhaps Olivert's story is completed in Erebonia, but copy pasting him & genderswapped his bodyguard to fill the same role feels cheap.
Yeah, I did appreciate that as the game goes on, you get more Drivers that let you customize further. Setting Arts Quartz was never the most fun part of Trails by any means, but I kinda miss when you had some interesting Quartz that gave you a curious or fun selection of Arts - like how Scent had a lot of different AOE element attacks, etc. - and that feel is missing with Arts Drivers and Plugins after a certain point. However, I still prefer this new system! I did notice the same issues with being crammed for space when it came to Healing and Low-EP arts, but I think that's intentional and I actually like it. It encouraged me to give the different casters specialties, and to even put a few arts on the mixed-attackers so they could come in for when an enemy or boss was extremely weak to a specific element.
Main cast (spoiler!)
Interesting, we actually have quite different opinions! Aaron is one of my favorite characters in the main cast, as I love his lovable-asshole-rogue personality, and he gets some of the best and funniest lines in the game. However, he's never reduced to solely a comedic role, as he also has some heartfelt and hard-hitting moments with Van that I really appreciated, and has a real tragic pathos and berserker-rage to him.I also really enjoyed Quatre. I agree that differentiating them from Agnes and Risette can be tricky, but there's clearly an intrigue and hints of a greater backstory to Quatre that I have appreciated, and I think the team needed some balancing out with another straight-laced figure, especially as Risette was revealed to be a bit more quirky than one might expect.
Barkhorn / Bergard was definitely a surprise. I mostly enjoy his presence because it's very cute to see Van hype up his mentor to everyone, and their relationship is very charming. It's also cool to see an older character in an RPG party, and one whose 'story is over', so to speak, just living out their retirement in style and helping out the next generation. It's interesting to see them grapple with some of the ramifications of their past, and trying to broaden their horizons and experience more of the world, and differing perspectives, after leaving the Septian Church.
I agree that Agnes and Judith are some of my favorites, but I felt Risette was probably my least-appreciated member of the main cast. Not to say that I dislike her - she's still very interesting and likeable - but I just never felt she stood out gameplay-wise or story-wise beyond her, ah, interesting circumstances.
I think Prince Sherid is intentionally - both Watsonian and Doylian - a pastiche of Olivert. In-story, they outright note that Prince Sherid is taking inspiration from Olivert in his philanthropy and proactive nature. And it's clear that a lot of the main cast are meant to be 'riffs' on the character archetypes of previous games, but remixing them in some new ways. I actually like Sherid a lot, precisely because he's not as simple as being Olivert. When he went up against the party, for example, I found that very interesting... and it's clear he's not as whimsical and lackadaisical as Olivert was, nor as forward-thinking and calculating. He seems to be much more of a thrillseeker than a merrymaker, as he's far more hot-blooded and into combat than Olivert was. His relationship with Naje is also not nearly on the same level of mutual affection and respect as Mueller and Olivert. Mueller may protest and gripe about Olivert, but it's made clear that Mueller does care for Olivert deeply, while I never quite got that feeling from Naje. Naje feels much more cold in her put-downs of Sherid, much more pragmatic and focused, and as a result, much more intimidating.
I hope all these contrasts are intentional, and that we get to see Sherid developed a bit more in the next game, emphasizing these differences. At the moment, the vibe I get is that Sherid is a 'good man', but is self-styling himself to be the successor to the Debaucherous Prince, riding on the coattails of the good-will he earned to accelerate his own ambitions. I tihnk it's telling that Sherid outright fights the party - even when NOT under mind control - whereas I don't feel like Olivert would ever have done that in quite the same way. Very different styles at their heart, even if Sherid is superficially presenting himself as an Olivert-type.
Sorry it took me ages to reply to you! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!
I started playing... Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Masters: World Championship Tournament 2006 because Archipelago supports it. I'm going to be on vacation next week and I was itching to play a collection card battler, so I figured I'd get some practice.
I think I mentioned this here before, but it still kills me with the rise of online card battling systems like MTGA is that we've lost these types of iterative collection campaign games. I love the GBA YGO games, and I eternally adore the Pokémon Trading Card Game... Game on the Game Boy Color and its sequel. (Music slaps too!) Magic hasn't done one since Shandalar in the 90s. Since the GB/GBA era, though, these have completely gone by the wayside because they don't make enough money compared to F2P models. When you take that out and really design it well, there's a mix of progression, randomness, dominant strats and build-around cards, personal preference, and capturing that feeling of starting the game in a kitchen sink environment without the stress of money, skill, or LGS cliques.
I can only think of one game that did this recently; it was only for a third of it, and calling it out is a spoiler for people interested. Does anyone make these anymore?
I’d strongly recommend Cross Blitz! It’s still in EA, but it has not only a roguelike mode, but also a fully-fledged campaign mode in the works with RPG-style progression, card collecting across each individual campaign, and some great stories. In EA they have beta access to the first chapter of three of the characters’ stories, as well as betas of the two roguelike modes. They have demos quite often, but I find it’s already been worth the money just in EA. As a fellow fan of the Pokémon TCG 1 and especially 2 for GBC, O can’t recommend it enough!
While I usually do not like Gacha games, I am helplessly addicted to Zenless Zone Zero.
It's so pleasant to look at, gameplay is smooth, animation is amazing, and the story itself is fun. (Post-apocalyptic urban fantasy setting, where all modern electronics are gone and everyone has gone back to cassetes, LP's etc. )
I just love the general ambience, with the chill hip-hop playing in the background, while you go grab a coffee to replenish your energy, go to the music store to shop for LP's (which are equipment), or spend time in the arcade which actually has very fun mini-games.
But it's very much a skill game and has some Kingdom Hearts similarities in terms of gameplay.
It's still very new and came out a month ago, so if anyone is looking for a new game!
I played Chrono Trigger from start->finish for the first time this past week or two; had briefly played it on the DS ages ago but got stuck and gave up back then.
I’ve been playing TimeStalkers & Soul Calibur for the most part otherwise, with designs to start Skies of Arcadia soon.
Abiotic Factor is the most fun I've had playing a survival/crafting game in a long time. It's early access on Steam, semi-retro graphics, and the vibe is sort of like if Half-Life 1 was a survival crafting game. Was super easy to get a dedicated server up and running to play with a couple of friends. We were super bummed when we got to the current end of the content and can't wait for more updates.