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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.
Picked Starsector back up. It's an old game and far from my first playthrough, but there have been recent patches and the mod landscape always changes. Having a ton of fun with it thus far, the new content is pretty extensive.
I was eyeing it for a while and when 0.98 dropped I decided to go for it.
Surprisingly deep game even in the first couple of hours and then just gets more in depth as it goes.
I don't nearly understand enough to feel like it's smooth sailing although I did manage to get a decently healthy early game cash flow.
Fuel seems difficult to manage however and I never seem to have enough to go far. I intend to solve that through colonies though I have no tangible ideas yet how to do so.
Combat is also hit or miss as I'm unsure yet what seems to be strong or not. I've been mostly cruising on autopilot and giving commands and it's been mostly alright, even if some fights are far more difficult than they seem to be from the engagement overview. I make generous use of the quick save and reload option.
All in all, worth the $15.
Regarding fuel I'm still in the very beginning with a small fleet but I invested in a tanker that allows me to cross the galaxy in one go and it's a big improvement. Same for a freighter to manage supplies.
My plan from now is to have a couple of ships dedicated to always making sure I have a ton of supplies in reserve, also makes surveying and colonizing easier.
I haven't figured out combat yet, I just lob all of my ships at the enemy and see what happens. Like you, I reload the game a lot.
I recommend getting familiar with the strategic commands. If you open map view in battle (tab) you can set targets to engage, points to rally or defend, etc.
I would recommend that you try piloting a range of ships. I tend to prefer something nimble with a strong alpha strike capability so that I can maneuver around the battle line and apply pressure where my ships are already making headway. Remember that each ship has a special ability (F) that is usually pretty useful!
Also remember that you can (and should) hire officers via the comms menu at ports. They will have personalities and skills that impact how they fly ships, and the good officers can double/triple the combat effectiveness of the ship you stick them in.
Luka has the right idea with tankers - just getting a Dram or two is enough to keep a small fleet supplied pretty well, especially with the extra fuel tanks hullmod. Fill up around Sindrian Diktat space, since they have a monopoly on fuel production. Later on, you can make it yourself (save any synchotron cores you find!) but that will break the monopoly and the Diktat will be commensurately annoyed.
I may have a problem.
At this point I think I'm even floating a Prometheus and it'll still just take me about 15LY at most.
This is 100% a problem of my own making and am fully cognisant of that fact, but if someone hands me a big ship I just can't say no. I have a couple of gas guzzlers in there that are just too cool to relinquish.
Edit to add: Just opened my save and I forgot I added a couple of Phaetons, so my maximum range is sufficient. It's still expensive though, to load up on 8k+ fuel.
There is an Industry skill (yellow) you can take that drops your fuel consumption by 25%, called Containment Procedures. The first skill, Bulk Transport, also ups your fuel capacity by 50%. You can also slap Efficiency Overhaul hullmods on the worst offenders to reduce their individual maintenance and fuel by 20%.
I feel your pain, though. I'm just transitioning to a primarily-capital fleet and I seriously need to improve my own tanker situation.
I did apply some of the hullmods too. I'll have a look at the skill, that may be useful generally as a good economic skill.
What's difficult isn't reaching a faraway system, it's going back to civilization to fuel back up. But that's a good problem to have. I like balancing fuel consumption and exploration.
I also started playing it after having seen it recommended around here, maybe by @hungariantoast.
And after looking for a long time for something to scratch my 4X/spreadsheet simulator itch, this is it. It's perfect.
Alright, this looks cool. I'm a sucker for big ships and even more so for big starships.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
I’m playing the GCN version through “special” means (if you catch my drift).
I have always wanted to play through this game because I love me a good RPG with a fun story. I actually owned Super Paper Mario for the Wii, and while that is a significant departure from the formula of the series, it’s still just so much fun to play. The characters are unique and quirky, I love the writing, the paper art style always surprises you in some way, and the gameplay, albeit it simple, does get your brain tickling sometimes.
It’s funny that this thread appeared now, because I just finished chapter 3. Honestly, it had me on the edge of the seat with all the mystery surrounding the Glitz Pit. I should have seen the plot twist coming. lol I’m not good at these things. Simple as the story was, it managed to fool me and keep me wondering what was going to happen next.
Either day, I’m having a blast. I suspect that I still have 20 to 30 hours of gameplay left. It’s an epic adventure, and I can’t wait to reach its conclusion.
You can say "emulation" on Tildes ;)
I also enjoyed the platforming / RPG hybrid gameplay in Super Paper Mario, even though it doesn't seem to get talked about nearly as much as TYD.
Apparently it sold 4+ million copies (highest in the Paper Mario franchise), so plenty of other people agree! It's a shame they never went back and expanded on it.
I need to get back to this one. I started playing it well over a year ago and then kind of petered off after...I think it was like a big tree or something with a bunch of little guys that you kind of tell what to do?
It's been in the back of my mind since then, I just haven't jumped back in, but maybe I will with your post here.
ooh Please do so! I wanna hear how far you go. That chapter is a bit slow. Haha.
Finally got around to playing Bioshock Infinite... People like this game? Holy shit did I hate it. It was a buggy mess even now. I was constantly stuck on terrain and unable to move, which in combat really sucks. I had a game breaking bug near the end where the entire game locks up when loading a new level and I tried several things to fix it, none of which did. And because of how the auto save works, every attempt to fix it meant replaying a whole big arena over and over. I said fuck it and watched the rest on YouTube and oh my god.
What is this nonsense story? They already kinda lost me when they started hopping universes. It was too much and then the ending just goes off the deep end with it until what's the point of anything?
Overall I found the gunplay incredibly lacking. Combat was not fun at all and even on Easy was pretty hard and annoying, especially near the end.
It seemed everything that made Bioshock 1 good was missing here and they wanted to take everything in a different direction and for me, none of it landed.
Even the brief walk through Rapture felt unearned and even disrespectful. Like hey look it's Rapture, isn't that cool? And that's it, they did nothing interesting with it. (Not talking about the DLC, I'm not bothering with any of that, I'm done with this game)
I don't understand how people who loved Bioshock 1 and even 2 like this game, it has basically nothing in common. Maybe I waited too long to play this one and it would've hit better back in the day. But even at that I played the first Bioshock way after it came out and it hit perfectly. So I don't know.
I won't defend Infinite like its the greatest game ever, but as someone who considers the first Bioshock their favorite game ever, I will say I thought Infinite was a solid 7/10. I have played through it about 3 times since it came out, and honestly don't even recall it being all that buggy, even on release. I do agree the gunplay is pretty uninspired, and passable at best.
I think what redeems it for me are there are so many cool moments, but the issue is that the game is not greater than the sum of its parts, like the original was. I honestly think the intro, up until you free Elizabeth is just as memorable as the original. I remember getting chills everytime you get launched into the clouds and the little piano music comes in. Imo they did a fantastic job setting up the world in the first two hours, or so. Columbia is an objectively cool environment, even though the themes of American exceptionalism and everything is pretty heavy handed (if we are being honest Bioshock 1 delivered its messages very simliarly.)
I don't know if I'd consider the many worlds third act great, but if you read into everything, it does hold up, even if it is super convoluted. I'm not trying to say it is a great story, but it could have been and I can see what Ken Levine was trying to do.
I will also say, I get the Vox Populi tie into the overall story, but their role and game moments were also so boring to me, it feels like the game has major issues in the 2nd act.
There were some super early game play videos that showed the game off as more of an immersive sim, which I think would have made the game the best in the series. Unfortunately we got what we got, which was a pretty average shooter with an above average setting.
Yeah the whole themes of racism and slavery and capitalism were there, but it's like they just introduced it and then did nothing with it. At least in Bioshock 1 I felt like they explored the themes they presented. The Vox seemed like it was gonna be a thing but then turned out to be oh they're generic bad guys too, shoot them now.
I definitely expected more of an immersive sim and got...I don't even know what to call this
Hmm, I guess I don't agree that they even had to "do anything" with those themes, Columbia is just filled with propaganda and characters feeling the effects of the world around them, but I don't think they were trying to comment on any specific view point. I think I even recall Ken Levine saying they weren't trying to make a point with racism specifically in the game, it was just a reflection of the world at the time the game takes place. Imo Bioshock 1 pretty much did the exact same thing, to the same degree.
But yeah it didn't turn out to be an immersive sim unfortunately, would have been an amazing game with a better gameplay loop.
I think Infinite is very much a product of its time and has aged poorly (I also played it in the last few years and did not have a good time). I think Bioshock 1 and 2 are also products of their time, but with a game like Bioshock 1 being a bit more simple and lower in scope, I think it aged a little better. I entirely agree with your take on the game when playing it these days.
I wasn't super jazzed about it even when it first came out, but I can understand why people liked it at the time. It was a very capital G Gamer game and maybe that's partly why I don't like it as it aged. I just don't think it's that much fun 12 years on (tbf, most games aren't fun 12 years after they release) and that the hype around it back in the day is because Bioshock was "cool" rather than the game itself being extraordinary.
The setting of the games was good, the first game gave the gamers a catch phrase to latch onto ("would you kindly" entered nerd culture about the same time as "why so serious" and I kind of view it in the same cringe-o-sphere looking back), and Infinite was at least going out of the box with its story, even if it didn't vibe with me personally. It's one game where it makes me think we were pretty dumb as gamers in 2013 if this was our collective idea of a top tier game. That whole 2010-2015 era of gaming sort of feels that way to me, it was almost an awkward teenage phase of the gaming industry, where it was properly blowing up as a mainstream form of entertainment and people making games were still just kind of making it up as they were going along and the industry just came off some legendary years (like 2007), but we were kind of in a weird transition phase before we hit what I would consider to be the "modern" gaming era starting around 2015-2016ish.
Of course this is just my opinion and it's obviously heavily weighted by culture and what gaming culture was like in 2013, which I don't look back on very fondly. I am not sure if I can completely separate out an unbiased take on the gameplay without factoring in why the game was successful at the time, but yeah, I just generally don't like it either.
Yeah I can definitely see it being as a product of it's time that didn't age well at all. I think Bioshock 1 aged well, but I haven't played that in a long time. I want to say I played it around 2016/2017 maybe? But maybe it also hasn't aged well too. Idk.
I would disagree with you that most games aren't fun 12 years later. I play a lot of games that are more than 12 years old or revisit games I played before that nowadays are far older than that and they still hold up. Call it nostalgia or personal preference or whatever but I don't think it works as a blanket statement personally.
Yeah, I think when I typed that I was thinking of games from the 2008-2013ish era, but even then there are plenty of timeless classics. I mean, I was playing Mass Effect 1 today (though I’m still not sure if I think it’s good because of nostalgia or if a brand new player would like it). I agree it’s too broad of a statement either way, I think what I was trying to get at is that I don’t think Infinite aged well, but there are other games that also don’t age well, not just that one.
Well I have never played any Mass Effects and I picked up the trilogy in the last sale. Don't know when I'll get to it but I plan on playing them at some point. I'll probably post about it in this weekly thread when I do and can provide that perspective of a new player trying them out now. Not sure when I'll get to it though, I have so many games and it's not high on the list atm
I also hate BioShock Infinite. The gameplay is a huge step back from the previous two in the series, and the story is utter nonsense. It's never made any sense to me how much reverence and praise this game gets.
I was utterly shocked because I've never heard anything bad about it, and I had always hyped it up as being the best one, and then playing it I immediately was like what is going on? And it turns out it is the worst of the three (in my opinion at least)
I really think people got sucked into the pretty atmosphere, because it objectively looks like a good game, but everything else is worse compared to the first two.
Agreed it looks like it should have been fantastic but isn't.
I actually feel the same about the original BioShock. Played through it and completed it back when it came out, but the shooting was dull, the environment wore thin and the game was entirely too long.
After that, I never revisited the series and the effusive praise of Infinite drove me off.
I actually really enjoyed Bioshock Infinite, much more so than Bioshock 2 weirdly enough. I played it near release and didn't have any bugs that I can recall. That all being said, it is not at ALL the same game and probably shouldn't even have Bioshock in the name. That and the fact that it sounds like it didn't age well I am sure do it no favors.
The funny thing is, other than some strong story themes, I didn't think Bioshock was all that great either. I came in to Bioshock as a huge fan of System Shock 1 & 2, so I was expecting big things. The actual gameplay of Bioshock left me very disappointed and the story and theme are the only reason I relate to it positively. With Infinite, they gave up the pretense of trying to be like System Shock and just leaned into the action with a novel world and I think it ended up well in the end.
Funny enough, this is exactly what was done with the Mass Effect series, where each game became further and further from the Bioware KOTOR roots and just became an action Sci-Fi game. With Mass Effect, I disliked each further game in the series for this same reason. I think maybe I took the Bioshock rug pull a little personally. :)
I finally finished my Perfection run of Stardew Valley, at about 150 hours. I thought I would enjoy decorating the house, but I found the mechanics of grabbing stuff and placing it/replacing to be kinda boring, so I'm done with Stardew for now.
In the meantime, I'm still on my Slay the Spire grind. After more than 250 attempts from A16 to A18 on Silent, I finally beat A18 the other day, so I'm grinding A19 now. It's crazy how much fun the gameplay loop is, it really feels like Hades where I'm never really sad or frustrated about a loss. I still take the time to think about what my shortcomings were, where my luck ran out and the bad choices I made (or lack of choices). I'm at 550 hours on Steam and honestly, it feels like I'll reach 1000 by the end of the year, surely.
Avowed: I'm chipping away at some of the collection thingies in the game that require you to find all the maguffins to complete the big maguffin. The game is a treat to explore, which is nice. I keep finding new things in the new area and, while I generally don't like games that force you to scour for things, I enjoy the fact that I'm choosing to complete this and keep finding a bunch of stuff. I've got an arquebus layout and flaming sword/dagger combo and am having a ton of fun running through areas to complete things before progressing.
Cassette Beasts: I just finished the story(ies?) for the Rangers and the main quest and it's pretty great. Got that sorta "The good always wins" rah-rah vibe that a lot of games have, but it pays off and does a good job pulling at the ol' heartstrings. 10/10, would do again with the alternate modes.
Fallout 3: I played through it with "Tale of Two Worlds," which ports the FO3 game assets to the Fallout New Vegas engine, but if you use a few plugins (NVAC, 4GB patcher) you can negate the biggest issues with the engine (which exist from Oblivion to FNV, if not OG Skyrim) and have a solid experience. The vanilla experience is not meaningfully different except for not being able to sight properly (there's mods). I just use the game reticle and it works well enough to sink shots.
I'm playing Horizon Forbidden West on my Steam Deck. It is a rough ride on the graphics/performace side. Steam says it has zero compatibility due to the performance and I, even though I'm no 60fps ganger and can tolerate a lot, must admit they are actually right.
I still play it. I turned everything down, turned on FSR3 Quality and then raised a few of graphics setting, especially shadows, so it looks at least decent. I also limit TDP to 11W (out of 15) to save battery so I can play longer. This way I get 25-30 fps with dips under 20 here and there and sometimes as low as 10 or even lower for a second in some cutcenes. Setting TDP to unlimited (15W) gives additional 3 fps and cuts time by a lot - it isn't worth it for me.
About the game itself - Horizon Zero Dawn was perfect as I went in blind and I was taken away by the setting and quality of storytelling. It is superb game, I love it and I praise and value it very highly. It caught me by surprise and that was part of why it is great. How could possibly the successor take me by surprise and be great again? That was the question I asled myself. And so far they managed to do it!
Forbidden West starts right where Zero Dawn ended, it is like there was just a few days/weeks/months in the game world and we are thrown back into it. It is like Dune: Part Two. It just is continuation of so far great story. And I'm hooked.
Thegame looks stunning even at setting and low fps that I play it in. It must look absolutely awesome on some gaming rig! The characters, storytellin, quests... It is just as grrat as Zero Dawn was. I still don't understand how they managed to make it so that it just seems kike it was meant to be right from the start. It's like when they made Back to the future part 2 and 3 together - Zero Dawn and Forbidden West seem like twins.
I'm just a few hours in and I will be writing review once I finish the game, I'm certain. But you will have to wait for it, I'm (almost) comoletionist and I don't use fast travel (or any one click travel options). See you all in the summer!
EDIT: Just checked my framerate and it is actually even lower - just hitting 20-25 in standard gameplay. It really is a rough ride.
Have fun! Zero Dawn and Forbidden West are my favorites :)
There’s something I’ve started doing recently when I got headphones to play the vidjyas. I started turning OFF the subtitles. I used to use them to keep my tv quiet and to just read quickly to get through most dialogue… Particularly with Horizon, as there’s so much dialogue, turning that setting off started bringing me further and further into the game, particularly the face mechanics in Forbidden West. I’m not sure you’re experiencing those upgrades with your hardware restrictions, but they’ve upped that quality in such a large way that every conversation has a cinematic quality to it. I haven’t had a game bring tears to my eyes like both Horizon games have. The world is gorgeous, majestic, immersive, and lovely.
The cinematic quality conversations are great to watch, but hard to run on Steam Deck :-D
I use subtitles as English is not my native language and I could miss something. I don't skip through dialogue though, I let it roll and experience it as a whole. Also - HFW has Czech subtlitles and is completely in Czech, which is kinda strange to see as I'm mostly used to English in games, but I let it roll in Czech.
I loved HZD and it seems HFW is just continuation or expansion to the HZD - it seems I will love it as well.
Never got around to Forbidden West. Absolutely loved the first one. Just ordered myself a used copy on PS5. Looking forward to it!
You did good to order FW. It is just like HZD and HFW just belonged together from the start. And while HZD was whole, together they seem whole-er.
Balatro
I picked this up on Switch because I had some Nintendo Gold Points saved up. Man this game is addicting! I wasn't expecting too much, but it really hits! It's really fun to play. I like the mechanic of trying to combo up regular poker hands. I haven't beat it yet though. I got close and got to ante 7.
Pokemon Heartgold
So I'm an older millennial. Pokemon came out in the US when I was in elementary school. Pokemon Red is my Pokemon game. I've played FireRed a couple times. I dropped off until about 10 years ago. So I never played Gold/Silver. Those seems to be the games that everyone says are the best.
I still have my 3ds and thought it would be cool to own the DS card. Nope! Those things are selling for hundreds of dollars. So i decided to hack my 3ds. Which was relatively straight forward!
So far I'm one badge in and heading toward the next town. Just taking my time leveling up my team and catching Johto Pokemon. I like to play new Pokemon games by collecting all the new Pokemon of that generation. At least within that version of the game. I went with Cyndaquil for my starter. I liked the design of all of them. So it was kind of a toss up, but i went with fire for my starter.
Can never go wrong with fire starters B)
One of the best parts of Gen II games is.... well... what happens after you beat the elite 4. I don't want to spoil it since you say you never played the original Silver/Gold/Crystal, so I'll leave it at that. But if you don't know what I'm talking about then you're in for a treat!
And yeah, Balatro is addicting! Especially when you hit that perfect combo.
Unfortunately I do know what happens after the elite 4. At least partially because I've heard people talk about thr game before. But I'm still looking forward to it!
I recently (like a couple years ago) tried a heart gold randomizer and it was awesome. I had such a good time! It was great to play one of my favourite games but with a little added spice of "who's my starter going to be?" and "what type is the gym leader going to be?"
If you're looking for a little flavour I'd super recommend it, it makes the game so fresh.
This time I only changed trade evolutions since it's my first go. I may try more randomization next time around.
It's absolutely wild. I got my boxed SoulSilver copy on a flea market for like 20 bucks 8 years ago.
I'm not really a Pokemon fan, but I played quite a lot of SoulSilver, it was my first Pokemon game (I was like...26) and I had always intended to go back to my 140-hourish save.
But someone broke into my house while I was out of town and stole all my shit, including my DS and SS. I've never had the motivation to ever play another Pokemon game.
That's a good find! Part of me was tempted to buy one, but i thought better if it
My bought-new-on-release Soulsilver copy died - well, it pretends to have a heartbeat every so often, but inevitably it fails to save my game (and then I have to keep trying to reload the game for minutes to try to get back in) or refuses to load the game at all. Which, given prices of older legit Pokemon game copies... felt a bit like a slap in the face.
Not that I have many qualms about piracy (especially for older games/media that simply cannot be purchased outside of secondhand) but it did feel particularly good to get around to hacking my 3DS and reliving Soulsilver!
I played through Last of Us and now I’m on to LoU2, now that they’re both on PC. I’ve been really enjoying the series! Maybe it’s because I haven’t been playing many modern games recently, but I’m impressed with the level of details in the environment. Things like rain dripping from edges of structures, the design of abandoned houses (they even put details like electric meters on the outsides, which I probably wouldn’t have noticed were missing if they didn’t include them), etc. And I’m liking the combat too. I’m not the best at combat in general, and have died quite a bit, but it usually isn’t frustrating. I think it helps that you have options when fighting. You can just have a full on fire fight, or you can be sneaky and stealth kill most enemies. Now I just have to make sure I keep ahead of the show so I don’t get spoiled!
I loved the details in the games too. I spent entirely too much time after I cleared an area just admiring them.
In LoU2, use your traps and stay stealth as long as you can. Feel free to run away. Only go loud if you have to. You can pick up any unused traps after combat.
Sincerely, treating the game as it’s the source material, like Lord of the Rings vs the movie adaptations is so smart. The show is great, but is even more valuable as a supplement to the experience that you’re getting to feel now. It’s the kind of story that will live in your head for years to come.
Dark Souls 3
So I won with my vanilla game and I was like "cool but what if I randomize it?" So I started a randomizer run and posted about it, in which I found out about Archipelago which seems incredible. For those who don't know, archipelago is a multi world randomizer. It supports a whole bunch of games (including Dark Souls 3). So you get a bunch of people (up to 30!) and they all submit a config with what game they are playing and what setting they want to play with, then the randomizer shuffles across everyone's game. Someone playing Super Mario 64 can be waiting for someone playing Pokemon to buy the ability to double jump for them from the Pokemart.
Anyway I got a freind who likes Hollow Knight randomizers to jump on and we are trying a 2 player run.
So far it seems really sweet, I'm surprised how well it works and I love the added interaction with other players.
Like, just adding the fact I've got to watch out for items for my friends game and they are doing the same makes us both care about each other's otherwise single player games. It's really cool!
Edit: Incase someone is curious, I decided to try a dex build for this run. Mainly because one of my first drops was Onikiri and Ubadachi, so I was like why not. It took me 10 minutes to realize the L1 attack is busted as hell and the weapon art gives you like 2 full seconds of i-frames, it feels like cheating!
Blue Prince - No spoilers edition
For those who don't know, this is a brand new release. It's a puzzle rogue like and there was a lot of hype before release about how indepth and we'll thought out the puzzles are.
This one is difficult. I was looking forward to it. I'd not quite bought into the hype (I got stung a little with Animal Well) but I was still keen to play it.
The story short is it's like a 7/10.
Here's the long story.
There's lots of good things about it. The art style, the music, the pacing, there's a lot of puzzles of various depths. It's also a reasonably novel experience, the mix of rogue lite and puzzle works reasonably well but not in every way.
On the negatives, quite a few of the puzzles feel like homework rather than puzzles. I didn't get the dopamine hit from feeling smart solving an interesting puzzle with these ones.
The designer obviously knew that the issue with the rogue lite formula was gonna be struggling to get a run that let's you solve a specific puzzle. So it seems like his solution to the problem is:
A. Give the player some tools to try and mitigate the rogue like risks (but not all of them or there would be no game)
B. Give us a shit load of puzzle to solve so hopefully no matter which run you get, you can try to work towards something
The B will piss a lot of people off. I've already seen from the steam reviews a lot of people are trying to go right for the ending or they are chasing some specific puzzle and they get turbo mad they can't progress it because they don't get the specific rooms they need. But honestly if you just have a list of leads and start any run you can almost always progress something. But if you are gonna go hell bent for one thing you are gonna have a bad time.
There are a lot of different kinds of puzzles which actually kind of annoyed me. I struggled with the colour puzzles as a colour blind person and I suck at language puzzles. They were a little surprising to see ocassionaly and they were just frustrating. But I guess that's a lot of puzzle games.
Extremely light ending spoiler
I found the ending (finding room 46) underwhelming. I assume it's because it's not the "real ending".
I don't know if I have the willpower to play more. There's like 2 puzzles which I have unfinished but I don't have any motivation to complete them.
That's a very good point. I have played Blue Prince for about 20 hours now and still haven't done the thing that the intro video suggested me to do. I know how to do it (or assume I do), but lady luck hasn't let me get there yet, and also, I keep getting sidetracked by other things, especially the backstory and how to learn more about it. I have pages and pages of notes, including multiple hand drawn maps. I enjoy the amount of exploration in the game, although sometimes it still does feel that the game is wasting my time when I get a bad draw.
While I enjoy the variety, and I haven't had accessibility issues personally, the variety also means that it has sometimes been a little difficult to understand what the scope of each puzzle is. Sometimes a puzzle is just self-contained within a room, sometimes it's spread much wider. Some of the signalling for that has been a little unclear for me. That said, for the most part the game has been very good at making me understand what I can and cannot do, and what my next steps should probably be.
You are right though, the puzzles are a bit more "homeworkey" than something like The Witness, where you feel like you are learning a new skill (however useless that skill is).
Woah, I knew about co-op randomizers, but I had no idea you could do cross game co-op randomizers, that’s incredible!
Check out @Lapbunny 's post, they are considering running a game in a few weeks. If you're interested kep an eye out and maybe you can join in!
I have something terrifying to inform you, which is that my friend took place in a 3000-world game in the main Archipelago discord. It took five days just to generate the seed (because each DLCQuest instance had 10,000 checks in a certain configuration lol), and everyone completed it in about two months. The final 30 games took two weeks of that.
I'll definitely host one here sometime soon (not that big!), though I'll probably make a thread early May and start it sometime after since I'm busy the next few weekends. And until then, I'm playing through Blue Prince! Which I agree with you on what you said fundamentally. I'm also a board game slut, so I'm finding the itches it scratches plenty worth it, but I get people's frustration.
Haha yeah I saw that was just the official number!
Look forward to your post! I'll definitely keep an eye out for it!
I was scrolling through here looking just for someone else talking about Blue Prince! It has utterly absorbed me as a fan of older 3d puzzlers. I know a lot of people whine about the roguelike RNG, but personally it feels very fair so far, and I think for me it actually helps me to avoid getting stuck on a single puzzle and thus frustrated. Staying flexible and jumping from puzzle to puzzle depending on what comes up has been a really enjoyable gameplay style for me, and I'm super excited to see where others take this idea in the future bc up until I tried it, I would not have believed "Myst but a roguelite" would've worked.
Also, if you're still calling reaching Room 46 "the ending," you have way more than 2 puzzles left to solve. The people on Reddit and Steam calling reaching Room 46 the tutorial are exaggerating, but only a bit. There's a big iceberg there -- there's a ton I still haven't found myself. I don't think I'll be confident about having solved every puzzle (or close to it) even once I've properly finished the game.
Wow that's spooky, I think you posted this about the exact same moment I booted the game up again since I posted this!
I'll admit some of my conclusions there are a little exaggerated and exasperated. Something about the pacing of the game and the drive of the puzzles feels exhausting and I can't put my finger on it. It clearly isn't just me because a lot of other people playing it feel the same way. But having taken a week away from actually playing it I can admit that looking back at it there's a lot of good stuff there I didn't address in favor of noting the annoyances.
I think that whatever this underlying issue is that I can't put my finger on is big enough that it's making me (and others) complain about what's actually a really well put together game. It takes it from a 9 or 10/10 to my previously stated 7/10.
Also yeah, I did note more puzzles than 2, but I had 2 that I was actually kinda keen and interested to go back and solve, I just phrased it badly. My notebook has a long list of clearly unsolved leads!
Understandable! I think how frustrating it is depends a lot on individual personality differences and where your genre experience comes from, both of which probably are what have resulted in me getting completely sucked in rather than exasperated.
3d point-and-click adventure/puzzle games were some of the first real videogames I ever played, and my principal issue when I was younger was either not knowing what to do next or struggling with a specific puzzle and banging my head against a wall until I looked at a walkthrough. I think Blue Prince's structure actually really helps avoid that issue for me, because it's much easier to switch gears to whichever puzzle is convenient to solve based on room layout. Time will tell whether that's still the case closer to the actual endgame, but I've got a lot of stuff left before then!
I've also already unlocked a couple of permanent upgrades that allow me to tweak the drafting pool, which have helped a lot with reducing frustration. Let me know if you want a nudge towards which threads unlock these yourself if you don't already have them.
I get where you're coming from! But the thing is I also played a bunch of 3D puzzle games growing up and I loved them. I played through Riven and Uru plus plenty of weird Source puzzle maps with my friends.
I'm frustrated that I'm struggling to parse my problem with some of it.
For the good puzzles in Blue Prince, they are good. They hit that feel good "everything comes together and I feel like I solved it!".
For the other puzzles there's a general feeling of monotony. Or the feeling of "what the hell that solution was ridiculous".
Gallery spoiler
I just got the gallery and tried to solve it and I honestly hated it.
I got my partner in and we sat there for around 30 minutes trying to solve it together.
After trying guessing the titles of some of the paintings and then laying out all the characters and trying to see what words we could make, etc etc.
We pulled a guide up to try to at least see what one was to see if it would help with the others and it felt like complete nonsense.
I'm not sure if we missed something (the guide author also seemed like he was clutching at straws) but the titles seemed BARELY tied to the paintings.
I saw there was a hint in another room that shows the first letter which would help, but at that point it feels like you're brute forcing it.
Pump room, orchard, garage spoilers
These kinds of puzzles I like. They are interconnected in various ways. They all make sense. They have you build information on one another and help you work towards a satisfying conclusion.
The garage is simple, you might find the door and be like "OK it's not got power" then you find the fuse box and add one and one together. It's easy I admit but it makes sense.
The pump room/boiler room (or other power source) and other steam powered rooms, how they inter connect and how you need to use your tools to get the rooms to line up all click well in my brain. It all feels very Myst when the game gives you some tactile thing that at first glance doesn't make sense but then when you get more context it actually does make a lot of sense in the world.
I did like the 8 room puzzle though, that was good thinking. The study puzzle I haven't finished yet but it's a cool idea, though can be a little frustrating with some of the combos that appear.
I think I said this before but I think the reason I'm so upset by it is there is a LOT in this game and I think I feel like they could have cut some content and it would have been better for it. Which is an odd criticism.
The Gallery puzzle is the one puzzle I feel no guilt for looking up the answer to, that one falls well below the rest of them in terms of quality imo. I can kinda see what they were going for now that I know the answers, but they're hard enough versions of what they're trying to do that I don't think I'd have gotten any of them except the five-letter one on my own. I think that one specifically definitely should have had better hints or signposting or something. I assumed I was missing some external clue until I checked online and realized it wasn't that kind of puzzle.
I think all puzzle design in games of this type involves making assumptions about the player and how they'll perceive things to a degree, and it's a tough balance to design something that's challenging but not obtuse. I think Blue Prince is probably about on par with other great puzzle games I've played in terms of consistently getting that right -- almost every puzzle game has at least one infamously frustrating one. I think the advantage to Blue Prince is that when I first came across the gallery, I was able to decide to just leave and follow other leads when I couldn't figure the puzzle out.
Weirdly I got the study puzzle WAY earlier than the others you mention (except the Orchard, that was one of the first puzzles like this I found and solved), before I got the study. I think I lucked into a combo in the Commissary that helped me start thinking about it in the right way before I figured out the trick. Some of them are tougher than others, but the nature of the result is forgiving if you're missing a few bits and pieces.
spoiler for what I saw in the commissary
When I first got to the commissary bulletin board, it was in the room where the second picture, with the sticky note saying "without," was of a pea pod. I made the connection of "without peas" to "without the letter P" and spent a bit trying to figure out how to remove the letter P from the word in the first picture before I figured out the actual pattern on a later day. I think I would've taken a longer time to realize the significance of the pictures if I hadn't already been thinking about the letters in the words, though.
A lot of people complain about the boiler room-related puzzles because of the RNG, but once I got one of the abilities I mentioned in my last comment, it wasn't difficult to get sorted out. I agree with your thoughts on this class of puzzle in the game, I think they're well-designed!
Still playing lots of Deadlock. Player base has died down a bit (hasn't been in the top 100 most-played Steam games for a few weeks), but I'm still mostly enjoying it. It's really frustrating because it's probably the game I get most annoyed at (never got so annoyed at Counter-Strike or other competitive games I've played, but also, when I'm doing well, it's the most fun I've had in a game for a few years.
I also picked up RimWorld based off the suggestions of some people on here and have been having a blast. First colony (from the tutorial) lasted like 30 minutes lol. Second one went a few hours but then I sent a caravan to some quest and they ended up getting ambushed and dying. I still had one pawn at my colony but they ended up getting attacked by some manhunting guinea pigs... then a random pawn came and joined my colony but when I sent them to rescue the first person they also got attacked and died haha.
I've put over 200 hours into Deadlock, since about September (which is a huge number for me, I have about 300 hours in Apex Legends, and I've been playing that for years) not to mention I usually find MOBAs way too sweaty of a genre. It is such a great game, but the lower player count is absolutely ruining the game for me. Every match you have someone on your team feeding before mid game, or there is someone on the other team obviously WAY above everyone elses skill level. It's gotten to the point where I have to tell my friends I'm not getting online because I don't feel like getting frustrated that day. I can't complain too much because it's still invite only, but I'm not sure what Valve is waiting for.
Yeah, I feel this hard. I play with some lower-rated friends a lot and, when I do, I usually get put in lanes that are either way too hard and I'm the one feeding (because I'm higher ranked than my friends so the enemies in my lane need to be high, too, I guess?) or I end up stomping the other team. Then, on the other hand, I play with some friends who are ranked closer to me and in that scenario it's pretty much the same thing but usually laning is more even (unless people switch and then sometimes I'm still the one feeding...).
Just finished Mass Effect 3 (and, in so doing, the trilogy). Very good game! Easily 8/10. ME3 is the best of the three by a significant margin. Great world and story, several moral dilemmas (which I enjoy having in games), and fun, challenging combat. "Decisions matter", and your choices, their consequences, and your history carry on through the timeline, even across the trilogy. Would recommend this trilogy (Mass Effect Legendary Edition), considering you can probably pretty easily get it cheap because of its age.
I'm entertaining thoughts of replaying the trilogy with a new character, to explore a different character class, and to try different decision branches, and to do skipped or missed missions. What's holding me back is thinking about how many hours that's going to take, though I guess I can skip some dialogues as I feel inclined.
Glad you enjoyed it! Just today I started ME1 again for probably the 15th time lol.
I have a very important question: who did you romance?!?!
lol. Honestly, I did ME1 trying to keep things professional, and was a little irritated that the game seemed very bent on funnelling us into a romance with Williams. It's almost like there were no dialogue tree branches that led to avoidance. For ME2 and 3, went for (and stayed with) Tali. Thought about (but didn't pursue) Liara. Continued to avoid Williams in ME3, even though several of the early dialogue branches looked biased to firing up a romance with her.
Ah, at least masc sheps don’t have to deal with Kaiden flirting with them constantly, lol. Tali is one of the better romances, nice. I’m probably doing Liara in ME1, someone random in ME2 (basically no good options for us lesbians, Kelly is basically the only option and she’s your assistant, so no) and probably Samantha in ME3? I’ve done the full Liara romance before and once in a while I’ll pick Garrus or Thane or something even though I’m not particularly attracted to men. Games like Dragon Age Veilguard have more choices for me, Mass Effect came out before lesbians were invented.
Interesting you thought 3 was the strongest, I thought it was the weakest and I couldn't finish it! I waited until 3 came out and ended up playing through the trilogy back to back, but 3 to me just felt like it was a lot of fetch quests around empty planets more than the others for some reason? Mind you this was like 10 years ago and my memory is a little fuzzy!
What's your thoughts?
Sure, it was a sizeable number of missions, but almost none of them felt like empty, filler quests. If I recall, almost all of them moved the needle in terms of war strength, or provided some helpful inventory item. Many of them provided an interesting substory (IMO), or helped deepen the history of supporting characters. A few had good level design or boss battle which I enjoyed. Then, the primary story arc unfolded, revealing interesting details about the world and plot, and it all culminated in a pretty good (dare I say "epic"?) conclusion.
This week we played Cube Chaos for our podcast on roguelike/lite games.
A bizarre but fun and unique mix of something like Dwarf Fortress meets StarCraft, it’s a real-time-with-pause tower defense with something like 1000+ unit types.
There’s a bottomless pit of synergies, curses, special events, and enemy fights but there’s a certain flavor of creativity I haven’t seen elsewhere in rogue games that’s really refreshing here.
Purposefully going into debt in store zones, shooting out glass ceilings above your opponent and dropping acid on them, or battling on a landscape made out of two giant robot heads are some of the more standard experiences here. The game really delivers on the Chaos aspect.
I had a lot of fun with it, but it probably won’t be everyone’s jam. I think if you’re the type that loved Dwarf Fortress, there’s a lot to love here for similar reasons.
I beat Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. And I can probably rave about it for a while. The final chapter earned major respect from me for including a massive genre-bending twist that felt reasonable despite how almost ridiculous the concept was. Seriously, the last chapter goes all-in on the horror and earns its M rating without showing anything graphic. I think a majority of the cast will need therapy and had existential crises from the revelations.
All in all, highly recommend it to fans of Danganronpa and AI: The Somnium Files. It takes advantage of expectations from DR in particular to add some surprising twists. Overall a good game and story!
Ah, been some time since I played it but yeah, the writer knows how to mix ridiculous concepts and yet make it feel all to real. And some of the twists at the end are utterly bizarre yet work out very well.
I also like the atmosphere of the game. It's not like Danganronpa at all, yet the darkness is still there.
Yep, those are some of my favorite kinds of twists: taking something that should be ridiculous and making it feel perfectly logical. Helps that the hints were there in plain sight all along.
The game's atmosphere is overall lighter than DR since it's not about a killing game so we're not constantly worrying about who will die next, but it's still so similar. There's still a weight to all interactions with the knowledge/fear that someone will die, especially in the last two chapters when plot armor becomes less relevant. Funny that the game with the literal death god is more hopeful and optimistic though.
I've been playing Slay, a strategy game first released in 1995 by an indie dev named Sean O'Connor. You can find it on his website here: https://www.windowsgames.co.uk/slay.html
It boils down to a hex based "map painting" strategy game where you try and take over enough of the map to win. It's deceptively simple and fun to play. I picked it up on my phone years ago and really enjoy it since I can start and stop whenever and at the highest difficulty the AI can be somewhat challenging but not too hard (it really depends on the map you play as some are incredibly easy while others have taken me 10+ attempts to figure out a winning strategy).
Stardew Valley is still ongoing, but I don't have much time to play it.
I found an android clone of Slay a while back, "Antiyoy", which I've been enjoying for several years. A good friend of mine introduced me to Slay back in the early 2000's and for a while I'd forgotten the name and it was just this mystery game from my childhood that I could never find.
Antiyoy is pretty good, though I don't know how the AI options compare.
I tried Antiyoy and found that building the additional buildings to generate extra income was a change I wasn't feeling at the time. I think when I finally complete all of the maps included in the base Slay game, I'll try Antiyoy again. The Slay dev charges $10 for each extra pack of maps he made. To be fair to him, each of those map packs would be worth the cost to me, but my gaming budget is non-existent these days.
I did reach out to him and asked if he would add in a "leaderboard" to individual levels so you could see how quickly you could beat some maps. He is considering it so that may be added eventually.
I picked up Warhammer 40,000: Darktide on sale because I've been on a bit of a WH40k kick recently and I am pretty impressed.
I haven't really played much of this genre since L4D but the moment-to-moment gameplay loop in this game is quite good. It's very satisfying to sprint in to a room, slide to dodge a bunch of bullets, rev up your two hand chain sword as your sliding and then brutally slam it into someone as you stand up. I've only played 2/4 classes so far (I guess the most similar ones in Veteran and Zealot) but they both feel quite unique and there seems like there are a ton of ways to build them.
And gameplay aside, this game is absolutely gorgeous and dripping in atmosphere. It feels like a hive city. I do wish they did a bit more with the story though, it seems pretty barebones and disjointed.
Agree on the story. The game feels caught between wanting to be a live service coop shooter and wanting to be an interesting story in the 40k setting. I dont think it threads it very well though. I do appreciate the character creation and feel like it does a fairly good job at getting you invested in the immediate experience, especially with the different voices and personalities you can select. My Ogryn, Nork, is such a freak and i really love him, but long term i just dont really care when most interactions with npcs are glorified menus.
Gameplay is kind of a similar story, the moment to moment is great, but the overarching systems dont really grab me. I often err on the side of annoyance rather than enjoyment in gear based systems like this, where there are so many different resources and dozens of drops with mostly negligible differences unless you really really invest into them. They did a good job at making the skill investments more meaningful after a recent update, but the gear system is still lacking to me. Often with randomized gear like this, i find that the lack of intentionality damages the experience for me. I dont care about the weapons or gear im getting, and that makes it hard to care about the game in turn.
That said, mid mission fighting Chaos and its followers, boy does the game sing. Fatshark has really mastered the first person melee/ranged hybrid combat, the weight of your attacks feel so heavy and impactful, and the slight tactical control of your swings based on movement keeps it from just being a button masher. The different weapon types also do feel varied enough to be interesting as well, so points there. All in all a very conflicted experience.
Yea it definitely does feel like that. The NPC-menu lobby seems exclusively there to make sure you can appreciate your weapon and armor skins and thus want to buy some from the store. But I also don't hate the monetization in the game; it's exclusive to skins and honestly the in-game currency ones are still cool as hell. I understand the grind for weapons used to be worse or something but it seems to be pretty good right now?
Yea it does seem kind of irrelevant (at least now, maybe it made more sense before they updated it but I understand the 'grind' for a perfect weapon was worse) because you only have to engage with it if you're searching for a weapon with perfect stats. I do like that you can choose the perks and blessings for your weapon though, having it totally random like it was before(?) seems not very fun.
Yea, the gameplay is a lot of fun. I guess the launch wasn't great but I'm still a little surprised this game doesn't have more players. I'm also surprised that playing solo with randoms has been as enjoyable as it has, I was a little worried there would be a lot of toxicity and there just hasn't been.
I too havent had much of a toxic experience in the few games I have played without a preordained group. Generally I am pretty lucky with online games though, I never run into much toxicity in most multiplayer games I put time into. They definitely got more generous woth the grind for gear, so agree on it being an improvement.
The monetization isnt awful either you're right, but often the presence of it can feel a little gross. I know its a necessary evil in some aspects of keeping an online game going and updated. It also helps that content expansions are free instead of gated by money, so it doesnt segment a playerbase or reduce access to those with less disposable income. Still though, knowing its always there and the game is designed to encourage more spending always feels a little gross.
Mostly I've been playing Slay the Spire on my phone as its been the easiest thing to play while recovering from surgery. I have probably 120 hours between PC and mobile now, this game just never gets old!
Besides that, before surgery, I had picked up Trickshot Simulator as a fun game to stream to discord for friends when we're just hanging out on a friday night or something. I've gotten through probably 5 levels so far and it's pretty brutal, but I'm actually having fun in the same way that Getting Over It is fun. I haven't played in a week though as I haven't been able to comfortably sit at my PC until basically today due to surgery downstairs and then I also hurt my back during recovery from having to bend weird all of last week so that hurts now too and it might be another week or two before I can sit at my PC for more than like 30 minutes at a time.
I also have still been playing Destiny 2 during the current season. I enjoyed the story and seasonal activities enough this season, though there's currently nothing to hook them into the upcoming expansion, which we still know nothing about (and is supposedly releasing this summer). That said, Bungie was pretty clear that their plan for D2 now is two smaller expansions per year, which to me sound more like beefier seasons and less like actual traditional expansions. The game is as about on life support as you could be while getting new content. It's still a good game and the new content is still enough reason to play, but I can't deny that I'm just not as excited for the future as I was for prior expansions. It will always be in my rotation, but it has been pretty much demoted to a rotational time filler game rather than something I'm salivating over every week and consuming hours of youtube content ever week over.
Now that I've sort of exited post-surgery depression, I've been thinking of doing a replay of the Mass Effect trilogy since I have that on PS5 and can play from the recliner instead of my PC, but I've been trying to stay strong and not start a 120 hour trilogy right now when the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remake is rumored to be shadow dropping imminently, which I know will suck me in, ha. I guess there's nothing wrong with starting ME and then stopping if Oblivion does come out soon, but yeah, that's why I've been sitting here like an asshole kind of not playing anything this week when I could be.
NorthernLion's streams of Trickshot Simulator were legendary, but I can't imagine it ever being a game I would sit down and play by myself. I don't know what it says about me that I like to watch streamers suffer but all my own gaming experiences have to be kind to me.
I'm basically down to two games for the most part right now: Minecraft and American Truck Simulator / Euro Truck Simulator II.
ATS just released Missouri, and this really has given a GREAT area of TX/OK/AR/MO/KS/NE to play in. Eastern OK/KS/NE just fits in so nicely, and the mapmaking teams have gotten really good. Although I don't mind going over to CA since the redesign. California - especially the 99 corridor - is just really really nice now. I can't wait for them to work on NV, AZ, and NM.
I switch over to ETS2 when I get a little tired of ATS and want some variety, but I haven't as much recently. The two recent DLCs are nice, but they're not bloody amazing, just really nice. I really do prefer the American stuff. Although I'm still looking forward to the Nordic expansion coming.
But we've got Louisiana, Iowa, and Illinois in the works on the ATS side. I'm really looking forward to Louisiana. I suspect they'll go to the Dakotas and Wisconsin next, but I secretly hope they divide and conquie and go Mississippi after Louisiana, since that's where I'm from. heh. I want to drive over the Natchez Mississippi bridge, dammit!
On the Minecraft front, I am loving the Tildes Minecraft Server..... but I am missing Biomes'o'plenty, so I am seriously seeing if me starting up a server wouldn't feel like too much competition or take anything away from the Tildes minecraft server. But I haven't gotten to the point of approaching creesh yet about it. :)
I owned a wheel for a little while a few years ago but it didn't last. Then i couldn't afford one for a longtime, so I've used a controller for a really long time now. I'd like to have a wheel, but the setup would be a pain while I'm still a wheelchair user, and really, I'm unsure about using my left foot with the prosthesis. heh. And I can't afford a wheel yet anyway.
So it works for me. :) But at some point I'll probably try to get a wheel. But before that, what I'd really like is some sort of panel with buttons to control more things. :)
I hadn't bothered to look into it, but I figured what I'd do is get a couple more controllers and figure out a way to secure them to a surface or something - come up with a mount or something for them - because I know each controlled would be unique, so I could assign the buttons and even axes to various functions (i.e. probably have enough spare axes to have one to roll down the window lol). Can get offbrand controllers for pretty cheap. heh. Wouldn't be a square box, but probably enough room on them to label.
but thank you for links! My uncle has a 3-D printer, although he'd have to ship something to me. heh
I've been playing Ender Magnolia, the sequel to Ender Lilies. Both games are lovely hand-drawn indie Metroidvanias that run for about 20 hours.
Ender Lilies was one of my favourite games from recent years:
I loved the dark 'fantasy post-apocalypse' atmosphere. The kingdom has already fallen. Everyone's dead or cursed. You play as a defenceless little girl who visibly flinches whenever she has to rely on her companions to fight. It's a great vibe.
Fantastic soundtrack filled with lots of moody piano pieces and intense boss music. Good to listen to at work too!
The difficulty was pitched at just the right level for me. I died a lot but each time I got a little better, leading to a great feeling of accomplishment when I finally got past a wall. The save points are also very generous so there's no Fromsoft runback whenever you die.
Ender Magnolia is better gameplay-wise, but I didn't connect with the setting in the same way:
It's set in the same world, but it's steampunk fantasy with androids, robots and guns in a functioning society with NPCs and quests and so on. It's fine but it feels somewhat sterile compared to the first game.
The protagonist speaks now. I understand why they did this from a story perspective, but none of the dialogue is particularly good and the silent protagonist communicating via gestures worked so well in the first game that I would have preferred that they went with that route and a simpler story instead.
The gameplay is improved in all respects.
You can change all aspects of the difficulty with sliders now (although the default felt just right for me).
Your companions no longer have numerical limits on how many times you can use their moves between save points, so you end up becoming much more familiar with using them and chaining / cancelling them fighting-game style.
The map is way better at communicating when you have the tools to progress past an obstacle or need to come back later.
Overall still a fan and keen to see what this studio does next.
I'm still playing Xenoblade Chronicles X (100+ hours now).
Feels dumb to say this as I knew what I was getting into, but there's too much content. Each time you get into a new chapter, the game throws 40 new quests at you, but a lot of them are just 'kill 5 rats' or 'collect 10 widgets'. You don't have to do them at all, but it would have been preferable for them to put the effort into just developing a handful of varied quests which focused on developing the world / your party characters.
The mechs are fun to play with, but they don't level up and you can't 'upgrade' their level either - only buy or craft better ones. This means that if you're grinding out all of the aforementioned quests the game is throwing at you, your meatbag humans will frequently be stronger than your giant robots and the mechs then just become glorified mounts. This is kind of a bummer because in Xenogears / Xenosaga, the mechs were on another level to human combatants and when they came out, you knew it was about to get real!
Later in the game, you get the ability to fly around with your mechs. This is really fun and adds a lot to the exploration aspect of the game, but it drains fuel like crazy (and you often need the refueling material for upgrades / quests, or just to use as fuel for fighting enemies in the air and on water where your overpowered humans won't do the job). Feels like a weird design decision given the emphasis on going out there and exploring.
I'm still not up to the new 'Definitive Edition' content which supposedly links the story to that of Xenoblade 1-3. Very curious to see how they'll manage that as the stories seem totally incompatible.
Whoa there is a sequel to Ender Lilies? I am intrigued!
I am also playing XenoBlade Chronicales X, about 75 hours in. There is WAY too much to do in this game, even compared to the crazy number of missions/quests in XBC 3. I may have to give up on my completionist tendencies for this one.
I feel you on the skell/mech things, it does feel weird to get a mech and feel so powered, then 10 levels later you're stronger. It is also weird that the mechs have "insurance" and that you can't buy more. Once you use it up (by dying), you basically need to buy a new mech. Just seems to encourage you to bails out of your mechs when things look rough because normal dying is free.
Been playing some Switch games recently!
A remake of a mid-90s classic. I've tried playing the original so many times but just couldn't get into it for some reason. I'm currently trying out this remake and have been enjoying it so far. I've just beaten the first boss so far. My favorite part of the original game was the soundtrack and the remake soundtrack is just as good in my opinion. Overall, a fun game!
I've talked about playing Densha de Go before but those were the versions from the early 2000s. This version is the latest version available on the Switch and the PS4/5. So far, this game is far more forgiving than the earlier versions I've played, which is nice. The main aim of this game is just to get from station to station on time, stopping your train within the correct spot, and doing a variety of random small tasks along the way. I don't understand a single piece of text in this game because its only available in Japanese but it's still a lot of fun. Would recommend!
I'm about 8ish hours into Blue Prince (PS5 PS+). I think it's good but would have worked better for me in a different life stage. I know 8 hours is pretty early but last night I listened to a deeper discussion on the game and I think i have a sense of where I am in it. I give it 8/10.
The art and sound design is delightful. I'm always impressed with the reflections on the tile of the entry hall. The tip tap of feet on different surfaces and the satisfying click of locks is all wonderful. The art design is evocative and I can feel the space.
Puzzle variety and depth is also great. There are puzzles everywhere, some obvious like the dart board or the truth and lie boxes. Others are subtle; in the air and walls of the house. The game is good at regularly giving you "ah-ha" moments that shift your perspective a bit and open up new avenues of investigation.
What doesn't work as well for me is time. I can see myself no-lifeing this in another era. That isn't to say I think it is poorly paced; I think it is actually well paced. Rather the game requires more commitment than I have available for it. There are puzzles I know the solution to but with my limited play time I'm not not interested in solving. Partly it is RNG, partly it is just effort and the homeworky feel of it.
On the MinnMax Podcast host Sarah was saying she considered games like this and Soulslikes "perseverance games." I agree, I just have less energy to persevere in this when my time is limited. I'll probably continue playing but I expect by next week I move on to something else.. Maybe on a long stay-cation I'll pick it back up to roll credits.
For what it's worth I don't think it's a very long game if you just want to reach the credits. I got credits at 15 hours and I saw many steam reviews around the same time mark.
You can easily keep doing runs and solving whatever comes up until you get the golden run to win.
i finally finished the ancient gods part 2 dlc in doom eternal. the encounters were tedious and a huge slog, but the final boss was pretty fun. i've played through the main doom eternal campaign multiple times and always have a blast with it, but i don't think i'd ever replay through either dlc's. they just introduced too much tediousness and annoying enemies.
i also recently finished my 112% steel soul run of hollow knight, the last milestone i had left incomplete. i am really excited for silksong and can't wait to get my hands on it. hollow knight overall is a great game and i think my favourite part is the godhome pantheons. i just love all the boss rush challenges.
since finishing those i've finally started a playthrough of undertale. very cute game but there isn't much to it aside from a funny story. i really have to be in the right mood for a game like this because i usually prefer games that are heavier on gameplay with limited story, not the other way around.
I am not really a gamer. Despite, a good friend of mine found the perfect co-op videogame for us to play together which I enjoyed thoroughly. It's called It Takes Two and it has surpassed any and all expectations I ever had in a videogame.
Even if it were just a movie and you had only the plot and storytelling elements, it would already be an 8/10 for me. Throughout the early parts of the game I kept saying “I would totally watch this as a movie”, still skeptical of the gameplay elements. But then it blew me away not just with an engaging story and environment, but a very varied set of gameplay elements and styles, different challenges to overcome, and overall an incredible, lovely experience.
The game is extensive enough that it took us three sittings to finish it. And even so I've only played as one of the two characters; I still need to experience the other side.
And then after that you have the latest release from the same studio! Split Fiction!
Most people consider it on par or better than It Takes Two. I'm personally not entirely sure about that for various reasons, but Split Fiction is another Co-op banger that'll be just as fun to play together as It Takes Two.
Look Outside, a quirky, artsy indie JRPG that I would compare to Lisa: The Painful (I also see comparisons to Fear & Hunger, but I haven't played it). It's both creepy and hilarious and has some surprisingly great Lovecraftian worldbuilding. Highly recommended, especially for the criminally low cost of $10.
I need to get back into Fallout 76, because it's been far too long. Can you turn an existing character into a ghoul, or does it have to be a new one? I don't know if I have it in me to create yet another character, especially since CAMP items aren't shared :(
Afaik, your character needs to be level 50 in order to take the quest that turns you into a ghoul so you should be able to do it with your same character. You can also revert back to a human if you change your mind. It does change how NPCs interact with you so I would make sure to read up on it before you commit.
I never could really get into Lethal Company even with friends since there was just too much panicking and dying instantly. I initially thought REPO would be similar, until we discovered that you can manhandle most of the spooky things once you have enough strength, so now it's become more of a race for us to get enough strength upgrades and terrorize anything that won't immediately kill us. Starting wars in the shop is also hilarious.
If you don't mind modding your game, r2modman supports REPO now and has some really fun mods available. There is a "shared upgrades" mod which makes it so that everyone receives an upgrade when its bought and used by one person. It's great for larger groups so that things feel more fair.
Schedule 1 really surprised me. I initially wrote it off as another boring simulator game, but after hearing so mych good press about it, i convinced a friend to pick it up with me. the loop is very enjoyable and involved, and you are actually doing everything, its not abstracted by a menu like most sim games i see. It's really a blast with friends and there are lots of fun little systems to find in game finding the clothes and tattoo shop led to some fun moments and decent personalization. We have been weed maxxing in game, we have a really good setup to divy up labor and keep things from getting too overwhelming. Next time we play we are gonna try and get that almost fully automated and move to the next drug up. Definitely up there as one of the best surprises of the year so far.
Same! I genuinely thought, "This is so ugly that there can't possibly be that much going on but I'll give it a try..." and it is sincerely super fun and has so much content! Recycling, very concerning mix-ins, a skateboard, etc.
I'm curious about how you're automating things - do you mean with the 2nd tier mixing machine or something else? I have the 2nd tier packing machine but it's still rather slow with the amount of product I'm trying to move.
Well we have three of us, so i grow and harvest, one of us mixes and packs, and one of us deals. It definitely speeds up the process. But the automation comes from talking to the fella upstairs in the Night Market. The game eventually directs you there, but if you go to the warehouse behind the pawn shop after 6pm, you can get some more illicit goods as well as hire employees.
There a couple different types that have different tasks split amongst them, increasing in price as you move up the job types. A cleaner for trash, someone who just moves things from point A to point B and packs for you, an herbalist who will do a lot of the basic weed process for you, and a chemist who will do mixing as well as later game drug production from the sounds of it. They all have a sign on cost, and then need to be paid daily to work, the highest being the chemist at 300 cash a day. You can seemingly get granular with the automation for them, my buddy was the one doing it but you can assign them shelves and workstations and they'll just do their thing. Combine that with the dealers and theoretically you can just automate the entire business from top to bottom, only needing to collect the profit and pay your employess.
They do have drawbacks though. Obviously the startup cost here is going to be steep, so you need significant capital already, and dealers take a 20% cut and the employees eat into your revenue as well, so its something we have been putting a lot of money away for. They also need a bed to sleep at on site, which makes space limitations even more challenging. And on top of that, they are just slower than you by default, at the trade off of keeping things moving while you progress further in the game. But if you are playing solo, maybe getting someone to help you pack might be worth it, and relying on dealers more to move product while you keep producing. Or vice versa, the game is kind of freeform on what it lets you do as you scale up which i really appreciate.
I made a post about how bad I am at Kingdom Come: Deliverance and while I waited for the jury to decide if I should cut my losses, I got sucked into the Batman: Arkham series which was too cheap to pass up. I crushed Arkham City and now I'm on to Arkham Knight, which I really enjoy. After getting dominated at every turn, its refreshing to fly into a group of bad guys and just whoop ass by smashing buttons.
If you like those Batman games, definitely check out Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War for the same style of whoop-ass combat but with orcs because they're set in Middle Earth.
Lately the game I keep coming back to and putting a lot of time in is Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix. I played the original PS2 release of the game quite a bit as a kid, beating the game multiple times. It was flashy and fun and the combat didnt take any real thought or effort, and it was fun to play games in disney movies i liked and hang with sora donald and goofy. After a recent ish replay of the original Kingdom Hearts, which i really fell in love with after finally learning the RPG systems i kind of ignored as a kid, im finally getting around to replaying the second, specifically on the Steam Deck. The one crucial difference of this replay and the whole reason im making this post, is that I decided to play through the game on Critical Mode.
For those unaware, Critical Mode is a new difficulty added in the Final Mix version of the game. Its positioned by the game as the hardest difficulty, handicapping your health by quite a lot, making enemies hit harder, and changing some movesets that bosses will throw at you. The juicy bit however, is that it ups your damage to compensate, and gives you a higher starting AP (ability points you allot to abilities that change how Sora plays) and a slew of attack and mobility abilities right at the start that really lets you hit the ground running. Instead of being slow and weak, you are a force to be reckoned with right off the bat, fast and agile. If you know the combo system well, you can shred bosses really fast and finish enemy encounters quick. The enemies hit hard though, and you have so little health its often just one or two hits until you are down for the count. This results in high intensity combat where mistakes are often fatal but rewards skill with satisfying lethality. You are forced to block or really focus on dodging to stay out of harms way, which is something bordernline unnecessary on standard. You have to be agressive but act with intent, keep your combo's flowing but know when to pull out. It makes the combat so engaging and forces you to actually earn it, while reaction commands become a powerful boon to be used carefully as some can leave you open and lead to a quick demise. Parrying is actually useful and can be game changing. All of these mechanics were fine to good on other difficulties, but it really feels like Critical gives you a reason and need to engage with them.
It has been a lot fun to fully engage with a childhood classic in a new light. It also helps i tend to really enjoy high lethality difficulties in games and for the most part dont get too frustrated with repeat deaths. I really love when game devs add things like this, difficulties or modes that significantly change the experience and let you see the game in new eyes.
Eternal Strands just dropped their first free DLC with a new epic monster, map, and some quality of life features - so I’ll likely pick it back up for a few hours to play through it.
I've played and finished Promise Mascot Agency. A game that is a weird blend of GTA, Yakuza, and some inventory management games.
Once it clicks for you, you'll be hooked on it. I absolutely loved it. And now I'm sad it's over.
Apart from that, I'm dancing between The Last of Us: Part 2, God of War: Ragnarok, and Red Dead Redemption, but not really sticking with either of them. Man, I miss Promise Mascot Agency.
Yakuza comparisons and inventory management is an instant pull for me, and the game seems super interesting. Thanks for the rec, will hopefully pick it up soon.
Sailwind, a trade/delivery game based around a sailing simulator. You start off on a small island with a dhow, some food and water, a compass, a basic map and instructions on how to operate the dhow. There you can pick up goods for delivery in exchange for money. After gaining enough reputation you can also just buy goods and sell them for profit on other islands. Eventually I think you can get other boats.
It's been in my wishlist for a while because I like the concept but I wasn't too sure I'd actually enjoy it in practice, but every trip I've made in this game has been interesting, if not for being particularly eventful at least for the sailing mechanics. I haven't actually sailed since I was a kid, so take this with a grain of salt, but the simulation aspect of it is great. You have to take care how you load your boat, how you approach waves in high seas, leeway.
I'm doing navigation by sight and compass for now which works well enough for my short trips, but you can buy a quadrant and a nautical chart to do navigation by stars and sun. There's also a solar compass and a chronometer which will enable even more precise navigation. The use of all these tools is entirely manual.
Strongly recommended if it sounds at all interesting to you.
I just beat Silent Hill 1 (PSX) and 2 (PS2) on my steam deck and am now playing through 3. They're really fun, lots of puzzles and maze exploration. Highly recommend.
I started a new Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy playthrough after a few months because i didn't have the time and it was an incredible choice. It does feels more like watching a blockbuster than playing a game though. The gameplay can drag, especially early on (mostly spamming simple attacks until everything dies and pretty basic platforming) but the real highlight is the story. The character interactions, branching dialogue choices, and cinematic cutscenes are fantastic. If you're here for a casual game, the Guardians' banter, plot twists, and the feeling that your decisions actually matter, it nails it!