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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.
I actually started Death Stranding last week. I felt like another adventure game and it seemed like a good time to start, when people are hyped for 2. This also means by the time I beat it and then take a little break, 2 might be on sale. I actually really like the base gameplay loop. I like walking (or driving now that I just got the reverse trike charged) and balancing your packages and making deliveries. I also am really enjoying the story and lore so far, it's gripping me in a way I didn't expect and I'm excited to find out more about the Death Stranding, BB's, etc.
My main complaint, and it's a big one that actually had me stop playing out of frustration over the weekend, is the amount of fucking handholding, extremely large tutorial boxes, repeated info dumping, and endless phone calls from NPCs. I've "played" for 4 or 5 hours and I don't think I've had 10 minutes of uninterrupted gameplay yet. I don't mind cutscenes interrupting me at all, but I cannot stand how the game won't let me just play in silence and vibe for even just a few minutes. I've been told this gets better, but it was truly one of the worst gaming experience I've ever had.
I delivered a package to an outpost and in addition to a cutscene had to sit through 10 minutes of non-cutscenes but not gameplay of NPCs just making my phone go off with that annoying noise to tell me tips on how to do things I already figured out, such as accessing the terminal in the private room to read lore. Then 10 minutes later when I encountered my first MULE camp, someone called me THREE TIMES to tell me information that was ALREADY IN THE LORE TAB THEY TOLD ME TO READ ABOUT THE MULE CAMPS. It's to the point where if I hear my stupid phone ring in game that I legitimately just set down my controller and go take a break because I don't think any of the phone calls have been useful in the slightest.
I very much hope it isn't like that for the rest of the game because I can't take 5 more hours of it, much less 40 more hours. I just want to get to the part of the game where it lets me do my own thing and then watch cool cutscenes.
The highlight of my week, though, was going to Starcade in St Paul, MN. It was a $20 entry fee and all the game were on free play and they had hundreds of arcade machines. I was there for 3 hours and honestly could have been there for 6. I'm definitely going back and I hope that arcades stay popular, it's still an incredible experience even when I "could" play all those games at home. Between Starcade and LITT Pinball, there are now a couple good places I can go to play games around here. We also have Up Down, but that place is a zoo most of the time.
I have finished AI: The Somnium Files.
Notwithstanding my issues with the gameplay (detailed in last week's post), I was pretty satisfied with the story, subject to a couple of caveats:
Although the game is about investigating murders as a detective, it's definitely more of a sci-fi thriller than a classic 'whodunnit' mystery. The gameplay loop is along the following lines:
A murder occurs. You get out there, investigate the crime and find some people who look suspicious.
You drag one of those people back to police HQ and look inside their dreams, uncovering some potential leads.
You investigate the further leads, but everyone you speak to knows nothing / is stonewalling you / is lying to you / is under a misapprehension themselves and you don't end up solving the murder.
While you're doing the above, another murder occurs and you go back to step 1, but now with +1 murders to solve.
Therefore, there's no gradual resolution of the mysteries throughout the game, and it isn't until nearly the end of the game that the truth is revealed all at once (at which point, to the game's credit, it takes a lot of care to spoonfeed the very convoluted answer to you).
The other thing - and there's really no way to say this without it sounding like I'm making it up - is that in almost all of the action scenes involving combat, the writer has the protagonist read porn magazines to motivate him to fight better, as well as throw them to distract his opponents.
Now to be clear, although this is a dark story with a lot of gruesome murders, the game does have a silly sense of humour and the characters often joke with each other in contexts where that would be natural, which is totally fine. The problem with this particular gag is that it's dropped into serious scenes where it's out of place (usually grave situations where lives are in danger) and turns them all into slapstick farces. Even worse, these scenes are often right next to completely straightfaced scenes where characters are having a serious emotional moment, leaving the player with tonal whiplash. It's just an absolutely baffling decision for an otherwise pretty well written character.
I'm now playing AI: The Somnium Files 2, the second game in the series.
So far, it's an improvement on the first game in all respects:
The new story, focusing on a secret society which believes reality is a simulation and a mysterious ARG, is genuinely interesting and feels like it ties into the whole dreams vs reality vs perception theme of the series much better than the story in the first game.
Probably the biggest gameplay change is that the game now has proper investigation parts where you go over the crime scene, search for clues and then put them together to work out how each of the crimes were committed. It's not particularly deep, but it's entertaining and you don't have to wait for the big reveal at the end to play detective.
The dream investigation sequences are back too, but they're now better at signposting what your next goal is and also now gradually reveal the 'rules' for the dream world to give the player hints on how to progress. These are still my least favourite part of the game since the dream logic is alive and well and you're still punished for picking the wrong option in the many cases where you haven't yet uncovered enough of the dream rules to deduce the right choice, but they're usually less frustrating than in the first game. There are also a few specific dreams which remix the gameplay into a different genre entirely (e.g. a witness who likes quizzes might dream of a quiz show) and these do tend to be pretty fun.
I've finished the first of the two main storylines so far and find myself pretty invested in seeing the mysteries set up so far answered.
Ooh, glad I caught this! AI: The Somnium Files is one of my favorite games of all-time, so I love seeing people's thoughts on it.
I'd say it's still overall a whodunnit. I went in mostly blind, but got the sense pretty quickly it was all about a very specific case rather than a series of mysteries, and a very complex one at that. So I knew that the resolutions would come all at once. For me, the fun came from trying to figure out just how everything revealed in each route and ending would connect. We got all sorts of puzzle pieces in each route, but had no clue what the picture on the box looked like so we had to piece them together blindly.
There were times where I thought I figured something out, only to be totally thrown by some new detail, and I loved it. I was literally kept guessing until the very end in the best way. I'm a sucker for complex narratives with truly grand reveals, especially when they're done well, and my mind was seriously blown by how everything was revealed and tied together at the end.
Regarding the humor, it can be more of a hit with some people than others, to the point I feel the need to warn people that it's a very "anime game" when recommending it. I grew up watching lots of anime and manga and am used to the sort of humor used in the game, particularly the pervert archetype, and I found those scenes fun. I consider Date's character to be good execution of that archetype since it's used to poke fun at his expense rather than have him harass people, with Aiba weaponizing that trait. I don't think it was in every action scene, but yeah, it was definitely prominent. I genuinely cackled at the scene outside the Marble, and recorded it on my Switch with the screenshot button. Overall the humor felt balanced to me, but again, I'm used to anime humor.
Though that said, I have a question: in Mizuki's Somnium at the beginning, which choice did you make first? Branch A or Branch B?
Spoilers for the game, and also VERY long ramble
Mizuki's Somnium has the first major branch in the storyline. All further routes are based on those two branches. In Branch A, Mizuki regains her voice and gives her testimony so Date can continue his investigation, and that spurs a chain of events that has you find Renju's corpse in the next chapter. In Branch B though, Date sees what looks like Iris's corpse in her Somnium, which spurs him to investigate and visit Iris.
The first time around I ended up going for Branch B first. And that branch is rife with anime tropes and humor. Part of it is Iris setting the tone with her conspiracies, but Date's also generally just a laidback guy. He's a bit of a goofball, with a sharp sense of humor and lots of snarky remarks. He does know when to get serious when it counts, and we see that plenty in this branch, but... Well, this branch also has the scene I mentioned above. And looking at the wiki's list of branches, that happened before she convinced Date about the conspiracy with Naixatloz, so it was before things got really crazy.
But Branch A? The tone is very different because Date found Renju's corpse. Renju was Date's best friend, and his murder hits him HARD.
When I played through the B Branch, I'd select everything in the background to get bits of dialogue from Date and Aiba because one of them always had a special remark for the first glance. Part of it was for completionist's sake, the other part was because I liked this glimpse at their characters and dynamic. The first thing I'd do whenever I entered a location was click everything I could, just in case talking to the characters would progress the scene enough to change and lock me out of further flavor text. I especially had fun doing it in Boss's office because I'm pretty sure different objects would be selectable in different visits, and she has a LOT of stuff there.
I think that's why the tone change really stuck out to me. The very first scene after finding Renju's body is in her office, and... nothing. No extra comments on anything. Date was much more serious and focused, he was single-mindedly focused on finding who killed his best friend. I remember he loosened up a bit as the branch continued and split further, but the way I see it? Branch B is Date's regular personality, while Branch A, particularly at the start, is him in Serious Mode.
Ever since then, I've wondered how different the experience is for someone who played Branch A first, hence me asking. Looking back, it's kind of a fluke I went with Branch B first. I'd played the demo and initially chose the first option that would unlock Branch A, but after getting the full game I went with the other option to see what would happen. For me, that made Branch A hit harder because while Branch B could be pretty serious, it was also far more humorous and zany. Branch A had far more murders and death, and the routes had very serious themes/plots. Hell, after finishing the game, all the endings of that branch gain an extra layer of horror based on the big revelations in the true ending. (Fun fact: the Ota Route? Boss is dead in that last chapter.)
So if you experience all of Branch A first—going through the hostage situation, then Ota's route (with the revelation about his dad dying from overwork and his mom's dementia, great thing to explore with the Somniums) and Mizuki's route (exploring their dynamic and their shared grief over Renju's death, and Date nearly dying in front of Mizuki)? I think that would likely make the events with Iris in Branch B, and Date's overall much more laidback and goofy attitude, feel even more silly and ridiculous in comparison.
Also, not fully related but I just want to say: holy shit the Annihilation Route is one of the most disturbing things I've seen in fiction. A true pyrrhic victory, everyone died and the survivors would be left with severe trauma. I still get chills thinking back to that interrogation with Saito in Boss's body, how he talked about dismembering his dad's body and specifically called the pieces "the meat" when describing shoving them into vases. Just, one of the best villains I've seen in fiction, a genuine psychopath in the most literal, clinical sense of the word.
Yeah, all that talk makes me want to replay this. I really love how much thought went into the story.
I played the sequel too, and also had a blast with it. I didn't find that one quite as complex and satisfying as the original, but then, the original set the bar pretty high. The grand climax couldn't use the same general meta-twists that the original used, which was part of what made the original's grand reveals so terrific. I also have some other gripes that I won't mention because of spoilers, and I think many people feel similarly. In spite of that though, I still had a lot of fun with it. I definitely enjoyed being able to explore the crime scenes more in the investigation mode (it's fun to just be able to walk), and the Somniums were also more entertaining for the reasons you mentioned.
So yeah, I hope you enjoy the second one!
Yeah, I can definitely see this perspective too, and the game definitely does reveal clues (albeit sometimes misleading ones) as you progress through the routes. I think what ultimately puts me on the other side is that
Spoilers for the ending
until the game reveals near the end that you can use the Psync device to swap bodies - something which until that point the player naturally believes is impossible - the player is not able to form a logical thesis for all of the murders. Even where it can be shown that someone had the opportunity to commit the murder (the murder at the maid cafe in particular comes to mind, since it could be proven down to the culprit's weight), there's no plausible motive. Conversely, as soon as the twist is revealed, a lot of it (particularly Date's true identity) immediately becomes solvable.Definitely. I also watch a lot of anime, came to the game after playing Zero Escape and played through it in Japanese language, so I was well primed for the Uchikoshi style of humour and in general I thought it came off pretty well. I think this gag in particular would have worked fine if it was just in that one Marble scene, but it really felt out of place to me to use it repeatedly in more serious scenes with higher stakes like
Spoilers for other scenes
the rescue attempt for Iris when her life is at stake, or the assault on Sejima's mansion when Date has essentially defied orders and gone rouge.The obvious contrast for me is to Sigma's quirk about cats in Zero Escape, which is a running gag used in quite a few scenes, but never in any of his serious scenes.
That said, it doesn't ruin the game for me by any means (even if they do insist on sticking with it when Date turns up for action scenes in the second game).
I played branch B first and cleared that whole side before playing branch A. I think you're spot on - Branch A is definitely darker and I would say probably closer to the sort of story I had envisioned it being when I started playing.
I also click everything just to make sure I don't miss any of the dumb banter!
I think this is the sort of thing Uchikoshi really excels at as a writer. There are so many cool interlinked ideas like
Spoilers for other plot elements
the title AI referring to Artificial Intelligence, the Japanese word for 'love', the English word 'eye', 'Iris' (the person and the flower) and 'Hitomi' and of course all the associations from there to the Egyptian mythology around Horus, the artificial eye, the missing eyes on the victims and so on... I also got a kick out of Date's real name being Yagyuu - a twofer reference to the one-eyed Date Masamune and Yagyuu Jyuubei.It's enjoyable enough that I'm willing to cut them some slack even if it doesn't all gel together perfectly in the final product.
Still playing Blue Prince though by now I’m reasonably sure I’m about 99% done. Without spoilers, the two major puzzles I need to solve are ones I can, well, ruminate on outside of the game, and I don’t really know what the implication-slash-consequence of either would be in-game. Oh, and the Observatory. IYKYK.
Not really sure what I’m going to do with my free time after this! 😅
I just finished two particularly obvious post game puzzles, and am aware of at least 3 more I think (possibly some overlap).
Game really is a fantastic masterpiece. I've no idea how they laid this all out so cleanly.
I was going to write a bunch of spoiler-tagged things, but markdown apparently doesn’t work with spoiler tags the way I anticipated (the discord
|| spoiler here ||method) so I’ve deleted the section because the idea of a single dropdown full of spoilers was a little too much I wanted to put, in case.Anyway.
This game is legitimately a masterpiece. I’ve never in my life come across a work so perfectly realized within itself, refined to the point that this game is, absolutely wholly true to its own vision, worldbuilding, lore, and internal logic. It’s absolutely breathtaking sometimes, thinking of the sheer work and dedication.
This week we played the Hades-meets-Smash-Brothers action platformer Spiritfall for our podcast on roguelike games
Overall: we really enjoyed this one. It finally felt like I was the Smash pro of the neighborhood instead of being that kid that got wavedashed on all the time lol. Spiritfall really does a good job of blending elements from Hades' god boon selection and synergy system with the combat style of Smash, but with some unique twists.
It's probably a good sign that I'm thirsty for more of it, as right now it kind of feels like the Smash 64 equivalent to that particular series. If a Smash Melee version of Spiritfall came out, man would that be an amazing game. It's already really good, but with some minor tweaks here and there it could be on par with Hades IMO.
I’m glad to hear good things about it!! Will have to listen to the episode. This game has always piqued my interest but I just wasn’t sure if it had been executed well.
Minimap is the feature I wanted most in Expedition 33! I kept finding myself getting turned around after finishing fights, then getting lost going the wrong way.
I think it could be a good option to include, default off but let people turn it on. I liked playing without one as I generally don't like UI clutter and it feels appropriate for the setting.
I liked not having it, because it was more immersive…but now after beating the game and trying to revisit some areas I wanted to come back to, I wish I could have a minimap or have been able to add pins as a “come back to this”.
I think it could maybe have worked well & still met the developer vision if they had a minimal similar to Elden Ring’s that only gets updated from “Fog of War” when you find a fragment.
If they had done something like that with the expedition journals, where finding them would allow access to a map of that area, or where maps of an area are unlocked after you first “exit” the area, I think that could’ve maybe worked. But I do understand why they didn’t want to include a minimap.
That would be ideal, yeah
I finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 a few days ago. It was fantastic. I played it on story difficulty, which was good because I lack skills to get the parry timing down. I'm very much looking forward to whatever Sandfall does next.
I then started playing Metaphor ReFantazio. I played Personas 3, 4, and 5 over the past year, so I kinda know what to expect from an Atlus game. This is a bit different though, not the least because it doesn't revolve around a Japanese high school, instead taking more of a traditional fantasy-setting. I'm only about three hours in, but enjoying it a lot so far.
I played Epigraph with a couple friends. It's a short single-developer game about translating an ancient language from a set of seven ancient artifacts and a short letter with a couple of clues. How long it takes to beat can depend wildly; we did it justy shy of 9 hours.
If you played a game like Chants of Senaar and were a little disappointed by how easy the actual translation component was, this is the game for you. You will need to work out a language's full phonetic alphabet and number system, details about grammar and syntax and the meanings of several words. There is absolutely no help - one of the artifacts is a code box with twelve dials (for nine letters and three numbers), and once you get that combination right you "win" the game. You also get an extra achievement once you got all the words and letters just right (you can otherwise get away with a few mistakes and unknowns).
I thought the progression in the game was fairly well designed. At no point did it ever feel frustrating, although it requires some patience since some things may take a bit of experimentation or thinking things through before they click. There is no "OK, we're going to confirm this for you now" mechanic a la Chants of Senaar - in fact the game is very lacking in responsiveness. I didn't want my hand held, so that part was good, but in the end game it was hard to tell what was wrong (or when it wasn't); you might miss the tooling in Heaven's Vault. Both Chants and Vault also did have much better "flavor", world building and style of course! Amusingly, Chants, with its several writing systems, also had more room to introduce a variety of linguistic concepts that spice things up in a way Epigraph's limited language never does, like varying glyph design (including radicals), how culture affects the language, different ways to express negation and plural, etc. Conversely, there's no stealth sections here - it's just you and the artifacts.
Epigraph was sorely lacking in UI polish, as it forced you to play in an extremely dark environment. Zoom controls were limited - you can zoom out but can't get too close for some reason, which can make reading difficult. You can assign meanings to words and letters, and letter meanings are replicated everywhere, which is nice, but there was no place for notes, including meaning notes for entire sentences. You can't edit the meaning fields; you need to fully re-type them. Still, it was extremely cheap! If this type of game is your thing, give it a try!
Previous
I played it a while ago (also "co-op"). Some of the solution path was nice, but in the end we were pretty disappointed (I can't say how without spoilers).
spoilers:
We liked the first thing you have to solve: with the vowel/dissonant pairs. But then the number solution was a basic sum puzzle, which was bad enough, but then the last 2 digits you got but counting stars on a document or something. Neither made any sense in the context of a Rosetta stone. The main text (the 2nd stone?) was basically a literal mapping from the one language to the other. We really expected the translation to be way more lose.
I really like the idea of the game, but I would have liked / expected something different.
Click to expand spoiler.
You're right that this part felt more videogamey, but honestly it's a pretty clever way to convey your digits to a future civilization. Mathematics are universal after all!
I don't know anything about counting stars. We had two possibilities for 2 vs 3, so we just tried them both!
I'm not sure I agree. There are clear differences in syntax, which word classes are used (or not), etc. It took us a while to get it right (while we made progress on the other artifacts).
If anything, I'm more disappointed in the internal structure of the words themselves. For example, in a language that marks plurality independently from words themselves, it's weird that "we" and "our" are completely distinct (no shared syllable) non-plural words despite their length. "Not" is also strange; too long and unwieldy. That's a word that's usually short in every language I know. So much so that we at first thought the "and" word might be the "not".
I understand from the developer's release history that his expertise lies more in the field of cryptography rather than linguistics...
Deathloop was free on Epic a little while ago, so I nabbed it. Started playing it this weekend. Based on what little I knew about it, I was hoping for some kind of cross between Outer Wilds and Bioshock. The gameplay's not really for me--I suck at stealth and twitch gaming, and the difficulty scaling was too much for me to enjoy. I loaded up a trainer and cheated for a bit, thinking I still wanted to see the "story" through to the end, but I'm not feeling like there's enough meat on those bones so I might be done with it.
I picked it up at the same time and it took me a bit to get the vibe of the game. It clicked for me once I realized that for a lot of the game you aren't really trying to beat in in the traditional way. It's about exploring the island and figuring out the interactions between different characters locations and timelines.
If game play is difficult now, it gets a lot easier once you fet the ability to keep some equipment from loop to loop and start getting some extra slab powers.
A big game changer for me was finding a decent silenced weapon. There's a a silenced sub machine gun in one of those mini labs in the rocky area. The one with a bunch of laser alarms. Once you have that you can easily take out enemies without getting the whole level after you and it gets much easier to move around.
Been mainly playing Elden Ring Nightreign. Almost got all the Achievements for that game, only missing 4 (one of which is the "Get all achievements" achievement, so in a way only 3).
It's been really fun, even with Randoms. I do enjoy the gameplay loop, though I wouldn't mind a bit more variety with points of interest on the map.
My favorite Characters so far are the Recluse, because I enjoy being a mage and the Ironeye, because I like Archers. I did get a win with each of the characters though.
I've also gone back to normal Elden Ring, doing a run inspired by the Recluse. Going Int/Fth and only using Scorceries and Incantations. It's been somehwat challenging to be honest. I'm used to having some form of meele weapon, even as a mage, just in case I run out of FP, but not this time. I got through Stormveil just fine, by just subjecting everything to Carian Slicer until it fell over. Didn't do that for Raya Lucaria, because everything there is Magic resistant, but in the end, Lightning spear and Discus of Light did the job. Well I did have to pull out my spear to finish of Renalla, because I ran out of FP and didn't want to restart.
I’m playing the original Oblivion, first play through and been at it for about two weeks now.
I want to say it’s at a weird spot between Morrowind and Skyrim (it literally is lol). While I appreciate the modern map markers, I can’t help but miss Morrowind the whole time.
While Oblivion is an enjoyable game, I encountered my first bug with the Slaughterfish quest. Fortunately it fixed itself when I decided to check again after a few weeks of in game time.
But now my trust is broken. There’s this constant doubt in my mind that the game may bug again. There’s been a few random crashes too so I Quicksave frequently.
As a low level, I explored a Fort on the way to Chorrol on default difficulty. My goodness the goblins were damage sponges! Traumatized me from venturing into Forts and caves for a while. I also finished the Arena quest line on default difficulty!
Then as I was on the road and had trouble with a sponge of a bear, a patrolling Imperial Guard rushed to my aid and killed the bear with three slashes. That was when I realized I need to dial the difficulty down to be more realistic. Arena Champion that can’t kill a bear, where’s the logic in that? Then there’s also a comment I came across in an old thread: “There’s no shame in reducing difficulty in Oblivion.”
(The melee leveling bug is fixed in Oblivion Remastered.)
I watched some clips of Oblivion Remastered in YouTube, honestly I much prefer the aesthetic of the original!
Anyway I made it into the Arcane University and is finally able to craft my own spells and do enchantments. This is the reason I missed Morrowind so much, this crucial feature wasn’t locked behind a string of quests! I also loved how every Morrowind town and cities have their own unique architecture.
Oblivion introduced leveled enemies (Morrowind had tha too, but not to that extent). You can make the game really hard by making certain choices when picking major skills. Or you can make the game really easy the same way.
There are also some wuests that become harder the longer (higher level) you go for them. And then there is one that is easier and harder based on the remain of your level divided by 4. I'm not kidding!
Original Oblivion is a really a strange game, but I loved it back in the day and that love extends to today. I still like the original one and I personally I don't get why they remastered it. It is not that dated.
Yeah, I’m so grateful I consulted discussion threads before creating a character because I simply don’t have the luxury of time to remake after mistakes. Went with a custom Spellblade Breton.
The build is fine, especially now that I have a Glass Sword, but it was tough up till then as I was using a rare iron blade that was lighter than usual. Couldn’t upgrade from it for a long time because the weight penalty cannot justify the tiny damage increase.
I read that in Morrowind it gets easier as we basically get unlimited stats. However in Oblivion the stats are capped at 100 except for Acrobatics and Athletics. Btw, The Boots of Blinding Speed is my favourite equip in Morrowind lol!
The unique quest criterias sounds creative! Can’t wait to encounter them. Right now I’m about to do Azura’s quest for the Star, for unlimited best quality enchanting. Btw, I’ve been avoiding the main quest because I don’t want to trigger Oblivion gates haha.
I agree with you that Oblivion is a strange game. Never felt this way when playing Morrowind or Skyrim. It’s endearing though and I can easily get lost in it for hours.
When I watched clips of Oblivion Remastered, it felt like Skyrim cosplaying as Oblivion. Original Oblivion has that special spark that the Remaster lacks!
Hopefully you picked skills not relevant to being a spellblade. In case you didn't know, there's some quirks with Oblivion level scaling where if you level up too quickly without increasing your combat abilities you'll end up making them game progressively harder for yourself. The best way around this is to choose skills you won't use often as your major skills to control your level ups after you've increased your combat skills.
You also want to max endurance as soon as possible, as the health bonuses are not retroactive. And you're also going to hit the crazy HP scaling on level 25+ where enemies just become giant health sponges.
I enjoyed the remaster quite a bit actually. It fixes the above problems but because it's the same game engine running the game it's still same old janky Oblivion under the hood.
Think I got the build from an old Gamefaqs comment. Basically followed it to a T. I was wondering why a Spellblade would need Illusion as a main trait lol.
I’m aware of the leveling quirk with Oblivion. And yeah the comment also mentioned to level up Endurance and Luck every time, with the remaining stat to player preference. For me that’s either Strength or Willpower depending on bonus stats during that level up.
Ugh I’m level 20 now and just starting to be comfortable, definitely didn’t know about the crazy enemy HP scaling at 25+! Hopefully reducing the difficulty slider will help because I don’t fancy installing mods. Even my Skyrim last time was pure vanilla haha.
I've been playing RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army!
It's an action-RPG take on the 'Shin Megami Tensei' series. For those unfamiliar, SMT is an RPG series about taming 'demons' - which is a broader label including gods, deities, yokai, cryptids, and many other mythological identities - as well as fusing them to make new demons, and fighting alongside them in battles.
The Raidou series is different in that, unlike SMT and Persona, it's not turn-based, but instead, fully an action-RPG. Battles take place in a small arena, where (in this game) you fight alongside two summoned demons. Raidou himself has a variety of combat skills, so he can strike the various elemental weaknesses of enemies or take on a more supportive role. The action-RPG gameplay is executed extremely well, and from what I've heard, the remaster improves IMMENSELY on the original game. Raidou has a lot of fun options in his toolkit, and it just feels extremely satisfying building up combos, timing perfect dodges, and so on. There are three branches of weapon you can equip (sword-type, spear-type, axe-type), and they each have their own unique feel in combat. The demons you summon handle themselves, and their AI seems quite good. But you can always pause the game and issue commands directly if you feel the need to.
Plot-wise, it's really fun! Set in the year 'Taisho 20' of the Japanese calendar (1931, in Julian) the titular Raidou Kuzunoha XIV is the latest in a line of Devil Summoners charged by the organization Yatagarasu to defend Japan's capital, Tokyo, against supernatural threats. Assigned to work under Narumi, a private detective who specializes in cases involving demons, the two of them become embroiled in a national conspiracy when they investigate the kidnapping of a young woman.
The historic fiction is great fun, and reminds me of the Shadow Hearts series, which I also really enjoyed. Unlike the globe-trotting in Shadow Hearts, though, it's solely focused on Tokyo. The plot focuses on the conflicts and stresses caused by the modernization of Japan, which is quite interesting to learn about. But it's also a very goofy and fun adventure, channeling period pulp two-fisted tales. In the cutscene that kicks off after the 1st 'episode' of the game, you get a glimpse of what is to come, which includes naval destroyers that transform into giant robots, a magitech death-beam satellite, Rasputin, and more. LOVE IT.
For anyone looking for a fun action-RPG experience, who likes collecting and leveling up and fusing monsters, I can't recommend the game enough! Really hoping they remaster the second game to this level of quality as well, and heck, that we get a NEW Raidou as well, which would be a dream come true!
I am still working my way through all the PlayStation exclusive games that are available on my Steam Deck. So far, I've made my way through (and enjoyed) Spiderman, Uncharted 4, Last of Us 1 & 2, and MGS Phantom Pain. I dabbled in God of War, but haven't been in the mood for it for some reason.
Lately, I've been "playing" Detroit: Becoming Human. I've never played anything like it before. It's basically a choose your own adventure movie that requires a few extra buttons presses here and there. I got really sucked in on my first playthrough, but now that I'm going back to see some of the different outcomes, I'm starting to see some of the flaws in the story telling. Not that it's bad, it's just a little on the nose at times. Overall, it's really good. I still can't believe I let the allure of Xbox's game pass pull me away from so many great games.
I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Heavy Rain also has similar feelings but totally different story. Quantum Break is worthwhile as well
Mario Kart World
I'm late on this, but for good reason. The week of the Switdh 2 launch, I went on a long trip across the globe to watch my nephew graduate HS. Walmart also cancelled my order and support didn't help at all. But they do appreciate me being a Walmart+ member. Thankfully my buddy got 2 and sold me one for retail price.
Anyways, I got back this weekend and finally tried it out last night. MK is one of my favorite franchises. Top 5 easy. I'd say I'm pretty good in a competitive sense.
My first thought is that the drifting is wild. The jump seems to go farther and the turn is sharper. It's a huge change for me. In all the previous games, doing consecutive short drift bursts is best way to drift. So that seems to be out in World.
The jump charge is interesting. Beyond the rail grinding and wall riding, I'm sure that can be used for a lot more. I'm getting the hang of rail grinding, but bad at wall riding. Also need to practice jump charging onto either of those.
The food item and costume changes are fun, but I like to stick to default Mario.
I've only played the first two courses at 50cc. The DK level was the standout so far. The rally mode is really fun.
So right now, I'm really liking this game. I'm gonna take my time and just work through each CC, master the new mechanics, and courses.
I picked up The Alters, since it's free on game pass.
It bills itself as survival base-building with a heavy narrative component. The hook being that the protagonist has to pull in clones of himself from alternate universes which a key moment of his life branched off, giving that version of him a different life trajectory and different skillsets. For example, in one branch of his life, the protagonist chooses to get a job after university, rather than pursue a PhD. When he creates a clone that did pursue the PhD, that clone ends up being a scientist who can perform research to unlock new technologies.
As a survival base-builder, it's.. meh. As a narrative game, it's also.. meh. However, the game is fun and worth playing.
Overall, the game is fine. It looks nice. The presentation is great. Moving my character around the base and interacting with things feels good. Exploring the outside world feels good. The VFX, SFX and level design are all quality. Their decision to let players reorganize the base at any point is stellar. Building rooms and rearranging the base is super fun and satisfying.
The actual base management is a bit cumbersome. I have to manually assign each of my workers to a work station, and if that station ever runs out of tasks (which is quite common), I have to then manually assign them to a new work station. The developers made this task assignment easy to do remotely while exploring, but it's still tedious to have to do it. I want to be able to assign priorities to people, like tell the gardener "grow food at top priority, but if there's no need to grow more food, then cook food in the kitchen, and if there's no need to cook, then work in workshop..." etc. The current limitation of having to constantly manually reassign tasks is a big sore spot in an otherwise pretty slick game and interface.
However, the game makes one big decision that I think throws a big wrench into the pacing. The whole game is a series of timed quests, where you know neither the ultimate time limit, nor how many steps will ultimately be needed to complete each quest. The game is constantly reminding you that if you fail to complete the current timed quest, it's GAME OVER, but who knows how long you actually have! To be fair, the game does tell you when you have less than 10 days until a game over. That's nice, but ends up feeling pretty bad to me.
Moreover, the game is on a constant real-time timer. Each day is about 10 minutes long, and once its night-time, all you can do is go to sleep. This lends a strong desire to maximize the utility of every day. One bit of weirdness that this leads to, since just walking around the map drains precious daylight, and the game gives me a no-cost sprint button, I naturally just always sprint. This means I'm constantly holding down that shift key.
The bad thing about the timed quests it throws the pacing is off. The prologue and beginning of the first act are full of scripted sequences that lay out the story, teach the mechanics and set up the overall goals. It's well done. Every day or two in the prologue has you interacting with the cast. That sets up big expectations for how much dialogue and story I am expecting throughout the game. But that narrative quickly falls away to be replaced with soulless resource gathering. In between the big bookends of the acts, there's a huge dearth of story. Large swaths of time are just doing chores to get tons of metal or minerals to build some macguffin quest item that is used once and never mentioned again. The story elements are generally unsatisfying and don't provide me the motivation to slog through the daily grinds.
Those bookends between acts are very well done, though. I thoroughly enjoyed the Act 1 -> Act 2 segue.
Ultimately the game is a good one. It does a lot of things right, and it's worth a few hours to enjoy. The reconfigurable base is a cool feature. It could use a few quality of life automation features, and it definitely needs a better narrative.
I also just started this one because it was on gamepass. Not very far into it but your review here seems pretty spot on from what I've played so far. The base is fun and I wouldn't mind more customization. I still get value from gamepass I don't think I would have tried this one otherwise.
I was really enjoying the game despite having a couple of crash to desktop moments, but I've reached the end of act 2, and seem to be softlocked somehow because it shows me the scene at the end of the act, goes to black, plays a sound that might be the beginning of act 3, and then never continues to load. It leaves my GPU running at 95% but can't seem to continue. Does the same thing on both my PC and my Steam Deck, so it's probably not a hardware issue, I just wish I could continue playing!
So I picked up and started playing Nobody Wants to Die in the meantime, because I'm a sucker for both cyberpunk and noire genres. At least that's fun while I wait and hope for an update to The Alters so I can finish it.
I’ve been playing a ton of Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness on my Retroid Pocket Flip 2. The device is an absolute delight.
The writing for this entry is terrible and the game is a little janky (by more modern standards), but it’s a lot of fun. I just love the shadow Pokémon system even if it’s imperfect. I’m nearing the end and it’s reignited my interest in playing other Pokémon games. I’ve had an on and off again enjoyment of them (though mostly off), so I’m excited to try other titles. Probably Black and White is next if I can get DS emulation to work in a reasonable manner.
Ooh, glad you're having fun! The Shadow Pokémon system was one of the coolest concepts to come out of Pokémon, and Shadow Lugia's design in particular is just iconic. I wish they'd bring Shadow Pokémon back and return to Orre. XD and Colosseum are quite possibly my favorite Pokémon games, between the darker themes, awesome settings (Phenac City and The Under are among my favorite settings in any game), and featuring a story that doesn't center around collecting badges but still uses the regular battle mechanics of the mainline games.
On that note, the mainline games may not be quite as appealing to you depending on what you like about XD. But I'd have to say Black and White are probably the best choice. They get pretty dark and serious at points, and they also have just a lot of effort and care in practically every detail. I think the franchise peaked with Gen 5, since subsequent games have been... Well, I'll spare you my usual rants about rushed development.
Little tangent: I pre-ordered XD when it first came out, and I still have all the pre-order goodies. My GameCube still has the official skin on it so I can't look at it without thinking of that game. That also makes me realize how good preorder bonuses used to be, because today that stuff would be marketed as part of a collector's edition and have the price marked up.
Still playing Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. Took a break last week because I was volunteering at a camp and then we had a wedding, but I'm now pushing through the story and nearing the end. This may become the first Rune Factory game I actually finish, despite having played every single one. I still heavily enjoy the story and already think I might replay this one someday as the boy (it's honestly neat that the other protagonist is a character). I just wish that so many of the romances weren't locked to the late-game. Though I think I couldn't get married earlier anyway...
Also, got a ramble about getting physical goodies, and the temptations of DLC!
And also minor irritation at politics because that's actually, genuinely relevantRamble about physical goodies and DLC
Also, I got the accessory set on Friday! By which I mean physical goodies. It's all the goodies that come with the collector's edition. I originally ordered the collector's edition, but ended up canceling it because the collector's edition got delayed to, well, Friday, because of tariff BS. The options were to wait 15 days (and Friday was the wedding, which would cut into play time!), or order the game and accessories separately. There's a pretty folding fan that I will be very happily displaying in the near future after we (eventually) get me new bedroom furniture.But turns out that the digital DLC that would come with the collector's edition? Doesn't come with the accessory set. So now I'm sorely tempted to pay $10 for the DLC, because it has a couple new outfits and unlocks bonding quests with two of the characters... Which admittedly isn't much, but I would have gotten this DLC if I got the collector's edition like I originally planned. I think I kind of want to buy it out of spite because I SHOULD have had it, if not for Trump's tariff BS.
Maybe I'll use my remaining 366 gold points to chip away at it? Hmm...
Playing Paper Perjury, which is an Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright style game. I just started Case 4 of 5 and I'm about 10hrs in (as usual, some of the time is me just AFK; maybe like an hour or two), so it's pretty short compared to the AA games. But I'm enjoying it nonetheless.
Instead of playing as a defense attorney or prosecutor, you play as police detective. Or rather, clerk or assistant to the detectives. Though it seems the main character does all the work! The stories and characters aren't the most exciting, and certainly not as outlandish as AA, but they're interesting enough that I want to see it through to the end. The story is much more down to earth dealing with a charity corruption scandal. Hey, at least it's not murder like in every AA case! So many people die in the AA universe...
I do appreciate that Paper Perjury isn't trying to be like AA. Yes, it's the same genre. Yes, it plays similarly. And, yes, there are a few references to running gags in AA (such as step ladders vs ladders), but all-in-all, PP is its own thing. It has its own quips and humor. It takes place in its own world, and not "Japanifornia."
I'll likely finish it before the end of the week. So far, if I had to rate it, I'd give it a solid 4-4.5/5.
EDIT: I say there's no murder...literally 30sec after I wrote this comment, I went back to playing the game, and a murder appears to have occurred. Oh well, it is a crime mystery game after all!
Picked up Stellar Blade after Steam release and I honestly love it. Combat is fluid and satisfying, story is interesting, protagonist is beautiful, and while story is standard in broad strokes, still, dialogs are good and did not make me want to skip them, which is rare at least for me. This game perfectly scratch my itch to play player-friendly not-so-hard Dark Soul like game.
Apart from Stellar Blade still playing Trackmania and slowly collecting Silver medals on all tracks of the day. (I had some Gold and Author medals but mostly accidentally). Still struggling with ice and tech, but slo-o-owly get better. Never played against other players, because don't have time and don't love competition.
Stopped playing Idle Tale. Previous phone broke, so, I tried to start it again, but this time realization that this game is actually not idle at all killed all desires to continue.
I put Oblivion: Remastered on pause after encountering a game crashing bug when fighting the end-boss of the Shivering Isles DLC. I now have a save that immediately crashes on startup. I know I could load an older save and just abandon the questline but that just feels so shitty after spending so much time working through it. It's not just a me thing, seems a lot, maybe most, people have hit it since the 1.1 patch came out. So I'm waiting for a patch that fixes it.
Instead I've been playing Bloomtown. It's 2D Persona set in 1950s US. I'm most of the way through the game at this point and really loving it. There's a lot less time sensitivity compared to Persona which I enjoy and I actually really like the writing around the main group of characters, which is honestly rare for me. It has funny moments of darkness but "protects" the child characters from it. The gameplay is all pretty straightforward, more so than Persona, and the art style and music are great. It's just all around a wonderful little game that I'm going to miss when I finish.
After this I'll probably revisit some of my May games (unless Oblivion gets fucking fixed).
Marvel versus Capcom 2 (PC/Steam Deck)
Trying to gitgud. I can land the magic combo in training, working on executing against AI in the tutorial. I'm finding that fighting game training is very good for podcasts. I have a lot more tech to learn but this is the most I've enjoyed fighting games in a while.
The Punisher (1993) (Steam Deck):
This is also in the Marvel versus Capcom Arcade Fighting Collection. Started it last night on a whim and was surprised to beat it in an hour or so. It's a pretty straightforward beat-em up of the era. But it control quite well and has some great cinematics.
Skald: Against the Black Priory (Steam Deck)
I picked this up around the time I got my Steam Deck, only played it a little bit at the time. It's an Ultima inspired Western RPG that uses a 2d6 system. The storytelling is excellent and i really like the pixel art. The biggest complaint i have is that in dark settings it can be quite hard to read enemy sprites or distinguish my party members. But it really is scracthing a D&D-like storytelling itch.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PS5)
As I mentioned last week I'm trying to play the 3d Ninja Gaiden games before Ninja Gaiden 4 later this year. The combo system in this game is fun to engage with. I also really like how these games require committing to aggression. Occasionally I'll struggle with an encounter until I remember that I just need to control the tempo of the fight. It is also nice how stripped down this feels relative to modern games.
Skald is one of my favorite games of recent times. I picked it up during a trip last year and absolutely couldn't put it down until I finished it.
The little quest with the woman and children at the well really sold me on what the game is doing. Such a sick vignette. Did you have similar issues with sprite readability in dim light? Next time I play I'll see if I can boost the brightness a bit or maybe there are some game play options? At night/in cave I've had some enemies just blend in with the ground sprites so that I missed them.
I played entirely on Deck and I honestly don't recall any readability issues. I have a poor memory, so I may be wrong here, but I think a torch helps in the low light situations and I also recall doing a decent amount of sneaking, if I remember right, to scout ahead, so as not to be surprised by any encounters.
Mario Kart World, and I picked up Jedi Fallen Order for PS5 for $5 on a sale. I blew through that on a long weekend. I wasn't expecting "Dark Souls Light," going in blind, so that was a bit of a challenge. It also has some decent Tomb Raider reboot/Assassins Creed style climbing and parkour stuff. Overall, the gameplay was engaging and it reminds me of when I used to play Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy.
It feels like good old Expanded Universe stuff, even if it does connect a bit to some of the newer Disney stuff. Lightsabers feel weighty and vicious when you pull off parry combos, and the boss fights against other lightsaber wielders are nerve-wracking.
I have been getting back into the swing of WH40K: Darktide in preparation for the update/DLC that launches today.
I finally got my last class to 30, Ogryn. I'm not usually someone who enjoys playing the "big heavy class" trope that's found in a lot of games but I actually really enjoyed my time playing Ogryn. I went for a "Bullgryn" build with the slab shield and it's actually a lot of fun being a big dumb bully and in Darktide it changes the dynamic of the game quite a bit. Usually if I see a pack of 10 Maulers or Crushers I'd freak out a bit and have to regroup but the Bullgryn just doesn't care at all he's just a bigger Brute than pretty much anything that the game can throw at you. I'm pretty sure the only way I've died is trappers and dogs or when there's a flamer I can't get to from in the fray.
Peak!
Me and two of my best buds have been having a blast with this newly launched co op mountain climber that combines compelling stamina management with cute survival gameplay as we've been attempting to make it to the top of this mountain. I guess every day or few days, some of the mountain gets procedurally regenerated making it so you can't really master the landscape.
Aside from the funny moments of improvised drama, there is truly compelling gameplay moments to be had here. A jump towards a crevice, and a climb to the top that you might not make--it depends on how much stamina you have left over, and how wisely you saved it on your trek.
My friends went from playing Deep Rock like once a week to this game every day, it's a lot of fun