What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

I've been playing Hades 2 so much recently. As someone whose wrists physically hurt from playing so much Hades 1, Hades 2 absolutely lives up to the hype. The gameplay is so good. It's just as addictive with even more variety of things to do. I've put too many hours into this game so far and I'm thoroughly pleased

I finished RoboCop: Rogue City a week or two ago and since then, have just been playing Chrono Trigger for the CGA.

Much as I like Chrono Trigger, I'm a little afraid to start something else because I fear it'll take over the little game time I have and I won't end up actually finishing CT. Which I suppose is ok, but I am at least enjoying it enough at the moment that I want to continue.

Last post I make about Hollow Knight: Silksong in these threads (at least until the DLC drops), because I beat the game with 100% completion. What a trip this game was, and I have to keep the details scant because I would hate to spoil the events of Act 3 for anybody but man, Team Cherry really didn't hold back on their fans. I actually had a few encounters where I had to take a break out of exhaustion, but when I did come back refreshed I cleared it pretty quickly. That's a sign of good boss/encounter design right there, couldn't say the same for certain bosses in some FromSoft games (though to be fair I didn't take a break on pre-nerf Promised Consort, I just bashed my head on it for several hours straight). Still can't believe I only paid 20 dollars for that, feels like a crime.

I'm feeling a little hollow now (haha) after binging Hollow Knight for a month straight, and I'm just not all that interested in playing the latest and actually good release in the second most popular multiplayer FPS right now. Maybe I'll pick up where I left off in Kingdom Come Deliverance II, since I haven't beaten that yet nor touched the DLC content I paid for. I am looking forward to getting Arc Raiders when that releases on the 30th, and there's a server stress test for it this weekend that's open to everyone. The potential of a possibly mainstream extraction shooter is just too good to ignore, and no, Bungie's new Marathon does not count.

I'm about 15 hours into Ghost of Yotei now and it's just lovely. I'm loving the gameplay, the story, the world, and the characters. They got rid of many minor annoyances from Tsushima and the game is overall much smoother and more pleasant to play. Like Tsushima, this will likely be a game that I play for a few hours a week for months on end. It's sort of set up in a way where it's easy to boot up, do a few story beats, and come back the next week for the next "episode" in your adventure.

I also picked up Battlefield 6. My main complaint is that I wish there were more vehicle centric maps. There are three or four the scratch the itch (though none as large as the biggest maps in BF3 and BF4), but I'm sure more are coming in DLC. The other minor annoyance is that it seems like it will take a while to unlock certain gadgets, like C4 on recon requires a bunch of challenges. I've only played for 8 hours and pretty evenly across classes, though, so I can't really say how long the grind might be. However, most everything else I could say about the game is positive. It's smooth as hell, I've had zero network issues, the performance is great, the gunplay is fantastic, and some of the new gadgets are absurdly cool like the ladders that assault gets. I think it does a good job of feeling quite a bit like BF3 and BF4 while also being its own thing a bit. I'll definitely be playing this for a long while. It's good that this will be scratching my FPS itch as I played the Black Ops 7 beta last week and I was not impressed. It might be just the third call of duty game that I don't purchase (the only other two being Vanguard and Infinite Warfare).

I've been playing starfield recently and tbh I don't think it's as bad as people say it is. Is it as good as fallout 4 or Skyrim? No. But it's an ok game.

Started playing PokeMMO a week or so ago. Basically just an MMO version of the GBA/DS Pokemon games. It's neat seeing other players on screen doing stuff, and the game has some increased difficulty and the encounter tables have changed a bit. But that's about it? I don't have any interest in PVP, the buy/sell pokemon feature is a mess...so many Magikarp...and it feels over-powered and against the spirit of the early-to-mid game. Plus you can filter the pokemon list by just about anything but type? Which is annoying.

But all the same I'll keep on playing because it's interesting enough that it's getting me through yet another play of Fire Red.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Not an actual remake.

• The need to stretch what was originally around 15% of the original story into its own full story with a proper arc, along with its outright abridgement in many places, leads to it feeling like a totally different narrative.

• For better or worse, the characters don't feel like their original selves. Cloud in particular has gone from merely aloof to some kind of alien who has no idea how to interact with other human beings.

• The combat system feels like it's unsure what it wants to be. The player is asked to play as if it's an action game, but you constantly need to menu to use skills and items and give orders to party members. Attacking feels weirdly floaty with no weight to any hits, and sometimes you'll just be attacking thin air for a while (FF1 style?) after killing an enemy because the targeting won't switch to the next one. Simply repositioning yourself in a fight so you can actually hit the enemies feels like a chore, with the default movement being a slow walk. Enemies can sometimes just walk away while you're preparing to do a special move and you'll just whiff instead of tracking them. Blocking seems to work even if you're being hit from behind. It all just feels jankier than the high production values would suggest.

Despite all of that, it's not a bad game and I'm enjoying it for what it is.

• The visuals are on point and faithful to the original designs. Having facial animation in particular adds a lot.

• It seems that a lot of people don't like the side quests since they kill the pacing of the story, which yeah, they do. I don't think the side quests themselves are too bad, though. They're short, usually let you warp to the quest giver as soon as you're done, and you can even get a little bonus story segment for doing them. If the alternative is just grinding 30 mobs so I can afford the equipment upgrades on offer, I'll take the side quests.

  Chadley's side quests do seem a bit grindy though, so I'm not going to go too far out of my way to do those.

• The seamless transition between field and combat is a welcome change. I wish they'd just limit the battle result pop-ups to just loot and level ups, though. As it is, there's too much info to parse in the quick time that it scrolls by (some of which is utterly useless info like "enemy X defeated" - yeah, I already know!), so it's easy to miss stuff.

• The game runs pretty decently on my PC (albeit with the occasional crash), which you can never take for granted when it comes to AAA PC ports.

Just completed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and wow, what a fantastic OST and visual direction the game has. I regularly listen to the music in the car.

I thought the story was decent too, and I think the developers did an excellent job on creating a foundation to create new games in that universe. Honestly reminds me a bit of templars vs assassins haha.

However, I found the ultimate conclusion of the game to be a bit.. underwhelming, I guess. In my opinion, there was only one objectively correct ending, and the other only sounds good if you didn't understand the story that game was telling you. I don't feel like typing more than that at the moment, but still, it was a great game, with an S-tier OST. It is worth playing the game for that alone, and the satisfaction of parrying in the game. A solid 8/10 and probably one of the best debuts from a new game studio you can ask for.

I built a new PC, so I'm playing the game I always play on a new computer: Half-Life. My 7600X and 9070 XT run it just fine! The 25th anniversary update is proving to be a nice update.

I just finished TUNIC.
It plays like Zelda, but with a boatload of mystery.

• We are dropped into the world with no instructions whatsoever, and we can't even read the language.
• We can gather the pieces of the game's digital manual which is also in an unknown language, but from the images, we need to guess the things that we can/should do.
• It feels like "Outer Wilds" but with some item based progression.
• The boss battles are quite good and satisfying.
• When you solved some of the mysteries, it also feels quite satisfying
• The late/post game puzzles are quite convoluted, .
• I dont think this is a game for everyone, but if you like "Outer Wilds", or some unique and deep puzzles, I suggest to check it out.
• If you think you like it, don't spoil yourself and just play it.
• I think the last reward is really cool.
• I read somewhere that the creator used to play old console games using a manual where they don't understand the language, and this game tried to invoke that feeling.

I've been playing "Subway Builder", a game where you build subway systems in various US cities and see how high your ridership can go. It's decently fun but also fairly buggy for me. I think it's developed by just one guy so it'll take time for bugs to be fixed. As much fun as it is, I'd probably wait a bit for it to be less buggy.

Besides Hades 2 (which I posted about under the other thread), I've been absolutely jamming Deep Rock Galactic Survivor. I threw it into my cart when I was purchasing Hades 2, as I had a lot of love for DRG and it had finally hit 1.0 and was 6 dollars so I figured it was worth trying at least.

And oh, I've been so blown away. It improves on the Survivor template in so many amazing ways. Note the main other survivor I have significant time in is the OG (Vampire Survivors), so most of my comparisons will be to that.

1. Resource collection: adding resources to mine (gold/nitra) that you can trade between stages gives real reason to roam the map, much more so than finding small secrets in VS.

2)Multiple objectives and goodies: tied into the above, the game gives you so many different things you want to do (Get minerals, complete secondary, get drop pod, pickup XP from slain enemies, kill the boss faster for better loot ) and also gives you little precious time to do it. Having to balance priorities, and decide when to be safe and give up things vs be risky to try to have it all is a lot of fun.

3)Weapon upgrade system: you get 4 weapons over the course of a run, and upgrade them with various stats, which also increase their level, and at 3 different tiers you get an overclock, aka a powerful special upgrade, with the last being an especially powerful unstable overclock. You can also get generic upgrades, ones that apply to all weapons or stronger ones that apply to a subset (such as electrical weapons, heavy weapons, etc). One minor complaint is the system highly emphasizes matching types vs variety, but that may be the nature of the beast. The weapon system and especially the overclock feels awesome, much like evolving your weapon in VS, but here it's much more straightforward.

4. Enemy balance: the enemies scale over a run to nearly match your power: while you still get the feeling of being a death machine that is the standard for survivor games, even at your strongest you still have to pay attention, which is nice (compared to VS where many late game builds you can just put your controller down for the last 8 minutes).

Bonus) For any fans of DRG, there's lots of references, familiar voice lines, etc, as you'd expect. It's charming.

Overall I want to give props to the team, for adapting the parts of DRG that made sense, and leaving out what didn't. For example, in DRG the Scouts grapple hook is a signature part of his kit, you can't imagine a scout without it. But it's entirely absent in Survivor, as it wasn't needed. I think people making a spinoff of existing IP tend to fall into the trap of needing to 1:1 the IP as much as possible, and try to shoehorn specifics into it rather than catch the vibe. I think DRG Survivor made smart choices for what would be fun and what wasn't needed, and captured the same feelings of DRG in a new format.

Only complaints are the (apparently new to 1.0) gear system is overly fiddly, you get new pieces once or more per run, they have different slots and raritites and each has 3-5 stats and abilities and also can be upgraded and also can be different levels, it's just too much to care about. Thankfully the have a "smart equip" button that auto puts some stuff there (good stuff? I truly have no idea), but I hope that they can tighten and simply the system a bit, as the idea of building tailored "builds" is an interesting one, but as is a little too much for a Survivor.

And, the game uses way more steam deck battery than you'd expect. Guess those 3D renderings and bug calculations take it out of you. I typically get like an hour 15 or hour and a half on full battery. Lack of a mid-run save option (or a game crash recovery save) has caused me mild distress a few times.

Overall if you enjoy survivor games I heartily recommend the game. If you also enjoyed DRG that's just a nice bonus

Finally got around playing Cocoon, had my eye on it since release but never got around playing it before Ps+ forced my hand. Now that I've played it a bit (I've gotten to the fourth "thing"), it's kinda boring.

The minimalistic style has a little intrigue in its oddity but the puzzles are far too easy. That probably wouldn't be as big of a deal but it overexposes the minimalism which makes the whole thing feel like a chore. Walk here, activate this thing, walk here and then back... And the solutions are almost instant most of the time so you're just there, walking, and taking in the presentation. There should be more meat on the storytelling bones to fill in the idle period left by walking.

I will say the game feels extremely polished, so if you're not the one to rush things and enjoy light puzzles with some feeling of adventure and discovery, this is for you.

Silksong has turned out to be a full on project for me. 30-something hours in now and still on Act 2 but enjoying it immensely, most particularly during the 'exploration phase' as new abilities are discovered and new paths open up. However, it really is a game I need to be fresh and focused for, things tend to go to shit pretty quickly if I try playing too late.

For the latter scenario, or just generally when I want to listen to music for a spell, I am still popping in and out of the new Skate game. The gameplay is rock solid, but the map is fairly mediocre, and literally everything else is a pile of piss - even if all progression needs to be disabled just give me a goddamn offline mode! But I'm stuck, I still have a deep love for the original series and it stands to the strength of the gameplay - which I would actually say is more fluid than the originals - that I clocked up 100+ hours over the course of the closed alpha. Just turn off all in-game audio, crank the tunes and away you go.

I've been playing Hard Space: Ship Breaker, a game about salvaging derelict space ships. I thought it looked neat so it's been on my list for a while but I wasn't really confident I'd actually enjoy playing it. But it came up on a humble bundle so I finally grabbed it.

I'm really liking it. On its face the game is mostly cutting up a big spaceship and putting the pieces in the correct bins. But then they add in fuel lines you need to avoid cutting into. Then it's pressurized compartments that need to be safely vented. Or nuclear reactors you don't want to get careless around.

The whole ship becomes a puzzle. You're always on the clock and every second is lost income. There's a lot of neat interaction between systems. You can safely flush the fuel line before cutting it. Or you can cut into it then use fluid from the cooling system to put out the resulting fire before it burns its way to a nearby fuel tank.

I finished a Nier Automata I mentioned here a few moths back and I remain ambivalent about the game.

The story and the various perception twists it takes the player through during the various stages of the game is exceptional, but only in the medium not in the wider body of fiction. In my opinion it then fails to be actually good game and so it drags on. As I went through the story I was mostly tired of the gameplay and so it failed to make me very interested.

Also personally I had a large problem with the ridiculous anime like breakdown of 9s. Sometimes less is more and sometimes less is simply better. Generally lot of the elements were unnecessarily garish and absurd.

I think that if it was just very slightly different it could have been one of my all time favorite games but as it is my main impression of it is just mediocre.

The intro made a massive negative impression that never went away. If the game absolutely has to have a long unskipable part right at the beginning that has to be completed without saving then at absolute bare minimum remove any unnecessary portion of it, don't introduce three sequential boss fights.

I don't consider the various camera angle induced gameplay changes bad necessarily but they were far too frequent and far too abrupt. I think more moderation would have served better here.

I actually think the added perspectives on the same events in the second playthrough were neat but again the simple fact of the second playthrough absolutely made the game worse. The third one was not so bad since it was sufficiently different but the first two were effectively identical bar a few differences.

I am not actually sure what changes could be made here to have the same impact. But adding the perspective in the first one would make the game shorter and more concise even if it had negative effect on the overall atmosphere. Perhaps revisiting the battle sites later could have some of the impact.

Had some time to kill this weekend so cracked open one of the Zachtronics games I hadn't yet tried: Last Call BBS. Like most Zachtronics games, it's focused on puzzles, automation, and programming-esque challenges. However, unlike others from the publisher, this is a collection of 8 smaller games rather than a single puzzle type. I've liked pretty much all of the games thus far, though none of them individually as much as some other Zachtronics games.

I'm not sure if it's the game or me, but I haven't appreciated the story/worldbuilding as much as other Zachtronics games. For all the love these games get for their puzzles (which is extremely well deserved), one of my favorite bits were the quirky ways the narratives are presented: I still have my "Technical Documents" binder from SHENZHEN I/O and zines from EXAPUNKS. That's not to suggest its just the physical materials that make the narrative immersive, but the notes in Last Call BBS just haven't hit the same way.

On that note, anyone have suggestions for other games that make clever use of physical components? The only other one I can think of is the guide from Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. I suppose those code wheels from old games count, though they weren't really part of the game.

I've mostly been playing Hollow Knight (just got the first ending and heading back in for the others now) but wanted to make a quick shout-out for the demo to Q-Up in Steam Next Fest.

Q-Up was made by one of the creators of Universal Paperclips so if you're into that unexpected clicker vibe, this one is a gorgeous version. Oh, and if you've somehow never played Universal Paperclips, it's free, in-browser, and a total trip.

I finished Mafia: The Old Country a few days ago after about 15 hours of playtime. I really, really enjoyed it. I do hope they have the juice to make another game in the series after playing it.

One of the voice actors let something slip a couple of weeks ago about the next one being in early development, so that bodes well. Nothing official has been said, though. The way the story ended definitely does offer plenty of scope to continue it in another game.

We need more games like this - mid-priced ($50 in the age of $70-80 AAA games) and mid-length. Not everything needs to be an 80-100 hour behemoth.

I'm on a business trip this week, and brought my steam deck to keep me occupied during down time (and flights), and am playing Tomb Raider (2013) on it. Given the age of that game, it runs like butter on the deck and looks pretty great on that small screen too. I'm a couple of hours into it and enjoying it too. I haven't played a Tomb Raider since the original Tomb Raider 1 and 2 on PC in the '90s, so I was going into this very much blind. I picked up the modern Tomb Raider Trilogy for peanuts in the Steam sale last week, so if I like it I've got the next two in the series to keep me busy too.

How do I always miss this thread when it comes out? Oh well, here goes:

Vivid/stasis: This is a classic 4-key rhythm game with pixel graphics. It's also my first rhythm game ever. It's incredibly addicting! Why didn't I try a 4-key rhythm game sooner? The game also has a visual novel type of story with some puzzle elements and boss songs in it, but I'm still really bad (I can only FC songs up to level ~4 right now), so I can't speak to how good the story is – the chapter 1 "boss" alone requires you to be a rhythm game god in order to beat it. I'm definitely planning to put in the time required to make that happen though. (Edit: As of Oct 15, I have beaten the chapter 1 song!)

God Eater 3: I'd heard of this series before, but before playing it I had no idea it was actually a Monster Hunter clone in a post-apocalyptic setting. It's pretty fun. Definitely doesn't have nearly the amount of depth in its weapons as Monster Hunter does, but all the weapons are pretty fun to use, especially the Heavy Moon, which is my current favourite weapon type. I was actually close to putting the game down because all the fights were way too easy and over in 10 seconds, even the boss fights, but then the fights suddenly became a lot harder (and just in time to keep me interested), so that's good.

I do think it's funny how Girls Frontline 2 completely ripped off this game's story. I didn't even realize it until I played God Eater 3 because no one online is talking about it.

Monster Hunter Rise: I never finished Sunbreak, so I'm doing that now in preparation for the prophecied winter performance update for Wilds (which I still haven't bought due to the aforementioned performance issues). I'm having trouble deciding on a weapon though. Longsword is usually my favourite Monster Hunter weapon, but I feel like Rise's iteration of it is one of the weakest, mainly due to the absolutely horrid detection on Foresight Slash/Iai Spirit Slash. I can literally be right in the middle of a monster's attack, where I would have 100% taken damage without the i-frames those moves afford, but I still don't get the proc for successfully dodging an attack. I never had that problem in World. They definitely changed something with the detection. I think an attack now has to hit where the move puts you as opposed to where you are when you press the button? Or something like that.

On the flipside, Rise's Lance is one of my favourite iterations on the weapon. Insta-Block feels so good to use.

Bongo Cat: Not actually a game, at least not really, but a fun little desktop overlay you can leave running while doing other things. It's a cat. It taps your screen when you hit a key. You can give it a hat. What's not to love?

As an aside, last time I got some helpful suggestions to build a zipline tower in the middle of the map in Grounded to make the traversal less painful. It sounded like a good idea, so I tried it. Unfortunately, as I was in the middle of building it, my home base got raided by mosquitoes and mostly destroyed before I managed to get back to defend. I'm afraid that killed my motivation to continue playing the game for good, but thank you for the suggestions. I'm sure the tower would have actually made the traversal a lot more fun.

I just bought all the relatively new Wolfensteins as they were on sale, at the moment I'm still on The New Order in the beginning, it seems like good fun so far, and you know, you get to shoot the bad guys.

Haven't played many games in the past few months (almost none tbh) so this is a breath of fresh air for me. If anyone has any non-spoiler tips to share, let me know!

I took a bit of a break from Voices of the Void. It's a super fun game, but I've reached a point where I'm starting to get really invested, and I read that a new update is going to be coming out soon that will likely require a restart so I've decided to step away until then. I'm excited to come back to it when the update drops, though. I've been checking the website daily for news.

I'm also still working my way through Chrono Trigger as part of the CGA. I won't say too much more here on that.

Lastly, my kids and I have picked up Cobblemon (A Pokemon mod for Minecraft). I've played a few other Minecraft Pokemon mods (most notably Pixelmon), but this one integrates a lot better with Minecraft, and the result is a melding of the 2 games that decently extends the vanilla Minecraft experience. I'll spend some sessions grinding out my Pokemon levels, then I'll realize I need food and tools, so I'll spend the next session doing Minecraft things. The progression bounces back and forth like this, and there are addons that help to integrate the Pokemon features with Minecraft a bit better. Overall I highly recommend it if you are into both Pokemon and Minecraft. Especially if you know some friends/family that are also up to play. The multiplayer is a lot of fun.

Lots of gaming this past week. Which is easy to do when you're not working, apparently.

I finished Chrono Trigger last week. ~40hrs over 7-8 days. That's definitely the fastest I've ever completed a JRPG. I'll wait til the CGA post to say more.

From there, I decided to give Chrono Cross a try for the first time. Even though I loved Chrono Trigger, I never got around to playing Chono Cross. I'm about 8hrs in, but it hasn't totally grabbed me yet. I'm also not entirely sold on the battle system yet, nor the characters themselves. Neither are bad, but maybe I just need more time with the game. That also might be because I just finished a JRPG and it can sometimes be hard for me to immediately jump into and commit to another one. We'll see.

From there, I went back to Coffee Talk 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly, which is just a relatively short (~10-15hrs), chill interactive visual novel. I played and finished the original a couple year ago, and CT2 is a direct sequel, featuring most of the original cast of coffee-loving Seattleites.

The first one focused on IRL racial issues, coded though...well, race. Fantasy races, anyway: Orcs, Elves, Humans, Succubi, etc. This second one I think focuses more on acceptance, belonging, and existence. There are a couple characters who are outsider- or even immigrant-coded. One I could see even being like former Amish? And they're trying to figure out their place in modern society. The other is definitely trans-coded, too. He's transitioning from alien to human, but the things he's dealing with are definitely things I've heard trans folks talk about. There's also an in-game government agent also trying to find and detain him. For a game made in 2023, maybe a bit too on the nose.

All in all, I enjoyed it just as much as the first game. There's another Coffee Talk game coming out later this year that'll take place in Tokyo. I'll be Interested to see what social issues that one tries to tackle. Low birth rates, stagnant economy, and more racism/xenophobia maybe?

I also started Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise. It's an adventure game and puzzle game in one. I'm a few hours in, so far. The puzzles so far aren't too esoteric. Some can be solved just by guessing. It's fun enough; something to do.

Lastly, decided to get back into Final Fantasy XIV to try the new content. I managed to join a few of my FC-mates (guildmates) who are doing the new Deep Dungeon: Pilgrim's Traverse. It's actually pretty challenging. My relatively-limited experience with the previous deep dungeons were more just long grind sessions. Bosses could be difficult, but each floor of the dungeon was pretty easy. This time, however, both the bosses and the trash mobs on the floor are dangerous. On the upper floors of Pilgrim's Traverse -- We're on Floor 81 of 100 -- trash mobs can easily OHK. Which I'm glad to see. This is considered end-game content, after all. Hopefully we'll get to Floor 91 or even make it to Floor 100 sometime this week.

Been doing a lot of Turtle WoW, especially their "freshly"-released Ambershire server. It's been fun, but it's hard for me to really put a lot of time into it.

I have done the grind 5,000 times. I have not found a new game that has really peaked my interest so I have been reading and programming more, which is probably a healthier thing!

But I would love something really interesting to sink my teeth into from the video game industry.

Last time, I played the Donkey Kong Country Trilogy, and this Sunday I finished DKC Returns for the 3DS.

My reaction? It was OK. A bit bland, especially on the art style if you compare it to the SNES games, but overall it was neither bad nor great.

The highlight of the game by far was this jazzy version of "DK Island Swing" that was used on the silhouette levels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vodDCR29vTs

However, what I really didn't like was how small the characters appear on the 3DS screen. This is obviously due to the game being a port from a Wii game, but it certainly affected me on some levels, particularly when you move too fast.

I'll probably forget everything about it in a week or two, so yeah, there's not much to talk about it.

I also started to play Fable Anniversary on PC.

I remember I played the original back in the day (also on PC), but I didn't get that far on the story because I got lost on what I needed to do. I love how cozy the art style looks and I don't mind the simple battle mechanics because that's not the main focus of the game, and also I'm impressed by how interactive the game is, especially for a game that was originally released in 2004.

Kingdom Two Crowns on Steam.

Sidescrolling mix between a tower defense game and Kingdom builder. Very nice feel to the game. The only options in the game are paying gold and moving your character left and right.

The feel is pretty cozy. Has kind of like a casual Terraria vibe but different it is hard to explain. You can play coop with 1 person. One of those games where you load it up and look at the clock and it's been 4 hours.

Aside from Hades 2, I recently finished my first run of I Was A Teenage Exocolonist. And I can highly recommend the game. The story, art and gameplay compliment each other really well, and it'll take some time before I'll be done given that clearly you can have many different paths and endings.

I don't want to spoil too much given how story-heavy the game is, but one thing I want to say is that I appreciate how inclusive the game is in some unusual aspects, and how maturely it deals with some topics normally not discussed often in media like this. It's really well done in ways that have few medias to compare with, even.

Final Fantasy Tactics: Ivalice Chronicles.

One of my favorite games. I’ve been overall enjoying this faithful remake in the tactician difficulty. A vanilla adaptation of this game is going to be solid given how well the original has aged.

I do have gripes about the remake. There were a lot of balance opportunities that weren’t acted on. It’s baffling to me that they left out WotL content, and if anything adding a few more tidbits in the same vein would have been welcome additions.

The voice acting has its moments both ways. Sometimes it falls flat, and the overall all pacing in dialog is slow as the game rests on speech bubbles before playing the next line with auto-play on.

Somehow i've been Playing Among Us or Minecraft for some reason

Megabonk: Progression kinda stalled but I'm still digging it. I wish I could do more than 10 minute timed runs, and want an endless mode like Vampire Survivors, but it's still a good time.

Hades: I travelled for a week, and the game sorta started to click, and now I'm digging it. I'm getting to Megara regularly, so that tells me I'm progressing. I like the vibe, the interesting tie-in to the Greek pantheon, and the strange differences they went with all lead to a fun vibe.

Continuing to play Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake and just got access to fly around the world, did a bit of grinding cause the last dungeon had an HP/MP top-up inside it and because I predict a difficult boss is imminent. Like I said the last time I mentioned it in these threads, all the remake polish hasn't exactly hidden the fact that this game has its roots on the NES in terms of the narrative's low complexity.

I complained a bit that the ramifications of the class system seemed overly complex but I've concluded I'd simply read too much optimizer-speak. The biggest thing that prevented me from jumping at the advice of optimizers was the way they dip into classes only a certain amount of levels to a targeted ability and then swap again, while I sit there wondering about everything above that level that was left on the table. I've since found and felt like the game isn't really pushing me to do this, and I'm glad it isn't because my Sage is only just catching up to the rest of the party. Furthermore, there has yet to be a consistent liquid metal slime farm and I'm not sure there ever is, too many non-LMS spawns killing the rate. With that in mind, I'm glad I'm avoiding the re-levelling. Still, my mage can pretty safely become a second sage when I get another of the special item, and my warrior probably ought to become something else once they have unlocked all warrior abilities just because I don't think it feels like the end of the line for that character, and that means all 3 of my non-hero characters will have class changed once. Perhaps enough.

I finished up a Chrono Trigger replay for CGA. IDK not much to say, fantastic game, beaten it a couple times before and watched lets plays of it a few times so I kinda rushed through it. Not sure I'll even make a top-level comment in CGA's remove cartridge thread for it as I feel like I don't have any crazy takes about the game, it's just a concise story that doesn't overstay its welcome, a simple but effective turn based battle system and a solid xp curve that prevents falling behind and satisfies a grinding-avoidant past self. (which is why it's one of very few jrpgs I finished in the era of my life when I originally played it, I was particularly anti-grinding and anti-turn based in my early 20s.) It's a remarkable game, but my remarks would be unremarkable. I'll probably just reply to others and converse in the final thread.

Lastly, not playing, but watching GDQx this weekend. It's gamesdonequick express, so it's 3 days and not overnight. Happening at twitchcon but the viewing experience doesn't differ significantly from other GDQ content so if you wanna watch some speedruns, now you know.

I've downloaded about 10+ demos due to Steam Next Fest, went trough most of them and there were some interesting things for sure. I'm not at my PC right now so I can't even remember the names of some of them, so I'll maybe do a bit of a longer writeup, plus I'll try and finish the rest by Monday since I don't know what would be playable after that.

Another Next Fest has happened, though I don't have any insta-buy picks besides maybe Forestrike. It's a little hard to form my Top 6 his time and I'm not sure if it's from my taste being more refined or lack of standouts this time.

• Forestrike: Martial Arts roguelike. The main premise is having unlimited practice rounds before a fight before going through the real thing. While it can take reflexes and knowledge to interrupt an enemy, it's mostly about managing your limited defensive resources and figuring out how to utilize them to make it through the fight without a scratch, along with refining a build from the perk choices.

• Moonsigil Atlas: Roguelike deckbuilder except the card cost is the different shapes the card takes for you to place on the board. Won my first run with a "On Turn Start" set using a card that summons a card On Turn Start combined with a card that triggers On Turn Start effects which let it summon a new copy of itself and continuously proc. It's different, but quickly becomes intuitive, though I ignored adding on shield runes in favor of removing everything and bruteforcing through the aforementioned combo.

• Steel Century Groove: It's a rhythm game, except with the structure of a Pokemon game and giant mech dance-offs. I picked the sabotage mech to counter enemy specials and because it seemed the least complex of the 3 starter options. Liked the gameplay and kinda the satirical vibes, though the art style made everyone have sameface. Goes up to the first gym. They also apparently released a mini standalone version earlier this year, Steel Century Groove: Midnight, so I plan to play that after the next fest ends.

• Aether & Iron: Flying city Noir setting with turn-based car tactics and some stat-based decision 2D6 rolling. I think I was the most invested in this game's story out of the choices, though the demo basically ends after the first "big" decision and getting a second party member.

• Skate Story: It's a skateboard game. You play as a demon taking on a contract to ride a skateboard to devour the moon. Yeah. I've never hit it off with sports trick-style games, but it's got a weird calm vibe to it. Less hellfire, more a serene focus to keep chasing the moon.

• Goblin Sushi: Roguelike cooking & serving. Follow the recipe to cook sushi and place them on the sushi conveyor belt while picking upgrades to specialize in a fish type to maximize price and multipliers.