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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.
Kagami no Majoritia
Obra Dinn-style deduce 'em up meets trading card game.
Man, how to even describe this game...
The first element of the game is just deducing its rules.
You play as a robot who for reasons has replaced one of the neighbourhood kids. Unfortunately, you weren't programmed with the rules for Majoritia, the hot new trading card game that's taken Japan by storm (to the point where like in Yu-gi-oh, pretty much everything from business deals to backroom politics is decided based on children's card game duels).
To make things worse, the kid you replaced is a Majoritia wizkid who never loses, so to avoid being detected as an imposter, you need to deduce the rules of the game from context, including from watching other kids play and picking up on what they're doing. All of the game lingo that your fellow kids barrage you with is carefully tracked in a list on the side of the screen which you can annotate with notes at any time, and you can even bring up a context-specific history which shows how a specific term was referenced in a card or by a character.
As the game progresses, your character also starts up a hand-drawn 'rulebook' which you can start inputting your deductions into to check if they're correct. Getting two whole pages correct usually earns you a 'skill' which automates the part of the game you've deciphered (e.g. no longer having to manually click a counter once you work out what the counter does and when it needs to go up or down) or otherwise adds quality of life (e.g. showing what phase it currently is) so that you can actually focus on winning. This is an important progression, because once you get past the tutorial and start playing by 'pro rules', you can only make a certain number of mistakes before you're disqualified, and it's really easy to forget to do routine things like declaring the end of a phase.
The second element of the game is winning each match.
You might expect that this hinges on preparing a competitive deck, but unfortunately your character's cards are mostly garbage and your choices for swapping cards are limited to a small sideboard. On top of that, your opponents play completely deterministically and will always whip out their deck's killer combos right on the first or second turn, usually meaning you'll lose on the third or fourth turn if you try and play normally.
Therefore, the real gameplay lies in deducing what your opponent's winning condition is and how you can use your terrible cards to stop them from achieving it. Each matchup becomes a kind of puzzle about understanding how the opponent's strategy works, how your own cards work and how you can exploit their interactions (made more feasible in the later game by a mechanic that lets you essentially set the order you'll draw your deck in).
I really enjoyed it!
The whole silly story and wacky cast of characters is clearly written with a lot of love for dumb card game anime, and the dialogue is often pretty funny even outside of serving up hints about the meaning of terms. Sometimes the characters will even just bandy about made up slang which has nothing to do with the formal game rules.
The art, while definitely on the simple side, has a wholesome charm to it (particular the cute pencil-drawn notebook). A lot of care has also been put into the cards themselves, with each card having its own unique art and flavour text (featuring reappearing characters and cards cross-referencing each other) which really adds a lot of colour to the in-game setting of Majoritia and its dueling witches.
The deduction part can seem a little daunting initially with a whole flood of terms in the first chapter, but if you have any familiarity with games like Magic: The Gathering (an obvious major inspiration for Majoritia), you'll instinctively pick up on what's happening and have guesses for what the mechanics are. The puzzle parts are also pitched at a good difficulty, with most requiring a fair bit of experimentation to identify what the field needs to look like for you to win, and then again for how to get there.
The only minor criticisms I'd raise are that:
The music is kind of forgettable (and downright grating in a couple of cases).
The notes function is limited to 15 characters per keyword, which is plenty for Japanese but sometimes necessitates radical abbreviation when using English.
The UI can be a little janky and sometimes requires you to move the cursor off a card and back onto it again before it'll accept an input. A couple of times, I was fooled by this into thinking I wasn't allow to move a card at all, which is not good in a deduction game.
The game is available for free in the above link (but note it's in Japanese).
Dang, is there no English version? This seems like something right up my alley, but Japanese is nowhere on my language radar.
I had a look around, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be one :(
It feels like it would be pretty easy for someone to localise though, as it's only about 8 hours long.
Ah, but the problem of participating in the creation process is that it's an effective spoiler for the result!
I was also super interested when I read your post yesterday but I'm sure my japanese isn't quite there yet. For the last few months I and a few others have been going through the Genki books (just the latest iteration of various low priority efforts to learn japanese over the years). I'd love to be able to play games like this once I'm good enough. I'm most interested in reading books and games, rather than tourism, certification or conversation.
Mewgenics! I love rogue likes, but turn-based tactics are my least favorite of them, and I had essentially no interest in the breeding mechanics etc. I got the game because Binding of Isaac is my all-timer, so my goodwill from that earned this at least a look.
And I'm so glad I did, because this game is amazing! The humor is, as another Tildes-r put it, "irreverent beyond offense" (I really should go back and find their handle if I'm gonna keep quoting them ha), and I gotten several good laughs so far and well as some grins at the cheeky references etc.
The gameplay itself has been surprisingly deep, but also does a good job of keeping you from analysis paralysis by limiting your options, keeping you in that "work with what you get" gameplay I love about Isaac. The equipment strikes a good balance between finesse without being clunky, the existence of classes adds great direction and variety, and the stats are blessedly simple to understand and prioritize. There's also a ton of content: I'm only 15 or so hours in and there's already at least 4 distinct paths, with alternates within those, and seemingly more being teased. I also like that you have the option to opt-out of a run early after each boss, gives you a nice choice for when a run isn't quite coming together without just committing seppuku or holding R.
The breeding/cat collection gets overwhelming, but I think it does a good job of making me apathetic to all these damn cats. I do try to keep "good" cats to hopefully breed, but at some point I decide there's too many dang felines and throw 4 into a box to go on whatever adventure, if they live great if they die hey less to think about. The cat sprites, and their many varied meows and names, add charm. I especially love that anything you equip to a cat actually shows on them, so you end up with some goofy dudes wearing a cardboard hat and a Jason hockey mask.
Overall highly recommended! Time will tell if it has the staying power of Isaac, but for now the game is goofy and immature humor overlaid with a well-thought mechanical tactics game.
Edit: Found @Deimos! https://ibb.co/DDwvjNtB maybe the god of fear, but given all the Internet references maybe our Tildes Benevolent Dictator?
I have also been playing Mewgenics and enjoying it! Agree that the game limiting your options is a plus, I find it gives the game a quicker pace, a nice flow to it. Despite my initial aversion, I actually really like that you only use the cats for a single journey. It helps to keep the amount of rules and abilities in check, forces you to move on from using a set squad of cats, and encourages breeding the real all stars that emerge from the mud. I find it thematically pleasing that the game is commenting on how cruel humanity can be to itself and everything it interacts with, particularly cats, all the while slowly encouraging you to treat them the same through the game design. I love finding a new item or ability, it feels like im almost always seeing something new. Very good stuff all in all.
Mainly just my game, uhh, working title Cave Dwellers but that's too generic to release under. It's a shooter, like a twin stick, where you control either a mage firing balls of electricity like a chain gun or a slime queen that fires bubbles which pop into slime minions. You're trying to survive waves of bats and shrooms, potions randomly spawn that recover HP, boost move speed, or boost fire and projectile speed. I'm real close to releasing on itch, getting a decent looking page together. Over the weekend I finalized my credits and licensing, polished the minions, somehow fixed an esoteric bug I was gonna let ship, and gave the enemies death animations.
On a properly released front, Persona 3 Portable
I wanted to play a game as a girl. No, not a game where picking girl gives you pig tails and a pink UI, but actually reacts to the player's gender. And on that front, P3P excels. While porting P3 to the PSP, the (woman led) team got to implement the route, and so they actually rewrote a substantial amount of dialogue and interactions taking that into consideration. And it's great. Atlus opted not to include it in Reloaded.
Unfortunately, coming from P5, Tartarus as the sole dungeon is rough. P5 alternated Mementos with Palaces, and the Palaces were without a doubt the sicker dungeons whereas Mementos was proc gen dungeon delving. Tartarus is a pared down Mementos, so I feel the absence of dungeons with character.
The gameplay of the social links is also weaker, here it only increases the XP when creating that type of Persona as far as I can tell whereas they were more varied and character relevant in 5. But it is the character of the social links that's the real juice of that system, I think I'm too early to really compare those against 5 but I do like them so far.
Aside from the lack of the female MC, are there any other major differences between P3P and P3R? I still have a P3P save on my PSP, though I haven't touched it in over a decade! I have both versions on Steam, and I've thought about just restarting, but I'm not sure which makes more sense to start with.
I actually did my best to not learn what additions/changes Reloaded made so I wouldn't be comparing my experience to "what could have been" if that makes sense. But I would play P3R over P3P had I both available and planned on doing the masc route.
I have no idea if this is the case, but if they've changed the slog of combat in P3R, I'd go with that.
I've been playing P3P for a similar amount of time (about ten years) and I'm in the mid 200s for floors in Tartarus, but I just can't be asked. The "dungeon crawling" and the combat is just so tedious and there's so much of it. If I could just automate that part until I get to bosses, so I could otherwise just get back to the storytelling, I'd be so much more happy with it.
P3R is basically FES with a face lift and some QOL mechanics changes, which means it has more features than P3P (sans Female protag)
Mighty Goose
Run n Gun indie game, soundtrack by Dominic Ninmark (also did Gravity Circuit). I'm a couple hours in, it's decent but not blowing me away.
Celeste
I'm wrapping up the Intermediate lobbies on a couple mods. Some of the mechanics are fun to revisit, and some are a pain in the ass (lookin at you, teleporter that also turns the map upside down). Regardless, I don't see myself moving on to the advanced/expert/grandmaster lobbies. Feel like I've hit my difficulty limit (again).
Balatro
Got Completionist++ on my second profile on Android (stats). Pairs are my most played hand this time - last time was flushes. Guess I'm aligning more to the wisdom of the crowd. I wonder when the new update will be released. Thunk has said he wants to rework Blue Stake, which could make the larger hands more viable, so there's less dependence on (or feeling forced into) Pair builds. I mixed up my deck choices a lot more this time, but I played a lot of Ghost deck. It's just so much more fun to see more Spectral cards.
Blue Prince
I'm about 100 game days in, and I still have goals that I need to figure out. I think I know what I need to do next? Maybe? It is such an excellent experience because it gets my brain going and has a good variety of puzzles. It's frustrating because some of it relies on RNG (which I can accept - part of the strategy of the game is being able to shift strategies.) I love the story, I love the breadcrumbs I keep finding all over the place. A few of the puzzles and clues have literally given me chills. 10/10, even with the frustrating bits. It's an excellent way to procrastinate on my capstone project.
Ascendant.com Playtest
There was a week long play test of this game, I've been play testing it for a year and a bit when they come up. I like it a lot! It's very 80s-themed, I like the weapon customization, most of the in-round events, the movement and mobility is pretty good too. There are a few things I think still need tweaking - I still think the Gorlizard is stupid, they need to do a better job of cracking down on cheaters since that will sink a shooter pretty quick, they could simplify a couple of their customization processes, and I don't think you should need the in-game currency (earnable by playing) to recolour your weapons. Also being a passenger on a vehicle is a little clunky and could be better. All in all, I'm not super great at it, but I enjoy playing it when the tests come around.
Smash Brothers
Years and years ago, when Brawl and Melee were the games of the day, I used to win Smash Tournaments. I have not played much since then, possibly at all. We're talking probably 20 years. This past weekend my partner was over for Valentines Day and we played Smash Ultimate. It took a couple rounds to figure out the controls, then it was like the Matrix and I couldn't be stopped. It was crazy. The hardest part for me was tracking where my character was with the very dynamic camera, but other than that it was a pretty good experience. I don't see myself playing it regularly, but once in a while I think I could hop in with friends.
Thanks to @aphoenix, I've had the pleasure of playing Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, a perfectly competent boomer shooter. It runs fast and crisp, you'll die a lot, and much of it is earned, making it a fair genre entry. The biggest complaints you can say about its functionality is that the enemies are spongy and the shotgun is terrible, a sin that nearly makes it unplayable, as the parlance goes.
Hot take time: Boltgun is a good game, but it's one Warharmmer doesn't deserve because fascism doesn't make for a good hero's narrative.
Sure, religious fanaticism sure makes sense to have in your tabletop game for collectible Freemasons as a justified motivation that allows for the sacrifice of blood-pressurized meatbags in untold numbers, wave after wave against the enemy. This type of desensitization allows for enjoyable fragging when you're Master Chief and the game is Halo.
Instead, with this uniquely first-person oppressor simulator, you're the chud that does the Emperor's bidding, only able to spew fascist doctrine such as "My love for the Imperium is matched only by my hatred for the heretic" (points for devoting a button controller for taunts). Sure, this guy is some hero in the Warhammer universe, but he's not very interesting here. Because as a fascist hero, your true value lies in your death as a martyr. It's complete this mission, or death. Failure isn't even an option, making for a linear narrative that is straighter than our hero being the edge of this blade!
I'd think the Warhammer strategy games are more interesting and relevant, but I'd say if yuppie deathcult spergers are truly confident in their hobby, they would make a cozy crafting video game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Players can show fealty to the Emperor by customizing their digital minifigs with heretic skulls and NMM bedazzled armor.
The other game I've been playing is Radical Relocation, an underappreciated puzzle game where you move from house to house with all your furniture Jenga'ed on top of your car. There are far too few games about cars that aren't about racing, and this is one great example (similar but different to You Suck at Parking, Distance, and various vapourware-inspired cruisers). In a sentence, this game is like working as an engineer with a gun pointed at your head.
This game really needs a campaign mode with characters and a story, a free roam mode where you can take jobs located throughout an open world map, and more humor to match its absurdist premise. It also needs a customizable radio in which every station is filled with relaxing, formless smooth jazz. But this version was so buggy and underappreciated that this will remain a gem hidden in the earth, so to speak.
Well, I'm glad that you're (maybe?!?) enjoying the game. I'm glad that the key is getting used, because boomer shooters and Warhammer both tend to miss for me.
Hey there, thanks for the chance to play this game! I don't mean to sound ungrateful, just sounding out my thoughts on the game. I mean it when I say it is a competent boomer shooter, but I also mean it when I say this game lacks the spark of joy. It's a dour and grim experience. As dark as DOOM is, that game had metal guitars and horror elements that make for a great combo for a fun boomer shooter. By comparison, this base game has no metal even though the trailer for the DLC prominently uses it.
I'm mostly saying that the Warhammer setting doesn't work well as a story told from a single hero's perspective that in turn is a first-person shooter. You're basically alone with a fascist for ten hours accompanied by all the storage crates in the world, it seems. I think the strategy games will be better; I'll be trying out Rogue Trader later, let's see how that goes. Anyways, I'm glad I got to experience this myself after wanting to play it for so long.
I didn't mean to insinuate any lack of gratefulness, or anything. I legitimately am just happy that the key got used; the fact that it provoked reflection and thought is an incredible bonus.
Not a problem, no offense taken, and I did want to show my gratitude for letting me experience something new that I wouldn't have otherwise. I hope to be working through some of your other contributions in the near future.
I enjoy video games, but I probably enjoy thinking about them more; it's like how I love playing Resident Evil 5 even though I'd rather talk about how it's explicitly racist (more racist that Capcom's usual level of casual racism). There's just so much to video games that don't get discussed.
I've been playing Paper Mario 64 and I'm enjoying it so much, I really like how "minimalist" it is, while still having a big range of options for your build. At this point I'm tired of overly complicated plots in RPGs so the very basic plot is a plus for me at this point.
I also started playing Zelda: Four Swords Adventures for the Nintendo Gamecube, I didn't know you could play it in single player mode, so that was stopping me from playing it.
While it doesn't feel like a classic Zelda game, I appreciate what the gameplay has to offer so far.
After finishing this one, it would only left for me to play Zelda: Triforce Heroes to finish playing every mainline Zelda game.
Yeah the weakest part of The Alters is definitely the gameplay since it's more of a discovery puzzle rather than a dynamic challenge, so once you've seen it once and figured it out that's it. As for the characters, some of them are a little over the top caricatures and the crisis event does feel forced, but I enjoyed the little back stories each of them had.
I have finished Kingdom Come Deliverance at last. It was 5 long months. And I somehow gained achievements for not killing anyone and staying vorgin the whole story - each of those are false. I wonder what triggered the achievements popping up then. But in my player stats, I really have 0 kills... If it's a bug, than it's fine with me :-D
The game is great. There was a lot written about it by many people and I reckon many of the Chosen ones (users of Tildes) played it by themselves.
Now I'm heading towards Project Diablo 2 on my Steam Deck. I haven't played the game for at least 15 years!
I never got much into Diablo but recently I've seen some people playing the Darkhaven demo. Do you think it will be as popular as the classics?
I think Darkhaven will be for Diablo fans what Pillars of Eternity was for Baldur's Gate fans.
Can I follow, please? What Pillars of Eternity was for Baldur's Gate fans?
Well, I haven't played it (yet). Based on talks with my (real-life) friends, it seems it was kinda like Baldur's Gate 3 - maybe not in the same fantasy realm, but the same game feeling. Something players of BG1&2 longed after.
I played Fallout 1&2 back in the day and Wasteland 2 is more Fallout 3 for me than the actual Fallout 3 is - based on the feel of the game, not necessarily on the game facts or game world. And I think Pillars of Eternity hits like that but for Baldur's Gate fans.
And I think Darkhaven might hit like that. It may feel like Diablo 2 while not being Diablo 3 or 4 or whatever.
Maybe think about Dark Souls and Elden Ring - the latter isn't Dark Souls game, yet it bears something from Dark Souls game. And Pillars of Eternity are not Baldur's Gate game, yet it bears something from it.
I find it hard to put my thoughts into words on this one. This would probably be better described when we could directly talk about it and even more so if it was in my native language.
Or maybe my thinking is completely off, since I haven't played the game. What are your thoughts? Were you just curious or have you played BG1&2 and also PoE and you can shed some light into comparing those?
I've played a lot of BG1 & 2 and at least a little bit of Pillars of Eternity, and the comparison is apt. They use the same kind of fixed-angle isometric exploration, same kind of party controls, and the same kind of pause-at-will combat.
Pillars has its own systems and isn't D&D-based, but will be familiar to RPG players. If you're a fan of BG1 & 2, I'd strongly recommend Pillars, it's most definitely a love letter to those two games. Note that it's quite a different beast from BG3, which is a lot more similar to Larian's previous game, Divinity Original Sin 2 (both of which I also recommend if any one of these is your kind of game).
Funny, I have played BG1&2 and I also have played Divinity: Original Sin (just 1, for now). I know Larian made BG3 and I expect it to be top notch, but not the BG3 that I would call BG3. My BG3 title would likely go to the Pillars of Eternity and the Larian's game could maybe be called Divinity: Original Sin 3. I know, what a sacrilege!
But don't get me wrong - I haven't played PoE and I haven't played BG3. But I value both of them highly and I'm certain they are both great games. Yet I believe, and now it is confirmed by you, that the feeling of PoE is more like BG1&2 and feeling of BG3 is more like Divinity: Original Sin games. And there is nothing wrong about that! It just hits differently.
I bought PoE long time ago and I still have to play it. I want to replay BG1 at least before it though - I never finished the game... Final boss trio was too hard for me at the time and I never made it that far again. BG2 final fight was like a breeze compared to BG1 - at least for me, as I was much older and understood the game/mechanics much better.
Now I managed to export BG1 character out of open source engine of the game and import it into BG:EE including experience and items. I reckon the game will be easier when I start it as level 4 mage armed to the teeth. This was by accident, mind you, but I don't care about such happy accidents :-)
Hi, thanks for the detailed answer.
Unfortunately I did not played BG1/2 or PoE. I watched my friends playing BGs and played Planescape: Torment (predecessor of PoE I presume) dozens years ago. I really curious about PoE and have plans to play it, but... time is limited, so that's it for now.
terr provided better answer, maybe have a look if you didn't already.
PoE will be more like BG1&2, not that much as Planescape: Torment. Planescape looks and controls like BG, but has different feel, it is different game.
Yeah, the time... I wish I was back in my teenage years for that.
The official Diablo 2 just received DLC.
It's nuts.
I think Diablo 2 didn't. Only the Diablo 2: Ressurected did.
But it doesn't matter for me, I'm not buying Ressurexted because of their launcher and always online requirement. I stand behind my principle and I'm not giving money to studios that do things like that.
That is correct. Good on you to stand for your principles.
It now has a Steam version so the launcher part is mitigated a little but it remains you need to connect to a Battle.net account yes.
I believe the Steam version just launches the launcher in the background since you probably need the Battle.net connection through it. It just doesn't show up. Nonetheless, bad practice on their part = no money from me. I can play OG game that I already own.
The same goes for Rockstar and GTA San Andreas. I wanted to play it but they pulled down the OG version and I don't like the flawed so called Definitive edition. Since they don't allow me to buy OG one, which I would pay for, I had to resort to other solution - I ripped my PS2 version of the game and play in emulator. Once again - no money from me due to bad practices. They didn't have to pull down the OG game, yet chose to do so.
EDIT: I went against my principles recently and I got burnt. But since Valve isn't anti-consumer, I got refund.
I played ENA: Dream BBQ (chapter 1). I have no recollection of how this made its way to my library. If you sent it to me please let me know. It's free though if anyone else wants to give it a try! Apparently this was released as a preview of sorts for a game that has been in development - with the help of many patrons/backers - for several years, based on a formerly very popular assortment of absurd, bizarre youtube videos.
It was a short experience, but I really liked it! ENA's world is aggressively nonsensical and has that type of janky, mishmash aesthetic you can only get with careful design and intention. It's filled with unique characters, all of which vocalize - some with various sounds, others with various languages, including but not limited to english, french, italian and japanese (these are the ones I spotted; the characters can all understand each other somehow). All the voice acting is really really good, which you wouldn't expect in a game like this. ENA herself has two personalities, each with her own voice actor.
At first I tried to play this like a normal game, applying logic to accomplish goals - there are "quests" of sorts, after all - but that quickly became impossible and I realized I'd best just go with the flow and play reactively, because you can't tell if you're making the right decisions or exploring the right locations to be a completionist. So I understand I didn't see everything the chapter had to offer, but that's OK. Also, I believe the game is crammed full of references to the original youtube videos. I would probably have enjoyed it LESS if I was familiar with them, but to me everything was new and fresh! I really do recommend everyone plays this, unless you don't have a couple hours to spare or just hate this kind of experience.
I've also been playing The Devil Within: Satgat, a korean metroidvania (attentive readers may have noticed I've been staggering these so I don't get metroidvania'd out). It's... not great. Which I suspected, so I got it heavily discounted ;)
There are some competent ideas and systems behind this game, as well as good enough art and set design. Generally speaking, this is not the kind of Metroidvania that wants you to be agile and enjoy the challenges of complex traversal with various chained moves (although that happens to a small degree). There isn't even that much of a reason to ever backtrack so far. Instead, the game is very combat-oriented. The protagonist has no fewer than 5 different skill trees, and their upgrades all require a mixture of 5 different resources, so a lot of time is spent deciding on upgrades. These yield new combos for attacks, parries, dodges and counterattacks, and increase the player's strength and durability. Fun, but the whole thing is hobbled by an infuriatingly stupid AP system. Everything costs AP (even the dash) and you only have a few - it's like a scarce stamina - so you constantly have to stop and rest in the middle of combat; you can do nothing for a few seconds for it to replenish. But doing nothing for a few seconds, all the time, is not fun. Also, enemies aren't going to wait for you. They can (and often do) stun lock you, or hit you with combos so strong you go for full health to dead despite being level fifty or whatever.
Satgat also makes the same mistakes as Memories in Orbit, except it doesn't earn them. While MIO was so good looking, consistent and polished, and had such satisfying learning and well designed boss fights, you could forgive them the difficulty and bad checkpointing, Satgat allies bad checkpointing to unskippable dialogue in boss fights that you have to listen to on every attempt, unfair RNG-driven attack patterns, repetitive grinding and poor item distributions. There's a whole equippable, upgradeable weapon system I've barely ever needed because the game gave me a novelty sword at the very beginning that's just stronger than anything else, making the whole system pointless.
And let's talk about the plot. This is the most chuunibyou game I've ever played. The protagonist, Kim Rip, is the coolest, strongest swordsperson, which everyone praises. He literally has a devil living in his hand (yes, the actual stereotype). He has amnesia, of course, and he has been unfairly framed by his peers for a crime he didn't commit. Everyone in the game has the intelligence of a five year old, so no one can figure this out. Instead, they all hate the protagonist for killing the people who try to kill him first, and keep refusing to have a conversation and marching to their demise by my devil-infested hand. Also, all the women wear outfits that include form fitting clothing or miniskirt motifs and are grossly subservient - or maybe that's just the goofy, over the top english voice acting? The dialogue itself is also not great and often lines don't quite follow from whatever they're responding to, which is jarring and confusing.
In conclusion - there's a decent looking game here with heaps of systems that should have combined into a fun game, but that edifice is constructed on a pile of bad design choices. If you want to play a metroidvania with lots of combat and lots of systems that doesn't quite nail the balance and feels somewhat anime, then Afterimage, which I played a few weeks ago, is a much better choice, since it's at least fun all the way through and has satisfying platforming.
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1000xResist
I finished this earlier today, having been gradually playing a chapter or two per session over the last couple of weeks. What at first felt like it would be a fairly straight forward how did we get to this event narrative based on the opening somethings happened tease, it ended up being a lot more with various little twists and turns and hints to them that can potentially seem obvious in hind sight.
Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, Chapter IV: "Sacred Feathers"
Last time mentioning this game, but I did finish it last week. I think it actually did wrap up nicely, it not a bit rushed. The ending revealed a lot more about Nina's background, though naturally, since it's an episodic game, there're still lots of questions. Guess we'll see what happens in Chapter V, whenever that gets released.
Back to the Dawn
Taking a break from the detective/lawyer games (finally), but still in the mystery genre. Back to the Dawn is a story RPG with anthropomorphic animals where the MC ends up in prison after being framed for a crime. Basically gotta figure out how to navigate prison life, survive, while also trying to figure out the truth of what happened.
I don't play a lot of non-linear games, so it's a little bit of challenge trying to figure out what I should do, but I'm enjoying it so far. Plus, the pixel-art is really, really well done.
Cyber Manhunt
One of these "hacker" games. During the Nov 2025 Backlog Bingo, I tried out "Hacknet." Hacknet is more like a "hacking simulator," where you have to know the command line and techniques for not getting caught. Cyber Manhunt, however, is more about the story and connecting the dots. It plays similarly to "Orwell," where you, as the hacker, are doing more OSINT on targets' social media accounts and such. Though there is some level of "hacking," where you have to get into targets' inboxes and other accounts.
It's alright. Still very early game, so it's not too exciting yet.
Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero
Finally came back to this JRPG in the long-running "Trails" series of Legend of Heroes. Basically took seven months off of it. In the Trails series, this is the fourth game (of at least ten games) in the usual player-recommended play order (though due to the way the games were released in the West, I've played a couple out of order). All of them are connected and essentially sequels. Don't have a whole lot to say about it now, other than glad to be back on it. Looking to finish this game sometime over the next couple of months.
Hades: Consistently getting to Hades, thinking i'll lean on spear builds. I had him down to 1/6 on phase 2 then the scream I screamt when I fucked up and lost... But I'm almost there, dammit. I'm falling into the roguelite pattern of kicking ass, then falling back a bunch for a handful of runs.
Cult of the Lamb: Managed to clear the first surprisingly quick. I forced myself to run through the gameplay loop to understand the game, because I've had it for a while and have been curious. The cult management is balanced perfectly with the combat, they both sort of feed back into each other nicely, and it's a fun, more laid-back game to play when I'm not feeling Hades.
Mewgenics: If this isn't somehow a contender for GOTY, or at least in the running for best indie this year then I don't know... Similar to how Isaac is constrained and forces you into its own mold, Mewgenics feels nice and tight, letting me focus on acting with what I've got without having to put too much thought into party assembly. Oh, you've got a range attack? Ranger. Higher health? Tank. Stronger? Fighter. The builds are so much fun, the breeding is interesting as well (along with the one-in-some-number aggressive thrusting that they kept in the game lol). It's got that weirdly uncompromising, but somehow even cutesy messed-uppedness of Isaac but with incestuous cat breeding instead of religiously-fueled matricide.
Morse: This is just a demo now, but it's a game where you enter grid parameters via morse code, first in one dimension, and I assume later in two, then shoot to sink enemy vessels. They give you the code to enter, but it's a fun way to sort of dabble with morse code. I was getting weird chatter with my mouse and switched to keyboard input to keep things running but it's surprisingly fun.
Glyphica Sort of a typing tower defense roguelike. You type a word to attack, and type a paragraph to fight a boss (and words to fight enemies still), picking weapons as you progress to enhance your attacks/defenses and stay alive. I like this one to turn off a bit more, but it's perfectly relaxing.
I'm happy to announce that I have completed my first run in Hades! It's like 55 runs and 34 hours. I was about to burn out after being frustrated with the lack of progress, but planned to turn on God Mode. My first run saw me actually turning it off when I hit Asphodel because my build felt right, so I turned it off and finished! I'm fine considering it a clean run because I can beat all three furies with the Spear without losing a single Death Defiance, and that's about how far I got on the run when I turned it off.
Morse has launched on November 11th 2025. Unless you mean you only installed the demo and I misunderstood.
Oh shoot, yeah, I only have the demo, I think I missed the listing.
Just a heads-up, it jumps in difficulty when it introduces multiple lines. You're right that it goes from one line to two, but it goes higher than that.
There are ammunition types to deal with that of course but the game is tough.
Since Steam just ended their typing game sales week the price is back to normal. With some luck you can snag a deal still on isthereanydeal.com
The Tales of Phantasia Cross Edition English patch finally came out a couple of weeks ago, so mostly that. It's been great being able to use Rody, and it's such a huge QOL thing to not have the spells slow down absolutely everything on-screen.
I've also finally created my own personal World of Warcraft server, WotLK client based on AzerothCore. I got unexpectedly emotional when the process finished and I was able to log in to this world that I've been part of for around 20 years, but it's mine now and I can do what I want.
Does that self-hosted server come with bots that populate the world as well? I remember reading up about people hosting their own private WoW servers years ago but never got down the rabbit hole myself.
Yup, I have the bot version. The caveat is that I don't have any of them turned on yet, as the more bots you have, the more demanding it is.
I’ve been playing Mario Tennis Fever with my son.
This reminds me of older EA arcade titles. It has a lot in common mechanically with EA Grand Slam Tennis. It is easy to pick up and play, harder to master.
Swing mode is not quite as responsive as you want it to be. That said, it is even easier to understand than Switch Sports tennis. It is good for young children or elderly.
The single player rpg mode is only about 3 hours long. It is really just a tutorial.
That said the gameplay is magic! The court is smaller than Mario Tennis Aces and it gives it a sense of tension and quick rally’s. Much like how NBA Jam shrinks the court versus NBA 2k.
Honestly, if this game gets a patch to fix online with friends and adds a little more content via free DLC, this is probably a Top 3-4 Switch 2 First party title.
The family friendly pick up and play nature of the matches reminds me more of Mario Kart 8 deluxe than Mario tennis Aces.
Vampire Survivors - Played through much of the Foscari DLC and unlocked the best gold farming method in the game which makes the O'Sole Meeo farm look tame by comparison. You can farm billions of gold within 15 real time minutes with Sammy and the correct setup.
The problem is that after buying so many golden eggs on a character, the game utterly breaks and becomes trivial. You move so fast that it's easy to run entire screens within a frame. Yes you can remove Golden Eggs that increase your move speed to counteract this, but there comes a point where the game no longer becomes fun because your character is so broken.
Old School RuneScape - I wish I could have played more Deadman Annihilation and actually maxed my account to make Permanent Deadman playable again, but it sucks when your free time is being drained by a crappy job and social obligations.
Anyway, hit combat level 81 with the plan to use my 60 mins PvP immunity on moving to the next bracket to do Wilderness Agility Course runs for big loot. And then I hit a brick wall when I first forgot to grab a bladed weapon to cut the web near the deep wilderness teleport lever, then forgot that I need a looting bag for some arbitrary reason, then found out I actually need 150k coins and not 100k to receive loot from doing the course.
Bring on Leagues VI. Deadman is basically a much crappier Grid Master at this point, except you can't progress your account because you get griefed by PvPers outside safe zones and for some reason pickpocket restrictions ruin things further.
I haven’t been playing any video games lately as I’ve been completely addicted to Warhammer 40k: Kill Team! The game is a ton of fun and I’m way, way more into the hobby aspect than I thought I’d be. I was very much missing a creative output in my life, so it’s been fulfilling to assemble and paint models and see the start to finish. I’ve been spending hours in my basement painting and decorating and I love it very much! Then when I take my painted models and go play a game, it’s just such a sublime feeling.
I absolutely love this game and the hobby around it and I have the free time (and money, lol) to support it right now. Right now I have squads for Angels of Death, Vespids, and Aquilons. I just did the base layer on my wolf scouts and celestian insidiants.
Destiny 2
I installed this after it was in a Humble Choice a few months ago but never picked it up. I was then considering installing a different big game recently, only to find out that D2 was eating up a gigantic portion of my hard drive, so I figured I’d finally try out the nearly 150 GB behemoth before deleting it.
I'll begin with this: the graphics, environment design, and gunplay are all fantastic. The game feels great to play. I could see myself spending a lot of hours in this and thoroughly enjoying it.
EXCEPT
The onboarding for new players is utterly atrocious.
Plot- and lore-wise, nothing makes sense. It's incomprehensible. I assume this is because they "vaulted" old content and I'm being tossed into season, like, 5 of a TV show without having seen the previous 4.
Also, because it's been a live service game for like, a decade, there are so. many. different. things. in the game (from all the different expansions, I'm assuming). I'm 5 hours in and I'm still getting tutorial popups, many of which tell me what to do next, but don't always explain the structures or systems underneath them. It's all a bit baffling.
Also, it seems like they've put a floor on loot? I started out with items that had power levels of like, 10. But then every single thing I've gotten since has had a power level of 300 exactly. I can appreciate them circumventing grind, but also that's part of why I want to play the game in the first place -- to live out my powercreep, number-go-up fantasy.
Furthermore, either I'm misunderstanding something, or the game is still pretty buggy? It feels weird to say that about a game that feels so polished and has been out for so long, but it certainly feels true to me right now. Ammo pickups in particular seem to be an issue, as I won't always be able to get them even when I'm not full on ammo. And quest markers are often missing, even when I use my Ghost. Neither of these are dealbreakers (I mostly use the infinite ammo weapon anyway), but they're little bits of friction that hamper the otherwise super smooth feel of the game.
I do like the game, and I'm going to keep playing it, but I don't love that the game feels "busy" all the time. I'd like something more straightforward and less noisy (and buggy) but with the same great production values, environments, and gunplay.
EDIT: I just remembered another bug or maybe just a casualty of the game not being playable in sequence anymore: the game gave me an exotic gun. Cool! I later did a quest to get my first exotic weapon, which was the weapon it had already given me. Weird?
Brotato - I have a newfound appreciation for the many playstyles the 60 or so characters provide. My current way of playing is random character select, manual starting item pick and danger level 5. At my skill level this is usually a loss but that makes the occasional wins more satisfying. It's really about exploring each character's playstyle though.
On the boardgame side we've been playing a bunch of YINSH. I am not super into abstracts but this one feels very good. The dynamic board and the cool use of the rings makes it sing.
I played (and finished) Carimara the other day. It's a short puzzle/exploration game based in folklore from Normandy, and has a unique and rich visual style.
Most of the gameplay revolves around collecting cards so your (mute) player character can show them to other characters to get more information about the central mystery. It's a very short game (I finished in less than an hour) but the ending was satisfying and I was definitely left wanting more.
I found it both engaging and very charming, and a little creepy in that good way.