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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.
SkillUp mentioned Titanium Court in the latest episode of the Friends Per Second podcast and it totally sounded like something I would normally never touch but it also sounded so absurdly indie that I figured I'd try it anyway.
So anyway, this game is absurdly indie haha. The core game loop itself starts as a match 3 that shapes the battlefield for the second part, which is a sort of auto-battler where you summon units and use spells that consume resources you get from the match 3 section (matching things gets you that resource). Your castle, the eponymous "Titanium Court", is one such square in the grid, and there are various enemy forts or other threats that can appear and also be matched away, with the rest being what you need to deal with during the auto-battle phase. There's also shops and chests that can appear on the grid during the match 3 and you can access them after the match 3 phase is done and prior to the auto-battle phase. There's a lot more nuance to it than I can describe here so I'll just say it's very unique without being too complicated to pick up quickly.
The storytelling is uh, I really can't describe it in words other than "very, very indie". I have no idea who the developer's target audience for this game was other than people looking for an indie game experience. It's not unpleasant or crude, but frequently eccentric. It's got humor, but in a weird way? Words really fail me here. Wouldn't say it's a must-try but if you're looking for a unique indie experience it'll definitely give you that.
I tried the demo but didn't finish it. I could see how it could delight people looking for novelty or quirkiness. I think I was more interested in the gameplay and turned off by the story/dialogue just cause I felt thrown in the deep end.
That may be by design, the overarching plot is your character being suddenly dropped into this "Court" in a position of far too much responsibility and your primary motivation is to figure out what the hell's going on and how to get out. The game creator wants you to be initially confused and overwhelmed like your character, but then also take it in stride and figure it out as you go.
Yeah, I think it is. I just wasn't up for doing that.
"Theater farce" is the best i've come up with, as it's obviously modeled off of that style.
I have started playing Triangle Strategy on Switch.
It is a turn based strategy game in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem.
The game is beautiful, which was the initial draw I had for the game. Its a Octopath Traveler art style, with 2d sprites walking around in 3D worlds that mesh together without looking discordant. I really appreciate the ability to freely rotate the camera. Its a small thing but it really helps you appreciate the environments they made.
There are three game modes: the turn based strategy combat, exploration maps where you can walk freely around an area and talk to NPCs, and cutscenes.
The strategy combat is pretty much what Id expect so far. Characters unlock new abilities as they level up so I havent seen what all people can do, but generally characters have slotted into typical swordsman/tank/mage/healer/etc roles you might expect from this sort of game. I am playing on normal difficulty, and as of around 1/3 through the game it hasnt been particularly difficult, I havent had much trouble with the stages so far. Units dont die permanently, which is nice. Stages have started inteoducing unique mechanics, so there may be more complexity to the battle system that hasnt been introduced yet.
It might seem odd to include cutscenes as a "game mode" but there are a lot and it takes up about 1/3 of playing time. This is honestly kind of a problem early on, the first chapter or two is kind of a slog with all the exposition they make you sit through before getting to the first few battles.
After some time though, the game really comes into its own. The heavy narrative exposition sets up interesting geopolitical conflicts that make each of the 3 nations involved seem like rational actors rather than pure good or evil.
The protagonist is controlled by player choices in dialogue, with each of the options being reasonable choices. Rather than choosing between being a good or evil person, its more like you choose between being honorable and standing by your obligations vs sheltering your people from being drawn into war. There are also difficult diplomatic choices you need to thread the needle on, such as maintaining diplomatic relations with a powerful nation that discriminates against the ethnic minority that your bride is a part of.
Im only on my first playthrough, but it seems like the game also offers you a few meaningful choices that will alter the way the plot unfolds. Im interested in seeing how much a repeat playthrough would be affected by different choices.
My criticism of the game would be that the 3 game modes I described could be integrated better. For example the exploration phase can seem like busywork, where you just need to just go around town and make sure you talk to every single person because sometimes you unlock valuable intel that way, but there is not much interactivity beyond that. On the other hand, the cutscene sections can be a lot, and I think the designers realized that too because a lot of side scenes are made to be optional, as if they realized people might get bored needing to sit through all of it at once.
I think maybe trying to combine the exploration and cutscene phases might help break things up a little.
I also notice a bit of sloppiness in the translation, like spelling "jail" as "gaol". Feels like someone should have caught that.
Otherwise though, I have been enjoying it a lot and would recommend it.
"Gaol" is a dated British spelling of "jail", so maybe they intentionally used that version of the word to better fit the setting? Unless they only did it sometimes, in which case that would most likely be sloppiness.
While dated and uncommon, gaol is still in use in Australia. On its way out perhaps, but not yet gone!
I've also seen it on occasion in the US (just on historical buildings, but still — it's not an entirely unfamiliar spelling there).
Oh that might be it. I thought it seemed like a weirdly conspicuous error but Ive never seen that alternate spelling before.
I am a huge fan of this game. I admit I really like tactic style games so that gives it a boost, but I feel like the game is really well executed. I was hesitant to buy this at first because I saw people complain about the length of story. That was a concern for me as typically video game writing and story is not good or interesting, so being stuck in it can be pure torture. However once I played I found that I was really caught up in the story. The characters are extremely believable, the plots are interesting and the moral choices are such shades of gray that is very hard to pick out what is 'best', there will be tradeoffs. This made each one of the vote sequences feel not tedious at all but very interesting.
I've also come to realize over the years that in games I need some context to keep my interest in strategy games. It's the reason why I would struggle to last long in any kind of 'endless mode', even if I really, really enjoy the mechanics, the meaningless battles eventually get old fast. However when you introduce a story reason and/or a narrative, along with good theming, the gameplay doesn't feel old, and Triangle Strategy does a good job with this throughout.
I have played through it 2.5 times I think. The first time I went in blind and enjoyed seeing where my choices led me. The second time I was on my steam deck (amazing steam deck game I might add) and had mostly forgotten the plot and followed a 'golden route' guide using my new game+ save and still found it great. I love the way they scale leveling, so even if maxed out the levels feel interesting, and catching a character up to the point of being usable is very fast and rewarding feeling. I started another play through to pick up any characters I had missed but had put the game down after that for a while.
All in all I think this is a brilliant tactics game and has become one of my all time favorites. I feel like the second play through really cemented something in me where I came to appreciate everything about the game even more. I don't play through story driven games like this very often, so I feel like it's just doing something really right.
I love that game. I’m on my second play through. I got a good ending the first time I think. Not sure how many endings there are. Such a cozy game that makes you think.
I really like Triangle Strategy. Even though I've technically playing it on and off for like 4yrs and still haven't beat it.
But it's definitely solid. Much better than Octopath Traveler, IMO. The story is interesting; I always like games that are about politics and intrigue (which is one of the reasons I play a lot of JRPGs).
I definitely hear you on wanting better integration between the "modes." And for sure the long cutscenes. I've had friends who've complained about that, too.
The other is grinding. I know that's pretty typical for TRPGs, but I feel like Triangle Strategy requires a lot of grinding to level everyone up and get their gear and abilities and all that. I try to keep everyone's levels pretty close, even those characters I don't use often, because there may be times I do need to use them. And that has happened. But that means lots of grinding. Sometimes I'd play multiple sessions in a row where all I'm doing is the training battles in the camp, over and over again. Because you need items or money for upgrades, and the game is kinda stingy with that stuff.
Hmm, I should get back to the game again soon.
Hollow Knight Silksong
I had a few gripes with the first Hollow Knight. I don't like that you take damage for just touching an enemy. I don't like the bench save system where if you die, you have to do a (potentially lengthy) walkback to where you were - this is really annoying for boss fights, adding a patience tax to retries, but also sometimes feels like a punishment for exploration. And because of that, I don't like that you need to explore in order to get a map of the area (it would be fine if your map automatically updated with places you've been, and then the purchased maps could fill out the entire zone. That way if you die it'd be easier to find your way back to your ghost). And you should have a compass by default and not have to use a charm slot to have it equipped. I don't like how a lot of useful things are hidden in "secret" areas that you have to attack through walls to get to (so you end up attacking every wall in the game just to check you're not missing anything). I like the system of hitting enemies to get mana then using that mana to heal, but unfortunately this means I almost never used my mana for spells because healing was too valuable. Platforming feels a little wonky at times, particularly with grabbing on to walls and with how floaty the double jump is.
Silksong still has all these issues.
Things I like about Silksong over the original: The dash upgrade also has sprint built into it. Hornet's movement feels more fluid and graceful. The only nitpick I have is that by default your air down attack is diagonal and that takes some getting used to, but when you unlock the Wanderer crest it has a simple downswing which makes "pogo-ing" much easier. Enemy gauntlets/minibosses/bosses felt sprinkled in at a better rate. In the first one it felt like when I got to a boss it was almost like playing a different game. I like the Princess Peach / Dixie Kong style hover ability. I wish they didn't bind it to the same button as double jump (once it's unlocked late in the game) so you have to double jump first if you want to use it.
Things that add further pain over the original: Most of the benches require money (rosaries) to unlock, so if you bought a cool item or unfortunately died on a walkback and couldn't recover your loot from your silk cocoon, you can't save or recover your health at the new spot. Eventually you learn to keep a few rosary strings on you (which carry over through death) when exploring new areas, but it can be a bit of a painful lesson. There is one area that has toll benches (lower cost to open but require payment on each use), and the concept feels much worse in my brain than it is in practice. Retying certain boss fights in "memories" is so frustrating. The full sequence of unskippable (non-?) cutscenes - where your character takes 5 seconds to wake up, then you have to hold Y + down for 5 seconds, then wait another 5 seconds to enter the memory, then 5 more seconds to wake up inside the memory, then sometimes a bit of minimal platforming or clearing a few bozo enemies to get back to the bossfight - is completely disrespectful of the player's time. Granted, I play a lot of Celeste, so I'm used to basically instant reloads. But come on.
Crests and the various tools are a big expansion of mechanical complexity and access to gameplay variety (something I usually value highly in a game) available to you but it feels so hampered by a lot of things. I will keep it brief - I ended up sticking with Wanderer crest from the time I unlocked it til the end (except for when I got other crests and was forced to use them for a bit until I got back to a bench). It feels the most responsive, and that's what I value in this game where every slight wrong move can mean you take 2 damage. It also only has 1 slot for tools so I played with them that much less. And as mentioned the downswing felt a lot better for pogo platforming. And to retread another complaint, when you get a new crest your compass and other tools are unequipped which made it harder to get back to a bench and made me hate the initial experience with them.
Right now I'm at the end of Act 3. I haven't been able to beat the main boss yet. I checked reddit for tips and they suggested using basically my exact build, so I'm on the right track but just need to git gud I suppose. I've been running around doing other things partially to take a break from it and partially cause I needed to grind for more shell shards. First time that's come up for me in the game. Also kinda stuck on the Hunter's March memory boss (Karmelita) right now, but she feels more beatable. I guess for reference in the first game I beat Grimm and The Radiance but I didn't do the pantheon.
Silksong's crests and tools open up a lot of flexibility between spell usage and healing so you might find yourself with more silk to spare for spells by changing that up a bit. I know there's one tool that increases the base amount you regenerate, which when combined with a few spool upgrades gives you enough to cast one spell without needing to hit anything.
There were a good amount of benches that cost Geo to unlock as well. Rosaries are a lot easier to come by than Geo, at least.
That's supposed to feel shitty, that whole area is an awful place and the devs want you to feel shitty there. But at least it's still not as shitty as that other place.
Oh yeah I hated that so much too, that didn't feel like it added anything of value.
I used Wanderer's crest for basically the rest of the game after unlocking it pretty early on but I still messed around with a lot of the usable tools, you don't need Architect crest to get good value out of them.
Took me more tries than NK Grimm did and I had to sleep on it but once you do git gud it feels like a great fight. Also, poison cogflies. Game is hard enough, cheese is a valid tactic.
Have you tried chugging flea brew and just going apeshit (and healing while she's staggered)? That's what worked for me.
OK I guess I will expound on my thoughts about them now then. I believe that is probably true, but...
Aside: getting the Witch crest and getting cursed was miserable.
Consulting the wiki, only 4 in HK vs 10 in Silksong requiring money (edit: actually I'm not sure if it's 10 or if each in the list could be multiple in the area?), however 3/4 cost 150G which I did not remember and that is a bit nuts.
Got any memorable scenarios you found different things useful? I wrote above how I mostly stuck to 2. I tried using some traps in gauntlets but they felt a little lackluster. I used the bombs (pimpillo) to 1-shot enemies when I was doing Delivery quests where you can't get hit too many times. I also had some success with Flintslate in a couple gauntlets and boss fights where I didn't feel like I needed to deal with enemies that shoot me from a distance and I could just whale on them.
That's a pretty neat combo I didn't consider!
Haha nope but I will give it a shot. I did consider using Flintslate but didn't get around to it yet. It might not surprise you to hear I didn't play with flea brew much because it costs something to use and is even more of an annoyance to refill (and of course the 1 slot limitation of Wanderer crest! I would have tried things a lot more if I could put them in a second slot).
Against bosses with large hitboxes, conchcutter can do some disgusting damage. It hits multiple times as it passes through so if you just throw em all while the boss isn't moving for a second you can do a ton of burst damage. Flea brew synergizes especially well with Wanderer due to its already high attack speed and improved silk gain, so you can basically trade blows with some bosses and heal the damage back.
Magnetite dice might feel like a really low chance for what it does but it's still one of the best blue tools for combat, and any chance to ignore damage is valuable. Weighted belt is actually big for increasing Wanderer crest DPS since you don't need to waste time moving back into range, while spamming attacks.
For yellow tools, injector band + multibinder is the safest combo. Fractured mask is also very popular for survival but you only get value from it if you take a lethal hit. Longclaw's popular with Wanderer since it mitigates some of the range disadvantage. Pollip pouch is a must if you want free extra damage from red tools, particularly with threepin or cogfly. If you are going for more direct red tool damage instead, Quick Sling doubles the amount you throw. Druid's Eyes (the upgraded version) is less popular since you need to get hit to get value from it and it doesn't give a lot of silk back but it's not bad if you're using the damage trading tactic. And this last one is a very personal choice, but I quite like snitch pick since you can get a bit of silk from clawlining an enemy, and I like to be aggressive with clawline.
I take it you haven't gotten to the end of the flea caravan questline? You should, the reward is well worth it in multiple ways. Also if you hit Kratt while he's peeping on you in the spa, he stops charging you to use it.
Poison Cogflies + gitting gudder took care of the last boss :)
I tried out flea brew on the Karmelita fight and it worked a treat! I have finished the flea questline (gotta get dat oil) and know it is free to refill now. Technically still have the time cost of traveling there if I need a top-up haha. I didn't know you could hit the spa guy, he always ran away when I jumped. Didn't try very hard to get him though. Kinda moot cause benches refill my silk too now.
I have been using Dice, Belt, Longclaw, Multibinder for sure. Haven't found Quick Sling yet.
It didn't really occur to me to use clawline as an attack on bosses (just had it in my head as a platforming tool, and dash is so ingrained in muscle memory) until I watched a video of someone using it on the final boss.
After I wrote the bulky section below on Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, I couldn't sleep, so I played Selkie Harbor and Deconstructeam's short game Many Nights a Whisper. I'm adding this addendum up top just to tell you to play this game right now. It's an hour long tops, it's like three bucks on Steam but if you don't want to spend the money DM me and I will literally buy it for you. As long as I don't get like more than 10 people asking haha.
Like the CRPGs I've written so much about lately — like all Deconstructeam games — it's a narrative experience about making choices that will challenge you. In it, you're chosen to perform a ritual where you have shoot a fireball into a chalice from a great distance. You'll only have one chance to do it, to make everyone's wishes come true if you succeed. So the game is about practicing for that shot. Where the choices — God, the choices — where they come into play is for you to find out when you play the game like I asked you to. But the game, for being so short, is incredibly impactful. Left me shaking with adrenaline and catharsis after the ritual was complete. Might stick with me forever? If you're not a fan of these short narrative experiences Many Nights probably won't win you over but otherwise, please play it, and then when you do, please tell me what you thought about it!
So. Anyway. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. It might be too early to say, but I think this is my new favorite fantasy/adventure CRPG (which I say only to exclude Disco Elysium, which is very hard to compare). This is developer Owlcat's second game, and the followup to Pathfinder: Kingmaker: another CRPG devoted to adapting a preexisting Parhfinder TTRPG adventure path into game form.
I've written a lot about Owlcat over the past — how long now, over a month? And I've been playing their games for about two months. My journey through the developer's output started with their most recent game: Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, and I'm honestly really glad it did. I was lukewarm-to-positive about that game, but I think if I had played it after the Pathfinder CRPGs, I would have hated it, because in every aspect except production value, it is a step down.
Maybe that step down was inevitable, though. Kingmaker was an eclectic game, 90% friction by volume, really less a power fantasy than a barely-holding-onto-power fantasy. For that reason, and because of its genuinely excellent character writing and great plot writing (at least in the CRPG space, a genre where the huge amount of reactvity makes it hard to create a strong main plot) I loved Kingmaker. In a lot of ways, Wrath as its sequel feels like a play for a larger audience. A lot of the rough mechanical edges have been sanded down, especially in the management portion of the game; the story is much more of a true power fantasy now, maybe more than any other game I've played. The production values have gotten much higher — you can rotate the camera! there are more than three overworld tilesets! But even so, WotR surpasses its predecessor, because in terms of reactivity, in terms of character work, in terms of the way the game encourages you to actually roleplay a character, the game simply feels unbeatable.
The biggest selling point of the game is the Mythic Path system — both narratively and mechanically. It's an additional progression system, one where you unlock "classes" by completing quests or making certain choices, and "level up" by progressing the story or finishing path-exclusive quests. Each mythic path, once selected, is locked in: you'll get maybe one, maybe two chances to switch at story moments, but otherwise once selected your path is your path, and as you play through the story, it governs who your character is becoming. You can become a gold dragon, a demon, an angel, a lich; a spirit of freedom, a cell in the body of God. This fundamentally alters how you play — by granting new abilities, yes, but also by giving you new choices and huge new branching outcomes to select; also, by building an arc, a narrative, into your character whether you want it or not.
My character, Iphia, was conceptualized as a dhampir, a self-hating undead who saw monsters (like herself) as degenerate and wanted them purged and destroyed. It made sense for her to lead a crusade against demons, to close a wound in the world; she quickly earned the approval of the queen, and the fear and respect of her soldiers. So it was only natural for her to select the mythic path of Aeon, to become a being dedicated to upholding the law of the universe, and eradicating wrongness from the fabric of the world. But even as she pursued this path, the game presented me with obstacles to challenge her belief and values. First, with the companion character Aerushalae, another monster trying to overcome her fundamental nature and do good (who I stumbled into romancing), who it would be "lawful" and "aeonic" to kill; later, with a journey to the Abyss, where her increasingly overriding Aeonic nature drove Iphia to uphold the laws of what is basically super-hell, and punish those who did good, or showed mercy, or lived by a code (since that broke the laws of the Abyss, where everyone is "supposed to" be evil). This all forced my character to really reevaluate what she believed, why she cared so much about the law, and who she was turning into, and, at a key story moment, decide not to follow the path of the Aeon, but to choose another path instead. And I think what impressed me most about WotR was how easily and regularly it did this: confronting my character's beliefs, constantly forcing her to choose, to make decisions, about how she felt about things, what she was thinking, where she was heading. Wrath is the most reactive CRPG I've ever played, but more than that, it encourages and enables roleplaying more than any other game: constantly presenting decisions, big and small, that shape not only the plot, but the character you're playing.
Back when I was writing about Rogue Trader I didn't really love the companion system. Nowadays I'm much more positive on it; I think my problem in RT was just that I honestly didn't understand it. Companions are constantly watching you, any time they're with you. Especially when you're playing their quests, or at major story moments, but at other times to, companions will react to your decisions, actions and offhanded comments in subtle, internal ways, as multiple internal gauges shift. (Other important characters, including the villain, have these too). Their perception of you will change; they might change, in ways that ultimately affect their personalities, the way their quests unfold, and how their stories end. It's subtle and incredibly naturalistic, and it makes the Owlcat companions feel more like people than in other CRPGs I've played. I'm tempted here to compare Wrath to Baldur's Gate 3, where by comparison the companions feel better integrated into the main story, and have more budget funneled into them, but they are all also hot 20-somethings with similar trauma who will fall for you at the drop of a hat. By contrast, Wrath's companions are much more diverse in terms of race, appearance, age, body type, sexuality and availability. Even morality and personality; many of WotR's companions grated at first, but I eventually developed a grudging respect or even affection for some of them. Not all; I don't think my player character could ever find it in her heart to like Woljif.
I need a pallette cleanser first, but I'm already planning my second WotR playthrough. My choices as a lawful neutral Aeon often lead to me missing a lot of content — and even killing two companions, who it would be impossible to justify letting live from a roleplay perspective — so I'm really interested to see what a more true-to-me chaotic good playthrough would look like, and what new content might be waiting. Maybe I can dive more into the combat and buildcrafting side of the game, too, which I mostly avoided this time around by playing on a lower diffculty and letting most of my companions auto level. There are two optional dungeons I'm dreading playing again, Blackwater and The Enigma, but for the most part, despite being very, very long, Wrath of the Righteous is a total joy to play.
I've been playing a lot of Fear and Hunger 2: Termina recently. I'm normally not into turn based RPGs, since the whole idea of just standing around in a liminal space trading attacks seems weird and awkward to me, but this one has proved that the system works in the right context, for me.
I'm surprised it isn't done more often, but the way it uses survival horror to heighten everything is genius. Suddenly you're actually using the items in your inventory that nobody ever uses in these games, because they're the difference between life and death. Life and death feels like an important distinction for a change because saving the game is not done lightly, and you could lose hours of progress. This also means that if you end up in a bad situation but you made progress, you'll probably choose to keep your progress even if it means you now have to deal with the problems that came along with that progress, like having lost both arms and now you're reliant on magic to get by because you can't hold a weapon. In the future, if you want to avoid attacks that instantly dismember, you'll have to take care to choose your fights carefully, use special abilities, status moves, etc.
Basically, it forces you to interact with it the way I imagine devs want you to interact with turn based RPGs, but no one ever does.
The story and characters also have me hooked, especially since you can play as so many different characters with their own specialties and stories. I've beat it once, after 27 hours, felt amazing, and now I'm in my second playthrough as a different character who plays totally differently. I don't think I'll stop til I've been everyone, and even then I'll be back later, I'm sure. I really, really love this game.
One thing I'd say: I think you need to play harder turn-based games and/or at higher difficulties! There's most definitely turn-based games where the systems matter, you just need to up the dials a bit!
Play a Bravely game on Hard. It's not all that hard but it's enough to make you think about your team composition and skills, use items, and make use of the awesome Brave/Default system.
There's also supposed to be a big update coming eventually (the dev has stopped giving estimated release dates because he keeps missing them, but I suspect it'll come out sometime this year) so you'll get to have the extra content from that eventually!
I haven't actually played the game myself yet but I've watched a lot of F&H content.
Having completed Escape from Ever After, I need to mention something I forgot last week.
I quite enjoyed the game's sound track!
High budget productions these days often have beautiful, expensive, orchestral sound production. There's a lot to love about that kind of music, but the creative directors in charge of these endeavors often (there are exceptions) seem to want the background music to know it's place, meaning, well, in the background. It's there to set the mood, but it's not there to be the center of your attention.
The melodic, upbeat music of Escape from Ever After harks back to the days when music rammed its way straight into your brain and attached itself to your neurons. Which millennial doesn't remember at least a few songs from the PSX era of Final Fantasy? Even if you didn't play Final Fantasy. (You may think you don't, but you do.) We know the music from Tetris, Mario, Sonic or Zelda, even though it was just a bunch of chiptunes and midis, because they were all earworms, with clean and crisp melodic phrases that played at the same volume as the sound effects. It was designed to be heard over and over, a thousand times, while remaining loved rather than hated.
I don't want to create false expectations here. EFEA doesn't have chiptune music and it's obviously not comparable to these legendary soundtracks. But it's a great set of pleasant, rich, vaguely jazzy instrumentals that do a good job of getting noticed, so I couldn't just ignore them! Each song is clearly meant for the storybook it plays on, although whether you agree that the storybook should have the feel of its song is a matter of personal opinion.
World of Warcraft - I finally finished the Insane in the Membrane achievement. It took years and years..!
Since the announcement of Turtle WoW shutting down I've just been taking my time with finishing the stuff I wasn't around for in The War Within and continuing into Midnight. Went from a stressful raid schedule 5+ days per week in TWoW to not even logging into modern WoW every day. Taking my time with questing, enjoying especially the revamped Silvermoon and Eversong zones. Reading quest texts, enjoying the soundtrack, taking extra looks at the landscapes, etc.
The latest patch got some bad feedback for apparently being a buggy mess with low or no testing. But I haven't even made it to that content yet. I only just finished the main story campaign, and it was pretty damn great. So yeah the change of pace was much needed. I knew for months that I wasn't really enjoying TWoW anymore but I didn't realize just how unhealthy the raiding had got for me on TWoW until quitting. I'm really enjoying WoW again!
On that note, I've been working on grinding a Final Fantasy XIV relic weapon for about four years (since Shadowbringers) and just finally closed out the quest I've been stuck on that whole time (collecting items from Delubrum Riginae). I've still got another mess of quests to do for it, but they're less obnoxious.
I keep trying to find a turn based game to replace Total War: Warhammer 3, at least until the next DLC comes out but ideally a complete replacement as I have dropped more than 1200 hours into TW:W3.
I finally got around to starting Age of Wonders 4 and it has me hooked. I apparently played AoW3 for 25 hours at some point, but I remember nothing about it.
AoW4 often gets compared to Civilization but fantasy. This is a poor comparison, but I get it, although combat is a lot better than in Civ. A better comparison is Disciples 2. This feels like a perfect evolution to Disciples 2, which I have been looking for basically since my original Disciples 2 CD broke from playing it a ton as a youth.
Turn based, tons of options to build out your city, tons of units, leveling heroes, clearing NPC mobs, magic and spells, research trees, fun combat with the ability to auto resolve. It hits the sweet spot for me when it comes to fantasy 4X. I'm still only in my first game, so I guess I could still get bored, but that seems unlikely.
I am always hesitant to start a Paradox game "late" as you can drown in the DLC, but it sounds like the DLC is all optional and similar to how TW:W3 does it, which is great.
I'm about 40 hours into Divinity: Original Sin Enchanted Edition (my first time playing either DOS game) and I'd guess about 40% of the way through. I am a bit overwhelmed by the size of the game and it took me a while to get the hang of combat, but I'm very much enjoying it. The camera annoys me in much the same way that BG3's camera annoys me and I haven't really bothered much with crafting (which is maybe the wrong thing but it feels like a system that's just unnecessary). I have the same feelings about the identifying. Neat in concept, but mostly seems burdensome.
I got partway through Divinity and I ragequit temporarily because boss combat seemed unnecessarily difficult, it was stressing me out and I've since gotten distracted by other things. I find the game really fun to play otherwise! I did find the crafting pretty satisfying, I made a couple of weapons that were superior to what I could buy, as well as additional craftable items, and I just liked to discover new recipes generally. I found too during combat that sometimes if I clicked near an enemy but not exactly on them (which could be hard to tell depending on how much crap was on the field), I would move next to the enemy instead of attacking with no way to cancel, and that was contributing to my frustration. Glad to hear you're progressing, though! Is there anything in particular about the game that stands out to you, or any particular questlines you've enjoyed? I'm trying to motivate myself to return to it.
Boss combat is tough, but it's usually meant for me that I'm either under leveled or need to try a different approach. Realizing summons were vital and to focus on crowd control rather than direct attacks (generally) helped a lot.
The classless system kinda messed me up at the start so I don't think I distributed my points in the best way, but I'm getting the feel for that.
The combat controls are a bit finicky, I agree. Multiple times I've shot my arrows at the ground instead of hitting my actual target.
Overall, I'm enjoying the story. I like that it starts small (murder investigation) before branching out into the existential conflict.
I made the same realization about summons! Once I realized that spell cooldowns were so punishing, I went all in on minions, and that did help a lot. I also try to make sure party members have ranged attacks as much as possible, because if they get surrounded it's going to be a bad time. AOE attacks are also essential, but usually have cooldowns.
I can't remember what they're called, but the trio of bosses you fight on the first map, whom you defeat and then you fight as undead versions of themselves - I think I'm several levels higher than them, and I walked into the arena and my entire party got one-shot before the battle even started. That was my ragequit moment, and I'm still a bit salty! But generally I love many aspects of the game, especially all the extra information and flavour text from talking with animals, the cats in town and the obnoxious rooster were both awesome. I feel like it might be helpful for me to read a character skill guide, but honestly I just want to play the game and figure it out without turning the difficulty down, but we're at the point where I'm not actively playing it, so maybe I just need to get over it and make it easier to play. I think I'll try to finish one of my other RPGs first and come back to it.
I was stressing out really bad about healing potions early on...because D:OS2 didn't really explain that bedrolls were a thing, and I passed up many opportunities to collect one.
So...uh, don't do that either lol.
Oh yeah I got absolutely annihilated on that fight the first time. I honestly didn't even know what happened. But I looked up a strategy after that that ended up working for me (essentially trigger the fight with one of your team members, with the rest waiting outside the room, and then use the double doors as a funnel so you're not fighting the whole room at once.
Glad I'm not the only one! I'm at the point where I think a good cheese strat implemented well will do a lot toward making the game playable for me again. I will try it out! Thanks for the suggestion.
That's on my list. I played D:OS 2 and am going to go backwards and do 1 eventually. I just started another long game though.
Plenty of time to get through it before the upcoming Divinity game is released.
The ability to talk to animals is a lot of fun.
A note that I learned after starting and is apparently not liked about the first game is that you need to spend an ability point on one of your main characters to be able to talk to animals in the first game. And it feels like a waste of an ability point to me so I haven't done it yet.
Same deal with the second game, you have to spend a point. I found it actually impacts quests. Sometimes animals will give you hints that unlock alternate approaches to things, and I've even had help in the form of items. In the first act, a helpful rat gave me a lock pick.
Ah, I guess I misread the criticisms of that. There have been times so far that I've felt the need to talk to animals so it's a bummer there's not like a spell I can use instead
I've been trying out Elden Ring: Nightreign with the same person who I played with for the original game and the DLC. We didn't get it at launch due to its focus on solo or three players with no two player mode, but that was added later, so here we are. I'm still salty that they weren't clear what kind of game this was in the initial reveal trailer, but the game itself is pretty good so far.
We haven't been able to beat an expedition yet, but we've gotten to the boss on day 3 who's some kind of Cerberus. Now that we've started to get the hang of what we're supposed to do, we're enjoying it. It's very different from a proper Souls game though. The only real similarity to the Souls games is a mostly similar moveset. It's nice that X/square is consistently used for your healing flask, but I keep expecting up on d-pad to toggle between my consumables like in Elden Ring, but instead it uses your consumable! Toggling is instead down on the d-pad.
The AYN Thor i got for myself finally came in and I love it. It's much much smaller than a steam deck and can still play huge portions of my steam library thanks to Game Native, so i'm finally chunking through some backlog stuff that was fun but hard to justify when i'm on my main machine. With that in mind:
Thor stuff:
A Hat in Time - Mario 64 inspired platformer with a cute theme. Haven't gotten too far and have a few gripes about the movement so far, but we'll see if I still feel that way in time. It's objectively well made so I expect it to grow on me and am I already enjoying it.
Glyph - Unique platformer. You're a "beetle" who's mostly a ball. Your goal is to collect items on levels where if you hit the sand you die, but can touch stone. You can of course jump, and your in air options are:
Double Jump
"Bounce" (fall straight down)
"Fly" (about 1 secondish of controllable forward movement)
You can only do one of each before touching the ground(or a wall) again which resets them. If you go over certain spots you get a "triple jump" that you keep until you use it.
With just those mechanics it feels VERY well built and i'm having a blast. I got decently far before but there's no cloud saves so i'm starting over and having fun doing stuff again. Especially because even the easiest levels have secrets to unlock cosmetics which demand a better understanding of the mechanics, so you can fly through doing the basic stuff(which is fun itself) and find a challenge still getting the secrets.
Main Machine
HoMM Olden Era - S'ok. I love the theory of games like these a lot more than the practice. I could probably fill a rubric on my thoughts on this so suffice it to say if you like anything at all about the HoMM style games, this one is well done and worth checking out.
Three years ago, I played 90% of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, then took a break and fell into the trap of "it's been long enough that I don't remember how to play." Just dusted it off, picked up where I left it, and finished the main story and InterMISSION. Overall, I like the game a lot.
Now I've started FF7 Rebirth, and I'm liking it so far. It's interesting that it's familiar, but expanded in many ways. Lots of new things to do, and the sudden switch to an open world is certainly a change. (I get why, since I played the ordinal FF7 up to about this point.) Still early on, but I'm looking forward to see where it goes.
Finally finished Pragmata today, at least the main story.
I’m astonished with how much post-game content there is. The game really gives you the impression that there isn’t much to it, at first, but the more you play, the more you realize, you’re in for at least 40 hours or more to complete everything.
The only things I am 100% sure I completed are all the collectibles in each sector, the bot data, the infiltration logs, and the figurines. Nodes and modes I have some left to get, as well as weapons. Abilities are all maxed out. The suit is also maxed out. Hacking and primary unit are one level away from being maxed out. I also got a crown in all but the last training simulation (that last one I’ll do later, it’s absolutely insane).
I took the scenic route. Took me 20+ hours to get all this.
For now though, I want to take a break from this game. I’ll return to it someday in the future. I want to do something easier and fun.
I’m returning to Mario Kart World.
I got it on launch but only did the trophies in the Grand Prix. Honestly, I only got the game because there were no Switch 2 units without it left. I wasn’t really interested in it.
Still, I paid money for it, so I’ll play that for now, and maybe until Star Fox launches. I’ll try to get all the collectibles in Free Roam, etc. Gonna take it really easy the next few weeks.
I've been playing mainly mobile stuff this past week or two (alongside Minecraft):
The Battle of Polytopia+ (Apple Arcade)
TownsFolk (iOS - $5)
I've finally gotten around to playing Mass Effect 3 (Legendary Edition), and I've spent about 35 hours so far in my first playthrough. Initially I was very excited about the return of old characters, more choices in gun options and mods (compared to ME2), and the return of real sidequests (even if it's just scanning planets sometimes - it's still less annoying than ME2 and I'm still happy that Batarian guy in the Citadel was so moved). I don't like that missions can be missed, but I've got a guide up and I'm slowly making my way toward the Tuchanka plot-centric mission. A former roommate played the original back when it released and so I have a pretty good idea of what's coming (including the ending), but so far I've really enjoyed it. Grunt's cameo was awesome, the character interactions on Sur'Kesh were great, and I love Javik. I wonder how people feel about the series now - I hate shooters and I'm currently playing on casual to avoid the shooty gun tedium, but I like the series a lot. Once the galaxy opens up to exploration, the game is fantastic.
I'm also trying to do a full trilogy run of the Witcher, currently replaying The Witcher 2. I played the first two during COVID and really loved them, and since I bought Witcher 3 finally I'm trying to give myself three differently-aligned Geralts for the finale. One place that ME is superior to Witcher is the save selection screen - ME is great about letting you know which is which, whereas in Witcher you have to guess a bit, and this has led to me picking the wrong save twice now, and I'm replaying chapter 1 for the third time. (I accidentally killed Siegfried in one playthrough and you're forced to kill him in one route, so I really want him to be alive for 3). The game is beautiful, though, and I've gotten so used to the controls that it's flying by pretty quickly, and I'm actually appreciating the game more. It has most everything I like - well-developed characters, excellent sidequests (including some very silly ones, and many that do not require combat (unlike ME, where most involve shooting things with guns or scanning planets)), excellent loot options, and quite a lot of customization on gameplay. In Witcher 1 Igni is massively overpowered and destroys mooks with ease around Chapter 3 if you level it right, and although it's not quite as OP here, it's still pretty powerful if you spec yourself right. I think Witcher 1 was a little more fun and creative in the potion/oil department, but enhancements are a good addition in 2 and allow a lot of different approaches to specialization. (And, of course the soundtrack is incredible in both games.)
I might load some of my chiller farmy games like Harvest Moon or No Man's Sky, but so far I've been too sucked into the world-ending drama to relax.