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

Maplestory Classic World had its free grand launch last Thursday and as somebody that first started playing Maplestory some 20 years ago naturally I had to join for the nostalgia.

For those that don't know what Maplestory is, it's a 2d Korean MMORPG published by Nexon that launched in 2005 and has gone through quite a few different versions and changes since then. It's more or less a cultural cornerstone in the Asian gaming community and it was also one of, if not the first game to introduce gachapon (chance based lootboxes) to gaming.

Classic World is a new version of the game that tries to recapture the gameplay and pacing of the MS from the late 2000's, and by that I mean it's notoriously grindy and brutally slow to level or accrue in-game money compared to modern MS, which lets you blitz past all of the early-mid game content to grind endgame and more recent content, as is the trend with most long-running MMORPGs.

You may be thinking, "wow that sounds a lot like what Blizzard is doing with WoW Forever", and you would be almost exactly right except Nexon is a Korean game company so they're, how to put this, conservative with content releases. WoW Forever is releasing with a pretty solid amount of content because it's already in the game files, Blizzard just needs to adjust pacing to match how it was before while maintaining modern QoL features. MSCW on the other hand is a fair bit more limited in current offerings, with additional regions for higher levels already in the files (they were in the closed beta tests) but locked until next year, supposedly to try and stretch user retention so they don't blitz all the content again. As a result, the well over 100,000 players that surged in have packed the current playable space beyond absolute capacity, even with 40 channels, and it's a struggle to find a map that doesn't have at least 4 other people on it. On top of that there's already a rampant and growing botting problem of throwaway accounts farming mesos (in-game cash) for RMT purposes, which is only making the overcrowding issue even worse since they usually take up all the space in the most convenient low level training areas.

Despite all that, I'm still having a good time. The much slower pace is actually refreshing and reaching the 2nd job advancement feels like a proper accomplishment again rather than being a 15 minute speed bump that it is in modern MS. I actually need to manage my mesos and potions, and player-run shops are thriving with stuff other than real-money cosmetics (though there's a ton of that too, naturally). Going to take my time with it once I hit 2nd job (bowman 1st job is rough) and enjoy it at a steady, leisurely pace to avoid burnout. Happy mapling!

What I've been playing the most is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney the first game, on PC. I've played it before, but I don't remember a lot of it and it's been nice to have something very casual that is mostly reading and isn't something I need to sit up straight and intensely focus on. I've been playing it on a smallish handheld via PC emulation and it's been great so far. I just finished the....second case? I think. Turnabout Samurai or something like that. Looking forward to playing some more and eventually getting distracted and putting it down for years again. But that's just the nature of my gaming life.

In between, I've been playing Stalker 2 an hour here and an hour there. I really like it, not much else to say. Though one thing I do find interesting is that the Bloodsucker creatures are far less scary than they were in the original game. I'm not sure if this is due to the fact that I'm almost 20-years older than I was when I played thef first game or if something changed, but they just feel a lot more obnoxious than scary.

I also put down Monsters & Memories. I quite like the game, but it's maybe a little too faithful to Everquest. I would love to keep playing, but unfortunately, I do not have the time to try and find a group for an hour and then sit in the same spot for an hour or more and kill the same creatures over and over, even if the social interaction is fun. I often need to be able to set a game aside at the drop of a hat and this MMO is just no conducive to that at this point in my life and it's not terribly fun or interesting to go off and try to solo stuff. I think there's a lot to love about it, but I just don't have the kind of time or energy for gaming I did as a teenager.

I've been playing the crap out of Neon Abyss 2. I loved the first one and it's more of the same: standard side-scrolling rogue-like shooter but with a high level of polish, generous progression, and fast pacing. I almost always end up overpowered, even on the rare runs where I lose, and that's fun to me. The sheer number of power ups is staggering. I nearly have all the achievements and only one boss remaining and I still haven't seen half the power ups and even several of the special rooms.

I've also been playing FTL: Faster Than Light because I missed it 15 years ago and it's a ton of fun but also incredibly difficult. It's on the opposite end of the rogue-like spectrum from NA2 because gameplay is very slow and methodical with lots of pausing, I never feel powerful enough, and the meta-progression is almost non-existent. I'll keep trying for a bit longer at least.