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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
I started Final Fantasy VII Remake on PS5. I've been patiently waiting for the PS5 upgrade from my physical PS4 disc because I knew the process of transferring between the two wasn't going to be clear and I'm glad I waited.
FFVII was my first Playstation game and I owned it before I ever owned a Playstation. I never finished it. I got to somewhere in disc 2 but that's it. Also, that was a lifetime ago and I've forgotten more about FFVII than I ever knew. But playing this remake is really working for me. Everything is sort of vaguely familiar. I appreciate the transition from the menu based JRPG trappings to something of a hybrid with FFXV's dynamic combat. For comparison, I've played every numbered FF (except XI) and XV is the first one I finished.
I'm only five hours in, but I'm enjoying it a lot.
I also started Desync. I thought this was a rogue-like or run-based game, but I was wrong. This is like Bulletstorm in a computer, without the dicktits and other edgelord nonsense. It's pretty tough but I'm loving it. Just fast, clean action.
I also checked out the latest update of Brigador. I found playing on GOG that it's not sharing my save game with my previous Steam install. But that's fine because Brigador is fucking awesome and I don't mind replaying the campaign. This game is still cool and I'm getting used to the different control scheme.
Somewhere along the line they added "screen absolute" controls. This means pressing S moves my mech down. The contrast is against the previous tank controls, where S would mean reverse direction based on facing.
It takes a bit of getting used to when I played through it all with tank controls before, and I find myself "walking backwards" a lot. That's more of a visual annoyance than problem.
Regardless, Brigador is still an awesome, pretty, challenging mech stomper.
Before I left to see my son and grandson, I was still playing Hades. I’m still loving it, but even better than that is that my husband has started playing it also. This is the first game we’ve played together in Avery very very long time. I’m sure once our joint game’s runs become longer we won’t want to play it together anymore, but so far it’s been super cool. On my own runs, I still haven’t managed to make it through the rats, but have been working through killing both Hydra and Theseus and Asterius with different weapons. I’ve died a lot. I have over 100 attempts. Before I left I decided I would finally read up on boon synergies when I got back home, but I have been afraid of any storyline spoilers - I’m liking the unfolding of the story.
Still not sure what exactly I like about the game. Once upon a time I played both NetHack and Angband, but I don’t remember having as much fun as I am having now. I also quickly abandoned both games as saves became more of a thing.
While I’m away, my husband is making progress on his runs, and I am just competitive enough to be worried that he’ll be better than me before I make it back.
From what I've seen, most of the written boon guides don't contain any spoilers. Avoid video guides, and you should be fine.
I struggled so much with Theseus and Asterius... But the rats were never a problem to me. The game is a bit odd like that, every stage is so wildly different, and it seems to be very individual which parts of the game we struggle with.
Do you have any favourite weapons, boons, and keepsakes?
Now that I am back home, I'll start looking into them then. Thank you!
I find the sword easiest to use but really like the spear. I've been taking the spear out more trying to get better at it. For boons, that's been changing, but I really like Athena's dash deflect and Zeus's call, though last night I ended up Zeus's cast chain lightning, Hermes's cast boon which drops bloodstones from enemies faster, and can't remember which boon (I think it was a boon - maybe I purchased it) that caused damage when the bloodstone dropped. I had never really paid attention to casting as damage unto itself so had never thought that I could build that way. Oh, and I'm always happy to have doom on my special. For keepsakes, I've been using Chthonic Coin Purse and Lucky Tooth the most. How would you answer those questions?
Actually, when I think about it, there are going to be spoilers in the guides for a character you haven't met yet. You'll meet this person after reaching the surface for the first time, so you may consider waiting until then to look up guides.
Oh yeah, that's one of Artemis' boons. Sounds like you had a good combo going!
It's hard to pick! I think the bow is my favourite weapon. Athena's was my favourite dash for a long time, especially so whenever I come across the witches' coven in Asphodel. Poseidon has my favourite call. For cast I like any that hits more than one enemy (Zeus, Poseidon, Athena). Dionysis' attack, and Ares' special. For keepsakes, I can't count how many times the Lucky Tooth has saved my skin, but I think my favourite is Lambent Plume. That little ding is so satisfying, and it synergises well with Zagreus' aspect of the fists, and some of Hermes' boons.
I've had FTL: Faster Than Light in my library for years and I've finally decided to dedicate my free time to gitting gud at it and uh....hot damn, this game does not pull any punches. It feels like a miracle surviving to warp 5 (basically the halfway point) on normal, and so far I've only had one win on easy. I'm learning something every time I die but good lord, it's merciless every time.
I've been playing a whole bunch of Rogue Legacy 2. It's a lot like the first, but they've added metroidvania mechanics and retooled some of the systems. I've finished playing through all the bosses now (and new game cycles, up to NG+5) so I'll put it down until the next update.
It's currently in early access and there are a few bugs, but it's nothing damaging to gameplay. It's actually pretty smooth compared to the first one.
I think it makes for a great "pick up and play" game. It's easy to do 1 or 2 runs and put down for a while.
I tried out Leo's Fortune. It's fine. It's a "collect the gold coins" platformer. The controls can be confusing at times, like when you're moving to the right and the terrain curves up and back on itself. Do you keep holding down the control in the "moving to the right" position to move "forward", or do you switch to "moving left" now that you're upside down and moving back in the other direction? (It looks like you keep holding down as if you're still moving to the right, until the terrain ends, and once you're in the air, quickly switch to "moving left". I still suck at it and it's still confusing and hard to do.)
Progress on getting my Borg Maintenance Drone (aka Gary) leveled up in Star Trek: Legends is going slow. You need more points to reach each successive level, and the shuttle missions end up having less and less impact as you level up. I've spent a lot of latinum buying upgrades for him, but I'm starting to lose interest. Also, playing any actual levels is difficult because the other characters aren't leveled up as much. At one point I had him, Janeway, Bones, and Whorf fighting a powerful enemy called "The Dreamless." They can take out half my crew before I even get a chance to perform one action, so I'm stuck at a level I can't clear until I level up the other characters a bit more. (And it's not like the others are low level, either. Gary's at level ~75, the others are like at 60 or 65.) I'll probably get bored and give up this week. We'll see.
Dropped Final Fantasy 7 (PS1) about halfway through, the game started off pretty interesting but honestly, once you get out of Midgar I feel like the game keeps getting worse and worse.
I was also planning on replaying Mega Man ZX and ZX Advent since I finished Zero again a few days ago, but the FMVs aren't working on Linux right now so I'll keep the ZX series on hold for the time being.
To compensate for these two, I replaced Final Fantasy 7 with Yakuza Kiwami 2 and ZX with the Mega Man Game Boy games. Kiwami 2 is already quality Yakuza as usual so far (finished chapter 1 yesterday), and the MM GB games are... interesting. Controls feel a bit floaty, but otherwise decent enough. Not on the level of the NES games, but it's alright so far.
Dark Souls: Remastered: All of the Souls games are on sale through HumbleBundle for a grand total of 52 USD. I expected something artificially hard, but at least after clearing Undead Asylum, it looks like it'll be fun. I had to do some research to ensure I could trust the game, though, because I was a little scared it would try some tricks to boost its difficulty. This article seemed to help with my concern, so I'll just have to play patiently.
TES is still in my rotation, but I'm aimlessly meandering across Cyrodil in Oblivion, and doing random side quests in Skyrim. In Morrowind, I'm doing some mix of Mages Guild quests and exploring the map, and with OpenMW's huge draw distance (I got it to 7x with no frame drops) and improvements in 0.4.7, I'm seeing things to discover I didn't even know about in the distance, which is quite distracting.
I'm going back to Polybridge 1 and 2 for something to relax to, but I'm at a point in both where the bridges seem to be damn-near impossible for me to do, which tells me to keep trying.
EDIT: I'm also playing The Long Drive after its big update, which added new vehicles and more effective guns. However, you still start with the measly BB gun.
Wow, that's a really good article on Dark Souls, a game that's been talked about to death (and then some). That's exactly why I keep going back to play through the various Soulsborne games over the years since their releases. I almost never finish a run, it's more about enjoying that experience in the moment, kind of like re-reading parts of a book or re-listening to an album I really like that take me through a particular experiential journey. It's not about enjoying the mechanics, or the art, or particular moments so much as it is about the experience the games craft with all those things coming together at once.
Even the high risk nature of it puts me at a certain kind of ease as it demands a certain amount of concentration, effort, and thought that can all be washed away in an instant. There's a certain peace to be found in accepting the nature of it (especially after it happens!).
I'm still playing Apex Legends. It's a lot more fun now that they added the 3v3 Arenas mode. I hope it stays permanently.
I started playing 'Fight the Dragon' after it sat in my Steam backlog for years.
It's a fun little ARPG. Very kid friendly, so far only done easy levels. Not much in the way of mechanics.
However, the build in level-editor is great, and a nice built-in system for obtaining new user-made content. Works well as a TV game, as it also supports split-screen multiplayer.
I'm a bit late to it, but I've been playing Sayonara Wild Hearts (as well as watching my partner play it, since they're better at games like this). The soundtrack is great, the visuals are very pretty, the gameplay mechanics are varied and interesting, and the game is very gay. Two of my favorite songs from the game are Parallel Universes and Forest Ghost.
I'm also still slowly plugging my way through Horizon Zero Dawn. I did my first cauldron, which was very stressful; I'm not good at bosses, and stress tires me out easily because of my chronic illness, so... I might ask my partner to help on the next one, or switch it to story mode temporarily. But otherwise I'm having fun taking out bandit camps sneakily and riding robot dinosaurs.
So apparently shortly after I got it, Yuppie Psycho got a big upgrade to coincide with the Switch release, so I've been playing through it again for the extra content. I'm a bit annoyed that you have to start the game from the beginning again to access the extras (mostly because I forgot exactly how I finished it first), but I think the extras are really nice; thankfully the new stuff doesn't take too long to come into play. I'm not one to scream from horror games but this has made me yelp quite a few times. It really gets under your skin.
I think I might have talked about it before, but I really love this game; it's not a big budget production by any means, but I love the setting, the environments, the storytelling, and even the not-quite-retro pixel art aesthetic. I especially love how well they managed to balance horror and humor. I really hope Baroque Decay makes more games in the future.
a good amount of brigador, Ive completed all the new campaign missions, and the new spacer power suit is fun! It mounts a heavy weapon in a power suit chassis, so it gets kinda ridiculous... Also, the other new vehicles, and the auto firing weapons on some of the old heavy vehicles, are very nice.
Finally, Ive been binging on several zachtronics games. Id played a ton of spacechem and infinifactory back in the day, and bought every game when it released, but they seemed to always come out when I was in the middle of other games. Ive gotten halfway through opus magnum, TIS, and MOLEK SYNTEZ, (and a good way through shenzen, but I dont know how many puzzles there are in total...) after I get tired of chemical stuff, Ill move onto exapunks and some zach-like games not made by zachtronics, like human resource machine and sillicon zeros.