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Use this thread to discuss whatever game you've been playing lately: old or new, AAA or indie, on any platform between Atari and XBox. Please don't just list off the games you're playing in your comment. Elaborate with your thoughts on the games and make it easier for other users to find what game you're talking about by putting the title in bold.
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has a Discord server! Feel free to join us and chit-chat about games here:Scheduled Discussion Posts
WEEKLY: What Have You Been Playing?
MONDAY: Thematic Monday
WEDNESDAY: Suggest Me A Game
FRIDAY: Free Talk Friday
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Mass Effect 3. Concluding my Mass Effect trilogy run, this week I finished the final game. See my earlier comments for thoughts on Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2.
I know many folks consider this the weakest Mass Effect game, but I’ll say it: this might be my favorite. I definitely prefer it over Mass Effect 2. It improves in every element where its predecessor faltered: deeper RPG elements, a more focused plot, the removal of tedious loyalty missions, much better squadmate interactivity, and better level design.
The fact that Bioware delivered all of the above on top of an epic, satisfying, and genuinely emotional story conclusion, speaks to their talent and Casey Hudson’s vision. It’s hard to write a good conclusion. Mass Effect 3 absolutely delivers epic closure.
My one fault is in Shepard’s dialogue. Where the predecessors sought to make Shepard a blank slate, in Mass Effect 3 (s)he feels a bit more pre-defined. The language on the dialogue wheel feels only loosely connected to Shepard’s delivery. It’s as if you’re feeding Shepard suggestions rather than actually being Commander Shepard.
The dialogue is not a dealbreaker. In fact it just admits the conceit of the entire trilogy. Mass Effect is not a hardcore CRPG. That was never the intention, not even in the first game. It’s a blockbuster video game epic with dialogue choices. Mass Effect 3 refines that formula down to its essence.
I want to be clear that I played this game with all major DLCs. Each DLC felt essential. I won’t discuss the vanilla game, because that’s something I never experienced. I’m reviewing Mass Effect 3 for today in 2021. Not early 2012.
But honestly, I was blown away. Mass Effect 3 is one of the most satisfying, emotional, and ambitious story conclusions I’ve ever played. I will be thinking about this galaxy for a long time.
Carto I’ve also been playing between big games.
It’s a puzzle game on Game Pass. This is a good tastebreaker between the more epic RPGs i’ve played lately. I’m not blown away but it’s a cute little world with good puzzles.
ID: gq4hesaID: gq4wzp8Definitely agree. I rate all three games of the trilogy individually at an equal score. Probably like a 9 or a 9.5 out of 10. Because each game has a couple things that it does worse than the others. Looking at the package as a whole though, perfect 10.
But if I HAD to choose, I'd probably go with Mass Effect 3. The gameplay was so well refined, and the story was one non-stop setpiece after the other. Absolutely loved the pacing from start to finish. And yeah, while the ending wasn't the absolute greatest, I think the hate towards it was immensely overblown. The rest of the game is such a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, that I hardly think about the last 15 minutes.
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I've just started Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and I'm loving it. First star wars game I've ever played and it just oozes charm
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Loop Hero
Nice fun game, great to play while I'm binging Netflix or not paying too much attention. Im rubbish at it though, but the loop is fun.
Arkham Asylum/Origins/City
Damn, even with how highly rated these games are I still feel I don't rate them high enough. Going back to these I didn't know how they'd hold up but they are just FUN. Considering I don't have Spiderman on PS4 this gives me my superhero kick.
Despite Origins being the worst rated I actually think it was possibly my favourite of the first 3. The story and characters were great.
Arkham Knight
Looks amazing, feels amazing, love the feel of the Batmobile and the new Fear Attacks, love how well designed everything is. Easily the best out the lot. Except on PC... It doesn't work. When I played on my old GTX 980 it ran fine but on my new rig it runs terribly - not in performance but in the amount or crashes and annoying bugs. My DS4 stopped working randomly and my config files got over written. Probably on average of 5 crashes every play session. Infuriating to the point is the only game in the series I probably won't complete again (though have played twice before).
ID: gq6o08pI think Arkham Origins is my favorite as well. I really enjoyed the focus on Batman being a detective.
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XCOM's Long War Mod is so fucking good. I've been playing it for over five years now and still regularly come back for another campaign. The depth of content is just phenomenal and for my money the devs managed to get the balance just right so that the campaign stays fun and engaging the whole way through. Gives that 'hanging-on-by-a-thread' sense of danger but you're still progressing right up until you finally manage to snatch a desperate victory (or not - I still fail some campaigns!).
I've just started a new campaign and I'm at that good spot in the first month when I've got assaults and scouts running around nailing sectoids but the aliens haven't started throwing anything serious at me like bloody mutons yet.
Definitely ranks up there with DotA, Counter-Strike, and DayZ as one of the best mods I've played.
ID: gq4al2uI love XCOM, and Long War is one of those mods that I've always been sort of interested in, but I just don't think I'm good/patient/willing to accept failure enough to play it. I'm the kind of person who reloads the save whenever one of my favorite soldiers dies, gets attached to individual soldiers, and likes to slowly build up strength until I have overwhelming power (I've played games of XCOM: EU/EW where I have Plasma weapons and Titan Armor before I do the Alien Base Assault.) From what I've heard, Long War is kind of brutally hard and requires you to go into engagements that you really would rather not, and would just be too punishing for me.
ID: gq3bi53Upvote for xcom. While I’m partial to xcom 2 with loads of mods, xcom in general is awesome.
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Finished the main game of Nioh 2 (PC) last night. I really enjoyed it, more so than the first game, which is a game that I think very highly of for its combat system. Nioh 2 does more of what the first game did, and also does it better overall, which I think was the perfect approach for a sequel. More enemy types, better level design, new and fun game mechanics (Burst Counters and the Dark Realm), new weapons, really fun boss fights, more visually appealing...
Nioh 2 hits all of the right notes for me in nearly every regard, and I'm very glad I finally got to play it. I highly recommend giving it a shot, it's a great time.
ID: gq4hxhrShould I play the first game before Nioh 2?
ID: gq774zjWhile NG is probably better in NIOH 2, but NG plus is really rough in this one with massive HP spikes on enemies where even with up to date gear you always get the sensation your gear is very outdated. NIOH 1 had way more seamless transition between each NG+.
I lost interest in Dream of the Wise - it just became way to slow while getting progressively more grindy. I'm not afraid of grind if pace is right and it feels fun, but in this one - I would save myself a hassle on anything above Dream of the Strong.
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Monster Train
It's been more than 2 months and I just can't quit you.
I like it more than any other roguelikes and/or card games, I always feel that I am in control of what will happen. Some champions combinations are wack tho, if it ain't going the way I would like, I can just star over; it's a very fast paced game.
Clubhouse Games Richii Mahjong
I don't know how this happened, I'm addicted to Mahjong. I blame Yakuza for this.
Fire Emblem Three House
Started playing just recently, can't really form an opinion as of now but I am loving it.
Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled
Better than Mario Kart? Maybe. Harder to master but I always feel like I am in control of the outcome. Little kart racing blue shell bullshit. The loading times tho, those are painfully long. Wish it were available for pc to install it on an SSD, oh well. Still an enjoyable experience.
Sonic Team Racing
This, on the other hand, sucks hardcore. Whenever I feel I am close to winning, Knuckles just falls back. I send my teammates all the good items, drive in a straight line so they can easily boost, and they still can't keep up. The team mechanic is just broken. What happened? Sonic All Star Racing Transformed and Hotshot Racing are good games, but Sonic Team Racing? Nah, that one is just no good. They tried to innovate over something that was already solid and failed epically.
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valheim
Just can't stop playing this game! It's almost always something you can work towards, I have a private server with some friends and we're having a blast many days of the week!
loop hero
Bought it on a whim and I'm honesty surprised how addictive it is, the combination of a card game, idle game and swapping gear is fantastic, don't let the simple graphics turn you away.
the life and suffering of Sir Brante
It's a pick your own adventure book mixed with rpg elements, haven't gotten more than two hours in and I'm liking it so far, I hope it holds up!
I have played some other games as well but I've spent most of my time this week with these ones.
ID: gq86jm0You must be a fan of the egg
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I've beaten every Pokemon game at least once before but I played through Pokemon Red for the first time since I beat it as a kid and it was still pretty fun. I liked that 1st Gen Pokemon can feel so different because of the Special stat, something about having a Gyarados with Surf, Icebeam and Thunder is still hillarious to me. I also liked that you can do a lot of the story in the in the mid-game in any order you want.
The game definitely had some issues tho, that were mostly fixed in the later games. The learnset of most Pokemon are just awful and they are completely useless without TMs. Funnily enough you get a lot of the broken TMs way too early, which makes you steamroll through the majority of the game. Bag management was also pretty infuriating, I don't even know how many items I tossed in this playthrough. The exp curve is also pretty fucked, I did all optional trainers (but didnt grind wilds) and was completely overleveled from Nugget-Bridge all the way through the 8th gym. After that you are immediately 5-10 levels below your rival and 15-20 below the Top 4 ... which funnily enough wasnt an issue at all because their Pokemon were still idiots with no useful moves whatsoever. I'm now pretty convinced that the older Pokemon games really werent that much harder than the newer ones, it's just that we had less knowledge about the games (and were in a lot of cases probably just a lot younger)
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I’ve done an awful job of finishing games before I move on to the next in recent years, especially with my busy schedule. I’m glad I finally got to play and finish Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition. The combat is great but the camera is a headache. Overall I absolutely loved it though.
I just started Persona 5 Royal on Friday. I usually don’t do JRPG’s but the art style mixed with the music, and the acclaim it has amongst fans made me wanna try it out. I’m still very early on in the game but I’m really liking it a lot. I’m gonna do my best to make time to play it as much as I can during the week.
ID: gq7846uI don’t play many jrpgs at all but having finished this game in January it ended up at number 3 on my all time favorite games. I hope you enjoy the masterpiece of a game that it is. You should know that there are specific things you need to do in the game to access the added story content & you need to do them by certain dates in the game or you will be completely cut off from the story content added to the Royal version. The content was some of my absolute favorite so I would heavily recommend making sure you meet the requirements before the deadlines.
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Untitled Goose Game
On the NZ PSN store this was kinda expensive for what it is, even on sale, but what a great little game. Most of the tasks are fairly easy once you've messed around in each level to see what you can interact with, but completing all the bonus tasks and speedruns was a good challenge.
Thoroughly enjoyed the co-op mode as well, the only thing better than a mischievous goose is two mischievous geese.
Prey
Still slowly making my way through this, no idea how far through the story I actually am but I'm at the point you always reach in games like this where I'm spending hours doing side missions without progressing the story. Still having a great time, although the game is a lot easier once you get far enough to be able to just make yourself as much ammo as you need.
I haven't unlocked any of the Typhoid powers either, I might complete this run with only human stuff then do a second run with alien powers
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Finished Nioh 2.
What a good game. Cleared almost all of it, except for the last DLC sub-mission (saving Mujina etc). I'm not big on new game plus mode for any game, rather clear my backlog, but it is nice to have the option, might revisit the game later because i just loved the combat.
Story was ass, though. While i liked the setting and characters and all that, the story just a bunch on nonsense that never once grabbed me, like at all. I like the idea behind it, just the execution was very lackluster. I dont like Nioh 1 story either, but i very much prefer a voiced protagonist. Custom character was nice, i love character creation stuff, but being non voiced killed the story for me.
Not a fan of graphic as well, messy and lacked anything interesting. Draw distance was an issue as well, shit pop up at a really low range, pretty awful, but honestly, hardly notice it when you're focusing on the combat. It still an issue though, when you want to appreciate the view and shit.
Combat was excellent, the added mechanic is great, utilizing yokai ablities and all of that shit. Its all just so satisfying to play, it really elevated Nioh way above Souls series, for me, strictly for the combat. I play mainly swords and dual swords in the main game, but im doing the DLC with all of the weapon to unlock the needed proficiency for the Dojo, and Switchglaive is definitely my favorite, but i liked all of them, fist, hatchet, and tonfa was great as well, not a fan of Odachi, Axe, and Splitstaff, with the latter being the worse for me. Its not bad, im just not a fan of holding down button for the combos, its pretty unique though, i'll give them that.
Anyway, while i dont really care for the story that much, but still, hopefully theres another Nioh, the combat is just way too good. Whether its a prequel or sequel, i'll take anything lol. I know the game lore are deep into japanese historical sengoku period (im a big fan, thanks to Samurai Warriors 2) but i would love to see a modern japan setting in those universe where Yokai exist.
Currently playing Control.
I've been sitting on this game out because im planning to play it once i upgrade my PC, im currently lucky to get the RTX series. I liked it enough so far, gunplay feels pretty great and responsive, the environment and map are confusing to traverse through as well but i'll probably get used to the layout more as i play.
Story is a bit confusing at first, but its definitely interesting to know where it would develop. I know it is inspired by SCP Foundation, while i dont read SCP that much, from the limited reading that i've seen so far, its up in my alley definitely, but its just too much content for me too sift through lol, maybe i'll looked it up after i've finished this game. Im a big fan of Twilight Zone, and Bright Falls from Alan Wake (I actually seeks out Twilight Zone, because of Bright Falls, lol, im a millennial from third world country, so TZ arent exactly known around here).
Graphic is awesome, the overall presentation is really great, the UI looks great and crisp, the visual effect are insane, and the environment being destructible as well just add the cherry on top. I've seen some complained that Control art direction is boring, just a big blocky office building with grey wall, doesnt deserve the award and all that, and i cant disagree more. Game is probably one of the most gorgeous game i've played so far, though character art needed some works IMO, its not bad but could've been better.
Cant wait to play more of it.
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Bravely Default II
Still at the beginning of the game, worked my way through the first mini-dungeon. I am a huge fan of these games but the removal of the QOL features and the poor performance on the Switch really take me out of the experience. It seems like there are more load times than in the old games? I'm not sure.
On the plus side I do like the graphics and so far the soundtrack is an improvement over Bravely Second, which was really bland. I'm not sure if it will reach the highs of Bravely Default's soundtrack but we'll see!
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Jurassic World Evolution
Gorgeously presented, but the management aspects are quite shallow and the story missions are fiddly. The inability to speed up time can make it rather dull as well.
Sunless Sea
Just started this and have yet to get into it. I got into a very dull loop where I had barely any money and had to keep making tiny trips to earn a little more, which was thoroughly unenjoyable. I've now got past that and will hopefully be able to get back into the exploration which the game is meant to be all about.
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Loop Hero
Not generally my style of game, but it's ok. I'd say it's almost too roguelike to my taste: though there is meta progression it's pretty slow and honestly doesn't feel much different at 15 hours than at the beginning. Run to run power variance is high, death is swift and punishing, items are simple stat buffs, runs are so long that experimenting with different decks is a chore especially since you can't guarantee you even get to complete the experiments.
There are some interesting mechanics like how specific synergies give buffs while also creating new enemy spawn points, or how spawning the boss requires you to build so many spaces. The art and music are both good. The different classes play quite differently, with some unique stats and item pools. Dialogue is quippy, but sparse.
I think if I couldn't play it with one hand and also be able to have a stream or video going on a second monitor I'd not have made it past an hour or two, but since I can it's probably going to replace Isaac as my podcast game (until Repentance, that is).
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Finally got around to buying Hollow Knight and it is exactly the game I needed right now. The art style is so good, the gameplay is straightforward but challenging and it has really great music and atmosphere.
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Valheim is good. Terraria + fo4 building + dark souls combat + outer wilds/subnautica discovery and exploration. It's absolutely living up to the hype for me.
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Hades: after Dead Cells, this is the only Rogue-like I’ve enjoyed enough to continue through the loop more than a few times. 15 hours deep and I’ve only made it to the surface once but failed. Right now I’m more interested in dialogue and completion than finding my perfect build, but so far the best run I’ve had was being decked out with Zeus’ boons on the spear, so basically everything I did rained lightning all around me. If I had used the artifact that lets you cheat death additional times, I bet I’d have beaten the old man- but I’m not done by far as I want to collect and fully augment everything.
Bravely Default II: I’ve barely played I since release day. I started it but then felt compelled to try and clear out a few other things first. I know I won’t adhere to the story if I don’t give it it’s own spotlight. I don’t mind the build of the visuals, but as a handheld gamer, it’s actually a bit ugly due to some pretty granular pixelization. I have no clue why Square used UE4. Switch never seems to run it well. The music is once again dope after the kinda plain Bravely Second score.
Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity: I’ve become more interested in the story even though I still find the core “how” of it all to be too easy and corny of a story vehicle. I guess I just appreciate the character interactions. It’s fun enough. I still like HWDE better for some reason. The quests are less linear and require a bit more itinerant prioritization.
SM3DW/Bowser’s Fury: I never played on Wii U. I really enjoyed 3D World, but still thought 3D Land was a better game with more enjoyable levels- but I really like the extra characters in 3D World. Online multiplayer works really well, and I have a few friends who actually have an online Switch game for the first time since MHGU. I just started Bowser’s Fury since I wanted to basically 100% 3DW first (everything except the “all characters/all stages” stamps). I like what I’m playing so far. It really is just like a bite sized Odyssey with power ups instead of Cappy.
Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection: Holy shit. Thank god for Squire difficulty. I can beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts once through (or at least, I could at a point in my life) but have never beaten any of the other games. This one is so good though- it plays with perfect tactile parity to the old games. The hordes are just as relentlessly spawned and all you really have is your wits- but with the addition of spells that can be used without the need for golden armor and other such advantages that can be earned/bought, you gain versatility as you go. It’s a little pricey for the length (even though each stage has alternate “shadow” versions that are even tougher and trickier, which tries to essentially double the game length), but I was impressed with the nostalgic attention the entire package has with the loving illustration.
Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition: I’ve played through the prior version (N3DS) but this one, while not perfect, is decently improved in most ways. Not the most in depth glam-up, but it does enough with the new paint job to look superior to the old ones without looking wildly changed. I’m playing through very slowly- I know what to expect so I’m not super driven to chew through it like last time- but I’m more trying to open as many side quests as I can, which I never completed in my prior playthrough. I’m saving the extra content for the end of my playthrough. That’s just how I do it.
ID: gq3ek48I really enjoyed 3D World, but still thought 3D Land was a better game
Really? I played 3D Land for the first time just a couple of months ago and am now playing 3D World, and I think the latter is way better despite me liking 3D Land a lot as well.
ID: gq3gyxuI know that "difficulty options in games" is a bit of a hot topic in "internet gaming discourse," but posts like this really make me glad when games include some options. GnG is such an awesome franchise, and it's allowed to be awesome to different people for different reasons. If having some extra tools to make the game easier let's you enjoy it, that's cool! There's so much more to GnG than just "it's hard"
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Littlewood on the Switch. So far I have about 15 hours and it’s definitely a detailed, full game for what’s it’s worth. People on Steam seemed to have given it moderately good scores and I have to agree. It’s not so much Stardew Valley or Terraria as it is Dark Cloud and Crashlands.
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Remnant: From the Ashes
The idea of a souls-like with guns felt very appealing to me. At first I didn't feel chemistry. After playing The Division 1+2 I got used to a fast and smooth movement. In Remnant I initially felt like I'm moving in a pool of mud. After a few hours I got used to it and started to enjoy the game. It's very challenging. Probably significantly easier with another player. Some of the Boss fights make me scream at the screen but eventually, so far, I overcome whatever they throw at me. It's very addictive.
ID: gq3zr41Picked up that game when it was free on epic like almost a year ago. Much more fun with friends for sure. A lot of the bossfights are just elite enemies with a little twist, which is kind of a shame, but they can still be pretty challenging. The Bosses that aren't based off regular enemies are such a treat to fight though. It reminds me of Destiny Raid bosses with you needing to divvy up responsibilities and managing resources as a team. Very satisfying.
ID: gq6m49qRegarding the difficulty,
You’d think so, but the co-op scaling in the game isn’t great. It’s significant easier in solo, especially versing bosses.
I have 150+ hours on Remnant, with 3 player co-op for the majority of it, and do genuinely love Remnant either way though.
I hope that Gunfire addresses this sometime because me and my friends have some more stuff to get in Survival mode, but it’s so much harder in co-op!
ID: gq77nh4It never really clicked for me for one simple reason - bosses are all the same: easy boss endlessly spawning adds till you kill the boss - making hard not the boss itself, but having to deal with gank mobs while damaging boss as well. And every freaking boss is exactly the same mechanically, which got old and boring real fast. For me - it's just lazy design. I'd rather see more mechanical boss encounters that all feel different - but here it's just all about gank squad spam and you can almost ignore mechanics of the boss itself as it's not really a threat on itself.
ID: gq82un5This game was so stale to me and cookie cutter I wish I didn't buy it. The environments suck. The gun play is weak. All the builds play the same with little differences. Difficulty is cheap unless you use multiplayer. So many games have done it better.
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I'm in the final stretch of Nioh 2. I used fists for the majority of the game, but after reading some hype about them, I was a little disappointed. Most of their attacks and skills felt a little samey. So I switched to Tonfa, which I wanted to check out since Nioh 1, and man, these things are fun. Their skills feel distinct and useful, and wearing light armor alongside them sped combat up a notch. I also used a Brute yokai form up until now, but switched to Phantom and its parry-like yokai counter feels much easier to use than Brute's slow club.
What an awesome game. I liked Nioh 1 a lot, but the sequel feels like it fixed almost everything I didn't like about it and then some. Everything except the loot, which still feels a little meaningless during the first playthrough. Feels like having fewer, but meatier stats per piece would be much more engaging. Like having a straight +20% bonus to something instead of a bunch of +5%s.
ID: gq3edwyI platinumed the first game twice but struggle getting into Nioh 2. I had fun in the first 30 hours or so (I'm at 40+ or something), but it's just so repetitive. I know people said the same thing about Nioh 1, but somehow it didn't bother me that much then, now however it's like I'm doing the same thing over and over again with barely any changes. It's been a while since I played the first game too, so I don't think it's that. The combat is fun though, can't argue with that, just wish the locations were more interesting visually and we didn't have to fight the same enemies over and over again.
ID: gq6i6frThe tonfas are awesome. I did the entire base game with Switchglaive + hatchets and then replaced hatchets with tonfas in the DLC. They were crazy OP in most situations. They could just burn through enemy ki like nothing. And they did it with style!
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Cruelty Squad: This game is so gross aesthetically that it wraps around again to being kinda a amazing. Gameplay wise it's kinda like deus ex/hitman but if every texture, animation and sound effect was having a bad acid trip.
Loop Hero: Loving this game but it needs a 4x and 8x option. The early game is too slow and repedative. The mix of gear swapping, deck building, tile placement and secret synergies has really hit the "one more loop" spot.
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Bravely Default 2
TLDR: About 17 hours in, just finished chapter 1. I'm really enjoying it. And now for some more detailed breakdowns!
Story/Characters
So far, the game isn't going to win any awards, and I wasn't really expecting much. BD1 and BS were pretty meh (though I admit I only got about halfway through both of them). I will say that I'm enjoying BD2's story and characters much more than either of the previous games. I actively disliked most of the cast of BD1/BS, while I'm finding the main cast in BD2 to be more endearing.
In terms of story, the prologue was pretty lackluster. I feel like anyone who has ever played a JRPG could've seen the betrayal of the the prologue chancellor and the death of Gloria's protector. That said, chapter 1 was a lot better. I was honestly surprised when Castor turned out to be the baddie. I was expecting another "oh no the chancellor betrayed us" story beat. Additionally, Anihal was adorable, and Orpheus was the perfect kind of punchable douchebag. And Castor laughing like a maniac for what felt like 30 seconds was really amusing.
Gameplay
I've been playing it on hard, so that'll be coloring my opinions. The combat/job system is tons of fun, which is to be expected. I've only got ~8 jobs or so, and I'm already working towards some fun combos. I've found most of the bosses so far to be quite challenging and fun to strategize around. My main complaint is with counters. I wouldn't mind so much if it showed what the boss countered when you analyze them.
I like the chain battle system in this game a lot. In BS, you could chain together battles only if you wiped out the enemies in 1 turn. This led to pretty dull random encounters in my opinion, as the end goal for your strategy was pretty set in stone. In BD2, you use an item that makes you have chain battles. Then the chain battles just happen whether it takes you 1 turn or 4 turns to kill the enemy.. That means you can actually use different strategies, which is fun.
I really enjoy the "underdog bonus" system, where you get bonus EXP/JP if the enemies are stronger than you. I don't remember if this was in the other games, but I don't think it was.
The side quests range from really good to god awful. Some quests give you bits of lore/character development, point you to new dungeons/optional bosses, or even reward new jobs. Others are "go kill 3 goblins for 2 antidotes lol."
Soundtrack
Soundtrack is amazing. BD1 had amazing music, too, while BS was just okay. Glad that we're getting a return to form here. My current favorite tracks are Gloria's special attack theme and the asterisk boss battle theme.
Misc
I had no idea this game had a (minigame spoilers) card game in it. And it's pretty damn fun.
There's a weird lack of polish in areas. The game can be somewhat laggy at points; I've noticed a delay of like 2-3 seconds when transitioning to a Party Chat.
There are also some weird design oversights in my opinion. Examining an enemy gives some info, but not all. You could see enemy statistics (def, attack, mag def, etc.) in the older games, but that's gone now. The monster catching system for beastmaster is quite disappointing. It doesn't tell you if you have a monster in stock when targeting it, and it doesn't even tell you what the monster's ability does. It just gives you the name. The game has a lot of weird, minor flaws like that, which makes it feel like it could've maybe used a couple more months in the oven just for ironing out some of those pretty minor details.
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Hades - Still progressing the story and everything. I’m getting to the top still, even with 3-4 heat, although grinding for diamonds/ambrosia/Titan blood isn’t easy and the Guan Yu prophecy is brutal.
Clustertruck - Got to the final level and it’s total BS. So far, the game is about you getting to the goal by jumping on truck to truck, with the explicit notion that touching anything which isn’t a truck will kill you. So on the final level, what do they give you? A boss battle where not only is there no goal, but you have to jump up onto the boss’s head, SotC style - something which was never even implied before in the game. And you have to do it THREE TIMES. I tried some skips I found online to make it easier, and every time I die because apparently I didn’t wait enough.
Like I said, it feels like they arbitrarily added in a boss and made it brutal just because.
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The Penumbra Series
Frictional games are masters at horror and seeing where they started was a treat. Penumbra series, overall, is really enjoyable with some small caveats here and there.
Overture, the first game in the series, is pretty uneventful and clunky. A proof of concept, but they where really onto something. Combat lessened the tension and horror of the game because I would take the time to clear a room of enemies even if it was through the clunky combat mechanic. The story is almost not there but by the end it gains some traction and ends before you can get any answer and in a massive cliffhanger that made me jump straight into...
Black Plague is the fully realized concept of Overture. It's great. It picks up right where Overture left off but gives you a nice recap so you won't be lost if you start from here. Combat was stripped so there's a lot of sneaking involved, puzzles are clever, logical and exciting to figure out and the story takes a more central stage. I feel like it traded a lot of the same steps Overture did but in a better way overall so I simply loved it. Except for a voice inside your head you get for half the game that talks to you in Mark-Hamill's-Joker-wanna-be that I really didn't love except when it started to turn on you.
Finally there's Requiem which was... weird. Where Black Plague and Overture proud themselves in having a great sense of place... Requiem just feels out of space. The whole game feels like a long ass dream sequence of puzzles that take you to more puzzles and there are no enemies, so little to no tension. I really can't figure out why they turn this way with the series but at least it was short enough and the physics engine still made solving puzzles satisfying.
ID: gq45al5Oh man what a blast from the past. I played these games over 10 years ago for the first time and I remember being blown away by interacting with cabinets and doors. The lovecraftian horror was neat, I'm going to have to go back and try these again. I do remember clunky slam a rock against a enemy combat from the first one though.
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Phoenix Point - Picked this up again both out of interest in possibly writing about it in the future and because I want to see if all those updates that have been tying up my Epic Launcher every time open it have improved on what I considered to be a miserably half-baked launch.
As it ends up, they have. When I first played this game almost a year ago my primary impressions were A) that it's incredibly obscure and even basic mechanics went unexplained, and B) it was massively difficult. The new opening to the game makes everything much more comprehensible and the difficulty scaling now feels much more reasonable. It's allowing me to actually appreciate the game's systems, plus the higher TTK, which makes firefights much more prolonged and tactical like EU rather than the quickdraw matches of XCOM 2.
Whether it stays good remains to be seen but I'm glad the game is finally in a state that it really should have been in at launch. That plus the whole Epic controversy really prevented discussion of this game from going anywhere.
ID: gq4xr1wI also played it on release and get underwhelmed, glad to hear a fairly positive experience on it so far. Xcom is my most played game on steam so I’m always looking for something along those lines. I’ll have to try it out again.
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I’ve still been playing *ac odyssey. I’m really enjoying it so far. About thirty hours in and I’m hoping I’m nearing the conclusion but I’m sure that’s quite a bit left. It’s a good thing the world is so beautiful because it’s pretty repetitive after a while, and there’s just so much in terms of side quests and things to do.
Story has been pretty good I just got to the point in which he meets his dad, and the reveal really took Me out of the story for a second there.
I’ll have to take a pretty significant break before I dig into Valhalla, but ac games are like comfort food.
ID: gq6x3isAbout thirty hours in and I’m hoping I’m nearing the conclusion
Game is usually more than 60 hours so you'ar probably in the 1/3 part, it's way too long
Story has been pretty good I just got to the point in which ...
Isn't it like the very beginning, the first region just after the prologue island ?
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Dragon Age Inquisition
I finished my replay this weekend. I think, what I really appreciate (and also frustrate) about this is how it tickled my imagination of what more it could be. I like the war table, it's all just texts and stuff but I appreciate it as a mechanism of storytelling. I wish there was a way to experience it more. Wouldn't it be interesting to see the mage and templar war up close? With the serious tone of a world war game set in high fantasy. It's not like there hasn't been attempts. The old Suikoden games had the battle skirmishes. I dunno, it's not really a criticism of the game as much as a direction I would like to see in the genre. Fantasy games, your usually this lone powerful character or a rag tag group, but what if, even as a leader, it was more grounded? Still with magic and dragons but a lot more chaos and confusion. Like playing through Helm's Deep or something.
Anyway, I'm gonna start looking for a new game to play. I could pick up Valhalla again or FF7 but I'm not feeling it yet. I'm at that post-game stage where I don't know what I want to tackle next.
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The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
I’ve played it for only about 10 hours which isn’t long but I’m having a love-hate relationship with this game. I really do want to enjoy it as I like it’s RPG mechanics and I like how there’s so much to do in it. But I just can’t get myself to play it for more than a few hours a time. I just get bored of roaming around to potentially find something to do, something that doesn’t involve enemies that are too high level for me and even when I do manage to complete a quest, I don’t get much besides a bit of XP.
An even bigger issue for me though, is that the game feels really clunky. Like in every way you move. Sometimes I really struggle to position myself to loot stuff and sometimes the horse doesn’t move the way I want it to (because it’s trying to move towards the path). Combat isn’t the worse thing ever but still not that great and the clunkiness doesn’t help. Honestly I’m starting to see how this is the same company that made Cyberpunk 2077 and not in good ways.
That said, for some reason I’m still interested to play more and I just hope that it clicks sooner or later.
ID: gq3qorjWhile I rate TW3 extremely highly, I don't think of it too highly as an "open world" game. Roaming around to find stuff to do like you would in Elder Scrolls or whatever isn't really where TW3 shines imo - What really elevates it is it's writing, particularly in the side quests. I personally think the way to think about the open world is as a way to make the backdrop to the stories more immersive, rather than as a gameplay sandbox, if that makes sense. So, rather than roaming about exploring, it's better used just as a way to immerse yourself in the role of Geralt, wandering around from town to town solving odd jobs
ID: gq3n50dCDPR is really, really good with characters and they are well above average in terms of narrative/overall story. Everything else is a dressing for them to tell you a memorable tale, more or less.
I think it is great and they created some of my favorite games ever, Cyberpunk included. But it might not be your cup of tea, if you are more into gameplay-driven games.
That said, since I think you've completed CP77, I would rate Witcher 3 above it. It has more great quests and its overall story is a lot more emotional, especially if you've read the books.
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Started episode 7 of Umineko When they Cry. I's really great so finally get some answers for some of the biggest mysteries. So far it's mostly been a confirmation of my theories, but it's still very enjoyable to see everything coming together.
Also picked up two new games this week: Gnosia and Loop Hero. Both are fun so far.
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Last time
Myst III: Exile (PC) - I started this a few years ago and stopped near the end for some reason - I finished it this week. It's pretty good and thankfully easier than Riven (I liked that but it's nigh-on impossible without a guide) and I like how every area ends with a long and detailed animation - it feels like a suitable reward. Saavedro is well-acted and believably complex, illustrated by the number of possible endings and how he acts depending on what you do. I own Uru, 4 and 5 - I'll probably do Uru next.
Mario's Super Picross (Switch) - Still playing on-and-off, I finished the Mario Special levels and I've got as far as unlocking Wario's fifth level. I may take a bit of a break from this, it's a fantastic game but I'm a little burnt out from playing it. I do plan to fully complete this game one day.
Mega Man Legacy Collection (PC) - I played Mega Man 6, the final game in this collection, this week. It's a completely contradictory mess but I find it fascinating for some reason.
There's nowhere else to start other than the technical performance - it's wildly inconsistent. It's a shame, as the previous few games felt like they ran better but it was like I was playing Mega Man 3 at times, with the frequent slowdown and occasional lost inputs. I don't know what was causing it - my best guess is that it correlates with the number of enemies on screen. Whatever the reason, it was annoying.
The biggest change to the formula is with the addition of adaptors - Rush as a separate entity that you summon is gone, now he attaches to your body. Instead of a bounce pad, you get what is basically a jetpack (there's also a power suit which I rarely used). For some reason, every time you equip it a short animation plays which you have to manually skip. It's annoying but I found myself using the jetpack a lot for a few reasons. Firstly, stages now have clearly marked branching paths which you mainly use the jetpack to reach. I quite liked this feature - it's the logical next step from hiding collectables in rooms from Mega Man 5. Secondly, the jetpack is just fun to use. Because you can't slide whilst using it, when equipping it it's like you're playing the first or second Mega Man but with a larger jump. I had a great time flying around the stages and destroying enemies - I don't know if this was the intended way to play but it's what I liked best.
Some stages are much better than others. There's less ambition in the design than in 5, there's nothing like the train level or the vertical level. Plant Man's stage probably takes the title for 'most annoying Mega Man stage I've played' with its weird bounce physics. Other stages are better designed with some decent background art but they all mostly melt into one in my mind. Take Centaur Man for example - I was excited for a Greek mythology stage but it just looked like a construction site made out of Lego. Knight Man is probably the one I remember the most with the descending spikes, followed by Blizzard Man's submarine but the rest made little impression.
The lack of identity is enabled by the stage music, as again I barely remembered any of it. It was clever in the credits how it all fit together in a medley but I think that emphasises the lack of individuality. Mega Man 2 is still top for unique music. I was also disappointed that the "plot" was back to being low effort. There were gestures towards trying to do something slightly different with Cossack in 4 and Proto Man in 5 but the Mr. X twist is so laughably pointless that I wondered why they even bothered. In fact, it's beat-for-beat the same twist as in 4 and 5.
The difficulty is back to being all over the shop too. The final boss was ridiculously easy and the castle levels didn't feel that difficult. I was more challenged in some of the earlier stages - I've already mentioned my problems with Plant Man but Flame Man was quite difficult too. Perhaps this was because the weapons were easier to use - some of them were reskins of Mega Man 2 weapons but if it isn't broke, maybe it doesn't need to be fixed.
In summary, I think Mega Man 6 is a weird game, full of elements that don't quite work and elements that seem at odds with the previous mechanics. For example, I don't know if the jetpack was a conscious attempt to take the series back to its non-sliding roots or if it was just an accident. However, the jetpack is a very fun mechanic and more or less the sole reason for 6's ranking - having said that I did enjoy this game on the whole; there was nothing that made me explicitly angry like the Doc Robot stages in 3, it's more a consistent feeling of 'this is OK'. My impression of the team behind it is one of near burn-out, thinking of ways to change after 5 previous games of a similar formula; as though ideas were thrown at the wall to see what would work. I think the Mr. X twist is worrying - I do hope the next games are slightly more complex rather than going through the motions plot-wise. My ranking is now 2>5>4>6>1>3.
As for the Legacy Collection as a whole, I think it's worth checking out to see a slice of gaming history. Mega Man's status as the underdog outside of the top tier of franchises is quite fitting based on this. Yes, the games are very similar but it's a formula that mostly works. I own the second Legacy Collection so I'll start that at some point in the future.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (Switch) - I went from the start of World Five to the level before the final Bowser battle. Adding a third person to the co-op increases the chaos level even further and I'm still really enjoying it - every level feels like its own new idea.
ID: gq3ufedAmateria's roller coaster ride is one of my favourite gaming moments! I'd play 4 and then Uru though - 4 continues 3's story while Uru and V are kind of their own thing.
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Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+: I'm trying to get all final bosses killed with The Lost so I can unlock Godhead before the new DLC comes out. The Lost is one of the game's challenge characters, if it takes any damage at all it dies, but the first instance of damage in each room is negated, and it can fly and shoot through rocks.
I had a really lucky build with 20 damage dual Brimstone lasers, and beat the Chest ending for the first time, then a portal to the Void opened up, leading to one of the game's most frustrating end bosses, Delirium. I had no survivability at all but then a Dead Cat drops from one of the floor's bosses so I have 9 lives. Managed to kill Delirium on my third life.
I'm really excited because he is probably the hardest boss to kill with The Lost! There's still quite a bit to go to unlock Godhead but this was the boss I was most worried about.
ID: gq7x9enI haven’t played since Delirium was added, but did unlock Godhead around vanilla. Is it every single boss that’s required to unlock it now? When I played I think it was just both Chest and the Lamb runs and boss rush, I believe. I know there’s a lot more bosses now so I wonder if the requirements got harder.
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Desperados 3
Mostly playing Desperados 3 apart from Apex. I was a huge commandos fan and man this game is so good, so good!
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Horizon: Zero Dawn on PC.
Just a very solid & very fun open world action game. The story so far is surprisingly interesting. The biggest downside, I think, is that it's quite formulaic, playing it pretty safe. If you've played Assassin's Creeds and other such games there's not much new in Horizon gameplay-wise.
ID: gq8nij9I think in terms of overworld stuff you're not wrong, but I thought the way you have to approach combat with the dinosaurs to be a pretty big departure (and improvement) from typical AC style games.
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Red Dead Redemption 2
I picked RDR2 up on launch day, played about 25 hours of it alongside my roommate and made some great memories sharing our experiences of our separate playthroughs, especially in the early hours of the game. Since then though I've only picked it up a couple times here and there because I'm a chronic backlog increasing addict.
That said, picked it back up in earnest for the first time in a couple months and it continues to blow me away. What a staggering achievement, especially graphically. I'm playing on PS4 and haven't gotten around to playing the PC version (also not sure how my ahem rapidly aging 1060 would handle it) but even on console it's just breathtaking. Chewing the scenery is just a pleasure. I'm really enjoying where I'm at in the story and looking forward to what I hear is really really good, even if I'm still early in it. My roommate had a couple late nights where he straight up couldn't bring himself to pause the story, so I guess my expectations are high?
Really the only major barrier I keep running into is my aim, as 98% of my gaming career with shooters is with a KB/M, and I get absolutely manhandled in combat sometimes.
Anyway, just wanted to share my thoughts, very much looking forward to playing more in the coming week.
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Can’t help but think Astro Boy: Omega Factor for the GBA might be one of the most underrated games of all time. Despite how loaded the GBA’s library is, it’s probably my favorite game on that system and it’s a shame that it doesn’t really have any legacy to speak of unlike some of its contemporaries. Such a creative, fun, and unique game as well as being a pretty good representation of its source material with a surprisingly excellent story, I’d definitely recommend checking it out if you’re interested in overlooked gems from that era. Does anyone else think this or am I just too nostalgic?
ID: gq6ujnaNo, honestly it's an amazing game. Very high quality. One of the games I kick myself for not keeping.
I think the only reason it didn't do better is because Tezuka's work doesn't really seem to have a big fanbase in the west, despite it being incredible in terms of quality. Same problem, the art seems to say "kiddish," but the actual content is wonderfully, incredibly deep.
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Just finished Hades. Good game.
Started Cultist Simulator, which I got for Christmas a few years ago. Played it for most of yesterday, and I'm a little disappointed. The gameplay loop has enough immediate goals and timers to turn the little dials in my head to make me keep playing, but the lore is surprisingly boring so fa. I really enjoyed Sunless Sea and Fallen London, so I know I like this lore style. It's just coming in such small chunks in this game that it feels incredibly disjointed to the point that the lore feels randomly generated instead of just the cult. It took me 4 runs to get past the early game (getting my physician to get swole was key), but now that I have, it just looks like it will be a solid hour of grinding secret histories before the game gives me even a crumb of new lore, and I don't know if I care enough to keep playing.
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The Division 2: How is the game so freaking addicting?? I’ve never been one for looter shooters but I picked it up on sale and I’m having a blast rushing to level 30. Playing on PS5 w/ 60fps is just awesome. I feel like every reward and system in PVE feeds back into itself and none of my time is wasted while I do the same thing over and over. I get into such a groove with the combat, especially with matching with strangers. I figure the only people playing the game are people who are really passionate about it and that’s made solo queue a non issue and I’ve had wonderful experiences doing missions and answering people’s calls for help. Is it still honeymoon? Probably, but I’m just glad to get lost in something new.
Final fantasy 7 remake: My “serious” game right now. I have nothing to add to the discussion other than it’s fun going into this story pretty much blind. I expected a lot less story given how it’s only 10% of the original but I’m really falling for these characters. Gosh is the pacing frustrating though. I’m either in a combat tunnel facing the same enemy types over and over with a random boss sprinkled in or in a nice rhythm with new story beats. Some chapters are just slogs imo.
ID: gq721jpIf you're the sort who isn't too put off by how much older it is I heartily recommend checking out the OG FF7 after you're done with Remake just to compare. The pacing's definitely much tighter, especially in the Midgar section Remake covers, but Remake absolutely fleshes characters out more too.
Plus, Remake does kind of seem to be primarily for fans of the original, without saying too much more.
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lotus bloom: a new minimalist puzzler, sadly without volume settings, windowed mode (alt+enter only makes a non-resizable window), brightness settings or dark mode, so it's pretty bright. 48 levels, gotta connect dots to create beams to reach the flowers. pretty good, should take about 2-3 hours (I got stuck near the end), but if you quit, the last level's progress gets lost, have to re-do it next time, so I can't recommend it until it's fixed.
puzzle car: another minimalist puzzler. switch parts of the landscape to make way for the car, optionally including gas stations and repair places. if you run into dead end, only the car resets, don't have to start re-arranging from the beginning, which is nice. 50 levels unlocked one by one, proper level select screen, fast-forward button to speed up car movement once you're done, resolutions and windowed mode, volume settings got patched right after I mentioned them and they fixed audio settings not getting saved between sessions too. takes 1-2 hours, it's okay, not really challenging.
the far kingdoms: awakening solitaire: I have a bunch of games lined up and had 5 shorter ones planned for this week, but didn't feel like playing (or doing) anything most of the week, so went with a random solitaire for the weekend. 114 levels, the usual fantasy affair, part of a longer series but they don't have much to do with each other, least of all consistency. looks and sounds good enough and took about 5 hours, not bad overall.
(last week)
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Animal Crossing New Horizon
Finally bite the bullet and bought a switch so naturally I jumped into AC head first. I’ve been enjoying it a lot just casually building up my island. Which me luck in the stalk market.
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Ghost of Tsushima I’m an hour or two into Act III. The story is very well done so far although some of the side questing seems to slightly ruin the pacing of the game now that they’ve got me deeply invested in the storyline. I could just mainline it to avoid that feeling but I enjoy the combat and world so much that I want to experience more of the environment and side content even if it hurts the flow of the main campaign. Again the game is so amazing overall that any complaints I’ve had are more nitpicking than anything. Very excited to play more this week. Thank yuh Sucker Punch.
Apex Legends one of our group went out of town on Thursday so my weekly amount of Apex was significantly decreased but still managed a few wins & I’m putting in an effort to spend more time in the training range. I very much miss locked & loaded as I’m starting to get such fatigue from looting after all my hours in PUBG, Blackout, Apex, COD Mobile BR, Warzone, Fortnite & Spellbreak throughout the last few years. I’ve taken Battle Royale breaks before but I’ll be sad when the fatigue becomes too much. Apex has really been a good game to cap the day off with. Great for late night conversations & fun with the boys. Would love another variation of Locked & Loaded or the care package mode as they really injected life into the game for me as I get more and more tired of looting...ahem...Respawn please...ahem...
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout still might be the best podcasting game in existence. Can mindlessly do most games, has some downtime, is always fun & mixes together the battle royale elements and Mario Party style events fantastically. I don’t really like Epic’s business practices & think they are probably overall bad for the industry so I’m not too stoked about them purchasing Mediatonic but I guess we will see.
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Resident Evil 6
Finished off Jake/Sherry and Ada's campaign this weekend which concluded the entire campaign of the game for me. Overall I actually enjoyed Jake and Ada's campaign much more than Chris and Leon's, despite being more invested in those characters. The campaigns were much tighter and focused I felt, with less mindless arena shooting that the other two had. Having finished the entire game now, I can safely say this game had the worst story of the entire series and made little to no sense. I'm so glad they went back to the drawing board after this and gave us the masterpiece that is 7.
Concrete Genie
Fired this up after getting it for free last month on PS+ and really enjoyed it. But it was over before I could blink. Really enjoyed wandering around the small open world, painting the walls, brightening the town up and playing around with the different Genies. Then the game introduced some combat style mechanics along with a much cooler way of getting around and I thought it was going to open up much more, but then the game ended shortly after. Obviously the studio didn't have the budget for a bigger game, so hopefully this was successful enough to warrant a bigger sequel or a spiritual successor at least.
Maquette
After beating Concrete Genie I decided to try another free PS+ offering and it was this months PS5 exclusive Maquette. Completed it in a few hours and over all it was a nice little puzzler with a decent and well acted story. I really like the core mechanic of the game of moving things in a diorama and those changes happening in your world. Being someone who has no clue how to make games, I can't even begin to think how they pulled it off. Especially in the last section where you can literally move the thing you're in and you accurately move with it. Mind blowing stuff.
Hotline Miami
Finally, I wanted something to play on my Vita and had never played this game before and wanted to see what the fuss was about. Holy crap I have missed out big time. The game is awesome and super addictive. I can't wait to play more and I'll definitely be getting the sequel to play straight after. For me it's the definitive 'one more try' game and it's exactly why I loved last years Ghostrunner.
ID: gq83oq0Katana Zero is another game very similar to Hotline Miami. The difference is that in Katana Zero you are a modern Samurai using a sword. The structure is similar, except there is more story in Katana Zero, and the viewpoint is more similar to Mario games.
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My ps5 was delivered last Sunday and I've been playing spiderman miles morales. It's not just a spiderman reskin or whatever you think it is. Miles morales has his own set of unique powers and a fully fleshed out personality. I'm loving this game so far
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been playing [b]Pokemon Gaia[/b] which is an extremely good romhack of FireRed. it stays away from most of the problems romhacks typically have (lots of bad fakemons, edgy story, glitches, etc.) and actually plays all the way through the elite 4. it even includes pokemon from gens 1-6 and mega evolutions. highly recommend if you want a game like frlg or rse with a new twist.
ID: gq4ysg8I just checked it out and read a lot of other good things! Never explored romhacks for Pokemon and I'm surprised how many there are.
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Judgement
Honestly it's pretty decent so far, that being said it kind of feels like a less interesting Yakuza game. I get that it's supposed to play similarly with some more detective stuff but I don't find it too interesting. That being said Yakuza 0 started off pretty boring and it's one of my favorite games now. I do hope the plot picks up soon though, been waiting for a game to really grab me again. The combat is solid, voice acting is good, and Kamurocho is always fun, so at the very least I'll still have fine experience.
Tearaway Unfolded
I think I'm dropping it. The art style is amazing, I love the music, and pretty much everything about it's aesthetics is legitimately some of the best work I've seen in a game. There's one problem though.
I don't really like actually playing it.
I don't care about collecting currency to make stuff, I have enough to where I'll never worry about it anyway. I don't really like the combat at all, and the platforming has some cool mechanics but I don't find anything about it actually interesting to try to get/do something like I would with Mario Odyssey.
ID: gq7a5mqYeah, the "detective" part of the game is just scanning the environment in first person until something pops up. It's not too interesting.
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Finished up the third DLC for Spiderman. Besides it feeling a little less polished than the rest of the game as a whole (some glitches and a restart) it was fun! I'm glad that the teacher didn't end up duping spiderman. It felt like they might be ready to use that plot idea again right after having the Black Cat do that. Overall, I'm glad I played the three DLCs. They weren't as great content wise as the main game but we're definitely worth the ten or so hours it took me to 100% all three.
Started up Nier Automata. Besides the fact that they made the prologue a rouge like I'm digging it so far. Going to take it nice and slow. I'm going to have to because a lot of the systems aren't "clicking" yet but, I'm sure they will. Definitely has it's own unique feel I'm very much enjoying.
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Pokemon Unite (Android Beta)
I am not well experienced with MOBAs to say what’s a good MOBA and what is a bad MOBA. What I can say though is that I really like this game. I like the character diversity, especially for a Beta roster. There’s 20 playable characters to begin with, with some obvious inclusions like Pikachu, Gen 1 Starters and Lucario. The weirdest inclusion might be Eldegoss, Cramorant or Crustle. The roster seems to be well balanced so far. Battles last for 10 minutes, which is a sweet spot of being deep without being a major time-sink. Touch controls aren’t a turnoff in this game and are pretty beginner friendly. Rules are simple to get into. I’d be very interested to see how a high-leveled match works for this game.
My big concern is that items can be upgraded and are upgraded with a premium currency, which can give whales a major leg up. As of right now, there are no microtransactions, since it is a beta and all data will not carry over to when the game is fully out, but the game has been very generous in giving you currency as they want you to play as much of their aspects as possible. That will definitely change by launch.
Overall, this was a really good surprise of a beta. I’ve put about 8-10 hours so far, with a Ranked and Battle Pass to encourage further playing. Even though my progress is meaningless weeks from now, I still want to play more of it and learn how to do well.
Ring Fit Adventure (Switch)
I beat Ring Fit after about 80 sessions with it. The last battle was a doozy physically and I made it harder on myself when I realized 8 minutes in that I brought the wrong gear with me and had to reset the level. Strategically though, this game was hardly a challenge and the final boss only had a few concerning moments, but nothing that would contemplate whether you can beat it. Sort of disappointed that I only really needed to alternate into my single-target attacks, since you’re likely to go at this boss for 30 minutes, only needing to do a handful of exercises. Happy to see that there is post-game content that will likely have me playing for more than a year onwards.
Glory of Heracles (DS)
I’m taking this game at a snail’s pace. Personally, I feel the urge to beat this game, because its been one of those games that have been on my mind ever since it released and I just want to get over the idea of what can possibly be behind this game. It isn’t much. It’s an ok RPG, with an interesting battle system, an easygoing difficulty and a bit of an issue with it lacking character diversity. Other games that have fallen into the pit of my curiosity for roughly a decade include Asura’s Wrath, NeverDead and Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse.
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Borderlands: GOTY Edition Enhanced (PC)
Up to a dozen hours after the weekend. Never finished this game or any in the series before. Honestly I’m not really paying any real attention to the characters or story, and the humor is a little “cringe” to me. But the art style is awesome especially running in 1440p in the enhanced edition. And the gameplay is addicting. I’m having fun just with the mindless shooting, looting, and leveling up.
Made it through the first part of the world in the main story, and then got sidetracked in the zombie island DLC and just beat that story today.
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Escape From Tarkov - At the beginning of the week, I wasn't having much fun. Lots of server maintenance during my typical hours of play, then I was bug splatting almost every raid, and I just wasn't playing well in general. Managed to find my groove by the end of the weekend. Finished a bunch of tasks, hit Jaeger 3 and Peacekeeper 3, filled up my level 1 Bitcoin farm, and made enough money to buy another items case and mag case to clean up my stash. I also purged a lot of my shittier helmets and headsets and such because I'm at the point where I can afford to run better gear each raid. I guess my next goal is to hit level 30.
Loop Hero - I haven't played too much of this, but so far I don't feel as jazzed about it as most others I've seen. I think a big part of my issue is that the game lacks meaningful interaction on a surface level and the parts that do allow interaction require you to find relatively obscure combinations of things. This requires either research or lots of trial and error experimentation. I think the latter works for something like Spelunky, where you're making lots of decisions otherwise, but in Loop Hero it feels like too much of the game plays itself. I think I'm going to revisit it later, once a lot of the interactions between cards have been documented so I can skip the boring (for me) trial and error runs.
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XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
I am having a lot of fun with it. It starts out a bit overwhelming as there is a lot going on but once you get a feel for the various things you are managing it is fun. The progression is satisfying and I am at a point now where I can handle most things assuming I am not careless or very unlucky. Yes, I have missed a couple of 95% shots but also don't feel the game has been unfair when taking shots around the 50% range. The timed missions aren't that bad or that frequent. There are still plenty of chances to overwatch creep if that is your thing. Overall it's a good time.
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Nioh 2
Finally finished up Nioh 2 and all the DLC over the weekend. I really loved the changes to the combat from Nioh 1. Burst counter completely changes the game to be much more manageable. The yokai abilities are pretty great for saving your ass too. It's weird that the base game took me about the same time to complete (~70 hours), but 2 felt shorter.
While I liked Nioh 2 quite a bit, I think I still prefer 1, despite some of its flaws. 1 seemed to have more, and better bosses to me. But both are still pretty great.
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
I've only played 2 other Tales of games, one I loved and one was ok. I've heard this was really good so been wanting to try it. So far it's ok. It's kind of buggy and the combat is pretty clunky compared to the newer ones but manual canceling feels good when you get it down. I ran into one terribly designed section that forced me to look at a walkthrough. I hope doesn't get repeated later on. Also, fuck that burst artes tutorial. Possibly the worst tutorial ever.
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MINDUSTRY
Its been a bit under a year since i last played this game and WOW, there are a lot of changes. v6 seems to bring about a lot of balance changes, as well as some things getting completely reworked.
The game is very fun, and is like a slightly less complicated factorio.
Building supply lines to feed turrets and machines to power them is lots of fun, and the tech tree that you slowly unlock is a great way to drip feed new units and features.
Im not sure i like the planet map, its honestly a little hard to navigate, and it forces you to remember the names of places to make sure you dont jump to an already completed map.
that said, im loving how that now you can stick around in a map after you win it indefinitely filling up the (i forget the name) command center* with more resources to bring with you to the next map.
Still lots mroe game to go, but the devs arre doing a great job expanding the game and look forward to more.
GUNFIRE REBORN
hugely underrated roguelike FPS. Lots of fun weapons with fun affixes, lots of enemies and bosses to blast through. The new characters are lots of fun, but looking at them now, i sort of want the devs to rework the cat. The cat was first character they made and it shows in their skill tree, and abilities. He doesnt have nearly as well designed skill tree, and makes it so that his builds are nearly completely reliant on the right weapons, rather than the other characters that rely more on the right ability choices, with a small reliance just on weapon type.
That said, game is very fun, and in multiplayer its a mad scramble to do the most damage, despite there being no incentive.
DOOM: ETERNAL
Thought i would play this through again in anticipation for TAG: Part 2.
IMO, eternal is the greatest game ever made.There isnt a game in existence that has as good a gameplay as eternal. Just an unreal adrenaline fueled romp.
11/10
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Valheim
Yep, had to check this one for myself, because its popularity made me really curious and I'm bloody loving it.
First of all it just bloody fantastic - pixelated assets mixed with very modern feeling lighting and weather effects (rain, strom, fog, etc) it's just all feels so pleasant for the eye and climatic.
I tried many survival games but only liked 2 of them - Subnautica and The Forest. This one is only third one that absolutely clicks for me. The progression is steady and interesting with periodic new unlocks makes whole exploration rewarding. It also works great as sandbox with all sorts of tools for terraforming and building whatever you please (not minecraft level, but it's not fair to compare to game with decade worth of development).
It's really solid for early access too. For example I bought Subnautica Below Zero before price increase, but I'm waiting for 1.0 release. With Valheim, with just being a sandbox without really any narrative driven experience - it's good to jump in as is without ever feeling you'll miss the ending or smth. Having said that - I only have few small gripes with it: sometime while building object don't want to "magnet" into connection, rivers are close to useless with bed filled of rocks and no good way to mine them out, how unsafe is to leave your boat which can easily draw aggro of mobs when you're mining a mile away or smth.
So just few small quirks, but everything else is just great experience so far. It's also insanely addictive - time just flies by when playing it. These devs hit the nail - almost perfect game for market demands and perfect timing (global pandemic with everyone getting entertainment at home - so most often video games). I just hope they don't put the cash injection they got with these massive 5M+ sales to waste and expand this project.
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I am playing FFVII Remake and oh boy.
Ok let me preface, the game is fine. Overall it's fun but oh boy people thought this was a contender for GOTY? It's so painfully just fine.
It looks great, some people were complaining about the graphics but I think visually it's great, one of the best games I've played even though the same face (and sometimes same clothes) NPC can be distracting. There was a moment were 2 identical NPCs were sitting next to each other and a third one was just outside the building.
The music is good too but like most JRPGs, it never matches whatever's going on when it plays.
The combat is... ok. I tried the demo when it came out and hated it, it took me a long time to get a grip on it (still haven't fully since I've yet to start using shortcuts), but it's not as confusing as I first thought, the chaos makes sense and it allows for some more interesting srategies than the usual ATB (I've never played FFXV).
The story and characters though... everything is just so mediocre and passable. I am completely aware I do not vibe with Japan's sensibilities at all but the dialogue is pure cringe, the voice acting is annoying, the story goes nowhere and is padded and dragged out to hell, the entire game is a whiplash of different tones that don't go well together at all. One minute it's supposed to be super serious, the next it's a comedy in the rapiest palace of the game, people swear all the time as if it's supposed to be a game for oldier audiences but then that's their depiction of a shady place? And it could actually all work together but there's no self awareness at all, it's like they don't even know what any scene is supposed to be. And why is every woman in this game falling for Cloud, who has NO charisma at all? 70% of the game is just different women flirting with Cloud.
I played the original years ago and found it to be just ok, and this remake is just ok too. A respectably mediocre game with AAA graphics and soundtrack, but that's about it. I am continuing to fail to see what the fuss is all about and it'll likely stay this way forever, but at least this remake has more engaing combat so I'll play it till the end - but there's no way I am spending a cent over it. If future parts (you can't convince me this couldn't have been just one game, those insipid sidequests and minigames could have easily been cut) come for free to PS+ I'll be happy to play them, if not oh well.
Also as a sidenote, the more I play this the more I am reminded of the XIII trilogy. From the level design, the voice directing, the way they made sidequests and NPCs, it's all very familiar, which makes the hatred XIII got compared to the love this one has even more puzzling. It's all very similar to Lightning Returns, but with XIII-2's more linear routes. Maybe it's also the pool of voice actors for the NPCs, I could swear they're the same ones.
ID: gq793niHaha. I think I pretty much feel the same about the game except for having a problem with tonal shifts. I guess I've grown accustomed to it in other Japanese media like the Yakuza series. But yeah. Solid 7 I think.
ID: gq7wo6dI thought the combat was the big highlight for me. It perfectly melds action RPG with turn based RPG that I thought was really unique and very fun to play. I think that’s what most others praise the game about, but I know that it didn’t unanimously click and some felt it to be clunky or okay too.
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Just finished mafia definitive edition. Amazing remaster, was like a brand new AAA game. Shame mafia 2 definitive edition was phoned in. 🙁
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SPV3 mod for Halo CE.
It's really cool and amazing to see what these modes were able to do with a 20 year old engine. The improvements are numerous and the additions are almost all really cool. It does overstay its welcome a bit. I'm like 15 hours in and am on Keyes. Overall though it's an awesome time and playing through what is essentially an entire reimagining of a classic game has been something I could definitely reccomend.
It's really easy to get set up and is free as it's a mod.
Rage 2
This game is everything wrong with open world design. It's boring as all hell, it's soulless, it's unmotivated. Just a shitty game and I cannot recommend anyone try it. Good gunplay drowned in mediocrity and checklisty game design.
ID: gq8klyuSpeaking of rage 2 does it baffle you how poorly all the vehicles handle, cause it did for me
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Control: So this is the headliner in this months Humble Choice, but since it's on Gamepass and there isn't much else in that bundle I really want, I decided to just play it on Gamepass instead.
Anyway, I've like the game a lot so far. I've been a bit hit and miss with Remedy games, but they've always seemed like they have interesting concepts. I loved the Max Payne franchise, even the third one. I liked the story of Alan Wake but absolutely hated the gameplay. Quantum Break was okay, but was a bit too pretentious and gimmicky with it's attempt to be a TV show / Game cross over. The TV sections ended up just being rather tedious and lengthy cut-scenes.
So to control. Interesting concept for sure. Gameplay actually feels pretty good. Sometimes games with a bunch of powers you can use in combat just end up being too fiddly, but at here shooting and throwing shit around with your psychic powers feels pretty smooth. However, I am starting to feel a little annoyance with the waves of combat. It's not quite as wave based as Quantum Break however. It does suffer a little from the monster closet concept from Doom where baddies have an annoying habit of suddenly turning up behind you. However, it's not too bad, and I think maybe the third-person perspective does give you at least a little bit of a heads up.
The story part is interesting, if silly, and it doesn't tell you much going in at the start. Which could be a problem, but it just barely gives you enough to keep you moving forward. It doesn't explain a lot of it's mechanics as the start either, which is perhaps more of a problem. For example, you are collecting resources for crafting upgrades, but it doesn't bother to tell you that at the start. So you are picking up Undefined Reading at the start and wondering WTF it is and why you can't read it. Which is just a bit weird. You also eventually get ability points that you can use on upgrades, but I'm not even entirely sure now how you actually earn them. And the menus that show you your upgrades are a little clumsy to use, not helped by the rather nondescript icons they use for your mods.
But I've have enjoyed the game. The artistic direction is great. The way it'll zoom in on Jesse while you hear her inner monologue gives me some Hellblade vibes. It's a great way to put you inside Jesse's head.
I'm expecting to play more of this in the coming weeks.
Steve Jackson's Sorcery!: I didn't make a whole lot of progress on this this week since I was mainly playing Control. I think I might be closing in on the end of the second part which feels like it's quite a bit bigger than the first part despite being limited to just the one city. I feel like I've found quite a few more traps in this part too and have been using the rewind more than a few times.
Monster Train: Yep. Still playing. Still looking to pull of those insane combos that feel so great when you get them working. Like my Melting Remnant run yesterday where I had an artifact that gave rage when you lose a level of burnout, plus a Paraffin Enforcer (which I'd really ignored previously), which gives rage to the entire floor on strike and a Fire Light Little Fade that buffs the whole floor on death, plus the artifact that gives you extinguish bonuses twice! I also had a sweep unit from my allied clan (Stygian) with multistrike and by the end of the battle my main floor was handing out just insane amounts of damage. Good times.
Satisfactory: Still building and rebuilding. Just completely reworked some steel production to stretch my iron ore even further.
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Ghost of Tsushima on PS4/PS5 I was skeptical of this game because I didn't really care for the setting, but the graphics/presentation might be some of the best I've ever seen in my life. The visuals are on par with RDR2; the textures and lighting are just nuts. I'm playing at 1080p 60fps on a PS5. It scratches some of the classic Assassin's Creed itch that I missed, and I've barely touched multiplayer. Warning that the opening two missions are very on the rails and you should wait till you get to the title screen to really enjoy the game.
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Just finished Bravely Default 2 after about 56 hours and thought I would give some thoughts on the game.
Overall: 8/10
Combat/Gameplay: 9/10
Honestly its been so long since I've had this much fun with a turn-based combat system. I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent battling bosses, building my team, trying out new jobs and job combinations, and mixing and matching all the different jobs and passives you can do to make a bad-ass team. I will say the game can be pretty difficult at times, especially the early game can be a bit of a struggle bus.
It starts off easy enough, but the difficulty quickly ramps up in Chapter 2. By this point you're building your team around vulnerabilities, and you might have a few jobs to play with.
During the mid-game around Chapters 3-4 is when I was able to put together my monster team just the way I want, and using the item you get that stops your xp gain (on your characters level not your job level), kept the difficulty high throughout. Some of the bosses were hard to the point of being unfair, but I never had a full team wipe playing (except in Chapter 1 I think lol) Although I got close on the last boss.
Story: 6/10
Pretty bland for the most part. There are some interesting twists in the story, and some moments that made me say "dang thats kinda messed up" but those were pretty few and far between and they were never expanded on. I would have loved to learn more about Adelle and her backstory. I also didn't particularly care for the ending.
Also, I loved Truff. He was so cute.
Characters: 6/10
Seth and Gloria are about as interesting as a pile of wet napkins. Seth has maybe 1 funny thing he says in the game, and Gloria just puts me to tears when she talks. Elvis is the only one with any real personality and its a shame. He's a bit.. out-there but I liked him well enough and he made me smile especially as a Bard during battle. Adelle was just kinda there vibin. I didn't mind her, but she had a cool reveal that they did nothing with which was a shame.
Graphics/Visuals/Artstyle: 9/10
The game looks pretty gorgeous. The cities are beautifully water-painted, and while a bit of a pain to navigate, are pretty cool. The monster design is varied and fun for the most part, with even some really grotesque looking monsters. The job costumes are cool/cute for the most part and while I didn't care for the chibi character models at first I grew to like them.
Music: 9/10
Its got some bangin tunes
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These are the games I've played in the last few weeks. Just wanted to write something on here before I forget or things at work gets really busy.
Haven
Finished this in a weekend. It's been quite a while since I finished it, so I maybe missing some details.
I played it solo and it was still really enjoyable. I actually like almost everything about the game. It's short and sweet, has a pretty good story and lore without much exposition, great voice acting, and I like both the MCs. Traversal is also fun, and the soundtrack is quite relaxing.
Things I don't like: the combat. I think the combat is mainly designed for co-op so towards the end I mostly avoided combat if possible. It's some sort of turn-based combat where you need to coordinate your attacks with each character. I find it quite awkward/not polished enough and quite dull after a few encounters.
Also I find it weird that I can't move my camera around while Drifting. Not a fan of this design choice.
Other than that, I'd say a solid 8/10. Played it on GamePass but wouldn't mind buying this for $20.
Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition
Played this on GamePass too. I don't usually play side-scrollers/platformers(?) like this although I don't really dislike them or anything.
I've played Hollow Knight, Celeste, Bloodstained: ROTN before but they didn't interest me enough to continue playing after a few hours.
But I'm almost done with Ori (I'm at the last temple I think? Before I got sidetracked) and I already bought the sequel on Steam a while back on sale.
I can't really put my finger on what made me enjoy this one so much. It's probably the quick and generous restarts/checkpoints and smooth movements though. The game's quite challenging at times for me but restarting is really quick so I just keep going.
The Division 2
Came back to the game when the Resident Evil collab released. The Global Event for it was really fun, popping enemy heads was really satisfying.
The Manhunt season was quite underwhelming but I still enjoyed the loot game and completing builds.
Excited for the upcoming content for the game!
Persona 5 Strikers
I'm a fan of the Persona games so I was really excited for this one.
Didn't think the game would be this good tbh. Combat can feel repetitive esp. if you're underleveled on Hard fighting bosses with stupid high HP but other than that it really feels like a true Persona 5 Sequel.
The way they incorporated things like Persona skills from the original game feels really seamless. This is probably what the Phantom Thieves would look like while fighting if Persona wasn't a turn-based RPG.
The road trip thing is just awesome. Makes me want to go on a road trip with my friends lol. Also, makes me wish for Persona 6 they do the original planned Persona 5 story about backpacking/travelling around the world. Or something other than a high school setting please.
I'm planning to get all the achievements for this game even though I'm not even done with my 1st playthrough. Thankfully it's not as long as Royal.
Arknights
I think it's been 5 weeks since I started playing this game. At first it was just because a friend recommended it to me, and since I don't play any mobile games, I gave it a shot.
Now I play it daily after work, even though most of it is just farming.
At first the art/aesthetics was what caught my eye, but the tower defense gameplay is quite fun and challenging at times too. The currently running Rogue-like event highlights this quite a bit IMO. Unfortunately because I'm a new player I don't have good or enough Operator variety to carry me through it all(though I assume it's doable with 3-4 Operators if you're smart and RNG is generous).
The gacha is quite generous especially compared to games like Genshin Impact, so that's nice too.
Still, the sanity/stamina thing is what's stopping me from playing most of the time. But that's just how Gacha games work I guess.
It still sucks though, you want to clear stage -> you're underleveled -> you want to farm money and xp, but you're out ouf stamina, too bad!
So yeah, it's a good game to play/auto-play for a few hours daily. If you like tower-defense you should give this a shot for a few hours because the early stages are boringly easy.
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I’m finishing my 30 days of subscription to WoW Shadowlands. It’s very pretty, really well made and has a great setting but that’s pretty much it. I don’t want to go into a WoW rant but it’s clear as a day that it’s a game designed from the ground up to waste your time and make you buy gold. I don’t have time for that anymore (and judging by the last SuperData number, a lot of people don’t have patience for that anymore either).
A game that I always come back to is Slay The Spire. No matter how many weeks I stop playing, how heartbreaking losing a good run is, I always come back for one last Ascendant push. Managed to get all A10s on the original classes and I’m really proud of myself.
On my phone, I’m playing Sping, from Apple Arcade. It’s very different from what I usually play and I really liked it. Unfortunately, it’s very short but I highly recommend it if you have Apple Arcade and love puzzle games.
ID: gq7gqe6Just curious as to what makes you think WoW is designed to make you buy gold?
引用元:https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/lznoda/weekly_rgames_discussion_what_have_you_been/
Ever since GMTK's video on Shepard being a sort of mid-point between a character of their own and player-defined I've really wanted to see a game carry on its legacy and explore the concept even further.
I agree that ME3 solidified that my interest in the series was more in the story and lore rather than the (IMO) massively over-marketed decision aspect. I was never over the moon about this game's "A" story but the Krogan and Quarian B-plots are fantastic and ensure I'll never be down on it. Plus to this day it's my gold standard for action RPG combat.