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What game are you currently playing?


HelenBaby

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Thanks to the Halloween sales i finally got my hand on the PS4 remake of Medievil. It's very nice and on point, definetly the definitive version of the game; shame about the rollercoaster framerate performance, but i think when it will be avaible on the PS5 it will only benefit from it.
Wouldn't mind if Other Ocean did the same treatment for Medievil 2.

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One game I've been playing a lot is Metropolismania for PS2. I wouldn't be surprised if you never heard about it. Shortly, let's say the game is a SimCity in first person, as crazy as this can sound. The game (from 2002) was never too popular and was met with medium/to good reviews, but can be an awesome time killer (Well, I love city building games, SimCity, Cities' Skylines and this one).

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Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 (Switch) - Reviewed here.

A Short Hike (Switch) - What a charming game.  This was an absolute breath of fresh air that was right in my comfort zone.  It's hard to say exactly what it is; the graphical style reminiscent of the DS Zelda games, perhaps?  I think it's the fact that, for an open-world game, it was just the right size; a cosy open world, where there's a lot to discover and a certain difficulty in finding your bearings at times, but there's never so much to do that it becomes difficult to keep track of, and it never feels like a chore.  Romping around these peaceful, compact hillsides, with barely anything resembling padding and every area small and to the point, really did feel like a proper short hike out in the open, with no pressure and the rewards largely in the sense of discovery.  More games like this, please.

Into the Breach (Switch) - The hype was real!  Here is a game which took everything I found awkward about strategy games and buffed it away.  Instead of attrition slugfests between masses of near-identical units, reinforcements churned out each round - we have a game where there are three player units only, barely more enemies, a tight map, and an emphasis on careful positioning, on manipulating enemy movements.  Impressively, collateral damage is now integrated into the game formula and expressly discouraged, as a secondary form of health, in effect.  It works tremendously well; the basic gameplay loop is compelling, and the effects and consequences of your movements perfectly possible to anticipate and weigh.  With a diversity of teams and varied approaches through the game, and more and more to unlock whenever you achieve anything, the replay potential is enormous - and indeed I ended up unlocking essentially everything, as it was just so much fun to do.  Mind: I'm not sure how much a conventional strategy game could learn from this title, however.  There are things to be said about fewer and more distinct units, about avoiding battles of attrition, about chopping up long maps into smaller sub-sections, perhaps.  Or maybe it all just comes down to good design?

Carrion (Switch) - Well, it was exactly what it advertised!  You control a gross monster, slippery, unwieldy, increasingly overpowered, as it slides through the shafts and passageways of the shadowy research facility in which it is imprisoned, massacring endless numbers of humans in the way.  It's a jolly experience - but it needs a little refinement.  One point is that, while structurally it's a Metroidvania... it didn't really need to be a Metroidvania.  It's a very linear game, and with only a few bonus powers hidden here and there - which, by the time you can get hold of them, you mostly don't need, frankly.  Another strike against it as a Metroidvania is that there's no map and it is unbelievably difficult to get your bearings because of the odd way you move around the locations, with one-way passages and areas which end up sealed off forever.  It also ends on a rather anticlimactic note.  It's a fitting note, to be sure, but you won't realise when you've passed the last big challenge, because it doesn't feel big and bold enough.  However inappropriate it might have been, the game needed a final boss - or something analogous to a final boss, somehow, however little sense it made.  Still, I think there's probably just enough room for expansion and improvement that a sequel might be possible, and I'd certainly consider getting it.

Untitled Goose Game (Switch) (two-player) - One of the most mischievous games I've ever played, and while the surprise value is gone in this two-player update, it was still a pleasure to revisit.  Some things are more difficult with two players; the two geese can only be so far away from each other, which makes some situations awkward, and you're necessarily dependent on each other's successes and failures at times.  But other things are easier, especially challenges which involve smuggling items around the map.  The second goose is elegantly simple, just a little different in shade and shape; I admire the economy of it, but at times it might be a little too subtle, as I've occasionally forgotten which goose I was...  Overall, though, a game I was happy to play again with a new twist.

Pokemon Sword: Crown Tundra (Switch) - Reviewed here.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition (Switch) (Acts 2 and 3) - It's interesting, the things you learn about yourself, the way your tastes change, or you realise what your tastes were all along.  Turns out: I don't like 3D RPGs.  They're so padded!  It takes ages to get anywhere, it takes ages to explore all of these oversized and windy cities, it takes ages to wheel your camera around to look behind this ramshackle hut and that for breakable pots with trivial rewards.  Oh, it's beautiful, certainly; the presentation on this title in 3D Mode is superb.  But what a chore it is to wade through this gameplay loop that amounts to little more than walking down corridor after corridor, broken up by meaningless and brief battles in which you use the same moves over and over.  At one point, I'd actually been considering playing the entire game in 2D Mode rather than 3D, and I actually think I might have enjoyed that more, simply for the game being that bit more compact; but I thought it was a waste not to experience the presentation at its best - and the battles would still have been largely meaningless, and with worse QOL to boot.  I did enjoy the branching level-up trees for the characters, though; perhaps more than the often grindy interpretations of the game's job structure.  And on the subject of grinding, this game's interpretation of crafting is probably the best yet, but it goes far too hard on it in Act 3, with new forging recipes all over the shop, all requiring obscure and rare ingredients, many of them not automatically purchasable despite the fact that they are, literally, purchasable elsewhere.  Why waste my time this way?

The padding really is brutal, though.  The game's three-act structure essentially involves you rolling through the same set of assets three times in a row.  There are embellishments here, a new boss or dungeon there - but for the most part, it's like a giant circle, or even a spiral, rolling you around the same groove over and over.  I'll give the story credit enough for the first loop around, and some of the major developments afterwards, though; the tropes are all old ones, but they're pulled together in an order that feels fresh and compelling, with some interesting touches surrounding the villains.  It's difficult to discuss some of this without invoking spoilers, though, so:

Spoiler

Act 2 I found dramatically disappointing.  It started off strong, with the threat of the world destroyed under Mordegon never more forcibly felt than in the Last Bastion and around the ruins of Heliodor.  Then... you find out that the rest of the world is pretty much fine.  There are a few flaming rocks here and there, but mostly it's just the same old same old of beating up the local boss monster and then everything's hunky-dory.  Some giant monster was going to break into Nautica and trash it and the entire population was going to either flee or stand and die?  Nah, the place is fine, no damage and everyone's right back!  It couldn't even follow through on Cobblestone.  Even Yggdrasil is restored the moment you take down Mordegon.

And the problem is that this drastically undermines Act 3.  There's really very little impetus at all to toss this world which is honestly doing just fine just to go and prevent Veronica's death.  The game really needed to have the guts to actually smash its assets with a hammer so that it's a breath of fresh air to return to the undestroyed world, to make the ruined world somewhere you want to leave and the original world somewhere you yearn to return to.  And the reset point is odd, too - right before the end of Act 1, and you almost make exactly the same mistake again anyway, with, of all characters, the true final boss the only one preventing the protagonist from getting repeatedly chumped by the bad guy!  Wouldn't it have been better to have picked up before the majority of the game's events kicked off, and had your party go around nipping the world's problems in the bud?  (I did enjoy what was done with the true final boss, though; having your villain be one of the game's cute mascots is a delightful choice, and in most of its appearances we're frankly rooting for it!)

I was thinking about this earlier, and I realised that Bravely Second literally did this exact plot, but better: The world gets trashed at the end of the first loop, the reset picks up at basically the start of the game, and you immediately get your fully-levelled, fully-equipped, full-memoried full party back and go around the game fixing everything that went wrong the first time.  That is what this game needed to do, and I'm not sure why it doesn't.

In the end, though, I cleared basically all the content this game had to offer, but for a few of the grindier end-of-postgame super-duper-secret unlockables which seemed far more trouble than they were worth.  I can say I had fun.  But I can say I'd have had a lot more fun with a game a third of the length.  On that note, more than anything this game makes me want to go and replay the DS remakes of IV, V, and VI, frankly - and I could probably have cleared all three of them in the time it took me to clear this one game.  That's not all on Dragon Quest XI, though; as I alluded to at the start, it's 3D RPGs, which now feel the need to drag themselves out, squeeze those assets dry, and basically make busy-work of themselves.  This is a great game, I'm sure.  But I am so looking forward to playing shorter games again.

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Replayed Donkey Kong Country 2 from start to finish to celebrate the game's 25th anniversary.

Still the best video game of all time.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Going through my second playthrough of Persona 5 Royal, between this and the vanilla release I'm up to 667 hours with this game and it'll probably go up even more when Strikers comes out

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On 11/22/2020 at 1:10 AM, PC the Hedgehog said:

Replayed Donkey Kong Country 2 from start to finish to celebrate the game's 25th anniversary.

Still the best video game of all time.

I loved the first one (never beat it, though) and DKC Returns (again, never beat it), but I guess I should give the sequels a try? What about the DK Land series for GameBoy?

Anyway, I got Super Mario Odyssey and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe for Christmas, so I'm playing both! NSMB is okay, kinda meh because it's just been done so much and there's nothing too unique about it, but then again I already had Mario Maker 2 so I'm familiar with its core gameplay, and only just started the game.

Odyssey on the other hand... amazing! I love it. Now one of my favorite games ever. It's not completely perfect but it just hits so many good points with me and I get so excited to boot it up and get some new moons (going for all of them!) and the kingdoms are so charming. I hope they make a direct sequel to it like they did with the Galaxy games.

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2 hours ago, Angyu said:

I loved the first one (never beat it, though) and DKC Returns (again, never beat it), but I guess I should give the sequels a try? What about the DK Land series for GameBoy?

DKC2 and 3 are both amazing games, far superior to the original, I feel. The DK Land games are fun too, though of course they're quite a bit simpler than their console counterparts.

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I started playing Robopon Sun version the other day for the first time. It's a very interesting Pokemon clone, but man the battles drag out. I really want to continue playing the game but eh... the battles just take so long to get through. :\ Also only one specific emulator emulates the flash chip hudson used for their games to save so I had to hunt down the right emulator to even play it on my PC. :V

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6 hours ago, Ravenfreak said:

I started playing Robopon Sun version the other day for the first time. It's a very interesting Pokemon clone, but man the battles drag out. I really want to continue playing the game but eh... the battles just take so long to get through. :\ Also only one specific emulator emulates the flash chip hudson used for their games to save so I had to hunt down the right emulator to even play it on my PC. :V

I was considering starting that one. But maybe I'll play something else instead. ^^; Just wanted a monster-collecting experience that's similar to Pokemon, yet a bit different. Digimon seems too different, as does Monster Rancher. Have to rely on indie projects but many never make it past development stages. Temtem is too similar to Pokemon though. XP

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Playing through Megaman X6. And I'm still thinking to myself, why the fuck am I playing this dumpster fire of a game. I only got Metal Shark Player (Prayer but Capcom fucked up the translation) to go in terms of mavericks, and then the Gate stages, then after that, I'm going to X7, and not going back to that game unless I go through with Black Zero or the Ultimate Armour for X. God now I know why people hate it.

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Playing through:

Sonic CD: Wacky Workbench Act 1

Sonic Adventure 2: Eternal Engine for the Hero Story and Security Hall for the Dark Story

Sonic Unleashed: Dragon Road Night

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Mario 3d All Stars and Mario and Sonic Olympic Games 2020 (should they make a 2021 game just to poke fun)

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Blasphemous (Switch) - I don't normally have a taste for games with a particularly visceral flavour of violence, but I was intrigued by what else this title offered, its sense of style heavily influenced by European Catholicism; and I'm always up for a good Metroidvania.  In that respect, I wasn't disappointed!  Blasphemous isn't heavy on unlocking new movement mechanics, but it is good at giving you a respectable but not overwhelming degree of choice in which path to take for its comparatively short length; and furthermore, for a combat-focussed game I found it surprisingly palatable, with a variety of moves available, battles which have to be handled cautiously and dynamically, different enemies calling for different approaches, and so on.  The story takes a cryptic approach, never quite explaining what's going on or what it all signifies, but that fits in nicely with its overall aesthetic and it succeeds at conjuring a world which has a history longer than the game you play.  The game, I gather, has also been significantly improved by the addition of free DLC (which is why I put off playing it so long!), and in terms of QOL then in its current state it's pretty convenient; and the new options and limitations added in its New Game+ mode create a pleasingly divergent experience.  The game is still a bit shaky in places; I suffered the odd bug in some particularly intense battles which affected my movement, the camera would occasionally move in rather odd ways, and it's rather obvious that you are loaded in and out of rooms in pre-defined positions rather than truly transitioning (though the game is designed with this limitation in mind, rooms generally being on the larger size).  All in all, an uncommonly memorable experience, and I'd be interested in playing something similar or perhaps more refined from the same developers in this medium, though from what I gather of their back catalogue they are more than open to shifting genres instead.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Switch) (Bloodless / Classic Mode) - Back again I go to Bloodstained as it continues its generous helping of Kickstarter-backed free content.  Of which the Bloodless playable character, based on the boss of the same name, is not one, actually; although the Kickstarter campaign promised an additional two playable characters, Bloodless doesn't count as one of the two, she's an outright bonus.  And a very nice one, too; Bloodless's playthrough actually feels better-designed than Zangetsu's, thanks to her abilities and stat upgrades being split up and scattered around the castle in true Metroidvania form; and she starts out in her boss room, requiring you to approach your explorations in a completely different way.  It's a refreshing challenge, and going about things in yet another unique direction promises new opportunities to face down enemies in a different order; I saw moves from some bosses which they'd simply never lasted long enough to pull out before, for instance.  So this was a real pleasure.

Classic Mode is a bit of a different animal; in pure homage to early Castlevania, areas and enemies from the main game are pieced together into a new linear platforming sequence of five or six stages.  The level design, player physics, and enemy movesets are completely refreshed; the new mode is fairly short, only a few hours long, but surprisingly fresh for all that.  It's also got that classic arcade difficulty, too; life is short, bottomless pits are plenty, checkpoints are few, and jumping is awkward; but the game saves by stage, so you'll never be kicked all the way back to Stage 1, at least.  It's no Curse Of The Moon, but it's a good 'un!  This mode also boasts a frankly excellent credits sequence, of all thing, with short animated illustrations of Miriam in action which are genuinely some of the best-looking things in the game (even as they can't help but demonstrate the complete impracticality of her design).  The only real flaw?  That this is still Bloodstained on Switch, and therefore the whole thing continues to feel like it's held together with staples and tape, hanging frequently and with steep falls having a nasty habit of causing Miriam to pass straight through solid floors as if they were not there.  For what it's worth, though, Bloodstained has never crashed on me, and I fought it through this entire mode without suffering any too nasty setbacks.  For now, I'll continue to look forward to future Bloodstained updates... while hoping that their next game, whatever it may be, will be designed from the ground up with the Switch in mind.

Dicey Dungeons (Switch) - Dungeon-crawling and turn-based combat is rather my jam; dice-rolling and deck-building, less so much, but it all comes together beautifully in this cheerful, vibrant game that's absolutely brimming with character.  The battles may be technically simple, but the variety of moves and approaches as you come across wacky new items, synthesise them with your present outfit, and prepare yourself for whatever each roll of the dice may bring is excellent; and among other things standard RPGs could stand to do more of, the game makes excellent use of status conditions, which are powerful, always worthwhile, and require careful handling.  The one area I could criticise the game in is its difficulty, which is distinctly uneven; while I cleared most of its thirty-six episodes in, say, fewer than five tries - often only one or two - then the Witch character seems considerably undertuned compared to everyone else, particularly in the context of her Episode IV, which took me more tries than all other episodes in the game - put together.  It's things like that which prevented me from going for a more completist run of the game; there are bonus hard mode runs and additional challenges to check off which I would probably enjoy, but I can't risk the possibility of bashing my head against something for days until I'm no longer having fun.  One of the drawbacks of arcade-style games, that.  But overall, this was a great time, and I can only recommend it.

And with that, my left Joy-Con is off to Nintendo for drift repair.  Good thing I still have my 3DS, and a DS game I've lined up for the occasion...

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After a marathon of all the recent Kirby games post-Super Star Ultra, I decided to replay Rhythm Thief for the 3DS. What a great little rhythm game. Ohtani and Hataya knock it out of the park with their soundtrack, as usual. It's a crime that this game will likely never get a sequel, especially with all the unanswered questions.

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I got Resident Evil Revelations on sale and I love it. 

Also Animal Crossing New Horizons is my jam. 

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Recently been jumping back and forth between two games on my 3DS. My Ambassador's copy of Minish Cap and Pokémon Picross.

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I've been playing quite a bit here and there.

Hades

This is definitely my game of the year 2020. Its been really fun and it has really great writing and characters. As a fan of Greek Mythology I'm actually surprised by how accurate the game is to the myths. For example Hades isn't evil, he's just an overworked deity who's concerned with running his realm though the other gods don't really like him presumably because he's the guy dealing with matters of death. The core gameplay loop is really fun; Its a nice hack and slash and all the weapons feel really good to use in some way. And I swear to god I love the writing and characterization in this game like I said but I'm always hearing new things from the characters every single time. Special shout out Hypnos who's not only funnily pointing out things but he always comment on how Zag died last run. Its just so good.

Last night I finally managed to beat the final boss. It was funny because I thought it was going to be a dead run. I grabbed the spear which was a weapon I only touched like once because the shield was just too good as its the only weapon with a defensive option. I wasn't sure of what to think of the spear but it ended up clicking with the right upgrades. I really liked the Flurry Stab upgrade and I ended up getting a lot of Artemis' booms for the extra crit power but with Flurry Jab and Support Fire there's just a lot of damage flying around. I think I had some of Poseidon's booms too, namely his call so I could damage the final boss with it. But I couldn't believe I beat it right then and there. However the story said "now do it all over again" but I really don't mind because its just that fun and I want to learn more of what's going on because there's a lot of unanswered questions. This is a game that has a lot of heart into it and I love it so much. Its going in my top 3.

Monster Hunter Rise [Demo]

I grabbed this before the demo went down and I forgot to mention it before. MonHun Rise I gotta say is pretty fun. They made the weapons, especially the Hunting Horn, feel really good to use and I was surprised they snuck in some secret monsters like the Rathian to fight. Rise also introduced a new Wirebug mechanic and it works so well. It works like a grappling hook but it gives so much movement in this game that its fun to explore the little space they gave us, which is admittedly huge for what it is. The new Palumute also gives a lot of much needed mobility to the point where its "Tokyo Drift Dog" hilariously enough.

But playing this with a friend was really fun. I got her into it and she picked up the Gunlance pretty quick. There's something fun about how coordinated hunts are since we were talking about how we can take on the monster and everything. We did end up exploring and messing around with the game first before getting the monsters. At first it was going alright before we decided to tackle the Rathian as our second monster and it was chaos. We did alright against the Rathian but we did kept falling for its poison flip attack. But we eventually became so good at hunting at fighting the Rathian that we managed to slay it within 15 minutes when it took us an hour or two to finally get it once. But yeah this game is pretty fun and I plan on getting it day one. I mean the game lets you do this...

Its an auto 10/10 for me. Between this and the new guitar hunting horn its looking to be a really good game. But speaking of MonHun...

Monster Hunter World

I decided to revisit this after a year of not playing it because it takes a lot of space on my PS4 and I kind of value having a lot of games. I wanted to revisit this because of Rise's demo and Iceborne was on sale so I wanted to tackle that MonHun itch I had. Idk why but I'm actually having fun this time around for some reason, not that I wasn't before. Maybe its because I'm using the DLC equipment but I'm really liking the Charge Blade for some reason. I was told its a very complicated weapon but I like going ham with it. I like how it has defense unlike the Switch Axe due to having a shield but it can do a lot of damage in axe mode, especially in a wide area. I don't fully understand the weapon but all I know is charge blade go brrrr! So I've been kind of speedrunning this game as I decided to restart the whole thing over because I forgot what I was doing before so I'm trying to get back to where I was. But I only really scratched the surface of this game since I do need to progress to get to the Iceborne content. Hopefully this time around I'll complete this game.

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I recently played through Duke Nukem Time to Kill on PS1, and it was pretty dang fun! This is the first I've played of the Duke games, and despite its age it was very smooth to play. The shooting is great; platforming controls were odd at first, but I got used to it. Duke's quips/one-liners and the overall wacky tone were great. (Running around the old West with a flamethrower? Exploring a medieval castle with a jetpack? Fighting dragons in ancient Rome with an alien laser gun? Nothing wrong with that!) Granted the hub levels in the city were a bit difficult at first, with having to find 3 crystals before time traveling to the next area. But all in all, you know its a good game when you want to replay it the second you finished it!

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Nostalgia (DS) - Well, I had my left JoyCon sent in for long-overdue drift repairs, but being long-overdue as they were, I had prepared a suitable substitute back on my 3DS.  Nostalgia (originally Winds of Nostalgia) by Matrix Software, developers of the Final Fantasy III and IV remakes for DS, is a sort of Victoriana Jones RPG set in a nineteenth-century Earth with airships, monsters, and adventurers.  It leverages this setting to a T with real-world cities - London, Saint Petersburg, Tokyo - and dungeons set in real or otherwise Earth-based locations, such as the Tower of Babel, Mount Fuji, and Teotihuacan.  Combat is turn-based, non-round-based, with a clear turn order indicator (better QOL than Bravely Default II!), and each character has a lengthy skill tree with multiple levels per skill.  There are dozens of optional sidequests and real-world locations to track down and record; and the whole thing is chunky, with a respectable-length plot for a handheld game and a good seven or so purely optional dungeons.  HowLongToBeat gives a figure of around forty hours for a completionist run; my own completed run ran to sixty hours, with all quests completed, bosses defeated, world treasures located, maps filled in, and treasure chests found (but I didn't encounter every enemy type or acquire every item).

So, why didn't this game set the world on fire?  Why did this game get acquired by a minor North American publisher who gave it a second-rate localisation, and why didn't it come to Europe at all (the reason I didn't get it before now)?  Well, much though I hate to say it, the game exudes intense averageness.  It actually does a lot that's fairly novel or at least unusual, but the fact is that it's right there in the title: Nostalgia.  This is a game which is doing its level best to evoke the impression of RPGs of yesteryear (yesteryear in 2007!), and it succeeds in feeling too much like something you've encountered before.  The battles are simplistic and never challenging (with the exception of maybe the final boss and one of the postgame bosses, who pulls out a nasty trick at low health); the skill tree is obtuse; the airship battles use rudimentary positioning systems which you don't actually have any power over; the map is far too big for its own good and would've been better-served by being about half the size; the visuals and art are underwhelming (the western box art is abysmal); and the plot starts out very slow and does a lot of meandering before finally getting genuinely intense and exciting just before the end.

This isn't to say that the game is bad, though!  It's pretty much the definition of "good but not great"; it bangs on the doors of greatness but isn't allowed in.  I still had a great time, though - at sixty hours of playtime, I'd better - and if anyone has a hankering for a classic-style RPG and still has a DS-compatible system, I'd say go for it, it's not a hidden gem but it is a hidden shiny rock.  If I'd been able to get my hands on it when I wanted to, i.e. about a dozen years ago, I don't think I'd have been disappointed, and I'm not really disappointed now.  Besides, it kept me going just long enough for my JoyCon to get back to me, so you can't say it didn't do its job!

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Have you heard of Final Fantasy XIV, a critically acclaimed MMORPG made by Square Enix, which has a free trial that goes up to level 60 and now includes Heavensward, the first expansion? Cuz that's one of the games I've been playing for the last 6-7 months. After I was done with Heavensward's content, I bought Shadowbringers, so yes, I'm paying my sub. It was, uh, an experience alright. I should probably separate how my experience was for each expansion, so here goes:
- A Realm Reborn (base game)- the first part and easily the worst part of the whole game. The story is there, but it's very unevenly paced, has a ton of unnecessary filler, going back and forth and is overall a slog, even after the updates they did to make it less of a slog. The voice acting and voice direction is atrocious. Has a pretty cool 24-man raid series tho, a big reference to FF3 and something that's mandatory to do because it relates to the latest expansion. The story in 2.55 is what made me go "Oh damn, this is getting good actually!". Wouldn't recommend skipping since it establishes a lot of stuff for later expansions.
- Heavensward - a huge improvement, both in terms of storytelling and variety in zones. A lot of people call it one of the better expansions, and I could see why. VA and voice direction got much better thanks to switching to a different studio. The writing is much more engaging, it made me care about different characters quite a lot. Also has a bit of uniqueness to your usual high-fantasy tale of a war against dragons. I haven't done a 24-man raid series for this one, though I might do that at some point in case it becomes needed in the next expansion that's coming out this fall. Patch 3.3 was a really good ending to Heavensward and has probably one of my favourite bossfights in the entire game. It also has probably one of the coolest 8-man raid series, where you scale and at the end fight Alexander. If you stick with the base game, Heavensward is the reward.
- Stormblood - probably one of the best expansions in terms of content, but in terms of story it was somewhat below Heavensward for me. It's still miles above the base game, but I feel like it shouldn't have tried to tell the story within 2 different regions. Doma was done very well and that's where you spend most of your time, however Ala Mhigo portion felt very flat and not fun. The main character of said expansion also didn't help much, because Lyse is a very bland character, which kinda sucks. So why is it "one of the best expansions in terms of content"? Because it has the best 24-man raid series, and it's focused on this game's version of Ivalice. It was a really cool Ivalice fanservice and in terms of worldbuilding it fit very well into FF14's world. Hell, even now, in the latest expansion, it's still pretty important. This also has a pretty fun 8-man raid series related to Omega, and it's mostly a FF6 fanservice. This one fits the story a bit less, it does the "dimension-hopping lmao" thing, but it also explains the origin of dragons you fought in Heavensward, so it has some neat worldbuilding.
- Shadowbringers - whenever I heard people say "It's the best FF14 story and one of the best Final Fantasy stories", I thought that people were exagerrating. "How would an MMO have one of the best stories in the entire series, that can't be true.", I said. And then I played through its story. Then I also got to patch 5.3's story ending. Then I looked up who was responsible for it and now I stan Natsuko Ishikawa because holy shit this is probably one of the best-written Final Fantasy stories. The voice acting, the characters, the music (big shoutout to Masayoshi Soken, he made a lot of bangers and Shadowbringers has some of the greatest tracks in the whole series), the worldbuilding, the pay-off of the previous expansions' and base game's worldbuilding, the new villains, the old villains way back from ARR - everything felt top-notch. The combat is at its best here since you get the full potential for your jobs, the boss mechanics are creative, and an 8-man raid series is a tasteful FF8 fanservice that dabbles a bit more into originality also has another one of Nomura's kinks - a black-haired goth gf. Other sidestories are also pretty well done, like the side story with Weapons from FF7. Probably the lowest point right now, funnily enough, is the 24-man raid series, which is a collaboration with Nier Automata. In terms of actual raids they're fine, but story wise it kinda has no place to be in this game. Right now the game is at a patch 5.45 and the story is slowly leading up to the next expansion, and I'm stoked to see what's in the future.

I would go on and on about the game, I didn't even scratch the surface of it, cuz if I did, the wall of text would be much bigger than it currently is. But yeah, FF14 now has my soul. That said, it's not even the only game I've been playing, but I won't talk much about the other 2.

The 2nd game I'm going through right now is Persona 5 Strikers. I'm at the 3rd Jail, so I'm not too far in, but from what I've played, I'm enjoying it. It has the foundation of a Musou game, which is a ton of enemies within the vicinity, as well as the base combo, but other than that... it barely plays like a Musou game, and that's a good thing. Can't say much about story yet, but I like it.

The 3rd game I'm playing through is Bravely Default 2. It's a fun game, but man it has a lot of issues. For one, removing an option to turn off encounters  was a mistake and I complained about that since the first demo. Two, it's a Switch game, so it looks kinda rough and the framerate just tanks at points. The early game bosses are really challenging, to the point of absurdity sometimes (giving counter to bosses as soon as boss 2 and giving several counters as soon as boss 4 is insane). I didn't get too far in this game either, but if I'm already frustrated at the bosses and I didn't even finish chapter 1, I'm scared to think how bad those bosses are in late game.

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Blasphemous (Switch) (Strife & Ruin update) - Well, what d'you know, just when I think I'm out of Blasphemous and Bloodstained for a while, they cross over and suck me back in.  This particular Blasphemous update adds two things (and reworks a subpar library sidequest into something more interesting), the first of which is an added sidequest involving Miriam; this involves you passing through portals hidden across the map to enter special timed platforming challenges.  Blasphemous by and large feels like a game more concerned with combat than platforming - and yet I actually found these challenges to work very well and to actually be quite fun!  Each is a few minutes long and has zero enemies; it's merely a business of dodging projectiles, dancing on crumbling platforms, air jumping off lanterns and grabbing moving ladders (the latter two of which some people apparently find abominably hard, but which I found very manageable; perhaps it's because I was using the D-pad?).  I think I found the third or so to be the hardest; I don't remember why, but it was just such a wall, so maybe it was the one which involved hanging on and jumping between  moving ladders to pass under an overhang while having projectiles fired at you - but I survived the lot of them!  What helps is that there are actually quite a few hidden skips built into these chambers once you get to know them; dropping down high abysses onto narrow platforms to skip long timed sequences.  I wonder if those are intended; I think they probably are.  Regardless, the nominal reward for the new mode is a new prayer which summons Miriam or something, I don't really know; for me, the reward was taking on the challenge and beating it.

The second new addition is almost a new game in itself - an arcade demake, Blasphemous: Alcazar of Grief, tucked away deep in the game.  It's a short, sub-ten-minute platform-and-slash game which I imagine resembles one of the early Castlevanias; and in that sense it's demade far enough not to be all that Blasphemousesque, it's just too simple (with the exception of one elevator sequence which feels more in-keeping).  With only a single attack, three health, and zero lives, you make your way through three sets of areas and eventually fight a short boss - and, Blasphemous or not, I imagine it's everything people loved about early gaming: With so few options available to you, it's an ultra-refined, ultra-focussed experience which seems overwhelming at first but which ends up reasonably easy once you've learnt your way through it.  The one embellishment comes in the form of five hidden skulls (one of which I had to look up, though it turned out not to be particularly cryptic), and if you find all of them and finish the game in a single run, it unlocks a nice little treat you can take back to the main game.  All in all, a pleasant snack.

Project Triangle Strategy (Switch) (demo) - I've tried a couple of different interpretations of the strategy genre over the years, but with the exception of the marvellous Into The Breach, I've tended to be not all that won over (as well as being late to the party).  But I'd never tried the Final Fantasy Tactics / Tactics Ogre interpretation of the genre (i.e. with elevation), so it was a fine surprise to see Team Asano taking on this format in their next HD-2D title.  The trappings are pretty promising; dialogue options which affect your character and unlock or seal off recruitment options, major story branches, these are things which always intrigue me - and the setting itself is a hotbed of politics that promises any number of directions the story could take.  So, as for the gameplay?  Like the Bravely Default II demo, it has apparently been beefed up a little in difficulty; which explains my one objection, which is that some enemies felt a little like HP sponges.  Otherwise, it's fairly promising; elevation has been built into range calculations, there are varied movement options around the map, characters have highly distinct movesets and there are a number of movement-based skills in the mix - which I especially like, coming from Into The Breach.  On my first playthrough, I found the battles to be a bit of a slog; that might be the difficulty bump talking, or it might just be a question of strategy, because I then made a second playthrough to take the other story branch and deliberately played more aggressively, and that paid off.  Frankly, just by not including permadeath (a la Fire Emblem) my enjoyment increased, knowing that I could safely risk my characters without ruining my playthrough.  We'll have to see more of the title in future, but overall I think this is a good start; I just hope the next demo gives us a slightly clearer idea of what regular difficulty is going to look like.

14 hours ago, Bobnik said:

The 3rd game I'm playing through is Bravely Default 2. It's a fun game, but man it has a lot of issues. For one, removing an option to turn off encounters  was a mistake and I complained about that since the first demo. Two, it's a Switch game, so it looks kinda rough and the framerate just tanks at points. The early game bosses are really challenging, to the point of absurdity sometimes (giving counter to bosses as soon as boss 2 and giving several counters as soon as boss 4 is insane). I didn't get too far in this game either, but if I'm already frustrated at the bosses and I didn't even finish chapter 1, I'm scared to think how bad those bosses are in late game.

This is a useful post, thank you.  I was a big fan of the first two games on the 3DS and really wanted to like the Switch sequel, but the changes exhibited in the demo I found really quite alienating.  These days I'm hearing that the job and ability system are as fun and as rich as ever, and I would quite like to experience another Bravely plot - but this post helps to cement me in my position that I should let it lie unless I find myself with my backlog cleared and nothing else in the offing for a month or so.  Sounds like a performance patch wouldn't hurt either; were you playing docked or undocked?

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1 hour ago, Salamander said:

This is a useful post, thank you.  I was a big fan of the first two games on the 3DS and really wanted to like the Switch sequel, but the changes exhibited in the demo I found really quite alienating.  These days I'm hearing that the job and ability system are as fun and as rich as ever, and I would quite like to experience another Bravely plot - but this post helps to cement me in my position that I should let it lie unless I find myself with my backlog cleared and nothing else in the offing for a month or so.  Sounds like a performance patch wouldn't hurt either; were you playing docked or undocked?

I'm mainly playing in handheld mode, but I did experience slowdowns in both modes, though maybe not as severe in docked mode.

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