Hey all! Apologies for being bad about these threads. All I can really say is life is kind of chaotic. I’m going to see if I can maybe get a bot to post these if I can’t do it a certain week. Thanks for being understanding.
As for me I’ve mainly been playing Persona 5 Royal. Been really loving it! It’s so damn long though lol. Really excited for res 9 next week as well!!!
I know I’m a bit behind, but I’m doing my first playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 right now and could not be loving it more. I picked a Druid (Circle of the Moon) and have been really enjoying the fun and versatility that comes with shape shifting. I just started Act 3, and sad for it to end, but I imagine another playthrough is in my future. So many classes and subclasses to experiment with!
Found myself wrapped up in the Utawarerumono visual novels. The first one was originally an adult only game on PC, but the current version cut those scenes out. There’s still a number fan-servicey scenes, but if that doesn’t bug you the story itself gets quite compelling and emotional. Plus it’s a strategy RPG in combat scenes, which I really like. I came across Utawarerumono when looking for more games like Trails.
I finished Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. The game has big problems, mainly the non-existent balance and bugs, but I’m glad to have finally crossed this one off of my backlog. I would actually be interested in doing another run, because I kinda find that Swarm route intriguing, but then I remember the beginning of the game and how much it sucked, and I’m good on that. Who knows how I’ll feel in a few years though.
Then I started a new Baldur’s Gate 3 run, this time I’m going with an all Fighter setup. Each active party member will also get a different sub-class and fighting style. My regular party will be Origin Lae’zel, Two-Handed Battle Master, along with Shadowheart, One-Handed Champion (currently with a shield, maybe later without one or dual wielding), then Astarion, Arcane Archer, and Karlach, Eldritch Knight Thrower. The other companions will get subbed in as needed for their personal quests, with a Fighter Sub-Class that I think fits.
I’m like most of the way through Act 1 and hit level 5 yesterday, so the rest should hopefully be more of a formality at this point (as long as I don’t screw up massively). I’m playing on Honor Mode and will do all optional quests and bosses, so there are still a few fights that could get iffy, but as long as I don’t completely turn my brain off, it should be fine.
Then, I’ve also been playing a lot of Overwatch. The game had its grand relaunch two weeks ago, the 2 didn’t survive, so it’s just back to Overwatch now. Along with that, there were five new heroes released, with another new one coming every season, for a total of 10 this year. There’s also gonna be a year-long story arc, with cinematics, lore, comics, whatever, that you can check out in-game, if you’re into that.
Of the new heroes, Domina, the new tank, is definitely my favorite. She’s an absolute blast to play (and currently very strong). The others are either fine or not my cup of tea, so I’m mostly back to my old favorites for DPS and support.
Currently into Rise Of The Rōnin and omg it’s soo good. The whole atmosphere is so enjoyable to just be in. The combat isn’t anything to write home about but as a whole package it’s better than the sum of its parts. I will never not feel like a badass seamlessly transitioning from flying to horseback riding.
Oh really? That’s interesting, the combat is the only thing I’ve heard praises about that game (which makes sense as it’s a Team Ninja game).
Are you playing on PC? What’s the state of the port these days? I remember when it launched it was struggling with performance issues.
The combat isn’t bad, and the animations are really good (especially getting body slammed by a 600 kg sumo wrestler) but to me it just boils down to parrying until an attack window opens.
I know you have quite a few options with status effects and being able to use two weapons in tandem, but I rarely use those features. Regular enemies die too fast to be worth applying poison and bigger ones take so many hits they don’t get poisoned at all.
And why should I switch weapons if my main weapon deals double the damage of my next best weapon.So at least for me combat is just rhythmic parrying and attacking. Again not bad but I’ve been able to use the same technique in combat for the 10 hours I’ve played so far and nothing has really forced me to adapt to a different playstyle.
Yeah I play on PC and it runs fine for me maxed out with RT but I have a beefy PC.
It’s a really weird mixture of a lot of games so I can kinda understand why people aren’t into it. I’d say the biggest influence on this game is actually Assassin’s Creed. At least in the way the cities and the world is built. And there are NPCs everywhere, which goes a long way into making this game feel alive.
When you’re out in the open riding a long distance to your next objective you’ll see people walking around, maybe a wandering merchant, a cat or a dog to pet, or something else. This makes the riding feel way better than in Elden Ring even tho mechanically they’re practically identical. But in Elden Ring most of your encounters are gonna be combat based or static NPCs. And I really love that vibe in Rōnin.
Also the Yokohama pleasure district is 10/10 gorgeous.
I started God of War: Ragnarok after remembering I had never installed it after 3 years of having it (it came with my PS5 that I bought specifically for Bloodborne and DeS). I almost quit after Fenrir died. That shit was fucked up. They literally animated the light leaving his eyes.
Do that with a human, not a doggo 😭
I’m also playing this for the first time after owning it for a while. Took me a while to really get into it - it’s the first high-production, AAA action game that I’ve played in a while, and it felt strangely linear and repetitive. The puzzles are so clearly tailored to your specific abilities they feel kind of silly against the otherwise immersive world. The rewards and upgrades are kind of trivial on normal difficulty; I’m still mostly spamming normal and sidekick attacks for every battle.
Eventually though I settled into the rhythm and I noticed that stuff less. The acting and scene choreography are outstanding - it feels like theater in a way that’s unique to my experience with games. And I’m enjoying it more for what it is. It’s just overall not landing as satisfyingly as the first one did, and I think that’s because indie games have done increasingly cool things since the 2018 game came out and I’ve been playing them more, and my tastes have just changed a lot.
Still working through Stardew Valley. Burnt out on it as I reached a point where the only thing missing from finishing the community center was waiting for autumn and I was at the end of Spring so a whole season of just busywork kinda killed the mood for the game. But I ended up reaching autumn and clearing the community center bundles so I’ve got new things waiting, but I need to take some time off from the game to have the desire to continue.
Meanwhile decided to give Helldivers 2 another chance. I had forgotten how enjoyable the core gameplay loop of Helldivers 2 is. There’s something so satisfying about calling in airstrikes to blow up a bunch of bots (Since the action is happening primarily on the bot side I haven’t fought bugs or whatever the third faction are called) and it’s amazing how naturally cinematic the game is. You can easily end up in cinematic moments without any of them being scripted. But it’s not without flaws. I’ve ran into game breaking bugs (objectives that can’t be completed, extractions where you can’t enter the ship, stratagems that bounce indefinitely) which are things that should be fixed considering the game has been out for 2 years now. I also don’t particularly enjoy the macrogame aspect of it and I hoped they had figured it out by now. There was a major order to “liberate” the bot homeworld but the order had limited reinforcements that for whatever reason were galactic-wide (so anyone dying to bugs also depleted the reinforcements) and the liberation progress is the same regardless of the difficulty which means playing on lower difficulties was actually better for the goal as the rewards are the same but you die less so you waste less of the reinforcement budget. The galactic-wide budget just creates division in the community because some people will never fight bots and continue fighting bugs and those players will get blamed for wasting the budget (even if the budget might account for their deaths) and the progress being same for all difficulties puts the order at odds with fun because higher difficulty is more fun but also more deadly so you’re going to waste more of the budget on higher difficulty but still get the same outcome as if you had played the lowest difficulty. Overall, it’s pretty fun if you don’t care for the wider galactic war.
Welcome back!
This week I played (read?) Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo which I really enjoyed. From the intro I kinda expected more from the gameplay tho.
I’ve also started playing Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse and was considering replaying Xenoblade Chronicles X, but the Switch 2 edition turned out to be a downgrade.
I’m not very far yet, but it’s been an incredible and intriguing game so far. The graphics, music, and story are all beautifully designed and I find myself craving to uncover more details.
I am struggling a bit with the boss encounters, however, due to the limited amount of hits the game gives you. I’m considering turning on one of the assist modes, because I don’t have the time or patience for a perfect run.
How difficult is the platforming, and how much do the assist modes help with that? I was very curious about MIO because it looks so damn gorgeous, but I suck at and hate precision platforming.
I don’t think there’s any assistance for the platforming.
From what I’ve read, the platforming does ramp up in the later game, and can be pretty difficult. Maybe read some of the reviews and watch some gameplay to see what you think? In my opinion, it would still be worth a purchase. 👍
Original Dune for Amiga on WinUAE emulator. It’s pretty good.
I have great memories of dune on the Sega… got to the end and stale mated the game because my last living combat unit and the computers could not kill each other…
Yeah, especially with age I find myself less interested in those 150+ hour games. One of the reasons I haven’t considered dipping into the Persona series.
For me, I haven’t played that much this week so I’m still on the same games as last week. Chrono Ark continues to be excellent, and a wholehearted recommend if you’re into roguelike deckbuilders. Ninja Gaiden 4 is the best new action game in ages, and Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is even more fun than before with some mods - most recently the Modified Moveset Mod.
No Man’s Sky update for the Colossus is a good time, the expedition is fun one you get past the initial phase where you can barely drive. Once you get that sucker souped up, oh man it is good fun. I finished the expedition and now I am upgrading my main save’s situation. Found a pretty red grass paradise planet that is relativity flat and so that makes it nice. The physics of the shit in the flatbed is frustrating but I just overfill it and that seems to keep most of it down when you hit a bump. I just went over 1,150 hours total and realized the game is almost at its 10 year anniversary. I played it on the first day and have always loved it, even when it was the most hated game on the internet. I am so happy for Hello Games and the turnaround they had and looking forward to their next big game Light No Fire
I checked out the horse sale yesterday and picked up Unicorn Tails… it’s got a lot of problems but it has that indie jank and full voice over so I had fun with it for a few hours.
I also returned to Secret Agent Wizard Boy and the International Crime Syndicate and finally beat the early access that was released last year, only to discover they have a beta branch that will be getting a big update next week. It was fun though and I’m excited for the update!
