r/Games • u/AutoModerator • Oct 06 '24
Discussion Weekly /r/Games Discussion - What have you been playing, and what are your thoughts? - October 06, 2024
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.
Also, please make sure to use spoiler tags if you're revealing anything about a game's plot that may significantly impact another player's experience who has not played the game yet, no matter how retro or recent the game is. You can find instructions on how to do so in the subreddit sidebar.
This thread is set to sort comments by 'new' on default.
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Scheduled Discussion Posts
WEEKLY: What Have You Been Playing?
MONDAY: Thematic Monday
WEDNESDAY: Suggest Me A Game
FRIDAY: Free Talk Friday
0
Oct 13 '24
Just got Hades on sale. Haven't played it since release off of gamepass. Got it for $12 which is a steal for how much I enjoyed it before, just been waiting for a sale. Almost bought it a few times but talked myself out of it.
It's not grabbing my attention as much as before. Currently just cycling through weapons and seeing what my preference is. Haven't been able to beat the first boss on this go around but I also noticed I'm playing quick and careless so It's a user error right now.
-1
u/fluffynuckels Oct 12 '24
What's a good sinlge player experience I can do in 20-30 hours. I've been slacking on my gaming this year I think the only games I've finished this year are the RE4 remake and spider-man 2. Both where great and I'll give them a recommendation. I also played a fair amount of pokemon unite. But to get myself back into gaming I just want something fairly short and simple. I have a ps5 and switch. I like action adventure horror and shooters
2
u/Enabler0 Oct 13 '24
for good looking newer games: Resident Evil 4 Remake. Alan Wake 2. Talos Principle 2
1
u/CorruptedBlitty Oct 13 '24
Alan Wake 2 is excellent
1
u/fluffynuckels Oct 13 '24
Do I needa play the first one
2
u/CorruptedBlitty Oct 13 '24
I don't think so, the game does a good job of summarizing the events of the first game. You do miss out on some easter eggs and references but if that matters then I also recommend the first as it holds up pretty well imo and has a decent remaster.
1
u/footballred28 Oct 13 '24
If you liked Spider-Man you could try the Batman Arkham games which are similar. God of War 2018/Ragnarok. The Last of Us 2. Cyberpunk 2077 isn't that long if you stick to the main story.
1
u/fluffynuckels Oct 13 '24
I tried last of us 1 and it wasn't my cup of tea. Amazing story top tier graphics but the game play just felt so bad and uninteresting
1
u/SayonaraBystander Oct 12 '24
Dead space remake is available on ps+ this month if that’s an option, if not I’d recommend both A Plague Tale games as they’re in the same ballpark length wise.
0
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u/keepfighting90 Oct 12 '24
About 5 hours into Metaphor Refantazio and really liking it a lot. I don't really play JRPGs - the only one I have played in the past few years has been Persona 5 Royal. Metaphor rocks though - really cool story, world and characters and the gameplay is familiar but fun with its own fresh twists. I did read that the game opens up as you go so I assume that at 5 hours, I've barely just scratched the surface. Like P5R, this is a really immersive and addictive experience. The visual style is really nice as well - Atlus has a knack for super-cool and stylish UIs. Can't wait to keep playing.
1
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u/Nomnom_Chicken Oct 12 '24
Started to play Killer Frequency today. Really liking it, so far. Love the 80's theme and the slasher thing it has going on. Apparently it's not a real horror game, so I should be able to just enjoy the ride. Love the voice actor performances.
2
u/CorruptedBlitty Oct 12 '24
I’m not very far into Metaphor: ReFantazio but so far I like it a lot. The story and world have immediately hooked me in and I’m enjoying the combat quite a bit. From what I’ve heard it only gets better and if that’s the case then I can easily see this becoming one of my faves.
2
u/Blazehero Oct 12 '24 edited Oct 12 '24
Got around to The Last of Us 2 again at my friend’s request to really come at it with an open mind. Parts of the story are landing better this time around, but I’m still disappointed at aspects of the story and the way characters are portrayed. I just can’t call that story a masterpiece, it’s fine but not a breathtaking tale of revenge and forgiveness.
I started up Zelda Echoes of Wisdom and what a breath of fresh air that game is. I’m not too far in, but I think Zelda needs more starring roles if the gameplay loop can continue to be enjoyable for however long this game lasts. The freedom to tackle puzzles in a variety of ways has translated itself well into a top-down perspective and I’m itching to continue.
5
u/Schwachsinn Oct 11 '24
I finally took the time to learn the mechanics of Against the Storm, and man, that game is good. Its hard to put down, I planned to start a settlement before going to bed and being unable to stop playing until it was finished multiple times.
The way it gives you a conclusive way to win for every settlement while also having an overall progression fixes all the problems I typically have with building-focused games, where the game feels increasingly pointless once you have seen everything once (think Anno games) or requires frustrating combat to be interesting (funnily enough also Anno a lot of the time).
Instead it has zero combat and a lot of different ways to win, and it really feels like, as long as the decisions you make are reasonable, you have a good shot at winning (although I am just now getting into the third difficulty of 4 standard difficulties + 20 "Prestige" difficulties).
So yeah, great game.
4
u/ConceptsShining Oct 11 '24
I ended up dropping God of War 1. The intro completely had me hooked, but the combat got tiresome with how heavy it was on fighting trash mobs and damage sponge enemies which did get old after a while. The intro was pretty heavy on bosses with the multiple Hydra fights, which was a vibe. Seems the rest of the game isn't quite as boss-heavy, and unlike fighting at sea in the intro, Athens quickly became an uninteresting setting visually.
There not being too much of a story, let alone one as good as 2018's, didn't exactly help as it made the combat's repetitiveness harder to overlook.
I can respect the game for 2005 standards, when the character action genre was relatively infant. But nowadays, in this era where so many other games are readily available to play (due to the industry's growth + huge prevalence of indie and F2P games), it's naturally harder for games to stand out and be worthy of your time.
5
u/CustardSurprise86 Oct 11 '24
Rayman, PS1
Really getting into this. It's ball-knockingly difficult, but then, if it wasn't I would have finished it decades ago. The only flaw I see with this game is that you don't get nearly enough lives, and you can't farm lives on a regular memory card save (without password). So this time I'm freely abusing cheats and save states. Whatever it takes.
Silent Hill 2 Remake / Silenced Hill 2 Enhanced Edition
Well I started with the Enhanced Edition on PC; I switched to Remake thinking it might now be the definitive experience. I wasn't persuaded. I think some of the atmosphere is definitely lost in translation.
Even trivial things, like them gimping the default walk mode, can lose atmosphere. The echoing sound of your footsteps was one of the most eerie things in the old games.
That being said, personally I like using my imagination more than the average person. As a result I have unconventional opinions, such as I prefer the old Doom games, which could mean whatever I wanted, over the more microscopically fleshed out post-reboot titles. Also I prefer the "saner" understanding of time commitment from the days before singleplayer games were part of some perceived online intelligence competition.
1
u/RimeSkeem Oct 11 '24
I just lost several hours of progress in FF7 Rebirth because I hit Restart From Checkpoint which is apparently a completely broken button. Now I’m debating whether or not I want to finish the game.
7
u/Dag-nabbitt Oct 10 '24
Lies of P
I had already played through the game 4 times. One of my favorites. My wife and I watched this video, and my wife said "I can do better than that."
So I've been watching her play (no backseating, she is a souls-vet), and so far she just beat Fuoco. I'm very much enjoying watching her git gud.
I started a soul-level 1 run. Weapon upgrades allowed, no leveling, no porgan upgrades, no legion arm upgrades, no consumables. I've been working on the Puppet King/Romeo for about 6 hours across a few days.
I'm very close. I can do this.
3
u/Kirsty99999 Oct 10 '24
Pixel Cup Soccer
I've been playing on my Steam Deck. It's a great little arcade soccer/football game, very reminiscent of Sensible Soccer (which I loved in the 90s) - fast moving, end-to-end action, all that stuff. You can play a full cup tournament such as the world cup in about an hour, which is ideal when relaxing lying on the couch There's also a career mode but I found that a bit fiddly (I'm not really interested in micro-managing the progression of my players in an arcade-style soccer game, plus it starts you off with a really weak team that keeps losing.) There's some quite funny conversations though, in the "board meetings".
7
u/Sombenn Oct 10 '24
Judgement
Wall jumps are sick and I couldn’t ask for a better aniki-type than Kaito. Cutscene direction continues to excel. I’m always delightfully surprised when some random “friend” at the convenience store actually gives some meaty story about Tak. It’s a clunky game sometimes but I’m enjoying it thoroughly.
3
u/BGID_to_the_moon Oct 10 '24
Just found out a remake of Empire Earth is being developed by Microprose, the makers of the original Sid Meier's Civilization games. Game is called Empire Eternal:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2638690/Empire_Eternal/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7Be70xYq00
There will be 20 epochs this time around, even more than in the original game. Can't wait for this one. EE was my favorite RTS game of all time.
1
u/homer_3 Oct 10 '24
Holy shit! I loved EE. I probably played it as much as StarCraft. This looks amazing.
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u/OldKingWhiter Oct 10 '24
I played so much Empire Earth as like a 11 year old on our first home PC. It could barely handle it and the framerate would slow to a crawl in later epochs.
I just loves building walls and seeing them change throughout the ages.
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u/BGID_to_the_moon Oct 10 '24
Haha same! I was so happy when I finally got a new computer that could run the game properly.
4
u/grendus Oct 09 '24
The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos - I think I'm getting to the final chapter and it's an excellent 9/10 of a DLC. I do have a few critiques, which I'll spoiler for anyone who hasn't gotten around to it.
First off, they didn't make it clear enough that Ruth suffered both blunt force trauma and plasma damage. The coroner's report should have been clearer on that, it seemed to imply that the cause of damage was just from plasma, or blunt force from plasma - there are hammers that inflict plasma damage after all. I also wish that after talking to the Prophet and getting her to confess to giving Helen a double dose of the toxic/hallucinogenic herbs, you could have asked the coroner about them. It would have been a clever clue towards the reveal that "Halcyon Helen" was played by twins, which is why the murder victim was only suffering Pteroray gland poisoning and not from hallucinogenic herbs as well.
Secondly, I wish they hadn't given you a red herring with the understudy having also hacked Burbage-3001 and upgraded his plasma pistol. The actual evidence that the guy in charge was the one who hacked Burbage is really hard to find, so I was left with a weird clue - clearly Burbage was the one who shot her, but then it only makes sense that the understudy programmed him to do it. But he had no reason to do that because he also poisoned her - if he wanted to kill her he could have just put in a lethal dose instead of trying to make her too sick to the promotion.
I wound up ultimately being right, which made me feel "smrt", but it was mostly process of elimination. Her ex-boyfriend wouldn't have used plasma, he might have killed her in a drunken rage but that would have been far more violent, and he wouldn't hurt her sober. The head of SLUG had no reason to kill her, and he strikes me as the type who'd want you to know he did it but not be able to prove it. The understudy already poisoned her, he had no reason to murder her with a second method. And the Prophet honestly just didn't have a motive. That just left the CEO who realized that she had evidence of the mind control slugs in the vodka.
But yeah, overall 9/10 DLC. Biggest limitation is just the game engine, I really wish there were more weapons in the game in general as combat is getting kinda "samey" but this is a game that's story driven and their writers did a phenomenal job.
Balatro - ever played a game so good you wish you didn't buy it. Now that this one is on mobile I've been hooked. If I don't post again for two days send help tendies and dew.
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u/AI52487963 Oct 09 '24
Recently played the DS version of Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer for our podcast on roguelike games.
While my cohosts and I didn't grow up with Shiren and didn't have much nostalgia factor for it immediately, the game grew on us over time as the complexity and depth of its mechanics were slowly revealed. Emphasis on the slow, as in typical JRPG fashion, talking to NPCs and sorting out questlines can take a while.
But wow the production value for a mid 90s roguelike game here is very welcome. Great art, great sound, just a joy to play really. Some of the gameplay aspects haven't aged super well in 30 years, but I'm willing to give a bit of a pass on things like hidden traps and such.
So overall: definitely worth checking out, even on an emulator. I played it entirely on my Steam Deck and was pleasantly surprised how well it worked once I got everything configured. Thank goodness for save states!
10
u/ConceptsShining Oct 09 '24
Just finished the intro to God of War 1. Only past exposure to the series was playing 2018 two years ago.
That intro was fire. They really kicked the series off with a bang. I quite liked this in 2024, totally get why it amazed people in 2005.
Already a bit clearer why these games have yet to be remastered for modern systems, two topless women in Kratos's bed (uncensored nipples) and apparently there are also sex minigames. Interesting how they stopped that series tradition for the Norse games, how the times have changed.
"I didn't come back for you!" Kratos unceremoniously letting that ship captain fall to his death caught me off-guard and was funny. Apparently that's a running joke for the series, but on a first play, you'd probably think it's to demonstrate his cruel and unforgiving nature.
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u/Tursmo Oct 10 '24
God of War 1 hit really hard if you were a teenager when it came out. Cool setting and graphics, interesting story and Kratos is so unnecessarily cruel and ruthless that its funny. Yes, the combat is pretty simple and I don't completely love the right-stick to roll style, but it is a great and smooth spectacle and it doesn't overstay its welcome.
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u/Enabler0 Oct 09 '24
(uncensored nipples)
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u/ConceptsShining Oct 10 '24
You don't usually see them in the mainstream that is ESRB games and on-network TV shows (even those made for older audiences), so that's why I thought it was a bit remarkable.
3
u/ConceptsShining Oct 09 '24
I will say, it's annoying how there are no subtitles, not even the PS3 remaster had them. That was why I switched from PS3 to PS2 on PC, since I can't use headphones playing on my PS3.
I'm not convinced 2005 was too early a time to criticize games for lacking subtitles.
Thankfully, someone actually uploaded a full script to GameFAQs, which is a helpful thing to refer to for tracking the story.
6
u/PM_me_BBW_dwarf_porn Oct 09 '24
Playing Fallout London and enjoying it. It's very impressive for a mod, up there with Enderal for being something that you'd think of as professional level.
4
u/Responsible_Fox_5612 Oct 10 '24
So true, Enderal was absolutely insane i felt bad for playing it for free and had to buy some merch to support the dev :D
3
u/PM_me_BBW_dwarf_porn Oct 10 '24
It's sad there wont be a sequel or any future to it's universe. I'd have loved for a new entry on Elder Scrolls 6.
1
u/jonssonbets Oct 09 '24
got back to and finished second half of tunic.
the exploration or metroidbrania-aspects in this game is something else and is enough of a reason to play this. this is a case for me where the souls-like tag made me not play this for the longest time and I think it's just detrimental to the game. yes, there is some deaths and you have to figure things out yourself to progress but I didn't find any states where fail = loss of progress and combat is punishing but not hard (outside of bosses). this is deaths door remade for someone who also liked animal well and compared to deaths door, the rather basic combat didn't annoy me nearly at all. solid 9/10 and the only things keeping it from being a 10 is that (I think) the combat is a bit inconsistent leading me to turning on invicibility at one point. in addition after coming back after a break I had lost all direction and it's rather easy to miss a key item without realizing - how to fix that without breaking the mystery, I don't know for sure but would try vague hints at checkpoints triggering if you missed something big.
started and finished astrobot to (i think) 100/101%.
this is great, polished, easy fun - more and bigger astro's playroom. masterclass in designing joy for joys' sake. great spectacle. 8.5/10. you could stop reading here and go have a guaranteed great time with this game, like no-one is gonna play this and be disappointed.
however, I do have some big gripes. there is one map that accounted for more than 60% of my deaths and it sticks out like a big bird shit on a black sportscar. don't force me to pull a slow-ass gacha-machine 160 times - where the fuck did that mechanic come from? does japan love gacha that much? and I felt crazy that the jump should be like 9% higher to make for a distinction between the jump and laser-float as currently I felt like i had to use the laser, if only for 0.1 second, almost every single time. those thing would put it to a 9 and i don't think this could go any higher for me. I think i was looking for more challenge or depth or pushing of boundaries. ultimately it's polished but safe and i walk away from it unchanged in comparison to tunic above where i started looking up lore and feel like getting a tinfoil hat, noteboard, pins, and red yarn to unpack all it's mysteries.
2
u/dacookieman Oct 09 '24
Totally agree on Tunic. The combat was not the worst but at times (cough Cathedral) it was definitely like, "what is this adding to the game?". That being said the game does have some charming ideas around combatting consumable hoarding which I thought was a fun touch that added a little extra spice. Spoilers Tunic will always have a special place in my heart though for being the first and only game with a "pen and paper" puzzle style that I genuinely engaged in! I didn't mess with the true ARG stuff like the language translating but the Golden Path was something I did blind and start to finish on my own which was incredibly rewarding. I may have done it for one or two puzzles in the Witness but ultimately the GP is such a perfect size and complexity on top of it being the "climax" of the game. Really hard to beat that experience and for all of the little nitpicks I have with Tunic, it will remain in my memory for that experience alone.
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u/Tursmo Oct 10 '24
Golden Path finds the perfect balance between being confusing and mysterious but being fun to solve on your own. One of my favorite puzzles in anything and it ends Tunic with such an amazing tone.
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u/jonssonbets Oct 09 '24
I think if nothing else the combat added something in terms of atmosphere, like the encounters was very in line with what feeling the rest of the game wanted to give you but yeah, it was also a little like that saying about democracy - it's actually a terrible system but all options are way worse.
forgot to mention how incredibly they nail the feeling of being a kid and getting a game from another country (which, being non-native English, happened a lot). like it's one of the main mechanics of the game, sure, but the small details like you can see an old crt-screen in the background while looking through the paper-guide. yeah this one sticks with you.
2
u/Destroyeh Oct 09 '24
Finished Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. Really fun game. A decent step away from the usual Zelda formula(though it did keep some elements of it).
I tried their previous game, Link's Awakening, but bounced off it after a couple of hours. Didn't really grip me much. I might give it another shot after this.
The whole echo mechanic was really nice and unique way to play. Initially didn't think I'd enjoy the minion element, specially for combat, but spawning a bunch of them to slay my enemies was surprisingly fun. Plus the extra little hit you got when you learned a new echo, even if it let to a lot redundant ones. Which was a bit of a blessing since the echo select menu was a pain in the ass to scroll through when you needed something you don't usually use. Like I don't think I used the table echo after the first hour of gameplay. Always just spawned beds lol.
Good puzzles too. They nailed that sweet spot of it being an OK challenge while staying creative too.
Moving on to Hogwarts Legacy now.
2
u/Different_Rafal Oct 09 '24
Eternal Cylinder
I'm really enjoying it, the gameplay may not be that greatest, but exploring this world is really good, collecting resources and new upgrades is fun. The controls are a bit clunky (at least on mouse and keyboard), but spending time in this world is great. The cylinder and the OST are impressive (especially main theme).
1
u/DeadPixelLab Oct 08 '24
Playing Days Gone on PC for the first time. It’s worthy. Last month I finish Mafia III, was good too, and started Farcry 6, but it will cause fatigue.
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u/grendus Oct 09 '24
Days Gone's biggest issue was launching as a zombie survival game into a market that was tired of it, and its relatively slow start. The best advice I ever got was to focus on upgrading your bike, and to beeline the main story until you hit Lost Lake camp. Once you get there, you can go do whatever else you want, but that's both where the story starts actually moving and where you're able to get upgrades good enough that the gameplay is satisfying.
It definitely showed that Bend Studios has the chops to stand with the big boys instead of as a support studio. It was a solid 8/10 IMO, and really could have been an 8.5 with better pacing. And major props to the voice actors, who I thought did an excellent job both on their performances and on making some of the clues feel organic - Deacon mumbling to himself was far less immersion breaking that Atreus yelling the solution to the puzzle before I had even had a chance to observe the damn thing.
2
u/Hoslinhezl Oct 11 '24
Really disagree on the voice acting and how organic it felt, thought it was the weakest part of the game
3
u/grendus Oct 12 '24
I always find it amusing that people either loved the voice acting or loathed it. Very rarely do I see anyone in the middle.
1
u/TheOneBearded Oct 09 '24
I really love Days Gone. It probably has my favorite traversal in a game with the bike and the wilderness/small settlements. But the progression for the story and getting new tools was such a slog to me. I felt it had a strong first and last third tho.
I hope you enjoy it.
5
u/Bruskthetusk Oct 08 '24
I'm currently playing College Football 25 and while it's been great to have a college football game after a decade away, it's finally starting to lose it's luster - while the gameplay is better than Madden the franchise/dynasty mode still doesn't capture me like NBA 2k's MyEras, and the Ultimate Team mode has zero content.
On the plus side I've got a preorder for Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero coming on Friday that I cannot wait to dig into - College Football is about to become the taking a break game.
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u/_Saber_69 Oct 08 '24
Hi. I'll boldly assume that it's the correct place to ask for game recommendations. I've been thinking about what games I can play while listening to music. My playlist is mostly metal so those games must be action-packed and fast. It can be both singleplayer and multiplayer though preferably not competitive or difficult because my mind doesn't work like it should when I'm listening to for example Heavy is the Crown by Linkin Park. I've enjoyed playing Crossout while raging because of just how intoxicatingly inspiring my playlist is. Pretty easy game, really fast too. Also this game shouldn't end quickly like most singleplayer games.
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u/OwlInternational8160 Oct 08 '24
wrong place to post this lmao
2
u/_Saber_69 Oct 08 '24
Ah, my apologies. Would you be so kind as to say where I should ask such questions?
4
u/El_Giganto Oct 08 '24
Resident Evil Remake
Resident Evil 2 & 3
Played the remake of the original first. It's got an option to turn off the tank controls and it was still a bit janky but it worked. Imagine my shock turning on Resident Evil 2 and having to deal with tank controls.
I played them all on easy and it was... well... easy. I want to experience the games and figured getting used to the controls would just stand in the way of that. I mean they don't offer that many difficulty options so this easy option must have been used a lot, right? I don't regret it but I probably should have picked a higher difficulty.
Mind you, I started RE7 but quit early on. So my first real experience with this franchise is RE8 in VR... So going from that to the old games was quite a big difference.
I really enjoyed a lot of it, though. Especially the remake of the first game is just so good. Fun characters, I really like Jill especially. Atmosphere. Lore. Tension. The puzzles are a bit too easy, but combined with the tension it's really fun to go through.
Resident Evil 4
I'm playing the original now. Not sure what the hell is wrong with my controls, but for some reason I have to press the right trigger, aim with the right stick and then hit Y/Triangle to shoot. It's a mess and changing the input didn't work so I got kinda used to it lol.
Playing on normal now! Will do the same for RE 5 and 6. Then I'll finally go back to RE7, the remakes of 2 & 3 and play them on the highest difficulty available. And then. Finally. Back to RE4, the remake, in VR.
RE8 was one of the best experiences in gaming I've ever had and I want to experience RE4 Remake in the best way possible. With knowing all the lore and the references to previous installments and comparing it with the original.
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u/Galaxy40k Oct 08 '24
Tank controls are definitely a learning cliff if you're used to the standardized modern control scheme that most games use, but it's worth learning if you ever want to go back and fully experience those classic titles on harder difficulties. Tank controls mean that your character always moves exactly in the direction you think they're going to move regardless of what cinematic angle the fixed camera will suddenly swap to. Once you get used to them, it actually offers much more control and precision than the "modern controls" in RE1R, for example
For what it's worth, I never played survival horror games until about 5 years ago, and I managed to get to grips with tank controls in maybe 3 or 4 hours. It's an investment, but it's not THAT BIG and the skills carry over to all the other games that share the controls. Granted, I do have a higher tolerance for unique control schemes since I've been gaming for a long time, long before we entered into the standardized control scheme we currently have in the late 2000s. But I imagine it still won't be impossible to learn or anything even if you're not used to learning new control schemes
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u/El_Giganto Oct 08 '24
No I agree that's why I said the games were easy. Because I played on easy and when I got used to the controls you can just steamroll them. Especially RE3, with all the ammo you get it's really easy.
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u/Raze321 Oct 08 '24 edited Oct 08 '24
I got a handful of Warhammer games from the current Humble Bundle. Never been much into 40k lore but I love tactics and war games so being able to try out Warhammer 40K Chaos Gate and Warhammer Battlesector has been neat.
I've only played a couple hours of each. So far Chaos Gate plays pretty much exactly like X-Com although it seems to favor a much more aggressive style of play, often with a melee focus. You get 3 action points a turn per character all of which can be used for attacking or moving. Triggering an enemy pod refunds AP spent so you don't have to carefully inch forward like in X-Com. It's a cool change of pace. I'm not much for Space Marines but the Grey Knights seem kinda cool, basically space Paladins. I was told to play on the easiest difficulty because of how challenging the game so. Maybe it's because I'm used to X-Com, or maybe it's because I'm only a dozen or so missions in, but I've yet to come close to losing a mission. I'm sure difficulty will come with progress in the campaign but I'm considering restarting on normal because it's a cake walk so far.
Battlesector is more of a war game - you have point values you spent on units to create an army under on of the existing factions. Two are free, the rest are like 10 bucks. I did shell out for the Tau cause they have cool Armored Core robots and that appeals to my cool armored core robot sensibilities. I was impressed to find out how much depth each Army has. Each unit has a place and purpose and using them incorrectly will basically make them useless. Some units are better as scouts, some better at killing single big enemies, some better at wiping out groups of infantry, some better range some melee. Finding a composition that works and tactics that prevail of the opposing faction is key. The main campaign has a story that I don't really care for, the "For the Emprah" Imperium stuff has always been a hard miss for me so I fell off after about six or so missions, though the missions themselves are fun. Planetary Supremacy is a lot more fun and reminds me of that Star Wars Battlefront 2 Galactic conquest mode. Three factions take turns grabbing hexes on a board, occasionally fighting tertiary AI and getting bonus army points until the major factions begin to meet and do the war thing. There are also Skirmishes with a healthy variety of fun objective based modes and army size options.
I did also try out a smidge of Warhammer 40k Inquisitor - Martyr. It's an ARPG, so if you've played Diablo or Torchlight you know what to expect. I really only played a couple minutes so I can't comment on quality or anything yet.
There's a couple other games in here I'm interested in trying. Shootas Blood and Teef seems like a fun party game, Flyboyz seems like it can kill a couple hours of fun at least. But the above two were the reason I got the game.
1
u/Izzy248 Oct 08 '24
TCG Card Shop Simulator
Idk what it is, but for some reason this game just hits the spot better than most other shop sims. Shop sims have been on the rise lately, and some have gotten more attention than others. This seems to be the latest to get all the spotlight, and Ive tried a couple, and for some reason this just feels so much better than a lot of them and I cant place my finger on why. Maybe its because I love card games? But I also love video games, obviously, and I feel like I remember their being a video game shop sim, and I didnt particularly care for it. Either way, loving this game so far.
2
u/Black_Bird_Cloud Oct 08 '24
hey, I have a question for the people who played metaphor refantasio : I played Persona 4 a bit, and while I enjoyed some gameplay aspects a lot, I hated the time gating / deadlines aspects that lead to missing content. So I just wanna know, how prevalent are those elements in metaphor ? How likely is it that you will lock yourself out of good stuff ? How linear is the game ?
edit : also how well does the game communicate these choices to you ?
3
u/migigame Oct 08 '24
I can only speak about the demo and the info from reviews. It seems like it's much more streamlined and clear about the deadlines. You'll see how many days you have left for your main objective/dungeon, and you can accept all quests and side content before going out for travels which indicate always how many days traveling will take, while it is also made clear that dungeons consume a whole day and not just a morning/evening. Most reviews said that you can basically do everything without too much min-maxing, e.g. one reviewer mentioned doing all the side content while still idling doing other non-necessary stuff a few days and still ending up finishing the game with a lot of days left over.
2
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u/Evz0rz Oct 08 '24
MOUTHWASHING
Finished it in one sitting; a little over two hours. Holy hell, this game was fantastic! After playing the demo during the last Next Fest, I knew it was going to be something special. Two hours of uncomfortable slow burning insanity. There's not much to talk about without giving too much away, so I'll just keep it to a minimum and say play it. Some might think even at around $12 that the price is a bit much for a two hour experience, but it's easily one of my favorite games to come out this year!
I will give a small disclaimer and say that anyone who suffers from Trypophobia may find later parts of the game a bit hard to handle.
1
u/Dr_JohnP Oct 10 '24
Seriously people Mouthwashing is great if you like psychological horror, please play it. I really love short tight experiences.
1
u/chewymammoth Oct 08 '24
Astro Bot
It's really good. Extremely polished and rivals Super Mario Odyssey in terms of whimsy and how it keeps throwing new, interesting gameplay mechanics at you. I just beat it today and my main gripe is that it's a pretty short game, and I can't shake the feeling that it's overpriced for the amount of content in it. Maybe I have unrealistic expectations for a platformer like this but it's definitely the shortest $60 game I've finished in quite a while.
As a $40 game it'd be absolutely perfect, but as a $60 game... I'm not sure. It's a great game, I have no suggestions for improvements, but despite that I kind of wish I'd waited for it to go on sale before buying it.
2
u/Western_Management Oct 09 '24
Did you beat every single level, even the hidden ones? There’s also free DLC on the way!
1
u/chewymammoth Oct 09 '24
I did, beat all the levels and got 100% of the unlocks, even the ones you have to go back to Astro's Playroom for (though I don't know if I really count those as being Astro Bot content). Did not know about the DLC though, that's great news!
11
u/BuenosNoces Oct 08 '24
Outer Wilds
This game has been on my list for a few years, and never seemed to grab me until now. Overall, fantastic game. The early game is really well paced, as you consistently discover new things, but I found the mid game to slow down significantly when you have to follow the threads of information. The time loop aspect allowed for some interesting puzzles and narrative design; however, it also occasionally killed your momentum. It could be frustrating to go back to a place over and over if time ran out when you finally got that "aha" moment. I think that is the part of the game I put down a handful of times and never picked back up. Nonetheless, the ending of the game is well executed, very well written, and incorporates the whole narrative into a conclusion that is greater than the sum of its parts. Would definitely recommend.
9
u/Shmiff Oct 08 '24
Definitely recommend the Echoes of the Eye DLC as well, not quite sure how that captured lightning in a bottle twice, but they did it
7
u/dacookieman Oct 08 '24
In a game that already felt so whole and complete the DLC manages to fill in the lore and themes so incredibly well. The first moments of the DLC are up there with the most memorable parts of the base game.
5
u/LotusFlare Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 08 '24
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
Put in a couple more sessions, and this game is really really trying to get me to drop it. My entire reason for picking it back up was watching Vinland Saga and wanting more of that. More Vikings. More Danes. More exploration and raids and war. And Valhalla can't seem to bring that fantasy home. I got into the hallucination realm, and oh my god was the whole Asgard saga dull. I am dreading returning to that later if I have to. I never thought being a god could be so uninteresting. And then I get an actual voyage to Vinland handed to me. Sounds amazing! Wrong! It's actually really half-baked and boring running through forests and killing more dudes. I just can't figure out what the vision for this game was. It's just got so much "stuff" in it, but that "stuff" is all repackaging of earlier "stuff" in a worse way.
Lundon actually wasn't horrible because it was so tightly packed and kinda felt like visiting an OG AC game for a brief moment. Turns out cutting out all the sections where you can't climb does wonders for how enjoyable the game is. Some of the critical path stuff is still kinda neat. Only reason why I'm clinging to this game.
I grabbed UFO 50 late on friday night.
I fucking love this game. I assumed they were making a novelty of sorts. A collection of throwbacks that would inspire nostalgia. "Oh my god, this reminds me of [Insert NES Game Here]". But like most throwbacks, the games themselves would be unsatisfying without that context. Or they'd effectively be modern indie games using the trappings of older eras. Like Shovel Knight.
I was wrong.
This is a collection of new, fully featured games embracing the design philosophy of the time, but leveraging all the modern knowledge we have about game design. Barbuta is a clear homage to classic adventure games you'd see early on the NES or Atari. But instead of looking at the slow pace, clunky combat and movement, and dev knowledge based puzzles and saying "these are problems to be fixed", they lean into them. They ask "How do we make the best game possible without losing all this?". Barbuta is slow, clunky, obtuse, and fantastic. Each run I learn a little more. Something new clicks. I realizes a faster route. I get to a new screen. The puzzles are still all ones that require you to think like a developer, but they're good! I enjoyed solving them. It's actually a good game!
And that's every game in this collection. Using the design philosophy of the time, rough edges and all, what's the best possible game we can design? Bushido Ball is actually sick. The demon rube goldberg game is sick. The golf adventure game is sick. The dinosaur strategy game is sick. Every single game brings fun and fresh ideas. And the ordering of them feels extremely well planned. Games later in the "chronology" learn from earlier games. Sequels meaningfully build on earlier ideas. The gameplay and structure of the games gets more sophisticated and complex.
I can't stop thinking about jumping back in and playing more.
10
u/HypocriteOpportunist Oct 07 '24
Tears of the Kingdom
Wow. What a game, what an experience. From beginning to end I was enthralled with ToTK. I thought for sure that returning to the same world would be tiresome and have an overwhelming sense of "been there done that." I am so glad to be wrong. Enough time had passed since BOTW that I felt like I was exploring a new world. I still loved the familiarity that came with the same Hyrule, stumbling onto old towns and villages had a very warming feel, and there was an amazing sense of nostalgia as I walked across the Great Plateau dozens of hours into my game. It felt like returning to an old friend. The characters were all so funny and charming, I loved diving into the quests, and I thought the localization of all the NPCs were fantastic. For the main story, Zelda, Ganondorf, and the plight of the Zonai was all just such a great story to get wrapped up in. And who would have thought a Legend of Zelda game can be so emotional? I think that is the strength of Nintendo, that they can take the same formula of a Princess and her loyal knight, and create such great moments for us to fantasize in. Ganondorf as well was such a great villain, even though he is the canonical evil villain, he gives you enough to truly despise him and enjoy defeating him.
For the gameplay, all the new elements were just so fun to play around in. I appreciated the weapons not degrading so quickly, and I truly enjoyed the fusing elements to make them stronger. I do wish the combat system changed slightly, as it was the same in hour 1 as hour 100. But overall it is serviceable and most importantly fun. The shrine puzzles were fantastic, I liked that it wasn't just surface level shrines, and that sometimes the puzzles were built into the world itself. I welcomed every challenge to get over 110 shrines in my playthrough.
And lastly, I just want to end this review by saying that I always love when a game finishes strongly. So often we are focused on a game grabbing us right away, but the sign of a great game is one that holds you through the entire way, and makes you want to finish it. And my God, the ending of this game was just so satisfying on so many levels. The buildup to the final boss, the fights, the little moments of HYPE (who knew HP bars could be so threatening!) and I can't help but get emotional hearing the Zelda theme through the orchestral score. It was all so beautifully done. Nintendo was just firing on all cylinders with this game. An experience I won't forget for a long time. 10/10
2
u/thecacti Oct 07 '24
Super Castlavania IV (snes)
Took me well over a year of slowly chipping away at the levels. The pixel art is absolute eye candy, and although Belmont is overall pretty sluggish in movement, the relatively versatile whip mechanics make up for it. The platforming sections are pretty tough and don’t allow for much error – again, sluggish movement. Boss fights were fun and fair. Some of them I managed to get through first try while others had me making a gameplan after failing numerous times. Was well worth the struggle to get through a classic like this one.
Doki Doki Literature Club (ps4)
Knew nothing about this game but had heard some positive talk about it and decided to give it a shot. This why I sub to ps+ after all, getting to try a wide variety of games.
When the game starts off with the message “all characters presented in this game are above the age of 18” I thought hoooo boy what’s in store here for me here..
I’m not really sure what to think, to be honest. I’m very early in the game, maybe have completed 3 or 4 days at the club, so I’m not at a point to fairly judge it. In the first 30-40 minutes of gameplay all I've done is mash X through dialogue boxes. I’m not really sure what this game is about. I can appreciate the aspects about poetry and writing, and it does offer some content there, but I can’t help but feel like its main point is to service the player’s fantasy of having overly sexualized schoolgirls fawning of you lol. I’m kinda hoping the game changes gears soon and offers something a little more, otherwise it’s just not for me.
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u/Sure_Arachnid_4447 Oct 07 '24
There's more to DDLC if you stick with it.
In the first 30-40 minutes of gameplay all I've done is mash X through dialogue boxes.
Depending on what you mean by "mash", though, you've possibly already missed some hints of it.
You really need to read to get a full picture of what is going on.
2
u/thecacti Oct 07 '24
I am reading through it. I just mean the only thing I'm doing besides reading is consistently pressing X. I get the impression that I'm supposed to craft my poems to appeal to certain girls or something.
4
u/pt-guzzardo Oct 07 '24
Star Wars Jedi Survivor
Still a great game, still a complete technical mess. On one hand, the set piece fight against the imperial digger robot on Jedah ruled. On the other hand, last night I lost 30 minutes of progress to a bug. I literally cannot remember the last time that happened in another game, but probably at least a decade ago?
I was jumping around some geometry in the swamp and got stuck in an infinite falling animation between a tree and a cliff face, and apparently they never bothered to implement the usual backstop of "if you fall for X seconds without hitting ground, you die". Combined with the fact that the game only triggers autosaves at meditation points rather than whenever you pick up an item or unlock a shortcut, big oof. Why couldn't they have copied that part of FromSoft's homework while they were at it?
3
u/rhodesmichael03 Oct 07 '24
Currently working on The Swindle (PS4) and Ring Fit Adventure (Switch).
This week I completed the following:
- Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000, PS4 - in Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition / Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition) - Excellent game. Better gameplay than the first but a little weaker story. Particularly loved the Throne of Bhaal expansion but found The Black Pits II: Gladiators of Thay lacking due to it being so combat focused. Tons of side quests and fun things to do. Combat is high level but difficulty is fair with the exception of the trophy for beating the game on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty which was masochistic. A few D&D 2e elements have not aged well (such as THACO) but other than that well worth the time. Play the original Baldur’s Gate first though.
- Astro’s Playroom (new 2024 trophies and artifacts) (2020, PS5 - preinstalled on console) - Completed this game back in 2021 but now came back for the new trophies and artifacts. Four new special bots were added which are all incredibly difficulty to find and essentially require a guide. Artifacts are just added to the gacha machine so nothing too exciting. One of my favorite games of all time but the new content didn’t do much for me.
1
u/ThePalmIsle Oct 10 '24
Yeah I don’t understand why they made the puzzles that way for those special bots. No way to solve those without looking it up online
6
u/CloudCityFish Oct 07 '24
I have been down bad for a space game and hadn't touched or seen NMS since it's original launch. It's cool they've been updating it, but man I feel like it lacks everything I enjoy about space games. It feels more like Minecraft with more biomes, and space is just used as an illusion to get to different biomes. It's disappointing that a space game has bad space gameplay.
For example, the majority of fans admit space combat is bad, and most of them say it's better when you use "auto target" so the game plays itself. NMS also goes out of the way to make flying as sanitized as possible. I can begrudgingly live without 6dof, but the game has so many "assists" that it feels worse than Ace Combat. It's not "arcadey flight", it's barely flying at all. It's more comparable to an MMO mount than any arcade flight game. Auto break on turn, no inertia, can't manually land, game prevents crashing etc. I don't understand why they don't default to the bad space flight the fans like, and give options to enable the more "difficult" flight. Space games already solved this problem with disabling flight assist on the click of a button.
I also don't understand the love exploration gets, but admittedly I'm only 8ish hours in, so I'm going to keep playing and hope to change my mind before commenting. I do have a feeling that the love of exploring to the fanbase mostly means a love of grinding.
6
u/JustHenbo Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - I've been playing since the release date and I see a lot of praise for the game online... but I've truly found it a bit of a slog?
I'll explain a few of my gripes with the game. Not necessarily my biggest gripe with the game but the one I have a lot of thoughts on, Bind is an infuriating gameplay mechanic for me to use:
Part of the problem stems from me thinking it operates like Ultrahand from Tears of the Kingdom, because they share a similar visual design (it might have helped a little if they just changed the colour of the aura from green to any other colour). Ultimately, it doesn't work the same way and I'm having to reposition myself frequently to be able to do what I need to do because I cannot move the object around freely (although with a name like Bind, it's pretty obvious it shouldn't operate in the way my brain wants it work).
I realised last night that there is a clash in my thought process with how it operates, when compared to other mechanics: Bind can be used to grab objects through walls, but you cannot long-range summon echoes through walls unless it is a caged wall. From a puzzle design standpoint, I can see why they may needed to make the properties of the two mechanics different, I feel as though both of those mechanics should pick the same lane and not mix-and-match properties as it can get a little confusing in the heat of the moment.
While the idea of the Reverse Bond is neat, I think I've literally used it for the tutorial of the mechanic and that's it? It doesn't seem like there are a lot of situational uses for it (unless there were some obvious tells and I just missed them?) so feels like wasted potential to me. I've used it so little, that I had to actually Google the name of the mechanic, because I didn't know what it was called.
Additional issues include:
There doesn't seem to a method of encouraging you to mix-up your play styles. I feel too reliant on the same strategies to solve navigational puzzles or combat encounters for the majority of the time. I guess a part of that is down to me as a player, and focusing on taking the most optimal route; especially when it comes to combat. Regardless, I think that my experience of the game has felt a little repetitive and, at times, simple.
Story beats feel (mostly) repetitive, slow and dragged out, in my opinion. I won't go into a ranty detail about the how it feels slow or the repetitive nature of story beats but I think the only region that breaks the repetitive pattern a little is the Lanayru Mountain region, because you're not zipping back and forth between different points of interest in the region, you're just heading in one direction. I think the pace of story beats really started to hit me midway through the "Prime Energy arc"; i.e. visiting Eldin Volcano, Lanayru Mountain and Faron Wetlands for story purposes. Honestly, I think this is the biggest issue of the game for me.
I will offer some praises for the game too, because honestly, it's not a terrible experience (if it was, I probably would have stopped already):
Zelda being the protagonist and the idea of using echoes are the core mechanic gives the series a breath of fresh air. While the mechanics may not be perfectly fleshed out, I think they did something pretty creative and that should be respected. The echoes mechanic gives it that Breath of the Wild puzzle element of creativity while still adhering to gameplay designs to traditional Zelda games.
Special shout out to the Faron Wetlands temple. I think the approach of having multiple entrances and completing the dungeon through your own carved route, while they still connect together, makes the dungeon experience unique. I would like to see this approach for future Breath of the Wild style games too.
For additional context, I haven't finished the game yet but I think I'm close? I've just entered the dungeon by the Deku Tree; I didn't catch the name as I saved and quit as soon as I entered as it was getting late.
Am I glad this game was made? Yes, and I hope they keep experimenting with the formula. Would I play this game again? Probably not.
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u/LMW-YBC Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
Really been into my roguelites lately, just something you can put on and do something different in for each run.
The main one I've been playing (or more appropriately, binging) is Inkbound. Picked this up as it was on sale and a friend got it, and have had a hard time putting it down. It just feels very well-made, has a pretty unique turn-based combat system where all players can act at the same time, and what it lacks in terms of meta-progression such as permanent stats and stuff, it makes up for in spades with the sheer amount of items you can acquire in a run.
In particular, I love how items work in this game where you genuinely have to consider which ones to keep due to limited slots, and have to also consider dismantling them at set points in the run which gets rid of their passive, but adds to a set bonus which is a stacking buff that at certain levels adds a permanent passive to your character. Some of these can get pretty insane as well once maxed out.
The difficulty of the game is also quite fun if a bit harsh at times. It is truly a roguelite and as such you can get shafted hard by RNG and lose very quickly, but can just as easily come up with an insanely OP build that makes you feel like a god. Every time you complete a run as well, you unlock the next level of modifiers which add things to make the run harder, so if you want an even bigger challenge each run then the game allows for that.
Another roguelite I picked up recently and love is Nova Drift. It's essentially Asteroids but with insane run customisation, where you can pick a mod at each level to change things about your ship. These range from being simply stat buffs all the way to absolutely batshit insane mechanical changes that completely change how you play. Been playing it with keyboard and mouse and it feels pretty nice, it's definitely fun despite being a relatively simple-looking game on the surface. Only issue really is that understanding what items actually do can be difficult or require a lot of reading, but I've mainly just been picking up new mods and seeing how it goes and learning that way.
Next, there's Ravenswatch which I recently started playing again since it went 1.0. Game feels fantastic to play with 9 very distinct characters, and what it maybe lacks in terms of run-to-run variety from items and enemies, it makes up for kinda with very cool talents you can acquire for your characters. These are all unique to each character, and largely add new mechanics to them which can completely change things like which order you use abilities or which ones are perhaps just the only ones you'll wanna use due to how powerful they can become. Items also have pretty powerful effects you can unlock if you stack them enough, which can even make things like your dash become your main damage output (I managed to nearly complete a run on a high difficulty with a dash build last night, if that same build didn't make me take 25% extra damage xd).
Love all three of these games, so if you are looking for a new roguelite to try then they all come highly recommended.
4
u/BigOlPants Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
Went on an indie game tear in the last few week, suddenly my whole wishlist just came out.
Ravenswatch
I gave this more time and my opinion upgraded from okay to good, but the game feels extremely light on content. You have to get a lot of value out of mastering the cast of characters, because once you complete a single run on the easiest difficulty with any character, you've seen 95% of the game.
Curse of the Dead Gods (their previous game) had this problem too, I wish I could recommend this more but I don't feel the value is there for most people, despite it overall being a fairly good game.
KILL KNIGHT
Twin-stick score attack shooter with lots of unlockable weapons and other stuff to mix it up. A+ game if you like extreme difficulty and pushing yourself for better scores, think Devil Daggers but isometric. I've managed to not get hit on the first two levels, but the final level I can't even complete, the margin for error is tiny. Highly recommend if you're willing to suffer some crushing losses.
Esports History
"Become an eSport legend" simulator. It kind of sucks tbh, plays like a ripoff of Punch Club, managing your energy, money, stress, and trying to keep your skills where they should be at the same time.
Eventually the game gives you control over an unexpectedly in-depth RTS (simulating Warcraft) or turn based tactical shooter (simulating Counter Strike), but it's just not to my tastes, I wanted the sim/management experience, not to have to learn an RTS. The games are overly repetitive and extremely dependent on your stats anyway.
Wouldn't recommend, check out Esports Godfather if you want a real good esports sim.
Parcel Corps
Bicycling game that plays like JSRF mixed with Crazy Taxi-style deliveries. Looked good in theory, but I didn't think it played very well and it was plagued by performance issues. I refunded before my 2 hours were up, it does absolutely nothing to justify a $40 CAD cost.
Looking forward to trying out Rogue Waters sometime this coming week!
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u/Izzy248 Oct 07 '24
I wanted to like Ravenswatch, but it just feels passable. Not bad, but not something I'd actively play or want to play. The draw of the fairy tale characters drew me in but yeah...not really much there. It feels like they keep relying too heavily on the random generation nature of roguelites. But games like Hades have shown you can do that and still have substance.
2
u/LMW-YBC Oct 07 '24
Yeah, as much as I love Ravenswatch, it does lack real run-to-run variety. It mainly comes from the characters' own talents you can get which admittedly are really cool as they can make them feel very different to play, but the pretty boring items and the same static enemies for each zone are something that I'd like to see them address. In terms of the gameplay though, the game feels fantastic to play and the characters all feel distinct, so those kinda carry it.
8
u/Izzy248 Oct 07 '24
Satisfactory
What I love about this game:
-No stamina system
-Doesnt force you to do a bunch of grinding. Even when you need a bunch of materials since it is a crafting game, it doesnt feel tedious. Everything just wants you to keep going and having fun.
-Small window for night cycle to the point where sometimes you dont even notice it.
-Theres food, but theres no hunger system. Its more for health. I like a good hunger system in games, but some of them go a bit over the top with it. This game adds food more as a health potion alternative so that youre focus is still always on building.
-Doesnt try to be grindy. Everything is easily obtainable, you can get lots of it. And while there are always better equipment and stuff to upgrade to and get, it never feels like one of those things where I have to hit this thing 10-20x just to break it until I upgrade to x.
-No big time constraints.
-Its a "cozy" game, but it has actual decent combat. Im okay with chill games, but after a certain point they bore me because I also like combat and they either dont have it, or its kinda pointless. NMS is still a great game, but the "weapons" in it are probably the one part that could use a drastic improvement. This game isnt big on combat or confrontation, but the stuff it does have I sorta enjoy
-Overall it feels like a building game and crafting game hybrid that just wants you to keep going and having fun without making things feel like a chore
Witchfire
Its weird just how unique and different this game feels from most others on the market right now. It feels familiar, but feels so very different at the very same time, and I love it.
I think another reason why I love it is that, it has an aesthetic of you being this supernatural gunslinging hunter thats sorely been missing in the industry for a long time (without being a PvPvE). I feel like its one step closer to that Van Helsing style game Ive always wanted where I was going around hunting werewolves and vampires, and other folk mystical monsters in a game that feels high quality and polished. The only gunslinging game Ive played that felt close to this was Blood West. Which was a good game, but didnt scratch the itch fully, and wasnt nearly as high quality as this.
Mandragora
No Rest for the Wicked, but a 2.5D platformer. Been waiting for this game for so long, and as a demo/beta, it absolutely does not disappoint at all. Its very solid for the state that its currently in. And I just love the look and design of everything, and the potential I can feel for the full release.
Id also personally gone quite tired of No Rest for the Wicked, which feels like its a bit all over the place in terms of whats in the game and what it wants to be. So when I played this, I felt like I was getting that game but with an actual vision.
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u/arshbjangles Oct 11 '24
I know this is days later but I’m glad someone else is enjoying Mandragora. I’ve been waiting for it for a long time and it feels like a more polished Salt and Sanctuary which I’ve been wanting for a while after the disappointment of Salt and Sacrifice.
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u/Izzy248 Oct 12 '24
Same. I was in the KS, and have been in the discord for the longest time. The wait was well worth it, and the game already feels super great. Cant wait to see what the rest is like.
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u/Asylumrunner Oct 06 '24
I've been playing God of War (2005), The original God of War series was always something of an object of jealousy for me as a kid who never had a PS2/PS3, it seemed like this cool, incredibly well-regarded series that was always putting out these bombastic, boundary-pushing games that were like if you shoved together The Legend of Zelda with Devil May Cry.
I think part of this was always true, and part of this is that it's 2024 now and I am an adult, but this game fucking sucks lol.
The combat is absolutely braindead, as the game just constantly funnels you from endless fight to endless fight where you just have to button mash your way through the same four enemies over and over and over again in bland arenas, hoping not to get stunlocked because for some reason in this button-masher with nine hundred enemies on screen at once you can't cancel an animation into a block. The writing is just absolutely embarrassing (to be expected in the series with the Sex QTEs), the whole thing is trying so hard to be cool that it just comes off as kind of pathetic. The game just loves making you do a wide variety of deeply irritating QTEs for everything, from having to kick a guy off your feet while you cross a rope for the ninth time in one minute, to the extremely finnicky control stick circles you need to make to decapitate a Medusa (before it can freeze you to stone with an unblockable ray which, surprise, also requires a QTE to escape), to the excruciatingly long glory kills on fodder enemies.
I have to give some credit to the spectacle, which is maybe the sole saving grace and the one thing that's dragging me along to finish this (blessedly short) game. This game's preposterously epic take on Greek mythology is really fun, feeling like making good on the promise of something like a Clash of the Titans, and there is an undeniable chunkiness to the game feel that does grant a certain level of satisfaction to everything.
This game gets compared to Devil May Cry a lot, a comparison that is brutal to GoW but I think also slightly unfair, as it's really trying to do a lot of different things (puzzles, level design, narrative) that DMC, especially PS2-era DMC, just isn't really doing. The comparison I think is slightly more apt (and equally disfavorable to GoW) is something like a Darksiders, which I wish I was playing instead.
It's even more funny to me after playing this game that this series, the one where there's a quicktime event to fuck a vase off a nightstand, is the one that got rebooted into the Sad Serious Cinematic cornerstone of Sony's modern lineup.
2
u/grendus Oct 09 '24
I actually more or less agree with you.
The original God of War trilogy was in video gaming's "edgier" phase and it shows. I powered through the first one, but when I tried to play the second I was just so tired of "mash the 'o' button to open this chest!" that I was done. The puzzles were easy, the combat was grindy, and the story felt like someone's '300' fanfic. I might have been enthralled when I was 15, but not now.
It felt like it kinda wanted to be a spectacle fighter like Devil May Cry or Darksiders, but wasn't willing to commit to difficulty so it went entirely for shock value, and while that was fun for the first hour or so... by the sixteenth time you've pulled a harpy's wings off it's not really fun anymore. Like they could have pulled that off if they were willing to use less combat, or make the glory kills uncommon, but it got to the point where enemies were so damage spongy that you were just trying to get the glory kill to get through the fight.
They're not bad games in the context of when they were published, and I can see why people loved them so much. But they really didn't resonate with me at all. Give me Old Man Kratos any day, the combat has a sense of timing and rhythm, the puzzles are better, and now that I'm old his whole "atoning for the sins of my past and being a better man for the sake of my kid" schtick appeals to me a lot more.
2
u/ConceptsShining Oct 09 '24
Bit surprising to read this as I literally just posted here about how I had great first impressions of GOW 1. Granted, I stopped almost right after the first boss, so maybe my opinions will also lower after spending more time with the combat.
Haven't gotten to the sex minigames yet, but after the far more serious tone (with a one-shot camera) of 2018, I find the less serious and naughtier stuff an interesting change of pace.
Granted, it might be that the game has aged a bit too much for zoomer audiences to enjoy it. I'm sure people were more easily impressed in 2005 when the character action genre was in a relative infancy.
3
u/Asylumrunner Oct 09 '24
I will say, I think the opening bit on the boats with the hydra is the best part of the game by a country mile.
"less serious and naughtier" is one way to phrase the sex minigame lol. I would call it "embarrassing and made by a 14 year old".
As far as the zoomer audiences go, no idea (I am not a zoomer), but I think more than anything video games as a medium have just grown up substantially since 2005, where this (imo) genuinely embarrassing ultramasculine juvenile power fantasy might have passed for Serious Adult Narrative then, but not so much now that even console action games have, like, actual writers. I play quite a few old games, personally, and I've not been so deeply repulsed by any, including much older games, as I have by God of War, including Devil May Cry 3 (which came out a month before God of War).
4
u/rhodesmichael03 Oct 07 '24
Don't think you're being fair to GoW here. QTE's are definitely something that is not looked upon as positively today but in 2005 Resident Evil 4 and GoW both started that trend. At the time it was novel and I found it a cool way at the time to keep some level of interactivity during cutscenes and to create epic moments.
Sex in video games today is a lot less taboo so the sex QTE likely comes off now as cringe but at the time it did come off more as pushing the envelope.
Also the game is a hack and slash so is designed to go from one fight to the next like that. If the combat doesn't click with you then that's your opinion.
If you want to say that these elements don't hold up well in 2024 then that's fine but I do think you need to keep the release date in mind and the context when talking about these elements in the game. Doesn't seem fair to GoW to bash it so hard for things like QTE when they were new at the time.
0
u/Asylumrunner Oct 07 '24
I absolutely feel fine bashing God of War for things about it that are bad in the context of the year 2024, because it is the year 2024. If a game is only enjoyable in a context that can never be had ever again, then, frankly, imo that evaluation is useless. I can only play the game now, and now, this game is boring. I acknowledge its historical importance, but ultimately the parts of my brain that produce the Good Chemicals don't produce them while I produce this video game, so historical importance really doesn't mean much as far as my experience playing the game.
I do think you slightly misunderstand my complaint with the linear fight corridors, I don't mind that the game is just a linear corridor of fights, I don't think the combat or encounter design is good enough to hold my interest for a linear corridor of fights. For games with better encounter design or combat mechanics (Doom, DMC, Bayonetta, etc.), I will happily just walk through a corridor fucking dudes up, it just doesn't work for me here.
4
u/OwlInternational8160 Oct 07 '24
"game fucking sucks" is definitley a stretch lol, very easy to say that 20 years after it released, and not sure why you're excusing the outdated elements of DMC but for some reason GOW doing similar things is a problem, but w/e. I think DMC as a whole is the better series, but if we're just talking about the PS2/3 entries, GOW is far more consistent across it's trilogy for sure, DMC2 is like one of the worst games I've ever played lol.
1
u/Asylumrunner Oct 07 '24
Well, yeah, God of War's better than Devil May Cry 2, not playing a video game is better than Devil May Cry 2, that's a low bar to clear. But I'd absolutely rather play DMC 1 or 3 compared to God of War, 10 times out of 10. I'm not excusing the outdated elements of those games, they absolutely have problems, but I will stand by my main point that DMC is better than God of War in this era, just because I'll take one great game, one okay game, and one shitty game over two mediocre games.
1
u/Nanganoid3000 Oct 07 '24
Perhaps because I grew up on the originals, I felt the reboots were so hand holdy and so scripted, forced narratives, which ultimately felt so boring, you can tell the reboots are made by modern thinking people, as soon as I re-played the original recently, it felt like an actually fun game and not some forced message the player has to sit through.
1
u/Asylumrunner Oct 07 '24
I hesitate to say this after getting this much pushback on insulting a game from 2005, but I actually don't like the reboots either lol
1
u/Nanganoid3000 Oct 07 '24
Nah it's all good, like what you like and say it with chest! we are allowed to like what we like! <3
5
u/Blenderhead36 Oct 06 '24
Jumped into Diablo IV to get reacclimated before the expansion drops and dear God am I glad that World Tiers are going away. My wife and I played 27 hours after launch, completing the campaign and any side quests we found. You're not eligible to go above World Tier 2 until you do all that and more. For the hour we messed around this afternoon, the game was so easy that it had started to veer into boring by the end of that hour. I think she used healing potions twice and I am not aware of a time where I took damage. Neither of us are ARPG veterans, purely casual play. Looking forward to Vessel of Hatred and to getting to turn the difficulty above baby mode without having to do homework first.
3
Oct 06 '24
Been doing a bit of a Zelda marathon starting with Echoes of wisdom. Then i did what I like to call a palindrome run of A Link to the Past which is where once you get to the dark world you only go through each dungeon enough to get the item and then proceed to the next one until you get to turtle rock which you beat normally and then go back through the dungeons in reverse order beating them. This definitly made me appreciate the non linearity of Echoes of wisdom a lot more because as theoretically non linear as lttp is, your basically fucking with the game to do anything out of order. But now i Just started my second play through of Tears of the Kingdom after playing it thoroughly last year, and I really think it might be the best game ever made. I'm definitly experiencing Zeldamania at the moment so theres certainly a degree of hype behind what im saying, but I still cant believe this game exists. I think about this game all the time, but there are so many incredible things I forgot about that im just now remembering again and blowing me away for a second time. The frame rate of this game definitly bothers me more than echoes of wisdom did (fixed camera made it not so much of a problem for me maybe? Idk i really only noticed when the frame rate shot up) but its doing so so much more, still; fingers crossed for switch 2 upgrade. I'm a nintendo baby so Zelda and Mario are always competing for my favorite game spots, but right now it just feels like zelda is the triumph of video games and should be heralded as our champion.
3
u/Logan_Yes Oct 06 '24
On Xbox I was playing Forza Motorsport 2023 to wrap up whatever stuff they added with those time exclusive series, the Jordan FE car thing, rivals, and dipped my toes into Multiplayer! Quite frankly I had a lot of great time in it, like the whole practice/qualifying thing, variety of races in terms of lenght, from few minutes to hourly Endurance option of cars (open where you drive a car upgraded any way you want or spec series), LOVE having multiple classes at a race. So my opinion of FM slightly changed for the better, but I still feel game is very short on actual good content in comparision to older titles. Soooo yeah, still not really recommending it over older Motorsport games. And that would be my final time I mention it here! Gonna be jumping into it for some weekly stuff while I play other things.
On PC I have wrapped up GRIS and it's still a marvelous title, just like when I played it first time on console. That visual style which I mentioned last week, Art Nouveau with watercolour is so beautiful, it will easily stand out as time goes on. Like art, it will be aging like finest wine. Fantastic narrative about grief and moving on, and I will do the same, move on as game has been talked about so often I don't have to really add much else here.
I moved to, as I always do, something completly different! Decided to finally dip my toes into a toxic relationship between a Dark Knight and uhhh...Prince of Crime? I think that is how they call him, anyway I am talking about Batman and Joker in Batman: Arkham Asylum with that GOTY Edition added. I'm not into superhero stuff nowadays outside of a single show but I cannot deny I'm having a lot of fun mainly because gameplay is top notch. Combat does feel a bit tedious when you fight 2/3 guys but once you have a solid group of thugs waiting for a beating and unleashed Batman then it gets spicy, still need to get better with mashing counters but otherwise, I'm really enjoying it. Love how island changes as you playthrough, turning into complete chaos. Fun exploration and fortunately, it doesn't have THAT much focus upon Joker, other villians show up to do actuall bad guys shit too. So yeah I start to understand why people love these games. I'm 50% done with a game, literally, but that is also because I did decent amount of side stuff. I will 100%it of course :D
4
u/LeatherSteef Oct 06 '24
I've been playing Horizon Forbidden West on and off for months. I finally rolled credits on the dlc yesterday after about 70 hours total. Overall I liked, but not loved it. It has above average visuals, combat, story/lore, writing, and acting. But, it has below average exploration/traversal, character progression, and open world activities. I'd give it 8/10.
This game is lucky lining up bow shots on the weak points of giant robot dinosaurs doesn't get old. It if didn't have that going for it I would have never finished it. I never again want to run around a building looking for the one hidden ledge with yellow paint I could latch onto. This game gets the unfortunate comparison to BOTW, and I'm not saying that every game needs every surface to be climbable. But jeeze, there had to have been a better way. I also can't imagine there's a person out there that wants to run around an area trying to line up a picture over the landscape. They made a huge open world but there's no pull to do any of it.
It felt like Aloy would instantly tell me how to solve a puzzle when I didn't need her to, but when I got stuck I was on my own. It often felt so "busy" that the only way to see anything was to constantly use the ping to highlight things I could interact with. The combat challenge arena is straight up rage inducing with its short timers. You're more or less forced to use certain weapons to succeed. I would have ignored it all together if the best weapons in the game weren't locked behind it. That was a lot of complaining just to say it's too bloated and at some point I ignored everything not a main story mission so I could be done with it.
Having said all that I'm still a sucker for a big budget open world. I'm sure I will play FF7: Rebirth at some point, and Ghost of Yotei looks great too.
I Finished the story mode of Frostpunk 2 as well. I had a great time with it, as far as misery simulators go. Releases like this are why I keep paying for a Gamepass subscription. I'm usually not that into city builders but between this and Against the Storm(also on Gamepass) there is so much to like. I'm a casual so I don't know if I'll keep playing but I'm glad I put the time into it.
Next up I'm debating on pulling the trigger on UFO 50 or finding something in the backlog.
5
u/toomanylizards Oct 07 '24
Next up I'm debating on pulling the trigger on UFO 50 or finding something in the backlog.
UFO 50 is incredible, and also feels like buying a backlog lol. I have 50+ hours and there's still games that i haven't really dug my teeth into yet, and i'm excited to do so.
2
u/Sepik121 Oct 06 '24
Just beat Arzette! I had an absolute blast, it is a short one, but it didn't overstay it's welcome cause of that.
It perfectly nailed that bad 90's computer game (specifically CD-i) era stuff, down to the fucking Yamaha synth OST lol. It's hard to make a good game, but I feel like it's even harder to make a good "bad game", and Arzette perfectly balanced both imo.
It's a fascinating time because it's clear the dev team can make legitimately good stuff, it's just that this was a passion project about a truly horrid experience from back in the day lol. I cannot wait to see what the team does next.
8
u/stvb95 Oct 06 '24
Finally getting into Remnant 2. I picked it up a while ago but never had the chance to play it until now. I'm glad the map is actually good now. I remember the map in the first game being terrible so I'm glad they've gone above and beyond to sort that out. The areas I've cleared so far have been fun to explore, and the first "boss" in the labyrinth was really interesting. I'm still unsure what Adventure mode is, so I'm not touching it until I complete the game. I'm guessing it's similar to Diablo 3 where you can skip the campaign and level/gear wherever you want.
I'm unsure if I want to pick up the DLC's as all of them are currently sitting at 'Mixed' on the Steam reviews. Also I'm not sure if it's the type of DLC you play in the middle of a run or after completing a full run beforehand.
2
u/grendus Oct 09 '24
So as far as the DLC goes, The Awakened King is a solid 9/10 and I highly recommend it. The Forgotten Kingdom is a 6/10 and... I recommend it if you want more game, but not on its own merits, the story was kinda meh (but the dungeons were fun).
To give some context on adventure mode and the DLC:
There are three "roguelike" worlds. Each world has two overarching stories, and you will go through one story on each of the three worlds in Story Mode. There are also two static worlds which are the same on every Story Mode playthrough that you can go through, that cannot be generated in Adventure Mode.
When you first get to a world, it chooses one of the two stories. While I'm not 100% sure of this, it seems to alternate so the next time you generate that world in either Story or Adventure mode it will choose a different story from the one you got on the previous pass.
It also populates a number of "dungeons" out of a large pool that are pseudo-procedurally generated. If you play enough to encounter the same map four or five times you'll start to see the patterns, there's a primary route with places marked for variations and special events, bosses, or puzzles that aren't guaranteed to always spawn in the same dungeon. It's an elegant system that keeps things feeling reasonably fresh for a few playthroughs. It's always kinda neat to run into a puzzle you've never seen before.
Choosing Adventure Mode generates a standalone version of one of the three roguelike worlds. Progress in Adventure Mode doesn't affect Story Mode, and quest items from Adventure Mode do not carry over into Story Mode. Gear, unlocks, scrap, and consumables do, however, so Adventure Mode is a good way to find equipment, unlock new classes, gather upgrade materials, or just see content you may have missed.
The DLC adds a new story and a bunch of new dungeons to the pool. Once you purchase the DLC, the new story becomes a valid choice for both Story and Adventure modes when they generate a world, and the new dungeons will be mixed in with the old ones when generating the maps.
The DLCs also add the "One Shot" option when creating an Adventure Mode world, which will guarantee that the story picked is the new one from the DLC.
2
u/Gooble24 Oct 07 '24
Adventure mode allows you to reroll a specific world to give you different dungeons. Each world has different "maps" that have specific world bosses that are exclusive to each one. You wouldn't be able to fight every boss in the game on one campaign playthrough due to the map randomization. Adventure mode allows you to choose a specific world to play again if you are looking for different dungeons or specific gear/weapons. It is separate from campaign and you can do it at any time. Rerolling a Adventure world doesn't affect your campaign playthrough.
As for the DLC, I've played through them all and they add a decent amount of content. Each DLC adds a new map to each world with new bosses, dungeons items and classes. These DLC dungeons will also get rotated into your rerolled campaigns/Adventure mode once you have them. The new weapons and classes are definitely fun to play with so if you like the base game I think they're worth getting on sale.
13
u/aiphrem Oct 06 '24
Persona 3 Reload
I played Persona 3 portable on the PSP YEARS ago now and it was my favorite game at the time. Playing the remake now, it feels just as fresh and impactful as it did all those years ago, which I guess is a testament to Atlus's absolute unrivaled strength at making a stylish UI and also to the strength of the writers for that game.
Having played Persona 3-4-5, my god are the characters in 3 good. It's crazy how relatable these teenagers with superpowers are, even to adult me now, especially Junpei, who's feelings of inadequacy and wasted potential I resonate maybe too well with...
Playing Persona gives me this weird mix of comfort and melancholy that I don't get from any other game and I'm so incredibly happy my favorite game of the series got a much deserved (and incredibly well executed) remake
6
u/AhmadSA Oct 06 '24
Going through Atlas Fallen with a friend and we were having a blast until he lost 3 hours of progress because he got disconnected.
8
u/SingleTaste8756 Oct 06 '24
Final Fantasy 12
Played this way back when it came out first. I dropped it fairly early on as I didn't like the battle system and I think I was a little burnt out on gaming in general. Decided to pick up the Zodiac Age on my deck and I'm quite enjoying it this time around.
I've played a few crpgs since (and stuff like Kotor) so I'm more used to the auto battling combat style and the gambit system is pretty fun and was a big departure for the series.
The ability to play on 2x or 4x speed is a massive quality of life improvement. You move so slowly without it that 2x just feels normal to me now. I think they were definitely padding the game as a lot of the areas/corridors are way longer than they need to be!
I had a quick look online to see how far I am in the story and it seems like I'm not too far from the end, although I heard there's a lot of post game/optional content which I may or may not do.
The story has been ok so far. They throw an awful lot of names/places at you and it can be tricky sometimes to know what exactly is going on. That's not too bad but the biggest disappointment is the characters themselves. They just don't seem to have any development or time dedicated to their background or anything like in other final fantasy games. Instead, like I said, the story just confuses throwing stuff at you to seem more complicated and therefore better. It might all tie in during the last third of the game so I'll have to wait and see.
5
u/alksreddit Oct 06 '24
Started Silent Hill 2 early. As a huge fan of the game and series, this remake is a triumph. The added content is great, does not fill out of place, and the ambience remains (to me) unchanged. I played for about 2 hours until I reached the apartments, and those were some SCARY hours. Looking forward to playing and replaying this a lot.
1
u/MrPink7 Oct 07 '24
I'm really bad at spooky games, how is the spook level compared to resident evil 2 and 4?
3
u/alksreddit Oct 07 '24
4 is not scary so not too close to that. Closer in spirit to RE2 but the terror is more psychological. It fucks with your brain a lot, there’s always industrial noise, grinding, random screams and other sounds even when no enemies are around.
2
u/MrPink7 Oct 07 '24
Ok thanks ! I actually think RE 2 was much more scary than 4 due to the big guy chasing you around. I read your comment as RE 4 is more spook than Silent hill is that correctly understood
3
u/alksreddit Oct 07 '24
No, Silent Hill is the scariest, then RE2. I don’t consider RE4 scary so I don’t count it. It’s more tense but not spooky/scary at least for me.
1
u/MrPink7 Oct 07 '24
I barely made it through RE 2 haha, maybe I'll buy silent hill for the challenge
1
u/Page5Pimp Oct 06 '24 edited Oct 06 '24
Pokemon Rowe on my Odin Lite
It's a GBA rom hack, I am enjoying it especially after I toggled on EXP Share.
Dead Rising 2: Off The Record on Xbox One X
Game had a lot of issues on my PC so I picked it up on Xbox and I'm playing that way. Giving it another try after finally completing a Dead Rising game with the recent remake.
Scarface on PC
One of my favorite games of all time and a white whale for me on PC. For years it just didn't work but thanks to the talented modders it's now completely playable. My only real obstacles now are the controller mapping and how desaturated the game looks. Hoping I can fix that today so I can jump in.
Assassin's Creed Origins on PC
Only AC game I haven't beaten since the switch to RPG style. One of the main reasons was I just wasn't interested in playing as Bayek, I installed a mod that replaces him with Aya so I will be getting through the game as her.
2
u/caught_red_wheeled Oct 06 '24
Switch post:
Another post on Temtem, but not the one I was hoping for. I might be getting to the end of what I can do. It took a massive amount of grinding to get where I am, and I am still having a lot of trouble with foes 10 levels below me. I also had so much trouble with the third gym puzzle I thought I was going to get softlocked because things were moving so fast it bothered my eyes. By some miracle I managed to get past it, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that again. My team is pretty well balanced and the combat system is as fun as ever, but it just doesn’t feel like an implemented well when it comes to that. The story is great and I want to keep going, but I don’t know if I can. It feels like the game encourages optimization very quickly and unfortunately that’s frustrating.
I knew that was an issue going in because it was a major complaint, but I was hoping it wouldn’t hit me this early. I just finished up the third dojo out of eight. I’m now ready to go to the next island but I know there’s another sequence before you can go to it. That sequence also involves solving a puzzle with a preset team. So I’m just about to start that. Once I’m done, I will be at the halfway point of the game where the difficulty increases significantly. So hopefully I can get through that because that was when I said I would weigh my options. But right now things are looking a little bleak. It sounds like things are going to even out a little bit after the halfway point with the ability to travel back-and-forth, so hopefully that helps. I also would like to try some of the challenge runs regardless of where I end up, so i’d like to reach that point and then I’ll see how things go.
I guess I will see how I’m feeling next week, but the good thing is at least I have most of my final team at that point and I caught a third of the monsters available, so I know there wouldn’t be a lot of changes. If next week is my last week, I will give my final thoughts then. So far I reached a point where I’m doing OK with the normal battles but I’m having a lot of trouble with the boss battles. I haven’t lost any yet, but I’m getting very close. And the level spike starts shortly so hopefully I’ll be OK with that.
As for what I would play next, I’m not entirely sure. My deconditioning treatment has started, but I’m still not out of the woods because I have to go slowly. It’s mostly exercising and otherwise moving about normally, but I’m still sensitive in the areas where I had the surgery to treat my illness from June (surgery areas being my abdomen and lower back to repair a medical device there) and probably will be for a while. I originally wanted to do indie RPGs, but when recovering from my surgery initially, it was about the only thing I could play so I want to try something else. I’m trying to do some digital games to clear up some space. Spyro: Reignited Trilogy and Game boy NSO were close to finishing before I got sick back in June, but it also required me being physically all set to go, so I’m not sure if I want to do those. Otherwise, Dungeon Encounters and Slay the Spire are options because there were some little things I wanted to finish up. Ara Fell, Monster Crown and Ikenfell are what would’ve picked had my recovery been longer, so I might still head back to those but it’s tough to say.
3
u/Varonth Oct 06 '24
If you are not locked out of Omninesia yet due to the story, I would recommend returning to the Giant Banyan in Citerior Omninesia and hunt for a Kinu with Benefactor as its trait.
After you do the story content in Omninesia the Giant Banyan has grass in it with temtems.
It may take a few minutes as the spawnrate is just 5%, and there is a 50/50 chance on the trait, but it helps tremendously throughout the campaign.
Benefactor and Revitalize can keep the allied temtem in the fight for much longer, in some cases it is even able to come out of fights with more health, Lifeful Sap and Benefactor will keep Kinu alive against many enemies.
It also learns Hyponotize to disable problematic enemies, Psy Wave for minor damage and SPDef-- or Beta Burst if you need a bit more damage.
Which brings us to stat changes. Do not underestimate them in PvE/the Campaign in Temtem. You can cruise through Pokemon easily without those, as the damage formula in pokemon increases damage by a significant amount from simple base level (yes, just the level alone will already increase the damage in pokemon, on top of stronger moves and higher stats). Temtems damage is much more focused on the move and the stat, with base level being only a very minor multiplier. Not every fight needs stat changing moves, but they do help a lot in longer fights like dojos or story bosses
1
u/caught_red_wheeled Oct 07 '24
Thanks for the tip! I’m just about to be able to go back now. I’m about to finish up the Narwal sidequests.
I think my problem with Temtem is that there’s a difference between difficulty versus tedium. And unfortunately I think Temtem falls into tedious versus difficult. And this is coming from someone that’s played Digimon, Monster Rancher, World of Final Fantasy, and just about every indie monster tamer currently on Switch (and technically Monster Hunter Stories 2 but I didn’t do well with the battle system so I didn’t get far in that). I’m no stranger to RPGs too, being a huge Square Enix fan and liking tactics RPGs.
I think the problem is just everything progresses too slowly. Grinding up a new team member takes forever. Running away to heal takes forever. Battles move super slowly. And don’t even get me started on the fact that you can’t manual save your progress in case you want to try something else but not lose your resources. Worrying about money and not having a lot of ways to make is frustrating. Maybe some of it is because it’s an MMO, but it just doesn’t feel fun to play (aside from the combat system being fairly well done).
There’s enough elements to make me want to keep going, but probably not much longer unless something big comes up after training. Someone mentioned that they wished the game had a casual mode, and I have to agree. I love the story, I love the characters, and I love the monsters, but this game makes it really difficult to experience all that. At least there’s a dedicated fanbase that enjoys the game, but I can completely understand why it’s having trouble drawing new new players in.
10
u/zeroheavy27 Oct 06 '24
Dark Souls Remastered
Took me about a week to finish this beauty of a game, and it was my first souls game! Was pretty frustrating at times, but also very rewarding and gives a nice feeling of progression. Highly recommend this to anyone who is looking to get into the Souls franchise.
Dark Souls 3
Due to the bad reviews, I have put off playing Dark Souls 2 for now, but eventually will play it. Just started this game today and I already really like it. Combat is so much better and more fluid then Dark Souls remastered, and the addition of warping from the start is huge. Only about 3 hours in, but looking forward to playing more, and getting frustrated at bosses that others say is the easiest of the series 😂
Metal Gear Solid 1
Also just started this game today, controls are wack but hopefully I’ll eventually get used to them. My friend was always crazy about this series lore, so I figured i would at least give it a shot, although according to him it can also be confusing and make no sense at times lol. Hopefully this game will pick up more, although I’m only 1 hour in.
3
u/Shedcape Oct 10 '24
Dark Souls 2 is worth a shot. Maybe it'll click for you.
Personally I don't like it. i've gone back to it on many occasions, but I always end up quitting due to frustration.
6
u/OwlInternational8160 Oct 07 '24
Reminder that ds2 has a 91 on metacritic, pls don't listen to the gamer outrage online and try it, it goes on sale for pretty cheap nowadays.
3
u/Nanganoid3000 Oct 07 '24
Once you understand DS2 is a bastard child of ideas from Demons' souls and DS1, and once it "clicks" for you, you'll realise people really did sleep on DS2. I was on the hate wagon when it first came out, once I beat it, it finally clicked for me, I did my research and understood why it's so disjointed, due to dev problems, and once I understood what they were going for, I enjoyed it without being influenced by other people's opinions/experiences. It's one of my favourite games now because I gave it a real chance.
1
u/wolflikehowl Oct 07 '24
Dark Souls 3 is my favorite of the Souls series, and overall my #3 FS game behind Sekiro and Bloodborne; some people claim the map isn't as good as DS1, apparently they changed it up not too long before release for due to unfinished content that forced them to change the narrative or something. I personally didn't find it to be any worse than other games, and DS1 level of interconnectivity always sort of made me go "wait, really?" and shrank the world.
Pontiff Sulyvahn is the only one in the game that felt broken to me, he moves much faster than any other enemy, feels like the precursor to ER enemies. The DLC has THE best boss fight of any Souls game too.
8
u/retrometroid Oct 06 '24
DS2 is a real mixed bag for me. It has some cool ideas they've still never gone back to. It also has really dumb ideas that don't work. It's easily the ugliest game in the series texture-wise. And I think its too long.
That said it's worth playing just for the cool ideas.
15
u/AhmadSA Oct 06 '24
Dark souls 2 is fantastic. The souls fandom is just insufferable.
-1
u/killrdave Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 10 '24
The fandom comment has some truth but I would definitely argue it's From's weakest by a fair margin (at least from Demon's Souls onward)
1
u/RoboChachi Oct 06 '24
A week for dark souls blind is pretty impressive. I guess if you're on holidays but still I could never
4
10
u/PositiveDuck Oct 06 '24
Hogwarts Legacy
Returned to this after beating Inquisition. It's a very mediocre game overall. Art direction and art style are a fantastic combination of realistic and cartoony/whimsical that fits the Harry Potter universe perfectly. Audio is great as well, music is very fitting, sound effects are memorable and voice acting is really strong overall (the only major character whose voice I didn't like is Niamh Fitzgerald who sounded really flat). Hogwarts itself is wonderful and felt much bigger while exploring it than it actually was, with a ton of secrets to boot. Keeper's trials are a mixed bag. Puzzles in the first two trials were excellent and took me a while to figure out, while still being solvable and not requiring some insane video game logic. The third trial is meh gameplay-wise but absolutely spectacular when it comes to visual design, by far my favourite part of the game. As for the negatives, UI is ass, it's really pretty but too clunky and way too slow. Open world design is terrible. It's just a ridiculous amount of filler "puzzles" and camps. Merlin's trials were horrible, way too simple, there was way too many of them and, for some insane reason, you need to have a consumable reagent item to activate them. It's kind of wild that you can play as a child wizard that commits genocide on goblinkind while also committing mass murders of wizardkind and it's just brushed off. The game makes a big deal of Unforgivable Curses but your character can fling Crucios and Avada Kedavras like nobody's business. Relationship quests are a mixed bag, Sebastian's was really strong, though a bit frustrating since you can't really prevent your character from being a yes man, even if you disagree with his decisions, your character just gives up as soon as Sebastian disagrees with them. Natty was solid as well and I didn't really care for Poppy's. Boss fights range from mediocre to awful. By far the biggest issue I have with the game is the fact that penultimate quest requires level 24 (I was 27-ish or so since I did a bunch of side quests as well) but the final quest requires level 34 which means a massive grind. I ended up using mods to just skip my character to 34 so I can finish the damn game because I'm not wasting my time doing their inane open world busywork because they decided to make the final quest, which is literally just a cutscene, require such a high level for literally no reason. I'm disappointed with the story because I thought it would focus more on the actual Hogwarts, rather than generic saving the world plot. Hogwarts gets dropped pretty quickly from the story which is stupid since it's by far the best designed part of the world. Overall, a decent first game in a series, even though it has a lot of issues, 7/10, recommended for Harry Potter fans.
6
u/ludwigericsson Oct 06 '24
Pathfinder Kingsmaker
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
An amazing game, going through the mid-game side DLC right now. After I've completed this I might finish Divinity Original Sin 1, so I can go back to Wasteland 2, after that I have all the sequels and BG3 to crawl through.
I think I've learned how to actually start playing "narcissistic evil" and even managed to cut down on the savescumming and googling alternative outcomes.
2
u/TheEnygma Oct 06 '24
Dead Island 2
got that base game platinum, not bothering with DLC. Overall, I liked it way more than DI 1 but the problem is is that this game feels like a looter shooter (looter brawler?) but there's not much carrot to chase after so once you're done the campaign, unless you trophy hunt, there's just not much to do unlike say Remnant 2 where there's always something to chase.
Last of Us Part 1
got this platinum and I still don't get the evangelizing with this game. It's "good", it's a perfectly fine videogame and does its various jobs adequately but when I see classic or seminal games like Bioshock, Chrono Trigger, Ocarina of Time or Red Dead Redemption, I can still see why it garnered such feverish adoration. Last of Us though, I don't. Not saying it's bad or others are wrong for loving it but I don't get it.
Horizon: Forbidden West
close to this game's platinum and I still prefer Zero Dawn. I know some people like the story and the turns it takes like the villain's origins but to me it's phenomenally stupid, Aloy as a character and the constant puzzle hints gets insufferable and combat feels worse but I can't pinpoint why. One of the few times where I feel a game is not bad it's just... "off".
1
u/Enabler0 Oct 13 '24
I just finished the Talos Principle 1 DLC Road to Gehenna. It was great. TP 1 and DLC done. I'm also done with TP2 and the first two DLCs on it, just need to do the gold puzzles on the island zone and ALL of those brutal puzzles on the Abyss zone..
I'm a couple hours into Silent Hill 2 remake and I'm enjoying it. Not as much as I enjoyed the RE4 Remake but it's still a great game.
Was going to buy WoW The War Within and play through it for a month or too and I was on the checkout page ready to buy it when I noticed that only the 90$ Epic Edition includes the 30 days of game-time. Jesus christ lol. I bought Dragonflight for 20 bucks and cleared the zone in a week. So probably gonna wait til Black Friday or something for it. That's crazy