Jump to content

Soooooo what'cha playing?


Recommended Posts

Replaying Persona 5 Royal… but on the Switch! - I was pretty excited when I heard that Persona 5 Royal was getting ported to the Switch, so I knew I’d buy it as soon as it came out. I initially played through the entirety of P5R on the PS4 a good bit ago, but I’ve since sold both that PS4 and all games I had with it, so this was a prime opportunity for me to re-experience the world of Persona 5. Been playing a lot of the game since the port launched and so far I’m at the 6th Palace in the game. Definitely plan on getting the P3P and P4G Switch ports as well.

Playing through Pokémon Scarlet- Pokemon Scarlet has been an interesting experience for not only having an open world to traverse but also 3 major quest lines and the game somehow being more bugged than the bug type gym. All in all, it’s a pretty fun experience overall despite the “features” everyone likes to talk about, though the game (along with Violet) did manage to sell millions of copies so at least I’m not the only one who paid full price for this game. 😁

Finishing the Mass Effect Trilogy with Mass Effect 3- Been playing through the Mass Effect Trilogy thanks to Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and it’s a fantastic series I must say. Played and beat ME1 and ME2 back to back then took a break before coming back to ME3 to finish the Commander Shepard Saga. Currently playing through the third game and enjoying it, though I will be sad when this 3-game journey is over. (I do acknowledge Andromeda’s existence, and I did snag it for like, 5 bucks, so I suppose I can see what that game’s all about after clearing ME3)


Also played and beat The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt back in December and I must say it’s absolutely phenomenal. One of the best games of its genre that I’ve ever played. Looking forward to The Witcher 4 and that Witcher 1 Remake (R.I.P. Assassin of Kings. You will not be forgotten!)

Edited by CyberZord
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 1.8k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

1 hour ago, CyberZord said:

Replaying Persona 5 Royal… but on the Switch! - I was pretty excited when I heard that Persona 5 Royal was getting ported to the Switch, so I knew I’d buy it as soon as it came out. I initially played through the entirety of P5R on the PS4 a good bit ago, but I’ve since sold both that PS4 and all games I had with it, so this was a prime opportunity for me to re-experience the world of Persona 5. Been playing a lot of the game since the port launched and so far I’m at the 6th Palace in the game. Definitely plan on getting the P3P and P4G Switch ports as well.

Playing through Pokémon Scarlet- Pokemon Scarlet has been an interesting experience for not only having an open world to traverse but also 3 major quest lines and the game somehow being more bugged than the bug type gym. All in all, it’s a pretty fun experience overall despite the “features” everyone likes to talk about, though the game (along with Violet) did manage to sell millions of copies so at least I’m not the only one who paid full price for this game. 😁

Finishing the Mass Effect Trilogy with Mass Effect 3- Been playing through the Mass Effect Trilogy thanks to Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and it’s a fantastic series I must say. Played and beat ME1 and ME2 back to back then took a break before coming back to ME3 to finish the Commander Shepard Saga. Currently playing through the third game and enjoying it, though I will be sad when this 3-game journey is over. (I do acknowledge Andromeda’s existence, and I did snag it for like, 5 bucks, so I suppose I can see what that game’s all about after clearing ME3)


Also played and beat The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt back in December and I must say it’s absolutely phenomenal. One of the best games of its genre that I’ve ever played. Looking forward to The Witcher 4 and that Witcher 1 Remake (R.I.P. Assassin of Kings. You will not be forgotten!)

It's less that they're ignoring Witcher 2 so much as it is that it doesn't really need a remake so much.

 

Witcher 1, on the other hand, is a great story attached to a game that has aged like fine milk. It's the definition of a game that both needs and deserves a remake.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Playing Persona 4 Golden Blind: After playing through P5R for the first time back in October, I knew I'd enjoy the other two games in the modern Persona trilogy. So when Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable released last week I began to play them almost immediately and I'm already more than halfway through the game and I'm already in love with it, and I think I like it way more than Persona 5 Royal, which I thought wouldn't be possible, but this game has exceeded my expectations by a mile, and I already plan on doing a NG+ run when I'm finished with my first playthrough so I can do any social links and activities that I didn't bother doing in my first run. Overall, it's an amazing game and I can't wait to play P3P and hopefully fall in love with that game too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, I've had a productive January.

 

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Cleared 1/14.

This is a 10/10 game. One of the best JRPGs ever made. The story, characters, combat, exploration, and depth were all stellar. And I hope the series can keep up this tone and quality.

 

Samurai Warriors 4

Cleared 1/15.

7/10, it was decent. One of the better mainline Warriors games, but the spinoffs are capable of far better. Ultimately, I also think I'm more of a Three Kingdoms fan than a Warring States one.

 

Warriors of Troy

Cleared 1/16.

3/10. A relic of its time. A janky Warriors game with awkward QTE bosses, endearingly bad voice acting, and a small roster. But ultimately, it was mercifully short at about 7 hours or less, and that meant that I didn't grow to truly hate it.

 

Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce

Abandoned

1/10. Absolutely irredeemably bad. May even make Dynasty Warriors 9 look playable by comparison.

 

Final Fantasy 7 Remake InterMission

Finished 1/17.

8/10. I would consider the main FF7R game to be a potentially 10/10 masterpiece, but the Yuffie DLC was a good experience in its own right.

 

Fire Emblem Engage

Finished 1/27.

9/10. Hoo boy. This is a tough one. I'm going to take off one point for character designs and story, but the gameplay is peak FE. To call this Fates 2 is to do it a disservice. Fates was a gimmicky, cheap, unfun mess to play. This is challenging in all the right ways, has stellar map design not seen since the GBA-Wii era, and feels like a perfect blend of old and new. Fates had a good story concept utterly botched at every possible turn. This knows what kind of intentionally shallow Saturday morning cartoon story it wants to tell, and while it certainly isn't good, it's enjoyable and achieves what it sets out to. That is to say, it isn't Fates 2 but rather comes across as a modern FE7.

It's a shame that such mechanical perfection and visual polish is wasted on a poor concept, but if a future FE can take this foundation and apply it to a good world with better art, it will be a peerless SRPG masterpiece.

Edited by Fabulously Olivier
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been playing a lot of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe lately and the Booster Course Pass is SUPER AWESOME!

Waves 1-3 are now available and by March or April, Wave 4 will be out.

Out of all the courses from the Booster Course Pass, the courses I liked the most are GBA Snow Land, Tour Sydney Sprint, Tour London Loop, Wii Maple Treeway, Sky-High Sundae and GBA Sky Garden.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been playing Monster Hunter Rise, and I just beat the Narwa the Allmother fight.

It's been a lot of fun. I'm not a fan of games that depend on a cycle of beat enemies -> obtain loot with higher numbers -> beat enemies, as it generally means that combat comes down to numbers rather than actually engaging gameplay, and the game is destined to end anticlimactically when the player has acquired the best loot and has nothing to use said loot against. Where Monster Hunter Rise differs is that, while it has a loot cycle, it doesn't depend on it; fighting the monsters is fun in and of itself and the real main point of the game, and hunting for good materials for armour and weapons is really for making the build that fits the player's playstyle or for making gear that helps against a particular monster that the may be struggling against.

Once I fight a few other monsters and get a high enough hunter rank to fight the remaining high rank monster: Crimson Glow Valstrax, I will move on to the Sunbreak content.

EDIT: I will just say that I really don't like the Narwa the Allmother fight. It has cool moments like Narwa consuming Ibushi to absorb his power and either Magnamalo or an Elder Dragon appearing to try to fight Narwa the Allmother, but that's about all it has to be honest. The arena where Narwa is fought doesn't have nearly as much space as the Narwa the Thunder Serpent fight had, making the arena feel cramped. Some of Narwa's attacks are basically 'get hit once and the player will be stun-locked to death', which is always unfair in a game. Finally, the Thunder Serpent Narwa fight had a lot of options for approach thanks to things like levitating platforms hunting installations appearing frequently; Narwa the Allmother doesn't have nearly as much variety. Overall, it is a bit of a letdown after the Ibushi rampage and the Thunder Serpent Narwa fight were honestly pretty good fights, and it also means that, when I play it, I either win easily without taking much damage or I run out of HP three times and fail the quest without anything in-between and with almost no change in how I approach the boss. It's not very fun.

 

On 1/24/2023 at 4:58 PM, Fabulously Olivier said:

8/10. I would consider the main FF7R game to be a potentially 10/10 masterpiece, but the Yuffie DLC was a good experience in its own right.

I would mostly agree about FF7R; mostly. The presentation, music, gameplay, characters, etc., are all fantastic. There is just one thing about the game that brings it down for me: despite the subtitle being "remake", it's not actually a remake, but an alternate-timeline plot. I had never played a Final Fantasy game before, and I bought FF7R because I thought a modern remake of the most famous Final Fantasy game would be a perfect starting point. But then all the stuff with those plot-ghost-things happen, the game turns out to be an alternate timeline, and the story basically becomes impossible to follow for anyone who, like me, has never played the original FF7.

This game started the recent trend of alternate-timeline games that pretend to be something else, and it's a trend I really don't like and that I hope ends soon.

Edited by vanguard333
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Star Fox, Star Fox 2, Star Fox EX, & Ex-Zodiac

Spoiler

Last month saw the release of the wonderful ROM Hack with the awesome 90s trailer, and one of its features was co-op. It took some time before I could get a buddy over here for that experience, so I passed that time replaying the original Star Fox. Just to get a sense of what that game was about in order to appreciate the areas that Star Fox EX expanded on the concept. Truth be told, the original game was better than I remembered. Sure, it doesn't hold a candle to its N64 remake and its slideshow-esque frame rate is begging to be made fun of. But it's a fun and unique game for the SNES library. No doubt it completely shifted the course of Nintendo's software development, when Argonaut Software approached them with a modified SNES cartridge capable of processing 3D graphics at competitive speeds. Knowing Nintendo's track record of releasing systems with lesser hardware than the competition, 3D games were probably not being theorized for the SNES' successor. At best, the Ultra 64 may have ended up a hybrid system like the Saturn. Capable of feux 3D effects like Super Mario Kart and F-Zero, but a clear preference for 2D visuals.

If the idea of a British studio approaching Nintendo with new 3D processer technology in the mid 1990s sounds familiar, yes, Argonaut's history has a lot in common with Rare. But the development history of Star Fox is much less triumphant. Despite moving into a studio in Japan for better communication, progress was still slow because a chain-smoking Miyamoto was their sole contact at Nintendo for 'security reasons'. Argonaut provided all sorts of prototype games and concepts but Miyamoto shot down nearly all of them. He demanded a game that was on rails, and about piloting, since it would be "more fun than tanks or exploring fully 3D spaces". Nintendo also provided the full concept for the game's plot and characters, disregarding all of their "partner's" original ideas. Miyamoto likes to triumphantly recall his inspirations for the world of star fox, a world of dogs and monkeys battling each other like the Japanese expression. My dude, Andross was not a monkey until the sequel that you cancelled. The original game's premise is closer to organics versus machines. Can't even lie convincingly. Nintendo did none of the heavy lifting here so their attempts at claiming ownership is infuriating from an artistic integrity standpoint. And also brings to mind that other western game they callously turned into Star Fox.

Star Fox 2 blew me away. It's got more mechanical depth, it's off the rails, and your ship can turn into a Walker for exploration. You can play as any of the six members of Star Fox, there are proper all-range mode dog fights with the dastardly Star Wolf, the charge shot was invented here, and there's unlockables, collectibles, and a more robust scoring system making it more replayable than the first. It really does feel good to play. I wish the dogfight missions weren't locked to first person, but switching from Arwing to Walker feels great - As smooth as the Wii U game, but strictly better since it's a single screen experience. It's got the best ideas that Argonaut wanted to put in their game from the get go including land-based vehicles and 3D spaces to explore. Maybe that act of "outward rebellion" played a role in Nintendo's cancellation of the project. Then decades later they plagiarize Star Fox 2's ideas for Star Fox Zero. 

I'm not going on these side tangents just to dunk on Nintendo (well, maybe a little). It's all arriving at a point with Star Fox EX. The premise of this hack is that Nintendo's mascots are invading the world of Star Fox to put a stop to our heroes. Mario and Luigi menacingly claim they will "destroy your franchise". I don't know how much the developers were drawing on the real world history of Star Fox for this premise, but I absolutely love the karmic justice of blowing up Miyamoto's sci-fi monster creations in an arwing. And yes, please give the plumbers dialogue reminiscent of the Super Show. Inject that into my veins. Most of what Star Fox EX offers is right there in the trailer. All I can add is that I was very impressed by it. So many original assets, a fully original soundtrack. Co-op is the real technical marvel. The camera is peeled back way farther than normal, meaning the game has to render much more of what's going on at a time, on top of additional players. This can't have been easy to make. The only real issue with the system is that enemies seem to ignore other players. They aim exclusively at Player 1, so additional players only need to focus on avoiding physical obstacles. It's definitely a Little Brother mode since they don't add more enemies. The amount of Nintendo cameos is also kind of light at the end of the day. One boss is a jumping dinosaur - you could have just named him Yoshi, but they chose not to.

And finally we have Ex-Zodiac. Released last year in early access. It's only got six levels and six bonus stages but I enjoyed every moment. The inspiration to the original Star Fox is clear, but the cyberspace stages are an almost plagiaristic take on Space Harrier. And the charge shot method is reminiscent of Panzer Dragoon. It's a love letter to a whole genre of on rails shooters, rather than one game. God I hope they add a panzer dragoon stage where you can turn the camera in all directions. My biggest critique is that S ranks on the regular stages seem near-impossible at this point. But really I'm just hungry to play the rest of the game. As of right now, the game's only packing an hour's worth of levels. I'm anxious to see how the second half of the game might play with the formula a bit.

Ys 1+2 Chronicles

Spoiler

I heard a handful of folks now claim they're planning a Ys series catch-up journey. And I was one of them, though not because I'm crossing over from a certain high school rpg from the same publisher that's been finally making its way to the West. Ys is fascinating to me because of Falcom's history, and It's approach to the early format of RPGs. The one-button adventure game. I absolutely love Bump Combat. So much more engaging than a Final Fantasy menu. So much more tactile then swinging a puny sword as Link. When you've got an enemy railed against a wall, it's better than sex. Quote me on that. Now that I've finished with the first two games, I find that my journey is mostly done. Playing later games with more contemporary action rpg conventions doesn't sound particularly interesting, though I'm sure they're fine games in their own right. The only remaining games featuring bump combat are two of the many versions of Ys 4.

Let's back up a bit and talk about Ys 1. I had already played through this one a few years ago, but a revisit felt necessary for the sake of the second game. It starts immediately after the events of the first. Some releases of Book 1 and 2 will actually combine the two games into one continuous experience. Chronicles does not do this, even though it's impossible to buy one without the other. To spice up this replay, I went through on Nightmare mode attempting to collect all the Steam achievements. Wow, that was a grind. Completing the bestiary involves nothing short of 25 kills of every single enemy in the game. This would be a completionists' nightmare in any other, slower paced menu-driven battle system. But naturally in ys, killing enemies occurs without pause as you cross the same rooms and hallways back and forth. As much as I love bump combat, this bestiary collection could really stand some trimming down to 10 or 15 kills of each enemy. Grinding out 25 leaves you with far more exp and gold than you can reasonably use. And said resources don't even make the game much easier. You're typically max level by the time you enter the final dungeon of no return, which comprises about a third of the game's play time casually. 

I've gone far enough without mentioning the music. Yuzo Koshiro and Mieko Ishikawa are geniuses in this field. And early releases of Ys are a big reason why the game industry even thought to place value on CD-quality sound over the bleeps and boops of NES/Famicom melodies. Chronicles' versions of these classic songs definitely do not supplant them, but certainly stand up to the task of of representing such a legendary soundtrack. From the butt rock guitar riffs, to the lo-fi town themes. When combining the music and Bump Combat, Ys captures the thrill of speeding down highways in a sports car - the shared dream of every 30-something Japanese wage stiff. If I had to sell someone on Ys 1+2, it would be Daytona USA Meets The Legend of Zelda. If there's one complaint I have about Chronicles, it's that the passive healing is too slow. Nobody wants to wait around for over a minute for a maxed out health bar, and I know for a fact it was much faster in earlier versions of Ys

Ys 2 is where things really get good. It's longer, meatier, loaded with more weird stuff to discover. With these games being as fast paced as they are it can be easy to miss the little details. Once again my playtime was ballooned by my decision to go for all the Steam Achievements, but that play experience is much more ideal in the sequel. EXP and Gold gained from 25 kills of each enemy goes a long way toward curbing the difficulty of Nightmare mode. This is a way better completionist experience than the first game. I also appreciate the introduction of magic. It's a bit of a disappointment that bump combat plays no role in boss battles this time around (until the final two, who are immune to magic), but winding up fireballs employs its own set of skills. You've also got a larger suite of healing items to collect and use. Can't switch your equipment or items once a boss fight starts, so it has lead to some awkward resets when I forgot to equip the appropriate fire spell before starting the fight.

Grandia 3

Spoiler

The 2000s were a dark era for RPGs. A messy time where Japanese studios and western studios alike struggled under increased expectations and development costs of 3D game development. A time where publishers chased trends in militaristic dismissal of "forgotten-for-a-reason" genres. In a world where World of Warcraft is the big breakout hit, how do you convince the suits that your RPG doesn't NEED to be a MMO? By the 2000s, the average developer of an RPG was someone that grew up playing them, eager to add their own ideas. And the average studio executive overseeing that project had ironclad expectations of what "works" in this type of game. That generational clash may be what made the games feel so ambitious in some areas yet so archaic in other areas. Grandia fans cite 3 as the reason why the series shut down, but that's certainly an incomplete westerner's perspective. The answer is probably more contingent on Grandia Online, an MMO with a much rougher development that never released over here. Grandia 3 was just the side-project that entered development at the same time.

This is my first Grandia game, though I've watched the first one streamed in its entirety. The active time battle system here is conceptually excellent - it's the same one I've enjoyed in Ubisoft's Child of Light. Turn order is displayed on a dial, and strategies are based on coordinating your attacks to nail the enemy while they're casting/preparing a move. This results in a Cancel and knocks them back down in the turn order. It's very engaging because once the enemy is about to act, the game tells you what they're doing, giving you a better idea of whether you can Cancel it in time. It's not foolproof however. The game plants an arrow on what it thinks the right move is, but it's very prone to making mistakes about optimized timing. And of course, in Grandia fashion, there's no way to simply delay your turn a bit so that your move is lined up better for the Cancel. On top of this are other frustrations, like physical attacks consistently missing any target that's on the move, or your special move unexpectedly upgrading which results in its cast time being 0 when you were probably planning on lining it up pre-emptively for the Cancel. Also the system of pre-emptive strikes is strange. Ambushing enemies or getting ambushed has no effect on the turn order. They just forgot to implement it.

The big sticking point in Grandia 3's gameplay is the difficulty. There's no difficulty selection and I have to wonder how they expected players to get through the game when it's so stacked against you. Most encounters have your party outnumbered, and 'Action Economy' is crucial in a game like this. Bosses had 5 digit health bars when my physical attacks still dealt double digit damage. I was low level, sure, but Magic consistently supplants physical attacking both in terms of damage and it's inability to miss. Optimized play generally entails splitting your party up between magic damage dealers and item users giving them more turns and dispensing the healing. There's even a late game skill that lets your spells Cancel, removing the one theoretical weakness they have over other options. The game is so hard that the developers give you an Orb skill at the halfway point that auto revives your party for ten minutes and bosses still put up a fight with their overwhelming health bars and damage. Grinding is an obnoxious prospect because the most basic of encounters are 3-5 minutes in length assuming nothing goes wrong. 3 minutes to get 20% of the way to your next level up? Grandia, more like Grindy-a. Leveling up never grants Initiative, which determines your speed in battle, so it doesn't count for much in the first place.

As for the plot, it's a whole lot of nothing. Only one party member gets the level of focus to be called a "main character'. The rest are just hangers on. Several important ancillary characters mysteriously bow out of the story without any sort of conclusion. If you return to old areas, they're mentioned by NPCs, but you're never able to find them hanging around. A lot of it feels like evidence of cut content. Grandia 3 is a pretty short story once you break it down. Perhaps that explains the difficulty. Developers wanting to pad out the experience so that it wasn't a 20 hour RPG which was definitely "short" for the standards of the PS2 era. There's a total absence of optional content too. Not a single side quest, super boss, or optional dungeon to discover. A 20 hour version of the game with a Hard mode matching this game's difficulty would have been far better. I wouldn't mind the lack of content if the experience of playing the game wasn't so frustrating and repetitive due to the difficulty and game balancing.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance

Spoiler

What's beautiful about video games in the internet age is how they can have a second life. Positive word of mouth, fan communities, content creation, and of course the Memes lead to people discovering old media every day and falling in love. Games are living works of art, which elevates the medium and even allows for re-evaluation by newer generations. Take MGR. It's a firmly okay action game. The platonic ideal of the 7 out of 10 game for this genre. Neither as accessible as Bayonetta nor as polished as the original God of War. Makes aggressive use of QTEs and has a directional block/parry system that's made more imprecise by an awful camera. The 2013 Response was tepid both in and outside the Metal Gear fandom. It was silly in ways that MGS fans didn't like to admit these games were always (intentionally) silly. And the perception outside the fandom was strained because it came out the same year as Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us where the Industry wrote big words about how the medium is ready for serious stories with grounded characters. 

Platinum truly did not care if you understood their battle system beyond button mashing and parrying. Everything from the Advanced Mechanics to the basic controls are hidden in unconventional places like the "Help" screen in the pause menu and VR missions that you have to unlock. Look up any video of the Sundowner battle and stare at comments saying "I never knew you could break his shield", because they probably just walked around it for free damage. Players can and have gone through the entire game not knowing about the lock on button, because it's never tutorialized. And also really bad, as far as Lock Ons go - doesn't change the camera's orientation to aid your parries and needs to be held down to maintain lock on. Never teaching the player how to do manual Blade Mode swings famously ruins the final Boss for a lot of players.

The Shop is also poorly implemented. When you purchase new moves, the shop does not tell you how to perform them. You must remember to check your move list in the Help menu. The Shop menu is at the end of a chapter, always sandwiched between two long stretches of cutscene. Can the player really be expected to remember to look up their new move by name when they finally regain control of Raiden ten minutes later? Whether or not you understand Offensive Defense can really break your experience. It's your Dodge Roll. Not literally a roll, but it's a move that grants generous Invulnerability Frames that can be spammed when you're not sure what to do. It's the only option you have to avoid Grab attacks besides running directly away from the opponent until their move ends (which totally breaks the pace of the fight). Playing the game without this move is extremely frustrating. Especially when the Mastiff enemies show up early on.

Where MGR does succeed is the core objective of any action game: Make the player feel cool. If you can do that, the ends will justify the means. Most players don't care that the final boss is fought primarily with QTEs and manually aimed Blade Mode slashes that they had to look up online how to perform. Because the spectacle of that battle, the hilarious nature of our final antagonist, it's an unforgettable set piece. The soundtrack is pulling a lot of weight too. The game was criticized for its light amount of content, but within a year of being made available, its ten dollar DLC chapters were made available for free. If you've got an old PS3 or 360 version lying around, you can still nab it (the PC version has them pre-loaded). Furthermore, they decided to record over six hours of codec conversations, totally optional to listen to. That's more than MGS4 had. I highly recommend MGR fans have a listen, it includes considerably better writing than the over-the-top cutscenes attempted to deliver.

So what lead me to this latest replay of MGR? Well a near future project of mine is going to require some research and documentation on this particular game. And I figured a replay would help familiarize myself with what's in the game, sequentially. Nothing much to say other than I cleared Hard Mode on a fresh save and acquired all the collectibles with the aid of a guide.

There was a Big Release this month and rest assured that yes, I am playing Hi-Fi Rush. It's great, I'm anxious to wrap up some work so I can get back to it.

Edited by Zapp Branniglenn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tactics Ogre Reborn (Switch). Nearly finished with one storyline, will deliberate on whether or not I'll go through the other two storylines and the endgame content.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I played soooooooo many Touhou games the past months:

  • each mainline game from 6 to 18
  • Gensou Skydrift
  • Luna Nights
  • Spell Bubble
  • Gensou Wanderers

However currently I'm playing Fire Emblem Engage and Shin Megami Tensei V...and any Touhou game whenever I need to chill with epic music in the background.

I preordered the remake of Kirby's Return To Dream Land which I will play instantly. 

I hope I will have beaten Engage until that...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

February update time.

 

13 Sentinels

Cleared Feb 3.

A master class in game storytelling, a love letter to sci fi in general, and an intriguing visual novel with some unique "ATB-gauge-based" strategy gameplay.

9/10

 

Sakura War(rior)s

Cleared Feb 10.

What if Dynasty Warriors, but mechs, demons, drama geeks, and dating? Well, the result is a basic, if goofy and enjoyable 6/10 stress killer. The definition of a guilty pleasure.

 

Triangle Strategy - Liberty/Roland

Cleared Feb 12.

This is my 2nd route of TS, with the first being Morality/Frederica. And uh, yeah, this was definitely the evil/worst timeline route. The game is still a strong 8/10 on the 2nd playthrough.

 

Judgement

Cleared Feb 23.

This is my first experience with action-based Yakuza after loving Like a Dragon (a 10/10 masterpiece), and it didn't disappoint. The series is a simultaneously goofy and compelling high octane crime drama, somehow pulling off both Shenmue and Saints Row better than either of them ever could, and I look forward to tackling the main Yakuza games. Strong 8/10, maybe 9/10. 

 

Hogwarts Legacy

Ongoing.

Now, let me get ahead of the conversation here. I didn't buy it. I did not have it bought for me. I did not pirate it. I am not livestreaming it. My conservative dad bought it for himself, and I have the opportunity to play the year's most politically controversial game guilt-free and free of charge. So you're damn right I'm taking that chance.

As for what I think, I think it's a damn good 9/10 game that I'd probably appreciate a whole lot more if I wasn't the type to normally bounce off of open world western RPGs (basically the only ones I actually like are Mass Effect and the Witcher). It's authentic, well designed, and magical. And as a non-fan of the IP, even I can tell it's the game fans of the franchise have always wanted, and it's a damn shame the author had to make that difficult for everyone.

If only every major book/movie license were so fortunate as to get such a well-crafted game. I would pay good money for such a game for Stormlight, Lord of the Rings, or ASOIAF. 

 

Fire Emblem Fates Conquest

Ongoing

This is the one Fire Emblem I could just never bring myself to clear.  But now, I just decided to bump down the difficulty to normal, not grind at all, and rush through when I don't have access to a proper console. It's honestly more enjoyable like that, but it's definitely still one of my least favorite Fire Emblems. I think a 6/10 or 7/10 score stands.

 

Dynasty Warriors 7

Ongoing?

I played some of the Wei campaign, and well, I honestly question if I'd love the series like I do if I hadn't started with 8. In my opinion, every musou game I've played from before DW8/SW4 and WO3 is weirdly janky and just not up to snuff. Maybe I've been spoiled by all the far higher quality licensed games since. Thus far, I think a 6/10 is warranted. I don't love what I've played, but I also don't hate it. Which I guess is more than I can say for the likes of DW9, Strikeforce, and Touken Ranbu. I might play more, I might not. I'm not terribly fussed either way.

Edited by Fabulously Olivier
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Engage (if only there was a thread dedicated to these kinds of posts in the Engage subforum).

 

For now, crappy life circumstances limit how much I can play on it on a TV, and at this point the pleasure that I get from the game would probably be outweighed by the inconvenience of doing it on handheld (which is largely why I dropped Scarlet and haven't played it more than 3 or 4 times), especially with zero privacy unless I literally sat in my car, so I won't play a whole lot of it until life circumstances change.

But some initial thoughts:

 

-Being able to explore battle maps afterward is a nice touch, and it compensates for the smaller Somniel map vs. Garegg Mach.

-Either I've just gotten worse as a gamer or the battles are harder than in 3H. It's set on easy and casual, but chapter 5 was brutal. And it looks like there aren't plentiful opportunities to level grind either.

-For now I'm good, but I think sooner or later I'm going to get tired of running around the Somniel doing random crap for stat boosts. Which could be a problem if it turns out you need to keep doing that to remain competitive. Though, I didn't in 3H so maybe not.

-Yes, I'm going to keep comparing this to Three Houses. From the start I knew this wouldn't fill the void finishing 3H left, but I got it solely because it was Nintendo's successor to that.

-I hear outfits are interchangeable once purchased (haven't yet gotten to the point where I can buy one). Presumably this is gender-locked, but Clanne needs to be the exception to the rule. For me, that one thing would make this worth playing.

-The mother suddenly dying held no emotional weight. A random episode of Star Trek I watched tonight did a better job pulling at my heartstrings with the death of a random Cardassian old guy than the death of Engage's big heroine did.

-I get the feeling Engage is kind of modeled off of Fates. Even the "two retainers to the noble" thing is the same.

-I hope the jukebox has a lot of offerings, and that you can play them during battle. And if so, I hope they become available quickly.

-I was told money's limited here. That's also what I heard about Scarlet (is it a new thing with Nintendo?). Granted, I've always had way more than I need anyway because I don't spend that much (except in Three Hopes), so hopefully it shouldn't make a difference.

-Alear is frigging weak. Byleth and Edelgard were wrecking balls more or less from the start, but this dude has to fusion dance engage to get anything done.

-I didn't name him Alear. Had I done so, would the audio actually say "Alear" instead of the speaker going silent?

-The weapons triangle is back and that's good, but I'm not sure if I like the "Break" mechanic. At this point it's being used against me much more often than I use it against the enemy.

-I heard the baddies in this are kind of like Team Rocket. Hopefully that won't disrupt tension in the narrative by having them fail every time they try something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

13 Sentinels

Cleared Feb 3.

A master class in game storytelling, a love letter to sci fi in general, and an intriguing visual novel with some unique "ATB-gauge-based" strategy gameplay.

9/10

Oh! I finally got around to playing that game towards the end of last year and it was one of those games I ended up playing from start to finish in one go which is very rare for me! I also thought the story was one of the best I've seen in games and I'm glad to see more people get to play it! My only major disappointing was that Nenji was one of my favourite characters at the beginning but he had the worst story mode sections in my opinion...

 

I don't know if board games count for this thread but I've been playing the Arkham Horror card game with my brother and my partner, and it's a lot of fun! I think I tend to prefer co-operative games for socialising, and it's been a nice time whenever we've played, even when our little guys get eated by monsters.

Videogame-wise I've been occasionally playing bits of HiFi Rush when I haven't felt up to playing engage, but I don't really know what to make of it yet... It seems okay, and I love both rhythm action games and DMC-style stuff, so I should like it! But it has felt a bit like trying to rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time in a way that can be kind of jarring for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm really only playing 3 games right now (outside of anything FE related):

Super Mario Odyssey - It's a fun game to replay and try to get as many moons without any internet help. I think my current playthrough is in Seaside Kingdom right now. It helps that my Switch is hooked up to the bedroom television.

Sid Meier's Civilization VI (2180 hours)  - My favourite game of all time. However, I don't really get time to play it since my wife hates video games. I did get to play a bunch this weekend but I probably won't boot it up again for at least a month. I'm pretty much only on Diety difficulty (Immortal got too easy if you have a solid earlygame).

Assassin's Creed Odyssey (217 hours) - I bought this game in Feb 2019 and I'm still on my first playthrough. Just like Civ, this is a game that I never get to play and it's MASSIVE. Booting it up on Nightmare difficulty means that I've literally just gotten to the Olympic in Elia about 3 years later. Please no spoilers.

Edited by Phinius Dolphinius III
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whoa. February really is the shortest month. Let me crank these out.

Hi-Fi Rush

Spoiler

Hi-Fi Rush was such an unrelenting delight that I forgot to write about it until now. The "character-action" sub genre of game is such an infrequent sight from the AAA space, and there's no guarantees of quality as we saw a few months back with Bayonetta 3. And yet here we have an Announced-Then-Released on the Same Day offering from Tango Gameworks, the Shinji Mikami-founded survival horror studio. I've heard some people utter the words 'Double A' when pointing out the thirty dollar price point, but make no mistake this game's quality and quantity of content is easily on par with the heaviest hitters of the genre. I almost feel guilty having filled up on this game without paying that extra thirty dollars. Like I somehow neglected to tip at a restaurant. It is a game that looks cool, sounds cooler, and makes me feel cool when playing it.

The combination of rhythm elements with action game mechanics is so seamless. Everything from your own attacks to the enemy attacks, to the correct parry timing occurs on beat. And the level architecture is doing all it can to communicate the beat visually even before you toggle on a helpful metronome. Chai's attacks are hard coded to land on the beat. So, as the game will explain in its first level, you can use this information to coordinate each combo even if you're not independently keeping track of rhythm. This game knows that its design elements are niche, off-putting to the casual player, and assures you that you can do it if you try. With a game like this, there's so much risk of alienating casual audiences due to how much it asks of the player. Perhaps there should be a switch in the Options to turn off the rankings at the end of a fight. I've long suggested action games make their ranking systems optional so as not to discourage players that often shy away from this sort of game. Hi-Fi Rush's ranking system is a real stickler for Just Timing. And it's parry QTE sequences demand near perfection even on the Normal difficulty setting. If Steam Achievements can be believed, 50% of people that beat the game at time of writing elected to turn the difficulty down from Normal to Easy. And I'm proud of them for sticking with the game long enough to do that instead of give up entirely.

Once you've cleared the game you're treated to some light post-game content, an outrageous amount of skins to unlock, and the Rhythm Tower which is functionally the Bloody Palace from DMC. I really liked the original music composed for the game. The sense of humor and dialogue writing were solid. This is a hell of a game to shadow drop and I hope this studio and others like it feel equally emboldened to make titles outside their established portfolio. 

Pizza Tower

Spoiler

Man, good games really do come out at the start of the year now huh? Here's another GOTY contender. It's aesthetic is Inspired by 90s animated cartoons, but with none of the urge to gross out the viewer. If this was Ren and Stimpy, we would be inundated with shots of all the food having grown hair, mold, or some other unpleasantry. Its gameplay inspiration ranges from Metroid shinesparking to Wario Land's Escape sequences, to Earthworm Jim 2's always anxious facial animation. Most levels bring an entirely new gimmick moveset to the table. Nothing overstays its welcome, everything is frenetic and funny. Some people see the fast movement of Pizza Tower and assume it may be too complex or difficult for them, but I would counter that it's only the Escape sequences where speed is paramount. The remaining 75% of a level has a very Yoshi's Island tone with no timer and little score penalty for taking damage (There is no health meter, no extra lives, and generous checkpointing). The only collectible related to progression are the easy to spot toppings. The only failure state is running out of health in boss levels and running out of time during Escape. However I was very distressed to find that there is no checkpoint at the beginning of Escape, so you're forced to replay the level from the beginning if you run out of time. That's uncharacteristically harsh and certainly my biggest issue with the game.

My only other complaint is one bit of sound design. There's a burning rubber noise that plays periodically when running. I'm okay with this when the player begins dashing or turns around, but it just keeps playing on a loop if you're heading in one direction. I don't like it. Everything else about the game's soundscape is fantastic. The music is drawing from a wide range of sassy genres. The sound effects and voice samples match the animation inspiration perfectly. The animation quality is also enjoying excess effort. The television in the upper right, the purposeless animations like crouch jumping, the taunting. It's a joy to discover.

Kuru Kuru Kururin

Spoiler

Combining two of my favorite things: Flightless birds piloting flying machines, and threading the needle. I'm one of the unfortunate saps that was goaded into paying for the Switch's Expansion Pak as part of me and my seven buddies' Family Plan. If I'm going to be footing the bill, I may as well check out the occasional game that is new to me. Kuru Kuru Kururin was a very fun, frustrating, funstrating diversion. The kind of game where small mistakes snowball into big problems. The kind of game that calls for perfection as readily as it rewards the player damage boosting to the end.

Like the masterpiece video game, Pac-Man, All you can do is move. Press down on a button, and you move faster. Press down both the A and B buttons, and you move faster than that. Crucially, you cannot influence the spinning of your rotor. You must conform your movements and sense of timing to the level's layout and the inevitability of your craft's rotation. The game will present spatial puzzles that can only be solved by the same portion of your brain that engages with Tetris. Gradually, you begin pulling maneuvers you had not thought possible. As my friends scramble to play/replay Superstar Saga, I was scrambling to reunite a family of birds. And my world had grown more whole as a result.

Fire Emblem Mystery of the Emblem Book 1

Spoiler

So there’s been a glaring omission from my gaming log. Yes, I skipped Fire Emblem Engage. Not about to write an essay on why, just that it does remind me of three years ago when Three Houses came out looking like a not great game and I spent 60 dollars and more importantly, 60 game hours discovering that it was exactly what it looked like – not great. I’d rather invest that kind of time into any other Fire Emblem. “Any other Fire Emblem, you say?” Yes. I decided to spend my time on the absolute most superfluous Fire Emblem Experience, Book 1 of Mystery of the Emblem. Furthermore, I played it on my Super Famicom app on Nintendo Switch – No emulator speed up. We’re playing this bad boy in real time, in native Japanese.

I’m an FE1 superfan – it’s my favorite version of Shadow Dragon, but the fact that there’s a third version of the game has always nagged at me. Can I really say FE1 Is the best version? Now, without a doubt, I can. I would actually refer to FE3 Book 1 as a Demake since it removes more than it adds. If we look at the game in the context of twentieth century game development, ‘Remake’ was not a word. They were all ports, and they were all rebuilding games from the ground up on totally different system architecture. You had no choice but to put a whole team together and start from scratch. I understand completely that someone looked at FE1, this ground breaking, genre-defining title, and said “no notes”. But when you look at FE2, 4, and 5 consistently pushing the series into bolder directions it’s a serious let down. Cut Content doesn't even register within the same scale of disappointment, and yeah, maybe FE1 could do with a bit of trimming at the end of the day. Your unit’s stats don’t even carry over from Book 1 to 2 like Ys Books 1 & 2. FE1, a two year old game at the time, was not begging for a port. They could have spent all those resources on just the sequel. Use the enhanced specs to recap that original game’s story naturally in dialogue and new mid-chapter narration. Think of how little story there is in Shadow Dragon, and then think harder about how little of it is relevant in Book 2’s story. I can’t speak on the story telling quality between FE1 and 3. I’m not a native Japanese speaker, but I can observe some things. Clearly there’s greater space for text, but there’s not “more dialogue”. It’s mostly a script bloated by the mid-chapter narration. Hardin does not get a single line of dialogue outside his recruit chapter, which is as baffling here as it is with the DS duology. I did fist pump when I saw they kept Maria’s recruitment dialogue – which was sanitized in the North American DS remake.

My playthrough was a Blind Ironman. Since I knew I had to spice up the game in some way to keep it interesting, and I honestly don’t recall doing an intentional Ironman run of Fire Emblem in my 15 years of playing. If I’m checking FE3 off my list, I guess I’ll check as many boxes as I can. My choice to play “Blind” simply entailed not looking things up. Not even the names of things. Gotta recreate that SNES era where the only way to deduce what an item does is from its name. “Kishikunshou...okay Kishi is knight. Kunshou is a medal. That’s a knight’s crest.” Though having played FE1 I obviously know these maps well – can correctly anticipate the game’s ambush spawns even if I don’t know the exact turn. I expected to remember the secret shop locations, but forgot entirely when the opportunity arose. Who were the casualties? Well:

Spoiler
  • chapter 2 saw the death of Saji – I’m not going to look up who is Bord or Cord between Maji and Saji. Maji killed his twin brother’s murderer and was never fielded again so that he could tend to the funeral. Great emergent story telling, Me.
  • In the immediate next chapter was Navarre. I thought he could survive an enemy phase against two fighters and an archer – he couldn’t. I was more upset at losing his Kill Sword to be tbh. Fire Emblem is the sort of series where you could very well lose one unit per chapter and still have enough to comfortably beat the game, but two deaths in just three chapters was kind of an eye opener and I began playing slower from then on.
  • Next death was uhh one of the mercs in chapter 7. I wanted some money from the game’s first arena, and the game spawned a level 5 promoted hero class. Unlike in the original, you can press B to surrender, but my FE1-addled brain was not thinking of it at the time. He might have actually killed me on that first round, don’t remember. Basically, Arenas are not the free lunch that they were in the original game. They're sending actual endgame boss dragons at you, despite your own dragons not being allowed to participate.
  • Jagen bit it in chapter 8. Was luring the sniper, didn’t account for the double. Didn’t really need Jagen by this point anyway. It was Marth who avenged his caretaker.
  • Palla died in Chapter 15, definitely the easiest chapter in the back half of the game. I was luring a Hero out who had a thunder sword. He had 2% crit and he killed her at full health. Oof, I’m pretty sure I gave her a goddess icon for 5 extra luck. It wasn’t enough. Fun fact: Pegasus knights don’t have their 6 res when dismounted, and this is an indoors chapter. Just a perfect storm of events.
  • Tiki died in Chapter 16. This map throws literal dozens of reinforcements after you. I made the right play stopping them at the bridge, but I chose to leave Tiki there to gain levels. They’re unpromoted enemies, but I neglected to heal her up to full. Darn, I was really looking forward to using her.
  • Julian died right after Tiki, because now the final attacker could step over her corpse and get to my other units. He was standing right next to Lena when he was killed. Pretty lucky that it was him.
  • Minerva and Abel died in Chapter 17. But really how do you get through that Valley of Death unscathed? Michalis went straight for his sister, possibly programmed to do so since they have the ultra rare battle conversation. She was carrying my silver and member cards, but it was here that I learned some items actually end up in your convoy if they were being held by a dead unit. It's a case by case basis. Abel I’m not broken up about. I sort of benched him, but the game handed me a third knights crest he could use for some quick stats.
  • Cain in chapter 18. This is actually a different map design from FE1/11. The first two Gharnef clones you arrive at have no weapon, he’s just there to use Fortify. If you try to chase him down, he leads you down a long corridor that, surprise, has mage ambush spawns. One a turn wouldn’t be so bad, but how about three at a time that cut off your escape from the two square hell? I had Ceada chasing him down, then warped Cain in when I saw the trick. Ceada made it out, Cain did not. FE1 had exactly one map that I remember ambush spawns spawning on a tile that isn’t a fortress or stairs. FE3 not only doesn’t correct this, but adds a second one. Pranked!
  • Tiki was revived in chapter 19. I had correctly guessed that the finale would be indoors. So although Kain and Palla might have better stats, they wouldn’t benefit from those stats in the finale, nor could they use any lances. Interestingly, her unique dragonstone is wiped from the game if she dies, but they leave a spare firestone in this chapter, which I could use instead.
  • Cheney (Xane) died in the finale. He was in the top right corner. Even with a Seraph Robe and copying Ogma’s very high defense stats, he couldn’t survive the first wave.
  • Lena died in the top left. Unlike the top right, I made the choice to let enemies into that starting room, instead of breaking through to them first. Lena had nowhere to run when I couldn’t kill both of them. Basically, if you’re in either of these rooms, someone’s going to die no matter your approach.

That's 12 out of 45 units. 11 if we count the one revival at the end. Wikipedia claims without a source that FE3’s difficulty was lowered to encourage newcomers to the series. I don’t agree, I think the game is overall harder. The stats of playable and enemy units seemed the same in my experience, but you now need 5 more AS than the opponent to double. And the original game was balanced in such a way that you were always at least one point faster. Now each enemy generally takes at least one more attacker to down, maybe two. Making it feel like a proper Hard mode. I wish they went harder on changes. You'll never hear me say this again, but FE1 isn't perfect. It's level design can be pretty meandering with long stretches of just walking across empty plains. Not a single tile was changed in Book 1, only occasional enemy placements like throwing the Pyrathi Dragon into the next available chapter so that we still get a dragon to fight early on. There are still 1 space wide chokepoints that will unfairly cheese a unit death. Doors serve as general traps for Julian as he unlocks them and must survive incoming javelins. Infinite-seeming ambush reinforcements are still an ever present threat to ruin your day. I'm not so much intimidated by ambush spawns as I am by five minute enemy phases of several dozen enemies trying to get through my chokepoint. Just let me shop! The (Good) FE Wiki claims that reinforcements will stop spawning when the boss is defeated. That's a great idea for a change - if your boss is dead who will write your paycheck? But I know from experience this is not always the case in FE3. I still had spawns in some maps following the turn where the boss was defeated.

FE3 doesn’t address many of FE1’s issues, but the changes really come into their own when you’re out of the dull early chapters. Shops stock axes past the early game, so your fighters won’t arbitrarily become unusable like they would in a blind run of FE1. Healers can now level up by healing (but are just as unlikely to earn stats and wouldn't make good bishops anyway). The Convoy can be accessed on the Battle Prep screen, but not during battle, so I guess if someone dies holding the light orb in chapter 17, reset or say goodbye to the falchion. The Final boss is much more reasonable, now he can be targeted in melee range from three different squares, and seems more susceptible to a variety of weapons rather than just the Falchion. Trading exists (including trading from multiple adjacent units in a single turn!). I could use one Knight Killer to take out a squad of cavaliers in a conga line of death. Probably the one fun thing you can do here that can't be done in FE4. Promotion Gains make the very idea of Promotion exciting. The new dismounting system makes the game harder but I'll concede does way more to balance the game's classes than any other change. I kind of like that crit rates are higher on both sides due to an adjusted calculation. Enemies have 0 luck, so it’s very much in the player’s favor while also giving greater value to the Luck stat in preventing crits. Mages and dragons are the most different mechanically, and in ways that really revitalize them if you're coming off of FE1. 

Will I continue on to Book 2? I'd like to, but I think I'll switch off from the Ironman experience or at least play with a fan translation so that I can experience the story with no extra effort. The main reason a blind ironman is intimidating to me is because FE1 cannot be beaten without reading the text. The dialogue is how you learn about the Falchion as well as other crucial gameplay details. I'm expecting similar tricks out of Book 2, and while I can sort of grasp the language, the use of kanji makes my eyes glaze over and I start to give up. Emulator speed up sounds nice too. FE3 is in no way a faster game than the original. The graphical upgrade is 50/50 for me, and the original's soundtrack remains unmatched.

 

I wanted to have a different ROM hack to talk about every month this year, but I'm already falling short here. Zelda 2 Co-op was the plan. A hack that adds a player 2 link to the game and nothing else. The reason why this didn't pan out is that my friend and I couldn't beat the first dungeon. Not because it was too difficult, but because we had too much fun glitching the game out and that seemed to despawn one of the keys necessary to progress. That's what we think happened anyway, I can't find any video evidence of people playing beyond the first dungeon. For what it's worth, we still had a blast for that hour of playtime.

Edited by Zapp Branniglenn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just defeated Crimson Glow Valstrax in Monster Hunter Rise. With Valstrax defeated, I have completed all the base game's content. So, I will now be moving on to the Sunbreak expansion.

I'm very much looking forward to it; Monster Hunter Rise hasn't disappointed yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been retro gaming a lot on the Original Xbox, tried out games for the first time such as Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, Dead Man's Hand, Enclave and Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer. I also have been playing a lot of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe including the Booster Course Pass and I have made a couple of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe videos, showcasing various courses on YouTube

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even though I am a huge fighting game fan, but I have not been playing fighting games lately, because I do not have the confidence, drive and energy to play fighting games and from the past, the way I played fighting games, is not how I should play fighting games. That being said, I am a casual gamer, not a pro gamer and therefore, as a casual gamer like myself, the important thing is to play video games for fun, not glory. Sorry for going in detail about it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

gaming life has been dominated by darktide and mechwarrior 5 for the last couple of months

darktide is played almost entirely drunk with friends on the weekend- shit game, launched like garbage, but fun as fuck and i have 120+ hours and a lot of simultaneously fond and infuriating memories of being stuck in the goddamn walls and being unable to pick up books

i played mechwarrior 5 for about 25 hours vanilla, had a lot of fun finding new cool 'mechs, and then modded the hell out of it and found myself spiraling into 160+ hours of gameplay. YAML and the other Yet Another mods take a solid game and turn it into an absolutely fantastic one. the flexibility added by YAML specifically creates so many opportunities to turn your death machines into wild bullshit, it can carry the game beyond the fun already present in vanilla. will gladly be stuck in menus making fun 'mech builds for hours out of 10

once big stompy robots relax their vise grip on my brain, i'mma play more devil daggers. wanna get to two minutes to start and eventually also grab hyper demon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Early this morning I finally beat Banjo-Kazooie for the first time in my life. Got all 100 Jiggies, 900 Notes, 24 Honeycomb Pieces, and 3 Cheato codes. I have not yet collected the Ice Key or the Mystery Eggs, though.

I had a blast finally getting to play this game again after so many years - even though some things did frustrate me - and I hope they add Banjo-Tooie to the selection soon so I can play through that one as well. It'd be awesome if they released a new edition with a Stop n' Swop feature closer to what they originally envisioned, only using data detection instead of cartridge swapping (I wonder why they didn't just try using Memory Paks?), but even a faithful port of the N64 original would suffice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After beating FE Engage, i start playing Berwick Saga due to SF forum member recommendation. Its a very good game but with some questionable gameplay decision and arguably very high difficulty compared to other SRPG. What really stands out is the way it tells its story is closer to a JRPG of early 2000s than typical SRPG. It has nice pacing between critical time and "calm before storm"

Very Recommended for hardcore srpg fans, but not recommended for casual srpg / average modern FE player.

Currently playing Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous for 2nd playthrough. After beating it in Aeon path and getting the True Aeon ending, now im picking the Angel path and trying to roleplay as goody two shoes angel for the Righteous Angel ending. There's some stuff thats different between each path, but the main difference will be in final ACT where each path truly shows its unique story

 

Edited by joevar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/6/2021 at 2:21 PM, vanguard333 said:

Why do you think I decided to buy [Metroid Prime Trilogy] for my Wii U? At the rate Nintendo's been going with remasters, I can't shake the feeling that they'll pull something like releasing each prime game individually and charging full price for each one, or only release Metroid Prime 1 and just ignore the other two games, and since I don't know how much longer the Wii U eshop is going to last, I figured that I may as well get the trilogy before it closes.

Why did my suspicion have to be correct? Oh, well; at least I got Prime Trilogy a year before the Wii U eshop closes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...