What games are you currently playing?

[Rose Alive]

Right now Stardew Valley. I come back to it every so often.

I want to play Baulder's Gate 3, but I'm worried about getting too addicted. Just got done with Rebirth last week, and now I'm behind on stuff.

Also eyeing Unicorn Overlord. But the missions are timed so I'm not sure about it yet. I was hoping it would be like Ogre Battle Person of Lordly Caliber where the missions were rarely timed.

 

[Rydeen]

Ogre Battle?? Well there's a name I haven't heard in years.
I don't wanna get addicted either. I already played Chained Echoes, P3R, and FFVIIR so far this year, so I've been chilling now.

 

[Rose Alive]

Ogre Battle 64 is one of my favorite games! I still can't get a high chaos run without the item glitch though. Almost all my units end up too lawful.

Yeah I'm taking a break too for now. Well except Stardew. I'll get that gold clock one day. I'm on year 5 and I still can't afford it.

 

[wander]

So, upon realising that Dragons Dogma 2 is like, the same game but with better graphics and some tweaks, I'ma wait for that shit to get patched.

Switching to Elden Dong replay and something called Phantom Doctrine blind.

 

[Musasi]

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a good game for me to tweak graphics, as is The Witcher 3.

 

[LunarTarotGirl]

Currently in the middle of both Baldur’s Gate 3 and Persona 3 Reloaded. However, they’ve been on-hold. I’ll probably be returning to them soon.

I loved Persona 3 FES. Reloaded looks amazing I bought it but I haven't played yet. Did you play the original?

 

[Rydeen]

I've just been doing ocassional rounds of Vampire Survivors. Been taking a break from intensive gaming.

I loved Persona 3 FES. Reloaded looks amazing I bought it but I haven't played yet. Did you play the original?

Sorry to butt in but I loved Reload. I played the PSP version back in 2016. Masterpiece.

 

[LunarTarotGirl]

I've just been doing ocassional rounds of Vampire Survivors. Been taking a break from intensive gaming.


Sorry to butt in but I loved Reload. I played the PSP version back in 2016. Masterpiece.

Not at all. It's great to hear! The story is so good. I can't wait toi relive the experience. ^^

 

[Rydeen]

Not at all. It's great to hear! The story is so good. I can't wait toi relive the experience. ^^

Spoiler: OG spoiler for anyone getting into it

Made me cry like a baby just like the first time. I don't really cry at stories.
Makes Me Cry = Automatic Masterpiece

 

[Wol]

Very excited to finally try it out.

Edit: Two hours in and already lovin it, oh well.

 

[ViolaaFox]

Currently playing Rebirth and Valkyrie Elysium but I might pick up some older Atelier games to replay them when I'm done.

 

[meteorshots]

I'm finally trying to pick P3R back up after I finished rebirth. I found had no energy to play new games for at least a month afterwards lol

 

[Kahm]

Since I finished Rebirth last week, I'm playing Dave the Diver as a palate cleanser before starting my next major game (Unicorn Overlord). Both the sea exploration and sushi restaurant management sides of the game are well-designed and addictive, and it's a great game for short bursts of play. May just play it on and off while I move on with my library.

 

[dhelps]

Contra strike

 

[Ghost X]

I'm playing Secret of Mana... for now. I'm a bit underwhelmed by the game given all the positivity I heard about it back in the 90s. Being familiar with games of the 90s, I don't think I would have thought this game was good back if I played it then either. I think the controls are shit, like if you get caught by an enemy, there's sometimes no way to get out of it (at least that I've discovered so far). It took me a while to discover how to just eat candy ffs, given the menu system is also atrocious . The difficulty spike of the bosses is also a bit frustrating. I'm at a point apparently where I might be needing to switch weapons constantly during a boss fight, and there doesn't seem to be a quick mechanic to do it. Glad I can at least save anywhere. Would hate to have played the OG, and have gone all the way back to the last save point when dying to a boss, because I'm doing that (dying) a lot . I think there must be a mechanic with other members of the party that would make them more effective in battle also that I haven't discovered yet, because they're absolutely useless unless cornered.

Tried my hand at Menzoberranzan too, but would have to agree with the critics. Apparently the early levels aren't very engaging, and the story picks up later. I didn't have the patience. I was playing on medium difficulty also, which was probably a bad idea, as my food was running out quite quickly. Played a couple of other 90s D&D games also, which were more like 3D in presentation and controls than older Dungeon crawlers. Forgot which ones they were, but the controls were frustrating with both. I wanted to pick up stuff on the floor for example, but if you weren't correctly positioned, you would walk backwards. I then got mauled by some beasts, which suddenly swarmed me outside some ruined house, and moved too fast. Before that, I wasted a resurrect scroll on a skeleton the game seemed to imply could be resurrected by it (like, you found all these clothing and accessory items near it as well as the resurrect scroll), but it seems it was rather just poor game design shakes fist.

 

[null]

For Secret of Mana there is a setting for the team AI - I remember it looking like a checkerboard - and I think it defaults to “run away but also attack”. I always told everyone to do jack shit except guard. They get killed way too easily.

Also if a boss is pissing you off you can cast any attack spell, then keep launching the next one while the first is casting and just spam them to death. They’ll be paralyzed during the animation. Every single boss can be cheesed like that.

The game aged poorly and I would not recommend it today, but I remember it being fairly innovative. It was co-op which was unheard of for RPGs, it had cool Mode 7 graphics and gasp a horizon while flying (before FF6!), and the soundtrack is still awesome.

 

[Fangu]

^ It's not AI though, just code. There is no machine learning involved.

 

[Ryushikaze]

Also you should be able to use the ring menu to swap weapons on the fly in combat.

I just finished it rather than am playing, but Star Stuff is a very clever puzzle game about programming robots with limited commands and command lines to execute tasks. Very good puzzles.

 

[null]

I decided to try Link’s Awakening since it’s “free” on the Switch.

Score: 3 out of 5. It’s a glorified DLC. Link’s Awakening :: A Link to the Past as Tears of the Kingdom :: Breath of the Wild.

The Good:

• It’s a Zelda game. You already know how to play and what to do.
• It’s a Mario game. Seriously. You can jump on Goombas and shit. How cool is that?
• It’s a Game Boy game. So, it’s not that long. And it’s in color.

The Bad:

• It’s a Zelda game. You‘ve played this before.
• There’s only two buttons, and previously passive items are now active.
  • Want to use your shield? Go into the menu and assign it to B.
  • Need to move a rock? Go into the menu and assign the bracelet to B.
  • Need to jump over a hole? Yeah this shit gets old quick.
  • Of course you could just assign items to B and A. How often do you need your sword anyway?

The Ugly:

• It’s a Zelda game. You have to wander around and figure out what to do next.
  • In most Zelda games this isn’t tedious, but this one? You have to brute force travel every single screen you can reach, talk to every single person, mow every single lawn, dig every single hole, call that weird old guy on the phone, and pray your ass off to Naryu for a can of food you can trade to an alligator for a fucking banana.
• Plot spoiler: It’s all just a dream. All that time spent looking for bananas…
• Ending spoiler: To see the only redeeming part of the ending, your choice is A) don’t die a single time or B) die all you want and go watch it on YouTube.

 

[Leafonthebreeze]

Ah see Link's awakening for the original game boy was the first video game I ever played, borrowing my childminder's game boy to play. I would have been maybe 6? It took me genuinely multiple weeks (bearing in mind i could only play it occasionally as it wasn't my game) to figure out you could push the spiky sea urchins out the way to get to the sword, and that moment when you pick it up and the music changes is etched into my mind forever. It's why I got into video games. The genuine strangeness of that game absolutely captured me, I used to tell people that the ballad of the wind fish was my favourite song ever until I was like 11. Before I even knew what fanfiction was I was writing elaborate backstories for all the villagers on my dad's windows 95. The dude by the fishing pond, the dad of the quintuplets and Marin's dad were the main characters.

Yeah it can be frustrating. Eventually I got my own copy of the DX version for gameboy colour and had to use a game faqs guide to finish it. I have played the Remake and I haven't actually finished it cos I hit the point where my memories of how to proceed ran out and I haven't had the time or inclination to go back and work it out. But that game is absolutely foundational to me, and remains my favourite Zelda game by a long shot, only Majora's Mask comes close. I did play Link to the past later and it just didn't grab me the way this one did.

 

[Ghost X]

I had mentioned not long ago I was playing Phantasy Star IV. I got around to finishing it just now. Pretty good

 

[ForceStealer]

Ever get your head around the spell name convention?

 

[Ghost X]

Ever get your head around the spell name convention?

I had to look up what they all did, etc. They appear to be abbreviations. I think there were a lot of games where this sort of thing happened back in the day .

 

[Rydeen]

I started playing My Time At Sandrock again. I had a 250 hour save file back from when the game was in Alpha/Beta, and figured it would be cool to start fresh to see the changes that have been made since then. I haven't played the game in maybe a year and a half? The My Time series basically has taken the place of Harvest Moon for me; it's something you can pick up at any time and immerse yourself in, whether it's at 10pm on a Monday or 10am on a Saturday. I've said this before, but My Time is like an eclectic cross between Harvest Moon, Jak and Daxter, and RuneScape, held together with pretty expansive lore.

If it sounds like I’m trying to sell the game, I am. It’s good shit.

 

[Ryushikaze]

I got and completed Animal Well recently. It's an extremely well done atmospheric exploration puzzle ARG platformer.

I'm currently playing 9 Sols, which calls itself Sekiro like 2d Platformer. It has a strong emphasis on parries and dodges and is a proper Souls-Like meaning you drop a bunch of resources on death but you can make a mad dash to pick them back up.