What games are you currently playing?

[Leafonthebreeze]

Coffee Talk is a cute one: I have enjoyed it. Which reminds me that I should pick it up again, as I haven't finished it. Last year it'd inspired me to start making tea lattes. Namely London Fogs and floral lattes like rose and lavender. No coffee for me tho.

Another "9pm" game (which is honestly the only time/games I can do right now) - Sun Haven. Bought it a few weeks ago on sale. It's not My Time, but it's smooth, pretty, fantastical, and cozy. I tried playing an old favorite recently, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, and I just can't deal with the gameplay and load times of these old games anymore. That includes anything with random encounters, like FFVII.

My brain did the thing half way through Coffee Talk and I had to go into sandbox mode and combine every ingredient systematically until I unlocked all the drinks, but it did scratch the itch in my brain for doing shit like that, and the story was cute, although I'm a bit tired of Fantasy Racism. There's a part 2 as well which I'll probably pick up next time I have a few hours to kill (lol never, I only played the first one cos I was off work having faceplanted the floor.)

 

[Deleted member 13557]

Just beat Spider-Man 2

Better than the original. Worst thing about it is the bugs, which should hopefully be patched out soon. Game crashed on me twice!

Going for the platinum now.

Edit:
Well, that didn’t take long at all. Platinum achieved after 34 hours of play.

 

[Rydeen]

Just beat Spider-Man 2

Better than the original. Worst thing about it is the bugs, which should hopefully be patched out soon. Game crashed on me twice!

Going for the platinum now.

Edit:
Well, that didn’t take long at all. Platinum achieved after 34 hours of play.

There has to be bugs.
Because... Spider-Man

 

[Nandemoyasan]

I purchased the remaining 5 Pixel Remasters on Switch last night... (FFI-V. I already had FFVI).

I now own Final Fantasies I-IX on Switch and on Steam*, because I guess I'm just mentally unstable, but I came to the right place didn't I, hehe. "Hi, I'm Nande, and I'm a Final Fantasy addict"

However, in my defense (and in the way of justifying posting here) I do intend to play them. I have never understood certain collectors' mindset of buying things just to keep in the packaging and say 'It's a collectors' item.' If you're not gonna use a thing, don't buy the thing, maybe? I'unno, people are strange.

But then, I can't stop buying/playing different versions of FFI-IX, so I'm one to talk.

*I also own FFXII: Electric Zodiac Boogaloo on Steam, but it barely runs on my PC and I'm not super jazzed about it anyhow. I just busted outta prison and got back to Rabanstre and I haven't found time to continue it

 

[Cthulhu]

Yeah I wouldn't consider the pixel remasters particularly collectible either, not like the originals. More a means to legally play them on current-gen systems.

 

[Rydeen]

Yeah I wouldn't consider the pixel remasters particularly collectible either, not like the originals. More a means to legally play them on current-gen systems.

Wasn't it more of a way to make emulation less legal? I honestly always thought it was legal in most places to emulate a game and its system you already own on a new system, until they started milking every last drop out of every IP.

 

[ph14basicbitch]

I'm still finishing up Octopath Traveler 2 but ayyy Nirvana Initiative went on sale on Steam today so I guess I'll play that sometime after the onslaught of Star Ocean 2, LAD Gaiden, and Persona 5 Tactica.

(Speaking of which, OT2 is great and very fun to break combat with BP and ha ha big number dolphins in brain.)

 

[Mayo Master]

Ok, I need to talk more about Baldur's Gate 3. On my end, playing the PS5 version, it's been far from a stellar experience. I'm not saying the game is bad, I'm saying that it's quite far from the 9.6 Metacritic rating it got - it is literally over-rated. In more details:
While the game has a very ambitious scope, its execution is very uneven. Some of the details are very well-crafted and well-thought, but then some important features are messy or very glitchy and leaves me with a very lukewarm experience. A few examples:
The game is very glitchy on the PS5, even in single-player mode (the 2 players couch coop is unplayable after 30 hours, as I said earlier). I get on average 3 bugs/glitch of varied sorts per hour. Some of the event flags are not properly set up (e.g. you kill a villain and the next dialogue is about how you should be on your guard about the next battle against said villain).
On the other hand, the game has a few 'niche spells' such as "transform as an animal", "speak with animals", "speak with the dead" and the game caters to those niche spells very well - you do have burrows you can use as short-cuts, you can interact with most animals. The level of attention to detail put into this is quite astonishing.
But at the same time, many game design elements are not well-thought-out. Tutorials may come up 30 hours after you actually needed them. Occasionally you'll face a puzzle with not a single clue about which controls you can use to even start said puzzle. Your companions' pathfinding and general AI is terrible, it demands way too much baby-sitting (e.g. they may decide that the best way to reach an enemy is to walk through lava, so they happily go waist-deep into it an die). The game is not very forgiving in terms of miss-able content, and you can also waste a lot of time trying to reach an area where in actuality it can't be reached.
The game has an interesting plot, but some of the interactions with the main protagonists are really poorly-written. 'Romantic developments' are often awkward, if not off-putting, (e.g. you have a forced interaction where your only options are 'let's have sex right now' or 'I hate your guts' with no option in between) making some of the characters unengaging.

In my experience, it could have been a great game, but it's not. I really wanted to love that game, but there are too many elements spoiling the experience. Overall it's far from the quality of a game like Dragon Age Inquisition. I much prefer a game which tries to do less, but does it well, rather than something overly ambitious that is ripping at the seams.

 

[Nandemoyasan]

I purchased the remaining 5 Pixel Remasters on Switch last night... (FFI-V. I already had FFVI).

I now own Final Fantasies I-IX on Switch and on Steam*, because I guess I'm just mentally unstable, but I came to the right place didn't I, hehe. "Hi, I'm Nande, and I'm a Final Fantasy addict"

However, in my defense (and in the way of justifying posting here) I do intend to play them. I have never understood certain collectors' mindset of buying things just to keep in the packaging and say 'It's a collectors' item.' If you're not gonna use a thing, don't buy the thing, maybe? I'unno, people are strange.

But then, I can't stop buying/playing different versions of FFI-IX, so I'm one to talk.

*I also own FFXII: Electric Zodiac Boogaloo on Steam, but it barely runs on my PC and I'm not super jazzed about it anyhow. I just busted outta prison and got back to Rabanstre and I haven't found time to continue it

As an addendum to my previous post, FUCK Final Fantasy III, Fuck the Cave of Shadows, Fuck the boss of said dungeon (googles it), Hecatoncheir, and FUCK the Fang of Earth. I know what comes next (I played+beat SoM2Freak's NES Translation years ago), so FUCK that too, but I'm still gonna play it just so I can know not to play it for a long time afterwards.

 

[niis]

Ok, I need to talk more about Baldur's Gate 3. On my end, playing the PS5 version, it's been far from a stellar experience. I'm not saying the game is bad, I'm saying that it's quite far from the 9.6 Metacritic rating it got - it is literally over-rated. In more details:
While the game has a very ambitious scope, its execution is very uneven. Some of the details are very well-crafted and well-thought, but then some important features are messy or very glitchy and leaves me with a very lukewarm experience. A few examples:
The game is very glitchy on the PS5, even in single-player mode (the 2 players couch coop is unplayable after 30 hours, as I said earlier). I get on average 3 bugs/glitch of varied sorts per hour. Some of the event flags are not properly set up (e.g. you kill a villain and the next dialogue is about how you should be on your guard about the next battle against said villain).
On the other hand, the game has a few 'niche spells' such as "transform as an animal", "speak with animals", "speak with the dead" and the game caters to those niche spells very well - you do have burrows you can use as short-cuts, you can interact with most animals. The level of attention to detail put into this is quite astonishing.
But at the same time, many game design elements are not well-thought-out. Tutorials may come up 30 hours after you actually needed them. Occasionally you'll face a puzzle with not a single clue about which controls you can use to even start said puzzle. Your companions' pathfinding and general AI is terrible, it demands way too much baby-sitting (e.g. they may decide that the best way to reach an enemy is to walk through lava, so they happily go waist-deep into it an die). The game is not very forgiving in terms of miss-able content, and you can also waste a lot of time trying to reach an area where in actuality it can't be reached.
The game has an interesting plot, but some of the interactions with the main protagonists are really poorly-written. 'Romantic developments' are often awkward, if not off-putting, (e.g. you have a forced interaction where your only options are 'let's have sex right now' or 'I hate your guts' with no option in between) making some of the characters unengaging. RB College

In my experience, it could have been a great game, but it's not. I really wanted to love that game, but there are too many elements spoiling the experience. Overall it's far from the quality of a game like Dragon Age Inquisition. I much prefer a game which tries to do less, but does it well, rather than something overly ambitious that is ripping at the seams.

It sounds like you've had quite a frustrating time with Baldur's Gate 3, especially given its high expectations and ratings. It's always disheartening when a game you're looking forward to doesn't meet the standards set by its predecessors or its hype. It seems like the game's reach might have exceeded its grasp, in terms of ambition versus execution. Your experiences with the glitches and AI pathfinding issues are particularly concerning, as they can really disrupt the immersive experience that RPGs promise. It's also a shame when the narrative elements, like the romance options you mentioned, feel forced or underdeveloped. These things can certainly pull you out of the world the developers have worked so hard to create. I appreciate you taking the time to detail both the good and the bad. It's important for potential players to hear about the real gameplay experiences, especially from a platform-specific standpoint like the PS5. Your insights are incredibly valuable for someone who might be considering this game. Do you think these issues are something that could be fixed with patches and updates, or are they too deeply ingrained in the game's design? It might be worth keeping an eye on updates from the developers in case they address some of these concerns. Sometimes a game can be redeemed post-launch with the right support and improvements.

 

[Mayo Master]

Indeed. When those annoyances pile up, they become immersion-breaking. For instance, when your party members regularly get lost because of pathfinding issues, decide to load on the rooftop of the building when you enter the ground floor, or needlessly expose themselves to opportunity attacks, you gradually get the impression that you have to manage a group of morons that can barely tell their left hand from their right hand. So if the same characters are meant to be smart or pragmatic, it makes for an unpleasant dissonance.
[Digression]On that note, I recommend a small indie rpg called 'the Dungeon of Naheulbeuk' where the actual premise is to lead a dysfunctional party of (mostly stupid) adventurers in an absurd dungeon filled with silliness - and chickens.[/Digression]
Are the issues fixable with patches and updates? As far as they pertain to gameplay and performance, most likely. After all, you hear much less grief about bugs and glitches from PC players. That being said, for them to patch the 2-players couch coop version is a tall order - that mode is an absolute mess. Regarding dialogues and interactions, I'm under the impression that the devs are unwilling to budge on that front (I read devs comments such as 'Gale's romantic approval is broken, oh well, it is what it is') and changing those would require too much work (I don't see the devs re-hiring the voice actors to record new lines, for one thing), so I don't expect that side of the game to ever get fixed.

 

[Cthulhu]

I finally got started on Death Stranding, and I find it really compelling . I mean objectively it's a repetitive game, but it's done really well. The story plods on a bit (I'm in

Spoiler

the second zone atm

) and a lot of story and concepts get repeated to an almost insulting degree, but I guess that's the quirky part of it, idk.

 

[Mayo Master]

I finally got started on Death Stranding, and I find it really compelling . I mean objectively it's a repetitive game, but it's done really well. The story plods on a bit (I'm in

Spoiler

the second zone atm

) and a lot of story and concepts get repeated to an almost insulting degree, but I guess that's the quirky part of it, idk.

I personally enjoyed the mountain-hiking-simulator side of this game (well, I like mountain hiking). The concept of pooled online contributions that affect the world structure was really well executed, in my opinion. I was not a fan of the narrative, which seemed to have plot twists just for the sake of having plot twists - it really got old after a while.

 

[ph14basicbitch]

• Octopath 2: If you liked the gameplay of 1, you'll probably like 2 as well. They did try to fix some of the narrative issues by making an actual combined plot at the end.
• Little Goody Two Shoes: I only played this for a bit cause SO2R was coming out the next day. I love the aesthetic, but the mini games you do around the town to get $$ so you don't die of starvation are kinda ass.
• Star Ocean 2 R: It owns. All of the goofy crafting shit you could do in the original game is still there. Idk how to explain this but this hits the right notes.
• Persona 5 Tic Tacs: Strongly suggest you play on a difficulty that enables friendly fire so you can use Garu to fling allies into position for all-out attacks.

Will I somehow be able to play LAD Ishin, Crisis Core Reunion, and Nirvana Initiative in the next month?

Gonna tell you right now that the answer is "no", but that certainly doesn't stop me from trying.

 

[Puririkaaal]

Now I've started playing The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim and Diablo 4. I really like the atmosphere in these games, the interesting storyline, and the nice soundtracks. I give them 9/10.

 

[Wol]

So I'm almost done with GoW Ragnarok and what an amazing game. It's massive on the content side, but what impressed me is that none of the optional content felt like a chore; they always led to challenging fights, new locations, lore pieces, character interactions... This might be the best side-content in history (Vanaheim comes to mind easily) and counting the long main story it almost feels like 2 games in one.

The game screams quality at the smallest details, each evidently crafted by expert hands. Gameplay and exploration are significantly improved here (more companions, enemy variety, world feels livelier, mini-bosses, etc). It does however suffer from bloat during the story. As certain sections felt too long, the narrative failed to create momentum on the first half. Another problem is how much it tries to expand and show. There's a lot of characters and events this time around compared to the first adventure, which results in a high stakes but unfocused tale that doesn't reach the same emotional highs of 2018s.

Either way, it has fantastic scenes and setpieces (not enough). Odin, Thor and Thrud are incredible and charismatic on screen. Loved them. Preferred Atreus on the first one. Kratos is the motherfucking God of War, and I can't wait to see how his story unfolds from now on. Favorite realms are Vanaheim, Svfaltheim and Asgard.

9.2

 

[Puririkaaal]

Now I've started playing The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim and Diablo 4. I really like the atmosphere in these games, the interesting storyline, and the nice soundtracks. I give them 9/10.

Well, after playing, I realized that dibalo is much more difficult to upgrade. I found a service that helps to upgrade, but I have never used something like this before. someone can advise me or give me feedback on their experienc?

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Baldur's Gate 3 remains my go-to when playing games that I really want to get into, I'm deep into Act 3 and go through phases of when I can get myself in the right headspace to be able to sink a bunch of time into it. Did some multiplayer stuff for the first time this weekend which was a bunch of fun in a different sort of way than the singleplayer approach. It's still the closest thing to just playing D&D again that I've gotten ta do since I moved, which is SUCH a welcome experience.

That being said, there're a few different bullet-heaven games that are have been my staple genre to just sort of kill time and relax my brain when I don't really have the capacity for other things which are: HoloCure, Time Wasters, & most recently Death Must Die.

I've got a whole mess of a backlog with things like Armored Core VI & Sea of Stars pretty high up on the list of things that I'd like to get to (especially given that I backed the later game).



X

 

[Rydeen]

About 9 hours into Chained Echoes, a modern turn based RPG. I really like the OST and gameplay so far. It demands strategy. A lot of subtle and not-so-subtle 90s JRPG references.

 

[Wol]

Just beat GoW: Valhalla (including all bosses and challenges) and got Platinum on main game.

The DLC was a fulfilling experience which honestly surprised me considering it's free. Very challenging and makes you think on how to advance. Valhalla is also a reflection on how the main game manages to feel meaty on both story and gameplay which is a rarity. Absolutely loved the nods to the original trilogy and the music and art direction are incredible.

 

[Deleted member 13557]

Tried out Baldur’s Gate 3 for the first time. Big fan of the RPG elements but I’m not huge on the combat system.

Wasn’t ever a DND guy but I can see where the acclaim for this game is coming from.

 

[cold_spirit]

The games I completed in 2023. GOTY goes to Armored Core VI, runner-up is Persona 2 Eternal Punishment.

 

[Mayo Master]

*Phew* Finally finished Baldur's Gate 3 yesterday. I had been painfully slogging through Act 3, which was a real glitch-riddled bug-fest. Honestly, by the end of it I stopped caring for the story or the characters, and was only motivated by the notion of "finishing what you started". I re-iterate that for me, Baldur's Gate 3 got the "Disappointment of the year" award - a far cry from all the hype that surrounded it.
Mercifully, I have to say that I did find the final boss fight and the ending were interesting and well-put together, so at least I was able to end on a good note.

 

[MoLe_BlAdE]

About 9 hours into Chained Echoes, a modern turn based RPG. I really like the OST and gameplay so far. It demands strategy. A lot of subtle and not-so-subtle 90s JRPG references.

Isn't this from the same studio that's done Sea of Stars? I'm currently playing Sea of Stars and its great. Feel like I need to pick up Chained Echoes after I'm done!

 

[Rydeen]

Isn't this from the same studio that's done Sea of Stars? I'm currently playing Sea of Stars and its great. Feel like I need to pick up Chained Echoes after I'm done!

Nope! But they did do The Wandering Sword, which I might play. It's been compared a lot head-to-head to Sea of Stars, which I haven't played yet. I don't have a final verdict on Chained Echoes since I am not quite finished, but I will say that it's very fun to play and experience.