What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[To Far Away Times]

X2 is criminally overlooked. Not quite as good as X1, IMO, but its pretty close.

[guigui]

10 years after everyone, I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn.

I like the setting and the freedom of movement, also the fast that combat system seems to be a little strategic and need to upgrade weapons. Not sure if the freedom is a real thing, or just a big big world with only fetch quest inside. The quests I did for now do not give that New Vegas vibe I was expecting where you feel that what you do has an impact on the world.

[Immryr]

Just realised I've been playing Densha de go hashirou yamanote sen on hard. i did think the penalities were a little stiff for 'missions' so early in the game!

[Ghegs]

Continuing with my saga of playing through puzzle-platformers with multiple characters of different abilities (after Grave Danger and the Trine quadrilogy), I purchased the completely inaptly named Blizzard Arcade Collection on Switch when it was -50% so I could go through the two Lost Vikings games, the OGs of the this particular subgenre. I had played both a little back way back when, but I never finished them, and that's now been rectified.

But am I glad this release gives access to a save state function, because I don't think I would have had the patience otherwise, I abused that like no tomorrow. Not only do the games reference 90's movies at a consistent pace, the era's design also shows and it's aged a bit roughly. Both Grave Danger and the Trines handled character deaths in a more streamlined fashion, but in the Vikings games you can accidentally kill a single character right before the goal and have to do the whole stage again from the beginning. Especially in the last two stages of LV2 it's very easy to die, and the stages are more reliant on action rather than puzzles, and the controls just aren't good enough for an action game.

Even disregarding that, the games' designs aren't quite as good as they could be.

In LV1, the characters' abilities are so different from each other (simplifying a bit: one can jump, one can attack, one can block) that in many cases, it's blatantly obvious what to do in a puzzle. If there's an enemy, you send in the Block guy first, followed by the Attack guy to kill with the enemy. Is there a gap in the floor or a ledge that needs to be reached? Off you go, Jump guy. At least in LV2 there are new characters introduced that have some overlapping abilities, so you have to study the stage more carefully to figure out which is the correct one to use. But there seemed to be only one way to get through a stage, unlike in the Trines where there was, at least on occasion, different ways of dealing with a puzzle.

The Attack guy's design is also lacking. In LV1 he has a short-range sword and a long-range bow with infinite arrows for long range. The latter can also activate switches. There's never any need to use the sword when you can just shoot arrows. In LV2 his sword is replaced with a (functionally identical) light saber and the bow is replaced with a Bionic Commando -esque metal arm for swinging from certain stage elements, and can also be used to attack opponents in medium range, AND it can attack directly up and at an angle. There's never any need to use the other weapon this time either, except in one specific situation where the game flat-out tells you that you need to use the sword.

The death mechanic also somewhat discourages exploration and experimentation. There are some instances where you just need to drop a character down a hole without knowing what's in there, and if it's a character not equipped to deal with it, then they'll just most likely just die right away and a stage restart is in order. Having a save stage in this release does at least fix that.

Glad that I finally got around to playing through the games, and it was fun to see the beginnings of the subgenre, but I won't be returning to them again. Puzzle games tend to age well, but here the action parts makes the whole feel dated.

[Blackfielding]

Recently I have finished up GTA 5 on the PC, and I swear they've made some performance & quality of life changes since the 360 version. It ran very smoothly and looked pretty good but still gta5grand feels much better. What surprised me the most was that it was never frustrating. I remember having to tail cars in other GTA's, vehicles being unusable (and blowing up automatically) if they were turned over, the character AI not following you properly and getting stuck, dying with a couple bullet shots, cops cheating... none of that occurred. Everything ran flawlessly. And it was all fun. The combat wasn't bad at all, and didn't drag on.

The story was pretty cool, and there was a lot of stuff I completely forgot about which made the experience better. It did drag on a little while preparing for the heists, but it wasn't too bad. Just sometimes you think "eh, I don't feel like doing a big mission" and take a break for a while. Overall it was enjoyable and worth playing again.

Since then I started Horizon Zero Dawn on the PC, which is the first time playing it. My God does this game look phenomenal. Everything from the detail, lighting, weather effects... I'm not a huge graphics freak, but this is just amazing. The Strider's light on its head literally flashes like a headlight. I LOVE the rain and how the main character holds her head when it starts getting too windy. The atmosphere changes seamlessly and it all looks great. I'm playing with ultra textures, model quality, and anistropic filtering -- with medium shadows and reflection. It runs smooth and looks amazing, with only a couple "bumps" in the cut-scenes at times. (I would post screenshots but I don't want to clutter the page. And they come in the .png format, so I'm not sure how all that works. Maybe I'll post some in the PC screenshots thread once I figure it out, lol.)

[BrianC]

Continuing with my saga of playing through puzzle-platformers with multiple characters of different abilities (after Grave Danger and the Trine quadrilogy), I purchased the completely inaptly named Blizzard Arcade Collection on Switch when it was -50% so I could go through the two Lost Vikings games, the OGs of the this particular subgenre. I had played both a little back way back when, but I never finished them, and that's now been rectified.

But am I glad this release gives access to a save state function, because I don't think I would have had the patience otherwise, I abused that like no tomorrow. Not only do the games reference 90's movies at a consistent pace, the era's design also shows and it's aged a bit roughly. Both Grave Danger and the Trines handled character deaths in a more streamlined fashion, but in the Vikings games you can accidentally kill a single character right before the goal and have to do the whole stage again from the beginning. Especially in the last two stages of LV2 it's very easy to die, and the stages are more reliant on action rather than puzzles, and the controls just aren't good enough for an action game.

Even disregarding that, the games' designs aren't quite as good as they could be.

In LV1, the characters' abilities are so different from each other (simplifying a bit: one can jump, one can attack, one can block) that in many cases, it's blatantly obvious what to do in a puzzle. If there's an enemy, you send in the Block guy first, followed by the Attack guy to kill with the enemy. Is there a gap in the floor or a ledge that needs to be reached? Off you go, Jump guy. At least in LV2 there are new characters introduced that have some overlapping abilities, so you have to study the stage more carefully to figure out which is the correct one to use. But there seemed to be only one way to get through a stage, unlike in the Trines where there was, at least on occasion, different ways of dealing with a puzzle.

The Attack guy's design is also lacking. In LV1 he has a short-range sword and a long-range bow with infinite arrows for long range. The latter can also activate switches. There's never any need to use the sword when you can just shoot arrows. In LV2 his sword is replaced with a (functionally identical) light saber and the bow is replaced with a Bionic Commando -esque metal arm for swinging from certain stage elements, and can also be used to attack opponents in medium range, AND it can attack directly up and at an angle. There's never any need to use the other weapon this time either, except in one specific situation where the game flat-out tells you that you need to use the sword.

The death mechanic also somewhat discourages exploration and experimentation. There are some instances where you just need to drop a character down a hole without knowing what's in there, and if it's a character not equipped to deal with it, then they'll just most likely just die right away and a stage restart is in order. Having a save stage in this release does at least fix that.

Glad that I finally got around to playing through the games, and it was fun to see the beginnings of the subgenre, but I won't be returning to them again. Puzzle games tend to age well, but here the action parts makes the whole feel dated.

How does Norse by Norsewest compare to the SNES LV2? From what I have seen of the game, it's a remake of LV2 with CG graphics and voices. It seems to have much of the same levels and the same new characters. Definitely like the look of the SNES version better. Odd that the collection didn't add Norse by Norsewest along with LV2, especially since they actually included the 32x Blackthorne.

[Ghegs]

How does Norse by Norsewest compare to the SNES LV2? From what I have seen of the game, it's a remake of LV2 with CG graphics and voices. It seems to have much of the same levels and the same new characters. Definitely like the look of the SNES version better. Odd that the collection didn't add Norse by Norsewest along with LV2, especially since they actually included the 32x Blackthorne.

I've never played that version, but I took a look at a Youtube video and good lord the graphics are horrendous. Pre-rendered 3D graphics rarely age well, but here even the designs of the models are off-putting. And the voices, why? Even though they got some really big names to do the voices, they're really not needed. I guess that was just the zeitgeist, everything needed to be voice acted because that CD had to be filled with something.

I didn't look at the whole game, but the stages look to be exactly the game. One difference that actually affects the gameplay is that you can see a bit more of the screen, especially horizontally. And I noticed the final boss behaves a bit differently, in his last phase he keeps throwing bombs in the SNES version, while in Norse he doesn't, which makes the delivering the final blow trivial.

I'd definitely recommend going with the SNES version.

[BulletMagnet]

There's never any need to use the sword when you can just shoot arrows.

I've only ever played the first Lost Vikings and it's been some time since then, but I do definitely recall a handful of situations where you need to send the attack guy to wipe out some enemies by himself, without the shield guy; in such cases it was frequently impossible to take them out from afar before they could chase you down, and that's when the sword would come in handy, since it can be swung repeatedly much faster than the arrows can be fired. You definitely use the bow more often, but when forced to go toe-to-toe with baddies it would definitely help.

[BrianC]

How does Norse by Norsewest compare to the SNES LV2? From what I have seen of the game, it's a remake of LV2 with CG graphics and voices. It seems to have much of the same levels and the same new characters. Definitely like the look of the SNES version better. Odd that the collection didn't add Norse by Norsewest along with LV2, especially since they actually included the 32x Blackthorne.

I've never played that version, but I took a look at a Youtube video and good lord the graphics are horrendous. Pre-rendered 3D graphics rarely age well, but here even the designs of the models are off-putting. And the voices, why? Even though they got some really big names to do the voices, they're really not needed. I guess that was just the zeitgeist, everything needed to be voice acted because that CD had to be filled with something.

I didn't look at the whole game, but the stages look to be exactly the game. One difference that actually affects the gameplay is that you can see a bit more of the screen, especially horizontally. And I noticed the final boss behaves a bit differently, in his last phase he keeps throwing bombs in the SNES version, while in Norse he doesn't, which makes the delivering the final blow trivial.

I'd definitely recommend going with the SNES version.

yeah, definitely don't like the look of the new graphics. Odd thing with the voices is that they seem to have gotten some nice voice talent, but a few of the characters still sound off, like the voices were poorly directed or added at the last minute. Yeah, I'll stick with SD2SNES and the blizzard collection for the SNES version and just skip the renamed version.

I don't mind games having voice acting if it's done well like with DoTT or Sam and Max, but some games are better left without voice acting. I find it interesting that the CD version of Monkey Island didn't add voice acting. Not sure if the newly added VA of the more recent special edition added anything (I haven't heard enough of them for an opinion).

[Sumez]

How does Norse by Norsewest compare to the SNES LV2? From what I have seen of the game, it's a remake of LV2 with CG graphics and voices. It seems to have much of the same levels and the same new characters. Definitely like the look of the SNES version better. Odd that the collection didn't add Norse by Norsewest along with LV2, especially since they actually included the 32x Blackthorne.

For some weird reason I've played both versions of LV2 multiple times.
It's been a few years though, but as far as I remember it, the "Norse By Norsewest" version is a super faithful version of the game that plays almost identically outside of the obvious graphical differences.

The graphics however do seriously impact the gameplay directly. In the original SNES pixel art graphics you could easily tell where a platform begins and ends, and where you could stand on an edge. With the shitty pre-rendered graphics it's all a big blur, and some places it's hard to tell where you are even able to go.
It's a really stupid version that made a great game slightly worse, and I'm glad they've decided to ignore its existance.

[Sumez]

I don't mind games having voice acting if it's done well like with DoTT or Sam and Max, but some games are better left without voice acting. I find it interesting that the CD version of Monkey Island didn't add voice acting. Not sure if the newly added VA of the more recent special edition added anything (I haven't heard enough of them for an opinion).

I think both the new graphics and voice acting for the new versions of the Monkey Island games are both super well done, and tasteful as well. Respecting the style and tone of the original games, and taking nothing from them.

I don't know if I'd recommend playing them this way to someone who has never tried either of the games before, but I wouldn't condemn it either. And for anyone who has already played both games (especially in my case where I've played them way too many times), it's a really fun way to re-experience them. Especially with the commentary track added for every single room in the MI2 release. That's really, really interesting stuff for the fans.

[XoPachi]

Got me an early morning 1cc in WindJammers. Only dropped 1 game.

[JBC]

Metroid Dread. Super good.

Don't get mad but this game might actually beat Super Metroid for me. I mean it's at least making it easier to take the nostalgia goggles off. It's really slick, fast paced, and intuitively designed. I didn't expect to even like it more than Fusion.

[vol.2]

rats. i was hoping it would suck and i wouldn't have to get a switch ever. i guess i will, but probably not until next year sometime.

[BulletMagnet]

Finished Blath...er, Blasphemous, overall completion a bit over 90 percent, map completion at 99 percent, because of freaking course. Having a go at New Game Plus, which apparently adds a few new things and lets you keep a lot of the stuff you've found but also allows you to choose one of three different ways to make this playthrough tougher. Not sure how far I'll get this time around, but we'll see.

Enjoyed the first time through quite a bit, so if the sequel turns out anything like this one I'm there day one. That said, a bit of lingering doubt does concern me about said sequel; for this game the devs had a very clear conceptual base they wanted to work from and didn't pull many punches when doing so, which is a big part of what made Blasphemous so striking. This being the case, I can't help but wonder where exactly they intend to go from here; if they shift gears to keep things fresh there's no guarantee lightning will strike twice, while if they stick close to home I worry that too much will simply be punched up with extra violence for violence's sake. I'm probably just worrying too much, and I do look forward to seeing more of the sequel as it comes along, but at this point with nothing more than an announcement to go on the mind does tend to wander...

[To Far Away Times]

Metroid Dread. Super good.

Don't get mad but this game might actually beat Super Metroid for me. I mean it's at least making it easier to take the nostalgia goggles off. It's really slick, fast paced, and intuitively designed. I didn't expect to even like it more than Fusion.

Metroid Dread is rad. I actually like the GBA games better than Super due to tighter level design and improved controls, but I think Dread is the best out of all of 'em.

[BrianC]

Finished Blath...er

Oh no...Fenton Crackshell's suit malfunctioned and now you're Gizmo Duck!

[XoPachi]

Metroid Dread. Super good.

Don't get mad but this game might actually beat Super Metroid for me. I mean it's at least making it easier to take the nostalgia goggles off. It's really slick, fast paced, and intuitively designed. I didn't expect to even like it more than Fusion.

In terms of general feel and challenge, it tops the previous 2D entries (including AM2R) by a large margin despite some nags here and there. In terms of music, atmosphere, and world design, I'd say nothing in the series has quite topped Super yet. Close though.

[BulletMagnet]

Oh no...Fenton Crackshell's suit malfunctioned and now you're Gizmo Duck!

Now I've got all manner of ridiculous/disturbing DuckTales/Blasphemous fan art ideas floating around in my head, heh. Though chances are someone's already beaten us to it.

[Sengoku Strider]

rats. i was hoping it would suck and i wouldn't have to get a switch ever. i guess i will, but probably not until next year sometime.

Honestly, between Nintendo's 1st party output, a near-monopoly on the Japanese gaming industry, and no sign of slowing down 5 years in, at this point it's legitimately placed itself in the category of 'all-time must own.' While people will forever debate the relative import of its legendary extra frame of input lag, game-wise it's coming perilously close to the crown for best shmup platform ever, if it hasn't seized it already.

The Switch Lite can be had relatively cheaply, if you're only looking to jump in for a handful of games.

[Marc]

rats. i was hoping it would suck and i wouldn't have to get a switch ever. i guess i will, but probably not until next year sometime.

Honestly, between Nintendo's 1st party output, a near-monopoly on the Japanese gaming industry, and no sign of slowing down 5 years in, at this point it's legitimately placed itself in the category of 'all-time must own.' While people will forever debate the relative import of its legendary extra frame of input lag, game-wise it's coming perilously close to the crown for best shmup platform ever, if it hasn't seized it already.

The Switch Lite can be had relatively cheaply, if you're only looking to jump in for a handful of games.

Yeah, this. I think to anyone with a passing interest in classic gaming, there's just too much genuinely amazing stuff out there for it not to be essential.

Tried Sonic Team Racing last night. It fucking sucks, and that's from someone that thinks Transformed is the best single player Kart racer of all-time. The team mechanic just ruins the entire thing, I finished first three times on the first race, but only placed second overall? Fuck that. Shame, as despite the loss of the Sega fan love - a massive mistake IMO - it handles well and looks great.

[JBC]

Okay so I just beat Metroid Dread and I stand behind what I said before - this dethrones Super Metroid. That was f'n wild and I loved every minute of it. Wow.

[Sengoku Strider]

I spent some time with Christmas NiGHTS because hey, when else was I going to play it?

I haven't had a lot of play time with NiGHTS...is it just me, or does this game do Sonic better than Sonic does? Being flight-based allows it to avoid Sonic's biggest pitfall, which is the game grinding to a halt whenever you bump into something and making you rebuild momentum. It also allows it to do the speed boost thing without taking control completely out of the players' hands.

[XoPachi]

Tried Sonic Team Racing last night. It fucking sucks, and that's from someone that thinks Transformed is the best single player Kart racer of all-time. The team mechanic just ruins the entire thing, I finished first three times on the first race, but only placed second overall? Fuck that. Shame, as despite the loss of the Sega fan love - a massive mistake IMO - it handles well and looks great.

I tried SO hard to like the game, but it's seriously missing something. Even just running time trials is just not that fun. But it's strange because it's not *outwardly* bad. Just...flaccid. There's something about the driving that is not as punchy, tight, or demanding as Transformed's. And I agree, Transformed stands tall waaaaaaaaay above everything else. I'd say the only one really challenging it is CTR and maybe Diddy Kong Racing. But Sumo really killed it with that game.
I remember reading an interview, I think with the director, saying he remembers seeing his kid play a game with his friends and the kids who lost were sad. He didn't like that so it inspired him to get a game developed where everyone can win. That right there instantly made me wary about the game. It told me it would be for kids. And it was.

Speaking of Sonic Team, I really don't think I'll shut up anytime soon with how much PSO2:NGS sucks. Who releases an MMO where there's not enough quests to hit the next power level requirement to play the next main objective? They really expect me to just beat up these easy as shit, spongey enemies that give like 400 exp when I need a few hundred thousand to level up? How did they make an awful expansion to such a great game?

[Mischief Maker]

Paradise Killer

What if Phoenix Wright, but as much Vaporwave as humanly possible?

[null1024]

Was mucking around with some Genesis stuff.
I fired up Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 Complete.
The more I play Sonic 2, the more I feel like it's held together with duct-tape and prayers. Maybe I'm less used to its movement oddities, but I kept getting continually surprised with really odd interactions between Sonic and the terrain.
I still had fun, right until Metropolis. Died to something stupid, and decided to not bother playing anymore because I hate the entire rest of the game. It abruptly just stops being fun, and never recovers.

Sonic 3 Complete is still amazing, if really easy [I have like 13 lives -- some people end up maxing out the counter by this point, haha]. Decided to stop at Carnival Night for now. [edit: did something stupid configuring Fusion and had to replay the game again lol, also, I really should look up where more of the big rings since I'm on Launch Base now and still don't have all the emeralds ]
I had way fewer problems playing Marble Garden than I expected, other than eternally getting hit by those spiked balls on chains. Those things suck. I really haven't liked that level, but something about it clicked while playing today, and I had fun.

EDIT 2: Onto the S&K portion! Finished getting all the emeralds while in Sandopolis. I dunno if it's me or if it's the fact that I'm using the nice Xbox SX controller, but the special stages are really easy.
I'm so glad S3C allows you to enable/disable Super Sonic by pressing two buttons in the air. Being able to disable it seems a little busted, since it really lets you stretch out your allotted time quite a lot, although being able to avoid having your rings drain down when low is nice.
Sandopolis act 2 is still really, really stupid. It's a cool stage with the moving sand and timed walls, but it's really long, and the ghost gimmick always was annoying.
Carnival Night act 2 is another pain -- the water is mildly annoying [also, it feels like the S3 devs were trying to fill some quota, because every zone [if not every act] except Marble Garden has some water, while NONE of the S&K stages have any], but again, it's just really, really, really long.
I did quite a bit better than usual, almost 7 minutes in both. I'm usually riding right up against the 10 minute timer.
Got crushed like 4 times in Launch Base, which was really, really stupid. I really wish they didn't put those spike ball enemies everywhere too, especially since they're entirely unreasonable to deal with if you aren't Sonic [who can somewhat safely insta-shield through them on reaction when they're on screen] and are often placed right in your way when you're at speed.


In non-Sonic news, I fired up Formula One and like, other than the cool scaling sprites and polygon scenery... the game was just impressively boring and not fun to play. I remember this one being better.
Runs on the same engine as Kawasaki Superbike Challenge, but I enjoyed that game a lot more.

After that, I played some OutRun, I'm really bad now.
Was able to clear the whole game a few months ago, getting all endings on defaults [which is way easier than the arcade version], but I was doing terribly today. Probably just need to get back in the groove.

I spent some time with Christmas NiGHTS because hey, when else was I going to play it?

I haven't had a lot of play time with NiGHTS...is it just me, or does this game do Sonic better than Sonic does? Being flight-based allows it to avoid Sonic's biggest pitfall, which is the game grinding to a halt whenever you bump into something and making you rebuild momentum. It also allows it to do the speed boost thing without taking control completely out of the players' hands.

NiGHTs has the issue where it manages to be even easier than Sonic when you aren't explicitly playing for score. Real shame.
Sonic Advance 2 [mostly] ends up flowing similarly well, but that's because there are basically two points in every level that are dangerous and the rest is just a smooth downhill jam with almost no stops.

Speaking of Sonic Team, I really don't think I'll shut up anytime soon with how much PSO2:NGS sucks. Who releases an MMO where there's not enough quests to hit the next power level requirement to play the next main objective? They really expect me to just beat up these easy as shit, spongey enemies that give like 400 exp when I need a few hundred thousand to level up? How did they make an awful expansion to such a great game?

I was so excited for NGS.
I'm SO MAD THAT IT'S GARBAGE. Absolutely furious.
Maybe it's a good thing it sucks, because I was on my way to playing way too much of OG PSO2, and I'd dropped off because like, it was really clear that nothing much was transferring to NGS.

All NGS did is make it so I can't play original PSO2 on my laptop anymore with the increased sysreqs and entirely disincentiveize me from playing OG since Sega has no reason to put any development effort to it over NGS.

[Ghegs]

Just finished up Metroid Dread with a time of 8:47 and collection rate of 77%.

I don't enjoy being a contrarian, but I think Metroid Dread isn't a particularly good game. I can't quite call it a bad game either, but I think it just barely reaches the bar of a good game. Some minor spoilers ahead.

I played the game's demo and already was a bit wary of the EMMI encounters, they felt like parts from a non-Metroid game slapped into a Metroid game. The full game didn't manage to convince me otherwise, I just couldn't find the EMMI parts as fun or interesting. It always bugs me when a game is internally inconsistent like this. Here's a player character that can take a laser beam larger than they are right in the face and only take damage, and can stay submerged in lava for a good while (or infinitely, after the right equipment is found). Now here's an enemy that one-hit kills you no matter what equipment or armor you have...by grabbing you and poking you with a needle. I get that these are supposed to be the Dread parts of Metroid Dread, but I didn't feel dread when facing the EMMIs, I just felt slightly annoyed.

Maybe instead of having dedicated EMMI zones, they could've roamed around the whole area? A bit more Metroid Fusion -like in this regard, the first time you played it, you never knew when you might stumble upon the SA-X. Of course to compensate it'd need to be a bit easier to escape and hide from an EMMI, or be able to distract/stun them while you make your escape.

And the method of actually killing the EMMIs really annoyed me, again for the consistency reason. You get the Omega cannon, you can fire it for hours on end without a second's pause, but when you actually do kill the EMMI, that's when the thing magically stops working and disappears, until you find the next exact same miniboss to get the next one from.

And speaking of, there are way too many miniboss battles that are just repeats. The eye thing that gives you the Omega cannon, the Chozo soldier, the robot Chozo soldiers. Those are repeated so many times and there's just a minor variation each time, like maybe they have an extra attack or some more HP, or the room layout is different. You have to fight against double robot Chozo soldiers twice! This felt like padding the gameplay, or that the devs were running against timelines and couldn't implement more unique fights.

Also, QTE's in boss fights? Are we back in 2010? Alright, they aren't mandatory (I think? Maybe in the last fight they are?) but still. I don't play much AAA titles at all, maybe QTE's are still generally used in those.

The game seems to be in a hurry overall to get itself over with. Feels like you get new power-ups every 15 minutes, and many times you get a power-up that more or less makes a previous power-up completely useless. And some of the power-ups seem to get very little use. Like there were maybe two parts where the grapple hook was needed to grapple from the ceiling, after that it's only used to open doors. And that thing that sets off multiple bombs horizontally and vertically, I'm not sure it was ever used to progress to a new area, only to get some items? Maybe the whole power-up is optional? If it is, then it's fine.

One thing that really annoyed me was that many times, after acquiring a new power, I'd think to myself "Alright, now I can backtrack a bit and explore that area before with this" and the game would go "NOPE, I've blocked the return path off, you're forced to go this way now and you can just take the long way around if you want to explore back there again."

But the sole biggest offender, which to me is probably the most important part of any game of this type, is the world itself. Frankly, it's boring. Compared to the worlds in other games of this type, Dread's feels lacking, monotone and forgettable. The different areas are too similar to each other, if you showed me a screenshot I couldn't tell you what area it's from if you put a gun to my head. This is compounded by how most areas have lava and ice rooms of their own (and the EMMI sections are extremely similar to each other as well), so even those aren't confined to certain places in the overall map.

The different areas don't feel like they build one large, cohesive world. This is at least partly because travel between them always happens via a loading screen, whether the in-game method is an elevator or a train or a teleporter. Functionally it's always the same thing. The areas might as well be on completely different planets. I know Metroids always have clearly separate areas, but somehow this feels really jarring in Dread for me. When you climb to the highest point or go to the farthest corner of the worlds in some other games, it's because you actually climbed up the tallest mountain or made your way to the very edge of the world map until you couldn't proceed any more. You actually made that journey, every step of it.

When you reach the highest point in Metroid Dread, you know it only because when looking at the map, that part is higher on the map screen than any other point. You got there via a loading screen and then jumping up a few times.

Which leads me to the map screen. I found it somewhat badly designed. Having the locations of items already picked up still be visible is just confusing when you're trying to spot the last few items you haven't gotten to. It'd be better if the found items were either removed, or at least have an option to hide them. Having markers of your own is good, but they're much too similar to the teleporter symbols in shape and color.

I played through the game, but after putting it down each session, I never felt the urge to go back in and keep exploring, something that tends to happen to me when I play Metroidvanias. I realized I kept playing just so I could say that I did indeed finish the game. I'm glad I managed to borrow the game from a friend, because if I had paid full price for this, I'd have been disappointed. To me personally, this felt like a €15 title.

Games of similar type I'd recommend over Dread: Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Salt & Sanctuary, Vigil: The Longest Night. Heck, I even liked MindSeize more and that one's areas actually do take place in different planets.

[Stevens]

Calling MM - Have you tried Inscryption yet? I am really enjoying my time with it.

I went in pretty blind and would suggest you do the same! The deck building is pretty top notch. Starts off easy and later on more options open up, you're given a lot more freedom in how you build after a certain point.

[vol.2]

Treasures of the Deep. PS

Picked up a copy cheap and so far really enjoying it. Not going to blow anyone's mind, but it's a decent underwater treasure hunting simulator with okay combat and basic upgradable equipment. It can be a little frustrating at times to manage the controls, but it's at least fairly consistent. Biggest complaint is that it's difficult to know when you're being targeted by an enemy, and the backgrounds are very monochromatic and everything blends into everything. I think that is somewhat realistic considering that you would be underwater, but the blocky polygons and the low resolution conspire to make it unnaturally difficult to pick anything out (enemy vs shark vs vehicle vs treasure). So you have to be very patient and play it a lot to get used to both the controls and what you are actually looking at.

[Sengoku Strider]

I just finished Blaster Master Zero. When the Switch first came out, I had a Wii U for Zelda so I didn't really need one for a while. The one game at launch that had me longing was Blaster Master Zero, I've always loved the original.

Suffice to say it was the first game I downloaded off the eShop when I finally did get a Switch, but never really got in the mood to plow through the whole thing until now. I really enjoyed it, I thought they really nailed everything that made the original special, while updating & adding QOL changes in all the right places. It was relatively easy until the final area or two, but in a way that kept you progressing and made the game really engrossing. It was one of those games where you totally lose yourself in its world and completely lose track of time. Good times, I'll probably check out the sequels at some point.