What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Vanguard]

N'aww.

My Majora 3-day challenge ended in the moonslam
I was doomed from the start! I didn't get the song of storms and apparently you can only get it on night of the first!

A smart man would've replayed the game casually first to re-acquaint himself with, well, everything.

Dang, that sounds hardcore. Do you start by reloading a save after the deku segment or do you replay the whole thing every time?

[Blinge]

Start after the Deku Segment because that's a mandatory cycle. incl. getting adults wallet.

Actually I did cheat a little bit by triggering the cutscene before woodfall, with skull kid + the fairies then resetting the clock. So when I fail at deku palace I don't have to sit through it again..

[tnc]

Big Saru at it again! -CONTAINS SPOILERS-
BIOHAZARD RE:2 The 4th Survivor
https://youtu.be/r5Mv1uSzHLk

[BulletMagnet]

I finished FOTNS Paradise Lost last night. Clocked in at about 40 hours. Nice game.

I really hope they continue to experiment with and expand upon the Yakuza formula, though I'm inclined to doubt that this instance performed particularly well for them, since even I waited a while to try it. I wish I could have known how much I'd end up enjoying it (I did try the demo, but it didn't quite sell me, which is understandable, since they can only show so much), since in some ways it's my favorite of the "series".

Meanwhile, plugging along in Nier:

- Things have gotten weirder and darker, which is fine and dandy, but somehow it just feels like things are dark and weird for the sake of being dark and weird, with nothing much binding it all together underneath. I know I haven't seen everything yet, and folks like to swear by the story, but at least right now it feels like a Temple of Doom - definitely memorable, but not particularly good, objectively speaking.

- Speaking of which, boy howdy do I love enemies spawning right on top of you, attacking before they're entirely visible, and mob-kicking you to repeatedly reset your recovery animation while you're down! Oh, and having others appear directly behind you when you're facing straight ahead in a narrow corridor, then stun-locking you against a wall! It's rarely enough to kill you outright, but hot damn is it annoying when it happens.

- I previously wondered if the side quests ever got any more interesting/less fetchy and/or grindy...seems my hope was sorely misplaced. I also wish it were more obvious where I'm supposed to go to fulfill them...seems the initial fishing quest was a harbinger of things to come. On the bright side, I did manage to successfully harvest some rice!...immediately after the quest that needed it was suddenly and unceremoniously moved to the "uncompletable" list.

- By the by, is there any reason to use any weapon type besides the spear once you (finally) unlock it? Not only do I find its style most effective compared to the others, a particular spear is also easily the highest-stat weapon I've managed to obtain so far.

Basically, two or three dozen hours in it feels much like it did at the start - I still want to keep going and see what happens, but I'm not much less annoyed than I was then either.

[RiderKick]

Slay The Spire...dear God, i have spent way too many hours on this game already and i still want to play more, at this rate it may already be one of my favorite games of 2019, it's just so good!

[Blinge]

- By the by, is there any reason to use any weapon type besides the spear once you (finally) unlock it? Not only do I find its style most effective compared to the others, a particular spear is also easily the highest-stat weapon I've managed to obtain so far.

I much preferred the beastlord 2-hand sword. Partly because i can say "muh dark souls." Partly because that wide swing fucks everything up, and you can just roll to cancel the animation whenever. Also jump and Triangle > roll after it hits is so useful.
Swapped out for a very fast one hander when facing tiny enemies sometimes, especially once it was upgraded.

Dark Hand for life, everything else can fuck off. It floors enemies, often breaking their armour and allowing you to wail on them as they try to get up. It can hit through walls. I barely ever charged it, just tap the button while running around as needed.
Used Dark Lance where utility demands it.
Maybe the pewpew spell to hit clouds of bullets but i didn't find that necessary very much.

Some of the sidequests were interesting little situations. Entertaining narrative wise, when the gameplay wasn't so much.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I finished FOTNS Paradise Lost last night. Clocked in at about 40 hours. Nice game.

I really hope they continue to experiment with and expand upon the Yakuza formula, though I'm inclined to doubt that this instance performed particularly well for them, since even I waited a while to try it. I wish I could have known how much I'd end up enjoying it (I did try the demo, but it didn't quite sell me, which is understandable, since they can only show so much), since in some ways it's my favorite of the "series".

You are most likely correct unfortunately. Everyone I know that played it LOVED it (convinced a few people on another forum to play it even) but these are small niche groups.

I would 100% be in for "Yakuza" games set in other worlds. Fist was really a perfect fit and the new stuff in the game was pretty cool.

[Blinge]

My latest Majora 3day attempt has run into another snag.

After reaching the Night 1 deadline I went to grab the song of storms. Skull Keeta is annoying on 3 hearts, the Iron Knuckle even more so with a kokiri sword. I opted to fight it as Goron Link without targeting, but you still go down in one hit. No fairies at this point either as I'd just swapped a red potion for the Stone Mask, as it's in the vicinity.

It's best to have 3 empty bottles by the time you attempt the egg rescue from the pirates/eels, that means doing the Goron race before heading there. My mistake was finishing off Woodfall first instead of the remainder of Snowhead. I finished Snowhead shortly before dawn, so I reached the second day while racing. You win gold dust in a new bottle, the problem now is that I can't empty it.

The curiosity shop and the smithy buy your gold dust, but the shop won't be open until 10pm. The smithy is supposed to buy gold dust but he won't buy mine or react to it, I assume that the online guides omit the fact that he has to have already reforged your sword into a Gilded one using gold dust before he will just buy additional dust.
In a desperate attempt to get him to react to my gold dust, I gave my sword to have it reforged into the Razor sword, the pre-requisite blade for the Gilded sword. He said it will be ready at dawn. That means I don't have the necessary time to ever get the Gilded sword in this cycle. He still won't buy the gold dust, and now I don't have a sword for nearly 24 hours.

Not having a sword isn't a big deal because I can use the Goron punc- fuck.
Now I can't activate owl statues, can't set the warps up in Great Bay. After getting the hookshot and doing the beaver race I now have two empty bottles instead of three, which means a lot of ferrying eggs back and forth in the ocean, and having to enter the pirates stronghold a total of 3 times rather than 2.
Major(a) time loss

Edit: The comedy of errors finally draws to a close.

The ocean ferrying took far longer than I imagined, and not knowing exactly where the eggs appear in the giant sea-snake area of Pinnacle Rock also hurt me, time wise. Re-visiting the place meant the snakes I'd previously killed had now respawned and in that disorientating mess of an area I couldn't tell where I'd checked before. The eggs aren't visible enough when you're close, especially not on my little CRT. I don't know if there's a hardware issue with the N64 either, god i wish this game could be emulated well.

Great bay temple was a nightmare without the sword as I unwittingly spunked all my arrows trying to take out the miniboss' jelly orbs. No pots in the room offered me a refill. The first phase it turns out, can be handled by the Deku form by throwing nuts to dislodge then, then spamming the spin attack to dance through and kill the blobs. However I could do nothing against his second form as he raged around, no attack other than arrows were fast enough.

Eventually after all the time-wasting I managed to get to the boss of Ikana castle as the 3rd night ended. I was going to play the song of time and save my progress so that I could practice Stone Tower Temple before repeating the challenge, however I forgot to do so, and the time ran out.

[Blinge]

Today's attempt has hit another catastrophe. It's 10pm on the second night and I've beaten the first three temples.
I need the Garo mask to enter Ikana, the 4th area.
For that I need to race the Gorman Brothers at their track.
They're not here. I guess you have to find them during the day. There's nothing I can do until morning. hurrrrrrrk.

Edit: My Cycle ends halfway through the Twinmold / Final dungeon fight. That Gorman bros hiccup cost me the run.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Started Tales of the Abyss on PS2 a few days ago. Luke is such an asshole.

[Stevens]

Still playing Wasteland 2, just entered New Mexico and have started to build a rapport with the locals.

I'm constantly amazed at how much thought and work went into this game. Every situation has a myriad of ways it can play out depending on who you meet, when you meet them, what is said, what you agree to do or not do, and if you stick to your word or not.

[Blinge]

Finished the Majora 3 Day challenge successfully.

Ahh. Stone Tower Temple was done before the 3rd night!
I actually had time to kill before the carnival door opened for the last time.

Edit:

Twinmold battle was unexpectedly tense considering this fight in casual play is a sleepwalk.
The un-upgraded magic meter ran out twice, I only had one green potion. After finishing off one of the worms with an arrow, the other knocked into one of the few remaining pillars, releasing some magic pickups. I had to goron roll a considerable distance to grab it before it blinkered out.

The final boss/ Majora's ask was similarly tense with the standard kokiri sword and no Fierce Deity mask. I ran out of magic here too, and was worried that if I died, would I respawn without fairies to lean on.

[ryu]

I expected to be disappointed but Kingdom Hearts III disappointed me anyways lol

As expected the story and writing are awful and the game is comparatvely easy - but at least its still a KH game at its core. But the endgame is so rushed it's obvious they ran out of development time. Makes you wonder if Square will ever manage to get their shit back together.

[Ajora]

Taking a break from playing Crimzon Clover, and have been checking out some Hexen WADs. Looking forward to The Sigil for The Ultimate Doom.

[Marc]

Puzzle Bobble 2 stealth launched on Switch yesterday, I may never need another videogame. It’s the perfect iteration of that series, IMO subsequent versions added too much stuff that over complicates the core gameplay. The XBLA version was a missed opportunity, it offered the PB2 levels as DLC but left in all the extra stuff from the main game, and even worse, didn’t feature the original soundtrack. A real shame as it’s certainly the best looking version. One day I will 1CC this – I’ve come close on many occasions, but there seems to be one level in every set that, with a bad run of colours, can quickly turn into an utter nightmare.

[BrianC]

PB2 is the NeoGeo port. I'm not sure of anything different between the F3 version aside from locking the 2p mode when a 1p game is started and the timer cut off at the bottom on the screen during mode selection (not sure if the actual game is like this, but this also occurs with the NeoGeo version in FBA and MAME). Credit counter is in the same place in the brief glimpse of the game at the Taito logo in a real NeoGeo cab, so it seems the actual game is like this. I wonder what the purpose was behind the MVS release, especially since it doesn't have an AES version.

[null1024]

Ape Escape [PS1].
It's fun. A little annoying at times, but it's remarkably good still. Draw distance kinda fucking blows.
I really missed the Sky Flier actually feeling natural to control in 2 and 3, AE1's feels really nice in comparison to the later games.

There are a handful of bits that are just total ass, unfortunately.
In one particular example [snow stage collapsing bridge], you can't reliably run across them with the hoop [actually, I'm not even sure if you're supposed to be able to cross 'em with it], and you can't reliably fly over them, since you need to land in the middle and sometimes your jump just disappears.

[Vanguard]

Finished the Majora 3 Day challenge successfully.

Nice job! I wonder if it would be worth trying for the great fairy's sword in a 3 day challenge.

[Blinge]

Thanks mayn!
If memory serves correct, that involves inverting the temple back and forth several times in order to get all the fairies. Maybe it's dooable, in my successful 3day run I finished the temple before the 3rd night fell.
However It does seem like a big time sink.. It would pay dividends against Twinmold and Majora if it was pulled off though I'm sure.
That is, if giant Link is able to use C-button items.

[BrainΦΠΦTemple]

putting off learning to no damage mega man X2 and X3 after frying my entire psyche to shreds with that shit and doing a no damage clear of klonoa in the meantime

[BulletMagnet]

Still need to finish Nier (EDIT: Got Ending A, time to see if B is worth all the hassle), but picked up Yo-Kai Watch 3 the other day, my first shot at the series (and, if my memory's correct, the first Level-5 game I intend to keep in my collection since Dark Cloud 2). Some early thoughts:

- As insinuated above I've never been much of a Level-5 fan, but I can't deny that they make their stuff look great: lovely cartoony stuff here, and it even puts on a pretty good show in 3D. Music is nicely bouncy, though the short voice clips are overused to the point that they wear out their welcome quickly.

- If there's one thing that sold me on the game it's the fact that the protagonist has moved to the USA (ever so subtly redubbed "BBQ" here...yes, really) and now encounters a bunch of "Merican" (yup, that's the term they use) Yokai; now this side of the Pacific can experience one of the series' main draws, namely seeing their culture condensed into a bunch of silly collectible critters. There's sentient bacon and ears of corn, everyone talks in a combination of urban slang and movie cowboy chatter, cheesy X-Files references...as embarrassing as the Western impression of Japan can be, I'll always love their impression of us just as much.

- That said, there's also a new protagonist taking over in Japan (moreover you can switch between the stories almost anytime, which is nice to see), and she's a total otaku space case, not to mention the locals chatter about losing all their money on figurines and maid cafes, so I guess what's good for the goose, as they say.

- My main complaint so far is how slow the pace can get - obviously this is aimed at a younger set, and moving around the map and progressing the story are actually rather breezy, but of course that's not the point, as you're supposed to sniff out all the Yokai and the food and other things you need to nab them, which can be painfully slow. For the most part you don't buy (money is rather tight) or find stuff the way you do in other RPGs, here you have to search trees/grass/trash cans/etc., which opens up a scene that might or might not have anything in it, might or might not require a minigame to acquire, and always must be manually exited even if nothing is there. You can ignore most of it once you get fed up and just want to get a move-on, but you WILL need to spend considerable time slowly sifting for supplies. Oh, and even the fastest text scroll option is glacial, so be prepared to mash "confirm".

- Battles aren't my favorite part either, as Level-5's proud tradition of forced reliance on rather brain-dead AI returns, but there are enough distractions and nudges in the proper direction to keep you busy as you wait for your critters to stumble towards victory; early on I was surprised how thoroughly enemies could smack you around and had a close call or two, but now that I've amassed a fuller roster I can usually put together a combination to see me through without too much trouble.

- The tone and jokes are also largely kid-friendly, but I have had a couple of decent chuckles; to wit, when the protagonist attempts to use his Watch after arriving in "BBQ", he receives a message that his model is region-locked and needs to get a new one. Burn.

Not sure if the pacing will allow me to get all the way through this, but I'll be darned if I'm not motivated to see the rest of the loony "Merican" Yokai.

[BurlyHeart]

Built my first ever PC. Was a fun project, though it wasn't without it's problems. Looking forward to getting more seriously into emulation.

In the meantime, played through Fight'N Rage on gog to celebrate. 1cc'd it quite easily with Ricardo. I do love the mechanics in this game and crowd control is very enjoyable. Will definitely try a 1lc at some stage, after I complete a 1cc on hard.

Bought Bastion on sale a while back, and I think I'll play through that next.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Currently playing Sublevel Zero Redux (it's an updated version of Sublevel Zero).

It really is scratching my Descent itch. It's a solid 6DoF game, with an interesting crafting system, passive abilities to earn between levels, and ship choices to unlock as well as a nice variety of weapons to play with. The soundtrack is amazing and well worth listening to, though the procedural generated levels never really feel engaging in the same way as the Descent games. The room layouts are interesting, but you can't destroy lights or panels like in the early Descent games, and the lava mechanics are a fair bit more basic. The levels don't feel like there's as much to interact with, and the enemies have yet to get anywhere near as threatening as Red Hulks with their homing missiles or hitscan Drillers with their vulcans. To play the harder campaigns you need to replay the game a few times though so it could get trickier, and the reactor rooms are generally harder than in Descent (though no reactor explosion escape, which was always the challenge in Descent).

So far quite I am quite liking it. Some changes freshen things up, like ramming being a thing you can focus on for offense as you take no damage when colliding with enemies or walls, and the engine you use affects your ramming damage. The combat and controls are very smooth, and the weapons are pretty interesting to play with, though the close range ones like flamethrower are useless unless you have a ship or earned a passive buff that gives health regeneration, as health can get scarce if you are constantly in their faces soaking hits. Music gets intense anytime you are in combat which is pretty interesting too, though combat tends to be in short bursts rather than sustained.

Level design could have been a bit more varied or with some more interesting setpieces though. A lot of the rooms tend to be quite narrow and there isn't the sheer mazelike variety of textures and room layouts in the original Descent games. The first Descent featured absolutely amazing level design and sadly, as a result of the procedural generation, you don't really get anything close to that. I think it could have been possible to make a procedurally generated Descent style game with more engaging maps, just the possible room layouts on each "floor" would have to be more varied and, more importantly, more distinct from one another. Descent had a definite design feel for the levels on each planet, and the colours used in the passageways also helped reflect that feel. Still, even if the levels aren't quite as engaging as Descent, Sublevel Zero is fun enough in its own right to be a good homage to the series.

[No_not_like_Quake]

RE 2 remake. Finished Leon's campaign, Now playing as Claire. Excellent remake, though I remember the lab having better music in the original.

Also playing Final Fight on the Capcom beat em up bundle. I used to hate this game, thinking it threw far too much shit at you at once but once crowd control clicks, and how many strategies there are for taking down bosses, appreciation for the game goes through the roof.

[Vanguard]

I'm finishing up a second playthrough of Etrian Odyssey 4. All that's left is the Warped Savior, but I'm trying to beat him without the chemicals this time. I'm now convinced he's the worst true last boss in the series (excluding the Untold remakes). He almost requires a cheese party and getting endgame equipment is a nightmare. The best weapons are dropped by the Warped Savior himself, which is what every game in the series does, but 4 is unique in that the game seems to expect you to kill the weakened Warped Savior a few dozen times to get equipment to beat the full power Warped Savior. 9 kills for every weapon in a game that generally rewards dual wielding. I'm not going to bother with that nonsense. Instead I'll try to make do with the second best weapons so for example I "only" have to get the Fallen One's conditional drop 7 times for the drive blade I want. The forge system is really bad and I'm glad it's unimportant in 3 and has been replaced in later games.

I'm running Landsknecht/Medic Fortress/Dancer Imperial/Bushi Sniper/Bushi Runemaster/Bushi. The current plan is to destroy limbs arms with two origin runes, then deliberately let the Warped Savior kill everyone so that the Bushi's endure skill revives them at low health (the landsknecht will just have to eat a nectar or something. If it doesn't work out I could try an L/B electric link build instead). With everyone else at critical health my fortress can use weak shield to cover the party and hopefully endure WS's onslaught long enough to pull out a win. Landsknecht uses star drop to increase the party's damage and accuracy, imperial uses hawkeye and shock drive, sniper uses squall volley, and runemaster uses volt rune and galvanic rune.

I also picked up Etrian Odyssey Nexus. My team right now is Hero Ronin Protector / Sovereign Zodiac. It's too early to judge but it seems good so far. Doesn't seem to be a memefest translation this time either. It looks like the hero class wants two front row slots all to themselves, so maybe I'll swap the protector for a gunner or subclass into protector/gunner or something.

[Blinge]

I understood only half of that but believe me I feel the pain haha!

This final area in Eo2 is like pulling teeth. My progress is very slow.
I doubt i'll play the #3 that everyone raves about for a long time, will probably slip back into the shadows and play SMT games.
..like Strange Journey.. fuck.

[Blinge]

Still need to finish Nier (EDIT: Got Ending A, time to see if B is worth all the hassle),

YO.

Massive spoilers if anyone hasn't played Nier:

Spoiler

What did you think of the end reveals huh? huh???

Popola and Devola fighting you shouldn't be a surprising trope, but it did hit me somewhat because I'd really taken my time with the game and gone through sidequests to get them to do their duet in the bar, find out more about devola etc.

I loved the way the second fight was done, with Popola dancing up there and that music. Crazy.

And how about the truth of the world huh? I'm not quite sure.. is every human you meet in the towns actually a replicant?
What's so special about NieR.

Guess I should get back in for ending C..

[Marc]

Still plugging away at Zelda LttP. Definitely going straight into OoT after this, if I can get the ‘Cube or Wii hooked up to my shitty TV (HMDI ports only). It’s not quite as expansive as I remember, but the payoff is less faffing, I’m a bit worried about how much time exactly OoT might eat up given that I’ve got Yakuza 0 NG+ on the go.

Got back around to Sonic 1…. My god, the Labyrinth Zone is just as poor as I remember. The one selling point of Sonic is that it was fast. Speedy. Hectic. Rapid. This Zone takes the one unique point of the game, throws it in the garbage, and sets fire to it. Water levels are very, very rarely fun (I think Super Mario World has the only ones I didn’t find a horrible chore to play), and this is one of the worst. The only saving grace is that one of the devs seemed to understand this, and as a result they seem a lot smaller than previous Zones. And I missed my first emerald here so this Zone really can go f**k itself.

Started Resi VII NG+ in VR. It’s pretty intense. Wasn’t going to play this through again, but having picked up a cheap VR unit thought it would be rude not to. The added immersion, even with the pretty low resolution, is utterly amazing – the jump scares obviously have more impact, but the house itself feels like a real, living location instead of just a set of corridors to move through. If you enjoyed the game originally, I’d say it’s essential for you to at least experience this. Does make me slightly queasy on occasion though.

[BulletMagnet]

@ Blinge (more Nier spoilers. obviously):

Spoiler

The ending reveals were kind of an odd experience for me, because while I couldn't say I totally saw them coming, I do think it's fair to state I had a sort of vague idea of where things were going; so far the same can be said of my second pseudo-playthrough, for while the little tweaks and reveals are neat, the game gave enough hints the first time through that there'd be some sort of "you're the real monster" stuff going on that I can't say I was shocked. It also drives home how little there is to the game without all the yawn-worthy side quests to bog you down...especially since I've bought all the weapons available and now have pretty much nothing left to spend most of the resulting cash on, heh. Guess we'll see what other surprises may await; I'm still hoping some sort of rationale is provided for the way Kaine dresses, since it's been a huge running joke the entire time.

[CStarFlare]

Finished my S+ Hardcore runs for RE2 - I feel like I can finally enjoy the game. Hate to say it, but those were the least enjoyable Resident Evil runs I've ever done. I guess I'll try to do some low-level speed running now.