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Sekiro.

Preordered it and everything. Bought some Japanese whiskey and got drunk the night I first played it... stupid move....

So it turns out Sekiro is an on and off game for me. I can't play for prolonged periods of time. It's almost similar to my first experience with Dark Souls. The game would whoop my ass and then I would take a couple weeks off and then try again and love it. This is not exactly the case with Sekiro but maybe it's harder for me to get into it because it being just more of an action game and the setting isn't as appealing to me as dark soul's fantasy world or even bloodborne.

The game is "warming up" to me though. It's sort of comparable to when you listen to a new album and it has to grow on you. From Software games are "growers" for me I guess. Not counting Armored Core(I grew up with that shit, Gen1,2,3. I'll die with those games )

But yeah. I'm really trying to focus on the game now and just fuckin' beat it! I'm really getting into the mechanics of the game. What lacks in customizing/RPG variety is made up with the combat system, skills trees and prosthetic tools. Plus the different ways you can play the game. I'm only passed Genichiro so I'm assuming there's a whole lot more to experience. The world seems to get more interesting as the game moves on. More branching paths etc.
The story is pretty cool and how they tie in the resurrecting mechanic with it. The music is above average as well so far. The Title Theme really encompasses the hardship the main character goes through as well as just how fuckin' grim the game is hahaha. It's a beautiful well crafted game the just needs a lot of patience to really appreciate. It's a game that requires 100% focus likes its a hard ass STG or something.

Anyways, I hope to complete this beast. I'll be back with final thoughts... hopefully.

Gosh almost 200 hours in Sekiro here. Fantastic game, hope you enjoy your time with it.

Starts off as From's hardest game, but once you get the rhythm it is by far their easiest. Also while many of the sword techs are cool make no mistake that whirlwind is good enough to use through the entire playthrough.

I finished Wasteland 3 last night during a six hour marathon session. I couldn't help it. I have to say for a game with so many choices, along with everything that could have gone wrong I was happy with the ending. Diplomacy is the name of the game for the better endings - there are still plenty of people to shoot - but hey you can gun down every person you see too.

Will absolutely do a second playthrough and change some choices up next time. I really enjoyed my time with WL 3. Playtime is clocked at 64 hours, but the first four hours was trying some different builds. I would say my playthrough was about 60 hours for everything. I opened up the whole map, did every side quest I had available. Though I would bet that changes based on some characters I may or may not have picked up.

I am not huge on role playing, but something I dig about this series. As a kid over at my friends house the original almost had a mythical quality to it. Brawling? Lockpicking? What are these things?

Anyway a little jank (and one bugged quest) aside I highly recommend it.

oh for real? I never found a use for whirlwind. The Ichimonji, and later double one from the Ashina Arts I found to be the single most effective.

Hits quick, hits twice, costs nothing, and does almost as much damage as a charged ichi double.

Also if memory serves me it does vitality damage on block.

Whirlwind does indeed do vitality damage on block. It's quite good for an early move in Sekiro. Ichimonji Double's posture recovery is hard to resist though, which you get even on block. Whirlwind is also safer and less subject to being punished than Floating Passage for a free move. High Monk is also decent as a sweep punish (though I think it was toned down in terms of posture damage in the last update).

Then there's the New Game+ specific One Mind which lets you stunlock nearly everything, bosses included, into oblivion, lol. And a new move specific to the latest update called Sakura Dance that's very effective and stylish. Lots of fun, effective stuff to play with in Sekiro.



They styled it to be more akin to a Devil May Cry style of character action game rather than an RPG, if you approach it from that mindset and not from a Souls-style RPG where stats are important, the game makes more sense. It works well, I think.

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Played a bunch of Streets of Rage Remake this weekend. Have deathless runs on Mania for the three major endings now, including SoR1 route which has a really nasty elevator fight and is one of my happier achievements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGJackYkdK8

I've started Jedi: Fallen Order.
Seems OK. There's the usual on rails bit that's a tutorial trying to hide the fact, then there's a linear set-piece bit, so hopes on starting weren't overly high, but once it let you loose proper... it's not bad. First two maps are decently sized, but not to the point it's a slog. A lot of it actually reminds me of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, in that traversal is pretty nippy, wall-running is present and correct, and there's a lot of climbing around. It's not quite as smooth as PoP, (which really makes me appreciate how much that game got right first time around), but it's far from clunky, and it's pretty good fun just moving around the levels. Combat is Souls-lite. It's not afraid to one-shot you (on hard at least), there's parrying, blocking, power attacks etc... none of it flows as well, and attacks by opponents aren't always telegraphed well enough to give you an opportunity to counter appropriately, but that may well just be me getting used to the feel of it. It's the first Star Wars game I've played to get that damn light sabre feel just right.

I'm actually pretty hopeful for this one. Nice appetiser before I return to Sekiro. Well, start it again, as I rage-deleted my save.

The "modern" Prince of Persias is a good comparison I think.
I'll admit Fallen Order definitely learned a couple of good things from the success of the souls games, but rather than trying to be like them, it really reminds me more of that whole era of PS2/GameCube third person action adventure games. Something I never imagined I'd feel nostalgic for, but given the trend of most other modern AAA titles, it's really refreshing.

Yeah, it gives of a similar feel to something like Psi-Ops or Second Sight....
Not sure about the combat at the moment. I'm going to try and 'git good' before I moan too much, but on Hard it feels like a game designed around normal, with numbers fiddled with. And there are so many lighting effects, it's hard to know when you've parried properly, there doesn't seem to be the same level of visual feedback as a Souls or Nioh. Still, I was pretty soused playing last night (BAD day), so I'll give it another whirl later. One thing I'm definitely not mistaken on is the AI, it's dumb as rocks.

If you by "hard" mean Jedi Master, I'd recommend sticking to that.
Early on you'll probably run into a few enemies that'll overhwelm you, but as you approve your in-game abilities that becomes a non-issue. It doesn't ever get particularly difficult, parries still have a huge timing window, and I can imagine combat becoming more of a mindless annoying obstacle if it were any easier. I'm almost certain it's designed around that higher-than-normal difficulty setting.

I did hear from people playing the highest setting, Grand Master, though, that it doesn't play particularly well.

Yeah I got the hang of it last night. There was one stretch on Dathomir where you have to circle around to open a door directly in front of you, and the Darkbrothers there were wrecking me. I was trying to play it way too much like a Souls, and I'd forgotten about the slow-down power (booze and gaming don't really go together at my age). Once I stopped trying to parry everything, and combined the slow-down with evasion, in took me around ten minutes to do what I'd been banging my head against for an hour previously.

I'm still not fond of the amount of lighting effects, makes it hard to tell when you've successfully parried, and the stun state after a parry doesn't seem to last particularly long. I stopped bothering with it, for that stretch at least. Parrying bolts though... that will never get old.

I do like it's open-endedness. And it's one of those games that, so far, isn't totally slavish about aping the SW aesthetic. I've played some games that stick so strictly to it that it feels odd when they introduce anything that I'm unfamiliar with. This is similar to The Old Republic, in so much that it's definitely a SW game, but it has it's own thing going on as well.

Haven't played a game at all since finishing WL 3 on Friday. It has really stuck with me.

I averaged four hours a day over two weeks, including two marathon six hour sessions. Time well spent and I regret nothing.

I've started to plan my party for my next play. I have my skills and weapons laid out (yes on pen and paper), but I think the biggest difference will be I am going go field a party of five instead if six.

Any plans to give the original a shot? I think it's pretty good. Beatable in a day under ironman conditions if you know what you're doing, but a first attempt will give you plenty of resistance.

I got an email offer yesterday for three months Game Pass and Live for £1.00. I got one just before Xmas, but upon trying to redeem it, I of course, got the 'new subscribers only, full price £10.99' message. Much to my surprise, yesterday's worked.

Anyway the upshot being I've left Wasteland 3 downloading this morning, and I appear to have a child-free day this Sunday, so I'm pretty eager to try this. The time investment is a bit of a worry, but I've got three months to play it through in.

I got an email offer yesterday for three months Game Pass and Live for £1.00. I got one just before Xmas, but upon trying to redeem it, I of course, got the 'new subscribers only, full price £10.99' message. Much to my surprise, yesterday's worked.

Anyway the upshot being I've left Wasteland 3 downloading this morning, and I appear to have a child-free day this Sunday, so I'm pretty eager to try this. The time investment is a bit of a worry, but I've got three months to play it through in.

Absolutely loving Fallen Order. Just re-read the Eurogamer review, a bit concerned about some of the criticism levelled at it - the lack of any sort of fast-travel sounds a bit of a pain given that even the second map is already becoming somewhat sprawling just 8 hours in. The more I play it the more PoP vibes I get, but the combat is way better; I remember it ultimately getting very repetitive there.

I hear you on the time, took me about 60 hours over the course of two weeks. Which is far more than I usually throw myself into a game, but it just kind of sucked me in and I was on vacation for most of it.

Now that I am finished with it for now and working from home, which sucks, I have zero desire to jump back in and spend MORE time in front of my laptop. My job normally has me on my feet 90% of the day.

Anyway 12 weeks gives you 84 days with Wasteland. That is something like 45 minutes a day. I know stuff like this is never uniform, but sometimes seems more approachable when you break it down like that.

Hope you enjoy your time with it.

For those interested, my Top Ten Games of 2020 just went up at Caltrops.

I'm playing some Manx TT Superbike on Saturn. Surprisingly excellent game, if it weren't for the dearth of content (just 1 1/2 tracks to race, plus mirrored versions) I'd say it's a classic. Graphics are quite nice and the framerate is a steady 30fps. Controls really nice with the 3D pad as well.

Also tried some Hang On GP '95 (a.k.a. the other Sega motorcycle racer on Saturn), but it's pretty much unplayable without a steering wheel. It does have some more interesting environments than Manx TT though, like Moai heads on the side of the tracks and stuff.

Wild west cowboys of moo mesa from konami.
Got 2-ALL with all charaters and even no missed the game.
Thanks to BareKnuckleRoo for the master class at gamefaqs.

<3

I'm delighted to hear someone else has tackled the 2-ALL and even no-missed it. It's really a solid run 'n gun, and the dash cancel to dodge mechanic works really well.

With the wheel I think Hang On's better than Manx. Like you say, very tough without it, analog gets you part of the way there but is still touchy. The thing with Manx is leaving you with two songs most of the time and they're both less than 2 minutes long. What's worse, it's repetitive metal played on a mid-90s MIDI sample keyboard...it just breaks me. Hang On's first track on the other hand is epic.

Switched from Destiny 2 and some other shooters to World of Warcraft for a change. Noticed that almost everyone in my social circle did the same for some reason by the way, if you are also a fan of WoW universe I advise to get gold here https://overgear.com/games/wow/gold. Strong privacy, low prices and solid reputation are the reasons to get gold only there

Super Mario Sunshine. All I can say, is whatever half-baked opinion I’ve carried about this game all these years, I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s an improvement over 64 in absolutely every single way that matters. I’d actually started with 64, and turned it off after half an hour because I simply can’t deal with that camera any more, thought I’d have a quick blast on this for comparisons sake, and ended up doing a couple of hours. I’ve only rinsed the first two worlds, but unless there’s some massive dip in quality later, it seems I’ve been sleeping on an absolute classic.

My experience with Galaxy is limited to literally an hour on my son’s Wii years ago, thinking ‘yeah, it’s more Mario’ then leaving it. Now, I can’t wait. In fact, looking at the Switch pile…. I’ve got Mario 3D World ordered, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, Luigi’s Mansion and Link’s Awakening to start, and on the non-Nintendo side, Monster Boy, Hollow Knight and Dead Cells, plus the upcoming BOI expansion to come – think the other consoles may struggle to get a look in.

That's got to be my most played game ever in terms of pure hours. Its gameplay mechanics are as good as anything I've ever played.



That game was so damn good. Ended up being my favourite 3D Mario (haven't put serious time into Odyssey yet though).

Got my Mystic Warriors PCB a few days ago, and I've only put a few credits into it so far. A 1CC seems pretty feasible, but I'm not sure about the 2-ALL I was hoping for.

More importantly though, and my reason for posting in this thread over the R2RKMF one, the soundtrack is a god damn banger!! I was not expecting that. But I'll take it.

EDIT: The composer even posted fully rearranged versions of every track in the game to his YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJbavKOC_DA

Nice. I'm hoping for an ACA conversion, looks cool. It's probably on my Pandora, but I'm a bit weird with that.
If it's got a proper conversion, I'd rather play that. If it might get a proper conversion, I'll only allow myself a credit or two. I've basically got it for the licensed games that will probably never see the light of day again officially.

I've of thought about getting rid of absolutely everything I own, and just going into PCB's. The only thing stopping me is that at the moment, when the house is full,, there are 5 kids between the ages of 6-16 here. I'd be scared to get a PCB out at the moment.

Yeah, I'm trying to score a Saturn wheel. Luckily they go for pretty cheap these days.

There's actually a cheat code in Manx TT that lets you select your preferred music at the start of a race.

Everspace 2 just released on GOG Early Access!

This Early Access was delayed by five months due to not wanting to overlap with the various Cyberpunk 2077 release dates, so it's way more polished than you would expect.

Still just about the prettiest space game I've yet played, but the overall look is brighter and boxier than Everspace 1. Some of the textures are obviously still placeholders.

In order to simulate contiguous space in Unreal Engine 4, space is broken into sectors that are like oversized hand-crafted levels from Everspace 1, with Hyperspace as its own level.

My two biggest complaints from ES1 are addressed. Weapons and Afterburner burn separate energy stores, and I have yet to run into any music that uses a wah pedal.

Unlike the Rogue-Legacy unlock model of the first game, this functions more like an RPG with XP, character stats, equipment mods, and a party of support characters who unlock abilities and services as you solve their relationship quests.

It's pretty much more Everspace, just a little bit better so far, and that's all I could ask for. Positive!

I've been playing Armored Core.

Specifically, I cleared Master of Arena and Silent Line. Now just screwing around in Nine Breaker in preparation for Last Raven.

All these games are pretty cool.

Not sure what to think of the ever increasing number of parts as the series goes on though. For example, there is a wiki page which shows which shows which parts were introduced in Silent Line over 3, and it makes me think 3 would have been the tighter game.

I'm also not sure what to think of the first generation games' internal frame rate. Even with emulation where I can overclock the CPU and GPU (amazing for when playing e.g. the PS1 Ghost in the Shell), it seems as though the internal frame rate is capped to 24 (!) FPS.

I like the PS2 games' frame rate and the dual analog controls in Nine Breaker (can't believe Silent Line didn't have analog controls). Wish I could play the first generation games with analog controls and at 60 FPS. That would be amazing.

Cool, I actually have Master of Arena lined up as one of my next games to get into. It's the oldest one in the series I own, so it's gonna be the first one I play. How does it work as an introduction to the series? It seems to be one ot the more popular entries.

That series is daunting as fuck to an outsider. I'm scared to play any of them and I've finished For Answer!