What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Lemnear]

I'm playing Battlefield 2042 and The Last Of Us 2 at the moment, and I'm starting to feel a bit of fatigue. BF2042 is so incredibly hectic and TLOU2 is such a long and cinematic adventure, I'm starting to feel the need to play something uncomplicated, almost mindless? And a shmup. (I still want to be challenged, but not by other players if that makes sense.)

I can't understand the success of TLOU/TLOU2, a boring film with minimal gameplay....but don't talk badly about it, they'll kick you out everywhere.

[XoPachi]

I am playing Black Tiger.

Never heard of this until today but it's amazing. It's one of those games that really show the difference between forgiving and easy. The game has a lot of small things going on that make the game feel very approachable but it is still VERY difficult with funny cheap shots and super low survivability. Your attack range is also surprisingly generous and rather quick since it resets if it hits something. You also move pretty quick. He auto grabs poles and they're spaced perfectly so that you don't really have to sit and try to time everything. It keeps platforming from taking longer than it needs to in a game like this and (so far) keeps it down to obstacles to deal with enemies when you have limited movement. And things are VERY precise. Hit/hurtboxes are really tight it seems. You have a bit of a pause before your barbarian releases poles at the bottom letting you position more accurately if something needs to be accounted for while mounted. You fall off a ledge, you go straight down. And a nice limited jump that interacts perfectly with terrain to avoid "shin bumps" that just kill you because god forbid you're off by a pixel. I'm getting my ASS beat, but it's never frustrating.

I like how the shop works in this kind of like what I remember of GunSmoke where it's very specific, one time NPC's and they must be found/remembered. I think it's more interesting here since it's up to you when you want to reach them within the constraint of the timer. So it's a nice little bit of routing with your collection of Zenny (which I learned this game is where that currency name comes from :P). And this plays into dungeons which are a place to get more money but death inside of them, locks them off the rest of the stage allowing for more risk before you decide to visit your shop.

I think I'll actually really put in an effort to clear this. I'm having a shit ton of fun.

[Sumez]

Black Tiger has the primary fault that the further you get, the easier it gets. Because you keep getting more money and can keep buying more armor even if enemies get much stronger.
It feels tough once you first get to stages 2 and 3, but almost all of the game's biggest obstacles just come down to simple memorization, and not in any memo-hell way. Just remember where biggest hazards show up and always look out for those falling rocks early on.
I do really love the game though. It has some of that faux-RPG arcade DNA akin to Wonderboy in Monster Land or Willow which I love.

I've 1CC'ed it countless time, including a live event. I think this might be the first recording I have of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXm6mWjl5fY

Never heard of this until today but it's amazing.

Funny enough I never heard of it *until I bought the PCB*. Back then I just for shits and giggles tried searching for Jamma PCBs on eBay and sorted by cheapest first. So I got it for next to no money then. Back in the days when that was actually possible.

[ryu]

Cronos just kept getting better. If it doesn't flounder its endgame it's going to be one of my favorite horror games of all time.

[Starfighter]

I can't understand the success of TLOU/TLOU2, a boring film with minimal gameplay....but don't talk badly about it, they'll kick you out everywhere.

Not understanding their appeal is unusual I'd say, the qualities are pretty evident to me. Not liking them on the other hand is completely understandable, the second game in particular has a real pacing problem towards the end and at times it could absolutely feel like a movie that drags on. And if one doesn't appreciate the story (which I did, I even teared up a couple of times) then it must be very boring.

I've now beaten both of them and I'm happy I did, it felt like that sort of games that's important to have played (in terms of exploring themes at the very least). But I'm not doing it again lol, when they went "ng+ perhaps?" after the credits I've never felt so sure that "no, no thank you". (even though playing it with a pixelated filter, helium voices and unlimited ammo was tempting)

[guigui]

Cronos just kept getting better. If it doesn't flounder its endgame it's going to be one of my favorite horror games of all time.

I was not aware of this game, definitely interested!
I only see it available on newer gen PS5 and NSW2 though. Any known plan to release on PS4 and NSW1 ?

[Marc]

I can't understand the success of TLOU/TLOU2, a boring film with minimal gameplay....but don't talk badly about it, they'll kick you out everywhere.

Not understanding their appeal is unusual I'd say, the qualities are pretty evident to me. Not liking them on the other hand is completely understandable, the second game in particular has a real pacing problem towards the end and at times it could absolutely feel like a movie that drags on. And if one doesn't appreciate the story (which I did, I even teared up a couple of times) then it must be very boring.

I've now beaten both of them and I'm happy I did, it felt like that sort of games that's important to have played (in terms of exploring themes at the very least). But I'm not doing it again lol, when they went "ng+ perhaps?" after the credits I've never felt so sure that "no, no thank you". (even though playing it with a pixelated filter, helium voices and unlimited ammo was tempting)

The original was great, but it dragged out a bit and it was very much a one and fone thing for me.

Tried the sequel and found it so tedious I'm not sure I made it past the first 'stage' as such.

[ryu]

I only see it available on newer gen PS5 and NSW2 though. Any known plan to release on PS4 and NSW1 ?

Do new PS4 releases outside of indie games even still come out?

[Sumez]

The original was great, but it dragged out a bit and it was very much a one and fone thing for me.

Tried the sequel and found it so tedious I'm not sure I made it past the first 'stage' as such.

Other way around for me.
I found TLOU1 boring and tedious, and I thought the way the story was told was embarassingly bad. It seems like it's going for that thing where it wants us to get emotionally attached to morally ambiguous characters who do dodgy things. But I don't think the game ever managed to portray Joel in any kind of redeeming manner, instead he just comes across like a massive asshole through and through. And the way he just murders anyone in cold blood despite it not really being necessary for him to achieve his goal completely undermines the whole central theme of the game, and the "twist"(?) in the ending. The whole thing just felt dumb and immature to me.

TLOU2 meanwhile massively remedies this. The story is much more interesting, and has several good smaller stories weaved in, rather than just repeatedly padding itself with "let's cut through that building".
Ellie has the same characterization problems that Joel did in the first game, where it seems to be wanting to make you sympathize with her, when nothing about her actions is the least bit sympathetic. In the second act it feels like it's trying to add the twist that "Ellie bad actually", when it was pretty obvious that she bad from the get go...
Regardless, I think the qualities outweigh the negatives, and Abby especially is generally a pretty good character.

It's definitely not the masterpiece it's been portrayed as, but I did think TLOU2 at least was a pretty cool game. Gameplay often takes the backseat to worldbuilding and storytelling, but the gameplay it has is all improved over the original as well. And both of them much better than whatever shit they tried to pull off in the Uncharted series.

I wrote my thoughts on both games immediately after playing them here: https://gw.eternal.dk/reviews/the-last-of-us
6/10 and 8/10 respectively in my book


Also, the acting in both games is definitely an incredibly high standard for video games, and definitely something that I think influenced most people's impressions of them. But it's one of those AAA things where it's "trying to be a movie", and compared to actual movies, there's nothing unique about it. It would even be bad compared to good movies with actually good stories and actually good acting.
I wouldn't claim that I wasn't super impressed by it regardless! It's really an amazing feat. But it's that awkward state where the best assets of the series come with a massive "for a video game" asterisk.

[LordHypnos]

Kind of stuck on the final boss of TLoZ: Oracle of Seasons at the moment. I have some sense of how I'm supposed to approach this boss, but still find it quite difficult. I'm tempted to save state practice it, but that feels kind of bad with a Zelda game, lol. Might be easier if I had the more powerful sword you get in a linked run, but it's probably not a huge difference with the L2 Sword. Most difficult part is probably hitting the weak spot in the platformer section. People who are good at this make it look easy, hahaha.

Otherwise, I've continued playing Mr. Driller from time to time. Great game. I think the arcade is significantly harder than the GBC. Not entirely sure what specifically is harder, but it seems like I usually get crushed by falling blocks in the AC, so it makes me think they stay in memory for longer or something? I'm sure there's more to it than that.