What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sumez]

I'm certain would have loved Ico and SotC equally no matter when I first tried them. TLG just really didn't touch me the same way. Those first two games are just straight up amazing.

[professor ganson]

Anyone playing the new Ys game? It came in the mail the other day but I haven't had a chance to check it out.

[BrianC]

Anyone playing the new Ys game? It came in the mail the other day but I haven't had a chance to check it out.

I have been playing Tales of Berseria, but I just ordered it. Not sure when I'll get around to it. I still need to get back to playing Oath in Felgana.

[Cee]

After becoming completely sick of shmups i started trying out some beatemups and got addicted to knights of the round, currently trying for the 1cc. What an unbelievably stellar game.

[Leandro]

After becoming completely sick of shmups i started trying out some beatemups and got addicted to knights of the round, currently trying for the 1cc. What an unbelievably stellar game.

I love this game. Interesting how there are techniques to synchronize the level ups with the hairiest encounters. Farthest I"ve got in 1 credit was Muramasa.

[Mischief Maker]

Since the writing on the wall says the PC port of Ys VIII is borked, I spent the money on Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock instead.

It's a 3D fleet combat tactical simulation game taking place in during the first cylon war of the reboot series. It plays out in simultaneous turn-based mode where you direct your fleet maneuvers for the next ten seconds, then the computer simulates the outcome between turns.

The big selling point for the game is after a battle is complete you can watch the battle replay in real time with shaky cam, dramatic zooms, and fighter-eye views of the action ala. Ace Combat.

[soprano1]

Finished Tales of the Abyss on 3DS. Wasn't exactly the masterpiece it's hailed, to be honest. Jade was the best character, no discussion. Second Tales game i finished, after the great Phantasia.
Now starting Shovel Knight's Plague of Shadows DLC.

[Sumez]

Was any Tales game ever hailed as a masterpiece? Best I can think of is Symphonia, which I assume is mostly due to a general lack of/wish for solid RPGs on Gamecube (because apparently Baten Kaitos and Paper Mario 2 don't exist..).

And of course the first Phantasia, primarily due to how incredible it is for a SNES game.

[BulletMagnet]

Depends on who you ask, really, since there's so darn many of them by now; you've probably heard me praise Graces as one of my personal favorite JRPGs, though everyone else seems to consider it second-tier at best, heh. Symphonia is probably the most popular choice overall though, at least in my estimation.

[CIT]

Destiny and Eternia (US = Destiny II) are masterpieces of 2D gaming imo.

[Sumez]

I guess, having played none of them, it's just easy for me to lump them into the masses of late-generation JRPGs that feel so mass produced that they just go by the motions and offer little outside of cliches. PS2 and forward really started to show fatigue on that genre, so whenever there is genuine quality to be found, it's extremely easy to overlook it. I heard the new one, Berseria, is supposedly pretty good. I got both Xillia games, but don't have the patience to start with them.

Destiny and Eternia (US = Destiny II) are masterpieces of 2D gaming imo.

I got Eternia on PSP back in the days. Maybe I should try actually playing it.
Then again, I also got Symphonia in the backlog.

[ryu]

Was any Tales game ever hailed as a masterpiece?

Abyss was highly praised by the Tales Community back in the day.

I played it a few years after release and wasn't blown away either.

[soprano1]

Was any Tales game ever hailed as a masterpiece?

Abyss was highly praised by the Tales Community back in the day.

I played it a few years after release and wasn't blown away either.

Yeah, the best thing about it is Jade and the theme song by Bump of Chicken:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTdcxQZcQAE

[soprano1]

Sumez, Eternia's English dub is horrible, so you might want to mute the voices.

[Bananamatic]

symphonia gameplay was 100x better than abyss
the free run mechanic breaks the game entirely and the difficulty modes are straight up retarded with scaling so hard that normal is too easy, hard is a grindfest, very hard basically requires a NG+ and some early exploits and unknown requires almost all the ng+ unlocks

[Cee]

After becoming completely sick of shmups i started trying out some beatemups and got addicted to knights of the round, currently trying for the 1cc. What an unbelievably stellar game.

I love this game. Interesting how there are techniques to synchronize the level ups with the hairiest encounters. Farthest I"ve got in 1 credit was Muramasa.

Yeah i think it's fantastic to, i 1cced today to the last boss and shamefully got trapped making it a 2cc clear. It's all about learning the block mechanics to full effect, when you do this it's one of the most balanced beatemups out there. So many ways to play aswell, have you seen the chinese superplayer speedruns of 18 min clears? truly a marvel of precisely executing strategy.

[Leandro]

I'm alternating between Sonic Mania, Fallout New Vegas and Hitman 2016...

[BIL]

MAXING und RELAXING mit mein second favourite MURDER SIMULATION Brutal DOOM. Update soon apparently, some balls about sprite redraws... gawd bless he soul as ever, but I wish he'd just squash that daft bug that causes Barry to seize up while he's murdering Zombie! OR going for a barrel to chuck! It's like e's avein a fookin' wank!



That's better!

[rapoon]

Darkwood. top-down survival horror. fantastic game. not particularly scary, but extremely creepy.
btw, the developers released the game on misc torrent sites for free (to deter purchasing / selling keys).
unequivocally, one of the most unique gaming experiences I've had in a long time.


absolver - excellent combat, but it doesn't detract from the obnoxious $30 price tag. it's not worth more than $10 in it's current state.

[kaicooper]

now playing Satellite Reign
what a great remake for Syndicate Wars

[Sumez]

Catching up on my Dragon Quest backlog before XI comes out here next year, and I'm currently going through VIII.

... and I reached what appears to be "that one boss" for this game. I've seen people claim you can beat him on low levels, but the insane amount of damage he does to everyone in a single turn leaving me no way to heal it up in time seems to make it very luck dependent as I see it. Even just the fact that my only revive spell is entirely random (and to my experience works like 1 out of 10 times even though I recall it being 50/50 in every other game) makes it insanely frustrating. Gonna grind a few levels more, pack a couple of yggdrasil leaves and give it another try later tonight -_-

[wgogh]

Layla for the NES

I realised it could be worth mentioning here, since its not very well known. Layla is a red-headed space heroin, and Layla is also a action-plataformer with a variety of weapons to choose and great gameplay. You could say it is one of the more forgiving NES games (like, for example, Zelda or Mario). The game is pretty and simple, the weapon collecting being a nice addition. I havent got the time to go very far, so I can't say how difficult it can get. Mind that: You can't "Retry" if you die, you'll have to put the password for the stage or start from the beggining. I dont remember the story, but you'll be basically visiting planets and killing enemies by your gun or sword, while picking up bouncing ice creams that restores your healthbar. Its s-fiction, all right?

Between the planets you visit, there are bonus stages. You're jetpacking in the space from planet A to B in a horizontal shoot em up. (Just discoreved now that there's a rom hack where you play with her girlfriend Iris)

[Obiwanshinobi]

If you fall for the 8-bit female redheads, there's always The Wing of Madoola...

[wizkid]

been playing Capcom's Punisher, it's like Final Fight, but far more friendly and less tedious. Yesterday i got to Kingpin with a spare life, should clear it soon.

[lilmanjs]

Last game I played was Forza 4. My sister's router died and she got another one. Turns out it doesn't really work with the 360, so she bought an Xbox One S on sale for the back room. Gave me the 360 and let me have all my games, plus a couple she's gotten remastered versions of. Only able to play at night when everyone else in the house is asleep at this time though. Waiting on a a replacement cable to show up since at some point the original broke and nobody knew since they just used the hdmi port.

[wgogh]

If you fall for the 8-bit female redheads, there's always The Wing of Madoola...

Yeah, i remember that one. Never played myself though

been playing Capcom's Punisher, it's like Final Fight, but far more friendly and less tedious. Yesterday i got to Kingpin with a spare life, should clear it soon.

That game is the shit, specially for multiplayer.

[null1024]

Ninpen Manmaru [Saturn].
okay, the game really has just fallen into being maddeningly tricky 3D platforming with super-precise jumps
ended up cheesing the shit out of the start of the third stage by doing a high jump [jump three times in a row, the third jump will be higher and go farther] off of a tiny pole instead of doing the terribly dangerous normal method that I'd spent a good 20-30 minutes fucking up because the controls aren't amazing and it's a stupidly precise jump anyway.

the stage continued to fuck with me after beating that section, and I ended up just turning the machine off because holy shit fuck this game
It's not quite mechanically unsound [but it's super jank still], and it's a fairly decent looking Saturn game, but the stage design is just obnoxious now.
Isn't this based on a kids show? If I were a kid and got this game, I'd have broken a controller over it.

Sumez, Eternia's English dub is horrible, so you might want to mute the voices.

Eternia's English dub is hilarious.
like, holy shit Meredy's voice is something else in particular

I should go replay it at some point.

[M.Knight]

If you fall for the 8-bit female redheads, there's always The Wing of Madoola...

I've played both Layla and the Wing of Madoola for that reason! If you have other games that fall in the same category, I am all ears.

(Just discoreved now that there's a rom hack where you play with her girlfriend Iris)

Good catch! I had no idea such a thing even existed. I just gave it a try and it is like a whole new campaign with a tweaked weapon system, more puzzle-oriented stage layouts and a whole new soundtrack. There are additional changes such as removing the bonus stages and putting you back to a checkpoint on death instead of kicking you to the title screen. The slippery controls are similar though.
If you like Layla, I don't see a reason not to check that romhack out.

[wgogh]

If you fall for the 8-bit female redheads, there's always The Wing of Madoola...

I've played both Layla and the Wing of Madoola for that reason! If you have other games that fall in the same category, I am all ears.

(Just discoreved now that there's a rom hack where you play with her girlfriend Iris)

Good catch! I had no idea such a thing even existed. I just gave it a try and it is like a whole new campaign with a tweaked weapon system, more puzzle-oriented stage layouts and a whole new soundtrack. There are additional changes such as removing the bonus stages and putting you back to a checkpoint on death instead of kicking you to the title screen. The slippery controls are similar though.
If you like Layla, I don't see a reason not to check that romhack out.

The hack is pretty recent, actually. February, 2017.
I saw in videos that Iris can tag along in some sections of the original game, much like Tails. Interesting for a NES game, altough her sprite flickers, probably because of the NES sprite limit per frame. I may check out the rom hack after the original, which I'll play to relax after my Gunbird tries.
The slippery controls reminds me of Popful Mail, another good action plataform. So, no problem, I'm used to it.

[Marc]

About to abandon Resi 7 due to the terrible, terrible boss fights. I'm on Margeurite in the old house now and it's just pure bullet sponge shite. They're like Resi 4 boss fights, but with even less mobility and visibility than that.