What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Mortal Kombat X - I really like this one so far. Need to put some more time in.

Rainbow Six Siege - I'm enjoying this one so far. Pretty unique spin on the typical FPS. Does kind of get repetitive after a while.

Earth Defense Force 4.1 - I couldn't get into these on 360. But I'm getting into this one for some reason. The lack of slowdown does make it a lot more playable.

[MRydralle]

Outside of shmups there are the fighting games I play - Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, BlazBlue Chronophantasma Extend, Dengeki Bunko FIGHTING CLIMAX IGNITION.

And outside of STGs AND FGs, I'm about to start the Ys series.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

I think Origin's Yunica Nightmare is harder than Oath's Nightmare and possibly even Inferno. The other 2 characters in Origin are generally easier, though there's some tough moments for all 3 of them on different bosses. Yunica isn't too bad early game, but all the late game bosses pretty much suck for her.


But I'd really suggest picking up all the Ys games on Steam. They're all pretty good for the most part. Gurumin as well. I don't think any of the Falcom games on Steam at the moment are actually bad.



As for me, I've been playing a lot of Tobari and the Night of the Curious Moon which I had gotten back during the Steam sale. Very nice doujin platformer that combines some elements from Mario and Kirby games. Main game wasn't too difficult and Ex gave me some trouble, but I could probably do most of the Ex stages now without too much trouble.

I'm on Vs. Desunoya now which is a second Ex World. Quite a bit of variety in these levels. First was an auto level, second was kind of annoying with how you have to finish the level. Third was a pretty neat test of using the Sword ability, but it wasn't too bad outside of 2 stupidly precise jumps which were thankfully right by each other. 4th one wasn't too bad either. 5th was nice too due to what you have to do to get the abilities to where you actually need them. 6th was a farming stage to get lots of lives and coins for the final stage.

The final stage, I haven't played too far into yet. But I can tell it's going to be a pain to clear. I can enter it with 999 lives, but game overing on the level will send you back to the start of the level and not to whatever checkpoint you were at(this is the case for any level though). It took me over 500 lives just to clear the first room of it because of a bunch of precise jumps(but I wasn't seriously trying yet). The second room autoscrolls right and has pretty much the entire floor as a disappearing floor if you step on them, then once you reach the end, you have to get an ability then it autoscrolls to the left to go back to the start so that you can open the path to the door out, so better not have stepped on too much of the floor during the first autoscroll. I haven't managed to even finish the first half of this room yet.

I've also seen some video of the later rooms. And it gets even worse not to mention the boss fight at the end. Oh, and before the room with the checkpoint before the boss, there's a guess the door with 16 doors. 1 of these is correct(I think, it could maybe be more since the vid doesn't show all of them), the others drop you into a pit . I'll definitely be glad when I make it there due to watching the video just because I won't have to deal with that BS.

[JBC]

Resident Evil Zero would have been just as great as 1-3 if they hadn't taken away the item boxes & separated you from your partner without warning.

If your other character has all your best items & they go missing, wtf are you supposed to do about the boss they throw at you?

Nevertheless, I've managed to get by so far & have just popped the Proto-Tyrant. I've spent the majority of the game backtracking in order to haul my stockpile around, which seems to have the negative side-effect of ruining the atmosphere.

I played through this game at release & remember enjoying it a lot more. The PS4 version is prettier during gameplay but none of the cinemas seem to have been cleaned up or upscaled at all for HDTV, so they look like grainy shit. It's really cheapened the experience for me & I think I'll stick to the GC/Wii versions after I try the new Wesker mode.

A+ atmosphere & presentation
C- gameplay design
D haphazard port

[blackoak]

I've been zoning out on Nuclear Throne... great game so far. I'm no roguelike connoisseur, but every character feels viable and sufficiently differentiated in playstyle. It seems like it'd be easier with mouse+keyboard, but I'm enjoying it with a 360 controller.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Purachased a physical copy of Shadowgrounds: Survivor, installed it and play some. Got overambitious with graphics settings so the framerate on my oldboy of a PC would hit single digits all the time, but it was surprisingly fun for a while even under those conditions. Way stronger beginning than the original Shadowgrounds, that, considering it plays - mechanically - pretty much the same is very commendable.

The reason why everybody here should play either Shadowgrounds game is - the game engine really adds to the experience. Real-time lighting and complex physics are never merely for the show here and in this sense the game is more ambitious than most "2.5D" retro endeavours. More vintage genres could use this kind update. The latest I can think of was Lost in Shadow/A Shadow's Tale and I think even amateur game devs must admit this kind of ambition is rarely seen.

[lilmanjs]

Purachased a physical copy of Shadowgrounds: Survivor, installed it and play some. Got overambitious with graphics settings so the framerate on my oldboy of a PC would hit single digits all the time, but it was surprisingly fun for a while even under those conditions. Way stronger beginning than the original Shadowgrounds, that, considering it plays - mechanically - pretty much the same is very commendable.

The reason why everybody here should play either Shadowgrounds game is - the game engine really adds to the experience. Real-time lighting and complex physics are never merely for the show here and in this sense the game is more ambitious than most "2.5D" retro endeavours. More vintage genres could use this kind update. The latest I can think of was Lost in Shadow/A Shadow's Tale and I think even amateur game devs must admit this kind of ambition is rarely seen.

I've only installed the first game, but I have both bought from GOG. Exciting games they are. I die quite a lot but this post makes me want to get back to it.

[Stevens]

Sega Ages 2500(?) has a pretty good twin stick version of Alien Syndrome. It's not 2084, but good fun nonetheless.

The setting is ripped straight from Hadleys Hope, and some of the bosses are pretty macabre.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Sega Ages 2500(?) has a pretty good twin stick version of Alien Syndrome. It's not 2084, but good fun nonetheless.

The setting is ripped straight from Hadleys Hope, and some of the bosses are pretty macabre.

It's on the US version of Sega Classics Collection, but Apocalypse for PSX, Gauntlet Dark Legacy (when "Robotron style" controls chosen) and two NighCaster games for the first Xbox predate that PS2 Alien Syndrome remake on consoles.

As for this kind of mouse & keyboard controls on compuers, I like Zax: The Alien Hunter and would like to know about eariler such game engines (other than Crimsonland).

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Okay got to the boss of Vs. Desunoya in Tobari and the Night of the Curious Moon.

The door thing isn't actually a guess thing since there's hints that say something like 7th, from the right (and I couldn't get the third one cause I was focused on trying to get the next checkpoint. But I'm guessing the third one mentioned the other tip needed to get the right door, which I knew anyway.


This time it took me around 500 lives to get to the boss instead of the around 500 just to get past the first room.


I gave the boss quite a bit of tries but just couldn't manage a win yet. There's pretty much no way you'll game over on it, you're more likely to just quit because you've been playing way too long. At least that's what happened this time. It would have taken many more hours to lose the rest of the 400+ lives I had left.

I wanted to screenshot most if not all of the preboss conversation but for some reason screenshotting that game in Steam at the moment just makes it where you can't see anything until you restart the game. I've used the screenshot feature before, so I obviously waited until I was done playing for tonight before screencapping the boss's dialogue about the stages being made explicitly to get the player to give up. Though there was some other nice lines in the conversation.


I'll keep trying eventually. I don't think the level itself is that bad now except for that part that has both ice and wind. I've gotten to the final phase of the boss a few times, but usually I die on the one before it. I need to get good at dealing with the fight. There also seems to be an achievement for destroying the evil staff roll, which I'm guessing is the thing that tries to block your view in that fight later that I never actually made it to that part of the map. I may need to hold back on offense so that the boss stays in its easier phase if I want to go for that one then go for the boss kill later.

[Blinge]

La Mulana: I've finally opened the last chest in Gate of Guidance and I can't tell you how good that feels. It'd been taunting me for so long..

I was stuck for a couple of weeks, the thing that held me up for the longest was

Spoiler

Illusion Gate

and full disclosure: I asked Shep for a little hint..

At this point I have some problems with the game; firstly the amount of riddles is kinda ridiculous. I understand that's the crux of the game but certain things are cryptic just for the sake of being cryptic. Like an over indulgent piece of writing that gorges itself on the longest and most confusing words possible, at the expense of impact, flow, enjoyment. I'm no game designer though, and I don't see how it could've been done differently, to tone down the mystery factor at all would stop the game being La Mulana.

Some posters here or elsewhere, I forget, insist that every puzzle is logical and able to be worked out from the clues given to you. This isn't true for every puzzle. For instance:

Spoiler

I found the Axe behind a random destructible wall, and nothing pointed me to it. I've yet to find a single clue talking about the axe.

Also Lemeza plays like shit. I feel like some of the bosses/midbosses require decent movement to fight effectively. For the things asked of the player, you should be able to move as well as Alucard in SoTN at least.

[Shepardus]

Nice, glad to hear you got through that. The hints I gave you weren't too bad either (it was mostly just telling you to search more carefully or have the game call you a fool), and it was for the most illogical area in La-Mulana too. If I remember correctly one of the items you get in that area (either from killing the miniboss or something else from around the vicinity, I don't recall) is critical for opening up another area which in turn contains another item critical for opening up another area, so that's a pretty important step in La-Mulana.

I've been slowing down quite a bit on La-Mulana myself. Figured out a couple days ago how to make the Ankh appear in the Twin Labyrinths, so I did that and defeated the guardian of that area. Only have two of the guardians left, but I'm running out of places to go where I'm not utterly stuck and I still haven't uncovered entrances to two of the areas which are critical to reaching those guardians. I'm also still looking for the software to enable warping to the alternate areas, and the software to control fairy spawns. As a side note, either my memory is faulty or they changed how you're supposed to use the key fairy to solve a certain puzzle, so I still need to hope for some more key fairy spawns to investigate that. At least the remake actually tells you about the existence of key fairies.

I thought I was going to get somewhere with the Tower of the Goddess, but found my paths blocked by two goddess statues and I don't remember how I got past that in the original. I did already

Spoiler

take the secret passage from the Mausoleum of the Giants to the Spring in the Sky and opened up a hole for the water to flow into the Tower of the Goddess

, but I think there's more to it that I don't remember as it only had part of the effect I thought it would have. That also seems to have

Spoiler

spawned the two lift-like minibosses traveling up and down the tower, which I destroyed, but the toy plane didn't appear as I remember from the original, so clearly there's something I've missed (and maybe it was changed from the original, but I don't remember this part well). There's also a level on the tower that has what appears to be the silhouette of a door to an NPC, but this door is unusable right now.

All curious stuff, but it leaves me with frustratingly few options except to figure out what it is I missed. I actually had a brief glance at the wiki to make sure I didn't accidentally lock myself out of anything permanently (there's a couple of these, most notably the whip upgrades, but it turns out I was just being paranoid; in my first hour I actually lost the map to the Temple of the Sun and also confirmed this through the wiki, leading me to restart), and I saw enough to know that I had missed something in the Tower of the Goddess (as if my lack of progress didn't make that abundantly clear already), but didn't stay long enough to see what it is I need to do. Gotta figure that out myself!

[Ruldra]

It feels tempting to check the wiki when you're stuck, but you'll just end up reading more than you intend to and spoil yourself about another puzzle. Avoid it like the plague if you really want to stay spoiler-free.

I need to get back to La Mulana eventually, but yeah, I'm completely stuck as well. I already revisited all the rooms multiple times and re-read most of the tablets but still can't seem to find what I'm missing.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Shadowgrounds: Survivor comes with a level editor and some videos presumably explaining how to use it. You can tell the devs wanted more to be done with their lovely game engine. If I had a computer to do it justice, I'd try my hand at it.

[broken harbour]

Been playing Grim Fandango Remastered on my PS4.

I really, really loved this game back in 1998, and the fact that I can play it again feels really good. With the slightly better lighting engine of the remastered version, it doesn't look dated at all... and it's still really funny. I fully intend to play this to the end, what a great game.

Actually been on a Tim Schafer kick lately, tried to play Psychonauts on my Xbox a few weeks ago but had a really hard time getting into it. It has near universal critical acclaim so I'll definitely have to try again once I finish GF.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Actually been on a Tim Schafer kick lately, tried to play Psychonauts on my Xbox a few weeks ago but had a really hard time getting into it. It has near universal critical acclaim so I'll definitely have to try again once I finish GF.

The playable character animations are poor for no good reason and the first boss I encountered wasn't fun to fight.

[Squire Grooktook]

Finished Trails In The Sky - First Chapter over the weekend, moved on to Second Chapter.

This trilogy definitely adds up to favorite RPG. And probably the best "character focused" game for me. I'm not sure if the plot itself is going to reach the level of endearment as the characters (I'm told it doesn't quite), but the characters and best moments are certainly more then enough to make this numero uno in my book.

As for the gameplay, I'm glad they turned up the complexity right away in SC by making the early bosses a bit harder and letting you keep all your old crafts, alongside the new mechanics. The initial dungeon seemed a bit more crafty too, hopefully this keeps up.

-

I also decided I'd pick up Trails of Cold Steel later, since I've heard good things about it as well, and I'd like more of this series/world. It doesn't look quite as interesting as Trails in The Sky did initially (the art, premise, and characters all look a bit more "anime" to me), but I hear it's got a similarly endearing script, and I'm eager to see more of the battle system as well. Not sure when I'll play it though. I'd like to finish Trails first, but who knows when Third Chapter will get localized.

[Shepardus]

It feels tempting to check the wiki when you're stuck, but you'll just end up reading more than you intend to and spoil yourself about another puzzle. Avoid it like the plague if you really want to stay spoiler-free.

Yeah I agree, I was already lucky that I only saw stuff that I already vaguely remember from the original game. Definitely wouldn't recommend it at all to someone playing the game for the first time.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Co-oping Guacamelee: Super Turbo Whatever Edition with my sister. Fun game that's fairly dedicated to its aesthetic, but I feel like a lot more work went into the platforming challenges than the combat. The platforming is usually consequence-free as far as falling into a pit goes, and I feel like I did a lot of this in Outland already, but they've had some interesting stuff. Meanwhile, combat is basically attack- attack, attack->grab->suplex->repeat for 95% of the enemy roster. They have different attack patterns, but that doesn't mean much when suplex* shockwaves knock everyone on their ass repeatedly. Colored-shield enemies break things up a little, but I feel that was a pretty boring way of doing that. Also, the enemy gauntlets seem very dedicated to symmetry, always spawning the same number of each enemy type on both sides of the room, but maybe this is because we're playing co-op?
Either way, I wish there were more moments where the enemies and the platforming existed alongside each other. At this point I've only seen them do that about 3 times maybe. Usually it's dedicated gauntlet rooms or they are placed on a continuous stretch of ground between points of interest and you can just roll through them if you don't want to be bothered. Yanno, I remember thinking this exact same thing about Muramasa: the Demon Blade.
ps: the Shadow Swap thing you can do with R1/RB is a fucking god-send for co-op. Good on them for thinking of it.
*fun fact: Microsoft Edge's spell-checker doesn't recognize "suplex" as a word.

[Marc]

Yeah, I abandoned it around halfway through for exactly the same reasons. Just became really repetitive, much as I liked it aesthetically. Much preferred Outland.

[Immryr]

I'm just about finished yakuza 4 now. really enjoyed the story and characters, the rest of the game is kind of repetitive and not all that great. I still enjoyed it enough to want to play more of the series though.

[soprano1]

Super Mario 64 DS. Even if it's not quite like the original, i can now understand why everyone over here decided to get a N64 when Sega ruled for so long. Level design and music is top notch.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Installed Mashed: Fully Loaded on a fresh system and played it for far longer than intended. I wonder why since Micro Machines series there hasn't been a single HUGELY successful game of this sub-genre... I've yet to meet a person who wouldn't enjoy Mashed, so make it GTA-like if you must and let the drivers travel by foot, but if any this- or next-gen console had such a sweet gem of an exclusive, I'd be seriously tempted to buy it.

Making progress in Ninja Gaiden Sigma, I'm liking the difficulty (way of the Ninja?) just fine for my first 3D NG.

[null1024]

Some buddies of mine started playing Blade and Soul [PC], so I decided to pick it up.
It's okay. Made a Force Master [ranged caster class].
Wish the load times between areas and the initial game load wasn't so awful, it's really bad for no apparent reason.

running it on this laptop is also a bit poor, it gets a somewhat consistent 20fps, need to build a desktop at some point

[cicada88]

Beat Rockman 3 onto 4 tonight.

Funny thing is I find out Mega Man Legacy collection is getting a 3DS release next month, so I preordered the gold amiibo version of that. Literally the first time I've preordered a game in decades.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Got back into Super Meat Boy and finished the game with 106% on Steam. I had gotten Golden God on the 360 version, but had never finished all the glitch girl levels on that version to max the percentage.

Also got all the chapter speedrun achievements for the chapters that have them.

I'm now trying to get as many of the no death achievements as I can. I already have Light Forest, Light Hospital, Light Salt Factory, Light Hell, Light Rapture, Light End, Dark Forest, and Dark Hospital.

I've been practicing up for Dark Salt Factory, and it seems reasonable. I do have consistent strats for the levels, just need to get them all in a row without messing any of them up. So much can go wrong when you're trying to perfectly do 20 levels in a row.


Dark Hell, Dark Rapture, Dark End, and both Cotton Alleys look very hard and I don't think I could possibly get all of them(but maybe I'll manage it, maybe not).

[Blinge]

That's impressive man, well done.
I wanna get into meat boy achievements someday, I've only cleared lightworld so far. I can't remember if I ever beat that awful warpzone as The Kid...

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Managed Dark Salt Factory and Dark Hell no death runs.

I pretty much switch between Meat Boy and the Kid for doing these. Sometimes I'll switch to Ogmo, Flywrench, or Viridian if I think their abilities better suit the level.


I've been grinding Light Cotton Alley for a few hours, and my best so far is 15/20 levels before dying. And that's using pause then exit to map if I notice I make a mistake before it kills me(though obviously that's not always going to happen with how fast things can happen). Hate the fact that I haven't managed to get the no death of this chapter yet(to finish all the Light Worlds with no deaths), especially since my strats for the levels are mostly solid now(outside of 7-7 which is pretty much luck for me, but pause/exit can save things, 7-15 at one part, and 7-16), just need to not mess it up.


Once I finally manage to no death Cotton Alley Light World, I'll go for End Dark World since with only 5 levels, it shouldn't be bad. Dark Rapture and Dark Cotton Alley both look like a total pain to go for, and I haven't even started trying to practice those 2 yet.


Edit: Managed the no death Cotton Alley. Had to exit levels a few times due to screw ups. The previous worlds I had pretty much run in order(it might not have been 1-20 depending on where the last run died), but it was still in order. Here I made sure to do all the hard levels first, but I still almost screwed up some easy stuff as well as having to exit to map on them. These no death runs are definitely exciting to go for, so much satisfaction when you manage it, but also very frustrating.


Dark End didn't prove too bad either. I started with 5 cause it's the hardest. For me, I think it then went 2, 4, 1, 3 after that in terms of difficulty. After 5, I just went through 1-4 in that order despite it putting some of the harder levels near the end. Once I finished 4 getting the achievement, I figured why not try 5 again since it doesn't matter, then no deathed the level again, so i could say I did this one in order as well.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Having once erased all of data stored on my PS3, I started Demon's Souls afresh, as a Wanderer class character again. This time after Phalanx, I entered Tower of Latria in hope to keep it substantially different from the original run of mine. "One more go" compulsion is there, but I remain in "am I even enjoying myself?" questioning mode.
At this point of my lifecycle, I find questions like that most alienating.

It has to be said - Tower of Latria resembles the beginning of Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy to me. Could I be itching to revisit the latter on PC instead? Perhaps the ragdoll physics do it for me...

[Squire Grooktook]

I find myself asking questions like that a lot too, especially in the last year or so.

Lately I've come to feel that true "heart pounding excitement" or a sense of "joy" or whatever you care to find from a game, is completely unpredictable. It's possible to play a game a thousand times and feel nothing, and then suddenly be on the edge of your seat one day.

As a result, I try to force myself not to worry about such things anymore. I try to maintain an easy going attitude and enjoy what I can tangibly discern ("this looks cool", "this feels cool", etc.) and be patient when waiting for the exciting, joyful, or awe inspiring moments to come. They usually do some time or other.