What are you currently playing?

[SckizoBoy]

Finally getting around to Ghost of Tsushima - Tales of Iki Island DLC.

More of the same, and I don't mind (though I bit upset I accidentally deleted my all-collectables save). Though I prefer the foxes over the various animals of the island, 'cos they're cuter and more endearing. The flute-playing mini-game to complete each location is OK... if... odd.

 

[BrawlMan]

More of the same, and I don't mind (though I bit upset I accidentally deleted my all-collectables save).

I take it you did not have any back-up saves from PS+ or a USB?

 

[AnxietyProne]

Postal 2 on Hestonworld Difficulty and just a couple of audio mods. It's finally time to meet this head on...

 

[NerfedFalcon]

After waiting for an incompetent delivery service to deliver it to me, I've finally gotten my hands on Shin Megami Tensei 5, so that's what I'm going to be playing for the foreseeable future.

 

[Leg End]

Uuuhh, shit, lemme dig through the pile.


...Yeah, probably Pokemon Brilliant Diamond. Remake themes be boppin.

After waiting for an incompetent delivery service to deliver it to me, I've finally gotten my hands on Shin Megami Tensei 5, so that's what I'm going to be playing for the foreseeable future.

I'll finish P5 after Christmas, promise.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I take it you did not have any back-up saves from PS+ or a USB?

Nah, I'm a console scrub, my play time on it is pretty low (like, 1-2k hours overall, maybe?). It's fine, I'll live(!)

 

[Agema]

Stoneshard (Steam).

Roguelike, PC, indy, EA beta. Complicated mechanics, extremely slow development pace. In fact, it's got a lot of negative reviews just because it's taking so damn long to get done, and honestly I'm pretty sympathetic to those critics: it went into early access much, much too early. It's been 18 months in EA, and the current update is in my view what should have been the EA release - the one that went live early 2020 was little more than a tech demo. The obvious concern is if it took 18 months to get from there to here, how long will it take to finish? I shudder to think.

Thing is, it's actually pretty good.

 

[meiam]

Stoneshard (Steam).

Roguelike, PC, indy, EA beta. Complicated mechanics, extremely slow development pace. In fact, it's got a lot of negative reviews just because it's taking so damn long to get done, and honestly I'm pretty sympathetic to those critics: it went into early access much, much too early. It's been 18 months in EA, and the current update is in my view what should have been the EA release - the one that went live early 2020 was little more than a tech demo. The obvious concern is if it took 18 months to get from there to here, how long will it take to finish? I shudder to think.

Thing is, it's actually pretty good.

It has a ton of potential, but it's also feel pretty amateurish in so many aspect. Like you said, it went into EA way too soon, and even considering that development as been glacial, at this rate it won't be finished until 2025. There's still tons of of feature that aren't implemented, to the point where I'm wondering why they even bothered putting them in. Do they really need 8 magic trees when they only have 2 available years after release?

Other stuff are annoying too, having to manually check for trap all the time is just pointless and doesn't bring anything to the game. I don't really get what the point of the injury system is, other than forcing the player to carry 6+ healing items, which is just annoying inventory management. Having to find skill book to learn new skill just limit the player without bringing anything. And every update they go out of their way to make everything more complex, but none of it really bring depths. Now every limb has it's own defence stats, but you can't control which limb get hits in combat so it doesn't really bring anything to the system.

 

[Agema]

Other stuff are annoying too, having to manually check for trap all the time is just pointless and doesn't bring anything to the game. I don't really get what the point of the injury system is, other than forcing the player to carry 6+ healing items, which is just annoying inventory management. Having to find skill book to learn new skill just limit the player without bringing anything. And every update they go out of their way to make everything more complex, but none of it really bring depths. Now every limb has it's own defence stats, but you can't control which limb get hits in combat so it doesn't really bring anything to the system.

Yeah. I think the health management is annoying. I'm fine with the damaged limbs mechanic. But then you need something for the pain and that's toxic, so you need something for the toxicity, and something for the thing that deals with toxicity (hopefully just food/water), and bandages in case of bleeding... ugh. Plus looking after your morale and sanity. I'm probably using a third of my inventory just for basic food, drink and meds.

I don't normally search for traps though - generally spot them automatically. Of course, sometimes don't which is painful, but...

 

[Drathnoxis]

Stoneshard (Steam).

Roguelike, PC, indy, EA beta. Complicated mechanics, extremely slow development pace. In fact, it's got a lot of negative reviews just because it's taking so damn long to get done, and honestly I'm pretty sympathetic to those critics: it went into early access much, much too early. It's been 18 months in EA, and the current update is in my view what should have been the EA release - the one that went live early 2020 was little more than a tech demo. The obvious concern is if it took 18 months to get from there to here, how long will it take to finish? I shudder to think.

Thing is, it's actually pretty good.

Hmm, sounds interesting. Bookmarking this to play when it's finally finished.

 

[Bartholen]

I've been playing the combat challenge maps in Arkham City after I just wanted to play a simple combat game. And it's very satisfying. There's almost a zen-like quality to it when you really get in the flow and get those crazy long combos, effortlessly chaining different attacks and dodging enemies like Neo in the Matrix.

One map in the DLC however I feel is close to plain unfair, and that's the Joker's carnival one. It's basically a time attack survival mode where you have to keep a combo up so you can fill up a meter, and afer certain thresholds you can empty the meter for extra points and time.

The frustrating thing about it is that the medal thresholds for it are 100k, 500k and 1 million points, and if you get your combo broken even like twice you can kiss the two higher medals goodbye. A single hit completely resets the meter. Building it back up takes so much time, and you only start with 3 minutes, that a single mistake, a single input error, can completely ruin your attempt. If you don't get a good combo going in the first 30 seconds or so it's basically not worth it and you might as well restart. I haven't even gotten to 500k yet, it feels just impossible. The combat system in that game is one of the tightest ever designed, but even it has cracks, and if even a single one of those appears (which it will), your attempt is ruined. I feel that if getting hit didn't reset the meter, but only knocked it down a level or two might make it more balanced.

 

[EvilRoy]

Just finished Inscryption, which was a little perplexing to say the least. I can't say much without spoiling but the game starts out as a rougelike and then suddenly stops that and does something else for the last 2/3rds of the game.

And... like... The first part of the game was good, and then you go into this super meh situation, and then the third part of the game took the first part and changed up the system a bit and added some very interesting factors. But... well the rougelike aspect is sacrificed in the name of the story, and because of that the rougelike portion just isn't very hard or deep. The third part of the game adds a lot of depth, but its not a rougelike anymore, and it takes a different format than the first part.

I hate to say this but I really think the game would be a lot better by hacking up the story a bit. They have this ludo-narrative consonance thing going on which is laudable, but in order to keep the story going they really do a disservice to the actual gameplay. I wish they had leaned into the strength of their gameplay and tried to make the story work with that rather than the other way around.

As it is I enjoyed parts of this game, but I can't go back to them because I know that part 1 is too easy and a little shallow, and part 3 isn't going to have any significant variance in a separate playtough, and its also too easy but for story reasons this time. Maybe they'll add some DLC that makes it into a challenging rougelike. The cardgame they developed is legitimately good - it looks good, there are interesting mechanics and interactions, and depending on the 'deck' you're dealing with it has a huge amount of variety. Its just that they said fuck all that in favour of telling a story.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Just finished Inscryption, which was a little perplexing to say the least. I can't say much without spoiling but the game starts out as a rougelike and then suddenly stops that and does something else for the last 2/3rds of the game.

And... like... The first part of the game was good, and then you go into this super meh situation, and then the third part of the game took the first part and changed up the system a bit and added some very interesting factors. But... well the rougelike aspect is sacrificed in the name of the story, and because of that the rougelike portion just isn't very hard or deep. The third part of the game adds a lot of depth, but its not a rougelike anymore, and it takes a different format than the first part.

I hate to say this but I really think the game would be a lot better by hacking up the story a bit. They have this ludo-narrative consonance thing going on which is laudable, but in order to keep the story going they really do a disservice to the actual gameplay. I wish they had leaned into the strength of their gameplay and tried to make the story work with that rather than the other way around.

As it is I enjoyed parts of this game, but I can't go back to them because I know that part 1 is too easy and a little shallow, and part 3 isn't going to have any significant variance in a separate playtough, and its also too easy but for story reasons this time. Maybe they'll add some DLC that makes it into a challenging rougelike. The cardgame they developed is legitimately good - it looks good, there are interesting mechanics and interactions, and depending on the 'deck' you're dealing with it has a huge amount of variety. Its just that they said fuck all that in favour of telling a story.

I've been meaning to play this since I played Pony Island a couple months ago because it's the same dev. Now that you've played it, I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and do it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Suddenly got a bit nauseous of AAA games, so I downloaded a bunch smaller games I once took a crack at but never got too far into. So I've been playing Snake Pass, Bugsnax, and A Hat in Time.

I had played a bunch of Snake Pass a few years back and I remember really quite liking it, but playing it again now I'm kinda stunned by how terrific, and unique, and fun this game is. It's so easy to get swept up in more "exciting" games, but slithering around as a snake and climbing jungle gyms with what are some pretty effortless controls is the kind of fun that's really missing from most games, AAA and indie.

And Bugsnax is surprisingly captivating. You see all these big-eyed muppets so you think it's just gonna be a some childish wackiness, but some of them are suffering under the weight of expectations, or feeling smoothered by relationships. Great voice work by the way.

 

[Ezekiel]

Was able to fix the save bug in Jet Set Radio, but lost my 100% save file, so I'm redoing it. Just need to find two more Graffiti Souls and finish all the Jet Technique and Jet Graffiti modes. It's a very easy game to complete.

I noticed the first achievement is broken. Seems I never unlocked it and apparently can't. But I'm not doing this for the achievements anyway. Didn't need them on Dreamcast.

Edit: Oh, I always incorrectly assumed the tutorial was the beginning with Tab and Gum. But it's something in the main menu even more excruciating.

 

[Piscian]

I finished Suikoden: Woven web of centuries a couple minutes ago. Solid game like an 8/10. Very surprised it very made it over to the west in any form. I was very hooked into the story which involves a lot of time travel. Dont worry I'm not spoiling anything that literally the premise of the game.



No idea if all the suikoden games are like that as this is the first one I've played (dont spoil it for me lol.). I took a ton of footage, since there's not a lot of review content out there for it I'm gonna post/upload a spoiler free review for it in a week or so and post it here for those interested. Theres only one solid review I could find on youtube and I had to cut it off midway through because he spoils the shit out of the game, unfortunately.

 

[EvilRoy]

I've been meaning to play this since I played Pony Island a couple months ago because it's the same dev. Now that you've played it, I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and do it.

Its definitely worth a play, just keep in mind that its part of a linear narrative rather than a cyclical rougelike game. I think I would have enjoyed it more if my expectations were more in line with the nature of the game.

 

[gorfias]

Got to get my butt in gear. OShape on Oculus. Luckilly no one saw me playing. I'd never hear the end of it.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Forza Horizon 4, and cripes does the intro know how to build hype and draw you in while giving you a taste of the game's breadth.

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[BrawlMan]

OOHOHHOHOHOHOHOH! I finally got past level 34 on Mr. X's Nightmare! I died on level 38! Anything past level 30 and the game becomes cheap (spamming overpowered boss characters), and the only way to win is with luck, spamming the best moves with elemental attacks, having at least 3x's the powered up rocket summons, and sometimes having a partner that is good. I did this solo with Max Fucking Thunder!


I think I am done with Survival Mode for now. Until that final patch comes and fixes the broken difficulty in this mode.

@Worgen and @Ezekiel, how far y'all go in Survival Mode?