What are you currently playing?

[sXeth]

Tribes of Midgard, free on the PSPlus this month/


Seems like it could be decent, albeit grindy. A sort of mishmash of a roguelike/Diablo and a survival game where enemies attack each night and every few days a boss wanders in.


I think they may have vastly over-estimated the capability of most players to form a 10 player lobby and actually co-operate and share resources and explore and harvest the map in any coherent fashion though.



Salt and Sacrifice is in the download queue now too

 

[Chupathingy]

Shadow Hearts: From the New World.

The gameplay so far is still mostly the same, with some improvements here and there, though the story and cast aren't quite as compelling or likeable as the previous two games. It's definitely not the horrible travesty people online make it out to be.

 

[meiam]

Shadow Hearts: From the New World.

The gameplay so far is still mostly the same, with some improvements here and there, though the story and cast aren't quite as compelling or likeable as the previous two games. It's definitely not the horrible travesty people online make it out to be.

It's an okay game, even as a few interesting stuff, but it definitely felt like a step back after 2.

In related news, there might be a bit of hope for a port

Universal Entertainment trademarks Shadow Hearts in Japan

Universal Entertainment filed a trademark for “Shadow Hearts” on April 27 in Japan, which was made public on May 11.

www.gematsu.com

 

[Chimpzy]

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Haven't gotten far, I'm still in the prologue/tutorial. But I'm liking it so far. The plot kinda throws a lot at you all at once. In the span of an hour I got giant mecha, time travel, extradimensional kaiju invaders, terminals to a meta-system tho not sure what that means exactly, multiple pov characters from multiple time periods, and all of it told non-linearly, oh and a talking cat. If the goal was to provide a mystery to draw you in, then good job Vanillaware, you have my attention (and my curiosity). Seems to draw from a lot of inspirations, the mecha/kaiju genre in general of course, but bears the most resemblance to Pacific Rim with some Neon Genesis Evangelion sprinkled in, and maybe a little Bokurano (tho I don't expect it'll become as fucked up as that manga. Or maybe it will).

Anyway, looks great, of course. Got that trademark gorgeous Vanillaware sprite work. Maybe not as crisp as it would be on PS4/5 or PC, image has a bit of softness to it , which I think actually works well for this art style. Runs fine enough too, tho it is not the kind of game that is really dependent on good framerates. And yes, I'm playing on Switch, in case you're wondering. If you're on the fence about this game due to worries about port quality and are willing to take my word for it: I don't feel like I'm playing a gimped version.

@Dalisclock, I remember you asking me to share my thoughts. It's more first impressions, but here they are.

 

[Dalisclock]

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Haven't gotten far, I'm still in the prologue/tutorial. But I'm liking it so far. The plot kinda throws a lot at you all at once. In the span of an hour I got giant mecha, time travel, extradimensional kaiju invaders, terminals to a meta-system tho not sure what that means exactly, multiple pov characters from multiple time periods, and all of it told non-linearly, oh and a talking cat. If the goal was to provide a mystery to draw you in, then good job Vanillaware, you have my attention (and my curiosity). Seems to draw from a lot of inspirations, the mecha/kaiju genre in general of course, but bears the most resemblance to Pacific Rim with some Neon Genesis Evangelion sprinkled in, and maybe a little Bokurano (tho I don't expect it'll become as fucked up as that manga. Or maybe it will).

Anyway, looks great, of course. Got that trademark gorgeous Vanillaware sprite work. Maybe not as crisp as it would be on PS4/5 or PC, image has a bit of softness to it , which I think actually works well for this art style. Runs fine enough too, tho it is not the kind of game that is really dependent on good framerates. And yes, I'm playing on Switch, in case you're wondering. If you're on the fence about this game due to worries about port quality and are willing to take my word for it: I don't feel like I'm playing a gimped version.

@Dalisclock, I remember you asking me to share my thoughts. It's more first impressions, but here they are.

I have it for the PS4, but haven't played it. And apparently the PS4 version got updated to sync it up to the Switch version content-wise, so that's good. The plan is to jump into it once i'm done with ER, which hopefully will be in the next two weeks(since I've reached the ER late game). Depends on how much I want to do beyond the critical path at this point.

 

[sXeth]

Salt and Sacrifice.

It is has built on the original in some, interesting ways.

Starting out, multiplayer is a thing. And vastly more streamlined and inutitive then its Soulsbornering cousin. Strictly opt in though, so you can disregard the red phantoms even while doing it.

Theres a grapply hook though, though its entirely based on predefined hooks, so its more of a novelty.


It's also expanded its repetoire of influences to include Monster Hunter, with the elemetnal mages you hunt (And their summoned minions) dropping materials you use to make new armour and weapons. Which.... I'll withold judgement and see how it goes. It really depends how solid the fights involved are, how well that works out.

There's also 3 charm slots (offensive, defensive, and utility) which are your straight Diablo esque randomzied loot with varying modifiers and rarities that tend to drop off bosses and elite enemies.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I played and finished two very short Metroidvanias this past week, Xeodrifter and Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight.

Xeodrifter, much like Axiom Verge, is pretty much just Metroid. Didn't even bother to change the red bubbles that make up most of the cave textures or the blobs that make up most of the alien life. The twist to the formula is that there's exactly one boss, and every time you fight the thing it adds a new move to its repertoire (roughly corresponding to whatever power pickup you acquired last). Basically you face off against an ever-evolving lone boss to the point you slowly become an expert at fighting it, which is a neat idea for a first act but becomes repetitive over the whole game. It doesn't help the repetition that most of the progress in the game is contained to finding boss rooms, which are the only places in the game where you are granted a checkpoint (before and after the fight) as well as a new ability. Everything in between feels like a chore - especially the trek AFTER the fight, which is usually just as long as the first trip instead but now you're essentially plodding back to the level select.

I do like how they handle the upgrades. You have a single pew pew gun for the whole game but you can customize it with upgrade points by allotting them to different specs (firepower, speed, spread and what boils down to accuracy). It's nice you can respec everything at any point and that you can also save different builds for your gun, although I only ever needed the one. I also enjoyed most of the new abilities I'd get from the boss fights. My favorite came as a complete suprise and it changed the whole way I was playing and looking at the game, so I'd rather not spoil it.

Momodora: Pretentious Subtitle is leaning more on Castlevania. The order in which you explore the castle isn't as heavily gated as your progress through Xeodrifter, so I guess it's a better fit for the genre. It's also markedly longer too, though both games have trophies for speedrunning them under one hour. You play a priestess from a faraway land seeking an audience with a cursed queen over a deadly plague and meet a bunch of tortured characters on their own pointless quests along the way, all very Souls-y. My problem with this, on top of being done to death, is that 95% of NPCs, enemies and bosses are all cutesy waifus and screeching lolis and cat-eared DeviantArt rejects. One minute you're running around the game's morbid equivalent of the Tower of Latria and the next you're fighting a giant monster girl by hitting her jiggling tits with a maple leaf. I dunno. It's not even a Japanese game (made in Brazil) so it all feels especially gratuitous.

The game is hard as hell at the beginning. You take damage like you're made from the discarded tissues of whoever designed the art for the game, the checkpoints are few and far apart, and the game has a tendency of spawning enemies who will attack you with deadly accuracy without even being on screen. Avoiding attacks is finicky as hell even as you start off with a double jump (slow, puny, not very useful in general). Enemy attacks tend to arc in a way you can't even jump over them; you're supposed to roll past an enemy but the hitboxes make it so you'll probably take damage doing so. And for the most part you're not really upgrading your stats but equipping items with active or passive effects of varying usefulness.

I was on my way to hating the game until something clicked and I started liking it by using absolutely everything the game offered my way. Sounds like an obvious epiphany but most games will give you more tools to work with than you really need. You never really need or use EVERY gun and EVERY move and EVERY trinket you pick up. With Momodora I found myself implementing every "optional" novelty the game would throw my way and learning to depend on it, and I like that feeling of growth in a Metroidvania, and the feeling of becoming better at something rather than facing something incrementally more difficult.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Fifth boss in Rogue Legacy 2 down. One more to go before the grand finale. Currently at level 118, and I've stopped worrying about being overleveled so much because the game is getting a lot more difficult in the latest few regions. Still really enjoying it, especially with the late-game classes (Bard is kinda iffy though).

Also been playing a game called Dorfromantik, which is an extremely relaxed 'city-builder' where you lay down tiles so that their edges match with other tiles to score points. Then you have to create regions of a certain size to get more tiles and extend your game, and it can get pretty intricate trying to balance small areas with large ones, bring them in together, finding the perfect tile to fit in a hole. There's a high skill ceiling to it despite its simple appearance, and I'm enjoying learning the nuances of it.

 

[Bartholen]

Finally managed to snag myself a PS5 and got into Elden Ring immediately. Yep, it's great. I'm about 8 hours in and just faced Godrick for the first time. I wasn't really that interested in the open world aspect necessarily, I'm enjoying myself way more in the labyrinthine dungeon crawl that is Stormveil Keep. The map so far (I'm assuming about 10% of the whole game world) doesn't feel that dynamic or interesting, but I've already crossed into unmapped areas that look way more interesting. Looking forward to it.

 

[laggyteabag]

Just playing Mass Effect 2 at the moment, and I just came to the realisation that I am pretty much stuck in the 360/PS3 generation of games.

Pretty much everything that I play these days, seems to have released during the peak of the 7th Gen of consoles.

This year alone, I have played through the original Modern Warfare games, the Batman Arkham games, the BioShock trilogy, and now I'm part way through the Mass Effect trilogy again. Add to that my constant replays of the Bungie era Halo games, and I find myself stuck in and around the early 2010s.

Last year wasn't that much different, either.

I never really understood the people who would proclaim that older games were just better, but now I find myself thinking the same thing: they just don't make games like they used to.

A lot of games these days come out unfinished and buggy, or more intent on selling you something, than anything else. Even a lot of slightly older, but still supported games are finding themselves on the adverse end of an update that breaks more than it adds.

I just like the safety of these modern classics, it seems.

Who knew the age of the grey/brown FPS/cover-based shooter would be my era?

 

[Bartholen]

About 13 hours into Elden Ring and I'm utterly in love. Absolutely worth the 600 € I paid for the PS5 and the 6-hour train journey. Not since Witcher 3 have I felt so engulfed by a game. I must have spent at least an hour just trying to find the maps for Liurnia (not finding a single one), but I didn't mind because the traversal mechanics are just so good. The dungeon crawling is every bit as good as the rest of the series, the bosses are wild and crazy (if a bit cheeseable on horseback) and the game looks absolutely goddamn jaw-dropping. I got to felt like a special boy for beating both Margit and Godrick on my second attempts at each. Also for the first time in the series torches actually matter! It's a small thing, but it adds so much to the atmosphere and the feeling of exploring dangerous, unknown places. When this generation of consoles wraps up, if this isn't featured on every list of the best games of the generation then we're in for absolutely phenomenal games.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Also for the first time in the series torches actually matter!

Dark Souls 2 wants a word.

 

[BrawlMan]

Since I got my PS4 back, it's been running mostly quiet. I already dusted off my entire area, before plugging everything back in. DMC5 is running smooth, and the PS4 is nowhere close to loud as it was before. No overhears, and no interruptions. I'll still take it easy, but I'll make sure to start doing a quick wipe of my PS4 and TV stand every other day. Anything to help. I might try hard mode on NG3RZ, out of curiosity.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Playing another Metroidvania from Brazil, called Dandara.

The twist is that you move around not by walking or jumping but by bouncing off colored tiles that make up only a fraction of the surface in each room. It's a pretty novel system - you essentially zip and ping pong around rooms like a human projectile, usually while trying to figure out the way out one room and into another. Since the level design is pretty labyrinthine and each room sort of reorients itself, the map quickly becomes meaningless and it's super easy to get lost, but the exploration is still a lot of fun and rewards you decently.

The combat kinda sours the experience though. One or two enemies are fine to deal with, but following the first boss all manner of bullet hell breaks loose. Suddenly you're dealing with homing lasers and mobile turrets and barrages of enemies, and because your own attack takes some charging you'll be too busy avoiding damage while not being able to inflict any. If you get hit you become untethered from whatever platform you were standing on and unable to move away from danger until you zip back; it's easy to get stunlocked during the process of trying to recover your footing only to get shot again and on and on. In Dandara there's some rooms where you might as well be dead in one hit, given how enemy attacks gang on you without an invincibility window.

The story is abstract hodgepodge. It somehow involves the semi legendary character of Dandara, most famous for killing herself. I'm assuming the other characters are from Brazilian folklore as well. Something about certain designs rubs me the wrong way - it looks a little too Capcom-y for something purporting an original perspective rooted in native folklore. It's all very pretty and colorful but just a little... bootleggy?

 

[Ezekiel]

Majora's Mask

Another game needs to rip off Groundhog Day. I haven't played this game as many times as Ocarina of Time. Still generally remember everything, but I don't remember exactly how to get to a solution (both where to go and what to do) a lot of the time, so in that way it's more satisfying to me than Ocarina. Feels more polished. World is more populated with interesting stuff. Of all the Nintendo games I've played, best side quests and NPCs. That Dolby Surround mix is better than other early 2.0 surround mixes I've heard in games. Remember in Sly 1 or 2 my own footsteps bleeding into the surrounds. Like the humor, the wackiness. Had forgotten you stuff the Deku Scrub princess into your bottle. Made me chuckle.

 

[ko11b]

Martar

Isn't that game about some little hs students hence the reason why I am not going to play it but you might like it though?

 

[Dalisclock]

Dark Souls 2 wants a word.

Honestly, ER feels like Dark Souls 2 done right in so many ways. I was overjoyed when I realized that Volcano Manor was basically Iron Keep but it didn't suck big donkey balls. I'm also sure that the consecrated snowfield is Reindeer Fuckland from Dark Souls 2 but with a horse and without the Reindeer and you don't have to fight a boss with no checkpoints.

 

[ko11b]

I've just finished a replay of Assassin's Creed: Rogue for the little personal review blog I run. It's alright, still one of the more alright entries in the series I think. Only games I have left in the series to play are Syndicate (well, that's a replay for the blog) and Odyssey, which I have avoided entirely until I finally managed to get through the rest of the franchise.

Did you have hard time lock picking ?? That' was a pain but you will get used to it ??

 

[Bartholen]

Dark Souls 2 wants a word.

They were situational at most in DS2. The original version was so overlit you almost never needed them for light. Pretty much the only place they were useful all the way through was the Gutter, and maybe Dead Man's Wharf. And the occasional "puzzle", like lighting the braziers in the Lost Sinner's boss arena. Whereas in Elden Ring they're consistently useful in both the dungeons and the world map, because they make such a difference lighting wise.

 

[ko11b]

They were situational at most in DS2. The original version was so overlit you almost never needed them for light. Pretty much the only place they were useful all the way through was the Gutter, and maybe Dead Man's Wharf. And the occasional "puzzle", like lighting the braziers in the Lost Sinner's boss arena. Whereas in Elden Ring they're consistently useful in both the dungeons and the world map, because they make such a difference lighting wise.

Is da2 worth playing I was thinking about it I checked the ratings but I'm still iffy about it they were pretty decent rating ?? On a scale of 1 to 10 10 being the best do you think it is worth getting ?