What are you currently playing?

[Johnny Novgorod]

Finished Hue. Cute game, makes the most of a pretty original mechanic. Braid meets Thomas Was Alone, but not quite as good (or pretentious) as either. I think the story is kinda weak and delivering it via monologues across long boring hallways measured precisely to let the whole audio play didn't help marry the "plot" to the game. People complain about Braid's story being just a bunch of .txt you can skip over in the foyer to the actual game, but I think there plenty of storytelling via gameplay, and the themes of guilt and remorse and delusion (ie. rewinding time) have a more impactful emotional resonance than those of "the wonders of perception" (ie. apply color filters to add/remove objects). Especially since the ending of Hue doesn't really change my perception of a fairly bare, obvious story.

 

[Casual Shinji]

More Astro Bot, and I hereby pray Team Asobi has a long prosperous career ahead of itself.

 

[meiam]

Been playing vision of mana, maybe half way trough the game.

It's okay but really, I'm just not the target audience. It has colourful visual, which mean an exec saw this and went "Oh! This is for children, make sure you dumb everything down as much as possible". And so it was, combat is very simple, especially because you have two bar you full up for super attack, you can use them very often and they clean up pretty much everything on screen that's not a boss (which are only longer to beat because they're damage sponge). The trial of mana remake from a few year back also had simple gameplay, but it compensated by having a fun class system, where you could put a lot of though into what kind of party composition you wanted. Vision also has a class system, but its dumbed down. Trial class where limited in what magic/skill they could use, but vision let them use them all once their learned, so the class only affect what passive you have, which have somewhat limited impact. It also change the weapon you use, but they don't have that much difference, and spamming attack is always what you should do. You can also equip accessory which give you access to more move/magic or boost stats, but every characters learn all the moves they'll need, so there's almost no reason not to just use stats boosting one. The only things you gotta consider is what element to bring to a fight since character only have a limited number of move available in fight, but there's not really any way to know what the next boss will be weak to, so its not really something to consider for the most part. It's functional if you want flashy visual, but there's just not much more to it and feel like a step back from Trial.

Story start out somewhat interesting, essentially every 4 year every region has to send a human sacrifice to keep the world from falling into ruin. Unfortunately they don't really do anything with it, most of it is just about meeting the various human sacrifice, learning their backstory and fixing their problem, which aren't very interesting. Again, this is for kid and it'll work for someone who has had very little exposure to fantasy tropes. The game also has character constantly repeat everything, gotta make sure kid with short attention spam gets the message. Its a bit of a shame because the mana franchise always had a bit of a melancholic spin on the usual story tropes, with death being consider more of a natural part of life with often theme of rebirth, a story about sacrifice woul dhave fitted really well.

So not a terrible game, but toward the bottom of the mana franchise without anything to really make it stand out. Legend of mana gameplay is worse, but it has really interesting story structure and great 2D artwork. Trial of mana has more inetersting gameplay and party planning. Secret of mana gameplay was better, relative to other game around that time. Secret of evermore has a weirder setting and a lovable puppy. Vision just... doesn't really have anything, it lacked vision /rimshoot.

 

[BrawlMan]

Been playing vision of mana, maybe half way trough the game.

It's okay but really, I'm just not the target audience. It has colourful visual, which mean an exec saw this and went "Oh! This is for children, make sure you dumb everything down as much as possible". And so it was, combat is very simple, especially because you have two bar you full up for super attack, you can use them very often and they clean up pretty much everything on screen that's not a boss (which are only longer to beat because they're damage sponge). The trial of mana remake from a few year back also had simple gameplay, but it compensated by having a fun class system, where you could put a lot of though into what kind of party composition you wanted. Vision also has a class system, but its dumbed down. Trial class where limited in what magic/skill they could use, but vision let them use them all once their learned, so the class only affect what passive you have, which have somewhat limited impact. It also change the weapon you use, but they don't have that much difference, and spamming attack is always what you should do. You can also equip accessory which give you access to more move/magic or boost stats, but every characters learn all the moves they'll need, so there's almost no reason not to just use stats boosting one. The only things you gotta consider is what element to bring to a fight since character only have a limited number of move available in fight, but there's not really any way to know what the next boss will be weak to, so its not really something to consider for the most part. It's functional if you want flashy visual, but there's just not much more to it and feel like a step back from Trial.

Story start out somewhat interesting, essentially every 4 year every region has to send a human sacrifice to keep the world from falling into ruin. Unfortunately they don't really do anything with it, most of it is just about meeting the various human sacrifice, learning their backstory and fixing their problem, which aren't very interesting. Again, this is for kid and it'll work for someone who has had very little exposure to fantasy tropes. The game also has character constantly repeat everything, gotta make sure kid with short attention spam gets the message. Its a bit of a shame because the mana franchise always had a bit of a melancholic spin on the usual story tropes, with death being consider more of a natural part of life with often theme of rebirth, a story about sacrifice woul dhave fitted really well.

So not a terrible game, but toward the bottom of the mana franchise without anything to really make it stand out. Legend of mana gameplay is worse, but it has really interesting story structure and great 2D artwork. Trial of mana has more inetersting gameplay and party planning. Secret of mana gameplay was better, relative to other game around that time. Secret of evermore has a weirder setting and a lovable puppy. Vision just... doesn't really have anything, it lacked vision /rimshoot.

Visions of Mana has only been out for a day, but its developer has reportedly lost most of its staff and is at risk of shutdown

Ouka Studios has reportedly been hit with layoffs

www.gamesradar.com

That explains some of the problems with the game.

I played some Prodeus after not touching it since March. I've beaten the game before on Switch, but I am playing the PS5 version.

I am giving Astro's Playroom a shot since it's for free, and never played it before.

 

[Ezekiel]

Tent was too big after I had changed it as Mumbo, allowing me only to become the big T-rex. Had to go back to Mumbo's house and get him again, shrink the tent again, go back to Mumbo's house once more to play as Banjo and Kazooie again and then go to the tent a third time to become the small T-rex.

I preferred the simplicity of the first game. Sequel is too big.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Playing Creature in the Well.

It's a hacky/slashy take on pinball that has you dashing around turrets and other obstacles while whacking orbs of energy into bumpers to rack up energy points, which you then funnel into doors to unlock the next room; rinse and repeat.

You're a robot rebooting a big ole machine meant to rekindle a dead or dying civilization, which is as broad and standard as the indie apocalypse gets, but the game derives a fair bit of personality from the titular Creature in the Well, which lurks around the many pits of the temple and hoists itself on two gigantic skeletal arms while peering from the dark. I think its eerie presence and the dialogue really sell very well the idea of something ancient, not necessarily evil, that is mostly just annoyed at you. Come think of it's one of those rare instances where you spend the whole game fighting a single enemy, rather than having to fight your way to them by the end. Makes things feel a little more personal.

My only problem with the game is that it's maybe too easy and you have way too much leeway in gaming something that should be as restrictive as a pinball board. You can hold down the charge attack button and it will shield you indefinitely from enemy projectiles; press attack and you can immediately redirect them towards targets. You're also free to dash around the room and get as close or far away from your target as you want. Game gets a bit more interesting during the boss fights with the creature and whenever the bumpers are on a timer and you're supposed to find the right angle to light up all targets on a rebound.

Oh, I like the cel shaded comic book look for a change. Feels like most indies I play these days are either hand-drawn or have pixel graphics.

 

[Agema]

I picked up Fields of Glory: Medieval and Fields of Glory: Kingdoms recently.

FOG:M is a turn-based battle simulator. It rests on the principle of breaking up and routing your opponent more than slaughtering them, and has European and Middle Eastern army lists running from about 1000 AD to 1450 AD. However, it appears to have gone a bit "Paradoxy". By which I mean you can pick up the base game for free, except it doesn't have much in it so you'll need to buy a zillion expansions. I'm also a little bit suspicious about the army lists, which feel rather quantity over quality. This is possibly not unreasonable as medieval armies were maybe a little more homogenous than the ancient world, but still feels underwhelming.

I have some concerns because looking at how some of the army lists work and how the battle mechanics work, some of those army lists look like they are doomed to lose: their armies have no meaningful way of countering some opponents.

So far, via the procedural battle generator, I have witnessed some of these failings in action. You may be aware of the famous use of longbows by the English, and that they usefully contributed to some major victories. In game, they are utter trash. Archery in FOG works by attempting to disrupt formations so that the melee troops have an advantage when the battle lines connect. All very reasonable, because that's how they did work - forget those notions of massed archery slaughtering everyone. Unfortunately, what happens is that you sleet the preverbial storm of arrows into the enemy, and almost never achieving the disruption result. This causes English armies a massive problem because half the army are archers who get rapidly trashed in melee: once the enemy melee troops arrive they effortless crush the longbowmen and swamp the remaining melee troops. They have two designed "Grand Battles" (Crecy and Agincourt) where they avoid this by giving the longbowmen defensive positions, but outside these individually-designed battles they just don't work at all.

* * *

FOG:K is a bit like Crusader Kings 2 with less dynastic stuff, or perhaps Europa Universalis 1050-1250. You know the drill. It's turn-based, but orders are issued and carried out simultaneously. I could almost like it, except that pretty much every part of it works not quite as well as its better-funded Paradox equivalents. What really staggers me is the genuinely absurd building system. This is a travesty of literally hundreds and hundreds of different buildings to put in your regions, many effectively replicating functions, producing goods that are required to make/subsidise other buildings as part of a trade/bonus system that is eye-bogglingly overcomplicated. Oh, and you can't properly choose the buildings you want, either: it gives you a choice of 6, which you can expand to choose from about 30 by expending a form of influence ("Authority"). In principle, it's actually quite a nice idea: after all, medieval kings did not exercise tight control of their nations, but could get a few specific things (mostly castles, it seems) done by deliberate order. In terms of the game, it just feels like a mess.

Just to give an idea of the insane bloat here, they have separated out cattle, pigs, poultry, despite them being pretty much functionally identical producing food and livestock. I get separating sheep at least (because wool). Then there's what feels like pointless buildings: build a butcher, turn your livestock into gold, but really, this is not interesting. Build a giant field, no particular use, except you can get a level 2 cattle ranch. Why not just skip the field straight to the level 2 cattle ranch? I can build apiaries to get wax to supply candle factories and maybe those candles do something, but honestly I'd rather none of them existed because it's just tedious, fiddly trash.

I'd also like more constraints on development. I can fill some of the most desolate, inhospitable mountains at the arse-end of Europe with a plethora of farms which build up a massive population and churn out the finest wonders and art of Europe. Fuck you, Constantinople, Venice and Paris: you could only dream of the wealth, sophistication and glory of Ullapool and Stavanger. I'm aware that technically you can do this in Paradox titles too, but at least it's much harder.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I decided to replay ABZÛ. Sure, there's no real challenge (aside from a couple of areas), but it's such a supremely Zen experience with amazing visuals; swimming through spiraling shoals of fish never gets old, as does hitching a ride on the side of a dolphin. And of course, with the influence of the art director behind Journey, it's a pinnacle of environmental storytelling and presenting plot without dialogue.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Astro's Playroom

Sure I played it when I first got my PS5 but of course the new Astrobot- which I ordered- encouraged me to revisit it to chase some trophies.

 

[BrawlMan]

Astro's Playroom

Sure I played it when I first got my PS5 but of course the new Astrobot- which I ordered- encouraged me to revisit it to chase some trophies.

I've been enjoying Playroom. I am halfway through the game and play some more later in the evening.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Finished Astro Bot.

It's pretty great... but it could've been better. Which you could say about any game, but in Astro Bot's case there's one magic moment that unfortunately remains just the one. The game consists of 5 galaxies that each have a bunch of worlds and a Boss. Once you beat the Boss you'll meet a bot version of a Playstation character, which will then open a special world that'll allow you to take on that character's attributes to play around, saving more bot versions of the characters from the game that the level is based on. You start with a classic; Ape Escape, and then get more typical ones, like Uncharted and God of War. Pretty much all of these don't change up the gameplay other than giving you an axe to throw or a gun to shoot or a net to catch.

BUT during one of these Boss fights I figured we'd get Aloy only for the game to throw me for a loop and present Loco Roco, and an associated level. Suddenly I was playing a different game, and it was kinda amazing. It's a shame not every post-Boss level was used to recreate an old Sony game like that, though I guess Ape Escape does well enough too. Still, I would've swapped any of those other three levels to see like a Vib Ribbon level.

I also which the game was a little bit harder. There's some pretty harsh challenge levels, but overall the difficulty is rather mild. A bunch of enemy types seemingly can't even kill, only bumping against you and that's it. Most of the others kill you in one hit, but it makes the difficulty a bit inconsistent at times.

There is a Mr. Mosquito reference, so . But then there's also references to three David Cage games .

 

[BrawlMan]

Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore (PS2) - Still a great and fun ass fighting game and was actually my first DOA game. The first time I ever played the game was on a friend's Dreamcast. I got the PS2 version real cheap, and it came with the case, manual, and a clean disc. I haven't done story mode and i've just been playing with the bonus modes. Mainly tag team and survival.

 

[Worgen]

Space Marine 2, pretty cool so far, even thought it plays kinda awkward. Like, the ranged combat feels really good, but considering the enemies you're facing, they will always be in melee range and dealing with ranged/melee is tricky. Plus, while shooting feels really good, your shots don't really stun enemies so you have to shoot, dodge then shoot against ranged attackers or take damage. Initially I had a lot of technical issues with it. Mouse pointer would cause huge lag, game crashed, etc. But that was all resolved by rebooting and installing new graphics drivers. So yeah, pretty cool, even though it does have its issues.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Yesterday I started a metroidvania called Afterimage and soon realized I kind of don't like metroidvanias. At least not right now, maybe someday again. Because having to re-fight enemies to explore is just... ugh. Probably I'm burnt out after replaying Elden Ring and Prince of Persia Lost Crown and Tales of Kenzara and Crypt Custodian.

But... for some reason I didn't mind it in Crypt Custodian? Maybe it's the lack of jumping. I think I get annoyed when I have to backtrack to explore but there's also enemies respawned that fly around and I have to jump, so it's jumping and getting hit and dammit and I already killed these things I'm just trying to find the door I remember being here... ugh. Same thing happened with Ender Lillies. While in CC and Minishoot Adventures I can just go around and do whatever, fighting or escaping with relative ease.

Other than that I would actually recommend Afterimage to anyone more patient with this sort of thing who like the anime aesthetic where you're playing as an impossibly pretty/girly-doll hero in mysterious world with solid 2D action graphics. I liked that the couple of bosses I found were not health sponges.

 

[Worgen]

Yesterday I started a metroidvania called Afterimage and soon realized I kind of don't like metroidvanias. At least not right now, maybe someday again. Because having to re-fight enemies to explore is just... ugh. Probably I'm burnt out after replaying Elden Ring and Prince of Persia Lost Crown and Tales of Kenzara and Crypt Custodian.

But... for some reason I didn't mind it in Crypt Custodian? Maybe it's the lack of jumping. I think I get annoyed when I have to backtrack to explore but there's also enemies respawned that fly around and I have to jump, so it's jumping and getting hit and dammit and I already killed these things I'm just trying to find the door I remember being here... ugh. Same thing happened with Ender Lillies. While in CC and Minishoot Adventures I can just go around and do whatever, fighting or escaping with relative ease.

Other than that I would actually recommend Afterimage to anyone more patient with this sort of thing who like the anime aesthetic where you're playing as an impossibly pretty/girly-doll hero in mysterious world with solid 2D action graphics. I liked that the couple of bosses I found were not health sponges.

Just because there are some games in a genre you really like, doesn't mean you will like all the games in that genre. I really like Binding of Issac, FTL and Risk of Rain, but I don't really like Dead Cells or Rogue Legacy. Those all have roguelike mechanics, but the details are different. I think the reason I don't' really like the later is because of the platforming.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Just because there are some games in a genre you really like, doesn't mean you will like all the games in that genre. I really like Binding of Issac, FTL and Risk of Rain, but I don't really like Dead Cells or Rogue Legacy. Those all have roguelike mechanics, but the details are different. I think the reason I don't' really like the later is because of the platforming.

For sure. Or you can just like something despite genre, or be genre-neutral, the latter of which I think I am with metroidvanias.

I just like examining my reaction to things especially games, I think it's interesting to figure out why something hits us in certain ways.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Space Marine 2, pretty cool so far, even thought it plays kinda awkward. Like, the ranged combat feels really good, but considering the enemies you're facing, they will always be in melee range and dealing with ranged/melee is tricky. Plus, while shooting feels really good, your shots don't really stun enemies so you have to shoot, dodge then shoot against ranged attackers or take damage. Initially I had a lot of technical issues with it. Mouse pointer would cause huge lag, game crashed, etc. But that was all resolved by rebooting and installing new graphics drivers. So yeah, pretty cool, even though it does have its issues.

Pretty much have to agree. I am playing on the hardest difficulty, and I'm starting to these missions were designed to be played in co-op. This is especially clear in near the end of the first mission, where some objectives are spread apart and clearly designed for multiple players to tackle them. The companion AIs are really dumb.

Also, those Zoanthrope can go fuck themselves; I don't understand why they take so much ammo to kill. If they are supposed to be designed as a support unit to the rest of the tyranids and tend to stay on the backside, doesn't it make sense for them to be squishy? IDK, maybe it's a difficulty thing.

Playing operations is pretty fun, because they have the side-story narrative of their own. Love how you can customize your armor sets, with all colors available to earn via gameplay. It's kinda sad that stuff like this is being celebrated when it used to be a common thing in the past, but now restricted with those live-service, battle pass, "cosmetics do not affect gameplay" bullshit.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Got peer pressured by my friends into getting Space Marine 2 so we can coop together. It's pretty fun so far, and one of my friends is a huge Warhammer nerd so we're getting all the backstory.

Pretty much have to agree. I am playing on the hardest difficulty, and I'm starting to these missions were designed to be played in co-op. This is especially clear in near the end of the first mission, where some objectives are spread apart and clearly designed for multiple players to tackle them. The companion AIs are really dumb.

Also, those Zoanthrope can go fuck themselves; I don't understand why they take so much ammo to kill. If they are supposed to be designed as a support unit to the rest of the tyranids and tend to stay on the backside, doesn't it make sense for them to be squishy? IDK, maybe it's a difficulty thing.

Yeah I'm playing on the hardest difficulty as well, both by myself and with friends. While objectives are spread out, I feel like it's still best to be grouped together almost all the time so that if you go down your teammates can pick you back up. If you're all spread out trying to do the objectives at the same time you're way more vulnerable and likely to get overrun and then teammates won't be near you to pick you up. If any single member of the team dies you lose.

 

[Worgen]

Pretty much have to agree. I am playing on the hardest difficulty, and I'm starting to these missions were designed to be played in co-op. This is especially clear in near the end of the first mission, where some objectives are spread apart and clearly designed for multiple players to tackle them. The companion AIs are really dumb.

Also, those Zoanthrope can go fuck themselves; I don't understand why they take so much ammo to kill. If they are supposed to be designed as a support unit to the rest of the tyranids and tend to stay on the backside, doesn't it make sense for them to be squishy? IDK, maybe it's a difficulty thing.

Playing operations is pretty fun, because they have the side-story narrative of their own. Love how you can customize your armor sets, with all colors available to earn via gameplay. It's kinda sad that stuff like this is being celebrated when it used to be a common thing in the past, but now restricted with those live-service, battle pass, "cosmetics do not affect gameplay" bullshit.

They did need to rebalance the main campaign around single player. As you say, feels like it was designed around multi. I'm sure its plenty of fun multi, but I always go through games solo first.

 

[laggyteabag]

Basically finished up Dredge. It is a very low stakes and cozy game, but I wish there was more to it. The first hour of the game is more or less identical last, you're just more efficient. And the DLC so far is just more of the same. Its a fine game, but im not too sure why is caused such a fuss last year.

Otherwise, im currently playing Space Marine 2. Having just recently replaced the first game, this one is much prettier, gorier, and grander. Since switching to a controller, I'm having a lot more fun with it, but it does still feel kind of awkward to play. I think the main issue is that I feel like the character is very slow to react. Slow to turn, slow to dodge, slow to counter, and it means that I feel as though im taking a lot more damage than I feel like I should, because there feels like a constant delay before my character does something, because they're seemingly locked into whatever animation they were doing before.