What are you currently playing?

[Ezekiel]

Last level, Black Core Zone 3. Like the Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit fan game released 24 years later, the final boss music is too metal. Too many players are metal-heads. This is one reason that players can't score their own games; they must be scored by outsiders.

 

[Bedinsis]

Started another Crusader Kings II run, this time as a one county duke on Cyprus under the Byzantine emperor.

As usual I end up being too good at the game, since I've managed to become the Basileus, expand the empire so that I could mend the Schism between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, lost my position to only be the ruler of Jerusalem, but from there managed to conquer 5 duchies from the most powerful realm in the game, aka the Abbasids. All on Ironman mode.

The most interesting thing that happened were two characters who both had a Chess with Death encounter.

The first one was a woman who at her second pregnancy got the warning that this would be a difficult pregnancy, and I was offered an abortion, but I said no; at the time I thought there were far too few members in my family. That went through with no hitch, and the third pregnancy was without complications, but in the final months of the fourth one I saw the event of someone Shrewd and with the trait Gamemaster appearing. "Oh no." I said, recognizing the event, and immediately tried to assassinate her, but alas, the event where she challenges me for chess fired. In the first prompt I considered trying to overwhelm her, which had very low odds of succeeding. I chose not to since I reasoned that maybe the pregnancy would still be able to finish even if I lost the chess game, whereas if I fought Death off and failed both me and the unborn child would both die. I therefore went through the game (one step offered me to sacrifice my child for better odds, I refused), but I lost and both me and my unborn child died.

The second one was either the last woman's child or grandchild. He decided to join the Satanists, aka Lucifer's own, where he would desecrate temples, draw pentagrams on his arms and murder priests. He also was big into science and published that the Earth is round and revolves the Sun. His membership in Lucifer's own was discovered by my liege, who therefore had reasons to arrest him, and while I was thinking "She probably won't arrest him while in a war, and this current war looks like it will be a long one" I saw an event that said that his membership in Lucifer's Own had taken a physical toll on his body. Shortly thereafter the Chess with Death event fired, and in the chess game I tried to cheat which Death did not take kindly to and my character died.

Looking back at it now my head canon is that the woman's chess with Death event was really a woman slightly above 20 having gone through her fourth pregnancy and her body was not really able to, and the chess with Death event was how she interpreted the resultant near death encounter, and the man's chess with Death event was either the collected guilt with having committed horrible acts in the name of Satan, of having spit in the face of Christ both via his science and his satanism and the resultant stress taking him into the chess with Death event, or that someone of the church poisoned him and his chess with Death event was how he interpreted his fight with the poison that he lost.

 

[BrawlMan]

Sengoku 1 (Sega CD version) - It's about the same as the arcade, but a little easier. You get a decent amount of continues and can go up to 5 lives, and extra lives via points are actually kept in. The colors and sprite scaling are lacking compared to the arcade original, but that's not a big deal for me. This version is one player only, but if you're playing on a portable emulator (which I am), then it's not a big deal. It at least let's you pick 1 of the 2 characters, but they play the exact same, other than different looks and palette swap.

Gunststar Superhoes is still great and one of the good sequels Treasure made to their own games.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm trying to play Nine Sols but the game crashes whenever you leave an area or use a warp point, so that's my review. Looks pretty though!

 

[ExtraWildGames]

Super simple game, yet super fun. This style of is known as a "bakage" or "Dumb game" in Japan, where it takes an outlandish or wacky concept and turn it into a game. Low budget, arcade-style collectathon that gets super hectic and is very funny.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Super simple game, yet super fun. This style of is known as a "bakage" or "Dumb game" in Japan, where it takes an outlandish or wacky concept and turn it into a game. Low budget, arcade-style collectathon that gets super hectic and is very funny.

That concept of 'bakage' sounds a lot like 420BLAZEIT Game of the Year that I was playing just before.


Anyway, I'd heard of the original 'I'm Going to Die if I Don't Eat Sushi', but I didn't know it got a sequel.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Brotato
It's Vampire Survivors- but you're a potato.

Ok actually I'm not really playing anything now, as nothing is capturing my interest and my preferred method of relaxation of late has been my first and greatest media love- music. But Brotato is free on the Epic store now and it's something to do with my hands and look at while the tunes are playing.

 

[BrawlMan]

Brotato
It's Vampire Survivors- but you're a potato.

Ok actually I'm not really playing anything now, as nothing is capturing my interest and my preferred method of relaxation of late has been my first and greatest media love- music. But Brotato is free on the Epic store now and it's something to do with my hands and look at while the tunes are playing.

I'm going to try Karate Survivors when I get home.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I am re-playing CP2077 from scratch.

I haven't touched it since launch, and back then my sentiment of the game was behind all the launch disaster, there is a very solid game with fascinatingly grim world-setting. The creator of the TPRG did a fantastic job in that regard, and thanks to that the game really was fun to play in terms of story. It explored ethical and philosohpical questions of what is morally correct, one's desire to leave an impact in this world, and what we can be doing with the time that is given to us.

Now playing on the infamous post-patch 2.11 version, the game REALLY shines. It actually feels like a top-tier game now. Nearly all bugs are gone (except for occasional physics glitch and random radio trigger), the skill trees are better balanced, and Katana Build feels so much more powerful! Plus some additional QoL changes that should've been in the game at launch.

While I am enjoying the game, it still hurts me that the game wasn't like this at launch. Thankfully CDPR seemed to have learned their lesson, and apparently is treating Witcher 4 development much more carefully

 

[Chimpzy]

I'm playing the Chrono Cross remaster. There are things I like, and things I don't.

It looks, sounds and feels like a PS1 era Square game, when they were imo at their peak. Mostly because, well duh, it is from that era. But that's also kind of a downside, because what it doesn't look, sound and feel like, is Chrono Trigger. And I don't mean that in the sense of lacking plot points, characters and places from Trigger and other such fan service, but in terms of vibes and charm. Not that Cross doesn't have a charm of its own, but it's a very different charm. If not for those bits of fan service and the title, you wouldn't be able to tell it's a sequel. Also, fuck the remastered graphics. The new higher poly models are ok, the new character portraits are kinda meh, but ok, fine. But the AI upscaled background, dear gods, they're ugly. Just stick to the og PS1 graphics, low res, chunky pixels and wobbly polys and all.

I also really like a lot of the quality of life stuff it has going, tho I'm not sure how much of it was already in the original game, and what was added for this version. Anyway, so how the basic combat works is that you need to make melee attacks to build charge levels that you can then spend to use elements (basically spells) and techs. One of the QoL thingies is that when you win a fight, it'll ask whether you want to use consumable items to heal your party, but also offers the option to spend whatever unused charges and healing elements instead. I suppose you could achieve the same thing by just giving you a free full heal after every fight, but I don't know, kinda feels nicer if you have to earn it.

You can run away from most, not all, but most boss fights, and they will then patiently wait there until you're ready to fight them, tho usually first throwing some shade for bravely running away, away, brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin. The reason this is nice is that both your characters and enemies have an innate element and an opposed element they're both weak and strong against, and this also applies to the elements and techs you can equip to your character. So you might get into an unexpected boss fight, or several in sequence, that you're not properly equipped for. No problem, just run away, change your setup, get back in there. Next boss in the sequence, rince, repeat. So mostly no needing to be clairvoyant (or read a guide) to prevent needlessly hard or unwinnable fights, or needing to wait til you lose the fight and then reloading.

There's no real need to grind levels. Instead you get a major boost to multiple stats every time you beat a boss, which will be given to all character, whether you've recruited them yet or not. You can still get stat boosts from normal enemies, which will only apply to your active party, but they're small: a couple hp and a point to one of two stats, but mostly just 1-2 hp. And after a handful fights those too stop. So you can have favorites you use a lot and will thus accrue those minor boosts, but they won't be that much stronger than characters you don't use a lot. So you can swap in someone new (or old) and they won't be underpowered. Fighting mobs is still useful to get gold, elements and materials, but if you want, you can mostly ignore them.

And some other stuff, like the game autosaving whenever you exit to the world map or touch a save point (tho you can also do it manually). Or how you can equip or unequip gear and spells from characters that aren't in your active party. Those aren't anything special in a modern game, but back in 1999, they weren't a given. At the press of a button you can speed up the game, useful for when you're moving from location to location, or revisiting places, or want to get through a fight quicker. And a slow mo button, which I haven't really found a use for, but it's there. There's one that makes enemies ignore you and touching them doesn't start a fight, for when you really don't want to be bother by mobs. One that makes enemies extra aggressive, in case you want to get into fights quicker. Oh, and a button that enables auto-battling. Combine with the speed-up button, for when you get into a fight with a weak mob, but can't be bothered.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

I am re-playing CP2077 from scratch.

I haven't touched it since launch, and back then my sentiment of the game was behind all the launch disaster, there is a very solid game with fascinatingly grim world-setting. The creator of the TPRG did a fantastic job in that regard, and thanks to that the game really was fun to play in terms of story. It explored ethical and philosohpical questions of what is morally correct, one's desire to leave an impact in this world, and what we can be doing with the time that is given to us.

Now playing on the infamous post-patch 2.11 version, the game REALLY shines. It actually feels like a top-tier game now. Nearly all bugs are gone (except for occasional physics glitch and random radio trigger), the skill trees are better balanced, and Katana Build feels so much more powerful! Plus some additional QoL changes that should've been in the game at launch.

While I am enjoying the game, it still hurts me that the game wasn't like this at launch. Thankfully CDPR seemed to have learned their lesson, and apparently is treating Witcher 4 development much more carefully

Spoiler: Meanwhile the suits and shareholders be like

“Release gAme now. RELEAS GAM NOWWW!!!”

 

[meiam]

I'm playing the Chrono Cross remaster. There are things I like, and things I don't.

It looks, sounds and feels like a PS1 era Square game, when they were imo at their peak. Mostly because, well duh, it is from that era. But that's also kind of a downside, because what it doesn't look, sound and feel like, is Chrono Trigger. And I don't mean that in the sense of lacking plot points, characters and places from Trigger and other such fan service, but in terms of vibes and charm. Not that Cross doesn't have a charm of its own, but it's a very different charm. If not for those bits of fan service and the title, you wouldn't be able to tell it's a sequel. Also, fuck the remastered graphics. The new higher poly models are ok, the new character portraits are kinda meh, but ok, fine. But the AI upscaled background, dear gods, they're ugly. Just stick to the og PS1 graphics, low res, chunky pixels and wobbly polys and all.

I also really like a lot of the quality of life stuff it has going, tho I'm not sure how much of it was already in the original game, and what was added for this version. Anyway, so how the basic combat works is that you need to make melee attacks to build charge levels that you can then spend to use elements (basically spells) and techs. One of the QoL thingies is that when you win a fight, it'll ask whether you want to use consumable items to heal your party, but also offers the option to spend whatever unused charges and healing elements instead. I suppose you could achieve the same thing by just giving you a free full heal after every fight, but I don't know, kinda feels nicer if you have to earn it.

You can run away from most, not all, but most boss fights, and they will then patiently wait there until you're ready to fight them, tho usually first throwing some shade for bravely running away, away, brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin. The reason this is nice is that both your characters and enemies have an innate element and an opposed element they're both weak and strong against, and this also applies to the elements and techs you can equip to your character. So you might get into an unexpected boss fight, or several in sequence, that you're not properly equipped for. No problem, just run away, change your setup, get back in there. Next boss in the sequence, rince, repeat. So mostly no needing to be clairvoyant (or read a guide) to prevent needlessly hard or unwinnable fights, or needing to wait til you lose the fight and then reloading.

There's no real need to grind levels. Instead you get a major boost to multiple stats every time you beat a boss, which will be given to all character, whether you've recruited them yet or not. You can still get stat boosts from normal enemies, which will only apply to your active party, but they're small: a couple hp and a point to one of two stats, but mostly just 1-2 hp. And after a handful fights those too stop. So you can have favorites you use a lot and will thus accrue those minor boosts, but they won't be that much stronger than characters you don't use a lot. So you can swap in someone new (or old) and they won't be underpowered. Fighting mobs is still useful to get gold, elements and materials, but if you want, you can mostly ignore them.

And some other stuff, like the game autosaving whenever you exit to the world map or touch a save point (tho you can also do it manually). Or how you can equip or unequip gear and spells from characters that aren't in your active party. Those aren't anything special in a modern game, but back in 1999, they weren't a given. At the press of a button you can speed up the game, useful for when you're moving from location to location, or revisiting places, or want to get through a fight quicker. And a slow mo button, which I haven't really found a use for, but it's there. There's one that makes enemies ignore you and touching them doesn't start a fight, for when you really don't want to be bother by mobs. One that makes enemies extra aggressive, in case you want to get into fights quicker. Oh, and a button that enables auto-battling. Combine with the speed-up button, for when you get into a fight with a weak mob, but can't be bothered.

The healing after fight was in original, but I don't remember most of the rest (maybe equipping inactive party member).

Cross is interesting, but ultimately not that great a game. The two world doesn't add much to the game and just gets kinda confusing at time since its hard to remember which version you need to do stuff in. It's not big difference like trigger time travel, and the variation in between the two version are too minor to be really fun. The game has like 50 recruitable character, but most are barely character and the game would have been better served with fewer, more develop character.

I'd say from the golden era of PS1 square, its near the bottom of the catalogue, its only shining aspect is the soundtrack, but most of square soundtrack from that era were also really good, so it doesn't stand out all that well. If it wasn't sorta related to trigger, I don't think it would be remembered much.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Making headway in Sols, still holding up to first impression, with the added observation the narrative glows with more warmth and empathy than its peers. So might as well swerve into a quick distraction meanwhile.

Today's effort post I recommend scrolling past real fast theme:

Games tryna be Hades but not as good as Hades cos Hades locked this shit down and maybe is not even fair to compare anyway so let 'em compete them against one other instead (and maybe also Hades for the meta but shh!)​

Cuntestants

3. [REDACTED] (No, not a joke, don't gimme that look, is actual title lol)

2. LIBERTÉ!

1. RAVENSWATCH


Round 1: F I R S T - I M P R E S S I O N S

[REDACTED]
It may sound counterintuitive, but this avoided interest until a tip alleging it's from the Callisto Protocol Devs came in from a concerned citizen. The agency reasons such a stark departure from a high-budget/promoted/expectation flashy graphics/hollywood-cast disappointment to an unpromoted small-scope scrappy cel-shaded roguelike project could theoretically allow the team more flexing room for their wilder creative side and to vent pressure from last (but also first, aye like poetry mate!) game.

Brevity for the court, this is the most loyal Hades imitation of the 3 so far. Structurally speaking. Otherwise, you start out in some kind of punk future prison, maybe also city? And you gotta go further into the really bad part to, well...from what this agent could gather at 3am between states of consciousness, grab or steal stuff? Further interrogation required. Looks appealing with a Jet Set Radio junkier industrial cartoon future aesthetic and a fairly appropriate punky soundtrack. Wastes no time giving you fun new attacks and evolutions, plus they've thrown in a physics engine giving an overall feeling of polished chaos. The hub areas were confusing, though 3am catatonia a likely contributor there. Far superior a first impression than Callisto Protocol, so we're happy for the team and wish them well in this endeavour.




LIBERTÉ!
Most alluring setup of the 3: the French revolution hampered by inconvenient lovecraftian outbreak. It's jankier, least polished and possibly funded of the lot too, with backdrop visuals showing the worst signs of neglect. Gameplay so far a little too floaty n weightless for my tastes but not necessarily bad by any measure. The upgrades are cards somehow? Not sure why but hey we gotta distinguish ourselves from the rest somehow I suppose. Hoping there's patches for this further down the line cause it feels almost there, assumedly held back by some cocktail of resource limitations and such. The premise makes me want it to reach its ambitions so much, but alas only time may tell.






RAVENSWATCH
This is much easier to rattle off a description. You know Curse of the Old Gods roguelike indie title and Devs? You know classic brother's Grimm fairy tale characters? Yeah, it's that. Those. Them. Though gameplay loop structure the most off the beaten track out these 3. Each run dumps you on a map to explore with like 12-15 minutes to desperately scrabble around scavenging every morsel of upgrade you can gobble up before the timer runs out and big badda tentacle boss forces you to fight it. If successful, move on to next map and continue till death occurs. Gameplay is tight yet a tad heavier with more deliberation placed upon combat choices. The characters do feel quite different to each other to play, with upgrades playing to their particular quirks and strengths. However it was only unlocking Gepetto after a couple of runs where it clicked for me. Perhaps due to the 'co-op nudging' the game does being nullified by his technical movement. Perhaps cos he hobbles about with his backpack (that's also a jetpack!) in a way that reminds me of Diddy Kong from all post-Donkey Kong 64 games. Main gripe is not being allowed to just fucking die when it asks if you want to use a life ressurection feather, cos it ain't a question it still uses one to revive you anyway if you try ignoring the death counter. Otherwise it's a pleasing package. Well, tbh I also don't feel as interested in learning the character story progressions cause everyone already bloody knows them don't they?




Round 2 coming soon. Or later. Or never. Depends if I remember and/or still care by then.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Jumped back into Watch Dogs 2 again after about a week and a half away, and the same problem persists: the controls are just too "all over the place" to fall back into intuitively. Point in case, I was trying to steal a car, and accidentally assaulted a person sitting on a bench. They called the cops, and by the time I could find another vehicle to jack, the cops were on my ass. What followed was the next 30 seconds of me running for my life accidentally deploying spy gear/tech, hacking random objects, going in and out of AR view, and gesturing (because this game needs gestures, right?) I also pulled a gun on someone and smacked another stranger because "B" isn't the run button. I let the cops kill me, and when I respawned, went somewhere REMOTE, away from pedestrians, the fuzz, and any interactable objects that might draw attention to relearn the basic controls. Still enjoying the game, but goddamn, it's doing too much.

 

[Bedinsis]

I bought 6 games in Steam's autumn sale. One of them was Whispers of a Machine. I am playing it.

I am not feeling it. It feels a bit too much like a conventional point and click adventure game. The investigation was initially fun and the dialogue shone through but I am now at a stage where I don't know what I'm supposed to do so I'm just walking around trying to find whatever it could be that will move the plot forward. And there has been a lot of "Talk to [name of person] about [subject in notebook]" actions which felt more like exposition than something that moves the plot forwards. There has also been a lot of telegraphed "this won't be available until later" moments; when I needed a locksmith I was told he won't be there for a few days; a scene of a crime I wanted to investigate I was told had been electrified and won't be available until the handywoman has fixed the wires, when I tried pressing a door the protagonist flatly said "I don't have any reason to go there".

 

[Worgen]

Grabbed a few games to tide me over till Path of Exile 2 comes out (really hope its good and not bugged out the butt) Doom+Doom2 which I mentioned earlier, but also some shootemups. Exzeal, Q-YO Blaster, and Demonizer. Also grabbed Star Wars Empires at War since its still getting updates somehow, but no idea when/if I'll play that since I did play it way back in the day and its cool, but so many games need playing. Anyway, the shootemups are decent but nothing top tier like Demon Blade or Andro Dunos 2. Probably the best is Q-Yo, its got really well done pixel art, but its also weird as hell, one of your ships is a severed wolfs head, another is a gerbil, your enemies are bugs... its just really weird but good. Exzeal is kind of a generic shootemup, you choose one of 4 ships, each with different weapons, the main difference with other shootemups is that each ship also has different ways to score more points, like a couple have charge shots, one gets more points by killing enemies closer to you and one has these weird to use side blasters that shoot by moving side to side. Its good and has really weird music. The last is Demonizer, you play a succubus who is trying to save her monster girl friends from assholes. Plays pretty well, if you are expecting it to be nsfw then you would be disappointed. Its also decent.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

I’m probably going to start The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, which is the only game I picked up on the Steam sale. However, something else caught my eye that I might end up getting as well, even though it’s still in early access. But it looks promising, and just might be the entry point I’ve been looking for into the city builder genre. Manor Lords.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

I’m probably going to start The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, which is the only game I picked up on the Steam sale. However, something else caught my eye that I might end up getting as well, even though it’s still in early access. But it looks promising, and just might be the entry point I’ve been looking for into the city builder genre. Manor Lords.

Have fun with both!

I was a bit skeptical with Stanley Parable's reputation, given that video game humor is rarely satisfying, but I had a good time with it.
City builders are absolutely not my thing personally but Manor Lords is one of those games whose reception has impressed me so much that in listed as a top 5 game of the year in another thread even though I will never play it myself. Let us know how your experience goes.