What are you currently playing?

[Chimpzy]

Last night I finished Detention, that Taiwanese game that got in a spot of trouble for hiding a Xi Jingping joke in one of the game's backgrounds. That Cd Projekt pussied out of putting on GOG because they had received messages from "gamers". That one. Anyway, it's a pretty good horror adventure game. Not particular long and pretty straightforward in terms of puzzles and such, but it's got an effective creepy atmosphere and interesting story that both draw on Chinese mythology and Taiwanese history, and honestly goes some pretty messed up places. It does kind of require you be familiar with Confucian philosophy and Buddhism tho, cuz otherwise you're likely not going to understand some stuff. I know I had to look up some things to really understand what was going on.

Today I started playing Persona 5. Haven't gotten far tho, just the first palace. Very stylish game tho. Real smooth audiovisially. Took me a while to get it running without odd visual glitches tho. Considered the 60fps patch, but it causes some softlocks and I find the game doesn't benefit much from the higher framerate. Should also last me a good while, but I'll probably mix in a few other short games for variety.

 

[Dalisclock]

Last night I finished Detention, that Taiwanese game that got in a spot of trouble for hiding a Xi Jingping joke in one of the game's backgrounds. That Cd Projekt pussied out of putting on GOG because they had received messages from "gamers". That one. Anyway, it's a pretty good horror adventure game. Not particular long and pretty straightforward in terms of puzzles and such, but it's got an effective creepy atmosphere and interesting story that both draw on Chinese mythology and Taiwanese history, and honestly goes some pretty messed up places. It does kind of require you be familiar with Confucian philosophy and Buddhism tho, cuz otherwise you're likely not going to understand some stuff. I know I had to look up some things to really understand what was going on.

Isn't there another game that's also hard to find? Devotion, I think it was?

 

[Chimpzy]

Isn't there another game that's also hard to find? Devotion, I think it was?

Yes, it's Devotion. It's by the same dev. Also, I was mistaken, Devotion is the one that actually has the Xi Jingping meme in it. Devotion is also the one that got pulled off all stores, so the dev decided to just do it themselves, and are selling it directly through their website. Tho the GOG story was indeed about Detention, probably got hammered by nationalist Chinese for being related to the other one.

 

[Dreiko]

A vanillaware style 2D art Jrpg just came out called Astria Ascending, it has some big names from FF and Nier working on it, including the composer for ffxii. Much hype. Bout to start it right now~

Love the look to bits. Especially that lizardman.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Yeah, if I didn't know any better, I'd say this was a Vanillaware game. I never played Dragon's Crown or 13 Sentinels, but I liked Muramasa and I love Odin Sphere.

 

[Dreiko]

Yeah, if I didn't know any better, I'd say this was a Vanillaware game. I never played Dragon's Crown or 13 Sentinels, but I liked Muramasa and I love Odin Sphere.

Those games are all very different. Dragon's Crown is the closest to muramasa and odin sphere but more actiony but 13 sentinels was actually more of an adventure game with Srpg combat segments.


This baby on the other hand is more orthodox turn based gameplay you'd expect from Jrpgs.

 

[Dalisclock]

Finished Blasphemous at about 18 hours of playtime. That's including maxing out fervor(basically MP), health, bile flasks, the mea culpa, rosaries and most if not all of the significant questlines(I failed poor Gemino's just because it's on a timer). Took two attempts to kill the Pope AKA the final boss and really I think he's more annoying then really hard. Yeah, the final fight is very bullet hell-y but the pontiff has like one weak point and he can hide it every so often, meaning getting to hit it when it's open is often the hard part(especially with him flinging all sorts of sorts magic attacks at me). So I got what I'm assuming is the "bad" ending though honestly I suspect the good ending isn't exactly sunshine and lollipops either. I'm gonna mention I think this is the third game I've played in my life where I've had to beat up the pope and the 2nd where he was the final boss. Which is still a lot fewer then games where you kill God/Gods(Dark Souls 3 has you killing both the pope and like a number of gods along the way).

Having maxed out everything and gotten a majority of the prayers and beads and such, it looks like all I really have to do is go get the requirements for the good ending and then beat up his Holiness again to see that one. Which, from what I've seen, looks to be a lot easier and straight forward then the true ending of Hollow Knight, which is a huge undertaking even after beating the game. It helps having unlocked the bonfire warping so i just need to go do the challenge rooms.

 

[CriticalGaming]

A Saucy Queer Romance Game About Vampires? Say Less

First Bite aims to serve romance and servitude alike to vampire fanatics

kotaku.com

I've been dipping my toes into this game which is made by an LBGTQ+ Studio or maybe that's their name I'm not 100% sure, but this game is basically a visual novel about vampires and getting your love on without getting bitten.

It's pretty good tbh. Not the most mindblown or subversive visual novel game, but if you want something a bit laid back and have a vampire fetish, this is worth a look.

Though the trigger warning for the potential player death is confusing to me. Most game feature possible player death don't they, or is this a metaphor for you might becme a vampire by playing.

DISCLAIMER! It's $10 and it's only 4 hours long depending on how fast you read. But it's replayable to bang the other characters, or not bang I guess.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

“Mission Complete; nice work Boss.”

MGSV Platinum attained. While some of it was excessively grindy and occasionally bs-y, I was still having fun with it all the way through. The mission task for extracting 7 tanks and 7 armored vehicles in A Quiet Exit was kind of a pain (now more of a *phantom* pain I guess, ZING!) because the patrols have some kind of thermal sensors or something as stealth camo ain’t worth a damn here. But the parasite armor combined with calling in a sandstorm and switching to night vision helped quite a bit. But even then it was so amusing being bounced around like a pinball from the armored vehicle’s heavy artillery! /sarcasm
Also telling Quiet to cease fire, as she can and will destroy a few before you can get to them.

Then I just drove a jeep around to find the last few invoices for fast travel (which I really underutilized in all two hundred or so hours played). I’ll still keep it installed to check out some other newly developed gear and mess around, plus I never got all the specialists yet; especially the anesthesiologist to build the best sleep sniper rifle. But, yeah now it’s time to jump back into Sekiro.

 

[CriticalGaming]

But, yeah now it’s time to jump back into Sekiro.

Hesitation is defeat. Remember that.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Hesitation is defeat. Remember that.

Glock boy learned me pretty quick on that mantra, so full aggression here I come!

 

[Dalisclock]

Finished Blasphemous by getting the "Good" ending. I'm pretty sure this is the True ending though I'm not sure if it's "good" considering at best you've fixed shit for a little while but nobody seems to have really learned anything from this. Which makes it feel oddly appropriate, I guess. It's very much a souls game in narrative terms as you have to be reading the lore bits and paying attention to what people are telling you to have some idea what's going on, though it might be a little easier to suss out then souls gams because you can rarely lose items after you've gotten them(unless used as part of a questline) so you've already got like 90% of the story in your inventory.

I think I'd need to do some decent study of Catholicism to get all the nuances to this story but I was generally able to get what was going on and I do appreciate how it stays consistent to it's themes of sin, penance, guilt and faith to show what a fucked up place Cvstodia is because of how deeply theocratic it is and how corrupt the church is. It also does a great job of having a strong sense of place and setting to it(it doesn't hurt that there are very few games set in Spain or based off Spain to contrast with).

And I'm gonna admit, I appreciate it feels like it's trying to have a nuanced discussion about religious themes in a way that many other games don't even bother to try, especially in a Metriodvania/Souls-like. Other people have gone into it but the themes of self sacrifice and faith are very strong here and while they could have easily gone into "Religion Bad", it feels like it's more "What is the world like when everyone has so much devotion to their faith that they're willing to suffer and make others suffer for that faith?". It's basically hell on earth but like Dante, it wasn't just gorn, it's looking at religion through the lens of fantasy. Really bloody fantasy.

Otherwise, it's a pretty good metriodvania that does a good job of letting you spec as needed, giving good incentive to explore the map, having the map loop back in useful and unexpected ways(aside from the portals) and just being a nice fusion of Metriodvania and Souls that's found a good niche for itself by not just feeling like a "Me too!' game. If I have to criticize at all, it's that some quests/achievements are time limited or missable by accident(notably more gemino but also cleofas) and the platforming is a bit much at times. Particularly since there are some areas with a LOT of insta-death spikes just waiting for you to miss a jump. I'm sure some people might find it too easy once you get past the early game(it took me no more then two attempts to take down a majority of the bosses, including the final one), but NG+ looks like it ramps up the difficulty a lot in numerous ways.

Anyway, I'm gonna start on Eastward tonight, some something a little less dour.

 

[CriticalGaming]

POKEMON!!!! GOTTA CATCH EM ALL!!!!!

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Started NG+ in Sekiro and got to horse dude pretty quickly. My first thought was, “Wow, foreshadowing much?”

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Death Stranding was on sale for about $18 on Steam so I finally got around to getting it. I've been studiously avoiding any sort of spoilers for it so I'm coming in fresh. It's definitely as weird as people have said it is; looks freakin' fantastic though.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Death Stranding was on sale for about $18 on Steam so I finally got around to getting it. I've been studiously avoiding any sort of spoilers for it so I'm coming in fresh. It's definitely as weird as people have said it is; looks freakin' fantastic though.

I’ve also read the PC port runs terrifically, in part thanks to DLSS.

 

[Dalisclock]

Started NG+ in Sekiro and got to horse dude pretty quickly. My first thought was, “Wow, foreshadowing much?”

MY NAME IS......ELDEN RING!

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

MY NAME IS......ELDEN RING!

“Hmm…Elden Ring?”

 

[CriticalGaming]

“Hmm…Elden Ring?”

I mean there are only so many monstrosities you can do within the same them. That prince guy with all the arms at the gate made me instant think of ludwig. And that dragon is....a dragon.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Death Stranding was on sale for about $18 on Steam so I finally got around to getting it. I've been studiously avoiding any sort of spoilers for it so I'm coming in fresh. It's definitely as weird as people have said it is; looks freakin' fantastic though.

Just have a podcast ready and it is an enjoyable experience most of the time.