What are you currently playing?

[Worgen]

I've beaten Freedom Planet 2 with Carol and Milia, kinda disappointed that so far it seems like each character gets the same stages, but you do get some unique story bits with each one and I'm still having a lot of fun with it so on to Lilac.

I also ended up with Return to Monkey Island and have gotten to chapter 2, still not sure about the art style, but its animated really well and the rest of it really feels like an old Lucas Arts point and click with the kinda convoluted puzzles and great writing.

 

[Dalisclock]

I've beaten Freedom Planet 2 with Carol and Milia, kinda disappointed that so far it seems like each character gets the same stages, but you do get some unique story bits with each one and I'm still having a lot of fun with it so on to Lilac.

I also ended up with Return to Monkey Island and have gotten to chapter 2, still not sure about the art style, but its animated really well and the rest of it really feels like an old Lucas Arts point and click with the kinda convoluted puzzles and great writing.

That's in line with the all the reviews I've been seeing. As long as the art style isn't a deal breaker and you like the series you should be happy with it is the general take.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I started playing Monster Train. It's fun, but it's really easy. I nearly won my very first run ever. I just made a big mistake on my first turn and still got the boss down to like 200hp. Then I abandoned my next two runs before the first fight because I was playing with settings. Then I won my fourth run. Lost my fifth. Won my sixth, but didn't take enough covenant points to fight the true final boss. Then I beat the true final boss on the sixth. And like completely destroyed him. He died with like 3 waves left to go because there are some truly broken card combinations in this game. I was playing the imp queen, and had the imp that gains rage when he gains armor, and I had an artifact that doubled summon abilities. So I'd play the queen, then him for free, then the armorer imp for free, then he'd be at like 50 armor and 50 rage doing 100 damage a turn. Then I'd play the card that doubles your armor value on another turn, and he was completely untouchable after that. By the end he was doing like 1500x2 damage, and nothing could scratch him because he had close to a thousand armor to boot.

Like, I swear Slay the Spire is way more difficult. I can't believe my win percentage is almost half, and that I have a win streak after single digit games. A lot of roguelikes take hundreds of runs to even get a win, let alone a streak. It took me almost a decade to get my first streak on Nethack. I get that you are supposed to beat it a bunch of times and it gets more difficult with every run, but there's like 25 covenant levels, and I'd kind of like it to be harder now, not 5 runs from now, or whatever. I generally don't have much of an interest in beating the same game over and over again.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Yay I beat the Metal Hellsinger level 2 boss!
Man, this game is cool. I won't beat it 'cause, you know, fps, but I like the idea of having a loud stupid game to play for like 30 minutes. I'll dip in, try the next level, fail or eventually succeed, and go do something else, and just do that until I get bored. Kind of like I did with Neon White- excellent fun game, good in short burts, too first persony confusing for me to actually beat it.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

Hardship Spacebreaker. Hey. Hey! Why is this? Where'd it come from, and what's it doing here? It's kinda cool. It's based as fuck, as the kids might say. Must have a world record for longest tutorial though, as I been at it for 2 days already and am still supposedly not out of the damn training yet. Cool idea, tricks you into thinking it'll be relaxing and it kinda is, until it isn't. Like cuddling up to a family of wild sleepy tigers: cosy and zen at first, until one of them decides they've had enough of your shit.

 

[Worgen]

I started playing Monster Train. It's fun, but it's really easy. I nearly won my very first run ever. I just made a big mistake on my first turn and still got the boss down to like 200hp. Then I abandoned my next two runs before the first fight because I was playing with settings. Then I won my fourth run. Lost my fifth. Won my sixth, but didn't take enough covenant points to fight the true final boss. Then I beat the true final boss on the sixth. And like completely destroyed him. He died with like 3 waves left to go because there are some truly broken card combinations in this game. I was playing the imp queen, and had the imp that gains rage when he gains armor, and I had an artifact that doubled summon abilities. So I'd play the queen, then him for free, then the armorer imp for free, then he'd be at like 50 armor and 50 rage doing 100 damage a turn. Then I'd play the card that doubles your armor value on another turn, and he was completely untouchable after that. By the end he was doing like 1500x2 damage, and nothing could scratch him because he had close to a thousand armor to boot.

Like, I swear Slay the Spire is way more difficult. I can't believe my win percentage is almost half, and that I have a win streak after single digit games. A lot of roguelikes take hundreds of runs to even get a win, let alone a streak. It took me almost a decade to get my first streak on Nethack. I get that you are supposed to beat it a bunch of times and it gets more difficult with every run, but there's like 25 covenant levels, and I'd kind of like it to be harder now, not 5 runs from now, or whatever. I generally don't have much of an interest in beating the same game over and over again.

The DLC added more powerful combos. The prince for the fire faction is kinda garbage and hard to get far with, especially early on. Your first winning run in Monster Train isn't too hard, but you can turn up the difficulty another notch each win for extra challenge.

 

[Drathnoxis]

The DLC added more powerful combos. The prince for the fire faction is kinda garbage and hard to get far with, especially early on. Your first winning run in Monster Train isn't too hard, but you can turn up the difficulty another notch each win for extra challenge.

I get that you are supposed to beat it a bunch of times and it gets more difficult with every run, but there's like 25 covenant levels, and I'd kind of like it to be harder now, not 5 runs from now, or whatever. I generally don't have much of an interest in beating the same game over and over again.

The thought of beating the game 25 times is just kind of tedious.

 

[Worgen]

The thought of beating the game 25 times is just kind of tedious.

I found it compelling enough to get 15 wins and will probably play more at some point.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Playing Astalon: Tears of the Earth, a NES-looking Metroidvania. You explore a tower while swapping around a fighter, an archer and a mage with different skillsets that let you access new areas or unlock shortcuts to old ones. The three characters generally balance nicely. The catch is when you die you respawn all the way back in square one (you'd think the bonfires where you swap characters and 'save' the game would be good enough) while any progress made sticks throughout. You don't lose anything else thank god, like XP or currency, and if you explore well and survive a few gauntlets you soon unlock all ways of bypassing previous areas, so it all feels like a fair compromise. For added challenge there's no reliable way to regain health every time you take damage, which adds to the rogue-lite vibes of every 'run'.

I have mostly nitpicks, like I've never been a big fan of the NES aesthetic. It's all red and black and looks so drab and flat. For me the benchmark for 8-bit throwback music and graphics is The Messenger and nothing in this quite comes close to it. The text box dialogue also reads kinda lame and jokey compared to what the game actually feels and plays like. I do appreciate that at least the three characters have distinct personalities, and there's an inkling of interpersonal conflict planted at the beginning that keeps the story interesting (if not very tense).

 

[SilentPony]

Its time for my annual "Try to play Divinity Original Sin and remember why its so fucking frustrating and rage quit".
Today's adventure: Fucking AI path-finding and "realistic" responses. So I'm trying to find out who done it. The body is missing and Im at the morgue talking to the corpseman and he's all "I did it for the money!" and Im all "Whatever." But then when I click to leave the building, my AI companions interpret that as open the door to the restricted area and go in, ignoring the verbal warnings and now trigger a fight where the corpseman thinks I'm trying to kill him and the whole fucking starting town turns agro and I've become a murder-hobo.
And my last auto-save was over 2 hours ago.
God I hate this "realistic" style of DnD where everyone is a hair's breath away from killing you and there is no way to deescalate.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Hardship Spacebreaker. Hey. Hey! Why is this? Where'd it come from, and what's it doing here? It's kinda cool. It's based as fuck, as the kids might say. Must have a world record for longest tutorial though, as I been at it for 2 days already and am still supposedly not out of the damn training yet. Cool idea, tricks you into thinking it'll be relaxing and it kinda is, until it isn't. Like cuddling up to a family of wild sleepy tigers: cosy and zen at first, until one of them decides they've had enough of your shit.

As someone who really struggles with first person, I quit after like 10 mins of the tutorial lol. Moving around slowly and moving things around slowly with physics based mechanics is like 100x Dark Souls difficulty for me. That part of my gamer brain is broken.
Too bad, looks cool though.

 

[Silvanus]

Replaying DS2 to try to get the Platinum trophy. Alas somehow my old (completed NG) save file is gone, so I had to start afresh.

Currently trying to get Sunbro medals, which is arduous because it requires others to summon me, and the community isn't anywhere near as active as it was. Plus, the Soul Memory system is just... stupid.

 

[BrawlMan]

I popped in Fight n' Rage on Switch and the game is still getting updates! The game came out in 2017, and is still adding content or patching small things. Very rare for an indie brawler.

I did a brief play of score attack mode. I might do another playthrough later and try to get some of the other endings as I've only beaten game once on each version: Steam, Switch, and PS4. There's load of unlockable content I have yet to do, but requires more playthroughs. Like I said before in the past, it's a good game, but Fn'R has pacing problems, and drags on in the later stages. I hate the continue system as well, and wish you just immediately start where you left off after losing all lives. I'll probably do my unlocks on Switch, because I feel the most comfortable and normal feeling. I'll be in portable mode for a while.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Replaying DS2 to try to get the Platinum trophy. Alas somehow my old (completed NG) save file is gone, so I had to start afresh.

Currently trying to get Sunbro medals, which is arduous because it requires others to summon me, and the community isn't anywhere near as active as it was. Plus, the Soul Memory system is just... stupid.

SotFS correct? I never bothered with Platinum for the Dark Souls sequels since it felt kinda redundant, and the requirements were way more grindy like that. Hopefully you get lucky with the summons.

 

[Dreiko]

Second session of Hades, almost made it out of the afterlife, did not expect daddy to have a second life bar, almost got him too, must have had maybe 5% when he got me. Man this game is super addictive. Outside of the shield which I feel needs a special loadout to make it good I love all the weapons too. I had this super broken setup with the fists doing critical special attacks and combined it with the hammer buff that makes your special attack do a ground pound, it'd MELT enemies.

 

[meiam]

Second session of Hades, almost made it out of the afterlife, did not expect daddy to have a second life bar, almost got him too, must have had maybe 5% when he got me. Man this game is super addictive. Outside of the shield which I feel needs a special loadout to make it good I love all the weapons too. I had this super broken setup with the fists doing critical special attacks and combined it with the hammer buff that makes your special attack do a ground pound, it'd MELT enemies.

The shield can be obscenely broken with the right setup, like "stand still while the entire room die" broken.

 

[Dreiko]

The shield can be obscenely broken with the right setup, like "stand still while the entire room die" broken.

Right yeah, I figured the blocking thing is nice and maybe you can use something like the passive god summon regen feature and just tank while charging your super bar, I feel I've only scratched the surface with loadouts, and just discovered that you can use those amulets you get from giving nectar to the gods to sorta control what god appears to buff you (been mainly using the coin purse and skeleton tooth so far) so once I have a better grasp of the setups better suited for each weapon I'll be going in that direction more.

Also I really like those Dionysus grenades, so much instant burst damage. I just unlocked the assault rifle so that's what I'm gonna be trying next.

 

[Chupathingy]

Continuing with my 'random PS3 games I was always interested in but never played' with Driver: San Francisco.
As an action racing game so far it's solid, with good controls, varied missions, and a decent variety of cars. And then there's the 'shift' mechanic, which lets you spiritually jump between different vehicles an take control of them on the fly. It adds an extra layer to the gameplay and mission structure, while also being a focal point of the story.

The game's aesthetics, music, and missions also do a great job at making you feel like some kind of 80s buddy cop super car action hero.

 

[BrawlMan]

I decided to pop in Fight n' Rage again after not playing it for a year. I beat Normal mode again with Norris this time. I didn't know there is a parry in this game and I did it by accident the first few times. Like I said before, the game is fun, but there are some unfair boss fights and some of the worst checkpoints ever. The saving graces are unlimited continues and any coins you collected, you get the keep even if you decide to get a game over. Of course, the heart of the difficulty the more points you get. I already started another playthrough, this time as Gal on Hard. I'm on stage 3, but I took the path where you escape the city and you go to find Ricardo. Stop for tonight and we'll pick back up later.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

I've been playing a bit of Total Warhammer 2 again in preparation for buying TW3 now that immortal empires is finally out and hopefully the modders have had time to update a few of the mods from 2 to 3. Looking forward to trying the warriors of chaos now they've been reworked.

Also been playing a bit of Black Desert. The action combat is decent, if not the best I've played, the world is pretty well designed if a bit too pristine and sparkly, it's just under the barrier for being too animu for me. Inventory management and the vast assortment of upgrade items that you're not quite sure what they do but you keep in case you need them in the future is an ass, as it the lack of fast travel, especially when coupled with the previous two. But anyway, it's reasonably engaging, the only MMO I still play.