Ghost of Tsushima set the new standard for me on 3rd person single player action adventure games.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
- Start date
Oh for real! GOW too! And Baldur's Gate 3 set pretty high standards for fantasy RPG games, enough to make some devs cry over it.
For my next game, I can't believe I am saying this, but I am going back to Diablo 4. I heard the new season fixed the loot problem, so I have been meaning to check it out. But it's only gonna be for like two builds, as Elden Ring DLC is dropping soon.
From now until next monday, there's another Next Fest going on Steam, with a whole bunch of demos.
Some stuff I tried already:
Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus
It's Hollow Knight, but with Japanese folklore like Kami and stuff. Ok, it's not exactly the same as Hollow Knight, but there are a lot of mechanical similarities like being using your staff to pogo off enemies to stay airborne, and also a kind of bouncy mushroomrs (but not off spikes). And a heal you have to hold down a button for and wait a few seconds before it procs and which you can recharge by hitting enemies. But it does some different things too, like a combo meter that goes up so long as you keep pogo'ing without touching the ground and which can empower your summons (this game's version of the magic attacks) if you get it high enough. Also seems to have way more rest/save points so you don't have to the long treks every time you die like in Hollow Knight. Silksong probably won't release anytime soon, so this might fill that niche while we wait.
Schim
Kind of weird puzzle game where you're a black blob thing that lives inside a guy's shadow, until you get separated and the game seems to be you trying to get back to that guy by jumping from shadow to shadow. Got a neat minimalist artstyle, tho gameplay seems a little easy and shallow, tho that might be because the demo is only the really early game. Based on the demo, I'm not really sold on it.
Demonschool
It's Persona, but with a 60s-70s Italian horror cinema vibe and isometric sort of Nintendo DS-esque pixel art visuals with character art that reminds me a bit of Go Nagai. It's got the school setting, days divided into a morning/daytime/everning, events you can participate which also advance time, party members you can hang out with to strenghten your bond, so, you know, all the Persona stuff. Combat is very different tho, and more like a tactics game that's all about using your abilities to position your party and the enemies to set up combo to maximize damage and take out a many in one as possible. Reminds me of Into The Breach. Supposed to release on September 13th, appropriately a friday. Tho I do hope the game is actually already finished and they're mostly focusing on polish now, because the demo seems kind of jank and buggy. Will likely pick this up sometime.
Demo's I've yet to give a go:
Metal Slug Tactics: it's Metal Slug as a strategy rpg
Parcel Corps: supposedly a mix of Jet Set Radio and Craxy Taxi
Conscript: old school survival horror with isometric viewpoint set in the WW1 trenches
Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire: looks like a Skies of Arcadia spiritual successor
Some stuff I tried already:
Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus
It's Hollow Knight, but with Japanese folklore like Kami and stuff. Ok, it's not exactly the same as Hollow Knight, but there are a lot of mechanical similarities like being using your staff to pogo off enemies to stay airborne, and also a kind of bouncy mushroomrs (but not off spikes). And a heal you have to hold down a button for and wait a few seconds before it procs and which you can recharge by hitting enemies. But it does some different things too, like a combo meter that goes up so long as you keep pogo'ing without touching the ground and which can empower your summons (this game's version of the magic attacks) if you get it high enough. Also seems to have way more rest/save points so you don't have to the long treks every time you die like in Hollow Knight. Silksong probably won't release anytime soon, so this might fill that niche while we wait.
Schim
Kind of weird puzzle game where you're a black blob thing that lives inside a guy's shadow, until you get separated and the game seems to be you trying to get back to that guy by jumping from shadow to shadow. Got a neat minimalist artstyle, tho gameplay seems a little easy and shallow, tho that might be because the demo is only the really early game. Based on the demo, I'm not really sold on it.
Demonschool
It's Persona, but with a 60s-70s Italian horror cinema vibe and isometric sort of Nintendo DS-esque pixel art visuals with character art that reminds me a bit of Go Nagai. It's got the school setting, days divided into a morning/daytime/everning, events you can participate which also advance time, party members you can hang out with to strenghten your bond, so, you know, all the Persona stuff. Combat is very different tho, and more like a tactics game that's all about using your abilities to position your party and the enemies to set up combo to maximize damage and take out a many in one as possible. Reminds me of Into The Breach. Supposed to release on September 13th, appropriately a friday. Tho I do hope the game is actually already finished and they're mostly focusing on polish now, because the demo seems kind of jank and buggy. Will likely pick this up sometime.
Demo's I've yet to give a go:
Metal Slug Tactics: it's Metal Slug as a strategy rpg
Parcel Corps: supposedly a mix of Jet Set Radio and Craxy Taxi
Conscript: old school survival horror with isometric viewpoint set in the WW1 trenches
Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire: looks like a Skies of Arcadia spiritual successor
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Best part of Persona 5 is sitting there for 15 minutes trying to solve mistranslated math problems.
Also, apparently the Japanese government doesn't mint both paper and coin currencies because it "caused confusion in the economy." What the heck does that mean?! I thought the class said there was massive inflation, not confusion.
Also, apparently the Japanese government doesn't mint both paper and coin currencies because it "caused confusion in the economy." What the heck does that mean?! I thought the class said there was massive inflation, not confusion.
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I said I wouldn't do this run, but I managed to beat Final Fight 2: Readjusted. 1CC on Expert with Haggar. Total score: 2, 624, 600
My third or fourth attempt to play Ori and the Blind Forest, the game at the top of my list of games I actually feel bad for quitting. I love everything about this game except for how bad I am at platforming and how much of this game is really a series of platforming challenges. But it was on sale for 4.99 and I got a nice new laptop and spare dual sense controller and nothing else I'm really feelin' to play so if not now, then never.
Played more demos
Blade Chimera
Another metroidvania from the folks that did Touhou Luna Nights and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. This time you're some kind of sci-fi demon hunter going around killing yokai and such. It's got great sprite art and animation, it sounds good, it controls well, but aside from that, it doesn't really do anything to make it stand out from the swathes of other metroidvanias out there. Filing this under "maybe on a deep sale".
Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire
Jrpg set in a world of airships and sky islands, obviously inspired by Skies of Arcadia. But boy is it rough. Camera doesn't control very well. Characters barely animate. Objective markers that don't work properly. Tutorial popups filled placeholder text. And an assortment of bugs and glitches. Physical copies are listed for release on 18 september, but I seriously doubt they'll make that. It honestly feels pre-alpha.
Blade Chimera
Another metroidvania from the folks that did Touhou Luna Nights and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. This time you're some kind of sci-fi demon hunter going around killing yokai and such. It's got great sprite art and animation, it sounds good, it controls well, but aside from that, it doesn't really do anything to make it stand out from the swathes of other metroidvanias out there. Filing this under "maybe on a deep sale".
Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire
Jrpg set in a world of airships and sky islands, obviously inspired by Skies of Arcadia. But boy is it rough. Camera doesn't control very well. Characters barely animate. Objective markers that don't work properly. Tutorial popups filled placeholder text. And an assortment of bugs and glitches. Physical copies are listed for release on 18 september, but I seriously doubt they'll make that. It honestly feels pre-alpha.
Finished cyberpunk 2077 DLC main story. The DLC is awesome for everything it add, but the main plot is pretty disappointing and just feel flat entirely for me. But on the bright side, one of the ending has you go trough a cool location that's straight out of Akira, so thats pretty rad.
I enjoyed it up until the escape sequences, at which point I think I ended up turning the difficulty down to actually complete them lest my thumbs fall off. The rest of the game I could play on normal difficulty but in the escape sequences I needed the extra time and checkpoints to finish them.
Luckily I have no shame.
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Started up Elden Ring second playthrough, gotta kill Mohg before the dlc. Not that it will take that long, but I also plan on doing a rebirth thing for my character and changing up my stats, gonna do a magic thing, which I never do in souls likes. I kinda beat Elden Ring with a weak build. STR with enough endurance for med armor and I mainly used axes.
Also beat Cookie Cutter, pretty good, much more combat then I'm used too from Metroidvanias, but really nice animation, but it does end with a kinda cliff hanger, like the direct story is pretty finished but its got a really direct lead into a sequel.
Also beat Cookie Cutter, pretty good, much more combat then I'm used too from Metroidvanias, but really nice animation, but it does end with a kinda cliff hanger, like the direct story is pretty finished but its got a really direct lead into a sequel.
I thought you couldn't change the difficulty once you start? I remembered that and looked it up to confirm. A change they made perhaps?
That's why I just have been playing on Easy from the start this time. My goal is to just complete the damn game. I just finished a real interesting but extremely difficult (for me) sequence where you have to sort of fly around in weird gravity and the controls are different every jump.
I'm considering Cyberpunk as my next "big" game (i.e., couch/console/big TV). One the one hand it's fps gameplay which I'm not fond of but on the other hand that's what easy mode is for and I love the Witcher so there's gotta be some fun quests in there.
V-Rising. Admittedly it wasn't an impressive start, though by the time I defeated an over-leveled corpse-pile monster - who wouldn't move off some prime real estate I'd made plans to relocate castle to - not with combat or violence, but literal cowardly gentrification by sneakily building walls n floors from a safe distance to usher them away before walling myself in to complete the project unharassed, the game had endeared itself.
Ok, slight complication with the monster...it popped up from the fermented bowels of hell again during a renovation, or more specifically the removal of a single wall during the renovation. So the wall has to stay, and a secured room is now built around it nobody is allowed to enter. You hear me? Stay away from the useless room of mysteries!
Ok, slight complication with the monster...it popped up from the fermented bowels of hell again during a renovation, or more specifically the removal of a single wall during the renovation. So the wall has to stay, and a secured room is now built around it nobody is allowed to enter. You hear me? Stay away from the useless room of mysteries!
Guess what, played more demos
One Btn Bosses
Lives up to its name. You use one button and you fight bosses. Way it works is there's a stationary boss while you're a little ship moving in one direction on a rail and firing automatically. When you press the one button, you reverse direction, and this is how you dodge the boss' attacks. But the longer you keep moving in the same direction, the faster you start firing, so it becomes this balance between avoiding damage while maximizing your own dps. Later on you can unlock other weapons and movement types like a bullet you spawn further down the rail which you can only fire once you catch up to it but also gets more powerful the longer it's out, or a dash move that can pass through boss attacks but require meter that slowly replenishes. Quite the short demo, but it's a fun concept and I quite liked it.
Parcel Corps
Based off the trailer it's Jet Set Radio meets Crazy Taxi, and, well, that's exactly what it is. You're bike courier and you deliver packages against a time limit while using ramps, wall ride, rail grinds and other such trick to optimize your route. It's arcade-y, it has a nice colorful sort of comic book-ish art style, the obligatory groovy and eclectic soundtrack, and the controls honestly have better handling than JSR or any of its spiritual successors. What's not to love? The performance, that's what. Maybe it's because the demo is still an alpha, or it just didn't like my setup, but it stuttered like all hell. I actually found it unplayable and quit, so bad. If that's fixed, this could be a winner. They should be able to manage that by, let's see here, ah yes, early september release. So, eh, crunch time?
One Btn Bosses
Lives up to its name. You use one button and you fight bosses. Way it works is there's a stationary boss while you're a little ship moving in one direction on a rail and firing automatically. When you press the one button, you reverse direction, and this is how you dodge the boss' attacks. But the longer you keep moving in the same direction, the faster you start firing, so it becomes this balance between avoiding damage while maximizing your own dps. Later on you can unlock other weapons and movement types like a bullet you spawn further down the rail which you can only fire once you catch up to it but also gets more powerful the longer it's out, or a dash move that can pass through boss attacks but require meter that slowly replenishes. Quite the short demo, but it's a fun concept and I quite liked it.
Parcel Corps
Based off the trailer it's Jet Set Radio meets Crazy Taxi, and, well, that's exactly what it is. You're bike courier and you deliver packages against a time limit while using ramps, wall ride, rail grinds and other such trick to optimize your route. It's arcade-y, it has a nice colorful sort of comic book-ish art style, the obligatory groovy and eclectic soundtrack, and the controls honestly have better handling than JSR or any of its spiritual successors. What's not to love? The performance, that's what. Maybe it's because the demo is still an alpha, or it just didn't like my setup, but it stuttered like all hell. I actually found it unplayable and quit, so bad. If that's fixed, this could be a winner. They should be able to manage that by, let's see here, ah yes, early september release. So, eh, crunch time?
It's Steam nextfest, so I've decided to try out Talis of Iron 2 demo.
It's more or less the same game as the first one, but now the setting is in winter region w/ bats as your main enemies. The combat is all about dodging or parrying at the right time, and they give you plenty of window to do both even on the highest difficulty. The problem is, the enemies sometimes delay their attacks, which completely throws you off if you are coming from the Sekiro/Jedi Fallen Order type of game play. Still really fun once you get down the rhythm.
The game is once again in metroidvania-format, and it still has fall damage. This just feels wrong; I mean in Salt and Sanctuary it was okay because that was a 2d souls game, but here due to fall damage you have to carefully drop down, and make sure not to make any unnecessary jumps. If the platform is slightly lower than the one you jumped from, you take a fall damage. It seriously slow downs the traversal.
The artstyle is still fantastic, soundtrack is awesome, and it is once again narrated by Geralt of Rivia. I will probably get it at the launch.
It's more or less the same game as the first one, but now the setting is in winter region w/ bats as your main enemies. The combat is all about dodging or parrying at the right time, and they give you plenty of window to do both even on the highest difficulty. The problem is, the enemies sometimes delay their attacks, which completely throws you off if you are coming from the Sekiro/Jedi Fallen Order type of game play. Still really fun once you get down the rhythm.
The game is once again in metroidvania-format, and it still has fall damage. This just feels wrong; I mean in Salt and Sanctuary it was okay because that was a 2d souls game, but here due to fall damage you have to carefully drop down, and make sure not to make any unnecessary jumps. If the platform is slightly lower than the one you jumped from, you take a fall damage. It seriously slow downs the traversal.
The artstyle is still fantastic, soundtrack is awesome, and it is once again narrated by Geralt of Rivia. I will probably get it at the launch.
Did anyone here play the New Pokemon Snap game? I guess it's been a couple years, but I'm just curious if it was actually any good.
I know there's some way to change it because I did it for that section. I normally pick normal and will adjust downwards if it feels like it's getting too painful to keep trying the same part over and over and over again and nothing seems to be working(if the option is available). The only exception for that was God of War 2 and 3 where I just picked easy from the start because i learned in GOW1 that I wasn't cut out for the normal difficulty.
Sonic Advance - The later levels have some bullshit enemy placement and traps. It's the only thing I hate about the Advance and DS games when they do this. I am on the last zone and stopping for tonight.
Well, f*** Ori... again.
Turns out my controller layout was wrong this whole time and there's no way to change it in menus, so I did some youtubing to find some settings but it didn't work. It all came to ahead when I got a new ability and I just couldn't execute the required inputs to progress. So I re-learned how to play the whole game with keyboard. Then the messing I around I tried earlier with the settings kicked in so I'm back to controller, but now I gotta re-learn the whole game AGAIN. Then I get to the last area and now there's fire killing me everywhere and just.... no. Done.
Every so often I need to be reminding myself that I quit games for a reason lol
I think I'm gonna check out Yahtzee's new game, it seems nice and calm.
Turns out my controller layout was wrong this whole time and there's no way to change it in menus, so I did some youtubing to find some settings but it didn't work. It all came to ahead when I got a new ability and I just couldn't execute the required inputs to progress. So I re-learned how to play the whole game with keyboard. Then the messing I around I tried earlier with the settings kicked in so I'm back to controller, but now I gotta re-learn the whole game AGAIN. Then I get to the last area and now there's fire killing me everywhere and just.... no. Done.
Every so often I need to be reminding myself that I quit games for a reason lol
I think I'm gonna check out Yahtzee's new game, it seems nice and calm.