What are you currently playing?

NerfedFalcon

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I thought maybe I'd play Factorio again since 1.0 is out and I haven't played it in four years and I never did play around with trains or the flying robots really, but I don't know. I played for like 20 minutes and my interest plummeted. I really liked it the first time, but I can't help feeling that I've already done this before and it just feels like work to do it again.

Also Crypt of the Necrodancer is still kicking my butt. I can only get past the first zone extremely inconsistently. A couple mistakes can cost you a run and I feel like I just can't think fast enough not to make them. Maybe I should just give up, beat it as Bard, and call that good enough.
You don't have to do the full run even after you finish all the individual areas. Keep practicing them, you'll get there.
 

Drathnoxis

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You don't have to do the full run even after you finish all the individual areas. Keep practicing them, you'll get there.
But I want to do the full run, doing individual zones is boring. There are a number of problems with practicing, though. One I'm already getting sick of the music. Two I've been playing the first zone for probably 6 hours nearly exclusively over the past two days and I've only made it to the boss like 8 times. Three I don't really feel like devoting my life to this game just to make it all the way.

This is already my second attempt at the game and I think I'm just going to have to accept that I don't have the dedication, rhythm, or reaction speed to make it through this one. Same as Enter the Gungeon.
 

Drathnoxis

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I beat Crypt of the Necrodancer All Zones mode! (...with Bard)
Woo! Game complete, thank you to everybody who supported me along the way, yadda yadda.

The game is about 30x easier with Bard. I beat it on my third attempt compared to, like 50 with Cadence rarely even making it past Zone 1. Would have been my second but I didn't realize the Glass Jaw made you die in one hit.
 

wings012

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Yakuza 0. I'm having fun but I'm not totally on board with the gameplay, which is just walking from one brawl to the next, doing silly fetch quests or whatever while constantly being accosted by random arse thugs. I am liking the characters and I find the story intriguing which is what's motivating me to go forward. I'm not super big on all the minigames, like I really don't want to play pool or darts. I'm all for karaoke though. DAME DA NE~~

I thought Kiryu's and Goro's stories wouldn't actually intersect, but it looks like they are starting to come together.
 
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Dreiko

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Decided to give Genshin Impact a try and I'm impressed at the level of quality and detail this f2p game has to offer. It's like a normal game that you just get to play for free, has voice acting in 3 languages, awesome graphics, really cool elemental Arpg gameplay, adorable chars, a vibrant world. You even get a maid!

Also from what I've seen you don't need to spend any money to win at the game. I dunno how they managed to make 100 million bucks in 2 weeks with it but either way I'm staying f2p and having a blast.
 

Chimpzy

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Xenoblade Chronicles X. Decided to actually start playing the game rather than just toying around with it in CEmu. And it sure is a Xenoblade. Big ass areas to roam around in, then running into a big ass creature 50 lvs higher than you and getting your own much more diminutive ass reamed. I like the creature designs tho. And the environment. Not so much a fan of the human models. They have this creepy doll-like quality to them. Aside from that I'm only about an hour in or so, barely past the intro so to speak, so not gonna pass judgment on the gameplay. It's fine so far. Jumping is kind of floaty and hard to control.

Still think it's kind of wild it already it's running this well in emulation. Ok, sure, got some visual glitches, the gamepad screen in particular looks kind of screwy, but on the other hand higher resolution, higher framerate and way shorter load times. I mean, you win some, you lose some.
 

BrawlMan

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Replayed some Onechanbara Z2 in prep for Origins. I will be getting the game this weekend afternoon. The game still kicks ass, even with its low budget. The combat is fun, and from what I heard Origins improves upon it. Honestly, I do not know how you improve upon game where you could tag in 4 people and mechanic where switching them at the right moment, causes them to do more damage to their opponents. Other than enemy AI. The AI in the game ain't perfect, but defintely improved upon compared to the older titles.

I also played The Takeover, SOR4, and DMC3 on Switch briefly. Mainly to test out the new controller I got on Prime Day Sale.


This controller is awesome and really responsive. It's better than the HORI pad controller. I like that one too, but it can be a bit iffy at times with certain movements. @Chimpzy, I highly reccomend you buy this. Even though prime day is over, most retailers on Amazon are selling this fro $22.00. That is worth a steel, and better than any controller the Big N puts out.

 
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meiam

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Xenoblade Chronicles X. Decided to actually start playing the game rather than just toying around with it in CEmu. And it sure is a Xenoblade. Big ass areas to roam around in, then running into a big ass creature 50 lvs higher than you and getting your own much more diminutive ass reamed. I like the creature designs tho. And the environment. Not so much a fan of the human models. They have this creepy doll-like quality to them. Aside from that I'm only about an hour in or so, barely past the intro so to speak, so not gonna pass judgment on the gameplay. It's fine so far. Jumping is kind of floaty and hard to control.

Still think it's kind of wild it already it's running this well in emulation. Ok, sure, got some visual glitches, the gamepad screen in particular looks kind of screwy, but on the other hand higher resolution, higher framerate and way shorter load times. I mean, you win some, you lose some.
Damn it's already usable? I might have to pick that up at some point, I just can't justify buying the wii U for like 5 games top. Or nintendo could just do the smart thing and port everything to the switch, no reason not to.
 

happyninja42

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Dabbled more with the Ghostrunner demo.

Definitely doing better now that I've remapped some of the keys to my alternate mouse buttons, instead of keyboard. Also, the pathing is a lot more generous than I expected.....sort of. Like, you can run for what seems forever along a vertical surface. The longest single distance I could do, and there didn't seem to be any dropoff at all. I then proceeded to hit the corner of the wall...and immediately turn 90 deg and continue wallrunning. I'm chalking this up to "i'm a cyberninja, I don't have to explain shit", which I'm 100% fine with. Also, the number of surfaces you can wallrun on, is way more than just the obvious ones, pretty much anything that's even remotely wall-like is fair game. The problem is that they don't seem to go anywhere? Like I genuinely took time to look around and try and find alternate routes, or hidden alcoves, and there wasn't really anything, despite sometimes there being what seemed like an obvious alternate path to take. Sometimes I'd get stuck in the middle of terrain, not clipping through or anything, just, I jumped onto a little ledge that's got a fence and a steam pipe, and I was just..standing wedged between them. I could hop back out, but it definitely seemed like I wasn't supposed to do that.

Also, in the big combat room of the demo, where you have to kill 5 dudes to proceed, there is what is very obviously a higher alternate path to take. At first I thought "ahah! This is the secret path! That lets me bypass the lockdown, so I don't have to kill the guys! Victory through superior parkour not bladework!!" ....but no, it's just...there. It's almost set up as a different way to get at your enemies, but it doesn't really put you in any position to capitalize on it. So...yeah I dunno.

Definitely super fun though, love the mood of it, and I'm definitely getting through the challenges with less hassle. I'm itching to have upgrades though.
 

Griffith

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Sep 27, 2020
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Phantasy Star Portable on the PSP. I started to play the game during a sad spell to just switch my brain off and enjoy the silly sci-fi anime action, and hell did it deliver. It's as simple as they come gameplay-wise, aim and attack until thing stops moving, get XP, keep on moving. Story-wise, it's just good enough. There are some sweet moments with the central character, Vivienne, a CAST (robot) who is learning what it means to live. It's nothing too deep, but hey, it's fun. The game has some really pretty environments and the odd kick-ass song, good variety of weapons and clothing too. It really feels like a portable MMO experience, just very watered down. Its simplicity is why I love the game really, it doesn't require much dedication as a JRPG like Trails of Cold Steel would, nor the concentration as an RPG like Planescape Torment. It's just fun.
 

Chimpzy

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Damn it's already usable? I might have to pick that up at some point, I just can't justify buying the wii U for like 5 games top. Or nintendo could just do the smart thing and port everything to the switch, no reason not to.
Yeah, I was surprised too. Only really tried because I had a coupon for the local chain store that was about to expire, so I could get a secondhand copy for €5, and was all fuck it, I'm willing to risk it for a fiver. Luckily, turned out ok. Not perfect, but playable. Mind you, there are some provisos and caveats:
  • Xenoblade X is the only game I've tried. Can't tell you how well anything else runs. Check CEmu compatability list. As you can probably guess, don't bother with anything that's below 'playable', and expect minor visual glitches for anything not 'perfect'. If you have a Switch and there's a port for that, probably easier to just get that tho.
  • CEmu relies mostly on the single-threaded performance of your CPU. If you want an indication on whether your CPU makes the cut, check this chart. In theory, you need only 1400-1500, but it'll probably run like shit. 1800-2000 is supposedly the real minimum. My 6700k gets a 2500, maybe a bit higher since mine has a small overclock, which is enough for 1080/60. Albeit with minor drops into the mid 50s and some stuttering, but my guess is that has some other reason, since it still happens if I drop things down to 720/30.
  • GPU doesn't matter as much, tho you obviously shouldn't go at it with Intel Integrated or something. Basically, if it is good enough to run modern games at 1080, 1440 and/or 2160, it should handle those resolutions in CEmu too.
  • First time running any game will likely run like crap, because the emulator is still building a shader cache. This will eventually go away, or you can get yourself an already complete cache. This makes the game slower to start up since it has to compile all those shaders, especially the first time it does so, but makes actually playing much more pleasant. I have a complete one for Xenoblade X, so hit me up if you want it.
 

Ezekiel

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Trying to play Crazy Taxi again. I've modded the original music in. I feel like the crazy dash (let go of accelerator, shift down, shift up and accelerate) was much easier to do on Dreamcast than on Steam. What's the point if I can't get crazy high scores like when I was a kid? Might need to refund this if I can't get the hang of this feature.

Damn, Steam users are reporting the same experience between the Dreamcast and Steam.


The DC emulators frustrate me. They perform far worse than Gamecube, PS2 and N64 emulators.
 
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Dalisclock

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Trying to play Crazy Taxi again. I've modded the original music in. I feel like the crazy dash (let go of accelerator, shift down, shift up and accelerate) was much easier to do on Dreamcast than on Steam. What's the point if I can't get crazy high scores like when I was a kid? Might need to refund this if I can't get the hang of this feature.

Damn, Steam users are reporting the same experience between the Dreamcast and Steam.


The DC emulators frustrate me. They perform far worse than Gamecube, PS2 and N64 emulators.
Am I correct in assuming the Dreamcast is difficult to Emulate due to programming issues(Much like the PS3)? I've heard it was difficult to program dreamcast games.
 

Chimpzy

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Am I correct in assuming the Dreamcast is difficult to Emulate due to programming issues(Much like the PS3)? I've heard it was difficult to program dreamcast games.
No, it was the Saturn that was a monstrously difficult ***** to work with. Sega had deliberately designed the Dreamcast with off the shelf hardware to make it an easier target for development. Afaik Dreamcast is not the most complex system, less so than the PS2 probably, tho that does not exactly translate to easy to emulate. Without extensive documentation the devs of an emulator basically have to reverse engineer the console hardware itself, its bios and/or firmware, and whatever other bits of software and hardware are required to play. But, that difficulty level can often be mitigated by throwing manpower at it, and how fast an emulator progresses often directly correlates to how much people want to play its library, and by extension the odds of people with the talent to go in and figure out a console. Hence why Nintendo consoles tend to advance quicker than others: avid fanbase paired with generally straightforward hardware (relatively speaking).

And this need for enthusiasm is where I believe the problem lies. A lot of the devs of the early DC emus have moved on, for example because they got hired by the industry, often taking a lot of their know-how with them, so the people who took over the torch had to largely start from scratch. Also, there was drama within the scene leading to some newer DC emus becoming closed source and/or paid, and them refusing to share their documentation with each other. I suspect it's why many new emus like Citra, CEmu, Yuzu or Xenia are open source. Anyway, when an emulator's progress becomes slow, that often leads to devs dropping off because their jobs left them with no time or because they simply lost interest, leading to slower progress, leading to ... you get the point.

And that's pretty much where we are right now. Dead projects and what is left is progressing at a snail's pace. Unless there's an influx of new blood or a sudden breakthrough (like the Vulkan api was for RPCS3), I don't see any major improvement in Dreamcast emulation in the foreseeable future.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Finally beat Blasphemous, which in the end isn't as punishing or merciless as it's cried out to be. At its most intimidating the game would introduce something new that would make me cringe thinking what a pain this or that was going to be (like timing jumps to gusts of wind, or avoiding one-hit kills from pits or spikes) but nothing got to the point of being frustrating. Most of the inconveniences that come with the territory are eventually circumvented one way or the other. Crucially, you're never in any danger of permanent loss like losing thousands in currency in the Souls games - and there's not that much point in farming anyway. You could die thousands of times and you'd always keep your money (well, tears) from every slain enemy. Sooner or later you get enough to upgrade Albero's church to the point of unlocking prie-dieu fast travel (which trivializes backtracking or retrying bosses, since there're prie-dieus pretty much everywhere) and getting free confessions to absolve the "guilt" of death.

Maybe it's a psychological thing but given all the leniences, at least for me it never got to that tense point of actively dreading a bad run, since there isn't that much of a consequence to failure.
 

kirogi

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Passed the Last of Us 2 part and recently purchased Horizon Zero Down I think to play it.
 

Dalisclock

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No, it was the Saturn that was a monstrously difficult ***** to work with. Sega had deliberately designed the Dreamcast with off the shelf hardware to make it an easier target for development. Afaik Dreamcast is not the most complex system, less so than the PS2 probably, tho that does not exactly translate to easy to emulate. Without extensive documentation the devs of an emulator basically have to reverse engineer the console hardware itself, its bios and/or firmware, and whatever other bits of software and hardware are required to play. But, that difficulty level can often be mitigated by throwing manpower at it, and how fast an emulator progresses often directly correlates to how much people want to play its library, and by extension the odds of people with the talent to go in and figure out a console. Hence why Nintendo consoles tend to advance quicker than others: avid fanbase paired with generally straightforward hardware (relatively speaking).

And this need for enthusiasm is where I believe the problem lies. A lot of the devs of the early DC emus have moved on, for example because they got hired by the industry, often taking a lot of their know-how with them, so the people who took over the torch had to largely start from scratch. Also, there was drama within the scene leading to some newer DC emus becoming closed source and/or paid, and them refusing to share their documentation with each other. I suspect it's why many new emus like Citra, CEmu, Yuzu or Xenia are open source. Anyway, when an emulator's progress becomes slow, that often leads to devs dropping off because their jobs left them with no time or because they simply lost interest, leading to slower progress, leading to ... you get the point.

And that's pretty much where we are right now. Dead projects and what is left is progressing at a snail's pace. Unless there's an influx of new blood or a sudden breakthrough (like the Vulkan api was for RPCS3), I don't see any major improvement in Dreamcast emulation in the foreseeable future.
Thanks for the writeup. I knew a little of that but not to that level of detail. The education is appreciated.
 

BrawlMan

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The TakeOver. I just learned that playing hard mode only gives you the continue you start out with. No unlimited continues like Easy or Normal. The game never tells you this, unlike Streets of Rage 4's Arcade mode. I've beaten Hard Mode before, but this is the first time I have ever seen the game over screen. That explains why Hard Mode never lets you level select. Not the best design feature.
 

Dalisclock

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Taking a break from Hades for the moment. I like it but the Rouge-lite nature is starting to wear on me a bit(admittedly, I've enjoyed it far more then other Rouge-likes/Rouge-lites) due to the general feeling I'm not really making much in the way of progress from run to run.

So i decided to go back and resume Pyre, which I started a while back and drifted away from it due to not being particularly into the 3v3 Basketball gameplay(I like the visual novel stuff). I'm enjoying a bit more now and the Sports stuff is jiving more then it did before.

I also need to finish some of the games I started before i start new ones so there's that too.
 

Gergar12

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Genshin Impact, literally a free Zelda Breath of the wild with anime characters, and no breaking weapons, also you can switch characters.