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Official "What video games are you playing right now?" topic


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#4801 Naldrag

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Posted 04 March 2023 - 03:02 AM

I remember playing a bit of the DS version a long long time ago.  It's pretty good for what it is.  The HD versions of the Resident Evil remake and Resident Evil 0 have options for a control scheme that doesn't use tank controls kinda like the N64 version of Resident Evil 2.  Thought I'd mention that if it'd help boost interest in playing them.



#4802 The Satellite

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Posted 04 March 2023 - 12:09 PM

Oh don't worry, I'm aware. I admit I've heard a lot of mixed things about Zero to the point I'm not sure if I'd even like it, but I do own it on Steam thanks to a bundle so I may end up at least trying it later.



#4803 Architect Abdiel

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Posted 10 March 2023 - 12:58 AM

Beat Persona 3 Portable, 4 Golden and 5 Royal recently. Now I’ve jumped into Revelations: Persona, and plan on doing Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment afterwards.

This stuff makes me want to do a turn based battle system.

#4804 The Satellite

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Posted 10 March 2023 - 02:46 AM

Well, my deep dive continues. Resident Evil 3 Remake down... in two nights. So, I'd wanted this on PS4, but it was only on sale on Steam. So I bought it, intending to start it when I finished my new PC... until suddenly it went on sale on PS4, so I quickly refunded my Steam copy and bought it there instead. Mostly for parity with RE2make, which I also played on PS4, and let's be honest, the controller light color changing to indicate your health is awesome.

 

Anyway, it's good! And disappointing. At the same time. It's a weird feeling. I've never played the original RE3 mind you, and I don't particularly intend to because by now I've had my fill of classic RE with predetermined camera angles and tank controls. Yeah, that's just one game, thanks to the N64 port of RE2 offering an alternative, but it's way too awkward and clunky, especially with combat. It might more be the angles than the tank controls if I'm honest, but together it compounds the issue. I'd like to watch a longplay of RE3, my only exposure to it otherwise is from SomecallmeJohnny's review, just so I can compare to the original.

 

As it stands, all I'm aware of is that the puzzles are stronger in the original, there's a missing boss, and Nemesis... was more of an everpresent threat. In Remake... he feels stunningly scripted, and that's one of the ways the game feels disappointing. Only appears under circumstances, and early on in Raccoon City streets, when it would make the most sense to have him chase you everywhere (barring safe rooms so you can breathe), there are still areas he avoids and it's really easy to lose him. I don't know, after Mr. X in RE2make, I would've liked something more, and yes, I realize I'm three years late to this realization. His boss fights are alright... except for the penultimate one, where he can combo you and give you zero time to dodge or heal if you get knocked down, which is fucking bullshit.

 

Otherwise... yeah, I like the game enough. Feels as good as RE2make, and the dodging mechanic can help navigate zombies while conserving ammo, although I swear it can be temperamental. I miss being able to throw zombies off you with the knife or a grenade, but I guess that's the tradeoff for being able to dodge as well as having an unbreakable knife. Will say I was annoyed when I saved a room for last at the end of my trek through the city streets at the start, only to trigger a cutscene event and get locked out of it permanently without realizing that would happen. Found out I missed out on a hip pouch. That fucking sucked.

 

Did I like it? Yes. Did something feel missing? Also yes. It's a bizarre mix of feelings, and I wonder if the game emphasizing horror less contributed at all. Oh it has its moments, and when it does them, it does them well, but it's definitely more actionized than RE2make. Not that this was really a problem for 4, I guess... ? I'm still enthusiastic for the 4 remake, and not just because I lack the nostalgic attachment most have to 4, but... I don't have that attachment to 3 and remain somewhat disappointed in its remake. While still liking it. It's bizarre and I can't really quantify my feelings in words, so I'll stop trying.



#4805 The Satellite

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Posted 03 April 2023 - 02:22 AM

Resident Evil 4 Remake down. Happy to see reception is positive among even hardcore fans of the original. As someone who didn't have nostalgic attachment to the original, I thought the remake blew it out of the water in nearly every regard. Visually it's gorgeous, it feels amazing to control, the story presentation is much improved... There's not a lot I think the original did better. Krauser still sorta feels like he came out of nowhere, but they do a better job of at least setting him up and making things feel more personal between him and Leon. The merchant may not be as immediately hammy, but his abundance of lines easily endeared him to me more than the original; and let's not pretend he's not still hamming it up. Leon is just as good as the original and perhaps better, and Ashley... holy shit, she's so much better! She acts way more realistically, has actual interactions with Leon, has actual character growth, and now I'd actually like to see her show up again!

 

Bravo, remake. Now give us Mouse Ashley DLC.

 

Gonna talk some things in spoilers, mostly those few elements from the original I miss:

 

Spoiler

 

But all in all, fantastic remake, looking forward to the inevitable reimagining of Separate Ways. I actually started a second run to grab some things I missed and just try for a good time. Not sure how far I plan to go in terms of completion but a second run could be good enough.

 

...

 

Oh yeah! I also played The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. For a game dumped on us for free on April Fools, it had... a lot of love and charm put into it? It's just a murder mystery visual novel with a lot of good art, solid music, and entertaining writing. I dare say it had more love and care put into it than the last several main series entries. Arguably Mania as well but only because of Sega's mandates upon that game, whereas here it felt like the creators had free reign entirely. Not to be like "This is the best Sonic game in years" obviously, it is a completely different kind of game. It's just cool to see Sega do something like this and I'd like to see more projects like this in general in the future. Definitely recommend for a fun 2-3 hours.


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#4806 Architect Abdiel

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Posted 25 July 2023 - 11:27 PM

Recently played through Danganronpa 1, 2 and V3.

Now I’m going to beat Master Detective Archives: Rain Code in the morning.

I love me a good mystery.
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#4807 Architect Abdiel

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Posted 19 August 2023 - 11:26 PM

So, I 100%ed Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope. Good game. A little repetitive as time goes on, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wife and I are playing the first Ace Attorney, and are in the final case, Rise from the Ashes. Also excellent so far.

Also started playing Return of the Obra Dinn. Loving it. The concept of exploring a the deaths of 60 people after the fact and figuring out who they are and what happened is brilliant.

#4808 Lardinou

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Posted 28 August 2023 - 07:24 AM

Right now, I'm playing the 2nd episode of Saints Row having never done it and my old pc wasn't running it properly. Being a fan of the series, I had to get into it one day !



#4809 Jamian

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Posted 12 September 2023 - 11:14 AM

I'm currently playing Chants of Sennaar, a clever and original point & click puzzle game that was released recently.

 

The main gimmick of the game is that, as you find yourself in a Tower of Babel kind of place with no backstory whatsoever (at first), you do not understand any of the words either written on signs, or spoken by the NPCs, as they are written using strange glyphs. In order to solve the puzzles, you have to guess the meaning of the glyphs, and write down your guesses in your journal, so that when you encounter the same glyphs again, you might begin to understand what they mean. Hovering your cursor over previously encountered glyphs will translate the sentences for you based on your journal guesses, and the translation might make sense or not based on how accurate you've been.

 

It starts easily enough with a tutorial section, where you encounter a lever opening a door. There are two positions for the lever, one that opens the door, marked with, say, glyphs "A C" and one that closes it, marked with glyphs "B C". You can then guess that glyph A means open, glyph B means close, and glyph C means door. A short while later, you meet an NPC which greets you by speaking glyph D as he raises his hand in a friendly manner, allowing you to guess glyph D is a greeting. And so on. 

 

But boy, it does get harder later on. Each floor of the tower has its own language, with not only completely different glyphs, but also different grammar. For example, on a certain floor, the language may repeat a word to make it a plural (say, "friend friend" will mean "friends"), while the language on another floor may instead use a specific glyph to indicate a plural. And while the bottom floors are not too labyrinthine, the upper ones certainly are (I started drawing maps on paper by floor 3, to avoid getting lost; the only complaint I have about this game, so far, is that a map feature would have been handy).

 

Aside from that main gimmick, there are also more traditional point & click puzzles, and some (thankfully forgiving) stealth sections. This game is definitely worth a try.



#4810 klop422

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Posted 05 October 2023 - 06:57 AM

Beat Persona 3 Portable, 4 Golden and 5 Royal recently. Now I’ve jumped into Revelations: Persona, and plan on doing Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment afterwards.
This stuff makes me want to do a turn based battle system.


Dunno if you'll have beaten P5R yet, but enjoy it when you do. I went through it in April/May and it's a good time, if very long-winded. I'll admit I didn't enjoy it as much as the internet seems to (honestly I do think the plot has some issues) but it is a great game, and I've got P4 on my horizons.

Anyway, I've been playing through a few smaller DS and 3DS games. Mostly doing a randomised nuzlocke of Alpha Sapphire, which is going great again after some terrible losses on Mt. Pyre. Also played through a few hours of Pokémon Conquest, which I am really enjoying (need to get back to it).

#4811 Architect Abdiel

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Posted 17 December 2023 - 03:34 AM

Recently I beat Symphony of the Night and the first Castlevania. I may have save scummed my way through the first game.
I also beat Persona 5 Tactica.

My wife and I beat Halo 1-3 together recently. And have been working on Gears of War. Currently beat 1, 2 and am working on 3.

I started Sea of Stars, but then started Hogwarts Legacy, and have been on that for my last 30 hours of gameplay.

#4812 The Satellite

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Posted 19 December 2023 - 01:14 AM

Oh I haven't updated this in eight months, huh? Guess that comes with the territory of being more of a lurker.
 
So the Resident Evil deep dive fell off after RE4R. I mean, I definitely played it a couple more times after, even getting the infinite rocket launcher, and I would like to go back to it and extend my playthroughs even further. As well as get the Separate Ways DLC, which in fact did come to fruition. But a lot of other games fell on my plate!
 
Like the Xenoblade 3 DLC, Future Redeemed. Goddamn, was that a satisfying experience for fans of 1 and 2, and hell, the base game of 3. It ties everything together beautifully while sowing the seeds of what may come. I do wish a little more fanservice had been thrown in the way of 2, since it's swimming in 1 fanservice, but just... still, many emotions, and 2 isn't devoid of love. God I love this trilogy. I really need to get to the Xenosaga games.
 
Well, I didn't totally shy away from Resident Evil, when I played Save Room - Organizational Puzzle. Alright, it's a less-than-an-hour puzzle game where you have to arrange items in an attaché case using limited space. It's the RE4 inventory, as a puzzle game. Short, but that means it doesn't overstay its welcome. Very inexpensive, worth the play even if you're not a Resident Evil fan!
 
And then I played Tears of the Kingdom but I posted about that in its respective thread.
 
I also knocked off a long-term resident of my Steam library in Katamari Damacy REROLL, my first foray into that series. At first I gave the original controls a try, but was getting a little frustrated and swapped to simplified controls. Only for those controls' quick roll command to be impossible to pull off, so I went back to the original. I adjusted eventually, I wouldn't say I ever mastered it but I got comfortable enough I could clear the game. And I enjoyed it! Wacky, great music, I'd consider playing more of these.
 
AEW: Fight Forever came out. It was fun to play through for a bit, and there was some funny writing in the story mode, but it's ultimately way too barebones in character creation and other customization. Supposedly, they plan to support and update this game for a while, as opposed to WWE's yearly approach, so maybe one day we might see a fully-realized game. For now, they already have a second season pass for new wrestlers that should've been there on launch and. I mean. It's fun to play. But it needs more. I still haven't even touched the battle royale mode it has, and I was looking forward to it just for how bizarre it was.
 
I also played Zelda (Game & Watch) off of Game & Watch Gallery 4. Using a save file, because I wasn't taking the time to unlock that. For an LCD game (ignoring the small retouches done to fit on a GBA screen), it was somewhat impressive, although it's still ultimately an LCD game. Repetitive. I beat it. It was fine. For what it was.
 
There's a developer that goes by "Siactro." A while ago I played a game of theirs on Steam, Macbat 64, a simplistic but fun little throwback to, well, take a guess. This year, I went through the rest of their library on Steam, including Toree 3D, Toree 2, Beeny, and Super Kiwi 64. Toree is more like a PS1 title in its linear approach, Beeny is a vertical platformer with a DKC-esque aesthetic, and Super Kiwi 64 is like a very miniature Banjo-Kazooie. I enjoyed all of them, their aesthetics and audio match the styles they were mimicking perfectly, and honestly Super Kiwi 64 is a decent little game with a lot of music I just vibed to. You can buy all four of these plus Macbat 64 for $8 USD together on Steam, and there's apparently another Toree game coming next year?
 
In the vein of retro 3D throwbacks, Lunistice is another good one. It's more of a PS1-style 3D platformer, starring a tanuki with a double jump and a spin attack. This one's still simplistic but more substantial than the Siactro games, and at $5 USD, also an easy recommend. 
 
And then... Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Fuck, what a game. Now in fairness, there are ways I feel the game could have improved. Like having more and creative bosses than just Bowser, Jr. And... okay I was honestly not a big fan of the soundtrack, it was fine but it wasn't great. And I do wish there were more incentives for experimenting and using different kinds of badges across the game. But otherwise! It's such a breath of fresh air for 2D Mario. Everything's colorful and lively and expressive, there's a lot of unique level gimmicks on account of the wonder flowers, some of the badges are really fun to use, the world map actually feels immersive and is probably the best one in any 2D Mario... yeah. Great stuff here. I do wish you could just toggle an easy mode instead of designating specific characters as said easy mode, but I stuck to Mario the entire way; not that it's a hard voice to do, but Kevin Afghani did a great job here. Oh, and I actually thought the online was fun! A charming approach, especially when you can help each other find hidden goodies and stay alive. Bravo. Would love to see a followup to this. But I'm also pining for a new 3D Mario...
 
Oh yeah, I also acquired one of the Nintendo 64 controllers they made for Switch and tried it out, including playing F-Zero X for the first time. ... I came away finding that I liked the original more, and that's probably because I also played GX back in the day. I appreciate what it was going for and if I'd played it as a kid, I would probably have loved it and still enjoyed it. I probably should go give GX another go though...
 
Super Mario RPG Remake is one of the best remakes of all time. They understood the assignment so intimately that I have next to zero complaints about it. I miss the old UI and the parchment-style textboxes, but everything else is so lovingly recreated, the music so perfect, I even teared up at the very end of the credits. It's so fulfilling, as a longtime fan of this game. To see it get this treatment, and not just a drop on NSO. Which would have been fine, mostly because I never expected this game to get a remake, so the confirmation alone was exciting, and the playthrough, rewarding. Actually just last night I went back to it, got 100 super jumps, and cleared the postgame. Phenomenal experience. Strong recommend if you loved the original or have never played it.
 
Then there was a little indie game called Prodigal, sporting a pixel art aesthetic somewhat reminiscent of Link's Awakening, although character sprites and portraits have their own charm. And the game is quite charming! The character writing was actually interesting, although a couple of them antagonize you a bit too strongly for my taste. Others are more successfully subtle, and I really liked the character designs. These were the main driving point though, as the gameplay was... mediocre. So mediocre that I'd put off the postgame for a while, came back to it, cleared another dungeon and... really just didn't want to continue it. It has some neat ideas here and there, like an item that returns you to the beginning of the screen which turned some classic puzzle ideas on their head, but ultimately it just felt too tedious to get through, sadly. Also the music wasn't really anything to write home about.
 
And lastly, Link's Crossbow Training. I forget where I even picked up this copy of it, actually wait let me check the label. Alright I'm back at my computer, yeah looks like I picked it up from the retro games store that's in walking distance from me. Or was. Sadly went out of business, probably because it was an indie store that also sold music and movies, and in the modern age of streaming... Makes me sad. That depressing tangent aside, the game itself was fun! Though I wish I actually had the zapper attachment, which would have probably made it more comfortable to play. I'm also surprised it uses the GameCube geometry of Twilight Princess's world and not the Wii's, though I'm not complaining. I also heard this game came about because Miyamoto prompted the Zelda team to come up with ideas for a TP gaiden game, the team came up with so many it was basically a fully-fledged sequel, and Miyamoto instead said "fuck all y'all we're making a tech demo instead." I'm just saying maybe Miyamoto sucks sometimes. Granted, a sequel to TP made in that era would probably have been bogged down in the same gimmicky motion controls Wii TP and later Skyward Sword would suffer from, so perhaps he spared us. But seriously, make that sequel now.

Video games.




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