Author Topic: What are you playing?  (Read 692525 times)

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Offline ejamer

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1425 on: November 14, 2017, 09:25:08 AM »
Hmm... I keep trying to play Hotel Dusk, but falling asleep after 10 minutes. It's been good, but not a "play before bed" kind of deal. Sort of wishing I had picked FFCC: Ring of Fates, despite the warning above... :)

Anyway, so while I'm still working on Hotel Dusk, also playing a few others:


Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita/PS TV): Graphics aren't that hot, but I'm enjoying this simple RPG/hack-em-up. Nothing too strenuous really happens in the game - just explore the map, take on simple quests as they appear, and occasionally wail on a oversized enemy or boss character.

Currently trying to find out what's poisoning the water supply of a nearby town. Not being able to just stop moving and auto-heal inside dungeons is a welcome change from the slightly too easy overworld.


Toejam & Earl (Wii VC): Picking this game up again solo, after finally moving past the tragic story of playing this co-op with my brother-in-law.

He had played as a kid, but never beat the game. Seemed like a fun thing to do together. Anyway, we had been playing TJ&E for a few sessions already, and were making good progress. Every time we'd hang out, we pick up where we left off - the automatic save state of Wii Virtual Console was great - and rip through a stage or two.

At this point, we had played on-and-off for a few hours, collected about 75% of the missing ship parts, identified all but one or two of the presents, earned a bunch of extra lives, and were pretty much sitting pretty to get things finished off. Until that fateful evening when extra company arrived and, instead of pressing Home and quitting the game to save our state, we accidentally turned off the Wii directly and lost all progress. That was it - we just never went back.

My kids are watching, and think it's weird all around. Playing co-op would be a lot better, but I'm enjoying the solo romp and it's still a fun game.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1426 on: November 21, 2017, 08:33:58 PM »
Still working on the games listed above, but also playing...


Lords of Thunder (Wii U Virtual Console) - Glad to find out this was finally ported over to Wii U. Not because of emulation quality, obviously, but it is much more convenient to play now.


NintendoLand (Wii U) - Still not a system seller for me, and a couple of the games just aren't fun to play - but this mini-game collection makes great use of the second screen and is lots of fun. Together with my kids, we've been loving Animal Crossing Sweet Day and the cooperative portion of Pikmin Adventure over the past week or two.
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Offline rvbykyle

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1427 on: November 22, 2017, 08:26:55 PM »
Pokemon Ultra Sun: the last core series for 3DS. Feels like a complete version of Pokemon Sun. It's a bit disappointing that it's an alternate take of the 1st installment rather a sequel like what happened with Black and White 2. Nothing much to offer aside from new Ultra Beasts and mini game.

Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1428 on: December 29, 2017, 03:37:55 AM »
I've built up quite a backlog of Switch eShop games and I'm trying to work my way through them, and as part of that tonight I started up Ironcast. My first reaction is I wish I got to this one a lot sooner. Really interesting mix of tactics and puzzle gameplay. I've been in the process of of trying to put together a top 5 eShop games of 2017 list and this game has immediately shot itself into contention for that.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1429 on: December 31, 2017, 09:01:47 PM »
I've been revisiting Wii mode on my Wii U, and enjoying a whole bunch of weird old stuff.
* Toejam & Earl (Genesis VC) - Died: bees stung me until I fell off the edge of the earth, and then the boogeyman got me. Didn't have the gumption to start over again.
* Soldier Blade (TG16 VC) - Wow, this seems easy after playing Lords of Thunder. Still fun though.
* Max & the Magic Marker (WiiWare) - My kids thought it would be run to revisit this game. They were right. Not a brilliant game, but the magic marker portion is clever and enjoyable.
* Ubuntu (WiiWare) - Love the board game this is based on, but it's a shame the WiiWare version feels so half-assed. The story mode is just odd, and the controls aren't nearly as smooth as I'd like. Still playable though, and still fun enough that I don't regret spending some more time with it. Interesting to note that a few neat board games were released as WiiWare - this, Penguin & Friends (which is a video game version of "Hey! That's My Fish"), and also Jungle Speed.
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Offline azeke

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1430 on: January 01, 2018, 01:31:29 AM »
* Max & the Magic Marker (WiiWare) - My kids thought it would be run to revisit this game. They were right. Not a brilliant game, but the magic marker portion is clever and enjoyable.
The sequel to this game is on the Switch and there is a demo. It looks like a standard puzzle platformer this time, without elements of drawing.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1431 on: January 01, 2018, 10:10:48 AM »
* Max & the Magic Marker (WiiWare) - My kids thought it would be run to revisit this game. They were right. Not a brilliant game, but the magic marker portion is clever and enjoyable.
The sequel to this game is on the Switch and there is a demo. It looks like a standard puzzle platformer this time, without elements of drawing.


Neat - didn't realize it had a sequel.
(I don't own a Switch, so doesn't help me... but the original game is interesting enough despite the kiddie graphics that I'd be keen to see how the sequel turned out.)
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Offline lolmonade

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1432 on: January 03, 2018, 11:20:44 AM »
In taking my kids to the library so my kindergarten-aged son has books to read for homework, I stumbled across a section of video games they offer to rent at $1/week.  I heard Gui on RFN mention his library before, but figured my small library wouldn't have anything like that.  This is a big get for me since i'm looking to downsize my video game expenses, and if I can rent some of the bigger games it'll open up my finances a bit to try out some of the more interesting indie fare that bubbles up as a "must-play" on lots of sites GOTY lists.


That said, this gave me an opportunity to start on a game I missed last year, Horizon: Zero Dawn.  I waited on it because I was devouring Zelda:BOTW at the time, and since I missed out on the $20 sales going on over black Friday, a rental at this price is perfect.


This game's world has left a great first impression at the roughly 8-10 hours in i'm currently at.  There's a lot of mystery of what happened to a society that once was advanced but now is back to tribal forager/hunter sects.  The characters you interact with all seem to have a distinct personality, even if they're one-off characters used just to give you a side quest.  Most of the characters during interactions look fantastic (i'm on a base PS4, not a Pro).  I'm so eager to keep exploring the different quests to uncover more of the world, the people, and this dynamic of cult-like religions vs skeptic that seems to be an undercurrent of the tribes.


Strangely, the combat is where I've struggled a bit so far.  This game does have a bit of an issue where these robotic animals are roaming through most of the world, and if I'm eager to just get to the next story beat, it can get distracting and aggravating to get pulled into an encounter when I don't intend to, but I am now able to get a mount, which helps mitigate those issues.  Beyond that, I'm interested in exploring more of the weapon types and traps to see how I can chain together a fight to bring down these bigger monsters, so I'll reserve judgement on this until I get better engaged in the combat and have more time in hand. 


overall, glad i waited on this game, not because it isn't a quality game, but more because the space between when I played Zelda and this lets me judge this game more on its individual merits rather than compared to how refreshing Zelda felt.


Question - I have Persona 4 golden I've yet to play, but my Library also has Persona 5.  Any suggestions for someone who hasn't played a Persona on where to start?




Offline broodwars

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1433 on: January 03, 2018, 02:17:12 PM »
Question - I have Persona 4 golden I've yet to play, but my Library also has Persona 5.  Any suggestions for someone who hasn't played a Persona on where to start?

Coincidentally, I just started Persona 5 last night, so I might be able to advise you on this since I've played all the post-3 Persona games (except, ironically, Golden).

IMO, Persona 4's one of the best games ever made, and Golden is widely considered the definitive version of it. If you're looking for the "best" Persons game, it's impossible to argue against Golden.

That said, Persona 5 does have some tweaks that, IMO, make it a BIT more newcomer friendly. For one, it has a modern UI & Fast Travel (I don't know if Golden added Fast Travel). Also, the Persona games are NOTORIOUS for how slowly they begin, but P5 seems to have the fastest start of all of them so far. P4 will have you in dialog boxes for hours before your first battle. P5 throws you into combat very early on, so you see both halves of the game quickly.

P5 also gives the player a bit more control over certain aspects of combat than P4 did. P4 used a chance game to acquire Personas. P5 uses the annoying SMT Negotiation system, where the player has full control of the outcome. I prefer the chance games, but it does open up the game a bit. Also, in P4 all the dungeons are randomly generated, but in P5 the story dungeons use set layouts. Stuff like that.

P5 is excellent so far, but if you have the time I'd recommend Golden over P5. I prefer its tone & characters more.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2018, 02:30:59 PM by broodwars »
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Offline lolmonade

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1434 on: January 03, 2018, 04:08:41 PM »
Thanks for the overview.  I'm tempted to start with Persona 4 just because I have it.  When you say there are hours of text dialogue before you get into the gameplay, are there save points through that?  Only concern now is that my gaming free time is roughly 1-2 hrs an evening, so might be a tall ask if I have to play 4-5 hrs straight without a save in that.

Offline broodwars

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1435 on: January 03, 2018, 04:58:29 PM »
Thanks for the overview.  I'm tempted to start with Persona 4 just because I have it.  When you say there are hours of text dialogue before you get into the gameplay, are there save points through that?  Only concern now is that my gaming free time is roughly 1-2 hrs an evening, so might be a tall ask if I have to play 4-5 hrs straight without a save in that.

The Persona games from P3 onward are divided up into days on a Calendar, and every day (including the opening hours) let's you save at least once a day. So no, you don't have to play it all at once. P5 let's you save at any time outside of dungeons, but even P4 golden is still on the save point system.
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Offline Order.RSS

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1436 on: January 11, 2018, 02:56:32 PM »
Fell down the XType+ hole again yesterday, figuring I'd "just play for a single round", and suddenly 3 hours had flown by. This game gets me focused in a zen-like trance like almost no other; it's crazy addictive and I don't even like highscore/leaderboard games. I tried the replay feature yesterday, looking at the highest rated player's run and it's just mesmerising to fast-forward through someone clearing 31 levels -- I've never gotten past the 15th. Remains a fantastic game at an unbeatable pricepoint; the browser version is free, even.

Offline ejamer

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1437 on: January 12, 2018, 07:42:12 AM »
Fell down the XType+ hole again yesterday, ...


This really is one of the best bargains on the Wii U (which I assume is where you played it).
Is a Switch version coming at some point? For a couple of bucks, this sweet little shooter is a wonderful diversion!
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Offline Evan_B

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1438 on: January 14, 2018, 08:15:40 PM »
By the by, in case anyone wants to know, Crystal Chronicles Ring of Fates is a hot mess of story and character but decent character customization and dungeon design, but Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time is one of the best action RPGs Square Enix has ever produced, with amazing multiplayer, great character customization, fabulous dungeon design, and an antagonist with the best sense of fashion in history.

Yes, I'm placing it above Kingdom Hearts, because it actually has a decent narrative.
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Offline Ian Sane

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1439 on: January 15, 2018, 04:28:32 PM »
I'm currently playing Virtue's Last Reward for the 3DS, which I got for Christmas.  I finished it's predecessor 999 last year.  One thing I'm really liking about Virtue's Last Reward is it has some significant QoL improvements.

These games have lots of times where you have to make choices and the plot goes in a different direction depending on what you pick.  To get the proper ending you have to make the right choices.  While I haven't finished VLR yet in 999 you actually have to go through the whole game at least twice to get the good ending.  But this was kind of a pain in the ass as you had to start over again each time.  Yes, you can fast forward through the story parts you already saw but you also had to solve the puzzle rooms each time.  So even though I know how to solve it I have to go through the whole thing to solve it again.  After going through in a way to get every puzzle room and getting bad endings every time I eventually looked at a non-spoiler walkthrough to see what steps I had to take.

VLR improves on this by offering a flow chart showing all the places where things split based on your decision.  At any point you can return to a prior point.  This has done wonders for the game!  Now whenever I get a bad ending I can just pop back to a prior point and see where that leads me without having to repeat the whole game to that point.  There still are some parts that repeat regardless of the choice you make but it is leagues better than 999.  Another major improvement is that all the paths lead to unique puzzle rooms so you don't have to play the same ones repeatedly like in 999.  This also means more puzzle rooms which is great because they're my favourite part!

I'm trying to get my brother to give this series ago as I think he would like them but recommending the first game now with all of its annoying repetition feels like a hard sell.  "Try this game.  You'll mostly like it but it will annoy you a fair bit as well but it's all worth it because its sequel is better!"  The thing is that there are storyline cues in the sequel that won't really make much sense if you didn't play 999 first - plus it will spoil 999's story if you decide to go back and play it so jumping right to VLR doesn't make sense.  Apparently the Vita/PS4 port of 999 has the flowchart feature but then I have to convince him to buy a new game instead of just borrow my DS copy.

Anyway, it's a great game so far and once I beat it I'll probably buy the third game Zero Time Dilemma.

Offline Shaymin

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1440 on: January 15, 2018, 10:37:56 PM »
I kind of hope the Nonary Games collection (or even 999) get ported to Switch because of the flowchart being backported in. But VLR is fundamentally unplayable without it.
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Offline Stratos

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1441 on: January 16, 2018, 02:35:03 PM »
By the by, in case anyone wants to know, Crystal Chronicles Ring of Fates is a hot mess of story and character but decent character customization and dungeon design, but Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time is one of the best action RPGs Square Enix has ever produced, with amazing multiplayer, great character customization, fabulous dungeon design, and an antagonist with the best sense of fashion in history.

Yes, I'm placing it above Kingdom Hearts, because it actually has a decent narrative.


Really? I might have to pick it up on the cheap. I adored the original, but Ring of Fate was so awful I abandoned the series. Does the online still work or is that dead?




I dove back into Fire Emblem Warriors now that there are some new heroes, and It is nice having some spear wielders. Given me a bit of extra life for the game, so I'm working on unlocking Lyn in History Mode, and its a pain in the ass. I just want Owain and Minerva from DLC and I'll have all the characters I would want to play as. I'm really hoping for another wave of DLC, but with the Hyrule Warriors port coming soon (and the hints dropped by the devs), I suspect development on FEW is complete, and we are more likely to see a sequel in 2019. Ah well, at least there are enough character between the main game and the DLC I care enough about that I can field a full team of "likeable" units.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1442 on: January 16, 2018, 04:33:40 PM »
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time was Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, so it's dead. It may be possible to run a homebrew server with the Wii version, but I haven't looked into it. My friend and I put over 300 hours into the game, I had the Wii version, it was a lot of fun.

Offline ejamer

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1443 on: January 18, 2018, 02:39:47 PM »
Ugh.  Finally started playing Zora's Revenge: Star Tropics 2 (NES).
It's not very good.

The first game used a square grid that limited movement. That's replaced with a free movement system that allows diagonals - but it also makes movement less predictable so you end up fighting the controls as often as the enemies.

Instead of light RPG trappings, the game and story have been turned into linear events. There are fewer puzzles and secrets to uncover. The game overworld offers nothing of value, so I don't know why it wasn't just replaced with cut scenes.

The game is still playable, and I'm going to finish it off because it also seems relatively short... but it's impossible to recommend to anyone who isn't an longtime fan of NES games (or of Star Tropics in particular).
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1444 on: January 19, 2018, 02:20:06 PM »
That's a shame, StarTropics 2 is actually one of my fave NES games. I find your complaint about the lack of grid-based movement to be interesting, as I've always felt the control in 2 is way better than 1. I never experienced any issues moving or jumping in the levels, it all felt intuitive for me. In the first game, the strict grid was a detriment since it made moving away from enemies a lot harder than it should be. The sequel overall feels a lot easier and less cheap due to the superior control, though it's still no pushover of course.

It's been a long time since I played the first game, but I don't remember there being anything interesting happening between the dungeons. I'm fine with the linear structure of 2, but then again I'm also someone who has never seen linearity as a bad thing.

2 also has some of my fave tunes on the NES, it's got a nice soundtrack.

Offline ejamer

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1445 on: January 19, 2018, 03:32:46 PM »
For reference, my disappointment with Star Tropics 2 might be unreasonable.


The game fails to live up to my expectations, but those expectations were based entirely off nostalgia for the original - which probably wouldn't hold up all that well today if I were to play it.


@Mop it up: You are probably right about nothing cool happening between action stages in the original. My memory was that there were more puzzles/secrets in the original overworld - a music puzzle and some mazes come to mind - but that might not be accurate. And while some of the (bad) humor is appreciated, the overall story/theme feels more random when jumping through time.


If I had gone into the game expecting an isometric action adventure, with a very silly story and more focus on action than adventure, then my impressions would probably be better.
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1446 on: January 19, 2018, 09:22:55 PM »
I finally have a way to play Sonic 06 for myself. What a game. What a game.

Offline Adrock

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1447 on: January 20, 2018, 09:52:20 AM »
Played Rocket League on Switch. The first time I saw my friend play this, I didn’t understand why people were so into it. Rocket League is really fun. As expected, I’m awful.

I was also forced to play Cuphead. ****, that game is difficult.

Offline Soren

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1448 on: January 20, 2018, 12:59:07 PM »
I played Cuphead and got to the next to last boss (which most people say is harder than the final boss) before tapping out. Still got farther in that I thought I would. And most of the boss fights were very enjoyable.
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Offline oohhboy

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #1449 on: January 20, 2018, 11:31:41 PM »
Rocket league like any sports or game has a learning curve. I find the problem for me beyond me sucking is the high level play is absurd. With other sports after learning the rules and playing some games you get an idea of what is happening so when you watch a pro game you have a feel for it.

Not so with RL, it feels BS with flying turbo boost. That aspect of the game is pretty much useless to me as even in the tutorial I barely managed to execute any reasonable moves and that require a lot of repetition just to do it once. It lacks the easy to start, hard to master. It's more stupid hard to start, disgustingly horrible to even consider mastering. Win or lose you don't know why.

It also lacks any sort of skill transfer in or out. Whatever you know about driving or piloting is inapplicable to this game.
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