Topic: What are you playing?

[Adrock]

My friend gave me a Resident Evil Revelaitons 2 code for Switch. I bought a 128 GB micro SD card because I only had 14 GB of internal storage left. The download took almost three hours.

I feel weird complaining about a free game. RER2 appears to be lower budget compared to the first game though it’s been a while since I played it. Claire’s design is off. She looks like someone cosplaying as Claire.

I didn’t get very far. The load times are atrocious. I timed loading from the last checkpoint, and it look over a minute. That’s pretty much all I need to know about this game.

[broodwars]

My friend gave me a Resident Evil Revelaitons 2 code for Switch. I bought a 128 GB micro SD card because I only had 14 GB of internal storage left. The download took almost three hours.

I feel weird complaining about a free game. RER2 appears to be lower budget compared to the first game though it’s been a while since I played it. Claire’s design is off. She looks like someone cosplaying as Claire.

I didn’t get very far. The load times are atrocious. I timed loading from the last checkpoint, and it look over a minute. That’s pretty much all I need to know about this game.

I can't speak for the Switch version, but I remember the Vita version being a bad port, too.

Meanwhile, I loved the PS4 version & didn't see the technical issues you saw there so... *shrug* ?

[Soren]

I've returned to No Man's Sky for a third time. This time I think it might finally stick. The game will get an update next week that adds mutiplayer, third person views and expanded base and freighter creation. I think Creative mode now might be well worth playing if you don't want to deal with the survival/resource management bullshit the game threw out at first.


Some pictures of my still-in-construction base.

[NWR_insanolord]

I bought it when it came out and enjoyed it back then, but I haven't played it in a while. This update is making me want to go back to it.

[lolmonade]

I bought it when it came out and enjoyed it back then, but I haven't played it in a while. This update is making me want to go back to it.

I waited to pull the trigger til it was $20, but I had fun with it.  Or maybe it'd be more honest to say that it was calming to explore the worlds and trapse around a bit while tinkering with the base building. 


I don't know much about the update, but the talk has also made me interested in spending a little more time in it soon.  It's just a really good, chill game.

[broodwars]

Been bouncing off a lot of stuff lately since E3. Outside of a recent replay of the Devil May Cry reboot's Definitive Edition, nothing's really stuck with me between Octopath, Captain Toad, SW Battlefront 2, etc.

On a whim, I decided to finally try that copy of Dissidia Final Fantasy NT that I picked up months ago and never touched, and I'm surprised at the simple fun I'm having with it. You jump into a match, you dash at a chosen opponent, and you wail away at them with either an attack that lowers their defense and raises your attack but does no actual damage or an attack that does pure HP damage relative to those previous 2 stats but leaves you wide open for a counterattack. It's quick, simple fun I find pretty addicting. There are even little in-jokes like Tidus's line if you summon Ramuh ("Show them how hard it is to dodge lightning!").


The story mode's entertaining in its absurdity (just seeing the characters bounce off each other is amusing), but in a head-tilting decision Square Enix decided that you could only unlock story mode sequences by grinding first for a special currency in online matches or offline gauntlet runs. It's really terrible.

I also wish the matches had more stages. Final Fantasies 1-14 & Tactics are all represented here in large, gorgeous stages evocative of their respective games, but oddly neither FF 15 nor Type 0 have stages despite them each having a character in the roster.

On a side note, there's a special place in Hell for the person at Square Enix that decided that every treasure, unlock, etc. also be accompanied by a Moogle voice actor going "KUPO" or "KUPOKUP!" When you have 5-10 unlocks every gauntlet run & you HAVE to page through them all, you WILL want to throw your Dualshock. 

[Order.RSS]

Dissidia NT is that arcadey fighting game right? With all the numbers constantly flying around? I could see that being fun yeah.

I just (re-)started Donkey Kong Country Returns, never made it very far first time I tried it a few years back. I think I might be about half-way now, just passed the Cave world. Some of those minecart levels and rocket barrel stages really don't allow for anything less than perfect timing it seems huh.

[Adrock]

I picked up Breath of the Wild after about a year based on my previous auto-save. I stopped playing after getting the Master Sword because life got in the way. I only completed one Divine Beast. I was mostly wandering around, collecting Korok poo, and finding Shrines along the way. Surpringly, it didn’t take too much to get back into the game.

I dabbled in Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy and Sonic Mania Plus. I’ll have to circle back to those games, but I’m having trouble adjusting to non-Mario platformers.

I also “played” Octopath Traveler. I started with H’annit because she was furthest north and I figured I’d go clockwise. This is another game I’ll probably have to revisit. I’m about to cancel my Dragon Ball FighterZ pre-order. I have too many games currently.

I just (re-)started Donkey Kong Country Returns, never made it very far first time I tried it a few years back. I think I might be about half-way now, just passed the Cave world. Some of those minecart levels and rocket barrel stages really don't allow for anything less than perfect timing it seems huh.

Yes, it’s incredibly frustrating. I enjoyed the game overall even if I sometimes wanted to throw my controller into the sun.

[broodwars]

Well, Dissidia NT's Story Mode goes in a really weird direction as it goes on. The story fractures into 4 separate paths early on, and when you reach near the end of each respective path, you need to fight one of Final Fantasy's summons (or in the case of Lightning's path, 4 of them) in a 3-on-1 duel.

And oh boy...are these fights NOTHING like the rest of the game. Dissidia NT as a whole is a wacky, cartoony, button-mashy battle royale where 6 character run around hitting each other until they can REALLY hit each other. But these Summon Boss fights? Oh no...they're not Battle Royales at all. You see, Team Ninja made this game, and Team Ninja decided that what the story mode really needed are boss fights with heavy pattern recognition, multiple phases, a totally different damage mechanic, & the bosses able to essentially one-hit kill you on a whim.

Yes, what's essentially a light-hearted Smash-style affair suddenly turns into Dark Souls in these encounters. What. The. ****? Each Summon presents their own delightful little problems, but easily the worst of these I've encountered was Ramuh.

The dude can hit anywhere on the field on a whim, and in his second phase he can easily kill you in seconds when he winds up Judgement Bolt or his big full-stage slam move.

I've managed to take down 5 of the Summons, and Ramuh was easily the worst. Ifrit & Odin look intimidating, but if you pick the available spellcaster you can hit them from mid-range without too much problem. Alexander was tricky, but once you get his patterns down he's not too hard.

Unfortunately, the remaining 3 have to be taken down with melee characters, and I can't imagine a worse way to play these battles. I only took down Bahamut because Noctis' Warp ability lets him essentially hold at mid-range & bamph in when there's an opening & then out again. I have to take down Shiva with Leviathan with pure melee characters, though. That's going to be...fun. -_-

Edit: Shiva & Leviathan down. Turns out that Shiva is really weak to Cloud's aerial attacks, and even with her 2nd phase leading to another Shiva joining the fight it wasn't too bad. Leviathan was more annoying, but thankfully at this point I had my AI characters leveled-up pretty decently so they were able to keep him distracted long enough for me to do some decent damage.

That just leaves the Final Boss of Story Mode: Shinryu.

[lolmonade]

I'm currently into Divinity: Original Sin 2 (PC) after a friend of mine extolled the virtues of the game for the past 3 months to me.  I guess it'd be classified as a turn-based/Strategy RPG, as battles play out on a top-down plane with the typical move priority/elemental damage stuff into play, but each character has both a physical damage meter and a magic damage meter before you start whittling away at their actual life bar.  This creates a dichotomy where you want to focus-in magic attacks on one enemy, and your melee attacks on another enemy, otherwise you'll have each hitting away inefficiently at one enemy to take down two different shields before getting to their actual health.


The game tutorials nothing to you outside of pop-up buttons as you encounter something new for the first time, generally leading you to have to learn by trial-and-error or experimentation.  As you interact with NPCs between the battle sequences when you're exploring the world, the character building is largely dependent on what dialogue choices you make more than the game explaining the story to you.  Your race, class, and abilities also provide additional dialogue options and benefits depending on who you're conversing with, and sometimes affect the outcome of missions, as well as conditions which a battle might start. 


Generally speaking, Divinity is slow paced, and that coupled with how much the game focuses more on the character interactions than the battle system itself makes it feel like a dense experience.  I've put close to 20 hours so far and I'm still only in the first act.  I'm close to being ready to close the first act, but I also have a handful of missions that haven't been completed, so I could still be 2-4 hours away before being ready to close the door on this act. 


Overall, I've enjoyed the experience so far, but your miles may vary depending on how much patience you have with learning by trial-and-error rather than having things explained to you.  I've already seen how early decisions i've made have closed doors on possible missions, so if you go in blind, it also creates an opportunity to replay the game and have different outcomes.  We'll see how I feel about replaying this game if it turns into 50+ hours to complete.  That said, maybe the second run-through would be much more streamlined going in with a full understanding of how the systems work.

[broodwars]

Started playing the Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 on PS4 today. Would have gotten it on Switch, but I hate how the buttons on the Joycons feel with action games. Very hard & clicky.

The 1st X game is as perfect as it always was, and my memory of it & all its secrets is just as clear now as when I beat it every day back in my school days. My only real issue with it is one that was also a big problem at the time & no one's addressed it now: Hitting Circle to dash is carpal tunnel inducing, and it's ridiculous that you can't map dash to R2 (or to R1, with your weapons on L2 & R2). The most crucial move in the X series is the dashing jump while holding a charged buster so you can kill enemies in the air, and doing that requires one of 2 agony-inducting finger combinations:

1. Holding Square with the tip of your thumb & then using the joint on your thumb to hit X & Circle

OR

2. Holding Square with your thumb & hitting X & Circle with your index finger.

It feels like performing the Monster Hunter "claw". Yeah, I can do it, but it's needlessly painful considering the modern consoles have multiple triggers you could map the Dash to. But you can't in at least X1 because...the Super Nintendo didn't have an additional trigger, & Capcom couldn't be bothered?

I started playing X2 following X1, and it's still not a game I care much for. Something that the later games got really obsessed with is arbitrary time restrictions in order to unlock the "true ending", and that nonsense started here with the hunt for Zero's parts. After your 1st 2 bosses, you have 3 sub-bosses that jump from stage to stage, and you get one shot with each of them. If you ignore them or fail to beat them, they run away and you lose out on the true ending.

Sorry, but the entire fun of the Mega Man franchise is playing "your way", and stuff like this forces you to play through the game in a set order with arbitrary restrictions. It's just not fun, and it's not the last time the X series would pull this nonsense, either.

[Order.RSS]

Are the MegaMan X games on virtual console of Wii/3DS/Wii U? Cos then you could remap buttons right? Kinda bizarre if virtual console releases would be better than retail products, mind.
I've never played any of the Mega Man games, kind of a weird series to miss out on really. (Never played Resident Evil either despite owning the remake on GC, but that's even further off-topic.)

What's the best and easiest of the Mega Man games if I wanted to sample the series just once? I know 2 and 3 are considered the best, while X1 is probably the best looking right? I'm not super thrilled about the series' purported difficulty though, I'm still chipping away at Donkey Kong Country Returns atm and it's kicking my ass every third level it seems haha.

[MagicCow64]

Yeah, I never touched the PSX Mega Man X games, but played 2 and 3 and the WiiU VC and was pretty underwhelmed by both. The general progression design is a weird step down from X1's boss-defeat level effects. I almost prefer Mega Man and Bass for the visuals.

[Mop it up]

What's the best and easiest of the Mega Man games if I wanted to sample the series just once?

Mega Man 2 is the one which was made easier for the NA audience, so that would probably be a good place to begin. If you can complete Metal Man first and get the Metal Blade, it makes most of the game trivial. Another bit of advice is that you'll probably want Item 2 before you play Heat Man's stage.

Mega Man 3 is probably one of the tougher games in the series due to the haywire difficulty of the later stages. Likely not a good start point for a newbie.

After 2, Mega Man 5 is fairly easy as well, due to how absurdly powerful is the Mega Buster's charge shot.

The original Mega Man may still be the most difficult of the bunch, in part due to the quality-of-life improvements brought by the sequels (the original has no password system, no energy reserve tanks, wonkier physics, etc). Probably not good to start with the first game even though it's the first game.

[broodwars]

What's the best and easiest of the Mega Man games if I wanted to sample the series just once?

Mega Man 2 is the one which was made easier for the NA audience, so that would probably be a good place to begin. If you can complete Metal Man first and get the Metal Blades, it makes most of the game trivial. Another bit of advice is that you'll probably want Item 2 before you play Heat Man's stage.

Mega Man 3 is probably one of the tougher games in the series due to the haywire difficulty of the later stages. Likely not a good start point for a newbie.

After 2, Mega Man 5 is fairly easy as well, due to how absurdly powerful is the Mega Buster's charge shot.

The original Mega Man may still be the most difficult of the bunch, in part due to the quality-of-life improvements brought by the sequels (the original has no password system, no energy reserve tanks, wonkier physics, etc). Probably not good to start with the first game even though it's the first game.

Personally, I would vouch for Mega Man 4 as a good starting MM game. It's the one I owned from the original series growing up, and it's not particularly hard. Hell, you kill the final boss by basically walking into him while holding a button.

[Mop it up]

I had actually considered mentioning MM4 since it's one of my own personal faves and has one of the best sets of weapons in the series. But MM5 is more straight-forward which is why I chose that one instead. MM4 would probably not be a bad choice, though.

[Luigi Dude]

I started playing X2 following X1, and it's still not a game I care much for. Something that the later games got really obsessed with is arbitrary time restrictions in order to unlock the "true ending", and that nonsense started here with the hunt for Zero's parts. After your 1st 2 bosses, you have 3 sub-bosses that jump from stage to stage, and you get one shot with each of them. If you ignore them or fail to beat them, they run away and you lose out on the true ending.

There is no true ending in X2.  The only thing that happens by defeating all of them early on is you don't have to fight Zero at the end of the game, making the last level easier since it's only 2 bosses in a row instead of 3 now.  The actual story ending is the exact same whether you get all of Zero's parts or not.  I would argue people are better off ignoring them since the Zero fight at the end is a better fight then any of the X Hunters.

This is why I don't get how some act like the X Hunters ruin X2 when they a 100% optional part of the game.  Yeah they could have been implemented better but they're not really contributing much to the game whether you fight them or not.  It's not like X3 which requires players to fight Bit and Byte who can randomly appear after the 2nd boss fight and if they don't have the right weapons or upgrades yet can completely ruin that stage run making the experience really frustrating the first time through.  Especially since X3 thought it was a good idea to increase the damage normal X takes.

[Wah]

KNACK 2 BAYBEEEE

[BranDonk Kong]

Ninja Gaiden (NES) - **** this game is hard (until you learn how to play it)! Currently stuck on the second to last boss fight, debating on just dying so I can come back and one hit kill him with the jump slash. Such a great game though...they should make a new 2D Ninja Gaiden, arcade-style like the originals.

[azeke]

The best weapon in NES Ninja Gaiden games is not a sword nor magic but the edge of a screen. You can kill most the enemies (including birds and the most pesky ones standing on pillars) by just moving left and right so they just despawn.

[Adrock]

I’m slowly but surely making my way through Breath of the Wild. Not finishing this game has brought me great shame.

I definitely wouldn’t go through the game the same way. I prioritized Korok Seeds because I like exploring, and I spent Spirit Orbs on hearts first until I had enough so the Master Sword didn’t kill me. I plan to replay Breath of the Wild, maybe after purchasing the DLC. The game really opened up once I got the Snowquill set and at least one extra Stamina Wheel. Exploring for Korok Seeds and Shrines would have been a lot easier.

Currently, I’ve completed Vah Ruta (Mipha) and Vah Medoh (Revali). I wanted to go into Death Mountain before heading West except the heat depleting my health was stressing me out so I may do that last. I’m trying to upgrade the Ancient set except the Guardian Stalkers are being selfish and not dropping Ancient Cores. Also, I was trying to complete the Hyrule Compendium except I forgot to take a picture of Windblight Ganon. I know I can buy the pictures later; I was trying not to. Taking a picture of any flying insect is f-ing absurd.

How is the DLC? Does it change the experience of the main game a lot?

[ejamer]

... How is the DLC? Does it change the experience of the main game a lot?

We've been finishing up some old quests and things from Breath of the Wild recently too, and debating whether to purchase the DLC... but it's pretty expensive and didn't seem to add that much. Curious to hear from other NWR forum-goers about whether the cost is justified.

[Luigi Dude]

How is the DLC? Does it change the experience of the main game a lot?

To me the DLC makes the game feel more complete.  It gives the game some needed endgame content that's more challenging then the rest of the game that builds on what you've done throughout the game.  You get 16 new Shrines which I feel are easily the best in the game as well as a new dungeon which I thought was great as well.  The boss of the dungeon is also by far the best boss fight in the game.

I also really loved the Trail of the Sword challenges since they basically require you to have truly mastered the mechanics of the game.  It's basically the Zelda equivalent to Perfect Run/Champions Road that I always hoped Zelda games would start doing as well after the Mario team introduced them in Galaxy 2 and now finally got in this game.

To me if you really love the game and want another 12-15 hours of more challenging content, the DLC is easily worth the price.

[broodwars]

We Happy Few - Picked this one up on PS4 out of morbid curiosity, and I've reached the 3rd major area (Maidentown). So far, I'm not sure what to make of the game. I'm not having an unenjoyable time with the game. In fact, this is the furthest I've ever gotten into a Survival Game, and the story is excellent. Unfortunately, all the stuff around the story...isn't. Suffice it to say I've spent a lot of time dancing around really dumb enemies poking at them with my non-lethal umbrella and collecting a whole lot of crap so I can haul it to a locker so I can make 1-2 things I actually want and tons of stuff I don't.

Onrush - I just picked this one up today because it was on sale & with a $10 coupon I could get it for $30. I put a few hours into its campaign mode, and so far I'm quite enjoying it. It's from the makers of DriveClub...except it plays absolutely nothing like DriveClub. It's an Arcade-y racing game where the only buttons you need to worry about are Brake; Accelerate; boost; & ultra-boost ("Rush" mode).

The game plays like if you combined a racing game with the sensibilities of a team deathmatch multiplayer shooter like Titanfall and then took away the guns & the finish line. You play on one of two teams that go roaring around a looped off-road track trying to knock out the other racers & perform tricks & combo chains. To spice things up, there are dumb "fodder" enemies there for the sheer purpose of you crashing with a single touch to get more boost energy (hence the Titanfall comparison). Each type of vehicle functions like a "Class" in a MP shooter, with each vehicle having certain roles & special abilities that activate when you fill your "Rush" meter by constantly using your Boost.

I've seen a handful of event types so far: a "Best of 5" round mode where each team attempts to reach a certain number of points first; a "Best of 3" mode where each team attempts to extend a timer by repeatedly driving through a series of gates; and a unique mode where everyone starts with 3 lives & the weakest vehicle in the game for combat (the motorcycle). When you die, you have to move up to the next slowest vehicle class (but with more combat ability). First team to lose all its lives loses. When you lose all 3 lives, you move to the slowest vehicle class & play the spoiler.

So far, I'm liking what I see. The game has an attitude to it that reminds me of Split/Second, a racing game I loved on PS3 that also colossally failed because it was too unique from standard racing games. *sigh* However, I do think $30 is around what the game is worth, because already the game seems very limited (also like Split/Second).

[Soren]

I played the OnRush beta a while back and while the racing felt good I didn't see how the modes they had could keep me engaged for long.