Topic: What are you playing?

[NWR_insanolord]

I've been playing Metroid: Zero Mission since it came out on Virtual Console. I'd been looking forward to playing this for a long time after loving Super and Fusion, and despite how much I built it up in my head over the long wait for it to hit the service in North America, it has easily surpassed my expectations.

I haven't been blown away by a game like this in a long time. It takes the best aspects of both its predecessors and forms the perfect distillation of the Metroid formula. Quick pace, tight controls, absolutely nailing the feeling of progression and empowerment the series is built on. This is already one of my favorite games ever.

[riftzzz]

I'm playing Mortal Kombat X

[ejamer]

I've been playing Metroid: Zero Mission since it came out on Virtual Console. I'd been looking forward to playing this for a long time after loving Super and Fusion, and despite how much I built it up in my head over the long wait for it to hit the service in North America, it has easily surpassed my expectations.

I haven't been blown away by a game like this in a long time. It takes the best aspects of both its predecessors and forms the perfect distillation of the Metroid formula. Quick pace, tight controls, absolutely nailing the feeling of progression and empowerment the series is built on. This is already one of my favorite games ever.

Interested to hear more impressions once you finish the game. Zero Mission is one of my favorite GBA games, and neck-and-neck with Super Metroid for best in the series in my mind. 


It's not perfect. I don't love the final section in replays, although enjoyed it the first time through. There is also one specific "bomb the hidden passage" moment that I didn't love... but that seems to be pretty normal for Metroid games too.

[JamesGoblin]

Some emus (say, Warhammer Online <3 ) - I'm basically waiting for couple PvP MMORPGs that will be launched 2017, or - god forbid! - later.

[azeke]

Super Smash Bros for (Wii U):
I still suck at these games. Despite many hours spent with Melee i never understood it's controls.

No idea why i thought it would be different here.

I have trouble moving, turning around, jumping (neither setting feels good if leave tap to jump i start to jump when i don't want to, if i disable it i start tapping), attacking, blocking and roll.

I bought this game only because of Bayo DLC. I think it would have been better to just buy DLC without the game.

I like included trailers and music at least.


Yoshi's Woolly World:

Yoshi's Island is a game that when i played for the first time made me realize this Nintendo thing is something pretty special. It didn't even mattered that i was 27 at the time and that it was 2009 and not 1994, and that i played the game on inferior GBA and not on SNES -- the sheer creative charge of this was such it still shocked me. Before that i've never seen games where every single level introduces new gimmick and then subverts within that same level. It was a revelation that there can be games designed with such talent and meticulous polish.

I was very close to 100%-ing original YI (lost ambassador 3DS), but i think will be able to do it with game -- especially because you don't have to do all in one go.

It could be my eyes, but games in 60fps looks more vivid, "brighter" to me even if actual video settings are the same. Coupled with Woolly World's already bold colours it's almost blinding. Now i want to see how Kirby's Wii U game will look on my Plasma.

Super Mario Maker:
The game feels it was made by WarioWare team rather than usual Mario crew.

Weird loading screen, title screen that you can tinker with, weird UI, even included levels from "10 Mario challenge" are more akin to WarioWare micro-games rather than full Mario levels -- they usually have one gimmick and usually end right after you "solved" it.

[NWR_insanolord]

Klaus

This is a pretty neat little puzzle platformer for PS4, but the overwhelming feeling I get from it is that it really should have a Vita version. It makes extensive use of the touch pad on the Dual Shock 4 (the only game I've played to use it in a non-trivial manner), in ways that would be perfectly suited to an actual touch screen, or even the Vita's back touch. Regardless, it's a nice mix of puzzles and platforming skill, which I'm enjoying quite a bit so far.

[michaelbaysuperfan616]

I finally got my internet at the house so I was able to start downloading some of the games I got for Christmas. I started with Mortal Kombat X. I have to say I like it, it's Mortal Kombat, but as been the case for a while, I am having more fun unlocking crap and exploring the krypt than I am actually playing the proper fighting game.

[oohhboy]

Playing XCOM 2 once it's downloaded. **** is going to be great assuming there aren't any show stopping bugsthere are always show stopping bugs.

[NWR_insanolord]

I've been playing Metroid: Zero Mission since it came out on Virtual Console. I'd been looking forward to playing this for a long time after loving Super and Fusion, and despite how much I built it up in my head over the long wait for it to hit the service in North America, it has easily surpassed my expectations.

I haven't been blown away by a game like this in a long time. It takes the best aspects of both its predecessors and forms the perfect distillation of the Metroid formula. Quick pace, tight controls, absolutely nailing the feeling of progression and empowerment the series is built on. This is already one of my favorite games ever.

Interested to hear more impressions once you finish the game. Zero Mission is one of my favorite GBA games, and neck-and-neck with Super Metroid for best in the series in my mind. 


It's not perfect. I don't love the final section in replays, although enjoyed it the first time through. There is also one specific "bomb the hidden passage" moment that I didn't love... but that seems to be pretty normal for Metroid games too.

I finished it up tonight, and I'm extremely happy with it. The Zero Suit portion was very reminiscent of the SA-X segments in Fusion, which I thought were one of the coolest aspects of that game, then when you get the full suit back and going out of your way to track down and kill every space pirate you find because of how easily you can mow down the guys you had to tiptoe around. My only real complaint with the end game is the final mecha Ridley boss fight, which wasn't that interesting and felt pathetically easy.

I'll say right now, this is my favorite Metroid game, and my favorite GBA game, and toward the top on a lot of other lists. I'm on such a high note with it I've got the urge to jump back and replay Fusion or Super because I'm just in that kind of a mood.

[ejamer]

Lunar: Dragon Song (DS) - Found this game for $1 at EB Games a while back.  Reviews were very poor, and it seems like few people enjoyed the game.  Although it's got some odd quirks, the experience has definitely exceeded my expectations.


There are a lot of unusual systems in play for the game. During battle, you can choose whether to gain experience or items. You don't amass gold for victories, but can use the items collected to complete "deliveries" that net you significant value. If you choose to gain experience, you can remove all enemies from an area and once they are defeated you can open secret chests (if you find any)... but between each battle a clock starts ticking down and if you don't start another battle before it ends then a defeated enemy will respawn. All enemies can be seen on the screen and avoided, but running to get past them will slowly drain HP.


The story is only mediocre, but it's been an interesting game over the first few hours. My biggest complaint is pacing: maybe it's because I'm just figuring out the systems in play, but everything seems to take much longer than I'd like.


Still, great value for a buck so far! Initially planned to get rid of the game quickly, currently having second thoughts and might hold onto it instead.

... Metroid: Zero Mission ... takes the best aspects of both its predecessors and forms the perfect distillation of the Metroid formula. ... one of my favorite games ever.

This is exactly how I feel about it!  (Sorry for the judicious edits - but I don't think anything is out of context in a bad way.)

[NWR_insanolord]

I have no objection to your edit. Also, an addendum to my closing comments on Zero Mission, I was so excited for Metroid that I just played through the entirety of Metroid Fusion in more or less one sitting. Also a great game.

[Fatty The Hutt]

Finished up the first three cases in the Phoenix Wright Trilogy on 3DS. Still makes me smile. Taking a break though for a bit.

Now trying my hand at Fire Emblem Awakening. Been on my to-play pile for awhile. I made a bit of a run into it quite awile back, made it to chapter three but then stepped away from it for whatever reason. Starting it over now. We will see if it grabs me or not.

Also been playing some Lego Marvel Superheores on Wii U. That's fun. Just a chapter here and there. It's good.

[Evan_B]

I'm currently on the Metroid hype train myself, having played about three hours of Zero Mission last night.

I'll be going back to restart Super Metroid after this (my current save file is hunting for powerups right before Ridley, who I just can't seem to surmount, and I fear I'd be a little lost trying to jump back in) to better weigh the two evenly. Right now, Zero Mission is kicking major ass and it's looking more and more like one of my favorite titles in the franchise, but I also felt the same way about Super as I was playing through that, so I'd like to do a back-to-back to get my thoughts compiled.

I will say that I'm not a huge fan of Fusion, though.

[broodwars]

I have been playing Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth on my Vita, and it's been pretty excellent so far (11 hours in). It plays like a combination of Pokemon, Shin Megami Tensei, and the Mega Man Battle Network games. I have some issues with how the story has progressed & the total crap-shoot that is getting the Digimon you like in Digi-volution (since Digimon you don't have are all in silhouette), but I'm rather enjoying the game so far and I haven't been into Digimon since the series was originally on TV.

[Luigi Dude]

My only real complaint with the end game is the final mecha Ridley boss fight, which wasn't that interesting and felt pathetically easy.

Actually this one of the best things about the game.  If you 100% all the items the Mecha Ridley fight becomes a lot harder.  He's more aggressive with faster attacks that cause more damage and take more hits to kill.  Normally he takes 5 Super Missiles to the core to kill while with 100% items, he takes 15 Super Missiles to kill.

That's one of the things I really like about Zero Mission is they realized previous Metroids were really easy if you go for 100% and did something about it in this game.  So the final boss who's normally really easy, becomes challenging if you play the game in a way that normally makes it a cakewalk.  This makes the get 100% items in under 2 hours challenges really exciting since they have a great finish, especially on Hard mode since you have less missiles to fight and Samus takes even more damage on that mode.

[NWR_insanolord]

I've been getting back into Pikmin 3. Despite how huge a fan of the series I am and how much I liked what I played of this one, I didn't get too far into it before drifting away. Playing it now, though, I really don't understand how that happened, because I'm really loving it. It's kind of giving me the same feeling I got from Zero Mission, of this being the perfect synthesis of ideas from previous games in the series. Hopefully that new Pikmin game is still coming this year, because I have a feeling I may burn through the rest of this one.

[Adrock]

I picked Majora's Mask 3D back up again. I put it down because I was at a point where I needed to complete some mini-games on all three days and the first one was destroying some targets with a bombchu. It only took about 10 to 15 minutes, but I got the hang of it though I couldn't do that twice in a row. The mini-games on the other days weren't nearly as bad. Overall, it wasn't terrible, just annoying enough to cause me to stop playing for a month or so.

That pretty much sums up my relationship with Majora's Mask. It's good; I just can't love this game. There are parts that are absolutely brilliant (notably Stone Tower and the Anju/Kafei side quest) then there are parts that drag or are flat-out awful (notably 90% of the mini-games and almost all off Great Bay). Swimming is fucking terrible. It's made worse with the sub-par camera, and I'm playing the game on a New 3DS XL. The C-stick is largely fine for just about every other part the game. There's this one mini-game where you have to follow these beavers through underwater rings four times in a row to get a heart piece (you get a bottle after the first two rounds). WHAT THE FUC... I don't even remember this Superman 64 bullshit in the game. I've only completed Majora's Mask once back on Nintendo 64 (I started it on GameCube then quickly abandoned that idea). I got all the masks, but I don't know if I got all the heart pieces.

Like Ocarina of Time 3D, I wanted to use this opportunity to 100% Majora's Mask. Some of the side-quests and heart pieces are infuriating. Right now, I have to jump down some well then head off into one of my favorite dungeons on the entire series: Stone Tower. I haven't played it in over 15 years so I hope it holds up. If I had to guess, I probably have like six or seven hours left.

[MagicCow64]

@adrock: But you have to admit that Majora has the best shooting gallery of any Zelda game. I enjoyed the motion aiming of Skyward Sword enough to find the pumpkin shooting game extremely engaging despite how laughably basic it was. Imagine something as articulated as the MM shooting gallery with pointer shooting!

The Witness (PC):

I'd been looking forward to this game since its announcement, and paid full-price day one which is a real rarity for me.

Given sensitivity for this game, spoilers:

This game has gotten both really bad and perfect scores, and somehow it accomplishes both at the same time. I went through phases where I was hating it that would suddenly switch to finding it life-eatingly compelling. Eventually the good outweighed the bad, though the bad is fascinatingly hard to qualify, until the very end of the game. I finished every single goddamned panel of the game by myself (though I admit to having to look up how to unlock the entrance panel to the "post-game" caves), only to hit a wall with the "challenge" thing at the very end. The game inexplicably runs like **** on my computer, even on low settings, so the time trial random generation garbage is just impossible (or impossibly frustrating for me). I find this borderline heartbreaking after having put so much energy into methodically conquering the game, only to never be able to truly complete it.

Granted, I am nowhere near 100% on the "+" environmental puzzles, but I've got like 85% after combing the island as much as I care to. I know of about 5-6 more I haven't gotten because they're too much of a pain-in-the-ass to do, especially in the face of not being able to complete the challenge. The rest are mostly I imagine just not peering at the correct angle from random arbitrary points, and having looked it up, getting all of them doesn't even do anything. Odd experience overall. I don't regret it exactly, but I do wish it had turned out differently in a number of ways.

[Adrock]

@adrock: But you have to admit that Majora has the best shooting gallery of any Zelda game. I enjoyed the motion aiming of Skyward Sword enough to find the pumpkin shooting game extremely engaging despite how laughably basic it was. Imagine something as articulated as the MM shooting gallery with pointer shooting!

I don't know about the shooting gallery being the best in the entire series, and not because I necessarily disagree with you. I just don't remember the others. In any case, yes, the shooting galleries in Majora's Mask 3D are very good. They're better with motion controls too which I normally have turned off.

[Stratos]

So I've been addicted to the phone game Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes for the past month. Though made by EA, it is both fun and gives enough stuff for free to play people to get enjoyment out of it. There appears to be a nice balance of quality units for both free and paying players. If you do decide to spend money, the consensus is to buy the initial darkside pack for $5. Best bang for your buck and one of the only reasonably priced bundles. I chose to pass on it but this is the first game I have been tempted to drop actual cash on. I also like the number of characters included. It is a turn based squad RPG. Very fitting for the series as it hearkens back to KOTOR.


I also got Lego City Undercover as a Valentines gift from my wife. Seems to be a fun GTA/Sandbox style game so far with a lot of potential. Kind of nice to have a big Lego game that is original Lego content in a modern setting. I love the licensed titles, but this is a breath of fresh air, though the loading times are atrocious.

[Ian Sane]

My birthday is in December so with that and Christmas I tend to get a big blob of games around the same time.  My brother got me Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2.  Initially I just gave it a go about a week ago since it was a used purchase and I figured I should make sure it actually worked before it was too late to return it.  I was currently playing Xenoblade X and I wasn't expecting to take a break from it.  But I am.  DQ8 is just too charming so I'm engrossed in it.  I won't have time today to play it and that is annoying me so that's when I know it's a good one.

I have not played the Dragon Quest series that much.  I have the first two games for the NES but they're pretty primitive, though I did spend a really fun afternoon with the first game when I first started collecting NES games.  The series conservative reputation always made it seem less interesting than the very flashy Final Fantasy.

But I think I kind of understand the appeal.  The simplicity has made it very easy for me to immediately get the combat and the gameplay.  It's very by-the-books RPG but it's done very well.  Meanwhile I still don't quite feel like I understand half of what's going on in Xenoblade.  One thing I really like, and I liked this about Bravely Default as well, is that it is truly turn based.  Once Final Fantasy introduced ATB so many RPGs have a realtime element to their combat but I find that misses the point.  I don't have great gaming reflexes.  The appeal of an RPG is that I can take my time to decide what to do next and that is lost in realtime RPGs.  And many of them make you go through menus in realtime.  What?!  Why would I want to play a game where maneuvering through menus efficiently is a required skill?  I might as well play typing tutors if I want that.

The whole thing is also very user friendly in that the only real punishment for dying is losing half of your money.  You keep all the items and experience you obtained.  So if your skill at the game is terrible you can still succeed through sheer will.  You could in theory die at a boss, go back to fight him again, die, go back to fight him again and just do it enough times that the experience you gain from the trek back to fight him would put you at a high enough level.  You still lose time so you are still penalized but it's more of a matter of trying to do better to get to the next part in a more efficient manner instead of "oh **** I have to do all that over again" which I find I have little patience for dealing with in adulthood.  The financial penalty also adds a certain gambling element.  Many times I'm debating about whether to return to town because I'm saving up for some item and don't want a death to ruin that.

The story is also more old-time whimsical fantasy without all the angst and, well, trying to be so damn cool that RPGs have had since FF7.  I'm not a teen anymore.  I don't care what's cool.  If anything I find cool annoying.  The game isn't trying to be cool and has very traditional gameplay - it's appealing to me because I'm an old fart! Ha!

I'm now thinking I should look into getting DQ9 on the DS afterwards or the remakes of the older games.  Should I just spend the year playing the whole series?  The game is working for me enough to that that thought crosses my mind.  With this showing up on the 3DS this year, if they don't screw up the port, I would recommend checking it out.

[TOPHATANT123]

For a while Dragon Quest 8 was my go to podcast game, once you're out of town there is little to no reading that would mess with the other side of your brain that's listening to the podcast, and the parts where it requires full concentration are clearly defined. Xenoblade on the other hand has a lot of inventory management and talking with people in NLA and out in the field, meaning I'm more engaged but can't really multitask.

[Luigi Dude]

I'm now thinking I should look into getting DQ9 on the DS afterwards or the remakes of the older games.  Should I just spend the year playing the whole series?  The game is working for me enough to that that thought crosses my mind.

Well the remakes on the DS are all pretty similar gameplay wise so if you like one you'll probably like the others.  I'd recommend DQV the most since I feel it has the overall best gameplay of the 3 remakes as well as the best story.  If you like it then IV and VI should be a no brainer.  Plus IV and V aren't too long so it wont require a huge investment.  DQIV is only about 20 hours to complete and another 5 if you want to complete the post game quest which gives you a happier ending.  DQV will take around 30 hours but the storyline has several timeskips and pretty engaging for a Dragon Quest so it'll go fast.  DQVI though can take around 50 hours and can get kind of grindy depending on how you want to develop each of your characters because of the job system, but if you like the gameplay from the previous games it's still worth a playthrough.


So it's take about 100 hours to play all 3 of the DS remakes, which isn't that bad considering it's 3 different games and the battles move really fast as well.

[ejamer]

...
I'm now thinking I should look into getting DQ9 on the DS afterwards or the remakes of the older games.  Should I just spend the year playing the whole series?  The game is working for me enough to that that thought crosses my mind.  With this showing up on the 3DS this year, if they don't screw up the port, I would recommend checking it out.

I'm also a big fan of the DQ series for many of the reasons you describe.

However, even though I adore the series it tends to leave me wanting some variety after extended play. For me, playing one game from the main series per year has felt just about right and kept the whole experience from feeling too "samey".

I would definitely recommend the DS remakes of IV through VI and also Dragon Quest IX very highly. Many people say that V is the most interesting. Not sure it was my favorite, and I seemed to enjoy VI more than most (grinding didn't bug me since it was often done while watching sports on TV or listening to podcasts). IX is fantastic but felt very open and non-linear compared to the narrative-driven style of older games - maybe I'm misremembering though, since it's been a long time since I went back to IX?

After finishing the last DS release last month, the upcoming 3DS remakes will be arriving at a perfect time!
 


---


Oh right - was going to post about what I'm playing...


Gave up on Lunar Dragon Song (DS) after getting about 80% through the game (based on GameFaqs check).

I actually liked a lot of ideas in the game, but there were just too many little problems to care about seeing it through to the end. The AI targeting (for friendly characters) during battles is garbage and slows everything down. Having expensive equipment randomly break and leave your characters exposed wasn't a good system. The "delivery" system to earn cash is a neat idea, but also time-consuming and not particularly fun. In the end, this game just doesn't respect the player's time.

Those things combine to make the in-game systems not as good as they probably should be... and topping everything off, the story is pretty poorly told and not all that interesting.

Probably sounds like I'm hating on the game a lot... but that's not really true. The game had lots of neat ideas, and was fun to play while figuring out how everything worked, but it also had flaws and simply couldn't compel me to play until the end. I'd love to see someone take some (not all) of the ideas used here and reuse them in a game with more polish.

Not recommended, but I think that the bad reputation this game has is (mostly) undeserved.



Now I'm moving on to another poorly rated DS title: Battles of Prince of Persia.  This game is clicking with me more, although I'm still early on.

One of my other hobbies is board games - including some big, complex wargames that simulate real life battles. Why do I mention that?  Because Battles of Prince of Persia feels a lot like a digitized very of one of those games. Terrain modifiers, unit facing, broken or spent units, command ranges, zones of control, etc etc... if you have played wargames then a lot of what happens in this DS title will be very familiar.

Additionally, turns are a series of card-based choices where you spend each card either as an "event" or for a number of operational points that can activate units for movement and/or combat. This is a very similar system to many of my favorite wargames.

This feels like a very niche game, but so far it seems to be my niche. Sure, I'd rather have a digital version of Hannibal Rome vs Carthage, Paths of Glory, or We the People (go look them up at www.boardgamegeek.com if you want details) but that's just not going to happen. This weird little Prince of Persia spin-off isn't great but is at least interesting.

[Triforce Hermit]

The story is also more old-time whimsical fantasy without all the angst and, well, trying to be so damn cool that RPGs have had since FF7.  I'm not a teen anymore.  I don't care what's cool.  If anything I find cool annoying.  The game isn't trying to be cool and has very traditional gameplay - it's appealing to me because I'm an old fart! Ha!

This. I miss the old fantasy setting and story for RPGs. No one does it anymore. That is why when I recently played Ys the series was a huge hit for me. It is textbook fantasy. It was a major appeal of the game.