Weekly /r/Games Discussion - What have you been playing, and what are your thoughts? - June 30, 2024 - r/Games (2024)

Last time

Alan Wake 2 - Night Springs DLC (PS5) - I bought the deluxe edition at launch so I already had access to this. It's fun; three bite-sized adventures framed as 'Night Springs' episodes - essentially Alan's failed escape attempts - which gives the DLC licence to be completely nutty. Episode 1 especially is completely insane, feeling like a schizophrenic mind's fever dream refracting the story of Alan Wake. Each episode has its own theme and protagonist - 1 is combat focused, 2 is horror focused (probably the weakest of the three) and 3 is puzzle focused (but with some really creative left-field turns). There are a few questions answered from the base game with more posed and a ton of easter eggs relating to other games to find - whilst it is quite short overall, if you want to dive back into this world then it's definitely worth picking up and it's guaranteed to surprise you along the way. I'm glad that everyone is discovering the song at the end too (it's been out since the Chapter album was released last year).

The Talos Principle 2 (PS5) - Not done with this yet (on World W2) but approaching the end (I have bought the DLC). I'll reserve final judgement until I'm done with the game but I'm liking it a lot. It's a puzzle game set in the future that moves things on from the original (and play the original before you play this one) and it's considerably longer too if you're going for 100% puzzle completion.

I beat the original nearly 7 years ago (on PC) and replayed it 3 years ago (on Switch as Gehenna didn't really work on PC for me) and it's lingered in my mind as an intellectually stimulating experience. Talos 2 is basically the Portal 2 to the original's Portal - more mechanics, bigger areas, a larger cast of characters and more fleshing out of the world. The puzzles remain as good as ever with the slight exception of the 'statue puzzles' (the open area is at times just too big to work out several un-signposted things on the map - W2 is the biggest offender here) and the new mechanics allow for some surprising interactions. I like how the puzzle names offer more clues this time around and that the hint system has been revamped (though I've not had to use it yet - the game has kept me in a decent state of flow).

Previous staples of the series are back but remixed a bit - terminals have documents but often with annotations from mysterious users and audio logs return from different points of view. Even the multiple choice dialogue system returns, though it's used with your party members instead of at computer terminals. This is something that has grown on me whilst I've played the game - I wasn't sure at first about exploring with a gang but their points of view and separate distinct personalities won me over. There's definitely a lot more dialogue than in the original but it's well-written and presents points of view that can be disagreed with.

The scenery is gorgeous and there's so much just tucked away - there's a gigantic city you can explore that's basically completely optional and every map has something to find. The music is fairly good though I think the first one's often melancholic tones suited the environment a bit more (the series can be quite dark depending on your viewpoint). I like how the Gehenna DLC is referenced quite a few times and the ideas present in there are a kind of cornerstone of several themes in this game. The social media feed also returns from that DLC which helps to make things feel more 'alive'.

I think it's probably better than the first game though they are two different experiences with this game capturing the feeling of unravelling a mystery. If I have any quibbles, it's fairly minor writing ones like perhaps some cynicism could be given a slightly bigger mouthpiece (talk of spreading life to other planets reminded me, perhaps unintentionally, of the AI paperclip problem) but compared to most other video games this is on a different level in terms of quality of writing. When I'm done with the main game, I'll probably go straight into the DLC as I've heard it's harder than Gehenna.

Planescape: Torment

It's really interesting playing this game and seeing both how much gaming has progressed in the past 25 years but also how it's stagnated in some ways.

Planescape is often praised for its writing, but that's a little reductive. It has one of the most compelling main narratives I've played and pairs that with a uniquely bizarre world and distinct, heartfelt characters. "Gameplay" in this game can sometimes involve a literal two-hour long conversation with a companion, but the story and writing are good enough that you're hanging on each word. You can walk up to every random NPC and have a ten-minute long conversation. And the writing is thought-provoking, delving into epistemology, ethics, existentialism.

I think the writing in particular stands out because it feels largely the writings of a singular person/small team. That gives it a uniquely cohesive voice, which contrasts so sharply with modern AAA games where the writing feels so focus-grouped and workshopped and dumbed down.

If I had to pick a single best-written game I'd probably still nominate Disco Elysium as that game is a little more narratively ambitious with a ridiculously broad range (both hilarious and sobering), but Planescape's writing is probably the only other game whose writing in its totality I would put on the same tier (maybe Thronebreaker in a distant third).

That said, everything else in the game is understandably weak. Graphics of course, sound design, music, but particularly the RTwP combat which is just mechanically a complete mess. It's honestly better to treat the game as an interactive novel -- and through that lens it's a very good one.

Alan Wake 2 -- Night Springs DLC

Speaking of narratively ambitious games, I enjoyed these three ~30-minute missions that further flesh out the Remedy multiverse. The first features a couple shooting galleries, the second features the main character of Control navigating a haunted amusem*nt park, and the third throws some gameplay curveballs and fourth-wall breaking at you that's better experienced for yourself. They're short enough (with entirely reused assets) that I can't recommend it widely at the $20 price tag for the season pass, but as someone who prefers quality to quantity in games this was fun.

After 8 years and 850 hours, I have finally completed the Hall of Fame in Civilization VI. I was driven to complete it after the official announcement of Civilization VII. I was only missing 2 leaders, so it wasn't a huge undertaking, just something I had to sit down and accomplish.

To say I enjoyed this game is an understatement. When it first game out, there was a lot of scuttle about how it wasn't as good as Civilization V and I think there was some merit to that at the time, but now with the expansions and all of the other additional content like alternate leaders and game modes and everything, there's no comparison. There's so much more variety in the way games can play out. The addition of districts made planning cities much more interesting than before. Exploring and settling is the most fun part of the game for me, so the strength of wide gameplay compared to the tall gameplay of Civ V was so much more enjoyable to me. Individual Civilizations play out with much more variety than in Civ V, too. I even prefer the more cartoony art direction of Civ VI compared to the more realistic style of Civ V (although I do quite like the art deco look of the menus).

I'm looking forward to what Civilization VII has in store for us, although I need to remember that it won't be a finished product for a couple years just like how Civ VI wasn't a finished product until just a few years ago.

Just like how the announcement of Civ VII inspired me to play Civ VI, the announcement of Assassin's Creed: Shadows (combined with the upcoming Assassin's Creed Magic the Gathering set) inspired me to get back into Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. I know there's a lot to dislike about Ubisoft and the AC series, but it's still a guilty pleasure of mine. Sometimes I just like exploring different beautifully-rendered historical eras. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla carries that torch very well even after leaving the stunning fjords of Norway for the rather plain English countryside.

So far, my only big complaint is with the voice acting, but I think this might just be a consequence of this game being a late 2020 release. It's possible that the pandemic threw things off in this department. I otherwise quite like the dialogue. The vocabulary is simply very interesting to listen to. I am also cynically looking forward to seeing how the game justifies being a bloodthirsty Viking raiding the English countryside as "serving the light". More than ever, it feels like the game isn't interested in being an Assassin's Creed game at all, rather a Viking game benefitting from the marketing arm of the Assassin's Creed brand. Nevertheless, I'm interested to see where this goes.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Basically just more of the base game, both good and bad. The exploration was amazing and there were some great sights to see but the itemization was terrible. Did not particularly enjoy being drowned in smithing stones I did not need and cookbooks I needed even less.

The bosses were also a mixed bag. It had some really fun bossfights, particularly Messmer, Rellana and Midra but also some really terrible ones in there. Not every boss needs to be an actual blender with 10 string combos each of which could take away 50% of your HP.

All that being said, I liked it.

Nine Sols
Started this after being recommended it by a couple of people, and seeing the absolutely jawdropping art on the Steam page. Definitely the most pleasant surprise of 2024 for me. It has its wonky moments, particularly in a couple of the bossfights and the general placement of the checkpoints but overall, 95% of the game is rock solid and an absolute blast. The story and overall lore was fascinating as well. Really cannot recommend this game enough. I need more.

Still working on Regalia: of men and monarchs. It’s been straightforward aside from one quest in chapter 4 that involves a dialogue chain and picking the right choices. It’s not immediately obvious even with a guide. I ended up failing it twice.

The first time I just guessed up blindly because the other things are simpler. The second time I tried using a guide to get the game player to make everyone happy, but that failed. Finally, I took the cheap way out and screwed two people over in favor of the person that was basically almost innocent from acting in self-defense (the game points out he’s not entirely innocent even in self-defense because people got killed, and he does acknowledge that he acted recklessly even if he was defending himself). I ended up completing that quest, but it felt very awkward compared to the rest of the game. However, that was part of DLC that was added later for the original release, but the Switch version got it all at once, so that might be why it’s out of place. I also learned that there was a second DLC that never made it to anywhere but Steam because of a developer which midway when it was supposed to release to consoles. It’s not too much to miss out on (a few new characters based on a separate set of missions which operate the same as everything else the player has done). But it is a little frustrating. and while I was lucky to get it on sale, this increased the price, so it drove people away.

Other than that, my thoughts are mostly of the same. I am planning on doing a 100% run as close as I can, but usually that would require playing through more than once. I don’t feel like doing that because it still has some parts and two paths lead to the same ending, but at least look up what I missed. There is also a second pack of DLC that was unavailable to console players despite initially being promised, so I will have to watch that as well. I’m actually in the postgame now, cleaning things up by finishing every character’s personal story and completing every dungeon. I am expecting to finish that in the next day or two, so I may as well give my final thoughts.

Overall, the game did what it needed to for me and gave me a lot of laughs and a lighthearted adventure helped me get through a tough time (healing from a medical device malfunction), but a lot of the game is not impressive. The one I saw gave it to six out of 10 and I think I will give it a five out of 10. The story is pretty good, nothing deep, but it is hilarious and makes it well known that it’s almost like a parody of many fantasy stories. And that alone kept me going forward, wanting to solve each character’s problems and try as many of the dungeons I can to get to know more of that world, it’s inhabitants, and the lore. And that was the huge highlight of the game, but there’s not that much more than that.

Combat is pretty unbalanced, unless you use the assists to make it very easy, which is what I ended up doing. And by then it was just dull. The second DLC did some rebalancing to remedy that, but consoles never got that. It’s enough for me to take away a point, on top of having characters and lore that was never expanded upon. There’s also the fact that there’s two different paths that lead to the same ending, but it’s not very easy to go both paths because they involve choices in different chapters, there’s not really a way to go back, and there’s no new game plus mode to get to that extra path quickly. And the game acts like the player should get the characters from both places, when in reality it’s impossible to do that. Which is really a shame because there’s a lot of good lore behind both.

Overall, the game is good at what it does but mediocre otherwise. I liked what it was good enough to pretty much 100% it, but I definitely would not play it again, and there are better options. It’s a great game for getting on sale though, and goes on sale often. It’s on sale right now until the 11th for anyone that wants to get that, and I would definitely recommend it for people that like that type of game. It’s a mixture of tactics, character development and city building on a small scale and sped up, so I found that interesting. It definitely felt like something unique in the genre so I’m glad I did it for that alone.

Mario kart 8 DX is still playing itself! I’ve done about half the modes now, so it will just be grinding coins until I feel like I’m ready to play. My medical problems are over and treated, so it’s just a matter of getting used soon exercising and moving around again as I worked back up to my full strength. It shouldn’t be too long though because the whole thing lasted for only about two weeks. I’d like to have all of the equipment before I start the Grand Prix, but that requires about 3000 coins and I only have a fraction of that. So I might still at least do the easier parts before that. There’s some other things I’d like to do before then, so we’ll see.

For example, Temtem just arrived and I’m expecting to dive into that sometime this weekend. It’s an interesting story because the high price tag and the glitchy switch release put me off. However, I found a physical version on sale, so I figured I could give that a shot. The consensus was that the switch version was glitchy no matter what (someone mentioned it was a bit like Scarlet and violet in that regard where there would be glitches but a lot of them won’t cause major issues), but if someone could get past that, it’s a fairly good game. Things like crashes aren’t an issue either because the game will always auto save. So I figured it was worth a shot.

So far I’ve done some basic things and it’s OK aside from being a little laggy and I crashed twice, but the game boots are right back up literally right where you are and auto-saves all the time so I didn’t lose any progress nor do I expect to. Otherwise, I really liked what I saw in the game and it reminded me of the Orre Pokémon games. For those that don’t know what these are, there are two games that are darker and more difficult than the average Pokémon games, and also contained a stadium mode. Since they were released exclusively for the GameCube as a side game and didn’t play like traditional Pokémon games (since they were actually made by some of the creators of Dragon Quest and function more like if Pokémon was fused with that), they didn’t do very well but gained a cult following.

And since it’s very unlikely those will be rereleased in any capacity, Temtem is the next best thing. So hopefully I can get it to work. There are massive multiplayer elements, but they’re not required and I don’t plan on using them. I did find out I might be a slight disadvantage as a solo player, but it shouldn’t be enough to prevent me from completing the game. So hopefully everything will go well and I’ll have a great time!

Elden Ring. Finished the DLC on Wednesday. Decided to play the DLC with my latest character rather than my original playthough character, which is on NG+. I always played the From DLCs on NG+ previously, but I think I made the correct decision this time.

I think it took me around 40 hours, which is not far off the time it took me to complete Dark Souls 2, 3 and Bloodborne on my initial playthroughs. In that respect it feels like we got a new full game.

I pretty much stuck with my tried and true Colossal Greatsword and Giant Crusher Hammer for most of the DLC until I found the Chicken Leg. I immediately switched the affinity to Heavy, so I didn't experience the crazy bleeds that thing can do until I finally beat the DLC, respecced, and went into the final boss to help people using it. Man that thing is crazy strong.

I liked most of the bosses. Though there was one, Gaius, that felt like he was created to be as annoying as possible. It was giving me flashbacks to the Watchdog of the Old Lords from Bloodborne. I thought the final boss was mostly good apart from some of the AOE attacks. I really enjoyed the rest of the bosses though. They all felt very unique. I don't normally like dragon fights, but I think Bayle is one of the better dragon fights they've created.

The exploration in the DLC is the best it's ever been. I had loads of those "wow" moments that Siofra provided in the main game. Entering the Coffin Fissure for the first time, exiting a seemingly normal dungeon to find yourself in The Abyssal Woods, Metyr's boss arena, Marika's home village.

Some of the exploration did feel a little bit weird though. There were some areas that I had to double check I didn't miss anything because they were pretty empty, or I just found a few level 1 upgrade stones. While The Abyssal Woods was fantastic when I first stumbled across it and made my way through, it did lose some of its creepiness once you realised that the threat you were warned about in the dev messages were fairly weak/easy to avoid enemies that were very sparsely placed around the whole area. The way it was set up made me think there would be a giant monster lurking in the fog. That first few minutes was the most I've been creeped out in a From game though. Midra's Manse was still very cool though, especially with the lore and context surrounding it. Midra himself was also a great fight

I just wish From added another boss rush mode like Sekiro. While I love the game, I've played it to completion 4 times now and would like to try out some of the new weapons without running through the game again and again, only being able to kill a boss once per playthrough. The way I've been doing this currently is by putting down a summon sign and hoping that the host doesn't die instantly. This is a fine middle ground for now, but when the game becomes less populated the summons become less frequent.

Stellaris

I know balancing the numbers to stay in the black isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I think after thousands of civ hours, I’m appreciative of how strong economy in Stellaris isn’t a foregone conclusion until you’re deep into the game. I feel like no matter who I play in civ, I end up making more gold than all AI combined, even on deity, and gold maintenance is never a real threat so long as you’ve chosen lucrative trade routes. By the time you’re properly incentivized to domestically trade in civ, I feel like you hardly even need gold anymore, assuming you have 6 cities or more. These games might be apples and oranges; adding more friction around gold in civ probably wouldn’t make the game any more fun, and I imagine civ AI doesn’t focus on gold because the AI doesn’t know how to make good purchases. I used to feel like economic victory should’ve been a shoe-in feature for civ, but Stellaris has kinda shown me why Firaxis didn’t go down that road.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

I'm one of the people who doesn't find that basic combat of Souls games particularly engaging relative to more traditional action games, so I prefer it when the games lean harder into the RPG elements. So, I thoroughly enjoyed it when Elden Ring presented boss battles that are "ridiculous" if you just try to "circle-R1" your way through and push you to change up your build and actually utilize all of the mechanics the game has to offer - weapon arts, spells, buff stacking, blocking, the works. SotE offers more of those moments, and so I enjoyed my time playing it.

What I'm actually critical of is the story/lore. I'm a big fan of ER's story, and I'm one of those people who ravenously devoured item descriptions enough to actually have a pretty clear understanding of what was going on and who everybody was by the end of my first playthrough. Compared to From's usual storytelling, ER presented a pretty clear timeline of events with clear motivations and arcs for all its background characters, with two glaring exceptions: Marika and Melina. So, I was expecting the DLC to fill in those holes. And.....uhh, it didn't. We did get a single crumb of lore for each of those two, but that's it.

Instead, the DLC introduces an all-new character Messmer in conflict with an all-new region, and - unlike my experience with the base game - I didn't have a clear picture by the end, despite 100%ing the map. I'll have to VaatiVidya it, which feels less satisfying to me. And maybe this is a steaming hot take, but the choice for the final boss just felt....out of left field. [SOTE final boss] Radhan's story was already fully explained and satisfying in the base game. Now he just shows up to steal the spotlight from other characters that actually could have benefited from additional depth, e.g. if the Gloam-Eyed Queen was the final boss. AND it just means that we now need a new VaatiVidya Lore Explanation for his conflict with Malenia in the base game, when it was perfectly reasonable and believable with the knowledge in the base game.

So...I dunno. I had an absolutely fantastic time actually playing the DLC - exploring the massive new region, seeing wild new vistas, and tinkering with my build against challenging bosses. But what sticks in my head the most is this sting of dissatisfaction with the story that wasn't there before. Maybe I'll change my mind after watching lore videos and playing through again in a couple years, but I didn't end my first playthrough on the satisfying high that I did the base game.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Just finished the epilogue a few days ago. First playthrough since beating it around launch. Nothing else to say other than it is absolutely a masterpiece in my eyes. Probably the most immersive game I've ever played. Looking forward to years passing and going through it again.

Red Dead Redemption

I wanted more so I decided to fire this up yesterday. I was hesitant. I hadn't beaten it since launch 2010, or even played it since then.

Even though I grew up playing this as a teenager I still have a hard time going back and playing old games with how spoiled we are with graphics and QOL stuff today.

I was feeling iffy at the start, but then after a couple of the McFarlane ranch missions I was hooked again. Just finished the assault on fort mercer. I almost feel just as excited progressing through as I did back then. The game holds up so well, and I think by the end I may side with it having better writing.

What I'm most excited about though is I never got around to playing Undead Nightmare. I've seen nothing but praise for it, should be a good time. Rockstar used to make amazing DLC.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

In-between my story based games I have binged this in a few super long sessions. It's incredible, I love the level design. I did as much as I could blind, which was probably 30 hours or so. Used Boodhound's Fang the whole way through.

I decided to follow a scadutree fragment guide because I figured all of them would take me to every unique or well hidden location throughout. Didn't regret that.

I'm not good. Like at all. I rely heavily on mimic tear, or summoning other players. Still have a blast. But some of these bosses are really f*cking hard. I've done everything you can do so far except beat Promised Consort Radahn. I know for a fact this is a boss I will never beat. I just accept it. I watched the fight on YT to see the phases and ending scene and I really enjoyed it.

I'm sad this is the end of all the lore and story we get for now, and probably forever. I was cramming vaatividya and tarnished archeologist lore videos for 2 weeks leading up to the DLC. It's such a great world and story.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

This game is super outside my wheelhouse but I've always been curious about them. The court setting and visual novel style really intrigues me. Bought it tonight for the switch, looking forward to putting in a half hour or so before bed every night.

I've wrapped up Warhammer 40K: Boltgun, heresy has been purged and all that Space Marine stuff. What matters is, game was fun but mostly...okay. Decent arsenal of weapons, as I've said week ago I do think this tabletop mechanic of weapons having "power stat" which affects how much damage it deals against enemies just...doesn't fit into boomer shooter, and I stand by it. I think having already damage affected by range is more than enough, but fair enough, maybe it's games way to force you into utilizing more weapons. Enemies, quite meh. I think boss fights were flat, just a "spawn lots of enemies for difficulty" and as it turns out game only has...3? Different bosslike enemies which just repeat so eh, gets boring quickly. Quite frankly whole game could have used more enemy variety. It's either frogs, flying creatures or two types of human enemies, Chaos marines or cultists serving as cannon fodder. Secrets were fun, as they improve your arsenal or give different type of ammo to your boltgun outside of usual boomer shooter powerups. Soooo yeah...I had fun but I didn't think about a game for almost a week until now, because I have to write something about it. Dunno if that is because 40K Universe doesn't interest me, but I won't think of this as one of the finer boomer shooters available outthere. Fun enough for one playthrough, that's it. Bear in mind of course I played the game on XSX, if I would play with Mouse and Keyboard I assume it would improve the experience.

So after that, I sunk into a big, deep dark hole known as Ubisoft Open World Games. Time for another entry in my favourite franchise, Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Spend few hours on it but I do know how it usually goes with Ubi games, first few hours can be smoke and mirrors. I have cleared out first area, and I'm just before venturing towards England. So far...movement is off, like Eivor somehow feels weightless especially when climbing, combat is decent, I definitely like the inventory change. No more looter RPG that was Ody where every enemy has something and you were spending more time in menus, selling scraping or removing that sh*t. Here it's a Witcher system. There are few weapons and armors from different "clans" which you upgrade with resources throughout the game to change their look and increase stats. I didn't even scratch the surface, no clue what POI's England has, or activities, so I hope to have more knowledge for next Sunday.

As for PC, more Fallout 3. Wrapped up 3 DLC's already, Operation, The Pitt and Broken Steel, now at Point Lookout. I should finish the game next week so I will make a final, bigger opinion about the game and DLC's then.

Hypnospace Outlaw (Nintendo Switch)

Love the aesthetics of this game, not completely sold on the gameplay loop though. Simulating a computer and mouse on nintendo switch is just as painful as you think it is, but they did make it not so bad with the use of a touch keyboard and scroll buttons. It feels like pulling teeth trying to deduce where you're supposed to go but once you solve the puzzle and finally reach the page you're looking for it does feel really rewarding.

Right now I'm at the point where there's a deliberate graphics glitch every minute or so that lags the game. It's a jab at how the in-game company launched an update that wasn't ready, but it's blurring the line between nostalgic bad 90's UX and actually annoying bad 90's UX. This puzzle is actually stumping me too so I might have to look up a guide for this segment.

The demo for Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. It's fun. I normally avoid anything to do with strategy because strategy games make me feel stupid (other than Baldur's Gate 3). But I have been curious about this game since the first trailer., the visuals were incredible The demo was enjoyable and thye mechanics were easy to understand. Still not sure if I want to pay 50 euros for it.

Shadow of the Erdtree. I'm having a good time, but I have no idea how someone who doesn't use a shield is supposed to beat Messmer. The reaction time required to dodge those attacks is absolutely insane. I just block and/or tank them.

Another thing I noticed was that among the useless smithing stones there were a few weapons and even an armour set. Meaning, I can't just ignore the white items. I have to pick them all up. Ughhh. At least give me an arteria leaf instead of another smithing stone.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

As a longtime Souls veteran, I was very excited for this DLC and spent 40 hours in it before I beat it. I don’t think it quite lived up to the hype and wasn’t a masterpiece, but still really good imo. This content is basically Elden Ring for sickos lol. I don’t think the regular enemies and areas are insanely hard but a few of the bosses especially the final boss are brutally difficult. For reference, Malenia took me about 3 hours to beat and there were two bosses in the DLC that took me longer than that (4 hours for me to solo Messmer and 7 hours for me to beat Radahn with my Mimic Tear). I think base game Elden Ring is a 7/10 in difficulty for Fromsoft’s standards and the DLC is a 10/10 in difficulty. I recommend getting all the Scadutree fragments you can as soon as possible. And even with that, I don’t think the average player will be able to beat this DLC.

The pathways to certain areas are very hidden and can be impossible to find without a guide. For example, accessing the Hinterlands involves finding a gesture in the world and then performing that gesture in front of a statue. Getting to the Abyssal Woods is also really obscure.I can see how exploration would be frustrating to many players. I generally thought the new areas were good and interesting but nothing stood out like Leyndell. I played the entire base game with a strength build using a Heavy Uchigatana +25 and this DLC basically thought me that my build sucked and could be a lot better lol. I enjoyed the challenge of trying different weapons and getting better talismans, but I understand that could be annoying to some. If you’re not willing to change up your build and play style, you could really struggle. I ended up switching to a Heavy Brick Hammer +25 which has S tier strength scaling and combined with the Two-Handed Sword Talisman, it was good enough to get me through to the end. I also got all the Scadutree Fragments and didn’t mind following a guide to get them all. I think collecting them serves a purpose since it encourages complete exploration of the world.

I imagine the most divisive part of this new content are the bosses. I counted 13 main bosses and I believe only 4-5 of them are really mandatory. The dragon boss, Bayle really pissed me off and might be one of my least favorite bosses ever. Terrible hitboxes, terrible camera, massive HP, he attacks 10 times before you get the chance to attack once, and you spend most of the fight chasing after him when he flies or jumps away from you. Yeah, that one really pissed me off lol. But I did really enjoy the rest even the final boss. I will say none of them are instant classics for me though especially compared to Artorias, Fume Knight, and Midir.

Some brief thoughts I have about individual bosses: Rellana was pretty tough and took me a couple hours to beat. She reminded me a bit of Fume Knight and Dancer of the Boreal Valley. Still really fun fight but there wasn’t enough breaks between combos which made the fight kinda bs. I ended up trading damage with her and also was able to beat her because her 5 hit magic sword combo in Phase 2 misses you completely if you stand right in front of her. Messmer took me 4 hours and was my favorite fight of the DLC. He has a deep move pool and I had really invest a lot of time to learn all his combos. The fight always felt fair to me though and my mistakes were what killed me. Commander Gaius was kinda annoying but he doesn’t have a crazy amount of moves. I really enjoyed Metyr and Midra, they felt pretty different from most bosses. The entire Abyssal Woods area and getting to Midra was really interesting and unique especially the stealth sections. I struggled with Midra’s delayed attacks but he was easy to stagger. Same goes for Putrescent Knight, I actually kept staggering him and skipped all of Phase 2. Okay, now I have a lot to say about Radahn. This guy is definitely Fromsoft’s hardest boss yet imo. He’s just really beefy, has a sh*t of health, and can easily kill you in 2 hits in his second phase. First phase is not overly difficult but the second one is just brutal if you’re not perfectly dodging almost every move. I got the golden brain to negate holy damage and still felt like I was getting killed by the holy attacks in phase 2. I had multiple runs where I’d get through Phase 1 without having to heal and then immediately get killed in Phase 1. I ended up summoning my mimic tear, letting him tank damage where I could and just generally stayed as close as possible to Radahn as I could. There’s a lot of sparks and just sh*t on screen from the holy attacks that make it difficult to see. Eventually, I got pretty good at dodging his attacks but I finally got him. Ironically, it was one of my runs where my Mimic Tear died fairly quickly. You’d think that I had a miserable time vs this boss based on the way I’m describing it, but I knew this boss would be hard af so I was fully prepared to invest several hours fighting him. When I beat Melania, I was just annoyed but Radahn feels very cinematic and mostly fair. There are ways to dodge almost every attack and he has obvious windows where he rests for a few seconds and you can attack or heal. It’s just that you slip once and get stuck in a combo, then you’re done for. It is not a forgiving fight at all. Overall, I really enjoyed my time in the Land of Shadow despite some complaints, they really don’t make many games like this. At least we’ll get Lies of P DLC this fall and I’m hoping we get Sekiro 2 in a few years.

The Vale

An audio-only action-adventure game fully accessible by the blind. I am not visually impaired in the slightest but decided to give it a try out of plain curiosity. My first thought before playing is that there would be minimal interaction from the player and that the game would be experienced somewhat passively. I was pleasantly surprised when the game actually demands a lot of active action inputs from the player. The combat (yes, there is combat in the game) is done very well. It is very hard to describe but it involves you acting to audio cues as a blind person would. So far, I am very impressed by the game. There is nothing quite like it.

Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) (including free DLC)

Been working on Final Fantasy XVI for all of June. Overall a great game but the completion process is hurt by a few issues. For completing this one:

-Beat game

-All side quests

-All hunts

-All trophies

-All orchestral rolls (a bunch have been added in updates over time which is what I mean when I say I completed free DLC)

-All tomes

-All curiosities

-All chronolith trials

-S rank in all arcade mode levels on main playthrough

-S rank on all final trials on main playthrough

Lots to do here. Game took me about 85 hours. I did not touch any of the paid DLC as my copy does not include them and there is no physical copy with them.

Story of the game is very dense and there are tons and tons of cutscenes in this title. Be aware of this going in. I did find the story very enjoyable though and I think that people comparing the story to Game of Thrones is apt. Essentially you play as Clive who is the shield of his younger brother Joshua in a kingdom called Rosaria. Hard to get into too much without spoilers so at a high level there is the blight which is spreading throughout the realms. This causes everything to die as magic goes away. Over time less and less land is viable causing multiple kingdoms to fight over what remains. Most people cannot do magic so need crystals to do any which then uses magic from large mother crystals (which then causes the blight). Some people are born who can do magic without crystals and are immediately branded and sold as slaves to be used throughout the kingdoms. Using magic wears out their bodies so eventually the branded get "the curse" and die from being overworked. There are also a handful of "dominants" throughout the world which are people who can turn into large monsters with mega power levels. Each kingdom has about 1 give or take and the kingdoms are hesitant to use them and cause escalation. Your character gets caught up in figuring out where his place is in the world and how to deal with these large scale issues. Plot is great and honestly the best part of the game in my opinion.

The game does get some criticism for boring side quests. They aren't always the best but do flesh out characters so I think it is worth doing them for the added story elements. In general most of the side content is worth doing and enjoyable. Also you can equip rings to make the game easier if needed.

Only catch is there is an Aura Stone in your base which ranks you in arcade mode and final trials. These do not let you use the rings and can be extremely challenging, particularly the final trials. These took me many, many tries to the point of frustration. I honestly questioned where a while if some of the final trials were bugged due to their difficulty. The Aura Stone S ranks were not enjoyable and did not add anything meaningful imo. I was also required to do a whole extra playthrough in Final Fantasy mode (harder NG+) for a trophy as well as grind ability points even after all of that for another trophy. Having to do all boss fights three times (first playthrough, second playthrough, and arcade mode) was tedious and after the first playthrough it just felt like the game was wasting my time. Definitely a pacing issue at the end for completionists so take that for what you will.

Worth a playthrough and worth completing most side content but avoid the Aura Stone and don't do the platinum unless you want to sink a lot of hours into this one.

Fate/Extra CCC

Finally got around to playing the english patch (with Tamamo), this is still my favorite type moon piece of media to this day tbh, but it's also the one type moon product that I would never recommend to people. This easily Nasu at his hornie*st. lol

That being said, it's so weird coming back to this after FGO. A lot of the characters are basically different people. Like, I forgot how much of a monsters Liz and Melt were in here. I also forgot that I ever liked Tamamo before replaying this. Speaking of... WHERE THE f*ck IS THAT FATE/EXTRA REMAKE, TYPE MOON!

Neo: The World Ends With You

I have some weird feelings about this ngl. Because gameplay wise, I think it's a huge downgrade from the original game, and pacing wise it's all over the place, especially compared to the first which imo have a perfect pacing. But I feel like I overall connected more with this game than the original and ended up enjoying it more? I think it's mostly the characters this time around, because even characters I never cared for in TWEWY I ended up liking them here.

That being said, the pacing REALLY needed some work, especially in week 2, and I still think it's lame that you never get to fight Kubo. I felt so blue balled by the end!

Gravity Rush 2

I had this game since release, and I got around to playing it now, and I think it's as good as the first game... in a weird ass one step forward/one step back kind of way. Because gameplay wise, this is a big improvement on the first game, but I feel like the story was a bit of downgrade. It's still a fun story, but I think the first is just much better.

Also the pacing is kinda wack, it felt like when they split the game into two during the transition to Vita, they didn't realize how short the second half was, so they were forced to put in some filler, but by the time they reached the actual story, they ran out of budget so they rushed everything. Because the last 7 chapters, which were the acutual continuation of GR1, was moving at lightning speed. I swear to god, at some point the main bad guy summoned TWO completely unrelated ancient evil that have nothing to do with each other to destroy the world in the span of 30 minutes.

Pathfinder: Wrath of The Righteous: Been trying to give this another shot. Played a long time ago for about 100 hours and only got to act 3 of 5. I forgot how much more complicated the Pathfinder system is compared to 5e. Unfortunately, it's not really grabbing me like it did that first playthrough, it's a slog. That's my struggle with a lot of crpgs. First playthrough? Magical. Second+? You're dead to me. And I feel really dumb cause I went ahead and bout the second season pass ane everything.

God of War Ragnarök (Valhalla DLC): Loved the base game. Started the DLC when it came out but never finished. I'm impressed Sony Sanat Monica took the time to add this roguelike mode. It reminds me that we really don't get enough AAA roguelike games (Returnal 2 when?). I still find GOWR combat really satisfying.

Slay the Princess: I heard someone compare this to Disco Elysium and had to check it out. Just played the demo last night. I'm already very interested in the mystery/lore. Definitely creepy and there was one jump scare but not too bad. I usually avoid horror games but this seems manageable. It was only like $13 on Steam so I went ahead and bought it.

Legends of Runeterra: Been playing card games in some form since elementary school. From yugioh, to Hearthstone, to Gwent, to Legends of Runeterra, to Marvel SNAP, and now back to Hearthstone. I play LoR and Hearthstone daily now, but mostly PvE and Battlegrounds respectively. LoR kind of feels like a sinking ship, but Path of Champions is still fun. I hope the devs continue to support it for as long as they can.

Hearthstone: After the news that LoR was slowing down development, I hopped back into Hearthstone. Didn't realize how much I missed it. The effects are crazier, the art design is great (to me), and I forgot how funny it can be. Was glad to see the rewards track, but it's still the most monetized card game I've played (or maybe Marvel SNAP beats it). The biggest surprise was Battlegrounds. It's so much fun. I spend most of my time there.

Haven't done of these in a while, so I'll include the last few weeks.

Still Wakes the Deep

Really cool setting (oil rig) for a horror game. Great voice acting and dialogue, as well as impressive environment design/art. Actually had me fairly spooked during some sequences! Pretty enjoyable game overall.

Little Kitty, Big City

I've been following the development of this game since the lead developer left Valve and started sharing clips of prototypes on his twitter. Very happy to see it released and had a great time playing it. Found it very charming and actually quite funny. Also didn't take too long to get all the achievements.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

Definitely one of the hardest puzzle games I've played. Also possibly the best puzzle game I've played, but not my favorite (that would probably still be Portal 2). There were multiple puzzles I got stuck on for a while, but one of the great things about the game is that you can just go and solve some other puzzles and come back later. Sometimes I would come back the next day, and then it would just suddenly click. There were a couple times I was going about my day when an idea came to me, and I rushed to my PC to try it out. Some of these, I couldn't believe it took me so long to figure out in retrospect. But I think that's inevitable in a game with so many different types of puzzles; some solutions just won't be as natural to your specific way of thinking. On the flip side, most of the math ones came pretty easy to me.

The game also had some fascinating storytelling. I rarely go for speed run achievements if the game is more than a couple hours long, but I was engrossed enough that I wanted to experience the story again anyway with all my newfound knowledge (as well as see how fast I could now complete the puzzles).

This was easily my GOTY so far, until I played...

Nine Sols

This is now my favorite metroidvania. I actually pitched in to fund the game because it looked pretty sick and I liked one of the developer's previous games, Detention (still haven't got a chance to play Devotion though). But I was still not expecting to love this game as much as I did.

Pretty much every aspect of the game is excellent. For a studio that has only done horror games previously, I'm super impressed by the combat. Makes me think some of their devs had prior experience in this area, but if not, they really did their homework. I actually ended up forgetting their history as a studio until partway through the game, a horror moment comes out of seemingly nowhere, and I was like "WTF, where did that come from??... Oh right."

The artwork and animation is just incredible. I stopped many times just to appreciate the gorgeous backgrounds. The music is also great, but I think I might prefer Hollow Knight's in how it creates atmosphere. Lady Ethereal's Theme and the credits song were both huge standouts for me.

I think the aspect that surprised me the most though (and is also probably what elevates it above other metroidvanias for me) is the exceptional storytelling and worldbuilding. Maybe because it's the one aspect I had very little to go off back when I backed it, or maybe because other games in the genre hadn't truly impressed me in this regard. Whatever the case, I became seriously immersed in this game's rich world and intriguing narrative, and I'm actually sad that I've 100%'ed it and there is now no more of it to experience. I'm not sure I'd even want a sequel though because it tells a pretty complete story.

I also have to say that the Lady Ethereal sequence is one of my favorite game sequences in recent memory and the fight with her is possibly my favorite boss fight ever. The insane visual spectacle and otherworldly music, topped with the emotional weight of the preceding sequence, and of course, the fight itself. Tough but super fair. When I first got to the third phase and saw all the clones, I thought "There is no way in Hell...". But all her moves are telegraphed super well, and the previous two phases prepare you really well for it.

One minor complaint is that I wish there was a bit more exploring and secret-finding. It's not the biggest map though, so I am mostly satisfied with what what they were able to fit in without significantly expanding the scope of the game's development.

Grime

Finished up at about 20hrs with a NG+ completion. I am a parry fiend, so I did end up enjoying Grime. The combat was satisfying and I really did enjoy the last few bosses. It is evident it is a lower budget game, but the combat was good enough to make this an easy recommend.

Death’s Gambit: Afterlife

Bounced off this one hard after about 6 hrs. The combat is very barebones and the skill system is baffling. Many skills are locked for specific weapons and others are boring % increases to non-core stats. Overall, as many reviews stated, it tries to do too much with too little. A lot of systems and none were crafted well.

Nine Sols

If 2d Sekiro sounds like a game you would enjoy, buy this ASAP. I adored the game for its 20hr runtime. The visuals are insane, the combat is top-notch, the bosses are some of the best in any genre, including soulslikes.

The soundtrack was also quite good and the story was nothing spectacular, but managed to pack a few emotional punches.

A word of warning - the last boss will clap your cheeks for a few hours. Almost every death will be fair and you will understand your mistakes clearly, but it will still take some effort and reflexes to overcome them.

Will be starting Granblue Fantasy: Relink today.

I’m still playing Shadow of the Erdtree, taking my time and scouring each area. The cookbook memes are so real. It’s gotten much more enjoyable since the little Scadutree frag balance update. For me, it’s still more about exploitation using every tool at my disposal than it is about patience and timing, but I’m enjoying it nonetheless. Get killed a few times, bruteforce a particular weapon special with my homeboy Mimic Tear at my flank, or maybe just focus on bleeding them out. I beat Messmer after a few tales of woe with the fingerprint shield, one of the bleed spears (the one the new ogre dudes sometimes wield) and a lot of guard and raw defense boosting. f*ck that guy.

I bought Stardew Valley on Steam summer sale yesterday since I never want to delete or restart my old Switch file and have had my ass on Steam Deck more recently, so I started a new farm on it and will experience most of the additions that I just never really got to see, so it should feel fresh and full.

I dipped back into Unicorn Overlord for a few battles the other day. I haven’t really had a chance to properly start it with more focus, but am playing through the introductory battles here and there. It seems very easy so far, with really only the timer seeming like it’ll give a challenge anytime soon- but I also have yet to see an actual busy battlefield with only like 4 units of my own, so I’m sure it’ll ramp up and my sense of security will disintegrate. Vanillaware does such a great job with presentation and small touches- it’s such a gorgeous game and I love going between towns and regions for small quests, collection and resource deliveries- it’s just enough busywork to keep it from feeling like a one-dimensional strat game, or one with too much between-combat setup and prep.

I had a birthday recently and a few people came through- one friend got me Kingdom Hearts III and another dropped a copy of Hades II on me, both of which I’ll at least start soon since they’re both different enough from eachother and Elden Ring to constitute a proper rotation. My broski also dropped a 50 on me so I’ll probably put that toward covering Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom coming up. Got me feeling saucy!

A Way Out

Just finished playing this over the weekend with my wife. We had a really great time and loved the vehicle sections and how cinematic the game was. I also loved that you could choose your preferred approach in several situations throughout the game. My biggest issue is a lot of the actions were too simple: just hold or press a button. I wish there were more timing and balancing actions for moving objects or traversing obstacles as this would have made the game more engaging. So, overall, I definitely think It Takes Two far surpasses this game, but it was definitely worth playing.

Elden Ring

My first real souls game as I've only ever played Sekiro before. Started this over the weekend as a Samurai and got about 10 hours in, beating Tree Sentinel on horseback and Margit with the guy you can summon right outside the entrance. Decided I wanted to use magic, so I restarted as a confessor and I'm having a lot more fun. About 6 hours into this playthrough and I've mostly been exploring and leveling. Got a fireball spell that's really fun and been using a greatsword with wild strikes. The combat is so good, though not quite Sekiro levels as I prefer parrying and the parry in Sekiro feels so much better and is the focus of combat. Beat Tree Sentinel again on horseback, but have yet to face Margit again. Think I will fight him without summoning this time as that made the fight a bit too easy.

Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance

Now 15 hours in and it just keeps getting bigger and better. The story direction was unexpected but I really like it so far, though I have heard countless times that this original story will be disappointing by the end, so I am bracing for that. Until then, I am enjoying it still. Gameplay meanwhile is still absurdly good. The exploration remains fantastic, the boss fights (and themes!!!) are fun and the game is actually so good that I got my "get away from me with anything that looks remotely anime" brother to play and enjoy this too. Was funny to see how tough the first major boss can be, if you are not already used to the SMT series, but he is getting the hang of it quickly. Cannot recommend this enough to everyone else.

Elden Ring

SMT V Vengeance challenges my brain, while Elden Ring challenges my skills on the controller. Beat Margit after 4 tries, much quicker this time since it is my second playthrough after I abandoned the game for unthinkable reasons after 50 hours 2 years ago. The art design is so good. With these two games I am probably busy enough for a few months.

No Rest for the Wicked:

Its a good bundle of fun for what it is. Semi Souls like combat in a top down-ish world map. Unlike DS, it does not use the souls mechanic, swapping instead for a traditional leveling system. The environment is certainly one of its highlights, filled with twists and turns and hidden areas, but again, rather than a souls layout with static items, it swaps out for a more ARPG setup where loot respawns as do enemies, and strength progression is found thru not just farming xp, but materials to increase your items strength. You also spend resources to improve city structures which in turn provide better materials and solutions to further your character.

There are a few caveats, for one, being in early access gives way to some glaring issues, the game is not well optimized and eats RAM for breakfast, environment objects can pop in, and it seems like my fans are always working overtime when playing this game in particular. There is a timer mechanic which makes little sense for upgrading structures and building resources, mostly that its just too long and the waiting period has no reasoning behind it. The game only seems to work well on a controller (You can still use a KBM but its not easy), my controller is older so it may be the reason but the characters movement doesn't always feel like its aligned with the thumbstick.

Overall I have been having a blast, the game respects your time (Timers aside) and you can save wherever. The pacing is great, the bosses are a blast, and there are plenty of "Holy sh*t!" moments during the playthrough. I cant wait to see where they take this game in the future.

I've been bouncing all over the place between games this week.

King's Field IV: The Ancient City

I played about half of Shadow Tower on PS3 years ago, and really enjoyed it for the most part. I remember it being really punishing, but it could be because I wasn't really used to the style of game. After hearing King's Field music used in various youtube videos and loving the OST, I decided to play through one of them, and settled on starting with IV as it was the most recent entry. I'm not all that far, but so far it's really awesome. The music is so moody, the environments are memorable and dripping with atmosphere. Even the dialogue really sets a depressing, and opressive tone. I had just reached the actual underground ancient city maybe 30 minutes before stopping, and I'm excited to play more.

I saw that there was a cheat code for the game to allow it to have more modern mouse-like camera movement, and while it sounds cool, I feel like it would break the game, and make it very hard to play earlier entries in the series if I ever choose to. I'll probably just keep the original controls when I get back to it, I was getting pretty used to it.

Undernauts Labyrinth of Yomi

I wanted something to play on my playstation while I was house sitting, and didn't have access to King's Field on my PC. Something like King's Field, but not so much like it that I wouldn't know which to stick with first. I've had Labyrinth of Yomi on my wishlist for years, but was waiting for a sale to pull the trigger. Well the game was $30, which isn't the best price, but it sounded engaging. What got me interested in the game weirdly enough, was that it didnt have any preview videos or images on the Playstation store, but the reviews were pretty favorable. I had planned to play the game blind, but for $30 I wanted to make sure it was something I'd like, so I skimmed some video previews.

Undernauts Labyrinth of Yomi is a pretty typical DRPG, and seems to set itself apart with its modern controls, and ease of use. From what I've read and experienced, it is pretty much impossible to screw up. You can respec for free at any time out of combat, and if your party is wiped you are sent back to base camp with very little punishment. I really like this aspect of the game, it allows me to play stress free. I don't have to worry about when my last save was, or constantly walk all the way back to camp to rest. It allows a lot of experimentation and makes exploration sort of relaxing.

I was going to continue the game, buuuut

Dragon's Dogma 2

I saw that an update released for DD2 this week that cleaned up the framerate and added some QOL fixes. Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen is one of my favorite games of all time, so my excitement for the sequel was seriously high, it was honestly the most excited I've ever been for a game release. About a month or so before release my expectations were sort of crushed by news coming out about poor framerate and performance, the increasingly likely chance that the game lacked enemy variety (which was one of the biggest issues with base game DD1), only 2 new vocations with multiple removed or replaced, no mystick knight, etc. I was still excited, but I'm glad my expectations were dialed back beacuse going in with that kind of excitement would've left a pretty bad taste in my mouth upon experiencing the final product.

With a more open mind and lower expectations, the game was perfectly satisfactory for me. It helps to wait a few months after the initial playthrough to get some perspective, and really analyze how I felt about the game, especially after that initial pre-release dissapointment had subsided. It's a good ass game, and a worthy sequel in the end, even if it has some serious flaws. Yes it's absolutely baffling that the game shares so many issues with it's (unfinished) predecessor such as low enemy variety, poor usage of the enemy types the game DOES have, removed monster types from DDDA such as hydra and co*ckatrice, less skills, a rushed second act (again), etc., but the overall prodcut is a fantastic experience. The physics are awesome, they help with making encounters feel unique and add a sense of realism to the world. The graphics are quite good, and the voice acting is pretty great. Combat feels even better and weightier than the original. The world design is a huuuuuuuuge upgrade. There's actual level design, more environment variety, and caves. The character creator is insanely good, and the loot is much better balanced, even if it still isn't the best.

The game runs pretty damn well now with raytracing and motion blur off, and it sounds like they're continuing to fix it up. The only truly dissapointing part of the game for me now is how rushed the story feels. Playing through the beginning again it starts off so strong, but falters so hard by the time the player reaches Battahl. There is so little plot there, and then the game just kind of suddenly rushes to the battle with the dragon, which is just a worse version of the battle in DD1 with Grigori. The dragon in 2 also completely lacks the impact on the player/story that Grigori had. Post-game is cool, but not as lengthy as I expected when I saw the title change.

Once the inevitable DLC releases, I think the game will be in a state where it can stand shoulder to shoulder with Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen, but for now it's still a 10/10 experience for me, flaws and all.

Elden Ring

I've been playing the DLC with Marias Executioner Sword and looking for other ARC/STR weapons to try out. Thankfully the game has provided at least three more and they're all pretty neat! There's a colossal greatsword that has a cool moveset with some extra thrusts in it, and an R2 that rockets you in their face and lets you follow up with an explosion. I've been switching between Marias and it for most bosses depending on how much mobility I need, and that R2 is so fun to close the gap and run the boss down once you've got them low. There's also a colossal club that I don't care for, and a mace that does pierce damage and the R2 casts a lightning bolt. It's effective, but feels boring.

I decided to go back and get the talismans to finish my build in the main game. Beat Malenia with no summons for the first time, and wow does Marias feel like I'm cheating. It really highlights how small her health pool is and how low her poise is when it locks her up and takes 1/3 her health from one drill, and seemingly even more in her second phase. I was surprised by how much easer dodging her sh*t felt. Didn't get hit by either her waterfowl or her bloom. She's honestly so much slower than the DLC bosses.

I finally got over the hump on the DLC and got into the meat of it. Level design continues to delight. The world design is really amazing though. The map feels like a giant legacy dungeon with the way it loops around itself and how it hides secrets. There's only one area that really feels like BS in how you access it, but I can see how the devs were trying to signpost that you have to do something special there. Spoilers to get into the bosses themselves. So far, all but one feels like a fair and fun fight. Lion felt difficult, but doable. Got him in about 2 hours. He commits one of the sins I hate about some bosses, which is really really ambiguous hitboxes on a big body that blocks the camera. Most of the time I die, it's because he did something I couldn't see. But he's not hard enough to feel truly frustrated with. Relanna is sick. Great moveset that I eventually figured out how to handle, however my win did come because I finally equip a magic damage negation talisman. She had some ranged follow ups that I just kept getting hit by and taking half damage from them helped a ton. But she really tests your defensive skills and ability to find openings. Messmer is amazing. Very fair. Very hard. Very fun. Gaius sucks. Very aggressive. Deals tons of damage. And very ambiguous hitboxes, especially on his big combos. His biggest combo isn't really that hard to dodge once you know where the hitboxes and timings are, but it's f*cking so difficult to judge that without dying to it 100 times. I got him, but I didn't enjoy it. Knight and Flower scorpion are both cool, but feel undertuned. Their health pools are low and their moves are straightforward. Midra is amazing. Not overly difficult, but pushes back. Fun to fight moveset that doesn't make juggling madness a frustration. Sunflower is ok. It was a little too easy to brute force. I barely had to learn to dodge because I could bum rush it after the two attacks I could dodge. Bayle is probably very hard to solo, but I summoned Igon (the main character) and we wrecked him. Mother of Fingers is a cool spectacle fight. Not overly difficult, but with giant bosses I tend to prefer them on the easier side. Too frustrating when you're judging combos and hitboxes that don't fit on the screen

Overall, it's been fantastic. I think I've only got the last boss to go, I've heard he's a doozy, though. I've squeezed almost every drop from the map I want to get. This week I probably knock out the last boss, then go back and finish the main game. There's a few endgame bosses I never fought (solo or otherwise), and I feel like it'll be fun to do it with all these fun new tools and completely overleveled (170 now. Started the DLC at 117).

With the Steam sale I got Crow Country and the Elden Ring DLC. I started Crow Country off on a bad note; I don't have any controllers and the game tells you a controller is recommended. I was afraid I'd have to return it. But I have played emulators of old PSX games and been okay; I don't mind keyboard controls for most games. Then the game didn't have nearly any graphical options, and if you set it to Windowed instead of Fullscreen then it turns out the game is only 1920x1080 or so, so I'm playing on a small window on my monitor.

All that aside though the game has won me over. It's got notes of Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and the graphics are reminiscent of the original Final Fantasy 7. There's even a quiz in one part that pretends it's 1990, so you have to answer as if that's the time when the question is "How many people are on earth".

The game seems to be a nice length, as I was almost able to beat it in a single sitting, 5 hours or so. The combat would be tough if the enemies moved any faster than a crawl. As it is they crawl towards me and I valiantly try to aim my weapon in the general area of their head and then unload on them. Being survival horror I have run out of medkits and ammo at times, but it's doing the dynamic item drop system where you can search trash cans and vending machines, and they will dispense whatever item you are low on. If your inventory is full then they will in turn be empty.

The plot is something silly about a subterranean plant that grows gold, but it hardly matters, it's a decent framing device to get us through the haunted amusem*nt park.

I started the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC and have been having a pretty good time. With all the reviews saying it's hard I have been rushing the Skadu pickups in order to make it as easy as possible for a first playthrough. I had already powerlevelled my character to 180 in the main game (no NG+), so I'm hoping I can coast through and enjoy it without too much trouble. I've fought 2 of the smaller bosses and they took a bit but weren't unmanageable.

I haven't posted here in a while, but after 35 hours I finally finished Act 1 of Baldur's Gate 3 the other week. I've been keeping a journal on my adventures in my blog which has been super fun and made playing the game way more enjoyable than I originally anticipated. It's really feels like I'm creating my own adventure every time I end a session and update my journal.

At the beginning I found myself meandering a bit as I got used to my first real D&D campaign and slowly came to understand its systems. But as I got to know my companions and move the plot along, its hooks got into me deeper than I thought. Especially towards the end of Act 1 I was really interested in all the story threads I was pulling on and excited to see where things will go.

Taking a break right now to play Shadow of the Erdtree (which I have many many thoughts on and will definitely write about later), but I'm very much looking forward to returning to my BG3 campaign too.

I've been playing Nine Sols for like 10 hours and I've really enjoyed it so far. Although its not really a surprise, I played the demo year or two back and it was almost instantly obvious that I would love it.

Its a VERY chinese (or taiwanese I guess) game with its lore/setting/mood/character-types, which is the first thing that makes it stand out in the sea of metroidvanias. Its parry-focused combat is the second thing. Parrying gives you Qi, which you can use to apply seals to your opponent and do "grey health" -damage, and then exploding them makes that damage permanent. Its quite difficult, but all of the bosses/minibosses have had very fun movesets to play around with and the game is very responsive.

When it comes to exploration and upgrades, it doesn't seem to do anything extremely new, but what it does it does well enough. Its setting and story are surprisingly interesting and I usually don't want too much text or story in my metroidvanis.

Yakuza Like a Dragon

About 35ish hours in. Generally loving the game - a really compelling story, great characters and fun combat. I love that this is the rare jrpg with adult characters, and a grounded, realistic setting (some of the side stories are goofy and funny at tho).

The game had hit a massive difficulty spike in chapter 12 though. I’m actually having to grind to get my levels up, which I’m not a fan of.

Dragon Quest Monsters 2 - the 3DS Remake (The Mysterious Key of Ira and Luca or some sh*t like that)

A Japan only release with an English fan translation

This is one of the best games I've played this year. I smashed through the original Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 on GBC a few months ago while I was in a bit of a depressive rut. This remake has me feeling nostalgic about a game I just played! There's SO many monsters, the worlds are colorful and full of life, the new mechanics from the Joker series mesh well with the OG gameplay.

The art direction is phenomenal - Akira Toriyama shining as a character designer once again. The soundtrack is perfect. The gameplay loop is consistently engrossing and addictive, fueling that feeling to just capture one more monster, fight one more battle, turn one last corner - I can't put it down!

Truth be told, it makes me wish Pokemon had advanced with the generations like this. DQM2 has such a substantial leap from the GBC original to the new 3DS title, whereas Pokemon still plays mostly the same. Fortunately, this title is scratching that "monster collector" itch in all the right ways.

I posted a couple of weeks ago about Hogwarts Legacy when I was 10 hours in. Now I've put in a little over 40 hours and only have two trophies left (the ones for making it to a certain point in the story as two of the four houses).

Now that I'm basically done with the game, I have a few more thoughts. Firstly, it's weird how this is the third game in a row that I've played where the story is 15-20 hours long and then there is a minimum of 20 hours of collecting things after to get the platinum (both Forspoken and Assassin's Creed Origins were like that). I feel like other games I've played in the past with a ton of collectables have longer stories and shorter amounts of time to collect things. Or even if they have more collectibles, they feel better paced.

I commented before speaking about the challenges of the fast travel. After finding all of the collectibles within Hogwarts, I can honestly say that the fast travel is still bad, and the only way to find everything is just to watch a video where someone travels to a specific fast travel point, and then follow what they do. I was trying to use an online map and it was brutal.

One thing I didn't understand about the collectibles is that some of them are clearly filler. For example, there are a certain number of Revelio pages to be collected, but some of them give you a collectible item in the tracking menu, and some of them don't. In other words, if there are 150 Revelio pages in Hogwarts, there are 100-specific ones that you need to collect to fill the compendium, and the other 50 are just random.

I also mentioned that there are way too many mechanics in the game. I now have a really good handle on them, unlike a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure some people liked catching and breeding animals, but it didn't do much for me. Similarly, the upgrading of equipment being locked behind that mechanic meant that I basically didn't upgrade any of my gear until the end. Pretty much all I needed was the combat, flying, and the story.

Even though these were all criticisms, I did ultimately like the game quite a bit. I'd say the game is worth playing, but it's probably not worth completing unless you really like getting platinums.

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree

At final boss. He is uh something else. Might need to swap from my med weight greatshield setup to a light dodge setup because goddamn he chunks my stamina.

Overall - love it. This is the last bit of major content I have left in the DLC. I've gotten a bunch of the new weapons, killed a few of the furnaces, got all 50 scadutree fragments, etc.

My main problems are quibbles. Furnace golems aren't fun. They're not really hard. They're just boring an feel like they take too long to deal with even when you're upgraded enough to take them out in two viscerals.

The rune breaking is also really non-intuitive because I assumed I'd just f*cked every sidequest but it actually doesn't matter very much. The most you miss is the first half of Thioller's storyline and his summon for the Putrescence Knight.

I did appreciate it made me change my build from dodge roll city to greatshield central. A lot of enemies and bosses I've seen people seething over get trivialized by blocking with a decent shield. A couple other bosses also eat major sh*t if you switch infusions namely (fissure area spoiler) Putresence if you use holy infuision (I used sacred blade with low faith and it still did huge chunks) and (Shadow Keep spoilers) Scadutree Avatar if you use fire - the flame spear art blows thru his health like you wouldn't believe.

The new weapon types all seem pretty cool. I mostly used the Milady and Backhand Blades but I dabbled with the heavy katanas. I hope light greatswords a new mainstay because they really slap. Especially when you put Wing Stance on Milady, that ash is stupid. The R1 stunlocks the messmer fire knights and R2 can stagger most human enemies and do decent damage while you're at it.

One minor disappointment - I saw a vulgar militiaman who had a kusarigama weapon and it just doesn't exist as something you can have. I need more chain-and-sickle weapon types in games, they're really cool.

I think a big highlight was the obligatory dragon boss. I think Igon might be in my top 10 FromSoft NPCs just for how his VA sells every line with his entire heart and lungs.

It's also telling that almost every new area had me going "goddamn". Cerulean Coast was an ealry one but (late DLC spoils)the f*cking hinterlands man they're pretty and sad

The difficulty complaints I don't really agree with. If you just explore you get enough Scad fragments to be going pretty well (I had 41/50 without needing a guide) and they're probably the best equalizer for the huge level spread people have ended up at over the 2 years since release.

Now the next two games Ive been playing I may say some incorrect things abt just bc I'm quoting from like decade+ memory.

Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix Wonderbread Ultimax+++ etc etc

The only real experience playing KH I've had was a bit of the first game back when it got ported to PS3. Did not like it.

2 tho? slaps. When I had an attack clash in the tutorial fight with Seifer I felt my neurons activate.

Been playing on Proud and had some real trouble early on - had to grind to level 5 before the first boss; those sh*tty centaurmen in Mulan world kept kicking my ass - but it's evened out a lot.

Now, I remember always hearing people going "man Roxas part sucks its 6 hours long and boring". My first save as Sora was like right at the 3 hour mark. and its pretty well-done slice of life stuff with the overarching mystery being dripfed to you. Like sorry I'm easily distracted but you can't convince me that was bad or boring.

And similarly, the much joke about complexity yeah idk. So far every concept has been explained in a really easy to understand way even for the stuff I've seen people claim is convoluted. Maybe later games start contradicting the nobody/heartless dynamic but the way 2 explains it? feels more PEBCAK than nomura's fault me thinks.

Donald Duck is also the perfect character for this series. Every time he speaks brings me joy. Same with Goofy. Hearing these old men say anime bullsh*t is inherently funny.

Batman arkham Origins

Yeah this is the other one I'm speaking from memory here. It seems like a good evolution of Asylum and City. I just did the Deathstroke fight and it reminded me of a common talking point I'd heard from when it first came out.

Deathstroke was a bad fight? It's not the best fight I've ever done but like its fine. Like especially compared to Asylum which has like...one boss that isn't a sh*tty "make him run into the wall and punch his dick while he's stunned" fight and it's a worse version of the forest temple boss from Zelda Twilight Princess.

I think bosses in the Arkham series always had a big problem which is that I don't think the combat lends itself well to 1v1s. A lot of the depth is in how it flows between opponents and using gadgets to extend combo chains & one single opponent doesn't make those work great imo.

Still, neat so far. It's been a full-ass decade since I played an arkham game and it's scratching a nice itch. f*ck the Enigma sh*t tho Riddler content in these games continues to be garbage.

Toukiden Kiwami

oh yeah also been doing hunts in this once in a while. Was hoping 2 would be on sale on Steam but f*ck me lmao.

I like it tho. the kusarigama weapon's fun to use, oni are fun to beat up, etc. It is very, very funny that the base game's "sexiest" monster is a f*cked up snake/snail woman and the FIRST MONSTER in the expansion chapters is an anthro cat with childbearing hips who's described in the ingame encycopedia as "alluring".

also will always hate in hunting games when they don't give you a way to see who drops what. had several weapons i couldn't build till i googled the drop and found its from random small monsters. cool!

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

I wish the scooby fragments worked liked Golden Seeds.

I think I used a different weapon setup on every remembrance boss.

The wicker men look cool, but aren't fun to fight.

The final boss is a clusterf*ck of visual spam. I think the fight was designed to convince you to use summons, NPCs or online help.

The vibrant colors make the base game seem bland.

I was so disappointed in the ending cutscene that I checked youtube to see if I was missing something.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Demo

The game vibrant and I like the look of it. It's part strategy and part melee action. The stuff in the demo was easy enough that it seemed like I could ignore the strategy elements if I really wanted.

I don't think it's bad, but probably not for me.

The demo doesn't really give any indication of story.

Slime Soccer 2
I recently had an unlocked memory of playing this flash game on the school computers. The clunky controls, janky physics and overall underwhelming appearance did not do justice to the amount of fun to be had in this game. I went down a rabbit hole of similar games and the nostalgia I experienced was unreal.

I've been searching for a game I used to play, I think it started with a P and was only 4 or 5 letters long. It was similar to games like Strike Force Heroes and Plazma Burst with the perspective and shooting elements. It had online multiplayer, and it was a 2D side-on game. It was hosted on a website of the same name, not on any of the large flash hosting websites. Does anyone out there have any idea what this game is?

Finished up the Elden Ring DLC. I'm a little mixed on it. It did have a lot of great bosses, but a few terrible ones as well. In general, the terrible bosses were the ones that were constantly running away from you like Scadutree Avatar and Putrescent Knight. My biggest surprise was the lion refight with a bunch of basilisks. Holy crap, that was just evil. But most fights were pretty good.

The thing that really brings the DLC down for me is the terrible level design. There are just so many convoluted paths to get to half the areas. Add in some of the abysmal platforming like the stuff in Shadow Keep and you have to wonder what the hell they were thinking. I want to refight the bosses with different builds, but going through the world again is just a pain. I wish they'd add resummonable bosses in their arenas.

Smashero.io (Mobile)

easy, simple, and has a great sense of warriors-style action.
It's a great game to play in your spare time, as you don't have to spend a lot of time on it at once on either console or PC.

TEKKEN 8 (Steam/PC)
I love fighting and action games. As the series has grown, it has changed a lot from the style of the past, but is there still anything to say about this game in the 3D fighting genre?
It's even on sale right now! lol!