What games are you playing?

[KobaBeach]

It's no real problem I'm gonna cross reference with JP LB fansites too, I'd appreciate the Excel version just so I can keep a local version on my harddrive.

[raekuul]

Alrighty then.

The monsters list also has my notes for the "better monster names" mod of the GBC version that I never published

[11clock]

I am revisiting Axiom Verge, a game I previously played years ago and disliked. Now that I am a Metroid fan, though, I decided to give the game another chance. Axiom Verge is basically "Metroid but the powerups are slightly different," so maybe I'll like it this time.

I just beat the 4th boss. So far, I definitely like it more than I did last time. That said, of all the Metroid games that I have played, I think that it only outclasses Super Metroid, and is a high C tier at best. It feels much better to control than Super Metroid, but it shares the same archaic "kill the enemies before they hug you to death, or safely shoot them outside of their aggro range when possible" combat system. The different weapons help a bit, but they don't do enough to make combat exciting. The bosses are better than Super's, since they don't have the same "outdamage the boss to win" problem, but the bosses have incredibly simplistic attack patterns that don't change throughout the entire fight (besides speeding up).

In short, Axiom Verge to me is a "better Super Metroid," but it doesn't do nearly as good of a job as the official "better Super Metroid" (Metroid: Zero Mission). Great exploration and I like the powerups, but the combat kind of sucks.

I can see why it took me so long to get into Metroid. Axiom Verge and Super Metroid were my first exposures to that kind of game, and they gave me mediocre first impressions. When I played all of the other Metroid games, though, I realized that it was just those two, as I greatly enjoyed the other titles.

[raekuul]

FFTA: (back) up to the Famfrit fight. Only since I'm playing the "buy your skills with JP" hack I have some more powerful abilities already, such as the all-important DMG>MP. Wish I could remember how to get an early Angel Ring so that I could try to pick up Roulette but Famfrit is a terrible time to try that anyway. I need to recruit at least one more Bangaa and one more Moogle - I like both the Dragoon/Templar and Defender/Monk pairings, and I can't send Montblanc out on missions (not that I could if I wanted to, he's currently a Gunner/Animist which is a surprisingly powerful combob when you're not restricted in your ability route).

Pizza Tower: Gnome forest cleared. Gustavo and Brick are fun enough to use that I'd like an entire game around these two.

[Bean]

Before the 3DS shop shuts down next week, I picked up a couple of Mega Man-like titles by getting the other two games in The Legend of Dark Witch trilogy. Very basic action in TLoDW2 so far, but it was expected. So far, I do prefer this one over the original. We'll see if it holds up. Not like it's that hard since you can farm for the game's currency by repeating stages to buy permanent upgrades.

[KobaBeach]

Front Mission - Finally inserted mteam's update two days ago, so I went and re-did the SAM Launcher map and then did the Hell's Wall map and Freedom City map in one go, with safety saves between them ofc. Didn't really lose in any of them, though Ryuji and Natalie got boned during the Freedom City encounter. Good stuff.

[Ashan]

Finished up Metroid Prime Remastered a couple nights ago. First Metroid game I ever finished I think.

It was a decent time, aside from my aforementioned criticisms. It would have been nice if they added some QOL improvements, especially on the map screen which is incredibly clunky for how much it needs to be utilized. Million dollar idea: let me click an elevator room and have it jump me to the other end of the elevator, wherever it leads to, instead of having to remember it said like "Phendrana south", pop out of the current map, try to remember which cluster of hexagons is Phendrana, click into it, figure out which way is north from the compass, and then search for the elevator on the south side of the map. It's so obvious!!

[11clock]

Beat Axiom Verge, got the true ending. Decent game, but it fails to compete with later Metroid titles.

Next up, Axiom Verge 2! I heard that this game changes things up a bit in order to establish its own identity from the Metroid series. I’m curious.

[Bean]

I'm going to get through the rest of The Legend of Dark Witch Episode 2 today. Like the Mega Man meets Gradius aspect and pretty much ignore the anime gal dialogue that's been done so many times in so many games like the ones raocow plays such as Touhou or Rozenwhatsitsname.

[raekuul]

Spelunky 2: I think I'm sufficiently un-rusted now - I managed to get to Tiamat (without a viable weapon) while going through Abzu (I screwed up and grabbed cracked wooden bat instead of cracked clay bat so no Qilin). Learning when not to take a backpack has been super useful (since I usually pass through the less costly Volcana instead of Jungle for my headwear I don't actually need to keep a Jet/Hoverpack, the Vampire Cape is Good Enough™). I still have a handful of spelunkers left to unlock though so I may need to divert to Jungle/Temple for a while, and apparently some unique quests require Jungle/Tide Pool and Volcana/Temple pairings? But the Volcana/Temple pairing kind of requires me to already be on track for Cosmic Ocean so that's Future Content™ anyway.

FFTA: hold on famfrit i want to get some of these side missions done while i still only have to obey one law at a time

[KobaBeach]

Last Bible GG - raekuul my beloved. If anyone ever wants to play this dumb game, feel free to check out raekuul's docs, it makes negotiation much easier.

(click the arrow to get to the excel dl link -kobbs)

In Google Sheets format

I'm at the second area, around Meluhha and Harappa - these town names are way too good if you look up the etymology wtf?? bless fatlus and the LastBib/DeviChil devs - working on getting Kishe and El well equipped with Sky Armor/Wolf Shield/Kintaru Swords, before moving on to Jhalawan. Current demon roster is Banshee/Chimera/Tiamat/Kelpie. Still not a good SMT game but eh, it's cozy.

Super Mario Bros. - yes i play this game for fun, i just really like janky nes games lol. At World 6, got two game overs in said W6 because I'm terrible with a controller. ^^ Aside from that, not too many deaths. No warps, as I usually play.

Romancing SaGa: The Shit Version (SNES) - hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ive succumbed to my deepest desires...... Started a game as Hawke, because he's really cute in the remake, did the Geckling rescue quest and part of the Capt. Silver's treasure quest (didn't fight the Blue Dragons yet) to gain some dosh. Now I have a choice of whether to go to Melvir or Northpoint, might go to Melvir to do the Saruin Temple busting, not sure if I can do the Aurefont Invasion, even if I didn't fight everything I found.

Etrian Odyssey - Did the initial tutorial quest to map out B1F. Getting used to the game and it's pretty fun, actually!

[Matthew_Coco]

Been playing some Chrono Trigger and Earthworm Jim 2. Not much else.
On a more serious note, the Dpad on one of my SNES classic controllers broke down.

[KobaBeach]

Romancing SaGa: The Shit Version - Good news!!!! Recruited Sif after fighting around in the Galessa Steppes, and also recruited Jamil, Aisha, Albert and Barbara before kicking them back out to get more locations on the map (and the Amethyst Fatestone). After that, I did the following:

• Investigated the deaths surrounding a strange Saruin cultist group in the Melvir sewers, turns out the southern item shop owner accidentally got one of them to curse the northern item shop owner, rendering him bedridden due to the power of the evil god. We wiped out everyone at their temple and got thanked and rewarded by the king of the Bafal Empire.
• Heading to Estamir, we overhear discussion about the legend of Agnes, priestess of Amut's battle against a dreaded Vampire that once attacked the lands. Investing into it just in case, we decide to explore the catacombs of the nobles hidden in the North-South Estamir sewer line. Fighting several Corrupted Corpses, we find the Holy Chalice used to vanquish the demon, and receive the blessing of Agnes' spirit.
• Fun fact! Beating up Corrupted Corpses and giving money to the beggar children in S. Estamir actually raise the same counter in the game's code, raising the likelyhood of you finding the Chalice. Should you have 0 in said counter though, you can just find it by just checking every coffin in the catacombs. Possible speedrun strat?
• Further exploring the Frontier lands, we pass by Tarmitta and overhear discussion about a Water Dragon, of which there hasn't been a sacrifice dedicated to him. Troubling stuff... Moving on, we reach Weston and hear discussion about the pioneer's villages in the north and northeast being assaulted by monsters. Wanting to help them, we visit each village.
• Passing by the northern village, we find a crying mother. Her child has been abducted by monsters. Hawke is an asshole, but he can't really let an innocent child get eaten by monsters, especially if it involves a money reward, paltry as it may be. Sif and Guella Ha wouldn't let him hear the end of it either.
• Heading to the monster den north of the village, we manage to find some good loot and the culprit of the abduction, a rogue squadron of Fishmen. Beating up their leader, we rescue the child and head back to the village. Our reward? 50 gold. Not much but hey, it feels good.
• Heading to the northeastern village, we run into an elderly woman, lamenting that the Frontier has become inhospitable. Heading further into the back (I honestly thought the town was already destroyed there was so many "pebbles on sand" tiles around), we find the heart of the village, with a few settlers. We hear about the monster den to the east, from one of them and off we go.
• This cave is much more filled with all sorts of baddies, let's mosey. Passing by the underground lakes and beating up a Flame Dog, going through the subterranean waterfall cliffs, scoring loot and fighting a Kraken, we find the source of the problems, a nest of devils. Making our way inwards, we run into the head of the operation, a lone Balbal. Offing him off easily, we move on out and return to the village.
• Fun fact! These two quests (and the Vampire one later downward) delay the destruction of the Frontier. The last one involves fighting the Jewel Beast, I believe. Don't know if I'll do that one, it's SUPER TOUGH.
• Our job done, we hear about the knights of Mirsaburg running into some reputation troubles. Thinking this could score him some money, Hawke sets off to the Knights' Dominion. (Canon note: this didn't happen in game, this is me adding flavor text)
• Arriving in Mirsaburg in the Knights' Dominion, we hear a lot of people talk about the knights being cowards, losing their spirit and not doing their job. Deciding to hear the whole story, we head to Eugenstadt to hear from the Lord of the small town, Lord Heinrich. Hearing from him and his son Raphael, it seems like the knights have been getting sloppy, caring more about money than doing their own job. After seeing the chivalric order's complete display of wussiness wrt clearing out a monster den outside of Mirsaburg, it's up to the Hawke, Guella Ha and Sif to do their own dirty work, with Theodore and Raphael helping.
• Before we leave, we do take note to swipe some long forgotten loot from behind the waterway of the Mirsaburg Castle, 1500 gold and an Expensive Ring that restores HP each round. Not bad.
• The den is pretty deep, lots of underground cells in it, no doubt to entrap innocent humans and gecklings and the sort. Heading all the way through we run into the leader of the monsters, a Snakeman. He went down easily. We earn the trust of Theodore, Heinrich, Constance, Raphael and Lady Flammar. And with that we head off.
• Reading a newspaper, we find that people have gone missing near Tarmitta. No doubt the sacrifices have started again. Better dig into it, but we also see something. Seems a vampire has been attacking villages at the Frontier. Time to go. (Canon note: only the Tarmitta one applies)
• Hearing people out in Weston, it seems the vampire cave is to the southeast of the frontier, digging ever deeper into the den, we find the Vampire and its thousands of servants. Hacking and slashing our way through, we find the head of the operation. Defeating her with the help of the Chalice, everyone in the northern settler village is restored to normal.
• Thinking we need to build up our numbers, we pass by S. Estamir and Bruelle to recruit Albert, Aisha and Barbara. Aisha would only be with us for a while as we want to help her be reunited with her Taralian tribe once more. As we headed out, a Knights Dominion squire reports to us that Theodore has gone mad and imprisoned Raphael for giving Constance away to the enemy. Tarmitta would have to wait.
• Theodore refuses to give us any real answers saying that we should speak to Raphael himself. Doing so at the jail, we find that Constance and Raph were attacked by monsters and Constance was abducted as well. Speaking to Heinrich, he urges us to consult Lady Flammar, as the monsters are demanding a Fatestone in return.
• In Weiserheim, Flammar gives us the location of Constance's whereabouts thanks to her oracle powers. Preparing ourselves to head out to save Constance, we rest up at a nearby inn.

Once I'm done with Constance I'll start the Elemental Lords questline with the Strom/Water Dragon quest, see if I can manage the Dinosaur Egg quest just in case I need a danmaku-style bomb attack (might not be too useful but completionism!) and get the Taralian quest cleared, for Aisha's sake, even if she isn't mandatory for the quest.

Getting the Topaz from the Taralians, we'll get the Aquamarine from the Neidhart questline (thank you Albert), we'll try to get Claudia for our final party and to do the Eule's death event, just for the sake of it, try to do the Emperor's Sickness quest for the Moonstone, the Assassin's Guild (we'll see if we can make the time to add Jamil to our party for extra dialogue) to unlock the Jewel Beast's dungeon a bit early, for completion's sake, we'll try to fight the Blue Dragon parent and child at the Walon Isle jungle caves to try and get the Opal.

As for later we'll try to do the second Aurefont assault, we skipped out on the first one, the Isle of Evil (no Emerald in this version), continue the Elemental Lords questline, without killing Galahad. Yes, it's funny, but I don't want to be evil ;w;. Do the Frozen Castle quest to get the Obsidian Sword, beat up Butcher and later the Jewel Beast, and do Theodore's Madness to get the Ruby.

After getting all the Fatestones available on SNES - we would be able to get the Emerald from the Isle of Evil and the Diamond from fighting Schirach after getting all of the other ones in WonderSwan, but alas... - we're gonna get everyone up to speed before doing the Trial of Elore and fighting Saruin.

I'm at around 240+ battles in the Event Rank. Have been careful to avoid what I could, but also not outright ignore battles entirely so I could level my stats a bit. No running either.

Shining Force - Finished Chapter 1 and beat the first battle of Chapter 2, currently at Manarina. Made sure to talk to Gantz and Arthur and get the Domingo Egg, but I'll try to double check with a walkthrough just in case. Anri is in our team, so far. Many deaths in Ch2-B1 goddamn. Four or five, I think, actually.

[thatguyif]

Beat Axiom Verge, got the true ending. Decent game, but it fails to compete with later Metroid titles.

It's interesting you make this a competition. I never saw the game as anything but an homage to the early Metroids. How it ultimately compares to the later Metroids...well, it seems irrelevant to me.

Anyway...so here I was thinking I'd finish Going Under after clearing Styxcoin in two runs, unlocking a weird final portal level that brings to mind WeWork and facing down

Marv

. That boss was a bit of a nasty fight, especially because you face down a gauntlet beforehand. And then I thought, good, I'm done. Very predictable.

I'd forgotten a concept in roguelikes that's become common since Dead Cells and Spelunky 2: Reaching "the end" is only the end of a cycle. There's often FAR MORE game left before you reach a definitive end. Having played Dead Cells and Everspace, I should know this. In Going Under's case, the second half of the game unlocks when you take down

Marv

.

I will say, though, the game does a really good job of maintaining that sneering look at startup culture in setting up the second half, and surprised even me:

Marv was actually using the Dark Relics to break the cycle of startups that had been bought up by Cubicle, the stand-in for Google/Amazom/Microsoft, only to eventually be dissolved at a later date when their value became worthless (brings to mind private equity...worked in a company owned by p/e once, that wasn't fun). Jackie didn't bother with his explanation because he had already been full of shit after promising her a job at the company and failing to follow through, and kicked his ass. But his warnings were rather ominous, and the fact that he's self-aware enough to know he's the type of guy that fails upwards and gets promotions and cushy gigs despite no track record of success (a very common thing in Silicon Valley, but also just in the business, especially when you reach a particular paygrade) means something bad is about go down.

And that's when Fizzle, the company your character's been interning for, Goes Under. Three times.

First, financially. Cubicle indeed dissolves Fizzle, citing poor business performance and excess spending. The team rips into each other (cept swomp cuz he chil beb) because of this in a way that reminds me of how I wanted to yell at my CEO when she fired me last year.

Second, literally. An earthquake at this time of year at this time of day localized entirely in the Cubicle building causes it drop a floor. Guess which floor Fizzle was on?

Third, metaphorically. Going Under isn't just a physical state, it means going into the Underworld itself. Suddenly your co-workers are transformed into fish-people, cursed with Going Under.

Honestly, it well encapsulates the chaos and obscenity that exists within startup culture, where everything is about to burst at the seams and vomit over itself.

The second half is basically "now it's time for HARD MODE." I played Joblin on this mode, died on the third floor. Though, honestly, I was surprised I made it that far, because it was a struggle. Everything hits harder, there are new difficult enemies, and so on. There's also new weapons, but they don't appear as often as I'd like. Game don't fuck around.

Going to break on this and continue Paper Mario. That said, my friend and I started playing Unrailed! again the last couple days, and that's been fun. They added a new biome (underwater) which is a nice change of pace, and poses its own challenges. Had to start a new run due to a bug, but still...

[KobaBeach]

Star Ocean: Blue Sphere - Spent like three to four hours yesterday and today combined working on stat building. Precis' Battle Skills are all maxed out, working on her Sense Skills. If anyone wishes to play this with the translation patch (it was sold as a repro cart exclusive without the permission of SquEni or tri-Ace so despite me hating SquEni, fuck the dudes who tried to make a quick buck off it), I've been using this site as a guide for building stats and such. It's in Japanese so I advise using DeepL.

Gonna work on Noel's Technology and Intelligence Skills afterward, then Chisato's Sense and Battle Skills.

Arc the Lad - I fell on my head and felt like making a semi-completionist run. Working on getting Chongara, Mofly and Kelack to Lv20 for now before heading to Greyshinne.

[Onurubu]

Watching my gf play CSI: Deadly Intent. I love the CSI PC games and they were a big part of my childhood. I’m loving watching it again and trying to remember all the twists and turns.

We are onto playing second of the two Telltale CSI games: "CSI: Fatal Conspiracy". This one was even harder to find a copy of online, and the game comes with DRM copy protection features. DRM copy protection services whose servers have shut down years ago!! It really is sad how hard it is to enjoy games that the modern market has deemed should be inaccessible.

[Bean]

Put the Switch away for a bit and hooked up the PS3 for some fun Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds action. Just doing a casual little run through the Challenge Mode here. Courses are nowhere near as nuts as the one on the Vita was. I think that's a good thing. Got through the first three of what I think will be eight difficulty levels, although I'm not going for clearing 100% of them here. You only need to win 4/7 to get to the character unlock vs. match, but yeah. Fun stuff.

Edit: Ten difficulty levels, not eight. Even better!

[raekuul]

Baldur's Gate: I got the itch to play CRPGs and Baldur's Gate has always been a long-time family favorite so you know what? Time to start a new game.

FFTA: Antilaws cleared. Now The Real Game Begins dot png

MMBN3: One more round with Drill man and then it's time to deal with Alpha. It turns out that even though Bubbleman isn't weak to Wood element, he's still super allergic to wood style thanks to the charge attack.

[KobaBeach]

I got the itch to play CRPGs

that is always the right choice to make tbh

[BobisOnlyBob]

FFTA: Antilaws cleared. Now The Real Game Begins dot png

Screw the rules, I have cards!

[Bean]

Along with making fast progress in Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds, I noticed we have quite a few PS1 games on the PS3. Decided to start up the original Spyro the Dragon since I enjoyed the remaster of that one well enough. So far, so good on that pick. 100% cleared the first main hub, two stages, and one of the flight levels so far. Now that I think about it, a couple of the superspeed challenges late in the game will probably be fun.

[KobaBeach]

didn't sleep today because i was uploading two macro bara sketches to my twitter after having a 2 hour long anxiety attack over social anxiety relating to people who weren't my friends possibly looking at my art... hope it's okay that i draw that, i won't post it here. not all of it is sexual and it gives me comfort. sorry

Star Ocean: Blue Sphere - Almost done with Precis' Sense skills. I'd normally stagger my grinding to allow for a decent amount of challenge, but I'm still learning the game so I'm at the very least maxing out the fighters' Sense and Battle skills (Precis, Ashton, Dias, Chisato), and the mages' Technique and Intelligence skills (Celine, Noel, Leon, Bowman?), depending on what Seiju's guides say. Apparently the source of this translation patch was a dude named mz who had their patch leaked and later repurposed for repro carts. Hate the retro gaming community sometimes, no respect, only resell games and get excited for next undeserved price hike.

Cave Story - Started this again on a whim. First died to a Gravekeeper in Mimiga Village and didn't save since the First Room. After that I made pretty good progress, fought Balrog again, fought Igor, met Sue, headed to Grasstown, got the Rusty Key from Kazuma, I believe? And then I died again at the Power Room by being careless on Balrog Round 2. I'll keep at it. Very fun game, very nostalgic. I can see why Toby kind of heavily referenced the Mimigas for the boss monsters in the Deltarune-verse.

Astonishia Story DOS - Taking my time as I translate the dialogue for myself. Hangul reverse look up is much less stressful because choseong, jungseong, and jongseong formations are much less complex and easier to type than the many radicals that can compose a Kanji or Hanzi. The language is still very beautiful however, and I'd like to practice it sometime, especially pronunciation and accent as Chinese languages and Korean are a complete blindspot for me in terms of knowing how to pronounce stuff and I'm very worried about whiteing my way through them, for a lack of a better term.

Still in the opening before the ceremony of the delivery of the Staff of Kainan, and using this person's blog posts as a walkthrough. Can't really savestate to keep progress due to DOSBox-X not being good at handling that. :c If you're having trouble running the version on MyAbandonware, just be aware that a crack is needed. I got mine off A Certain Blog on tistory.com that I get a bunch of KRPGs from but I can't link it here.

[Bean]

Up to clearing the 8th of 10th ranks in Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds. Like usual, the last course or two has ridiculous slopes on the greens, so you really don't want to miss a shot. I'll get through this eventually, but...

I've really been picking up steam in Spyro the Dragon instead. Went from 12% up to nearly 60% over the course of the last couple of play sessions. I do think the camera's worse than it was in the Reignited Trilogy, but it's still the same to play. Wish I was better at gauging some jumps, but that's just me in a 3D space at times. So many glide jumps have had me bonking a ledge and falling to my doom. Oops.

[camwoodstock]

&: Super Lesbian Animal RPG is exactly what it says it is on the tin and also we keep giggling like idiots half the time. We've also taken... Enough screenshots, despite only being at the start of Act 2. How many is "enough", you may ask? ...Enough? Anyways, if you enjoy RPGs and especially incredibly silly humor, and also lesbian animals, this game is extremely good. It... Sounds obvious, but it's also very hard to describe this game beyond an extremely surface-level thing without also accidentally spoiling cool stuff. So uh. We won't! For your sake!

thank you foone

also no video game we've ever played consecutively has ever made any sense compared to the other one, that is not about to start, and this is certainly not going to be the end of it either, mark our words, next game we play after this will be completely bonkers relative to this. it's almost 2am we got Engrossed by this game

[KobaBeach]

&: Super Lesbian Animal RPG

It looks like absolutely my shit, just being hella cute without being overly sugary and also is completely bonkers and gay. I'm gonna see if i can buy it soon-ish, I really don't want to resort to pirating it regardless of buying it later or not. That's basically my stance with a lot of indie software and why I don't really play much of it despite most of it being highly superior and more imaginative compared to AAA schlock.

Haven't really done any progress on it but, I'm playing and recording Legend of Heroes III PC98. I'm basically testing out my "record dialogue to translate it, post-session" method, that I've been brainstorming for games like the early CN-only Xuan Yuan Swords and KO-only Astonishia Story (it does have a PSP and GP2x remake, but I'd like to compare the two), possibly also other western languages I don't really speak. This game has massive healing energy. Anime weebs would call it iyashikei, I swear to god. I love LoH3 and FFX's emphasis on world building and rich worlds jfc.

Clearly I'm going to love Trails, maybe outside of the more fanservice-y parts in Cold Steel and such, they /do/ need more geezers and bara men (fat and ripped), but that's just most anime-adjacent nonsense catering to teens and 20 year olds. Not all character designers can be Hiromu Arakawa, sadly.

I do need to fix OBS not recording sound if I ever get around to doing a game with actual speech, though, like on Saturn or PS2. I'm currently paused with Neko Project 2's about window (no real pause emulation feature sadly) outside of Ragpick Village, so I stopped recording for now, but I'll get back to it once I start the game up again.

If I feel capable of it I'll try to make a decent walkthrough for GameFAQs. HTML due to my organization obsessed autism (I say that but my desktop is vomit aside from the burly men pictures I have as backgrounds), but due to YK's lament that he can't really print a lot of recent FAQs, I'll include a text file equivalent on my site and link it on my guide. It's actually the ideal strategy imo