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What games are you playing?

do you like them video games? what about those there romhacks? well pop on in here and talk about them then! what are you waiting for?!
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by raekuul »

I've been sick the past couple of days and got back into Phoenix Wright. Doing 1-3 from memory while full of antihistamines was an experience, let me tell you.

Mario + Rabbids: oh right coldbooting back into the game puts you at peach's castle guess I'll go do the chapter 1 challenges now then (got about 4 done so far, probably going to break off and do the bonus chapter to get the extra move range I need to finish challenge 5)

Super Mario 64: I kept trying to use Z to center the camera last night while I was working on Bob-Omb Battlefield.

Link's Awakening NX: So Hero Mode is neat. and by neat I mean "can I even put anything into bottles now?"

FFTA: Famfrit awaits. Still. (I'm using a mod that makes ability learning more FFT-like so my abilities aren't tied to my weapon availability, which is nice but it also does a number on progression since "more FFT-like" does not mean "you get AP coming out of your ears")

Might and Magic 7: For Blood and Honor - Quest Item Shuffle: I overdid it on Mandate of Heaven so now I'm unwinding with For Blood and Honor. Best game in the windows-era, but not my favorite story-wise (8's story hits all the right notes even if it's just "Shattered Lands but by New World Computing") or lore-wise (nothing can compete with the sheer scale of MM6 in terms of lore)
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Did a decent session of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes yesterday. Still not beating a game this month, but that's fine. Been a busy month.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by HatKid »

Finished my Nightmare NG++ playthrough of Trails of Cold Steel and got my png that says I got all the other pngs. It was pretty easy

and I got very lucky with the C fight in Chapter 6; the game gave me a guaranteed crit very early into the fight (literally the first turn) which I used to have Rean nearly oneshot the guy. But he got his revenge with the final battle. It fricken sucks on Nightmare and I'm glad basically everyone agrees the mech fight mechanics in CS1 suck

. I was so relieved to see that stupid chest trophy pop. The only thing I was worried about the entire playthrough.

And with that, I started a Trails of Cold Steel II replay to also get the platinum trophy. I'm not really worried about this at all, thanks to the rather extensive epilogue the game has, my characters are much, much higher level than they would be at the game's finale, and with better equipment too, I think. This will be much less smooth though since I didn't have to muck about with reloading saves and such in CS1 for the bonding trophies, but now I do in CS2 due to a lack of planning on my part when I originally played the game. I also only played it once before, instead of twice before like CS1. The things I'll do for meaningless things...........

Also this doubles as a little refresher on these games before I jump back into Cold Steel III, since it has been a number of years since I've played either of these two games all the way through.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by GenesisJames »

Playing three games on Twitch right now (all blind):

Xenogears: With how much I love the Xenoblade series, I figured it was time to see where it all began. It's a pretty cool game so far; you can definitely see the ideas that Monolith ran with to integrate them with newer entries of the series. I'm always a bit wary of turn-based combat, and while it's not the most engaging thing, it's still pretty fun (though I think the devs knew it's not super involved because I'm pretty sure I spent more time reading dialogue than actually playing the game at this point). The gear combat is noticeably less interesting than the ground combat, though. The game also DOES fall into quite a few of the older-JRPG traps, mainly in how the dialogue's written, but I'm enjoying it!!

Genshin Impact: Wasn't sure what I was getting into here; I knew it was essentially a gacha game, and I played like 1 hour of it on my PS4 but it ran so badly that I couldn't continue. Playing it on the PS5, however, has been really fun and, strangely, really relaxing. There's a lot of time where I'm just kinda taking in the world and exploring, which is very fitting for a game that's essentially waifu Breath of the Wild. Still, I just finished the prologue, and the story actually seems to have some meat to it; it's pretty interesting in what they're setting up. I'm probably not gonna finish it for a long time, but I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would!!

NieR: Automata: THIS was the biggest surprise. I thought, since it's Platinum, I'd be getting a Bayonetta-like experience here. While some of it's like that, what I actually got was a fucking awesome combination of shmup and hack-and-slash set up in a really somber and serene post-apocalyptic open world. Holy shit, I am LOVING this so far. The existentialist/transhumanist themes, great combat, cool world/character designs... I can definitely see why this game's been so hyped for so long. It's like Platinum took everything that I like and put it into one game. By far the game I'm most looking forward to playing every week.

I'll be starting Xenoblade 3 this Thursday as long as my copy gets out of processing purgatory and actually arrives by then!!
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by raekuul »

Might and Magic 7: For Blood and Honor - so it turns out that this game is too heavily gated by certain items for me to find a simple key item shuffle to be "fun" - mostly because half of your objectives are locked by three items, one of which gates the other two. Gonna trash the randomization and just play it straight, I think, but I could also just modify the map events so that the plot gating isn't a thing any more.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - so my eyesight is just bad enough that I can't actually read the dialogue balloons when in TV mode. The font just isn't bold enough, and the dialogue balloons are just not-white enough.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - I tried taking the harder route to Fonsett Village (to scout out the Unique Monster along that route that drops Element Orb Ender), but I got trashed. Guess I'll take the "expected" route and come back later when it makes sense from an abilities standpoint.

Xenoblade Chronicles, 3DS port - I'm in First Cave somewhere. Apparently my "Just play as the tank character :kood: " strategy from 2 isn't going to fly, but I think most of that is just a matter of unfamiliarity - I'm too used to the simpler Arts Palette from 2 onward for the Wii-style one to make sense.

Phoenix Wright - 1-4, Trial Phase 1. At the very end of Investigation Phase 1, I remembered the "present your badge" moment but forgot what you had to do after that (present the Autopsy Report), so I wound up presenting all the evidence to that person anyway.

Pokemon Crystal Randomized - My Bellsprout that evolved into a Skiploom has evolved into a Charizard. And Route 41 is full of Totodiles with Crabhammer. This gon' be fun.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by 11clock »

I revisited Just Shapes & Beats and finished the whole story (including the Lost Chapter) in hard mode.

A fantastic game that would’ve been even better if half the content wasn’t locked behind hours of grinding.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Sonic the Hedgehog - Made it to Marble Zone as a small decompression playthrough while I was listening to like PC Music. Might give it another go with the Chaos Emeralds and a map of the special stages, the Chaos Emeralds are what separates a casual playthrough from a Serious Business Playthrough to me, they are such a pain.

Super Mario World - Played this to rest from a panic attack the other day (mania). At Donut Secret 1. I'm of the opinion that water stages aren't bad per se, but to me they can just mess with the flow of a playthrough. I still feel that they shouldn't be automatically excised though. If they are engaging (lots of enemies; fun graphics, music or setting/theme) I'm willing to give it a go ASAP as a breather stage.

Arc the Lad III - Handled the South Sularto Wanted Monsters yesterday. Too low on energy to work through the pre-Battleship Guild Jobs due to the eternal heatwave. Mustn't miss Job #40 again like I did last year.

Wonder Boy - Played a bit to derust, and yeah this feels much more jank than JJ & Jeff does. Much more Mario 1 style physics, heavy accel and weird traction. Will try to work on it later on, never finished it or Adventure Island 1.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Played through Abandoned Beach and Concrete Isles, need to look up a guide for the Concrete Isles Waddles, I'm missing like 30% of the stage. I'm still not sure if I'm gonna do the no hit runs of the main bosses for the hidden Waddle in each though. Beyond my skills.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R - Messed around with the Arcade Mode as Sol. I'd be much more confident if I wasn't constantly worrying about messing up my Joycons and making them start drifting (I try to avoid making overly rough motions with my Joycons for that purpose).

---------------------------

Bought Crypt of the Necrodancer (roughly €3,99) yesterday, and Ni no Kuni (€9,99), Alex Kidd DX (€6,59) and Dragon Quest II (like €4,80?) today. Gonna try to play a bit of Alex Kidd for nostalgia's sake today. Almost bought FF8 Remaster, FF7, Sonic Mania or Sonic Forces but all but FF7 were €9,99 and FF7 still had the gall to be €7,99 despite being just the Mobile port of the Steam port of the Win9x release.

I shouldn't spend so much tho ;_;

Digimon Survive is a definite for December though. Wish I'd use my PS4 more often but I might try to buy Digimon World -next 0rder- later down the road. It's just such a pain to play on the TV for me..

Also remembered some games I started but didn't finish yet (SM64 replay, OoT replay, Crash 1 not replay).
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by 11clock »

I personally found Alex Kidd DX absolutely atrocious when I tried it a while back. I couldn't even stomach a full level. It just played like total garbage and was a waste of money.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

i think that's just how alex kidd is,
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Kind of went on a DOS bender and downloaded like 31 games? Started out as me wanting to download stuff like Supaplex, then Lemmings and Jetpack, then Crystal Caves, then Bio Menace, then... Some were available on GoG but I don't need to spend more money so I just went with eXoDOS. Also downloaded Jazz Jackrabbit 2, I'm gonna see if I can run on PCem. I like Win98 >w>

Commander Keen 1 - Played up to Treasury (Level 3). Will give it more of an honest go later.

Supaplex - Made it to Level 3: Stone Age. I'd like to grind this out myself, but I don't know if I have the patience to. Very nostalgic game.

Lode Runner DOS - Did this always make you walk to the left/right automatically after one press of said button? Clunky controls as expected of a 1983 game, but there is a solid foundation. Will give it a shot with savestates to mark my progress later. Need to figure out how to make Championship Lode Runner work on DOSBox-X once I'm done with this.

Super Mario 3D World - Cleared up 1-5: Switch Scramble Circus, but I need to get the last star and stamp. But first I need to give my computer a rest, it was pulling double duty trying to render all those shaders.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

11clock wrote: 1 year ago I personally found Alex Kidd DX absolutely atrocious when I tried it a while back. I couldn't even stomach a full level. It just played like total garbage and was a waste of money.
okay i just played like 5 stages and i think you just don't like alex kidd which granted its controls are bad but they're also from 1986?
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

quadruple poast

Commander Keen 1 - I'm at Level 7: Emerald City.

Jazz Jackrabbit - Finished Ep1: Turtle Terror, need to start Ep2: Ballistic Bunny. It feels alright but I "love" that official updates break something, namely Orbitus 2. Thankfully fixes are easy to find, kudos to the Jazz fandom.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 - Ep1: Formerly a Prince, at Carrotus. I could barely fight Queen Earlong the first time (first save is always overwritten) due to the insane aspect ratio, the sprites are too small relatively.

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time - I was trying to draw Adray for the past month and now I'm suffering from Star Ocean brainrot. At Airyglyph Aqueducts (skipped all cutscenes).

Dragon Quest V - Organized my party better for the Magmen battle (Hero, Slime, Slime Knight, Hulagan), still grinding for gold and some exp.

The Tower of Druaga - Oops, went from Floor 6 to Floor 20

EDIT: Summon Night 3 - Finished Chapter 6. :rao:

EDIT 2: Tales of Destiny 1 - At Terazzi. :rao: :rao:
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by raekuul »

Playing through Doki Doki Panic SMB2 again (via NSO), going warpless. Up to 3-2. One of these days I'll do that "all four characters evenly" challenge, but for now I'm just enjoying it. Unfortunately I'm not quite good enough to 1CC the earlier mario games (I don't know if I want to consider "warped" runs to be 1CC but I can 1CC warped World and used to be able to 1CC warped SMB2/3)

Pokemon Crystal Randomized: So the Lake of Rage had a Dratini instead of a Gyarados, which I'm not about to pass up a level 30 Dratini with alternate coloration (I love Gen 2 Dratini's alternate colors). There are so few dragon-types in Gen 2 that it has to follow its usual evolution line just for completeness' sake (unless the randomizer allows both Dratini and Dragonair to evolve into Dragonite which... I don't think it does?).
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Sonic R - Did one balloon hunt as Tails Doll, and a bunch of random races as Metal Knuckles, Tails, TD and Sonic (first place on all but the Doll's, 2nd place). Apparently Tails Doll was a prototype Sonic Adventure prop (Gamma's target practice from Final Egg), and that makes sense really.

Sonic Adventure DX PC (Replay) - Beat Sonic's story. Read Big's Sonic Wikia page and :brain:

Time to do some backlog whittling down again today.

EDIT: Results:

Star Ocean: Blue Sphere - Levelling up Ashton to max because lmao, gonna work on Noel and Leon afterward, then the others.

Final Fantasy II (Replay, first time NES) - Powerlevelled for like an hour, tackled Semitt Falls, brought back the Mythril, tackled the Bofsk Sewers, tackled the Snow Cave, died. Will try again later.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Played Wave 2 of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe courses. Sydney Sprint is the standout of this set of eight to me. They also made it so the Shy Guy cars at the end of Coconut Mall in now have some movement, too, so that was nice to see back.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Finally beat Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes yesterday. Like most of those Warriors games, it's good in small doses, but that means you're playing the game over the course of a month or two instead of plowing through it like I would some of the longer RPGs out there.

Going to probably go for one of the two platformers I picked up recently in Shantae: Risky's Revenge or Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 because I want a shorter game or two to go through next after that last one. Yep.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by raekuul »

Pokemon Crystal Randomized: hey guess who forgot to freaking save last time? At least this gives me a chance to bring the Lake of Rage Dratini into the Chuck/Jasmine gym battles (the Mahogany Town scenario is generally lower level than the other two so if not for being nudged westward by the badge numbers this feels Less Wrong).

Pokemon Emerald: Slateport acquired. Now the real game begins.

Xenoblade 3: Chapter 1 complete.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Since I'm not taking up too much front page real estate and some people have posted already...

Lode Runner DOS - Made it to Level 6 out of 150. Still adjusting to the minor changes, slowed down the game to get a better grip on the constant movement of the little Runner and be able to dig and grasp ladders better. The hitboxes on the gold can be annoying though, I'm used to the NES version's 16x16 hitboxes. Having a full view of the map does help counter some of the issues, it's much easier to manipulate the AI. Feels like I'm playing Summon Night again and I appreciate that.

Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix - At Beast's Castle, this stage was the last one I finished before I just stopped last time. I'm sad that the game seems to be heading towards "spam Δ" hell. I appreciate the pageantry but I wish I could get over it through my own skill and tactics with magic, slashing, Limit and Drive. The voice acting got a little grating in Hollow Bastion, but it could also just be the script that was trying too hard? I have no idea how Paul St. Peter sounds so guttural though, at least with Mansex (er... Leomon) and Xemnas. It's overwhelming in a good way.

The Mulan world was enjoyable, Mulan is such a cutie, but it's kind of sucky they didn't add much emphasis to the "Shang has a crush on Ping and doesn't understand it" part. Shan Yu and the Emperor are wife material btw. Ironically this was the same day that Bridget was announced for Strive, where she came out as trans (+1 for trans representation, even if she's no longer a cute femmy boy. Forever my fave even if I suck as her).

Looking forward to seeing my boo, Beast and his lovely wife, Belle!

EDIT: Power of the Hired - Stage 13 broooo. This game is so close to being really fun and good and amazing, but. There's so much going on here that just tears it to shreds. I went through it on Discordhaus so I'll just copypaste:
  • I hate how fucking huge these stages are. It's so easy to get lost and just become unaware of the amount of enemy units left and where they are in the map. Hell you can even lose track of what units are left to move or heal because they're just far out of the screen and hard to find.
  • Not having the ability to round up your monster friends like the soldiers in Langrisser is a huge detriment, making movement a lot more cumbersome since you have to move them bit by bit.
  • And some monsters have ass movement range, like the Werebear who has like more range on like west and east but not south or the other way around?? It's why I mostly use the Murder Dog and Gargoyle, they have crazy movement, and thus they are levelled up higher than the rest of my monsters.
  • Not being aware of whether reinforcements are coming is a dick move especially with monsters that have gimped movement range, and in a stage where you have a secondary fail state, like "Letting all villagers die". I would appreciate a tally at the start of battle or maybe no reinforcements at all.
  • Another reason that the stages are so easy to get lost in is that, unlike Langrisser 1 there is no map screen. Shining Force had a map screen and that was like 1992? It's artificial difficulty by way of denying quick access to valuable information.
  • Despite me being okay with harder Strategy RPGs, I feel that this one tends to be heavily skewed against the player. Maybe I'm spoiled by easy games like Arc the Lad or FF Tactics but denying the ability to heal after moving (nor prayer nor recovery magic), literally just denying anything but checking your stats or attacking, is a war crime, especially with how Mean this game can get.
  • The last point feels very backwards after stuff like Shining Force or even Fire Emblem 1, the latter of which had forts available at each map for you to strategically prepare for the heavy hits of the enemy, and you could also use Vulneraries with no nonsense rules like this, should you have them at hand.
All of this results in a clunky, cumbersome SRPG that feels a bit player hostile. I don't feel like it's bad or something that I vehemently dislike... But it feels lacking and unpolished, which is a shame because it can be really fun and is a neat early Strategy RPG in the vein of NCS's main SRPG series, Langrisser. And also Dyno is really adorable.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by thatguyif »

Been a while. Had to start a new "diet" (which is more or less just "eat more veggies and protein, and stop eating cookies") and exercise. Messing with my head a spell.

I completed my typical Normal run of Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta. It was a decent run, given my team was a freakin' battleship. Killed Shinryuu, left Omega alone (team really didn't have the means to overcome Omega's cheap shots). TED was surprisingly more threatening than NED. Felt like I was going to lose more in that situation. In the end, though, I pulled through. Because I didn't finish until early August, though this'll be my only run. Feeling a bit fatigued after what happened last year.

Overall...I enjoyed the Pixel Remaster, though it was not without some flaws. The new translation was fine...I noticed some lines being cut here and there, but nothing that was upsetting or anything. (Though they added a Homestar Runner reference of all things, see below) I enjoyed the graphical work they put into it, and was highly impressed that the game had ultrawide support (sort of).

Image

Music was phenomenal. Clearly Uematsu was playing favorites here, because of the PR arrangements I've heard, this one's the strongest, hands down. Everything just clicked well.

At the same time, I had issues with some of the gameplay stuff. It's very clear the game fucked with the ATB system for V and VI, and not in a good way. There was a lot of frontloading or something on the enemies' part, which meant it was much harder to build up my team in critical fights. Preemptive strikes no longer have as much oomph because your enemies' ATBs moved very quickly. Auto-battle is super-finicky, and kind of annoying to set up. While V was basically the first FF to really push that magic was the most important thing, FFV PR made it a lot worse in that you no longer have to equip rods to break them, basically making them extremely overpowered (in short: If you equip an elemental rod or Magus Rod, and you break a rod of the same element, the resulting attack gets the elemental boost that comes with equipping the rod. Considering the Rods fire off -aga level spells, you could mow through...everything in the game pretty quickly.) Grinds felt a bit more tedious.

Still...I will definitely continue future Fiesta runs (next year) on Pixel Remaster. It's still good fun.

My friend and I also finished the main campaign of Shift Happens. It was neat little co-op game for what it's worth. Short, but effective at what it does. We goofed off a lot, had fun while doing it, it was great. The ending...was dumb, but a punchline is a punchline. We'll probably get around to full-clearing the Bonus levels at some point, though not anytime soon.

I was feeling moody for about a week, and then I started playing Hotline Miami. The reasons will be obvious in about a few days time (for those who haven't figured it out already). I'm about 3/5 of the way through the game, 3/4 through what seems to be

the main character's campaign

.

Thoughts below:
This is a game I briefly toyed with many moons ago, but raocow's imminent playthrough propelled me to play it before he did. The game is probably one of the earliest examples of "setpiece violence" games (outside those stick figure games), were you're in an area, you cannot get hit, and you have to kill everything in the area, usually with some style mixed in. It's a concept I've played and enjoyed before (see: Katana ZERO and Superhot. Superhot. Super...sorry), though this is probably one of the more primitive forms of it.

It like the general visual style of the game. It's really off-kilter, and really designed with a certain psychedelic tinge to it. I like playing in those settings. The music's pretty rad, though it certainly helps that I enjoy Sun Araw in particular.

A couple things do bother me, though. First, the controls are kind of...bleh? It's basically a twin-stick shooter, and I've never been fond of those games. While it is playable on keyboard and mouse and does the job all right, it doesn't feel right regardless, especially when it comes to aiming for anything. I often get killed because my cursor was in just the wrong position to deal with trouble, even for something like swinging a melee weapon. On top of that, for some reason the game doesn't accept input from my middle mouse button, which is the lock-on button. So I often have to shoot and hope the target I'm aiming for gets hit, especially in a crowd. (The fact you can't change your inputs is also annoying.) It gets frustrating to go through some levels as a result.

(At least it's better than playing on controller...they did a lot of things wrong there, I feel. They put lock-on AND attack on the same side of trigger buttons. They really expect you to play using four fingers on the triggers rather than two, and I haaaaaaaaaaate that. There is the alternative of pressing the right stick for lock-on, but that doesn't really change much, not to mention that me using a Wii U Pro controller, where the analog sticks are at the top of the controller, kind of renders it pointless. I tried one mission with that after being frustrated with K+M. Went back after about a half hour of not being able to clear even the first room.)

Second, the story is a double-edged sword. It's really cool in conveying a certain paranoia, but at the same time, everything is so damn vague that I have no idea what's going on. It gets a little better as the main character begins to hallucinate. But then...why should it get to that point?

Of course, now I've just learned what the story is with Puzzle in the pause menu: Turns out there are puzzle pieces in the game which are very hard to find, and you have to collect them THEN clear the level to pick them up. And they are necessary for an ending. Good lord, this'll be a pain to do.
I plan on trying to finish the main game this weekend.

Then I'll try to get the puzzle pieces next week, maybe?

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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

"Perhaps you can't truly improve upon perfection"
- Ignis Finalfantasyfifteen,
on Cup Noodles Final Fantasy V

Played Super Street Fighter II Turbo on a 3DO emulator to test it out and I managed to get used to using Zangoof but T. Hawk (literally my dad /s) kicked me in the dick around match 5

Need to practice 360s on a keyboard now that I still don't have any fight sticks

EDIT: Also I played New Super Mario Bros. Wii and I could only play 2-1 because the third Star Coin was an ordeal and a half. Had to restart to reload my save because Jesus Christ the third star coin, so many deaths. And then I did it in my first try after reloading.

I'm so glad im not using waggle, I have the controls set up similar to SMW. Twirling (waggle) is A on my keyboard, Jump (2) is S (B), Run (1) is X (Y), A is Z (X), + is Enter (Start), - is Space (Select), Tilt left is Q (L), Tilt right is E (R).
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by raekuul »

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: I... think? I'm at the end of Chapter 2? The chapter number on the save file hasn't rolled over yet but I just got done with the requisite boss fight against a member of The Bad Guys (and all the associated tutorials). Wasn't quite the direction I was expecting (but I got all the foreshadowing for it in the same play session so 🙃) and it's not a direction I particularly like but I'll roll with it for now (since with as early on in the game as it is, if I don't miss my guess then this plot-power is going to go very pear-shaped for Noah and company at around chapter 6)

Also messing around with unlicensed/homebrew FDS games now that I've got RetroArch running on my Switch (I also moved my Pokemon Crystal Rando/Pokemon Emerald/Fire Emblem/FFTA save files over there too which... has the net effect of slowing down my progress on those for the time being)
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by GenesisJames »

Lots of stuff being played!!

Twitch streams of note:
Xenogears is expanding pretty fast. Lots of development happened with the Ethos and their motives; seems like a huge portion of the story just got even deeper. I'm liking where it's going, as while I still liked the story before that, I felt like it was meandering a bit without anything to really pick up the slack. Gameplay-wise, nothing has really been shaken up too much, and I still feel like the gameplay is taking a backseat to the story with how much dialogue is present. Also, I got to a platforming dungeon, and it SUCKSSSS

I finally started Xenoblade 3!!! I'm about 7 hours in, just a little ways into the desert. Loving it so far, and I'm loving the more sci-fi direction it's going in compared to 1 and 2. My Xenoblade X-loving heart is VERY happy. TONS of foreshadowing and all that; can't wait to see how the story unfolds, and I also can't wait to unlock the depths of the class system now that it's available!!

Nier: Automata is also going well. Like I said last time, it's basically everything I love rolled into one game. I started 9S' story last time and am gonna continue it on Monday; it's the same events as 2B's story more or less, but I'm digging how we get to see the world through 9S' eyes and how we get a deeper look at the lore of the world and various robots thanks to his hacking ability. Super clever way to handle an alternate storyline!


Off-stream, I've been on a Sonic kick to prepare myself for Sonic Frontiers (and to prepare myself for my inevitable disappointment):
Just did a 100% run of Sonic Generations (console) on PC. I forgot how fun this game is, man. I haven't played this version since it came out and I had a blast. So satisfying to play, nice level design, and a lot of love was clearly put into it. Classic Sonic's physics still don't feel quite right (though at least not as bad as in Forces) and some of the challenges could be a bit frustrating, but overall I loved it all over again.

I also played the fan-made 16-bit remake of Sonic Triple Trouble. These guys know what they're doing; it's a love letter to Classic Sonic like Mania was but with Triple Trouble's levels. I still need two chaos emeralds, but I'll probably get those tomorrow. Definitely recommend it if you want to see what that game would've been like on the Genesis!!
EDIT: I actually just went and did it because I only had one special stage left; forgot that Robotnik had the last emerald, haha. Really liked the new reward for collecting all of them! I might do a Knuckles playthrough tomorrow because this was great!!

Next, I'll probably play Sonic and the Fallen Star, since it's probably one of the most talked about fan games at the moment. Looking forward to it; the previews look REALLY good!
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by HatKid »

I haven't really been playing games lately (mostly reading books in my free time) but when I have been it's been Star Wars: The Old Republic. My brother and I bought a 30 day sub to try to grind out as much of the expansions as we can. When we haven't been playing together, I've been playing my Jedi Consular, just finished Chapter 1. I also intend to play the Sith Warrior class story, but beyond that, I'm not sure. I've already done Jedi Knight, Trooper, Sith Inquisitor, and Agent over the past few years.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Frane: Lost Memory of Angel - Went past the Demon's Dwelling and through a revisit of Fort Borzoi. I cannot tell you what the story is because I am not fluent yet. Time to grind again at the Dil Valley Bridge.

ActRaiser 2 - Struggling at the game. Cleared Industen, Benefic, Tortoise Isle and Altheria. Trying to beat Modero now. I hate it a bit less than I did around 2015 but jesus christ these hitboxes.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by thatguyif »

So I 100%ed Hotline Miami in anticipation of something coming soon. This means

all chapters, all puzzle pieces (and the related secret ending), and all masks

. Game took me longer than I thought it would to full clear, for the game is still relatively short.

Further thoughts:
The endgame narrative gets really fucky. It gets more so when you get the secret ending. It's one thing to know that the main character is being played like a fiddle by two janitors (who probably were responsible for killing your character's girlfriend). It's another beast all together when said janitors are in fact part of a larger network of ultranationalists determined to fuck up America on some fantasy of "returning sovereignty."

It gets nastier with the sequel, apparently. I already own that game (bought these games years ago, forget how though...maybe a Humble Bundle?), and it comes with comics that fill in some of the blanks, such as the alt-history aspect of the Soviet Union and the US operating under some..."coalition" of sorts.

In terms of gameplay...I felt like the game got annoyingly hard towards the end, particularly with Assault (Trauma, which people complained about, wasn't that bad, since it's just routing really), and the sudden gameplay change when you become the Biker in Part Five. I feel like Part Five would've been way shorter if the gameplay shift hadn't happened, and the part is already really short.
May play the sequel at some point, though it is said that the sequel is much harder...

Got back into Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. The breakthrough regarding the Scavenger class has proven crucial, so I've been doing clean-up on that front. One planet (Kamino) is now full-cleared, all the other prequel planets are done as far as I could take them. All Story Mode Chapters the prequel trilogy are full-cleared. Of the original trilogy planets, I've only done work on Tatooine. A more robust clean-up of the original planets, though, will now take place. Only at 49.82%, though...😐

I might start AM2R at some point this week? Been holding off long enough.
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