Discussion What are you currently playing? (Week 21 of 2024)

[Cacher]

New week, new thread! What are you playing?

I am travelling so played nothing after finishing Origami King last week. Haha. I will leave the thread to you good people.

 

[Nabs]

I've been playing Another Crab's Treasure all week. I've been surprisingly impressed with it. It's a pretty fun Soulslike.

 

[curi0usBystander]

Started Hades, got to the second area a couple of times.
Also, SF6.

 

[Durante]

As of 15 minutes ago, I'm no longer playing Trails of Cold Steel IV. Took 111 hours, but it's done.

The problem is that the finale of Trails games is always so hype that I want to jump into the next one, but this is how I initially burned out in chapter 1 of ToCS IV (after starting it directly following III), so now I'll wait a bit and play a few other games before starting Reverie.

 

[Parsnip]

I finished Lords of the Fallen, I'm the cleanser. I'll probably check the other endings out too.

It's good! They took the blueprint and made it their own. Though also in some ways some of the same quality of life frustrations that I tend to have with FROM games are here as well. Like, I don't know what the proper solution for this would be, but getting a new weapon and then trying to compare it to your current weapon+3 always frustrates me. I shouldn't need to go to a wiki and see the starting stats of the current weapon, or waste mats on the new weapon to level it up for a good comparison. This is especially annoying early on when mats are rarer, less of an issue later game but still annoying.

Also looks like they have a NG+0, which just restarts the game with your current character. Ideal for a person who kind of don't care about how many NG++++ they go through, but still want to see the character quests that were missed on the first run. That's me, I'm that person. They made this revolutionary NG+0 mode for me.
I feel loved.




It's also pretty interesting that they have a mechanic for planting temporary vestiges (bonfires) alongside the permanent ones. Perhaps they were inspired by that cut Dark Souls 3 mechanic. I like it, especially when you are in Umbral with zero estus remaining, the clock is ticking down and just as it's about hit the fan and the red reaper spawns, you might find a location where you can plant a vestige seed and save yourself.

The biggest downside I'd say is that some of the areas have some samey looking locations, which makes sense of course. Sometimes it's easy to get turned around when opening shortcuts or whatever since the area looks the same everywhere. Few more landmarks wouldn't have hurt, basically. Another thing that I don't find particularly interesting are both the Umbral and Rhogar art direction. It's just not very interesting to see yet another armor set with human skulls as knee or shoulderpads and human skin as leather.

Also, having both burn and ignite status effects is weird.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

I started Dread Delusion and I could still be lost in that world if not for 1000xResist. I'm barely grasping what's going on, and I'm hoping for a lot of unexpected turns.

 

[Kvik]

I'll wait a bit and play a few other games before starting Reverie.

I feel CS IV ends on a very good spot, so taking a break makes a lot of sense. Reverie's ending by comparison is an appetiser to a promising lavish meal, so you can consider yourself lucky because you can play Reverie and Daybreak back-to-back if you choose to do so.

 

[Ascheroth]

I've hit the Finale in Cold Steel 4. Let's see how far I get until Thursday, which is when I'm gonna be trying Wuthering Waves.

 

[d00d3n]

I have been grinding in Xenoblade Chronicles X for about two months. For most of that time by foot, but I finally unlocked flying skells a couple of weeks ago. The game is pretty much perfect for having something to do with your hands while listening to podcasts, especially if you go into it with a completionist exploration/collection mindset (if you focus on main quests you may want to listen to the often good music instead of podcasts ...).

I am looking forward to finally retiring my WiiU from active service when I am done with the game in about a month or so! (hopefully in time for Dark Souls DLC)

 

[Parsnip]

Started Yooka Laylee and The Impossible Lair.
Liking it so far.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

I finished 1000xRESIST and it was good!

 

[rickyson33]

i've been playing some fairly random stuff lately

I was feeling up for a VN which happens every year or so for me and decided on revisiting Higurashi rather than starting something entirely new to me(I played the first 5 chapters of it back in 2017 but at the time there was like a year between when I finished the 5th one and when MangaGamer released the 6th one so I just never went back to it) I did start over though because it's been 7 years, i'm most of the way through the first chapter right now and have been enjoying it so far

I have also randomly been playing Sea of Stars just because I happened to have Game Pass for a few more weeks after finishing Eiyuden and figured i'd take the opportunity to try out a game I was sort of interested in but not enough that I would ever end up buying it, I like it but don't love it which is pretty much how I thought i'd feel about it and I do also find myself really wishing it had some voice acting while playing it, still though it's pretty and has a nice soundtrack and it's an easy game to pick up for a hour or so at a time so i've been gradually making my way through it and will probably finish it(I think i'm like 2/3rds of the way through it already actually)


I also have SaGa Emerald Beyond and now the Paper Mario TTYD remake both bought and installed so really need to get around to those at some point, and I bought Songs of Conquest ages ago and should probably actually play it at some point now that it's out of early access

 

[LEANIJA]

Im playing Cyberpunk now

And I reinstalled Elden Ring in anticipation of the expansion. First time starting it again didn't go super well, though

Both games showcase the "reinstall to play a new expansion" (after a lenghty gap) problem: either you resume an old save and get confused where you are (and how you play your character) — or you start a new game and portions of it will feel like a chore since you've already done it all before.

I'm replaying Cyberpunk with a new save since they overhauled so much and I was under the impressions there was new stuff added as well I might get to see by replaying it ... but with ER I'll continue from wherever I am (level 240 in NG++ or something...? unsure )

for context: I played through both games twice before already

___

I also played a tiny bit of Diablo IV, but it didnt hook me for long. At least they added WASD controls, which is nice.

 

[Parsnip]

And I reinstalled Elden Ring in anticipation of the expansion. First time starting it again didn't go super well, though

Both games showcase the "reinstall to play a new expansion" (after a lenghty gap) problem: either you resume an old save and get confused where you are (and how you play your character) — or you start a new game and portions of it will feel like a chore since you've already done it all before.

I prepared my Elden Ring save for the dlc a while ago by some fun cheat engine stuff. I had already started a NG+1 but didn't actually want to play the dlc from there. So I basically reset the world back to NG+-0 and reset all world progress too so my endgame character is just outside the tutorial at the first bonfire. Of course it's unknown how you actually access the dlc content, so maybe I need to play a bit to access it. Maybe it's through Roundtable Hold somehow. We'll see.

 

[fearthedawn]

I prepared my Elden Ring save for the dlc a while ago by some fun cheat engine stuff. I had already started a NG+1 but didn't actually want to play the dlc from there. So I basically reset the world back to NG+-0 and reset all world progress too so my endgame character is just outside the tutorial at the first bonfire. Of course it's unknown how you actually access the dlc content, so maybe I need to play a bit to access it. Maybe it's through Roundtable Hold somehow. We'll see.

Pretty sure how we will get to the dlc is official knowledge at this point

dlc info

Miquella’s cocoon in Mohgwyn Palace and Rahdan needs to be dead

 

[TrishaKit]

I jump around between titles a lot due to attention span issues, but overall right now I'm playing:
Pokemon Reborn
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
Final Fantasy XV
Kingdom Hearts 1

Pokemon Reborn:
Pokemon but edgy and more difficult is a lot of fun. Game even has working online somehow which is kind of incredible for an rpgmaker fangame. Just got my first badge. My starter was Fennekin!

Final Fantasy VIII:
Not really huge on this one thus far (at disc 3). It's fine, I think Draw-ing magic is kinda cool and the graphics are arguably the best on PS1. All the fmvs that play during cutscenes are really cool, and seeing Squall learn to open up and lean on others is heartwarming. But the plot, the dungeons, it just doesn't impress me, and the level scaling is bizarre.

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
A Realm Reborn's story was weak, but Heavensward's stuff with the dragons and the political ramifications of you working to end the dragon war has made this an exciting expansion. The music in Foundation is amazing, and the new machinist class is a lot of fun with how mobile you can be during combat.

Final Fantasy XV:
For the longest I scoffed at this one but finally playing it I guess it's okay? Yoko Shimomura's music is as lovely as ever and I like how it really feels like you're on a road trip with the bros with all the party banter. I find the combat too automated though, and the limitations on the car driving preventing any real control is lame. Story hasn't sold me either.

Kingdom Hearts 1:
This camera is so bad yall. The camera hurts. But gosh I love Kingdom Hearts and as rough as the first game is the facial animations put a lotta modern games to shame. The combat is really fun too. I've already played this one before, but the steam release got me hyped and I couldn't wait so I launched my Epic copy instead. These graphics are so good, the game is gorgeous at 4k, they hold up so well. Can't say the same about the voice acting however