Community What are you currently playing?

[Trisolarian]

My wrists have been bother me a bit, so I've taken a break from controller based games lately. So... no more Trials or The Show. It'll be fine before I know it.

In the meanwhile, I've had a chance to catch up with my "Mouse Only" games. This week I played a few hours of Adam Wolfe.


What can I say? I like hidden object/adventure (its really an adventure game with puzzles and an inventory and everything) and I bought it waiting for new Dresden file novel. Plus I've got the shittest computer on every forum I've been too, AMD Athlon 860k, GTX 660TI, 8GB DDR3, so I dip into the low end extremely often (aka, I live there but I've accepted my low life status)

 

[Milena]

Hidden objects are a totally valid genre!
And I did like Adam Wolfe as well, It was a nice game

 

[Aaron D.]

Noodling through Automachef. There's some tough logic puzzles on offer here and I'm currently weighing the balance of trying to 3-star each level vs. simply moving on with minimum rankings. Really clever design either way that has me calculating, testing & adjusting in a satisfying loop. The megalomaniac robot...er, human buddy coupled with 50's automat motif make a fun setting for production-line puzzling.



Expanding services in my growing Project Hospital facility. Oddly related to above, I'm mixing up strats for expansion, balancing between putting in the legwork to manually build out myself vs. simply plopping down game-provided pre-fab rooms. Setting up a functioning dept., even a single room, with required equipment would make a Sims 4 home designer blush. There's so many little details, bits & bobs to place. It can be oddly relaxing in one moment or simply monotonous the next. Thankfully just like in Automachef you can easily create custom blueprints for any design you create so there is the freedom to work as quickly or meticulously* as you wish when building out departments.

* Haven't opened an Operating Theater yet, but I'm gonna HAVE to manually design that one first time out. Morbid curiosity over its complexity simply demands it.



With all the weighty stuff above, my dumb brain is gonna need some rootin'-tootin'-shootin' to balance things out. Amid should be the perfect balm for my inner ADD twitcher.

 

[Deleted member 113]

Since I had a couple of days off, I have been replaying Earth Defense Force 4.1 (I'm now on mission fifty something), the first Phoenix Wright game (as part of the PC Collection; the last time I played it was on the Nintendo DS), and I just started playing through Catherine (I played the demo on the Xbox 360, and at the time I actually bought the game, before my console broke down, and the game remained unplayed, until today).

 

[Arsene]

I started playing Tales of Berseria after letting it rot in my library for like 2 years and I was hooked from the super hype OP. I’m much more interested in the characters and story then I was with all the other Tales games I let rot in my library (Sorry Vesperia! Maybe one day...) I’m only a few hours in but im having a great time, hopefully it can keep the quality all the way through.

Also ive been playing a lot of Tower Unite with friends on the side I guess.

 

[Deku]

I have been playing Full Bore and Lord of Shadows 2.
Full Bore is a platformer game, it's kinda difficult to know where to go since it doesn't show you where to go. There are some npcs that tell you where to go, but they only tell you once and then you are on your own. I was gifted this game by Dusk Golem a long time ago. He doesn't seem to be in this forum.

 

[Ascheroth]

Juggling a bunch of stuff.

I started World of Final Fantasy and played until chapter 8. That game is just so adorably cute.

Then I got in the mood to pick up Ray Gigant again, which I've played for 1-2 hours or so and played until chapter 13/main character #3.

Then I went back to Yakuza Kiwami 2 and finished it yesterday. Not entirely sure how to feel about the story, there's so many betrayals and betrayal-betrayals and faking death and people causing drama beause Kiryu beats them down but doesn't make sure they're unconscious or tied up or unarmed and once he turns away stand back up and/or shoot someone that it was becoming silly and annoying.
Still, it's fun an pretty and maybe I'll be able to use this as a reaction pic.

And after that I got into the mood to finally play Romancing SaGa2 which I bought back in December but had only played for ~40 minutes. I'm now in the year 1001 with Gerard as the emperor.
I've built an orchard and the magic research facility and my party is made up Bear as a tanker, James as an attacker with a 1H-sword, Therese as a Ranger, Gerard as primarily Divine/Fire mage and Aries as Air/Water mage.

So far I haven't had any non-story perma-deaths, but Therese might kick the bucket for good soon if I don't pay attention (only 5LP left :/)
I've just liberated a town from a monster problem with the help of the Dragon Lair martial artists. That was pretty cool.
I spoke to them before going to vanquish the monsters and they told me as long as I take care of the slimes in front of the boss-floor (slimes are strong against physical damage, weak against magic) they'll take care of the boss. I actually ended up defeating that boss before I remembered that and wisely didn't save, because when I went back to report to them they attacked because I besmirched their honor. Whoops. Reloaded and had them take care of the boss and as a reward they joined me, so I guess I can now recruit martial artists, yay.

Really cool game, but also something where you should probably read up on some stuff beforehand, because the game hides a lot of information..

And now I've went back to Ray Gigant again!
Just reached chapter 17 and all 3 main characters joined up. This will be fun~
The game really is pretty easy, but the story, while not exactly ground-breaking, is pretty engaging and it looks really nice. I think I'll get me some other Experience Inc. games next sale (particularly eyeing Operation Abyss right now)

I started playing Tales of Berseria after letting it rot in my library for like 2 years and I was hooked from the super hype OP. I’m much more interested in the characters and story then I was with all the other Tales games I let rot in my library (Sorry Vesperia! Maybe one day...) I’m only a few hours in but im having a great time, hopefully it can keep the quality all the way through.

Also ive been playing a lot of Tower Unite with friends on the side I guess.

Berseria's story and characters are really good, have fun!
I personally had to use the CheatEngine speedhack after a while though, because the walking speed of the game is so slow.

 

[fantomena]

Plague Tale: Inncoence. Loving it. Exactly my type of story-driven SP game,

 

[Li Kao]

I'm in ocd gaming hell these days. Too many games started, but no game that I love so much as to play it exclusively.

AC Unity
This is approaching 'dropped' status. I have to correct that as I never dropped a game in the series but hell if this plot isn't totally uninteresting. And UBI outdid themselves on the collectathlon side. I think I won't be able to clear the map, it's that big and devoid of interest.

EDF 4.1
Playing on and off. My first game in the series. Not in love. For all its good cheesy B movie vibes, it's still a very cheesy B video game.
I like the Granada feel I got from it, which means that yeah, I'M OLD. Must be nice to play multi, but I'm forever alone. Maybe I got impatient with the years but I'm dying a little each time my character is thrown off in the air by some monster.

Grim Dawn
The world building is solid, the mood is too. But it's still a damn repetitive diablo-like, It unfortunately doesn't transcend the genre main flaw.
That being said I resumed my playthrough and the new balance patch just emphasized one of the main issue I have with the game. The balance. To keep things short GD combat is awful to me in that you are rolling over every enemy until... you die. There is too little in between these two states. The game is far too easy, but when you augment the difficulty, it just become too hard. I hope I make sense.
Best example: the red potion hotkey is on '9' on the keyboard. Yesterday I approached an enemy and literally couldn't reach the hotkey fast enough before dying. Granted, a perfect knowledge of the mechanics and min maxed stats could alleviate the issue, but yeah, in my mind there is too little space in between 'lol I roflstomped them' and 'there was a health bar here, but not anymore'.
The second main issue I have with it I already mentioned some time ago in this thread. Grim Dawn to me is one of these new diablo-likes that mistake having many bonus stats for deepness. The number of bonus stats an item can have is ridiculous, making determining what is worth keeping or not a little hell. I have 5-6 medals at the moment for example. Each with at least 5-6 different bonus each, I tried, I really tried to sort them, and just left this shit in my inventory.

Final Fantasy 14
Well, third time is maybe the charm but I know the game plot beats and details by heart.

Shin Megami Tensei 4 Apocalypse
Still trying to power through it because my OCD wouldn't let me hear the end of it if I dropped it. And it has some nice moments. The issue being that those moment are relatively few and far between and that the rest of the experience is akin to replaying vanilla SMT4. Far too little new, an immense quantity of old.
Still the plot is nice, I didn't expect them to go full gnosticism, and there are times when you have to wonder if the two games weren't conceived as one.

 

[Mivey]

Started up ittle Dew 2+.
It's really amazing what Ludosity produced here. It builds on everything from the first game and it created a huge overworld filled with many secrets to find. It's a love letter to classic 2D Zelda, right down to its look. The actual gameplay is even more puzzle heavy than the old Zelda games ever were, though.
Great artstyle and music too. Recommended to anyone that played the first one.

 

[Joe Spangle]

I started up Alan Wake last night after owning it for ages on Steam. Played it when it first released on 360.

Holds up very well graphically. There are a few low rez textures but overall it looks good and I enjoyed the first chapter.

Im also doing another campaign of Bomber Crew which i think is one of my favourite little games ever.

 

[Deleted member 113]

Ascheroth Glad to see someone else enjoying Experience Inc.'s games.

Of their games on Steam, I would say Stranger of Sword City is their better game, but it's more of a classic dungeon crawler.
If you are looking for something more "anime", Operation Abyss is indeed a good option (and then you have sequel Operation Babel if you like it).

 

[Ascheroth]

Ascheroth Glad to see someone else enjoying Experience Inc.'s games.

Of their games on Steam, I would say Stranger of Sword City is their better game, but it's more of a classic dungeon crawler.
If you are looking for something more "anime", Operation Abyss is indeed a good option (and then you have sequel Operation Babel if you like it).

Stranger of Sword City would probably be my number 1 choice (the artstyle looks sooo good), but knowing there is a "definitive" edition out there with lots of changes and stuff kind of makes me want it less... :/

 

[Deleted member 113]

Stranger of Sword City would probably be my number 1 choice (the artstyle looks sooo good), but knowing there is a "definitive" edition out there with lots of changes and stuff kind of makes me want it less... :/

I haven't played the other version, but the changes are so significant it ended up being a stand-alone release, not an expansion.
From what I read back then, the differences are so significant (changes in systems) it's essentially another version of the game, with different content, not just additions.

What I mean is, it's an alternate version of the game, not a game + expansion kind of thing.
So, both versions are probably worth experiencing.

And, considering it's very doubtful by now the Revisited version will make it to PC, I would say it's worth playing the version we do have available.

 

[Spamlynguist]

I was playing through Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch and was very close to the end but thanks to a cutscene that glitched out, it gave me two keycards (one of which is unusable and takes up space in my inventory) instead of one. Well thanks to that I couldn't pick up any items later in the game because my inventory was full so I couldn't pick up items that were needed to progress.

Guess I have to play through it all over again. God damn it.

 

[Ascheroth]

I haven't played the other version, but the changes are so significant it ended up being a stand-alone release, not an expansion.
From what I read back then, the differences are so significant (changes in systems) it's essentially another version of the game, with different content, not just additions.

What I mean is, it's an alternate version of the game, not a game + expansion kind of thing.
So, both versions are probably worth experiencing.

And, considering it's very doubtful by now the Revisited version will make it to PC, I would say it's worth playing the version we do have available.

That's reasonable. I guess I'll get it after all

---

In other news I've just reached chapter 18 in Ray Gigant, i.e. the final chapter where max level is raised from 15 to 99, everyone's skill tree exands and there is a huge multiple floor dungeon where every-floor has a different gimmick. Made it to floor 4 by now. And I've also only realized now that the minimap allows auto-travel if you specify a reachable destination, lol.

 

[Routa]

About to start Detention, courtesy of Rockin' Ranger

 

[Li Kao]

About to start Detention, courtesy of Rockin' Ranger

Isn't that the banned game ? Nice !

 

[lashman]

Isn't that the banned game ? Nice !

nope ... that's Devotion

 

[Li Kao]

nope ... that's Devotion

I had two syllables right, at least !

 

[Routa]

Real shame about Devotion . It is an an excellent game, one that I need to replay, as I feel I missed a lot. Did my best to sing it's praises to my friends before it was removed. Hopefully, they are somehow able to recover from this ordeal.

Will be fun to see what Red Candle's first game is like.

 

[lashman]

I had two syllables right, at least !

easy mistake to make Detention is their previous game - also VERY good

Real shame about Devotion

yeah, no kidding

 

[Li Kao]

Oh, yesterday I tried to power through AC Unity btw. The good news is that I misremembered and have most of the map already cleaned. The bad is that I misremembered how frackin' awful the game writing and mission design were too.
It was a long afternoon. Hopefully it ends soon.

I could ponder, as a French man, on the feeling of disrespect I get when playing a game about one of the biggg event in my history. I could also fight that feeling because nationalism is not a trait I like to cultivate, or whatever reflection I could have in relation to the game.

But the ugly truth under everything here is that it is not worth thinking about, at all. AC Unity is a non thing, a non game, something between annualized game 233 and 234.

 

[Stevey]

Spellforce III

After a long break from the game I went back to a mission I was stuck on for ages, beat it first time

 

[Ge0force]

I'm playing the "Escalation" expansion of Ashes of the Singularity. I'm enjoying it much more than the original campaign, both because I'm playing on hard difficulty and because the missions are more unique.

 

[Ascheroth]

Turns out that chapter 18 was actually not the final one in Ray Gigant but Chapter 19 (it's called Final Chapter instead of 19 ). Whoops.
Currently in level 9 of the last dungeon, so I guess I'll finish it today or tomorrow (10 should be the last level considering 5 was the last on in chapter 18).

I've also started playing Prey. Intriguing start. Played ~45 minutes until one of those creepy thingies jumped into my face and I proceeded to hysterically whack it with a wrench until it dropped dead. Then I saved lightning fast and Alt+F4'd the hell out of there.

 

[Mivey]

I've also started playing Prey. Intriguing start. Played ~45 minutes until one of those creepy thingies jumped into my face and I proceeded to hysterically whack it with a wrench until it dropped dead. Then I saved lightning fast and Alt+F4'd the hell out of there.

A tip here (something that took me a while to figure out):
it's far more effective to fight mimics with one charged hit (I think you need unlock the charging ability, should be one of the first things you do). A charged hit is just enough to kill them, and the alternative will have you lose quite a bit of health before you kill it.
So my go to technique was to charge and whack everything in the game that looked like it was a double of something. Worked fairly well.

 

[Parsnip]

After finishing Renegade Ops, I'm thinking about playing Halo Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike and those isometric Lara Croft games.
I'm pretty sure I played the first one a bit on 360 back in the day, though never finished it and never played the second one.

 

[FunnyJay]

Oh, yesterday I tried to power through AC Unity btw. The good news is that I misremembered and have most of the map already cleaned. The bad is that I misremembered how frackin' awful the game writing and mission design were too.
It was a long afternoon. Hopefully it ends soon.

Interesting. I've been on an AC binge lately and recently started AC Unity for the first time. And so far... It's excellent!
Nice graphics, gigantic buildings, smoother parkour moves, a (so far) interesting main character.
Granted, the map is overloaded with icons, but I believe you need to filter out what you want to do.
Can't say much about the main story yet, since I'm only on sequence 4.

 

[Deku]

I finally got more than 100 hours in Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. It will be fourth game that I have played more than 100 play time hours

 

[Li Kao]

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, more like Wolfenstein: The Good Old Die and Retry, am I right ?
After a few hours on the game I don't know how they could fail that much with this sequel.

It is super frustrating, even on normal, as BJ is apparently made of paper. The document collectathlon feels super out of place in a fast paced shooter, it just kills the pace, and the content of said document is appalling. Even the writing is ham-fisted as fuck. I mean, don't misunderstand, I'm not defending nazi here, or patriarcal society (if that need to be said), but man this writing.
So nazi are bloodthirsty demons from out of hell. I mean, ok, but the game illustrates the point quite litterally. Decapitation ahoy ! And within 5 minutes of encountering my first female freedom fighter she talks about the prevalence of balls in fighters' vocable. Nobody feels human.
Ugh, I just remembered the father sequence...

This game took subtetly in the back and put a bullet in its head.

If it wasn't so damn boring. You know that I played several missions now and barely saw America ? For a game set in nazi America there sure is a lot of everything but that. Next level, another damn trip in the submarine, joy.

 

[Ge0force]

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, more like Wolfenstein: The Good Old Die and Retry, am I right ?

I don't understand how the devs managed to screwed up both sequels for the almost perfect TNO and it's expansion. So sad.

 

[Mivey]

Started playing Tokyo Xanadu ex+ a while ago, and have now finished Chapter 3.

The most confusing thing about this is why it's called "Xanadu", it has literally nothing to do with any of the games preceding it in that "series", at least Xanadu Next actually felt like a modern take on the ideas of dungeon crawler with action mechanics. While yes there are dungeons in this one, and it's an action RPG, there's only the most superficial connection. In the way it tells its story, from its basic setting, the visuals, the atmosphere, it's basically its own new thing. The only answer I could find is that Falcom wantMed a more recognizable name, but I'm not sure the fairly obscure Xanadu franchise really works for that.

y dumb pet peeves aside, this is a really nice game. It quickly sets into its own pace where each episode begins with Kou after school, talking with all the NPCs, doing some quests and then finding out more about the mysterious "Eclipse" gates opening up everywhere. The plot is the purest anime shlock you can think of, even by Falcom standards, but it's fine, the game is literally a Manga come to live as video game. The only thing annoying me is the brain-dead translation from Aksys, I feel like easily a third of every important setence is downright nonsensical, and can only be understood by context. While this works fairly well, it's insane that this mess ever passed by any editor. And this isn't "normal" for translated games, hell, Spike Chunsoft for example is way better, not mentioning classic XSEED.

Other than that, my only other regret so far are the lackluster boss fights. This seems like a pattern in modern Falcom games. They really like their bullet sponges with next to no interesting thinking that's needed, sprinkled with pointless evade mechanics that trivialize them further.

Still, the plot and characters make up for that quite well, kinda interested where this is going

 

[Ascheroth]

Started playing Tokyo Xanadu ex+ a while ago, and have now finished Chapter 3.

The most confusing thing about this is why it's called "Xanadu", it has literally nothing to do with any of the games preceding it in that "series", at least Xanadu Next actually felt like a modern take on the ideas of dungeon crawler with action mechanics. While yes there are dungeons in this one, and it's an action RPG, there's only the most superficial connection. In the way it tells its story, from its basic setting, the visuals, the atmosphere, it's basically its own new thing. The only answer I could find is that Falcom wantMed a more recognizable name, but I'm not sure the fairly obscure Xanadu franchise really works for that.

y dumb pet peeves aside, this is a really nice game. It quickly sets into its own pace where each episode begins with Kou after school, talking with all the NPCs, doing some quests and then finding out more about the mysterious "Eclipse" gates opening up everywhere. The plot is the purest anime shlock you can think of, even by Falcom standards, but it's fine, the game is literally a Manga come to live as video game. The only thing annoying me is the brain-dead translation from Aksys, I feel like easily a third of every important setence is downright nonsensical, and can only be understood by context. While this works fairly well, it's insane that this mess ever passed by any editor. And this isn't "normal" for translated games, hell, Spike Chunsoft for example is way better, not mentioning classic XSEED.

Other than that, my only other regret so far are the lackluster boss fights. This seems like a pattern in modern Falcom games. They really like their bullet sponges with next to no interesting thinking that's needed, sprinkled with pointless evade mechanics that trivialize them further.

Still, the plot and characters make up for that quite well, kinda interested where this is going

I like to think of it as the video game adaption of the anime adaption of a light novel.
Regarding boss fights, which difficulty are you playing on? I recommend Hard, it's nicely challenging. You should great boss fights upcoming, I loooove the chapter 5(?) boss. But yeah, the Flash Guard/Dodge mechanics + infinite item usage can really trivialize modern Falcom action games. I really prefered the Origin/Felghana era where guarding was tricky and required skill and boss fights were more about positioning.

 

[Deku]

I have been playing Binding of Isaac Rebirth a lot today. Holy crap, I think I am becoming better at this game. Not all of my winning games have I had any overpowered synergies at all, only somewhat high damage and high tears rate.

Also been doing greed mode, I'm trying to unlock so that The Lost starts with the Holy Mantle. But it will take some time

 

[Mivey]

I like to think of it as the video game adaption of the anime adaption of a light novel.
Regarding boss fights, which difficulty are you playing on? I recommend Hard, it's nicely challenging. You should great boss fights upcoming, I loooove the chapter 5(?) boss. But yeah, the Flash Guard/Dodge mechanics + infinite item usage can really trivialize modern Falcom action games. I really prefered the Origin/Felghana era where guarding was tricky and required skill and boss fights were more about positioning.

I thought about increasing the difficulty after the last boss especially, so thanks I'll play it on Hard from here on out.

 

[Spamlynguist]

Wasn't expecting to play the RAGE co-op missions anytime soon since buying it a couple of days ago but here we are:

Just need to find a full game of multiplayer races to get all the MP related stuff. Done!

 

[z1ggy]

I´m playing Sekiro and after 10 hours i started to kill mini bosses and Lady Butterfly

Awfull playthrough by me, age is getting me i guess.

 

[uraizen]

Finished Undertale, I should have beaten this before everybody hyped it to hell and back. I can see why people like it, but eh...

 

[Mivey]

Finished Undertale, I should have beaten this before everybody hyped it to hell and back. I can see why people like it, but eh...

Even with all the hype, I still found Undertale to be quite amazing. Did you go through multiple playthroughs? You really don't have a complete picture of Undertale until you did at least the Genocide and True Pacifist Endings.

 

[Eferis]

Night Call (pretty nice)

Monster Boy (very nice)

Fire Emblem Three Houses (very nice but god I hate playing on console)

 

[Parsnip]

I started Halo Spartan Assault. Seems serviceable. Still technically also playing Front Mission 3 but man I've completely lost interest in it.

 

[Deleted member 113]

After finishing Renegade Ops, I'm thinking about playing Halo Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike and those isometric Lara Croft games.
I'm pretty sure I played the first one a bit on 360 back in the day, though never finished it and never played the second one.

Renegade Ops, with a controller, is awesome!

I really enjoyed it, and played through it more than once.

It's sad that it never got a sequel, or at least more DLCs.

 

[gabbo]

After trying and partially failing to get an xbox 360 controller setup with it in steam, I've been back to kb&m'ing my way through Stranglehold.
I really do think certain sections would play better this way, but cannot for the life of me get the right stick to work the camera properly

This is after having the weight of the world lifted of my shoulders when I finished Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
Was a damn good game, easily some of the best animation I've ever seen. And the depiction of psychosis and mental illness was deeply troubling and forced me to play the game is short, maybe hour long sessions. As someone in my life suffers from mental health issues, that ending hit home and I wanted to throw Zynbel into the abyss of Helheim

 

[Parsnip]

Renegade Ops, with a controller, is awesome!

I really enjoyed it, and played through it more than once.

It's sad that it never got a sequel, or at least more DLCs.

It was weird to launch it and be greeted with the SEGA logo. Completely forgot that they own that shit, Avalanche just developed it.
Sega Europe should revive it.

Maybe I'll tweet them about it.

 

[uraizen]

Even with all the hype, I still found Undertale to be quite amazing. Did you go through multiple playthroughs? You really don't have a complete picture of Undertale until you did at least the Genocide and True Pacifist Endings.

I didn't enjoy the gameplay, so I just went to YouTube. A friend told me I had to play it again and I really did not want to go through it several times. Even after seeing it all, I don't think it would have been worth it for me. Game has a good soundtrack, so it has that going for it.

 

[Mivey]

I didn't enjoy the gameplay, so I just went to YouTube. A friend told me I had to play it again and I really did not want to go through it several times. Even after seeing it all, I don't think it would have been worth it for me. Game has a good soundtrack, so it has that going for it.

Ouch, that's hard to read. Undertale absolutely lives from being played. It's the worst game to watch on Youtube. It's literally about choice and making you question your choices. Pressing play and seeing someone else do it utterly neuters that experience.

 

[uraizen]

Ouch, that's hard to read. Undertale absolutely lives from being played. It's the worst game to watch on Youtube. It's literally about choice and making you question your choices. Pressing play and seeing someone else do it utterly neuters that experience.

I didn't enjoy the gameplay, though. So it was basically youtube or never, lol.

 

[Spamlynguist]

Just beat RAGE! Now I'll only need to replay it on Ultra Nightmare sometime later.

Now that's finished I think I'm probably going to start Fallout 3 or get back to Dishonored.

 

[FunnyJay]

Completed the first case in Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments. Really nice games, where you need to keep your eyes open, and make some assumptions of your own.
Not terribly difficult but still very satisfying!