Discussion What are you currently playing? (Week 1 of 2023)

[Cacher]

WELCOME! WELCOME TO THE FUTURE! It's 2023! What are you playing during the beginning of this beautiful year?

Apart from progressing slowly in BanG Dream and clearing post-game content in Harvestella, I started playing Tales of Phantasia: Cross Edition on the deck. A (second? third?) remake of the original game on the SNES, this PSP version was based on the full voice edition with new party member and other new content included. Already got past the beginning village and heading to the next town. So far so good!

 

[Panda Pedinte]

I'm still playing P5R, this game just doesn't end.

 

[hersheyfan]

I'm playing Evil West on Steam - its the most PS3-era action game imaginable, dragged into 2023 forcibly. God of War style meaty melee combat with almost no exploration, just small side paths with loot. The plot is also cheesy as hell, with terrible voice acting. You'll know immediately if you're in the market for this game within the first two minutes of watching a gameplay video lol.

Gave Valkyrie Elysium a try but had to refund it. It was absolutely terrible, even at 50% off - it's ugly even at 4K, there are plenty of wide open spaces with absolutely nothing to do in them (a cardinal sin in my book), and the combat is pretty simplistic. It plays like they started with a long combo list, then sawed off combo linkers to have you "earn" them ala carte in game. It's C-grade at best.

On the Japanese indie front, I gave Astlibra Revision a try after seeing so many sparking recommendations (I'm also down to support a labor of love - the dev has been at work on this thing for 14 years apparently, lol). The actual gameplay was crazy, just 2D visual spam all over the place, Vanillaware on crack. But it's quite unbalanced, and the translation is machine-level bad. Thankfully, the dev has indicated that a patch is in the works to improve the text translations (among other things).

 

[Li Kao]

Hmm, on a whim I started Amnesia Rebirth.

I have yet to play Soma, which is highly regarded, but Rebirth is just gently boring. Nothing on The Dark Descent in any department. To the point I'm wondering if the genre peaked and started dying with TDD.
Outlast was a good effort, but then it seems they went ham on the gore shock trauma I want nothing to do with.


edit. good call on the color hersheyfan

 

[curi0usBystander]

So, early in the year I finally got around playing a Fire Emblem game, so I've set myselft to eventually play (at least all the ones that are in a language that I understand). And since nintendo is gonna kill the 3ds eshop. And since I found a cheap copy of Fates (Conquest) I use my remaining eshop credit to buy the other routes, then I played until chapter 6 and bought any DLC that looked interesting (who thought that gating DLC purchases to game progress was a good idea).

After that I dumped the game and have been playing on the deck, works mostly fine with 2 exceptions, some sutter when loading new combat transitions (I disabled, because i feel they are too long), and if you invite an ally the audio is borked. But I'm pretty surprised how well it runs (at least so far), and my hands don't hurt compared to the tiny 3ds.

So far I'm In chapter 9(Birthright, which should be the easier route of the 3). I'm gonna try to beat the 3 routes, unless the game breaks for some reason.

 

[FunnyJay]

Making My way through ATOM RPG on the Deck. Excellent game, I must say. Combat is a bit hard, but can be avoided in a lot of situations.

Also, planning to start 2023 with a real throwback, The Secret of Monkey Island Remastered!

 

[LEANIJA]

Playing massive amounts of Disney Dreamlight Valley currently, send help

 

[hersheyfan]

Playing massive amounts of Disney Dreamlight Valley currently, send help

Sorry, there's no saving you.

The only known cure for a Dreamlight Valley addiction is to keep playing Dreamlight Valley until you OD and never want to play it again. I've been there - good luck and God speed.

 

[rickyson33]

i've been slowly playing Trails of Cold Steel IV and the Ace Attorney Trilogy lately

the first because I played like a third of it when it first came out on Steam and got burned out on it and never went back to it and do want to play it before Reverie comes out, I started the game from scratch since it's been a year and a half or so

the second for the somewhat silly and random reason that someone made a musical for the first game that looked interesting and I already had it bought on Steam and buried in my backlog of things I never get around to and figured I might as well play it first if I was gonna watch that

I doubt i'll finish either one of them by the 20th at the pace i'm playing them at so I do plan on dropping them both for a bit when the new Fire Emblem game comes out then

 

[Avern]

I beat The Looker, which was hilarious.

I shelved 20 Minutes Till Dawn after the game bugged out and refused to save progress for a second time. It ought to be a great game, but between that bug and a whole lot of annoying anti-synergies and obvious imbalances, it was mostly just frustrating.

I've begun chipping away at Serious Sam 4. Some of the levels are way too damn long, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how good the shooting feels.

I also began The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, which has been off to a good start.

And lastly I started playing Tinykin, which is absolutely charming and feels great to run around in.

 

[Ge0force]

Darksiders Genesis. It's fun, but I'm curious how long it will take before becoming too repetitive.

 

[Avern]

Gave Valkyrie Elysium a try but had to refund it. It was absolutely terrible, even at 50% off - it's ugly even at 4K, there are plenty of wide open spaces with absolutely nothing to do in them (a cardinal sin in my book), and the combat is pretty simplistic. It plays like they started with a long combo list, then sawed off combo linkers to have you "earn" them ala carte in game. It's C-grade at best.

I gave this a shot after seeing your post and now I have joined you in getting a refund. Sheesh. For a game that is focused pretty much exclusively on its combat, that is some dull combat.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

I'm also playing Signalis now and I'm focusing on it as according to How Long to Beat the game is around 9 hours long.

 

[fantomena]

Old World, Slay the Spire and Stardew Valley.

 

[Kvik]

This week, I'm alternating between Xenoblade 3, Yakuza 4 and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles.

I'd say the character writing in Xenoblade 3 is a return to form since XC1. There are a lot of character moments here, and the banter during their roundtable discussion is pretty good. The mechanics …. are rather simplified, but I'm still unsure whether it's actually bad or good thing, since I feel the mmo-esque, cooldown-based mechanics aren't really my cup of tea in the first place.

Still in chapter 3 of Yakuza 4, but I feel Akiyama is a good character so far. An ensemble cast is actually a welcome change after a few games with Kiryu as the sole protagonist. Really keen to see what happens next.

I've been playing TGAA for the past two nights in bed, and it's still the Ace Attorney I've come to love. Naruhodo is even stupider than Phoenix was on his first case!

 

[Dandy]

I'm playing WoW: Dragonflight, Baldur's Gate 3, and Wytchwood.

I've played 1-70 twice so far since Dragonflight came out(and also 1-63 on another alt). I had no intention of buying it, but there is something about MMOs that lets me shut off my brain and ignore all the stress in my work day, and November and December were both stressful months for me so vegging out while questing was a relief.

I've had BG3 since it launched, but really only played around in the character creator and the first 2-3 hours of the game. This week I was in the mood for a single-player RPG, and rather than continue my Solasta playthrough I played BG3. It's still very rough around the edges, but I like it.

Wytchwood was a Steam sale pick up, and it's cute... but quickly becomes tedious. It's a crafting puzzle game, with a quirky story and neat artstyle. The whole gameplay loop is craft something so that you can collect a resource you need to craft something else. It took me 3.5 hours to finish the first chapter and chapter 2 looks like it will be the exact same format in a different set of maps... and I'm sure there will be lots of backtracking.

 

[hersheyfan]

I gave this a shot after seeing your post and now I have joined you in getting a refund. Sheesh. For a game that is focused pretty much exclusively on its combat, that is some dull combat.

Yup, it was such a huge disappointment. I picked it up thinking that it would at least be a fun ARPG romp, but there's just... nothing there.

I shelved 20 Minutes Till Dawn after the game bugged out and refused to save progress for a second time. It ought to be a great game, but between that bug and a whole lot of annoying anti-synergies and obvious imbalances, it was mostly just frustrating.

And lastly I started playing Tinykin, which is absolutely charming and feels great to run around in.

Some notes on your previous post:

Tinykin is indeed an amazing game. You should play it all the way, its charming as hell and doesnt overstay its welcome.

I liked 20 Minutes Til Dawn a little more than you, but acknowledge that its poorly balanced and not for everybody. I think what the dev screwed up (in terms of trying to follow in Vampire Survivors' footsteps) is that getting significant advances in the game requires too much RNG dependence, too much grinding, or both. If you don't give players carrots in the early going youre going to burn them out!

While we're on the topic of VS clones: I can't believe i havent mentioned Soulstone Survivors. Its the first "clone" that managed to consume me for 6 hours straight (like VS before it), and I think I may actually like it more than Vampire Survivors now.

It has more twinstick shooter/twitch elements than VS does so if that's not your thing, steer clear. But it does so many smart things to help you manage the randomness and still feel "rewarded" for playing the game. The characters all have unique moves, with "generic" skill/weapon drops also partly subdivided by character - this allows the player to switch it up if theyre feeling sick of a particular playstyle. Highly recommended!

 

[Parsnip]

Days Gone
I'm past the "northern area will be temporarily locked out from you" part, and when I got that message I thought that I was close to the end. Turns out that this part is still pretty large area and more camps to turn food in and trust to earn and omg why is this game so fucking long. The story is such garbage too, there's nothing interesting there to grab onto. Feels like the only unique (for games) thing they had was that whole horde flow mechanic and everything outside of is just super boring open world errand boy shit.
The worst part is that in my heart of hearts I know that I'm going to finish it regardless and will probably do an achievement cleanup even after I'm done with the main story. I suspect I'll get very close anyway so it will be just a few collectables and such.

I also started Dreamland Solitaire, for some occasional casual quick gaming sessions.

 

[Anteater]

Sony games in general aren't really pulling me in, I've played a bit of Horizon zero dawn and God of war but the little shits like picking up items, going through menus, crafting, upgrading just kinda turned me off, I mean they're not the end of the world and I can deal with them, I'm sure I'll end up liking them, but I rather play something else for now to feed my dopamine depleted brain, I need that instant gratification.

So I ended up playing like 6 hours of God Hand on my Deck, and now I'm playing FF7, FF7 feels a bit stretched out but the combat is fun so I'm still enjoying it, and being able to suspend it on deck means I can do something else every 2minutes because of my super short attention span.

 

[Durante]

I've gone back to playing The Talos Principle VR.

It's thematically and in terms of interactions an almost perfect VR game, and I can now also run it basically perfectly (to a silly level, as in 200% supersampling + MSAA). The only "problem" is that it's a really long game, at least for playing in VR.

 

[undu]

I'm still playing P5R, this game just doesn't end.

Same here, After finishing elechead I'm back to it, I've already spent over 60 hours on it ._.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

Same here, After finishing elechead I'm back to it, I've already spent over 60 hours on it ._.

I'm also 60 hours into P5R and almost finishing August.

 

[Dandy]

Baldur's Gate 3 is really good. I can't wait to play the finished game!

 

[Cacher]

I am really enjoying Tales of Phantasia. I knew nothing about the game before going in so I didn't expect the story goes so hard right from the beginning:

first three hours

Village burnt down and parents killed when the protag out for hunting, protag got betrayed by own uncle, uncle got cleaned house, big baddy showed up and protag was nearly killed, protag got transported back to the past to find ways to defeat the villain

Wow! All that within the first three hours. Characters are fairly mediocre (which is reasonable) but the story is engaging. On the other hand, combat is a bit challenging even on normal difficulty and enemies punch pretty hard. Grinding is very easy though so I just grind regularly to make my life easier. Fun game. Going to keep playing it.

 

[ExistentialThought]

Still playing Persona 5 Royal, can concur it never ends haha. I am still really enjoying it, but with how limited my play time has been, it is going to take me another 2 months to beat this at this rate.

Other games I have been playing:
Zachtronics: Solitaire Collection
Disney Dreamlight
Midnight Suns <-Still prioritizing P5R, so I may shelf this

 

[Spamlynguist]

Started Gears of War and Serial Cleaners yesterday.

My 360 backlog is still pretty tiny since I only bought one a couple years ago so I'm making an effort this year to beat all the games I have for the console.

 

[Dandy]

I made it through the first major quest of BG3, and I've gone back to wanting to wait for the final game. It's really good, but it is unpolished and I think deserves to be experienced in a better state.

Because I still want to scratch the D&D itch though, I resumed my Solasta: Crown of the Magister playthrough. It's such an odd game. It's very rough, it's ugly, the voice acting is bad, and the writing is just... it feels like it was written by a 12 year old D&D nerd. And yet... it is weirdly compelling to play. I can't explain it.