Discussion What are you currently playing? (Week 10 of 2023)

[Cacher]

New week, new thread! What are you playing?

I am continuing my adventure in Ar Tonelico 1. Finished the first act. The final fight was really hyped because of the boss theme. Still too easy but I guess this is how the game plays.

I chose to enter Aurica's route for this playthrough. It is nice to see that she started to open up and be happier after the fight. I wonder how the story will develop in act 2.

Also played a bit of a PSP game called Enkaku Sousa. Wrote a short post on it in the Forgotten Games thread.

Discussion - Forgotten Games

Let's go further back in time. It's... Sid Meier's Covert Action Now this is a classic that I personally only discovered 10 or so years ago and missed back in the day. But let me tell you, this definitely still holds up! You play as secret agent Maximilian/Maxine "Max" Remington and...

metacouncil.com

 

[Gintaro]

I've been playing Neptunia Rebirth 1 for clearing my backlog. Nearing the end of first playthrough currently and wondering should I do NG+ or just try to save/load and get all endings in a go. From what I've played the story is funny and it's great to see all the references! The gameplay is a bit grindy so that's why I'm kinda thinking whether should I do a NG+ since I dont think theres much to gain for story.

Another game I've been playing heavily is Heaven Burns Red since the release of the Chinese language patch. It's really a Visual Novel disguised as a gacha mobile game. The amount of VA work and story is so high effort. The story is great, the characters are likable and even the event stories are very interesting and touching which is expected since the writer is Jun Maeda. There's even a Angel Beats collaboration which is actually linked to the end of the anime and that's a tearjerker too. And damn the soundtrack are great too.


Definitely hope the game can get a global release to reach more players as it's worth to play.

 

[curi0usBystander]

After spending some time and getting Catherine to run on the deck (with 2 main problems, the anime cutscenes have a slight desync, and it seems to crash after about over 2 hours, but that last one is not that much of a problem).

I think I'm about to get an ending, But this game requires various playthroughs (I'm glad you can get to an ending relatively fast compared to other Atlus games).

 

[Avern]

I'm a decent ways into Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. It's... fine. Feels like this game's dev cycle probably got screwed up by COVID or something, because it's got problems beyond the obvious PC port issues. There's a lack of enemy variety, the loot system is wack, and there are some features that need to be tutorialized, but are not mentioned at all. Combat's fun though. The fight with Lu Bu is incredible.

I'm also 8 P-ranks into Pizza Tower, in the third area of Labyrinth of Refrain, and still chugging through Yggdra Union.

 

[Stevey]

Atomic Heart, it's alright, going to make an effort to get it finished.

 

[Ascheroth]

Still playing Digimon World: Next Order. Its gameplay continues to be really addicting.
I do recommend playing on Easy if anyone else is playing it. It's what the game preselects and they probably should have just called it "Normal" and gotten much better scores. (Same with the sprint button this "remaster" added. It's a legitimate game changer because without it you can't outrun encounters in the wild, which is an absolutely baffling design decision to the point where I really wonder what they were thinking). The difficulty doesn't actually make enemies harder or anything, it just reduces your stat gains so you need to grind longer...

 

[Panda Pedinte]

I'm still playing through Pizza Tower and I may finish it in the next days. I'm also playing Mass Effect Andromeda, as I said before I tried it briefly before but the game didn't clicked with me though after playing the original trilogy I started to enjoy it more.

 

[undu]

Just got through the third boss of returnal, I've been looping for a week trying to beat it. The game can be a bit frustrating as it's quite punishing. It really feels good to break through.

 

[fantomena]

Switching between Returnal on Steam and Mario Rabbids: Sparks of Hope on Ryu.

 

[Parsnip]

Didn't play much last week so Watch Dogs and Dreamland Solitaire: Dragon's Fury are still my games.

 

[didamangi]

Retired Dusk Diver.

Having finished Hi-Fi Rush I thought I'd give this one a try. Boring combat (at least that's my first impression after a couple of hours in) and cutscenes that went on for too long in a beat em up (for me at least). I can understand they're trying to blend beat 'em up + jrpg in this, but the boring combat and the mundane story just doesn't do it for me.

Finished playthrough of Call of Juarez Gunslinger.

Pretty solid linear fps. The duel system is interesting as well. I haven't finished other call of juarez games so I don't know how this one compares but if you're looking for a game that's fun with short and linear levels to play in piecemeal, this one fits the bill.

Finished Annie Last Hope.

Very fun twin stick shooter with beautiful voxel graphics. Translation isn't the best but still the story is surprisingly interesting enough (for a twin stick shooter anyway) Although the serious tone doesn't really match the wacky enemies you fight. A fun way to spend 3-4 hours of your time.

Currently playing Vanquish,

Reached act 4 (of 5 I think?) Probably the most fun 3rd person cover shooter/not cover shooter in existence. Really digging the stylish gameplay and zooming around blasting robots. So yeah, Vanquish > Binary Domain.

 

[Mivey]

I retired Hohokum yesterday.

I kept playing it for a couple ours on the Deck, and I don't get it? I hit a moment where I couldn't immediately advance, since a timing-based puzzle gave me problems, and I just decided to quit the game. Maybe this is something that's more interesting on the bigger screen, but at least on the Deck it just didn't impress me much, nor felt like a very interesting game.

With Yakuza 5 finished, I continued with the Dead Space remake. Currently nearing Chapter 3, and it's really fun. especially how little the game is really changing. Just goes to show how well the original's mechanics sill hold up today. I guess if I had to criticise something, it's that I don't find the game to be very scary. Which is fine, it's barely trying to be horror game. To me it's mostly just a fun, gory third person shooter.

 

[Cacher]

Enkaku Sousa beats my expectation. The gameplay loop is addictive with an increasingly intriguing storyline. The game also comes with full-voice acting with the protag voiced by Ono Daisuke (Jotaro from JoJo). Really happy that I managed to find a hidden gem.