Discussion What are you currently playing? (Week 21 of 2023)

[Cacher]

It's week 21, we are entering the latter half of 2023! Yes this is real. What are you playing?

Well, the big elephant in the room: Tears of the Kingdom. Just fought my first main story boss (location spoiler: Wind Temple). Holy shit what a fight! I feel that my blood was pumping during the whole fight. I love that there are multiple ways to hit the weak points and the whole lead-up is just amazing. Easily one of the best boss fights in Zelda history.

 

[curi0usBystander]

Finished Yakuza 6, I'm still of the same opinion despite being the first game using a new engine it feels like a step back in many aspects. That said it still is yakuza. I thin the big reveal the secret of Onomichi was a bit "meh" but it kinda works to justify the ending.
That said, the ending would have landed better if I didn't know that he'll be back in a later game. Well, I'll finally start Yakuza 7/Like a Dragon. But that will need to wait a few months.

Also played a bit of the beta of SFVI, the online works great. I would have liked to be able to go to training mode without having to wait for opponents but eh what can you do.

 

[Li Kao]

Persona 5 Royal
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Chaos
Shadows of Valentia
Paranormasight
Honkai Star Rail
Genshin Impact

Are all the fucking games I have started and put a sizable time in. And I'm beginning to fear most will be dropped. I can't play this many games. At most two games a day. That impact my moral. This is to much.
And I want to play Spider-Man now.

I need video game counseling.

 

[Parsnip]

I started Little Nemo for the NES few days ago so that's going to be my main game. HLTB clocks it around 3 hours so I expect I'll find the time to finish it this week. After that I'll probably start God of War.

 

[Ascheroth]

Hit the Final Chapter in Trails to Azure this week, so that's what I'm gonna be focusing on mainly. New Genshin update is coming as well on the side.

 

[Avern]

For me, the big thing is week is the launch of Asuka for Guilty Gear Strive. It's the most excited I've been for a video game release since Elden Ring, and I just hope the server fixes actually work.

Wrapped up Valkyrie Elysium and Mega Man 3. Valkyrie Elysium has a decent game in there somewhere, but COVID problems during dev and a shoestring budget conspired against it, and the end result isn't great. Mega Man 3 is overrated. I legit cannot believe people hold that one up as the best in the series. It's irritating, lame, and frequently an eyesore compared to 2 and the parts of 4 I've seen so far.

Still going through Cassette Beasts, and it's still GOTY material.

Started Mega Man 4 (it's great so far), and resumed slogging through Steelrising.

 

[Ascheroth]

Persona 5 Royal
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Chaos
Shadows of Valentia
Paranormasight
Honkai Star Rail
Genshin Impact

Are all the fucking games I have started and put a sizable time in. And I'm beginning to fear most will be dropped. I can't play this many games. At most two games a day. That impact my moral. This is to much.
And I want to play Spider-Man now.

I need video game counseling.

Trying to play every game every day seems a bit silly and a recipe for not progressing and ending up disliking all of them.
You gotta focus on them in chunks.
You pick one and start playing. If the game grabs you enough you'll just play that to completion. If not and after a certain amount hours you feel like you need a break or a change of pace, you pause it, pick the next one and start playing that one. Same deal: either you play it to completion before moving, or you swap to the next one (or the previous one) after you've had your fill. Repeat.

 

[Durante]

After putting 20 hours or so into Tears of the Kingdom, I have to say that Nintendo undeniably still has some people who know good game design.
With many interwoven systems and just a ludicrous amount of stuff in general in the game it would be easy to get bogged down, or for one of them to completely dominate the others to the extent that they seem like superfluous fluff, but so far this hasn't happened to me.

It's also interesting how they doubled (or tripled?) down on verticality, which IMHO was one of the biggest strengths of BotW.

One thing I wasn't fully prepared for is just how willing they are to make it possible for you to run into stuff that just completely destroys you, especially if you explore far off the beaten path early on. But I don't dislike that.

 

[d00d3n]

One thing I wasn't fully prepared for is just how willing they are to make it possible for you to run into stuff that just completely destroys you, especially if you explore far off the beaten path early on. But I don't dislike that.

You will probably like exploring the more unfair sections of the depths if you have not done so yet. The fear of getting completely destroyed is almost constant when you explore in darkness and the light roots which light up the environment and enable further progress are sometimes hidden really well and/or bordered by quite unfair environmental obstacles (for example a 100 meter vertical wall). Figuring out strategies for how to explore the depths has been one of the most fun aspects of the game for me personally.

Did you end up playing on Switch or emulated? I did not get emulation working perfectly, so I am playing on Switch.,

 

[Durante]

I'm playing emulated, in Ryujinx. Getting "only" 45-55 FPS in the overworld, 60 elsewhere, but unlike Yuzu (which is 60 everywhere) I don't get intermittent stutter or menu slowdowns in Ryujinx, and with the variable FPS mod and a VRR screen a consistent ~50 FPS plays well. I also use 4x resolution, and the no upscaling, no FSR, full LoD, higher res shadows, and Xbox controller prompts mods.

 

[Cacher]

One thing I wasn't fully prepared for is just how willing they are to make it possible for you to run into stuff that just completely destroys you, especially if you explore far off the beaten path early on. But I don't dislike that.

You will probably like exploring the more unfair sections of the depths if you have not done so yet. The fear of getting completely destroyed is almost constant when you explore in darkness and the light roots which light up the environment and enable further progress are sometimes hidden really well and/or bordered by quite unfair environmental obstacles (for example a 100 meter vertical wall). Figuring out strategies for how to explore the depths has been one of the most fun aspects of the game for me personally.

Did you end up playing on Switch or emulated? I did not get emulation working perfectly, so I am playing on Switch.,

I haven't counted how many times that I had to noped out a fight. Many enemies in the Depth can instant kill my Link with 7 hearts.

Can't wait to replay this game in Master mode.

 

[Li Kao]

Played more of Valentia. I must be 3/4 in. It’s good, it was always very good, but ya, it’s also long. I blame the random encounters.

Feel my misery : to change the class of a character (when he reaches a determined level) you have to visit an altar of the godess. Those altar are generally located in dungeons, very small things with at least one random encounter more or less guaranteed.
So you go in, fight the mob, reach the altar, change class… and every time, I mean EVERY FUCKING TIME, you go back to exit the dungeon, fight the mob, and an horrible piece of contrarian shit of a character in the roster go ‘hey, I can change class now ! Isn’t it great ?’
No it isn’t moron, we now have to go back, fight another mob on the way out and pray no one pulls your stunt again

 

[didamangi]

TLoU Part 1. Like Uncharted 1 and 2, I'm liking everything but the gameplay. Especially after playing RE4 remake. It's not even bad gameplay, it's just so standard. Also like Uncharted 1 and 2, at least the other parts of the game are interesting enough to make me want to keep playing. Except this time I don't make the mistake of playing it on the hardest difficulty.

Performance wise, 4K with DLSS Quality at a locked 60 fps on a 8700k/3080 12gb combo. Other than a few shader/loading stutter, haven't had any glitches so far.

 

[Li Kao]

Trying to play every game every day seems a bit silly and a recipe for not progressing and ending up disliking all of them.
You gotta focus on them in chunks.
You pick one and start playing. If the game grabs you enough you'll just play that to completion. If not and after a certain amount hours you feel like you need a break or a change of pace, you pause it, pick the next one and start playing that one. Same deal: either you play it to completion before moving, or you swap to the next one (or the previous one) after you've had your fill. Repeat.

I am super sorry, I just saw your reply.
I'm good with your advice, but at first glance it seems I'm past that point, in that I was already playing a big game (P5R) I suppose, and felt I needed something else. So I started another game. My BIG FUCKING ISSUE is that the weariness keeps happening and I can't stop starting games.
Basically, and I'm terrified to admit it, what I need is to make peace with dropping games (not P5R, I will finish this beast).

Another error on my part is that somewhere along the way I also started Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which is also a game I would really like to finish.

So yeah, maybe learn to drop games and only one 'priority' game at once. But that's a plan, they don't do well with reality.

 

[Arc]

I already have 50 hours played in Zelda and I think I've explored about one third of the map.

 

[Ascheroth]

I am super sorry, I just saw your reply.
I'm good with your advice, but at first glance it seems I'm past that point, in that I was already playing a big game (P5R) I suppose, and felt I needed something else. So I started another game. My BIG FUCKING ISSUE is that the weariness keeps happening and I can't stop starting games.
Basically, and I'm terrified to admit it, what I need is to make peace with dropping games (not P5R, I will finish this beast).

Another error on my part is that somewhere along the way I also started Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which is also a game I would really like to finish.

So yeah, maybe learn to drop games and only one 'priority' game at once. But that's a plan, they don't do well with reality.

Honestly I'm not much different, I start a lot of stuff constantly and rotate through stuff but I don't let it bother me. I circle back eventually if I liked a game enough, if not so be it. I don't really activeley think about "dropping" though. If I don't play a game right now I just don't play it and I'll get back to it eventually if I really want to.
Like, I started Trails to Azure, played to Chapter 4, then started Persona 5 (still very early), then played through what's there in Star Rail, now I'm back to Trails Afterwards I'll probably go back to Persona or some games I started before that like Muv-Luv Alternative, Utawarerumono 3 or Baldr Sky. And there are dozens of other games I've started lying around in the library.
It's just non-linear gaming!

 

[Cacher]

I already have 50 hours played in Zelda and I think I've explored about one third of the map.

I have 45 hours and.... Well let's just say this is going to be a 200-hour game for me.

 

[Acidote]

I have 45 hours and.... Well let's just say this is going to be a 200-hour game for me.

Easiest 200 in a long time.

 

[Stevey]

WH40K Boltgun.
So good.