Discussion What are you currently playing? (Week 39 of 2024)

[Cacher]

New week, new thread! What are you playing?

I got married in Dragon Quest V. Went for a honey moon with Bianca to visit different places to view her comments. My younger self did not feel much when I was playing the NDS version years ago, but now... damn. This is a masterpiece.

Working on the last case in Ace Attorney Investigations 1. Entering the final stretch and it was pretty good, but I remember the final villain will dread so I am mentally preparing for the showdown.

 

[Durante]

I'm still playing Soul Hackers 2. I'd have probably dropped it, but its gameplay is just inoffensive enough (though not really all that engaging, I still have the same problems with all the standard battles that I wrote about in the last thread) and I do quite like some of the characters.

 

[Stevey]

Elden Ring DLC, just beat Messmer

 

[curi0usBystander]

Bravely Default II: Finished the game and completed every side thing worth doing.

Also went back to Vampire Survivors and Holocure, before I start a new game, and also get all the new cheevos of the former.

Tried Romancing Saga 2: The revenge of the seven Heroes (DEMO), It's really a modern version of the game, now at least the game explains the mechanics, the game shows you when you have a chance of learning (glimmer) a new skill, there's a bit more exploration on dungeons. Tho, I don't know why they ended the demo so soon, just when they explain the key mechanic of the game (inheritance) and you can't even see what happens with it. Still I'll probably be there for the full game (at some point in the future).

 

[Ascheroth]

Like I mentioned in last weeks thread, I dropped Re:Chain of Memories and just went on to Kingdom Hearts 2.
I forgot how long a prologue that game has. But it's still really fun.

 

[Parsnip]

Finished Slider. It's delightful all the way through.

Not sure what I'm going to main next, maybe Deliver Us Mars.
I also installed Infinifactory, just popped to my head as I saw some Satisfactory gameplay and I guess all the conveyor belts reminded me of it. Bought it back when it was in early access, but decided to wait for the full release. And I think it came out of EA like 9 years ago.

 

[unknownhero]

I'm playing the very first final fantasy, I'm enjoying it so far.

 

[Ibuki]

I'm still working on Persona 5 Royal and hopefully going to be able to wrap it up before Metaphor. I've finished the Cruise Ship Palace and I just finished the free time while waiting for the change of heart. It feels really good to finally be in the home stretch after playing some of the PS4 version and starting the PC version nearly 2 years ago.

 

[Mivey]

Will finish Ys IX, either today or tomorrow. Had a lot of fun with it, but it feels more like a guilty pleasure since I'm a general sucker for all things Falcom. It's quite a bit shorter than the previous game, and arguably not quite as good. I think it suffers from Falcom's desire to put out games quickly and make as much use of previous work as possible, but a lot of elements just end up being kinda weird. The Nox stuff does not fit in with the rest of the game, and just feels like an excuse to copy-paste the raid and defense mechanics from Ys VIII. The city is ultimately pretty boring and the dungeons and bosses kinda mid. It's pretty funny how the best and most memorable boss is one they copied from Ys I / Ys Origin. It's so clear Falcom had zero time to craft interesting encounters here. The choice to go for a grim dark art style, often under a cloudy sky, means that you can see very clearly how aged Falcom's engine is. Ys VIII with its bright, super colourful setting was a much better fit. But maybe the ending will elevate my opinion of this game a bit.

Also started player Atelier Ayesha earlier this week. Coming from the Arland games, it's impressive how much cleaner Ayesha looks. I am playing on the Steam Deck, downsampling from 1440p and IQ is absolutely pristine and you don't some of the horrible texture work you had on the Arland games. Feels like this is the first Game where Gust actually utilised the PS3, instead of putting out slightly upgraded PS2 games.

 

[Parsnip]

I started Deliver Us The Moon.

It's definitely more ambitious than the first game and probably suffers a bit from it. It tries to punch above its weight but it's definitely clear that it's still a AA budget tier game. For example with cutscenes, even though one may not be more or less important in the story its telling, it's quite obvious that the devs spent more time on some of them then others. I almost feel like it would be better if they were all worse but approximately same quality or something, I don't know. The swings can be pretty hard.

It also suffers from Whedonesque/Marvel/quippy writing on an occasion. It's not constant or anything, but when it pops up it doesn't really fit in tonally or otherwise.

 

[TrishaKit]

Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland
KT was having a sale so I jumped on this since I really liked Rorona.
Game seems a lot more forgiving and easier on players with its time limits being a lot less strict and close. Totori's voice is so meek and kawaii too
I just traveled to Arland and its really cool seeing all these old characters from Rorona after some time has passed. Hearing the old tracks from Rorona too is nostalgic

 

[einstellung]

Subbed to Game Pass because I realized there's a ton of games on there I want to sample, but can't afford to buy them all.

Neon White: Mmmmm, I love "micro-speedrunning" games. An emerging, cool-ass genre. Earliest one I can remember is SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell, which is also fantastic. The loop of beating the medal times, then your own ghost, then your best leaderboard position, and going for the secret medal on the most fun levels. It's so much dopamine. Refining your route over and over is zen. Good podcast game. The human brain can multi-task, just only with very specific things

Trials of Mana: Has a basic fantasy story, which is good for me, because that means I can follow along well in.... Spanish! Found my next Spanish game. Still learning new words, but not having to look up entire paragraphs anymore is encouraging. Thankfully I can read the subtitles when pausing the cutscenes, because I cannot keep up at full speed. Spanish is teaching me more about English. I had no idea "clout" can mean "a smack" (mamporro). I had no idea "perk" was a truncation of an older form, perquisite (gaje). When there are like 9 indirect object pronouns in the same sentence along with the subjunctive mood, my brain freezes over. Fuckin' Vulgar Latin, man!