Discussion What are you currently playing? (Week 43 of 2023)

[Cacher]

New week, new thread! What are you playing?

Tokyo Mirage Sessions: Reach final boss front gate today. I destroyed every mini boss in this final dungeon so I probably would not face any trouble fighting the final boss. Going to continue finishing up side content before going after them.

Fights in Tight Spaces DLC: Finished the final boss yesterday. I plan to try out the endless mode as well as test some new strategies in the campaign mode.

 

[Parsnip]

Still Biomutant.
Turns out I didn't have that much time last week for games so it's still on the list.

Shadowhand is also almost done.

 

[curi0usBystander]

Still the same Holocure and Tales Of Vesperia.

 

[Stevey]

Sniper Elite 5, D4 Season 2 and carrying on my playthrough of Starcraft 2, currently at the beginning of Heart Of The Swarm

 

[Ascheroth]

Did the poetry main event in Genshin - really good stuff, got me emotional.

Became a Pokemon Aether Spirit trainer in Star Rail, got my badges Marks of Mastery and became the champion. Very fun stuff, you can make some hilarious teams.

Finished Little Hope. Great atmosphere, but the story was a let down. The "gameplay" also had a bunch of annoyances, like when there is a "hit something specific" QTE you kinda have to randomly move your cursor around until you find the spot where it turns red while the timer is rapidly vanishing. Had to disable the QTE timer at some point because it just felt extremely annoying. (Apparently it used to have a visual indicator in the past, but they patched it away to bring it inline with more recent entries, except the scenes were not built with that in mind... How smart.). Or the kinda clunky "walk around and search for collectibles" parts where sometimes just going somewhere triggers a cutscene and moves things forward...
It's all a bit frustrating.

Played the first chapter of Stasis: Bone Totem. Very strong start. Great looking cutscenes and voice acting, a whole lot of creepy and intrigue in the atmosphere and now it goes underwater... Which certainly is not going to make things any less creepy.

 

[fantomena]

Currently focusing on Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

 

[Durante]

I'm still playing Atelier Lulua.
They really did a good job of providing fan-service (not the pervy kind) for fans of the Arland trilogy. It might be a bit silly that so many characters from those three games are now interacting with and important to Lulua's adventure, but that's the kind of thing where I'm happy to suspend my disbelief.
And although I've always been a fan of the time management in earlier Atelier games, I think the lack of it (and the complete lack of anything permanently missable at all, as far as I can tell) in this one is fitting -- and makes it very relaxing to play.

The PC port is barely acceptable of course, but on the Steam Deck it doesn't really matter.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

I'm playing Lies of P and I guess I'm near the end, just need to beat some bosses.

 

[hersheyfan]

Done with around 60% of Mario Wonder. They knocked it out the park, just phenomenal all around. They also trashed the movement momentum from NSMB - Mario and co. can now stop on a dime, and it feels great! The new equippable skill badges add great new mechanics, too.

Also came back to Diablo IV for Season of Blood - leveling up feels much faster now, and the new Vampiric powers are rad.

 

[C-Dub]

Started Super Mario Wonder over the weekend.

Having a blast. It’s pretty exceptional.

 

[Cacher]

Started playing Dragon Quest 1 on analogue pocket. These old games are living their best life on it.

 

[Arc]

I've been playing Sonic Superstars. Playing this right after finishing Super Mario Wonder was a mistake. Everything feels amateurish and low rent compared to Mario. The level design is annoying and the boss fights are slogs.

 

[Parsnip]

Finally finished Biomutant, ended up taking almost 70 hours.

Might check out how well Mario Wonder runs on my end next.

 

[Cacher]

I am very impressed with DQ1. It is an old and simple game but still works very well. Players are asked to kill the dragon and that's it: there is a world out there to explore freely. The starting town is at the center of a continent, and the space of exploration keeps getting larger alongside the player getting stronger with better equipment. Near everything is explained or hinted by NPCs and players are expected to progress themselves. I played and finished some other mainline DQ but exploration never feels as natural as this game.

The only downside of the game is probably where players need to return to the starting place to save, which is a huge inconvenience compared with going to the churches in later entries. Thanks to the item Chimera Wing and magic Rura this becomes more manageable around mid-game, but it is still fairly annoying.