(Archived 2022) The thread in which we talk about games we are currently playing

[treefroggy]

have a lot going on right now, but in my free time before bedtime, I‘ve been beating castlevania games for the first time. after the sonic binge, my zeal for action platformers and arcade style console games are at an all time high. So after contra and super C, I beat Castlevania 1 for the first time after years and years of practice and trying and mastery without ever beating dracula… and I mean mastery. I can wrack up extra lives, level 3 items, nohits, etc. and play stage 1-1 like a robot, min-maxing the time-score ratio. I just don’t like grinding out the last boss, going through the final stage over and over…

Then I skipped to akumajou densetsu, took the alucard hardest path, because I mainly just wanted to use belmont the whole way, but then eventually after beating my head against the wall realized the game is balanced to be played with other characters.... Which makes akumajou densetsu feel more like Wai Wai World 3 than a castlevania game at times.

Then I beat Akumajou Dracula for Super Famicom, seeing the later half of the game for the first time. It was really fun, love the atmosphere, I'd been looking forward to someday playing this through entirely. I love the controls and it feels like they could have done a lot more with this engine, the Super Metroid comparison is appropriate, the graphics and atmosphere and pacing are similar and it'd be cool to have a more laid back and explorative design. Definitely a AAA blockbuster title during the launch window of the US SNES. I didn't know how much of it was carried forward into the Dracula X series, like the penultimate bosses showing up as some of the first bosses in Symphony.

Now I'm returning to X68000 on my playstation, going to patch it to remove dithering, and play through arrange mode on easy with the classic music cheat. Also been practicing this one a lot over the years, got actually quite far in original mode last year when I was high on Cacao.

[radicaledward]

And here I am struggling to dodge these bone-tossing freaks!

[tokucowboy]

I have mostly been playing Money Puzzle Exchanger (anyone who likes Magical Drop at all should play Money Puzzle Exchanger), but I made the mistake of buying the Switch NieR in the same month that a new Switch Bayonetter is coming out – just real quick I wanted to say: hot damn! It‘s a very good, full-res NieR if you don’t mind a (stable) 30 frames

[chazumaru]

Funnily enough, the resolution is indeed higher than on the original PS4 version, at the expense of less detailed textures, lighting and shadows. I had not considered this parallel but the N64 port of Resident Evil 2 is a pretty interesting comparison to what studios like Virtuos are facing on Switch (although I’d argue the challenge for Angel Studios was way higher).

We have three pretty interesting ports this week:

* NieR Automata (a PS4 game) on Switch

* No Man’s Sky (a PS4 game) on Switch

* No More Heroes III (a Switch game) on PS4/PS5

I hope channels like Digitalfoundry will deep dive into all of them. (Reminder: most important port is [Wizorb on Switch](https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/wizorb-switch/).)

[tokucowboy]

@“Syzygy”#p87605 Full res on Switch hardware, I mean – 1080p docked and 720p handheld. Dynamic, but it seems to maintain. I‘m curious if there’s some sort of upscaling tech in place, which recently benefitted stuff like Xenoblade 3 and Splatoon 3 – that is a major boon for Switch here nearer to the end of its lifecycle. Framerate aside, it doesn't feel like the compromised version I expected

(@chazumaru No More Heroes III weirdly felt very compromised on its original hardware, though, curious to see that on the PlayStations, too)

[treefroggy]

Speaking of Resident Evil– and IDK if that spooky games thread is for general discussion of what we're playing this month– I intend to also beat a resident evil game this month, and it will either be the saturn version, or the gamecube version, or both. I am 100% a silent hill person, because I like the emotionally moving aspects and also was never much of a zombie liker. but its time.

joining the RE2 N64 discussion, compared to the switch ports, a major factor in the N64 port of RE2 was reprogramming and making space for the _music_.
if I [recall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaX5YUZ5FLk) [correctly](https://youtu.be/9J716rqAPCU) that is. there's an extended discussion with audie (sp?) cornish(?) of digital foundry, who had a hand in working on it?

[whatsarobot]

inspired by all the Castlevania talkin' in this thread, i took a little dip into Circle of the Moon, for the first time since buying it on GBA launch day. EGM raved about it, but cautioned that it was hard to see on the GBA screen. it sure was hard to see!

well, now, thanks to modern technology, i can see it. i was having a good time with it, making it up to the big laser beam shooting wolf before dying. that dang guy cornered me, and nothing i had faced up to that point had prepared me. i had no desire to go back and start from the nearest save point, so i took that as my cue to exit.

what i'm wondering is, how does Circle of the Moon stack up to other handheld Castlevanias? i've played all of them, but they all blur together in my mind for the most part! Circle seems a little on the easy side, maybe?

[hellojed]

I've played enough Fortnite to have multiple Victory Royals (including today, when my squad won, then won the subsequent match, which awarded us a “crowned Victory Royal” because every winner gets a crown to wear in the next match.

I think this started a few months ago when the discord group I played games with transitioned from UT 2004 and Quake 3 into Fortnite. first as a lark and a joke, but pretty soon everyone got serious when the depth of the game's systems and gameplay started to reveal itself. There isn't a tension quite like late game fortnite. There is a lot of systems going on in the game that give you various advantages, and stuff is constantly changing with each fortnite "chapter". The map evolves and changes over the season as well. The game gets you to log in every day with the promise of new things to buy, and you can earn enough V bucks through playing the battle pass to generally buy the next seasons's one.

It's a generally well designed game, it has a pretty varied weapon system and they are constantly introducing new weapons and taking out old ones once in a while to keep you on your toes. The weapons are balanced in such a way that there's generally use cases for each one, so there's always a very interesting tradeoff one makes when picking and choosing what items to keep and which ones to discard. It is very stupid at times. At first I didn't think the skins would introduce a second element to the game, but it kind of does. I am really taking down batman/deadpool/master chief.

For my part I bought the battle pass and started working my way though the game. It's fun, it's very drop in and out, it's much better with a regular group of people to play with. The game recently celebrated it's 5 year anniversary and I feel like it's overcome it's initial impression of being a Brand Central game for children and under the hood there is a serious multiplayer battle game

[Lunarchivist]

Castlevania has always been something I like in theory more than practice. It‘s cool, I just don’t like playing it, sorta like Resident Evil. Never actually tried SotN or any of the ones I might actually like yet but that's soon to come with this here Retroid 3 I done got.

While waiting for the R3 to ship I started playing Breath of Fire and I liked it a lot. Brass tacks; grind, item up, dungeon, repeat. Worked for me. Some of the more irritating bits get worked out, I'm sure. Big fan of not having everything explained to you in any media but it gets a bit fussy when it just wants you to talk to a specific, otherwise inconsequential npc at a certain time of day so you can trigger the next event to deal with. Leads to a ton of walking the fuck around for a while. Def fought a boss for 45 minutes until I figured out I was supposed to lose. The dungeons get creative as you move on which is refreshing and the whole mechanic of party leaders possessing unique ooc skills is neat once you figure out that's a thing. I got about half way when the R3 got here and though I tried to pick back up I think I get the picture. So long BoF, off to a buttload of Splatoon 3.

Since I can pretty much play anything I've ever wanted on the R3 I got overwhelmed and just started going through PS1 Ace Combats. Haven't played em since they came out, still great! I'm at the end of AC2 now and it's been a blast, the visual difference between it and Air Combat is out of this world. That said, Air Combat had all of the hallmarks of an AC with a neat, digestible arcade feel to it. I remember the least about Electrosphere so I'm real stoked to get into it.

I blasted my DS4pro battery and then fucked up the ribbon cable because of the goddamned clips that hold the two body pieces together so that's kept me from Destiny for a few weeks now.

I'm really looking for an eclectic list of PS1 stuff to make my way through, there one of those around these parts?

[treefroggy]

I had been trying akumajou x68000 on original mode in the past, practicing, and got right up to the stage before the “playhouse” corridor with all the clowns and dolls.

Well I played arrange mode for the first time tonight, and breezed right through it in one go.

That’s the thing with the older castlevanias. They can just slightly tweak the difficulty dial and it goes from being ultra punishing to more than reasonable. Just like castlevania iii when you play as sypha, or the easy type castlevania 1.


I’ll admit I felt more accomplished getting through level 2 cave in x68000 original mode for the first time. But that took so many tries, I ain’t got that much time, I’m backlog busting! Besides I bet next time I pick up original mode I’ll be that much better!

The stage design of x68000 is my favorite. Im here for the CASTLE, not half the game being a hike to the castle! (2/3rds of castlevania 3 is spent getting to the castle!) the entirety of x68000 is in the castle, and the ways they expanded on it are soooo cool and well thought out at times, it foreshadows symphony of the night in a major way.

[captain]

>

@“Lunarchivist”#p87644 I’m really looking for an eclectic list of PS1 stuff to make my way through

[size=30][i][b][LET YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE!!](https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/1659-psx-the-good-shit-2022-edition)
[/b][/i][/size] :)

[Lunarchivist]

@“captain”#p87648 yeeeeeh buddy

[captain]

Finished Dragon Quest V the other day, and I haven't changed my mind too much @"captain"#p84503 but I am pleased I finished it. I was still a bit put off by the music and tactile sensation of playing the game (so much mashing the Accept button...), I don't love Toriyama's art in this particular context, but it's a cool one. (as has been said... by millions of game players... for decades...)

The scenario is very good. That there is ||a **huge leap forward in time** immediately after the hero's father (a character you are more than slightly acquainted with) is **killed** and you're sent to a **labor camp**, feels transgressive today, at least to me, who has played relatively few JRPGs and no Dragon Quests. These narrative developments aren't appealing because they're dark and horrifying, but more because it's the game showing that it's willing to kill its darlings on some level—your parents die or aren't present in other JRPGs, but you only knew them for two seconds anyway and it barely matters. Here you spend a good few hours following your dad around and feeling like he's a presence in your little in-game life. The story takes place over a long period of time, and makes good on that promise so to speak: some characters you meet at the beginning are around at the end, and they change with you. When you're a child you get stuck running around with Prince Harry, who sucks, until you both are forced to build a temple for ten years together and you become inseperable friends. Later you see him get married and have children, just like you.||

...

Oh and you ||**get married** and **are crowned king** and **have children** whom you get to **name** AND then you're **frozen** for **another huge leap forward in time**! Your kids grow up!||
And so on.

In my game-playing experience I haven't seen Chekov's Gun invoked in game design too often, when near the very end of the thing you go back to some location from the beginning, or you finally interact with something you've been aware of/near for the whole game. I think Tim said somewhere that Dragon Quests do this a lot. DQV pulls it off in a number of ways, but my favorite might have been ||closing the loop on the gold orb exchange when you **travel through time**||. That the penultimate dungeon is ||the temple you were building in the labor camp near the beginning is cool by itself,|| but the feeling of returning was compounded for me since I played that early part of the game a year ago.

I didn't like the monsters too much, maybe by my own fault—I stuck with the first few I ran into and played most of the game with them. I used a slime, who had lots of useful magic abilities, and a yeti and my faithful sabretooth cat, whose non-melee abilities never seemed especially useful. I liked playing with my family (including Sancho, he is my family) much more. Felt a little weird when at the very end, my wife having done most of the damage to and landing the killing blow on the final boss, when we got back to the castle everyone says congrats to my son, the legendary hero who singlehandedly saved the world. I love my son but he wasn't legendary all by himself. His sister was there too! Whatever, I'm ||king||, I'll hire a scribe to write the history I witnessed.

[humblepopstar]

i've been playing anodyne. after charging through persona 5 i wanted something a little less… overwhelming, and anodyne 2 blasted my mind wide open, so i wanted to play the other stuff that analgesic has worked on.

i'm surprised, so far, at how game-y it feels - not in a bad way. _anodyne 2_ is set up in such a way that it feels sort of meta from the jump, what with all of the different mechanics and perspective shifts. this is a little more straightforward in its presentation. i'm also surprised, in a good way, at how blatant it is with its inspirations; like, yup, there's _link's awakening_, there's _earthbound_, there's _yume nikki_. it feels less like a Statement and more like they were trying to cram all of the stuff they liked about these games into a compact package, it's very pleasurable.

unsurprising given the inspirations, but it hits the same atmospheric and emotional points as _omori_ for me. i reaaaallly struggled with the ending of that game, which felt very callous, sort of shocking for the sake of being shocking... which is not surprising given omocat's style. but i loved - and still love - its vibe and aesthetic, its sense of mystery and foreboding and comfort all at once. _anodyne_ feels like that but more surreal, which i appreciate so far; maybe the end of the game will explain everything, but i hope not!

[Snowdecahedron]

Finished Yakuza 0. Greatly enjoyed the detailed world and being free to get sidetracked by a sidequest or minigame whenever I felt like it, not too hot on everything else.

As the story went on I became more and more disconnected. Didn‘t really find the protagonists’ motivations compelling and all the different yakuza families and groups got confusing. Kiryu was boring. I get that him having only one expression is often part of the joke, but Majima was way better… unfortunately he becomes The Joker in later games (I‘m sure he has his moments)

Combat was fine but got repetitive, a shame because the bosses are usually high moments in the story and after the hype cutscenes I’m mostly mashing and spamming heals.

Also! It's fine if you want to make a story that has basically no women. Who doesn't Love Men. But it's concerning that most of the time a named female NPC is involved in a sidequest, a sexy video of her is unlocked.

I'll be honest, about 40% of the reason I played this game was to play 7 eventually. I was enchanted watching [Thor's video](https://youtu.be/L-D_p_kft7g) walking around in first person and being able to go inside buildings in real time. Looks cozy as hell. So I don't mind the other stuff as long as I can do just that.

bonus cat pic
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[LeFish]

I picked up Borderlands 3 again a few days ago to start going through all of the DLC campaigns. The series holds an oddly special place for me; I played through the first game, including all of the DLC with my buddy during my recovery period after having major surgery in 2013. I‘d barely spoken to him for three or four years and he was one of my closest friends before I went to university, and we just happened to reunite shortly after my procedure. We eventually ended up playing everything the sequel and presequel offered at the time too. And now it’s kinda come full circle again where I get to dink around with him playing the DLC for Borderlands 3 shortly after having surgery.

I've not played the actual game since it was first released in 2019 so I'd forgotten everything about my character build and it took several hours just to get used to how it feels to play. I am having a lot of fun - this game has some real good hangout feels and the sense of cooperation and triumph as we beat tough encounters is palpable.

I've always found that the DLC campaigns for each previous game to be generally more fun than the base games - those writers are really let loose with the scenarios and sidequests that develop their characters in meaningfully interesting and bizarre ways much more than a lot of other games might achieve, even if much of the humour doesn't necessarily land well.

Having said that though, I'm constantly refreshed by this series' comfort and confidence to be able to poke fun at itself, to be silly, and to let you feel like a kid again. I often feel a little overwhelmed with the volume of contemporary sad AAA and sad indie games, and the associated volume of blanket coverage they're afforded, and to play something as confidently ridiculous and fun-times as Borderlands 3 feels like a welcome break from that.

[treefroggy]

I like akumajou Dracula x68000 (1993) more than akumajou Dracula x: chii no rondo (1993)

[Chopemon]

Since it was mentioned on a recent episode of IC and reminded me that I have it, I just tried Phase Paradox.

It is a prerendered background, fixed camera third person adventure on a space station that gets hit by a shockwave from an exploding planet and there is also something else mysterious on the station.

In the first half hour of the game you move between screens and trigger cutscenes. There are a lot of cutscenes and they are all of a mid tier PS2 game quality.

You switch between different characters. The female character models are of a higher quality than the male models and look quite good. One of the female characters has those "trousers (pants)" that seem unique to Japanese games where one leg is a full trouser (pant) leg and the other leg is very short shorts.

The text is all in Japanese but the dialogue is recorded in English so it is fairly easy to follow along with until one of the choice sequences happens.

These are branching cutscenes where you make choices. The choices are displayed in Japanese and you have 5 seconds to choose. In the first one, I apparently chose poorly and got a game over. The checkpoint was several minutes and one slightly dull cutscene ago so I turned the game off. It isn't completely the game's fault as a non Japanese speaker shouldn't be playing it.

Also, the game uses analogue movement controls that are camera relative so when you go through a camera switch your character moves in a different direction and retriggers the camera switch.

Looks cool and nice music though!

[Karasu]

@“treefroggy”#p87759

@"treefroggy"#p87759 this is an extremely fraught comparison for me, I literally don’t know how I would choose.

[treefroggy]

I made it to the final stage of original mode in Dracula x68000 and this has been one of the most fulfilling action game experiences of my entire life. After thinking the stage 2 boss was stupid impossible until I was high on cacao one day, now after all the leveling up I’ve done by playing all these action games this year, I am plowing through original mode, high on green tea, coffee, and vitamin b complex liquid supplements. The key is getting either the cross boomerang to level 3 or using the healing herb sub item.

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