Huh, I played the first one for the first time the other month and all I felt was “If I had played this in 2007 I would not be excited for a sequel”.
I should expand on that, I think there are some great things here. It's expanded universe is fascinating, I like the way that it sets up a lot of lore and interesting species out of the gate. From a gameplay perspective, it felt like an utter slog. I never felt like I was going from place A to B with a purpose, but rather it felt like being guided by a bad DM.
Started playing Hades this weekend. I didn‘t expect that I needed to mash as much as I do. I guess I’ve been playing a lot of Guilty Gear -STRIVE- and have been trying not to mash. You get blown up by counter hits if you get caught mashing.
I genuinely didn't know what to expect going into it, but I really enjoy the voice acting. It's pretty great. I made it to the first boss on my 4th or 5th try and was killed pretty fast, but I think I'm going to enjoy the game. The single-use projectile is an interesting mechanic.
yeah the depth of lore is real neat and the fighting is fun. just based on those elements alone it‘s pretty good. a lot of the objective-driven sequences i.e. dismantle the five bombs i don’t think have aged well because often i just can‘t find the things. the environments are just extremely dark lol. could just be my TV but in some areas i’m literally hitting pause to open the map once every 10 steps or so to check where I am. reminds me of the BSNESGOAT episode of the pod where frank quoted an EGM review that described a game as having a “dark persona” lol
the mako is OK although iirc they improved the controls for the remaster. an unwieldy vehicle that's easy to accidentally drive off a bridge is an interesting choice for a game that's essentially a massive power fantasy
I‘ve been playing Picross S2 on the Nintendo Switch. I decided to buy it recently and apparently I’m already 15 hours in. I have played Picross S for 210 hours so far, it is the second most played game on my Nintendo Switch after Splatoon 2 which I've played for [redacted] hours.
I'm coming to the point of questiong myself on why I play Picross. It has enough challenge and reward in it that I can play it for hours. What lets me down is that each puzzle becomes the same sensation. I go through the same thought patterns to solve them and I barely even look at the picture to what I've solved. My favourite part is mashing the buttons on my Switch to get to the correct square, it feels snappy and responsive, but surely I can find a game with similar controls and more thought variety.
One thing I came here to say was Picross on the Switch is infinitely better than any 3DS iteration. The touch screen is no place for Picross. The button controls RULE so hard that you're not allowed to use the touch screen on Switch.
@“beets”#p35345 I am 100% in the same boat, but to the point that I am currently working through S5 and S6. I don't even play the “normal” mode anymore, I do Extra, Colour, Mega, and move on to the next game.
I love picross, but also never end up caring about the end picture. It is the mechanics and feel of solving the puzzle that is the fun part, not the result.
Over the years I could not even imagine how many hours I have spent across all the Picross variants. I quite unironically had one of the NDS (or maybe 3DS? I can't quite recall) Picross games as my undisputed GOTY.
I _loved_ Picross 3D and wish they would make another one of those.
@“rejj”#p35346 I too am in a similar boat. I devoured Picross S during the first lockdown on my lunch breaks, and got into most of S2 in the meantime. I sometimes find though that if I make a mistake that I have to completely start again even with the autocorrect function and when you go through the motions between each puzzle it can be tiring.
Nevertheless I'm well into the series and am looking forward to getting stuck into S3.
Demo for NEO TWEWY dropped on PS and Switch. Played through a chunk of it and am seriously enamored. I adore the new main character and the immediately familiar and trusting vibe he has with his friend, one of the other main characters. Dialogue on all of the thought bubbles is extremely sharp. The music is great, especially when really disparate tracks blend in with one another. Some of them seriously sound like a Disturbed song that suddenly blends into a Genki Rockets jam. It's fantastic.
I‘ve been playing METROID Other M today. That game is pretty cool once when it’s not doing all the narrating voiceover. The control scheme is bizzare, but I‘m becoming rather fond of it. It’s like going in to a scope view by pointing the wiimote at the screen. It's kinda scary to use in a stressful fight but I think that adds to the mechanic.
Also these cutscenes look really good, I love the massive Star Wars Prequel like city. In fact, all the game's environments feel very prequel-trilogy inspired.
It'd be cool to have a metroid game where you explore an abandoned/destroyed city instead of a lab, planet or spaceship. I want a metropolitan metroid lol.
@“beets”#p35606 I'm on a Metroid kick! I played Zero Mission and Super back to back. I had way more fun with Zero Mission than Super,
Other M was a team ninja game yeah? Despite the negative perception it always looked like it played fun enough. Is it a 2.5d game? I've never been sure since it came out during the period I was not engaged with games.
All aboard the SS Metroid. Started Zero Mission yesterday, got an hour in, now can‘t find my DS charger :\ I may just skip to Super if I can’t find it.
I‘ve also been playing Metroid! I love Metroidvanias but never really sat down properly with a Metroid (or a modern Castlevania, actually…… played all the NES ones though!) so this has been interesting to me. Started with Super Metroid, incredibly impressive and thoughtfully-designed game… Except for Maridia. All fun I was having with that game got instantly sucked out and, even though I got through it, I just kinda don’t have the drive to finish the game anymore. Never in any game have I hit such a drastic contrast of fun-to-unfun. Anyone know what happened there? Maybe the development for that part was rushed? It feels so much worse than every other area in the game. Such a shame. Plan on picking up Fusion though, so I'm looking forward to that!
@“Funbil”#p35642 not sure what happened with maridia but you really should push through. The endgame of Super Metroid is one of the greatest bits of 16-bit gaming I’ve played.
I am nearing the end of Remnant From the Ashes and its one of the better third person shooters I have played but one of the lesser Souls-likes. The moment to moment shooting enemies and exploring the terrain are really engaging and you constantly scrambling to move from cover to cover, keep threats at bay while managing resources. It the bosses where the whole thing falls down as many are bullet spunges that can kill you in a single combo. Also the spawn in smaller enemies to harry you inside a tiny arena. The only way the boss encounters became fun was when I realized I had gear that could trivialize most encounters, but this was late in the game and the crafting economy doesn't exactly lead you to want to experiment much. I dunno, if I went in KNOWING how they want you to deal with bigger threats I might have a better outlook on things, but I sure did waste hours on some bosses learning every single of the attacks.
It‘s a 3D game with some 2D segements but you never have camera control unless you’re in the aiming mode. I recommend giving Other M a try, it's got some interesting stuff going on.
Super Metroid is on the Nintendo Switch Online: Super Nintendo Entertainment System app.
I played it there a year ago. I was never able to beat the game because I got stuck in a room with enemies who you had to shoot while they were jumping and I wasn't very good at aiming.
I‘ve been making some serious progress through FFXIV’s Shadowbringers main story quest over the past week or so. I won‘t say too much because I don’t want to spoil anything, but I‘m deeply impressed at the way they’ve gone back to some pretty fundamental parts of the world building, completely upended them, and then made it all feel like a genuine revelation. It‘s been engineered in such a careful way everything’s changed forever but at the same time you were not wrong or stupid for doing the things you did before, and you could not have anticipated this.