Here we are again (again): the thread where we discuss the games we are playing in 2025

[Garrett.exe]

@Death_Strandicoot

The open world is okay, but the main story is miles above the side stuff in terms of quality. The narrative was better than I though, though ultimately comic-booky schlock. The Joker was actually funny at times. Hamill’s performance is pretty great.

As a comics guy who excitedly played this game at launch, the Joker basically soured the whole thing for me. It’d probably be more palatable to me now, but I was so excited to finally get a Batman game where the Joker wasn’t a factor and it turns out to be the most Joker game yet lol

Also, they lied in the marketing a lot. They said Arkham Knight wasn’t Jason and was in fact a brand new character, then throughout the whole game it’s blatantly obvious that not only is he Jason, they’re actually just doing another Red Hood origin story for some reason. Really strange.

I just don’t actually like the Arkham games that much after Asylum in general, but for what they are I’m sure they’re still good.

[Death_Strandicoot]

It’s kind of a Steam Deck thing? The OLED version at least has a variable rate screen up to 90hz, but you can cap it off wherever you want.

The game was designed for PS4 and I think ran at 30fps there, but by raising the in-game cap to 60, I was getting 40-44 ish fps, so I capped the hardware at 40 to keep things stable. 40 is a noticeable improvement over 30.

[Death_Strandicoot]

I’m not a huge Batman fan, and this is the only Arkham game I’ve played¹. I was disappointed by the reveal you mention though. It was lame.

¹ - likely why I wasn’t sick of the Joker.

[Kiki]

@Kiki

I’m fairly certain I will most definitely be bawling my eyes out sooner or later.

Update on this, I fully completed Lapin the other day and can report it’s a great game and I only cried once, but it was a really sweet scene. We find out Montblanc is really attached to his little red box that gets lost and later found again because it contains all the collected fur from his dead brother that he could find around their home. This fleeting bodily trace of a lost loved one kept like a trapped shadow, which Montblanc and Liebe let drift away gently with the wind.

Spoiler pic

[Psinuxi]

I think Hades is one of the most balanced games I’ve ever played. Every weapon that I thought kinda blowed turned out to be dope once I’d played it long enough to figure out. I ended up using every weapon quite a bit, but I like sword and gauntlet the most.

[Gemstonez]

Killer7 is pretty cool. I’m at what I assume is around the halfway point (post-Cloudman.) It reminds me of a late-night anime in the sense that I wish I could fall asleep to it. It feels like it’s getting into monster of the week type situations so I’m curious if the strong narrative voice of the first few parts will swing back around. I’m loving the strong visual presentation, especially when the game seems to tell you to pay more attention to how cool a camera angle looks for a second and don’t worry about enemies or anything, just absorb it. I love that.

I’m mostly sold on the experience of playing it. I really enjoy switching between killers to solve problems or be prepared for different types of smiles, but I’m not as big on the little puzzles for the sake of puzzles. I also think that it’s riding the wave of difficulty just right so far, and I hope it doesn’t ramp up and get more complicated as it goes because the balance is just right at the moment.

[UncreativeOutput]

Update: I just had to play a significant amount of Blue Prince that I did not want to because otherwise I would suffer negative consequences from “Save and Quit”.

It robbed me of 15 minutes of Promise Mascot Agency as a result. Which I immediately got sucked into completely.

[MoH]

Appreciate the honesty — was debating on picking this up as well (as is @xhekros ) but now I think I will skip. Wasn’t feeling too hot on the art style anyway.

[xhekros]

In which platform have you played it?

[UncreativeOutput]

Both on PC

[xhekros]

F on the chat.
I’ll wait for some bug fixing and play it later in the year.

[UncreativeOutput]

If you’re talking about Blue Prince. This seems to be a design decision not a bug.

The gameplay progresses through in-game days. There’s the menu option “Call it a day” which ends the current day, autosaves, and then gives you the opportunity to quit and continue.

There’s also the menu option “Save and Quit”… which is functionally identical. Which meant I’d be wasting a day in game if I had quit at the time I wanted to.

[xhekros]

Oh, I get it. Then I’d love to play it, but in a time where I can have a long time available, which is… not right now.
Thanks, I didn’t get it at first (my head is fuzzy atm).

[Mnemogenic]

@Gemstonez

you to pay more attention to how cool a camera angle looks for a second and don’t worry about enemies or anything, just absorb it. I love that.

Yeah! There are a lot of places to hang out and feel a thing. Not always a good thing either. I think the levels in the second half are more interesting than the first half, interested to see what you make of them.

[HyggeState]

[sapphicvalkyrja]

I played The Dark Queen of Mortholme, since it came up in discussion about pixel art with @Death_Strandicoot. I had not heard of the game and the concept seemed interesting

While the concept was indeed neat, I mostly found myself wanting a more robust exploration of the idea. While I understand there to be multiple endings, the game’s…NES-Castlevania-ness in terms of controls and hitboxes left me uninterested in further exploring the possibilities of them

A more fleshed out experience in terms of narrative likely would have worked better for me too. The game asks you to make dialogue choices as the titular Dark Queen that I felt no particular sense of ownership over due to a lack of time with the character

Unfortunately, it seems like the sort of idea that only really works once, at least for me, so it’s a shame there’s so much unrealized potential

[Death_Strandicoot]

@Thisiscontrol

Please let us know when you see the end!

I rolled credits on :The Longing: today.

First off, what a game. I am mesmerized by how well this beautiufful little thing brings out the raw emotional states of loneliness, boredom, gallows humor, frustration, fatalism, rebellion and of course, longing.

In my many decades of gaming, I have never felt the urge to roleplay. But I did in this game. What does my shade feel? What does he want? I made decisions I think we would make. It was astonishing. Role-playing games don’t make me feel this way, but :The Longing: does.

Here’s how my playthrough ended:

My shade was upset. Over time he grew disillusioned with the mission given him by the king. He grew dispirited. He knew there must be more. He read dozens of books about the outside world and longed more than anything to see the light. He often climbed to the highest point he could find, just below the surface, near a well, with the only passage leading out impassable and filled with stones.

Once, he sat for 2 days on the precipice of a large cliff. He considered jumping.

He read more books, decorated his home with paintings he made and crystals he found. He built a bed. He discovered running water and mushrooms. None of this was enough.

He went back to the cliff. He slept there for a week, considering his options, then turned away.

He went back to his high point. He made a resolution that if anyone came to the well, he would take a chance on them. Anything was better than this.

A bucket was lowered into the well. He climbed in. An old man pulled him out.

And so I got the “good” ending. I hated it. Tonally, it is the worst of the 4 main endings and completely clashes with the rest of the game thematically. It seems almost like a concession from the devs that players would demand a happy ending. I wish the troll boy had pulled the shade up. To me, that’s the true ending.

Anyway, I can’t recommend this game enough. Steam says I played for 13.4 hours, but that was over a couple months.

Pretty much any screenshot of this game is spoilery due to its nature, so please expand to see my screenshots.

Summary

[Thisiscontrol]

Thank you for the write up! I also love The Longing. My daughters loved checking in on our little guy every day or two. I got the fairly normal ending and it felt satisfying and “right”. The game really does evoke the feelings of loneliness, despair and longing better than anything I’ve played. It also filled me with a feeling of contentment. Something about looking in on the little world, with limited options, made me feel like anything I had him do was the right decision. It’s your time, use it as you will. And when it’s up, it’s up.

[Death_Strandicoot]

Yes, the 400 days ending also seems thematically strong, but my shade was just not going to keep serving the king any longer. The jump off a cliff ending, is my 2nd choice.

I really need like everyone else here to play this game so we can have a huge discussion about it. Would anyone be up for a :The Longing: Warp Zone that takes place over 400 days? Playing a dozen or so hours over the course of over a year is a pretty low commitment…

[Thisiscontrol]

I love this idea. I would gladly play it again. And i agree that more people should try it