Here we are again: the thread where we discuss the games we are playing in 2024

video games
2310

This is something I miss about how I played games as a kid. I was much more willing to play games slowly. When I played Pokemon (in my case gens II and III), it was on a single save file for each game, on and off over the course of several years. I don’t think I ever beat the elite 4, but I spent a lot of time leveling up random Pokemon that were probably useless.

Same with something like DK64, a game that is much maligned for the massive amount of stuff one has to collect and the endless backtracking. This is certainly a bad thing if you are playing just this one game night after night trying to 100% it. But if you play it slowly, off and on, the backtracking ends up being a feature – it gives you an excuse to come back to areas you remember fondly from months or years earlier.

When I replayed Sapphire a few years ago while sick, I felt this need to get to the elite 4 as optimally as possible, which meant figuring out early on what my party would be so that I wouldn’t waste time leveling up Pokemon I didn’t need. It really took a lot of the fun out of the game. I had similar problems playing DWM earlier this year – I knew too much about the game and just wanted to finally beat it, rather than really spending time in this world and forming memories with these goofy little monsters.

Maybe this is a result of having to sell most/all of my childhood games when I was in my late teens. Before that I approached most games with this attitude that I’d have a single save file for my whole life. I could feel like I was really accomplishing something or building something permanent when I played games, as I never considered that my save data would be gone someday. Once I had to restart all the games I played as a kid from scratch on emulators (which in and of itself made these games feel more expendable) a lot of that sense of working towards something meaningful and permanent was gone.

Obviously this is just my own attitude problem though. I’m sure I could still play these games more slowly and freely if I just let myself.

12 Likes
2311

Started Crow Country last night. Hot dang, it’s dripping with atmosphere.

I like that it has tank controls and modern controls all wrapped up into one control layout, but I’m a little confused as to why even include tank controls. Admittedly, I only played like 15 minutes and haven’t ran into any baddies yet, but all I can think is that it would totally screw with the balance of the game. Either enemies are going to be too easy to maneuver around with modern controls or way to difficult to juke with tank controls. I guess I’ll figure out what control scheme I’m going to run with after a few encounters with enemies.

6 Likes
2312

Rolled credits on Beetle Adventure Racing. Rubberbanding can be pretty brutal at times (breaking the top saved record with your lap just to have the computer competitor beat you by 10 seconds…) but a ton of fun. Wish there were a few more tracks or modes in there, a sequel would have been incredible (Minis would have been perfect!). It’s real cool how you can take each lap in unique ways for different reasons (speed, points, cool factor) and that the shortcuts are so long that often the quickest route in the tougher championships is to stay on the road battling with the aggressive computer.

As the first real game I dove into on Mister it’s proven out my hopes for the platform. Easy to jump into buttery smooth games of the past on a dedicated piece of hardware. I don’t like playing games on my computer, so software emulation was always tough for me to stick to consistently, plus the rougher state of games like Beetle Adventure Racing playing on my mid laptop, makes the Mister ideal for me to check things out and roll credits.

Finishing up Mother 3 this week, been trying to savor it. Next up is a Yakuza, plus whatever PSX fun there is to be had.

9 Likes
2313

I thought I was going to get Terry, but Capcom’s monetization system for SF6 was so ludicrous that I decided not to.

I put down Trails on the Sky for now, but not because I’m not enjoying it. I’ll come back to it (I only got about 4 hours in.) It’s a lovely, chill game.

I was finally in the mood to play Pizza Tower, and man, that is one of the best games I’ve played in a while. The frantic speed when trying to escape is an action trope that really never gets old in videogames. This game is also so inventive with power ups, level design, and the animations are so deliciously framey. I think this game just overtook Rayman Legends and Celeste as my favorite pure 2D platformer.

Started the Metaphor: Refantazio demo but did not get very far yet. Only about 90 mins in. It’s very good so far though. The “humans” are wonderfully Heironymous.

Also still Playing Astro Bot. This game is a delight. It is pure candy, for better and worse.

5 Likes
2314

Exploits!

Done with Signalis I’ve discovered there is a true ending, but I don’t care to achieve it, it’s one of those true endings where you have to do the whole game again, similar to something like Sea of Stars and while I liked the game (way more than sea of stars) I don’t think I care to run through it again.

I usually consider myself a narrative understander, but I don’t quite understand what was going on, but it was evocative, I will think about the setting for awhile. I gotta admire a big bleak spaceship, and some audacious cutscene direction, even if I leave having to piece together some lore.

By the end I did find myself kind of wishing it was over, as the amount of enemies continued to increase, and yet I basically killed around ten enemies throughout the course of the entire game, so movement was a bit of a chore. I think it’s cool and I respect how the game implements its’ endings, but I don’t care to do the necessary multiple playthroughs required, as they seem more or less cut from a similar cloth. Similar to like say, 1000xResist.

I also am well through the third chapter of Tactics Ogre, I don’t know if I’ll find the time to finish it, as I was just kind of filling space until Metaphor and then Dragon Quest 3. Tactics Ogre rocks, but I missed a recruitable character I really wanted and it bummed me out to the point of dropping it for awhile, and it’s been on a slide since.

I also have continued to spam Deadlock and while I don’t see myself quitting any time soon, I do think that despite some initial big differences between this and say, League of Legends of DOTA 2, the matches actually often feel like they turn out more homogenous than those other games. I imagine this is likely due to the game’s demphasized macro play in favor of skirmishing , and the levels of action in general. I prefer the map here to league or dota, in terms of there being three distinct levels of elevation, and more ways to navigate these skirmishes, but it doesn’t feel as smart or as varied in playstyle. I was in a pretty high skill bracket until they disabled tracking your matchmaking rating, so I imagine I’m getting the intended experience for the most part. Maybe the skins will be good.

Next for me is maybe that russian nun game?

3 Likes
2315

Yes, do it! Indika is an experience.

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2316

This is a shame to here. I’ve been curious about the reception to Metaphor than the game itself seeing as the old staff have since move on. Guess we won’t fully know until the game is out.

After playing Soul Hackers 2 I don’t think we are going to get old Atlus again. Well SMT4 was a work of genius at least.

2317

at the retro game expo the other day i played a bit of rez on the dreamcast, and my gf wasn’t familiar with it, so i was like, “i have it at home, lemme show you on the big tv” and… i have had rez infinite for ages but somehow never realized that area x is there and a whole crazy flashy new thing?!? and so we played that for a while, and hoo boy does that look nice on a ps5 with a 4k tv. what a classic

3 Likes
2318

Baldur’s Gate III just updated on PS5, and they appear to have changed some of the inventory menus. It takes a little getting used to, but I like that I can see carry weight when taking things out of barrels. It appears to be a bigger update; I wonder if I’ll ever notice any of the other changes. (I don’t really play evil, so the big cutscenes are out.)

1 Like
2319

yeah it seems like a vibe

2320

I haven’t played BG3 in a while now, but I was considering starting my dark urge run over (wasn’t enjoying the build). I’ve beaten it before so it’s not like I fell off completely.

Anyway this new pa5 update I believe is the mod support update, so that’s the big thing you should notice. I may just get back on when someone mods in aasimar as a playable race

1 Like
2321

still making my way through chrono trigger. remembering that i dropped it the last time because playing this particular game on the 3ds is really unpleasant. the text is so small!! otherwise it’s great, beautifully executed, i get why everyone goes so hard for it. it’s a narrative design masterclass.

i also picked up tunic, which i’d been thinking about playing for awhile. i’m in the early game now - i have the sword, shield, and lantern, and one of the magic items. it’s a cool game. it does make me think about the prestige indie game as a concept - i feel like the archetypal prestige indie has something to say about How And Why We Play Games and this one’s manual gimmick definitely fits. (i really like the manual in concept, though i think the execution breaks its own rules a bit - the inconsistency re: english vs. made-up text is really irritating. stick with your gimmick!)

having not played any soulslike games i feel like i can’t comment on the combat rhythms with much depth; that said, it vaguely reminds me of this year’s prince of persiavania, but it’s a lot less frustrating to deal with because the checkpoints are spaced better within the world and the enemies are balanced with the player more effectively. it is still annoying to have to re-clear groups of enemies but i get that it’s part of the risk/reward system of seeing how long you can survive before healing at a checkpoint.

playing it in parallel with chrono trigger just makes me think about how, like, this sort of mysterious-solemn tone feels so much more sincere in trigger than it does in tunic; the latter feels a little self-conscious. that prestige indie vibe. there’s a certain smoothness to it that i think does it a disservice. maybe that will change as i get further in!

8 Likes
2322

tunic definitely gets more and more playful with the layers of the manual and the whole conceit of the game. it does some really clever stuff! it gradually shows its hand more and more and there are some seriously great light bulb moments to be had. the combat is definitely souls difficult but it was, for me at least, always juuuust tuned hard enough that I could make it through most things after a couple tries and was overall really fun. I really love tunic a lot, I managed to solve every puzzle and find every thing (with the exception of some pretty ridiculously hidden post game secrets, but those are kinda outside of the scope of the main game playthrough anyway) and beat it without any hints which is a rare kind of accomplishment for me. one of my all time favs!

3 Likes
2323

Did you get the Leave ending? I think that one’s most common if you avoided combat but it also explains the least.

Probably my biggest gripe with Signalis is that they kept the multiple endings thing from the Silent Hill games. Some people like it, but I’d rather have them just write one satisfying ending and call it a day.

3 Likes
2324

I got the memory one! It was honestly pretty affecting.

I think I certainly was expecting a bit more from the ending, but after reading some summaries it actually seems like I pretty broadly got what happened.

Not to bring up Chrono Trigger in an endings conversation, but I think it works because it has that definitive ending and then the rest are purely supplemental, if not trying to be funny.

3 Likes
2325

There’s a bunch of cool games coming out lately, so naturally I’ve started playing Resonance of Fate.

Everybody who told me this game rules was correct. I don’t know why I didn’t listen. I’ve only done the prologue, but I love everything, man. The soundtrack, the gunplay, the probably-too-mechanical battle system. The vibes are immaculate. When you pop a guy up into the air and then jump above him and propel him into the ground by shooting him with a pistol? That’s video games to me.

12 Likes
2326

Two weeks ago I spent a lot of time unpacking, organizing, and repacking everything I own into storage bins, and spent breaks whittling away at the first Castlevania game I ever played, Shaman King: Master of Spirits.

this game is much more red than it seemed to be on my 22-year-old GBASP

I was really into the Shaman King anime which ran on FoxBox/4Kids back then. Morty, Zeke, Trey Racer, all your buddies with normal names. Apparently they produced this to capitalize on the anime’s popularity in the West: although developed by KCEJ, it was never released in Japan, nor were its sequel, the Legacy of the Spirits monster RPGs, or the PS2 tactics RPG–fighting game hybrid(?) Power of Spirit.

Legacy of the Spirits, also on GBA, had super-deformed character sprites in the overworld, no battle animations, and no jumping(!!!), i.e. Master of Spirits was the one to get. It’s distinct from the Igavanias in that the world is divided into discrete levels you access from a map screen, although there’s some continuity in that you can’t freely select any level from the map at any time (unsure how to describe this): each level is connected to two or three others on the map, so weaving your way around the map with a newly found Metroid item to unlock a path all the way on the other side of the world is as tedious as it would be in a regular Igavania without warp zones. HP also persists from one level to the next, and you can only partially refill it with items or by crossing a level from one side to the other. The main gameplay gimmick is the Aria of Sorrow soul system, although nearly every spirit in Shaman King functions as an attack rather than some of the traversal abilities you get in an Igavania. There is only one sword, but it has a three-attack combo and a unique duck attack instead of the one swing you normally get.

It’s pretty simple and wasn’t very difficult for me, an adult, but I’m surprised I got as far as I did back in the day. My old save file is still there and I got to the second-to-last level. I know exactly where I got stuck, and in fact I had to look up that part myself, now, today, in 2024, to get past it. If I had gotten past it as a kid, the last level and boss would have done me in. They are a massive jump in difficulty from everything else in the game.

Not playing the sequel feels like leaving business unfinished; on the other hand there would be little point as the only reason I played this was to examine it as an object from my past. But what about Zeke…

8 Likes
2327

I’ve been playing Returnal, I’ve put about 10 - 12 hours into it and I think I’m done. At first, the gameplay feels solid, the environments are atmospheric, the premise is an intriguing hook and I did enjoy it for a while. From my understanding of reaching the true ending, I think I had progressed about 70% through the main story / quest. After enough time playing and retrying it, I started to get a bit bored. The combat isn’t that exciting to me moment to moment, the weapons are not varied enough to spice things up, the environments wear out their welcome quickly.

It’s weird to me how beloved this game is, I mean it’s fine, I don’t hate it or anything, I’m just surprised by its rave reviews. Maybe it’s the novelty of a roguelike triple A game, perhaps this is the first time a lot of players get to experience this type of game.

Returnal is engaging on a macro level, I like planning the run, deciding which biomes to clear or bosses to fight or skip . The strategy and risk / reward of encounters affecting the run as a whole is an interesting hook. Unfortunately on a micro level, I just find it a bit dull. The environments stop surprising you after the first couple attempts, with minor variation in rewards or enemy placement. It does feel better once you have some more permanent abilities, but even these are inputs you would take for granted in other action games. I just feel like I’m rushing through it to reach the goal and progress, instead of enjoying the moment to moment gameplay.

Worst of all, as I said above, I find the combat boring. For the most part, it’s simply a matter of keeping your distance, utilising cover when overwhelmed by projectiles, timing your i-frame dash, retreating when enemies get too close or countering with a well timed melee. I know it might sound like I’m vaguely describing a lot of action games there, but thats emblematic of my issues with Returnal’s core gameplay - it doesn’t leave any lasting impact on me, I don’t feel like my skills are being tested, there isn’t enough abilities or options for meaningful player expression.

Some action games I can pick up and think ‘I just want to hop into the action right now and I’ll have a blast’. I don’t feel that way about Returnal, the gameplay feels less inspirational and more methodical.

I found the story and protagonist uninteresting, despite the early intrigue. The audio logs speak to a vague mystery, a sense of isolation and madness for the main character - but I feel that I never felt like I got to know Selene’s personality, which caused a bit of a disconnect. There’s a reason so many games will have a mute or self-insert protagonist, to allow the player to roleplay more seamlessly. When you give a name, a face, a voice and a backstory to the protagonist, they need to have some depth for me to empathise. Especially in a roguelike game with an emphasis on a mystery / story - if I’m going to keep attempting this run with this character, to complete a story goal, I’d prefer if I could get to know them a bit better. I would find it a lot more compelling if Selene was a bit more fleshed out - but to be fair, the set up means there can’t exactly be other characters for her to bounce off or talk to. It is a game with themes of paranoia and existential horror, so I guess it fits that it can only go so far with her characterisation.

As for the story, it’s one of those vague mysteries, where the answer is just over the next horizon. The concept of ‘what happened to these ancient precursors, and how is it affecting the world today’ has been done before and done better. I don’t hate it, it just didn’t make me feel anything. I will say there are certain moments of atmospheric horror which are very interesting at first, but overstay their welcome on repeat visits. And a particular story cutscene about halfway through caught me off guard with a plot twist that made me laugh out loud (I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, I genuinely found it hilarious).

Granted I did not see the end credits so I can’t speak to the entirety of Selene’s character or the story, but from what I saw it was a bit bland.

Maybe if there was a bit more variety in levels and enemy types, I could be a bit more forgiving. But once you’ve fought a creepy monster blasting neon projectiles in an ancient alien ruin - I feel like you’ve seen it all.

It’s a shame Returnal didn’t resonate with me, I was intrigued at first but ultimately the gameplay did not keep me engaged.

6 Likes
2328

Got deeper into Crow Country and it’s delightful… if you’re a survival horror fan and have played a few. It’s really nice that the dev included a mode without any monsters, that way you can explore the map stress free, solve the puzzles, and have a complete experience sans enemies.

With enemies on, the game could potentially be incredibly brutal to newcomers. The gunplay is sorta clunky (which I actually like), the monsters are pretty quick, and the biggest hurdle is the lack of a map. Unless I’m missing something, there isn’t a map included, and considering the amount of backtracking and recalling you have to do, it could be pretty daunting to a new player. I’ve ended up drawing my own map and labeling the doors and what key they need.

5 Likes
2329

Because the series is back in the news and I bought a DS, I finally tried Lunar: Dragon Song. Not a stretch to say this is one of the worst games I’ve ever played, not just worst JRPGs. We all like jank but this ain’t jank, this is just a series of design decisions so bad they feel impossible. You lose HP when you hold down B to run. You are punished, in a japanese RPG, for running. Played an hour and a half just to get a taste and that was about 89 minutes too much.

Cleared the palate with some Phasmaphobia with the lads. It’s October so I get to play this again. Not a game I’d want to dedicate 400 hours too as there really isn’t that much to it, but it’s a perfect game to play a couple times every October.

7 Likes