I played a few hours of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. I love the idea of a Yakuza game where you play as Goku, but it just has too many upgrade and currency systems that it throws at you and it gets tiring quickly. You all know I’m just here to fly around and kick Vegeta’s ass so let’s hop to it. I played through the end of the Saiyan Saga so Frieza is next. May jump back in later, may not.
Picked up Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin when I didn’t feel like playing the Goku game. I’m about an hour in. Very straightforward vania stuff here, though you sure pick up a shitload of random weapons and gear you’re never going to use. Would’ve probably been fine to just focus on the whip and the spells. Otherwise, good game.
I can confirm They look good on hardware, but they slow down and speed up depending on what’s happening on screen, so it only looks smooth for a few seconds at a time haa
I bought it on my PS4 back at launch in … 2014? and fiddled around briefly and then dropped it. There’s been a million updates since then, and I just jumped back in on my PC.
The “expeditions” are timed events somewhat like a “season” or “ladder” in other games – if you join them, you have a fresh start and there’s a small set number of goals and story stuff to work through particular to that event.
It’s a good way to get back in to checking it out. They accelerate the start significantly; progressing the expedition goals rewards you with a bunch of upgrades and stuff. When it is over, you can roll you expedition progress over in to a regular save, and then do it all again next expedition.
At the start of an expedition, if you have an existing save, you can choose to bring a few pieces of inventory with you over in to it so you don’t start with absolutely zero (but it isn’t a problem, they give you enough stuff). They can keep rolling back in to same main save also, so after one or two of these you’ll have a whole tonne of stuff and be good to chill out in the galaxy however you want.
…or just keep waiting for the next expedition to start.
I’ve always thought these games that heavily emphasize parrying could keep the feel of the game intact while steering away from difficulty modes by letting the player choose the length of the invulnerability. If someone could play Dark Souls with 50% more i-frames on the roll it’d be substantially easier and still feel like the same game.
I agree, that would be one way to address difficulty! But alas I suspect it will never happen, because people who make these kinds of games, and their super fans, attach so much cachet to becoming accomplished at dodges and parries with tight timing.
Also though I just find it to be such a bland mechanic at this point after playing 9000 games where it’s the centre of gameplay. I’m sure you end up being able to do more eventually in 9 Sols but at the moment I don’t have the endurance to find out.
Too true. As much as I like tough as nails games, I will never understand that mindset. It’s like some kinda gaming machoism for a lot of folks, whereas if I’m able to do something very difficult in video games it just makes me feel like an even bigger nerd. Plus, some times I just want to ratchet things down and chill with a game, not be on edge at all times.
That’s sick! I love me some difficulty sliders in games.
In case you haven’t seen this, there are difficulty sliders in the Gameplay settings that can make it much easier. Although sadly you can’t adjust parry timing.
Now this is what I call a doozy of a game. The facial capture stuff is uncanny, unsettling, and fascinating. The mission structure and narrative framing is bizarre and really jolting. The game does not feel good to play and is genuinely panic inducing.
I might be in love
I’ve also been dabbling in Dredge as a come-down, but honestly it’s providing a lot of the same emotions. A hell of a one-two combo-ing these back to back.
It got harder and harder toward the end, and I found myself finding subtler and subtler clues. I worked out the cot numbering and was able to get one set of three from that. I went back to the Doom chapter and successfully figured out how the Gunner and another were killed. I realized I had slightly mislabeled another killing, and played around with keywords to get that. Through small clues and trial-and-error, I got everyone available and then did the epilogue.
There are a few deaths that I contend are ambiguous enough in evidence that it’s easy to sit with the wrong descriptor for a long time. I’ve read that they sometimes allowed for multiple verbs, but around deaths like (I think) the butcher, I had it figured out early but kept second-guessing the person’s identity when I was really just wrong with the method of death. That felt sort of like putting a number in the wrong place in Sudoku when I figured it out.
But otherwise this was a really neat puzzle, with many different kinds of clues and, maybe, multiple ways of figuring some things out.
As for the main plot, I had assumed the captain had made a deal with the monsters that had led the four who escaped to leave. I had gathered that there was a mermaid watching over the ship in the distance (the sparkling in the water), but I wasn’t sure until the Lazarette whether she were protective or a harbinger. The kidnapping of the Formosan nobles in a middle chapter was where the idea of the artifact (the shells) firmly clicked into place for me. I also like that some deaths were mostly incidental but (a) showed how risky working on a ship could be, that you could be crushed by cargo or get sick, and (b) ended up providing details on people’s identities thanks to other parts of the scene.
Started playing the original Star Ocean on my journey towards tri-Ace enlightenment. Star Ocean is one of three games I heavily associate with the time I was lurking on emulation forums. The other two being Bahamut Lagoon and Tales of Phantasia. I remember these being “big deal” translations when they happened, and I remember playing a small amount of all of them, but never really getting very far. So far on this attempt, I’ve played a few hours and got myself into a truly labyrinthine cave and got so lost I had to look up directions. I got a bit frustrated by that, and then I got bit by a SaGa bug.
Got the urge to play a SaGa, so now I’m sidetracked back onto my path towards SaGa enlightenment. Wanted to play all the way through Final Fantasy Legend. I have played it a bit, but never completed it. Made a party of two humans, one mutant, and one monster. The inner-workings of this game I find pretty mysterious, which I can say about any SaGa game, and also the manual has incorrect information, which doesn’t help, but I feel like in these games I am supposed to be okay with not fully understanding what’s going on mechanically.
I’m having fun. Once I realized rapiers were fairly powerful ranged weapons, I just fed one of my humans two dozen agility pellets and now they’re pretty strong. My other human is kicking things. The manual described the martial art skills very mysteriously, as if they just get better as you use them. I’m not even sure if stats have an impact on them. I haven’t really fed my other human much other than HP and the kick is doing a lot of work for me.
The mutant is just growing to absurd power all on her own. She has an armor spell, a nimble spell, and a rapier and could solo any boss I’ve encountered if she needed to. The armor spell only has a few casts left but I’m hoping I can save the nimble casts and let that carry me a bit if I need it.
Been playing the Famicom version of Castlevania 3 all week.
Never has the volume nob on my stereo had such a direct effect on my enjoyment of a game — So much fun to hop in and blast it for a short session.
It’s been fun slowly uncovering the little secrets in hidden items or mechanics that help me get further in progressive playthroughs. The background sprite-work and color pallet are beautiful too. I love how the abstracted tile sets checker together — looking at you clock tower.
Also, I’m sure it’s been said before, but I love Simon’s chunky, punchy, kill-you strut so much. Such determination in every step towards the inevitable Dracula murdering.
Just lost most of my progress in Final Fantasy Legend and wanted to vent. I loaded a state when I meant to reset the emulator, and this reverted my save file back to where it was hours and hours ago. I was in cyberpunk neo-tokyo but now I’m back in the underwater castle. I might as well just start the game over.
I really like Castlevania 3, which is probably not an unusual opinion.
Been playing Tactics Ogre: Reborn lately. I don’t know that I’ve ever beaten Tactics Ogre but I think I’ve played most of it four or five times over my life. The last time was back in, like, 2018.
I have been playing Ys X: Nordics over the weekend and it’s a good time! My sicko brain had me start the game on Nightmare difficulty as a means of forcing me to proactively engage and become accomplished in its mechanics and I feel like I’m effortlessly conducting an orchestra.
The game has a dual-protagonist system where you can control either character separately or both at once, with each having its own benefits and disadvantages. It’s fun, and and whilst I wouldn’t say it’s quite as tight as the flash guards and dodges of the three-party-member games, there’s a fantastic risk/reward element to combat that emphasises the advantages of playing aggressively on harder difficulties.
The game is also channeling the exotic elements of Ys VIII and the chill sailing of Wind Waker and Skies of Arcadia as part of its sea-faring, island-hopping environment. I’m enjoying making additions to my crew and hanging out with them in my pirate ship.
I’m only about a third of the way through the game and it’s only now that I’m really being let loose from the reins but I’m super pleased that this has turned out as I’d hoped it would.
Gaming time continues to be a small slice of things for me, but I did manage to get through all of Rogue Trader’s first act on Unfair after a rough start. the first chapter of the new DLC and new companion both have my interest, but with Veilguard just a few days away I’ll be putting the game in cryogenic storage for the time being
The long wait is almost over! Whatever happens with Dragon Age from here, I hope the game goes well for Bioware’s sake. They’re still one of my favorite studios in spite of everything, and I want them around for a long time to come
I hit a real rough patch of not wanting to play anything at all, so I bought Donut County to play for a day and had a very pleasant time.
That said, I did get Dragon Quest working on my 3DS and did some leveling and money grinding, so I’ll probably continue with that. I only have it and Mother 3 left on my list for this year after bumping Cassette Beasts and Tactics Ogre to next year. (Lots of people started playing Tactics Ogre this year and I’m not sure why? Is it just because of Reborn? Very curious to me.)
