I tried playing No Man’s Sky over the weekend and could not figure out what I was doing. I’ve played the game in fits and starts since launch and fired up a save from exactly a year ago. I was completely lost so I played Minecraft instead.
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Playing the Sims 4 with my partner (free version on PS5) started as a nice couples activity where she would tell me what to do and I was the only one willing to learn the terrible console controller configuration. I was awful at this job however so now she’s taken control and I’m relegated to spectator. She’s done a great job though and our imaginary house has three floors, indoor pool, a nice balcony and an artist studio (will post pictures once finished).
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Didn’t need another free to play gacha game, but I have been wanting a wizardry-like on y tablet for a while. So I downloaded Wizardry Variants Daphne, and it kind of works. At least now in the very early stages of the game and the gacha just starting.
This mirrors basically my exact experience with my partner and Sims 4 on PS5. She is the expert and I have been removed from the equation which is fine.
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like many others, i’ve been (very slowly) playing metaphor. i don’t have much to say about it other than i love it. i’m trying not to participate in the discussion too much to enjoy the thrill of discovery, but i think @Herb sums up my feelings quite well.
aside from that, kunitsu-gami had me itching to play more tower defense, so i’ve been playing this game called towerfall which more or less delivers what it promises on. my only complaint is i kinda stumbled into an op strategy early on that i can just use on every map and basically win every time lol. a good “one round to relax” type game.
i also played about an hour of tohou mystia’s izakaya. despite being peripherally aware of tohou for what feels like forever, this is the first game i’ve ever played and it’s a fan-project spin-off at that. it’s…really good? it definitely has a rabid “fan project” energy especially when it comes to the story and dialogue. while the anime girl aesthetic is not my thing, there’s such an enthusiasm and care on display that i have no choice but to sit back and observe without judgement, almost as if i’m attending an unfamiliar religious ceremony as a guest. the gameplay itself is the micro-managing “systems and menus” based stuff i love and your periodic reward is gorgeous pixel art panels like this:
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Yup, that’s something that at least makes it funnier to me. The problem for me doesn’t lie in the intricacies of those choices, as I feel I want to see more and more and what comes next (which is the interesting part of those, as it’s more relational VN romcom/friendship mechanic system), but in the core of those, which is the idea and aftertaste it gives, since your interaction is in order to unlock a high benefit and you have to unlock them all to be at your best.
The evolution of choices makes it better than a P3R in that sense, but the social link still irks me.
Also, I don’t want to be a debbie downer. This:
Is what feels right to me, in the sense that the game, specially at times, gives you ample space to really articulate and unlock all, which I think was a worry before. But the idea of getting stats to unlock certain things to do still feel terrible to me in a way that I am “extracting” a benefit instead of seeing what that can offer and then finding an unexpected reward.
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I’ve been trying to finish up Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin while it’s still spooky season and also because there’s a new Dragon Age coming out tomorrow. The game is a pretty good handheld Igavania, which comes with various trappings and things I don’t quite love but overall it’s still fun and cool to play Castlevania. I just wanted to share an anecdote from it.
There are these sidequests that you can do for a ghost man, and I fully stopped doing them when I got to one that wanted me to do some sort of Street Fighter move on a DS d-pad. I physically could not do it. I tried repeatedly and then sometimes in quiet moments while adventuring I’d make 10-20 more failed attempts.
I reach the point in the game where I can go after the big bad vampire, and as I stock up on items I decide to make one final attempt. Somehow it works. The next side quest I unlock is to do some other, even more complicated maneuver. One attempt and I did it. The next quest? Do three in a row. Bing, bang, boom. Done. I have no idea what changed and what I did, or for that matter what these moves even do. I did it, though.
I fight the boss. It’s pretty hard. I freak out at the end of a long drawn out battle, thinking I’m going to lose, and press a bunch of stuff at once trying to guard, attack, crouch, and move all at once. Somehow that makes the initial, impossible maneuver work. It’s the finishing blow and I win the fight, entirely unintentionally using a move that I still don’t understand how to do, or what its purpose is.
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This makes a lot of sense to me. Before I took it that you meant your hangup was that the player has to give perfect answers in each scenario like Persona in order to extract benefit. Yeah, the way social links are made into rote tasks does take from things a bit and they would be more interesting if they were to happen more organically and just seeing them could be it’s own reward.
Makes me think of a scene with Setzer in FFVI and how just finding it was its own neat little reward. When you’re on the island where Vector is, there is a point where you can go back to the airship and talk to Setzer and he’ll reflect on his past if you talk to him. This scene is easily missable because the party really has no reason to return to the airship at that specific spot in the game, but just finding something unique like this was a revelation to me when I saw it, having played the game umpteen times and never previously seeing it.
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I’ve luckily reached a point in the year (& in life) where I’ve gained tons of time back with which I can enjoy playing a lot of video games, and it’s tremendous. Very grateful. I play games and read books like a mad man, in that I’ll have about 5 different books and similar number of games going at the same time, and just rotate new ones in as others are finished (or if I lose interest). Although, I do try to limit the number of things I allow myself to bounce around between, for the sake of actually getting through the books/games I want to fully finish.
So right now I’m still slowly going through San Andreas and FF6 Advance, but also recently added back Persona 5 Royal to the mix. I really love hanging out with the music of that game and its atmosphere right before bed, so I’ll be also slowly going through that one now as well.
Finally started my long awaited Yakuza series run with 0 last night and this will most likely end up being my favorite series ever. Nothing new to add to the praise of this game. But as someone who has avoided any hints of what the story is about/spoilers etc, while also constantly hearing about what a great series it is over the years, and also knowing it sounded like the exact type of game I’d love; it really feels amazing to finally experience it for myself and know I have many many many hours of Yakuza ahead of me. I was tempted to start playing Infinite Wealth when I bought it on the Steam sale, but I’d rather experience everything in order, and I have the time, so here we go. Will be an awesome time, can already tell.
I picked up New Star GP during a recent sale for my sports game fix, and it’s a pretty awesome racing game that combines the aesthetic of Virtua Racing with the content of a Formula 1 game. The career mode spans the different decades of racing, starting in the 80s and progressing as you win each championship. So far it’s the right amount of fun, challenge, reward and depth to keep me coming back to it. Plus the music is 10/10. It’s a great game to pick up for a little bit each day or whenever, and progress through a GP weekend or part of it, and slowly work through the career mode.
I kind of started yet another Ninja Gaiden Black run, just because I love that game THE MOST, and recently got Xbox emulation going on my Steam Deck. And Metal Slug Tactics comes out next week, so that will have to get slotted in there somewhere as well. Gotta love it!
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should you ever feel like sharing what you’re reading: the mortal enemy of videogames
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Currently trekking through Days Gone and Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi and enjoying both a good bit. Occasionally dipping into a replay of Borderlands 1 and chipping at Wolfenstein: The New Order which is way cooler than I thought it would be and wish I had played it sooner.
@Slink reminds me I should pick up my Yakuza play again! I got completely side tracked by the slot car mini game prior to moving on to other games lol
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I also started Yakuza 0 this year for the first time! Got sidetracked by Metaphor, but I am excited to jump back in when the time is right. Even only 2 hours in, you can see why people love the vibes in that game.
Really feels like a prerequisite IC game, so hopefully we can both find the time to play it 
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Anyone here pick up that Final Fantasy 16 now that it’s on PC? It’s a divisive game. After reading about, I was worried about how it’d treat it’s female characters and that the pacing would be rough, but I (mostly) disagree with both those takes and I really like it.
It particularly excels at starting low and slowly building up into very intense moments. It makes me think of prog music lol.
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Okay so I just played my first ever round of Mushihimesama and my brain is on fire right now. Like, all the neurons firing all the time.
I’m not sure if you can run out of continues in this game. I did use quite a few but I also had some moments in which I was gaming™. Some real matrix level plays there. So I cleared the game in original mode on my first try! I also got an achievement for clearing without using any bombs because I didn’t know that was a thing, haha.
There were quite some slow downs at certain points when I was shooting, moving and large clusters of enemies were coming at me all at the same time.
I wasn’t sure how I would feel about the bug theme but it actually ruled. Especially because at least the last boss was a person piloting a bug like a space ship? I might be getting mushy for mushi thanks to this game.
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I’m very excited to play FFXVI and I know I’ll love it.
Everyone hated FFXV too but I thought it was neat.
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i liked ffxvi quite a bit! the spectacle in that game are second to none. i heard everyone say “ignoring the side quests” was a good idea but i didn’t listen. i wish i did!
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FFXVI rules!
I think it would certainly be even better if the side quests didn’t feel like homework and if the women in the game had at least a bit more agency. But the main path through the game is quite the experience.
Those epic boss fights are easily carrying the rest of the game’s weaker points over the finish line in my opinion.
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What’s crazy about the side quests is that they experience exponential growth over the course of the game. I heard they were bad but as an MMO player I didn’t mind them at first. Just a couple between story missions. Then by the end it seems like they made the whole plane out of bad side quests. Cool game though
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this was my experience too. i played the first few and kinda liked the mmo-ness of them along with the lackadaisical lore they dolled out. everyone was like “oh just wait” and i still didn’t believe them…
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Fortunately for me, I don’t even like sidequests!
Though FFXV is sort of a game made of sidequests until it’s a game about sad bros at the end of the world.
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