She may have some strong convictions, but don’t ya just love her?
Back in April I kept find her casing my house at night. She’d try to play it off casually.
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I wrapped Veilguard up nice and tidy today. On the whole, I enjoyed my time with it, despite the game’s clumsy first act. Where the game falls short is in its suite of companions and its protagonist, all of which are weaker than prior entries, and the romances are apparently quite weak across the board (I’ve only done one, naturally, after one playthrough), with far less content compared to prior games
But the combat never stopped being satisfying, and the broader story itself kept me captivated (again, once I got through that first act and things actually got in motion). As certified Solavellan trash, I was also happy with the conclusion of that arc (and I suppose, for me, this is crucial, as it’s the main reason I was interested in the next game in the series)
The game’s fascinating in a number of ways, as you can see so much of its troubled development and the changes in Bioware over the last 15 years come to fruition with Veilguard. In many ways, it was hard for me to escape the feeling that with many of the principle figures now departed from Bioware, those remaining were determined to boldly declare their vision for Dragon Age as a whole (and whether that’s better or worse is going to depend on what each individual finds most important to the series)
A few hours removed from the conclusion, I’m presently ambivalent—I liked some of what they were doing and disliked other things—but I do hope that for both the upcoming Mass Effect and any future Dragon Age games, they make better decisions when it comes to character writing (both for companions and the protagonist)
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I’m nowhere near the end yet but I’d agree, and I’d add that an easy way to get a leg up on fixing that problem would be to inject some venom into these characters. I don’t need any villains on the team, but it would be nice to go back to a BioWare where not every character gets along. Some of that stuff could often be surface level, but it still felt interesting and worthwhile to walk in on Miranda and Jack screaming at each other.
Same goes for our protagonist. You don’t need to include a Baldur’s Gate 3 Dark Urge situation to let me be a bit of an ass. I mostly just pick the bottom right dialogue wheel option (serious/direct which correlates with renegade) and in half of them he delivers the line with a smile anyway lol
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I had been looking forward to Ys X: Nordics for a couple of years at this point however I started playing it under much less than ideal circumstances. I only had about ~30 minutes a night to play it, and it is absolutely not designed for that, especially in the early game. It took me longer than a week to get through the opening and first dungeon, and I don’t really have any investment in the story, despite the dialogue taking up the majority of the 3 hours I’ve spent with it so far. The new cast seems likable enough, but it’s very long-winded. I think Falcom’s storytelling of late has been a little hit and miss, and the slow-ramp killed my momentum. I know it’s going to be great once I get into it, but I felt bad playing it and had to put it down.
For something easier to jump in and out of I have been working through Flowstone Saga. It’s like a Puyo Puyo Tetris story mode meets Soul Blazer town building. It doesn’t have deep RPG mechanics (just permanent upgrades and weapons/accessories to equip) or that unique of a story, but it’s very good natured. Like Ys, it has a lot of tutorials for special moves and ways to use your mana, but I skipped through some of those and have been able to do just fine beating the tetris puzzles quickly. I’m sure at the 2 hard modes you need to rely more on the game’s unique mechanics, but the “Normal” mode is the kind of easy game I’m looking for right now. It’s got pretty decent presentation for a indie game, I would recommend it if it looks interesting to you.
Speaking of easy games, I started Kirby and the Forgotten Land this weekend. It is exactly the kind of low-key thing I want right now. I appreciate how much thought has gone into putting in secrets and side objectives. It definitely gives you reason to replay levels and it’s got a decent challenge to 100% all of the timed challenges. The animations are a treat, and I’m quite glad I picked it up.
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I think that’s a large part of what I was missing, yeah: that classic Bioware venom—I think of Cassandra going after Varric in Inquisition after she founds out he knew Hawke was alive as another example.
Most of the companions in Veilguard feel pretty shallow compared to the complexities of prior casts, and Rook doesn’t really have the same range of attitude of Hawke (who is the closest analogue in the series), making them a lot less satisfying to roleplay with
It’s really a shame, because I think most of the stuff around the central cast is actually pretty solid even if it isn’t necessarily their best work
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Oh my god, the final boss in Wario Land 3 FUCKING SUCKS and every restart consumes at least twenty seconds of mashing A, then B.
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What do you think about that game overall? I didn’t play much because I found it generally more irritating and tiresome than the other Wario Land games so I never stuck with it. I figured it must get better though since so many people seem to hold it in high regard, so it’s interesting to hear about the final section being annoying
Because i like suffer it seems, i just started No Man’s Sky. My partner has 1000s of hours on it, so they are mentoring me a little and i’m now doing the new expedition. On the regular PS5 the game is pretty, i can totally see myself just getting in, wandering around and listening to something.
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I’m not normally a person that hops between many games in parallel but some of the games I am playing at the moment, or have recently played are:
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Kind of a weird one for me. This is the second time I’m playing it; the first was with Ms LeFish earlier this year, and now I’m playing it with a buddy of mine who is an obsessive trophy hunter. That I wouldn’t necessarily mind so much but there is one trophy that requires grinding an utterly obscene amount of money - casually playing, you’d maybe get 3% of what’s required by the end of the main game.
The thing is, repeatedly playing the postgame over and over again with my buddy has been really good and fun, and oddly elicits the realisation of the billions of guns fantasy that the rest of the game doesn’t in so much as that as your party climbs the difficulty ladder, so does the choice of weaponry expand. And it’s good! It’s just a shame that the rest of the game is a bit too floppy otherwise.
Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Tolls
I had a really good time with this but I didn’t feel incentivised to 100% it. The game is an homage to Game Boy Colour games with some really beautiful artwork presented within the limitations of the palette. The game is a “fast” platformer with a Gameboy Kirby-like level design; small rooms, long stretches - lovely stuff.
The magic that this game has though is that it feels immensely satisfying to run and jump in this game; like the dopamine highs of repeatedly jumping on stuff up to a 1-up in Super Mario World. It’s that joyous and I love it.
Proverbs
I only became aware of this after, I think, @yeso posted about its imminent release in one of the game threads. Succinctly, it’s a 50,000+ tile Minesweeper puzzle made up of a couple hundred individual puzzles of varying sizes that combined create a painting.
I’ve been playing this as my “chill out before bed under a blanket with some tea” game and it’s deliriously enticing in a way that goes beyond the relaxation of spending time with a few Picross puzzles. Ms LeFish joined me for some of the earlier puzzles and enjoyed it so much that she’s got it too.
I can also recommend dual wielding a mouse and left analogue stick as an input method.
Wolfenstein: The New Order
I’ve been keen to give these games a spin for a long while and I found myself biting the bullet the other day after facing some intense choice paralysis. I’m only a few stages into the game but it feels as good as a lot of people say it is. My only complaints are that I really wish that it had a big Crazy Taxi arrow telling me where to go because I’ve been stuck to the point of checking a walkthrough several times. The second being that some of the checkpoints lock you out of previous areas in a stage and I found myself soft locked a little by having too little ammo at one point, necessitating having to lower the default difficulty slightly.
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Played a bit of the PS2 port of Time Crisis: Crisis Zone last night on my Steam Deck. I was craving a low stakes popcorn game, and I wanted to see (and be the cause of) lots of fun particle effects and debris. Wish fulfilled!
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I may have been in a bad mood last night when I attempted it lol. We will see. I think this game has a lot of tedium getting in its way. When I started my playthrough sometime last year probably @treefroggy mentioned the loss of Wario’s abilities as a sticking point. I found the disempowerment frustrating at first, especially so hot off the heels of the second game, but I think that’s by design and even OK and I got used to it kinda quickly and found the simplicity of movement streamlining the experience while my mission was still to open only grey and maybe red chests in whatever stage opened up. Eventually you wind up with a ton more options for traversal and forks in the road and don’t know where to head next (it’s important to consult the stone face at the temple from way back at the beginning of your route for hints on where to go). But navigating menus and ducking out of levels isn’t as snappy as I wish it were since the game is always saving and there’s a day-night system. You can hit select on the overworld to switch cardinal quadrants of the island and this makes things easier—both of the aforementioned tips are no doubt somewhere in the manual and that’s kind of on me if I’ve completely fallen out of the habit of consulting the manual if there is one for a game I’m about to play. I think this is the best form a GBC Wario Land could have taken, which is to say design trends are overwhelming a dinky system. It’s at it’s best when you’re just Wario brute-forcing your way through swamps and bullying everyone you come in contact with.
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I haven’t been doing much gaming lately, been a weird week. However, I’ve still played a bit.
I’m getting bored of the Castlevania DLC for Vampire Survivors. I’m at the point where I have almost done everything, so I feel like I might as well do everything. Something that, having played later ‘survivors’ style (do we have a name for this yet?) games, I didn’t fully realize is that the genre has moved on from its progenitor in pretty significant ways. Primarily, people have made it play well.
There was a lot of Monster Hunter talk in my video games sphere, and that made me want to give Rise another try. I haven’t really grabbed onto a Monster Hunter game since 4. And I didn’t really play them before 4 either. But anyway, World was out of my reach economically, but Rise came out on Switch so I got that. I didn’t stick with it the first time, I think because I chose a bad weapon. This time, I’m going with the long sword, which is what I used in 4, and I’m having fun but I’m still not sure if I’ll stick with it.
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Xenoblade Chronicles walked so this giant goat could run.
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This is literally my situation with Nordics too! Only I was just trying to play the demo and dang does it take forever for anything to happen! I have a serious soft spot for Ys as a series and Falcom as a developer but wowee if they are not the most long-winded games I’ve played in years! Ironically I feel as though they aren’t long winded about the thing I’d most like to know more about: the combat system. Once I had actually gotten to a point where I could do any combat at all, it was like they threw me in the deep end and as a result it feels extremely button mashy to me.
Like you said though, I can kinda tell it’ll be great once I get there, but yikes is it taking forever!
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Post-Trails Falcom has just kept going more and more this direction, yeah. I do want to stress that it’s worth it though! Been having a wonderful time with the game and the plethora of little mechanics it has.
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I thought I was almost finished with the Castlevania DLC but actually I was almost half finished.
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i have a big thing for survivor-type games (i’ve heard them called bullet heavens but that feels forced) and have been bouncing between a few. it helps that they’re usually less than 5 dollars.
the one i’ve enjoyed the most is boneraiser minions which has a certain single-dev charm combined with a color palette/aesthetic i enjoy and enough inter-round upgrade paths to keep things interesting. 
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hell yeah I played this on and off through October for my spooky down time. great game.
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Anyway I finished Wario Land 3. Done and dusted. Easily my least favourite so far. Kills its own momentum! Many such cases, as they say.
I might not get to it tonight but that huge patch for Sea of Stars (2023) came out today and with it the québécois localization which I’ve been dying for.
I’m also still playing Baroque (1998) and Silent Hill 2 (2001) and you can catch me streaming those sometimes in the unofficial IC discord!
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