whatchu playing now

probably? it's pretty rooted in the style of a bunch of japanese games in the first place (dq, pokemon, earthbound, moon, etc)

Yes but localizing a game jammed wall to wall with witty dialogue that depends on timing and slang is no small task. I've got a whole book about it going the opposite direction for Earthbound. So kind of curious how much of it potentially got rewritten vs. stuff that translated seamlessly, especially since it appears to be pretty darn popular over there. Might be interesting to compare.

Mario has always been more popular in North America than in Japan. I believe New Super Mario Bros. on the DS was the first one to sell well in Japan since the original.

I'm currently playing Mario Odyssey on my new Switch and it is wonderful. Kind of like SM64 but with 10x as much stuff.

that's just not true, mario is a big deal in japan, it was the consoles that flopped

zelda has a far bigger NA>Japan differential in interest (or did before botw) and metroid even bigger still

part of it is probably that they didn't make any new 2D marios for like 15 years until wii/ds

They didn't like 64/Sunshine in Japan?

they did fine proportional to the amount of N64s/gamecubes in japan (very few)

Mass Effect remake is up on gamepass so thought I'd finally give it a go
can't get over how zoomed in everything is, can barely see anything ahead and my character takes up so much of the screen. so used to 3rd person games that let you change the field of view or zoom back a bit, maybe the PC version allows this?
the writing and voice acting is pretty bad so far, i guess they kept all the original stuff from (looks it up) oh wow 15 years ago, that makes more sense i guess
can you tell I'm not having much fun haha

ass effect

Having a lot of fun with the painting game Chicory at the moment. Don't know if it will have much to offer once the novelty wears off but for now I'm into it.

Death's Door is a lot of fun so far (though I'm only about 2.5 levels into it), and appeals to me more than other Souls-likes because:

1. dying is a lot more forgiving (you don't lose your currency), and
2. the art style is cute and colorful (the grim dinginess of most From games feel unremittingly oppressive to me).

ya need a group, but this would be a fun ILX game.

City Guesser! you can set how difficult you want it to be, you have ten or more players, you see 100 seconds of footage/sound of a location, and you guess where it is. closer you are, more points.

10 rounds. seriously fun!

https://virtualvacation.us/guess

Just beat Demon's Souls and figured fuck it, let's go back to the first Dark Souls... it's wayyyyyyy easier than i remember.

I got Cyberpunk, and for as much shit as this game got last year, I’m rather enjoying it.

It's probably been patched a lot since release

cyberpunk is a lot of fun, but hilarious if you do any grinding at all — you can pretty easily make a character that can one-action (shot or hack) kill anyone

it’s really funny to take out an entire building of dudes from down the block

Guardians of the Galaxy in PS5 is a nice visual spectacle (looks consistently good in the new ray tracing mode, fine at 30fps unlike Miles Morales or Demon's Souls), engaging enough story and combat

I also got Assassin's Creed Valhalla off the recent Epic sale to casually play on the laptop and it's insanely beautiful looking, never thought I'd be indulging in escapism by walking round Tamworth tbh

I guess the gameplay loop will get appallingly repetitive sooner or later but I quite like the recent games' side mechanic of gradually rooting out cultists

i’ve got the microsoft game pass for pc thingy and have been playing halo infinite

this has always been a playstation/pc home, so i’ve had little experience with the halo series

jumped into halo infinite, playing it on the tv with a controller. completed most of the campaign, been having a lot of fun with the multiplayer. matchmaking is broken for the big game modes right now, but just jumping in and playing some 4v4 matches is a lot of fun. i’m not that competitive, just like having a fun time and it’s pretty well-balanced for that

i have no idea why the people who are the worst at driving the vehicles always decide to drive the warthog, but it’s hilarious. i jump in the back and inevitably the driver just drives directly into a rock

whole lot of jumping, if you didn’t gather that

halo is all about driving like an asshole and doing stupid stuff, i guess there are competitive types out there but i'm here for the madness

i was really enjoying the open world lite stuff and knocking out map icons, now that i'm back in corridor city i'm a little less interested. there's kinda too much story imo

looks and feels great, i love all the variant weapons and vehicles you can unlock

the grappleshot upgrades in single player are ridiculous and fun

I think half of the guys I've taken out since I upgraded it to the max level were just pure grapple kills

100% agree, the hookshot rules.

never thought I'd be indulging in escapism by walking round Tamworth tbh

This is the main reason I’m excited about this game, but I’m still in the intro section in Norway and it’s a slog, snowy mountains are just such an open world cliche at this point.

Yeah the start is fairly long and boring alright. Makes for a nice contrast when you then get access to the incredible natural majesty of [squints at notes] Ravensthorpe

At this very moment? The latest installment of "Antigen Internet Radio," on the Ship Full of Bombs podcast. SFOB is a real mixed bag, but this show is one of the best. I love his commentary, which is absolutely scathing.

Oops haha I misread the question.

awww and I was trying to imagine what a podcast that was also a game would sound like.
played thru Gorogoa in a couple of hours. perfect length for the kind of game it is, some pretty art and puzzling and then it's gone. good stuff.

That's a million dollar idea right there.

gorogoa rules

Played breath of the wild for a few hours. Ambitious changes for the series but some seem for the worse. Not sure if taking 10 minutes to walk in a straight line to the next dungeon really improves things. Most of the weapons suck so far -- maybe i should just bomb everything.

nba 2k22 is fun but has the very bad graphic design. every menu looks different and each one worse than the last. sometimes it's cool and technical and boring, sometimes it's jagged mountain dew lettering, sometimes it's these bizarre drop shadowed WWE PPV logo things, also every background is every color

has the difficulty improved? I used to win by 50 every game cos of how easy it was to steal back in the day, but it's been a few years

it changes difficulty based on how you play iirc. it can get pretty tough pretty quick if you know what you’re doing. i never had the patience to learn all the post up moves and crossovers and stuff though

i was never really good at any of that either, lol. just relying on steals and fast breaks

i am trying to unlearn my steal-spamming ways, getting called for it left and right here

i am shamefully kind of addicted to the myteam mode, the stupid pokemon thing that's wholly constructed to make you spend real money on imaginary cards. obviously i don't do that part but trying different arrangements of poke-players vs the computer is a good time. giannis wildly OP.

i uploaded this simplified graphic of the most famous sculpture of my metro area to use on a livery, and some guy chimed in with his own amusing artwork related anectode

https://www.gran-turismo.com/us/gtsport/user/notifications/decal/11767790/8368321499567751680

the middle aged anglo plur vibes of sim racing are something else

Really enjoying "nobody saves the world" so far ... snes zelda meets a boy and his blob?

Metroid Dread: I'm so happy that Nintendo still makes high quality 2D platformers. I feel like I'm around a third of the way through but it says I've found only 5% of items.

Slay the Spire: roguelite deckbuilder that I play at least once every day this month. much more variety than other roguelites i've tried. all of the characters are very different, each having their own deck of cards to work with.

finally finished Yakuza 0. i'm sure it was a masterpiece but i'd let it sit for more than a year so i was not following all the plot endings very well.

decided to jump into another game from the same stable; the first hour of Judgment is really good. less absurd but more fluid. the mystery/investigation/interrogation bits are promising

I did not enjoy my time in Yakuza 0

I love the Yakuza series unreservedly but being confused about labyrinthine plots is an integral part of it, and I would argue most yakuza media in general (good luck trying to keep track of what's happening in any of te 70's Fukusake films!).

lol true. is saw the first Battles without Honor and Humanity and loved it but also wondered how much crazier the series gets

Moncage (2020) is something like Gorogoa but with a cube that you rotate. If you like that "just roll with it" type of game, where it's hard to define exactly what's going on, it's a good one.

Vampire Survivors - finally someone made a good video game and it's $3

Cool game, but PC only :/

This is my first season doing Fantasy Critic, which is fantasy sports for video game reviews? It's a hoot so far.

link?

https://www.fantasycritic.games

cute but i dislike the review aggregator sites too much to play something based on them

sounds like it'd be very frustrating given how many games are delayed a year out (unless there are keeper leagues)