whatchu playing now

It's pretty cool. I did lose interest after around 10 hours, but I did seriously enjoy the time I spent in it. It really is like a combat-less BotW/TotK if that sounds like your jam.

the zelda games have very little mandatory combat anyway

yet they won't let you kill beedle smh

still chipping away at the megami tensei series. i think i'm nearing the end of one of the persona 1 paths. havent decided if i am gonna play it again for the other path or just go straight to P2, leaning to P2 because i've heard better things about it?

I'm publicly admitting to playing the demon game from the studio with terrible management (Diablo IV)

Finishing up Breath of the Wild -- I beat the game, now I want to get all the memories and do all the shrines. Maybe get the DLC too. Koroks I don't care about. Weakest part of the game was the combat -- my main strategy was to run away from everything, because I disliked the combat so much. I didn't laser-parry once until I beat the game and looked up some guides.

Also slowly working through Danganronpa V3 which I find to be a slog so far. Far too much wandering around trying to find the next cutscene trigger. I'm only on the second murder. It works great on Steam Deck despite the steam page saying it's unsupported.

Next big game is SF6.

Finished Stray, thought it was a sweet, creative, simple, visually stunning little adventure. Maybe next is ... A Plague Tale? At some point I want to start be Witcher or maybe even Skyrim (bought it on sale for $10!), but those seem like winter games. Maybe Plague, too ... hmm.

Just finished rachet and clank: riff apart. Was average, too much kiddie dribble for story I had to turn all sound of and podcast it. Combat was babies first shooter. I’m complaining but it’s me who is the joke finishing the whole game despite not liking it a few hours in. Nostalgia of playing the original at my local small town library and fond memories of getting in trouble for saying “up your arsenal” in grade 4. Playing lots of indies on the steam deck too, slay the spire getting the most love at the moment. Liking this bloodstained game too.

I picked up ps extra and feel obligated to play these big song triple A’s (ghosts, returnal, horizon, death stranding). I think I’ll have fun with returnal but will have to get over not playing with keyboard and mouse. I’ll try keep on open mind to ghosts/horizon but I’m not confident I’m going to like them, and here’s hoping Kojima was able to chanel some of his magic into death stranding. If anyone has any strong recommendations of which of those four to go for first I’d love to hear it

Just finished rachet and clank: riff apart. Was average, too much kiddie dribble for story I had to turn all sound of and podcast it. Combat was babies first shooter. I’m complaining but it’s me who is the joke finishing the whole game despite not liking it a few hours in. Nostalgia of playing the original at my local small town library and fond memories of getting in trouble for saying “up your arsenal” in grade 4. Playing lots of indies on the steam deck too, slay the spire getting the most love at the moment. Liking this bloodstained game too.

I picked up ps extra and feel obligated to play these big song triple A’s (ghosts, returnal, horizon, death stranding). I think I’ll have fun with returnal but will have to get over not playing with keyboard and mouse. I’ll try keep on open mind to ghosts/horizon but I’m not confident I’m going to like them, and here’s hoping Kojima was able to chanel some of his magic into death stranding. If anyone has any strong recommendations of which of those four to go for first I’d love to hear it

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart definitely seems like kid stuff, but sometimes you need something bright and smooth and colorful to offset, say, A Plague Tale: Innocence, which I just started.

Plague Tale imo is bad, narratively and gameplay wise, but I seem to have the minority opinion.

Death Stranding was something I played for a few hours that bored me out of my mind.

Ghost had fun combat but dumb dialogue and an exhausting map, I played several hours but gave up on it too.

HFW and HZD are among my favorite games on PS, I find the story to be fascinating.

I'll report back on Plague Tale, a lot of people did seem to like it (and the sequel, which is one reason I'm finally playing the first game). Seems fine so far.

rats aplenty

https://readfaced.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/peanuts_rats.gif?w=300&h=175&zoom=2

Sable is 50% off on steam right now btw

thanks i'm probably gonna save it for after zelda though by which tiem there will have been another steam sale or 2

So far I'd say "Plague Tale" is kind of rudimentary, generally well done but mostly pretty simple. In other words, despite being indebted to some aspects of it, it's no "Last of Us," though tbf, what else really is? I am still curious to see what if any advances or changes they made with the second one, though. And this one shouldn't take too long.

Ghosts of Tsushima is pretty. I can see why these open world games can get their hooks in people. Sometimes a popcorn flick is a good pallet cleanser

I loved Ghost of Tsushima. The DLC was also very worthwhile.

HP, in response to yr post about pickups a few days ago, Returnal and Death Stranding are some of my favorites of the past few years, but are going to be a little rough-going to start. Worth sticking with them.

I’ve got flack for sharing this knowledge here before… but shock horror Ghosts is a great podcast game! Blitzing through this history of rock podcast while slicing up mongols, it’s a good time!

I gave Returnal a go with a pirated version on PC and it is tough moving from Kb+M to controller! Think I will stick with it though, I really enjoy and appreciate the game design and aesthetic. I have started DS twice already and yeah, the beginning is rough with all the exposition. Kojima has enough good will with me (MGS2 is my all time fave) thought to keep pushing. Thanks for the recs!

"Plague Tale: Innocence" was pretty by the book, and by that I mean it felt like a YA novel (with some lazy surprise Star Wars tropes tossed in as well). Too much hand-holding as well, in every sense; Hugo was an annoying sibling, and the game explicitly spelled out too many solutions to its modest puzzles and challenges. Still, it had its moments, and I respect any indie game swinging for the AAA fences, even if it fell short of more its polished, more compelling cousins.

^^thanks for the review, seems like a definite skip for me

Ghosts of Tsushima was too mediocre for me. Did not seem to have a ingle new idea. Gameplay was not fun. Just a pretty wallpaper over a done and dusted video game design. Yet saying all this, I am enjoying forbidden west? It is much prettier. It has a unique visual identity (Tsushima was pretty, but boring, forbidden west is pretty and interesting!). The shooting mechanics are fun. The story actually “tries” to do something. Good Lord this Aloy voice actor is exasperating though. Her sigh after every word, absolutely infuriating. Ghosts = open world + nothing new + no variety. Forbidden West = open world + unique identity + much variety.

Playing this game on hard vs Tsushima on normal has probably heavily influenced my opinion too.

Rogue Legacy 2 dropped on PS Plus Extra yesterday so looking forward to spending about 30 hours on it without ever once getting past the first boss.

just broke 200,000 on robotron2084 for the first time. (blue label)

Rogue Legacy sounds like a cool idea, but when I see videos it looks kinda lame & shallow compared to Hollow Knight or something?

I'm playing Sekiro again since I couldn't find anything else to keep my interest, it's a blast so far (mostly because I'm much better at it now than on my original playthrough four years ago).

Started "Signalis," sort of for the second time (I'd played a bit of it with my 13-year old nephew, which was slow going). Nice change of pace from what I'd been playing, though I did forget there was no autosave and accidentally quit it too early and now need to play the (slow) beginning for the third time.

Just got a psvr2 for cheap second hand. Head hurts, brains hurts, not interested, going to sell it on and hopefully make $50 off it (I got it reaaaal cheap). At least I know now, it’s the 2d plain for me!

Bouncing between:

Rogue Legacy 2 (Exactly what I wanted from a sequel, even if I am awful at it)
Lonely Mountains: Downhill (Very chill, very hard)
A Hat in Time (This is too janky to actually enjoy, and I really want to enjoy a mindless 3D collectathon)
Yooka Laylee and the Whatever it's Called (Rock solid 2D platforming, still don't love the overworld stuff)

Might also try Inscryption later, too.

lonely mountains downhill is a masterpiece imo

Creeping through Signalis still, there is no way I could do this without a cheat sheet for the puzzles.

Not unrelated, the combination of puzzles and backtracking and limited storage and math/logic challenges in the map free area (Nowhere?) is kind of starting to really get on my nerves. Get the Wooden Ring and bring it to the alter behind the door that needs the Stone Key that can be found in the Blood Den that can only be opened when you're carrying the Silver Shoes, etc. I know it's old school par for the course, but it's a huge pain in the ass even before you throw in enemies. Almost bad enough to make me stop playing.

Yeah Nowhere was when I broke down and used a guide.

Raft, with friend, played for a week because we started to enjoy the story mode and visiting the larger islands/structures. Well, until they decided to make one of them completely underwater and highly frustrating. mugs.

xpost Even with a guide, and even with the difficulty set to casual, I barely made it through. Honestly, if I didn't know (just from a random spoiler) that this lead to a seamlessly fake ending, I would have just figured, yeah, that's the end, and deleted the game and never thought twice about it. But it's not the end (sigh). Taking a break, regardless.

i've been playing a bunch of ps2 games lately, so time to poll it

ps2 is still the big hole in my gaming knowledge alas. maybe by the time i'm 50 i will have had a chance to try all the good games on there

Started Final Fantasy XIV. Have tried MMO's before, never got it. I think I'm starting to get it..... Lord knows why anyone would play WoW while this exists

akka arrh is as you might expect a complete headfuck but what a delight to be playing a jeff minter game in twenty-oh-three. gridrunner was one of the all time arcade games on a home computer. was less interested in some of the whimsy - i was fairly indifferent to attack of the mutant camels - but these days the aesthetics are positively liberating.

akka arrh, despite being the sound your brain will be making after playing for five minutes, is also a surprisingly playable and enjoyable pick up/put down/drown three hours of your life in sort of game.

I loved attack of the mutant camels and how they stomped along but fair to say it's not up there with gridrunner. My brother says Minter was a creepy mofo and it was an open secret that he did unspeakable things with his llamas! I don't think he did Deus Ex Machina for the c64 and it seemed annoyingly pretentious to 10 yr old me. I can't believe he's only 11 years older than me, he looked like he was in his 30's in the 80's to me.

oh no those poor llamas! and he seemed so benign. distressing.

next time I talk to my brother I'll ask him if he got this info from a reliable source - just in case I'm besmirching the guy! But he is the software writing biz and knows lots of ppl in the industry.

i already believe it #teamllama

Been working through some stuff the last couple weeks:

BABBDI - Short, free (on steam at least) first person platformer/adventure game where you have to escape a abstract brutalist hell city. Recommended.
Sludge Life 2 - the grimy, goofy open-world exploration platformer gets bigger, goes vertical, and adds a cigarette bumming mechanic and not much else. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one, but play SL1 first.
Trombone Champ - Finally "beat" this one. Very fun, very dumb rhythm game with a puerile sense of humor (hope you like seeing poop!) and lots of public domain songs. They keep doing free updates with more tracks, too.
Lonely Mountains: Downhill - Thanks to all the people who recommended this upthread because it fucking rips. I do get annoyed with how often foregrounded tree branches block your vision though.
Balan Wonderworld - Bought this expecting a trainwreck, but I'm kind of enjoying it after a couple hours. Deadly Premonition is maybe my favorite video game of all time though so ymmv.

castlevania: symphony of the night

playing on an emulator on my laptop while on a lonely month-long research/work trip. i bought a little usb controller (shaped like an snes controller). supposedly this game gets very easy at some point but either i'm really bad at it or i'm still at the challenging part. the design is amazing

so happy we love katamari reroll is available. Something about that flower level floods me with endorphins.

flopson: 8bitdo sn30? i have a similar one but the left analog stick broke.

i beat danganronpa v3. funnily i have no interest in the extra modes after these games end, despite doing the personal time/dating sim stuff during the game. will probably finish phoenix wright spirit of justice next.

also playing some dumb idle games listed on galaxy.click

Bought Dave the Diver and played it for a bit tonight. I think I'm going to like this a lot.

A bunch of stuff on my wishlist went on sale, or at least past my comfort-level price point, so I picked up both Teslagrads, Tchia, Dredge and the PS5 version of Night in the Woods. Oh, and Remnant: From the Ashes, whose sequel is imminent and already getting great reviews. The last thing I need is more games, but I feel like I got a rhythm right now that's mostly disrupted by diving into 100+ hour monsters.

flopson: 8bitdo sn30? i have a similar one but the left analog stick broke.

this one looks way cuter and higher quality, might actually cop one, thx for the tip. this is what i bought:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71gFUv3JC5L._AC_SL1500_.jpg