What have you all been playing!
I finished Cairn which was excellent! Highly recommend. I also finally played and beat RE4R DLC Seperate Ways. Also excellent! I love that game!
I’m about 10 hours into Esoteric Ebb and I’m very much in love. The writing and pacing of the game is super on point, and I’m already starting to feel sad as I’m getting closer and closer to the end.
Seems like there’s quite a few story beats you can miss though, so hopefully there’s a strong reason to come back to it after rolling credits.
Back on my bullshit in DOTA whilst my ever growing backlog looms menacingly behind me. I need to get back into playing ARC but the loot RNG can be really annoying sometimes.
Still plugging away at Pokémon Omega Ruby, my wife is playing Alpha Sapphire. Remembering just how fun and cool the 3DS is as a console. Also played a bit of Dragon Quest Builders on Steam Deck.
Mostly borderlands 3 with a friend and dungeons of hinterberg by myself.
The latter takes quite a while to get mechanically interesting (combat-wise, the general flow of the game is very interesting on its own), if you like the chill vibes and cutesy people it likely won’t be a problem for you, I started playing it while I was doing something else and I feel like I had to play way too muchh before it got really interesting, before that the combat is too spimplistic and same-y, almost all of it is hidden behind game progression and I don’t think you’re supposed to have a rich full experience on your first playthrough which is… A choice… Other than that, it’s really lovely and kinda chill, it’s not the smoothest combat in the world, but you don’t play it for the combat.
Borderlands 3 has the most fun guns in the series so far from the games I’ve played with my friend, which are bl 2, bl presequel and now bl3, next in line is tiny tina’s dnd campaign, hopefully we get to finish 3 after wine 11 improvements hit my distro on the main branch, I don’t want to be swapping that stuff.
Started playing War Thunder again after not playing for more than 5 years, surprisingly having fun even when loosing, expecting the grind to wear me down soon tho.
Coal LLC has been good over the past couple days without internet since I don’t care about steam save backups for that game.
I also recently installed my Oblivion GOTY copy from the 2000s on my potato desktop. Got through creating an argonian named Jabber and got part way through the escape route before stopping. Hopefully in a few months I can upgrade my desktop so I can play without the minor FPS issues and resulting gameplay jitters I have to deal with. Also bummed I couldn’t use the Unlock console command to go in and kill the other prisoner.
Otherwise, I have not been playing many other games outside the odd game of Rhythm Heaven Fever and Megamix or how I scummed my way through most of a 20 turn of mario party 5.
TCL is your friend. No need to unlock doors when you can float through them.
Yeah, I kinda forgot about that command since the last time I actually played Oblivion was before Skyrim. If I didn’t overwrite my save from before dealing with the emperor, I might load it just to kill him for fun.
Trails in the Sky First Chapter for the Switch. Never played anything from this series before but I’m totally vibing with it. The combat is super fun, the story is a slow burn but filled with a fun cast, and I really dig the art style. It’s not challenging or particularly dense, but it feels a sort of “comfort RPG” type voice that Dragon Quest seems to fill for a lot of people. Can’t wait to play more games from the series ☺️
Can’t wait to play more games from the series ☺️
The problem with that series at the moment is that they have a big hole in their releases on Switch. Second Chapter Remake should come out this year if they keep their release date, but then you are out of luck waiting for Third Chapter which will hopefully be released quickly. The next two games are available again, followed by another hole for Switch users with Cold Steel 1 and 2. The remaining games are all available again up to the newest entry in the saga.
It’s such a mess for Switch users who can’t just hit the missing games up on PC, especially since the games are one of those that definitely should be played in order without skipping entries.
So, if you’re looking for a “comfort RPG” might I recommend the Atelier series? Atelier Ryza: Everdarkness and Secret Hideout would be a good starting point. It has a less epic story than the Legend of Heroes series which spans almost 40 years, but in return you get something a lot more comfy with a pedigree of also close to 30 years (even though the stories aren’t linked so start with whatever trilogy you want).
Low key addicted to Slay the Spire 2 at the moment… Celeste is on the up and coming list so is sintopia when it releases.
Alternating between Deadlock and Overwatch. I want to start Life Is Strange: Reunion this week tho, but I spend more time watching my partner play Pokopia
I just polished off South Park: The Fractured But Whole. I’m a huge South Park fan, was a day 1 buyer of the Stick of Truth, and went out of my way (on my honeymoon of all things) to buy this game the day it came out. We got home a couple weeks later, I played it for a couple days, got stuck not too far into it, and abandoned it.
Sometime over the past year or so, I saw it in the Nintendo Switch store for cheap, and thought I’d give it a go again. Picked it back up about a week and a half ago on our Switch 2, and just went crazy with it. It’s as good as Stick of Truth, it’s just a bit more of a slow burn at the beginning. Wouldn’t recommend it on the Switch 2 though, it really chugged in a lot of spots. Not sure if that was the game or the console’s fault.
Started a new fallout new vegas run this time no fast travel or guns to really make myself explore and stick to melee and unarmed.
I finished my latest Baldur’s Gate 3 run, where I used mods to increase the party size and level cap (among others), but it wasn’t pretty. For some reason, after getting to Act 3 and rescuing Minsc, the game just didn’t want to exist anymore. It would constantly drop frames, until it got down to 2, which is obviously unplayable.
Apparently one of the latest hotfixes, which released in February messed something up and caused some major problems in Act 3 for some people. For me, this happened mainly when I had more than X party members, but only while running around. As I said, this started after getting Minsc, so for a while the game was fine with a party of 11 people, then the frame drops started. For a bit it worked with 8 people, but the more I played in Act 3, the more people I had to leave behind. At the end, even the default 4 almost were too much.
Weirdly enough, in combat everything was fine, no matter how many people there were, so I’d just get to some boss, go back to camp right before, get everyone, and start the fight. Still, some parts were absolute torture. I could play five minutes at most, maybe loot a single small room or talk with one or two people, then I’d have to restart my game. I was thinking about pausing the run and waiting for a patch, but since I was close to the end, and didn’t know when and if a patch would release, I just powered through and finished the game. Of course, when I made it to the epilogue and the game crashed one final time, Steam downloaded the hotfix that had been released a couple of minutes earlier.
Anyway, I’m starting another run, this time relatively normal, and going Dark Urge for the first time.
Elite Dangerous. The answer is always Elite Dangerous.
I’m not addicted though, I can stop playing when I want. 🙃
Finally finished Mother 3 and loved it. Relaxing now by playing a bunch of short arcade style games like River Raid and Kangaroo.
Just started Withering Rooms today, a very unique horror roguelike with a great story, some superb world building and some janky ass combat.
Only 2-3 hours in but I am really liking what I see so far.
I’ve been itching for a rougelike for a while and this looks right up my alley in terms of vibes, but I’ll await your final veredict on the combat.
I’ve seen enough to tell you that this will be quite a whiplash after Sekiro, that’s for sure. This is more Dark Souls 1 than anything, although without the stamina. It’s slow, it’s clunky, you run away and kite a lot. If you unironically liked the combat in DS1 you might enjoy this.
But that being said, I think there is also a bit of a design choice in making the combat clunky and difficult. You’re playing as a 14-year-old girl and it’s a horror game. Enemies are supposed to be scary. You’re not supposed to easily go toe to toe with everything.
Though in fairness I’ve also barely scratched the surface, and it looks like the game is both full of tools to use for combat and that this is the intention - use whatever you can to survive. Again goes with the horror. Spells, decoys, temporary invisibility, even a flamethrower according to the trailer. Plus hit and run attacks, hiding and backstabbing and so on.
We’ll see where I land on it, but so far the rest of the game has been so intriguing that I don’t mind the combat regardless.
There’s place in my heart for clunky combat but you’re right, maybe now’s not the right time for that one.
I have Enotria in my library (I pulled the trigger on it after reading about your playthroughs last year). I think I’ll go with it as I know more or less what to expect now.
Valuable insight as always, thanks.
Please don’t let me discourage you, I’ve played some more today and the game is amazing - it’s just not a game you play for the combat. It’s not like Sekiro or Ninja Gaiden or Rise of the Ronin or something where you’d be like “damn, I just want to get in some fun fights today”. Withering Rooms is all about exploration, story, world building, mood, atmosphere and light horror and so far it really shines there. The setting is really cool and it has a very unique vibe to it, almost hitting me the same way as the unique vibe of Dark Souls 1 hit me the first time I played it. So if you were itching for a roguelike and this is your vibe I think you’d like it a lot.
At the same time, I also really enjoyed Enotria too. I don’t know what it is with me and somewhat janky AA games with a lot of heart, but it’s a weakness I think. Greedfall was similar for me (though unfortunately I’ve heard the sequel is not so good 😓). I hope you don’t run into too many bugs, I know there are still some in Enotria unfortunately. But I had a good time with it. Really pretty and well designed environments, cool setting and Commedia Dell’Arte theme, good music too.
Just set your expectations at “charming AA jank” and not “Lies of P level polish” and you’ll be alright.
almost hitting me the same way as the unique vibe of Dark Souls 1hit me the first time I played it.
D: !!! Damn. Alright, I’m in. everything sounds pretty great.
set your expectations at “charming AA jank”
That’s fine, I can handle some jank, I 'aint thaaaat snobbish, heh. :P
(ㅅ´ ˘ `)
D: !!! Damn. Alright, I’m in. everything sounds pretty great.
I’ll be curious to see if you feel the same, but it’s this thing where the game has a very unique and distinct voice and art direction, the characters are all slightly odd, the game has a lot of little systems and secrets and details that make you go “oh that’s cool”. I dunno it’s totally vibes-based but it gives me a similar emotion. I guess the exploration focus in a dangerous environment also plays into it I’m sure.
Music to my ears, I’m excited. I’ll happily share my impressions.
I guess I’m a little too combat-brainrotted rn and I rushed to ask about it XD
