Whatcha Been Playing?

[Jon Cheetham]

In quarantine for two weeks and have my laptop handy with a Steam backlog offering hundreds of hours of new experiences, so naturally I'm replaying a Dishonored game again.

Did the first two missions of Death of the Outsider. I've now played Follow the Ink, the second level, three times and I still just have to do every secondary objective and rinse everything out of the map. It's such a brilliant fun sandbox and the best use of the new Contracts system in the game. It shows another direction they could take these if they ever come back to them.

[Magical_Isopod]

I know there's a lot of Chinese- and Korean-made RPGs that feature mainland China and other parts of East Asia... Koei's covered it extensively too. But those almost never get localized for the West.

I bought a couple of those in Hong Kong. Sword and Fairy 6 seemed kind of low budget and rubbish but Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament actually seemed pretty interesting and well put together. Like not amazing, but competent at least.

After a disastrous order from Play-Asia I never received, I got my money back and decided to splurge on something I've wanted for a while. I got FF7-9 for Switch. A website in Canada had them on sale and I got a discount for making an account with them, so it was actually quite a good bargain compared to other prices I've seen around.

I've never actually finished FF7, and I wanted to wash the remake from my brain, so this was as good a time as any.

The models and in-game graphics have cleaned up nicely for FF7!

Was the store PNP, or VGP? Both are great, I have started going to those guys instead of Amazon, even if it means paying shipping. PNP also acts as a distributor for Limited Run, so they often have stock of stuff that's otherwise eBay-only. My local, Microplay, is also looking into an online storefront after CoViD hit everyone so hard.

[ThirdDrawing]

Was the store PNP, or VGP? Both are great, I have started going to those guys instead of Amazon, even if it means paying shipping. PNP also acts as a distributor for Limited Run, so they often have stock of stuff that's otherwise eBay-only. My local, Microplay, is also looking into an online storefront after CoViD hit everyone so hard.

Are you in Ottawa?

I actually bought them from Shopville. They had them on sale, and I got a 10% discount for making an account on the site. It ended up being quite a bit cheaper than even VGP.

I initially *was* going to buy them from VGP but they were out of stock on FF9.

Also - what site is PNP?

[NoMoreSpearows]

I'm struggling to think of something that drops a game's overall quality quite like the second quest in The Legend of Zelda.

On paper, I get it. You beat the game, here's the harder mode, let's see how much you've learned. But there are so many asinine new additions that the whole thing seems less like a test and more a prank, and not even in the harmless variety. Walls you can't bomb, but you can walk through! Enemies where, if you make contact with them, you can't use your sword even when going into the next room! The very existence of the "leave your money or life" guy!

The dealbreaker for me, though, is the location of Level 6. On one of the graveyard tiles, if you use the whistle, one of the graves vanishes and is replaced by the dungeon entrance. To my knowledge, nothing indicates that doing so would accomplish anything; the only interaction with graves players would know about is pushing them, and touching even the grave that disappears with the whistle still causes a Ghini to emerge, which suggests that there's nothing unique about it. If there's something in the instruction booklet like "playing the whistle could cause something special to occur!" or something equally vague, I could maybe see a case for wanting to use it in every tile you walk on, but it still feels arbitrary and unintuitive.

Also I hate Wizzrobes, but that's a universal thing.

[Magical_Isopod]

Was the store PNP, or VGP? Both are great, I have started going to those guys instead of Amazon, even if it means paying shipping. PNP also acts as a distributor for Limited Run, so they often have stock of stuff that's otherwise eBay-only. My local, Microplay, is also looking into an online storefront after CoViD hit everyone so hard.

Are you in Ottawa?

I actually bought them from Shopville. They had them on sale, and I got a 10% discount for making an account on the site. It ended up being quite a bit cheaper than even VGP.

I initially *was* going to buy them from VGP but they were out of stock on FF9.

Also - what site is PNP?

I'm in London (Ontario). PNP is... PNPgamesonline.com - they're based out of Winnipeg, and they've been consistently great to me. They carry a lot of really obscure stuff, and for fair prices. Their used inventory is pretty bomb too... Stock is volatile but prices are great. I didn't even know Shopville was Canadian, I've bought from them many a time.

[ThirdDrawing]

I'm in London (Ontario). PNP is... PNPgamesonline.com - they're based out of Winnipeg, and they've been consistently great to me. They carry a lot of really obscure stuff, and for fair prices. Their used inventory is pretty bomb too... Stock is volatile but prices are great. I didn't even know Shopville was Canadian, I've bought from them many a time.

There's a Microplay in Ottawa as well, which is why I asked (which is where I am).

Haven't heard of PNP before, but I'll check them out - thanks for the heads up!

And for what it's worth, I got my package quickly and Shopville were great about responding, so it's nice to have another option. Also, yeah, they're Canadian and based in Alberta.

[Magical_Isopod]

There's a Microplay in Ottawa as well, which is why I asked (which is where I am).

Haven't heard of PNP before, but I'll check them out - thanks for the heads up!

And for what it's worth, I got my package quickly and Shopville were great about responding, so it's nice to have another option. Also, yeah, they're Canadian and based in Alberta.

Microplay is kind of a weird brand, because it's all franchised in Ontario. In Quebec, it's a chain. The locations in Brantford, Guelph and Cambridge are all one company, where the London and Newmarket locations are independent. Didn't know there was one in Ottawa, but that could be part of the Quebec system.

Here in London, our Microplay shares space with a Jumbo Video - both brands are owned by Videotron in Quebec. It's wild though, they still have those printed pamphlets for new video releases. It's like the 90s never ended. I've been renting Switch games, which has been a godsend, saving me from purchasing some god-awful Switch exclusives and Indies.

[ThirdDrawing]

I'm honestly shocked there's still a place that rents games!

Have you ever been to Entertainment Overload in St. Catherines/Hamilton?

[Gadget8Bit]

I’m back into Yakuza 0 in a big way. I’ve just started chapter 11 so I think I’m into the last third of the game.

It’s a gloriously silly, melodramatic soap opera and I love it

[Feirsteax]

I'm still making my way through Yakuza Kiwami on GamePass. I'm going through it really slowly for some reason, but I do enjoy it when I set aside the time to play it. Not sure why that is.
Just recently did the side story involving the "man with a big head", this game is ridiculous and funny, love it.

[Scrustle]

More Dragon's Dogma. I've been sticking with the various roguish classes, switching between them to see what they offer. I levelled the basic Strider up to max, and enjoyed that a lot. Then I switched over to the more longbow focused Ranger, but that didn't hold my attention for as long. No new dagger skills, and I didn't really enjoy the slower firing, longer range bow combat. So I deliberated on whether to try out either of the hybrid classes, and decided on Assassin. It's pretty fun to play as, with some interesting unique skills for both the daggers and sword. A lot of them are based around countering enemy attacks though, which seems to be a bit of a mixed bag in practice. Very satisfying to pull off, and do a lot of damage, but they only work on certain enemies and can leave you waiting around for them to act first. I'm most of the way levelled up with this class though, so I think I'll stick to it a bit more at least. I probably will also try Magick Archer next, but I'm not totally sure yet.

I've started venturing in to Bitterblack Isle and I'm in to the post-game for the main story too. Another aim for this run was to finally beat Bitterblack for once. I'm still having trouble with the difficulty yet again though. I mean, maybe I'm still not high enough level for it, but it still feels like something is wrong. So far I made it up to the Gazer boss fight, which I have beaten before, but this time I couldn't. I was in the low to mid 50s or so on this attempt. I'm planning on sticking around in the mainland post-game content for a while though, so I'm coming back later, but still. It feels like either I'm missing something huge, or the balancing for this area is completely off. I feel like at this point my gear is likely underpowered, thanks to the issue of it being hard to find decent gear I mentioned previously. The stuff they give you at the start of the game is better than anything else until pretty much where I am now it seems, where suddenly it's not good enough. So I've been looking at what other stuff is out there. It all seems extremely tedious to get hold of. Some of it comes from rewards for quests I can't get access to yet. Otherwise it's like a 2% drop change in certain chests. For each individual piece.

[Jobobonobo]

I have been on a bit of a remake streak lately as I am currently playing Panzer Dragoon for PS4. I never played the Saturn and I was always interested in this series. Got to Level 6 in over an hour but it gets pretty intense so got a game over and was shocked that I had to actually start from the beginning! In all fairness I know I am close to the end and I don't mind having to start over. I love me a good on rails shooter and dealing with enemies from all sides definitely can make things more intense requiring you to be more on your guard. Because I have become spoiled by a lot of modern gaming conveniences I went with the modern control scheme. It was not necessarily the smoothest start but by level 3 it already became second nature, becoming adept at dodging enemy attacks that at first would really give me grief. That guardian boss at level 4 is really the only major complaint I have. It is easy enough to dodge the attacks but it is so well armoured that you just have to slowly whittle down its health and it turns what could have been a challenging high octane battle into a real slog. Hope I get better at dealing with this bore as I play more of the game. But yeah, liking this so far. Very nice to play something short and simple in contrast to the other SEGA title I am currently going through, the long and complex Yakuza Kiwami 2.

On the second last chapter, hanging out with Haruka. I am unbelievably shit at karaoke, I don't get it. I got good scores in 0 and first Kiwami, why is this one so blooming tough?! Game has been utterly fantastic just before this brick wall as well but I will persevere!

I'm still making my way through Yakuza Kiwami on GamePass. I'm going through it really slowly for some reason, but I do enjoy it when I set aside the time to play it. Not sure why that is.
Just recently did the side story involving the "man with a big head", this game is ridiculous and funny, love it.

If you dig Kiwami, then I completely recommend you try Kiwami 2. It really leans in on the ridiculous aspects and the mini games are real time sinks.

I’m back into Yakuza 0 in a big way. I’ve just started chapter 11 so I think I’m into the last third of the game.

It’s a gloriously silly, melodramatic soap opera and I love it

Without giving too much away I will say there is still a fair bit of game left. Plenty for you to enjoy, easily one of my favourite games of the last generation. So, so good.

[duskvstweak]

I've been playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It's been a fun time but something isn't clicking 100%. I don't know what it is, can't put my finger on it, but there's something missing. Nothing big, but whatever it is, it's keeping me at a distance with truly loving the game.

[rob25X]

Project Cars (PS4 & XB1) - Easily my second favourite racing sim of the generation after Forza 5. It's got me strongly considering a racing wheel. Is a £100 wheel worth it, I don't know.

Res Evil 2 (PS4) - Not played more than an hour or two so far but I enjoyed what I did play. Seems like a very nice mixture of old and new. Although I played RE2 a lot back in the day I don't remember it that clearly.

Wipeout Omega Collection (PS4) - Very nice game. Enjoying it so far although I can see it being very challenging.

[Miririn]

Very long/boring post coming up. V sorry in advance, just needed to ramble into the void as none of my video game friends are playing these games.

Having trouble settling on something. I think lockdown has me feeling a bit bored and frustrated. Over the last two days I've flitted from "Dishonored 2" to "Ghost of Tsushima" to "Heaven's Vault" to "Stardew Valley". The problem isn't with any of the games, it's me(!) Hoping I'll land on something soon that will break me out of the funk.

I played "Ghost of Tsushima" the longest and while the world is absolutely flipping gorgeous (even the cat was transfixed by the moving grass), I found myself facing the massive open world and all those "?" markers on the map and suddenly feeling very tired and wishing that I was playing a linear non open-world game. It's just a personal preference, with some notable exceptions ("Breath of the Wild", for exanple. And "Spider-Man PS4" and "Spider-Man Miles Morales", because the traversal in those two games is so much fun). I think I prefer linear games where I can revisit encounters and improve as opposed to these over-whelming open-worlds where I feel sort of tired looking at the map instead of excited (I think I feel this way even about my beloved "Horizon Zero Dawn").

Anyway, so far...

The Good:

- It looks AMAZING. Sucker Punch really outdid themselves with the visuals.

- Jin Sakai face model also looks great. Because... I'm shallow. He's handsome. Please don't throw this back in my face next time I go on a rant about misogynistic gamers complaining about Abby's body in TLOU2, ok?

- Combat feels wonderful. Smooth and responsive, sounds good, makes melee fun - and I get to use arrows too (I LOVE playing archers in video games).

- Kazuya Nakai's voice (I speak Japanese so I'm playing the Japanese dub). Eighteen years of being a die-hard "One Piece" fan and I get a kick out of hearing Zoro complain about pirates.

The bad:

- I find the story... very generic/blah so far. I think/hope maybe it will get better? The game is inspired by Kurosawa and you can really see it in the visuals - but where are Kurosawa's characters (wild, complex, interesting) or his interesting plots. I worry I'm being too harsh though... maybe I'm cranky this week.

- The cliched dialogue. A game set in Japan where everyone talks about "honour" every five seconds? Some of the dialogue feels like it was put through a "so you're making a game set in feudal Japan" simulator. I think it also doesn't help that while samurai are fascinating as a political class, I don't have a romanticised view of them. And the central conflict in the first act of "honour vs being sneaky" isn't one I'm particularly engaged with. Every story beat so far feels very safe. And that's not necessarily a problem but there is a LOT of story to get through to get to the fun melee fights (at least, in act one. Maybe it gets better).

[Gadget8Bit]

Started the RE3 remake tonight

I’m enjoying it so far. However, the Nemesis chases are not fun. He closes distance so quickly and I’ve died a couple of times from him stunlocking me with attacks. Very frustrating. I’ll persist though. The set pieces are exciting and the general exploration is quite enjoyable

[Jon Cheetham]

Played the Immortals: Fenyx Rising demo on Switch. I don't know if the whole game is like this but this demo takes place on an exclusive archipelago full of light puzzles and fights including a boss. It's very compact and dense with stuff to do, unlike most Ubisoft game worlds where it's more expansive.

Immortals takes the cooking, gliding, stamina-based climbing, colourful visual style and even some of the puzzle mechanics from BOTW. I could personally do without stamina management during climbing and would rather it worked like Assassin's Creed, but there is a fun wrinkle to the gliding where you can boost yourself through the air like that one guy from X-Men. Combat is fun overall although the inputs for dodging and so on don't seem amazingly precise, or maybe I was just getting used to the timing.

The demo did its job and showed me whether I'm down for playing 30 hours of this at the moment (no as it turns out), but it's not without its appeal.

[ThirdDrawing]

There's a demo for Fenyx Rising?

[Jon Cheetham]

Yeah the Stadia one from last year, they just recently released it on console, same time as the DLC dropped.

[OldBailey]

Haven't posted for a good while, what better way to make a comeback than with a big self indulgent list of what I've been playing these last few months, listed highly scientifically in order of how much I've enjoyed them. Why not eh?

Front Mission: Gun Hazard (SNES)

Fan translated JP only side scrolling mech RPG. It's basically a plot heavy sequel to Cybernator with RPG style progression systems, made under the supervision of some of Squaresoft's 16-bit game dev superstars with a soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda. It's exactly as good as that sounds. Brilliant game from start to finish.

Rallisport Challenge 2 (Xbox)

Once a cutting edge sim, now feels almost arcadey Vs contemporary games. Massive list of events with just a couple of button presses between them, no faffing about. Exactly what I want from a racing game. Incredible 60fps graphical showcase for the old box too, stunning game.

Ys: Book 1 & 2 (Wii VC)

I vowed to go back to this after loving The Oath in Felghana last year. This time it clicked. Breezy, story-light action adventure with a predictably wonderful soundtrack. Looking forward to playing 3-5 which I've never touched. I so wish Falcom would go back to this gameplay first design philosophy.

Valkyrie Profile (PS1)

It's pretty rare these days for a jrpg to hold my attention to completion but this highly innovative take on the genre neatly swerves a lot of the tropes that usually cause me to drift off. No random battles, highly interactive combo based battle system, fun 2d side scrolling exploration and mercifully short, snappy story sequences that still manage to have plenty to say. Oh and it looks breathtaking on a CRT.

Maken X (Dreamcast)

I finally got around to modding my Dreamcast with an ODE, a great opportunity to check out the brilliant work of fans in producing rom hacks, translations and ports. I'd previously tried with this game but it suffers from an excruciatingly bad localisation and some truly terrible voice acting that obliterates the atmosphere. Played through the fan made undub which reinstates the OG voice acting which helps a great deal. Really fun, unique game that managed to nail 1st person melee combat way back in '99. Very much looking forward to playing the Atomiswave ports that have sprung up recently too.

10,000 Bullets (PS2)

Lesser known gun based stylish character action game. It's a lot of fun, looks great in motion and has some great boss fights which make good use if its Matrix style bullet time mechanics. A flaky lock on system and some real budget production values undermine an otherwise very cool, overlooked game. Lovely soundtrack too.