Whatcha Been Playing?

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
User avatar
stvnorman
Member
Posts: 911
Joined: March 19th, 2013, 8:09 pm
Location: Keysoe, Bedfordshire, UK
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

I was lucky enough to be given a couple of review codes this week, one for the new Cotton Reboot and one for DariusBurst Another Chronicle EX+, both just launched on Switch (and PS4).

I’ve been a Cotton fan for a while, but it’s never been easy to access the best of this often Japan-only witchy cute ‘em up. This is a complete modern overhaul of the original 1991 arcade game that’s a bit more bullet-hell and absolutely stunning to experience. There’s also the previously unreleased here 1993 Sharp X68000 remaster of the original, and for anyone that loves that original, you’re in for a treat here!

DariusBurst is a port of the 2010 arcade game that was a port of the PSP game, with an insane amount of original and new modes and missions, but it’s all just more of the classic undersea robot fish monster bullet-swarm chaos! I had a lot of problems with the user interface, and it’s not really something you’ll want to play handheld, but the game itself is a beauty once you get there, with an incredible soundtrack that becomes intrinsic to its adrenaline rush and some deep and innovative tactical weapon mechanics too. Great stuff!

Also quite deep into Luigi’s Mansion on GameCube, played a load more Stardew Valley, a load of Golf on C64 for a Twitter high score contest, and inspired by the recent Cane and Rinse podcast, I dug out Sega Rally on PS3… which indirectly led to a load of Motorstorm too!
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8422
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Finally found a couple of games that seem to be drawing me in. I've had Bayonetta 2 on Switch in my back pocket for ages since I bought the double pack a while back. Absolutely loved the first game last year, and just started the second one last night. Only done a few stages, but spent most the evening going back over the same levels to get higher scores. Awesome fun so far.

I've also started what I believe roughly translates as Yakuza: Black Panther (?) in English, but it's the Japan only PSP Yakuza game. I found an English fan translation patch, and so far so good. The story is interesting and the combat is a bit different to the normal Yakuza games. It's more of a 1v1 fighting style, although you do actually take on multiple enemies on occasion. Great so far, though!

The translation seems fairly decent, although worth mentioning that it's only the main story that's been translated, so the side quests are unplayable - or, rather, you won't have a clue what's going on (unless you can read Japanese). A lot of the item descriptions are not translated either, but this won't be an issue for fans of the series as they're largely the same items you find in every game.
User avatar
Truk_Kurt
Member
Posts: 692
Joined: July 9th, 2015, 10:00 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Alex79uk wrote: August 1st, 2021, 4:58 pm I've also started what I believe roughly translates as Yakuza: Black Panther (?) in English, but it's the Japan only PSP Yakuza game.
That's cool Alex, are you playing on Vita? I assume it's not an official patch
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8422
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Truk_Kurt wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 9:51 am
Alex79uk wrote: August 1st, 2021, 4:58 pm I've also started what I believe roughly translates as Yakuza: Black Panther (?) in English, but it's the Japan only PSP Yakuza game.
That's cool Alex, are you playing on Vita? I assume it's not an official patch
Yeah playing on Vita, which is 'hacked'. No it's just a fan patch I downloaded online. The game is decent, shame it never came west really. I'd love to play the ones set in ancient Japan too, but they're exclusive to Japan as well.
User avatar
ColinAlonso
Member
Posts: 585
Joined: September 6th, 2016, 9:13 pm
Location: Dublin

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ColinAlonso »

Alex79uk wrote: August 1st, 2021, 4:58 pm Finally found a couple of games that seem to be drawing me in.
Good to hear, I was in a similar funk for a couple of months there.

I've been playing Spider-Man: Miles Morales. At the start, I thought that since it didn't add much to the original (which I loved) that I might get bored of retreading old ground, yet here I am, collecting all the trinkets, clearing out bases and swinging through New York once again. Good popcorn fun.

I'm also on chapter 4 of Yakuza: Like a Dragon and I still feel that the game hasn't opened up, particularly combat, where I don't seem to have any heat actions, or the ability to change jobs yet.

I also played a few levels of Drill Dozer after Ben played it on his stream last week.
ThirdDrawing wrote: July 29th, 2021, 10:38 am Finished the first Chapter of Great Ace Attorney.

The writing is sharp, the characters look great, the music is really fantastic.

If you're a fan of the Phoenix Wright games, or visual novels, don't hesitate to pick this up.
Is there a physical release for this, I can only see one in North America? I know Capcom hasn't been fond of European physical releases for Ace Attorney in the last few years.
User avatar
ThirdDrawing
Member
Posts: 571
Joined: October 13th, 2016, 2:33 pm
Location: Poverty Stricken StudentLand

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ThirdDrawing »

ColinAlonso wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 11:19 pm Is there a physical release for this, I can only see one in North America? I know Capcom hasn't been fond of European physical releases for Ace Attorney in the last few years.
I'm in Canada, so that's how I got the physical release.

But I found the NA release and the Japanese release of Phoenix Wright 1-3 (which has English) on Amazon.uk


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Attorney ... 555&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gyakuten-Saiba ... 52&sr=8-14

i also found it here. This one has free UK postage.

https://www.base.com/buy/product/the-gr ... gaacns.htm


And this is the cheapest I found it.

https://www.365games.co.uk/search/ace+attorney

Hopefully there's an option for you!
User avatar
Truk_Kurt
Member
Posts: 692
Joined: July 9th, 2015, 10:00 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Alex79uk wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 3:48 pm
Truk_Kurt wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 9:51 am
Alex79uk wrote: August 1st, 2021, 4:58 pm I've also started what I believe roughly translates as Yakuza: Black Panther (?) in English, but it's the Japan only PSP Yakuza game.
That's cool Alex, are you playing on Vita? I assume it's not an official patch
Yeah playing on Vita, which is 'hacked'. No it's just a fan patch I downloaded online. The game is decent, shame it never came west really. I'd love to play the ones set in ancient Japan too, but they're exclusive to Japan as well.
I remember a story from a few months ago where the series creator was talking about bringing the ones set in Ancient Japan over to the West, not sure if he meant straight ports, Kiwami style remakes or just new entries.
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8422
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Oh cool, fingers crossed then!
User avatar
Scrustle
Member
Posts: 2425
Joined: November 18th, 2012, 6:02 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

I've been replaying the original Forza Horizon lately. For as much as I've played these games, I don't really replay them from scratch. The only other time I tried it was also this game quite a few years back, but I dropped it after not long. So this is the first time I've really properly gone through the career mode since it first came out. I'm liking it a lot, and it holds up well. The atmosphere is great, and despite the fidelity of the graphics not being the best by modern standards, it still manages to impress aesthetically pretty frequently. In fact I might even say this game still has the strongest vibes out of any in the series. To actually play it's still fun too. Handling feels good, and it has that quality of always making you want to try just one more race over and over. The design of progression is pretty straightforward compared to later games, but I also appreciate that it has a sense of structure to it that the series gradually drifted away from over time. It feels good to have a specific goal to aim for, and to feel like you're hitting meaningful milestones when you get there.

I also finished up the last straggling bits of content in Scarlet Nexus. Turns out the post-game stuff for the second playthrough is just the same as the first. So there's not much there at all. Makes sense I guess, given that there isn't any order you're supposed to play them in, so there's no reason to assume there would be much difference between the two. I went looking to see what the unobtained secret achievements were, and they were all very simple and minor things I missed during normal play that were easy to pick up. Doing that I also went back to playing as Yuito for a little bit, and it turns out there is more difference between his play style and Kasane than I thought. It's just that I got so deep in to Kasane's campaign that I didn't quite remember. Yuito's melee attacks are quite a bit faster and snappier. It kind of makes Kasane a bit easier to play as actually, as it's easier to avoid dropping a combo with her when you have a bigger window to buffer inputs thanks to the longer attack animations. But anyway, now I have truly caned and rinsed this game and got everything out of it. It's surprisingly easy to get all of the achievements if you commit to doing two runs, and a lot of fun in the process.
Alex79uk wrote: August 1st, 2021, 4:58 pm I've also started what I believe roughly translates as Yakuza: Black Panther (?) in English, but it's the Japan only PSP Yakuza game. I found an English fan translation patch, and so far so good. The story is interesting and the combat is a bit different to the normal Yakuza games. It's more of a 1v1 fighting style, although you do actually take on multiple enemies on occasion. Great so far, though!

The translation seems fairly decent, although worth mentioning that it's only the main story that's been translated, so the side quests are unplayable - or, rather, you won't have a clue what's going on (unless you can read Japanese). A lot of the item descriptions are not translated either, but this won't be an issue for fans of the series as they're largely the same items you find in every game.
I've actually had that game on my "to play" list for a while as well. I noticed that fan patch going around and downloaded it, but have yet to try it out. Cool to hear it's a good time. A little disappointing that it's only the main story content, but I guess that gives me an excuse to just focus on the main story and get through it quicker.
User avatar
ColinAlonso
Member
Posts: 585
Joined: September 6th, 2016, 9:13 pm
Location: Dublin

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ColinAlonso »

ThirdDrawing wrote: August 3rd, 2021, 6:57 am
ColinAlonso wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 11:19 pm Is there a physical release for this, I can only see one in North America? I know Capcom hasn't been fond of European physical releases for Ace Attorney in the last few years.
I'm in Canada, so that's how I got the physical release.

But I found the NA release and the Japanese release of Phoenix Wright 1-3 (which has English) on Amazon.uk


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Attorney ... 555&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gyakuten-Saiba ... 52&sr=8-14

i also found it here. This one has free UK postage.

https://www.base.com/buy/product/the-gr ... gaacns.htm


And this is the cheapest I found it.

https://www.365games.co.uk/search/ace+attorney

Hopefully there's an option for you!
Thanks! Delivery to Ireland from the UK can be spotty but 365games worked (the others didn't). :)
User avatar
ThirdDrawing
Member
Posts: 571
Joined: October 13th, 2016, 2:33 pm
Location: Poverty Stricken StudentLand

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ThirdDrawing »

Cool, glad to be of help!
User avatar
Truk_Kurt
Member
Posts: 692
Joined: July 9th, 2015, 10:00 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Started playing F1 2021 last night after recently getting into the motorsport in a major way.

It's the first F1 game I have played since whichever edition launched with the PS3. I remember that feeling really inaccessible at the time whereas this is the opposite, it immediately feels a lot more welcoming for newcomers with plenty of assists which can be turned on, off or partially on like with the racing and braking line which only appears for corners if you want. The game also has the rewind system from previous Codemasters games and from Forza which you can set to be unlimited if you like too. I'm yet to try it as the game was still installing as I played but I'm looking forward to trying the new story mode they've added.

My only complaint is that the Xbox version of the game feels unfinished as I have a mate who has played lots of it since launch already and has experienced multiple crashes, and I even had one at the end of my first race last night. It has already been patched twice so I hope they recognise there are still issues.
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8422
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Went to the arcade today. The kids were pissed off because there were hardly any of those god damn 'win tickets' machines meaning they couldn't spent £20 to win enough tickets for a £1 bouncy ball, but I played OutRun 2, Sega Rally, Sega Rally 3, Silent Scope, The Fast & The Furious, House Of The Dead 4 and Transformers before they'd had enough and demanded we left. It's a rare thing to find actual games in a seaside arcade, so I made the most of it :lol:
User avatar
ratsoalbion
Admin
Posts: 7918
Joined: August 28th, 2012, 9:41 am
Location: Brighton, England
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ratsoalbion »

Nice!
User avatar
dezm0nd
Moderator
Posts: 4445
Joined: August 28th, 2012, 9:48 am
Location: Leighton Buzzard

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by dezm0nd »

I've been playing fair bit of Death's Door but I'm finding it quite intense so i've put it on hold until I can find some time where I don't have a 5 year old rabbiting away in my earholes and i'm not completely exhausted. It's very good but i'm finding that I'm having a lesser experience at the moment.

I've pointed my attention towards Rolled Out! A Super Monkey Ball-like which absolutely nails it. If you like SMB1 and/or 2 from the Gamecube era then definitely give this one a tilt when you're able. It's in early access on Steam at the moment but as a SMB fan, be reassured that this is pretty much what I wanted ever since the simian series went in a different direction.

Now we have a Super Monkey Ball remake coming and this Rolled Out! I'm spoilt for choice.
User avatar
Scrustle
Member
Posts: 2425
Joined: November 18th, 2012, 6:02 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

Been playing Nier Reincarnation. It's the mobile spin-off. I actually already played some of this back when they ran a beta for it a little while back. I had a bunch of thoughts on it then, and I even wrote them all out, but I never got around to posting them. Not because there was an NDA or anything, I just decided to wait until I played a bit more, but then lost interest. Now I'm playing the full thing, my thoughts are mostly the same.

There's some stuff I genuinely like about this game, and a lot I despise. As a little companion piece in this series, delivering a unique spin on how it tells stories, it's pretty cool. As an actual game, it's garbage that is pretty much exactly what you would expect out of a F2P gacha game that's trying to cash in on a popular IP.

The setup is that you play as a mysterious voiceless child who wakes up in a strange place full of immense stone towers called The Cage. You make your way through this place guided by a small floating creature called Mama who appears to be wearing a sheet over themselves like a cartoonish ghost costume. Along the way you come across figures called Scarecrows that take you in to little sidestories that also involve JRPG styled turn-based battles where you play as the characters in those stories. In concept, I really like this idea. On some level it does make good on that potential too. The Cage is a really interesting setting that is aesthetically impressive. The mystery of what this place is, why you're there, or what is going on is pretty compelling. The sidestories with the other characters are pretty cool as well. Although their visual presentation isn't anywhere near as high production, they are still pretty stylised. I also really like how they are modelled around the idea of the weapon stories from the other Nier/Drakengard games. How they tell short, sad tales that reflect the themes and tone of the larger experience. The actual stories they tell have been good so far, and they are a good way to bring a lot of narrative variety to the game.

But the game's actual mechanics are just awful, and feel like an insulting waste of time that just wants to push you towards buying currency and getting addicted to trying for random character drops. Calling it an RPG with an actual battle system is giving it way more credit than it deserves. It's set up like an ATB system, but you have barely any control over anything. Basic attacks happen automatically, but you can choose to activate skills once they have charged. Except they don't activate exactly when you select them, since the turn order seems basically random. You also can't choose what enemy they target. You can automate these skills to go off as soon as they are charged too, which seems like the obvious thing to do since you have so little control over them. Just have them go off as frequently is possible without it requiring you to actually hit the icon. So in the end all you're really doing is throwing your character's stats against the enemies' until the game says you win. You literally don't even have to look at the screen. The only way you can lose is if your characters aren't powerful enough.

To get more powerful, you need to upgrade your characters with currency the game gives you. So far I have been given copious amounts of this stuff, but the UI for it is terrible. It's an awful confusing mess where there's like a dozen different currencies that all do different things, none of which is clear. It's absurdly complicated and presented so poorly, but it's constantly throwing shit as you every step of the way, desperate to try to get you in to the menus where hopefully you'll try to buy something, or try one of the many slot machine like devices. The UX is abysmal, and it's honestly hard to believe that Square Enix hired the people who made this because they allegedly knew how to make a good mobile game. I mean, I guess this is the standard for games of this style, but if that's the case then the standard is so low that's pretty damning of the whole sector. It's like the game is struggling to even pretend that it wants to actually be a game, and instead is just ravenous to get you to fork over cash. But it's so desperate and tactless about it that it can't help but sabotage itself by making that experience feel hostile, unpleasant and confusing.

I'm intending to keep going through, just to see my way through the main story. I have zero interest in actually giving this thing any money, playing any limited time events, or getting any character it might try to tempt me with. It seems pretty short, and so far I've been given more than enough resources for the main content. I do want to see where this story goes, and explore more of the setting, but I don't intend on playing the game a second longer than I need to, and if I hit a brick wall where I'm forced to spend money, I expect I'll drop it right there too.
User avatar
Feirsteax
Member
Posts: 280
Joined: September 11th, 2013, 4:18 pm
Location: Belfast

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Feirsteax »

I too have been playing Re[in]carnation, and I have to say you've pretty much described exactly how I feel about the game, as well.

Personally I just stuck on auto-battle and fast-forward for all of my battles so far, they're completely meaningless. I've upgraded my team force to 40K-ish now and am actually finding it getting difficult to push it any higher (not that I would need to right now since I'm still steamrolling all the enemies I face). So I am interested in finding out how to push that number higher and higher, though like you I'd also rather avoid paying any money for it.

The story is still fun though, and coming into chapter 9 now I'm pretty interested to unravel the mystery of the cage and the characters within it further, so I'm enjoying it as almost a story with a few buttons you have to press every now and again rather than a deep strategic RPG or anything like that.
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8422
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Finally managed to beat the (what I think may be) the penultimate boss in Ashen tonight. I'd been stuck on it about two weeks and stopped playing because it was annoying me so much, but came back to it tonight and did it first time! Great game, which I think after almost 30 hours is now on the final stretch, but it's an easy recommend to any Souls fan.
User avatar
Jon Cheetham
Member
Posts: 524
Joined: October 29th, 2019, 12:49 pm
Location: Singapore
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Been playing Ashen too, just the opening area. It has had the effect on me most soulslikes do, which is that it made me go back and play Dark Souls instead. I will go back to it though as it is good, and the world is beautiful.
User avatar
Miririn
Member
Posts: 207
Joined: December 28th, 2020, 10:06 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Miririn »

I'm doing a second "The Last of Us Part II" Grounded+ run and I will not be judged by God or society for my repetitive choices!! (And no I still haven't successfully done a TLOU1 Grounded run, and yes I am ashamed of how crap I am at TLOU1 Grounded compared to TLOU2 Grounded. That's next!!). You really appreciate the fantastic sound design on these games when the God-Level Listen Mode is off and you're being forced to be extra vigilant.

I'm frustrated that whenever I do a permadeath run tbe pressure gets to me and I die due to dumb things like getting punched by a random runner but when the pressure is off and I'm doing a normal grounded run I go for hours without dying. The dream is a Whole Game Grounded Permadeath run, but I know I'll end up getting killed by doing something stupid like getting one-hit killed by the Rat King while disorientated by the maze-like level design in the dark and end up breaking my PS4 in a rage, so it's maybe not wise.

I also re-played "Uncharted: The Lost Legacy" and I've also been fiddling around with a NG+ of "Marvel's Spider-Man". I forgot how relatively complicated the combat is for a dummy like me who is used to/loves to play SQUARE MELEE, L1 DODGE, L2 PEW PEW simple shooty style games. But I think Insomniac are very good at walking you through it and not letting you feel overwhelmed and when you do get the hang of it and all the combos it is really satisfying.

I'm hoping in the sequel there's more interesting enemy types though. I mean during the smaller "fighting rando criminals and bad guy hechmen" wee fights. There's quite a bit of nice variety with the bosses (Doc Ock, Electro, Rhino etc).

Also please skip if you're not into random Marvel plot nerd rambling stuff:

Though I tend to prefer MJ to Gwen (depending on the version of Spider-Man) I'm a bit sad they've skipped over Gwen to get to MJ because that bridge neck snap is iconic and I do like it when Spidey adaptations go a bit dark. There's something so dramatically satisfying about how such a basic, small mistake on Peter's part leads to something so tragic, and most modern Spidey adaptations avoid it (I suppose it's not exactly kid-friendly). It's also great for character stuff (makes Goblin and Peter's hatred even more personal) and it sets up MJ and Peter's relationship in a more interesting way . I know they could potentially introduce Gwen and put it in anyway, and I appreciate Insomniac are doing their own thing re characterisation (their slightly unusual choices regarding the characterisation of May, Norman, Ock etc have been especially great), but I think that without the investment of Gwen as Peter's first major love interest the impact of her death would be lessened. And I don't want MJ to get the neck snap.

My guess is that in lieu of setting up the Peter Goblin lifelong hatred with Gwen's death, they'll spin it slightly by having it be Harry who dies. Insomniac's Harry seems like a really nice guy (......pre-symbiote) and, as Insomniac's Norman is closer to OG comics Norman who actually loves his son, his death could be the big personal thing between Peter and Norman. But I may be wrong, and Insomniac may not want to go that dark. (Although the endings of both their previous Spider-Man games were surprisingly sad... especially for such light-hearted games, on the whole). The Osborns were always my favourite Marvel villains when I was a kid (daddy issues? real estate p*rn? extreme hamminess? yes please) so I have a bias but it's also been many years since there's been some good Goblin stuff in a non-comics Spidey adaptation, and I'm... hesitantly hopeful for Insomniac to pull it out the bag. Especially after how well they handled Doc Ock.



(...and no I still haven't completed "Bloodborne" because I am crap. I got up to that flayed beastie blood starved thing. One day...!! Such a great game)
Post Reply