Whatcha Been Playing?

[Alex79]

Just so you're aware, there's a great new version of AKKA ARRH by Minter, available separately.

I had no idea! Sounds like a perfect combination, thanks!

[Jobobonobo]

Finished up Trials of Mana a week ago but since it has a New Game + option I am replaying it with different characters and am comparatively blasting through it now. The abilities that are carried over to the new game really ensure that you are cutting though enemies like butter. Love that dungeons that took me a half hour to do in the original playthrough can now be finished in 10 mins. New Game + nearly always guarantee I will tackle a game again to see how much difference my skills from the previous game make in dominating the new playthrough.

[Truk_Kurt]

I started Immortals of Aveum and you know what, it's pretty good fun. It takes a lot of inspiration from various games in different ways. Gameplay wise it reminds me a LOT of Doom 2016 with how fast it is and how certain spells work better against certain enemy types. The story is ok so far too, it's not the most complicated but I quite like that. Hopefully I will carry on enjoying it.

[Alex79]

I'm still in a bit of a lull with games with nothing much really sticking aside from Death Stranding which I'm slowly making my way through again, playing an hour or two most days.

But this means I've been spending a lot more time playing pure arcade style games rather than anything big and story based. Still making my way through the incredible Atari 50 collection, and I also picked up the SNK 40th Anniversary collection and the Space Invaders collection for Switch. I'm absolutely hooked on the arcade original of Space Invaders. I've played it before, of course, but never really invested any time in to trying to get good at it. It's just a perfect arcade game. Gets very difficult but never unfair or unpredictable. Every mistake is your own. I've started formulating strategies for the best way to clear the screens. I've managed to get to the top 500 on the online leaderboards, but that's nothing really, I want to break the top 100.

I also picked up Tempest 4000 yesterday which seems to be virtually identical to Minter's Vita release, TxK. I know they're all based on the original Tempest but this literally seems to be just TxK again but on Switch (which is fine by me).

[Alex79]

I decided to give Immortality another try as I've had it installed on my mobile since it came to Netflix games. I did try it on Gamepass when it first came out but just didn't really get why it was being praised so highly. But this time I've actually discovered what the game is really about.

Spoiler: show

When you rewind certain clips and catch a glimpse of some ghostly image, but then if you pause and play at just the right moment you access an entirely new, hidden, clip.

Before I was just watching the video clips wondering what the fuss was about. It's much more interesting now, although I'm still not sure what the 'point' of the game is, or how you'd finish it. But still, I'm enjoying it.

[ratsoalbion]

I adored Immortality. Stick with it. The point really is to understand and finish the story. Keep finding new clips and eventually all becomes clear.

[Alex79]

I adored Immortality. Stick with it. The point really is to understand and finish the story. Keep finding new clips and eventually all becomes clear.

Yeah, it's a really interesting idea for a game. I'm getting a sense of what's going on but without any explanation for how or why, or what the outcome is going to be. Which won't make much sense if anyone hasn't played the game I suppose!

[Alex79]

Been playing a bit more Tempest 4000 on Switch and something just feels off about it. I realised it's the controls. There's an awful feeling inertia to controlling your character, it doesn't stop when you let go of the stick. I understand the original arcade version of Tempest used a 360⁰ dial for movement, but none of the previous home version of Tempest or any of Minter's other tube shooter games had this inertia. It just makes the game really difficult to play and seems a terrible idea. They ought to have included an option to turn this off, it's very difficult to accurately shoot baddies when you can't stop on the lane they occupy. I appreciate this is a bit of a niche complaint but it really irritated me so thought I'd mention it!

The other minor annoyance is the sections between levels where the controls are inverted and no way to change them. Really a bit of a pain and is hampering my enjoyment of the game, these two things.

[Jobobonobo]

Finished the second playthrough on Trials of Mana and it really flew by doing so on New Game Plus. My party were all lvl. 90 and above and I got it all wrapped up in ten hours or so. All that remains is a third playthrough with Riesz and Hawkeye to fight their respective villain and then that will be that. Since I have the aforementioned characters leveled up pretty highly in the first playthrough this should go even quicker. Even though never played the original I really do like this remake a lot. Nice playing a old school SNES RPG in such lovely modern graphics.

Also tried out Dillon's Rolling Western which is definitely quite different to what I imagined. You play as an armadillo ranger who protects "Scrogs", pig-like creatures, form rocky carnivorous monsters called Groks. During the day, you have to gather resources in order to build up defenses and built up numbers of scrogs so that they can survive an onslaught of groks if you let one slip you by. So you go and do this resource management and then when the sky turns red, you have to fight off the predators by using the stylus to roll up into a ball and smash into them. A stage is considered complete when you do this for three days with each day increasing in difficulty. Liking it so far but I hope the game does not get too overbearing with the Grok attacks as it goes on. Managed to survive the second village with only four Scrogs left, way too stressful!

[Alex79]

I've been replaying Metal Gear Solid 2 on Switch because MGS might be, in my opinion, the greatest game series of all time. Every game in the series is top notch, not a stinker amongst them, including Rising. (And obviously not including that weird post-Kojima zombie nonsense).

[Scrustle]

Been playing Clash: Artifacts of Chaos lately. It had a really bad first impression, but I managed to push past it and once it clicked I started having a great time with it. It has a very unusual combat system to it, that has a fun and unique flow that takes a while to get in to. You build combos by linking attacks out of directional dodges, and you have to time your inputs really precisely to animation cancel on hitting an enemy. The game is pretty bad at properly explaining it, but it's a really fun system once you get the hang of it.

It's also amazing aesthetically. This is a successor to the Zeno Clash games, so it shares the same surreal setting full of strange and outlandish character design, and really imaginative environments too. This time they went with a cel shaded presentation that has a sketchy pencil hashing effect too. I'm not sure if I prefer it to the older style, but it still looks fantastic either way.

[Jobobonobo]

Been moving onto Sonic Advance 3 and so far, I think it is enjoyable enough but adding hub worlds seems a bit unnecessary for Sonic. The team mechanic is interesting enough in that you and your partner can do some pretty overpowered moves to navigate around the levels more effectively but I have only Sonic and Tails unlocked so far so I will see how this develops when more characters are available. The levels are a good bit trickier this time around with plenty of traps and devious platforming. Speed is still an important element but has definitely been scaled back with more complex platforming being brought to the forefront. Bosses are easier (from what I have seen) so far with you fighting an additional robotic assistant of Robotnik as well as the Eggman himself.

One of the nicest changes so far has certainly been the audio. There are now voice clips from the characters in this game which sounds quite nice despite the GBA limitations. The real highlight is Robotnik himself who utters lines such as "why you little..!" when you hit him which always makes me smile. The music is also an absolute delight with Sunset Hill having a fantastic remix of the Green Hill music (back when such remixes in the Sonic series were novel) and Ocean Base being a really intense, suspenseful electronic piece. Only on the fourth stage but this is certainly good enough to keep me playing. Interested to hear the rest of the soundtrack at least!

[Truk_Kurt]

It's not the kind of game I would normally play but on Friday I started Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess which launched on game pass this past Friday. I have been hooked to this game all weekend. It's a mix between action and tower defence. It actually quite reminds me of Pikmin in some ways with how you allocate different roles to your villagers who then defend the princess as she walks through her designated path. There is a day/night cycle, with the day your chance to prepare and then night is when the monsters come out to attack (which are superb looking creatures, like something out of a FromSoftware game). The flow of the gameplay is very moreish and not once have I got frustrated by anything. It's really fun. I was in a bit of a gaming slump, whenever that happens I like to try something out my comfort zone and this has been just the tonic.

[Jobobonobo]

Been hitting a bit of a wall with Super Bomberman 5 and Story of Thor where I have no idea on how to proceed and it is honestly annoying me a bit. With Story of Thor, I am on this mountain where I have to go through a section where it continuously shoots fire. Apparently the fire slows down when you beat enough enemies. So I was doing that for a bit and sure enough it was slowing down allowing me to pass. Except it does not because there is also a wind that is pushing you backwards and the enemies bum rush you out of nowhere even if you get past the wind and fire. This sends you flying back and you need to fight them off. You try again, waiting for the fire to stop spewing out while fighting against the wind. But by taking it slow, the enemies will just bum rush you again setting you back to step 1. I have tried again and again and no progress is being made. This is fucking miserable stuff. This is especially a shame as I was really liking Thor up to this part and I am really considering dropping it altogether over this bullshit. Super Bomberman 5 seems to be a bit of a downgrade from the previous titles with frustrating bosses and a progression system where when you finish a level, several exits can appear and if you choose the wrong one you go back a few levels. I might have put up with stuff like this when I was younger but my patience is really wearing thin at this point.

So I went back and resumed my playthrough of Final Fantasy IV which I stopped playing because I got distracted by something else. It is alright but compared to the frustration from other titles I am dealing with, I can at east make progress every time I play it.

Lastly, nearly finished my third playthrough of Trials of Mana through New Game Plus. This has been an absolute delight which captures the best of the 16 bit era in lovely modern packaging.

[Alex79]

Been hitting a bit of a wall with Super Bomberman 5 and Story of Thor where I have no idea on how to proceed and it is honestly annoying me a bit. With Story of Thor, I am on this mountain where I have to go through a section where it continuously shoots fire. Apparently the fire slows down when you beat enough enemies. So I was doing that for a bit and sure enough it was slowing down allowing me to pass. Except it does not because there is also a wind that is pushing you backwards and the enemies bum rush you out of nowhere even if you get past the wind and fire.

This is the exact point I got to before putting it aside. I mean to finish it before the CaR show, but yeah it was annoying.

[Jobobonobo]

I am pretty stubborn when it comes to stuff like this. I always want to finish any game that I started even if I'm not enjoying myself. But as I get older, my tolerance for such a play style is getting thinner and if I'm treating my hobby like a job I hate then I think that is a sign I should pack it in. I might try it again when I have some other stuff out of the way but I have been hitting my head against the wall for a while now and I honestly have zero fun going through this. It is strange, many great games have sections that can be a bit rubbish but you can tolerate them. This bloody section made me think Story of Thor was a decent little game to now viewing it with outright contempt. A shame that one shitty part has significantly lowered my opinion of the whole thing but that's just the way the cookie crumbles I'm afraid.

[Jobobonobo]

Have made it to the moon in Final Fantasy IV and realised I am crazy under-levelled so might do some of the side quests just to get some new gear and level up before I properly tackle the final stretch of the game. Unlike many modern games though, these side quests involve whole entire dungeons with bosses and big rewards. I always said if you are doing side quests, this is how they should be, not kill 500 goblins to protect some farmer's crop type of nonsense. For such a relatively early RPG, I am finding it decent enough. Certainly have played way better but for the time, I can see how this would have represented a big leap in story telling and graphics for many gamers.

[Truk_Kurt]

A couple of missions into Neon White and it's really good. It's very moreish, reminds me of games like Celeste with how you can keep failing but the instant restarts means you never get too frustrated. It provides a great feeling of mastery when you complete a level, even if you didn't get a gold medal or ace medal, but then the extra satisfaction comes from trying to figure out different routes around the level to get your time even faster so that you can achieve the gold or ace.

[Jobobonobo]

I tried out two demos on the PS4, the first being Frogun Encore. I never played the original Frogun but this sequel was decent enough. The early 3D aesthetic is quite lovely showcasing that big chunky polygons can have their own special kind of appeal. I had no real problem with the controls and the difficulty scales quite nicely in the few levels of this that were available in the demo. So a pretty nice time with this but with so many other titles screaming for my attention this is not something that I will be making an effort to check out anytime soon. Maybe if I have enough free time and it is on sale I might try it out.

After playing through the Trials remake and loving that I was super hyped to try out Visions of Mana and well....it didn't really do much for me. One thing it does is that the light attack and dodge button are swapped around from how they were set up in Trials and so I was constantly dodging when I meant to attack and vice versa. However I had just finished Trials so that was just my recent memory tricking me more than an issue with the game itself. But the combat itself was just not that fun. Enemies tend to be more spongy and while the magic attacks are flashy they tend to be unimpressive in their damage output. I never felt like I was really in control of things where I could utilise certain magic and/or attack combos that would make short work of any foe. Also you cant charge up heavy attacks and class strikes are gone which were among the two elements that made the combat of Trials so good. I realise this is just the demo but Trials had a demo too and I instantly got to grips with its combat system there and sold me on the game.

I also got a little deflated when I saw this big open area with sidequests to do. I think I'm a little burnt out at this type of design philosophy and am beginning to appreciate RPGs that are more to the point with what you need to do. Sidequests were just busywork with rewards that didn't seem to warrant the effort to do them. The worst thing of this demo is how janky it is however. The framerate is not consistent and moving at speed can make the game shudder along at a slideshow speed at times, especially while jumping. This naturally discouraged exploration as movement was not fun when the game struggled to keep up. The game looks pretty but there were moments when it seemed to have trouble processing certain aspects of the environment. The worst of this was when you look out at the ocean and you just see what are supposed to be waves look like random blue and white triangles sticking out of the water and moving jerkily. It looks atrocious and made me think how did they not fix this before releasing the demo? Since I was playing on PS4 this might explain some of the performance issues but if that is the case then maybe it is time for publishers and developers to finally leave the PS4/Xbox One behind and fully focus on the next generation as much as it pains me to say it. Having said that, I still hold out some hope that the Dragon Quest HD-2D remakes come out on the PS4. That is a visual style the console has no problem with so I'm hoping these do come out for the PS4. But I digress.

The only real positive I can say about Visions of Man is that the music was quite pleasing but other than that, I found this to be a massive disappointment from the great time I had with Trials and has really dampened my enthusiasm to try out the main game. Unless Square Enix pulls off a miracle and fixes these performance issues then I will give this a miss. Trials was far from a AAA experience but at least the nuts and bolts of it worked and the result was a highly competent enjoyable adventure. Really think it would have been better advised to have those guys work on Visions but it is what it is. I acknowledge constantly comparing one game to another like this can be unfair on the game you are reviewing but I can't avoid it since I just finished Trials and the comparisons are impossible not to make. Good thing I'm not a professional reviewer then Easily my biggest disappointment this year.

[Harkatim]

I agree with you in regards to VoM. I was very underwhelmed by the demo. It all looked and felt like an IKEA showroom.