What Game/s are You Playing? Daily / Whenever Check :) (GAMEPLAY)

[YoshiM]

I got farther in Phantasy Star IV by going into the the first bio-production facility and gaining Riko, the Numan. Aaaannnnddd.....that's as far as I got. The TV was in use so I focused on my Mac Powerbook 180 I recently got, along with 20 (so far functioning) 3.5 HD diskettes. I loaded up "Oregon Trail" and it was quite the difference from the old Apple IIe version I played back in school. One of my twins played it to completion as a Doctor (easiest setting). It was interesting as she was asking questions that could be answered by actually reading the screen.

"What do I do now?"

"Just read the screen."

"What...I have to?"

I got a little frustrated as it was like she refused to try anything on the screen that could answer her questions. It kinda shows how games are presented these days with tutorials on how to do, well, everything to a degree. She can plow through "Untitled Goose Game" but "Oregon Trail" was a stumper until she actually investigated stuff. I really wanted to get this game on my 512K but I don't have the hard drive module nor an 800K disk drive.

The next game I tried, which I never played any iteration of, was "Shadowgate". I died a lot at first due to my torch burning out. I had to find some instructions to learn how to properly interface with everything. On top of that, I had to also dust off the investigation skills and CLICK EVERYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE IT CAN BE CLICKED! One gets a bit soft in adventuring when everything these days tends to glow, shimmer or somehow indicate "Hey! I'm usable or context sensitive!". Once I got the torch situation figured out (click on "Operate", then your sputtering torch and then click on a fresh torch) I continued to die in other ways, which was comical. I was really impressed with the digitized speech on a game that's pretty small! I went to a couple rooms and then saved as my legs were falling asleep as I was sitting on the floor, my modern laptop on one side to put files onto floppies while my Powerbook was on the other. Putting tape over the open hole on two disks, I made two 400K disks with "Shadowgate" on them so I can try it out on my 512K

And that was that for the long weekend. It was mighty hot, so I didn't do much with tech at all.

[Aussie2B]

I finished up Mario Kart: Super Circuit on my Game Boy Advance SP a while ago, getting gold on every cup, which was a little tricky for the last couple cups of the Super Circuit and Extra cups on 150cc. I clocked a time on every track in Time Trial, getting the best time and lap on most but not all. I'm satisfied to leave it there. I didn't get a triple star ranking on any cup, so maybe I'll tackle that someday, but I can tell it would take a huge amount of time, practice, and luck to pull that off on every cup.

Anyway, I finally bought and started up a game I've been wanting to play for a couple years now: Fuga: Melodies of Steel. Its sequel already came out a few months ago (in what is planned to be a trilogy, I think), and normally, I'd be all over a new Little Tail Bronx game as soon as it's out. I mean, I imported Solatorobo as soon as it launched in Japan and then preordered the US release too (good thing, considering its current value). But the first Fuga launched when my daughter was still an infant and still not sleeping through the night. So I wasn't really in any position to tackle anything particularly involved. And with it being digital-only, there was no reason to buy it until I was actually ready to play.

I've only had one session with it so far, so I'm still in the midst of tutorials and trying to figure things out. I'm going into it practically blind, and being a modern game, there's no manual or anything, at least not for the PC version I bought on Steam. I debated which platform to get it for, since I could've gone with PS4 (or Xbox One, but that's not even hooked up), but it was cheaper on Steam due to a sale, and I got the Deluxe version with the digital artbook and soundtrack and such, which I'd rather download to my PC, if possible, versus having to be on my PS4 to use. It's definitely a low-budget game. You can tell this was published by CyberConnect2 directly, instead of having Namco Bandai funding. Tail Concerto and Solatorobo feel like they had bigger budgets, in terms of comparatively to other games of their time and platforms. But I like what I've seen so far. The music is excellent, like usual. I'm not sure if the art is still Nobuteru Yuuki, but it looks nice enough. The cutscenes feel like a visual novel, and the battles are that of an RPG, but it all feels like a unique combination and not quite like anything I've played before. Definitely nothing like Tail Concerto or Solatorobo gameplay-wise, which I'm still a little iffy on. Each Little Tail Bronx game seems to move further into the territory of being an RPG, but I love the platforming action of Tail Concerto. But it's fine. If they intended for all the Little Tail Bronx games to be super similar, they wouldn't give each its own unique title. The fact Fuga is its own series shows it is its own thing within the Little Tail Bronx umbrella, and I'm cool with that as long as it's fun in its own right.