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

[YoshiM]

Been on a hiatus. I missed the red-and-black of the site.

@kupomogli-I DID play Nightmare Creatures but this aging brain can't remember if I liked it or not. I'll have to revisit.

I've been playing a lot of Atari 2600 lately as I decided to try out Atari Age's latest High Score competition. Played a bunch of stuff I never touched before from commercial to indie/homebrew stuff. I discovered I have a weird issue with spamming something for points, like punching monkeys and running around on the first board for the fruit/whatzits for extra points (which was allowed) in "Kangaroo". I never really did that before, as I prefer to just progress normally and try and rack up points that way.

I picked up an Atari 7800+ as part of my "future proofing" my ability to play my cartridges. Yeah, it's an emulation box but it merges the two universes of ease of use with modern TVs. I played it more at work, trying out "Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest" followed by games I picked up using store credit or local Chamber of Commerce cash-"Xenophobe" and "Choplifter". "BBCC" is pretty cool with it aping the control concept from Super Mario Bros. but the included pad style controller was NOT designed for that style of play (hold down one button and then cross over to jump with the next button). I have to hold the controller with my right hand pinching the right side with my thumb on the bottom and my index and middle fingers over the buttons on top. After doing that, I could actually progress in the game! I always loved "Xenophobe" in the arcade and the 7800 version is pretty dang close to that. The NES version plain sucked IMO. And "Choplifter" is just balls-hard with this port, more like "drive nails through said extremities into a 2X4". I'm used to the SMS version, but the 7800 is out to frickin' KILL YOU DEAD. I have not had a chance to play it at home as my HDMI-to-Composite adapter does not work with the system.

On the more modern side, I DID beat the main quest in Skyrim for PC. I married Lydia, bought that house in Whiterun and adopted the orphan girl that hangs around that town. I set it down for now. I also plowed through "Alan Wake". To paraphrase Dale Cooper from "Twin Peaks" (which I have watched the first two seasons in the past few months for the first time), "This is a damn fine game". I found it's rare for me to go back and replay a "modern" game I beat, but this one just called to me. Steam Deck made playing that easy. I'm not sure if I'll play "Alan Wake: American Nightmare". What I did play of it years back just felt like I was playing just levels rather than an ongoing adventure like the first.

Switch side I got into the game "Horace" based on a review on Nintendo Life. It was on that big year-end sale Nintendo had. I love it-great retro feel, tough and frustrating, but pleasantly so (if that makes sense). If I get stuck, I keep going at it knowing its me that's the problem. You don't have lives (thanks to Horace the robot's "Lazarus Chip") but it does keep track of deaths. Give it a check-it's for sure on the eShop and also on Steam.

[Aussie2B]

I did read all the messages given via Augury in Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness on PlayStation 4, or at least I kept mashing through them until I went a long time without seeing anything new. If there was anything I missed, oh well. Some of them were decently amusing. I still haven't read the stuff in the Glossary, but I began my next game anyway. I decided to start up PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe for PSP. I figure it's a sufficiently big enough change of pace for me, especially considering I have little experience with the tower defense genre in general. In fact, I think most of my experience with that kind of gameplay comes from mini-games in other types of games, rather than full games designed as tower defense. Stuff like the final challenge in htoL#NiQ and the fort battle in Final Fantasy VII. It's funny that, despite decades of gaming and exploring so many different genres, there are still genres I have minimal experience with. It was a year ago when I played through Rock Boshers DX, which had to be the first twin-stick shooter I ever beat, so I think it's a fair time to dig into something else that's fresh to me.

[kupomogli]

I don't post as much because generally it's going to be the same games or I just forget about the site and jump on every once in awhile. Everything I post is modern though because while I have a classic collection of games, I don't really have anything set up. I'm a bit too unorganized to make the space around my television clean and orderly and I really don't have enough room to have SDTVs at all, well, I do, but that'd mean I'd have to clean my back rooms and just thinking of how long that'd be to get them cleaned up rather than just be rooms for storing boxes and I immediately lose interest. So really I just post modern games and that's it. Eventually I'll get to cleaning those rooms out one day and I'll get back to all these games I've collected or still collect.

A few recent games I've bought is I actually purchased a lot of all of the Japanese Gundam games on PS3. I already owned Gundam Breaker and Gundam vs Gundam Extreme Vs. i used to own a few others including the western version of Gundam Target in Sight but I ended up selling some. Well, now I own them all, this includes all of the Musou games which is a series of games I just don't like(I didn't like the Gundam ones either back in the day) but maybe my tastes have changed or maybe my distaste for some of the modern day mechanics will give me a little more interest in these other games that just didn't appeal to me back then. I do happen to enjoy Dragon Quest Heroes 1 and 2, the second one not as much buut the first one because it was so much more like a tower defense game with zooming back and forth to each of the areas, so maybe Dynasty Warriors Gundam?

It was during this time that I also decided to finally purchase Gihren's Greed Menace of Axis on the PSP. Menace of Axis is apparently the best one, slightly worse with still images instead of animations when compared to PS2 but this was the last iteration of the series that they released before releasing the title New Gihren's Greed, so it had more content than every other game. So I know how the formula works with their games because I bought every single Gundam Battle game starting with Gundam Battle Royale, which each new game was like an expansion on the previous game, however with Gihren's Greed Menace of Axis, there was actually a second release titled Giren No Yabou: Axis No Kyoui V. So the original's main draw was nearly every single group that participated in any of the wars and every single person who ever piloted a mobile suit in these groups were included within the game. The V version of the game included a few more scenarios with other groups in Zeta Gundam that weren't included in the original. This version is pretty expensive though, so I decided to just purchasae the base version of Menace of Axis on the PSP, mint condition for around $20. I'm fine not having this additional group and the extra scenarios.

As someone who really likes Gundam games, as somewhat of a fan of some of the shows but more so being my favorite AA video game franchise, this was always a game that I always wanted to own but I never purchased until recently.

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As for what I'm playing, I've came back to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth after a long hiatus when quitting the game at Costa Del Sol, shortly into chapter six. Right now I'm on chapter 13 out of 14 and after completing the game, I'll have done 99% of all content. I've missed a missable match of Queen's Blood in Upper Junon, and I'm not going to play through another 16 races in the garbage fire that is called Chocobo Racing. And I'll never be able to platinum the game what with the requirement of getting an A and S rank in every song on the piano or Loveless play. This is despite getting the highest rank in the parade or platinuming a game like Theatrhythm Final Bar Line.

I absolutely love Final Fantasy 7 Remake and I think it's "as good' as Final Fantasy 7 for the PS1. I don't have the same feeling that some people do that "you're only playing through part of the storyline, therefore you're not playing an entire game." You're playing through the entire game of Final Fantasy 7 Remake which just happens to be a portion of the story of Final Fantasy 7. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth took throw away characters like Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie and made them characters that are just as important and memorable as any of the main cast, a group of characters who's death in the Sector 7 radio tower was more impactful than the original Final Fantasy 7 and deaths that were more impactful than even the death of Aerith on the original Final Fantasy 7. The dialogue and mannerisms of the characters were much more pronounced so Aerith's personality stood out far more in the first game, a character that is now an actual rival for your interest over Tifa which was one of the intents in the first game.

Then there is the combat of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, a game that took something as simple as the ATB system and pushed it into a real time combat skill based combat system with a paused based system with a special attack meter. This added so much more depth than the original game as the skill based gameplay allowed you to still deal damage and perhaps build this special attack meter up faster based on your actions and then depending on the spells or attacks used, you'd you'd deal damage, pressure the enemy, increase their break damage, etc.

But again, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a worse game in every way, including the combat which actually has more depth but really is much worse. I'll start off with by far, the worst part of the game however, and that's the game's padding. Now, the open world is one thing, but I didn't even mean just the open world. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is padded to an absurd degree. As early as chapter one, the game will put you at a grinding halt and tell you to explore Nibleheim giving you a large blue circle until you trip over what the game wants you to do to progress. This is only the first time the game has you do what's going to become a long running staple of just how the game pads the experience out and disrespects your time. The open world itself is mostly empty but has you taking long portions of time not just explore just that open world, but get to general story areas themselves, and I mean "long" portions of time. A lot of quests, nearly all of them, will require you to run through long sections of the open world in what's often following or finding a designated spot from the game. The unique open world areas called intel are 20 different locations in each open world area that will take you on average 30 minutes each to find them all in each area.

The biggest problem with the open world itself is just how much that's important within the game that's locked behind this open world. There are many materia that you won't get if you don't put in a lot of time finding these unique locations, there's a lot of enemies you'll never fight or experience, you won't get any of the enemy skills as you're required to fight and unlock VR battles where enemy skills are your reward, and there's unique events by completing certain open world intel. In Cosmo Canyon, what took me around 14 hours to fully complete, had cutscenes where Barret and Tifa remember Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie and going through each of these side quests had some of the most memorable cutscenes in the game imo as it felt so much like all of the dialogue and events in Final Fantasy 7 Remake over the events in Rebirth. Made me think about just how much of a better game Final Fantasy 7 Remake was but also had me think about just how much I loved the interactions with those characters throughout the game.

Was any of the time worth it? Was the 60 hours minimum that I put the time into finishing all these open worl side content worth it? Well, yes and no. The silvering lining is that Final Fantasy 7 Remake despite not being the best looking game, is probably by design one of the most beautiful open world games I've ever seen, because despite all of this wasted time, the world was explorable, all of these pieces of "intel" really required searching thoroughly through each of these open world areas, but it was also extremely padded, 30 minutes on average if not more for very little actual pay off.

The tone to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth throughout the game was kind of bad. It wasn't at all like Final Fantasy 7 or even Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. It was more like a celebration of Final Fantasy 7 as everywhere you went in the game was like a party. Even the areas like lower Junon and Corel did nothing to change this mood. Yuffie was a side character thrown into the game, but she became nothing more than a character for the recurring theme of let's hurry up and get me my materia, either that or getting sick during each new form of transportation. Aerith really felt like she had no representation outside of Costa Del Sol, like she was more as a background characters rather than anything, despite at this time not being a background character. Cloud, Barret, and Red 13 seemed to be more highlighted than any character in the game and Tifa and Cait Sith seemed to have equally high apparence in the game. It just felt more like, there wasn't really all that much happening with the characters throughout the game, probably because there was just so much of the game that they had to get through compared to Midgar. The game is at it's core longer than Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but it doesn't feel like any of it was equally well designed.

Now for the combat which is better, yet somehow much worse, than Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Now I'm going to go into detail about Cloud since he's received the most significant upgrade and is the best character in the game. Not the most damaging though, that definitely goes to Tifa, but the best character. So in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Cloud had a normal attack combo string, a punisher attack combo string, each of these could be held to do an either aoe spin attack or a single target heavy slash, the regular stance could defend while punisher could take less damage and counter against melee attacks. If you swapped into punisher just before a melee attack hit, you'd still trigger the counter. Rebirth has a significant increase on Cloud's depth in combat, which if you switch into punisher not only will you do the counter, but you'll counter with an attack and then three more quick slashes, so a punisher swap counter was added. The deadly dodge materia is included as a basic mechanic for Cloud so if he dodges you can hold the attack and Cloud will preform a sweeping aoe attack much like his regular combo aoe, however, this attack will bring Cloud up into the air to allow him to start performing aerial attacks and stay up in the air while dealing these attacks. Additionally if Cloud is further away and he rolls then attacks he will start shooting out weak blade beams that makes him like a long range character, but if you're also further away from the enemy and you once again hold the attack, Cloud will almost teleport to the enemies to deal an extremely quick five hit combo. You can evade out of it immediately after and the series of attacks will still trigger. Additionally this is Cloud's biggest ATB gain. However, that's not all. If you swap to punisher mode while in air, Cloud will drop onto the ground with an aoe slash, if you immediately swap back into his regular stance, he'll dash through the enemy swinging his sword as a dash strike attack while turning around, this can also trigger after dealing atleast three punisher attacks. Additionally the punisher attacks build the most ATB otherwise and the first attack on the ground after any point of going into punisher will have Cloud do forward to overhead slash that will knock a large portion of enemies into the air. I often times will use the blade beam, then go into the five hit aerial slash which is seconds and you're instantly on the enemy, press triangle to drop down with the heavy slash, press triangle again going through the enemy and usually right there I will be close to two full bars of ATB so I'll often times use one ATB bar, but I can just go right into another roll again afterwards and again press triangle, press triangle attack. It's a good damage dealer, good ATB builder, and you're likely to evade damage if enemies attack during that point or have to take the time to turn back around.

Tifa can now also attack in the air and as long as Aerith or Barret are on the team they can throw Tifa to start her into an Aerial combo at no ATB cost, this also means you can use Tifa's more triangle attack to attack down to the ground. Tifa is actually worse though than on the original because her focused strike gains ATB after an evasion, and odds are you're almost never going to trigger that so you're never going to get ATB back. Like, why would you even use the attack when the enemy isn't pressured? It builds almost no break gauge, it does almost no damage, and the odds that you actually evade the attack and the game realizes that you did with this skill. You may as well consider having given away an ATB instead of actually had a use.

However, that's one of the games biggest problems. You're likely going to use Cloud, Tifa, and Barret or replace one of those, likely Tifa, with Red XIII. All of these characters gain a pretty good amount of ATB quickly and in the case of Tifa has the highest damage potential. Red XIII will often perfect defend or at the very least defend when not being controlled, and when in vengeance which you will be when you're playing as him thanks to the AI, you can add haste to all characters without the need for a fully mastered magnify and time materia. He's one of the best damage dealers in the game with his first ATB skill, and a good support. Barret however is the ATB master. He's gaining ATB like it's nobody's business and quick, the fact that he now has an ability called bonus round that doubles the speed he fires bullets basically doubles the ATB he gains. He's not the greatest damage dealer, but building ATB the fastest makes him an irreplaceable character.

Meanwhile, Cait Sith is easily the worst character in the game, even when you get kind of good with him, he's still the worst character in the game because he has to have the moogle the moogle costs ATB. Yuffie builds ATB decently well but her damage numbers are so stupidly low even with doppleganger that she's not worth using as a character. Then Aerith, how they ruined Aerith. She starts off slow and pretty much requires a first strike Materia if you want her to be able to start off as reliable. The skills she had as abilities on Fnal Fantasy 7 Remake are all worse, dealing absolutely nothing in comparison. She's required to use radiant ward and ATB ward to gain the amount of ATB she was getting in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and because her triangle skill now returns her to her ward and holding square was once her triangle skill, she's a big slower in doing her triangle charges to get more ATB with her.

Magic also seems much worse than remake, and I mean damage wise. Consdering that you have barely any MP and the game really expects you to use the synergy attacks to temporarily have infinite MP meaning that you need to use atleast three synergy points, magic is just not worth it. You'll still be in double digits MP when you hit level 50 and this is even with an MP Up materia equipped. Magic that performs worse now has such an absord cost in comparison because you have such litle to go around. Early game you might cast a couple spells and you're out of MP, late game you cast a couple mastered spells and you're out of MP.

The final reason why combat is better in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, is because Cloud can't do everything. Barret and Aerith build for dealing more damage to aerial enemies easier thann Cloud and Tifa which had to jump up to reach them before being able to attack. You had to choose characters based on their strengths to be optimal in combat, when Cloud can just do everything and generally is one of the higher damaging characters in the game, it hurts the identity of the other characters combat styles, it's like what's the point, why use anyone but Cloud now outside of building synergy points, magic damage, or recovery/buffs?

Then finally, the materia system is even worse. It's a flaw from the original Final Fantasy 7 where you either level up new materia or you use mastered materia, at which point you're gaining no experience. There's so much materia in this game though... so much. I can tell you often times it's just randomly thrown on all my characters and I'm just doing skills every battle so it's never being used since I often times just don't have the MP to use it or I don't want to use it because I know I won't have any MP after using a couple spells.


But yeah. I'm on the second to last chapter at 115 hours, playing on dynamic difficulty which s the games hardest difficulty the first time you play the game, it makes all enemies at or higher than your level. I would rate it a 6/10.

[Nz17]

Solitaire in Space, an indie freeware video game for SEGA Genesis.

[Aussie2B]

Still playing PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on my PSP and getting more into it, but I think I'm not particularly good at it, haha. There are three difficulties, though I don't yet have access to Hard-core, and I can switch back and forth while it retains everything I did in both Casual and Regular. I started with Regular, as I virtually always play games on their default difficulties, especially for my first time, but I only earned a rainbow on the tutorial in that mode. A rainbow is a perfect clear where no monsters made it to your base. You need to earn rainbows to unlock paths to more stages. Besides the overarching difficulty setting, stages are also labeled as Easy, Medium, etc. I cleared a number of Easy stages on Regular, just without any rainbows, but I got creamed on my first Medium stage on Regular. So then I decided to try playing on Casual. I don't know how exactly it affects the stages, whether it's more time between enemy waves, slower enemies, weaker enemies, faster tower attacks, etc., or some combination of all that, but it does feel like I have more time to actually strategize rather than haphazardly placing towers in a panicked rush. On Casual, I was able to earn rainbows easily on most Easy stages and was able to clear Medium stages easily too, albeit without rainbows. I've opened up the three main islands (though I think I heard there's a bonus island with randomly generated stages or something, I dunno). I've been unlocking medal challenges in the Tiki Hut too, but I've only cleared one of those. There's no difficulty selection for those, so I assume they're comparable to Regular or even Hard-core. But you don't need to worry about earning a rainbow in those, only meeting the goal and beating the stage without losing all the Tiki kids at the base. I can switch back to Regular in the main game at any time, and clearing the stages on the higher difficulties will change the icons on the map (both the regular icon for a cleared stage and the rainbow), so there's incentive there to earn rainbows on the higher difficulties. But for now, I'm good with giving myself a chance to ease into the game and build my skills before I ratchet up the difficulty.

[kupomogli]

I would have bought PixelJunk Monsters 2 if it wasn't $49.99 through LRG. I liked the first game enough on the PSP but I never did finish it so I wasn't going to pay the LRG price for a game that wasn't even finished being developed yet.

Finished Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth either a 5/10, maybe 6/10, a game that I feel is merely decent. It has some great things about it, combat, character's, dialogue, but the amount of padding and the things I didn't like about it really hurt my experience. All the issues I stated above. Completed all quests except for one, completed all of the games "intel" and was just under 130 hours. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is an amazing 25-40 hour experience, this game was not, infact, the combat system has its own flaws even in Remake, but despite the extra depth it felt even worse here. Aerith and Barret were great at dealing with ranged enemies, while magic was very useful for that as well, removing Cloud and Tifa's limitations in aerial combat took away from that dynamic, and magic felt so much less useful this time around I almost never used it in comparison. It was a worse experience in every way but just how absurd the padding was just really killed the experience for me.

Maybe one day I'll replay the game on hard difficulty and clean up the remaining quest I have to do, but considering just how much I hate the mini games because how bad they are, I quit playing Chocobo Racing after 10 races, this quest requires you to complete all 30.

I started Marvel's Midnight Suns a day or two after finishing Rebirth, and during the tutorial there were a lot of text dumps. Something I thought I'd hate but I actually didn't mind so much. Despite the passable voice acting, writing was actually decent enough for the characters outside of your own. Feels like like a character and more like an interviewer for all of these Marvel characters. After the tutorial ends the text dumps fall off except for those in between missions and most text is just a few blurbs whenever you do your activities with other characters to increase your relationship, so the pacing picks up pretty well.

So many people who maybe don't like XCOM might think that it's like that game and might get turned off from the idea of playing it and honestly it's not. Like, there are a few mechanics from XCOM, but the core gameplay itself is not like XCOM at all. So what happens is that you can bring three characters into each battle, each character has their own unique aspects of how their card mechanics work, and each character has up to eight cards they can have. The deck will then be drawn randomly and you play through with your characters. While the game can be considered a strategy game, it's a lot closer to something like a Final Fantasy game than an XCOM. When in combat your characters start on one side of the field and enemies start on the other thrown randomly abount and while you do have some attacks that allow knock back, line attacks, and aoe, as well as items on the battlefield that allow for environmental attacks, using your own attacks your characters will automatically move into position except for those that are line attacks. Knockback attacks also allow you to only knock enemies the direction you attack towards at maybe 70 degrees either way so in cases like that if your characters movement from their other attacks don't help, you do have the option to move once per turn wherever you want, and you can move over and over again until you take an action just incase your movement and position was off. So it's more like a turn based RPG with a bit of strategy elements on the map. The real strategy though is how you build your card decks, synergy and all that stuff.

Imo, people who like Persona 5 would actually like this game, because one thing in Persona 5 is with the dialogue, for how much text there is the character's certainly say a lot of nothing and often times repeat themselves constantly, every character needs to get a word in every instance, etc. In this game, the developers didn't feel the need to have every character jump in to get a line. Either you're interacting with one character at a time or you're interacting with a few at most dealing with that story event. It's still padded but again, I didn't dislike this as much as Persona 5 or Ys10 story, so it's got that going for it. Catherine is another good one with a lot of storyline but another one I really enjoyed all the story.

This game has none of the limited time events, limited time win/lose scenarios, etc. You can continue playing random event battles as much as you want. If your characters die they get wounded and you can't use them a few battles but you don't lose anyone. There are no percentage based hits or rewards, everything is 100% success rate. This may be a detractor for those who like XCOM or it might be something that interests people more about the game.

[YoshiM]

Last weekend I was doing CRT vs LCD testing between my NES and the AVS FPGA NES "clone" console. The colors didn't look quite right and I wanted to see the difference. Didn't get a chance to play much beyond firing up "Super Mario Bros."

Over the week I got some "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" in. I picked up some wheat starts, planted them and by Friday I had plants! I already baked up a storm to sell my goods to the Nooklings. Funny thing, I typically do not like crafting in games. I'm a little "eh" with making objects in N.H. but cooking? I'm all in on that, even though I do all the major family cooking at home!

Today I got to play a some more "Horace" on the Switch. It can get pretty frustrating but the issue isn't the game....it's the player. For me it's a "good" frustrating-where I yelp or exclaim my patented "OH COME ON!" but I keep plugging at it. I left off on a boss battle, putting the Switch into sleep mode until this afternoon. Getting back into the conflict, I was soooo ice cold in the gameplay department. It took a little bit to warm up but I did beat the boss and moved on. There's this one area that's a HUGE mind screw that was unrelenting with the challenges. I almost....ALMOST looked at some online help but I was able to throw poor Horace past harm's way using gravity (I had to get past a flaming floor and ceiling in round room that spun as you walked. I had to jump at the right time and just drop between the flames to land on the floor/ceiling at the bottom. Whew!) and continued on. This section even got some Spectrum love in the mini games you get to play in this level. This is a game I don't dare play at work due to my yelps of frustration.

[calthaer]

When I have a little time I've been playing Heroes of Might & Magic III on GOG and Red Alert 2 on Steam.

Not sure why I'm on a late-90s strategy (real-time or turn-based), but I apparently am. Looking back, it was a pretty great time to be a PC gamer.

[YoshiM]

Played some "Yooka Laylee" on Steam today. Wow....it's like I had to reset my brain. 3D platforming collect-a-thons feel so alien now for me. I'm really early in the game, so things feel a little too easy. I do have to fight with the camera sometimes as I want to move it one way but the game nudges it back to where it was depending where the duo are standing.

It's cute, the graphics are gorgeous...let's see how long it keeps my interest. Last time I went back to "Banjo Kazooie" I don't think I made it far before I got bored with all the collecting and wandering.

[kupomogli]

I got bored of Marvel's Midnight Suns and stopped playing. It's a decent game and I do like the combat but it more or less just feels like playing mostly the same combat now and the stuff in between combat as little as it is is just annoying to continue with. And it's not that I don't like it, it's just that I wasn't going to the game for several days and I wasn't playing anything because I didn't really have any motivation to go back to it.

I started(and finished) Ender Lilies for a third time. This time when playing it I also finished everything 100% and platinumed the game. Maybe I should include this in the Castlevania Dominus Collection thread because you fight a mini boss or boss that provides you an attack skill for every single attack in the game. It's a more balanced at the very least as good or better than the best exploration Castlevania game. This game is mostly similar to Castlevania Order of Ecclesia where the souls of the enemies are your attacks specifically, not just your sub weapons, and this game is better in every way.

Now, to me, it wouldn't matter if the gameplay also wasn't successful, but Ender Lilies is also an absolutely jaw dropping 2.5D game. There are a couple areas in the game where there is water in the foreground and the developers put so much detail that attacks that strike the water will cause ripples. It's not even just because you're on the ground, if the attacks hit the water they'll cause the ripple, some attacks hit the water multiple times in multiple areas so it'll provide multiple ripples. The attention to detail is pretty amazing.

Now after playing that amazing game, again, and platinuming it. I've been trying to find something else to play. I've played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2. Played what's basically the demo of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 while the game was installing the rest of the game. I now realize why I never bought the full game, because after 30 minutes I was done. It was so repetitive I was pretty much done with it within minutes, but I continued to play for around 30 minutes before I dropped off. This game is overrated AF.

So I picked up Control, another game that I always see praised to the high heavens and just like EVERY SINGLE GAME FROM REMEDY, this game is overrated AF. Control has an interesting premise and storyline, but the game itself is just very mediocre. It's not even good, mediocre. First off, the level design is an absolute garbage fire. It's a building, but instead of most rooms being separated by hallways, the hallways separate into some rooms and then those rooms separate into other rooms. It didn't take me too long after finishing an enemy gauntlet that I just couldn't find the way to go so you're literally going over the walls of every room in order to progress and I was like, yeah, I'm done with this pos, and that's not even the only bad thing about the game, however it's your average modern day padding issues where the developers build obscurity and pacing problems directly in their games to make the games longer because clearly a long game is better than making sure your game isn't shit.

I then played a little bit of Dead Space. Now this one is good and even though I am very bad at the game, I played around an hour and just realized that I just didn't want to play all the way through a shooter right now, coming off of Control and then playing a bit of this I was just already burnt out on a genre I'm not great and I don't usually care for. I can tell you though that this just feels like Dead Space, both control and progression.

So then I finally opened Demon Gaze Extra. I've already completed Demon Gaze on Vita and Demon Gaze imo is the best game from Experience that I've played, but it's still one of the most bare bones by the money systems there is with the classes. The classes themselves are all one trick ponies and you will be using them as such through every instance of the game. Now the one thing that changes this aspect is the artifact accessories that you can find that allow you to use the attacks of any class up to a point. The problem is is that these accessories are insanely rare, they're also limited, and finally, randomized. You're not guaranteed to get what you want and even if you were, are you going to use these early so you can get level one versions of these artifacts or are you going to save all these to the very end of the game to get the most out of the artifacts. Now your samurai who is going to attack every enemy on screen with melee. You can give this character the artifact allowing them to use the fighter skill, but am I going to give them the level 1 fighter artifact and basically lose one of these items permanently, or am I going to wait until I can use one of these items to gain the max level skill. So even what the game does well, it does it poorly.

Then another problem is how stats work, specifically vitality, ignore all other stats and level up nothing but vitality initially until you get to where you want it and from that point on you'll never upgrade vitality again and your HP will be higher than reaching the same value at a later level. If you want to maximize your HP gain you'll overload on vitality early and it will make the difference between an easy, easier, or stupidly hard game. The game will still be "okay," or "playable" as a one trick pony dungeon crawler, but broken based on how you level.

[Slate]

I gave some NES games a bit of playtime lately...

3-D World Runner
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Super Mario Bros. 2

- Austin

[YoshiM]

Time has been a premium. Saturday night my wife needed a break from all the work she's doing so I made French Onion soup from scratch before I had to pick her up. It takes a long time to make (just about an hour to reduce the onions), so I got some "Horace" in on the Switch in between onion stirrings.

Today I got stuff caught up to a comfortable degree at work (had stuff I needed to get done but fires kept popping up that needed my attention). During an actual lunch break I played some "Metroid Prime: Remastered" on the Switch. Got the charge beam, another energy pod and now the morph ball bomb. I was able to get to the save point before I had to get back to the grind.

Tonight before doing home finance stuff I installed "SKATEBird" on my Steam Deck. I bought the game off of Itch.io, so I had to read up on how to install it. Unfortunately, people's instructions are two years old with suggestions to install the Windows version as the Linux version didn't want to work. I tried that and no go for the Win-dow. Tonight for kicks I downloaded the Linux version and the sucker started without a hitch. I added it to my Steam library, kept the controller defaults and voila! The game works as it should with console-style controls. I just suck at it.

[Aussie2B]

I've gotten quite a bit further into PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe for PSP, albeit still mostly on the Casual difficulty level. I technically beat the game, by clearing what's labeled as the final stage of Tiki Island, the first and biggest island. It is pretty cool how the stage ends with three different boss monsters coming out simultaneously. But there's no real ending. You just get a congratulatory text box and then the same credits roll you can view at any time from the Options menu. Maybe there's something more if it's cleared on a higher difficulty.

I've also gotten 10 rainbows on Tiki Island, which is the minimum needed to opened up access to all 21 levels on the island, and I cleared all 21. I also upgraded a few of those 10 rainbows to Regular difficulty rainbows. I still don't have access to the Hard-core difficulty and have no idea what unlocks that. I've cleared every stage open to me on Toki Island and Gati Gati Island, but having only earned 3 rainbows on each, there's 2 stages on Gati Gati I still can't access and 3 on Toki. I would like to access and clear every stage, but going after rainbows is tiresome. A lot of the time, I'll take all the time to get through 15+ waves of monsters, only to have one slip through when I'm nearing the end. I've been doing the medal challenges too and have cleared 10 of the 24, so over half of what I currently have available, as there are still 5 challenges I've yet to unlock (due to what I've yet to unlock in the main mode). Unfortunately, a couple challenges do involve earning rainbows, but they're usually pretty fun when you don't have worry about having to restart because of one tiny thing. It's nice earning rewards from the medals too. I've unlocked a PSP theme, concept art, a full music/SFX sound test, and artwork. What's weird is that there seems to be some programming screwup with the messages telling you that you've unlocked something new. Sometimes I get that message when there's nothing new available.

I actually looked into PixelJunk Monsters 2 myself and saw the physical versions generally sell for less than what LRG had been charging. Doesn't seem like there's much demand for it. I don't know if I like the original enough to bother with the sequel myself, but it's nice to know it can be had physically without breaking the bank.

[Aussie2B]

I've been sick yet again, for the fifth time since late September, ugh (every month except for January), so I've been playing less. I didn't bother starting up a different game, as I often do while sick, since I'm already in the middle of a handheld game, and it's no big loss to me to play without headphones. For as much as PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe for PSP pushes a soundtrack by Otograph as a selling point, the music doesn't do much for me. It's perfectly fine for the game itself, not obtrusive or pulling my mind away from concentrating on my actions and decisions, but I find it rather bland. I've never even heard of this duo before either, despite being a part of the video game music scene for decades, so it doesn't seem like big VGM fans care.

Making progress is harder to come by now. I did earn a couple more rainbows on Gati Gati Island, which opened up the Special stage where I earned the Interest item. That, in turn, opened up three more medal challenges. I've now cleared 13 of the 24, with 2 still unlocked. I think I've picked off most of the easier medal challenges. Some of them feel like a puzzle to figure out, where you really have to do things in a specific way to succeed. After a number of attempts, I cleared the Gem Hoarder challenge. For that one, you need to have at least 25 in your possession when you beat the boss, but even when I'd defeat every monster, I'd only end up with 22. I needed to find the one hidden in the forest while also maxing out the level of a tower (without using gems) to then sell off for an additional 2 gems. That one was satisfying to figure out, though part of that is because it's a short one with only 10 waves of monsters. I think I'd like the entire game a bit more if most stages were around that length. It's losing after nearly 20 waves that kills my motivation to try again. In fact, there have been a couple occasions where I've gotten all the way to the 20th wave with the boss and lost my rainbow/medal there, even though, ironically, the boss is usually where I take a sigh of relief, as they don't tend to be as challenging as a fast-moving, massive swarm of regular monsters. But that damn flying boss sometimes screws me. You need to be set up just right to knock it out of the air early on (which usually means having spent gems to unlock laser towers and building at least one near where the boss appears) and then pound away on it on the ground before it reaches the base, and sometimes the nature of the swarms of monsters doesn't have me set up properly for that. So then it boils down to losing simply because you don't know what's coming until it's too late, having to memorize what happens, and then taking all that time trying again. It's those scenarios I find tedious when it's a stage with 20 waves to sit through.

[Aussie2B]

I eked out the two additional rainbows needed to unlock the final stage of Gati Gati Island in PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on PSP, and then, go figure, I earned a rainbow on that stage on my very first try, even though it's made out as if it's the hardest stage on the island. Granted, I wouldn't have earned that eighth rainbow on the island if not for a couple instances of last-ditch mine-laying. Really, there are probably lots of stages I could've more easily earned rainbows on (some probably on the first attempt) if I had used mines. Since you don't start the game with mines, even after I obtained them, I'd often forget they were an option, even when I had the gems to spare. Of course, I'm still talking about the Casual difficulty level here. I think I've improved my skills enough that I could do much better on Regular than I had before, but now I kind of feel like, what's the point. Playing on Regular may be the requirement for unlocking Hard-core, I don't know, but I'm having fun enough playing through on Casual. The game is already plenty meaty as it is, and challenging enough for me, so I don't really feel the need to extend it by aiming to upgrade all my clears/rainbows to those on Regular or Hard-core. I think that would probably be more tempting with the original release of the game. From what I understand, the entire game was originally just Tiki Island, then Toki Island was added DLC for veteran players who wanted a bigger challenge, trophies were added and then evolved into the Medal Challenges on PSP, and Gati Gati Island was added to the PSP version. So the game really ballooned in size over time. Anyway, clearing Gati Gati Island earned me the same congratulatory message and credits roll that I got for clearing Tiki Island, and it unlocked one more Medal Challenge. I have 17 of those cleared now, and the last one won't unlock until I clear all the Special stages in the main game. So my next goal is to try to earn more rainbows on Toki Island to unlock its remaining stages.

[YoshiM]

I had a strange request from one of my step-sons who just turned 20: "Can you bring up the Xbox from the basement?" I did and he and his closest-in-age brother played "Star Wars: Battlefront" for hours going through the campaign on his birthday. That then led to some split screen play on "Rallisport Challenge" which turned out to be pretty popular. Once things calmed down for the evening, I fired up "Halo: Combat Evolved" and played that for a half hour.

I fiddled on my PS Vita for a bit, seeing if it still worked and then installing Retroarch on it. Being the OLED model, I compared some emulated Sega Genesis games with ones from the "Genesis Collection" on the Switch. First off, playing "Sonic the Hedgehog", I noticed that the Switch collection version doesn't seem to be the original ROM but a conversion of some sort. I haven't played much on this collection but I saw that the clouds in the Green Hill zone MOVED while the actual ROM version does not. I even fired up my Genesis Mini model 1 to confirm and sure enough, the clouds don't move. THAT was a bit concerning-here I thought I'd be playing what would be the original games but in an easy to access format. OLED was gorgeous with Genesis games, though.

That's been about it.

[Aussie2B]

I earned one more rainbow on Toki Island in PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on PSP, but I still need two more to unlock another stage. Such is the rainbow grind. Licking Medal Challenges feels rewarding quicker. It was no sweat clearing the challenge that opened up upon finishing off Gati Gati Island. No persnickety conditions for that one. Just had to survive 20 waves of monsters that all had some kind of resistance. Regular cannons were good enough for the early waves, and once I had enough gems for Tesla towers, I was set. I let a few enemies slip through, but I didn't even come close to failing that challenge. With my 18th medal, I unlocked even more concept art.

[Nz17]

I saw that the clouds in the Green Hill zone MOVED while the actual ROM version does not.

Sounds like the Japanese Sonic 1 ROM.

[Aussie2B]

In PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on PSP, I got the two additional rainbows on Toki Island I needed to unlock another Special stage. That one has super speedy enemies and a relatively small number of trees available for turning into towers, so money isn't a big concern, but choices on which towers to use and where to place them is critical. Cleared that stage with only a few Tiki kids left, so nowhere close to a rainbow on that one. But clearing it did earn me the ability to buy the Lightning Tower, so now I have access to every type of tower, which is the condition needed to open up the last of the 24 Medal Challenges. I'm in no rush to attempt that Tower Collector challenge, though. I hear it's by far the hardest Medal Challenge. The problem is that they had the same challenge on PS3, where it supposedly isn't especially difficult, but the PSP version of the game added a couple new types of towers, and the challenge, which requires building at least one of every type of tower within 20 waves of monsters, wasn't adjusted in any way. With the two new towers costing nearly 20 gems on top of the cost of all the others, it's an absolutely massive amount of gems required.

[YoshiM]

Sounds like the Japanese Sonic 1 ROM.


I never knew there was a difference until now! When I wrote my bit I did a quick web search but didn't come up with anything different about the Genesis Collection using Japanese ROMs. Because of that, my limited search didn't even make mention of any differences between the Japanese and the International version. After your post, I looked into it more and read about the differences and bug fixes the Japanese version got (which came out what, a month after the international version?). The Genesis Collection on Switch doesn't seem to have a region switch (at least, nothing in the menus I can see). The virtual cartridge IS the Mega Drive version, so I wonder why Sega decided to go that route with the "Genesis" collection on the American eShop?

Thanks for schooling me on that!

In other news, I played the Genesis Mini 2 on the big bedroom TV the kids usually use for console gaming. I started playing "Silpheed" and got up to Stage 6. I will joyfully admit that I did use the abusive power of save states BUT I *did* get to Stage 4 on my lonesome, which I never did before. Starting it up, however, was a visually painful experience as the digital display brought out the sheer jaggedness of the computer generated FMV. It did NOT look good-it was like there was no real scaling going on and one could need to use some imagination to determine the triangular blob on the screen was a space ship. I turned on the scanline filter, which darkened the screen but smoothed out the polygonal video, making it a lot easier to see.

I did do an experiment today with Silpheed by hooking up the Genesis Mini 2 to my 13" CRT TV using an HDMI to RCA/Composite adapter. I had an RCA brand adapter which worked all right on my other minis but not on my NES FPGA system or my Atari 7800+. I just got black screens for those. This morning I stopped at the local Best Buy to pick up an Insignia brand converter that was returned and sold for half-off. The difference with this model was that it was powered while the RCA one was passive. I hooked up the new adapater, fired up my "Nintendo AVS" and played some Super Mario Bros. I saw some weird banding at first but remembered I had the scan lines turned on. Restarted, turned off those settings and tried again.

Now some would ask me, "Yoshi, what's the point of playing an HDMI-built FPGA system on a CRT?" This was the typical response I read when i was doing research as to why my AVS and 7800+ wasn't working on my passive converter. Out of the browser searches I did, I came across a handful of posts from folks trying to do the same thing I was only to get shot down with those comments. "Just use the old hardware." "Hook the system up to what it's made for." In the case of the AVS, I DID hook it up to HDMI capable displays. We have an older Visio 32" upstairs, my Sony cheapy 42" Bravia in the bedroom (which is only for games), my Dell computer monitor in the basement and then a small Visio TV that's the same vintage as the 32". The image either seemed washed out (on the Visios) or the color palette didn't seem right (on the Sony and then Dell monitor). The AVS allows for palette changes but even after trying different ones, it just never looked "right".

I compared the AVS and the NES on an LCD and CRT respectively and the colors were always off on the LCD. No matter how much I tinkered with the picture settings, the blues in SMB would never get close. More than likely, it's probably a TV thing but was disappointing. The 7800+ looked decent on any LCD display I had it on but I still wanted to try playing it on a CRT for kicks. Thus this pushed me to look into different converters.

Using the new Insignia converter, did the AVS work on the CRT? Yes. How did it look? Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. No lag in movement or delay with sound. The color of the sky is the blue that I'm used to. The 7800+ was next for testing. That too worked. Only downside with that is the 16:9 mode really stretches it on the CRT. 4:3 shrinks it. I didn't have time to do an Atari 2600 with an AV mod vs the 7800+ playing the same 2600 game, but that showdown will come in due time.

Other than the "video" game I played, I also got farther in "Horace" on the Switch. I was in a Prehistoric level that was a right pain in the rear to get through. There were all these robot-munching Venus fly traps all over the place, making movement difficult. I had to find four large blocks to carry over to the people Horace was with and plop them in a pool of water to create a bridge for all of them to cross. It took a while but I got through that bloody stage and made it to the next chapter.

[Aussie2B]

I had some pretty good runs in PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on PSP the last couple nights. The night before last, I got two more rainbows on Toki Island without much difficulty, opening up the last Special stage, which is an homage to Space Invaders. Last night, I cleared and earned a rainbow on that stage on my very first try. Clearing that stage unlocked Tum Tum Island, which generates a random island based on which characters you enter, so there's yet another thing to extend the length of the game for the diehard fans. Earning the rainbow brought me up to nine rainbows on Toki Island, which unlocked the final stage. Cleared that on my first try too, though not remotely close to earning a rainbow. Thus cued another congratulatory message and credits roll. I think the message was different, though. I don't remember the previous messages giving the URL for the PixelJunk website. So I've cleared all 47 stages in the main game, albeit almost entirely on Casual. Now I'll focus on the remaining six Medal Challenges I haven't cleared, though, if those get annoying, I might try doing more stages in the main game on Regular. Not sure if I'll stick with it long enough to clear every Medal Challenge, but we'll see. I still haven't unlocked the Hard-core difficulty either, so unless the Medal Challenges are involved (which I doubt), it seems like doing more on the Regular difficulty is a must for that.

[Aussie2B]

I finally managed to clear the Scrooge's Return Medal Challenge in PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on PSP, bringing me up to 19 Medal Challenges cleared out of 24. From what I've read, it seems like Scrooge's Return is one of the PSN trophies for the PS3 version that people most struggle with. I still haven't cleared Scrooge 3, which isn't on PS3 (as it uses a map from Gati Gati Island). Not sure if each Scrooge challenge is considered harder than the last or not. The difficulty of tasks in this game doesn't feel so linear to me. Beyond that, I did upgrade a couple rainbows from Casual to Regular. I don't expect any easy wins out of the remaining 5 Medal Challenges. I believe Rainbow Team was the only gold trophy in the PS3 version. Hidden Monument seems like it wouldn't be so bad, but I've made repeated attempts and usually fail badly. And Master Sniper seems like it needs an annoying amount of memorization. I still haven't even tried Tower Collector.

[Nz17]

YoshiM, FYI, there is region switching for the SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Mini 1 & 2. Just switch the language in the main menu's options screen to Japanese for Japan, or English for America, or German for Europe. Savor the differences!

[YoshiM]

YoshiM, FYI, there is region switching for the SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Mini 1 & 2. Just switch the language in the main menu's options screen to Japanese for Japan, or English for America, or German for Europe. Savor the differences!

I didn't dive into the language settings to see if there were differences on my Minis. Yet anyway. I might have to do that sooner than later. I prefer to play the Genesis games on my minis as that feels more like the real deal, but I got the Switch Genesis Collection for a song (like 8 bucks) for the portability factor. I wonder if there's a region switch in that game-I'll have to check tomorrow at lunch time for kicks.

On game play front, my second youngest wanted to play "Tom and Jerry: Fists of Furry" on the N64. So that was brought upstairs and put on the main TV to be played in its LCD blur induced glory. I played some "Goldeneye 007" on that TV and found one of my controllers with the Gamecube style replacement stick was way too twitchy for accurate play and I got trounced. I swapped in my banana colored controller (I bought on eBay from Japan, hoping the Japanese would take care of their controllers better than ones I came across in America) and I fared better with the original stick. Not by much, but better. I did a few quick plays of "F-Zero X" and "WWF No Mercy".

Sunday my second youngest wanted to play some more T&J so after he was done, I brought the N64 to the basement to hook it back up to the CRT. I did way better this time in "Goldeneye"....not sure if it was because I was playing on the proper display or the fact that my elder skills kicked in finally. I was playing The Facility and was able to get through this time with minimal damage. I did forget that the double agent you need to find is picked at random (I had to look it up-I thought I saw all the scientists and got that reminder), so I had to do some back tracking. I almost fell into the classic blunder of thinking that, when you are in the bottling room, you had to clear out the bad guys after blowing the bottles. That's kinda how one gets "trained" by many FPS's over the years. When I saw the objective was met, I turned and walked out the door. I forgot how fun this game was!

For my lunch time today, I got some "Horace" time in. I made it to Chapter 10. The platforming is becoming more frustrating in a bad way. The prehistoric level was bad but the boss battle of Chapter 9...ugh. There was a lot of deaths before I got through it. Once I figured out the pattern of the attacks it wasn't bad and THANKFULLY the developers put in a check point when the boss needed two more attacks to fall-you get some killer obstacles that can be a challenge to dodge effectively.

[Aussie2B]

I found a list online of the monster types and where they appear in the Master Sniper Medal Challenge in PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on PSP, and that spared me having to repeat the stage just to make my own list. You get an in-game bar previewing the upcoming waves and how soon they'll appear, but for that challenge, you really need to know which side they'll appear on before they appear. Turns out it's a repeating pattern of two waves on the right and then one on the left. I never did find the ideal tower placement to avoid any casualties, but I did figure it all out well enough to clear the challenge. I also was victorious with Hidden Monument. The trick for me was to just forget about Gem Towers until near the very end. To begin with, that challenge only gives gems during certain waves, where every enemy will drop. I just loaded up the stage with Arrow Towers and Anti-Air Towers to deal with all the spiders and airborne enemies, then added some Laser Towers once I had the gems needed, unlocked the Gem Towers after that, used my remaining gems on mines when the swarms became overwhelming, and slapped down the five Gem Towers required during the boss wave by selling off towers that were no longer needed until I had the necessary cash. At 21 out of 24 Medal Challenges cleared, I unlocked more art for the gallery. I seem to recall rewards coming after every two clears before, but I believe my previous reward was at 18. So I'm guessing there's nothing more until all 24 are cleared. Perhaps just a new trophy to replace the trophy that appears in the Tiki Hut upon clearing 50% of the Medal Challenges (a literal image of a trophy, not talking a PSN trophy here).

[Canija]

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I recently replayed Gears 2 and Road to Ruin and I agree. It tried to do some interesting things with semi-stealth segments but I feel it was a bit too repetitive and didn't really fit with the tone of what happened storywise prior to that segment. So I can understand why they decided to cut it. I haven't played Aftermath (and Judgment in general), but planning to catch up later this year.

[Aussie2B]

I was focusing on the Scrooge 3 Medal Challenge in PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on PSP, figuring it would be the easiest of the three I had remaining, but I was having a hell of a time with it. I'd either fail from too many monsters leaking through, or I'd fall short of the necessary cash to successfully clear the challenge. I hate how, with games from around the 7th gen and newer, it can be impossible to find any worthwhile general tips. Instead, the only info out there is in the form of YouTube videos. I don't want to just watch exactly what I need to do, but I eventually caved and watched about half the waves of a successful run at Scrooge 3 to get an idea of how to get started. I was right in thinking it was best going with the order of buying one interest, lasers, and then the remaining interest boosts, but I was overbuilding in some regards and needed more arrows. So with that bit of help, I cleared Scrooge 3 and moved on to Rainbow Team, which actually fell into place surprisingly easy. It took several failed starts, as you really need to know exactly what you're going to do and make a beeline for it, but once you get established decently, you can mostly cruise through the second half of the waves, just using a mine here and there if anything leaks through. So I didn't need to look at a video for that one. Now it's only the dreaded Tower Collector challenge that remains.

[YoshiM]

Ugh..here I am playing "Up Way Too Late". The wife and I are doing a one day get-away out of town, so I stayed up to get a discount on the room at a bed and breakfast place. Nice historic hotel type place with a wine and cracker social in the evening and then a big breakfast in the morning. The downtown area it's at is also historic and fun to walk around. A budget theater is half a block away with movies going for about $4 a person. I hopped on here to see what was up and just noticed the time. 1:07 AM.

So what's a few more minutes, right?

I haven't had a ton of time to play. I was doing the 2600 High Score challenge at Atari Age but I could not get a moment to sit in front of my 2600. I'm not fond of playing 2600 games on a system with a joypad as I could have done straight emulation, but I didn't. Oh well.

On the Switch I've gotten into the "Castlevania Collection" and spamming the hell out of the save states for the first NES game. I did discover my skills were decent as I could get to Igor and Frankenstein with very few deaths. I think I died maybe a couple of times and I used the saves merely to pause until the next time I could play. Fighting I and F....ugh...I was never good at that. It took a few rounds of reloads but I did it. Long story short, I'm at Dracula but I don't have a ton of hearts. I learned the pattern for attacking his first form BUT I started to get game fatigue, so it's sidelined until another time.

In "Animal Crossing: NH" I'm clearing out fruitless trees as I've got a lot of ground clutter. I'm also working on paying off this iteration of my house.

Since my last post I dabbled in both "Metroid Prime: Remastered" and "Horace", just pecking away at those titles.

[Aussie2B]

Whoo-hoo, I finally cleared all 24 Medal Challenges in PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on PSP, earning a new trophy for the Tiki Hut and some more artwork in the gallery. I didn't even need as much outside help with Tower Collector as I did with Scrooge 3. Mostly I just read some general tips (unlock Laser Towers and Gem Towers first, place Laser Towers in good spots so you only need 3-4, and place 4-5 Gem Towers that are well surrounded so you can harvest upgraded towers for gems). I watched a video for just the first couple waves. I was already starting by placing three Cannon Towers, but the video had them in a row, which did seem better than how I initially had them more spaced apart, if only because it lessens having to run around to scoop up coins and gems. It took me several failed tries, where I was failing when the boss reached my base, either because I was a couple gems short or couldn't get things built fast enough to polish off the boss before all the Tiki kids were gone. But eventually I managed to squeak out a victory. Hard-core difficulty for the main game still isn't unlocked, so that must involve clearing more of the game on Regular (only ever cleared and earned rainbows on six stages on Regular). But I think I'll probably call it quits here. It's been fun, but I've had my fill for now. I'm satisfied with clearing all the stages in the main game, regardless of what difficulty, and all the Medal Challenges.

Beyond that, I'm still loading up Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness on PS4 for a few minutes here and there to read the lore stuff in the Glossary. I should finally just finish that off. I also bought and briefly tried out Freedom Wars for Vita and four Game Boy Advance games under the Petz umbrella: Petz: Hamsterz 2, Catz, Dogz, and Dogz Fashion.

[YoshiM]

As my N64 controllers have sticks that are in varying degrees of function (OK to great, with one stick a Hall Effect stick), I wanted to get my hands on an official OEM replacement. I have a Nintendo Switch Online N64 controller but the parts are not compatible with the OG controller. Bummer. I don't want to pony up for the NSO Expansion service as I already have the Family plan so I have a stick that's pretty much only used for Super Mario 64 in that Mario collection that came out a couple years or so ago. That got me to thinking-is there an adapter out there that would allow a Bluetooth controller to connect to the N64?

Enter RetroTime's BlueRetro N64 adapter. This little adapter is a little longer than the plug end of an official N64 controller. You plug it into your system, turn on the power and then go to Blueretro's site to connect to the adapter from your BT capable computer (and I'm assuming phone, though I haven't tried). From the web, you can update the firmware, set up how the controller functions (like having the ability to use memory paks, rumble or both-I set mine to "both") and format and manage the built in 4 virtual memory packs (you do have to format before you use them). It took a few minutes to update the firmware and maybe a couple more to set the accessory mode (the aforementioned "both") and format the packs.

Then came the test.

I paired my NSO N64 controller to the adapter and immediately I could navigate my Everdrive. I pressed the Home button to switch between the rumble pack (which makes the controller rumble) and memory pak mode. The Snapshot button switches between the 4 paks. I fired up Star Fox to try out the rumble feature and to feel how the control is. Sans the wireless feature and lesser weight, I was gaming like it was 1997 all over again. The controller was responsive with no detectable lag. The rumble was like Goldilock's porridge, just right. Not too strong and not weak. After getting through the alternate route of the first level of Star Fox, I switched over to the Japanese version of Wave Race. Rumble worked great in there, but I'm soooo out of practice with that game.

Beyond the test run, I got in some Animal Crossing today. I paid off my house and already signed up for the next upgrade. It's also looking like June has taken quite a shine to me. She sent me a letter stating how at times she likes to be alone, but there can be "too much of a great thing". Essentially she missed me. When I bumped into her on the island, she said it's been two months since we last spoke. She was quite happy I talked to her and said she had a daydream of picking apples, which had an insinuation that she wanted to pick them with me. I stopped at home to put up some drapes (which weren't the drapes I was thinking of) and she came over right away to hang out. She didn't stay long (which was fine, I had to finish my break) but dang, apparently she can't resist my human-ness.

[Aussie2B]

I finally finished up reading all the Glossary entries in Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness on PlayStation 4 (once you get to the technology section, it just feels like reading a Star Trek wiki, haha), so after having it live in my system for nearly a year (outside of occasionally swapping in a Sailor Moon Blu-ray), I finally put that away, along with PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe.

I briefly tested a few cheap DS games I picked up: Clubhouse Games, Hamsterz Life, Petz: Dogz 2, and Petz: Hamsterz 2. Yes, I've been intentionally collecting Petz games lately, haha. But only ones that are totally unrelated Japanese games that were rebranded as Petz games in localization.

In terms of what I'm putting actual effort into, I have to be mindful of what I start up because the plan is to visit family again soon for probably at least a couple months. I've got a family member whose health is in decline, so I need to see him ASAP, and we also need to do a visit before kiddo starts kindergarten in September. So anyway, I don't want to start anything long that I would have to stop midway through on. Like usual, we'll take flash carts for the Famicom and SNES there and a couple handhelds, but that's still lot fewer options than I have here. I'll probably be gaming almost exclusively on my Vita like last time.

So in the meantime, I felt like playing some NES. I decided to revisit Cabal, which I had barely, if at all, touched in decades. Took a little practice, but I got my groove back and beat it. There aren't a ton of shooting gallery games like Cabal on any platform, but I thought Operation Wolf might give me a somewhat similar feel. That one I barely ever played before. I know it can also be played with the Zapper, but I'd rather just use the controller, even if it's rather twitchy. There isn't unlimited ammo like in Cabal, so you can't just sweep the field with gunfire, and between the auto-scrolling and enemies moving back and forth, you really have to dart the sights around. Thankfully, you can adjust the speed of the sights, as anything but the slowest setting destroys any ability to be precise. I quickly learned that when I started on the default Medium setting. I've gotten as far as the Prison Camp mission (the fifth of six). I've heard that the manual frames beating the game as clearing all four difficulty loops (the game loops endlessly, but it gets harder with each loop until you clear the fourth, at which point it just repeats that fourth loop), but you get a little ending after clearing the game's six missions, so I think I'd be satisfied and regard the game as beaten if I could get through just one loop. I usually don't even pay attention to harder loops that start after clearing a game's default difficulty, and I definitely don't consider completing those as musts to claim a game is beaten.

[fpbrush]

I briefly tested a few cheap DS games I picked up: Clubhouse Games, Hamsterz Life, Petz: Dogz 2, and Petz: Hamsterz 2. Yes, I've been intentionally collecting Petz games lately, haha. But only ones that are totally unrelated Japanese games that were rebranded as Petz games in localization.

Good luck, and enjoy the rest of that glossary! ;)

Ah, haha! I remember, the early PC dayz of the Petz! Are the ds versions anything like them (e.g. are they fun still age wise)?

[fpbrush]

…I just rebooted my DS, and I am restarting my Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga playthrough.

[Aussie2B]

Some of Ubisoft's Petz games are fun, but outside of also being virtual pet games, they don't really have anything in common with the original computer games. Basically, Ubisoft bought the IP and slapped the name on anything they felt was fitting. Sometimes they contracted out bottom-tier developers to create games specifically for the Petz line. Other times, they'd buy the licenses for games that were developed in Japan and Europe and rename them as Petz games in localization for the North American market. Most of the "Horsez" games were from Europe, I believe, while a lot of the "Dogz" and "Hamsterz" games were from Japan. And of the stuff they licensed, there's a lot of variety, from serious simulations to silly, unrealistic games themed around whatever animal. Like in the case of Dogz Fashion on GBA, it's more like a dog-themed Mario Party than a simulation of dog ownership. And Ubisoft actually bought Digital Kids, one of the Japanese developers known for pet sims, and rebranded their offices as Ubisoft Osaka and Ubisoft Nagoya before presumably shuttering them after the virtual pet fad died down (seemingly because Nintendogs wasn't nearly as successful as Nintendo hoped, making everyone in the genre wary).

As for what I'm playing, I got up to the final mission in the first loop of Operation Wolf on NES. Up to the last boss even, it seems. I heard it was a helicopter, and there was a helicopter that looked different from the usual ones. But I guess I just barely ran out of life before finishing it off. It's a little frustrating that you can retry the first four missions (and the bonus one that pops up at a random point in the sequence), while it's an instant game over if you lose on either of the final two. Though, I did read that, even after a game over, the game retains which loop you're on, so that acts as a sort of continue. If you're trying to clear the harder loops, it would definitely suck to lose on the fifth or sixth mission and then have to restart on the first mission of the first loop.

[Nes]

Most recently played Qbert 3 on SNES. First became acquainted with Qbert on the Commodore 64 using a joystick. Accidentally fell off the edge more than once due to unfamiliarity with controls on the SNES.

[Gametrek]

I have been checking out the original Persona games on the PSX. Of course via emulation because it is too painful to play the actual original. Knowing the translation was made by some kind of supremacist r-tard and the amount of censoring including removal of the Snow-queen story ( which is like 2/3 of the game ). But what is worst is the PSP game ( thankfully people are modding it to be more like the original ).. The PSP game have better visuals but

A. Persona 3 music and sounds
B. lack of PSX music including lack of tunes in general.
C. No option to switch the HUD, or graphics to the original.

The only thing good is the translation. The voices are ugly but the translation is how it should have been. If we took the PSP

A. Faces
B. 3d animation FMV
C. Story
and stuck it inside the original PSX game it would be perfect. Even make an option to have either mark.

The voices of the monsters could be a mix, because some of them makes more sense in the PSP. Like talking to the Zombie girls.

[Aussie2B]

It took me quite a few attempts, but I finally cleared all six missions (or seven, if you count the bonus non-scrolling round that shows up randomly in the sequence) in Operation Wolf on NES (via our Famicom-style flash cart in our AV Famicom, if only because it was easier and quicker to set up than pulling the NES out of its box in the closet and fishing out the official cart). I never did try the Zapper with the game, and it doesn't even seem like there's any real consensus out there on if the game is easier with the Zapper or controller. I had a fair number of attempts end while I was trying to defeat the final boss and plenty of others that ended sometime during that final mission. Thankfully, each attempt was only taking me about ten minutes. I don't know why, but things seem to just fall apart for me on those last two missions. You always start the fifth stage with max ammo, and I was getting better and better at the first four missions (and bonus round) such that I'd usually remain okay on ammo and at nearly full life. But no matter how fast I'd try to take out enemies and grab icons for refills, I was struggling to not run out of ammo and/or life on those last two, even with being very careful to keep the innocents alive. I don't even recall how I lost a couple guys on my victorious run, but I ended up saving three out of the five prisoners, which is one short for the best ending. I might play a little more and see if I can get a better clear without too much effort. Honestly, it seems to me like it would be even harder to earn the worse endings. At least, you definitely don't want to be shooting a bunch of the prisoners yourself or your odds of completing the six missions go down the toilet. I dabbled in the second difficulty loop but lost on the fifth mission, I believe.

[Aussie2B]

I haven't bothered to return to Operation Wolf on NES thus far. Maybe I won't do so, since it's not really good enough to give me the motivation to improve. Right now, I'm kind of in a gaming limbo. I'll be traveling soon, and I don't want to get invested in anything new that I wouldn't have enough time to finish before going. But I also don't want to start up the games I'm planning to take with me just yet. I did briefly try out a couple recent purchases: Ys III for Super Nintendo and Populous DS. It's extremely rare that I buy anything for SNES these days, as most worthwhile games are prohibitively expensive, but Ys can still be had for rather cheap (by 2025 standards at least; I'm not expecting to grab stuff for around 3 bucks like back in the '00s).

I did, however, resume London Detective Mysteria on Vita. My previous save was from 2022, and I think I only played a few minutes then. All my other saves were from 2019. I knew I had just left off at some random point in the (lengthy) common route, so I figure it doesn't make a difference if I make some more progress and stop at another random point before my flight. Anyway, it's fun getting back to it. It's not that I stopped because I had any problem with it. I just have a habit of stopping in visual novels when something else starts taking up my time, and I always have the intention of getting back to them eventually. It often does take me years, but I don't find it hard to jump back in. It's not like with other genres where you have to relearn the controls and gameplay and try to remember what you have and haven't done and where you need to go.

[Aussie2B]

I'm up to, I believe, the seventh chapter in London Detective Mysteria on Vita. I'm not sure because I definitely can't recall how many I did previously, and the game just offers their names, rather than numbers. But I tried to look up how far along I am and how many common route chapters there are. Weirdly enough, I saw claims of both nine and ten chapters in the common route. Maybe that means you get locked into a character's route in the middle of the tenth chapter, who knows. I don't know if I have enough time before traveling to actually complete a route, but it would be nice to maybe reach the beginning of a character's route, so I could start "fresh" from there whenever I return to it.

[kupomogli]

Beyond the Beyond, it's not a bad game, and this is the kind of game that's really difficult but well balanced that you actually get some real enjoyment out of the classic style combat. It doesn't do anything special with the characters and the storyline is absolutely cliche, but it is also a decent storyline that unlike modern RPGs doesn't have you spending hours and hours and hours on boring ass dialogue that's just going in circles for 20 minutes at a time. I'm done with modern day Falcom because of this shit.

Beyond the Beyond is really not that much better than your early Dragon Quest games and is mostly the same, but without all the grind, or atleast that depends on who you talk to, and at the heart of it all is the LP system. Now. If they just removed the LP system and gave you extra HP for how much you'd recover due to being knocked out, this game would be way too easy, but instead you have these low health pools and the LP system is a sort of safety net to keeping the character from being knocked out. You have all this HP, but you only have it incrementally so it's much more of a focus on managing your LP.

Early game is wher the LP mechanic seems to shine the most as you have fewer characters. Recovering HP outside of combat gives you more HP than recovering inside of combat, and recovering HP at 5-10HP is a bit pointless and wasteful when you have a maximum of 18HP or somewhere around there. So much like Final Fantasy 4 and 6 for instance, you can put party members in the back row. You can do this in the late game as well, but when you only have three or four characters you still have the benefit of putting characters in the back row to mitigate losses at the expense of dealing damage. So this way when you do finally recover HP for any of these characters, you can get more out of it. There's always a chance that they'll receive a critical or high amounts of damage which is why the LP is a safety net, but using it to your advantage really goes a long way into making the game a lot easier.

So in my recent playthrough, which I haven't played this game in over two decades, I went from Zalgoon after going to the inn, all the way across this massive stretch of world map where the enemies get much harder to Luna, upgraded my equipment at Luna, and then when I went north to a dungeon, I completely forgot to go to the inn, I remembered this in my first battle after obvious reasons, I was like, oh well, I'll still push on, so Annie had 1MP. After some more open world and this long stretch into this dungeon and throughout the dungeon to the next town, I was finally able to rest at an inn, and this was because I'd move my characters around and use the LP system to get the most out of the herbs I had on hand which I did stock up around 10 of them before leaving Luna. No one permanently died and I never did hit 0 LP for anyone, close with Samson, but no one hit 0.

Now, I will say one of the games biggest problems with one of the characters Edward, is that the character goes last, even when he finally has caught up to everyone else's level, he still goes last. Now the reason this is such a huge problem is because when your dealing attacks on enemies, dealing a magic spell like Fire 2 hits all enemies, but if he does this spell last after everyone else already does their attacks and possibly kills one of the enemies, then it loses a lot of its benefit. Characters like Annie(who does go first,) Edward, Tont, etc, these characters should all be going first before anyone else because of how their actions work. You do gain "sources" to power up characters so I will holding on these to see how things go and maybe later in the game throw them on a character like Edward, but if Tont has the same problem as Edward, I'll be giving them to him instead because of his summon spells that hit all enemies and don't target specific groups. I don't remember, but if Domino was a faster character may also just drop Edward in favor of adding him to the party. There's finally this monk that you get later which leads me to my last criticism.

When you get these late game characters, including a character after the monk, the man in the iron mask who I haven't ever gotten but now that I know you can get him I'll do that, these characters all have started on level 1. Now the level curve is enough to where these characters will all reach the other characters level at some point, but you still have to use a level 1 character and build all these characters up. Just would be nice if these characters were on a relatively similar level because once I get to the monk girl, even if I'm kind of interested in using her, I kind of don't want to because I'll have to swap out a character that I know is good for a character that is unconfirmed. This is also the same issue I have with any game that doesn't have forced parity for party member levels. Just let the characters outside of your party gain the same experience points that the characters within your party gain. This is a complaint I have with a lot of games of this type. The latest Persona games I don't even bother using other characters because of this.

Anyways. I'd say that the difficulty of the games combat being high, but the game being really well balanced so that a lot of skillful strategies can be employed to make it a more easier and mangageable game makes Beyond the Beyond a much better game than people give it credit for, but even if people had to level grind. What's the diffeence between level grinding here and level grinding 80 hours on Dragon Quest 3? I think there's a lot of fanboy bias going around because Dragon Quest 3 is like your pair of Air Jordan's and these Chinese knock off Air Jordan's might actually be better, but they're waved off because their Air JorDan's instead.

[kupomogli]

Also, the dungeon design on Beyond the Beyond is also well done as well. The first puzzle dungeon you're in going up the tree. You take one or two steps to see the room, it's clear when the nut will get stuck it's clear you need to push it in the hole to progress, it's not rocket science, and you do it wrong, it's going to be a harder dungeon and keep you there longer than if you were to just make your way through the puzzle easily. You not only need to know where to push it but also don't rush, move one at a time.

Speaking of moving one space at a time, once again the next dungeon in the sewers. You can move off the ledges, but you can't move back onto the ledges without going up the stairs... I'd imagine kind of like a real sewer if it's too slippery to climb back up. If you have to take one move at a time do that. Again, a pretty well designed dungeon.

Now, I will say it was kind of bad design with the green emerald being in the dungeon on the way to the town with Tont. I don't know if there's a clue it's there even after getting to the town, either way, I found it in the dungeon before I found my way to the exit. Now, I don't seem to remember missing it before, so maybe it's just kind of hard to miss, but just a thought this might be bad design? Especially if you're given no clue that it's actually there. But again, maybe it's so hard to miss that it's mostly a moot point.

The dungeon design is pretty solid for a classic RPG, both very explorable, useful items to find in treasure boxes with good mechanics to break up the monotony. Something good for your classic RPG.

Also, here's one more thing to touch on, and this is just it being a classic RPG. So first off, classic RPG, no markers pointing your way, and I have a general idea of where everything is at so there's that one, but the game also still guides you in a way of the direction you need to go. Or it gives you some dialogue informing you where major locations may be. Look at where I'm at in the game and how long it took and I didn't have to search hours and hours and hours beating my head because I had no clue where I should be going. Modern games force you to follow the markers, places that'd never be found without one, but classic games are like, it's this general area and oh, poof, you run across it.

[Aussie2B]

I finished what was presumably the seventh chapter in London Detective Mysteria on Vita, and I think I'm near the end of the eighth as well. Now that I think about it, maybe the discrepancy in info on the number of chapters depends on if someone is counting the prologue chapter or not. Anyway, I've seen some people describe some of the chapters in this game as feeling like filler, particularly that seventh chapter, and I can see that. It basically existed for no other purpose than to introduce Abigail Hudson and have her and Emily Whiteley, the protagonist, become friends. The case was very low-stakes (a stolen plate, whoop-de-do), and most of the main cast weren't even present (Watson being the only love interest who is there for most of it, though Holmes pops up at the end). In comparison, the chapter I'm in now feels like it's flying by. I don't know if I'm more engaged or if it actually is shorter. Or maybe I'm just wrong that I'm near the end of it, but it seems where I left off has the case referenced in the title just about wrapped up. This chapter takes place on a school day, so all the love interests are present. Considering I picked this game back up at the very end of the chapter before the tableware case, where Emily discusses matters with her butler before bed, I hadn't seen the rest of the love interests in literally years. So it's nice to get reacquainted with the full main cast. The case itself is more interesting too, though I had a feeling from practically the beginning that there would be some sort of twist or gag to it at the end, so I wasn't surprised with how things went. What has had me scratching my head is my affection values in the game. I'm wondering if they somehow glitched out or something. I have no idea where they stood back when I was playing in 2019 nor when I played briefly in 2022, but right now, it looks like I'm maxed out with Holmes, despite still being in the common route. The only other affection I seem to have accumulated is a little with Jack and Akechi, and when I seemingly gained more with Akechi in this chapter, it didn't look like the amount changed at all. I don't care which route I end up on, nor which ending I get, since I always aim to ultimately do every route and ending, but I hope nothing gets messed up at any point. Since resuming the game recently, the game did fail to load once and also had a weird crash at one point. Even though I own a physical copy of the game, I'm playing the digital release I got before the physical version was even announced. I hope nothing about the game's install or my Vita itself is giving out.

[kupomogli]

Castlevania

Against Dracula, first form, wait until he teleports, don't jump until after he lifts his cap to shoot the fireballs, jump over the fireballs and attack his face. Repeat that until the first form is over. Don't use any of your hearts and hold onto the holy water. Once his second form comes out, attack him in the face and use a holy water as he drops down so you can stop him and get a lot more hits on his face. It's hard to know when to run under his jump since he can do a short jump or a high jump and it's really hard to determine which one he's doing, you pretty much need to already be moving forward when he jumps to make going under the high jump, otherwise you're getting hit regardless, so easiest way is to just keep backing to the end of the screen and take the hit.

[kupomogli]

On Beyond the Beyond I got to the point I could get Domino and decided to swap my Samson out with him. The level upls for Edward and Annie were both around the attack power and defense of Samson with more HP and LP but they also have MP and magic spells and don't purely just attack, so I threw both of them i the front row and decided to use Domino even though he was 10 levels behind. Domino even if he has lower attack power will deal full damage from the back row. It did take me a bit of time to find where to go next and then I have to upgrade my class before I can progress, and then took me awhile to find that(despite practically being right next to it.) So when I finally reached the point that I can upgrade the characters, Domino is still seven levels down from everyone else, but I decided I'd take the hit on the stats so I can just upgrade them all at the same time and have consistent levels between characters. The level ups with Domino have all been really good though getting only 4 or 3 in strength, so he's more powerful than Samson was at the time of dropping Samson but Samson would probably be more powerful now. But again, even with the stat loss, low hp, low lp, low defense, lower attack, he still does full damage from the back so his attack damage matches everyone but Finn(the games MC) and likely wouldn't be too far behind Samson even if I did continue to use him in my party. So really not much of a loss imo.

For anyone interested in playing Beyond the Beyond, I'd say that Annie, Edward, and Tont are characters you'll want to keep on your party. You can't get the last character in the game until after the MC class changes and you either class change early and doing so gives you a lot of stat potential loss whether you want to grind or not. You've already got Annie who's a better healer. Dropping Edward or Tont means you're dropping high AOE damage at that point and while Edward doesn't deal quite the damage that Tont does, they're both still high damage AOE.

While you have the option of dropping Annie, Edward, or Tont, I wouldn't recommend it. So you're either keeping Samson or dropping him for Lorelei or Domino. And while I made the case for Domino because he has the addition of magic spells in addition to being able to attack, he also has the addition of dealing full damage from the back row, meaning you have four characters that take full damage when attacking rather than just three. I couldn't really make a case for dropping Samson for another healer that is definitely going to deal less damage per attack in comparison to someone who is going to increase your damage per turn like Domino absolutely does.

And again, there's no way I'd every recommend dropping either Edward or Tont when I've started defending with attacking characters in the front row and having them cast their spells only to finish off the enemies in the next turn with normal attacks receiving less overall damage than if I was to attack and use their spells in the same first turn.

So my end game character choice for those who eventually play would be Finn, Samson, Annie, Edward, and Tont. Or. Finn, Edward, Annie, Tont, and Domino. The only problem the second option does is one of your mages do have to stay in the front row, and while they're a mage they're still likely going to have around the same defense as Samson, the problem is the whole defend strategy doesn't work quite as well when one of the three will be open for full damage. So I do still sort of still lean towards the first group over the second group, but the second group is better at damage when not casting magic. Positive and negative between both.

If I could get Edward and Tont's speed above everyone elses(you can't,) then attacking and magic could all be done on the first turn, the best that you could hope for is get them to go before the enemies but even then you'd lose damage on the enemy groups by attacking the same enemy more than once unless you happen to get three groups of enemies every battle which odds are that's not happening 99.9% of the time. So again, I like the extra damage Domino helps with but realistically, the Samson, Annie, Edward, Tont group is overall better. Oh yeah, except for bosses when you'll want to deal more regular attacks with the attack spell over using magic spells for damage.

[kupomogli]

I really wished I played Salt and Sacrifice before buying it from LRG. I looked up a bunch of reviews but I also looked up that a lot of these issues have been resolved. But just before I started playing it my PS5 controller had unplayable stick drift so instead of buying yet another controller I sent my controllers out to have the sticks changed to hall effect sticks.

After getting them back I started playing Salt and Sacrifice and at first it wasn't so bad, but the more I played the worse the game got. While the combat may be good, it plays a lot like Salt and Sacrifice for instance, there are NUMEROUS problems. First off is that you'll get iron and silver, the money, but this stuff is so useless it may as well be gold from a gacha game, worthless. Otherwise you get these red flower items which again, worthless. Literally everything you pick up except for drops from mages or the enemies mages summon are even worth a damn and all of that's crafting only. Exploring the games five levels is also pointless as exploration rewards you with literally nothing. More than anything you're just constantly walking back and forth through each of the stages trying to find the mages or to find where to progress in the level which doors you can unlock after killing each mage. Instead of making magic simple and easy to make a magic build, you now need to have the rank of the weapon in order to use it, you then have to have either forbidden or divine glyphs as well. So not only do you not know what the spells do without crafting the weapon, you can't use the weapon unless you add the skill for that weapon, and spells use the arcane or conviction stats, so you can't even use most of the spells unless you want to waste a bunch of levels. Light armor has no poise so every time you're hit you'll get knocked backwards. I've finally made it to the games last area but the game is just an absolute chore to play. This game isn't just mediocre, it has so many problems that it is a bad game. Padded, repetitive, a complete waste of time.

Unfortunately I bought the game from LRG before I played it using a friends PSN account. LRG added a restocking fee now so I'm not going to cancel my order, I'm just never going to open it and sell it some point when I can make something off of it.

[Atomicfear]

Everquest and I'm thinking about buying a dreamcast just to play railroad tycoon 2. Yes, I live in the year 2000.

[kupomogli]

A got all four tablets on Beyond the Beyond meaning I've made it to the games last two dungeons, at this point I'm a bit bored of it so decided I'll just move on. Maybe I'll go back to it later but at this point I'm putting a hold on it.

There are a few games that I did play though during this point. I finished Sword of the Vagrant on hard and then played through NG+ to the very end on very hard, but since there's a true ending area and I can't find out how to reach that I've saved at the last save point and put this game away. Also, the game doesn't start getting anymore difficult in NG+ until the very end of the game, I'd recommend just playing the game in very hard from the get go and maybe doing NG+ in lunatic.

The two games I'm playing at this time though now, I've played five chapters in Fire Emblem on the GBA, the first US release, not the first GBA release.

---

I've also played two runs of Ravenswatch which imo is both good and bad. I have both really positive things to say about it and negative things to say about it.

Starting with the negative is that, like most procedural games, the game feels very samey. You start the game, you play the run, you die, you restart, you do it all over again, and it's just one of the few things I hate in modern gaming where there are these select few genres that are just prioritized. Whether it's because it's exploration platformers, procedural, or open world, it's games that waste a lot of time. For indie developers they're more low effort, low cost games that forces the player to spend more time to do the same things over and over to extend the length of the game, and that's unfortunately the end goal of modern gaming. The length of a game matters above all else.

Now, I've only played Scarlet, Little Red Riding hood, so the bosses may change between characters, but I don't believe they do. The game has three procedural Diablo-like maps with important areas around, these areas will either have treasure chests, quest encounters, max HP, or gems, all to buy a specific amount of items and tools and then increase the rank of these tools from common to legendary. And all of this brings so much repetition in a single run that you just keep doing this over and over and over and over, the fact that it took me 30-40 minutes to see and die from the second boss and there are only three maps with three bosses. Again, unless the bosses change per character which I doubt it.

Now the novelty of this is that this game is Diablo in what's essentially around an hour and 30 minutes to two hours, but unlock the Diablo games this leans heavily towards skill based instead. Each of the nine characters on disc or the two patched in characters(and I can tell you right now based on sales this game isn't getting a complete edition) the characters have a primary attack, power attack, special attack, defensive manuever, super attack, and a dash. Even the easiest enemies can kill you in a few hits, so it's mitigating damage, attacking with your cooldowns and primary, evading when necessary, etc and again, it's about choosing the skills as you level up to determine your build path. Every enemy has a their own attacks or their own form of getting to you to deal damage, some enemies may even explode after being defeated dealing damage to other enemies as well as you if you're in range when they die. With Scarlet, she can dash through enemies to deal damage to enemies and each time you build up her critical, the power attack deals more damage, but you can dash through multiple enemies making it more useful, while in werewolf form the power attack is a lunch that can hit adjacent enemies in a close formation, but cannot dash through htem, in both cases the defensive attack might help the character where in Scarlet's case she can't be damaged until it wears off or until she attacks, while the werewolf will recover a very small percentage of life for a short amount of time, making using that ability and having your other passives ready to go is more optimal. Pushes you to learn the enemy movements and route the enemies properly to make the most out of your moveset.

[kupomogli]

And after playing 10 hours of Ravenswatch, I've finished the game, not because I've completed it, but because I'm done. I've made it to "a last boss" apparently there are four final bosses after you defeat the day three final boss, and that's according to the trophy list, but all the other bosses are the same.

The 10 hours consisted of either nine or 10 runs, and a game that at length to complete is an hour and 30 minutes, allowing you to save between areas. I know that I only played three attempts with Aladdin and I got to the final boss, but Scarlet may have been six or seven as I was getting to grips with understanding the flow of the game. Maybe I could have finished the game with Scarlet if I kept on going with her but my complaints about the game since the very first run, I just wanted to try someone else, have a little more variety as I knew the game itself wouldn't.

And that's again, the biggest problem of the game. The biggest problem with modern day indie games in general is that the games are either a 2D side-scrolling exploration game or a procedural game as the large amount of games that are released by indie developers, both of which are very padded experiences, forcing the player to either repeat what's essentially an hours worth of content endless over and over until you finally get good enough or lucky enough to have a winning combination of items in your inventory or what can be a great designed explorable world but more often than not, it's a poorly designed explorable world and the problem with that is that it's always one key item that will lock you out of progress as that's the nature of the game, so you may have 20 points of interest you can't progress, but if that one key item or one of those points of interest are poorly explained or visualized to the players, you're going to either spend hours and hours and hours of wandering or just throw your hands in the air and look that sh-- up online. That's pretty much most indie games and even a lot of modern day AAA developers are doing this as well because padding is the name of the game in the modern day gaming scene, where most modern devs opt for open world, but other modern developers are being inspired by indie devs with games like Dynasty Warriors Origins, Returnal, Elden Ring Nightreign, games that have this modern AAA bullshit, now have this indie bullshit as well.

[Aussie2B]

I was correct in my last post that I was close to the end of the chapter I was in then in London Detective Mysteria for Vita (which is now apparently Vita-exclusive for its English release, as the PC version was delisted just recently). I was even closer to the end than I had guessed, as the game dropped the whole subplot of figuring out the mystery surrounding the deaths of the protagonist's parents. I assume you can't get a proper conclusion on that until you clear some/all routes. Anyway, the chapter after that was like a last hurrah for the common route. It involved a picnic with all the main characters, where you first systematically have one-on-one time with each love interest and the most significant side characters and then everyone comes together to eat. I did manage to get onto a route before taking off to visit family, as the person who helps Emily clean up after the picnic indicates whose route you're about to start.

I was expecting to switch to something else after that, mainly because I was only taking earbuds with me and don't like playing visual novels (ones with voice acting at least) without high-quality headphones. But it turns out my husband has a couple pairs of decent headphones that he keeps at my mom's house, and I've been using one pair to continue playing London Detective Mysteria. I don't like these headphones as much as my usual pair, but they're good enough to hear the voice acting clearly. As I expected, I did end up on Holmes's route. I believe the character routes are an additional five chapters, and I cleared the first one for Holmes. There weren't even any choices to make. It feels like I've read quite a bit in the next one, so maybe I'm close to polishing off another. Still not too much in the way of drama or romance, so I'm waiting for you-know-what to hit the fan haha.

[Aussie2B]

Still haven't finished off the chapter I was in when I made my last past about London Detective Mysteria on Vita, and it's not for lack of playing. It feels like a million things have happened in this chapter, and it's still going. There was a segment at school, then a long flashback, then a segment at Holmes and Watson's flat, and now more drama in another location. Still no choices in sight either, so it's practically been feeling like a kinetic novel, especially compared to how frequently choices seemed to pop up in the common route. And while the drama is increasing, the relationship between Emily and Holmes still feels like barely anything beyond friendship. I'm not saying that as a complaint, though, just an assessment of the story as it currently stands.

[Aussie2B]

Okay, so I was literally only a couple ellipses away from the end of the chapter I was in as of my last post in London Detective Mysteria on Vita, haha. The way this game works is that, between scenes, it cuts to a black screen with a few ellipses to skip through, I guess to show the passage of time or whatever. I find those make for good spots to stop playing and save, so I'm not confused by stopping mid-conversation the next time I load the game up. But those transitions are also used right before the chapters change, so sometimes I leave off right at the very end of a chapter and don't even realize it. Anyway, I'm a ways into the next chapter now, and there's a teeeeeny bit of romance starting to creep in. It's cute seeing Watson observe things and take on something of a wingman role. (Which I suppose you could say Watson always was, just not previously in matters of romance.) I like that Lupin is showing up again too, as his regular self, not under his disguise, which I find kind of annoying. On that note, this route has gone on and on about how those who are adept at wearing disguises can see through the disguises of others, so why the heck has Holmes, who wears disguises and can see through his father's disguises, been seemingly unable to see through Lupin's disguise? It's not like it's even a good one, haha. Going by "John Lupine" instead of "Jean Lupin", wearing glasses, and speaking with a nervous stutter isn't exactly obscuring things a lot.

[Spartacus]

Well, I've finally done it. I started playing Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, my very first time playing a turn based RPG! The game creates a beautiful world with interesting enemies and areas to explore. I'm quite liking that. Clair Obscure has been getting accolades for being made by a 30 member development team over 5 years who released the game at a $50 price point too, in their words, reach as many people as possible. Nintendo doesn't talk like that anymore!
There's even talk about Game of the Year. Not best game ever, that's reserved for Nintendo for reasons I can't fathom. The team is entirely from Europe and unmistakenly influenced the design choices and the voice acting and avoided the "Ohh God, another damn bowl of rice!" feeling I get from playing Japanese games.
Expedition 33 is available on the PC, Xbox and PS5, but not the Switch. That's probably a good thing because the game would be ruined at 16 colors 480p or what ever it is that the Switch outputs. I know, I know, but you get to play in bed with the Switch while mommy tucks you in! Well, there is something to be said for that, right.
Since I have nothing to compare Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 too, I'll just say that as a newbie I'm aproximately half way through the game and only thought of putting down the game once when a character I liked playing was knocked off.
I really wanted to buy a guide for the game, but there were none available, so I scour the internet for playing tips where I'm learning new jargon like tanks, DPS and Glass Cannons. As a novice to the genre I thought all RPG's were required to have a dungeon with rats to kill. I haven't run across any rats yet. But the girl team member who leaps in the air to sprinkle life giving fairy dust on dying team mates is definately in this game. I guess some rules of RPG's can never be broken.

[Aussie2B]

I should be in the final chapter of Holmes's route in London Detective Mysteria on my Vita now, so I'm closing in on finally beating this game after starting it so many years ago. Of course, that's only one route, and I probably will continue on with it, as I'm still in an otome/visual novel kind of headspace. I could theoretically switch to Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds, which I also have digitally on my Vita and left off midway through (though that I believe I cleared with some sort of solo ending and then left off on trying to get on an actual character route, not that there's a lot there in that regard, as Kyoto Winds is just half of Hakuoki). Anyway, even though I'm near the end, I only have 50% of Holmes's cutscene art unlocked. I think I did miss something in the common route, but I still wonder if they're gonna unload on me in this last chapter, haha. They also didn't even get to an actual confession until the end of the previous chapter, so it's definitely been more general plot and drama than romance. I liked how the game pulls the other classmates back into the story right as I was starting to think how it felt like they just ceased to exist once I ended up on Holmes's route. Well, with the exception of Jack, but he's so antisocial that it makes sense why he wouldn't be around.

[Aussie2B]

I finished Holmes's route in London Detective Mysteria on Vita, earning the "Destined End", which I believe is this game's terminology for the best ending. That surprised me, as I rarely get a character's best ending the first time through their route. Per usual, I made no effort to pick the answers that would increase affection. I know a ton of otome visual novel players use outside resources when they play, like trying to get a consensus on the "recommended route order" and consulting a walkthrough to get the routes and endings they want in whatever order they want. Some others prefer to self-insert and make decisions based on what they themselves would do. Me, I prefer to play blind and let the chips fall where they may. I usually play in a methodical method, simply choosing the first option listed every time I'm presented with a choice. Then, if I get the normal/bad ending with whatever character, I get on the same route, then pick all the options I didn't previously, keep doing that until I've seen the results of every choice, and then try to pick all the affection-boosting answers to get the best ending. Then I start picking the second options listed on the common route to end up on a different character's route and so on. But trying to get on Holmes's route again while not boosting affection to the point of getting the Destined End seems like a pain right now, so I restarted the game and am already picking different answers on the common route. If I go straight into a different character's route, that's fine. I can always tie up loose ends at a later point in time.

I've noticed that, early in the game, there are a lot of points where you choose between Holmes and Watson. I always picked Holmes (the first choice) my first time through, so I guess that explains why I had high affection with him early on. Now I'm going with Watson every time, and I've already racked up a lot with him, so I won't be surprised if I end up on his route. Seems like getting other routes would require switching back and forth on these choices to balance out the gains, keeping either from getting especially high. And I gotta say, I don't like how this game handles choices overall. I think I've played otome visual novels from a decent variety of developers (as opposed to, say, the fans who stick with Otomate almost exclusively), but I believe this is my first from Karin. This game has timed choices, which I think I heard is something Karin tends to do. I prefer to take my time, and it's not like it automatically picks whatever is highlighted when time runs out. Instead, it defaults to a particular choice or sometimes even takes you in a different direction than any of the selectable options. So in that regard, there's an extra, invisible choice sometimes, and there's no way to know without either a guide or letting the timer run out on every option. But what really irks me is that, while the regular text is highlighted when it's already been read (it shows up in red, rather than white), choices don't change color even when they have been picked before. There's no way to know if you've already picked something until after making a choice and seeing what color the subsequent text is. I suppose you could use the navigation options to jump back to the previous choice, but that's a pain itself. So this is where it really helps that I have a systematic approach to picking choices. Even though it's been years since I did the early chapters of the common route, I'm pretty confident that the choices listed first are what I've picked before.

Anyway, getting back to the actual story, I thought it was cute that the end of Holmes's route mirrored Emily's first encounter with Holmes. It's also fun skipping through the early chapters, stopping to read some new text here and there because it's refreshing my memory on what occurred in these early chapters.

[Tron 2.0]

Genesis
Metal Gear

Awhile ago the msx,metal gear got a port to the genesis and it's very well done.You can play it emulated or on a genesis directly using a everdrive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTna4XhkZQY&t=3s

[kupomogli]

I really wanted to buy a guide for the game, but there were none available, so I scour the internet for playing tips where I'm learning new jargon like tanks, DPS and Glass Cannons. As a novice to the genre I thought all RPG's were required to have a dungeon with rats to kill. I haven't run across any rats yet. But the girl team member who leaps in the air to sprinkle life giving fairy dust on dying team mates is definately in this game. I guess some rules of RPG's can never be broken.

What I will say is that RPGs have come a long way since the absurd level grind that were "mostly" on the NES and "sometimes" on the SNES. But even then, you hear people say that you do nothing but press the attack command on classic RPGs and yes, you can do that if you want on classic RPGs. There's no need to use any bit of actual thought to finish Final Fantasy 4, if you did want to level grind and blow past any difficulty.

However, I have finished Final Fantasy 4 dozens of times and despite characters like Cecil, Kain, and Edge being able to do mostly attack, you can still play efficiently even when that's your only option. You can play efficiently by attacking enemies in a specific order like how one character might go last but can kill an enemy alone, allowing you to avoid attacking that enemy with anyone else to not waste a turn, or how a character like Rosa, despite being a white mage has many different status effect spells that can be used to slow the enemy party or paralyze enemies removing them from combat entirely allowing you to then focus on other enemies reducing the amount of damage you take. Rydia will later on get the more powerful stop, so instead of casting much more expensive spells or summons, why not just stop one of the two red giants both removing him from combat and keeping him from exploding when at low HP.

There's a lot of great RPGs starting even on the NES with the original Final Fantasy which when you get better at it is not the grind that a lot of people would make you believe. The Magic of Scheherazade which isn't the greatest at all, this one is a little weak in both its action and its RPG mechanics but just how unique this game, it's always been a childhood favorite of mine. The Magic of Scheherazade has an action combat system and then sometimes when you move from one screen to the next it will go into a turn based RPG system.

Now, I haven't yet played Expedition 33 and I intend to, but it's not on my radar to buy right away because the parry and evasion. Let's say you're perfect at parries and evasion, well, you'll never take damage, and to me that removes a lot of the strategy and depth that I feel that an RPG should have. Especially when on the flip side I could be dog sh** at this same mechanic and not be able to progress because of just a broken frustrated mechanic.

One last thing I've heard that Expedition 33 has an amazing storyline so that does interest me as a good storyline is great for RPGs, but I will also say that my feelings on this, again, not knowing the story is that, this is a modern RPG. Classic RPG storylines, got straight to the point. The problem with modern games in general is that modern games pad things out, they really really pad things out. And this isn't just storyline, but for the modern video game, storylines are often these ridiculous text dumps that shove a massive amount of unnecessary dialogue down the players throat.

I'm going to use SMT Nocturne and Persona 5 as two examples. SMT Nocturne has a great storyline, but it has a very limited storyline that key points at the beginning and the end of the dungeon are generally the only points that you'll see storyline and then the gameplay is purely gameplay. While SMT Nocturne is heavily skewed in favor of gameplay, not all RPGs are like that and this is just one extreme example since SMT Nocturne is based on its dungeon crawler RPG roots even if it is actually in third person.

Persona 5 on the other hand tends to repeat a lot of the same dialogue over and over and over, even in main story scenes and every single character has to get a word in, so whether it's three characters starting out or later in the game eight characters, every single time one character says something the game makes sure the other seven characters get a word in before moving on. And before moving on doesn't mean "finishing the conversation" it means just getting to the next sentence. So the amount of padding in this game is just absolutely absurd.

Falcom and Atlus are two that use text as a way to add "value" but the more modern the game the more I can't stand playing games from these companies despite absolutely loving them in the past. Ys8 is one of my favorite games of all time and it has a bit of dialogue but it doesn't really go into the modern day text dumps that modern day Falcom games are known and praised for. Ys9 makes a big shift in this direction but Ys10? Ys10 you can't even play through the first area of the game within five hours because of just how much dialogue is within the game. This game constantly stops you, whether in the middle of a dungeon, or several times just progressing towards where you need to go, and these cutscenes are 10 minutes or more only for a new one to start a couple minutes later. It's absolutely fu**ing ridiculous. And after playing Ys10 even decided I'm never buying another Falcom games because at this point they're either Trails games with the same amount of text dump nonsense and the exact same gameplay the series has had since Trails in the Sky or they're just ruining the latest Ys which almost never gets a release in the first place.

---
I will go into a small bit of detail on some modern RPGs you should try though if you want a more skill based efficient style of gameplay.

Star Renegades: This has a fairly decent opening storyline which progresses through with the games tutorial. Afterwards the rest of the dialogue is random character banter which you can turn off. This is a procedural game and I hate the term roguelike since I like actual roguelikes, but this is one that imo is one of the better style of these games. You start off with three characters, each one only having three actions, one of which is defend, and depending on the character they may also have an alternate mode they can swap to. After you finish the first planet and second planet, you get up to five, six if you purchase the game on PC where the developers actually released a final expansion of the game not on console in any form. I'm still satisfied with what I've received as a physical form but for how great of a game this is it is rather disappointing that we didn't get that on disc.

So on each of these planets(and any of the dungeons that you can unlock by entering the dungeon at night which are mini three path locations.) You have three planets plus a final area and each planet is in 3D but it's a two dimensional backdrop that you'll be able to go through nine areas through the course of that planet. What happens is that in each planet the areas are all randomized, so common, uncommon, rare, and epic treasure boxes, shield upgrades, food, gold, etc, and you sort of determine what sort of path you'd like to go to get whatever you can from nine of these locations. You can aim for special enemies on the map which will unlock dungeons at night and that allows you one of two paths for extra battles, rare chest, and maybe one of the other bonuses.

Experience points are limited, so each time you play the game you'll determine who you want to put experience points into first. Increasing their HP, damage, and every two levels acquiring a new skill. Aegis for example is a great tank, and on level four she'll unlock the long range shield throw, one of the better stagger skills, but maybe you bring the marksmen who really doesn't have any stagger at all and while having one of the more powerful attack skills in the game at level one, it's also the slowest. By getting to level four the marksman can get keen shot which is more powerful than his quick shot, has a quick speed, and so-so damage and you can still enter his sniper mode to reduce the speed by 20 seconds and increase damage by 25%.

So Star Renegades has a lot of depth to it and despite the type of game and losing resets you back to the very beginning, finishing the game on normal if you understand its gameplay, even if you're not especially great at it isn't too difficult. But if you were to get into the game and you did finish it on normal, there's seven more difficulties each one harder than the last. I've made it to Entropy 4 in which case has all the difficulty settings from earlier difficulties plus adds an extra enemy and sometimes two in each battle and I just can't get past it. But I really enjoyed what this game provides and I'd say it's one of the best RPGs, not just modern.

Suikoden 1 and 2 Have recently received remasters. Now these are pretty easy games, and playing efficiently only makes them easier. I'd say they're a favorite of a lot of people for the reason that the combat is enjoyable and just how easy they are at the same time.

However, one thing I'd like to point out is the great storyline to each of these games and with the more classic design, despite having 108 characters on the first game, the game is able to flesh out many of the character cast despite easily playable to completion at 100% within nine hours. The first Suikoden game is imo the best paced RPG you will ever play. The game is so quickly paced that there's around 17 towns, 17 dungeons(I could be off on this, just off the top of my head, it's 17 or more) and a really good storyline that gets to the point while also adding personality and backstory to many of the games charaters, all with a time of completion of nine hours or more. Obviously there's battles, there's the world map, and even then if you were to divide nine hours by 34 different areas, that is 26 minutes each area. You probably wouldn't even make it through most modern RPGs opening cutscenes and dungeon within a couple hours now days. Something that was a complaint on the original Dragon Warrior 7 which took two hours before you fought your first battle across two towns and a dungeon(and even that is speedy compared to the bloat you have with todays games.)

There's just a couple, I could throw a lot more at you here, but not sure how much interest you'll have in the topic in general.

[Aussie2B]

I did indeed wind up on Watson's route in London Detective Mysteria on Vita. It seems like the developer reeeeeally wanted the player to end up with either Holmes or Watson for the first playthrough, with a heavy leaning toward ending up with the other for the second. Of course, Lupin and Jack aren't even available for the first time. But it seems like you really have to go out of your way to keep affection with Holmes and Watson low in order to have a higher amount with Akechi, Lupin, or Jack. Especially with those others being introduced later. And I haven't the slightest clue how one gets on the friendship routes. I don't know if there are hidden affection values with Marple and Kobayashi or what. I did manage to find one choice nested behind another option where you can choose between Akechi and Kobayashi, so I assume picking the latter helps with getting Kobayashi's route. I also heard something about a Baker Street route (Baker Street being where Holmes and Watson live). Maybe I need equal affection with Holmes and Watson for that.

I'm already on the second chapter of Watson's route, but he and Holmes actually share a chapter at the start of their routes. There are different scenes for each of them, but there was still a fair bit I could skip through, having read those parts during Holmes's route. Neither Holmes nor Watson are particularly interesting characters to me, so far at least (and I've yet to do Holmes's epilogue, as I usually save those for when I'm totally completed with the main game), but I did enjoy Holmes's route all the same. And Watson should be a good change of pace, as he's practically the polar opposite of Holmes. Also, while Holmes's route kept the Lupin plotline, positioning Lupin as a rival/adversary of Holmes, and had Jack totally vanish, Watson's is keeping the Jack the Ripper plotline going. I probably would be a lot more excited to do Watson's route if he still had his original voice actor, though. I'm a fan of Ryouhei Kimura, who played Watson in the original Japan-only PSP release, but for whatever reason, most of the main characters were recast for the Vita/PC version. I believe this version I'm playing has more content than the original (like I think all the epilogues were added), so maybe they couldn't get all the original people back to record new parts, I don't know. I do know that, in the otome industry, that would usually not be a problem. It's very common for games to be ported, content to be added, and the same cast brought in to record new lines. Who knows, maybe it was a legal thing. But I don't have a problem with Yuusuke Shirai. He was pretty hilarious in Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome. So we'll see how this route goes.

[YoshiM]

Oofta....it's been a few months....

I picked up "Cyberpunk: 2077" during a Steam sale and had started playing that on my Deck. I created my character and got through to the mission where you need to control the walking drone. At that point, with all the crap that I had bombarded myself with by reading news websites, I had to back away from the bleakness of the game. My brain was not in the right mindset for that fictional environment. Can't say I've ever had THAT before.

I "Switch"ed and started playing "Hogwarts Legacy", which is set a good many years before our time (1890's I believe). I'm not a "Harry Potter" fan-I watched the movies and tried to read the books but never got into the latter like my wife and her eldest kids. My daughter went through a Potter phase and latched onto all things Draco Malfoy and Slitherin, so I got her the game for Christmas. Funny thing, someone ELSE gave her the same game so she played it forward and gave it to me. I got through past Hogsmeade(?), bet the two trolls and have just returned to Hogwart's. Overall I find the game enjoyable and the story pretty decent. I'm glad you can create your character so it feels more personal as opposed to being "The Boy Who Lived" in the earlier games.

Beyond that, time has not been on my side for video games. I have dabbled in the "Abolsum" demo, which is a REALLY cool 2D hand drawn beat-em-up not unlike "Dragon's Crown". I believe it was made by the same team that did "Streets of Rage 4", which I never played. The runs you do are "rogue like" in nature, as the cool kids say, but I haven't had time to really go through a run as someone usually wants my attention after just a few minutes of play.

[Aussie2B]

I'm still on the second chapter of Watson's route in London Detective Mysteria on Vita, though I must be very close to the end of it. It feels like this chapter has been going on and on, but not in a bad way. It's been super eventful, especially compared to Holmes's route. That one was a very slow burn and took four chapters to get to the kind of stuff going on in this second chapter of Watson's. Of course, I don't know if that just means Watson's route is front-loaded and slows down after this second chapter. We shall see. And it's funny, I've been appreciating Yuusuke Shirai's acting here more, as I think back to his bonkers performance in Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome. Even setting aside the NSFW content, that was a wild game. Thinking back on it makes me want to try Kalmia8's other localized otome game (the one with a far more embarrassing title, haha), though the logistics of that would be tricky to figure out. I haven't had the chance to do any gaming on my desktop since becoming a parent, and furthermore, I switched over to a Mac. The only PC gaming I've done since has been on the computer hooked up to our big living room HDTV, which is fine for a game with more action, but playing visual novels on a huge screen is totally unappealing to me (let alone ones with adult content, haha). With visual novels, I want the same sort of intimate feel as with holding a paperback, so I either want a handheld or to sit close to a monitor. I would consider a Steam Deck, but those things are crazy expensive and compatibility can be iffy. Plus, I've been buying up a lot of otome visual novels for Switch, so I intend to finally get one of those in the near future.

[Aussie2B]

I'm on the third chapter of Watson's route in London Detective Mysteria on Vita now, likely near the end of it. It seems like the overarching structure is mirroring Holmes's route. You've got the crime-solving "hero" love interests each pitted against one of the crime-committing "bad guy" love interests, until the latter are subdued and the real villain takes center stage. I remember reading someone commenting that one of the routes felt like advertising for another character. I believe it was that Holmes's route felt like advertising for Lupin, and I can definitely see that. The routes for Holmes and Watson both feel like they're designed to pique your interest in the initially locked routes. And true enough, it seems like Lupin and Jack are the most popular characters. I can't imagine the stories would be flipped in their routes, casting Holmes and Watson as villains, but I'll have to wait on that one. Given all this, it really feels like Akechi all the more was just awkwardly tacked on, as if they didn't want to leave it at just four romantic routes. I mean, him and Kobayashi aren't even introduced into well into the common route. I get the feeling that they were only thrown in to give the original targeted demographic (Japanese players) some characters they could relate to. So far, though, Akechi barely seems like he has his own identity. He's basically another Holmes, all serious business, except he's more polite, wears glasses, and is Japanese. Swap out the boxing for swordsmanship and one upbeat assistant for another. I'm sure a lot of that is intentional mirroring, but it just makes Akechi seem same-y to me. But of course, my impression could very much change once I'm actually doing Akechi's route.

[Aussie2B]

I'm in the middle of the fourth chapter of Watson's route in London Detective Mysteria on Vita now. The whole "we both know something but won't tell each other that we know" thing is kinda driving me nuts, so hopefully that'll be resolved soon. But it's just one of many aspects of this route's story. One thing that has somewhat disappointed me about this route is how there are a lot more mistakes in the script. They're still infrequent in the grand scheme of things, and I also can tell that there's been more care put into this localization than the vast majority of otome visual novel localizations. But I was taken aback by how clean the script was all through the common route and Holmes's route. In all that, I think I noticed only one or two mistakes. But in Watson's route, I'm spotting multiple mistakes every chapter. One I recently passed was particularly bad, in that it was a flashback to some dialogue that happened just shortly before the flashback occurred (which made it kind of annoying and pointless to begin with), and they had translated the lines in an entirely different manner than when they appeared the first time, rather than making sure they matched. But most mistakes I'm seeing take the form of the intended word being replaced with an entirely different word with a somewhat similar spelling. Sometimes it's immediately apparent which word was intended. Other times, I have to stop and think about what it should've been. There's also the whole matter of the localization trying to be authentic to the Victorian England setting, so sometimes I'm wondering if a weird line is just some British expression I'm unfamiliar with. So needless to say, the mistakes can be a bit immersion-breaking. But still, I've played visual novel localizations that are faaaaar worse (and there are others that are so awful that I refuse to buy them). I do hope the script in other routes has as much polish as it did in the common route and Holmes's route, though.

[AceAerosmith]

Just started Days Gone fro the PS4. Fun so far.
I've been on a run of games I start but then lose interest (Dishonored 2/Watch Dogs 2/Borderlands 2).
Maybe it's games with a 2. Or maybe sequels.
Hmmmmm....

[kupomogli]

I've been wanting to go back to Elden Ring for awhile now so I went back to Elden Ring and created a new character. Using my previous save data I took screenshots of all the locations on the map since I've unlocked all sites of grace to make the open world less open and aimless. I'm not a fan of this open aimless bullsh-- so using these map images as a guide has made the game much better. I guess it's good that I'm decent at the game, but I've completed most everything everything in the starting area except for storm castle which I haven't yet went to and the weeping peninsula in just under 10 hours.

Even though having this sort of map guide and having an idea of where all areas are, I still have a complaint about Elden Ring. Many bosses in Elden Ring only allow you to deal one or two attacks for quicker weapons before you have to go back defensively. Enemies are programmed to read inputs and do these back jumps which usually deal an attack with this escape tech. Enemies having almost no delay before they attack again feels like you're almost always on defense aside from that one or two attacks that you can sneak in. So they add these spirit summons which allow the aggro to be split towards them and if you use those then it becomes way too easy. So even without the open world it has its flaws, I still prefer Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Demon's Souls, but it's still good.

[Aussie2B]

I finished Watson's route in London Detective Mysteria on Vita, and again, I got the Destined End without even trying. While I'd say that I like Watson better as a character than Holmes, both in terms of design and personality, I think I overall liked Holmes's route better. With Holmes's tendency to hide his feelings and also his condescending nature, it makes sense that romance barely showed up until the very end. But with how Watson is so straightforward and wears his heart on his sleeve, the ways in which the route kept the relationship between him and Emily from developing faster just felt contrived. All the stuff with Jack the Ripper was cool and tense, but outside of that, the route was kind of annoying. He also turned into what I call a "mamoru" character. It's not an actual recognized trope, as far as I know, but I've never really cared for characters in these sorts of games that are so single-mindedly concerned with protecting the heroine. I just find them dull and one-note. Also wasn't crazy about the not-really plot "twist" that was obvious from the very second Watson started talking about his first love at the beginning of the route yet still came as a surprise to Emily at the end of the route. Just another thing that was needlessly drawn out in this route. Instead of trying to mirror the progression of Holmes's route, it would've been more refreshing if Watson and Emily became a close couple right away and then dealt with all the challenges under those circumstances. All the hemming and hawing about their relationship grew tiresome.

Anyway, I ran through the common route a third time, letting the timer run out on choices where you only get two options, knowing I had already picked both, but I've still yet to come across a single choice where you trigger something different by letting the timer run out. I have heard there's a choice like that in the chapter with the ciphers. Though, if that's the only one in the whole game, it's like, why even bother? The choices that were defaulted to after letting the timer run out landed me on Watson's route yet again. I picked different responses for the choices in Watson's route, but there's only two choices in all five chapters. I could've sworn Holmes's route had more choices than that, though I don't remember there being many there either. It seems like the outcome is mostly determined by common route selections. Even with the haphazard selections, I got the Destined End that time too. Maybe the other routes are harder, but it seems like you really have to put a conscious effort into NOT getting the Destined End with Holmes and Watson if you're aiming for all endings.

[Highwind Dragoon]

Playing the Crusades scenario from Civilization 2: multiplayer Gold edition.

[YoshiM]

"Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D" has been occupying my time lately. I got up to the Shadow Temple and didn't feel like back tracking to come back as kid Link to solve the place. Not that it'd be a slog thanks to the ocarina but I think I had my fill of this for a while.

I worked on my TV "island" in the basement (a school-issue wide metal bookshelf with a short file cabinet, a pair of square post cut offs with my 13" CRT TV on top) and have decided to use my "modern retro" systems. I have my AVS set up along with my 7800+. I have a Best Buy brand HDMI-to-RCA converter that does a decent job at getting these systems to work on my circa 2006 TV. Games I played last night were "Asteroids Deluxe" and "Bounty Bob Strikes Back".

I had a great time with "Asteroids Deluxe", more than I thought I did. The first time I played it was with one of my twin step-daughters. It was.....ok.....though I could feel her general disinterest in this type of game but she played with me anyway. This time I played solo and found it to be a better experience. I think I nabbed 20K points, which I wanna say is good for this first-timer on Intermediate.

"Bounty Bob" took a bit for me to "get". If I played this back in the day prior to playing "Super Mario Bros", I might have had an easier time with it. As Yoda said, I had to "unlearn what I had learned". I could not diagonal jump from a run, which found me sailing across the screen only to flatten like a pixelated pancake a couple floors down. I also couldn't just willy-nilly jump over a mutant. It seems pixel perfect for collision as I tried avoiding said mutant and clipped my foot on its head. Pancake city again. Once it clicked that the "treats" that make you invulnerable positioned in the proper order for a good claim run (at least so far), I got better. I also wanted to get better as it was a lot of fun once I got the rhythm.

On a non-game note, found out my NES might be having some video issues. In SMB the blues were really blue, like "color of modern Mario's overalls" blue. It was a neat effect but as I only play this every couple years or so on my 3DS, I didn't think about it too much. When I hooked up the AVS for testing with the "normal" palette the sky was light blue. I held up the SMB section in the "Nintendo Player's Guide" and sho nuff....that's the blue it's supposed be. So now I'll be playing with the AVS and I'll store my NES for now.

[JSoup]

I never post in these threads because I just never play anything other than WoW these days. But I randomly got a reply e-mail for RFGeneration's 'what are you playing' thread after four years, so. Gonna copy and past what I said.

Most of my game time goes to WoW these days, but I have been fiddling with:

Sun Wukong vs Robot - Got it on the PSN for Stars points (hahaha....) and it's....not amazing. It looks good and sounds great, but it's really focused on forcing the player to brute force things. Feels like the dev was trying to do a bullethell-Souls-like mix in a Metroidvania and just couldn't pull it off.

One Man's Trash - Picked it up on a whim. A take on that Digging A Hole game centered around a parody of that cryptobro who lost a thumbdrive with craploads of bitcoin in it. It's...interesting. Dig for junk, sell junk, buy upgrades that let you dig deeper and sell more junk. I don't know that it's amazing, but I ended up sinking six hours into it without realizing.

Tower Wizard - I'm starting to warm back up to idle games, now that titles with actual ends in mind are being made. This is short, maybe 7 hours to complete on the high end (I did it in 5 1/2), but really good. Another game were I sunk much more time into it than intended in one sitting.

[kupomogli]

Replayed Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. If you haven't played the game it's worth getting, and actually I feel like it's a must own. I'm not much of a fan of the beat em up genre, but Urban Reign, God Hand, the Yakuza games, FotNS Lost Paradise(Yakuza,) and Stranger of Paradise are the best in the 3D beat em up genre. You may hear everyone say "it's a souls-like, etc, etc." A "souls-like" is literally just a checkpoint system with recovery items that replenish, except the Souls games are less linear, they have a little bit of exploration in their level design, like a Zelda. Stranger of Paradise is more like any other game, yes, you have these cubes that are your bonfire, and enemies will respawn when resting there, but the level design each time you get to the new cube is almost as linear as it gets. So the only similarity this has to a souls=like is literally the recovery items between each checkpoint, otherwise it's like any other game with a checkpoint system.

You're not going to really going to be playing Stranger of Paradise slowly like you would a Souls game. You can, sure, but when you're not attacking, enemies break gauge is recovering. There are two ways to gain max MP though, defeat and break enemies, getting an instant kill against them like Ninja Gaiden 2/Sigma 2 execution. The other way is to use soul shield to defend against an attack, each way giving you a permanent MP boost, while attacking or soul shield will increase your current MP. Using special attacks or magic costs MP, so you use special attacks that cost MP and then when enemies are staggered you use regular attacks to gain some MP, etc.

Similar to God Hand, you can somewhat customize your character's skills. Every single weapon has the same basic combo attacks, but your special attacks are customizable. Each job class has a unique special, and then all of the other attacks will carry over outside of the main job attack. So every fist skil, every sword skill, etc, all will be usable unless specifically attached to the jobs main skill. After the basic jobs though, the skills are usually more unique, buffs, maybe magic or special skills rather than just another skill. So you press R2 to use one of the skills, R1 to attack with a basic attack up to three times and each time you can hit R2 to use the connected skill, and then during your attacks you can hit forward, baack, side attack, or charge an attack and each of these can be equipped with a skill. So to me, I feel like each weapon is more like a "class" and each of the classes are just individual skills that you can choose.

Equipment has synergy which you get with each class, and later on with the end game content, you can have equipment that has two class synergies together. This is a complaint I have though, because you can equip your equipment to be more powerful, even at a lowever average equipment level, but regardless of your stats if your equipment is a lower level than the stages recommended level, your stats don't matter. Equipment level above all else matters when determining break damage, damage, and defense. If you've got a low equipment level, it doesn't matter how good your stats are, it is going to be much much more difficult of a game. It's pretty stupid that your stats can be better with lower level equipment and better synergies, basically a better build, but your strength is tied to your equipment level really defeating the purpose of really customizing your equipment. Now sure, you can customize your equipment and you can spend crystals to increase the levels of your equipment, but the amount of crystals it takes to update your equipment is far more than you'll have.

So that does remove a lot of the customization even when playing the end game content. Because the customization is just either "cap everything out then customize" or "grind for crystals."

However, even with those issues, I would say if you were to play the main game on either action difficulty, the game is still very difficult and I feel is really well balanced. Hard difficulty is also well balanced but bosses are much more difficult if you don't get weapon upgrades, but you can equip whatever armor to have the max level armor and then use anima crystals to increase the stats of your weapon and then just increase either attack or break damage on the weapon specifically for the bosses. You'd have more than enough anima crystals to do thos. Also use whatever anima crystals you get for classes you have no intent on using, which I'd prioritize anything that uses the katana which imo is trash.

Now, as for the story, it's really hard to say if it's actually bad or not. I'd say yes, it's not a good story, but it's not boring. Final Fantasy 16 story is boring AF except for a few main chapters that are where it's at it's best, but Stranger of Paradise doesn't have a good story, but nothing that is particularly boring. The storyline actually starts getting good at the very end of the story, like, the last few chapters have the storyline start getting good, and I mean really good, but everything up to that isn't, and it's because they wanted to give it this big twist at the end that the story is written in this clever way that is what makes it so bad just so they could make it come together at the very end.

-----------

I never buy DLC, I never buy digital, I actually decided that I was going to buy the season pass next time it was on sale and coincidentally, it was on sale this Tuesday for $5.99 so I decided to buy it.

Once I finished the game, you actually have a lot of end game content on the disc that's not even required for DLC. You have Chaos difficulty which doubles or triples the enemy AI speed. So enemies will attack far more often on Chaos than on action and hard. Now, I played this end game content without level grinding equipment and that also means I didn't use the level 200 equipment that the game gives you for getting the season pass. Additionally, I would say if you don't want to keep having to equip everything manually, DO NOT INSTALL THE SEASON PASS until you get through the main game on Chaos difficulty. Because there's no way to stop the game from equipping you with that equipment. It's very annoying.

As I got further into Chaos difficulty though, I noticed that I'd be getting killed in one or two hits, I dealt almost no break damage despite having the highest damage I could have even higher than higher level equipment. I finally decided to equip my highest level equipment on the last stage, that's when I finallyh found out that the equipment average level determines your stats even if your stats reduce, once again, you deal more damage, deal more break damage, and take less damage. Again something I feel is very stupid but now that I understand it, the Chaos difficulty would have been easier if I did this earlier. I would have just equipment whatever was the highest level at all times.

Now the DLC, which I haven't finished is just replaying the same stages with alternate versions of the stages, basically what's essentially the games side quests. The last section is sort of a gauntlet where you fight multiple enemie and then a boss, but it's just another boss you've already fought. But just now in Bahamut difficulty which the AI now attacks slightly more faster than the Chaos difficulty, but otherwise is the same.

You collect rat tails for finishing battles up to level 300 which allow you to build up your classes further. Increases stats further as well as give you some upgrades to your skills. I think the upgrades are only on the base skills, I'm not sure if there are any new skills actually. Either way the games DLC, seems to just be a lot of grinding, feels like the real extra contact is a few and far between, a cutscene here and there.

Basically I decided well, I just finished the game back to back twice, the latest difficulty being on Chaos, I'm not going to essentially beat the game a third time for what feels a bit of half assed content. And that's only the Bahamut DLC, do I need to grind more for the second and third DLC? Thanks but no thanks.

So initially I was disappointed that this game had no complete edition, but after I bought the DLC and I feel the DLC is just little more than fluff. I really enjoyed the main game as it was, and I feel the other content just isn't really worth it unless you just want to already replay the game, but again, it feels like a few pieces of fluff rather than real content.

If you haven't bought Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, especially if you love 3D beat em ups, would really recommend the game. Don't ignore it just because you might not like souls-likes or RPGs. If you like beat em ups then the game is must own. I don't like beat em ups, but for the few that I actually do like, I feel like this is a modern day of God Hand. God Hand though is a 10/10, Stranger of Paradise is a 7/10, and then a "decent game" would be a 5/10, mediocre 4/10, and bad 3/10 or less. Just to give an idea of my rating system since most people have this really skewed look about anything that's not an 8/10 or higher. My 4/10 is probably IGN's 7/10. I hardly give anything a 9/10 or 10/10 unless it's absolutely deserving.

[kupomogli]

Another example of Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin would be comparing it to Ninja Gaiden 2. When playing Ninja Gaiden 2 you have this severing system where you'll cut off limbs and from there you can then perform an execution. Now this was much easier to do in the Xbox version and less so in the Sigma version of the game. In Stranger of Paradise instead of being a random percentage of whether you'll cut off a limb, you deplete a break gauge, and once broken you can then execute the enemies.

Except also in Stranger of Paradise, the game is in a way similar to God Hand in which the skills you can use are attached to the combo finishers. Late game weapons will have unique skills and accessories will have enemy skills, all providing a way to customize your characters attacks.

And in a lot of ways the game is like classic PSO where it's a very linear run thorugh the games areas with a boss at the end. Weapons with skills are more like your Humars while you've got your black mage, white mage, and sage classes which are like your force classes.

It's like "what if Gene could swap classes and cast magic." THe closest you'll get to going in God Hand form is swapping class, casting haste, and then swapping baack, your attack speed will double.

[Aussie2B]

I haven't really touched a game in weeks, but I did play some more of London Detective Mysteria on my Vita since my last update. I ran through the common route a fourth time, trying to balance out the affection gains between Holmes and Watson, and I managed to end up on Lupin's route. I played a bit of the first chapter of his route, but then it was time for my visit with family to come to an end and head back home. For whatever reason, that transition always seems to kill my motivation to continue playing whatever I had been playing while away from home. And it's no slight against London Detective Mysteria. I'm actually really excited to check out Lupin's route, since I find him a more interesting character than Holmes and Watson, but I just don't feel like doing it right now. And I suppose near the beginning of a character's route isn't a bad spot to leave off. I just have to make some notes for myself on what I have and haven't done, given how convoluted this game's choices can be and the fact that choices don't change color even after being picked.

I still have to get the other endings for Holmes and Watson, and with Holmes, I need to pick the choices listed second during his route. During the picnic part, I noticed you get a little bit of unique dialogue depending on which character you successfully invite to lunch last, and I got that with Holmes, Watson, Akechi, and Kobayashi, but not the others yet. I also noticed that you'll get a letter from one of the love interests at the end of the chapter involving ciphers. When I successfully opened Akechi's box (even if I repeatedly picked wrong answers and kept trying; I've yet to pick the "Skip" option after a wrong answer), the letter would always be from Akechi. If I didn't start the whole sequence with Akechi about the box, then the letter seemed to come from whoever's cipher I chose to decipher. Since I did the sequence with Akechi twice in my four runs through the common route, I've only seen the letters from him, Watson, and Jack.

Now that I'm back home, I want to start something fresh, but I haven't decided what yet. I've just been trying to finish off a paperback book I started while away in my tiny bit of free time right before bed. Part of my hesitation is that I actually just got an OLED Switch and an SD card for it as early birthday presents. This is my first time owning a Switch of any kind. I had been planning to get one these last few months, so I've already built up a collection of dozens of Switch games. Almost all otome visual novels, so even if I'm putting London Detective Mysteria down for now, my enthusiasm for the genre is still there. But I've been so swamped with other things that I haven't even created a Nintendo account yet. I did charge the Switch and run through the initial setup, so now I just need to make an account, pop in the SD card, and maybe pick something to start playing on it. But I've also been thinking about possibly hooking up my PlayStation. So we'll see.

[Aussie2B]

After dealing with the annoyances of modern gaming (multiple updates and what have you), I finished all the preparatory stuff with my Switch and finally started playing something on it. I was browsing the eShop, mainly to download the English translation DLC for the Japanese copy of Taisho x Alice I bought and to add a few digital-only games to my wishlist that I may pick up when they go on sale, and I noticed one such digital-only game was already on sale. So I grabbed Yukar From The Abyss. I recently backed a Kickstarter campaign for the localization of a newer game from the same developer (despite that I usually try to avoid Kickstarter these days, due to being let down by more campaigns than not). So I was interested in checking out their earlier work, though I know the newer project has a lot more polish and is more comparable to the games from Otomate and such. Yukar From The Abyss feels much more like an indie, but a shorter visual novel sounds like a good change of pace for me. With only the love interests having portraits and voice acting, the game almost feels like an old school sound novel at times, which is cool. I probably haven't even put in two hours yet, but I'm digging the vibe so far. The interface is a little clunky (perhaps this is just how the Naninovel engine is, I don't know), but I can deal. I have noticed some weirdness about the background art, though. Strangely blurry spots and things that you'd expect to be uniform that aren't. Makes me wonder if AI was used, but maybe I'm just getting paranoid.

[kupomogli]

Started and quit two games.

First game is Shadow Labyinth. I played a bit over 14 hours. At first I got stuck two hours in because I missed a vine and for about two hours I was just stuck, eventually noticed I missed this vine after exploring everywhere that I couldn't go again a couple other times. Afterwards I actually was able to progress to 62% of the game in around 14 hours and once again I can't find where to go, but now there's a much bigger area to explore. According to the games arena I'm missing a boss and in the area that I last have been exploring I'm missing what I think is double jump because there are a lot of areas, even shortcuts that I can't access even after I progressed the other way. After spending around an hour trying to find where to go I was just done.

I did feel like it was a decent game but even if I had no further issues the remainder of the game I don't think I'd have scored it higher than a 7/10, but because of how hard it is to find where to go it's definitely worse than that now, but again, that's when you can't find where to go. If you never have that problem it's still a pretty good game. Doubtful you'll not have that problem as I've heard that I'm not the only one who's gotten stuck.

The second game I quit playing around an hour in, maybe two, is Assault Suit Leynos 2. So I was already going to purchase this game because of how great of a game Cybernator is and how great of a game Assault Suit Leynos remake is on the PS4. I didn't like Target Earth, but I was like, If Cybernator is as good as it is and the remake of Assault Suit Leynos(Target Earth,) is basically remade to play more like Cybernator, then I'm sure Assault Suit Leynos 2 will also be a great game, right? Right?? No.

Assault Suit Leynos 2 is a bad game. The controls that are in Cybernator have been removed, you no longer have the multi directional firing based on what direction you're aiming. If you aim diagonal up or up, your weapon will aim straight up and the only way you can fire diagonally is during that split second where the character is raising their weapon. But oh wait, you can put it on auto, which doesn't work against everything and sometimes it won't target what you want depending on the positioning. But even when auto is on it doesn't work against everything, sometimes it doesn't work against the exact same enemies it worked on the previous mission. After I got to mission 4 and just how precise you have to be at killing everything to stop the tanker from being destroyed, I deleted the game and I'm never giving the game another chance. I played that stage for around 30 seconds. You can't be too far ahead of it because the aerial units will destroy it, but you can't just stand in the center and kill all the aerial units because the ground units will destroy it.

The other stages weren't any better, the trounament will end if you receive too much damage, but it's also timed so if you're too slow at killing the enemy even if you have no chance in hell at dying doesn't matter. and you can only auto target some enemies, so I keep getting sent to the next mission at tne second enemy because while not dying, I get him down to where he reacts to me twice and then the game moves onto the next mission because I take too long.

The missions themselves are also a whole lot of nothing. The first stage is just a flat stage with mechs until the boss that rolls back and forth repeatedly. The second stage is a couple of hills going up to a cannon "that can shoot through walls." So you basically have to watch when the text reads three, two, one, fire, and then start to boost dash to evade. It's just a very poorly designed game. Like low effort garbage compared to any of the other games in the series that I did like. I even platinumed the remake which I think you're required to finish the game in a single life to get one of the trophies.

[Aussie2B]

I'm chipping away at Yukar From The Abyss on my Switch, but I honestly couldn't tell you if I've gotten on a route or not. I haven't seen anything dividing the game into chapters or would otherwise indicate the end of the common route and beginning of a character route. Like London Detective Mysteria, this doesn't change the color of choice options after they've already been selected (also doesn't change the color of the rest of the text). So like with that game, I'm not playing this one like I would with most other otome visual novels. This one has choices sprinkled throughout that result in the protagonist's death and thus a game over. So far, I've caused her to freeze to death, drown in a wetland, and get mauled by a bear, haha. Sorry, Kurumi. So I've been playing till I hit one of those game-ending choices, start from the beginning and zip through with the "skip read" option, pick different choices, and see how far I get till I get another game over. On my current run, I've unlocked Kyril's first two CGs (that is, special illustrations), so maybe I'm on his route? Outside of those, I have the first ones for Pewrep and Li Huaisu, but those both appear to be unavoidable. I don't think the game is billed as horror, but it's definitely creepy at times. When the giggle audio clip played, it gave me a bit of a start, and I last left off on a big old "nope" image of a dark silhouette behind the door at night, haha. The background music is minimalist at times, so not always something I'd care to listen to outside of the game, but it's great at creating an atmosphere.

[Aussie2B]

I got Kurumi killed for a fourth time in Yukar From The Abyss on my Switch, haha, this time after being struck, accidentally, I guess, during a temper tantrum thrown by the fourth and final love interest I finally met, the demon god Moshirechik. Except I've yet to see him in his original, humanlike form. I've just seen him as a giant, one-eyed feather-covered mound. I wonder if I'm perhaps on his route. Kurumi called for all three of the other love interests as she was kidnapped and taken to Moshirechik, but none have come to her rescue. It gave me the feeling that maybe one would if affection were high enough with any, and then Moshirechik would be the default route you end up on if not. But I'm just guessing here. When I ran through the game again, she ended up at Moshirechik's castle again, so maybe this sequence happens no matter what, who knows. But considering the game is supposed to be pretty short, you'd think I'd be locked into a route soon, even if I've been getting pretty minimal playing time.

I apparently misspoke before, as there is a character who has portraits despite not being a love interest. He's one of Moshirechik's servants. Kurumi described him as handsome, with lustrous hair, if I remember correctly, so I wonder if he was planned as a potential fifth love interest and just never panned out. He doesn't have voice acting, though. Or maybe the developer felt guilty that the player is staring at Moshirechik's monstrous form and wanted to throw in another bishounen to look at in the meantime, haha.

[Aussie2B]

I cleared Yukar From The Abyss on my Switch, earning Pewrep's "End 2". The ending definitely came abruptly, so I can see how that would bother people. But there are three endings for each character, and I highly doubt the one I got is the best possible ending. Since it's the middle one, perhaps it's not the worst either. I wouldn't call it an unhappy ending, but it definitely had an unsettling feel to it. Pewrep is another character I'd describe as a "mamoru" character, but they took it in an interesting direction here. After I got that ending, I got on Pewrep's route again, and I'm already seeing it diverge from what happened last time. This version of the route feels more fleshed out, so maybe I'm heading toward the best ending.