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

[Aussie2B]

I think I'm up to the final boss fight in Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure on PSP, but I've been holding off on tackling that while I complete some optional stuff. This is another game where online estimates for completion times are completely unreliable. Sometimes I check sites like HowLongToBeat, usually to pick out shorter games to play, and it helps for getting an idea of what games are crazy long (like, say, Dragon Quest VII) compared to those that are more reasonable, but outside of relative terms, I can't trust people's estimates much, especially when most people want to brag about how quick they can beat a game. Anyway, I have over 19 hours on the clock in Gurumin, with plenty left to do. Granted, my time isn't accurate to my playing because there were many times where I had to set the PSP down for a bit and the clock kept going, but the "completionist" time on HowLongToBeat is 17-some hours, which is total nonsense because I know to get everything in the game, you have to play through the whole game at least four times (on different difficulties). I'm not even gonna concern myself with that. If I want to replay the game down the road, then, yeah, I'll do New Game+ on a different difficulty (currently doing Normal). I'm just gonna try to do all I can with one single file. I still have some optional stages to do (optional if you don't care about getting the good ending, at least), and I'm working on getting Master ratings on all the stages I have done. I have more headgear to collect, and while most of the outfits would be unlocked via replays, I know I can get at least a couple with this file. I know I can get more pictures for the album too. And there's the whole optional quest to collect platinum medals for a drill upgrade. I've got 3 of the 11.

[YoshiM]

I got midway through World 5 on "Super Mario 3D Land" but then my week got hectic, so my breaks were non-existent. While the game is cute and I'm happy that so far I don't need to be Racoon Mario in order to obtain the big coins (a BIG point of contention in "Super Mario 3D World" where you HAD to wear the Cat suit in order to get some coins), the game wore thin for me. Not that it was hard (though I did drop a few lives trying to get a big coin due to me not getting the perception of heights of some platforms right) it's just getting old. I had the similar feeling with "3D World", giving me a feeling I'm getting "Mario'd out" in a platformer sense. I had fun with "Super Mario Odyssey", so maybe it's this 3D mixed with old-school "world/level" perspective?

I got to finally sit and play some "Boomerang Fu" on the Switch. It's a top-down arena style food-based combat game where you select a food (carrot, mug of coffee, ice cream bar, slice of watermelon, etc.), deck them out in unlockable add-ons (glasses, antlers, a fork, chef's hat, etc.) and then duke it out in different environments by hitting or throwing your boomerang at your friends, bots or both. We played the Team mode which allowed team members to resurrect their fallen comrades by standing over their bottom-half remains until a meter fills. Random power ups appear that can make your boomerang start fires, cover things in ice, split into mutliple pieces, be controlled by telekinesis, and more. Other power include warping through walls, teleporting to where your boomerang is, creating decoys (a bot version of you splits off), using camouflage (standing still turns you into an appropriate background object), etc. Sometimes you can pick up another boomerang to use that against your enemies.

The first go rounds it didn't quite click with me but the more I played, the more I got into it. Not as much as my kids, who were whooping and hollering. In games like this (and Smash) I sometimes have problems processing all the things that are going on at once. Sometimes I lose myself as I'm trying to get a handle on all the player movements while trying to stay on the move so I don't get clobbered. Other times I'll focus on my guy but then get ambushed. I got better but I have to really practice at it more. I do more assists than being a food Rambo like the youngest of my twins. She can barrel through that game unscathed.

[Aussie2B]

I'm still picking away at the optional stuff in Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure on PSP, but I should be done pretty soon, I think. I got all the platinum medals and the drill upgrade for doing so, all the headgear, the couple alternate outfits accessible at this point, Master ratings for every stage and mini-game, and all but two photos. I'm not sure if those last two photos are even accessible in an initial playthrough, so all I really have left is the optional boss and the final boss. I mean, I could theoretically grind for Junk to upgrade my headgear levels, but Junk and those levels carry over from one playthrough to the next, so it would make more sense to leave that for potential future replays. It kinda sucks that so much is locked behind replaying on all the different difficulty levels, especially when I think not much changes besides the damage received, but it is what it is.

[Tron 2.0]

I'm still playing shining force-cd on the sega genesis mini II.I finished book one recently shesh when you fight woldol final form it's a very cheap fight.It's so snk boss syndrome since woldol,demonbreath drains a good deal of hp.I had to use cray boost spell to up my party defense to win the fight.Now book one is finally cleared i started to play book two of shining force-cd.

At the end of book II but damn it's final boss iom has a ton of hp and deals allot of damage.

[YoshiM]

I finally broke down and got an HDMI to analog audio extractor, so I can hook a mini system up to my workbench monitor at work during a lunch break. On today's menu I brought my Genesis Mini 2 and figured I'd try some games I never really played before or played very little back in the day.

First up: "Golden Axe 2". I played the crap out of the original but never, for whatever reason, played any of the sequels. Ho-hum reviews? I can't find an EGM with a quick Google, so I can't be sure. I never even RENTED it. I think I tried it on past emulators or maybe even Sega's Genesis collection on PS3 but it was only a passing glance. Now I know why. It's Golden Axe 1.5. Graphics are changed, a new magic mechanic is in place but the sound effects suck as do some of the animations. I took my man Gilius up to the gates of the Castle before my continues were used up on Normal mode. To me it practically felt like a rip off of the original. While the original still has a place in my gaming heart as it felt like I was playing an arcade game, the gameplay for both just feels monotonous now.

Next I tried "Sonic CD". I owned this back in the day but could never sit down to really play it. Now with the ability to save any time, I figured, "why not?" It's frickin' visual chaos. It's a good looking platformer but right off the bat it's hard to tell what's "background" (like little animals flitting about) and what's a mechanical wielder of death (as some of the robots LOOK like the little animals flitting about). As the latter games seemed to push more about speed, I found myself careening the Blue Blur into more bad guys than I'd like. I did rocket myself into the past on the first world but I didn't time shift else where through the rest of the level. I fought Robotnik in his punchy walking machine with the spikey Gene Simmon robo-boots and got the shaft as I touched the BACK of his boot coming down from an attack and still spinning. Ended the stage with only 4 rings to my name. I have my game saved at the next level, so we'll see what the future brings this week.

Over the weekend I got in a little "Portal 2" time and got down to the old Aperture Labs circa 50's area where you start hearing the quips of Cave Johnson. I'm currently stuck in this area where there are inaccessible doors going to a place where Cave wants to "throw science to the wall and see what sticks", another door where if I would go to the bathroom "it might come out blue" (or something like that) and then a third door that announces that, if I bleed, it's actually gasoline and I should stay away from open flames. I have to investigate more to see where I can all go as the place is in shambles.

[Tron 2.0]

Completed book 2 of shining force-cd finally i did some leveling for the other party members.I got,slade up to level 15 then i use his boost spell for defense while using the other characters for range attacks and one to attack iom directly.In the end it worked still i hate that boss fight iom was to op.Now that book 2 is done that will open up book three the last chapter of the game.

[Aussie2B]

After finishing up Gurumin, I've been slow to start up something new, as I've been doing a fair bit of reading lately too (just for fun, I mean, not my reading for work), but I figured I'd finally tackle Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake after beating the MSX version of the first Metal Gear a few years ago, which was my first experience with the series period. Like with the prior game, I'm playing via the Vita's Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. Metal Gear 2 was royally kicking my butt with the first couple areas. I don't know if it's just been too long since I played the original and I lost my groove with this series, or if the differences are really throwing me off (like the guards having greater range of vision), or if I still just don't have enough experience with this genre as a whole. But yeah, it took several attempts just to get inside the building, since getting spotted was basically an instant death sentence, and then it took several attempts to get anywhere on the first floor. But once I reached the elevators, things started picking up. I've gathered the first key card and a few other items, so now I'm just exploring the building to see what I can find and do. I mapped out the first game and initially thought maybe it wasn't worth doing for this game, given the in-game map, but I decided to map this one too in order to keep track of what doors I have and haven't been able to pass through, along with item locations (especially for consumable stuff like ammo and rations).

[Tron 2.0]

Sega Genesis Mini II
Shining Force II

Finished book three of shining force-cd weeks ago so it's main story is complete.So now i'm playing shining force II on the mini II.

[YoshiM]

I dabbled with "Ranger X" on the Sega Genesis Mini II. I never played this originally and while the presentation is neat, I'm not overly fond of the game play. I got to the second level and just didn't feel compelled to keep going. I played a little "Populous" afterwards and got my little group of followers to start expanding before I had to save and stop for the day.

I switched back to the, ahem, Switch to continue with "Portal 2". I got through the Aperature Innovations sections and am now going through Wheatley's tests. Some parts in the game is where mouse aiming would have been really helpful but I got through it. I had a few "duh" moments but through death reloading I was able to figure most of things out without help.

I then played "put the big Switch and my DS/GB stuff away as the kids don't take care of the stuff". My regular Switch was set on the floor by the bed to charge which almost made me blow my stack. Granted the house is a hoarder's paradise with piles of things here and there but they could have at least put it securely in the clothes basket NEXT to the bed. If I didn't have my flashlight on when getting ready for bed (I didn't want to wake my son or my wife with the big light), I might have stepped on the thing. So that's off limits for all. I did allow the eldest twin to play on my Lite as a few of us invaded her and her sister's room for D&D as a "rental fee", which I had to explain to one of my sons who pointed out my supposed hypocrisy. The DS bin didn't have its lid, had toys stacked on top of the messed pile of games and I found crayons and Legos mixed with the cartridges. So that was fun clearing that.

[Tron 2.0]

I dabbled with "Ranger X" on the Sega Genesis Mini II. I never played this originally and while the presentation is neat, I'm not overly fond of the game play. I got to the second level and just didn't feel compelled to keep going. I played a little "Populous" afterwards and got my little group of followers to start expanding before I had to save and stop for the day.

I switched back to the, ahem, Switch to continue with "Portal 2". I got through the Aperature Innovations sections and am now going through Wheatley's tests. Some parts in the game is where mouse aiming would have been really helpful but I got through it. I had a few "duh" moments but through death reloading I was able to figure most of things out without help.

I then played "put the big Switch and my DS/GB stuff away as the kids don't take care of the stuff". My regular Switch was set on the floor by the bed to charge which almost made me blow my stack. Granted the house is a hoarder's paradise with piles of things here and there but they could have at least put it securely in the clothes basket NEXT to the bed. If I didn't have my flashlight on when getting ready for bed (I didn't want to wake my son or my wife with the big light), I might have stepped on the thing. So that's off limits for all. I did allow the eldest twin to play on my Lite as a few of us invaded her and her sister's room for D&D as a "rental fee", which I had to explain to one of my sons who pointed out my supposed hypocrisy. The DS bin didn't have its lid, had toys stacked on top of the messed pile of games and I found crayons and Legos mixed with the cartridges. So that was fun clearing that.

Ranger X learning curve are the controls once you master it,it's not that hard to complete.

[YoshiM]

Ranger X learning curve are the controls once you master it,it's not that hard to complete.

Wow! This is where it would be nice if the manual was built in the Genesis Minis. I had no idea the special weapons were solar powered! I'll probably give this another shot.

As mentioned in the "Beaten in 2023" thread, I beat Portal 2. I played some during a late lunch yesterday and then polished it off when most of folks at home were in bed. I had one issue at the very end about how to reach something but, like the rest of the puzzles, I was able to look more at the environment and figure out what I needed to do. My youngest twin was eying me as I looked at my phone to see what I was missing (which typically is just a spot I didn't think about when surveying the room to put a portal and without reading further, I figured out the rest while feeling stupid that it didn't "click") as she loves to pick on me for "cheating". Though she will ask her elder siblings on how to do something in a game which she doesn't consider cheating (my house is filled with double standards). Thankfully I didn't find what I was looking for but the solution popped in my brain and I could take care of bid-ness.

With the quasi modern out of the way, I think I'll revisit the classics for a while through my minis. It's too bad the NES Classic has the worst perceivable lag out of the bunch as I wouldn't mind playing through some of those NES games. It grates on me. From doing a quick read it looks to be Nintendo's emulation is the culprit. When I get it back from my Mom I'll have to redo Hackchi so everything loads from Retroarch.

I just gotta decide if I want to start with a Nintendo system, Genesis or the Turbo.

[YoshiM]

Double dose of gaming in a short time! Woah, Bessie!

I brought my SNES Mini to work in hopes to play it on lunch but never got a chance to. I plugged it in today and played some "Street Fighter II Turbo". It's weird using the SNES controller but I got along as the bog-standard Ryo....until I had to fight myself. Then I tried some "Earthbound". Eh, not quite my speed right now.

Tonight I got to play some Roblox with my daughters and got in some "Tornado Alley" time before I had to make dinner. I was really impressed by the upgrades the developers did. Using a controller was a dream in this game and the rumble worked as well! I had a lot of fun with it.

After all that I fired up the laptop again and started to play with my (Lo) Wang in "Shadow Warrior 2" again. This time the game flowed. I got the elements for the Master to mix a potion up for the woman that's in Wang's head, fought a drug chemist called The Chef (who REALLY dug into his own stash that looked like a bloated Demi-Gorgon from "Stranger Things"). Then I finished off my gaming night discovering there's upgrades you can do to the weapons and Wang himself.

As it's game night all over the house and my kids are dispersed and the wife and eldest are watching some British murder show, I sat on the floor in the bedroom to go-ninja-go-ninja-go. I can't feel my tuckus anymore so I'm done.

[Aussie2B]

I think I've gotten into a decent groove with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake via the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection via my Vita. I've been making slow but steady progress. I've made it from the Zanzibar Building to the Tower Building and got the fourth key card. My next task is to find a carrier pigeon. I know there's a boss fight on the 30th floor of the Tower Building, so I don't know if I have to clear that first or what. But Kasler said I needed grenades for the fight, so I've backtracked all over to see what I could access with the fourth key card and managed to find grenades, among other things. I've beaten three bosses so far, and the first was pretty simple, but the next two were pains. I lost a few times to the Running Man just by blowing myself up with mines, haha, and I think I understand why the swamp is so notorious and hated in this game (with having to pass it after every failed attempt to beat the Running Man). And the Hind D helicopter...ugh. Controlling the Stinger missiles suuuuuucks, at least when you have to quickly take cover in between shots. So I'm a little apprehensive about the next boss fight. But I'm enjoying myself overall, and I actually find myself looking forward to the prospect of playing Metal Gear Solid someday. It wasn't really part of my plan. I just figured I'd play the 2D games. I'm not really one for big, AAA-type games, especially when they're gritty and macho, for lack a better way to describe what I mean, haha, but I have a big soft spot for 5th gen gaming, so I think I'd be down for the first Metal Gear Solid. After that, who knows. I can't really see myself playing something like, say, MGS5, but I guess never say never. In fact, just the other day, I ordered myself a copy of Metal Gear Solid for PS1, which, despite my decent sized PS1 collection, I surprisingly haven't had all these years. I do have Twin Snakes for GameCube, but I'm more inclined to play the original version. I wish I got it many years ago when it was a <$10 game CIB, but oh well. If I had a PS3, I could get it on PSN and even transfer it over to my Vita, but I skipped that system and still don't have one.

[YoshiM]

I got my Xbox 360e all set up with the Kinect and I downloaded pretty much all my old XBLA games. I got in some time with "Epic Dungeon", "Tron: Deadly Discs", "Afterburner: Climax" and "Dust: an Elysian Tale". Saturday night I was asked if I wanted to play some "Castle Crashers" on the Switch and with a full crew of myself, one of my twins, my son and his slightly older brother, we beat that sucker! My twin step-daughter always got to kiss the princesses but this time I got to get the last one. It was.....an amusing situation when her veil came up.

Sunday I got to try out the freebie Kinect and it worked! I went through "Kinect Party" with my son and then more of my kids. They had a blast with it! I also got to play some "Fruit Ninja" but couldn't get the system to go into local multiplayer. Later on that night I made my Switch Lite the "main" console again (I had to transfer the rights to my big Switch so we could get everyone's "Castle Crashers" characters) and spent a little time with "Skyrim". Nothing major there-just made the opening trek to Whiterun.

That was a LOT of gaming for me. This coming weekend I'll have my daughter so we'll get to play (hopefully) some "Kinect Party" like we used to when she was younger. I'm also hoping to play some "Kinect Adventures" (or whatever it was called), which I picked up complete from a thrift store on Saturday.

[Aussie2B]

I'm guessing I'm at least somewhat near the end of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake via the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection on Vita. I've got the ninth key card now, or at least I did, until I replaced 7-9 with the green master key card. The master key cards came from rooms all next to each other, and there aren't any more I've yet to get into, so I think that's it for the key cards. I got myself psyched out with the bosses for nothing. All of the bosses past the Hind D have been easy enough. The game has also become more straightforward. There're no sections of any of the past areas that I have yet to enter period, actually, but I did have to backtrack all the way to the fourth floor of the first building to enter the freezer, which was rather tiresome. Some of the puzzle-type aspects have gotten slightly trickier. I can see why people often get stuck on the hang glider part.

[Tron 2.0]

Since i finished shining force II recently i got out the first genesis mini again and started to play the first shining force game.

[YoshiM]

I recently picked up "Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes" for the Original Xbox again and I got a couple of my D&D playing children to join me. I forgot how much this game was an advanced version of "Gauntlet" and honestly seems to play better to "Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows". Or at least that's what my memory tells me-I remember getting "G:SS" when it came out and felt it sucked. I can't remember why-my group didn't play it long back then before it went back to the rental store. They had a blast and so did I. It's been probably getting close to a couple decades since I played this game last with my ex. It was like playing a brand new game as I don't remember jack.

After "game time" I brought the Xbox downstairs to back up some games to the hard drive. I got to play some "Black" as one of my step sons is a big FPS fan. I only ever played the demo of this game (thanks Official Xbox Magazine) so playing it for realsies was pretty cool. Game handled well and I wanted to keep going but I had to set the clocks ahead for Daylight Savings time and I didn't want to stay up too late.

[Aussie2B]

As I wrote in the other topic, I beat Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake via the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection on my Vita. I had 12 hours on the clock (though, like usual, who knows how much of that is idle time while I ran off to do something), and my rank was Elephant. Considering my 300+ kills and 150+ alerts, I guess I was about as quiet and stealthy as an elephant, haha.

I also listed off beating a couple of the games on TwinBee Portable on PSP, but the real reason I'm playing that again is because I'm finally giving a serious go at the original arcade TwinBee. The TwinBee series has been my favorite shmup series since the early '00s, when I discovered Stinger and then subsequently bought all the other games in the series, spin-offs included. I beat most of them for the first time many years ago, but I always avoided the first game. It just felt too archaic and unappealing to me, even compared to Stinger and TwinBee 3, despite neither being that impressive on a technical level (especially with TwinBee 3 being a 1989 release, you can tell Konami wasn't putting a ton of effort into it, but it's still fun). I know the first TwinBee isn't a game you can truly beat, in that it just keeps looping, but I've never cleared even the first loop (not sure if I ever bothered getting further than the first stage or two), which makes it the only shmup in the series where I haven't cleared all the stages. (Including spin-offs, I also have never beaten the platformer or RPG either.) But forcing myself to give it a real shot, I've discovered that it's more fun than it initially seemed, and it also has more of the stuff that appeared in later entries than I expected (like the baseball power-up). So in addition to having fun, I feel like I'm more properly understanding the history and evolution of the series. I made it all the way to the boss of Stage 5, which is the "final" boss, but I choked there and instantly lost all my lives. Unlike later games, where you can grab the ghost of your ship after losing a life to regain your power-ups, you're totally screwed if you die here and may as well start all over. You can't even brute force your way through with pumping in credits because you have to start over upon losing a credit, which I guess is smart because it would've been scummy of Konami to let you resume where you left off if you'd just immediately lose all those lives. The key thing here seems to be getting the shield ASAP, and if you lose it, you better pray you can quickly get another. If you get the options, you no longer can acquire the shield (and vice versa), so they're not worth getting at all. I just try to increase my speed and get the double shot and barrier, then wait until I can pick up the triple shot and baseball from ground enemies. Then I can deal with the swarms of enemies pretty decently. I've never been great at shmups, so maybe clearing one loop would be nothing for others, but it's a decent enough challenge for me, especially for late-night playing when my reflexes aren't exactly in top form.

[kupomogli]

DBZ Kakarot is straight garbage. Open world ruining games again and again. It does faithfully follow the anime and the cutscenes are good but playing the game is just not fun in the least.

The only good thing about the game is something I've found out that's only in the game as a patch. Dragon Ball Card Warriors. If you don't install the patch the card game does not exist, once you install the patch it adds a card game that has hundreds of cards and 50 different battles that get progressively more difficult. It disappoints me because this card game is absolutely amazing. Despite the simplicity it has a massive amount of depth.

Dragon Ball Card Warriors doesn't exist in any form and is apparently the original DBZ card game with a lot more cards(There's a lot more than 296 cards in game, but the game also has images of the 296 mint condition versions of the actual cards provided you have the in game version.) So how the game plays is that you have an energy bar, a bank, and four colored tokens. You start with one energy and if you're the second player you start with one energy and two points in your bank as an extra card. As each turn passes, you have an additional energy to use and each energy you do not use goes into the bank. The bank can be broken to pull out the energy sitting there but it can't be used again unless you use a card to unbreak it. Then additionally the four different colored tokens are based on each of your cards. Whenever a card is destroyed and moves to the graveyard, you'll gain a color token based on the card, these aren't required for anything but card abilities that can activate whenever you place the card on the field, extra damage, extra stats, different status effects attached to the cards, etc, otherwise the cards are placed on the fields without these effects.

Any card that has an effect that doesn't require a token has worse stats than a card that has no effects. However, that means it's a card that has no mechanics. Doesn't mean it's worse, but having a worse card that can do other things can be better. Additionally, cards that are a higher level aren't drastically more powerful. Level 2 cards are barely more powerful than a level 1 card and so on. So technically, you could use a lot of low level cards and you'd have a really powerful deck, however there are some cards that can completely wipe all low level cards from the field.

There are a lot of effects though like cards that give you extra energy when you use them, cards that increase your energy level, cards that unbreak your bank, recovery cards, guard cards, invincibility cards. Like if you get a 18 card that is invincible when 17 is on the field and somehow add guard to that card, the only way for the enemy to do anything from that point on is to have piercing or something that can destroy the 17 card otherwise the 18 card will be invincible and you can't attack anything but that card. If that card gets rush as well and enough attack power, it could then keep attacking as long as it keeps destroying cards.

You can create a deck by using a lot of different cards, but many of the deck builds are going to be card types. Saiyans, androids, Frieza army, Ginyu Force, Goku/Frieza, Goku/Buu, etc. There are builds you can make by using one card that happens to pull out multiple weak cards and you can then buff up these cards with field wide items, etc. It's honestly one of the best games I've played in the last few years and it's not even on disc. Incredibly disappointing .

[Aussie2B]

Clearing the first loop of the original arcade TwinBee via TwinBee Portable on my PSP still evades me. I've yet to even get to the last boss again, though I have made it to Stage 5 a number of times. I just keep losing my barrier at the worst time. I either can't make any recovery, or sometimes I'll get so far as to having a red bell appear, only to get hit a tiny fraction of a second before I can grab it. It's tough because the power-up bells immediately cycle back to a regular bell with one additional shot, so you basically have to stop shooting until you can grab the bell you want, giving enemies an opportunity to swarm the screen and fire off shots everywhere. That said, I think my late-night playing is really holding me back. I don't think it's a coincidence that the one time I got up to the boss of Stage 5 I happened to get a chance to play in the middle of the day, when I wasn't as tired.

Anyway, I use the other games on the collection as a way to take a break from the first game (especially since they have charging shots and/or auto-fire, so I'm not button mashing like in the original). So in addition to TwinBee Da! and Detana! TwinBee, I ran through TwinBee Yahho! As nice as it is, I still have never played this one that much, probably because the home console versions are just the arcade version with free play, and I've never been the type to set arbitrary restrictions on myself like trying to get a 1CC. So I use however many credits it takes me, and it's quickly over. But playing the first TwinBee got me reflecting more on how Yahho! came out 10 years later. I know they made a to-do of it being the 10th anniversary game (and it ended up being the last proper TwinBee shmup), but it's really remarkable seeing how far the series came in only 10 years. I mean, if you showed me a game from 2023 and a similar game from 2013, I don't know if I would even notice a huge difference. Technology is still improving of course, but it's not nearly as drastic as it used to be.