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

[Aussie2B]

Feel free to post about Switch games and other modern games in this topic! As long as topics aren't created in the Classic Gaming section solely for discussion of modern gaming, we're not picky about topicality.

I'm still chipping away at Mario Kart: Super Circuit on my Game Boy Advance SP. It took me a number of tries to finally get first place in the final cup on 150cc and unlock the sunset title screen, and now I'm unlocking the 150cc versions of the extra cups. I've also started dabbling in the Time Trial mode. I beat the top default times for eight of the tracks so far.

[fpbrush]

Time trial modes can be nice to dip your toes into once in awhile. The MK version on SP is enjoyable with the mode7 and all, I haven’t played that one in a bit.

Still brushing through the MD here…still very early in the game, but the level puzzles so far are keeping occupado.

I'm still chipping away at Mario Kart: Super Circuit on my Game Boy Advance SP. It took me a number of tries to finally get first place in the final cup on 150cc and unlock the sunset title screen, and now I'm unlocking the 150cc versions of the extra cups. I've also started dabbling in the Time Trial mode. I beat the top default times for eight of the tracks so far.

[Aussie2B]

I got the top times on some more tracks in the Time Trial mode of Mario Kart: Super Circuit on my Game Boy Advance SP, but I stopped keeping track of how many. I've been struggling a little to get gold on the last couple Extra cups on 150cc, but I'm not playing that much at this point. My night routine lately has been to play a tiny bit of Mario Kart (like sometimes only 15 minutes or so) and then watch an episode of Sailor Moon off of the Blu-rays I bought several years ago. I'm just about done with the second season, so I think that's a decent point to take a break and finish up with Mario Kart too. It would just take way too much effort to get triple star rankings on everything to earn that nighttime title screen, so I can save that for a later point. I just wanted something to play for a bit that wouldn't be too involved, but I'm feeling ready to get into a meatier game now, once I'm done splitting my free time by watching anime too.

Other than that, I picked up another small, cheap lot of DS games and briefly tried them out: Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell, Disney's The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure, iCarly, and Mario Kart DS. I think it's pretty obvious which game I got the lot for, haha. I'm pretty satisfied with my Mario Kart collection now, as I'm only lacking the two most recent physical releases (and don't even own a Wii U or Switch, so it'd be pointless for me to get MK8). Well, unless you want to count the arcade cabinets, haha. I played some of the Mushroom Cup on 50cc in Mario Kart DS, and boy does it feel slow compared to Super Circuit. The tracks are huge in comparison, and the Super Circuit tracks are already long compared to the tracks in Super Mario Kart. But I'm sure it's faster and crazier on 150cc. The rest of the lot screams preteen girl, haha. Most people would just assume they're shovelware, but I was surprised to see Tinker Bell had a way more active board on GameFAQs than I expected. I guess it has its fans, and the publisher did go above and beyond with all the stuff they packaged with the game (stickers and such). On the flip side, iCarly has probably the sorriest manual of any game I've seen that has an actual paper manual. There's literally only a single page of barely formatted plain text about the game itself (and the standard few pages with health warnings and legal mumbo jumbo). It reeks of "If Nintendo didn't require us to include a paper manual, we would've included nothing." So I got a chuckle out of that at least.

[kupomogli]

Started a new character on Tactics Ogre Reborn, I didn't know there was an emblem for getting no incapacitations, I just wanted no incapacitations. I would have actually quit no incapacitations if I didn't find out there was an emblem for it so I figured I'm going to go the whole way and get the emblem for that and no chariot uses on the same run. The game is much harder than the original Tactics Ogre and much less grindy than Tactics Ogre PSP, so it's way harder than getting no deaths on the original. I'm about to change to the lord class on chapter four so pretty close to the end of the game. I plan on going atleast one other path in the game before doing the side content afterwards so I can get both lord and princess(especially since Lans and Warren require the princes ending to get on your party.) A lot of content, wouldn't matter if it wasn't all great content within an amazing game.

[Niku-Sama]

i've been playing metro last light the past few days. PC version
its what i expected

[Ostin Powers]

Currently, I'm diving deep into the world of WoW, and my secret weapon is Levelupper. They're like the ultimate gaming sidekick, offering everything from PvP carry to mastering arenas. Need to breeze through dungeons or level up at warp speed? They're your go-to NPCs! With Levelupper, it's not just about playing; it's about conquering like a true hero. And guess what? You won't have to grind for gold; their prices are as fair as a medieval marketplace! Explore their services at https://levelupper.com/ and prepare for epic quests!

[YoshiM]

I'm taking a break with ToTK and tried some "Untitled Goose Game". It's a cute roaming puzzler but one problem I am having is that I've watched my kids play this game so the things I've seen so far I know what to expect. I did get sucked into an eShop sale and picked up "Doom 64" followed by "Quake II". "Doom 64" I played on the N64 but it gave me motion sickness. So far this version hasn't and I do enjoy the simplicity of blasting things. I have not tried "Quake II" yet.

Having my kids ask about things in ToTK made me want to play it but I still feel I should give it some time, so I tried out "LoZ: Skyward Sword HD" for the Switch. I loathed the motion controls with the Wii version. Even more so when I got more kids which tend to orbit you while you play, not heeding the many warnings of someone getting clobbered. When the inevitable happened, I would first console them but after a few more whacks, one tends to get a little testy. You'd figure the pain receptors in their little bodies would register that the invisible circle at Dad's/step-dad's arm's length is a no travel zone. Nope. I hoped that the Switch version would make it more playable but now I have to deal with precision stick-flicking. On top of that, I'm so used to BoTW's and ToTK's camera control that Skyward feels like it's a step back (and not in a good way). There's probably control settings I don't know about, so I'll have to revisit it.

Lately I've been pouring time into my new Apple acquisitions, the 512K Macintosh and a now fully functional Powerbook 180 (though it's probably borrowed time as I had to crack the hard drive open to put tape on a stopper to destick the arm. It actually worked and I had a functioning 40 MB hard drive). I just got OS 7.1 installed on the PB and that's it as out of 9 diskettes, only 2 worked for transferring floppy images to. I had to do a "disk brigade" of installing a disk image on one and while that was loading in the laptop, I had the other getting overwritten with the next disk in the sequence. The two Mac games I played were "Golf", a solitaire card game on the 512K and "Puzzle", which is a built in slide-style puzzle game where you have to arrange the tiles properly on the PB 180.

I have two NOS packs of Sony disks on order from Amazon so I'll try out some more titles. I really want to try "Shadowgate" on the 512k. Mac OS7....no idea what's available and what would look good on a grayscale screen.

[fpbrush]

Another day, traveling through the star system in the Metroid Dread game. Actually, haven’t gotten far in the game. Rn I am at the Cajun gator-looking character.

[YoshiM]

This past weekend I unearthed the Atari 2600 to finally play the Immortal John Hancock-produced "Catacombs of Chaos". And it was chaotic, to say the least. The rooms you travel through and their contents are randomly generated (hence the "chaos", though the last room you came from seems to be remembered), so you don't know what to expect. To put it bluntly, the game is basic wandering filled with hope that what you need will appear. You could get lucky and stairs appear quickly to get you down to the treasure's level or it's just an exercise in tedium. At worst, the game gets you stuck between to rooms with only one exit. This happened to me twice-I exited a two direction room from the left and I landed in a cul-de-sac. I turned back and the last area I was in got reset into its own cul-de-sac. After going back and forth with no change, I had to reset the game and start over. Losing all your life sends you into a dark world where you wander in the void though the same room setups until stairs are found. After a while, I just flipped the power off.

I then got in some Pitfall 2 and H.E.R.O. until I had to shut it off for a bit. Later on I decided to play some Genesis Mini and I decided to play Phantasy Star IV. It's been probably a good decade since I played a classic style JRPG (Pier Solar was the last game of that style I played). I had a great time playing it! It was strangely zen getting into a rhythm of assigning tasks to my team. I made it to Tanoe and am now trying to make my way into the basement of a storage building to get this herb (?) to help at another town. Hahn keeps getting slapped to near death that forces me to go back to the surface after a while. I could do a save state but the thrill of collecting Meseta to get equipment prevents me from doing that. I almost have everyone who can wear it have titanium protection. After my session I looked up the manual so I can better plan the use of Techniques.

[Tron 2.0]

PS5
Dark Souls II,Got the itch to play it again so i am for now.Still now that this callback to the era of snes,rpgs,sea of stars is out i'll probably try that next month.

[YoshiM]

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

"What do I do now?"

"Just read the screen."

"What...I have to?"

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

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

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

[Aussie2B]

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

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

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

[fpbrush]

Finally got through the next boss battle and have been venturing through the dread galaxy obtaining upgrades. The putrid sucker kept tryin’ to mess up the flow, but I knocked him down after a handful of tries.

[Aussie2B]

I just finished Chapter 3 (out of 12, I think) in Fuga: Melodies of Steel on Steam. The further I get, the more I'm enjoying this game. Even in Chapter 3, there were some little tutorials as they introduce more and more mechanics. At first, the battles didn't seem much different than those in a traditional turn-based RPG like Dragon Quest or what have you, but now I really see how it's a strategy RPG. It's not a grid-based strategy RPG like a Fire Emblem, Shining Force, or Final Fantasy Tactics, and it's not like the Ogre Battle games. There's really nothing I can think of to compare it to. But it's definitely strategic, with the importance of formation, weaknesses, managing limited resources/turns, etc. I haven't sacrificed anybody so far, outside of the mandatory tutorial sacrifice that's then undone, and I'm hoping to keep it that way. So far, I've always chosen the more dangerous paths, just to get more experience and better items. Hopefully that'll help me in the long run. Oh, and I already ordered both volumes of the soundtrack on CD. The music is just too good to not add them to my game soundtrack collection. Besides, I already have the full soundtracks for Tail Concerto and Solatorobo, so it's a no-brainer.

[calthaer]

Been trying to complete Hollow Knight. Must be near the end? Missing a lot of charms...I like the game, and the ability to stick pins on the map to note places you can't get to (yet) is good but clearly I haven't been using it quite enough.

A few friends and I are making our way through Baldur's Gate 3 very slowly; played on Friday.

Been slowly grinding away at Nightmare Dungeons in Diablo 4; have a seasonal barbarian that's level 84. Don't know if I'll make it to 100 before the season ends.

Rarely play any classic games these days - the gaming PC gets my attention almost always.

[YoshiM]

Haven't gotten back to "Phantasy Star 4" as my lunch breaks have not been consistent. Tuesday and Wednesday I was off as my wife, adult kids and youngest son went to Minnesota to visit some old family stomping grounds. I didn't get to play anything during that time, though I did work on a tutorial for NESMaker (I have no idea if I'll even MAKE a game with this as I had so many false starts). I take that back...I DID get to play some "Dungeons and Doomknights" on the NES. I got past the stupid first save area that had graphics I thought were just background but it wasn't. I backtracked so much trying to figure out where to go next.

I did try the game "Faith" for PC, which is a horror game but with 8 bit style graphics and sounds (including digitized voice, like something you'd hear a TI-99/4A voice module croak out). The first chapter was alright, though I got the "murderer" ending. No hand holding or much informing of what to do, so it was just a trial and error mixed with looking up wikis. It has cut scenes that look like live actors were possibly rotoscoped with old computer graphics. It's well put together and does get the anxiety pumping.

Finally, I played a "day's" worth in "Arcade Paradise" in bed as I juuuusssst didn't want to go to sleep yet. When I dropped my Switch Lite on my face, I knew it was time.

[Aussie2B]

I'm up to the intermission before the final battle of Chapter 6 in Fuga: Melodies of Steel on Steam, so I guess I'm about halfway through now. Still no sacrifices. It looks like there's only one character left to recruit, bringing the total to 12. Makes sense, since you need six for a full battle party (the three actively fighting and three more supporting them), and the game starts you off with six. So you could sacrifice all of the original six and get six more to replace them (two of each weapon type, just like the initial batch), but any more sacrifices than that would leave you shorthanded. Which is good, because there should be a penalty to overusing what's basically an insta-win option for the hardest battles. I've heard of people doing a "genocide run", but not even having three active fighters for all the regular battles makes the game really tough. Anyway, I just don't like losing characters. Like, I've never played a ton of the Fire Emblem series, but I'd always try to avoid losing anybody in those games too. Getting back to Fuga, I'm still really enjoying it, though I feel like the pace has slowed down a little. I think it was Chapter 4 where there started to be way more forks in the paths, and probably because I keep picking the dangerous paths, it seems like the chapters are getting more time-consuming. So it does make my sessions with the game a little less satisfying, in that I want to keep playing and make more progress but have to stop to get to bed. But really, if the game leaves me wanting more, I can't complain.

[YoshiM]

The Switch got some love. Played the "Dave the Diver" demo, which was fun. It's an action RPG that has you diving underwater to capture fish that you can use in recipes at your sushi restaurant. Get fish, collect material to craft or sell, serve drinks and sushi and buy upgrades to go deeper. Deeper meaning deeper under water to get more stuff to level up and move the adventures forward. It's got potential but I'm holding off on pulling the trigger as I have other games I want to get through. I also got in a little "Animal Crossing: New Horizons".

Haven't really done anything retro lately. I'm thinking I should probably spend some time with a classic.

[YoshiM]

I decided to dig out my DSi XL for kicks and try some games I haven't gotten around to in a while. I grabbed my R4 cartridge and "Metroid Prime: Hunters". When I played last, I just left the Archives and I was sitting at the navigation screen. I sent my ship to the next location, Alinos, and mucked my way through there. It didn't take long to get back into the controls and got through the level, narrowly beating a hunter (?) that was waiting for me after I got this crystal-thing from the hidden room's cybernetic security system. I died the first go but I was able to beat the dude and get to my ship. Sucky thing was, I could not for the life of me jump onto my gunship! It took a few tries (with the timer counting down to 24 seconds) but I finally got on and off the planet. I'm now sitting at a defense station ready to do who knows what.

Controlling it was a bit cramp inducing but I still had a good time. I'm hoping I'll have time tomorrow to continue.

I tried storing my R4 cart in my Metroid case where the cartridge goes and found that it indeed is not the same size as a DS cart! The cart split apart but I was able to snap it all back togther. I have not tried playing it since. While its got some DS games on there, I mostly use it for emulation.

[YoshiM]

Keeping with the DS theme, I shifted over to the 3DS now as the kids were talking about Halloween and "Animal Crossing:New Horizons". I spent time weeding, paying off the mortgage and even hit up the Dream Suite to visit a town named "meow". Next thing I knew, most of my lunch time was up. I did have some time to get through World 1-1 of "Super Mario Bros. 2" for the Virtual Console.