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FromSoft isn't messing around! Giant Mech✔️ Missile launcher✔️ Big gun✔️ Laser sword✔️ Jet propelled agility✔️ ..And go! This isn't Metroid however, this is your standard tool kit. Master it quickly. You get about the first couple minutes to introduce you to the controls. Then, you're on your own. Free to roam and battle as you wish. Your first objective has four markers, to be approached in any order. Naturally there is a lot of distance between each and From is quick to demonstrate that the enemies have the advantage. This is their base, you are the intruder. Be prepared to fight waves around any given corner. Some nice little Codec-like voices are your only warning the enemy has spotted you. The controls have come a long way since early AC's. After only an hour or so, I get what they were saying about taking what they've learned from Souls (more from Sekiro, really) and applying it to AC. Combat is fluid, reactionary and fast-paced. It all feels really intuitive, however. I imagine the first boss will be a rude awakening to any new to AC. I died a handful of times. But, this isn't Souls. This ain't no Vanguard either. I didn't defeat the boss by learning it's patterns, tells and counteracting them. No, I beat the boss by making the most of my own abilities. Your handler gives you one hint to dodge a specific attack. But it's more important than it seems. I mentioned Sekiro before, because you have the same meter system to the boss fights. Get the bar into the red with sustained damage and not only does this put the boss in a stunned state. But they take more damage too. Be careful that it does work both ways. Not to mention the cooldown to all your weapons and dodge/agility capabilities. This is all demonstrated in the first boss fight. When I "got it", I smashed the boss quite easily. I didn't get long to play today and likely even less time tomorrow. But just from the opening mission, I'm very impressed.

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I've played a few hours of this and I think I get it enough for some early impressions. It looks kinda out there but it also sticks to a lineage of Hero Shooters for the most part. There are 10 classes to choose from: 4 damage dealers, 3 tanks and 3 support. But one of each are unlocked as you rank up (or available from the start if you pay more (yes, there's a bunch of this malarkey, battle pass etc. 😐 )). So how a general game plays out is you pick a class, anyone can be any, it doesn't force anyone into a certain one but I can't see a lot of success in not having someone be one of each. There's 5 people on a team but you are also pitted against another team who is racing you to different parts of the map to dispose of these dinosaurs that are falling out of portals (I'll get to that). You don't interact with the other team, they're ghosts you're competing with in the first round. The second round it changes to something a little different. There's different modes it might change to but most of my games it became a payload pushing mode. Standing next to it will move it and you have to protect it from the dinos. But your opponents are on the map with you, pushing their own payload and it's here there is some decision making. You can go and attack them but your payload is less protected. Though they do meet in the middle so conflict will happen. Another little trick you have is once a match you'll have the ability to summon and control a dinosaur used to go and make the opposing teams life a problem. It's very clunky to use and quite easy to waste if you're not careful but it can be a tide turner. I'm not gonna say too much about the classes because it's one of those cases where if you've played Overwatch you know the deal. They're mixed up a bit but it's generally a familiar feeling game in this regard. What's interesting, in a way, is despite this ridiculous premise of fighting hoards of dinosaurs in a futuristic city is it does try and contextualise all this with an ongoing plot. You and your team crash land on an island where a chaotic AI is sending people back in time at the point when dinos appeared out of portals and destroyed the city (though at first they think it's a simulation). The AI is then analysing combat data and for what reason? I dunno yet. It trickles this out as you play since your team are analysing as well, to figure out what the hell is going on. I appreciate the commitment to the bit but it does lead to a problem of the game feeling too same-y since you're always in a similar urban area and there isn't much using the environment since it's a very grounded game and pretty close quarters. Add some spongy dinos to that and you end up in situations that feel really limiting. I guess it does feel like a game from a few generations ago. Its been making me think of Monday Night Combat, which is a game I've not thought about since then. That time early in the 360 gen where you had all these shooters with hoard modes. So I've been getting a nostalgic feeling I didn't expect but I don't think it's the kinda game I want to play to the extent it clearly wants me to. It's charming, and I generally enjoy it but... some multiplayer games don't get a playerbase when I can't help but think they should have. I don't think this is that. But this is just after a few hours. Maybe something will click and I'll see something special but it's not obvious from the jump, which you really need in a multiplayer game.

After falling off Final Fantasy XVI last weekend I've been putting a fair amount of time in to this over the last week or so... for the most part I'm enjoying it a lot. I'm not entirely sure what you'd class this as, real time strategy?... the only game I've played that's remotely close to it is Gears Tactics which was turn based this occurs in real time and only slows (or pauses if like me you prefer it that way and change it in the options) when you use skills. Other than that the marines will engage when spotted entirely on their own. I'm playing on normal and the game certainly isn't a push over... so much so that engaging the aliens should pretty much be avoided if possible and trying to be as stealthy as possible is the preferred method of advancing through levels. There's a lot of spinning plates to juggle in regards to the marines themselves ammo count, tools (for welding doors shut and unlocking encrypted doors), first aid kits and stress levels which can give you negative traits if they get too high. Marines can be wounded and require medical treatment which results in lost days, same with the negative traits these can be removed in the medical center but also cost days. This wasn't a problem in the early game but come mission 6 there's a kill clock introduced and a 25 day countdown to nuclear containment protocol... so that sucks. It looks fairly nice and the sound is great with all of the noise you'd expect... pulse rifles and smart guns sound spot on. Some of the marine sound bites play a little too often for their own good though. Unfortunately the games a little buggy at the moment too, to the point where the X button sometimes stops working altogether in-between missions (thankfully hasn't happened mid-mission yet) and sometimes the elevator prompts straight up don't work... quitting out and reloading generally fixes these though. Not my usual gaming fare but I'm glad I've given it a try... just hope I don't get sterilised via nuclear explosion...😂

Bought this a while ago and finally found myself in the right mood to play it this last week. The synopsis for this is rather short: you play as Meredith, who travels to a fictional area in Oakland to simultaneously get away from her job for two weeks and step in for her father who's the local postman. In gameplay terms this means that you drive around and deliver letters and parcels, occasionally getting dragged into a discussion by the townsfolk who you can open up to and build relationships, of either the pragmatic, platonic or romantic nature. The way you handle these interactions does have consequences, but we're not talking Mass Effect here. There are no twists and turns and everything you do either results in people being friendly to you or not. It's a snapshot into a common, unremarkable life, not a blockbuster life-saving adventure. It's hard to talk about this without making it sound boring, but there is something in its monotonous parcel delivery gameplay that helped me unwind and refocus. I'm not going into too much detail about this in a topic about a game, but it did nudge me a little in a certain direction I've been thinking about recently in terms of where I am and what I'm doing with my life. It very subtly deals with issues like midlife crisis and burnout without ever mentioning either of these words. And some themes can hit close to home, depending on your circumstances – Meredith's boss calling her almost every other evening despite her being on vacation really rubbed me the wrong way, but for all the right (read: authenticity, believability) reasons. There are multiple themes like this spread across all those little interactions, from leaving old friends behind in search of personal fulfilment or even making new ones by discovering the next chapter in your life. I might be overselling the game a bit here, but playing it is less about the things happening on screen but more about those that it might kickstart outside of it. That's not to say it's a chore to play. The mail delivery part is roughly a third of what you do per day, with dialogue et al taking more space. It's here the game is at its best, even though it's hardly Shakespearean or anything. In fact, a lot of characters are somewhat stereotypical, but they are grounded enough to be believable and imperfect enough to be likeable. As mentioned earlier, your choices influence relationships and there are multiple endings to the game as well. It also doesn't overstay its welcome with its roughly 9 hour playtime – I played two "ingame days" per day for a week which felt like a good mixture. I don't think this is a game you should (or would) run through in one setting. Being an indie title, there's of course some compromises to be made here. Animations are very limited (the screen fades to black when entering/leaving a vehicle). Facial animations are barely non-existent. The visuals can look sublime in one instance, for instance when you see the sun shine through the leaves, but absolutely horrendous in other moments. But none of this really detracts from the experience. The voice acting, for example, is surprisingly strong, and easily bypasses the slight problems in terms of facial animations. There was one bigger point of critique that started taking shape in my head as I went on and that is the almost romantic portrayal of mail delivery services, which I know, both from discussions in my life and from reports of our local postman @OCH, is far from the truth. Thankfully, the developers do acknowledge this with a note in the credits, which I find really heartwarming and sensible. It's a difficult game to recommend. For me it was one of the most impactful titles I've played this year, someone else might just find it slow and boring. The surprising amount of positive reviews on the Xbox Store seems to indicate that it resonated with a lot of people though. I think it's still on offer at the moment, at least on Xbox. If not, it's on Gamepass IIRC (not anymore) and if just one line of this text block didn't strike you as boring I'd say give it a shot.

Put about 30 hours into this so far. For the most part, it’s pretty good. I’m no expert in this series, I finished (and really enjoyed) Diablo 3 on PS4. I tried the Remaster of 2, but it played like arse so I soon gave up. I’ve gone with Barbarian, as I always enjoy being the “tank”, dealing out massive damage while taking a fair bit myself. The skill tree for each class is quite large, but also forgiving. If you don’t like a particular ability, it costs a minimal amount of cash to refund an ability, so you can try something else. One thing i will say, is the game isn’t great at explaining what things are, or what they do. Some skills/abilities use/give ‘Thorns’. I had to turn to google/YouTube to figure out what the fuck they are. Some treasure chests require a specific kind of key. Google/YouTube to the rescue again. There’s a fair bit the game just simply doesn’t tell you, and there’s no tutorial list/lore book that makes that kind of thing easier to find. Performance wise, it’s relatively stable. During the beta, the queue times to get into a game could be astronomical. I’ve not had an issue getting into a game, it usually takes less than a minute. What has been an issue, is constant crashing. Every now and then, I can be about to check the map, spend an ability point, trade in some gear. And the game just freezes completely. Resulting in having to shut the game down entirely, and reload it. On PS5, that takes less than a couple of minutes. And it frequently auto saves, so it’s not like I’ve lost tons of progress. But still, it can be annoying. Some sessions it doesn’t happen at all. Other times, it can crash 3/4 times in a couple of hours. Not sure if it’s just a PS5 issue specifically. But hopefully it gets fixed. Now, onto micro transactions, everyone’s favourite. The mobile version was plagued with absolutely shitloads of them. Thankfully, that’s not the case here. There’s the option of paying real money to unlock character specific gear. But you get plenty of stuff chucked at you without having to resort to that. The seasonal Battlepass hasn’t started yet, that’s apparently in July. For which you have to make a new character if you want to unlock all the stuff in it. Doubt I’ll bother doing that constantly, but I’ll probably run a Necromancer/Sorcerer for my next character. Haven’t finished the campaign yet, but think I’m not far off, I’m on Act 4. Oh, and you don’t unlock a horse until the start of Act 4, which takes quite a while.

The very king of fighting games is back, and I'm head over heels with the little beauty. It looks and plays incredible. So much detail and so fluid in motion. I know I'll be posting in this thread in five years time, although tbf, probably as the avid spectator to online tournaments that I've been for 10 years by now. Truth is I've never been able to play the thing to any degree of competence, I just like watching other people do it. Having said that I've decided to do something I've never done when (trying) to play it. I'm going to go with grapplers. Maybe slowing things down a bit for myself might be more appropriate for my age - (advanced)!

So after, what? 9 or 10 years Dead Island 2 is finally here and you know what?... I'm having a pretty decent time with it. The first thing I'll say is it feels like an Xbox 360 game... and it's a matter of opinion if that's a good or a bad thing. For me after Dying Light 2 tried to do far too much (in my opinion) having a game that just wants me to hit things until they fall over in a bloody mess is more than OK. The other thing I wanted to say is the opening hour or so is pretty bad... shit weapons that break way too easy and spongy enemies that hit way too hard... or maybe that's my own fault for picking the poor, frail girl character... who knows... anyway things liven up when you get your first real mission and access to a workbench. Anyone who's played the original games (or the Dying Light games) will feel right at home with the modding of weapons and such, electric swords and and flaming golf clubs... all that good stuff. The flesh system is really cool, thwacking a zombie in the face and seeing its jaw dislocate and detach is pretty mind-blowing and adds a lot to the melee combat (not found any guns yet) The other cool thing us being able to use liquids... I was doing a side mission and reached a part where ther was about 10 zombies banging on glass doors trying to get in... noticed a fuel can and explosive canister, picked up the can and poured fuel the entire length of the doors, hit the canister which ignited the fuel and blew out a window which allowed the zombies to walk straight in to my pre-made Inferno... no more zombies.😂 I've also just picked a perk for a pipe bomb... which is hilarious. Anyway, I like this game, admittedly I've only put around 5 or 6 hours in so far so we'll have to see if it can hold my attention but it's off to a good start.

I’m a bit late to the party on this one, just got my rental copy. But I notice it’s only recently come out on Xbox, so better late than never I guess. I’ve done the first two missions so far, and it’s quite fun. You play as either a male or female kung-fu student, seeking revenge on an enemy gang. The twist is that every time you die, you get immediately resurrected, but age one year. You start off at age 20. Supposedly as you get older, you get stronger, but age too much and you get weaker. The combat seems straightforward enough so far. I’ve enjoyed smashing bottles on people’s heads, slamming them into walls. It also turns out you can attack people in mid conversation. So while enemies have been giving me exposition, I’ve dashed in and punched them in the face. Good times.

Originally a PS3 game with a PS4 version, Ishin has now been remade as a PS4 and PS5 (and Xbox) game, and you do get the sense it's probably the final game we'll get that feels like 'old' Yakuza. It's hard to place what exactly makes it feel like an older take on the game, possibly the movement, it's a bit haphazard, I can't see a lock-on, it's not as refined and flowing as it could be. It's the difference between playing Kiwami 1 and Yakuza 6. It also feels less mental with its missions, but I don't know how many of them are just lifted from the original game. In terms of the story, it's not quite a retelling of the first Yakuza game, but it's pretty close. Not-Kiryu (the cast is made up of renamed characters from past games) comes back to town after time away, ends up having to avenge a paternal figure, after being blamed for a crime he didn't commit. From there it does become its own tale, with enough to it that it doesn't feel like a 2nd-rate spin off Again, I don't know if this was in the original, but it has its own take on 0's switchable different fighting styles. There's the standard Yakuza brawling, plus the swordplay you'd expect playing as a samurai. Less expected is that you are also carrying a gun and can just blast away at people (I suppose this will have followed Dead Souls originally), and a style that combines sword combat with your firearm, which leaves you defensively vulnerable, but it's the most fun to control and the most flowing style (Sword has been my do to). I've been using fewer Heat actions, they seem to have been downplayed this time, and access to them is more part of the skill tree As you use a style you'll level up, unlocking specific and general orbs that unlock the next skill in the various combat styles. There's gear with stat boosts, and some with perks attached. I've got a sword that recovers a very small amount of help every time it causes damage, which is great, but the headband I've got with the most defence points blocks me from earning heat, which means it can go in the bin as far as I'm concerned I'm enjoying it more than I expected, I thought I was a bit Yakuza's out, I never finished Kiwami 2, I never finished Judgement, and haven't touched the games that came after. But this feeling a bit archaic has helped it I think

Ok. So this is bloody glorious. I love a good music/rhythm game. From Guitar Hero, to Beat Mania, from Osu Tatake Ouendan, to that Namco one with the blue/red drums that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of. It’s a brilliant genre. I’ve never heard of this series before. Apparently it was on the DS? It passed me by somehow. Anyway, this is the series’s grand finale. And the team has basically gone “Let’s use pretty much all the classic Final Fantasy music we can, and a ton of other stuff for good measure. I’m no FF expert, 10 was the last game in the series I completed. But the music of 6, 7, 8, 9 and Tactics, has been stuck in my mind, for decades. Some of the best music in gaming. My girlfriend Sarah listened to some of their soundtracks, and absolutely loves them, despite never playing any of the games. So, the demo for this came up last month. I played one level, and then preordered the full game. Fair to say a good impression was made. Each game in the series has a selection of tracks (typically at least 10+). In typical rhythm game style, you press buttons to the beat, sometimes multiple buttons at once, sometimes using the directional sticks. Sounds simple enough. But there’s a nice bit of depth going on. Each song has “Quests” to complete, from not failing a beat, to using certain characters. With rewards unlocked for completing them. As you unlock each game, you gain characters specifically to that game to use in your party. You play as 4 characters, and as they level up, you gain new abilities that you can use to boost your score, and attack strength. During the song, your characters react to your performance, and you can also unlock summons, to dish out additional damage. There’s a TON of stuff to unlock, and I’m still getting my head around how it all works. But as far as the song selections go, there’s a good couple of hundred songs here. From every FF, to Crisis Core. FF7 Remake gets its own selection. FF Tactics is included. As is pretty much every FF spin off you can think of, to some extent. And there’s planned additional DLC content, from Secret Of Mana, to Xenogears, Nier, pretty much every RPG Square have ever done, by the looks of it. Give the demo a go. Personally, I’m loving this.

Hi guys. I wanted to draw your attention to a little indie game I discovered due to the good old Youtube rabbit hole. I was watching an old Caddicarus video, and he included this game in it. And it's a blast. You play a goose. That's it! Behind the very pretty hand drawn looking graphics is a stealth game, I suppose. You get a check list of things to do, but it's up to you how they get done. Here's an example of the start of the game. You come out of a bush beside a pond. The game shows you the controls. You honk. You flap. You peck. Then you swim across the pond and see a picnic on a park bench. What you do with it is entirely up to you. A little further along you find a farmer minding his own business, tending his crop of carrots. That's when you get your "things to do" list. Things like get the farmer wet, steal his keys, turn on his radio. As you progress through the game, you realise that the main point of being this goose is to annoy the hell out of the villagers as much as possible, while trying to complete you current things to do list. And if you're like me, usually you'll be giggling maniacally while playing. The art style is really nice, the horrible goose struck a chord in me, and the pranks are puzzles to figure out and moves to time and execute. Like stealing the farmers keys is more difficult than it sounds, especially if you've already pranked him, and he's aware of this bloody goose walking around his fields. Though the things to do are not exactly challenging, it certainly brings a sense of satisfaction to complete list after list. In all, it's a sedate laid back game with a horrid sense of humour. If you fancy leaving the things to do list alone for a bit, just have fun pissing off as many people as you can.

The Good old days when (western) box art was largely unconnected to the game itself. But Japan was more on the money... Anyway, at time of writing I'm an hour at most away from the ending. So I should probably give some indication I've been playing anything at all for the past few weeks. Fun fact: I played this upon it's original release (1994) but never played the original game until the 2004 GBA remake. As you can imagine, I have a natural bias to the sequel. I still adore this game. Mostly I find the "jank" is associated to the control scheme. You have to pull up a menu to do just about everything. Every character can only hold four items (one of those is typically a weapon) and it just generally slows the whole process down. Funnily enough I've found the game wide secret largely on my own. Mithril. You find pieces of Mithril on the world map and in hidden treasure chests. There are fifteen in all. But there is an early point of no return in the game that means you can miss three of them. Those ones I always miss. Jump through a few hoops later and you reach the Mithril Blacksmith. Get ready to save scum if you want the best aka Ultimate weapons, though. The RNG is abysmal. The cast is quite expansive in this game. Which is quite standard for an SRPG. By the same token, a fair few aren't worth even using in your team at any point (points to Skreech, Birdman number two). You'll note from above some have alternate portraits. Due to the class promotion system in this game. There are also secret added items that grant some characters a new class promotion. For example, Kazim (sixth portrait on the top row). He can be promoted from Mage to Wizard at level 20. However, if you hold off on that for a town or two. You find a Secret Book which can make him a Sorcerer instead (this games Summoner). This applies to several classes of character. But you don't need to fret over it if you miss these items. The ultimate class promotion of the Centaurs is Pegasus. If you miss the item in the Centaur town. The Pegasus Jaro (the blond, seventh from the end on the bottom row) joins you by default later. Naturally, these characters won't be as strong as your initial characters would be in these classes. As an aside, much like the first game. I really don't get the fixation these games have with the Centaur class. There are five of them in this. Six or seven in the first game. There is very little between any of them. So yeah, on to my last two bosses of the game - Odd Eye and, King of the Devils, Zeon. I remember the latter being a chore. I've set the game to Hard mode. The 'Super' and 'Ouch' Modes beyond that seem really unnecessary to me. Since it isn't like you get anything extra for the added struggle.

With my interest in PokéMon Violet at an end. As I'm in the mood to keep playing it, I decided to turn my attention on the third game on my Switch (following Violet and Metroid Dread). Considering, I have completely forgotten when I bought this. It's a little regrettable it has been sitting unplayed on here for so long. I adored the first game on the PS3. If they had released them on a console, it's likely I would have felt similar to 2 & 3. Now the main reason this game has essentially been in storage is due to it being a download. As this is the Switch, the size of this game forced me to archive all of my other Switch games. I recall being very annoyed by that and I left the console off until Metroid Dread. Fast forward to the present, I'm a little rusty but getting there. The importance of strategy in this series can't be understated. So far I'm roughly two chapters in. Basically the bit that was covered in the 2018 demo (I know this since my save data was retained) With two unlocked skirmishes, both 'A' rank. Although the story missions haven't been as successful (two B ranks), since the first (which was an 'A'). I'm getting as much enjoyment from it at the moment, as I did with the original. Waiting to see which one the cast will be the titular Super-Soldier. Not as clear cut as the first game yet.

So, this is the new game from the Civ and XCOM developers, Firaxis. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, it is a turn-based game. It's safe to say it's more closely aligned to XCOM than Civ though, but this has an ace (or many aces to be exact) up its sleeve that differentiates it from just being a Marvel XCOM game, and that's the largely divisive (from Previews) inclusion of Cards into the combat. As a result of the cards coming into play, the game isn't as rigid or locked into a grid like it is in XCOM, you're free to move somewhere within the little combat arena you're placed in once per turn, with certain placements being preferable, scoring knockbacks or environmental attacks. You can draw three cards per turn, but certain cards do get refunded as they're used up, giving you an additional card or two per turn, you can also redraw any card you're not happy with twice per turn. A lot of the cards so far are quite basic, in that they are 'standard' kind of slash/punch kind of moves, but they do come with additional benefits like knockbacks, chain attacks, inflicting bleed damage and the ilk, on top of these you've got ability cards which gives you and your team buffs as you fight and hero cards which are much more powerful and usually allow you to take out multiple enemies at a time, the kicker being that you need 'heroism' to use them, which is gained by taking out enemies. The enemies themselves have been fairly standard grunts for the most part, if you imagine the basic super soldiers from XCOM, then it's pretty much the same here, just they're now Hydra Soldiers. The bosses have been more interesting as they're now various Marvel villains instead of snake-creatures or something like they were in the XCOM titles. As established in the paragraphs above, the game shares a lot of DNA with XCOM, and that's no bad thing, the animations, certain effects you can pull of like the knockbacks mentioned earlier and the environmental attacks all look and feel very similar to XCOM but they've now got a more grandiose superhero sheen on them. You'll head out on missions from the 'war room' with yourself ('The Hunter') and two other heroes chosen at random to assist you. You'll about your task, fight a boss or retrieve an item at the end of it and then return back to your base. It's in this base segment of the game where you can see where Firaxis has been far more ambitious than their previous title. In XCOM, the base was an important part of the game where you'd build new sections, invest research points into them to help bolster certain specialisations, new weapons and all that good stuff. All of this DNA is contained within the 'Abbey' in this game, which is a huge Cathedral with sprawling grounds for you to explore to your hearts content, you explore this in 3D in your role as the Hunter, gone are the days of a 2D plain, seeing all your little soldiers move into their newly built wing. It's super impressive and such a great feeling 'base' right away that really makes you feel at home, all the segments you'd expect to be there are in their place but there's also tons of secrets to explore and a sprawling grounds containing blocked passageways which will likely reveal themselves to me later on. The Abbey has the feel of the School in Fire Emblem Three Houses or the Normandy in Mass Effect to it. This also takes inspiration from those titles in the new social links system, where you can sit down and hang out around the Abbey with your new team mates as you assimilate and get used to your new surroundings, doing so gets you friendship points which levels up your bond with your squad mates as the game goes on. I'm not too far into the game but I assume the more it goes on the more activities around the Abbey get unlocked and some of the more mysterious bits and pieces I've seen so far unveil themselves. The Abbey is the most ambitious element of the game and is almost a game unto itself, it makes me realise why it got delayed a few times. So yeah, I've loved my time with it so far (probably about 4-5 hours) and can't wait to play more, it's a real breath of fresh air compared to some of the other stuff I've played lately. To be continued and pics added.

There wasn't a thread for this, I think. Unless it got deleted. Anyway, I am 20 hours in. At the end of the first 'area'. It looks like a Souls like game on the surface, but the similarities are largely on the surface. This is mostly a hardcore action game in the same kinda vein as Ninja Gaiden, but with Soulslike concepts to how it designs its action rather than the more DMC-like ethos of NG. But I wouldn't really consider it like Souls, cause I think Souls is a lot of exploring and dealing with traps, and then some simple but punishing combat. This is purely about studying very complicated combat, and exploring very simplistic and repetitive levels. At least, that's the impression after clearing the first area 20 hours in or so. So it's really hard. If I'm quite honest, it's a game which can make me fairly miserable. I'm not having the best of times with it at this early stage, so I'm not sure if it's a future candidate for 'fucked off game' or whatever the thread is called. However I am really interested in what's going on with its combat, and it really demands that you study that combat to pass even the basic challenges the game throws your way. You have three stances, high mid and low. High is heavy attacks with lots of stamina drain, lots of health and 'ki' damage ('ki' is what they call stamina). Mid is in between that and 'low', which is fast and low committal. Each stance has different properties to its dodge as well, and I think block costs different amounts of ki in each stance The reason for the three stances is a mechanic called 'Ki Pulse', which is a timed 'burst' of white energy after every active skill and combo string. You press r1 at the right time and you recover your 'ki'/stamina more quickly and has other properties later on. So for the BnB combat in this you're looking at trying to figure out an approach which combines these different stances, taking note of attack properties and recovery times, as well as ki cost and trying to space the enemy out. It sounds like a lot, right? It is, it's a lot. It's a really hard game. The RPG comes in the form of lots of inventory management, which sucks. It also comes in the form of a FFX Sphere Grid style upgrade system for your different weapon skills, which is the part that's really interesting. You use a weapon a lot and it gives you a skill point which you can invest in certain skills. Like a quick kick for a chain-scythe type weapon, which is useful to proc 'ki pulse' cause it's quick and recovers quick. Or a parry move (which seems universal to every weapon), which can get further upgraded to have followups. You can equip/unequip the moves and replace with others God hand style (parry is not my style, it's hard enough to react to reactable shit in this so I use alternatives). More impactful are these buffs you unlock which grant different properties to the ki pulse for each stance. So if you get a perfect ki pulse on high stance, you get a damage buff. On mid stance, you get a 'free' block (which is a lot more important than you think for fishing for openings, at least at the beginner level I am at). then low stance gives you a free dodge. tbh, I've not been using that one as much, but mainly cause I don't know when to do so. But anyway, skills and buffs get chained together looks to be the gist of it. You don't just mash square to get through (I think). I'm speccing for fists and 'Kusarigama', which is like a scythe on a chain that pulls guys or your own guy in, and has moves to retreat and back off. Mainly I'm using the fists right now though. In general the combat is sort of based around dealing lots of posture damage, which when fully depleted puts regular enemies in a spot where you can grapple them and boss enemies in a spot where every attack deals hitstun and you can go to town. So fight design and your build combine to create very difficult combat puzzles. They repeat enemies and minibosses a lot to make you learn harder and harder variants of that combat puzzle also Here is me finally defeating Bojack, and putting an end to his terrible nonsense once and for all. Pretty basic gameplay but it's a very hard game to learn even basic stuff in. Also, you have a kind of Oni mode, called Yokai. You power up and mash the buttons, use it during the monochrome segments where they drain your ki. You can also cancel anything into a quick yokai move which you equip. The moves do things like toss spears or summon snakes. Apparently there's some defensive ones as well So yea, there's some pretty deep stuff going on for an action RPG. On the combat side anyway, everything else seems fairly prefab (levels and enemies). It takes forever to figure out basic stuff tho btw, I'm playing on PC. The port is great. It wasn't great when it came out but I guess they fixed whatever was wrong with it from back then.

Played for a couple of hours and I'm happy to say that, so far, I've loved every minute... everyone already knew it was going to be a spiritual successor to Dead Space and apart from the inclusion of melee combat that's just how it feels. You play as Josh.... sorry Jacob.... who for reasons finds himself locked up and awakens in his cell with things very much already fallen to shit... not long after you receive your first melee weapon and after a quick tutorial you're left to it... I was worried by the dodge mechanic in this for a while but it's actually not too bad... there's no timing window, something I'm immensely grateful for as I have none, instead as long as you're holding left or right when the enemy swings you'll dodge... just don't dodge in the same direction twice. As for the hitting things, it feels meaty as in The Last of Us 2 meaty... and messy which I suppose trying to batter a monster to death would. I've picked up a pistol but so far I've not had much cause to use it... ammo seems sparse. As expected it looks really nice, they nailed lighting and sound... something that would've been criminal coming from the guy who gave us Dead Space... he sure knows his outer space. I've already died a number of times on the middle difficulty with some pretty disturbing death scenes... I think I'll be seeing lots more of these during my run time.😂

Booted this up for the first time today just for a look see... played for a couple of hours and completed four levels. For those not in the know it's a Steam punk (I guess) take on Westerns mixed with Vampires which I thought was going to be much more shooter orientated than it is... it's actually much closer to the newer God of War games than Gears of War, shit, you even open and smash chests the same way as Kratos does. So there's a definite leaning towards melee combat over ranged but there's Guns involved obviously being a Western. These work on a cool down rather than relying on ammo drops and are mainly used for hitting exposed weak points with the rifle or chip damage for the pistol then there's the sawn off which is great for obliterating shields... all standard stuff for anyone who's played a third person adventure game anytime recently. So far in terms of levels it feels very old school with very linear levels designed to funnel you from one encounter to the next. As for looks it's been a very mixed bag so far, actual game play looks ok, I'm not sure if it's a design choice or what but there's a really weird glow with everything... fire sources are ridiculously bright and this isn't even an hdr enabled game and then you have the cutscenes which everything just looks muddy and crushed to fuck... I'm not sure whats going on there. Funnily though the pictures I'll post look a damn sight better then they do on a tv.🤷‍♂️ So a bit of a mixed bag... plays fine, looks a little ropey.

I put an umlaut in the thread title 🪓 Quick thread post to say like some others I imagine I stayed up a bit last night to check out the intro to this. Very familiar, almost expansion like in how familiar it is. But as someone who's several GOTYs are FFXIV expansions I don't really consider that a huge negative, but it is noticeable coming into this from 2018. It's like changing a disc, if this was an older PSX rpg. It's neat tho, it has that IMAX level presentation to its cinematic fights. Dialogue between characters is maximalist in every degree. Every mythical character is super expressive and drawn like a caricature out of a HBO mob drama, or a scenery-chewing performance from a Tarantino film, which I'm way into. I like the contemporary treatment of it all. I mainly want to ask the question here tho to the 120hz VRR users, what settings are you rolling with? I messed around with quality performance last night and I feel the fps wasn't quite as smooth as I'd liked (I don't know if it is the 40fps or not) and the resolution was very soft looking to me. The visuals aren't quite where I'd expect them to be. If that is the case I might just stick with quality and 30fps. For a game that's as deliberate and slow in its movement as this I think I can get by with that, it worked fine in 2018. But slightly foggy and soft visuals would spoil a lot more of what's going on here, imo.

It still feels like early days but I'm enjoying this so far. I tried streaming some but my setup seemed to add a few issues to control and framerate, I did a lot better when I wasn't having to play through my capture screen. That said, it's still a Sonic game so I have been launched to my death rather than whatever the next part of the rollercoaster was supposed to be. For all the Breath of the Wild talk it actually reminds me of Mario Odyssey more than anything else. I've no idea if the area I'm in just expands or if eventually it moves you to a new world, but you're on a land mass that's gated, you're essentially playing until you unlock the next bit. There are traditional levels, they're really short, and they're accessed via totems in the main world. You need gears to open these, you get gears from defeating meaningful enemies, I feel like I've got quite a lot now so other than really early on when the game is teaching you, they aren't hard to find. Beating the levels gets you keys, keys unlock the chaos emeralds, doing that seems to progress the story and open more map. The reason it reminds me of Mario are all the little challenges in the game world. Work out the route to a floating platform, beat a horde of enemies, solve a minor puzzle, these all get you things, usually it's the items you need to level up attributes, sometimes it's experience to unlock more skills. There's probably a few too many currencies really, but it does mean that a trip across the map means a hundred diversions because it's very densely packed

I’ve played about 3 hours or more of the campaign which I believe is about half way. It’s alright but it’s like a ‘best of’ of the series. Think of it as a Now That’s What I Call CoD! Track listing includes: A swimming bit. A sniper bit. A gunner in the skies bit. All the hits dating back many years. The story and overall attitude of the game is awful I’ll say that. Dude bros with guns. No one is likeable or too much different for anyone else. The game is very linear as to how you can tackle each short segment. Be a few metres away from where it wants to be and you’re killed. I look forward to multi once the campaign is done with.

Roller Drome seemed to get talked about a lot right before release, then no one mentioned it again. It's a CEL shaded roller skate arena game with similar muted colours to Sable. Presumably deliberately it reminds me of old 70s genre films. The concept is kind of Running Man, you enter arenas and have to shoot the house players. To reload you have to do tricks, this refills your ammo, killing enemies gets you health back,and there's a bunch of different enemy types. I wasn't feeling this originally, it just felt flat and boring, frustrating even. Movement can be a bit odd, you don't control your momentum, press forward to start then leave it, concentrate on steering, jumping and tricks. Get close enough and there's an auto aim to shots, with some of the weapons having slight tricks to them. There's a dodge, time this with the slow down time mechanic, usually used for aiming, and you get an extended period of slowed time. There's challenges to the levels, things like performing certain tricks, kill enemies with certain weapons, and I think it's this stuff that was annoying me. It's probably best to just beat a level then revisit it and try to get one or two challenges each time, that's not how I was approaching it. You need to beat a certain number of challenges to unlock the next set of levels, so I was trying to beat everything all at once, you just don't have that sort of control early on, or I didn't, I did much better when I came back after a break and went back to the earlier levels. I'm still not sure I see the really high scores for it, but when it does all click with you it is fun, really fun at points

Well this pretty much came out of nowhere. Like, I didn’t even realise it was out. I remember it being announced, but not much after that. The original Tales game was one of the best things Telltale came out with (Walking Dead peaked after their first season, and by the end was crap). I’m not an expert of the franchise, I’ve only finished 1 and 2, and some of the DLC. But that didn’t stop me from having a great time with Tales. So, now we have the sequel. Though it’s “episodic”, it plays out as one big game, giving you a break between episodes. I’ve just finished Episode 1. And so far, it’s off to a good start. The dialogue has been amusing enough. The story, which switches between 3 playable characters, seems solid enough. There’s zero puzzles, so you’re mostly down to making dialogue choices, and occasionally wandering around the area to trigger the next set piece. There’s a fair few Quick Time Events, but they’re easy enough. One review said that the hacking mini game is laughably easy. It is indeed, and makes you wonder what the point of them even is. It warns you “failure has repercussions”. But honestly, you’d have to put your controller on the floor, to fail them. The IGN review said the final episode is a train wreck, and almost ruins the game completely. We will see how that plays out. But so far, yeah, this seems decent enough.

Have spent around 7 hours with it or so, just mashing around in neutral. The game looks beautiful. I prefer its look to strive, even tho I like the 2d look of that I much prefer the clean look of this, where everything is more readable. Right now you're thrown into a very mixed pool of skill levels, tho there is a generally high enough level of cluelessness and the new mechanics are so powerful that you can sort of get by. I don't know what cancels into anything so I'm just really mashing out opportunities to knock somedown and hit them with fake-ass meaties. Did a 5 match set with some random luke and it was 3-2 to him. had a one and done with a juri just now, she won, but I'm happy I converted drive impact into super at around 15:00. That's my gamer goal achieved for now, who cares that I got bodied :x Then I played Mr Hadouken, the reason I got so bothered by the fireballs is i forgot which of Kimberly's kicks low profiles the fireballs, it's forward down medium kick I think. Also I kept trying to do it on frame disadvantage, anyway put a stop to that shit Drive impact seems.. well impactful. It's a very high committal move with lots of startup and recovery which armours through your opponent's offense (you take some damage but it takes multihits to knock you out of it, or a grab). I imagine at mid to higher levels it introduces a more dangerous kind of RPS into pressure and neutral interactions. It's one of those things where it's hard to know how people will feel about it until the meta settles after the game's release. Right now it's one of those mechanics which I'm just giving the benefit of the doubt to, that when the full game is understood it won't feel so caveman-like. Your ex gauge or whatever it is called is used to control your access to your ex moves (think they have a different name in this, it's when you press two buttons at once for more powerful attacks and conversions). But it also gets drained on block, so if you're very passive you get 'burnt out' or something which means other than you get dizzy and stuff and they can just wail on you. But there are also mechanics in the game to gain that meter back, only one I know of is the parry mechanic which is when you see someone sort of go all blue and smokey, don't really know how to leverage that yet though. I guess there's other things which return meter but I need to learn about it more There's also a mechanic called drive rush, it uses 3 out of your 6 bars to extend pressure and combos, similar to GG roman cancel. You can see the Juri use it, it's when she goes all green and shit (and you can see me labbing it in the training before the match). Seems like a hell of a high cost to do that though. Training mode has cool utilities to display when something is special cancellable and also where the 'links' are in move properties to link into the next normal, which is very useful as the concept and timings of links is something I'm not used to. They seem to have really good teaching tools for that kinda stuff. I'll probably spend a few more hours with it but I largely don't go too crazy with fg betas cause it's just not enough time for me to comfortably spend figuring stuff out. But getting a general sense of the system mechanics is all I really want atm anyway. I don't think I'll main Kimberly in the main game but mostly cause I want to try a more of a zoner character, and everyone in the beta is a rushdown from what I see. I think her gameplan is a combination of controlling neutral space with the canister bombs, and using same bombs to setup pressure concepts in the corner. She has a sprint move which can be cancelled to throw people off, haven't figured out how to really use it tho. She has command grab finishers to some of her stuff. Some of her stuff seems mad fake to me though, like the cross up heavy kick forward thing she has. I don't know how you make that ambiguous, tho ultimately again this is not the character I'm interested in playing just the one that appealed most in the beta. I'll probably stick with her going forward into additional betas tho, to keep up some learning momentum with how short these things are. Diaphone has some cool stuff with the character https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1614357197 Netcode is fine, rollback like Strive. Get basically the same number of frames in this as I do that. Anyone else get in?

Looked for a “played” page for this, but didn’t see one. So here goes. I just completed the main story for this, and really enjoyed it. The Yakuza series has always been my favourite, with its excellent combat, and tone that goes all over the place (serious one minute, utterly insane the next). Judgment was pretty good for the most part, only really spoiled by the clunky stealth sections, and exceptionally tedious “tailing” missions, where you have to follow a person round for ages without being spotted. I’ll always remember one part of that game, where you have to tail someone for what feels like 5 minutes at least. Only for it to then immediately follow that up with another, equally long one. Fucking tedious pretty much summed that part up. Thankfully, that’s been stripped back quite a bit for Lost Judgment. There’s not much tailing, and even less stealth, which remains awful. Though they’ve put in a few platforming/climbing sections, which are a bit shite. In as much if you fall, you have to repeat an entire section. Combat wise, I much prefer it to the RPG style of Like A Dragon. I am going to give that another shot on PS5 at some point, but the unfair difficulty spikes really ruined that game for me. It’s more of a serious game than Yakuza, by that I mean there’s not really any zany side missions. Yakuza chucks things from adult baby clubs, to god knows what else. In comparison, things are a bit more serious in LJ. Though with a story involving bullying, suicide and murder, it’s probably to be expected. There’s an entirely seperate section where Yagumi investigates various different clubs in the local school. I’ve done some of them, but a lot are locked out to me, and I’m not entirely sure why. It says i need to raise my Appeal. How do I do that? Not a bloody clue. Google to the rescue, then. I’ve got the “Kaito Files” DLC to play next, then I’ll have a crack at some of the other side missions. I’ve already sank 20+ hours into it, and though it’s not on the same level as Yakuza, it’s still a lot of fun. I gather that because of some issue with the Japanese voice actor for Yagumi, there won’t be any more Judgement games. Which is a shame if so, as it’s always a joy to piss about in Kamurocho.